Saw a clip from 2.5 patch
Wednesday, September 11th, 2024 10:30![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cashewDan Heng telling Taoran even after reincarnation he will still be the same person.
The fuck is miHoyo trying to do here?
Are they having trouble keeping their own lore straight or are they ret-conning? Is there some extra context that's missing? (I know that this is on context of the memory potion, which Dan Heng also experienced. But Dan Heng insists he is not the same person while claiming Taoran will remain the same, so which one is it you fucking tsundere? And no, individual variation in response to the treatment isn't enough to explain the difference, because Dan Heng is saying he's speaking from personal experience.)
I agree with the OP, Jing Yuan needs to call Dan Heng on his BS. Are you or are you not the same person?! (But this also feeds into the interpretation that Dan Heng is jealous of Dan Feng when it comes to friendship with Jing Yuan given how insistent he is about keeping the identities separated while also apparently internally accepting he's...the same? I swear miHoyo storytelling drives me up a wall.)
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no subject
Date: 2024-09-11 15:38 (UTC)I guess there is too little exact details of the time to really say what exactly happened. Which is honestly part of the details with the whole HCQ lore. Too much mystery and vagueness to the purpose of "suspense" with no payoff because either the writers haven't though out the details that much, or want to leave room for future writing, or whatever. -_-
> Well that depends on whether all 7 arbiter-generals are meant to be good guys... Not having seen the full 2.5 patch, it's hard for me to discount the possibility the corruption goes to the highest level.
It's theoretically possible, but the gist I am getting is that the arbiter-generals are pretty much on one side. That is, the marshal has the ultimate authority to assign the position, and can do so even over objections from other parties, and thus is likely to assign people who align with her. Of course, that still leads to possibility of later changes of heart or corruption (such as if Feixiao was successfully possessed by the Crimson Moon this time)...
But I also expect that all 7 generals will eventually all become playable characters. Yes, even Zhuming, all they need is for Huaiyan to step down again and a new person be assigned into his slot. So they all need to be either good guys, or at least, not "bad" enough to be irredeemable.
From the story so far, though, it currently sounds like the Ten Lords is set up as being the "bad" guys in this case. Or at least, the opposing political faction to the Arbiter Generals. The fact that the writers seem to refuse going into any details about how exactly that department is structured and who the heck the "old guys" are involved, though, seems to imply they haven't really planned further than that. -_-
> This presumes the rest of the preceptors are sane.
A faction of the Luofu preceptors have obviously gone nuts after the Sedition, triggered by the successful creation of Bailu and the loss of the full high elder inheritance after Dan Feng. I mean, with Taoran it's kind of obvious he's gone nuts. The real question is if this is something that is local to just the Luofu, or if the sentiment is also present among the Vidyadhara leadership of other ships.
This patch we do have Jing Yuan implying that the high elder of the Fang Hu, at least, is still loyal to the Xianzhou's alliance, and he expects him/her to come down hard on Taoran, which is why he's kicking the case over there to be tried instead of locally on the Luofu. We also have Lingsha to go by as the student of the high elder from the Zhu Ming, and he also seems to be on the Xianzhou's side. So that's only 2 other high elders we haven't heard of at this point.
> One possible (better) reason is that this is part of the bargaining.
Sure, but the fact that Taoran thinks he has enough chips to bargain his sentence to the same level as with Dan Feng/Dan Heng... I mean, Dan Feng likely didn't argue on behalf of himself. So any bargaining done on his behalf by others probably used the fact of his multiple generations of loyal guardianship of the Arbor to mitigate his sentence.
Taoran, what has he contributed? His implication seems to be he has enough dirt to eventually exchange for a lighter sentence. The amount of dirt he'd need to have to be equivalent... would imply a lot of bad things about the conspiracy behind him (and dude, if this whole patch was Jing Yuan trying to weed out the bad eggs in his government, just stopping at Taoran when there is obviously more corruption behind him, just...I don't want to say failure, but it doesn't feel like it's a success, IMO)
no subject
Date: 2024-09-11 16:10 (UTC)Yup, no confidence in these writers at all.
Yeah, basically that's my assumption because that requires less writing skills. Good generals vs evil lords (who are named after the ten underworld gods, so like...evil).
Sounds like we never got to see any normal Vidyadhara from other ships? Even 灵砂 was Luofu born. But also I'm presuming each ship's group have their own political fights. Like the Ten Lords are probably 10 different people on each ship with varying friendliness to the arbiter-generals. At the very minimum prison on Yaoqing is set above ground with a very different structure and design philosophy, suggesting there's huge variation.
