OctarineShrike
Avatar of Mandos
[X] Wu Min studying spirit bindings.
Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)
- Thread starter DragonParadox
- Start date
- Crossover Fantasy
- Location
- washington
Mind you we're gonna curse far more than just their blood hunts.
Bit sad everyones ignoring the mundane things we can curse when I ask. Is that due to politics or people just don't care?
- Location
- Norway
Bit of both, probably, and I feel the specific things you've proposed are fine but that habit is going to lead to intense arguments about the next thing to curse somewhere down the line.
- Location
- washington
meh go a little curse crazy its not the worst thing we could do. Also I doubt it'll cause much argument if a topics forbidden just say so. If there's an argument what to curse next well its a stupid argument we've got plenty of essence to spend and numerous targets.
Okay, this was a horrifying show of social dominance on Molly's part.
She rolled 14 successes; in response, Ramirez rolled 3 successes, Wu Min rolled 4 successes, and Morgan botched.
Thats a margin of double legendary successes.
Almost as important, in my opinion, was the impact on the bystanders; I dont think any of the Jade Dogs has ever asked Molly for what her mediumterm policy is going forward, and neither has Porter.
Hearing Molly make a statement of intent that....emphatic probably has an impact on them as well.
Keeping Isabella alive is going to be a fulltime job, I see
Interesting comment by Wu Min. I wonder who she has in mind there; she didnt drop that in there casually, and I suppose we should probably make time to inquire into who she was thinking of. I'd burn a Crown question on it, but we've used up our Essence allocation for this scene; burn 1m more and we begin to glow.
We can use the recorded scene as a Crown focus to follow up later, I guess.
Orrrr......since we need to spend 2m to take these people to the Brass Courts, we will be glowing anyway.
So we should probably spend 1m to glow and ask the Crown question, then 2m for the scene transition to our kingdom, then another 1m to activate All Things Betray.
We're doing personal anecdotes?
I used to live in west Africa. I recall living through four coups/coup attempts that resulted in significant political consequences at the time. Older members of my family lived through a multi-year civil war and its aftermath before I was born, and they still dont talk about the specifics. There are people I know who currently live in regions with significant civil unrest.
There are much worse things than a multi-generational dictatorship.
You are entirely too cavalier about the prospect of causing mass sociopoliticoeconomic disruption in societies with no reserve capacity for dealing with this sort of thing, despite the repeated real world and canon evidence that even the aftermath of overthrowing evil regimes can often cause more pain and suffering than the regime.
Despite the fact that a core theme of Exalted has always been Consequences.
The Usurpation for example, might have been necessary, but it doesnt change the fact that it took a stable, prosperous First Age of Creation(with admittedly occasional Solar-administered atrocities) and turned it into one with multiple warring Shogunate states, and made Creation vulnerable to the mass casualty apocalypses that were the Great Contagion and the Balorean Crusade.
Creation lost 90% of its population, going from around 6 billion people in First World conditions to 500 million-ish people in mostly medieval-era peasantry conditions . And thats in addition to an explicit majority of its surface area dissolving into Chaos.
So many people died it broke the afterlife.
Nevermind the utter dysfunction of Creation's ruling structures afterwards.
Chaos and disruption are explicit goals of at least two of the boss factions we are dealing with here in the Dresdenverse.
We have seen both Nemesis-In-Justine and Nicodemus reiterate this fact in canon.
"Apocalypse is a frame of mind."
I am in no hurry to do their job for them.
Yes. If the cost of their falling is worse than their surviving, hell yes.
And thats not just my opinion.
Between 1995 and 2011, the international community sent 12 million tons of food aid to North Korea; China(an ally) and South Korea(an enemy) provided roughly half of that aid combined, split evenly.
Neither South Korea nor China has any interest in dealing with the potential humanitarian and political catastrophe of having a
neighbor with 20+ million people collapse on their border.
Let alone one with WMDs.
Hell, forget North Korea.
The Soviet Union sure as fuck was no paragon of morality when it received support in WW2; Stalin alone is calculated to have cost, through both malice, ignorance and neglect, the deaths of millions:
But the alternatives were worse.Stalin's dead via Wikipedia said:
We are at the beginning of Year 6 of the Vampire War.
We have seen one use of WMDs by the Reds thus far, and that was in a tactical role. And in this AU thus far, we have explicitly seen them expend the resources to try to shut down the Pathfinders fucking around with Iku-Turso.
