The issue I have with this is that’s not /exactly/ true. The Great Chain already has a weakness, where if you can consume and incorporate something else, you can subvert the Order. This would normally be disallowed by the Judgements (destroyed or whatever), but the Neath shelters these aberrations. The Laws are not immutable; the Great Chain can suffer from the same issues as anything where Zeno’s dichotomy can be invoked. To me, the existence of aberrations and ‘half-breeds’ like Stone already suggests a weakening of the Chain, not an outright breaking/disruption.
Judgements impose order. That’s what they do. I also imagine the existence of universe that isn’t theirs would seriously chafe. You are not supreme if someone can avoid your laws, and Judgements are meant to be at the top.
Those are Judgements as a whole. The White is playing The Greatest Game. Anything your opponents are unaware of – or do not know – is an advantage. Anything is acceptable, even something blatantly illegal, so long as nobody catches you doing it. Salt was a scout or a spy, not a saboteur, so the White wanted something out of it. The Apples seem logical, since they can actually enable one of the Neath’s aberrations to endure even on the Surface. That’s a weapon in the Game.
I don’t see any reason to assume the snow is any kind of snow, so I’ll use whatever interpretation I like. I prefer to interpret Salt as having drowned itself in Lacre; water alone, even in the Neath, seems insufficient to swallow a Judgement, weakened via transit or not.
I was fairly certain the sailor’s prayer from Sunless Sea invoked King Storm and Queen Stone. That doesn’t exactly mean anything, as they’re purely ascribed titles, but I feel it significantly separates Salt as different from the others. If my memory is wrong – which happens often enough! – there’s still clear differences between all three. Stone is an abomination, and represents Earth. Storm is on the Judgements’ Bad People list, and represents Air. Salt is something from high up the Chain that has become, in some way, part of the Neath and, under the zee, represents Water.
I’m not convinced Salt is returning, or even knows it is supposed to be at this point. I don’t think Salt can return as it has died in the Neath. "TRAVELLER RETURNING" need not be anything beyond a lurking remnant of its original mission, before it gave up its Name. The options seem to be that Salt is either willfully East and refusing to come back or trapped there. Neither suggests a reasonable explanation for "TRAVELLER RETURNING".
The issue I have with this is that’s not /exactly/ true. The Great Chain already has a weakness, where if you can consume and incorporate something else, you can subvert the Order. This would normally be disallowed by the Judgements (destroyed or whatever), but the Neath shelters these aberrations. The Laws are not immutable; the Great Chain can suffer from the same issues as anything where Zeno’s dichotomy can be invoked. To me, the existence of aberrations and ‘half-breeds’ like Stone already suggests a weakening of the Chain, not an outright breaking/disruption. RESPONSE: Oh, I’m not saying that the Chain is immutable, the Red Science proves as such. But while you can move up and down it, you are still either moving along it, or have knight-moved your way off it. I thought you were suggesting that Salt was looking for somewhere weakly governed by the Chain. And yes, the Chain can break, but when it does, as far as we know from the one instance…it is violent.
Important clarification on the Chain: It exists in our universe alone, as it is made from the light of the Judgements. What I was trying to say is that you don’t get a realm that sorta kinda has the Chain. Further, upon giving up the Name, it is implied that Salt is not a Judgement anymore. Full stop.
I…also don’t know why you are invoking Zeno’s Dichotomy. It is the "infinite halfway" paradox, where in order to get somewhere, you must first go halfway, to do that, you must go half of halfway, and so forth. Aside from what I understand to be no connection to this at all, the Dichotomy itself is not invokable. It is a flawed attempt to connect reality with abstract ideology, and further attempts to justify constant switching of measurement systems as a justification of infinity.
Judgements impose order. That’s what they do. I also imagine the existence of universe that isn’t theirs would seriously chafe. You are not supreme if someone can avoid your laws, and Judgements are meant to be at the top.
RESPONSE: They do in fact hate anything outside their domain. This is the Law of Is and Is-Not. The Judgements will destroy anything of Is-Not, anything at all from Parabola, that enters their light. However, we have no evidence of them expanding. While they destroy anything that enters from other dimensions, we do not have any evidence yet of them expanding into these other areas.
