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Because we like revisiting old topics here.

http://i.imgur.com/ZNFYnD0.jpg

Since Fisher King is obviously the best choice, you can also go into how you'd build your home and such. (Or y'know be a weirdo and choose one of the other choices)

UGH what did I even necro a two year old thread for if you were just going to do this. :[



e: oh and I see End PUSSED OUT of the real hard hitting questions like 'what happened to the original thread' and 'who deleted it', unsurprising.

I'm just as annoyed with you since I went to the trouble of making the new thread and then I find out you're pointlessly necroing old threads.

EDIT: Seriously? What the hell is your problem tonight? I thought we all figured it was Con Mod Seth that moved the thread to Forum Games at some point where it was buried under bad RPG shit, forgotten and ultimately destroyed when JJJ nuked the place.

Anyway, if we're done with the opening act, we can get this shitshow started.

Pfft 'the trouble of'. It was three sentences and a link. You were just jealous of my superior necro which may well have been the best and most effort filled post made in the entire history of this site now that all evidence is gone and everyone just has to take my word for it.

And that was a theory but it seems like I vaguely recall the thread just vanishing with no explanation. Although I guess Berka would be the only relevant admin still around from back then anyway. Has Seth now officially entered site legend with that title though? I approve.

Anyway here's the actual Fisher King section for anyone too lazy to click:







My answer from two years ago still stands, I'd have a simple living area and then a massive empty section taking up all the rest of the space possible that I'd change around on a whim according to different themes whenever I got bored. You could probably create a reasonable facsimile of an outdoor area with skylights and gardens for one, so I guess I'd just make golems out of dead Mexicans to landscape it all.

I'll have to give the golems some more thought though. It seems like you'd have to do some research into either anatomy or robots to make anything truly complicated, although I guess that isn't a limitation on making them actually sentient.

I'd be very careful about what I actually made sentient though...they're supposed to be obedient but then so are robots. For something truly sentient I wouldn't entirely rule out the possibility it could turn on me.

Also, the Hunter option is just so, so ridiculous and bad. Who the hell would pick that one? Even next to the objectively shitty Nakama scenario, it's just in a realm of stupidity all its own.

Basically people that really want to be a witcher or more specifically Geralt.

I mean the only possible fun part about it is your existence suddenly means there are monsters in that world and you could be a real asshole and charge whatever price you wanted to get rid of said monster.

Of course this leads to the question of, if you die do the monsters go away? If that’s the case, then it would make you a pretty big target if people realize that they can just get rid of titanic man eating platypus monsters if they kill you instead.

It specifies if you die your apprentice takes over. 

The wording of Fisher King is kind of vague as discussed. If the golems created have a lifespan of one year in the outside world, that's fine and it's the best choice, but if it's one year general even if they stay inside with me, I'll take the Healer instead. Also, "thanks Steve, for finding this thing again." You're welcome.

I can't tell if the Fisher House has internet or not and this could drastically alter the scenario.

Dominion, obviously. 

Yeah, Dominion would be my second choice after Fisher King.

If it wasn't for the weird re-incarnated part I'd choose the healer. Dominion seems like the best one. Fisher king would be good until you realize your amazing magical house is your prison.

You can still leave, you just start growing weak after a few days, and eventually die. That means you can take weekends away fairly often.

A prison that can potentially have 4.3 million square feet of floor space. That's about 100 acres? Somehow I think I could endure it.

Weekend trips are possible but after I got things set up to my liking, honestly I'm not sure I'd bother. Especially if the house came with WiFi. On some level, seems like that's just tempting fate to let you get hit by a car or a nuke or a meteorite for lolz anyhow..

First step would be in setting up terraced gardens (with golems to look after them because I always kill plants) and bringing in some chickens for total self sufficiency. Cows too maybe, although that would mean dedicating like 25 acres just to be grass and skylights.

Escape, if I can pick it right before I would have died of natural causes.

Hunter and option three with super healing would be my choice. Just got to be really good at dodging.

Second pick wpuld have to be Healer as that would basically make you into Jesus.

And we found the first retard to pick Hunter. Huzzah.

OK so you're a fucking idiot.

I mean we already knew this, but now you're also the kind that would deliberately get a bunch of people killed just so you could indulge in a fantasy of being an edgy badass. (This won't happen btw, you'll continue watching anime with your pants down until one of the monsters you summoned busts through a wall and bites your dick off.)

