#A nuked ancient civilization!

[melonthesprigatito]

Decided to binge watch the entirety of Pokémon Generations again because it's been a few years since I last saw it and uh

Is it just me or is it a lot more fucked up than I remember

[conkreetmonkey]

Splatoon 3 is wild because imagine if you were living in Japan due to a recent economic and cultural boom, and suddenly a space shuttle with a mutant house-sized T-rex riding it suddenly burst from the center of Mt. Fuji and disappeared into space without explanation, and all you ever find out about what the fuck that was about is that Zuckerburg mysteriously disappeared the same day and was never seen again, but still "officially" ran Meta through an open secret Queen-Elizabeth-being-in-good-health gaslighting campaign, and everybody kind of suspected he may have been connected but never figured out anything conclusive.

Also the T-rex is now orbiting the earth in the fetal position like the guy from Jojo, and there are rumors of a substance that, if touched, turns you into a half-dinosaur monster. Nobody understands any of this but Meta employees just keep going to work and pretending Zuck still exists. The same 12 prerecorded voicelines constantly squak from the PA system.

Oddly, the statue in front of Meta HQ of a T-rex eating a human changes overnight into one of a giant human eating a tiny T-rex. Nobody noticed the switch, despite the statue being in a constantly bustling area. It happened shortly after the shuttle incident.

Jack Black's tiny clone, Lil' Jack, now wears a headset at all times and has been acting really shady since the incident. Also they're both hyperintelligent, immortal velociraptors found in an ancient cryogenic chamber who spend their days judging college football and eating the legally harvested flesh of hillbillies. Lil' Jack is probably plotting to kill Big Jack, but Big Jack doesn't seem to care, growing fat and lazy, sleeping on public benches in a bed of throw pillows. Also, he's very open about the fact that, as a velociraptor, humans look delicious, but he hasn't actually eaten anybody aside from the aforementioned hillbillies because he's civil.

Everyone is just expected to move on with their lives after this. This is normal to you.

The local art school was recently attacked by giant sea serpents, which were actually hideously bioengineered hillbillies, fulfilling a biblical doomsday prophecy, and they were driven back by Meta's army of minimum wage, part time child soldiers armed with warcrimey jury-rigged weaponry. The sea serpents had giant frying pans grafted into their mouths, which launched primitive tactical nukes made by filling garbage bags with their explosive blood. They still exist, and occasionally defend their comrades, but spend most of their time in the deep sea.

The local homeless emo twink everyone's attracted to is a closet millionaire who sells bootleg clothing in exchange for live rats, which he messily devours behind closed doors. He's also 8 feet tall and British and only has one eye.

North Korean refugees now flood the western world, after a greasy 14 year old hipster, under the guidance of Ariana Grande and Taylor Swift, beat Kim Jong Un in a mech battle, and the EDM remix of the Japanese national anthem they performed caused like half the soldiers to immediately realize North Korea sucks ass and defect. One of these individuals, 7 foot tall hypergenius, becomes a newscaster alongside a nepo baby rapper with dwarfism who likes to eat entire jars of mayo, and also they're a popular band. Also also, they may or may not be gay. Almost the entire population is gay, so this isn't a huge deal.

The new local newscasters are a famous Japanese lion tamer, an Indian girl with a bloodline trait allowing her to control snakes, and a Brazillian man the size of a smart car who exclusively communicates via grunts.

Gods, souls and zombies are objectively real, and you're effectively immortal because real-life respawning was invented a while ago. It works like a Keurig, but with mucus instead of coffee. Submersion in water kills you.

A good deal of the population is a hivemind. They pretend to be individuals for no reason.

Almost all men are now femboys.

Despite all this, you still have to go to work at 9 tomorrow.

[boopsloop363]

One of my favorite things to bring up to folks is the correlation between global flood myths across multiple ancient civilizations. How is it that all these people who've never had contact with one another all have myths about a giant flood? Do you honestly believe it was subsistence hunter cavemen who wiped out all the megafauna? They put skilled hunters on the line every time just to kill these creatures en masse? Not to mention these megafauna are all well preserved meaning they weren't even butchered for meat. How were the great planes formed?? You think the cavemen just did that too? Core samples found in Greenland show traces of nuclear glass. Glass that's only formed through intense heat. Now I'm not suggesting we were nuked back into the stone age, that's crazy talk, but have you ever wondered why ancient civilizations were so obsessed with tracking the stars? Was it cause they were just bored? Or was it because they were watching for another meteor? Have you ever thought about the fact that humans today are nearly indistinguishable from humans 65,000 years ago? They had the same capabilities as us and yet written records only begin to appear a few thousand years ago? Doesn't that seem odd to you? Have you ever thought about how you would preserve history? Hard drives? CD's? Paper? On a long enough timeline all these things decay. Oral traditions like storytelling? Now that's a good way to ensure things get passed down but things end up getting distorted along the way. A generations long game of telephone

Tldr: history has been wiped out once before and it's likely that's it's happened multiple times. This implies that it could happen again

[minetteskvareninova]

One take I am absolutely sick of is the whole “dragons are nukes” comparison making rounds in the ASOIAF fandom.

