I mean, I'd argue that "A Full STC is buying more trouble than we can afford right out the gate", since that's one of the things that will draw in every diviner and Big Name in the setting who has the ability to keep an eye out for these ripple effects to act. We can build up fast, especially with a heavy research focus, but we're also going to be under a lot of immediate pressure as well. I still have the Reality Simulations, but I also have Psytech and the Diplomatic Suite, which keeps the Warp from being a complete blank slate, and thanks to my Juvenat Vats, we can keep any Hero Units we might pick up along the way long term, which gives us all kinds of crazy nonsense given how cracked Heroes can get in 40K, especially when you can invest in them long term. If anyone wants a cadre of technomancer-psykers? Vita's the way to go after all, since she's the only one with the precise set of traits to really go deep into that!
No offence, but I think you are overestimating the capabilities of the factions in the setting. It is possible that people will find out about us? Sure, but it's just as likely no one will notice us. Diviniations aren't perfect nor easy, even for Chaos forces.
Also Neablis already asked us to take everything he writes honestly and sincerely, if friendly warp entity isn't a trap then why full STC would be? I really doubt Neablis give us this option just so everyone will pile up on us from the start, because suddenly everyone in the entire galaxy just knows about this from out of nowhere.
A common failure mode I've observed in Questing has been miscommunication and misunderstanding between Questors and the QM. To that end, I promise to interpret your plans in the best possible light, and ask for confirmation when it seems like you're making an obvious mistake. I'm not going to 'gotcha' you for missing something I think is obvious without asking for clarification first.
In return, I ask that you interpret the events of the quest positively. I'm a professional writer who wants to pick up running a Quest as a hobby, and I want to have fun telling an engaging story with my players.
We can bite more than we can chew, but we also shouldn't just lay passively and not take any risks. And again, I doubt, Neablis would give us this option if it result in everyone attacking us, just because we have full STC, again, because he specifically doesn't want any "gotcha" moments.
Also, we are specifically in a region that was isolated from the rest of the Galaxy after the Great Rift happened. Notice, that all Human faction option are "successor states". This region is isolated, and we have to deal first and foremost, if not only, with faction within the sector not outside of it.
Also, we will be ignored, for a fact, at the beginning,
@BlueHelix plan has only five major factions, if the plan had more then it would be a problem, but with only five factions, no one will find us at the beginning.
The default is a sector where the unifying Imperial government was never very strong and it fell apart after the Astronomicon was snuffed out by the Great Rift, leaving a bunch of scattered systems that are mostly chugging along with barely any contact with each other. Whatever factions are present will start rolling up the sector, consolidating it until they run into resistance. Be cautious of picking too many options - that means it is very likely that there's a faction right next door and they may find you before you're ready for them. Edit: "too many" means more than about 5 of the below options. You can do it, but there will be consequences, in that you'll be almost constantly at war for the entire quest.
And even if it had more than five, it would be hard, but we can do it, despite constant fighting with other factions. The full STC specifically gives us this edge.
And the thing is, when you have a single point of failure, one that can bypass all of your crazy knowledge and technology, you're just asking for trouble. Doubly so since while it does have a Diplomatic Suite, it doesn't start with any people who would be especially willing to listen in its starting area. The only "Good" play is that there's no significant Chaos power in that starting sector, but both breeds of Space Elf are present, as well as active Necrons, and they'd all fuck you over on principle if only to deny you to the humans.
Remember what happened when that one bunch found Panacea? The Space Elfs mobilized almost as a single unit to deny it to the Imperium, including the fucking Harlequins. Just because it was a secret of the Dark Age and like hell should the monkeigh become an actual threat.
Comorrites absolutely will jump us on principle though, and the Harlequins will help them because they have a history of doing that, which is the problem because they have a way in from the get-go.
'Sighs in justified misanthropy'.
Okay, speak after me "Aeldari aren't unified civilization nor culture, not even Craftworlds are friendly with each other or unified in any real way, Drukhari are more willing to make diplomacy with other Aeldari faction, only because they the same species and it's harder to attack Craftworlds than normal planets, but nothing stops Drukhari Cabal from attacking minor Craftworld and torturing it's population for lolz."
Imperium is full of shit and isn't right or justified about anything, news at 11. Space Elves don't have some grand collective plan to fuck over Humanity and aren't on watch out for STC's to prevent Humanity from getting anything good.
