Taking out Hill or Rich got talked up as some kind of irredeemable or inherently corruptive option, as opposed to some random that Velvet has no motive to go after?
The less said about the "Just find a criminal," the better, cuz apparently knowing the face of the target and acting like judge, jury and cook is worse than not knowing it?
If we have to send a Name to go fetch a no-name, then why not go for "Give me a spreadsheet of the vilest bastard in Equestria and a dartboard" if every action has to be made by The Good Velvet (TM)?
For what matters I plan to propose a vote that will have Velvet do a scrying to PERSONALLY find a "victim" she can live with. I imagine this will allow us to better direct Axe in her action
@OurLadyOfWires
In any case the way I see it (and there's definitely different opinions about it in this thread) is that, to put it in extremely simple terms
1) Spoiled doesn't deserve to be eaten.
2) Our father, AS FAR AS VELVET KNOWS, doesn't deserve to be eaten, AND even worse doing this is an act of revenge and self-indulgence in Velvet's worst traits. If we pick him rather than anyone else, when ever getting a pedophile or serial killer would likely be easier, it means Velvet is explicitly
taking advantage of her need to kill someone for the power-ritual to actually take revenge as well. And I don't like that (well, I'd like to read it, but I don't like it FOR VELVET.
3)about killing a criminal (and to be clear I'm talking about the very worst criminals), I see it as Velvet, after (keep in mind) her near-death experience, and with the pressure of Celestia breathing down on her neck AND Glory getting closer...
...with victory AND defeat both potentially so close...
Velvet is deciding that she can't afford some of the risks she took before. That sometimes necessary evils are, well, necessary.
And so she'll do them, because she's the only one who can, but even in doing so she's trying to do the least evil for the most gain.
That gain IS personal (power, the friendship of a Name), BUT she's trying to use it for a good end (stop worms, hope of using the power from Glory to fix things as much as possible).
I'd add something else, which I might expand upon in reply to other posts:
If you have power and want to achieve a goal, at some point you'll likely have to decide just how far you're willing to go.
Velvet is in a position of power. Besides the Bureau, she has the
potential to become a GOD, at least as far as she knows.
Just what is the highest acceptable cost for the power to accomplish everything you want? Kings and Presidents have done worse for less, and I won't say more to avoid dipping into politics.
Eh, I prefer Personal Lantern.
The Sacrament direction just appears to be so much better then Baldomare's.
it's MAYBE better, but it's also more expensive and objectively morally worse. I'm kinda trying to go for a Velvet that's willing to do evil stuff when she judges she has no better alternative (example: Grail Sacrament with Mareinette with the worst victim she can get).
With Lantern, she HAS a morally acceptable choice, Baldomare just wants some people for an expedition.
As for the power itself... my best guess is Baldomare = no need to decypher books, skip that part + you know all languages (narratively), while Personal = enhanced interrogation method (drain knowledge with a touch. it MIGHT or might not kill the target every time, which makes the power more or less flexible).
It's a Colonel based Sacrament though.
I'm not convinced that necessarily makes it worse by itself, but we admittedly don't know
There's a reason I was anti personal Moth Sacrament and pro Master Sacrament.
Really though we could have just followed my old plan back in the day and gotten our Sacrament from the Master.
This action, this cruelty, it was unnecessary.
I was in favor of Moth Sacrament over Personal Sacrament too, when both were options. Not much of a point in talking about that though.
We didn't expect the Master to leave like that, and when he came back we decided the cost for it (allowing him to replace Flurry Heart) was too much.
As usual, we're trying to deal with many spinning plates. Some of those occupied us at the time to the point we couldn't take the Master's Sacrament in time. Hindsight makes it easy to say "we should have done x".
Hindsight also says that we should have NEVER studied the Lantern 6 book, and that we probably should have taken Neighnia over the book as well in the multiple-routes update from the nat-100 SH.
Not a guess, the Moth target specifically becomes "The Amazing Sir Not Appearing In This Quest", per QM ages ago when asked this question many many times. We don't have to worry about loose ends or whatever.
not my point though. I'm wondering how the "mothed" character will actually FEEL about the whole situation. The Sacrament is a bit unclear in how it actually works on them, after all.
I get the MECHANICS, I'm wondering about the narrative.
Personally I think we don't need to do Personal Winter. It's three murders for the sake of a marginal power gain (literally only +1 lore level for All In. We'd be twice as well off.... taking a Risen. If we spent those 3 AP on graverobbing and Risen-making we'd get quadruple the Winter levels for All-In and spend 90 bits fewer. Not much of a payoff for as many murders as we've previously committed combined, all under extreme pressure), and we unlock the Sun-In-Rags expedition that Windy has probably already looted bare lmao.
fair about Sun-in-Rags, fair about high (moral) cost.
