silly little analysis essay after today's stormz stream :)
SO MANY BLISS SPOILERS BELOW. SO MANY. BE GOOD.
i have very few actual plans for this essay so it is probably going to be less Essay and more half coherent yap but i don't really care i have Thoughts
well. what a stream.
as a refresher/update: stormz's current plan for bliss is to kill mugm and wyll, maintaining an image that he is doing so because he is good and moral and thinks they should be punished for the wrongs they've committed on the rest of the server. once he defeats and dethrones them and is being lauded as a hero, he'll turn his back on them, take the power for himself, and use it as he sees fit (seemingly, to become the new villain).
and god, isn't that fascinating? it's the kind of thing that comes around once in a lifetime, opportunities and knowledge and luck aligning all at the right moment to make a path for something glorious.
in chat we were talking a lot about weaponized new player naivety. there's an inherent expectation from existing players on a server that when someone is new, they'll be naive, hopeful, think that they're the one who finally has that golden touch to pull the server out of hell and break the cycle. it's a well-documented phenomenon (example: lifesteal). the act stormz is talking about putting on is exactly this: naive new player who believes he'll be the one to save everyone.
except stormz isn't new to this. he may be new to the server, new to bliss and its people and the particular details of its workings, but bliss is just another cycle of power, just another server built on violence and the quest for monolithic domination. stormz knows how those work. infuse raised him on those same foundations. he's been naive and worldender, villain and (attempted) hero, seeking revenge and seeking repentence. he knows these cycles intimately because he's lived every part of them.
but no one knows that. not a single person on bliss knows that. their impressions of him so far (afaik (i have not been regularly watching streams LOL)) are that he's been putting in the hours, that he left a teammate that wasn't intentional or surefooted enough, that he's been kind where others would have been cruel. nothing in that would give even an impression of ill will, of knowledge, of anything other than that golden-hearted naivety.
and the thing is, he's new. he's new, and he's joining deep into the season. the initial chaos of a forming world, when the power's still widely distributed and the tides of war are high and unforgiving, has passed, leaving things more solidified. the world has already been scrambled and settled, people dug deep into their own cycles already and the power concentrated; in other words, the part of the season when plans are essentially up to random chance and endurance of will more than careful execution has passed.
and then, suddenly, something new. someone new, someone uninvolved in history, someone without a predefined place in the world. a blank slate.
stormz is in the extraordinary position to choose the role he will play, to pen his story himself. obviously, he's not untouchable in this; there will still be some amount of luck on his side, and chaos may be lessened but it's not gone. but less chaos is less, and he's got confirmation bias and others' lack of knowledge on his side. when the newbie is acting like a newbie, who's going to suspect any deeper motive, suspect a long con? they don't know who he is. they don't know his history or his track record. he's just the new guy. of course he's just naive; what else could he be?
this is another aspect where his previous experience is really playing a role. knowing what new player naivety looks like, having experienced it before in himself and seen it in others as people joined infuse, is the key thing that's allowing this plan to begin at all. stormz is a fantastic actor, proficient liar. knowing how to act is all he really needs.
and the understanding that he has to have to know that there is no salvation? to simulatenously want mugm and wyll to go and not want anyone else to fill the power vacuum dethroning them would leave, and knowing that the only outcome that holds those two things in tandem is to fill the vacuum himself? to be able to kill his morals thoroughly enough to plan something like this and commit to it? that's experience talking. those are those lessons in worldending talking. no one thinks like that unless they Get it.
i won't get into stormz-gets-the-cycles talk right now because it's not super relevant and is also the topic of a different in progress essay, but i'm sorry for ever doubting you king. he won't (shouldn't if he has tags blocked right) ever see this but i'm sorry. i was unaware of your game. i'll never backseat you about the cycles in chat ever again. one billion gold stars
anyway. that only adds another layer for everyone to work through to get to the true nature of his plan, doesn't it? if a plan like that only comes together if someone deeply understands how power and violence and their cycles function, the new guy isn't going to put it together. he's naive, remember? and, to tack another layer on, he's good enough that it's not unrealistic that he'll succeed in his mission of killing them. when this mission is touted as being for the good of the server, a playerbase fairly down in the trenches will almost certainly invest some amount of hope in him. they'll want him to succeed, want him to be their hero. and why would a hero have some secret evil agenda?
and the best part. the kicker. he only has to get lucky once.
think about it. here are the steps of the plan: 1) play the naive, hopeful fool, who's maybe good enough at the game for it to actually work, and gain the server's favor and trust 2) kill mugm and wyll 3) dethrone them by taking the egg, the mace, etc.; the things that give them their power 4) be lauded as the glorious hero by the server 5) turn his back on them and become evil
now, obviously, chaos will chaos and there is always the chance for something to get thrown off balance in any of these steps. however. walk with me.
i've been talking about step one basically this whole post. to summarize: between the fact that he's new, that he understands the naive newbie archetype well enough to play into it, that the players will all be expecting him to be that naive newbie, and the fact that the server is desperate for a genuine source of hope, his cover will come together beautifully. all he has to do is play the part, and we all know how well he can do that.
if step one goes to plan, the server will love this guy. the general sentiment should be behind him, especially if/when he proves that he has the strength to be an honest threat to mugm and wyll. ideally, the rest of the server rallies around him, helps him take the gods down, but he's still The Hero, the one who gave them hope, the one who freed them of tyranny.
and, well. it would be absurd to allege that someone like that could be evil, right? when he's spent his entire time on the server being Good, becoming the Hero? as long as the general sentiment is positive, anyone with differing opinions will be crying wolf.
now, i use that metaphor very specifically. i think it would actually be to stormz's advantage to have some -- not too many, but a few -- people saying that maybe he is powerhungry, maybe he does have ulterior motives, etc. because the boy who cried wolf was right eventually. except when he was right, when he finally meant it as a genuine warning, the words had already lost their meaning. alarm bells mean nothing if they keep ringing when there's no danger to be warned about.
so when signs do begin to show -- because it's hard to do that kind of betrayal completely unseen, y'know? -- and people begin to start raising the alarm in earnest, no one will believe them. must be paranoia. must be lingering beef. must be jealousy. must be anything but the truth.
assuming he has most of the server on his side and trusting him and he pulls off the betrayal right -- and history says he will -- the server will be blindsided. maybe the wolf criers won't, but for everyone else, how could the hero do this? shock leads naturally into inaction, if shortlived -- and besides that, he'll have all the power. the only fighters strong enough to take him down are freshly out of commission. what on earth are they going to be able to do to stop him?
so. really. he only needs to get lucky once: in actually killing mugm and wyll. everything before that is just skill, social manipulation and careful lies and secret-keeping, and everything after that is just the dominoes falling in line. and stormz may not be known for staying lucky, but fate always does seem to throw him a bone when it matters most, doesn't she?
yeah. fucking masterclass in situational awareness and why knowing the cycles and the rhythm of worlds and people is the most powerful thing there will ever be. i have never been more excited for an arc on an smp ever in my life
for making it to the end of this, here's two treats for u:
quote from rewatching stream that i find Fun and Joyous: "you guys (chat) talk about 'a villain can repnt for their sins?' well, [mugm] doesn't look like he's repenting."
postcard found in the cat museum in kotor montenegro that ive been thinking about for years that i think fits the vibe of this entire plan really well:
he's left infuse (their luck's out) and he's come to you. are you ready?
