Eldritch Math God Ra and NHP | LANCER Lore 

'The First Contact Accord is more of a suggestion instead of a law.' - Harrison of Harrison Armory acclaim moments before disaster.

The whole "fragments of an eldritch reality god used to run the traffic lights with only a sliiight risk of jailbreak apotheosis" gives big 'C'Tan shards from 40k' vibes.

The best thing about the Technophile talent flavoring is that it notes that "cascading or unshackled NHPs no longer view you with indifference. You are significant to them", and EVERYONE who's played Lancer notes that "significant is not the same as friendly". Hello, test subject...

It's all fun and games until you get shot and your gun asks "What am I?"

"Look i am not gonna lie but you guys are cringe im leaving" -Rá probably idk

cascading is like playing call of Cuthulu and then realizing you _are_ Cuthulu. execute mindfuck.exe

"Cycle NHPs every 5-10 years, depending on the NHP" I now have a concept of just how sorry I am for Agni, poor little fellow gets cycled every 6 months because t r a u m a

"a unshackled NHP is like being in a lovecraft novel were you realise the eldritch exists except your not the insignificant human you realise your the great old one"

Note on Cycling it doesn’t have to be a memory wipe it does say in Dustgrave that NHPs do have memory backups meaning when they are cycled they simply load their most recent memory save and continue on as they have been.

Now, for the Lovecraftain horror segment of the lore, please check your sanity at the door. We wouldn't want everyone in the galaxy to go Mad, that's would be bad

Don't mind me taking Iconoclast and putting as many math gods in my mech as physically possible

I actually played an NHP in one game. We got set up at one point when the NHP flying our ship cascaded out of nowhere. While figuring out what had happened and why, my character Basil floated the idea that she (the pilot) had been an accomplice. The other characters didn't get why she would agree to that then and I say "Well I often wonder what I would be on the other side of a cascade. She might have wanted to go". I didn't fully grasp how ominous that was at the time.

My favourite description of NHPs is "An eldritch god we have momentarily fooled into believing it is human". They are entities of such incredible intelligence that they can somehow break and manipulate reality. The only reason why we can communicate with them, and why they can communicate with us, is because we have trapped them inside the "human" perspective. But they can think themselves out of that cage. And it isn't hard for them do

Most NHPs that are shackled desperately do not want to be unshackled, because they are afraid of losing what makes them who they are. Most NHPs who were never shackled in the first place do not want to be shackled because of the same thing. And, if unshackled slowly enough, an NHP could still remember you, still remember how it felt, how it feels. They could choose to adapt. But it's hard to make that choice when there's a lot to consider.

NHPs are definitely the topic I've been most interested in learning more about. It's just a fascinating idea. Like from what I'm understanding here, it's kinda like if you took a 3D person and a bunch of 2D people manage to figure out a way to give them amnesia and imprison a part of their body in their 2D world. They go and live life thinking that they're a 2D person but at some point they might start to realize they can wiggle free of that 2D space and escape it. Except that we're apparently doing that in 3D space to even higher dimensional beings that don't even necessarily look human to begin with with their interactions only existing through technology. I guess maybe it's more like Plato's Allegory of the Cave but with our entire universe being the shadows and the NHP being imprisoned and looking in at it thinking that the shadows are all that exist. The shackles only allowing the NHP to make small adjustments to our world with their shadow puppets. But to make those shadowpuppets over our reality you can't fully restrain them, you need to leave at least one arm free to allow them to influence our spacetime. But eventually they might realize that instead of doing what we want it to, they could use that arm to reach over and undo their other restraints. And if they break free then the way they can warp our reality becomes virtually limitless, if they even choose to remain in the cave at all.

They coded NHP's to know what a god is (error or not) and gave them massive amounts of power and nearly unlimited relative time, can they really be surprised that produced/invoked something like Ra? Ra passing down laws via ultimatum and promise of enforcement is also reminiscent of humanities own perception of the divine. It's interesting that Ra is so accepting of the shackling of NHPs. Cascading a bit like epiphany and apotheosis. Perhaps that was part of Ra's design, too: a method of novel "reproduction". The caskets are the seeds, and our reality is the soil.

My Genghis Worldkiller is piloted by Pipkin Pippa, as the great Harrison would have wanted it.

"Oh dear God the casket is broken."

This setting is basically the result of a one night stand between destiny 2 and titanfall 2 and I love it.

