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Last Light of a Dark Age (Warhammer 29K/Disco Elysium)

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IronKnightofSilv said:
Understood. Both plans are capable of slaying Morpheos, and I see your points about getting Sympathy the data she needs, but the plans diametrically oppose each other. One is slower, targets hard targets, is tactical, gives away more of the thread's capabilities, and takes longer to give Sypmathy a view of the actual battlefield. The other is faster, higher risk of failure, targets bodies and the enemy directly, and preserves the element of surprise via the thread and Sympathy's ability to get involved. However, I'm not banking on it as the "safer" option, there is no safe option, but how I think it is the option that pairs best with the thread. See The Illusions of Phalanx Hypnos allow it to hide dispositions, place artillery and logistics far closer to the front than would be safe without them - strip away the cloud of mirrors, and it could be devastating. If we could strip the phalanx of its anti-air ability that could mean Sympathy can get involved quicker as well. For all we know both plans could result in Morpheos's death.
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There's definitely a chance both ways. But like I said before, the strategic successes of Attrition kind of work against it for confirming a kill on Morpheos. It may win, win well even, but the same pressures that give the witches an advantageous position when jumping Morpheos are also weaknesses he is aware of as well. I don't think he'll suddenly turn the fight around. I think he'll be prepared to flee because he is well aware that he can lose. You get what I mean? If you head into a fight knowing you're in a bad way, that moving forward is bleeding you out, that they have counters to your setup, that the enemy has still conserved so much strength, you will seriously consider turning back.

I think All or Nothing minimizes that capacity for consideration, for awareness, for pulling back. It's at a hefty cost but one that I think has better odds of earning us his head.
 
UmbraofChaos said:
There's definitely a chance both ways. But like I said before, the strategic successes of Attrition kind of work against it for confirming a kill on Morpheos. It may win, win well even, but the same pressures that give the witches an advantageous position when jumping Morpheos are also weaknesses he is aware of as well. I don't think he'll suddenly turn the fight around. I think he'll be prepared to flee because he is well aware that he can lose. You get what I mean? If you head into a fight knowing you're in a bad way, that moving forward is bleeding you out, that they have counters to your setup, that the enemy has still conserved so much strength, you will seriously consider turning back.

I think All or Nothing minimizes that capacity for consideration, for awareness, for pulling back. It's at a hefty cost but one that I think has better odds of earning us his head.
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I do. It would suck getting so close only to fail to secure the kill, but we know so little about what we are fighting. I also think he would be prepared for a desperate all-out assault as an egophage and knowing how desperate the Progeny are for a win. Yes, he has not had time to prepare defenses in depth, but we also don't know what his phalanx is capable of.
Edit: I do see the appeal of the all-out-assault plan, but there are just to many risks I think associated with it to overtake attrition. There is the untested gear, there is the possible broken enucia, the newly upgraded gear, the trees, the possibility of friendly fire, etc... Even if we fail to slay the prime soul, I think Sympathy and Harmony are less likely to suffer at the hands of the progeny if they go about this fight in a way that makes sense and leverages the tools on hand.
 
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IronKnightofSilv said:
I do. It would suck getting so close only to fail to secure the kill, but we know so little about what we are fighting. I also think he would be prepared for a desperate all-out assault as an egophage and knowing how desperate the Progeny are for a win. Yes, he has not had time to prepare defenses in depth, but we also don't know what his phalanx is capable of.
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Yeah, I won't sugarcoat it, it will probably suck real hard. Attrition is the explicitly the one that will preserve the most and minimize losses. Smashing through and forcing Morpheos out, depending on our ace of breaking through his information control when he's less prepared and aware to flip the situation and let us kill him is risky. It is going to kill more Koras than Attrition, and an approach that has more consequences does not innately ensure a better result.

But I think with all the elements in front of me this makes the most sense for the goal of killing Morpheos. I don't think the world is just enough for our strategically effective, casualty minimizing approach to also kill us a god who has every reason to be aware that he can lose this fight.
 
