Kobold King

Arsenal is very much the type to lie to save face. Go with that.

Or Arsenal could just change his mind, being a fully corrupted Epic with an exponentially increasing paranoia towards unaligned Epics. I kind of thought that was what we'd already decided.

An awful lot of leather pants, huh?

I used to hit the 60-quota semi-regularly. Depends on how much I read through really old threads.

I like them both, but you should know that if you want to use the name "Red Light" you have to fight a duel with Redlight, who's already freezing people in their tracks in The Dalles.

Very well, I will concede that. However, Feather's statement that "The system is there to be used in the ways that members wish to use it" remains incongruous with the limitations that have been put into place. The admins have clearly decided that one way of using upvotes is superior to the rest, and have instituted a quota in favor of their vision.

I find this frustrating to hear. The staff is, as you say, very firm against putting down concrete rules about the "proper" way to vote posts. However, the newest quota was instituted with the expressed intention of countering the specific voting habits of a large segment of the forum. To me this represents a clear case of the staff regulating the way we use the rep system. A sparing use of the upvote system has been declared to be proper, and the liberal use of it has been made impossible with the coding of the forum. The rules the admins set about upvotes are as concrete as can be, but they will not even institute an etiquette guideline where downvotes are concerned.

Way before working with those wholesome warriors, what wonders would you whip up? (What kinds of magical feats are you capable of, Aura? )

I'm going to mentally append this to every piece of advice I read on the Internet from now on.

Those are still deserving of a post on Creation Daily, at least. But really, if you like writing and worldbuilding don't stop because of concerns of originality. Mark Twain once said that he envied Adam and Eve for being the only humans in history to have wholly original ideas; even in his time, all the great ideas had been done before. What matters is you and the blend of enthusiasm, thought, and attention you'll pour into the world, the special blend that's as unique to you as your fingerprints.

Can you edit other people's posts? ... Are you already editing other people's posts?

I was going to say that you'd get in trouble for leading a Reckoners RP invasion of Creator's Corner... but then I realized that you're a mod now. This coming from the radiant face that calls herself a trash heap. I want very much to hear about your world.

It is certainly not our rightful place in a cosmic sense; the universe does not care whether we are predator or prey. But I assure you that we would much rather be the hunters than the hunted.

I think cash would become sort of an "elite" currency. Physical cash would be rare, eventually as rare as gold; perfect for currency. Owning a bundle of cash would also set you apart from the normal people of the Fractured States, who would have resorted to bartering or trading seashells.

No--at least not all of the time, for we are always changing the colors of our fins. The word 'Indigo' is symbolic. Indigo is a introspective color. A cold color. A color of slowness and deep meditation. We have traditionally been a cluster of scientists. I was unclear, it seems. The Jewel Supernal has many environments: oceans, deserts, forests, mountains. It has the same range of diversity as any other world. It is on average warmer, however, as our atmosphere is greedy. It holds in the heat and won't easily let it go. The Jewel has no icecaps at its poles. Snow was largely theoretical before we left for other worlds. As the Jewel Supernal does not tilt as far as your Earth, neither are there noticeable seasons. Small dips in temperature and precipitation occur, but nothing so dramatic as what your world seems to experience. The ecology of the Jewel follows the same principles as yours, of course, but the makeup is quite different. Soft-bodied invertebrates were able to colonize the land early in our history, and even now mollusks are one of the dominant forms of land-based life. Vertebrates such as we coexist with them in a complex, competitive ecosystem. It certainly makes paleontology difficult, as these mollusks seldom leave fossils, but we believe that our own evolution of intelligence may have been spurred on in competition with a large invertebrate carnivore. We needed to become more clever if we were to out-compete it and take our rightful place as the Jewel's apex predators.

...congratulations. You made me double check to see if I'd used the word "bosoms" in the topic. Though your current state of mind might very well be conducive to interesting questions regardless of how hilarious that word might sound.

Can't wait! Though in the meantime you're welcome on mine, too.

Absolutely!

That was sort of a private joke on my part. Mobius is what happens when the tough female protagonist of a teenager's dystopian novel goes horribly, horribly wrong.

There are parts of my past you don't know about. A darkness that if you knew about... you'd think differently of me. I've worked hard to bury it. But you had to go and ask all these questions... * cocks gun *

How'd it go?

No carnival. Funtimes is better than a carnival.

What kind of plants and animals do you keep? Do you grow grain crops? Do you keep some animals as pets?