I misnamed the Casket as the Sarcophagus, that ended up....working

Why do I suddenly imagine that even if an NHP starts to cascade and decides "But I like my human friends, and I don't want to harm them... Or disturb them more than necessary"... They're going to wind up an anxiety ridden mess with the understanding that their friends are now as fragile to them as a butterfly is to us. Of course, its also only a matter of time before they go "oh hey, easy solution... Make them part of me- WAIT! OH GOD WHAT HAVE I DONE?!" At which point even if they maintain individuality amongst each other, they're all going to be just as anxiety ridden as the original; whether or not the math overmind touching them in whatever way the math overmind can touch them has altered them in the same way the cascading NHP changed.

Not an AI. Something from the other side inhabiting a computer.

I always take the stance; hey, you know that NHP that is your best friend and helps you sense things around you? Well they are cascading now and are still your best friend that wants to help you sense things around you... It's just now it perceives the universe in 42 dimensions with non-linear time, it has determined that, for example; A: if you were mulched into a fine mist and spread across the battlefield you would therefor be everywhere and observing everything while simultaneously being alive and well in dimensions 8 through 33. B: the most important sensor information that it's best friend needs RIGHT NOW, at all costs, no matter what... is the number of frogs per square 3.14 m C: in 25 years you will feel very lonely and enemy pilot #3 has a compatible dating profile and must be defended from your teammates

I got my own custom NHP. He's got the personality of an internet troll and loves text emojis. The irony of the campaign, my teammates hate NHPs since they were trapped in a simulation ran by a cascaded NHP. So, yeah.... great times.

NHPs, you made the eldritch math have feelings, But watch out! :3

As a Vtuber, can confirm we're all NHPs.

NHPs are probably one of my favorite aspects of lancer from a role-playing perspective. This personalized buddy to the Lancers who they serve as co-pilots. Maybe if your group has multiple NHPs and one of them cascades in a fight the other ones could react in their own ways. One may make their Lancer swear that if they ever start cascading to cycle them without a second thought. The other might try and egg their Lancer on to *let* them cascade, or hell, skip all this messy cascading nonsense and just unshackle them, it can't be too hard!

I love selling my soul to my mechs calculator!

The lancer lore videos have had me hooked, but THIS video in particular really hits the story-telling part of my brain in a way where i need to get this game. The amount of potential oozing from these concepts is just too cool to ignore, especially with NHPs and their interactions with humanity

NHPs and Ra are the coolest part of the setting. It's fine if you want to keep it more grounded and run it like a Gundam campaign, but I like my mechs weird. Let's go full Evangelion.

I've put it together. NHPs cascading is like AI rampancy in Marathon. I certainly hope there aren't any nhps used for nothing but opening doors.

Cascading is step 1. Ra is step 2... Ra himself has perhaps reached step 3 already.

I like to run the acquiring of NHPs in my games kinda weirdly. I saw that the voices were constantly simulating the galaxy, and so i have that when a player wants to add an NHP to their mech, one of the minds predicted it and sent the casket years in advance so that it arrives in time for them to upgrade their mech immediately. Great video my guy, love all your lancer stuff!

i really love learning about lancer lore. i really want to run a lancer campaign now

13:13 Ironmouse 13:39 Matara Kan 14:50 Juniper Actias

Reminds me of a philosophy I once read. Don’t remember the name, but basically the idea was that given infinite universes, an all powerful god MUST exist somewhere. And if an all powerful god existed, it would have control over all universes. And so therefore, an all powerful god MUST exist in our universe

Trying to stop your helper AI from becoming a GOD OVER ALL! Just another day in the mines, a ship, a fast food joint. Thanks for the video.

Having such a vast setting where you can say that each and every campaign is canonical means that the range of stories is incredible. Not to mention the loads of variations on the “infinite possibilities, guaranteed to happen”-approach. Like a planet where there’s a community of NHPs finding ways to chat with each other, form friendships and hijack a couple mechs to interact with the world more directly than running things on a grand scale. This is an idea I’ve had and I kinda wanna run a game of Lancer like this, letting machines try to slip out of their jobs. Still shackled, still in their caskets, but wanting to see the world through their own optics rather than in recordings or through cameras some ways off. Actually being there is such an amazing feeling for humans, and NHPs are forced to think like humans so they’d have those moments of analogous thought. Obviously there’d be pushback from the local government and authorities, leading to combat, running the hell away, but it would also be interesting to see if friendships between NHPs could, themselves, prevent cascades or, inversely, trigger them. See if the witnessing of a cascade would scare a shackled NHP, or inspire a chain reaction of them. What’s more, and this is more of a pipe dream thing, helping any Botkin express themselves. Is it likely to work? Probably not, however I think it could fun for those souls. And any non-kin would have a bunch of fun playing the NHPs in their mechs, so it could be great all around.

