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Rubix Squid posted:Take her alive and purge the Wound.
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Jun 9, 2021 17:24
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Does purging the wound do anything other than subject you to more tyranny combat(tm)? If so, I would say not to subject yourself to that and we'll all just declare Boris did something just for the first time in his life as offscreen cannon.
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Jun 9, 2021 17:41
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No rewind and skip the wound. You’re on the verge of burnout, don’t subject yourself to the worst part of the game.
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Jun 9, 2021 18:10
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Take her alive and Skip the Wound
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Jun 9, 2021 18:15
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Take her alive for more content Leaving it up to GEK whether purging the wound is worth the hassle.
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Jun 9, 2021 18:39
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Take her alive and Ignore the DLC
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Jun 9, 2021 19:50
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Tendronai posted:No rewinds, and for the love of God Skip the DLC. Also putting my vote down for this.
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Jun 9, 2021 20:28
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Post cat pictures.
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Jun 9, 2021 21:46
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Zulily Zoetrope posted:Also, far more importantly, you cannot just mention playing with a cat and not post pictures of said cat. There are rules to posting on this forum. SIGSEGV posted:Post cat pictures. Ok, fiiiiiine. 
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Jun 10, 2021 01:09
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Good cat!
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Jun 10, 2021 01:58
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Pet the kitty!
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Jun 10, 2021 02:10
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Take her alive and clean the wound.
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Jun 10, 2021 03:21
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Keldulas posted:No rewind and skip the wound. What he said. Also pet the kitty.
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Jun 10, 2021 07:13
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Zulily Zoetrope posted:Take her alive and cauterize the Wound imho. Rubix Squid posted:Pet the kitty! These!
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Jun 13, 2021 07:30
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Take her alive, skip the Wound
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Jun 14, 2021 20:58
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Governor Boris and the Mercy of Nerat Last time on Tyranny, we killed Amelia and gave her daughter to Nerat. Goons decided to take her alive instead, but mercifully allowed us to skip the hellhole known as "the Bastard's Wound". Let's take a look at how things really went, shall we?   : There is no need for bloodshed. The Voices of Nerat offers you his hospitality. Sirin knows, as we do, that this is absolutely not the merciful option.  : You know, I see this as an opportunity in disguise. Ashe will never take Amelia back or recognize his granddaughter.: He shrugs. We don't even want the Edict dispelled. Ashe and his forces are weakened in their own territory.: He passes you a knowing look.: Amelia, it would be my honor to invite you to the care of the Scarlet Chorus. Asylum, if you will. The Voices of Nerat would be more than happy to ensure your child's safety. Of course, by the time you get here there's nothing you can do.  : She glares at Jagged Remedy. Do you think me a simpleton? I know that the Voices is a monster - a void of lies and empty promises that somehow assumed form. And yet... So, you know how Mattias was asked to cast aside everything he ever valued and got literally nothing in exchange? We're hitting that moment right now. : [Subterfuge 51] [Lie] You and your daughter will be safe with the Voices of Nerat.Remember way back in the very beginning of the game, with Pelox Tyrel and how you have the choice to offer him amnesty if you made peace? Cleo's playthrough posted:Then your character gets extremely pissy at the Disfavored for making liars out of them? We're a Fatebinder, we're supposed to be known for justice. Even under Kyrosian law stuff like violating a truce flag gets you the death penalty, but here we sell out what little principles we have left and devalue our word to meaninglessness to lie to this woman that she's gonna be safe with Nerat. We know it's poo poo. Jagged Remedy is trying not to giggle in the corner because he knows it's poo poo. Sirin, well...  This is a good sign we've lost our way. : Stand down, Archon. This mission is too important. This is a massive fear gain that puts Sirin up to Tier 3. Yes, I will be showing off what happens when Fear Sirin testifies at the trial. Have fun! Also this is the only time in the game, as far as I know, that Sirin drops the f bomb. Things have gotten serious. : And yet I don't have anyone else in the world who I can trust, do I? Amelia glances to the body of the Regent and shudders. : I'd call this our best change of fortunes since the war began. Not only do we possess the key to the Edict of Storms, but Graven Ashe and any loyalists to the fallen Regents will think twice before launching an attack on Cacophony.: He clucks his tongue on the roof of his mouth and nods to you. A fair day's work.  TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:
 I'm not kidding, Sirin is terrified of us.  The Chorus also turns Sentinel Stand into a new Butt Spike Factory.  On the way back we get the Killsy recruitment event. We're going to do one thing slightly differently here.  : [Slap Kills-in-Shadow in the face.] This might not have been the smartest idea.  : Will kill. Will rip throat out. Will lash, twist-tear, and mangle. This starts a fight that I let autoresolve because we're on easy babby difficulty.  : You were saying? I believe you were going to mangle me, correct? : Why have you tracked me down? Why get in my way? The rest proceeds as on the Cleopatra playthrough.  We've seen this encounter before, it's a bunch of Stalwart noblemen we escort to Tunon for a rep boost.  Nerat's been busy in our absence.  Welp!  Nerat is over here sitting pensively in this corner, and I'm not sure how to interpret this. Incidentally, you can grab the Elixir of Quickness from behind his throne and no one cares.   : Maybe we should kill them all and start again. That would be a delight. Bah! We can always dispatch our howling mob when Ashe and his iron clods are a stain on this country.: Fatebinder, always a pleasure. : I'd like to report on recent events. The periapt just gives +1 Resolve. Hey, at least we got loot. : You delivered also Mattias, the Unbroken leader. A most fortunate prize to fall in our hands. He has already taught us much about his people, and will teach us more still.: The Voices stares in eerie silence.: But our war is not yet complete. There is something else that may yet prove critical.: A document of great power - the Silent Archive - rests in the Burning Library. The archive is said to hold many secrets, any of which we can twist to our advantage.: One of our gang bosses, the Censor, seeks the entrance to this queenly treasure. Aid her in the search, and dispatch her back to us with any findings. : I wanted to talk about Amelia. : [Subterfuge 51] I get the feeling I didn't send Amelia here just to talk to you. This is such a great line that sums up our relationship perfectly. The Fatebinder is presumed to care about the law, and Kyros' justice, and Kyros' peace, whereas Nerat knows the truth of the world Kyros made - that everything can be reduced to violence or the threat thereof, and aside from paying lip service to Kyros' dumb laws the only truth is at the edge of a blade and what you can take by force.  The mask goes back on now. : What do you mean by 'exchange'? Nerat has now killed and eaten both of Graven Ashe's children. I talk about the "truth" of the world Kyros made, and this is the result - following the tyrant leads only to your own destruction. : What happened to her baby? : Your hospitality is impressive, Archon. Moving on! : Let me ask you something else. : I wanted to ask about Mattias.: The Unbroken Captain, yes. Only an individual of surprising will and tenacity could survive the rigors of the Blade Grave so long without falling into our hands. You know what? I'm sure him being on a spike is completely unimportant and nothing like that could ever befall such a loyal Nerat stan like us. : Let me ask you something else. : Let me think about this.: Your thoughts are no concern of ours... at this juncture.: When you've come to a decision, speak with Seven-Toes.TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:
 RIP Mattias, you colossal, god drat loving moron. What did you think would happen when you threw in with Nerat? For a real life comparison, this is somewhat like Hindenburg and von Papen trying to get Hitler to restore the German monarchy after he already launched a coup attempt against the state. You know he was bad news and you tried to use him anyway, then he used you for all you were worth and discarded your dumb rear end. I'm sure he would never try to do this poo poo to Boris, or Verse, or any of his other useful subordinates, despite his musings of killing off the Chorus and starting over! Decisions Lie Before Us Are we going to the Burning Library, or Lethean's Crossing?
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Jun 27, 2021 18:33
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: You're so full of poo poo, you lying Fatebinder!
: Man, my idiotic plan didn't work. Guess I'm Nerat's bitch now!
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Let's go to the Library.
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Jun 27, 2021 20:55
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Lehtian's Crossing, mainly because it's a quest I haven't seen.
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Jun 27, 2021 22:10
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Oof, literally worse than death. And that last screenshot even has somebody pleading for us to help them to rub it in. Can we uh... help them? Let's go to Lethean's Crossing
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Jun 27, 2021 23:06
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Lethean's Crossing
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Jun 28, 2021 06:49
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Rawkking posted:Oof, literally worse than death. And that last screenshot even has somebody pleading for us to help them to rub it in. Can we uh... help them? Well... depending on your definition of help, there's things that could be done, yes. Is Boris going to do them? Probably not, no. (This LP is still amazing and I am so glad you're taking time to show this all off)
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Jun 28, 2021 15:56
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I feel like TGEK is corrupting all of his readers with this.
