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A Rat's Guide to Glory

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I wouldn't read too much into what the Will of the City wants in this case. For all we know it wanted to pick up a stray cat using this distraction. If it was to enact a convoluted plan for Ciel suicide at this moment, then it has already failed to account for god-given plot armor.

A potential problem with the current vote is what will happen when we do find the timeline where Maria and Hifumi arrive. They should know better than fully engaging instead of grabbing Ciel and running like hell, but Maria seems like the excessively heroic type and unlike voters she doesn't know Elena is a star of the city.
 
Ok, also, since there is no discussions about it, let's talk about the vote a little, namely, objectives, strategies pros and cons, and other things.

It is important to discuss our objective so that everyone is on the same page here, this has a lot of influence on the rest, after all.

Now, everyone for the moment seems to agree on not wanting to fail our exam for Hana, which makes the main objective saving Rose, everything else (including technically our life) second, *All for Hana* in short. Saving Giano is optional and just saving her is counterproductive to this particular mission, but a strategy that save both our more experienced colleague and our client is actually a great thing on our resume, so the current vote has no problems on trying that from that point of view.

If someone only cares about our friends, then Rose can go die and Giano should be the priority... except that Giano may not stay our friend after that blunder given how she reacted during the prophet mission, not sure trying that one works well for us, but if we want that one the current vote still works anyways, since it saves both at Ciel's costs, and frankly I don't give trying to run while Rose serves as a distraction a great chance of working.

If someone only cares about Rose, huh, well, first, why? But anyway, in this case, we can offer Giano as a snack, lose our chance at
hana, live with the knowledge that we killed a friend for a former enemy, and probably don't escape easily since Giano unconscious is not liable to resist much more than Rose conscious (thought maybe a little more :V ), we still come back to the current vote for now.

Which leads to the pros and cons of it:

Pros: Can save everyone, makes uses of Rose's T-corp thing, we still have a chance at Hana, we taste good with ketchup.

Cons: Depends on us being able to distract Elena, is going to be painful, rely on Rose being able to carry Giano, we taste good with ketchup.

And well, the biggest problem I see here is the *rely on Rose being able to carry Giano*, because she's not a fighter, her device may not even work on several people, and her carrying someone means that she covers less ground in all cases, the question being, does anyone has any simple ideas on how to mitigate these risks?
 
Nyarky said:
Ok, also, since there is no discussions about it, let's talk about the vote a little, namely, objectives, strategies pros and cons, and other things.

It is important to discuss our objective so that everyone is on the same page here, this has a lot of influence on the rest, after all.

Now, everyone for the moment seems to agree on not wanting to fail our exam for Hana, which makes the main objective saving Rose, everything else (including technically our life) second, *All for Hana* in short. Saving Giano is optional and just saving her is counterproductive to this particular mission, but a strategy that save both our more experienced colleague and our client is actually a great thing on our resume, so the current vote has no problems on trying that from that point of view.

If someone only cares about our friends, then Rose can go die and Giano should be the priority... except that Giano may not stay our friend after that blunder given how she reacted during the prophet mission, not sure trying that one works well for us, but if we want that one the current vote still works anyways, since it saves both at Ciel's costs, and frankly I don't give trying to run while Rose serves as a distraction a great chance of working.

If someone only cares about Rose, huh, well, first, why? But anyway, in this case, we can offer Giano as a snack, lose our chance at
hana, live with the knowledge that we killed a friend for a former enemy, and probably don't escape easily since Giano unconscious is not liable to resist much more than Rose conscious (thought maybe a little more :V ), we still come back to the current vote for now.

Which leads to the pros and cons of it:

Pros: Can save everyone, makes uses of Rose's T-corp thing, we still have a chance at Hana, we taste good with ketchup.

Cons: Depends on us being able to distract Elena, is going to be painful, rely on Rose being able to carry Giano, we taste good with ketchup.

And well, the biggest problem I see here is the *rely on Rose being able to carry Giano*, because she's not a fighter, her device may not even work on several people, and her carrying someone means that she covers less ground in all cases, the question being, does anyone has any simple ideas on how to mitigate these risks?
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I'm not sure that saving Giano deliberately makes her angry; technically she could end up owing us one. If anything, I think we have to look at it from her perspective: for her, it's "All for Hana" until it's her own life, and she probably keeps up the propaganda while hoping she never gets caught up in that kind of situation.

I think of it from the point of view that loyalty to large groups (like Wings or Associations) isn't worth two cents. Always speaking in the sense of how seriously that loyalty is taken, I mean; it is not reciprocal.
Barring specific cases of reputation or otherwise, most would rather run away to live another day in the face of certain death than die in vain for a loyalty that at the time (unless the person in question has children) will pay them nothing. Ronald would probably say the same thing, the only reason to be "loyal" is for reputation. To swallow all the propaganda taking that case away is silly.

I would suggest that Ciel carry Giano and try to make do by escaping on foot while Rose escapes with the Singularity.

I know, it's stupid, but one way or another I think here Ciel has all his odds against him: Singularity might not work well with two people and still any advantage he takes might well be short. Until I think of something better, it seems more convenient to prioritize any kind of running away as best we can than fighting directly.
 
Perhaps Ciel could have Rose safely escape with the Singularity while he picks up Giano?

