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Do you think you can maintain a theme talking about how cyclical abuses of power dehumanize everyone and creates itself anew to continue dehumanizing everyone at the same time a time loop happens that essentially forces everyone to act out the non-looped, first timeline? A time loop turns this story into "well, uh... if you force things to repeat by looping time, then it repeats (and we need someone from outside to help)." There is no more "human" action. Only a single "prime" timeline has happened and every other one is a failed non-entity.
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Oct 30, 2020 22:02
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If I hadn't been trying to be cute I wouldn't have chosen the word "imply" with all the relative certainty that communicates. It doesn't have to be a time loop. There is room for it to just be the cyclical nature of human history. I think the evidence suggests that it is a time loop, where the cyclical nature of human history both exists within the loop and is also made literal by the loop, but it doesn't have to be.
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Oct 30, 2020 22:07
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NachtSieger posted:Do you think you can maintain a theme talking about how cyclical abuses of power dehumanize everyone and creates itself anew to continue dehumanizing everyone at the same time a time loop happens that essentially forces everyone to act out the non-looped, first timeline? A time loop turns this story into "well, uh... if you force things to repeat by looping time, then it repeats (and we need someone from outside to help)." There is no more "human" action. Only a single "prime" timeline has happened and every other one is a failed non-entity. You assume A) that Abaddon can't maintain that and B) that's exactly how it's going to go. Also, so what if it is that? The whole point of the story is that Allison is here to smash that poo poo up and allow for human action again. To allow the stagnant blood of history to flow again, to quote Nyave. Dr Subterfuge posted:If I hadn't been trying to be cute I wouldn't have chosen the word "imply" with all the relative certainty that communicates. It doesn't have to be a time loop. There is room for it to just be the cyclical nature of human history. I think the evidence suggests that it is a time loop, where the cyclical nature of human history both exists within the loop and is also made literal by the loop, but it doesn't have to be. Yeah pretty much what I feel.
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Oct 30, 2020 22:08
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I find it strange that we've never seen Mottom's influence over the planet Earth she claims as part of her empire.
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Oct 30, 2020 22:09
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Grouchio posted:I find it strange that we've never seen Mottom's influence over the planet Earth she claims as part of her empire. I believe the key to Earth is lost and only the master key can get you there. There's apparently some worlds like that for some unknown reason. Or it could be she just hasn't gotten to it yet. There's a LOT of worlds to visit.
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Oct 30, 2020 22:10
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Grouchio posted:I find it strange that we've never seen Mottom's influence over the planet Earth she claims as part of her empire. The multiverse has not been conquered in its entirety. The pact of the seven part world is more like the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas where Spain and Portugal divvied up the Americas before they had even finished exploring the easternmost coast. Mottom has dibs on 111,111 worlds and the other demiurges are supposed to keep their hands off them, but she hasn't actually conquered all of them yet, so Allison's Earth is untouched.
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Oct 30, 2020 22:14
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Gravitas Shortfall posted:Besides "we're in a time loop" is a sci-fi idea. "Creation runs in cycles" is a mythic idea. Yeah for this reason, and because plenty of other things have already done time loops and I think it's a little played out, I really hope it's not a time loop. Fortunately it turns out that everything that supposedly implies a time loop actually just potentiality supports it as weaker plausible reading that ignores many of the themes of the K6BD mythos so I'm not really worried.
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Oct 30, 2020 22:19
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The time loop theory is neat and genre is an illusion.
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Oct 30, 2020 22:21
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Rigged Death Trap posted:They dont have to be the exact same people. 