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Jun 28, 2021 18:22
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Governor Boris and the Band of Fuckups Welcome back! Last time on Tyranny, Mattias' dumb rear end got impaled by a spike as he betrayed his people to get the power of the Scarlet Chorus they pretty much told him they were not going to give him. Today we're going to wander off to Lethian's Crossing and fall into Nerat's obvious trap.  First, however, there was a request from the thread to help this person impaled on a spike. : What crimes have you committed that would warrant my involvement? This is, of course, because death is preferable to these spiky misadventures. : You're in luck - for the capital crime of usurping the Overlord's name, I can sentence you to a swift beheading on the morrow.  : Given her training, I bet it was a matter of time until she was taken to see the Voices. And it's probably best that the Archon of Secrets NOT learn everything the Earthshakers know... that could only come back to harm everyone.Nerat is right there and we're killing her tomorrow. I suspect she gets brain drained anyway. TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:
 As you can see, we're still on good terms with the Scarlet Chorus. We don't actually talk to Nerat to pick where we go this time, so we'll ask Seven Toes about their opinion. Seven Toes, incidentally, is the last person standing between the player and Nerat when they storm Cacophony in one of the other routes.   : Let's talk about my second task. : I wanted to ask about Amelia. : What happened to her baby? : What do you think happened? She crosses her arms and huffs. Do you see a nursery around here? : Why do I see her on a spike? : Let me ask you about something else. Very funny game, you know I don't get that choice. : I wanted to ask about Mattias. : We all end up impaled on a spike? The Chorus philosophy in a nutshell, folks! : Let me ask you something else. The thread voted for Lethian's Crossing next, which is a shame as the Burning Library has one of my favorite Nerat moments. Oh well! : I will go to Lethian's Crossing next.: You'll hit Lethian's Crossing, if you aim toward the Sunset Spire. Not even our dumbest gang could miss it. But you're already good at tracking down Spires, aren't you? She winks.: Say hello to our Scarlet Chorus brethren while you're over there, and report back to Cacophony when you're done. Check in with the old man, Eldian. He's said to be a useful fellow.TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:
 Sybil is still here, if you were wondering.  We get a different missive for Verse's quest because Nerat is our "friend", but I'm probably not going to do any of the companion sidequests this run. Lantry requires us to go do the dogshit DLC and we've seen both Verse and Barik's. On to the Crossing! Last time we played the game we had to slaughter a bunch of Bronze Brotherhood members who wasted our time whining about how we were banned. This run we turned the city over to the Scarlet Chorus, and, uh... Earlier in the game posted:So, we're on good terms with the garrison and get saluted instead of having to trash a bunch of mercenaries. However, the actual Crossing itself is having some issues.   These two never get names so I'm not giving them portraits.  : What seems to be the issue here? : Other than my desire to leave this town before its leaders cause it to collapse in on itself? Once again, the Kyrosian forces are incompetent fuckups to the point where people are actually wishing that Raetommon, a stupid insane clown with no regard for human life, would return. It's rather ironic, as Tunon goes out of his way to promote Kyros as a viable alternative to the sad band of reactionaries that used to run the Tiers, and then the Chorus goes and does poo poo like this.  We do, unfortunately, need to deal with the Chorus. These two just give us basic directions and complain about how the Chorus is running everything into the ground, so we move on and I cut most of the rest of their dialog.  Except this! The game is very insistent that Kyros' tyrannical practices ruin everything she touches, and I would be remiss to point out that the Empire is sabotaging its own productivity and tax revenues to maintain the polite fiction that Kyros is somehow in control despite two of her armies waging a civil war.  It's time to talk to Harchiand Bronze again.  : The Voices of Nerat told me to speak with you when I arrived. The next event in the main quest fires at the forge, but I put it off to wander the town and adjudicate some disputes. : Let's talk about something else.: What are your thoughts on the Bronze Brotherhood? Remember, this is the man who - on Nerat's direct orders - armed the rebels with iron weapons. There's not much we can do with him, and we're under orders from Tunon to befriend Nerat so he lets something slip. : [Leave] Farewell.TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:
Whatever. This entire empire is corrupt.  You'd think you could find a few Chorus members who want cushy garrison duty instead of fighting rebels and fascists with magic armor.  : What's the problem here? : Flick has been demanding a discount on my wares. On top of that, he's driven away several of my regular customers. This is unacceptable! : I'll adjudicate this matter.: Thank you, Fatebinder. I've no doubt you'll see that I'm in the right. Well, one of these people is critical to maintaining Boris' powerbase, and the other is some random merchant, so... : [To Tharek] Tell me your side. : Would giving Chorus soldiers a discount be bad for business? Yes, actually, it does. Remember how a lot of other adjudications had us spouting off about trade permits or Tunon telling us about the quota law? It's odd we don't get the option to ask Tharek to produce a trade permit, but revoking it is presumably within our power as a Fatebinder, especially when said trader refuses to supply the Kyrosian military with sweet discounts. : Are you overcharging?: Ask any other merchant in town. They'll all say that my prices are quite comparable to theirs. We don't know who's telling the truth here, and we're not really in a position to find out. : Have you given discounts to anyone else? : [To Flick] Tell me your side. This is of course complete horseshit, but it's the kind of horseshit we enabled, so Boris doesn't get to complain. : Why do you need a discount? The Chorus already equips you. : Tharek says you were driving away other customers. Is this true? : Can't you go somewhere cheaper? Why do you need to buy from Tharek? : I'm ready to make a decision. The first option is in direct violation of Kyros' laws, the second option is gonna get us Chorus points, the third through fifth just piss off everyone. : The Scarlet Chorus ensures the safety of Lethian's Crossing. They're entitled to a discount for fulfilling their duty so long as they don't abuse it. : Don't worry, Fatebinder. Me and my crew know better than to cross you. Thanks for seeing things our way. TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:
 Note that the Chorus integrates Beastmen into its occupation forces. Given that the Tiersmen loving hate Beasts and murder them for food and entertainment, it's not really a surprise that the Chorus burned their poo poo down. : How has the situation with the Bane been? : What's your status here at Lethian's Crossing? : Not a single problem here. He eyes you through a narrowed gaze. Why? What have you heard?: Those Bronze mercenaries have been chrewing on the settlers' food and we've had to knock a few skulls. They would make good shock troopers for the Chorus. Shame they won't surrender and conscript. : [Leave] I'll be going.: Tier Smasher nods at you silently and waves you away.TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:
 Eldian is not in his house, and more importantly there's nothing there worth stealing.  It's not an accident that we put the Chorus in charge and suddenly everyone needs us to sort out legal issues. What, conscript armies are lovely at occupation? Pffft! : What seems to be the problem? : I caught this thief pawing through my wares, but this Chorus rat won't let me report her. By all rights, she should be in chains - not conscripted into some gang. What if she comes back and decides to shake down my business, this time with the law on her side? I can't stand by and let that happen.The Forge-Bound are sworn directly to Tunon, so I'm not sure how that even works?  : I am an enforcer of the Archon of Justice. Once invoked, my ruling is final. Are you sure this[sic] what you want? : [To Xenia] What did Wenhaver steal? : Why didn't you report the suspicion of theft sooner? : She stole Forge-Bound weapons? : Let me ask about something else. : [To Half Scar] What makes you think Wenhaver would make a good conscript? : Why didn't you stop Wenhaver when you discovered her crime? : Like I said, I wanted to see how capable she was, and if she could keep up the momentum. Did pretty well for an inexperienced little poo poo, didn't you Wen? She aims a hard jab at the potential recruit.  : Do you make a habit of conscripting thieves? : Let me ask about something else. : [To Wenhaver] Why were you stealing from the Forge-Bound? : She aims a hard glare at you, but it evens out with apprehension. I lost everything in the conquest of Haven. Family, friends, home... all that I ever got was trampled by one army, then another. Stealing was the only way to survive. And stealing from the Forge-Bound... well, you can call that justice if you want.: Fool. The items you stole were worth ten times what you tried to sell them for.Eh? It's not like Wenhaver put in the money to acquire them, and stealing is less laborious than smithing.  Now, you might be remembering that the law of Quota and Sharing is supposed to ensure no one goes hungry. No one mentions this, because, again, the actual purpose of the sharing law is to enforce local control over trade and enable corruption. As Tunon hides in his nice bubble and sends the Fatebinders out to do the dirty work, he never encounters realities like this. It's not like we're going to tell him, either, because Tunon was very clear that criticizing the laws gets you killed. : Did you ever sell to the Scarlet Chorus?: I... well, sure. I even sold to Half Scar once or twice. The Chorus aren't what you'd call disciplined.: You bought our goods even though you knew they were stolen? Xenia looks at Half Scar. Uh huh. : Ever tried to get an honest job, Wenhaver? Lady, there is literally an entire market full of merchants below you.   : Let me ask about something else. : I've heard enough, and I'm ready to make my ruling.  We have a lot of options here. : Wenhaver will perform menial labor to the Forge-Bound until she works off her debt, and then she will go to Half Scar for training. TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:
