"You have reached Solus zos Galvus. I fear I am unavailable at the moment, but should your query be of an urgent nature, pray leave a message. I shall endeavor to return it anon."
[That gives him pause, but fortunately over text it's not something as obvious.]
What is there to fear?
Though I admit that He chose to temper myself and my compeers who created Him, He did not harm us. He delivered us from our doom. He restored our world to how it ought to be, gave it life once more so that we could resume our roles as stewards of our star. For He has the unique ability to rewrite the laws of reality, and thus He became the will of the planet itself.
I will confess I have done much I would not otherwise do without His influence, but I would more relate such blame to She who binds Him: Hydaelyn. If not for Her and those betrayers, everything would be as it ever should have been. Lord Zodiark would be whole, as would all of existence.
Those naysayers complicated an already complicated situation, all because of their fear of Him.
[Though, as he's explaining this, like reciting a script, he feels a little...off about it. A niggling feeling he's trying to ignore. It's probably nothing, really. Just picking at old wounds, he supposes.]
Something with the power to rend you from your free will and force responsibility for the death of millions onto your hands, people you knew and cared for, and all it chooses to do is exactly what you tell it? Something with that kind of power could destroy of its own free will whatever it wanted in sacrifice, far more readily than you and yours, but instead it enables you into doing it on his behalf.
I would be terrified for the day it got bored of the people supporting it, and went to seek new blood to further its cause. If everything else is so disposable to it, I fail to see what makes you different, I suppose.
[He is aware of what a dangerous line he's treading around, but he's too curious.]
It is not so simple. Your assumptions come from a gross misunderstanding of how Creation magic works. This is not your fault.
While He does have his own will, it too is by design. We willed Him to be a savior to us, thus He ever wishes to play such a role. Primals are not wont to boredom, they need not the complex desires of the living, for they are not truly so. If it helps your understanding, think of them like a complex machine, one that follows its coding to the letter. One that cannot operate outside of such defined parameters at its creation, for it does not have desire beyond its initial programming.
[And yet, tempering was not part of that programming...]
As for my acting in His stead, since the Sundering, Lord Zodiark has been divided and banished. He cannot revive Himself on His own, that is where we who serve Him come in. As She was designed for, Hydaelyn has the unique ability to enervate Her foe, and She used such ability to split Him and all else into fourteen. Thus dividing His immense might into a fraction of what it should be, while likewise keeping Him incapable of acting on His own. All so She could control Him.
These deaths that I have caused—that we Ascians have been responsible for—are but a means to correct the mistakes of Hydaelyn and her fools. He does not bade for blood for the joy of it, and certainly these calamities we cause have a fair lower death toll than aught mortals inflict on each other, and would continue to do so even without them. In the end, this is a path of lesser bloodshed, of lesser misery, and it is one lead by His guidance.
Mortals have shown me their cruelty time and time again, they choose not to sacrifice for each other, but to rather kill for their own gain. If reality were to continue as it does under Hydaelyn's watch, it will beget only endless suffering.
If we follow your metaphor of it being a complex machine, rather than a truly living and alive creation, then we should also be able to apply the concept of "technological singularity". Probably you're familiar with the concept, if not the exact phrase - where a non-biological unit's intellectual evolution moves beyond the scope and control of its creators, and into true artificial intelligence and learning. Awareness of its own parameters, how to exceed them, and the creation of new skills in relation to such.
[Such as tempering. As a totally random example. But honestly, discussing the topic makes him increasingly uncertain as to whether Solus does know about it - every human does, in his time.]
This is part of my difficulty in seeing Zodiark as just a mindless machine of your own creation, in truth. Humans of my world have been familiar with the concept of a creation outgrowing its master for thousands of years, in some of our oldest mythologies. Independent thought is a cornerstone of our morality - to have that reduced or removed is seen as a gross breach of everything we believe we stand for.