I... also kinda still have some hope of finding Neighnia and get one from her, really. Though it's not MUCH hope.
Frankly I find the argument that Velvet is or can even be a good pony, as missing the point entirly. That ship sailed the moment Velvet chose to keep Selene for herself, instead of returning her to Celestia.
To put it simply VELVET IT NOT A GOOD PONY, that decision was made actual years ago both in and out of universe, get over it.
Disagree. There WERE good arguments to not bring her to Celestia.
We didn't know HOW she'd restore Selene into Luna.
We guessed she wouldn't listen when we told her "we need 12 months to teach her safely"
We also guessed she wouldn't believe us about the Worms.
all of those are fair points!
That's not Velvet being evil, at worst that's Velvet deciding "she knows better" (arguably she did) and that Selene's complete and safe recovery was worth more than Celestia's peace of mind.
And, I suppose, the life of those guards sent pointlessly to search in dangerous locations, but we didn't really get a choice in that anyway (as voters I mean).
I disagree.
Velvet is not a Good Pony in the sense that she is not a law-abiding, harmony-serving follower of the rule of Celestia. She is a criminal, she is a murderer, she has brought corruption into Equestria.
She is a good pony in the sense that she tries to do the best she can. She's getting increasingly warped through her Lore and Glory exposure, but she tries her damn best
I wouldn't say Velvet is good, but I also wouldn't say she's bad. Ultimately despite the My Little Pony background this is still an eldritch horror quest and Velvet is the protagonist. She's come a long way power wise, but compared to the forces arranged against her she's still weak. We got hammered by that fact with the Master. We see it now with Celestia's doom clock and the Mareinette's bindings. Realistically she was always going to slip some, she's a mother who loves her family and friends. Unless she wanted to just die and take the world with her there was no choice. The question becomes how many lines she has to cross and can she step back from them or allow them to warp her view. Does she only do what she's forced to, or does she give in multiple times because it's easier.
Despite what she's done and ultimately will do she still can look for the good in the world and other ponies. As long as that doesn't change she's still holding on.
I think another way to put it is this:
Velvet has power and knowledge. She knows that some things NEED to be done (worms), that if she fails there's a non-trivial risk of
apocalypse, and that nobody else can do what she does.
She also, at the same time, obviously cares the most about her family than anything else.
AND she knows she's very, VERY close to... potentially godhood, more powers than the PRINCESSES and NAMES have.
she definitely wants that for selfish reasons
too, but... Just imagine, if you were THIS close to get all the power necessary to fix the world the way you think it should be... how much would you be willing to pay for it?
If Mareinette being on our side makes us 5% more likely to achieve this goal (and I think nobody will deny that achieving this goal is a good thing, better than the alternative of not achieving it for most beings really)... is that worth a life?
isn't that the kind of choice everyone in power has to take all the time? When a ruler starts a war, no matter for what reason, they're deciding the cause is worth the lives lost. When someone decides not to negotiate with a criminal with hostages, they know they're potentially sacrificing the hostages for a better chance of no hostages being taken in the future.
Velvet, in this situation, in my opinion, is deciding that sacrificing one pony (and,
selfishly, this pony is not someone she directly cares for, but that doesn't necessarily invalidate the point) to make her chances to accomplish her (mostly positive) goals is an acceptable cost.
I think it's a reasonable position. It's not "good". But I don't think it's black either.
And I think depending on the chosen victim, it can be a bit closer to a lighter gray than a darker one.
I think the Winter Sacrament is worse than the Grail one. I think even contemplating them to be in the same ballpark is crazy. The fact that the Invitation to Dinner prevents an enemy full powered Name matters for the calculus, since that probably matters more than the rest of the benefits combined it's more like declaring 88 random painless murders to be not worse than one cannibalism.
I'm not sure I agree. I think it would kind of depends on... the how of the deaths, and the who is killed.
EiB deaths are kind of implied to be "peaceful" deaths. The fact we can't pick makes them worse in a way, though.
And... I'm kinda wondering... would the victim of the grail sacrament
suffer? If I remember right the person who let themselves be eaten in the Grail Apostle run actually loves that feeling, but then again
that one was a volunteer.
Would it even make it better if the experience was enjoyable for the victim instead of being painful? I want to say yes, but I find myself hesitating.
i am not the best voice for it, and I already said my piece about this vite... But for the Velvet as the whole? I can say what I see at least.
I see Velvet as trying to do what she believes is the right thing. It may be a bottomless well of asterisks attached to the belief of what is right, and what has to happen, but... That is what I see.
