earanhart

There is some evidence (as early as the Ruined School, actually) that many of the powers of Sucia expected to return. It's possible some of them expected to return as fast as a year or two. "Just gotta go explain this whole thing to the Council. Once they see what we are looking at, they'll not just let us but ORDER us to come back and continue our work." That kind of thinking. And I assume whoever reported the Geneforge and the other illegal Sucia research to the Council expected that after an investigation they'd go and burn everything to the ground. For the people wanting to continue, it makes sense to leave the Serviles so it won't take as long to get back up and running when you come back. For the ones wanting or even just expecting the Council to delete the island itself, it didn't matter if any Creations were left behind because after the investigation is done they'll all be destroyed anyways. Even if they were brought back to Shaper lands, they'd most likely be destroyed for having been associated with the illegal knowledge. The failing here is on the Council for not having gone to destroy everything on Sucia the decade after they Banned it. But once that decade passes, a Council seat or two change over, people stop wondering why a location is Banned. They assume some Shaper experiment went horribly wrong and it's simply not safe. Maybe someone accidentally shaped a pyromosquito there, or something. It's not worth asking "why is this place Banned?" unless and until someone has a use for the land. And by all accounts Sucia doesn't look like a very valuable island. Nowhere to put a big port, not in a militarily useful location, no reason to want it unless you wanted isolation. But even then it's not far ENOUGH away to let you have the sense of escape from Council oversight. A shipwreck, someone intentionally going there to violate the Ban, or the Sholai are really the only ways someone ends up there, so what does it matter? And after 2 decades, even if one of the original Council members pushes to send a force to kill everything, the new ones will ask "but why? Anything left there has already gone Rogue and killed or destroyed anything of value. What Rogues don't tear up, weather will."

That's one of the things in all SpidWeb games with a reputation system that I really appreciate. The rep points are so generous that even first time through I don't feel forced to take EVERY decision going either way. I can mix and match as I want. Because how many Awakened Shapers will tell her her entire life (and that of her predecessors) have been devoted to completely useless and worthless activities? Likewise, even the most even-tempered of good people are gonna be tempted to squash the GIFTS eggs, because GIFTS . . .

Huh. I remember way back when trying a "kill everyone" run and I guess I just didn't realize it was different from the Zachary ending other than skipping his trial. I thought he was effectively "not a faction" as far as endings went. Edit: or, rather, that his "faction" and the Shaper Council were the same faction and the one you defaulted into by virtue of being an apprentice in their system.

It would have until Infestation added the Unaligned path which by not having an official name in-world kind of means that for this game at least "factionless" is supportive of the Shaper Council. Although in metaconversations we specifically call that the Unaligned path already, and I doubt any new player would be confused by the term, excepting possibly the singular interaction there and that will be rare. I like "factionless"

But there is a distinct difference between a canister/geneforged Lifecrafter, a trained non-Shaper Lifecrafter, and a Rebel Shaper, regardless of what faction they belong to. All three terms comes with a set of meanings and preconceptions around them that have been given by the lore. If we talk about Lifecrafters, we specifically call forth the concept of people with the ability to Shape who were never trained by the Shapers. They were _never_ a part of that culture. Gretas status as a failed Shaper is important because it places her into a unique position between Lifecrafter and Shaper. Sure, by G4 she has gained most if not all of the abilities of a Shaper, but notice the difference in treatment towards her by both sides versus all the rebel Shapers, and again the difference between her and the Lifecrafters. To call her either a Lifecrafter or a Shaper feels wrong, because she is neither. There exists a fundamental difference about her (and presumably other failed Shapers who join the war on either side) that denies either term. Both sides would view the disloyal or neutral Shaper as an enemy and paint them with the same brush as their enemies (so either Shaper or Rebel), so such a term only exists for the sake of our discussion outside the world. But given that we need to acknowledge that a term we use will be seen by new players. If someone googles "Geneforge 2 Infestation Sharon" and sees us call her an "ex-Shaper", will that make any sense? What about Tuldaric? Or Litalia? The term creates confusion, and as such should not be used. "Rebel Shaper" would apply for Tuldaric and Litalia both, but would that apply to Sharon? And Barzahl could be argued either way, though most Barzites should be considered rebellious (assuming they were ever Shapers to begin with). But disloyal Shaper? Yeah, that makes sense. It technically includes all the Shapers who join the Rebel side, but it more specifically evokes the Sharons of this world. The ones who break Shaper Law but don't join the war, because if they joined the Rebels we'd call them Rebel Shapers and have no issue with the term. So yes, in order for me to understand what you mean, and you to understand what I mean, and a new player to understand what we mean, Ex-Shaper is a bad term.

