It basically comes down to whether or not you trust humans to use power responsibly.
My characters at Virtueverse
Faces of the City
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It basically comes down to whether or not you trust humans to use power responsibly.
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Oh, I trust men and women. I just don't trust EVERY man and woman. So I'd be all for limiting something that could wipe us all out if just one man messes up.
Or to take advantage of our medium and condense it into one webilicious question.
Would you trust these people to handle Nuclear weapons?
Sok
just go on believing exactly what Azuria wants you believe. 
Those artifacts actually are really hard to keep locked away in the super-secure vault which is protected by the most powerful staff of MAGI. The fact that Azuria knows how many descendants of Mu are alive today plus where they live & work is nothing more than a snippet of valueless information. The fact that her ancestors where specifically breed and engineered to be fanatically loyal to Hequat is an irrelevant anachronism; thats not hardwired into her genetics.
WRT to (*)
well I threw that out as a possibility, so perhaps Im not discounting it. But you have to make your assessment based on the facts as they are known. Remember that earlier I did say that I expected the CoH canon to have Azuria end up lily white. The rest is just speculation on something that would keep the game interesting and which fits the information weve been given so far. Frankly, I think it would be a good thing to shake the CoH world up a little and see an in-game event that left a smoking crater in the basement of City Hall. <shrug> I like plot twists.
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A ) Power does not equal enlightenement
[/ QUOTE ] Sure. But thats a strawman. Enlightenment does not equal power either. Who is to say that Tielekku, while powerful, is enlightened? Because she told us that she was when we prayed to her? Erm, ok.
Its also worth nothing that the Oranbegans were not seeking power. Ermeeth was seeking to teach them. Subtle but important difference. The PT story stated that Ermeeth wanted to teach humanity magic, not that the power-crazed Oranbegans demanded to learn it.
Then, faced with the complete and utter destruction of both their society & their very lives, they turned to a dark power which ended up corrupting them. Isnt that sort of like spitting at someone from the grave? Their society in its peaceful form was going to be wiped out anyway. Might as well take the genocidal maniacs with you.
If you, your wife, your kids, everyone you know, your whole society is going to die anyway, how many people do you know that would just roll over and say <shrug> oh well, we gave it a good try? Their *entire* society was being wiped out. They had to do what they could to survive. Maybe they did a cost / benefit analysis and thought they could actually put one over on the demons and break the pact in some way. Who knows? The CoT still around today might be a bad issue that we are left to deal with
but would there even be a Paragon City if the original fanatic Muvians had not been destroyed? Perhaps not. Certainly not one with non-Muvian magic origin Heroes.
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B ) Handing the power of the gods to mortals is....well, pretty much like handing an A-bomb to every guy in the neighbourhood.
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Setting aside the fact that MAD actually appears to have worked, if you handed the power of the gods to mortals then, well, they wouldnt be mortals anymore.
Who is to say that Ermeeth was just supplying power without wisdom? Maybe gaining a new outlook is part of ascending. In some alternate dimensions where the Oranbegans prospered, they are peaceful and wise.
To close an attempt at humor: I remember that when the, ahh, power of Testosterone changed me from a boy to a man and, umm, respecd my, err, powerset it also caused me to change the way I think (nb didnt say it was an improvement). So maybe ascending would do something similar. But with some wisdom thrown in this time. 
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The blood of Mu is very simply explained.
It is the descendants of the Great Diaspora. Indeed, it has washed over the oceans and the lands, and their bloodlines have spread across the world, a gift for the arcane and the mystic that has created an army of the supernaturally aware who battle against that which is hidden in the darkness and hungers for man in his ignorance and tranquility.
Pretty darn cool, all things considered.
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Actually, I'm not sure I like the idea that every non-CoT, non-BP magic user has to be a descendant of Mu. Seems a little too much like midichlorians. I'd like to be able to have a character who, say, learned magic through years of careful study, without having the Story Team come in and say "No, it's really because your great-great-great^10-grandfather came from this lost civilization."
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I wouldn't say that- but the Mu bloodlines have survived and spread far and wide. Destroying Mu didn't destroy the Muvians- it just spread their unique traits into humanity as a whole. The inscription is a statement of defiance- "You can destroy our city, but never our people and what they stand for."
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I wouldn't say that- but the Mu bloodlines have survived and spread far and wide. Destroying Mu didn't destroy the Muvians- it just spread their unique traits into humanity as a whole. The inscription is a statement of defiance- "You can destroy our city, but never our people and what they stand for."