  As we don't have a reputation for running the Tiers defying Kyros Zdenya is a lot friendlier towards us.  : So this is the one who braved the Edict of Storms and laid claim to Sentinel Stand Keep. She tilts her head, considering you. You are either the most brave person on Terratus, or you have yet to realize that mortality is a quality that all living things share...: In my years leading the Forge-Bound, I have never heard of a Fatebinder accomplishing something of such significance! It is an honor to meet someone of such distinguished deeds.Of course, our mission here is to deliver Zdenya to Nerat to be impaled on a spike. Integrity? What's that!  : Why have you come to Lethian's Crossing? Oh, this gets better and better. Nerat's having us act directly against Tunon as both a test of our loyalty and a trap to bind us more tightly to him. Of course, we don't have Archon's Privilege, so if this goes south we get thrown directly under the bus. : Why did you create a helm? : Why do the Forge-Bound stay here if the Bane are such a threat? : Why were you asked to create this item? Couldn't any Forge-Bound here do it? So not only was this mission ordered by Tunon, we have to kidnap the best smith in the Empire whom Tunon, second only to Kyros, keeps on retainer. This keeps getting better and better! : How did you become Master of the Forge-Bound?: I was trained at a young age to be a warrior but never felt any connection to that life - except when I was instructed how to repair my equipment. The fire spoke to me, it sang when I stoked it and told me where to swing my hammer to achieve the proper shape.: I knew from that first moment that it would be my life. I apprenticed with the Forge-Bound and focused exclusively on my craft. Soon my skills were superior to everyone else. I took risks with magics no one else dared to touch and created some of the most powerful artifacts ever to come from the Forge-Bound. : I have a request to make of you.: Unfortunately, I don't have time to entertain your request right now, Fatebinder. I was just on my way to place the helmet. I need to get it set up as soon as possible. The settlers have created a spot on the third tier - if you don't mind, join me and Eldian and we can speak there.We don't get a chance to move before Eldian shows up.   drat! It's not really clear from the way Eldian says it, but he's taking a massive risk making this request of the occupation governor here.  : But enough of my prattling. You didn't come here for a history lesson or to get my opinion of your grandeur. He waves his hand dismissively at his previous comments.: I see that you've collected the Archon of Song. He bows slightly to Sirin. You're taking her with you, yes? : Of course, mistress. Archon. Eldian scratches at the back of his head. We always treasure your presence at the Crossing. He coughs and turns his attention to you. : [Leave] I'll be on my way.: Of course. I must go to the spire to make sure everything is ready. I'll meet you there when Zdenya is ready to place the artifact. We wander over and the Helm shoots a magical green laser of glowy poo poo into the door below.  The game immediately railroads us into going into the Oldwalls, despite Tunon being emphatic that under no circumstances are you to go there. : You're just going to leave it sitting there out in the open?: Give me some credit, Fatebinder. I haven't cast the protection magics on it yet. But before I do that, someone needs to go inside the Oldwalls and ensure everything is working properly. She looks at Eldian and raises her eyebrows. There's no way to get out of this, and logically we should be able to bring up the fact that this is super illegal and is a death sentence for everyone involved. Sure, we, uh, went in there earlier to unlock the Spire, but we didn't do it at a ceremony with all these witnesses. Oh well, lore XP I guess. : [Lore 51] Kyros' law states that no one is allowed to enter the Oldwalls. But if no one goes inside, we will never know if the helmet is working. I will do this for you. This is a terrible idea because it gives them kompromat.  TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:
Granted, we've been in the Oldwalls before, so whatever. It's another Catch-22 legal situation: Tunon ordered us to set up the Magebane helm, but we can't do that without going into the Oldwalls. If we don't do this we probably defy Tunon's orders, but if we go in we violate the prohibition on the Oldwalls and thinking outside the Kyrosian box.  This isn't a good sign!  The Bane break out of the traps, threatening the Crossing and subjecting us to the sheer boredom of Tyranny Combat.  Once the bane are dead Killsy mocks the hat.  Raetommon steals the hat again...  We're given the option to betray the Scarlet Chorus, but we've seen that path already, so I take the second option. It plunges us into more Tyranny Combat.  We saw all this last route.  Tier Smasher is impressed with how we 360 no scoped all of the random mercenary losers. : Did you notice the Magebane Helm is gone? Tier Smasher immediately runs off to speak with Eldian, once again dumping everything on the Fatebinder.  We end the update with Raetommon bragging about his idiotic plan and eating a rock to the face. Next time: How many Bronze Brotherhood members can we personally slaughter?
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Jul 13, 2021 02:40
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: Fatebinder! Help! I'm being tortured to death and it sucks!
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Should've fed that earthshaker to Nerat, imo. Preferable to only having Ashe have access to their secrets.
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Jul 13, 2021 23:22
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Zulily Zoetrope posted:Should've fed that earthshaker to Nerat, imo. Preferable to only having Ashe have access to their secrets. Yeah, but as was pointed out, Boris didn't hang around for the sentence to be carried out. Nerat probably ate her brain about 5 minutes after Boris left camp.
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Jul 14, 2021 02:00
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Governor Boris and the Betrayal of Tunon Welcome back! Last time on Tyranny we threw a rock at Raetommon to begin that whole questline. Today we are going to see what happens when you take Raetommon alive. It's... it's not pretty.  Anyway, we had a Lethian's Crossing sidequest we haven't seen before as it's Chorus exclusive, so let's get to it.  Unfortunately to leave the town we have to go through more of Raetommon's Clown Hour as well as talking with Eldian, who is very distraught the magic hat is stolen because it ruins his Elmer Fudd impression.  Tier Smasher is made and wanders off to stab things, Harchiand has a special assignment for us as an agent of the Chorus, and Eldian wants us to do some sidequests and help out. I'm omitting a lot of Eldian's dialog as we saw most of it last run.  Let's go talk to Mr. Bronze.   : You said you wanted to see me? : Yes! This is simply unacceptable! I've sent notice to Nerat regarding the theft and kidnapping. While I await a response, you should search for the Forge-Bound Master. If we can recover her, Nerat is bound to be more forgiving!In other words, we need to cover our own asses to appease Nerat. : Speaking as someone who has dealt with Nerat for some time, I recommend you sort out this mess immediately. And after you do, you might want to think about an offering or two to appease the boss. : If you're so worried about how Nerat will respond, why did you tell him? : 'Least' amount of death? Why does there have to be death at all? Kyros' Peace, ladies and gentlemen! We can't really argue over whether it's illegal for him to do so, as the Archons are empowered to act as Kyros would over those who displeased him. Sure, Tunon got pissy over Nerat killing Ashe's son, but Brennix Ashe was sworn to a different Archon and not subject to Nerat. Really, you shouldn't even need to ask Bronze this because we've seen Nerat in action already. : Where would I even look for the Forge-Bound Master? : What can you tell me about Deserter's March? TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:
