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Shepard Quest Mk V, Base of Operations (ME/MCU)

This stink of Cerberus' shit. Still, better make sure.

[X] Write-in: Do a background check. A few minutes with an omni-tool is not a comprehensive search. Get your security chief, Goto, to dig up more info, particularly whatever it was that got him fired time and again. Forewarned is forearmed. Try to get it done before you land on Earth, but if that is not possible, arrange to keep in contact with him, promising nothing, but you've got the entire time you're on Earth to make the decision.
-[X] Crappy ship or not those things cost big money, no one writes one off like that. Something stinks. See if it's possible to link to the computers remotely and strip them bare. Try and recover deleted files too.
-[X] Ask if the captain to take it under tow anyway as a 'good will gesture' without telling Laurence. During the trip have a couple of your security search it top to bottom, especially the cargo to see if it's legit. If he was writing that off as well.....
 
[X] Write-in: Do a background check. A few minutes with an omni-tool is not a comprehensive search. Get your security chief, Goto, to dig up more info, particularly whatever it was that got him fired time and again. Forewarned is forearmed. Try to get it done before you land on Earth, but if that is not possible, arrange to keep in contact with him, promising nothing, but you've got the entire time you're on Earth to make the decision.
-[X] Crappy ship or not those things cost big money, no one writes one off like that. Something stinks. See if it's possible to link to the computers remotely and strip them bare. Try and recover deleted files too.
-[X] Ask if the captain to take it under tow anyway as a 'good will gesture' without telling Laurence. During the trip have a couple of your security search it top to bottom, especially the cargo to see if it's legit. If he was writing that off as well.....
 
[X] Write-in: Do a background check. A few minutes with an omni-tool is not a comprehensive search. Get your security chief, Goto, to dig up more info, particularly whatever it was that got him fired time and again. Forewarned is forearmed. Try to get it done before you land on Earth, but if that is not possible, arrange to keep in contact with him, promising nothing, but you've got the entire time you're on Earth to make the decision.
-[X] Crappy ship or not those things cost big money, no one writes one off like that. Something stinks. See if it's possible to link to the computers remotely and strip them bare. Try and recover deleted files too.
-[X] Ask if the captain to take it under tow anyway as a 'good will gesture' without telling Laurence. During the trip have a couple of your security search it top to bottom, especially the cargo to see if it's legit. If he was writing that off as well.....
 
If we hire this guy we'll be able to keep track of him until we have the CASIE implant at which point we can start digging for info.

on an unrelated note If we make advances in man machine interfaces and gain cerberus's trust i wonder if TIM will have us examine his implants, and i'm pretty sure Extremis is locked until we study reaper cybernetic tech, so that could both give us that tech before harbinger pops up and stop cerberus from going full retard.
 
Carrnage said:
If we hire this guy we'll be able to keep track of him until we have the CASIE implant at which point we can start digging for info.

on an unrelated note If we make advances in man machine interfaces and gain cerberus's trust i wonder if TIM will have us examine his implants, and i'm pretty sure Extremis is locked until we study reaper cybernetic tech, so that could both give us that tech before harbinger pops up and stop cerberus from going full retard.
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Extremis is locked for legal reasons, not scientific ones.
 
[X] Write-in: Do a background check. A few minutes with an omni-tool is not a comprehensive search. Get your security chief, Goto, to dig up more info, particularly whatever it was that got him fired time and again. Forewarned is forearmed. Try to get it done before you land on Earth, but if that is not possible, arrange to keep in contact with him, promising nothing, but you've got the entire time you're on Earth to make the decision.
-[X] Crappy ship or not those things cost big money, no one writes one off like that. Something stinks. See if it's possible to link to the computers remotely and strip them bare. Try and recover deleted files too.
-[X] Ask if the captain to take it under tow anyway as a 'good will gesture' without telling Laurence. During the trip have a couple of your security search it top to bottom, especially the cargo to see if it's legit. If he was writing that off as well.....
 
