Forging Ahead (GURPS Interstellar Wars/Celestial Forge)

Oh no! A logical series of events leading to a conclusion makes it predicatable?! -.- how terrible.

Those gosh darn governments that are more beneficial than terrible. How dare they not be better. Perfection or Pure satanism is not a great stance to take.

Yeah, those tend to be self involved or outright selfish assholes who think rules are for other people.

 

When you say you agree with the decision made, and then you express that you want her and the entire human race to suffer for it, that suggests that you don't actually agree with the decision made.

As baby's first trolling attempt, I'll give it a 1.5/5 stars - minimal effort, poor execution and a distinct lack of humor, yet it still rustled my jimmies enough to have me respond.

 

Nope, what it suggests is that I enjoy reading tragedy, because it makes for great character moments.

Had she taken the short-sighted option of total genocide, that too could have presented great opportunities for her to suffer agonizing consequences as another alien race decided to eradicate the Terrans in kind.

 

As someone who was into the "rationalist fiction" scene for a while, cliff's writing does indeed bear some of the characteristics of rationalist fiction. Just none of the insular circlejerky ones that are their own equivalent to the similarly-derided Spacebattles Competence.

(With the possible exception of Unconquerable, where he broke the power scaling he had carefully maintained in-universe in a way that in retrospect I think might have broken the story. And even then, while the error had rationalist fiction characteristics, I'm not sure it was particularly tied to that mode in nature.)

 

I don't remember his protagonist murdering and or humiliating publicly anyone who dare to oppose his genius. So the main part of that particular trope was wrong. And a good part of his enemies were not only not stupid and useless, but brilliant, specially

Spoiler: Spoilers for those who haven't read it ( GO AND READ IT)

certain dragon that almost got away with everything he planed ...

 

At best, and only if I'm being generous, it suggests that you're a huge fan of grimderp suffering for suffering's sake and you don't understand what tragedy-as-catharsis actually is. TL,DR: you're supposed to come away from a tragic story uplifted and with a greater understanding of the world (character made the wrong choice and this was the result of that choice), and the only understanding that you can derive from "I destroyed this tech because I didn't want to genocide an interstellar empire, and my entire race suffered for it" is that genocide is and was the correct choice.That's not tragic, that's grimderp on the scale of Warhammer 40k.

Which is fine, you aren't going to find what you clearly really want to read in this story. Thank goodness Wildbow's stuff is both free and more your speed.

 

Well, apparently I got out of Rationalist Fiction before it went full Xiania, then. My primary association with the trope you describe is popcultural osmosis about Xianxia while here on QQ, not ratfic.

And the moment I was thinking of was in the superhero universe arc, and resembled the ratfic failure mode of overgeneralization to give the protagonist more power but specifically wasn't.

 

From what I recall, most/some of that was the MC deliberately not using their new power to its fullest extent, having recently been given the particulars on how it worked, because they didn't want to become a detached god being of eldritch inability to empathize or understand normal people. because that would be the logical endpoint of "I have infinite willpower and will somehow always find a way to accomplish any goal I put my mind to. It might be difficult or unlikely but as long as I set out to do something, keep trying, I will ALWAYS succeed." That sort of thing fucks with your mind after a while. The premise was always all encompassing, even if the MC didn't know it so the power wasn't buffed, overgeneralized, expanded, etc, its just that the MC knew what it was and decided to apply it differently but also in less overblown ways.

 

Honestly the comparison with Xianxia is kinda logical, even if the typical Xianxia protagonist would be even more murder happy than the typical Rationalist Fiction main character. At least the latter needs some reason (real or imaginary) to "show them all!!11!"...

But both are a bit of "revenge fantasies" so...

 

Really enjoying this story it’s very different from other Celestial Forge stories and I am really looking forward to the next part.

 

You seem to have taken this as legitimate hostility to his story, which it isn't. As I said, I enjoy his story and I don't want others to not read it. I just want those who are critical of it to actually criticize parts of it that matter.

Rational fiction tends to have three outcomes, and yes, Cliff is clearly doing rational fiction, even if he vehemently denies it.

