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

[X] Seek out information on material things, structures of government and institutions at play here.(better understanding of the likely material demands and potential flashpoints of conflict between your institutions)

[X] Seek out information on material things, structures of government and institutions at play here.(better understanding of the likely material demands and potential flashpoints of conflict between your institutions)

[X] Seek out information on history and culture to better understand the forces at play here. (better understanding of the factions within the White Sky their disposition, and potential cultural flashpoints)

Feels more in line with how I imagine LQ's role in negotiations. Both are important though.

I think I just have a different perspective about how likely it is a for a real serious cultural clash to happen given our current understanding of the WS's culture. I just can't see a real threat of faultlines there, just some minor troubles we are already equipped to solve.
Not when compared about actual distribution of lands, trade and patrol routes, ownership of resources and such. Even if the summit was framed as a "cultural exchange" all the way back when we were in the iron fortress, the issues we are going to discuss in the actual summit are certainly mostly material.
It's true we still don't know that much about WS's culture. But when compared about what we know about their material interests in the Wall, it's already so much more. We just don't know anything about the projects they have already established or what are their prospects for the summit.
Do they have mines in the moutains? Some small forests where they get lumber? How much terrain do they use for theirs herds? Which terrains the don't have under control but were planning to?
We are currently in the dark about this kind of info, 2 months short of the summit, and I don't like it.

I also don't want the thread to lean like this into the notion of "Ling Qi's specialty is culture so she should leave material concerns to people with more expertise". It seems like the kind of thing that quickly becomes an excuse to leave aside thind that aren't as interesting to read as WS's lore.
Ling Qi understand perfectly well the conflict that the struggle for resources can create. She can ignore, even if there will be other meetings, such an important aspect of the summit because her PR is more about culture. As much as she is the loadbearer of the cultural aspect of the summit, Ling Qi also needs to have a complete grasp of all the material concerns of both sides.
Finding out about the WS's demands is also her role as the only person who can engage with them like this.

Finally, I also disagree that findings as many common cultural similarities as possible is mandatory for the summit to succeed.
Culture is only important up to the point of making sure there aren't incompatible practices. It's perfectly possible to have friendly and mutually benefitial relationships with cultures vastly different than our own.
In this case, the cultural and historical relation is just the starting point of the summit, not the ultimate goal of it. What will really spell the success of failure of this project is reaching an agreement on the material concerns and interests of the different factions.
That's why we need to gather all that info now so we can properly start to prepare for the summit. How are we going to form a plan and prioritize between the Count Clan's demands if we don't know which ones are materially incompatible with the WS's demands?
We can't afford to wait until "the next meeting" to find out.

There are demands from the Count clans that might be materially feasible, but not culturally too. Everything that touches the nomads could go either way, and the demands of the Luo in particular could cause a significant cultural clash if we don't frame them correctly.

I wonder if we can use the Eye of Grudges art to spot problems for the negotiations? It would be an appropriate test case for what Shu Yue taught us

When nomadic culture interacts with settlement culture, there is often severe misunderstandings with material ownership. Nomads often expect that any resources that are present are open to be used by who ever needs them, with no regard for fences/boundaries. Settled cultures often expect that any open land that doesn't have a permanent development is open to be claimed.

This kind of material misunderstanding was rampant during European colonialism, and still persists in parts of the world to this day.

[x] Seek out information on material things, structures of government and institutions at play here.(better understanding of the likely material demands and potential flashpoints of conflict between your institutions)

Hmmm...

[X] Seek out information on history and culture to better understand the forces at play here. (better understanding of the factions within the White Sky their disposition, and potential cultural flashpoints)

[X] Seek out information on material things, structures of government and institutions at play here. (better understanding of the likely material demands and potential flashpoints of conflict between your institutions)

[X] Seek out information on material things, structures of government and institutions at play here.(better understanding of the likely material demands and potential flashpoints of conflict between your institutions)

The scope of culture and history's relevance is being underestimated a bit here, I think. Obviously, it's relevant for avoiding faux pas, but it also goes beyond that. Avoiding mistakes would be the only utility if we assumed everyone in attendance wants the summit to work out, but that's a dangerous assumption. Some might be against it, some might be indifferent. And cultural values or ideology plays a huge part in this. We've seen a sample of this on our own side with the Diao; we opened with a pitch that offended their sensibilities. Not their material or organizational sensibilities, but their cultural and historical ones.

The most vital resource for the summit's success, the first step we can't miss, is fundamental legitimacy. We need to convince the parties arrayed that the other parties present are people(!) who are Civilized™️(!!) enough to bother entertaining the notion that a deal of any kind might be struck(!!!) and held to(!!!!). This isn't something we can take for granted, and we will need to work for it. The Other has deep roots. Our talk with Grydja exposed some of the more fundamental faults between our peoples, now we need to work on developing the kit to bridge them.

Lines on the map and other practicalities are obviously also very important, but remember that this is a first contact mission, and those lines on the map do not actually touch as yet. We've been to their northernmost holdings, they aren't close. Exchange of dialogue and basic custom comes before dividing the substance of the expanse between us. Necessity before comfort, even as we pursue both.

barty said:

There are demands from the Count clans that might be materially feasible, but not culturally too. Everything that touches the nomads could go either way, and the demands of the Luo in particular could cause a significant cultural clash if we don't frame them correctly.