Literally how?! They certainly don’t have the destructive ability of nuclear weapons; AT BEST they reach the level of conventional bombers, and they probably were truly equivalent to those back in the Valyrian Empire, where there were hundreds of them. But in Westeros during the Targaryen era?! There’s never more than about a dozen of ridden dragons - which is another thing. A dragon without a rider is useless or worse. The ability to ride dragons is (intentionally, at least in part) confined within a single ruling family, and even that family relies on ancient knowledge from the now extinct civilization to even be able to use them. The destructive potential of the entire useable dragon population at any point in Targaryen history just doesn’t fucking compare to a fleet of bombers, though admittedly it doesn’t have to - since noone else has them and the only way to counteract them, that is, the Dornish scorpions, seems to be in limited supply, they can get much closer to their targets at ideal conditions (as opposed to conducting raids by night) and hit them with greater accuracy. As a nice bonus, the collateral damage they cause is actually lower, because they don’t have to destroy everything around them to make absolutely sure they hit their intended target. Either way, it’s absolutely preposterous to compare the destruction a dozen dragons can cause with an entire fucking nuclear arsenal.

They certainly don’t have the strategic implications that nukes carry - the one characteristic of nuclear warfare since its first and only uses on Hiroshima and Nagasaki is how much we AVOID using them in order to not make our rivals even think it’s acceptable to do the same. In fact, the mere possibility of using nukes is often used as a strategy - a concept known as nuclear deterrence (https://acoup.blog/2022/03/11/collections-nuclear-deterrence-101/) You could maybe argue that the Targs are using dragons as deterrents too, at least internally - but that doesn’t mean that much, because a) internally, they are good deterrents, but guess what, so is a regular professional army of a stable modern state (which is a bit out of reach for medieval rulers, so dragons are a workable substitute); b) externally, they don’t seem to work all that well, see all the squabbling over Stepstones, where dragons did help in battles against the Free Cities, but they certainly didn’t deter them from fighting in the first place.

Lastly, the cultural view of dragons is very different. Again, there is no moral weight attached to them like there is in our world. People are certainly afraid of them, but aren’t appalled at the mere thought of using them at all and don’t claim owning them makes Targaryens as a whole complete monsters. Sure, Viserys in the show and I am sure some people in-universe can be apprehensive, but that doesn’t seem to be the majority opinion. In Westeros, dragons are simply particularly strong weapons used by one family of feudal lords to get ahead of their competitors, terrifying, but not any different in their moral implications from, say, ballistae. But many people still use that comparison in order to evoke those moral implications IN THE READER, no matter how stupid and inaccurate it is.

Which is ultimately what bugs me the most. The comparison is not only inaccurate, it’s lazy and shallow; it doesn’t tell us anything deeper about dragons in ASOIAF, and in fact it obfuscates not only our view of the dragons in this fictional universe (which while harmless is still annoying as fuck) but of nuclear weapons (and conventional bombers, for that matter) in real life.

Because yes, giant fire breathing reptiles are terrifying. But we, the people of the post-industrial age, have outdone them. Wars in our era regularly cause destruction that medieval lord, even fantasy ones owning magical beasts, could merely dream of - and the worst part is, we do not seem to even realize it.

@horizon-verizon

[bitsbug]

i want to hear your gourm thoughts they are a very important character to me

oh goodness. oh man. ok let me organize myself

So basically I think Gourmand embodies the core message of Downpour (perhaps even better than Saint), because Downpour's grander story and his campaign are about deconstructing the ancients' legacy.

Gourmand is basically a perfect antithesis to what the ancients believed in. They thought that one should ascend, and wish to ascend, and to do so they should deny themselves every worldly pleasure or attachment. Gourmand, in contrast, has a whole family he clearly cares for, eats well and luxuriously, and demonstrates an incredible capacity for violence in his campaign! Seriously Gourmand is one of two slugcats who can kill things without any weapons. ALSO HE CAN CRAFT NUKES.

Pebbles even clearly states that Gourmand has no desire to ascend! They're fully capable of doing so, but it's not any significant part of their story. And despite (or because of) how they so brazenly oppose the old philosophy, they thrive!! Gourmand is like the most uniformly positive campaign in mood, and it centers around himself! where rivulet or spearmaster are basically vectors for the iterators' drama, Gourmand has no business with either. He truly does not care for the civilization of the past, and it's like.. objectively a good thing for him. He singlehandedly proves that ascension is not the only option in life, and the world can be appreciated rather than denied.