So naturally we gently caress off and do an adjudication instead.  : Let me get this straight - you want me to help you have sex? : If you want to be crass, then yes. That's exactly what I am asking you to do. The two Chorus members let out a low snicker and Gravin turns on them. Oh, shut up! This is all so terribly amusing to you, but I know you're doing it on purpose!  : You'll get yours, just wait and see! This adjudication will show that I'm in the right here! : I will adjudicate this issue, but if you ask for my decision, you must all agree to abide by it.: Of course I do! I know I have right on my side and so I will be vindicated. : I will obey your demands. : [Lore 26] [To Rip Throat] Technically, your statement did not sufficiently fulfill the requirements of my request. : Say you'll abide by his decision, fool! Are you sure we shouldn't be adjudicating poor for Rip Throat here?  Nah! Remember, the Kyrosian state is heavily steeped in cruelty, so this barely even registers. It registers to us, the player, because we live in a society that is not steeped in tyranny and the sort of cruelty we see out of the Chorus. Let's get Solomon Northup out again. 12 Years a Slave posted:Epps interested himself in his behalf, accompanying him to Marksville, and on all occasions loudly justifying him, but his services in this respect did not afterwards deter a kinsman of this same Marshall from seeking his life also. A brawl occurred between them over a gambling-table, which terminated in a[Pg 205] deadly feud. Riding up on horseback in front of the house one day, armed with pistols and bowie knife, Marshall challenged him to come forth and make a final settlement of the quarrel, or he would brand him as a coward, and shoot him like a dog the first opportunity. Not through cowardice, nor from any conscientious scruples, in my opinion, but through the influence of his wife, he was restrained from accepting the challenge of his enemy. A reconciliation, however, was effected afterward, since which time they have been on terms of the closest intimacy. While this is pretty obviously supposed to be a comedic slapstick adjudication of one idiot suing two idiots over a prostitute (although, notably, said prostitute does not get a say in this) it's an interesting commentary on how banal cruelty is that it never even occurs to the Fatebinder to get Droop Eye to stop abusing Rip Throat. : [To Gravin] State your case. : [To Gravin] Did you just tell me how to rule? : [To Droop Eye] What do you have to say in your defense? : [To Droop Eye] Are you specifically targeting Gravin?  This is still a massive waste of Boris' time.  : [To Gravin] They have a point. They aren't actually doing anything illegal.It also occurs to me that there's a bunch of poo poo Gravin could do, like offering to pay a premium to reserve time and that it's not entirely implausible said prostitute does not enjoy Gravin's, erm, specific way to relax and prefers these two.  : I am ready to decide. Do any of you have anything final you'd like to say?  : Droop Eye and Rip Throat are doing nothing wrong. If you're not fast enough to hire him, Gravin, that's your fault, not theirs.: Thank you, Fatebinder. We are done here. Come on, Rip Throat - we have some entertainment to partake in!TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:
I don't think having the guy hitting the woman for slapstick works all that well, but maybe I'm nuts. Moving on! We grab Gino's quest (the brother framing him for the Disfavored murders) because that gets us evidence against Ashe, we tell Deya to gently caress herself, and I find a new quest we haven't done before.    : Of course, I'll see what I can find out. : She means the world to me, and I'm sick with worry. His expression falls again, but this time there's a distant shadow of hope.TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:
Anyway, we go do the five bear asses quest but with Disfavored instead.  The twist is that you can offer the Bronze Brotherhood members medical aid in exchange for conscripting them into the Chorus.  You have to pass a skill check, but really, it's dull work.  There are also a pile of Disfavored you can engage in Tyranny combat with. That's the quest! It's not very interesting! We kill all the Disfavored and recruit all the Brotherhood members offscreen.  We do the whole song and dance with these morons. A quick recap: Locke is the smart guy who wants to abandon Raetommon, Myrek is the dumb guy with the illegal Oldwalls artifact Raetommon used to get into the Oldwalls, we are unable to convince Myrek (though it is possible) and thus we kill him again.  It pisses off the Brotherhood so hard we get their wrath ability.  : Your brother wasn't kidding when he said you were strong-willed. The reason we're now getting this quest is because we didn't leave the Brotherhood in control of the crossing. : He mentioned you have a knack for getting yourself into trouble. : Kallion isn't one to judge what's trouble from what isn't. He wouldn't leave Lethian's Crossing unless something was chasing him. : What are you doing out here in Deserter's March anyway?Of note is that while Kalea is convinced her brother is an idiot, she's basically signing her own death warrant by trying to sign on with the mercenary group opposing Kyros. Yes, Kyros is deliberately sabotaging her own state to remain in power, but the challenge of an armed insurrection against the state is something these kind of systems are very, very good at suppressing. : I'm doing my part is what I'm doing. I've come to Deserter's March to join the Bronze Brotherhood.She's actually not that far from when the Bronze Brotherhood members literally started killing each other, but I'm getting the impression she's not very bright. She's pretty obviously written as a teenager.  : I'm guessing you didn't see what the Brotherhood leader did in Lethian's Crossing? : Raetommon is not what you think he is. : Raetommon is a coward, a thief, and a murderer.There's a certain amount of irony in our Fatebinder saying this, as we've definitely killed and stolen out of fear of the Kyrosian regime.  : Wait were you and Raetommon...: What? No, ew! Raetommon and I were never a... thing, item, whatever you want to call it. He was friends with my brother a long time ago.: My brother was much happier when Raetommon was around. Back then, he didn't spend so much time worrying about me and how I try to live my life. I just want Kallion to have that happiness again. : You're joining the Brotherhood so you can repair the friendship between your brother and Raetommon?: Essentially, yes. I want to make Kallion happy so that I can be happy. When he's happy, he doesn't scrutinize every little thing I do. This is a teenager's idea of freedom. It's also a terrible idea because the Tiers currently feature such exciting things as civil war, Disfavored sex slavers, Scarlet Chorus conscription, mob justice, and more! : [Lore 48] The Raetommon you knew is gone, you must realize that by now.If you can't convince her not to join you have to go through a bunch of hoops to clear out Bane so her dumb rear end doesn't get killed. We're doing this the smart way.  : Talk to Kallion. Tell him that you are old enough to make your own choices.: I'm not sure it'll work, but I'll try. Thank you, Boris. I will return to Lethian's Crossing to talk to my brother.We never told her our name...but we are the military governor of the area - or were - so I think I can let that slide. TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:
 We get the kidnapped nobles as prostitutes encounter and let them go.  We've seen all this stuff before. It's one of the problems with these multiple route games, a lot of them have a ton of redundant content that just make me not want to replay it. It's great that Fire Emblem Three Houses has four routes, but playing through the monastery four times with maybe a few snippets of information makes me less inclined to play it. (I still haven't done Silver Snow. gently caress Rhea).  The important thing here is that we find evidence Graven Ashe struck first in the civil war, which we can present to Tunon later.  If we tell Ferris we killed Myrek and took the keystone, he strings together this incoherent insult (how are we both the son of a whore AND motherless) and attacks. I'm just going to fast forward through this dungeon. We've seen it before, it's full of Bane and keystone "puzzles" and it's just boring. I showed off the spell runes I believe, so you can imagine us getting them, and we can proceed on our merry way.  As an aside, if the Brotherhood hates you enough during this fight you have to kill them AND the Bane. It's still Tyranny combat on easy baby difficulty. Yawn.  This guy being here gives us evidence against Nerat (because the garrison let him in). We'll see if we use this!  Raetommon is still a moron. Despite what Welby says, I'm pretty sure you can't skip this fight.  Yeah, whatever, shut up. We beat him up and things finally go somewhat differently.  Nerat is looking for interesting people, if you'll recall. : I don't want to kill you, but you must agree to something if I let you live. : You will go speak to the Voices of Nerat in Cacophony. : How can I refuse? I no longer have a home. I will find my place with the Scarlet Chorus. Extend the bridge and I will go there now.: He holds out his hands, several objects in them. Take these. Perhaps they will be of better use to you. Then we fight Big Bane. It's easy Tyranny combat. Skip!  We are given the option to free or kill Zdenya. Killing Zdenya puts us back on the Anarchist path, and pisses off Tunon. Let's free her.  Ah, the infamous Tyranny railroad moment. As the Phantom of the Opera would say, this is the point of no return. Before we've sent a lot of people to Nerat and gotten them impaled on spikes, sure, but these were all enemies of Kyros and people who the regime wouldn't miss. Now we have to send Zdenya to Nerat. We have some cover for this, as Tunon told us to go undercover. Tunon posted:
: Of course, Master Zdenya. But I have come on behalf of the Voices of Nerat. They want to meet you.We don't really have a choice! Our options are to betray Nerat, ruining our investigation that Tunon asked us to do, or betray Tunon and prove our loyalty to Nerat. It's a very clever play by Nerat getting us to transgress against our real boss here, as he gains leverage over us and alienates us from the one person who could protect us from him. It's also entirely plausible in character to believe that the Anarchist path doesn't exist, as the Anarchist path is basically us profiting from Bleden Mark's protection in an allegory for, at best, allying with the secret police over the military. There's no real reason to expect this if you haven't played the game before, and it would be quite honestly completely fair under the narrative to give you a game over screen with the Fatebinder being executed due to lack of allies. We need Nerat's favor to survive right now, and Tunon can and will throw Fatebinders under the bus. There is one bonus trial I haven't been able to trigger on this save, but I will try to show off as a bonus update. It's about a Fatebinder on trial for protecting a Tierswoman from being raped by Scarlet Chorus members, and the "proper" ruling is to ignore the rape victim - they didn't swear allegiance to Kyros! - and kill the Fatebinder for violating Kyros' Peace.  We don't have a choice here. If we don't take Zdenya Nerat abandons us, and we lose all the power we've been painstakingly building with the Scarlet Chorus, which we need to stay alive because otherwise Graven Ashe will kill us. It's what the game's been trying to tell us all along, tyranny doesn't work for anybody. It doesn't create a stable powerbase for Kyros, it doesn't make the Archons happy because they have to constantly engage in power struggles just to survive, the toll on the common man is obvious, and even the most kindly Fatebinder has to do vile deeds just to survive Tunon. : I just saved your life, Zdenya. Do this for me. Incidentally, the bio for the Lawbreaker Fatebinder implies someone coming into the system with a lot more cynicism about Tunon and their legal misadventures.   Oh, and the Forge-Bound despise us forever now for sending Zdenya off. Time to go.  Raetommon tries to make a break for it and is captured.  : Escort him to Nerat - undamaged.It's not clear if the Archon will be angry at us for damaging his toys, but we are in full cover our own rear end mode. Remember Harchiand Bronze telling us this exact thing, of how we had to throw Zdenya, Raetommon, and maybe Eldian under the bus so he wouldn't kill us? Welcome to tyranny.  TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:
