Hmmph... this junior is a good seed [Cultivation Management Quest]

[occipitallobe]

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Omake Writer Instructions:

There are four fields you need to fill out.

Omake Link, which is just a link to your first omake for the turn. This makes it easier for me to read them as I do the update - without this it's tough to know off the bat which omake were written this turn, and to properly

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All other fields are for QM use to record character information to properly run the flow of the game.

 

[no.]

I need you desperately. Our cause needs you desperately. Join me, and I'll help you seize the entire Desert. We'll throw the Righteous Powers back, and make plans. There is only one chance for my Lord, Manuel Komnenos. Only one chance for me, only one chance for all your people. Join with me and seize it. I can't guarantee victory, but together we'll have a chance. Nothing more than that. If we win, you can end Blood Path yourself if you'd like. Rule the whole Third Sea as you please. Kill every criminal like me, for all that matters. All I ask is that you overthrow Heaven before it crushes us under its heel."

Click to shrink...

...I ship it

 

[kitsune9]

I have to admit that I was wrong earlier when I didn't think that his stated goal would be to topple heaven. I'm still not all that interested in taking it but maybe I can be convinced that it's the right choice.

 

[cheesyme]

Actually, this makes me wonder if it's possible that the Sea Conquering Army left something around that might be able to contact the Devil's old homeland and ask for some measure help.

Click to shrink...

If they did they probably would have already retreated by now.

 

[no.]

I am very glad the moratorium exists, because I have a lot of extremely mixed feelings about this vote. It basically all comes down to whether or not he's right. Is Heaven going to deliberately wipe us out once the Blood Path is gone, no matter what we do or become? If we become squeaky-clean and righteous one day, will be be destroyed anyway? It's hard to tell for sure.

 

[Sara]

I am very glad the moratorium exists, because I have a lot of extremely mixed feelings about this vote. It basically all comes down to whether or not he's right. Is Heaven going to deliberately wipe us out once the Blood Path is gone, no matter what we do or become? If we become squeaky-clean and righteous one day, will be be destroyed anyway? It's hard to tell for sure.

Click to shrink...

I mean, we're pretty squeaky-clean and righteous today compared to heaven's favorites and it tries to wipe us out.

 

[fictionfan]

This is a really hard choice on both moral and practical grounds and I have a hard time weighting the pros and cons either way.

So I am going to instead look at this from a narrative perspective. Which choice is likely to produce the most good seed omakes. How well can our current good seeds fit into either story.

No is fairly easy fighting against blood path is basically the ultimate example of good verse evil. More clear villains are hard to find. Now they might have been somewhat forced into the path by the fact the heavens have cut off all other kinds of cultivation, but all of the successful ones are generally those that jumped in feet first.

Saying yes however, what do our good seeds do then? Help to absorb the Jin. Can't really think of anything else and it doesn't seem like the most exciting story in any case. But in a way it plays right into the heavens hands they seem to deliberately create villains.

 

[nothingtoseehere]

I am very glad the moratorium exists, because I have a lot of extremely mixed feelings about this vote. It basically all comes down to whether or not he's right. Is Heaven going to deliberately wipe us out once the Blood Path is gone, no matter what we do or become? If we become squeaky-clean and righteous one day, will be be destroyed anyway? It's hard to tell for sure.

Click to shrink...

If we joined the Righteous path, I believe the Heavens would settle for slowly assimilating the Clan over time, so that all that would be left in the end would be a Clan with traditions of treating mortals well and a better-than-average organization score.

 

[Kaboomatic]

If we joined the Righteous path, I believe the Heavens would settle for slowly assimilating the Clan over time, so that all that would be left in the end would be a Clan with traditions of treating mortals well and a better-than-average organization score.

Click to shrink...

Source?
Equally as important, how?

 

[TehChron]

Here's another old one, finished up just in time for the end of the turn. Thanks again to Alectai and TehChron for their permission, and triple-thanks to Kaboomatic for his contribution. If parts of this seem a little sloppy, it's because i started it back before turn 9.

Click to shrink...

