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

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random_npc said:
Surrender is an option, sure its against orders, but the alternative is to die comitting pointless atroacaties.
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Surrender is just long-form suicide if the Solar Emperor wins in the end, but by this point a giant invasion fleet with a huge host of advantages has just gotten minced. At the very least, the Solar Emperor's probably going to be too busy for a while holding everything together.
 
The Laurent said:
Surrender is just long-form suicide if the Solar Emperor wins in the end, but by this point a giant invasion fleet with a huge host of advantages has just gotten minced. At the very least, the Solar Emperor's probably going to be too busy for a while holding everything together.
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the Solar empire just lost its entire invasion fleet. none of them are making it back, and they faild to do serious infrastructure damage. It is entirely possible that a counterstrike would be feasible depending on how much they held back, and frankly going all-in is the kind of mistake that faceist make.
 
random_npc said:
the Solar empire just lost its entire invasion fleet. none of them are making it back, and they faild to do serious infrastructure damage. It is entirely possible that a counterstrike would be feasible depending on how much they held back, and frankly going all-in is the kind of mistake that faceist make.
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The impression I got though was that they were willing to lose that fleet?

Like, the whole "Let's only pack enough supplies for a one way trip" thing is pretty telling. (Or was it the political officers burning the supplies, I can't recall?)
 
Alectai said:
The impression I got though was that they were willing to lose that fleet?

Like, the whole "Let's only pack enough supplies for a one way trip" thing is pretty telling. (Or was it the political officers burning the supplies, I can't recall?)
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They were willing to lose it for something.

Plus, you have to remember, if they actually won, they'd be committing a genocide and stealing everything that wasn't nailed down in the process. They were pulling a Cortez, burning their boats so that it was genocide/conquest or death. If they'd actually won, they'd have supplies to make it back.
 
The Laurent said:
They were willing to lose it for something.

Plus, you have to remember, if they actually won, they'd be committing a genocide and stealing everything that wasn't nailed down in the process. They were pulling a Cortez, burning their boats so that it was genocide/conquest or death. If they'd actually won, they'd have supplies to make it back.
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They haven't won, but they came close enough that we're functionally going to spend the next generation or two recovering as opposed to advancing, and that's a game that favors them pretty closely. That's part of why I've been feeling so gloomy about the whole thing.
 
Alectai said:
They haven't won, but they came close enough that we're functionally going to spend the next generation or two recovering as opposed to advancing, and that's a game that favors them pretty closely. That's part of why I've been feeling so gloomy about the whole thing.
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They needed that fleet. They were willing to risk it, but they're fanatics. Do you think they really thought they'd lose, or even thought it likely? Do you think they carefully sat down and calculated the exact propaganda effect of a humiliating loss? Or did they, as we have seen thus far, have grandiose, terrible (as in evil) plans with very little thought to what failure might bring?

Plus, you should remember that the Solar Empire is a personality cult, based on an idea of success and power and glory.

E:

To clarify something in a contigent, if-then manner.

If, in the face of this setback, every single citizen of the Solar Empire, and all the aristocrats, and the military, and Jupiter, and everyone else all sit down and say, "I'm going to think like an EUIV player now, and consider that in just another 40-50 years we'll probably build up an advantage again and can probably win against the enemies that we had a seemingly overwhelming advantage against and just lost to, even though the Solar Empire talks about itself as flawless and perfect, and therefore I will not do anything except obey the Solar Emperor" then, yes, the Divine Empire (in Exile) is fucked.
 
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The Laurent said:
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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He is an usurper, so he doesn't count!

Sure, he is a usurper due to a minor detail that very easily could've gone different, dooming things for more or less everybody and highlighting the problems with lifetime appointments of rulers, but still!
 
Alectai said:
The impression I got though was that they were willing to lose that fleet?

Like, the whole "Let's only pack enough supplies for a one way trip" thing is pretty telling. (Or was it the political officers burning the supplies, I can't recall?)
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they had a retreat path, they gave that up for more ships because he figured if they lost here they'd lost most of the fleet anyways, which was kinda true. The admiral took a risk, but the planers back home absolutely were not willing to lose this fleet. They might have considered it an even trade if the fleet won, but losing the fleet while losing means both their forces go down, and their requirements go up as everyone else scents blood in the water.
 
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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I mean we could have had a setting where it wasn't the case, but empire in exile was picked over idealistic new revolution and jaded brown coats.
 
Alectai said:
The impression I got though was that they were willing to lose that fleet?

Like, the whole "Let's only pack enough supplies for a one way trip" thing is pretty telling. (Or was it the political officers burning the supplies, I can't recall?)
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I'm actually not sure what you mean by political officers burning supplies. Renaud made the call to consolidate forces that would otherwise have been securing supply lines and shoring up the hold on the rest of the Saturn system in order to bolster the invasion force, in the event of eventual enemy reinforcements from Iapetus. Which came faster than he'd anticipated, but, still came. They theoretically could make a run back to Jupiter, it's just going to be extremely dodgy. Moving fleets between outer planets is not a logistically simple task, and there is not much margin of error. They did not undertake this massively expensive invasion force with the expectation that they'd lose every ship and everyone manning them, although it was always a possibility.

