The broken city in the clouds [Group project]

[ChickenPlague]

But please put it on a different page at least. Name that page Important persons or something.

Edit: should I change liberals to Freeflyers? Sounds cooler IMO.

Edit2:something went horribly wrong with the formatting. Someone at a computer please fix.

Edited December 29, 2015 by ChickenPlague

[Alfa]

Fixed it.

[DrakeMarshall]

Greetings everyone. This is somewhat fascinating.

Option four for the power source seems intriguing. EDIT: Also, the flip side of your example works in this case. You could have someone with a lot of potential for anarchy becoming really powerful, but actually being a good person and not ever realizing this potential.

Also I think that the moving statues aren't actually a product of people's actions... Someone or a few someones deliberately changed the liberty statue. Then they cast away the opposing two statues, justice and wisdom, which are on the other side of the city and the greatest threat to Anarchy. This has broken wisdom and justice's power, although we have already seen that a single person has inherited both these statue's powers and begin to stand for this cause.

Edited August 10, 2016 by Drake Marshall

[Laryna]

This is just a little something I wrote, because I found the premise of this world quite fascinating. Lemme know what you all think.

 

If you are reading this, it means that our gamble has worked. The City has fallen, and the Divisions have splintered. If this is true, then I offer you my respects. You have seen much pain and destruction, and have almost certainly gone through pain which no one should ever have to go through. I can only guess at your grief, if only because I have gone through it myself. The decision our Order took was not an easy one, but it had to be done. When your world starts stagnating, do you let yourself be a mere spectator, content to watch the grandeur of your ancestors decay? Or do you do what needs to be done, regardless of what it does to your own ideals? I had to make this choice as the head Cloudpriest of my Order, and regardless of what Hope may hold, I will stand by what I did, and will take the burden of responsibility willingly.

To you who is reading this, let it be known that it was I, Chief Mage of the Wizards and Prime Cloudpriest of the City, who turned Liberty into Anarchy.

I do not say that what I did was right, only that it was needed. Our society was stagnating, and this was something that all Wizards agreed upon. The Seers and Romancers were no longer concerned with their Ideals, and spent their days in languid pursuits of greed. The Justiciars and the Braves, on the other hand, were concerning themselves far too much with the mysteries of the Angel’s Labyrinth, dabbling in matters best left to Wizards. They were demanding justice where it was not due, and if left unchecked, their actions could have destroyed the very fabric of our City, causing greater damage than you could ever imagine. For my plan to succeed, it was thus, inevitable, that Justice had to fall. Liberty had run amok, giving people the excuse to ignore the true nature of their Ideals and making them indifferent to the responsibilities their powers come with. It was my burden to see my City stagnate, and to deliberately tear it asunder. For there can be no creation without destruction, and no progress without shocking the people into change. This was the decision I made. Sorrowfully, yes, but willingly too.

If all has gone well, then the City will have fallen into chaos by now. My hope is that the Freeflyers will have remained true to Honor, and will help in the eventual reconstruction of the City and our society. You have to remember that the Anarchists who join the Order now are little more than agents of destruction, desirous of nothing except the ruination of all semblance of order and organization. It is distasteful to use such heartless agents of annihilation, but it must be done. You, however, are different. Indeed, the mere fact that you are reading this proves that you have been deemed worthy of having the blessing of Wisdom.

Your inculcation into this Order of Wizards, therefore, now dictates your Ideal. Lead the Anarchists and destroy with acuity and responsibility.  You carry the burden of both Wisdom and Freedom, for the latter is only chaos without the former. Carry this burden well, and know that your responsibility lies in destroying so that others may create. Your actions, wretched though they may be, will eventually lead our City to greater splendor than it ever had before. May the Angels guide you on your quest, comrade.

To Wisdom evermore, forever and beyond.

[DrakeMarshall]

You know how Sanderson frequently puts a sentence or two from a text in his epigraphs?
I am picturing what you just typed being in epigraphs for this story.

Also nice writing.

[Laryna]

3 hours ago, Drake Marshall said:

You know how Sanderson frequently puts a sentence or two from a text in his epigraphs?
I am picturing what you just typed being in epigraphs for this story.

Also nice writing.

Haha! Thank you  I'm actually not that confident about my writing, which is why I've only recently decided to participate more in forums.

[Darkness Ascendant]

That's pretty damnation interesting @Laryna, heck, since this thread's been dead for a while, why don't you keep it active? 

[Alfa]

@Laryna Absoluitely magnificent.

[Laryna]

Thank you @Darkness Ascendant and @Alfa ! 

I do have a couple of ideas for the story. It'd be good if this thread becomes active again; we could all collaborate.

I really want to figure out how to incorporate Arem's POV with my bit of story, because they present an interesting conflict. Also, we'll need to decide how society is in the City before and after the ascent of Anarchy- specifically, the prevalence of magic and scope for an antagonist. 

