Threads Of Destiny(Eastern Fantasy, Sequel to Forge of Destiny)

[RebelYell]

The moon followers that were betrothed to one another we saw in the hunting party were fine with the entire thing since their clans were so close to on another, hell Wang seem's alright and were pretty much going to be neighbors when we get our fief so it could be fine to call them family if we see more of what their clan is like.

 

[BungieONI]

I wouldn't say it's evenly balanced, the sect has the initiative launching a raid here, and will deploy forces that should be able to overwhelm and capture the Cloud tribe targets. Unless the Cloud tribe is laying a trap for us in which case its the other way around.

Click to shrink...

I'm mostly thinking that it will probably be evenly balanced because this is a ritual site of import to them and so will need guardians, and is an important meeting. The Sect is has an incentive to go in with overwhelming force, though whether they can is not something we know at the present moment, so I'm assuming that the Sect will spare enough to have reasonable chance of completing their objectives but conserve effort that can be put elsewhere. Or, in other words, an efficiency argument.

But yeah, I'm not disagreeing that the Sect has initiative here, I just think that leads somewhere a little different.

 

[OneArmedYeti]

I'm mostly thinking that it will probably be evenly balanced because this is a ritual site of import to them and so will need guardians, and is an important meeting. The Sect is has an incentive to go in with overwhelming force, though whether they can is not something we know at the present moment, so I'm assuming that the Sect will spare enough to have reasonable chance of completing their objectives but conserve effort that can be put elsewhere. Or, in other words, an efficiency argument.

But yeah, I'm not disagreeing that the Sect has initiative here, I just think that leads somewhere a little different.

Click to shrink...

This fight SCREAMS enrage timer to me. We're on their turf and they tend to have better force projection than us, so reinforcements are a coming.

Aditionally, if I know mystic rituals in fiction, we've got a countdown timer until their ritual successfully fuses the surrounding storms into a multichromatic Voltron themed tornado dragon.

 

[BungieONI]

This fight SCREAMS enrage timer to me. We're on their turf and they tend to have better force projection than us, so reinforcements are a coming.

Aditionally, if I know mystic rituals in fiction, we've got a countdown timer until their ritual successfully fuses the surrounding storms into a multichromatic Voltron themed tornado dragon.

Click to shrink...

Hmmmm... yeah some kind of timer once the fight starts makes a lot of sense, either be that most of them escaping or bigger folks who can probably move faster than lower level folks arriving to push out the imperial presence. We don't know if they're actually performing a ritual there at the site, all Ren-ren told us was that it is of ritual significance, so a sacred site that can work as neutral meeting ground/culturally appropriate place for a coordination meeting is what it seems like to me.

"Firstly, the Sect's intelligence has discerned where a number of the barbarian lower level leadership is meeting to coordinate, it is believed that the site is also of some ritual importance. A group is needed to assault it,

Click to shrink...

I imagine part of our intelligence gathering overarching objective is that what we're looking for are tensions within the Cloud Tribes, if a ritual is being done at this site, and obviously future deployment plans and a better grasp of how their logistics are working out. If the lower level commanders here seem frustrated about supplies or something similar, that's important info in terms of 'reading' the disposition of the Cloud Tribes for future actions.

 

[Jensaarai]

I'm mostly thinking that it will probably be evenly balanced because this is a ritual site of import to them and so will need guardians, and is an important meeting.

Click to shrink...

I keep pointing this out, but it's believed to be a ritual site, which isn't an absolute truth, and we don't even know what kind of rituals are done there. Could be the equivalent of an old tree or a landmark that's commonly used for a meeting space, or maybe it could have some historical importance, but we just don't know. Given we only know of "lower level leadership" going there for the meeting, I don't necessarily think it's a place of great importance to the Cloud Tribe, and I also don't think that there's going to actually be permanent guardians or wardens for the site, because it doesn't seem to fit with the nomadic nature of the Cloud Tribe.


edit; partly ninja'd, but I still genuinely think some people read "ritual site" and blew it way out of proportion.

