Slow walk me through devil lore and some (many) additional questions.

[Dissonant]

Spoilers for the even more uninitiated than me.





I know a few things like how they're actually bees, that there is/was the Republic but also the aristocracy but I don't know which came first (though sensibly probably the aristocracy right?) or the state of either in Skies though I think it's implied that the Republic isn't around anymore. From Skies I also got that they either serve or served the Judgements by feeding them souls but the Repentant Devil almost made this seem like an act of control, that by controlling the food supply there was some influence over the Judgements or maybe just if you were good at shaping souls to fit a Judgement's palate that you'd get some influence from that. Also, if they are bees how do they relate to the Chorister Bees?

Basically, what's the current state of the devils in Skies?

Additional questions:

- do we know who the comingling radiances are?
- the terrible fate of the person who gave them a voice is something the bees say according to the devil. Is this the Tamer? If so, does the Tamer relate in any way to the Verdancy in the Reach? Is the Verdant the result of what the Tamer gave voice? What exactly is the Verdant anyway? Where does it rank in terms of power?
- Tom's Well speaks of a messenger that carried a well-seed, would this be the same messenger that put up the pokey thing at Polmear's? Also, do the well-seeds kill suns in particular? If so is every Well a place a sun died? A deal of peace between who and who did the betraying? (betraying is assumed cuz it mentions that 'someone has to remember' so presumably peace didn't last)
- I remember something about the Mother of Mountains in Sea but I can't recall if we dealt only with her daughter there. What's up with her anyway?
- what's under the ice at the Grave of the Silent Saint?
- is Faith's Fall the Reach's dead Judgement? If so, what's the Well?
- Hybras' population made a deal with the stuff that hides in mirrors which I think I know are associated with mirrors, madness and dreams and that they're associated with red and gold snakes but where exactly do they fit in the broader lore?
- the Clockwork Sun was a NOTGOODTHING in Sea but I can't quite tell if Victoria tamed it or it tamed Victoria. How bad an idea is it to restore its shine? Also, since you can pick a pestilence facet that turns you into glass and the Clockwork Sun turns people into glass is it save to assume that the affliction is its influence? Will everyone in Albion eventually be glass?
- what is Red Science?

[Zar]

[More SPOILERS]

Lol, okay I definitely don't know all of these. But here are some impressions I got about the Clockwork Sun: It does seem to me safe to assume that the glass chest biography choice is related to that sun. And everyone would eventually be infected, you can see it in the pauper coffins floating in space, as they have turned to glass. The effect seems mediated by walls and stained glass. Probably this is because that sun has light, but not the light of Law. For this reason I tried to destroy it (sabotaging the Reach's clocks to lower points for the sun), but that just lead to a ton of spacetime warps. The head engineer said that a lot of the clockwork sun's negative effects were precisely because it was working so poorly, so now I am trying to help get it fixed. I guess I'll see what happens.

I did not get that same impression from Hybras population. I thought they just got taken over by fungus, based on the old horror movie "Attack of the Mushroom People" (available on Amazon Prime, btw). Did I miss something?

The Tamer was responsible for the verdancy in Traitors Wood, I think, mostly by failing in their duty to tame it. A duty assigned by one of the stars. That's why all the plants talk and are pretty violent there. I don't think that relates to the whole Reach. BUT, this is NOT the same guy who gave the bees their voice. That person got thrown down Wolf's Well (I know, cause of the Princess Quest).

[Dissonant]

Where I get the impression from Hybras is cuz when you take the honey IIRC and you report it to the person you're escorting it explicitly mentions that the population made a deal with the mirror snakes or something to that effect. For a "second youth" which I think someone even mentions to you when you visit for the first time.

Thinking about it the vision you get at Polmear's about the deal/conversation between the Verdant and the messenger mentions that the Verdant had connected a bunch of space rocks together, which when you think about it is basically the entire Reach now. It's uniquely cluttered, the Reach, maybe because we're moving through a single enormous organism?

Wrt the Clockwork Sun in Sea it had some pretty heavy overtures of mind control. I don't think it turned people to glass back then though. So if we assume the glass turning is what happens when its broken does that mean it's mind control when it's working? I don't trust the Bright-Eyed Sequencer in Skies but the Engineer seems more... wholesome? So maybe if we fix it it'll be nicer but the choice for Albion might be between slowly turning into glass or being brainwashed by an unsun. It's also interesting to note that Victoria is aware of this, the text at Perurance mentions the windows are smeared with soot. The Mausoleum is also dark. And smog covers Brabazon which might be incidental but could also be because Victoria knows where her power lies.

[Zar]

Actually I finally gave the sun engineer all the hours, and she just sort of broke down and retired, no change. Guess there is a limit to how much I can help there. I can't see really any game effect of high or low sun points (I've had between 5 and 100), but I might be missing something.

I also just read on a load screen that the original sun in The Reach was called "The Green Sun" or something like that, suggesting that it caused or encouraged plant growth, maybe tieing the rocks together. Remind me, what was the vision in Polmear's from (what actions lead to it)?

BTW, the Perdurance soot windows are just because that building is designated as "Night." But time doesn't actually pass in Perdurance, they just walk in a big circle through rooms they call different times. You can neatly see it when flying around there. For day buildings they use the protection of stained glass.