Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

[Garlak]

I will be honest here I do not expect truth to win. We have been given three choices, one is guaranteed boredom and sticking our fingers in our ears, one is potentially revolutionary and dangerous and the third will be seen as middling. SV has a bias towards mid risk actions when given so I expect faith to run away with this one no matter what I say.

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And Omegahugger was 100% sure that Dhar Insight was going to lose the vote after Karag Dum, and look what happened instead. That trait vote won handily.

And dangit, I object to Faith being characterized as the boring or middling option. Faith can be cool! Faith is cool! And faith is sometimes rewarded, too. Though even if it isn't always rewarded, that's not why you're always doing it and being faithful.

Really? How is that going for us then?
*looks around at the vast powers of Chaos at the Everchosen marching ever closer to the world's ruin as the elder races fade and the younger Fall*

Faith seems to be going great, no need for any revolutions of arcane understanding here.

Yes, yes I know hubris we should hug our good friend Ranald, I do not expect to win this argument anymore so I might as well quip about its flaws.

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Your quips are coming entirely from a self-centered perspective though. That, from your perspective, you have decided that the only thing that matters is the potential gain of knowledge. And that any counter-arguments as to the costs or ethics of "Wait, but is this taboo or undesirable territory?" is rendered as an invalid line of argumentation!

... I have trouble exactly putting into words the feel and impression I get here, but... mrgh... ... Hrm.

... Look.

Your argument here is entirely "This is a treasure trove of knowledge. We should definitely pick to explore this, and damn any other feelings about it."

And you use, as excuses and rationalizations and justifications and explanations for this choice, arguments such as "But it'd be worth it!" or "And look at how the world is doing, huh. It's doing poorly. Look at the Everchosen being a thing."

But, like... This only reveals and reinforces the fact that you appear to be coming from a place that views this only through the lens of "What can I get from this?" A lens of "I can benefit from this, therefore I should."

That, in a word, your perspective entirely ignores the "ought" part of "ought this be done?"

Just... Your line of argumentation strikes me as very, I dunno. Cold? That it's all about gain. And that anybody who stands in the way of gain for you, is a jerk or in the wrong. Even if what stands in the way is "divine orthodoxy" or "common sense about not fucking with the divine in a way that might blow up or fuck things over (either with smiting, or with a risk of Nagash 2.0 or whatever)" or "faith and worship and etc."


I mean, when people argue that "Wait, this is like stealing -- or at least committing identity theft -- from Ranald. And/or other Gods." one of your counter-strokes is just "Well who cares? Ranald is a god of thieves anyway, so it's a-okay."

It's more complicated than that! Ethics and right and wrong and culture and religion is more complicated than that! This shouldn't just be an excuse for you to do what you wanted to do anyway. It should be lessons or guides to life or warnings or ways to live life or etc. Or just... blargh. I dunno.

 

[FriedIce]

@Boney which option should I pick for 'I don't want to commit intellectual property theft against our oldest friend or the Dorf Ancestor Gods but I'm totally down for doing it to Sigmar'

 

[Burned_Cookie]

You have misunderstood me. For a sacrifice to be a sacrifice we need to give something up. If after the sacrifice we can just go and re-create it then we have not meaningfully given up anything and thus the sacrifice is pointless. If we choose Faith we are not asking Ranald for his blessing to conduct research. We are sacrificing to him the possibility of that research. Thus there is no cease-and-desist order because it is not applicable.

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That seems arbitrary and random to me.

For one, traditionally speaking sacrifices are things like wheat or meat. Things that we have been replicating over and over for millennia.

For another WHF gods are people who can make their own decisions. If there is huge potential in this to further his plans, he can be like "no actually keep this".

For a third, the option only speaks of sacrificing this crystal. Sure, unless he says otherwise we are also stopping our investigations, but there is nothing there saying that Ranald can't tell us to keep going.

I do not think Ranald will tell us to keep going. But I think that is because Ranald doesn't want us to keep going.

And I am willing to let him make that call. He is our friend.

 

[Karugus]

Unlike Tongs this option is provided by the GM, so you know it does have actual gold in the seam.

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This feels like a noose to hang ourselves more than anything else. The GM gave us the Liber Mortis, we're fine- but the benefits we've reaped compared to the risk we took are a bit understated.

