GF2-I: Takers [Spoilers]

[alhoon]

The GF2 Takers are not quite like the GF1 Takers. 

I am in Zhass-Uss and here are some key things: 

 

- The Drayks respect and pay the common. They look down on them, but they treat them better than the Shapers. 

 

Dhorass: 

- Dhorass the Cryodrayk seems to be able to control Drakons to a degree - so apparently he has some 'Servant Mind' powers to control, but not Shape, creations. 

- Dhorass the Cryodrayk is pushed to a corner, philosophically when I ask him how him controlling Creations is different than me "and my creation slaves". He goes 'this is temporary'. I remember, I think, that he was in GF2 and we had a similar discussion there. He was not as obnoxious then though. 

- Dhorass doesn't say "Gazers should be barred" but he has a very dim view of the Gazers. Also, couple that with the 'Drakons are arrogant and headstrong, they need us to control them, temporarily."  

Conclusion: Dhorass (and hopefully just Dhorass) is a hypocrite. He wants to Take his Free, sure, and knows that as a Barred Creation he cannot live in peace until the Shapers are gone, but doesn't seem to care that much for the Free of Drakons or the fate of Gazers. 

 

Key to the Dream: 

In short, it states the views of the Takers on the others, those that call them mad for dreaming a life of freedom and a world where the Shapers are gone. They call those others (which are obviously the Awakened and those trying to stay neutral) as cowards that are afraid to make a choice of which side they will be on and afraid of the Takers because they will force a choice upon them - which is indeed true; the Awakened may view a Servile as Taker or Inutile or staying on the side. The Shapers once the Takers start the war won't make that distinction. 

I loved it. I loved it. 

The "Old Worn Book: (The Takers from GF1)

Again, loved it. "This is the dream, you can make it be. You must Die. Die Free." 

ohhh... I so, so wish I could play a Servile in this game. Never played a Servile in GF4-5.  

 

Syros: 

- "We saw our very existence, the very life of a Drayk, was made illegal by your kind. We were furious." <= he has a point there. 

- The great plan:

 

Bold words. Moving words that resonate with me. If only they didn't hate me so much... Although Syros does say that the leading Takers do not want to eradicate all Shapers but are willing to work with and even reward the Shapers that are on their side. 

- He points out what I was told by the Common: It's only the Shapers they have issues with, they don't want to eradicate all humans. Unlike what the Shapers want to do to the Drayks.

- Syros also explains how many Drayks sympathize with the serviles, how seeing them suffering made Syros, and other Drayks, sad. Mind-boggling that Drayks came to see that what the Shapers did to the Serviles was wrong, but the "Creations are our Children" Shapers did not. 

- And why should one join, as it has been asked? Syros says it best: "We can offer you power, but more than that, we offer you the chance to do what is right". 

It is undeniable that the Shaper Empire must fall. It is the right thing to do. The issue is what to replace it with. And I think I am closer to what the Awakened, much more reserved than the Drayks and Drakons in their pursuit of knowledge and equality, want. BUT: First the Creations need to cement their right to exist. 

 

 

The Takers fight for relatable reasons (survival of their species, revenge, justice) but using too extremist methods. 

[Randomizer]

The Taker Drayks and Drakons don't care about the commons because they lack the power to challenge them. No shaping and little magic isn't going to bother creations that can destroy a trained Shaper.

 

Besides it is pointed out that they need serviles and commons to perform tasks that they aren't physically capable of doing.  Don't kill your useful slave class even if you don't call them that.  

 

Fora ll the drayks are declared illegal, you can get trained in them by the Loyalists.

[alhoon]

52 minutes ago, Randomizer said:

The Taker Drayks and Drakons don't care about the commons because they lack the power to challenge them. No shaping and little magic isn't going to bother creations that can destroy a trained Shaper.

 

That is not supported by what the Takers do: They are all for giving commons loyal to the Cause Shaping powers. It is The Shapers they want to eradicate, not Shaping. Lifecrafters are all fine, even in GF2. The Takers have that in common with the Barzhites. But while the Barzhites want to make "Shapers" without the training or control or, well, sanity, the Takers want to make Lifecrafters. They have absolutely no problem with Emily-type Lifecrafters. Their issue is with those that enslave Creations and use them as disposable tools, including Melacron eye, which is the reason I was told they want it (them?) dead. 

 

52 minutes ago, Randomizer said:

Fora ll the drayks are declared illegal, you can get trained in them by the Loyalists.