And while obviously I'm in no position to say that your opinions on Hydaelyn is unfounded, whatsoever, I suppose I find it interesting that you are consistently quick to blame her for the suffering Zodiark prompts you to commit. It could be readily posited that she's trying to prevent further bloodshed and loss of life by forcing Zodiark and his followers to stop perpetuating such massive genocides.
I am indeed familiar, however, while that was merely a metaphor for simplified understanding, it was not an exact one. Creation magic has immutable laws, ones that vary from the laws of machines. Which is both a merit and a flaw for the art, but should one do it properly, with a clear mind and clear intent, their creation will doubtlessly follow the will of the creator without question. This has ever been tested and proven without fail. Viewed thus, He has already been bound by the laws of Creation.
[A clear mind and clear intent. Something that might be easy, if they're creating something not in the middle of a crisis, with their people and planet dying. It's almost like their creation might have a huge flaw in it because they did so under an immeasurable amount of stress and fear!]
However, we are much the same in terms of independent thought. Amaurot greatly encouraged such, without judgment. Much and more did we accomplish, did we learn, because of unrestrained thoughts and opinions. That we might cultivate and engender the minds of our people. Had we not, then I doubt not our annihilation would have been guaranteed.
Now, as for the topic of Hydaelyn. It would seem to me you might have a misunderstanding of events, and that may very well be my fault. While it is true that Zodiark required sacrifice to do as was needed, such is the exchange of Creation. That is not His fault, nor His desire. In order to stop oblivion from taking us, we needed to create him, and to do so required a vast amount of aether. A quantity that could only be found through the sacrifice of our souls.
This allowed Him to rewrite the laws of reality so that we would survive. However, I confess, it was not perfect. Our star had suffered irreparably from the Final Days. The lands were blighted, the winds ceased to blow, our waters poisoned, and countless species were lost. Thus, we needed Him a second time, and so another half would willingly offer themselves so that the land could regain life anew. That we sorrowful few that remained might cultivate the land, make it bursting with life once more.
The bloodshed did not come till after Hydaelyn committed The Sundering. Therefore, Her actions and those of her followers are directly to blame for what is necessary to repair my reality, to restore my people. To suggest that She is the one trying to prevent further damage, when it was She who created such damage in the first place is utterly absurd. So, yes. I do indeed blame Her for what She has done. If there was any other path to tread, we would. I have searched for eons of another way—none exists. It is not by Lord Zodiark's design that this must needs be done, but it is merely a byproduct of restoring the life She had destroyed.
Each shard we rejoin to The Source gets us closer to restoring reality as it should be. While this may cost lives in so doing, it is ultimately for the greater good. Our reality cannot continue as it is, and should true annihilation return, mortals are not capable of fending it off. Under their stewardship, existence as we know it is doomed, and I cannot allow our tragedy to come to pass again.
He is the only one capable of preventing such a catastrophe from ever occurring again.
[He's glad they're texting, so Solus doesn't see that suspicious face Tyler's making.]
You didn't make him under proper conditions, though. You've admitted as much. While I'm prepared to take your word on many things, I can't imagine that you could remain calm enough to properly summon something so massive - that the fourteen of you were all able to remain calm and rational in the middle of what you've already referred to as a terrifying and unprecedented crisis. Mortals can panic to the point of mindlessness in familiar situations, I find it inconceivable that you all were capable of it in the midst of the apparent end of your world. It's not strictly your fault, and I'm not blaming you for your very legitimate fear, but to claim that Zodiark is an exemplary example of summoning is a blatantly false premise.
If you could toy with my own perspective of it, based on what you've told me. Your world nearly ended; more than half of everyone you've ever known and cared about is dead, lost to the calamity or sacrificed; your leaders and strongest proponents of free will and choice, to the point of allowing you to choose when and where you would like to end your life, are all suddenly spellbound and mildlessly, ruthlessly in servitude to a summon the likes of which has never been seen. Would you not be terrified as well, not knowing if your leaders saw you still as people, or just energy to feed into your newfound god?