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Actually, given that they stood for the idea that mortals shouldn't have magic, I'd say it got destroyed pretty effectively.
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A ) Power does not equal enlightenement.
The Oranbegans were seeking power. Did they seek enlightenment and the wisdom to guide that power.
Apparantly not, after all they did summon demons and became the CoT, hardly the actions of an enlightened culture.
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And, in an alternate universe, they became the Peaceful Oranbegans, who went on to rule wisely for several millenia in a virtual utopia (civilization-wise; their architecture still needs a bit of shoring-up.)
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B ) Handing the power of the gods to mortals is....well, pretty much like handing an A-bomb to every guy in the neighbourhood.
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Who says these were A-bomb-sized magical powers? The millions of magical descendants of Mu that have power today don't seem to be in danger of destroying the planet.
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To sum it up, Tielekku is IMHO a benevolent diety.
Ermeeth, while maybe (but not necessarily) having benevolent intentions was essentially misguided and had to be stopped, for the good of the gods and for mankind.
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The peaceful Oranbegan world puts the lie to this. The Oranbegans of our world only became the CoT because of the war with Mu. If Tielekku and Hequat had left Ermeeth alone...well, we might not have gotten the "all violence is abhorrent!" Oranbegans, but we certainly wouldn't have gotten the "Demons are good, let's eat your soul!" ones that we have today.
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In one thing Tielekku (or Hequat) succeded. Magicians today might be powerful, but they're nowhere near godlike (which was probably Ermeeth intention).
And while the gods are not present they're not per se displaced (no one has taken their place, yet) nor dead.
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The magicians today don't seem much different from the Peaceful Oranbegans. I don't see anything to support your assertion that Ermeeth was trying to teach them some magic more powerful than what we currently have, except that it's required to support your argument that Tielekku was doing the right thing.
Wow. Arguing theology about an imaginary religion.
Great job on this week's article, Gil. It starts off slow (in the shallow end of the content pool) but then dunks the reader headlong into magical mayhem! 
I loved the exposition on the BP's and CoT's gods and the homelands of Oranbega and Mu.
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- Mu attacks Oranbega, and Oranbega loses. Close to defeat, the Oranbegans ask for demonic help, and the demons give them the Thorn Blades, among other "gifts".
Any comments?
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Right, right, thats the part I was not remembering. Making deals with Demons and then being locked underground (with them?) for a few thousand years is bound to generate a few revisions to the Code of Ethics handbook.
Ok, so now I understand the change from Oranbegans to CoT and the CoT not being on the side of good at all, but it still seems like Ermeeth was looking out for humanity and that Tielekku her pantheon was not.
Even if Hequat was operating outside of normal mission parameters when using selective breeding & eugenics on an entire empire of people which Hequat founded solely to destroy Oranbega, by all accounts Tielekku still did not want humanity to learn magic but rather wanted humanity to stay depended on / worshipers of the various pantheons of gods.
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I believe the there is a lot more to the war between Mu and Oranbega than Mu=good guys and Oranbega=bad guys. SPOILERS
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Remember from various threads we learn that Oranbegans of our world were originally peaceful. And there is the dimension where the Oranbegans are still peaceful. Tales of downfalls are rarely as straight forward as they are told afterwards. The full stories as much more interesting anyways.
Excellent! I really enjoyed this one. Keep up the good work Gil!
This is really turning into an element of "Who can you trust?" and there's really good evidence not to trust either.
First, the Orenbagan version (Mu attacked unprovoked to wipe us out out, they were jerks). Well, right away you start wondering if you can trust guys who have been hanging out intimately with demons and spirits for eons. Sure, Akarist seems to have gone over to the "Good side" but I always thought his switch-over was a little suspect. Why now? Why is he the first? Just seems strange to do it now...did he really have moral misgivings or is he playing games? And as for the peaceful Orenbagans...that's pretty good evidence that maybe we should think of the Orenbagans as good guys...or is it? We've got alterante dimensions where Statesman is an evil Tyrant and Countess Crey is a freedom fighter. Just because the Orenbagans in that dimension are "good" (and presumably preserved their civilization since the Mu attack didn't happen) who's to say that OUR Orenbagans were really good? Perhaps they were evil before the attack and Akarist is putting his spin on things or deliberately misrepresenting things?