Yes, because Lying Zackary the Deceiver is not really Loyal. Gone is the "Drayks require permission" days of GF1-M. Now it is "barred". 

Edited May 27 by alhoon

[Hyperion703]

Takers remind me of international terrorists in that they have a fair point and (usually) a just cause. But their methods and implementations are for crap. You don't fight a dominant hegemonic empire head on. That never works. You subvert it and dismantle it from the inside. You sow the seeds of division, discontent, disorder, and disruption. This takes patience, the likes of which I have no evidence for in Taker leadership. The extreme social imbalance within Shaper society is already prime for this. Watch your enemy break itself apart far behind the front lines.

 

Edited May 27 by Hyperion703

[alhoon]

14 minutes ago, Hyperion703 said:

Takers remind me of international terrorists in that they have a fair point and (usually) a just cause. But their methods and implementations are for crap. 

 

That's because they are like that. 

 

 

14 minutes ago, Hyperion703 said:

You don't fight a dominant hegemonic empire head on. That never works. You subvert it and dismantle it from the inside. You sow the seeds of division, discontent, disorder, and disruption.

 

1. Rarely, it does. When an empire is already facing the chronic issues of Empires and compacency has set in, it is possible. 

2. That is not the exact case here.

3. None of the historical insurgents had the equivalent of a geneforge. 

[Hyperion703]

4 minutes ago, alhoon said:

None of the historical insurgents had the equivalent of a geneforge. 

Exactly. And these bozos have the genius idea of going bigger. They have advanced genetic technology. Go small. Make a coronavirus. I hear that works wonders for paralyzing a global superpower. 

 

Or infiltrate their political system. Distract the populace with BS domestic shenanigans and sow social division. Turn common against common. You might even get lucky and, through a combination of sheer luck and skillful subterfuge, acquire the sympathies of a leading politician. Then do your will through them. I hear that works equally well.

 

🤔

[alhoon]

7 minutes ago, Hyperion703 said:

Exactly. And these bozos have the genius idea of going bigger. They have advanced genetic technology. Go small. Make a coronavirus.

 

They do that. And more than one disease. You see, the issue with that is that Shapers can heal it. 

[Hyperion703]

1 hour ago, alhoon said:

 

They do that. And more than one disease. You see, the issue with that is that Shapers can heal it. 

Pfizer, Moderna, or... lemme guess... J&J?

 

Probably some Russian knock off that gives you lupus, hairy nipples, and diarrhea...

 

Edited May 27 by Hyperion703

[l33tmaan]

1 hour ago, Hyperion703 said:

Or infiltrate their political system. Distract the populace with BS domestic shenanigans and sow social division. Turn common against common. You might even get lucky and, through a combination of sheer luck and skillful subterfuge, acquire the sympathies of a leading politician. Then do your will through them. I hear that works equally well.

Seneca is in the first town of GF2, man.

[alhoon]

1 hour ago, Hyperion703 said:

Pfizer, Moderna, or... lemme guess... J&J?

 

 

 

The Shapers are much more efficient, as you saw in how quickly the cure for the Serviles is found. 

[l33tmaan]

5 minutes ago, alhoon said:

The Shapers are much more efficient, as you saw in how quickly the cure for the Serviles is found. 

Once again, the true tragedy of GF1 is revealed: All they had to do was make the damn microscopes and they would have revolutionized everything. And yet they jumped immediately to self-godhood. What a waste.

Edited May 27 by l33tmaan

[alhoon]

1 hour ago, l33tmaan said:

Once again, the true tragedy of GF1 is revealed: All they had to do was make the damn microscopes and they would have revolutionized everything. And yet they jumped immediately to self-godhood. What a waste.

The Barzhites that have them have filled libraries with decoding and still don't manage to do a lot. They noticed which part of the Thahd DNA controls skin color. But it is not that easy, or different from what the USUAL shapers do. Using the microscopes, you still bombard the cells with magic and write down the changes. It is just that with the microscopes you can see minor changes and instead of coding "I used XY energy and Z energy combined in this and that" you could code "I used XY energy to change ABBAADAC to ABBCCDAC. " 

 

We used to have someone claiming to be a genetic engineer (you can't be sure on the net, sorry buddy if you are still here! I do believe you but can't be sure) and he said that he could change a lizard's DNA to make it larger, potentially, but you have to be careful as this can create unexpected results or an invasive species and blah blah blah stuff that sounded very much like Shaper rules. That person said that they do their genetic modification very carefully in sealed places (like the Shaper labs) so that their experiment don't escape because a single seed of a mutated plant stuck on one's shoe could cause problems for the local flora or fauna. 