 

[BungieONI]

I keep pointing this out, but it's believed to be a ritual site, which isn't an absolute truth, and we don't even know what kind of rituals are done there. Could be the equivalent of an old tree or a landmark that's commonly used for a meeting space, or maybe it could have some historical importance, but we just don't know. Given we only know of "lower level leadership" going there for the meeting, I don't necessarily think it's a place of great importance to the Cloud Tribe, and I also don't think that there's going to actually be permanent guardians or wardens for the site, because it doesn't seem to fit with the nomadic nature of the Cloud Tribe.

Click to shrink...

I'm not talking about permanent guardians in that sense, I was basically using another word to fit in for "guards for the meeting" be that the meeting members themselves or their retinues.

E: Like there's going to be some concentration of force to guard the meeting and meeting site, because they are both important, though for different reasons.

 

[Jensaarai]

I'm not talking about permanent guardians in that sense, I was basically using another word to fit in for "guards for the meeting" be that the meeting members themselves or their retinues.

Click to shrink...

Ah okay, yeah I agree. I'm expecting a decently sized group of the leaders' guards and supporters.

 

[OneArmedYeti]

Ah okay, yeah I agree. I'm expecting a decently sized group of the leaders' guards and supporters.

Click to shrink...

There's always the chance that this is an under the table meeting without the brass' knowledge, say to discuss their distaste with their new allies.

Moon Senpai did get a mole in, so we might have pretty good intel.

 

[BungieONI]

Ah okay, yeah I agree. I'm expecting a decently sized group of the leaders' guards and supporters.

Click to shrink...

Yeah, that's just kind of how these kinds of things tend to be done in a lot of cultures IRL and so I assume here as well. You bring your peeps with you as a show and also just to help you out as assistants or knowledgeable advisors.

 

[storryeater]

My dude, I appreciate that this is a thing for you, but... Okay. Say that someone is going hungry on the streets. You offer them $5 to sweep your house porch. Is this evil of you?

Well, by your logic, it's coercion: they need to eat, and they can eat if they do your task, therefore you're coercing them. But you aren't imposing the fundamental situation. They are hungry as a result of existing within the world, not because you sweep down and snatch food out of their mouth so long as they aren't willing to pick up a broom. Would it be better for you to just give them the money, no strings attached? Of course. But people aren't required to do things just because they would be morally better than what they are already doing, or you would be working to donate money to poor orphans every free second instead of posting on the internet. Interacting with a situation that someone else made doesn't automatically make you evil because you don't act in a maximally generous fashion, because that's an impossible standard to live up to.

Is there a line where you should be required to be a level of good for it to be "helping" instead of "polite coercion"? Yes. That's what everyone else is saying, and it's what you're not, because your argument boils down to the fact that every form of arranged marriage is a violation of consent and therefore some level of evil. If that's the case, then go sign up for Mechanical Turk, because your free time could be solving someone else's food insecurity. Otherwise, find a more reasonable argument.

Click to shrink...

Dude, scale and circumstances matter, the least painful possible example of something may genuinely be ok, but the most painful possible example isn't necessarilly ok due to the least painful possible example's standards.

Let us take the exact same example you gave us to prove how much scale matters: few would say that giving 5 dollars to a starving beggar to do some small busywork for you is cruel, or evil. Yet few would argue that giving him 1000$ for his kidney isn't cruel or evil. That is because, imho, ideals aren't always things that interact on an absolute manner, you can't say that if the smallest possible example is ok so is the biggest, or vice versa, that if the biggest possible example is unfair so is the smallest. There is a reason law has theft and grand theft as different offences, there is a reason people are sympathetic to someone stealing to feed his family but not someone who steals to get rich even if both are in similar circumstances otherwise, there is a reason disciplining your children too litle is as bad as disciplining them too much.

