5 Minor Actions

[] Mother of Circles: Beyond returning to the Circles to learn and teach, there's also the opportunity to simply be part of them again. You never lost your place among them, you simply set it aside for a time. Now you can return to it if you wish, to grow and build.

Synergy with the below Nexus probably, otherwise should wait.

[] Valkyries: The Two Twenty Three were the only force to emerge from the Second Battle of Sol intact, after facing the most lethal of the FSN's enemies in that fight. They brought down the Medicament, and faced Shiplords in direct combat aboard Calypso. Yet there is much that can still be done to temper the blade of the Unisonbound, and you are part of that weapon. With Third Sol swiftly approaching, even the smallest flaw could be fatal. None must be.

We have invested many actions into The Two Twenty Three, and have been warned that diminishing returns are a thing. That said, on the eve of a battle, an action here would not be remiss.

*New* [] Nexus: Before the Second Battle of Sol, you forged a nexus of power from your words that eventually granted you the strength to Speak Purify upon the Medicament that travelled with the Tribute Fleet. Now, Adriana has suggested you do so once again, for the battle to come.

This, and twice, I believe. We have invested many actions into this, and we will need it.

*New* [] Worldheart: Humanity is far more stable and ready for this moment than it was for the Second Battle of Sol, but that doesn't mean entirely. Adding your voice to those working to maintain that stability might not be needed, but it would help in ways nothing else could.

An action here if we can spare it. It's been a while since Amanda unified humanity, and it could probably use a refresher. Unnecessary though I think.

4 Personal Actions
Mentor not locked this round due to Third Battle of Sol.

[] Unison Training: Training with the entire Two Twenty Three is one thing, but you can get just as much personally out of dedicating time to work with your own small part of it. Vega, Kalilah and you represent three of the organisations most powerful members, and a high level of synchronicity between you will reflect on the rest even without full group training. Of course, combining the two will make that effect much stronger.

Same as Valkyries. Not a priority I believe but one action is probably wise.

[] Bonds of Blood and Laughter: Although your sabbatical has ended, you won't be missing your friends or family as much as you did before. Lead Director of Arcadia is a big job, but it pales in comparison to the Presidency. Still, you could always make more time.

Almost certainly a good idea to spend one action here if we can spare it I think.

[] Mentor: When Iris found her first friends in Aya and her sister Nei, you had been glad. You'd not expected that, most of a decade later, you'd be teaching one of those friends how to understand and use her Focus. But what Aya might be able to do, once she does know those things, would make the effort worth it regardless. That it lets her be near to those she cares for, well…that's just a happy side-effect.

No. She can not contribute here, and we can teach her later. Waste of our limited, precious time before the enemy arrives.

[] Lyrics of Fire: You can remember the melody of the song that rang in your mind in the moment you spoke Purify the first time, at the height of the Second Battle of Sol, but you cannot find the words. To Speak as you did then, or even surpass it, you must find not just the shape and feel and sound of humanity, but the music which makes it more than a civilisation of those who are simply living. [157/???]

We really, really want to finish this if we can I believe, especially if we combo it with the Nexus. At least two actions I say.

Overall, I think:

[X] Plan Singing Valkyrie

Minor (5)
-[] Mother of Circles
-[] Valkyries
-[] Nexus – 2 Actions
-[] Worldheart

Personal (4)
-[] Unison Training
-[] Bonds of Blood and Laughter
-[] Lyrics of Fire – 2 Actions
 
Shortly took a little bit longer than planned. Sorry about that.

@Snowfire

I know we don't get to vote on which research actions Mary will pursue, but out of sheer curiosity... what research actions will Mary pursue? I assume we'd know.

Continuing Third Secret research mostly, with a side of Practice in Unity and Eternal Well. And as @mastigos has guessed, she'll be working on all of them.

@Snowfire, would it be a valid action to donate some of our time as the foremost Speaker to helping the government with last minute preperation projects? Basically acting as a hero unit giving Practice dice like Vega did back when we were president.

It would be, yes, but in general they've got enough Potentials to handle those projects - and there aren't all that many of them.
 
