You guys did a great job updating Bolt all around! For Dev Reference: i have played World of Warcraft since day 1 of classic launch, as well as EverQuest for PS2 and EQ2 for PC. I've competed directly with Blood Legion, on the same server even (US-Illidan) in Burning Crusade, and my guild was the first guild to reach M'uru in Sunwell after them (we were #2 to the #1 US guild for a decade~), and later went on to be Rank 10 in the West (North America + Europe) for my specific CLASS & SPECIALIZATION, FOR WHICH THEIR WERE 600,000 ACTIVELY RAIDING the same bosses that the rank was based on an average performance over the 14 newest bosses in the game, on the hardest difficulty (Siege of Orgrimmar in MOP).
Anyways, the main things that come to mind are:
I had to make this makeshift list, since this markdown code is giving me AIDS, and im a programmer! THIS IS EFFING TERRIBLE!
Bolt Suggestion 1.1:

Bolt DMG should be based on weapon dmg modifier, since your attack speed is weighted against that. If its DMG is not based on your base or active attack speed, the fastest weapon will benefit the most from Bolt. IE: if Bolt's damage is based off nothing but your current Attack DMG, the fastest weapon will obviously yield the most DPS from Bolt, since it's procing more often, and at the same DMG as a slow & otherwise hard hitting weapon, like Death Scythe. 

Bolt Suggestion 1.2:

If the internal cooldown is in any way noteworthy (greater than \~0.5 seconds) and you insist on having one, the internal cooldown should be some fraction of the active weapon's base or active attack speed. If it's not setup this way, faster weapons benefit from reduced downtime! IE => slower weapons will have a > window of time in which Bolt will both be OFF cooldown (available to proc) and WAITING for the next subsequent projectile to land on a target, thus lowering it's efficiency. 

Bolt Suggestion 1.3: perhaps the I issue I find most illogical..

There is **no reason that Bolt's damage should be reduced when you pickup Multi-Shot or Front Arrow if an internal cooldown is in place!** It should be one or the other -- no internal cooldown and reduced scaling with Multi-shot and Front Arrow, or internal cooldown and no reduction for having MS and FArrow! If there was no internal cooldown, it would make perfect sense for it to reduce damage in the same way that auto attacks do, BUT IT DOES..at present, anyways. As a programmer, I would bet that they coded Bolt and other similar abilities to scale this way, because it's the same scaling as auto attacks, and at some point in development, they realized they needed to put a limiter on the frequency of Bolt procs, did so, and forgot that it still reduces damage the same way it did originally, but now it does FOR NO EFFING REASON LOL. If you make this change, <3 

Bolt Suggestion 1.4:

The previous suggestions I find to be foundational/core, but this one is my favorite in terms of adding flavor to the game. Taranis' lvl 80 stat bonus is +50% Crit DMG, yet Bolt does not scale AT ALL with either Crit DMG or Crit % -- although it SUFFERS if you use Crit gear such as Wolf Rings to make the most of his Crit DMG stat bonus! This is highly irritating. My CPU-optimized solution: instead of making each Bolt target re-roll for to Crit or not, simply modify the equation that determines Bolt damage! Say your AoE Bolt is hitting targets f0r 1,000; you also have 30% Crit Chance & a TOTAL Crit Bonus of 200% (100% is the base Crit bonus, plus 50% from items, and 50% from Taranis' lvl 80 passive); to save the phone battery and CPU usage from re-rolling a million times a run for Bolt crits, just make the equation reflect the overall net effect of if it had! IE: 1,000 dmg per bolt hit + ( 1,000 base dmg * 2.00 crit bonus * 0.30 Crit Chance) = 1,600 STATIC Bolt DMG on AoE targets => 60% added static dmg, calculated ONCE per time stats change only! You would obviously need to consider changing the base Attack modifier for Bolt if you made this change that would give Bolt the unique effect of scaling with Crit and Crit DMG! 

Thanks for your time. Please leave input/feedback if you have any! Thanks in advance.

