Project Prometheus (Original Setting Superhero Quest)

[X] . . . press your luck.

ReaperofInterest said:

Because she's a crazy bitch who's main motivation is getting revenge on Lady Leizi for killing their father, an absolutely terrible person in addition to being a Triad Leader. Yellow Qilin thinks she's untouchable, and even if she isn't, she's willing to burn down the world to get what she wants. Don't underestimate crazy.

As for why she didn't blow up the goldnine immediately, I'm guessing a combination of the fact that 1, she thinks Lady Leizi can't afford to do shit to her, and 2, the stuff is probably pretty expensive in it's own right.

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If her motivation is revenge, she could have done that by blowing up the goldnine in the warehouse already when Lady Leizi walked in on it. The fact that she didn't tells us she couldn't.

She's crazy, but let's not attribute abilities to Yellow Qilin that have no indication of existing. Her power is ally empowerment and construct creation, not remote explosions.

Hrrrm…
A part of me is tempted by go loud because if the Throne becomes a Problem, then it should force Crusade to deal with that slow-rolling apocalypse in action.
Crusade can yell at us for it, they were always going to yell at us, because the Philosophers have their ear.

But…
Hrrrm.
See the problem is the more ice that forms, the more Throne inevitably grows, the more urgent that problem becomes.

The problem is, without an answer to the Throne, it's a calamity that can claim infinite by way of indefinite lives and resources. And I think that's the true reason people are letting the magical girls die.
It's not that we don't want to save them, it's that this situation is feeding an end-game boss that we have outright no way to kill, and thus anything it gets it KEEPS, it's a little more resources humanity just outright loses with no hope of ever getting back.
It's a literal Grimdark Wall.

Now. I'm sure there's actually a functional answer to this, in theory and practice even, but we out of character don't know what that is and thus we cannot assume that we even *can* beat the Throne.

…
That said, I do see something that can help, actually.
Namely…

We can chain powerset use.
Say Leizi dies here. We can hand her lightning off to someone else. Possibly even pair her with things that will allow her to unleash brand new potentials with the base power and vice-versa.
Or, depending on the combos and how DNA samples work, we could outright 'pick' from various power sets so instead of considering them a one-time thing we can see how well the powers work out and if they don't…We move on, and try new combinations.
Cold as the Throne? Yes. Not exactly living up to the Justice part of Justice Unlimited? Yes. But the Unlimited side of things might not be something to discount.

[X] . . . press your luck.

Even if absolutely all of the goldnine here somehow gets completely destroyed, we still have the goldnine we got from our last mission. And I think it's highly unlikely that'll happen.

Meanwhile, pressing our luck could end up with us gaining no goldnine and will deliver a ton of cash to villain organizations. Not to mention more girls becoming victims! Just letting that happen when we have a superhero team right here to stop it is the opposite of doing the right thing.

LucidProp said:

If her motivation is revenge, she could have done that by blowing up the goldnine in the warehouse already when Lady Leizi walked in on it. The fact that she didn't tells us she couldn't.

She's crazy, but let's not attribute abilities to Yellow Qilin that have no indication of existing. Her power is ally empowerment and construct creation, not remote explosions.

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You do remember that she has subordinates, right? She could just send a signal and have them destroy it. It's not like it'd be that hard, considering we're in her headquarters.

In addition, she specifically wants to tear down everything Lady Leizi has built and destroy her reputation. It's why she started this whole crazy "impersonate Justice Unlimited" plan to begin with. This is fairly well spelled out in the update.

Derpmind said:

Even if absolutely all of the goldnine here somehow gets completely destroyed, we still have the goldnine we got from our last mission. And I think it's highly unlikely that'll happen.

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And we're currently planning on using that goldnine to empower John Henry this turn.

ReaperofInterest said:

And we're currently planning on using that goldnine to empower John Henry this turn.

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And I'm absolutely willing to skip that if we have to. I seriously doubt it's likely to happen at all, but if it somehow does, keeping the girls who need it alive is more important.

ReaperofInterest said:

You do remember that she has subordinates, right? She could just send a signal and have them destroy it. It's not like it'd be that hard, considering we're in her headquarters.

In addition, she specifically wants to tear down everything Lady Leizi has built and destroy her reputation. It's why she started this whole crazy "impersonate Justice Unlimited" plan to begin with. This is fairly well spelled out in the update.

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Send that signal how? When she has close combat specialists trying to punch her in the face? Her metahumans will also be busy fighting people on our side. The idea that she could just blow the goldnine up has no basis in the text and will in fact bring the R-Train down on her head because the R-Train can detect when goldnine has a massive reaction which would occur if she blows it up.