As for MAGI, sure we should trust them because they're the good guys, but they're a little suspect. They don't hold on to their itmes very well...is that purposeful? And Azuria doesn't seem to bat an eye about how this Hequat pretty much went on a path to genocide. Plus, her connection to Mu is kinda strange...you get the sense that perhaps she'd cast her lot in with other Muvians over the rest of humanity.
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The magicians today don't seem much different from the Peaceful Oranbegans. I don't see anything to support your assertion that Ermeeth was trying to teach them some magic more powerful than what we currently have, except that it's required to support your argument that Tielekku was doing the right thing.
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Alternate dimensions cannot be used as a "It's a proof that I was right" without further evidence determining the motivations of each party involved.
In an alternate dimesion Tielekku could have been different (and judging the magic as harmless or willingly stepping down and dying or what ever), or Ermeeth could have been differently motivated and teaching the Oranbegans magic for enlightenement (or something like that) and not "to displace the gods" kind.
When push comes to shove the facts we have is that when the Oranbegans were pushed they turned to dark powers that corrupted them. If that "Push" hadn't been the Mu it could have been something completely different. Say, the Rikti? Or the Rularuu? Or any other kind of lethal monstrosity that the Oranbegans were unable to fight "straigh up". Not very enlightened at all. "Spitting in the face of your killer" is something villains do. The oranbegans of our dimension released their magic A-bomb, and the demonic pollution is still here. Even if you're defeated the consequences are too harsh.
As for "the mu has magic! Self-defeating!". Who says the Mu learned the SAME kind of magic as Ermeeth was teaching the Oranbegans in our dimension? Maybe the Mu learned a different type of magic (the not-leading-to-challenging-the-gods type of magic).
For one thing, judging from the text on Magic enhancements our powers come through the gods and not entirely indepent from them.
P.S: MAD worked.....barely, with several crises, and that just in a scant 40 years. Also that was in the hands of people who the people (or the party in the russians case) had selected as the best canidates for the job.
Would it have worked in the long run? A big maybe.
Would it worked if every little joe-schmoe had access to a triggerbutton? Never.
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I believe the there is a lot more to the war between Mu and Oranbega than Mu=good guys and Oranbega=bad guys.
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Err, yes. That's the point. Based on the way I read the PT article it started as Oranbega = Good & Mu = Bad (IMHO, other posters differ). The part I was struggling with was how to get from there to CoT (former Oranbega) = Bad and the missing ingredient for the soup was that they made a wee deal with the demons. You just know thats going to push the envelope of acceptable behavior; hence the "revisions to the Code of Ethics handbook" comment.
You know, a "Redemption of Oranbega" tf for 40-45 would be pretty cool. Since CoT missions run out at 40, you wouldn't have to worry about the contradiction of having "Evil CoT" missions after doing the tf.
"Trust me, it worked in the Simpsons." - Calash
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Even if Hequat was operating outside of normal mission parameters when using selective breeding & eugenics on an entire empire of people which Hequat founded solely to destroy Oranbega, by all accounts Tielekku still did not want humanity to learn magic but rather wanted humanity to stay depended on / worshipers of the various pantheons of gods.
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Just wondering, which mission(s) was it mentioned that the Mu were being selectively breed?
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Alternate dimensions cannot be used as a "It's a proof that I was right" without further evidence determining the motivations of each party involved.
In an alternate dimesion Tielekku could have been different (and judging the magic as harmless or willingly stepping down and dying or what ever), or Ermeeth could have been differently motivated and teaching the Oranbegans magic for enlightenement (or something like that) and not "to displace the gods" kind.
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What reason is there to assume any of that? We're pretty much told that the place where Peaceful Oranbega diverged was when they won the war with Mu without resorting to demonic help. There's no support for the assertion that Ermeeth and Tielekku had completely different personalities in the alternate universe, and there's no reason to assume that when the hypothesis "Oranbega winning the war caused the changes" is consistent with the description of Ermeeth we just got from Azuria and explains the differences quite nicely. Postulating all these other changes when the given explanation suffices is ignoring Occam's Razor.
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When push comes to shove the facts we have is that when the Oranbegans were pushed they turned to dark powers that corrupted them. If that "Push" hadn't been the Mu it could have been something completely different. Say, the Rikti? Or the Rularuu? Or any other kind of lethal monstrosity that the Oranbegans were unable to fight "straigh up". Not very enlightened at all. "Spitting in the face of your killer" is something villains do. The oranbegans of our dimension released their magic A-bomb, and the demonic pollution is still here. Even if you're defeated the consequences are too harsh.