Was surprised you managed Aretaphilas tone so well tbh

 

[Garlak]

For the twenty-seventh time, Gaius checked his list of things to bring on his trip. The Qigai Secret Realm was a dangerous and confusing place, in which a functionally infinite number of terrifying situations could occur. Worse still, a Cultivator was only allowed to enter the realm once, regaining the privilege for one additional entrance each time they ascended to a new great realm. Thus, he needed to travel light whilst also setting things aside for every possible situation.

Click to shrink...

... Ah, wait, I don't think that's true tho'. It's especially not true for Qi Condensation though, as you can go every turn.

Known Secret Realms

Qiguai Clan Doorway
Qi Condensation: Opens every turn
Foundation Establishment: Opens on Turn 10, 15, 20, 25, etc.
Core Formation: Opens on Turn 25, 40, 55, 70, 85, etc.

Yuan Clan Man-As-World Mountain Array:
Opens on Turn 11, 17, 23, 29, etc.

Click to shrink...

Qiguai Clan

Qiguai Clan are not dissimilar from Yuan Clan. However, they possess a far more interesting secret realm. It is suggested this secret realm is a scale of the Turtle Emperor, floating between two Seas. Qiguai Clan possess a single doorway, opening once every twenty years for Qi Condensation, once every hundred years for Foundation Building, once every five hundred years for Core Formation, and once every thousand years for Nascent Soul. Notably, two-thirds on average of those who enter never return, but those who do find themselves in possession of considerable benefits.

Qiguai Clan allow any to enter, but charge a fee of one-third of the gains.

Qiguai Clan maintain two Nascent Soul cultivators, one in mid and one in early - they historically raise a new Nascent Soul cultivator a hundred years or so before the Nascent Soul Door opens, and send them in to either death, or tremendous benefit to the clan.

(A note here. Good Seeds can choose to enter Qiguai Clan's magic doorway in any turn while in Qi Condensation. The chance of death is high, though can be reduced somewhat by Omake. The rewards are commensurate, but death is a very real possibility. Having lifesaving treasures is a must. Ideally 2 or 3.)

Click to shrink...

Qi Condensation is open literally every single turn. Foundation Establishment once every 5 turns. Core Formation once every 15 turns. And you can go back in there whenever it opens for you. You can, theoretically, go in there every single turn. You're just super likely to die unless you have "ideally 2 or 3" lifesaving treasures per attempt.

Unless this is meant to be Gaius being incorrect about the Qiguai realm? Which of course is why he is reading papers and journals about it in the first place; because he doesn't know everything about it.

 

[BadAtScreenNames]

First Assignment (Part One of Five)
Maria turn nine fourth omake​

Dawn light was painting the sky pink and gold and orange, that morning. Late for a start off. Didn't much want to waste the time, but orders had come down from on high. Probably for the best. I was nervous enough about this command bullshit. At least I knew how to get this right. My armour was spotless, though, the gravebronze cleanest it had ever been since I got it from the quarter master. Plume on my helmet was properly brushed out, too. All the way. Even the back.

Especially the back.

So I looked like a captain, at least, if you ignored the colour of me. Might have been shit-scared on the inside, but it was hidden well enough. Felt as close to confident as I thought I'd ever manage as I strode into the muster-hall.

Ruined immediately when Letha saw me and started waving.

"Maria! Maria, I'm over- hello!"

Tried not to stare at her. Didn't work, though, so I went over fast as I could, half stalking, half scuttling, praying no-one was paying attention.

"Letha?"

"It's so good to see you! You look fantastic, you really do. And captain! Well-earned, I will say that now."

"Thanks," I said, bulldozing my way into the conversation. You have to, with Letha, or she'll gush at you for hours. Nice gushing, it has to be said. She'll talk about how nice your hair is, or how great that essay you stuck on the contribution board was, or something else. Good at compliments, Letha. But still. Gushing. Lots of it. "But what are you doing here?"

