Remove ads

The Practice War [Complete]

Reader mode
[X] A Path of Words: This power that seeks to choke away the link between you and your Unison Platform cannot be laid against the other Potentials among humanity's fleets. Do as a healer sometimes must. Become a soldier, and end those craft.
 
I will most likely close this tomorrow (Monday) evening or Tuesday morning before my classes start. Just to give people an idea of the timescale I'm aiming for. The vote is still currently close enough for a handful to swing it.
Adhoc vote count started by Snowfire on Sep 22, 2019 at 6:27 PM, finished with 73 posts and 25 votes.
  • [X] A Path of Words: This power that seeks to choke away the link between you and your Unison Platform cannot be laid against the other Potentials among humanity's fleets. Do as a healer sometimes must. Become a soldier, and end those craft.
    [X] Lantern's Charge: If it can be hard to see the sun when darkness surrounds you, then be the sun itself. Make of yourself a lighthouse, and use the strength of the web shone through it to drown the night.
    [X] Withstand: This is not the moment that hope dies. None of you will allow it. The Shiplords have flung their most lethal weapons yet against you, and you yet live. Perhaps it cannot last forever, but you can endure this. The other Potentials among First and Second Fleet? You think not.
Click to expand...
 
Inserted tally
Adhoc vote count started by uju32 on Sep 23, 2019 at 9:42 AM, finished with 77 posts and 28 votes.
Click to expand...
 
Lantern is apparently winning by a single vote.
For the love of God people, do not get into a beam battle with the fucking Shiplords. Do not give them additional data to calibrate the Soulbreaker weapons of this fleet or the next one with.
 
Last edited:
Killer_Whale said:
There are no good options, all the options can go horribly wrong. I flipped a coin to break the tie.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
All options have risk. That's war.
This one feels to me entirely too much like a repeat of the passivity of the previous two turns, only this time without the excuse of working to a gameplan that was aimed at drawing in the entirety of the Regular Fleet.

We have literally never beat the Shiplords by conservatism.

Shadows of Sorrow required us to assault a working Shiplord node with close to no intelligence. Second Battle of Sol had Marcus and Vision counterattacking into the Shiplord Net, and the turning point was Amanda outright blowing up a Medicament with no training in Speaking.
This battle started with Iris counterhacking the SLs to blow up their couriers, giving us a tactical edge at the beginning of this fight.

Initiative matters.
Giving up the initiative to a millions year-old space civilization that has ships older than human civilization, and has a toolbag deeper than sin, is simply giving them more time to hit us with a prepared tactic they've used before, and giving them data.

I specifically recall people voting to spend Actions on refining our Speaking.
Even in the last six months before this battle, the winning plan had people voting to spend two Actions on Lyrics of Fire, specifically to improve Amanda's Speaking. AND comboing it with Nexus.

We even spent time on Healer's Fire. Specifically for a situation like this.

We prepped for this.
We did not prep for beam battles with Shiplord anti-Practice dreadnoughts while engaged in close-range combat with a significant fraction of their fleet. And we certainly didn't prep for going glowbug in the middle of a fleet battle while Soulbreak effects are being tossed around.
 
Last edited:
[X] Lantern's Charge

A messed Word with the power of humanity behind it would be bad, and this option will likely reveal more about this weapon and how to counter it. Vital long term info.
 
Enerael said:
A messed Word with the power of humanity behind it would be bad, and this option will likely reveal more about this weapon and how to counter it. Vital long term info.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
It will also give the Shiplords more information on human Practice and how to counter it, and increases the chances of couriers getting away from this battle with information they can analyse for next time.
We have spent extreme amounts of effort on information security and paid cash in lives specifically to avoid that possibility.


Militaries do their very best to avoid situations they did not train for.
Amanda trained for Speaking under pressure. Trained other people to do the same as well.
This is quite literally what your plan from Turn 25 voted for.
 
[X] A Path of Words: This power that seeks to choke away the link between you and your Unison Platform cannot be laid against the other Potentials among humanity's fleets. Do as a healer sometimes must. Become a soldier, and end those craft.
 
Urgh. Now you've got me rethinking my vote, and we can't have that. It would call my perfection into question.

Distractions, distractions. A while ago I promised to post some GPT2-produced text, so here's what it thinks should be the proper continuation of the chapter:

At the centre of a maelstrom of power, just barely holding back the attack of your enemy you might be. But you always had options. The perks of not fighting alone. The ideas came in concept form only, no words, but they came. Four, above all, the rest derivatives, and the words pulsed in your mind. You could seek to overwhelm the assault against you, or simply overcome it. You could try to escape, too, thought that would take you through the lion's share of the Shiplord Fleet to reach safe harbour. And of course, there was another choice. To forge a path of Words from the strength of your soul, and set it against power of Shiplord science.

There wasn't a single one of those options you liked, but there was a time and a place for such luxuries. Now wasn't one of them.

You tried to focus, and your Focus was Words. The words you'd forged in that place, which had been the first of many to come.

