Sage Advice @roboloops - Tumblr Blog

State of the Sim 2022

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16WNvL8Gtt0 Hopefully the stream doesn’t die! You can join me and chat if you’d like to ring in the new year with me.

And hopefully you’re fine with ButlerBot’s expert DJing.

Happy birthday.

meraki-sunset

BTW i remembered i draw this awhile ago, it’s from the WigglerSim Tales, about some of the unusual carertakers who trade grubs with the TIMEHOLE. This guy is my favourite, he is a human in a robotic body and his story isn’t clear but he is merciful and patient with the grubs, to the point he sometimes transfuses fuccia bloods with other blood colors, to avoid having to cull them

roboloops

Oh, hey. The good old days.

#OOC: THANK YOU I AM BLESSED

Hey you know elder scrolls deep lore do you think the dwemer just I AM NOT'd themselves out of reality?

COME TO THE LUNARIUM COME TO THE LUNARIUM COME TO THE LUNARIUM COME TO THE LUNARIUM COME TO THE LUNARIUM COME TO THE LUNARIUMCOME TO THE LUNARIUM

Who gave you my number.

Thoughts on Flat Eric?

No thoughts hesd empty.

Well. Fuck me, I guess, everything is the same.

roboloops

Okay. Uh. Been doing some thinking. Some theorycrafting. About shared enlightenment mechanics between our universe and the goddamn Elder Scrolls universe. Mostly because I’ve been locked up reading The Elder Scrolls deeplore for a few days, and started to Realize Things. Buckle up, cuz I need somewhere to dump this absolutely shit-tier garbage thinking. Also, uh, if you aren’t, like, ultra-super wasted? Everything below this is going to be a massive cognitohazard and might fuck you up real bad if you read it. Fair warning.

Alright, strap in.

Okay so in The Elder Scrolls deeplore there is a series of concepts called the Godhead, the Dream, and CHIM. Basically, all of existence in TES – every individual person, every plane of reality, all of the cosmos, literally everything – are not “real.” Everything that IS is actually a Dream of some unknowable being called the Godhead. The Godhead happens to also the shared existence of two other sleeping primordial gods, but that aint important here. So all of the world in TES is part of the Dream, so everything in the Dream is actually the Godhead. Nothing exists; everything IS NOT. In-game, nobody realizes this, save for a tiny handful of legendary figures in history. It’s difficult to reach this realization, this enlightenment, because knowing that the world is a dream isn’t exactly the same as understanding what that means, understanding that all that IS actually IS NOT. To an individual who fully comes to understand the implications of the structure of the universe, there are two possible reactions:

1.) Say I AM NOT. In realizing you are part of the Dream, and in turn an aspect of the Godhead, you assert that you don’t actually exist. If you are not an individual, you are not real. This type of enlightenment is called Zero-Summing, and people who Zero-Sum immediately write themselves out of existence past, present, and future. The Dream essentially just deletes you. 2.) Say I AM. Despite the mounting evidence that you are not real, you assert that you are. You assert individuality in the face of the all-encompassing oneness of the Dream. The truly enlightened realize not only that I AM, but also, and I quote the lore here, I ARE ALL WE. This a grammatically weird way of saying that you realize if you are part of the Dream and thus you are the Godhead, then everyone else is part of the Godhead, so then everyone is one. This realization and this state of being is CHIM. Those who hit CHIM can, essentially, control the Dream.

I AM AND I ARE ALL WE and CHIM are not super 1:1 with Gnosis, but I’m gonna draw the comparison. CHIMsters are in theory able to alter reality to their whims, but it’s incredibly difficult. One of the best examples of it in deeplore is the Conqueror-Emperor Tiber Septim changing the climate and landscape of an entire continent to better fit his armies during an invasion. The abilities that come with CHIM and the nature of reaching it are similar to Gnosis and wasting: characters in the Sim hit Gnosis by realizing that their world is a simulation – i.e. “a Dream” – and can use waste powers to alter the fabric of their reality. The difference is that CHIM entails surrounding individuality, and Gnosis doesn’t quite include that. So it’s not super 1:1, but the groundwork is there. So let’s make it interesting.

Gnosis is essentially the I AM of SburbSim, not quite the I AM AND I ARE ALL WE. To borrow non-SburbSim Sburb mechanics, the Ultimate Self is a little closer to full-on CHIM; instead of surrendering your individuality the the complete oneness of the universe, you surrender it to the complete oneness of your self transcending time and circumstance. TES lore doesn’t exactly have alt-timeline stuff, so we can’t make that exact parallel between CHIM and Ult-Self, but the play the same role as the highest form of enlightenment. To use grammatically weird CHIM language, you might say the Ult-Self is I AM ALL OF I, or maybe I AM ALL I CAN BE. So, two questions: can we get a full I AM AND I ARE ALL WE with Farragoverse mechanics, or an I AM NOT?

