- Location
- Germany
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Is there any reason to believe Rachni don't interrogate prisoners?
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Terminus Quest: A CKII Mass Effect Quest
- Location
- Somewhere near L1... I think
[X][RWF] The 3rd is, realistically, at your mercy, but that is no way to treat allies. It would be grossly inappropriate to hold this leverage over them. You will recognize Admiral Malan as the local, ranking representative of the Republic of Rannoch, with absolute power over his domain and empowered to purchase yard space and other goods and services from your government in the Republic's name, credited to their government. This polite fiction, of course, binds the Republic itself not a whit, but the sheer generosity of this deal will represent a major concession on your part when you establish contact with the Republic proper and commence negotiations. Realistically, Malan will do what you ask of him regardless of the formality of your relationship -- but in this case, it would be asking, and to preserve the pretense would require that it ever remain just asking.
[X][RUNNER] You denied his request. You're not in the habit of arguing suicide mission of this nature. You withdraw without sending any corvettes.
[X][RUNNER] You denied his request. You're not in the habit of arguing suicide mission of this nature. You withdraw without sending any corvettes.
Is there any reason to believe there would be prisoners in the first place?
- Location
- Germany
- Pronouns
- He/Him
A small contingent of corvettes/EC ships running blockade forces in unknown strength? Nope, I think not. Why would the Rachni try to get information about that pita that trashes local processing centers?
I'm not saying they'll all survive, mind you. I'm just doubting there will necessarily be prisoners, rather than the honored dead.
Why would the Rachni be able to extract information from corpses, given that capturing people alive is far more difficult than killing them?
[X][RWF] The 3rd is, realistically, at your mercy, but that is no way to treat allies. It would be grossly inappropriate to hold this leverage over them. You will recognize Admiral Malan as the local, ranking representative of the Republic of Rannoch, with absolute power over his domain and empowered to purchase yard space and other goods and services from your government in the Republic's name, credited to their government. This polite fiction, of course, binds the Republic itself not a whit, but the sheer generosity of this deal will represent a major concession on your part when you establish contact with the Republic proper and commence negotiations. Realistically, Malan will do what you ask of him regardless of the formality of your relationship -- but in this case, it would be asking, and to preserve the pretense would require that it ever remain just asking.
[X][RUNNER] You authorized his request. The chance isn't good, but with the EC running it, you think you have a shot. This kind of thing is held to be impossible, and consequently, has never been tried...so the Rachni will never expect it. Sending him a hurried data packet containing information that you want the rest of the galaxy to have (your available forces, your ability to contribute to the fight, data analysis on the Rachni from this last operation, the rescue of the 3rd RWF, etc.) you gave him a few other ships to boost his chances and sent him on his way. Commits Captain Jamar Kurik and several EC vessels to a blockade run, taking advantage of Rachni weaknesses along the path. All battle rolls along the way will be made with his characteristic martial bonus (19). Failure means death.
It is a good chance and we will need to do another major diversion to give them a clear path to such a position, and we can not do it te next turn as we need to repair and reorganize and integrate the quarian fleet into our forces.
With this we show everyone that we were succesful in our sally and give a massive morale boost to everyone and also a clear objective in wanting to link up and continue the offensive.
[X][RUNNER] You authorized his request. The chance isn't good, but with the EC running it, you think you have a shot. This kind of thing is held to be impossible, and consequently, has never been tried...so the Rachni will never expect it. Sending him a hurried data packet containing information that you want the rest of the galaxy to have (your available forces, your ability to contribute to the fight, data analysis on the Rachni from this last operation, the rescue of the 3rd RWF, etc.) you gave him a few other ships to boost his chances and sent him on his way. Commits Captain Jamar Kurik and several EC vessels to a blockade run, taking advantage of Rachni weaknesses along the path. All battle rolls along the way will be made with his characteristic martial bonus (19). Failure means death.
It is a good chance and we will need to do another major diversion to give them a clear path to such a position, and we can not do it te next turn as we need to repair and reorganize and integrate the quarian fleet into our forces.
With this we show everyone that we were succesful in our sally and give a massive morale boost to everyone and also a clear objective in wanting to link up and continue the offensive.
