The Practice War [Complete]
- Thread starter Snowfire
- Start date
- Original Sci-Fi
One other thing that just occurred to me with regards to Diplomacy:
Note that thanks to Iris and Vision, the Shiplords did not break into the human Network. All their info on Humanity is about seventy years out of date.
They don't know we have contact with the outside world; we've sent out no explorers, and none of their spies in the other races have reported a First Contact of any sort with Humanity. They don't know we know about the War Fleets, or how they function. They don't know we're engaged in building a technological defense against them.
They don't know we have a good idea of the age and extent of their empire, their force dipositions, and how its stretched.
They don't have much, if any idea, of what we know about them and their abilities.
They can, however, look at the Sol System and it's level of development, plus the ships we have currently deployed, and determine that it's currently nowhere near their own state of the art.
Let alone the logistical depth that they can bring to bear.
From their PoV, any offer of Diplomacy would be in the position of the college student who knocked down the local bully in a bar brawl and is offering to end things there, without recognizing that said bully's colors declared him a member of the local Bandidos or Crips chapter.
IOW, a grave misapprehension of our position, speaking from ignorance.
So I'll reiterate that any expectations of this triggering any sort of factional split in Shiplord society is probably misplaced.
Note that thanks to Iris and Vision, the Shiplords did not break into the human Network. All their info on Humanity is about seventy years out of date.
They don't know we have contact with the outside world; we've sent out no explorers, and none of their spies in the other races have reported a First Contact of any sort with Humanity. They don't know we know about the War Fleets, or how they function. They don't know we're engaged in building a technological defense against them.
They don't know we have a good idea of the age and extent of their empire, their force dipositions, and how its stretched.
They don't have much, if any idea, of what we know about them and their abilities.
They can, however, look at the Sol System and it's level of development, plus the ships we have currently deployed, and determine that it's currently nowhere near their own state of the art.
Let alone the logistical depth that they can bring to bear.
From their PoV, any offer of Diplomacy would be in the position of the college student who knocked down the local bully in a bar brawl and is offering to end things there, without recognizing that said bully's colors declared him a member of the local Bandidos or Crips chapter.
IOW, a grave misapprehension of our position, speaking from ignorance.
So I'll reiterate that any expectations of this triggering any sort of factional split in Shiplord society is probably misplaced.
- Location
- Somewhere out there
I don't see this triggering a factional split. That's not the intent whatsoever.
We know full well that these guys belong to the nastiest gang in the galaxy. We're not being stupid, either.
My intent behind proposing Diplomacy is a matter of information control. They know we have Practice now. We know that something about our exercise of Practice fundamentally offends them. There is no way we're going to prevent that information getting back to Shiplord Command at this point; Mir's Spoken word put a halt to any chance of a massive offensive strike.
If we can convince the Regular Fleet that we aren't an immediate threat, that we're not hyperaggressive warmongers or whatever it is they're afraid of losing control over, that we're capable of being reasoned with instead of requiring immediate escalation... we may be able to talk them into NOT immediately summoning the nearest War Fleet.
Because if they leave right now... that's what's going to happen. No two ways about it.
We just asserted Peace on a massive scale. We can follow through on that.
We know full well that these guys belong to the nastiest gang in the galaxy. We're not being stupid, either.
My intent behind proposing Diplomacy is a matter of information control. They know we have Practice now. We know that something about our exercise of Practice fundamentally offends them. There is no way we're going to prevent that information getting back to Shiplord Command at this point; Mir's Spoken word put a halt to any chance of a massive offensive strike.
If we can convince the Regular Fleet that we aren't an immediate threat, that we're not hyperaggressive warmongers or whatever it is they're afraid of losing control over, that we're capable of being reasoned with instead of requiring immediate escalation... we may be able to talk them into NOT immediately summoning the nearest War Fleet.
Because if they leave right now... that's what's going to happen. No two ways about it.
We just asserted Peace on a massive scale. We can follow through on that.
