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Petals of Titanium -- My Life as a Mecha Setting Bridge Bunny Quest

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Ah man. I knew it. Feels fucking bad man.

[X] A tactical gambit by the United Empire forces manages to strike a devastating blow to the Divine Navy's forces
 
The Laurent said:
I do wonder, even if they win, what happens, for instance, with the proud Aristocratic Traditions (which is to say, the elitism and the discounting of most of the population) now that one of the most notable symbols of challenging it, Andre, is... maybe dead? Did I read that right? It'd be really easy for them, especially if this winds up being a victory that gives them room to stop with the desperation experiment of... *checks notes* allowing non-nobles to rise according to their competence, to just, like, walk things back? In a weird way, a lot of the more admirable things about the Exile Empire come from them being desperate enough to try it, so who knows what victory would bring.

Certainly, not anything as bad as the literal mass-murderous Solar Empire, but you have to kinda wonder what even victory will bring in a setting where a ruling aristocracy that controls everything is just a fact of life.

(Unlike our IRL free and fair system in which everyone may advance regardless of birth *nervous laughter.*)

*****

Maybe I'm being too melancholy? I also should honestly go back through the updates, because I never quite got a good grasp on how aristocrats and non-aristocrats even interacted with each other outside of the military. The viewpoint character's an aristocrat, and so are... a pretty decent chunk of the main characters, so it's hard to tell. And basically everyone important is in the military, so that's kinda their focus of 'caring.'
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Eh, he was a captain not a major officer, further he died doing his duty masterfully, with his command doing a massive amount to save the day. I doubt people will use his death to hurt his cause. What are they going to say? he saved everyone a few times over but died doing it?
 
If the answer to "We almost got bodied because the Solar Empire threw a massive fleet on a suicide mission" is "To double down on our worst and most counterproductive traits", then for all I like the characters, the Exile Empire deserves to die.

That it'll lose to something even worse is the real tragedy, but the Solar Empire's just too powerful and too cohesive despite their superfacism to lose. After all, all they need to do is send anyone who thinks otherwise off to die on some pointless crusade or another like they just did.
 
[X] A tactical gambit by the United Empire forces manages to strike a devastating blow to the Divine Navy's forces
 
[X] A tactical gambit by the United Empire forces manages to strike a devastating blow to the Divine Navy's forces

I'm gonna be honest here, this seems like 100% the best choice of our available options, and I don't really the see downsides to it, so I'm ever so slightly terrified of what terrible things it will cause without being able to predict them.
 
[X] A tactical gambit by the United Empire forces manages to strike a devastating blow to the Divine Navy's forces

Hopefully the salvage from the divine navy and the inner and outer fleet is enough to rebuild the Fleet.
 
[X] The Divine Navy's Admiral, Lord Grangier, is killed in combat, sending the enemy into chaos again

Keeping in mind that we are selecting the breaking point of the battle that leads to its end, I am going with this.
Killing competent leaders is almost more effective then killing ships sometimes. Also the enemy fleet scattering to internal chaois sounds like it might be good for morale after this shitstorm is over.
 
[X] A tactical gambit by the United Empire forces manages to strike a devastating blow to the Divine Navy's forces
 
[X] A tactical gambit by the United Empire forces manages to strike a devastating blow to the Divine Navy's forces

Alas, this isn't the sort of story whwre our sole super Ace can solo the enemy for us.

"The objective of this mission is to verify Three Strikes' status as a singularity."
"I am confident that this mission will prove the hypothesis that Three Strikes isn't all that."

Later...

"Three Strikes solo'd the entire Erusean Navy and killed off their leadership."
 
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Alectai said:
If the answer to "We almost got bodied because the Solar Empire threw a massive fleet on a suicide mission" is "To double down on our worst and most counterproductive traits", then for all I like the characters, the Exile Empire deserves to die.

That it'll lose to something even worse is the real tragedy, but the Solar Empire's just too powerful and too cohesive despite their superfacism to lose. After all, all they need to do is send anyone who thinks otherwise off to die on some pointless crusade or another like they just did.
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we don't actually know how much of their fleet they sent out here, nor such a total defeat will affect things. Sure they can lie about it, but people will notice we're still here, and not a fucking single ship came home. That's going to be the kind of weakness that won't look good. None of their fleet making it home might actually destabilize things somewhat.
 
random_npc said:
we don't actually know how much of their fleet they sent out here, nor such a total defeat will affect things. Sure they can lie about it, but people will notice we're still here, and not a fucking single ship came home. That's going to be the kind of weakness that won't look good. None of their fleet making it home might actually destabilize things somewhat.
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And Jupiter, where many of these ships and personnel were originally stationed, was already unstable, with a substantial local insurgency. Mosi was there hunting down pirates and "terrorist" rebels.
 
