Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

[uju32]

The analogy is stretched to the point of uselessness. You can switch copper wire for lead wire and still run the current through. Not as much, and it'll melt more easily, but you can.

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You literally cant repair something you dont understand.

Not to fuck with it. To steal it. Initially this was a theft, I am fairly sure. Remember: if given a solar exaltation, a Neverborn can make abyssals. And classical abyssals at that, not the freed versions from ExvsWoD. This was a grab to have their own exalted.

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All we are sure of is that he was sent to interfere.
Theft of shit from the temple might just have been his own brainwave.

I do find it hilariously implausible that anyone would send a single solitary Blampire, who isnt even an Elder, to try a heist of a Solar Exaltation or Solar Exaltation-adjacent shit.
Where sunlight is literally the Black Court's bane.

Emma-O sent a greater akuma and thirty lesser akuma to try and take Molly's, and they still failed.

Much older than that, as was stated by @DragonParadox .

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Cite?
My hard numbers from canon are at least 5000 years, according to Captain-Commander Luccio.

Many lunar candidates can work as solar candidates too. There's a big overlap. yes, lunar fits her better, but it wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility, I think.

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ExWoD went out of its way to make it implausible though.

Only if you completely ignore how solar exaltations are those that aim at people performing heroic deeds, and there's intent behind it. The prophecy is specifically about exalted stopping the apocalypse. That's not what Nicky does. He is disqualified on the merit of his character, not his coin.

Now, if he threw the coin away, that would be the heroic act worthy enough of becoming a solar. But only if he didn't expect the reward. So, not going to happen.

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Hard disagree.

Heroic deeds in the Greek sense of the word, not heroic in the modern superhero sense. Exaltations give zero fucks about mortal morality; Genghis Khan for example, would have made a grand Dawn conquering and putting cities to the sword, as would any number of historical monsters.

Nicky would quite happily shank whatever the fuck is behind the Hellgate if its in the way of his plans.

He was Mab's deputy at the Outer Gates at the start of her reign, where he commanded Winter's forces against Outsiders; thats where he earned the favor that was the focus of the plot in Skin Game. And IIRC one of the offers on the table when he tried to recruit Dresden was the destruction of the Red Court, which he called a longterm problem.

Thats part of the reason why we warn about Exaltations being both opportunity and danger.
Someone like Nicodemus has the distinction to have qualified for Exaltation several times over.
And my enemy's enemy is just that; no more, no less.


And no, he doesnt need to throw away the Coin to qualify.
Nicodemus has initiated and executed sufficient grand schemes to be a candidate several times over. From commanding Winter's forces against Outsiders to causing the Black Plague to killing multiple Knights to trying to murder Chicago.

Unlike Infernal Exaltations, Solar Exaltations dont ask for your consent; they just move in and take up residence, burning out or otherwise removing anything to the contrary while investing their host with power.
Whether they would be allowed to kick out the Coin is an AU decision by the QM.

Should the Sun not Rise does not spike our plans. Rather, in the presence of exalted prophecy, it reinforces them. We are a heroic exalt, and a part of a heroic exalt circle. If we provide the suitable candidate, then the selection directed by a dying exalt through time and space and transcendent effort is likely to favor that candidate.

Because, remember, this is an exaltation that seeks a hero to save the world. That's explicit in the text. So, yeah, if Should the Sun not Rise is in play, Daniel is almost 100% certain to work, and he gets an awesome Pharaon past life mentor headvoice. Who will probably ship him with Lydia.

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I dont agree with any of this.
Thats not how the charm works, whether RAW or RAI.


Its not choosing a hero to save the world, its choosing a candidate to oppose the Outsider incursion.

It doesnt care if they are an genocidal tyrant like Genghis Khan or Mao or Josef Stalin, or if they have an ongoing history of sexually assaulting young children, or are terrible at administration, or any other vices; it cares about a capacity to do great, significant things in line with the shard's Caste.

You are making the mistake of thinking that Exaltations operate on modern morality. They dont.
Hero here doesnt mean Superman or Spiderman or Captain America, people who hold themselves and those around them to a higher standard; its more in line with Achilles and Hercules and his sort.

 

[uju32]

"Was" being the important word there. Almost everything in Future World of Darkness is lessened, even the Exaltations, which are now susceptible to tampering. The crossover book outlines the difficulty at which it's possible for human Mages to tamper with Exaltations, and Mages are below Primordials.

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Here's a biggie: Can a mage screw with Exaltation?Answer: Yes, but.

Yes, but it's always vulgar. You're wrestling with the manifest will of gods from the dawn of time performing the single greatest miracle they ever managed. There's not a single paradigm out there, not even in the Wild West free-for-all that is the Spirit World, where that isn't breaking a shitload of rules.

Yes, but it's hard as fuck. If you're trying to injure or interfere with the Exaltation, assume that the Exaltation itself is fighting back like a wild steer, and has Arete 10 and a 10-dice resistance pool to do it with.

Trying to snare and mess with an Exaltation be-tween incarnations takes a truckload of Prime and Spirit, along with some Entropy and/or Mind to trick its guidance systems, and that's probably the easiest way to mess with Exaltation.

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Thats not the sort of thing you throw together at a couple hours notice.

Depends on how it's done. As you said - this is a setting where mortal magic allows time travel, and death curses can be super powerful. So, a clever solar sorceror-king who wants to send their exaltation to the future creates a drath curse, which, a moment before theor exaltation would depart, sends said solar into the future, exaltation included. The destination point is determined by a set of conditions tied to the statue. The moment they arrive to the future, they finish dying and the exaltation is released as normal.

At least that's how I would do it with only powers shown in canon

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Thats what I mentioned upthread. Doesnt appear to break any rules as far as a quick look can tell.
Doesnt necessarily require a death curse either; time-travel splendors are a thing IIRC in both Holden's crafting system and in M20, as are magic rituals, or even a powerful spirit, might be able to do it if you cut a deal beforehand.

