Sure but it's not really making her more safe or family more likely to unite and work together.
A Different Breed (Warhammer 29K)
It's not; to me it's like going to a climate conference with a bunch of oppressive states there and making a big deal about their human rights issues.
Also, as I've said repeatedly, no one in canon ever suggests that I'm aware of ever suggests that Eldar who've modified themselves aren't Eldar. Just that they're Eldar who've done something disgusting and/or morally wrong. That's not great; but it's also a totally different problem that should be solved in a totally different way.
The objection a Conservative might have with the Ishari being here isn't that they're not an Eldar, but that they don't want to share a platform with someone they consider analogous to a child abuser, or some other particularly heinous criminal. The neutrals may no longer care about those old moral values, but the Conservatives still seem to, and they're potentially around 40% of the Craftworlds and some unknown but potentially even higher proportion of the Exodites (who are the original Eldar Reactionaries who reject modernity so much that even labour saving technology is too radical for them).
You're as far as I can tell, tilting at a windmill, trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist.
And this is where you lose me. Building our own faction and drawing stronger dividing lines is not what we want to prioritise here; I think we want to prioritise pushing the idea that the Curses are species wide problems and that we should be working together as a species to try and solve them; or at least not get in each others way.
The ideal outcome here to me, much more important than self-aggrandising attempts to build our own faction* is to ensure that the first Aeldmoot isn't the last. I want to take this opportunity to try to make an Eldar UN, a forum in which collective action can be agreed and disputes resolved without resorting to open war. This is something Iyanden and Ulthwe will need to take the lead on, but it's less likely to work if we make a point of pissing off two of the five major Craftworlds and people who agree with them.
* that will probably already be a minnow compared to a Major Craftworpf.
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Professor Vesca
Good News Everyone!
So the problem with trying to appease everyone is that, in the end, you appease no one.
To be more specific:
The various minor craftworlds are already going to have some idea of what they want for themselves, or they will be open to being swayed to various positions. By drawing strong dividing lines, we will be attracting to our side craftworlds who agree with what we want for ourselves. If we present an incomplete, or inaccurate view, then they will join us, and then find out later that we are doing things or have objectives they dont agree with.
In essence we have wasted their time and now they are stuck trying to figure out when and how they can leave our faction for one more in line with their views.
We dont want them as an ally, they wont be reliable, we wont be able to depend on them. They might leave us hanging when we really needed them. Its a crack in our faction that we really cannot afford considering the quality and quantity of enemy we will be making. We dont need to give Chaos fracturepoints they can act upon to try to break us up. We dont need to give Biel-Tan potential insiders they can leverage to attack us from within. We dont need to put infront of the Crusader Fleets craftworlds who dont really believe in us or in our cause and are willing to flee the moment the going gets too tough.
Its not that we wont be their friend, and we wont spend time and effort helping them out. But what we are trying to accomplish here is attract those craftworlds to us who can be our closest allies. The people with whom we will ride or die. Who will be as close to us as our own craftworlders are. The strong inner nucleus of our faction.
Anything other than that will be drawn to us just because of our reputation for being friendly and helpful in general.
That's how successful climate conferences work. Everyone goes a bit unhappy because they've had to compromise and give up on some other priority.
Hell; it's how all multi-lateral diplomacy works.
Drawing strong dividing lines is how you make those conferences fail and break up without agreement. It's basically the classic failure mode, and you're trying to deliberate induce it.
Eldar being factionalised and bad at working together is a big problem for them and why it's hard to achieve things.
The way to solve that is not to make yet another faction or reason for Eldar to fight and draw hard lines around it so they fragment further. It's to work to weak the salience of what divides them and focus on what unites them, which we have a great opportunity for her, as all Eldar have to deal with the Curses.
It's like the standards Xkcd. The solution to having too many competing standards is it last not too just go out and independently invent another standard.
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A general forum is also useless for us.
We have two major craftworlds that are willing to go pretty damn far just to spite us, and they would have central positions that they can use to fuck with us and our faction ?
They pretty much would deadlock it just to spite us, no matter the general benefits.
We have two major craftworlds that are willing to go pretty damn far just to spite us, and they would have central positions that they can use to fuck with us and our faction ?