Gazetteer said:
And Jupiter, where many of these ships and personnel were originally stationed, was already unstable, with a substantial local insurgency. Mosi was there hunting down pirates and "terrorist" rebels.
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I was under the impression that they had it on lock? Hence taking the shot now?was it less "secured" and more, " can be left on light garson for a year or so"?
 
I legitimately wouldn't be that surprised if, after this defeat (depending on which option we choose), the wheels begin to completely come off the Solar Empire, albeit possibly in slow motion. My worry was basically that it was desperate necessity that actually led to a lot of the Less-Bad Empire's reforms, and that history has shown that elites willing to consider reforms when the going gets tough are often, though not always, quite relived when newfound prosperity or a lack of threat allows them to walk it back and just go back to the way things were 'supposed' to be.

Of course, that itself is predicated on the Solar Empire basically starting to fall to pieces.
 
[X] The Divine Navy's Admiral, Lord Grangier, is killed in combat, sending the enemy into chaos again

They're likely to suicide charge anyways, they don't have a back route.
Its best that they do it utterly disorganized
 
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Adhoc vote count started by Gazetteer on Oct 27, 2019 at 8:29 AM, finished with 74 posts and 52 votes.
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Personally, I hope that if this is going to be a defeat for the Solar Empire, then they start collapsing into riots and rebellion which lead to it becoming a Republic. The Exiles on the other hand would not have the ships or manpower to pursue reclaiming their old holdings even if they win.

Throughout this story, the characters are fairly likable, but I don't want the Exiles to win either. Overall, their system of government also makes them assholes.
 
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[X] A tactical gambit by the United Empire forces manages to strike a devastating blow to the Divine Navy's forces
 
veekie said:
[X] The Divine Navy's Admiral, Lord Grangier, is killed in combat, sending the enemy into chaos again

They're likely to suicide charge anyways, they don't have a back route.
Its best that they do it utterly disorganized
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the present admiral is not a fanatic, so he's unlikely to suicide attack.
 
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MacroDaemon said:
Throughout this story, the characters are fairly likable, but I don't want the Exiles to win either. Overall, their system of government also makes them assholes.
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Based on what we've seen of the (rightful) United Solar Empire outside of Lori and Daystar, I wouldn't be surprised if this was one of those times where having an absolute monarch to reign in the nobles is actually better for the common folk. And this goes double for the usurpers, considering that the ones with any power there are more or less defined by being zealous, greedy and/or assholes.

It's not like being a republic is a panacea against becoming a defacto oligarchy.
 
Omegahugger said:
Based on what we've seen of the (rightful) United Solar Empire outside of Lori and Daystar, I wouldn't be surprised if this was one of those times where having an absolute monarch to reign in the nobles is actually better for the common folk. And this goes double for the usurpers, considering that the ones with any power there are more or less defined by being zealous, greedy and/or assholes.

It's not like being a republic is a panacea against becoming a defacto oligarchy.
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Have an absolute monarch to reign in the nobles is good until it isn't. It just takes one particularly incompetent or kind of evil monarch to make the wheels come off of everything, and if the aristocracy has been defanged enough, you end up without any checks on that and an overall weaker state ready to fall. This Empire does have a more formalised bureaucracy and military, at least. Daystar in particular probably isn't evil anyway, barring me doing something stupid like having the death of her closest friend and advisor make her turn into murder queen, burner of worlds.
 
Gazetteer said:
Have an absolute monarch to reign in the nobles is good until it isn't. It just takes one particularly incompetent or kind of evil monarch to make the wheels come off of everything, and if the aristocracy has been defanged enough, you end up without any checks on that and an overall weaker state ready to fall. This Empire does have a more formalised bureaucracy and military, at least. Daystar in particular probably isn't evil anyway, barring me doing something stupid like having the death of her closest friend and advisor make her turn into murder queen, burner of worlds.
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See: The Solar Emperor, who managed to turn a regular-evil Empire (but I repeat myself. :V) into a super-evil, Star Wars Tier Evil Empire.
 
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