Sterbelicht - One Sacrifice At A Time Against The Galaxy (40K)

Okay now that I have worked out and gotten some clarity from my frustration I realize that introducing ourselves early won't change anything. Think about it. We are doing the equivalent of infiltrating Hawaii and then trying to whoopsie at the last minute. No matter how long this takes they are not giving us that planet. No matter how much they like us.

The action at the day where we have done introductions is fine because at least then the floor is hit and we can resolve it...though it's gonna cost us in concessions.

aceraptor said:

How exactly would we resolve the issue with a single turn to spare?

Are we just going to let the subversion tick over and flip the world to us? Good luck trying to diplomatically annex the Black Ash Clans or the rest of the powers in the subsector after that when all they'd see is the Federation being conniving backstabbing assholes that offer a hand in friendship while driving a dagger into said 'friend's back.

How else would they see it when the formal contact will finally be established and the first thing the Federation does is steal a world out from under them?

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By giving up the planet, giving them the STC for Karnivores and an action worth of reparations. We are the assholes here. No amount of previously good relations changes that. This isn't a small diplomatic hiccup. We were formenting revolution. So we need to pony up after

My head is clearer now and let me tell you. We are going to have to build the relationship from the ground up. There is literally no point in having positive relations right now because our mess is gonna get them to hate us even if they loved us

One Autumn Leaf said:

Okay now that I have worked out and gotten some clarity from my frustration I realize that introducing ourselves early won't change anything. Think about it. We are doing the equivalent of infiltrating Hawaii and then trying to whoopsie at the last minute. No matter how long this takes they are not giving us that planet. No matter how much they like us.

The action at the day where we have done introductions is fine because at least then the floor is hit and we can resolve it...though it's gonna cost us in concessions.



By giving up the planet, giving them the STC for Karnivores and an action worth of reparations. We are the assholes here. No amount of previously good relations changes that. This isn't a small diplomatic hiccup. We were formenting revolution. So we need to pony up after

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One Autumn Leaf said:

My head is clearer now and let me tell you. We are going to have to build the relationship from the ground up. There is literally no point in having positive relations right now because our mess is gonna get them to hate us even if they loved us

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Or. How about we actually get into contact with them early on *before the world is about to flip* and then say our bad and pull our people out and pay a bit of reparation instead of letting the damn subversion tick over. We'd likely have to pay significantly less reparation/burned bridges if we actually own up to it and pull out out of our own volition *before the revolution happens!*

Like, even a quiet revolution will kill people, it'll likely kill a bunch of nobles and there will likely be blood spilled on a significant scale (just not a planetary scale). Letting the subversion tick over *will* burn far more bridges than pulling out early.

Get in contact this turn or the next. Pull out our people and offer reparations for the shenanigans. Then have our diplomacy people improve relations with them just like the Duchy.

[X] Plan: Heading off Future Problems

If we don't do the diplomacy now its not getting done all

aceraptor said:

Or. How about we actually get into contact with them early on *before the world is about to flip* and then say our bad and pull our people out and pay a bit of reparation instead of letting the damn subversion tick over. We'd likely have to pay significantly less reparation/burned bridges if we actually own up to it and pull out out of our own volition *before the revolution happens!*

Like, even a quiet revolution will kill people, it'll likely kill a bunch of nobles and there will likely be blood spilled on a significant scale (just not a planetary scale). Letting the subversion tick over *will* burn far more bridges than pulling out early.

Get in contact this turn or the next. Pull out our people and offer reparations for the shenanigans. Then have our diplomacy people improve relations with them just like the Duchy.

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The timer isn't "To revolution". The time is "Till they get caught" we held off on the revolution bit. That's not setting off. This is timer to discovery. Because we can just let it click over now and be done with it

HeroCooky said:

Brans - Branus
Suspected Subversion Time: Halted
Modifiers: Peaceful Change Order. ~50 Years Suspected

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Even says as much here where it says 50 years suspected. As in we will be suspected in 50 years. So we are basically doing the diplomatic equivalent of feeling bad before we steal something. As for how much we are gonna have to do reparations for this...well let me tell you it's gonna be the same no matter what. Whether we do the action this turn or wait 5 turns it's the same. Because the next action we will take whenever we take it is "The matter of Brans" which is when it comes out...and we are going to basically be admitting to a generations effort to overthrow a planet

I think y'all are panicking about the Black Ash unnecessarily. Let's scope out the best and worst case scenarios of waiting until our auto-ticker finishes and then seeing what our options are.

