lucetilocked | (no subject)

To sum up the explanations John and ANI provided:

The Malnosso were fiddling with the barrier and did something wrong. We became 'unprotected,' and this led to certain individuals being possessed by the spirits. The new forms assumed -hybrids, as he referred to them- are considered abominations; they were apparently so dangerous, the Malnosso decided that death was the only solution. John made an agreement with them, and somehow flushed the spirits' influences and repaired the barrier. Those affected are feeling ill as an aftermath, but have returned to how they were before.

Facts

-John referred to the hyrbids also as a form of evolution.
-The Malnosso are familiar with whatever the hybrids are, and fear them.
-The spirits weren't "meant" to exist.
-ANI said the effects of this phenomenon are world-wide (those within the Malnosso were also affected, and detained).
-The weakening/altering of the barrier allowed this to happen.
-John can repair issues with the barrier the Malnosso can't, and raise barriers on his own.
-Most affected had a certain affinity with the spirit that possessed them.
-Most of the unaffected didn't have any sort of elemental affinity.

My conclusions

-Those affected outside the barrier are still affected.
-Whatever the affected turned into are somehow related to whatever the Malnosso believe they're "protecting" us from. Possibly the third party itself.

Any input from anybody?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[He's been following the previous discussions, but what really drew him to saying anything at all was something that Raine had offhandedly mentioned earlier.] Despite us being able to summon the spirits, we can't summon our own external summons unless the barrier is down. And when the barrier was cracked, the spirits that may reside outside of the barrier were able to get inside the barrier.

I had shared a theory with Jacob before that the very environment of Luceti is hostile. What if that is the case? The barrier could be a means to minimize our exposure to the spirits outside of the barrier in the event that the spirits that populate this world act up.

It may explain why our "world" within the barrier continues to expand. As the barrier expands, we may slowly be exposed to more spirits that were previously outside. The Malnosso could very well be acclimating us, and themselves, to the influence of the spirits by imposing the barrier.

[blah blah blah. tl;dr, Albert]

Edited 2009-06-02 23:43 (UTC)

But has the number of spirits grown since the barrier's expanded? I wasn't here for very long before it did, so I wouldn't know.

What we usually refer to as the spirits are the higher ones, those who refer to themselves by name. While their number has not increased that we can see, the number of lower spirits remains unaccounted for.

...really. I never knew that.

Can you tell me anything else about the lower spirits?

There isn't much to tell. Each higher spirit has underneath them an unknown amount of lesser spirits. Back when the concept of contacting the spirits was still new, it wasn't uncommon for others to be discouraged from learning; conversation with the lesser spirits is rife with teasing and taunting.

Ah, damn. Oh well, I guess it was a little much to hope for.

Information, you mean? No one will tell us more about the spirits, so we unfortunately rely on the experience we have had in our relatively-short stay.

Yeah. I don't really have a lot of luck with that sort of thing myself, so mostly what I gather from other people and what little there is in the library is what I have to work with.

It's a shame. This recent incident will also affect how others regard the spirits. There will be apprehension, even though the spirits have never harmed us prior to this.

Being able to communicate extensively with the higher spirits would be beneficial.

So the personality thing...you think that was intentional, on the spirits' part?

Perhaps it was. But none of the possessions appeared to be complete; none of those possessed spoke with the knowledge you would expect a long-lasting spirit to have.

If someone was completely possessed, we may have been able to communicate with the higher spirit controlling them.

If we could have talked to Jacob...he might know how to make that possible.

Damn.

...We will have to make do without Jacob's aid.

We always come into our information after the opportunity to exert it would have been effective. But we are coming into information now, which is more than we could have said a year or two ago.

ANI is pretty forthcoming, though we still can't be sure if she's at all trustworthy. Think it could hurt to ask her?

We have nothing to lose. Without some form of progress, we might as well surrender to the possibility of ending up like the "Filial" that were here when we initially arrived.

The Malnosso seem more afraid of that prospect than anything.

Of course. If what we have heard holds any truth at all, the Malnosso's goals align somewhat with our desire to return to our worlds. Our failure is their failure.

...why would they be afraid of us becoming more like the original Filial, though? Didn't they use the Filial in their earlier experiments? You'd think they'd be happy about it.

They would be happy about us becoming unhelpful husks that will not, or cannot, convey any understanding of the greater picture? The Filial here, with the exception of Carol, have not been forthcoming with information.

Have any of them been affected by the experiments?