I should've known that any goldnine suppliers other than R-Train couldn't be trusted. It makes sense in that Monarch's group is the only one we know of that has the capability to consistently smuggle it past R-Train.

Since we have no reserve goldnine other than cancelling Project Prometheus for this turn, I'm seriously concerned about having enough to tide over the magical girls until we get R-Train to sell to us. That seems to be at least 2 turns out, and my impression is the girls have less time than that. I won't expect more than 1 turn of goldnine for the girls when picking the option that has no explicit goldnine reward. Maybe there will be a follow up mission to raid another warehouse but that keeps us stuck in do-or-die mode in regards to the girls.

So the way I see it we either extort goldnine and take a mission to smash Yellow Qilin with our full power next turn, or we fight them now and take a mission to raid warehouses next turn.

The other thing to consider is that we risk expending our equipment early when Hero Worship is still in the queue.

[X] . . . press your luck.

I don't make trap options, and I won't let your guys completely screw yourselves over on a blind vote, so you can rest assured of that.

I prefer. . . unexpectedly interesting options.

Here's something to consider, if you're convinced that Yellow Qilin won't destroy the goldnine. If we do succeed in defeating her and the rest of not-Justice Unlimited, then we'd also have to care for her pawns, which would mean using up goldnine for them, in addition to Noelle's girls. However, not only would we have larger amount of people to care for, we might not have enough goldnine to care for them and create new metahumans at the same time. And yes, I know that morally, it'd be better to focus on curing the girls. However, we simply don't have enough manpower right now. We need new metahumans just as much as these girls need to live.

Letting Yellow Qilin continue and shaking her down for goldnine is risky, yes, but it also buys us to to both create new high power metahumans and contact the R-train so that we can actually obtain new goldnine without needing to pay Monarch anymore than we absolutely have to. It's accepting a temporary defeat so that we can hit back even harder and fix the problem in a way that's actually sustainable.

ReaperofInterest said:

People, so think you need to remember something very important: we might wind up having to fight the Magical Girls. Remember, they think they're the good guys right now, and the Yellow Qilin is a good person. She isn't, but they don't know that. If we fight her, there's a legitimate chance that they might side with her in this conflict.

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If I may direct some attention to this passage in the update...

She revels in your disgust. "I'll admit, the first few girls were an accident, but soon enough the fools were falling over themselves to gain powers and join 'Justice Unlimited'. With help from your old subordinate, they never thought to question it. And by the time they realized what their 'mana' was and what would happen if they 'ran out of magic', it was too late."

She throws her head back and cackles in a way that you somehow know is practiced.

"They'll give me everything to stay sane. Their parents will give everything. And there are quite a few well-connected families here. Desperate and well-connected. No doubt McLeod-English will eventually notice the missing money from their balance sheet, but said embezzlement will conveniently have no connection to anyone but 'Justice Unlimited'."

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This is quite literally an admission from Yellow Qilin herself that some of her Magical Girls are fully aware that their lives are being held hostage. Now, it is admittedly impossible for any of us to know the exact number/percentage of Magical Girls that are aware of their situation compared to the ones who are still innocent, but there's a clear implication that there are still some of them alive at this very moment - those McLeod-English balance sheets are probably still having those payments come in.

Once it becomes apparent that the "real" Justice Unlimited has finally come and is directly attacking their leader, the one who put them into this situation... well, that sounds like about the best time to cause a mutiny, in my opinion.

I personally find it very unlikely that there won't be some in-fighting between the two 'groups' of Magical Girls here, which is likely to cut into their ability to participate in the battle.

[X] …go loud.

ReaperofInterest said:

Here's something to consider, if you're convinced that Yellow Qilin won't destroy the goldnine. If we do succeed in defeating her and the rest of not-Justice Unlimited, then we'd also have to care for her pawns, which would mean using up goldnine for them, in addition to Noelle's girls. However, not only would we have larger amount of people to care for, we might not have enough goldnine to care for them and create new metahumans at the same time. And yes, I know that morally, it'd be better to focus on curing the girls. However, we simply don't have enough manpower right now. We need new metahumans just as much as these girls need to live.

Letting Yellow Qilin continue and shaking her down for goldnine is risky, yes, but it also buys us to to both create new high power metahumans and contact the R-train so that we can actually obtain new goldnine without needing to pay Monarch anymore than we absolutely have to. It's accepting a temporary defeat so that we can hit back even harder and fix the problem in a way that's actually sustainable.