You are right in that we were under a tremendous amount of stress and fear. The situation was far from ideal, and such a summoning was utterly new territory. I cannot speak for the minds of the others--though there were only thirteen of us at the time--but we all knew that we could not afford a single stray thought to ruin the process. Knew well what was on the line.
The fourteenth had long since abandoned their post ere the Final Days. Such departure did weigh heavy upon our hearts. But I have faith that my compeers performed their duty such as I had: with distinction and focus.
[The departure of the 14th...that still sits poorly with Solus. After all, he was very close friends with him. Not only did he abandon Amaurot in its time of need, so too did he abandon him.]
It is not as though I do not understand where such conspiracies came from. I do. However, I would not say we are mindless in our tempering, I have much and more of my cognitive ability, we simply cannot defy Lord Zodiark's will. Regardless of their fear, this does not mean they are right. For we were on our way to recovery, but because of their scheming, what hope we had to reclaim our home was shattered.
Regardless, well did they know no more of our people would be sacrificed. Rather the opposite. We had planned to tend to the new life on our star, and once it was bursting and vibrant, we would offer up a portion to free the souls of our brethren who slumber within Him. So that we could continue our true stewardship of the star with those that we lost.
I'd argue that your cognitive ability is actually heavily hampered by your tempering. Again, that's not your fault - I actually do understand what that is like, seeing as my Durance was what it was. You're no less intelligent, but you can't apply it properly, when the options you're capable of understanding and implementing are limited by what your keeper wants you to be able to comprehend. Everything you learn becomes specialised in service to it, and you never consider it odd because of course you're only going to need those specific skillsets. You can't defy it - if you're lucky, you can undermine how other people respond to it, but of course there's no guarantee that they'll be of any real help.
And your plan to sacrifice the life of the planet to resurrect your people... it sounds like there would be massively diminishing returns. There's no way that a single portion of the world would have the same energy as your thousands of lost people - you'd probably need to sacrifice the entire planet over again to get all of your people back, which would leave it uninhabitable and require the use of those newly regained lives to sacrifice in order to make the land hospitable again. A vicious cycle that would slowly rot away at your existing numbers and sully the planet until you didn't have either, and you wouldn't be able to consider any other options because that is what Zodiark tells you he wants.
It just sounds like the only thing he wants is sacrifice, and he'll take it however he can make you give it to him.
[Usually he would have some sort of rebuttal to all of that. Stubborn in his spot, unyielding to any idea that Zodiark could be wrong, could be anything short of magnificent and full of mercy. Yet, what Tyler says, presented as it is, does not ring false. Given what he does know, and has almost always known.
It horrifies him.]
Yet this fails to address the bigger issue. Whether or not your claim of His needing continual sacrifice does not change that it is only He who can restore natural order. This I know is not a thought due to my tempering, but rather simply fact.
Should everything remain as it is, reality will eventually collapse, and all life with it. Is it not better to sacrifice some, so that life can continue? Or, should all perish simply because some measure of selfish people refuse to sacrifice for the benefit of their neighbor?
[The thought crosses his mind briefly of what Hythlodeaus's take on that difficult question might be. Based on how the man spoke of himself and all the guilt he seemed to hold over not sacrificing himself.]
Nonetheless. You once told me that you created Zodiark to be the voice of your star. Your star that had already started distorting all living things in your lands and disrupting your magic to the point of bringing imagined terrors to life. I know you couldn't have anticipated it turning on you, but did it not occur to you during the concept that perhaps personifying the forces turning your world into a corrupt wasteland was perhaps not the greatest of ideas?
[He's not trying to be snide, but also like. That sounds like a bad idea on paper.]
We made Lord Zodiark to give our star a will—a will in which it had previously lacked. By personifying it in such a manner, with a will that we tailor-made to keep order, it would serve to preserve us all and keep such chaos and terror irrevocably at bay.
