Power That Wants To Be Used

Random thoughts on this subject...

It's an oft under-emphasized point of the world of exalted.

Canonically, the Solars fell in the first age, to a corruption of their virtues, becomeing monsters because of the great curse. But the actions of those few who became corrupt are not necessarily the only reason the Sidereals decided to kill the Solars.

Imagine you had the power of a god. Enough power to crush an army, raise a castle in a night, rip an island from the floor of the sea, or tear a mountain up by it's roots and put it in the sky. What would you do with it?

We all have our own answers...but then there are the exalts. They have, variously, some part of that kind of power, and the potential to go right up to the top of it, in some - Solar - cases. What would be the functional difference between an essence 9 incarna and an essence 9 Solar, anyway? Not much, if the solar is an eclipse, that's for quite certain.

But here is the thing. The Exalted don't have their own answers. They have the answer of their Exaltation and caste. Solars create greeat works and destroy powerfull enemies, lead and build and excell. Dragonblood build armies and patroll them, raiseing relms and dynasties and governing them. Sidereals police fate and deal with the intracacies of heaven. Lunars become one with the tribes of beasts and hunt the enemies of life and tend to the life of Gaia.

It's most obvious in the Abyssals, who's resonance is outwardly blatent, but it's there in all the others, too. The Power of an Exaltation wants to be used. It won't accept just setting around idle.

Fine, that's great. It certainly makes a good 'first cause' of the various exalt's position as major players in the story of creation, except -

Imagine you have the power to defeat any great foe, build any wonder - in a world where there are no or hardly any great foes. Where the enemies of creation have been *beaten into the ground*. Where wonders abound by the thousand, allready pre-forged by your hand and the hands of your brothers and sisters -

Suddenly, having power that wants to be used is no longer a good thing. If there are no great foes left, you start looking for great opponents amoungst your friends. Just to stay sharp. To keep the bordom at bay and keep your edge. If there is no need for a great work - you start building an even greater one, just because. And a greater one still, and still, untill your works of art become insane and deadly masterworks of craft no mortal can comprehend, much less use safely.

And if you excell - and are allready a master, and must then excell *more* - what then? If you've built your skill and power up untill it could break the world and are *still* not at your limits - and you have that sort of power, but you don't have anything moral or lawfull to do with it - but must do *something*, what then?

How long untill you stop looking only for 'justified' things to do, and begin doing things simply because you can, and no one but your own, very small group, can stop you?

How long untill you become the god-monsters written of in the core books not because you are cursed - but because, in the end, there is simply nothing else for you to do - and your own nature won't let you do nothing with this power you were given? How long untill the Solars begin to create their own monsters, insanely strong, just so that they can have something to fight? How long untill a minuite flaw in a network of perfection causes massive disaster - as part of some solar sorcerers bored experimentation? It might take a long time. Say..a couple of thousand years, perhaps. The Solars of the First Age lived much longer than that.

So perhaps the real answer is 'Not long at all'. Not when you measure your life in thousands of years.

An exalt is a great thing to have around when creation needs it's most powerfull champions... But not when peace (susposedly) reigns.

In a world where this was the true reason for the Ursurpation, the one flaw in the sidereal plan would be that this vision didn't concider their own vulnerability to this trend. They are agents of the defense of fate, warriors who guard and ensure destiny - When there was no longer a threat to destiny, they too, started to become bored. So they created one.

And called them 'Anathema'.

And those Sidereal who did this built themselves into an overwhelming force, and used it to hunt their new enemies, forgetting to watch for real threats, instead of their carefully constructed monster.

They sealed away three hundred Solar Sparks, forgetting, as they did, why those sparks had been sealed in the first place. There isn't anything quite as dangerous as power that wants to be used.

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Comments on my incoherant rambling?

Comments

I definitely like it a lot, although I think it only works for a specific tone -- the darker, "we are doomed by our natures"/"the time of heroes is ended" game, instead of the more heroic "the Exalted may save themselves and save the world anew" game. That said, I like a whole lot and may use it if I ever GM an appropriately-toned game. -- AntiVehicleRocket

Thank you! I myself don't generally lean that way, so I understand perfectly. This just came to me in a fit of inspiration one day and I had to scribble it down. I do think there is a certain note of truth in it, though - although it may not be an inevitable path, or even a common one, it would be an easy path for Solars - or anyone on the high end of a power curve - to fall prey to. In my own games exalted, I think the actuall truth was something of the real corruption, something of this trend - of Exalts who just grew so dangerously powerfull that an innocent mistake could kill hundreds if they were interrupted at the wrong time - and something of 'none of the above', with some Solars not ever failing in their duties - and being betrayed and killed with the rest. It makes the Ursurpation even more of a 'nobody's right' issue than it allready is, and I like that. Gamlain

You definitely have some serious applause from me, I'm always looking at different ways to look at the Sidereal action - or rather new and exciting ways to reinforce how wronged Creation has been from it. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't change a thing, it makes Exalted my game, but as a Solar-Dragonblooded player I always look at the world as an 'against the Sidereals'. I like this theory because it puts it into a shade of grey, once the Solars defeated all their enemies they turned on the order they created for the simple longing to utilise their power and likewise for the Sidereals. The Second Age has benefited also because there are foes to fight, their is adversity to use ones exalted power to fight against. The world is becoming a better(?) place through this effort rather than being destroyed by bored champions. The great curse while different has had the same effect by travelling a different road. This redeems both the majority of the Solar Exalted AND the Sidereals as victims of a similar folly. Extraordinary how your narrative has gotten my mind moving, thanks! - onine