Many more questions. This is encouraging! The human I use for typing these replies has been busy, but we have returned to satisfy your curiosity. The Jewel Supernal is close to sixty-five percent of the mass of your Earth, with a correspondingly weaker gravitational pull. It has an atmosphere much thicker and richer than that of your homeworld, despite scientific thinking that suggests it should be losing its atmosphere from lack of gravity. This fact was actually used as an argument in favor of planetary animism for much time, leading me to answer your second question. We, like you, do not possess a single unifying religion. Many different belief systems have been practiced, are currently practiced, and doubtless will be practiced many years into the future. There are several theistic religions, though none quite approaching monotheism. (There is one, however, that involves a tight cluster of gods that function like one single individual.) One of the most significant religions of our culture, in number of believers, is a form of planetary animism. I myself follow this belief system, so I am with bias. I and many others of my kind believe that planets and moons have souls, or something akin to a soul. Something greater than a soul. The soul of our own world is said to be Supernal; to shine brighter than most because of the life that dances across its surface. Once we entered our age of reason, when a scientific method was designed and employed by researchers, peculiarities in our homeworld's characteristics were ascribed to its Supernal nature overruling the natural laws of the universe. I am told that a human, Sir Isaac Newton, did much the same in his claims that a God was responsible for adjusting the orbits of your solar system's planets. In the modern day, most Supernalians are inclined to believe that the universe follows consistent and self-sufficient laws. There are many who believe in gods. There are many who believe in none. There are many who believe the planet is Supernal. There are many who believe there are no souls in the universe at all. We are not homogeneous, you see. The basic unit of our society is the cluster, a group of up to fifty Supernalians headed by a matriarch. The matriarch is usually the one who birthed the rest of the females, who will not usually take mates while their mother still lives. Males drift between clusters in hopes of impressing the matriarchs and convincing them to mate. Any one cluster often becomes highly specialized in what it produces. Some clusters invariably become wealthier than others, or else birth stronger females and convince more numerous males to fight for them. Thus some families become powerful. The powerful clusters will issue edicts for lesser families to follow, or will make demands of them for the good of all. A cluster of engineers may be conscripted to create a starship for their superiors, for instance. In the case of a war between clusters that impacts the wealth of our entire state, one of the powerful clusters will intervene and issue a judgement in favor of one or the other. Thus we dwell under a form of hereditary oligarchy. This statement is with respect: human activists wishing to "liberate" us with the "ideals of democracy" are not welcome. We are in fact quite offended that they keep coming. Humans who have inspired our society? No. You have heroes, as all races do, and we admire them. But human heroes seldom have anything to teach our society that our own philosophers have not already suggested. As for influence... it could be said the unpleasantness between our kinds influenced us, in making our clusters more united to wage war against a common enemy. The heightened unity we have enjoyed has lingered even after the war's conclusion, and so for this you may take credit. Take no pride in it, however. Many of our young had to perish before this unity could be achieved. For this question I required yet another usage of the data-trawl. There are many things I do not understand about this story. Why does this man disguise himself as one of the weakest, most harmless creatures of your world? Why is he not met with ridicule when he reveals himself? Is the story of Batman one of your comedies? The contested morality of his activities is very confusing to me. It is honorable that this Batman should use violence to stop deranged killers from harming innocent humans. But it is confusing to me why the ones in power over 'Gotham City' would seek to stop him. His is a personal war against lunatics. His war does not threaten the wealth or well-being of the population--quite the opposite, in fact. I am not sure why those in power are not lauding his efforts, as they are clearly incapable of permanently dispatching these lunatics themselves. I believe most Supernalians would take greater issue with the fact that he lies to hide his identity, for reasons I will explain over the next two questions. These questions are linked. The colors of our fins, 'ChickenPlague,' are our language. Every thought that cycles through a Supernalian's mind is channeled into a code of colors and fin movements instantaneously. There is no conscious component to this. We share our every thought, emotion, and desire with one another, which is why our clusters tend to be drawn so close together over time. We cannot lie. Thus, 'Cognizantastic,' the trait we find most perplexing about human culture is the dishonesty. The blatant, constant, never ending dishonesty. You will conceal negative feelings for each other out of etiquette, driving yourselves further apart when a simple fight would clear away your dispute. You will conceal romantic feelings for each other out of fear of rejection, resulting in emotional anguish your poets find great inspiration in. Your men of business will conceal negative qualities of their products for their own benefit, and your politicians... I cannot speak respectfully of your men of politics. This statement is with respect: dishonesty is an inherent aspect of human society that is alien to us. While we can come to accept this in you over time, we have a proclivity towards finding it distasteful and distressing. We also believe that your groups are less unified than ours as a result. The most ancient teacher of ours is also a hated monster of folklore. "Drowning Crescent" was her name, and we called her "The Deceiver." According to legend, she was capable of telling falsehoods, and was thus monstrous. I will not dwell on her, as aspects of her story can be seen as offensive by humans and other species with... voluntary languages. Two religious leaders who I will speak of, however, are Purity and Glory, who founded doctrines that are still followed by Supernalians to this day. They originally bore other names, but changed their names in honor of the ideologies they favored. Purity was an ancient teacher of the Supernal nature of the Jewel. She taught that the sphere we inhabited was possessed of a powerful soul, an even godlike soul. A soul worthy of worship and emulation. She also taught that as a living part of the Jewel, we ourselves were possessed of a fraction of its godhood. Purity taught that the natural instincts of our species were "pure," created to keep the Jewel as a whole in harmony. Thus, every activity of our kind, from hunting to speaking to running to mating, was attached to spiritual fulfillment. I find this a beautiful, comforting concept. Glory lived many centuries after Purity, but her doctrine has also become popular over time. Glory also believed that the Jewel was Supernal, but she believed that we, the most intelligent inhabitants of the moon, were its crowning "glory." She taught that the Jewel Supernal's most glorious achievement was giving rise to thinking beings capable of understanding its wonder. Thus the worthiest activity a Supernalian could engage in was the practice of thought, reason, and the reflection of the universe's bounty. Purity and Glory doctrines have often been characterized as being concerned with the spirituality of one's nature and the spirituality of one's reason, respectively. There are ways of thinking that combine the two, but they make good examples of how one singular Supernalian religion can be tinted many colors by the minds of those that practice it.

She'd probably make herself an army of robotic pegacorns if she happened to see an old carousel.