Compare this to how Downpour plays out. The timeline follows the gradual decay of what's left of the old world, as the machine gods buckle to the elements and even something as grand as the weather starts to forget the ancients' touch. It says that the old world would not matter in the end, falling back as the cycle churned on. And despite the increasing bleakness, life continues! In Saint we can literally see how lizards have adapted, how the scavengers have been finding new prosperity even as dear Pebbles crumbles around them. Despite not taking place in that era, Gourmand's story still calls to that same message. Perhaps that's the true cycle, then?

[persephinae]

you know what, from a world building perspective, nuking southern Thedas is fucking stupid

ok, southern Thedas is nuked, the survivors have nowhere else to go, so guess where they're going? North.

We have Minrathous, Treviso, and whatever other big city in Rivain that they didn't show so they could have Arrrghh Pirates! for LOF.

There will be resentment and fear of having enough resources for the displaced refugees, and GOD HELP any southern Thedans seeking refuge in Tevinter due to the schism in their faiths.

There's going to be civil wars/religious wars fought over this because now we have 2 VERY different sides of a religion being smooshed together and fucking Tevinter STILL has slavery despite how very much Veilguard downplayed it.

like is Solas going to come out of retirement, arrive in a big flash of light in the middle of their war conclaves and go, "hey, your religions are stupid and not real, it was all a misunderstanding over ancient magics. The Maker isn't real and also, if I haven't made it clear enough, your religion is stupid." Then poof out back to the Fade?

Like Fereldan is small potatoes compared to the other countries, but Orlais vs Tevinter, who both had Holy Marches against each other numerous times? It'll be Holy March the 4th time.

Lavellan will tiredly have to resist the urge to strangle Solas (again), put on her little Inquisitor outfit and try to calm everyone down, while the Super Secret Circle of Bad Guys From Across the Sea twirl their mustaches and go "Yesss, yesss, all according to keikaku (*that means plan)"

Like if Bioware really really leaned into this and had something to say, maybe they could pull it off, but lol currently that's not them.

[nekosoda]

We all probably know this Hiroshima wannabe so I wont introduce it <3

AHEM AHEM

Please inform me if I had any mistakes!

Spoiler under cut!!!!!

I just realised this had cubes.PURE cubes.Unlike...

HER cubes.

This is like 5000+ years old ATLEAST 5000 and was dropped after the 2nd who came had been "defeated" there are also constellations surrounding it

This is like 500 years old,back when Khaenri'ah was destroyed

This was the first time a civilization was destroyed by Celestia

This is the most recent civilization that was destroyed by Celestia (that we know of)

Why not just nuke again?Why go to ALL this trouble?

We know that the cubes belong to the Sustainer of heavenly principals,she probably had a role in Khaenri'ah 's fall

In the comic "Prolouge:The songs of the wind" Lind and Vanessa stated that Celestia was seemingly closer.That takes place 2600 years ago.Celestia could've just like,yk nuked yk,like,why not???Why go trough so much trouble after 2100 years????You're already close why destroy it like this??

Wth happened also why cubes go emo did they get corrupted???In Mondstat we saw Dvalin's corruption big boy litteraly changed colors *kinda similiar to certain cubes hmmm* Venti as Barbatos,an Archon,fell into slumber (For about 500 years If I remember correctly) Only the prayers and cries of his people were the things that woke him up.After the situation had been dealt with,Barbatos would always return to the forest,and not be seen until another crisis strikes (Probably still recovering from Durin's poison)

In Liyue,Morax had to call the Yaksha's,only for them to all go insane and succumb to the abyss,except for Xiao,who still has to fight monsters restlessly,with karmic debt only Venti,an Archon can purify.

In Inazuma,Makoto fell in battle,Ei's friends also died.The Ancient Sakura tree,which appeared with Istaroth's help,collects the filth of the nation,yet there are still those ANOYING FUCKING ABYSS WOLFS THAT I FUCKING HATE I HOPE THEY ROT IN HELL ONESHOTS MY LVL 80 NAHIDA AND 70 LVL KOKOMI AS IF 3K HP PER HEAL IS NOTHING AAAAAAAAAAAA-,roaming around the nation.

In Sumeru Rukkhadevata spent all her power fighting forbidden knowledge,created Nahida,got also corrupted by forbidden knowledge,trapped her conciousness in Irminsul,waited for Nahida to erase her from Irminsul so she could carry Forbidden knowledge to the coffin with her.

After writing all this,I realize,Its people that are related with time and wind that clean after the corruption,all being related to Istaroth in some kind of way.Istaroth has always been the only shade to fight alongside humanity,stated in the book "Before sun and moon" While The sustainer destroys and leaves chaos in its wake,Istaroth is the only shade with mercy,helping clean up.

What happened holy shit this was long hello????Thanks for reading this far!!!