In our world, lines are not always clear. And yet, the kidney example I gave is something that would affect a person less than a marriage, so I would argue that coercing people into an arranged marriage is worse than buying kidneys.

Now, I do think that just like the law recognizes certain excuses in order to let people get off with lesser sentences, so should morality recognize excuses for cultural factors. People are, imho, less culpable for certain (not all) wrongdoings depending on their culture. But that doesn't make the wrongdoing less wrong, just the person less culpable (or maybe in some cases even not culpable). Ling Qi, however, does not get that excuse. She is one of the people that SHOULD know better, because just like in any culture there are people who think "hey, this is wrong", so should a protagonist who was specifically burned by that kind of thing, and who had a friend that was also burned by that kind of thing and a mother that was burned by that kind of thing.

 

[Varder]

Ling Qi could, due to her background, realize how messed up arranged marriages are and just go "Nope" on all of that.

Click to shrink...

Except she doesn't do this with Bao Qian atm. Or with Gu Tai. The concept doesn't disgust her, it's the surrounding things. Like power diparity and abuse. The things that we've yet to actually see outside of a brothel.

You also focus on sex too much. I don't think Immortals are obligated to have kids and noone is dumb enough to force themselves onto an unwilling cultivator. Marriage is an alliance, a unity of interests and a promise to fight side by side. Everything else is additional.

 

[Jensaarai]

There's always the chance that this is an under the table meeting without the brass' knowledge, say to discuss their distaste with their new allies.

Moon Senpai did get a mole in, so we might have pretty good intel.

Click to shrink...

... Who would be their new allies?

Also, even if this is a clandestine meeting, the people you bring are generally your friends and allies, and given we don't know how many leaders are showing up, even one or two dozen each can very quickly add up.

 

[BungieONI]

... Who would be their new allies?

Also, even if this is a clandestine meeting, the people you bring are generally your friends and allies, and given we don't know how many leaders are showing up, even one or two dozen each can very quickly add up.

Click to shrink...

The Ice Peoples from further south, or the Shishigui. Either could be what they meant. Or both.

 

[OneArmedYeti]

Who would be their new allies?

Click to shrink...

We don't know much about their culture, but I can't imagine everyone in the ranks is ok with the Shishigui.

 

[Anderein]

Dude, scale and circumstances matter, the least painful possible example of something may genuinely be ok, but the most painful possible example isn't necessarilly ok due to the least painful possible example's standards.

Let us take the exact same example you gave us to prove how much scale matters: few would say that giving 5 dollars to a starving beggar to do some small busywork for you is cruel, or evil. Yet few would argue that giving him 1000$ for his kidney isn't cruel or evil. That is because, imho, ideals aren't always things that interact on an absolute manner, you can't say that if the smallest possible example is ok so is the biggest, or vice versa, that if the biggest possible example is unfair so is the smallest. There is a reason law has theft and grand theft as different offences, there is a reason people are sympathetic to someone stealing to feed his family but not someone who steals to get rich even if both are in similar circumstances otherwise, there is a reason disciplining your children too litle is as bad as disciplining them too much.

In our world, lines are not always clear. And yet, the kidney example I gave is something that would affect a person less than a marriage, so I would argue that coercing people into an arranged marriage is worse than buying kidneys.

Now, I do think that just like the law recognizes certain excuses in order to let people get off with lesser sentences, so should morality recognize excuses for cultural factors. People are, imho, less culpable for certain (not all) wrongdoings depending on their culture. But that doesn't make the wrongdoing less wrong, just the person less culpable (or maybe in some cases even not culpable). Ling Qi, however, does not get that excuse. She is one of the people that SHOULD know better, because just like in any culture there are people who think "hey, this is wrong", so should a protagonist who was specifically burned by that kind of thing, and who had a friend that was also burned by that kind of thing and a mother that was burned by that kind of thing.

