World Makers and Reality

[Quchu]

It just occurred to me.


Couldn't Autochthon or Gaia invent new concepts and alter Creation wholesale? Couldn't the Primordials have invented a new principle that made their defeat by the Exalted impossible?


This is basically a question about the world-making nature of the Primordials, since I can't remember where this was elaborated in detail. Since none of the above things happened, I take it that the Primordials created concepts by coming to exist and defining them--but that would complicate some things, since now the order of the Primordial's entrance dictates the fundamental "depth" of the concepts they define (as younger Primordials would have to abide by the concepts older Primordials have already defined.)

 

[cyl]

Hmmm I don't think Primordials are very evolutive beings.


I mean they can evolve if forced, and they can die, but basically their whole sub soul system just prevents them from being too soft and maleable... kinda security system to protect their core identity / concept. Downside is, IMO, that they have prismatic points of view.


Even with a conscience and powers and wisdom far superior to any other type of beings they have ever created, they just lack an open mind.


Also, millenias of statu quo made them lazy and soft... Auto / Gaia are concepts, they could not have reinvented themselves to alter Creation.


Also the way I remember it, the Primordials didn't blast Creation away because it was their ultimate stronghold versus the Wyld. Only SWLIHN cracked a single orb, just before she was trapped, out of spite. She could have cracked many more during the war and destroyed Creation, but she didn't...

 

[terrormortus]

At one point in either the infernal book or the malfeas book it says that the terms of the surrender banned the yozi from just going back and saying that they were the ones who won. I think Hubris played a part during the war, as the primordials didn't really take the exalted seriously until they were at the gates and it was too late

 

[Quchu]

Hubris is a really good argument, even if the Primordials were able to adjust the parameters of Creation so that the Exalted could not defeat them--which would be pretty simple, since one of them could've just made up something called A Concept Which Makes the Exalted Unable to Defeat the Primordials.


Though, what about Gaia and Autochthon? Couldn't they just have dealt with the Underworld that way, by changing the facets of the universe so that it's not so much of a threat to Creation? Or given the Mountain Folk their own world, so they don't have to be imprisoned beneath the earth without messing with the Exalted?


I guess none of this would matter if the Primordials were static beings, but that... feels so weak.

 

[terrormortus]

Actually that is a good point, Gaia and Autochthon could just snap their fingers and fix everything if not for the fact, that among other things, neither has really been in Creation for a few thousand years. Autochthon went into Elsewhere right after the Primordial War and Gaia got bored and ran into the Wyld sometime during the first age with occassional trips to the silver chair to see Luna (glories most high for that one).


Plus just because they can doesn't mean they want to.

 

[Thanqol]

Gravity is a concept. Death is a concept. Loyalty is a concept.


Exalted rape the hell out of concepts.


(More seriously, I don't think the Primordials could just make up whatever they wanted, they were limited by their natures. SWL would be limited to making new laws of gravity, heirachy and mathematics because that's what she is and probably did make some of those up for the sole purpose of beating up Exalted (she even has a charm for that purpose in Infernals). None of them could make an "I Win" concept because that's the Unconquered Sun's thing and none of them were the Unconquered Sun.


In effect, the Unconquered Sun said "I Win". The Ebon Dragon said "Ah, but your allies stab you in the back!". She Who Lives said "Ah, but your army of ten billion's magnitude bonus caps out at +3 rendering the majority of it useless!". Malfeas said "I'm the goddamn Malfeas and you will listen to me, bitch".


But the Unconquered Sun said, "That's nice. I still win.". He's an asshole that way.)

 

[terrormortus]

In effect, the Unconquered Sun said "I Win". The Ebon Dragon said "Ah, but your allies stab you in the back!". She Who Lives said "Ah, but your army of ten billion's magnitude bonus caps out at +3 rendering the majority of it useless!". Malfeas said "I'm the goddamn Malfeas and you will listen to me, bitch".
But the Unconquered Sun said, "That's nice. I still win.". He's an asshole that way.)

Lol. Not only that, but him literally beating them at their own game won the war.

When it seemed that even the Unconquered Sun must fall to their relentless onslaught, they brought him to the Games of Divinity, to sit at the table as their equal, certain that they could convince him to join them. Instead, the Unconquered Sun bested his masters in the Games, and as the sun ascended to the skies of Yu-Shan for the first time, Ignis Divine was able to wrest control over the secret entrances of Heaven and throw them wide, allowing the forces of the Solar Exalted to pour in and deliver him from his captors.
~Glories Most High pg. 5

 

[Quchu]

Well, yeah, the Exalted are meant to fight the embodiment of the fundamental laws of Creation. That doesn't mean that they'll keep doing that if they are transported to a universe which is explicitly designed to be hostile to the Exalted in one way or another--or it could have been subtler. The concept of heroism could have been altered or overwritten so the principle of Exaltation would be impossible. If they liked the fighting, they could have just declared the concept of defeat nil, so they could fight on forever without anybody losing--because losing just doesn't happen in this universe anymore.


