Episode 54 (S2-01) - Fictional Relationships

[Oneiros]

And they're back folks! Season 2 of Erasing the Line starts off with the winds of change blowing through Paris, though for good or ill is something weighing heavily on the minds of (some) of the Rangers it seems. But they won, right? So it's time for some downtime and to sell the spoils, to feast and indulge and bring on the dancing boys! Right?

So it looks like the sombre mood from the end of last season has continued, despite Bertie's best efforts to just blithely blunder onwards, and we get some great character interactions as the show looks at consequences from each of their perspectives. The realisation that there are lots of moving parts and they've just blown up a significant part of the mechanism also lets us see who has eyes on which parts of the bigger picture, albeit coloured by their own experiences with Mr Ceiling and the revelations of the Ordinateurs.

Although probably the most worrying thing is that everyone is using up their good dice rolls this early - even *Bertie* is getting a chance to spot things 

So, thoughts, feelings, suspicions, theories on what's going to happen next, folks?

[kea]

Obviously Wilde's going to come in and do a very witty and erudite WTF at the Rangers (WWOTN), while dodging Bertie's wrath. Although given Mr. Ceiling wanted to kill/replace the meritocrats, perhaps things might sort of maybe be ok for the players? Although I suspect their way of dealing with things would be more "controlled explosion" and less "nuke it from orbit." I remember at some point Alex said the meritocrats took over because humans couldn't be trusted with the world/magic, and Mr. Ceiling is apparently a human creation. Then again, one of the meritocrats is dead - so was Mr. Ceiling taking up the slack? Was it preparing for a post-meritocrat world? Usually MA takes up my red string, but the implications of this are very interesting.

I suspect the world is going to get significantly more feral. In terms of resources the PCs seem to be doing fairly well - what happens when everything becomes scarce?

Interesting character development from Sasha - she seems to be acting the most outwardly heroic of the four, although I did feel that she was being unfair to Zolf, given the man (dwarf) currently has no legs and therefore cannot go and heal anyone. He's the only one who seems to be grasping the implications of what's happened to the world. Hamid is sort of overcome by the WE DID THE RIGHT THING rather than WE BROKE THE WORLD - but that's pretty much what you'd expect from Hamid, given how naive he is. Sasha perhaps isn't used to "big picture" thinking?

There was some especially brilliant RP this episode. Ben communicated Zolf's despair incredibly well. I'm really invested in these characters over the past 50 episodes - but I know it's likely to become worse before it becomes better.

[Brave Sir Robin]

This, unsurprisingly, was a pretty emotional episode to record as well.

I agree that Hamid is a bit naive here, and his world view is simplistic, but I guess I still agree with him. It's hard to play a character well if you don't. The consequences are pretty extreme, but I do think dealing with Mr Ceiling was correct.

[aslee]

Starting out by saying that I'm going to be putting shippy thoughts in a spoiler tag at the end of the post, because as much as I have the right to rub my gay little hands all over everything, y'all have the right to ignore me.

Moving on! This episode was a blessing, as it allowed me to forget that I'm on bedrest-- Instead I got to go on adventures in Paris, for which I'm very grateful.

The beginning of this episode is very much a good primer for anyone just discovering the story; Their dynamic as a team and as a family is still so strong and consistent. I joke with my friends a lot about Zolf and Hamid being Sasha's weird uncles and Bertie is their racist neighbor, but there's also something there that's just perfectly defined by Bertie and Sasha bickering in french and sign language and Hamid trying to mediate before giving up and having breakfast and shop talk with Zolf. Who is trying his best to ignore the whole thing, of course.

The emotional aftershocks of Mr. Ceiling caught me off guard. I expected the crew to be the sort of rubber that a lot of DnD parties are, always bouncing back and having fun. But underneath the jokes there was a surprising depth to it as they all tried to come to terms with the choices they made.

Except Bertie, but to be fair, I think Bertie made all his choices on his 18th birthday and hasnt changed his mind about a thing since.

Another thing I didn't expect was the shift in the moral alignment of the party. Not proper TTRPG alignments, but where they fall on the pragmatism v idealism scale. It's no secret that Zolf and Hamid butting heads about it in the labs was what really clenched my interest in the podcast, and I honestly thought it would stay that way forever: Zolf the pragmatist, Hamid the idealist, and Sasha caught between them, torn between what her rough life taught her she had to do to survive and what she knows in her heart is right.

What they stumbled upon below France changed all that forever. Losing Brock, and seeing what the cost of a machine like Mr. Ceiling was, made Sasha into quite the idealist. Zolf is still our pragmatist, but now it's tinged with existentialism as he tries to cope with the fact that he tipped an amoral creature to the side of evil. And now Hamid is our go-between, as I think the experience of the fake reality truly broke something in him. He seems more inclined to keep his people, his new little family, together and mentally stable than his heroic plans of season one. This could change in upcoming episodes, but I rather like the idea of Hamid, our little dragon, fiercely protecting his found family.

I hope they get some answers and a little closure soon, for the sake of the character's sanity.

And now, for the ships.

SPOILER: Click to show

Y'all, Hamid and Zolf was alive and well. I don't think I even have to explain it?? We all watched the same episode, okay; We know what went down. I get that the end bit was a joke, but it still counts, and that wasn't even the best part.

The best part was Hamid's soft, "Zolf," his voice so small and emotional it sounded like pain itself. Yes, hello, my name is Aslee, and that one line killed me.