The same deal is with Necrons. Depending on when the Tomb-world awakened, the local Necrons might barely recognize what Humans even are, let alone what STC's even is or why should they care about old trash of some primitives that, as advanced STC'S are for Imperium, is infinitely beneath their own technology and understanding of physics of the universe.
Also, no offence, but you flat out don't know what happened during Panacea War or at least seriously misunderstand what was actually said in the actual sources. Because again, Space Elves might not be nicest people around, but neither they have malicious plan to fuck over Humanity, not even Dark Eldar have such plan, if only because they see Humans as a whole, as fundamentally beneath them and unworthy of attention beyond slave raids and torture fun.
As Vect's influence grew ever greater, the Archons of the newly-formed Kabals sought audience in his court. Their petty schemes and veiled doublespeak bored him greatly.
Even the famous beauty and barbed wit of the latest Archon to enter Vect's throne room, Lady Aurelia Malys, stirred him not at all. Eventually Vect summoned all those who sought his favour to his throne room and set them an impossible task.
The loss of a human world's population was of little import to the star- spanning empire of Man; humans bred like insects and were easily replaced. Vect's challenge was not to destroy a single world or star system, but to poison the entire Imperium and return with proof of the deed.
Vect had set his challenge purely to thin the resources of those Kabals who had wasted his precious time. He did not expect any of these so-called Archons to achieve the task set out before them, and if some of them met their demise in the attempt, then so much the better. As Vect's task was laid down, the Archon known as Lady Malys allowed herself a slight smile. Outwitting the lesser races was child's play to her, and as large as the Imperium was, it was still only human.
Gathering to her side the entirety of her Kabal, the Poisoned Tongue, Malys mobilised her fleet and made haste into realspace. Through her connections with the Harlequins of the webway she had knowledge of an Imperial forge world that had suddenly become far more heavily defended than any of its neighbouring planets - the entire system had concentrated its military strength upon a single world, leaving the others lightly garrisoned and extremely vulnerable.
The industrial planet of Verdigris IX, settled deep in the heart of Segmentum Obscurus, now literally bristled with defence batteries and interceptor cannon. Its Hives were thronged to the point of claustrophobia with regiment after regiment of Imperial Guard and the armies of the Adeptus Mechanicus, and the God-Machines of the Titan Legions loomed through the polluted air of the wastes around the Hives' borders.
Evidently something extremely valuable existed upon Verdigris, and Malys alone knew its nature. Her spies had informed her that archaeo-technologists had unearthed a rare and vital relic from when the Imperium was at its height - a 'standard template construct' that could act as a blueprint for large-scale advancement across the galaxy. Every STC is of inestimable value to the Imperium of Man, but this particular construct, a medical miracle codenamed the Panacea, could save billions of human lives from death by poison and disease.
A conventional assault was out of the question. The High Fabricator of the planet had fortified his macrocomplex to such an extent that he could fill the skies with burning metal in an instant, an inverse rain of bullets and blasts that would shred a Dark Eldar strike force in a matter of moments.
Malys intended to retrieve the prize herself, but she could not do it alone. A blunt instrument was needed, and a big one at that. The fleet of the Poisoned Tongue entered realspace through the Ophidian Gulf, emerging right on the tail of an immense Ork fleet. The flotilla of ramshackle spacecraft stretched off in all directions, a roving scrapyard of gunned-up junk with a single vast space hulk at its heart.
Malys commanded her captains to disable their night shields and fire at will. Her order was met with raised eyebrows at best, for the Ork ships outnumbered them fifty to one and many of the greenskin craft were already changing heading to an intercept course.
Scowling, Malys led by example, personally manning her flagship's void cannon and blasting apart three Ork ships one after the other.
Chastened, her captains quickly took up the fight, dispatching squadrons of sleek fighters to make hit-and- run attacks on the largest Ork ships.
Anarchy reigned as the Ork armada attempted to change course and intercept the alien fleet harrying its rear like metallic sharks ripping at the flukes of a void whale. Suddenly, as one, the Dark Eldar fleet retreated at speed. The Orks, spoiling for a fight, mounted a hasty pursuit. The ensuing running battle lasted a dozen hours, the Dark Eldar ships staying tantalisingly out of reach before Verdigris appeared on the greenskin fleet's screens. Gathering a deadly momentum, the single-minded Orks pursued the Dark Eldar at speed, careening straight towards the High Fabricator's beloved macrocomplex.
