scrape_r_rational/data/cache2/3mm61z.md

Mother of Learning: Chapter 42 Sum of its Parts

• Author: u/Nepene *

• URL: https://www.fictionpress.com/s/2961893/42/Mother-of-Learning

• Score: 89

• Created: 2015-09-27T20:28:16

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u/None [+19] (an hour later)

Dang Zorian, why don't you want to do this with Xvim during other restarts? In fact, why don't you get mentored by him 24/7. You'd be doing everything perfectly after about 100000 restarts.

u/world_is_wide [+24] (an hour later)

Their personalities are too different. Xvim has the heart of a grinder while Zorian is more of a explorer/quester

Finally Zorian has discarded Xvim's incompatible grind shaping perspective and started seeing shaping exercises as his relaxing toy.

Imagine the shaping exercises are soon going to hit the next level for magic construction

u/elevul [+14] Cyoria Observer (2 hours later)

Plus he doesn't actually need to train WITH Xvim to do the shaping exercises, as he can just do them in his free time while travelling the continent or mindraping people for his other quests, and then come back once every 10-15 restarts to see if Xvim has other shaping exercises for him to do.

u/AmeteurOpinions [+17] Finally, everyone was working together. (3 hours later)

Xvim cements himself as one of my favorite characters. Something about his relentless cranky-old-wizard attitude and Zorian's continuing reaction to it is enormously entertaining.

u/None [+24] (33 minutes later)

[deleted]

u/Nepene [+6] (an hour later)

https://www.patreon.com/posts/chapter-40-3193398

Enhancement rituals and shifter magic is likely a low priority for Zorian, based on this.

u/None [+2] (an hour later)

Thing is, that only crosses out enhancement rituals.

I was thinking of something that would directly affect his soul. Obviously he would have to do this once he had his soul sight, but becoming a shifter should give him a physical boost that would carry over restarts (as he is affecting his soul directly).

u/elevul [+14] Cyoria Observer (2 hours later)

He can't touch his soul, because even a small change could kick him out of the loop, which is a risk he's not willing to take.

u/Nepene [+3] (2 hours later)

I hadn't thought of that, good observation.

Another reason why transfiguration spells would be good. Soul clothes have been proven safe and give most of the same benefits.

u/Nepene [+7] (2 hours later)

Directly modifiying his soul would probably be dangerous and may have mana costs. It would probably be cheaper for him to learn some transfiguration spells and some physical boost spells.

Although if he gets to the point where he is physically fighting enemies something has gone very wrong.

u/JulianWyvern [+3] Wayward Wanderer (5 hours later)

Enhancement Magic Shaping Exercises!

u/EliezerYudkowsky [+11] Godric Gryffindor (3 hours later)

Hm. The fact that Zorian was able to pierce Xvim's shields temporarily does decrease my probability that Xvim is some type of super thingy. Zorian, you really need to try slipping something into Xvim's drink and reading the heck out of his mind some loop.

u/None [+18] (4 hours later)

[deleted]

u/None [+1] (9 days later)

Or maybe he's the Voldemort of this story, and actually is Red Robes. Have we ever seen them in the same place at the same time?

u/Anderkent [+6] (16 hours later)

Or did Xvim just want Zorian to think that?! :P

I'd be really uncomfortable if Zorian started mindraping even people who haven't clearly joined the conspiracy. I'm surprised you'd suggest that.

u/EliezerYudkowsky [+9] Godric Gryffindor (23 hours later)

Zorian is trying to prevent someone from summoning an Endbringer, and heaven knows what other risk of temporal damage. Not to mention the ethical issues associated with the time loop itself. I think he has a morality license on stuff he does inside a time loop.

u/Anderkent [+7] (a day later)

I dunno, given that Xvim's mindstate is presumably very similar across time loops (and memories pre-timeloop are exactly the same), compromising his mental privacy doesn't 'stay' within the loop. Privacy of the post-loop Xvim is just as compromised (unless Z manages to purge his memories before the last loop ends / early on in post-loop).

So, I can imagine extreme circumstances where this could be warranted (Xvim refuses to cooperate, Z playing each loop as if it was the last one, Xvim's knowledge likely relevant to the event)... But just doing it because Xvim is mysterios I detest.

u/valeskas [+6] (a day later)

Zorian considers himself defined by his actions. Attacking neutral people would change him, introduce bad habits that may cost him outside of the time loop.

u/EliezerYudkowsky [+6] Godric Gryffindor (2 days later)

I guess it could be the right act for the genre. In Worm that level of niceness would get you killed or worse.

u/iamthelol1 [+1] (4 months later)

It was the right act for the situation. Altazia is just as hazardous as Earth Bet really. No respawns in worm...

u/SoundLogic2236 [+2] (2 days later)

More importantly, bad habits are mind effecting, meaning they are one of the few things that could cost him INSIDE the time loop.

u/Nepene [+3] (3 days later)

He's noted this issue with himself too.

Kael seemed amused that Zorian cared more about his safety than his own, considering that Kael would be restored to normal once the loop restarted and Zorian might not be, but Zorian's moral sense had yet to adapt to the implications of the time loop and he was horribly bothered by the idea of leading Kael to his death in the tunnels and leaving his daughter all alone in the world… even if it was only for a week or so.

but he had to admit he knew of no other way to deal with the third time traveler. The only other way involved destroying his soul, and that was arguably even more morally reprehensible. Plus he didn't actually know how to destroy someone's soul. And hopefully never would.

And that was without even considering the moral dimension of the whole thing. Picking on innocent people for the sake of personal training was not the road he wanted to go on, and dismissing their plight as irrelevant due to the time loop striked him as an unhealthy attitude to have. He might have justified the whole thing to himself if it was just a matter of tapping into their senses, since that was mostly harmless, but the Luminous Advocates made it clear this wasn't the only skill he would have to practice on his fellow humans to get right.

He doesn't want to have a morality license. He's worried about going down bad roads and becoming an immoral person.

In other words, he needed to develop his mind magic, ethics be damned. He didn't think he could do this on his own, so he would have to seek out other aranea webs for this.

He is however willing to do a great deal of immoral things for the right cause.

Capturing Xvim and interrogating him, while interesting, isn't an action of key importance. Xvim's knowledge doesn't seem to be anything that unique, just exceptionally well practised and skilled. Besides which, eventually Xvim will surely have to admit Zorian's skill eventually, Zorian can just keep improving his shaping skills forever.

Xvim is also a dangerous target to attack due to his skill. It could go very wrong. As he has no reason yet to suspect Xvim as Xvim hasn't yet done anything too radical why would he? We as readers can suspect him, but as far as Zorian knows he's just a very skilled and powerful mage that seriously annoys him. There are no shortage of strong mages around. If Xvim was some sort of super thing, if he'd mastered empathy as well as Zorian with pure shaping skills it's not like Zorian could contradict him. Xvim surely knows more about how shaping works than he does.

u/FuguofAnotherWorld [+2] Roll the Dice on Fate (a day later)

Why exactly? It's a few minutes of pain (or less, given unconsciousness) in a loop that won't have happened measured against some huge pile of deaths that the summoning will cause.

u/Anderkent [+2] (a day later)

I mean, mind rape is horrible even if it's painless and the victim never notices? Mental privacy is important. You can't treat someone who can know your inner workings as an equal, it completely changes the calculus of how likely is it that the other person is playing/exploiting you...

I don't really see why Zorian can't just come clean with Xvim in one loop, ask him for some kind of self-signal that he could give him in the next loop to prove it, and then gain his cooperation and presumably answers to any specific questions he might have. Having maintained consensual partnership will mean he doesn't have to hide his knowledge post-time loop, doesn't get desentivised by his actions within the time loop to a degree that it would impact his post-timeloop life, etc.

It's just fucking wrong and he's nowhere near the situation where he would have to do it.

u/FuguofAnotherWorld [+1] Roll the Dice on Fate (a day later)

Depends on if you consider time looped events to have any proper moral weight I guess.

u/Anderkent [+5] (a day later)

But the point is the transgression doesn't stay within the loop. Xvim's privacy is compromised post-loop too.

(and yes, I do. Even if you ignore the experience of anyone non-looping, the actions have an effect on Zorian)

u/FuguofAnotherWorld [+1] Roll the Dice on Fate (a day later)

And that is an unambiguously bad thing. The resurrection of an elder demon thing is very much a worse thing many times over because of multiplication. As such, I'd call most things that Zorian can do in a time loop justified so long as it stops the elder demon thing.

Now, this doesn't mean that any given action is necessarily the best thing to do, because justifiable is different from optimal. At the very least some attempt should be made to do it the non-invasive way first.

u/Nepene [+1] (3 days later)

The resurrection of an elder demon thing is very much a worse thing many times over because of multiplication.

And he is willing to compromise his morality to attack the elder demon thing's cultists. He's not willing to attack a random teacher who may know some cool stuff just because.

