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Paths of Civilization

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Sivantic said:
@BungieONI
Forgot something that may disprove the above completely or simply modify it.

The Star Axe.

It has been a source of bad luck of everyone that has held it. It came from the heavens and was blessed by pur shamans. Later on, it was hypothesized that the reason for the curse was that it was blessed with pur virtues...which no one else who held it had. This seems an argument that there is some microscale metaphysics, but the fact that it came from the stars could have been the catalyst.
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Well, if magic is a thing, could it not simply be that the Star Axe acts as Key to a Door of The Heavens which is constantly fueling bad luck to the wielder if they are not Ymaryn?

I mean...*helpless shrug* I have no idea anymore!

E: I'd rate it a bad sample because it did come from the Stars, which if the first thing you said about Macroscale Magic is the thing, then it skews the results.
 
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Well, at least we didn't grab Nobility in Humility until after the Star Are was forged. A lot of omakes (mine included) forgot that fact. And yeah, I'd hate for us to face our own "blessing" on that thing without the values it's checking for.
 
My gut instinct tells me that whether or not magic exists is dependent on the thread's discussion. As such, I like seeing speculation on whether or not it does, rather than declarations of support/ intent to leave the Quest. I trust AN to make it interesting regardless.
 
[X] [Conq] Take the northern lowlands (Thunder Speakers become vassal, Txolla annex additional territory, gain Ruined Thunder Horse as vassal, remainder fragment, -4 Econ and 4 temporary Econ damage from supporting wrecked vassal)
[X] [Refugee] Send out runners that you have food and intact farmland (6 temporary Econ damage, -6-8 Econ Expansion, -1 Stability, chance of further loss, +6-8 Econ next turn)
[X] [PttS] Horse Valley
[X] [PttS] 0 Stability
[X] [Diplo] Send out reassurances (Sec Trade Mission to Khemetri, Trelli, and Harmurri)
[X] [PSN] Bit more black soil (Sec Black Soil, -1 Centralization)

Magic is the only reasonable explanation for what happened. There is no way the Mystic genius could have done it with the tech available otherwise.
 
Andres110 said:
It very clearly isn't.
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Pray tell why it wouldn't be?
Because all I see is a number of phenomenon we do not yet completely understand which can be studied and used.

Much like how the workings of the weather were a mystery to ancient man(and in some ways still are to modern man) but were eventually mastered enough to very happily be used in war to such great effect that it became a war crime to do so.
Weather warfare - Wikipedia
 
Anyway, in order to support my theory of this is certainly magic. Let's look at what is needed to see this asteroid coming.

Humans, on a perfectly dark night sky, and with perfect eyesight, can see objects with magnitude 6. The asteroid that caused the Tunguska event is estimated to have been around 120 meters in size. Nasa has a nice table, showcasing the absolute magnitude (visibility of the asteroid at 1 AU from us) and it's size.

The smallest object we can see at that distance is an asteroid 90 kilometers in diameter. Data

So, you may think, what if we saw it when it was closer. 1 Astronomical unit is quite far away.

Well, the function that governs that is the following (see wiki link)

Absolute magnitude - Wikipedia

I threw everything into wolfram alpha, taking the most generous assumptions every time, and the net result is that we could have seen this thing only at a distance of 120 000 km. For reference, the distance between the Earth and the moon is 400 000 km.

At a speed of 15 km/s, we would have had rough 2 hours warning. (And note, that is the asteroid being at the very edge of perception. I won't stand out until it hits the atmosphere)

Edit : It's also impossible for this to have been a previous prediction, because any pass close enough to be visible would have thrown the projectile way of course, making it unpredictable.
 
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8bitBob said:
My gut instinct tells me that whether or not magic exists is dependent on the thread's discussion. As such, I like seeing speculation on whether or not it does, rather than declarations of support/ intent to leave the Quest. I trust AN to make it interesting regardless.
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Yeah, like our Mystic Genius could have been bullshitting numbers with some spite against the Thunder Horse and happened to have made a useful prediction.
She could have also used Predictive Astronomy to get a vague foretelling of the future by looking at the Starts, and she and the priests were able to make a rough interpretation.
She could also be a psyker who peered into the future through the Warp and told us what we needed to hear in order to react in the way she desired, in true Tzeenchian fashion.

