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Makes sense. Anyway, Dune did it first.
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Jan 24, 2024 14:52
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Megazver posted:I'm not reading Thresholder because it didn't appeal to me after the first few chapters, That said, uh, well, pirateaba's back off break soonish so I'm gonna need to stop reading something to make space. Maybe he'll do it adequately.
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Jan 24, 2024 17:16
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I was interested in Thresholder for the initial direction of "the protagonist is in the wrong, because the cycle of conflict makes everyone in it the worst version of themselves," and apparently that's just kind of backburnered as the story goes on? Which sapped a lot of my motivation to catch up.
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Jan 24, 2024 17:27
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Einander posted:I was interested in Thresholder for the initial direction of "the protagonist is in the wrong, because the cycle of conflict makes everyone in it the worst version of themselves," and apparently that's just kind of backburnered as the story goes on? Which sapped a lot of my motivation to catch up. That's why I dropped it. I want a main character I can root for, and Thresholder seemed, at best, morally ambiguous. The things I heard made me think that wasn't going to change so I didn't feel much reason to keep going.
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Jan 24, 2024 17:37
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Bremen posted:That's why I dropped it. I want a main character I can root for, and Thresholder seemed, at best, morally ambiguous. The things I heard made me think that wasn't going to change so I didn't feel much reason to keep going. It is a bit of a trend on RR, quite a large portion of the Rising Stars right now are Anti-Hero or just Evil. Not a fad I am a fan of I must say.
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Jan 24, 2024 19:12
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If Perry and I were both thresholders I'd totally find myself in a conflict with him just based on how he seems to be. Maybe it's intended 🤔
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Jan 24, 2024 20:16
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Started Pale Lights and I gotta say, I'm not especially taken by the hunger games/death game start to it.
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Jan 24, 2024 20:28
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Ahahaha, just sunk in that in Super Suportive, the Artonans gave humans hereditary superpowers and super-expensive immortality. They might as well have just stuck humanity in a big jar and shook it up if they were gonna be that committed to seeing humanity tear itself to bits.
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Jan 24, 2024 20:48
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Haystack posted:Ahahaha, just sunk in that in Super Suportive, the Artonans gave humans hereditary superpowers and super-expensive immortality. They might as well have just stuck humanity in a big jar and shook it up if they were gonna be that committed to seeing humanity tear itself to bits.
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Jan 24, 2024 20:51
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It's also very much a typical colonial tactic to elevate a small group of the colonised and let them keep the rest of the people in line.
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Jan 24, 2024 20:58
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The Artonans also have a cast based society themselves: regular folks -> wizards/senators -> knights. So introducing that in their resource worlds is hardly unusual.
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Jan 24, 2024 21:08
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Nitrousoxide posted:The Artonans also have a cast based society themselves: regular folks -> wizards/senators -> knights. This is a big understatement, even. The Artonans are so obsessed with hierarchies that their global surveillance super spells keep a priority list of the relative importance of every single person under their dominion. And it updates constantly. The Artonans are wild. They have a much stronger culture of noblesse oblige than humans, but I suspect it's not enough to keep their culture from being fairly hosed up.
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Jan 24, 2024 21:13
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(Thresholder:) Perry has gotten somewhat better, I think. In the first book, his only two prior interactions were with people who went immediately aggro on him and his allies the moment they met, so he decided to treat his opponent the exact same way. The tragedy was that the main (and perhaps only) reason he was attacking Cosme was because he felt like violent conflict was inevitable and refused to engage with him as a person, even though there was a good chance that they could have been friends if they’d just talked it out. Since then, he’s mellowed out somewhat. He made an ally of another thresholder in his next world, and in the world after that he spent a bunch of time solving problems for the people he wound up with. He’s got a lot of faults, especially paranoia and a need for control, but he genuinely seems to be a good person—or at least he tries to be one—as long as you’re not trying to kill him.
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Jan 24, 2024 21:48
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He's a D&D poster granted the capacity for incredible violence.