And other paranoid Shaper protocols... 

 

Also, he said, that making a lizard too big would be dangerous cause lizards are not benign. 
EDIT: Several people with background on doing tests on animals in fact are discussing in this thread. You see someone presenting modern labs as Barzhite hellholes and another defending them as Shaper not-so-hellish holes. It quickly spirals from there. Shaper protocols mentioned.

The "Make a Fyora" Shaper mentions it here.  

Edited May 27 by alhoon

[Randomizer]

Like those that didn't make it ut of the GF1 Sealed Lab, I hope he gets trapped inside with his creation.

[alhoon]

23 minutes ago, Randomizer said:

Like those that didn't make it ut of the GF1 Sealed Lab, I hope he gets trapped inside with his creation.

The sealed lab... I vaguely remember that. 

[ultra112]

12 hours ago, alhoon said:

 

The Shapers are much more efficient, as you saw in how quickly the cure for the Serviles is found. 

This just to show that when it comes to biology or anything related to this field these guys are the true masters of it.

[Mechalibur]

On 5/27/2024 at 9:15 AM, alhoon said:

- The Drayks respect and pay the common. They look down on them, but they treat them better than the Shapers. 

 

That's the pitch, but they're still perfectly fine with subjecting the commons to their war crimes. In the Taker ending, you start developing weapons to poison populations, destroy their crops, and spread diseases. These weapons undoubtedly will hurt the commons immensely, not just the Shapers. In the end their hatred for Shapers supersedes everything else, even the safety of those they claim to fight for.

[alhoon]

2 hours ago, Mechalibur said:

In the end their hatred for Shapers supersedes everything else, even the safety of those they claim to fight for.

1. Yes. Their hatred for Shapers supersedes everything. In the actual, bona-fide Takers, it supersedes their self-preservation: The Takers realized they would die. So that later, others would be free. They even say so "This is the dream, you can make it be. You must Die. Die Free." 

And that's the Taker Serviles mostly.
The DRAYKS of the Takers put their interests and their survival above the survival of Serviles and Common and that is understandable. They are NOT Serviles and Common. For the Drayks to be free, to be in a world that recognizes their right to exist, the Shapers must fall to the last one. 

It is a fight to the end the Shapers chose when they decided that 'being a Drayk' is a crime. Not being a rogue drayk, simply being a Drayk.

The Drayks will fight and kill common and common will die as side casualties but the elimination of the Common is not their goal. They are just in the way. 

 

2.  The Takers NEVER claim to fight for the safety of anyone but the Barred Creations. They never ever claimed to fight to protect the common. They don't even fight for the safety of Drayks / Takers. They fight for their right to exist. This is not the same as fighting for their safety. 
Most Drayks have little issue killing other Drayks that disagree with them. They are shown in GF1 and GF2 to fight against serviles (Obeyers / Servants, Awakened) that have different views with them and they explain why. 

 

 

1+2 = the majority of Takers hate for Shapers supersedes everything else. In many cases their own self preservation. 

Despicable as their acts are, it is admirable that they are willing to throw away their lives for a tiny moment of freedom, when a Shaper ends them. Their willingness to Take their Free at any cost. Their lives, the lives of their loved ones, the lives of Commons that are in the way. When Takers are ready to die in droves, along with their friends and people they care about, to oppose the Shapers, do you think they would stop because that will kill innocent bystanders they have never met? 

 

Their philosophy is sick. But their convictions are true. Dangerously true. In the end they fight to eradicate Shapers at any cost, because that's their only possible recourse to Take their Free from a group of immensely powerful, nearly-as-despicable oppressor Empire. 
Every nation's fight for independence or to overthrow tyrants has several black pages of horrible crimes. The Takers are writing theirs. 

 

The other choice? Sit in a valley for 40+ years, expecting that somehow, somewhen the Shapers will change their mind about the Creations and allow the rogues to be Common. 
Preposterously naive. Utterly idiotic. 
Sure, your hands are mostly free from mass murder, genocide, the blood of millions of innocents. But at the same time, the Shaper Empire continues suppressing the rights of Commons and keeps its boot on the neck of millions of Serviles. 

 

As the Takers say, the cowards are afraid to make a choice. The Takers will put the choice in front of them. 