Justin Rose, [05.06.20 12:39] hey guys
Brian papersheepdog Cloud, [05.06.20 12:41] [In reply to Justin Rose] Hey Justin welcome back!
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 12:42] That was a great piece. Apocalypse Field Guide
Brian papersheepdog Cloud, [05.06.20 12:44] [In reply to Justin Rose] Thank you 😊
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 12:44] I was here before, talking about Tantric Buddhism and maybe other things. It felt like a good time to come see what you guys thought about our current predicament...From what I can tell after reading your pinned piece on SotS, we feel the same about whats going on
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 12:45] So, hello again, it's reassuring that you guys are still here.
Brian papersheepdog Cloud, [05.06.20 12:46] I’m trying to reach out and network more right now
Brian papersheepdog Cloud, [05.06.20 12:46] I need to canvas the network and see who already has what pieces of the puzzle
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 12:47] well I'll give you this one
Brian papersheepdog Cloud, [05.06.20 12:48] I keep getting they feeling like it’s just s lack of communication that keeps things feeling silo’d . Like.. the whole thing should be happening right now the Guild should be emerging . I believe it is but the core memes are so tricky to convey I’d be willing to bet that almost no one has that piece
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 12:49] the core memes are difficult to convey you think?
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 12:49] I dunno, that Field Guide was very sane and accessible in my view
Brian papersheepdog Cloud, [05.06.20 12:49] Yes it’s taken a long time to get to this point
Brian papersheepdog Cloud, [05.06.20 12:50] I mean I haven’t seen anything like the field guide out in the wild
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 12:52] All i know is this: this whole time we should have been trying to redeem Satan, but instead we've been striving for perfection and goodness, thus arming the subterranean armies of the night, and because we haven't unearthed , collectively, the unconscious compulsions towards evil, the tension of that necessity is hitting a crescendo now. the Leviathan has been slumbering for far too long. If the Devil can't be redeemed then neither can we.
Brian papersheepdog Cloud, [05.06.20 12:56] Hmm interesting . Probably deeply related to navigation by Spectacle itself . It’s a natural thing , the neural net notices things patterns etc for purpose of survival. Can’t shovel it under the rug . The whole racism thing for example . Being racist is a choice but noticing patterns is not. We’re all very different but there are also similarities along many lines . Just initial thoughts maybe we can put this into Model speak
Brian papersheepdog Cloud, [05.06.20 12:58] This is probably also evoking the mind body split, trying to bottle up emotions coming from the body , overwriting this image of purity via the mind
Brian papersheepdog Cloud, [05.06.20 12:58] Thereby alienating the body and its many signals
Brian papersheepdog Cloud, [05.06.20 12:59] And thereby shutting off actual sensitivity (relationship) with the environment
Vickie, [05.06.20 13:04] [In reply to Justin Rose] Good to hear from you 🙂 welcome back
Brian papersheepdog Cloud, [05.06.20 13:12] [In reply to Justin Rose] I’d like to hear more about this and discuss
Brian papersheepdog Cloud, [05.06.20 13:12] I wonder if we can relate it to a fear of death
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:14] [In reply to Justin Rose] Hello! welcome!
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:18] [In reply to Brian papersheepdog Cloud] I think the opposite, we can relate it to a fear of life and a secret longing for the release of death
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:19] [In reply to Brian papersheepdog Cloud] The more I think about this racism question the less I think it has to do with choice. What I'm noticing is that racists do not think they are racists. that symbol itself points to a different sign in the psyche rendering any conversation on the subject pretty much moot.
What we're up against is a rigid hierarchy that's essentially about power, not colour. The slots are made available by arbitrary gradients (networks, money, colours, etc, its totally up for grabs and shit's invented all the time). The labels of us vs them are chosen by fashion
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:19] [In reply to Justin Rose] same thing two diff views
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:20] [In reply to Brian papersheepdog Cloud] "Maybe we can put it into model speak.."I had a thought about this: The problem with trying to shoehorn everything into a specific corrall is that it always ends in a reduction
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:20] the psyche is image, and thats an imposition and limitation on imagery, thats why ideologies fail
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:20] because they're intended as intermediate stages, not as the final resting grounds
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:22] how could i get across a feeling of raunchy psychedelic nymph sex magic without Pan? Why would I want to?
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:23] and I guess thats the point about ideologies, alot of the time its a desperate attempt at organizing chaos that usually ends up throwing out our connection with the imagery of the past
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:23] to me, a new set of symbols is only useful in so far as it elucidates the meanings of the old ones
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:24] but the new symbols only come about through the foundation of our psyche, which contains all primordial imagery since the dawn of man and probably beyond
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:25] Christianity underpins everything you or I have ever thought since we got here. Don't you think it should be included in the conversation, and if its not, then it is yet another provisional, temporal construct and thus subject to disintegration??
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:26] if we don't integrate old imagery maybe we're doomed to disintegrate because its attempt to make temporality out of eternity?
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:27] i'm very keen to retain the imagery
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:27] as is
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:27] or Buddhism for that matter
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:27] but select for symbols
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:27] that initially werent used for it
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:27] isn't that just another reduction
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:28] it's the same song, i suppose since the dawn of time
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:28] shouldn't the images be able to transmogrify in meaning as well?
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:28] well that's just it... its pointing to the same "meaning" as it were
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:28] like you're suggesting, reintegrate the old as new
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:29] as long as its not shoehorning
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:29] reignite life in the tongue of dead mechanisms.
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:29] [In reply to Justin Rose] maybe provisionally... that's the key to understand that all is just provisional
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:29] because "the old" has always been there, and our symbols are a meager(very) attempt at putting another costume on them
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:30] and to be used as tools. if it doesn't fit the context... maybe diff tool is better
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:30] if all is provisional then all is eternal
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:30] and you can find yourself either balancing on the fence or standing on the ground
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:30] [In reply to Justin Rose] by old symbols, at least to me, i'm generally refering to the heros journey
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:31] [In reply to Justin Rose] indeed. its pure potential all the way
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:31] So how do we address our filth with the Model? what do we do to our filth?
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:31] clean
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:32] haha... that's the first concern, ;)
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:32] why?
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:32] can a person clean filth? Maybe filth is primordial a beyond the reach of the scrubbin bubbles of intellect?
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:33] just the context we find ourselves in... an organism within an environment, which leads to shelter and sustenance (protection from, resources of) and semi permable membrane is formed. to maintain it it has to be "cleaned" regularly, or rather, the increase of entropy must be mitigated to keep metastability.
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:33] [In reply to Justin Rose] i think of it as entropy.
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:33] and cleaning is just metastability within that context.
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:33] how to mitigate entropy?
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:34] should entropy require you to mitigate it?
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:34] [In reply to Justin Rose] negentropy.
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:34] [In reply to Justin Rose] it is a consequence of entropy itself. localized spaces self organize into negative spots.
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:38] but yeah... have you read that math paper that talks about how with the buildup of energy a material will spontaniously self organize to become more efficient at discipation... and the main mechanism of increasing this function is self replication.
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:38] basically entropy causes order to emerge
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:38] and order self replicates
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:38] so its not about musts... so much as... thems the chops..
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:40] I haven't read that paper.
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:41] Sounds true, though how would you say that psychologically/mythically?
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:42] going to farm so ill be intermittent
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:42] good to talk again
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:42] nice to see you guys
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:44] [In reply to Justin Rose] "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was without form and void and darkness was over the face of the deep."
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:45] I guess my concern with the whole "put everything in Model-speak" or any-speak for that matter, is that it seems all but certain that the "old symbols" would be lost simply from misuse
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:45] [In reply to Justin Rose] Yeah man I'm happy to see you back. Hope you're doing better.
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:45] I guess thats what picking a lane does. Do we HAVE to pick a lane? and if so, why? isn't there a higher order?
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:46] [In reply to Justin Rose] my argument is that they are basically already lost because the language moved off into a very different landscape
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:46] I am **Zhenya, I made a kind of "final" removal of myself from the system, hence the farming.
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:46] [In reply to Zhen] thats where we disagree, the symbols have inherent primordial power, you just have to push them like buttons
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:47] teach people that you CAN push things like buttons
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:47] then everything is symbol
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:47] and nothing is, simultaneously so that life can procede
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:49] but what you said is really salient, these symbols have been apprehended and commodified by some...though not by all, and it would be a shame throw the baby
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:49] [In reply to Justin Rose] we might be referring to different things when we are saying symbol... what you're describing sounds more like what I call "archetypes"
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:49] which have a relationship to symbols, definitely
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:50] yes the archetypes manifest themselves as symbol BUT the symbol itself is its own universe
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:50] its like this; the symbols of Buddhism and Christianity and Taoism can be overlapped, but they are themselves their own experience, and it would be a shame to lose their "isness" by trying to reduce
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:50] and I just dont see how you can help it when you limit langugage
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:51] i use the word symbol to denote some arbitrary pattern that only makes sense in concert with other symbols... like letters are meaningless on their own.. the meaning conveyed is limited, but together they form a new layer where the meaning is derived
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:51] enriching language and adding more symbols makes more sense to me
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:51] [In reply to Zhen] then we have signs, and then artifacts, and then memes and finally archetypes
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:51] [In reply to Zhen] hm, thats mathematic with no aesthetic beauty
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:52] just more building blocks :)
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:52] lets me pry more
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:52] logically but what about experientially, where prybars arent needed and perhaps a hindrance?
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:53] castles in the sand
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:53] like some things are just mechanisms... like molecules... but these same things in concert... like in dna... is not different but not the same
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:53] dna is a castle in sand too, no?
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:54] [In reply to Justin Rose] yes.. this is a matter discipline
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:54] and hence buddhism in its correct form is a practice without a name really
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:54] that's the logical direction to take this i think
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:54] You are Buddhism not Buddhist
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:55] but that is an intermediary I think, and now that we've become a universal society that really is a multicultural mix of symbols, why not celebrate them all as dynamic expressions and wisdom displays? as unique, never but once repeatable
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:56] i bring it up only cause it has the same "policy" with regard to its symbols... use them in context, and don't otherwise, etc
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:56] methodology is better than ideology youre saying
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:57] [In reply to Justin Rose] That's what an archetype really is...
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:57] [In reply to Zhen] the name that cannot be said
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:58] [In reply to Justin Rose] codependent i think... ideology is methodology too, the whole thing should basically self implode into a singularity of self reference
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:58] [In reply to Zhen] mm, thats sound
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:59] we're layered layermakers in a field of layers
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:59] may as well layer it up
Zhen, [05.06.20 14:00] carefully.
Zhen, [05.06.20 14:55] I feel like i should elaborate on symbol vs sign vs artifact
Zhen, [05.06.20 14:56] symbol and sign reside in the same layer... seen from below they're rather arbitrary patterns, but seen from below they take on "solid" meaning in their context...
Zhen, [05.06.20 14:56] so a symbol has the potential to be different signs in different contexts and a sign can be expressed by different symbols in different contexts
Zhen, [05.06.20 14:57] so they are basically the same thing but mean different things within artifacts
Zhen, [05.06.20 15:01] so symbols come together, and in concert becomes signs as components of artifacts
Zhen, [05.06.20 15:01] letters take on specific sounds when they become part of words
Zhen, [05.06.20 15:02] for example, long and short 'a'
Zhen, [05.06.20 15:02] one symbol, different signs
Zhen, [05.06.20 15:02] sign (long/short) only discernable when part of a word like 'cat' or 'bate'
Zhen, [05.06.20 15:03] (in case any of this was clear as mud...)
Zhen, [05.06.20 15:05] and with regard to archetypes in the context of memes.. first you have to have the memeplex, the sum bonum of all memes at a given instance that give the complete scene. This scene is the archetype/proximity complex, depending on which function we're looking at (which context are we dealing with the memeplex from)
Zhen, [05.06.20 15:07] the archetype is giving the timeless context of "what is" whereas the proximity complex orients with regard to narrative in terms of "what to do about it"
Zhen, [05.06.20 15:07] this arises at the same time
Vickie, [05.06.20 15:14] I guess you're saying symbol and sign are each contextually based. The symbol "death" could be represented by a scythe, night, underwater, etc. But the sign "scythe" could symbolize other things to other people: fertility, harvest, work, etc.
Zhen, [05.06.20 15:18] exactly
Zhen, [05.06.20 15:19] its only within the concert of the "whole" where you can even know for sure, and even THEN it's simply a case of the same thing in a slightly higher abstraction level
Zhen, [05.06.20 15:19] where this whole is a part of yet something else
Zhen, [05.06.20 15:21] a word appears in a sentence. a sentence in a paragraph, a paragraph in a chapter...
Vickie, [05.06.20 15:25] So there are maybe endless possibilities what a scythe could be used for, it could be welded to the back of a wagon to be a bike hook. When we stop asking what could something be used for, we sort of stop seeing it, it becomes only the label we think is intended for its use. We deny the full range of its potential uses by no longer seeing it in any other context but our own.
Vickie, [05.06.20 15:26] Something like that?
Zhen, [05.06.20 15:26] that's certainly what happens, yeah.
Zhen, [05.06.20 15:26] but like the signs and symbols deal... its about potential.
Zhen, [05.06.20 15:27] if you recognize this potential, then you're already playing a different game
Zhen, [05.06.20 15:27] by just acknowledging the workings of this you're forced to turn signs and symbols right onto themselves and see them on their terms
Zhen, [05.06.20 15:28] and the self identification with them cannot take place in that universe
Zhen, [05.06.20 15:29] and this is the feedback i personally take to mean that this is the way :)
Zhen, [05.06.20 15:30] [In reply to Vickie] basically that's the default, but when you recognize this discrepancy you understand there are other options to choose from and you can steer the outcome to be a little less programmed
SOME TIME PASSES…
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 09:53] should we be moving toward a "modal" vision of language or away from it?
Zhen, [06.06.20 09:55] [In reply to Justin Rose] looking up "modal"
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 09:55] an average set of values
Zhen, [06.06.20 09:56] the problem with averages is that no one is actually average
Zhen, [06.06.20 09:57] this is making me think of the previous symbol/sign discussion
Zhen, [06.06.20 09:57] how there's this disconnect which only reconnects through context
Brian papersheepdog Cloud, [06.06.20 09:59] is this somehow in reference to approaching an ontological limit with epistemic contexts, the sort of repeated application of narratives towards particular hypernarratives (like an average of experience)
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 10:03] Yeah, this is again in regard to Model speak, I think you and Brian and brilliant, but I'm not sold on the usefulness of it yet, for me, it still appears to be a kind of reduction in meaning through the passive censorship ad stultification of language. I guess the question is; what do we gain through system-making through putting so much magnetic force into doctrinal terms? Wouldn't looking and talking about the symbol so much, filll it with the density of our attention and turn it into a black hole that then draws in and therefore assimilates other possible realities and imagery into its black one-dimesional void?.
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 10:04] don't we, like the system, then hypocritically feed all things to a bottomless stomach?
Brian papersheepdog Cloud, [06.06.20 10:04] no because we are using the model as bootstrapping material, to peer into the mechanics of it, and thus gain mastery over the workings
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:04] its supposed to be a reduction in a juxtaposition with a specific context. if you miss the context the reduction itself is rather arbitrary
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:04] which i'm guessing why it feels this way
Brian papersheepdog Cloud, [06.06.20 10:04] this is a very understandable and common reaction though
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:05] and the context is specific to business speak losing its ability to discuss life apart from mechanical categorization.
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 10:05] hm no, theres another level beyond where you fellas think I'm stuck at
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 10:05] I understand that
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:05] model speak specifically states that it should not be limited to model speak... if you will. it recognizes the need to switch.
Brian papersheepdog Cloud, [06.06.20 10:06] this Model doesnt come with some assertion of truth, not at all its simply to be used in a feedback process to help us see for ourselves the mechanics of spectacle and thus not to be subject so discretely to them
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:06] "what do we gain through system-making through putting so much magnetic force into doctrinal terms?"
Repeatability.
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 10:06] Why is repetition valuable?
Brian papersheepdog Cloud, [06.06.20 10:07] memetic selection
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 10:08] what does the Model state about the System?
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:08] " Wouldn't looking and talking about the symbol so much, filll it with the density of our attention and turn it into a black hole that then draws in and therefore assimilates other possible realities and imagery into its black one-dimesional void?"
Does this happen when, say, one repeats a movement in kung fu 10,000 times? I sense that this there's a false conflation here just due to the idea that there's no evolution on the symbol set itself.. but it's never meant to be static this way.
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:08] [In reply to Justin Rose] That there will be many systems representing the model. uncountable. all with various degrees of coherence, including hostile.
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:09] subject to entropy
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:09] and uncertainty
Brian papersheepdog Cloud, [06.06.20 10:09] [In reply to Zhen] right the Model includes the mechanisms for feedback to update itself (this is the relationship with the environment). the Model explicitly shows that feedback must continue to happen
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:10] [In reply to Brian papersheepdog Cloud] and really it leaves it at that, it doesn't dictate which system to update to. this is all "skill"
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:10] that's for feedback to dictate
Brian papersheepdog Cloud, [06.06.20 10:10] so this is completely understandable and by asking these questions you show an understanding for the Model
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 10:10] [In reply to Brian papersheepdog Cloud] Well, I'll have to take your word for it I guess
Brian papersheepdog Cloud, [06.06.20 10:10] its feedback protocol
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:11] [In reply to Justin Rose] we insist that if feedback isn't observed the model is an arbitrary symbol set.
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:11] intellectually its a word soup :)
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 10:11] [In reply to Justin Rose] See what I mean? I'm trying to walk to New York step by step, but I keep on having to walk back to Minnesota to consult my map
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:11] yes
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:12] that's literally how its supposed to be
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 10:12] New York is New York, Minnesota is Minnesota. Can't we just enjoy cities for what they are?
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:12] the trust factor isn't one from authority... its a shared experience more than anything.
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:13] [In reply to Justin Rose] you're kind of ahead of the game tho... these stepping stones are meant for a different style of the journey
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 10:13] there seems to be a great deal of exposition and trying to cram things into form fitting clothing, when sometimes all that's needed is the reminder of a Sunflower
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:13] people who don't even know there is a journey
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:13] they feel it but can't see it
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:13] that sort of thing
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 10:14] Upaya > Skillful Means.. That just means that every situation requires its own antidote
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:14] yes
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 10:14] right
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:14] this is tailored to a limited set of situations, and will point elsewhere when needed
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:15] like... we will def recommend going to a doctor for a medical condition, ya dig?
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 10:16] The problem with calling everything God or saying "All is one" for instance, is that its incredibly dull. Now all trees are a homogenous blob of divine goodness, and its no longer that this one specific tree is a sacred one, planted by such and such a hand on such and such a hill, and will grant you the sword of destiny, such and such an insight etc
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 10:16] the Model has to be able to be turned "inside out" and broken up into a million pieces if its going to work
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:17] I very much hate that phrasing for this reason... you say all is one and then what? cut yourself off from any further investigation, that's what.
Brian papersheepdog Cloud, [06.06.20 10:17] [In reply to Justin Rose] yes I think knowing thy self is critical to being one of these pieces
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:17] this is why buddhism spoke to me.. by framing the 12 links of codependent origination the all is one deal was not at all "one" in the same sense
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 10:17] one and many
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 10:18] and through the many..one
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:18] but a process that can be seen... and well, here we are... that's what we called "model"
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 10:18] out of the one comes two, out of two comes three and out of the third comes the fourth as One
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:19] [In reply to Justin Rose] just like the archetypes.. i wonder why that happened ;)
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:19] yeah, we basically use that scheme
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 10:19] archaetypos
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:19] as one its called the absurd
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:19] as two its order and chaos
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:19] as 4 its the elements
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:20] we then have a kind of pantheon of 12 from uncertainty to state (in both senses of the word)

POSTED IMAGE

Zhen, [06.06.20 10:20] [In reply to Brian papersheepdog Cloud] there we go
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:21] don't worry too much about he latter 3 columns.. they serve a specific tangent
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:22] [In reply to Zhen] a representation of how systems emerge out of the model taking on a veriety of degrees of coherence (including mostly hostile ones)
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:23] [In reply to Zhen] sadly, due to entropy, it's essentially stacked up to produce hostility more often than not, abated only by natural selection through which we exploded long ago.
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:24] nature wouldn't let us have it that way... so we killed nature
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 10:25] Over the horizonline there rose a big moldy Sun of materialism, sloughing off pieces of itself
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:25] yup
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:26] self canibalism...
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:26] lovely image
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:27] it wasn't until a few years ago i finally understood why tibetan stuff had all this weird imagery... mainly because it came up again through here.
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:28] i sometimes described this process as disecting while attempting to have a coherent conversation with the victim.
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 10:29] Theres a great amount that the public doesn't know about Tibetan Buddhism and how far it takes our blackness and grody dark moldy inner suns
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:29] sumaru?
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:29] I know of a mountain in buddhism but not tibet specific
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 10:30] Mount Maru
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:30] heh... i misread "amount" as "mount"
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 10:30] thats a heavy feature of Ngondro practice, the preliminaries
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 10:30] haha i see
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:31] portal mountain is the "tibet" version of the model thing..
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:31] where all these things feature as places and beings kind of thing
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:31] like a mandala
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 10:32] Mount Maru...Padmasambava is also said to live timelessly as we speak in the Copper Colored Mountain
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:32] its meant to be a visualization etc.
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:33] yeah something like taht
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 10:33] mandala, center is you, Mandalas are a complete spiritual practice, apprehending their colors and symbols is apprehending yourself
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:33] yup
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:33] portal mountain is a journey to the inner chamber... all things are you
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 10:33] "Newton"
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:33] [In reply to Justin Rose] this is essentially the template used to fabricate it
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 10:36] [In reply to Zhen] because all things resemble artichoke spirals and trees
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:36] Yeah.
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:38] Lets look at the lobby... It is a representation of all thoughts at once with no real constraint. It points you to the embassy to find a guide (metaphor for signal to noise)..
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 10:38] [In reply to Zhen] I love the idea
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:39] The guide takes you through to the bonfire where all the stories are shared as units (in interrupted broadcast)
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:40] Sorts thoughts
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:40] From there, in the crystal obelisk these narratives are put throu a reflective matrix to yield the cosmology they fabricate.
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:41] And finally we have something to study in our field lab
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 10:43] [In reply to Zhen] These sound like the inner monologue of lonely Saturn as he looks up from underneath the Earth, out in the cold of space, safely removed from the the drama of man
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:44] that is one variant, sure :)
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:44] it can be a bit more upbeat tho.. i mean... this isn't restricted to inner. this can be done with a friend using the outer
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:45] as the two are essentially two methods to focus in on the same thing
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:45] like.. if you engage in the imaginative part like we are in chat
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 10:45] What does the Model point to in us?
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:45] we're still using the symbol set to navigate a map that points to this "thing"... and in that navigation the "thing" is being done
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:46] [In reply to Justin Rose] same thing as the finger :)
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:46] some celestial object in the vacinity of the 3rd rock.
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 10:46] hm somethings missing, I feel it
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 10:46] I think the Devil isn't being given his due
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 10:47] thats always the case isnt it
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:47] remember the 3 columns i said not to worry about? he's all there
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 10:47] tricky fucker
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 10:47] RedeemSatan
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:47] not to worry about it because it's hard to explain how that is supposed to work given the break up of the archetypes
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 10:47] Wheres the Models Satan?
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:48] but not from the perspective that it isn't important or anything like that
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:48] [In reply to Justin Rose] it all begins with Fiat.
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:48] the fallen angel, if you will
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 10:49] hm, whats the phenomenology of the Fiat?
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:49] Fiat is succeptable to exploitation through pleasure and pain. it is a juxtaposition of an abstraction over something (like say how as a home owner your manipulated by fear of home loss into wage work)
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:50] the being a home owner acts as an internal authority mechanism
Brian papersheepdog Cloud, [06.06.20 10:50] [In reply to Justin Rose] it feels weird to have other people talking about this ;) (the mandala)
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:50] and its rigged to a program out of your control
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:50] [In reply to Zhen] ie success and failure is defined extrinsically to the label.
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:51] [In reply to Zhen] which is what is tethering the pleasure/pain response
Brian papersheepdog Cloud, [06.06.20 10:51] [In reply to Zhen] the mandala represents the thing that fabricates the mandala
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 10:51] But what is Fiat?
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:51] so this Fiat authority is manipulating the underlying body and mind with disregard to the fact that the organism itself has needs. this is the disconnection fiat can cause
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:52] [In reply to Justin Rose] its when you take a layer of something (like people) and create another layer on top of it (like a society) which abstracts away the language of the layer below to the terms of the layer above.
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:53] its when you stop being justing and start being a rose
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:53] see how the mind jumps "up" a layer? and how that layer now dictates meaning with disregard for what was below?
That is fiat.
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:54] Fiat can be seen as the inner authority that controls you via pleasure and pain. or an outer authority which is essentially the reflection of the inner spilling into meatspace.
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:55] In short, the dictionary meaning of the word fiat is what we're working with.

