[LP CYOA] Epic

[Esquilax]

I don't think one could incorporate China successfully into the game. FFS, ships could barely even reach it even in Dio's time.

Now that was one thing that irked me. There was sea trade between the ancient Mediterranean and China, so there should have been no reason for the Shin'ari Empire of Ean's time to have so little contact with Concordiat.

In 1,800 B.C.? Really? Not that I disbelieve you, but where is a source for this?

 

[Storyfag]

I don't think one could incorporate China successfully into the game. FFS, ships could barely even reach it even in Dio's time.

Now that was one thing that irked me. There was sea trade between the ancient Mediterranean and China, so there should have been no reason for the Shin'ari Empire of Ean's time to have so little contact with Concordiat.

In 1,800 B.C.? Really? Not that I disbelieve you, but where is a source for this?

I actually meant classical antiquity. But, given how the world was progressing at a much higher pace due to Immortal/Gieloth meddling, and how American Gieloth crossed the fucking Pacific Ocean, I was fully expecting a comparable trade route to appear shortly.

 

[Esquilax]

I actually meant classical antiquity. But, given how the world was progressing at a much higher pace due to Immortal/Gieloth meddling, and how American Gieloth crossed the fucking Pacific Ocean, I was fully expecting a comparable trade route to appear shortly.

Actually, this part is very understandable; Gieloth and immortals are superpowered, so they'd have no problems crossing oceans or mountain ranges with relative ease. Also, while the tech was more advanced, it wasn't exactly a ton more advanced either. Going from the Middle East to China with Bronze Age tech is just about the most nightmarish logistical hurdle I can imagine.

Remember that after Ean defeated Sekhenun he had the opportunity to cross the oceans himself into America.

 

[Storyfag]

I actually meant classical antiquity. But, given how the world was progressing at a much higher pace due to Immortal/Gieloth meddling, and how American Gieloth crossed the fucking Pacific Ocean, I was fully expecting a comparable trade route to appear shortly.

Actually, this part is very understandable; Gieloth and immortals are superpowered, so they'd have no problems crossing oceans or mountain ranges with relative ease. Also, while the tech was more advanced, it wasn't exactly a ton more advanced either. Going from the Middle East to China with Bronze Age tech is just about the most nightmarish logistical hurdle I can imagine.

Remember that after Ean defeated Sekhenun he had the opportunity to cross the oceans himself into America.

We had much more than Bronze Age tech. As a matter of fact, we had steel. Courtesy of Shulgi's Skane.

 

[treave]

We had much more than Bronze Age tech. As a matter of fact, we had steel. Courtesy of Shulgi's Skane.

You were also offered the chance to develop better boats but turned it down. Oh well.

Furthermore, with the union of Europe under a single empire, there was never the pressure to develop a risky sea route to China and India when they could just conduct all their trade by land, if indeed they desired trade. Remember, the Shinar Empire borders the Indus and Concordiat and isn't as fragmented as historical Europe. This is very much unlike the circumstances that encouraged Portugal and Spain to go on their exploratory voyages in search of alternatives to the land route. There was just never any pressing need for Hispania in this setting to do so.

 

[treave]

treave, some questions I just thought about:

1) Did you have any idea on how Edem would develop if he lived on?

Not really. He'll always be a carefree scoundrel.

2) What would've happened if both Shulgi and Ean survived the end of Chapter 8 and got rid of both Dio and the Naram-Master (I think that could've happened if Ean revealed his presence early on)? We had only Shulgi survive when the big fight in Olympus settled, and he pretty much took over the world in the shadows, like a one-man illuminati. (I kinda feel like Shulgi then hunted and killed all the remaining sucessors and gieloth) Would Shulgi co-op Ean into his scheme or would they instead combine forces to get the Concordat on with the "fuck the masters" program? "Hey guys, we just stopped the end of the world, its okay, you can stop now. Also, Sekh here just found a way to travel between worlds without the tree. Say, you guys want to dance over the dead bodies of the masters' together?"

They'd have to deal with the Concordiat, yes.

3) Was there any "Pantheon" ending where all Senya raises the Broteam to Godhood in his own pantheon of Gods?