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- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
The thing is, they know we're growing in capability fast enough that we annihilated the second Tribute Fleet and have capabilities that could credibly annihilate this Regular Fleet. We're getting tougher very quickly, and will become very powerful in a very short time, possibly faster than they know or CAN know..
The logic behind sending a War Fleet immediately may simply be "kill them NOW, while you still can!"
And given the Shiplords' massively series-parallel genocide campaigns across the aeons, it's unlikely that they will hesitate to kill us while they still can, in that case.
1)The guys who render down planetary populations for Soylent Green milkshakes at First Contact .
Nothing in their previous record suggests a capacity for restraint. Not if this is an ideological venture.
And we've been explicitly told that none of this has effects beyond this fleet. Shiplord Strategic Command are not going to be making decisions based on Regular Fleet opinions.
Besides, it doesn't matter.
We trashed a Regular Fleet. After trashing a Tribute Fleet. It's kinda like mugging the king's taxmen, not once but twice, with tanks, and then attempting to talk them into not sending the army.
Face is involved, and deterrence of other Tribute races who will eventually hear about this.
Possibly ideology as well, given that we know shit about Shiplord motivations for maintaining the Tribute Cycle over millions of years.
War Fleets have been sent for less, as evidenced by the Contact Group acknowledging personal encounters with the things.
2)Furthermore, we ARE an immediate threat.
Look at it from the PoV of the Shiplords. In 2065 they trashed the Earth, killed three out of thirteen billion people, then harvested another seven billion people, including almost all the adults and rendered them down into a nutritious smoothie. Since then Earth has been a black hole of information. All their surveillance platforms have gone dead, and the last fleet they sent here fifteen years ago vanished.
The year is currently 2130. Sixty five years later. A fleet finally survives getting into sensor range.What can the Regulars tell from close to Jupiter orbit?
Human society is visibly back in the double digit billions. There are megastructures all over the system. A planetary nanoforge in the inner system. Planetary structures on the fourth planet that look near identical to the cities that the Shiplords fried several decades ago. There is evidence of two new Secrets, Fifth and Sixth, in use at disconcerting levels of sophistication.
There are personal encounters with two AIs and multiple aleph-class platforms defending Earth's information network.
An information network that is disconcertingly free of the Shiplord hooks, agents and routines inserted into the infosystems of every Tribute Race unfortunate enough to fall victim of the Shiplords, and opaque to their probes.
There's the advanced fleet of FTL warships that met them at the SEZ, not counting the system defense fleets behind them, or the fortifications.
Plus the energy signatures of Practice and it's products.
And the Unisonbound.
And in all this, there is no evidence of overt breaches of the Directives regulating use of the First or the Second Secret. No new Dragons, no bioships.
They have demonstrable evidence that the more time we have, the more dangerous we become, even staying within the rules as stated.
Why would they want to give us more time to bulk up and become even more of a threat?
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- Location
- Somewhere out there
Okay, so... I acknowledge what you guys are saying, but look at it this way: If you're right, then it doesn't matter what we do and we're screwed either way. We already did the thing that would doom us all.
Given what we've heard from the post-Tributary races we've been in contact with, what we've done here will have earned our freedom from the Tribute Cycle. What remains to be seen is if we've given casus belli for a retributive strike, and we should do everything in our power to ensure that it isn't seen that way.
Trying to establish an armistice can't backfire. If we demonstrate that we can act rationally, the worst case scenario is that they don't believe us and the status quo is maintained. Acting with an eye towards peace isn't going to make them more upset. But as I said when I proposed the write-in, we already know that the Shiplords do have some notion of diplomatic communication with post-Tributary races. We may be able to broker some sort of actual agreement. (Or at least, learn what it is we should refrain from doing to avoid making things worse.)
Given what we've heard from the post-Tributary races we've been in contact with, what we've done here will have earned our freedom from the Tribute Cycle. What remains to be seen is if we've given casus belli for a retributive strike, and we should do everything in our power to ensure that it isn't seen that way.
