SSA #7 Story Discussion ** SPOILERS **

I hate to correct once again, but I distinctly recall Recluse saying "The submerges ships" so there are likely multiple sunken ships, plus the six visible floating ones. Basically, Wade murdered over 10,000 people with a handwave. That's kind of horrifying.

I cannot honestly say that ethics necessarily are the issue behind my initial reaction in my case. In my case, its a reaction to someone who behaves as if they know so much more than me that they feel I'm incapable of making an informed decision, so they are willing to use me as an uninformed pawn.

If that's true, then there's nothing I can do to stop them anyway. If I do find a way to beat them, it proves they were not so smart after all. But either way, trust is earned, and Prometheus just set himself into negative territory with his current set of revelations. He could very well be acting for the greater good, and I might even agree with his ultimate motivations if I knew what they were, and I certainly would not operate against him just because I think he's a twit on the chance he is, but I don't trust him and I would forever seek my own way around him.

Its less of an ethical prohibition against following such a person, and more of a visceral reaction to following such a person when my life experience says when someone tells me I'm not smart enough to understand, its always been them that was too stupid to explain.


But as to ethics in general, another thought occurred to me last night. Prometheus' explanation of why he didn't explain Ascension earlier reeks of a problem. There's nothing different about now that makes it easier to explain than a year ago, so there's no real reason he couldn't have explained it, despite saying hey, I'm explaining it now that you ask. We're asking now because of Wade, and Prometheus implies he knew about Wade and his plans all along.

Which means he let all those people die just to conduct an experiment to see if we were capable of taking Wade out.

He could have told us earlier that Wade was attempting Ascension, and what steps he might have taken, which could have helped.

I believe now that Prometheus *wanted* Statesman dead, because as he says, that means Statesman's power now returns to our Well. Its more power he can redistribute to fight Battalion through us. As villains, we might actually smile at the notion that Prometheus let Statesman die because it means more for us. As a hero, I would be compelled to shoot him in the forehead the first chance I had a weapon capable of doing it.

In some respects no; Prometheus could be shown to be extremely intelligent and in control by actually demonstrating that his intelligence actually generates results in the story. But it doesn't seem to, so far. He sounds more like someone on the Internet trying to convince everyone he knows everything while having wikipedia open in another window. Look at how smart I am: I knew that everything would happen as it happened. Didn't actually do anything to make it happen that way, but that's because I already knew it would. Check out the big brain on me.

But in other respects yes: if you're going to write a story that hinges on having really smart people in it, you should be smart enough to at least emulate that level of intelligence, or work extra hard at it. Otherwise that's like writing a story that relies heavily on the sport of American football while knowing very little about the game, and saying that its not important that those details get done right because its fiction. If the quarterback hits a homerun, its not reality so that shouldn't matter.

We expect the writers and artists to get details as correct as possible: if you're going to spend huge amounts of time making sure a missile destroyer looks correct you should consider it equally important to spend time making sure smart people actually sound smart.

There appear to be a significant number of players who feel that "it's not reality" is actually a reasonable excuse for that sort of writing.

I'm not really sure that Prometheus is intended to sound "smart", unless you're equating "smart" and "knowledgable". If he and his cadre were omniscient then there would never be any "unauthorized" ascensions. I think he's just intended to sound cryptic. He certainly succeeds at being annoying and untrustworthy.

Which can, unfortunately, backfire horribly...

(mentally insert picture of the Architect from the Matrix here--the actual image was removed)

I think that this is accurate as far as it goes, and by itself it's a good enough reason to backstab Prometheus at the first available opportunity.

However, I believe that there's also another, more sinister (or less sinister, depending on your views) motivation.

If Rularu is truly ascended already then he/it is already a "well" or potentially could become one if he chose to put his psyche back together and commit himself to that goal.

Prometheus and his cadre allowed Wade's plan to go forward (presuming that they truly were capable of interfering as they claim) for two reasons.

The first is that it would not directly rob the Well of its energy the way that our character's ascension supposedly would do. If any such withdrawal of energy was going to happen, it already happened a long time ago.

Secondly, and more importantly, is that if Wade was successful then he would effectively be duplicating the methods of Batallion. He would be commandeering and taking personal control over a "well".

Wade's experiment was a proof of concept for a method that could allow Primal Earth mortals to use the weapons of Batallion against it and steal its energy sources in the same fashion that it steals the "wells" of the peoples that it encounters on its journeys through the universe.

Compared to that, I suspect that Prometheus would consider the deaths of a few thousand mortals to be an acceptable price to pay in order to learn the outcome of the experiment.

Also, I'm so smart there's no possibility whatsoever that you could contribute anything to this plan, so there's absolutely no point in me telling you anything about it until I need you to do something, or alternatively after its already happened and you can't possibly screw it up by using your brain.