The Red Court want to expand their control and influence in the world, not burn it.
Strategic WMD use does not help them achieve any of their war aims.
Unlike, say, the Hell of Lanka.
We have no interest in making them desperate enough to change that until and unless we can be sure to contain it.
And manage the aftermath.
^^^
Its worth remembering that until around the late 1960s/early 1970s, the United States had the ability to have "freed" the victims of the brutal multigenerational dictatorship of the Soviet Union with limited cost to itself; they had the delivery platforms to hit the Soviet Union, and the SU had limited ability to reach the continental US, and fewer warheads.
It would just have cost 100-plus million lives in the Soviet Union, and tens of millions in Europe, not counting the aftermath.
Not surprisingly, noone was interested in paying that price.
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OctarineShrike
Avatar of Mandos
It's a little of this a little of that for me.
RW Politics is part of it(How leftist should Molly be, is it weird for a non alchemical exalt to be a radical leftist, what strain of leftism, etc, if Molly goes for Soviet model communism without plans to address the deficiencies I'd be irritated for example, and for all we know there are people who want to go the benevolent despot route or a more moderate perspective).
Molly not being established as having much understanding of mundane politics is another(If she goes to Harvard for a polysci degree that may change though), a post masquerade world seeming like an endgame or close to it thing is another and too many curses may eventually make it obvious to people that a Kira from Death note analogous being exists.
A little this a little that I guess.
The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world.
As of the end of 2007, the US had 2.3 million people in jail across federal, state and local jails
Prisoners in 2007
Presents data on prisoners under jurisdiction of federal or state correctional authorities on December 31, 2007, collected from the National Prisoner Statistics series.
bjs.ojp.gov
China | World Prison Brief
Thats China having fewer prisoners than the US despite a population 4x larger.
Either the US is particularly full of criminals, or there's something particularly fucked up about the US criminal justice system even in comparison to authoritarian nation states.
This is not something we are equipped to explore in a fantasy quest.
So no, thank you.
I wouldnt go there, and I would strongly suggest noone else does.
- Location
- washington
Gonna be honest our pr is gonna be disastrous in a post masquerade world we radiate hell energies. I don't see much way to combat that for the average person. Post masquerade if it's not dealing with the apocalypse is at least gonna have multiple witch hunts.
- Location
- washington
I mean in fairness said prison camps are basically concentration camps full of one particular group. Im not talking Chinese prisons in general. As for the u.s. prisons well yeah that's a whole other issue. I also offered the kkk as an option.The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world.
As of the end of 2007, the US had 2.3 million people in jail across federal, state and local jails
By comparison, China apparently has 1.7 million people in prison at the same timePrisoners in 2007
Presents data on prisoners under jurisdiction of federal or state correctional authorities on December 31, 2007, collected from the National Prisoner Statistics series.
China | World Prison Brief
www.prisonstudies.org
Thats China having fewer prisoners than the US despite a population 4x larger.
Either the US is particularly full of criminals, or there's something particularly fucked up about the US criminal justice system even in comparison to authoritarian nation states.
This is not something we are equipped to explore in a fantasy quest.
So no, thank you.
I wouldnt go there, and I would strongly suggest noone else does.
Strictly speaking the Usurpation was not necessary, the Usurpation was safe. When the Sidereals saw the Solars were going crazy they saw three futures and these they called the Vision of Gold, the Vision of Bronze and the Vision of Darkness.
The Vision of Bronze is the one we are all familiar with, use the Dragonblooded to overthrow the Solars, the world becomes less in all things, but it is safe for a time at least. The Vision of Darkness was if they did nothing the world would eventually break either though the madness of the Solars or the machinations of its enemies as the Solars became distracted. The Vision of Gold was 'what if we just tell the Solars what's happening and ask them to police themselves'. Worth keeping in mind they were not all insane at that point, not even all of the elders and many of those who had become warped could still be managed if you did not poke their particular obsessions and insanities. It could have worked, it could have fixed things as systems were set in place to manage Limit, but if the mad won it could have lead to an age of such sublime horror as would make all of Creation yearn for oblivion. There was no way to tell which was which because too many Solar decisions were involved and Elder Solars were very prone to flex against the dictated of destiny.