 

[BronzeTongue]

That depends, I think, on the charm loadout. Solars get options that infernals do not, and dealing with, as in smiting, creatures of darkness is something they are good at. If nothing else, a baby solar has a mote pool of 10, and represent

I don't think there's an actual argument to be had. You say "People aren't all good or bad", but what I am reading is you actually saying "people are bad". Sorry, but that's what I am hearing. Your argument, as I understand it, is that if specific humans are empowered above others, it will be bad for other humans, bad for humanity as a whole, even in the dire situation it is in Dresdenverse cosmologically. I don't agree

We already had these long discussions about the issue. Over and over and over. I disagree on the core premises with you. I disagree on what the possible and plausible outcomes are. I disagree on valuation of those outcomes with you. I present my arguments to you, you present yours to me. We don't agree with each other. So, what's the point?

I could spend pages and pages in arguments about the fundamental nature of man, of society, of heroism. Try and lay out why scenarios you posit are either implausible, or the outcomes they lead to are still positives compared to current situation. I don't have energy to do that, and I believe it would be pointless anyway - neither you nor I will change our position. So, I won't make those arguments. Because this is pointless.

And before you say "aha, so even two dudes on the internet cannot agree, this is why I am right and bringing in shining golden kings will be bad, and will create an inescapable yoke on humanity forever, or lead to a war between them!" - I disagree. People can agree and compromise and in the extremes, when it gets bad, they will on average try and help each other - that's just statistics and evolution in play. So, it's good to empower humanity.

To summarize my position for those just joining who haven't read previous rounds of arguments:
1) I maintain that exaltations, especially solar exaltations, select for heroism among other things. I disagree with the argument "oh, but it's classical heroism, not the modern ones" at least in cases of solars, lunars and sidereals, because actual canon example of characters and story bits in ExvsWoD indicate that people likely to try saving the world are more likely to be selected than serial killers who like to make balloon animals out of infant entrails and gift those to the mothers of said infants.

2) I maintain that Molly, as an already established exalt with a lot of experience, and someone who is a good person, can act as a check and balance on a new exalt emerging. I further maintain that, as a social exalt, Molly can influence a new exalt enough that they would ultimately also be what is broadly be a good person

3) I maintain that even at worst, emergence of a new powerful force that is ultimately human is a net positive for humanity as a whole, given current cosmological situation in Dresdenverse

4) I maintain that it's ok if exalts can't agree with each other on certain topics, as long as unity is maintained in defense of reality and humanity overall (on average, with caveats, etc).

5) I maintain that the idea "humans cannot be trusted to be empowered" is defeatist enough that it shouldn't be entertained. If it's true, there's no point. If it's wrong, humans should be empowered.

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You're twisting the argument in the same reductive way you always do.

There are options between Nicodemus and Micheal, because people are complicated and don't even collectively agree on what good is half the time. Though it's worth noting that bad actors do still exist and the risk of them acquiring one is significant and serious. You don't need to believe that most people are evil to see the problems with leaving a loaded gun in a public park.

Marcone would be an amazing night caste, and has no interest in peeling babies or destroying reality, but I don't making the executive decision that everyone in Chicago has to deal with being serfs in his fief for then next ten thousand years is terribly great.

You can write all the pages of philosophy you want, but it always seems to fall apart when it comes to the practicalities. Exalts have always been classical heroes to the tune of Jason and Odysseus, it's a huge part of their character. Nothing in the requirements actually select against anything but mediocrity. It's a cornerstone of their rise, fall, and the flaws that balance the power.

You're not just asking for heroes, you're asking for your heroes. For the exaltations to abide by and enforce what you think solars should do with their power despite then having never done that for anybody.

Base agreement on not destroying the world isn't enough for this; the entire range of human mortality in the history of the world fits into that and not all of those ideas deserve an exalted champion. Not being omnicidal isn't a good compromise point.

I also can't see why you treat this as anything like something fundamentally on the same side as humanity. A baseline has about as much in common with a solar as they do with a whamp. So close to human as to make no difference until they get old and drift psychologically. Even if you disagree with that, the boot on your throat is no less oppressive because you're ethnically* similar to the person wearing it.

If you make 700 god-kings they will start enforcing their will on the world around them - which you cannot deny since it's what you're specifically hoping they'll do - regardless of what anyone else thinks of that. The solars are their own side, all 700 of them, not with humanity as a whole or as any meaningful sort of partner.

We've spent a long time as a species dragging ourselves away from this stupid bullshit and raising a cadre of superhuman god kings sends the world tumbling back into authoritarianism at best.

The world of the Dresden Files isn't running face first into an apocalypse, this stuff is business as usual. We have time to actually make things better via actions like magitech uplift instead of gambling on overpowered failures championing things that should stay dead.

* For lack of a better term.

 

[DragonParadox]

A Tilted Board ​

12th of January 2007 A.D.

What did Uriel call it? An Exaltation. That feels right, the weight an expectation of it, if there should be any time when the sun should rise red over a field of battle it is a time like this, when shadows far beyond the ken of most men are on the horizon. Vegas certainly needs all the help it can get.

"I think it's something like me, like my Crown," you explain to the others. "Cobbler has to have known that it would come to be in this place, in this hour. Was he working with Sandra?"

"If he was that would explain how she was able to ambush us," Lydia offers. "Have something trail us and..."

"Stop, stop, stop," Tiffany makes a slicing gesture with her hand in front of her face. "This isn't about either of them Sandra, Cobbler, they are all pawns here, other powers are moving them around the board, this is too big for them. We need to ask Adkin where this thing comes from and what it has been saying."

"I could talk to it," you point out. "The spirit at least seemed willing to converse."