They pretty much would deadlock it just to spite us, no matter the general benefits.
Only if the differences between us are continually emphasised and they remain more important than the common challenges we face.
I think that if we don't go out of our way to sabotage it, between them Iyanden and Ulthwe have a chance of wrangling the extremists, which includes us, to roughly pointing in the same direction and not getting in each others way too much,
Ultimately we share a galaxy and a metaphysical connection. We have to learn to do-exist.
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Professor Vesca
Good News Everyone!
I honestly do not agree with the climate conference metaphor?
Climate action depends on collective action for the common good; because the actions of indviduals or smaller groups can have a negative impact on the whole. Thus you need collective action.
But our actions and choices to counteract the three curses will exist independent of each other. How we choose to counteract the curse will neither help nor harm how another craftworld chooses to do so. If Alatioc implements the paths system, and its not as ideal as our system, then the only thing that will truly impact is Alaitoc.
This isnt like the climate where smog on on side of the planet can impact the health of someone on the other side.
How we are choosing to handle things is not the only way to handle things. Its what *we* have chosen based off of our own culture and mindset. We are acting in a way that is in line with how we view things: We prefer proactive approaches to reactive ones. That doesnt mean that a reactive one wont work, it worked for at least ten thousand years. It just means that its not how we prefer to do things.
Other than maybe the problem with Isha, which I think everyone will agree will require an invasion of Nurgles mansion to retireve Isha from her captivity, how someone chooses to deal with Tzeentch and Slaanesh will only reall have an effect on them.
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lot of talk about how bringing the Ishari will divide the Eldar but what about how not bringing them will divide our own faction. Who we bring is about the message it sends and the message we send by not bringing the Ishari is that they are not Eldar. I don't know about all of you but being told i am not a person and don't get representation would piss me right off. its even worse when you consider it is being done to appease the guys who were going to murder me
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Biel-Tan is still the step above that.
But yes they will do everything short of going to war with us to fuck us over.
There is no common ground with someone that if given 2 choices that consist of: work with the other or spite will always pick spite even if that hurts them.
And if anyone says but self-interest.
Biel-Tan is more than happy to feed their own people to Slaanesh by attacking us just so they can kill our people.
They have more than shown themselves to happily stab themselves just to hurt us.
Alaitoc isn't at that level, but isn't far away from it either.
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Professor Vesca
Good News Everyone!
This is less a climate conference and more us informing everyone about the spies of the enemy in our midst we just uncovered.
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I know, that was more in the general sense about the chances of anything involving us and Biel-Tan or Alaitoc that requires any of working together not being an utter disaster.
Why would it be? It might be a signal that we know they're in a vulnerable stage mid-evacuation and if there's any of our alliance whose leader needs to stay behind in case of emergency, it's there's.
Given Mechanis' description of how gods work, I think it's very likely that many of the better solutions for dealing with the Curses are collective action problems, for example; if we want to make Isha the Queen of the Phoenix Court in exile that probably requires a great many of the Eldar who believe in her to start revering her as such, which would require coordinated social engineering (and literally engineering to prepare temples) across the Exodite and Craftworld population.
Similarly with Tzeentch's Curse, some ways of ritually breaking it may require collective actions like refraining from scrying for a period, in case, for example, the Curse is partially sustained by parasitising on the process.
As we don't know what the potential solutions are, prematurely making collective action solutions much harder or even potentially impossible does not sound like a good idea at all.
And even if the Curse breaking is not helped by collective action, there are many other things in 40K that are. A unified Eldar response to the Great Crusade, or the Emperor's attempt to conquer the Webway, could be very helpful in future, so I's worthwhile anyway, even if that possibility doesn't come up.
If what we did was so huge that nothing else mattered, Mechanis wouldn't have included the warning about pushback from the Conservatives in that vote option.
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I think we're sleeping on Saim-Hann's reaction a bit here and what it could mean for us.
Our other choices are also going to synergize with this too since we chose to go out of our way to personally invite additional Exodite worlds to the Aeldmoot and have the leader of one of the Exodite worlds we helped in our party as an equal with the leaders of the other Craftworlds in our coaltion.
Keep in mind that bringing that leader is explicitly stated to improves our relationship with Saim-Hann and it wouldn't surprise me if she also improves our standing with the other Exodite worlds that showed up if the crowd of Dragonships around the Saim-Hann contingent is anything to go by.
