Mandat de l'impératrice des Cieux - Imperial Princess Troubleshooter Space Opera Quest

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Zaealix said:
Okay, so Sumeragi is actually wanting Empire to be stable. We can chill out over Sumer aggro.
So, who's the trouble maker?
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I don't think that's necessarily a good thing if we construct "stability" as maintenance of status quo, given that the status quo within the Empire has the Royal Family increasingly on the decline together with slow erosion of centralized authority. Both of these things benefit Sumeragis in the long run. Assuming that they have a plan or a number of them that's reliant on certain factors remaining constant, it makes sense for them to not want an active regency council in case it mucks something up and throws their schemes out of wack. Of course, that will last until the head of Sumeragi family decides that status quo is no longer to their benefit.


On the investigations, I am leaning towards going after SA-Caledfwlch; Space Malaysia is probably little more than proverbial trigger that's used by someone else (assuming they aren't just being greedy fucks). However, the whole thing with Kanda makes me think that Yui really needs to take a look at the Imperial Navy. And I don't mean the Admiralty - any of the potentially thousands of useless saps in over-gilded uniforms, but the actual fleet commanders in actual fleets, because when shit goes to hell in handbasket, soldiers will look to their immediate admiral that's here, not some random asshole 200 ly away.

Even if Kanda isn't actually against us, it's pretty obvious there's something fishy going on in Comberth that's not kosher. And from what I understand, that's basically our backyard.

Now consider the fact that if Kanda can get away with secretly building up his own power base around the Core, than what someone like Toth, the best Imperial combat commander with a personal fleet hundreds of light years away from capitol, based in region that reportedly hates Imperial authority, could do. Or in fact, Yui's own father.

If we can't be certain of our fleet commanders - or at least buy them off so they have more cause to follow us than their ambition or another Great House - then no matter how canny we play politics, we won't be able to stop someone from just physically leveling the palace with us and the Empress inside it.
 
Whiskey Golf said:
light glinting off her engagement ring, a matching pair with the one you wear on your finger.
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Ahah, so the AU Johnny finally got off the pot!
Whiskey Golf said:
"When we get married, I'm taking your name."
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Oooh, power move by Maggie. Take that, smartass! :V
Whiskey Golf said:
For all that her name implies, she carries herself not like a spoiled noblewoman of a vengeful Great House, but as a naval officer on duty, with an air of sophistication and elegance.
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Whiskey Golf said:
She carries herself with an air of sophistication and elegance, without seeing the need to assert herself into every conversation. Nor does she loudly proclaim the superiority of her House, or make any passive-aggressive jabs against the Imperial Family. If anything, she behaves like the very picture of a modern naval officer: well-read, clever, proper, polite, politically inscrutable, no tail spreading displays. In short, nothing like Lady Akagi, something which weirds you and Ahri out; she can't stop looking at her.
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Again, I just love that Maggie can get under Yui's skin and be incredibly annoying like the other Sumeragis by just... being polite, cultured, loyal, and doing nothing Yui can at all complain about. It's got to be delicious for them. :V :V
Whiskey Golf said:
"Also when are you going to find a nice boy and get married, you're older than your mummy when she had you."

"Maybe later Nenek, not now."

"Don't wait too long, Sayang. I want to see my great grandchildren some day, alright?"
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Grandma mode cannot be defeated.
Whiskey Golf said:
"Such a good girl you are. Sayang, remember, when you marry you need to make sure your husband understands his place, okay? That's how Atuk( Grandpa) and I stay married so long, because he knows his place and accepts it. Make sure your husband understands his place okay?"
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This is why Army wives are generally referred to as 'Household 6'.

[ ] Investigate ONE lead now. High risk other leads may go cold.
-[ ] Investigate the Malusial system (pirate warship source)
-[ ] Investigate SA-Caledfwlch (pirate refit supplier)

I think SA-Caledfwich, since the Malusial system isn't going anywhere, and we can circle back around to it.

4th Fleet, I think, is paranoid about us. They think we're plotting something. Let's not assume they're disloyal to the Empire just yet. They may be yet another faction of paranoid loyalists that think they're the saviors who have to strike before the other coups.
 
