(L) Kumo Desu ga, Nani ka? [WN]

[erneiz_hyde]

Originally Posted by sierra117

Because she doesn’t need to?
Unlike Sariel, Shiro hold no affection for this world people aside from some selected few, she has no reason to give up her life for a bunch of strangers, the fact that she go out of her ways to ensure that not all of them are permanently death should be good enough

If you go by that the people also doesn't need to abide by Shiro's plans. They don't need to die for the sake of one stranger. Dustin doesn't need to care about Sariel's soul death. "Why should I care?" Any excuse you spout in this line of excuses directly fires back to oneself, the only difference being some are strong and gets to do what they want and the weak gets trampled on, and then calling that justice. Fine, she doesn't need to die, but killing them all personally is at least owning up to your actions rather than leaving them to die slowly and painfully.

Originally Posted by Huh...?

What Shiro is trying to do is kill as many people a possible at once to overload the System with enough power that makes it shutdown its "forced immediate reincarnation" function (which is damaging the Souls), while keeping the "World Repair" function of intact (though this act would make some souls to go through Soul Death, as they were already on the brink of being destroyed and wouldn't have survived even if they had died normally).
And once the "forced immediate reincarnation" function shuts down, the excess energy in the System would get automatically diverted to the "World Repair" function, and once the World is repaired, Shiro would break the System, to make the World free from it.

Another new conflicting info. Do you guys actually know the situation and what Shiro, Dustin, and everyone else's plan is or are you guys filling the blanks to make Shiro looks good and everyone else looks bad?

[shmaster]

Originally Posted by erneiz_hyde

If you go by that the people also doesn't need to abide by Shiro's plans. They don't need to die for the sake of one stranger. Dustin doesn't need to care about Sariel's soul death. "Why should I care?" Any excuse you spout in this line of excuses directly fires back to oneself, the only difference being some are strong and gets to do what they want and the weak gets trampled on, and then calling that justice. Fine, she doesn't need to die, but killing them all personally is at least owning up to your actions rather than leaving them to die slowly and painfully.

Oh please. Did you not see Dustin's soliloquy just recently?
He is a man full of self hate due to his unjust actions towards Sariel. He's so indebt to Sariel to the degree of not funny and he totally cares. He know he is a piece of shit who has no moral high ground over Ariel. Despite his fight for survival, he also understands that Ariel going this far is his deserving karma.
Saying Dustin can just not care is just so many level of wrong.

Dustin has responsibilities and moral baggage that he can't escape from. But Shiro has none of those except Oka chan.

[sierra117]

Originally Posted by erneiz_hyde

If you go by that the people also doesn't need to abide by Shiro's plans. They don't need to die for the sake of one stranger. Dustin doesn't need to care about Sariel's soul death. "Why should I care?" Any excuse you spout in this line of excuses directly fires back to oneself, the only difference being some are strong and gets to do what they want and the weak gets trampled on, and then calling that justice. Fine, she doesn't need to die, but killing them all personally is at least owning up to your actions rather than leaving them to die slowly and painfully.

They may die slow and painfully, but they still have a chance for a proper reincarnation
And their current well being isn’t Shiro business considering that she are trying to save their very afterlife itself
While Dustin’s plan are shirt-sighted and only bring harm later

[Huh...?]

Originally Posted by erneiz_hyde

Another new conflicting info.

What's the conflicting info in that?
I believe its the same stuff everyone else is saying, though worded differently.

[erneiz_hyde]

Originally Posted by shmaster

Oh please. Did you not see Dustin's soliloquy just recently?
He is a man full of self hate due to his unjust actions towards Sariel. He's so indebt to Sariel to the degree of not funny and he totally cares. He know he is a piece of shit who has no moral high ground over Ariel. Despite his fight for survival, he also understands that Ariel going this far is his deserving karma.
Saying Dustin can just not care is just so many level of wrong.

Dustin has responsibilities and moral baggage that he can't escape from. But Shiro has none of those except Oka chan.

I in fact haven't, I thought I prefaced that on my return to this thread. And this just make Dustin better as a person in my eyes. He cares, but he doesn't NEED to. He has conviction to go through his actions even as it pains him.

