Fair enough!

Man. Tough crowd.

Jazz hands?

So recently I took a wiki walk and wound up listening to this for the first time in years:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CK2hx377iU

...aaaaand I've spent the last little while here bawling my eyes out. It's been 20 years, and this music just hits me right in the feels, every time. Damn you, Sephiroth.

This game came out right when I was first getting into Dungeons & Dragons, so this was a huge influence on me as a storyteller. I remember saving up my Christmas money specifically so I could buy a Playstation to play this game. I played through, really enjoying it, and then I got to this part.

I don't cry often. It's not often that the real world gets me down enough to cry, let alone a piece of media. But this does. Every. Time.

Maybe this will make you laugh? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_UJn93kcyI

I don't think them kids today understand at the time a game fucking with you like that was unprecedented.  I mean there were games that were hard and some with sad endings but not one where they straight up murder a character in what is otherwise a very clean and stylized game.

Spoilers!


J/klol

Don Corneo and the Honeybee Inn, anyone?

lol okay, for the most part, but even that was mostly innuendo I don't know little kids would get unless I don't remember well, and it wasn't murder.

It's been a while since I touched a game that old.

I don't even remember the end of that game, I bet it's on Youtube though

Don't know if I need this tag for a 20 year old game, but...

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Spoiler text: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
You go down into the crater, fight a fuckton of nasty monsters, get to the Lifestream, face Jenova in her final form, face a giant Sephiroth monster, then face Sephiroth in the form of a seven winged angel thing with a halo and an attack that splits planets to the most awesome 8-bit music ever, then, after you beat that, Cloud and Tifa start climbing out when Cloud feels Sephiroth's spirit still around, and there's a final "battle" where you basically Omnislash his ass to final death (until Advent Children, anyway). Then Cloud and Tifa escape on the Highwind, Holy erupts to face Meteor, it doesn't seem to be working, and then the Lifestream flows into the sky and the day is saved...then there's a 500 year jump and we see Red XIII and his cubs howling on an outcropping over the grass-covered ruins of Midgar. The End

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In reply to Belle Ivers (msg # 407):

No, no, my 10-year-old brother and 13-year-old self noticed the rapist with the trans fetish. [twitch] Threats to sex traffic the heroes are, uh, considerably more scarring than murder to those of us who were playing Road Rash and GTA I to start off with.

Though maybe marginally less traumatic than not being fast enough to save a comrade in Starfox (a family friend had an old Nintendo). Slippy, no...!

Really was it that bad?  I just remember it being a pervy NPC and wrote it off to something Japanese that just didn't culturally translate.

The dude had an S&M Dungeon that was an actual dungeon. Any girl he didn't choose for a night he sent to be gang-raped by his men. Later on in the Wutai mission, he kidnapped a 16-year-old girl with plans to "have" her. He was beyond merely "pervy."

Really?  I believe you, I am just saying that's a lot darker than I remember it.  I just remember you had to explore the village around there and find a way to put Cloud in a dress and wig Bugs Bunny style and you have to do some kind of dancing mini game to get his attention.

And for some reason there's a part where you sit in a chair and brood because Cloud.

It's implied he means to be intimate with the winner of the contest in the scene that comes after, but I seem to recall you just beat him stupid and the whole thing is played for laughs where a womanizing gangster gets his comeuppance.

But I don't think I've played that game in 18 years and I couldn't even remember the ending.

You know, everyone gives Slippy shit as being annoying, but I think that's more cultural osmosis than anything. Falco's constant "Hey Einstein I'm on your side!" was more annoying. Maybe I should've stopped shooting him.

Also I avoided the most efficient route through the Lylat system because underwater levels give me the heebies (bad memories of Jolly Roger bay)

^ This. Plus it wasn't clear what would happen if he caught up in the 'chase lady!Cloud around the room' scene, which inspired some real terror in kids who didn't expect the drag queen/wrestler squats contest and no longer had any idea what we'd got into, except we probably shouldn't be seeing it.

Yeah, Falco would probably have been less annoying if you could banter back at him, really.

We're back!

Moses/Von Steinhoff hasn't logged in since Saturday...I hope everything's alright.

*sigh*

This statement tells me that it's not just Zeke that doesn't understand the situation...you, as a person, don't actually understand.

You seem to believe in the "Great Man" theory of history -- the theory that "great men" have singular effects on the world, shape history to their whims, and control the destiny of the world.

This is not the case.

The so-called "Great men" are the products of their societies, and their actions would be impossible without the social conditions built before their lifetimes. Custer is not the problem. He's a symptom of the problem.