I do kinda like the idea of Jack Harper wanting to take this part of the mission personally and help get a foot in the door for Cerberus. So he assumes the Lawrence Freeman identity, (and 'Freeman'? Free-man? A nod at what TIM thinks he's all about? Keeping man free from alien domination?)



Lawrence
Gender: Male
Origin: Latin
Meaning: "From Laurentum" or "The one who wears a laurel wreath"
in Rome they were symbols of martial victory, crowning a successful commander during his triumph.

Lawrence = laurel wreath for a commander? TIM, commander of Cerberus, keeping man free? Free-man? Laurence Freeman?

This could actually work, by God.

And while everyone is thinking about Cerberus infiltrating and twisting Paragon Industries into another mouthpiece that makes guns, what about the other way around? Jack Harper becomes the mask, in a way. Being part of Revy's group and seeing what she produces shows Jack that violent paramilitary extremism is not the only answer? If Revy can make a biotic implant that craps all over the L2 implant and delivers more potency with minimal downsides, funding Pragia to make one shining Subject Zero from dozens of candidates seems...sloppy, maybe, if Revy can achieve results and innovate without crimes against humanity or crazed experiments?

Think about it...
 
A fine idea Hance, but the problem is that Jack suffers from being indoctrinated, so the things that would cause less strive with the same effort and benefit tend to get... ignored. It's how the Reapers keep a galaxy too divided to unite against them, while at the same time slowing down research efforts.
 
Alanek2002 said:
We need an indoctrination cure for that, sadly, as removing the implants wouldn't be enough.

And a clue-by-four, but hey, we could all use those from time to time.
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Actually, given that Indoctrination works by damaging and altering the brain in specific ways, Extremis should work since it goes lol-nope to all none-fatal damages including missing body parts. Indoctrination keeps trying to alter the brain while Extremis keeps going NOPE! to it by constantly regenerating the damage.
 
And I'm finally following this again! I just didn't feel like jumping in again after the dormancy and the change of the GM, but now I have read all the new updates, and it is glorious!

Also, maximum paranoia:

[X] Write-in: Do a background check. A few minutes with an omni-tool is not a comprehensive search. Get your security chief, Goto, to dig up more info, particularly whatever it was that got him fired time and again. Forewarned is forearmed. Try to get it done before you land on Earth, but if that is not possible, arrange to keep in contact with him, promising nothing, but you've got the entire time you're on Earth to make the decision.
-[X] Crappy ship or not those things cost big money, no one writes one off like that. Something stinks. See if it's possible to link to the computers remotely and strip them bare. Try and recover deleted files too.
-[X] Ask if the captain to take it under toe it anyway as a 'good will gesture' without telling Laurence. During the trip have a couple of your security search it top to bottom, especially the cargo to see if it's legit. If he was writing that off as well.....
-[X]Have the security team keep a close eye on the Tigers. This could be a sabotage attempt.
 
aceraptor said:
Actually, given that Indoctrination works by damaging and altering the brain in specific ways, Extremis should work since it goes lol-nope to all none-fatal damages including missing body parts. Indoctrination keeps trying to alter the brain while Extremis keeps going NOPE! to it by constantly regenerating the damage.
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at the very least the diagnostic tech developed by advanced neural interface should be able to detect something funny is going on (if it can't how the hell does testing advanced the neural interface even work?).
 
aceraptor said:
Actually, given that Indoctrination works by damaging and altering the brain in specific ways, Extremis should work since it goes lol-nope to all none-fatal damages including missing body parts. Indoctrination keeps trying to alter the brain while Extremis keeps going NOPE! to it by constantly regenerating the damage.
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If it did that it would be impossible to form new memories since it would reset the natural changes in the brain that are their formation. Extremis is a genetherepy not a nanotherepy.
 
Madfish said:
If it did that it would be impossible to form new memories since it would reset the natural changes in the brain that are their formation. Extremis is a genetherepy not a nanotherepy.
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This. Something that resets everything to the way it used to be will keep you locked forever, making you unable to think, or at least form memories.

I'm not exactly sure how indoctrination and extremis will work together, but it's certainly not going to go lolnope quite in that manner.
 
