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Forge of Destiny(Xianxia Quest)

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More selfishly, dicking him over strips away our prep versus Renshu, since Fu Xiang sure as hell won't be giving us that intel we bought. Plus, having an enemy spymaster who can remotely whisper in anyone's ear in the outer sect isn't something I relish.
Alectai said:
Like I said, the chief problem here is that there's too many variables that aren't really knowable to make a reasonable choice... Well, reasonable.

So what we can consider comes down to a characterization vote--for both of us. If she wants us to be her Retainer, she has to take the good with the bad--the good in that we can be discreet and keep her in the loop. The bad in that we lack the resources to be able to afford to just gracefully accept aid given in a time of need.

Yeah, we could try to bury it--it might even work, but this is chinese fantasy land and people bringing out your dirty laundry can't be avoided indefinitely. Like, no matter how perfectly you think you buried a secret--eventually, it'll come out in the open, probably at the worst possible time. It's almost as much a part of the genre as the constant murderhoboing and the supernatural, world shaping powers.

Everything else is just... It's too unknowable. "Will she crush us without mercy? Will she have us make amends discreetly?" We don't know because we've never seen her privately deal with an issue.

She seeks Justice, and Gan Guangli strongly believes it's actual Justice, and not just tyranny. Or he wouldn't be so loyal--after all, if his father being crippled and everything going to pot for him because it was perceived as his "Failure" was somehow made good by Renxiang. And he wasn't comfortable talking about the details--which suggests it was something privately handled.

But we have nothing rock solid on Renxiang herself, which is what makes this such a leap of faith.
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It's worth pointing out that we don't have any real excuse for what we did. Like, at all. What excuse do you feel we have that would soften the blow? Keep in mind Ji Rong got a month of imprisonment for pocketing fines. Our part on a conspiracy to frame a 3rd party for 2 personal crimes, leveraging the very authority she lent out to investigate those crimes is not, uh, less of a crime. It is significantly more of a crime. And our excuse is, what, we felt indebted to our co-conspirator? That doesn't even begin to justify our actions.

Her wanting us as a vassal is unlikely to do much at all, either. Letting us get away with an abuse of her authority for the sake of retaining us to act under her authority is self-defeating foolishness. She expects us to fall in line behind her vision. If we won't, she has no use for us. She's not going to hold back because of her designs for us, because if we're put off by her concept of a just punishment, then it only proves we weren't really what she was looking for.


Edit: I guess my point is this. If someone actually has respect for Cai's vision, then voting to admit our crimes would be out of genuine contriteness and, at most, a desire to test that Cai actually sticks to her convictions. If you are voting to spill the beans to test her, and you think a positive outcome is her taking it easy on Ling Qi, then you do not want to be Cai's vassal. You want to be the vassal of a Cai-shaped fraud.
 
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Katreus said:
Yes. If we participate in the cover up here, we absolutely should: never tell her this after this and never take her offer. Because this is the type of lie that poisons a relationship, esp. since we know that she hates this type of corruption, we did it anyway, and then we lied to her face after we forced a confrontation about trust and friendship and further abused our official position in her council for our personal benefit (not getting caught; not suffering punishment).
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So far, we haven't really done any corruption, though? I guess maybe the fact that we are failing to properly investigate the sabotage counts (what with being the culprit already), but really we haven't taken advantage of our position for anything. It is criminal, but it is not corrupt.
 
PrimalShadow said:
I'd be okay with admitting things... if it wasn't for the fact that it is an absolute dick move towards Fu Xiang. Like, the sabotage was supposed to be a favor for him. If we weren't willing to do that, it would have been one thing... but to him punished? That is a really bad way to repay favors.
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Hindsight is 20/20 on this one.

I mean, we've done what he asked us to, but he's the one who went full on corruption and abuse of power by leading the investigation against the guy we helped frame based on false evidence provided by him. At this point? He's shaping up to be the kind of ministry official on Cai's future hit-list anyway.

