Very good actors hoping to militarize everyone before the Reapers come!
This hypothesis seems to provide a pretty good explanation for the rage -> pity shift, but I'm confused about where it is coming from. AFAIK we haven't even come into contact with the Shiplord's enemies, much less gotten anything from them - so what would make the Shiplords here think that we were somehow aligned?
Then they still probably don't need to take these measures. What possible need could there be for liquifying billions?
This is also the first thing to come to my mind yes. Ignorance, fear and scars from a possibly endless conflict tend to make very good zealots.
). That will be partially addressed in the next update, and more deeply covered in the one after that. Which may end up being split in two, depending on how I decide to write it. You will also be getting an action in Turn 11 to hand the recording to some Insight Focused and see what they can get from it.Definitely possible. I'm reminded of the saying "Needs must when the devil drives." The Shiplords do seem to be doing a very good job at being the devil in the idiom, to the point that they may have been designed for that purpose.
Practice. It was the Dragon's gift to us, but where do you think they got it from? There's no way we actually got something the Shiplords haven't managed in millions of years out of some basic Second Secret lifeforms.
They're trying to pull a Zero Requiem.
The races becoming uninvolved to be able to fight them didn't - they may have a point.
Potentials.
Stating the results of the sessions with the Insight-focused?
Obviously. I mean what ABOUT potentials would make it seem like we are aligned with the Shiplords' enemies? It would be bizarre to think that we share our main power with said enemies and that this is by pure happenstance. I.e. if you want to make the claim that the Shiplords recognize Practice as something that their enemies use, you need to posit a hypothesis for WHY we happen to have it.
Plausible, but I don't think this conjecture is sturdy enough to actually rely on. At best, it is enough to give us a possibility to consider.
Why? Practice is what is different about humans and aliens (as far as we know from Insight). The way I read the updates the SL reacted adverse specifically to the use of Practice (first tribute fleet, second tribute fleet). Insight was nearly captured when trying to spy on the SL, which was either Insight looking into something else (like an uninvolved) or Insight looking into SL secrets which were hardened versus this type of intrusion. That's why I think it's "Potentials" that got that SL reaction.
I think every tribute fleet's tribute is used like this, not just the human one. And the difference we are aware between artificial biomass and natural is that the artifical one doesn't have soul.
Not only humans.
This brings about a whole new dimension as to why former tributes that break off from the Shiplords doesn't go and gang up on them despite everything that had happened. This meant that the former tributes also know of this. For all that they will go and find tributes like Earth and aid them, they know of the protocol and how the script of the show goes, so to speak. The question is, will they tolerate us going off the proverbial script by say, breaking the Secrets?
)Nitpick: "mimetic" hazards are things like camouflaged predators like monsters that disguise themselves as treasure chests. You're looking for "memetic" hazards, which take effect through mental processes.
Another possibility is that Practice isn't the ability of the Enemy, but of the Uninvolved. Remember that the reason we have Practice is that our souls are "half-filled". Maybe when your soul is truly filled you Ascend or something, and go on to do whatever super-important thing that Uninvolved do, fighting demons or whatever on a higher plane of existence. Under this theory, the reason the Commander was pissed off at us is he thought we were ready to move on to that next adventure, but instead here we are scrubbing along toying with the minor leagues. What Amanda's question did was tell the Shiplords that we're actually not 'persisting' with the 'Gift': we are, rather, still developing said Gift and don't even know what's going on enough to be qualified to Ascend or whatever.
