Fire Emblem: Last of the Manakete

[X] Suggest that the Revisionists use your story to show what manakete are really like. This will likely be polarizing: drawing more people to your side on the one hand, but also risking particularly hard-line anti-manaketes making a fuss. You have your protections, but it is a risk.
[X] Find Apollo. You have a bad feeling about this, it must have taken many minutes for that messenger to rush his way up here. If there's even the slightest possibility he's in danger, then your place is by his side.

[x] Follow Master Blitzbolt. He seemed... genuinely surprised by this, but you still don't completely trust him. If he's up to something, you want to be able to head it off fast. You might not have time to get help if he does try something.
[x] Suggest that the Revisionists use your story to show what manakete are really like. This will likely be polarizing: drawing more people to your side on the one hand, but also risking particularly hard-line anti-manaketes making a fuss. You have your protections, but it is a risk.

[X] Suggest that the Revisionists use your story to show what manakete are really like. This will likely be polarizing: drawing more people to your side on the one hand, but also risking particularly hard-line anti-manaketes making a fuss. You have your protections, but it is a risk.

[X] Stay and talk to the Heads. They might be able to provide some insight into what's going on, and you do have some questions for them. Besides, the Archmage will likely return soon, and he'll probably already be irritated. You don't want to make his mood worse by skipping his meeting.

[X] Suggest that the Revisionists use your story to show what manakete are really like. This will likely be polarizing: drawing more people to your side on the one hand, but also risking particularly hard-line anti-manaketes making a fuss. You have your protections, but it is a risk.
IIRC previous caution was rooted in preventing any interference from making accreditation difficult. Now Ryza is accredited, and can throw herself headfirst into well-known-Head Mage-ship.

[X] Stay and talk to the Heads. They might be able to provide some insight into what's going on, and you do have some questions for them. Besides, the Archmage will likely return soon, and he'll probably already be irritated. You don't want to make his mood worse by skipping his meeting.
These are important people, and Darktide seems to be close to the knife's edge, teetering between support and fear. Possibly we can finagle a majority of the Heads supporting Revisionist or manakete friendly policy, even if Blitzbolt himself gets installed as a puppet eventually.

Unrelated miscellaneous thought but ever since the mention that manakete's pronunciation is dialectical every time I read it I think of how in two thousand years scholars will be squabbling over manakete dialects and bemoaning how linguistic and mythological scholarship is strongly skewed towards a single southern dialect because Ryza was the only/main survivor, similar to how people talk about Athenian vs Spartan vs other Hellenes in classics scholarship today.

SoaringHawk218 said:

A tome that's killed Mother...

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My first thought for an FE-style twist, or that Ryza's mother's stone was turned into Mjolnir. But completely unsupported, just fun speculation.

[X] Suggest that the Revisionists use your story to show what manakete are really like. This will likely be polarizing: drawing more people to your side on the one hand, but also risking particularly hard-line anti-manaketes making a fuss. You have your protections, but it is a risk.

I'm cool with taking some risks in that regard. We're out to change how the world works, it's not always going to be sunshine and roses.

[X] Stay and talk to the Heads. They might be able to provide some insight into what's going on, and you do have some questions for them. Besides, the Archmage will likely return soon, and he'll probably already be irritated. You don't want to make his mood worse by skipping his meeting.

Hearing the impressions of people most familiar with the Collegium's operations, it's role in politics, it's response to this situation, and the ramifications of this seems valuable to me.

tricholysis said:

Unrelated miscellaneous thought but ever since the mention that manakete's pronunciation is dialectical every time I read it I think of how in two thousand years scholars will be squabbling over manakete dialects and bemoaning how linguistic and mythological scholarship is strongly skewed towards a single southern dialect because Ryza was the only/main survivor, similar to how people talk about Athenian vs Spartan vs other Hellenes in classics scholarship today.

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Or how Greek scholarship in general biases towards things Athenians wrote about themselves (or about other societies, in order to define Athens by contrast) rather than any other polis or politai. And let's not forget about the biases caused by the fact that any literature they find from other tribes is going to be filtered through the lens of that one survivor. Whose lens is even more restrictive than most because she was a sheltered child before being put to sleep.

My first thought for an FE-style twist, or that Ryza's mother's stone was turned into Mjolnir. But completely unsupported, just fun speculation.

