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The commoners thread: Discussing Ultima's "On the Many, Many Incoherences of the Tiering System"

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AlexZiggy said:
So anyone got candidates for Ultima's tier 0
I got a few but most of them fail one requirement or the other
Other than Unsong's Atzmus I guess
Click to expand...
My best guesses:
  • Self-Reference Engine - Negative theology, lacks all aspects, fully nonexistent. Fulfills all Tier 0 standards.
  • Swirl of the Root - Negative theology, lacks all aspects - transcends all dualities. Apparently fulfills all Tier 0 standards? IIRC Ultima also brought up Fate when discussing examples of apophatic theology stuffs.
  • Jehovah - Negative theology, lacks all aspects, transcends all dualities. Probably fulfills all Tier 0 standards.
  • Amaranth - Indivisible, indescribable, devoid of all dualities, etc.

Yeah, that's about all I can think of. Most of these are already Tier 0, lol.

There's probably a few others I'm not familiar with.

Perhaps some of the china verses like Dragon Talisman may also qualify. Lots of perfected trandualities n lacking of aspects.

Though, by virtue of china verse, it has a lot of hierarchies and people ascending to that level of existence, so it may not qualify. Unless ascension via shedding aspects of being is a way of bypassing that Tier 0 guideline.
 
Phoenks said:
My best guesses:
  • Self-Reference Engine - Negative theology, lacks all aspects, fully nonexistent. Fulfills all Tier 0 standards.
  • Swirl of the Root - Negative theology, lacks all aspects - transcends all dualities. Apparently fulfills all Tier 0 standards? IIRC Ultima also brought up Fate when discussing examples of apophatic theology stuffs.
  • Jehovah - Negative theology, lacks all aspects, transcends all dualities. Probably fulfills all Tier 0 standards.
  • Amaranth - Indivisible, indescribable, devoid of all dualities, etc.

Yeah, that's about all I can think of. Most of these are already Tier 0, lol.

There's probably a few others I'm not familiar with.

Perhaps some of the china verses like Dragon Talisman may also qualify. Lots of perfected trandualities n lacking of aspects.

Though, by virtue of china verse, it has a lot of hierarchies and people ascending to that level of existence, so it may not qualify. Unless ascension via shedding aspects of being is a way of bypassing that Tier 0 guideline.
Click to expand...
So, negative theology scaling is back on the table? I can do something really funny if that's the case, but I don't think I should.
 
Phoenks said:
My best guesses:
  • Self-Reference Engine - Negative theology, lacks all aspects, fully nonexistent. Fulfills all Tier 0 standards.
  • Swirl of the Root - Negative theology, lacks all aspects - transcends all dualities. Apparently fulfills all Tier 0 standards? IIRC Ultima also brought up Fate when discussing examples of apophatic theology stuffs.
  • Jehovah - Negative theology, lacks all aspects, transcends all dualities. Probably fulfills all Tier 0 standards.
  • Amaranth - Indivisible, indescribable, devoid of all dualities, etc.
Click to expand...
I need swirl of the root to be tier 0 so we can have the biggest glass cannons on the wiki LMAO
 
Mad_Dog_of_Fujiwara said:
So, negative theology scaling is back on the table? I can do something really funny if that's the case, but I don't think I should.
Click to expand...
Potentially, I think, at least.

Ultima's Tier 0 seems to be a lacking of all qualities via transcending them. Which is pretty much exactly what Negative Theology is... a method of explaining some absolute entity by negating its existence within our logic, inferring that they are beyond our comprehension in the most literal sense.

Tier 0 is not about "adding" something to a character, but rather about removing things from it (In this case, composition and differentiation), which is to say that absoluteness wouldn't really be gotten through obtaining more qualities (Or increasing the degree of those qualities) but rather by abandoning this whole framework altogether.
Click to expand...
 