Ideally, he'll be able to stop the elder demon and preserve his morality, by his reasoning. Morality isn't a mathematical sum, if he hurts or injures people and saves the world the hurt and injured people don't go away. If he had good reason to suspect that attacking Xvim would help him kill the primordial, sure, he'd probably do it, but as it is?

u/FuguofAnotherWorld [+1] Roll the Dice on Fate (3 days later)

Morality isn't a mathematical sum

It is to me. Try expanding it outwards to multiple cases: a general policy of mind reading powerful wizards vs a general policy of not doing that. One strategy clearly has a much higher chance of learning the things necessary to stop said primordial. Obviously you don't want to attack wizards that are too powerful in case they hit you back in a way that actually does lasting harm.

Would your more absolutist morality be mollified if he did the mind reading, then used mind magic on himself to delete any personal or private information gained thereof? That way the people who were hurt or injured people very much do go away.

u/Nepene [+1] (3 days later)

Try expanding it outwards to multiple cases: a general policy of mind reading powerful wizards vs a general policy of not doing that.

Seems risky. They might mind read him back. Powerful wizards are dangerous. I'd say that has a lower chance of success. Mages also may keep their best secrets and powers secret to use in super dangerous situations so it's hard to judge how dangerous they are. He also doesn't know for sure who is a cultist or not. If he attacks the wrong person he or she may alert red robes, who could then permamently kill his family.

Besides which, any harm he's done is still done. My point was more that any harm you have done remains harm, even if it's on net a greater good. 5 -ve morality and 100 +ve morality is still 5 -ve morality and 100 +ve morality.

Would your more absolutist morality be mollified if he did the mind reading, then used mind magic on himself to delete any personal or private information gained thereof?

Please don't make up moralities for me. I'm not a moral absolutist.

That would make it slightly less harmful.

u/FuguofAnotherWorld [+2] Roll the Dice on Fate (3 days later)

My point was more that any harm you have done remains harm, even if it's on net a greater good

Well the whole thing about time loops is that the harm doesn't remain done.

That would make it slightly less harmful.

So... Where is the rest of the harm? So far as I can tell you consider things to still have normal moral weight even if they end up having never happened to the people the crimes were supposedly perpetrated against, the perpetrator has no memory of any personal information, and in general there is nothing to suggest that it ever happened at all. And you put the majority of the weight on these things that never properly happened? You'll have to forgive me, but that seems quite silly.

In what way is the world made worse by these actions?

u/Nepene [+2] (3 days later)

It's like- if you stab someone with a knife and then wipe their memories and heal them.

Even if you do that, you still stabbed them with a knife and wiped their memories. That harm still happened. If you, like many people, don't like people being stabbed and harmed you will prefer other options. Memories being altered or time magic doesn't change what happened.

If you believe it's ok or good for them to be stabbed, sure, you can do it, but it's not a favored option otherwise.

u/PlaneOfInfiniteCats [+1] (10 days later)

I think I'll take a shot at this morality discussion.

1. I agree that positive actions don't cancel negative actions and make negative actions positive.
2. I agree that causing other people harm, even temporary, even in a time loop, is still causing harm. That's a bad thing.

HOWEVER.

1. I consider lasting harm more damaging than temporary harm. The shorter it lasts, the less important it is. So, while committing atrocities in the loop is still bad, it is nowhere near as bad as committing atrocities outside the loop.

2. I thing weighting harm is too narrow a perspective. It misses a lot of important details. To avoid missing important details I propose to use state of the world to evaluate actions.

A simple thought experiment. There is some problem approaching (plague, war, doesn't matter). You can prevent the catastrophe by causing harm and doing atrocious things to some people. If you don't prevent the catastrophe, it will cause much greater harm to much larger population.

• If you commit the atrocities, you will steer the world towards the future where you killed a bunch of people, but catastrophe was averted.

• If you refuse to take action, your inaction will steer the future into state where catastrophe strikes and millions die.

I personally would choose to overt the catastrophe. It is obvious for me which choice minimizes suffering. HOWEVER. The utility calculation should not be flattened. It is an important fact that catastrophe-aversion plan includes atrocities. If while searching for the solution I would find an option that averts the catastrophe without the need for atrocities, this option would be superior to both previously discussed ones. This third future would be best.

But if I searched and still see only to options, then too bad. Catastrophe must be averted, and some will suffer for the greater good.

All that said, Zorian is not a consistent consequentialist as outlined above. This irks me a little.

u/Nepene [+1] (10 days later)

A simple thought experiment. There is some problem approaching (plague, war, doesn't matter). You can prevent the catastrophe by causing harm and doing atrocious things to some people. If you don't prevent the catastrophe, it will cause much greater harm to much larger population.

This is the standard way dictators get into power. They claim it's a crisis, invoke emergency powers, and then do whatever they want. Those powers start to become normalized and are used to solve socioeconomic problems often, which leads to a lot of atrocities.

So there's a third option. You take a measured and intelligent approach to minimize the harm. You gather likeminded people, build up your powers with a mixture of ethical and slightly unethical activities, and you only do especially immoral things if you have a very strong reason to do them.

Lots of people have managed to deal with wars and plagues without being evil. They're not some special problem that you should routinely handle with atrocities. You need a really absurd and contrived scenario for routine evil to be the only option.

u/PlaneOfInfiniteCats [+1] (10 days later)

This is the standard way dictators get into power. They claim it's a crisis, invoke emergency powers, and then do whatever they want. Those powers start to become normalized and are used to solve socioeconomic problems often, which leads to a lot of atrocities.

You are talking about politics. The ways to sell your decisions to other people when it's made. I try to discuss the process of making decisions in the first place. Let's not mix them and limit our discussion to decision making for now.

So there's a third option. You take a measured and intelligent approach to minimize the harm. You gather likeminded people, build up your powers with a mixture of ethical and slightly unethical activities, and you only do especially immoral things if you have a very strong reason to do them.

This is again more about politics. Democracy, checks, balances, etc. It is nice but beside the point. The point is: how to make decisions that steer the future in the direction you like? How to think, personally, inside your own head?

Lots of people have managed to deal with wars and plagues without being evil. They're not some special problem that you should routinely handle with atrocities. You need a really absurd and contrived scenario for routine evil to be the only option.

I agree that people deal with wars and plagues all the time. But do they deal with them optimally? Or is there an "evil" way that lead to the world with significantly more survivors?

I do not advocate for adopting "evil" methods of problem solving here. I am advocating for doing cost-benefit calculations, searching for the best option, and choosing options based on the sum of their consequences.

• To the best of your ability, generate a list of available options.
• To the best of your ability, predict the outcome of implementing options.
• Apply sanity checks (you'd better have good, experimentally proven sanity checks, else this step will ruin your decision making)
• Choose the option that leads to the best consequences.
• Implement the option so chosen.

If the options with the best predicted outcome requires you to, say, nuke a city, you do it.

While initiating the launch sequence you keep seeking for the better option, the one that gets the benefits with less costs.

But if you don't find the better option and time to make a desision is now - you implement the best option available, regardless of how atrocious it is.

u/Nepene [+1] (10 days later)

You are talking about politics. The ways to sell your decisions to other people when it's made. I try to discuss the process of making decisions in the first place. Let's not mix them and limit our discussion to decision making for now.

You can sell a crisis to yourself as justifying any action just as easily.

In this case, the example was mind reading Xvim on the vague supposition that he might be a time traveller. People aren't generally proposing scenarios with a clear cause and effect relationship on actually solving the crisis.

This is again more about politics. Democracy, checks, balances, etc. It is nice but beside the point. The point is: how to make decisions that steer the future in the direction you like? How to think, personally, inside your own head?

Logistics tends to win wars. Have more people on your side than the enemy and better organization and placement of troops. Ideally, you solve problems by being prepared. Extreme solutions are often necessary after a lack of planning.

I do not advocate for adopting "evil" methods of problem solving here. I am advocating for doing cost-benefit calculations, searching for the best option, and choosing options based on the sum of their consequences.

I have no objection to that, and I doubt Zorian does.

If the options with the best predicted outcome requires you to, say, nuke a city, you do it.

The japanese were killing 400k a month in occupied territories. Zorian doesn't have a similar pressing issue, or a similar simple solution.

In the extremely rare cases where an extreme option is the best option, sure, go for it, but that's not really a useful ethical system for most situations.

u/PlaneOfInfiniteCats [+1] (10 days later)

You can sell a crisis to yourself as justifying any action just as easily.

Notice that decision making algorithm I proposed avoids this pitfall. It keeps track of the entire cost-benefit calculation, and when an option with less costs gets known, it is immediately apparent that it is superior to other, more drastic ones.

Logistics tends to win wars. Have more people on your side than the enemy and better organization and placement of troops. Ideally, you solve problems by being prepared. Extreme solutions are often necessary after a lack of planning.

I agree but I don't see how this relates to personal decision making algorithms.

Zorian doesn't have a similar pressing issue, or a similar simple solution.

I would say that an entire world being erased form existence and reverted to the state it had a month ago is a pressing issue.

Failing that, I would say that "resurrection" of a primordial is a pressing issue.