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Jan 24, 2024 22:19
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Haystack posted:Ahahaha, just sunk in that in Super Suportive, the Artonans gave humans hereditary superpowers and super-expensive immortality. They might as well have just stuck humanity in a big jar and shook it up if they were gonna be that committed to seeing humanity tear itself to bits. - Kids worldwide are getting scary/dangerous/valuable magic powers. There is international agreement that the best way to handle this is to formally revoke their citizenship and obligations to their birth countries and consolidate them in a new nation state that will have a de facto monopoly on magic powers. And it's hereditary, so soon all the superpowered people will also have no cultural ties or loyalty to anywhere else. - Early Contract negotiations apparently prioritized making those kids as destructive as possible, even though nobody actually wants that. Brute is the most common power, mid ranks are almost never summoned, and no off island nations want them. Stuff like Rabbit or Healer are in high demand both on and off planet, but are rarely given out.
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Jan 25, 2024 00:40
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Nitrousoxide posted:Started Pale Lights and I gotta say, I'm not especially taken by the hunger games/death game start to it. My main issue with Pale Lights is that it's a bit too "exhausting." Just constant tension that almost never lets up.
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Jan 25, 2024 00:41
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gonadic io posted:It's also very much a typical colonial tactic to elevate a small group of the colonised and let them keep the rest of the people in line. I feel like such direct colonial comparisons don't really work, because the Avowed themselves are the only "resource" Artonans are interested in. It's not like they're using the elevated Avowed to help exploit the Earth's human labor and natural resources. The "elevated" people in this case are the only ones being exploited. There's no need to keep anyone in line, because most of the people being exploited still like what they're getting out of the "deal." And most of the ones who don't like it - the lower ranks who lose their freedom in exchange for lame powers - are being treated poorly by purely human authorities in ways the Artonans are just ambivalent towards (and think is strange). Nitrousoxide posted:The Artonans also have a cast based society themselves: regular folks -> wizards/senators -> knights. They don't introduce that, though. They're basically hands-off unless a society is interfering with their Avowed's ability to carry out their duties. Basically they don't seem to give a poo poo, for either good or ill, as long as they're getting a steady supply of useful Avowed. They just toss the bomb of "super powers" onto planets (after easily making deals where they cure some diseases or whatever in exchange for the contract) and don't care how it affects those societies (unless things become bad enough to result in worse/fewer Avowed). Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 01:03 on Jan 25, 2024 |
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Jan 25, 2024 00:52
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gonadic io posted:It's also very much a typical colonial tactic to elevate a small group of the colonised and let them keep the rest of the people in line. one of the things I really like about the story is how there keep being clear indications of how totally the Artonans warp the societies they encounter around them, and how often it goes completely uncommented on because our viewpoint characters are children being raised in that society who don't really have any framework to even start questioning it. just this absolute saturation of the idea that people only have value in so far as the Artonans have ascribed a sufficiently high number to them. like it bears pointing out that the secret fact that child Lute held onto, that was taught to him by the private music tutor hired by the richest most-self important family in the world, that he used as a shield against feeling inadequate against his future-superhero-classmates, essentially boils down to "the Artorans have other lists they rank people's existence on." that's what he was taught, what he's uncritically reciting to the class. that he should feel confidence in his self-worth because he can be useful to the Artorans in other ways instead. it's stuff like that, even more than the very obvious things like "Paragon doesn't consider human culture worth learning about", that to me show how messed up the situation is (and that Joe is 100% right about it being inevitable that this is going to fall apart dramatically). Foxfire_ posted:Parts of this seem adjacent to story setting conceits that don't actually make sense, but you shouldn't think about because they're necessary for the plot: the former I think is sort of hand-waved as "countries in 1969 panicked and came to a mutual agreement to put everyone where they could be easily killed en masse without really realizing the implications", which eh, but the latter is something that's been brought up multiple times by people in the story as being kind of confusing and not at all matching their understanding of what the System is doing, so I'm pretty sure that's an intentional plot hook for later.
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Jan 25, 2024 00:53
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Foxfire_ posted:- Early Contract negotiations apparently prioritized making those kids as destructive as possible, even though nobody actually wants that. Brute is the most common power, mid ranks are almost never summoned, and no off island nations want them. Stuff like Rabbit or Healer are in high demand both on and off planet, but are rarely given out. Was it humans who set those ratios? If so then yeah, that's kind of weird. If it was Artonans who set that, then I'd guess that they want a large military reserve. You might not need to summon bunch of Brutes all that often, but when there's a huge chaos outbreak then that could be pretty critical.