We will need a defence against Indoctrination even if we manage to defeat the Reapers without having it. Why? Surviving Leviathans. That's why.
 
Esbilon said:
This. Something that resets everything to the way it used to be will keep you locked forever, making you unable to think, or at least form memories.

I'm not exactly sure how indoctrination and extremis will work together, but it's certainly not going to go lolnope quite in that manner.
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well considering Prothean tech can identify indoctrination.

edit: found a citation:

6:30
 
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Given the flaws I noted in my last attempt I've decided to redo my attempt at working out the Systems Alliance Defense budget.

For convenience I'll be using referring to the Navy as SAN and the Marines as SAM in addition to the overall military as SAD.

The 2010 US military budget was broken into the following categories:
  1. Operations and maintenance = 283.3/683.7 = 41.5%
  2. Military Personnel = 153.2/683.7 = 22.4%
  3. Procurement = 140.1/683.7 = 20.5%
  4. Research, Development, Testing & Evaluation = 79.1/683.7 = 11.6%
  5. Military Construction = 23.9/683.7 = 3.5%
  6. Family Housing = 3.1/683.7 = 0.5%
A number of projects are also listed with the most relevant been the Arleigh Burke-Class Destroyer and the F-35 which received 0.439% and 1.668% of the overall budget respectively.

Given how much of a game changer it will be I can see the SAM been willing to dedicate up to 2%, or even 3% considering the massive advantage and lack of allies, of their budget on the Cabira.

Production = 200,000 units

Now the Fleets tab lists Frigates as costing 7.5 billion but that doesn't make economic sense. Assuming it's literally free to produce, which it isn't, that returns a Profit Per Production (PPP) of 37,500 which is nothing compared to the 255,000PPP we get from giving our regular production to Lindsey.

However not all production is equal. Lets look at the cost of production (CoP) first:
  1. Factory I = 40,000,000/300 = 133,333.33
  2. Factory II = 200,000,000/3,000 = 66,666.67
  3. Factory III = 1,000,000,000/30,000 = 33,333.33
  4. Shipyard I = 5,000,000,000/300,000 = 16,666.67
  5. Shipyard II = 50,000,000,000/3,000,000 = 16,666.67
  6. Shipyard III =500,000,000,000/30,000,000 = 16,666.67
So for every unit of production we buy with a Factory III we could get 2 units from a Shipyard. So from the investment standpoint we only need to get half the return from a Shipyard that we do a Factory III. Therefore 127,500PPP is the minimal value we should aim for since that will give us an Adjusted PPP (APPP) of 255,000.

Therefore continuing the assumption that it was free to build a Frigate should go for at least 25,500,000,000 (25.5 billion) credits. However we know they are not free to build. So lets try and calculate what the actual selling price should be.

PPP = (S - C) / P
S = 2.5C

127,500 = (S - 0.4S) / 200,000
25,500,000,000 = S - 0.4S
25,500,000,000 = 0.6S
S = 25,500,000,000/0.6
S = 42,500,000,000 (42.5 billion) credits

Now we obviously won't be selling for the absolute minimum value here so lets bump the price up to a nice round 50 billion credits and we get the following:

Production = 200,000
Cost = 20,000,000,000
Sales Price = 50,000,000,000
Profit = 30,000,000,000
PPP = 150,000
APPP = 300,000

For comparison the Legionary has an APPP of 312,500.

According to the World Bank the USA had a nominal GDP per capita of $53,143 USD in 2013. Using that as our base and the Alliance's estimated population of twelve billion I get an estimated GDP for the Systems Alliance of 637,716,000,000,000 (637.7 trillion) credits.

In 2011 it was estimated that 4.9% of the USA's GDP was spent on it's military. Given the hostile nature of the Alliance's surrounds lets round that up to 5%.

That gives the Alliance military a budget of 31,885,800,000,000 (31.9 trillion) credits.

The estimated 2% of that for the Cabira is 637.7 billion credits giving the Alliance 12 Cabira per year.

Wikipedia lists the US Military as having 1,369,532 active personnel and a budget of 642.7 billion.

