Arcana-talk time [A day or two into the new liminal]

[professorwolf]

We're still assuming that the liminal space before a Jaunt represents the Arcana competing in it, yes? I know someone's mentioned this earlier, but it definitely needs to be highlighted-- I think it's pretty obvious this time that the contest will be between Chariot and Tower. The giant wooden horse running through a thunderstorm really couldn't be more blatant. For once.

[He's not great at understanding symbolism, but damn if this wasn't an easy one.]

So if that's right, it'll be a contest of motion and persistence, versus dramatic change and catastrophe. I think it's easy enough to decide who we want to support, in this case. We'll just have to find ways to make sure we see what sort of conditions make for a win for each ideal.

Any ideas for what to look for and how to keep things from devolving into a catastrophe? Those seem to happen a lot when we're around, unfortunately.

Comments

[awitchdidit]

Tower as an arcanum is useful for clearing away problems, brokenness, and bondage to the past. It's an important part of existence...but probably not something we want in charge of existence, lest nothing have a chance to be built in the first place before it's cleared away.

It's possible that Tower might have the more ethical objective in the Jaunt, but that becomes a question of whether we are concerned more with one world, or the entire universe that the Arcana are supposedly competing for.

[runawaystory]

...I don't think Tower wants catastrophe and change in charge, exactly. I think Tower just wants to see this whole -- system of jaunts, and the game between the Arcana -- wrecked.

Tower didn't seem entirely clear on what would happen after that.

[professorwolf]

Yes, that's my concern here. Tower doesn't seem to have any plans for replacing what it tears down, and whether all he wants is to take down the Jaunts, from what I understand he will still be the one reflected throughout the universe. Change is all well and good, but there must be something to come afterwards.

[runawaystory]

He suggested asking 'SAGE' about what might come after... Does that name sound familiar? I'm guessing that's another Arcana but I haven't heard that name before.

[professorwolf]

Ah, that would be the Hermit. He's the one we got out of the Grid, who had been trapped there by Devil and Lovers, as I recall. That was... my first Jaunt, actually.

[awitchdidit]

That's an intriguing thought, actually. I missed the opportunity to speak to Hermit on the mermaid island, because...well, Hermit. But if he has information on the results of anyone else's endgame...

[professorwolf]

I'd almost like to talk with him, myself, but I'm not really sure how to go about doing it, especially with him being rather the opposite of social. If just to apologize for getting him stuck as a wolf.

[awitchdidit]

He's stuck like that? I thought he just liked dogs. How did that happen?

[professorwolf]

Well, he might not be stuck, but the form in general comes from me, in a way. When I first arrived here, my shapeshifting ability was... rather limited. I would change, and then I would be useless for the next few hours as my body finished healing. We visited the Grid, where we were all turned into pure data as programs, and one of the local programs claimed she could improve my shapeshifting. She certainly managed, but then she immediately made the "cure" program for SAGE... using some of my "code", as it were. Hence, wolf.

[awitchdidit]

That sounds like someone I know.

[memoryandtheft]

There isn't any of them I'd want in charge of a potted plant, let alone the universe.

[awitchdidit]

Also fair! Personally I think there are a few we can negotiate with and a few we can't. Tower would be one of the latter, actually.

[memoryandtheft]

Negotiation's never really been my strong suit.

[She's one of the world's blunt instruments. Usually, she's okay with that.]

[awitchdidit]

Ahaha, mine either, honestly, but if it's someone else who likes playing games I can at least play to a stalemate pretty reliably.

[fridgeninja]

Do you think there might be a way to stop any of them from winning?

[memoryandtheft]

Yeah. I do. But if we just blindly play their game, we're never going to find it.

[fridgeninja]

I think that sounds worth trying to find. What did you have in mind?

[memoryandtheft]

We know they're not omnipotent. Finding the limits of their power would be a good first step.

[fridgeninja]

I agree. But since they're not usually where we can see them, I don't know how to tell 'unable to stop us' from 'not bothering to stop us.'

[memoryandtheft]

If it's 'can't' and not 'won't', there's more likely to be a pattern. And that isn't just in relation to us.

[fridgeninja]

Then we should look at what they did after Harrogate and Misericordia.

[memoryandtheft]

Pretty sure I missed both of those. What's the story there?

[fridgeninja]

They're the worlds where something that wasn't the Arcana invaded Liminal Space.

I suppose we can add Junkworld and maybe the Spark to that - something went wrong about Liminal Space when we were in space, and the people of the Spark hacked the psychic network.

[memoryandtheft]

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that those "invaders" weren't exactly friendly to us squishy Travelers.

[fridgeninja]

The Illuminants are like the Arcana - they consider themselves before they think about the good of human beings.

The other Invader mutilates flesh, violates the dead, and drives people insane.

In either case, it's safe to say the Arcana did everything they could to stop them.