Phoenks said:
Which is pretty much exactly what Negative Theology is... a method of explaining some absolute entity by negating its existence within our logic, inferring that they are beyond our comprehension in the most literal sense.
Click to expand...
I feel like some chinese verse could get upgraded to absurd length depending on if a character can, somehow, achieve a state similar to the Dao itself. Given that the explanation of said Dao is accurate and well-explained by the author, obviously, but also if Ultima would even consider such a case as "valid".
 
Phoenks said:
Potentially, I think, at least.

Ultima's Tier 0 seems to be a lacking of all qualities via transcending them. Which is pretty much exactly what Negative Theology is... a method of explaining some absolute entity by negating its existence within our logic, inferring that they are beyond our comprehension in the most literal sense.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I did a bit more reading into it, and it seems like I might have a pretty solid case for tier 0 after all. Like, to the point where I think the evidence at hand is the textbook definition of tier 0 under Ultima's new system. There aren't even any anti-feats I'd have to cope my way out of, like with 1-A/High 1-A.

If tier 0 scaling is funny then I'm about to be hilarious.
 
Mad_Dog_of_Fujiwara said:
Yeah, I did a bit more reading into it, and it seems like I might have a pretty solid case for tier 0 after all. Like, to the point where I think the evidence at hand is the textbook definition of tier 0 under Ultima's new system. There aren't even any anti-feats I'd have to cope my way out of, like with 1-A/High 1-A.

If tier 0 scaling is funny then I'm about to be hilarious.
Click to expand...
shiki tohno negs
 
SweetDao said:
I feel like some chinese verse could get upgraded to absurd length depending on if a character can, somehow, achieve a state similar to the Dao itself. Given that the explanation of said Dao is accurate and well-explained by the author, obviously, but also if Ultima would even consider such a case as "valid".
Click to expand...
The problem is that I believe Chinese verses disqualify themselves by making all their levels of existence accessible via some amount of hierarchical ascendance.

Like, the "Dao," as a lone concept, most likely qualifies for Tier 0 in the same way I think the Monad, Form of Good, Brahman, Supreme Ultimate Reality, and etc... would also be Tier 0.

But Xianxia often has characters become one with the Dao, or even "transcend" the Dao, which disqualifies it.
 
Phoenks said:
There's probably a few others I'm not familiar with.
Click to expand...
Also:
  1. The Clear Light (Twin Peaks) - Completely beyond even the distinction between "God" and its shadow-self, both of which are merely two complementary aspects derived from an overarching state of oneness, the "naked, spotless intellect" whose nature is completely featureless and devoid of attributes and characteristics entirely, "existing" as a perfect, transparent vacuum with no form or color whatsoever, whereas even the former two still have colors representing their essences.
  2. The Atzmus - (Unsong) The Atzmus is the nameless and unmanifest aspect of the Divine which no thoughts reach, being a state that is neither the wholeness of God [1] nor the emptiness of nonexistence [0], completely unrepresentable by anything but the absence of information itself, without any binary digits whatsoever, and being unable to be spoken of or referred to in any manner.
  3. The Supreme Archetype (Cthulhu Mythos) - Exists a an all-encompassing, limitless oneness of essence animating all existence in an "unbounded sweep" lying "behind all scenes and dreams" as the "final cosmic reality" transcending all local and partial perceptions.
  4. Universe Prime (SCP Foundation) - We don't have a page for this, but it's essentially SCP's supreme being. It possesses infinite narrative energy, which it then distributes to all lower universes. As a result of its existence, no lower universe can ever interact with it or even comprehend what is going on in it. It is also completely immovable in its plot and fate, being unable to be changed at all. While lower universes are defined in power by the amount of narrative degrees they possess making them more or less real, Universe Prime has no narrative degrees at all, existing entirely beyond such systems.
 
Phoenks said:
The problem is that I believe Chinese verses disqualify themselves by making all their levels of existence accessible via some amount of hierarchical ascendance.

Like, the "Dao," as a lone concept, most likely qualifies for Tier 0 in the same way I think the Monad, Form of Good, Brahman, Supreme Ultimate Reality, and etc... would also be Tier 0.

But Xianxia often has characters become one with the Dao, or even "transcend" the Dao, which disqualifies it.
Click to expand...
Yes, cultivation is about achieving a specific and greater realm. Although depending on the novel, the specificities of such realms can drastically change.

