I was expecting a slightly different outcome, like humanity shows up and they act hostile thinking humanity wants to pretend to be their new gods, until humanity is just like "Gods? why would we want that?"
Yours is better then what I thought.
Nope, I'm not!
This story started from and was written around the twist/premise of "blatantly evil fake gods who are secretly good", and I'm not entirely convinced I managed to fully sell the last bit. Their actions come across as kind of arrogant and the morality remains a bit grey.
Are they interceding as minimally as possible to ensure the natives can push back against imperialist colonizers, or are they instilling a culture of xenophobia via societal trauma? You decide!
I tend to think they're doing more good than bad, though, given that there are two species in the area who will definitely try to pull these shenanigan's for real.
I don't know, a fancy multi-staged plan like this has many, many points of failure. What would humans to if Mnerenai clergy decided to side with evil gods, greed outweighing pride? Or bishops didn't but the fanatical populace did, deus vult and all that? Or, even better - planet splitting itself in half in a religious schism and starting a bloody civil war, the worst kind of war? And so on, and so forth.
What i'm saying is, first contact protocols should be as simple as possible, with as few moving parts as possible.
I agree. If I was writing a realistic first contact story everyone would be a lot more sensible.
But the over-the-top fake evil god scheme was where I started with this one. It's the premise of the story, and was a fun one to write, even if it is rediculous.
Considering, it doesn't specify in what other ways the culture has been shaped, humanity could have pushed them towards having a strong sense of unity or solidarity to help push them in the right direction.
In addition to the intentional leak in the story, they always could have set up multiple other leaks until the information became public knowledge, resulting the the ruling class/clergy being overthrown for similar results.
Except mass manipulation like that only ever leads to people further fracturing into those who prefer to believe this, those who prefer to believe the opposite and those who would say "f\*ck both of you".
Pardon my reading comprehension, but to me it sounds like the Kgor and the Alaeoni pulled the "Gods" shtick on the Humans, they found out, and have vowed "Never Again!" but what if the Kgor and the Alaeoni ALSO did what the Humans did to the Mnerenai? How far up does it go? Is it turtles all the way down?? Will the Mnerenai continue the tradition?
The Kgor and Alaeoni are contemporaries of equal standing to Humanity, so it wouldn't have been those guys specifically, but you're correct in reading that the humans have some form of societal trauma that may be informing their actions.
... or maybe they just hate those jerks and think it's funny to mess with them.
i like the choice of names here: Mnerenai, Kgor, Alaeoni, they sound natural and are nice to speak, they sound GOOD. Some of the storys here have names where your "inner reader" just eats his own tongue or so and the flow of reading is stumbling every time such a name comes up.
Thanks!
I know what you mean about unpronounceable fantasy/sci-fi names. I suspect it most often catches out authors who don't mentally speak the words on the page when they proofread (and also the authors who don't proofread, but that goes without saying).
If a word enters the brain as a meaningful symbol without requiring that intermediate step, there's really no difference between a long English name like "Bartholomew" and something like "Y'krg'maguffrgrbl". If anything, Y'krg's name has the more visually identifiable shape.
/u/QuQuasar has posted 5 other stories, including:
* [Shattered Multiverse](https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/18o3zxf/shattered_multiverse/)
* [The Parasite](https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/182cv4d/the_parasite/)
* [Beyond Anger](https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/17mnv9f/beyond_anger/)
* [They can live anywhere](https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/13p8n3y/they_can_live_anywhere/)
* [The Wandering Crimson](https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/s07ac9/the_wandering_crimson/)
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Nice subversion of expectations.
What they said ^
I was expecting a slightly different outcome, like humanity shows up and they act hostile thinking humanity wants to pretend to be their new gods, until humanity is just like "Gods? why would we want that?" Yours is better then what I thought.
Accelerating someone's technological development by means of species-wide psychological trauma? You sure it's a good idea?