 There's not really a reason to keep the Magebane Helm, it doesn't do anything cool and it's not its fault.  We give it back. I'm not transcribing all this, we lose Wrath with the crossing and Eldian is super happy.  Unfortunately we have to progress Barik's quest a bit before we can turn in the lost apprentice and missing iron quests here. I'm pretty sure we've seen both of these, and i'm not finishing the companion quests this playthrough as we'll get different endings. I'm not sorry.  We do get the magic weapon sigil, which I was going to combine with Eb's Terratus sigil for life-draining melee weapons to make Boris the One Tank to rule them all, but whatever.  Kallion apologizes for preventing his idiot sister from getting herself killed.  I get it, he was being controlling, but this is a terrible dream to be having right now. If someone in my family said "I want to go and explore Syria, an active civil war zone that has ISIS", I would do everything in my power to get them to not do that. : [Subterfuge 53] It was a lot of work finding her, you know. Maybe you could add a few more to that pile.This does not prevent me from shaking him down for more money.  TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:
We finish up the Gino and Alagan slander quest offscreen.  Eb wants to know why we joined the Chorus, and we tell her it's to destroy the Disfavored. She's pretty happy with that answer. She still won't teach us her magic, but we replace Killsy with her to make combat even faster. We go to Cacophony, and I cut out a random encounter fight with a bunch of Bane.  We turn in Splinter's quest, and he gives us some cash and points us to another lady who needs help.  He also provides us with more context on just how terrified the Chorus is of Nerat.  This lady needed help, apparently.  We have to kill a bunch of Disfavored to avenge her Fury sisters. We agree. I hope you don't mind me abbreviating these conversations, she's just stitching herself up and it's not that interesting.  To the surprise of absolutely no one, Raetommon is on a spike.  Also on a spike is Crysantha, the lady we sentenced to a beheading "tomorrow" and then immediately left for Nerat to do whatever he wanted before the deadline.  This is, uh, rather unpleasant.  At least Zdenya died fighting. You can see Nerat is kneeling down over there instead of just relaxing and musing on slaughtering the Chorus.  : Fatebinder! Come join us as we contemplate the vastness of infinity. There are wondrous things to be learned within the primal, unfettered self. : I'm ready to report on my activities.: Your success at Lethian's Crossing was a work of brilliance. The Forge-Bound Master is in our hands, and the secret of her craft within reach. Soon, our howling masses will shirk their bronze sticks and take up unforgiving iron.My assumption is that the Forge-Bound use magic to produce actual steel instead of regular iron weapons, as iron is on par with bronze but easier to find.   : So what became of Zdenya? : [Lore 55] Wouldn't the Forge-Bound master have been more useful if she were alive? : [Subterfuge 50] Is that your way of saying she flatly refused to serve you in life and mocked you with her last words? : Then why is she on a spike?: We can't fathom your meaning, Fatebinder. Of what spike do you speak? Why would we ever...: Oh. Oh, you mean that spike. : Tell me how she met her end.: We engaged the Forge-Bound Master in discourse for some time, learning what we could about the secret of iron in the most amiable terms.: Ever the artist, she grew withdrawn and taciturn. We were forced to adopt more aggressive measures to wrest the knowledge from her swirling matter. To our greatest delight, she proved amenable to sharing herself with us, laying her every secret bare for scrutiny.Do you have to describe this with sexual innuendo?  Nerat's not dumb enough to admit to anything we could incriminate him with, and we can't afford to piss him off now. : Forget I asked. Let's discuss what's next.: The time has come to handle matters in our home region. As you have no doubt noticed, the Edict of Stone has wreaked havoc on these once-fertile lands. Our Scarlet Chorus recruits return from the war, hungry for provisions, but we have none to offer while the lands are thus blighted.: The Archon Cairn lies in the Stone Sea, clinging to life with both of his petrified claws. If he would simply allow death to take him, the Edict would be resolved and our troubles at an end.: Kill the incompetent fossil however you can. He is flanked by adoring Earthshaker mages, but they should prove no challenge to the likes of you. : How is Cairn able to endure the Edict of Stone? : Cairn is hardly the deadliest Archon ever to walk Terratus, but he's certainly one of the toughest. His refusal to die even in the face of Kyros' magic is an impressive display of defiance... but an utterly futile one.It does, however, prove that Kyros is not omnipotent despite all the poo poo Tunon says.  : Tell me about the Edict of Stone.: Kyros brought down the Edict to execute the rebellious, misguided Archon. It would seem Cairn is just tough enough to endure the torment of the Edict... but only barely, and while the Archon persists in surviving, the Edict ruins the land. : Tell me about the Stone Sea.: Our wretched little home was once the bread basket of the realm. These days, it is a pitted and treacherous catastrophe waiting to happen. An improvement, we think, but hardly a convenient one. : What tribe of Beastmen? : Have I sent you anyone who didn't end up on a pike or missing? That's not a denial, buddy. He does make a very good point about not pissing off the volatile madman surrounded by bodies on spikes. : [Leave] I'll head deeper into the Stone Sea.: Don't forget to bring us a souvenir of your travels. Cacophony has its charm, but we are always seeking outside amusements.TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:
We are two thirds of the way through Act 2. In Sentinel Stand Boris basically threw away his reputation on behalf of the Voices of Nerat, who used Boris to present a softer and fuzzier seeming Scarlet Chorus so he could stick a spike up Mattias' rear end. Now we've thrown away our standing with Tunon to glue ourselves even more tightly to a ship run by a madman who will have no compunction about putting us on a spike once we've solved every single problem he has. The game is doing everything short of having the developers personally address the player while playing air raid sirens to show just what a bad idea this all is.  Oh. Oh crap.  What are we going to tell him, no?  Oh. Well, maybe we can salvage this after all. Next time: Trying to blame Graven Ashe for everything.
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Aug 9, 2021 02:32
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Stupid Big Bane. Hey, Zdenya, you're free, you wanna go see Nerat?
: Hey, Fatebinder, we caught this loser trying to make a run for it!
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Well, if you give Nerat the baby, that's someone who's not dead or missing.
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Aug 9, 2021 04:22
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bewilderment posted:Well, if you give Nerat the baby, that's someone who's not dead or missing. Probably not dead, but definitely missing.
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Aug 9, 2021 04:57
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The baby is neither dead nor missing. You have to give it to Nerat or you’ll be booted from the Chorus route, and it’s being looked after in one of the tents closest to Nerat’s throne. There’s an examine prompt that only shows up after doing the Blade Grave quest. W/r/t Three Houses, you don’t actually have to replay White Clouds to play Silver Snow, if you have a save file from around the time of the route split. It’s not so much the Rhea route as it’s a Knights of Seiros route, with Byleth and Seteth taking the role of lord and lieutenant.
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Aug 9, 2021 12:06
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While the repetition is tiresome, the content is at least interesting. I do appreciate the differing ways the context changes people’s reactions.
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Aug 9, 2021 14:45
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lol the nerat route really doesn't sugarcoat it at all. just relentlessly calling you out as a psycho doing psycho things
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Aug 9, 2021 16:56
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mortons stork posted:lol the nerat route really doesn't sugarcoat it at all. just relentlessly calling you out as a psycho doing psycho things It's not like Nerat or the Choir ever pretends to be anything else. More than any of the other routes, the player really should have a sense of what they are going to get allying with a creature like Nerat.