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Oct 30, 2020 22:27
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NachtSieger posted:Do you think you can maintain a theme talking about how cyclical abuses of power dehumanize everyone and creates itself anew to continue dehumanizing everyone at the same time a time loop happens that essentially forces everyone to act out the non-looped, first timeline? A time loop turns this story into "well, uh... if you force things to repeat by looping time, then it repeats (and we need someone from outside to help)." There is no more "human" action. Only a single "prime" timeline has happened and every other one is a failed non-entity. Pretty much this. The issue I'm having is the idea that a given set of vague references in the dialogue can refer to both literal time bullshit and thematic cycles. You definitely can have both things in one story, they just need to be clearly separate things so that the literal doesn't undermine the allegorical. Take Back to the Future: you've got literal time nonsense in spades, but ultimately the problems of the McFly family are solved by Marty getting his head out of his rear end and changing his behaviour, a thing that didn't actually require the time travelling adventures. The time travelling adventures were there as a catalyst for his personal growth, and it's that growth that provided the resolution to the plot. What's being suggested for k6bd is that every time anyone talks about the inescapable cycle of violence, they're talking about something literal that needs to be resolved with action, rather than a pattern of behaviour that needs to be broken by people making different choices and being different people than the ones who came before. And that's just kinda... eh.
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Oct 30, 2020 22:30
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Rotten Red Rod posted:You assume A) that Abaddon can't maintain that and B) that's exactly how it's going to go. So a time loop exists because you want a time loop and nothing will convince you otherwise. OK. Good to know that conversation is worthless.
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Oct 30, 2020 22:32
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I prefer the "it's a metaphor" option, because an actual time loop seems like it ought to suggest a more technical resolution.
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Oct 30, 2020 22:41
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On the other hand it's a bit of a stretch to call it a cycle and stress the term when it's really just one person who's ever done this thing before. And it's not even like, happening the same way. How can Zoss be so sure Allison will be as bad of a Ruling King as him if he hasn't ever seen anyone but him do this extremely unique job?
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Oct 30, 2020 22:47
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Not exactly uncommon for characters who've seen the error of their ways to draw conclusions from other characters making the same mistakes tbh.
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Oct 30, 2020 23:00
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GunnerJ posted:Not exactly uncommon for characters who've seen the error of their ways to draw conclusions from other characters making the same mistakes tbh. I don't disagree, but that's hardly a 'cycle'. I don't hang around my former workplaces telling people to break the cycle of me having been really fuckin' awful at that job. Zoss thought he could be a better God than God Actual so he went upstairs to impeach him and take over. He was wrong and he did a pretty lovely job, so he gave his power to A Random Girl that didn't know or want any of this poo poo and now he's just hanging around as a ghost telling her she'd make a lovely queen because he himself didn't do so great. Maybe Failed God Zoss is not the guy to listen to. Maybe the male voices in her ear are all equally poison and she should go her own way.
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Oct 30, 2020 23:10
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YaketySass posted:I prefer the "it's a metaphor" option, because an actual time loop seems like it ought to suggest a more technical resolution. Isn't Zoss potentially picking new successors each cycle to try and change the overall outcome not one type of resolution? Granted that doesn't prove or disprove that time is perfectly cyclical and Zoss is just fudging a single variable trying to change the outcome. But it implies some level of determinism until we can figure out some specifics like exactly why Zain is the chosen successor this cycle and whether or not that bears out in every previous cycle.
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Oct 30, 2020 23:14
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NachtSieger posted:So a time loop exists because you want a time loop and nothing will convince you otherwise. OK. Good to know that conversation is worthless. Uhhh no In what you quoted from me, I was saying I think Abaddon is a good writer that could pull it off, and that IF there is a time loop, that doesn't mean it's going to go down just the way you said it would Lighten up a bit, it's just a comic and whether it has a time loop or not it's still a good story, I'm not gonna be bothered if I turn out to be wrong.
