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Terminus Quest: A CKII Mass Effect Quest

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Nurgle said:
My plan is a bust will at least vote for the plan that takes them seriously.
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You keep saying this with no evidence.
If the lystheni are willing to go to the mat, they will not throw a handful of frigates and corvettes at enemy cruisers and battlecruisers.
The actual worst-case threats they pose, a navy will not help you against.

pbluekan said:
-[X]Martial 2: Backsplash: 30,000: 1 years: DC31 - Minister 11 = DC20
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Let me repeat this:
This is the option most likely to trigger a war.
We KNOW the Lystheni are both paranoid and secretive. We KNOW the Quarians are institutionally xenophobic.Moving the Quarians from patrolling our territory to basically camping the Lystheni border? This is BEGGING for an incident that will degenerate into full out war.

We can win any war easily, but we can't afford the diversion of effort at the moment. We do not want to expend the slots to pacify the Lystheni while waging an offensive war against the Rachni. We do not want to spend our Intrigue looking for rebel groups. We do not want to spend effort looking for hideaways in their territory.

And the longterm diplomatic consequences will be significant, both with the Quarian govt for using the 3RWF as a stalking horse, and for basically anybody else who pays attention to our foreign policy.

To paraphrase Mr Tebbs, this is like Russia deploying armored divisions to the border of Ukraine, and then an airliner getting shot down.
Noone will believe any accidents were not our fault, or that we didn't deliberately maneuver the Quarians into that position.
For the love of whatever deity you profess, don't do this/
 
Chronic said:
I'd like to point out that the Diplomacy option to demand talks with the Lystheni implicitly threatens war against them if they don't do what we demand of them. That is easily as provocative as stationing ships on their border.
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Ehhh, I'd take that as we expect to go to war regardless. Then again it may be the only way they'll think we're really serious about ignoring them blowing us off
 
uju32 said:
This is the option most likely to trigger a war.
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I actually think this one is more likely to trigger a war:

[ ] Lystheni (Making Demands): The Lystheni have transgressed against you time and again, and fresh offenses keep piling up. You could easily turn the courts of public opinion against the Lystheni. Do so, and open negotiations with them in a position of calamitous weakness. Time: 1 year. Chance of Success: 60%. Cost: 20,000 credits. Effect: Force negotiations with the Lystheni under the implied threat of war, and bargain against that threat to force demands on them.

40% chance of them not caving to demands which we make with an implicit threat of War. This would force us to either put up or shut up, and if we ever want to be taken seriously again we will have to go to war with the Lystheni if negotiations fail.

Backsplash has only a 30% chance of failure, which may or may not cause a war. It might also mean the Lystheni get a frigate through our patrols and ram Virmire at FTL after removing the drive limiters. Who knows.
 
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Chronic said:
I'd like to point out that the Diplomacy option to demand talks with the Lystheni implicitly threatens war against them if they don't do what we demand of them. That is easily as provocative as stationing ships on their border.
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No it does not.
It might just mean we refuse to trade with them, tanking their economy and sending them back to scrabbling for survival.
It might also mean military intervention. The ambiguity is important.

Brandishing weapons in someone's face is a whole different level of threat than refusing to do business with them.
 
uju32 said:
To paraphrase Mr Tebbs, this is like Russia deploying armored divisions to the border of Ukraine, and then an airliner getting shot down.
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Thinking about my analogy, it might be more like Russia's "period preparatory to mobilization for war" right before WW1 went hot

Backstop for us is to prevent against shenanigans, but they may look at the 'to war' bit of the preparations
 
uju32 said:
Brandishing weapons in someone's face is a whole different level of threat than refusing to do business with them.
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The option says that we will implicitly threaten to go to war with them if they do not cave to our demands for information about what the hell they are up to with their little black ops projects and precursor artifacts. Positioning Warships is not that much worse than outright threatening military intervention and it gives us a defensive advantage in case the Lystheni try something crazy with their navy, which i think they will once we pressure them on the one thing their entire government seems to revolve around researching secretly.
 
Chronic said:
I actually think this one is more likely to trigger a war:.
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We retain leverage with the whole Trade Sanctions thing; that's why we decided to eat the bullet and cut them off.
Play ball, and get your trade back; don't and be cut off, and their government has to worry about domestic unrest when almost a decade of access to goods both domestic and foreign goes away.

But put troops on their border, and you both threaten the government, and provide a pressing threat for them to divert their population with.
 
uju32 said:
You keep saying this with no evidence.
If the lystheni are willing to go to the mat, they will not throw a handful of frigates and corvettes at enemy cruisers and battlecruisers.
The actual worst-case threats they pose, a navy will not help you against.


Let me repeat this:
This is the option most likely to trigger a war.
We KNOW the Lystheni are both paranoid and secretive. We KNOW the Quarians are institutionally xenophobic.Moving the Quarians from patrolling our territory to basically camping the Lystheni border? This is BEGGING for an incident that will degenerate into full out war.

We can win any war easily, but we can't afford the diversion of effort at the moment. We do not want to expend the slots to pacify the Lystheni while waging an offensive war against the Rachni. We do not want to spend our Intrigue looking for rebel groups. We do not want to spend effort looking for hideaways in their territory.

And the longterm diplomatic consequences will be significant, both with the Quarian govt for using the 3RWF as a stalking horse, and for basically anybody else who pays attention to our foreign policy.