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It's so fun that I suspect at least half of us have wondered whether one of the legendary tomes was made from Ryza's exceptionally powerful mother.

[X] Suggest that the Revisionists use your story to show what manakete are really like. This will likely be polarizing: drawing more people to your side on the one hand, but also risking particularly hard-line anti-manaketes making a fuss. You have your protections, but it is a risk.
[X] Follow Master Blitzbolt. He seemed... genuinely surprised by this, but you still don't completely trust him. If he's up to something, you want to be able to head it off fast. You might not have time to get help if he does try something.

[X] Suggest that the Revisionists use your story to show what manakete are really like. This will likely be polarizing: drawing more people to your side on the one hand, but also risking particularly hard-line anti-manaketes making a fuss. You have your protections, but it is a risk.

[X] Find Apollo. You have a bad feeling about this, it must have taken many minutes for that messenger to rush his way up here. If there's even the slightest possibility he's in danger, then your place is by his side. Also, warn the Heads about Master Blitzbolt sudden exit and where are you going, just to give them the know.

[x] Follow Master Blitzbolt. He seemed... genuinely surprised by this, but you still don't completely trust him. If he's up to something, you want to be able to head it off fast. You might not have time to get help if he does try something.
[x] Suggest that the Revisionists use your story to show what manakete are really like. This will likely be polarizing: drawing more people to your side on the one hand, but also risking particularly hard-line anti-manaketes making a fuss. You have your protections, but it is a risk.

Apollo is safe for now. But this is the perfect time for Blitzbolt to trigger any other prep the he and other imperial hardliners have done. So better to follow him and potentially stop it from going of.

It's always a pleasure to see this one update! Thank you very much !

[X] Follow Archmage Stormspeaker. You have to know exactly what happens down there, who says what, what decisions are made. Lives could depend on it, and even if they don't Archduke Letoro will want to know.
[X] Suggest that the Revisionists use your story to show what manakete are really like. This will likely be polarizing: drawing more people to your side on the one hand, but also risking particularly hard-line anti-manaketes making a fuss. You have your protections, but it is a risk.

[X] Suggest that the Revisionists use your story to show what manakete are really like. This will likely be polarizing: drawing more people to your side on the one hand, but also risking particularly hard-line anti-manaketes making a fuss. You have your protections, but it is a risk.

[X] Stay and talk to the Heads. They might be able to provide some insight into what's going on, and you do have some questions for them. Besides, the Archmage will likely return soon, and he'll probably already be irritated. You don't want to make his mood worse by skipping his meeting.

Apollo should be fine, first impulse aside, they aren't specifically targeting him so much as all foreign students and we got an angry top tier archmage wielding the strongest spell focus in the land to deal with the...intruders.

As such, the meeting of the Heads is the best place because the ones who had dismissed the conspiracy theories earlier now will have a lot of questions about it.
And we have answers.

[X] Follow Archmage Stormspeaker. You have to know exactly what happens down there, who says what, what decisions are made. Lives could depend on it, and even if they don't Archduke Letoro will want to know.
[X] Suggest that the Revisionists use your story to show what manakete are really like. This will likely be polarizing: drawing more people to your side on the one hand, but also risking particularly hard-line anti-manaketes making a fuss. You have your protections, but it is a risk.

[X] Suggest that the Revisionists use your story to show what manakete are really like. This will likely be polarizing: drawing more people to your side on the one hand, but also risking particularly hard-line anti-manaketes making a fuss. You have your protections, but it is a risk.

[X] Stay and talk to the Heads. They might be able to provide some insight into what's going on, and you do have some questions for them. Besides, the Archmage will likely return soon, and he'll probably already be irritated. You don't want to make his mood worse by skipping his meeting.

Yeah, we warned Apollo to hang out with his friends and allies and the likelyhood of Happenings in the near future, he's covered. What we need to do now is spin, spin, spin.

We're already in the perfect place to act right now. The best thing to do is lock everyone else in as allies in the future, since the Marble Hall is probably not going to be taken over now that Stormspeaker has been advised and the Regent's Plot got revealed red fucking handed to everyone.

