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[LP CYOA] Epic

a cut of domestic sheep prime

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A for now - Though how does Senya plan to remove *himself* from the position of observer?

edit: Also, thanks to our jaunt to the library, I'm not sure this threat exists. I think the corporation was just messing with reality and trying to find a way to make a god under their control so that they could control the multiverse.
 
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TOME

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And to make this clear to me. So there was a universe where the masters lived. They made IAE to replace the previous Observer and to preserve them. IAE created a little timeless bubble just big enough to contain masters' solar system. If there was a threat to the masters, it was left outside this bubble. Then the masters made a little bubble inside their little bubble and made Senya's and Ean's universe inside it. And now Senya wants to burst that first bubble (option A) or to make a new bubble inside that first bubble (B).

Oh how I miss the simpler days when there was only competing immortals and gieloths.

B.
 

treave

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Uh, no.

Let's recap. I'll put it in the most straightforward way. Here's what you know, which may or may not be the whole truth.

Observer dictates reality. All of reality. No exceptions, except maybe if you're a certain D.C.

Observer created by Masters' civilization to impose a certain reality where a vague threat no longer exists.

In the process, it traps the solar system inside itself in a pocket dimension. The actual body of the Observer is at the center of the multiverse, as depicted multiple times throughout the LP.

In A you destroy the man-made Observer system and let the chips fall where they may.

In B you modify the system so that it no longer uses a sentient Observer. Reality will observe itself.
 

Jester

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I believe that B is better solution for this but i vote A. Why?
A price to be paid for anything… everything. I can feel the Observer’s keen eye upon me. I grit my teeth. That bastard. It will have its turn.
This CYOA gave me lots of fun and would prefer Rei alive (and so would Senya), but C&C i guess... although I wonder what would be best ending. I think that listening to hero wish is best way to end this story, after all "All good things come to an end". Thank you for great story Treave i am waiting for epilogue.
 

Kayerts

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You bros do remember the Unseen, right? And you remember that the reason that they're abominations is that they're unobserved? Removing the observer would make everyone unobserved. What do you suppose would happen then?

Given that there are some large and alarming variables that we still know little about (the Unseen, the destruction of the spheres), I'd say that there's at least a 20% chance of Ghost Singularity with choice A.

0.8 * Value(StabbingUsInTheBack(Ean, Sek, Shulgi) + Sheldon and his boyz) < 0.2 * Value(everything else in the multiverse)

Sorry, bros! Voting B.
 

treave

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You don't get to go a couple of chapters having the character's driving force being about no gods no masters and then do an about face at the end, completely invalidating what came before. :lol:

Or perhaps someone should have remembered no gods no masters doesn't mean none of those except for the ones I approve of. I'm not sure what you guys had in mind when you picked that one, but if I recall correctly the 'repentant do gooder' choice wasn't that popular. Even so, the sacrifice yourself option was still possible until the part where you repeatedly tried for a quick fix to the war and succeeded in finding a shortcut, missing out on interaction flags between Senya and Ean that could have changed his mind.

At any rate, Ean and Sekh always planned to devour Senya from the start so that they could ascend and fix things. They aren't super good guys. Both of them have done questionably gray things for a good cause. If you guys built a character that wasn't going to roll over for them, its not entirely my fault. :troll:
 

Baltika9

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Nah, all is as it should be. I had wanted to guide Ean to this decision, eventually, but then we had a chain of mega-derps and ended up playing Senya.
I'll admit that I hated the original at the beginning, but the "sardonic smartass" persona suits me much better. I'm actually kinda-sorta glad it turned out this way, although becoming Emprah of Man and laying down the smacketh would be awesome; as would an Ean-Shulgi-Sekh bro/sishood. And I did miss the Heroic Epic feel of Ean's story, more's the pity we didn't have Naram-Master's monsters up and about earlier in the story.

Meh, details. It was an awesome ride, this LP.
 

Kayerts

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Unobserved are a flaw of the Observer. Removing the observer completely removes the problem.

Maybe I missed a passage where this was clarified, but I was under the impression that Iae was considered flawed because it didn't solve the problem of the Unseen's existence. Whether it caused said existence, or whether their existence was a consequence of some other problem entirely, seems unclear. I could imagine a scenario in which, with nothing maintaining the records of Akasha for the new universe, everything slowly degenerates.

Looks like A's going to win in a landslide, though, so I hope you're right.
 

Baltika9

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It was mentioned.
Nothing bad about B. All three choices are great choices actually, with their own pros.