That's clearly the worst choice!

My first thoughts when looking at it.

Road Eternal -> You are granted immortality, just hop into a plane a few times a year and get awesome cheap vacations without the need to plan everything ahead. A bit generic, although it's better than nothing. If this for some reason isn't enough, just yell that you're on a planet moving continuously and far faster than you could ever achieve. That'll make you immortal enough.

Fisher King -> You are a god, your house is the Olympia of the world and with the rise of technology and spaceflight your volume can increase exponentially over the years. In a couple hundred to thousand years your house will be the size of a planet that'll be perfect in every way while being a safe haven for all eternity.. and your personal playground. If you've had enough there's also a perfectly easy way out. I think someone dropped the ball on this one.

Nakama -> Friendship, luck and love can be gained in a relatively normal life. Also the relation between you and those 'friends' seems more toxic and unnatural the more I think about it.

Dominion -> The only redeemable thing above the others (read Fisher King) is that your skills decay much slower and you're free to stand wherever you want from the beginning. Otherwise it's a version of Fisher King without all the possibilities.

Hunter -> It's just weird, you're essentially doing what can be done in the Fisher King but at the same time screwing over the world. If you want to fight, just join a MMA gym or something. Hell, maybe you'll even achieve something in your life.

Healer -> Meh, being judged by and dependent on an invisible institution is something I already have in my life. This is even worse, it happens even without you knowing it. In a choice between superpowers that's a big turn off, and if you're looking to improve the world there's better options elsewhere.

Escape -> You died and are essentially nothing. Congratulations. The only real impact you'll have on the world is a few footnotes in vague dream diaries written by some mumbly spiritual gurus and you will be alone forever. No goal, no human contact and no challenges. This sounds more like hell than an awesome superpower. If you want this, please go see a doctor.

Alright so how to use Fisher King effectively.

The key to a good beginning is the location. You want your Olympia to be somewhere magical, mystical but relatively easy to reach for the average impressionable Joe. Hopping onto the recent trend of meditation, mindfulness and general guru shit I'll choose Asia, more specifically Zhangjiajie national park as my newfound home.

https://d3hne3c382ip58.cloudfront.net/resized/750x420/zhangjiajie-national-forest-park-day-tour-tour-2-259057_1510029029.JPG 

In the beginning visitors will be few and far inbetween, so you'll want to make the impression count. Make your 'house' so that it perfectly merges with the surroundings, but with floating rock formations, impossible waterfalls and the most beautiful flowers you can imagine. Don't forget the generic eastern jingle music in the background too. 

As the stage is set, you'll impress them by willing the ground under your feet to rise. Dying and returning to life, all of those things. You want to make yourself look like a god, but to keep your religion relatively under the radar. Don't let yourself be filmed or do any other stupid stuff that warrants global suspicion. Slowly build up your following and order them to throw themselves at furthering the cause of science and megaprojects in space. 

After a long while mankind will build orbital habitats, which enables you house to grow in size immensively. Make your house a perfect world, invite all followers you deem ready and enjoy your eternity while doing as you please with solid opportunities in every direction you'd want.

PS. As your building is now permanently occupied, it will never shrink in size. So there is no possible way to undo your advancements. Sounds like clearly the best option.

 

Figured I'd put in a valiant defense for Escape (using your critique as a foil)...

I am hard pressed to think of consciousness as "essentially nothing"... Perhaps, "essentially everything" would be more accurate? 

I was thinking that, after dying, I could take my time figuring out what the heck went on with human history. What was Jesus actually like (or, more importantly, St Paul... since the orator creates the cult, but the writer creates the religion)? How did my parents treat me (or, neglect me) as a child? Who can I blame for my failing (besides myself... although I suspect the finger must rest with me eventually)? What grand truths about myself and humanity can I purify from first-hand knowledge? 

I can communicate with lucid dreamers... share my thoughts, exchange ideas, memes, jokes etc.  More importantly, I could continue to influence human history through them. I could be an active voice, a speaker, for the collective unconscious. All lucid dreamers would have contact with the exact same, benevolent, wise(?) voice.

