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

[X] No. In addition to potentially being a another bone to toss to the Meng, as a high profile project for their facilities here, you would rather receive results in a more reasonable time frame. (Faster turnaround on Labyrinth Loot, Smaller bonus for identification and safety. Reformer/Conservative Meng like this)

Yeah, context and timing matter.

[X] No. In addition to potentially being a another bone to toss to the Meng, as a high profile project for their facilities here, you would rather receive results in a more reasonable time frame. (Faster turnaround on Labyrinth Loot, Smaller bonus for identification and safety. Reformer/Conservative Meng like this)

There's a number of reasons I'm voting for this option, but the biggest is that I'd like to be involved in the plot.

Farming the research out to the capital means farming the discoveries out of the story, as far as I'm concerned. This is the trade road/materials vote all over again.

Things that are relevant to us, our struggles, our holdings, these things should be held close, so that they can actually matter whatsoever. There's zero, negative even, value in kicking this stuff completely offscreen, which is what I expect with research taking place in the capital.

Like, think for a minute. If we have local research of things we find in the beavers' labyrinth, then we might be able to have scenes with beavers interacting with gay astronomers and Meng scholars and the beavers could have cute hats!

Does sending research materials off offer us anything of remotely comparable value? No it does fucking not.

And cute hat beavers are only the most compelling reason to keep this plotline close. There's a bunch of boring things involving having a closer and more influential hand in framing discoveries, which is important to the ongoing health of relations too. But. Mostly cute hat beavers.

AbeoLogos said:

There's a number of reasons I'm voting for this option, but the biggest is that I'd like to be involved in the plot.

Farming the research out to the capital means farming the discoveries out of the story, as far as I'm concerned. This is the trade road/materials vote all over again.

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I completely agree with your understanding of this. Which is part of why I'm voting to send it offscreen. We have so many things to juggle already, with more coming. The ability to reduce actions competing for our limited attention is good for our action economy.

In that case we shouldn't bother with the labyrinth at all, is the thing. Let Gan Guangli handle it or something.

Only, oops? It's inherently tied to major overarching plots? Ditching it isn't an option , realistically. So we should actually center on it reasonably instead of leaving it to linger as an empty waste of time we nonetheless cannot actually sever ever.

[X] No. In addition to potentially being a another bone to toss to the Meng, as a high profile project for their facilities here, you would rather receive results in a more reasonable time frame. (Faster turnaround on Labyrinth Loot, Smaller bonus for identification and safety. Reformer/Conservative Meng like this)

[X] No. In addition to potentially being a another bone to toss to the Meng, as a high profile project for their facilities here, you would rather receive results in a more reasonable time frame. (Faster turnaround on Labyrinth Loot, Smaller bonus for identification and safety. Reformer/Conservative Meng like this)

AbeoLogos said:

In that case we shouldn't bother with the labyrinth at all, is the thing. Let Gan Guangli handle it or something.

Only, oops? It's inherently tied to major overarching plots? Ditching it isn't an option , realistically. So we should actually center on it reasonably instead of leaving it to linger as an empty waste of time we nonetheless cannot actually sever ever.

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And the beaver/starspawn plot is literally our most involved and connected-to-stuff fief development plot.

If you're wanting to push stuff away shifting things like the Cathedral and Grotto plots offscreen would probably be better imo.

AbeoLogos said:

[X] No. In addition to potentially being a another bone to toss to the Meng, as a high profile project for their facilities here, you would rather receive results in a more reasonable time frame. (Faster turnaround on Labyrinth Loot, Smaller bonus for identification and safety. Reformer/Conservative Meng like this)

There's a number of reasons I'm voting for this option, but the biggest is that I'd like to be involved in the plot.

Farming the research out to the capital means farming the discoveries out of the story, as far as I'm concerned. This is the trade road/materials vote all over again.

Things that are relevant to us, our struggles, our holdings, these things should be held close, so that they can actually matter whatsoever. There's zero, negative even, value in kicking this stuff completely offscreen, which is what I expect with research taking place in the capital.

Like, think for a minute. If we have local research of things we find in the beavers' labyrinth, then we might be able to have scenes with beavers interacting with gay astronomers and Meng scholars and the beavers could have cute hats!

Does sending research materials off offer us anything of remotely comparable value? No it does fucking not.

And cute hat beavers are only the most compelling reason to keep this plotline close. There's a bunch of boring things involving having a closer and more influential hand in framing discoveries, which is important to the ongoing health of relations too. But. Mostly cute hat beavers.