1. We have a propaganda action (potentially a write-in) that tilts opinion in our favor. The takeover is going to be peaceful, so we might be able to spin it that Brans just decided to join us in order to enjoy our quality of living. Depending on their political system (which, remember, is feudal) this might be spun as the ruler of the world changing sides - making it a betrayal on their part, but not necessarily on ours. The ruling monarchy understands that if somebody offered to join them peacefully they'd probably take it.

2. We can't do anything to mitigate the issue. They declare war on us with their disorganized and understrength fleet and we win. We either conquer them (potentially hard with all the knights) or win a space battle and give them a white peace that makes them like us because we didn't conquer them. Their naval doctrine is shit, I'm most worried about them recruiting the Black Cat company to their side as happened for their war against Croaf.

Or we can just give the order to yoink the world immediately and let the pieces fall where they may. Honestly, there's a part of me that wants to do that after we build these two SBGs, to prevent any potential war from happening at the same time as van Zandt.

Either way I really want to get the world out of it. If nothing else it'll give us a bunch of knights & knight tech, as well as the route to that trio of interesting worlds that I would love to colonize. I'm sure there's weird stuff going on there, but this isn't just getting one world, it's basically getting 4.

If the idea is that we want to come off as good people for a diplomatic annexation then you legit will need to wait till people die for this to be forgotten. If the Duchy pulled this shit on us we'd be calling for the seizure of the entire Breskal system and then some.

Edit: We can't diplomacy jujitsu out of this. Not really

One Autumn Leaf said:

If the idea is that we want to come off as good people for a diplomatic annexation then you legit will need to wait till people die for this to be forgotten. If the Duchy pulled this shit on us we'd be calling for the seizure of the entire Breskal system and then some.

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I guess that's the question - do we care about coming off as good people? If we do, then yeah, we need to reverse course. But the thing is, they're an Feudal Autocracy, with baked in matriarchy at every level, right? They will probably really dislike us at a cultural level. They settle disputes through personal combat! They murder and manipulate psykers like Neon did! I'm not sure we care about them seeing us as "good people." They're not that different from a lot of other imperial successor states, so I'm not convinced we should care about their opinion.

Also, we can totally wait until everybody alive now is dead. Between Songs, the Ashan, the Shipwright's Grove, and Claden's rift we can easily just sit and wait for 10 turns to do anything more with them. Maybe we'll infiltrate the Black Cat next.

@HeroCooky A couple more questions. I'm sorry that I'm spreading all of these questions out across multiple comments.
1. If we prompted Brans to join us at this point, could it happen at any time and, would it be peaceful? I was hoping that the extra time and instruction to make it peaceful would basically make it happen without much bloodshed at all. Ideally the leaders of the planet just go "Yeah we're with you now. Can we get our juvenat/augmentics/medical care now please?"
2. You mentioned a little while ago that the Black Cat was trying to industrialize - how is that doing? It's a bitch to industrialize from literal medieval peasants, so I imagine their society is going through a lot of turmoil. But maybe everything's hunky-dory and they're already to the point of starting to build ships. Given our dual diplomatic and subversion attempts aimed at them, we should probably know this?
3. Do we know much about the black Cat company? They're not on the list of people to contact, I think we started talking to them a while back when I was thinking of hiring them for the war with van Zandt. Is there an easy (or not-so-easy) way to prevent them from going to war with us if the Black Ash clan tries to hire them? I'm thinking that if we do something to communicate our size & level of forces they'd do the calculation and realize this is a fight they'd rather not take.
4. Re van Zandt - do we have any idea of how warlike they're feeling? A fair amount of our planning hinges on when they might attack us next, and there's been zero news on that for a while.