DracoDracul said:
I mean we could have had a setting where it wasn't the case, but empire in exile was picked over idealistic new revolution and jaded brown coats.
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Would have been black tunics! My notes literally said "less fascy Zeon". Honestly, that one would have had the protagonist faction have a substantially... checkered past, in the way the persecuted that version of the civil war, even if their underlying philosophy wasn't so bad. To the point that in my head, that was the bleak choice, AFAIS was the optimistic one, and Solar Empire remnant was the complicated third option.
 
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Gazetteer said:
I'm actually not sure what you mean by political officers burning supplies. Renaud made the call to consolidate forces that would otherwise have been securing supply lines and shoring up the hold on the rest of the Saturn system in order to bolster the invasion force, in the event of eventual enemy reinforcements from Iapetus. Which came faster than he'd anticipated, but, still came. They theoretically could make a run back to Jupiter, it's just going to be extremely dodgy. Moving fleets between outer planets is not a logistically simple task, and there is not much margin of error. They did not undertake this massively expensive invasion force with the expectation that they'd lose every ship and everyone manning them, although it was always a possibility.

Would have been black tunics! My notes literally said "less fascy Zeon". Honestly, that one would have had the protagonist faction have a substantially... checkered past, in the way the persecuted that version of the civil war, even if their underlying philosophy wasn't so bad. To the point that in my head, that was the bleak choice, AFAIS was the optimistic one, and Solar Empire remnant was the complicated third option.
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Which would be kind of interesting in the way? I can imagine themes how even being on literally the objectively good-guy (like, not even 'in comparison to the enemy' but just straight up) faction doesn't make war any less horrific, exhausting, and self-destructive.

Because there is a lot of talk, both historically and today, about 'just wars' or so on.
 
[X] The Divine Navy's Admiral, Lord Grangier, is killed in combat, sending the enemy into chaos again

Attrition leaves us without a navy to rebuild from, and a tactical gambit probably leads to the enemy admiral getting shot while attempting to surrender, followed by a banzai charge. This option may also lead to a banzai charge, but it'll be a disorganized one and at least some of our navy will be left afterwards.
 
[X] The Divine Navy's Admiral, Lord Grangier, is killed in combat, sending the enemy into chaos again

Chaos for our enemy always seems good to me.
 
random_npc said:
Surrender is an option, sure its against orders, but the alternative is to die comitting pointless atroacaties.
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Given the political officers would then relieve him from command, and life shortly after announcing it.....

Plus, given all the Pretender's forces have done as of late, they'll want a scapegoat. And oh look, here comes a perfect scapegoat.
 
Gazetteer said:
Would have been black tunics! My notes literally said "less fascy Zeon". Honestly, that one would have had the protagonist faction have a substantially... checkered past, in the way the persecuted that version of the civil war, even if their underlying philosophy wasn't so bad. To the point that in my head, that was the bleak choice, AFAIS was the optimistic one, and Solar Empire remnant was the complicated third option.
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I admit that I'm not really into Gundam so when I hear failed space rebellion my brain goes to Firefly.
 
[X] The Divine Navy's Admiral, Lord Grangier, is killed in combat, sending the enemy into chaos again
 
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Adhoc vote count started by Gazetteer on Oct 27, 2019 at 10:28 PM, finished with 101 posts and 57 votes.
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Jaycee! Best Girl! Noooo ;_;

[X] A tactical gambit by the United Empire forces manages to strike a devastating blow to the Divine Navy's forces

@Gazetteer, I gotta know, could we have kept her alive? Like, would any of last turn's options have preserved her?
 
Ahhhhhh. I knew it was comeing, but loseing J6 and Andre still hurts. God this story is good.

No way am I voteing for atritioning this thing out, and I'm worried that without a seemingly sane-ish man in charge the enemy will commence suicide runs or somesuch, so there is really only one option for me:

[X] A tactical gambit by the United Empire forces manages to strike a devastating blow to the Divine Navy's forces
 
Imrix said:
Jaycee! Best Girl! Noooo ;_;

[X] A tactical gambit by the United Empire forces manages to strike a devastating blow to the Divine Navy's forces

@Gazetteer, I gotta know, could we have kept her alive? Like, would any of last turn's options have preserved her?
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I'm betting it's a result of the Outer Fleet taking heavy casualties.
 
Imrix said:
Jaycee! Best Girl! Noooo ;_;

[X] A tactical gambit by the United Empire forces manages to strike a devastating blow to the Divine Navy's forces

@Gazetteer, I gotta know, could we have kept her alive? Like, would any of last turn's options have preserved her?
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DracoDracul said:
I'm betting it's a result of the Outer Fleet taking heavy casualties.
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More or less. The discrepancy in mecha forces from the ambush meant that I had to be pretty unforgiving here.
 
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