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Last Light of a Dark Age (Warhammer 29K/Disco Elysium)

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[X] Machine-Painting. The art of machine-painting is among the most hallowed in Titanagalbat. Micro-machines with pigments in every colour light permits, sung into mandalas, frescoes, tapestries, impermanent as are all things but the titans, the immortal machine. The tempo and the song attune you better to the planet, and its mystic noise. +1 RHYTHMS, focusing on understanding the ruins of cyberspace.

Pump that rhythm.

[X] Her Submission. For all her confidence, Roxana is utterly and completely submissive to her Mecharaja, has been molded, prepared, reshaped from her very birth to be the Titan's bride. It revolts you, not because of her lack of will - but of yours, fighting for a Conclave that hates you, wants you dead.

This feels like something that has been brewing for some time, Sympathy, the Conclave, our very own fragged Corporal Himmelstoss.

[X] You are both deranged. You thought you were crazy for becoming a swordsmachine when you feel so much. But Karuna, who cries big tears when a machine-pet dies, pilots a twenty-meter man-eater chimeric mecha with blood-fueled hydraulics. Why.

So, is he too incascendantly imploding?
 
[X] Machine-Painting. The art of machine-painting is among the most hallowed in Titanagalbat. Micro-machines with pigments in every colour light permits, sung into mandalas, frescoes, tapestries, impermanent as are all things but the titans, the immortal machine. The tempo and the song attune you better to the planet, and its mystic noise. +1 RHYTHMS, focusing on understanding the ruins of cyberspace.

Cyberspace sounds neat!

[X] Her Indifference. Every victory Roxana has gained has required leaving another piece of her behind. In reaching for power, she has chosen to remove any trace of compassion from her heart. It revolts you, not because of the depth of your own empathy - but because she exposes its limits, and obvious hypocrisies.

This is what I find the most personally distasteful.

[X] You are both deranged. You thought you were crazy for becoming a swordsmachine when you feel so much. But Karuna, who cries big tears when a machine-pet dies, pilots a twenty-meter man-eater chimeric mecha with blood-fueled hydraulics. Why.
 
Squidfam said:
All that remains now is to play out the final act of Apotheosis once more; the Red Sun will wipe the slate clean once more and the cycle will repeat, a snake eating its own tail.
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I agree with your insight, but not its conclusion. There has to be something more, something better. Illuminata has already done much to deviate from the designs of the Father and the Mother. Godhood is out of reach, probably, and I don't think Illuminata should aspire to elevate one.

But why not… nationbuilding? Commonwealth? Imperium? Look at all these people, their own petty nations. Don't they deserve to be free of the shackles that bind them to the futile past? To crack the Shield, make peace with the prospect of eternal war against Chaos, explore the distant stars, tame the Black-Noise seas, and grow beyond the cradle-crucible of the planet Illuminata?

Or maybe something else, something kinder and more restrained and homelier, I don't know. Just because a cycle exists doesn't mean it is inevitable to repeat. The cycle can't be all there is. I refuse to believe it!
 
The quality of a lot of the guessing and theory-crafting here has been honestly really impressive.

LuciDreamer said:
I agree with your insight, but not its conclusion. There has to be something more, something better. Illuminata has already done much to deviate from the designs of the Father and the Mother. Godhood is out of reach, probably, and I don't think Illuminata should aspire to elevate one.

But why not… nationbuilding? Commonwealth? Imperium? Look at all these people, their own petty nations. Don't they deserve to be free of the shackles that bind them to the futile past? To crack the Shield, make peace with the prospect of eternal war against Chaos, explore the distant stars, tame the Black-Noise seas, and grow beyond the cradle-crucible of the planet Illuminata?

Or maybe something else, something kinder and more restrained and homelier, I don't know. Just because a cycle exists doesn't mean it is inevitable to repeat. The cycle can't be all there is. I refuse to believe it!
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I think a consistent theme of the quest so far has been humanity, hope and kindness still finding a way to persevere even in the face of the most horrible adversity. In a sense the very fact that humans still live on Illuminata at all is a testament to that. It is going to be fun to see how that theme is reinforced and continued over the next couple of updates.
 
Naw, I'm gonna kill everyone next update and we'll reroll as a Primarch who likes to chop heads and hit innocent civilians over the skull with big rocks
 
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Cetashwayo said:
Naw, I'm gonna kill everyone next update and we'll reroll as a Primarch who likes to chop heads and hit innocent civilians over the skull with big rocks
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Finally! This character drama in a weird pulp-y transhuman setting was getting boring, I can't wait to play as Murder Mcbeef and his 4000 reasons why those civilians were actually potentially secret chaos agents so his decision to bomb an orphanage was actually 100% morally justified.
 
Skippy said:
I think a consistent theme of the quest so far has been humanity, hope and kindness still finding a way to persevere even in the face of the most horrible adversity. In a sense the very fact that humans still live on Illuminata at all is a testament to that. It is going to be fun to see how that theme is reinforced and continued over the next couple of updates.
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Yes... indeed.