To paraphrase Mr Tebbs, this is like Russia deploying armored divisions to the border of Ukraine, and then an airliner getting shot down.
Noone will believe any accidents were not our fault, or that we didn't deliberately maneuver the Quarians into that position.
For the love of whatever deity you profess, don't do this/
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From a meta perspective:
Why does the backsplash option exist? It states "Don't do this unless you do something that you think will piss them off to the point of possible violence." We wouldn't use it if we declare war. Backstab works better. We wouldn't use it if we are only taking one hostile action, as that probably won't piss them off too much. It would be a gamble as to whether it saves us more pain or causes us more damage if we take two hostile actions. Ergo, it is probably meant to be used as part of a full-court diplomatic offensive. This is probably necessary if we want to make demands, dismantle their spy network, and embargo their nation without everything blowing up in our faces.

From a non-meta perspective:
The Lysenthi are extremely paranoid. Paranoid people tend to be much more concerned about the hidden threat than the blatantly obvious one, and they tend to be much more protective of any capabilities that they do have. Dismantling their spy network is going to send them into a much greater panic than increasing our military force concentration along our mutual borders. If we want to avoid a war, we should neither dismantle their intelligence network nor increase patrols along our border. If we are willing to risk a war to ensure that they are no longer playing games with our survival, we should do both. If we want to guarantee espionage games, we should threaten them without dismantling their network. If we want to guarantee a war, we threaten them, dismantle their network, but not increase patrols along their border.
 
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Chronic said:
The option says that we will implicitly threaten to go to war with them if they do not cave to our demands for information about what the hell they are up to with their little black ops projects and precursor artifacts. Positioning Warships is not that much worse than outright threatening military intervention and it gives us a defensive advantage in case the Lystheni try something crazy with their navy, which i think they will once we pressure them on the one thing their entire government seems to revolve around researching secretly.
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Implied threat =/= Imminent threat.
There's a reason why the GM explicitly stated that Backsplash was highly provocative, in a way that Making Demands is not.
Posturing and saber rattling has a long history in diplomacy, as an elaborate game of chicken; pay attention to US-Soviet confrontations during the Cold War.

Chronic said:
Positioning Warships is not that much worse than outright threatening military intervention and it gives us a defensive advantage in case the Lystheni try something crazy with their navy, which i think they will once we pressure them on the one thing their entire government seems to revolve around researching secretly.
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One last time:
It's NOT defensive. The 3RWF is already patrolling in a defensive posture.
It's OFFENSIVE. That's the whole point of putting a capital ship fleet four systems away from the lystheni home planet.

Noone with any knowledge of the lystheni fleet will believe it's defensive. And this will cause Problems with the Quarians in the future.

And as I have repeatedly pointed out, we've seeded the frontier with tripwires and sensor systems specifically to watch for Lystheni.
From signal monitoring in the comm buoys, to entire surveillance systems. They aren't moving a fleet through the area without us having forewarning, and their fleet size is limited.
 
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Rakuhn said:
From a meta perspective:
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It's the Im Not Touching You option, where you wave your hands in the other person's face and when they react, say you did nothing.
It's Russia parking ten divisions of tanks on the Ukraine border, or the US moving several aircraft carriers near Iran or NK and flying planes along it's borders.

The lystheni are a genuinely unlikable nation-state, but people are basically setting up a military confrontation here that we do not need if we can avoid it. If we can't avoid it fine, but that's no reason to chase it.
Rakuhn said:
From a non-meta perspective:
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Rakuhn said:
Paranoid people tend to be much more concerned about the hidden threat than the blatantly obvious one,
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Thats not how it works; imminent threats concentrate the mind.
This is like saying cutting a telephoned death threat, or an evil eye by the neighbor, will worry them more than the armed gang sitting on their front lawn.

Rakuhn said:
Dismantling their spy network is going to send them into a much greater panic than increasing our military force concentration along our mutual borders.
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Not how it works either.
We're not kicking out their embassy. Comm buoys remain intact. The intelligence gathering function of an embassy is more than covert operations.
We're going after the NOCs, not the embassy officials.

Rakuhn said:
If we want to avoid a war,
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I'm sorry, but I disagree with basically all of this.
 
Personally, I think the Lystheni need a wake up call. One that demands and sanctions aren't going to cause. They've been dicking around with us, likely secure in the knowledge that we couldn't afford to divert military assets to deal with them if the pushed too far. But now we've got a window where we can divert some assets - there's a lull in the war as everyone licks their wounds, and it shouldn't take more than a year to defeat the Lystheni with the resources at our disposal.

In the face of what we've got on them (espionage, tech theft, treaty violations, etc.) we would be well within our rights to declare war right now and just stop them from being a problem once and for all - frankly, if our positions were reversed I'd absolutely expect them to have ended us already. And if they don't realize just how pissed we are, that it's only the fact that we prefer diplomacy to outright war, I don't expect to see any real change in their long term behavior. If that means waving a metaphorical gun in their face, so be it.
 
Enjou said:
Personally, I think the Lystheni need a wake up call. One that demands and sanctions aren't going to cause. They've been dicking around with us, likely secure in the knowledge that we couldn't afford to divert military assets to deal with them if the pushed too far. But now we've got a window where we can divert some assets - there's a lull in the war as everyone licks their wounds, and it shouldn't take more than a year to defeat the Lystheni with the resources at our disposal.