Failing even that, I would say that perspective of being soulkilled by the Red Robe is a pressing issue.

However you look at it, Zorian's situation doesn't look good.

IMHO, it warrants a lot more drastic measures that Zorian implements now.

Also, let's not forget the plague that killed like half the humanity some years ago. It happened once, it could happen again. Time loop would be the perfect opportunity to develop the panacea safely and responsibly (after neutralizing other loopers, of course)

u/Nepene [+1] (11 days later)

Notice that decision making algorithm I proposed avoids this pitfall. It keeps track of the entire cost-benefit calculation, and when an option with less costs gets known, it is immediately apparent that it is superior to other, more drastic ones.

You don't have actual statistics or maths for your algorithm so it's innately not going to be of much use.

I would say that an entire world being erased form existence and reverted to the state it had a month ago is a pressing issue.

And him delaying doesn't make it much worse. It's an eventual issue he has to handle but not pressing. He has time to delay and improve, as he is doing. A pressing issue is one that gets worse if you don't do something.

IMHO, it warrants a lot more drastic measures that Zorian implements now.

To the best of your ability, generate a list of available drastic options.
To the best of your ability, predict that drastic options will work best.
Apply sanity checks (the more drastic the better)
Choose the option that leads to the best drastic conclusion.

This is why the algorithm is useless. You're assuming drastic measures will solve your problems. Radical solutions are high risk. Many are a bad idea. Your problem solving shouldn't start by assuming there has to be a drastic solution.

He should be minimizing risk as much as is reasonable. The longer he survives the better off he is. Gambling means he may lose. At the moment he's privately seeking out new power.

u/PlaneOfInfiniteCats [+1] (11 days later)

First, please don't replace my position with strawmen.

Second, the algorithm I proposed is not biased towards extremes. It merely allows extremes, whereas most other algorithms, including "minimizing risk as much as is reasonable" forbid them altogether.

Once again: I do not propose to use only drastic solutions. I propose that these solutions should be at least considered.

u/Nepene [+1] (11 days later)

Failing that, I would say that "resurrection" of a primordial is a pressing issue. Failing even that, I would say that perspective of being soulkilled by the Red Robe is a pressing issue. However you look at it, Zorian's situation doesn't look good. IMHO, it warrants a lot more drastic measures that Zorian implements now. Also, let's not forget the plague that killed like half the humanity some years ago. It happened once, it could happen again. Time loop would be the perfect opportunity to develop the panacea safely and responsibly (after neutralizing other loopers, of course)

As you noted, there are threats that are in the future, and because of those drastic action is necessary.

He doesn't actually know the plans of the invaders or the primordial so he can't plan to stop them very easily, although he is slaughtering his way through them. For Red Robe he's practicing making a superior gun and improving his mind magic, the two things that hurt him before.

The algorithm isn't biased towards extremes, and as I noted is ok on its own. The lack of any data means the algorithm is likely to be filled with your biases, in this case, drastic action.

His current threats are nebulous and uncertain, and not immediate threats to him. There's no clear drastic solution to them, so it's much to early to start seeing this as a crisis requiring drastic measures.

I earlier noted the sort of situation where drastic action is needed- what you noted, where a nuke may be necessary. If inaction means lots of people die, and you have a weapon that can end the conflict it's rational to use it.

Inaction for him means more time to grind.

u/PlaneOfInfiniteCats [+1] (12 days later)

I mostly agree with you.

However, there are two important additions.

First, I think Zorian may be outlevelled by Red Robe, and Red Robe may be levelling faster than him. This is a reasonable guess considering Red Robe has more freedom of action than Zorian and seems to bee in a loop for longer time. This situation, if true, is a very pressing and dire concern. Zorian needs to focus on getting stronger, and increasing speed of getting stronger. While your concerns about stealth still have weight in this case, squeamishness and moral high ground don't. As /u/EliezerYudkowsky said,

In Worm that level of niceness would get you killed or worse.

Second, loop is an unique opportunity to do things that are high-risk high-cost high-reward with greatly reduced or nullified risk and cost. Plague vaccines research, volatile spell and alchemy experiments, everything that is too risky or expensive (or horrible).

I consider, say, infecting all the humanity within the loop with 100% deadly plague ten times an acceptable price for producing a cure that will eliminate the plague forever.

The plague cure research is just one example. A person ready to pay the price could use the loops to greatly improve human condition. Cures, improvements, transplants, miscellaneous transhumanism... The list goes on.

What's needed is 1) neutralize other loopers and 2) be able to see the possibilities.

I actually have great hopes for later arcs of the story. I like to read about world optimization.

u/Nepene [+1] (12 days later)

First, I think Zorian may be outlevelled by Red Robe, and Red Robe may be levelling faster than him.

He is indeed outlevelled by Red Robe, so what he needs to do is to improve skills that allow him to lessen those advantages- he needs deep scanning to find memories so he can ambush Red Robe without defences, he needs better mental attacks to hurt him more, he needs better guns to surprise him with, he needs illusions and such to avoid his attacks as he did with invisibility, he needs alchemy potions to give himself more of a kick despite his low mana reserves.

And of course, he is doing all of those.

Being outlevelled? Unlikely. Red Robe already has gate, the top level transportation spell. He probably has most of the best magic. He can't steal much more. Zorian, by virtue of starting at a much lower level, is much more able to steal his way to increased power. Red Robe has also likely reached the plateau in his mana reserves as well.

Of course, he'll no doubt have a few extra powerful tricks.

Zorian also has access to the Cyoria library, a resource Red Robe lacks, and all the mages of the Cyoria academy, a big advantage- Red Robe's resources are likely more spread out and harder to acquire.

So it's not clear yet that it's a pressing concern. It's somewhere off in the future. Dire, yes.

While your concerns about stealth still have weight in this case, squeamishness and moral high ground don't.

Squeamishness and moral high ground have the advantages of producing better sanity, lower risks, easier allegiance with sane people and a lower risk of later being unnecessarily immoral. Morality isn't just a silly barrier to progress.

In Worm that level of niceness would get you killed or worse.

That was incorrect. Worm is heavily about awkward allegiances and treaties between heroes and villains. Not being nice frequently has a cost to people, as with Colin Wallis' attempt to kill Leviathan, being nice is often beneficial to people, as with Taylor's attempt to ally with the protectorate.

Second, loop is an unique opportunity to do things that are high-risk high-cost high-reward with greatly reduced or nullified risk and cost. Plague vaccines research, volatile spell and alchemy experiments, everything that is too risky or expensive (or horrible).

And now we go from solving sort of imminent problems to solving socioeconomic problems with immorality.

I consider, say, infecting all the humanity within the loop with 100% deadly plague ten times an acceptable price for producing a cure that will eliminate the plague forever.

How would you feel after doing that if you later found out that each world was real, and as Zach supposed you were hopping between alternate realities?

Or if mistakes meant you Zorian were permanently infected, and accidentally managed to take an enhanced strain outside the time loop due to soul shenanigans? This is an incredibly high risk strategy.

The plague cure research is just one example. A person ready to pay the price could use the loops to greatly improve human condition. Cures, improvements, transplants, miscellaneous transhumanism... The list goes on.

Possibly, although liches have been experimenting on these things for a while. Undead are the common way to do transhumanism.

He could certainly steal a lot of useful magic and spread it to the masses.

Alchemy seems like the obvious route to general improvement of society, alchemy and mana crystals powering industry. He could work to get potions of youth out to the masses, stuff like that.

The message from the Aranea implied that the loop was degrading. Those sound like rather slow routes to power, rather than stealing magic, and are a bit risky.

u/PlaneOfInfiniteCats [+1] (12 days later)

Squeamishness and moral high ground have the advantages of producing better sanity, lower risks, easier allegiance with sane people and a lower risk of later being unnecessarily immoral. Morality isn't just a silly barrier to progress.

Morality is not just a silly barrier to progress, but it is a barrier non the less. And often it is a silly barrier (see stem cell research debate, or Jehovah's witnesses' views on blood transfusions). I don't advocate abandoning morality. I advocate examining morality for silliness, attempting to make morality more consistent, using it in cost-benefit calculations, and following it to its logical conclusions.

All the benefits you described are just a part of cost-benefit analysis anyway.

And now we go from solving sort of imminent problems to solving socioeconomic problems with immorality.

I would rather solve them with immortality, of course.

Jokes aside, this is my most vehement disagreement with you, right here. For some reason, you don't consider many extremely large, catastrophic, fixable problems worthy of attention. Diseases, old age, mortality, world hunger, etc. It seems for me that loopers are in a uniquely good position to try solving all this, after they sort out their disagreements one way or another.

How would you feel after doing that if you later found out that each world was real, and as Zach supposed you were hopping between alternate realities?

• If plague cure experiments fail catastrophically: everyone is dead.
• If no experiments happen: primordial kills everyone after a month, anyway.

So, I would feel saddened and distraught, but not greatly. Amount of destruction caused by primordial would bother me much more, and therefore primordial eradication would greatly raise in priority.

