TaskRabbit
Rodent of Unusual Goals
- Location
- PSU
Looks like we're too used to winning fights against the odds (Gisena OP), and we're about to get a serving of humble pie.
A Simple Transaction I
- Thread starter Rihaku
- Start date
- Original
HoratioVonBecker
Imperfectly Aligned
Subquest index is up to date again, mostly thanks to Orm's diligence with the general index. I've probably missed a lot of the smaller reactions, but then again no one's tagged me.
Also, Nine Quest and Yet Another Simple Transaction have been moved to Status Unclear, and everything that was in that section have been moved to Probably Dead. It seemed like it was time.
Also, Nine Quest and Yet Another Simple Transaction have been moved to Status Unclear, and everything that was in that section have been moved to Probably Dead. It seemed like it was time.
HoratioVonBecker
Imperfectly Aligned
I do now!
Glorious? You call this glorious?
Hold the line isn't heroic, it's just stupid. The Republic is only here for Letrizia/Versch. It's not heroism to be protecting people who you endangered in the first place. It's not heroic and glorious for thousands/millions of people die for no other reason than Hunger decided to 'vacation' here. This isn't some incredible last stand. Hunger isn't saving his wife or family or something, he's been here all of a couple days, only really met Adorie, and soon enough he'll be gone again.
Hunger spent a week here overthrowing their government and stealing their national landmark and now there's a hostile army coming for him, and millions of innocent solders are going to die fighting to protect.. what? Hunger's freedom to conquer some random country and then keep it? Hunger's freedom to 'vacation' wherever he wants?
He's not saving the innocent. They aren't innocent, they were an imperial power with reaver squads literally last week. And I'm convinced that there will be no genocide, and that far more people will die if they fight back than if they surrendur. Remember, people in the human sphere are much more moral than modern humans, they don't even own dogs.
You can also look at the real world. Countries like the United States do occasionally invade other countries with small teams of elite solders. Those elite solders are there to complete their mission and that's what they do. The seal team that killed Bin Ladin raid didn't hang around in Pakistan for a couple hours afterwards killing random civilians. The mossad agents who kidnapped Nazi's from Argentina didn't shoot up the town while they were at it. The Armament pilots could nuke this place if they wanted to, but neither one is described as a sadist.
...
You want THIS to be the high point of the quest? Because from my perspective, you couldn't make this minor skirmish against the Republic the high point of this quest no matter how hard you tried.
Hunger's true enemy is the HIdden Ones, and they and they alone are worth a glorious last stand.
So let me get this straight, you want Hunger's legend to be that he invades random countries, kills their leaders, takes all their money and their best mages and their national landmarks, then kills off an entire generation of their young men in fights that have nothing to do with them?
I'm not even getting into how suicidal Hold the Line is, apparently that's not important, what is important is the story we tell. But the problem is the story that Hold the Line tells is just depressing and terrible, it's just ordinary people dying by the millions so Hunger can pretend he's some kind of savior rather than a murder-hobo with delusions of heroism.
The Republic didn't send a small team of elite soldiers, they sent an army, backed up by a superweapon. Even if compare it with the real world, that's more like the invasion of Afghanistan or Iraq than the bin Laden raid. Except they also need to find Letrizia as fast as possible, because they need to get that superweapon back on the frontlines, so they are not going to be at all gentle in their search.
I wouldn't use the US as any kind of model to emulate, especially not in military terms.
Aabcehmu
Confusion as a Natural State of Being
- Location
- Chicago, IL
- Pronouns
- Any/All
They won't be gentle in their search, but they also don't have time to waste scouring Nilfel once they're confident Letrizia isn't there.
e-
An idea for a tactic in Fall Back: Have Adorie signal for parley ASAP, and then offer to sell the Republic accurate information regarding Letrizia's whereabouts. Say that Hunger came through with Letrizia in tow, and plundered their vaults of Mythic Platinum and that they'd be happy to point them in our direction if they can help refill the vaults. Only ask for a reasonable price given the resources available to the Republic outfit.
e-
An idea for a tactic in Fall Back: Have Adorie signal for parley ASAP, and then offer to sell the Republic accurate information regarding Letrizia's whereabouts. Say that Hunger came through with Letrizia in tow, and plundered their vaults of Mythic Platinum and that they'd be happy to point them in our direction if they can help refill the vaults. Only ask for a reasonable price given the resources available to the Republic outfit.
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HoratioVonBecker
Imperfectly Aligned
Oh, that's devious. I like it.
Aabcehmu
Confusion as a Natural State of Being
- Location
- Chicago, IL
- Pronouns
- Any/All
Adorie can even offer to have some of the soldiers come and check the vaults. They're probably massive, and more empty than they've been in living memory, and the Republicans have no reason to think that she would have given it all to us for free. Hell, once they know that we 'stole it for real', maybe even offer to just tell them where we are, to ensure we can at least be brought to justice.