Shiro otoh has none of that. And she doesn't plan on taking responsibility of her next big action of genocide. Sure, she doesn't HAVE NEED to, but if genocide is necessary, then I think you should have the courtesy to do it swiftly, looking at their face. And if the survivors are not likely to live long after all this then killing them as well would be mercy. Truly it's this part of Shiro I like the least, she wants to have cake and eat it too.

Damn it, look at what I am saying. This is why I don't like how the story progressed after Shiro became god. The story is bending over backwards to make it a Malthusian wank-fest.

[kagato3]

Shiro sacrificing herself does nothing to help the situation. The longer the system is running the more souls are destroyed. Shiro's plan stops the system as soon as possible. Dustin's plan is keep the system running as is.

[Huh...?]

Originally Posted by erneiz_hyde

Do you guys actually know the situation and what Shiro, Dustin, and everyone else's plan is

This is what i know (and understand from all the long discussion until now). Could be wrong in some parts

Shiro:
- Wants to save Ariel & Sariel, knowing that they don't have much time to live. So trying to fix the situation of the World and save their SOUL, so that they don't get destroyed, which would allow Ariel & Sariel to reincarnate later post their death (because, if no World or no Soul, then no chance of reincarnation, as long as System is active).
- Wants to create a genocide, to fill the System with energy (doesn't really care about the lives of the people of that World except few; only care about allowing as many SOUL's to survive as possible).
- Wants to overload the System with energy so that it shuts down itself, and then focus that energy to repair the world.
- Once World is repaired, destroy the System so that the World can become free from the "loop" and confines of the System permanently, and normal cycle of reincarnation could begin, allowing the SOUL's trapped in this World to move around the whole universe while allowing new SOUL's to enter this world.

Dustin:
- Wants to use up Sariel's remaining energy (i think), and then replace her with Shiro, and hope's that the time left for the Destruction of the World is delayed for some more years or centuries to allow them to come up with a better plan (would result in the Soul Death of Sariel and Shiro, and possibly many more people who would die normally during that time as their Soul's are already on the brink).
- Has a alternate plan which no one knows about.

Kuro:
- Wants the System to run as it is (with Sariel), and hope that it would fix the World and all the issues by itself in time.

Shun:
- Doesn't want Shiro to commit a Genocide, and asks to look for an alternate solution.

[kari-no-sugata II]

Regarding the discussions of how various plans stack up, this is all based on info before D heavily intervened. At this moment it is unclear how this affects various plans. D giving everyone Taboo is very bad for Dustin's original plan but if ultimately all that new energy goes to the System then that would make things easier. Arguably for Dustin, it's better for that energy to go to the System than either of the gods. But in the short term Dustin needs Gyurie to win but after that he'll need as much energy to go to the System as possible before people go crazy from Taboo. Dustin would have had to have change his plans but it's unclear what he's going to do now.

Everyone getting Taboo doesn't really affect Shiro's plans except more people will die before she collapses the System. The big impact of D's intervention was of course to get Gyurie to attack her, which she probably would have been able to avoid otherwise. The worst thing for her is if people pray away their energy to Gyurie. If it goes to her instead that obviously helps and if people don't pray that means much more energy is available when she removes all the skills.

With regards to the end situation, I've said before several times that I think the only true "good end" is if Shiro stays on the planet and treats it as her home. She's long had the trauma of losing "my home" and being forced to leave. Given that she was born on the planet and if things reach this point it would mean she helped save the world (though not the people) then effectively it's something she created and all the people she knows would be there (apart from D). Basically, it's the best place for her to be... even if a lot of the locals resent her (not that she would care, much). Trying to tie her down with concepts like duty or responsibility would not work. But if she can consider the world to be her nest/home then she would want to stay and protect it.

[sierra117]

Originally Posted by erneiz_hyde

I in fact haven't, I thought I prefaced that on my return to this thread. And this just make Dustin better as a person in my eyes. He cares, but he doesn't NEED to. He has conviction to go through his actions even as it pains him.