Or if mistakes meant you Zorian were permanently infected, and accidentally managed to take an enhanced strain outside the time loop due to soul shenanigans? This is an incredibly high risk strategy.

Risk of getting infected by soul-borne plague from plague curing experiments exists, yes. But it is about as probable as simply catching soul-borne plague while adventuring. If the risk is about the same either way, it shouldn't influence the decision.

Other than that, I mostly agree with your conclusions.

u/Nepene [+1] (12 days later)

Morality is not just a silly barrier to progress, but it is a barrier non the less. And often it is a silly barrier (see stem cell research debate, or Jehovah's witnesses' views on blood transfusions). I don't advocate abandoning morality. I advocate examining morality for silliness, attempting to make morality more consistent, using it in cost-benefit calculations, and following it to its logical conclusions.

People as a general matter set moral barriers because of predictable experience that while it's easy to rationalize doing something doing it actually commonly leads to negative results. Avoiding mass murder is not a comparable example to refusing blood transfusions or banning stem cells, as causing massive harm is against most moralities.

For some reason, you don't consider many extremely large, catastrophic, fixable problems worthy of attention.

I do, and he is working on fixing them. He provided an alchemist with unlimited money, and he already invented a fever cure potion I believe.

It seems for me that loopers are in a uniquely good position to try solving all this, after they sort out their disagreements one way or another.

Possibly, depending on the loop length. They can try to solve it without mass murder.

If plague cure experiments fail catastrophically: everyone is dead. If no experiments happen: primordial kills everyone after a month, anyway.

You're assuming, with no evidence, that the primordial kills everyone?

It doesn't sound like you're using your algorithm in any rigorous manner. You're making an assumption to justify your desired outcome without considering obvious other possibilities, and aren't greatly saddened by the mass deaths of everyone.

This is part of why people have moralities like don't mass murder everyone. I've seen no real evidence here you're making any effort to minimize harm or seek out less destructive methods.

Risk of getting infected by soul-borne plague from plague curing experiments exists, yes. But it is about as probable as simply catching soul-borne plague while adventuring. If the risk is about the same either way, it shouldn't influence the decision.

Infecting everyone with a disease obviously increases the chance you get infected.

u/PlaneOfInfiniteCats [+1] (13 days later)

People as a general matter set moral barriers because of predictable experience that while it's easy to rationalize doing something doing it actually commonly leads to negative results. Avoiding mass murder is not a comparable example to refusing blood transfusions or banning stem cells, as causing massive harm is against most moralities.

This is a very romanticised view of morality. The actual process that shapes morals is more akin to emergence of fashion than to organized effort to set up reasonable rules that you describe. Morality, therefore, can and does contain arbitrary bits and inconsistencies.

Also, some Jehovah's witnesses do in fact think that refusing blood transfusions is more important than avoiding lots of deaths. I think these example are comparable. And, most morality systems endorse harm, provided i's done to outsiders. Slavery, wars, conquests and genocides were all performed by people whose morals allowed, endorsed or even demanded all that.

That's why I think morality shouldn't be blindly trusted. Instead it should be examined and maybe corrected, if flaws are found.

Also, I think people would be much better off if they learned to, as /u/EliezerYudkowsky once put it, shut up and multiply, i.e. apply their morals consistently.

They can try to solve it without mass murder.

Mass murder is a bad thing and carries large utility penalty. However, if after cost-benefit calculation the option involving mass murder seems the best one, this option should be implemented, even though mass murder is bad. A little article on the topic

If you feel you are about to take an action that " commonly leads to negative results", you can just quantify your uncertainty and include it in your cost-benefit calculation.

You're assuming, with no evidence, that the primordial kills everyone?

I wouldn't call it "no evidence". There is plenty of evidence regarding existence of primordials. Dungeon, monsters that get stronger with depth, creation myth heard from real, existing gods that used to communicate with their followers, etc.

Sure, primordial could be harmless or benevolent, but considering historical records it doesn't seem likely. You could probably make a case that all this evidence is not solid enough to justify the extreme plans I mentioned. But claiming there is no evidence is flat out wrong.

It doesn't sound like you're using your algorithm in any rigorous manner. You're making an assumption to justify your desired outcome without considering obvious other possibilities, and aren't greatly saddened by the mass deaths of everyone.

In this discussion I propose a patch to decision-making algorithm, because I consider current algorithm, with its ethical injunctions, suboptimal and inconsistent. To show the difference between proposed algorithm and current one I provide remarkable edge cases where behaviour of algorithms differs. Of course "it doesn't sound like I'm using my algorithm in any rigorous manner". I don't use algorithm to generate examples, I just provide illustrative examples for edge cases.

Once more: mass murder is not the desired outcome. The desired outcome is the world that fits my values more. If the way to reach this world is mass murder, then this is the path that should be taken. If there is way to this world not involving mass murder, this path should be taken instead.

Minimizing harm is part of the goal. It's just that, for example, eradicating plague by in-loop experimenting is likely to cause much less harm than prevent. If we are in loop: Killing million people temporary (in loop) is preferable to letting million or more die permanently. If there is dimension-hopping going on: Killing million in one dimension is better than letting million or more die from plague later in every dimension.

Infecting everyone with a disease obviously increases the chance you get infected.

Yes, but I wasn't talking about infecting everyone. Global pandemic is detrimental to search for cure. Scenario I meant was "Searching for plague cure, even if there will be 10 containment breaches that cause global pandemics and humanity extinction in the loop, may still be worth it, because number of lives saved by the cure is very large ". Sorry if it wasn't clear from my post.

And, there is no evidence of existence of soul-afflicting plague. Now you are venturing into "no evidence" realm.

I agree with other points you made. Thanks for the reminder about anti-fever potion, I completely forgot.

u/Nepene [+1] (13 days later)

This is a very romanticised view of morality. The actual process that shapes morals is more akin to emergence of fashion than to organized effort to set up reasonable rules that you describe. Morality, therefore, can and does contain arbitrary bits and inconsistencies.

People who absorb random cultural floatsam do, yes, pick up silly moralities. People who set moral barriers though tend to do so due to experience or reading on the matter. Zorian has set up a personal barrier against murdering innocents. And as I noted, moral barriers tend to guard against bad action.

Also, some Jehovah's witnesses do in fact think that refusing blood transfusions is more important than avoiding lots of deaths. I think these example are comparable.

Blood transfusion improves health. Genocide worsens it. Not comparable. Moralities tend to focus on harm avoidance.

Slavery, wars, conquests and genocides were all performed by people whose morals allowed, endorsed or even demanded all that.

The Ten Commandments have lost their validity...Conscience is a Jewish invention. It is a blemish like circumcision...

“The earth continues to go round, whether it’s the man who kills the tiger or the tiger who eats the man. The stronger asserts his will, it’s the law of nature. The world doesn’t change; its laws are eternal.”

Incorrect. Many, like Hitler above, weren't strong believers in morality and focused their beliefs around strength or some variant. Right or wrong, we are strong and will conquer all.

Or like Mao.

"I do not agree with the view that to be moral, the motive of one's action has to be benefiting others. Morality does not have to be defined in relation to others... People like me want to ... satisfy our hearts to the full, and in doing so we automatically have the most valuable moral codes. Of course there are people and objects in the world, but they are all there only for me."

They don't care about harm to others, only personal benefit.

That's why I think morality shouldn't be blindly trusted. Instead it should be examined and maybe corrected, if flaws are found.

And in examining this morality, I'm not seeing many flaws in the don't genocide multiple worlds to cure a plague plan.

As I've noted multiple times, these moralities seem fitting and excellent.

Mass murder is a bad thing and carries large utility penalty. However, if after cost-benefit calculation the option involving mass murder seems the best one, this option should be implemented, even though mass murder is bad. A little article on the topic

I've read the article. Your suggestions lack cost benefit analysis, and are dismissive of the massive suffering caused, so they aren't that swaying.

Sure, primordial could be harmless or benevolent, but considering historical records it doesn't seem likely. You could probably make a case that all this evidence is not solid enough to justify the extreme plans I mentioned. But claiming there is no evidence is flat out wrong.

They chose a landbound primordial, and are hoping just Eldemar will be destroyed. We don't know it's speed, destructiveness, precise intent, vulnerability to assault, lots of stuff. It could easily just kill 5-10% of the world's populace. We have evidence that it's hostile, but not that it's release is an extinction event. A plague that kills everyone is an extinction event.

Once more: mass murder is not the desired outcome. The desired outcome is the world that fits my values more. If the way to reach this world is mass murder, then this is the path that should be taken. If there is way to this world not involving mass murder, this path should be taken instead.

Humans have a tendency to remain fixated on an initial choice, even when better options come along and mass murder is a crime of immense suffering and cruelty that should be avoided. As such, mass murder should not be plan a and before making plans to do it multiple alternate plans should be made.