Had we the luxury of time to sit about and ponder every unimaginable way this summoning could go awry, we certainly would. In fact, that was indeed a favorite pastime of my people, philosophy of all regards was the lifeblood of Amaurot. However, we simply did not have time. Ironic, is it not? That my people whom have ever benefited from having arguably too much time, was then found without it.
Nevertheless, from all we knew as fact at the time, it was a nigh flawless plan. Only one was opposed to it in the beginning, however he likewise did not offer an alternative solution. Thus, we had no choice but to continue apace, lest we ensured our demise.
Edited (will I ever stop typoing? WHO KNOWS) 2020-07-12 15:17 (UTC)
[Well that certainly explains why he's also so quick to rush into debating him.]
I can see what inspired it to temper you and yours, now. What better way to maintain order than to make sure none of his subjects could even entertain the notion of disobedience towards him?
[Yep. He loves debate. Was quite the frequenter at the Hall of Rhetoric, in fact!]
Ah, but tempering is not a quality unique to Him and Him alone. It is, in fact, a facet of all primals. Hydaelyn included. We lacked such knowledge due to the fact naught in existence could hold power or sway over us. For our very mind and soul were far too adamant, our will seemingly unbreakable. There was no data on such a concept, nor a means to collect it.
But if Zodiark is the original primal, wouldn't it be true that others were all based on him, at least in part? His existence serves as a possible template to inform other primals how to behave and source their required energy.
Ah, you are under the impression that primals can communicate with one another in some measure that is unique to them, this is not quite the case. They are not connected in any way, and what knowledge the mortal races have about summoning primals, well...
They only know what we Ascians have personally taught them.
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It's not like I don't understand why you would be, it's just curious.
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What is there to fear?
Though I admit that He chose to temper myself and my compeers who created Him, He did not harm us. He delivered us from our doom. He restored our world to how it ought to be, gave it life once more so that we could resume our roles as stewards of our star. For He has the unique ability to rewrite the laws of reality, and thus He became the will of the planet itself.
I will confess I have done much I would not otherwise do without His influence, but I would more relate such blame to She who binds Him: Hydaelyn. If not for Her and those betrayers, everything would be as it ever should have been. Lord Zodiark would be whole, as would all of existence.
Those naysayers complicated an already complicated situation, all because of their fear of Him.
[Though, as he's explaining this, like reciting a script, he feels a little...off about it. A niggling feeling he's trying to ignore. It's probably nothing, really. Just picking at old wounds, he supposes.]
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I would be terrified for the day it got bored of the people supporting it, and went to seek new blood to further its cause. If everything else is so disposable to it, I fail to see what makes you different, I suppose.
[He is aware of what a dangerous line he's treading around, but he's too curious.]
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While He does have his own will, it too is by design. We willed Him to be a savior to us, thus He ever wishes to play such a role. Primals are not wont to boredom, they need not the complex desires of the living, for they are not truly so. If it helps your understanding, think of them like a complex machine, one that follows its coding to the letter. One that cannot operate outside of such defined parameters at its creation, for it does not have desire beyond its initial programming.
[And yet, tempering was not part of that programming...]
As for my acting in His stead, since the Sundering, Lord Zodiark has been divided and banished. He cannot revive Himself on His own, that is where we who serve Him come in. As She was designed for, Hydaelyn has the unique ability to enervate Her foe, and She used such ability to split Him and all else into fourteen. Thus dividing His immense might into a fraction of what it should be, while likewise keeping Him incapable of acting on His own. All so She could control Him.
These deaths that I have caused—that we Ascians have been responsible for—are but a means to correct the mistakes of Hydaelyn and her fools. He does not bade for blood for the joy of it, and certainly these calamities we cause have a fair lower death toll than aught mortals inflict on each other, and would continue to do so even without them. In the end, this is a path of lesser bloodshed, of lesser misery, and it is one lead by His guidance.