Shiro otoh has none of that. And she doesn't plan on taking responsibility of her next big action of genocide. Sure, she doesn't HAVE to, but if genocide is necessary, then I think you should have the courtesy to do it swiftly, looking at their face. And if the survivors are not likely to live long after all this then killing them as well would be mercy. Truly it's this part of Shiro I like the least, she wants to have cake and eat it too.

Damn it, look at what I am saying. This is why I don't like how the story progressed after Shiro became god. The story is bending over backwards to make it a Malthusian wank-fest.

He NEED to care, because he was a part of why the world became what it is, he was only trying to clean up a mess that he partially caused, and failed. And Shiro is the one that has the plan that can successfully complete what he had failed to do for thousands of years
And no, there is no mercy in kill off the survivors, they need to witness what they did, and try to survive and live with it, if they can’t, then just find a corner and kill themselves, there is none force them to keep on living, Shiro had already help them to secure an afterlife, what they will do to their current one are their own business, not her

[erneiz_hyde]

Originally Posted by sierra117

He NEED to care, because he was a part of why the world became what it is, he was only trying to clean up a mess that he partially caused, and failed. And Shiro is the one that has the plan that can successfully complete what he had failed to do for thousands of years

He doesn't NEED to, but you think he HAS to. It's similar to you thinking Shiro doesn't NEED to take some kind of responsibility for the aftermath of genocide while I think she HAS to.
Edit: Semantics, sorry, replace HAVE in my second paragraph you quoted to NEED to better carry my point accross. Basically, NEED here is to signify that the driving force comes from within themselves rather than forced from outside, which would be HAS. Dustin doesn't need to care for Sariel for his plans to work, but he arguably have to care because of all the reasons you mentioned. Sorry if that's hard to understand.

Originally Posted by sierra117

And no, there is no mercy in kill off the survivors, they need to witness what they did, and try to survive and live with it, if they can’t, then just find a corner and kill themselves, there is none force them to keep on living, Shiro had already help them to secure an afterlife, what they will do to their current one are their own business, not her

See, it's this kind of Malthusian masturbation that appears from the readers that I don't like from this story.

[Huh...?]

Originally Posted by erneiz_hyde

See, it's this kind of Malthusian masturbation that appears from the readers that I don't like from this story.

Not sure how that relates here, since that is more related to what Thanos did in the MCU movies, than what Shiro is trying here.

Here, its not about how over-population is resulting in the lack of resources and food growth, which would result in reduced living standards to the point of triggering a population die off.

Its about allowing people a chance to continue on even after death, through reincarnation. Since population of that World is already quite low because of Soul's dying away (as the Soul are getting forcefully exploited by the System to their destruction), which is resulting in lower birthrate already. And the more time passes, the more Soul's would die permanently.

[erneiz_hyde]

Originally Posted by Huh...?

Not sure how that relates here, since that is more related to what Thanos did in the MCU movies, than what Shiro is trying here.

Here, its not about how over-population is resulting in the lack of resources and food growth, which would result in reduced living standards to the point of triggering a population die off.

Its about allowing people a chance to continue on even after death, through reincarnation. Since population of that World is already quite low because of Soul's dying away (as the Soul are getting forcefully exploited by the System to their destruction), which is resulting in lower birthrate already. And the more time passes, the more Soul's would die permanently.

And this kind of mental gymnastics is what I meant by the story bending over backwards to make Malthusian line of thinking appealing. It just masks it with fancy terms like souls and reincarnations and such but it is still a Malthusian genocide wet dream at its core.
Also, I did say that Shiro's better off killing everyone rather than just most of them right?

[Huh...?]

Originally Posted by erneiz_hyde

It just masks it with fancy terms like souls and reincarnations and such but it is still a Malthusian genocide wet dream at its core.

Guess your main problem isn't the plan of Shiro or anyone else in the story.
But the terms of Soul's and Reincarnation's itself.

[Rasty]

^^ So my best advice to you: just read the book.

