Hoolay math
Thursday, September 12th, 2024 17:38![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cashewI've actually been meaning to bring this point up for a while now...
So, Hoolay is supposed to have been defeated by Jingliu about 700 years ago.
The Sedition of Imbibitor Lunae happened 721 years ago. (Source: see video description. Patch 1.3 date 8100 - Sedition date 7379 = 721 years.)
The other thing we can be fairly certain is that Jingliu loses it while killing the abomination dragon (based on that one egg memory that recalls seeing Jingliu stab the dragon and kills everything around her, so she's clearly losing control). Even if she doesn't immediately go crazy, it's still within a very short time, seeing as she escapes prison in 7380 (the year after Sedition).
And immediately preceding the Sedition was Battle of Shuhu during which time Tengxiao plus >90% of Cloud Knights died.
HOWEVER. The Marshal decided to imprison Hoolay on Luofu as a response to the Sedition of Imbibitor Lunae. In which case, it is highly unlikely that Hoolay was captured before Battle of Shuhu, as that would mean somehow the trial of Hoolay continued while Luofu is suffering through an absolute massacre by Shuhu then immediately had to deal with the Sedition of Imbibitor Lunae. Like, the Marshal just had the trial go on and on while a flagship is getting battered. This scenario seems a bit unlikely.
The other scenario is that in the small sliver of time between Sedition and her arrest, Jingliu went off to capture Hoolay...which also seems immensely unlikely given her mental state.
The only other way I can see this happening is capturing Hoolay was part of the extended Battle of Shuhu, in which case, Hoolay's immense longevity may have something to do with Shuhu. This seems the most likely explanation, but we know from Jingliu that she was assigned to protect Dan Feng during the Battle of Shuhu where he goes batshit, so it's unlikely she could be off capturing Hoolay then coming back to deal with Dan Feng.
In short, none of the explanations I can come up with fits comfortably into the timeline that the story gave us so far. Does miHoyo actually have a timeline or are they just throwing out numbers without looking at what they wrote before?
Ok, just watched a little bit of 2.5 and confirmation miHoyo has no timeline, since Jiaoqiu says "整整七百年过去了", meaning exactly 700 years. That would put Hoolay's capture at 21 years after Sedition of Imbibitor Lunae.
Either Jiaoqiu is bad at history or miHoyo is ret-conning.
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no subject
Date: 2024-09-13 02:28 (UTC)No, Hoolay's special-ness was explained in 2.5. His heart is an artifact of Abundance created by the first Borisin warmaster using blood sorcery, sacrifices, and the magic river gifted them by Yaoshi. Each successive warmaster would kill their predecessor and consume the heart to make it their own.
BTW, my headcanon is that the capture of Hoolay took place early in the Second Abundance War. Maybe he was part of a vanguard before Shuhu took the field. So Jingliu would've been fine at the time. Then after capturing him, they then had to deal with other forces and later Shuhu, so there wasn't time to decide what to do with him until after everything settled.
no subject
Date: 2024-09-13 03:34 (UTC)Why even have succession if the warmaster is nigh unkillable? Wouldn't this be more akin to usurping power than succession?
Also, I haven't caught up yet, but I hear Feixiao ate the heart. Does that make her immortal?
But where to store Hoolay in the meantime? Second Abundance War was an all hands on deck situation and Hoolay was a pretty huge threat. Keeping him around would risk jailbreak during the height of war, making the situation even worse.
I'm not saying it's impossible, but it's a logistical nightmare.
MiHoyo writing sucks. All it takes is sending out a copy of the official timeline to their writers to avoid this mess. This isn't even that hard of a problem to solve. FFS every MMO company has figured out how to avoid timeline contradictions, even the shitty games! Gah.
no subject
Date: 2024-09-13 06:04 (UTC)Once you rip out the heart (and eat it), the previous dude is obviously now killable (and dead).
The heart gives you an uber healing factor. It doesn't make you invulnerable.
> Also, I haven't caught up yet, but I hear Feixiao ate the heart. Does that make her immortal?
Theoretically. We don't know if there will be side effects. Could be a Checkov's gun. Or could just be a simple power up. Maybe future patches will touch on it.
> But where to store Hoolay in the meantime?
In the Shackling Prison. I mean, that place was holding a lot of sensitive prisoners, plenty who date before the Second Abundance War. Obviously they still managed to keep those guys secure through the war.
As far as I know, the battlefield for that war never took place on the Luofu itself, so the prison security was never threatened. Besides, the prison staff comes from the Ten Lords Commission, who's not part of the military anyways.
no subject
Date: 2024-09-13 06:52 (UTC)I meant what is the point of killing the leader? Like, the reason succession rules exist is because the leader has to die at some point and there needs to be an agreed upon process how to transition the power in a non-violent manner. If Borisin sets the leader as whomever can kill the previous leader, that's not succession, that's usurping power. Also that's an immensely unstable way to transfer power and the system would encourage would be challengers to try to kill the leader all the time. That's a good way to ensure the civilization doesn't survive.