[champion-of-the-jotnar]

Something, something about it being already established that the archons’s true names are their goetic titles (Barbatos for Venti, Morax for Zhongli, Beelzebul for Ei and Baal for Makoto, Buer for Kusanali/Nahida/Rukkhadevata since Nahida and Kusanali are the same titles for the same person and Nahida is Rukkhadevata reincarnated, Focalors for the Hydro Archon, etc etc)…

Something, something about how it’s already been established within the Genshin Community that those names are the names of demons from the Lesser Key of Solomon, more specifically the Ars Goetia…

Something, something about how it’s outlined in Before Sun and Moon that before the archons and current world order of Teyvat, there was a single Primordial God who colonized Teyvat by defeating the Seven Dragon Sovereigns after creating four shades of themselves…

Something, something about how the Unknown God (who claims to be the SUSTAINER of Heavenly Principles) is named “Asmoday” in Genshin Impact’s files, which immediately reminds me of the demon Asmodeus who also appears in the Ars Goetia…

Something, something about how Asmoday seems to manipulate space-like elements, which could mean she’s one of the Shining Shades, presumably of Space…

Something, something about how in the Amethyst Crown artifact description from the artifact set “Flower of Paradise Lost” it says that the Primordial One gave the message:

Something, something about how Celestia nuked all the ancient civilizations in Dragonspine, the Chasm and the Eternal Oasis and how since their ruins the same architecture style, they were probably once one large prospering civilization, with Sal Vindagnyr getting a huge nail dropped on them, referencing back to the ‘nail of retribution’ the Primordial One presumably threatened against their own children out of fear…

Something, something about how it was outlined in Before Sun and Moon that the Primordial One might be Phanes…

Something, something about how Kairos/Isatroth is already an established shade, and Isatroth is probably her goetic title with Kairos being an alias since Kairos is from greek mythology and so is the name “Phanes” (who was the god of creation and light in Greek mythos)...

Something, something about how Aether and Lumine’s names are a play on the words ‘luminiferous ether’ which is the medium by which light travels through space and is thereby associated with light and space…

Something, something about how Aether in Greek Mythos is the god and personification of, and I quote: “light and bright, blue ether of the heavens”...

______________________________________________________________

Something, something about how if you look in the Enkanomiya achievements, you see the following achievements: Kairos’ Constancy, Phosphorous’ Guidance, and Hesperus’ Boons…

Something, something about how if Kairos, the Shade of Time, is in those achievements, then Phosphorous and Hesperus are most likely shades of Phanes/The Primordial One as well…

Something, something about how Phosphorous means The Morning Star, which is the planet Venus in the morning, and how Hesperus translates to The Evening Star, which is the planet Venus in the evening.

Something, something about how Aether and Lumine have sun-themed and moon-themed clothes respectively (Aether being more warm-toned, Lumine being more cold-toned), which might parallel morning and evening star in addition to their white and gold and blue and brown pure color schemes paralleling that of angels...

Something, something about how they had fallen from heaven (Celestia) in the form of the brightest shooting stars…

Something, something about how Mona says this in her final ascension line dubbed ‘Conclusion’: “In the reflection of the water, I see the ascension of the morning star.”

Something, something about how the fallen angel Lucifer is also related to Venus just like Phosphorous and Hesperus are…

Something, something about how Lucifer was once a powerful and glorified angel and a figure of enlightenment and glory according to the Bogomil and Cather Text in the Gospel of the Secret Supper, just like how the Traveler twin we play as is portrayed in the game…

Something, something about how Lucifer fell from heaven to establish his own kingdom and became the prince of darkness, just like how the Abyss Twin becomes the prince/princess of the abyss…

Something, something about how Kairos/Istaroth is a parallel to the demon Astaroth… something, something about how Paimon is most obedient to Lucifer in the Ars Goetia and is his most loyal and devoted servant...

Something, something about how the Primordial One’s true goetic title, consequentially, could be Lucifer.

Something, something about how Aether and Lumine are related to the morning and evening star, and thus, the planet Venus, and could be related to Lucifer or the Primordial One.

Something, something about how perhaps… the twins ARE Shades… or perhaps…

They are the morning and evening stars. The brightest stars. Glorified, nigh-almighty figures of the heavens that have fallen from grace. Perhaps... they are Lucifer. Perhaps...

[self-loving-vampire]

You might be interested to know that strategy games like Civilization actually ARE heavily stereotyped as right wing and male in some circles. These are niche parts of the playerbases, but they are real.

They are separate groups of people who hate each other, however. Right wing people like the twitter jerk think as you saw, that the stereotype is real and good. Other conservatives think all video games are bad, so the stereotype is also real. Conservative feminists think it is real because all video games are for men. Plenty of the fandoms of the games think the stereotypes are funny, and plenty of the playerbases think those who find it funny are literally Hitler.

Joking about Gandhi with nukes is the same as strangling babies in real life, and that's why it's based and the Jews want to take your games away, but they are right to do so because the games are brainwashing naturally violent men into thinking etc etc etc etc. It's all the same sort of culture war stuff.

Instead of first person shooters training children to murder, strategy games train them to oppress populations (and that is bad or good depending on your politics).

I had heard about the stereotype, what confused me is what point the twitter person is trying to make by it exactly.