1. The antagonist is outmatched by the protagonist.

2. The protagonist outplays the antagonist.

3. The protagonist is 'subversively' defeated.

Naturally, this applies to a lot of fiction in general, but the tendency of rational fiction to have overly-competent antagonists and a focus on the personal while having a cursory macro-look leads to a major cut in mass social dynamics. Cliff's stories don't at all focus on how the consequences of the plot affects people beyond the most superficial ways.

Stories do tend to focus on the personal, but they usually stay in the personal view when they do that.

Cliff clear doesn't, but he treats masses of people as some vague blob of the same worldview as him, with small groups of dissidents as opposition. This isn't factual at all, considering the diversity of views that humanity has.

Because the ideal 'lawful good' society, quite frankly, doesn't exist. I won't get too into it to avoid trouble, but his view of competence and utility in positions of power, is frankly wrong.

He's outgrown the idea that 'the man' is always out get you, while not outgrowing the idea that competence is rewarded rather than used and isolated. Or that competence is really more a result of the people below a person doing the work, while the person on top gets to claim it all because they're the one paying them.

It's not that bad, because it's an unfortunately common aspect of rational fiction. Also, nobody, quite frankly is lawful good, because that's a D&D concept and not reality. There is trust in governmental structures while desiring to maximize utility, but that's as close as you can get, and more people claim that than actually following through with it. People also fundamentally act different in power, because of its incentives, it makes you want to retain and strengthen it as much as you can, because you were selected for it and kept in it.

Note, that this does not mean competence. Arguably, the people at the top tend to be the least competent, while those below them have to fix their mistakes and soothe their egos.

Rational fiction doesn't need to claim to be rationalist in order to earn the designation. People who actually claim to be writing rational fiction tend to write not very rational fiction at all. But even within the 10% of cream to the 90% of Sturgeon's Law.

Also, Cliff may or may not have been in the explicit rationalist movement, but he clearly has gotten to the same conclusions as they did. Which really isn't that hard, because where he comes from in society and the places he roams on the internet does encourage those views.

Because, quite frankly, I don't think a teenager who just recently graduated and is now pressured to save the universe is going to have the best decision-making, even if she is hyper-intelligent. I do think that Cliff did a good job in making sure to write that her support structure kept her at least semi-sane. I think Cliff wrote an actually good example of how she isn't making good decision-making, because she burned the nanobots. It was something that had pressure for her to do something horrifying and with everything beating down on her, she threw it away because she knew that she couldn't trust herself.

Arguably, while others complain about that, it's arguably the most admirable point of writing in this fic, but I legitimately don't know if that's intentional.

I read it for the world-building and world-expansion too, as well as the explanation of perks and powers. It's why I enjoy reading his builds, even if I'm more of a narrative-focused jumper myself.

I don't claim to know everything about him either, so maybe there are exceptions to my conceptualization of him. I do think that his antagonists are arguably his weakest link.

Yes, but the fact that there is a dedicated genius patrol is a bit much. I think it'd be more likely that there'd be a small sub-department of talent scouts, rather than what seems to be high-level people. Though this is GURPS, and obviously within true RPG fashion, a genius patrol does seem like a clear way to bring the party together.

Cliff writes intelligent characters decently enough, which is why I have better standards for him than I do most writers. Is that fair? Probably not, but when we have better standards for a person, when they don't live up to them, we're disappointed when normally we'd accept it.

Yes, I am a hypocrite. But I'm trying to say this as a matter of legitimate care for his stories. I've read them enough to know that readers tend to badger him going down a corner and he runs up against a dead-end, thus ending several stories before they can truly reach completion.

He is a better writer than me, but he still has his own blindspots by necessity. He's human, not perfect as you say.

The flaws make it a Cliff story to be honest, because they complement its strengths. There are greater flaws than simply writing dates wrong, but that just means he has greater strengths to make up for them and use them. That's the admirable thing about his writing.

 

That sure sounds incredibly... proscriptivist? Declaring that all tragic stories ought to be cathartic and uplifting is... amusing?