Those are Judgements as a whole. The White is playing The Greatest Game. Anything your opponents are unaware of – or do not know – is an advantage. Anything is acceptable, even something blatantly illegal, so long as nobody catches you doing it. Salt was a scout or a spy, not a saboteur, so the White wanted something out of it. The Apples seem logical, since they can actually enable one of the Neath’s aberrations to endure even on the Surface. That’s a weapon in the Game.
RESPONSE: But why would the Judgements, or even just the White, want the Apples? What the Cider does is not allow Neathy things to survive on the surface, but allow people who have died down below to survive. The reason Neathy things break up above is that they can’t survive the difference in Law above, for instance, while down below a slit throat is an annoyance by the twisted Laws, above, the Laws state it ends you. Cider, through whatever process, change that, but we have no evidence that it changes anything else. And all we know is that the Apples permit humans to survive on the surface AFTER they have died below. Really, the only difference we can extrapolate so far is that a Cidered human is immortal, a non-cidered one is not. Perhaps there is some difference gainable from that in the Greatest Game.
I don’t see any reason to assume the snow is any kind of snow, so I’ll use whatever interpretation I like. I prefer to interpret Salt as having drowned itself in Lacre; water alone, even in the Neath, seems insufficient to swallow a Judgement, weakened via transit or not.
[u]RESPONSE: Alright, important point here. The mention of snow is highly likely to be metaphorical snow. The play is aready drowning in symbolism (For instance, it doesn’t refer to anything like the Bazaar, Storm, Salt, but uses names like The Messenger, The Raven, The Phoenix, etc). The Phoenix says they tire of fire, and thus they will drown themselves in snow and be reborn. Second, Lacre is not some bizzare substance born of the Neath. It is, in effect, engine coolant for the Bazaar. They probably were using the stuff when they were actually doing their job as a messenger between Judgements, and now they use it to keep their engines off while they hide out in the Neath. Further, in the Frostfound Darkroom text you get when you get the Salt variant of Fumbling in Darkness, it specifically says that Salt didn’t find what they were looking for in a variety of places in the Neath, including the Sundered Sea, which is the Bazaar’s Lacre tanks. This search, by the by, is suggested to be different than whatever the White wanted them to search for.
You aren’t being given a reason in most cases to assume that all Snow is Lacre though! Think of it this way. Pails of So-Called Snow are hellishly hard to get. We can only get them one time of year, and even then, we get gouged by Urchins for more than what we can scrape off the roads. If Lacre was just any old snow in the Neath, the Bazaar wouldn’t need to keep dragging cities down either (That’s why they bring cities down, they’re melting us into Lacre to keep them from lifting off).
I am not saying that Salt is literally drowning themselves in snow. I was pointing out that all snow in the neath is not lacre, which was your opening point from your post. My theory is that Salt drowned themselves in Parabola. And again, the snow is a METAPHOR.[/u] [quote=Kyron The Wise]In response to the ‘King Storm, Queen Stone’ part, well, I don’t believe Storm was ever referred to as a King. Storm is some type of dragon, possibly rouge, that lived in the roof of the Neath (Alas, poor Zepplin DLC, if only you were Kickstarted). Stone is the bastard child of the Bazaar and the Sun, a half breed, and worshiped by the Prebyterate.[/quote]
I was fairly certain the sailor’s prayer from Sunless Sea invoked King Storm and Queen Stone. That doesn’t exactly mean anything, as they’re purely ascribed titles, but I feel it significantly separates Salt as different from the others. If my memory is wrong – which happens often enough! – there’s still clear differences between all three. Stone is an abomination, and represents Earth. Storm is on the Judgements’ Bad People list, and represents Air. Salt is something from high up the Chain that has become, in some way, part of the Neath and, under the zee, represents Water.