In the face of what we've got on them (espionage, tech theft, treaty violations, etc.) we would be well within our rights to declare war right now and just stop them from being a problem once and for all - frankly, if our positions were reversed I'd absolutely expect them to have ended us already. And if they don't realize just how pissed we are, that it's only the fact that we prefer diplomacy to outright war, I don't expect to see any real change in their long term behavior. If that means waving a metaphorical gun in their face, so be it.
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Did you read the options? Because I'll just quote the relevant parts for you in case you didn't:
PoptartProdigy said:
(Trade Sanctions): (...) Effect: Halt all trade with the Lystheni, get your people out of there, and close the borders to free travel.
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PoptartProdigy said:
(Making Demands): (...) Effect: Force negotiations with the Lystheni under the implied threat of war, and bargain against that threat to force demands on them.
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How is this not a wake-up call? Not only do we cut off trade, extract our citizens and close the borders. We also conduct negotiations under the implied threat of war.
I can't believe I'm arguing for restraint with these fuckers but I'd really rather avoid wasting a ton of actions on the conquest, occupation and suppression of the Lystheni.
 
Versharl said:
Did you read the options? Because I'll just quote the relevant parts for you in case you didn't:


How is this not a wake-up call? Not only do we cut off trade, extract our citizens and close the borders. We also conduct negotiations under the implied threat of war.
I can't believe I'm arguing for restraint with these fuckers but I'd really rather avoid wasting a ton of actions on the conquest, occupation and suppression of the Lystheni.
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Yes, I've read that. I honestly don't think they'll get through on their own based on who we're dealing with. Remember that this is a group, who on our first contact, decided that "prepare to be boarded" was the appropriate response until they found out that we could crush them like bugs.