We’ll start with the later: I AM NOT a la Farragoverse. This isn’t a thing we’ve seen, exactly? It’s not a Sim mechanic, and no one’s extended personal lore seems to have it, afaik. But I think we can theorize a pretty easy hypothetical 1:1. Imagine a wasted player who understands something about the nature of a simulated universe that others might not, or taking it way more nihilistically: “I am not real, and there’s nothing to do about it.” Then, poof! They’re gone. The use waste powers to delete their data, write themselves out. They’re beyond dead. They cannot possibly assert any individuality, because they’re fake, so they stop “existing.”

But can we hit I AM AND I ARE ALL WE? I don’t think we’ve ever seen a player so, so embroiled in their understanding of world-as-simulation that they reach an even deeper level of wastedom. “If am part of a simulation, and everyone else is part of the simulation, then I am everyone else and everyone else is also me.” The oneness of all creation. I have no fucking clue what that kind of nirvana means in the context of Farragoverse. It’s a selfless sacrifice of individuality; in TES, CHIM is characterized by an unending love for all existence sourced in a pure self-love that extends to the rest of reality in realizing that you are everyone and everyone is you, and so thus CHIMsters often are totally benevolent non-actors. They just sort of vibe. Godhead Pickle Inspector from Problem Sleuth is a good comparison; one PI ascends, he’s no longer to respond to any commands besides “>GPI: Fondly Regard Creation.” Which makes this a long, long fucking reacharound to make a comparison between Farragoverse and Problem Sleuth, I guess.

It’s like, what if we extended the Ultimate Self beyond an individual’s own selfhood? “If I exist in the simulation, as does everyone else, then we are all one.” Apply the concept of the Ultimate Self to that realization, and… well, fuck. Suddenly you encompass the selfhood of every version of every player across Paradox Space? And that probably just fucking fries you dead or turns you into a vegetable.

Or, if you have someone who encompasses every self in Paradox Space, maybe you get someone who creates a recursive version of reality inside their own being. A Dream. Reality-inside-reality. In TES lore, someone who creates their own dream inside the Dream is called a Dreamer or the Amaranth, and that recursive dream is also called an Amaranth, because everything has to be confusing for some reason. So maybe this kind of Beyond-Ultimate-Selfhood is how we get the Farragoverse corollary for a Dreamer and an Amaranth. Or like, one way we get it.

Now, in TES fan theory, there’s something called Anti-CHIM. Basically, Anti-CHIM is a person attempting Amaranth while still being apart of the Godhead’s Dream. They want to be the Dreamer while still being the one being Dreamed, and thus believe everyone else is apart of them while they themselves are not apart of anything. It’s fundamentally contradictory. It’s asserting that you are everything and everything is you but you are also still a distinct individual, in direct contradiction with the Dream… Wait, is that just Gnosis 4?

No, it can’t be. The hyper-contradictory of an anti-CHIM is, like, you learn the biggest and most incredible secret in the entire universe pertaining to yourself and every single being in the past, present and future and you decide that you don’t give a shit. You like you. It’s… rejection. “Despite all the evidence supporting the fact that I am not real, that I am not an individual, I have decided that actually I am real and I am individual.” You recognize that the universe has made a decision, but have decided that it is a stupid-ass decision and have elected to ignore it. You reject the tenets of reality and decide to live your own. Rejection. Hope.

Anyway, uh. Yeah. In like 1300 words, that’s what I’ve been thinking about for two days. For some fucking reason. I don’t have any conclusions? Just a bunch of what-ifs and potential types of wastedom baste on similar mechanics in Elder Scrolls lore. Thanks for letting me waste your time.

yearnfulnode

krysal-tepsyr

H-HELLO?! Anyway. I’ve read through… at least some of this. I don’t exactly understand Elder Scrolls that well and from what I’ve been told, I shouldn’t try. HOWEVER. I understand Gnosis enough and this sounds pretty damn… right. For real, if you can, take a fucking read-through. Good shit. As you can see. This is why Roboloops is the Rage player between the two of us.

jadedresearcher

Ahem. Regarding Anti-CHIM ? “Everyone is JR except for JR” is a fundamental rule of FarragoSpace. Additionally, as for “ I AM NOT “ , I mean, you’ve HEARD of erstatzGlottologist, right? Finally, while I can’t say that I was directly inspired by CHIM, CHIM (and really the entire dark elf creation mythos in TES) is very obviously inspired by Gnosticism in general, which both FarragoFiction and Homestuck are heavily inspired by.

roboloops

1.) Ah, shit, that’s hurting my brain. But I guess that puts you at the top of the ladder of enlightenment in Farragospace, which, like, no real surprise there.

2.) Uh. No? I haven’t heard of them.

