It's a Girl's World -- And Lilly wants Adventure

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This is just conjecture, but another possibility about high divergence is that it strengthens the Maw/increases the chance of inversion options by weakening the Ethos in question. Or maybe it's not like that at all, and it just retards their growth by forcing them to do things they're not specialized in.

I wonder if we'll ever work out a way to communicate directly with the origin entities. That would be awfully helpful.
 
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Edifier said:
Ambitious. Here's hoping wololo works on capricious chaos gods. Aiming real high.
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Hey, Lilly is the [Cleaver of Fortune]. One-in-a-million chances are something to aim for because it outright states that such improbable events tend to land in our favor!
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Okay, I don't entirely expect it to actually work, but it would be amusing if it did, right?
Someday, if we live long enough, we'll find out that we infect nearby Maw-beings with our Inherent Goodness thus unleash a new, moderately horrifying but disturbingly friendly force upon the world. Everyone likes getting hugs from terrifying, all-devouring horrors from beyond the void, right?
 
Razzocnor said:
Hey, Lilly is the [Cleaver of Fortune]. One-in-a-million chances are something to aim for because it outright states that such improbable events tend to land in our favor!
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Counting on a Concordance Ethos to help us against Null when he says he could explain everything about Concordance probably isn't the best idea
 
Okay, so, secret challenges. We should probably be looking at those, too.

...Anybody got any ideas for where? Other than "who the heck is that poem?"
 
TheBiggerFish said:
Okay, so, secret challenges. We should probably be looking at those, too.

...Anybody got any ideas for where? Other than "who the heck is that poem?"
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Figuring out stuff about the Garden of Statues/[Dream]? We know Lilly is close and basically just missing one piece.

I also wonder if untangling Ladder's technobabble is part of it. I'm not convinced pre/post factor is a min/max type thing on our odds, at least not entirely. That reads to me as more in line with Silva's Concodrance lecture. I'm thinking it's closer to past/future.

Perhaps something along the lines of this: We know that reality is less "real" than it appears. Rather than thinking we're in a concretely defined moment, we inhabit some kind of probability distribution. As such, there's a kind of fluidity to everything we're reading. Lilly is probably in her house with her family and Valerie, there's probably too much "weight"/observation/agreement for that to be realistically changed. But details... details can be fudged, if you know what you're doing and have the right skills. To look at the spreadsheet's new description of this skill: "Can ping a brief summary of some of base statistics of Gravitic Junctures that have not become fully Post-Factored." From that, I think "Post-Factored" means it's been "locked in" as having actually happened.

So let's take the current situation in the house:

|Upcoming Gravitic Juncture: 16 Seconds| Silas Family {{Slaughter}}, Liatris and Lilly Silas {{Fragment Harvest}} Event |Current Pre-Factor: 84%| |Current Post-Factor: -7%| Concord Node 'Lilly Silas' capable of circumvention? Yes. Gravitic Actor Factor: 58%

The Gravitic Juncture is an event: Liatris and Lilly being harvested, and it will happen in 16 seconds. I'm thinking Pre-Factor might be more along the lines of: "The reason this is likely to happen is based more on the influence of past events (Lilly and co. are stopped, Valerie has the upper-hand.)" Now something that bugs me is that of our limited sample size of two, Post-Factor has always been expressed as a negative percent so I'm left wondering is 0% the "lock in" point or can it go positive and it's 100%? I'm honestly leaning towards the former but I'm just winging it there. Gravitic Actor Factor is... interesting. Placement suggests it refers to Lilly but I'm not so sure it's just some flat modifier to the odds. For one thing, as a +/- it doesn't match up with the Pre/Post numbers. Is it saying that Lilly's actions in this span of time make up a bit over half of the outcome here (with the majority of the remaining 42% likely being Valerie?) is it literally our DC (or n - DC, or something) on a baseline plan?

|Upcoming Gravitic Juncture: 45 Hours| Myah Uyle [These Bonds I bear] {{Inversion/'Synchronicity Restoration'}} No-Return Horizon Event |Current Pre-Factor: 33%| |Current Post-Factor: -94%| Concord Node 'Lilly Silas' capable of circumvention? Yes. Gravitic Actor Factor: 74%

Myah's sitrep does give me some pause, not so much on my general idea but on how I'm trying to interpret the percentages. Sure, Myah's immediate situation is less dire than Lilly's given its the difference between 45 hours and 16 seconds but I'd still have expected the Pre-Factor to be higher if I'm right about it being past event influence on the outcome. Post-Factor is far lower which... I guess under my theory would mean it's far, far less closer to become "solid reality" but is that because there's more time to influence the event or because in the grand scheme of the world at large Myah is likely far less significant than the Valerie drama so it's just far less likely to be "recorded" as something that absolutely happened in a hypothetical history book written much later? Or can these things invert too and -94% is actually a really scary number? I think the higher Actor Factor here lends credence to the idea that Lilly has a greater chance to influence the situation here which based on the update would appear to bear out.
 
