a cut of domestic sheep prime
Guest
Shun is a solid bro. I want to help him, but on the other hand, I don't want the codex to kill him.
:rancehmm:
:rancehmm:
What can one person accomplish in this cauldron of chaos?
Overthrow and replace the Son of Heaven, who has lost his mandate to rule?
...
Shun looks exasperated as he grabs you by the shoulders. “I have told you this many times, Jing. You are not cursed with bad luck. All you are is a person who has encountered misfortune, and there is no evidence that will happen till the day you die. You are focusing overwhelmingly on the bad things that happen to you and not the good - that is why you think your luck is poor. Superstitious nonsense is going to drag our country into the grave, and I don’t need that from you of all people.”
“Wait, you don’t believe in the gods or ghosts, then?” you grin. You know he is deathly scared of ghosts.
“Well, no. I mean, I do believe in gods, and ghosts. But I don’t believe that fate controls us. We are what we make of ourselves,” mutters Shun. “I would rather work the fields than pray to the Jade Emperor for good fortune. Anyway, we are meandering from the point. Shut up and listen for a bit, Jing.”
...
As for the misfortune of your birth, the only thing they could determine was that the Taisha star shone upon you. You would bring about the downfall of the order of Heaven, sharing your misfortune with the entire country, but the scholars did not know enough to go into specifics. They said that they could be easily wrong about their readings; they were scholars after all, and not astrologers.
Lady Ji had appeared to you shortly before you left and recommended in her mysterious manner that you seek out the All-Seeing Astrologer, Hua Jin, if you desired to know your destiny. She does not know where he is now; according to her, it would be fate if you found him, and fate if you didn’t.
I certainly have no moral qualms about this. But you'd have to admit, patricide is the lowest you can get. It is almost admirable how far Shun is willing to go for the sake of the country.
I am not exactly talking about morality here. It's just that the motivations that drive Jing and Shun are different. I can see Shun sacrificing a single person, even a friend, in a manner Rex Feral described, if it can stabilize the country and save its people the trouble.
If Jing was asked to sacrifise his friends, say, Cao'er, for a similar goal, what would his answer be? 'Fuck, no!', that's what. Our loyalties are much more personal and less abstract.
I can see this as a point of tension between us in the future.
Look at it this way. If Lady Ji have manipulated the events in the alternative timeline to murder the chief of a secret police by our hand and thus allow Shun to assume the control over the secret police and start his own plot - and we know that Lady Ji believes this country to be done for and us a necessary instrument in its downfall - I don't see this ending well.Esquilax said:I have a bad feeling about this. Shun, as utterly brilliant and gifted as he is, has one tragic flaw, which seems to be that he's completely rooted in pragmatism. He has all of these great contingency plans set up, but you can't account for the whims of fate so easily. Even if we do manage to pull this mission off successfully, I suspect that there are going to be disastrous, unintended consequences regardless.
Which is why I say we should no longer trust him blindly. Shun has his obligations, and we have ours. At this moment, they coincide. That's all there is to it.Esquilax said:And I agree, there's no doubt that Prince Shun would sacrifice Jing to stabilize the country. Given his position, that's exactly what he should do.
Esquilax said:I suspect that there are going to be disastrous, unintended consequences regardless.
Rex Feral said:If we go with A, we can practically go to the Fire Cult as I see it.
Of course not. And then, as the country inevitably plunges in the chaos of the civil war and our friends get slaughtered in the crossfire, we will keep wondering what may have been, and if we didn't brought it upon ourselves by being indecisive.Rex Feral said:If we go with A, we can practically go to the Fire Cult as I see it. If we don't agree with Shun to commit patricide I don't think he will view us with ill will.
I offered to declare the Maniac Island an independent state first!Fangshi said:If it all goes south then we just have to go all Water Margin/Suikoden and set up our own kingdom.
But, hey, what kind of a Legend the story would be if it did always go according to the plan?
The sort of Legend where you get a rollback.
I wonder how this task ties into our fate?
Where did the choice say anything about going to the palace?
Jester said:but lack of PR department.
That is a horrible, horrible way to die. Does he deserve to die from shitting out all of his internal organs?It would be great if we could pull off the assassination via laxative. Cao'er and Jing should be able to whip up some crazy super-lax of some sort. Then it's a matter of slipping it to comatose emperor and he shit's himself to death. Probably wouldn't be much to trace back to anyone, and such an ignominious death would prove it was time for a change in leadership.
As for the vote, are we best suited to participate in the murder plot or outside it? I don't think the palace is where we will be the most useful. There have got to be many people there who knew us and know we shouldn't be there. Our stealth is good, but not imperial palace good. I honestly think there are better people for that, and we are more useful elsewhere. Like someplace we can help whip up that crazy super-lax.
A
oopsThe action will be taking place in the palace with B, particularly since the other princes will be rushing there once the news that the Emperor has passed away in his sleep spreads. Sneaking is not mandatory, though.