Firstly, there seems to be a varying set of assumptions about what it means for a mystical divine beign to manifest in the physical world. I think mystical philosophy on this varies considerably from theist and animist beliefs. Animists and theists believe in a clear distinction between mortal and divine beings. Animists believe that they can be posessed by divine beings. Theists believe that they can be posessed in a similar way, or that they can become divine through heroforming.
Contrast this with the manifestation of the Red Goddess in the world. Sedenyan mystics know that far from posessing a waif in Torang, the ritual of the Seven Mothers simply persuaded the goddess to cast asside the veil of mortality and express her divine nature. I think it is this kind of inner revelation that is the key to the nature of Moonson. Argenteus is Takenegi in just the same way that Sedenya is Rashorana. Phil, is this what you mean when you say that Moonson's Great Self is Takenegi?
This is one of the things I liked about Life of Moonson. One of the secrets which came out into the open after the last run of the game was that when Count Julan became Emperor, he did not become Moonson. This was explicitly stated.
In order for a claimant to become Emperor he needed a group of supporters. The group then perform a rutual, part of which involves one of the group being sacrificed to chaos. The secret is that the member of the group who should be sacrificed to chaos is the candidate himself, casting aside his mortality and expressing his inner emperorship, revealing himself as the perfect ruler - Moonson.
In the game Julan did not do this, I think Great Sister was sacrificed instead, and so he was not Moonson but simply Julan become Emperor. Thus as I understand it, Life of Moonson is perfectly consistent with the singular nature of Moonson. I obviously can't comment on what happened at runs of Life of Moonson at which i was not present.
I accept that people who were present but not paying attention, was unluckily distracted or just didn't realy care might have got the impression that Julan became Moonson. In fact I remember Greg saying something along the lines that while he didn't think this was realy how Moonson came back, it wasn't entirely out of the ballpark either.
Nick Brooke says :
>In "Life of Moonson" we showed a contest to become the Emperor's Body, and
>have 1/7th input into the creation of the new Mask of Moonson. Moonson's
>"body part", we propose, is that of somebody else. Like the Soul of
>Antirius, this body is incorporated into a new entity whose Great Self,
>whose Lunar Seventh Soul, is that of Takenegi.
>
>This directly parallels the way Rufelza (a divine being) became manifest in
>Teelo Norri (a human being with a prior history), and the way Takenegi (a
>divine being) became manifest in Doskalos (a human being with a prior
>history). It is hard to get more Lunar than these two, frankly. It is hard
>to see why you would *want* to get less, when the alternative is clearly
>more fun.
Exactly as I see it. Mystics would deny that anything external 'happened to' Teelo Norri. Her 'transformation' into the goddess was purely an internal process. Similarly the emperor candidate reveals the TakenEgi within him. Someone who had already revealed their Great Self to be different would not be able to do this, thus presumably excluding some of the most spiritualy advanced individuals within the empire. Thus the new mask of Moonson will always appear from among the ranks, so to speak. This is exactly analogous to the way Nephilim manifest in that game, BTW.
Soviet/Lunar analogues
Whether you love them or hate them, here's another one :
Both employ the secret service of a small client state to perform it's most secret, dirtyest clandestine work - the Sovs used the Bulgarian KGB, and the Lunars use the Duchy of the Blue Moon.
Troll with Bulgarian accents!
Simon Hibbs
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