In response she gives a telling look to your left side. "Lets save that for when you are feeling better."

"We should find out what it needed me for," Lydia insists. "They called me kin to Nephys which in some telling of the tale cares for the infant Horus, I don't think this thing is going to a baby, but there are other forms of aiding a new-made king, council perhaps, intercession with..." she trails off looking even more pale than usual. "The dead, if they are planning for the thing under the city to burst wide open there's going to be a lot of newly dead people, all confused and lost from the manner of their passing. That is what it wants from me."

"Or maybe it wants you to provide the king-to-be with a new puppy," Tiffany counters, her manner deliberately calm. "Stay here, I'm going to get Harry and make sure we do not get suddenly mobbed by the faithful and then we are all going to decide what to do about this turn of events."

"That seems reasonable, I could do with some rest." So saying you sink into one of the antique-looking wooden chairs. "I think we should treat this as an opportunity not another threat. We are so used to seeing enemies trying to sink the world that we're liable to miss someone running around with boards and a banner to plug the hole."

Lash nods and ducks out to return a few minutes later with Harry carrying a black garbage bag containing the dead vampire's effects clinking and sloshing at the bottom. From the deep frown that had settled over his face you you guess Lash brought him up to speed. "Vampire had this on him," he takes out a piece of reddish grey flint with carvings that looks vaguely Egyptian, but much cruder than any example of hieroglyphics you've ever seen. "I think it's meant to turn away scrying, doesn't do anything against the Sight."

Gained Veilstone
Carved from flint threaded through with what seems to be iron inclusions this stone makes the bearer unnoticable to magical senses. Anyone attempting to notice him with a specific power, like a ghost with Shroudsight peering through the veil or a Vampire using Auspex to detect him must make an opposed roll agains bearer with Perception+Alertness against his Wits+Occult (Dif 7 for both) or the power fails. This does in no way protect the bearer from mundane attempts to spot them.

"The Sight?" you ask mildly, almost giving yourself a start with how much you sound like Mom. "Isn't that a little dangerous?"

"Not as much as the mess we are in here. Vegas is on a date with Godzilla right now and it won't matter for the people out there that Mothra is coming to the 'rescue'."

"What giant monster does that make me then?" you ask trying to lighten the mood.

"It makes you Molly Carpenter," the trust in those words shuts you down as few things could.

"Alright so we have leads, a lot of leads," you start counting them down. "Talk to Adkin, maybe to the spirits that guard the idol find out if it has a timetable for Hell breaking loose beyond 'nigh', go back to the Canals and figure out what Charon knew about all this and if we need to deal with him, go right to the source and talk to the Red Court about getting an audience with the Dragon, try to track down the cursed slot machine and see if we can get a lead on Sandra that way... Anything else?"

"The White Court," Harry offers almost unwillingly. "We did deal with the guy who staked their second in command, maybe they'll want to talk to us, especially if we can convince them someone's planning to end the sweet gig they have here and them with it."

What do you do next?

You can asign people to do more than one action if you are willing to split up

[] Rest and Recover

[] Question the Pallbearers
-[] Try your luck with the spirits
-[] Approach Oliver Adkin directly, you did kill a vampire in front of him and while his 'god' did stab you it said sorry afterwards
-[] Converse with the idol in The Language
-[] Talk to Fischer, she was called out as resulctant, maybe she will let more slip than the others

[] Return to the Venetian Canals and seek a meeting with the mysterious Charon

[] Enter the tunnels under the Strip and seek out the Red Court presence there

[] Speak to Big Corey about his vampire problem being dealt with and the much bigger problem in his future

[] Write in

OOC: Now comes the big plan vote.

 

[DragonParadox]

Rolls
Lash to calm down Lydia
Harry to identify the blood magic item
Molly to keep steering the party

 

[Artemis1992]

I'm not trying to romantise Solars in the way I think Yog does.

But look at the world of DF.
It has a variety of monsters preying on humanity, some more, some less.

It has a potential apocalypse event every few years.

It has active opposition to the existance of reality, both in the world and outside, attacking the Gates.

Gates that are in turn held be lesser monsters who abise their position of power to prey on humans.

The probably greatest pro-human force is already a collection of old Wizards with great power and little individual ties to modern people and no particular responsibility towards those they police.

I think adding a bunch of Solar Heroes to the bunch would at first destabilze things as they fight out a new status quo, certainly using countries as well as their personal power,but I think the eventual new status quo will be better than the current one, even with gilden god-kings involved.

Edit: call me a coward but if I have the choice between a boot on my neck or teeth in my throat...

 

[Yog]

You literally cant repair something you dont understand.

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But you can? Do you understand the physics of electricity? How electromagnetic wave propagates through the cable, in order to solder a cable? So tou need to understand lift and aerodynamics in order to patch a hole in an airplane's wing? Hell, we still don't know how Metamizole works, and we have been using it for a hundred years since inventing it.

I do find it hilariously implausible that anyone would send a single solitary Blampire, who isnt even an Elder, to try a heist of a Solar Exaltation or Solar Exaltation-adjacent shit.
Where sunlight is literally the Black Court's bane.

Emma-O sent a greater akuma and thirty lesser akuma to try and take Molly's, and they still failed.

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Greater forces create greater responses. It's possible that anything more was sure to provoke a knightly kind of response. Or maybe he was the only one available

Cite?
My hard numbers from canon are at least 5000 years, according to Captain-Commander Luccio

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Give me a bit of time, it's hard to do from phone mid-trip

Heroic deeds in the Greek sense of the word, not heroic in the modern superhero sense.

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That's a shit dodge and I don't agree. Heroic deeds in the greek sense are heroic deeds in the modern sense. Greek heroes were someones to aspire to be, examples of greatness of their society. Also cautionary tales, yes, but that's greek culture in general, it was not optimistic, and was quite fatalistic from my unserstanding. Where the hell is this "in the greek sense" thing even originated from? It feels like some modern meme invented by edgy teens that took off.