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Jan 25, 2024 01:01
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Well, from Joe's comments on all the factionalism I think it's likely that the Artonan policy towards the Avowed is an incoherent mess... so they may try to make them potentially useful but also not too powerful, but then also have a bunch of rabbits to serve the hedonistic wizard class, etc.
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Jan 25, 2024 01:13
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yeah joe explained all thisquote:He sighed. “It’s embarrassing. Our resource worlds imagine we’re soooo clever. Even the ones that loathe us think we’re competently evil. And I suppose we have managed an absolutely shocking level of success given the in-fighting involved. But virtually everything about the current Systems are a result of negotiations between different Artonan philosophies. They’ve got strong beating hearts we all more or less agree on, but they’ve been enfleshed and clothed by a thousand different committees.”
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Jan 25, 2024 01:14
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I wonder how useful low-levels really are at any rank (rank here in the sense of F or B or S)? Bearer of All Burdens has built in training wheels that are designed to last for years, so at least until after reaching double digit level, and authority growth is apparently pretty slow for non-knights, even when exercised regularly. I imagine lots of other skills don't really show their worth without a fair amount of practice at least. Even supercook Natalie can't get hired without leveling a bunch and picking up supporting powers. From how Haoyu was talking, he was concerned that even after 8 years of dedicated training he wouldn't have leveled enough to pull together a full stamina brute powerset. His parents reassured him that he could get there, but only if he worked hard. LLSix fucked around with this message at 02:04 on Jan 25, 2024 |
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Jan 25, 2024 01:48
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Haystack posted:Was it humans who set those ratios? If so then yeah, that's kind of weird. If it was Artonans who set that, then I'd guess that they want a large military reserve. You might not need to summon bunch of Brutes all that often, but when there's a huge chaos outbreak then that could be pretty critical. they also probably don't need or want a particularly high ratio of utility classes like Rabbits (especially early on), since every summoning is potentially giving an alien access to your imperial core, they can split up the necessary labor across the many colonized resource worlds, and a lot of that stuff probably can be/is handled by wizards (which then gets into Artonan labor politics, which I don't think we have good insight into yet, but not hard to imagine might impact those vague "different philosophies" re Avowed) more utility affixations would almost certainly be good for the people Earth, but that's not necessarily a high priority for Artonans (and might be doubly bad if it reduces the resource worlds' perceived dependence on Artonan magical technical knowledge/labor below a certain threshold) hard to say what's "realistic" and putting all the superhumans on a big artificial international island seems questionable, but it's not too hard to imagine reasons why both Artonan and Earth authorities would have leaned towards a higher ratio of combat-oriented affixations in initial negotiations (especially when you'd likely have severe knowledge/cultural gaps, etc.)
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Jan 25, 2024 01:52
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The deal the Grivecks made indicates that the options for classes and frequency were very negotiable.Super Supportive Chapter 33 posted:Sophie had been telling him about her planet’s Avowed, and it was blowing his understanding of the System out of the water. Her species had ended up with an entirely different class set-up from humanity. They only had two of them. And they didn’t even consider them to be classes. There were just bunches of Avowed who got to pick from a menu of hardcore combat skills and physical buffs, and a few overpowered Ryeh-b’ts who spent all their time trying to figure out how to turn their domestic helper skills into hardcore combat ones.
