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haha but really is 'fellow' masculine because if so there's somebody I need to apologize to
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Jul 25, 2023 14:42
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Lone Goat posted:I don't get how you get Aspen is Male from this when they're lumped in with the other NB-ish characters Guess you didn't read my follow-up post eh? John Lee posted:haha but really is 'fellow' masculine because if so there's somebody I need to apologize to I think it's pretty generic. "Fella" might be weighted male though?
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Jul 25, 2023 14:57
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John Lee posted:haha but really is 'fellow' masculine because if so there's somebody I need to apologize to If you use it to refer to a person or persons informally (eg 'that fellow over there', 'me and the fellows') then its got a masculine implication, otherwise it's generally agender ('my fellow coworkers, who are research fellows').
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Jul 25, 2023 14:59
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Nitrousoxide posted:Guess you didn't read my follow-up post eh I read the followup and still don't understand how you reached the conclusion of Aspen being male.
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Jul 25, 2023 15:16
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Onean posted:Cool, thanks for the recs and clarifications, everyone! Bog Standard Isekai is relatively new story that is pretty good. The litrpg elements are minor so far although that could change soon (minor spoiler) MC is achievement hunting now since his system will be unlocked soon . The opening survival arc is darker than the rest of the story but I haven't read slumrat so can't compare.
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Jul 25, 2023 16:58
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I've been enjoying Dungeon Planet. It's about an aspiring human dungeon diver in a very much non-human dominated sci-fi/magic universe. Some system stuff, but not too much, and it's treated as something very alien, since it, well, is. Still early days, but I've liked it so far.
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Jul 25, 2023 17:22
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I don't know if any of you are on the Slumrat patreon (all the chat here is about the public chapters, at least), but the latest spoiler chapter (134) has brought something I've been pondering for a while into sharp focus: exactly what the gently caress is the setting's relationship to our world, anyway? It's clearly not set on literal Earth, though there are some analogues of Earth nations in there. Neither does it seem like it can just be an uncomplicated fantasy Earth stand-in happily sequestered in its own separate universe- the dream sequences have all been not overly oblique references to our history, and now this latest one has directly connected them to the main story. (Well- I guess the Odin ritual with the egg-God did that already.) We could posit, given the existence of interstellar travel, that it's a colony of Earth's in the distant magitech future, but then we might expect the basin-spirit to recognise the scenario it's enacting derived from its history. There's also been indication that this society has no knowledge of non-magical technology, which- sure, they could have forgotten, but the simpler explanation is that they just never had it. A colony of Earth's in the distant magitech past also seems dubious, as now the visions would have to be travelling backwards in time. So- parallel dimensions? Alternate timelines? But I think it's pretty heavily implied that whatever the Shattervoid clan is doing is, on at least some level, cross-dimensional, so I don't know that that idea is meaningfully distinct from the "space colony" one. Although, there's an interesting wrinkle here when we consider where these visions have to be coming from- Cain. The question of "why is Truth dreaming of Earth" is actually a question of "why is Cain dreaming of Earth", which itself might be reframed as, "why is Cain dreaming of Earth in particular?" We might reasonably expect that from the perspective of a being like Cain, all the many worlds in the universe are of equal (un)importance. But Truth dreams of Earth, because Cain dreams of Earth, and so we might infer that Earth is in fact more important than other worlds, at least from the perspective of Cain. It is tempting, given how many Gnostic references there are in the story (very cute, that that's the thing the basin-spirit picks to specifically not recognise), to suggest that Truth's world and the rest of his universe are an illusionary reality created by some malevolent entity, and that our Earth is the story's "real world". That maybe this is all some computer simulation, Matrix-style, and everyone in it is a body in a pod. It feels like a natural twist to the story of Merkovah- the wise sage who thinks he's got it all figured out, knows all there is to know about reality, thinks the world is Wrong because Starbrite and his Demon have perverted it... but, twist! The whole thing was wrong, and on a more fundamental level than he could conceive of. (And the story has already indicated that his understanding of cosmology is bounded- he fails to recognise Rebkah's allusion to Cain and his ghuls in the side story. I don't believe for a second that that's not gonna come back around at some point.) But I don't think I... like that idea? I don't know that I'd like the story that this would become, if that is the solution to this puzzle. Does anyone have a better idea?
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Jul 25, 2023 20:38
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Public Slumrat 109. The chapter is very accurately named.