Usually the bargaining comes up as political situations change. Like an event flares up, there's a need for manpower/intelligence/human resources or whatever and higher ups are willing to renegotiate. Taoran specifically mentioned the current investigation into Jing Yuan (and Hoolay escape) as a source of political headache and seems to imply his release can help smooth over some of the troubles. (Obviously he was shocked that Hoolay escape was part of Jing Yuan's plan all along -- which is also BS writing -- and that seemed to have thrown a bit of a wrench into his plans.)
I don't think Taoran was talking about dirt. He mentioned 权衡, so it's more about the fact that his people won't cause even more problems in exchange for not killing him. In the sense of: "If you kill me, my people will bring in even more of Destruction's followers and absolutely wreck Luofu. Even if you win, it'll be a pyrrhic victory. Are you sure you're ready to let so many Cloud Knights die?" Etc.
I mean it's not a success since it sounds like the conflict isn't remotely settled? Seems like they're trying to tie all three worlds together somehow.... Not that I have any trust in them to do this.
no subject
Date: 2024-09-11 16:44 (UTC)He wasn't shocked that Jing Yuan had planned for Hoolay's escape. That actually was a genuine surprise to all of the generals. They expected that *something* would happen when they scheduled the Wardance. But they didn't know what specifically that something was until it kicked off. They're not that omniscient.
Taoran was shocked that Hoolay was already dealt with by the time he was confronted. He expected that Hoolay's escape would've caused a lot of chaos and destruction among the general populace than it ended up doing. Or maybe expected Hoolay to be able to escape capture for longer.
But Hoolay didn't go by the script planned for him. And Feixiao's hunting skillz is one of the spotlights of the patch. So.
> He mentioned 权衡, so it's more about the fact that his people won't cause even more problems in exchange for not killing him. In the sense of: "If you kill me, my people will bring in even more of Destruction's followers and absolutely wreck Luofu. Even if you win, it'll be a pyrrhic victory. Are you sure you're ready to let so many Cloud Knights die?" Etc.
Uh, I don't think that's what he means by 权衡. The last thing the Xianzhou as a whole are scare of is potential conflict. Back at the end of the Luofu crisis, Jing Yuan had essentially already given a verbal promise to declare war on Phantylia. And we learn this time that he did forward that onto the marshal. And after this current mess with Hoolay, Feixiao has also declared her support, and she's picked her next Hunt target once she gets back to the Yaoqing.
The example we're given of "权衡", in story, is that the marshal decided that Hoolay will be imprisoned on the Luofu instead of the Yaoqing, as reminder and warning to both ships not to retread Dan Feng's mistake and go overboard using him to research a cure for the Foxian moon rage curse.
no subject
Date: 2024-09-11 17:29 (UTC)But Jing Yuan in specific tries to minimize casualty. He clearly values keeping as many people alive as possible, even before becoming general. Futhermore, it's entirely possible the level of destruction Taoran is threatening is on Shuhu level, where less than 10٪ of Cloud Knights survived. Tengxiao might accept those numbers but Jing Yuan clearly is not.
Yeah, the Marshal is making a decision that is most likely to reduce the chances of another Sedition level chaos due to "good intentions". She's balancing (权衡) the expediency of appeasing Foxian rage against future potential misuse. The balance that's happening is measured in lives lost.
Hence why I'm pretty sure the 权衡 being talked about is potential chaos that will result from executing Taoran vs the expediency of getting rid of him for good.
no subject
Date: 2024-09-11 19:08 (UTC)Haha, you wouldn't think so going by some of the CN response to 2.4. People ragging on the generals for either being willing to sacrifice people's lives by "letting" the jailbreak happen in order to cast the line for bigger fish, or being incompetent at preventing the deaths that took place in the prison during the jailbreak.
Rinse and repeat in 2.5 with the cloud knights that died holding off the Borisin massacre on the streets, and in the ambush on the Skysplitter.
> Futhermore, it's entirely possible the level of destruction Taoran is threatening is on Shuhu level, where less than 10٪ of Cloud Knights survived.
Er... it's not like Jing Yuan hasn't met Phantylia in person, or that the Xianzhou hasn't talked to other Lord Ravagers in the past and observed their work. Taoran would have to be smoking something rad to be making up something like that.
> The balance that's happening is measured in lives lost.