You would need a Senya that desires gods and is benevolent. Not sure how that character would come about given the strong anti-authoritarian bent he had.

4) What was up with the Concordat, BTW? I know its essentially Gieloth-gone-native China, but from what I remember, the Concordat was built from a truce between immortals and gieloth made by the yellow emperor (a chinese emperor or one of the immortals/gieloths?). Why the truce happened? What happened to the immortals in China?

Truce because they were rather reasonable people in the end, immortals joined the making of the Tree which is the reason why it can be controlled instead of just draining everything and taking off.

5) What would've happened had Sekhenun finished her research on portals? (after, I presume, Ean curbstomping Naram)

The Gieloth leave the Earth.

6) Where the Vajra fragments on Earth came from?

SPAAAAAAAAAACE!

 

[Baltika9]

How did the Gieloth get their powers if they're completely incompatible with nanites?

 

[Baltika9]

What king of king was Shulgi back in Mesopotamia, after Ean's fall? From all that was inferred, I imagine something like this:

 

[treave]

Biotech + ancient knowledge.

Shulgi was a stern king with harsh laws.

 

[Cassidy]

How did the Gieloth get their powers if they're completely incompatible with nanites?

treave, you should have made the nature of all supernatural/incredible powers in this an otherwordly, Laws of Physics as we know it-bending mystery. In any case, congratulations for not being a Stereotypical Villain in the Playground.

It was nice, even if I lost interest to continue reading and checking it after the first update that looked like:

 

[treave]

Probably would have been more interesting, but I'd always intended the setting to be more sci-fi than fantasy, so I guess that's how it ended up.

The actually began trickling in around chapter three, and I steadily ramped it up until it was fullblown

 

[TOME]

How would Ean have developed if we had fuck it in the beginning and gone to wilderness?

In your opinion, was fuck it option (or Senya's 'hide and develop tech') ever a good choice?

 

[treave]

A bit hard to say, since it's not like I have a gigantic flowchart covering my wall of every single choice that could possibly be made.

You would have gone on adventures, perhaps met interesting people, bumped into Naram earlier... things could be wildly different, or they might not, because in the end I can't foretell what choices you guys will make.

Well, the fuck it option is a neutral choice at best. It provides opportunity to do something else if you think continuing to meddle in that particular quest might have bad results. Of course, the freedom to fuck it grows less and less as the character develops a personality that has constantly refused to fuck it.

 

[lightbane]

I was meant to post this before, but I felt lazy was busy with other stuff. A good read indeed. It goes a bit too GRIMDARK at certain points, but in the end we got a happy ending for (nearly) everyone. Epic also shows what treave would eventually recycle/ share certain themes and characters with his other works: the main character falls from grace right after the prologue, the first important female is an annoying cunt tsundere of variable importance and skills, making fun of common cliches in the genre (but without going overboard with it), seemingly minor choices having unexpected and dramatic consequences, etc.

Also, I'm sure the "Death Sight" of the 2nd book was inspired by that Tsukihime visual novel or whatever it was called, in which the protagonist could also "kill" everything except a few specific concepts.

In any case, I started reading Legend. So far it seems to be a fun read as this one.

 

[Nevill]

In any case, I started reading Legend. So far it seems to be a fun read as this one.

When you reach Shaolin Gauntlet IV towards the end of the LP, do take a moment to read the discussion. It is worth its weight size in gold, and branches off to an ending that a few of us consider canonical.

It also helps to understand why you might want to avoid reading anything but the updates and a few chosen omakes.

 

[TOME]

+1 swords -discussions are a vital part of that CYOA so you should read them too.

 

[lightbane]

In any case, I started reading Legend. So far it seems to be a fun read as this one.

When you reach Shaolin Gauntlet IV towards the end of the LP, do take a moment to read the discussion. It is worth its weight size in gold, and branches off to an ending that a few of us consider canonical.

It also helps to understand why you might want to avoid reading anything but the updates and a few chosen omakes.

Is the discussion as bad as the horrible insanity that was spawned after the "grey goo apocalypse" update in Epic? Fortunately I don't remember the details, but I vaguely recall that several Codexers were voting for going LolCHAOS full evil retard and, in addition, their arguments were insane enough to actually consider them being deranged people.