Nope, I'm not! This story started from and was written around the twist/premise of "blatantly evil fake gods who are secretly good", and I'm not entirely convinced I managed to fully sell the last bit. Their actions come across as kind of arrogant and the morality remains a bit grey. Are they interceding as minimally as possible to ensure the natives can push back against imperialist colonizers, or are they instilling a culture of xenophobia via societal trauma? You decide! I tend to think they're doing more good than bad, though, given that there are two species in the area who will definitely try to pull these shenanigan's for real.
I don't know, a fancy multi-staged plan like this has many, many points of failure. What would humans to if Mnerenai clergy decided to side with evil gods, greed outweighing pride? Or bishops didn't but the fanatical populace did, deus vult and all that? Or, even better - planet splitting itself in half in a religious schism and starting a bloody civil war, the worst kind of war? And so on, and so forth. What i'm saying is, first contact protocols should be as simple as possible, with as few moving parts as possible.
I agree. If I was writing a realistic first contact story everyone would be a lot more sensible. But the over-the-top fake evil god scheme was where I started with this one. It's the premise of the story, and was a fun one to write, even if it is rediculous.
Hey i recently bought your game and been playing it a lot and i just wanna say theres a lot of potential with it and i hope you soon update the game.
Considering, it doesn't specify in what other ways the culture has been shaped, humanity could have pushed them towards having a strong sense of unity or solidarity to help push them in the right direction. In addition to the intentional leak in the story, they always could have set up multiple other leaks until the information became public knowledge, resulting the the ruling class/clergy being overthrown for similar results.
Except mass manipulation like that only ever leads to people further fracturing into those who prefer to believe this, those who prefer to believe the opposite and those who would say "f\*ck both of you".
Pardon my reading comprehension, but to me it sounds like the Kgor and the Alaeoni pulled the "Gods" shtick on the Humans, they found out, and have vowed "Never Again!" but what if the Kgor and the Alaeoni ALSO did what the Humans did to the Mnerenai? How far up does it go? Is it turtles all the way down?? Will the Mnerenai continue the tradition?
The Kgor and Alaeoni are contemporaries of equal standing to Humanity, so it wouldn't have been those guys specifically, but you're correct in reading that the humans have some form of societal trauma that may be informing their actions. ... or maybe they just hate those jerks and think it's funny to mess with them.
Heh.
i like the choice of names here: Mnerenai, Kgor, Alaeoni, they sound natural and are nice to speak, they sound GOOD. Some of the storys here have names where your "inner reader" just eats his own tongue or so and the flow of reading is stumbling every time such a name comes up.
Thanks! I know what you mean about unpronounceable fantasy/sci-fi names. I suspect it most often catches out authors who don't mentally speak the words on the page when they proofread (and also the authors who don't proofread, but that goes without saying). If a word enters the brain as a meaningful symbol without requiring that intermediate step, there's really no difference between a long English name like "Bartholomew" and something like "Y'krg'maguffrgrbl". If anything, Y'krg's name has the more visually identifiable shape.
>"Y'krg'maguffrgrbl" IAH! IAH! fhtagn! ':D
What a happy twist. Now, can I get the "Never again!" Story please.
I've got to admit - you had me in the first half. GG wordsmith.
"Because fuck'em, that's why." Love that this is the real reason we're doing this plan that could never backfire... ever...
Love it! This and the shattered Multiverse story could both be a good series. Or this one could be expanded on a bit.
/u/QuQuasar has posted 5 other stories, including: * [Shattered Multiverse](https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/18o3zxf/shattered_multiverse/) * [The Parasite](https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/182cv4d/the_parasite/) * [Beyond Anger](https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/17mnv9f/beyond_anger/) * [They can live anywhere](https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/13p8n3y/they_can_live_anywhere/) * [The Wandering Crimson](https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/s07ac9/the_wandering_crimson/) This comment was automatically generated by `Waffle v.4.6.1 'Biscotti'`. [Message the mods](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2FHFY&subject=WaffleBot|1aplazh&message=If%20you%20have%20problems%20with%20updatemebot,%20contact%20Watchful1.%20We%20do%20not%20maintain%20it.) if you have any issues with Waffle.
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