So there is a not so unlikely possibility of "Dao" from different verse being added as Tier 0 while no one scale to it? As long as there is no anti-feat?

I can't speak for every single Xianxia novel, but most of the things I stumbled upon, even when a character "achieve" such a state, it's only the beginning/ The Dao is infinite, you can't reach the genuine thing etc etc.

Like for example, would a thing like that qualifies?
Lin Feng was conducting his seminar while seated down, and there was a Dao fruit above his head. It was a single dot that continuously displayed the principles of the Book of Taiji and continuously explained the boundless principles and concepts of the great Dao.

There was nothing else besides this tiny dot. There was no time, there was no space, there was no Yin and Yang, there was no warmth or coldness, there was no fast and slow, there was no light or darkness.

The concept of space was nonexistent, and one wouldn’t be able to tell up from down and left from right. There was no sense of time, and one couldn’t tell the past from the future.

There was no way of describing its size, and no way of describing its shape. Nobody could pinpoint its exact location, and nobody could understand what this single dot was made of.

It felt like the beginning of the Dao, yet it also felt like the ultimate end of the great Dao. There was no head and no tail, no beginning and no end – it was just so mystical, and all the wisdom and profundities of the world were condensed into this single dot.
However, when Lin Feng’s Book of Taiji was approaching its end, everything began to change once more.

This time, even that mystical and unfathomable dot vanished into nothingness.

[...]
When this ancient scripture reached its last page, it disappeared like Lin Feng’s Dao fruit. All that was a left was a patch of nothingness – it was obscure, murky, and nothing much could be seen while the entire scene was almost impossible to describe and understand.

This nothingness hovered over Lin Feng’s head. It felt like this nothingness had a form and substance, but Xiao Yan and the others watched on but felt an inscrutable feeling rise from the bottom of their hearts.

Lin Feng’s Dao fruit of before was hard to define and describe, but it could still be described as a "dot", and one could still feel the concept of power that represented the beginning and the end of all things.

However, after Lin Feng’s Dao fruit transformed and after the Bell of Destiny transformed, people began to feel a real sense of indescribability.

It wasn’t because there was a lack of vocabulary, and neither was it because there was simply no way of describing it. People just had a feeling that no matter how they described it and no matter how much they tried to understand, they would still have a wrong answer.


Lin Feng was underneath this patch of nothingness, and he seemed to transcend above all logic and reason.

Everything that seemed incredulous, impossible, or unimaginable, felt normal for Lin Feng.

[...]

Everyone had a different sensation and understanding as they watched Lin Feng in this moment. They couldn’t really describe what they saw and felt, and neither could they estimate, understand, or define.
 
Phoenks said:
My best guesses:
  • Self-Reference Engine - Negative theology, lacks all aspects, fully nonexistent. Fulfills all Tier 0 standards.
  • Swirl of the Root - Negative theology, lacks all aspects - transcends all dualities. Apparently fulfills all Tier 0 standards? IIRC Ultima also brought up Fate when discussing examples of apophatic theology stuffs.
  • Jehovah - Negative theology, lacks all aspects, transcends all dualities. Probably fulfills all Tier 0 standards.
  • Amaranth - Indivisible, indescribable, devoid of all dualities, etc.

Yeah, that's about all I can think of. Most of these are already Tier 0, lol.

There's probably a few others I'm not familiar with.

Perhaps some of the china verses like Dragon Talisman may also qualify. Lots of perfected trandualities n lacking of aspects.

Though, by virtue of china verse, it has a lot of hierarchies and people ascending to that level of existence, so it may not qualify. Unless ascension via shedding aspects of being is a way of bypassing that Tier 0 guideline.
Click to expand...
Good list.
I did think about the Amaranth but that seems to go against the whole oneness thing as there are multiple Amaranths
 
SweetDao said:
Yes, cultivation is about achieving a specific and greater realm. Although depending on the novel, the specificities of such realms can drastically change.