Nah, we were apparently close enough to the third one at some point in our speculation that it was denied on a technicality, and I don't think "Valerie is going to be right fucking there when we go home, and possibly done by the time we get home if we didn't have the foresight to grind {Riemannian Geometer} in our training session here and also get a good roll" was on the list of Things Being Speculated.

Notably, I wonder if the reason why the 'One Ethos per Human' limit (When we've established that this is more of a guideline than a hard limitation) is because of guys like NULLERROR--that was definitely a Domain he was projecting there, and in theory, it shouldn't be limited only to Foundational Ethos (Since that mostly only makes getting a Domain something as a fundamental aspect of the Ethos since it interacts with the Soul so much. In theory, wouldn't an ancient sorcerer of some stripe be able to develop one from first principles given an extended period of time and exceptional expertise in Concordance? Enough to literally scribble his names and actions off of it?)
 
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Alectai said:
I don't think "Valerie is going to be right fucking there when we go home, and possibly done by the time we get home if we didn't have the foresight to grind {Riemannian Geometer} in our training session here and also get a good roll" was on the list of Things Being Speculated.
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I'm pretty sure I speculated "surprise Valerie" last update in my Wild Mass Guessing Period.

Alectai said:
Notably, I wonder if the reason why the 'One Ethos per Human' limit (When we've established that this is more of a guideline than a hard limitation) is because of guys like NULLERROR--that was definitely a Domain he was projecting there, and in theory, it shouldn't be limited only to Foundational Ethos (Since that mostly only makes getting a Domain something as a fundamental aspect of the Ethos since it interacts with the Soul so much. In theory, wouldn't an ancient sorcerer of some stripe be able to develop one from first principles given an extended period of time and exceptional expertise in Concordance? Enough to literally scribble his names and actions off of it?)
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I'm reasonably convinced that he's just a Maw sublet. A consumed godling, perhaps.
 
Cleaver of fortune could probably affect Lilly's past actions and preparations taken.

Instead of throwing the rock to the right and {ply the line} to make it lands on the left...
To instead {ply the line} at the point where Lilly, the cleaver, decided on which side to throw the rock. Or in which direction out of countless...
I feel like that may be inching into king crimson from JoJo territory.

Instead of effecting the rock across time, Lilly effects herself and her actions across time.
 
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Anyway, adding in my speculation on the Concordance technobabble. I'm thinking based on all of this that Pre-Factor is the accumulated events that are leading to the expected Juncture, and the Post-Factor are unresolved variables that may potentially contribute to the final outcome. So in the case of Myah, with so much shit in flux there with the events that had unfolded, there was a very large percentile chance that the right combination of variables might have just occurred anyway and pulled her out of the death spiral without our intervention anyway. Myah was in critical condition but hadn't hit the final point of no-return yet, so her doomcounter was 33% resolved.

A negative percentile represents a decrease in the net odds, Post-Factoring of -94% suggests that there's a potential reduction of up to 94% in the odds of this happening if nudged correctly at a remove.

The Gravitic Actor then represents an individual who can individually and sharply adjust the odds of an oncoming Event singlehandedly. Lilly has effectively 58% worth of "Odd Tilting" inherent in her person.

This is likely why the Post-Factor of the Slaughter Event is -7%--there's only sixteen seconds left until the event is resolved and the only player on the table who hasn't been resolved who could potentially act in this space is Myah--and as we can see here, she can only potentially reduce the odds of this happening by 7% (Bringing it down to about 81% chance of this happening, still an almost sure thing, the reason it's even this low probably boils down to Valerie's complacency and incompetence in general)

Lilly, by way of being an Observer into the Concordance though, has disproportionate weight, hence why she's recognized as a Gravitic Actor (As someone who has enough power to sway the outcome) and a Concord Node (Which is someone who can alter the odds by observation of the Concordance). She can tilt the odds by 58%, which brings this from a near sure thing happening to being very much anyone's guess, in which case the outcome is resolved through mutual skill instead and the best Actor takes the prize. (Which right there puts an overwhelming advantage in Lilly's court, because she's actually been dealing with being out of her depth and fighting monsters for the past good while, while Valerie's been playing Skyrim with mods that lets her Dragon Shout infinitely and it instantly defeats anything caught in it.)