Not unless they're willing to commit Secret Assets to the table, like the Emperor Ganker or 'Suddenly Dragons'

I don't think there's ever been a recruitable red dragon in any FE game, so I hope there's a red survivor we can find somewhere.

Welp. Shit is now in the process of going down. Odds are there's gonna be blood on the floor when we get home.

By the way, I fucking called it. No way in hell can an institution on imperial soil hang onto its neutrality when the empire decides to Do Things.

[X] Suggest that the Revisionists use your story to show what manakete are really like. This will likely be polarizing: drawing more people to your side on the one hand, but also risking particularly hard-line anti-manaketes making a fuss. You have your protections, but it is a risk.

[X] Stay and talk to the Heads. They might be able to provide some insight into what's going on, and you do have some questions for them. Besides, the Archmage will likely return soon, and he'll probably already be irritated. You don't want to make his mood worse by skipping his meeting.

veekie said:

As such, the meeting of the Heads is the best place because the ones who had dismissed the conspiracy theories earlier now will have a lot of questions about it.
And we have answers.

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Convinced me to swap from Apollo to staying.

[X] Suggest that the Revisionists use your story to show what manakete are really like. This will likely be polarizing: drawing more people to your side on the one hand, but also risking particularly hard-line anti-manaketes making a fuss. You have your protections, but it is a risk.

[X] Stay and talk to the Heads. They might be able to provide some insight into what's going on, and you do have some questions for them. Besides, the Archmage will likely return soon, and he'll probably already be irritated. You don't want to make his mood worse by skipping his meeting.

Vanguard_D said:

Apollo is safe for now.

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[citation needed]

veekie said:

Apollo should be fine, first impulse aside, they aren't specifically targeting him so much as all foreign students and we got an angry top tier archmage wielding the strongest spell focus in the land to deal with the...intruders.

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"They're not specifically targeting Apollo, they're just targeting a group Apollo is part of. Probably the most prominent member thereof, since his dad is the semi-formal leader of the Empire's greatest rival. But there's a capable archmage who will be talking to and the leader of the invaders (who were prepared to fight a bunch of experienced mages) and threatening them with a book (which they knew was here), which means no other members of the group can do anything."


I can understand people who say "Apollo isn't our top priority." We've got a lot of priorities to juggle, I get that the safety of Ryza's friends isn't as important to everyone as the other priorities. That's a legitimate position.
But I can't understand people who are trying to argue that Apollo isn't in danger at all. He obviously is. Everyone is in danger, especially those associated with the Southern Kingdoms.

GreatWyrmGold said:

[citation needed]


"They're not specifically targeting Apollo, they're just targeting a group Apollo is part of. Probably the most prominent member thereof, since his dad is the semi-formal leader of the Empire's greatest rival. But there's a capable archmage who will be talking to and the leader of the invaders (who were prepared to fight a bunch of experienced mages) and threatening them with a book (which they knew was here), which means no other members of the group can do anything."


I can understand people who say "Apollo isn't our top priority." We've got a lot of priorities to juggle, I get that the safety of Ryza's friends isn't as important to everyone as the other priorities. That's a legitimate position.
But I can't understand people who are trying to argue that Apollo isn't in danger at all. He obviously is. Everyone is in danger, especially those associated with the Southern Kingdoms.

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We spent one of our prep-actions making sure Apollo and the other "In Danger" people are sticking together and taking care of each other. I sincerely doubt they're going to be able to run over a bunch of apprentice mages who have been warned that Shenaniganry is Afoot without throwing away the illusion of legality that they're desperately counting on to avoid making another enemy.

Trust in Apollo, he's a Good Boy and he Trusts Us, we even had it called out that he was taking care. What we can do now is keep our tabs on things--because by all indications, the Regent did not expect his Clever Plan to get revealed before he had all of his ducks in a row. This is not going to be a response capable of threatening a prepared Archmage wielding a Mastercraft, and they're not going to march in without their rubber stamp in place--this ploy is something that involves sheer brazenness and a veneer of legitimacy in order to work, since it falls apart with any warning whatsoever.

