Absinthe,
Esquilax, you guys show me a guaranteed, surefire and no-fail plan that will get our Cult and the Orthodox Sects to sit in a circle and sing Kumbaya together, and I will support it with all I've got.
Can we not indulge in retarded false dichotomies here? Can we not split the situation into either "A horrific escalation between the Fire Cult and the Eight Sects, where we do the exact same thing that Ahura would have done had we not intervened" or "Try a futile plan to reconcile the Eight Sects and the Fire Cult by revealing that Wang Zhengchong was killed by his own, despite nobody believing you"? There is a lot of grey area between the two.
We were sent out into the world on the recommendation of our Amesha Spenta to increase our own power so that the Eight Sects would be deterred from attacking, that's true, but maybe we shouldn't use the same exact strategy that the guy who got Christopher Reeve'd by Big Wang did. The definition of insanity: doing the same thing and expecting different results. Maybe his way sucks. Maybe we should seek a middle ground between two insane, extreme options, but that would require us to be sensible, and we can't have that, now can we?
The Fire Cult and the Eight Sects are not going to reconcile, but as the Lord of the Fire Cult, we have a lot of sway in how the Eight Sects view our organization. If we make some efforts at aiding them and making friends, and trying to make up for the Qingcheng debacle, then perhaps we, and our entire group won't be seen as the same as it was in Ahura's time. Leadership matters a great deal; look at how the change in leadership changed the Eight Sects in two short years. If we make up for the Maniac-style slaughter at Qingcheng with a few favours for some of the more reasonable sects, then maybe they want see us as Ahura II.
Absinthe's suggestions for nudging a change in leadership (Qingcheng has been made more difficult, but some
heroism at Youxia City might turn things around*, Jiu Mou is another BRO candidate as well) are good ones. Other options are to make amends with the sects that spoke up for us - Wudang, Emei and Shaolin. There's a lot of area between the insane, hypothetical Clevian ITZ that you're envisioning (perhaps even welcoming) and some kumbaya bullshit.
Between our horrible reputation, the hunt for the manuals, the Ten Great Swords faction, BJ's political genius and Shun being unable to publicly associate himself with the Cult or us at all for fear of his won stability, that's a tall fucking order. Don't get me wrong, I want to be accepted by the Eight Sects as part of their circle, but I fear that at this point it's pretty much impossible. Everyone here knows me as the dreamer with his head in the clouds (look up my posts in the EPIC days, they go something like "GUYS WE CAN TOTALLY DO THIS!") but I think that in this instance we should just take the advice of our Ameshas and focus on acquiring power for the Temple and preparing for the inevitable bloodshed.
I could turn things around and say "How are we going to fight all Eight Sects with our force, which is much, much weaker than theirs?" Speaking of dreams, I think you're dreaming of a war that we can't possibly win.
As for what
exactly we'll do - I suppose we'll cross that bridge when we reach it. I can draw up hypothetical scenarios, but we can make up nonsensical scenarios all day like that. It means nothing.
* EDIT: Okay, that didn't work out well last time. Bad choice of words.