Do we? Rebel Shaper. Disloyal Shaper. Taker Shaper. Trajkovite Shaper. All terms far more useful and less prone to misinterpretation than "ex-Shaper". I say "rebel Shaper" and you know what I mean, a Shaper acting for a rebellious group. I say "Taker Shaper" and you know exactly what I mean. I say "disloyal Shaper" and while some ambiguity remains it mostly evokes one who is attempting to stay neutral in the power struggles. "Ex-Shaper" implies somehow they've they've lost the defining characteristic of being a Shaper. Was the ability to Shape Shaped out of them? Did they forget years/decades of training to act superior to everyone around them? Is the Monarch an "ex-Shaper"? Or is he merely a "mad Shaper"? The terminology you propose directly conflicts with lore in several places and causes unneeded confusion, solely for the sake of saving a few keystrokes.

If anything bad happens to Emily (to include heavy alteration, amnesia, or Rawal) I will kill everyone on this forum and then myself!

It's been a while since I played GF4, but I don't remember being able to Control a Rogue into killing itself in that game. Sure, Lifecrafters make Creations, but it seems their Control is lacking compared to Shapers. Also, those are very specifically lesser Geneforges. More of a bundle of reusable canisters than a Geneforge. But also, by that time the Takers are no longer the sole powers of the Rebellion and they know WELL the limitations between a canister-junky, a Geneforged lifecrafter, and a Shaper. Only one of those has the knowledge to create a new danger to the Drakons. The other two you can either reproduce or limit their access to power.

I mean, we meet Alwan, a Guardian-in-training and Greta, a failed Agent apprentice, in GF3. And both of them go on to be as influential as at least 4 of the PCs. Heck, Alwan sits on the Council, that's about as high as a Shaper can go. Admittedly, Alwan has the personality of a Thahd when we meet him.

Phariton does the same after a fetch quest for the unaligned, and he doesn't need you to be modified. Proof that traditional methods are best? Possibly.

From the Takers viewpoint (not the Rebels, specifically the Takers) it's not a terminology thing. Even their traitor Shapers are still Shapers. People with the power to create and enslave Creations. This isn't semantics. The Takers hate the Shapers who join them. They're just useful and so tolerated. For now. They don't believe in "ex-Shapers". Neither does the Council. The only ones who MIGHT are the Sholai and the Trajkovites. The rest see rebel Shapers as exactly that: Shapers who are disloyal to the Shaper Council. They haven't STOPPED being Shapers.

I'm not certain Taygen was faced with that ultimatum. I'm convinced he BELIEVED he was. There's a difference, and history would brand him a villain beyond redemption or a heroic monster in hindsight. But no one would say what he did/tried to do was good. They might later believe it was necessary. Necessity is neither good nor evil. It just is. As for ex-Shapers, those really aren't a thing. They can't be a thing. A trained Shaper doesn't need Essence to Shape. We see even 0 canister PCs making small Creations in their cell in the Shaper Citadel, presumably one of the most secure places on the planet specifically designed to contain dangerous Shapers. Any Shaper (human or Drayk) left alive has the potential to become an army or a plague. And if you can't control them, they remain a risk. The question is only how much risk do you accept? How long has infernalism been illegal? How many summoned infernals do we see? So long as the knowledge exists, it will be used. Even Shaped trees are a problem, and I don't mean the Tallest Tree. I mean the wiry, twisted, fast growing weed trees of Drypeak. Will those choke out other trees once they escape Drypeak via a bird or a storm carrying a seed? It only took 2 generations for those to become as rampant as they are here, and they were a mistake made from before all this insanity began. From the Taker mindset, how much do you want to hope that The Last Shaper doesn't decide to go full Taygen or worse in desperation? Granted, should also be thinking that about every Drakon, but now we've come full circle back to the Council.

