Be warned that this contains spoilers.
I recently opted to raise the "Supremacy: the Dawn Machine" quality up to 7 in order to see what would happen. Having completed the task with great difficulty I returned home to London to find…
Very little change, if any at all. The text was mildly eerie, but versus the Neath’s background creepiness it wasn’t enough to do much as register a blip. Yes, the Dawn Machine may brainwash people, but even so they don’t seem to remove their personality. They have shown no great desire to harm humanity and certainly have been much kinder to humans than any other Judgement. Is a humanist Judgement, even one that asks for worship, truly that bad? Between monster and deity who care very little for us, I can think of many things worse.
Even my waif- er, favored colleague the Carnelian Exile who left the Dawn Machine has little enough bad to say, only stating that she left. Now I’m not ready to sign up as a Sequencer just yet, but can we truly and immediately call it evil?
First of all you should put a spoiler tag in the title of the topic if you are going to discuss something like this instead of the OP.
That said, the Dawn Machine it certainly is tyranic in it’s own way, besides I think calling the Dawn Machine a "humanist Judgement" just because it dosen’t inmediatly (physicaly) harm the humans arround it is going a bit too far. In that note he has done the exact same than any other Judgement and less than our own natural Sun (wich may I remind you is a Judgement).
Remember just being close enogh to the Machine is harmful to humans in the a psycological sense, and robs them of their free will, wich depending on your perspective may be worse than the other Judgements who usually limit themselves to the physical aplications of the Law. Emphasis on usually.
[quote=Fincar]First of all you should put a spoiler tag in the title of the topic if you are going to discuss something like this instead of the OP.
That said, the Dawn Machine it certainly is tyranic in it’s own way, besides I think calling the Dawn Machine a "humanist Judgement" just because it dosen’t inmediatly (physicaly) harm the humans arround it is going a bit too far. In that note he has done the exact same than any other Judgement and less than our own natural Sun (wich may I remind you is a Judgement).
Remember just being close enogh to the Machine is harmful to humans in the a psycological sense, and robs them of their free will, wich depending on your perspective may be worse than the other Judgements who usually limit themselves to the physical aplications of the Law. Emphasis on usually.[/quote]
Apologies and noted for next time.
It’s not just that they don’t hurt them. The Dawn Machine actively works to make humans happier. They are not just not hurting humans, they are actively working with them much of the time, such as the decision to help you fight the sunlight or giving you a Dawn Element in exchange for your assistance.
The free will avoidance is a bit harder to swallow, I’ll admit, but there is very literal information on how that works. First, we know that people can leave it, potentially even willingly. Its treated like more of a cult than anything, and it could even be voluntary. If there’s more information, maybe I missed it, but every interaction you have with the Dawn Machine happens with you approaching them. There are the bright barges, but every faction but London has violent boats so I’m more tempted to call that a gameplay convention.
I’m again not ready to sign up or call it unanimously good, but there’s definitely more to the picture than just "Evil bastard mind controls for evil reasons."
It’s not just that they don’t hurt them. The Dawn Machine actively works to make humans happier. They are not just not hurting humans, they are actively working with them much of the time, such as the decision to help you fight the sunlight or giving you a Dawn Element in exchange for your assistance.
The free will avoidance is a bit harder to swallow, I’ll admit, but there is very literal information on how that works. First, we know that people can leave it, potentially even willingly. Its treated like more of a cult than anything, and it could even be voluntary. If there’s more information, maybe I missed it, but every interaction you have with the Dawn Machine happens with you approaching them. There are the bright barges, but every faction but London has violent boats so I’m more tempted to call that a gameplay convention.
I’m again not ready to sign up or call it unanimously good, but there’s definitely more to the picture than just "Evil bastard mind controls for evil reasons."[/quote]
I am afraid I have to point out that the Dawn Machine dosen’t help you out of the goodness of it’s core. It’s payment because you have something it needs and youa re wiling to sell it, wich is neither good or evil really.
