Threads Of Destiny(Eastern Fantasy, Sequel to Forge of Destiny)

yrsillar said:

"Vileness clings here despite everything," Cao Chun said as she approached. "Those who refuse to accept the impermanence of men are among the most vile and destructive foes. You did well in destroying this infection, Baroness."

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I suppose those who bind a spirit of death will find the concept of corpse immortals to be even more unpleasant than other cultivators. Glad we could get a bit of approval from him before the summit starts though!

Imma go through each of your points and see what I can make of them. Might not convince anyone, but fair enough.

1. Jin Clan: If you think about it, it's kind of weird the guy joined the Ministry of Integrity as the apprentice of Cao Chun. The Inspector is supposed to be an utterly neutral and well-respected madlad. The kind of maverick who shows up on a Ducal House's doorstep to tell you, 'yes, you are under arrest. You broke the LAW'. That speaks to Jin Tae, that he might respect or even admire the ruthless pragmatism of Cao Chun. Further still, he's a Jin. If we take in the 'traditional' stance of all Jin, the guy should be snipping or at least trying to get some knowledge. In short, his talking up in that meeting without Cao Chun's permission speaks well of him. People aren't paintings; just because the majority of Jin Clansmen might believe in the 'usual' opposition to our efforts here doesn't mean we should paint all the Jin with the same brush. He'd make a pretty good sounding board too. Since he was raised among the Jin, he might know how to better frame things in our own efforts to get diplomacy going.
2. Cai Reputation: In a way, not allowing people in to overlook things this late is sensible, and I won't disagree. There has been a lot of political power and favors bound up to make this work. Fair enough. BUT I would say we're... kind of screwed that way. Slow and steady works for things people actually want, or things that have alot of time to be implemented. By the standards of old hats like Cao Chun, Ling Qi and the gang are precocious kids getting into nonsense that'll probably blow up in their faces. I have little doubt plenty of our detractors believe the same. So why not flip the board?! Bringing in Jin Tae, last minute, means alot of things. If we make it work, then we're adaptable, flexible, capable and ruthlessly efficient in using every asset to further our goals. As the Bai might say, Victory is its own excuse. Not to mention, keeping on even those who might hate us, or at least disagree against our ideals, is pretty much how any committee is supposed to work. Someone has to play devil's advocate, or we'd end up with a crew of yes-men and sycophants like the Hui did.

In theory we could ally with the MoI here. From the perspective of the welfare of the common people of the empire, Cao Chun and we have a lot in common. Accepting Jin Tae into our confidence would be a big step towards establishing such an alliance.

I don't want that alliance. The MoI want to minimize barbarian and imperial cultural contact by keeping them separate and that seems likely to head into horrifying territory. Keeping an element of distance helps further our cultural project while reducing the influence of what I view as a negative influence.

Keep in mind that the Jin are basically glorified corsairs who prefer to sack foreign cities rather than trade with barbarians (they leave that to the Xuan). So it is no surprise that Jin Tae's first instinct would be to consider the White Skies as potential targets or competitors. Of course, pretty much every clan has reformers or excentrics that go against the clan stereotype (Meizen, her aunt and her mother being pretty good examples), but as the second option says, a lot is at stake here. Keeping things professional seems the safer option.

Lord_Nib-Knob said:

Imma go through each of your points and see what I can make of them. Might not convince anyone, but fair enough.

