The Sect just had the equivalent of a military group attempting to crash a clandestine meeting of various terrorist groups who are negotiating terms of cooperation with each other only to find out that it was in fact a nuclear arms deal that had a full battalion of support just out of sight, when your hope was to at least perform decapitating strike if not capture some of their leadership structure and now your contending with far worse things all the while your intel and comms personnel are screaming at each other about a thousand things no one planned to be dealing with today all the while your senior staff are busy trying to keep the deployment of your major weapons from becoming a complete shit show.
All this while your scout/breaching force are hunkering down well within range of enemy forces while attempting to extract the, just for emphasis, SURPRISE NUKE that they managed to pull out of enemy hands that keeps leaking radiation like a sieve.
This whole operation was, much like prior engagements that involved the Shishigui, a symptom of the Sect and the Empire as a while not being ready for a war while the other forces have the benefit of being the instigators and therefore having the initiative. Combined with the Shishigui's current status as a wildcard in terms of capabilities, the Shishigui are compounding intelligence problems that normally would not be nearly as severe as what the Sect is experiencing. Namely a lack of intelligence regarding approximate numbers of major strategic assets, anything regarding what their troop and civilian movements actually mean, and literally anything about the blackbox that is Shishigui support capacity all after removing the best man from the job in terms of analyzing and combating Tribal tactics, Zhou.
The only major engagements to date are what the Sect assumed was a routing border conflict that became a major incursion supported by unknown enemy forces of unknown but significant strength that cost the Sect their greatest military mind in Zhou which was absolutely the best possible opening move by the Tribes and Shishigui.
Then what was a successful scouting mission went sideways during what was supposed to be the easy part with the revelation that the enemy can brute force Elites effectively on command and that their very environment is dangerous to the Sects best assets and equipment and that what is supposed to be reliable is not.
And just now we've had a capture and kill retaliatory strike go to hell in a hand basket, with resources normally only seen in limited quantities on full display by individuals that shouldn't rank high enough to have any, while attempting to secure a surprise objective in the Starstone while in the middle of what is effectively a pissing match between battleships using their big guns instead of the intended "kill, grab, destroy, evac while Elders pincer and snipe their target."
But we are still in the opening stages of a war and the Sect is having trouble rousing from their defensive stance guarding the wall to a more active state they haven't taken since Ogodei, while still having to continue manning their current stations along the wall for if nothing else observation posts. The structural reworking needed to handle this is going to be rough and full of growing pains. Especially when the people in charge are by nature specialized to certain role better than others and as stated we already lack Zhou's own expertise and cautious respect for the dangers that the Barbarians pose in stark contrast to his relative's own personal grudge combined with having to reverse course on his preparations for retirement means he isn't s up to speed as he would otherwise be.
However once the Province and potentially the rest of the Empire get moving, it's endgame for the Tribes and Shishigui as the benefit of the Empire's structure is that their resources, manpower, and talisman production will outstrip anyone except maybe the Shishigui's who can sacrifice personnel for power. What we are experiencing right now is the Tribes throwing haymakers while they work to acquire weapons that are both big and scary enough to keep the Empire from deploying its own big guns or performing rear line blitzes to demolish their home bases
However right now, as stated the Sect is still mobilizing and lacks the organizational fluidity to properly address what we've learned and is liable to lump Elsa in the, "To be hit with a hammer" bucket with the other Tribes. I suggest we take it to the Duchess as she has both the lack of others who could gainsay her decisions on resource allocation and currently a general abundance of resources to look at this as a different sort of opportunity.
[X] Remain silent, wait until your debrief with the Duchess to discuss the matter