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Aug 10, 2021 01:56
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Interlude: The Triumph of Evil Sometimes, evil wins Tyranny spends a lot of time looking at the psychology of evil. This is most notable on the player side, as on every route you will be pushed into compromises with various unsavory individuals that all end with the player forced to assume the mantle of either a tyrant or one last compromise that keeps the system running. However, the classic appeal of tyranny is that people get to be the tyrant on top, get everything they ever wanted, impress sexual partners, have a cool castle and elite guard force that loves and salutes them, and they can destroy all your enemies forever and everyone wants to be them. Those of us who have been paying attention should realize that, much like everything else in Kyros' Empire, this fantasy is a complete lie sold by the self-deluded to justify the terrible things they've done in the name of the system. The Satanic Authoritarian There are a lot of authoritarian archetypes in fiction and literature, from Sauron to Ahab and everything in between, but a lot of these - in Western traditions anyway - are drawing on Milton's Satan from Paradise Lost. There's an interpretation of Satan as a defiant hero standing up to mean ol' God, and in my reading it doesn't work out. As the poem opens, Satan and his followers are cast into hell entirely because of their own violent and ambitious actions. Milton posted:We may with more successful hope resolve Hell sucks! Understatement of the century, I know, but Satan's reply to the unstated charge of dragging all these angels down into Hell with him is not to take responsibility and ask God to spare his followers, or to repent and throw himself on God's mercy, but to double down on the same power seeking actions that got him and his thrown into the lake of eternal fire. Rather than showing any empathy for the plight of his followers, Satan reveals himself to be spiteful and petty, animated by nothing more than a desire to gain some small revenge on an omnipotent God. Milton posted:Fall’n Cherube, to be weak is miserable Ultimately Satan shows his cynical worldview in the next few lines. Milton posted:Is this the Region, this the Soil, the Clime, Again, to Satan, what sets rulers above is solely force. It's a worldview entirely consistent with what the angel tells Adam and Eve of the rebellion, where Satan and the devils tried to storm Heaven in cannon fire.  This is Satan's actual goal, gunning down all of his enemies and seizing power for himself. The poem chronicles Satan's attempts to fight back against God and seize ultimate power for himself, and at the end he accomplishes nothing lasting (God immediately prepares Jesus to go down to Earth and undo Original Sin) and gets himself and his followers all transformed into snakes for his troubles. Why is this relevant for Tyranny? No One Gets What They Want Over these two playthroughs we've seen enough of the Archons - who, on paper, have great privileges and get what their heart ostensibly desired. Tunon gets to deliver justice under the benevolent eye of Kyros, and ensure no one goes hungry and there is no war. Nerat gets an endless parade of petty and sadistic amusement. Graven Ashe gets to keep the Disfavored legion and serve with honor. These are all lies, and none of the Archons are happy. We'll start with Nerat. In theory, Nerat should be the guy benefiting the most from having all of these privileges because he gets to do what we've seen him do all game and get a license to put people on spikes while laughing maniacally when they crap themselves. In practice, Nerat lost himself the minute he started serving Kyros. Let's take a look at his backstory again.  This is the moment where the man who was once a nameless member of House Nerat became the flaming masked abomination in truth, and for all our flattery it's clear this is something our resident psychopath has still not gotten completely over. When asked if he tortured his own family, rather than own up to it he immediately retorts:  This is not the response of a man who is proud of his actions, but a man who is desperately trying to avoid thinking about them. Why did he do this?  This is entirely so that the man who is now only known as "Nerat" should survive. The great irony is that the Voices of Nerat isn't known by a personal name, but by the name of the family he so cruelly cast aside. As far as I know, the man who was once the son of the Nerat family is never given a personal name, simply the name of his disloyal and mutilated family. We also never learn whether the name of "the Voices of Nerat" was chosen by Nerat or bestowed upon him by Kyros, but that individual man is dead - first broken down by the Archon of Misery after his great cowardly transgression to spare his own life, and now...  In his attempt to be everything to everyone, Nerat has completely lost himself and the one of the few things that are truly his is the pointless cruelty. It's a desperate attempt to reclaim what he lost and convince himself he still has the power to be himself, something he fails at at the slightest lapse in concentration.  Is it a deliberate attempt to get under Ashe's skin, or is it an actual loss of control because no one is paying attention to him? Who cares? What's important here is that Nerat is no longer the man he once was. That man is dead, dying under the Archon of Misery's knives just as surely as if he'd been the tortured instead of the torturer. The man whose ultimate goal is survival has lost himself, and has become nothing more than a vehicle to indoctrinate the Scarlet Chorus through transgression the same way he was indoctrinated as an Archon. The only thing left that can truly said to be Nerat, aside from the cruelty, is the nihilistic realization that this is all pointless and you might as well take what you can get before you lose the power game.  This is why Nerat can go out with a grand spectacle, laughing - he's already dead, these people don't matter, this empire doesn't matter, who gives a gently caress? The law is a cynical means to keep power believed in by idiots, the Scarlet Chorus are a bunch of traumatized murderers who (as Noah Caldwell points out) seek death to cleanse them of their Nerat-inflicted transgressions, and Nerat uses all this to avoid confronting the idea that sacrificing his family to rule in hell may not have been worth it after all. Even if you side with Nerat, you can ultimately strip him of his remaining individuality via the sacrifice of a party member and finish the slow death he began long, long ago. We can look at Ashe next. We've covered Graven Ashe a lot in this LP, mostly through the character of Barik, but it's worth pointing out that despite being portrayed as the honorable old general who serves for Overlord and Country, Ashe is more deceitful than his archenemy Nerat. The thread has pointed out numerous times that the Disfavored path is a path of disillusionment culminating in having to genocide the Stonestalker tribe while you believed you could work with the honorable ex-rebels who showed so much mercy during the Conquest. Because Ashe is a lying liar, he actually has two goals. His stated goal is keeping his troops alive, something his powerset as an Archon ostensibly supports by having him suffer the pains of his men. His actual goal is to get sick power to crush all his enemies like that "sick gently caress" Nerat and maybe make out with Kyros along the way, and on some level Ashe is aware of what a fuckup and a coward he is. Graven Ashe posted:
Specifically, this is in response to Boris asking if Ashe is afraid of what the Chorus would learn from the Tiersmen. Of course, when push comes to shove, Ashe IS a coward, hiding behind his men from the Fatebinder.  The dissonance goes further, and you can see it in the conversation with Barik. Ashe is a heroic leader who values his troops, which is why he marches them into the Edict of Storms Boris literally warned everyone in the area to stay out of. We've actually pretty well covered Ashe's misadventures thoroughly in this LP - his Disfavored take massive casualties, he constantly strives for the approval of Kyros he will never receive, and we know this from the beginning of the game:  Ashe is Kyros' most loyal general, and Kyros rewards this loyalty by calling his army the "Disfavored" and nuking them with magical storms. We know the Disfavored suffer horrific casualty rates, not just because Erenyos tells us, but because we see and cause them everywhere. Ashe is the classic fascist strongman, and suffers three different appropriate downfalls.  The first is that we beat him at his own game - open combat - and force him to reveal what a worthless hypocrite he is, unable to shed tears over his own men and referring to them as a burden instead of a strength. The second is that we bring him to trial, where he loses all of his dignity and dies ineffectually threatening Tunon, and the last downfall on the Disfavored route is that the player steals the loyalty of the Disfavored and Ashe is ultimately forced to submit because the alternative is losing all of his vaunted power. Much like Satan gets punked on by God for his own sins, Graven Ashe sets up his own downfall by setting down the path of the fascist strongman. Lastly, we'll look at Tunon, who on the surface seems content with his lot. He originally joined the Empire because he was drawn to the idealism of Kyros' laws, which were a world without war and hunger enforced by the almighty iron hand of the state. Tunon posted:
Beneath that is a truly unhappy man. Tunon's current mask is a mask of iron that symbolically blinds him by covering his eyes, so he cannot truly see the utter disaster Kyros' laws have brought to the land. Characters like Nerat and Mark are able to look at the body of law and recognize them for what they truly are - a mess of rules designed to keep Kyros in power and allow her favored disciples to loot the land to reward themselves for their easily purchasable loyalty. We can tell this from Tunon's mask, as Nunoval and Bleden Mark mention an older mask, made of wood, that was destroyed by Kyros.  Now, if we ask Tunon about the mask, we get a bit more detail: Tunon posted:
This is the mask Kyros destroyed and replaced with the iron mask of resolve, which is the face Tunon wore when he razed the Bastard City. To recap, Tunon read the ideals of Kyros - no hunger, no war - decided to use his power to set up his own set of laws that mirrored Kyros in Tunon's own homeland, laid the groundwork for a peaceful surrender, and was rewarded by being entirely remade in Kyros' image. Tunon despises what he has become, so he avoids thinking about it, and reacts poorly if the Fatebinder is foolish enough to push the issue.  Tunon, in fact, refuses to contemplate what he's become under the mask and kicks you out of the court for asking. This is of course symbolic - the masks merely hide Tunon's biases and coping mechanisms, but the biases are still there. Tunon's story has two separate resolutions, but they both reach the same point. Tunon is forced to confront himself and see what the laws have become, either realizing that Kyros' laws are imperfect, or - on his death - realizing that the laws of Kyros are merely artificial and that he's violated the laws of nature for too long.  Tunon either dies at peace able to reconcile the wrongdoing he did and that maybe it can be undone, or he joins the player after realizing how badly he hosed up and wanting to do better. What About Kyros? We've left one position out of the discussion about how everyone suffers in a tyranny, and that's Kyros. On the surface of it, it looks ridiculous - Kyros is the Overlord, all who see her must bow, she has the final say in all things and literal life or death power over her subjects. In practice, Kyros' power is limited, and rather than being able to enjoy the fruits of having the resources of an entire world at her disposal, Kyros must constantly strive to keep her Archons weak and divided, because the secret is that the Overlord isn't all powerful and if the Archons all decide the system isn't working she's toast.  When the Archons all get together and decide that Graven Ashe gets to be on Team Looter, there's not much Kyros can do other than make some pithy comments and rename the once proud freedom fighters to the "Disfavored". Now, it's important to note that precisely one character gives us anything close to an actual description of interacting with Kyros, and that's Sirin describing the assassination attempt. Sirin posted:
