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awesmoe posted:SS Patreon: i wonder if Alden gets another commendation out of this?. 1000%. "Exceptional Bravery in the Absence of Obligation" come on. No summons no orders just choice.
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Apr 19, 2024 22:58
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Wittgen posted:
Regarding the part where Hazel throws the thing, it never actually says which chains she was on - so it's ambiguous whether stacks of the same one were included. All we know is that there were multiple chains and different kinds were mixed in. I guess we'll find out in time, but I just find it a little implausible that an almost brand-new Avowed, regardless of Rank, has more raw power than Avowed who have been practicing for decades. This would only make sense if Avowed can spend an entire career leveling/training without ever even doubling their initial authority at first affixation. What does seem plausible is that whatever personal characteristics make Lute good at word-chains also might have something to do with why he became a "double-S" in the first place. For example, during the contest between him and Hazel, my read on that has nothing to do with "raw power" - Lute has spent his entire life practicing music, and applied that experience/effort and (possibly most importantly) ability to focus towards reproducing the exact sounds of the word-chain in question. I can easily see Hazel lacking Lute's ability to think clearly and focus under the pressure of the moment. Actually, it seems kind of strange to attribute that specific incident to power - that was just a single word-chain. Lute was just able to do it more accurately on his first try. I'm not sure how his power would have any bearing on that. Basically one of Lute's most important talents when it comes to chaining (if not the most important one) is probably the "real," non-magical skills he's honed through practicing music. And it makes sense that this could allow him to surpass all other Chainers - as Lute mentioned, other Avowed (and most Velras are raised on Anesidora) generally don't seriously practice things like music before affixation, since they know a lot of those skills will just be granted to them - why practice hard when you're going to get foundation points in finger dexterity? Other Velras practiced prior to affixation, but it was seemingly mostly memorization, focused on learning Artonan. I think the key thing here is that word-chains aren't spells that use your authority - your authority isn't making the effects. You can use them without even being an Avowed or a Wizard! So having more metaphorical "fuel in the tank" shouldn't enable you to stack more on the same person.
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Apr 20, 2024 02:25
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Supsup 149 I feel like Alden's real superpower is that aliens really like him. Like, really.
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Apr 20, 2024 15:54
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Bremen posted:Supsup 149 I feel like Alden's real superpower is that aliens really like him. Like, really. Lol, yes, but not all aliens. Bti-qwol, the annoying Artnonan HR organizer for the Leafsong job didn't like him. And most of the Artonan doctors he meets are very jab happy and dismissive. I wonder if Sleyca has had bad experiences with doctors come to think of it?
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Apr 20, 2024 15:57
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Sleyca making a story about evil alien neocolonialism and accidentally keeps making all the Artonans funny and charming and kind.
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Apr 20, 2024 16:29
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I think if you want to make a story about an evil system, it actually helps a lot to make the people making up that system decidedly unevil.
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Apr 20, 2024 16:40
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gonadic io posted:Sleyca making a story about evil alien neocolonialism and accidentally keeps making all the Artonans funny and charming and kind. Wittgen posted:I think if you want to make a story about an evil system, it actually helps a lot to make the people making up that system decidedly unevil. To be fair, I think most of the readers are just assuming it's going to turn our to be evil because of the parallels to Earth colonialism. I'm kind of hoping it turns out it isn't and Earth is strictly better off for the arrangement, just as a twist on what everyone's expecting. Also when the Artonans aren't perfectly but seem to average out as better and nicer people than the actual humans, and a character from a country with a per capita GDP 1/20th of the US can talk about how when her grandmother developed dementia they took her to the alien hospital for a free and easy cure, all I can think of is "this sure sounds better than reality, not to mention the colonialism analogy everyone is expecting."
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Apr 20, 2024 21:19
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It does help that most of the Artonan wizard/knights we have met really take living up to Higher Onus very seriously. While it's clear that many others in the background don't, like the Artonan company that stranded Joe's researchers on Thegund.
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Apr 20, 2024 21:24
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Bremen posted:To be fair, I think most of the readers are just assuming it's going to turn our to be evil because of the parallels to Earth colonialism. I'm kind of hoping it turns out it isn't and Earth is strictly better off for the arrangement, just as a twist on what everyone's expecting. If the Artonans are "good" why are they deliberately limiting Human understanding of skills, attributes, and other related things that would make the Humans more useful/valuable to them?