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Letting Yellow Qilin continue her operations means we'll end up with more magical girls that need taking care of. Whatever we choose, we're going to end up having to pick up the pieces that the Triad left, but the difference is how many girls we'll end up caring for. The sooner we put a stop to Yellow Qilin, the fewer the victims we'll end up having to use goldnine on.

…
>We need manpower
>We need these super-powered Girls to have Goldnine so they don't turn into monsters.

Gents, I believe I have the missing piece.
We can recruit the Magical Girls.
They already think they're working for us, and one quick PR announcement from Leizi who they all seem to be fans of will go further then the Crusade boyos who are going to crap the bed with them with their chewing us out.

At that point, the lack of 'making' a Superhero will be covered by the girls, who can then hold the line until we get the deal with R-Train. And if R-Train demands we solve this latest Throne expansion plot, then we can drop the Golem bomb to get them to stand down/take enough GoldNine for the chunks of Throne in them to be completely vaporized.

Problem, and Solution, all in one!

[X] …go loud.

But having said that letting the throne have more is still a bad plan, so let's not play that game.

LucidProp said:

Letting Yellow Qilin continue her operations means we'll end up with more magical girls that need taking care of. Whatever we choose, we're going to end up having to pick up the pieces that the Triad left, but the difference is how many girls we'll end up caring for. The sooner we put a stop to Yellow Qilin, the fewer the victims we'll end up having to use goldnine on.

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And if we just buy some goldnine now, we can figure out a plan to actually get enough goldnine to consistently treat the girls. Because right now, taking out Yellow Qilin at best only means more people won't be ensnared. It won't erase the fact that we'll still only have a limited amount of goldnine and the best source to get enough to care for the girls is Monarch, who we're already working on taking down thanks to our agreement with New Dawm. And considering how people are refusing to buy from Yellow Qilin, do you think you'll be any more willing to pay Monarch directly? That's even assuming that she'll agree to sell to us, which is unlikely to say the least.

ReaperofInterest said:

And if we just buy some goldnine now, we can figure out a plan to actually get enough goldnine to consistently treat the girls. Because right now, taking out Yellow Qilin at best only means more people won't be ensnared. It won't erase the fact that we'll still only have a limited amount of goldnine and the best source to get enough to care for the girls is Monarch, who we're already working on taking down thanks to our agreement with New Dawm. And considering how people are refusing to buy from Yellow Qilin, do you think you'll be any more willing to pay Monarch directly? That's even assuming that she'll agree to sell to us, which is unlikely to say the least.

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We still have the R-Train option, so we absolutely have another source of goldnine that doesn't involve buying from supervillains. However, this comes with the caveat that the R-Train is very strict on who gets goldnine and in what amounts. This means that if we let Yellow Qilin make more magical girls, we're going to need to ask the R-Train for even more goldnine which will be a very tough ask in negotiations when we're eating REP Debuffs every turn.

If we buy goldnine from Yellow Qilin now, we're weakening our position for negotiations with the R-Train because we'll be asking for more and will have bought some from people who violated its blockade.

LucidProp said:

We still have the R-Train option, so we absolutely have another source of goldnine that doesn't involve buying from supervillains. However, this comes with the caveat that the R-Train is very strict on who gets goldnine and in what amounts. This means that if we let Yellow Qilin make more magical girls, we're going to need to ask the R-Train for even more goldnine which will be a very tough ask in negotiations when we're eating REP Debuffs every turn.

If we buy goldnine from Yellow Qilin now, we're weakening our position for negotiations with the R-Train.

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And if we take Yellow Qilin out now, there's a chance that we'll run out of goldnine before we can get a supply line set up.

There is no magic perfect solution here. You're focusing on the problem of the girls needing to be treated, I'm focusing on the problem of actually getting what we need to treat them in time. Both of these need to be solved, but right now, as callous as it may sound, most the girls are safe. Their families are paying, Monarch's supplying the goldnine, and they won't die. A few more girls added to this would be terrible, but it won't break down in a single turn.

Besides, if the R-train is intelligent enough to negotiate with, then we can explain why we need more goldnine. It might not be easy, but it's certainly possible.

ReaperofInterest said:

We need new metahumans just as much as these girls need to live.

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No. We don't. Frankly, if we're putting our own wants over the needs of innocent children, we don't belong in the superhero business.

While we can wait a single turn on new heroes if we have to, I think saying absolutely all of the goldnine will suddenly disappear is catastrophizing. Going loud is not a trap option.

ReaperofInterest said:

And if we take Yellow Qilin out now, there's a chance that we'll run out of goldnine before we can get a supply line set up.