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Oct 30, 2020 23:35
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My theory is that there are no more loops. Zoss did spin the wheel and try over and over again - with himself as King, keeping the key, or perhaps just keeping some of it. It never worked because nothing was different in those loops, because he clung to victory. This time and only this time, he gave someone else the key instead and now he’s dead. That way the looping is most relevant for supporting the theme, and explains Zoss’ perspective - how he can be so sure that no degree of tyranny or power from his or any hand, even with the voice of God, can reach heaven by means of violence. At least not alone. We’ll see what happens, this comic has been wonderfully difficult to predict and that’s good. E: the important part is that there’s no escape option if Allison fails. Nobody’s going to step in to say what she did didn’t count. Zoss is there to commentate but there are no takebacks.
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Oct 30, 2020 23:36
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Zoss is certainly not the only person who has conquered the Wheel. After all, there is a group of seven people that rule it right now, a rule earned through conquest. This is at least the third cycle - personally, my theory is more that the "great demiurge war" has had any number of winners that claimed dominance only to have their dominion crumble beneath them and the period of their rule simply thrown in with the wars before and after by history. It is in the nature of empires. Taking it this way you can see Zoss' logic developing in who he empowered to win. The previous winners gained their power through cooperation, not domination - their faction of seven demiurges working in relative harmony brought them power. But it was still dominance they sought, and so they would not break the cycle either, as dominance begets stagnancy, which begets conflict. So now he's sought someone with no ambition; someone who simply wants to end the destruction and not to rule over what comes after. That someone is Allison.
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Oct 30, 2020 23:56
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Niavmai posted:conquering king is literally zoss' title, there is no other conquering king. Yeah I said they dont have to be the same people. If its a non looping kind of cycle then zoss is just the latest in a long line of failed kings who could not stop whatever endgame the story is rushing towards. Probably the omnicide that metatron wants. If it is Zoss reversing time through whatever power of his then things start getting contradictory, or at least actions and motivations start to be unclear, unless he was/is also in the same way as the demiurges and trapped by his own pride in a ruinous cycle. Also the comic tends to pick up metaphor and chuck it at your head to prove its tangibility. Weve had a lot of metaphorical speech turn to reality. "Embrace all aspects of yourself" resulted in Allison litearlly getting down with her ego.
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Oct 31, 2020 01:28
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Rotten Red Rod posted:
I do not think that time is 100% cyclical in this case. Heaven was decayed and mostly empty and Zoss was the first to enter it. Zoss took the power of god from meta and took over throne, but you do not see that before others follow him to throne. Start reading form here: https://killsixbilliondemons.com/comic/ksbd-3-42/ Timeline: Zoss discovers a fraction of a word of god, breaches throne. Others follow. the term Demiurge is used to describe anyone with the power of the word of god. Zoss becomes leader of these first Demiurges. The Demiurges start to rebuild throne, kill the angels and reform a covenant with them, subdue demons. Zoss discovers all the words of god from Meta, makes the master key and inherits all the powers of god, as far as a human flame could control them. (Assumptions begin here) This is important. Zoss gets dissatisfied of total rule. People must have been managing worlds in a hellscape of bureaucracy. So Zoss lets go of the reins. He elevates 7 demiurges to represent one single word each. Putting them much higher than others. In doing so he commits Division of Self. Or at least, his power:  Zoss started handing out parts of his power, as we have seen other demiurges do. Eventually it tipped to the point where it was out of his control. When the other demiurges rebelled against Zoss, they started eating each other highlander style which eventually settled on Zoss being on the run and the other demiurges making the 7 part pact. So, when Zoss talks about the cycle, we know it does not encompass all of time, nor other '1st to heaven' like figures, since heaven only decayed once. I think he speaks of another holding the power of his key. He wanted to break the wheel he helped create because the weight