That may give us enough of a relationship boost for them to be willing to back us hard enough that if Biel-Tan (I don't think Alaitoc hates us enough yet for them to actively back Biel-Tan beyond not stepping in to stop a kinstrife) remains committed to kicking our teeth in they would be risking a serious conflict with another Major Craftworld.
Given Iyanden wouldn't want two Major Craftworlds throwing down they'll probably be forced to intercede and that should keep Biel-Tan off our backs for a while since they are the aggressor in this situation.
They already like us quite a bit thanks to us treating them with respect and our willingness to help the Exodites.
Our other choices are also going to synergize with this too since we chose to go out of our way to personally invite additional Exodite worlds to the Aeldmoot and have the leader of one of the Exodite worlds we helped in our party as an equal with the leaders of the other Craftworlds in our coaltion.
Keep in mind that bringing that leader is explicitly stated to improves our relationship with Saim-Hann and it wouldn't surprise me if she also improves our standing with the other Exodite worlds that showed up if the crowd of Dragonships around the Saim-Hann contingent is anything to go by.
Even if they too are a bit disturbed by the Ishari I doubt it would disturb them enough to wipe out all the other bonuses we should be getting from our choices.
That may give us enough of a relationship boost for them to be willing to back us hard enough that if Biel-Tan (I don't think Alaitoc hates us enough yet for them to actively back Biel-Tan beyond not stepping in to stop a kinstrife) remains committed to kicking our teeth in they would be risking a serious conflict with another Major Craftworld.
Given Iyanden wouldn't want two Major Craftworlds throwing down they'll probably be forced to intercede and that should keep Biel-Tan off our backs for a while since they are the aggressor in this situation.
Our cruisers are in a worse state than our battleships, IIRC. That could be a bit embarrassing for us.
Our light cruisers are terrible, being basically technicals. Our heavy cruisers are naked but actual military stuff.
I think that they'll generally be on the friendly side, but I also think the Harlequins' backing has taken the threat of Biel Tan attacking off the table anyway.
The way I'm looking at it, we're trying to get things done at this conference, not just play defence.
While I think they would make it clear that destroying us is not acceptable I don't think think they'd pick a fight with Alaitoc and Biel Tan to actively support other policy positions of ours that they don't otherwise support in face of greater Conservative opposition. They're more of a shield than a sword.
While they may like us, we're still much smaller and less influential than the Conservative block, and they have their own interests they'll want to support.
For example, they probably want Alaitoc and Biel Tam to put more effort into supporting the Exodite Worlds in their part of the galaxy. If they wanted, a combination of two major Craftworlds and their own allies can simply offer a lot more to advance Saim-Hann's objective than we can, at much less relative effort.
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Professor Vesca
Good News Everyone!
Yes, but they also treat Saim-Hann like shit. We literally already got Saim-Hann on our side simply by showing them the courtesy they were owed as a major craftworld, and by not muttering under our breath 'filthy barbarian savage' every time they opened their mouth.
Like sure Saim-Hann could help more craftworlds by parntering with other majors, but those other majors tend to treat them like crap and disrespect them. We do not. Yes helping Exodites is an overriding concern of theirs but they also have their own pride and self respect. They arent going to sacrifice that to the other majors just for their help some of the time.
Now I dont know if they are willing to fight a war on our behalf, not with another major craftworld. But they wouldnt.
The harlequins would be on our side. We have our own allies and our own forces and technology. Biel-Tan also has their own commitments as well to hold their own faction together. So Saim-Hann wouldnt have to fight a war just to get Biel-Tan to back off, they just have to put their thumb on the scale and be able to assemble a force to run Biel-Tan off that is bigger than what Biel-Tan can throw at us. Just by ourselves we were on the verge of assembling a larger fighting force than what Biel-Tan could afford to throw at us. Throw Saim-Hann and Ulthwe into the mix, and Biel-Tan might decide we arent worth the immediate squeeze. Not that they arent going to fight us, but doing so now isnt worth it.
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It depends on what the other Craftworlds want, and, once again; how important collective action is to addressing the three Curses.
If it's very hard important, there's more incentive for the Major Craftworlds to, even if very, very begrudgingly, play nice.
