User blog comment:Sorairo/Comparisons and World Building….and Questions/@comment-9090085-20141009081003

It's cool, we all need to get stuff of our chests, and random rambly blog post may be the best place to put it. On that note, I'm going to comment on your points, and get some stuff off my chest too!

1) Dust really does seem to be the veritable "miracle fuel/weapon/whatever" of Remnant, doesn't it? Not only does it power just about everything, and provide awesome weaponry/"magic"; it also presumably played a part in the discovery of much of the technology Remnant takes for granted: holographic touchscreens; casual mechanical transformation; believably "human" AI; dimensional pockets/bags of holding/TARDIS technology... On the other hand, they don't appear to have things like Nukes, so the differing paths in technology as a result of Dust is interesting too.

2) If I understand correctly, Armour and Weapons are "conduits" for Aura, meaning (for armour in particular) they're used to augment Aura(though admittedly that still makes armour technically optional). The Social implications of Aura are very interesting to me, though. It means violence may be far more acceptable in Remnant then our world, as even people without the qualities/Aura for being a Huntsman/Huntress like mobsters, solders, or even(possibly) civilians, can leave fights unconscious instead of maimed/dead; and in general, it's a lot harder to accidentally kill someone.

3) The Grimm are indeed very much like a natural disaster, but at the same time rather unlike one: unlike an earthquake or a hurricane, where all you can do is brace yourself and wait it out, the Grimm are an Enemy you can fight. Their potential "antibody" nature is just further fueled by the reveal that they seek out human emotions, and makes one further wonder where they come from.

4) You bring up a good point about how Remnants Humans likely have "less" discrimination then in our world; I've always felt humans in our world made up reasons to make fellow humans The Other. But in Remnant, they don't just have the Faunus, they have another Other, one that is undeniably "Evil": the Grimm - What do the masks worn by the White Fang symbolize, after all?

That's not to say they didn't find reasons to fight, of course, but it was over individualism itself. Which rather creepily sounds similar to the ongoing struggle against the "manifestations of anonymity". Is the conflict between Conformity and Individuality a "founding conflict" of Remnant or something?