This, of course, leads to the real position of Kyros - in name, they are the powerful Overlord whom none dare defy, but in practice, Kyros must spent every waking moment keeping the elites in line, whether it's showing off rare and valuable powers like Sirin, having Tunon and Bleden Mark work to keep Archons down, manipulating the Archons to stay at each others' throats by doing things like teaming up Ashe and Nerat, and maintaining a facade of strength, all for the approval of the elites whose support Kyros desperately needs to stay in power.  Kyros dare not retaliate against Sirin, because if any of these amoral elites - whom Kyros has deliberately cultivated for their lack of morality to make easy to control with corruption and other nonsense - realize that Kyros can be defeated by a twelve year old girl, somebody like Bleden Mark might be inspired to try again and actually succeed. There are hundreds of Archons who serve Kyros, and Kyros cannot singlehandedly fight them all. So Kyros, by necessity, lives a life of paranoia heightened by the fact that the penalty for failing dictator theater is death for them and any family they may have, to the cheers of the entire empire. It's an open question whether Kyros launched the conquest to actually provide peace and prosperity to all with the mighty power of a dictator, or whether it was all a lie to ensnare well meaning people like Tunon. Thus even the mighty Kyros has clear limits on their supposedly unlimited power, cannot use it to provide for the people or even just retire with their material needs taken care of, and has to fight the same vicious struggle for survival as any starving peasant or fall victim to the very cruelty she fostered. The same is true of the Fatebinder at the end of the game as well. I keep seeing critics complain about the ending where the Fatebinder begins their own conquest as a power fantasy, but it's really embracing damnation. By following in Kyros' footsteps, the player consigns themselves to the same trap as Kyros, having to continually struggle against their political opponents to maintain a power that can't really provide anything worthwhile save the ability to hurt and destroy. Even on the ascent we see that the player is either shackled to Bleden Mark and the secret police, the violent psychopaths of the Scarlet Chorus, the genocidal fascists of the Disfavored, or the reactionary nobility of the Tiers - who must be placated by vile actions (or anarchy) to maintain power. Did you use the Disfavored and vow that was the last genocide that Terratus would ever see, and that their iron would deliver an egalitarian utopia? Tough poo poo, the Disfavored want sex slaves and if you don't give them sex slaves you don't have an army. Are you keeping the Scarlet Chorus around as your main military? I sure hope you didn't need that civilian population, because those guys sure as hell aren't going to stop looting the locals, and if you make them do it, well, enjoy losing power because you don't have an army. Ultimately raining fire down upon the northern capital locks you into the same damnation as Kyros - someday, you too will lose the power struggle to some young upstart, and then you will face death.  The Triumph of Evil  Thus, no one really wins, and the ultimate triumph of evil is laid bare - the entire system is laid out to destroy everyone involved. All of the Archons are gifted individuals. Tunon's legal mind, Graven Ashe's charisma and leadership, and Nerat's intellect could have all been used to do amazing things for the benefit of all had they not been seduced by the false promises of tyranny. Even Kyros herself is obviously an exceptional individual, who could have achieved something truly great had she not been suckered by the vision of imposing her will from above as the only God. Like Milton's Satan, they begin the game reigning in glory until their evil actions turn them small and insignificant. This is the fate that awaits the player at the end, when they either kneel before Kyros in a final compromise with evil, locking themselves into the same destructive system, or they pick up the tyrant's tools to become the new tyrant. The system can produce nothing else. It will never deliver what it promised to either Kyros, the Archons, the Fatebinder, or the peasants, and it will fail all of them, casting them all into Hobbes' brutal struggle of all against all just to survive. You cannot wield the power of cruelty and murder to produce a bold new utopia. You cannot casually engage in violence without either revealing yourself as a psychopath or marking yourself deeply. You cannot stand for anything lest you lose your power or your life. Even should you rise to the top, you will still be shackled to the greed and cruelty of those around you, and you can never, ever, be truly free no matter how many armies you nominally command or what your rank is. It's all self-destructive cruelty all the way down, and we see this in real life too, where Beria let Stalin die and bragged about it, how the slave masters became crueler and more violent towards each other as they became more abusive to their slaves, or how Hitler destroyed Germany then shot himself whining about how the country didn't deserve him while he sent little kids to their deaths. The system wins by convincing the elites it can be beaten to give them everything they ever wanted, and it spits out those elites and destroyed them. That, more than Kyros' ascendency, or the Fatebinder's, is the true triumph of evil.
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Aug 15, 2021 02:31
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: Calling me a coward in not so many words? You and Nerat are cut from the same cloth!
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That's a tremendous write up, and I love the effort you're putting into this LP even if the game is making it a slog. I'm eager to see how pissed off Tunon can get.
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Aug 15, 2021 15:03
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Fearless_Decoy posted:That's a tremendous write up, and I love the effort you're putting into this LP even if the game is making it a slog. I fully agree. Great Evil King, thanks for your literary critique, I find everything you have to say extremely interesting, and I can't wait for your post-mortem of this. I have some thoughts I want to express, piggybacking on some sections of that post, as soon as I get back from holidays.
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Aug 15, 2021 21:09
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So, another thing that emerges organically from the text, and here I put on my polisci hat, is a condemnation of top-down reform efforts, and more explicitly "working in the system to undermine it," as the tyranny can only be smashed - from outside. Definitely not by you, the player. All of the paths, plus the starting position as a high-ranking official in the game have you inserting yourself deeper into the systems, finding yourself unable to resist them and finally being either molded by them, or attempting to discard them and ultimately failing in your power grab because of it. You are no revolutionary, at least not in a 19th-20th century mass movement sense. The most you can claim to be attempting is a palace coup. You are not granting political power or relevance to any previously disenfranchised section of the population, which is the crux of the player's failure to change the cycles of political violence that govern the game. Even when you do rebel, it is to either get the Tiers back into the hands of its reactionary boyars, or to wield your own brand of Kyros' magical nukes to challenge her claim to Overlord status. There is no innovation, you are still operating within the framework of pre-existing political coalitions, merely rearranging them in your favor to form your new claim. The serfs stay serfs, the commoners stay commoners, passively disenfranchised and essentially victims of historical events. The most explicitly-revolutionary-coded path, Anarchy, has you doing the exact same thing as the other three paths, just on a grander scale: you are now trying to find a coalition of Archons, as opposed to nobles and armies. With the same elite as before, with the same political powers still in play, with the same armaments as before, you will just be another Overlord. Maybe - as the writing concedes when Tunon starts talking about reforming the laws (end of the Anarchy path when he submits) - you will bring some improvements, or you will try and be foiled by inherent structural inertia of existing institutions. You will be a Tsar Alexander II, who liberated the serfs and then essentially put their communities immediately back in debt bondage so they could pay back the very nobles they were liberated from. But change, ultimately, does not come from within the system. You, as an agent of the system, wielding the tools of the system, operating within its existing political coalitions, wielding the armaments of the system (up to its magical nukes), are no agent of change. That's why this game is so brave to write this super bleak narrative. No, you don't get to be the hero and smash the tyrant, no everything doesn't magically get better, no there is no revolution, only more reaction behind the corner. And no, you don't get to enjoy being the tyrant either, as high-level politics in extremely unequal and stagnating societies are essentially a quagmire of crisscrossed backroom deals about MAD and reciprocal blackmail to ensure that things stay the same. And you - you see this in Nerat's path, merely enter the system by compromising yourself and thus implicitly committing to stagnation. You can torture and kill commoners for no reason I guess, if that's your thing. But even for someone whose thing it explicitly is, Nerat, as Great Evil King pointed out, doesn't seem to get all that much out of it. E: somebody more literate than me could probably coherently extend this reasoning to the metatextual level in that since you are working in a predetermined structure - the game - it is natural that you are unable to change course as the structure does not allow you to deviate. mortons stork fucked around with this message at 10:49 on Aug 17, 2021 |
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Aug 17, 2021 09:23
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Anything I wanted to add has already been said, I think. The Chorus playthrough is about either embracing cruelty, or hanging onto a dim hope of "if there is hope, it lies in the proles" - the idea that the Chorus will probably leave more proles alive than the Disfavored will. Nerat doesn't tolerate disloyalty though, so it means you're mouthing "sorry" to orphans as you create them.