4th Fleet could be useful to investigate depending on medium-term goals. I expect the investigation to lead to a confrontation: where Yui can ask about the way 4th is considering the area it operates in as turf, and how Yui can work with or change said turf. A critical consideration if Yui wants her coup to work out :V

Annoyingly, our anti-pirate action is also a fire alarm for Malusial and SA-Caledfwich. Whichever option we don't investigate will have a moment to plaster over their backdoors. SA-Caledfwich probably has the more juicy stuff, but we can expect them to be better at deflecting investigations and pushing back on things. Plus it's a big task to find the suspect transactions in their records. Malusial makes it easier to pin down where the odd things happened, as they're all in one system, but I suspect it's mostly going to give the next couple leads instead of a mastermind.
 
Strypgia said:
Ahah, so the AU Johnny finally got off the pot!
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;) Or Maggie got tired of waiting for him to decide and took matters into her own hands. ;)

Oooh, power move by Maggie. Take that, smartass! :V
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Maggie has gotten a lot of experience in dealing with JOhnny's shitposting :V

Again, I just love that Maggie can get under Yui's skin and be incredibly annoying like the other Sumeragis by just... being polite, cultured, loyal, and doing nothing Yui can at all complain about. It's got to be delicious for them. :V :V
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Yui sees the name "Sumeragi" and mentally flashes back to Akagi and so many other main house Sumeragis, but it didn't quite click for her that Maggie is an actual Navy officer (well, ok, a perpetual staffer, but still). Sure, she might be a honeypot, but she is also an officer and a gentlewoman. Look at Johnny; he shitposts so hard, but he also knows when to keep it in and be proper. :p

Grandma mode cannot be defeated.
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One of these days I might write about Grandma's k-drama-esque story of her early life striking it out on her own, rebelling against her mom by being a working OL while Grandpa was a junior accountant, and their life together as a young married couple of working professionals. It'll be Wotakoi meets Maid Bride meets Setsuko-san series meets Iinari Acme meets Showa-era Married Couple. :V
 
Bump reminder tha voting opens in 24 hours, at 0700 Wednesday Malaysian time / 2300 GMT.
 
Okay, we are now a little over 7 hours out for when voting opens. As such, I've decided to do short summary of the risks and rewards involved with each option:

[ ] Investigate the Malusial system

Reward: Likely to be the easiest investigation. Potentially gets us rung up the ladder and more threads to unravel the conspiracy.
Risk: Low political risk, Limited potential gains - Malusial is at best a middleman.


[ ] Investigate SA-Caledfwlch

Reward: Successful investigation will give leads on SA-Caledfwlch's "clients", potentially reduce proliferation of milspec weapons/systems to bad actors, and may uncover the money behind these orders.
Risk: Moderate political risk, fairly large investigation scope, actions will be constrained because our agents will be operating in Fenghuang territory. Pushback from Fenghuang and Siam-Astra will be inevitable.


[ ] Investigate 4th Fleet

Reward: Audit 4th Fleet's leadership and logistics. Possibly be able to install new, more reliable leadership. Potentially gain greater IRG favor and increased access to IRG support/cooperation.
Risks: High political risk, if discovered will guaranteed burn bridges with Kanda & 4th Fleet; high risk of burning other bridges with rest of the Navy outside former 13th Fleet units, potential negative backlash suffered by Commmander Fleet Operations, Fleet Admiral Yonatan Chew and Commander 10th Fleet, Admiral Masatada Akasha.


tl;dr : Low Risk, Low Reward; Moderate Risk, Moderate Reward; High Risk, High(?) Reward.
 
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Okay everyone, voting is now open for 76 hours. Voting will close on Saturday at 0300 GMT.
 
[ ] Investigate SA-Caledfwlch
Here's what I'm thinking- decline was related to basically letting the NAvy continue to fall apart because we don't need them right?
But barring the power to straight-up force a Navy overhaul, which I don't think we'll have until Ahri's fully grown, we're gonna be needing to jockey for it. Now if we can PROVE, however, that letting the Navy fall apart in moth-balls was done too long and military overhall is needed, we can basically force the other powers to make a move, and ideally no one dude is going to have the might to move against the Crown and trust they won't fall apart. From there, they'll have to at least pay lip-service to the Empress's Sovereignty, and thus, we can use those questionable vows to get our ducks in order, so that once Ahri rises, she can finish re solidifying the Empire once and for all.
Assuming no shenanigans happen to our investigation or we overcommit...But I figure short of getting repeatedly shanked, the Empress faction won't go down entirely and will be the biggest dog in the yard and thus be able to play the long game and out-grow the competition.
 