Like, take Heracles, who in a feat of Hera-induces rage kills his family. He pays penance for a crime he wasn't responsible for. He doesn't usurp the throne. He slays monsters and follows customs and laws.

Genghis Khan for example, would have made a grand Dawn conquering and putting cities to the sword, as would any number of historical monsters.

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Yes, and to his people Khan was a great ruler. And it's far from given if his policies would have been the same if he had awesome solar power.

Nicky would quite happily shank whatever the fuck is behind the Hellgate if its in the way of his plans.

He was Mab's deputy at the Outer Gates at the start of her reign, where he commanded Winter's forces against Outsiders; thats where he earned the favor that was the focus of the plot in Skin Game. And IIRC one of the offers on the table when he tried to recruit Dresden was the destruction of the Red Court, which he called a longterm problem.

Thats part of the reason why we warn about Exaltations being both opportunity and danger.
Someone like Nicodemus has the distinction to have qualified for Exaltation several times over.
And my enemy's enemy is just that; no more, no less.

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And my argument that Nicky did all that as part of his long term goals, and those are to harm Creation. Which is why he wouldn't be chosen.

Its not choosing a hero to save the world, its choosing a candidate to oppose the Outsider incursion.

It doesnt care if they are an genocidal tyrant like Genghis Khan or Mao or Josef Stalin, or if they have an ongoing history of sexually assaulting young children, or are terrible at administration, or any other vices; it cares about a capacity to do great, significant things in line with the shard's Caste.

You are making the mistake of thinking that Exaltations operate on modern morality. They dont.
Hero here doesnt mean Superman or Spiderman or Captain America, people who hold themselves and those around them to a higher standard; its more in line with Achilles and Hercules and his sort.

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Opposing Outsiders is a way to save the world. Superman is a hero. Heracles is also a hero.

The narrative of "it would surely choose Hitler or Stalin" is a thing that keeps get pushed, but we just don't see it. For every Stalin, there's ten Martin Luther Kings.

Also, I think that yours and mine definition of a hero differ very much.

 

[Earth-Destroyer]

It is an irrelevant argument anyway. Molly is a powerful social exalted, easily able to bring newly made exalted around to her side.

And more importantly even if a ton of exalted got released at once, it a easy win for the world. Would some become tyrants sure, but those would be solo acts because evil. So they will eventually get killed by local threats because they are solo, or killed by the reasonable exalted who do work in teams.

Random selection leads to exalted that team up winning. And solo evil ones losing.

 

[Yog]

You're twisting the argument in the same reductive way you always do.

There are options between Nicodemus and Micheal, because people are complicated and don't even collectively agree on what good is half the time. Though it's worth noting that bad actors do still exist and the risk of them acquiring one is significant and serious. You don't need to believe that most people are evil to see the problems with leaving a loaded gun in a public park.

Marcone would be an amazing night caste, and has no interest in peeling babies or destroying reality, but I don't making the executive decision that everyone in Chicago has to deal with being serfs in his fief for then next ten thousand years is terribly great.

You can write all the pages of philosophy you want, but it always seems to fall apart when it comes to the practicalities. Exalts have always been classical heroes to the tune of Jason and Odysseus, it's a huge part of their character. Nothing in the requirements actually select against anything but mediocrity. It's a cornerstone of their rise, fall, and the flaws that balance the power.

You're not just asking for heroes, you're asking for your heroes. For the exaltations to abide by and enforce what you think solars should do with their power despite then having never done that for anybody.

Base agreement on not destroying the world isn't enough for this; the entire range of human mortality in the history of the world fits into that and not all of those ideas deserve an exalted champion. Not being omnicidal isn't a good compromise point.

I also can't see why you treat this as anything like something fundamentally on the same side as humanity. A baseline has about as much in common with a solar as they do with a whamp. So close to human as to make no difference until they get old and drift psychologically. Even if you disagree with that, the boot on your throat is no less oppressive because you're ethnically* similar to the person wearing it.

If you make 700 god-kings they will start enforcing their will on the world around them - which you cannot deny since it's what you're specifically hoping they'll do - regardless of what anyone else thinks of that. The solars are their own side, all 700 of them, not with humanity as a whole or as any meaningful sort of partner.

We've spent a long time as a species dragging ourselves away from this stupid bullshit and raising a cadre of superhuman god kings sends the world tumbling back into authoritarianism at best.

The world of the Dresden Files isn't running face first into an apocalypse, this stuff is business as usual. We have time to actually make things better via actions like magitech uplift instead of gambling on overpowered failures championing things that should stay dead.

* For lack of a better term.

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In keeping with reductionism, let's talk about Marcone a bit. Do you think he likes being a crime boss for crime's sake or for power's sake? If going legit offered him more power, or if abandoning crime would save him trouble while letting him keep his power, do you think he would keep being a crime boss instead of going legit?

The world of Dresden files is a crapsack nightmare where humanity is a cattle species with select few bloodlines of power and some randomly selected people getting cosmic power to affect the difference and actually matter on exchange for having to face monsters beyond their worst nightmares at least until theu die and likely longer. The world having been sh*t for the last hundred thousand years is no reason not to try and make it better, or to deny yourself resources in making it better.

Why do you think that exalts will become kings, and why do tou think that having an Eclipse PoTUS would be bad?

Superhuman conflict doesn't just mean "superhumanly terrible conflict". It also means "superhumanly efficient negotiations and conflict resolution".

 

[BronzeTongue]

What do you do next?

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We ate Nate, so it's time for the temple to cough up what they can find on Sandra too.

I'm not trying to romantise Solars in the way I think Yog does.