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Ling Qi isn't a researcher. She has no particular expertise in research, so she's not going to be doing the research herself. That means that regardless of the location, the level of involvement in the plot is exactly the same, in that she goes and talks to the researchers and they tell her what they researched. This takes longer to do when the researchers in the capital, sure, but that's already in the options ("faster"/"slower" turnaround), but the plot itself? Exactly the same. "Oh, hey, a messenger came, the researchers want to talk to me, I will talk to the researchers."

Admittedly my argument there is a little unfair, because we're basically the only ones who can do the Grotto while Beavers and Starspawn could conceivably be handled by Gan and Renxiang. Indeed, we're even arguably not that great for it.

It's still the most actually plot-y though.

[X] No. In addition to potentially being a another bone to toss to the Meng, as a high profile project for their facilities here, you would rather receive results in a more reasonable time frame. (Faster turnaround on Labyrinth Loot, Smaller bonus for identification and safety. Reformer/Conservative Meng like this)

Ling Qi is not a researcher, but having a near source of information about the ticking time bomb in the fief that we're expected to clear will be invaluable to anyone, researcher or not.

And I really don't want a case of "We can do this plot, but we chose the option with longer wait times, so by necessity, we have to wait 1-2 turns when it would have been perfect then.". Then the whole narrative will shift to make it accommodate the changes caused by delays and get scrambled.

Like with the Diao Hualing arc. We picked it for the Diao knowledge but significant delays completely derailed it. Don't get me wrong, I loved the conclusion of ot. But the shift in focus caused by delays meant we didn't get info we were supposed to until we had a vote where that information was CRUCIAL. And the info isn't even part of the narrative! Yrs added it in a spoiler for us!

I really don't want another Wang v Diao vote when we're arguing without information we should have gotten a while ago that was lost because of delays.

[X] Yes. Little enough is known, and the facilities at the capital are superior. She would like to get use out of any treasures sooner rather than later, but she would like to be certain of their safety even more. (Slower Turnaround on Labyrinth Loot, higher rolls for identification and safety. MoI likes this)

AbeoLogos said:

Point 5 is also an issue after the summit. Turn around times are important. Scattered focus has been a pacing issue for some time. Post-summit yrs is going to be trying to shift around narrative structures to give more cohesive plotlines.

Significant time delays between discoveries and even starting followup probes or interactions, that also put the materials completely beyond our grasp, isn't ideal.

Yes here comes at the significant cost of ongoing timing and pacing headaches.

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The point about scattered pacing makes me pause actually...a coherent plotline that isn't all over the place is kinda important.

Anderein said:

Ling Qi isn't a researcher. She has no particular expertise in research, so she's not going to be doing the research herself. That means that regardless of the location, the level of involvement in the plot is exactly the same, in that she goes and talks to the researchers and they tell her what they researched. This takes longer to do when the researchers in the capital, sure, but that's already in the options ("faster"/"slower" turnaround), but the plot itself? Exactly the same. "Oh, hey, a messenger came, the researchers want to talk to me, I will talk to the researchers."

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No, we're talking about the results of the star material from the labyrinth adventure we'll do. it can be either A:
step 1) labyrinth adventure, get star material, bring to lab
step 2) a few weeks later in-story, get research results back on stardust and possible loot

or B:
step 1) labyrinth adventure, get star material, bring to lab
step 2) a few months later, get research results back on stardust and possible loot...oh yeah, that stuff...

How many turns will that be? one or two? one pass for a while IRL, honestly.
On one hand I still think we should throw the MOI a bone when its easy enough, we shouldn't be taking them so lightly or forgetting that we're supposed to be diplomatic here.
On the other, narrative coherency is important and the quest format allows little enough as it is.

I'm approval voting for now.
[X] Yes. Little enough is known, and the facilities at the capital are superior. She would like to get use out of any treasures sooner rather than later, but she would like to be certain of their safety even more. (Slower Turnaround on Labyrinth Loot, higher rolls for identification and safety. MoI likes this)

[X] No. In addition to potentially being a another bone to toss to the Meng, as a high profile project for their facilities here, you would rather receive results in a more reasonable time frame. (Faster turnaround on Labyrinth Loot, Smaller bonus for identification and safety. Reformer/Conservative Meng like this)

[X] No. In addition to potentially being a another bone to toss to the Meng, as a high profile project for their facilities here, you would rather receive results in a more reasonable time frame. (Faster turnaround on Labyrinth Loot, Smaller bonus for identification and safety. Reformer/Conservative Meng like this)

[X] No. In addition to potentially being a another bone to toss to the Meng, as a high profile project for their facilities here, you would rather receive results in a more reasonable time frame. (Faster turnaround on Labyrinth Loot, Smaller bonus for identification and safety. Reformer/Conservative Meng like this)