And by all indications, he was counting on Blitzbolt being in charge at this point, and that Blitzbolt's Imperial Loyalist tendencies would outweigh his duty as a Mage. As is becoming increasingly clear, this was a mis-read on their part. Even if he might have grit his teeth and accepted a fait accompli, he most definitely seems to be unwilling to play ball when the Regent was caught red handed. (And I suspect he's about to choke a bitch or that he came to the same decision that Ryza did, that he needs to cover the potential hostages. I've been getting the impression he's a dick, but he genuinely believes in the mission of the Marble Hall, and now that it's been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Regent is a bad actor, he's getting his ass-kicking boots on.)

[X] Suggest that the Revisionists use your story to show what manakete are really like. This will likely be polarizing: drawing more people to your side on the one hand, but also risking particularly hard-line anti-manaketes making a fuss. You have your protections, but it is a risk.

[X] Stay and talk to the Heads. They might be able to provide some insight into what's going on, and you do have some questions for them. Besides, the Archmage will likely return soon, and he'll probably already be irritated. You don't want to make his mood worse by skipping his meeting.

[X] Suggest that the Revisionists use your story to show what manakete are really like. This will likely be polarizing: drawing more people to your side on the one hand, but also risking particularly hard-line anti-manaketes making a fuss. You have your protections, but it is a risk.

[X] Stay and talk to the Heads. They might be able to provide some insight into what's going on, and you do have some questions for them. Besides, the Archmage will likely return soon, and he'll probably already be irritated. You don't want to make his mood worse by skipping his meeting.

Alectai said:

We spent one of our prep-actions making sure Apollo and the other "In Danger" people are sticking together and taking care of each other.

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I skimmed through the past several voting threads (back to before we left Ryza's mountainhome), and didn't see any trace of this? It's possible that I've forgotten where this would be, but I don't see it.

This is the most important point, by the way. If Ryza has taken specific action to make sure Apollo and his buddies are actually in a safe place and not just aware of the danger, that would change things significantly. But if it's just the bit where Ryza made sure to spread the news...I'm still concerned. It's not like Apollo was laying low during the past few days.

I sincerely doubt they're going to be able to run over a bunch of apprentice mages who have been warned that Shenaniganry is Afoot without throwing away the illusion of legality that they're desperately counting on to avoid making another enemy.

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You seem convinced of two things which I wouldn't take for granted:

• That whoever sent armed men to violate the sanctity of the Marble Hall is worried about whether their actions look legal, when they're overtly violating a millennium of tradition
• That agents of the Empire can't claim self-defense if a bunch of apprentice mages start doing anything that would make their status as apprentice mages relevant. (Aside from the sanctity of the Marble Hall, which, see above.)

GreatWyrmGold said:

I skimmed through the past several voting threads (back to before we left Ryza's mountainhome), and didn't see any trace of this? It's possible that I've forgotten where this would be, but I don't see it.

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I don't think it was a vote, but Ryza and Apollo explicitly went around warning relevant students about the danger, as per the request in the letter Ryza gave to Apollo.

To my knowledge the extent to which Ryza has prepared the Kingdom students is going around with Apollo to warn them as the Archduke's letter instructed. As a vote this was a consequence of us looking for Apollo when we first arrived. I do agree that I think the safety of the Kingdom students, and Apollo in particular, is being a bit oversold here. I think they're probably safe enough that I admitted that looking for Apollo was probably a "suboptimal" decision... I just don't particularly care for piloting Ryza to min-max when I think it's more in her nature to be worried about her new friend.

That said I don't think Alectai's vote was ever on following Blitzbolt? It was Apollo and then switched to sticking with the Tower Heads.

[X] Suggest that the Revisionists use your story to show what manakete are really like. This will likely be polarizing: drawing more people to your side on the one hand, but also risking particularly hard-line anti-manaketes making a fuss. You have your protections, but it is a risk.
[X] Stay and talk to the Heads. They might be able to provide some insight into what's going on, and you do have some questions for them. Besides, the Archmage will likely return soon, and he'll probably already be irritated. You don't want to make his mood worse by skipping his meeting.

Not 100% sure on the Revisionists vote but it seems like it's a reasonable time to start going loud.
As for the action vote, I think we need to talk to the heads. They'll have questions that we can answer, and our friends are staying together and thus safe enough (particularly with Archmage Stormspeaker heading out to deal with the problem)

I do kinda want to bring up Master Blitzbolt's exit though, just in case one of the heads wants to follow him or whatever.