Concerns about the new Tier 0

[TheUltimateGod4]

I have three main gripes with the new Tier 0:

1. It's prone to contradictions. From what I understand, Tier 0 characters are basically the "All-in-One", encompassing absolutely everything within their verse. If I'm getting this right, they basically are the cosmology of their verse. My question, then, is this; What happens when a Tier 0 of a verse whose cosmology caps at Modal Realism encounters a High 1-A character that is able to control the cosmology of Extended Modal Realism? What if they were to fight? I understand that the idea of two Tier 0s fighting each other is an, and I quote: "Absurd notion", but this scenario seems perfectly reasonable to me. It also presents a problem; If the High 1-A character wins, than it shows that the current definition of Tier 0 is invalid and nonsensical. If the Tier 0 wins, than further clarification is required to explain how this is possible; How can Modal Realism beat Extended Modal Realism, even though the latter by definition has a larger scope than the former? Does the Tier 0 just automatically become stronger when introduced to a higher cosmology? If so, than that leads me to my second point:

2. It's boring and completely invalidates powerscaling at this level. I'll concede that this may very well be the point; to create an absolute, terminating upper limit to powerscaling, but I don't think I like this idea. Powerscaling has always, to an extent, been about pushing the limits of power and scope to get characters as high as possible, and discovering new ways to push those limits. Having a final uber super ultimate tier that can't be surpassed no matter what completely invalidates this notion, and, at least to me, seems to completely undermine powerscaling as a whole. And then there's my third point:

3. It's too limited. I don't like the idea of only a single, extremely specific type of character being able to meet the qualifications for this tier. Such a tier represents absolute thought termination, making it "absurd" to even conceive of the idea of characters of this tier clashing, or the idea of something beyond this tier. This may very well be the point as well, but I still don't like it. Something like this completely undermines the fundamental core of powerscaling; the question of "Who would win?" By defining this very question as "absurd" when it comes to this tier, you define the very core of powerscaling as "absurd".

A final point I want to make is that a Tier 0 literally CANNOT EXIST within fiction. When it comes to things like Outerversal, even though we're reasonably confident that such a thing does not exist in reality, we can still bend the rules a little to allow it to exist within fiction. The problem with a Tier 0 is that its very definition is untenable within fiction, because there will always be something that surpasses everything that is fictional; the authors. Even if a verse does not acknowledge the author as an entity, the very existence of one renders the whole concept of a Tier 0 moot. Essentially, if it's fictional, than it CANNOT be Tier 0, because one of the fundamental requirements of a Tier 0 is primacy, that being the quality of being completely unsurpassable, however ANYTHING fictional is by definition surpassed by the authors of said fiction. The authors are the true Tier 0s, anything fictional is not and cannot be Tier 0 by definition.

 

[Tdjwo]

I have three main gripes with the new Tier 0:

1. It's prone to contradictions. From what I understand, Tier 0 characters are basically the "All-in-One", encompassing absolutely everything within their verse. If I'm getting this right, they basically are the cosmology of their verse. My question, then, is this; What happens when a Tier 0 of a verse whose cosmology caps at Modal Realism encounters a High 1-A character that is able to control the cosmology of Extended Modal Realism? What if they were to fight? I understand that the idea of two Tier 0s fighting each other is an, and I quote: "Absurd notion", but this scenario seems perfectly reasonable to me. It also presents a problem; If the High 1-A character wins, than it shows that the current definition of Tier 0 is invalid and nonsensical. If the Tier 0 wins, than further clarification is required to explain how this is possible; How can Modal Realism beat Extended Modal Realism, even though the latter by definition has a larger scope than the former? Does the Tier 0 just automatically become stronger when introduced to a higher cosmology? If so, than that leads me to my second point:

Tier 0's are not necessarily JUST the cosmology of the verse. They are also independent of the cosmology. If a verse normally caps at High 1A without a monad, then the monad is not only higher, but also independent of whatever the verse caps at normally. This is why it's explained that even if a verse is universal normally, it's still possible and allowed for a tier 0 monad to exist at its apex.

2. It's boring and completely invalidates powerscaling at this level. I'll concede that this may very well be the point; to create an absolute, terminating upper limit to powerscaling, but I don't think I like this idea. Powerscaling has always, to an extent, been about pushing the limits of power and scope to get characters as high as possible, and discovering new ways to push those limits. Having a final uber super ultimate tier that can't be surpassed no matter what completely invalidates this notion, and, at least to me, seems to completely undermine powerscaling as a whole. And then there's my third point:

This is a "you problem." Lots of people disliked the previous tier 0(including me) but vice versa was also the case. Just gotta suck it up and deal with it. I personally think having a tier 0 that tells us how an actual boundless, unbeatable character scales is far better than a tier 0 where up to 30 others from the same verse can scale to. How can you be boundless, yet limited to another character that is apparently "2-layers" into boundless urgh...sounds cringe.

3. It's too limited. I don't like the idea of only a single, extremely specific type of character being able to meet the qualifications for this tier. Such a tier represents absolute thought termination, making it "absurd" to even conceive of the idea of characters of this tier clashing, or the idea of something beyond this tier. This may very well be the point as well, but I still don't like it. Something like this completely undermines the fundamental core of powerscaling; the question of "Who would win?" By defining this very question as "absurd" when it comes to this tier, you define the very core of powerscaling as "absurd".