To me, Escape seems cooler than an awesome house... requires fewer steps to acquire wisdom and influence human history (although, I must admit your fleshing out of Fisher King is awesome)... and less chance of being killed (i.e. on that one day you decided to leave your house and slipped on a banana).

Fisher King is objectively the best but if it wasn't available I'd consider the Escape option.

But how good that would be would really depend on how much control you had over your immediate surroundings and how permanent you could keep things. If you can create anything you want like the god of your own pocket universe and manage to keep your dumb emotions from going chaotic and screwing it up without too much effort, and other people's dreams creeping in when you don't want them too isn't a factor, that would be like the Fisher King house x 1000.

I'm sure drawing from the entire planet's population there are a significant number of lucid dreamers out there you could hang out with as well, and even go exploring other people's fantasy worlds with them once you needed a change of pace. (Time works weirdly in dreams as anyone who's seen Inception knows so you could potentially have some long and fun adventures. Dumb chaotic emotions probably also not as big a problem when separated from your physical body since that also means your brain isn't stewing in any chemicals.)

Alright you have have a bigger purpose while in Limbo than I thought. I'll give it my second thoughts then.

Image everything unconscious of every single person ever existed on one big heap of meaningless shit.

Firstly what is conscience and unconscience? Let's say everything you experience that you can name out loud in the moment is your conscience. Blinking is unconscious no? That is until you notice it. The same goes for your breathing and that itch on your nose.

So what do you do unconsciously? Almost everything you do in order to function. So to get to those 'good' parts you have to wade trough heaps of data about realtime balance, glucose levels, pattern recognition, processing of hundreds and thousands of possibilities, cardiac rythm, visual processing, and dozens of hormones. Most of them can't be experienced, so who knows how you'll experience them? 

Next up are the actual dreams. So you've dug yourself trough the above data of uncountable humans and found yourself in a dream of Jesus. Ever noticed how weird and illogical dreams are. When you're lucid try to count your fingers, I'd bet that the numbers won't add up. 

Then the memories of billions. It's possible for people to remember things that haven't actually happened, while forgetting crucial parts of the things that did. In fact, the more you remember your memory, the more your mind just fills in the blanks. So which version of the memory is the correct one? 

The same can be said about lucid dreamers. How do you find them, how do you hold contact and have anything more than smalltalk with strangers? Furthermore, unless you somehow combine all the lucid dreamwalkers into one big dreamwalking dream, it's just one talk with one guy. How big is the chance of the guy just chalking it up to an awesome lucid trip?

So I imagine this to be one big heap of pure data where you can either create a world for yourself, or dig trough it in search of a needle in a haystack. On the other hand you can have a perfect 'house' of unlimited size (read planet, star or even galaxy sized) that is perfectly safe from any atrophy and danger of any kind to anyone. You can be anything you want, from emperor to degenerate to a cook. Hell, by doing this you can break every law of physics forming an impossible utopia.

hmm... Escape certainly requires more fleshing out than Fischer House to make it work.

I was hoping 'collective unconscious' was referring to Jungian Psychology: "the part of the unconscious mind that is derived from ancestral memory and experience and is common to all humankind, as distinct from the individual's unconscious." However, most of my fun was based on a later feature of Escape: "you can see into the minds and memories of people living and dead." That is certainly a broad power... flexible enough to let me peer into original perceptions and fresh memories (to get around the tendency you pointed out, which is to edit and re-record memories every time we access them).

As for the lucid dreamers, I suppose I could prove myself via insights on repeat visits (if I was lonely/wanted them to be aware that I existed)... but I could also influence human history far more directly by controlling the dreams of those in power. I could give them new insights, positive fantasies (in the direction of my choosing), or nightmares (to point out the negative consequences of their current course of action/counteract any denial they are indulging in) etc.

Living forever has no appeal to me.
I'd choose Nakama because it has a happy life and a happy ending. Plus, I'd always have Tater Tot my dog. :)

Though, Fisher King isn't too bad, and The Road Eternal would be sorta fun.

What? The ending of Nakama is that you have to live an entire life knowing that the love of your life and the greatest friends you've ever had aren't around, with only your memories to keep you warm until you finally die alone. It's awful.

I'd know that my friends and my soul mate are in heaven and I'd be joining them after the relatively short life (since I already lived a dozen) of mine is over. It'd just be a very reflective and peaceful elegy to my life.