3.) Shared roots in Gnosticism is definitely one of the primary causes to me even attempting to think about writing this comparasion, and when I consider the gnostic elements in all three of these universes it becomes no surprise that the enlightenment mechanics are fundamentally similar.

Alright, strap in.

Okay so in The Elder Scrolls deeplore there is a series of concepts called the Godhead, the Dream, and CHIM. Basically, all of existence in TES -- every individual person, every plane of reality, all of the cosmos, literally everything -- are not "real." Everything that IS is actually a Dream of some unknowable being called the Godhead. The Godhead happens to also the shared existence of two other sleeping primordial gods, but that aint important here. So all of the world in TES is part of the Dream, so everything in the Dream is actually the Godhead. Nothing exists; everything IS NOT. In-game, nobody realizes this, save for a tiny handful of legendary figures in history. It's difficult to reach this realization, this enlightenment, because knowing that the world is a dream isn't exactly the same as understanding what that means, understanding that all that IS actually IS NOT. To an individual who fully comes to understand the implications of the structure of the universe, there are two possible reactions:

1.) Say I AM NOT. In realizing you are part of the Dream, and in turn an aspect of the Godhead, you assert that you don't actually exist. If you are not an individual, you are not real. This type of enlightenment is called Zero-Summing, and people who Zero-Sum immediately write themselves out of existence past, present, and future. The Dream essentially just deletes you. 2.) Say I AM. Despite the mounting evidence that you are not real, you assert that you are. You assert individuality in the face of the all-encompassing oneness of the Dream. The truly enlightened realize not only that I AM, but also, and I quote the lore here, I ARE ALL WE. This a grammatically weird way of saying that you realize if you are part of the Dream and thus you are the Godhead, then everyone else is part of the Godhead, so then everyone is one. This realization and this state of being is CHIM. Those who hit CHIM can, essentially, control the Dream.

I AM AND I ARE ALL WE and CHIM are not super 1:1 with Gnosis, but I'm gonna draw the comparison. CHIMsters are in theory able to alter reality to their whims, but it's incredibly difficult. One of the best examples of it in deeplore is the Conqueror-Emperor Tiber Septim changing the climate and landscape of an entire continent to better fit his armies during an invasion. The abilities that come with CHIM and the nature of reaching it are similar to Gnosis and wasting: characters in the Sim hit Gnosis by realizing that their world is a simulation -- i.e. "a Dream" -- and can use waste powers to alter the fabric of their reality. The difference is that CHIM entails surrounding individuality, and Gnosis doesn't quite include that. So it's not super 1:1, but the groundwork is there. So let's make it interesting.

Gnosis is essentially the I AM of SburbSim, not quite the I AM AND I ARE ALL WE. To borrow non-SburbSim Sburb mechanics, the Ultimate Self is a little closer to full-on CHIM; instead of surrendering your individuality the the complete oneness of the universe, you surrender it to the complete oneness of your self transcending time and circumstance. TES lore doesn't exactly have alt-timeline stuff, so we can't make that exact parallel between CHIM and Ult-Self, but the play the same role as the highest form of enlightenment. To use grammatically weird CHIM language, you might say the Ult-Self is I AM ALL OF I, or maybe I AM ALL I CAN BE. So, two questions: can we get a full I AM AND I ARE ALL WE with Farragoverse mechanics, or an I AM NOT?

We'll start with the later: I AM NOT a la Farragoverse. This isn't a thing we've seen, exactly? It's not a Sim mechanic, and no one's extended personal lore seems to have it, afaik. But I think we can theorize a pretty easy hypothetical 1:1. Imagine a wasted player who understands something about the nature of a simulated universe that others might not, or taking it way more nihilistically: "I am not real, and there's nothing to do about it." Then, poof! They're gone. The use waste powers to delete their data, write themselves out. They're beyond dead. They cannot possibly assert any individuality, because they're fake, so they stop "existing."

But can we hit I AM AND I ARE ALL WE? I don't think we've ever seen a player so, so embroiled in their understanding of world-as-simulation that they reach an even deeper level of wastedom. "If am part of a simulation, and everyone else is part of the simulation, then I am everyone else and everyone else is also me." The oneness of all creation. I have no fucking clue what that kind of nirvana means in the context of Farragoverse. It's a selfless sacrifice of individuality; in TES, CHIM is characterized by an unending love for all existence sourced in a pure self-love that extends to the rest of reality in realizing that you are everyone and everyone is you, and so thus CHIMsters often are totally benevolent non-actors. They just sort of vibe. Godhead Pickle Inspector from Problem Sleuth is a good comparison; one PI ascends, he's no longer to respond to any commands besides ">GPI: Fondly Regard Creation." Which makes this a long, long fucking reacharound to make a comparison between Farragoverse and Problem Sleuth, I guess.