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They made a bad choice and fell, therefore their civilization and its founder must have always been evil? I don't think that follows. Civilizations diverge from the purposes for which they were founded all the time.
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As for "the mu has magic! Self-defeating!". Who says the Mu learned the SAME kind of magic as Ermeeth was teaching the Oranbegans in our dimension? Maybe the Mu learned a different type of magic (the not-leading-to-challenging-the-gods type of magic).
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You're postulating the existence of unnecessary entities again. What evidence do we have that there are two completely different brands of magic, one "good" and one "bad"? Or that Ermeeth was trying to teach the bad one?
The only evidence we have that Ermeeth was doing anything bad is that Tielekku was trying to stop him, and we think Tielekku was good. All of these attempts to place blame on Ermeeth for his followers making one bad choice (when faced with utter annihilation at the hands of Tielekku and Hequat) are only trying to help Tielekku save face.
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For one thing, judging from the text on Magic enhancements our powers come through the gods and not entirely indepent from them.
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If they make the claim that all magic in the world of Paragon is drawn from the gods, I'm quitting the same day. I'm not a [censored] cleric, I'm a wizard, and I refuse to have my character relying on anyone else for power. The fact that the dimensional entities can assist in magic doesn't mean they're the sole source of it (and, if that were the case, it would be rather odd that powers function at all without SOs, and better when slotted with Hamidon-bits, Crystal Titan gems, or Hydra pieces instead of dimensional entity help).
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...when the Oranbegans were pushed they turned to dark powers that corrupted them. If that "Push" hadn't been the Mu it could have been something completely different. Say, the Rikti? Or the Rularuu? Or any other kind of lethal monstrosity that the Oranbegans were unable to fight "straigh up". Not very enlightened at all. "Spitting in the face of your killer" is something villains do. The oranbegans of our dimension released their magic A-bomb, and the demonic pollution is still here.
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IMHO you are soft peddling the fact that their entire civilization was being destroyed (yes, I know I tossed out a similar analogy earlier 
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Expose your family, friends, neighbors, every single person you know, your entire country and your entire culture to imminent extinction at the hands of rampaging fanatics and see how many straws a reasonable person would grasp to try and save something.
Additionally:
If they wouldnt have done what they did, then present day Paragon City may well not exist (Mu surviving as an empire changes the course of the future as we know it).
If they hadnt done what they did, then living with the eugenically engineered, fanatic (un-destroyed) Muvians may have turned out to be a lot worse then living with a few CoT ghosts
who only recently reappeared (in the CoH timeline) anyway.
Spitting in the face of your killer might something villains do, but destroying a mad vicious dog at the cost of your life, your civilization, and the very existence of your peace-loving culture could be seen as the last act of a true Hero.
Oh well, weve all got our opinions. I dont think Im changing yours and you cant penetrate my tinfoil hat (there is a reason I wear it, you know).
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Just wondering, which mission(s) was it mentioned that the Mu were being selectively breed?
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At one point in the Envoy of Shadows story arc, Akairst tells you "At her command they preformed generations of what you would call eugenic breeding to strengthen the magic within their bloodlines"
Of course, you do have to consider the source of the information (a CoT defector)
Thanks Red Tomax! Great website!
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If you, your wife, your kids, everyone you know, your whole society is going to die anyway, how many people do you know that would just roll over and say <shrug> oh well, we gave it a good try? Their *entire* society was being wiped out. They had to do what they could to survive. Maybe they did a cost / benefit analysis and thought they could actually put one over on the demons and break the pact in some way. Who knows? The CoT still around today might be a bad issue that we are left to deal with
but would there even be a Paragon City if the original fanatic Muvians had not been destroyed? Perhaps not. Certainly not one with non-Muvian magic origin Heroes.
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Actually had the orebegans kept their pact with the demons they would have been fine. Their pact changed as the war got worse, ultimately having the demons fight alongside them, in exchange the demons would get to slaughter every man, woman and child of mu, and i think keep their souls or somesuch. THe Orenbegans tried to pull a fast one at the last minute, sparing the beaten muvians, but ultimately daming themselvs, as they had to take their own lives becoming incorporeal spirits to keep teh demons from killing them.