The Taker view on Sharon is almost certainly the same as the shaper view on the Drayk knight and his shrubberies. I forget her name, but the Takers are more likely to tolerate the Servant in the Upper Research Halls than Sharon: she doesn't keep Creation slaves around, to use Armena Blades words. But we also see their actions towards the Sholai, who aren't Shapers at all. And the Sholai had an actual alliance with the Sucia Takers. As for using the endings to justify or defend a group, none of the endings are fully canon. All of them favor the player characters group for the duration of the ending slides. We can see those as the intent of the groups leaders, but the Ashen Isles will still fall, even in an Awakened ending. Now, if the two groups could learn to work together, Geneforged flying Drakons might be enough to tip the scale for a century or two. And I suspect the Taker Drayks would be behind that idea. But the Awakened don't tell the Takers their endgame. They pretend to all as though they have no plan once the Shapers say "No, you're Rogues."

I would argue that revenge is always a morally bad act. It is simply doing to others what they did to you, and often worse. And the Takers seem to be more about revenge than justice. As for 'death-by-Shaper', I don't think that's any Takers goal. They think they have a chance with the Drakons (and the series shows they actually do). The ones on the front lines today are giving their lives for future victory. That's not suicide-by-Shaper. We've seen a few of those Creations in other games. What I meant was that in the Awakened dream where Shapers say "you know what, sure. We'll leave you alone here. Do your thing" the Takers would probably STILL be gunning for war. And not merely territorial expansion. That their philosophy leads to the belief that they need to be the ones who CLAIM their victory. They must TAKE Free, rather than be handed it. Granted, we'll never know because the Council is, well, the Council.

Even outside of conversation, she states she is from Medab. And she makes a point of telling you. "You might want to know, I am no Taker. I come from Awakened lands." Sure, she isn't saying she's a member, but she also makes a point of implying it. That seems to indicate her fear isn't that great. I read it as an open secret. She keeps her mouth shut about politics, and no one bothers her about it, but everyone knows.

That ain't cheating (unless you yourself think it is). That's advice for stealth from SpidWeb. Pull parts of encounters rather than the whole thing at once. Intended function. Given how many enemies pull nearby others, if Jeff wanted you to take all 4 at once, he would have made them call each other.

I would argue the Takers look better through that lens. From everything they've seen, it's very much a "one of us will not survive" situation. If they were to find the Sholai homeland, would their masses be happy to just go over there and not have to deal with Shapers. Their leaders, clearly not. But the "get out of my house" drayks? Maybe, maybe not. Their leaders burned that bridge before it could be built. And it's possible that the act of Taking your Free is too important to them and they need the war. Which would firmly put them into the no-excuse evil box alongside the Barzites. But as to the excuse of genocide? If it's truly you or me, your children or my children, morality doesn't play in. That's not even grey, it's not on the white/black spectrum. And I don't see any evidence of the Takers as a group thinking the outcome of the existence of independent Creations being anything other than the binary survival of one group or the other. And even their leaders aren't totally on the "kill all Awakened" board. There is that one Awakened merchant in Zhass-Uss. They could easily have been killed or even just refused access to food and shelter until they left a long time ago. Their existence is tolerated. Sure, probably someone is keeping an eye on them to make sure they don't try to send information home, but they don't appear to be mistreated. Merely mistrusted. As for the other sects viewed through the genocide lens, well . . . Barzites make no excuse for their atrocities. They simply don't care. The Loyalists see it as maintaining the old order and (at least nominally) protecting the Commons from a Shaper War when two factions have their powers. Which is at least defensible, but then there's all of the other stuff wrapped in their issues. And the Servants are trying to buy their way back into the Loyalist camp by killing off the other three.