Click to shrink...

...yes? Which is why I was trying to get him to admit that there's a line at all, because he had never acknowledged it.

Thank you for your contribution to the cause regardless.

 

[Vanguard_D]

You also focus on sex too much. I don't think Immortals are obligated to have kids and noone is dumb enough to force themselves onto an unwilling cultivator. Marriage is an alliance, a unity of interests and a promise to fight side by side. Everything else is additional.

Click to shrink...

There exist a social obligation for kids iirc. Both for clan and family reasons and the very real reasons that the world is a deathworld so society kinda wants to have kids with talent around to stop the monsters from eating everyone.

Like even Meizhen expects this to happen down the line (even if Bai does it very late).

 

[storryeater]

I don't think Immortals are obligated to have kids

Click to shrink...

Immortals being obligated to have kids for the empire is a part of the setting to the point not even freaking Shenhua could get out of the obligation. She could wiggle room it by getting a beard and using him as the father and otherwise not interacting with him, yes, but even she could only do that much, it is that big of a social expectation to have kids as a cultivator.

...yes? Which is why I was trying to get him to admit that there's a line at all, because he had never acknowledged it.

Thank you for your contribution to the cause regardless.

Click to shrink...

I wasn't necessarily disagreeing with you, I just wanted to establish that arranged marriages are way past that line, because it was something I disagreed with and I wanted to preempt that angle from being used in the threat as justification for it. The sentiment as written, based on context, did imply thus, so I felt like I had to answer it.

 

[Jensaarai]

We don't know much about their culture, but I can't imagine everyone in the ranks is ok with the Shishigui.

Click to shrink...

Okay... Where has it been said that the Cloud Tribe is allied with the shishigui? The only instance I can think of is the attacks on those villages, but that seemed more like a opportunistic or coincidental move.

The Ice Peoples from further south, or the Shishigui. Either could be what they meant. Or both.

Click to shrink...

Who are the Ice Peoples again? I vaguely recall something about an ice witch spirit of some sort rolling in (maybe in the past?), but nothing else.

 

[BungieONI]

Okay... Where has it been said that the Cloud Tribe is allied with the shishigui? The only instance I can think of is the attacks on those villages, but that seemed more like a opportunistic or coincidental move.

Who are the Ice Peoples again? I vaguely recall something about an ice witch spirit of some sort rolling in (maybe in the past?), but nothing else.

Click to shrink...

The Ice Peoples were the tribes who are associated with that Baba Yaga esq Ice Witch spirit from further south and came up around the end of Forge when there was a meeting between two Khans, one old and one young. And one of them mentioned how a guy stirring things up had done something questionable by marrying a southern Ice Witch.

 

[Varder]

There exist a social obligation for kids iirc. Both for clan and family reasons and the very real reasons that the world is a deathworld so society kinda wants to have kids with talent around to stop the monsters from eating everyone.

Like even Meizhen expects this to happen down the line (even if Bai does it very late).

Click to shrink...

Is there? I don't remember reading about her talking/thinking about it. When was it?

not even freaking Shenhua could get out of the obligation. She could wiggle room it by getting a beard and using him as the father and otherwise not interacting with him, yes, but even she could only do that much, it is that big of a social expectation to have kids as a cultivator.

Click to shrink...

I don't consider Shenhua an example in this because she likely wanted an heir herself, disregarding any obligations. Can you imagine someone who's embodying the concept "I do what I want" doing anything out of obligation?

 

[Vanguard_D]

Who are the Ice Peoples again? I vaguely recall something about an ice witch spirit of some sort rolling in (maybe in the past?), but nothing else.

Click to shrink...

Barbarian interlude at the end of FoD. Some Cloud tribes in the far south has allied with The Iron Toothed Crone. Some type of Baba yaga like spirit.

They have ended up interbreeding with the ice spirits down there.