stagnation was boring. He could feel another pattern of decay coming if he sat on his power, just like what happened to the angels. Not wanting humanity to follow the same fate, he started deligating tasks and spliting power. All that did was allow it to be consolidated and used against him. I would think that his division of power was meant to do that, but it only made the problem worse. I think the division of power of Zoss's key made it weaker while making other demiurges more powerful. We don't know how Zoss went from godlike being to on the run so that seems up to pure speculation. I think Zoss might have won a fight with the 7 other Demiurges if he been able to prepare, but with the demiurges eating each other and the thorn angels hunting him to get the key back for Meta, he wasn't able to do anythign but run. Maybe there are other Thrones? Other universes? God I hope not. Thats some Gurren Lagann level poo poo and my brain couldn't handle it. Edit: Got some things wrong, wrote part of it. Tenasscity fucked around with this message at 02:03 on Oct 31, 2020 |
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Oct 31, 2020 01:50
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Rigged Death Trap posted:
I mean, either way he literally said it was this. He clung to victory and made the universe into a prison. It's important that Zoss failed, because he is the philosopher-king who created the golden age and is basically Space Zarathustra; if he can't do it, then it's not because the individual demiurges are flawed but because even enlightened tyranny doesn't work. This time he put pride aside and gave someone else the Key of Kings, and we're seeing how that turns out - whether or not he's been having a time loop. E: Tenasscity, your timeline is unfortunately pretty wrong. None of the current crop of demiurges were chosen by Zoss, or at least, not as the initial key-bearers. There are 777,777 worlds, not 7. What I think you've missed is that Zoss can hand out the keys and not lose his own; that's the Master Key, which Allison has, which contains every name and voice of God while each key (which can be combined into each other) each contains only one. During the Universal War, the demiurges fought to kill each other and take their keys, combining them until we have 7 keys of 111,111 worlds apiece. The Seven New Gods are merely the last demiurges alive after the long war, who can evenly divide the keys among themselves. However, you are correct that Zoss 'inherited an empty heaven' when he arrived in Throne, and having breached it, other lesser demiurges entered it via their own power. These ancient sages became the philosopher-kings of a golden era, but once Zoss forged the lesser keys and handed them out, 'demiurge' became a position anyone could take by knifing a demiurge and taking their key (eventually). Joe Slowboat fucked around with this message at 02:01 on Oct 31, 2020 |
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Oct 31, 2020 01:51
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Joe Slowboat posted:I mean, either way he literally said it was this. I meant if he was trapped by his own pride until he decided to the time loop (again) or during countless time loops. Regardless of all of this I am sure Abaddon will give us something badass to look at And an Allison that will look at all this crap, declare that shes heard enough everyone's been talking absolute dogshit for way too long and its getting boring now, and then just start headbutting folk.
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Oct 31, 2020 01:58
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Question that probably doesn't really matter but may be fun to speculate on - AFAIK, the 'keys' pretty much have to come from the world they link to. The main mechanism for keys coming into play we've seen is a keybearer from a world going to Throne. Which were then consolidated by the universal war. So, how'd Earth's key leave Earth?
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Oct 31, 2020 02:00
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Tulip posted:Question that probably doesn't really matter but may be fun to speculate on - No, they got handed the keys to their worlds by Zoss. All keys come from the lips of Metatron, the Scribe of God. Zoss took them and forged the Master Key, which contains all of them, and presumably forged each of the 777,777 keys out of that flame immortal to give out to the demiurges. Maybe Original Flavor Our Earth Demiurge visited, wasn't super impressed, and went back to Throne. Earth a few thousand years ago might have been kind of unimpressive. Remember that the original Demiurges were sorcerer-saints, messiah-level weirdos who could Travel By Division without any kind of artificial aid, spanning the Wheel. Zoss was the greatest of them.
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Oct 31, 2020 02:03
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Joe Slowboat posted:
Yea I fixed it.