And given how the terms "Gravitic" are flying around here, I wouldn't be surprised if resolution of Gravitic Junctures is how people generate Gravitas, with the Ethos that had the most to do with this resolved outcome gaining the Lion's Share of the Gravitas involved (Hence why Effervescent Animus' Gravitas just skyrocketed when we used Hybrid Siphon to shield Myah from divination while our other options went up more mildly--effectively resolving the Gravitic Juncture and granting Lilly the grand prize of Gravitas that was tied up in it)

This would explain Lilly's frankly insane Gravitic growth in the recent days. She's been involving herself with major Gravitic Junctions without much Gravitic Weight of her own, which means that she's going to get a disproportionate amount of the Gravitas distributed by the actors because she somehow positioned herself into the optimal pivot point despite only being a minor player in the game
 
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TheBiggerFish said:
...Fair point, so what the heck is causing his Zalgo? Why is he a Child?
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He's definitely something not native to the mortal world, which is pretty much what I've been interpreting that is. Anything sufficiently outside human comprehension gets it, not just apocalyptic cthulu wannabes. As for Child, his level of power or influence? I think someone suggested earlier he's normally kept under control but the watchtowers are empty with everything going on.

Alternatively, I just looked at the chapter again and what the ladder actually says is "Historical aftershocks imply NULLERROR is prone to vindictive retribution and pathological capriciousness." Which might mean my previous assertion is invalid, this thing doesn't actually have a history, and the Ladder is just extrapolating from the ripple effects of its actions on the Concord even if it can't directly observe/predict him. I'm still not convinced it's a maw/colossi sublet but it would definitely be a possibility. In which case it is just a straight up child, at least in the manner that Evie's progenitor was when she contacted Lilly.
 
Maybe post factor is the chance of the event happening after Lilly gets the info from Ladder? I.e. the chances of the event staying the same even with Lilly being informed about it in advanced? Cause the moment Ladder mentioned Myrah the odds of her going Inverted must had went way down as Lilly would do all in her power to fix it
 
Deuterium Dawn said:
He's definitely something not native to the mortal world, which is pretty much what I've been interpreting that is. Anything sufficiently outside human comprehension gets it, not just apocalyptic cthulu wannabes. As for Child, his level of power or influence? I think someone suggested earlier he's normally kept under control but the watchtowers are empty with everything going on.

Alternatively, I just looked at the chapter again and what the ladder actually says is "Historical aftershocks imply NULLERROR is prone to vindictive retribution and pathological capriciousness." Which might mean my previous assertion is invalid, this thing doesn't actually have a history, and the Ladder is just extrapolating from the ripple effects of its actions on the Concord even if it can't directly observe/predict him. I'm still not convinced it's a maw/colossi sublet but it would definitely be a possibility. In which case it is just a straight up child, at least in the manner that Evie's progenitor was when she contacted Lilly.
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There could be more then one Null Error, if Null Error is a category or subset of spirit it could be a newborn that is only now beginning to grow and still have a history of vindictive retribution and pathological capriciousness from the other spirits that were born the same way. We were after told that only specific spirits could be trusted to be contracted.
 
@Alectai you are getting too low percentages for Myah (33 - 94 - 74 = -135).
Normally this happen only when an error is made somewhere.
I think - 94% is the final chance of the situation to effectively happen after all the influence of [Cleaver of Fortune], Lilly, and maybe even other concordance users.
Also, concordant manipulation is hard to stop, which makes me question why in one case it would weight, without our direct intervention, - 7% and in another - 94%.
 
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NotteBoy97 said:
Maybe post factor is the chance of the event happening after Lilly gets the info from Ladder? I.e. the chances of the event staying the same even with Lilly being informed about it in advanced? Cause the moment Ladder mentioned Myrah the odds of her going Inverted must had went way down as Lilly would do all in her power to fix it
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Yeah, I think that makes more sense. 33% chance of happening if Lilly doesn't know, -97% chance of it happening if she does know.

If that's right... It does suggest that as long as we're not completely pants on head retarded, the problem here really is "The hard part isn't stopping Valerie, it's stopping her without killing her or letting her kill anyone else."

Of course, the flipside is that "negative percentiles mostly only make sense when applied to positive precentiles". In which case that says very poor things about our odds here because that implies only a -7% reduction to the 88% (Which is about 6 percent) But if that's applied before we push our Gravitic Weight in, that evens the score.
 
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I think when looking at the gravitic juncture readouts an important clue might be that Myah's inversion/Synchronicity Restoration event is marked as a No-Return Horizon Event. I think that stands in direct relationship to the very high negative Post-Factor value we're seeing:
|Upcoming Gravitic Juncture: 16 Seconds| Silas Family {{Slaughter}}, Liatris and Lilly Silas {{Fragment Harvest}} Event |Current Pre-Factor: 84%| |Current Post-Factor: -7%| Concord Node 'Lilly Silas' capable of circumvention? Yes. Gravitic Actor Factor: 58%

