Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest
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I do think the Bretonnians are sometimes unfairly maligned by the thread. The Bretonnians were casual about it, but they did offer some personal assistance from the Fay Enchantress when they first offered to join. That's actually a huge deal - she's not just the 1000+ years old head of their magical tradition, she's the high priestess of their religion and - when she decides to intervene in politics - the supreme authority of the land.
They did also ask us for help with a personal problem, but the personal problem was fighting Chaos which imo is better than asking for help with internal political matters (which is what Mira and Thorek did).
That said, it makes perfect sense to get in as strong a position as we can when we negotiate with them. I want the Fay Enchantress to kick in the door while 'Twitter Gon' Give It to Ya' plays as much as the next guy*, but if we wait a turn or two until we have functional Waystones we're much more likely to actually get that sort of help. And as others have already said, the results the project has are the results of the efforts of its project members, and we don't have the right to give them away for free. I don't think that makes us greedy or evil or anything, I'm not saying we should tell them that they give us their BOOK or we don't help them with Chaos, I'm just saying that Mathilde should do what she usually does and trade one pro-social favour for another.
*Actually I probably want it quite a bit more than the next guy, because I really want to use the Father and finally settle this thing. Did you know that it has been almost two years since I first started seriously considering that the Lady is the second daughter? How long will this thread keep me hanging? At this rate Elfcation will happen sooner than a second Father turn.
They did also ask us for help with a personal problem, but the personal problem was fighting Chaos which imo is better than asking for help with internal political matters (which is what Mira and Thorek did).
That said, it makes perfect sense to get in as strong a position as we can when we negotiate with them. I want the Fay Enchantress to kick in the door while 'Twitter Gon' Give It to Ya' plays as much as the next guy*, but if we wait a turn or two until we have functional Waystones we're much more likely to actually get that sort of help. And as others have already said, the results the project has are the results of the efforts of its project members, and we don't have the right to give them away for free. I don't think that makes us greedy or evil or anything, I'm not saying we should tell them that they give us their BOOK or we don't help them with Chaos, I'm just saying that Mathilde should do what she usually does and trade one pro-social favour for another.
*Actually I probably want it quite a bit more than the next guy, because I really want to use the Father and finally settle this thing. Did you know that it has been almost two years since I first started seriously considering that the Lady is the second daughter? How long will this thread keep me hanging? At this rate Elfcation will happen sooner than a second Father turn.
To be fair they offered the Fey Enchantress for setting the project in Carcasone and fixing their Chaos orc problem . By contrast say Laurelorn offered the Grey Lords and the Library of Morning for settling in Laurelorn, Boris offered to strong arm Asur and give us the full resources of a kingdom etc..
Somic
It's meow or never
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Part of it might be because us basing the project in Laurelorn was a continuous political boon, and us basing the project in Kislev would've been a guarantee that yes, we really are going to help Kislev against Chaos corruption, which it desperately needs. For Bretonnia, the prestige of housing an international research project wasn't accompanied by such a large secondary incentive (although Bretonnian lands are by no means free of Dhar, at the beginning few people believed we would actually succeed, and just saw an opportunity to grab some secrets).
Something important to consider is that if Bretonnia joins the project, they won't be doing so for "free", even if we don't charge them for the privilege.
What they will be doing is bringing their knowledge of waystones and waystone related phenomena and pooling it with ours. Which is the exact same thing every other faction did back on Day One. We are sharing research with them on the basis of them sharing research with us. To make them pay even more than that feels really exploitive to me.
It's literally the same thing we're voting to do with Ulthuan—a collaboration and sharing of knowledge. Eltharion wants our tributary research, and he's offering his own insights in return. A "neutral" deal with the Bretonnians would be exactly the same.
And yet people seem to think this deal is completely one sided, and that the Bretonnians are going to get everything whilst contributing nothing—and that we should force the Bretonnians to pay in more worldy goods first.
But that's not the case at all—it is an invitation for mutual knowledge sharing, and would be equally profitable for both sides. Bretonnia would only be joining for "free" if it transpires that their knowledge and contribution is completely worthless to us—which is a risk we've taken with every project member, and frankly I wouldn't even call Zlata's minimal contributions "worthless".
What they will be doing is bringing their knowledge of waystones and waystone related phenomena and pooling it with ours. Which is the exact same thing every other faction did back on Day One. We are sharing research with them on the basis of them sharing research with us. To make them pay even more than that feels really exploitive to me.
It's literally the same thing we're voting to do with Ulthuan—a collaboration and sharing of knowledge. Eltharion wants our tributary research, and he's offering his own insights in return. A "neutral" deal with the Bretonnians would be exactly the same.
And yet people seem to think this deal is completely one sided, and that the Bretonnians are going to get everything whilst contributing nothing—and that we should force the Bretonnians to pay in more worldy goods first.