Plus, I'd have my Tater Tot for a thousand years!

It specifically says your friends go onto whatever you believe, but it just says you stop reincarnating.

If that wasn't the case and you also got you want, looking at it, it does seem like it's cheating, because in this option, if you believe in a great heaven, you get the best of all of these combined at the end.

Well, my soul perishing for my loved ones receiving everlasting life is still a good deal in my mind.

I did find another flaw in it. It says they go to whatever afterlife you believe in, but obviously, you're not going to believe in the same afterlife as it goes on, and odds are, by the time you get to the ones that matter the most, you won't be religious and they'll just fade into nothing.

If they go to whatever afterlife you believe in...

Doesn't that mean they could all go to hell?

This was also discussed. My theory was if the afterlife goes by what you believed the first time round, you're all going to end up in hell besides like the first guy, seeing as the odds that you'll be reincarnated as someone who is going to be Christian are infinitely low.  This did spin off into an argument about whether if you're saved you can become unsaved, but that's neither here nor there.

Dominion, Road Eternal, and King Fisher in that order.

Becoming the leader of all humankind is too awesome to pass up. Road Eternal is next best due to the ability to travel to alternate universes (suuuuper fucking cool). King Fisher is third down because even though it sounds like a ton of fun, it mostly involves living a life of nothing but superficial pleasure (without even getting to travel for extended periods).

Alternate universes are cool until you hit the one where the Nazis won and can't leave for 100 years.

Seems like if you got arrested at any point in the thousands of years to follow you'd be pretty well fucked as well. I guess it would depend on how long the staying in one place penalty took to kick in though.

If you get to a universe where the Nazis won, you could just help lead the resistance to victory with your lifetimes worth of experience and knowledge. Once you leave, you can leave with the satisfaction of knowing you helped make that universe a better place, or whatever.

You're not immortal. You're almost definitely getting murdered by the Nazis, or experimented on until you die.

True, you're not immortal, but you're extremely resistant. Combine that with hundreds (or thousands) of years worth of experience, and I think you'll come through with only a few lost arms...

Yeah, but there's a cap on what one person can do, and it's fairly low. No matter how good you are, every Nazi has their sights on you, so you're not going to last. Plus, it's not like you're picking up skills like how to overthrow a Nazi regime on your travels. 

True, you wouldn't pick up skills on how to specifically overthrow Nazi regimes, but you'd still probably have lots of experience with hiding from governments and law enforcement agencies.

I mean I'm not saying Sliders wasn't a fun show but the thing is all the different Earths were terrible in their own unique way and the entire goal was to get back to our Earth, which is really saying something considering how much this one sucks as well.

First choice would be nakama. I'm probably being biased because I'm a lonely person who has always wanted close friends though, lol. But seriously, I think the idea of never being lonely and always being happy with a group of people to be really lovely and sweet. I don't think that the last life would be something sad, it'd be nice to be able to reminisce on all your past memories with the people who you love before finally dying yourself. Also you wouldn't be alone because you'd still have your pet, and pets can be just as good as having human company (in my opinion anyway, I have a dog who I'm really close to who I wouldn't mind being alone with) 

Second choice would be healer. I hate how all of these have something to do with staying young forever or reincarnating, I have no desire to live forever or constantly be reincarnated. That's another reason why I like nakama, you live 13 happy lives and then you're just done after that. Living forever would become so sad after time... Also, how come everyone likes fisher king? You want to live in a house alone forever? I know it says you can bring people in, but if you can only be outside your house for a certain amount of time without feeling weak and dying easily then how are you ever going to meet people to invite over. That's one of the least appealing options in my opinion. 

Because Fisher King is obviously the best one. Dominion comes close, but that's about it.

Everyone seems to be forgetting, you can leave your house and it's not going to take all that long to find people who will be easily impressed with your "God house" and want to come over all the time.

Better yet, there's this thing called the internet where you can meet people online and NEVER have to leave the house at all and if you really just have to, you can make arrangements to have them meet you at your God House.

And to top it all off you can create various golems in the house to act as immortal companionship. So if being lonely is the main concern, there's a shitload of ways around that.