Then, just as Verdigris' autodefences illuminated the night sky with myriad ruby stabs of laser fire, the Dark Eldar simply vanished. The Ork ships ploughed into the world of Verdigris like a mailed fist into an unprotected face. Hundreds were reduced to ruin by defence laser fire, but such was their sheer bulk that on they came, megatonnes of burning wreckage slamming into the defence networks of the macrocomplex.
The surviving Orks that had bullied through the High Fabricator's firestorms hacked their way out of their burning craft and into the ranks of the defenders. In the dust wastes outside the Hive, the Legio Titanicus mobilised to intercept the greenskins, and the earth shook at their advance as they mercilessly hammered the Orks infesting the Hive. Then, with terrible inevitability, the space hulk Foot of Gork thundered out of the clouds. In a single earth-shaking instant, the God-machines were crushed flat. Almost half of the macrocomplex was blasted apart in the explosion, its autodefences crippled and its surviving defenders hurled to the ground.
It was then that the skies wrenched open. Through a storm of jade light came the pirate fleet of Lady Malys, its deadly elegance the absolute antithesis of the brutish Ork armada.
The Kabalites gunned down humans and Orks alike and fed upon their screams. Metal behemoths roared as Ork Battlewagons engaged the tank companies of the Imperial Guard, and still more Ork spacecraft smashed down into the city, the ground quaking with each new impact.
As buildings toppled around them, Dark Eldar skimmers soared into the heart of the macrocomplex, for Malys knew that her prize would be deep in the vaults. Packs of Incubi plunged into the midst of the deafened, disorientated Guardsmen milling in the breach, their tormentor fields sending out waves of black agony as their klaive-blades carved open into human flesh.
In the heart of the city, the dark feast was beginning in earnest. Malys and her handpicked elite slaughtered the Guardsmen and Adeptus Mechanicus Skitarii that guarded the palace of the High Fabricator. In their wake came hundreds of Kabalite Warriors, meeting each Imperial Guard counter-charge with punishing salvos of raw firepower.
Lady Malys stepped and twirled through the blood-mad brawl as if she were enjoying a pleasant walk instead of cutting her way through a war of her own design. She personally dismembered the armoured Stormtroopers at the heart of the macrocomplex and commanded her warriors to break open the inner chamber within which the STC was hidden. But the chamber was already open, its door a smoking wreck. Ork bullet casings covered the floor, and within the vault the High Fabricator lay in a pool of his own blood, his legs sheared off at the knees. The prize was gone.
Malys flew into a red rage, killing several of her attendants who she suspected of betraying her. Her plans lay in tatters. The macrocomplex, so efficiently plunged into total war, had now become irrelevant. Only the STC mattered. There was little chance of mustering the entire Kabal whilst they were at feast; the complex had degenerated into chaos and confusion abounded.
Malys gathered her court to her side, ordering her jetfighter squadrons to cease their punishment of the Imperial Guard and act as reconnaissance agents. In a matter of seconds Malys had news of a massive column of smoke- belching Ork vehicles trundling out of the city and heading back towards the space hulk that had crash-landed out in the dust wastes.
Lady Malys summoned her personal transport and took off in pursuit. The story of the battle between Lady Malys' airborne elite and the sprawling Ork convoy has become infamous in the upper echelons of High Commorragh.
A frontal attack would have been suicide, so Malys circled the gigantic Ork convoy from a distance, picking off its outriders unit by unit. When the Orks moved to intercept, the Dark Eldar withdrew into the clouds, arrowing downwards once more to strike at a different location.
Through the shattered skies Reavers duelled with clumsy, smoke-belching Ork flying machines and packs of Scourges methodically sniped the Stormboyz that careened through the skies to intercept Malys' force. Hour by gruelling hour, the Dark Eldar strike force whittled down the hurtling flotilla of Ork vehicles until a broken line of scrap metal and smouldering green corpses stretched all the way back to the outskirts of the macrocomplex.