I'd rather not rely on the ugly but realistic possibility that Rose might not be able to carry Giano.
 
Nyarky said:
If someone only cares about Rose, huh, well, first, why? But anyway, in this case, we can offer Giano as a snack, lose our chance at
hana, live with the knowledge that we killed a friend for a former enemy, and probably don't escape easily since Giano unconscious is not liable to resist much more than Rose conscious (thought maybe a little more :V ), we still come back to the current vote for now.
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Saving Rose is the easiest getaway option though. Since it has the least risks. Our chance at Hana won't be lost either since Rose is the mission objective, and Giano isn't.

Nyarky said:
And well, the biggest problem I see here is the *rely on Rose being able to carry Giano*, because she's not a fighter, her device may not even work on several people, and her carrying someone means that she covers less ground in all cases, the question being, does anyone has any simple ideas on how to mitigate these risks?
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We can't. No complicated plans/votes remember? Sure we can make Ciel rap out the instructions to Rose in a way but I highly doubt the two's current mentality will make that possible (Rose's mental status is basically near 0 sanity, while Ciel is shitting their pants)
 
questioningmeme said:
Tbh, I don't think we can in any way win against Elena.

She's way too goddamn strong even if Maria, Hifumi, Giano, Ciel, Parvati, and basically most other fixers we've met so far teamed up to fight her (discounting Ms. purple snake).

Wait! We do have that card from Agnus. Maybe we can call in the Claw and ask whether or not Elena paid her taxes for those zombies of hers.
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*raises finger about to speak, halts, mulls things over, then speaks* that actually might work
Elena is not the tax paying type i'd think
And Since she's gone after feathers
Even if we can't get Angus to help as a claw
Well he's arguably an economist so if Elena's a net lose of money might get him to at least visit us
Hell We don't need to use him as a stick
Only as a big lipped alligator moment
Hell we don't need to actually call him make it seem like we're calling him or rather talking to him
Elena will likely realize we aren't physically talking to anyone from the get go but likely be too amused at the incompetent charade to actually deal with us
When sanity and wisdom don't work
Be loony and audacious, hell invite her out for a night on the town and lead her to a place to eat or similar
Or try asking her why she hasn't become a fixer, free meals that way and get paid to eat people!
 
Anyhow. Besides that, I'd recommend everyone check the votes out and start putting their votes in.

The recent Human Resource update made me realize a lot of people get caught up in the discussions and forget about the votes entirely.
Adhoc vote count started by questioningmeme on Sep 25, 2023 at 10:49 PM, finished with 58 posts and 15 votes.
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Just had a thought.
What if Elena doesn't kill and instead just puts us into eternal torment like I'm pretty sure she did to some other folks?
 
Junkoposter said:
What if Elena doesn't kill and instead just puts us into eternal torment like I'm pretty sure she did to some other folks?
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Eternal torment? When did this happen? As far as I know she only ever kills people and turns them into zombies. The warp train abductees were the Puppeteer's handiwork.

Also since reset loops are disallowed, I would guess a similar kind of soft lock state like that would also trigger a do-over.
 
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questioningmeme said:
Saving Rose is the easiest getaway option though. Since it has the least risks. Our chance at Hana won't be lost either since Rose is the mission objective, and Giano isn't.
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I was talking purely on the point of view of only caring about Rose there, for what I think on saving only Rose, that's under caring for Hana, since that's the point of view where only saving here makes the most sense as she is not really someone we would care about more than Giano on account of her being our former enemy.

questioningmeme said:
We can't. No complicated plans/votes remember?
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I said: simple ideas, that's the entire point, we may not be able to do complicated, but is there a short thing we can do?

Like what Kelasgre proposed for example, Rose may not be able to carry Giano, so why not have us do it?

To which, @Kelasgre, I will say that this returns to the problem of just having us carry Giano, is basically the options *save Giano* with barely any change anyway, and rely on us surviving being chased by a bloodhound while carrying a person that's bleeding, not great chances.

Actually, may as well it can help: @Naron, does Ciel think Rose can carry Giano? They probably have at least a slight idea.
 
I don't think the claw is gonna come because if she is alive, she paid her taxes.
There is no exception. And if she doesn't pay her taxes, the claw already knows
 
Nyarky said:
Like what Kelasgre proposed for example, Rose may not be able to carry Giano, so why not have us do it?
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So that's just the Save Giano option.

That's not really an "Idea" so much as it is just another way to word of a vote we already have.

If you want to make it a simple alternative, here's an actual alternative where we gamble everything.

[] Throw weapon at Elena. Pick up Giano. Grab Rose. Tell her to use the T-Corp gadget. Run.

I'm not sure whether or not this one will work. But it's another path we can take where Ciel won't have to suffer a lot.

For all I know she might just grab it mid-air, and throw it back obliterating our entire head at the flick of her finger.
 
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Nyarky said:
Actually, may as well it can help: @Naron, does Ciel think Rose can carry Giano? They probably have at least a slight idea.
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From what Ciel observed, Rose is not particularly physically strong. Neither is she overly weak. Seeing that Giano lost her heavy greatsword and greatshield, Rose should be able to carry her.
 
Since you are here, is this vote with above 10 words acceptable @Naron?
[] Throw weapon at Elena. Pick up Giano. Grab Rose. Tell her to use the T-Corp gadget. Run.
 
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