"Oh, didn't they say? You're escorting me." She must see my confusion on my face. "I've been assigned to the tactical corps. They're sending me up to the 302nd​ for a quick update. Very exciting. Lots of fun. But obviously I can't go on my own, so… well. The newest and of course the best captain in the second scorpions is going the same way!"

She beamed. I didn't. This. This was too convenient.

"Letha."

"Now-"

Didn't let her talk.

"Letha. Tell me honestly. This is just coincidence, is it?"

I pitched the voice carefully. Years of working with richer, high-born family legionnaires had taught me the importance of that. You had to get it just sharp enough that they think of the nannies that brought them up.

She blushed. I'd got it right.

"I- now, look, I haven't done anything-"

"Letha."

That did it.

"It was Oyster's fault," she said. Little snitch. If I didn't like her so much I'd have killed her by now. "His clan- they- he found out you were getting promoted, alright? And I was going up to the 302nd​ anyway, I was, but I thought… you know, since we were both… I mean your legion will be following soon anyway!"

"Know that for a fact, do you?"

She nodded, twisting her hands uncomfortably.

"And… well, we haven't… really seen each other since Three Frogs."

I have seen Letha fight. It's impressive. Knows how to use her skills. Seen her kill people, too – took a man's head clean off from three hundred yards away, with an underarm throw. Terrifying woman. You would think that would undercut her puppy dog eyes. And yet.

"Gods, stop looking at me like that. Fuck's sake. Feel like I just killed your dog."

"I don't have one."

"You know that isn't what I meant."

"I had a pet scorpion growing up. Very pretty. Jewelled shell. I called him Sparkles."

"That-"

She giggled.

"...Bitch."

"Yes," said Letha, affectionately. "Now stop being annoyed."

"I had control of that conversation," I muttered rebelliously.

"Briefly, yes."

"Fine. Yes. Alright. It is nice that you are here. Now shut up and look scared, meeting my new squad today."

"Would that be them over there?"

She gestured, and I glanced back. Six legionnaires, clad in gleaming gravebronze. Five greenhorns. Moved too slow, too unpracticed. Not watching their sides yet. That'd need fixing. But the sixth...

"Ah, fuck," I muttered.

I knew the sixth. He towered over the others, stalking like a panther towards us. Bronze in his blood showing through clearly, even at the seventh heavenstage, hair shining gold. And his eyes…

"That one, um… appears to hate you," muttered Letha. "Considering the- you know. The glaring."

"Right."

"There's a lot of it."

"Yeah."

"At you-"

"Yes, thank you Letha."

Draconis Kalokagathos. One of the best and brightest in the legion. Everyone thought he'd be a shoe-in for captain. Clearly he had, too.

Well. I'd known this was going to suck. No reason to be more upset because I'd been right. "Shut up and look scared," I growled, before pulling myself to my full height. "SQUAD! FALL IN!"

I went for "angry dawn fortress training centurion" this time. Seemed a safer bet. Worked, too, for most of them, snapping into formation in straight parade-rest with no visible input from their brains. Draconis followed suit, too. Perfectly positioned. Nothing to fault him on.

"'M Maria," I drawled, watching their faces. "I have one job. To tell you fuckwitted idiots what to do. You have one job. To do what I tell you. See how those line up?"

Silence.

"ASKED A FUCKING QUESTION, LEGIONNAIRES!"

"YES CAPTAIN!" They bellowed in unison.

"Good. You can learn. Impressive, for pondscum. Now. We have two jobs today. Job the first, the easy one, is escort this woman, Letha Economos, to the 302nd​. Very easy job. Even you can't fuck it up. Walk along the Scorpion road, leave her off in the right place. Those of you who struggle with walking, I'll paint L and R on your sandals. Second job is harder."

I picked one of the greenhorns – a stocky girl, her turtle-blood heritage showing through in her eyes and lips.

"You like hard jobs, legionnaire?"

She nodded, staring ahead.

"Yes captain."

"Wonderful. So do I. Second job means we are the first members of the 263rd​ to serve on the Fearless Line. The honour of the Second Scorpions will rest on our shoulders. Heavy thing, honour. We are not going to drop it. Are we?"