If the only understanding that you can derive from "I destroyed this tech because I didn't want to genocide an interstellar empire, and my entire race suffered for it" is that 'genocide is and was the correct choice', then it sounds like you could stand to read more tragedies. Oftentimes the lesson is that no correct decision exists. Sometimes it's that even when you make the optimal decision, the universe still flattens you because you didn't have enough power to affect the outcome.

And, as you might not realize or appreciate, that can be uplifting and cathartic in its own way. Sometimes the most helpful story a person can be told is "nah, the universe can occasionally suck and sometimes there's absolutely nothing you could have done about it".

 

No yeah, I came into the story late, so I knew all of that "unlimited power" stuff before I even started reading. I didn't realize the "fucks with your head" part until it was pointed out in-story, but that was clear once it was pointed out and was also always true.

HOWEVER.

Spoiler: Actual, although minor, spoilers for The Unconquerable

I'm thinking of the point in the superhero arc where Wildman decided he needed to suddenly develop the ability to fly like a superhero, so he suddenly developed to ability to fly like a superhero. In a rationalist fic (derogatory), a moment like this would be because the author over-generalized something. In The Unconquerable, the ability to do this was explicitly a feature of the power he started the story with, and I explicitly knew it was part of the power when I started the story (again, because I came in late).

However, it still broke with the slow-and-cautious power scaling that the story had kept with --that Wildman in particular had intentionally kept with-- up to that point. It still felt like an unjustified power-up from out of left field, because it was so different from all the uses that had come before.

I think that this break from the prior pattern may have thrown cliff off his game, and that he wasn't prepared for the what came after and wasn't able to come up with a plan. But while this moment resembled a certain common failure mode of ratfic, it wasn't, and was if anything the exact opposite.

 

That's... that's literally grimderp, not tragedy.

 

Yeah, at worst you usually just end up with shades of grey in most Sci-Fi.
Cliff you also usually manage to make things believable, which means even the 'bad guys' have reasons beyond 'EVIL' for doing stuff.

 

Err... what? What do you think grimdark stories are, comedies?

"Tragedy - a serious drama typically describing a conflict between the protagonist and a superior force (such as destiny) and having a sorrowful or disastrous conclusion that elicits pity or terror" (Merriam-Webster)

How silly are you, trying to redefine the entire literary category of tragedy to exclude a specific subset of tragedies you don't like because they are too tragic?

 

Time to ride out again. Now, where did I leave my fez? Ah. Shame it's awkward wearing a fez and headphones at the same time, but I'm sat down at a chromebook so I shall make it work. Also, again, I apologise for the rant.

Firstly, the more tired I am, the more waspish I am. The less time I've had since my morning caffeine has kicked in means the more. And coping strategies of music, or sadly realising I can't wear a fez and headphones at the same time, at that early stage don't work.

But, I like this story. And I've seen things with other stories. Therefore, I'm going to defend it and make sure those other things that have happened don't happen again. No, I'm not mentioning those things by name in case it happens again. Because parts of the internet are why we cannot have nice things.

From what I've gathered from this thread since I decided Rational Fic was a rotting rancid dead cow that it has now gone Xianxia-like and makes me want to read it even less? Does not make me forget why I left that dead cow to the biohazard teams to clean up.

Things I remember from the rational fic that started the whole thing that I'm also not mentioning the name of for reasons. Also, no, if you want to discuss that Rational Fic if you want to defend it, then PM me. Let's not go wildly off topic, I'm just having to do this because this fic is being claimed to be a rational fic. But things this fic does not have:

1. Technobabbling and using science terms as buzz words in ways that are wrong.

2. Having someone trying to be a scientist when they are clearly not.

3. Eleven year olds not being remotely eleven year old like.

4. Writing fanfiction about a book you never actually read because you just want to cash in on that fandom.

5. Making references to other fandoms in mean swipes.

6. Making up things about Transfiguration.

7. Having a protag ignore the whole civilisation that has been studying magic to do their own independent research in a way that is not proper science.

And I could keep going, but for all our sakes I'm going to stop there. But, that the rotting dead rancid cow that started Rational Fics, was an unstable radioactive foundation over a major fault line and I'm happy to have noped out of it. Also if you want to defend it, PM me.

Like how I'm happy to skip fanfics that happily proclaim they bash people as a badge of honour, which is the same level of badness as Rational Fics even if it's different.