(Yes, I am still an Awakened, I am with the cowards that want to stay in a valley for 50+ years without providing any real incentive to their oppressors to throw Shaped creations on their flying drakons. And in order to clip any real chance for change and to break the chains of oppression, I will have to kill some of the only people (well, Drayks, not sure if they count as people) in the valley that have AN ACTUAL PLAN and a burning, true conviction to break eggs to make omelette. ) 

 

Edited May 29 by alhoon

[alhoon]

As I have said previously, the best argument against a faction is made by the faction itself. 

The way the Drayks ignore the Serviles that are suffering, their "the strong will survive, the herd will be culled" approach is annoying me. Yes, Freedom comes with responsibilities and self-rule of the Serviles is not a bad thing.
But a Servile is not a drayk! The Drayks could have spent a few hours and get a few hits to clear out the spinecores in the farms. The Serviles cannot. For all that talk about how the Shapers abandoned the Serviles, Syros is not doing that much better. I have seen his stats. He has 1040 hp (in Veteran). He with 2-3 drayks could have cleared the spinecores without getting more than perhaps a hit. 

And what is that Spartan crap about choosing the icy tops that are unsuitable so that the tough conditions could cull the serviles? The vast majority of serviles are not the sharpest tools in the shed. If Syros et Co told them "we will settle here, it is defensible AND the cold will make us strong!" they would believe them. And then, the babies started dying which the Drayks don't care about. 

 

I am slowly moving closer to the Awakened again. If only I could convince Pinner to wage war instead of defend in case of war... 
I honestly prefer the Rebels from the Takers. 

 

[alhoon]

I met Aodare... the meeting didn't go at all as I remembered. He was spouting madness, about killing all leaders here, and all drayks, every last one of them. He calls it the only way to be free. 

I saw that he is neutral, so I could kill him and get away with it. I was ... tempted to simply kill the Shaper that would not let creations be. In the end, I decided to not sell my soul and kill a captured man because he disagrees with me and wants all people I have known in that game dead. To be honest, I want half the people I have met in this game dead too and I have killed more creations than he can count. 

EDIT: Speaking of prisoners, I also couldn't kill the Agent I wanted to kill. The last of the loyalists. She is tied and weak. I saw her hp. My Drakons could kill her before she could even get a spell out. I just left her there for the Takers. 

Edited June 8 by alhoon

[alhoon]

Dryss the Drakon that makes sense. 

 

Dryss is the Drakon that meets you on the Taker-toll zone. She makes absolute sense. 

We need Dryss for the Awakened! 

 

She goes:

- "I want your money but not your blood" (so a businesswoman!) and "I would not kill and eat the Shapers if I could avoid it" but laments that this is not an option for her, that is not the life she has been Created into. 

- When I tested her and questioned why the Taker Drakons help the serviles etc, she goes "Being Stronger means we get to crush them!? That is Shaper thinking! They will join us in Freedom." (With way more sss).  

- And last but not least: 

 

 

Go Dryss! Dryss for the Awakened leadership!!! 

Dryss knows! She doesn't hate the Shapers but understand the Shapers. NOBODY would handle them their freedom, their right to exist. They will have to fight for it. 

More sensibly than some of the Drakons want (well, many many Drakons) but they won't be allowed to exist and they will not have freedom unless they Take their Free.

 

Personally, I am a bit less moderate than Dryss. I want the Shapers to face judgement for oppressing humanity and Creations for so long, for all the disasters they have caused and then simply "barred" and moved on and all the cultural practices they have eradicated unless those had something the Shapers considered of value. I cannot understand how the Turabi do not join the Rebels in droves after being reduced to Handymen for the people that took their homeland and made then 2nd-class citizens in their own country. 

I want to kill Shapers for what they did to the Serviles, to Sucia, to the Turabi, to Drayks, to so many traditions,  and I have run out of Shapers to kill in the mountains... But as Dryss said, this is the deck I have been handed. I will sit in the mud and fight it out with an endless army of enslaved creations for 25 years instead of breaking out and helping Creations Take their Free. 

 

 

[Mea Tulpa]

You know what really makes somebody sound wise?

 

It's when they tell you that they are wise and that other people are stupid.

 

Wise people are always doing that.

[alhoon]

15 minutes ago, Archaeolagent said:

You know what really makes somebody sound wise?

 

It's when they tell you that they are wise and that other people are stupid.

 

Wise people are always doing that.

 

Some wise people do that when they are right. I think one great Philosopher (I don't remember who) had no issue calling out people when they said stupid ideas and passed them as good. 
So does Dryss. 

