Sky Pride Vol. 5 Chapter 41- Speaking Plainly
Added 2026-02-02 15:00:18 +0000 UTCComments
Tian would honestly probably benefit a lot from whatever the cultivator equivalent of hemlock is.
nunya
2026-02-09 04:37:51 +0000 UTCThe conversation that Tian joins first reminds me of how Plato's republic starts, specifically when Socrates starts talking about a "perfect city" he begins with a really simple fishing village and by the end of everyone elses meddleing he has a caste system and a yearly orgy 😅
Noroh
2026-02-03 03:12:49 +0000 UTCIt's like Lin is describing Tian with this passage their senses are different, they were raised differently, have radically different instincts, radically different education… I wonder if that's why Tian is there. His core persony is orthogonal the rest of the sect. Maybe he's there to act as the forcing function that brings change.
Efram Manechiwz
2026-02-03 01:31:20 +0000 UTCIt strikes me that Sis Su is metal to a point(pun intended), and the pen and blade function equally to cut apart opposition in her otherwise blunt mien.
Jeryd Greer
2026-02-02 20:47:59 +0000 UTCNo no, you're on to something. There is a solution already inherent in the system. The tribulation lighting being lessoned by those who carry merit . The Monastery has side-stepped lighting at the earthly realm by not teaching outer courts all there is to know. Because of this, the sorting system is avoided. Allowing less focus on merit in general.
Andrew Goebel
2026-02-02 20:28:16 +0000 UTCTian needs to learn the old adage, don't let perfect be the enemy of good.
Zachary Atwood
2026-02-02 20:27:18 +0000 UTCSubjects that *shouldn't* be controversial, at least in an ideal world. Alas.
Adherecranium
2026-02-02 19:43:50 +0000 UTCThe thing is we outright know that Lin is wrong here. Tian's father is living proof that she is simply incorrect at a fundamental level. And there were a few hints this book that doing things that went against the natural order and defied the Heavens used to be a lot more common.
David Giles
2026-02-02 19:20:03 +0000 UTCThe power scaling is ridiculous. I don't mean that it's bad writing, it's actually quite an interesting world building story component. But what Lin said about "the weakest heavenly person in the sect could wipe out the entire outer court," really brings it home. Heavenly people are gods among men, any of them could exterminate all the mortals in the world given time and no opposing heavenly person. Then add in what elder Feng said about a couple dozen "powerhouses" (likely whatever stage is after heavenly) that could change the course of the war. Those would be individuals capable of slaughtering armies of heavenly people (who are already godlike) and only refrain from doing so because opposing powerhouses in other sects would retaliate. Finally, we have the sect masters who can apparently bend reality itself, shatter a continent-sized desert, teleport ten thousand individuals, create an impenetrable forcefield around a mountain, kill the strongest heretic, pretty much all at once.
Zenopath (AEV)
2026-02-02 18:44:22 +0000 UTCThank you for the chapter! There is one other thing that I hope will come up in the discussion, at least for Tien. That being said, how does merit, heaven’s judgment, and maybe even karma factor into all of this? Since a part of the issue is that heaven is acting as a near literal “big fist” check, and merit from a mortal point of view acts as a near physical sign of heavenly approval. Edit: I mean cultivation in most xianxia and xuanhuan stories somewhat has an integrated incentive structure that generally promotes "big fist" mentality. That being if you increase your power/cultivate, you will literally live longer than other people and have "magic." Additionally, in many stories, this type of power cultivation will generally pass on some amount of inherited strength to your descendants. So, if you become powerful, then there is a higher likelihood that your children will live longer and be more powerful as well, which acts as a reason to form clans (outside of cultural reasons for doing so). These incentives also do not take into account what the Dao/Enlightenment could mean for an individual person. Sorry for the rambling.
BlueJayCash
2026-02-02 18:38:53 +0000 UTCpossibly, though I take it to be one of the organic changes of topic that happen in a conversation - especially when there isn't much more to say about the prior topic/ a different one interests you more.