Extrapolating up from that the SAM's 12m personnel would give it a budget 8.76 times larger at 5,631,412,774,583 (5.6 trillion) credits.

The estimated 2% of that for the Cabira is 112.6 billion credits giving the Alliance 2 Cabira per year.

100,000x Legionary Suits @ 625,000 = 62,500,000,000cr
2,000x Galdius @ 210,000,000 = 420,000,000,000cr
12,000,000 Soldiers @ 250,000 = 3,000,000,000,000cr
2,400,000 Recuits @ 350,000 = 840,000,000,000cr
72x Frigates @ 7,500,000,000 = 540,000,000,000cr
32x Light Cruisers @ 50,000,000,000 = 1,600,000,000,000cr
4x Heavy Cruisers @ 200,000,000,000 = 800,000,000,000cr
1x Carriers @ 1,000,000,000,000 = 1,000,000,000,000cr
0.5x Dreadnaughts @ 1,000,000,000,000 = 500,000,000,000cr

Total = 8,762,500,000,000 (8.7 trillion) credits

The estimated 2% of that for the Cabira is 175.3 billion credits giving the Alliance 3 Cabira per year.

So while approaches 2 and 3 give similar numbers I personally prefer the first since those numbers feel more Sci-Fi/Future like to me. Especially since if we reverse the Military Budget as Percentage of GDP the latter two give GDPs of 112 trillion and 174 trillion respectively which doesn't seem that high considering that RL Earth's GDP is 74 trillion. If we assume even just a 1% average GDP growth it should be up to 363 trillion by 2173.
 
As I have just jumped into this quest again, and can absorb only so much information from the updates, from the posts after the updates and the spreadsheets in a one or two sessions:
Could someone give a short summary about the mechanics changes and our current assets and goals?
 
meianmaru said:
As I have just jumped into this quest again, and can absorb only so much information from the updates, from the posts after the updates and the spreadsheets in a one or two sessions:
Could someone give a short summary about the mechanics changes and our current assets and goals?
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*Writes 2 million word summary*
*Notices the word short*
*throws it away*

Mechanics Changes - Only two really stand out for me. The first is that instead of rolling 1d100s for research we roll 10d10s. The second is that research overflow is halved.

So if we roll 500 on a (400) project the project finishes leaving 100 excess research which is then halved to 50 and added to the overflow project.

Current Assets - Our Key Assets would be:
~14.4 billion credits in cash
Factories I, II and III on Mindoir
Labs I and II on Mindoir with III under construction
Several billion credits worth of contracts
A whole ton of awesome tech

Goals - Um. I don't think we have any solid goals right now, beside stopping the Reapers. We have some tentative plans for putting out the most badass Frigate in history within a year or two but that's about it.
 
Carrnage said:
well considering Prothean tech can identify indoctrination.
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Yeah, this was already present in the first game. The Prothean VI "Vigil" on Ilos could detect that Saren had been indoctrinated, and that Shephard&co had not been. And that was without any direct access to the brain or anything like that.

Infact, Vigil detects it from quite a distance away, so apparently building detectors on say the entrance to a building or on an airlock of a ship that sound a warning if an indoctrinated tries to enter is quite possible. I would presume that once Revy has a reason to look for it, she won't have major trouble figuring out a way to detect it when a person has been indoctrinated.

I would also presume however, that finding a way to defend against indoctrination will be much more difficult. And actually curing the damage in people who have already been indoctrinated will likely be the most difficult thing of all. I don't think there was ever a hint that the Protheans were even close to being able to do either (unless I am missing something?) of those things.

Though Vigil does say that indoctrinated were used as spies and the like, so presumably it took the Protheans quite some time to learn how to detect indoctrination (or using indoctrinated protheans as spies/saboteurs would never have worked). They probably figured out the detection method very late in their war against the Reapers. Maybe the Protheans would have found a way to also shield against indoctrination or a way to cure it, if they had had more time.

I will say that learning about indoctrination before the reapers get active so we can develop defenses would be nice, but not sure how that could be accomplished IC? We would basically have to find some reaper artifact, send someone to investigate it and then notice that the person has been indoctrinated and research the matter.

