what native american (usa and canada）mythology characters would you like to see appear in future games?
First one that comes to mind is the hero Glooscap. Previous versions of this question framed it as a possible add to a "soul hackers sequel."
Well, uh, I think that's an impossibility for a number of reasons:
Soul Hackers 2's tepid reception and sales ensure that this "Third Pillar"series is dead. (it was kind of clever, in a way, to drop the "Devil Summoner" banding from that title, so Devil Summoner can possibly live again someday without being burdened with SH2's conjoined corpse).
Soul Hackers 2 contains zero new, original demons. Not only do new demons seem to be nowadays reserved for Shin Megami Tensei proper, a large part of their modern purpose overwhelmingly appears to be as promotional material for the pre-release hype cycle: reveal, Daily Demon video, Doi design comment, etc.
Soul Hackers 2 only manages the most superficial of callbacks to its predecessor's themes:
ATLUS has released the fifth volume in its series of “Summoners Guide” information videos for Soul Hackers 2.
^I can't find a SH2 screenshot that namedrops its Vision Quests, but this link mentions them.
The possibility of a Soul Hackers 3 which also contains new, original native American demons that continue the first game's themes is effectively nil. I've rarely felt so confident in a declaration as I am with this one.
A red lightsaber swung out of nowhere, swinging parallel to the ground in a wide arc, striking the insane Voss, and then curved back behind Larr.
That wasn’t Lord Scourge. Lord Scourge was back at the entrance.
Larr Gith focused on cutting down the last of the attackers with the help of a startling number of blasters and several more red lightsaber swings.
And Larr Gith turned around.
Two Human women stood there blocking the path back into the Shrine proper, and two Human men in Imperial uniforms. The foremost woman deactivated two red lightsabers. “Are you all right?” she said in a voice far more mature and commanding than her face.
The healers had gone insane. The Sith had gotten to the healers. There was no shelter for Larr Gith, no solution, no magic cure for her pain. But she had to keep it together in front of these outsiders.
“All fine here,” Larr said. “Thanks for the help.”
The lead Human said, “I had hoped to speak with these Mystics. I was here for…wait. Jaesa. Were we supposed to go right or left back there?”
“Guard said left,” the taller man said.
“Then why did you let me go this way?” the leader said.
“Sounded like it was more fun up here,” the taller man said cheerfully. The other man looked pained.
Tebbith stepped forward. “I can’t criticize your timing. On Voss, our respective sides are at a truce. Go in peace.”
Larr studied the sheer amount of weaponry around these Sith-and-Imps. “Can we pacify a little more definitively than that? I'm counting two Sith and two Imps, even if the Sith are baby faced.”
The shorter man went ramrod-straight. “You will respect the Emperor's Wrath!”
Things were quiet.
“That's not possible,” Larr Gith said. “We have—"
“Her predecessor,” said Tebbith.
“Stars.” Larr hadn’t even thought about what the Emperor would do once he lost his Wrath. “Sith? You're working for a monster.”
“I know that,” the leader said calmly. Her big blue eyes and small pouty mouth were like a doll’s. “I serve the Empire.”
“Well, know it harder! Do you know why the last Wrath quit?”
That seemed to get to her. In fact, all four of them tensed. “Quit? He didn't die?”
“He bounced, because the Emperor is trying to wipe out planets! He wants to eat the galaxy! He broke the Wrath. Burned out his emotions. Stretched him out for three hundred years, a slave. The Emperor doesn't care about the Empire. He wants to burn it all.”
The shorter Imperial spoke in a stuffy, hard voice. “Jedi lie, my lord.”
“What do you know about Jedi?” Larr said reasonably.
The Imperial’s lip curled. “I know she killed the first one I ever trapped,” he said proudly.
Larr looked at Tebbith. “I can't let the Wrath go.”
Tebbith raised a hand halfway. “Larr, the truce…”
“It's this or leave a weapon in the Emperor's hands. I served the Emperor once. Maybe I can free someone else.”
The leader insisted, “I'm here by choice.”
Is that what she believed? And if it really was… “Then I have to stop you.”
The tactical assessment formed while Larr stared this skinny woman down. The Force-blinds were by and large distributed around the walls, having been slammed there by the insane Mystics. Kira was holding her green double lightsaber funny. Nadia trembled in place with her white-purple double blade. Tebbith looked like he was staring into the abyss, and held his deactivated lightsaber with white knuckles.
Oh. This wouldn’t be trivial. But she had to try.
“Teb, get our people up. Kira, on the good-looking one. Nadia, disarm the soldiers. You, Sith. You’re mine.”
“Wait,” said Kira. “Who’s the good-looking one?”
“No, the shorter one with the round face. I’ve got Skimbones.”
Skimbones’s full dark eyebrows rose. “Is that some kind of battle taunt?”
Everybody stared at everybody, except Tebbith, who was moving to help Tharan.