But that's not the case at all—it is an invitation for mutual knowledge sharing, and would be equally profitable for both sides. Bretonnia would only be joining for "free" if it transpires that their knowledge and contribution is completely worthless to us—which is a risk we've taken with every project member, and frankly I wouldn't even call Zlata's minimal contributions "worthless".
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This would be true if they didn't demand we solve the 'find the Iron Orcs' problem for them as well. If they also demand that, then they need to throw in additional stuff.
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I'm not really sure why people are upset that Bretonnia wanted us to help them before they would join.
We did the same for everyone (minus hedgewise, but they did it due to divine shenanigans).
As for the, polite fictions and not being direct, that's not Betonnia playing games, that's the culture, wether or not you like it, that is not them doing anything to us that they don't do to themselves, because that is how they are, live, and were raised.
And we do the same to others plenty of times, comes with being a grey wizard.
We did the same for everyone (minus hedgewise, but they did it due to divine shenanigans).
As for the, polite fictions and not being direct, that's not Betonnia playing games, that's the culture, wether or not you like it, that is not them doing anything to us that they don't do to themselves, because that is how they are, live, and were raised.
And we do the same to others plenty of times, comes with being a grey wizard.
That was back when we didn't have any waystone knowledge to share with them, and it was no different from Paranoth or Thorek "demanding" that we solve their issues for them.
Somic
It's meow or never
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I don't think it's comparable at all, both in terms of results and of what it represents.
Uthuan pioneered the field. They have, without a doubt, the greatest amount of Waystone lore, including some that cannot be recreated at all (the means of connecting new Waystones to the existing network). If we had tried to recruit them at the beginning of the project, they'd have likely laughed in our face.
The other members of the project had joined when its future was uncertain. They had agreed to contribute invaluable insights, put in work, and risk their secrets for the sake of something that seemed too ambitious to actually succeed. And they did put in the work, over years, and now we're standing on the precipice of creating a full Waystone prototype - were standing on that precipice even before the Ulthuan deal!
Any additional lore now has less practical value and represents less commitment - not to mention that we might not even need any more help after Ulthuan shares theirs.
Recruiting Bretonnia now on roughly equal terms would be extremely generous to them.
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On the flip side, I'm not really sure why people are upset that we want Bretonnia to help us before they can join now.
The thing is I do not think the Bretonians have anything to add lore-wise. I mean lets look at their sources of Waystone lore:
- Asrai lore from the old elven empire, the Asur have more since they were not backwater colonists who had to make a deal with the trees, they were the imperial core
- Druid lore from the Belthani the Bretoni found there when they invaded, we have that from the jades
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It's not really about being upset, it's about us having a lot more stuff to offer than we did originally. Them wanting us to solve problems before they would join was reasonable at the start of the project...if they still want us to do them favors before joining in now when we have actual results to offer already? Then they're asking for more than they're offering and need to throw in additional help with Waystone stuff.
Absolutely true, and things might be somewhat different if they just offer a straight info exchange. But honestly, I think they still want the Iron Orcs found, and if we're gonna spend time recruiting them, we should likely just do that and leverage it into getting more out of them in terms of them helping deal with Waystone related stuff.
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Pretty much, it is not that I am upset at the Bretonians, it is that I do not think they have anything to offer in making the stones and want to give them a deal once we have the research to a reasonable level
Somic
It's meow or never
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That's mixing things up. There's basing (prestigious, people offered us good things for it) and there's membership (valuable resource, people asked us favors to commit members to the project). Laurelorn was ready to give us access to a library and the help of the Grey Lords just for the basing. Bretonnia was ready to commit a high-ranked Damsel and some pointers from Morgana for basing AND a favor.
Like I said, for me it's not the subtext, it's the delivery. I don't really care if Mathilde is a grey, she's not annoying to me, and the Bretonnian cultural attitude is. Fully and entirely personal taste, I know some people don't mind or actually like them.
I fucking give up. If you want to be a bunch of Marienburger monopolists calculating profit and loss and value then go ahead.
I just want to save the fucking world, man.
I just want to save the fucking world, man.
I want to save the world too, which is why I want to leverage the world saving resources to make the horsy people help us. If the Bretonians surprise me and offer to help retake the Brass Keep or Mordheim out of the goodness of their hearts, you know so we can save the world, I will 100% vote to give them waystones free.
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I don't really understand why people are against charging Bretonnia for access. There's enough places with broken or missing Waystones in the multiple large countries making up the Project already that we won't be able to cover them all for decades - the only people who need Waystones in Bretonnia over literally anywhere else we might want them is Bretonnia.