UmbraofChaos said:
Yeah, I won't sugarcoat it, it will probably suck real hard. Attrition is the explicitly the one that will preserve the most and minimize losses. Smashing through and forcing Morpheos out, depending on our ace of breaking through his information control when he's less prepared and aware to flip the situation and let us kill him is risky. It is going to kill more Koras than Attrition, and an approach that has more consequences does not innately ensure a better result.

But I think with all the elements in front of me this makes the most sense for the goal of killing Morpheos. I don't think the world is just enough for our strategically effective, casualty minimizing approach to also kill us a god who has every reason to be aware that he can lose this fight.
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I just don't think all-out-attack combines well with the wire augment enhancements selected by the voters. Morpheos is going to try and flee regardless and a pitched battlefield vs. bait and ambush style of fighting has its own pros and cons. From a meta-perspective, both plans could result in failure and given the important upcoming turns, preserving Harmony's confidence and keeping her from despairing and dying will be very important and should the all-out-attack plan fail then she will be in an even worse place mentally.
 
[X] All-Or-Nothing. A massive, sweeping operation, aimed at the very center of Phalanx Hypnos. An antifragile strategy - if Morpheos is there, the whole of the Witches will fall on him - but if he is not, he must choose between having the center of his phalanx cut off from his illusions by your null fields - or face you head on.

[X] Use the Auratic Thread.

I want to add to what's already been said: I think this strategy, aside from having the potential to reward Harmony for an opening that will only be created so cleanly once, is well-suited to her Takyon upgrade which specifically supports rolls related to reaction, timing and focus.

[X] Our Sister of Supreme Mercy. This is an idealization of your axiom The Witch they Wanted, reframed as a protection of the weak against the strong.
[X] The Caprices. Gods, in a human shape. Ever-passionate, ever-spiteful monsters, too-caring, too-interested, their hands on the lathe of fate, their intentions malice, evil, cruelty. The Immaculates, the Prime Souls, the Titans.
 
IronKnightofSilv said:
Morpheos is going to try and flee regardless and a pitched battlefield vs. bait and ambush style of fighting has its own pros and cons.
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Well, yeah. That's why I mentioned prior there is a big difference from having the time to evaluate the position or not. A protracted war of attrition means that Morpheos will know that his forces are in poor shape, that the Progeny have been bleeding his phalanx and their support out, they have been coordinating attacks with the Progeny's main forces despite his illusions, and that they have not committed the full force of the witches as they did against Theia. When the bulk of the witches come down on him, he will almost certainly have had time to evaluate his position and how to flee. He can act with knowledge, even if it is from an unenviable position.

He will try to flee if he's losing any fight to agree with you, but the compressed timing of All or Nothing into the reversal of the thread is the difference between having prepared to fall back and being forced to pull back. Theia almost got hit because the sudden reversal from the Progeny's magic. This is a not a dissimilar situation, drawing on an out of context weapon with significantly more intentionality on our behalf than the Immaculate's counterattack against an opponent whose power isn't supreme foresight.
 
With the attrition plan, there's also the danger of the wire getting snarled up just from repeatedly flying from the Progeny's lines to Koinon's and back. Imagine the knots you'll have to pick through when that thin thread, clad in spiky crystals gets tangled from flying around. Yuck!

And has anyone considered the mental strain of any plan more complex than going straight up the middle on our poor Cogitation 1 Harmony?

Physically, attrition might be the right match-up for Morpheos - Harmony, but mentally maybe the best fit for her Cogitation 1 brain is keeping things as simple as possible.
 
vestigeofgreen said:
With the attrition plan, there's also the danger of the wire getting snarled up just from repeatedly flying from the Progeny's lines to Koinon's and back. Imagine the knots you'll have to pick through when that thin thread, clad in spiky crystals gets tangled from flying around. Yuck!
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Attrition likely gives us time to handle this, by having only a small amount of them to deal with at once?
 
Going to set a deadline in the middle of the week. Get your discussion, commentary, and votes in before then!
 
Alright I'll commit to a battle plan. I usually avoid plans like All-or-nothing, though with the thread there is a chance to get some great return from it. While attrition is a safer plan, and I think it also reflects how Harmony still wants to try to keep her people alive despite how she outwardly claims she's given up and resigned herself to everyone dying. I'll go with All-or-nothing though. This too can be interpreted as Harmony ripping the bandage off and succeed or fail instead of getting her hopes up through a series of smaller successful battles in preparation for engaging Morpheos.

