Esquestria: The House of the Sun - A pony cultist experience

[ses]

Yeah, but the cult came because of Soft, so while yes, we would have a cult, i don't think they would be as..."enthusiastic" as they would be with Soft.

We should also focus in what the QM isn't saying, because that screwed us over a few times.

Looking at it from a bigger to lesser short term impact, Inspiration/Nothing are the former and Influence is the latter, with Tools and Freedom in the middle.

Narratively, i think that we should trust Soft the same we trusted her before, so Freedom is out, Nothing is practically out of sight and out of mind, Inspiration is a weighted coin toss and Influence seems redundant given the short timeframe we have, so Tools seems like the...not the proper way, because none of them really are, but that gift is the one that explicitly says that Velvet trusts her.

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That's absurd, being more directly involved is obviously going to be better for Soft than dumping some rituals on her and then not involving ourselves any further.

 

[Rafuki22]

That's absurd, being more directly involved is obviously going to be better for Soft than dumping some rituals on her and then not involving ourselves any further.

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You are making assumptions, we don't know what's going to happen, hindsight and all that.

For all we know she will roll a nat 1 behind the scenes regardless of choice.

 

[keykigdom]

[X] Gift her tools

 

[Shaper47]

That's absurd, being more directly involved is obviously going to be better for Soft than dumping some rituals on her and then not involving ourselves any further.

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With what free time?

A Velvet ap per turn is very expensive especially since we already have a cult in the Bureau.

And for what?

Finding expeditions, the Bureau can do that for us.

Rituals, they're are beginner cult, it will take them ages to be of any useful help.

Also we have had Velvet go out of her way to not have the requirements to support a cult. Can we really afford all the books and study actions added to the already heavy drain on our ap to get them up to scratch.

Velvet ap are just too valuable.

 

[Greymere]

Narratively, i think that we should trust Soft the same we trusted her before, so Freedom is out, Nothing is practically out of sight and out of mind, Inspiration is a weighted coin toss and Influence seems redundant given the short timeframe we have, so Tools seems like the...not the proper way, because none of them really are, but that gift is the one that explicitly says that Velvet trusts her.

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Except that Soft is still 100% in the dark that she's leading a cult. She still thinks that this is just a friend group. I'm not gonna trust someone to do a job that they are completely unaware that they've been assigned to.

Like I said before, the Wolf cult is already culling it's own members without her knowledge. She's not on the lookout for cult behavior, and we really need her to be if she's going to make sure the cult stays on the... relatively straight and moderately wide path, if we're giving them free access to the "murder anyone without a trace" and "drive people insane" rituals.

Like, clearly they aren't going to be 100% benevolent in their usage, considering that something bad will explicitly happen to Mayor Mare if we gift influence. They are going to do stuff that we will not like with what we give them, and the only way that's not going to happen is if we're holding the leash and giving the directions, or maybe if we give them inspiration and... turn Soft into our mouthpiece or prophet or something? Maybe? Point being, Bird said the wording on the 1st option is intentionally ambiguous, but considering the trait and the blurb it seems to fall more on the side of "don't do shit we don't want you to do" than not, at the price of a narratively +1 Stained Soft.

 

[DelightedOne]

With what free time?

A Velvet ap per turn is very expensive especially since we already have a cult in the Bureau.

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Technically it is 1/3 of a cult now. It still needs to develop.

-The general growth of the Lunar Bureau as a Lore-attuned institution will also be proportional to how many Lores have been introduced through Institutional Knowledge teachings.

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Soft's cult is a immediate cult from what it seems.

Besides some follower AP could be helpful if that is the exchange. Velvet already relies on others for a lot of things.

Also we have had Velvet go out of her way to not have the requirements to support a cult. Can we really afford all the books and study actions added to the already heavy drain on our ap to get them up to scratch.

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You are assuming we will use them as a proper cult instead of something else, like servants.

 

[Rafuki22]

and the only way that's not going to happen is if we're holding the leash and giving the directions, or maybe if we give them inspiration.

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Even if we give them directions that doesn't really guarantee anything does it?

If the option ends up winning fine, but i really don't feel like losing an AP when we are on a alicorn shaped time limit.

 

[Greymere]

You are assuming we will use them as a proper cult instead of something else, like servants.

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And it's not like they'd be running off of an entirely separate library... we need to level up the Bureau's Lores anyway, so any study or manuscript actions that we would hypothetically do "because cult Lore levels" are probably going to happen (or not happen) regardless of if we pick up Soft's cult.

(I still maintain we should Confidant Cheerilee as the one most likely to enable adding to the Library without our direct involvement)

 

[OurLadyOfWires]

I wasn't really pinged, but given the discussion surrounding "Freedom" in particular, I can give Velvet's perspective on it. And since this would be the most "hoofs on" option, I can also elaborate on what Velvet would expect herself to (have to) do following it.

So first things first.

Velvet can see that Soft's "group" is, well, a cult. Ponyville sure likes its cults and all that.