I can't really argue with that analysis. :-|

I think it's more likely that she hopped into Penny's head

That's an interesting theory. However, since Prometheus suggests they are aware of many other Ascensions, successful and unsuccessful, and he also suggests that not knowing precisely how Rularuu did it was an anomaly, that would imply that Prometheus is already aware of methods of ascension we could theoretically use against the Battalion. But he also suggests that humanity as a race, and we in particular, are not ready to ascend and he would stop any such thing from happening. So I don't think Prometheus actually wants us to use ascension against the Battalion.

Perhaps as a doomsday weapon against them, possibly if things go bad, but we don't know enough about the Battalion to know yet if that's a logical idea.

Still, the general notion that Prometheus had an ulterior motive to observe what happened with Wade besides what he tells us - that it was to allow us to defeat him - has the ring of truth to it.

That's technically what he's doing now - he's helping us "steal" power from the Well, which could imply that the Well iin some way connected to Zeus or other ancient gods.

I believe he believes most of what he says. I don't trust him to be necessarily right, nor do I believe him when he effectively says his plans are so inscrutable we couldn't do anything more than mess them up if we were aware of them.

Anyone who says "you dare question me" is in dire need of being questioned. And probably wrong.

While DD does seem to be more heroic, I think it's interesting that his threat to send Ouroboros crashing into the sea in one of his letters, which he also repeats in the final DA cutscene, comes across badly when we actually see the citadel smashed in Mender Ramiel's arc - the way it's presented there makes it seem like a catastrophe, rather than an important victory.

At the same time, concern for humanity doesn't necessarily translate into concern for the individual. He is a Titan, and in Greek mythology Titans and Gods alike were capable of callousness on a staggering scale. He may see the sacrifice of a hundred or a thousand humans as perfectly acceptable if he learns something about the opposition. He lacks humanity.

My other theory is that he used to be vying for the same status the Well of the Furies currently holds. He wanted to hold that status of being the mouthpiece and broker for the collective human potential and subconscious... and he lost. In the conflict with whatever entity the Well of the Furies once was (and I do believe the Well used to be someone. Maybe the first Incarnate, or Gilgamesh or the first hero or whatever), he ended up the loser and chained to a mountain for eons.

I couldn't of given a better breakdown than that, easily facing GW and her minions was seriously more epic except fighting Wade in SPACE Had our GW battle been in space it would have been the alphabit letters of amazing

Here is hoping the missions don't get old unlike a certain revamped red zone.

by Star Ranger 4 WIN LOSE OR DRAW, WE WILL FIGHT. WE ARE HEROES This is what we DO!

Which could tie in with (Silos'?) narrative at the conclusion of DD's personal story-

(Bolding mine)

Maybe the DD/Ouroboros clash is ultimately caused by a misunderstanding and miscommunication on the parts of Silos and DD (and their mutual egos?), and Ouroboros' destruction is brought about by DD after all, but in a "aw, crud" kind of way?

Another note about the final story- maybe I missed it (tried scrolling back and didn't see anything), but I'd have liked to see some acknowledgement of how/why the Patrons other than Recluse disappeared before the final battle. I assume Wade did it, teleporting them back to Earth or something, but it just kind of abruptly happens, and I didn't see an in-game acknowledgement of why (I vaguely recall one or more patrons saying something like "what the...?" but am not certain if I just mentally shorthanded it or not.)

1. The Dream Doctor is against Ouroborous and Silos's plans, particularly in regards to the role of Rularru.

2. The Dream Doctor joined the Midnight Club and helped guide them towards a larger role in the world.

3. Darrin Wade is an ex-Midnighter.

So. It is possible that someone in Ouroborus was behind Darrin Wade all along? Maybe it was a gambit on their part.

Outcome A: Darrin Wade ascends, takes Rularru's power, and there's another tool in order to fight the Battalion.
Outcome B: Darrin Wade is stopped, showing the power of the meta "humans" on Earth and maybe giving them information about Rularru that may help with Battalion.

And I do wonder, how much of this "aha, I knew it, you *do* want my shinies! *you're not getting my shinies*!" in response to reasonable questions about "why didn't you bring this up before?" is projection. How much is a general assumption that players are power-hungry and if there is a Greater Power to be gotten, they will want it. And how much is the GM going "you are not ready to know" because he's still trying to decide and doesn't want to commit to one answer yet.

I am expecting the whole thing to hit depths of stupidity never thought possible, just so there's still a slim chance I'll be pelasantly surprised.

His master plan is to stand between us and the well, and hand out only annoying little tidbits of power and information until we become so fed up that WE find a way around him and win the day without him helping at all.

His great plan to defeat the Battalion is to trick us into finding a way to defeat the Battalion. He can't.

It's funny that people keep saying this about Ghost Widow. My Ill/Rad controller dropped her like a sack of potatoes. Ruluwade was a much greater challenge than Ghost Widow could have dreamt of being.