Like, do they really think video games are an adequate replacement for a history education?

Do they think actual wars, even ancient ones, worked anything like that?

Do they think the armchair generals who played a lot of Total War are some kind of effective force for gaining power or something?

There's just a ton of really embarrassing, parody-like assumptions baked into that whole thing to the point where I'm not even sure what it's trying to imply.

The leaps of logic that person seemed to be making don't lead to anything that makes sense to me, so I figured it was maybe some kind of satire, or that there's something I wasn't getting. I do think it's probably a bit or something.

[intrepid-fictioneer-7]

"Historical Civilization Cohabitation", for lack of a better term, has always been an obsession of mine.

I don't mean fantasies where the cultures and realms are inspired by historical ones, like in Warhammer Fantasy. I mean a story where a strange (frequently artificial or supernatural) event forces different "great"™ civilizations that rarely or never interacted, as they were separated by great distances or stretches of time, to be stuck together in a new environment where they are neighbors, and the clashes that ensue.

An example of this is For Honor. After a Cataclysm in the 10th-11th centuries that drastically altered the planet's geography and destroyed countless civilizations, three nations consisting of knights, Vikings, and samurai arrived at a new land and compete for its resources by warring against each other, up until what would be present-day for us. It explicitly takes place on our Earth after a point-of-divergence, so these are actual European knights, Norse raiders, and Japanese samurai (who came west after Japan sunk). Although For Honor, being a live-service multiplayer game, has somewhat of an inconsistent lore subject to retcons that is more beholden to what will be interesting for the game than what makes sense. For example, it went from somewhat grounded to magic being real now. Other factions from historical culture have since arrived in the setting, some of which make some sense (a group from ancient China, Scottish highlanders, Arabian warriors, Aztec jaguar warriors who sailed east, Asian pirates similar to wokou and with firearms, etc.) and others that are just straight up impossible (apparently, both the Roman Empire and Ancient Egypt were still alive before the Cataclysm hit them). Another example of Historical Civilization Cohabitation is Horizon in the Middle of Nowhere, whose map I posted months ago. The gist is that a science fantasy posthuman civilization (basically elves, dragons, magic, etc. but with added scifi nonsense) recreates world history like a giant historical reenactment experiment, hoping that by retracing their steps they rediscover space/dimensional flight and return to the heavens/space (it is deliberately unclear if actual outer space or actual heaven is meant) they fell down from. They are stuck on the Japanese islands to do it, as the Earth had become mostly uninhabitable at this point, so the archipelago is treated like the "world" in miniature. It's a gonzo series, though it has a lot of, um, sus element in both the plot and the worldbuilding.

The tabletop role-playing game Banestorm is somewhat close to what I mean, but a bit of a different example. It's a setting in which Christians and Muslims from around the First Crusade were transported to a fantasy planet by a botched spell, and now in what would be our modern-day, humans are the dominant species over native elves, dwarves, and orcs as well as fellow transposed races such as hobbits and goblins, and many of these species have converted to either Christianity and Islam. It's really peculiar, but the civilizations there are mostly the medieval Christian and Islamic worlds. There is a land of pagan tribes and a realm created by transported Asian populations, but the pagan savage land is boring and nonsensical, while the Asian realm (named "Sahud") is has aged so poorly it's embarrassing.

But my fascination with this trope started with an old book from my childhood:

For some reason, world history has actually operated in successive cycles, with the same civilizations rising and falling again, in the same process, from the dinosaurs to mankind nuking itself while fighting its robots. While this was happening, the continents continued to drift until they rejoined once again into a super-continent, the Atoll of Zoombira. And the third time history repeated, the civilization found themselves next to each other.

It was not high literature, if you couldn't tell by the title and the goofy map. And not just that, but revisiting it showed really amateurish writing, especially compared to other YA books at the time.

But the setting, of multiple civilizations on a new Pangea separated by walls to stop a literal world war, always stayed stuck in my mind like mold, because of the basic concept but also because of the numerous things it didn't do. The original series never explain why history repeated 3 times, leave much of the history of the nations of Zoombira (just the worse names) blank save for specific plot relevant thing, nevermind the state of the place before they raised their walls. You would think this cyclic history would be something important or a cycle to break or something when it always ends with human extinction. And there is also a fair number of "great"™ civilizations present, but not others for some reason: why no ancient China? Persia? Arabs? Mongols? Incas? Sub-Saharan Africa? North America? And the mechanics of "Jurassium" are outright bizarre, like who built the walls keeping the dinosaurs in and why haven't some of the species spread across the continents instead? Jurassium also has cavemen cohabiting with dinosaurs, and the idea of Paleolithic or Neolithic humans living among dinosaurs is not explored at all. There is the "modern" world in the "contrée oubliée (forgotten country)" that is basically post-apocalyptic and radioactive, which raises even further questions like why didn't they curbstomp the others, why is it still radiated if it's a new cycle (did they nuke themselves again?), and where are the robots who war start the whole end of the world.

