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

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Unseelie said:
Specifically regarding survival!Lilly
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Survival!Lilly or Mindstate!Lilly as the update refers to her is an alternate personality Ev'aclliál's echo put together that would have prioritized the survival of the host body over all else.
Unseelie said:
[Towering Edifice to Heaven]
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This from my understanding, was something of a reward for challenging the dungeon alongside the militia that allows Lilly to, eventually, create a dungeon of her own.
 
Unseelie said:
Maybe I was a bit too tired when I read the last few chapters, but I'm rather confused as to what is going on.
Specifically regarding survival!Lilly and anything concerning [Towering Edifice to Heaven]. What are they? Where did they come from?

Edit: Also, too bad I was too late to vote for the Will form. Mostly-Flesh was my least favourite option.
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As far as I can tell, the Optimizer!Lilly is a single-minded survival focused personality created by old-Evie and intended to replace Lilly's true 'weak' personality. Thankfully, Lilly's true personality was safely hidden in the Dream forest, and Petal, the Prime Tree's new 'human' form, helped Lilly reassert herself.

As for the Tower, that comes from the previous update. Old-Evie was able to give Lilly a significant boost by making it so that Lilly functioned as a location, presumably by granting her a [[Domain]]. This allowed us to select a Foundational Ethos, the Tower, which was then stored in Lilly's new Core Heart. This will eventually allow Lilly to be the center of a mobile Dungeon.

And I got ninja'd, but I'll post anyway.
 
Unseelie said:
Maybe I was a bit too tired when I read the last few chapters, but I'm rather confused as to what is going on.
Specifically regarding survival!Lilly and anything concerning [Towering Edifice to Heaven]. What are they? Where did they come from?

Edit: Also, too bad I was too late to vote for the Will form. Mostly-Flesh was my least favourite option.
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[Towering Edifice To Heaven] is a Foundational Ethos. Usually it would not be integrated into a person, but manifest as a dungeon in Lilly's world, which is why if you look at the character sheet it has entries like "Constructs" and "Entities", because a dungeon has to spawn monsters to fight inside of it after all. The idea behind Foundational Ethea is that they are employed by the powers that run this world in order to shape the world according to their Plan for it. From its description [Towering Edifice To Heaven] is usually deployed when two sides are fighting and the fighting is getting too lopsided for one of the sides. (it's unclear whether it'd be deployed to strengthen the losing side or weaken the stronger one, I think the former)
When we picked up Evie several updates ago, she saw that with some alterations a Foundational Ethos could be integrated into a person instead of the world, so how exactly this is going to manifest in ourselves is a bit of a mystery right now, the most obvious aspect at this point is that we have awareness of our Domain.
The reason that this could be done is due to the pissing match between Flower and Colossi going on that left us with enough weird bits to repurpose that Evie was able to flag us as if we were a valid recipient for a Foundational Ethos.

Survival!Lilly is something that Evie set in motion before she regressed to her baby state. The idea was to remove our human sensibilities and morality to ensure our survival (since Evie is hitching a ride and would like us to survive thank you very much). However as a result of the combination between [Dream Within The Forest], [My Resolution, Thy Bedrock] and the version of Evie that's currently tagging along with us this failed.
 
Thebigpieman said:
This from my understanding, was something of a reward for challenging the dungeon alongside the militia that allows Lilly to, eventually, create a dungeon of her own.
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actually no, our ability to receive a Foundational Ethos was something Evie set up when she joined us, check back to Threadmark Interlude 1.2. We would have gotten the choice of Foundational Ethos after 1.12 either way.
 
Unseelie said:
Wait, does that mean we came extremely close to a bad end again? Just one different Ethos and that would have been it?
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hard to know. Evie had managed to take control over [My Resolution, Thy Bedrock], it was mostly due to [Dream Within The Forest], the {Attuned Locus} specifically who was pushing a backup version of Lilly back to the surface, but the mini!Evie who's with us right now apparently also helped stop original!Evie, locking her out of any further control over ourselves. So I'd assume we could have succeeded without [My Resolution, They Bedrock], but it definitely helped organise ourselves afterward with the new abilities. So a team effort.
 
So, things that come to mind here.