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- Location
- Germany
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I'm posing the possibility that they try to get living ones. Life pods, secured compartments where's still air inside, ... .
Computers.
You're suggesting that the ECs would bail out in life pods and let themselves be captured by Rachni, as opposed to going down with all hands.
As for computers...purge protocols? Self-destruct?
[X][RWF] The 3rd is, realistically, at your mercy, but that is no way to treat allies. It would be grossly inappropriate to hold this leverage over them. You will recognize Admiral Malan as the local, ranking representative of the Republic of Rannoch, with absolute power over his domain and empowered to purchase yard space and other goods and services from your government in the Republic's name, credited to their government. This polite fiction, of course, binds the Republic itself not a whit, but the sheer generosity of this deal will represent a major concession on your part when you establish contact with the Republic proper and commence negotiations. Realistically, Malan will do what you ask of him regardless of the formality of your relationship -- but in this case, it would be asking, and to preserve the pretense would require that it ever remain just asking.
[X][RUNNER] You denied his request. You're not in the habit of arguing suicide mission of this nature. You withdraw without sending any corvettes.
[X][RUNNER] You denied his request. You're not in the habit of arguing suicide mission of this nature. You withdraw without sending any corvettes.
- Location
- Germany
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Sure. All not 100% fool-proof. And if the corvette option were winning, it wouldn't be the EC. And if a ship is crippled but not blown up, you'd need someone successfully activating the self-destruct. If our ships have one, because, combat damage might activate it inadvertently.
That kind of risk is included in the blockade-run option; I thought I mention it in case someone wasn't aware.
What are you talking about? The EC vessels are corvettes, just Explorer-class corvettes, as opposed to the stock model. The vote is to send EC Corvettes under Kurik, send a brace of normal corvettes, or send no one.
Granted. Of course, that depends if this data is being stored on the main computers, or has been transferred to portable storage that can be flashed and destroyed, exactly in the event of something like this happening.
Which is fair.
What we're passing up if we don't take the blockade-run option is also something to consider, which is why I am mentioning it.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Yeah. Good thing we have a literal corps of explorers whose one job is to locate any mass relays kicking around in our star systems and figure out if they pose a backdoor threat to our territory.
Right. So we recognize the fleet's commanding admiral as a representative of the Quarian government, hold the talks with him, and work out a mutually acceptable arrangement. Easy.
Commanding officers always have life and death power over the military force they command. That's what it means to be a "commanding officer." The only difference here is that we're trusting the admiral to speak on behalf of his own troops to negotiate with a foreign government, which has been done successfully many many times throughout history.
If the quarian admiral turns out to inexplicably be an utter, drooling moron who refuses to do anything competent or effective, or who somehow abuses his troops... Well, we can step in somehow. Maybe relieve him of command by force and recognize one of his subordinates.
But this seems unlikely. It's far more likely that the quarians appointed someone intelligent and competent to command what has to be a large fraction of their overall war fleet. Someone who will recognize that if Virmire falls, they all die, and conversely that by making Virmire stronger, they are directly contributing to the survival and well-being of the quarian people.
We have, speaking informally, two and a half clusters we need to map out. There are almost certainly some immediately exploitable resources that could materially aid the war effort in that space. There are very likely to be some unconnected mass relays, and we urgently need to know where they are and where they connect to if at all possible.
This isn't just about finding new colony sites.
By the way- and this is kind of a side note- Kurik has Diplomacy 11. Which is actually not bad, but not particularly good by the standards of a guy we'd be asking to convince the Council, Terminus Alliance, and quarians to act in our interests while entirely out of contact with his homeworld. I suspect he'd get about as far with the Council as, say, Commander Shepard did. Maybe less far.
They still won't know a lot of the most important of these things anyway, in particular the part where they don't know if the rachni decided to crush us like an egg. This is the flip side of your (valid) point that Kurik is leaving while the chaos caused by our operations is still ongoing- he's leaving while the outcome is still in doubt.