The Ghostpocalypse is a problem inherent with the current Observer, that much is already made clear. Also, as per the information in the library, the world at large does not appear to know of any impending apocalypse.
So, yeah, Senya will solve the problem with A. Pity Kyrie won't make it, though, since I see absolutely no way he'll be able to face down Ean, Shulgi, Sekblade and the Masters. Plus, all the assembled Immortals (I can only hope they'll come to our aid, but I doubt it. Ean grows on people).
 

treave

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I suggest checking out the update titled Backstory, specifically the part where Senya talks to himself. I think in light of current events some of you might find it interesting.
 
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Baltika9

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This bit?
At the age of eleven, you convinced the girl to help you sneak into the restricted archives. You had exhausted most of the information available to you, and you were now curious about the experiments that they had performed on the both of you. She agreed, reluctantly. You found what you were looking for, but you were caught. The angry cultists would have beaten you to death, even going against their Messiah’s cries. They were convinced that you were becoming a corrupting influence on her. You would have died then and there, had you not used your power. On the boundary between life and death, you felt the cold of nothingness. All of a sudden, you understood. Your eyes glinted a pale blue as you grasped the structure of the world in your hands; you knew that everything could be reduced to numbers and information, and then, at the end of it all, your assailants were dead, fallen by your hand.

You did not escape punishment for this. Demon child, they called you. A dark one that had crawled out of the portal, sneaking into the world under the light of God to possess a body. They tried to seize you. You tried to fight back. They died. In the throes of their deaths, as they breathed their last in terror of you, as you yourself lay broken and bleeding from their attack, you realized the truth. This world was too cruel and senseless for it to be real. You remembered the thing at the center of universes. You recalled the documents that you read, and came to a conclusion of your own.
Sure, Senya fails to die every single time. He's one tough motherfucker. But these odds, man. And he may have met his match in Ean. This
Ean points his sword at me without a word.
means that shit is about to go really down.

Can't wait. :bounce:
 

treave

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No, where they talk about the Observer, further down. I figured that it would be rather relevant.
 

Baltika9

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"How can you still think that fear and suffering is the best way to save humanity?" I finally ask.

"The suffering is necessary to induce fear. Fear itself is contagious," I reply. "Once it begins spreading from one person to another, it is simple to sway the minds of the masses."

"I will find another way." I say.

"Hm. Your third way. The path of freedom. It will be a hard path to take. Interestingly, the fate of one person is easy to change. The Akashic records that bind our destiny can be rewritten for one man, as long as it does not create too much of an effect on the fates of others. The fate of humanity as a collective, however, is impossible to rewrite... not within the confines of the system as it is. That is why I sought to reduce every being into pure information, and seek the true reality where that information can be reproduced."

"It would be like recreating a digital design stored in a computer in a physical form."

"Exactly. To reach the true reality I would have to supplant the observer. I cannot see where it is from here. I require God’s throne, so to speak. The nature of our existence is free from such concepts like predestination. We make our own fate. This makes us the only thing that can replace the observer.”

“It is a megalomaniacal goal. Becoming God?”

“There is no other way to achieve this. The observer must be replaced. Do you recall the white creature you saw, back in that pocket dimension?”

“What of it?”

“The observer… God… is imperfect. When something reaches the end of its life – when it dies – information is lost. The greater the sentience, the greater the loss. You could call it a soul, if you believe in that sort of thing. However, the information is lost but not destroyed. The observer simply fails to observe it any more. It becomes a ‘ghost’. That ghost has the ability to transmit its unobserved state to other things, essentially changing them into ghosts just like it. Think of these as corrupted data that infect whatever they teach. The destruction of possibilities, every time we fall into mortal peril and fail to escape, creates even more of these ghosts. With every second the multiverse spirals further into destruction. We have long since passed the point of no return.”

“What if I slay the observer?”

“I am not sure whether the multiverse will continue to exist without an observer. It could be that you will be forced into the role. It could be that we do not need an observer to exist. No one knows.”

“You have no guarantee that you will find what you are looking for either, or that it is even there.”

“True, there is no certainty. Then again, I am mad. You are not supposed to be.”

“Perhaps I am too. Anyway, I think this is getting too deep for me. I came here to seek power enough to defeat a galactic Emperor, and end up going away with a head full of cosmic mumbo-jumbo. I’ll have a hard time digesting everything.”

“Well, if it’s any consolation you won’t have to deal with the really serious stuff until later. Focus on what is ahead of you. It’s all up to you now.”
Well, senya did say he's confident in Creation surviving without an Observer, the only real danger is the approaching apocalypse. Which is iffy by itself.
 

treave

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It helps to think of reality as a set of rules. Moon goes around the Earth, stars burn out and die, apples fall downwards, so on and so forth. The rule that unobserved data does not exist, or that such data can be corrupted and become white whales, is an idea particular to this reality, thanks to the IAE system and its flaws. Just like how in another reality the rule may be that as long as you chant a specific sequence of words you can draw upon the fabric of magic and shape it into a spell.
 

treave

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The Continuing World

The sky above Ankida was a clear blue today. The green haze that once choked the air had been lifted thanks to extensive terraforming work. Kyrie pulled her eyes away from the window, absent-mindedly stirring the hot cocoa in her cup.

