Erebus - After Victory?

TheIanOakley · Jan 12, 2014

Tasunke Witka posted this on the ExtraModMod Bitbucket, and it brought up a lot of questions:

would have to look at the lore though, as I could see 'not being in the lore' as a clear potential blocker, regardless of balance issues. Honestly that area of the lore ... late-game mechanical technology, isn't really my strong suit.

(all I know is that eventually with population increase and a continued number of magic users, perhaps aided by the ideals spread by Govannon, but something that takes place long after his death, the magic in the world becomes diminished and eventually dissipates, to that the only things that work are magical items, as all of the potential magic is stored in them (and the imagination of the population).

There was a group of fanatics that wanted to reduce the world's population, and went about destroying magical artifacts, with the intent to bring magic back into the world. The sources of magic are infinite, but on Erebus the amount of 'RaM' or Bandwith that they can access the elemental servers is limited .... in the lore this is called 'Channeling Potential' .... that the Channeling Potential of magic use, that is the simultaneous use of magic within a given mortal plane of creation, has its limits. Therefore within a given plane of existence, if there are very few magical users the magicians can be quite powerful, while if everyone has magical power, then one would be pressed to produce a simple cantrip. It would be my understanding that in the plane of Erebus, this does not take place until the type of population growth you would see during the Sanitation reforms (civil engineering, etc) and the new Food Industry (rail cars, refridgerated rail cars) that you saw in the 1830s - 1930s, or during the birth of the modern era what most games refer to as the 'industrial age'. I would suspect that in an Erebus timeline technology would develop differently so it wouldn't quite be like 'our' industrial era, but advanced civil engineering, mass-reformed sanitation practices, and the corporations of transporting food to population centers by railcar would be natural prerequisites.

Given the late-game tech in FFH2, I'd say it would seem likely that late-game, even end-game FFH2 is perhaps 150 years away from the complete obliteration of magic. And that, only if technological progress isn't delayed or altogether halted by a reliance on magic or based upon some religious convention.

This brings me to my interpretations on the two infamous victories, Luannotar and Tower of Mastery. To me, completion of the Altar of Luannotar means that the entire population 'ascends' into true heaven, similar to the auto-dissapearance of the Dwemer during the battle of red mountain when Kagrenak uses the sacred tools ... if I remember correctly the 'last of the dwemer' only survived because he was travelling through different universes at the time, and when he returned, I suppose he contracted corprus and thus forced himself to stay put lest he suffer other worlds of the disease. But yes I believe that the last Dwemer survived only because he was in an entirely different dimension/universe ...

And as far as the Tower of Mastery, as I said the 'channeling' in Erebus is finite, but with construction of the Tower, that channeling becomes the sole property of the Tower's owner. With this religions would become obsolete, because the only one able to cast miracles would be the Tower's owner and his select few disciples/apprentices what have you. Perhaps this would be the State Alchemists/ State Mages, that pledge fealty to the Magical Overlord. This would make those in command of the power extremely powerful, as powerful as the mages during the age of magic, or even as powerful as a god. This dictatorship would bring ruin to humanity, as absolute power would make cruel tyrants of anyone in this position. Their every whim would be total law, and any real human progress would have to be hidden away in underground shelters, etc. It is hard to say what the gods would do in this situation, but I suspect they would do all within their power to aid the rebels in the destruction of the Tower, allowing their influence to re-enter Erebus.

Therefore, until the Tower is Destroyed, the exclusive magic-wielders would use their magic to impose a sort of dystopian, almost post-appocalyptic dictatorship, similar to the one imposed upon future earth in the comic and anime Valerian and Lorelein, a time-travelling based Anime in which a human man uses time travel, not long after it is first invented, to set the stage for him to have complete supremacy over earth ... even going so far as to

SPOILER ALERT!!

....hide earth away in a different galaxy, away from the other sentient species that humans had made contact with.

End Spoiler Alert

So then in either timeline, well in the Altar Victory, the others would follow a normal progression, and in the Mastery timeline, human progress would be slowed or completely halted for another few centuries while the mage-kings held their power, but then eventually a rag tag band of rebels and adventurers, aided by the gods, with whatever small power they could exert, perhaps made possible by tiny cracks in the Tower made over time ... that these adventurers could eventually desroy the tower. Then religions would re-enter Erebus, and natural progression would occur until magic was all but useless, and then people would no longer be able to cast miracles, and religions would be more like what they are today, and around this time the cult that wants to bring back magic would be at the height of its membership and power, attempting to end the world in order to bring back magic (and all the while collecting magical artifacts, and perhaps destroying them too, or planning on destroying them all at once, or using them to aid in their cause).

