*Stellaecide ;)
Yes, ahem, pardon. Stellaecide.
If there is any justice, we will finally learn something intelligible about Salt.
[quote=Akernis]My only problem with that is that in the Destinies of the LoN mention that cleansing the Neath of all light and destroying all civilization is a prelude, a test run, to going after the Judgments. Meaning that if the Judgement are now being murdered (and presuming that the LoN is to blame) then they must already have been through with the Neath and Earth.
Unless, of course, the LoN is diverging from the sequence of events shown in the destinies.[/quote]
Sadly (for me; greatly positively for you): For London to be growing ‘increasingly authoritarian’, it’s probably still got the whole Law thing on lockdown. Which means at worst, the Device failed to kill the Dawn Machine; at mediumst, there’s another revolution with murdering the stars as a goal kicking off (geez I hope they accept Revolutionary Funbux); and at best the Liberation crew said ‘heck with the Neath, we figured out how to shank a star in the ribs, let’s just skip right to that’.
At least one Destiny has already been rendered impossible and non-canon-- if you wrote Mr. Eaten’s name on your arm as you do in Torment, you wouldn’t get to hang out with Flukes and kickstart their reckoning. You would just be straight up incinerated before you finished getting it tattooed on there. So I’m not surprised that the details of one of the Liberation’s test runs have gone a bit funky. There’s probably still time to throw a wrench in those revolutionary gears.
(but that would be wrong. destroy the great chain and free my cool rubbery friends.)
[quote=Parabuteo]
Sadly (for me; greatly positively for you): For London to be growing ‘increasingly authoritarian’, it’s probably still got the whole Law thing on lockdown.[/quote]
As far as I gathered it was this new space borne British Empire which were growing more authoritarian, not London itself, which is presumably still down in the Neath.
[quote=Akernis][quote=Parabuteo]
Sadly (for me; greatly positively for you): For London to be growing ‘increasingly authoritarian’, it’s probably still got the whole Law thing on lockdown.[/quote]
As far as I gathered it was this new space borne British Empire which were growing more authoritarian, not London itself, which is presumably still down in the Neath.[/quote]
I read it as the Empire on both ends, since if the Liberation succeeded the bohemians, revolutionaries and outcasts would already have a pretty good deal. But if it’s just the Neath itself, with the Empress up and leaving for a little bit, there is an additional possibility, which is, of course, that the Masters went ahead and decided to drop Paris and Victoria R. needed to situate herself elsewhere a while.
So that could also be pretty bad for all sides. Hopefully there’s an equivalent to the Merchant Venturer’s quest or the trips to the surface, but for returning to the Neath for answers. It’d be a pretty interesting sight one way or the other with the Empress having left the old place behind!
Or perhaps an alternate continuity. Sunless Sea already had a number of those after all. Your Captain could, for example, hand London over to the New Sequence, which would invalidate a number of FL Destinies. Then there’s the option to, you know, give February what she needs to burn London to the ground!
Yay. This is so cool, and absolutely horrifying!
I remember watching this underappreciated cult sci-fi classic as a child, and being deeply disturbed by it.
D.J.: I wasn’t going to tell you this. I’ve been listening to the distress signal, and I, um, think I made a mistake in the translation.
[Plays the distress signal]
[color=rgb(112, 87, 157)]Miller[/color]: Go on.
D.J.: I thought it said ‘liberate me’ - ‘save me.’ But it’s not ‘me.’ It’s ‘liberate tutame’ - ‘save yourself.’ And it gets worse.
[Plays the distress signal again]
D.J.: There - I think that says ‘ex inferis.’ ‘Save yourself… from hell.’ Look, if what Doctor Weir tells us is true, this ship has been beyond the boundaries of our universe, of known scientific reality. Who knows where it’s been, what it’s seen. Or what it’s brought back with it.
Miller: From hell.
edited by Frederick Metzengerstein on 9/25/2016
Yay. This is so cool, and absolutely horrifying!
I remember watching this underappreciated cult sci-fi classic as a child, and being deeply disturbed by it. [/quote]Same here - that movie gave me more nightmares than anything else I’ve seen in my life!
I do hope that the writers find some time to read William Hope Hodgson. His The Night Land redounds in horrors ensuing the final extinguishment of the sun’s light… The Night is indeed a liberation, but not for humanity…
Published in 1912, it is an Edwardian rather than a Victorian work, but who’s counting?
I am cautiously optimistic about this. On the one hand I’m more a fan of the Dawn Machine than the Liberation and the idea of abandoning London for space fills me with some trepedation. On the other hand I trust Failbetter to make a game that is fun to play and they have previously displayed a tendency to play fast and loose with time and the future (hence why my Sunless Sea game isn’t taking place in 1983 right now.)