“Let my people leave,” Skimbones said.
“My lord, we won’t leave you,” said the shorter Imperial.
“And I can’t let the Wrath go,” said Larr Gith, and jumped.
Skimbones wielded two blood-red sabers that beat on Larr’s blue and green with a force wildly out of proportion to her musculature. She was noticeably shorter than Larr Gith, unhealthily leaner, with big eyes and a…a…a light about her while she moved. Larr wasn’t fighting a Sith. She was fighting something else that just happened to wear dark red and get eye-fucked by Imperials. They squared off and rushed at each other three or four times, not quite like Jedi trainees, maybe like Sith trainees. Maybe like something else. Larr was not in familiar territory here.
Skimbones spun one full circle and began a repetitive series of overhead strokes, apparently hoping to win by power what she wasn’t getting through finesse. Larr blocked a couple of times and realized she would much rather not be facing that. She spun Skimbones around and began a dexterous assault. Skimbones met every attack, pressed every opening. Things were going on elsewhere on this battlefield and they didn’t matter. Locking Skimbones’ blue doll eyes and meeting her where she struck was all Larr had the capacity for.
“Have you considered,” she yelled, “quitting the Wrath gig?”
“I can’t. For a hundred reasons. Have you considered saving your crew by backing off?”
“You’re outnumbered.”
“But I can outlast you.”
“If it were just us two? I might be worried. Probably not.” Larr overswung and Skimbones almost took her arm off at the elbow. “Manners, woman!”
“You're not even trying to kill me,” Skimbones growled.
“Well, you're not trying to kill me.” She’d had chances for grievous bodily harm. She avoided them as busily as Larr did.
“I just want to leave,” Skimbones said. “I can do that without a mound of corpses, if you'll just let me.”
“I can't let you go. You need to come with me to see the truth of the Emperor.”
“Jedi say ‘Emperor bad.’ Consider me warned.”
“Stubborn!”
“Preachy!” They circled and re-engaged.
She was fast, and tough, and focused. Larr went on the offensive. “Betcha that figure brings all the boys to the yard.”
Skimbones took on an akk hound look. Larr knew it well. The evildoer was desperate and about to try a different approach. “Right, like your lekku? Very plump after processing, huh?”
Rude! “These are natural!”
Their world crackled as Kira approached. “Everything okay, boss?”
“Can we wipe that look off her face with a lightsaber?”
“Okayy, no more exertion for you today.” Kira lowered her own saber. “Sith, just surrender.”
Skimbones shifted from Makashi to Juyo form to face two as if she was ready for both. “Do I have to fight all of you?”
Kira frowned, staring, and made the aside: “She's not…dark, Larr.”
“But she's bitchy.”
Kira shrugged. “Sith, if your title were Jedi I would ask to learn from you. But it's not and I won't. Give up.”
Skimbones shifted, looking at Kira and Larr with equal interest. She raised her voice. “Jaesa, are the others out?”
“Not exactly,” Jaesa reported.
Skimbones drew one arm back and froze, straining. Tebbith called out. “Larr, I have her. Disarm her.”
Something hit Larr’s back, low on her neck. There was a new wave of blaster fire as Larr expanded her awareness back to the considerable battlefield.
Skimbones had brought friends. A Chiss, a Human-ish, a Rattataki, and a third Imperial soldier. Larr and Tebbith’s crews had recovered enough to wave weapons. Everything froze around Skimbones, and around Larr, as her head spun and she gently slid down.
*
Everyone noticed when Larr Gith passed out.
“Roll call,” Ruth said in a clarion tone. “Quinn? Jaesa?” She listened for short responses. “Pierce? Wynston? Vector? Kaliyo? Temple? Any wounds?”
“I can assist,” said an improbably handsome Human in stylish leather. “Tell me that was a sleeping dart.”
“It was,” said Wynston. “I missed the start here, but I don’t intend to break the Voss ceasefire. I want to leave with Ruth and our friends. I have medical supplies for our people. The offer is appreciated, Balmorra.” The accent had been unmistakable.
Ruth felt Quinn’s eyes leaving her. And zeroing in on the man in leather. Something flashed between them that reeked of hatred. Quinn hadn’t lowered his blaster. Now he redirected it slightly.
“Don’t,” Ruth said. “We have to go.”
The tall Zabrak had never lifted a weapon. He spoke to Ruth with gentle tones. “I sense no darkness in you. Come with me. We are fighting for this world. For every world. We are on the side of light.”
Typical Jedi…and yet layered, textured to the core. “I sense darkness in you. And your ally. For that, you can live. Stay out of the fight and we may meet again, as friends.”
“Master,” Jaesa said, “they wear darkness like a full-body sunburn. It's peeling off in flakes. The flesh beneath may heal, but it's tender.”
The Zabrak looked…intent. “What do you see, that makes you say that?”
“Only my gift,” Jaesa said. “I wish you well.”