Betraying the implied "silence for mutual benefit" is kind of a dick move, but it's nowhere near as much of a dick move as lying to Cai on this and proceeding to frame some innocent disciple who we've already ruined the project of.
 
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PLS BREAK TIE.
Adhoc vote count started by Kian on Feb 10, 2018 at 1:42 PM, finished with 218 posts and 106 votes.
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Please remember that as Clan Head, Ling Qi actions reflect upon the whole Clan.
While this vote itself is unlikely to have such far reaching consequences, we should nontheless start thinking on how negatives can very easily affect Qi Mom and Sis.

Being a gluton for punishment is not a viable trait in the long run.
 
Ayashi said:
Please remember that as Clan Head, Ling Qi actions reflect upon the whole Clan.
While this vote itself is unlikely to have such far reaching consequences, we should nontheless start thinking on how negatives can very easily affect Qi Mom and Sis.

Being a gluton for punishment is not a viable trait in the long run.
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On the flip side getting caught out by the ducal heir of your province down the line aint great either.
 
Orkus Majorkus said:
On the flip side getting caught out by the ducal heir of your province down the line aint great either.
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If we don't go the Cai route then this dies a quiet death as she goes away from the sect and we stay and get an apprenticeship. Just saying that letting this die a quiet death maybe the best thing here. We now know that Ling Qi doesn't feel great doing these things so we can avoid them in the future.
 
This is a simple choice because it a clear vote for your route preference. If you're interested in the Inner Sect. You vote for silence. If you're interested in locking in Cai route you vote to confess.

This is a test of Cai's convictions. If we admit to corruption, she either has to stay true to her convictions and punish us or give into corruption and let us go free.

I view the Inner Sect as more important so I will not vote to confess. That will get us kicked out of white room, market, result in possible lockup, and loss of our income from the furnace. Worst of all we get more enemies after us including Xiang, and the sect members who we sabotaged. I'm now convinced it is conceding the Inner Sect entirely unless Cai fails her susceptibility to corruption roll and lets us go free.
 
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Orkus Majorkus said:
On the flip side getting caught out by the ducal heir of your province down the line aint great either.
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If she finds out in a year or two, basically after leaving the sect for city management sim, I don't expect it to really matter? She'd be annoyed and probably reevaluate her trust in us, but she would not be likely to prosecute Ling Qi for Outer Sect faux-government collusion to undermine its integrity. There's not much in the way of stakes that far out. Within roughly a year of now is where the risk is, but the only person who is aware is also implicated, and arguably to a greater degree. The actual risk of being discovered is minimal, and the stakes lower once the attempted blackmailing gets buried since it's the most serious offense.

Delcer said:
This is a simple choice because it a clear vote for your route preference. If you're interested in the Inner Sect. You vote for silence. If you're interested in locking in Cai route you vote to confess.

This is a test of Cai's convictions. If we admit to corruption, she either has to stay true to her convictions and punish us or give into corruption and let us go free.

I view the Inner Sect as more important so I will not vote to confess. That will get us kicked out of white room, market, result in possible lockup, and loss of our income from the furnace. Worst of all we get more enemies after us including Xiang, and the sec members who we sabotaged. I'm now convinced it is conceding the Inner Sect entirely unless Cai fails her susceptibility to corruption roll and lets us go free.
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I don't really like the framing as a referendum on our route. It is possible to go the Sect path even with admitting the truth, and admitting the truth should in no way be treated as cementing ourselves to Cai's route. I see the arguments for it, and accept the logic to a degree, but don't accept the, uh, adamance of the framework.

