Alright, I guess I can do some replies.
I liked all the Force, Fate Gaia, and Alaya stuff at the start of the chapter. I mostly understood it and followed along. It was the Prey stuff that I was hoping would just get finished so we'd get to something that I understood again. Sorry, not a Prey fan and haven't liked this arc. Been hoping it gets resolved ASAP.
the Force waking up and Alaya coming forth rock. Um, I actually have an odd thought. Gaia is just the world spirit of Earth. In theory, every world with life on it should have its own planetary spirit. Didn't the Exodites do something about making world sprites that they manage? Could they have felt the death of Gaia?
I'm actually going to take it that she's only "mostly" dead. Then again you pretty much stated that Alaya set things up so that as long as their parents come back somehow Gaia will be reborn. Just need some quick terraforming.
Oddly in a pure Fate setting, I'd love to see a visiting EoM end up killing off Gaia if only to wait a few centuries to terraform Earth without it.
Um, it seems like folks are hoping that Alaya gets a fully stocked throne of heroes. That just doesn't feel right for this setting. I can buy her getting the throne of heroes, but it starts out empty. She's going to have to stock it with widely known local heroes that recently died. Actually, with proper PR and the Force, she could have billions of new heroes. Each planet could likely form dozens of heroes. Any population with a few million could likely form one. The average Imperial world has billions and there are like a million of them. Screw Gil. Forget those lame Fate heroes. Alaya will have entire Imperial Guard Regiments of Heroes to deploy shortly.
The MC was worried about the Force creating its own factions of heroes. I'm not remotely worried about that. That'd be a problem for thousands of years later. The bit about the Force that I'm really worried about is that it doesn't truly care about humanity. Oh, it's about life and the struggle and all that. You know that it'll like the Orks and many other alien species as well. Anyone with any sense would jump to using the Force or being defended by the Force rather than suffer the Warp.
The MC might have an idea of what the Force would do by itself. He doesn't really know what it would do against the Warp or in the same sandbox as Alaya or if he manages to wake up other planetary spirits either. The Force has the Warp and Chaos to fight against. That'll likely keep it busy for a few thousand years easily.
I sort of want to see a Farseer interlude. You know one with them having all the headaches possible at the moment and no way to fix things.
I have toyed around with the whole "every world has a world spirit" thing, and there are...complications to allowing it to persist as-is without modification.
That being said...
The Eldar do, in fact, have a system of sorts in place to let them effectively create what amounts to a World Spirit (though nowhere
near s powerful as an actual one would be) through their tech on Maiden Worlds.
And it is entirely possible that Gaia's Death had...repercussions. It is also entirely possible that Alaya inheriting the conceptual weight of what Gaia was alleviated that. Whichever it was, I am choosing not to answer at this time.
Regarding why Satori thinks he fucked up WRT: The Force, it is not just because of the rather blatant amount of bullshit movie moralizing that goes on around it, but also because of the extent of the power. The Force being what it is, and being
based in and on what it is, almost guarantees a conflict
somewhere simply because of that fact, and he knows it. That the Force is also very much unpicky in it's powerups is even more of a big deal.
And you will get your Farseer interlude. Not sure if I want it next chapter or later on, but you will get it.
He very likely needs to be able to use it in the first place. He needs his workshop and ship for that, and hasn't the chance to access it right now... and we still aren't sure if he's in a Sim or not given Prey's content.
The big issue with the STC is that while it is quite useful in context as a storage database of tech that he can reach into for whatever he wants, it was only useful to him in the context of what it meant to the rest of the Imperium. Satori himself already had what he needed from a technological standpoint, and the magical parts were completely beyond it's scope. So yes, it is a good resource...but it is also
not a good resource as most of his R&D has been going to things he doesn't just have plans for.
It's not what he did that makes him so easily hated, rather, its how he went about it in my oppinion. He ended up rushing so hard that he gave up everything that made him human- in in turn became alien in his own way. Essentially, he's a alien entity rulling humanity in a human body given how splintered his personality is in his current efforts to become a God to protect mankind. He's kinda forgot about the tree's while protecting the forest. The things he's endorced make him hatable, he can see humanity's wonder all he wants, but so far, he hasn't really enforced anything to push humanity in 40k to that point.
