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Mass Effect: Glorious Shotgun Princess (ME/Exalted)

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Aleph said:
Primordials don't work like that. They are not Touhou characters who can use twists of wording to apply their themes to anything and everything - and in fact, they're not that bound to a single theme. The Ebon Dragon is more than just "treachery backstabbing dickery", not everything he does is based around those things, and he is under no compulsion to have everything he does ever cause failure. His Excellency has more to do with corruption, lies, enlightened self-interest (making him relatively "trustworthy" as long as you remember who you're dealing with) and antagonism than betrayal, though betrayal is certainly something that falls within his themes.

The conception of Primordials as gigantic 8-balls with only one setting is one of the annoying things that's been slowly happening to the franchise. They're a hell of a lot more complex than that, and act in more complex and many-layered ways than the highest of gods.

The Ebon Dragon, too - people seem to be misunderstanding his themes. He has more to do with lies and corruption and escape than betrayal, though it certainly falls under his themes. And his "failure" thing... basically, he defines "success" not as being the highest of the heap, but as everyone else being lower. Which in turn means that he doesn't care where he ends up, even if he loses, as long as everyone else loses more. But by the same principle, he doesn't care if everyone wins, as long as he wins the most. He is not compelled to make everything lose. He acts in enlightened self-interest. He is even trustworthy to an extent, as long as you remember who you're dealing with - as long as he stands to gain more from a bargain or alliance than you do, even if you still stand to gain a lot, he'll see no reason not to keep to it.

He is not the gigantic principle of cosmic failure and dickery. That's the flanderised version of him.
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Oh, my apologies then. I'm not too terribly well-read on Exalted; my knowledge comes mostly from TVTropes, this fic, and the bits and pieces of the source books I've read. I'm more of a Mage fan, and tend to think in those terms.
 
Might it be fair to say, then, that the concepts the Ebon Dragon is fundamentally incapable of grasping would be love and hate? Because the ideas of helping somebody when it doesn't help you more or of hurting someone when it ultimately hurts you more than it does them seem to be as close to the opposite of his themes as you can get.

And it's kind of funny to think that the being that came up with Free Will is the one who, more than any other being in existence, is solely given shape and definition by others.
 
GreggHL said:
The thing to remember about the Ebon Dragon is that he is the closest you have among the Primordials to a vocal proponent of Free Will. In many other settings, this would make him a good guy- it's just that he loves free will in all it's forms- including what we would consider evil.

He's not the god of evil, as he's flanderized as. He's the architect of human nature.
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I thought Isidoros was the one who represented free will or at least liked it a lot?

Or is he more self-deterministic, 'I do what I want whenever I damn well feel like doing it!' type?
 
TheSandman said:
Might it be fair to say, then, that the concepts the Ebon Dragon is fundamentally incapable of grasping would be love and hate? Because the ideas of helping somebody when it doesn't help you more or of hurting someone when it ultimately hurts you more than it does them seem to be as close to the opposite of his themes as you can get.

And it's kind of funny to think that the being that came up with Free Will is the one who, more than any other being in existence, is solely given shape and definition by others.
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The Ebon Dragon gets love, and he gets hatred.

Remember that love tends not to be truly 'pure' and 'selfless,' as there is often an implied quid pro quo. Now, if there isn't that, if you truly selflessly give to others because you care, that's something else entirely. He doesn't get compassion.

As for hatred, he gets wanting to cast someone else down. He gets wanting to have what the other has and hating him for that he has it and not you. He does not get hating someone to the extent you will sunder every oath you made (except as a betrayal), spending every cent you have and even your very life without it gaining you anything of worth to another, not even fame. He doesn't get conviction.


What the Ebon Dragon truly does not get is Virtue, as defined by the setting of Exalted.


Further discussion of the Yozi in general (and even the Ebon Dragon), is probably better done in the Exalted Discussion Thread, we are rather derailing the thread.
 
Giygas said:
Maybe mister sunshine is capable to see things only in shades of red?
It would expand greatly the number of peoples the ebon dragon could marry and betray him when he discover that his bride doesn't have red hairs.
Brides and Betraials: mister sunshine is a perfect soul for the ebon dragon!
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Well, Ardat-Yakshi could be the Asari version of a red head, not like they normally have a head full of hair in the first place
 
One would think, Jane muses, that they shouldn't be giving Morinth so much time to recover. On the other hand, she muses, N7 combat training doesn't really prepare her for being able to punch someone halfway across Nos Astra.

"That's the place," she says.

The tower approaches- and Jane whistles, looking at her heads up display. That last punch sent her a good seven and a half miles. She has to tone it down a bit- if she tried that on someone who wasn't a superpowered biotic, or a Reaper, that person would probably have to be identified by the stain on the wall.

God damn, she thinks. She can punch people across cities.

Who the fuck needs these powers in the first place?

Her musing is cut short, however, as the windows explode. Every window on the tower shatters outwards, the entire tower shaking as something happens inside it- some sort of massive displacement, broken glass pulverized to powder...

No, she thinks. No, that isn't powder. That's sand.

Silver sand which begins pouring out of every window of the tower. Overflowing, shot out through the mid levels with enough force to slam into skycars, send traffic into confusion and accidents, and scrape the sides of buildings.
 
...Ugh. I think my head just imploded from trying to understand TEDie.

I'm just gonna go with "Awesome" and wait for more.
 
oh dear...oh dearohdearohdear...I believe I'll watch this from orbit. Behind several moons. and the local primary...ya know just in case.
 