Edited June 16 by alhoon

[oceanes]

On 6/16/2024 at 10:20 AM, alhoon said:

 

Some wise people do that when they are right. I think one great Philosopher (I don't remember who) had no issue calling out people when they said stupid ideas and passed them as good. 
So does Dryss. 

I think you are thinking of Diogenes the Cynic, or perhaps Socrates lamenting that he was the wisest man in Athens. You know, one thing that does separate the Awakened and Takers is a sense of principle beyond themselves. The Awakened explicitly care about the rights even of their oppressors, they have a philosophy that could be applied to groups beyond themselves. The Takers have a cause, but their world revolves around themselves. The Awakened know, for better or worse, that the world does not, and cannot revolve around them, and so are content with carving out a portion to hold. In short, the Awakened believe in an objective, rather than subjective, good, and I don't think most Takers do, or care to. They ultimately agree with the Shapers on one point; "their good" trumps "the good" every time.

[alhoon]

Yes, the Awakened are idealistic. 

[Mea Tulpa]

No, this isn't an issue of being idealistic versus being practical.  The Takers and Shapers do have values, and the Awakened do compromise theirs.  It's a question of what those values are.

 

As oceanes gets at above, it's really about being self-centered versus having the empathy and humility to acknowledge that other people are as much a part of reality as you are.

[alhoon]

10 minutes ago, ...are from Tibus said:

No, this isn't an issue of being idealistic versus being practical.  The Takers and Shapers do have values, and the Awakened do compromise theirs.  It's a question of what those values are.

 

As oceanes gets at above, it's really about being self-centered versus having the empathy and humility to acknowledge that other people are as much a part of reality as you are.

The Takers have no issue with other people are as much part of reality as they are. As the Common living under them say, the Drayks treat them better than the Shapers did. 

The Takers take issue with the Shaper values of "You will be slaves or you will be killed". The Takers start the war but the Shapers fired the first shots when they killed the first benign creation that asked "why?" when ordered to do something. 

 

The mere fact that the Awakened are willing to abide by Shaper Law with the exception that they will be treated as Commons, instead of as Equals like the first Awakened, is one of the issues I have with the Awakened philosophy. The other is that it is naive in the extreme to think the Shapers would ever treat them as Equals without their cities burning and their own blood splattered on their expensive robes. For a great many shapers even that is not enough to convince them to see Creations as equals. They die cursing for being killed by inferior creatures... and those "inferior" creatures may be a Drakon that has gone through the geneforge and then got 20 cannisters! It is outright madness. 

Edited August 2 by alhoon

[oceanes]

13 hours ago, alhoon said:

The Takers have no issue with other people are as much part of reality as they are. As the Common living under them say, the Drayks treat them better than the Shapers did. 

The Takers take issue with the Shaper values of "You will be slaves or you will be killed". The Takers start the war but the Shapers fired the first shots when they killed the first benign creation that asked "why?" when ordered to do something. 

 

The mere fact that the Awakened are willing to abide by Shaper Law with the exception that they will be treated as Commons, instead of as Equals like the first Awakened, is one of the issues I have with the Awakened philosophy. The other is that it is naive in the extreme to think the Shapers would ever treat them as Equals without their cities burning and their own blood splattered on their expensive robes. For a great many shapers even that is not enough to convince them to see Creations as equals. They die cursing for being killed by inferior creatures... and those "inferior" creatures may be a Drakon that has gone through the geneforge and then got 20 cannisters! It is outright madness. 

I can’t remember if it was Mark Twain, or CS Lewis, who said “it is very hard to convince a man of something if his livelihood depends on his not believing it.” But regardless, I think the phrase applies to most shapers quite well. To those it doesn’t apply to, and I would put Alwan in G5 in that camp, they instead have a fundamental belief in order and hierarchy as goods in and of themselves, true conservatives secure in the notion that a divide between rulers and ruled is inevitable and natural. These are sorts of people that invented concepts like chivalry and noblesse oblige, and I think that something of that meritocratic worldview Is shown canonically in the fact that the shapers aren’t entirely a closed society. When thinking of things like this, I always think about that one shaper in G5, who is horrified by the unbound for paternalistic reasons, saying the creations are our children, who would create such a child? The best part about it is that I think he actually believes that. 
 