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Oct 31, 2020 02:04
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Tenasscity posted:Yea I fixed it. Zoss also killed all the Prime Angels all by himself; when the rest of the Demiurges arrived, they found him the Ruling King of an empty heaven. Metatron he left alive to extract the Names of God, having chased the chief angel into the Void. The demiurges then get given the keys by Zoss, who builds a golden age (of some description) that lasts until the demiurges decide to start opening up, and ruling, other worlds. When the Universal War finally breaks out, Zoss vanished like the Avatar at the end of the Last Airbender opening animation. The most important thing individual keys do is power a full-scale gate to a world, allowing in commerce, travel, and conquest from Throne. A demiurge capable of Travel By Division without a key wouldn't one to enter a world on their own, though those seem to be extremely rare and unopened worlds seem much harder to reach by division - that's an assumption on my part, though. It's entirely possible there's just only single-digit numbers of people capable of Travel By Division in this era, and seven of them are very busy ruling the entire omniverse badly.
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Oct 31, 2020 02:10
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Joe Slowboat posted:Zoss also killed all the Prime Angels all by himself; when the rest of the Demiurges arrived, they found him the Ruling King of an empty heaven. Metatron he left alive to extract the Names of God, having chased the chief angel into the Void. He doesn't have the white key when the other demiurges show up.
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Oct 31, 2020 02:12
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Joe Slowboat posted:Maybe Original Flavor Our Earth Demiurge visited, wasn't super impressed, and went back to Throne. Earth a few thousand years ago might have been kind of unimpressive. And let's not forget the common theory that Zoss originates from our Earth. Well, Allison's Earth. Which is almost exactly like ours except Australia doesn't exist.
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Oct 31, 2020 02:14
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Maybe Earth-Zoss really hated Australians
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Oct 31, 2020 02:24
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Tenasscity posted:He doesn't have the white key when the other demiurges show up. We know he killed the angels himself; maybe he hadn't gotten around to forging the Master Key, but he and he alone acquired it from Metatron by every account. This is important also because it means nobody else ever has had the Master Key, so we really don't know everything it's capable of because nobody but Zoss has ever had its power.
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Oct 31, 2020 02:55
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I'm kinda hoping its not a timeloop, if only because its the kind of device that used sloppily can undermine all the previous tension in a work of fiction. I dunno, I guess it also knocks out the agency of a lot of characters in the story in a weird way; if Mottom was always going to continue the worst abuses of her husbands rule in every timeloop, it somehow seems less of a failing on her part then a matter of cosmic destiny. Although I guess part of the story is about the tar pit nature of tyranny; how it destroys possible futures to ensure it appears as the only way forward.
Vagabong fucked around with this message at 03:26 on Oct 31, 2020 |
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Oct 31, 2020 03:17
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Tenebrais posted:Zoss is certainly not the only person who has conquered the Wheel. After all, there is a group of seven people that rule it right now, a rule earned through conquest. The seven conquered the physical multiverse, but they did not conquer the Wheel. To conquer the Wheel is to command the most fundamental natures of reality itself. ...that's my feeling on conquering the wheel, anyway. (Hell, I'd go so far to say that Jadis is the reverse: she allowed herself to be conquered by the Wheel) MikeJF fucked around with this message at 03:51 on Oct 31, 2020 |
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Oct 31, 2020 03:46
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Ultimately, the story has already engaged in the futility of the cycle of seeking strength. That's been a reoccuring theme, with Zoss, with the demiurges, with Maya and Meti. With Solomon and White Chain. It's one of the central themes of the story. The need to do something different, to break free of the pattern of "murder people and become strong and oops now you're the bad guy of someone else's story and you gotta be taken down and all you did was kill people anyway." Jagganoth, begot by violence and ambition, is trying to break free in his own way through an act of singular spectacular violence. That it's a pattern that's been repeating, a cycle of violence causing violence, has been the main theme of the story. It's in the last book now. There's really no time to introduce a "oh, and this is actually a time-loop, and it keeps turning out the same way" this late into the game. It's superfluous with the theme already so FIRMLY established in every arc and storyline so far, and it would bring up way more questions and require way more answers than there's probably time to do. If there was an actual time loop that was central to what's happening, it would be at least alluded to more firmly than a few lines that can be sort of interpreted one way or another. I mean, I could be wrong, and the last 50 pages could be a real big mindfuck of revealing that time's been looping, but it's also kind of... that wouldn't really lead anywhere? What would you really do with them peeling back something and showing "I've been running through this timeline a thousand times and it's always turning out the same" other than just... kind of stressing that she needs to do something different to break the cycle, which is already established? Like, maybe I'll be eating crow and that'll happen, but it seems really unnecessary.