[X] Investigate ONE lead now. High risk other leads may go cold.
-[X] Investigate SA-Caledfwlch (pirate refit supplier)

Best of both worlds here, I think. More risk of pushback, but better chance of results occurring soon enough to still be relevant. Also let's not piss off Commander 4th fleet kthx?
 
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[X] Investigate the Malusial system

Because I'm feeling risk-adverse at the moment. Leapfrogging after the little Navy standoff puts Yui in an awkward state if she gets lots of pushback.
 
[X] Investigate ONE lead & Expand investigation team, moderate vetting. Moderate risk all leads may go cold, risk of undetected red flags in candidates.
-[X] Investigate the Malusial system (pirate warship source)

Weaponry isn't as bad as hulls not to mention the massive amounts of fraud being committed. If we take there source of ship hulls than pirates are going to be forced to choose other ships. the 4th can be taking care of with a good old chewing out for now. I do feel we are going to need to expand our investigation team though.
 
[X] Expand investigation team, thorough vetting.

Obvious choice in my opinion we need a team that we can trust it will take time but it will be worth the wait.
 
I don't have time to make a long argument, but I'd rather gamble on Naval loyalty. Investigating the Fourth has a good chance of backlash, whereas if we can excise the rot, we can remove the impetus to act.

[ ] Investigate SA-Caledfwlch

Pre-post edit:
kelllogo said:
[X] Investigate the Malusial system

Because I'm feeling risk-adverse at the moment. Leapfrogging after the little Navy standoff puts Yui in an awkward state if she gets lots of pushback.
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In this case, why not just expand the team for later? I'm not seeing any argument for this, but having zero risk other than opportunity cost is an advantage.

On second thought:
[X] Expand investigation team, thorough vetting.
 
Risk-Reward Summary for the current vote
  • Informational
    • Right i totally forgot to do the risk-rewards for the team expansion options, so I'm reconsolidating the risk-rewards into this one post, i'll unthreadmark it later after voting closes.

    [ ] Investigate ONE lead now. High risk other leads may go cold.
    -[ ] Investigate the Malusial system (pirate warship source)

    Reward: Likely to be the easiest investigation. Potentially gets us rung up the ladder and more threads to unravel the conspiracy.
    Risk: Low political risk, Limited potential gains - Malusial is at best a middleman.


    [ ] Investigate ONE lead now. High risk other leads may go cold.
    -[ ] Investigate SA-Caledfwlch (pirate refit supplier)

    Reward: Successful investigation will give leads on SA-Caledfwlch's "clients", potentially reduce proliferation of milspec weapons/systems to bad actors, and may uncover the money behind these orders.
    Risk: Moderate political risk, fairly large investigation scope, actions will be constrained because our agents will be operating in Fenghuang territory. Pushback from Fenghuang and Siam-Astra will be inevitable.


    [ ] Investigate ONE lead now. High risk other leads may go cold.
    -[ ] Investigate 4th Fleet (suspicious posture)

    Reward: Audit 4th Fleet's leadership and logistics. Possibly be able to install new, more reliable leadership. Potentially gain greater IRG favor and increased access to IRG support/cooperation.
    Risks: High political risk, if discovered will guaranteed burn bridges with Kanda & 4th Fleet; high risk of burning other bridges with rest of the Navy outside former 13th Fleet units, potential negative backlash suffered by Commmander Fleet Operations, Fleet Admiral Yonatan Chew and Commander 10th Fleet, Admiral Masatada Akasha.


    (tl;dr : Low Risk, Low Reward; Moderate Risk, Moderate Reward; High Risk, High(?) Reward.)


    [ ] Expand investigation team, Thorough vetting. High risk all leads may go cold.

    Reward: Expands investigation team now, allowing for multiple investigations in the future. Thorough vetting ensures the candidate pool will not have any red flags or skeletons. Expands team sooner instead of later, when the situation may not be as permitting.
    Risk: Time taken for thorough vetting risks all investigation trails going cold.