“I wish you a good life. Sith, if you call yourself that? Go in peace. Remember that we declined to fight to the death.”
“Trust me,” Ruth said. “It's the thing I'll remember most.”
*
Ruth needed more guidance.
Larr Gith needed more guidance.
Wynston needed more guidance.
Tebbith needed more guidance.
Vette was still in a hole in the ground helping a would-be Mystic find her path.
Four of these people, with their crews, ended up in a green antechamber full of Voss attendants.
“I’m not going in there,” Tharan said. “It’s absurd.” A few others agreed.
“I can pay for healing,” Larr repeated. “I offer you kolto. Or some useful tech.”
The Voss was unreadable. “You do not buy healing. What you must do, the vision will show. The trials are open. Go.”
Larr Gith walked in, moving stiffly.
“The trials are open,” said one to Ruth. “Go.”
“Wait,” said Ruth, “can I get a different one?”
*
The Mystic Trials, it seemed, had an oral element. Quinn stood at the back of the crowd, watching for any motion toward a weapon. Violence in the Trials would be a diplomatic catastrophe, which didn’t bother Quinn that much, and might lead to summary execution, which did concern Quinn. The Voss were capable of anything. Building up some goodwill prior to a second try at orbital bombardment would be good.
Jedi Larr Gith. Jedi Kira. Doc, from Balmorra. Jedi Tebbith. Jedi Nadia. The Twi'lek. Lieutenant, from his uniform, Iresso. Anarchist Wynston. Kaliyo. Vector. Ensign, from her uniform, Temple. And Ruth with Jaesa. Then, Quinn himself. Watching them all.
Three Voss figures stood in this golden world, talking like the offworlders were Mystics, the authorities of this planet.
“You. Mystic. You saw that Voss will fight Voss, and a new age of prosperity will begin. We split into two sides, and we fight.”
“That's batshit,” Larr Gith said. She did love the sound of her own voice. It was amazing that slinky green dress hadn’t fallen off of her while she’d dueled Ruth. At least when Ruth was alluring in action, it wasn’t conscious.
“It is as it must be,” said Vector. “Let them fight.”
“You understand,” the Voss said.
Another said, “You are no Mystic. Your vision did not come to pass.”
There was a pause.
Larr Gith said, “So one of us is the Mystic?”
“Yes,” Tebbith said.
Larr tossed her lekku. “Not my fault. Mystics are always right.”
“You understand.”
The third Voss said, “Your vision is clear. A Mystic must die to save the Voss.”
The room went silent.
“Is this still theoretical?” Larr Gith said, sounding like a nervous child.
These trials did kill people. Failing a test might wipe them all out. Succeeding…would that kill one? They could only pass by thinking like Mystics. And if a Mystic saw something…
Would this entire room be extinguished if a sacrifice failed to appear?
Ruth touched Quinn’s arm. When he turned to her she pushed up and kissed him, a brief and tender gesture and the first time she'd done it in public. “I have always loved you,” she whispered. “I will not let you die here.”
His heart crashed on and on like a boulder down a hill. She was going to the Voss. This was it. She might die, and it would be utterly out of his hands. The impossible situation would resolve. The torment of his happiness would be over.
“Take me,” she said, stepping out in front of everyone, facing the three spirit Voss. “I will die for your people.”
Wynston darted forward. “Bloody hell, woman, the galaxy needs you more.” He brushed her hand with his and stepped closer to the Voss. She grabbed his hand right back. He tugged it free while they inched past each other.
The Voss spoke in sequence: “You understand. Go in. Cleanse the core.”
“You understand. Go in. Cleanse the core.”
“You understand.” The Voss reached forward with one hand.
White energy blasted Ruth back through the crowd.
“No!” Quinn didn't recognize his own voice. His head said, let it happen let it happen. He wouldn’t have to plan anymore. He wouldn’t have to rehearse it. It could be over.
That oaf of a Jedi was already at her side. He reached for her forehead.
“Hands off, Jedi.” Quinn was fully willing to pistol whip a man half again his size.
Kira glared. “She's dying, you moron. Do you hate Jedi more than you love her?”
Larr Gith folded arms with green silk draped over them. “I mean, Imp. That tracks.”
“Where were you when they were selecting targets?” Wynston’s voice was quiet, but it cut through the crowd like a knife. Quinn opened his mouth, but something happened first.
A white-gold glow sprung up around both Sith and Jedi. When Quinn closed the distance his swinging blaster slipped off its surface.
Purple rose from Tebbith's fingertips. It spread into the white-gold like dye in water. Tebbith’s eyes flashed red.
Ruth sat up and shrieked like she was under torture.
Quinn punched again with his blaster. Nothing. Someone grabbed his upper arm with a strength that suggested wrenching his arm off might be the next move if he resisted. “Leave her,” Larr Gith said. “Leave it. He’ll pull through.”