We also aren't playing a Bretonnian character. Charging Bretonnia for access is entirely reasonable, and there's no moral impetus for us to do otherwise. Bretonnia is a large, wealthy country that can afford to pay for valuable things just fine; we aren't cackling Scrooges squeezing poor, destitute Bretonnia for something they desperately need, we're a group who've spent literal years sharing magical secrets to design something valuable.
I swear, this thread has the weirdest anti-trade brainworms sometimes.
pucflek
Verified simpleton
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The problem with that is that by the point Bretonnia joins, they bring very little, provided our prototype works. We already have vast majority of magical traditions with us. So no, the exchange is not equal, and the comparison to Ulthuan, of all things, is completely unwarranted.
Bretonnia is not on the brink of collapse and unless Archaeon steamrolls us and all that we did, it won´t be for centuries to millenia. Not because of waystones, anyway. Bretonnia can pay and can afford to pay most concessions we could possibly ask. Its not as if the people that argue for them paying are gonna be like "give us all your gold" or "have half your populace jump into fire".
Personally, i think demanding help in reclamation of fallen nexuses would be great, because hey, greatest concentration of men in metal suits willing to throw hands at evil in the world.
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Or as i said, trying to forge some sort of official non-agression pact, or coordination in case of Wild Hunt or something. But this altruism is misplaced. They are not gonna die because we won´t give them waystones for literally nothing.
This calculus changes wildly if we can´t slap together waystone without them, but unless that happens, they would be coming to the project and reaping all the benefits we worked hard for.
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What part of "I give up" is so hard for you people to understand? You win, I'm not going to argue this any more.
Somic
It's meow or never
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Favor trading is favor trading. Everyone does that, no need to throw up hands. And the Marienburg comparison is entirely unfair: we aren't obstructing anything, nor sabotaging, nor threatening anyone; we're just talking about something that, again, is expected to happen by WoG.
Besides, consider that it's not just our resources you want to commit to sudden unreciprocated altruism, it's everyone else's in the project as well.
Edit: ninja'd, not sorry about replying to being called a Marienburger monopolist though. I'll stop poking you now.
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I think there's a segment of the readership who view Waystone rollout as way more urgent than it actually is, that by delaying it by a single year we're literally murdering babies and how could you!
You know what happens if Bretonnia don't get new tributaries this decade? Nothing. Next decade? Nothing.
We could save way more lives in the immediate short term by going to Belegar and asking him to send food, arms, and winter fuel across the Old World for free. But we don't, because we recognise that labour and effort have value, and it'd be unfair to demand that of him. It's different, apparently, for the 20+ cumulative Lord-level years of contributions already invested in this Project. Those have no value, and members deserve nothing. Anyone suggesting that maybe Bretonnia can shoulder some future effort is, to quote the other side on this, "despicable".
The project members must perforce commit their soldiers to die in droves to secure the Waystone nexuses. It's unfair and penny-pinching to ask anyone else for help in this, to match contributions that project members have already made.
You know what happens if Bretonnia don't get new tributaries this decade? Nothing. Next decade? Nothing.
We could save way more lives in the immediate short term by going to Belegar and asking him to send food, arms, and winter fuel across the Old World for free. But we don't, because we recognise that labour and effort have value, and it'd be unfair to demand that of him. It's different, apparently, for the 20+ cumulative Lord-level years of contributions already invested in this Project. Those have no value, and members deserve nothing. Anyone suggesting that maybe Bretonnia can shoulder some future effort is, to quote the other side on this, "despicable".
The project members must perforce commit their soldiers to die in droves to secure the Waystone nexuses. It's unfair and penny-pinching to ask anyone else for help in this, to match contributions that project members have already made.
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NavySeel
"I don't know what I'm doing."
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So... you're fighting against an argument I've not seen a single person make.
Could you point out who's claiming bretonnia is going to implode or something?
More waystones in bretonnia isn't something that only helps brettonia. Every improvement in the ammount of Dhar that gets taken into the vortex helps the entire planet.
Tasoli
Life is for Living
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- Behind the Keyboard.
Comminism is not a way to save the world it is just an excuse to kill or in this case steal from our stake holders.
We will put them to the bottom of the list, once the rest of the world gets it they can get as well.
I mean if it is just a matter of dhar it doesn't matter what order they are build right.
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That 'etc.' seems to imply that Laurelorn and Kislev were merely two in a longer list of generous offers, which isn't true? The only options not mentioned here are Karak Eight Peaks and the Grey Order, both of which basically said "yeah we'll help but politics are a bit of a mess and honestly you might want to do it elsewhere". It should also be noted that although Cadaeth did not ask us for any favour, our mere presence in Laurelorn is helping her side of an internal political struggle - a political struggle she downplayed to the point of practically lying about it when she first pitched us the Waystone project. None of the project members were "selfless" in joining the project except for my man Aksel, which to be clear is perfectly fine but I don't think that the Bretonnians were uniquely obstinate.