But look at the world of DF.
It has a variety of monsters preying on humanity, some more, some less.

It has a potential apocalypse event every few years.

It has active opposition to the existance of reality, both in the world and outside, attacking the Gates.

Gates that are in turn held be lesser monsters who abise their position of power to prey on humans.

The probably greatest pro-human force is already a collection of old Wizards with great power and little individual ties to modern people and no particular responsibility towards those they police.

I think adding a bunch of Solar Heroes to the bunch would at first destabilze things as they fight out a new status quo, certainly using countries as well as their personal power,but I think the eventual new status quo will be better than the current one, even with gilden god-kings involved.

Edit: call me a coward but if I have the choice between a boot on my neck or teeth in my throat...

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The things they deal with regularly aren't apocalyptic. They're disasters, but wouldn't end the world.

That does need addressed, as do all the things eating people, but trading 700 people the ability to do anything they want to the rest of humanity in hopes that they're worse to their current monsters than their future subjects isn't the only way to do so.

The supernatural invests heavily in the masquerade because humans as a whole would be a huge problem to deal with if they weren't ignorant. Stuff like guns and modern industry completely changed the game, screwing over a number of ancient powers in the process.Add magitech bullshit and start acting with purpose and things are very different.

The trick is setting things up so that the veil can drop without setting off a global war.

 

[BronzeTongue]

It is an irrelevant argument anyway. Molly is a powerful social exalted, easily able to bring newly made exalted around to her side.

And more importantly even if a ton of exalted got released at once, it a easy win for the world. Would some become tyrants sure, but those would be solo acts because evil. So they will eventually get killed by local threats because they are solo, or killed by the reasonable exalted who do work in teams.

Random selection leads to exalted that team up winning. And solo evil ones losing.

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She isn't a social exalt, excellency and information games are not what makes a social build scary.

Heroic mortals regularly bull through our social suite, add exalted bullshit on top and I have little confidence in our ability to actually do this.

You're also discounting everyone else involved. Signing up with an anti-humanity faction for their personal benefit would make things complicated.

 

[uju32]

But you can? Do you understand the physics of electricity? How electromagnetic wave propagates through the cable, in order to solder a cable? So tou need to understand lift and aerodynamics in order to patch a hole in an airplane's wing? Hell, we still don't know how Metamizole works, and we have been using it for a hundred years since inventing it.

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Uh, yes?
I understand the basic principles of how electricity works, well enough to get by.
Enough to know what not to do to avoid painful death and injury.

And yes, I sure as fuck need to understand at least some of the the plane in order to patch a hole in its wing.

Greater forces create greater responses. It's possible that anything more was sure to provoke a knightly kind of response. Or maybe he was the only one available

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Nope, dont agree.

If they thought this was so, you would have seen said Antediluvian roll in with a posse for a smash and grab.
The Denarians deployed 20ish Denarians into Chicago, right next to Michael's home when the prize was the Archive
If the Antediluvian involved here was trying a heist, there would be a lot more manpower.

Its not like its hard to make mook Blampires as fodder, or to make thralls.

Give me a bit of time, it's hard to do from phone mid-trip

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No problem.

That's a shit dodge and I don't agree. Heroic deeds in the greek sense are heroic deeds in the modern sense. Greek heroes were someones to aspire to be, examples of greatness of their society. Also cautionary tales, yes, but that's greek culture in general, it was not optimistic, and was quite fatalistic from my unserstanding. Where the hell is this "in the greek sense" thing even originated from? It feels like some modern meme invented by edgy teens that took off.

Like, take Heracles, who in a feat of Hera-induces rage kills his family. He pays penance for a crime he wasn't responsible for. He doesn't usurp the throne. He slays monsters and follows customs and laws.

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No they are not.

We do not consider sacking cities and slaughtering their inhabitants to be heroic deeds any longer, but they sure as fuck were in Greek times, and even more recently than that. Genghis Khan stacked the heads of his enemies and wiped out entire bloodlines and cities in punitive reprisals; you try and do it now, you're a war criminal.



Yes, lets take Heracles.
Who killed his music tutor Linus for reprimanding him. Who raped Auge, virgin priestess of Athena. Who killed Amyntor of Ormenium for refusing to let him into his kingdom. Who killed Theiodamas after stealing one of his bulls.

Even the murder of Megara and his family is not the only time he murders people he's close to; he murders Iphitus, his best friend, by throwing him off a wall, then says Hera made him do it.

There is a reason why Greek heroes are often a cautionary tale; their moral compass was generally set to "what is good for me is Good; what is not is Bad". For everything of repute they pull off, there is often a skeleton or three in a closet, a testimony to hubris and impunity.

And thats just what made it to the stories.

Yes, and to his people Khan was a great ruler. And it's far from given if his policies would have been the same if he had awesome solar power.

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And to his disciples, and the small nation of people who produce his squires?
Nicodemus is a great man and visionary.

And my argument that Nicky did all that as part of his long term goals, and those are to harm Creation. Which is why he wouldn't be chosen.

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1) I dont see how you can make that claim.
We know fuckall about Nicky's longterm goals. Mab trusted him with the fucking Gates, so whatever else they are, letting the Outsiders in doesnt appear to be part of them.

At least, not in canon.


2) Harming Creation is not a part of the choosing Criteria in any Exaltation.
You can Exalt as a Solar, and decide that the best fate for Creation/Earth is euthanasia, and it would be a viable choice for a Solar Exalt, as well as a suitably grand one.

Opposing Outsiders is a way to save the world. Superman is a hero. Heracles is also a hero.

The narrative of "it would surely choose Hitler or Stalin" is a thing that keeps get pushed, but we just don't see it. For every Stalin, there's ten Martin Luther Kings.

Also, I think that yours and mine definition of a hero differ very much.