He hasn't reformed the Mechanicus to be Scientific, he hasn't created groups to learn about the Warp and how to fight it, he hasn't done that whole 'Federation' thing that he supposedly liked so much... really, it smells of a man using current events/situations as a powergrab due to the mentallity of "I'll do it myself, because I Am Humanity" which isn't what humanity should be.
At least, that's my thoughts on things given what I know and have read in this story. I don't disagree that he doesn't try, nor that he wants humanity to be great- I just don't think I really like his idea of a Great Humanity.
Becouse,for somebody who lived 30.000+ years and saw human nature,his Crusade was simply...idiotic.
Humans always have some kind religion,when they try become atheist,like Budda or Marx,they just ended creating another religion.Religions could not be remowed,only replaced.He should go under aegis of new religion - no matter which one.
Seconds - iven if atheism was viable option,he arleady gave technology to Mechanicum and let them worship Ommnisiah.So,reaction of any sane man to his Imperial Truth would be"burn my church,but pray to computer? FUCK YOU !!!!
And third - giving technology to technocultist was recipe for defeat.IoM in canon is blessed with enemies who do not use science,every normal specie whowould use scientific method to create new weapon and wipe those who choose stagnation from Universe.
On Earth,if we use the same weapons as 10.000 ago,we would fight with spears and stone axes.
Last - do not telling his sons about Chaos was recipe for them to falling to it.Which happened.
So yes,he was charismatic,powerful,even genius - but still idiot.And lost thanks to his own mistakes.
Okay my reply to those two above is this.
The alliance with the emperor and Mars is an alliance of convenience. The emperor has the army and Mars have manufacturing. The reason the emperor did not forced the mechanicum to accept the imperial truth is because it would costly war to bend them to heel. The emperor can accept the worship of him as an avatar of God rather God itself as it was the lesser evil. He believe he could force them later to abandon the worship after unification he knows the dangers of some technology because of warp specially AI so he ban them.
Him giving the tech is part of the bargain that he forged with Mars and at that time innovation was not yet frowned upon so he could trust them with the Tech, only during the aftermath of the Horus heresy that they lost many tech and the danger that dark mechanics have done. That innovation is seen as dangerous. The dark mechanicum only rebelled because the emperor has forbidden them to reasearch chaos related tech. And kerbor Hal was bribed by Horus for those forbidden knowledge.
By not telling about chaos he is trying to limit the psychic imprint of humanity on the warp. By not believing on Chaos he believes that it would not empower the four foulsome.
STC is like Lego tech so it's easy to adapt in many scenarios. Even if it's old the tech can be continuously improved.
The Emperor is, at best, a well intentioned fool who failed to see the trap that he had set for himself until long after he was caught within it. His shedding aspects of his humanity, even unto his own sons, prevented him from seeing the rifts forming within their ranks as they all jockeyed for his attention as Siblings are wont to do. Likewise, the compromises and sacrifices he made in the short term, believing them to be long-term plays, completely screwed over the Imperium when it no longer had him at the helm.
Nearly every action he took was not made to actually benefit humanity, but Himself, first and foremost, in the vain and arrogant thought (I am loath to ascribe this to 'Hope') that he alone held the key to humanity's salvation. Thus, it was no surprise that when the house of cards came falling down in large part because of his refusal to actually
Tell Anyone that the barbarians were at the gate that the blame would end up on his head, and he is punished Accordingly.
the fact that Emps deliberately made a system that required him to function in a galaxy with the kind of threats that exist within it says everything about his intentions. He can say that he planned to save humanity all he wanted: The largest test of that sentiment, his own sons, was a colossal failure whose ramifications yet echo across the galaxy.
And yet without his action the situation would be ever so worse off. It is a form of Paradox: Emps only really makes the situation worse with his ambitions, but the light he brought with him prior is perhaps even more damning, for daring to give people a glimpse of hope in the future.
Something to think about, anyway.