Ruth took a convulsive breath and fell silent with her spine arched close to breaking. She stared at nothing and Quinn realized that he had no reference for this degree of pain. Not from her. He'd seen half her entrails spilled from her body and she hadn't seemed this hurt. “Is this how Jedi save lives?” Quinn spat. “Is this what you’re so proud of? Let her go!”
“Teb’s the best healer I’ve ever met. He can do this.”
“Not to mine, Jedi. Not to mine.” He aimed at Tebbith’s horned head
And an invisible force ripped the blaster from his hand and tossed it in the corner. He had nothing else to fight with.
Ruth’s spine relaxed, slightly. Tebbith raised his head, and the glow dissipated.
“She’ll be okay,” he said.
Larr knelt to hug Tebbith. “It’s okay. You’ll get there.”
Ruth had gone limp, neither golden nor purple. Quinn knelt at her side and guided her head to his chest. She shuddered and pressed herself to him, and he fanned his hand through her hair and held her until the whimper in her throat fell silent. It was almost done in front of him. But this wasn't the thing that killed her. Not in front of all these people. Could she guess why his heart was beating so hard? She hurt him at every point of contact and he never wanted to let go. Remember this, man. This is what it is, to mourn something you still possess utterly.
“Can you stand?” Tebbith said. Larr Gith had come to his shoulder, resting a hand.
Ruth gently pushed Quinn away and rose under her own power. “I'm all right. Are you?”
Tebbith seemed to hunch into his cheap brown robe. “I meant to use the right technique. The Jedi technique. I thought I could keep it under control.”
“I am grateful. And you will learn. Jaesa said you're healing. She knows things about people. Don't be discouraged.”
Larr smiled. “Listen to the Sith. This once. Just this once.”
Nadia, the little pale girl, coughed. “The trial, Master.”
Tebbith gave a full-body shudder. “Right. Let's go.”
Ruth just looked at Quinn. “I couldn't run the risk that they punish us all for refusing.”
“You can run risks using me,” Wynston said.
She grinned bravely at him. “Maybe next time. I wasn’t ready to watch you get blasted.”
“You’re sentimental.”
“You knew that. You knew that on Day One.”
Wynston chuckled with trademark arrogance. “Just so we’re clear.”
Quinn had won that rivalry. Completely. It still bothered him.
But Ruth moved on to the two lead Jedi, who seemed to be comforting one another with shoulder clasps. “Jedi. Jaesa, what you saw. Sunburns heal?”
Jaesa nodded. “I’m confident of that.”
Tebbith looked over. “Do you know when?”
“Everyone heals differently.”
“I see. Thank you.”
They fought heresies and monsters. Quinn had his hands full just keeping this mass of questionable characters safe. He wondered how much the Empire would pay to see a blaster bolt in Larr Gith’s back, or Tebbith’s. Not that the latter seemed to be on the Jedi path anyway. Nadia and Kira were young, as young as Ruth. They could still be dangerous.
But every time he looked at Ruth, he realized he only wanted to destroy what made her unhappy.
A huge golden monster stood in stasis, looming. Jaesa went to stand in front of it. “Look. It is aware…but it is not here.”
Something rippled through the room. Wynston rocketed out of nowhere to body check Jaesa out of the way as the monster swiped with a man-sized clawed hand.
“It kind of is,” Wynston clarified before spinning and drawing his blaster.
The Killik thing, Vector, helped Jaesa up. “Are you all right?”
“That was completely fair,” Jaesa said, and returned to the fight.
They spoke between fights. They were getting the shape of each other, a waste of time but perhaps necessary to present a united front against the Voss. Jaesa busily made herself a social center, as if she were ready to join a new strange team to augment her old one. Her charisma was a liability he would just as soon dispense with...but again, it was impossible to get any one person in trouble with this many witnesses.
“Did you know Nomen Karr? He was my Jedi master. He died defending me.”
Kira eyed her askance. “You were a Jedi? You're like six years old!”
A pair of spirit vorantiki leaping past the Jedi line distracted everyone. One of them bull rushed Quinn and sent a double swipe across his chest. He reeled backward, feeling parts of him take the stinging air when they shouldn’t be exposed. He fell. He couldn’t even think of what to shout.
Ruth was at his side the instant the vorantiki went down. “Quinn! Someone help, they hit Quinn!”
Balmorra ran to his side and did a double take when he saw Quinn's face. “I can’t believe I’m doing this,” he muttered as he began unwrapping supplies.
Quinn looked past him. “Is this a qualified doctor?”
“You thought ‘Doc’ was just a codename? Don't panic, officer, I know all kinds of medical facts. For instance, all this blood? Is supposed to be internal.”
Ruth kept her hands in her lap while she watched. “I owe you a debt,” she said softly. If she knew the terrorist from Balmorra like Quinn did, she wouldn’t be so fast to say it.
