User blog comment:DYBAD/Character Sheet/@comment-25135454-20171011120908/@comment-25135454-20171012142306

Lawrence as sociopath... Geez...

Concerning Dr. Manhattan, that does make sense... Or maybe he doesn't know the true extent of his capabilities. Maybe he knows, but he didn't do the replication thing because his indifference kept him from taking the best course of action.

The Great Guardian just thought the Ether, of all things, deserved to see his creation in it's entirety. The "time before time" is pretty mindfucking because... Well, time itself doesn't exist. So I can't decide if the time before time lasted for infinity or for zero. And both are equally satisfying answers õ.õ

Fortunately, that is a question I, myself, tackled when I was studying Catholicism. I don't know if this is the most appropriate answer, but that is what I learned: following logic, one would conclude that a omnipotent god, the perfect being, would be, ultimately, inactive. A being of such power has no need to do anything. I think that in yoruba mythology, Olodum, it's supreme deity that is beyond all universe and all the other gods, is an example of such entity. However, to our luck and according to Catholicism, God Himself revealed that He created everything. The existence of an active omnipotent god was only possible through His own revelation because, if He didn't reveal it, we would be forever obliged by logic to discard the Universe creation as a product of an omnipotent god will and would need to seek other answers. He doesn't need to be loved by us. With Him, everything is beautifully reversed: we don't need to love God because that's good for Him, but because that's good for us. He created everything for us, and not for him. Personally, I think that if perfection means being an inactive omnipotent god, then being an active omnipotent god that creates an universe and sapient beings to experience it and, more importantly, to experience the joy that is loving God, then that's something beyond perfection.

Answering your question is item number 310 from the Cathecism(and all other items from the same section "Providence and the scandal of evil"): [But why did God not create a world so perfect that no evil could exist in it? With infinite power God could always create something better. But with infinite wisdom and goodness God freely willed to create a world "in a state of journeying" towards its ultimate perfection. In God's plan this process of becoming involves the appearance of certain beings and the disappearance of others, the existence of the more perfect alongside the less perfect, both constructive and destructive forces of nature. With physical good there exists also physical evil as long as creation has not reached perfection.]

Oh my... How many souls wouldn't be saved if catholics spent less time putting themselves in a pedestal of Moral Guardianship and judging everyone else and more time actually studying this amazing book that is the Cathecism... ¬¬

Nigh-Omniscience and Nigh-Omnipresence would certainly do that to the First Soul... I'm still unsure if I will include a period of his life in which he was indifferent to everything because of them. I will, probably. But that doesn't change the end answer: through the Great Guardian teachings, the First Soul learned to look at things from the perspective of all other sapient beings, that weren't blessed with his nigh-omniscience/presence (mainly by deactivating his Clairvoyance, Retrocognition and Precognition orbs). This gave him a sense of how life was valuable to them, and how their human-sized matters... Mattered to them. That's why he didn't claim the Omniscient Morality License. One of the main quirks of his character  is that he constantly gets annoyed at the other characters not taking the best course of action that is so obvious to him... But all internally. He never tells them anything and lets them do what they think it's better.

Initially, the First Soul didn't interfere with the humans (or with the elves, dwarves, orcs and etc.). But seeing their despair, he couldn't just "do nothing" and began interfering. He interfered too much, and all their problems were solved by him, so they became over-reliant on him and did nothing for themselves. Hurt, he thought about it and found balance: he would only interfere when problems were always beyond their capability. He took no part in wars (and cried alot when they happened), but he always saved them from natural disasters, when they could not save more lives by themselves and when losses were inevitable. In his presence, Ether gains a golden hue and that is mainly seen at the sky turning golden. So, when everything was lost, people knew that when the sky turned gold, they were all safe. And in those moments, the reason for the tears changed.

That's why the First Soul isn't the main character. For a multitude of reasons, the First Soul is missing. My book focuses more on the adventures of my Beloved and my Best Friend. They have no Orbs themselves and must find ways to fight those who have. And they lose... Hard. They suffer alot. But the main point is: once they find the First Soul, no matter the condition they are or how much they suffered, it will all be cleansed. They will be safe. Their fallen friends will be ressurrected. The villains will be defeated. Some may argue that that's the ultimate Deus Ex Machina and that it will rob the achievement from the heroes but my book isn't your standard adventure book. Everything is against the heroes, up to the laws of reality itself. They suffer from unfairness to the ultimate degree. And that's what I think it's required to "soften" the readers for such an ending... And lots of foreshadowing.

I never heard of it, but reading it's page on TV Tropes interested me alot, mainly because of the Multiple Choice Past mechanic and how it affects gameplay. Maybe I'll play it in the future :P