So a lot to take in, but that is basically the multiverse of FFH2 branching out from the victories in the base game. Naturally Empires don't last forever, so Conquest and Domination victories would lead directly into natural progression.

Armageddon is a bit trickier. The way its represented in-game would lend one to think that, rather than outright destroying creation, 'The One' simply decided to test humanity with a series of trials .... however the lore would have one think that upon 'Armageddon' creation is no longer the land of the living but simply another 'hell' inhabited by demons. Or rather, that, say, Nyx and Erebus become merged. Its really quite tricky to be honest, as 'Armageddon' has a lot of psychological and theological implications and it is hard to know exactly which version the lore has in mind. And there are many more possibilities too.

One thing that seems consistent however is that armageddon is something that can be overcome. Perhaps erebus does become a plane of hell, or maybe combined with both a hell and a heaven, or simply becomes a divine plane of its own rather than a plane of 'mortality', and therefore people become almost stuck in time, perhaps even immortal, similar to how the Bannor were in their travels through Hell ... and since its a divine plane all can have influence over it. One would think that this means the compact is broken, but the gods all fear for their life so the most that occurs is the introduction of Camulos's archangel the 'Avatar of Wrath' ... although if one goes by the original FFH2 lore, the Av of Wr is created by all the restless souls that were slain during the catastrophic events of the appocalypse. Perhaps this being then becomes the new archangel of Camulos. Or the souls added to the old archangel and changed his identity somewhat. Or the archangel 'consumed' these souls, letting them into his being, and it corrupted/changed his mind ... either way becoming his 'final form' as it were, eventually to become slain during the events of the appocalypse, but perhaps only after decades of slaughter and rule in an apocalyptic wasteland. Depending on events.

This 'divine plane' that erebus has become ... rather than escaping it, perhaps the humans and other divine sparks of the world must create a ritual to bring erebus back into its status as creation ... but none of this is really explored within the current armageddon mechanics. If hell terrain spawned 'demon barbarians' and some ritual that could only be created if Infernals are not in the game/ were killed off ... could remove all hell terrain .... (and perhaps, as in another ritual, all demons yet again), then perhaps that would be indicative. There is already a ritual that removes all demons, so perhaps this could be an allusion to bringing erebus back into a 'mortal/creatoin' status by banishing all evil outsiders, as it is no longer a home within which they may freely crawl. Introducing ways in which barbarian demons enter erebus during Armageddon, and adding ways to reverse this somehow, could be indicative of this.

On the reverse side, if there was an 'Armageddon' victory, perhaps at 100 AC, then it would reinforce that the world is ended fully ended, making it an alternate timeline completely (or alternate universe) where Erebus simply ends, and becomes a heaven/hell for the mortals of another plane, or simply becomes a wasteland which other divines can traverse (as well as DnD planeswalkers).
Click to expand...

How much of this is accurate? It seems not unreasonable, although since I know little of FfH lore - which still needs centralising - I & Tasunke could be completely wrong.

And if this is wrong, what actually happens after victory - in game, not scenarios - ? What does Altar of the Luonnotar actually involve? Is magic going to get infinitely dissipated?

Blakmane · Jan 12, 2014

Armageddon does spawn demon barbarians via Hellfire tiles, interestingly enough.

I always assumed the final result of an evil victory (via armageddon then conquest/domination I guess) would be that The One returns to Erebus and eradicates it entirely. This is, after all, what Agares wants - to prove to The One that his creation is intrinsically flawed, so that he will have destroy it. I don't really know what that would entail exactly though.

Akbarthegreat · Jan 13, 2014

I don't think most of that stuff is canon.
Waiting for MC...

Calavente · Jan 16, 2014

just chiming in to say that for me the completion of the altar of luonnatar was "just" something that rang the bell of the One, making him look again at creation... and then anything is possible. from redepemption of the fallen angels, to extermination and judgement of them and "appointement" of new sphere "patrons"... or erasing Erebus, or collapsing the Hells and allowing all souls to go back to Arawn...

For Tower, I think I understand it like that. However, normally religions wouldn't be bared of miracles.. indeed, Angels (gods) stay owner of the sphere's plans... but mayhap they would need to come at least partially "physically" on Erebus to work their miracles... thus breaking the compact.

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