Mortals have shown me their cruelty time and time again, they choose not to sacrifice for each other, but to rather kill for their own gain. If reality were to continue as it does under Hydaelyn's watch, it will beget only endless suffering.
no subject
[Such as tempering. As a totally random example. But honestly, discussing the topic makes him increasingly uncertain as to whether Solus does know about it - every human does, in his time.]
This is part of my difficulty in seeing Zodiark as just a mindless machine of your own creation, in truth. Humans of my world have been familiar with the concept of a creation outgrowing its master for thousands of years, in some of our oldest mythologies. Independent thought is a cornerstone of our morality - to have that reduced or removed is seen as a gross breach of everything we believe we stand for.
And while obviously I'm in no position to say that your opinions on Hydaelyn is unfounded, whatsoever, I suppose I find it interesting that you are consistently quick to blame her for the suffering Zodiark prompts you to commit. It could be readily posited that she's trying to prevent further bloodshed and loss of life by forcing Zodiark and his followers to stop perpetuating such massive genocides.
no subject
[A clear mind and clear intent. Something that might be easy, if they're creating something not in the middle of a crisis, with their people and planet dying. It's almost like their creation might have a huge flaw in it because they did so under an immeasurable amount of stress and fear!]
However, we are much the same in terms of independent thought. Amaurot greatly encouraged such, without judgment. Much and more did we accomplish, did we learn, because of unrestrained thoughts and opinions. That we might cultivate and engender the minds of our people. Had we not, then I doubt not our annihilation would have been guaranteed.
Now, as for the topic of Hydaelyn. It would seem to me you might have a misunderstanding of events, and that may very well be my fault. While it is true that Zodiark required sacrifice to do as was needed, such is the exchange of Creation. That is not His fault, nor His desire. In order to stop oblivion from taking us, we needed to create him, and to do so required a vast amount of aether. A quantity that could only be found through the sacrifice of our souls.
This allowed Him to rewrite the laws of reality so that we would survive. However, I confess, it was not perfect. Our star had suffered irreparably from the Final Days. The lands were blighted, the winds ceased to blow, our waters poisoned, and countless species were lost. Thus, we needed Him a second time, and so another half would willingly offer themselves so that the land could regain life anew. That we sorrowful few that remained might cultivate the land, make it bursting with life once more.
The bloodshed did not come till after Hydaelyn committed The Sundering. Therefore, Her actions and those of her followers are directly to blame for what is necessary to repair my reality, to restore my people. To suggest that She is the one trying to prevent further damage, when it was She who created such damage in the first place is utterly absurd. So, yes. I do indeed blame Her for what She has done. If there was any other path to tread, we would. I have searched for eons of another way—none exists. It is not by Lord Zodiark's design that this must needs be done, but it is merely a byproduct of restoring the life She had destroyed.
Each shard we rejoin to The Source gets us closer to restoring reality as it should be. While this may cost lives in so doing, it is ultimately for the greater good. Our reality cannot continue as it is, and should true annihilation return, mortals are not capable of fending it off. Under their stewardship, existence as we know it is doomed, and I cannot allow our tragedy to come to pass again.
He is the only one capable of preventing such a catastrophe from ever occurring again.
no subject
You didn't make him under proper conditions, though. You've admitted as much. While I'm prepared to take your word on many things, I can't imagine that you could remain calm enough to properly summon something so massive - that the fourteen of you were all able to remain calm and rational in the middle of what you've already referred to as a terrifying and unprecedented crisis. Mortals can panic to the point of mindlessness in familiar situations, I find it inconceivable that you all were capable of it in the midst of the apparent end of your world. It's not strictly your fault, and I'm not blaming you for your very legitimate fear, but to claim that Zodiark is an exemplary example of summoning is a blatantly false premise.