So there is a not so unlikely possibility of "Dao" from different verse being added as Tier 0 while no one scale to it? As long as there is no anti-feat?

I can't speak for every single Xianxia novel, but most of the things I stumbled upon, even when a character "achieve" such a state, it's only the beginning/ The Dao is infinite, you can't reach the genuine thing etc etc.

Like for example, would a thing like that qualifies?
Lin Feng was conducting his seminar while seated down, and there was a Dao fruit above his head. It was a single dot that continuously displayed the principles of the Book of Taiji and continuously explained the boundless principles and concepts of the great Dao.

There was nothing else besides this tiny dot. There was no time, there was no space, there was no Yin and Yang, there was no warmth or coldness, there was no fast and slow, there was no light or darkness.

The concept of space was nonexistent, and one wouldn’t be able to tell up from down and left from right. There was no sense of time, and one couldn’t tell the past from the future.

There was no way of describing its size, and no way of describing its shape. Nobody could pinpoint its exact location, and nobody could understand what this single dot was made of.

It felt like the beginning of the Dao, yet it also felt like the ultimate end of the great Dao. There was no head and no tail, no beginning and no end – it was just so mystical, and all the wisdom and profundities of the world were condensed into this single dot.
However, when Lin Feng’s Book of Taiji was approaching its end, everything began to change once more.

This time, even that mystical and unfathomable dot vanished into nothingness.

[...]
When this ancient scripture reached its last page, it disappeared like Lin Feng’s Dao fruit. All that was a left was a patch of nothingness – it was obscure, murky, and nothing much could be seen while the entire scene was almost impossible to describe and understand.

This nothingness hovered over Lin Feng’s head. It felt like this nothingness had a form and substance, but Xiao Yan and the others watched on but felt an inscrutable feeling rise from the bottom of their hearts.

Lin Feng’s Dao fruit of before was hard to define and describe, but it could still be described as a "dot", and one could still feel the concept of power that represented the beginning and the end of all things.

However, after Lin Feng’s Dao fruit transformed and after the Bell of Destiny transformed, people began to feel a real sense of indescribability.

It wasn’t because there was a lack of vocabulary, and neither was it because there was simply no way of describing it. People just had a feeling that no matter how they described it and no matter how much they tried to understand, they would still have a wrong answer.


Lin Feng was underneath this patch of nothingness, and he seemed to transcend above all logic and reason.

Everything that seemed incredulous, impossible, or unimaginable, felt normal for Lin Feng.

[...]

Everyone had a different sensation and understanding as they watched Lin Feng in this moment. They couldn’t really describe what they saw and felt, and neither could they estimate, understand, or define.
Click to expand...
Isn't tier 0 because he changes into it.
 
IdiosyncraticLawyer said:
On a related note, Suggsverse definitely doesn't qualify for Ultima's new Tier 0 definition.
Click to expand...
Nope, but would likely be the highest High 1-A on the site if it was to ever be seriously evaluated.

Because Ultima's system would allow for his higher existential "logics" to be properly tiered. Of which, he has a very large number of.

Each of those would be like another "Meta-" being added onto "Meta-Qualitive Superiority."
 
Phoenks said:
Nope, but would likely be the highest High 1-A on the site if it was to ever be seriously evaluated.

Because Ultima's system would allow for his higher existential "logics" to be properly tiered. Of which, he has a very large number of.

Each of those would be like another "Meta-" being added onto "Meta-Qualitive Superiority."
Click to expand...
"Seriously evaluating" Suggsverse is a tall, if not completely impossible, order, given the utter incoherence of Lionel Suggs's writing style.
 
We currently treat NT as a single level of qualitative superiority if it is framed in a way that implies superiority, but having it skyrocket to infinitely many levels above was rejected.

If Ultima's changes are approved most likely NT would not be allowed to grant the new form of qualitative superiority, as the very premise of NT self-rejects any description we would apply to it. We only treat this as a higher level of power if the verse does, but we would need much better evidence to assume it actually has qualitative superiority than just "something that is definitionally incompatible with the premise of indexing, but which the verse treats as some form of a higher power."
 