"Sending you the latest report on the fleet." You read the report, gesturing to the person beside you. "The Shiplords are arriving, and we can't be surprised by their presence if their theory is correct." You nodded to the person in front of you. "The Lina is making her presence known, and if you would be so kind as to repeat that for us." You didn't have to be told twice, now.

"The report you sent us." You asked, voice sounding very calm. "We are very glad that you have the situation under control, but we would prefer that you not make any comment on this in any way." You tapped the report, and a new face appeared. "What did you want?" You asked. "We're not sure. The report you sent us, we have no idea what it says. But we do know that they are here. They better be here soon, before we have to make a decision that will affect our own survival." You regarded the report for a moment, then nodded again. "I shall send this in." You sent to the report-writer. "It is not particularly important, but we want to know as much as we can. We would be happy to help in any way we can, and we would love to hear your thoughts on what we would like to do if they are here."

And so you waited, desperately trying to imagine what would happen if you didn't follow the report you'd been given. It had been prepared, after all. You weren't
sure if you could even begin to build a new one if you had to, but you couldn't afford to waste a moment.

"The Shiplords are here," the report read, "but you have no idea how they came to be here, and we don't even know what they might be trying to do. We do know that you are here, however, and we would be happy to help you understand why we are here." You paused, then nodded. "Of course."

"This is a report." You replied, and the report shifted in your hands. "Please read this carefully. We want to be as clear as possible, and this is a classified matter." The report shifted, and you moved your hand in a sign, signalling for it to stop. Then you read. "The Shiplords came here to bring down the House of Usurper, and we have been told that this is the reason for the blockade that you have been conducting against them. This is the report that we have been given, and it has some suggestions. But it is not the complete report." You smiled. "This is a report. The report you sent us, we only know it was prepared, which raises another question, which I want answered first. Why are they here?"

"There are reasons for the Shiplords' presence, and they are both very serious." The report blinked rapidly, in code for Iris. "They are both detailed in the report. It is as it said. They are here to be here."
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Ooo-kaaay. I guess you know what this means, then. Our Focus is Words -- you heard it here first, and in light of this new information I have no option but to change my vote.

[X] A Path of Words: This power that seeks to choke away the link between you and your Unison Platform cannot be laid against the other Potentials among humanity's fleets. Do as a healer sometimes must. Become a soldier, and end those craft.

All jokes aside, none of these options are safe. No matter what we pick, there'd be a risk of blowback. This is the highest risk, highest reward option, and I'm not convinced we need it, but it's also true that we've needed to take those options in the past. Whether we succeed or fail, it'll be an interesting story to read.

Mikki, stop punching me!
 
uju32 said:
It will also give the Shiplords more information on human Practice and how to counter it, and increases the chances of couriers getting away from this battle with information they can analyse for next time.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Every single option does that.

Purify had the energy output of the entire Sun for a moment. We have even more skill and power behind it now, it being disrupted and hitting what it shouldn't would be very, very bad. And also show SLs that they have a counter to Words.

Lantern is safer and should help us when faced with this weapon again in the future, which we will be for certain. We need defences against this thing.
 
[X] A Path of Words: This power that seeks to choke away the link between you and your Unison Platform cannot be laid against the other Potentials among humanity's fleets. Do as a healer sometimes must. Become a soldier, and end those craft.

This is the time to play our big cards, or else we risk losing them. The enemy will always have countermeasures, and that's just something we have to accept and get past.
 
Enerael said:
Every single option does that.
Purify had the energy output of the entire Sun for a moment. We have even more skill and power behind it now, it being disrupted and hitting what it shouldn't would be very, very bad. And also show SLs that they have a counter to Words.
Lantern is safer and should help us when faced with this weapon again in the future, which we will be for certain. We need defences against this thing.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
-We used Purify with no training or backup against a fleet with Essence Disruption.
Amanda right now actually has a decade plus of training, AND backup from trained Speakers and Harmonials.

-Lantern digs even deeper into whatever power source Practice uses for increased power output.
And furthermore, you risk letting couriers escape with readings on how human Practice manifests.
Soulbreak has a wavelength mismatch. I don't want it finetuned.
 
uju32 said:
-We used Purify with no training or backup against a fleet with Essence Disruption.
Amanda right now actually has a decade plus of training, AND backup from trained Speakers and Harmonials.

-Lantern digs even deeper into whatever power source Practice uses for increased power output.
And furthermore, you risk letting couriers escape with readings on how human Practice manifests.
Soulbreak has a wavelength mismatch. I don't want it finetuned.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
For the former, the issue here is not Amandas skill. She will be able to Speak the Work without issue, its that once it leaves the barrier, the Word might get... garbled. When having more than Purify worth of energy behind it, if we go all out. We have not trained in Speaking Words such that they are hard to mess with.

What do you mean by backup? Only Amanda will Speak, they will be irrelevant for that Word, except for the Harmonials helping with the Web from which we are getting all that power.

What makes you say that? Lantern is about countering the weapon, not focusing on power output necessarily. I imagine that its more about finding a "frequency" that resonates destructively with it, that trying to... I'm not sure what. Smother it with power?