I would say it's most likely option two, but it could be anything at this point.
 
notgreat said:
Guess you're gonna have to leave a while back. The Spirit Talkers had this same magitech, and they used it to be a relevant geopolitical power despite having all of a single settlement and no farms.
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I wasn't even in the quest back then. I joined around the time Phyrgif came to power and was under the impression of this being through the eyes of superstitious, low-information stone-age and bronze-age civs.
Thomasfoolery said:
What do you mean? We know we'd have taken a hit even if nothing at all went wrong when we ignored it. This kind of thing? Would have been a disaster.
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Whether said comet would have even happened was under the dice.
Thomasfoolery said:
It wouldn't have made them less powerful, it would have vindicated them and discredited the government while the populace was angry and fearful and looking of something to blame.
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It would de jure reduce their power and authority limits by snubbing them, made them somewhat populistic by their utilizing popular fears as a way to get back for ignoring them, and inevitably calmed down in a few decades whenever it goes by
Thomasfoolery said:
It would not go away, this would have turned into a tale of the folly of our kings and the foresight of our priests that would stay with our civ for hundreds of years minimum.
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As I said, I don't believe this to be magic until magic is proven. This comet was the result of dice rolls, and isn't guaranteed to hit us by some hogwash prophecy.
 
8bitBob said:
It's a long shot, but I suspect that this event is going to leave an impression on the boy. He was treated well and saw the the respect that was given to his mother. I think we're going to have a proper successor to the Dragon.
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I'm seeing Mystic/Martial here.
Reader of all said:
Makes me wonder what would have happened had we chosen to let the heroic diplo king burn himself.
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I believe he did 'ascend to meet the comet', no?
huhYeahGoodPoint said:
Think about it; Last time we chose to ignore the guy who got hit in the head. He turned out to be harmless. This time we chose to listen to the girl with an interesting mind, and watched our neighbors get nuked from orbit. This seems to imply to me that the thread's belief in magic makes it real in a genuine quantifiable way.
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Annnd your username is ludicrously apropos.
Raichu1972 said:
We made an open declaration not to attack the HK while our king and heir lived, which means that the HK are probably relieved that we don't plan on dropping a comet on them.
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We also pumped up The Not!Olympic Games. I mean, that's a nice city you've got there... You do know what happened to the last bunch of guys who turned down our gracious invitation, right?
Raichu1972 said:
Is it?

We just took basically every part of the Lowlands besides the HK for free, greatly increased the power of our religion, and got a buttload of prestige for it.

We didn't even have to fight for it, they will willingly become our vassals.

The Hk will now be surrounded by us and the Khemetri, and we can now begin to diplo annex them instead.
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I didn't want the lowlands, it greatly increases the surface area of our borders and still doesn't give us the ideal convex geometry. Plus the ridiculous amount of road building we're going to need, and babying our vassals, etc.

However, because of our apparent ability to nuke others from orbit, the Nomads are unlikely to threaten us for the next century, and we now have the breathing room to Diplomance the HK. And the Trelli.
Malevolo said:
If there's magic, i'm out, it nullifies humanity Ingenuity.
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If there's magic, I'm unlikely to play the quest as seriously as I have done before, but I'm still interested in shenanigans.
 
Mannan said:
If it spreads that our people believe that the thunder horse was suited because the gods were annoyed at all the wars and the reason we promised peace with the HK was due to this I woul not be surprised if every civilization near us just decides to have peace for the full detritus terrified of angering the gods.
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There's a good chance of this happening to some degree with sending out trade missions to react to this.
 
Raichu1972 said:
They were able to do it once, but they weren't able to replicate it, which is important if they want to actually be able to use magic as a threat against other civilizations.
Even if we can't currently harness magic, we still have powerful armies to protect our nation.
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Which...lines up with our situation here? Genius Mystic detected an opportunity, which gave us a quest to fulfill criteria, which led to a meteor strike in the single most advantageous site for us.

We can't replicate it because it requires a genius to be generated and for the circumstances to line up again. We absolutely did use it.
Azel said:
Speaking of the spirit talkers...

Their fancy holy site had been bricked up by the TH centuries ago. Is there any chance we can rediscover it?
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They opened it up a while ago. Its a natural wonder.
Alectai said:
(Shrugs)

Honestly, as far as we know, she just got lucky--she predicted it'd get real fucking close and probably collide on this pass, but it wouldn't have necessarily landed directly where predicted. That she was basically dead on might have been just dumb luck when she really just kind of worked out a general area that was much larger and the other sages and shamans whipped up a prophecy based on the data.
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The requirements were broad enough to meet just a regular comet scare yes.

But Yenyna had zero possible means of detecting the strike before its sonic boom arrived.
Raichu1972 said:
Wouldn't building the Next level of Temple in Sacred Forest, which we are doing with passive policies this turn, also lessen the divide between the two temples?