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Again, saving the world is not Exaltation criteria.

That is straight up untrue.
The nature of the Solar Deliberative in First Age Creation straight up disproves this shit.
The Sidereals didnt decide to slaughter the Solars because the maniacs and the reckless risktakers were in a minority.

 

[Degorium]

You're twisting the argument in the same reductive way you always do.

There are options between Nicodemus and Micheal, because people are complicated and don't even collectively agree on what good is half the time. Though it's worth noting that bad actors do still exist and the risk of them acquiring one is significant and serious. You don't need to believe that most people are evil to see the problems with leaving a loaded gun in a public park.

Marcone would be an amazing night caste, and has no interest in peeling babies or destroying reality, but I don't making the executive decision that everyone in Chicago has to deal with being serfs in his fief for then next ten thousand years is terribly great.

You can write all the pages of philosophy you want, but it always seems to fall apart when it comes to the practicalities. Exalts have always been classical heroes to the tune of Jason and Odysseus, it's a huge part of their character. Nothing in the requirements actually select against anything but mediocrity. It's a cornerstone of their rise, fall, and the flaws that balance the power.

You're not just asking for heroes, you're asking for your heroes. For the exaltations to abide by and enforce what you think solars should do with their power despite then having never done that for anybody.

Base agreement on not destroying the world isn't enough for this; the entire range of human mortality in the history of the world fits into that and not all of those ideas deserve an exalted champion. Not being omnicidal isn't a good compromise point.

I also can't see why you treat this as anything like something fundamentally on the same side as humanity. A baseline has about as much in common with a solar as they do with a whamp. So close to human as to make no difference until they get old and drift psychologically. Even if you disagree with that, the boot on your throat is no less oppressive because you're ethnically* similar to the person wearing it.

If you make 700 god-kings they will start enforcing their will on the world around them - which you cannot deny since it's what you're specifically hoping they'll do - regardless of what anyone else thinks of that. The solars are their own side, all 700 of them, not with humanity as a whole or as any meaningful sort of partner.

We've spent a long time as a species dragging ourselves away from this stupid bullshit and raising a cadre of superhuman god kings sends the world tumbling back into authoritarianism at best.

The world of the Dresden Files isn't running face first into an apocalypse, this stuff is business as usual. We have time to actually make things better via actions like magitech uplift instead of gambling on overpowered failures championing things that should stay dead.

* For lack of a better term.

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And you are doing that thing again. Where you completely ignore the actual realities of the setting. There are hundreds of deities thousands of lesser demons the Fallen possibly millions of human eating creatures just running around. Also you doing nothing again where you claim he wants to release them willy-nilly or all at once or with no plan which no one is saying. It also ignores the fact that the white Council exists. Ignores the fact that we exist ignores the fact that the vast majority of exalts have no interest in ruling. By cast only 50 total have an innate rulership qualities or seeking. It also ignores the fact that there are Supernaturals in governments already that would work against them. Ignores the fact that the setting is nowhere near as Limited in strength or scale as regular creation was.

So to sum it up I think your accusation of authoritarianism slip is based purely on what you think the exalted are. Unless you think Martin Luther King jr, Gandhi and Moses all just wanted to be Super Kings forever. Because all three of those show up under a Zenith casting. Unless you think Carl Sagan, Stephen Hawking and Einstein also wanted to be Super Kings forever. All of them show up under Twilight. So to claim that it's actually hundreds of Kings is wrong. The king moniker that solars have any the exalted setting is because they were the leaders of the host. Not because each and every one of them espires or has a need to be king. Never mind the fact that lunar's that specifically operate on community-wide levels meant to protect guard things aren't going to want solars to try and rule the world anyway because they also have past life memories the Sidereals are also going to try and prevent that.

 

[Yog]

Yes, lets take Heracles.
Who killed his music tutor Linus for reprimanding him. Who raped Auge, virgin priestess of Athena. Who killed Amyntor of Ormenium for refusing to let him into his kingdom. Who killed Theiodamas after stealing one of his bulls.

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Yes, and paid penance for those acts. Where he could have disregarded custom and law.

And yes, I sure as fuck need to understand at least some of the the plane in order to patch a hole in its wing.

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No, you need to understand the basic principle of what a flat surface is.

As to electricity - do electrones flow through wires in order to generate electricity. And, if so, how fast?

We do not consider sacking cities and slaughtering their inhabitants to be heroic deeds any longer, but they sure as fuck were in Greek times, and even more recently than that. Genghis Khan stacked the heads of his enemies and wiped out entire bloodlines and cities in punitive reprisals; you try and do it now, you're a war criminal.

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Bombing of Dresden? The standards might have changed, some, and man is made by his society. Why do you think society of exalts would be significantly worse than society of mortals? No matter, I heard all those arguments already.

Harming Creation is not a part of the choosing Criteria in any Exaltation.
You can Exalt as a Solar, and decide that the best fate for Creation/Earth is euthanasia, and it would be a viable choice for a Solar Exalt, as well as a suitably grand one.

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It's spelled very clearly in ExvsWoD that Solars, Lunars, and Sidereals were released in a gamble and a last ditch prayer to save the world, and that exaltations on some level respond to that.

There is a reason why Greek heroes are often a cautionary tale; their moral compass was generally set to "what is good for me is Good; what is not is Bad". For everything of repute they pull off, there is often a skeleton or three in a closet, a testimony to hubris and impunity.

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The greek heroes are in 99% of cases cautionary tales because they rebelled or just had deals with gods and fought against fate. Hubris is daring and getting slapped down, nothing more.

You can Exalt as a Solar, and decide that the best fate for Creation/Earth is euthanasia, and it would be a viable choice for a Solar Exalt, as well as a suitably grand one.

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No, that's edgelord nihilism not supported by canon, or at least twisting canon very strongly indeed.