 

[Ayashi]

We can only really speculate, since we don't know the actual mechanism the Ministry of Integrity uses to find persons of interest (after trawling through the threads the best I could find was a request from yrsillar to please stop asking lol). For all we know it could be managed by low level cultivators working from Xianmen, or Green+ cultivators individually checking every major settlement, or anything in between.

That said, I think it is unlikely that they couldn't get past low-level wards if their job is to search out potential threats. I'm reminded of someone like Gan Gaungli, whose father was a low ranking soldier who got crippled and then tossed aside. That is the sort of situation that could lead someone growing up hostile to the empire while still having access to basic warding. Also, if their biggest fear is a Sage-Emperor type situation, where a highly talented rogue cultivator gets adopted by a powerful spirit, I think to be safe they would have to assume such a spirit would protect against divination.



Do you have a source for that? I've been looking but can't find any reference to the Ministry's only looking for people in the ideal age range. If their job is to search for potential threats a talented mortal in their late teens could easily grow to be as dangerous as someone a few years younger if they attract the attention of a powerful spirit. Particularly if enough resources can counteract the age debuff as you suggest.

Regardless, I don't think that you can say that Qingge wouldn't have been checked because she got pregnant and was therefore older than 16-18. After searching through the threads the only solid reference to Qingge's age that I could find was from Turn 8: 2-1:



If I'm remembering correctly Ling Qi is currently 15, and while the 'barely' gives some wiggle room I don't think that could be stretched much beyond a year or two. Adding on the time it takes to actually be pregnant and I think it likely Qingge would have been somewhere between 15 and 17 when she ran away from home, which is a decent age to start cultivating.

While it's possible that she really is as talented as Ling Qi and was missed by her clan and then passed over by the Ministry due to bad luck or something, I think the far more likely answer is that she simply wasn't talented enough to warrant their attention.

Click to shrink...

i think there's also a factor of importance here: it's much easier for the Ministry to take "ownership" of a random no-name streerat than someone from a normal family, and even more so than someone from a Clan like Qingge was.
It's also a much better investment as the street rat is much more likely to grow up having favorably inclinations towards the organization that originally offered them that precious chance. And obviously, they'd have fewer social links already established further increasing the value of the one towards the Ministry.
All this to say that while a talent 6 might have the Ministry move to grab them, they might not want to bother if that talent 6 happens to be from even a rather low-level cultivator's clan.

 

[RebelYell]

There was an interlude post with the cloud tribe allying with the Gnawing Ones along with them speaking about the ice witches.

 

[OneArmedYeti]

Was reading old updates and read a little thing by Bai Xiao Fen about which I would like to wildly speculate about.

"Ah, if you would, when you see Lady Meizhen next, inform her that despite my setback, I will join her in the third realm soon. I will be prepared to serve her properly as soon as possible."

Click to shrink...

I bet the Bai mainline and Xiao's cultivation arts have an effect that allows for a binding between them similar to that of a bound spirit.

If you see when Meizhen introduced her to us we get the detail that...

"Xiao Fen can be trusted," Bai Meizhen said with finality. "Though we are both younger than usual for this pairing."

Click to shrink...

If one takes this tiny detail about usual age of pairing and magnifies it's importance insanely, one reaches the obvious conclusion that this hypothetical binding is only possible to establish with both parties in the Third Realm.

 

[Neshuakadal]

Was reading old updates and read a little thing by Bai Xiao Fen about which I would like to wildly speculate about.



I bet the Bai mainline and Xiao's cultivation arts have an effect that allows for a binding between them similar to that of a bound spirit.

If you see when Meizhen introduced her to us we get the detail that...



If one takes this tiny detail about usual age of pairing and magnifies it's importance insanely, one reaches the obvious conclusion that this hypothetical binding is only possible to establish with both parties in the Third Realm.

Click to shrink...

We even know from Renshu that such things are possible even without a dedicated cultivation art. If such an art existed it would likely make it much more feasible.