We can also just improve our existing Place to the Stars in the "next era", since it's not as though it will stay the same forever.
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Improving Sacred Forest could go either way. Permanent fixes requires bridging the sites. Both the options do that, but one bridges a larger area.

As for upgrading places to the stars, once they become obsolete they'd be cultural monuments instead. You have to build a new one as tech improves.
Alectai said:
Honestly, I hope we get a chance to excavate that shit. Meteoric Metal is probably the best metal you can find in a pre-industrial world.
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Great for study now that we have iron too. We just need to figure out the mystery alloy component
10ebbor10 said:
It was an airburst meteroid or comet. There is no crater, and there is no metal to find.

If it was a comet, then it was made of water and ice.

If it was a meteorite, then it's spread through the soil.
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Airbursts do leave stuff to gather. Its just that you have to reach the site very soon to have anything to loot before the debris is covered over
Raichu1972 said:
We made an open declaration not to attack the HK while our king and heir lived, which means that the HK are probably relieved that we don't plan on dropping a comet on them.
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And with the TH gone...they can't play anvil anymore. Expanded Txolla alone could roll them.
Romv said:
[] [PttS] Black Mirror
Or not.
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@Romv Missing X on purpose?
 
BungieONI said:
Well, if magic is a thing, could it not simply be that the Star Axe acts as Key to a Door of The Heavens which is constantly fueling bad luck to the wielder if they are not Ymaryn?

I mean...*helpless shrug* I have no idea anymore!

E: I'd rate it a bad sample because it did come from the Stars, which if the first thing you said about Macroscale Magic is the thing, then it skews the results.
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I do not think it that cut and dry. That sounds more like Warp from 40k and I imagine we would be seeing a lot more differences if we had the equivalent of a Warp Gate as our next door neighbor :V
 
PyrrosWarrior said:
Whether said comet would have even happened was under the dice.
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There's no point in any discussion then, because in any binary choice you can say the dice may have rolled differently. It's pointless unless you assume the same distribution.

That said I don't think the comet was dice based at that point, the dice that caused it had probably already been rolled before that branchpoint.
 
I have frankly no idea if we're all just convincing ourselves of something that doesn't exist or if there is, in fact, something peculiar involved other than luck, but it looks like the salt/insanity continues to flow, and won't be stopping for a while. But what the hell, if there is magic or not, either way things are sure to be interesting.
Also I find it mildly amusing that our greatest triumphs in foreign relations have been made by people who probably couldn't do diplomacy to save their life. Meteor prediction/summoning (cause or effect is unclear, if there even is such a link) is a very effective bargaining tool it seems. We managed to convince the Thunder Horse to give up most of their land only slightly burnt!
 
[X] [PttS] Black Mirror

I never cared much for astronomy and this site should give us some nice deep pondering stuff like math and philosophy.

[X] [Diplo] Let's maybe spread out in case the gods throw another bolt (Found Far Northern Trade Post)

I wanted this post since we got the option and now is a decent chance to take it.

The other votes are already pretty much already decided.
 
[X] [Conq] Take the northern lowlands (Thunder Speakers become vassal, Txolla annex additional territory, gain Ruined Thunder Horse as vassal, remainder fragment, -4 Econ and 4 temporary Econ damage from supporting wrecked vassal)
[X] [Refugee] Use the military to evacutate as many as possible (8 temporary Econ damage, -9-11 Econ Expansion, -2 Stability, chance of further loss, +9-11 Econ next turn, incompatible with most ambitious conquest option)
 
PyrrosWarrior said:
As I said, I don't believe this to be magic until magic is proven. This comet was the result of dice rolls, and isn't guaranteed to hit us by some hogwash prophecy.
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I've just proven that it's impossible to have seen the bolide impact by any other means. Hence, if we eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

On a side note, this was not a comet impact. Comets are much bigger, and would have destroyed us too. At best, it was a comet fragment.
 
Another random thought I just had:

We considered our latest CB to mainly be a detriment:
Gain New CB - Intervention
As King of the Hill, every turn after the first that you have an Intervention CB lose 1 Prestige for not using it

But, as of the latest update, we just massively increased the incentive for other civs to join The Games. The Swamp Folk technically started the conflict, but we still sided with them because we had open diplomatic dialogue with the Swamp Folk.

I don't think anyone wants to repeat the Thunder Horse's mistake at this point. At the very least, we will go to war with you to settle things. At the very worst? God will smite you where you stand.
 
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Can someone give me a summary of what happened in the thread? because i won't slog through that insanity.
 
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