POSTED IMAGE

Brian papersheepdog Cloud, [06.06.20 11:02] [In reply to Zhen] key being its appearance in the shared layer(s), beyond the horizon but becoming something complete beyond the individual.. what we all agree that something means, red means stop. environment speaks back to us

POSTED IMAGE

Brian papersheepdog Cloud, [06.06.20 11:02] might as well throw those out there
Zhen, [06.06.20 11:03] yeah, its all connected
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 11:03] okay okay
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 11:07] Yahweh appeared in front of Job who was kneeling in the ashes of what used to be his life before God destroyed it to prove how great he is to his son(Jesus' brother) Satan...Mightily the Lord announced his greatness "I am all that was, is and what will come"..Why does God bother trying to make an impression on his pitiful servant? (Job who after being torn to pieces by God said interestingly:" I had the ears to hear you before, but now my eyes SEE you")
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 11:09] Job saw behind God's back and therefore became higher than God...that necessitated God's transformation into Man in order to experience really what it was like to be man...that was the only way to make amends for torturing Job
Zhen, [06.06.20 11:09] in other words its hard to burn karma as a god and as a demon, but the human is just ripe for it.
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 11:10] Satan keeps getting away with it..these backroom deals with thhe unconscious God in us
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 11:10] Job was a prefiguration of Christ, as was Adam, as was Abel, and each of these had appropriate shadows
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 11:12] the shadows of these beings, thats our collective human shadow..thats the stuff we haven't dealt with yet...the real muck and the maddness. Too much fa fa fa foo foofee new agey, eat pray love Oprah Ellen Degeneres in all of our spiritual systems
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 11:12] this "Fiat" that you equate with Satan, I think that might be what I'm trying to get at
Brian papersheepdog Cloud, [06.06.20 11:13] LOVE AND LIGHT OR GET OUT!!!
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 11:14] [In reply to Brian papersheepdog Cloud] 😂 Center yourself you ignorant fool!! can't you see we're all trying to hum in unison with the lights off?
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 11:14] [In reply to Justin Rose] Somehow I think you really need to have a potent totem for demon, lest the demons start parading around in white robes

