u/King_Lear69

• A story with multiple, branching choices that actually have distinct weight and consequences? Check.
• The protagonist often finds themself at a crossroads of sorts where, even though there may be a “lesser evil” option, they’re still effectively damned if they do and damned if they don’t, morally? Check
• The socio-political intrigue remains relevant throughout the whole game and isn’t subsumed by the fantastical growing stakes? Check

Tbf, all of this probably sounds pretty incindeary, not to mention that I have only just finished chapter 3 of TOR so technically there's still plenty of time for all these things to be "upended," I suppose. But even from what I've seen so far both from my own route and looking at the other routes, I've just been absolutely blown away by how well TOR does it's "war story" compared to FFT's. Of course, I understand that FFT is supposed to be less of an absolute "war story" like TOR is, and it's also not to say that TOR's narrative doesn't have its own fair share of "melodrama-isms" as well, (characters at times feeling as if they're taking insane leaps of logic, certain character's entire characterizations being completely different depending on route, ect.)

But overall I like that TOR feels to me as if what FFT might've been if the lucavi weren't as major of a plot point and the game continued to be about the actual Ivalician civil war all the way through. I've gotta admit though, as much I love TOR things like the level cap and not being able to immediately read up on the effects of items and spells does make me kinda miss FFT. The spell description thing especially as even though I managed to get used to it eventually on its face "Spellstrike" and "spellcraft" genuinely sound as if they do the same thing to me, for example. As a matter of fact, I often feel as if I have no idea what I'm doing and aren't using the game's mechanics to its fullest, especially when watching the way Walkthrough-ers play TOR.

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In order to understand the inner-workings of “magic” and the various magical disciplines of the continent of Theia we must first understand the inner workings of Time and Space within the world of A Baoa Qu. As the world of A Baoa Qu exists within the myriad dreams of the Godhead collectively referred to as “The Greater Dream,” or colloquially as “Nous-Mundus,” Time and Space are subject to synchronicity. With The Greater Dream being composed of the myriad potential-engrams of the Godhead’s nous, it is such that the material world of Nous-Mundus exists independently of the Iyrin, being of a shared "genealogy" as “descendants” of the Godhead despite having differing points of origin. However, as Nous-Mundus only constitutes spatial reality or, “Space,” the world of The Greater Dream does not, “happen,” or experience any change in its static-space without the Iyrin’s observation of the world transmuting Nous-Mundus into fluid-space by imposing, “Time,” onto the world.

But if Nous-Mundus were to be called, “the myriad dreams of the Godhead,” then the Iyrin would be like unto the eyes or diopters that the Godhead uses to observe the dream from various perspectives. Being descended of the Godhead’s infinite consciousness, the Iyrin have the same capacity to hold all the world within themselves that the Godhead proper is capable of. However, due to being born of the concupiscence of Ahaṁkārasis Iyrin most usually only affix their sights on but mere portions of The Greater Dream at any given moment. This behaviour is itself the result of the Iyrin’s desire for individuality, a state of being entirely foreign to Iyrin as beings who lack defined “start” and “end” points to separate them from each other; Their being all of both the same origin and of the same station. Therefore, it could be said from a certain perspective that the marriage of an Iyrin as the “soul” with a portion of The Greater Dream as the “vessel” within hypostatic union of a living creature is itself a step towards apokatastatic “perfection.” What it says, however, that according to such a perspective that the long road to “perfection” would require the intentional creation of an imperfect world filled with imperfect life is a paradox that even the sages and sophists of old have failed to come to a single, unified conclusion about.