This is a book about gods, a very real and undisprovable reincarnation where death is just a short passing state between two lives. All the people (and especially demons) on that planet (accept the random Japanese in the mix) are by the standards of the gods the worst of criminals and scum. Burglars, rapers, murderers? Those are just petty misconduct to get punished for (purgatory, worse next life whatever), but what those people did is an absolute taboo.

Originally Posted by Huh...?

This is what i know (and understand from all the long discussion until now). Could be wrong in some parts

Nice write-up.

Originally Posted by Huh...?

- Once World is repaired, destroy the System so that the World can become free from the "loop"

The destruction is necessary to free up lots of the energy needed for the planet. It's like if you have a giant scaffolding around a building you are repairing, but to finish it you dismantle the scaffolding and use the steel in the reinforced concrete for the last few floors.

Originally Posted by Huh...?

and then replace her with Shiro

Originally he wanted to use Kuro (he didn't even know about Shiro)

Originally Posted by Huh...?

- Has a alternate plan which no one knows about.

I am not caught up fully (so take this part with a grain of salt), but he originally had no idea about the soul collapse being such an immediate problem and the plan just can't work as-is. He likely has some plan to solve that, but very likely extremely drastic measures as he would never agree to harm humans specifically so much.

Originally Posted by Huh...?

- Wants the System to run as it is (with Sariel), and hope that it would fix the World and all the issues by itself in time.

He is absolute hetare so he himself can't do anything (because Sariel is just terrible in general and he loves her). His original plan is doing nothing and then committing fast suicide by pumping all his energy into the system when Sariel dies (the world be dammed, he doesn't care for a world without her).

[kari-no-sugata II]

Originally Posted by Huh...?

This is what i know (and understand from all the long discussion until now). Could be wrong in some parts

Shiro:
- Wants to save Ariel & Sariel, knowing that they don't have much time to live. So trying to fix the situation of the World and save their SOUL, so that they don't get destroyed, which would allow Ariel & Sariel to reincarnate later post their death (because, if no World or no Soul, then no chance of reincarnation, as long as System is active).
- Wants to create a genocide, to fill the System with energy (doesn't really care about the lives of the people of that World except few; only care about allowing as many SOUL's to survive as possible).
- Wants to overload the System with energy so that it shuts down itself, and then focus that energy to repair the world.
- Once World is repaired, destroy the System so that the World can become free from the "loop" and confines of the System permanently, and normal cycle of reincarnation could begin, allowing the SOUL's trapped in this World to move around the whole universe while allowing new SOUL's to enter this world.

I'd put it more like this:

1. Her personal goal is to live with pride.
2. Due to being ordered by D to help Ariel and coming to like Ariel over time, Shiro wants to fulfill Ariel's wish (to save Sariel). Shiro knows Ariel is going to die sooner or later and wants her to be able to die with a smile. Due to Ariel abusing her Ruler skills she has about a year left to live.
3. Due to having being saved by Oka-chan as a spider on Earth, Shiro wants to support Oka-chan in return. Since Oka-chan wants to save the reincarnators in general, Shiro wants to avoid killing them if possible.
4. Shiro can't just nuke the System as it's keeping the planet alive as well as restoring it. In the past the planet was literally broken.
5. Killing the elves helped with both 2 and 3.
6. The plan she came up with to save Sariel and save the world is to do a staged destruction of the System - first get full control, then gather lots of energy to help restore the planet by taking skills from all living creatures on the planet (operating the skills etc is consuming 90% of the System's resources). That will technically "save the world" and allow Sariel to be freed, but because Sariel's soul is so worn down she'll die sometime soon either way, but if she stays in the System her soul will break. As a side-effect of taking skills back, about 50% of the humans will die and a large number will suffer soul collapse. However, Shiro kept quiet about that until relatively recently because she didn't want opposition from Dustin or especially Gyurie. Shiro didn't care for the original people of the planet and Ariel hates them so she doesn't care if a lot of humans die from collateral damage. So long as they don't go against her Shiro will spare all the reincarnators from damage from having their skills removed, plus any special collaborators who are helping Shiro. Having lots of people die in the great war was to help gather lots of energy in advance (give them a bigger margin of error). Those most likely to die in the war would be amongst those most likely to have their souls collapse when the skills are removed so having them die while the System is still operating actually helps save their souls.
7. Shiro thought there was a high chance that she would get into conflict with Gyurie so tried to save as much energy as possible and also came up with her super technique, just in case. She wanted to end the Hero system since it was consuming a lot of resources (3% of total) and there was little margin for error. But because Sariel restored the Hero system and made Shun the Hero, that blocked Shiro. So long as Shun didn't knowingly go against Shiro then he was safe from her due to Oka-chan.
8. Last we heard, Shiro plans to leave the planet once this is all done. This seems to be largely to escape from D though it's unclear.

