User blog comment:GrandMethuselah67/Lore Sheet: The Democratic Imperium of Neohumanity/@comment-4867780-20150913113948/@comment-26322734-20150913211749

I had changed quite a bit of stuff since you'd last read it (due to the story quickly edging out of my comfort zone), but I'll address the things that still apply here.

"Annihilating New Egypt’s universe sounds a bit morally questionable, especially considering pretty much every member was just a disposable victim enslaved by Ramses’ overwhelming power and influence, but after the crushing global defeat, despair and terror he wrought upon them, I suppose the U.R.H had a lot of pent-up animal rage to vent off, especially considering how damn proud and confident they were all this time."

Bingo. Plus, consider New Egypt the equivalent of Imperial Japan here: the citizens will not surrender. The major factor here is the fact that New Egypt is totally religiously devoted to Ramses and, considering the way Ramses had his Empire going, the threat of New Egypt simply bouncing back under a new dictator was very real here, especially since New Egypt's universe had a direct connection to Hyperspace, so nothing was stopping the Starspawned Lords from sending in another avatar once the stars were right again.

"Asteraoth was quite the Deus ex Machina in these events, sealing New Egypt’s fate by grounding Ramses, brushing off the Federation’s ultimate superweapon, straight-up wiping out the Concitary and then vanishing without a trace. You can definitely feel some major favoritism here, it’s almost like Asteraoth was you ^ ^;"

Fair enough. The reason it might feel like a rushed Deus ex Machina here is because...well, it was rushed. I was going to plan a whole new story arc after New Egypt where the Andromedan Federation goes into conflict with the U.R.H, with the Andromedan Federation falling victim to an alien fungus they made to destroy the U.R.H, but I was unsure how to make something like that interesting (considering the U.R.H's level here, it would've been a curbstomp battle, what with the Andromedans being too preoccupied with the alien fungus to even start up the Draconic superweapon). In my defense, though, Asteraoth has a very legitimate reason to keep the Republic (now the Imperium) from getting destroyed, so this isn't OOC. Furthermore, he didn't shrug off the Reality Seed at all, he managed to get them before it even activated (activation not being instantaneous because it takes a crap ton of coding and mathematics to start up). Though him being an author avatar is something I'll have to deny, since it's a practice I personally dislike. He had his own motivations and his own personal plot (being Callaghan from a Bad Future), and it wasn't exactly favoritism, it was the fact that that's exactly how an Exalted Mysterium works (think it, you do it -- granted that you've done the work necessary to do so).

As for everything else, changed. The whole "nomadic empire" thing wasn't exactly working for me, they now just encompass the Virgo Supercluster instead of being a mobile system of star-sized ships. They're still the Imperium of Neohumanity, and they're fighting a different enemy from the Cold Ones.

As for Ramses vs Asteraoth, I'd say they could go toe-to-toe here. Ramses being a Starspawned Avatar, he was completely outside of Asteraoth's power, which is why Asteraoth had to seal him in a time loop instead of killing him; Ramses was simply outside of death here. And yeah, Neohuman did stick. Has a pretty nice ring to it, especially considering what humanity is at this point.