Lol you gonna edit your post later, Jow? I wanna know what changed your mind.
well. In short: I don't like meta-voting
we have a character bloat problem
my feeling in my bones is that if there
is going to be a diplomatic problem, it's going to happen regardless of how we try to mitigate it. LQ and CRX are safe. Meng boy and Xia Lin are not. Potential Snow Lady characters added, but uh. If things go well . . .
maybe we can hand the diplomacy past-first-contact off to others and there'll be no lasting snow-lady characters?
anyway.
~~~~~~~~~~
Xia Lin smiled. It is not something I would consider Xia Ren's soldiers doing, because it is too personal and emotional. Xia Lin is a combat-focused Rushing Cloud cultivator prodigy like ourselves, except extremely imperial and also we have
no idea if she has anything
but martial skills. Showing your emotions on your face in public? Even when there is clearly some sort of greater screen enforced protecting you from inattention-to-diplo-arts?
two potentials for source-of-screens. First: Shenhua armor creates screens which promote unity and mute individuality, including expressions that either Social Arts or Esoteric Combat Perceptions would get an advantage from. Second: they're a buff art actively placed by commanders over the collective.
I think the first is more likely. Plumes are the elite, and that kind of jamming might be
really important against diviners and precognitives like we
know the Weilu successors would have had access to.
Now. This screening would
also be helpful because as soldiers, your Diplo suite might be lacking/non-existant. If that's the case, so long as you can cover your face and stay standing at attention, you will not be disadvantaged in the brief instances of Politics during deployment. Such as right now.
~~~~~~~~~~
There is a distinct risk that Xia Lin is not only pro-imperial, but a
hardline reformer like Xia Ren. Personally tearing up her clan's traditions, by force if necessary. Worse, there's a risk that, as a prodigal military talent of a notable lineage, she might hew closer in personality to Sword Boi, Wang, Sun (Shao and Lilling both) or even Ji Rong than to Xia Ren. All of these have had, or could have had in Wang's case, large problems stemming from arrogance, conflict-centered-interaction-models, and a lack of diplomacy skills.
Xia Lin's military abilities are not in question. However. We need to be
damn sure that she isn't going to say or do something stupid. With the screens in play, we have
no idea if such screens will be at work during the mission
or if Xia Lin is the kind to "take initiative" when they really have a feeling about something.
In case 1, where the screen is attached to the armor, there might be no problems but if she's hot-headed/blooded enough there might be some anyway.
In case 2, where the screens are localized and not coming with us, that could be really dicey.
Either way, I'd prefer to nip the problem in the bud by diplo-shocking her immediately in a way that cannot be done by anything but culture shock. Which is what the informal interaction would be. An intense and high stakes culture-shock.
All that said: Meh.
If YRS wants to take the story in the direction where Xia Lin, or Meng nephew, or our Diplo Mission is on a vote against eachother. Well. Okay.
I would vote for the shock of informality primarily for meta reasons. One's desires, alone, do not make a family after all. We can accommodate Xia Lin for now.