Dragebar
2026-02-02 18:26:46 +0000 UTCIs there a sentence missing between the following paragraphs: She grimaced. “It’s why the Lin family has such an unusual status in the Sect. Not a single one of us was ordered to fight in the Wastelands, and those of us who did go strictly worked on raising and training animal cultivators. None of us were on the front line. We are a major bridge to the animals and birds higher up the mountain, and they are not existences the Monastery can take lightly.” Lin smiled. “It’s about that time?”
Dash of Salt
2026-02-02 17:02:55 +0000 UTCIt's like with the invention of cars, now 40,000 to 50,000 people die each year in the United States alone. But does that mean we should take away cars and no one should be allowed to drive?
Endgame
2026-02-02 16:58:37 +0000 UTCReasonable rational conclusions. I'm with Tian on not knowing how to make my heart accept them. It's interesting that the FDA regulates how much sawdust can be put into cheese legally. Historically, sawdust was used as a cheap additive to stretch out ingredients. You could put sawdust in food and people would not notice and this would save money on the making of the food because sawdust was cheap. The amount of sawdust allowed into food today is not 0. Its just regulated to 2-4% of the weight or maybe by parts-per-million in other parts of the world. Which is just silly or mildly perturbing in the context of food. In the context of a wider system it isn't funny. Regulating the acceptable dead-kids-per-million through action or inaction is suddenly more serious. I don't know how to accept acceptable casualties. Like oh things used to be worse then we made incremental improvements and now we have regulations and now only 2-4% of terrible outcomes occur.
ioajfidsnmfomds77
2026-02-02 16:28:16 +0000 UTCI feel Tian so hard in this chapter. Strong parallels to actions I have taken and things I have said in the past few days.
zero
2026-02-02 16:23:22 +0000 UTCIts a bit of a epistimological question foundationally I think. Because nominally everyone can learn from each other and everything and in doing so get closer to all being super capable. So there is a big question of learning and teaching which naturally interelates to how one treats or aids others
Veridescent
2026-02-02 16:22:02 +0000 UTCWould you recommend Pale? I’ve heard lots about wildbow but I’m not sure where to start
Diarmuid McGinnity
2026-02-02 16:11:01 +0000 UTCI like these chapters. Cultivation naturally leads to more “martial” worlds, as when you’re a hammer everything starts to look a lot like a nail. And for the most part, morality seems to always take a back seat to necessity. But as a regular disciple in a sect in one of these worlds, you would think morality would be talked about heavily. I mean these guys have hundreds of years to sit around and think about these things, but you very rarely see it in stories. Kind of fun to explore ethics and morality through such a specific lens, where a persons power is literal but they aren’t all powerful or even the most powerful. For example: Superman. Should he save people while a bridge is collapsing? Sure, he has the power, why wouldn’t he? A singular Superman, based on comics I’ve read, should almost be on perpetual bridge collapse duty lol. Okay but now pretend there’s a whole gang of supermen, wouldn’t their time be better spent finding ways to avoid bridges collapsing than running around saving people from bridges collapsing? Not a very hammer thing to do though. lol sorry for ranting.. just fun stuff
Hoopsterben
2026-02-02 16:03:23 +0000 UTC"The senior brother had a rather sharp looking mustache and goatee" a goatee! That's a surefire way to know he is evil.
Tadas
2026-02-02 16:00:36 +0000 UTCOr there’s one person in the assembly with the biggest fist who can murder you in your sleep unnoticed 💀
Sinfinite
2026-02-02 15:55:42 +0000 UTCThe key questions are of flow, of what patterns of methods would continually enforce self correction . Because context defines much of what is efficient and continual correction may often be energentically expensive. And humans are lazy when it comes to computing, if a easier way is had it will be preferred. Philosphy and doctrine nominally are examples of "maps" of specific models of methods that are good, usually in a prosocial definition in a specific context. But the danger there often that the rhethoric of one who knows may be taken as a juridical heuristic instead of people studying that original framework themselves. Which may give influence to mitigate how much others understand. And in a similar sense the philosophy was only ever a map to specific context so the optimal state needs to be actively able to integrate and note specifically local context to avoid being too fundamentalist. So one has to improve things such that the burden of actually improving is easier, which gets into the aspects of why say, sharing the dao and making that as easily capable of being done with many people of many different walks of life is sort of a common pattern or at least is a continual key throughline determining greater span of growth. Because you need to essentially simulate the fractal interconnected nature of things in the given philosphy. And manage to avoid external or internal "big fist" from destroying the potential nurtured knowledge that would let you grow more efficient cultivators with time. If you manage the flow, it all grows with time, the issue is disruption and effectively endurance. Very much a "bomb logic" scenario to crib a term from destiny.