CONTINUED IN COMMENTS

Justin Rose, [05.06.20 12:39] hey guys
Brian papersheepdog Cloud, [05.06.20 12:41] [In reply to Justin Rose] Hey Justin welcome back!
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 12:42] That was a great piece. Apocalypse Field Guide
Brian papersheepdog Cloud, [05.06.20 12:44] [In reply to Justin Rose] Thank you 😊
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 12:44] I was here before, talking about Tantric Buddhism and maybe other things. It felt like a good time to come see what you guys thought about our current predicament...From what I can tell after reading your pinned piece on SotS, we feel the same about whats going on
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 12:45] So, hello again, it's reassuring that you guys are still here.
Brian papersheepdog Cloud, [05.06.20 12:46] I’m trying to reach out and network more right now
Brian papersheepdog Cloud, [05.06.20 12:46] I need to canvas the network and see who already has what pieces of the puzzle
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 12:47] well I'll give you this one
Brian papersheepdog Cloud, [05.06.20 12:48] I keep getting they feeling like it’s just s lack of communication that keeps things feeling silo’d . Like.. the whole thing should be happening right now the Guild should be emerging . I believe it is but the core memes are so tricky to convey I’d be willing to bet that almost no one has that piece
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 12:49] the core memes are difficult to convey you think?
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 12:49] I dunno, that Field Guide was very sane and accessible in my view
Brian papersheepdog Cloud, [05.06.20 12:49] Yes it’s taken a long time to get to this point
Brian papersheepdog Cloud, [05.06.20 12:50] I mean I haven’t seen anything like the field guide out in the wild
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 12:52] All i know is this: this whole time we should have been trying to redeem Satan, but instead we've been striving for perfection and goodness, thus arming the subterranean armies of the night, and because we haven't unearthed , collectively, the unconscious compulsions towards evil, the tension of that necessity is hitting a crescendo now. the Leviathan has been slumbering for far too long. If the Devil can't be redeemed then neither can we.
Brian papersheepdog Cloud, [05.06.20 12:56] Hmm interesting . Probably deeply related to navigation by Spectacle itself . It’s a natural thing , the neural net notices things patterns etc for purpose of survival. Can’t shovel it under the rug . The whole racism thing for example . Being racist is a choice but noticing patterns is not. We’re all very different but there are also similarities along many lines . Just initial thoughts maybe we can put this into Model speak
Brian papersheepdog Cloud, [05.06.20 12:58] This is probably also evoking the mind body split, trying to bottle up emotions coming from the body , overwriting this image of purity via the mind
Brian papersheepdog Cloud, [05.06.20 12:58] Thereby alienating the body and its many signals
Brian papersheepdog Cloud, [05.06.20 12:59] And thereby shutting off actual sensitivity (relationship) with the environment
Vickie, [05.06.20 13:04] [In reply to Justin Rose] Good to hear from you 🙂 welcome back
Brian papersheepdog Cloud, [05.06.20 13:12] [In reply to Justin Rose] I’d like to hear more about this and discuss
Brian papersheepdog Cloud, [05.06.20 13:12] I wonder if we can relate it to a fear of death
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:14] [In reply to Justin Rose] Hello! welcome!
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:18] [In reply to Brian papersheepdog Cloud] I think the opposite, we can relate it to a fear of life and a secret longing for the release of death
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:19] [In reply to Brian papersheepdog Cloud] The more I think about this racism question the less I think it has to do with choice. What I'm noticing is that racists do not think they are racists. that symbol itself points to a different sign in the psyche rendering any conversation on the subject pretty much moot.
What we're up against is a rigid hierarchy that's essentially about power, not colour. The slots are made available by arbitrary gradients (networks, money, colours, etc, its totally up for grabs and shit's invented all the time). The labels of us vs them are chosen by fashion
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:19] [In reply to Justin Rose] same thing two diff views
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:20] [In reply to Brian papersheepdog Cloud] "Maybe we can put it into model speak.."I had a thought about this: The problem with trying to shoehorn everything into a specific corrall is that it always ends in a reduction
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:20] the psyche is image, and thats an imposition and limitation on imagery, thats why ideologies fail
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:20] because they're intended as intermediate stages, not as the final resting grounds
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:22] how could i get across a feeling of raunchy psychedelic nymph sex magic without Pan? Why would I want to?
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:23] and I guess thats the point about ideologies, alot of the time its a desperate attempt at organizing chaos that usually ends up throwing out our connection with the imagery of the past
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:23] to me, a new set of symbols is only useful in so far as it elucidates the meanings of the old ones
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:24] but the new symbols only come about through the foundation of our psyche, which contains all primordial imagery since the dawn of man and probably beyond
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:25] Christianity underpins everything you or I have ever thought since we got here. Don't you think it should be included in the conversation, and if its not, then it is yet another provisional, temporal construct and thus subject to disintegration??
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:26] if we don't integrate old imagery maybe we're doomed to disintegrate because its attempt to make temporality out of eternity?
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:27] i'm very keen to retain the imagery
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:27] as is
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:27] or Buddhism for that matter
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:27] but select for symbols
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:27] that initially werent used for it
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:27] isn't that just another reduction
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:28] it's the same song, i suppose since the dawn of time
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:28] shouldn't the images be able to transmogrify in meaning as well?
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:28] well that's just it... its pointing to the same "meaning" as it were
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:28] like you're suggesting, reintegrate the old as new
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:29] as long as its not shoehorning
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:29] reignite life in the tongue of dead mechanisms.
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:29] [In reply to Justin Rose] maybe provisionally... that's the key to understand that all is just provisional
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:29] because "the old" has always been there, and our symbols are a meager(very) attempt at putting another costume on them
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:30] and to be used as tools. if it doesn't fit the context... maybe diff tool is better
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:30] if all is provisional then all is eternal
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:30] and you can find yourself either balancing on the fence or standing on the ground
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:30] [In reply to Justin Rose] by old symbols, at least to me, i'm generally refering to the heros journey
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:31] [In reply to Justin Rose] indeed. its pure potential all the way
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:31] So how do we address our filth with the Model? what do we do to our filth?
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:31] clean
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:32] haha... that's the first concern, ;)
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:32] why?
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:32] can a person clean filth? Maybe filth is primordial a beyond the reach of the scrubbin bubbles of intellect?
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:33] just the context we find ourselves in... an organism within an environment, which leads to shelter and sustenance (protection from, resources of) and semi permable membrane is formed. to maintain it it has to be "cleaned" regularly, or rather, the increase of entropy must be mitigated to keep metastability.
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:33] [In reply to Justin Rose] i think of it as entropy.
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:33] and cleaning is just metastability within that context.
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:33] how to mitigate entropy?
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:34] should entropy require you to mitigate it?
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:34] [In reply to Justin Rose] negentropy.
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:34] [In reply to Justin Rose] it is a consequence of entropy itself. localized spaces self organize into negative spots.
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:38] but yeah... have you read that math paper that talks about how with the buildup of energy a material will spontaniously self organize to become more efficient at discipation... and the main mechanism of increasing this function is self replication.
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:38] basically entropy causes order to emerge
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:38] and order self replicates
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:38] so its not about musts... so much as... thems the chops..
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:40] I haven't read that paper.
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:41] Sounds true, though how would you say that psychologically/mythically?
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:42] going to farm so ill be intermittent
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:42] good to talk again
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:42] nice to see you guys
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:44] [In reply to Justin Rose] "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was without form and void and darkness was over the face of the deep."
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:45] I guess my concern with the whole "put everything in Model-speak" or any-speak for that matter, is that it seems all but certain that the "old symbols" would be lost simply from misuse
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:45] [In reply to Justin Rose] Yeah man I'm happy to see you back. Hope you're doing better.
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:45] I guess thats what picking a lane does. Do we HAVE to pick a lane? and if so, why? isn't there a higher order?
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:46] [In reply to Justin Rose] my argument is that they are basically already lost because the language moved off into a very different landscape
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:46] I am **Zhenya, I made a kind of "final" removal of myself from the system, hence the farming.
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:46] [In reply to Zhen] thats where we disagree, the symbols have inherent primordial power, you just have to push them like buttons
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:47] teach people that you CAN push things like buttons
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:47] then everything is symbol
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:47] and nothing is, simultaneously so that life can procede
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:49] but what you said is really salient, these symbols have been apprehended and commodified by some...though not by all, and it would be a shame throw the baby
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:49] [In reply to Justin Rose] we might be referring to different things when we are saying symbol... what you're describing sounds more like what I call "archetypes"
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:49] which have a relationship to symbols, definitely
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:50] yes the archetypes manifest themselves as symbol BUT the symbol itself is its own universe
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:50] its like this; the symbols of Buddhism and Christianity and Taoism can be overlapped, but they are themselves their own experience, and it would be a shame to lose their "isness" by trying to reduce
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:50] and I just dont see how you can help it when you limit langugage
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:51] i use the word symbol to denote some arbitrary pattern that only makes sense in concert with other symbols... like letters are meaningless on their own.. the meaning conveyed is limited, but together they form a new layer where the meaning is derived
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:51] enriching language and adding more symbols makes more sense to me
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:51] [In reply to Zhen] then we have signs, and then artifacts, and then memes and finally archetypes
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:51] [In reply to Zhen] hm, thats mathematic with no aesthetic beauty
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:52] just more building blocks :)
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:52] lets me pry more
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:52] logically but what about experientially, where prybars arent needed and perhaps a hindrance?
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:53] castles in the sand
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:53] like some things are just mechanisms... like molecules... but these same things in concert... like in dna... is not different but not the same
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:53] dna is a castle in sand too, no?
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:54] [In reply to Justin Rose] yes.. this is a matter discipline
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:54] and hence buddhism in its correct form is a practice without a name really
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:54] that's the logical direction to take this i think
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:54] You are Buddhism not Buddhist
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:55] but that is an intermediary I think, and now that we've become a universal society that really is a multicultural mix of symbols, why not celebrate them all as dynamic expressions and wisdom displays? as unique, never but once repeatable
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:56] i bring it up only cause it has the same "policy" with regard to its symbols... use them in context, and don't otherwise, etc
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:56] methodology is better than ideology youre saying
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:57] [In reply to Justin Rose] That's what an archetype really is...
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:57] [In reply to Zhen] the name that cannot be said
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:58] [In reply to Justin Rose] codependent i think... ideology is methodology too, the whole thing should basically self implode into a singularity of self reference
Justin Rose, [05.06.20 13:58] [In reply to Zhen] mm, thats sound
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:59] we're layered layermakers in a field of layers
Zhen, [05.06.20 13:59] may as well layer it up
Zhen, [05.06.20 14:00] carefully.
Zhen, [05.06.20 14:55] I feel like i should elaborate on symbol vs sign vs artifact
Zhen, [05.06.20 14:56] symbol and sign reside in the same layer... seen from below they're rather arbitrary patterns, but seen from below they take on "solid" meaning in their context...
Zhen, [05.06.20 14:56] so a symbol has the potential to be different signs in different contexts and a sign can be expressed by different symbols in different contexts
Zhen, [05.06.20 14:57] so they are basically the same thing but mean different things within artifacts
Zhen, [05.06.20 15:01] so symbols come together, and in concert becomes signs as components of artifacts
Zhen, [05.06.20 15:01] letters take on specific sounds when they become part of words
Zhen, [05.06.20 15:02] for example, long and short 'a'
Zhen, [05.06.20 15:02] one symbol, different signs
Zhen, [05.06.20 15:02] sign (long/short) only discernable when part of a word like 'cat' or 'bate'
Zhen, [05.06.20 15:03] (in case any of this was clear as mud...)
Zhen, [05.06.20 15:05] and with regard to archetypes in the context of memes.. first you have to have the memeplex, the sum bonum of all memes at a given instance that give the complete scene. This scene is the archetype/proximity complex, depending on which function we're looking at (which context are we dealing with the memeplex from)
Zhen, [05.06.20 15:07] the archetype is giving the timeless context of "what is" whereas the proximity complex orients with regard to narrative in terms of "what to do about it"
Zhen, [05.06.20 15:07] this arises at the same time
Vickie, [05.06.20 15:14] I guess you're saying symbol and sign are each contextually based. The symbol "death" could be represented by a scythe, night, underwater, etc. But the sign "scythe" could symbolize other things to other people: fertility, harvest, work, etc.
Zhen, [05.06.20 15:18] exactly
Zhen, [05.06.20 15:19] its only within the concert of the "whole" where you can even know for sure, and even THEN it's simply a case of the same thing in a slightly higher abstraction level
Zhen, [05.06.20 15:19] where this whole is a part of yet something else
Zhen, [05.06.20 15:21] a word appears in a sentence. a sentence in a paragraph, a paragraph in a chapter...
Vickie, [05.06.20 15:25] So there are maybe endless possibilities what a scythe could be used for, it could be welded to the back of a wagon to be a bike hook. When we stop asking what could something be used for, we sort of stop seeing it, it becomes only the label we think is intended for its use. We deny the full range of its potential uses by no longer seeing it in any other context but our own.
Vickie, [05.06.20 15:26] Something like that?
Zhen, [05.06.20 15:26] that's certainly what happens, yeah.
Zhen, [05.06.20 15:26] but like the signs and symbols deal... its about potential.
Zhen, [05.06.20 15:27] if you recognize this potential, then you're already playing a different game
Zhen, [05.06.20 15:27] by just acknowledging the workings of this you're forced to turn signs and symbols right onto themselves and see them on their terms
Zhen, [05.06.20 15:28] and the self identification with them cannot take place in that universe
Zhen, [05.06.20 15:29] and this is the feedback i personally take to mean that this is the way :)
Zhen, [05.06.20 15:30] [In reply to Vickie] basically that's the default, but when you recognize this discrepancy you understand there are other options to choose from and you can steer the outcome to be a little less programmed
SOME TIME PASSES…
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 09:53] should we be moving toward a "modal" vision of language or away from it?
Zhen, [06.06.20 09:55] [In reply to Justin Rose] looking up "modal"
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 09:55] an average set of values
Zhen, [06.06.20 09:56] the problem with averages is that no one is actually average
Zhen, [06.06.20 09:57] this is making me think of the previous symbol/sign discussion
Zhen, [06.06.20 09:57] how there's this disconnect which only reconnects through context
Brian papersheepdog Cloud, [06.06.20 09:59] is this somehow in reference to approaching an ontological limit with epistemic contexts, the sort of repeated application of narratives towards particular hypernarratives (like an average of experience)
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 10:03] Yeah, this is again in regard to Model speak, I think you and Brian and brilliant, but I'm not sold on the usefulness of it yet, for me, it still appears to be a kind of reduction in meaning through the passive censorship ad stultification of language. I guess the question is; what do we gain through system-making through putting so much magnetic force into doctrinal terms? Wouldn't looking and talking about the symbol so much, filll it with the density of our attention and turn it into a black hole that then draws in and therefore assimilates other possible realities and imagery into its black one-dimesional void?.
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 10:04] don't we, like the system, then hypocritically feed all things to a bottomless stomach?
Brian papersheepdog Cloud, [06.06.20 10:04] no because we are using the model as bootstrapping material, to peer into the mechanics of it, and thus gain mastery over the workings
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:04] its supposed to be a reduction in a juxtaposition with a specific context. if you miss the context the reduction itself is rather arbitrary
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:04] which i'm guessing why it feels this way
Brian papersheepdog Cloud, [06.06.20 10:04] this is a very understandable and common reaction though
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:05] and the context is specific to business speak losing its ability to discuss life apart from mechanical categorization.
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 10:05] hm no, theres another level beyond where you fellas think I'm stuck at
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 10:05] I understand that
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:05] model speak specifically states that it should not be limited to model speak... if you will. it recognizes the need to switch.
Brian papersheepdog Cloud, [06.06.20 10:06] this Model doesnt come with some assertion of truth, not at all its simply to be used in a feedback process to help us see for ourselves the mechanics of spectacle and thus not to be subject so discretely to them
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:06] "what do we gain through system-making through putting so much magnetic force into doctrinal terms?"
Repeatability.
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 10:06] Why is repetition valuable?
Brian papersheepdog Cloud, [06.06.20 10:07] memetic selection
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 10:08] what does the Model state about the System?
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:08] " Wouldn't looking and talking about the symbol so much, filll it with the density of our attention and turn it into a black hole that then draws in and therefore assimilates other possible realities and imagery into its black one-dimesional void?"
Does this happen when, say, one repeats a movement in kung fu 10,000 times? I sense that this there's a false conflation here just due to the idea that there's no evolution on the symbol set itself.. but it's never meant to be static this way.
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:08] [In reply to Justin Rose] That there will be many systems representing the model. uncountable. all with various degrees of coherence, including hostile.
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:09] subject to entropy
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:09] and uncertainty
Brian papersheepdog Cloud, [06.06.20 10:09] [In reply to Zhen] right the Model includes the mechanisms for feedback to update itself (this is the relationship with the environment). the Model explicitly shows that feedback must continue to happen
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:10] [In reply to Brian papersheepdog Cloud] and really it leaves it at that, it doesn't dictate which system to update to. this is all "skill"
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:10] that's for feedback to dictate
Brian papersheepdog Cloud, [06.06.20 10:10] so this is completely understandable and by asking these questions you show an understanding for the Model
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 10:10] [In reply to Brian papersheepdog Cloud] Well, I'll have to take your word for it I guess
Brian papersheepdog Cloud, [06.06.20 10:10] its feedback protocol
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:11] [In reply to Justin Rose] we insist that if feedback isn't observed the model is an arbitrary symbol set.
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:11] intellectually its a word soup :)
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 10:11] [In reply to Justin Rose] See what I mean? I'm trying to walk to New York step by step, but I keep on having to walk back to Minnesota to consult my map
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:11] yes
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:12] that's literally how its supposed to be
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 10:12] New York is New York, Minnesota is Minnesota. Can't we just enjoy cities for what they are?
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:12] the trust factor isn't one from authority... its a shared experience more than anything.
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:13] [In reply to Justin Rose] you're kind of ahead of the game tho... these stepping stones are meant for a different style of the journey
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 10:13] there seems to be a great deal of exposition and trying to cram things into form fitting clothing, when sometimes all that's needed is the reminder of a Sunflower
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:13] people who don't even know there is a journey
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:13] they feel it but can't see it
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:13] that sort of thing
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 10:14] Upaya > Skillful Means.. That just means that every situation requires its own antidote
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:14] yes
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 10:14] right
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:14] this is tailored to a limited set of situations, and will point elsewhere when needed
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:15] like... we will def recommend going to a doctor for a medical condition, ya dig?
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 10:16] The problem with calling everything God or saying "All is one" for instance, is that its incredibly dull. Now all trees are a homogenous blob of divine goodness, and its no longer that this one specific tree is a sacred one, planted by such and such a hand on such and such a hill, and will grant you the sword of destiny, such and such an insight etc
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 10:16] the Model has to be able to be turned "inside out" and broken up into a million pieces if its going to work
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:17] I very much hate that phrasing for this reason... you say all is one and then what? cut yourself off from any further investigation, that's what.
Brian papersheepdog Cloud, [06.06.20 10:17] [In reply to Justin Rose] yes I think knowing thy self is critical to being one of these pieces
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:17] this is why buddhism spoke to me.. by framing the 12 links of codependent origination the all is one deal was not at all "one" in the same sense
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 10:17] one and many
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 10:18] and through the many..one
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:18] but a process that can be seen... and well, here we are... that's what we called "model"
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 10:18] out of the one comes two, out of two comes three and out of the third comes the fourth as One
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:19] [In reply to Justin Rose] just like the archetypes.. i wonder why that happened ;)
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:19] yeah, we basically use that scheme
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 10:19] archaetypos
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:19] as one its called the absurd
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:19] as two its order and chaos
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:19] as 4 its the elements
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:20] we then have a kind of pantheon of 12 from uncertainty to state (in both senses of the word)

[POSTED IMAGE]**(https://i.imgur.com/svtD9hJ.png)

Zhen, [06.06.20 10:20] [In reply to Brian papersheepdog Cloud] there we go
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:21] don't worry too much about he latter 3 columns.. they serve a specific tangent
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:22] [In reply to Zhen] a representation of how systems emerge out of the model taking on a veriety of degrees of coherence (including mostly hostile ones)
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:23] [In reply to Zhen] sadly, due to entropy, it's essentially stacked up to produce hostility more often than not, abated only by natural selection through which we exploded long ago.
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:24] nature wouldn't let us have it that way... so we killed nature
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 10:25] Over the horizonline there rose a big moldy Sun of materialism, sloughing off pieces of itself
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:25] yup
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:26] self canibalism...
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:26] lovely image
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:27] it wasn't until a few years ago i finally understood why tibetan stuff had all this weird imagery... mainly because it came up again through here.
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:28] i sometimes described this process as disecting while attempting to have a coherent conversation with the victim.
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 10:29] Theres a great amount that the public doesn't know about Tibetan Buddhism and how far it takes our blackness and grody dark moldy inner suns
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:29] sumaru?
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:29] I know of a mountain in buddhism but not tibet specific
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 10:30] Mount Maru
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:30] heh... i misread "amount" as "mount"
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 10:30] thats a heavy feature of Ngondro practice, the preliminaries
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 10:30] haha i see
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:31] portal mountain is the "tibet" version of the model thing..
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:31] where all these things feature as places and beings kind of thing
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:31] like a mandala
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 10:32] Mount Maru...Padmasambava is also said to live timelessly as we speak in the Copper Colored Mountain
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:32] its meant to be a visualization etc.
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:33] yeah something like taht
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 10:33] mandala, center is you, Mandalas are a complete spiritual practice, apprehending their colors and symbols is apprehending yourself
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:33] yup
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:33] portal mountain is a journey to the inner chamber... all things are you
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 10:33] "Newton"
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:33] [In reply to Justin Rose] this is essentially the template used to fabricate it
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 10:36] [In reply to Zhen] because all things resemble artichoke spirals and trees
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:36] Yeah.
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:38] Lets look at the lobby... It is a representation of all thoughts at once with no real constraint. It points you to the embassy to find a guide (metaphor for signal to noise)..
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 10:38] [In reply to Zhen] I love the idea
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:39] The guide takes you through to the bonfire where all the stories are shared as units (in interrupted broadcast)
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:40] Sorts thoughts
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:40] From there, in the crystal obelisk these narratives are put throu a reflective matrix to yield the cosmology they fabricate.
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:41] And finally we have something to study in our field lab
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 10:43] [In reply to Zhen] These sound like the inner monologue of lonely Saturn as he looks up from underneath the Earth, out in the cold of space, safely removed from the the drama of man
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:44] that is one variant, sure :)
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:44] it can be a bit more upbeat tho.. i mean... this isn't restricted to inner. this can be done with a friend using the outer
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:45] as the two are essentially two methods to focus in on the same thing
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:45] like.. if you engage in the imaginative part like we are in chat
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 10:45] What does the Model point to in us?
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:45] we're still using the symbol set to navigate a map that points to this "thing"... and in that navigation the "thing" is being done
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:46] [In reply to Justin Rose] same thing as the finger :)
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:46] some celestial object in the vacinity of the 3rd rock.
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 10:46] hm somethings missing, I feel it
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 10:46] I think the Devil isn't being given his due
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 10:47] thats always the case isnt it
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:47] remember the 3 columns i said not to worry about? he's all there
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 10:47] tricky fucker
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 10:47]

