Reactions to "Breaking Limits"

[Silverhorn]

Please put your comments and questions here.

[Sinrus]

Welcome to the fan-fic family. I like what you're doing so far, but you sort of twisted the plot of the main story almost beyond recognition. I'm pretty sure this was intentional, as religious propaganda. But overall, very good.

[OneHugeTuck]

Kudo's to the twisting.

I like.

Only confusion lies in...Overlord or King?

[Silverhorn]

I meant to say "Ruler" where it said "Overlord" I fixed that. King Ramner is definately a royal.

You are very much correct that this is all Royalism propaganda. While popped units come with an innate understanding of the rules of their world, they don't know anything about the history. You definately have to take anything said by anyone in this story with a grain of salt. Especially a priest of Royalism. The things that are obviously false about the story are:
1) The Three Tools did not work together to summon Parson.
2) Parson came to Erf before Wanda attuned.
3) None of the Arkentools were involved in summoning him.
But this version of events fits in the dogma of Royalism better. It forms a morality tale of how defying your natural place in society and your Royal Ruler leads directly monsterous ends.

One of the things I love about Erfworld is how very many concepts it is touching on. One that really catches my attention is the religion concept.

Royalism is obviously the orginial religion. It is hard to know where the propaganda ends and sincere belief begins. But in the end it serves to keep the units in line and motivated. For untold turns the combination of this religion and the natural loyality of units for their popped side, have kept sides stable.

Toolism is its first major opposition. The wielders of the arkentools are much more visible signs of the Titan's mandate. My expectation is that the knowledge that the wielders exist and they are superior to royals will fundamentally weaken every royal side. After all, before the typical unit knew there was an alternative, he was more likely to put up with abuse. Afterword his loyalty would probably be more prone to falling.

Liberty is a religion that is still in its embrodic stage. As Parson moves through the world, the units that he treats humanely like him more and more. They also start looking a their world in ways they never contempated before. If that is not the start of a movement I don't know what is.

One important thing to point out is my personal hypothesis is that it is actually not that hard to desert or turn on your own side in Erfworld. We already know from the summer updates that Princes will often turn their own Ruler's in power bids. If it was impossible to leave your own side, then any Ruler would just disband the rebel and that would be the end of it. We have also seen non-Royal units twist Duty and Loyality in ways that are actually determinatial to their side. Also what is the point of a Loyality score if no one can rebel? My hypothesis is that the reason that units so rarely rebel is combination of naturally high loyality to their popped side, fear of reprisials by their old side, fear of being alone (these people are popped into a world that had rigid social structure that heavily promotes unity), fear of disbanding by starvation, and religion.

The story I am writing is long after Toolism and Liberty have both left their infancy. Royalism had to evolve to keep up. It became more zealous. Like the the King of Transvilito's belief system it has firmly couched itself in the idea that Royalism is the natural state of the world. To deny it is affront to all that is sensible. While being descendant form the first Titan mandated rulers is still important to the message, the emphasize has moved to playing on the fears and hopes the individual unit.

[OneHugeTuck]

Plus, we're all aware that you'r enot the original creator of Erfworld, but are instead a fanfic writer, so no need to defend you changes.

[Silverhorn]

It is more an attempt to help the reader understand where I am coming from. The more I stray from the original paradigm, the harder it is for the reader to suspend disbelief.

[Sinrus]

You are very much correct that this is all Royalism propaganda. While popped units come with an innate understanding of the rules of their world, they don't know anything about the history. You definately have to take anything said by anyone in this story with a grain of salt. Especially a priest of Royalism. The things that are obviously false about the story are:
1) The Three Tools did not work together to summon Parson.
2) Parson came to Erf before Wanda attuned.
3) None of the Arkentools were involved in summoning him.
But this version of events fits in the dogma of Royalism better. It forms a morality tale of how defying your natural place in society and your Royal Ruler leads directly monsterous ends.

Also, Charlie is not on the Toolists' side (Unless he's been decrypted, I guess).

I'm trying to get a feel of how long after the events of the comic this is taking place. I assume that all sides we know of have been conquered.

And finally, the title "High Priestess Maggie" makes me laugh. Maggie just doesn't seem like a very high priestess-y name.

[Silverhorn]

You can assume it is well after the defeat of Jetstone. It is also set in time in which the tool wielders have become legendary to even the farthest reaches of Erf. Whether is this due to true exploits, exagerations, or outright lies that is part of the story. I would tell you about which sides I plan to include, but I think that discovery is part of the story. Ultimately this fan-fic is a way for me explore the philosphical questions that the creators are building up to and put my own spin on it.

[Sinrus]

Alrighty, sounds exciting. Good luck.

[OneHugeTuck]

It is more an attempt to help the reader understand where I am coming from. The more I stray from the original paradigm, the harder it is for the reader to suspend disbelief.

It is?

[President_Allosaurus]

I don't really have any problems with disbelief here. I mean, it's obvious once it gets to mentioning Hamster it's some kind of "what-if" thing.

Anyways, Silver, you've got a really good descriptive style going on, and I like the religious approach you're addressing. More!

[Sinrus]

Wow. Wasn't expecting Adela to croak so quickly. But just one question: if she's dead, then how did Trance "take part in the torture and murder of her sister"?

[Silverhorn]

Adela croaked for a short time. But the staff some how allowed Trance to bring her back. It will be explained in the next eposide how that happened.

The torture and murder part is coming. But I am still in the "establishing the characters" phase.

And to answer your question about why Adela fell so fast is that the group was very outclassed. One lion was about the equilivant strength of 2 of these 1st level characters. Thankfully the group had suprise and superior intelligence. If the lions had been intelligent and organized like a group of equalivant barbarian warriors they would have swarmed poor Trance then sent their excess to kill the archers. Since the lions did not have the reasoning they did not realize that would have been the best battleplan. As such Trance was able to pump heal spells into Adela and Steve, allowing them to go into the offensive. If not for Trance, Adela & Steve would have died in that storm of Lions pretty quickly and then the archers slaughtered.

The best parrallel I can draw is back to those old school RPGs. Your fighters could only take 2 or 3 hits from the boss monster before they would die. But because your white mage could heal them as fast they got hurt, they could survive a lot longer than 2 or 3 hits. Anyone who has played one of those old school RPGs, the most stressful time in the boss fight is when BOTH your white mage and fighter are in one shot kill range. If the white mage is dropped the the fighter will soon follow, and if the fighter is dropped it is only a matter of time before the white mage dies and is dropped too.

[Sinrus]

Don't forget the black mage, who is almost always in the 1 hit kill range.

But I get what you're saying. I'm a bit disappointed with your answer and wish that you had just given some mysterious response, but I guess I deserved it for asking. Ah well.

[Silverhorn]

Sorry to disappoint.

[Sinrus]

Don't worry about it, it's my fault.

[Sinrus]

Yay, I thought you had stopped!

[Sinrus]

Oh, and you might want to change 'Life Score' to 'hits'

[Silverhorn]

I went with Life Score, because it sounds more "scientific" than hits and to me negative Life Score sounds better than negative hits. In the future I will probably use them interchangablly. If the discussion is happening in an academic setting I will probably use Life Score, if the discussion is happening in a more typical setting I will use hits.

[Silverhorn]

Well it finally has a title. Am I the only one who has this problem? If the title comes too soon the it feels contrived or forced, but if it comes on his own it feels much organic?