16 KiB
I noticed: The Two Year Emperor ch 52 is up
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Author: u/Empiricist_or_not Aspiring polite Hegemonizing swarm*
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URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/2b6llz/i_noticed_the_two_year_emperor_ch_52_is_up/
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Score: 6
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Created: 2014-07-20T03:15:27
Post:
Not much surprising, but some cool Loki being Discord images. I don't think anyone will be surprised by the outcome, only the relative magnitudes.
Comments:
u/ulyssessword [+7] (3 hours later)
u/eaglejarl [+3] (7 hours later)
A little bit ago I posted an announcement item myself, not noticing this one; I have now deleted it. In that thread, Zephyr1011 asked "Afi knows where they are and has reason to destroy Grofhamr. Why hasn't he interrupted the ritual?"
The answer is in this chapter, although I don't expect anyone to spot it -- the various pieces of it are fairly well buried. Suffice to say: there is a reason, and it's in character for him.
u/Riddle-Tom_Riddle [+3] (8 hours later)
Here's my guess, encoded, that I'll keep unedited:
148 2134848333 682 926 233435.
u/eaglejarl [+1] (12 hours later)
Hm. I think your code is a noodle incident. :)
u/traverseda [+1] With dread but cautious optimism (13 days later)
Apparently not.
u/Prezombie [+1] (8 hours later)
Buried in Loki's ramblings?
[My Guess](#s "Herrun's "One of the Allies any god needs when things get serious." and Afi's got a plan to subvert her for his own ends")
I'm immensely, disturbingly curious over the secret Loki sacrificed. Did you have one in mind, perhaps for later reveal, or am I going to be forced to assume it's a noodle incident about ol' Coyote writing an epic-length Star Trek/MLP fanfic?
u/eaglejarl [+1] (23 hours later)
I'm afraid it's a noodle incident.
Then again, I might come up with something and decide to retcon it in. Of course, the only way to know that it's what Loki sacrificed would be to tell it to him and see if he can understand it.
u/Nepene [+1] (8 hours later)
Perhaps Afi is worried about the gods deciding "Rocks fall, everyone dies" and as such is seeking serious allies.
Possible he earlier donated a secret of his own to the lady. Perhaps his simulacrum enabled him to evade knowledge loss restrictions.
u/ignirtoq [+1] (20 hours later)
Perhaps his simulacrum enabled him to evade knowledge loss restrictions.
Highly doubt that. Stupidworld may have stupid physical laws, but all we've seen suggests there are other rules that the gods truly care about, and they will personally wreck your day before they let you get around those.
u/Nepene [+2] (20 hours later)
If the sacrifice was genuine for the simulacrum then it may still grant the lady power. She may not care where the power comes from. Or she may, creating drama.
u/ignirtoq [+2] (21 hours later)
I meant more that she likely wouldn't abide someone sidestepping the rule that you lose the secret you sacrifice. The secret is supposed to be lost to the world, not just to you. I doubt a secret "sacrificed" by such a minion would provide any power if it wasn't truly lost, and even if it did, I expect her to avenge the breaking of her own rule. Loki would give a pass to someone breaking his rules because he's the god of rulebreaking. I see Herrún punishing abusers of such a loophole even just on principle, and even if the loophole provided her a net benefit, because that's what gods do.
u/Nepene [+1] (23 hours later)
I'm not sure that's really a firm rule. The secret is supposed to be lost to you, not others. If you could sacrifice your knowledge of diplomacy for example and knowledge of diplomacy was permanently lost to the world that would be a cruel way to depower Afi.
There could be a rule, but there's no inherent reason why. Whatever works for the story.
u/eaglejarl [+1] (23 hours later)
You're both right, actually.
When you sacrifice knowledge (i.e., information that is generally available) or secrets (information known only to you, or only to a very few, all of whom think of it as secret) to Herrún, that information is erased from your personal brain. You cannot get that information back by any means short of divine intervention (by Herrún herself, or by another god). If someone tells it to you, you can't understand the words. If someone writes it down, you can't read it. etc.
On the other hand, your sacrifice doesn't change the state of the world aside from you -- it doesn't take the knowledge from anyone or anything else and, if your secret was something like "I'm pregnant", then the baby doesn't just disappear. You won't be able to understand why you suddenly look fat, or why you are experiencing waves of pain, but you will still have the baby. You will be able to remember that the baby is yours, but you will be sure that you were never pregnant, and will even pass magical truth detection. When presented with the contradiction, you simply won't understand the problem.