|Upcoming Gravitic Juncture: 45 Hours| Myah Uyle [These Bonds I bear] {{Inversion/'Synchronicity Restoration'}} No-Return Horizon Event |Current Pre-Factor: 33%| |Current Post-Factor: -94%| Concord Node 'Lilly Silas' capable of circumvention? Yes. Gravitic Actor Factor: 74%
My guess would be that Pre- and Post-Factor Values are an indicator for how much Concordance Weight would have to be brought to bear on the Gravitic Juncture to change it either before or after its resolution respectively. (Keep in mind that Concordance powers can change the past as well as the future, you'll remember we were offered [Temporal Redeemer] that was billed as such, so I'd expect readouts like this to consider both directions of influence)
If that was the case it'd make sense to me that it'd be very hard to change Myah's Inversion after the fact due to it being a No-Return Horizon Event, while it'd be comparatively easy to stop the Slaughter of the Silas Family (all you'd have to do would be to avoid us falling under Valerie's control for example) if a Concordance user wanted to change the outcome after the event has happened.
Similarly the amount of Weight you'd have to bring to bear to change the upcoming slaughter sixteen seconds before it happens is pretty dang high, while the weight to stop Myah from Inverting two days before it happens is rather low.
The Gravitic Actor Factor would then be the Weight Lilly could presently bring to bear on each situation. Since we're in the time before the Gravitic Juncture for both events I think only the Pre-Factor percentages are relevant for us. Assuming Lilly applied her full Weight to each Juncture in the direction we want things to develop in, that'd mean we'd be left with a 84%-58%=26% chance of the event still occurring in case of the slaughter and a 33%-74%=-41% chance of Myah inverting.
Those odds pass the smell test to me, as Myah's father has no chance of reclaiming Myah considering the difference in raw power and social position that now exists between us. In comparison while Lilly is powerful, so is Valerie's ability so a remaining 1 in 4 odds of us failing and everyone dying tracks to me as well.
The different Gravitic Actor Factors for both would also track with that, Myah was very much primed to follow us as {Ladder} so helpfully pointed out, so Lilly having nearly complete control over the outcome of the Juncture just by deciding to show up to help Myah or not is very plausible. In comparison the Valerie situation is still very risky as we don't really know how to fight her. If we had listened to {Ladder} wrt rupturing our ear drums I'd expect our Gravitic Actor Factor to be significantly higher as we were more able to control the situation.

Also Alectai, you mentioned resolving a Gravitic Juncture: I'm not convinced that this is actually what is happening, considering that Concordance can change the past. I'd expect Gravitic junctures to keep existing after they have been decided and can be revisited in the future by sufficiently high-powered Concordance users. I'd expect that if we examined these specific junctures in the future somehow we'd see a drastically lower Gravitic Actor Factor value for ourselves, as we don't have any Concordance power to retroactively affect Gravitic Junctures yet.
Considering we're talking about Junctures here, I'd imagine the way it works is closer to railroad tracks, where a specific juncture always exists and the Melange Layer "travels" down the rails until it arrives at the juncture. Once there the event happens and the Melange Layer picks one of the two results of the event to travel down. Which it picks can be influenced both from before it arrived at the juncture and after it arrived there. When altering the past I'd expect that what the concordance user does is basically changing which track the Melange Layer continued down after the juncture, making it so that the Melange Layer had always gone down the new track.

If all this speculation is accurate, this would also mean that this is an incredibly vulnerable moment for Future!Lilly, as any Concordance user that can affect the past and wishes her ill could affect this particular event to cause Valerie have killed us before we got powerful, without even expanding that much power (as the Post-Factor value is only at -7%), so we should do all we can to let as few people as possible know that this event happened to guard ourselves against future Concordance interference.


Edit: thinking more about the Post-Factor value it could also be the amount of Weight a future Concordance user would have to apply to change the outcome at this particular moment of time in Lilly's reference frame. At the moment it would be very easy to help Lilly stop the slaughter just by freeing her from the compulsion, while it would require a lot of effort to bring Myah back on track to Inversion considering that Lilly already knew about the upcoming Murder/Inversion and was on the way to fetching her.
Ultimately we'll have to observe more Gravitic Junctures and ideally look back on past Junctures to get a grip on how these readouts work.
 
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sheep-dodger said:
while it'd be comparatively easy to stop the Slaughter of the Silas Family (all you'd have to do would be to avoid us falling under Valerie's control for example) if a Concordance user wanted to change the outcome after the event has happened.
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We are a concordance user. Would {ply the line} be able to us have retroactively followed Ladders advice, removing her stop command from play?
 
Edifier said:
We are a concordance user. Would {ply the line} be able to us have retroactively followed Ladders advice, removing her stop command from play?
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I think [Cleaver of Fortune] is generally more suited to affect things ahead of you than behind you. If we had picked up [Temporal Redeemer] that'd almost assuredly be possible (assuming we didn't paradox ourselves out of existence by accident).
If [Cleaver of Fortune] was indeed capable of it we have no experience with it anyway, so I very much doubt we could do it without a situation similar to when we shattered {True Song}
 
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