Bay 12 Games Forum

Back in your day, Boksi had already been registered for a couple of years.

Pretty sure Chaos isn't entirely inimical to sapient thought, MSH. You still have breeding populations of humans on daemon worlds and whatnot, iirc. S'entire hive/factory worlds in the immaterium pumping out bodies and weapons for the Chaos forces, et al. Chaos is largely more transformative than outright destructive, really. Even with Khorne. In their own way, they're more humane than the Imperium.

But no, killing the Emperor means the Imperium splats and Chaos quite promptly takes over for it. After that, it's harder to say. Probably a big Chaos/Necron kerfluffle and then Tau gets corrupted/squished and that's pretty much game.

Well. Providing killing the Emperor doesn't cause the full manifestation of the Chaos God of Order/Humanity or something. There's arguably little difference between the Emperor and the Chaos Gods, really.

Loses one like... on the net? Or just in terms of raw losses? 'Cause they still do the whole colonization thing pretty fervently, iirc.

Can't even recall if they're actively shrinking, honestly. There's decay and shrinkage, but it's not really a per-day thing, usually. Impies are a bit of a bitch to dig out. Passive sort of attrition seems fairly minor. You just get spats where there's some heavy losses, but those don't always stick. Hard to say, really. Minor searching says the situation's pretty fluid, where they're gaining and losing them pretty regularly. So you might lose five one day, gain eight the next, lose another four the day after, and over the next week gain a baker's dozen and lose a dozen.

General number seems fairly consistent at the moment, though, from what I'm seeing.

... if dog pee is the cause of the taste of maple syrup compared to corn, then need to get some incontinent canids up in those tree orchids, stat. Maybe in the corn fields, too.

Don't... don't think that line of thought should be necessarily applied to the continuing metaphor thread, though.

I always assumed dream selves were just game constants, created with no real history, like the rest of everything...

Wasn't Jade prospit dreaming long before the game activated (overtly, anyway) on their world, though? Couple other examples of that, too, iirc. They're presumably game constants with no history to the same extent the players themselves are.

... which might be substantially so, but... whatev'.

Eh... this is like bizarro soda, though. Usually the longer it's been out the better it tastes. It's like a soda that starts flat and stale and reverses as time goes on. A Merlin soda, if you will. Sex is a Merlin soda.

So yeah. Load up on the Seven Dick Surprise. So long as the surprise isn't the clap.

If someone has advice for "how to get a backbone and level of self-esteem strong enough that when people try to emotionally take you out, you don't get an urge to take yourself out," I'll take it.

Really wish I had advice to give on this one. Something seems to have killed my self-esteem around my early/mid-teens, more or less entirely. One is what one is. That's not so much a thing to be valued as a thing to be acknowledged, I guess. I don't really value myself in any meaningful sense. Don't see worth in what I am or what I've done. That is what it is. But... I can do interesting things, and produce interesting works, and help in little ways, and help in big ways, and even if I am not of value the potential I hold is. Even if I don't manage those things, I can at least try toward them to some degree and, for me, that's become enough. And above and beyond that, it's just neat to do things. Breathing is awesome. Watching the walls are great. I was mostly bedridden for a good six months straight. Since then, even walking or shifting in bed is like a tiny little existentially fulfilling dance. The sensation of sensation still brings me to tears sometimes. It hasn't really led to me being more active or anything. Everything's just so much more fulfilling, it seems.

I just wish I had an answer as to how I got there. Don't really know what to do or say besides share the experience. Lot of it's too internalized or subconscious to really unpack, and "not thinking about it" is about half of what keeps that working, heh. Somewhere in between the consistent history of paranoia and near-isolation and a few outright psychotic breaks, and the decade and a bit of meditation, metaphysics, ethics, and aesthetics, it seems to have just... came together. The right things broke, and what was formed from the remains is... pretty content. Still very much not in a good spot by any outside measure you'd care to measure by, but I'm doing better than I have in a long time. Sorta'.

It's kinda' lonely, yeah, but fixing that just seems to be finding the right people. S'just... quite hard to do that. Takes a lot of time. Not a very high success rate. And people change, including oneself, so they might not last too long. You take it as it comes, and there'll probably be lulls. I kinda' see interpersonal relations as a sort of jigsaw puzzle, yeah? Some folks just fit. Others fit to varying degrees. Some don't fit at all. It's not so much figuring out how to change your puzzle piece as finding the other pieces that fit. The pieces will take care of themselves.

The latter bit, though... I'unno. I doubt it'd work for many. For me, I just... established the conditions under which I'd take the proverbial hike and decided to stick with them. It sounds kinda' silly but I rather do intend to off myself in another four or five decades. I don't really want to live to seventy. Barring major medical malfunction before then or a couple of social issues (generally related to imprisonment), though, I do want to stick around for a while. I'm not bored yet, and I'm not so disabled I can't still do some good here and there, and either of those is sufficient condition to keep on ticking, for a while. It doesn't have to be much. Got low expectations. Really, really low, when it comes to boredom and helping out. Still get the occasional urge or intrusive thought, but, ah. Y'get urges to do a lot of things, yeah? They're just motivations of varying sorts. One acts on them when it benefits, and don't when it doesn't. Not always the easiest of things to do, but it comes with practice.

S'just... I'unno. Y'try to keep the harm to unintentional, yeah? And worry when you don't. You seem to, Vec. That's... better than a lot of people. A lot. Virtue of its own sort, and a strong sort. Stick with that, I guess? Situation's stressful and lingering. Gods know I can empathize with that. But it'll pass, in time. Things will improve or mellow out or you'll figure out how to cope better. It'll be a bitch in the interim but it'll pass. Do what you can about what you can, try not to worry about the rest. You will fail at that, but if you're trying, even the littlest most minuscule bit, you're doing better than most people. Me, I think that's enough, yeah? Sufficient condition. S'what I've been telling myself for most of the last couple decades, anyway.

Maybe there's something in that ramble that'll help out, some.

---

And Solifuge, feels. In a sorta' similar situation with grandparents. Always finding out things second hand, knowing they're not taking care of themselves or letting folks in. Not really sure what to do besides what I'm doing. Offer's there, do what I can if asked, but a lot of what I was taught and heavily reinforced revolves around not doing anything without invitation (partially influenced by th'fact that they're who's primarily feeding and housing me at the moment, and it just seems... wrong... to contravene those who offer without want of recompense. Different with the parent, because there was usually a definite price there, but... they're different.). And they don't invite very often, so to speak. S'not really my place to intervene, it feels. And it hurts a fair bit, because, shit. Want to help, y'know? At least do something. But there's no in, and this sort of thing is a two way road.

Vulcans compared to Eldar. Not fighting. Just... Comparing. Matching wits?

I... don't really recall the Vulcans being much for the whole plots-within-plots thing. Romulans, maybe? They're probably closer together in terms of moral alignment, though the newer Eldar do have the whole hypercontrolled thing going on. But that's about the only thing the Eldar have in common with the Vulcans, I think.

But... Eldar aren't really a logic race, from what I recall. I mean, they're cunning little space-elves and they're damn sure smart, but they've a bit too much psyker in 'em. Very much emotionally controlled, but that's 'cause th'whole Slaanesh fallout, not... whatever reason the Vulcans did it for.

Really, though, the Eldar are a lot, lot, older than the Vulcans, iirc. Also much more competent (or at least more prolific) plotters and orders of magnitude higher up on the dick scale. I'd imagine the Vulcans would promptly end up pissed off and possibly pissed on. Maybe literally. Eldar work in mysterious ways.