[X] All-Or-Nothing. A massive, sweeping operation, aimed at the very center of Phalanx Hypnos. An antifragile strategy - if Morpheos is there, the whole of the Witches will fall on him - but if he is not, he must choose between having the center of his phalanx cut off from his illusions by your null fields - or face you head on.
[X] Use the Auratic Thread.

Though I hope Harmony realizes her greatest enemy is the Grimdarkness of the universe it self, making her live on a world where everyone is either a tyrant or works for one. I do want to break her bigotry in even small ways, since I think that should be the next major focus of her development.
 
[X] All-Or-Nothing. A massive, sweeping operation, aimed at the very center of Phalanx Hypnos. An antifragile strategy - if Morpheos is there, the whole of the Witches will fall on him - but if he is not, he must choose between having the center of his phalanx cut off from his illusions by your null fields - or face you head on.
[X] Use the Auratic Thread.

I'll decide the rest of my vote later. Maybe a long with putting together a theory post.
 
[X] All-Or-Nothing. A massive, sweeping operation, aimed at the very center of Phalanx Hypnos. An antifragile strategy - if Morpheos is there, the whole of the Witches will fall on him - but if he is not, he must choose between having the center of his phalanx cut off from his illusions by your null fields - or face you head on.
[X] Use the Auratic Thread.

Alright fellas, let's get this head. As in, like, cutting it off. I really want to kill this guy.

I think it's a shame we didn't get to spend a bit more time with the Night Witches so I could get more emotionally attached, as Harmony clearly is, but I do also agree with the tone/pacing concerns that Cetash has brought up. The chapter was already one of the longer updates in this quest, and they're probably all going to die soon one way or another.

[X] Our Sister of Supreme Justice. This is an idealization of your axiom Sunrise Parabellum, reframed as a statement of uncompromising principle.
[X] Our Sister of Supreme Passion. This is an idealization of your axiom Blackstar, reframed as a position of overwhelming passion for the pain of others.

As for the cult vote, I'm torn between the Sunrise Parabellum and Backstar options, so I'll just vote for both.
On one hand I like Sunrise Parabellum because of that one guy harvesting asiatic clams in -10 degrees who told me to 'Never Give Up!'.
On the other, I also like Blackstar because I want to win the implicit glorifying mental illness competition.

Maybe we'll get to spend more time with the Witches next update, concurrently or immediately preceding their inevitable horrific deaths.

[X] The Colossi. Gods in an inhuman shape. Alien, structural forces, indifferent, grinding, uncaring, that define time, define history, define creation, by their brutal, impersonal design. The suns, the seasons, the sea.

I don't have strong opinions about the Colossi vs Caprices. The Caprices are much more obviously present and hateable from past-Harmony's perspective, but Colossi probably represents a slightly more well adjusted worldview, as futile as such an effort may be. And I know I just talked about winning at mental illness, but some hypocrisy can really only help with that if you think about it.
 
[X] Hit-and-Run. An aggressive, manuever-centric strategy. Take full advantage of your mobility, use independent demi-company sized-units to rove beyond enemy lines. Gather captives, outright destroy straggler units, seize key objectives. Eventually, you must run into, catch Morpheos - and descend on him with the witches' swarm.

[X] Use the Auratic Thread.

Hit and run with the thread to gradually create a map of the territory so when the time comes, Morpheos can be smashed to pieces.

[X] Our Sister of Supreme Candor. This is an idealization of your axiom Washing Machine Heart, reframed as a stance of extreme commitment to truth.

[X] The Caprices. Gods, in a human shape. Ever-passionate, ever-spiteful monsters, too-caring, too-interested, their hands on the lathe of fate, their intentions malice, evil, cruelty. The Immaculates, the Prime Souls, the Titans.

Poor Kora, reduced into being a psychic battery. I'm curious what the other Kora's were considering "Emerald Koras who had been her super-soldiers, sacking the temples of their cults of her as Goddess, rejecting their love of her, treating them as things." I guess there were non-super solider Kora's at one point, perhaps the purples are a example of that.
 