This is why I say that the Awakened want to be the good guys but aren't. They're certainly the closest thing to it in these mountains, other than possibly Sharon who has the opposite problem (willful ignorance). But to a first time player, before deciding which team to support, they appear to be the only moral choice. This boosts their initial popularity, in addition to being the first group you encounter that aren't slavers. Edit: I will say for clarity sake that the Awakened are the only faction who aren't clearly the bad guys here. But whether or not they are good is easily debatable.

Let's spin your stance back into my earlier question then: Can a moderate make a claim to moral goodness when genocide is on the line? There's a reason that EVERY Dryak left the Awakened (if they ever joined them in the first place). Ellrahs dream never included any non-Servile Creations (as it is communicated to the player of the games). Even in the face of MULTIPLE full Shapers working with them (to inckide Zakary at that point), the Awakened failed to make even ONE of the reptilians sympathetic to their cause. They ain't the "good guys" to other Creations. Only to Serviles.

Here's a few things I noticed back in OG2 that feel even more pronounced now that hamper the Awakened as being either the good guys or the ones with a shot of surviving: The only Awakened who are willing to go the least step above and beyond their orders in support of their cause are Brodus Blade (who very much grumbles about having to even be there at the time) and Xander who isn't exactly in a stable mind-set. Every other Awakened you meet in dangerous area refuses to budge from the exact location they are set or told to patrol, or to assist the Apprentice even with a bit directions. "The rogues are heaviest near the burnt tree to the east, and we've mostly seen Vlish" type things would go a long ways towards showing their goodwill to the Apprentice. This isn't one or two cowards, this is a systemic pattern throughout their military (which is most of them we see), which means it is encouraged by their leaders. Unrelated, but next point: where are the Awakened Drayks, Thahds, or Battle Betas? We have conversations with examples of all three. Sure, the battle shaping line aren't known for their stability or intelligence, but players can speak with multiple types of them and they seem to want a place to belong and a role to fill, even after going Rogue. Telling me the Awakened couldn't get one to till the soil, or work as a guard in Medab? As for drayks, back before the three factions split we are told that everybody got along. Back when Zachary as helping all of the Sucia escapees to rebuild the secrets of Sucia. And the Awakened couldn't convince a single Drayk to agree with them? The explanation I can think of here is that the Awakened don't care about Drayk Rights. They'd be happy to let Drayks remain Banned. They only want Servile Rights. Being persecuted is not an excuse for ignoring the other person persecuted by the same enemy. But the only Drayk we see in Awakened lands is specifically there to sabotage them (and even at that doesn't do a great deal that way. Locks them out of one mine and a swamp that they don't seem to have use for.) We don't see any evidence that the Awakened have fought a Drayk at all until/unless the Apprentice joins them. As for the war between the Takers and the Awakened, gotta ask how much effort the Takers have put into that? We see them send exactly ONE Drayk, and a few skilled Serviles. Most of the problems the Awakened are having appear to be from actual Rogues, and even moreso from former Awakened Rogues. Yes, the Takers do attack Fort Muck, but most of the other Taker units in Awakened lands are infiltrators and spies. We don't see a single defensive construction by the Takers from Medab to Zhass-Uss. The Awakened aren't a major focus to the Takers, or at least haven't been for long. Between the Takers and Barzites, we see some very impressive defensive structures (walls, mines, barracks, etc.) that have traded hands several times and still have active defenses on both sides. That's a key difference in those wars. And we don't see any sign of Barzites in Awakened lands (other than at Freegate itself). We know the Awakened have agents in Barzite lands. And the Awakened have control over the only entrance and exit from the Improved Lands. It doesn't make sense that the Takers started or even maintained the aggression between them and and the Awakened. Why initiate a second war front when you're already at a stalemate with the guys to your south? Especially when they are the only path you have to getting raw resources such as food that you can't produce yourself. I doubt it was Learned Pinner who started the Taker/Awakened war, but the Awakened being the first belligerents makes more sense than the Takers attacking unprovoked. And the Takers have better control over their military Serviles and Drayks than the Awakened do.