I'm not sure if the result of the Primordial War, when such things are considered, means the Exalts are -that- awesome or the Primordials are weaksource. The two implications seem pretty exclusive to each other.

 

[Kyeudo]

Perhaps the explanation is one of time. How often do humans, with all their creativity, come up with a completely new concept? Hardly ever. The Primordials, for all their world-creating brilliance, are more limited in some ways than a human. Malfeas has a hard time wrapping his mind around the concept of defeat, even after several millenia of imprisonment. He doesn't think in terms of subtlety because he really can't think subtly.


Further, it took the Primordials time to make the concepts embodied in Creation, perhaps millenia to put it together. Adding another concept would take equally long and would be a perfect oppourtunity for a strike team of Lunar commandos to drop in on the distracted Primordial's fetich soul and give the Titan's mind a new train of thought the hard way.


Alternatively, destroying concepts costs the Primordials something. She Who Lives In Her Name was permanently mained when she burned concepts from Creation. To this day she still is missing those three spheres and all the power that they represented. Would you sacrifice yourself to defeat your enemies? The Yozis are the Primordials that decided that they would rather live maimed than die fighting; it is highly unlikely that they would have thought about sacrificing themselves or even pieces of themselves to weaken their opponents.

 

[terrormortus]

Perhaps the explanation is one of time. How often do humans, with all their creativity, come up with a completely new concept? Hardly ever. The Primordials, for all their world-creating brilliance, are more limited in some ways than a human. Malfeas has a hard time wrapping his mind around the concept of defeat, even after several millenia of imprisonment. He doesn't think in terms of subtlety because he really can't think subtly.
Further, it took the Primordials time to make the concepts embodied in Creation, perhaps millenia to put it together. Adding another concept would take equally long and would be a perfect oppourtunity for a strike team of Lunar commandos to drop in on the distracted Primordial's fetich soul and give the Titan's mind a new train of thought the hard way.


Alternatively, destroying concepts costs the Primordials something. She Who Lives In Her Name was permanently mained when she burned concepts from Creation. To this day she still is missing those three spheres and all the power that they represented. Would you sacrifice yourself to defeat your enemies? The Yozis are the Primordials that decided that they would rather live maimed than die fighting; it is highly unlikely that they would have thought about sacrificing themselves or even pieces of themselves to weaken their opponents.

That is an excellent point screwing with creation on that kind of scale would take a hole lot of time to just figure out what to do and you don't really have much time when you're fighting a war. Not to mention the fact that altering creation on that level could potentially break or destroy it, and then no one is happy. Another theory is well, they just might not of thought of it. The primordials have been shown to be flawed, hence defeat, so maybe they didn't think of the idea. How long would it take for primordials to even fathom the idea that they couldn't use the normal mays of doing things to take care of this problem?

 

[krrackknut]

Do you know how hard making concepts are? Imagine trying to write an award-winning novel, with hundreds of endings in your head. Your roommates want to use the computer. The room's too cold. You have writer's block and oh;dust-mites have severed your arm nerves, you ear nerves, and the part of your brain that contains your short-term memory.


Yep, just snap 'em right into existence!

 

[Plague of Hats]

At one point in either the infernal book or the malfeas book it says that the terms of the surrender banned the yozi from just going back and saying that they were the ones who won. I think Hubris played a part during the war, as the primordials didn't really take the exalted seriously until they were at the gates and it was too late

A theory thankfully made moot by metagame knowledge and the history of the Neverborn as presented in Manual: Abyssals. Not only would such a situation be extremely unsatisfying and antithetical to Exalted tropes ("They were pretty literally invincible, but for some reason lost"), it also contradicts how the universe is supposed to work.
Backward time travel and unrestrained history-rewriting powers are such a bad idea, that they should generally be ignored. A lot of the other things being thrown out in the thread, like "destroying concepts", are similarly unworkable.


Creation is an anchor point around which all the actors on the stage fight. You can knock it around, but you can't really pull the rug out from under it without throwing your hands up in the air and playing something other than Exalted. In the unlikely event that they could ever do things like "destroy heroism" or "rewrite history wholesale", the Primordials gave up that kind of power when they invented the known universe.

 

[Quchu]

metagame knowledge

Well, I guess this is what solves it. Can't help that I feel somewhat unsatisfied, though.

 

[Kyeudo]

That's odd, as Manual: Infernals states that both sides used time warping abilities during the Primordial War, which is why noone has any clue how long that war lasted. It was apparently possible, thought of, used, and somehow countered (probably something involving the Five Maidens).


The Yozis are banned by the terms of their surrender from doing that in Creation anymore, but they can still rewrite the past couple of days in Malfeas at their whim (providing the only cannonical way to bring someone back from the dead).

 

[Plague of Hats]

metagame knowledge

Well, I guess this is what solves it. Can't help that I feel somewhat unsatisfied, though.

Metagame knowledge isn't the only thing going on here. But it's usually the only way to get a clear picture, especially when dealing with very esoteric subjects in the vast and varied body of Exalted.