[X] Plan Rainbow Paradise Blueray Mk 2

Minor (5)
[] Nexus – 2 Action
[] Valkyries – 2 Actions
[] Transfer to Personal

Personal (4)

[] Unison Training – 2 Actions
[] Bonds of Blood and Laughter
[] Lyrics of Fire – 2 Actions

Not sure that the synergy between Mother of Circles and Lyrics of Fire would be as likely to finish it as a second action there, and Lyrics of Fire is pretty important.
 
[x] Plan Rainbow Paradise Blueray mk2

EDIT: Sure, you know, mk2 is fine with me too.
 
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Not sure that the synergy between Mother of Circles and Lyrics of Fire would be as likely to finish it as a second action there, and Lyrics of Fire is pretty important.
Not really.
Amanda is already a Speaker. We don't strictly speaking need more tha
If Lyrics of Fire doesn't finish

OTOH, Mother of Circles is pretty goddamn important to any effort at duplicating Purify.
It was the civilians back on Earth that helped concentrate the raw Practice energy that Amanda wielded during Second Sol.
It was the Circles that concentrated the Practice energy that Amanda used when making her latest artifact.

Taking Nexus without Mother of Circles is severely suboptimal.
 
Not really.
Amanda is already a Speaker. We don't strictly speaking need more tha
If Lyrics of Fire doesn't finish

OTOH, Mother of Circles is pretty goddamn important to any effort at duplicating Purify.
It was the civilians back on Earth that helped concentrate the raw Practice energy that Amanda wielded during Second Sol.
It was the Circles that concentrated the Practice energy that Amanda used when making her latest artifact.

Taking Nexus without Mother of Circles is severely suboptimal.
I disagree. We've already done a bunch of actions focused around the Circles, and the Lyrics of Fire action is pretty explicit that we need to complete it before we can pull off Speaking at that level again. Sure, another action to charge up or focus even more potential would be great, but moar power is a secondary concern compared to being able to use it at all.
 
[X] Plan Heart of the World
[] Nexus – 2 Action
[] Worldheart– 2 Actions
[] Mother of Circles
Personal (4)
[] Unison Training – 2 Actions
[] Lyrics of Fire – 2 Actions
 
I disagree. We've already done a bunch of actions focused around the Circles, and the Lyrics of Fire action is pretty explicit that we need to complete it before we can pull off Speaking at that level again. Sure, another action to charge up or focus even more potential would be great, but moar power is a secondary concern compared to being able to use it at all.
I disagree with your disagreement :p

More seriously, unlike the rest, Mother of Circles is not a project that ends.
With our discovery that the Circles themselves are a humongous communal Artifact, it's very much like wielding an additional booster in it's area of application.

Furthermore, we literally just consciously wielded huge amounts of power in forging the new artifact.
Not in time.

Veda Anand raised a single hand towards you, and invisible power flooded into the room around you, until you could almost see sparking in the air. Less than you'd wielded at the Second Battle of Sol, you realised, but that made sense. That had been the focus of billions, and even with the gathering places you could see filled to beyond capacity, there were at most perhaps millions present. And yet Purify had outshone the light of Sol itself. Even if you reduced it a thousand times, that would be a truly phenomenal amount of energy.

Yet the energy requirements for this Artefact, if it was going to work as you'd planned, had been phenomenal, too. It had been the largest reason for your doubts, and Veda had known that. Of course she'd known, that was who she was. All the way back to the Miracle of Prologue, she'd had a gift that was, in its own way, just as powerful as Vega's. She'd seen what you'd been missing then, and helped find a path to where Prologue could be made real. And now, she'd done it again, as if the differences in scale were entirely irrelevant.

With her free hand, her left, she touched the imager's controls again, and the multidimensional outline of what you were trying to create flowed into the air around you. You looked at it, at the shapes and the possibility, at how it was almost real, yet not. Missing pieces, like it was broken. And at that thought, your Focus took hold and all your doubts vanished.

You were a Mender. That was what you'd always been, even before you Awoke as a Potential. You fixed broken things, and made them better, if you could. That was who you were, who you always would be. This creation around you was incomplete, but you could make it whole. What more was there than that? What more could there be? All you needed right now was enough energy, and looking around you, it was all right there.

So you opened yourself up to it, everything that had been offered, and your world changed. Everything brightened impossibly, as if under a giant's flashlight, revealing everything you needed to see in perfect clarity. You didn't move, didn't gesture, didn't even speak. You just let that power come pouring in, down into your Focus, to the heart of your self.