Err... but Hoolay was already captured at that point? There's no lives lost?
no subject
Date: 2024-09-12 00:39 (UTC)That's a failure between expectation and execution. Much like how Jing Yuan is supposed to be smart (based on how others talk about him), but his actions as the writers plotted out for him don't reflect political savviness at all. That doesn't mean Jing Yuan, the character, is bad at politics. It means the writers are shit at writing politics and don't know how to write actions that are actually politically savvy.
But on the specifics of Jing Yuan's attitude toward casualties, both his personal story and NPC dialogue praise him for winning without shedding blood and caring for lowly soldiers like they're his own son. Jing Yuan supposedly stayed in the position of Cloud Knight general for 721 years when most can't last past a century without dying. So I would say the set up for JY is someone who values keeping people alive.
This presumes what we've seen is the worst that can happen. Which is unlikely. Phantylia is obviously the tip of a much bigger iceberg. Since the story is hinting at much bigger conflicts and what not, it's too early to assume Phantylia is as bad as it can get.
In the case of the Marshal, temptation to use Hoolay would cause deaths, those are the lives she's weighing against the potential headache of Foxians complaining about not getting to be the ones to execute (unkillable) Hoolay.
In the case of whatever Taoran might be implying, well the specifics are unclear but the general vibe of the threat is pretty obvious.
no subject
Date: 2024-09-12 03:08 (UTC)Er, no? Emanators are top of the power list unless Nanook The Destruction is showing up.
And honestly, if we're at the point where Aeons are actually showing up to do stuff, the game has either jumped the shark or they're ready to end the story.
> In the case of whatever Taoran might be implying, well the specifics are unclear but the general vibe of the threat is pretty obvious.
All he implied was that he expected Hoolay to be rampaging and causing political problems for Jing Yuan (which he wasn't; he was already dead at that point), and that he could get away with his crimes scott free due to political manipulations. That's it.
I am reaally not sure were you are seeing nebulous outside threats he's coming up with.
And if he's banking on Phantylia to back him, he's definitely barking up the wrong tree. Phantylia doesn't care about her pawns. Back during the Luofu crisis, the minute Dan Shu was uncovered by our protagonists, Phantylia left her out to dry/die.
no subject
Date: 2024-09-12 05:00 (UTC)Power levels in this story is clearly vibes based and not objective, a point you've brought before.
Who said there's only going to be one bad guy? We have no idea what Taoran is implying that would get Xianzhou politicians to decide it's better to let him live, but theist reasonable guess isn't "having dirt". It's more likely a big calamity that will cause tons of civilian damage.
"出于种种利益交换，我一定回活下来。这一点你比我明白，毕竟这就是你最爱玩弄的「权衡」之术。"
He's directing this line to Jing Yuan, who has managed to successfully negotiate for Imbibitor Lunae's survival. He accuses Jing Yuan of being good at finding interests to exchange. His point is he also has interests that are worth exchanging, some of which are political, others being survival, still others who even knows. Because we know Jing Yuan's negotiation chips involved Luofu stability, Vidyadhara self governance, knowledge of 化龙妙法 (which direct impacts Vidyadhara long term survival), and some political power re-assignments.
Based on where Taoran aligned himself, causing or putting off unrest among Vidyadhara is clearly a major chip he can use. Since there's already a seditious (and craycray) faction that seems pretty ready to cause Luofu problems, Taoran's point is obviously letting him live will ultimately be the best for preserving Luofu prosperity.
Arresting every crazy supporter of the seditious faction is obviously not doable, based on how deeply woven they are into society. Forcefully trying to crush political dissent will only result in huge casualties. I mean we only need to look at real life to see how impossible and disruptive such an action would be.
You bring up in-game logic is not RL, but the writers still draw their logic from RL. Not to mention that speculative fiction presupposes a shared common understanding of the mundane, such as how politics work. Star Trek doesn't explain how a Federation works. Star Wars doesn't explain how an Empire works. HSR doesn't explain how criminal punishment negotiations work. Because they're supposed to work the same way in story as it does IRL.
I don't need to know exactly what he's referring to. I'm merely stating that based on what we know of Jing Yuan's character and based on Taoran being confident there will be negotiations, we can infer the general shape of the types of interest "种种利益" is trying to imply, and it's unlikely to be referring to political dirt.
no subject
Date: 2024-09-12 05:22 (UTC)Wait...wut? I agree with Luofu stability and power assignments, but where does the other stuff come from?
Vidyadhara governance involves the treaty signed between the high elders and the alliance, and isn't something that Jing Yuan has a say on. I mean, the reason he had Lingsha and Dan Heng face off against Taoran instead of going himself is because he has treaty clauses that would impede him if he was the one there. As well, officially the leader of the Vidyadhara on the Luofu right now is Bailu, who was never involved in any of this stuff. So I am not sure how this is a bargaining chip on JY's side?
