Was the Bronze Faction right?

[Aya Tari]

I was just curious if anyone thought that the Bronze Faction was right in their prophecy? While the Usurpation probably ended the lives of five billion human beings, with the ancient Solar Exalted basically saying an f*** you to Creation and taking out entire nations with them when they were killed, the ancient Solar Exalted were evil monsters that made tyrants like the Scarlet Empress seems like an amateur by comparison. What is even worse, the Solar Exalted were capable of using social Charms that made the vast majority of Creation beg to be used in their insane games and corrupted excesses. After all, they committed genocide on a scale beyond comprehension after the Primordial War, enslaved the Mountain Folk, and marginalized the Dragon Kings just because they were slightly paranoid about their capabilities..

Yes, Solar PCs are not evil monsters, though their Limit Breaks hold the potential for great evil, and they will become evil monsters if they are allowed to live for a few centuries. A Solar PC that suffers Berserk Anger will slaughter everything in sight that they do not have a positive tie to, which means that they will kill women, children, kittens, and puppies if their Limit Break is properly portrayed. In one session, a Solar PC could go from being a heroic character to a maniac who is known for slaughtering entire villages (after all, how many bystanders can a Solar PC kill in a scene?).

[Robert Vance]

Arguably. ten characters, woo woo woo woo woo

[Zeesun]

Arguably. ten characters, woo woo woo woo woo

Now it's canon.

In the spirit of adding meaningfully to the conversation, however, I'd have done what ole'ketchup and his co-conspirators did in that situation given the same information.

[Shiney103]

Now it's canon.

In the spirit of adding meaningfully to the conversation, however, I'd have done what ole'ketchup and his co-conspirators did in that situation given the same information.

And just to emphasize the split, I'd have sided with gold faction the moment the split existed. The destruction and long-standing decay of the realm were not only a walking death, but a mockery and insult to creation itself. There always had to be another way than the usurpation.

[Guancyto]

As spoke the illustrious and terrible 2 Michael, "not all acts of evil are foolish. And not all acts of good are wise."

The Path of Bronze, well, it was definitely the smart choice.

[Aya Tari]

Why? How long would it have been before they decided to rebel against the Gods so that they could play the Games of Destiny? And how could you be sure that your opinions were your own and not the result of Solar Charms?

[Jen]

No, they are not.

[Nicias]

It always struck me as a sort of invasion without a plan for the occupation, so to speak. Though perhaps in fairness too much preparation for the aftermath would have given the game away.

[Shiney103]

Honestly, my view of it is: "We're gigantic masterminds who can understand fate, right?"
"Yeah."
"And our demigod overlords, they weren't always crazy, right?"
"Mmmhmm."
"So, instead of some elaborate master plan to remove them from causing as much harm, or, Maidens forbid, HELPING them... How about we just plan a mass murder?"
"....Sure."

That's some serious fearmongering from master Carjack, and the sidereals have a lot of cleaning up their messes to do.

[Exthalion]

To be fair, the Sidereals' hands were not clean of the atrocities of the First Age. For all that they were not Solars, the First Age was the result of all the Exalted working together toward a unified vision. The Sids enabled and support a great deal of what the Solars did and social charm mind control doesn't cover all of it. They were part of the ruling class, and it is a reasonable narrative to portray the Usurpation as exactly that, a coup bya group of marginal elites to become the ruling elite.

How many other revolutionaries, especially in the history they get to write, frame the prior regime as the incarnation of all evils and themselves as the side of good and morality?

[Ghosthead]

Foremost, I definitely would have a hard time categorically saying people shouldn't seek some form of self determination, and self rule, in the face of an unappointed and unaccountable autocracy governed by such as the late First Age Solars had become ("decadent and corrupt", "indolence and madness", whose rule if left unaltered would lead to "a World of Darkness, and as entropy set in further, a lifeless black husk"). I find it hard to privilege the right of the most privileged autocrats there against "treachery" over that.

The choice of whether there really were only two options with those probabilities, you can either take that at face value or not. And then that depends if you have risky preferences or less risky preferences.

What I think you can lay at the feet of the Bronze Faction for sure is the failure to properly plan for maintaining defense of the Realm. Yes, the Great Contagion is really the fault of bitter ghost Solars, but that kind of existential risk from outside Creation should have been planned for.

You can also lay on them the practice of actively choosing to become a secret government to avoid accountability, negotiation and the possibility of the very kind of coup they created, rather than work openly with Dragonblooded and Lunar and gods, when they had the chance to do so, and nothing in their nature prohibits it. This is what really contributed a lot to weakening Creation, beyond the loss of the Solars as its strongest and linking group.

It's not really enough to merely have found a government which was "not the grandeur of the Realm's heyday, nor was it entirely peaceful, but it was devoid of the vast atrocities and terrible indulgences that had driven the Dragon-blooded to regicide" (the Shogunate). They needed to find some way of resolving things in the long term without simply ultimately creating what the Scarlet Empress has had, another uninclusive autocracy, yet in some ways an even more structurally fragile one, driven apart by the same internal competitive forces and dependent on an even more irreplaceable figure (if less technologically fragile).

[Crumplepunch]

Arguably.

I think that wraps up the thread.

No need to argue, guys.

As spoke the illustrious and terrible 2 Michael

I really don't think I want to take advice from a guy who can walk around for ten thousand years without noticing he has a spear lodged in his chest.

[The Wizard of Oz]

Objectively? It doesn't matter.

The point is that they had enough grounds that characters can support them without being utterly evil or stupid.
But not enough grounds that no character could reasonably oppose them without being a Solar-worshipping fanatic or pie-in-the-sky-idealist.

At the very end of my 2nd game, the Full Moon PC had a short argument with the ghost of Chejop Kejak. It was about what Kejak was attempting to do right then (forever severing Creation from the Underworld, but in doing so kill everyone in every Shadowland), but of course, it was also about what the Bronze Faction had done before.
The Lunar argued that there had to be a better way, that it was wrong, that Chejop was being influenced by others, or that it was just an excuse for his madness. Chejop argued that those who opposed him were selfish, because they were more interested in taking the moral highground than helping Creation. I was quite pleased with it, I felt that both sides had opinions that, from their point of view, were reasonable. It's an argument that reflects moral questions in real life, but, you know, with more super-powered kung fu.

[Sanctaphrax]

I'm sympathetic to the Usurpation. But they've done a lot of stuff since then that strikes me as straight-up evil.

If they were really good people, they'd push the Realm in a less awful direction. And they'd stop trying to murder everyone (un)lucky enough to be chosen by the Sun or the Moon.

Even if every Solar was absolutely definitely destined to become Super-Stalin after a century or so, murdering a currently-good person simply for being chosen would be iffy. Given that they have free will, it's evil.

Especially since there's no shortage of genuinely-evil beings that need killing.

[Kyman201]

"Was the Bronze Faction right?"

Fuck if I know. I wasn't there.

If I was one of the Sidereals there at the time? Hell, I don't know which Vision I would have stuck with. And as a guy looking from the outside, I can't say that they Done Goofed Big when they decided to kill the tyrannical mad God Kings... But I'd probably also be one of the ones who, after the Balorian Crusade and the Great Contagion, would be possibly be open to the possibility that Creation now isn't the same as Creation then, and maybe with this new generation of Solars, we can set forth guidelines to watch for the madness of the Solars.