 

[Aule]

Mathilde explicitly says that if the Cults or the Gods themselves found out it would be war. There is no asking them, becasue that is literally advocating for blasphemy. The God themself will personally smite us or torture us like Prometheus. Truth is being completely clandestine in the operation and hoping to Ranald that- Oh wait, we wouldn't hope to Ranald because we'd be betraying him.

This is stealing from the gods. It's not stealing their energy, it's stealing their fingerprint. A higher form of blasphemy that could hardly be matched by anything else because you're attempting to steal the effects of a god without the god's permission or consent. That is stealing, no matter how you try to sugarcoat it.

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1) This is Mathilde's paranoid opinion, not WoG (heh). Perhaps it's a correct one, but then again, perhaps not.

2) There's always an option of focusing on gods we are already at war with. I don't think we can get Mork any angrier at us than we did already.

 

[Jreengus]

If you want to pursue this line of research, vote to pursue this line of research with [ ] Truth.

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Ok so as I see it there are two factors with two options: Stop the research or don't and inform Ranald or don't. Faith is clearly stop the research and tell Ranald. Prudence is stop the research and don't tell Ranald. Truth seems to be continue the research but don't tell Ranald. Is there any option of continue the research and tell Ranald? Would that be something we could vote for after choosing truth?

 

[SuperSonicSound]

...was it? I'm pretty sure the thread came up with investigating the Coin like this in the first place. Wait, every research option Boney gives us to guaranteed to have good results? Tongs has gold in the seam too, it just requires working with Dhar.

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No the coin study option was from BoneyM, Ulgu tongs studying was something I asked to be added to the options list.
Guaranteed to have good results? No, but that there's actually something useful there potentially if we roll well and handle what ever risks and decisions that come up yes.

No she did not. She did not say it was declaring war on the Cults and the Gods. She said it was declaring war on their secrecy.

Dropping the word secrecy totally transforms what the update said.

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That would be a declaration of war against the secrecy of the Gods and the Cults.

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Alratan is right.

 

[Alratan]

They most certainly are if we wind up with multiple, incomplete (or worse, failed) projects because of insufficient attention due to swinging vote focuses. Look at the delay between Vitae followup actions gaining traction, for an example of the event, if not the fallout.
I say again, I want to finish what we've just begun rousing the Old World to start.

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That's just comparing about what the voter base chooses to vote for; not with the presence of the option.

 

[VoiceOfTheRiders]

Assuming the option itself will have a positive outcome, compared to the risks it invites. Already, we're seeing the beginnings of another Tongs-level theorizing storm, but we have no idea what this could actually lead to at all.

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Mathilde implies that truth could lead to answering questions such as "Are these two gods the same being." If taken and fullly pursued we will end up having knowledge about the Gods second only to themselves, and if discussing Gods as a collective whole possibly more than the actual Gods (on the basis of knowing lots about all the Gods, as opposed to a God who knows all about him/herself, but not necessarily much about other Gods)

 

[SuperSonicSound]

This feels like a noose to hang ourselves more than anything else. The GM gave us the Liber Mortis, we're fine- but the benefits we've reaped compared to the risk we took are a bit understated.

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The benefits have been pretty massive I would have said, and given the risks are essentially nil because no one knows we have the book or ever will that comparison sort of falls flat.

 

[Valarauko]

No she did not. She did not say it was declaring war on the Cults and the Gods. She said it was declaring war on their secrecy.

This is a massive misrepresentation of what the update said.

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Somehow I doubt either the gods themselves nor (perhaps more importantly) their priesthoods would be inclined to care about that subtlety or nuance. It's an attack on their power and identity, full stop. You can't beg off a war against a greater power with the excuse that you only seized a small piece of their territory.

 

[Alliterate]

This is bigger.

Like unironically this has the potential to be fundamentally revelatory in the same way E=MC squared is revelatory. If all divine material can be crafted from Vitae then souls or apparitions or daemons could also be made from AV - this opens up entire branches of research and insight.


This is a very risky and AP consuming activity - but it is also the most important thing that we could be doing. It is probably the most important thing that Teclis could be doing (unless he knows about it). AP spent on it has greater value than AP spent elsewhere in terms of what knowledge we can bring out of it.

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Don't tell me we know what value it could bring. We have no idea.

And through collection and careful study you might be able to achieve an understanding of the Gods that perhaps only They can currently boast.

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This, on the other hand, concerns me.

Perhaps that is why Ranald warned you so harshly about inspecting Him - if this tiny fragment of Him is so impossibly intricate, what mortal mind could withstand witnessing the entirety?

