Board Thread:Fiction Universe Discussion/@comment-4242472-20160124202207/@comment-1370845-20160125181539

I really think I need to put this into perspective. That, and I'm getting lots of notifications from this thread anyway, may as well contribute seriously to it. What we're discussing right now, all the definitions for levels of power and scope, is really just verging on the level of power creep and competition that always happens on the wiki until status quos are really defined and laws are set in place, in a way that's often messy. This typically happens when users confuse the roleplaying side of the universe with the worldbuilding side of it, and isn't helped by the fact that some users lean more towards one than the other.

We can use the Xhodocto as an easy example of power creep. When it started out, it was immediately assumed to be the most powerful fiction simply because that was the only way its role in the War of Ages story worked. The Krassio are written as their rival, and they need to increase in power a bit to catch up with the Xhodocto some more, who in response, increase in power again to stay as a considerable threat. When you throw the Taldar and the Ravenrii that later come along into the mix, Xho has to outdo them in order for the Xhodocto to play their pivotal role as being an antagonist that can't just be crushed by four other godraces. It reached a point where they had to ascend beyond reality itself, and we had to collectively stop any other godrace from doing that. This is where the power creep led us to.

The tier system is a clear example of this, as it creates a clear guideline of what level of power a fiction can reach. I personally use this system whenever creating a new antagonist faction, because it's always easy for me to say "hm, I want to create people more powerful than these people so that they're an actual threat", and to slap "Tier 1" on the fiction relays this information to people much faster than listing every technical specification of their superweapons and technology, while those specifications have a use in backing up the "Tier 1" claim. I half-jokingly suggested the Rogue Boyz be a hyperpower here, but in reality, I would be looking for information like that when attempting to make the Rogue Boyz threatening antagonists. The old Rogue Boyz existed largely as a nuisance that wouldn't last long if it declared war with the universe, because it was there largely for comic relief; if I made them a major antagonist, considering the DCP would not hesitate to stomp them flat with its Tier 1 superweapons of death against the Rogue Boyz' barely-Tier 2 state that was not going to work. It just makes sense from a storytelling perspective to give them this new level of power so that a war with them would actually make canonical sense and be interesting to read.

But then you throw the roleplaying aspect into the mix. It's okay if one user creates their tier 1 empire and poises it as a threat to their own creations, and whoever joins in the story, but suddenly they may feel left behind and underpowered in a universe where everything is so much stronger, and will need to increase in power to match them. It's very easy from a storytelling perspective to simply leave a severely underpowered nation uninvolved in an event involving a hyperpower that can doom them, but I know as a user that it's not cool to feel left out like that. And no one wants their nation to get killed like that. They either beef up and go with the power creep, or remain uninvolved.

I wanted to share this feeling about the power creep, because I think we should be very careful with how we use it. Back in the days, Tier 0 godraces were largely banned solely to prevent this situation from occurring, a situation of "what if I can make something bigger?" versus "oh, if he made something bigger, I must too to keep up". We end up with a huge power creep, that may be realistic in a real life political scenario, but I'm not convinced it's healthy for a fiction universe. We should really avoid "hyperpower" being the next "Tier 0".