However, Velvet has two pieces of experience that Soft's cult doesn't. One, she has already seen what an established cult was like (the Wildhoof Club) and two, she has already seen what proper resources can get you (from her time at the Bureau).

And she can clearly see that Soft's "cult" is, presently, the equivalent of three foals in a trench coat. They have the desire and disposition to do it, but they don't know how to do it.
In fact, they don't even know what they are supposed to be doing to begin with.

So, in practical terms, the first thing Velvet would have to do if she wanted to take the reins of Softy's followers would be "whip them into shape".

Find a place to gather, get a proper tally of its member, give them literal homework in the form of whatever is in your personal library. Hell, even determining the purpose of the cult would be in order. After all, "seeking the truth of the world" is a nice catchphrase, but the Quest only really started when the Master gave you an alicorn related objective.

I would expect the cult to need one, or maybe two, months to quite literally get on its hoofs and reach the "level zero" threshold. After that, you will probably start being able to give them proper cultish directions.

There would also be more personal matters to look into. For example, there would be probably a vote to determine Soft's place in the cult, and how much you want her involved (with more involvement meaning a happier Soft, but I can see a part of Velvet recoiling at giving her more Wolf exposure, for obvious reasons).

And of course, I would generally want to make this as interesting as possible. I do like the Wolf, after all, and I no longer offer options I am unwilling to write.



Anyhow. This is my sincerely unbiased explanation for "Freedom". Don't take any of this as a "promise", I reserve the right to change details for the sake of better mechanics/narrative, but I would be rereading this post to center myself if "Freedom" wins.

And since this is an unbiased post, I would be remiss not to mention the negatives of "Freedom". Specifically, the negatives that Velvet personally knows of, and would take into account. And those are (off the top of my head):
-Velvet's time (action points) are just more valuable;
-Celestia Lantern Doom Clock;
-The conflicting interests of being the Commissioner of the Lunar Bureau, and the leader of a Wolf Cult;
-Probably more things I can't remember.



That's all from my part. Hope you are all doing well!

 

[Greymere]

Find a place to gather, get a proper tally of its member, give them literal homework in the form of whatever is in your personal library. Hell, even determining the purpose of the cult would be in order. After all, "seeking the truth of the world" is a nice catchphrase, but the Quest only really started when the Master gave you an alicorn related objective.

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Obviously we should turn them into archeologists!

 

[spiderhellian]

It just seems like a whole mess that we really ought not to dive into hooffirst when Celestia and the Glory are right there.

 

[DelightedOne]

I would expect the cult to need one, or maybe two, months to quite literally get on its hoofs and reach the "level zero" threshold. After that, you will probably start being able to give them proper cultish directions.

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Expected and still faster than the Bureau.

Specifically, the negatives that Velvet personally knows of, and would take into account. And those are (off the top of my head):
-Velvet's time (action points) are just more valuable;
-Celestia Lantern Doom Clock;
-The conflicting interests of being the Commissioner of the Lunar Bureau, and the leader of a Wolf Cult;
-Probably more things I can't remember.

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Again, expected. Nothing that makes me want to drop Freedom.

A Cult is just so interesting. And I still think we could fix them, if not then make a trap to get rid of them.

 

[Greymere]

Actually, maybe a relevant question, @OurLadyOfWires. If we don't take over Soft's cult, are we actually able to work against them if they start going around, say, murdering mayors in the town we live in as a totally hypothetical situation? Or beforehand, if we decide that actually we just really don't want another cult stirring up more dust in both the Wake and the Mansus.

Because if not, then "conflict of interest" doesn't really seem like a negative when the other side of that scale is "let them do whatever, completely uncontestable".

 

[Rafuki22]

-The conflicting interests of being the Commissioner of the Lunar Bureau, and the leader of a Wolf Cult;

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Seems like there alredy is a conflict of interests because Soft is the "leader" of a cult with her mother being the unofficial boss of the pony SCP Foundation.

Or beforehand, if we decide that actually we just really don't want another cult stirring up more dust in both the Wake and the Mansus.

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Things like that would be met with the roadbump named Soft i believe.

 

[Sintonir]

Actually, maybe a relevant question, @OurLadyOfWires. If we don't take over Soft's cult, are we actually able to work against them if they start going around, say, murdering mayors in the town we live in as a totally hypothetical situation? Or beforehand, if we decide that actually we just really don't want another cult stirring up more dust in both the Wake and the Mansus.

Because if not, then "conflict of interest" doesn't really seem like a con when the other side of the scale is "let them do whatever completely uncontestable".

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I think a better question would be "if we don't take over Soft's Cult directly, can we somewhat control it indirectly?" Through asking Softy to do something, maybe spending a personal AP on it - not every turn as we'd need if we went for the Freedom option, but the result won't be as reliable as if we were in control.
If enough people in the thread would be against the cult, I think the options to deal with it would be added. But I'd better prevent this from happening entirely

 

[ses]

One to two months is literally faster than the Bureau will be online even spending all our Commissioner actions doubling the rate we get online. And frankly Outer Circles are important. They provide the ability to do more actions.