But I'm probably just rebelling against the idea of using this as a test of Cai's convictions. The context is just so damaging and self-destructive to Ling Qi. Can't we frame someone else for corruption and throw them to the wolves first? :(
 
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AbeoLogos said:
As a mental exercise, here is the gamut of negative consequences to spilling the beans to Cai:
-Cai punishment; too many options to easily lay out everything
-Possible loss of White room, gown, and/or pill furnace income/the furnace itself
-Time out?
-If made public, loss of social standing and possible market ban
-Definite loss of social standing among Cai's Council
-Fu Xiang enmity for betraying his trust
-Loss of 200 RSS payment to Fu Xiang, no intel on Yan Renshu

I don't see this as an equitable trade for what Cai told us. Let's not forget that we're already in a feud with one sneaky bastard, and that he attempted to poison Zhengui. Now we're supposed to anger a second sneaky bastard, while throwing away our efforts to defend against the first? No way, that is not a tenable situation. We should not be putting our family at risk for the sake of sentimentality towards Cai.

Then there's all the resources we'd be throwing down the drain. If we get put in time out, that's a huge, well, time sink. Fines? Our cultivation and gearing plans rely on our limited resources heavily. Market ban? Well I guess if we get this, we don't need money since it's the only way to spend it on what we need. A friend would not advise that we take these risks; Bai Meizhen would not advise our honesty in this matter. Keep in mind that the affront we would be punished for is stepping on Cai's toes, not truly the harm we caused to others. I don't want any part of a friendship founded on our subordination to their aspirations, at the cost of ourselves and our family.

Ling Qi's actions were dickish, there's no arguing that. What I'm against is revealing it for Cai's sake. Ling Qi has real responsibilities to Zhengui's safety; accepting responsibility for her past actions means swallowing, but not forgetting, her guilt and forging onward, not imperiling him because she is faced with a sympathetic figure.
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You're forgetting:
-Definite friendship hit with Li Suyin
- Probable friendship hit with Su Ling. Plus the fact she's friends with one of the people in the market and reccomened us to him. So potential blowback from that.
-Probable friendship hit with Gu Xiulan due to face damage.
- Hit to Bai Meizhen's face due to association with a proven Market thief and associated relationship issues due to that.

I hate this vote.
 
[X] Admit to the deception. Apologize, explain, and accept the consequences.

I want to be Cai's friend. Friends don't lie to each other.

Also after this we need to take Cai out for a night on the town. She does nothing for fun
 
AbeoLogos said:
But I'm probably just rebelling against the idea of using this as a test of Cai's convictions. The context is just so damaging and self-destructive to Ling Qi. Can't we frame someone else for corruption and throw them to the wolves first? :(
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I would dearly love to throw someone to the wolves first. I'm against using this as a test of Cai's convictions purely because we have so much to lose from it, which is why I voted for silence.

If we confess, we have to hope that literally everything Cai just told us isn't backed by concrete conviction. Otherwise we get publicly punished in proper Cai fashion.
 
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I don't expect the consequences to really matter here, besides the notion that we are prepared to accept them. The government itself lacks a certain element of stability, and ostracizing us over this potentially costs Cai half the council, including relations with most third realm cultivators in her camp. (Meizhen is upset, Fu Xiang is implicated as is Ling). If we are punished visibly, it erodes Cai's regime incredibly. If she stops our cultivation, she screws herself in the tournament. This means, that Cai's effective options here are to punish Ling Qi in ways that don't hurt our progress and aren't public. More minimalistically, she might cut resources here.

This leaves pain as the easiest means of punishing Ling Qi. That's probably what Cai would go with here, since it doesn't cost her a valuable piece in the tournament, and going by source material for Cai, as well as her own statements, I would think that punishing bad behavior with agony is pretty in line with her expectations of how the world works. Forcing something more sadistic on us, say, demanding we sabotage Suyin's project is possible, if not particularly likely, and would tell us a lot of NOPE on working for Cai.

Alternatively, we might lose something like the White Room, but this seems less likely, since Cai's positioned herself against Liling in the tournament and a weak showing undermine's Cai's year of work.