[X] Plan: Let's find out what Upgraded Songs Do
-[X] [Psykana] Conduct Four Melodies (0.6/1 - Auto Complete) - [Choose Melodies]
--[X] Technology II, Progress II, Fire II, Hope II
-[X] [Psykana] Sing a Song
--[X] Technology, Progress, Creativity, Logic, Song (Advance Upon Difficult Paths)
-[X] [Faith] An Unborn Guide Sought Out (Pantheon of the Eleven Spirits)
--[X] "Vibe check says yes, story clears up, do you think you can make use of eleven potential subordinates or would you prefer to have them keep to themselves? Or would you rather we do something about this? This is kind of outside of our wheelhouse"
-[X] [Free] Consecrate In Sacred Sand (Cradle Station)

-[] Ship Equipment Standardization - [1 DP Equipment] (0/1)
(Gain: Standardize 1 [One] 1 DP Ship Equipment across all new Designs.)


The price for this came down. There a couple that I think would be worthwhile additions to any and every ship going forward. Like the one that prevents complete destruction of our ships.

Though that is just one of several great options.

Neablis said:

I guess that's the question - do we care about coming off as good people? If we do, then yeah, we need to reverse course. But the thing is, they're an Feudal Autocracy, with baked in matriarchy at every level, right? They will probably really dislike us at a cultural level. They settle disputes through personal combat! They murder and manipulate psykers like Neon did! I'm not sure we care about them seeing us as "good people." They're not that different from a lot of other imperial successor states, so I'm not convinced we should care about their opinion.

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Personally, I don't give a shit.

HeroCooky said:

Black Ash Clan
Government Type: Feudal Autocracy
Culture Type: Matriarchal Knight House
Attitude: Warriors
Specie/s: Human (Primary) and Assorted (Insignificant - Perpetual Genocide)

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Genderite said:

Personally, I don't give a shit.

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...Yeah send the department to subvert another planet. We keep repeating it until the whole system is ours. It's honestly easier than trying to be diplomatic because of the bomb we have.

HeroCooky said:

And yet, even one singular planet processed and turned into goods, industry, weapons, ships, and infrastructure would elevate the Glimmering Federation far above all other nations for centuries to come.

And there were a lot of planets that now seemed to look very delicious to a ravening maw of mechanical might.

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How many licks does it take to get to the chewy green center of this Necron Pop?

Genderite said:

Personally, I don't give a shit.

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TBF, that means they're killing mutants and the like on sight if not having them as an oppressed underclass, which is pretty much what we can expect from most other human polities descended from the Imperium like the Croaf Hegemony, the Free Duchy, the Watchtower Confederacy (in some governments) and I bet the Ashan Families were guilty of it at some point and we don't know enough about the Lords of Eternity to say either way.

Welcome to 40k, where 95% of the people you can talk to is guilty of genocide in one way or another. Doesn't mean we can't try to change their views to being less genocidal in our gradual path towards integration.

[X] Plan: Let's find out what Upgraded Songs Do

Neablis said:

[ ] Plan: Let's Upgrade some Dang SONGS
-[] [Psykana] Conduct Four Melodies (0.6/1 - Auto Complete) - [Choose Melodies] x2
--[ ] Technology II, Progress II, Fire II, Hope II, Home II, Humanity II, Unity II, Paths I
-[] [Faith] An Unborn Guide Sought Out (Pantheon of the Eleven Spirits)
--[ ] "Vibe check says yes, story clears up, do you think you can make use of eleven potential subordinates or would you prefer to have them keep to themselves? Or would you rather we do something about this? This is kind of outside of our wheelhouse"

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[X] Plan: Let's Upgrade some Dang SONGS
-[X] [Psykana] Conduct Four Melodies (0.6/1 - Auto Complete) - [Choose Melodies] x2
--[X] Technology II, Progress II, Fire II, Hope II, Home II, Humanity II, Unity II, Paths I
-[X] [Faith] An Unborn Guide Sought Out (Pantheon of the Eleven Spirits)
--[X] "Vibe check says yes, story clears up, do you think you can make use of eleven potential subordinates or would you prefer to have them keep to themselves? Or would you rather we do something about this? This is kind of outside of our wheelhouse"

Neablis said:

Could we make an ISC that would auto-tick the planet cracker?