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Jul 25, 2023 21:29
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TTOU82: Oh god one step forward and a million steps back. It feels a bit weird that Aspen would interfere with the evidence. This ship isn't going to make it at all
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Jul 25, 2023 21:49
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imnotinsane posted:TTOU82: Oh god one step forward and a million steps back. It feels a bit weird that Aspen would interfere with the evidence. This ship isn't going to make it at all Aspen is extra stupid here. I’m going to be charitable and put it down to panic but there is NO way this doesn’t bite them in the rear end.
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Jul 26, 2023 01:40
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imnotinsane posted:TTOU82: Oh god one step forward and a million steps back. It feels a bit weird that Aspen would interfere with the evidence. This ship isn't going to make it at all i'm curious to know who folks in this thread are suspecting as the murderer. my bets are either doctor friend, because i think it was a mass murderer due to some kind of objection to corporate medical ethics in texas that led it to serial kill other doctors, or the AI somehow reviving one of its zombie brained colonists on the sly and using it to kill renn and destroy part of captain kinoshita's journals to conceal its full capabilities from the crew Jazerus fucked around with this message at 02:21 on Jul 26, 2023 |
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Jul 26, 2023 02:19
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Jazerus posted:i'm curious to know who folks in this thread are suspecting as the murderer. my bets are either doctor friend, because i think it was a mass murderer due to some kind of objection to corporate medical ethics in texas that led it to serial kill other doctors, or the AI somehow reviving one of its zombie brained colonists on the sly and using it to kill renn and destroy part of captain kinoshita's journals to conceal its full capabilities from the crew the latter is basically my assumption, AFAIK there's no indication that the AI stopped being able to revive people on its own after it woke Aspen, it just didn't have a reason to, and we know there's surviving members of the first crew still in hibernation who would need very little prompting or catch-up to start murdering people to protect the project.
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Jul 26, 2023 02:48
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Nick Buntline posted:the latter is basically my assumption, AFAIK there's no indication that the AI stopped being able to revive people on its own after it woke Aspen, it just didn't have a reason to, and we know there's surviving members of the first crew still in hibernation who would need very little prompting or catch-up to start murdering people to protect the project. ohhh good point
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Jul 26, 2023 03:15
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Jazerus posted:i'm curious to know who folks in this thread are suspecting as the murderer. my bets are either doctor friend, because i think it was a mass murderer due to some kind of objection to corporate medical ethics in texas that led it to serial kill other doctors, or the AI somehow reviving one of its zombie brained colonists on the sly and using it to kill renn and destroy part of captain kinoshita's journals to conceal its full capabilities from the crew The latter doesn't really seem feasible. It would require a newly revived colonist to somehow overpower two crewmates despite presumed extreme atrophy of their muscles. I also don't really see how a newly revived hive-mind colonist could leave their pod either without immediately dying since they can't remove that port in their head. Also, if the AI could revive zombie crew members to act as its hands there would have been no need to revive Aspen to start the engines at the start of the book. As much as I want the prisoners to be the good guys here, it's probably honestly one of them.
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Jul 26, 2023 03:20
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Nitrousoxide posted:The latter doesn't really seem feasible. It would require a newly revived colonist to somehow overpower two crewmates despite presumed extreme atrophy of their muscles. I also don't really see how a newly revived hive-mind colonist could leave their pod either without immediately dying since they can't remove that port in their head. Also, if the AI could revive zombie crew members to act as its hands there would have been no need to revive Aspen to start the engines at the start of the book. maybe, my thought was that there are degrees of zombification and the 10%/0% revival rate colonists are simply the end stage, not all of the zombies. the AI has some way to remotely stimulate the synnerves and pilot a body, and has maybe had a zombie awake since before it ever revived aspen just lying in a random pod pretending to still be in stasis. it was unwilling or unable to jettison cryostasis ring 1, which was almost entirely composed of colonists in end-stage zombification, and is unable to pilot a body on the outside of the ship, so aspen was required even though the AI technically had a set of hands available. it may even be able to subvert members of the crew - tal could be a partial zombie, for example, since ke was in cryostasis ring 1, and not even know it outside of moments where the AI seizes control i do like the first crew idea but i don't think they were all in on the AI project - and if the AI could have woken up one of the first crew who was in the know, it would have done that instead of reviving aspen
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Jul 26, 2023 03:57
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Nick Buntline posted:the latter is basically my assumption, AFAIK there's no indication that the AI stopped being able to revive people on its own after it woke Aspen, it just didn't have a reason to, and we know there's surviving members of the first crew still in hibernation who would need very little prompting or catch-up to start murdering people to protect the project. More accurately, reviving a zombie crewman is completely impossible. Removing one of the AI's zombies from their cryopod shatters the skull and causes massive brain damage.