By contrast, if we do side with Cai, we've not positioned ourselves as contract help, but a friend, someone who would want to be close and trusting with her. To, literally, have been lying to her face about our duties for her in the same conversation that we pushed her to make herself vulnerable and to trust us, something that is probably a pretty big deal for Cai, is setting this up to be a lot worse than it is in terms of the relationship, and both Ling Qi and Cai have built the idea of becoming a vassal of the relationship itself. Moreover, even if we don't out ourselves, we will know that our relationship is largely built on a lie about our conduct. This is likely to have consequences as well.

Ultimately though, I don't want to work for Cai long term. Pragmatically, assuming Cai doesn't already know or suspect the origin of the sabotage, hiding things is probably best for the short term, but it pretty neatly torpedos our relationship with Cai. That said, I think there's another dimension to this. In terms of the person Ling Qi wants to be, accepting punishment for an action she felt was pretty wrong at the time, is probably a solid move. We walked in, demanded Cai, who has every reason to have trust issues, make herself vulnerable to us, and she did. Continuing to lie to her face here is pretty scummy.

This isn't an opportunity to confess to Cai, or not just that. It's also a chance for Ling Qi to take a step closer to being the kind of person she wants to be, someone who does as she believes, rather than acts out of fear of the consequences.

[X]Admit to the deception. Apologize, explain, and accept the consequences.
 
archangis said:
I am sure changing her from what her mother made her can't possibly go wrong. There is no way the white cultivator would ever take offense

Onto non crazy talk. What if FX is someone that obey to Cai orders? What if the whole thing is just a character test.

We know that she did a lot of research into us. Is it so out there that Cai is testing us? It make FX action be seen in a completely different light. Him talking about manipulating our liege lord? A test. This? A test.

Which would explain why he needed help to suceed at the prod track despite being able to mass produce escape formation.
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On the basic level of facts on the ground: if it were a test then CRX would have initiated all the heart to heart talk and "do you have anything important you want to tell me" kind of stuff. As it is Ling Qi is the one pushing for disclosure of information. In other words, the option to confess is present because of Ling Qi's (vaguely OOC, IMO) actions and internal monologue, not because of anything CRX has done in particular.

On a more meta level: if this is a "how corrupt is my spymaster" test then Ling Qi ought to be getting decent marks. She had no inclination to abuse her position on her own and was obviously unhappy and unwilling to repeat the performance after FX talked her into it. Note also that her actions here relied on her own sneak thief skills rather than anything like a Cai-issued skeleton key. FX is the only one outright abusing his authority. If we're in a world of 100% cynicism 100% of the time then Ling Qi's still a decent subordinate.

That said, if we are in the more likely world where CRX is naive, idealistic, and absolutely unforgiving, then Ling Qi's actions make her part of the rot that has to be purged in order to Make the Argent Sect Great Again.
 
Kipeci said:
It could be good that the truth vote pulling ahead is a blessing in disguise. If Cai timelocks us and puts us in stockades, gets our market privileges revoked and we end up with Fu Xiang after our blood for betraying his trust without the slightest attempt to confer with him on it then that just might be the catalyst to maybe look elsewhere than the Cai route.
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Responses like this one make me want to switch my vote to telling the truth just out of spite.
 
[X] Remain silent, thank her sincerely and speak of yourself as promised.

Long-time lurker, first time poster.
I think that this entire decision point may be caused by a social Art -- it just seems too foolish to otherwise consider. There is a laundry list of consequences, both socially and potentially relating to cultivation, and there are no benefits to confessing. Fu Xiang will be displeased that Ling Qi has betrayed him, Su Ling and Li Suyin will most likely find out and be disappointed, and we've seen that Cai is more than willing to sabotage the cultivation of those who apparently break her rules. Also, I don't like that Ling Qi would be going back on a deal here just because Cai has told her something completely unrelated. The sharing is still going on with the "Remain Silent" vote, it's just that we wouldn't also be backstabbing Fu Xiang and screwing ourselves over.
 
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