RedeemSatan

Zhen, [06.06.20 10:47] not to worry about it because it's hard to explain how that is supposed to work given the break up of the archetypes
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 10:47] Wheres the Models Satan?
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:48] but not from the perspective that it isn't important or anything like that
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:48] [In reply to Justin Rose] it all begins with Fiat.
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:48] the fallen angel, if you will
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 10:49] hm, whats the phenomenology of the Fiat?
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:49] Fiat is succeptable to exploitation through pleasure and pain. it is a juxtaposition of an abstraction over something (like say how as a home owner your manipulated by fear of home loss into wage work)
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:50] the being a home owner acts as an internal authority mechanism
Brian papersheepdog Cloud, [06.06.20 10:50] [In reply to Justin Rose] it feels weird to have other people talking about this ;) (the mandala)
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:50] and its rigged to a program out of your control
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:50] [In reply to Zhen] ie success and failure is defined extrinsically to the label.
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:51] [In reply to Zhen] which is what is tethering the pleasure/pain response
Brian papersheepdog Cloud, [06.06.20 10:51] [In reply to Zhen] the mandala represents the thing that fabricates the mandala
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 10:51] But what is Fiat?
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:51] so this Fiat authority is manipulating the underlying body and mind with disregard to the fact that the organism itself has needs. this is the disconnection fiat can cause
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:52] [In reply to Justin Rose] its when you take a layer of something (like people) and create another layer on top of it (like a society) which abstracts away the language of the layer below to the terms of the layer above.
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:53] its when you stop being justing and start being a rose
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:53] see how the mind jumps "up" a layer? and how that layer now dictates meaning with disregard for what was below?
That is fiat.
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:54] Fiat can be seen as the inner authority that controls you via pleasure and pain. or an outer authority which is essentially the reflection of the inner spilling into meatspace.
Zhen, [06.06.20 10:55] In short, the dictionary meaning of the word fiat is what we're working with.

[POSTED IMAGE]**(https://i.imgur.com/M4rTgTu.png)

Brian papersheepdog Cloud, [06.06.20 11:02] [In reply to Zhen] key being its appearance in the shared layer(s), beyond the horizon but becoming something complete beyond the individual.. what we all agree that something means, red means stop. environment speaks back to us
[POSTED IMAGE]**(https://i.imgur.com/YjxtKQy.jpg)
Brian papersheepdog Cloud, [06.06.20 11:02] might as well throw those out there
Zhen, [06.06.20 11:03] yeah, its all connected
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 11:03] okay okay
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 11:07] Yahweh appeared in front of Job who was kneeling in the ashes of what used to be his life before God destroyed it to prove how great he is to his son(Jesus' brother) Satan...Mightily the Lord announced his greatness "I am all that was, is and what will come"..Why does God bother trying to make an impression on his pitiful servant? (Job who after being torn to pieces by God said interestingly:" I had the ears to hear you before, but now my eyes SEE you")
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 11:09] Job saw behind God's back and therefore became higher than God...that necessitated God's transformation into Man in order to experience really what it was like to be man...that was the only way to make amends for torturing Job
Zhen, [06.06.20 11:09] in other words its hard to burn karma as a god and as a demon, but the human is just ripe for it.
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 11:10] Satan keeps getting away with it..these backroom deals with thhe unconscious God in us
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 11:10] Job was a prefiguration of Christ, as was Adam, as was Abel, and each of these had appropriate shadows
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 11:12] the shadows of these beings, thats our collective human shadow..thats the stuff we haven't dealt with yet...the real muck and the maddness. Too much fa fa fa foo foofee new agey, eat pray love Oprah Ellen Degeneres in all of our spiritual systems
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 11:12] this "Fiat" that you equate with Satan, I think that might be what I'm trying to get at
Brian papersheepdog Cloud, [06.06.20 11:13] LOVE AND LIGHT OR GET OUT!!!
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 11:14] [In reply to Brian papersheepdog Cloud] 😂 Center yourself you ignorant fool!! can't you see we're all trying to hum in unison with the lights off?
Justin Rose, [06.06.20 11:14] [In reply to Justin Rose] Somehow I think you really need to have a potent totem for demon, lest the demons start parading around in white robes