If you could toy with my own perspective of it, based on what you've told me. Your world nearly ended; more than half of everyone you've ever known and cared about is dead, lost to the calamity or sacrificed; your leaders and strongest proponents of free will and choice, to the point of allowing you to choose when and where you would like to end your life, are all suddenly spellbound and mildlessly, ruthlessly in servitude to a summon the likes of which has never been seen. Would you not be terrified as well, not knowing if your leaders saw you still as people, or just energy to feed into your newfound god?
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The fourteenth had long since abandoned their post ere the Final Days. Such departure did weigh heavy upon our hearts. But I have faith that my compeers performed their duty such as I had: with distinction and focus.
[The departure of the 14th...that still sits poorly with Solus. After all, he was very close friends with him. Not only did he abandon Amaurot in its time of need, so too did he abandon him.]
It is not as though I do not understand where such conspiracies came from. I do. However, I would not say we are mindless in our tempering, I have much and more of my cognitive ability, we simply cannot defy Lord Zodiark's will. Regardless of their fear, this does not mean they are right. For we were on our way to recovery, but because of their scheming, what hope we had to reclaim our home was shattered.
Regardless, well did they know no more of our people would be sacrificed. Rather the opposite. We had planned to tend to the new life on our star, and once it was bursting and vibrant, we would offer up a portion to free the souls of our brethren who slumber within Him. So that we could continue our true stewardship of the star with those that we lost.
This is what they opposed.
no subject
And your plan to sacrifice the life of the planet to resurrect your people... it sounds like there would be massively diminishing returns. There's no way that a single portion of the world would have the same energy as your thousands of lost people - you'd probably need to sacrifice the entire planet over again to get all of your people back, which would leave it uninhabitable and require the use of those newly regained lives to sacrifice in order to make the land hospitable again. A vicious cycle that would slowly rot away at your existing numbers and sully the planet until you didn't have either, and you wouldn't be able to consider any other options because that is what Zodiark tells you he wants.
It just sounds like the only thing he wants is sacrifice, and he'll take it however he can make you give it to him.
no subject
It horrifies him.]
Yet this fails to address the bigger issue. Whether or not your claim of His needing continual sacrifice does not change that it is only He who can restore natural order. This I know is not a thought due to my tempering, but rather simply fact.
Should everything remain as it is, reality will eventually collapse, and all life with it. Is it not better to sacrifice some, so that life can continue? Or, should all perish simply because some measure of selfish people refuse to sacrifice for the benefit of their neighbor?
no subject
Nonetheless. You once told me that you created Zodiark to be the voice of your star. Your star that had already started distorting all living things in your lands and disrupting your magic to the point of bringing imagined terrors to life. I know you couldn't have anticipated it turning on you, but did it not occur to you during the concept that perhaps personifying the forces turning your world into a corrupt wasteland was perhaps not the greatest of ideas?
[He's not trying to be snide, but also like. That sounds like a bad idea on paper.]
no subject
Had we the luxury of time to sit about and ponder every unimaginable way this summoning could go awry, we certainly would. In fact, that was indeed a favorite pastime of my people, philosophy of all regards was the lifeblood of Amaurot. However, we simply did not have time. Ironic, is it not? That my people whom have ever benefited from having arguably too much time, was then found without it.
Nevertheless, from all we knew as fact at the time, it was a nigh flawless plan. Only one was opposed to it in the beginning, however he likewise did not offer an alternative solution. Thus, we had no choice but to continue apace, lest we ensured our demise.
no subject
I can see what inspired it to temper you and yours, now. What better way to maintain order than to make sure none of his subjects could even entertain the notion of disobedience towards him?
no subject
Ah, but tempering is not a quality unique to Him and Him alone. It is, in fact, a facet of all primals. Hydaelyn included. We lacked such knowledge due to the fact naught in existence could hold power or sway over us. For our very mind and soul were far too adamant, our will seemingly unbreakable. There was no data on such a concept, nor a means to collect it.
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They only know what we Ascians have personally taught them.