Light, good,celest, etx

(I am sorry for the essay, and the rambling/incoherent nature. I promise I'm usually a little more switch on than this!)

So! Re: Light/Goodness/History/Celest.

Good, I think, often gets equated to being nice, which isn't really accurate. You can have pleasant, nice people doing bad things, in bad places, or just turning a blind eye to them or enabling them. Passivity can be permissive of evil. All that is required for evil to flourish is for good people to do nothing, etc. You see a lot of this in the real world, and it's likely present in Lusternia, too. Good, I think, requires active intent to improve the lot of others, or the world in general. While this can be done with gentle methods, sometimes, that isn't always possible by just talking, or being kind. There are bad people (or entities, or forces, etc) that simply will not listen, or will use that approach against the one that is intending to help them. Sometimes you need to do unpleasant things to enact good, and it might feel bad to do it, but it's necessary.

Being good, truly good, is hard. Selfishness or apathy are easy, and being cruel is easier than being good. Building something is much harder, and more time-consuming, than breaking it down. Good is complex, and layered, and has very many different shades and expressions. A soldier that kills someone who refuses to stop committing atrocities is doing good via an unpleasant act. A healer that tends to the plague-ridden is doing good, via an act that is unpleasant in a very different way. Someone that spends all their time and energy building a shelter for the homeless, likewise is doing good.

Celest is not inherently good - this has been covered and is pretty obvious, as any organisation formed by people can't escape the failings that imperfect beings fall into, one way or the other. Celest is the people, and the atmosphere and culture they've changed and influenced over the years. It is surprisingly accepting and lax when it comes to moral matters - Like. The Wyrd is not a good thing, objectively. There are good people in there, and good things can happen within it, I imagine, but overall it's corrupted and cruel and monstrous, right? I was baffled to see how indifferent or actively encouraging of the Wyrd the general vibe in Celest is. I would have thought that Celest would be very against something so blatantly corruptive and known for its insidiousness, and general desire to snuff out or change the Light to something darker - it is very much not in line with the purity vibe Celest has (purity of light, the cleansing nature of water, etc). It feels very much like a consequence of some events that transpired a while ago, and people are just comfortable with it, and very relaxed with it when it should be at least a *little* concerning. The recent event with the mangrove is a solid example - A few Celest people were there and just followed the Glom folk around while they assisted the (super blantantly evil) nereids, without batting an eyelid. That seems like the sort of thing that should cause a strong reaction in Celest, one way or the other, not...Apathy. I think the laxitude could be examined, IC, though I'm aware there's a lot of OOC factors (Friendships, tensions, past fallouts and poor calls) in play that I'm not really familiar with.

For history - I admit that I don't have the most solid grasp on the history of the game as a whole. What I know is very general, broad-strokes. All of the orgs have done terrible things, at one point or another, but seem largely to be free of it weighing them down, barring Celest. I view New Celest as more of an offshoot of Old Celest. It is a new entity that was formed from the death of an old one - It's the child of the old empire, not the old empire with a new coat of paint. As such, it should strive to be better than Old Celest, without being constantly dragged down by what the old org did - It'll be hard to make progress that way. Yes, use their failings as a guide on what not to do, but focus forward, not backwards. Less of how can you atone for the mistakes of people that came before you, and more on how can you make the world better, in the now, in the future.

The Light...I'm inclined to think that the Light is more of a fundamental, almost elemental force made manifest. It's not (I think) inherently morally correct, or good. It leans that way, from what I've seen of the Supernals and the denizens, but it very much can be turned to ill intent, if it's framed the right way. It very much can be interpreted through a variety of lenses, and while it's easy to look at the shiny surface and think 'Good', that's aesthetics, to an extent. The Supernals are based on virtues, but how it was explained to me is that they are the virtues taken to their *extremes*, and that seems like something that can easily turn bad - and a huge number of people have historically thought that they were good and heroic, while doing terrible things. So! Light does not equal good. The Light can illuminate and banish the darkness, and all that, but it can burn and blind. It depends on who wields it, and how - it can be a bane or a boon.