"In the preservation of order while in a position of governance, maintaining the delicate economic balance present in our Empire is utterly essential. It is the nature of people to respond to the incentives and disincentives they are provided, and thus, to keep the citizens under one's authority content and obedient, one must always be careful to consider what incentives the current state of one's domain provides them to either obey your authority or rebel against it. This is a particularly pressing issue for us Shapers, due to how easy it is for us, imbued with the power of Shaping, to create unintentional consequences in our actions. This is mainly due to the effect Creations have on issues of available positions of labor and employment, as well as how content the common citizens of our domain are in fulfilling their given duties."
"When an idle regiment within our army is put to work fulfilling such tasks as digging entrenchments or building roads, it is inevitable that their commander shall hear such complaints as, "Why can't the Serviles do this? Isn't this what the Shapers made them for?" But on the other hand, if one creates enough Serviles to fulfill all tasks of brute labor without human aid, then all those people who previously found work and pay in such fields as construction and farming, will then find themselves bereft of gainful employment, and be left to fester in poverty and discontent. Thus is the problem revealed - if too many Creations are put to use to free up our fellow humans from unpleasant drudgery, than those groups who are unable who find other gainful employment shall be left in rebellious idleness, whereas if as few Creations as possible are put to work so as to preserve positions of employment for our citizens, than those who are able to find other gainful employment than labor, and who are nevertheless needed to fulfill these positions in the lack of enough Creations to do the job, shall then inevitably grumble and question why we Shapers, mighty as we are, do not simply conjure up more Creations to deal with the work. Thus, to ensure economic prosperity, we Shapers must ever seek a delicate balance in between the extremes of discontent idleness and discontent drudgery amongst our citizens."- Excerpt from
An Analysis of the Effects of Shaping on Economic Systems, by Mormont Alath, 22nd Shaper Governor of Othilas.
As the year continues, you manage to get yourself reassigned once more, this time to a project focusing on further development of the Shaper ability to control their Creations. This project is similarly advanced beyond your ability to comprehend, but once again, your observation still enlightens you further as to the nature of the essentials of Shaping - in this case, providing insight into the nature of a Shaper's connection to their Creations.
It seems that a Shapers maintains their control over their Creations due to bonds of Essence formed between the two during the act of Shaping the Creations into being on the part of the Shaper. The standard formula of Essence made use of by modern Shapers forms this bond between Creation and Shaper on its own, greatly easing the burden of control on the part of the Shaper. This connection does not allow a Shaper to directly control a Creations actions, but rather allows the Creation in questions to identify their ultimate master via their bond to them, and via exertion on the part of the Shaper, receive orders via the bond. The main limit on how many Creations a Shaper can maintain at one time, is how many they can reliably exert control over via the bonds, and how many of the bonds the Shaper in question can maintain at once. It is utterly unacceptable to any proper Shaper to allow even the slightest risk of losing control over one of their Creations. Your class, though they have made many different types of practice Creation at this point, have not been told to exert control over any of them yet, or even informed as to the existence of this bond - apparently it is a rather more difficult matter to control one's Creations than create them. You suppose this explains why Shapers are so insistent on maintaining discipline and focus, and are big fans of meditation - it must help quite a lot in exerting control over one's Creations.
The research team you got yourself assigned to are aiming to find a way to greatly increase Creation loyalty and responsiveness to orders via alterations to the brain - they are attempting to determine by what mechanics, exactly, is a creature inspired to loyalty or disloyalty, and how they might alter these mechanics to benefit the Shaper Order. At the moment, most brain-designs use simple positive-reinforcement to augment the loyalty to Shapers provided by Essence bonds, merely releasing small bursts of dopamine whenever an order is followed, meaning that most of the weight of maintaining control is left up to the Shaper to deal with, since a small amount of positive reinforcement is clearly not enough to ensure loyalty when a Shaper's control falters, even for a moment. The team hasn't had much luck, due to the extreme complexity of the brain, and how little knowledge Shapers possess of its inner workings. If they were to succeed, however, it would be a great boon to how much control Shapers can exert over their Creations.
In your free time, you continue to badger your unofficial mentor into giving you what insight they can into Shaping. Their tutorship greatly increases your Shaping ability, their insight borns from greater years of instruction doing much to increase your grasp of the Shaping arts. One inquiry of particular interest to you, is one of brains. You ask your tutor to elucidate you on the subject, and they tell you that neurology is an extremely advanced subject, completely untouched by most until they become full Shapers. Apparently the Shaper Order places great importance on deciphering the working of the brain in their entirety, and rumors amongst the older students here say that there are entire facilities solely dedicated to deciphered the inner mechanics of even small portions of the brain. Other than that, there's not much they can tell you.
Nothing much of interest seems to occur as your studies continue, the year progressing to its eighth month.
Do you continue to badger your senpai in your free time, or do something else? If you do, what specific inquiries do you have?What manner of experiments and research do you continue to observe most closely?- Alchemical experiments
- Development of new Creations
- Research into raw Essence manipulation
- Research into Essence-based enchantment
- Further refinement of ability to control Creations
- Other (write-in)
Great forces are stirring beneath the surface in the Shaper Empire. Soon a great upheaval will take place, unlike anything before experienced by the Empire - what shall be the spark that sets everything ablaze?- A resurgence of ancient, dark arts, meddling with forces beyond human comprehension and inviting ruinous retribution in the realms of man.
- Arrogance and hubris on the part of a new generation of Shapers, abusing their powers and causing devastation and rebellion with their hazardous experimentation.
- The terrible retribution of a rogue experiment long thought eliminated, come back to exact their vengeance from their creators and bringing more dangerous creatures with them.
- Discontent festering into open rebellion on the part of oppressed Serviles and outsiders, the rebels seizing what secrets of the art of Shaping they can and lashing out against the rulers of the Empire with them.
- A forbidden artifact left to rot on a distant island, rediscovered and made use of by a power-hungry Shaper, who now seeks dominion over all of Terrestria.
- Other. (Write-in, subject to my approval)
When shall things come to a head?- Within the year.
- Within four years.
- Within six years.
- Within ten years.
- Within twenty years.
***
Whatever choice you choose as to the nature of the upheaval, there will be elements of each option present - the Geneforge isn't going to stop existing because you didn't pick its related option. You guys are just choosing which threat to the Empire is most pressing, and starts the whole clusterfuck off.
As to the choice of time, you're essentially choosing whether you're a prospective, apprentice, full-fledged Shaper or Shaper Governor when shit hits the fan. The more time you have until things start happening, the more powerful you'll be - but the more tightly bound to the traditional Shaper power structure you'll be. If you're a Shaper Governor and you try to join the rebels, the hammer's going to hit you far harder than if you were in a less important position.
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Topic: You Are a Shaper! (Second Try) (Read 5184 times)