One would think, Jane muses, that they shouldn't be giving Morinth so much time to recover. On the other hand, she muses, N7 combat training doesn't really prepare her for being able to punch someone halfway across Nos Astra.

"That's the place," she says.

The tower approaches- and Jane whistles, looking at her heads up display. That last punch sent her a good seven and a half miles. She has to tone it down a bit- if she tried that on someone who wasn't a superpowered biotic, or a Reaper, that person would probably have to be identified by the stain on the wall.

God damn, she thinks. She can punch people across cities.

Who the fuck needs these powers in the first place?

Her musing is cut short, however, as the windows explode. Every window on the tower shatters outwards, the entire tower shaking as something happens inside it- some sort of massive displacement, broken glass pulverized to powder...

No, she thinks. No, that isn't powder. That's sand.

Silver sand which begins pouring out of every window of the tower. Overflowing, shot out through the mid levels with enough force to slam into skycars, send traffic into confusion and accidents, and abrade the sides of buildings.

Diving down, she acts on instinct, pushing cars out of the way of the geysers, moving floating wrecks out of traffic. It takes her a moment to realize what she did- how quickly she got distracted from pursuing this monster for a gut instinct- and she shoots back towards the roof to find the hoverbike already parked and Garrus standing in front of a room filled with silver dirt and rocks.

"The fuck is this," Shepard breathes, helmet folding back into her shoulders, "She was right here."

Garrus snorts. Kneeling, he slides his hand over the sands. "Moon dust," he says, "Something replaced everything in this building with moon rocks."

Shepard blinks. "Which moon?"

Garrus shrugs. "Don't know. I can find out." He stands up, rolling his shoulders. "Give me a few minutes, Shepard. I'll figure out what happened."

He opens his arms. His eyes go wide. And the caste mark flares on his forehead as he perceives. He walks onto the sand, glancing from side to side. Ears open to hear the sounds of falling sand. Through his boots, his toes feel how the grains filled the floor- up, not down. Like it exploded upwards, but then began to fall.

Garrus Vakarian listens to the world. The world speaks back.
 
Oh, Garrus, pretty sure you're not gonna like what that world says.

...Need popcorn.
 
Silver sand is very strongly associated with Cecelyne, also called the Endless Desert. To be fair, just because there is a lot of silver sand around doesn't mean Cecelyne is actively involved, you could carry out a mountain of Her sands and she wouldn't notice, while Her sands tend to get trailed into everywhere else as demons and everyone else has to walk across Her surface to get to and from the Demon City of Brass.
 
Standing in the entrance of the sand filled penthouse, Shepard sighs, taps her forehead, and lets the light flow out from the caste mark on her forehead. It illuminates the room, giving light to her partner as he explores, expands and oh what the fuck, she thinks.

"How'd you become a hanar?"

"I can take the shape of whatever I kill," Garrus answers, voice distorted, musical.

"Why'd you kill a hanar?"

"This one was a serial killer on Omega." A cough. "I know what you're thinking, but it's Omega. If any place was going to make a hanar serial killer, it was Omega."
 
zenos14 said:
The later, his basic theme is STRONG, he is strong enough that nothing can affect him. For most of his existence nothing could get his attention, he didn't even know anything other than himself existed despite obliterating countless raksha, mortals, demons, cities, nations, ...

In fannon he is generally portrayed as the nicest primordial if you can get his attention, and while now he at least knows other things exist he still doesn't quite get the concept of "other".
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Basically the reason for this is that Isidoros is the simplest and safest primordial to protect people from. Basically his apocalyptic rampages are just him running down the street from his perspective. He honestly does not realize that he's hurting anything, because he doesn't notice anything. All you have to do to get him to change direction away from whatever you want to keep safe is get his attention and ask. He won't get angry or be insulted, he'll do it gladly.

There's also the bit in RotSE where he offers to help the party screw over Ebby for free. (Screwing over TED is objectively Virtuous. One of his little quirks is that his PDs cost more against Virtue boosted attacks and you can always channel virtues against him. Yes, even Compassion 5 to kill) Granted, his offer is a powerup via akumadom, but he honestly doesn't realize why people would turn that down, and isn't insulted if it is refused. It's also likely but not stated that he would be open to sending other forms of help instead. Such as giving a GSP party member access to his charmset, sending a 3CD or 2 as backup (Ebby is such a shitty fighter by primordial standards once he is forced into battle that a couple combat-spec 3CDs from a combat-heavy primordial would actually be relevant), providing a distraction or whatever.

Also he's honestly IMO one of the easiest primordials to rehabilitate. All you need is a solaroid who can keep his attention and keep him pointed at major threats, and watch said threats die.
 
On Isidoros.

Imagine a boar.

This boar is as big as it wants to be. Not, like, bear big. Blot out the sun big.

Imagine a black hole. Light consuming, all crushing, all eating black hole.

This boar is a black hole.

This is not a fucking metaphor.

The Unconquered Sun, during the Time of Glories, would ride this black hole boar into battle.

The source of the catalyzation of the Solar Exaltation would straddle a black hole and ride it into battle against Raksha.

Now do Shepard's powers make more sense?
 
Actually, Isidoros would most likely be reluctant to open up his Charmset to GSPs because that means every GSP has access to it and can 'improve' upon it by their standards.

It's part of the reason why many Yozi are reluctant to support the Reclamation.
 
Synapse said:
And, while impressive, this is but one in a long series of things he did just because his daddies asked (as a way to develop/acknowledge his might)
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It could be debated this was less dangerous than riding Luna, as Isidoros wouldn't try to seduce you with all the things.
 
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