A) Our choices of 'Stuff' that we got to pick in the last Big!Evie choice were "How many things she does before she finally pulls the trigger and hollows Lilly out into an inhuman survival-monster, and in trying to do so getting shut out of further modifications by Little!Evie"

B) It seems what Big!Evie did was that she carved out a bud of her nature that could 'Fit' into the Melange Layer, but then rode that bud down to bypass the usual barriers on Transcendents entering the Melange Layer? Little!Evie is the one who's bound by the agreement she made with our Ethos pick, Big!Evie is not, but as we're finding out here, Little!Evie is the one that ultimately has to authorize any actions taken by Big!Evie, and Little!Evie is a cinnamon roll who will balk at anything that intentionally crosses the line--and Big!Evie seems to have finally expended the last of her remaining influence with setting up the Mindstate.

C) Lilly got a gigantic boost in potential from our picks. [Bedrock] has tremendous synergy with [Dream], and it turned her into a top tier Auron when she used to be a perception monster. [Edifice] also seems to have been what I predicted to be the Artifice focused Foundational Ethos, and for all that it was one of the hardest to grasp, we had [Bedrock] and [Dream] to help smooth that over. We have an avenue to actually getting good gear in the long run now.

D) {Inverted} Ethae are a known element in society, and it's suggested that Inversion can happen even to a functional Ethos, as it was described that "Even the slightest hint of someone with Lilly's ability Inverting would result in a dragnet even Survival!Lilly can't escape"

Okay, so with my initial takeaways complete, we have to look to long term potential. The fact of the matter is that Waters wants us, and according to our new Danger Sense--there's no outcome in the long run that avoids one of us having the other killed.

That is Concerning.

Now, by all indications, he wants Lilly to help him out to the 'East', and I look east and I see an area that seems to be giving way to desert?

Presumably, the Watch seems to think this is a fool's game--given how Captain Martin is sticking his neck out for our sake, is it the border of a Dungeon Zone or something? Is it the border with an army that he wants to use Lilly to... Do something with? There's certainly no known settlements out in that direction, and I don't think the entire map is this guy's demense, given the size of the area we're looing at.

Regardless, we're on a timer, and we have a few key things we need to do.

We need to secure the safety of our family first and foremost, and on that topic...

We have about twelve days--I think--until Valerie shows up. We know fairly well that {Inverted} Ethae tend to be grounded in trauma of some form, the level of shit that Lilly went through. They also seem to include the power sets that encourage you becoming the Fucking Dark Lord as well as rewarding you for doing so. Zach's Ethos is coming in Twelve Days, which is strange when we consider that we're not twins, and Lilly's other siblings have their Ethae coming at reasonable times. Zach's is not, his is coming within a month or two of his older sister's, when they normally happen at twelve.

Which says that something horrible is going to happen in twelve days that will force an early Ethos manifestation and set Zach up to be some kind of Evil Lord.

And I think I know what it is.

Liatris is going to get fucking targeted and eaten by Valerie. She's a [Bloomling] just like Lilly is, and even Survival!Lilly considered eating her for her deific fragment (The same thing Aboleath is pushing Valerie to target) but passed on it because the gain didn't justify the risk.

And I think Zach is going to see that, and it'll trigger his own immediate Ethos activation. Which may actually be enough to counter Valerie--at the cost of creating another monster in the long run.

Of course, it might be something more petty then that, it might be that Zach is adopted (And this is his regular Ethos activation), but he's had such a chip on his shoulder over it that he becomes the asshole who was 'Never part of the Family' and uses that as justification to fuck everything up. Can't really put that kind of thing past Manoth I guess.

Marcus also seems to have been targetted for Greatness as well. "Premium Allocation" suggests that he's going to get the kind of Ethae that aren't usually up for grabs. I wonder if the idea is that he becomes the plucky hero from humble origins who rises up and finds out the Dark Lord is his long thought dead older brother? This world seems to run on stories after all.

Anyway, I digress.

Obviously, we need to keep Captain Martin from getting caught in a lie. The most important thing if it turns out that Lord Waters won't bend though is to keep our family out of the splash zone, and that means false submission I think. Pretend to go along with it, while finding some way to disappear on the way.

ALso, I'll point out that while Survival!Lilly wanting to run away and hide forever might seem like a good idea... We were explicitly told that "If you run and hide, you won't survive when the world flips over". Which suggests that our only hope of scaling up enough is to get stuck in with dangerous scenarios and thread the god damn needle.

[X] [CupiG] Confirm the Lie. Lilly agrees that she has already joined the Watch. The Captain gives you a reason to refuse Lord Waters.
[X] [WwaT] Submit
-[X] Plot to escape.
[X] [BW] 60% Normal, 20% Evie, 20% Tower
[X] [EvieLVL] If Lilly dies, then so will everyone else.

You might wonder. "Why a suicide bomb?"