"NO CAPTAIN!"

"Good. You keep impressing me like this, might just make actual optimatoi out of you yet. Any questions?"

"Why us?" Draconis's voice was calm, sharp, and empty. No emotion. His eyes were freezing a hole in my forehead. "The 263rd​ has other squads that have been together longer. We're new-formed. Why are we the first to go ahead?"

The Red Place started muttering in my skull. Fucking clan kids had a way of making it antsy. I shushed it.

"You afraid of a little rough play, legionnaire Kalokagathos?" I let the anger seep out into my tone, just enough to make it clear how thin the ice he was walking on had gotten.

He didn't blink. "No captain."

"So why the question?"

"Said it yourself, captain. Honour is a heavy thing."

...Fucker. I could see, in the little twist at the corner of his lip, that hint of a smirk, that he was looking for a fight. Of course he did. It must be twisting in his gut, seeing my pins chime against my breastplate. Some turtle-blood freak, skin like a corpse in a snow-drift, giving him orders. He wanted me to snap. To hit him, scream at him. Give him the excuse to take this higher.

Worst part was, if I was a real captain, instead of an idiot front-liner in way over her head, I'd still probably let loose right now. Scream. Bellow. Get him wasting his time with stupid tasks. Reinforce the chain of command.

But I couldn't do that. Not to him. It'd be like watching a monkey in a circus dress up like a person; a hollow, silly little game, no more real or authoritative than a child playing. And worse, the bastard knew it.

So I smiled thinly at him.

"Glad to hear you're so attentive. Don't you worry about why, legionnaire. Just be thankful. Glory by the bucketload, where we're going."

"Captain."

"You have thirty minutes," I said to the rest of them. "Get your gear packed. We leave by the west gate. You're late, I'll gut you and use your chest cavity as a luggage bag. Dismissed."

They scampered away. Draconis lingered for a long moment, something like a smile slithering over his lips, and then he was gone.

"Fuck," I muttered. Letha shot me a worried look.

"Why didn't you-"

"Don't. Alright? Just don't."

And that's how my first command started.

---

Know what this is? This is me, like an idiot, trying to write a full series directly before the good seed report's due out. Why yes, I am a fucking idiot, thanks for noticing! Still enjoying the first person perspective though. Let's see if that sticks. Also, @Siual , I apologise, but that barely mentioned npc from my earlier omake appears to have developed a life of his own. As always, let me know if you want me to edit him out. @TehChron @Humbaba @Kaboomatic may I have a threadmark, please?

 

[Sirrocco]

So here's what I'm seeing.

- The wrath of Heaven against us has been diminishing, and the power of the Shadow has been growing. Heaven's wrath against us is not infinite. It does expend itself, and once it does, it is not replenished. Now, the spiritual head of the Blood Path, whose Way is utterly wrapped up in the idea that all of the horrible things he's done over the years have been critical to oppose Heaven? That man is completely convinced that the Blood Path is performing a vital role in opposing heaven, and that it's super-critical to the cause of opposing heaven, and that there aren't any alternate or better ways to do it. He is convinced that the thing he's made of his life is still an honorable if evil thing, rather than an utter, horrific waste. I don't think we can really call him unbiased, though.

- Heaven isn't doing just one thing. Heaven continues to bless. Heaven continues to provide tribulations. Heaven's wrath against us is finite, and slowly expending, but it's not that they're completely bond up in opposing blood path and can't do anything other than oppose blood path while here because Heaven is still doing other things. The fact that they do not continue to curse us is not because the Blood Path exhausts their capacities - it is clear by their other interactions that their capacities are not, in fact, exhausted.

- Not all uses of the thing called "Blood Path" are cursed. Only eating others for power is cursed. All of the other stuff around the edges seems to be a-okay, as far as heavenly curses go. It's pretty much just a prohibition against cannibalism.