Balmorra blew some hair from his forehead. “For him? Bargain basement debt material. Still, next scary spirit quest? I'm calling you in.”
“I do keep doing those.”
Balmorra was smoothing down the last kolto patch. “There. We can talk about patterns of war crimes once we get out of the spookyworld.”
Did Ruth process that? She gave no sign. Larr Gith was approaching, eyeing Balmorra’s handiwork. Ruth stood. “Your man is kind.”
The Jedi brightened. “Mmm. Yeah.”
*
Vette and Corso and Bowdaar and Risha kind of helped the would-be Mystic. The poor woman got stabbed by a Sith, there in the middle of nowhere. Bowdaar carried her clear into the Shrine, to Voss who could help.
Vette turned away from the careful transfer, and looked around.
“What’s wrong?” Corso said.
“It’s a big temple. My treasure hunter senses are tingling. Let’s explore.”
They came to a hallway that must be high in the mountainside, though there were no windows. A single Voss stood in the way.
“Turn back, outsiders,” he said. “This way belongs to the dead until a Mystic arrives.”
“Yeah,” said Vette, “but I think someone’s chewing gum two stairways down.”
The Voss moved.
“Like taking candy from a baby,” Vette sighed. “Let’s see what they’re talking about.”
What they were talking about was a tangle of bodies. Voss, swathed in robes and hoods. There were scorch marks on the brown walls.
“Merciful stars,” Corso said. “This is horrible.”
Risha hung back. “They just left them here? Until a Mystic arrives, whenever that is?”
Corso was already kneeling by one body. Stretching it out straight, composing its arms over its chest.
Vette monitored while she helped. “This was more than two lightsabers. Unless they stood in line and waited for Ruth and Jaesa to get to them. Which, Voss. Who knows?”
Two Voss in commando uniforms ran in while Corso was composing the last body in its grisly row.
The Voss addressed one another. “Outsider rituals.” “You show respect. Your ways are strange. How is one repaid?”
Corso looked caught flat-footed. “I just did what was right. There's nothing to pay. Stop rolling your eyes, Captain.”
“I think we’re done,” said Vette. “Do you two know where the two kid Sith are?”
One guard said, “They take the Mystic Trials. Come, see the vision chamber.”
“Don’t mind if I do.”
The vision chamber happened to be a big room with two huge stone tablets in it. “Does this give visions?” Vette asked.
“Do you want it to?” Corso said.
“Yes. Yes, I do.” It sounded interesting, and who knew? Maybe Vette could get some of that spirit quest action that always got Ruth in a twist.
“It is for those who have passed the Trials,” said the Voss. “Meditating brings them visions. The last outsider attacked. It did nothing for her. It will do nothing for you.”
“Vette,” Risha said. “You have the ‘I’m’a do it anyway’ face.”
“Well,” said Vette, “I’m’a do it anyway.”
She knelt like she had seen Ruth do. She mumbled “Abracadabra, alakazam.”
And a vision came.
Vette
Vette looked in a mirror. She saw a small Mirialan woman in heavy makeup. And a shadowy bearded man leaned over her shoulder from behind. “I can grant you your youth, if you but serve me.”
Vette jerked away. “That wasn’t even mine! You guys are recycling visions! And I thought you could charge admission for this.”
The Voss just stared at her. So…kind of came out even on that one.
“Vette?” said Bowdaar. “You saw something?”
“Somebody’s leftovers.”
“Do you want to do the whole ritual?”
Vette shuddered. “Nah. Hand-me-downs are fine.”
Corso let out a sigh of relief that no one could miss. Risha, meanwhile, was probably drumming up business outside.
*
The party paused after another round of golden beasts. Quinn drew Ruth aside.
“My lord,” he whispered, “I have a report. The Twi’lek Jedi and sniper are the most dangerous of them, followed closely by the redhead. The striped girl is badly inexperienced with her lightsaber, and the horned one hesitates on every strike.”
“Quinn.”
“I can shake ‘Doc’s mental state if necessary; we have history. The only soldier they bothered to bring is obviously accustomed to cover and I think only luck would make him a deciding shot.”
“Quinn.”
“We don’t have to compromise this time.”
“Quinn. I’m not attacking them.” She studied his eyes and softened. “But things happen. If they attack us…I’ll take Larr Gith first. Watch the other Twi’lek.”
That was good sense. “As you wish.”
*
Ruth’s mixed party healed Voss and fought a Gormak to pass the trials. All of them came out together to the vision room.
Vette and her friends were already there.
“Did you win?” Vette said brightly.
“Well, we survived,” said Kaliyo. “Boringest theme park ever.”
“Meditate,” insisted a Voss. “In clarity you will receive a vision.”
*
Doc
Doc was on his way to the dance floor when he got the face full of high-speed open palm.
“You’ve got a lot of nerve!” piped the short Zeltron planted in his path.