A continuation of Something Wicked This Way Comes
Next Part
“Optimism is the difference between a survivor and the guy who dies along the way.” was a family truism that had been oft repeated throughout Ruwaq’s Mahr’s childhood. His father had duly reminded him that he wasn’t ever going to be the brightest star in the sky, but always followed it up with a jovial exclamation of “Don’t waste time worrying about that! There are plenty of other things to do instead!” The thought would have almost certainly brought more comfort if he hadn’t been stripped of his armor and weapons and locked up in one of the basement cells of the Nerie facility. The squad of operators in unmarked and unadorned gray armor who had retrieved him and Luro from the site of the ambush were very clearly not the talkative types, not that Ruwaq was particularly eager to explain why he’d played dead after being knocked to the ground by the opening salvo of fire.
All in all, the Lorram was more than fine with cooling his heels for the time being.
A telltale hydraulic hiss snapped him back to attention as the door to his cell slid open to reveal a crisply dressed Nerie, probably a woman, flanked by a pair of those same gray armored paramilitary types. She gave a little half-nod to Ruwaq, and her two escorts made a slightly exaggerated show of turning off their outward facing communication lines. After a moment, the door to the cell automatically slid closed behind them as well. With practiced ease, the woman addressed him.
“I would lead us off with some pleasant introductions, Private Ruwaq, but I’m sure you’d agree that today has been anything BUT pleasant for a great number of our co-workers. I’m very glad to see someone make it back from the field, and I have some questions whose answers could prove absolutely vital for the livelihood of all personnel now involved in this situation.” his subdermal translator gave her voice a smooth, business appropriate feel with an urban intonation.
“Err, sure- uh… sure thing? What d’you need to know?” Ruwaq replied, lamely. He’d joined this line of work so he didn’t have to deal with suits, and this entire encounter was ill-fitting.
The Nerie fiddled with a pocket clasp and withdrew what was clearly a slimline recorder. A tap of her wrist pulled up a gently glowing array of words in the air between them, and she casually flicked through them with one hand while prepping the recorder in her other. “I’ll be taking your statement on some of the things you saw out there, and it’s paramount you tell me everything that you can recall from your initial touchdown on-planet up through the ambush. I want you to understand what happened here is the culmination of multiple errors from a variety of our former employees, and I’m here to make things right. If you need anything to drink or eat, please let me know before we begin.”
Ruwaq half opened his mouth, fumbling for a moment before his train of thought managed to catch up. “Uh, so I can just start when we landed and… y’know, go from there?” His interviewer nodded solemnly. “Well, so, when we landed and started looking around...”
Reputation was the currency of success, and Arenrett had cemented herself as a rising star within Corporation management with each accomplishment she racked up as an “emergency asset officer”. Most sane Nerie would’ve avoided any position where a significant portion of their time on the clock was in active war zones, but Arenrett’s skills and refusal to back down from a challenge now saw her as peers with staff who had spent half a century slowly climbing the ranks. Her quick ascent had also given her a great deal of insight into the downright Machiavellian power games that were played at nearly ever level of management. She had evaded the brunt of this attention up until this point due to the quite frankly depressing mortality rates of her particular position, but this job proved she wasn’t going to be able to avoid scrutiny for any longer. The spotlight was on her to appropriately handle an honest to goodness crisis in the making. She had been hoping that her interview with the survivor from the Klorrent team would lend some much needed insight as to the direction this one needed to be tackled from.
Unfortunately, Ruwaq was a fucking idiot.
Based on the background checks she’d run on the members of both ill-fated PSF teams, it seemed likely that Ruwaq, one of the handful of totally new hires for Klorrent (A surprising fact, given their genuinely glowing reputation within the industry. Growing pains from their recent changes in ownership, perhaps?) had been knocked out of the fighting early on and declined to press the matter of an engagement with the subject of this entire debacle. Considering the way the wind had blown for all of his peers, electing to stay down after his armor had managed to deflect a handful of shots was certainly the right call. He’d just made it for all of the wrong reasons, as evidenced by the honest-to-goodness disaster of an interview he’d just given. Arenrett had quickly come to understand that the Lorram hadn’t even gotten a proper look at his team’s assailant and had spent the latter half of his interview attempting to dodge around this fact.
She stood out in the hallway, fingers practically mashing away at the virtual tablet screen projected by her wrist mounted assistant computer. There was precious little information to work with on this job; whatever project the science staff had been working on here was plainly a Black Label affair... if it had even been sanctioned in the first place. The Nerie knew better than to ask anything that wasn’t directly related to solving the issue at hand, but she had made note of the terrifying effectiveness of whatever it was that had carved a swath through the facility AND the PSF teams who had been initially sent in. The metaphorical buck was being passed around like a hot potato by upper management for the time being, but thankfully Arenrett’s job never actually sunk to company wetwork.
She glanced warily at the two company toughs who had escorted her. I just hope theirs don’t too.
Calling what had been crudely scratched into the mud over the course of the afternoon “a plan” would be extremely generous. That did nothing to change the fact that Mirri Jael Gerrem was being hauled like a piece of carry-on luggage through the forest at a pace normally associated with light motor vehicles. Her “captor” had thrown together a sack of supplies from camp, freed her from the composite fiber still binding her legs, and then hucked both of them over his shoulder before taking off at a dead sprint into the woods. Mirri was absolutely certain that she’d be sporting a full set of broken ribs from the jostling if it weren’t for her armor’s inbuilt shock absorption. Even then, each crashing footfall was a new opportunity to have the wind knocked from her lungs, which was being taken with gusto. This “plan” had already found itself in good company with all of the other regrets she had about the past two days. If bad decisions were a business, Mirri was just about certain she’d have the market cornered by the time she ended up dead from her choices.
Her vision blurred at another bone-ratting impact. Her chauffeur had decided to leap over a natural embankment, landing hard on both feet, but STILL running. What the hell was he made of, anyway?
Another handful of torturous minutes, and the sapient finally jogged to a halt. None too gently, Mirri was lowered to the ground. She ripped her helmet off, gasping for breath despite the bruises she could already feel forming on her sides. With a chance to actually reorient herself, Mirri was struck with a sudden sense of familiarity. Crushed leaves, damaged foliage… had they been following the trail left by her team? She scanned the ground for any indication, and then found her answer carved into a nearby tree. The Ouruos Commandos tracking mark, still fresh enough that the wood hadn’t healed yet. Their own scouts had followed the marks all the way to…
To where…
All of that was going to have to wait. Mirri fought back her growing nausea and put her mind to the task at hand. It was hard to focus after the crash of her brain chemistry forcing itself back into balance, but she was a professional, and professionals had standards, dammit. The plan. That’s what she needed to hone in on. The set of things she had to do for even the slimmest chance of making it out of this disaster alive. Breathe in, breathe out. Go over it, one step at a time.
First thing’s first, the only way to get off world was to make contact with their light carrier. Luro had made a point of determining a low enough orbit for parking that it’d still be within range of short range communication hardware, but the only place Mirri knew she could FIND that hardware was in the shuttle they’d taken to the surface, which presented their first major hurdle: Accessing the shuttle itself. Mirri was confident that given the sheer variety and magnitude of crimes committed in smuggling an undiscovered sapient from their homeworld and experimenting on them, they’d encounter fresh resistance on any attempt to actually leave. If she was the betting type, she’d wager that the two PSF teams had been brought in to quietly mop up the situation without involving upper management at the Nerie Company. Her previous dealings with all three of the mega-corporations that in some way ran their entire society gave her the distinct impression that they would more than gladly triage an entire planet and its residents than suffer a significant scandal. If there weren’t paramilitary troops here already, there would be soon.
Hopefully, they’d be just as unprepared as we were. she thought grimly, train of thought chugging to the next platform.
Once they’d managed to radio in for their carrier, they’d have to hunker down until it actually arrived, which presented another laundry list of challenges. Normally, it’d be a simple enough task to rendezvous with it via shuttle in the upper atmosphere. In this case, it was suicide. The sapient, (who still hadn’t tried to communicate a name, not that she was interested in getting chummy with him) had made it extremely clear in doodles and muddy scribbling that aircraft had been patrolling the skies over the forest since the evening they’d been ambushed. This had lead to Mirri doing her best to convey more and more information about her plan of action to her… Co-conspirator? She refused to let her emotions get the better of her while there was still work to be done, but she was flat out exhausted, in pain and crashing from her earlier mental focus. She just couldn’t help feeling some of the hate seep through. It was galling to be forced to work with the thing that had killed her team, her friends. She’d known Luro and Nashhe for years, and she’d seen both of them just ended in front of her.
Mirri had been forced to sincerely reevaluate the sapient several times now and rationally, she understood that what had happened was the fault of both the Nerie who had hired her team and that bastard Haaes for accepting the work in the first place. Neither of them were here right now, and Mirri was forced to stand face to face with the one who had actually done the killing. The fact that their seemingly beastly “quarry” knew what wireless communications were, let alone recognizing them by her crude pictures of their abstract had dire implications. He clearly bore the scars of experimentation, but what had he been before that? What was the original form and function of this sapient, and to what degree had he been changed by the Nerie? He had been barely challenged by Nashhe, who was regarded as freakishly strong by even the standards of bull Lorram, who were already a genetic minority among males of the race. Stars and suns, he’d been a full head taller and nearly half again as heavy as Kerro was. If there was a race who’s average even came close to that, it was no wonder why a Nerie genetics program would be keen to study them.
Doubtlessly, her former captor could shed some light on that if both of them made it out of this alive. This raised another question: If Mirri was able to call the carrier down, would it be worth the risk to try escaping alone? She was an extremely capable pilot, and was absolutely confident that she could navigate safely through the planet’s drone mine layer and drone defenses solo. The two question marks were simple: Would she be able to get into the cockpit solo, and even if she could, would she be killed in retaliation for the attempt? Her co-conspirator had proven more than capable of crushing her armor and all with his bare hands. He was faster, with better reach and perhaps superior reflexes too. It would have to be a split second decision; there were just too many things that could go right or wrong to make a preemptive choice.
The sapient stepped back over and beckoned to her, breaking her away from her thoughts. There was still ground to cover, and it looked like it was time to resume the trek. Mirri braced herself as she was swung back over his shoulder and once again spirited off through the trees.
“Refreshing” was the only way that Ryan could describe the feeling of having a real goal other than “Try not to die in the woods”. He’d escaped from the facility nearly a fortnight ago, though he doubted that a day on this planet was anywhere near twenty-four hours. His roll of the dice with the little alien that he was carrying like a sack of flour over his should had paid majorly. It was clearly about as interested in dying as Ryan was, and it even outlined a plan of sorts for getting off this shitheap of a planet. It was seemingly as simple as getting back to a shuttle and then calling a larger ship in, but he had his share of doubts about that. There were definitely going to be complications, but come hell or high water he was going to see this one through. He strongly suspected that he was starting to come down with some kind of respiratory infection now that he’d gone through the last of the antibiotic tablets he’d lifted from the first group’s supplies. It was a miracle they hadn’t been toxic to him, but he was well and truly on the clock to make an escape when opportunity had come knocking in a big way.
He wheezed slightly as he continued to make his way through the woods. Ryan was thankful both to the planet’s lower gravity and to all the year’s he’d spent back home playing baseball. His physical fitness had been paramount to his survival, even if it had been dulled by his months of captivity. He focused on maintaining his pace and kept clear of thinking too much. He needed to be here in the moment one hundred percent, and couldn’t let his mind wander. He knew all too well where it would end up.
They were close now.
The facility was lit up like a mall at Christmas. The glare of floodlights spiked through gaps in the foliage, and he trotted to a halt well before the treeline. He unceremoniously dumped his passenger, and began rummaging through his pack. He’d brought a couple things with him in preparations for just such an occasion, and he deftly removed both a pair of fancy binocular analogues and one of those rifle-style weapons that both squads of hunters had used against him. He’d opted once again for the largest model; even though it went through batteries like nobody’s business, the shots absolutely scythed through the armor both teams had been wearing. He took a moment to adjust to the awkward angle he had to hold the binocular things at to see through them, and then was very glad he’d made the choice he did. He could count almost a dozen heavily armed and likewise armored aliens posted around the facility. Ryan cursed under his breath. He’d made a mistake killing the little bastard who’d stayed behind at the base. He knew that those ones were talkative, and he should’ve waited until it had made a report before he’d disposed of it.
It might not have made much of a difference in the long run, but it was an unwelcome complication. Ryan sorted through everything in the bag, and came to a regrettable conclusion: He was going to have to put a modicum of trust in the unlikely partner who was now loudly catching its breath at knee-level. He scooped the little alien up, handed over the binoculars and pointed out the clump of guards outside the facility. It handed them back after a moment, and gave him what must’ve been a concerned look. He sighed heavily. Was having the only available radio parked somewhere BESIDES the twisted science lab he’d barely escaped from really too much to ask for?
Time to to bite the hopefully metaphorical bullet.
Ryan set his alien charge down and dug out the handgun he’d liberated from one of the first team’s officers along with a pair of diminutive batteries. Tossing the now empty pack aside, he took the weapon gingerly in two fingers and passed it down to his only ticket off the planet. It looked up to him, almost in wonder as he began to pantomime out the course of action that would hopefully see both of them make it off this planet alive.
If Mirri’s nerves hadn’t been on a razor’s edge waiting for her signal, she would have marveled over the power of nonverbal communication. She hadn’t exchanged a single word with the sapient, and yet she had been informed that he was about to start a suicidal gunfight with almost a dozen Corporation Grays to buy her a way in to the facility. On one hand, she was certain he had no idea what he was getting himself into… and on the other, her quandary over escaping solo had likely just been solved! She would’ve considered it a stroke of good fortune, if she wasn’t faced with the prospect of handling whoever was INSIDE the facility with just a semi-automatic side arm. The fact that it was an illegally modified vanity piece was a detail clearly lost on her “partner”, but its output being dialed high enough to classify it as an anti-material weapon was the only thing that would give her a chance in a shootout.
She’d managed to sync her helmet’s interface up to the heavy rifle that the sapient had pilfered from the Ouruos. She’d know when the opening salvo had been fired, and that would be her queue to prep a mad dash for the facility’s entrance. She’d give it just enough time for the Grays to get distracted, and that would be her moment. All it came down to now was the wait.
It didn’t take long.
Perfectly synchronized with the electronic chirp of her helmet’s weapon’s discharge notification, a stream of gore arced from the back of a Gray’s head. He crumpled down from the roof of the facility, and before the body had even hit the ground, the other members of his team were already leaping into action. A second salvo from the trees managed to catch a second, but he’d had the reaction speed to activate a personal shield and the points of impact burst with incandescent sparks. The Gray was knocked prone by the force, but managed to scramble behind cover before another burst could find its mark. The three closest Corpsmen to the treeline had already fired up a set of mobile shield systems, the machine’s heavy treads bearing high capacity batteries that projected a nearly impenetrable wall of force in the direction of choice. Another raking burst of fire found its way over the shields and into the chest of another Gray, and Mirri suddenly realized why they’d been taken by surprise so easily on their own hunt.
He must’ve been fifty feet up in the trees to make that shot, and the first volley was at ground level. He could’ve followed us every step of the way without setting foot on the forest floor.
Despite all of that, the Grays had maintained total discipline. One of others had actually jumped down from the roof to take the place of his fallen teammate, wisely opting to keep his personal shield on regardless of the toll it would take on his suit’s internal power. In less than a minute they had managed to set up a line of defense for an entire quarter of the clearing the facility sat in, but that left them with a major blind spot. Mirri was well in position to exploit it, and she had a clear path to airlock entrance. The fight was well under way, and fire was now being exchanged by both sides.
She took her chance. Mirri cleared the treeline sprinting, pumping adrenaline banishing both her aches and her doubts. Another chirp heralded a timely barrage of fire, covering the line of sight to her approach with a wash of sparks from the shield systems. She flew up the short stairway to the destroyed airlock and into the main lobby of the facility, falling into a clean slide that put her behind one of the desks. Start to finish, the run had been less than ten seconds but Mirri was breathing like she’d been running for an hour. The last day had more than taken its toll on her, but the realization that she was that much closer to a way out put a wind in her sails, and was ready with her weapon when she furtively peeked from around the desk’s corner to survey the lobby.
The supplies and kit her team had dropped off prior to their departure had been shunted off to the side, and the half-open lids meant they had certainly been rummaged through by the Grays. Given how much her success hinged on efficient use of time, Mirri immediately crossed the boxes off a mental list of available resources. Her sidearm would be more than enough to make a kill on the first shot, and any fight that lasted longer than that was a guaranteed loss. She skittered from around the desk and down one of the cramped hallways that honeycombed the facility. Their shuttle had been parked on the roof of the facility, but she’d plainly seen its absence through the set of optics the sapient had liberated from the Ouruos’ supplies. Considering the squad of Grays who were now present, it was almost certain that it had been moved down from the roof landing to one of the underground hangars these types of constructions often used for long-term aircraft storage. Mirri recalled one of the hallways having signage directing towards the facility’s sublevels. She crept from door to door, taking corners wide with weapon drawn. Despite the still visible flashes of gunfire through the narrow glasstic windows, none of the sounds of battle made their way inside. The silence was eerie, and she was relieved when she finally chanced upon the right door. She gave the handle a test.
It was unlocked. Another quiet approach, another stroke of fortune. Mirri softly descended the stairs, taking three flights before finally reaching the bottom. She crept from the stairwell and to a bend in the hall, crouching low, stopping cold as her helmet picked up the sounds of a low conversation from perhaps a dozen paces away. The nasal tones of translated Nerieen speech were amplified by her onboard hardware, and she managed to make out the tail end of what was being said.
“...thout a doubt a developing situation. The squad tasked with accompanying me is currently engaged with the subject of interest, and their reports make it clear that they are capable of handling the moment to moment aspects of the problem for the time being… Yes, I’ve attached the transcript of the interview I conducted with the non-casualty survivor of the Klorrent team. It is my cursory judgment that he is totally ignorant as to the nature of the subject of interest, and is a strong candidate for spearheading our efforts to diffuse this situation during Central Governance interviews. I believe that coaching his testimony will be a simple affair, and I’ve attached a cursory plan with the file that will almost certainly de-escalate this from a class five to a class two inter-company crisis… Of course. I will certainly endeavor for an even better resolution, but I believe it prudent to prepare a public relations response in line with my initial estimates. That will be all for now, yes. Best to you and yours, Senior Manager.”
Mirri’s head spun as the Nerie wound down her conversation. Not only were there multiple survivors from her squad, one of them was even uninjured! She did a quick mental tally: Kerro, Lurnijijano, both of their forward scouts… Nashhe. Yuroh, the new guy, what was his name, Trabbot? She’d seen Armesh and the two other Portiians get taken out with the same swath of gunfire. Ruwaq had taken hits too, but Mirri had seen that antique double-layer armor model he wore send potentially lethal rounds glancing off more than once in her career. She’d also seen Luro go down after having a gun thrown so hard it broke through his suit, but that might’ve been survivable if nothing had punched into a lung…
She snapped back to attention as a single set of footsteps approached. She had been gifted a golden opportunity here, and she wasn’t going to waste it.
Today’s situation had finally sailed past plain awful and into the territory of “perhaps the worst of all time”. She had five different members of senior management breathing down her neck, whatever nightmarish project had torn its way free of the facility was capable of troubling a full squad of Gray Corpsmen in a night-time firefight, and worst of all she still didn’t have a genuine solution to the certain PR disaster that was brewing from all of this. Mitigating the issue was one thing, but mitigating problems like this simply wasn’t good enough. Arenrett would be facing years worth of roadblocks couldn’t follow through on her frankly optimistic promise of resolving this as a class two. The difference in sanctions, investigations, and public scrutiny between classes two and three was night and day, and it was going to be a tough sell no matter how well she prepared at this point.
Having so much on her plate left her that much more blindsided when she was tackled against the wall from behind and treated to the cold touch of a gun barrel to her temple. The rough chitter of the Ruunon’s speech gave her an inkling of just how much more trouble she was in than a moment ago.
“Hello, nice to meet’cha. My name is Mirri, and you are going to be a big help to me and mine, or the insides of your head will be very quickly become friends with the outsides. You’re not going to say anything and just nod when I tell you what to do, and we can all make it out of this one none the worse for wear.”
Arenrett very slowly rocked her head back and forth in assent.
“You Corporation types really are smart, huh? Good to see some professionalism in action.” Mirri gave her a light tap on the cheek with the gun. “You’re going to lead me straight to my uninjured squadmate, and remember if I hear a single peep, you’re not going to have time to regret it.”
Slowly, and with no sudden movements, she was eased off the wall and pointed back in the direction she’d come from. Step after halting step, Arenrett came to terms with the fact that if anything else went wrong, there wouldn’t be any more bad days for her to compare to this one.

The time for Season 17 is nigh, and we welcome the theme of Nightmares this time around! For the duration of Season 17, all heroes and builds will passively enjoy the effect of the Legacy of Nightmares set. What this means is that every ancient (or Primal) item that you wear that does not form a set bonus amplifies your damage dealt and reduces damage taken. In short - wear no sets, deal (and take) all the damage! Experimentation is the flavor of the Season, and I for one, can't wait to dive in and explore some quirkier stuff.
-Deadset

>>LIST OF DETAILED GUIDES EVERY CLASS AND EVERY ACTIVITY<<

(No, really!)

WHAT CAN YOU EXPECT FROM PATCH 2.6.5?

Patch 2.6.5 marks yet another patch in Blizzard's continued effort to bring builds and playstyles ever closer on the leaderboards. Inevitably some older favorites will lag behind, but I'm sure many will be pleasantly surprised by the return of RoS-release staples like Blessed Shield Crusaders and Carnevil Witch Doctors, as well as the rightful return of Chantodo in the Archon setup. There's even a Rapid Fire Demon Hunter, and it's not a meme - well, almost not a meme. Quality of Life updates are also not forgotten, we get an extra stash tab, search functionality in the stash (!!), and vastly increased Death's Breath drops.