There is no magic perfect solution here. You're focusing on the problem of the girls needing to be treated, I'm focusing on the problem of actually getting what we need to treat them in time. Both of these need to be solved, but right now, as callous as it may sound, most the girls are safe. Their families are paying, Monarch's supplying the goldnine, and they won't die. A few more girls added to this would be terrible, but it won't break down in a single turn.

Besides, if the R-train is intelligent enough to negotiate with, then we can explain why we need more goldnine. It might not be easy, but it's certainly possible.

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I'm not offering a magical perfect solution either, but ultimately, I think buying from Yellow Qilin sabotages our ability to actually deliver goldnine to those girls in the long term while we work on a cure because again, the R-Train is very strict and harsh. It's intelligent yes, but that does not mean it will be agreeable when we'll be asking for absurd amounts of goldnine, suffer from REP debuffs in negotiations, and have the fact that we bought from Yellow Qilin hanging around our necks.

There are risks in both options, but if we're talking long term ability to sustain a population of magical girls, then going loud now is superior as it places us in a better position to negotiate with the R-Train and limits the amount of people that need to be treated by stopping Yellow Qilin from making more victims.

LucidProp said:

I'm not offering a magical perfect solution either, but ultimately, I think buying from Yellow Qilin sabotages our ability to actually deliver goldnine to those girls in the long term while we work on a cure because again, the R-Train is very strict and harsh. It's intelligent yes, but that does not mean it will be agreeable when we'll be asking for absurd amounts of goldnine, suffer from REP debuffs in negotiations, and have the fact that we bought from Yellow Qilin hanging around our necks.

There are risks in both options, but if we're talking long term ability to sustain a population of magical girls, then going loud now is superior as it places us in a better position to negotiate with the R-Train and limits the amount of people that need to be treated by stopping Yellow Qilin from making more victims.

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And fundamentally, I disagree with you on that. And here's something you haven't considered: if we'd be suffering from REP penalties during the R-train negotiations already, do you think the penalties would get better just because we eliminate Yellow Qilin? After all, from one perspective, the girls are currently being treated, even if their health provider is a hostage-taking nutjob. But if we remove said health provider, then we essentially use sentimentality to try and bludgeon the R-Train into giving us more, because we're the only source of life these girls have. Or we could be short-sightedly prioritizing our morals over making sure these girls stay alive.

Sure, it's an incredibly cynical way of looking at our motivations, but the R-train isn't human and has different priorities, while CRUSADE is filled with people determined to see the worst in everything we do, not helped by the fact that we didn't take an option that could lead to us meeting the R-train this turn.

[X] . . . go loud.

There's no need to negotiate with a monster that tortures and kills teenage girls. We can be more.

ReaperofInterest said:

And fundamentally, I disagree with you on that. And here's something you haven't considered: if we'd be suffering from REP penalties during the R-train negotiations already, do you think the penalties would get better just because we eliminate Yellow Qilin? After all, from one perspective, the girls are currently being treated, even if their health provider is a hostage-taking nutjob. But if we remove said health provider, then we essentially use sentimentality to try and bludgeon the R-Train into giving us more, because we're the only source of life these girls have. Or we could be short-sightedly prioritizing our morals over making sure these girls stay alive.

Sure, it's an incredibly cynical way of looking at our motivations, but the R-train isn't human and has different priorities, while CRUSADE is filled with people determined to see the worst in everything we do, not helped by the fact that we didn't take an option that could lead to us meeting the R-train this turn.

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By not buying from Yellow Qilin, we keep her from being a factor in our negotiations. By doing this, we keep our negotiation penalties from getting worse. If we take out Yellow Qilin now, we may even improve our odds because we quickly dealt with a blockade violator for the R-Train the moment we learned of said violation. This is far from moralizing short-sightedness and is in fact, making sure that we can save as many of these girls as possible by maximizing our chances of getting a steady goldnine supply.

That said, I wouldn't bet on sentimentality working on the R-Train. We know there's a person behind it, but we know practically nothing about them except for the fact that it absolutely loathes it when people steal goldnine from under its nose and vehemently defends the Quarantine Zone. We can only plan around what we know of the R-Train (hates goldnine thieves and guards the QZ), and going loud is the best way to curry favor with them based on what we know of its priorities.

LucidProp said:

If her motivation is revenge, she could have done that by blowing up the goldnine in the warehouse already when Lady Leizi walked in on it. The fact that she didn't tells us she couldn't.

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She didn't know Lady Leizi was in the warehouse though.