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Apr 20, 2024 21:48
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LLSix posted:If the Artonans are "good" why are they deliberately limiting Human understanding of skills, attributes, and other related things that would make the Humans more useful/valuable to them? Because factions of them are afraid of humans becoming too powerful, and (patreon chapter spoilers) if humans, on average, act more violently and selfishly than Artonans, such as three avowed looters being willing to murder people to steal for personal gain then I'm not convinced that's an "evil" position. We haven't seen Artonans making a habit of exploiting that knowledge to gain an advantage over humans, they're more like parents telling their kids they can't have an assault rifle for Christmas. Artonans definitely have a different moral system than humans. That's why they have things like ranking everyone based on their value to the species as a whole, a sort of extreme version of utilitarianism. I don't think it's something humanity is likely to agree with, but I also don't think that makes them evil, either. Bremen fucked around with this message at 22:30 on Apr 20, 2024 |
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Apr 20, 2024 22:27
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Arkendrithyst Patreon just dropped the first epilogue and it rules.
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Apr 20, 2024 22:29
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I think it's worth calling out that Alden brings out the best in people, too. That's just as true of Artonans as it is of humans.
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Apr 20, 2024 22:45
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Bremen posted:Because factions of them are afraid of humans becoming too powerful, and (patreon chapter spoilers) if humans, on average, act more violently and selfishly than Artonans, such as three avowed looters being willing to murder people to steal for personal gain then I'm not convinced that's an "evil" position. We haven't seen Artonans making a habit of exploiting that knowledge to gain an advantage over humans, they're more like parents telling their kids they can't have an assault rifle for Christmas. It's not that the Artonans are keeping dangerous power out of human hands (case in point, the current arc), but they're not providing adequate instructions to go with that power. I think the situation as it stands is more akin to "parents" giving their kids an assault rifle for Christmas but not an instruction manual or any firearm safety training. It's easy to like the Artonans, because mostly we see the best members of their species. At the same time we see an awful lot of the petty and mean-spirited members of our species "on screen." Artonans include not just Alis and Stu and Kibby, and other people who are fun to read about, but also the people and society that saw nothing wrong with leaving Kibby and her parents behind to die. Also the Artonans sometimes force their "kids" from the analogy, who are sometimes literal child soldiers, to go fight for them 
LLSix fucked around with this message at 23:48 on Apr 20, 2024 |
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Apr 20, 2024 23:44
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Heck, current Patreon SupSup chapter spoilers: Esh-erdi is concerned that ambassador Bash-nor will do something troublesome to Alden unless he runs interference. That's an extremely lovely thing to do for a person with considerable power and authority to a kid. And of course, earlier Joe suggested that some wizards may straight up murder Alden for having his skill. Edit: I think an easy way of seeing what Artonan elites outside knights are like is that no one at LeafSong can become friends with Stuart.... while I think basically any one of Alden's roommates could if they were his classmates. OddObserver fucked around with this message at 00:17 on Apr 21, 2024 |
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Apr 21, 2024 00:13
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LLSix posted:It's not that the Artonans are keeping dangerous power out of human hands (case in point, the current arc), but they're not providing adequate instructions to go with that power. I don't see what you mean? We haven't seen Artonans withholding any information regarding safety of skills from humans as far as I'm aware. All we know is them withholding information on how to potentially make them stronger, and we're told that's explicitly because some of them regard powerful avowed as a threat to Artonans. OddObserver posted:Heck, current Patreon SupSup chapter spoilers: Esh-erdi is concerned that ambassador Bash-nor will do something troublesome to Alden unless he runs interference. That's an extremely lovely thing to do for a person with considerable power and authority to a kid. And of course, earlier Joe suggested that some wizards may straight up murder Alden for having his skill. I'm not saying all Artonans are perfect. Just that given how the ones we see generally seem, on average, nicer than the human characters, that implies to me that either they are on average nicer or they have a system that's better at weeding out the less nice ones from positions we see. Considering they explicitly have a supercomputer that can read everyone's mind and is tasked with aiding the species as a whole makes me suspect it might be the latter. If it's just coincidence that the ones we've seen are nicer than that doesn't apply, but right now the simplest explanation to me is the above. Bremen fucked around with this message at 01:23 on Apr 21, 2024 |
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Apr 21, 2024 01:21
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Bremen posted:I don't see what you mean? We haven't seen Artonans withholding any information regarding safety of skills from humans as far as I'm aware. All we know is them withholding information on how to potentially make them stronger, and we're told that's explicitly because some of them regard powerful avowed as a threat to Artonans. Bremen posted:To be fair, I think most of the readers are just assuming it's going to turn our to be evil because of the parallels to Earth colonialism. I'm kind of hoping it turns out it isn't and Earth is strictly better off for the arrangement, just as a twist on what everyone's expecting. These two quotes are kind of the point- the insidiousness of colonialism is that it does offer benefits to the colonized, in the vein of "besides that, what have the Romans done for us?" But even those benefits are paternalistically based on the colonizer's values (which will benefit them most of all) (for example, the provisions for the Avowed overthrowing the government to shift into a more Artonan-style wizard/non caste system) The Artonans have, so far, had a fairly 'nice' relationship and where they've put their foot down it's been on things we can agree are issues worth challenging, but it's not an equal one, or the client races wouldn't be handicapped to prevent them from potentially challenging Artonan dominance, and that's where the rub lies.