That is straight up untrue.
The nature of the Solar Deliberative in First Age Creation straight up disproves this shit.
The Sidereals didnt decide to slaughter the Solars because the maniacs and the reckless risktakers were in a minority.

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All of them were basically in the worst possible position to make decisions, suffering from multiple unknown death curses of Primordials and being a society made by universal war and later apocalypse. None of that applies here. And even then what they had was far better than what Dresdenverse humans have, on average.

Basically, at this point I don't think further argument is productive because we straight up read and interpret the same sources differently, and there's no way to resolve that difference in interpretation.

 

[Degorium]

Yes, lets take Heracles.
Who killed his music tutor Linus for reprimanding him. Who raped Auge, virgin priestess of Athena. Who killed Amyntor of Ormenium for refusing to let him into his kingdom. Who killed Theiodamas after stealing one of his bulls.

Even the murder of Megara and his family is not the only time he murders people he's close to; he murders Iphitus, his best friend, by throwing him off a wall, then says Hera made him do it.

There is a reason why Greek heroes are often a cautionary tale; their moral compass was generally set to "what is good for me is Good; what is not is Bad". For everything of repute they pull off, there is often a skeleton or three in a closet, a testimony to hubris and impunity.

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You do realize all of those Hercules testamonals he was in the right correct. He kills his music teacher and goes to trial and says he was beating me with rods and I had the right to defend myself and he gets acquitted for that because it's true. The rape of the Priestess is a Christian rewriting of the classical myth because he seduces her and he has sex with her multiple times every time he's in the region of Arcadia.

Amyntor of Ormenium attempts to kill Hercules when he tries to pass through his land. Theiodamas was right and he had a case against Hercules but then he immediately tries to kill Hercules for consuming one of his Bulls at which point Hercules is right not to just let himself die for that.

Iphitus literally in text it said he is struck with Madness in that moment when he does that which considering the only other periods of actual madness he has and in some text he's considered the lover of Hercules it's probably a known goddess who has a grudge doing that again.

 

[Narasan]

hey boss, an exalted is a big deal,especially the first we find. So calling for backup seems reasonable.
can we get some help from our kingdom? agents with stealth and information gathering tech/magic?

and if we are already calling for backup,can we look if dad is busy?
or let whatshername from the whitecourt know that some outsiderstuff could be around and to maybe have some words.

not saying these are good options.
just asking if they are options we have.

 

[BronzeTongue]

And you are doing that thing again. Where you completely ignore the actual realities of the setting. There are hundreds of deities thousands of lesser demons the Fallen possibly millions of human eating creatures just running around.

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There are people in this thread who can credibly advance this line of argument, but your post a rarely enough to persuade me you've read the books - let alone your actual point.

As to the rest, I did propose an alternative that doesn't involve releasing the exalts or letting things keep going as they have.

In terms of releasing them one of the serious points of contention here is exactly that, multiple proposals have been made to the effect of letting them go and hunting them down after they get a host. The idea that they can be reliably controlled in this way is dubious at best and the consequences of failure range from catastrophic to deeply unpleasant. As the person in the room it's Molly responsibility to think about these things before acting.

Exalts not being inherently interested in ruling is also crock. Three of their five castes have leadership as a key ability and two of those are specifically about controlling groups. Of the two that don't directly make doing so a core focus one has significant resource requirements for its strongest stuff and a training charm specifically for making minions while the other is anchored in operating within and on human society.

So to sum it up I think your accusation of authoritarianism slip is based purely on what you think the exalted are. Unless you think Martin Luther King jr, Gandhi and Moses all just wanted to be Super Kings forever.

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Those guys aren't the only ones who'd exalt, and even if you're not interested in explicitly being a king that doesn't stop you from effectively becoming one. There's also the issue that people are not all one thing and whoever exalts is going to be acting on all their beliefs.

Take Gandhi for example; he's famous for his protest, but less so for his racism. This doesn't lessen the good work he did, but I wouldn't want to live in a place frozen to his views for his new ten thousand year lifespan.

The rest of the setting is in play and I don't think it'd all go the solar's way, but the capacity to fix things is also the capacity to break them. You can't argue the solars would solve the millions of monsters problem and that they're easily pushed around.

 

[Degorium]

There are people in this thread who can credibly advance this line of argument, but your post a rarely enough to persuade me you've read the books - let alone your actual point.

As to the rest, I did propose an alternative that doesn't involve releasing the exalts or letting things keep going as they have.

In terms of releasing them one of the serious points of contention here is exactly that, multiple proposals have been made to the effect of letting them go and hunting them down after they get a host. The idea that they can be reliably controlled in this way is dubious at best and the consequences of failure range from catastrophic to deeply unpleasant. As the person in the room it's Molly responsibility to think about these things before acting.

Exalts not being inherently interested in ruling is also crock. Three of their five castes have leadership as a key ability and two of those are specifically about controlling groups. Of the two that don't directly make doing so a core focus one has significant resource requirements for its strongest stuff and a training charm specifically for making minions while the other is anchored in operating within and on human society.



Those guys aren't the only ones who'd exalt, and even if you're not interested in explicitly being a king that doesn't stop you from effectively becoming one. There's also the issue that people are not all one thing and whoever exalts is going to be acting on all their beliefs.

Take Gandhi for example; he's famous for his protest, but less so for his racism. This doesn't lessen the good work he did, but I wouldn't want to live in a place frozen to his views for his new ten thousand year lifespan.

The rest of the setting is in play and I don't think it'd all go the solar's way, but the capacity to fix things is also the capacity to break them. You can't argue the solars would solve the millions of monsters problem and that they're easily pushed around.