All this wasted potential has severely rotten my brain and hasn't left me, making me desire to see more of the same or similar concepts elsewhere as seen in the examples I mention above.

And Historical Civilization Cohabitation, while a cool concept to me, is rarely executed the way I would personally want it to.

[holyshonks]

I finished Outcasts

Verdict:

It was pretty good, which is about what I expected.

The Good:

It was great to see Thel and Vale again, and in many ways, the book felt like catching up with friends more than it felt like a book about a superweapon threatening the galaxy, which wasn't unwelcome.

We also get nods to other plot points that almost felt like 343 was saying "No, we didn't forget about this", such as callbacks to the fact that ONI funded the Servants, and the findings on Heian, but then, there's no follow up.

I thought Thel's character was handled well, and all the things we know and love about him were on display: that he's a progressive leader, that he enjoys a healthy relationship with humanity (and Vale in particular) and that he has fully come into his role as an advocate for peace. I enjoyed riding along with him, seeing how he handled the various personalities thrown at him, from putting misogynistic kaidons in their place, grappling with the suspicious Petrov, conniving 'Ayomuu, and the fanatic 'Kvarosee. Although we don't learn anything groundbreaking, I think Thel is the star of the show, and the best parts of the book were his observations.

We also got various "status checks" of characters, such as that Rtas, Usze, Kola, and N'tho are all alive and kicking, but not much else. We see what Atriox was up to, which has implications that may or may not be moot by Infinite's timeline.

I would be interested to know when this book started development. While I understand that 343 couldn't very well completely ignore Cortana's Created timeline, I was happy to. As usual, the Guardians exist merely as a timing device: something to give the characters a sense of urgency but do not make an appearance. If development started before the plan to nuke the Guardians in Infinite, I understand why this book exists. If not, why?

I generally was enjoying the story (unpopular opinion: of the Master Chief trilogy, Oblivion was my favorite, and I actually really wanted to know what was going on with Petrov and the Covenant stragglers) until:

The Bad

Who the hell are The Nothing? What is the point of yet another ancient civilization capable of taking on the Forerunners? And why do we need both them and the Endless? I just can't reconcile this if the book was in development at the same time as Infinite. I don't mind universes that feature multiple factions with competing interests: it gives the universe a sense of scale. But what do The Nothing provide that we could not get from the Endless, or the Created, or even the Banished?

The book somehow acknowledges that there are many unexplored loose ends that the fans would like to hear more about, while opting to introduce yet another new faction.

What I thought I was going to get was a "open and shut" standalone story (or a spiritual successor to Oblivion) that would let me catch up with my favs, and in many ways that is what it is, but the ending, and the realization that we're being introduced to a new faction yet again...just, why?

The "Other"

Usze and Vale bait and switch. Usze promptly disappears from the story.

Caleb-095 is Vale's dad?? What are the implications of this??

I've mentioned this previously, but Iyuska mentions that her rival got funding for a San'Shyuum research project, and Thel mentions that Rtas is also still looking for them.......next book???

[flaetsbnortoriginals]

Since some time ago I've talked about a random idea for a dungeon that I'd had for a while but don't think I'll be able to do right now, I'll do it again today.

But first, I need to talk about Eternal Darkness.

I first discovered TTRPG when a random guy in my school came up to me and asked me if I wanted to play. We weren't even friends. I don't even know what system it was - looking back, it feels more like one of those Lone Wolf style CYOA books, especially because it was one-on-one. I took that idea to my friends and we created new systems based on that one game, vague ideas from digital RPGs like Final Fantasy and Pokémon, and out of our buttholes.

Since we had no idea for what could be a setting for a RPG, we made them up, usually inspired on videogames. That was how I started playing a one-on-one game with a friend that was basically a TTRPG remake of Eternal Darkness.

Eternal Darkness is a 2002 survival horror videogame for the GameCube. It's mostly known for its sanity mechanic that often messed with the game in a meta way, like pretending to lower the volume or erase the saved files. But my favourite thing about it is that it took place over a very long time. It had four locations that were visited centuries apart by people in different moments of history. A buried temple in the Middle East is visited by an invading Roman soldier, then two millenia later by a Canadian firefighter putting out post-Gulf War fires. This meant that as you progressed the game you'd switch from swords to crossbows to flintlock pistols to assault rifles.

My idea from this is what I call a Time Funnel. A group of adventurers go down a terrible dungeon to destroy an undying evil. They fail. The next group takes a few centuries to show up, but at least they have better technology now.

I'll now proceed to vomit up some of the things I've thought up about this cenario...

I have some ideas about the setting. It would obviously need to be a forgotten island... close enough to shore that even ancient folks might feasibly end up there, but in a remote enough location that it would never become something well-known.