Now, due in part to the world of A Baoa Qu’s existing within the mind of the Godhead, and therefore being subject to that psychically conditioned relativity of space and time that said sages and sophists of old dubbed as “synchronicity,” all creatures are born with souls. Not only does the infinite or “non-finite” nature Iyrin creation help to ensure such a thing, but so does the fact that upon mortal creature’s death its soul, having reconverted itself into an Iyrin, might just as well seek to reincarnate into a point of time prior to its former vessel’s birth as it might reincarnate into a new vessel born either after its death or even concurrently with its former vessel’s birth.
Although regardless of when exactly an Iyrin chooses to reincarnate the fact remains that The Greater Dream itself, having a similar genealogy to Iyrin, has its own desires as well that follow their own logics; The desire of the egg being to both experience and exert “Time” upon the world. Therefore, as it gestates the egg goes about building a body to attract an Iyrin to serve as its soul by taking elements— which are themselves threefold hypostatic unions of either twofold “yin” or threefold “yang” groupings of paramāṇu— and transmuting them into other elements to be used in producing the multi-trigamic compounds needed to construct a vessel powered, in part, by Śarīra. Śarīra-powered vessels being the only kinds of vessels capable of both movement and changing their minds via metanoia. Those being traits attractive to the dualistic hubris of the Iyrin whom, despite seeking individuality out of concupiscence, are naturally drawn to seek out and commune with other Iyrin whether bound by mortal coil or wherever the gaze of un-incarnated Iyrin may fall.

Of course, as all living creatures ensouled then so do all living creatures possess the ability to dream their own dreams. The difference between the dreams of mortal creatures and the Godhead’s Greater Dream being that as The Greater Dream itself is not by default in possession of a soul it needs an Iyrin to create an independent hypostasis with it in order to experience time on its own. However, as the body of a mortal is itself, in part, Prakṛti and therefore of The Greater Dream than the dreams of mortals are able to create soulless creatures capable of moving and experiencing time on their own, as it could be said that the part of the creature that is Nous-Mundus does “possess” its own soul. However, upon the mortal’s awakening the dream and its creatures dissipate like smoke in the wind, only leaving behind trace amounts of Śarīra within the body of the creature.

However, despite all creatures being born with souls not all creatures are born sapient like the myriad races of men are. Rather, as a creature accumulates Śarīra over the course of its lifetime it comes closer to being able to achieve Jijñāsā, whereupon the creature would immediately undergo an anthropomorphic transmogrification post-achieving of Jijñāsā. Although it is entirely possible for these post-transmogrification creatures, known colloquially as “juujin,” to interbreed with humans (at the cost of no longer being able to copulate with their former species) to such an extent that it becomes impossible to tell at a glance whether or not a far flung descendent might have ever had any juujin ancestors, it is impossible to tell if or what the “first” humans “evolved” from in this way as due to the Synchronicity between the far flung future of Nous-Mundus breaking down at various points and bleeding into the far flung past.

As both Iyrin and Nous-Mundus possess intelligence and desires of their own, both are often the object of worship by mortals. However, as The Greater Dream ultimately has the power to reject the potential hypostatic union of an Iyrin and a mortal vessel it has been noted by some that certain popularly worshipped Iyrin’s being effectively “disbarred” from reincarnation is, at least ostensibly on the surface, similar in certain ways to certain particularly violent or “evil” Iyrin’s often being rejected from reincarnation as well. Leading more then a few cults to become staunch believers in the only way possible to “reach heaven” being through violence.

Picked up the game last year during a Steam sale when I accidentally stumbled upon it, and I remember all I could think was, "Holy shit! This game that I remember fondly from my childhood got a sequel? How is nobody talking about this, I could swear the original was fairly well received back in the day?" So I tried it out for a chapter or two (Tutorial-prologue and the first chapter where you meet the otaku guy) and I just... I don't wanna say, "It's like it's a completely different game!" because duh, yeah that's how sequels work lol.

But at the same time, playing the game for even those two chapters made me wanna play the first game to see if I wasn't imagining things and one playthrough later, no, no, if nothing else then the atmosphere of the sequel's prologue, at least, is like completely different from just say the equivalent chapters from 2064. Like, in 2064 I played the game as an alcoholic with a halal diet (Something that Turing would loudly remind me off anytime he so much as saw me even think about tasting even a single drop of the stuff, lol.) In 2064 you roleplay as YOU (or whoever you want,) which is already a pretty novel thing for VNs (which usually see you taking up the role of an established in-world person, with their own goals and relationships) and you live in this shitty lil rundown apartment getting by hand-to-mouth every month on what I can only imagine was an anything but glamourous salary as an independent journalist.