Sure, you can leave your house... but not for very long unless you want to be frail and die easily. Plus, once everyone finds out what a cool house you have they are going to want to be friends with you just to be there and not really because they like you. So not only are you never going to have any true relationships but you're also going to outlive literally all of them because you're eternally young inside the house. That doesn't sound fun at all...unless you love material things and prefer them over everything else. 

One day is all you really need to meet people. Why the hell would you leave your god house if you got everything there already.

Yeah, there will be shallow folks that will just be around for what you got, that’s why you weed out people when they fail you in some way. You meet enough people and eventually you’re going to find a few that genuinely like you for whatever reason and you just keep them around.

As for them eventually dying, well you have to get use to the fact that mortals grow old and die, so spend the quality time you have and move on. Pretty simple.

In any case, you’ve neglected the golems as immortal companions. You don’t really need to ever interact with another frail human ever again and make them do what you want. A lot better really.

And if its the case that the golems only have one year to live (Though that seems like if they only leave the house) you just build more.

Or pay skilled tradesmen to build you some, or buy sex dolls and bring them to life as soon they you’ve unpacked them, however the hell one is doing the golem thing.

Road eternal because I think it would be neat to travel the world and, if I get bored, across parallel earths.

Second choice is fisher king. Third is escape. Fuck all the other ones.

I love how the skew for Fisher and Dominion is that the faults are objectively softer than the rest of them.

Personal top would be Escape, but interacting with other lucid dreamers is by default going to affect them in the real world.  There's no reason that limit should be there, and having it makes your own existence moot.

Road Eternal's pretty bad.  At one point or another you'll start revisiting places, and there's no guarantee you'll survive a trip across warzones when your own backpack magically drops you an IED or rifle, thereby forcing you into the fight.  A bullet to any vitals will end you and your journey.

Nakama falls flat on its face when you realize you can skew the results based on your morality and priority.  12 sex slaves.  12 cultists.  12 nerds.  Go nuts.

Healer suffers from the same.  If you kill a littany of probable serial killers and sociopaths that want to screw society over, you did well and get a free reincarnation.  Congratulations, you're now the world's janitor.

Hunter's objectively the worst.  We won't miss you if you pick it.

Hunter. Option One.

Thank you, I enjoyed the watch.  Kind of messed up that after all that, some jolly ass pilot took down the heroes (at least I think they were) in two seconds xD

1) Road Eternal; 2) Fisher King; 3) Dominion

Downside to Dominion is having to do all that work. There's a reason Robert Baratheon was a bad king but a fat and happy drunk.

The severe downside to Fisher King is basically being imprisoned wherever you plant the seed. Better pick a big area with nice scenery where you plant it. Some courtyards and greenhouses should be part of the initial plan. The golems would make could servants, stewards, and finders though. But the second main downside is the same as the one in Road Eternal.

Road Eternal would allow a never ending line of adventure and new experiences, but after a few centuries, things would be flying by awfully fast and any relationships you create would vanish like dust in the wind. You have to be mentally prepared for that.

I think Dominion is good if you're one of those civic duty types. Like, it's objectively the best way to help people and fix society. 

I like Road Eternal the best.  Yes, I would be unable to stay in one place for long, but there is nothing stopping me from re-visiting places now and then.  I would not travel to a different dimension unless the world became absolute crap, and I could no longer live here.  The world is too big and changes too often for me to get bored with it.

Nakama is basically 'you get friends.'

Fisher King sounds nice, but playing God doesn't appeal to me all that much.

I probably wouldn't take advantage of the benefits of Dreamer enough for it to be worth my while.

Hunter is almost as lame as Nakama.

Dominion is my second choice.

Healer is fine and all, but I would not necessarily consider reincarnation at all to be a reward.

 

Dominion is the obvious #1 choice for me.

After that, the hunter.

How is this even a discussion? As stated, Fisher King is obviously and objectively better than the rest. 

For me, next in line would be Dominion.

And anyone that picks hunter is gay.

I realize that I never actually gave my opinion on this here, but it hasn't changed:

Healer is still the best one. It's the only one of the group that has no obvious downside unless you actively choose to be a bad person. If I had magical healing powers, I sure as heck wouldn't keep them to myself.

Hunter is the worst one, because by choosing this, you are making the conscious choice to bring monsters into the world, that will kill people, just for you to fight. If you pick that one, you're an asshole.