RESPONSE: Ah, you’re right, the Zailors do refer to King Storm in that Prayer. But yes, they are all different, but I’m not sure we need to attribute elemental representations to them. Storm is/was a rouge thunder-dragon, Salt a rouge Judgement spy, and Stone the bastard child of a star and a space-crab. They’re interpreted as gods by us tiny peoples, but then again, the Judgements collectively work through the guise of the Christian God, so it isn’t necessarily a true interpretation
I’m not convinced Salt is returning, or even knows it is supposed to be at this point. I don’t think Salt can return as it has died in the Neath. "TRAVELLER RETURNING" need not be anything beyond a lurking remnant of its original mission, before it gave up its Name. The options seem to be that Salt is either willfully East and refusing to come back or trapped there. Neither suggests a reasonable explanation for "TRAVELLER RETURNING".
RESPONSE: I don’t know what else to start off with other than the fact that TRAVELLER RETURNING must have some importance to Salt or the East. It is, in ever deployment of the Phrase, in connection with one or the other. Salt is oft referred to as the traveler, and if you get cursed by them, you return to find your extended family has vanished, with the Phrase writ above your heir’s bed. And if we look at the explanation of the Phrase from Frostfound, we see that the place says that the Traveller is always returning. One who does not is no traveler.
Logic chain: If ~returning Then ~Traveler Therefore, If Traveler, Then Returning Salt=Traveler Conclusion: Salt=Returning
(~ means not or negation, for those who haven’t taken some form of Symbolic Logic)
Salt is referred to as the traveler in Frostfound. Every usage of TRAVELLER RETURNING is connected to Salt or the East. Unless Failbetter has just been screwing with us for years, a distinct possibility, Salt is connected to this, and not as a remnant of the White’s mission.
While you are allowed your interpretations, when bringing them into a debate like this, you need to be able to back them up with reasonable assumption from the provided story. So far as can be seen from the story, Lacre is limited to the Bazaar, who has to melt people down to make it. Salt visited the Sundered Sea, and didn’t find what they were looking for. The Chain is a product of our universe alone, and not infinite.
Again, not trying to shoot down your suggestions, as it has raised some considerations in my head, but there is an unfortunate lack of story evidence backing it up. While this is indeed a speculation thread, it is preferred to be speculation solidly rooted in what we have seen thus far.
I may have yet again missed some things, and may have been unclear again like I was with the Chain. In a bit of a rush, Zubmariner is out in 45 minutes, and I need to get a wee bit more studying done. edited by Kyron The Wise on 10/11/2016
There’s only one reason I can think that The White might be seeking Hesperidean Apples; even The White’s time will eventually end. The White is most likely based on a real life type of star, a White Dwarf. White Dwarves are cold, old, and not very bright. It’s been theorized that if a White Dwarf grows billions of years old, older than the universe is right now, it will become a Black Dwarf. A Black Dwarf wouldn’t emit heat or light, and who knows if Judgements would like that or not.
Of course, a single apple or firkin of cider wouldn’t do for a Judgement. The phrase “They said they would only take a little” has an association with the consumption of Mr.Eaten. If The White’s goal truly has something to do with Stone, this would be quite an alarming turn.
Now if you excuse me, I’m going to leave for now before I grow any more insane.
If the judgements use light to spread law and separate is-not from is, would they still count a lightless judgement as a judgement? Perhaps the Dragons would hunt such a judgement down.
Alrighty, so Zubmariner has hit, and having gone through a bit of the new content, I figured it was time to start bringing together any new things about Salt or the East.
ZUBMARINER CONTENT SPOILERS IN CASE YOU WERE WONDERING. GIVEN HOW SPOILER TAGS HAVE AN ON/OFF RELATIONSHIP WITH ME, SOME OF MY SPOILERED CONTENT MAY BE VISIBLE. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
Of course, as Vavakx has pointed out, there is a new Storylet for those who attempt to go East via zubmarine: The Sun Within The Sea. Interestingly, when taking it, the thing that stops you is not the silence as before, but a pervasive golden light, one that penetrates the whole zub, and seems to be scrutinizing everyone. When it becomes too much to bear, you either go to Hideaway, where those who have pushed too far go, or the Gant Pole, where the Zee goes to end. According to Optimatum, the Exaltation ending remains the same however.
I will note, that of the four cardinal directions, the only one that has a new storylet for zubmarines is East. Matter of fact, the only one even accessible in a zubmarine is East, North and West are blocked by stone/ice underwater, and South warns you via invisible wall that you must turn back, else the life hot river of blood will destroy you.
