Note to everyone: The Talanburg Vote has been slightly updated with a new "if we go for the greater-spynet-takedown, should we dedicate Focus Actions towards it?" vote.
Also, as a minor note, I just wrote up a basic Google Spreadsheet for turn calculations. We'll see if it makes things faster, next turn...
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You might want to edit this as it currently refers to the "perfect evidence" option rather than the "Walk Away" option.
Personally....
How do you define Serious Commitment?
Right now, I'm thinking that we have a devious opportunity here, as well as a shot to massively infiltrate the Woo well beyond any time frame I was expecting.
The specific details will depend a lot on, well, the specific details.
But what I'd like is an additional option @Robinton of
[ ] [Talanburg] Serious Commitment
This option would essentially be an internal Forest declaration of "We are going to commit Resources, Dice, and Focus Actions if necessary, to subvert the Woo Clan Spy Assets as subtly and as far reaching as possible, with a goal of the Woohoos not noticing, starting with the Talanburg Cells."
This would essentially be a "If we get a sufficient majority vote, preferably at least 60% of votes, we preemptively agree to basically AutoFocus: Find and Subvert WooHoo Spy Assets, so that this course of action is actually followed through" vote.
If 60%, or more, of voters agree that this is an idea worth committing to, then that's an agreement to invest what's needed to actually get this job done, be it Resources or Focus Actions, because those are the Communally available assets able to be committed to this.
If this wins, then ideally we sweep up the current Woohoos, set them to operate at "continue as normal, with enough sabotage to allow their WC handlers think they were just thwarted, not compromised, while we manage to, well, thwart their efforts", continue the Talanburg negotiations, and then begin wrapping up the rest of the Woo Clan Assets over the next several turns.
I'll put up a version of that - more an option of dedicating 1-4 Focus Actions.
It will vary significantly depending on just what Action Types are relevant to Intrigue Operations (Communication is very likely, Growth a solid possible in regards to setting up Relays to extend our Mind Reading Range), but I expect our Focus Actions to still be pretty effective in helping the situation.
That seems a decent guess, yeah. With a fair bit of Research and maybe the odd Survival for e.g. disguising your presence somewhere.
A write in of "Have a Committed Vote right here right now (when we get to this vote) to dedicate Community Forest Assets (Resources and Focus Actions) to get this job done as effectively as possible" has been suggested, and against expectations it has not been shouted down as a bad idea.
If there's a strong request for "forcibly devote 2 Focus Actions towards this - barring extraordinary circumstances, particularly battles" - yeah, I'm willing to add that as a contingency for the "break their spynet" option.
...Actually, I'll go ahead and add an option for "how many Focus Actions should we automatically dedicate, assuming the motion passes (this vote will have no effect if it does not pass)?"
Second, I have had some vague thoughts of making a pair of 'very long wave em emitters [slightly different wavelengths]' and placing them a fair distance apart (measured down appropriate precision needed, we players can maths that out, since we know that the planet has approx a 4k radius or diameter) and activating them as soon as we detect portals opening, and then measure the relative angles of the two beams of radiation from the perspective of the portal, and use that to triangulate where the portals are being opened from.
Huh. I'd have to check the math on that - but the basic idea is sound.
Well, assuming - as you say - that the enemy base doesn't have em suppression (magic / faraday cage). Which is likely correct.
Some sort of general "make this hard to find" Magic is far more likely than a
direct suppressor, and while the general defense might give you issues, you'd have good odds of getting at least a general reading...
1. The portals act as doorways like the gates from 'Stargate SG1', except the person making the portal can designate an arbitrary exit point rather than needing machine to link to.
...
the term 'portal' always makes me think 'doorway' as opposed to 'teleporter' and if you are incorrect here that would make my idea so much more viable, so I'm going to ask @Robinton to confirm if things are 'beamed in' like star trek, or if short-lived doorways are opened and things physically walk through them?
Given that your senses stretch through the things, you're
fairly certain this is roughly correct. Doorways through space, not "swapping matter/space."
provided the emitters are always on then the next time anything is teleported to us then any low energy photons that are currently passing through the bodies of the incoming foes will be teleported with them.
Good news: this is an awesome idea. It might well work if the enemies were nearby (which you
don't think is the case).
Bad news: you'd have to turn the radios up REALLY intense to measure anything via this method. Reasoning: only maybe - let's use metric, I think the math will be easier - maybe 10 meters' worth of photons in a very good case will get teleported, which means you're getting a photon burst for (10 meters / 3.0*10^8 meters/second) = 3.3*10^-7 seconds. And while your sensors are good, for "faint background radiation from far across the planet" you really need a fair fraction of a second, if not multiple seconds. Ancient Sensing Trees could probably bypass this fully.
Better news: the portals work the easy way anyway.