Contrast that to the opening of Neurodiver where you're meeting all these characters who are on mostly friendly, if not professional, terms with the protag (who, herself has a pretty cushy flat,) and the game starts doing all these tongue-in-cheek "wacky anime" pastiches and it comes off to me as just... Sure, plenty of that was in the first game as well, but it really felt as if it built up to it. You start the game and you're basically a nobody, you're biggest "claim to fame" is either being the friend of a genius scientist, or being the sibling of your local cop's ex. Your apartment eventually stops looking as much like a crack house, *after* you and Turing start putting in the work to clean the place up. By the time you start seeing "wacky otaku" jokes or doing Christmas themed rap battles you're at least like 3 or 4 hours in with at least 1 (IIRC I think maybe 2?) death reveals under your belt.

I guess what I'm asking is not if, "it gets better," but rather, "does neurodiver get *more like 2064*" as it goes on? Or if it doesn't, then does it at least pick up pace with the intrigue and stakes? I haven't touched the game since last year so I'm still blind on the game and would probably prefer to continue to be as much as possible, at least, but even just navigating to this subreddit from the web it seems that if nothing else there's something in this game's writing that has at least some people heavily divided on the series' legacy characters like Tomcat, so that also isn't exactly encouraging.

The continent of Theia, and indeed all the world, exists within the dream of the Godhead Maha-Bythos. As the nature of dreams are such that the mind of the dreamer is often divided into a near "bicameral" state, then it is such that the Dream itself exists independently of the Dreamer's-Sight and functions according to its own logic, but does not "happen" unless it is observed by the Dreamer. Now, the Godhead itself does not observe anything directly, but rather "delegates" that duty to Souls; Souls acting as the "Dreamer's-Sight" or the "Mind's-Eye" of the dreamer as they go about witnessing and interacting with the dream. However, souls themselves are "born" as a result of the Godhead's own concupiscence, Maha-Bythos being the all-encompassing origin of all things and desires, and as such Souls are not merely continent with observing the dream but wish for "true individuality," as well. However, as "true individuality," remains out of reach for Souls, they naturally settle for that which is closest to achieving such a state for them: material incarnation.

Now, as a soul's existence within the mind of the Godhead is much like that of a miniature snow globe held within an even bigger snow globe, the Dream exists within the myriad Souls of the Godhead as well, despite not being localized entirely within any of them. A soul will observe the Dream causing time, growth and decay to "happen" and as the gestation of a creature within its mother "happens" a third Soul will bind itself to the mind of the creature, possessing it (all creatures thus being "ensouled.") As the Dream exists beyond the existence and will of those un-incarnated Souls, referred to colloquially as "egregores," despite sharing a lineage what with being born of the Godhead's subconscious (as opposed to Souls being born of the Godhead's "higher consciousness,") so is it that the Dream itself has desires and resolve as well; The desire of the brain organs of mortal creatures being to experience "time" by themselves within the Dream by creating a mortal body capable of binding a Soul.

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As creatures of the Dream, the myriad races of men are subject to the psychically conditioned relativity of Space and Time known as, "Synchronicity," as imposed the Godhead. Because of this, while many of the races of men may have their own creation myths from previous kalpas, it is clear that within the current kalpa all the races of men originate from point far, far off into the distant future (or perhaps, the "past,") whereupon a breakdown of Synchronicity saw entire races of men simply misplaced in "Time" and plopped down into the areas of land historically occupied during antiquity. Such that, while animals and beasts are oft recorded "transmogrifying" into human "juujin" through Jijñāsā-driven apodemosis, the exact origins of humans as a species is impossible to discern. What IS clear, however, is that in year 796 of the Alliance Calendar the Kingdom of Prestoria, just one faction that, despite (or perhaps, specifically BECAUSE of) the former breakdown of Synchronicity, had managed to maintain a bitter generations-long three-way conflict with the neighbouring kingdoms of Dolem and Javelina, announced the annexation of the lands comprising the eastern borders of the Kingdom of Fulin. Declaring their right to lands according to the fact that 7 in 10 eastern Fulin men were of mixed Prestorian stock and either operated, or were elsewise employed by, northern Prestorian mercantile guilds. Guilds whom the southern Prestorian nobility claimed had begun evading taxes ever since the outset of the last war.