Hmm. Though I guess its possible that there are prothean records. We did fund Liara, and probably a lot better than she was in canon, so maybe if we are lucky she might find some intact records or somesuch that mention indoctrination.

Fixing Cerberus by de-indoctrinating TIM would probably be a big help in the long run. A Cerberus thats actually sane, competent and not inhumanly unethical might actually be helpfull. Truly mindboggling.
 
UberJJK said:
Mechanics Changes - Only two really stand out for me. The first is that instead of rolling 1d100s for research we roll 10d10s. The second is that research overflow is halved.

So if we roll 500 on a (400) project the project finishes leaving 100 excess research which is then halved to 50 and added to the overflow project.
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Hadn't noticed that. Good to know.
Current Assets - Our Key Assets would be:
~14.4 billion credits in cash
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Who are we, Scrooge McDuck? :p Do we have a literal pool of money in which we swim? And isn't all straight up money (not counting rare minerals and such) in electronic format in ME? /sarcasm

But seriously, that is quite a lot of money. I'll say that this was the best superpower to choose in the start, because we get to become a super-genius inventor, a billionaire and get to build our own "superpowers".
Goals - Um. I don't think we have any solid goals right now, beside stopping the Reapers. We have some tentative plans for putting out the most badass Frigate in history within a year or two but that's about it.
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I checked the what-it-is-called -spreadsheet with project -scheludes in it and some of the posts after the updates, so I know that much. What about goals like "our own spaceship city and a fleet to accompany it" or more realistically our own colony with similiar status to Noveria, with no laws binding transhumanist/-sapient -research.

Though speaking of short-term goals, could we include CASIE -implant research into our schelude? Because the last update highlights the need for Revy to be able to tell when people are being honest with her, or when they are just bullshitting her. Among other things. Maybe get Conrad also a one so that he finally gets a clue and the Conrad -penalty get at least mitigated, though that might lead to him self-destructing when he realizes how people feel about his Shepard-worship and general personality, particulary Revy herself. Or maybe he will just calm down gradually with enough exposure to his hero?
 
The Protheans also had direct memory access and storage, so that would probably be a prerequisite to indoctrination detection. It would require a thorough understanding on how the brain works, how memories are stored and accessed as well as methods of modifying memories(simply because we need to know how it's done in order to detect it).
 
meianmaru said:
Who are we, Scrooge McDuck? :p Do we have a literal pool of money in which we swim? And isn't all straight up money (not counting rare minerals and such) in electronic format in ME? /sarcasm

But seriously, that is quite a lot of money. I'll say that this was the best superpower to choose in the start, because we get to become a super-genius inventor, a billionaire and get to build our own "superpowers".
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Eh it's a habit. And it is a somewhat important distinction since we've got another 2.5 billion credits in non-current assets, mostly buildings.

I checked the what-it-is-called -spreadsheet with project -scheludes in it and some of the posts after the updates, so I know that much. What about goals like "our own spaceship city and a fleet to accompany it" or more realistically our own colony with similiar status to Noveria, with no laws binding transhumanist/-sapient -research.
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We don't really have any goals like that as far as I can recall. Besides the badass frigate our other goal is building our next PI branch on Elysium which we should be starting next quarter.

Though speaking of short-term goals, could we include CASIE -implant research into our schelude?
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There is a bunch of wiggle room so it can easily be slotted in. Although QECs are #1 priority for secure communications between our research labs, don't want the Geth or STG stealing our data.
 
UberJJK said:
There is a bunch of wiggle room so it can easily be slotted in. Although QECs are #1 priority for secure communications between our research labs, don't want the Geth or STG stealing our data.
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We will have physical security pretty much guaranteed with all our current research and security measures (plus the incoming Mk 2 Suit), the infosec with the incoming QECs and Flawless FRM/BB, so getting social defenses up would close up our final obvious weakpoint. But I agree with you that the QEC takes priority, though I think we could do CASIE before perfecting the FRM/BB.
 
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