Oh, they'll meet our demands to the least extent they can get away with, and they'll act nice, but I don't think they'll really change unless they truly understand that yes, this isn't a bluff, that we're actually ready to commit to a war. They need to well and truly understand that this is the last attempt at diplomacy we're going to make if they don't start dealing with us in good faith.
Adhoc vote count started by Enjou on Feb 14, 2018 at 7:04 PM, finished with 10615 posts and 36 votes.
  • [X] Plan Kan it
    -[X]Martial 1: Integrating Reforms: -50,000 Income permanently: 3 years: DC41 - Minister 11 = DC30
    -[X]Martial 2: Backsplash: 30,000: 1 years: DC31 - Minister 11 = DC20
    -[X]Diplomacy 1: Lystheni(Making Demands): 20,000 : DC41 - Minister 11 = DC30
    -[X]Diplomacy 2: Lystheni(Trade Sanctions): 20,000 + -40,000 Income: DC31 - Minister 11 = DC20
    -[X]Stewardship 1: Colony Equipment: 70,000 + -30,000 Income(starting end of year 2): 2 years: DC26 - Minister 10 = DC16
    -[X]Stewardship 2: Administrative Overclocking: 42,000: DC31 - Minister 10 = DC21
    -[X]Intrigue 1: The Best Way To Deal With Pickpockets: 25,000: DC16 - Minister 12= DC4
    -[X]Intrigue 2: Board of Shareholders: 35,000: DC36 - Minister 12= DC24
    -[X]Learning 1: Quarian Tech Adoption: 35,000: 3 years: DC11 - Minister 11= DC0
    -[X]Learning 2: Dietary Supplements: 40,000: DC31 - Minister 11= DC20
    -[X]Personal 1: Personal Attention Integrating Reforms [Military 24]
    -[X]Personal 2: Personal Attention Lystheni Making Demands[Diplomacy 16]
    -[X]Personal 3: The Prime Minister Is Coming Here?: 10,000
    [X]Plan Nutcracker
    -[X]Martial 1: Integrating Reforms: -50,000 Income permanently: 3 years: DC41 - Minister 11 = DC30
    -[X]Martial 2: Marine Expansion: 30,000: 2 years: DC31 - Minister 11 = DC20
    -[X]Diplomacy 1: Lystheni(Making Demands): 20,000 : DC41 - Minister 11 = DC30
    -[X]Diplomacy 2: Lystheni(Trade Sanctions): 20,000 + -40,000 Income: DC31 - Minister 11 = DC20
    -[X]Stewardship 1: Colony Equipment: 70,000 + -30,000 Income(starting end of year 2): 2 years: DC26 - Minister 10 = DC16
    -[X]Stewardship 2: Administrative Overclocking: 42,000: DC31 - Minister 10 = DC21
    -[X]Intrigue 1: The Best Way To Deal With Pickpockets: 25,000: DC16 - Minister 12= DC4
    -[X]Intrigue 2: Board of Shareholders: 35,000: DC36 - Minister 12= DC24
    -[X]Learning 1: Quarian Tech Adoption: 35,000: 3 years: DC11 - Minister 11= DC0
    -[X]Learning 2: Dietary Supplements: 40,000: DC31 - Minister 11= DC20
    -[X]Personal 1: Personal Attention Integrating Reforms [Military 24]
    -[X]Personal 2: Personal Attention Lystheni Making Demands[Diplomacy 16]
    -[X]Personal 3: The Prime Minister Is Coming Here?: 10,000
    [X] Plan Overlord
    -[X] Integrating Reforms
    -[X] Backstab
    -[X] Lystheni (Casus Belli)
    -[X] Knowledge Exchange
    -[X] Colony Equipment
    -[X] Administrative Overclocking
    -[X] The Best Way To Deal With Pickpockets...
    -[X] Board of Shareholders
    -[X] Barrier Miniaturization
    -[X] Quarian Tech Adoption
    -[X] Personal Attention (Integrating Reforms)
    -[X] Personal Attention (Knowledge Exchange)
    -[X] The Prime Minister Is Coming Here?
    [X] Plan Covering Bases
    -[X] Integrating Reforms
    -[X] Backsplash
    -[X] Lystheni (Making Demands)
    -[X] Lystheni (Trade Sanctions)
    -[X] Colony Equipment
    -[X] Economic Review
    -[X] The Best Way To Deal With Pickpockets...
    -[X] Board of Shareholders
    -[X] Dietary Supplements
    -[X] Prothean Examination
    -[x] Personal Attention: Lystheni (Making Demands)
    -[X] Personal Attention: Economic Review
    -[X] Personal Attention (Integrating Reforms)
    [X]Plan War
    -[X] Integrating Reforms: You have researched your new naval reforms, you have purchased the equipment it will take to build the fleet you want, you have improved your logistics network to support all of this (barely), and you will probably be fixing your marines at some point. All that now remains is to comb through your entire navy to apply this comprehensive re-working of your entire void military. Time: 3 years. Cost: -50,000 yearly income (permanently, and applied from start of option). Chance of Success: 60% Effect: Beyond restructuring your fleets, actually go through and ensure that your navy is up to date on the new tactics and that your naval academy is teaching it as required. Gain the benefits of Beshkarian doctrine.
    -[X] Backstab: The Lystheni have committed countless transgressions against you. Off the top of your head, unrepentant and systematic spying, theft and use of military designs, production of a secret navy during a time of existential war, and to cap it all off, the violation of a signed treaty regarding borders, one to which you initially agreed as a concession to them. The 3rd could deploy to backstop any backlash from you yelling at the Lystheni; they could also just cut out the middleman. Time: 1 year. Cost: 45,000 credits. Chance of Success: 60%. Effect: Describe the situation to Malan, and have him be your arm in your war with the Lystheni. Failure means either failure to convince him to declare war on behalf of the Republic of Rannoch and having to shift him to cover the 1st Raiding's patrols so they can do it, or more conventional military failures. Does not strictly require use of the, "Casus Belli," option.
    -[X] Lystheni (Casus Belli): While no one thing the Lystheni have done constitutes an ironclad cause for war, taken together, considering the history of continued provocations, they are a damning case. Inform the Lystheni Ambassador of your opinion of such actions, inform the Assembly of the change in your diplomatic relations, and then send the Ambassador and his people home. This war won't drag on for decades. Time: 1 year. Chance of Success: 100%. Cost: Free. Effect: Declare war on the Lystheni state. If you do not take, "Backstab," with this, then you will make no organized offensive. If you do not take, "Trade Sanctions," you will conduct no organized withdrawal of your people from Lystheni space in advance of the declaration. Declaring war against a trading partner when most of your forces are already otherwise committed is complicated.
    -[X] Lystheni (Trade Sanctions): You no longer trust the Lystheni to host your people, and you no longer care to provide them the materials they've used to keep their projects going. For the safety of your merchants and to choke off the flow of supplies, you are closing down all trade with the Lystheni, and making an organized withdrawal of your people effective immediately. Time: 1 year. Chance of Success: 70%. Cost 20,000 credits, trade income (-40,000 yearly income). Effect: Halt all trade with the Lystheni, get your people out of there, and close the borders to free travel. The Lystheni, being possessed of non-zero intelligence quotients, will know that something is up. That said, re-opening trade would in and of itself be a potent bargaining chip in any actual negotiations.
    -[X] Colony Equipment: Assilia is as primed as it's going to be, which about means that you won't have to install orbital infrastructure yourself. Unfortunately, that's only one part of building a colony. You need to purchase the first wave of colonists' equipment -- everything needed to start constructing several small cities across the entire planet, and supply the fledgling colony in the years following its founding. Now that you're all ready to go otherwise, you'll want to take this soon. Time: 2 years. Chance of Success: 75%. Cost: 75,000 credits, -30,000 yearly income (income hit imposed at conclusion of option, persisting until Assilia Prime achieves self-sufficiency, a span of time you have no way of reliably estimating).
    -[X] Impending Crisis: The civilian populace has labored for decades under the lash of total war. Willingly, eagerly...but decades, nonetheless. No salarian now lives who remembers the galaxy before the Rachni. Entire generations have been born to the war. And each generation has had a little less, seen a bit more of the economy sustaining them cut away for the sake of the military. In recent years, you've attempted to expand the economy in order to support your burgeoning military spending and projects elsewhere, but you have a lot more people now than you did a decade ago. The economy has not expanded fast enough to support those people, and you keep on having other things to do than to clear the projects that you have to finish before you can even consider expanding the Army and sucking up some of that excess population. It seems...farcical...that a nation at total war could possibly be facing down an unemployment crisis, but that seems to be the reality. Time: 2 years. Chance of Success: 55%. Cost: 36,000 credits. Effect: Set a team to analyzing the problem of your looming unemployment crisis and determining what your options are.
    -[X] The Best Way To Deal With Pickpockets...: ...is to cut off their fucking fingers. Whether you're taking this conflict with them loud or not, you want to deal with their network now. You know exactly where it all is. If a part of that network extends past the Lystheni Embassy, rip it out. Anybody outside the embassy walls is fair game. Any equipment out in the open now belongs to you. Time: 1 year. Chance of Success: 85%. Cost: 25,000 credits. Effect: Inform the Lystheni that you see their intercept devices -- and that their presence does not well please you -- by way of removing it and any of its operators by force. Afterwards, pump them for everything they know or contain.
    -[X] Board of Shareholders: Kirai has reported an undercurrent of unrest in the high-society meetings (once parties, before wartime spending choked the luxuries industry to death) to which she is still frequently invited. The corporate types that tend to attend have been in a state of near-existential restrained terror since your purge of the Ministry of Finance, but with your recent moves, they've slowly begun to relax. Now, suddenly they're back to grimness. Paranoia and tension are the renewed orders of the day. Something has happened to rattle them, and it wasn't you. Find out what. Time: 1 year. Chance of Success: 65%. Cost: 35,000 credits. Effect: Dispatch CI-Division agents to find out who think they can scare the piss out of your favorite victims citizens without notifying you.
    -[X] Prothean Examination: The research team in Amalinya, after years of, "pushed a little, no progress gained," abruptly requested nigh-apocalyptic levels of firepower from your army in dealing with the security system. Something is not right down there. Durrahe plans to go and investigate personally. Time: 1 year. Chance of Success: ? (Personal attention may not be applied; see Personal options below.) Cost: 10,000 credits. Effect: Dispatch Durrahe to figure out what the hell is going on down there.
    -[X] Quarian Tech Adoption: You have sliced a huge amount of data from the 3rd's databanks. Now it's time to go through it and see what's there. Figuring out how to use it without making it blatantly obvious that you stole from the Republic is another matter, but let's...just...leave that for when you actually have all of these lessons learned, shall we? Time: 3 years. Chance of Success: 90%. Cost: 35,000 credits. Effect: Run through the mass of data you acquired and sort out what you already know, what you can use, and what's out of your reach, and how you'd go about applying all three.
    -[X] The Prime Minister Is Coming Here?: Something is up with the Amalinya prothean dig site. Whether or not you're letting Durrahe head over, you want to make sure that failures of communication like this never recur. Head on over there, put the fear of you into them, and get this project back on schedule. Time: 1 year. Chance of Success: ? Cost: 10,000 credits. Effect: Attend to this personally. Visit the Amalinya site and figure out what's going on there.
    -[X]Personal 1: Personal Attention Integrating Reforms [Military 24]
    -[X]Personal 2: Personal Attention Impending Crisis [Stewardship18]
    [X] Logistics II
    [X] Backstab
    [X] Lystheni (Casus Belli)
    [X] Lystheni (Trade Sanctions)
    [X] Colony Equipment
    [X] Administrative Overclocking
    [X] The Best Way To Deal With Pickpockets..
    [X] Board of Shareholders
    [X] Dietary Supplements
    [X] Prothean Examination
    [X] Personal Attention: Backstab
    [X] Commit Hero Unit (Kurik, Board of Shareholders)
    [X] Personal Attention: Administrative Overclocking
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uju32 said:
It's NOT defensive. The 3RWF is already patrolling in a defensive posture.
It's OFFENSIVE. That's the whole point of putting a capital ship fleet four systems away from the lystheni home planet.