- The Blood Path has had a long time to wage war against Heaven, and it's losing. Slowly. So... joining in on that war, on that front? What's the gain, here? How does he actually propose that "Bronze Devils join in the war against the righteous powers, and take the desert for themselves" is supposed to result in "and therefore Heaven is defeated"? The tools he has have failed. They are crude and brutish and obvious, and they are losing. What tools we have... are not. They are subtle (the shadow) and paradigm-defying (the single-pillar method). The single-pillar cultivators aren't seeing any curses now that they've broken through, in spite of the fact that they're apparently direct challenges to the paradigm of heaven. Maybe if the Altar Lord's beloved master had managed to find a heaven-breaking path that wasn't fundamentally horrible, then things would be working out differently.

So... I guess what I'm saying is that I'm a "no" vote.

 

[no.]

... Ah, wait, I don't think that's true tho'. It's especially not true for Qi Condensation though, as you can go every turn.


Qi Condensation is open literally every single turn. Foundation Establishment once every 5 turns. Core Formation once every 15 turns. And you can go back in there whenever it opens for you. You can, theoretically, go in there every single turn. You're just super likely to die unless you have "ideally 2 or 3" lifesaving treasures per attempt.

Unless this is meant to be Gaius being incorrect about the Qiguai realm? Which of course is why he is reading papers and journals about it in the first place; because he doesn't know everything about it.

Click to shrink...

The Qigai realm is available every turn when you're in QC, but you can only go in once per Great Realm. Same is true for Yuan. Secret Realms would be too game breaking otherwise, despite the significant risks.

 

[Alectai]

No

Not only no, but Hell No

Let me count the ways.

1) Means Inform The Ends
This is a conscious decision here, to throw away our pride and our legacy in the face of a silver tongued trickster, to accept that no price is too great to achieve victory. This is In deepest error, because good cannot rise from foul means. I'll give him credit, I honestly believe Altar Lord's ideal is honest, and that he's not actually hiding anything from us using some shady tricks (Which was, in fact, foreshadowed--he literally deleted the existence of his memories and just left clues around back in his base so he could figure them out again from first principles--this suggests that he's hiding important details). Look upon those who are the Altar Lord's hands in the world though. Absolute monsters who are willing to pay any price for power, who twist and corrode and mutilate the world at the expense of all the people who live in it--in most cases? For power--not for some high ideal, but because it makes them strong, and being strong is virtuous.

To tie our cause to the Noble Devil Alliance is to surrender our autonomy forevermore, to people who have no reason to respect us--to aid in the snowballing of literal monsters barely held in check by a dying man who's willing to pay any price to break the Heavens. What happens if they just decide to... Wipe us out on their own at some point without telling him? He barely holds the Demonic Altar in check--and that power is explicitly limited only to the immediate presence of the Altar--beyond it? He is 'Merely' a Late Nascent Soul.

Deciding that aiding and abetting monsters will make things better for you is assuming those monsters won't turn and eat your face afterwards, and if the Altar Lord could control his own subordinates, we wouldn't be in this position in the first place. No

2) They Have No Endgame
There is no outcome in which the Noble Devil Alliance wins that leads to a satisfying worldstate. Altar Lord seems to have a plan in mind... But notably, he makes explaining it contingent on siding with him. He doesn't even think to himself that he'll win, which will leave us facing the entire Righteous Path's genuine and deserved wrath in the aftermath, when he has no ability to ensure that we survive that retaliation. He does seem to find the existence of Single Pillar experts to be a promising sign, and I can see why--but he has not even hinted what we'll need to do to make this outcome clear--unless we've already committed to it and fallen into the trap of...

3) Soup Chef's Fundamental Error
"If your desired goal is of infinite value, then the logical extension is that you are willing to pay an infinite price to make it happen." If you don't have a line in the sand that you will not cross, then you've already backed yourself into a corner where you either kill, dominate, or destroy everything else. No good can come of that.

The Demonic Soup Chef implemented a philosophy of mass murder to fuel advancement, he spread legacies throughout the world to ensure that others would carry the torch after he was gone. His adherents are almost universally monsters--and the Altar Lord is no exception, for all that he's a genial fellow who really hates what he's doing... But he has all the power--and he's letting them do it anyway.