It's like, what if we extended the Ultimate Self beyond an individual’s own selfhood? "If I exist in the simulation, as does everyone else, then we are all one." Apply the concept of the Ultimate Self to that realization, and... well, fuck. Suddenly you encompass the selfhood of every version of every player across Paradox Space? And that probably just fucking fries you dead or turns you into a vegetable.

Now, in TES fan theory, there's something called Anti-CHIM. Basically, Anti-CHIM is a person attempting Amaranth while still being apart of the Godhead’s Dream. They want to be the Dreamer while still being the one being Dreamed, and thus believe everyone else is apart of them while they themselves are not apart of anything. It's fundamentally contradictory. It's asserting that you are everything and everything is you but you are also still a distinct individual, in direct contradiction with the Dream... Wait, is that just Gnosis 4?

No, it can't be. The hyper-contradictory of an anti-CHIM is, like, you learn the biggest and most incredible secret in the entire universe pertaining to yourself and every single being in the past, present and future and you decide that you don't give a shit. You like you. It's... rejection. "Despite all the evidence supporting the fact that I am not real, that I am not an individual, I have decided that actually I am real and I am individual." You recognize that the universe has made a decision, but have decided that it is a stupid-ass decision and have elected to ignore it. You reject the tenets of reality and decide to live your own. Rejection. Hope.

krysal-tepsyr

Hope ghosts are pissing me off.

Okay, why do people act like time clones are so complicated when hope ghosts are obviously way more difficult to deal with? Look, a time clone is just another copy of YOU. and you just complete a simple loop! That’s it. No splits, no division in the self. But a hope ghost… that ghost is representative of a part of you. A part of your personality, a part of your thoughts, anything. And you could have a bunch of em, all divided up, and sometimes they could like, fuse back together, and then… it just makes keeping track of time so much harder! Like I have to sit here and say “okay, were they together or separate right now?” This isn’t meant to tear at any Hope players, I know that hopeghosts are a thing that sometimes just happens, but look, especially with those that have multiple I’m fucking struggling right now. @roboloops I know you’re technically a Rage player, but you’ve got a Hope player on the other end, anything you can offer me here?

roboloops

I’m very much a Rage player but also technically mostly still kind of a Hope ghost and I can confirm that, as at least partially a Hope ghost, Hope ghosts are mostly complete bullshit. I don’t claim to have any special understanding of how they work, except that the thing that sucks most about them is that Hope players can absolutely make them by accident and not really have much control over the whole process. I’m pretty sure that applies brain ghosts of themselves or of other people. In most other ways, self brain ghosts and brain ghosts of other people can differ in a lot of ways. Like, say some Hope player made a brain ghost of you; is that ghost a part of your extended self, or their’s? Hard to tell. Self Hope ghosts are a little easier to deal with in that regard, but... a helluva lot more complicated and dangerous in others.

Other than that, the thing that makes them go from being an imaginary brain ghost to being a real person is The Power Of Belief from the responsible Hope player, I think? In all honesty, my sort of unique circumstance prevents me from really knowing that much about the whole mechanics of the issue. Class differentiation probably has an effect on it too? A part of a Mage’s whole thing is like, "suffering from” or being “tortured” by their aspect in some way, and I think that describes the other guy’s relationship to my prolonged existence pretty well. As far as a Rogue goes? I don’t really got any clue what that kind of interaction looks like, sorry. That’s pretty much all I got.

Tonight, I will cause problems on purpose.

I feel a major disturbance in the fabric of my own existence.

roboloops

I can smell when idiots are up to something tricky and right now shit smells tricky.

poshestpotato

Help me loops the bread is overwhelming

roboloops

No.

I can smell when idiots are up to something tricky and right now shit smells tricky.

leprechaun-mob

You all are already too much to handle. Anyway, feel free to ask questions, make comments, show your concerns for our safety… Yeah. You get the deal. -The Boss, Krysal

krysal-tepsyr

oh shit it me.

roboloops

What the fuck are you doing

krysal-tepsyr

Sowing the seeds of omniversal chaos, as I was destined to. Would you like to join us? We have a meteor.

roboloops

No. But uh also you’re on a meteor? Which Krysal am I speaking with?

leprechaun-mob

You all are already too much to handle. Anyway, feel free to ask questions, make comments, show your concerns for our safety… Yeah. You get the deal. -The Boss, Krysal

krysal-tepsyr

oh shit it me.

roboloops

What the fuck are you doing

Why do you have a different classpect than broon?

Fuck off don’t say that name around here. We’re different people leave them out of this.

Anyway yeah wahetever so like. AB isn’t a Waste so why should I match that ingrate’s role? Does YNbot even have a known classpect? Rage is opposite Hope and me and the other guy are opposite people. Sage and Mage are one letter apart and conceptually similar but functionally different, like us. We’re different people with different roles. It’s all minutiae.

Ask Skaia or whatever I don’t make the decisions around here.

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