 

 

[Alfa]

On 18.9.2016 at 11:22 PM, Laryna said:

I do have a couple of ideas for the story. It'd be good if this thread becomes active again; we could all collaborate.

State the Ideas, for there is usually a great lot more of good ideas than bad ones. Especially in worldbuilding. Arem is not my character, but could be one of the main cast in the saving-the-city-story. Or he can be a kind of a... good antagonist, so to say. Somebody who tries to restore the city to the status quo; like it was before, before the Wizards broke it.

Edited September 19, 2016 by Alfa

[Laryna]

I think we need to consider the following.

On one hand we see Arem, a man who claims to have powers given to him by the Statues themselves. He's the self-proclaimed savior of the city, and apparently has a mixture of Wizard and Justiciar powers. On the other hand we have some character (tbd) who reads the letter from the Fallen Wizards, and is now initiated into the Order of Wizards to spearhead the Anarchy movement. He has powers of both the Wizards and the Liberals/Anarchists.

Both are fanatics in their own ways, one convinced of the holiness and righteousness of his powers, and one convinced of the responsibility and righteousness (albeit twisted) of his assigned task. We have to remember that the origin of both their powers are uncertain. Arem could just be delusional regarding his holy responsibility, and the letter could have been a fabrication, a way to brainwash an easily influenceable, powerful youth. 
So who will win between these two? The self proclaimed savior or the radicalized rebel? 
In these times of turmoil, the City would be (or soon be) in the midst of a civil war, and Arem could well be the kind of figure people would want to believe in. He could also, as @Alfa said, represent a return to the "Golden Age" of the City. In direct contrast, the reader of the letter would be effectively creating conflict in the City, making him the antagonist in the citizens' eyes. He also seems to be working for a New Age sort of revolution in the City, making this kind of an ideological conflict (which @Stormgate seemed to want).

What we need to figure out:
1. Final name of the letter reader (Raetyn, perhaps?)
2. Are all the Wizards and Justiciars lost since the splintering of the Divisions? Even the non-Cloudsmiths? 
3. Are relationships between different Divisions allowed? Because that can lead to people having multiple powers from different Statues. (We could make such people incredibly rare, like mistborn) 
4. The mystery of the Angel's Labyrinth and why the Wizards were so secretive about it. 
5. What happens when you fall off a cloud? 
6. How bad is the civil war right now? Because we see a bunch of people scavenging for metals (possibly for hoarding during the war) 
7. Do all the Liberal Cloudsmiths now have Anarchist powers? 
7. The name of the City!! 
8. And lastly, how big should the scope of story be? 

[Alfa]

@Laryna

1. For the Reader I suggest Ri, the metalcatcher girl. Last time we saw her she was facing an Anarchist, so why shouldn't she "snap" at exactly that moment?

2. Let's just assume that there are no wizards or justicars there. I had the Image in my head, that all justicars are assmbled in some kind of an temple, or hall, and standing there, frozen in stone, waiting for the day the city will be whole again (actually, that was even part of the original dream). And the wizards all died during the shattering (we need another name for that event). Probably there are still some wizards and or justicars, but not more than once per generation - the statues' powers are to weak. For the current generatrion both powers manifested in Arem.

3. Let's say the powers of one particular statue comes on around one in a hundred people. Its not random, but it looks like that.That makes that in a set of hundred people there should be around one Sire, one Wizard, etc., meaning give or take 7%. And let's assume that these distributions are unrelated. That makes the probability of a Sire-Anarchist about one in ten thousand. Since there are 21 possible combinations of two powers from seven, we have about 21/10,000 ~0.2% of two-powered-cloudsmiths, making them the Mistborn here. Behind that, the chances are growing thinner and thinner: A three-power-combination has the probability of something in the area of 35/1,000,000 - kind of a cloudpriest-Mozart, so to say. The probability of a seven-in-one is one in 100.000.000.000.000 (one hundred trillions), being the next best thing to impossible.

4. Maybe @Perrin Aybara has some ideas?

5. You fall. And you fall. And you fall... And you have quite a lot of time to learn flying. Probably also an interesting thing for Ri to find out, when the Anarchist woman blows the construction under her to shreds.

6. Probably some kind of a middle-scale street war, with Courage/Honor being the main opposition against Anarchy.

7. Here I just got an interesting idea. I'll explain below. It changes some of the things you said in the "last wizards letter", if you allow so. But lets say that as a general rule liberals turned to anarchists.

7. the second: I had the idea, that we name some things after cloud names, like Cirrostratia or something alike.

8. Scope - lets start in a moderate scope, say a project for four to eight people to complete in 6-12 months. These things tend to get bigger and biggrer over time.

 

To point 7 the first. I thought, that probably when the city was divided, the turning of Libetrty was incidential. Wisdom and Justice had to fall (or so the Writer of the letter assumed), but probably he or she didn't grasp all of his consequences. Liberty should not have been allowed to run amok, but only to be set free of the influence of wisdom and justice. We can make it sound like the turning was wanted, but never mention Anarchy, and make somebody realize, that the turning was an accident, and both sides worked under wrong premises.