Prevention is better than cure with disease. Any cure would have to be propagated across society which is tricky. As such, if Zorian has the time to deal with the plague, he should be invading government stores of information and high ranking official's minds to see what they know. Ideally he'd find the cause and be able to shut that down- a precursor artifact, monster race, secret agents from the liches, whatever. If not, he can gather information about the plague and try to work out how it infects people. It's obviously some weird magical thing so it has some unusual mechanism, see if with enough information you can figure that out. If it appears unlikely to spread he could research a source of it, with the backing of several powerful mages who could nuke the area if anything went wrong. Carefully examine it, and relocate a sample to a remote island, minimizing physical contact using teleportation and mind controlled non time traveling agents. Test it on suitable test subjects, perhaps captured cultists. If anything goes wrong abort hard and do more research.

"Searching for plague cure, even if there will be 10 containment breaches that cause global pandemics and humanity extinction in the loop, may still be worth it, because number of lives saved by the cure is very large "

If there's any reasonable risk of global genocide don't do it. If you kill 10 world's worth of people to save 1 world's worth then that's bad helping.

In a hypothetical situation where killing 1 million will save 2 million, sure, you can do that, but you seem very fixated on solutions which involve killing lots when there are much easier solutions.

And killing 1 million is sad. First you should do research to see if there's a way to save them without killing 1 million.

And, there is no evidence of existence of soul-afflicting plague. Now you are venturing into "no evidence" realm.

We know there was something unusual about the plague and that it was resistant to priestly healing magic. We don't know what was unusual, and there's a certain probability that it infects some element other than the body, like the mind or the soul, something that carries on past the loop. Even if there's a 1/10 chance it does that, that's a high risk.

u/PlaneOfInfiniteCats [+1] (13 days later)

moral barriers tend to guard against bad action.

Full agreement here.

Blood transfusion improves health. Genocide worsens it. Not comparable. Moralities tend to focus on harm avoidance.

Apparently, Nazis disagreed. They considered Jews, Gypsies, gays, etc subhumans whose genes poison and degrade the genetic pool of Aryan people. Therefore, they thought, genociding them all is a great good as it purifies the genetic pool and preserves Aryan race. From Nazi point of view, it was exactly the same harm avoidance as with blood transfusions.

Comparable.

Hitler and Mao

No comments here, unrelated to discussion.

I've read the article. Your suggestions lack cost benefit analysis, and are dismissive of the massive suffering caused, so they aren't that swaying.

As I told before, my "suggestions" are illustrative edge cases that highlight difference of algorithms, not actual suggestions. I don't try to sway anybody to genocide. I'm trying to explain that Zorian's decision making algorithm is imperfect, and propose better alternative.

They chose a landbound primordial, and are hoping just Eldemar will be destroyed. We don't know it's speed, destructiveness, precise intent, vulnerability to assault, lots of stuff. It could easily just kill 5-10% of the world's populace. We have evidence that it's hostile, but not that it's release is an extinction event. A plague that kills everyone is an extinction event.

I Agree about primordial.

However, the dangers of plague cure research are also unknown. What I described is worst-case scenario. If we compare same-case scenarios (worst, best, most probable) for plague research failure and primordial summoning, the magnitude of disaster is about equal.

Humans have a tendency to remain fixated on an initial choice, even when better options come along and mass murder is a crime of immense suffering and cruelty that should be avoided. As such, mass murder should not be plan a and before making plans to do it multiple alternate plans should be made.

Agree wholeheartedly. Keeping cost-benefit calculations for the options, with pluses and minuses explicitly mentioned, also helps a little.

Prevention is better than cure with disease. Any cure would have to be propagated across society which is tricky. As such, if Zorian has the time to deal with the plague, he should be invading government stores of information and high ranking official's minds to see what they know. Ideally he'd find the cause and be able to shut that down- a precursor artifact, monster race, secret agents from the liches, whatever. If not, he can gather information about the plague and try to work out how it infects people. It's obviously some weird magical thing so it has some unusual mechanism, see if with enough information you can figure that out. If it appears unlikely to spread he could research a source of it, with the backing of several powerful mages who could nuke the area if anything went wrong. Carefully examine it, and relocate a sample to a remote island, minimizing physical contact using teleportation and mind controlled non time traveling agents. Test it on suitable test subjects, perhaps captured cultists. If anything goes wrong abort hard and do more research.

Again, agree 100%.

If there's any reasonable risk of global genocide don't do it. If you kill 10 world's worth of people to save 1 world's worth then that's bad helping. In a hypothetical situation where killing 1 million will save 2 million, sure, you can do that, but you seem very fixated on solutions which involve killing lots when there are much easier solutions. And killing 1 million is sad. First you should do research to see if there's a way to save them without killing 1 million.

No objections here.

I see fixated on solutions which involve killing lots because they are illustrative. For solutions that don't involve killing lots, both decision making algorithms would give the same answer. Differences are better highlighted by edge cases, such as options with significant costs and benefits.

We know there was something unusual about the plague and that it was resistant to priestly healing magic. We don't know what was unusual, and there's a certain probability that it infects some element other than the body, like the mind or the soul, something that carries on past the loop. Even if there's a 1/10 chance it does that, that's a high risk.

Also agree.

u/Nepene [+1] (13 days later)

Apparently, Nazis disagreed. They considered Jews, Gypsies, gays, etc subhumans whose genes poison and degrade the genetic pool of Aryan people. Therefore, they thought, genociding them all is a great good as it purifies the genetic pool and preserves Aryan race. From Nazi point of view, it was exactly the same harm avoidance as with blood transfusions.

As I noted below, the Nazis were not strong believers in morality. As with many fascists, they tended to have a awkward mishmash of 'what works' ideas favoring state control and glorification of nationalism and war and believed that the strong survived, and weren't strong believers in morality. They didn't necessarily think genociding jews and gyspies and such was a great good, they thought it would keep aryans strong and prevent the jews from backstabbing them, and that they would therefore win wars, unlike ww1 where the jews supposedly lost the war for them. Good and evil was a moot question, right and wrong irrelevant. Strength was what mattered.

As I told before, my "suggestions" are illustrative edge cases that highlight difference of algorithms, not actual suggestions. I don't try to sway anybody to genocide. I'm trying to explain that Zorian's decision making algorithm is imperfect, and propose better alternative.

Unless those edge cases are true in story then his decision making algorithm isn't especially imperfect. It's not clear that infecting people with the plague would be a good idea. It's not clear how more aggressive methods would let him defeat red robe. It's not clear how mass murder would let him defeat the primordial faster.

Unless you can note a problem that he could safely and easily solve in story with immoral actions that's low risk and not more harmful than the problem, it's not an idiot ball.

Like how in Harry Potter strangling all Slytherins at birth would solve many issues.

However, the dangers of plague cure research are also unknown. What I described is worst-case scenario. If we compare same-case scenarios (worst, best, most probable) for plague research failure and primordial summoning, the magnitude of disaster is about equal.

More research is needed to check the magnitude. He really should research which primordial it is at the church and later can research the weeping plague to find it's nature.

Agree wholeheartedly. Keeping cost-benefit calculations for the options, with pluses and minuses explicitly mentioned, also helps a little.

I agree, and when you're not sure of the pluses and minuses that should be mentioned too. In a lot of these calculations there are a range of probabilities.

Yay for much agreement.

u/PlaneOfInfiniteCats [+1] (13 days later)

I think I have only a few things to add:

Unless you can note a problem that he could safely and easily solve in story with immoral actions that's low risk and not more harmful than the problem, it's not an idiot ball.

Thankfully, there seems to be no idiot ball in the story so far. However, one thing Zorian doesn't prioritize as much as he probably should is learning to learn.

Improving ability to improve.

Research into intelligence boosting potions, memory spells, memory development shaping exercises, and all the others way to improve the rate of improvement.

Also, I think he doesn't protect Kirielle nearly enough.

u/Nepene [+1] (13 days later)

Thankfully, there seems to be no idiot ball in the story so far. However, one thing Zorian doesn't prioritize as much as he probably should is learning to learn.

In story, there have been two ways mentioned to improve intellect.

1. Is to soul bond with a more intelligent being. You become a smarter, servile copy of their personality.

2. Is to form a hive mind as the rats do.

There may be other methods, but we've seen no evidence of those. As such, the obvious thing to do is to work on his mental powers and work on an enhancement ritual to give people empathy. If he can form a hive mind with all the alchemy experts in the world he can get a lot done.

On memory spells, he is trying to get better access to that part of the library. Mind magic is forbidden.

It would be good to protect K more, yeah.

u/Nepene [+1] (3 days later)

The invasion of privacy remains, and any death or pain he causes still happened, even if the person doesn't remember it.

Just like if you rape a person then kill them we still regard it as immoral to rape them, even though you ended their memories. In this situation it's mind rape and time loop shenanigans, but the immorality is still there.

Even if people forget about what you did, it still happened and still caused pain. The person was hurt by you. The world isn't required to be hurt.

u/FuguofAnotherWorld [+2] Roll the Dice on Fate (3 days later)

Fair enough. You have convinced me that hurt itself does have moral weight in and of itself even in a time loop. I regard it as having significantly less weight than it normally would have, because the person doesn't have to live with it, but it is still there.

