Aww. Thanks! Yeah, the "friendly warp entity" is going to demand stuff from you in return for the chaos protection. Organic worshipers, sacrifices, something, likely depending on their nature. The technological one is going to require you to dedicate research and building to upkeep and upgrade your chaos resistance. And the Emps one is more expensive.
Yep, I was aware of that. I was under the impression that it wasn't like, outright worse because otherwise the optimal path would be reality simulators + psytech + psytech protection and you noted you wouldn't try to outright screw us right now, but yeah, I super understand there's no such thing as a free lunch. I picked it for some character work in a pretty funky starting environment and potential inroads to more artifacts etc.
Don't worry, so long as things are in good faith I won't cry afterwards haha.
On this, further on what I suggested on discord already:
Crippled Machine God.
Basically, they are the naturally-born warp-entity from not just AdMech's beliefs and rituals, but from all of the universe's sentients beliefs and feeling on science, innovation, technology and machines. They would be an
extremely powerful god otherwise
but. The Void Dragon's mere existence on Mars has them crippled. Its influence and malice seeping through the cracks in its prison and then spreading through the dogmatic ideology of the Mechanicus further into the stars. Trying to strangle a god of machines and progress in its crib.
And Vashtorr contesting their claim on their domains, while not as strong as that of a proper Chaos God, leaves them further weakened. And the general state of the galaxy and the warp and the fact the Four are a thing doesn't exactly help.
With all of this in mind, they should have some reason why they haven't been torn to shreds until they cease to exist. Maybe it is their unique tie into the physical realm, the Machine Spirits that reside in machines being tiny bits of the Machine-God-Who-Could-Be. Could be something else entirely, who knows?
The result? An entity that is a mere fraction of what it should be. But is still very helpful in shielding our AI protagonist from the predators in the warp, due to its nature meshing so well with the AI itself. And for Liber? They could be the patron for a historian, a patron whose needs mesh well with the capabilities of an AI from the Golden Age of Humanity. There could potentially some malleability on their nature, as they are weak and fractured without never having been a proper god with an unconstested claim on their domains.
Benefits: Due to being a warp-entity with domain (contested) over machines, can shield the AI very well from the nasty parts of the Warp. Potential for interactions on Machine Spirits, and not just their physical medium? A somewhat shaky but feasible change of starting a cult from some fringe members of the Adeptus Mechanicus.
Costs: The Machine God actually wants to reach its proper status as a god in the warp. And it needs followers not under the influence of the Void Dragon or the Chaos for this to happen. That, and knowledge, innovation, technological infrastructure and equipment becoming more widespread and advanced is what they also need from us. ...With that technology
not cut off completely from the warp, like that of the Necrons.
@Neablis, could this work as a (very) rough draft? Not exactly 100% how to make this mesh with your intentions for the quest or mechanics at this point, but just wanted to get something out in time.
Also, changing my vote from approval voting to only my favorite plan:
[X] Plan: TFW a history degree needs a battleship