Deagonx said:
We currently treat NT as a single level of qualitative superiority if it is framed in a way that implies superiority, but having it skyrocket to infinitely many levels above was rejected.

If Ultima's changes are approved most likely NT would not be allowed to grant the new form of qualitative superiority, as the very premise of NT self-rejects any description we would apply to it. We only treat this as a higher level of power if the verse does, but we would need much better evidence to assume it actually has qualitative superiority than just "something that is definitionally incompatible with the premise of indexing, but which the verse treats as some form of a higher power."
Click to expand...
Did you not read what his Tier 0 proposal is? NT is like... exactly in-line with what he proposes. I'd be very doubtful of it "not being allowed to grant the new form of qualitative superiority."

And, I don't know what you mean by 'better evidence' considering there's not much you can do to really provide "more" about something using NT lol. The whole concept of NT is rejecting the qualities and aspects we use to define things in order to express the idea of something absolute. So how would you go about saying anything more regarding it? The best you could do is give the perspective of how lower beings view said thing, or its "state" relative to other things, which are both ultimately meaningless to what said thing actually is anyway.
 
Phoenks said:
And, I don't know what you mean by 'better evidence' considering there's not much you can do to really provide "more" about something using NT lol
Click to expand...
That's more or less exactly why I don't think NT will or should be considered to meet the new criteria.
 
BasedNecoScaler69 said:
nt is lacking all qualities. Tier 0 is lacking all qualities
Click to expand...
That's not what Tier 0 is, no. He said:
Tier 0 can be just reflective of what it currently is in the sense of it being "Transcends High 1-A in the same manner that High 1-A transcends lower tiers." So, just as High 1-A is above the quality defining 1-A levels, Tier 0 is above the qualities defining High 1-A levels
Click to expand...
Tier 0 can be described as "above the qualities defining High 1-A." NT cannot be described that way. It cannot be described as anything.
 
Deagonx said:
Tier 0 can be described as "above the qualities defining High 1-A." NT cannot be described that way. It cannot be described as anything.
Click to expand...
I believe that is an outdated version of his tier 0 proposal given that his post seems to directly contradict that notion.

Boundless: Characters who are completely beyond both quantity, quality and meta-quality. In other words, their superiority over lesser things derives from a total lack of any qualities, instead of simply being above some qualities while still operating on higher ones, as High 1-A characters do.
Click to expand...

Now, if Tier 0 was just, say, "meta"-meta-qualitative superiorities, that'd effectively be just doing High 1-A again, and when two tiers share what is effectively the same definition, then, clearly, one of them is redundant and has little reason to exist. Therefore Tier 0 has to be something else, cue the above definition.
Click to expand...

Based on these, NT seems to fit the bill for Tier 0 far more than just "Transcending High 1-A in the same manner that High 1-A transcends lower tiers"
 
Wait is that true if this proposal get applied a transduality nature will get 1A to 0 rating???

I just think this proposal is taking serious about philosophy, metaphysics proof, raise it to the highest level beyond even math. This i think will change our perspective about abstraction entirely
 
This. It's obvious that the standards and context for feats of each series with R>F will face dissection, compared to what is seen at present. Or it should be obvious, but it's apparent now that it is not the case for many.........
 
Phoenks said:
Umineko 🤝 SCP Foundation

Having a stupid amount of R>F layers.
Click to expand...
I'll briefly summarize how SCP's R>F layers work:
  1. From bottom to top, a single universe in the infinite SCP multiverse consists of four layers: physical reality, the Noosphere, the Semiosphere, and the Patasphere, with each layer entirely transcending the frameworks of everything before it. Physical reality varies between universes, but the other three layers are identical for every universe.
  2. At least one of these universes already contains an infinite amount of R>f layers, with the author in charge of that one explicitly saying (Here, in Addendum 3812.6) that metafictional dimensions are inherently superior to spatiotemporal ones. This means that a single universe's physical component would vary up to 1-A+ under Ultima's new system while all of a universe taken together is two layers above baseline High 1-A.
  3. The entire multiverse is encased in a structure called the Infosphere that entirely transcends it, meaning the multiverse as a whole is three layers above baseline High 1-A.
  4. There is another stack of meta-R>f layers above the multiverse, which is infinite layers into High 1-A. A nebulous, entirely ineffable Tier 0 structure called Universe Prime subsumes this stack entirely.
 
