Age of Ideas: Do not Trust the Lesser IdeaYesterday, upon the stair,
I met a man who wasn't there!
He wasn't there again today,
Oh how I wish he'd go away!William Hughes Mearnes, "Antigonish" (excerpt)
Aside from a large argument involving fully half of the Greater Ideas, a grand project setting out to order events so as to make them understandable was uncovered by the combined efforts of
Fate and
Silence. Possibly tied to this, the Idea of Identity, though not a Greater Idea, has risen a bit beyond an easily absorbed Lesser Idea. (The implications of such an ascension are rather worrying, of course.) The Idea of Identity has presented a massive collaborative Project to usher in the next Age:
(GLOBAL) WORLD. Creates a world. Action cost is halved if participants successfully elect an architect with support from at least 50% of all participants. Any participant may add any Idea-feature to the world unless vetoed by the architect (if there is one). (Accepts most any Idea unless vetoed by the architect, 18A)
Participation requires only Practicing one Idea-feature on this Project. Nominations/voting are free actions.
As pretaliation for
Unique's attacks on
Luck and other Greater Ideas in the upcoming past,
Luck cursed
Unique with particularly bad luck.
Luck sensed that this curse was sufficient to flip the results of approximately two actions.
Contradiction stopped fading and absorbed Correspondence while thinking about sounder ways to refute false Ideas. As Leads go, it seems to be a relatively straightforward one that will provide a thematically appropriate use of the Idea of
Contradiction along with Leads on relevant improvements.
Contradiction also ponderized
Contradiction and the strange ways in which the world works.
Silence ruminated on
Fate's grand Lead to completion. This uncovered an incredible Project to impose linear time on the fledgling universe, but its exorbitant cost seems to prevent its use for now. Still, with this discovery, tiny microcosms operated by Lesser Ideas appear to be more tangible and stable, although they still seem to be lacking something vital.
Fate absorbed Revelry and Boundary.
Idol also tried to absorb Revelry, but it didn't quite work out due to their relative Orbits.
Chaos finished studying Project Scramble and the concept of Trade. The former revealed the Scramble Project, which would give all actions a small chance of going extremely well or poorly, and a number of Leads aimed at improving it further. The latter unlocked the Trade action. This allows Greater Ideas to exchange Ideas peacefully.
The Trade action is now available. Greater Ideas may now offer up to one Idea to another Greater Idea offering up to one Idea.
Idol absorbed Merriment and Addiction and began gathering a surprisingly large following among the Lesser Ideas. Does it actually make sense for an Idea to follow another Idea? Only time will tell (perhaps literally).
Unique attempted to copy
Silence, and despite pronouncing rebuttals to
Luck and
Fate,
Unique succeeded in manifesting
Silence of a sort.
Unique also attempted to copy
Fate, and indeed, a piece of the Fatal Idea entered
Unique's grasp. Finally,
Unique set out to copy
Chaos and narrowly failed seemingly purely due to
Luck's curse.
The War of One and ManyGreat memetic storms flared throughout the universe as
Fate and
Luck questioned
Unique's
Uniqueness. Lesser Ideas beneath the Greater Ideas' notice also joined in this heated argument and variously merged, self-contradicted, won, and lost in droves.
Luck argued against
Unique's core Idea of Uniqueness and cited Unique's thieving and relatively unoriginal ways. This lightly insulted
Contradiction thanks to the magic of syntactic ambiguity.
Unique's rebuttal drew attention to
Unique and
Scarcity being
Unique Ideas and
Unique's
Unique position on the outermost Orbit making
Unique the best at copying.
Unique also countered that
Luck's
Luck reduction effect reduce's
Luck's
Luck. In response,
Luck pointed out that
Unique isn't any different from any of the other Greater Ideas and thus not particularly
Unique. In the end,
Luck prevailed, and the Idea of
Unique was released with minor weakening.
Not one to be left out,
Fate also argued against
Unique in response to
Unique's upcoming attempt to copy
Silence,
Fate, and
Chaos.
Fate, too, decried
Unique's lack of
Uniqueness and called on the Idea to give up the pretence.
Unique's reply emphasized the Unique
Uniqueness and specialness of everything, and
Fate countered that no Idea can properly be described as Unique and that
Uniqueness was actively reducing what
Uniqueness they did have by copying Ideas. This puzzlingly drew in
Idol, who was otherwise uninvolved in this conflict, but
Unique summarily ignored it and pointed out the glaringly obvious fact that all Greater Ideas' cores were
Unique in a sense by definition/fiat. Nevertheless,
Fate, undoubtedly helped by
Luck's curse and the inauspicious conjunctions of
Contradiction,
Silence, and
Luck, prevailed in the end, and it was in this way that the Idea of
Unique was released with some damage.