BASICS GUIDES AND CONQUEST GUIDES

Before moving on to class impressions and recommendations, I just want to give a quick pointer to the new basics and conquest guides that I compiled recently. If you are new to the game, returning after a long break, or simply have friends that you want to get into Diablo, give those a read:
Beginner Seasonal Guide
Bounty Farming Guide
Regular "Nephalem" Rift Farming Guide
Greater Rift Farming Guide
Conquest Guides for Season 17
As a guide hub, Icy Veins receives a ton of messages on a regular basis for topics like these - I hope they are of use to the community and answer a lot of questions for Seasons to come!

BARBARIANS

Haedrig's Gift Beginner Build: Might of the Earth
A guide that will take you through the leveling process efficiently and optimize your seasonal Barbarian.
Immortal King (or Raekor) - Hammer of the Ancients IK's power has been vastly increased - the 6p set has been bumped to the whopping 4000%. Coupled with a push to bring HotA back in the hearts of Barbarians (Bracers of the First Men and Gavel of Judgment have both been buffed in previous patches), this is probably one of the best times to give this classic skill a shot. If you crave unrelenting, visceral melee combat, HotA is one of your best bets, either with the easier-to-grasp Immortal King or the higher pushing Raekor variant.
Might of the Earth - Earthquake Never the build at the forefront, Earthquake is nevertheless steady, extremely satisfying and a feast for the eyes. Couple its wholesome rotation with the newfound buffs (the set, and previously te Girdle of Giants, and even viable Seismic Slam alteration items) and you really have a contender for Barb seasonal playtime. If you prefer to devastate a large area over precise shots, like to control the battlefield and gravitate toward feelgood rotations, Earthquake is your man… sort of.
Seismic Slam Barbarian - a ruthless visual feast of a build, this cold-focused Barb spec is surprisingly tough and efficient.
Raekor - Furious Charge A build you either love or hate, Raekor still got its fair share of buffs and it'd be a criminal shame to pass it by. The Raekor spender variants got the short end of the stick with the massive increase to Standoff, further enticing the build path towards pure Furious Charge, but it has never felt so good - with the buff to Band of Might, you can now take actual punishment and retaliate in kind, instead of constantly tethering on the brink of one-shot. When played correctly, this is the most agile Barbarian build and it rewards experience with the class more than any of the others.
Wrath of the Wastes - Whirlwind You would think the reigning king of Barbarian builds multiple Seasons in a row wouldn't get a buff, but Blizzard were clearly unhappy with the class' performance as a whole. Wrath of the Wastes got a massive buff, along with its synergistic items in the previous patch. There isn't much mystery to the playstyle, but if you're looking for a laid-back, buttery smooth farmer with incredible pushing potential, look no further than this blender of a build.

CRUSADERS

Haedrig's Gift Beginner Build: Thorns of the Invoker
A guide that will take you through the leveling process efficiently and optimize your seasonal Crusader.
Akkhan - Condemn …is once again a thing. The best farming spec for Crusaders (with the option to take Sage's to boot) can now plow through most GR difficulties known to men, largely thanks to the double 800% Condemn damage rolls on the Blade of Prophecy and Frydehr's Wrath. If you have ever vacuumed an enemy in a vortex of holy explosions, you know exactly what I'm excited about. Season 1 feels!
Akkhan - Blessed Shield Speaking of Season 1 feels, how about some pre-Season 1 feels! There was actually a time when Blessed Shield carried the then-subpar Crusader class through the lofty heights of Torment V and VI, but the din of bouncing Doritos quieted down as soon as set buffs and seasonal items rolled in. The 2.4 reworks were not enough, but the 2.6.1 ones sure were. Captain America cosplay has never been closer to our reach, so Gyrfalcon-Jekangbord things up and get ready for the other best ranged Crusader build (alongside Phalanx - sob).
Akkhan - Holy Shotgun As if the feels weren't strong enough already. Holy Shotgun got a bump on the Fate of the Fell-Bracers of Fury duo and coupled with the brushed up Akkhan and some block-based goodness it results in one of the tankiest, awesome looking playstyles in the game. Where the Invoker quietly thorns its targets to death, this Holy Shotgun build takes punishment to the face and retaliates in volleys of holy carnage. It is glorious. Try it. Build it. Live it.
Sweep Attack Crusader This build cleans up house better than any janitor, especially with the 2.6.4 buffs to the Rolands set: scaling up to 13,000 on the 4 piece and up to 75% IAS on the 6 piece. The free RoRG addition makes Wrath management much, much smoother, and this build just might be your surprise this Season. It's all in that satisfying "Whoosh!" of Sweep Attack, I swear.
Shield Bash Crusader - your best bet if you want to pound demon heads in Greater Rifts, if a bit on the clunky side.

DEMON HUNTERS

Haedrig's Gift Beginner Build: The Shadow’s Mantle
A guide that will take you through the leveling process efficiently and optimize your seasonal Demon Hunter.
Natalya/Marauder - Sentry Also building off the Natalya buffs, this build focuses solely on the Sentries, providing Demon Hunters with a calculating playstyle cloaked behind a wall of turrets and animal companions. An extremely potent build with options to build into cold or fire for extreme endgame pushing.
Unhallowed Essence - Multishot I'll be the first to admit a heavy bias to Multishot, but what's not to love? Widest screen clear during farming (only WoL Monk comes close, but it's not as smooth), coupled with Yang's Recurve and Dead Man's Legacy Buffs and a set buff for good measure. This is the closest you'll get to competitive Multishot for GR pushing since Yang's introduction, so why not take the opportunity and reap screenfuls of demons with this classic?
Natalya - Rain of Vengeance Natalya is neglected no more. With a 14,000% buff on the set and last patch's doubling Lord Greenstone's Damage potential, the favorite from the earliest seasons emerges back on the leaderboard. Sure, its damage dealing choices clash a bit internally (Fan of Knives vs. Grenades), but the set makes it work through sheer numbers and is still one of the coolest DH playstyles. Strafing around Matrix-style and dropping various explosives is one of the more exotic things you can do on a DH, bringing much-needed variation to a traditionally ranged class.
Shadow - Impale The ninja newcomer from Season 10 got its own share of buffs - not just Karlei's Point smoother resource gain, but the set turned from the eyebrow-raising 50,000% damage bonus to the even more ridiculous 75,000%. This is another unique take on the Demon Hunter formula, diving fearlessly into point-blank combat to plunge a dagger into the highest value enemy: a very fun assassination playstyle that I can heartily recommend to anyone.
Marauder - Cluster Arrow This playstyle requires patience. It requires an understanding of the Demon Hunter basics - frailty, positioning, taking advantage of companions and summons, making the longest range shots possible. Is it a bit of a hassle? Maybe, but it will reward you with practically the highest pushing potential of the class. Not for the faint of heart, or those that dislike clusters of grenades (who are those guys though?)
Chakram Demon Hunter - the ninja star-throwing counterpart to multishotting builds, with comparable AoE and more fun visuals.

MONK

Haedrig's Gift Beginner Build: Monkey King’s Garb
A guide that will take you through the leveling process efficiently and optimize your seasonal Monk.
Sunwuko - Wave of Light I really, really like that build. If you dig my post from 2.4 back up, I loved it then and that hasn't changed much. Through Epiphany bugs, through the dreaded Kyoshiro's Soul upkeep, through the failing viability of the Sunwuko set, I've maintained this is one of the most pleasant builds to play. Imagine all the downsides above gone, and you can easily see why it's a top-tier recommendation for the current season - smooth playstyle, massive AoE and a fun, fiery visual.
Sunwuko - Lashing Tail Kick The set-based cousin of the popular LoN spec, now more powerful due to 2.6.1 and 2.6.4 buffs. If you've ever played an LTK build, you know the deal - jump in, whirlwind kick the demons' teeth in, jump to the next pack. It's everything a Monk build should be, now made infinitely easier to gear for.
Uliana - Seven-Sided Strike One of the most visually satisfying builds in the game, Uliana received a long-awaited and deserved buff (from 2100% to 9000% on the 6-piece), along with a generous helping of damage on The Fist of Az'Turrasq. This is a serious contender for one of the most fun rotations and visuals in the Diablo 3 endgame, and can easily carry you through a large portion of the GR progress without any thoughts of snapshotting ever crossing your mind. Highly recommended.
Raiment Shenlong - Generator The Monk bread and butter. There is nothing wrong with liking this spec, and if you haven't hopped onto Monk in a while, it's still a great choice. If you like to punch things hard and fast and don't fear managing survivability in the closest of melee combat, this build will still deliver.
Tempest Rush Monk - a fun and under-appreciated build that balances the fluidity of rushing through enemies with some carefully timed bursts.

NECROMANCER

Haedrig's Gift Beginner Build: Grace of Inarius
A guide that will take you through the leveling process efficiently and optimize your seasonal Necromancer.
Pestilence or Trag'Oul - Corpse Lance The reigning king of the Necromancer playstyles makes a chameleon's shift to the Pestilence set but retains all the strengths and unpleasantries of the playstyle. Crippling, long cooldowns are remedied by the utter devastation once Devour meets Land of the Dead. If you don't mind spending most of your time scouting, only to receive the largest damage spike in the game when CDs line up, the Lancer playstyles can be exactly what you're looking for.
Rathma - Skeletal Mage It's important to keep this build in mind for its excellent GR speedfarm capabilities, as well as the fact that it fills the summoner Necro niche. The intense resource interplay and general glassy feel of the build are richly rewarded with the best handling summons in the game and excellent damage potential. If you like to keep a tight rein on your minions with precise commands, leading a menagerie of undead at your side in complete check, this build is the one for you.
Generator Necromancer - a unique take on Inarius gameplay, focusing on lightning-fast scythe attacks and intensive resource interplay.

WITCH DOCTOR

Haedrig's Gift Beginner Build: Raiment of the Jade Harvester
A guide that will take you through the leveling process efficiently and optimize your seasonal Witch Doctor.
Arachyr - Firebats WDs were only able to take a season's worth of breather between dominant periods of this build, and it's hard to overlook the reason. At the minimal cost of Ring of Emptiness upkeep (regular Haunt and Locust Swarm application), you gain a circular, no-aiming-required wave of Firebats obliteration around you. Simple, neat, and utterly effective.
Helltooth - Gargantuan The staple summoner build since Patch 2.4, the Helltooth Garg brings everything you'd expect out of a pet build: laid-back playstyle with automated minions, excellent sustain and protective options, and even some space for crowd control in the build. Increases to both the Mask of Jeram and The Short Man's Finger push the spec far past its old limits.
Jade Harvester My favorite alternate Witch Doctor playstyle and one of the oldest examples of interesting set execution, the Jade Harvester has been strengthened in the new patch to at least approximate the power of his set cousins. An excellent take on the melee spellcaster fantasy, this elderly Witch Doctor favorite trades the safety of range and hexes for aggressive dives and DoT consumption.
Zunimassa - Gargantuan This build thrives behind a thick wall of Fetish summons and is accompanied by lumbering, destructive Gargantuan brutes in another rendition of the pure minion playstyle.
Grasp of the Dead Witch Doctor - a no-cooldown, no-resource take on making corpses rain from the sky.

WIZARD

Haedrig's Gift Beginner Build: Firebird’s Finery
A guide that will take you through the leveling process efficiently and optimize your seasonal Wizard.
Firebird - Meteor Reaching for the heartstrings of Meteor lovers of Sorceresses past, the 2.6.1 rework to all items relevant to the skill results in a cohesive, visual feast of a playstyle. Channeling torrents of arcane energy to conjure destructive, burning meteorites this Wizard build is one of the most attractive options for the new season. Highly recommended, especially when you consider the high tier pushing Star Pact variant for solo AND group play.
DMO - Frozen Orb It's a little hard to tell which was more forgotten, the Delsere's Magnum Opus set or the Frozen Orb skill. Regardless, their newfound marriage results in one of the most powerful builds of the upcoming Season! Combine the Frozen Orb nostalgia of sorceresses past with the oft-forgotten power of Slow Time wizardry and you have an awesome new playstyle that leaves enemies debilitated and helpless, watching their frozen death creep ever closer.
Tal Rasha - Explosive Blast More of an addition to these notes, but still very worth mentioning. Both Orb of Infinite Depth and Wand of Woh have been greatly increased in power, opening one of the most beloved farming playstyles back into the highest rift difficulties. This is without a doubt the build with Sage's that is the most fun to play and look at, so I can't help calling it out.
Energy Twister Wizard - a surprisingly undervalued, but horrifyingly potent on the time-bending, whirlwinding destruction from seasons of yore.

Thank you so much for reading this and my guides! Good luck and have a great Season 17!