So you're claiming that something that applies to a lot of fiction in general applies to this fanfic? [Sarcasm]Say it isn't so![/Sarcasm]

Now, would you prefer incompetent antagonists that an MC bumbles about and then miracuously defeats due to a Deus Ex Machina? Or an incompetent antagonist that is defeated by a compentent Protag? While I wouldn't say the antagonists in cliff's fics are overly-competent. They're just competent, it's more that other fiction will have an antagonist claimed to be competent then do something stupid to let the hero win.

While, which stories have you read by Cliff? Because in his other Celestial Forge story there was implications in the post apocalyptic USA of things happening in the macro, while focusing on the personal because it was the post apocalypse and there wasn't available that much macro. While with his Unconquerable story there were things that happened due to his protags affecting things by being there and causing consquences.

It was just Shadowrun. If you cause too many waves on the macro scale the corps are going to act. So, there was a need for subtlety, while having a power that required control to mkae that subtlety.

The Shadowrun fic wasn't small groups of dissidents, it was nearly all the effing corporate leaders of the corps wanting more money. While in the Rifts fic, you have the nazi-like group which is the biggest major power as opposition, even if there were other groups.

The problem isn't that it's a vague blob of humanity. It's more it's a shame those stories died before we could see the part where those things happen on the macro.

While, there have been earlier Jump Chains that Cliff was cutting his teeth on, and there's one where things I am not going to mention happen to end that story. No, not talking about it unless it summons things.

And I can't argue this without violating the rules, because using a fictional example is just a fictional example. If you can't use a fictional example, then can you please not bring up stuff we cannot talk about?

Can someone who knows more about rational fic answer this? I don't know enough, but from what others have said in thread that is not what fics that call themselves rational fics have evolved into.

Lawful Good, is a shorthand for not writing at least a whole paragraph about a society or civilisation or such.

Like how Particle Physics goes from GCSE Models, to A-Level Models, to Uni Models, it's about teaching something close enough to what people need to know.

Using the type alignment chart is a quick shorthand that spares me typing more words in these rants. Can you understand that I want to not type too many words? Even if I can't resist then typing a 1000+ Words in an argument.

Can't use a fictional example for this of the top of my head, so could you please stop bringing up things we can't talk about?

So Rational Fic is not Rational Fic and Fics that are not Rational Fics are actually Rational Fics? If an elephant is not an elephant then why do people call it an elephant? Are you going to call the First Rational Fic not a Rational Fic then? At which point the whole thing breaks down into even more rotting and putrid beef from a dead cow.

Also, please see my comment about the rotting rancid dead cow about what I know about Rational Fics, and can someone else with more experience with Rationalist Fic going Xianxia like please give me a little help? And, just to note, as most Xianxia makes me go elsewhere on the internet, that notion does not make me want to read rational fics?

Ah.

That comment should have been better written as:

Be aware that ranting is hard and I have typed too many words with my poor typing fingers. I am only human. Regardless of how I want that disc drive upgrade and firmware update.

Apologies. Also, will need to double check this post before posting. Stupid mortal frailties of being human!

You haven't read his Rifts fic then. I understand competely why that fic is dead, but that still doesn't mean the heart doesn't miss what the brain knows is gone. If you want a competent evil empire that you want punched into a duck by a passing sidereal if the universe was to be kind, that's the fic for it.

I feel the need to quote the first chapter:

The Genius Patrol is Earth trying to survive, take every advantage they could have and use it to punch the Vilani in the nose.

It's you're compalaining about near effective omnipresent tropes when regarding genius, like you're complaining the word apple has an A in it. And this is Forge Granted Genius, the perks as written imply those tropes at the very least.

So you're suggesting he doesn't listen to his reader base when he wants to, and to just completely ignore his readers? Also, the thing I'm not talking about is one of those stories that ended due to reasons I'm not going to go into to not invoke them.

And, Cliff? If you're reading this rant? May I again just apologise for being annoying in general?

And as someone who isn't seeing the flaws you're pointing out, I feel the need to argue against it. Because I like the story too much not to do so.