It's interesting how so many of the forms these humans have chosen for their societies mirror aspects of our own earthbound history.

I mean, the Progeny take after a particular shade of Christianity, obsessed with the heavenly virtues of their Jesus Christ-esque magical girl Redeemer and the prospect of Her "second coming." Futile, foolish, and so, so, human.

Koinon are so obsessed with history and its ghosts that they've reinvented just about every nonanomalous method humanity has invented for convincing humans to give their lives for the polis of their own volition. Patriotism, citizenship, natural rights, land, property, liberty, wealth! What do those things mean, really?

Titanalgabat take after some of Earth's greatest (and most terrible) empires. They embody the Mandate of Heaven, the Pax Romana, the British Crown, the Chrysanthemum Throne, the Iron Curtain, the Manifest Destiny, the End of History. Slaverish obedience to your betters, all in service to the project of the state, which is greater than any of you individually. And to what end?

I'm sure there are more, but, just... wow.

If they could see us, if only for a moment, I would like to say that we are proud of them. All of them. But please stop killing each other.
 
[X] Living Statuary. A deeply honoured profession in Titanagalbat, living statues devote their lives to becoming breathing art pieces - crafted, recrafted, molded and remolded, according to a Titan's favored design. Artists who devote their whole lives to creation, they help you understand why one might live, and die, in service for their craft. +1 SACRED GEOMETRY, focusing on the study of monumental art.

[X] Her Submission. For all her confidence, Roxana is utterly and completely submissive to her Mecharaja, has been molded, prepared, reshaped from her very birth to be the Titan's bride. It revolts you, not because of her lack of will - but of yours, fighting for a Conclave that hates you, wants you dead.

[X] You are both deranged. You thought you were crazy for becoming a swordsmachine when you feel so much. But Karuna, who cries big tears when a machine-pet dies, pilots a twenty-meter man-eater chimeric mecha with blood-fueled hydraulics. Why.

Cetashwayo said:
But Sympathy doesn't understand, and asks the serpent - how? She has been trained in the three heads of the Hydra. She has been trained to recognize, to bind, to destroy and banish them.
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Cetashwayo said:
three heads of the Hydra
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Cetashwayo said:
AXIOM FUSION

CROWN OF THORNS + EXPLOSIVE DECOMPRESSION =

BLACKSTAR (Psyche): You were born upside down, born the wrong way around. You see so right, so wide, with open-hearted pain. You want angels in your daydreams, diamonds in your eyes, but this world demands your execution. You stand a solitary candle, burning with abyssal hatred, and beatific love for the fallen. +1 INTERLACE. +1 INCANDESCENCE. Gain two signature attributes. You are an erratic, impulsive, unstable stellar mass teetering between a collapse into guilt and explosive wrath.
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Is this then, to be the shape of our Fifth Sun? It sounds rad as hell.

Cetashwayo said:
"Request: Please don't go."
"Repeat: Please don't go."
"Repeat: Please don't go."
"Repeat: Please don't go."
"Repeat: Please don't go."
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The drones need you.

[X] Machine-Painting. The art of machine-painting is among the most hallowed in Titanagalbat. Micro-machines with pigments in every colour light permits, sung into mandalas, frescoes, tapestries, impermanent as are all things but the titans, the immortal machine. The tempo and the song attune you better to the planet, and its mystic noise. +1 RHYTHMS, focusing on understanding the ruins of cyberspace.

[X] Her Submission. For all her confidence, Roxana is utterly and completely submissive to her Mecharaja, has been molded, prepared, reshaped from her very birth to be the Titan's bride. It revolts you, not because of her lack of will - but of yours, fighting for a Conclave that hates you, wants you dead.

[X] You are both deranged. You thought you were crazy for becoming a swordsmachine when you feel so much. But Karuna, who cries big tears when a machine-pet dies, pilots a twenty-meter man-eater chimeric mecha with blood-fueled hydraulics. Why.
 
Cetashwayo said:
Well, here's something to think about.

If everything on the planet is connected to the Black Noise, doesn't that make everyone on the planet a vector for a cyber-virus? And another thing to think about: How exactly do egophages work? They use light through photoreceptors, right? But the hacking is also through a common cyber-space. So in a way, aren't they surface-skimmers of the Black Noise, avoiding the darkness?

And if an egophage can do that, what could you do, if you attack from the deep?

Maybe Roxana knows! :)
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Yikes. Note to self: if I want secure server infrastructure, I should put it in a Tesseract Labyrinth. And wrap it in psychic-resistant material. And build the communication channel to the outside by myself. Out of relay logic. (Tesseract Labyrinths probably have some way to talk to the inside).

All I want is a nice mundane datacenter that you can just leave somewhere and not have any psychic computer virus problems. Is that too much to ask? (This is 40k. Yes it is too much to ask).