Noone with any knowledge of the lystheni fleet will believe it's defensive. And this will cause Problems with the Quarians in the future.

And as I have repeatedly pointed out, we've seeded the frontier with tripwires and sensor systems specifically to watch for Lystheni.
From signal monitoring in the comm buoys, to entire surveillance systems. They aren't moving a fleet through the area without us having forewarning, and their fleet size is limited.
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Backsplash is a shift from a general defensive posture to a ready defensive posture and not a shift from a general defensive posture to an offensive posture. In the vote options, it is explicitly stated that if the Lystheni attack and we have not taken Backsplash or Backstab than we will not have an organized military response if the Lystheni decide to use their fleet against us. The shift in patrols is meant improve coverage in high risk border areas, increase force concentration to better handle Lystheni attacks, and improve fleet response times to possible Lystheni attacks.

If we wanted to start a war, Backstab would be the option to pick as it allows us to strike the first blow and limit the possibility of Lystheni fire ships wrecking our infrastructure. As things stand, the Lystheni behave erratically and often react with hostility and threats when something they don't like happens. I for one would not like to have our shipyards wrecked by our idiot neighbors.

uju32 said:
It's the Im Not Touching You option, where you wave your hands in the other person's face and when they react, say you did nothing.
It's Russia parking ten divisions of tanks on the Ukraine border, or the US moving several aircraft carriers near Iran or NK and flying planes along it's borders.

The lystheni are a genuinely unlikable nation-state, but people are basically setting up a military confrontation here that we do not need if we can avoid it. If we can't avoid it fine, but that's no reason to chase it.
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Shifting patrol patterns in our own territory is not equivalent to either of those. We are not parking the entire fleet in one area. They will still have patrols throughout our territory but now the border with the Lystheni will have higher priority and higher density patrols.
Thats not how it works; imminent threats concentrate the mind.
This is like saying cutting a telephoned death threat, or an evil eye by the neighbor, will worry them more than the armed gang sitting on their front lawn.

Not how it works either.
We're not kicking out their embassy. Comm buoys remain intact. The intelligence gathering function of an embassy is more than covert operations.
We're going after the NOCs, not the embassy officials.