The accuracy of divinations seems to have improved for some reason. There is an unprecedented five-Greater Idea alignment of Fate, Silence, Luck, Chaos, and Unique. Broken up into conjunctions, Fate observes a conjunction of Silence, Luck, Chaos, and Unique which is likely to make important decisions both riskier and more rewarding. Silence observes a conjunction of Luck, Chaos, and Unique (with these three in opposition to Fate), and this is likely to be a mildly auspicious sign, Luck observes conjunctions of (Chaos and Unique) and (Silence and Fate) in opposition, and the net effect will likely be that actions taken now will be both less risky and more dangerous. Chaos observes a triple conjunction of Luck, Silence, and Fate all in opposition to Unique which signals an auspicious time for refutations. Finally, Fate, Silence, Luck, and Chaos, all previously wronged by Unique, are in conjunction. While decisions are likely to be riskier and more rewarding for Unique just as they are for Fate, this alignment of Unique's enemies is, on the whole, a ruinous omen.
The disposition of the Lesser Ideas appears to have changed subtly and variably. For some Ideas, the ascension of Identity is taken as a promising sign that conflict is an excellent way to gain clout. These Ideas yearn for another large argument among Greater Ideas. For other Ideas, Identity represents the first of something fundamentally different. These Ideas have pledged to work on the world Project. Still others mock the world Project as a foolish dream and are content to simply watch as far as anyone can tell.
- Outrage (:3, sentient)
- Consistency (:1, sentient)
- Center (:3)
- Unique (:3, weak, sapient!)
- Glory (:3)
- Acquiescence (:1)
- Alignment (:2, sentient)
- Balance (:1)
- Normal (:1)
- Projection (:1)
- Gluttony (:3, strong)
- Bifurcation (:3)
- Conformity (:3)
- Unity (:3)
- Change (:4, strong, sentient)
Identity (:4, sapient!)
It is currently the Age of Ideas. Speech has been discovered but not Naming. Three actions are available for each Greater Idea.
Unnameable One (Glass)
- Orbit: 0
- Ideas: Luck (weak, sapient!, busy altering Unique's luck), Growth (strong, sentient), Quantity (strong), Manipulation
- Crystallization: 0
- Leads:
- Luck alteration (2/2A)
- Improved Luck alteration (0/
32A) - Something big involving Growth, Quantity, and Desire (0/6A)
- Better Scramble outcomes (0/3A)
- Projects:
- (TURN-TO-TURN) Internal Luck alteration: Minuscule improvement to all personal rolls (Accepts Luck, 1A/turn)
- (TURN-TO-TURN, ACTIVE) External Luck alteration: Minuscule change to all of another Greater Idea's rolls (Accepts Luck, 2A/turn)
Unnameable One (Nakéen)
- Orbit: 2
- Ideas: Contradiction (weak, sapient!), Tradition (unstable!), Correspondence (sentient)
- Crystallization: 0
- Leads:
- Unstable Ideas (2/2A)
- Piratical project (2/2A)
- Improved synthesis (0/3A)
- Principle of Explosion (0/4A)
- Proof by Contradiction (0/3A)
- Poof by Contradiction aka Improved refute (2/3A)
- Projects:
- (GLOBAL UNLOCK) Improved Copy action: Regardless of how many Greater Ideas target an Idea with the Copy action at once, the targeted Idea is only weakened once. (Requires 3A, accepts Quantity or (Unique and Contradiction))
Unnameable One (micelus)
- Orbit: 4
- Ideas: Silence (weak, sapient!), Rejection (strong), Release
- Crystallization: 0
- Leads:
- Improved denial (3/3A)
- Rhetorical training (0/3A)
- Projects:
- (TURN-TO-TURN) Silence Lesser Idea aka Improved Refute (Accepts Silence or Rejection, 1A)
Unnameable One (Demonic Spoon)
- Orbit: 8
- Ideas: Fate (weak, sapient!), Continuity, Direction, Order, Revelry (strong, sentient), Boundary (sentient)
- Crystallization: 0
- Leads:
- Interesting big thing of some sort: Time (6/6A)
- Projects:
- (GLOBAL) BEGIN. Enforces chronology, speeding up Crystallization for everyone with an Orbit lower than Fate's. Action cost decreases as more Greater Ideas enter the Temporal Compact. (Accepts two of Continuity or Direction or Order, 12A)
Unnameable One (crazyabe)
- Orbit: a
- Ideas: Chaos (sapient!), Exchange, Complexity (sapient!), Confusion (sentient, weak), Inversion (strong)
- Crystallization: 0
- Leads:
- "Trade" action (2/2A)
- Scramble Project (3/3A)
- Improved Teach action (2/2A)
- Stronger Scramble (0/3A)
- Frequent Scramble (0/3A)
- Projects:
- (TURN-TO-TURN) Scramble: All actions can go horribly right...or horribly wrong, of course. (Accepts Chaos or Confusion or Inversion, 1A/turn)
Unnameable One (TricMagic)
- Orbit: c
- Ideas: Idol (sapient!), Image (sapient!), Desire, Belief (sapient!), Harvest, Merriment, Addiction
- Crystallization: 1
- Leads:
- Something big and interesting (requires Boundary?, Direction, ? ? ?) (0/6A)
- Something big involving Growth, Quantity, and Desire (0/6A)
Unnameable One (Stirk)
- Orbit: f
- Ideas: Scarcity (sapient!), Luck (weak, sapient!), Silence (weak, sapient!), Fate (weak, sapient!)