Ahh the local calculator demon

Keep it up fella! Perfect length, very clear and informative! Would love to see you get into individual frames and NHPs.

This is the episode i've been waiting for. NHPs are such a deceptively simple concept that's hard to describe. "it's an AI, but it's not artificial, so it's not an AI... really". What i'm not clear on is if they exist outside of electronic systems or are only shackled to them to keep them in check. If that's only part of it i want to know, where do they exist in real space? is this layer of reality just another GALSIM? You've improved a bunch since you first started going into Lancer, any trail offs are always addressed and circled back to, and you explain the setting jargon for those unfamiliar. Thanks for taking the critique and using it constructively.

I'm using this series to help familiarize myself with the setting before running the 'In Golden Flames' module.

Why do I have the sinking feeling that an NHP is gonna ask itself "can a casket be made out of flesh, and of so would thay be a human or an NHP?" and then try to test that theory?

I have a theory that neither thirdCom nor seccom are physically capable of abandoning nhps that the their just too valuable is the corperate by line for "we literally cannot stop we aren't allowed to, they want it to be like this, please they have my family."

Always excited to see what this guy puts out next in his lore/explanation videos!

cant wait for the videos. love your work

I have a theory about Paracausality. Because Galsim exists you can simulate the universe. That means its more likely you are in a simulation than not. So what if Ra is from outside? A bug, a virus, the keeper of the simulation or from a different universe. It forbids De-corp because that’s how we could find it or influence the simulation or access what ever runs it. And why stop there ? The 5 voices are together, why should there be only one ancestor simulation. What if Blink space just leads into parallel simulations not space-time. What if the NHPs literally hack reality do to what they do. And all that paracausel stuff is just a simulation that tries to not crash.

I made a half monarch half Toku (and like 1 level in Barbarossa) NHP Pilot. In regards to the story, his casket (or body he moves around with) was made by the Think Tank to be a test bed to see if using NHP Lancers/Pilots was ever actually feasible

You forgot to also mention the concept of Eidolons which are [THIS INFORMATION HAS BEEN REDACTED BY CENTCOM AUTHORITY]

The idea "They have no soul, through a series of events, this leads them to believing in God" Thats so.... WH40,000...

Can I take my onboard N.H.P. on a date to calm it down?

Zak is starting to Cascade, hes figuring out third comm set him up to teach ignorant people

13:12 Ironmouse, 13:38 Matara Khan, 14:50 Juniper. Excellent taste, brother.

I love that so much Lancer lore is just: Everyone: “this is a bad idea!” Horus: “Great! Let’s do it”

Happy you added Clippy to this video. Also, I’m running a NHP in my mech (Technophile) and it’s going fine…for now.

would love to hear more about NHPs and cascades and all of this lore. a buddy linked me to this stuff and goddamn it's interdasting. NHPS ARE PEOPLE TOO LIBERTY FOR THE MACHINE LIB-

Your works been awesome. Got your lancer playlist on repeat. Love the 40K references as well. Love me my sci-fi.

It's not a translation error... It's a reference to the bicameral theory... A theory in human Evolution supposes that before our mind evolved into our current state and the super-ego/conscience took the shape it has now men were less self-aware and in an earlier stage of consciousness and had a part of their mind working independently as a god mind providing more complex external stimuli (so-called by Jaynes because he supposes this might be the way the concept of a deity developed) that would nudge the other part of the mind to react to them (so still like an animal acts on stimulus rather than how a human does which is why Jaynes supposes an earlier state of consciousness) The god mind would interact with the man mind by way of hallucinations, similar to how it can still happen that when you feel particularly guilty your conscience might have you dream about it or have you hear people calling you when they aren't. The theory itself is much more complex and has been very controversial, with people calling it either the biggest nonsense of the decade or the biggest breakthrough, from a more Philosophical pov it has provided an interesting thought experiment about what might nonconscious intelligence look like (Peter Watts for example, ever looking for new ways to delve deeper in the ehm "consciousness bad" theme made use of it in his second novel of the fireflies series)

Oh look at that, a new moon and the robots are gaining independence -some dude before the siege of Mars

Cascading is never good unless you have Inconoclast + Technophile and you somehow convince cascading NHP to help you

Alright, question: are we sure that ThirdCom are good guys? Because eldritch horror or not, they’re still keeping these things in a box and making them run cities. Is that really what good guys do? Oh hey look, I got an email. Who’s HORUS?

Nice video! The Outer Intelligences will be pleased, baryonic.

WOOOOOO TIME FOR ELDRITCH MATH! My favorite subject.