Fortunately, treave noticed he overdid it with that scenario, because the incoming updates explained that nope, the situation wasn't that bad and most of the important people survived.

 

[Nevill]

Is the discussion as bad as the horrible insanity that was spawned after the "grey goo apocalypse" update in Epic?

No, that's normal Codexian discussion.

The Legend goes far, FAR above normal. I am both sad and grateful that those days are behind us.

I vaguely recall that several Codexers were voting for going LolCHAOS full evil retard

How dare you call Muad'Dib Senya an evil retard!! It was my favorite character concept!

To scar the Universe so thoroughly that God himself would pull the plug and undo the one thing you wanted undone, ultimately proving you right - that would be a beautiful twist. Of couse, Senya would be completely gone - but in the end, such an outcome might have been better for the world. Or it might not. Codex would not have the heart to commit enough atrocities for stack overflow, not with Kyrie acting as our conscience and trying to stop up from this madness spiral. We are big softies, after all.

Fortunately, treave noticed he overdid it with that scenario, because the incoming updates explained that nope, the situation wasn't that bad and most of the important people survived.

Well, when you write 5'000'000'000 people off as unimportant, you really have to ask yourself who the important people are.

The Masters (and their Earth, for that matter) got off very lightly. I almost feel sorry for Ean&Shulgi&Sekhie for making them share the same fate as these assholes losers.

 

[lightbane]

Well, when you write 5'000'000'000 people off as unimportant, you really have to ask yourself who the important people are.

The Masters (and their Earth, for that matter) got off very lightly. I almost feel sorry for Ean&Shulgi&Sekhie for making them share the same fate as these assholes losers.

Well, all of the named characters, of course. Also, they weren't really dead but instead turned into data somehow and the process was reversible, so as I said it turns out that was okay at the end. Too bad poor Senya couldn't catch a break. Even in death, her tsundere not-girlfriend didn't leave him alone.

Lastly, that really wasn't the Masters' fault but Senya's Xenogears cameo Evil Id. Speaking of which, I was surprised that after unlocking his memories, the evil self simply... Disappeared. It never tried to take over his body again or anything like that.

 

[Nevill]

Also, they weren't really dead but instead turned into data somehow and the process was reversible, so as I said it turns out that was okay at the end.

They have managed to restore about 10'000 in 3 years. Out of 5 billions, and even those needed to be placed in therapy. That's not counting that weaker individuals were melted completely without preserving their psyche.

In 50 years, the ones who knew those people and/or cared about their restoration would be gone. And those recovered would still be missing their family members and loved ones that were not.

Yeah, no, it would be faster and more humane to repopulate the world via an old and tried method than to mend the cup that was so irreversibly broken. For all intents and purposes, the humanity of Earth-2 was nearly wiped out.

As for who is responsible for that mess, that's really hard to quantify. Obviously, it was evil!Senya, but that's not saying much. It was Senya's fault for getting stuck in VR, it was Shulgi's fault for coming up with an experiment with such a huge failure state and missing vital clues before committing to one of his plots, it was the cultists' fault for creating evil!Senya to begin with, and the finger-pointing can go forever. But ultimately the Masters were the ones who engineered the situation, and evil!Senya was acting out of fear before the inevitable exterminatus of 'data' that would follow the current iteration.

Speaking of which, I was surprised that after unlocking his memories, the evil self simply... Disappeared. It never tried to take over his body again or anything like that.

What would be the point? By then, they had the same goal, and he had proven the, ah, efficiency of his method. Senya had promised him(self) to achieve what he aimed for, even though a way he chose was different.

 

[lightbane]

They have managed to restore about 10'000 in 3 years. Out of 5 billions, and even those needed to be placed in therapy. That's not counting that weaker individuals were melted completely without preserving their psyche.
In 50 years, the ones who knew those people and/or cared about their restoration would be gone. And those recovered would still be missing their family members and loved ones that were not.
Yeah, no, it would be faster and more humane to repopulate the world via an old and tried method than to mend the cup that was so irreversibly broken. For all intents and purposes, the humanity of Earth-2 was nearly wiped out.