    [ ] Investigate ONE lead & Expand investigation team, Moderate vetting. Moderate risk all leads may go cold, risk of undetected red flags in candidates.
    -[ ] Investigate the Malusial system (pirate warship source)
    -[ ] Investigate SA-Caledfwlch (pirate refit supplier)
    -[ ] Investigate 4th Fleet (suspicious posture)

    Reward: Expands investigation team now, allowing for multiple investigations in the future. Shorter vetting time means less time for trails to go cold. Similar rewards as accompanying investigation vote.
    Risk: Moderate risk all trails go cold. Shorter time of moderate vetting risks a candidate pool with undetected red flags or skeletons. Similar risks as accompanying investigation vote.


    Basically, the votes are a tradeoff. Taking any of the Investigation options delays expanding your investigation team, but you have a high certainty of being able to chase down the one lead you choose right now, before time and distance and obscuration make the lead go cold. Expansion trades immediate investigation of this lead for an expanded team that in future can either either handle multiple investigations or put all its resources and effort on a single investigation. The Do Both option is a compromise that gives up a bit of both in options in order to get something of both.
     
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  • Informational
    • Dupes:
    Whiskey Golf said:
    [ ] Investigate ONE lead & Expand investigation team, moderate vetting.

    Reward: Expands investigation team now, allowing for multiple investigations in the future. Shorter vetting time means less time for trails to go cold. Similar rewards as accompanying investigation vote.
    Risk: Moderate risk all trails go cold. Shorter time of moderate vetting risks a candidate pool with undetected red flags or skeletons. Similar risks as accompanying investigation vote.
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    Whiskey Golf said:
    [ ] Investigate ONE lead & Expand investigation team, moderate vetting. Moderate risk all leads may go cold, risk of undetected red flags in candidates.

    Reward: Expands investigation team now, allowing for multiple investigations in the future. Shorter vetting time means less time for trails to go cold. Similar rewards as accompanying investigation vote.
    Risk: Moderate risk all trails go cold. Shorter time of moderate vetting risks a candidate pool with undetected red flags or skeletons. Similar risks as accompanying investigation vote.
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    ConfusedCanuck said:
    [X] Investigate SA-Caledfwlch
    [X] Expand investigation team, thorough vetting.
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    You can't choose an Investigate option and Expansion with Thorough vetting. You can only do that with the compromise Moderate vetting vote, so your vote would look like:

    [ ] Investigate ONE lead & Expand investigation team, Moderate vetting. Moderate risk all leads may go cold, risk of undetected red flags in candidates.
    -[ ] Investigate SA-Caledfwlch (pirate refit supplier)
     
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    Whiskey Golf said:
    You can't choose an Investigate option and Expansion with Thorough vetting. You can only do that with moderate vetting, so your vote would look like:

    [ ] Investigate ONE lead & Expand investigation team, moderate vetting. Moderate risk all leads may go cold, risk of undetected red flags in candidates.
    -[ ] Investigate SA-Caledfwlch (pirate refit supplier)
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    Aw ok fixed
     
    [X] Investigate ONE lead now. High risk other leads may go cold.
    -[X] Investigate the Malusial system (pirate warship source)
     
    [X] Expand investigation team, Thorough vetting. High risk all leads may go cold.

    I think that we will have lots of investigations to do as time passes and even if these leads go cold, extensive activity such as arms buildups should result in various other slipups and clues to investigate once we have a large and trustworthy set of teams to investigate matters. Having more trustworthy (edit: and discreet and competent) forces to act as our eyes and ears is important to complement our political skills, particularly since our fleet will soon be disbanding and thus we will have much less solidly loyal hard power to call upon in crises, so we must use leverage our political skills to their fullest to get ahead of future problems before they explode on us.

    If we had kept the 13th Fleet up, it probably would be better to move faster and loosen standards on the investigation team to chase leads and solve them since we would be in a better position to take action immediately even on less than solid evidence (instead of having to convince others to take action using airtight cases), deter bad actors, and and maintain the position of the Imperial house in the case of blowback. But without that, we need to try to minimize mistakes and get the our money's worth out of political acumen as we don't have anything else up our sleeve.

    edit: also, the better the intelligence team the greater the variety and better chances of success of intelligence actions that Captain O'Farell can undertake for us. This team will be likely be one of our main asset(s) in the field over many missions, so we shouldn't skimp else it bites us later on when it could greatly harm us and/or the Empire.
     
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