As for 化龙妙法, Dan Heng doesn't remember any of it, Bailu never learned it, and the Precepters tried their best but never pried it out of Dan Feng. The only people who still know it are the other 4 Vidyadhara high elders. So I don't see how that can be JY's chip either.
> I don't need to know exactly what he's referring to. I'm merely stating that based on what we know of Jing Yuan's character and based on Taoran being confident there will be negotiations, we can infer the general shape of the types of interest "种种利益" is trying to imply, and it's unlikely to be referring to political dirt.
Em... dirt and secrets *are* the first and foremost things that come to mind. Because the Luofu story has been revolving around (1) Phantylia's external provocations of internal division and (2) internal corruption in the vague and complicated government system.
Saying that Taoran has any kind of control or influence over Phantylia is pretty laughable. He's her pawn, just like Dan Shu was, and the Borisin jailbreakers were (to the utter disgust of Hoolay himself). Theyr'e not anything even close to approaching an equal to her.
Oh, and possibly secret forbidden Abundance research, I guess. Though not sure how viable a negotiation chip that would be considering that info is supposed to be sealed when possible.
no subject
Date: 2024-09-12 07:16 (UTC)Who becomes 龙尊 directly affects Vidyadhara governance. Two points:
Jing Yuan has been secretly interfering in the Vidyadhara internal politics wrt protecting Bailu.
Pointing out the impact of keeping IL alive on Vidyadhara governance is a persuasion chip he can use during negotiations.
He doesn't have direct control, but that doesn't mean he can't make use of it. He seems to have a pretty good grasp of each factions' main interests, and knowing what makes these guys tick will better help find terms that both sides are willing to agree on. He's smart enough to come up with a good argument for how IL preservation would be good/bad and thus why Preceptors/Ten Lords should agree to whatever terms.
The use here being that Preceptors want it, that's their motivation for wanting to keep Dan Feng alive. That's the starting point of the negotiation. Jing Yuan can't give them the info but he can give them a chance at getting the info out of Dan Feng. That chance is Jing Yuan's leverage to get concessions out of Preceptors for certain demands that Ten Lords inevitably will make.
Phantylia is merely the symptom of political fracturing happening in Luofu. Phantylia snuck into Luofu due to internal moles. These moles aren't one off dissidents but are an organized group of seditious force (at least that seems to be the implication). That means they have some kind of shared interest that's driving them to sell out Luofu's interests. So there's two potential interests on the line if Taoran dies:
The seditious faction becomes even more extreme, leading to greater calamity by helping even more hostile forces.
Calcifying the already existing tensions because the seditious group sees that capture means death and they've already committed treason, so they've got nothing to lose.
For any governing body, a deeply entrenched seditious faction that thinks they've got nothing to lose is going to result in a massacre of innocent people. You can't solve terrorism with military force.
So it's not about getting dirt, it's about weighing the potential drawbacks of trying to root out all of the corruption. I mean the reason corruption is so difficult to deal with in every existing political body is because the ruling class risks societal chaos if it's not handled with a deft touch.
I didn't say that he has control over Phantylia. He just needs to have political influence with seditious Vidyadhara who want to cooperate with hostile forces that want to destroy Luofu. That alone would cause enough damage. Having to play whack-a-mole tracking after traitors and spies while a hostile force wants to invade is a pretty big headache. If Taoran is willing to use his influence to get the seditious Vidyadhara to delay their backstabbing, it'll be a huge boon. It will at least buy the ruling powers time to work out another plan.
(The core of Luofu's problem isn't that multiple outside factions want to crush them. The core threat is that there is a growing faction of their own citizens who want those hostile forces to win. They are losing the battle from the inside. Going to war while there's a large seditious faction is political suicide.)
Taoran is obviously not working alone. Successfully sneaking an Emanator of Destruction into Luofu, helping Borisin to seep into Luofu's 六司 suggests there's a huge faction that's backing Taoran. That knowledge alone is worth bargaining.
Sure, that faction might betray Taoran because evil is gonna evil, but if Taoran can get them to back down momentarily or even spit out some names in exchange for a commuted sentence, how can anyone be sure that the powers that be won't take the deal? That would probably be the gist of Taoran's bargaining chip.
Furthermore, if Taoran is executed, who's to say that won't result in even more extremist terrorism from the seditious faction? If they've already aligned themselves with Destruction, what's stopping them from helping more hostile forces to sneak in and cause more deaths? Since there's no way the Cloud Knights can know who is part of the seditious faction, they can only respond to damage after the fact; while having Taoran's cooperation would allow them to take preventive measures.