The dominant Bronze faction played it safe, but the Gold faction never forgot that their prefered vision had both the Bad Ending and the Good. That is why when the Solar Exaltations started showing up in the Second Age they gained power and influence and started trying to recruit them.
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Don't Sidereels ALSO have a version of Exalted madness, but one that makes the plans they get together to do in mass turn out stupid?
That is not madness, theirs is more like a curse then anything, things tend to go worse when more of them are together in any one plan, but that does not mean it was inevitable that this would if they chose Gold because the Sidereals would not be the ones making the choice past the initial one, the Solars would.
Arguably, the curse is why the sidereals chose bronze in the first place.
Its an explicit fact that the US criminal justice system has been racially biased for centuries.
Its an explicit fact that the War on Drugs was conceptualized and implemented to preferentially target the black community.
And the stories of abuse and neglect that regularly come out of the US prison system are at least as horrific, if not worse, than some of the shit we hear from abroad.
Again, you REALLY dont want to go there.
Complex sociopolitical issues arent solved by throwing curses around.
Yeah.
I remember the Vision of Gold and the Vision of Bronze, which is why I said might have been necessary.
Might not have been. No way of knowing, and I dont think its fair to make judgements at this distance.
But the Bronze Faction did choose the option that involved comprehensive betrayals of every social custom of truce and trust, a Creation-spanning war and mass pogroms of entire populations. If the surviving Solar loyalists hadnt exercised restraint....well, I do remember that they were throwing Soulbreaker Orbs and Thousand-Forged Dragons around at one point.
Eh... I will be honest with you, I don't think that needed a curse, if only because Bronze makes logical sense if you are a sidereal and even the slightest bit self interested. After all they and their loved ones would be mostly safe in Yu Shan with Bronze, gold is betting all that for the sake of the world
- Location
- washington
So gonna ignore the kkk comment? Also again they're internment camps that ban certain religions and are more for reeducation and forced labor than prisons. Given we've got the forced labor down pat too. Anyways ignoring that there are still plenty of mundane things we can curse and is the kkk really something that you want to not curse?
Still the simple fact that the curse exists and that the decision was taken in circumstances that would maximize its influence it pretty telling on if they did the wrong thing or not IMO, namely, that they completely botched it.
Yeah, Bronze was safe, but Sidereals are exalted just as Solars are, doing the safe thing is not the best idea for Exalted, go big or go home is more their schtick.
VOTE
[X]Plan Senior Rules
-[X]Millitary matters with Morgan.
-[X]Warn wizards before your anima begins to glow
-[X]Ask Crown question first, then transport wizards to Brass Courts
--[X]Crown Question: Focus: Current Scene: Who/what is the history of the person Wu Min was thinking about : 1m
RATIONALE
Everybody goes to one place first.
Then, and only after they are comfortable, do we consider splitting them up.
Since Morgan is the most senior person here, we should go to where he called for first.
I would suggest we go to his spot first, then he and Dresden can go look at weapons while Molly takes Wu Min and Carlos to look at spirits and SUTRAs.
And since we're going to be glowing anyway in order to move the wizards to our Hell, there's no reason not to satisfy our curiosity about who Wu Min was referring to.
[X]Plan Senior Rules
-[X]Millitary matters with Morgan.
-[X]Warn wizards before your anima begins to glow
-[X]Ask Crown question first, then transport wizards to Brass Courts
--[X]Crown Question: Focus: Current Scene: Who/what is the history of the person Wu Min was thinking about : 1m
RATIONALE
Everybody goes to one place first.
Then, and only after they are comfortable, do we consider splitting them up.
Since Morgan is the most senior person here, we should go to where he called for first.
I would suggest we go to his spot first, then he and Dresden can go look at weapons while Molly takes Wu Min and Carlos to look at spirits and SUTRAs.
And since we're going to be glowing anyway in order to move the wizards to our Hell, there's no reason not to satisfy our curiosity about who Wu Min was referring to.
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But the curse would have struck if they went Gold. Catch 22. The world was going to end if they did nothing, but it was going to end if they did something too because they are cursed.
The only solution would have been for a tiny as possible faction broke off and did the Gold plan and rolled the dice while minimizing the effects of their curse.
- Location
- washington
[X]Plan Senior Rules
OctarineShrike
Avatar of Mandos
Since we're talking about Sidereals I feel like sharing stuff about the 3e perspective on them.