Previously
“Could, and hear me out here, could this get any fucking worse?!”
“Could have been a one to one trade, I guess.”
“This is not the time for jokes, Death. This is beyond serious.”
“What? He asked, I was just answering the question.”
“Enough! The mortal is awake.”
Opening my eyes I find myself in a rather grand chamber, something you would expect a council to meet in. There’s probably two visuals that come to mind when someone says the word ‘council’. The first is a city council, boring talk about street signs and sometimes excitement about the weirdest scandals that can only be possible in municipalities or cities. Second is the one I am in. Robes, hooded robes, standing in a circle around a central area, lowered down so the victim in the council meeting can feel small and meaningless. Each robe is a different color, rich and thick and looks heavy. The people in them are as varied as the colors. At least this chamber is brightly lit to show off all the marble and gold, because nothing says serious business like gold and marble.
Two small entrances down on the lower level are guarded by those stone creatures.
The purple one is smiling at me, if a stone man can smile.
I flash it a thumbs up. It looks down at it’s blocky hands, moving it around curiously, then looks back up and returns the gesture. That tickles me, so I laugh at it. That is apparently the wrong decision.
“The mortal laughs? Is this somehow amusing?”
“Corvin.”
“What?”
“The mortal’s name is Corvin.”
Alexandria is standing up for me, I’m so happy. The Watcher is there, before the largest throne. No mistake, it is a throne. Death has his own but he is flanked by two more stone men. I think Death might be in a time out throne.
The rest are new faces.
“Everyone sit down.” The Watcher’s voice is stern, the collected deities obey. In this room it would seem her commands are law. She remains standing, hands tucked into the spacious arms of her robes. Behind the mask of anger I see something resembling fatigue. Have I tired a god?
“Mortal. Corvin.” she pointedly looks at Alexandria, who’s mouth is open to correct The Watcher. It closes quickly. “You have been brought to answer for this situation we find ourselves in.”
“Crimes!” A very old man shrieks, standing and pointing a bony finger at me. It shakes so much I’m not sure if he means to point at me or at the wall beyond. The shrillness of his voice makes me jump, nearly out of my skin. “Not situation, crime!”
I choose not to point out that grammatically I don’t think that works. You can’t just swap out words when you feel like it. Somehow I think this man does not want to hear that. See, I can learn.
“It’s not a crime to fall victim to the idiocy of one of our number.” A woman replies, not standing from her own throne-chair. That’s when I see the symbol on the throne carved above her head. They each have one and each is different. Hers is a singular eye, with beams radiating from the iris. The man who may have witnessed the rise and fall of the dinosaurs has a clock above his. Above the Watcher is a shield. Alexandria’s is a book. Death’s a scythe.
A woman is knitting in her throne, sitting under a great tree. She could be anyone’s grandmother, her smile when she catches my eye warms me to my soul. There is a thin, kindly looking man with glasses perched on his nose, peering at me like I am some sort of experiment. I have never seen someone so totally embody the word ‘bookish’. He watches me and I see a smile play at the corner of his mouth. As if he knows I’m on the edge of figuring something out.
“Wisdom.” I say. He nods, ever so slightly, while The Watcher and the very old man argue about the semantics of something I wasn’t listening to.
“Life.” Everyone’s grandmother winks, pausing her knitting for a moment to look at me. The woman who defended me, sort of, raises an eyebrow to see if I’ll figure her out.
“Fate.” She smiles.
“Knowledge.” Alexandria, obviously. Death I already know, maybe too well. The Watcher. That makes a council of seven. And that makes the last one…
“Time.”
“Keep my name out of your filthy mortal mouth!” He shouts, with his shaky, decrepit voice. So I guess that would make my guess accurate, given the response. Seems a bit over the top but who am I to judge.
“Silence!” The Watcher bangs a gavel I didn’t even see she had, on a small marble table beside her throne. Time does not sit, simply glares at me. I have to give it to him that technically The Watcher did not command anyone sit, just shut the hell up.
“Corvin. You stand in the presence of the Council, those who ensure the mortal world operates as it is meant to. Secure it from threats and mitigate the ever present risks. I would compliment you on discerning our identities but it’s not that impressive, those stupid symbols give the game away and you are simply not a complete idiot.”
“You sound just like my mother.” I say. Time might explode but The Watcher points her gavel at him and he restrains himself.
“We have watched you for some time, earning lives and living a rather mundane life.”
“Alright, still sounds like my mother, not getting better.”
“Shut up. Mundane is good, look where extraordinary got you.”
“Fair point.” I admit.
“You hold seven hundred million lives and have prevented the entire world from finding death, even when it is their time. Do you understand the severity of this? Some people must move on to the other side, and they cannot. I know that this was not your intent, that you were both not in your right minds, all of this we take into consideration for correcting this.”
“How do we correct it?” I ask.
“I peel your skin off seven hundred million times and the problem will correct itself! I’m partial to switching your blood for acid as well. I understand mortals have developed a number of machines, surely a wood chipper would be exciting. I’m not particular! There is time for experimenting, surely.” Time is apparently sadistic. Though I could have guessed that, Time is no one’s friend.
“It won’t work!” Alexandria shouts, joined by several other voices. That gives me a little hope. Time’s smile is vicious.
“We won’t know that until we try it.”
“It won’t work and you know it, you deviant.” Wisdom speaks, his voice could have been any one of the professors that tried to deliver information to me. Calm, soothing, thoughtful. “There is little value to having a Loremaster if we refuse to listen to the lore she imparts.”
“What lore?” Time shrieks. “She just said ‘no’ without explanation!”
“Maybe if you let her talk…” Life says, shooting Time a withering look. Apparently Time worries about Life’s opinions because he slams his mouth shut and sulks, crossing his arms and clearly wishing a million deaths on me.
“Reducing the counter does not reset the bargain, that is firm. We cannot address a symptom while not touching the root cause. It’s a band-aid on a severed limb.”
“That is appealing imagery.” Time mutters. I don’t think I like Time. I’m not sure anyone in this room does but he matters. Time is a pretty big deal in, well, everything.
“Enough. I don’t care how we can’t fix it, that could not matter less. If the solution is removing the mortals internal organs one at a time while he still breathes we will do it.”
I move my hands over my internal organs as if that will stop that from happening.
“It is not. I think there’s only one way to fix this.” The gathering of great minds looks to Alexandria, awaiting the answer. I do too. She said before there wasn’t a way. Now she thinks there’s a way. The think is less than inspiring though.
“I find the word ‘think’ to be…uninspiring.” The Watcher says.
“I was thinking the exact same thing!” I say. She is not pleased, so I shut my mouth. The organ threat lingers and I have lives to spare if they feel vindictive. I’m sure that the rock dudes would be thrilled to hold me down while my organs were given a delightful tour of the outside me world.
“We need to seek out an expert in these matters.”
“No!” The cascade of shouts comes from every single deity in attendance, the first thing they’ve agreed on since I arrived. Even Death joined in.
“He was banished, you know this.” The Watcher says, collecting herself.
“For good reason!” Time shouts, his addition unnecessary. One would assume that banishment would be for a good reason, it’s redundant to tell the gathering that. Who banishes someone for no good reason?
They are all staring at me.
And I realize I said that last bit out loud.
Fate is trying not to laugh and failing miserably, so that’s good. At least someone is on my side over this. Or finds it funny that I’m going to be murdered in the most creative ways and still I will end up being killed in the same way more than twice.
“I could dip him in molten steel.” Time offers, helpfully.
Not sure I approve of that suggestion.
“Enough! Death, you have caused no end of grief to this Council. Mortal, you are part of that grief. Loremaster, you seem to have some sort of attachment to both. So, I make this offer to all of you.” The Watcher speaks firmly, no room for negotiation. Something tells me this is not an offer, it is a command. Set in stone as were the commandments.
“You have one week to correct this, by whatever means you see fit. Seek the exile, seek answers in your books, or seek peace from the Maker. I could not care less. Seven days to correct this global imbalance that you have wrought.”
“If we can’t?” I ask. Her eyes pierce into the fabric of my soul, harsh and pure light that plays out a thousand paths before me. I see myself running from the Council, trying to find safe haven. I see Time gleefully extract my life a seemingly endless number of times. I see Death sentenced to an eternity of punishment that makes the deaths I suffer seem pleasant. At least the deaths I am subjected to in this vision have an end. I see the Loremaster punished, stripped of her position and exiled from the Council, all her books and scrolls taken from her. Left with nothing.
Then I am back in the chair, before the Council. I see faces painted with pity, sadness, pain. I see one of glee, an old man wringing his hands in pleasure. The Watcher’s unreadable facade cracks for but a moment. I see the sorrow in her actions, in the vision she gave to me. I see Death’s fear. I see Alexandria’s determination hiding her own panic.
And in all of this I feel very small. A mistake gifted lives that I should’t have ever had, maybe that I didn’t ever want. I scrub at the numbers and my eyes burn from the tears, but the numbers remain. They accuse me, they make me sick, they will not go away.
The Watcher kneels before me, when she stepped down from her throne I couldn’t say. She takes my hands in hers, pressing them together. I can’t look her in the eyes. I don’t want to. I’m afraid to.
“Corvin. Fix this.”
“I don’t know how.”
“Look at me. Corvin, look at me.”
I do. There are no visions this time. Just her face near to mine, her words too quiet for the others to hear.
“I have no grand speech for you, no call to action. I have just this: imagine how smug that old asshole will be if you lose.”
Then she stands, brushes her robe clean and that unreadable face is back. She looks at her watch, which I find strange given she is something not too far from a god. Then she looks at each of us, raising a single eyebrow.
“Time is not on your side. I wouldn’t still be sitting here.”
I don’t know who moves faster, Alexandria or Death, but somehow I am lifted by my arms from the chair and rushed out of the chamber, the phlegm choked laughter of Time following us. The stone guards part and as I look back the purple one raises it’s thumb.
At least someone is on my side.
We exit the hall and come into blazing sunlight that blinds me so completely I think I might never see again. I didn’t realize the chamber was so dim, either that or someone has turned up the sun. When the spots finally clear I scream and scramble back. We are not in a city anymore, not by any means. We are a good thousand feet above a crashing ocean, exiting onto a sheer cliff face with carved stairs descending to a dock and ascending in the other direction to places unknown.
“Really?” Death asks, slapping the back of my head. “Even if you fall, does it matter?”
“I don’t like heights!” I say, breathing heavily and trying to disappear into the rock face. It’s not working. “Where are we? And more importantly, why are we here?”
“We’re in Scotland, of course.”
“Oh, yes, of course! Why didn’t I think of Scotland. It seems so obvious that we would have gone from Kansas to fucking Scotland.”
“Oh, brave now that you’re outside, huh.” Death says, heaving me up the stairs that lead ever higher. That’s the opposite of the direction I wanted.
“Did you think that the deities of this world only lived in America? That’s a bit silly. There’s other places, don’t you know.” Alexandria says, which I find unhelpful in this circumstance.
“You know, the belittling me on my knowledge of living gods doesn’t really help. Not like I have lots of experience.” I say, closing my eyes and trusting Death wants to get me where we need to go more than he wants to give me a shove.
“I guess we have to give him that.” Death gives me the point and I feel vindicated, briefly. Until I remember we have seven days to fix this and apparently one lead. Some exile.
“Who’s the exile?” I ask, sneaking a peek at the ocean before deciding that’s a bad idea.
“Which one?” Alexandria asks, a bit of an edge in her voice I haven’t heard yet. Not that we’ve known each other a long time. Death makes a noise that sounds like almost like a snort.
“Guys, please.”
“Right, right. Belittling. Look, the Council has made some…choices in the past. Choices we didn’t necessarily always agree with but majority rules. The most recent exile left a hundred and fifty years ago.”
“And how terrible it has been for him.” Death adds. It’s pretty clear that Death does not really believe that.
“Doesn’t answer the question.” I say, peeking again to see that we are close to the top of this cliff side. Thank goodness. Almost there.
“Given how you got into this mess, it’s someone you might like.” Death says. “Chance is a big fan of betting.”
“Chance? No fun name, no silly title? Gamemaster? Gambling King? The Bestest Better?” Death smacks me again and I freeze for a second, waiting for the emptiness of a long fall to take me. It doesn’t, instead a hand continues to yank me up the stone steps. “So what, we’re going to Vegas?”
I stumble on the flat ground of the top of the cliff, letting out a long breath and realizing just how soaked in sweat I am, to see the plane. Sleek, fancy, expensive. Pilot and co-pilot, in matching uniforms, wait at the bottom of the extended stairs. Alexandria ascends the steps two at a time, Death following, me behind with gaping mouth at the luxury.
“It’s no minivan.” I say. Death glares at me.
“Broaden your horizons, open your mind.” He says. “Not all travel must be so subtle.”
“Vegas in style.” I mutter.
“We’re not going to Vegas.” Alexandria says, when we take our very comfortable seats in the very high end plane. “Chance would think that’s a bit much. We’re going to Monaco.”
“Cause nothing says ‘less than a bit much’ like Monaco. It’s just posh Vegas.” Death says, settling in as the plane readies. He’s grumpier than usual. Not to mention that the longer I look at him the more I see the skull underneath the face he puts on. I look at Alexandria.
“What’s up with him?”
“Long story.” Is all she offers. The plane readies for takeoff and Death sits there, leg bouncing a mile a minute. Take off is a lot more smooth than any other plane I’ve been on, almost pleasant. Then we are cruising for Monaco, apparently. Someone brings me a drink, despite the fact that alcohol is how I ended up in this mess it also might be just the ticket to get through it. It’s smooth and only burns on the first sip, then it’s a pleasant warmth.
“So, what’s this story?” I ask, settling into the seat and taking a drink. Alexandria opens her mouth but does not get the chance to speak, because Death cuts her off.
“Don’t say a word about it.”
“Oh come on, he’s going to find out eventually. We’re going right there, after all.”
“Not a word!”
Death stares out the window, Alexandria shifts in her seat. I sip my drink and let my eyes dart between them, wide and waiting. Finally Death sighs and waves a hand, I suppose that means he’s giving his permission for the story to be told. I take a long, deep drink and prepare for a good long tale.
“No one’s ever excited to go ask their ex for help.” She says.
And I spit my long, deep drink everywhere.