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I'll allow it, at 0.25 Progress per Turn.

Derpmind said:

Are the stations still going to give +1 Void Industry if there aren't any people to inhabit them anymore?

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No, that Action will vanish once you have all people settled.

Weaving_Dreamer said:

1. Is there any way can form a department to bank construction points like we do for fleet points and as we work on developments or building projects we use those stored up points for the Planetmaw or other things?
2. What's the current feeling/thinking from our Diplomats and Military planners on the Dutchy right now? and when does the ceasefire Non-aggression pact expire again?
3. Qm is there anything after Grand Cruiser for Void Industry, you stated before getting to XX in Void Industry we could do something on par with the Emperor's Flagship of the Great Crusade but is that just battleship level or is that even beyond a battleship? if so what is the Void Industry needed for battleships?
4. Contining on that note, is there anything else notable for the other development levels? We knew the V development in Civ Infra was a garden world and X Civ Infra was a Pleasure world level but besides that we're light on info besides that and Void Industry. Is there anything big or notable in Military Industry or Heavy Industry that we need to reach in order to be able to do something?

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1. Lmao, no.
2. That this'll turn into a Cold War as long as you continue to improve relations with them. Soon.
3. 16 Void is for Battleships.
4. Medical 15 allows you to gene-edit mutations out of people.

Neablis said:

1. If we prompted Brans to join us at this point, could it happen at any time and, would it be peaceful? I was hoping that the extra time and instruction to make it peaceful would basically make it happen without much bloodshed at all. Ideally the leaders of the planet just go "Yeah we're with you now. Can we get our juvenat/augmentics/medical care now please?"
2. You mentioned a little while ago that the Black Cat was trying to industrialize - how is that doing? It's a bitch to industrialize from literal medieval peasants, so I imagine their society is going through a lot of turmoil. But maybe everything's hunky-dory and they're already to the point of starting to build ships. Given our dual diplomatic and subversion attempts aimed at them, we should probably know this?
3. Do we know much about the black Cat company? They're not on the list of people to contact, I think we started talking to them a while back when I was thinking of hiring them for the war with van Zandt. Is there an easy (or not-so-easy) way to prevent them from going to war with us if the Black Ash clan tries to hire them? I'm thinking that if we do something to communicate our size & level of forces they'd do the calculation and realize this is a fight they'd rather not take.
4. Re van Zandt - do we have any idea of how warlike they're feeling? A fair amount of our planning hinges on when they might attack us next, and there's been zero news on that for a while.

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1. After the timer is up is when they join peacefully.
2. Yeah, I realized that you should get more info and plan to write that today. But they have managed to get to about Low Imperial for their important industries, with the associated social turmoil. They are also capable of building ships (Light Cruisers reliably, Heavy Cruisers only rarely as big projects) and have doubled their fleet, with two Heavy Cruisers added, and an Avenger Grand Cruiser taken as a prize ship from the shitters they fought against.
3. Pay them an Action to stay out of the fight. Or threaten them and take the later hostility as they side against you.
4. Honestly? They are just malding to the extreme right now. A Cold War is more likely.

Awesome, thanks for the answers.

Now, breaking it down:

HeroCooky said:

I'll allow it, at 0.25 Progress per Turn.

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Hmm. So we do 2 actions sometime soon and then need to wait 48 turns without New Dawn. Hmm. I'm actually not sure. On one hand, the discount sounds phenomenal, on the other hand that's a damn long time to wait.

Let's take a step back think about it in terms of priorities. We've got four primary focus areas.
1. Diplomacy. We've decided to do more of this, and should continue.
2. Infrastructure Development. It's very action-intensive, but low-risk and gives us huge bonuses. This is what the planet-cracker would be. But it's the definition of action sink.
3. Military. We've decided to do less of this.
4. Psykana. We've neglected this all quest. It's been hinted at that continuing to invest into more/better melodies and songs will pay off, and will impact multiple parts of our civilization, potentially improving everything else.

So - honestly, I'm fine with focusing Diplomacy and Psykana. We expand peacefully and improve both ourselves and our capabilities by singing songs. I want to see what symphonies are. As HeroCooky has said, it's a core mechanic we haven't explored very much.