Couriers will escape, thats a given. All of our options here involve Practice, and thus give data on it. Speaking might give the least, as we plan on Speaking later, too, and Vega already did so, unless doing so under the fire from those weapons would give them vital data, which it might.

Neither do I, which is why I want it countered. They would tune it based on sensor readings throughout this battle and on testing the weapon on lesser, non-223 Potentials later if they fail here and now. This is not a one shot weapon. We will be dealing with it for the rest of our war with SLs, unless we make it ineffective.
 
[X] A Path of Words: This power that seeks to choke away the link between you and your Unison Platform cannot be laid against the other Potentials among humanity's fleets. Do as a healer sometimes must. Become a soldier, and end those craft.
 
Enerael said:
Lantern is safer and should help us when faced with this weapon again in the future, which we will be for certain. We need defences against this thing.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Lantern isn't a defense. What is does is say "Sure these weapons are doing damage to the web, but I'mma dig real deep and build the web up up faster than they can tear it down." It's not really stopping the weapons so much as getting into a buff/debuff contest with them.
 
Heading out right now, so further answes needto wait a couple hours.
Just to address this, though:
Enerael said:
What makes you say that? Lantern is about countering the weapon, not focusing on power output necessarily.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I quote:
Snowfire said:
Lantern's Charge is the charge of a lantern, to bring light in the dark, until the night dies. It means digging deeper into the links between you, into the leashed energy of humanity, and simply sending it out until it drowns the power pf the weapons set against you. If that's even possible, well, is another story. That said, none of these options are good ones. All of them have their upsides, but none of them are truly good.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
 
It's not as if speaking hasn't its failure modes:
Snowfire said:
Ah, ok. Assuming rolls are kind, Amanda should be able to Speak without a truly enormous amount of difficulty. The problem is where the Words move beyond the barrier around the 223. Specifically if the energy structure bound to them gets disrupted by the anti-Practice weaponry, and changes the way in which the Word was Spoken.

Your chosen vote is closest to what you described, yes. But the mechanics of the action aren't quite that simple.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
All options work with hidden variables - like it were a real battle.
 
Last edited:
MTB said:
The latter two thirds of that ... text read like breaching the fourth wall.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
No need for the uncertainty. It's definitely text, and it contains much of what makes Practice War what it is.

You should read the report carefully. It was prepared, after all.

Have some more!
But, really, what you're doing here is like saying that
you are building an entirely new type of life for yourself,
and a few of them are just born to be you.
"But they're not quite, are they?" You asked, and Mary started to
glare. "No. I don't think they are. What we've seen of the
Elder First has pointed to other things, but not the First." She
blushed. "What are we looking at?"

"Well," you started to say, but she cut you off before you could.
"No. I mean, they are. I mean, they are the results of a ." You
tried to weave a sense of pity into that sentence, but it was too much.
"And they are based on a practice that we know nothing about. We
know that some of the Elder First were using it in the first
generations of their existence, but we don't know anything about
it. We know that they were older when they established the first
full-body training, but we don't know how they did it. What we have
seen so far, it looks like the First were starting from the
first generation of them, and that they modified the technique to
make it more difficult to detect. If this is the case, I
should be able to get a better understanding of how to build
on that. It should be possible to undo the damage done by the
Second Secret, but it will be a far more complicated process than simply
training the Elder First. I mean, I knew that some of the Elder First
were actually using Practice to train, but I never understood how.
That you could access Practice through your Focus, however."

"Well, you've got some explaining to do." Mary said, sharply. "I
know which of us is right." She shook her head. "What we have seen of the First
generations of the Elder First is very different to what we expect from a
second generation. The First made it clear that they were training to be
something more, to expand their capabilities. We don't know what that means,
but it looks different. The First, when they trained, they were trying to
build a new kind of person. We don't know why they were doing that, but we
have to wonder."

"I don't have to, Mary." You said, and you looked down at her. "I
didn't make that. I was born after the Second Secret, and that makes
me an outsider. I mean, I was born after the Second Secret was broken, and I
know knowledge of the Second Secret. We don't know that much, but I know
that it was done to train humans. If the Elder First were
training, I would imagine they would have had some sort of
teacher to help them learn, and I was that teacher. I was trained as a
full-time tutor for the First, and I can tell you that I was definitely trained to
teach. I know that. I did my best." You didn't like to say that, and
Mary was staring at you. "He didn't have to. You said you were
trained." You lowered your voice. "But why?"
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
 
Last edited:
uju32 said:
I quote:
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Huh. Missed that.

Well, here's hoping that we still have a reroll squirrelled away somewhere.

[X] A Path of Words: This power that seeks to choke away the link between you and your Unison Platform cannot be laid against the other Potentials among humanity's fleets. Do as a healer sometimes must. Become a soldier, and end those craft.
 
[X] A Path of Words: This power that seeks to choke away the link between you and your Unison Platform cannot be laid against the other Potentials among humanity's fleets. Do as a healer sometimes must. Become a soldier, and end those craft.

Ahhhhhhhhhh mind-change.
Beam-battles are bad.
 
Last edited:
Reader mode
You must login or register to reply here.
Remove ads
Back
Top