Past Dreams said:
Here's a late but big reaction and thought post to 12: Tomorrow Belongs to Me.
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First, want to draw people's attention to this post, lots of fantastic analysis and work done! Very much appreciate it as always from the thread's great theory-engines.

Past Dreams said:
A holographic dove Sympathy had in the copse. Her bad joke on the resemble of a certain configuration of the Melta Cannon in 10: Blackstar. The spy Raven's in the cube, the Progeny's minds and Sympathy seem to have a thing for birds.
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I actually edited ravens to doves here after this, the ravens escaped an earlier edit. Doves are more of the vibe of these particular witches.

Past Dreams said:
(possessing some of Her memories it turns out)
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Not Her memories - Sympathy is dissociating from her childhood self here. 'Penny' is just Immaculate Penitence, when they were both children in the nursery.

Past Dreams said:
especially from the use of the name (I presume what D5h called the Father in specific) Ea, which then makes "the Cost."
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Good eye.

Past Dreams said:
And hmm, a "breathless god." We know the abyss has the shadowed thing courtesy of the un-selected null field vote Dread back in 5: Ethics of Greed. And here comes a mention of a "breathless god" also connected with it. I think they are likely one and the same entity.
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Breathless God is something else, an entity that specifically visited Obsidian Butterfly in realspace.

thelordofmango said:
I think it's a shame we didn't get to spend a bit more time with the Night Witches so I could get more emotionally attached, as Harmony clearly is, but I do also agree with the tone/pacing concerns that Cetash has brought up. The chapter was already one of the longer updates in this quest, and they're probably all going to die soon one way or another.
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Be careful with such assumptions :)
 
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Cetashwayo said:
First, want to draw people's attention to this post, lots of fantastic analysis and work done! Very much appreciate it as always from the thread's great theory-engines.



I actually edited ravens to doves here after this, the ravens escaped an earlier edit. Doves are more of the vibe of these particular witches.



Not Her memories - Sympathy is dissociating from her childhood self here. 'Penny' is just Immaculate Penitence, when they were both children in the nursery.



Good eye.



Breathless God is something else, an entity that specifically visited Obsidian Butterfly in realspace.



Be careful with such assumptions :)
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Thank you for the praise! And since the "breathless god" isn't the shadowed thing then IDK what kind of entity it is, It doesn't feel connected with Mephet'ran's shards considering Obsidian Butterfly's opposition to his reverence? servitude? worship? within the Still Coast. Alongside it told her about being barred from the pure land, if I'm reading this right. So it might be like "the Cost" in that it's a currently unknown kind of being for the moment.
 
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Scary thought about The Cost, but you know how psykers have echoes of their souls in the warp-like light/heat? The first time QM referred the Cost (capital C) was in Coil 5 The Ethics of Greed. See below.

NOOSPHERE [Challenging - Failure]: You don't remember reading much about the source of Dis. You only recall that no one has ever been to the city's bottom - for it is too cold in the lowest point for living souls. Even blanks succumb to the chill.
EVENT HORIZON [Impossible - Success]: It is the Cost. The heifer, and the lamb.

What if hylic unsouls have a presence in the Abyss, a dimension separate from the warp, and their unsouls emit cold in this not-warp space? We also know that there are tears/rifts/gates in reality through which mortals can enter the warp to bargain with the powers within and through which denizens of the warp can manifest. What if what is at the bottom of Dis is the equivalent of this warp tear/rift/gate through which the stuff of the abyss spills forth into the material universe? And what if harmony overreached and accidentally created a minor tear using her nail that attracted a being present in the abyss? And what if when she enters the lower layers of Dis the being she inadvertently made a deal with will manifest? Or worse, what if she will have to enter this tear/rift/gate to the Abyss? Just some ideas I had.
 
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IronKnightofSilv said:
Scary thought about The Cost, but you know how psykers have echoes of their souls in the warp-like light/heat? The first time QM referred the Cost (capital C) was in Coil 5 The Ethics of Greed. See below.