1. Jin Clan: If you think about it, it's kind of weird the guy joined the Ministry of Integrity as the apprentice of Cao Chun. The Inspector is supposed to be an utterly neutral and well-respected madlad. The kind of maverick who shows up on a Ducal House's doorstep to tell you, 'yes, you are under arrest. You broke the LAW'. That speaks to Jin Tae, that he might respect or even admire the ruthless pragmatism of Cao Chun. Further still, he's a Jin. If we take in the 'traditional' stance of all Jin, the guy should be snipping or at least trying to get some knowledge. In short, his talking up in that meeting without Cao Chun's permission speaks well of him. People aren't paintings; just because the majority of Jin Clansmen might believe in the 'usual' opposition to our efforts here doesn't mean we should paint all the Jin with the same brush. He'd make a pretty good sounding board too. Since he was raised among the Jin, he might know how to better frame things in our own efforts to get diplomacy going.
2. Cai Reputation: In a way, not allowing people in to overlook things this late is sensible, and I won't disagree. There has been a lot of political power and favors bound up to make this work. Fair enough. BUT I would say we're... kind of screwed that way. Slow and steady works for things people actually want, or things that have alot of time to be implemented. By the standards of old hats like Cao Chun, Ling Qi and the gang are precocious kids getting into nonsense that'll probably blow up in their faces. I have little doubt plenty of our detractors believe the same. So why not flip the board?! Bringing in Jin Tae, last minute, means alot of things. If we make it work, then we're adaptable, flexible, capable and ruthlessly efficient in using every asset to further our goals. As the Bai might say, Victory is its own excuse. Not to mention, keeping on even those who might hate us, or at least disagree against our ideals, is pretty much how any committee is supposed to work. Someone has to play devil's advocate, or we'd end up with a crew of yes-men and sycophants like the Hui did.

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Yes, Chao Chun is supposed to be neutral. But he's also really, really biased. So much so that we have to craft how we approach things so that he'd listen.l and agree.

Secondly, I'm not saying we should assume he's like every Jin, just that we don't know enough about him to really judge if we should spend tome with him this close to the summit. Remember, this is a long term project. If he's still our minder by then, we can get to know him more, but not when we're so close.

Secondly, again, he's not his clan, but his clan is against two of our strongest allies. And he's in the Ministry that's most likely to oppose us because of our philosophy. The Ministry that makes its members bind death spirits so that of they go against the rules, they're dead. If we had more info on the MoI from maybe Jiao, or more info about the Jin, maybe I'll agree, but we literally know nothing about him. It's a lesser degree of Zheng Fu.

Mind you, there's only a chance we'll convince him too. So, on top of all that, this is all for a chance to change his opinion last minute, when we have so many plates on the air, not enough action slots (remember, we'll most likely have to sacrifice two personal actions for professional), and no time. It can easily fail.

Plus, you know, alliances matter in the feudal society Destiny Cycle is in. He's in a clan that's against our allies. Even if we convince him, it won't be about us bringing the Jin over. It'll be about meeting imperial standards because, you know, he's just there to pass on info to Chao Chun.

And, I cannot stress this enough, if we actually do convince him and bring the Jin to the table...then we have a clan with interests against two of our allies.

We already have a lot of opposition *inside* our province. We don't have to deal with ones outside too when we can have a professional relationship that won't compromise us right now.

Edit: Also, from other perspectives, we have Renxiang, Gan, Meizhen, Xuan Shi, wjo, though they have similar ideals, bring lots of perspectives to the table. This is, first and foremost, our project

I am leaning towards professional. We have a lot on our plate already and we don't actually know how big our plate is.

Conclusion looks obvious here; keep Jin Tae at arm's length. As much as I'm a bit curious about Jin Tae, we have too little AP to engage him here and whatever projects he has in his route. We don't have much to gain from engaging too much with an MoI agent aside from telling them to leave us alone.

Not to we just convinced Xuan She to join us not too long ago. It'd be real awkward if we engage with Jin Tae more and Xuan Shi is there, with the whole Xuan vs Jin thing and all.

@Oliver_Twister, I still feel it isn't the best option, but I'll respect your opinion and leave it here. I'll take the 'Bring him in' vote, but Imma probably be crushed in a landslide. It is what it is. Chatting it up with Turtle-Man Xuan should be fun, regardless.

To be fair there are a lot of problems we could start on solving if we got the Jin really invested in this project. A shared project is the stating point for talks.

On the other hand the problems we could solve are not really our problems.

yrsillar said:

It is the way of the Jin to present a friendly face to all, while plotting in their hearts.

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Surely we would do well to heed the advice of Bia Xiao Fen. Never trust a clan that rejects the truth of carcinization!