For the reader I suggest, that he or she is the part of the plan that worked right, probably the only real Liberal who was created after the Turning of Liberty. The technical explanation could be, that Arem's first usage of poower turned Anarchy a minimal degree. Now the Reader has the powers of Liberals and Anarchists... which could be an incredibly strong combination, but also a great pain to deal with.

Edited September 20, 2016 by Alfa

[little wheel]

This story comes from the view of someone on the surface of the planet. Oh, and I'm the real necro king

It was the 12-year anniversary of his brother dying. He had gone to look for the city in the sky. His Vision had killed him, and that was that. Terp was determined to find the city. To go on a Sightwalk. He knew he would most likely die, but he had a chance to live and find a way upwards to the city. The magic of moving clouds up there was said to be beyond even Terp, the village storyteller's wildest dreams. He went and kissed his mother's forehead, and cried a goodbye, knowing there to be almost no chance of his survival. 

"Goodbye, my son. I wish you would not go at such a young age, but this is your choice," his mother said through tears.

"This will not be in vain, Mother. I will find something, proof of their existence at least," Terp responded resolutely.

As Terp walked out of the door and continued along the path to the elder's hut, he noticed the Sightpriests leaving their homes. They were following him to the elder's hut so that they could be there to preform the ritual of Seeing. The three Sightpriests were the only people who had ever survived their Sightwalks, and hundreds had gone on Sightwalks, more than anyone could remember.

As Terp reached the elder's hut, he was feeling nervous. He thought it was the end, for he could not turn back now. As he entered, he saw a mat on the floor. The Sightpriests motioned for him to lay down upon the mat, which Terp promptly did. 

This was the time he had been waiting for. He began the Oaths.

"To the world, my eyes are closed. To the world, my ears are blocked. To the world, I am gone forever." With these words, Terp was pulled out of his body. Everyone stopped moving in the real world. He was Sightwalking! He began to rise up through the hut's roof, ascending spiritually into the sky. He was confused why he was seeing colored lines everywhere, but then he understood! They were the lines holding Arcus Castellanus from flying away! If he could float up these, then-

A body fell from the sky. It was real. It all was real. Terp felt the vision leave him, and he was scared. Terrified, in fact. When he woke up, he had a chance utter a few words before he died.

"It's real. IT"S ALL REAL!" he yelled, then gave up the ghost.

[Alfa]

On 23.5.2018 at 2:39 AM, JacobClaessen said:

This story comes from the view of someone on the surface of the planet. Oh, and I'm the real necro king

It was the 12-year anniversary of his brother dying. He had gone to look for the city in the sky. His Vision had killed him, and that was that. Terp was determined to find the city. To go on a Sightwalk. He knew he would most likely die, but he had a chance to live and find a way upwards to the city. The magic of moving clouds up there was said to be beyond even Terp, the village storyteller's wildest dreams. He went and kissed his mother's forehead, and cried a goodbye, knowing there to be almost no chance of his survival. 

"Goodbye, my son. I wish you would not go at such a young age, but this is your choice," his mother said through tears.

"This will not be in vain, Mother. I will find something, proof of their existence at least," Terp responded resolutely.

As Terp walked out of the door and continued along the path to the elder's hut, he noticed the Sightpriests leaving their homes. They were following him to the elder's hut so that they could be there to preform the ritual of Seeing. The three Sightpriests were the only people who had ever survived their Sightwalks, and hundreds had gone on Sightwalks, more than anyone could remember.

As Terp reached the elder's hut, he was feeling nervous. He thought it was the end, for he could not turn back now. As he entered, he saw a mat on the floor. The Sightpriests motioned for him to lay down upon the mat, which Terp promptly did. 

This was the time he had been waiting for. He began the Oaths.

"To the world, my eyes are closed. To the world, my ears are blocked. To the world, I am gone forever." With these words, Terp was pulled out of his body. Everyone stopped moving in the real world. He was Sightwalking! He began to rise up through the hut's roof, ascending spiritually into the sky. He was confused why he was seeing colored lines everywhere, but then he understood! They were the lines holding Arcus Castellanus from flying away! If he could float up these, then-

A body fell from the sky. It was real. It all was real. Terp felt the vision leave him, and he was scared. Terrified, in fact. When he woke up, he had a chance utter a few words before he died.

"It's real. IT"S ALL REAL!" he yelled, then gave up the ghost.

Wow, thanks for the contribution! And I thought this project would stay dead forever...

Quite interesting what you say there. So, we now have a surface, and there are people down there, apparently with their own kind of magic(?)... Arcus Castellanus is the name of the City, or is it something else? Also, what exactly is so real that the poor boy dies from shock of knowing it?