Trying to establish an armistice can't backfire. If we demonstrate that we can act rationally, the worst case scenario is that they don't believe us and the status quo is maintained. Acting with an eye towards peace isn't going to make them more upset. But as I said when I proposed the write-in, we already know that the Shiplords do have some notion of diplomatic communication with post-Tributary races. We may be able to broker some sort of actual agreement. (Or at least, learn what it is we should refrain from doing to avoid making things worse.)
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We already have done the thing that would doom us.
The presence of Practice is considered by the Shiplords to be a violation. We know this IC:
Why? We don't know, and looking risks a second Nightfalls, it's that tightly linked into the Secrets.
Which is why asking questions is important to us. We arent going to discover things like that by divination.
And do note that there have been previous indications that the Shiplords are entirely willing to ignore their Directives and murder a race they think is developing too fast, even if they haven't broken any of the stated rules. This was the concern of the Contact Group at Second Contact, to wit:
When you make the rules, the interpretation is up to you.
1)Trying to establish an armistice CAN backfire.
If the enemy think you are weak at this time and thus vulnerable. If they think you are attempting to buy time to get something new into deployment. If you give insult, intentionally or otherwise.
The Shiplords have waged an ideological campaign of atrocities for millions of years for reasons unknown to us.
I would not assume there are no landmines in attempting diplomacy with them. Not when they are willing to die for ideological reasons.
2)The Shiplords have never relied on the goodwill of the conquered to enforce their rules; they've embedded subverted cybernetic and human agents and sabotaged social and industrial development and more. I can't see Humanity 2.0 effectively disarming itself by agreeing to any of that in order to keep the SLs happy. Even if the casus belli of Practice didnt exist.
- Location
- Somewhere out there
Counterpoint 1: We just unleashed TWO weapons of unimaginable power, and their sensors are going to show that we still have ammunition. They know very well even if we don't say anything that we COULD have ended this already. We are coming into this not from a place of weakness, but from a place of strength, and we already have the most powerful weapon in the galaxy locked and loaded so it's not like we could develop something BIGGER.
Counterpoint 2: I'm pretty sure we already delivered the most grave insult possible -- we just doubled down on "how dare you profane that gift and persist?" in an exceptionally dramatic fashion. In light of that, we can't really make it worse, and but we might be able to mitigate it by demonstrating a legitimate interest in understanding what makes it so profane.
Case in point: Unlike them, not only are we not willing to die, we are willing to not die, and we've already rubbed that in their faces.
When did I ever say anything about humanity disarming itself? Diplomacy isn't saying "sorry sorry sorry we won't do it again spare us spare us". We wouldn't be begging. We would be demonstrating that our objectives don't have to run contrary to theirs. We would be negotiating terms, establishing lines that each party agrees not to cross. Not kowtowing to a one-sided edict like we did after First Tribute, but demonstrating that we can be rational. We know the Shiplords don't like hyperaggressive polities, and we know they don't like weakling pacifists. We're walking a higher path -- strong enough to protect, but not wantonly destructive. We already know that the Tribute Cycle doesn't exist for the purposes of mass genocide; they clearly have a bigger goal, and we can show them that we can live and prosper as a species without causing whatever it is they're trying to prevent.
Shard
One and Many
- Location
- Malaysia
Theory: Practice is banned in the same line of 2nd Secret - Because it is too easy. 2nd Secret basically lets you tell life what to do and Practice basically lets you get whatever.
Thoery 2: Practice draws from the Void, or is similar to such conceptually or mechanically. So it is banned as a thing of the Void.
@Snowfire
1. At what point are Tributaries allowed to use the 1st Secret in the manner of exploring beyond their star again?
Thoery 2: Practice draws from the Void, or is similar to such conceptually or mechanically. So it is banned as a thing of the Void.
@Snowfire
1. At what point are Tributaries allowed to use the 1st Secret in the manner of exploring beyond their star again?
When you defeat a Tribute Fleet and stop being a tributary.
- Location
- Somewhere out there
You may be on the right track with theory 1, but perhaps it's not banned because it's too easy, but because it's soul manipulation.