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At this point, I strongly doubt that any side will unknowingly trample over some terrible cultural taboo. That's why and don't see much point in studying their culture even further at this point in time.
The important part is that everyone behaves in a polite and professional manner. As long as the will to actually reach and agreement is there, minor cultural frictions won't matter as much, specially if we smooth them over.
Besides, it isn't as if any culture is unaware of the concept of political marriages. Jaromila herself is married to Cloud Nomad Khan, so it's hardly going to be taken as an insult or some cruel act to the one being married off.
I do want to search for an alternative, though.

AbeoLogos said:

The scope of culture and history's relevance is being underestimated a bit here, I think. Obviously, it's relevant for avoiding faux pas, but it also goes beyond that. Avoiding mistakes would be the only utility if we assumed everyone in attendance wants the summit to work out, but that's a dangerous assumption. Some might be against it, some might be indifferent. And cultural values or ideology plays a huge part in this. We've seen a sample of this on our own side with the Diao; we opened with a pitch that offended their sensibilities. Not their material or organizational sensibilities, but their cultural and historical ones.

The most vital resource for the summit's success, the first step we can't miss, is fundamental legitimacy. We need to convince the parties arrayed that the other parties present are people(!) who are Civilized™️(!!) enough to bother entertaining the notion that a deal of any kind might be struck(!!!) and held to(!!!!). This isn't something we can take for granted, and we will need to work for it. The Other has deep roots. Our talk with Grydja exposed some of the more fundamental faults between our peoples, now we need to work on developing the kit to bridge them.

Lines on the map and other practicalities are obviously also very important, but remember that this is a first contact mission, and those lines on the map do not actually touch as yet. We've been to their northernmost holdings, they aren't close. Exchange of dialogue and basic custom comes before dividing the substance of the expanse between us. Necessity before comfort, even as we pursue both.

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I think you are underestimating the progress we have already done in that regard, as well as the importance of material benefit to keep peace.
Sadly, just considering the other party "civilized people" isn't nearly enough to avoid the nightmares we saw in the Dream with Xuan Shi. If there is a gain to be made or riches and land to acquire, there will always an excuse to get them, even through conquest. Being aware that the other side aren't barbarians and can uphold a deal isn't enough to avoid that result.

The very fact that this summit is taking place proves that both sides are willing to give it a shot. In order to prove that a deal can be uphold, a deal has to be made at all. IMO, and it seems this is where we disagree, material concerns are going to be the decisive factor.
Besides, presenting the WS's demands in an acceptable manner it's also important to get the Empire to think of the WS as civilized. If the Count representatives think their demands are too egregious, they will conclude they are greedy barbarians you can't reason with.

We have to convince people on both factions that reaching a pact is more beneficial than war and conquest. If some sides think the agreement doesn't benefit them as much as they want or "deserve" the whole thing will fall apart.
That's why we need a clear understanding of what everyone wants or expect to get out of the summit. Again, we don't know what the WS wants.

It's precisely because our frontiers aren't touching that the cultural points of conflict aren't so relevant. For a long time, the ES isn't going to interact with the WS outside of trade, military collaboration and other things of such nature. Even if aspects of each other's culture seem weird or distateful, it won't really affect proceedings.
During that time, the ES and WS will interact and mingle, and thus they will get to know and understand each other's cultures.

[X] Seek out information on material things, structures of government and institutions at play here.(better understanding of the likely material demands and potential flashpoints of conflict between your institutions)

Their government runs fundamentally differently from ours and knowing the basics of how they set up can help us determine what sorts of agreements can even be made in the first place. Hopefully this will also help them understand us as the closest they have is a seemingly fairly shortlived administration they barely remember.

Again, you've got it backwards because you're underestimating the depths of potential cultural clashes, if not proactively addressed. It's easy to make this mistake, since they're invisible to us. What with us not knowing about them. But it's exactly that same fact that leads you to believe they're not a big deal that makes them dangerous.

Material concerns are simply not as imminently relevant to the summit. If this was our only opportunity to gain any more information before the summit, and if the summit was the last opportunity to pursue the shaping of policy with the White Sky, then yes, we'd basically have to take the second option here. But neither of those things are true.

We have more time to suss out the material concerns of the White Sky before the summit. We will even probably do a substantially better job of asking after them after we have our own side's material concerns in whole, which as a reminder we don't have for this meeting. We also have time after the summit to sort out practical matters which won't come to a head for months or more realistically years and decades. It'd be nice to hit more than the bare minimum with the summit, but the bare minimum is all that's strictly necessary.

The issue though is that all of any of it, every second of face-to-face communication, relies on their being the capacity for mutual understanding and discourse, which fundamentally rests on navigating shared, and unshared, cultural values. Matters of culture and history are where the baseline effort is most capable of failing. We are not in a place where we can rest on our laurels.