The concept for the evil that needs to be defeated could be:

the last holdout of an an Assassin's Creed-style precursor race

the seed for a very long term alien invasion force

why stray from the source? a temple to an ancient chtulhulesque may be perfectly fine

The rooms that are closer to the surface might become time-damaged once adventurers break into them, so the more you explore the dungeon, the easier time later adventurers will have. But this inverts as the heroes approach the core, as its evil actually becomes stronger when it's released and possibly starts infecting rooms that were previously safe and making defeated challenges come back more dangerous.

I've thought of the time periods as something like this:

Literal cavemen (sticks, stones)

Almost prehistoric (crappy swords, spears)

Ancient era (less crappy swords, bows)

Medieval (good swords, longbows, crossbows)

Age of piracy (fancy swords, flintlock pistols, muskets)

Victorian age (revolvers, shotguns)

Modern age (automatic guns, grenades)

Cyberpunk age (laserguns, drones)

Space opera age (nuke it from orbit)

Oh yeah, an idea I've had is that if the party dies enough times the last party is from a distant future in which the threatening entity has almost awaken, and you are humanity's last hope. So you've got the best technology a perfect future civilization can muster, but the enemies have also become equally powerful. I'm not sure if that kind of shift would work; might be a cool capstone if a campaign lasted that long.

Problems I foresee, however:

This definitively requires a OSR/NSR like system, and I'm not sure how to mechanically differenciate a crappy Bronze Age sword from a less crappy Iron age sword, for instance. Simply adding damage would create a power creep that makes modern weapons too powerful, while tactical advantadges might make the whole thing too complex too quickly.

In a regular funnel, when a character dies, a new one immediately replaces it. But this setting absolutely requires that a character is not replaced until a new expedition centuries down the line. What do the players of downed characters do?

Fine-tuning the difficutly would be paramount, and I'm not good at all at it. Although I imagine erring in the side of too difficult would still result in an interesting name, albeit maybe not a satisfying one.

The setting essentially required that everything happens in the dungeon, with no encounters with friendly NPCs whatsoever to break the tension. I fear that this might quickly become tiresome. Would exploring rooms without breaks still be fun just because now you have a rifle instead of a crossbow? (I do have a related idea in which there is an entire island with factions and stuff, but that's so much more complicated that it's basically a different idea.)

So... a cool idea, not one that I'm confident I could pull of now, or even in the foreseeable future. So instead I post it on Tumblr to throw it out across the winds.

[sortyourlifeoutmate]

I finally finished off the Krieg book (named ‘Krieg’, confusingly enough) and I did not enjoy it. I did not enjoy it to the extent that I had to go off and vent my spleen in a several thousand word Google Doc just to get off my chest how much I had not enjoyed it.

Broadly speaking, three reasons:

1) The backstory of Krieg’s civil war and Colonel Jurten did not need expansion or illumination, and the expansion and illumination were handled poorly. 2) Nukes are bad, yes, but in the context of 40k they are nowhere near the terrifying ancient long-forgotten forbidden superweapon you seem to think they are. 3) Why do you keep using Leman Russ Demolishers as artillery pieces that is not what they are for.

Broadly speaking. 

Of course, all this sort of thing is subjective though, and I’m sure other people had a grand time with the book. Whatever.

I have now moved onto reading a copy of Pandorax I obtained from a local library. Pandorax, a Space Marine Battles book that, so far, has not so much a mentioned Space Marines once - an interesting approach.

(It did however open up with a fairly cute bit where a Fire Warrior’s failure to apprehend a human intruder gets them sent on a suicide mission against orks by their superiors on account of a ‘clerical error’, which is the kind of thing I can get behind.)

[kyuureimu]

🗑️

Send a 🗑️ for a scrapped element of the blog. [prompt]

I just want to put out to the world that I have been building our collective Dragon Force headcanons and how they relate to the Tao Trio long before X/Y came out!! So you can imagine my surprised pikachu face when Gen 6 released and introduced the Life/Death/Order cycle, and conveniently had a really fucked up war going on 3000 years ago, which was around the time Cherabby and I decided the ancient pre-Unova civilization fell.

...So we thought it would be funny if Kalos was the reason why pre-Unova/Isshu fell, especially considering all the similar parallels we had going for us at the time. Granted it is more or less reworked now to be Poke-Europe(tm) as a whole, and decided it would be extra funny if Kalos and Unova made up at some point in the centuries following, considering the Tao Statues in Parfum Palace.

When X/Y were fresh I immediately began to consider if I wanna retool my Original Dragon interpretation in any meaningful way, more specifically to make it a Fairy/Dragon type to account for the new canon development. Ultimately I decided against it, and took this as an opportunity to establish that Unova and Kalos, more or less, has similar concepts just completely different cultural interpretations. (And the fact that... y'know, Unova didn't have a crazy immortality nuke go off that fucked with the natural cycles there, or have a weird funky alien space crystal crash land there and fuck up the natural cycles even more.)