The events surrounding the real life Black Hills War were many and complicated -- Manifest Destiny was pushing the American expansion across the continent, and then suddenly a valuable resource was discovered in what had been previously considered a worthless expanse of land. The death of the real life Custer didn't stop the conquest of the Sioux -- in fact, it did the exact opposite. It was a massive shock to America, which was feeling the pinch from an economic recession but feeling good about its centennial celebration. America did what it always does when pricked -- it overreacted and used its military might to quash its perceived enemy.

Jackie Wells isn't "hell bent on keeping Custer alive for history's sake." She's trying to warn you about the consequences your reckless act might bring about. Because Custer isn't the problem. He's just the face of the problem. A symptom.

Consider this: Custer has been training this army for four years by this point. He had to get the money for that from somewhere. Not only did he have to keep and grow his men, but he needed to purchase weapons and supplies. It is not cheap to field an army of 3000 men for four years. So there's something more to this than just a cult of personality around Custer.

Consider this: The army here want to do two things: kill the Sioux and steal the riches of the Black Hills for themselves. Remove Custer from this equation. Do you honestly think all those mercenaries are just going to go away? Even if there wasn't a chain of command that could fill the void left by Custer (which there is), those soldiers will need to do something.

Consider this: The media lionized Custer in the real world, and used his Last Stand as a rallying cry to pressure the US Army into crushing the "savages." It's only in modern times that a more nuanced picture of Custer's final battle has emerged.

Jackie Wells doesn't care about Custer. She's just aware that "just killing him" is at best only a temporary solution, and at worst will kick off the very bloodbath you're trying to head off. It won't fix anything about the situation, it'll actually just make things more complicated.

I do not belive in the great man view of history. I do think people are responsible for their own actions though. I do not think that one sociopath leading an army of men makes all those men sociopaths.

Custer is a Classic authoritarian.  His men are followers, and I really doubt even single one of them enjoyed butchering women and children.  They did it because they did not see another way out, other than getting shot for desertion.

While you are telling me that somehow having Custer around is better,  I would say that a man who leads through fear, which he does, will have his followers fight each other once he's gone.  He has to have second in commands, and they will want the power for themselves-or will just leave out of disgust at what they had been forced to do.

The idea that history has to work out the way it's recorded now because any other option is worse is not realistic. There are too many variables for that.

Zek just thinks that Custer will not be punished, ever.  By anyone. No judgement from on high by a god who turns a blind eye every second of every day.

It's the same for Hitler too. The world might be very different if he never took over,  but it does not mean it will be worse.

Ps-i just got lucky post 13,000...
This message was last edited by the player at 06:12, Thu 23 Mar 2017.

See I see it completely differently.  First it's not truly parallel to the real history because in real history, the Lakota never had a chance.  They got lucky early on in the conflict because Custer didn't follow a lot of the standard procedures of his day and many historians have questioned why he ordered some of the maneuvers he did because they weren't the strategic orthodoxy of the time.  He divided his forces when he shouldn't have, he didn't listen to his scouts, and he severely overestimated his ability to defeat Lakota armed with repeating rifles when his own troops had inferior weapons.  Some historians estimate the Lakota fired 13 rounds to every 1 the US troops fired.

However once the US Army took them seriously, it was over before it really began.

In the world of Deadlands, this situation never happened and plausibly so because the Reckoners are instead manipulating the situation to draw it out into a more extended war scenario (and one in which the Lakota win).  So I don't think comparing it to the real events really tells us much.

IC however, Custer has control of a huge gang of mercenaries masquerading as the US Army.  As unpalatable as he is, Custer is at least paying lip service to the idea he's still working under US orders.  The way I look at it, he's the only stabilizing force that faction has because he serves as a figurehead those "soldiers" have confidence in, even if the control isn't perfect (the soldiers are already grabbing entire buildings and anything that isn't nailed down).  I can't imagine that army has been paid like they've been promised and I also imagine they feel entitled to the wealth the vast deposits of Lakota ghost rock would bring.

You get rid of Custer, they're just going to go nuts and loot/pillage/rape/plunder everything in Deadwood and immediately start warring with the Lakota to get that ghost rock.  Custer at least is playing the long game, craving legitimacy for his actions so that the fact he's committed treason against the US will be swept under the rug.

I may be wrong, but IC that's kind of how Belle sees it, Custer is the best of a menu of bad options.  It's like ordering food at McDonald's, there is no good choice here.

If it has anything to do with real history or not is a coincidence at this point.