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Apr 21, 2024 01:53
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Bremen posted:Just that given how the ones we see generally seem, on average, nicer than the human characters, that implies to me that either they are on average nicer or they have a system that's better at weeding out the less nice ones from positions we see. Alden probably comes across like a precocious and unusually emotionally mature 12 year old would. Being mean to a little kid like that would just be dickish
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Apr 21, 2024 01:55
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Also, Alden's pretty easygoing with regards to the Artorans. Like in his position I'd have some pretty angry questions along the lines of, "so why did you fuckers give some random teenager the ability to murder people for power?" But Alden's never been particularly upset about it.
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Apr 21, 2024 02:05
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Mazerunner posted:These two quotes are kind of the point- the insidiousness of colonialism is that it does offer benefits to the colonized, in the vein of "besides that, what have the Romans done for us?" But even those benefits are paternalistically based on the colonizer's values (which will benefit them most of all) (for example, the provisions for the Avowed overthrowing the government to shift into a more Artonan-style wizard/non caste system) I guess I'm just pro-colonialist then, because if aliens showed up tomorrow asking if they could give us free super-hospitals and promising to step in to prevent mass deaths, in return for giving a small fraction of humanity superpowers, I'd be the first one writing to my congressperson to accept. When I think of the evils of (human) colonialism it's all about the brutal oppression and refusing to let colonial people make their own choices, neither of which we've seen any evidence for with the Artonans.
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Apr 21, 2024 02:11
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Bremen posted:I guess I'm just pro-colonialist then, because if aliens showed up tomorrow asking if they could give us free super-hospitals and promising to step in to prevent mass deaths, in return for giving a small fraction of humanity superpowers, I'd be the first one writing to my congressperson to accept. They didn't get to choose the priority of rescue - like, the people of anesidora's votes don't affect who gets saved in an emergency. Human decisions got trumped by artonan values.
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Apr 21, 2024 02:15
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awesmoe posted:They didn't get to choose the priority of rescue - like, the people of anesidora's votes don't affect who gets saved in an emergency. Human decisions got trumped by artonan values. I'd say that one's at best an iffy example. (SupSup Patreon chapters) It's unclear what was going up with the system, and even the Artonans have said it was acting oddly and seemed like it was panicking. Also, previous comments have implied that the Artonans do seem to let humanity request changes to the system; I suspect that if Anesidora asks them to make it use Anesidoran evacuation order in the future, they will. So far Artonans seem pretty big on letting humans make their own choices even if they disagree with them (see the bit with Alden's aunt getting evacuated, or the existence of Anesidora at all), as long as they don't cause megadeaths. Which is one of the reasons I don't directly equate what they're doing with historical human colonialism.
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Apr 21, 2024 02:32
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Peachfart posted:Arkendrithyst Patreon just dropped the first epilogue and it rules. Incidentally here’s one guy who knows how to uplift Earth without doing a colonialism 
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Apr 21, 2024 02:49
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I have faith there will be a reveal that Artonans brought chaos to earth and if humanity hadn't signed up we'd have gone the way of Gorgon's species. Extracting of valuable resources (or dumping of wasteful ones) and paying the natives a pittance is a key part of colonialism and Sleyca didn't name them "resource planets" for nothing. And the current arc with the evacuation timers and so on is quite clearly going to lead to a lot of dialogue about how grateful should humanity be and are Artonans really as benevolent as they make out to be.