“Mistress?” spoke a voice in her ear.

“Yes, Yua?”

“The appointment with the President of the Star League has been postponed until further notice. She apologizes for the delay and hopes that it will not be too long.”

“It must be the troubles with the Kalman system. Send her a message thanking her for her support with the dialogues, and that the Federation will always be willing to lend a helping hand.”

“Alright, Mistress.”

In the aftermath of the Galactic Core Invasion, the strongest political entities of the galaxy – the Star League and the Mushuszu Empire – had been left bereft of leadership. The power vacuum at the top, where all-powerful immortals once held sway, had been filled with self-important representatives from a thousand squabbling worlds. Three years on, things had gotten better. Slightly better, in that the threat of yet another galactic war had lessened, with words used in lieu of weapons, but any pipe-dream of a united humanity was still a long, long time away. Kyrie sighed. The bell over the café door tinkled. Raising her head, Kyrie saw who it was. She gave the newcomer a grin, waving her hand.

The woman walked over and sat down opposite her cooly, brushing her silver hair back. She had started to grow it out again.

“Kyrie.” Her greeting was short, but warm. Kyrie smiled. “How have things been, Erika?”

“There is a lot going on in the League systems.” Erika replied. “The attempted coup in Kalman is probably not the last we’ll hear of the ex-immortals.”

The ex-immortals: those who had lost their powers and immortality. Some of them had willingly cooperated with the mortals they once ruled, but there were others whose ambition and ego would not allow them to submit. Even in their mundane state, they still possessed enough wiles and experience to become a major headache for the League. The Dunamis clan had found their calling as consultants; though their abilities were not what they once were, they had the mindset and training to succeed in hunting down rogue ex-immortals.

“Is the new body working fine?” Kyrie asked.

Erika looked down at her hands and nodded. “Yes. It feels entirely natural,” she said, and left it at that. Even now, Erika was not one for much small talk. Research into cloned bodies had advanced rapidly in the past few years, allowing for Erika to transfer herself into a normal body instead of the cyborg shell that she had been in. The waitress came over, asking for Erika’s order.

“Water.”

That was what she usually ordered, Kyrie remembered. “So, Kyrie,” began Erika, slightly awkwardly. “How about you? Between the diplomatic missions and the recovery project, it can’t be easy.”

“Oh, I manage. Yua is a great assistant. Besides, they don’t need me to be around the recovery facility as much anymore.” That was where the victims of the Gray Death that Senya had unleashed were slowly recovered and downloaded into bodies. It was a slow process. In three years, they had only recovered ten thousand people. The procedure was traumatic to those who emerged from it; their last memories would be that of being melted away, and upon recovery they invariably found it hard to cope with the trauma. Kyrie had been on hand to counsel and guide them, as the first one to be recovered. As more and more victims recuperated, they in turn took on the task of helping with the therapy.

“It must have been nice to have been the first,” Erika said innocuously. A hint of a blush appeared on Kyrie’s cheeks. “It was only logical. I was the only one to have regained my individuality. There was definitely no bias or anything like that on his part,” she retorted, a bit defensively.

“Well, I did wonder why I wasn’t ahead of you on the list for a clone body, even though I was ready and waiting,” said Erika. Kyrie paused, and realized that there was a slight smile on Erika’s lips. She was being teased. “Oh, you win, Erika. Anyway, that’s the way he set it up. Don’t complain to me,” Kyrie chuckled. The waitress came over with Erika’s order: a glass of clear, iced water.

“By the way,” asked Erika, “How is the Tree doing? I haven’t visited her in a while.”

“Selkhet’s growing fine,” said Kyrie. “The regimen that Sekhenun had prescribed seems to strike a perfect balance for her nutritional needs. The terraforming on the moon is also proceeding at a rapid rate; soon the Tree will blossom, and she will have a new home.” And then, the first of the new Gieloth would come into this world. Kyrie didn’t know what to make of that, but she supposed it would be a little too selfish to insist that the world was only for those who looked like humans. After all, she had spent some time being bodiless herself.

“I’m sorry to interrupt, Mistress, but your father just put in a reminder that you have a meeting with the General Secretary of Old Earth later tonight,” Yua chimed in. “I think you were supposed to wear blue, but white looks better on you.”

“Really? Do I have any white dresses in Ankida?”

“There’s two. The one you bought last year, and the other one you wore for the ceremony.”

“Ah, that one. No, not that one, of course. Let the house know that I’ll be wearing the one I bought last year.”

“Okay, Mistress.”