Also, again, apolgies for typing worse than better when making an argument earlier. Also, apologies for this rant here.

 

Can you take your cynicisn/nihilistic pedantry and lock it up or fuck off please.

 

I will say that many of the people on this site seem to confuse deeper tragedy with grimderp, which is... stupid, to say the least. But this site is full of people without reading comprehension.

I'm not going to reply to all that, because then we'll get into a rant slapfight that will keep going until the mods either come in or the author gets too annoyed and ends the fic prematurely. Both of those options are something neither of us want.

I need to restate, that I just have higher standards for him than most fanfiction, this isn't some vendetta against him. If I enjoy something, I'm by nature going to criticize it in order to find the core of goodness that is at the heart of it.

Arguably this was my attempt at defending his story as well, I was trying to point out that he was a good albeit human writer, and showing that there are better and deeper critiques than the shallow 'rational' ones that appear. If you want some of my suggestions on his work, read some of his SB stuff in regards to Ghost of a Chance, The Laumer Gambit, and Anything At All (you might want to read the informationals because they have some really interesting takes on the various Worm CYOA V1 powers).

Also, I have read Unconquerable (well before it changed its name) and The Light of the Forge, both of which I really enjoyed. I still stand by what I say and that his antagonists are still his weak links. They have their interesting moments of playing chess with the protagonist, but there are times when you can see that their character hollowed out in favor of filling it with the essence of a hyper-competent chessmaster with only slight brainworms that don't affect their decision-making much at all except at dramatic moments.

That's not really cynical or nihilistic? It's more 'D&D alignments are extremely reductive and give a false idea of how the people they are supposed to represent actually think and act'.

Also, could you be a little less hostile? You seem to be getting heated.

 

That one might be my fault? I was aiming to insinuate that the other person had gotten their genres confused, but their reply implies that I accidentally hit the nail on the head. (And/or that nobody who calls their own story a rationalist fic understands what a rationalist fic is anymore, but I'm not completely convinced that anyone ever did so that might not be new.)

Point of order, five of your seven items are specific to one particular story. I mean, hate that story (goodness knows it doesn't live up to itself, much less to its proponents' opinion of it), hate the genre; but using those items to talk about hating the genre is like saying you hate Shadowrun fics on the basis of one particularly bad one.

 

Not really. There's a reason that there are three types of Good alignments, and there are definitely parts of the world where less rules would be for the better, because of what they are declaring illegal.

That was a description of Methods of Rationality, the first of the 'Rational' fics ever written.

 

And it started off hilariously. I enjoyed it as complete crack. For a small handful of chapters, that is. One of these days I may force myself to finish reading it, but I don't hate myself that much yet.

But anyhow, I do like how believably rational but not rationalist most of cliff's characters generally are, mixed with believably irrational characters as appropriate. I do agree that his listening to idiots arguing on the internet has had unfortunate effects on some of his stories, however, may they rest in peace.

 

Wizard of Woah! on Spacebattles has a full read through with commentary that I used to get the full story, that is much better for sanity than trying to read the whole story. It shows just how different the method of writing uses really doesn't match up with what's written here.

 

... you just defined 99% of the fiction which has the protagonist winning against someone or something... I suppose everything is rational fiction, then.

 

Cliff, I don't know why your threads always accumulate these sorts of arguments. I wish they didn't.

 

Not even bothering to read really at this point just waiting for next chapter skimming for anything actually useful.

 

And I wasn't even participating this time!

 

lul.

In all seriousness though, let’s try and keep these arguments out of the thread. Or if we can’t do that, at least try to keep it civilized. No one wants to burn Cliff out of writing over couldas, wouldas, and shouldas.

 

It’s pretty clear at this point that once again, someone has come to a Cliff story and decided that the world simply can’t have nice things. The clue is their continued attempt to anger by deliberately not understanding what they are reading but endlessly arguing their point any with no more proof given than “I said so” to back them up, though their attempt to link the story with an utterly toxic genre that it very much is not a part of certainly doesn’t help.

Somebody remind me how to block out all messages from known trolls again? Because doing that’s pretty much the only advice I have for this sort of thing.

 

Click on their name and then click the nice little ignore button. It's super easy.