If he's an example of one closest to the Soup Chef's philosophy--then we can infer a very dangerous logical hole here--and when you consider that he's actively refusing to tell us the Plan until we're already committed to the cause and have no way of backing out... It suggests that if he were to explain the plan first we would tell him "Hell no", even if that's the reasonable choice when you're trying to entice someone into an insurrection. If you want someone to be a partner in your cause, you want them to know what they're getting into. Instead, he hammered the cultural fear and terror of the Heavens into Manuel's head and spun a story about how we're only doing okay now because the Heavens are busy suppressing the Blood Path.

Except that doesn't fit, does it?

How would he know the state of the other Seas? How would he know that we are the Last of the Sea Conquering Army? He's not a god, he's not omniscient--he's playing on every little fear and expectation we have to convince us to temporarily ignore that he is running a cabal of literal apocalypse cultists and can only rein them in within the direct vicinity of their foundational treasure.

What he wants, is to stir up Manuel's fear--his paranoia--and offer a solution, but keep it vague until we're committed. Once we take that first step? Well, he can trust Manuel's own love for the Clan to do the rest. It's literal Cult Recruitment Tactics 101, and it's working because he's a silver tongued bastard who's destroying his own memories.

Which leads to the final Problem.

4) Why did he wait until we were starting to win to make an offer?

Nothing about Manuel's Dao has changed since the day he became a Nascent Soul, and he was beneath notice.

Nothing about Manuel's Dao has changed since he rose to become Archgetes, and he was beneath notice.

Nothing about Manuel's Dao has changed since the Heaven's Shadow first directly spoke to him, and he was beneath notice.

Only now, here, that we are in a Strong position, is he apparently a key player who must be courted and brought in on the conspiracy.

Nothing in Manuel's Dao has changed, nothing in his policies has changed.

The only thing that changed, is that the Strength Purity Sect had the gall to attack the Demonic Altar, and whatever happened there (That again, even Altar Lord is taking great care to not bring up despite this being enough to bind every other Demonic power to their cause in truth), spooked the entire Demonic Path to uniting.

That's all.

Which suggests to me he's not making this offer for our benefit. But solely to advance The Cause. If he has to betray, offend, or compel others to get his desire (Again, that whole "If my goal is infinitely valuable, I am willing to pay an infinite price to get it" problem), he'll do so without hesitation.

And while we are broken and a mere shadow of ourselves... Well, we've at least avoided the narrative of devouring each other and becoming an infighting wreck, I wonder how much of the Shadow's existence hinges on this?

I mean, in a sense, the Shadow of Heaven is us, the contributors of Sidestory and drivers of the Good Seeds. When you consider that this is--in the case of at least some players (Some of which are highly prolific even!) A betrayal of what we have built in favor of becoming Just Another Demonic Faction seems like a good way to Weaken the Shadow--which, when you goal is to literally smash the machinery, there's no Shadow left in the aftermath either, is there?

And I like what the Clan's become too much to backslide back to the Sea Conquering Army's ways, or to become an appendage of the Demonic Altar Sect and becoming literal fucking vampires.

I want to beat the setting, I want to make the backbiting Cultivator shit a thing of the past, in favor of a world of enlightenment where people seek insights for their own beauty instead of for the power they offer. I can't get that if our goal becomes "Burn it all down and dance in the ashes" And that's our only option left at that point.

I'm not saying 'Be meek', I'm not saying 'Submit to Heaven'. You only get to bargain if you're strong, and we have a chance to become strong again by staying the course. Trust our Good Seeds to show us a new way, because the Blood Path is a failure for anyone but the creature that carved it out in the first place--it's literally the path of 'Become strong by making everyone else pay the cost I should have paid to get there'. The only one who wins is the first one to the table.

 

[no.]

- Not all uses of the thing called "Blood Path" are cursed. Only eating others for power is cursed. All of the other stuff around the edges seems to be a-okay, as far as heavenly curses go. It's pretty much just a prohibition against cannibalism.

Click to shrink...