I see people disagree.
People see actions that Velvet could have taken that would be more moral or good and decry her as Evil because... Well, she could be better.
People see actions that Velvet took trying to avoid potentially worse outcomes and call her Good because, well, she is trying.
And this isn't a wishy-washy "No one is right guys!" This is the consequence of power handed to someone who wants to do good, as defined by themselves. Nothing will fit perfectly. It very nearly can't. With power comes responsibility, and decisions with more murky and difficult consequence. And every single one of us can imagine a road-not-taken where things are better.
Velvet doesn't believe she's a good pony. She believes she tries, and believes sometimes she doesn't try as hard. A good pony wouldn't have needed a cult. She did.
Like three steps down on a slippery slope, I see Velvet fighting. Trying to do what is right. And that it's hard. That it's easy. That it's useful even if she slips.
Shoot, in "The Sweetest Lie" that's the point. It's tempting, because it gives you what you want. But it is undeniably cruel.
That's the point.
If you have power and a goal, and the goal is importance enough (and in this case it is), at some point you'll have to decide how much you're willing to pay and do for it.
As the risks AND the rewards become higher... Velvet is having to redefine what her limits are.
I think I'm fine with that. The risk of an unbound Mareinette, compared to the benefits of an allied Mareinette AND the grail sacrament right before going for Glory... It's tempting, and I'm not sure there's an actual right choice here.
From [The Brazen Step], emphasis mine.
From Jade being best pony, emphasis mine.
I feel those are accurate summations.
I think it has to be acknowledged that, no matter how she goes about it, the Grail Sacrament is going to be an evil act.
The question then becomes, can someone commit an evil act, and still be a good person?
I think it's possible, and I think that making an effort to "mitigate" the evilness of the act helps in that (which is why I want to scry for the worst criminal we can, in an attempt at minimizing the evil we're committing).
Oh I wish that were true, but this is nothing new.
When has Velvet ever taken a risk for someone else? When has the quester ever taken a risk for someone that wasn't predicted to lead directly to minions?
Maybe Cadanse, even though that turned out the same.
Not Twilight, neither n.1 or 2.
Definitely Twilight, actually.
If we just wanted her as a minion, we should have broken her faith in Celestia. There's an argument that our TRYING to be moral there actually made things
worse (as it led to her being captured by the Changelings).
But that isn't what seems to be bothering you.
"letting Velvet EAT A PERSON"
She has done worse, We have done worse.
It's not that it is inherently bad that has made you speek up and look for someone to blame, but that the aesthetic no longer allows one to ignore just how far she has fallen.
I actually don't think she has?
She sent some guards to her death, though arguably that wasn't our (the voters) choice.
She killed or ordered some deaths, but the changelings we sacrificed would have died anyway, and Copper DID try to kill us first (even if, admittedly, we betrayed her first.)
she has used the Leash on Rarity (to save her life), and on Shining Armor (to save her own hide, basically).
She pushed/forced Shining to propose to Cadance... but even if the action itself is
wrong, it DID end up in something good for the most part.
I think the worst thing Velvet did was destroying the Tribal Door with the help of the Wolf, and in that most of us actually
underestimated the downsides of the option.
Yes, but Shaper also managed to alienate almost everyone in the old thread so your words have more "value" even if they are the same, because his come from a dubious source.
The main problem with Shaper is in my opinion that he explicitly goes "Velvet should love her wolf sons, because they're family/part of her", which is such a
crazy take that it makes nearly everything else, even his good arguments, sus by association.
the "Harmony seems evil" and "Wolf Sacrament seems like a good deal" talk also doesn't help.
3. Choosing to spare the changeling and not force Jade Whistle to kill even though it guaranteed success and failure would force her to do it.
to clarify for those who don't remember, she didn't KNOW it was a changeling. she just knew the Master wanted her to kill a fellow cultist for... I think no clear reason? I think the implication was that it was a traitor, but considering WE were planning a betrayal too...
your other points also count, yes. Velvet is TRYING to do good... in this specific case my read is that she thinks the risks of an unfriendly Mareinette compared to the benefits of a friendly Mareinette (and the Sacrament power)
right when she's so close to Glory, which would let her WIN and get everything she wants INCLUDING protection from the Apocalypse), justify the evil action she's going to commit.
Just take a look at the Tribal Door vote and you will see what I mean. Velvet hated it, the players just wanted to get it over with as fast as possible.
There was also some fear of the thread not being willing to kill those two ponies, effectively soft-locking us at that point in the Mansus.
...
damn, 1.8k words of replies 