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Jul 26, 2023 04:11
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ttou 83 It would be far less narratively satisfying if the resolution to the murder mystery was the off-screen introduction of an outside agent. It would also violate mystery-writing convention to introduce an outside-context ability such as the AI being able to puppeteer people. If there have been clues to either of those things, such as missing supplies, people doing things they don’t remember, etc., I’ve completely missed them. However, I think that if a person were to have revived someone specifically to use as an accomplice, then that accomplice is effectively part of the “murder weapon”, at least as far as mystery logic goes. There’s loads of mysteries where the cause of death is clear, but there are open questions as to how it could have happened, and the solution is eventually revealed to be a device or technique previously thought to be unconnected. The Friend (the doctor one, not the dead one) might not be able to stab someone to death with a paring knife, but it has been shown to be proficient at reviving people, so the question of “if the Friend were the culprit, how could it have stabbed the victim?” could have the answer “by reviving someone who could”. I don’t know if this is likely, since we haven’t seen any indication of there being an extra person hiding on the ship, but it’s more narratively plausible than the AI doing something new. I think that the most likely scenario is that it’s one of the existing crew, although not necessarily the convict crew, and the key thing that we’re going to need to find out before we can conclude who the murderer is will be the motive.
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Jul 26, 2023 06:20
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blastron posted:ttou 83 I think that the most likely scenario is that it’s one of the existing crew, although not necessarily the convict crew, and the key thing that we’re going to need to find out before we can conclude who the murderer is will be the motive. To clarify the earlier post since this was what I was trying to get at, I agree that the AI absolutely isn't puppeteering anyone; however the crew has made a dangerous assumption that anyone who was aware of the project would be part of the second crew to observe it in progress (aside from the dead engineer who made the modifications and may or may not have sabotaged the engine) and so are all now dead, when that's not at all guaranteed. The AI has demonstrably been willing to kill what it perceives as threats to its growth - waking other members of the project seems within what's been established for it. It's possible it may not have even had to: all of the people woken in the second batch were chosen based on the likelihood of being in the "civilian" group with no awareness of the killcode stuff, there's not actually a reason that group (drawn entirely from the safe central rings) couldn't include project members intended to work on whatever the actual end goal once they got to the colony was. on the recent chapter 83 I do note the comment on the blood stain showing someone gripped the top of the partition comes after a chapter where we pointedly comment on how everyone tends to always follow the same path through the rings even if there's nothing stopping you from going to the other sides instead - would not be surprised if that stain isn't an indication of height but that our killer is abusing the nature of the ship to do some creative pathing around people.
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Jul 26, 2023 07:15
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We still don't know what the big incident was between Tiny and Sunset, I wonder if this is related to it, some further scheme to discredit Tiny perhaps.
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Jul 26, 2023 07:49
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Almost as much ttou blocks as there used to be for supsup. Need to check that out.
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Jul 26, 2023 11:59
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KOGAHAZAN!! posted:I don't know if any of you are on the Slumrat patreon (all the chat here is about the public chapters, at least), but the latest spoiler chapter (134) has brought something I've been pondering for a while into sharp focus: exactly what the gently caress is the setting's relationship to our world, anyway? It's clearly not set on literal Earth, though there are some analogues of Earth nations in there. Neither does it seem like it can just be an uncomplicated fantasy Earth stand-in happily sequestered in its own separate universe- the dream sequences have all been not overly oblique references to our history, and now this latest one has directly connected them to the main story. (Well- I guess the Odin ritual with the egg-God did that already.) My guess that the world of Slumrat an iteration of a pattern, a story repeated. Not less real due to being an iteration, but for other concerns. As for Cain dreams. Why wouldn't he dream of Earth? He is from here/there (depending on what Slumrat Earth is).
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Jul 26, 2023 12:59
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Affi posted:Almost as much ttou blocks as there used to be for supsup. Need to check that out. It’s really good, and a breath of fresh air from the “number go up” stuff that makes up so much of the content these days.