That said my inner munchkin demands I find a way to get around it. What if the mage in question were rendered unconscious instantly an hour before the loop would end, and the mind reading proceeded while they were in this unconscious state. Further, suppose that all nabbed memories not directly related to magic or that were otherwise private were then deleted.

What would you think of that? If you still think it's wrong do try to put a value on how wrong.

u/Nepene [+2] (3 days later)

Hmm. As it is, that would be less immoral, although I note an assumption in your words. What if, as Zach suspects, each time the loop ends you hop into a parallel universe and time continues on as usual. Then your mindrapees may be mentally disabled for the rest of their lives due to you. Like that time travel vid on this sub a while back with the button.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBkBS4O3yvY

The more obvious answer, and one zorian prefers, is to steal their spellbooks or a pass for the parts of the library that have secrets in them. Much less risk of retaliation there and its all in an easy to read format.

u/FuguofAnotherWorld [+1] Roll the Dice on Fate (4 days later)

What if, as Zach suspects, each time the loop ends you hop into a parallel universe and time continues on as usual. Then your mindrapees may be mentally disabled for the rest of their lives due to you. Like that time travel vid on this sub a while back with the button.

It is certainly a concern. Once he has mastered mindrape to the point that it is not mentally destructive it will be less of one, but even then this being a parallel universe thing has some rather far reaching implications. One of them being that it becomes incumbent on Zorian to figure out what list of instructions and knowledge he can give to select people in order to maximise good in the many universes while still leaving him time to practice stuff.

The more obvious answer, and one zorian prefers, is to steal their spellbooks or a pass for the parts of the library that have secrets in them. Much less risk of retaliation there and its all in an easy to read format.

Ah, I was operating under the unspoken assumption that these were non-sharing type mages where the most powerful spells were jealously guarded and passed down only in family lines, word of mouth and coded spellbooks ect ect. Under those circumstances minds would hold the most useful knowledge. Depends on if this is a scientific type culture or an alchemist type culture at the highest levels of power. The lower levels are clearly scientific, but as you climb the totem pole I suspect that incentives shift.

u/Nepene [+2] (4 days later)

One of them being that it becomes incumbent on Zorian to figure out what list of instructions and knowledge he can give to select people in order to maximise good in the many universes while still leaving him time to practice stuff.

Yeah, with some more mind reading soon he can probably reliably stop the invasion and the primordial summoning. That's a pretty important one.

Ah, I was operating under the unspoken assumption that these were non-sharing type mages where the most powerful spells were jealously guarded and passed down only in family lines, word of mouth and coded spellbooks ect ect.

There's limits to that, with more complex secrets. As Zorian noted, holding a spell formula in your head is tricky even with their memorization techniques. People will certainly have security measures, but those can be evaded.

Coded spell books are slow to read as well.

Also, a lot of secrets aren't important to people. Teleport, common spell, almost certainly in libraries. Still pretty useful for Zorian.

u/FuguofAnotherWorld [+1] Roll the Dice on Fate (4 days later)

I thought he already knew teleport?

Edit: and agreed on everything else.

u/Cheese_Ninja [+1] (4 days later)

The discussion you two had was more interesting and well-mannered than I expected. That's nice.

Nepene is saying here that despite teleport being a "secret" from students, it's still widely available in books, and useful. Just because he's reading someone's mind and finding out their "secrets" doesn't necessarily mean it's useful. And that there's sometimes more useful information already lying around in books which are easier and safer for Zorian to access. Also, I can't remember if teleportation is a secret from students or just assumed to be "too difficult for a student to learn." I think it might just be the latter, looking over chapter 23.

It does seem a bit off-topic from the whole "is in-depth mind reading of an innocent ever morally acceptable."(Making certain allowances in order to categorize Xvim as an innocent.)

u/FuguofAnotherWorld [+1] Roll the Dice on Fate (4 days later)

The discussion you two had was more interesting and well-mannered than I expected. That's nice.

It's one of the more interesting side effects that rationalism can sometimes bring. A kind of zen brought about by extreme analysis to the point that you sort of loop around and end up at something superficially similar to Buddhism (although really rather different). It is fascinating to me.

u/Nepene [+1] (4 days later)

Ilsa made her teaching Zorian teleport dependent on him successfully mastering lesser dimensional spells and when she teleported earlier told him to not copy it so I think the teleport spell is a secret from students, but one an advanced student can ask a teacher for.

If you can gain mighty secrets and spells and powers through books as or more easily there's no need to do any morally compromising actions

u/Nepene [+1] (4 days later)

Yes, as /u/Cheese_Ninja noted, invisibility is widely available, but forbidden to students. Zorian can minmax and become an invisible killing machine without needing to steal anyone's secrets.

Ah, I was operating under the unspoken assumption that these were non-sharing type mages where the most powerful spells were jealously guarded and passed down only in family lines, word of mouth and coded spellbooks ect ect.

He doesn't need the most powerful spells. Normal and common spells like invisibility are good enough.

u/FuguofAnotherWorld [+2] Roll the Dice on Fate (4 days later)

He doesn't need the most powerful spells. Normal and common spells like invisibility are good enough.

He's fighting Red Robe, who has presumably had a very long time to become extremely powerful. Somehow I don't think they are enough.

u/Nepene [+1] (4 days later)

Invisibility and a gun was almost enough to defeat him the first time. Cheap and effective hacks are worth a lot.

If he can ambush Red Robe he can also probably kill him quickly with a fire beam.

u/FuguofAnotherWorld [+1] Roll the Dice on Fate (4 days later)

What good is killing him? At best it is a delaying action, and it tells him what to look out for next time. He needs offensive soul magic.

u/Nepene [+1] (4 days later)

Fair point, killing him is unnecessary. Still, last time with mind magic and a gun he almost got him. He could vaporize red's arms, dispel any protections, and mind rape him into submission. His mind magic is better than his soul magic.

u/FuguofAnotherWorld [+1] Roll the Dice on Fate (5 days later)

Fair, obliterating his mind might well be one of the best ways to go about it. After all; if you have an advantage, use it.

u/Nepene [+1] (5 days later)

Yeah. And once his mind is obliterated or he's unconscious he can just hire a soul mage or get Kael to mess up his soul a bit.

u/FuguofAnotherWorld [+1] Roll the Dice on Fate (5 days later)

Presuming you can find his respawn point... which you would since you read his mind. Yeah. Of course we're assuming Red Robe has been sitting on his laurels here. If I were him the very first thing I'd do once learning about a looping mind mage would be to make a conditional suicide object that would mulch me the second my mind got invaded. Then would come the more... creative/paranoid countermeasures.

u/Nepene [+1] (5 days later)

If I were him the very first thing I'd do once learning about a looping mind mage would be to make a conditional suicide object that would mulch me the second my mind got invaded.

Why? He resisted the mind magic. I mean, he may well get a mind shield spell item and more mental resilience training/ rituals/ wards but suicide is an exceptional step.

And he's fighting along side a Lich with soul magic. If he killed himself the lich might just grab his soul, nope him going to the afterlife, and ruin it.

A triggered death on mental invasion means that someone can easily kill him.

u/FuguofAnotherWorld [+1] Roll the Dice on Fate (5 days later)

As Red Robe, I assume that my enemy is smart. Therefore, they will strengthen the thing they had that was able to harm me when everything else could not. Set the trigger to be 2 seconds after my mind shield being broken by mind magic: enough time to re-cast the spell if I'm able. If my mind shield is broken around a mind mage then I've already lost and that someone can kill/break/enslave?/reformat?/wipe me anyway. All I'd be doing is ensuring that my loss was not crippling.

This would possibly be a stopgap measure until I can go learn from whoever to become formidable at mind magic. I'd not show my face again until I was sure I had a far stronger defence. Which is possibly why he hasn't shown up for a while: he might have gone off to try and learn mind magic, then the teacher was so disgusted at the contents of his skull that he decided to make some... changes. Maybe a clean wipe and a compulsion to go find said teacher at the start of said loop and give her a memory packet.

u/Nepene [+1] (5 days later)

As Red Robe, I assume that my enemy is smart. Therefore, they will strengthen the thing they had that was able to harm me when everything else could not.

The gun hurt him. The mind magic didn't, and was a mild annoyance.

And, he can strengthen his mind magic in many ways.

https://www.fictionpress.com/s/2961893/26/Mother-of-Learning

I suggest you re-read the segment where Zorian kills himself again. He explicitly notes that it isn't enough killing yourself when facing a soul mage, you have to get rid of your body too, make it unreachable. Dying is a serious issue for someone who associates with necromancers and is in a time loop. Death is not the end.

If my mind shield is broken around a mind mage then I've already lost and that someone can kill/break/enslave?/reformat?/wipe me anyway. All I'd be doing is ensuring that my loss was not crippling.

If his mind shield is broken he'll still have his mental resilience, and some tricks that he can activate while mind controlled.