So I stuck to my guns with the Original Dragon being Water/Dragon (water being an essential component of life, lifeblood of the planet symbolism, ocean currents driving the cycles of climate/weather, etc), with the added significance of Abyssal Ruins being underwater with crazy water traps a fun and funny bonus.

Related fun fact: did you know that if Plasma were to succeed in fusing all three Tao Dragons, I wanted it to be a completely separate pokemon/interpretation to the Original Dragon? Much like how they created Genesect, I wanted 'complete' Kyurem to be Steel/Dragon, a badass cybernetic knight dragon (with a different name too, obvs). Now you can imagine my EXTRA surprised pikachu face when Scarlet/Violet released and introduced Koraidon and Miraidon. But it's okay, it's just an in-universe reason for me to make that a reality some day... ;3c

[lucariwoah]

What about fantasy media where magic vanishes from the world, sealed away to keep it safe, then, by sheer accident and miraculous coincidence, magic is returned to the world?

Having been sealed for so long, it's like a bottle under pressure, a tap itching to blow. But rather than blow, it explodes. Imagine a magical nuke, gushing magical energy like nuclear radiation, killing, destroying, changing, rewriting the laws of reality that used to have room for these forces but adjusted without them. The lands and their people become smoke and shadow in the blast, and beyond that, things that used to be magical are magical again. The tamed dragons and broken-in unicorns regain old knowledge and power, becoming rebellious and wild. Ancient constructs power back on, disrupting civilization, while modern machines find new sparks of life, rising like tiny sprigs amongst long-dormant towering trees of ancient engineering. People with proclivities for certain elements suddenly gain a sort of symbiosis with them, not a complete dominance, but an understanding, strength.

Basically what I'm saying is I want to see modern lord of this rings. It's a story idea I've been working on a long time.

Perhaps they ought not to have eaten the dragon. There had been people objecting to it at the time. Surely such meat was poisonous. Perhaps it was even an affront, an insult to some intangible order of nature they ought to honour.

But the city was starving, the siege had gone on too long, and the king's troops were still a week's march away. The scorched earth would be fertile again in time, but right now it was barren. Right now there were mouths to feed. So they changed their crossbows for butcher knives and got to work.

None of the royal commanders asked any questions that could not be answered. After all, their aid had come shamefully late. The dragon's horned skull made a noble gift, a fitting tribute from a triumphant city to its humbled king. Who would have thought to question them?

And none of the townsfolk spoke up, when the first golden-eyed babes were born. Children who grew up barefoot and fearless, clambering over the city's patched and rebuilt roofs like they had no notion of falling, with a strange glitter to their skin when the sunlight hit it just so. No one breathed a word about dragons.

Because soon enough there were deft, young hands taking loaves straight out of the oven, heedlessly lifting iron from the forge, plunging into boiling laundry water. And some of them more wondrous still, wild, warm-skinned youths, with inexplicable knowledge and peculiar remedies.

A blessing, their families said proudly. A blessing after so much hardship. Which it was, in its way. This city would never fear dragon fire again.

[gingermcl]

Phrases like “the sky’s the limit” and “breaking the glass ceiling” likely are referring to this being a controlled & domed realm. ceiling is the same as sealing; like sealing off an area, the “glass ceiling” could mean enclosed in a dome. Cathedrals and other grand architecture often have a dome; maybe to better work with energy? Seems a domed shape inside a dome maybe the best way to achieve a flow state for conducting energy. Nesting dolls come to mind.

Many don’t realize the globe has only been taught in schools since the 1951. The firmament was widely & well known before this. Every ancient culture has drawn this realm with a covering over it. NASA was created in 1958 and wehrner von Braun is who headed the organization. His tombstone has one Bible verse on it; a verse about the firmament.

Admiral Richard Byrd was allegedly taken into a extremely advanced civilization within the Earth on one of his North pole military expeditions. He met with the leader and was told if surface dwellers continue to play with nuclear weapons, such weapons will be disabled. There have been multiple instances where nukes have mysteriously been disabled.

It’s hard to tell where Admiral Byrd actually went. I do feel he was taken by someone and the true story was heavily censored. I can’t remember, but I’m thinking the people were human but slightly different? I need to look Byrd’s testimony up again. It’s been a few years & I can’t remember the details.

In 1962 Operation Fish bowl happened. Operation fishbowl was “a series of high altitude nuclear tests.” Basically the military nuked the dome multiple times & couldn’t break it.

The existence of a “ceiling” does not negate the possibility of other worlds & other life forms. The sky may be the limit, but the kingdom of God is within, I think the same thing goes for the Earth. You go within the Earth to get to other places. It’s a Stargate and portal system.

What I have seen in here is we’re in a small domed section (looks like an egg) inside of a much larger egg with other domed sections on our level or plane. The big egg we are in is multi leveled; there are definitely worlds underneath us, and may be some above. Dimensions can lie on top of one another too. Like another realm could be going on in the same space, but it’s either such different frequency. We can’t see it.