Birdsie
Sharp Talons Cleave The Worthy
- Location
- Poland
Oh my fucking God. Can we do this? This sounds like a 300 IQ keikaku doori move.
You are playing 7th-dimensional shogi in the 10th dimension, dude.
Everything about this plan checks out - the only possible way to stop it from reasonably solving the problem is if the Republic soldiers decide to be inhumane or illogical assholes for some god-forsaken reason. Not impossible, given this is an Apocryphal proc, but it seems like it could resolve the issue.
Do you want to know the best part? Not only do we completely bamboozle the Republic. Not only do we completely dodge the bullet here.
In the end, we also scam them. I am so fucking down for this. Can we get some approximation of whether this can work?
EDIT:
If this works, we:
- Dodge the Apocryphal.
- Manage to resolve the problem in a way that nearly ensures minimal casualties for everyone, including the enemy.
- And then we scam them - both the Apocryphal and the Republic, into giving us money. And in doing so, we put in a nice start to the platinum reserve mission.
This is such a legend-tier chess move.
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Aabcehmu
Confusion as a Natural State of Being
- Location
- Chicago, IL
- Pronouns
- Any/All
One major issue with my Fall Back plan which is currently being discussed in the discord: how do we give Adorie the ability to effectively convince the republic soldiers that we left, considering that this is what we have actually done? Are there any ways that Adorie could reasonably prove that we fled the country, rather than hid somewhere within it? In particular, any ways that she could know without us having explicitly told her.
The republic has a staff of diviners and we know that some Astral beast can provide information. A bit hard to engage in information warfare when the other side can just see the future.
Honestly I am up for that, just for the collective "REEEEEEEEEE" from the Dying Gang
ImperatorV
The Laughing One
- Location
- The Voyaging Realm
While I'm down for 5d chess shenanigans when they are practical, consider that Hunger very recently overthrew the previous ruler of Nilfel and installed Adorie instead. That would be publically available information, and rather easy for the Republic forces to come by just by talking with the locals. The proposed deception would not work very long if the Republic commanders are anywhere near smart enough to do basic fact-checking.
Aabcehmu
Confusion as a Natural State of Being
- Location
- Chicago, IL
- Pronouns
- Any/All
That's the thing. It still works even in light of Augustine overthrowing. Augustine might be glad that she's not being held prisoner anymore, but that doesn't stop her from wanting to catch the man who robbed her country of a genuinely mind-boggling amount of wealth!
Tyrant_Rayne
Probably Not Evil… Maybe
- Location
- Canada
[X] Fall Back
Alright I've been convinced. If we can do fall back without being an asshole I'm all in.
Nifel is an incredibly advanced civilization and they have many different artifacts and magics... So do they maybe have something capable of recording videos, like say a video of us teleporting away while saying 'thanks for the money losers' or something to that effect?
Alright I've been convinced. If we can do fall back without being an asshole I'm all in.
Nifel is an incredibly advanced civilization and they have many different artifacts and magics... So do they maybe have something capable of recording videos, like say a video of us teleporting away while saying 'thanks for the money losers' or something to that effect?
Aabcehmu
Confusion as a Natural State of Being
- Location
- Chicago, IL
- Pronouns
- Any/All
That just proves that we teleported out of the vault or whatever. We need to prove that we didn't just leave the palace, but that we're on our way out of Nilfel as a whole, and that there's no point in killing anyone or razing any of the buildings.
ImperatorV
The Laughing One
- Location
- The Voyaging Realm
So, the play then is to act like Hunger showed up, overthrew the previous regime, and then extorted the new regime for a ridiculous sum as "payment" for the un-requested intervention? Perhaps mention that the Tears of Winter, a legendary artifact, had already been given as payment, and Hunger decided to take even more afterwards, before cowardly fleeing when a superior force showed up?
Could work... unless Procyon's pilot decides to apply his Armament's rank to the situation. Rank does everything, including detecting if you're being duped, and while Adorie is high rank she's not a 10. I think the deception is likely to collapse if it's looked at too hard.
Could work... unless Procyon's pilot decides to apply his Armament's rank to the situation. Rank does everything, including detecting if you're being duped, and while Adorie is high rank she's not a 10. I think the deception is likely to collapse if it's looked at too hard.
Tyrant_Rayne
Probably Not Evil… Maybe
- Location
- Canada
That's the thing we don't have to convince them we've left Nifel, just that Nifel hates our guts. There would be little reason to do the whole raze the country thing if Adorie just lets them in willingly. She could ask for their aid in scouring the country for us. Some collateral damage would probably still occur but at least no people would die.
Aabcehmu
Confusion as a Natural State of Being
- Location
- Chicago, IL
- Pronouns
- Any/All
That's valid, but I'm hopeful that the fact that the dupe contains so much of the truth, and even accurately reports our destination, will make it resistant to lie detection.
Plus part of the goal is just for the story sound, completely reasonable? So that, given their lack of time, the republic soldiers make the operative decision to assume it's true and to just exact punitive action if it turns out to be false.