I say "Because we are in a world full of seers and prognosticators, and if they see that "Just kill the girl and be done with it" leads to calamity every time... They're a lot more likely to deal with us fairly in a manner we can maneuver around, instead of send a ballista bolt through our core from ten miles away"
 
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So, it's important to understand the players in the whole "Alt-Lilly" event.

Evie the Elder: The previous incarnation of Evie. She convinced Lilly to take her as an Ethos, however that would result in her gradually being reborn as a baby spirit.

Evie the Younger: The current incarnation of Evie, who is said baby spirit and one of Lilly's Ethos.

Essentially, Evie the Elder, as she was fading away and becoming Evie the Younger, made a few "Adjustments" to Lilly. One of those was installing the hardware that allowed Lilly to pick up a Foundational Ethos (Towering Edifice), which are not normally supposed to be given to people and also absurdly powerful. Evie the Elder also created the Mindstate, or Alt-Lilly as I call her, who is basically Lilly without inconvenient things like emotions and personal connections to get in the way of optimizing for pure survival.

Evie the Younger, however, did not like Alt-Lilly because Alt-Lilly is not really Lilly, she's a vaguely Lilly-shaped robot. So Evie the Younger sabotaged her previous self's work, introducing a method for Petal to force original-Lilly back into control.

Now, we know that Evie the Younger has locked Evie the Elder out of further modifications, and also Evie the Elder is fading away, so there's unlikely to be further incidents. We don't know if Alt-Lilly will ever reappear, but signs point to "no," as what we believe is her section on the character sheet is crossed out.
 
I want to raise the possibility that perhaps Zach won't necessary get an inverted ethos. I still think it's more likely, but it's mentioned that inverted ethos are "Manoth's pet project". Perhaps Manoth is just a weaver on the side, and that's what it means, but maybe Manoth has some normal integration vectors and will will just give Zach a normal ethos too. Then again, it mentions that Zach's been auctioned, and that definitely sounds like something you would need to have to test an Ethos.

[x] [EvieLVL] If Lilly dies, then so will everyone else.

I think the idea of MAD through people with concordance powers is really really clever, I'll vote for that. I feel like it's especially nice, as it circumvents the possibility for people like the Noosemen or Valerie or whatever to just directly kill us. Instead they'd have to attack us mentally or incapacitate us, which I feel like we're definitely more prepared to handle. Either way, a general fail-safe against death for any rational factions with concordance powers seems incredibly useful.

Also, reading a part of this chapter had me doing some idle speculation. Maybe the huge change that's supposed to happen is everyone attaining the levels of power alt-Lilly was talking about? Who knows.

[x] [CupiG] Confirm the technical truth (Version 1)
-[X] "I am sworn to the watch, yes..." (even though it's just an internal vow, Martin has technically accepted it; good enough for me!)
-[X] "...and to the defense of Harmuph."
[x] [BW] 70% Normal 15% Evie 15% Tower (First thousand gets split between Evie and Tower)
[x] [NIV] In search of my sister. (time almost up)
 
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actuallynotanegg said:
Also I think the idea of MAD through people with concordance powers is really really clever, I'll vote for that.
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"Psh! You can't touch her! She's a Sovereign!"

"You mean she's royalty?"

"No, I mean she's a Sovereign Power, she's got a bomb hooked up to that little jewel where her heart used to be--if it cracks? Half the country's going up in a mushroom cloud!"

Evie: :D (Signs out 'Poor Impulse Control' in tendrils)
 
Alectai said:
Liatris is going to get fucking targeted and eaten by Valerie. She's a [Bloomling] just like Lilly is, and even Survival!Lilly considered eating her for her deific fragment (The same thing Aboleath is pushing Valerie to target) but passed on it because the gain didn't justify the risk.
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Hmm, the idea that it's Valerie who triggers the Ethos manifestation is an interesting one, I like it. I'm not sure though if that quite fits into the broader way the world seems to work, specifically whether the systems that govern Ethea are able to respond to the (presumably unplanned) disruptions caused by the Maw's additions to the world, such as Multi-ethea or whatever Valerie has going on. Maybe it can account for them and that's why we're seeing the 12 day countdown, but the Maw feels more like Anathema to the broader plan that is being pursued not something the Plan would be able to predict and adapt to to the point of having an Ethos-Auction on it, you know?
But maybe I'm just misunderstanding the relationship between Weavers, Flower and Colossi, who knows.
 