And your soul answered.
Millions of Circle members, consciously focusing Power into Amanda for the first time in human history, which she then took and forged into a new weapon. Unlike during 2nd Sol, where both Amanda and the people of Earth didn't even realize they were both part of a feedback loop, or wielding an artifact.

We do not actually need to finish Lyrics of Fire. It's nice to have, it's not essential.
But Mother of Circles is likely to ensure that we actually succeed with attempting Nexus. Because Speech at the level of Purify was a communal act shared with the rest of Humanity, not an act of personal skill on Amanda's part.
 
Not sure that the synergy between Mother of Circles and Lyrics of Fire would be as likely to finish it as a second action there, and Lyrics of Fire is pretty important.
Pretty sure that there isn't a direct synergy there. There is one with Nexus though, and Nexus is what powers the Lyrics of Fire.

Also, as seen with Purify, even incomplete projects can have an effect. We could not yet reliably Speak back then if I recall correctly.

I also remember an incomplete skill being used when we were almost assassinated.
 
We do not actually need to finish Lyrics of Fire. It's nice to have, it's not essential.
Wrong.
[] Lyrics of Fire: You can remember the melody of the song that rang in your mind in the moment you spoke Purify the first time, at the height of the Second Battle of Sol, but you cannot find the words. To Speak as you did then, or even surpass it, you must find not just the shape and feel and sound of humanity, but the music which makes it more than a civilisation of those who are simply living. [157/???]
The action is quite explicit. We cannot speak at the same level as we did then without completing Lyrics.

Large scale Speaking is a multi-stage process, where first people donate power to Amanda and then she uses it. It does not matter how much energy is poured into Amanda's soul in that first stage if she cannot make use of it in the second stage.
 
I also remember an incomplete skill being used when we were almost assassinated.

You almost discovered the very basic outline of Speaking, and then the subnet fire support platform blew most of your chest into vapor with a plasma lance. You survived by throwing all of that power behind what can most easily be summed up as a highly adrenaline fueled mental scream of "IDON'TWANTTODIE!"
 
Millions of Circle members, consciously focusing Power into Amanda for the first time in human history, which she then took and forged into a new weapon. Unlike during 2nd Sol, where both Amanda and the people of Earth didn't even realize they were both part of a feedback loop, or wielding an artifact.

A point to note. That was 'only' a million or two, at most. Amanda during the SBOS was acting as a nexus point for the hopes and prayers of most of ten billion.

The action is quite explicit. We cannot speak at the same level as we did then without completing Lyrics.

Large scale Speaking is a multi-stage process, where first people donate power to Amanda and then she uses it. It does not matter how much energy is poured into Amanda's soul in that first stage if she cannot make use of it in the second stage.

Second point of note. You cannot speak reliably or with true control in the same way or with the same sort of literally worldshaping power. Purify basically brute-forced it, all you got in terms of control was a word said a precise way to mean a certain thing. You know (now) that there is a lot more nuance possible with Speaking, and it's those skills more than raw power which are most likely to bring you victory without Amanda accidentallying sections of your own fleet.

Lyrics of Fire will also make her far more capable, though not comfortable, with using her Practice as a weapon instead of a defence. Healer's Fire only got you some of way, and I meant limited when I said that was all it unlocked for you.
 
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[X] Plan Singing Valkyrie
[X] Plan Rainbow Paradise Blueray Mk 2

Im fine woth either of these plans winning. My big priority is nexusx2 and lofx2
 
Does this even WORK with NetTally, or would it treat this as a spoiled vote?

NetTally can handle voting of this sort just fine, I think.

On a more general note, something that you would have found out from your News post had one been made - I'm not apologising - is that the auxiliary Unisonbound formation has been training with the 223 and will continue to do so this year. Your being present there this year to help them, given your skill as a both a Unisonbound and a teacher, would have effects that wouldn't just be limited to Amanda herself or even just the 223.
 
Inserted tally
Adhoc vote count started by uju32 on Aug 9, 2019 at 6:26 PM, finished with 43 posts and 16 votes.
 
Goodness, five different plans, and three of them all very close. I guess less really can be more!

Will leave this open the next few days, most likely. I have a few other things to focus on atm.
 
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