If he dies, he likely assumes that his enemy will use his corpse and soul for bad things in many situations.

u/FuguofAnotherWorld [+1] Roll the Dice on Fate (5 days later)

Is not the Lich an ally? Though not a particularly trustworthy one. I suppose it also depends on if the loop resets or not when Red dies, like it does with Zach.

u/Nepene [+1] (5 days later)

"And you should watch your tone, whelp. I could kill you whenever I want without batting an eyelid." typed out from lichie.

Who needs enemies when you have allies like that?

And Zorian's early conclusion was that Red Robe didn't seem to be time travelling with the same method as him, and didn't have the marker.

Perhaps that shall prove wrong, but we have no reason to believe the loop resets when Red dies.

We don't even know if he survives when he dies. He may just be Gating back in time.

u/FuguofAnotherWorld [+1] Roll the Dice on Fate (5 days later)

If his mind shield is broken he'll still have his mental resilience, and some tricks that he can activate while mind controlled.

I thought the mental resilience was effectively a mind shield. Same spell, just instinctual instead of full formula.

If he dies, he likely assumes that his enemy will use his corpse and soul for bad things in many situations.

Conditional on-death teleport to hide the body?

We don't even know if he survives when he dies. He may just be Gating back in time.

And wouldn't that just be a crappy way to have to do things by comparison. Far less safe, far more fiddly.

u/Nepene [+2] (5 days later)

I thought the mental resilience was effectively a mind shield. Same spell, just instinctual instead of full formula.

No, remember Zorian had Kyron use torture spells on him to build up his mental resistance? And they've often mentioned how shaping skills gives general resistance due to ordered thoughts. In the most recent chapter Zorian no sold a knockout spell due to his training.

You have mental resilience.

You have mind shield.

And you have mind shaping defences. Three layers of defences.

Conditional on-death teleport to hide the body?

If someone killed you they probably have a part of your body, so they can scry and die you. Plus that's a lot of very tricky spell item work (items that cast spells independently are very tricky) for an unreliable effect.

And wouldn't that just be a crappy way to have to do things by comparison. Far less safe, far more fiddly.

Well, I'd never really call reliable time travel crappy. Less good, certainly.

u/LunarTulip [+8] (2 hours later)

Typo thread.

Zorian horridly strengthened his mind shield

Pretty sure that was meant to be "hurriedly".

They didn't bother with no flimsy 'monster attack' setup this time

Was the double negative intentional?

Also, while it's not strictly a typo:

she scarfed down her meal in half an hour flat

Was her meal supposed to be much bigger than I was imagining it as? If not, I suspect this was supposed to be half a minute, rather than half an hour.

u/rabotat [+14] (3 hours later)

I took it a s a joke that Zorian eats slowly.

u/MoralRelativity [+3] (10 hours later)

I agree on the 30 minute meal. That's a LOOOOONG time for someone who's supposed to be eating quickly.

u/torac [+3] (12 hours later)

many of my classmates as good enough

as → are

u/OutOfNiceUsernames [+3] fear of last pages (17 hours later)

• is making me a very self-conscious → is making me a very self-conscious

• "Yes sir," agreed Zorian easily. → "Yes**,** sir," agreed Zorian easily. (optional)

• ... your attempt (..) fall embarrassingly short of achieving actually worthwhile results. → ... your attempts (..) fall embarrassingly short of ...

• It was some sort of dispelling wave, and his mental shield evaporate upon contact → a) It was some sort of dispelling wave, and his mental shield evaporated upon contact; b) It was some sort of dispelling wave, which made his mental shield evaporate upon contact

u/None [+7] (13 minutes later)

[deleted]

u/Nepene [+7] (16 minutes later)

I was browsing my emails and I got a notification.

u/elevul [+5] Cyoria Observer (2 hours later)

Interesting exposition chapter, Xvim revealing that unstructured magic can be emulated through repetition was fairly surprising.

u/None [+12] (27 minutes later)

[deleted]

u/Anderkent [+8] (16 hours later)

What happened this chapter that would suggest that? I don't really see any hints about that in their interaction in this chapter.

u/None [+2] (20 hours later)

[deleted]

u/Sailor_Vulcan [+2] Champion of Justice and Reason (2 hours later)

Yeah. And he's definitely not one of the villains. I think it took me way too long to be certain of that. He's clearly very significant though. I wonder HOW he managed to find out about the time loop.

Wait, I wonder...does the time loop really encompass everyone in the area? What if it's just Zach's, Zorian's and Redrobe's souls going back in time, and no one else's?

And then they interfere with the timeline, so that every time there's a reset the next loop ends up a little different. Also, we haven't heard anything about zach for months and months. Has he been captured? Is he dead? Is he being mind controlled? Is he redrobe? I vaguely remember that last one being disproven, but don't remember how.

And considering that so many people have said that time magic is impossible, I wonder if maybe they're not really time travelling. In the Yugioh Millenium world manga, it at first seems like yugi and his friends have travelled back in time to ancient egypt, when in fact they're all still in the Domino City museum, and they're inside a tabletop mmorpg that simulates ancient egypt, and and since it's a magical shadow game, the events in that game are somehow able to influence the past, overwriting it with the events of the game.

Maybe the Arranea's real bodies were killed, removing them from the simulation.

So, to recap, all of the expert magical researchers think that time travel is absolutely impossible. And only Zorian, Zach and maybe Redrobe or perhaps someone else retain their memories through each reset/loop. Zorian only became part of the time loop because of some sort of accidental soul connection with Zach.

Hmm, this still seems clunky. I suppose maybe everyone could be in the magical dream/simulation, and only a few people retain their memories, although then that leaves the question of why does anyone retain their memories, and why those people specifically?

Any other ways to fake time travel for 2 or 3 people that you guys can come up with?

u/darkflagrance [+11] (4 hours later)

A plot point I've seen come up in other loop fics is the badass non-looper who is so good he figures it out anyway each time he sees the upgraded protagonist. I'm betting Xvim fits this archetype.

u/None [+3] (4 hours later)

My theory is that the cultists were being used. Someone helped them summon a primordial, but let them take the brunt of the costs and then step in to hook the primordial to create the time loop. I'm gonna assume that the universe isn't very large (Ptolemaic model+heavenly spheres), so what the primordial is doing is reversing entropy over the span of existence. It can only rewind for upto a month, and will eventually run out of energy (that's why the loop is deteriorating).

The loopers in this case are exempt from this because their souls are the only thing that isn't being looped.

u/BSSolo [+1] (a day later)

With this explanation, why does Zorian wake back up at the start of the next loop if he dies, with his memories intact up until the point of his death?

u/None [+1] (a day later)

I'm assuming that the universe has become closed off from the afterlife/higher planes due to the looping. Because of that, his soul can't move on and just sits there, in metaphysical space, until he can merge with his body again. The marker likely has something do with it, or there's a subroutine running in the looping software that deals with the handling of looper souls.

u/Sparkwitch [+2] (5 hours later)

Maybe the Arranea's real bodies were killed, removing them from the simulation.

I don't think the simulation hypothesis works. Zorian's first run of the time loop includes super-mage Zach and Redrobe-influenced cultists. Zorian could just be a self-aware part of the simulation, but that seems an unlikely thing for nobody to do to his protagonist.

u/space_fountain [+6] (7 hours later)

Some observations from someone who just finished reading up to this point mostly in one go (over two days, a week ago). I have advantages and disadvantages in analyzing where this is going. I've just read it so it's fresher in my mind, but I've also not had nearly enough time to think about it and I'm sure some of you have read most of the early chapters multiple times. No mater, here's some of my thoughts:

• Damien probably maters, but not necessarily. Especially given it seems doubtful he's in the loop.

• Most likely originator for the loop seems like it would be some sort of ancient machinery. A loot of noise was made out of some kind of magical doors which seems like they might be a possible trigger. In a related note a portal from the same people who apparently made or used these doors exists under the city. Zorain has been given a map of something under the city. This is probably not coincidence. Also why in the world do you have the exit node for your teleportation system deep under ground in a dangerous area.

• Why did all the spiders dye?

• Probably they didn't. If I was faced by this I certainly would not put all my eggs in one basket. Why not spread out a bit. Red Robes is no good at mind magic and divination can be perfectly defeated so there's almost no chance he actually tracked down and killed all of them. Why she did not tell Zorain this (unless this is what the message was supposed to be about, but I doubt that) I'm not sure, probably she was worried that he'd draw any potential fire back to them.

• Xvim What's his game?

• Zorain is a pretty competent mage at this point certainly for his supposed age and yet Xvim is always discouraging almost to a cartoonist extent.

• Xvim may just be a bad teacher, but he's shown himself to be talented and probably on the whole write about the things he is trying to teach.

• At the same time it's clear that he's an abject failure at his goals. He doesn't explain how to make progress on any of his exercises and it seems that he would be happy to use the entire year on silliness. Is this some sort of trick or is he in some way probing for a reaction.

• Why rebellion.