You're confusing the Demonic Path with the Blood Path. Being Demonic just means you refuse to follow the equivalent of the Cultivator Geneva Convention. Blood Path is the art of absorbing cultivation from other humans. This doesn't necessarily have to be through eating them; that was just how the Blood Cannibals did it, because they had a technique that increased the Blood Path's efficiency via physically ingesting a person's body.

 

[TehChron]

I want to beat the setting, I want to make the backbiting Cultivator shit a thing of the past, in favor of a world of enlightenment where people seek insights for their own beauty instead of for the power they offer. I can't get that if our goal becomes "Burn it all down and dance in the ashes"

Click to shrink...

Eh, perfectly valid concerns

I just believe that the worst case scenario you're painting wont come to pass, so the offer can be taken with some degree of safety

Setting aside that I dont consider the Righteous Path any better than the Demonic or even the Blood specifically

 

[Alectai]

Eh, perfectly valid concerns

I just believe that the worst case scenario you're painting wont come to pass, so the offer can be taken with some degree of safety

Setting aside that I dont consider the Righteous Path any better than the Demonic or even the Blood specifically

Click to shrink...

I don't either, but assuming they're a monolithic block of Heavenly Slaves is also a hell of a stretch.

It's not a god damn switch Heaven pulls to turn people into robots that act on their behalf after all, it works on an incentive system, and it's not proactive like Altar Lord claims it to be.

 

[TehChron]

I don't either, but assuming they're a monolithic block of Heavenly Slaves is also a hell of a stretch.

It's not a god damn switch Heaven pulls to turn people into robots that act on their behalf after all, it works on an incentive system, and it's not proactive like Altar Lord claims it to be.

Click to shrink...

Oh I don't disagree

It's just the Righteous powers are a great example of the old adage about evil.need only good men to do nothing

Let alone joining in

So it's just a matter of which pile of Moral repugnance you'd prefer to tie yourself to, and I would rather side with the one I believe we could reliably gut in a proverbial alleyway later on down the line

 

[Sirrocco]

You're confusing the Demonic Path with the Blood Path. Being Demonic just means you refuse to follow the equivalent of the Cultivator Geneva Convention. Blood Path is the art of absorbing cultivation from other humans. This doesn't necessarily have to be through eating them; that was just how the Blood Cannibals did it, because they had a technique that increased the Blood Path's efficiency via physically ingesting a person's body.

Click to shrink...

Ah. Yes. On re-reading, I see that I was conflating "demonic blood arts" with "blood path", and they are not the same.

At the same time, absorbing cultivation from other humans is a sort of spiritual cannibalism, regardless of whether you are doing it through digestion. That is waht I had meant.

Huh. I wonder how the Magic Oak Sect thing works with the Blood Path curse. It's pretty clearly Blood Path, but their entire schtick seems using it to touch on blood path without turning into village-eaters, and if "receive any acorn-related gains" is enough to trigger the blood path curse and make every other source of gains useless to you (thus dooming you to either be a villlage-eater or lose cultivation entirely), then that's.... weird.

 

[no.]

After giving things some more thought, I have come to a conclusion:

I don't think Altar Lord is necessarily wrong about the idea that Heaven will somehow try to mop up the Golden Devils 10,000 years from now. It's fundamentally impossible to know whether he's right or not, because he's talking about cosmic forces that are WAY above our current scope. So, for the sake of argument, let's presume he's right.

He's still an asshole.

Honestly my biggest thing is that working with a guy like him would just... make the quest too bleak for my tastes? I guess that's weird coming from me since Gaius' overarching story is a Greek Tragedy where a good man is destroyed by his hubris, but... ick. I dunno, playing the unequivocal main villain faction for a really long time doesn't seem like it would be a very satisfying narrative. Playing a villain can be fun, but you've gotta set that up ahead of time. I wouldn't mind an arc where the Devils get morally darker for a while to pursue a certain goal, but this is a bit much.