There are other factors. Our revelation of the nature of the Curses makes Biel Tan's objective less of an impossible fantasy and more something that's conceptually possible with a basically understandable, if incredibly hard steps. For a bunch of temporarily inconvenienced demigods, that may not look insurmountable. They may be able to make a much better case to other Craftworlds that their approach could work.
Adopting the Paths as a temporary stop-gap looks much more plausible if there's a more realistic hope that it actually is temporary.
All this might encourage the Major Craftworlds to be a little more sensible.
Very, very optimistically; having an actual plausible path to their objective may make Biel Tan less nuts, as they're no longer desperately flailing around to distract themselves from the fact that they have no idea how to achieve their ultimate goals. They could, if we're bet lucky, suddenly pivot into a disciplined focus on the steps to their ultimate objective now they have some idea of what those steps could be.
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To true. This is the time to be bold. To step forward. We might be able to move up in size later on, but right now we have the chance to equal or exceed the Major Craftworlds in influence.
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I don't think the Harlequin's are necessarily considering every possibility. it's less that every world is going to shun us and more that it provokes push back against the main agenda of the Aeldmoot because of their involvement. the harlequin's had no way of knowing we'd discover the curse this early, and no way of knowing we would hold an Aeldmoot. if it weren't for this, we might have spent a century or three without ever ending up in contact with any conservatives besides Biel-Tan more than passingly, and it's not like Ishari will be serving in naval positions in our ships.
it doesn't need to be that significant for the pushback to potentially push a narrow success into failure. the simple fact of the matter is this makes things harder on us when it comes to getting our research accepted and much harder on organizing a unified response to any part of the problem.
we can succeed at convincing them something needs to be done and still fail to convince one or both of them we are the side to be working with. without the Ishari conservative pushpack would be light enough that getting either of them would be enough to draw in most of the Aeldari worlds.
instead we've made it a game of sides, and more likely or not there is going to be us, the conservative, and a moderate faction headed by one of the moderate major craft cities and probably several splinter groups not signing on with anyone in hopes of avoiding major faction politics, some of which will fail, meaning billions of Aeldari lost to the Maw of Slaanesh when they die or succumb to Slaanesh's pull.
there certainly not unstoppable, and without the Ishari, the nature of the curses is enough that only the most die hard conservatives would have refused to work with us with even a reasonably vague pitch and demonstration of strength and early success. we could have consolidated all of the moderates and most of the light radicals and conservatives behind us, strong arming some of the extremist to just sign on from lack of strong patrons to side with instead.
as things are now, we going in with hard political stances we know most of them aren't going to accept and giving them more political ammunition against us while drawing the most extreme radicals who they'll have grudges against to our flag, turning the entire Aeldmoot into a hot political mess of Radical verse conservative rather than a civil reveal of information in which we might push for a more unified Aeldari for the sake of coordinating a response.
worse, we are leaving our big stick behind and thus failing to bluster our enemies in not wanting to mess with us whatever the outcome, failing to follow teddy roosevelt's example of parade your navel strength openly to discourage war. we are making things harder on ourselves and failing to bring one of our alliances major assets that might have drawn in more moderates to our side.
I wouldn't same it's worthless, but I do half wish we had just contacted two major craft worlds and drawn them and their allies into a private alliance and held an Aeldmoot when we had results of breaking one of the curses already as proof of our agenda and ability to resolve this.
in canon. we had a chance to avoid that here, and we let it go for the sake of taking a political stance, and we will probably regret it in the future as billions of Eldar Souls are consumed by Slaanesh rather than saved.
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Cute. How about we wait for the Update, before we continue the DOOM preaching?
Professor Vesca
Good News Everyone!
What? What are you talking about? Everything we do is political, the only question we have to answer is what are our politics and what do we want to present to the world. Or more specifically the Aeldmoot.
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The melodramatic doom saying is getting just a little obnoxious not gonna lie. like you keep presenting these extreme reactions where everyone who is not our allies are gonna decide they cant stand working with us but also that our allies will be practical if it means abandoning us and then pretending that these overblown and unrealistic responses are the obvious outcome.
all of this because we brought the tree Eldar to the party
all of this because we brought the tree Eldar to the party
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