These are all considerations that's gonna come up during trial.
no subject
Date: 2024-09-12 07:53 (UTC)Sure, but Jing Yuan doesn't have any control over that. The inheritance is decided by the previous high elder via passing on of power. Dan Feng appointed Bailu because she inherited half of his power and he didn't want the position anymore for his reborn self. There were preceptors who disagreed and wanted Dan Heng to have the spot after rebirth, but there were plenty of others who agreed with accepting Bailu. But all of that is a matter of arguing Vidyadhara internal traditions, and not something Jing Yuan has influence on.
> Taoran is obviously not working alone.....That knowledge alone is worth bargaining.
Sure. Yes. But that's what I meant by dirt and secrets in my earlier comment.
> Furthermore, if Taoran is executed.....These are all considerations that's gonna come up during trial.
I find it really odd in this case that Taoran jumps immediately to trial and bargaining, but doesn't seem to worry about the possibility of *questioning*.
Like, when Jingliu showed up claiming to have had a hand in the stellaron crisis (which turned out to be a made up excuse in order to get an audience with the higher ups), Jing Yuan turned her over to the Yuque for questioning. So why doesn't he do the same thing here?
Is there some complicated legal clause or treaty stipulation that prevents the divination interrogation procedure from being used to Vidyadhara citizens? Seems awfully convenient.
no subject
Date: 2024-09-12 08:25 (UTC)My point is he doesn't need direct influence. He just needs the knowledge of the issues and know how to make persuasive arguments using the facts. Knowing who wants what and then being able to convince them the deal will help them achieve that goal is the bargaining chip.
Like, I don't need to have the candy in hand to use the knowledge that the kid wants the candy to convince them to do something. Such as "Hey, you want candy right? Guess who has lots of candy? Mom. If you help me with this, I'll help you convince mom to give you candy." That kind of thing.
First, isn't the whole sending Jingliu to Yuque Jing Yuan's attempt to foil Jingliu's plot and it basically failed, since she got the audience she wanted.
Second, presumably the situation with Taoran is being treated to the same processing protocol as the Sedition, which is arrest by Cloud Knights then hand over to local Ten-Lords. I think Jingliu's situation is the one that's actually an exception to the usual proceedure, not Taoran's. I believe Luocha even cited an obscure law that they (Luocha and Jingliu) specifically violated so they'd get sent to questioning rather than the Ten-Lords. (Can't remember the specifics anymore and honestly not up for looking it up at the moment.)
no subject
Date: 2024-09-12 16:38 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-09-12 05:23 (UTC)Coming back to this point, why are you assuming the reason Dan Feng's execution got reduced was due to his service? That's merely the "public" excuse, not the actual political bargaining that happened behind the scenes.
The Ten Lords need to give a publicly acceptable reason for letting Imbibitor Lunae live, and "we made some under the table deals" obviously isn't going to fly. They even brought in 冱渊君 to give the final sentence more political weight among the Vidyadhara populace.
Given Taoran's comment that he knows the inner workings of the criminal punishment system, he's obviously saying Imbibitor Lunae survived through a series of tit-for-tat favor trading, probably more along the lines of "if you kill him now, the Preceptors will riot and that will break the alliance apart". And maybe some bribery on top of everything else.
no subject
Date: 2024-09-12 06:37 (UTC)But, if that wasn't at least a factor in the decision, it would make the alliance a pretty ungrateful bunch, from a narrative overwatch POV.
no subject
Date: 2024-09-12 08:08 (UTC)I mean good people are still constrained by the politics of social interaction. And as I recall the final judgement involved the entire alliance governing body, so that's 十王司、六御、四龙尊(minus the one on trial)、七天将. (According to lore explainer, Jing Yuan was crucial in getting the Ten-Lords to agree involving input from the other powers that be.) And at the very least according to one egg memory, one Preceptor of Fanghu wanted even more fellow Vidyadhara punished for the Sedition.
(Source)
This suggests that even Vidyadhara on other ships were ready to cut ties with the IL faction. So lowering the sentence from death to molting was probably not favorably received overall, even knowing IL guarded the Arbor for thousands of years. With that political environment...well, I wouldn't say it makes the alliance ungrateful (also the Alliance is very much Not A Monolith) so much as there were far bigger political interests that needed balancing than "guy was useful, we should show mercy". Mercy and gratitude are rarely factors when it comes to big political trials.