I like the idea of doing this, I just think it should be done as part of a preplanned operation. We can pick a commander (we must have promising junior officers more inspired than average but less so than Kurik). We can load the ships up with consumables and customize them for speed and evasive maneuvering. We can prepare datadumps for the Council and other friendly races. And we can stage multiple battlecruiser raids to stir up enough trouble to maximize our chances of breaking out to friendly space.
Instead of just hoping that right now is the optimal time, even if our forces are underprepared and it's a spur of the moment impulse.
I'm pretty sure their one job isn't just to locate mass relays, given...
As well as the explicit note during the creation of the Explorer class that much of what they do was hunting for mining interests.
This is also true, but there are other ships we can detail for exploration as well. We do produce a surplus of ships, after all - and frankly, I'd like the Explorer Corps to encourage a sort of boldness. Even if Kurik himself isn't there to organize things at home, his going out into the darkness, boldly doing what no one has done before, sets the tone.
Only in this case, he's not coming with to accuse the Council's best agent of treason, while bringing up the (as far as they knew, entirely mythical) Reaper threat. That, and he is not just bringing a message - and lots of valuable data. He, in getting through, would be a message, one that isn't reliant on his Diplomacy 11.
In an ideal world I wouldn't mind a pre-planned operation, but I don't think that we'll have the opportunity to do so for at least another turn, and that in that time, we will have lost of the potential gains we could make from acting now.
- Location
- the Moon
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Like when we were given the opportunity to assault Rachni-held orbitals
Sir LagsAlot
Yandere Dice Magnet
- Location
- In the fridge
[X][RWF] The 3rd is, realistically, at your mercy, but that is no way to treat allies. It would be grossly inappropriate to hold this leverage over them. You will recognize Admiral Malan as the local, ranking representative of the Republic of Rannoch, with absolute power over his domain and empowered to purchase yard space and other goods and services from your government in the Republic's name, credited to their government. This polite fiction, of course, binds the Republic itself not a whit, but the sheer generosity of this deal will represent a major concession on your part when you establish contact with the Republic proper and commence negotiations. Realistically, Malan will do what you ask of him regardless of the formality of your relationship -- but in this case, it would be asking, and to preserve the pretense would require that it ever remain just asking.
[X][RUNNER] You denied his request. You're not in the habit of arguing suicide mission of this nature. You withdraw without sending any corvettes.
[X][RUNNER] You denied his request. You're not in the habit of arguing suicide mission of this nature. You withdraw without sending any corvettes.
- Location
- Germany
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I'm talking about that, while EC has elite crew, some crew in our normal corvettes might not be so keen to suicide. That was a reply to the 'life-pods'.
We also have heros / named characters with high intrigue ...
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Realistically, we had marines who hadn't been given the training or equipment to storm a fortified position, as they were better suited to holding off boarding actions and anti-piracy.
In this case, we have custom-designed corvettes under the command of elites - an entirely different situation, even if there are surface parallels.
Fair enough, which is one of the reasons I wouldn't vote to send normal corvettes. The other reason being that a pair of normal corvettes (as the option states) would have very little chance of getting through.
Kurik and his several EC ships - maybe 4 or 5 in total - would be stand a much better chance of accomplishing something worthwhile, even if they lost most of their number in the process.
@PoptartProdigy how effective would the data be if we get it to the outside? What I mean how important do our advisors think these data is for everyone?
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- Location
- Canada
Inserted tally
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
The question is, custom-designed for what? Exploration and blockade running aren't quite the same mission profile. There are some common elements you want either way, such as high operational endurance. But there are other elements not shared, like being able to dodge enemy fire like crazy and have souped-up straight line acceleration to get past the enemy's engagement envelope before they blow you to pieces.
I have no idea how we could possibly know this...
I mean, on the one hand it might be massively effective (e.g., salarian intelligence analysts turn out to be better at interpreting it than ours are).
On the other hand it might be totally useless (e.g. the Council "dismisses that claim" while looking achingly towards the place the turian councilor will one day stand, wishing in vain for airquotes support)
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- Location
- Rockford, USA
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Hey, everybody, regarding the Lystheni:
The issue Mira has with the Lystheni is not, legally speaking, that the Lystheni making off with the SO 4 artifacts was theft (on a personal level, she feels that it was, but that's personal). Legally speaking, at the time that the Lystheni were looting everything they could from SO 4, SO 4's status was still formally unsettled. In fact, given that the Lystheni repeatedly asserted it to be neutral ground and you declined to challenge that for a good decade, legally speaking, they actually hold a more stable position there. Now, it was still an act of stunningly poor faith, and that is part of the anger on your part, but it was not illegal. You have no legal claim to those artifacts, and the Lystheni are well within their legal rights to do whatever they please with them.