Well, considering the high level of tech allowed mind-uploads, clonation and cybernetics, the average lifespan should be way longer than what we have now, if not effective "quasi-immortality". For the therapy thing, being able to edit/modify their memories would also speed greatly the process. Lastly, to fill the gaps Earth-2 could adopt people from the original Earth or the other space civilizations. Failing that, a careful eugenic program with mass-cloning, genetic manipulation and artificial wombs would help to solve this problem as well, for not to mention at the same time the average genetic quality of mankind's DNA would receive a much necessary improvement. And that's not taking into account Senya, who assuming he did return at the end, possesses his "anime genius" to solve any problem given enough time.

In any case, all of this is beyond the purposes of the original story.

As for who is responsible for that mess, that's really hard to quantify. Obviously, it was evil!Senya, but that's not saying much. It was Senya's fault for getting stuck in VR, it was Shulgi's fault for coming up with an experiment with such a huge failure state and missing vital clues before committing to one of his plots, it was the cultist faults for creating evil!Senya to begin with, and the finger-pointing can go forever. But ultimately the Masters were the ones who engineered the situation, and evil!Senya was acting out of fear for the inevitable exterminatus of 'data' that would follow the current iteration.

Well, it is true that everyone is guilty of something, but the cultists are the most guilty ones, if only because they were directly responsible for the creation of Id-Senya, thanks to their absolutely evil nature with no redeeming qualities which ensured the boy was subjected to constant trauma and abuse. Should he have been raised in a more humane environment, most likely he wouldn't have had such extreme reactions and deranged mindset.

Also, I thought he wanted to destroy the reality he was inhabiting because he believed it was a false one. He was correct with that, but he admitted he wasn't sure if his plan would really work or that what he would accomplish was a spectacular, disastrous backfire.

Either way, what's done is done. Good CYOA overall. I would have preferred that the "perfect world" ending won, but it would have been a bit OOC for the main character.

 

[Kayerts]

Is the discussion as bad as the horrible insanity that was spawned after the "grey goo apocalypse" update in Epic? Fortunately I don't remember the details, but I vaguely recall that several Codexers were voting for going LolCHAOS full evil retard and, in addition, their arguments were insane enough to actually consider them being deranged people.

Codexian voting favors snarking heroes whose main goal is to level up into becoming King of Big Dick Mountain and whose secondary goal involves a Pokemon-inspired approach toward boneable characters. This is generally a fun way to make a story, but it's not the only way.

Personally, I think an already-unstable character with multiple psychotic episodes in his past, who just found out that a decision he didn't realize he'd made ended up killing five billion people--including his first and only love--would probably open his mind to the whispers of nihilism. Sometimes it's more realistic that characters break. Would Oedipus Rex be a better story if Oedipus had reacted to the big reveal by manning up, climbing over his mother-lover's corpse, and deciding to conquer Sparta? Maybe, but I think tearing out his eyes made a more effective story. Similarly, I liked the aesthetic of Senya trying to tear out the eye of the universe; that would have been one hell of a villainous origin story.

I'm inclined to think that when trying to figure out how an already-damaged person would react to causing a tragedy a hundred times greater than any disaster in real history, pragmatic options aren't the only ones on the table. If you prefer the story of a guy who was mostly unchanged from that event, cool; it turned out that treave could make a good story out of that, too.

 

[Nevill]

Codexian voting favors snarking heroes whose main goal is to level up into becoming King of Big Dick Mountain and whose secondary goal involves a Pokemon-inspired approach toward boneable characters. This is generally a fun way to make a story, but it's not the only way.

Surprisingly, EPIC was somewhat free of this approach, though it has sown the seeds that sprouted in Legend.

Which remains the most fun and successful of our LPs to date, so it is understandable when people don't want to get off this ride.

Personally, I think an already-unstable character with multiple psychotic episodes in his past, who just found out that a decision he didn't realize he'd made ended up killing five billion people--including his first and only love--would probably open his mind to the whispers of nihilism.

That may have been not nihilism, but a straight up denial. NOTHING OF IT CAN BE REAL, and he has just the way to prove it, by tearing the reality apart until it shows its ugly sceleton.

Funnily enough, had he succeeded, it would have ended with Senya sacrificing everything and himself to 'fix' the problem (IIRC, the Observer would have found it easier to redo a world where Senya never existed than to maintain the monstrosity we would unleash). A very Codexian outcome, since most of our characters have a tendency towards martyrdom to some extent.