-----------------------------------------
3e Sids use Celestial Hubris as their Great Curse/Limit Break:
Examples:
Keeping some important piece of information secret from people "for their own good"
Doing their uttermost to deal with a threat immediately using the most extreme measures possible
Letting decorum blind them to the bigger picture
Becoming too arrogant to take advice from other people
Conspiratorial thinking, finding ways to tie everything to some kind of nemesis, etc
-----------------------------------------
The Solar Purge AKA the Usurpation in 3e was a decade long war. The visions of Bronze/Gold aren't a thing(at least explicitly anyways), the Usurpation was a proposal the Sidereals considered and ultimately discarded except for the bronze faction who kept at it. A component of the Jade Prison was the tear the unconquered sun shed when he turned his face from creation. They attempted to use the constellation of the mask to seal the jade prison but the constellation couldn't take the strain, and Arcane fate was a side effect of the breaking of the mask.
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Fate is gravity, probability, physics, linear time, etc.
Destinies are woven into the loom of fate and strengthen creation against the Wyld when they come to pass. The Bureau of Destiny works to ensure planned Destinies come to pass. From the pattern spiders, to the gods, and the Sidereals in the most pressing circumstances.
The Loom offers insight to possible futures, but says nothing about their probability, or what is currently happening.
-----------------------------------------
3e Sids use Celestial Hubris as their Great Curse/Limit Break:
Examples:
Keeping some important piece of information secret from people "for their own good"
Doing their uttermost to deal with a threat immediately using the most extreme measures possible
Letting decorum blind them to the bigger picture
Becoming too arrogant to take advice from other people
Conspiratorial thinking, finding ways to tie everything to some kind of nemesis, etc
-----------------------------------------
The Solar Purge AKA the Usurpation in 3e was a decade long war. The visions of Bronze/Gold aren't a thing(at least explicitly anyways), the Usurpation was a proposal the Sidereals considered and ultimately discarded except for the bronze faction who kept at it. A component of the Jade Prison was the tear the unconquered sun shed when he turned his face from creation. They attempted to use the constellation of the mask to seal the jade prison but the constellation couldn't take the strain, and Arcane fate was a side effect of the breaking of the mask.
-------------------------------------------
Fate is gravity, probability, physics, linear time, etc.
Destinies are woven into the loom of fate and strengthen creation against the Wyld when they come to pass. The Bureau of Destiny works to ensure planned Destinies come to pass. From the pattern spiders, to the gods, and the Sidereals in the most pressing circumstances.
The Loom offers insight to possible futures, but says nothing about their probability, or what is currently happening.
It is worth keeping in mind that the Siereals do not know about their Curse, hell they technically do not even know about the Solars' Curse, they just deduced that something was wrong because they were the information gathering Exalts, but they could not use the same trick on themselves since their very tools could not be relied upon when turned inwards.
The only way a smaller group could choose Gold was if the larger one choose Bronze, they won for a time but then got bogged down while the still smaller Gold opposition worked to do their own thing. It is almost like this whole thing was designed specifically so the players in some later age, let's say in some Second Age perhaps can win.
Of course. This IS a White Wolf product line. Everything is shit and the world is doomed and there is nothing anyone can do about it.It is worth keeping in mind that the Siereals do not know about their Curse, hell they technically do not even know about the Solars' Curse, they just deduced that something was wrong because they were the information gathering Exalts, but they could not use the same trick on themselves since their very tools could not be relied upon when turned inwards.
The only way a smaller group could choose Gold was if the larger one choose Bronze, they won for a time but then got bogged down while the still smaller Gold opposition worked to do their own thing. It is almost like this whole thing was designed specifically so the players in some later age, let's say in some Second Age perhaps can win.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
So, was just reading the Usurpation stuff while thinking about Michael's talk about the importance of trust when we first got our kingdom… and it occurs to me that you could potentially lay the blame of a vast majority of the problems of the Usurpation and the aftermath on a lack of trust. If you wanted to tie that in with the themes of this quest.
Not quite the point I was making, more that Second Edition (which I am most familiar with) seems to have been designed to allow for a happily ever after for players running Solars. After all you have Sidereal support, but not too much of it, you get limit breaks, but you can eventually discover what those are and what they mean. It is possible to get to that state of Solars policing Solars, but only because so many other horrors are loose that you do not have the help of too many Sidereals.