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Aug 17, 2021 14:23
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I'm really enjoying these in depth analyses of the characters and setting
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Aug 17, 2021 17:31
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Governor Boris and the Great Blame Game Last time on Tyranny, we helped Nerat get his spike on again and then received a message from Tunon asking for his status report. While we could ignore it and piss Tunon off even more, we're on thin ice already so we may as well go see our boss about whose fault it really is.  I don't know if I've shown this off yet, but this is the game's load screen. I think it works really well!  We tell Tunon we're going to show up so he doesn't get even angrier than he already is, and make our way immediately to the Bastard City so we can deflect all the blame away from ourselves.  Tunon's reply arrives as soon as Boris and Friends make it to the court. I can only assume Mark hits us with a paper plane or something.   This is pretty important if you're not on anarchy. Showing up impresses Tunon and if you have evidence (you should have at least something just from doing the main plot) you can avoid the wrath hit from blowing off doing your actual job.  : It should come as no surprise that your activities are closely monitored. As an extension of Kyros' law in the frontier, your progress is a topic of some interest. Tunon pauses to regard you with an intense stare.: I sent you on a mission to bring order to the chaos of this civil war. Not enough time has passed for me to expect any significant progress, but I am curious about your findings all the same. I want to make sure your time outside of the Court's shadow is being used effectively.There's actually a lot here that's being unsaid. Tunon is telling us that he is constantly monitoring us and that we face his judgement...but on another level, if Tunon was actually watching us all the time, he wouldn't need our report! His agents could have been there when we spoke to Amelia, or when Nerat put all those guys on spikes, or any of these other things. Hell, Bleden Mark is always watching (as he gets pissed off if he's not there) and we know Tunon is checking in when we adjudicate cases...but Tunon either doesn't know what we've found or doesn't trust us to report it accurately. The other thing of note is just how powerless Tunon is in the face of civil war. Tunon is a personally powerful entity, who, on paper, has the authority to declare that Nerat and/or Ashe violated enough of the law and sentence them to death in absentia, as Archons may be convicted of sedition or incompetence, which can mean whatever the magical judge people want them to mean. Tunon's actual response has been to send out a lone guy and his 5 hobo friends to investigate by actively taking a side in the civil war and either going under deep cover with Nerat or just joining Nerat's side. This isn't even a fair investigation, we are an actively biased party who liked the Scarlet Chorus well enough to award them the credit for Vendrien's Well. Tunon is nominally in charge of both of the warring sides, but lacks enough power to bring them to heel despite being the second in command of the entire Empire.  : I am happy to be an asset to Kyros' forces, and to pull chaos out by the root.: That is all this court has ever demanded of you. You do well to recall your duties with such exacting precision.Now you might be looking at this talk in confusion, as literally nothing Boris has done has mitigated chaos in any way, shape or form. We got Graven Ashe's daughter impaled on a spike, giving him every reason to continue fighting, we've put down the Unbroken rebellion that was three minutes from collapsing for the greater result of screwing over the Disfavored - and thus Team Kyros, we had the greatest craftswoman in the Empire executed so Nerat could arm the Scarlet Chorus with iron weapons they're legally not allowed to have - oh, and we're basically helping the guy who started the rebellion in the first place look good so he can become King of the Tiers and do... why does he want to rule the TIers, again?  So like much of Tyranny, there are two things going on. One is the surface level of Tunon, the player's superior, asking for a status report on the investigation into why the Vendrien Guard's rebellion was successful. On the deeper level, Tunon is revealing that he's completely disconnected with reality. Why are the Archons playing this game? Because the system demands they struggle against each other so they can't rise to challenge Kyros. This is completely at odds with the Kyros-as-Abrahamic-God concept Tunon is stuck with, so we get the ultimately meaningless question "Which of the Archons is at fault?" : I believe Graven Ashe is the guilty party.1984 posted:'It exists!' he cried.  Now, we have actually a lot of evidence against ol' Ashey here, and let's be honest - number 6 is true of every single character in this game not named Tunon. : Graven Ashe exchanged prisoners with the Vendrien Guard, and willfully prolonged the siege.: The Adjudicator weighs your statement with interest. The space between the eyes of his mask narrows, though the change is too gradual for you to follow.  : Farewell.TheGreatEvilKing summary posted:
Tyranny really wants to remind you that the system is its own worst enemy, and here we see the snare of ideology which has gripped Tunon. Tunon stays in this palace all game, constantly looking down on the player save when you get the audience to investigate the Archons or when he descends from the pedestal to make his last stand against the Archon of Spires. Tunon's only reports are, for the most part, people who have to play along with whatever Tunon thinks is going on in the world, and if you don't comply, well... The Other Run posted:I wrote earlier that the Order of Fatebinders is effectively a trap for the smartest minds who would challenge Kyros - they get rewarded with power for obedience, and if they gently caress up they're under the direct supervision of Tunon, Calio, and any Fatebinder who hopes to advance by ratting out wrongthink. Thus this becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy - Boris is bringing order to the Tiers on his many adventures getting people impaled on spikes, orphaning babies, and turning urban areas over to a mob of trauma victims with poor impulse control and the legal authority to do whatever the hell they want. However, Tunon believes this is order, Tunon is not going to leave the palace to go see what is actually going on in the Tiers, and everyone around Tunon is encouraged to tell Tunon what he wants to hear both because this is how you survive Tunon's court and how to maintain your own powerbase. It really doesn't matter whether you believe the Communist Party is the party of workers and peasants killing all the workers and peasants because Lenin said that will magically make communism happen or whether you're cynically parroting this poo poo so you can have the Cheka investigate that traitor Jenny who unrelatedly rejected all your romantic advances, Tunon is surrounding himself with his own feedback loop that the system totally works and that the problems must be according to Kyrosian theory. We as players can see that the civil war is the intended result of the system, and both Bleden Mark and Myothis tell the player this if they're not paying attention. However, in Tunon's wacky ideological worldview, Kyros is not having the Archons fight to get rid of them because they're liabilities! Such a thought is beneath all-powerful, mighty Kyros: Tunon on Kyros posted:Kyros can never fail, Kyros can only be failed, and that's how we come to the conclusion that all of the nonsense in the Tiers is the result of one bad Archon and when that Archon is removed all the problems will magically go away - never mind that Tunon's entire career has been removing all the bad people and yet the same problems keep recurring no matter how many people Tunon sentences to death while the system remains constant. It's the problem with these authoritarian ideologies that inevitably they clash with reality and reality starts winning, and the most fanatic ideologues double down while stuffing their fingers in their ears. Even if we kill Nerat or Ashe, that leaves the other one free to screw up, piss off the locals and provoke either outright rebellion or sabotage - which leads to more work for Tunon, and the promised land of free shared food and peace never arrives because its a lie sold to allow the Archons to steal and kill. Of course, we aren't in any position to point this out, as all of our power as a Fatebinder is tied into this fiction of Kyros' laws. Our power comes because the Empire has to pay lip service to these ideals, because ultimately it's what makes Kyros and Tunon happy, and while they don't have all the power they've woven the lie into everything the empire does. The Archons can't just loot and steal openly, they have to at least pay lip service to the idea they're doing it for the public good and do it through the proper channels of being the regional trade authority, and this conveniently lets Kyros direct the loot and use it as a carrot to get the Archons to do what she wants. Bleden Mark explains the law posted:There's a hilarious scene we didn't see where, if you go to the Burning Library, the Censor takes the forbidden scroll and is promptly brain devoured by Nerat. The player has the option to call him out on the law against forbidden knowledge, where Nerat counters by pointing out that he didn't actually read the banned book, he just kinda saw what was in the Censor's brain, it wasn't illegal, and that you're not the only one who can bullshit the laws. The actual crimes an Archon can be convicted on are the crimes where you upset the applecart and threaten the system - loving with the Oldwalls and coming up with original ideas, incompetence (aka not delivering the loot for the rest of the gang), sedition, and actually challenging Kyros' authority openly. Thus the laws function both to create the legal system of privileges and as a constant loyalty test - by following the law and playing the game, you prove to everyone that you won't knock over the loot train today. There's a third bonus as well, which is that you can use any minor infraction to destroy or blackmail your enemies to advance your own position - which helpfully allows Kyros' subordinates to keep infighting so no one rises to the level of Kyros. Bitchslapping Barik back in line posted:
Once again, the game confronts us with the idea that, far from the trains running on time, the authoritarians are too busy playing stupid loyalty games and it effectively blinds them to the real problems that their system creates. Ultimately Kyros made the decision to send both Nerat and Ashe into the Tiers, despite Ashe only being an Archon because he badly humiliated Nerat and Nerat killing and eating Ashe's son in retaliation, and the system is designed ultimately to continually produce these enemies as everyone constantly infights both for survival and more loot, but we can't mention this because it breaks the official line, puts a huge target on our head, and undercuts our own authority. I was going to finish up the Stone Sea this update, but this got a bit longer than I'd planned, so we'll pick that up another time. Next time: Hundred-Blood, no!
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Sep 8, 2021 05:42
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This is kind of a death March here. The non-conventional paths doesn’t have this severe of a Sword of Damocles over your head despite those situations ostensibly being about you bucking the system in differing ways. Actually working within the system has this constant feeling of danger looming immediately overhead from the slightest misstep.
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Sep 9, 2021 12:55
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