Edit: like, to reiterate and address a point more directly

Doramas said:

That's why we need to gather all that info now so we can properly start to prepare for the summit. How are we going to form a plan and prioritize between the Count Clan's demands if we don't know which ones are materially incompatible with the WS's demands?
We can't afford to wait until "the next meeting" to find out.

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How can we effectively feel things out for conflicts during this talk when we don't know what literally 50% of the Count clans are actually demanding, yet? Just guess? It's not viable. We don't have enough info on our own side to actually make this talk a productive use of our time, focusing on that.

AbeoLogos said:

How can we effectively feel things out for conflicts during this talk when we don't know what literally 50% of the Count clans are actually demanding, yet? Just guess? It's not viable. We don't have enough info on our own side to actually make this talk a productive use of our time, focusing on that.

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What? We aren't going to solve the WS's material concerns in this solving.
We are going to find out which are their base demands so we can compare them to the Count clan's and make a cohesive plan out of all of them.
Like we have done with all the Count clan's representatives we have meet these few last updates?
This meeting isn't any different. It's a preliminary talk to feel out their interets.

While there is much much work to be done we have done some in regards to getting an idea of each other's culture, though more learning theirs than teaching ours which is another problem we will have to sort out before the summit, meanwhile we have done pretty much nothing for the other. Which means it is all too likely for something one side cares way more than the other to accidentally come up and derail the summit, and we can't afford that since as has just came up a good part of support for doing this(at least on our side, we don't know enough about theirs) is the expectation our respective spheres of influence are far enough distance will dampen on the usual problems of neighbouring polities.

After we have done the bare minimum in this regard then we can go back to focusing on culture which is the approach we are going with, but we can't afford to not pursue this line of discussion at least once and I would rather get it out of the way than keep arguing every time the option comes up and getting increasingly worried if we don't pick it time after time.

[X] Seek out information on material things, structures of government and institutions at play here.(better understanding of the likely material demands and potential flashpoints of conflict between your institutions)

Doramas said:

What? We aren't going to solve the WS's material concerns in this solving.
We are going to find out which are their base demands so we can compare them to the Count clan's and make a cohesive plan out of all of them.
Like we have done with all the Count clan's representatives we have meet these few last updates?
This meeting isn't any different. It's a preliminary talk to feel out their interets.

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And, as I indicated above, Ling Qi is worse at poking around their base demands when she doesn't have her own side's in mind. Because there's no guarantee they're even on the same page in terms of what be considered or out of bounds. There can be redlines so deeply entrenched mentioning them doesn't even come to mind; this doesn't make them any less important though, it's generally going to make them more important. Having our side's demands in minds would help us feel out their own.

This is where the importance of the whole cultural and historical stuff comes in. Values judgements, unknown unknowns, default assumptions, etc, etc.

If we pick material here, we're very, very likely going to have to supplement it anyway, because Ling Qi's foundation for having that conversation right now is fatally incomplete.

[X] Seek out information on material things, structures of government and institutions at play here.(better understanding of the likely material demands and potential flashpoints of conflict between your institutions)

AbeoLogos said:

And, as I indicated above, Ling Qi is worse at poking around their base demands when she doesn't have her own side's in mind. Because there's no guarantee they're even on the same page in terms of what be considered or out of bounds. There can be redlines so deeply entrenched mentioning them doesn't even come to mind; this doesn't make them any less important though, it's generally going to make them more important. Having our side's demands in minds would help us feel out their own.

This is where the importance of the whole cultural and historical stuff comes in. Values judgements, unknown unknowns, default assumptions, etc, etc.

If we pick material here, we're very, very likely going to have to supplement it anyway, because Ling Qi's foundation for having that conversation right now is fatally incomplete.

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I just don't understand the importance of the order.
How then, are any of the talks with the Count clans useful if we didn't have the White Sky demands first? Not to mention we have met several count clans already
Finding out about those red lines is why we need WS's demands to begin with! We gather everyone's demands, compare them and search for points of conflict.
That's the whole point of the vote!

Ling Qi's apparent crippling incompetence in material matters won't preclude us of gaining extremely useful information in this meeting.

In any case, it's clear we have reached an impass.
We both think the other is undervaluing our own stand, and believe ours is going to be the critical weakpoint of the summit.
We are running in circles at this point.

We're familiar enough with the Emerald Seas that we don't need any greater context than we already have to analyze the demands of its Count clans. The White Sky are different, being foreign and largely unknown to us, which makes interpreting their concerns a more involved process. One lens that would be very useful for scanning their asks is what our Count clans are demanding, because it lets us compare and contrast and more importantly steer conversation to pick apart positions for clarity as might be relevant to conflicting areas of concern.

But, again, the thing is that we don't have half the demands of those Count clans. The Count clan demands aren't difficult for us to figure out and extrapolate, but we haven't even heard half of them. That flatly means being unprepared to walk into a conversation with the foreign half of these talks with an ear to their material concerns and actually hope to understand them in the context of conflicts. Which is the whole argument for why it's so important we make the effort.

Doing it half-by-half is just sloppy, and it's going to leave loose questions sticking out at all odds of the seams of our ignorance. We're just not prepared to accomplish the task properly, at the moment.