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

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Hmmmmm, I think part of what Shu Yue will talk about is how the hatred of the Hui could have lead to Xiangmen being burned down, another pillar of heaven being destroyed by the all consuming desire to make someone suffer the pain they have inflicted on others.

Luckily, Cai Shenhua brought about Revolution instead of, say, destruction.
 
CatOnTheWeb said:
Hmmmmm, I think part of what Shu Yue will talk about is how the hatred of the Hui could have lead to Xiangmen being burned down, another pillar of heaven being destroyed by the all consuming desire to make someone suffer the pain they have inflicted on others.

Luckily, Cai Shenhua brought about Revolution instead of, say, destruction.
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I mean, the fact that Xiangmen actually reaches above the atmosphere and is visible (As a thick black line) from the Sect (which is more-or-less equivalent to a humongous tree in Mongolia being visible as a thick black line from the Himilayas) then somebody could be born and Cultivate all the way to White including ascending as a Great Spirit and Xiangmen would almost certainly not have burned down simply because it takes absolutely ages for a tree that big to burn down in the first place.
 
Tbh just burning it down would require massive effort, probably on the same scale of destroying the Hui at the very least. One does not simply burn down a pillar of heavens
 
sstabeler said:
I mean, the fact that Xiangmen actually reaches above the atmosphere and is visible (As a thick black line) from the Sect (which is more-or-less equivalent to a humongous tree in Mongolia being visible as a thick black line from the Himilayas) then somebody could be born and Cultivate all the way to White including ascending as a Great Spirit and Xiangmen would almost certainly not have burned down simply because it takes absolutely ages for a tree that big to burn down in the first place.
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Magical cultivator fire. Accelerates things quite nicely.
 
CatOnTheWeb said:
Hmmmmm, I think part of what Shu Yue will talk about is how the hatred of the Hui could have lead to Xiangmen being burned down, another pillar of heaven being destroyed by the all consuming desire to make someone suffer the pain they have inflicted on others.

Luckily, Cai Shenhua brought about Revolution instead of, say, destruction.
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I don't think anything short of a sublime ancestor awakening has any odds of ever meaningfully damaging Xiangmen. It's basically an indestructible bunker now that the dragon gods were all swatted. And it should even be stronger since then since great spirits and sublimes grow stronger over time according to WoG. Heck we have a wog that if the twilight king wasn't killed by the purifying sun and became a world ending threat, Xiangmen would have been one of the last to fall, only when it was in full apocalypse time where the nameless or brother time himself are ready to flip the board.
 
Ryumancer said:
Magical cultivator fire. Accelerates things quite nicely.
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I was accounting for that. Again, a tree large enough that even from the equivalent of the other side of China (the Emerald Seas are around the size of China) you can only really make out the trunk.

Seriously, the thing almost has to be at least the size of London width-wise. (And I mean Greater London by that, not the City of London)
 
sstabeler said:
I was accounting for that. Again, a tree large enough that even from the equivalent of the other side of China (the Emerald Seas are around the size of China) you can only really make out the trunk.

Seriously, the thing almost has to be at least the size of London width-wise. (And I mean Greater London by that, not the City of London)
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Considering the state some of the other Pillars of Heaven are in, I wouldn't assume 🌳 is inherently safe just because of it's power and size.
 
Tylonius said:
Considering the state some of the other Pillars of Heaven are in, I wouldn't assume 🌳 is inherently safe just because of it's power and size.
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The other pillars (minus the other healthy one) were damaged by beings of such power that the nameless literally banned them from the world (outside of the emerald island). Short of the stars winning the fight against the sun/moon and coming down in all their glory there is nothing really left on the planet that can take down a pillar of heaven. Maybe the sublimes working together for some reason or the twilight king making a comeback but certainly not anything below sublime. All the empires whites at once wouldn't be able to anything meaningful to the tree. It's literally the safest place in the empire to bunker up, it's basically a nuclear bomb shelter of sublime proportions.
 
We actually do know some of Xiangmen's vulnerabilities.
A core element of this is that Xiangmen is entirely passive.
As such, you don't need to be a peer, even Whites with the right concepts and Ways can deal damage.

The issue being that it'd take a pretty long, sustained effort to get through the sheer reserves of energy and vitality Xiangmen has, which is why Twilight King could eventually kill Xiangmen, and the Sunflower could eventually parasitize Xiangmen.
Xiangmen is dependent upon other actors to retaliate and buy time to regenerate.
 
CatOnTheWeb said:
Hmmmmm, I think part of what Shu Yue will talk about is how the hatred of the Hui could have lead to Xiangmen being burned down, another pillar of heaven being destroyed by the all consuming desire to make someone suffer the pain they have inflicted on others.

Luckily, Cai Shenhua brought about Revolution instead of, say, destruction.
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I can't see it happening tbh.

Big Tree stronk.

I dunno if Yrs ever gave us a 'power level' for it, but I can't imagine it being less than the top tier of beast spirits, if it's of a kin to them.

And if there's a gradient of strength within that tier, then the I think Big Tree is at the highest echelon:

The webs of heaven might burn in the flames of Revolution.

But even if Xiangmen was not moved to help by the power of Truth and Lesbianism, and the Hui were somehow defeated regardless; I'd be surprised if it was even scorched.
veekie said:
We actually do know some of Xiangmen's vulnerabilities.
A core element of this is that Xiangmen is entirely passive.
As such, you don't need to be a peer, even Whites with the right concepts and Ways can deal damage.
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Oh. Didn't know this.
There'd need to be an incredible amount going on elsewhere to prevent the Empire from moving to defend Xiangmen from whatever attack is overcoming Xiangmen.

