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Inheritance Of Man (A Mass Effect Empire Quest)

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Toad said:
The issue isn't the length, it's the length for the expected return. When a soldier is taking some sort of extra training they are doing so with the understanding that they are still being payed, since they're a soldier, and with the understanding that if they perform well enough they'll be rewarded with higher pay/promotions/future opportunities.

Cerberus on the other hand seems to have an abysmally low pass rate so bad that the only way it would be viable is if standing militaries are sending people in with the understanding that they'll probably fail but are willing to fund them to take the risk anyways on the off chance that they'll either succeed, or gain some experience along the way.
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I don't think cost is an issue. We're paying for the facility, and I think we can safely assume that the wages of the participants are covered too.
 
Toad said:
Cerberus on the other hand seems to have an abysmally low pass rate so bad that the only way it would be viable is if standing militaries are sending people in with the understanding that they'll probably fail but are willing to fund them to take the risk anyways on the off chance that they'll either succeed, or gain some experience along the way.
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It's basically a pilgrimage with military applications. Sure you aren't going to get that many who succeed and while it would be nice if more passed, that it's a "sacred" test put forth by their Goddess is going to be reason enough for a religious state like the Covenant to support the (screened and verified) volunteers who do come forward. Attributing logical military priorities to this honestly doesn't make sense in the supplied context.

I mean, even in the real world there are plenty of examples of people doing insane things "because it was my religion." And in this context? When the central figure of your religion is a kindhearted Goddess who is doing their best to prepare you for the coming apocalypse that you know is on its way? Damn right are people going to answer the call to test their mettle and I'd be surprised if the Covenant wasn't supporting them.
 
[X] One Year Plan v1.1
-[x] The Badlands
-[ACTIVE] The Fortress Walls
-[X] The Hordes
-[X] Data Mining
-[ACTIVE] Prothean Pilgrims
-[ACTIVE] The Pirate Queen
-[ACTIVE] Covenant War Machine
-[X] Transient Paradise
-[x] Advancement through Imperfection
-[X] Stairway Beyond Heaven
--[X] 9,100 IO
-[X] The Hunt
-[X] Grand Theft Metacon
-[X] The Beacons
-[X] The Unknown World (IX)
-[X] The Hounds of Hell
-[X] Honor the Spirits
-[X] Blessing of Athame
-[X] Refuge in Audacity
-[X] Revised Indexing Protocols
-[X] Warforms
-[X] Heaven
--[X] Ruin Killers (91, including all 46 on back order)
--[X] Spiritrunners (2)
-[X] Delirium
--[X] Spiritrunners (150)
-[X] East Mirror
--[X] Spiritrunners (50)
-[X] Shadow Frame 142/400
--[X] 8 Dice
-[X] Digidaptive Combat Systems 482/1,000
--[X] 9 Dice

Edited version of One Year Plan, removing the Mass Relay because of the risk, adding the fourth Piety Action (Hounds of Hell), and revising the number of Ruin Killers built at Heaven so we don't waste any IO.
 
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Toad said:
The issue isn't the length, it's the length for the expected return. When a soldier is taking some sort of extra training they are doing so with the understanding that they are still being payed, since they're a soldier, and with the understanding that if they perform well enough they'll be rewarded with higher pay/promotions/future opportunities.

Cerberus on the other hand seems to have an abysmally low pass rate so bad that the only way it would be viable is if standing militaries are sending people in with the understanding that they'll probably fail but are willing to fund them to take the risk anyways on the off chance that they'll either succeed, or gain some experience along the way.

The N School is entirely different, and makes a lot more sense, since there's different levels of N training with trainees being weeded out along the way or staying at certain levels by choice.

I'd guessed that the horrible pass rate was a result of early participants not knowing what level of preparation and skill would be required, but the fact that on the third go around only one person made it and knowing that the difficulty adjusts based on the capabilities of participants makes me honestly doubtful of the effectiveness of the process. But I guess anime logic dictates that something something overcoming your limits is the best way of training soldiers.
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The Cerberus program... isn't really much different from canon N-School, though, honestly. I wonder if you might be focusing on the successful Knights to a degree detrimental to the significance of the wash-outs, perhaps? They are technical failures, yes, but only in a comparative sense; lasting eight months in the Playground is a hell of an achievement in and of itself, so while the Cerberus program doesn't have such clearly delineated categories, they're none the less there. The N1 through N6 special forces are the normal sequential products of their own course, with the N7's being more akin to "deluxe version N6's" than a discrete group; they underwent the qualification to become N6's, and did an exemplary job of it sufficient to warrant special recognition. Similarly, the participants in the Playground continue on through each month until they can go no further, not unlike the levels of qualification and training of their canon Systems Alliance counterparts save that it is all compacted into a single year and contiguous, with the very best candidates going above and beyond all others. The Cerberus program distinguishes said above and beyond performance of Knights of the Eventide that denotes the candidate as "just that damn amazing" with a further, separate step rather than accomplishing the otherwise last step par excellence as an N7 operative, but that's about it, really, and said N6/7's requirement is learning in live combat operations culminating in a similarly downright unfair challenge of getting stranded on an asteroid and told to cope. They both have extreme failure rates, but even if the participants don't finish as special snowflakes virtually without peer, they still get quite the upgrade in badassery for their troubles, and more so the further they go. Anime logic does dictate that overcoming limits is the recipe for incredible results... because it is; training from hell is not a fictional literary trope, but how real-world special forces training is done. The Playground just adds a futuristic sci-fi flavour to it.

