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

[Sk1lz3r]

easiest read is that Gods from Stone are basically the gods of the pre-historic world, before Humanity developed Reason, which can be equated to enlightenment, and probably the advent of the Gods-From-Light.

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I'll continue to catch up to the discussion later

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IMO the Gods-from-stone are the Gods of the Carapace Cross. WE don't know how they came into being because that was before Humanity properly became a thing. But THEY might've known that, in the same way we know where the Gods-from-light or flesh come from. I don't think we as Humanity actually had anything to do with the Gods-from-stone, apart from being related to the Hours who banished them to Nowhere.

 

[Shaper47]

1) functionally infinite bits and resources
2) effectively infinite servant actions, which she can probably also use to get books and artifacts, by buying them or even expropriating them from known holders in some cases

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That doesn't really matter though?

It doesn't matter how many low level sources of lore you have if you don't have the higher sources.

Like, we could have a few hundred level one and two books and Artifacts but it still wouldn't get us any closer to level 3.

Getting higher sources of lore basically requires SH or scrying neither of which Celestia has.

 

[Earth-Destroyer]

That doesn't really matter though?

It doesn't matter how many low level sources of lore you have if you don't have the higher sources.

Like, we could have a few hundred level one and two books and Artifacts but it still wouldn't get us any closer to level 3.

Getting higher sources of lore basically requires SH or scrying neither of which Celestia has.

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Ignoring that she has 1,000 years of acclimated books, artifacts. Her public libraries not even the restricted ones had lore 6 books aplenty. You can assume she has 10-20 sources of lore just from that alone.

 

[Pittauro]

Now you have me wondering if we can have Jade train the cadre for us, since she did that for the Wildhoof Club.

Edit: Hell, maybe we could even get Comet Feet on it, he was Inner Circle too.

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the +10 from a cadre would be nice. the >+15 from a trained cadre would be even better.

but I very much doubt we could convince Comet to go back to a Cult for real.

It takes "one or maybe two" turns for the Support Group to be ready, it takes another 3 full turns minimum for the Bureau to be ready. We've already committed resources to Soothe the Night and Bureau training. Maybe you think that was a mistake, and I totally understand if you do. But we're already in a situation where one turn to get a cult paying back its investment is already faster than the other investments we're currently actively making. So skipping this would make no sense.

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It's still piling up MORE costs we can ill afford right now.

Admittedly getting more AotL rituals, the +10 from a cadre, and so on, would be helpful.

but CAN we afford 1 ap per turn right now? Will we get enough back before All In to make it worth it?

2 APs over 2 turns is basically one less sacrament, just to make a comparison of what it means to us.

Remember that scene? People got really upset at that, and now we're going to repeat it. Haven't we learned through painful experience enough times that Velvet's control freak tendencies aren't actually a bad thing, but in fact exactly what is needed 99% of the time? And we get horribly horribly traumatically punished every time we decide "we wont be a control freak this time and will Trust Her(tm)".

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I think that's only part of the lesson.

People will read into our actions and act based on their wishes, inclinations, and understanding of what we want.

Trust others is not ALWAYS the wrong option. But it's important to remember that, sometimes, maybe even MOST times, it is.

Trust is valuable, and something to be spent only when it matters. and UNCONDITIONAL and ABSOLUTE trust is something that we, or anyone with REAL power, can very rarely afford.

The closest we have to someone we trust unconditionally is basically Jade. And that's because we truly believe she'd do anything for us.

I don't think it is so, but if we assume that Hour Velvet can deal with Stains and with Wolf in general then there is no reason not to do whatever we wish including taking further Stains while we are at it. Velvet will reach Glory and will banish Wolf's sons and will fix Soft, and will micromanage Wolf cult in Ponyville while at it. Is it not a logical conclusion to proposals to minimize damage right now and just leave everything to Hour Velvet? Even when it comes to taking over cult personally, who would lead it after Velvet ascends?

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Truth is that, to some extent, the means ARE the ends.

By which I mean that if you pursue noble ends, but use the very worst means to reach them... well, the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and if you become the kind of person that would use the worst means, your ends might end up corrupted by them.

That's, in many ways, how many dictatorships start.

Though of course Velvet is the main character.

Though, to be fair, who knows. Maybe if Velvet ACTUALLY gave up, someone else would came along that could do better than her. But we have no way of knowing that for sure, so we can only do our best.

4. The Twilight bait with Forge's Redemption.

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I'm actually wondering... it's not impossible that INSPIRATION leads to Soft recruiting Twilight, because she'd think her useful to her cause.

There was also the implication before that when she gets worse, the cult would try to recruit her... maybe that "worse" was signified by more stains and their effect on the world.

The text is very clear that if Velvet dies the Stains will stop existing, and ascending would follow the same logic as well

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Honestly that heavily imply that Velvet's death is desirable for the wellbeing of the world.

and why would the Stains disappear once she ascends? They're part of her, I doubt it's an automatically solved problem.

IMO the Gods-from-stone are the Gods of the Carapace Cross. WE don't know how they came into being because that was before Humanity properly became a thing. But THEY might've known that, in the same way we know where the Gods-from-light or flesh come from. I don't think we as Humanity actually had anything to do with the Gods-from-stone, apart from being related to the Hours who banished them to Nowhere.

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I mean, the way I see it the Carapace Cross as "the race that ruled before humanity" is basically the occult version of "they're the dinosaurs, and the gods from stone are the gods of the jurassic world".

to clarify, I meant that the Gods from Stone represent the natural world before humanity came to exist. and the advent of the Gods from Light represents humanity gaining sapience and reasoning.

After all, the Wake and the Mansus are one and the same. Events in the house are reflections of events in the real world, and vice versa.

A war between hours might be represented by a war in the wake, for example. And a paradigm shift in the real world can have a reflection in the Mansus.

Destroying the Door with the Wolf led to Paranoia being born. But if I remember right the Door was not in pristine conditions, and with times it might have crumbled on its own as a way to represent ponykind abandoning their old relationship...

Ignoring that she has 1,000 years of acclimated books, artifacts. Her public libraries not even the restricted ones had lore 6 books aplenty. You can assume she has 10-20 sources of lore just from that alone.

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and even if she didn't, she's not Velvet, our rules are not her rules.

or are you going to tell me that Comet got to the mortal cap of Edge 4 4/4 by studying books and artifacts?

She has MORE than a thousand years of experience, and now she has a high level artifact. it might very well be that she just needs to meditate and draw the right lessons from her experiences.

She's not a mortal. she's an half-Outsider Alicorn who ALSO breaks the rules, and possibly even more than Velvet.

Don't underestimate her. Reading Books and studying artifacts is Velvet's way of gaining scraps of lores, but it's not the universal method. Natural talent exists, and she has the experience to which to apply it now that she knows.