Dustin:
- Wants to use up Sariel's remaining energy (i think), and then replace her with Shiro, and hope's that the time left for the Destruction of the World is delayed for some more years or centuries to allow them to come up with a better plan (would result in the Soul Death of Sariel and Shiro, and possibly many more people who would die normally during that time as their Soul's are already on the brink).
- Has a alternate plan which no one knows about.

Kuro:
- Wants the System to run as it is (with Sariel), and hope that it would fix the World and all the issues by itself in time.

I'd say Dustin and Gyurie's original plan was the same. The church knew that Sariel was getting close to death and planed to fake a smooth transition to Gyurie taking over so that people wouldn't panic when the voice in their heads changed - they had also discussed this. Dustin didn't know about the soul abrasion problem though but apart from that his plan would have worked fine once Potimas was dead. However, the soul abrasion problem is severe enough that Shiro estimates that somewhere between 25-100% of the population would have their souls break before the System could finish restoring the world in this scenario.

It's unclear what Dustin's current plans after finding out about soul abrasion and D's recent interventions are but he's trying to kill the reincarnators in general for some reason. There's some speculation amongst fans that maybe he plans to summon fresh souls from Earth, which would provide lots more energy than the worn-out souls on this planet. I'm sure D would be okay with that but given that D revealed Taboo to everyone I'm not sure Dustin would be able to count on society being able to survive long enough. On the other hand the energy that D returned might make up for this.

Shun:
- Doesn't want Shiro to commit a Genocide, and asks to look for an alternate solution.

I'd phase it this way: Shun idolises his dead brother (Julius) and wants to be a hero like him (or rather, how Shun thinks Julius was like).

[kagato3]

Originally Posted by kari-no-sugata II

It's unclear what Dustin's current plans after finding out about soul abrasion and D's recent interventions are but he's trying to kill the reincarnators in general for some reason. There's some speculation amongst fans that maybe he plans to summon fresh souls from Earth, which would provide lots more energy than the worn-out souls on this planet. I'm sure D would be okay with that but given that D revealed Taboo to everyone I'm not sure Dustin would be able to count on society being able to survive long enough. On the other hand the energy that D returned might make up for this.

.

If this is Dustin's plan. It won't work. Only those souls tied to the system can provide energy to it. Had D not given the reincarnators the %I=w skill they would not have interfaced with the system at all. They would have gained no skills or status and have been so weak a child could beat them. And when they died their souls would have just reincarnated as normal else where. %I=w isn't protecting them from the system it is giving them access to it like a guest logon.

[kari-no-sugata II]

Originally Posted by kagato3

If this is Dustin's plan. It won't work. Only those souls tied to the system can provide energy to it. Had D not given the reincarnators the %I=w skill they would not have interfaced with the system at all. They would have gained no skills or status and have been so weak a child could beat them. And when they died their souls would have just reincarnated as normal else where. %I=w isn't protecting them from the system it is giving them access to it like a guest logon.

n%I=W means that their souls won't be kept within the System after they die - the other souls are trapped within the System. It's a "guest" account in the sense that it's temporary. With regards to summoned people, Dustin would probably have to have them killed after summoned - I believe they'd then become part of the System. I guess the alternative would be to "summon" souls after they died on Earth. Would probably cost less energy as well.

