Thus Spake Zaranephilpal/MotiveDiscerningTechnique

Charlequin wrote:
A Solar at Essence 2 can come to perfectly understand the motives of any being and know precisely the price at which anyone will do their bidding. Neither Charm proscribes against use on the Yozi; neither even has an Essence cap on targets. At higher levels, the Solar capacity for discerning the inner workings of others' minds would only become greater and more detailed, I'd imagine.

Nephilpal replied:
You see a box inside a box, with dots of light floating at asymetrical points through its matrix in an array of colors that chime in seven billion part harmony. "This is what it wants?" you ask in astonishment and confusion. "Yes, precisely so!" the Storyteller answers with complete sincerity. "But I don't understand that." The Storyteller shakes his head in affirmation, waiting for the point. He then realizes the player is unsatisfied. "Oh, well, you would if you were a Primordial. It makes perfect sense to them." Angered, you retort, "But that isn't fair. I used the Charm. I should know what it wants!" The SToryteller pauses in reflection, and answers quitely "And you do. You just don't understand what that means. The information is gibberish to you."

I realize that may be an extrapolation that bends the spirit of the Charm. It's also perfectly viable as an answer. You could get even weirder with Know the Soul's Price. Or you could decide that you want your Primordials to be less alien. It's your game.

Comments

This seems a bit too simple for my tastes. A fly annoys you. You want to kill it. You may be fast enough, you might outguess it, but unless you turn its advantage against it (ie, hit it with something transparent) - it's going to know that you want to kill it. That motive, it certainly can understand, if only on an instinctual level. The making and destroying of things is easily comprehended, if not always understood. As humans we have the capacity to know that something has needs that we do not, or lacks needs that we have. So our worldview is easily capable of understanding something greater than us.

Some motives, of course, are going to be well beyond the fly's ability to comprehend. Writing, for example. The mere characters are unrecognizeable to the fly, to say nothing of the words, even less so of sentances, paragraphs and chapters. It can, however, perceive the page, the pen, the ink, or the computer, keyboard and printer. It may also be able perceive the story itself, were it to be played out, though, likely, there would be parts beyond it as well. The fly can only comprehend motion and the taste of things (with its feet), really. Some things are food, others are resting surfaces. Others are more mysterious - strange, invisible barriers (windows), or sticky and entrapping fields or filiments (flytraps, spiderwebs...)

In this sense, I think likening primordial -> human to human -> insect is a little simplistic. A primordial is a collection of beings. We have a model for that already, why not use it?

You walk into a strange city. It's huge, covering over a million acres of land, and it can move. Let's skip the city for a moment and talk about its inhabitants, because - since we are humans, we're gonna try to relate to them first.

Initially, we notice that there are several types of beings sprawled over much of the city - seemingly making up the entirety of its multimillion population. Each of them serves a purpose. Some of them are extremely simple-minded - cars, say. They can be -dangerous-, but that doesn't make them smarter or more complex than us. Others are going to operate more on our level, even if we would consider them insane. Neomahs work to make more of their kin, stomach bottle bugs work as an oversized immune system, etc.

Something, obviously, directs them, so first we look to the source. Some of them build houses like humans do, and some of them are greater than others, but certain houses are going to clearly stand out from the rest - they seem actively moving, sometimes enacting punishment on the natives, sometimes performing a job well beyond the abilities of the natives though still within our comprehension.

Entering one of the houses, we note that the family inside is a ruling class. The individual members of the family might seem strange - one is a sentient spear, for instance, but its not something we can't wrap our heads around. The individual family members might have internal squabbles, true, but ultimately they serve the purposes of their household. Collectively, they are the household - the house you entered is the face the entirety of their will shows. It may even persist after a fashion past their collective deaths, though, clearly, the household itself will be an empty shell in comparison at the time.

You identify perhaps a dozen, or perhaps a hundred such households. Between them they really do control the city, and the city itself is their collective face. If you destroy a household, the city becomes Less, though, it still can move, and the desires of that household are no longer a factor in the city's decisions.

Using a charm superior to Motive-Discerning Technique (something that will tell general and not immediate desires) on members of a household or their peons isn't going to yeild anything special. You might think them a little crazy , ambitious, or whatever, but they aren't -beyond- you. Not as a Solar. Hitting a house with this charm is a bit different, because you're likely going to also see the reflections of the desires of the individual members, which might make the goals of the greater whole seem disjointed and a little self-conflicting. This might take some sorting out, but it's not going to overly confuse a socially-minded Celestial Exalt.

Using said charm against the city is going to yeild a picture, I think.

Let's say you used it against Lookshy. The exact goal you will get really depends on the Storyteller, but a couple of themes stand out in Outcastes - a general desire to do what it can to maintain Creation. Particularly the River Province, since that's where it is and all. This is the general theme - it's layered on a backdrop of the opinions of thousands of decision makers. Some believing Lookshy should conquer the region, others believe in forging deeper alliances, still others wish to sabotage parts of the plan. Nexus is similar - money is at the heart, but the means and individual motivations are ever varied.

Using this charm on a Yozi is going to yeild mixed results. It is, at the same time, a greater being and a collection of beings, and its going to return concepts. Freedom. Vengeance.

And the occasional concept that is just gonna be beyond most mortals. Like a computer program might be beyond a fly. This concept may still affect the fly - maybe it's modelling a disease for the extermination of all flies - but once that disease comes about, the fly may still have a chance, however slight, to comprehend the disease itself.

Waaay too long-winded. -- Xeriar