I'm sorry, but I disagree with basically all of this.
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They are salarians. Salarians operate on an alpha strike mentality quite similar to IRL terrorists going through the various stages of scouting out possible targets, collecting information to refine their targets for maximum effect, planning to execute the attack, execution of the attack, and escape. Like IRL terrorists they are also heavily dependent on that second step: collect information to refine the target. This is generally the outline for how all military planning and actions are done but where the most emphasis is put varies from organization to organization. If you remove that focused step, then the whole thing stops working.

By directly ending their covert operations in our territory we are cutting them off at the knees in terms of how they operate. It's like if you took away the USN or the USAF from the US military. Sure, the Army and Marines can still do their jobs, but now they have almost no options for transport and lose out naval artillery and air supremacy crippling their doctrine. This is what we are doing to the Lystheni's military. It also sends the very clear message that we know. We know exactly what they have done, and they are not as good at their own game as we are.

We are about to back them in a corner by proving that we are the ones that make demands, not them. We are about to make it absolutely clear that there will be no concessions from us. We are about to prove them right about being afraid of us, and you do not want to be prepared for when the come swinging out of the corner we are backing them into. The sad thing is that this all could have been avoided if they had ever bothered to try and work with us in good faith. This was completely avoidable, but they let their fears rule them and so made those fears real.
 
Versharl said:
How is this not a wake-up call? Not only do we cut off trade, extract our citizens and close the borders. We also conduct negotiations under the implied threat of war.
I can't believe I'm arguing for restraint with these fuckers but I'd really rather avoid wasting a ton of actions on the conquest, occupation and suppression of the Lystheni.
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So, just to be clear, because apparently I didn't elucidate this clearly enough in my explanation...

My plan does everything @uju32 's plan does. Hell, uju, you even said you might have chosen it:
uju said:
I was very tempted to commit to Backsplash, but it seems unduly provocative
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Yes, it is more provocative; however, we are backing them into a corner with your plan anyway and I would much rather not sequester our martial options for two years. Essentially, I think they would likely believe the worst anyway, given we are rounding up their agents (and interrogating them) and pulling our people out of their space in advance of embargo. The war between us is inevitable, IMO, unless we do nothing at all.

TL; DR: Backsplash is used because it doesn't tie up our military for long and does increase our guard in advance of the worst.

Edit: Phone spelling
 
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Well, I'll throw a strategic vote out there:

[X] Plan Kan It

Honestly, I want to be provocative toward the Lystheni. They've certainly provoked us enough. The only reason not to go to war immediately is for PR purposes (and a little bit of being the bigger man Asari). If they decide to play stupid games and win the stupid prize of becoming a Virmirean protectorate, I won't shed any tears over it.
 
jacobk said:
Well, I'll throw a strategic vote out there:

[X] Plan Kan It

Honestly, I want to be provocative toward the Lystheni. They've certainly provoked us enough. The only reason not to go to war immediately is for PR purposes (and a little bit of being the bigger man Asari). If they decide to play stupid games and win the stupid prize of becoming a Virmirean protectorate, I won't shed any tears over it.
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For what it's worth, apparently we do Approval voting, so your plan was already contributing to the "Backsplash" vote.
 