Still, going back to the theoretical idea that Altar Lord is right... that would probably make for a really fucking cool sequel. If we do end up having to fight the forces of Heaven directly at some point, I'd be down to play that game. Not because I'm particularly interested in like, colonizing the setting to make it nicer, or whatever, but because that would make for some very compelling stories.

So, either Altar Lord is wrong and thus we shouldn't join him, or he's right and I still don't want to join him.

 

[Sirrocco]

Oh I don't disagree

It's just the Righteous powers are a great example of the old adage about evil.need only good men to do nothing

Let alone joining in

So it's just a matter of which pile of Moral repugnance you'd prefer to tie yourself to, and I would rather side with the one I believe we could reliably gut in a proverbial alleyway later on down the line

Click to shrink...

I can see your argument here, but... there are degrees of moral repugnance.

Like, the "Righteous" Path is full of assholes, who will randomly do Obnoxious Xianxia Things to the peasantry (like, say, forcing their own father to kowtow and apologize for implying that his filthy blood has anything to do with them), and justify it with logically and ethically questionable handwaving, while their "righteous" buddies smile and nod approvingly. That's true... and the Blood Path won't do that... because in the Blood Path version of the story, every single member of that family who wasn't taken as a cultivator has already been consumed for power, probably after horrific torture, and the cultivator in question maybe has dad's ever-suffering soul bound to a piece of his flayed skin, never to know surcease or rest. You know. Something to remember the old man by.

I'm willing to accept that both are morally repugnant... but there's a rather severe difference in degree, and that matters.

 

[no.]

Ah. Yes. On re-reading, I see that I was conflating "demonic blood arts" with "blood path", and they are not the same.

At the same time, absorbing cultivation from other humans is a sort of spiritual cannibalism, regardless of whether you are doing it through digestion. That is waht I had meant.

Huh. I wonder how the Magic Oak Sect thing works with the Blood Path curse. It's pretty clearly Blood Path, but their entire schtick seems using it to touch on blood path without turning into village-eaters, and if "receive any acorn-related gains" is enough to trigger the blood path curse and make every other source of gains useless to you (thus dooming you to either be a villlage-eater or lose cultivation entirely), then that's.... weird.

Click to shrink...

From what I understand about how their ritual works, they essentially have a cheat code that lets them sacrifice 80% of their top thousand or so disciples to hugely elevate the rest of them immediately. Essentially getting through the attrition that would have happened anyway to immediately gain access to more elites. This doesn't metaphysically count as Blood Path because... well, this is a bit crude but. If losing access to other kinds of cultivation is a venereal disease, then the Magic Oak is a condom.

 

[Alectai]

Agreed.

It's like going "Barbaric Savages are on the same level as Reavers and we should consider them comparably evil for the purpose of our thought exercise".

 

[TehChron]

I'm willing to accept that both are morally repugnant... but there's a rather severe difference in degree, and that matters.

Click to shrink...

I vehemently disagree

If you're willing to compromise, it doesnt really matter how far you're stretching your standards. Only that you are. Because at that point we're not talking about other people. We're talking about ourselves.

 

[Sirrocco]

I vehemently disagree

If you're willing to compromise, it doesnt really matter how far you're stretching your standards. Only that you are. Because at that point we're not talking about other people. We're talking about ourselves.

Click to shrink...

Uh... no? No. I'm going to go with "no" on this one. I don't buy it.

Differences in degree matter. You're basically saying that once you make any moral compromises at all, then the degree doesn't matter. That for someone with a moral standard to not inflict unnecessary cruelty, there should be no difference between kicking a dog and slowly torturing it and its owner to death. Both are "stretching the standard" after all - it's just a matter of how far. That sort of stance looks to me like it has value only in justifying atrocities. "If I'm not going to hold perfectly to my previously stated morals, then I should ignore the concept of morality altogether."

I mean, am I wrong here? Did I misunderstand and you meant something else? I'm okay with being wrong. Honestly, in this case, I think I might prefer it.

Point of clarity: I'm not suggesting that we should embrace the xianxia idiocy of the Righteous sects either. I'm just asserting that there's a big flippin' difference between the two, morally speaking, and that, no really, it does matter.