Now, for the possibly mind-boggingly important bit. You may be aware that there are new quests in certain ports. Well, now there is someone at Kingeater’s Castle, who calls herself the Sixth Witness. Apparently, these Witnesses have stationed themselves at Kingeater’s for their whole lives, watching the East with binoculars waiting for…something. However, the Sixth knows that she will not see it, that it is the next Witness, the Seventh, who will see something truly amazing. While she knows she will not see it herself, she asks that you head to the Gant Pole, to ask the haruspicer there (inspecting entrails to divine the future) to ask what the Seventh will see, and to come back and tell her.
At the Gant Pole, you have to help the Haruspex in order to get the divination. You do this by bringing her Recent News (To situate what she has seen, can be done twice) and by making fresh subjects available (She needs almost dead things, as the divination is powered by the fleeting life, not by the meat or death). You do this by defeating monsters on the zeefloor, and selecting a new option that lets you spare the heavily wounded creature, which will make it’s way to the Gant Pole, as that is where everything in the Unterzee goes to die, given the chance. Then you need to protect the Haruspex from mad zailors in the Gant Pole, so she may attempt to find the answer to a Question she has been seeking all her life.
After several rounds of this, the Haruspex has exhausted so much of her remaining life that she requests you to do the divination. One option is to determine the answer to her Question. While we don’t know what the question specifically is, she describes it as a fabled Question that can only be answered with Truth, and none can refuse to answer. She wants to take that to Whither, who kicked here for answering a question.
The more revelant one to this discussion is that if you have taken the Sixth Witness’s request, you may ask that one instead. The viscera forms a representation of KE castle, and when you look East…
An impossible answer forms, one to a question that was never meant to be asked. A Witnessing that will change everything in ways that send shivers deeper than any bone. Further, in the journal, under Portents of the Deep for Gant Pole, it says: There shall be a new horizon. All shall know it, but the king’s city will witness it first
Well, that’s ominous. Upon taking that back to Kingeater’s, it continues to get spook. When you step up to the Sixth Witness, she disentegrates, having apparently become salt. When you pick up her binoculars and look East (they didn’t become salt), that’s when the fun things start.
First, we have a new word. Apparently, the boundary between the known zee and the East is called the Deconstruction. It is here where the known zee ends ad the legends begins. (This is the quoted description of what the Deconstruction is, not me being flowery)
Through the binos, you see a light flicker, and a splashing sound that seems to get closer. However, these things vanish as quickly as any passing fancy, and even the memory quickly fades away. But, in the results, it says that the Seventh Witness has looked East from Kingeater’s Castle.
In case you guys missed it, I believe this means that you were the Seventh Witness.
Well then. Something is going down in the East, and (assuming that Kingeater’s is the "king’s city", you saw the start of whatever it is) whatever is coming, it will be known by everyone.
Well, that’s all I have gathered so far from Zubmariner. Well, also that Venderbight is Xilbalba, but no other Salt/East things. Lemme know if you’ve seen anything else. edited by Kyron The Wise on 10/14/2016 edited by Kyron The Wise on 10/14/2016
Well, thought I’d add a post noting that I have successfully Travelled NORTH, bearing the question Who Is Salt?. Kyron The Wise has found their answer, and we won’t be hearing from them.
Unfortunately, I can’t bring up any of the things I experienced, such is forbidden. Perhaps in the near future I can, but for now, no.
Damn was it worth it though.
(Yeah, no implications to add tonight, and I know its been a while since anything was added here, but if I tried now, I might accidentally let in the forboden things).
Before I am NORTH with Uilx and possibly unable to speak about some revelation of Salt, let me offer a piece of information.
There’s almost certainly a correlation between these latest Exceptional Stories and Salt. Not just because it’s called the Season of Skies though.
We learn about the existance of something called The Dissonance, a cold opposite to the Correspondence. There are a few major connections here. First, there’s the matter of Salt drowned in snow, an obvious connection. It makes even more sense when you consider The White though, who was said to be trapped in a prison of ice somehow. We will, without a smear of doubt, learn more about both of these mysterious figures in these Exceptional Stories, most likely in Gate Prophet.
