07-13-2019, 04:54 AM
(07-12-2019, 08:55 PM)extherian Wrote: Welcome to the forums! I've always found that the Deep Night Runners make Terragen worship of the Archai seem kind of hilarious. The Lord of Rays is nothing compared to these guys.
I mean, unless I'm forgetting another reference, the Deep Night Runners are mentioned in the background of the alien narrator from "Finders, Keepers" (fleshed out by Rynn on the forums as part of the Meistersinger's real, much larger civilization). I don't believe Terragens know about them at all. As for worship, even the major "empire-supported" religions in the Sephirotics seem to have ideological aspects beyond just "believe our empire's head archai is the strongest around". I.e. the idea of all life being sacred in Zoeticism, or ascension being a goal that every person should strive for in Keterism, could still be debated regardless of whether the DNRs appeared in 10,601 AT and proceeded to wreck the archailects.
(07-12-2019, 08:55 PM)extherian Wrote: For me, the most interesting aspect of the 'transcendent god-intellects' part of the setting is that for all their superiority, they still choose to live alongside lesser beings like modosophonts and transapients. What benefit they could possibly gain from doing so is left up to the reader to decide, but it does challenge your attitudes about 'lesser' and 'greater' beings when the latter seem to show genuine respect to the former.
It is an interesting (and obviously necessary for the setting) conceit, but on the other hand, many transapients were modosphont beings at one point in their existence. I don't think the descriptions of ascension imply that the ascendee *stops* being having their old properties of being sentient, sapient, sophont, etc., so they presumably can continue to understand and, to a degree, empathize with modosophont beings.