... Was Shenhua getting Xiangmen to act against the Hui another one of her protag actions, do you think?
 
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veekie said:
Xiangmen is dependent upon other actors to retaliate and buy time to regenerate.
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Is that really such a big weakness when you're as important as Xiangmen? I feel like anyone who knows anything would offer all the help they can if the Pillar of Heaven was under threat.
 
BeepSmile said:
... Was Shenhua getting Xiangmen to act against the Hui another one of her protag actions, do you think?
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That was Linqin's doing, actually. Being both a wood element and Empathy cultivator, she connected to Xiangmen and impressed upon the Pillar the suffering of the people living in its city and how the 'dukes' were running counter to Xiangmen's sole purpose, getting Xiangmen to drop its defensive formations.
 
Elsecaller said:
I don't think anything short of a sublime ancestor awakening has any odds of ever meaningfully damaging Xiangmen. It's basically an indestructible bunker now that the dragon gods were all swatted. And it should even be stronger since then since great spirits and sublimes grow stronger over time according to WoG. Heck we have a wog that if the twilight king wasn't killed by the purifying sun and became a world ending threat, Xiangmen would have been one of the last to fall, only when it was in full apocalypse time where the nameless or brother time himself are ready to flip the board.
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You don't need to destroy xiangman in one fell swoop, that, I agree is practically impossible.

However. The diviner made a deal with xiangmen to protect the mortals when he was fighting the beast gods, a deal that I believe is still going on today.

But what if the people living in the roots no longer want protection, but instead want vengence. If they make that known loud enough for long enough for it to listen, then there's nothing to stop xiangmen being like " 🌳 👍 " and letting itself burn to kill as many hui as possible.

(Mechanically, something like using the resentment of the civilians as fuel, and turning its protection inward, not letting anyone escape)

I doubt it would kill itself, but staying on fire for millenia sounds possible.
Imagine a burning pillar, keeping even the night bright, reminding ES of its mistakes.
 
yrsillar said:
"Hunger. The foundation of want is hunger, the base needs of the body," Ling Qi said. "In the absence of food, of drink, of warmth, of company, all other things fade."
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Hunger is the First Want in life, but it is not the Foundation. The Foundation is recognizing Have and Have Not in the world. You Want something because you could Have it, but currently Have Not. What that thing is and why you want it are irrelevant without first recognizing there is something you Have Not.

This also defines the difference between Want and Greed. Want just desires to replace the current Have Not with Have, it doesn't care about others unless they get in the way of Having. Greed is not fulfilled until their Have is more then everyone elses Have.
 
It's interesting how Ling Qi's perspective on retribution and vengeance is influenced by both her own circumstances as well as voter's mindset.

To Forge LQ, holding grudges was indeed a luxury. That's not to say that she would passively take any abuse without striking back.
But each action "wasted" in spurning an enemy beyond what was necessary was an action not dedicated to strengthen LQ, or in social links.

When LQ/the voter base decided to go after someone (mainly Yan Renshu) it was with an exacting purpose: to complete a moon quest, to steal treasure, to sabotage the enemy's plans.
There was always a clear well-defined benefit, direct or not.

But to sink a lot of time and resources to ruin someone? With little to nothing to be gained, even at great cost to ourselves? Out of spite and resentment?
That would have been Madness. It would have compromised the Excell timetables too much.
 
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Bloodalchemy said:
Hunger is the First Want in life, but it is not the Foundation. The Foundation is recognizing Have and Have Not in the world. You Want something because you could Have it, but currently Have Not. What that thing is and why you want it are irrelevant without first recognizing there is something you Have Not.

This also defines the difference between Want and Greed. Want just desires to replace the current Have Not with Have, it doesn't care about others unless they get in the way of Having. Greed is not fulfilled until their Have is more then everyone elses Have.
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I mean, at that point you can just say that the real foundation is recognizing the concept of possession, or in recognizing the concept of stuff, or in recognizing the self, or so on. You can reductionism your way on down to more and more fundamental prerequisites, it's just not very useful after a certain point.

And for LQ, those sorts of abstract, philosophical takes on the question would make her tell you to spend a few years starving in a gutter yourself and see how it changed your mind, as her view on the subject is based in the world she has experienced. Which is probably for the best - Threads, as a setting, does not support the concept of objective truth, so Ling Qi's subjective truth is the best foundation for her own philosophy that she can get. Pure logic is a far weaker base than the experiences that have been carved into her mind and soul, after all.
 
sstabeler said:
Seriously, the thing almost has to be at least the size of London width-wise. (And I mean Greater London by that, not the City of London)
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Breaching atmosphere is only like 60 miles of vertical, so if it's more than like five miles wide it would look more like a rectangle than a line from far away. Maybe ten miles wide, if we assume it is 100 tall?

kfrar said:
I mean, at that point you can just say that the real foundation is recognizing the concept of possession, or in recognizing the concept of stuff, or in recognizing the self, or so on.
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I think the trick is recognizing that want and hunger do not require a mind to exist- insects have hunger but I really don't think they can conceive of 'self' enough to understand vengeance.

So you and Shen Yu have the right of it: it's not what is actually foundational but what is foundational to the person being asked.
 
Glau said:
Breaching atmosphere is only like 60 miles of vertical, so if it's more than like five miles wide it would look more like a rectangle than a line from far away. Maybe ten miles wide, if we assume it is 100 tall?
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Yes? London is ~12.5 miles in radius. (between 25 and 36 miles in diameter)

So around twice as large as you said Xiangmen is, and the planet in Threadsverse is larger that our world, so...
 
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