Inserted tally
Adhoc vote count started by Nurgle on Feb 14, 2018 at 7:30 PM, finished with 10620 posts and 37 votes.
  • [X] Plan Kan it
    -[X]Martial 1: Integrating Reforms: -50,000 Income permanently: 3 years: DC41 - Minister 11 = DC30
    -[X]Martial 2: Backsplash: 30,000: 1 years: DC31 - Minister 11 = DC20
    -[X]Diplomacy 1: Lystheni(Making Demands): 20,000 : DC41 - Minister 11 = DC30
    -[X]Diplomacy 2: Lystheni(Trade Sanctions): 20,000 + -40,000 Income: DC31 - Minister 11 = DC20
    -[X]Stewardship 1: Colony Equipment: 70,000 + -30,000 Income(starting end of year 2): 2 years: DC26 - Minister 10 = DC16
    -[X]Stewardship 2: Administrative Overclocking: 42,000: DC31 - Minister 10 = DC21
    -[X]Intrigue 1: The Best Way To Deal With Pickpockets: 25,000: DC16 - Minister 12= DC4
    -[X]Intrigue 2: Board of Shareholders: 35,000: DC36 - Minister 12= DC24
    -[X]Learning 1: Quarian Tech Adoption: 35,000: 3 years: DC11 - Minister 11= DC0
    -[X]Learning 2: Dietary Supplements: 40,000: DC31 - Minister 11= DC20
    -[X]Personal 1: Personal Attention Integrating Reforms [Military 24]
    -[X]Personal 2: Personal Attention Lystheni Making Demands[Diplomacy 16]
    -[X]Personal 3: The Prime Minister Is Coming Here?: 10,000
    [X]Plan Nutcracker
    -[X]Martial 1: Integrating Reforms: -50,000 Income permanently: 3 years: DC41 - Minister 11 = DC30
    -[X]Martial 2: Marine Expansion: 30,000: 2 years: DC31 - Minister 11 = DC20
    -[X]Diplomacy 1: Lystheni(Making Demands): 20,000 : DC41 - Minister 11 = DC30
    -[X]Diplomacy 2: Lystheni(Trade Sanctions): 20,000 + -40,000 Income: DC31 - Minister 11 = DC20
    -[X]Stewardship 1: Colony Equipment: 70,000 + -30,000 Income(starting end of year 2): 2 years: DC26 - Minister 10 = DC16
    -[X]Stewardship 2: Administrative Overclocking: 42,000: DC31 - Minister 10 = DC21
    -[X]Intrigue 1: The Best Way To Deal With Pickpockets: 25,000: DC16 - Minister 12= DC4
    -[X]Intrigue 2: Board of Shareholders: 35,000: DC36 - Minister 12= DC24
    -[X]Learning 1: Quarian Tech Adoption: 35,000: 3 years: DC11 - Minister 11= DC0
    -[X]Learning 2: Dietary Supplements: 40,000: DC31 - Minister 11= DC20
    -[X]Personal 1: Personal Attention Integrating Reforms [Military 24]
    -[X]Personal 2: Personal Attention Lystheni Making Demands[Diplomacy 16]
    -[X]Personal 3: The Prime Minister Is Coming Here?: 10,000
    [X] Plan Overlord
    -[X] Integrating Reforms
    -[X] Backstab
    -[X] Lystheni (Casus Belli)
    -[X] Knowledge Exchange
    -[X] Colony Equipment
    -[X] Administrative Overclocking
    -[X] The Best Way To Deal With Pickpockets...
    -[X] Board of Shareholders
    -[X] Barrier Miniaturization
    -[X] Quarian Tech Adoption
    -[X] Personal Attention (Integrating Reforms)
    -[X] Personal Attention (Knowledge Exchange)
    -[X] The Prime Minister Is Coming Here?
    [X]Plan War
    -[X] Integrating Reforms: You have researched your new naval reforms, you have purchased the equipment it will take to build the fleet you want, you have improved your logistics network to support all of this (barely), and you will probably be fixing your marines at some point. All that now remains is to comb through your entire navy to apply this comprehensive re-working of your entire void military. Time: 3 years. Cost: -50,000 yearly income (permanently, and applied from start of option). Chance of Success: 60% Effect: Beyond restructuring your fleets, actually go through and ensure that your navy is up to date on the new tactics and that your naval academy is teaching it as required. Gain the benefits of Beshkarian doctrine.
    -[X] Backstab: The Lystheni have committed countless transgressions against you. Off the top of your head, unrepentant and systematic spying, theft and use of military designs, production of a secret navy during a time of existential war, and to cap it all off, the violation of a signed treaty regarding borders, one to which you initially agreed as a concession to them. The 3rd could deploy to backstop any backlash from you yelling at the Lystheni; they could also just cut out the middleman. Time: 1 year. Cost: 45,000 credits. Chance of Success: 60%. Effect: Describe the situation to Malan, and have him be your arm in your war with the Lystheni. Failure means either failure to convince him to declare war on behalf of the Republic of Rannoch and having to shift him to cover the 1st Raiding's patrols so they can do it, or more conventional military failures. Does not strictly require use of the, "Casus Belli," option.
    -[X] Lystheni (Casus Belli): While no one thing the Lystheni have done constitutes an ironclad cause for war, taken together, considering the history of continued provocations, they are a damning case. Inform the Lystheni Ambassador of your opinion of such actions, inform the Assembly of the change in your diplomatic relations, and then send the Ambassador and his people home. This war won't drag on for decades. Time: 1 year. Chance of Success: 100%. Cost: Free. Effect: Declare war on the Lystheni state. If you do not take, "Backstab," with this, then you will make no organized offensive. If you do not take, "Trade Sanctions," you will conduct no organized withdrawal of your people from Lystheni space in advance of the declaration. Declaring war against a trading partner when most of your forces are already otherwise committed is complicated.
    -[X] Lystheni (Trade Sanctions): You no longer trust the Lystheni to host your people, and you no longer care to provide them the materials they've used to keep their projects going. For the safety of your merchants and to choke off the flow of supplies, you are closing down all trade with the Lystheni, and making an organized withdrawal of your people effective immediately. Time: 1 year. Chance of Success: 70%. Cost 20,000 credits, trade income (-40,000 yearly income). Effect: Halt all trade with the Lystheni, get your people out of there, and close the borders to free travel. The Lystheni, being possessed of non-zero intelligence quotients, will know that something is up. That said, re-opening trade would in and of itself be a potent bargaining chip in any actual negotiations.
    -[X] Colony Equipment: Assilia is as primed as it's going to be, which about means that you won't have to install orbital infrastructure yourself. Unfortunately, that's only one part of building a colony. You need to purchase the first wave of colonists' equipment -- everything needed to start constructing several small cities across the entire planet, and supply the fledgling colony in the years following its founding. Now that you're all ready to go otherwise, you'll want to take this soon. Time: 2 years. Chance of Success: 75%. Cost: 75,000 credits, -30,000 yearly income (income hit imposed at conclusion of option, persisting until Assilia Prime achieves self-sufficiency, a span of time you have no way of reliably estimating).