I think the Meng boost is more important here. The MOI is only relevant for as long as the summit goes on, after that they stop mattering for a while, at least until we do another big international event. And by that time circumstances will have changed - among other things, the fact that we have irreconcilable differences with the MOI big-shots will become clear eventually in the long run, and the success of this summit will give the MOI less ground to stand on when it comes to objecting to things. The Meng we need for a large amount of our medium- and long-term plans, taking too much of a hit with them damages Ren-Ren's cause a lot more then taking hits with the MOI does. Furthermore, taking a hit with the Meng and immediately following it up with not agreeing to something they want could really swing things in favor of our detractors, giving them momentum that we would need to halt before we could even begin on damage control. By contrast, we're never getting support from the MOI in the long term, we just need them to not combat us right now. Granted we need to also not take so many hits with the ministry that they try to blow up the summit, but I think the Meng are the bigger priority in this instance.

More simply put, the MOI are not relevant for our long-term Emerald Seas plans, the Meng are extremely relevant and also already on the fence about us, and we just took a hit to their rep. I know people are worried about the more immediate threat of Cao Chun breathing down our necks, and I can't comment on preferences visa safety/turnaround time, but I do think No is the right choice politically here.

[X] Yes. Little enough is known, and the facilities at the capital are superior. She would like to get use out of any treasures sooner rather than later, but she would like to be certain of their safety even more. (Slower Turnaround on Labyrinth Loot, higher rolls for identification and safety. MoI likes this)

[X] Yes. Little enough is known, and the facilities at the capital are superior. She would like to get use out of any treasures sooner rather than later, but she would like to be certain of their safety even more. (Slower Turnaround on Labyrinth Loot, higher rolls for identification and safety. MoI likes this)

The Laurent said:

Meng Dan might as well have been jumping up and down screaming that this is something that would help make the compensation comparatively bloodless or even count as part of the compensation. Going, "We're definitely not going to shut the Meng out" and then choosing literally every single option to shut the Meng out is going to win us nothing but enemies among people we kinda need to be allies.

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I think this is true to a large degree, and that if we vote 'Yes' here we need to do some serious making up with the Meng later. However, I think if a MoI representative was here, they'd be saying much the same from the other direction and that if we vote 'No' we'll need to do some serious making up with them later.

And of the two, I suspect we as a group will have a lot fewer objections to the plans that cozy up to the Meng than those that cozy up to the MoI going forward.

ImperatorV said:

More simply put, the MOI are not relevant for our long-term Emerald Seas plans, the Meng are extremely relevant and also already on the fence about us, and we just took a hit to their rep. I know people are worried about the more immediate threat of Cao Chun breathing down our necks, and I can't comment on preferences visa safety/turnaround time, but I do think No is the right choice politically here.

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I strongly disagree that the MoI is irrelevant to our long term Emerald Seas plans. Our long term Emerald Seas plans bear a disturbing resemblance to heresy, sedition, and outright rebellion if looked at by an unfriendly enough eye, and we need to make sure the eyes looking at them are not so unfriendly they choose those interpretations.

We will never be friends with the MoI, but we need to work hard not to be their enemy too overtly either.

[x] No. In addition to potentially being a another bone to toss to the Meng, as a high profile project for their facilities here, you would rather receive results in a more reasonable time frame. (Faster turnaround on Labyrinth Loot, Smaller bonus for identification and safety. Reformer/Conservative Meng like this)

Ultimately, I can't actually come up with good counter arguments to Renxiang, who decided on this course of action. Which means I have to agree.

[X] No. In addition to potentially being a another bone to toss to the Meng, as a high profile project for their facilities here, you would rather receive results in a more reasonable time frame. (Faster turnaround on Labyrinth Loot, Smaller bonus for identification and safety. Reformer/Conservative Meng like this)

I like this one slightly more but sooner or later we're going to have to throw a bone to Imperials or they're gonna interject at a critical juncture of their choosing instead...

I'm happy if either side wins this one tbh.

Erebeal said:

And the beaver/starspawn plot is literally our most involved and connected-to-stuff fief development plot.

If you're wanting to push stuff away shifting things like the Cathedral and Grotto plots offscreen would probably be better imo.

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There's also the (Cai) Renxiang angle here.

Maybe I'm overthinking it, but when I read this update, it looks to me that Renxiang has more personal stake in this than she's articulating. She's had questions, though without expressing them, about star stuff as it relates to the Cai for a while now. Certainly since the culdera fight.

My read is she'd prefer this research to happen further from her mother's seat of power, closer to her own access. She has questions, doesn't trust her mother, and is now in a place where she's willing to pursue things more independently. We should lean into it.

But the nature of her principles mean that this personal dimension won't override any proper argumentation we might raise to the contrary. (Though I agree with you there's not really any compelling reason for Ling Qi to bring up here.)