This hero had great potential, and I am not even sure I could describe him (or even evil!Senya) as 'evil'. Mad, surely. Evil? I am a bit hesitant. The stakes are just too incomprehensibly high for the events to be measured on a good/evil scale.

If you prefer the story of a guy who was mostly unchanged from that event, cool; it turned out that treave could make a good story out of that, too.

Oh, no, he changed. He changed to the point where evil!Senya could trust him with the continuation of his work.

The whole NO GODS, NO MASTERS thing wouldn't have existed without this catastrophe.

 

[lightbane]

Personally, I think an already-unstable character with multiple psychotic episodes in his past, who just found out that a decision he didn't realize he'd made ended up killing five billion people--including his first and only love--would probably open his mind to the whispers of nihilism. Sometimes it's more realistic that characters break. Would Oedipus Rex be a better story if Oedipus had reacted to the big reveal by manning up, climbing over his mother-lover's corpse, and deciding to conquer Sparta? Maybe, but I think tearing out his eyes made a more effective story. Similarly, I liked the aesthetic of Senya trying to tear out the eye of the universe; that would have been one hell of a villainous origin story.

I'm inclined to think that when trying to figure out how an already-damaged person would react to causing a tragedy a hundred times greater than any disaster in real history, pragmatic options aren't the only ones on the table. If you prefer the story of a guy who was mostly unchanged from that event, cool; it turned out that treave could make a good story out of that, too.

You're completely right. There's nothing wrong with these kind of stories in which the MC gives up on the world and such things (for example, the Klaus and Lucas trilogy is a really depressing tale). But it is a completely different matter for videogames, tabletop rpgs and interactive stories. Here people expect to be "rewarded" for their efforts and time spent playing the game since they're active participants instead of passive ones, so "rock falls, everyone dies" endings are terrible, because the players very likely will interpret this as if they had been cheated and wasted their time (which is a perfectly valid complaint). Hence why many people (including myself) would have felt all of the previous ingame accomplishments would have been for naught if the MC went lol-chaos and destroyed everything.

Funnily enough, had he succeeded, it would have ended with Senya sacrificing everything and himself to 'fix' the problem (IIRC, the Observer would have found it easier to redo a world where Senya never existed than to maintain the monstrosity we would unleash). A very Codexian outcome, since most of our characters have a tendency towards martyrdom to some extent.

This hero had great potential, and I am not even sure I could describe him (or even evil!Senya) as 'evil'. Mad, surely. Evil? I am a bit hesitant. The stakes are just too incomprehensibly high for the events to be measured on a good/evil scale.

You do not consider galactic genocide-scale evil? Even if the reality in which people inhabited was technically artificial, the people living there were quite much alive. Turning everyone into goo in a process which can permanently destroying their psyches is quite bad, doubly so when IdSenya admitted he didn't know if his plan would work at all. For what he knew, at best he crashes the Observer and destroys everything including himself. Then the Masters wonder what the hell happened and simply reboot the whole thing. At worst, he's intercepted before he's done and is placed in a pocket reality in which he's doomed to suffer for all eternity, and he cannot even scream.

In any case, the game did end with a more positive note. In other news, I finally finished reading Legend. Now I understand why it is so considered so good. I'll post my thoughts about it later.

 

[Nevill]

You do not consider galactic genocide-scale evil?

Maybe? It is absolutely evil within the confines of the Universe... which he would set out to prove false, invalidating any judgemental statements about it. I mean, the Masters did this routinely by creating and collapsing the Universe time and time again to get an extra Voice out of it. Are they 'worse than Hitler'?

If it resulted in Senya creating a liar paradox that could only be solved with taking him out of existence and making it so that he never was... then would there be a galactic genocide to speak of?

It would not be a happy ending for Senya, but the Earth-Secondary would not drag out its miserable existence like in the ending we've got. Well, then of course it would be wiped out when the next cycle changes unless something was done about the Masters, first...

It is all kind of iffy. People in Senya's universe weren't real right until they were made so by basically an act of God.

In other news, I finally finished reading Legend.

But did you read the DISCUSS!?