That's odd, as Manual: Infernals states that both sides used time warping abilities during the Primordial War, which is why noone has any clue how long that war lasted. It was apparently possible, thought of, used, and somehow countered (probably something involving the Five Maidens).

"Time-warping" is not the same thing as "unrestrained history-rewriting" or "backwards time travel."

The Yozis are banned by the terms of their surrender from doing that in Creation anymore, but they can still rewrite the past couple of days in Malfeas at their whim (providing the only cannonical way to bring someone back from the dead).

That part of Compass: Malfeas can be reconciled and even expanded, but I dare say it would've been best left unwritten.

 

[Kyeudo]

"Time-warping" is not the same thing as "unrestrained history-rewriting" or "backwards time travel."

Not necessarily, but those are the fun ways to warp time into a doughnut.

 

[Ker'ion]

The Yozis are banned by the terms of their surrender from doing that in Creation anymore, but they can still rewrite the past couple of days in Malfeas at their whim (providing the only cannonical way to bring someone back from the dead).

Page reference, please.

 

[Aasharu]

I was actually thinking about the time warping issue recently, and I personally think a lot of it is due to the death of the Primordials. For example, in my personal canon, I say that time warped so all the Neverborn died at the same instant.

 

[Kyeudo]

The Yozis are banned by the terms of their surrender from doing that in Creation anymore' date=' but they can still rewrite the past couple of days in Malfeas at their whim (providing the only cannonical way to bring someone back from the dead).[/quote']Page reference, please.

CoCD: Malfeas, page 18, Yozis and Time.

 

[Ker'ion]

Thanks. :mrgreen:

 

[Persell]

Dreams of the First Age talked about one of the two rogue Primordials -- those that didn't fall to "death", or surrender to the Exalted at the end of the war. While I'm too lazy to go dig my book out and dust it off, it basically said that it took one hell of a long time to reinvent itself, shedding soft and useless concepts in favor of hard and warlike components. A couple of centuries, at the very least. Possibly longer. And the Exalted still whupped its ass, though it wasn't quite as easy as the first batch of Primordials they killed.


Yes, I meant to phrase it that way.


By this example, it's clear that the Primordials can learn from their mistakes. They can evolve. They are capable of change. But it is neither easy nor quick for them to do so. One single Primordial took hundreds of years to wrap their brains around the idea of "shit, we fucked up" and "now how can I avoid fucking up again?" I would imagine that en masse, the Primordials would take a lot longer, since they like to bicker like in-laws at Thanksgiving dinner, and not one of them is going to let, say, the Ebon Dragon write something as simple as "thou shalt not permit the Unconquered Sun to shine on Tuesdays" without double-, triple-, and quadruple-checking that the clause is as bland and harmless as it appears on the surface. And even then, it would probably be debated ad nauseam, because they wouldn't quite trust the face value of what appears to be a simple request.

 

[devilaether]

Couldn't the Primordials have invented a new principle that made their defeat by the Exalted impossible?

'Defeating the Primordials' period was already impossible. The Exalted were intrinsicly designed to do the impossible.


The creation of the Unconquered Sun was a momumental fuck up on the The Dragons Shadow and He-That-Would-Become-Malfeas's part. The Dragons Shadow created something that would inheriently oppose him so that the concept of Shadow and Darkness could reach Creation, and out of sheer laziness He-That-Would-Become-Malfeas imbued the UCS with perfection and invicibility so that he could just wind him up and throw him at the Wyld, removing the headache of the Raksha forever without any further effort on his part. They assumed that the unbreakable geas put on the UCS to never be able to directly oppose them would take care of any potential risk, including the fact that he was built to perfectly oppose them and was inheriently incapable of being defeated.


When those qualities, and the qualities of the other Incarne and the Elemental Dragons, were passed on to humanity, the Primordials were fucked. They could throw up any impossibility defenses they wanted, but the Exalted were specifically imbued with qualities that trump impossibility.

 

[devilaether]

Oh, and let's not forget the fact that humanity was designed - by the Primordials- with the quality of free will, the very quality that allowed humanity to directly rebel against them, so that their prayer candy would taste better.


Lets face it: The Primordials were morons.

 

[Thanqol]

Oh, and let's not forget the fact that humanity was designed - by the Primordials- with the quality of free will, the very quality that allowed humanity to directly rebel against them, so that their prayer candy would taste better.
Lets face it: The Primordials were morons.

No they really weren't. Even humanity has a kill trigger.


Namely, whenever a human being reaches Essence 4, they become a god. Bam.


No human could EVER rebel against the Primordials successfully with that hard limit on them. It was the perfect defence.


The Primordials weren't morons. They just weren't prepared for Autochthon picking up a gun and shooting them all like the psychopathic nerd he is.

 

[Mr. S]

I always got the impression that initially in the war the Primordials went after the Dragon Kings, since they were wiped out so utterly and not mentioned much in the writings on the war. Perhaps it was because they didn't initally consider the exalts to be dangerous because of this limitation on humans.


Of course, I could be badly mistaken.