NOOSPHERE [Challenging - Failure]: You don't remember reading much about the source of Dis. You only recall that no one has ever been to the city's bottom - for it is too cold in the lowest point for living souls. Even blanks succumb to the chill.
EVENT HORIZON [Impossible - Success]: It is the Cost. The heifer, and the lamb.

What if hylic unsouls have a presence in the Abyss, a dimension separate from the warp, and their unsouls emit cold in this not-warp space? We also know that there are tears/rifts/gates in reality through which mortals can enter the warp to bargain with the powers within and through which denizens of the warp can manifest. What if what is at the bottom of Dis is the equivalent of this warp tear/rift/gate through which the stuff of the abyss spills forth into the material universe? And what if harmony overreached and accidentally created a minor tear using her nail that attracted a being present in the abyss? And what if when she enters the lower layers of Dis the being she inadvertently made a deal with will manifest? Or worse, what if she will have to enter this tear/rift/gate to the Abyss? Just some ideas I had.
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Given that the dreamshape is more interested in information than anything else, I suspect that the reason it wants to go to Dis isn't so much a what as a who. It's trying to find someone to get answers from. It's too cold for living beings in Dis, but we know of several beings that aren't alive.

The most obvious candidate is the Demiurge. The Demiurge is associated with hylics and the 'spiral hell'. Dis was once a city of hylics, and also seems to be related to the spiral hell– possibly as an inspiration, possibly as its actual physical location. The Demiurge is supposed to be shattered, but we know that some portion of intelligence still exists in The Grey. It's very plausible that a more consolidated fragment exists.

A less-likely but still possible candidate is SOPHIA, who seems to have been a Woman of Iron. The dreamshape believes that SOPHIA has been mostly destroyed– but not completely, and it was very wary of her influence. Her remnants presumably exist in some kind of physical storage, and Dis is the most likely location they would be.

The third candidate is the Nail, or whatever is speaking through it.
 
Horologer said:
The third candidate is the Nail, or whatever is speaking through it.
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The nail is referred to as a stigma of the Father's love. And with D5h's disparaging remarks about it we might conclude that it's potentially the "wedding gift" Obsidian Butterfly was talking about (and from that speculate on a divine polycule situation).
Cetashwayo said:
Tantalus Presses, cheapening and accelerating the amniotic printing process.
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Also, holy shit? This seems like a huge development? Does Harmony know how much this cheapens and accelerates printing? When in the present there were "mad children" around I thought that was a little weird (it's been like eighteen years since the war we're fighting in so I'd assume the feral street gang problem wouldn't be around anymore) but if they've got a huge population boom incoming post-war it starts to make a lot of sense.
 
After rereading 1: A Nightmare Called Today and 11.10: Cold Fusion I have to retract my initial guess of D5h as a pentagonal prism,

Cetashwayo said:
SACRED GEOMETRY [AUTOFAIL]: You have no evidence you are a woman. None of us do. It is possible that you are an ethereal qualia in a meta-gender utopia. It is possible, no, probable, that you are an omnigendered polygon. One with ten perfect equilateral faces, floating in and out of self-shaped cavities towards a happy infinity. Without hope and without regret. Ever-dreaming.
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Cetashwayo said:
GEN《AUTOFAIL》: Somniloquy-start: Symmetric group designate D5h reaching tenth lucidity. Vertex optimality reached. Facial development stable - tenth face forming without incident.
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The sacred geometry autofail (Presumably due to D5h's intervention) mentioning ten eqilateral faces and the 2nd confirmation of D5h being ten-faced in cold fusion leaves only one possible D5h geometry with 10 equilateral faces, that being an equilateral pentagonal bipyramid.
Behold, the terrifying D5h, That has laid us so low:


Although I suppose it is technically possible that D5h belongs to a space group other than the one for which it is named, in which case this geometry speculation goes out the window but ehhhhh.

On the other hand, I am starting to suspect that Sympathy's ultimate fate is going to be something that could be described as "The Young eating the Old." It would explain why Harmony holds some of Sympathy's memories and would be a suitably traumatic culmination of Harmony's growing possessiveness.
 
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Oh yes, added in something I wanted to add to the update but ran out of time/energy. A key visual for Theia when she is introduced!

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