- Crystallization: 0
- Leads:
- Projects:
- (GLOBAL UNLOCK) Improved Copy action: Regardless of how many Greater Ideas target an Idea with the Copy action at once, the targeted Idea is only weakened once. (Requires 3A, accepts Quantity or (Unique and Contradiction))
Greater Ideas can perform
twothree actions every turn despite the lack of coherent time:
- Absorb: Absorb an Idea from the ambient Ideosphere. Where two Greater Ideas compete for the same Idea, the targeted Idea is given to low-Crystallization and low-Orbit Ideas in equal measure (with Orbit taking precedence in ties). Opposition by other means (such as Refute actions) result in opposed rolls also with Orbit and Crystallization modifiers.
- Accrete: Strengthen an owned Idea by sacrificing another one. May fail and annihilate both Ideas if the sacrifice is too close to an inverse of the target Idea.
- Agree: Create a related target-owned Idea of your choice and an owned Idea of the target's choice. Both sides must have a sapient Idea, and both sides must sacrifice an Idea. This action must be accompanied by at least one line of dialog from both sides.
- Argue: Attempt to remove an Idea owned by another Greater Idea. Requires an owned sapient Idea and must be accompanied by at least one line of dialog. Modifiers: -Rebuttal from target, -High target Crystallization
- Ascend: Decrease Orbit by 1. Fails if a Greater Idea occupies the resulting Orbit. Can be stacked to move across multiple Orbits.
- Compare: Select two owned Ideas to generate a related but random new Idea.
- Copy: Attempt to weaken a target-owned Idea and create a weakened owned copy. Cannot be stacked by the same Greater Idea. Modifiers: +Higher Orbit.
- Co-Ruminate: Contribute to investigating a Lead.
- Create/Destroy/Modify: Create, destroy, or modify something. Nothing interesting happens, strangely enough...
- Descend: Increase Orbit by 1. Fails if a Greater Idea occupies the resulting Orbit.
- Disavow: Disown an owned Idea.
- Dither: Create an entirely new owned Idea.
- Extrapolate: Attempt to generate a new Idea from an existing owned one of your choice (within reason). Modifiers: +Lower Crystallization.
- Fade: Default action. Greater Ideas fade to irrelevance over 3 turns, after which another Greater Idea may arise in their Orbit.
- Forget: Attempt to decrease Crystallization by sacrificing an Idea. The older the Idea or the closer to the Core Idea, the greater the resulting decrease. Recently acquired Ideas are unlikely to reduce Crystallization by more than 1-2.
- Practice: Use an Idea to run a Project. This renders the Idea unavailable for as long as it remains bound to the Project but still vulnerable to hostile action. An Idea can be loaned to anyone else's Project, but only the owner(s) of a Project can control the results. Actions are not needed to maintain a Project unless the Project inputs include actions. The Practice action is only needed to add an Idea to a Project.
- Refute: Attempt to destroy an unowned Idea. Can only be attempted by a given Greater Idea against a given Idea once a turn. Modifiers: +Similar owned Idea, +High Orbit
- Resolve: Increment Crystallization.
- Retract: Attempt to invert an owned Idea. Modifiers: +Lower Crystallization, -High similarity to core Idea (if not core Idea).
- Ruminate: Work on turning a Lead into a Project. Most Leads take 1-4 actions to complete.
- Synthesize: Sacrifice opposing owned Ideas to generate a stronger Idea not opposed to either. Result can be specified within reason.
- Teach: Weaken an owned Idea and create a target-owned also weakened copy. Modifiers: +Lower target Crystallization, -Higher Orbit
- Trade: Offer an Idea to a Greater Idea using the Trade action to offer an Idea.
- Transcend: Currently swaps Orbits with a neighboring Greater Idea. Requires permission from the target.
A number of actions are unknown as of now.
Notes on action resolution:
- Actions with modifiers or described as attempts are random, i.e. rolled with a 3d6.
- Action randomness propagates to all actions involving the same target(s).
- Orbit modifiers work out to half the difference in Orbits rounded down.
The next update is scheduled for 48h (2d) from now or after everyone posts whichever comes first.
Author
Topic: Age of Ideas IC: Hello World (7/16) (Read 4791 times)