It might also be because Practice is related to the power of sacrifice ("profane that gift and persist") and there's something significant about that in Shiplord dogma.
It might also be because Practice is related to the Uninvolved and we're staying involved despite having it.
Snowfire
Polyglot of Chimera
- Location
- Wordcats
Essentially this:
You got the right to move beyond your star when you killed the Tribute Fleet fifteen years ago.
Now, re: the Diplomacy/Why choice, there are some things I should probably clarify. The main point here is that whilst Diplomacy offers a dialogue of sorts, it's in the context of a race having declared war upon the current system. This doesn't mean that the offer won't matter, there's a reason I gave it a note as for the long game. But this is pretty much humanity's shot across the bow of the Shiplords, that has been planned to coincide with mass uprisings from the G6.
The exact details of that are beyond Amanda's clearance, but she can make a good guess. The greatest advantage of the Shiplords in orchestrating a galactic scale campaign is their communications network. Given that, the first target of any uprising seems obvious: break the relay chains.
You already know that the Shiplords can't deal with the entire galaxy rising up against them, but they do have weapons that can annihilate single points of resistance - at least, for now. Humanity was always preparing for a War Fleet to the face following the Regular Fleet, this is why so much effort was being poured into your countermeasure. And if you're fighting a foe you aren't sure you can block, the most efficient thing to do is blind them. That buys you time. And humanity is already most of the way to learning to block.
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-Counter-Counterpoint One:
Practice is a localized weapon(for the moment, at least), and one that is currently vulnerable to overload and coutermeasures. If the Shiplords had brought twice the number of Soulbreakers they did the last time, or ten times as many, we can't actually guarantee our success. And we don't know if they have further surprises up their sleeves.
There's a reason we're looking for allies instead of attempting to do things on our own.
As for unimaginable power, I have my doubts.
One of the SoP mass destruction options for a War Fleet is to blow up your sun from outside the SEZ. That's at least in the same neighborhood, if not orders of magnitude higher, given as Nova Persei was 6*10E37 joules.
What we did is impressive as all hell. But best to keep a sense of proportion.
-Counter-Counterpoint Two:
The crews of the Tribute Fleet berserked and went on a death ride on seeing the use of Practiced Speech in combat. The crews of the Regular Fleet didn't berserk; they just stopped and gave us their focused attention.
Why? We don't know enough about the Shiplords to guess.
Maybe the Tribute Fleet crews are zealots and the Regulars are more regular believers.Maybe their duties being different imposes different standards of restraint on the Regulars as compared to the Tributers. Maybe it's just the difference between the muslims who will shoot you for burning a koran and those who are offended but won't. Or the people who will bash your head in for catcalling a ladyfriend and those who restrain themselves to a stinkeye.
We don't know.
But the fact of the drastically differing reactions between them suggests we cannot generalize about what they find offensive with so little data.
So are they.
It's not like the Shiplords have ever given us, or anyone, free shots at anything. We have had to fight for every kill.
But a sapient whose survival is secondary to his or her perceived duty has options open to them that most other people will not normally take.
-These are the Shiplords. The guys who have genocided every race they have made first contact with for millions of years, and have maintained the societal commitment for that campaign over that period of time. Who still have people still volunteering to go out and die for their cause.
What exactly do you expect their minimum requirements for restraint would be?
To risk giving other Tribute races the impression they can get away with acting up?
And why would they be obliged to negotiate in good faith?
-Given as we don't actually know what their objectives are, there is literally no way to make a detailed comparative argument about our objectives and theirs. I mean, the most we know at the most superficial level is that we want freedom, and they want control.
Those are almost diametrically opposite.
-We don't know that.
Every race that survives the Tribute Cycle goes through multiple genocide cycles during which they are harvested for construction materials.
That the Shiplords have a goal/goals other than genocide does not preclude the genocide itself being a goal in itself.
We know too little about the Shiplords to make definitive judgements on their motives.