And yes, if the thing that walked into the room and said "I'm Afi" were to try to sacrifice to Herrún, his (its?) secrets would still power her up.
u/jesyspa [+2] (a day later)
You cannot get that information back by any means short of divine intervention (by Herrún herself, or by another god).
Jake has eight questions for Loki. Sacrificing (almost) all his knowledge and then getting it back via one of the questions would probably not work out too well, though...
u/Nepene [+1] (a day later)
Thank you for this knowledge.
Based on that, supposing that thing that said "I'm Afi" was something magical like a Simulacrum, if it sacrificed knowledge or secrets any effect would be restricted to it's personal ice magic brain?
If so, that would be an interesting exploit for future reference. Suppose a few dozen wizards had created Simulacrums of our hero. He could have perhaps made a goddess mostly in his own image with his personality and a lot of munchkin tricks.
u/eaglejarl [+1] (a day later)
Huh. Interesting thought. :)
u/liamash3 [+1] Mizu (46 minutes later)
I'm wondering as to whether the MC can't use his sacrificed secrets now... Meh, other ways to destroy the planet exist besides antimatter.
u/GeeJo [+3] Custom Flair (2 hours later)
From Lokis comment about sacrificed knowledge, Id say that its literally impossible for Jake to think about the world-sacrifice strategy again, or een to understand if the others come up with it independently.
u/philip1201 [+1] (17 hours later)
That depends on what "the world-sacrifice strategy" is. Did Jake forget about matter-antimatter annihilation? The capacity to teleport to fictional location via many-worlds theory? It's very vague what the limits of "knowledge" or "a secret" are.
u/eaglejarl [+1] (23 hours later)
It wasn't stated in story, but what Jake wrote on the paper was:
"I could use a drawing of an imaginary location with Scry Location to find a human-habitable world -- somewhere in the nigh-infinite multiverse, that scene must exist. I could transport all the Grǫfhamrites there using Greater Teleport, then have a mage use Polymorph Any Object to create a few trillion tons of antimatter here on Earth; that would destroy the entire planet, including the liches."
As such, he's forgotten:
- That any imagined scene will exist somewhere, given a nigh-infinite multiverse.
- That he could use Scry Location to find an imagined scene. (He still remembers that the spell exists and can be used to find something that's known.)
- That Grǫfhamr could be moved to a different planet.
- That Polymorph Any Object could create enough antimatter to blow up the planet. (He still remembers that antimatter exists and can make big explosions.)
u/iamzeph [+1] (4 hours later)
That was a juicy secret but probably not super useful strategically
u/eaglejarl [+2] (23 hours later)
The one about Loki? It was important enough that he could use it to blackmail a god; whether "eight honest answers" was the best use of that blackmail is uncertain. Jake isn't great about thinking things through, and it was the first thing he thought of that seemed to have strategic importance. If he was able to tell Albrecht about it, Albrecht would probably tear his hair out and beating him with a rolled up newspaper. Once Thomas found out the details, he would probably let Albrecht do it.
u/iamzeph [+1] (a day later)
Yah, the Loki one. I think Jake could try to blackmail Loki with it, but realistically Loki has enough space and time powers that Jake would probably not get word one out before being smote/brainwiped/etc
u/eaglejarl [+3] (a day later)
For whatever reason, Loki bowed to the blackmail. It might be that he really had no choice but to knuckle under, it might be that someone else bribed him to, or it might be that doing so served his own purpose. In any case, Jake did manage to get some concessions from him.
u/Empiricist_or_not [+1] Aspiring polite Hegemonizing swarm (4 days later)
Assumption 1 'the one true god' is part of the faction starting the undead cycle
Assumption 2 Loki know the side of life is threatened by the treat to tell the landguard and thus the 'the one true god'
AssUMe 3 weak Our Hero: Jake has not deduced Assumption 1
I'm still confused why Loki caved: A: either he did it to prevent our hero from shooting life's faction in the foot, B: he did it so he can play his genially evil role while helping the life faction, or C some other reason, but I'm leaning towards answer D: both A and B.