In theory, a psychic computer virus inhabiting a computer would have detectable psychic energy in the computing substrate itself. If a psychic energy detector was woven into that substrate, it could possibly detect Scrapcode or demonic possesions or whatnot and then make the computer explode (or turn off or lock up or something) before the incursion can disable it. But finding useful materials that change their electrical behavior in response to psychic energy would be a massive amount of work I'm not sure anyone in the setting would bother with. And successfully integrating it into computing substrate would be an even more massive amount of work. (Modern computer chip production is absurdly complicated and delicate. 40k Age of Technology computers would probably turn that up to 11).

All these massive issues like the Deluge, Dreamspace, Chaos being able to act within here, the Black Noise, Mother and Father probably dead or split into many pieces, the Men of Iron no longer being able to exist, petriform gas... I am absolutely sure these are meant to be completely unfixable. But I still can't stop myself from thinking of them as a todo list. The entire ocean is filled with (or maybe even solely composed of) nanotech designed by the Deceiver? Time to start emptying the ocean then. I'll get right to it.
 
Tnoz said:
Does this imply the Still Coast secretly allied with Koinon?
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I don't think so, more like they're just applying the same base tech that everybody has access to. Koinon is noted as being very advanced psychically so I figure it's mostly an independent development.
 
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Cetashwayo said:
Naw, I'm gonna kill everyone next update and we'll reroll as a Primarch who likes to chop heads and hit innocent civilians over the skull with big rocks
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Bigman McMeathead master way of horse and sword and bow. Bigman contemplate many things, tell Bigman why the sky fire rises in the east and sets in the west.

. . .

You tell Bigman it is a flaming cloud and the world circles around it? This other wise man says it is pulled by flaming chariots across the sky. Do you dare LIE to Bigman?
 
[X] Living Statuary. A deeply honoured profession in Titanagalbat, living statues devote their lives to becoming breathing art pieces - crafted, recrafted, molded and remolded, according to a Titan's favored design. Artists who devote their whole lives to creation, they help you understand why one might live, and die, in service for their craft. +1 SACRED GEOMETRY, focusing on the study of monumental art.
[X] Her Submission. For all her confidence, Roxana is utterly and completely submissive to her Mecharaja, has been molded, prepared, reshaped from her very birth to be the Titan's bride. It revolts you, not because of her lack of will - but of yours, fighting for a Conclave that hates you, wants you dead.
[X] You are both miserable. It's astounding to meet someone as unhappy as you. You thought in the entire world you were the only one dragging your entrails behind you. You both agree: Everything is horrible and you should have been recycled.
 
[X] Machine-Painting. The art of machine-painting is among the most hallowed in Titanagalbat. Micro-machines with pigments in every colour light permits, sung into mandalas, frescoes, tapestries, impermanent as are all things but the titans, the immortal machine. The tempo and the song attune you better to the planet, and its mystic noise. +1 RHYTHMS, focusing on understanding the ruins of cyberspace.

[X] Her Submission. For all her confidence, Roxana is utterly and completely submissive to her Mecharaja, has been molded, prepared, reshaped from her very birth to be the Titan's bride. It revolts you, not because of her lack of will - but of yours, fighting for a Conclave that hates you, wants you dead.

[X] You are both deranged. You thought you were crazy for becoming a swordsmachine when you feel so much. But Karuna, who cries big tears when a machine-pet dies, pilots a twenty-meter man-eater chimeric mecha with blood-fueled hydraulics. Why.
 
Cetashwayo said:
SACRED GEOMETRY [AUTOFAIL]: You have no evidence you are a woman. None of us do. It is possible that you are an ethereal qualia in a meta-gender utopia. It is possible, no, probable, that you are an omnigendered polygon. One with ten perfect equilateral faces, floating in and out of self-shaped cavities towards a happy infinity. Without hope and without regret. Ever-dreaming.
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Uhhhhh.
 
Arcus said:
Uhhhhh.
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Don't worry, as a Hylic we are not and cannot be a polygon:
Cetashwayo said:
RELIQUARY: My mistress...there is little left in the once-rich storehouses of your hallowed memory...but in the ruin, a precious pedestal remains, and on the pedestal, these words, in archaic tongue appear: thou art not a polygon.

<Aw.>

EVENT HORIZON: You could never be what the shapes want for you. You cannot dream.
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See? Definitely not a polygon

EDIT: That is not to say that we are completely safe from danger; even if we cannot become a polygon, we could still become part of one. We were promised 5 girlfriends after all.
 
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DualFront said:
EDIT: That is not to say that we are completely safe from danger; even if we cannot become a polygon, we could still become part of one. We were promised 5 girlfriends after all.
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Strictly speaking, a Pentagram isn't a polygon! Although... it is a shape that contains several polygons, so maybe the difference isn't so pronounced. Unless you don't count the intersections as points, I guess...

EDIT: Wait a minute, I'm just an idiot. It is a polygon. There's a class of shape that precludes intersections im pretty sure, but polygons aren't it...
 
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gale said:
Honestly, a Primarch on the world would be.... dangerous but something to witness due to how many fellow Post-Humans would be around
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I am kind of low-key curious about what the power scaling would look like here. And to what extent even a Primarch could survive Illuminara's weather and nanocancer without whatever specific protective implants Illuminara's humans are printed with.
 
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