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Too much understanding- which has only been achieved by Gods- seems to me like something that could break a mind.

Stick to Waystones, we do know their potential.

 

[Aranfan]

I'm voting for truth, but lets not kid ourselves that declaring war on the secrecy of the gods is not the same as declaring war on the gods.

 

[Execute/Dumbo]

Guaranteed to have good results? No, but that there's actually something useful there potentially if we roll well and handle what ever risks and decisions that come up yes.

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'There's something useful there, potentially'? The Tongs have something useful in them too, we just have to make use of Dhar to do it. That sentence is very loaded.

 

[DragonParadox]

And Omegahugger was 100% sure that Dhar Insight was going to lose the vote after Karag Dum, and look what happened instead. That trait vote won handily.

And dangit, I object to Faith being characterized as the boring or middling option. Faith can be cool! Faith is cool! And faith is sometimes rewarded, too. Though even if it isn't always rewarded, that's not why you're always doing it and being faithful.

Your quips are coming entirely from a self-centered perspective though. That, from your perspective, you have decided that the only thing that matters is the potential gain of knowledge. And that any counter-arguments as to the costs or ethics of "Wait, but is this taboo or undesirable territory?" is rendered as an invalid line of argumentation!

... I have trouble exactly putting into words the feel and impression I get here, but... mrgh... ... Hrm.

... Look.

Your argument here is entirely "This is a treasure trove of knowledge. We should definitely pick to explore this, and damn any other feelings about it."

And you use, as excuses and rationalizations and justifications and explanations for this choice, arguments such as "But it'd be worth it!" or "And look at how the world is doing, huh. It's doing poorly. Look at the Everchosen being a thing."

But, like... This only reveals and reinforces the fact that you appear to be coming from a place that views this only through the lens of "What can I get from this?" A lens of "I can benefit from this, therefore I should."

That, in a word, your perspective entirely ignores the "ought" part of "ought this be done?"

Just... Your line of argumentation strikes me as very, I dunno. Cold? That it's all about gain. And that anybody who stands in the way of gain for you, is a jerk or in the wrong. Even if what stands in the way is "divine orthodoxy" or "common sense about not fucking with the divine in a way that might blow up or fuck things over (either with smiting, or with a risk of Nagash 2.0 or whatever)" or "faith and worship and etc."


I mean, when people argue that "Wait, this is like stealing -- or at least committing identity theft -- from Ranald. And/or other Gods." one of your counter-strokes is just "Well who cares? Ranald is a god of thieves anyway, so it's a-okay."

It's more complicated than that! Ethics and right and wrong and culture and religion is more complicated than that! This shouldn't just be an excuse for you to do what you wanted to do anyway. It should be lessons or guides to life or warnings or ways to live life or etc. Or just... blargh. I dunno.

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Look at the end of the day I come here for the cool metaphysics, it is why I was so excited for Tongs, it is why I argued tooth and nail against Imperial Politics as a focus and it is why the great good of Ranald headpats is not going to win me over on this one. That said unlike with the Waystone project I can see which way the wind is blowing so I am not going to spend too long arguing for it.

 

[Alliterate]

That's just comparing about what the voter base chooses to vote for; not with the presence of the option.

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No, it's changing the Risk Profile of the Waystone Project.
It's choosing to make it less likely to succeeed.
That is irresponsible leadership, especially given we started this whole Elf-Dwarf-College collaboration venture.

 

[D.Rockstar]

There's a difference between making progress on something and researching it, and there's the possibility in the air, albeit small and unlikely, that Ranald might want us to look further. It's less eating the cake and more making note that the cake is there, it can be offered, it can be bought, and eaten. But we don't know if we can get it for a myriad of reasons. Such as lacking money, or the store owner not liking us, etc.

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No, if QM wanted to give us 2 research option he would have said so, but he iteraly said truth us the research option and that's it.
Stop trying to twist thing...

 

[Alratan]

Something else to note is that the only reason that Mathilde can perform this research is because the gods have shown that they're quite happy to leave bits of their energy with their signature on it strewn around the material world.

What she's done here is essentially inventing a camera for divine Aethyric signatures, so that rather than her having to steal divine artifacts and directly prod them in order to learn about them, she can go and take a photograph of them and examine that. It's a much less invasive approach than the other option

 

[Karugus]

1) This is Mathilde's paranoid opinion, not WoG (heh). Perhaps it's a correct one, but then again, perhaps not.