While it is possible that the New Secuence could be beneficial to humanity, as you stated we just do not know enogh about the Dawn Machine’s end game other than it wants more power to replace the current Law upheld by the Judgements, however the fact that it recruits by breaking someones will to it’s own instead of explaining it’s goals and working with willing subjects is… not reasuring. edited by Fincar on 6/25/2016
I am afraid I have to point out that the Dawn Machine dosen’t help you out of the goodness of it’s core. It’s payment because you have something it needs and youa re wiling to sell it, wich is neither good or evil really.
While it is possible that the New Secuence could be beneficial to humanity, as you stated we just do not know enogh about the Dawn Machine’s end game other than it wants more power to replace the current Law upheld by the Judgements, however the fact that it recruits by breaking someones will to it’s own instead of explaining it’s goals and working with willing subjects is… not reasuring. edited by Fincar on 6/25/2016[/quote]
That’s fair, I suppose. We shall probably have to wait for more content on them before my dreams of moral ambiguity are brought shattering down by the Dawn machine being terribly unkind.
Have you ever zailed West off the map? The Dawn Machine is… quite clearly not sane, even by non-human standards, and very definitely does not have humanity’s best wishes at heart.
The Dawn Machine was created by a faction in the Admiralty so they could rewrite Law, and the moment it was complete enough to do so it mind-controlled them all. It wants to control everything no matter the cost. Controlling all nearby humanity is not its end goal - it wishes to actively destroy the very stars in the sky.
I’m not entirely sure whether or not OP understands the significance of the Chain in the Sunless Sea mythos, but I can assure you that this is one of the few cases where preserving the status quo is probbly a really good idea. HOWEVER. It does raise the interesting question of whether or not the Dawn Machine is evil. Its wish to destroy the stars, Time, and the Chain may seem evil, however it could (and this is a very conjecture-y could) could just wish to upend the status quo because that’s what it was built to do–establish a new order of things, and I don’t think that we can necessarily call that evil immediately. Dangerous and completely unstable, on the other hand, absolutely.
It does raise some disturbing questions when TLON seems so naturally justified and the Dawn Machine seems so naturally evil (the ideas behind them are too close for comfort).
It should be possible for you to edit the original post, allowing you to update the title & apply spoiler tags within your existing post, as appropriate. :-)
The ideas behind how both the LoN and the Dawn Machine plan to achieve their goals are very similar yes. There are those opposed to the LoN on the same grounds as opposed to the Dawn Machine aka - the light going out would just be a bad thing.
But the actual goals behind them make the LoN more palatable and the Dawn Machine more terrible. The latter wishes to conduct what is effectively a coup d’état against the current dictatorship and then take over as the new leader: the former wishes to end that dictatorship forever. edited by Hotshot Blackburn on 7/10/2016
Personally I’ve always found the New Sequence and their Radiant Master quite creepy. Sure they don’t say anything overtly threatening, but that sense of cheeriness and how they try to charm you into doing their bidding reminds me too much of a textbook cult. Sucker you in with vague, cheerful sounding platitudes and then (quite literally) brainwash and screw you over in the end. I admit I’ve almost been tempted into doing The Machine’s bidding, if only to see what would happen. And that’ when I saw it:
I never saw the Judgements as dictators. To me, the Judgements always were simply there to enforce laws of sensibility and logic, which is very much needed seeing as the Neath is a pretty horrifying place all around. The stars are just space-cops, yah?
Nah, the stars are space politicians - they make the laws. It’s the dragons that are the law enforcement.[/quote]
Except when you die and revive in the Neath and try to return to the surface, you don’t get a dragon sent after you. The light just strikes you perma-dead on the spot, so it would seem their light has some direct role in maintaining those laws.
Nah, the stars are space politicians - they make the laws. It’s the dragons that are the law enforcement.[/quote]
Except when you die and revive in the Neath and try to return to the surface, you don’t get a dragon sent after you. The light just strikes you perma-dead on the spot, so it would seem their light has some direct role in maintaining those laws.[/quote]
True, space politicians is not the best metaphor, though it’s more fitting than space police as they create the laws themselves.
On the original topic, Zubmariner has informed us that the Dawn Machine literally eats souls. So it’s at least as bad as the Judgements there, except the Judgements are polite enough to wait until you’re done using yours. edited by Optimatum on 10/20/2016