As regards to takers Not being self interested, they are presented as treating the commons better in the remakes, but even that mostly consists of tolerating or ignoring them, especially on behalf of the drakes. It’s clear by the time of the rebellion that they can’t do that anymore because there are too many human members. It’s interesting to note that the rebellion became more awakened than the takers pragmatically rather than ideologically, just as any surviving awakened Would have become takers by default once war with the shapers became inevitable later in the timeline. Indeed, we see the beginnings of this process in G2I with a few surviving obeyers becoming awakened by default once their philosophy collapses in the face of reality.

[alhoon]

1 hour ago, oceanes said:

Indeed, we see the beginnings of this process in G2I with a few surviving obeyers becoming awakened by default once their philosophy collapses in the face of reality.

The Obeyers... ah. 

I respectfully disagree with that view. A FEW obeyers became awakened once they came into contact with Shaper purges. The other Obeyers chose to die because the Shapers said so! A few Obeyers were actually left alive, I think, but watched. However, we don't have actual breakdowns of how many Obeyers were killed on the spot, without any question of their beliefs, how many acknowledged they should die because the Shapers said they should die and how many said "heck no!" and tried to fight back or save themselves. 
What we do know, is that there were Obeyers that Obeyed while the Shapers were purging them, like Lemurs jumping off a cliff. Even DOGS would fight back or try to flee if their masters tried to kill them. Some Obeyers stayed to die, effectively turning their ideology to a suicide/death cult. 

 

It is absolutely horrendous! The directives the Shapers put in the Serviles, burned in their souls, were so strong that a century in isolation and most Serviles were Obeyers in Mutagen (I think it is mentioned that over half of the Serviles are Obeyers), and some of them chose to obey when the returned wise masters were killing their loved ones and children. 

 

And the Awakened of GF2-I want to deal with those people, as simply-inferiors instead of slaves! If that is not "to sleep with evil" mentality, just because the Shapers made them, like the do batons BTW, just smarter because it is convenient, several generations years ago. 

Don't you see, that the Shaper Empire needs to be toppled and the majority of Shapers need to account for the horrid crimes their Empire is built on? 

(PS. I am still not a Taker!) 

Edited August 3 by alhoon

[oceanes]

31 minutes ago, alhoon said:

The Obeyers... ah. 

I respectfully disagree with that view. A FEW obeyers became awakened once they came into contact with Shaper purges. The other Obeyers chose to die because the Shapers said so! A few Obeyers were actually left alive, I think, but watched. However, we don't have actual breakdowns of how many Obeyers were killed on the spot, without any question of their beliefs, how many acknowledged they should die because the Shapers said they should die and how many said "heck no!" and tried to fight back or save themselves. 
What we do know, is that there were Obeyers that Obeyed while the Shapers were purging them, like Lemurs jumping off a cliff. Even DOGS would fight back or try to flee if their masters tried to kill them. Some Obeyers stayed to die, effectively turning their ideology to a suicide/death cult. 

 

It is absolutely horrendous! The directives the Shapers put in the Serviles, burned in their souls, were so strong that a century in isolation and most Serviles were Obeyers in Mutagen (I think it is mentioned that over half of the Serviles are Obeyers), and some of them chose to obey when the returned wise masters were killing their loved ones and children. 

 

And the Awakened of GF2-I want to deal with those people, as simply-inferiors instead of slaves! If that is not "to sleep with evil" mentality, just because the Shapers made them, like the do batons BTW, just smarter because it is convenient, several generations years ago. 

Don't you see, that the Shaper Empire needs to be toppled and the majority of Shapers need to account for the horrid crimes their Empire is built on? 

(PS. I am still not a Taker!) 

That information about the Obeyers is interesting, I didn't know some of that. I wonder if the Shapers were able to deliberately build their minds that way, and if so, what conditions caused it to fail. I wonder if the same conditioning that produced the cultist mages created the possibility of the Taker mindset? Food for thought. As regards the Shaper Empire and the necessity of war against it, I quite agree, for the most part. The problem of course is the necessity of breaking eggs to make omelets when the eggs are people. The Shapers deserve to pay, certainly, but how many people will become collateral damage to make them do so? The Shapers may be a cancer, but that makes the Takers, and later Rebellion, chemotherapy, and both can kill you.