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You're doing it again. No exalt exists in a vacuum no corner of this world is free of things that are praying on humans. Leadership as a key ability doesn't mean they want to be or aspired to be king you use it to organize efforts as well as lead troops to Be an leader of any stripe you need the leadership skill, now can you say that needing the leadership skill to be able to organize things or otherwise lead prayer or act as a community leader effectively is kind of stretching what the leadership skill is for maybe. Only Zeniths and their Midnight mirrors have King as their moniker.

So we're going to ignore the fact that the white Council the people who specifically have a organization meant to keep magical humans from running the world are going to what let the fact that these people want to do stuff like that slide. We going to ignore the fact that both Lunars and Sidereals have a vested interest in not letting solars and their derivatives arise to endless positions of power.

We're going to ignore the fact that there are existing Supernaturals in government that are also going to resist them. Going to ignore the fact that yet again because exalts are people aren't going to uniformly want to rule and in fact going to be rather against any other exalts ruling as well.

 

[Narasan]

I dont think the solars would save the world.
I dont think the solars would destroy the world.
I think releasing the solars is an extreme option, and what they would do depends interely on interpretation from the writer,even more so than normal, cause the only real requirements i know of are being human and being "special". having extra requirements is nice, but an illusion. exalted break rules. its what they do.
Getting a few to ally with would be great, getting them all out would be hitting a randomize button for the setting. I think before we have any plans on massexaltation, we need more research on them.
-Are they still cursed?
-who is deciding who gets exalted? no one? cause i remember at least some exaltations were held by gods.
-is there some divination in the setting powerful enough to keep the damage to a...well i want to say minimum but it wont be small
-is there something like a perfect warning system that says in one month apocalypse? because i would like to have a giant solar button for that situation

there are probably lots more questions we need answered i cant think of right now. and even if we have answers, this will still be contested.
Love the discussion.
Seriously the thing i didnt like before was that options werent even discussed.

 

[BoredMan]

Also, I think that yours and mine definition of a hero differ very much.

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Yog this is not a hill you want to die on. Greek heroes were paragons of their time and culture. A lot of them including the example you used killed and raped innocents. You don't consider people like that to be Superman tier right? The word hero has changed in definition in 'recent' years.

 

[Yog]

Exalts not being inherently interested in ruling is also crock. Three of their five castes have leadership as a key ability and two of those are specifically about controlling groups. Of the two that don't directly make doing so a core focus one has significant resource requirements for its strongest stuff and a training charm specifically for making minions while the other is anchored in operating within and on human society

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Leadership is not rulership. A lead singer in a band is likely to roll leadership. A project lead in essentially any project will roll leadership. Etc. A large number of exalts won't be rulers. Leaders, yes, but not rulers. Especially when there's no societal expectations for everyone with golden powers to become ruling political class.

 

[Degorium]

I dont think the solars would save the world.
I dont think the solars would destroy the world.
I think releasing the solars is an extreme option, and what they would do depends interely on interpretation from the writer,even more so than normal, cause the only real requirements i know of are being human and being "special". having extra requirements is nice, but an illusion. exalted break rules. its what they do.
Getting a few to ally with would be great, getting them all out would be hitting a randomize button for the setting. I think before we have any plans on massexaltation, we need more research on them.
-Are they still cursed?
-who is deciding who gets exalted? no one? cause i remember at least some exaltations were held by gods.
-is there some divination in the setting powerful enough to keep the damage to a...well i want to say minimum but it wont be small
-is there something like a perfect warning system that says in one month apocalypse? because i would like to have a giant solar button for that situation

there are probably lots more questions we need answered i cant think of right now. and even if we have answers, this will still be contested.
Love the discussion.
Seriously the thing i didnt like before was that options werent even discussed.

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To go down the list of your things here no one is talking about Mass exaltation except bronzetongue. The exalted are no longer cursed. The mechanism for who gets exalted is contained within the exaltation so no one but also the exaltation itself. There are tons of methods of divination Heck if we wanted to we could learn a powerful enough divination to do that . The only thing to a perfect warning system for the apocalypse would be the Sidereals and maybe the white God but you can definitely count on one of those to be able to actually tell you without possibly accelerating the Apocalypse.

 

[Kemayo]

The world of the Dresden Files isn't running face first into an apocalypse, this stuff is business as usual. We have time to actually make things better via actions like magitech uplift instead of gambling on overpowered failures championing things that should stay dead.

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It's perhaps worth noting that, per Butcher, the Dresden Files is explicitly heading towards a "big apocalyptic trilogy" as its capstone. Granted, based on the timeline and where we are now that's probably at least a decade or so away... unless a flurry of exalts accelerated everything, of course.

The nature of the Solar Deliberative in First Age Creation straight up disproves this shit.
The Sidereals didnt decide to slaughter the Solars because the maniacs and the reckless risktakers were in a minority.

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Not sure we can use the Deliberative as a good example of how a lot of Solars getting released in ExWoD would behave, because the Deliberative was running on a few thousand years of (unknowingly) mainlining the Great Curse. Since that's no longer a factor, a New Deliberative might be much less horrifying.

 

[Yog]

Are they still cursed?

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No. Great curse is gone.

Yog this is not a hill you want to die on. Greek heroes were paragons of their time and culture. A lot of them including the example you used killed and raped innocents. You don't consider people like that to be Superman tier right? The word hero has changed in definition in 'recent' years.

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The hill I am dying on is that in modern world "american mainstream comic book superhero" is not equivalent to "hero". Which is the narrative that seems to be pushed

 

[Kemayo]

The hill I am dying on is that in modern world "american mainstream comic book superhero" is not equivalent to "hero". Which is the narrative that seems to be pushed

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I think the argument isn't that a modern superhero isn't a hero, but rather that an Exaltation's selection-criteria isn't tied to its current cultural milieu. I.e. it won't go "okay, what do the people here think is a hero?" before picking someone, and its traditional selection process doesn't appear to really aim for modern moral paragons.