[X] [CupiG] Confirm the Lie. Lilly agrees that she has already joined the Watch. The Captain gives you a reason to refuse Lord Waters.
[X] [WwaT] Submit
-[X] Plot to escape.
[X] [BW] 60% Normal, 20% Evie, 20% Tower
[X] [EvieLVL] If Lilly dies, then so will everyone else.
[X] [NIV] In search of my sister. (time almost up)
 
[X] [CupiG] Confirm the Lie. Lilly agrees that she has already joined the Watch. The Captain gives you a reason to refuse Lord Waters.
[X] [WwaT] Submit
-[X] Plot to escape.
[X] [BW] 60% Normal, 20% Evie, 20% Tower
[X] [EvieLVL] If Lilly dies, then so will everyone else.
[X] [NIV] In search of my sister. (time almost up)
 
[X] [BW] 60% Normal, 20% Evie, 20% Tower
[X] [EvieLVL] What's better than one of me? Dozens of mini-me! Sublets ahoy.
[X] [NIV] In search of my sister. (time almost up)

Not sure on the course of action, I feel like I don't have enough information.
 
There is a lot of going on this quest that I don't understand, even after trying to make sense of it by reading many of the analysis posts. Still, the magibabble is cool, the characters interesting and the insane-seeming power-escalation has been pre-baked and -planned to the quest from the start. I'm in.

[X] [CupiG] Confirm the Lie. Lilly agrees that she has already joined the Watch. The Captain gives you a reason to refuse Lord Waters.
[X] [WwaT] Submit
-[X] Plot to escape.
[X] [BW] 60% Normal, 20% Evie, 20% Tower
[X] [EvieLVL] A fun thing demons sometimes do…

I don't like the idea of MAD -strategy here. While it will probably make most forces hesitate in how to take Lilly out of the picture... Well, killing her isn't the only way. Some form of sealing powerful entities away probably exists, and MAD wouldn't help much in keeping Lilly out of it. This, in turn, could lead to us losing time and horrific events happening while we are unable to act and trying to overcome the sealing/prison/etc. Also, if somebody wants to destroy the world and finds about the Lilly-bomb... Yeah, I don't like the idea. Besides, it will probably alarm people about Lilly's importance and danger she represents faster, which will likely make things more difficult.

Plus, MAD doesn't do anything as long as our enemies remain unaware, so we would have to explain and try to convince to some foes why killing Lilly isn't a good idea for them either. Which, again, reveals some of the Lilly's capabilities, if they even believe her in the first place. And as a final nail into the coffin, how do you think this would affect how Lilly herself will see taking risks with her life? "I die, everybody dies" would probably be quite problem for her when weighting risks and rewards, because that everybody would include by definition also her family and other innocent people. Yeah, even if world is ending even without our help, do not want.

On why to choose fun-demon-thing instead? The mystery box is interesting, and probably offers some horrendeously reality-rending way of actively affecting our enemies, instead of making people passively afraid to even poke Lilly. Much more fun in my opinion.
 
MAD is mainly used to counter precogs/Diviners and maybe the people who can detect it, and maybe the people whom we can inform of it. You're likely right in that it would raise our profile, but we're going on the run anyway and Optimizer!Lilly already thinks they'd hunt us down in earnest even without the extra profile:
Slyvena said:
Having already witnessed some of what the girl could do, they'd commit everything they could to the hunt if they thought she'd turned.
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 Edit: maybe I misread; they might not care if they just thought we just ran away and didn't invert, so a low-profile might still be helpful

Edit 2: On third thought, I have concerns about the possible conflict with [Bedrock], so even though it's very interesting, switching vote.

...

Signal-boosting the sensible

[] [BW] 60% Normal, 20% Evie, 20% Tower

budget, which satisfies all three suggested conditions.

Also, the suggestion that 12 days might be the Valarie attack. In fact, in general, we might be able to predict attacks by looking at when people are scheduled for ethos.

Alectai said:
D) {Inverted} Ethae are a known element in society, and it's suggested that Inversion can happen even to a functional Ethos, as it was described that "Even the slightest hint of someone with Lilly's ability Inverting would result in a dragnet even Survival!Lilly can't escape"
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And Zach is more likely than most to get an inverted ethos, making him hunted by society.

Added to the list of reasons to GTFO
 
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On third thought, I have concerns about the possible interaction between MAD ("If Lilly dies, so does everyone else") and [My Resolution, Thy Bedrock]. Lilly doesn't exactly know what her resolutions are, but seems to be at least inclined to be a hero--and MAD, for someone not used to thinking in terms of pre-commitment and possible futures, doesn't seem very heroic.