What the Lystheni have done that is illegal is set up their research center for studying the artifacts within the Lystheni Border Zone. Presumably, they did this in the hopes that you wouldn't think to look there, and to be fair, you didn't until you found a trail leading directly there, but the LBZ's terms are that it is to be free from development by either side. In that sense, the Lystheni are out of line, legally speaking, and you'd have every right to press a grievance. You haven't yet because you're waiting on the results of that probe Kurik released.
Now, let's please get back on the topic of the vote.
The issue Mira has with the Lystheni is not, legally speaking, that the Lystheni making off with the SO 4 artifacts was theft (on a personal level, she feels that it was, but that's personal). Legally speaking, at the time that the Lystheni were looting everything they could from SO 4, SO 4's status was still formally unsettled. In fact, given that the Lystheni repeatedly asserted it to be neutral ground and you declined to challenge that for a good decade, legally speaking, they actually hold a more stable position there. Now, it was still an act of stunningly poor faith, and that is part of the anger on your part, but it was not illegal. You have no legal claim to those artifacts, and the Lystheni are well within their legal rights to do whatever they please with them.
What the Lystheni have done that is illegal is set up their research center for studying the artifacts within the Lystheni Border Zone. Presumably, they did this in the hopes that you wouldn't think to look there, and to be fair, you didn't until you found a trail leading directly there, but the LBZ's terms are that it is to be free from development by either side. In that sense, the Lystheni are out of line, legally speaking, and you'd have every right to press a grievance. You haven't yet because you're waiting on the results of that probe Kurik released.
Now, let's please get back on the topic of the vote.
Well, there's that Admiral. Technically speaking, he has a lot of broad authority. Now, him being explicitly invested with the authority to act as a head of the (detached) Republic of Rannoch is probably something that no longer applies, since naval forces operating beyond literally instant contact of their government for longer than the duration of a relay assault hasn't happened in millennia. That being said, it's not exactly going to be considered scandalous, should you choose to recognize him in that capacity. Given that laws to the effect of, "out of sight of shore, the Admiral is the Head of State," no longer appear in any applicable law books in the galaxy, Malan would presumably face an inquiry upon the re-establishment of contact with the Republic, but even then, you doubt that they would find him to be in violation of his duties.
Unless Sentry Omega is completely unique among all the clusters of the galaxy (which, to be fair, would not be a presumption entirely unsupported by prior evidence), all of its mass relays are in Hoc.
I don't know what exactly you're asking. What's, "effective," here? My gut reaction is to say, "You have no completely reliable way of predicting the reactions of foreign actors," but if you mean something else...
Excuse me, but the option says nothing of the sort.
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The option said a brace of vessels. A brace is a pair. Therefore, as it is written, the option states that a pair of corvettes was picked out.
- Location
- Rockford, USA
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Then I'll fix it, but I was taught the word in the context of it meaning something entirely different. The option is not meant to be saying that Mira plans to deliberately waste warships.
Ah, my apologies then, and thank you for the clarification.
Magic_Pal
On long term vacations in hell
- Location
- Poland
[X][RWF] The 3rd is, realistically, at your mercy, but that is no way to treat allies. It would be grossly inappropriate to hold this leverage over them. You will recognize Admiral Malan as the local, ranking representative of the Republic of Rannoch, with absolute power over his domain and empowered to purchase yard space and other goods and services from your government in the Republic's name, credited to their government. This polite fiction, of course, binds the Republic itself not a whit, but the sheer generosity of this deal will represent a major concession on your part when you establish contact with the Republic proper and commence negotiations. Realistically, Malan will do what you ask of him regardless of the formality of your relationship -- but in this case, it would be asking, and to preserve the pretense would require that it ever remain just asking.