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Apr 21, 2024 06:20
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Bremen posted:I guess I'm just pro-colonialist then, because if aliens showed up tomorrow asking if they could give us free super-hospitals and promising to step in to prevent mass deaths, in return for giving a small fraction of humanity superpowers, I'd be the first one writing to my congressperson to accept. I personally think that most artonans aren't evil. Like humans, most of them are pretty normal. They just live in a very hosed up system that they are forced to perpetuate and don't have a say and don't think about it too much. Remember that this system literally mutilates people without their knowledge by loving with their authority, which is a measure of your "youness" on a kind of personally spiritual level. Alden becomes aware of this fact and is one of the few people on the planet that dread leveling up while most are happy that it happens. The fact that you're not aware that you're being mutilated doesn't matter. The damage is on a very deep, very personal level that rips, tears and rearranges your "youness". It's basically like if everyone went to the doctors office and then had surgery performed on them without their knowledge or consent and then the surgery was hidden from them and everyone else. There's also the power imbalance. Alden has been dumped into situations where he feels like he can't safely so no to other Artonans while also being put in danger. Alden is explicitly a second class citizen and maybe not even that. There's the manufacturing of consent. This means that the Artonans finesse their way into turning a no or a maybe into a yes through coercion on a mass scale. There's something about the Artonan way of life, their magic and the magical systems that requires consent or at least makes it much more expensive to force someone to act if their consent is violated. You don't have to manufacture consent if it's something that people would agree to anyway, but the Artonans hold back information that would allow people to make an informed choice. Your understanding of your situation doesn't matter. Only that you agree to their terms. The means and ends of the manufacturing of consent is deeply anti-social and profoundly abusive. And finally, Earth is explicitly stated that it's an Artonan resource world, though the resource is never discussed (at least up to where I've read so far). I'll bet that if the Artonans told the Earthlings what resource they wanted and the full scope of their repercussions, the Earthlings would overwhelmingly tell them to gently caress off if they had a choice. Colonialism is bad my dude. gonadic io posted:I have faith there will be a reveal that Artonans brought chaos to earth and if humanity hadn't signed up we'd have gone the way of Gorgon's species. Yeah, this is my take too. Personally I think that chaos is a byproduct of magic and that chaos is cumulative and pollutes the environment. I want to believe that the resource itself is magic, made available through avowed, but I'm not 100% positive. Ice Phisherman fucked around with this message at 07:22 on Apr 21, 2024 |
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Apr 21, 2024 07:19
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The line about chaos being a problem that can never truly be solved really made me think of irl global warming. We could stop burning fossil fuels today if we really wanted to but we wouldn't like the consequences. We as a society simply cannot realistically stop. This also sets up Mother's motivation for grooming a secret un-oathed knight because presumably she was built with the goal/command of defeating chaos but if she's then also forbidden from changing artonan society that causes chaos, there's your classic ai with conflicting directives trope. Gorgon is also grooming Alden as a secret un-oathed knight because he expressly wants revenge and to destroy Artonan society, and Joe is doing it because it's funny. SS patreon 149 it also seems very likely to me that Zeridee is a magic vegan because of this cost/drawback/externality so we might find out about it sooner rather than later gonadic io fucked around with this message at 08:57 on Apr 21, 2024 |
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Apr 21, 2024 08:54
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Outside of future speculation, it's incredibly telling that the only other species that the Artonans encountered that did already have magic and an understanding of the universe DID tell them to gently caress off, refused the magic hospitals, and through some unknown series of events ended up all dead except one, a prisoner in chains hellbent on revenge. Earth factually, did not have a chaos problem/opening before the Artonans arrived. gonadic io fucked around with this message at 09:21 on Apr 21, 2024 |
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Apr 21, 2024 09:12
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gonadic io posted:. I agree. Joe rocks.
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Apr 21, 2024 12:22
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Joe's fantastic. As is Kibby. this has been a post that everyone agrees with 
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Apr 21, 2024 12:24
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DACK FAYDEN posted:Joe's fantastic. As is Kibby. Truth.