We also don't know the full degree of this MAD. If it also risks her family, it may make Lilly BSOD in trying to protect them (worse, she might decide to keep away from them), which we can't afford. There would likely be serious stress issues even if she didn't outright keep away.

The best possible outcome would be that the MAD specifically targets our attackers and their backers, but we, sadly, don't know this is the case.

There is also the issue of how effective the MAD must be to be detected by precogs: the smaller the blast radius, the less likely it'll be detected, which seems to indicate this is a "go big (and face the Bedrock/family/profile issues) or not be very useful" power (unless, maybe, it turns out to be the best possible outcome, which we don't know).

Even though our Evie seems to be more on our side, we don't know if she cares about anyone else; she may very well be working under the philosophy willie's will we wappy; wut wif willie wies weh wowld woes wawong with wer.
which, to be sure, is no more than an in-universe confirmation of what was already true:
Slyvena said:
When Lilly dies, this world dies with her.
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(and might be another ideal possible outcome if it just makes everyone know that)
but I'm afraid Lilly might not think of it that way... despite that she already kinda knows/believes it to be the case:
Slyvena said:
You suppose at least your lie about running away if things turn bleak is perhaps not so much a lie anymore, seeing as how the consequences are apparently so bad (yet also, still not actually explained).
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she's not really acting like it, so I assume it's more like a thought being avoided for now. I don't have the impression that she would take it as calmly as, say, Optimizer!Lilly.


I don't want to risk the divergence + family issues in addition to the raising of our profile the MAD will probably involve, so I've switched my vote.
 
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...On a more practical complaint...
The MAD idea as I see it, only works if Lily can turn it off. *Just* having a deadman's switch that would ruin everyone's day is one thing but if it say, becomes inevitable that we're going to put a big hole in the countryside, it just means those future-seers go '...Crap. EVACUATE EVERYBODY! A LITTLE GIRL'S DEATH WILL BLOW THIS TOWN SKY HIGH!'
Like, if it's garunteed our death=big boom upon taking the Ethos it's no good for the 'shoot me, and EVERYONE loses.' argument we wish to make to keep Waters from starting trouble with us.
 
Something that can be turned off can be countered. Lilly can be tricked into it, her family can be taken hostage...

Only precommitments, the things that can't be turned off, are true guarantors.

This is definitely a very interesting playstyle, which is why I was inclined towards it... but ultimately, the likely incompatability with Lilly's bedrock is a serious issue. We already know that bad ethos choices cause the death dice to be rolled; I expect this would lead to something similar.

Come to think of it, if only Lilly's body needs to die to trigger the blast (and the blast is of known finite radius) then this can be weaponized in combination with {Attuned Locus} resurrection; Will Form particularly would have allowed repeated and near-costless weaponization. (Unfortunately, that itself means, for meta-reasons, it's unlikely to be that simple.) Since we are 55% Exalted Flesh, however, this would come at the cost of XP even if it worked.
 
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[X] [CupiG] Confirm the Lie. Lilly agrees that she has already joined the Watch. The Captain gives you a reason to refuse Lord Waters.
[X] [WwaT] Submit
- [X] But demand time. You need 3 days to finish up your business. If you go too soon, you will near powerless going too far away from your locus.
[X] [BW] 60% Normal, 20% Evie, 20% Tower
[X] [EvieLVL] Lots and lots of spiders! Everyone loves my special spiders.
[X] [NIV] In search of my sister. (time almost up)
 
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TaliesinSkye said:
She could travel the world hiring martial arts masters to show her the moves once and she'd have each style down, yeah.
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We are fast approaching the point where that becomes pretty much meaningless. Maybe learning the basic moves could be helpful, but we'd start getting diminishing returns right away.
 
[] [EvieLVL] A fun thing demons sometimes do…

A fun thing demons sometimes do, is the answer chaos?
 
One thing I noticed at the beginning of the update was that Yolun's Ethos seems to be called [Iteration to Perfection], and that it seems to have "lost" 8 levels. Do we think that was due to the corruption effects (which can hopefully be reversed), or did Lilly "eat" those levels in the integration of the Heartstaff? If Yolun is technically part of the Dream now, does that mean that we'll eventually have "borrowed" access to [Iteration]? That could be very useful as we advance in creating artifacts. Or maybe we'll be able to eventually "gift" him XP through the connection.

...But why stop there? If we can bring in more of our family members into the Dream, suddenly we could have a full network of "semi-Ethos" at each others' disposal. The main trick would be building up trust and understanding to the point where Lilly will fully integrate their desires with her own.
 
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