[alhoon]

43 minutes ago, oceanes said:

That information about the Obeyers is interesting, I didn't know some of that. I wonder if the Shapers were able to deliberately build their minds that way, and if so, what conditions caused it to fail. I wonder if the same conditioning that produced the cultist mages created the possibility of the Taker mindset? Food for thought. As regards the Shaper Empire and the necessity of war against it, I quite agree, for the most part. The problem of course is the necessity of breaking eggs to make omelets when the eggs are people. The Shapers deserve to pay, certainly, but how many people will become collateral damage to make them do so? The Shapers may be a cancer, but that makes the Takers, and later Rebellion, chemotherapy, and both can kill you.

 

Look, as a non-Taker I will admit that you are right, and I would even say that at least SOME Takers are more like a bullet to the head than chemotherapy. Yes, killing the patient stops the cancer. The Rebels are indeed like Chemo. The bad one.
But in some cases, the bad chemo is the only chance the patient gets. 

The "Break eggs to make omelette" is why I am not a Taker (well, honestly, a minor reason compared to the way the Takers treat me). It is a very valid argument against the Taker / Rebel ideology. When cities burn, it won't just be just Shapers dying. 

 

As for what the Shapers did to ensure loyalty: I am not sure but they go harder in Geneforge 4, making even more servile serviles. I don't remember the dialogue with one of them, but some side-effects are mentioned for this. 
Also, post-Taygen in GF5, or while Taygen rules, Creations are made less independent (which means they need more care). 

The Serviles, the real ones, are shown to have handlers to clean after them and look after them because the obedience of the Serviles makes them to lack independence. 

There were always innutile serviles, from what we learn. Some were hoarders, some were unable to learn things... I guess some were disobedient. 

 

The Drayks and Gazers are auto-purged because the Shapers cannot build the loyalty in them, from what we're told. On the other hand, we're shown examples where Gazers (the Barzhite ones) are NOT rogue. I am not talking about the "Rogue-but-working-with-us" Gazer in the entrance of Rising - that Gazer is probably rogue. I am talking about the Gazer that patrols the Radiant College and a couple others. 

The one and only Drayk-kind I have seen that was NOT rogue is the Cryodrayk that is in those crystal caverns with the spectres. That Cryodrayk was nice and loyal and obedient (or so he claims... we can't know for sure)  and then he was attacked and fled. THAT is what caused him to be disloyal and it took time. 

In Sucia (Mutagen), I honestly don't remember a single Drayk that shows any kind of loyalty towards the Shapers or claims to have been nice and obedient and then aghast that it was attacked. 
That said: The Drayks that didn't go rogue were killed, so... we can't know what was the actual "fail" ratio there. If 9 out of 10 Drayks didn't go rogue, the ones still around are from the 1 out of 10 that were rogue. 

 

As to what made the fail-safes to fail in Sucia: Several generations without Shapers, and natural selection. The reason the Shapers purged the Obeyers is that they found them able to be independent and went "nah, they are rogues that choose to obey, but still rogues." Or so we are told. 

 

The connection between the cultist mages, the Pre-Tuldaric ones, and the Takers is very interesting and ... explored in Mutagen but I forget. The Takers have some cultists with them in Mutagen and you talk with Takers about them. In GF2-I I didn't find much lore about them except the basics: they are mad, they study magic the servile way and they are immediately hostile to you. 

 

 

Edited August 3 by alhoon

[oceanes]

1 hour ago, alhoon said:

Look, as a non-Taker I will admit that you are right, and I would even say that at least SOME Takers are more like a bullet to the head than chemotherapy. Yes, killing the patient stops the cancer. The Rebels are indeed like Chemo. The bad one.
But in some cases, the bad chemo is the only chance the patient gets. 

The "Break eggs to make omelette" is why I am not a Taker (well, honestly, a minor reason compared to the way the Takers treat me). It is a very valid argument against the Taker / Rebel ideology. When cities burn, it won't just be just Shapers dying. 

The other problem, as indicated by Trajikov's ending in GF1 (playing though that again shocked me with how bleak it was), is that the war may go on for long enough, and escalate to such an extent, that the loss of infrastructure, arable land, population, and institutional Shaping knowledge creates a civilizational collapse or dark age regardless of who wins, to the detriment of everyone on Terrestria. Avoiding that outcome would be a great enough utilitarian good for me to justify failing to completely oust the Shapers. It's considerations like this that make Astoria in GF5 seem reasonable, provided of course that she can keep reactionary young Shapers of the next generation from restarting the war, which, as I've said before, I'm not sure she can, considering who else is in power. This is coming from someone who hates consequentialist ethics, but then again, maintenance of civilization is an objective good. May I just say how much I love these discussions?