Veridescent
2026-02-02 15:53:27 +0000 UTCHow can democracy exist if in the next country over is an ambitious conquering dictator that is 10x your realm? 😭
Sinfinite
2026-02-02 15:51:24 +0000 UTCContinuous change in an Immortality cultivating gerontocracy? I think planck's principle is going to bite them hard and is going to require some further adjustments. They need to place a hard limit on the length of time anyone can stay in leadership roles and to avoid like the plague any kind of emeritus position or title. That won't stop informal power networks but a lack of formal power will make it harder for older members to constrain new ideas The biggest fist leads can't really be avoided but again separate direct power/combat ability from leadership roles. You can't avoid giving such individuals some kind of benefits and again they'll always have some informal power but you need to build norms around such individuals performing occasional "percussive maintenance" rather than my way or the highway.
Robin Richards
2026-02-02 15:48:12 +0000 UTCSomeone needs to invent the dao of making heavenly monsters obey the rules
Roxanne Moore
2026-02-02 15:34:45 +0000 UTCThis chapter reminds me a lot of one of the videos by Innuendo Studios, specifically The Alt Right Playbook playlist, the one called I Hate Mondays. So, rather convenient that the chapter also dropped on a Monday. Tl;dr version is that problems will always exist, and you can't regulate all evil, but you can make some things less likely by improving the system you're working with/under. But not everyone who agrees something is a problem will agree that *doing something* about that problem is needed or necessary, which is what leads to a lot of the frustration in our discourse.
G&S Gaming
2026-02-02 15:27:15 +0000 UTCIn a way, a heavy chapter, despite the jokes and lightness and right things happening. What I see - in essence - is that even our ideal outcome and hopes for society, given a clean start, is still something that would have many flaws, many people left to the wayside. As a queer person, as a Chinese Filipino American, it's easy to feel a lot like the birds and beasts on the mountain when it comes to people considering folks like me. I appreciate what this chapter brings - the only other web serial I've seen try to really tackle what it means to try and better society through (relatively) peaceful measures was Pale by Wildbow. Like Tian, my hope is for something more even if this is the best we can get. For me, I see this as wishing for Grace (extra help and compassion, without having to have earned or strived for it, often considered [minorly] miraculous) for us all. Thanks for sharing, Warby.
Lady Merlin
2026-02-02 15:25:56 +0000 UTCJust so good. So very good.
Michael
2026-02-02 15:25:47 +0000 UTCThe Tao of Continuous Improvement, Earth and Heaven Change Management Technique. The Project Manager calls the assembly at the appointed hour and speaks unwelcome truths. Charts unfurl, the screen alive with color. Tasks fly like butterflies, alighting gently on the unwary, guiding them in their endeavors. None are satisfied. See you next month.
Steve Wright
2026-02-02 15:24:43 +0000 UTCTian.... this is why Socrates died.
Brandon Cleveland
2026-02-02 15:24:16 +0000 UTCGood chapter.
Logrus
2026-02-02 15:22:21 +0000 UTCThanks for the chapter. No real comment, there was a LOT going on here and I need to think on it a little. May pour myself a cup of tea. Your point on the tyranny of violence is strong.
Teach
2026-02-02 15:22:01 +0000 UTC“uncontroversial subjects” lol
Ben
2026-02-02 15:21:49 +0000 UTCIncredible
Milan Seyed Mahmoud
2026-02-02 15:17:00 +0000 UTCtftc
Samuel Sever
2026-02-02 15:16:46 +0000 UTC