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To call the ensuing war "one-sided" would be an understatement. The men of Fulin, being a mostly mercantile people whose economy relied primarily on sea trade with other countries, were unaccustomed to overland combat. Just as it seemed as if the war had been all but decided, the constellations Harut and Marut revealed in an out-of-body dream to the master thauma-cryptomnesiologist, Hyakub of Shabazz, a handful of coveted alchemical Mysteries as part of a divine covenant. Transmogrifying the human man in a shower of alchemical collidal silver, causing his skin to tint blue and his ears to become slender and pointed. Emerging from his study in the morning and showing himself to his acolytes as the first, "pneumajin," he set about transmogrifying them from human, "hylics," into "super-human" pneumajin as well, before sailing from the fulinese isle of Shabazz to the central island of the inner Fulin archipelago, Ketumati. Whereupon the mercantile nobility and thalassocrats of the Fulin Alliance granted him the rights to gather a great naval host to combat the encroaching Prestorian threat with.

Striking from both the west and north of the territory taken by Prestorian, in tandem with their irredentist Nidavellir allies striking from the east, the Fulinese host managed to turn the tides of war under the command of the hortator Hyakub, now going by the title of Hyakub Shiki, prevailing against the forces of Prestoria and taking the, "northern tail" of Prestoria.

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Seeing the writing on the wall and anticipating the "final death" of their ancient rival, the Kingdoms of Dolem and Javelina attempted to carve out their own pieces of the Prestorian pie. However, their own puppet princess to replace the former Prestorian monarch, the Fulin-backed border forces of Prestoria soundly thwarted the advances of both Dolem and Javelina, and before long enough territory had been lost to the Prestorians that the kingdoms of Dolem and Javelina were both convinced to sign a nonaggression pact with the now satrapy of Prestorian, forming what would later become known as the "Yossarian League of Three Kingdoms," (from the name of the pact being called the, "Yossarian Covenant," after the puppet princess Yossaria.)

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Although the lands now both under the sovereignty and the suzerainty of Fulin would see a period of unprecedented economic and thauma-industrial prosperity, many native Fulinese would become disillusioned by the more "dualistic" pantheon of gods being pushed by the insulares-born nobility, as influenced by Hyakub's milieu. Opting instead to undergo willful expatriation as the more traditionalist Fulinese "hylics" left to resettle in land such as those of the Yossarian League, the newly minted Fulinese satrapy of Remustria, or the eastern lands of Shambala. However, in the year 0079 of the new Fulinese Imperial Calendar, as the southern kingdom of Selkievidek slowly continued its conquest of Shambala, the now Empire of Fulin announced its annexation of Shambala. Citing its rightful claims to the land due to its duty to protect, "even its prodigal sons and citizens such as the traditionalist hylics who cling to the old religion."

Now, the selkies of Selkievidek who had, in the previous kalpa, been taught the alchemical Mystery of hypostatic fision by the constellation Floron, were ruled by a nobility capable of thaumaturgic-bicamerality; adepts of splitting their beastman "juujin" pinnipedine compatriots into two entities. One a non-juujin human person, and the other a sapient juujin pelt that held the power subsume any single potential wearer other then its original "owner" within itself and its soul, in a man-made facsimile of the Egregores (non-incarnated Souls, formerly worshipped under the old Fulinese pantheon) as they observed the Dream itself. Having become adept cultivators of symbiotic parasite juujins as well, such as various strains of cordyceps familiars, the selkievidek nobility had pioneered the art of "shock troop battery farming." Becoming as man-made divinities even prior to their ensuing war with the celestial hortator Hyakub Shiki and his monastic cohorts.

Although in the end the combined power of the Selkievidek nobility was not enough to prevail over the forces of Fulin and its satrapies, it did prove sufficient enough to deal a crippling blow to the burgeoning empire as Hyakub Shiki was felled in battle against Sè-rēng, the son of the selkie hypostatic-trifon lord, Eochaid. Resolving, amidst the depths of his grief, to inter both himself and his remaining courtiers deep within the depths of the material world inside resplendent barrows, the Selkividek nobility abandoned the people of their nation to their fate at the hands of the Fulinese, as the forces of Fulin and those of their Yossarian League vassal-state PMCs split up the majority of the lands formerly claimed by Selkievidek rule.

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In contemporary times, with the crisis of succession currently going on in the Fulinese heartland, the lands comprising the imperial provinces that formerly made up the territories have become a hotbed for irridentist Selkividekian revolts, Ruritanian-sponsored Llanolian border skirmishes and Yossarian League PMC-backed adventurer guilds' raiding of decrepit Selkievidek barrows and tombs.