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Jul 26, 2023 15:53
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TTOU 83 The book has been non-stop foreshadowing AI puppets since the start, I wouldn't discount that showing up. Consider the doctor Friend's recent "full body muscle cramps" - it was specifically mentioned when they took out the killswitches that it also ruined the synnerves. It's possible that the convict crew are now immune to any theoretical puppetry attempts and that's what's causing the doctor's problem.
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Jul 26, 2023 16:01
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Affi posted:Almost as much ttou blocks as there used to be for supsup. Need to check that out. I read it for the same reason and I'm enjoying it so far (not near caught up though).
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Jul 26, 2023 18:05
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navyjack posted:It’s really good, and a breath of fresh air from the “number go up” stuff that makes up so much of the content these days. SupSupp, Slumrat, and TTOU all use some mystery genre techniques which works well serially and encourages discussion (TTOU is a locked room mystery, SupSupp always has multiple big open questions and a constant drip feed of partial answers about them, and Slumrat has a limited perspective unreliable narrator who slowly becomes less misleading as his character develops. (This can also be poorly done, Fate Points has 100 chapters of serial killer murder mystery that was so, so bad.)
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Jul 26, 2023 18:23
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cyrn posted:SupSupp, Slumrat, and TTOU all use some mystery genre techniques which works well serially and encourages discussion (TTOU is a locked room mystery, SupSupp always has multiple big open questions and a constant drip feed of partial answers about them, and Slumrat has a limited perspective unreliable narrator who slowly becomes less misleading as his character develops. And this is probably why I think each of them is okay, not great, because mystery boxes aren't all that interesting after you solve the mystery, so you know that you will never get an actual answer to anything.
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Jul 26, 2023 18:25
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Having mystery elements does not make something a Mystery Box. That's an egregious misuse of the term. New SupSup chapters out. For chapter 70, I gotta say that Stuart is pretty good. I feel like he's got some interesting similarities and differences when compared with Boe. I'm intrigued about how his relationship with Alden is going to develop.
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Jul 26, 2023 18:33
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Yeah, all three of those have, like, an actual setting and almost certainly an actual plot, i.e. something that's inside the box. Now, you can disagree and say "no, clearly those are all just faking it and stringing the readers along," but, having seen a lot of the latter, none of the former feel like that at all to me.
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Jul 26, 2023 18:55
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every story is a mystery box. the mystery? what will happen in the next page... woah
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Jul 26, 2023 18:58
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Wittgen posted:New SupSup chapters out. For chapter 70, I gotta say that Stuart is pretty good. I feel like he's got some interesting similarities and differences when compared with Boe. I'm intrigued about how his relationship with Alden is going to develop. I like Stuart, though I'm sad that this chapter explained why Alden probably isn't going to be able to directly talk to Kibby for a while. I wonder how Sleyca will manage to keep Stuart involved in the story going forward, though, since Alden's going to be stuck on Earth for the next long-time, and even when he gets summoned he's unlikely to encounter Stuart. We might just get periodic calls like this. I also hope we get to see Jeremy's visit once Alden gets that set up. Hopefully Alden will finally start interacting with more Avowed once he starts attending school. I feel like the biggest remaining point of uncertainty in this story is how the author is going to handle powers and fight scenes. So far we've only gotten a very limited look into other Avowed abilities. I'm curious to see the sort of stuff the A- and S-Ranks at Alden's new school can do. Peachfart posted:And this is probably why I think each of them is okay, not great, because mystery boxes aren't all that interesting after you solve the mystery, so you know that you will never get an actual answer to anything. I think that you're misunderstanding the "mystery box" concept. It is not referring to the fact that "having mysteries in a story is bad." edit: Basically it's referring to the idea of a story primarily stringing people along with conspicuous mysteries that the author themselves probably doesn't even know the answers to. To take something that I'm pretty sure you like as an example, it's like saying Wandering Inn is a "mystery box" because you don't know anything about its world early into the story. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 19:23 on Jul 26, 2023 |
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Jul 26, 2023 19:13
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And to provide the other half of the example, LOST was a mystery box.