He breathed out of his nose to make sure he still could after that hit. “Gladd!” he said. She was familiar to him. Very much so.
Larr Gith had hold of his hand, he realized. “Introductions?” the Jedi said. She smiled at Gladd in a way that made Doc reevaluate her possible relationship to the Dark Side.
Doc shook his head and Voss poured back in over the scene. Gladd? He’d thought she was ancient history. Well, young, attractive, ancient history. He didn’t look forward to experiencing that slap again.
Iresso
Felix Iresso looked at his hands. “I didn’t see anything,” he said. “It was just a blank. What does that mean? Do I not have a future?”
Jaesa
Jaesa had her arms full. Of girls, young, brown-haired, rambunctious, matched like paired figurines.
Someone said over them, “You can supervise construction, love, but please don’t build the expansion yourself. We still have childcare to deal with.”
Kaliyo
“The Spire is down,” said Ruth. “Kaliyo, we need to talk before you take on any more missions. At all.” In front of the whole room.
“Who said you’re in charge?” Kaliyo bristled, but it was all fading already.
Kira
Dromund Kaas. Kira hadn’t been there since she was a child. Now she paced the steps of the Dark Temple to end all Dark Temples, while lightning patrolled the terrain of clouds above.
It sucked. It was dark and sticky and evil, and something was stopping her from going inside. But, damn it, when the Jedi had cleared the Presence from inside, it would never hurt anyone ever again.
She patrolled, part of a team, and it was easy to be brave.
Larr Gith
Larr Gith was in someone’s arms. She was blind. Everything was cold.
“Can you see?” said a familiar voice. “Here.” The familiar warmth of Force healing washed through her.
She looked up, past the person holding her. A blurred but slender figure appeared in the doorway.
And Larr and the figure said, in unison, “You have got to be kidding me.”
Nadia
Sorrow hung around Tebbith like concealing fog. “I must keep my balance,” he said heavily. “I cannot choose the easy way again.”
“Then choose me,” she said. Not her body or her love, but her life, and the religion they had in common. It was this or lose him again, and she truly didn’t know what side he would come down on.
Quinn
A boy, looking much like Quinn had at age twelve or so, stared at him with huge, blue, accusing eyes. “If you knew, would you have tried to kill me?”
His son. His son. “No,” he said hoarsely. “No, no one could tell me…”
The image melted. Quinn stood still, though the world spun. This Voss lie was a child, his child and Ruth’s child, an impossibility, the most vicious of all imaginable falsehoods.
He felt nauseous.
Ruth
“Do you feel your grip on life slipping, apprentice?”
Ruth couldn’t move her arms under Baras’s obscured gaze. Was this what it was to fail? There were others watching, eyes in the dark, waiting impartially for a result. She struggled and loosed nothing but one tear.
Tebbith
Tebbith was in a crowd, a huge crowd. Most people were shorter than him. The energy was indescribable: these people were at a fever pitch of anticipation, and something else was going on.
A pretty Nautolan faced him and said loudly, “How does it feel to take on this epic responsibility?”
A few feet away, a couple of girls stopped and posed. “The Alliance loves you, Mr. President!”
Tebbith blinked slowly. “Are you talking to me?”
Temple
“Temple. Hazard.” Wynston was obviously addressing Temple and someone Temple didn’t know. “Please tell me I was overhearing your discussion of a completely generic romance novel that had nothing to do with the abomination about Quinn and myself that Junior was reading over the public address system yesterday.”
“Sir?” said Temple.
“Agent Temple requested a transcript,” said the other woman, "and since we recalled the full text as read aloud, we obliged.”
Temple giggled as the vision faded. She couldn’t help it. It was so rare to see Wynston off balance.
Vector
Vector felt a symphony of attention. He was more connected than ever. He was in the right place. And he was connected, oddly, to the small Chiss in front of him.
Wynston was out of uniform; he had the white shirt and harness he seemed to like. He seemed more centered, more motivated, than ever. They were in a good place together, Vector knew that.
Wynston said, “We're going to steal a ship. And then we're going to protect people with it. These are capital crimes in the Empire. Are you in?”
“Of course,” Vector said.
“You're a good man, you shouldn't be slumming it with me.” He smiled crookedly.
The vision faded. Vector was in a small room facing two stone tablets. He turned away. Maybe Wynston could make something of it.
Wynston
Hunter was on his knees, clutching a side wound. Wynston already treasured this vision.
But Hunter tilted his face up and said, “If this job was uglier than usual – well, it’s still the same cause you’ve always had, and still very much the same methods. You find the weak point. You break it. People die. The survivors have a better galaxy to live in. So everything today went perfectly.”
Wynston put his blaster to the kneeling Hunter’s hair. “Believe me, I don’t care.”
He tried to squeeze the trigger. He tried as hard as he could.