I would argue that the Awakened want to be the good guys. But they're also living in a time of war and that's not conducive to having a black and white morality. Enough of them are shades of grey that it's hard to call them actually good, but with the exception of Tuldaric all of their major players (even going down to Brodus Blade) display some desire to be good. But we see too many of their actions and moral failings. "Guards" who hide in the bushes when enemies pass rather than running back to send word. Assassination of the leaders of the closest thing to an ideologically allied party. The target practice rogues. They are close to being "good guys", and they want to be "good guys", but they ain't there. I suppose it comes down to the ancient question of "is it the action or the desire to do good that makes a man good?" None of the other sects seem to want to be "good". The Takers are moral, sure. But it's the morality of survival and strength. They don't care about the Commons. They might not be evil to the core, but they also aren't good. The other three options . . . are slavers.

I think there's also a matter of players not familiar with the series other than Mutagen (maybe) and Infestation not realizing that a core theme is that there are no good guys with power in this world. The Awakened are the only faction who the player is introduced to as if they were "the good guys". Unaligned/Loyalist: players may not even realize this is an option, but it has the same basic problem as the next. Servants: slavery of the worst kind. These guys are basically the Dutch East India Company on steroids. But they failed before game start and caused ALL THE PROBLEMS. Joining them is basically admitting that there isn't a good answer, so you're just gonna clean up the mess and eventually pretend it never happened. Awakened: want peace. Maybe a bit naïve, but seemingly their hearts are in the right place. You're first meeting has them saving you from an ambush. They want to talk the Shapers into letting them live on their own. Until you see more of the game, it's hard to take issue with them. Takers: they want you dead. Even joining them, they only tolerate you because you are useful. To a new player, they're really hard to sympathize with once you talk to two Taker Drayks, and certainly after talking to a single Drakon. Sure, maybe they are "just really militant Awakened who got lost along the way", but how many of them are even polite to you before you join them? Barzites: Everything that's wrong with the Unaligned/Loyalist path, but ALSO they're addicts and insane. Unlike the Takers, they don't think they have a moral footing. They don't even care about being right or wrong, only about being powerful. In a way, they reveal some of the moral problems with the Unaligned/Loyalist path because they do still follow (parts of) Shaper Law. To a player who is just meeting this world and is used to games where there is a Light Side or a Good Path and a Dark Side or an Evil Path, which one do you join? According to Steam stats, most gamers play the Good/Righteous/etc. path of a game before the Evil one. The Awakened are the closest GF2 has to a 'good guy' path.

Pair of questions here: Which of these endings counts as a 'good' ending per achievements? Which endings are possible for a pacifist run (realizing that you'll be relying on NPCs and environment to kill people, so not a true pacifist)?

Part of this you can explain as Shapers are trained, not born. It's a totalitarian, fascist, academic meritocracy in many ways. You might consider yourself elitist rather than xenophobic. And, of course, individual variations will apply. Just as much as one Guardian with a chip on his shoulder can start the death of a language, an Agent fascinated by a newly found magical discipline might preserve it and absorb several of its facets into Shaper culture. They'd just need to display its merits to the Council.

When I did a DnD conversion of GF (admittedly I only used GF1 creations), the two I had the hardest time finding things to represent them were turrets and (of all things) ornks. Painted over some Mass Effect Reapers for vlish, used hyenas for roamers, and Xorn make great Spawners one you throw some green on them. Didn't match the game graphics, but felt right. Balphabet were gorilla minis, raptors for fyoras. The rest are fairly standard. I had a few Drakons and an Eyebeast, but ran those as BBEGs, not player accessible Creations.