2) There's always an option of focusing on gods we are already at war with. I don't think we can get Mork any angrier at us than we did already.

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1) sure we can willfully ignore the most informed opinion involved. I'm sure that's not a biased conclusion to reach or good decision making in general.

2) That's not what Mathilde is saying. I don't care for whatever trite enlightened empiricism the thread is salivating for- I care that Mathilde is not coming at this from whatever picture you've conjured up in her head. Taal, Ulric, Sigmar. Not Hashut, Mork, and Khaine. A new collection, not a new tool to help people, knowledge valuable not because of the good it can do but because only the gods might know more.

Mathilde is not some featureless paragon of enlightened humanism. She kills people, she tortured people, she buries knowledge all the time, she's broken laws that have incredibly valid reasons for existing. She's flawed and well intentioned, but she has never lacked for ambition, nor a way to make her efforts to improve the world serve her own personal interests. One bombshell that could destroy the grey College is quite enough thank you very much.

Truth is Mathilde's worst tendencies to desire knowing things others don't for that reason alone. Faith is literally her belief in the power of friendship and trust in her oldest friend. Fucking sue me for not attaching wholly disproportionate moral rectitude to Truth here.

 

[Aule]

Also maybe Ranald-I-cheated-immortality-out-of-Shallya is not the best guide in this situation, even if he's our best friend.

Maybe it's a matter to go to Verena with and ask. This is quite literally her domain.

 

[The Void]

No, if QM wanted to give us 2 research option he would have said so, but he iteraly said truth us the research option and that's it.
Stop trying to twist thing...

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I'm not though, and again I'm not saying that Faith leads to another research option as research in of itself. I'm saying it may lead to another form of progress about AV and the Gods, just not in the normal format and form of research that we at all used to.

 

[T_of_A]

searching for a nebulous truth

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We're literally a researcher. Gathering incredible research data is step 1, studying it is step 2 (we'll see what options we get), writing papers about our findings is step 3. Do you really think we won't be making any breakthroughs from this?
And quibbling about a God's personal privacy is a joke. They're literally superpowered voyeurs who observe the mortal world regardless of the wishes of the countless mortals who happen to fall beneath their gaze. Boo hoo, now a mortal is looking back at them. Gods lost their right to privacy from mortals when they claimed their right to exert power and judgement over those same mortals. Expect transparency from your politicians, and openness from your Gods!
THB I mostly picked Truth because it'll make Cython really impressed, but now that I write this I'm talking myself into viewing its potential scientific relevance.

And of course the ability to fingerprint a God is potentially immensely valuable. We know that there are in-setting issues where people struggle to tell if two Gods are the same, or if they're a Chaos/forbidden God in disguise. This could be our one neat trick to resolve all these cases, by letting people with good enough Magesight (LMs) definitely identify which God they're dealing with!

 

[DragonParadox]

Also maybe Ranald-I-cheated-immortality-out-of-Shallya is not the best guide in this situation, even if he's our best friend.

Maybe it's a matter to go to Verena with and ask. This is quite literally her domain.

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Do not expect the god who is as big on orthodoxy to give us an answer we would like. Also gods do not generally you know... talk to people in so many words. Ranald is weird about Mathy.

 

[Alratan]

No, it's changing the Risk Profile of the Waystone Project.
It's choosing to make it less likely to succeeed.
That is irresponsible leadership, especially given we started this whole Elf-Dwarf-College collaboration venture.

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No, it's not, because we can just but the divine investigation aside until we finish. It no more makes it less likely to succeed than the existence of the uncodified Rite of Way, or sword training, or battle magic training or the countless other options we have fir our time that we could do instead of Mathilde's day job.

We have demonstrated over time that there is no danger whatsoever of Mathilde neglecting her official duties in favour of her own personal interests, so this is not a real issue.

 

[Execute/Dumbo]

Something else to note is that the only reason that Mathilde can perform this research is because the gods have shown that they're quite happy to leave bits of their energy with their signature on it strewn around the material world.

What she's done here is essentially inventing a camera for divine Aethyric signatures, so that rather than her having to steal divine artifacts and directly prod them in order to learn about them, she can go and take a photograph of them and examine that. It's a much less invasive approach than the other option

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Yes it's just that it's a camera for godly credit cards. Like I feel this needs to be stated more clearly. The energy is in the form of divine artefacts which, at least for the Coin, Ranald's made clear he doesn't want investigated. I don't think making the identity theft less invasive is gonna mollify them.