In our world, possibly, though that ignores the agency of post-conscription troops (they could leave! Not desert, just get demobbed in '66, bam, out of the army) and the social surroundings that led to a morality where killing certain groups of people was all right because they "weren't really people, or God wouldn't let us". Things get particularly sticky when you realise that a lot of those guys in our world were black northward migrants who were "proving" to their white officers that they were civilised people by being the ones shooting rather than the ones shot. Our history is, however, irrelevant.

In this history, we know these guys are all the specific kind of sociopath known as mercenaries. They kill groups of people for money. It's their favoured career.

The guys here? They chose this "kill the indians" assignment. They are absoloutely here to kill natives. Custer isn't herding scared sheep or leading them by force of personality: he's warlording. "You come fight for me, you get their gold and women". Knock him off, the mercenaries might faction, but all that means is you'd get 2-3 bandit chiefs wreaking havok rather than one, and then the Union Army sweeps in because of Martyr Custer.

Jackie never claimed Custer had to stay alive for her timeline's sake - she's trying desperately to change that. She wants Custer alive so that the abovementioned 5000 hungry, rapacious armed men stay in a manageable block rather than spreading a wave of destruction over the countryside, splitting and fatally weakening the Nations' policing forces. She wants the Lakota not to die.

Surely if Zek wanted Custer punished, he shouldn't give him the easy out of being dead...that's, like, what all extremists want. Death or glory - proves them "right" that it's their way or nothing/the only way they're stoppable is if they're dead. Being captured and forced to see the consequences of their actions, or even more punishing, being gently led to repentance and seeing the horror they have wrought for what it is, now, that is punishment.

If you shot Hitler after his rise to power, one of his buddies would have stepped up. We don't know if he'd have been better or worse, but you'd still have the problem of a Nazi-tolerant and/or -supporting population in need of a way out of the poverty and degredation enforced by the Treaty of Versailles, and unless you solved that properly, no amount of individual murder would stabilise the region.

Fan theory: In this universe most of the original soldiers who were legitimately from the U.S. army under Custer's command have gone AWOL and he has instilled a cult of personality in what is essentially an outlaw gang in blue coats by promising them Lakota ghost rock and ex post facto legitimacy for everything they have done and will do.

Custer is not a sociopath, though. That's what you seem to be missing. Custer isn't forcing any of these people to be here.

Belle's theory actually has a lot of weight here:



But add to that the massive, massive number of troops who aren't regular army. They joined up with him after the fact. He's not twisting their arms to be here. They aren't here because they fear being shot for desertion. They are here because they are mercenaries after gold and blood. The people who flocked to Custer's banner are exactly the sort of people who wouldn't be bothered killing women and children. Or, even if they are bothered by it, are deluding themselves into thinking they are doing something for the greater good.

But Custer actually hasn't tried to kill women and children as a specific war tactic on this campaign. The Battle of Ten Thousand Arrows and the numerous skirmishes his forces had with the Ravenites over the years up until this point have all been standard military engagements. Will he order a massacre on the scale of Washita River or Sand Creek? Almost certainly. But that's a bridge that Custer hasn't crossed with this band here.



So you have 2-3 bands of armed bandits with military training and military weapons running around the Black Hills instead of one large one under a leader who at least is pretending they're all still soldiers and thus enforcing military discipline. How, exactly, is that better? Again, Belle and Tan Xiaohan are right -- currently, Custer is the best of a bad menu of options.

In reply to The Stray (msg # 422):

If you can rape a different woman every night-as the real Custer did-and execute children as part of your war-then you are a sociopath. Because you can lie to your men with a straight face and tell them they are patriots because of the 'hard choices' they have to make, does not mean you are forcing men to be there-but sociopaths are very persuasive.

Now, if you say this guy managed to find every single demented lunatic in the west to make up his army sounds...again, unlikely. Sociopaths are not that common. You seem to be claiming Custer had gotten an entire army of them.

And given the amount of civilians lost in every war-all soldiers have to delude themselves they are doing something for the greater good. How else could a government convince people to go out and murder total strangers? The nature of war itself is one huge lie, that requires good people to put aside what they know to be right out of fear.

2-3 bands of former soldiers running around do not last very long. Most of them are deserters at that point-as they do not report back to the chain of command. They ether change their names and head out into the west, or head south so they won't be caught. They ones that remain-who become bandits-do a lot less damage than an entire army ever could.

Not to mention, the Nation has a much better chance of beating unorganized groups of foes than one massive disciplined force.