Shift in internal White Sky dynamics
I'm completely against option 3 due to this part.
The "Shift" will be to enforce a tighter control over the migration routes of the WS's affiliated Cloud Tribes. That would greatly limit their ability to recruit new tribes and severely strain their relationship with the tribes already under their influence.
The purpose of the checkpoints is to prevent conflicts with the Cloud Tribes by establishing fixed routes and passes. But that's pointless if by doing so we alienate the Cloud Tribes and encourage revolts and clashes by trying to restrict them too much.
I also want to remind everyone that we requested the Wang to adopt more of the WS's assimilation policies.
How are we going to go through that if we force Jaromila to employ harshers methods?
And that's not mentioning how much we would be undermining Jaromila's own position in her Confederation.
Overall a pretty bad option.
"Lesser WS nomad Dynamics Shift" may be acceptable. It's too ambigous to know, but it wouldn't be desirable in any case.
But the damage to the White Plumes favorabilty is too high a price.
It's already a near miracle that we started at +2 with them. Any trust we lose with the General would have to be bought back in blood. We can't waste it thoughtlessly.
That would leave option 5 as the only viable one of the check points variants.
But that gives up Embassy influence to both MoI and Theocracy.
As others have aptly explained, we don't only want the Summit to succeed. We want to retain ample control and influence of how the Embassy will develop moving forward. So any influence we give away must be carefully considered.
But the only option that doesn't increase Theocracy's influence is number 3, which I discarded at the very start. So there isn't much we can do in that front.
If it's an evenly split team, I assume we get some say into the ES side of the investigators. And the Theocracy would get a say in the WS side, ie the Crows.
All our interactions with the Crows, both in and out of story, have been good, imo. When Wu was exploring up top, they sought to here his side and reasoning before leaving him to his own devices.
When Zheng Fu was being rude, they were understanding and took it as a form of cultural misunderstanding. They were cool about Ling Qi's access to information from the Crone, and when they asked for something, it was reasonable: something to reduce friction between workers and soldiers since they'll be working together for the foreseeable future.
They are not beholden to anyone but the Crowfather, and so can't be easily bosses around by politics too. I don't think their a counterbalance on their own. If not, again, we'll have ES investigators in it too.
Well, to be fair, that was all the same, single Crow. As we have seen with Cao, a single person isn't enough to judge the disposition of an entire organization. The truth is we don't have enough sample data to determine the character of the Crows as a whole.
I'm also against giving MoI agents too much free reign here. But I also don't want the thread to build this image of the MoI being malicious while the Crows are perfectly neutral, reasonable and unbiased.
This vote ties with the point a raised in another post.
How do we want to regard the MoI as? Difficult ally? Enemy? The weather?
Is the MoI having more influence in the Embassy an inherently bad thing?
I personally think it depends. I already argued how having Central Judges is actually a good thing. Legitimacy without direct control.
But I agree having MoI agents roaming around the border may be too much. As they won't just have influence on how cases are judged but also which cases are worth judging.
The Polar Nation is concerned that the ES will blanket any and all attacks as their responsibility. Giving MoI influence here would make those concerns even more valid.
So I think I will go with option 1. Because we can source our investigators from the Diao and the Emerald Seas's Ministry of Law, so we aren't giving too much control to the Theocracy either.
[X] Promise to push for an investigative arm to be created attached to the judiciary here. It would be split much like the judges. (No Favor change, +20% on next roll for Polar Theocracy Favorability. Theocracy influence on Embassy Increased)