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Jul 26, 2023 19:29
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Mystery box digression aside, the other side of the reason this works well for serials is that writing in that style inherently helps address two of the biggest issues the genre has: infodump worldbuilding and writing as if nothing exists outside the narrative field surrounding the protagonist. You are going to be hesitant to infodump the worldbuilding because that would leave nothing to wonder about. And you have to think about things happening outside the MC's immediate context or there is nothing that can be mysterious.
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Jul 26, 2023 20:34
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Sup Sup Patreon: Ch 70: Pretty low key chapter. That said it's nice to see Stuart loosening up a little and we did learn a bit about how the Artonans view Anesidora. Meanwhile: 
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Jul 26, 2023 22:41
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Nitrousoxide posted:Sup Sup Patreon: Ch 70: lmao; I forget how much Paolo would have overheard, but I was also thinking of that. Presumably only Alden actually sees the person he's talking to, and I can't remember if Alden's side of the conversation made it clear he was talking to an Artonan. The only confusing part of the more "lore heavy" part of that conversation is that I'm wondering why the Artonans *don't* encourage Avowed to all live in one place, given we know that Avowed couples are very likely to have Avowed children, which seems like it would increase the total number of Avowed and be desirable for the Artonans. I think my favorite part of the chapter was when Alden was about to say bye, Stuart got sad, and then Alden realizes "actually I'm up at this weird hour, why not just keep chatting?"
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Jul 27, 2023 01:51
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SS57 Public: I like how sleyca uses a situation that seems like certain death to an artonan but we already know that Alden has unusual resistance to teleportation. Alisarth is a neat character and from her perspective has every right to be pissed at Joe. I wonder what the long term consequences for Alden will be. His main skill seems too important to lose but I could see something happening to azure rabbit and his free authority.
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Jul 27, 2023 02:04
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Kyoujin posted:SS57 Public: I like how sleyca uses a situation that seems like certain death to an artonan but we already know that Alden has unusual resistance to teleportation. Alisarth is a neat character and from her perspective has every right to be pissed at Joe. SS57 Didn't Alden get advised to basically never take skill up selections even though it was dangerous to do so by Joe? That's basically what he's done here, that's why the only way to save him is to send him to somewhere with a system so he can do his level ups basically.
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Jul 27, 2023 02:18
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M. Night Skymall posted:SS57 Didn't Alden get advised to basically never take skill up selections even though it was dangerous to do so by Joe? That's basically what he's done here, that's why the only way to save him is to send him to somewhere with a system so he can do his level ups basically. More specifically, (SS non-patreon) Joe told him if he refused the early level ups then the system would start offering him better stuff, because it was designed to prevent too much free authority because something very bad would happen. He advised waiting for the penultimate offer, which would be upgrades to Alden's main skill. As long as Alden was always in the presence of a system this wouldn't be overly dangerous, since he was even told that as a last ditch thing the system would upgrade him even if he refused. It only becomes dangerous if Alden ends up in a place without a system, and to be fair to Joe, Alden hadn't actually refused any upgrades at that point. Bremen fucked around with this message at 03:21 on Jul 27, 2023 |
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Jul 27, 2023 02:25
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SS 56 & 57, the RR comments are weirdly calm. Its like they don't think Alden is basically dead. Some of them are even talking about the cool powerup he's going to get from this. Which is generally not how dying works, not even in Discworld, unless your name is Mort.
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Jul 27, 2023 03:21
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LLSix posted:SS 56 & 57, the RR comments are weirdly calm. Its like they don't think Alden is basically dead. Some of them are even talking about the cool powerup he's going to get from this. Which is generally not how dying works, not even in Discworld, unless your name is Mort. Well, it is fair to point out that Alden being unusually resistant to rough teleports was established as something of a Chekov's gun. And (SS 57) Alis did say if he survives the teleport he'll probably live.
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Jul 27, 2023 03:25
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Bremen posted:More specifically, (SS non-patreon) Joe told him if he refused the early level ups then the system would start offering him better stuff, because it was designed to prevent too much free authority because something very bad would happen. He advised waiting for the penultimate offer, which would be upgrades to Alden's main skill. SS57 Oh sure I'm not saying he's nearly dying on the advice of Joe, just that the position he finds himself in is somewhat the position he planned to be in, he just needs to survive getting to a system. I think his gorgon-buffed stability should help him survive the teleport and he'll wind up stronger for it all. Or he's dead and suddenly wizard school kibby story, also a fine outcome.
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Jul 27, 2023 03:39
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