Where they do differ, though, well, this is pretty on point:
Thebigpieman said:
It's basically a pilgrimage with military applications. Sure you aren't going to get that many who succeed and while it would be nice if more passed, that it's a "sacred" test put forth by their Goddess is going to be reason enough for a religious state like the Covenant to support the (screened and verified) volunteers who do come forward. Attributing logical military priorities to this honestly doesn't make sense in the supplied context.

I mean, even in the real world there are plenty of examples of people doing insane things "because it was my religion." And in this context? When the central figure of your religion is a kindhearted Goddess who is doing their best to prepare you for the coming apocalypse that you know is on its way? Damn right are people going to answer the call to test their mettle and I'd be surprised if the Covenant wasn't supporting them.
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At least prior to widening the selection beyond the Covenant, candidates lend towards a common theme for motivation. Why do people suffer the rigours of extreme and literally torturous training? For some, it is a sense of patriotism, an ardent fervor to serve their country that motivates them to push past all opportunity to give in and give up. For others, it is a slightly different hue in a sense of duty, or love, or burning hatred, or perhaps even manic fear of an enemy, or self-hatred or a sense of inadequacy and a desire to become something more, but in all cases, it is simply a drive. For the Covenant, it is little different. They fight for their people, their way of life and culture. Their benevolent goddess points to the Terra Terminus and tells them this is your cherished birthright if only you will fight to claim it, directs them to the Light of Ruin and tells them this is a foul atrocity, mighty beyond reckoning and coming destroy all that you know and everything you hold dear. She asks them to stand together and appreciate one another, to persevere and forge a better future. So they listen to her, the very foundation of their society, and take her words to heart. Some are moved by her enough to commit themselves to even the trials of the Playground as the single greatest way to uphold their cause. To them, it is a calling, a trial to be overcome because it must be overcome.
 
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I can't believe I just found out about this Quest. Going through as much of the past 500 or so pages as I can to catch up, but this caught my eye:
VexMasterTyrant said:
Damn the Citadel Council for plotting against us. Well Liara is practically worshiping us as her goddess, but is that enough to ensure that she doesn't back-stab us in the back to help the Council?
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Even with the newer omakes turning Liara into a PTSD minefield, I don't think there's any way she'll betray Eve (and Ere) to the Citadel. Keep in mind that Liara has spent her entire life trying to get away from her mother's expectations and political machinations. In canon this meant that, even a few mere days after possibly shooting her mother to death she was totally DTF with Shepard; this is definitely not someone who feels the pull of family bonds, nationalism, or species very strongly, but she it totally capable of devoting herself completely to someone who puts her through hell while being otherwise supportive of her ambitions (and totally hot).

Here in IoM the situation is even worse, because right after what ought to have been her moment of triumph, being proven right about the Prothean threat all along, here comes Ballbuster Benezia to play political games with her as the pawn, so much so that she runs all the way to the Eventide to escape. And, poor girl, the second she returns, the first Asari Knight, what is she going to be faced with but more Asari Matriarch politics.

Forget about betraying the Eventide; Liara might petition to be the first immigrant.
Crystalwatcher said:
[Batarian Bullshit]
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Okay, I'm still slogging my way through the couple dozen or so pages since the last story post, but I haven't heard a suggestion that we respond with something other than violence or studied indifference. We're forgetting that this is Eve, the mistress of being both terrifyingly powerful and unintentionally hilarious: let's try something different.

Let's try Economic Sanctions, Goddess Style.

Now, obviously we don't trade with the Batarians, nor do we have any contacts who will admit to doing so (except potentially Aria, and she probably wouldn't go along anyway). So, instead of forcefully raising prices through something as pedestrian as an import tax, let's go direct to the source and raise the cost of their goods directly. Specifically, let's raise their shipping cost, by forcing them to transport their goods longer distances to get to market.