Derpmind said:

No. We don't. Frankly, if we're putting our own wants over the needs of innocent children, we don't belong in the superhero business.

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Go Loud will probably result in us not getting enough goldnine for all of them. This is something that has been mentioned in the past.

Your argument is that taking down YQ now will result in less magical girls overall, and thus less overall goldnine loss.

I'd say that having a surplus of goldnine would allow us to experiment and find a permanent cure that doesn't require regular goldnine.

LucidProp said:

By not buying from Yellow Qilin, we keep it from being a factor in our negotiations. By doing this, we keep our negotiation penalties from getting worse. If we take out Yellow Qilin now, we may even improve our odds because we dealt with a blockade violator for the R-Train. This is far from moralizing short-sightedness and is in fact, making sure that we can save as many of these girls as possible by maximizing our chances of getting a steady goldnine supply.

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You just made up an entire chain of events out of thin air, like when you claimed there were multiple stashes of goldnine we could access or that the press your luck option would involve handing over Noelle.

Please stop speculating out of thin air.

So while this vote is ongoing, I'll just type here some of my sentiments since Bitterman not too long ago asked if the quest is too doom and gloom. While there are aspects of that, it's mostly been alright since we've been managing the dangers fairly well, tho by the skin of our teeth. The characters are written well enough for me to love them, get attached, and potentially be devastated once the time comes when we roll low enough for them to meet an unfortunate end. And like, that's probably part of it that brings some of the doom and gloom to us voters?

I'll bring up some examples: in turn 1, we had that close shave when we first met Maddie and decided to risk Lady Leizi's life by comforting her in the midst of the former's crazed paranoia and grief. When I first saw the rolls, I legitimately thought it was freaking joe'over; Lady Leizi dies and Mona is forced to take the early role as leader of Justice Unlimited in turn 1. While I voted to go big or go home back then and the results were well enough that I don't regret what I did back then, had it not go well, I would probably be sad enough to at the very least not participate in the quest for a few updates before popping back in mostly as a reader and take a more cautious approach in my participation.

Now for another example: the Le Quatro Saison mission, the one where we confront Scarlet Maturity himself and attempt our rescue of Hiver, now dubbed Chatelet. I believe it's around this timeor just before that when I started outright skipping and avoiding pages because of the potential of making me feel depressed over low rolls and imagining the results of such. I know myself enough to know that had I continue reading the pages live in certain key moments, I would've gotten a panic attack in the midst of it. Thankfully we avoided the worst case scenario, like legitimately by the skin of our teeth this time with Rhys surviving. Additionally, Black Swan upgraded and beat the Big Man himself and uncovered (albeit in an OOC manner) the conspiracy behind many unfortunate events.

As some of the questers have mentioned before, this quest definitely brings the energy of "we're so back!" and "it's so over..." at the same time, and as much as the highest of highs makes us feel good, it's also fairly emotionally exhausting. This is not to say Bitterman doesn't give us breaks and fillers in-between, he definitely does. Heck, the whole Break the Glass mission is very much a break in itself despite some of its dangers. There's the New Dawn mission where we basically steamrolled for once and broke Wolong to pieces. And then there's the small moments like the Zixuan, Mona, and Maddie's personal actions. One of the biggest highlights of the quest, aside from some of the catharsis of overcoming odds, is when we brainstorm over potential superpowers, and the actual creation itself usually takes about 2-3 updates, which is in of itself a "break".

It's a testament to Bitterman's writing to make such an engaging quest and a compelling story despite my ptsd over dice mechanics. And we're still at turn 3. It's like that Limbus meme of Dante going 'Man, what a canto' when it hasn't gone to the main parts yet. Anyways going back to the main point, I've sorta accepted for a while that this is the sort of quest that'll take me to a rollercoaster of emotions with its dice mechanics, and put the odds against us at every big mission, not just turns. And perhaps not insurmountable odds, but odds all the same. It's very clear that this is an intentional quest design, so I have no objections over it. Going back to some of my example, while I didn't bring up our Apiary mission earlier since compared to the mission where we face Scarlet Maturity, it seem like small stuff now, but I remember getting our ass kicked that mission till Leizi (and to an extent Black Swan) convinced Apiary to crush the behemoth's balls.

So while I don't mind Going Loud winning since it is pretty valid to want to crush this over-the-top villain who thinks they have all the cards in play and prevent future victims, I also sympathize with playing it safe (to an extent) since boy do I not want some of the characters to potentially die over unlucky nat 1s. Just imagining a character die, then next scene we go to attend the Cenotaph memorial makes me feel pessimistic over odds.