    -[X] Impending Crisis: The civilian populace has labored for decades under the lash of total war. Willingly, eagerly...but decades, nonetheless. No salarian now lives who remembers the galaxy before the Rachni. Entire generations have been born to the war. And each generation has had a little less, seen a bit more of the economy sustaining them cut away for the sake of the military. In recent years, you've attempted to expand the economy in order to support your burgeoning military spending and projects elsewhere, but you have a lot more people now than you did a decade ago. The economy has not expanded fast enough to support those people, and you keep on having other things to do than to clear the projects that you have to finish before you can even consider expanding the Army and sucking up some of that excess population. It seems...farcical...that a nation at total war could possibly be facing down an unemployment crisis, but that seems to be the reality. Time: 2 years. Chance of Success: 55%. Cost: 36,000 credits. Effect: Set a team to analyzing the problem of your looming unemployment crisis and determining what your options are.
    -[X] The Best Way To Deal With Pickpockets...: ...is to cut off their fucking fingers. Whether you're taking this conflict with them loud or not, you want to deal with their network now. You know exactly where it all is. If a part of that network extends past the Lystheni Embassy, rip it out. Anybody outside the embassy walls is fair game. Any equipment out in the open now belongs to you. Time: 1 year. Chance of Success: 85%. Cost: 25,000 credits. Effect: Inform the Lystheni that you see their intercept devices -- and that their presence does not well please you -- by way of removing it and any of its operators by force. Afterwards, pump them for everything they know or contain.
    -[X] Board of Shareholders: Kirai has reported an undercurrent of unrest in the high-society meetings (once parties, before wartime spending choked the luxuries industry to death) to which she is still frequently invited. The corporate types that tend to attend have been in a state of near-existential restrained terror since your purge of the Ministry of Finance, but with your recent moves, they've slowly begun to relax. Now, suddenly they're back to grimness. Paranoia and tension are the renewed orders of the day. Something has happened to rattle them, and it wasn't you. Find out what. Time: 1 year. Chance of Success: 65%. Cost: 35,000 credits. Effect: Dispatch CI-Division agents to find out who think they can scare the piss out of your favorite victims citizens without notifying you.
    -[X] Prothean Examination: The research team in Amalinya, after years of, "pushed a little, no progress gained," abruptly requested nigh-apocalyptic levels of firepower from your army in dealing with the security system. Something is not right down there. Durrahe plans to go and investigate personally. Time: 1 year. Chance of Success: ? (Personal attention may not be applied; see Personal options below.) Cost: 10,000 credits. Effect: Dispatch Durrahe to figure out what the hell is going on down there.
    -[X] Quarian Tech Adoption: You have sliced a huge amount of data from the 3rd's databanks. Now it's time to go through it and see what's there. Figuring out how to use it without making it blatantly obvious that you stole from the Republic is another matter, but let's...just...leave that for when you actually have all of these lessons learned, shall we? Time: 3 years. Chance of Success: 90%. Cost: 35,000 credits. Effect: Run through the mass of data you acquired and sort out what you already know, what you can use, and what's out of your reach, and how you'd go about applying all three.
    -[X] The Prime Minister Is Coming Here?: Something is up with the Amalinya prothean dig site. Whether or not you're letting Durrahe head over, you want to make sure that failures of communication like this never recur. Head on over there, put the fear of you into them, and get this project back on schedule. Time: 1 year. Chance of Success: ? Cost: 10,000 credits. Effect: Attend to this personally. Visit the Amalinya site and figure out what's going on there.
    -[X]Personal 1: Personal Attention Integrating Reforms [Military 24]
    -[X]Personal 2: Personal Attention Impending Crisis [Stewardship18]
    [X] Logistics II
    [X] Backstab
    [X] Lystheni (Casus Belli)
    [X] Lystheni (Trade Sanctions)
    [X] Colony Equipment
    [X] Administrative Overclocking
    [X] The Best Way To Deal With Pickpockets..
    [X] Board of Shareholders
    [X] Dietary Supplements
    [X] Prothean Examination
    [X] Personal Attention: Backstab
    [X] Commit Hero Unit (Kurik, Board of Shareholders)
    [X] Personal Attention: Administrative Overclocking
    [X] Plan Covering Bases
    -[X] Integrating Reforms
    -[X] Backsplash
    -[X] Lystheni (Making Demands)
    -[X] Lystheni (Trade Sanctions)
    -[X] Colony Equipment
    -[X] Economic Review
    -[X] The Best Way To Deal With Pickpockets...
    -[X] Board of Shareholders
    -[X] Dietary Supplements
    -[X] Prothean Examination
    -[x] Personal Attention: Lystheni (Making Demands)
    -[X] Personal Attention: Economic Review
    -[X] Personal Attention (Integrating Reforms)
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pbluekan said:
TL; DR: Backsplash is used because it doesn't tie up our military for long and does increase our guard in advance of the worst.
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Eh, you convinced me

jacobk said:
Well, I'll throw a strategic vote out there:
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And you damn near ruined it. I hate strategic voting, and the guy who tried in To Boldly Go quest got shat on from nearly every side for doing it. You get a pass b/c it hasn't been a problem before

Edit- forgot to change my vote
[X] Plan Kan It
 
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Mr Tebbs said:
And you damn near ruined it. I hate strategic voting, and the guy who tried in To Boldly Go quest got shat on from nearly every side for doing it. You get a pass b/c it hasn't been a problem before
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For what it's worth, he isn't voting for multiple plans, which is where it gets ugly and is the actual problem with approval or strategic voting. This is more voting for what he thinks will win and is closest to what he wants. If anything, this is exactly what Kirai was talking about at the beginning of the update.

Which is fine, honestly. If you want to compromise your overall opinion for the things you thing are most important, that's your prerogative.
 
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