Malys herself led the final assault, leaping down from her transport in a flurry of courtly robes onto the iron roof of the Ork Battle Fortress at the head of the vastly diminished column. Her warriors followed suit, and though the Orks fought with true fury, the Dark Eldar were high on pain and moved like quicksilver. Before long Malys had retrieved the lead-encased STC from the corpse of the Big Mek riding at the head of the Ork armoured column.
The Dark Eldar swiftly withdrew from the battlefield, leaving a raging war behind them. Upon her return to Commorragh, Lady Malys did not return straight to Vect's throne room, but instead headed with her prize into her inner chambers. Her bootheels clacked smartly on the polished obsidian floor of her trophy halls as she strode back to her throne, pausing only to place the stolen STC upon a stasis pedestal between the mummified head of a human technosavant and the gilded hands of Saint Cerulia the Just. Word of her success spread fast, for the tongues of Commorragh's gossips are never still. That evening Malys found herself the recipient of a personal invitation to dine with Vect at her convenience, for her unbridled success had impressed even him. So it was that Lady Aurelia Malys became one of the Supreme Overlord's inner circle.
Dark Eldar Codex 5th Edition pages 16-17.
It wasn't every Eldar participating in it, because Eldar wouldn't be actually scared of Humans with functional DAOT tech-base, it was a single, very specific Kabal and Archon, who wanted to impress Vect after the overlord of Commoragh issued a challenge.
It wasn't some grand plan to fuck over the whole of Humanity. Vect was just tired of stupid Archons wasting his time and his plan started and ended at him hoping that most of those Archons will die, in trying to impress him.
All, Harlequins did was tell Malys that some Human planet was starting to get massive amount of attention from the Imperium. They didn't help in the raid, nor was it grand plan to weaken Humanity/Imperium on their side. If Harlequins knew about Panacea, they would have told Malys from the start, there's no reason for them to hold this information if they plan was to get rid off Panacea from the start nor for them to not participate directly in the raid to ensure that Panacea will be taken or destroyed.
Instead, Harlequins only told Malys that stuff started happening around some Forge World and Malys had to figure out, with her own spies, just what was happening exactly and that Panacea even existed.
And finally, again, it was only a single Dark Eldar Kabal, other Eldar didn't participate in the raid and instead Malys tricked fucking Ork fleet to attack the Forge World.
I'll tack on that humans are generally one of the more "OP" species in the setting for a number of reasons, and any xenos species is going to have unique traits that are unlikely to match the human ones (rapid population growth, extreme adaptability, no significant maluses). I haven't decided yet if the friendly Xenos traits are going to be decided by dice or votes. Maybe I'll roll up a couple of species and let a plan that has friendly Xenos pick one.
'Sighs in justified misanthropy'.
I really don't think this is good idea nor that Humanity being one of "OP" species being remotely accurate or have any real basis in the setting.
Minor Aliens absolutely should have traits that make them superior to Humanity. Perhaps the friendly aliens are all Blank species, perhaps they have some unique technology like weapons that can phase through armour or special Psyker powers unique to their species, perhaps they so strong they can fight with Space Marines in individual fights and win?
What Iconoclast Humans should offer that makes them cost more than friendly Xenos, is that Icoconclast Humans would be more diverse. Non-Humans are specialized while Humanity is diverse. Alien might offer only Psykers or only Blanks, while Humans can offer both and that makes Humans "superior" not that, Humans
actually breed faster or anything.
I agree that Humans should have extreme adaptability, but in turn, that should make the Aliens just worse or weaker. The question between friendly Human vs non-Human should be if we want to specialize from the start or want to be jack of all trades and have more options. Alien who's good trait is physical strenght, absolutely should display this strenght in significant way, not be glossed over just because Humans don't have any specific weakness or that Humans have larger population, currently, on this one specific planet.
Also, Iconoclast Humans should also offer us option to make diplomatic relations with other Human factions. That's what should make them so valuable to us, that they allow us options to try and talk with Humans who aren't reasonable/Iconoclast.
Also, I think giving us sub-vote to decided the civilization we meet at the beginning is very good idea. Not just for Aliens but also for Humans, regardless if Iconoclast, Heretic or Imperial. Heretics who worship Nurgle before other Gods will be different from Heretics who are all Slaaneshi, and in turn those will be different from Heretics who see Four Chaos Gods as just aspects of a greater deity that embodies Warp itself.