Lord_Nib-Knob said:

@Oliver_Twister, I still feel it isn't the best option, but I'll respect your opinion and leave it here. I'll take the 'Bring him in' vote, but Imma probably be crushed in a landslide. It is what it is. Chatting it up with Turtle-Man Xuan should be fun, regardless.

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Aight. Thanks for that. We just have too many actions, with too information and time for me to be confident in the first option. If the thread picked that vote earlier back to learn more about the Jin, maybe I'll pick it. If we had more information on the MoI and how their death spirits work, maybe I'll pick it.

If we didn't have less professional actions available between now and the summit,, maybe I'll pick it.

If we literally didn't convince Xuan Shi, a member of the clan that's in a long lasting feud with the Jin, to join us just this turn, maybe I'll pick it.

And, if we didn't just treat Zheng Fu professionally when he came up randomly, maybe I'll pick it.

But well, that's a lot of ifs. I admit that last point is kind iffy though since they're a different context there, but I still think it counts.

As for the winning vote, we'll have to wait and see.

Does bringing him in close give us an advantage in dealing with him as a potential bad actor or is this vote just deciding to take a chance on being vulnerable with pirate prince turned rookie fed in exchange for potential Jin/Ministry support?

No stated or tangible advantage so far, other than maybe convincing him to see our POV.

The vote is about how we approach our relationship with him, since he's now our imperial liaison.

yrsillar said:

I have at least heard credible reports of true civilizations beyond the Empire's shores though. So I would rather not assume.

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He's a lot more reasonable than I was fearing. Still think we should keep our relationship professional tho.

[X] You can't be fully sure of Jin Tae's intentions, given his family and work. Keep communication professional and arms length. There is too much to risk here

Too many plates. Not enough hands. Not enough info. Not enough time.

[X] You can't be fully sure of Jin Tae's intentions, given his family and work. Keep communication professional and arms length. There is too much to risk here

Easy choice.

I'm actually fine with either of these options, but there's a lot we don't know, and I'd prefer to make a solid go at our intention here instead of flip flopping all over the place. Our ignorance doesn't help avoid that.

-it's not clear what we necessarily want out of the MoI here. Tangibly, I mean. Other than less interference/decreased chance of the Empress poking her nose in.
-feels like we should be getting Xuan Shi's input here? His clan and the Jin have beef, and if there's going to be tension between the two of them, even if Xuan Shi is starting it, turtle boy's going to come out ahead. Without having an idea of what that's going to look like, it's hard to make commitments. Because our ability to stick to them isn't entirely in our hands.
-how much self censorship do we want to be doing in our internal strategy meetings to keep up a palatable image for the Peaks' eyes on the ground?
-if we let him into the planning process, are we setting him up to fail? If we don't actually integrate his advice/constantly shoot down his input, couldn't that be worse than keeping him at a distance in the first place?

I don't hate the guy, and flipping him more towards our sentiments would be both cool AND funny. But he's beholden, here, to a greater hierarchy whose intentions we aren't well positioned to comprehend much less navigate. TWO hierarchies even. The Ministry of Integrity and his clan. And then there's also the issue of likely friction with one of our committed allies in Xuan Shi.

Again, I don't have an issue with Jin Tae himself. There's just a unch of surrounding uncertainty. Tbh, some of this decision doesn't even sound like it's Ling Qi's call. Integration of a MoI attache with internal decision making is an executive, read Cai Renxiang, determination. Especially since she is to whom Jin Tae is officially attached. We're just the initial contact point in his assignment.

Mr.Kittens said:

The choice is a bit annoying because it'd be useful to have someone more sceptical involved in the planning, who's nonetheless on-board of the main. He would make a pretty good devil's advocate, same as Luo. It'd be a nice way of covering some of our blind spots. At the same time, I don't really care about convicting him we're right.

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Kinda sounds like a role Diao Hualing could slide into. Not full-time, she already has a job. She has the advantage of valuing us as a contact and being unlikely to completely sell us out for being odd

[X] You can't be fully sure of Jin Tae's intentions, given his family and work. Keep communication professional and arms length. There is too much to risk here

[X] You can't be fully sure of Jin Tae's intentions, given his family and work. Keep communication professional and arms length. There is too much to risk here