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Apr 21, 2024 14:10
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gonadic io posted:Outside of future speculation, it's incredibly telling that the only other species that the Artonans encountered that did already have magic and an understanding of the universe DID tell them to gently caress off, refused the magic hospitals, and through some unknown series of events ended up all dead except one, a prisoner in chains hellbent on revenge. I'm not saying that there definitely won't be a twist that magic is bad and destroying the universe, there's no real evidence either for or against it so far. Same with the Artonans turning out to be much less nice than they appear, the story definitely could go in that direction. it's just that since everyone is predicting that I hope the twist is something else. "The people giving us powerful gifts are secretly bad and it's a poison pill" twist is so overdone it's not even a twist anymore; I'd love to see something else. Bremen fucked around with this message at 15:52 on Apr 21, 2024 |
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Apr 21, 2024 15:49
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Yea, the way I read it Chaos is just a thing, which Artonians are more aware of due to their magic shenanigans. It's a threat, but in the same way A volcano is a threat to human existence - sometimes it just fucks up your magical poo poo, but there is preemptive work you can do to contain it. Chaos didn't appear on Earth because Matadoro is basically a training house for getting human Avowed used to fighting chaos - Demons get transported their for practice, or are allowed to break through there for the same. And this is what Earth agreed to in the Contract. This doesn't mean the Artonans are totally benevolent - the accusations of Parentalism stand, along with the inflexibility of a giant magical bureaucracy with internal slapfights meaning the Contract exists in ways that aren't what humanity wants. We've seen the power imbalance between summoned and summoner, and the fact it usually works fine doesn't override how exploitative it can be. And the ethical and political questions about how the Avowed are ghettoized by yet are the ones buying the magical goodies for Earth, and the treatment of non-registered. But "there's some secret that makes the Artonians totally evil!" Is not in line with the type of story SupSup is - the things to worry about are pretty explicit on the page.
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Apr 21, 2024 16:02
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Nothingtoseehere posted:Yea, the way I read it Chaos is just a thing, which Artonians are more aware of due to their magic shenanigans. It's a threat, but in the same way This post basically explains my position better than I was doing. Though I'll note that the ethical situation of all the Avowed being imprisoned in Anesidora (unless they get paroled by being heroes) is entirely a decision made by humans and one we're told the Artonans don't agree with. And I'd say further development of that is definitely being set up as a future story arc.
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Apr 21, 2024 16:17
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awesmoe posted:They didn't get to choose the priority of rescue - like, the people of anesidora's votes don't affect who gets saved in an emergency. Human decisions got trumped by artonan values. In fairness, humans are really bad at preserving their own values, especially but not limited to in times of crisis
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Apr 21, 2024 16:32
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I'm reading the print version of "Oh, Great! I was Reincarnated as a Farmer: A LitRPG Adventure." I can't decide if I don't hate it enough to continue reading. Despite the name and the cover art, there is no farming. It's all about fighting monsters with traps. The action is tolerable and things move along at a good pace. Unfortunately it mistakes being a jerk for being funny.
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Apr 23, 2024 02:20
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LLSix posted:I'm reading the print version of "Oh, Great! I was Reincarnated as a Farmer: A LitRPG Adventure." I can't decide if I don't hate it enough to continue reading. Despite the name and the cover art, there is no farming. It's all about fighting monsters with traps. You really should. The author is a treasure and it builds upon itself in such a compelling way.
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Apr 23, 2024 03:15
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Pale Lights Book 1 Ch 38quote:Half of Isabel Ruesta’s face was a red ruin, the shot having taken her in the eye. God, Angharad. You can be so dense when you aren't dealing with your esoteric rules of honor or swordplay. Isabel was clearly shot by a member of your party General thoughts on the story so far: Waaaay too many characters got introduced early on. I couldn't keep more than a handful straight in my mind. Tristan's story with him uncovering deep secrets of the island, the Black Cloaks, his fellow contestants, and the Maw is extremely load bearing for this book. Angharad's story has seemed pretty superfluous. I really don't feel like all her POV time has been justified, and Errata just shot the only other ongoing plot thread they'd built up for her in this book.
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Apr 23, 2024 22:54
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Nitrousoxide posted:Pale Lights Book 1 Ch 38 Angharad is very very dumb, and this gets addressed later.
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Apr 23, 2024 23:07
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Does it, though?
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Apr 23, 2024 23:11
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Nettle Soup posted:Does it, though? Angharad finds out about the murder of Isabel and freaks out, so yes. On her being dumb... well, after she has lost her ability to be a swordswoman, at least she realizes she has literally nothing else to bring to the table aside from her contract.
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Apr 23, 2024 23:14
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Is there any program able to scrape Time to Orbit: Unknown and generate an epub? Googling hasn't come up with anything usable by a layman.
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Apr 24, 2024 00:28
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