Erika raised an eyebrow. “It’s about the function tonight? The one Qin is hosting?” Kyrie nodded, taking a sip of cocoa. “It is. You’ll be there too, right?” Erika took a drink from her glass. “Yes. Erec is busy in former Imperial space. I’m picking up his share of work.” Kyrie looked out at the window, squinting up at the sun. On the far side lay Old Earth, mirror to her world. He had called it the original Earth. There, seven billion humans had popped back into existence in a universe that they were entirely unfamiliar with. That had posed another problem for the Federation – how would they integrate Old Earth into their current structure? The original Earth was still divided into separate nations, each with their politics and beliefs. The Federation had been that way too just eight years ago, but even so, they had never been as fragmented as Old Earth. Kyrie’s father, President Iannes, had been spending most of his time lately negotiating a representative, united government of Old Earth. It helped that the Federation’s technology was far superior to what Old Earth had.

Kyrie closed her eyes, taking a deep breath. Tonight’s function would be crucial for the future of the Federation and Old Earth.

Step by step, they would work towards a better future. Even if they stumbled they would pick themselves back up again. That was their responsibility.

The ones that came before would lay down the path for the ones to come.

That is how the world would continue on.

The café bell tinkled again. Kyrie looked up, and smiled.



—FIN—
 
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treave

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Another Epilogue

In the very center of the multiverse, in the dark and winding halls of the palace of nightmares, Ean put his foot down, squishing the gelatinous scrap of flesh that was all that remained of the ancient horror. Sekhenun made a frown of distaste as she watched Ean do so from the sidelines. “Stop playing around.”

“I’m done over here,” sighed Shulgi, incinerating his opponent’s remains. Adrahasis and Adrasteia dropped down from one of the many tunnels that connected the halls of the palace. “The incursion is clear on that end,” Adrahasis reported.

“Over here too,” said Sheldon. “It looks like this wave is over.”

You think this is over? The voice hissed, both male and female and everything in between. The Dreamer will awaken. We will be free. Then, we will feast upon you, body and soul. The stars shall be ours again. This prison shall not hold us forever!

“Keep talking, mate,” grinned Rory. The dog barked in approval. “When’s the next incursion expected, Mikey?”

“Let’s see… four thousand years from now in real-time, until they can build up sufficient strength to even make another try. Give or take a couple hundred.” Mikey replied, fiddling with his hardware.

“I’ll see you then,” said Ean. “Until that time, your Dreamer can continue dreaming its dream of the multiverse. We will be here when you decide to try waking it again. It’s not like we have anywhere else to go.”

The voice fell silent. If voices could glare, it would be glaring at them.

“Well, so what should we be doing for the next four thousand years?” asked Stella. “Cards again?”

“Hey, don’t diss cards,” said Mikey. “I’ve managed to come up with a new variation on the old poker…”

The group of unlikely comrades began walking off. Ean stopped in his tracks and turned back, looking at the dark, formless chaos that was the voice. “Hey,” he asked. “I’m just curious. Do you play cards?”

The voice did not reply for some time. Then, it said, Well…
 
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treave

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Phew. So. We're finally done, after 14 months. My thanks to every single one of you who participated, you have all been a remarkable, astounding audience for this project. Thank you for all your support. People usually like to throw around the word 'none of this would have been possible without you' in false humility, but in this case, it is real. None of this would have been possible without your participation.

Every word and sentence in your comments made me think. Not always good thoughts, I admit, but it did make me think, and hopefully improve myself. And even if you didn't comment, by your votes you have shaped the story, and so this LP is as much your project as it is mine. I hope you've all enjoyed this long adventure, and I'll now take the opportunity to turn this post into a voting choice for the next project. Why waste posts?

***

A. Wuxia CYOA. Stats-based, open-world element, with reputation tracker. Expect all the classic wuxia cliches to be involved, for those of you familiar with the genre.

B. Lovecraftian 'generations' CYOA, where you play a descendant from a particular family in each generation, involved in a secret occult war. More narrative-based, less stats tracking.

The votes will run till the end of the week, or thereabouts.
 

Baltika9

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The group of unlikely comrades began walking off. Ean stopped in his tracks and turned back, looking at the dark, formless chaos that was the voice. “Hey,” he asked. “I’m just curious. Do you play cards?”

The voice did not reply for some time. Then, it said, Well…
:lol:Oh, Ean, don't ever change.:lol:
Always making friends in the unlikeliest of places.

...sigh, I'll miss him. :(
Still, no final battle of Senya VS EVERYONE?
:rpgcodex:
 

Azira

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Codex 2012
:salute:

Very much enjoyable. My vote is for the slanty-eyes thingie. Nya. A

:troll:

Oh, and it seems Senya's choice won through, and those Senya smacked down are now a crack force of Dio-fragment bashers? :lol:
I kind of wonder if Senya let himself die after that? No direct mention of him in your epilogues.
 

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