IdiosyncraticLawyer said:
I'll briefly summarize how SCP's R>F layers work:
  1. From bottom to top, a single universe in the infinite SCP multiverse consists of four layers: physical reality, the Noosphere, the Semiosphere, and the Patasphere, with each layer entirely transcending the frameworks of everything before it. Physical reality varies between universes, but the other three layers are identical for every universe.
  2. At least one of these universes already contains an infinite amount of R>f layers, with the author in charge of that one explicitly saying (Here, in Addendum 3812.6) that metafictional dimensions are inherently superior to spatiotemporal ones. This means that a single universe's physical component would vary up to 1-A+ under Ultima's new system while all of a universe taken together is two layers above baseline High 1-A.
  3. The entire multiverse is encased in a structure called the Infosphere that entirely transcends it, meaning the multiverse as a whole is three layers above baseline High 1-A.
  4. There is another stack of meta-R>f layers above the multiverse, which is infinite layers into High 1-A. A nebulous, entirely ineffable Tier 0 structure called Universe Prime subsumes this stack entirely.
Click to expand...
In conclusion: There are probably power scalers somewhere among the writers.
 
Doubtful that SCP reaches 0 (Lack of info about Universe Prime), but everything else seems pretty legit.
 
Phoenks said:
Doubtful that SCP reaches 0 (Lack of info about Universe Prime), but everything else seems pretty legit.
Click to expand...
Universe Prime hasn't appeared in any official SCP writings yet, with its existence only hinted at in an interview and a , but I'd say it being Tier 0 isn't doubtful based on the evidence
I just noticed that one of the leading SCP authors made an FAQ directed at us because they were tired of being bombarded with questions from vs debaters. In response, I'll say this: quoting Stan Lee's "the author decides who wins" is good if you're trying to get us to examine scaling more closely to see if something's an outlier or not, but it's not going to make us abandon trying to powerscale entirely because that's silly. Authors take into consideration narrative weight, but versus debaters don't because we're here to have fun by being clinical, not to write a story. Given how much the SCP site values clinical tone, you should respect, not mock, us for this.

Remember that time when Goku defeated Vegeta? Yeah, that fight that left Goku crushed and broken on the ground but ultimately resulted in a net victory for the Earth, because Yajirobe, Gohan, and Krillin were able to finish what Goku started and pull off a climactic victory against the insurmountable Saiyan titan?

We would say that Saiyan arc Goku, in a fight against Saiyan arc Vegeta, flat-out loses.

This is not an accurate depiction of the fight that happened onscreen because the fight that happened onscreen was the product of a writer creating tension, building drama, and bringing his characters towards a predetermined conclusion in as dramatically intense fashion as possible. Which is not what versus discussions are about.

In writing, the winner of a fight is the person that the writer wants to win the fight. The goal of the story is to make that predetermined outcome believable.

In versus debating, the winner of a fight is the person whose pre-established stats and abilities most warrant winning the fight. There are no underdog triumphs, no one-in-a-million longshots, no eleventh-hour miracle turnarounds. It's just a straight stat-for-stat comparison.

Fights in storytelling are wrestling. They're pre-scripted endeavors with a pre-determined victor, where the ultimate decider for who wins the fight is whatever suits the narrative that the writers have in mind.

Fights in versus debating are arm-wrestling. Here is my arm, you give me your arm, and then we see whose muscles are bigger. With the caveat that "muscles" here refers to AP, hax, etc.
 
Last edited:
Tony_di_bugalu said:
So basically verses like scp will finally drop to fodder tier? Because the universe demands it
Click to expand...
No, they will not, because author statements meant solely to affect powerscaling are immediately deemed invalid for scaling.
 
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