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Jan 25, 2024 02:35
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Are we comparing humans to the griveks now? Even the non-avowed ones can kill things the size of a grown man with their tongues! ss patreon whatever the newest one is: the interpersonal drama is so much more interesting than the obstacle course action scenes. but at least once this is over there's the indescribably awkward class dinner! awesmoe fucked around with this message at 02:57 on Jan 25, 2024 |
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Jan 25, 2024 02:41
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LLSix posted:I wonder how useful low-levels really are at any rank (rank here in the sense of F or B or S)? I get the impression that anything below B-Rank is way below anything that you would remotely consider "a superhero" in most other fiction (and even B-Rank is pushing it and can only potentially make the cut if they train a ton). And it seems like, particularly for Brutes/Meisters, S-Rank really makes a huge difference. In the recent chapter (SS 125) Alden explicitly acknowledges that, even with his overly-strong Skill, he doesn't think he could handle some of his classmates' attacks. I'm guessing that this includes stuff like Tuyet's darts and maybe Shrike's daggers. It seems like trained adult S-Rank Brutes/Meisters are pretty monstrous, since even these low-level kids can do wild poo poo, like Tuyets armor-piercing head-exploding darts. I'm curious what it's like to be, say, a D-Rank Strength Brute or Meister. How strong do they reasonably get? It's easier to imagine for stuff like Adjusters or Rabbits, since they just get some weird little spells/Skills like the chipped paint thing. I feel like Brute would probably the best class to get as a low-Rank, since it's probably nice for daily life just to be extra-strong/agile/etc. It'd just be kinda depressing to have some other class where you just have some weird hyper-specific ability that isn't even useful to you. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 03:11 on Jan 25, 2024 |
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Jan 25, 2024 02:55
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I wonder if brutes are permitted to put lots of points into processing? Probably more useful for a lot of career paths than being magically ripped (though I don't know how much of normal economy Anesidora even has).
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Jan 25, 2024 03:07
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OddObserver posted:I wonder if brutes are permitted to put lots of points into processing? Probably more useful for a lot of career paths than being magically ripped (though I don't know how much of normal economy Anesidora even has). How else would speedsters be able to keep up with how fast they move?
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Jan 25, 2024 04:05
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Foxfire_ posted:Parts of this seem adjacent to story setting conceits that don't actually make sense, but you shouldn't think about because they're necessary for the plot: To me, this seems like exactly what would happen. People are going to be scared of avowed. Maybe you have a fender bender and the other guy is an avowed with road rage and takes your head off. Maybe your spouse leaves you for an avowed with a bunch of appeal points. Maybe a sway forces you to be their slave. It basically preys on a bunch of deep seated human fears. And, since avowed selection normally ends at 17, all the voters know it's too late for them, that they'll always be fundamentally inferior to these superhumans. They'd want them gone. Sure, it's going to backfire badly in forty years or so when there's a bunch of second and third generation superhumans who feel wronged by the world, but most governments have trouble thinking four years ahead, let alone fourty. quote:- Early Contract negotiations apparently prioritized making those kids as destructive as possible, even though nobody actually wants that. Brute is the most common power, mid ranks are almost never summoned, and no off island nations want them. Stuff like Rabbit or Healer are in high demand both on and off planet, but are rarely given out. I think the Artonans get to pick what classes are offered. The fact that the Artonans apparently prioritize a bunch of currently unneeded warriors probably means that either they haven't adjusted to their new, more peaceful situation, or they expect that the war with chaos might get much hotter someday and want to be prepared.
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Jan 25, 2024 04:06
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Everyone seems to be assuming brutes are for combat. I'm not sure I believe that. What does a brute bring to the table that a weapon meister doesn't? Strength brutes have enhanced strength. Humans being humans, we immediately think of building punchers. But you know what else strength is good for? Lifting things. Machines like forklifts and trucks don't work well in chaos zones - but Avowed do. Even out of chaos, there's lots of places it's hard to get forklifts and other lifting machines that a humanoid, or rather Artonanoid can get to. Sensory brutes like audials and vocals and longsights bring almost nothing extra to the table for a fight - but they replace all kinds of technological scouting in a chaos zone, this has been mentioned twice about longsights specifically. Being as fast as a speedster is all kinds of useful in a fight, sure. It also makes them amazing messengers if chaos is knocking out other communication systems. I'm not sure what the point of morphs is - but Big'n'Little Snake can basically swap between speedster and strength powersets. LLSix fucked around with this message at 04:32 on Jan 25, 2024 |
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Jan 25, 2024 04:17
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Yes, I was going to say the same thing, but was rereading early content to check that I hadn’t missed anything. Brutes are a very general and flexible class; I don’t think there’s anything inherently violent about them. I wouldn’t be terribly surprised if even the name just came from human culture, and they were called something much less brutal on other planets.