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SaltyWaffles
I am dissapoint, son
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I find it particularly bizarre that Amanda doesn't have the highest clearence level. I mean, she has lead humanity for longer than anyone else, is the leading expert on Practice itself, and one of the key R&D personnel humanity has.
Snowfire
Polyglot of Chimera
- Location
- Wordcats
That doesn't mean that she requires clearance to high level long-term strategic planning. She can infer a bunch of it from governmental priorities and her own knowledge, sure. But that isn't the same thing.
Ex-US presidents don't have the highest clearance levels either.
And besides, note that part of stepping back and letting the rest of Humanity govern itself involves stepping back. Highest clearances to stuff she's not directly involved in aren't necessary if you trust your successors. And Amanda seems to have been enjoying letting other people take the lead on that.
Note that we had the option to ask about things like what the Ministry of Security was doing; we didn't.
EDIT
Just noticed something:
Interesting similarities, don't you think? I'm beginning to believe @Baughn has a point when he asserts that there are no coincidences in this quest
I swear I'm going to beg favors if necessary to crack that thing's secrets next turn.
- Location
- Somewhere out there
Um... No, when I say "genocide" I actually mean it. I mean an actual extermination campaign aimed at eliminating the target race. The Shiplords notably do not make a habit of doing this. Their modus operandi suggests they in fact would prefer not to, and in general they only do so when they consider a given polity to be a lost cause. This means something.
Are they obliged to negotiate in good faith? No, of course not. But in truth we have fairly good reason to believe that they would do so anyway. I don't see any reason to expect them to act duplicitously if they come to the table.
This has been stated to be factually false. Tributes after the first one don't demand the same toll and sometimes they don't take anything at all.
If collecting the tribute was a goal in and of itself, then they'd do it, not back off after the first time and play games to let you get out of it.
Now, ironically, Snowfire's latest post makes me wonder if maybe I should change my vote... because we'd be negotiating in bad faith. It was never my intent to open a dialogue as a distraction. I've got to think about this...
Shard
One and Many
- Location
- Malaysia
@Snowfire
1. What's the population and population growth of Sol, after the culling of humanity down to 3 Billion?
1st Secret
2. Has Insight ever given any indication as to the 'upper' range limit 'per' teleport for a War Fleet, Regular Fleet, and so on, and compared to our own 1st Secret Drives? Are they similar or same?
2nd Secret
3. Has there been any investigations by pre-Tribute Humanity with regards to 2nd Secret and the Soul?
4. As far as pre-Tribute Humanity was aware, could 2nd Secret be used to create or modify non-carbon-based lifeforms? Silicoids for example?
Souls
5. On Souls, are they limited to Sapients, Sentients, or such? (Do plants have souls? Hamsters? Rats? Spiders? Apes?)
Neural Back-Engineering for Memories?
6. Even with a dead Shiplord, why can't Practice deduce knowledge of SL culture and such via examination of their Neurons and reverse-guessing?
Tribute Fleet
7. Are Shiplord crew numbers for Tribute Fleets unusually large/small?
8. Is there a 'minimum' of Tribute fleet vessels that a species must damage or destroy every Appraisal?
9. What is the frequency of Appraisal cycles past the 1st/Second? What pattern does it follow, if can be determined at all?
1. What's the population and population growth of Sol, after the culling of humanity down to 3 Billion?
1st Secret
2. Has Insight ever given any indication as to the 'upper' range limit 'per' teleport for a War Fleet, Regular Fleet, and so on, and compared to our own 1st Secret Drives? Are they similar or same?
2nd Secret
3. Has there been any investigations by pre-Tribute Humanity with regards to 2nd Secret and the Soul?
4. As far as pre-Tribute Humanity was aware, could 2nd Secret be used to create or modify non-carbon-based lifeforms? Silicoids for example?
Souls
5. On Souls, are they limited to Sapients, Sentients, or such? (Do plants have souls? Hamsters? Rats? Spiders? Apes?)
Neural Back-Engineering for Memories?