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Oct 31, 2020 03:57
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when the seven split up creation, do you think they had to swap around big piles of key stones to balance it out
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Oct 31, 2020 04:12
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Joe Slowboat posted:No, they got handed the keys to their worlds by Zoss. Huh, I was thinking about this comic, which implies (at least to me) that Zoss was the first and greatest, but it doesn't really scan as him handing out that power so much as either just being first or creating the preconditions necessary for other people to make their own way to throne. FlocksOfMice posted:If there was an actual time loop that was central to what's happening, it would be at least alluded to more firmly than a few lines that can be sort of interpreted one way or another. This is probably the biggest reason it's not worth treating that seriously as a fan theory. The rules of the universe violate many of the assumptions we have about how a universe is supposed to work, and they've generally been pretty explicitly spelled out, while the stuff about cyclical time has been really in the same tier and make as stuff about cyclical time when you read old philosophy and literature. "First as tragedy, then as farce" I've never seen interpreted as a time loop, for example.
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Oct 31, 2020 04:13
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JustaDamnFool posted:I dunno, I guess it also knocks out the agency of a lot of characters in the story in a weird way; if Mottom was always going to continue the worst abuses of her husbands rule in every timeloop, it somehow seems less of a failing on her part then a matter of cosmic destiny. I don't really like the timeloop theory, but I don't really agree with this. Mottom's choices are a product of her personality and her situation- infinitely complex, and they influence each other, but they are not random. So if you have time travel or whatever, well, if you don't meaningfully change either Mottom's person or her situation, why would her choices change? Of course in previous cycles (if they exist) there might not even be a Mottom the Demiurge. Zoss may have made some change that altered the situation such that she never got her hands on a key, or died after getting it, or was never born or... But even if the specifics change the overall situation remains the same, so I'll agree with this fully: JustaDamnFool posted:Although I guess part of the story is about the tar pit nature of tyranny; how it destroys possible futures to ensure it appears as the only way forward.
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Oct 31, 2020 04:14
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Rigged Death Trap posted:Post cool zone, surely. that's 7777777 years of immortal science. Once the Slaver METATRON is destroyed the corpse reality will be burned away and the old history of the world will be remembered as something like calcined ash. skaianDestiny posted:In case anyone hasn't seen it, confirmation of Jagg and Jadis's Words. booo, booooooooooooooo
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Oct 31, 2020 04:32
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What if Allison makes it to the top and murders the concept of Cruelty? Just cuts it out of all realities. I mean I feel like Zoss didn't really use his supergod powers very intelligently if he left in all this bad code. There can't have been multiple heirs without a timeloop, and I'm sort of on board with not having a timeloop because time travel stories are usually pretty annoying. Otherwise: Why do the demiurges all act like this is the first time Zoss has ever had an heir? Why do they never talk about having dealt with heirs in the past? Why did we watch Zoss literally die in the first sequence of the comic if there are one or more heirs between him and Allison? Is there a Cavern of the Incarnate where all the failed Nerevarines can show up to give Allison advice on how to reach heaven through Violence as ordained in the 36 Lessons of Vivec? Reclaimer fucked around with this message at 04:35 on Oct 31, 2020 |
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Oct 31, 2020 04:33
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SniperWoreConverse posted:booo, booooooooooooooo okay but Jags being the blade as in "cutting the gordian knot" makes a whole lot of sense with the recent page edit: and speaking of which: https://twitter.com/Orbitaldropkick/status/1322383226799857664 Schwarzwald fucked around with this message at 04:45 on Oct 31, 2020 |
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Oct 31, 2020 04:39
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