I guess several thousand years reflecting how their generosity twoard their would be killers ended them up in the bowels of the earth as casper wanna-bes caused some ill will. Not to mention they were still chillen with demons, and thats never a good influence.
As a side note, I would like to see the portal missions where you go to peaceful orenbega to be updated graphically. Make it outdoors and clean, like it is supposed to be.
Jay Doherty: Yes, there was this one night that I was ready to go home but had to drop the browns off at the super bowl before I left for home. While on the throne it hit me. I stayed for a few more hours and that why we have the pain pads in the game.
Pacifist Oranbega is pacifist because there is no one left to fight, they killed everyone else. They destroyed every other culture on their world, then in horror over what they'd done, swore never to commit another violent act again, not even in self-defense.
I don't remember now if it was stated that they never made the demonic pact the "real" Oranbegans made, but if they did make it, they certainly fulfilled it.
"The Scroll of Tielekku" says that Tielekku taught magic to gods and mortals alike, which means it's at odds with the PT article.
Current Blog Post: "Why I am an Atheist..."
"And I say now these kittens, they do not get trained/As we did in the days when Victoria reigned!" -- T. S. Eliot, "Gus, the Theatre Cat"
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Ok, so now I understand the change from Oranbegans to CoT and the CoT not being on the side of good at all, but it still seems like Ermeeth was looking out for humanity and that Tielekku her pantheon was not.
Even if Hequat was operating outside of normal mission parameters when using selective breeding & eugenics on an entire empire of people which Hequat founded solely to destroy Oranbega, by all accounts Tielekku still did not want humanity to learn magic but rather wanted humanity to stay depended on / worshipers of the various pantheons of gods.
They (the former nature spirits) ascended to additional power and she a) did not want humanity to have it and b) wanted humanity to continue to worship as required to keep her energizer batteries charged up.
Whether or not Tielekku supported the creation of what was effectively a race of slaves fanatically devoted to Hequat and brought into being for the single minded purpose of destroying (peaceful?) people who were in the process of being enlightened, shes still not starting from a very benevolent position. (*)
[Snip snip snip]
(*) Assuming, of course, that the godhood packages do not come marked with cancer warning labels and that you can still operate heavy machinery after ascending. Could be that she was trying to save us from ourselves, but with the information revealed to-date this does not appear to be the case.
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Why would the (*) not be the case? Consider that:
A ) Power does not equal enlightenement.
The Oranbegans were seeking power. Did they seek enlightenment and the wisdom to guide that power.
Apparantly not, after all they did summon demons and became the CoT, hardly the actions of an enlightened culture.
B ) Handing the power of the gods to mortals is....well, pretty much like handing an A-bomb to every guy in the neighbourhood.
Goverments during the Cold War, backed by (hopefully) brilliant men, with full knowledge of the devestation an atomic war would bring were on the brink of releasing mutual annihilation SEVERAL times during the scant 30-40 years it lasted. Most notably during the Cuba crisis.
Now consider all the hiddeously illogical crimes commited out of jealousy, despair, insanity etc etc.
Now imagine if everyone of those guys had an A-bomb?
You might argue "But if everyone has gargantuan magical powers they would stop them!".
Well, consider that the Oranbegans were losing against the Mu, yet when they consorted with demons they were able to wipe out the Mu civilization and scatter the Mu across the world. This implies that by doing unwise things (and ignoring the long term consequences) you could gain an advantage against everyone who doesn't have a deathwish.
So the final conclusion would be IMHO (as presented in a mere semi-serious manner).
Conspiracy-mongerers. Your anti-authoritarian streak (a remnant of the evolotonary mechanism striving to achieve independance from your parents and form your own family unit) is decieving you. You will now cease with hippie and commie logics and instead submit to The Man for your own good.
To sum it up, Tielekku is IMHO a benevolent diety.
Ermeeth, while maybe (but not necessarily) having benevolent intentions was essentially misguided and had to be stopped, for the good of the gods and for mankind. In the process the "golden age" of symbiosis between gods and mankind had to be sacrificed, and a very dangerous pathway was opened (the presence of dangerous spells and artifacts capable of disturbing the balance), one that requires eternal vigiliance.
In one thing Tielekku (or Hequat) succeded. Magicians today might be powerful, but they're nowhere near godlike (which was probably Ermeeth intention).
And while the gods are not present they're not per se displaced (no one has taken their place, yet) nor dead.