HeroCooky said:

1. After the timer is up is when they join peacefully.

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Yeah, I'm of a mind to let them join peacefully and essentially thumb our nose at the Black Ash clan.

HeroCooky said:

2. Yeah, I realized that you should get more info and plan to write that today. But they have managed to get to about Low Imperial for their important industries, with the associated social turmoil. They are also capable of building ships (Light Cruisers reliably, Heavy Cruisers only rarely as big projects) and have doubled their fleet, with two Heavy Cruisers added, and an Avenger Grand Cruiser taken as a prize ship from the shitters they fought against.

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Ok, so they're not a pushover, but we would still win any sustained war with just a couple actions of military production. I'm a little bit curious how fast they're continuing to improve and what their military doctrine is like, but it's not very important. They're unlikely to have specific counters to our doctrine like van Zandt does.

HeroCooky said:

3. Pay them an Action to stay out of the fight. Or threaten them and take the later hostility as they side against you.

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Hmm. It's probably better to spend an action building ships, given we make about as many ships as they have with a single action. They do have a battleship though, which is a bit intimidating.

HeroCooky said:

4. Honestly? They are just malding to the extreme right now. A Cold War is more likely.

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This is good to hear. I was a bit worried about us ending in a two-front war with both the Black Ash and van Zandt at the same time, but that seems pretty unlikely at this point.

Neablis said:

Hmm. So we do 2 actions sometime soon and then need to wait 48 turns without New Dawn. Hmm. I'm actually not sure. On one hand, the discount sounds phenomenal, on the other hand that's a damn long time to wait.

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Too long, I'd argue.

Heck, New Dawn almost creates more growth, just with the random science and innovation actions it does every so often.

HeroCooky said:

I'll allow it, at 0.25 Progress per Turn.

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We will take it! do thing and putting in like maybe four actions to speed it up a bit is a lot more tolerable then the uphill grind of 12 actions it would take. We let it autoticker in the background and come back to it when we hit all X development.

HeroCooky said:

No, that Action will vanish once you have all people settled.

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OHhhhh okay then, yah next turn lets do that Void Station industry to grab that thing before it vanishes please.

HeroCooky said:

1. Lmao, no.
2. That this'll turn into a Cold War as long as you continue to improve relations with them. Soon.
3. 16 Void is for Battleships.
4. Medical 15 allows you to gene-edit mutations out of people.

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1. I Figured but worth asking.
2. Ah so a hint to do a write-in to do diplomacy with the Dutchy in order to turn it into a cold war there.
3. Okay then I think...oh no that works out well then, just do Void Industry to 16 before we get all X development first and we should be golden.
4. So Medical really is the only other one we want to get up to 15 for the development to do that and the void Industry to 16 to be able to build Battleships.

HeroCooky said:

1. After the timer is up is when they join peacefully.
2. Yeah, I realized that you should get more info and plan to write that today. But they have managed to get to about Low Imperial for their important industries, with the associated social turmoil. They are also capable of building ships (Light Cruisers reliably, Heavy Cruisers only rarely as big projects) and have doubled their fleet, with two Heavy Cruisers added, and an Avenger Grand Cruiser taken as a prize ship from the shitters they fought against.
3. Pay them an Action to stay out of the fight. Or threaten them and take the later hostility as they side against you.
4. Honestly? They are just malding to the extreme right now. A Cold War is more likely.

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1. well we know that due to making the peaceful transition happen but good to see confirmation.
2. Okay that's good to hear and helps us plan out decisions, and WOW they came a long way from how they were before and how the few ships they had were 'free cities'. Like seriously they finally are able to build Light Cruisers and Heavy Crusiers..... HOLD UP, the Hegemony had a Grand Cruiser? holy shit. yahhhh combined with the Black Cat Battleship those can inflict HEAVY losses on our forces so that should be minded by plan makers and the like. What would be the projected losses against a Avenger Grand Cruiser or Battleship?
3. Oh right, they're mercs. so paying them off works as well and an Action isn't too bad.
4. Hahah are they mad we're aren't being aggressive and content to just sit there and not do anything? And its only a Cold War if we put some Actions into maintaining it correct?