See, remember how in Turn 17 we did this:
Crystalwatcher said:
-With the revelation of Liam's task before her, your daughter works tirelessly to find a suitable Relay to move closer to the Heaven system, for Olympus alone is nowhere nearly enough to pull this off. But she does manage. A relay from a dead-end system that no one could care for is towed from it's resting place and moved to a relatively close distance to Heaven and parked in deep space. From there, it's automated systems automatically connect to new relays, one of which is the Delirium's primary relay.

Travel Times for construction drones towing pre-made structural frames have been reduced to more reasonable lag times. The Heaven System is now directly connected to the rest of the Eventide Network.
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We moved a Relay. And, now that we've done it once, we can do it again, let's say, to the Relay that Kar'shan uses to connect to the rest of the galaxy.

I'm not suggesting that we steal the Relay entirely; that would be both terrifying, and a good pretext for the Citadel races to flip their shit. Again. I'm suggesting that we just tow it, say 30 or so light years* further away from Kar'shan, and leave a nice little beacon to tell them where their Relay is now, with a reminder that we can and will continue to do this in response to more "pirate" attacks, to encourage the Hegemony to keep their focus at home.

*- It was previously argued in other ME Quests that military vessels can travel roughly 30 LY per day, and civilian vessels travel considerably slower due to having more "affordable" (smaller) Eezo cores. So this doesn't really affect the military picture that much for a polity, but does make goods considerably more expensive to ship.

Oh, and one more thing:
Crystalwatcher said:
[] The Execution of Brambaria
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Don't we have those hyper-evolutionary terraforming organisms? Shouldn't that drastically cut down the time and focus required for this action?
 
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Tiypo said:
First off, in case no one has said it yet; welcome to the quest.

Second, I never actually came up with what Ere's offer to Liara entails. If you feel up to writing one, feel free to go for it.
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Hm. You know, that's an interesting question too, because to be perfectly frank Eve's screening software should have immediately flagged Liara as completely unsuited for being the first Council-species Eventide Knight.

When you think about it, whoever gets the first spot as a non-Covenant Knight is invariably going to be subjected to an immense amount of attention both from media and political figures. Liara specifically went into the Playground as a way to escape from both of those, which she views as inexorably linked with her domineering and hated mother. As much as the thread is viscerally excited to have the blue cinnamon roll as one of our Knights, her induction can really only be seen as an embarrassing failure of our screening process.

The thing is, it seems likely to me that Ere would have figured that out at some point during Liara's trials, especially as she became more enthralled by Liara and did a little background investigation on her. It shouldn't be difficult to pick up on Liara's difficulties in the public sphere since so many of her disagreements with her mother ended up as either high profile or having a significant effect on Liara's career (Liara entering academia to rebel against her mother, Benezia interfering in Liara's academics, Benezia politicizing her daughter's success with the Protheans), so someone who is as good at Intrigue as Ere ought to have figured it out almost immediately.

The question, then, is what does the Eventide do about such a massive oversight? Leaving Liara to go back to Council space, and the inevitable descent of Benezia and the other Asari Matriarchs upon her, seems to be crueler than the Playground itself: a hundred years of political torture as the weight of thousands of years and thousands of semi-immortal, politically entrenched entitled snobs all descend on Liara, intent on using her as a political pawn while simultaneously ensuring that she never acquire a scrap of influence herself in order to limit Eve's influence on their society. Liara can't possibly be abandoned to go home; the question is if she'll be granted an exception to Covenant isolationism policies and be granted a religious exemption to immigrate, or if it'll be the Eventide that does it.

Hm, or a deal could be struck where Liara becomes the Covenant/Eventide equivalent of a Spectre: recognized as an extension of Eve's divine will, and therefore simply granted leave to go anywhere she wants and do whatever she wants in both Covenant and Eventide space?
 
@TheEyes - Liara graduated as an Eventide Knight. That should have an impact on her self-esteem; after she managed THAT, what's a little public?
 
TheEyes said:
Hm. You know, that's an interesting question too, because to be perfectly frank Eve's screening software should have immediately flagged Liara as completely unsuited for being the first Council-species Eventide Knight.
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What exactly is unsuitable about Liara? Her being the daughter of a public figure does not matter because she's an adult by her nation's laws. Even if incomplete she does have Asari Commando training, but citadel races can't be expected to have the same combat history as a Dustling commando from Terra. Finally, she's never had any issues in a public record, and no, not getting along with your controlling politician mothers in a public manner does not count.
 
Actually i have a question. Why do we even need the playground. Can't we just make vetter robots. Just copy a brain scan or something. Make a factory. We can certainly create superhuman AI. No reason why we can't spam super soilders.
 
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