Like others have said, I assume the story will take place in a possible future and not the only ‘canon’ future and I wait to see what they do.
[quote=Hark DeGaul]I am cautiously optimistic about this. On the one hand I’m more a fan of the Dawn Machine than the Liberation and the idea of abandoning London for space fills me with some trepedation. On the other hand I trust Failbetter to make a game that is fun to play and they have previously displayed a tendency to play fast and loose with time and the future (hence why my Sunless Sea game isn’t taking place in 1983 right now.)
Like others have said, I assume the story will take place in a possible future and not the only ‘canon’ future and I wait to see what they do.[/quote]
The dawn machine probably also has an interest in overthrowing the stars. Its very existence is doubtless illegal, and is either weaker than an individual star, but with sufficient resources, or stronger but not enough to actually take them all on and win.
I voted for this when the card came up and I’m absolutely thrilled I wasn’t the only one. I’ll happily join the kickstarter effort when it happens ^_^
What was the Sunless Sea kickstarters like anyway? I wasn’t around when those happened.
For me one of the most intriguing details is that the Empress is there and personally leading the whole thing. I wonder how the Empress came to make her decision to travel into the High Wilderness. Up to now she’s been perfectly willing to let her Empire rot away while she nurses the Consort in her silent, shuttered up palace. Presiding over a massive new imperial project is a pretty big change. Did the Merchant Venturer come back and, much like Christopher Columbus and his stories of gold, bring the Empress tales of otherworldly power or medicine that would improve the Consorts state (this would be my first guess)? Or did something happen to drive her from the Neath? Well, whatever the reason, Her Enduring Majesty is about to take a big step into the limelight.
One thing though, with the Empress there it’s not hard to see how the New Empire quickly becomes authoritarian:
[quote=]Why is the Empress’ Palace shuttered?
Apparently the Empress doesn’t like light. Or sudden movements, loud noises, foreigners, treason, peaches. When you’re Empress, you can do this kind of thing.[/quote]
I’m not sure that the Judgments dying is all do to the Liberation btw. Naturally the Revolutionaries will do whatever they can however they can - but the High Wilderness is so UNCOMPREHENDINGLY VAST. I think in one of FL’s Destinies Earth ends up likened to a little speck of sand on a large beach? The Judgments probably have many enemies, some of them fellow stars (the Judgments can kill one another after all), and the Neath isn’t the only dark place in existence. The Sorrow Spiders came from one of those dark spaces, after all. Then there are all the things that are behind the mirrors (we only see some of the border places of that other place, which is just as vast as the High Wilderness).
Contemplating the High Wildernesses vast scale, I was also very much intrigued by this detail here:
Trains: everything having to do with trains! Like, that influence kind of stands out, doesn’t it? And in a science fiction romance set in outer space! Normally when one imagines exploring outer space its with space ships. But trains are clearly going to be an important element.
Does the High Wilderness have what amounts to a gigantic intergalactic railway network? Or is the New Empire building one? This wouldn’t be out of character for the Victorian time period - the British Empire in India, Canada, and Africa was very much an empire of railroads, which allowed the overcoming and conquest of vast spaces (and destruction/plundering/enslavement of indigenous peoples by the British elite). Moving around in some sort of space railroad would allow Failbetter to represent the High Wildernesses sheer expanse and spacial diversity while at the same time ensuring that the time spent traversing said expanses and diversity won’t become detrimental to the players enjoyment of the game.
The trains might be the means of traveling between game/story locations, 80 Days style (taking the train being a story in itself). Or they might be the means of traveling between multiple game maps, which would then be explored Sunless Sea style (like, one map for the places around the Egg and another map for the Forge of Souls, with you zailing your ship around after getting off the train). Whichever it is, I’m sure it will be a lot of fun.
edited by Anne Auclair on 9/26/2016
[quote=Anne Auclair]What was the Sunless Sea kickstarters like anyway? I wasn’t around when those happened.[/quote]Neither was I, but it’s still online. ;)
Aww, did they fall short on the stretch goal for the dirigibles? :( Because those sound awesome. I’ve always loved Zeppelins.
I’m fairly certain that Sunless Sea was declared an alternate continuity. I could dig up evidence if people want to be assured one way or the other, but there are a couple of points where the world just fundamentally does not work the same way.
I’d love to see conclusive evidence that can’t be explained away. I mean, the wounds-are-actually-lethal is an assumption that most zailors are dying in ways that people don’t come back from, or at least not in any shape fit to exist in.
That’s fairly final.
Fallen London and Sunless Sea stand side by side. It will be interesting to see how they place Sunless Sky.