Zenith
The dark-skinned man had a utility coat that would make some of Zenith’s old resistance contacts weep with envy. He already knew the pockets were loaded with a mechanic’s must-haves.
And probably blasters.
The man wiped his hands on a greasy rag. “I was a soldier before I was a rebel. I guess a lifetime’s training might be working against me.” The man fixed Zenith with dark eyes that could stop a hovertank. “How do they run rebellions where you’re from?”
*
Ruth reeled away from the stone and found herself sitting down, hard. There was a new smell in the air, some kind of incense. She flexed her arms. She could move. She had her weapons. Baras was not here.
The world was no longer limned in gold. She was back where she needed to be, with a knowledge she didn’t want.
Vector swayed unsteadily a moment, but his face was all smiles. “The nest welcomes this insight!”
Temple giggled.
“I saw nothing,” Quinn grated, offering Ruth a hand up.
Kaliyo, for her part, stalked up to face Ruth nose to nose, though the Rattataki had the height advantage. “You controlling, holier-than-thou, karking bitch.”
Quinn did his best to loom. “My lord?”
“It’s okay. Kaliyo, I’m not after Wynston.”
“It’s not. Always. About. The guy. Look at Captain Kaas here. He’s going to feed you into a woodchipper the second—"
Quinn’s blaster was out, aimed at arm’s length. His whole face seemed to take part in a strained blink while he stared at Kaliyo.
Kaliyo stared down the barrel, grinning her lazy black-lipped grin. “—he sees a promotion in it.”
“Quinn!”
Quinn was still watching Kaliyo. “Mind your tongue before your betters.”
“Quinn, it’s just words. Lower your weapon.”
Gracelessly he did. “I wouldn’t presume to dictate your choice of company, my lord.”
She turned back to Kaliyo. “Imperials are better than you think.”
Kaliyo rolled her eyes. “They’re worse than you can believe.”
“Did you see that? In your vision?”
“Maybe it’s just all that insight from banging my own Imperial.” Something seemed to occur to her. “You didn’t still want him, did you?”
Jaesa was hugging herself with a private smile. “I’ll have daughters. Twins!” She looked up. “Ruth?”
Ruth tried to feel good for her. It didn’t work. “He had me at his mercy,” she reported.
Quinn shifted. “I won’t let that happen.”
“I was losing, Malavai. I wasn’t…I couldn’t…I tried everything, and I was losing.”
“We may yet avoid that confrontation.” Quinn scanned the party. “These are shadow figures on the wall. Primitive, and they could represent anything.”
“I agree,” Wynston said, to everyone’s surprise. “I need to talk to Bas-Ton. Soon.”
*
“Master Jedi,” said Lieutenant Iresso. “What does ‘blank’ mean?”
“The Voss might know,” Tebbith said gently. “The future is not an exact science. Perhaps all of us saw slight corruptions of the actual path.”
Nadia touched his arm. “No corruptions here. We have to stick together.”
Larr Gith stared past the walls. “Was I in fucking carbonite?”
When I finished Disco and went to seek out letsplays to live the first time vicariously, I assumed the majority of players would go for the communist vision quest, since that struck me as the obvious route. But nearly every playthrough I’ve seen goes for the Ultraliberal(I find that one kind of boring and superficial), with a few opting for the Moralist(much more interesting to be fair).
I don’t want to know in advance what a player is going to pick, because that takes the fun out of it, but it’s odd that it seems uncommon to go for the communist route in the infamously “communist” game…
A Post That Doesn’t Fit In Any Of Our Regular Categories
(Whatever, Man.)
Music Of The World - “Dolphin Vision Quest”
This is a post about how a cassette tape about dolphins made me cry.
Last week, I was cleaning my apartment and decided to play an album I’d downloaded from the great new age music blog Sounds of the Dawn. I needed a unobtrusive soundtrack for sweeping, and I’m an admitted fan of new age bullshit, so it seemed like the perfect idea.
Now, the thing about new age bullshit is that there’s an inherent roll of the dice you make whenever you throw on a new album. The line between good new age and bad new age is a thin one. Sometimes you get a perfect synthetic ocean to sink into, and sometimes you get a tacky curglaff right to your embarrassment glands.
The difference often hinges on the involvement of a rainstick.
When I first put on “Dolphin Vision Quest” I was immediately sure that I’d found the latter. The sample SotD posted was from the b-side, “The Deepening Mystery” which gave a good indication of the music on both sides, glacial synth hums, gentle exhales, and a backdrop of tape hiss. What the b-side lacks, however, is the a-side’s guided meditation journey into the land of the dolphins.
When the narrator first informed me that I’d be “having a rendezvous with beings of intelligence...and feeling...and sentience...” I laughed. This wasn’t just bad new age; this was hilariously bad new age. A guided meditative encounter with dolphins is like something that a woo-woo therapist would try to foist upon Jim Belushi’s character on According To Jim.
But I left it playing.
