52 Comments

Love it

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Great story, I think I will attempt to translate it to french for my goddaughter.

And now my brain seems stuck on figuring out what animal would a lambda be. Flamingo?

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Vox- If you could team up with this author and edit a book for kids with this story along other stories, each focusing on “Aesop’s” take on the players in the hierarchy, it would be a great teaching tool for kids. I could see it now in the Castilla Library with a leather bound cover and beautiful illustrations.

Right now I can only rely on Kirk Cameron books to read to my six year old. The majority of newer books have gotten too woke. There is real demand for this.

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Hardbound I hope

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I agree. This would make a great children's book.

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Having a gamma show up is commonplace and expected on Sigma Game. To have a beautiful story and talent show up is pleasantly surprising. Congratulations to both Vox and Storyteller. Thanks to both of you. Looking forward to even more. You’ve both set the bar higher.

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Thank you Snowyteller, thoroughly enjoyed your tale. The racoon laughing as it falls is inspired & brought me straight back to my own descent, laughing in victory as the shadows carried me off.

A tale for all ages and the ages.

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The Lion and the Wolves are natural picks to feature in such a story but I also really liked all the other animals chosen, specially the Raccoon. And not even getting to see what animal the Omega was is a great touch as well.

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I’m going to save this in a Word doc and print it out, pictures and all. I’m an absolute sucker for fables and parables like this that have the Narnia-style wonder paired with true wisdom. Bravo to Snowyteller! (The celebratory shout, not the SSH rank, lol.)

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Alpha's life is a constant struggle to be on top. Bravo's life's a constant struggle to keep the hierarchy tidy. Sigma's life's careless and free, but lacking support when things go downhill - it's telling, in fact, that much to the contrary of the Omega's prediction, the Sigma was the *first* to die.

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Sep 2·edited Sep 2

SSH's already inspiring its Aesops!

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A treat of a story. I enjoyed the unveiling of each rank's spirit animal and appropriate vignette of how that rank operates.

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Well done!

The author is so clearly GBFM from Heartiste days. Original in Latin.

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Can someone help point out the intended rank of the snake and owl?

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Assigning a male hierarchy rank to demons and angels is certainly amusing, in particular consulting a machine spirit on an appropriate greek letter for a demon the first suggestion it offered was beta, which regardless of the machine logic would cause far too much confusion.

After more pointed questioning, it offered up three more alternatives.

Gamma (lol)

Theta, due to occult connections but the final was most interesting, here quoted in full

'Upsilon (Υ): Upsilon has been used in some esoteric and occult contexts to represent the higher self, the divine, or the spiritual. However, in a more abstract sense, Upsilon’s shape, which resembles a serpent or a coiled energy, might be seen as symbolizing the darker, primal forces that demons often embody'

Fascinating.

Far more of use than labelling demons themselves the name could fit for describing gammas that have gone far beyond mere delusional, spite after all is usually a reaction to the bubble being popped than the motive itself.

Demon possessed or truly monstrous men could bear the brand too, there's commonality to depraved wickedness that transcends socio-sexual rank after all, arguably evil men become more predictable, with clearer patterns of behaviour the more evil they are.

Here however we come to the punchline.

An Upsilon is a tad inelegant sounding. Just doesn't roll of the tongue well, and that's not great for memetic power.

Well to go beyond the punchline, flogging the horse if you will, perhaps it could be forced anyway. Demonic or demon possessed men are after all a real thing with observable patterns of behaviour.

These are the thoughts that come late at night after tasty apple, blackberry and raspberry crumble.

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This would be really helpful.

In another SG post I was musing on the relative SSH of Aragorn and Gandalf.

Aragorn is obviously an Alpha and a situational Bravo within the fellowship but with Gandalf I was getting confused.

He acts sigma but appears too invested in the plight of others.

He is clearly capable but initially refuses the call to go to Middle Earth out of a feeling unworthiness.

The fact that he's more or less an angel in that universe and therefore outside the standard hierarchy might necessitate another category.

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It was cool how truly dangerous the owl (angel) was. By choosing to kill the snake (evil) he essentially “saved” the mouse. Owls kill snakes, it’s what the do, but mice are also on the menu.

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A devil and an angel, I think

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They represent the spiritual world, I think

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It nicely goes from alpha down to omega.

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Needs a good ol', hand drawn (no ai gen), vintage-y animation. :)

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The snake part was basically done in Disney’s “Jungle Book”.

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I knew this story was getting its own post as soon as I read it in the comments of the last post. Really well done, Snowyteller. Great fable and illustrates a lot about the SSH while pointing to the real one, the Lord of the Forest.

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