[kagato3]

No without it they won't be in the system.
Q: Regarding ｎ％Ｉ＝Ｗ

D「This is a support skill for the exclusive use of the reincarnators. In practice it is an aid in order to allow the reincarnators to receive the blessings of the System, despite them being outside of its normal operation.」
M「What would happen if it was not there?」
D「They would have been tossed into that world without status values or skills or anything, merely as humans.」
M「Merely as humans, huh.」
D「Without the support of status values and skills, their physical strength, stamina and mental capacity would all be PLAIN human. From the point of view of the natives who receive the blessings of the System, they would seem extremely feeble I am sure. If they were unfortunate they could even be beaten up by children I guess.」
M「And there are monsters and the like as well. Normally, they would just die huh.」
D「In addition, there is also a function included to translate the System messages into Japanese. The reason why the Appraisal results and Voice of Heaven (temp) are displayed or spoken in Japanese is because of that.」
M「Without that, they would not be able to make sense of anything until they learned the local language, naturally.」
D「Incidentally, while small there is also a bonus applied to the rate of skill acquisition and the rate at which status values rise. Well, it is barely noticeable though.」
M「Is that really so? I had thought that the reason why the reincarnators were vastly superior was due to that skill though.」
D「Rather than it being the reincarnators were particularly superior, it is the natives who are inferior. On the one hand are the souls of the natives which have deteriorated due to the exploitation of the System. On the other hand are the souls of the reincarnators who quickly grew up into high school students without any such issues. If you ask which ones would be superior then the answer is obvious I am sure.」
M「Yeah. That is certainly true.」
D「If we imagine things in the distant past immediately following the activation of the System, then there would have been natives who could compete with the reincarnators all over the place I am sure, but now that things have declined, the reincarnators have become stronger only in relative terms. If you recall the status values of the Demon King Ariel who has lived since that distant past, I am sure you can guess just how brutal the world was in the past. Well, she has become like that after many years of diligent training, so obviously such extreme examples were not found all over the place. At most, status values in the thousands were found all over the place.」
M「But even so, there were people with status values in the thousands all over the place huh. That is rather scary in itself.」
D「That was a side topic, but basically the ｎ％Ｉ＝Ｗ is a skill to support the reincarnators. If the reincarnators die then their soul will return to the normal cycle of reincarnation and the role of that skill will be finished. Well, before then I will mumble mumble……」
M「Eh? What was that?」
D「Nothing at all.」
M「How suspicious……」

The skills not what let's them be free of the system. With out it they aren't part of the system.

[kari-no-sugata II]

Originally Posted by kagato3

No without it they won't be in the system.
Q: Regarding ｎ％Ｉ＝Ｗ

D「This is a support skill for the exclusive use of the reincarnators. In practice it is an aid in order to allow the reincarnators to receive the blessings of the System, despite them being outside of its normal operation.」
M「What would happen if it was not there?」
D「They would have been tossed into that world without status values or skills or anything, merely as humans.」

Argh. Thanks.

[Huh...?]

Originally Posted by kagato3

If this is Dustin's plan. It won't work. Only those souls tied to the system can provide energy to it. Had D not given the reincarnators the %I=w skill they would not have interfaced with the system at all. They would have gained no skills or status and have been so weak a child could beat them. And when they died their souls would have just reincarnated as normal else where. %I=w isn't protecting them from the system it is giving them access to it like a guest logon.

What about the possibility that, Dustin plans to use the Reincarnators, as a link or bridge to connect to different world (aka., Earth in this case), and then try to sacrifice it (or soul's from there) to harvest energy from it to power the System.

If the Soul's can't directly be incorporated from outside, as they won't work with the System without the [ｎ％Ｉ＝Ｗ] Skill, but it should still be possible to harvest energy in some way from their (even if the energy conversion is imperfect with lots of wastage and and low in quantity).

I remember reading that, when the Dragon's left that World, they took majority of the Energy of this World with them. So, i was thinking that, if its possible to take Energy out of the System, it should be possible to insert Energy from outside the System to power it as well (aka., rather that bringing in Soul's from outside the System into it to try to harvest Energy, which would fail; it should be more possible to harvest the Soul's outside the System itself, and feed the Energy from that to the System directly).