[edit] P.S. Why is Jake not on the side of defeating death through immortal undeath?
u/eaglejarl [+1] (4 days later)
Jake is on the side of everyone being immortal. He wanted to surrender to the Deorsi as soon as he knew that they had effective immortality. He only reason he didn't is because of the Archmagi's mind whammy.
Right now, though, he's just on the side of "not dying."
As to Loki, there will be more information coming up in the next few chapters. I've finally gotten to a point where I can start getting into the whole "gods and why they do stuff" plot. It's taken a long time, but I'm glad to finally be here.
u/jesyspa [+1] (7 hours later)
If the undead are unable to spread to other worlds in the multiverse, it isn't quite clear why he doesn't just use the Greater Teleport part of the plan. On the other hand, if the undead can spread and once this world falls the rest of the multiverse will follow, the cost of not destroying them is so great that the whole remaining population of this world is nothing.
I can see some argument like "we don't want to lure them out", but it seems strange that they don't know about these things already. (By the way, why would they need Polymorph machines if they have an effectively infinite number of worlds? With the size of the armies they have, raiding those shouldn't be too hard.)
u/VorpalAuroch [+1] Life before Death (23 hours later)
Other worlds in the universe, not other worlds in the multiverse.
The Undead probably can't travel to our world, and Jake isn't suggest they use the same method of transit as they used to bring him. He was suggesting they go find another planet on the same Material Plane.
u/jesyspa [+1] (a day later)
Relevant passages:
"The Stupi...this world's universe is, presumably, as large as my own—nigh infinite, for practical purposes. There're also other realities parallel to this one, mine being one of them, but they're all variations on the Prime Material Planes and most likely not other planes per se. Assuming this is something like the Copenhagen Model, the number of these realities is probably either infinite or so large that it might as well be infinite."
"I'd talk to an artist," I told her. "Describe a made-up imaginary world for him, have him draw it. Somewhere in the multiverse, that world almost certainly exists. With the picture, you can use Greater Scrying to locate that world. Use Greater Teleport to send a mage there—with proper protections against the environment, of course—so she can scout it and make sure it's safe. Once we know that it is, use Grǫfhamr to transport the surviving Deorsi there.
"Once everyone was safely there, send one mage back here to blow the place up," I finished. Immediately, I got worried that she'd be offended by the idea of me using a suicide bomber, so I hurred to correct that impression. "She could Shapechange into a ghost or some other incorporeal so as to be immune to the blast, and then Greater Teleport to us once the world was gone."
Assuming there actually are sufficient worlds for a "made-up imaginary world" to have a reasonable chance of existing, it seems like one of the following must be true:
The undead can reach such worlds themselves, in which case the destruction of this world will prevent the conquering of other worlds. Given the number of world is "nigh infinite", that's a nigh-infinite number of lives he saved.
The undead cannot reach such worlds themselves. That's weirder, but in that case, simply retreating to such a world would be enough to evacuate the common people of Deorsi. If he doesn't want to blow up this world, that's fine. It's a little strange to me, given that they're doomed anyway, but it's his (moral) choice.
Either of these making sacrificing the whole plan a little weird.
One possible explanation is that the undead wouldn't normally come up with the idea, but they might scry and follow, or they might read his mind and take the plan. In the first case it isn't a good idea to flee, in the second it's a good idea to get rid of the knowledge. I'm not quite sure how this balances out.
EDIT: Hm, and is it me, or was there so far no confirmation the world is a ball of rock floating through space? I wouldn't be surprised if this ended with another "you believe in evolution?" moment...
u/aintso [+1] (21 hours later)
Any ideas yet on color-coding sacrifices?
Class-based? Personal secrets, strategic secrets, other people's secrets? Shameful, useful, nostalgic? Something having to do with affinity of various pieces of knowledge to various gods, alignments, races? Something to do with potential consequences of this knowledge being used?
That last one fits neatly with magnitudes of flashes, but then we've seen so little that nearly everything would fit.
u/VorpalAuroch [+1] Life before Death (23 hours later)
I'd guess that it's based on what would be affected were the subject known. Your family, your career, your life, your country, the entire world, the deities of the world...
u/Empiricist_or_not [+1] Aspiring polite Hegemonizing swarm (a day later)
I'd speculate it's a cross between traditional flame color being linked to heat, and the more mythic Silverfire of Ebberon, but that leaves gold unexplained.