Seeing all the hype is making me kind of curious but I haven't played any of the lost belts, was wondering if youd be willing explain why you love the moth so much ?
oh boy, how do I begin to explain what makes moth so good when everything about moth is what makes them so good
qin shi huang di has an ego that eclipses the sun thrice over. they think they’re better than literally everyone. in fact, the difference is so obvious and natural that they don’t even bother to put any distance between themselves and the common folk and are actually quite approachable. they are brimming with the absolute confidence and authority that only someone who lists their gender as “We” (as in the royal we) could have, but they do not use this to put anyone else down. there is no need to state the obvious after all, they’re an emperor, not an asshole. they were born in an era of constant war between small kingdoms and so grew up to believe humans are dumb and prone to bashing each other’s heads in over minor disagreements and cannot be trusted with either themselves or the planet. qin shi huang di looks at the earth and sees that they are better and more capable than everyone else living on it and from this concludes that if humanity can’t be trusted with itself, they will simply have to take responsibility for all of humanity.
because here’s the thing: as dumb and musclebrained as humanity is, qin shi huang di loves humans. they love humanity and want to see it prosper, they just don’t think it can unless they keep everyone from fighting each other. so that’s what they do! they conquer the entire planet and hoard all knowledge to themselves and with it develop the means to end human suffering. they eliminate hunger, disease, and even the pains of old age by carefully micromanaging everyone on the planet down to their lifespan. not a single person in the empire of SIN wants for more than what they have. because qin shi huang di loves humans and cannot bear to see them suffer for no reason.
the problem with that of course is that one person can only live so long, even if they are emperor of the world. everything they built would fall apart once they’re no longer around to take care of everyone. to eliminate that problem, too, they created an immortal mechanical body for themselves and obsessively expanded their processing capacity over the course of 2200 years until they obtained the form of a giant floating palace, not out of fear of death but out of fear for what would become of the earth after their death. they insist they are still human despite this form because they love humans. this palace body is a monument not to the gods but to humanity.
the other problem with eliminating suffering is that it required suppression of all individuality. from ideas come conflicting ideas, from community comes strife between communities, this is what the emperor knows to be the inevitable and unfortunate truth. an attempt to eliminate human suffering thus ended in eliminating what makes people human in the first place. if there are no humans, naturally there is no human suffering either. it’s the safest way, and it’s a backwards and desperate method because qin shi huang di may love humans, but they do not believe in humanity. the emperor is better than everyone and thus cannot really bring themselves to trust in the capabilities of anyone other than themselves. they’re misanthropic and risk averse and the only way they could imagine humanity safely reaching the future is through the stagnant empire they created. not once does it occur to them that thousands, millions, billions of people will still outperform one lone emperor if they work together, because it doesn’t occur to them that people, free individual people, can successfully work together at all.
but! despite this they still want to believe in humanity’s potential. they adamantly insist they are human despite being a palace sized supercomputer because they believe humans are far more than their flesh and blood. they suppress all expression of individuality but the halls of the palace are filled to the brim with art. they discourage the drive to achieve yet surround themselves with people who achieved impressive feats. they’ve ruthlessly maintained an impossible peace for 2200 years but when chaldea shows up and tells them this path is wrong, there is an alternative, there is meaning in the collective struggle for a better future, they are still willing to be convinced. qin shi huang di loves humans and cannot bear to see them suffer for no reason, but if there is a reason, if there is the chance that it will be worth it, they can be convinced to take that risk.