• Don't get me wrong but the motivation hasn't really ever been explained. Is it just a power thing? Is the island becoming overcrowded? Why not sooner. What's changed?

• How many loopers are there?

• At least two

• Signs seem to point to 3 at one time

• Red Robes wasn't physical

• Why? He had no reason to think he was going to be attacked.

• It can't be easy projecting yourself like that. It seems like it would require some complicated bit of soul magic.

• Zorain is tagging along because the targeting mechanism for the spell got messed up but why is Red Robes?

• Two possibilities. He has his own valid soul identifier, but he seemed unreasonably reluctant to hurt Zach also the loop always restarts for Zorain when Zach dies.

• Could Redrobes be hitching onto Zach in a similar (probably soul magic based) way as the spiders were with Zorain. AKA he isn't actually looping physically, but his soul is being pulled along.

• Why/how did Zach start the loop.

• He's rich, but doesn't actually seem powerful. He has guardians that control him. If anything their interests run counter to him, they have no reason to turn him into a super mage.

• Resolutions:

  • He didn't: He too got sucked into somebody else's loop.
  • It was an accident. He was going where he shouldn't have gone and he got sucked in
  • Possibly the soul marker is inherited? Last of his line so he's the only one left with the marker.
    • might also explain Red Robes Did any of his family turn them selves into some kind of an immortal with soul magic? Not why red robe's afraid though

• gods:

• I have to think gods and their disappearance are relevant somehow. How much power would this who looping exercise take? On the order of the total entropy that was expounded planet wide during that semester. How does it keep it up for literary 100 years. Where is a 100 years of the planets output of magic coming from? The gods maybe in some strange way? Channeled and controlled by some machine?

• What is Red Robes doing?

• Red Robes is apparently no longer helping the evaders.

• Reasons:

  • Red Robes is no more. Something has done him in.
  • Direct confrontation with Zach has finally made him realize there is another looper and he is trying to deal with the problem in some way.
  • Red Robes is devising a counter to the Zorain development/ possibly the spiders.

What I would do if I was Zorain

• Put as much of what I've put above to the test as possible.
• Track down Zach. You're a competent mind mage, he probably isn't at least talk to him and confirm the marker you've been tracking isn't red robes. Do it through a proxy if necessary to assure red robes doesn't gain this knowledge
• Travel. Confirm the loop extends across the planet. This is potentially dangerous as behavior when exiting the looping zone would probably be bad, but probably OK.
• Figure out more about the motivations of the rebellion.
• Start keeping an eye out for being out of the loop. Ask the priests during the start of each loop if they are in contact with angels. If so you can be pretty sure your out of the loop.
• Try to figure out if anyone in the invaders forces are disappearing every time at the start of the loop. Red Robes can't control where he is at the start so that's how you catch him
• Consider knocking Zach out of the loop if possible even if it means killing him.
• Red Robes probably has not had enough time to come up with a perfect battle plan against the spider less city.
• The more time you give him looping the more time he has to do so, at least as soon as he starts helping again.
• With some practice you probably can beat invasion - super human knowledge.

u/None [+10] (9 hours later)

[deleted]

u/Anderkent [+6] (16 hours later)

I think Xvim is just a horrible teacher. Sure, he knows his stuff, but he doesn't intuitively understand that what's obvious to him is not obvious to people he's mentoring. And he doesn't think about that.

Thus 'now close your eyes and dodge the pebble', rather than 'now extend your mana around your head and watch disruptions to detect the pebble' because the way to do that is obvious to Xvim.

u/space_fountain [+2] (17 hours later)

Quite possibly and if this was the real world I'd agree with you completely. We are dealing with fiction though even if it's meant to be rational fiction, which means he has to be important given the amount of time that has been devoted to him.

u/Anderkent [+1] (17 hours later)

Riight. I don't tend to do this kind of meta analysis on fanfiction too much, because... a lot of fanfiction is kinda written as it comes? I agree Xvim will probably be important. I'm not sure if this requires him to be a time traveller. With his abilities clearly established he could just be a strong companion if Z ever comes clean with him.

u/Saffrin-chan [+3] (20 hours later)

Well... Mother of Learning isn't fanfiction? And it's pretty clear from the amount of foreshadowing that's already happened that nobody103 has this all planned out to quite a bit of detail. But I do agree that Xvim probably isn't a time traveler, and is going to be important for some other reason.

u/nicholaslaux [+4] (18 hours later)

My understanding is that his "teaching style" places much more focus on "learn through experimentation how to do something you've not done before". If he tells you how to dodge the pebble, you've learned the shaping exercise, but you haven't learned how to find novel solutions to new problems.

Maybe another student's solution would be to try to reach the bucket of pebbles and "tag" each one to see with detect magic, rather than the mana bubble head. He might be okay with either solution, but is more interested in teaching "how to solve the problem" (in excessively hardass manner, but still) than "how to perform basic shaping exercise".

u/None [+6] (20 hours later)

[deleted]

u/nicholaslaux [+3] (21 hours later)

That's a perfectly valid point, but to me it mostly is a criticism of the "hardass" aspect of him, not the "lack of teaching them how to do shaping" aspect.

Generally I would agree with your assessment of him as "teaches reluctantly", but I would assume that when he does teach, he thinks his method is the "right" one in terms of having the best outcome if they can survive it. For those who can't, however, he has provided no value at all, so it's still definitely an inferior outcome unless you think (as I'd assume Xvim does) that anything less than a "completely optimal" mage is worse than no magic at all.

u/None [+4] (a day later)

Either that, or he just doesn't give more than a shit-and-a-half about teaching, and the shaping exercises are his own mildly pathetic way of proving his own superiority by thrusting impossible tasks at students and sneering when they fail. Like a slightly more subtle Snape. He's kept around because he's a shaping master and a senior faculty member - and you don't fire senior faculty.

u/FuguofAnotherWorld [+2] Roll the Dice on Fate (a day later)

Even then, if you want to teach someone problem solving, you don't do what he does. First you explain how problem solving works, then you give them problems to do, and then if they can't solve them you give guidance.

I think he learned by this method, so he teaches by it regardless. It 'worked' for him and he presumably ended up feeling superior to most other mages so therefore it must be a good method as far as he's concerned. When kids fail out they're just showing that mages today are too soft and not that his teaching methods are sub-optimal, which reinforces his bias.

u/Borskey [+1] (3 days later)

I think the method he's using lately is kind of cheating- he's supposed to be using his ability to sense the mana in the marbles. He was kind of good at it, in terms of being able to dodge marbles thrown directly at him.

Using the "mana cloud" method to sense the physical object moving through the air (rather than the mana within the object) is not the same thing at all and doesn't help train his mana sense.

Xvim had caught on to this in the restart where he started doing it, by trying to get him to list the marbles by how much mana was in them.

u/RMcD94 [+3] (15 hours later)

I would hardly call half an hour to eat a meal "wolfing" it down, especially considering they apparently sat in complete silence for over that length, the reason meals take so long to eat is because you talk during them... Also big dialogue paragraphs with single line interruptions always breaks me out of being immersed. It reads so awkwardly and lacks the constant feedback that a normal conversation would hold (nodding along, saying uh huh, etc). I don't know how you'd text something like that though.

u/JulianWyvern [+4] Wayward Wanderer (a day later)

The joke here is that Zorian eats horribly slowly, not that Raynie was eating fast. She eats a normal pace and he does it sloooowly

u/None [+2] (a day later)

Has anyone tried to go through and get a rough idea of how much time Zorian has spent in the loop(while not in a coma)?

u/nobody103 [+6] (a day later)

Ull had probably done the most thorough job at that. She made an entire google docs excel table to organize the information, which you can fine here.

My personal tally says it's been 4 years and some change.

u/mordorisbad [+3] (a day later)

Around four years according to this google drive document detailing the loops. There is an estimated days elapsed which is ~1460 days as of a couple loops back: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ZVanJNuiZFmywxl4Vv57vBigADLIjhgXLYF85S8deJ4/edit?usp=sharing

u/None [+2] (2 days later)

Just putting this theory here in the unprobable case it turns true so that I can boast in future. I think Zach is a shifter, and was the first supposed sacrifice for the primordial. The time loop spell was created by the primordial itself, possibly to avoid the sacrifice in the first place. The primordial just wanted to take a small multimillenial nap and now it has to wake up and bring destruction to the mortal plane. It's annoyed as hell.

u/valeskas [+1] (14 hours later)

Xvim displaying emotions while talking about talented first years? Looks like Daimen scarred him as well.

u/Anderkent [+6] (16 hours later)

Or reminiscing the amount of wasted time on 'talented' first / second years. Talented in the opinion of other teachers, maybe :P

u/TimTravel [+1] (3 days later)

without bring up -> without bringing up

Eating a meal in half an hour is fast?

u/Cheese_Ninja [+1] (10 days later)

I was thinking, wouldn't it be a fun twist if the reason we never see Xvim at any of the battles and the reason he always keeps his mind shielded is just because he's a paranoid coward in addition to being very good at shaping?

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