I'm not even a little bit ashamed that I immediately started writing fic of Hamid helping Zolf wash his hair after this. NOT EVEN A LITTLE.

Cast bits: I want to make Lydia off-key singing Aladdin songs my ring tone for eternity.

edit: I forgot to tell you about my very important headcanon. My theory is that the in-game reason for Alex's very kind GM decisions on the subject of Hamid's prestadigitation (sp?) has to do with the dragony bits of Hamid. Think about it: What things has Hamid gotten away with, hm? Flares, coloured lights, Spark as a cantrip. I'm telling you, it's a dragony thing! He thinks he's doing a simple spell, but instead he's using innate powers he didn't even know he had. There's no way to confirm or deny this, of course, since spell mechanics don't actually exist in the world itself at a 1:1 ratio, but I'm pretty fond of imagining Hamid calling on primal bits of himself that aren't as physically noticeable.

[Brave Sir Robin]

This is an amazing post. I love all your analysis. 😀

[kea]

May 17, 2017 13:54:19 GMT Brave Sir Robin said:

This, unsurprisingly, was a pretty emotional episode to record as well.

I agree that Hamid is a bit naive here, and his world view is simplistic, but I guess I still agree with him. It's hard to play a character well if you don't. The consequences are pretty extreme, but I do think dealing with Mr Ceiling was correct.

I totally agree. If the party had gone "yeah nah" and left their memories would have been wiped. Mr Ceiling was trying to replace the meritocrats IIRC, so the consequences were pretty dire either way. Plus AIs aren't really known for their nuanced thinking - how long before it decided certain people were going to just mess up its steamlined system and deal with somewhat more permanently?

I don't agree about always agreeing with your character - but that's a discussion for another time, since I am a serial thread hijacker.

[regiskobalos]

I thought that it was quite interesting that, despite hearing screams outside, the Rangers (SWOTN) ignored it. You would have thought that at least Bertie's ears would have perked up and he would have gone "Squirrel! I mean heroic deeds worthy of the scion of House Mcguffinham!"

[Brave Sir Robin]

May 18, 2017 1:29:20 GMT kea said:

I don't agree about always agreeing with your character - but that's a discussion for another time, since I am a serial thread hijacker.

I don't think it's a necessity, but I think it makes it a lot harder. My favourite roleplay moments are always the emotional, immersive ones (like the argument between zolf and hamid), and I think they are much easier to achieve if there's a strong connection between player and character.

[Jonny]

May 18, 2017 1:29:20 GMT kea said:

I totally agree. If the party had gone "yeah nah" and left their memories would have been wiped. Mr Ceiling was trying to replace the meritocrats IIRC, so the consequences were pretty dire either way. Plus AIs aren't really known for their nuanced thinking - how long before it decided certain people were going to just mess up its steamlined system and deal with somewhat more permanently?

Also, everyone seems to be forgetting that Mr Ceiling had decided and explicitly stated his intention to go to the Heavenly plane and kill the gods. I mean, even if he'd have been unable to, that's the sort of plan that trips a supercomputer into the "should probably be destroyed at all costs" category. Surprised Zolf didn't engage with that as, y'know, that's where his dude Poseidon lives.

[aslee]

That hardly seems fair; I pledge to fistfight Zeus pretty much every time I have tequila.

[kea]

May 18, 2017 10:05:24 GMT Jonny said:

May 18, 2017 1:29:20 GMT kea said:

I totally agree. If the party had gone "yeah nah" and left their memories would have been wiped. Mr Ceiling was trying to replace the meritocrats IIRC, so the consequences were pretty dire either way. Plus AIs aren't really known for their nuanced thinking - how long before it decided certain people were going to just mess up its steamlined system and deal with somewhat more permanently?

Also, everyone seems to be forgetting that Mr Ceiling had decided and explicitly stated his intention to go to the Heavenly plane and kill the gods. I mean, even if he'd have been unable to, that's the sort of plan that trips a supercomputer into the "should probably be destroyed at all costs" category. Surprised Zolf didn't engage with that as, y'know, that's where his dude Poseidon lives.

I had somehow completely missed/forgotten that.

[spaceturtle]

I think what makes the argument between Hamid and Zolf is that they're both right, really. Hamid is right-- Mr. Ceiling was SUPER EVIL and very very dangerous and definitely needed to be destroyed. Zolf is right that they have completely trashed the world economy and that is gonna make things extremely bad before they get any better. (I'm actually a little surprised, given Hamid's background, that he isn't more concerned about the big picture ramifications-- I expect this is gonna create some huge problems for his family, among everything else. Might make collecting on that Cairo safety deposit key a lot easier, though.)

The problem is, there wasn't any real way for them to manage another solution. The ideal thing would have been to work out some way to (basically) lobotomize Mr. Ceiling-- keep its calculation abilities intact to support the systems it was running, while removing the personality that was so keen on world domination-- or at least reprogramming it. It seemed like Hamid did try to see if that was possible, but it either wasn't or the party couldn't have managed it, and they couldn't leave to get help without losing all knowledge of the problem. They only *just* managed to destroy the thing as it was. They made the best of the few options they had-- but yeah, the consequences are gonna be pretty dire. I suspect Zolf is more focused on those due to dealing with the personal loss of his legs at the same time, AND just having much more world experience of how bad things can get.

I'm intrigued to see where the whole thing goes-- although also pretty concerned about what it means for the overall storyline, tbh. Like, if they're facing off against an evil supercomputer at Lv 3.... what are the really high-level challenges gonna be?!