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Jan 25, 2024 04:24
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awesmoe posted:Are we comparing humans to the griveks now? Even the non-avowed ones can kill things the size of a grown man with their tongues! I dunno, there’s fun moments like Astrid full body bear hugs Jeffy when they are getting lifted up and he gets super flustered then tries to white knight her later when the first attack comes. Why this is all goes right over our asexual Alden’s head like the half dozen other times Alden has gotten hit on or stumbled on people coming back from a night over at a “friend’s” and totally misses it
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Jan 25, 2024 04:52
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Sup Sup 125 The obstacle course is interpersonal drama. There is the rank prejudice. There's the social media popularity games. There is Lexi's simmering resentment of other people maybe being channeled into something useful. There's whatever is happening with Jeffy and Astrid. There's Lute throwing himself into helping out his new bff Alden. All of these kids have stuff going on, and it's really simmering beautifully. Plus, we are seeing how Alden's recognition of his team members' disparate goals set them up to come together and succeed. He's literally fulfilling his former dream of being a force multiplier support guy.
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Jan 25, 2024 05:20
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LLSix posted:What does a brute bring to the table that a weapon meister doesn't? A lot more direct physical prowess. I imagine Meisters have far more of their authority tied up in their Skills, while Brutes have more allocated to foundation points that directly improve their physical abilities. Even the young, low-level S-Rank Brutes in Alden's class are already capable of crazy stuff.
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Jan 25, 2024 05:39
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Remember that Earth has been complaining to the Artonians for ages that the System is making too many Sways and no one wants Sway because you get ghettoized by society. And Rabbits are very rare allocations despite getting called alot more than other classes. Earth doesn't control class allocation - I'd guess that at Contract Negotiation there was some leeway to set bounds but it simply wasn't something Earth realised the importance of at a time. And yea, F-rank Brute is just very mildly superhuman, but given the impact 3-4 foundation points have had on Alden's hands you don't need many foundation peoples to be a little bit superhuman. Much better than F-rank Sway, for example. Congrats you are a pariah for abilities you probably don't even have.
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Jan 25, 2024 09:57
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Wittgen posted:This is a big understatement, even. The Artonans are so obsessed with hierarchies that their global surveillance super spells keep a priority list of the relative importance of every single person under their dominion. And it updates constantly. I guess if you have literal proof that the universe runs on 'take a penny, leave a penny' it does kind of change things
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Jan 25, 2024 11:30
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Mazerunner posted:I guess if you have literal proof that the universe runs on 'take a penny, leave a penny' it does kind of change things This is IMO the strongest proof we have of why artonan magic is causing chaos. What sacrifice does an artonan wizard make when they cast? None, they take their cake and eat it. I really strongly believe that this is a global warming analogy where they know their lifestyle is causing this big looming problem but also fundamentally fixing it would require upending their whole lifestyle so they just keep kicking the bucket down the road with new colonies and so on. gonadic io fucked around with this message at 13:34 on Jan 25, 2024 |
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Jan 25, 2024 11:44
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SupSup Patreon I thought it was really cute how Alden did his first wordchain as a student under Lute and the Palace of the Unbreaking and his paired Artonan was so excited they did 3 chains in reply.
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Jan 25, 2024 13:30
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gonadic io posted:I really strongly believe that this is a global warming analogy where they know their lifestyle is causing this big looming problem but also fundamentally fixing it would require upending their whole lifestyle so they just keep kicking the bucket down the road with new colonies and so on. Seeing kids take a heli to school and get carted around in heavy SUV limos on the regular definitely underscores your read there. Also once a sufficient number of Avowed starts thinking on immortal time scales she finite resources, I'd get concerned that they'll want to do more to the human population than just rule over them.
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Jan 25, 2024 18:18
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Ytlaya posted:My main issue with Pale Lights is that it's a bit too "exhausting." Just constant tension that almost never lets up. I could see this. The two mains also have very... focused personalities. With the female one being incredibly zeroed in on honor and debt. While the male lead is aggressively mercantile in every conversation. He's always thinking about how he needs to give something up if he ever gets something to avoid being in debt or how to squeeze anybody for the information he might want. At least as of right now 20% of the way into the story there have been very few opportunities for the two main characters just sit down and chat with folks in a setting where their lives or honor aren't on the line.
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Jan 25, 2024 18:43
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