I mean I get these guys are modeled after wolves (where challengers fight the pack leader and chase off the leader to inherit the pack), but like...wolves are animals and have pretty limited intelligence and their social unit maxes out at around 30 individuals. Borisin are sapient werewolves that live hundreds of years with a complex social structure that involves a slave caste. This shit is not comparable.
Wait what? I thought the Battle of Shuhu happened on Luofu? Like the Quintet gathered at Yubie's statue to prep for the big battle and stuff...
But Jing Yuan said the decision to lock Hoolay in Shackling Prison was the Marshal responding to the events of the Sedition. Unless you mean that Hoolay was stored on another ship's shackling prison in the meantime... But then there would be precedent for shipping Hoolay between the Shackling Prison of different ships. Yet in 2.4 I believe it was mentioned that there wasn't precedent because Hoolay was not meant to ever be transferred between ships.
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Date: 2024-09-13 16:41 (UTC)Because their racial philosophy is the strong rule the weak. If the new guy proves to be stronger than the old warleader, then he should get to rule.
> Also that's an immensely unstable way to transfer power and the system would encourage would be challengers to try to kill the leader all the time.
I mean, it's not like this happens at any time randomly. They have regular timeframes where the youth of the generation first undergo trials (via violence) to prove themselves worthy of being a Borisin (and the failures become slave caste). Then people who think they've got a chance make a challenge at the warleader and kill or be killed. Presumably they don't schedule this to happen while other important stuff is ongoing like war.
> I thought the Battle of Shuhu happened on Luofu?
The battle mainly took place on a battlefield that Shuhu set up beforehand called the Sainguinary Abyss (血涂狱界). It doesn't seem like that would be on the Luofu, since you'd think they'd notice and stop him before he can prep up.
> Jing Yuan said the decision to lock Hoolay in Shackling Prison was the Marshal responding to the events of the Sedition.
The Shackling Prison also acts as a temporary holding place for dangerous people/stuff found on the Luofu that haven't been fully processed yet. Like, Jingliu was temporarily held there before transferring to the Yuque. Blade as held there for a bit at the start of the Luofu crisis before Jing Yuan let him loose on purpose. The seized mecha cargo from the IPC this recent update was also sent there for keeping, and while that was arranged by the traitors, the officials like Hanya didn't think it was too weird.
So once Hoolay was captured by the Luofu forces, and before he could be transfered to another ship for interrogation/sentencing/etc. the only place he could've been held at in the interim was the Shackling Prison.
no subject
Date: 2024-09-13 23:36 (UTC)Yeah, I'll address this in a post soon. It's dumb.
The scheduled fighting to the death for leadership is also dumb, which I'll explain in another post in detail.
We were shown in 2.4 that there is a super complicated procedure for holding Hoolay because he's a high security risk prisoner. He's not like the other types of prisoners you've mentioned. Jingliu was placed there bc Jing Yuan knew she wasn't an escape threat (she wanted to be captured). Blade's threat level is minimal. The suspicious cargo was easily deactivated, this not showing themselves to be a jailbreak risk.
Hoolay on the other hand could single-handedly destroy an entire troop of Cloud Knights. He's a high risk prisoner and there was serious concerns of jailbreak. The ridiculous protocol regarding the handling of Hoolay isn't Ten Lords being paranoid, he genuinely warranted that level of scrutiny.
But logistically you can't come up with complex prisoner protocols on the fly. If he was temporarily being held in Shackling Prison while trial is happening in the middle of a war, then he'd be held under much looser protocols, thus making him an escape risk. This is why it's a logistical nightmare.
Again, it's not impossible, the logistics are just crazy difficult. But also there's not a lot of point trying to make sense of this now that I realize miHoyo doesn't have a grand timeline at all and they don't care about inconsistentencies.
no subject
Date: 2024-09-14 01:25 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-09-14 06:12 (UTC)I mean it's true, but it's much easier to handle protocol stuff during peace time than when resources are stretched due to an on-going war. I know it basically isn't even thought about as far as HSR is concerned, but people need to get paid, and war is expensive. Paying the prison guards is gonna get difficult when most of the funds are going to fighting for survival...
There's a reason "take no prisoners" was an actual policy during war when fighting got intense. It wasn't even about mercy or showing ethical consideration, it was about the logistical nightmare of taking prisoners while also dealing with battle. POWs only became a thing when prisoner exchange brought about bigger political gains than military confrontation. And given Borisin's cultural attitude, there's no real political value to Hoolay as a prison other than keeping Foxians happy. And that goes back to my previous point of doubting Foxians are gonna be raising a ruckus over Hoolay when there's a battle for their survival on the line.
The entire set up for Hoolay is really poorly thought out and so obviously copied from period drama where no single person is so super-humanly powerful they can destroy an entire freaking army. Taking prisoner of an invading tribe's leader? Makes sense. Taking prisoner of a guy that can destroy an entire army by himself? Impractical.