Powerscaling is not a concept with limitless imagination or ideas. The very foundation of most powerscalings comes from Philosophy, maths and Physics. For the longest time, we've been using mainly maths as the determinant of size/powerlevel and maths/physics have limits regardless of whatever infinity we use. Philosophy on the other hand has ridiculous theologies like Neoplatonism, Negative Theology, etc implemented with religious teachings which disregard the notions of size, effability or anything that defines limits. That is the only true way to "gauge" how powerful the apex tier would be. Having gazillion characters from the same verse scaling to the same "apex tier"(looking at you SCP) just makes the idea of tier 0 boring and pointless and it's not even supposed to be that way.

A final point I want to make is that a Tier 0 literally CANNOT EXIST within fiction. When it comes to things like Outerversal, even though we're reasonably confident that such a thing does not exist in reality, we can still bend the rules a little to allow it to exist within fiction. The problem with a Tier 0 is that its very definition is untenable within fiction, because there will always be something that surpasses everything that is fictional; the authors. Even if a verse does not acknowledge the author as an entity, the very existence of one renders the whole concept of a Tier 0 moot. Essentially, if it's fictional, than it CANNOT be Tier 0, because one of the fundamental requirements of a Tier 0 is primacy, that being the quality of being completely unsurpassable, however ANYTHING fictional is by definition surpassed by the authors of said fiction. The authors are the true Tier 0s, anything fictional is not and cannot be Tier 0 by definition.

The sole purpose of fiction is to escape reality. Why are we taking authors into consideration when looking at a piece of fiction?

 

[IdiosyncraticLawyer]

This is neither a valid argument against tier 0 nor appropriate as a CRT. I'm going to have it closed and moved to GD.

 

[TheUltimateGod4]

Tier 0's are not necessarily JUST the cosmology of the verse. They are also independent of the cosmology. If a verse normally caps at High 1A without a monad, then the monad is not only higher, but also independent of whatever the verse caps at normally. This is why it's explained that even if a verse is universal normally, it's still possible and allowed for a tier 0 monad to exist at its apex.

I see. Thanks for the explanation. I guess it would make sense that if a hypothetical High 1-A character were to enter the cosmology of, say, a High 1-B verse, it would still be a "thing" in that verse. It would far and above be the highest "thing", sure, but still a thing.

This is a "you problem." Lots of people disliked the previous tier 0(including me) but vice versa was also the case. Just gotta suck it up and deal with it. I personally think having a tier 0 that tells us how an actual boundless, unbeatable character scales is far better than a tier 0 where up to 30 others from the same verse can scale to. How can you be boundless, yet limited to another character that is apparently "2-layers" into boundless urgh...sounds cringe.

I guess that's fair. It seems that High Outerversal has been repurposed for that kind of retardation anyways.

Powerscaling is not a concept with limitless imagination or ideas. The very foundation of most powerscalings comes from Philosophy, maths and Physics. For the longest time, we've been using mainly maths as the determinant of size/powerlevel and maths/physics have limits regardless of whatever infinity we use. Philosophy on the other hand has ridiculous theologies like Neoplatonism, Negative Theology, etc implemented with religious teachings which disregard the notions of size, effability or anything that defines limits. That is the only true way to "gauge" how powerful the apex tier would be. Having gazillion characters from the same verse scaling to the same "apex tier"(looking at you SCP) just makes the idea of tier 0 boring and pointless and it's not even supposed to be that way.

I actually like SCP, but fair point. It just seems pointless to scale Tier 0s because there's nothing to put them up against, not even other Tier 0s, because that's an "absurd notion". I guess I can see why that's the case though.

The sole purpose of fiction is to escape reality. Why are we taking authors into consideration when looking at a piece of fiction?

Because the relationship between authors and their fictions is the same as the relationship between a Monad and their cosmology.

Just because it's fiction doesn't mean that anything goes. Let me ask you this; Why can't two Tier 0s fight each other? Sure, it wouldn't be reasonable within reality, but this is fiction, and-

The sole purpose of fiction is to escape reality.

-after all.

See the problem? The issue lies not in its unreasonability in reality, but in the untenability of the very notion. The idea of 2 Tier 0s even EXISTING at once, let alone fighting each other, is an "absurd notion", meaning it simply cannot be a thing, because if two completely differentiated Tier 0s exist at once, then they cannot be Tier 0s AT ALL by definition. The notion of a Tier 0 existing in fiction is equally untenable. Part of the definition of a Tier 0 is a completely unsurpassable nature, no matter what, how, why, regardless of the circumstances, it is absolutely impossible. An author surpasses their fictions in this same way, being completely unsurpassable relative to everything within their fictions, INCLUDING any "Tier 0s" that exist in their works. Therefore, the "unsurpassable Tier 0" has been surpassed, meaning it can't actually be a Tier 0. Whoopsie. This is why I said authors are the "true" Tier 0s, but even this is a stretch, since we as human beings are surpassed by all sorts of things in reality.

The only way I could reasonably see a true Tier 0 existing within fiction is if said Tier 0 and the author(s) are considered to be one and the same. Otherwise, the very notion of it being a "Tier 0" at all is untenable.