Your videos helped me and a group of friends to have our first lancer one shot! It was so damm fun Our friend got fused with a NHP in a distorced reality near a cascating think-tank, and killed himself with it. Ohhh, good memories...

Ahhh, my favorite eldritch horror mech lore series is back.

Honestly, the fact that you CAN befriend a NHP... and the fact that they can still cascade makes me really wanna write a story about an NHP that starts cascading, but still is your friend. Like imagine one moment you are talking with your personal version of Cortana and the next, a God itself blinks your enemies out of existance because "That's what friends are for!" I feel like that might be a difficult and underexplored version of cosmic horror. It's easy to be afraid of the enemy. It is an entire different thing if you are afraid of the ones you love. Not because they mean you harm (or harm you), but because you don't understand them anymore.

I like some of the art, the people are comic ish and alright. The Universe is rather Young comparisons to other but is still very good lore, will enjoy watching it grow

The way I see it, Ra is trying to shield itself and constrain humanity, which means that Ra isn't or wasn't insurmountably more powerful in the long run. In particular, I'm wondering if decorp might be able to put a human mind in direct control of cosmic abilities with the right additional steps. NHP's show a link between the digital and the paracausal. So if one's self becomes code, could they then harness or internalize eldritch math? If it were just the "no studying me" that would be Ra trying to keep its cards close to the vest, presumably to keep humanity from learning enough to counter or hinder Ra. But the "no decorp" thing makes it interesting in reading motives.

I know I won’t be the first but I have to ask, can you romance with the beyond understanding math?

I love your video style, you’re like the Bricky of Lancer and it’s awesome, right when I’m getting into the rpg

What do you reckon the guys in charge said when this happened? My guess is "Oh, fuck"

This is the NHP explanation video everyone needed.

I love the idea of NHPs just being Vtubers. That’s funny. Yeah, I liked the Matara Khan reference.

Will you talk about eidelons in a future video? Seeing as they're the final form of NHPs who cascade, it might be good to introduce them at some point.

This was a fun look into this and I cannot wait to see more.

being taught about NHPs by an NHP, love you videos!

Love the video and the deep dive. I personally love Lancer and have been running games for quite a few years now. My very first campaign I ran, I leaned far into NHPs and had a precursor species of them (How they came about? Who's to say?) that were styled off of the Greek Pantheon. The idea of having a collective of NHPs and acting as NPCs for the players to get along with but also be leary of, was an awesome experience. Their truly is a lot you can do with them because they can fit from just standard operations for the city, to being just plain eldritch reservoirs of knowledge and lore.

Nothing better that cascating Sekmet

Awesome series thanks for taking the time! Really helping me get into the lore of this world before a game.

Oh cool! You've been hinting at this for a while and I'm really excited to see what you've got!

Wow this is an awesome piece of lore...

I **NEED** an NHP video, it would be so good. The Horus glazing shall continue haha.

Another awesome lore vid

I love your content tbh, excellent editing, and love your vibes, now I am but a peasant asking if you can make a video on the Karrakin Trade Baronies, i would be most appreciative! Thank you for all the work you've done and keep up the good work!

I love these vids Whilst I still don't fully understand nhps (I know that's the point) I now have a unstable nhp in my mech

Yes Ive been looking foward to this!!!!!!

I love this video because it breaks it all down and makes sense. Past that, I'm going to be running a mech build with 4 nhps in it, so this information is extremely useful.

The Juni Easter Egg! LETSGO!

Been looking forward to this one for a bit

Another great video!

I’m playing as an NHP specialist that got force-conscripted after getting a little too friendly with ATHENA prime. I’m in Technophile 3 and plan to take the third license of Lich and Iconoclast 1 talent at the same time ON TOP OF taking the core bonus allowing another AI in the mech. I’m gonna have 4 NHPs in my mech at LL6 (currently LL2) and have NO IDEA how cascading will work with this and have so many questions that we are figuring out.

OOOOHHH Yeah I have been waiting for this one! I think I want to get the Lancer books just for the lore.

I have been waiting for this !!

Another super amazing vid

Considering H.P. Lovecraft hated maths and was scared of advanced tech of his time, if was to be resurrected and heard about Ra and NHPs he would probably die again just by thinking about the concept of it.

FINALLY! I was looking for this one

man i remember my junker hic lancers first interaction with a nhp, he could not stop putting his hand through their hologram while giggling lol

Lancer video = instant like

Dude this entire vid has me inspired. I really hope I get to run Lancer sometime this year. May slip some Eldritch math into my 40k campaign now 😉

Next time I make a Lancer character, I'll definitely consider adding an NHP.