6. Even with a dead Shiplord, why can't Practice deduce knowledge of SL culture and such via examination of their Neurons and reverse-guessing?
Tribute Fleet
7. Are Shiplord crew numbers for Tribute Fleets unusually large/small?
8. Is there a 'minimum' of Tribute fleet vessels that a species must damage or destroy every Appraisal?
9. What is the frequency of Appraisal cycles past the 1st/Second? What pattern does it follow, if can be determined at all?
- Location
- Somewhere out there
Don't even think this required Insight, I think our 1S research determined that the range limit is inherent to the technique, and long-distance travel speed is a function of drive recharge times rather than jump distance.
We know it's not limited to full sapients but I don't know just how far up the tree of life you have to go to find the common ancestor of all soul-bearing Earth life. (There's a reasonable speculation that the existence of souls explains why intelligent alien life is so much more common in this universe than in our own.)
We know that the society has to show meaningful technological development, which they must demonstrate through warfare. I think it's more of a qualitative thing than a quantitative thing, a demonstration of effort instead of a calculus of damage inflicted.
From what we've seen so far, they tune the frequency of appraisals based on the civilization's observed rebuilding efforts and technological progress. This strongly suggests that they're trying to drive progress instead of being senselessly punitive.
Snowfire
Polyglot of Chimera
- Location
- Wordcats
That's not really the intent. Diplomacy/Chastisement/etc kinda merge together in Amanda's head to form a consensus that is willing to talk, but is also absolutely unwilling to accept certain realities of the Shiplord system. She's suggesting that there could be middle ground, but not with certain things as they are. Likely to be useful here and now? Not so much, but the Shiplord reply (if they give one) could be pretty interesting.
Essentially, Diplomacy is the offered hand, beside an example of singular power that would have obliterated the entire Regular Fleet if they'd come in as one massive force. It's not so much that it wiped out 40% of the fleet. It's that the energy output was high enough to have wiped out all of it. And humanity was able to contain it with what appeared to be relative ease.
- I did some math on this a while back, taking into account average population growth rates and then removing the death rate due to how Prologue/2S mods largely invalidate them. Ballparking off what I remember of those? Somewhere in the region of 14-15 billion. And you have lots of space to grow.
- What @Coda said.
- Nothing that you are aware of.
- Yes.
- What @Coda said.
- That isn't how Insight works. Also you never recovered any bodies from the Tribute Fleet.
- No.
- What @Coda said. So no.
- What @Coda said.
That's kinda an unfair comparison given how Amanda is the leader of an extremely high-value combat unit, and joint-head of one of EarthGov's blue-sky research bodies. It's not wrong, but it's not exactly right, either.
Interesting similarities, don't you think? I'm beginning to believe @Baughn has a point when he asserts that there are no coincidences in this quest
I swear I'm going to beg favors if necessary to crack that thing's secrets next turn.
Coincidences? In my finely tuned universe? Surely you jest
Also, um...I think I've said this before, but Practice War as a quest thread is going to end shortly after the conclusion of the TBOS. So take that into account, alright? Yes, I'm continuing it with Secrets' Crusade. But I don't think many people have actually worked out how I'm going to be continuing it there.
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- Location
- Somewhere out there
So you're saying that the circumstances with the rest of the G6 just aren't going to play into the discussion one way or the other? Okay, then, my vote remains where it is.
Snowfire
Polyglot of Chimera
- Location
- Wordcats
Humanity is kinda-sorta accidentally one of the leading lights of the G7 (G6+humanity) right now. Something to do with creating a tool to detect Shiplord subversion, Practice in general and, oh yes, Project Insight. Also, long game. Those circumstances will matter there.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
I mean, "willing to be diplomatic with Shiplords" after what they've done to everybody in the galaxy translates as something like:
"I am willing to stipulate, for the sake of argument, that Shiplords MIGHT MAYBE have a right to continue existing for slightly longer than it takes to get a fire control solution on a gun big enough to wipe them out of the universe. If they're very well-behaved."