[alhoon]

Astoria in GF5 is the only kinda-good ending, IMO and much closer to what I would want for the Awakened. No, it is not perfect and there would be more wars.

The most extreme of the Rebels are dead while the Shapers are forced to sign peace with Creations having to admit that creations are not just tools that don't work as intended or a computer program infected by a virus. 

Both the Rebels and Shapers are heavily bloodied and thus, they have to take a breath and rebuild. Sure, there would be skirmishes and wars and proxy wars. But Astoria allows the Serviles to self-rule (she doesn't allow drayks though) in her land. Alwan and Taygen are shamed. Both sides have lost a lot of zealots and the less hot-headed ones prevailed. 

It is a new world. A world where Shapers still hate the rogue creations, the creations still feel the yoke of the Shapers but much better and more promising than it was before. It is a world where a Shaper group and a Drakon group sat on the same table and discussed and draw lines on maps, without immediately launching on each other. 

 

 

Edited August 3 by alhoon

[oceanes]

18 hours ago, alhoon said:

Astoria in GF5 is the only kinda-good ending, IMO and much closer to what I would want for the Awakened. No, it is not perfect and there would be more wars.

The most extreme of the Rebels are dead while the Shapers are forced to sign peace with Creations having to admit that creations are not just tools that don't work as intended or a computer program infected by a virus. 

Both the Rebels and Shapers are heavily bloodied and thus, they have to take a breath and rebuild. Sure, there would be skirmishes and wars and proxy wars. But Astoria allows the Serviles to self-rule (she doesn't allow drayks though) in her land. Alwan and Taygen are shamed. Both sides have lost a lot of zealots and the less hot-headed ones prevailed. 

It is a new world. A world where Shapers still hate the rogue creations, the creations still feel the yoke of the Shapers but much better and more promising than it was before. It is a world where a Shaper group and a Drakon group sat on the same table and discussed and draw lines on maps, without immediately launching on each other. 

 

 

Agreed. As I've mentioned before, I had the thought that a Ghaldring victory and subsequent secondary rebellion might leave the nascent Sucian nation with enough power, territory, and resources to functionally make the coastal Shapers a kind of rump state/protectorate that they could dictate terms to, to forestall another war, but it also has the potential to exhaust the Rebels, materially or psychologically, or to turn the Shaper lands into a kind of Weimar-like situation, destined for revanchism, or both. Given that, Astoria seems safer, especially if she actually has a plan to sunset Shaper rule.

[alhoon]

Astoria does not have the plan to sunset Shaper rule; she is a true Shaper but was pragmatist enough to see that the war had to stop. She still thinks the Shapers are right to do what they do but was not willing to cause the world burn for it. Ghaldring Victory and subsequent Rebellion are also very good things... but more cities burn. It is the Realistic-Taker ending. 

There are days where I consider Ghaldring's ending the best - when I am angry with the Shapers - and days where I consider Astoria's the best, when I consider the cost of life. 

Taygen's ending is horrible, from the sheer life lost to the cost to civilization (even the batons and living tools die) but in its aftermath the Shapers start from the ashes of their civilization knowing what went wrong the previous time. There would be no Drayks to be banned for existing. There would be no Kyshaak or Pyroroamers - creatures that are suicide bombers and unstable, unable to exist. Would our civilization be better if suddenly all electronics burned in a series of EMPs and we had to start again, making microchips from the beginning? I don't know. 

[oceanes]

As regards Taygen’s ending, I would have to say no it’s not worth it. Taygen‘s philosophy is ultimately an appeal to ignorance, and willful ignorance is one of the original vices, right up there with pride, which he also has. Even from a Shaper perspective, any lesson that might be learned through Taygen‘s horrors, Alwan’s victory would already teach, with far less destruction and loss of life.

 

it was someone else on here that put forward the idea that Astoria realized that her sect were not good at actually being rulers, and sought to correct that. In their view, she approved of shapers, being shapers, but not shapers being kings. I also recall there was speculation about the shapers ending up in power to begin with half by accident, and this being the result; that is, the shapers as a group wanting to be unimpeded and unchallenged, but generally speaking being very disinterested in actually ruling the empire, they found themselves in charge of, Tunnel vision scientists sleepwalking into government. It’s a fascinating picture, and an interesting lens to put on the series.

Edited August 4 by oceanes

[alhoon]

Not from what I have seen. Astoria was very much interested in ruling and seemed to not be too academically inclined. She was dedicated to Shaper Philosophy with a doze of pragmatism but was taking active role in rulership.