As I swept, the narrator explained how I need to prepare my energies to meet the dolphins. (Various chakras were involved.) He shepherded me to the beach, where I met the dolphins, who gave me a sand dollar that allowed me to breath underwater. We dove into the depths and I followed the dolphins to the sunken ruins of an ancient city. There among the worn pyramids and crumbling arches, it becomes clear that the dolphins are taking me somewhere special. That’s where it happens.
You enter through a low arch.
And there in the center
in a glowing, golden-green light
is somebody you have once known
and have always loved.
You move towards the figure
as the figure moves towards you.
Such love fills you.
Such memories.
Such wonderment.
Such beauty.
Then one
suspended
wonderful moment.
The light and you become one.
Maybe it was that I’d actually accidentally entered some sort of weird meditative butler-zen state, cleaning my energy while cleaning my bathroom. Or maybe it’s just that a quarter century of life has left me a fragile, emotional being who has wept at no fewer than three wrestling matches. Maybe dolphins really are beings of intelligence, feeling, and sentience.
But whatever it was, it absolutely punched me in the gut. I was wholly, and undeniably wrecked.
The phrasing of “somebody you have once known / and always loved” conjured a person to my mind so perfectly that I was imagining them before me before I even had time to comprehend what the narrator was saying. It’s a near perfect distillation of the feeling of losing a person who means a great deal to you. You once knew a person, but even now that you no longer do, you love them all the same.
It’s especially effective as a invocation for people you’ve lost, but still hope to have closure with one day. Even if true reconciliation is impossible, perhaps you hope to one day apologize, or to just share a moment to reminisce.
But the real reason that that section kills me is that the scenario it presents is one of closure, standing before a person who you love, but no longer know, and accepting it.
That’s a helluva heavy thing to plop in the middle of exploring a underwater city with a bunch of cetaceans.
- TWG
PS: Is this the first Dolphin/Shark post to reference actual dolphins and or sharks????
It’s hard to write when you are on a road trip. Harder still when you are camping. But when the mosquitoes and tornadoes come at you, it’s time to hunker down in a hotel with a bottle of wine and a king sized bed and rest up. Hot shower. It was good. Maybe not as cool as taking a bath in a Minnesota lake by moonlight (with several loons cat-calling from a safe distance), but refreshing and…
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah” -everyman/woman the day before leaving on a six week road trip. NOTE: This was written before we left – we have only just now gotten to the point where we can post it. Note to fellow road trippers: There is no cell service in Yellowstone – and there is no 4G in Montana (if you are on MetroPCS) Tomorrow is the day. Karen made the reservations at the first…
This is a ritual common among tribes throughout North America, except for those within the southwestern part of the United States, for acquiring a guardian spirit or seeking supernatural guidance. The ritual is most important to people east of the Rocky Mountains and in some parts of the western United States. A vision quest provides the average individual, not just a medicine man, with access to spiritual realms for help.
Usually, sweat-bath purification rites precede the vision quest, or “crying for a vision,” as it is occasionally called. The individual goes alone into the wilderness to a sacred place where he fasts, thirsts, smokes tobacco, prays, and meditates for a vision. This vigil can continue for several days and nights. Some Plains tribes practice self-mortification or mutilation, such as cutting off a finger joint. Some tribes use hallucinogenics; small groups in southern California consume a jimson weed drink, and medicine societies along the Missouri River use mescal.
In a true vision quest, the seeker goes into a trance or experiences a vivid dream in which his guardian spirit manifests, or he receives his sought-after advice from the spirit of the Great Spirit.
Vision quests are mostly undertaken by males usually when entering puberty, but sometimes in childhood. They exert a powerful force in the maturation process, providing a focus and sense of purpose, personal strength, and power.
When seeking a guardian spirit, the individual usually asks to be given certain powers, such as for hunting or healing, or luck in warfare, love, gambling, and so on. The guardian spirit usually appears in animal form, but may change to human form. In bestowing powers, it also may prescribe food taboos; teach a song, which is used to reconnect the individual with the spirit at any given time; and given instructions for ornamentation and for the assembly of medicine bundles. All instructions must be followed lest the person will lose the spirit. Ideally, the spirit will leave behind a physical token of the vision, such as a feather or claw. If the spirit that appears is undesirable, its powers are refused, and at a later time another vision quest is attempted.
There are other reasons for which vision quests are undertaken such as in times of war, disease, death, and childbirth (the latter to seek instructions for naming the child). Most Native Americans believe that the vision seeker should abstain from sex for a period prior to his quest. Vision quests are important in the practice of Shamanism. Some tribes, such as the Algonkians and Salish, have vision quest rites for girls, but these quests are not performed after puberty. The Plains warriors traditionally undertook numerous vision quests, and thus acquire many guardian spirits, each having a different function.
Most vision quests are solitary undertakings, but some are done on a collective basis, such as the Sun Dance ceremony.
