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A Simple Transaction I

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Aabcehmu said:
I guess I just don't see how Agents of the Throne is any better regarding this? Rereading the blurbs, the difference between Without Form and Agents of the Throne has nothing to do with the level of training available to elementalists, or even whether they are required to receive training. It's about whether elementalists are allowed to do things like perform mercenary work.
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It's about if they are allowed to do that without being trained first. Agents have to be trained, while in without form there isn't any required training.

As I've said, I'm not for banning them from using their powers. I'm for making sure they actually understand what they are doing with them.

Rihaku said:
*Somewhat risky, but social pressure and incentives can do most of the work of a policy, so long as the culture supports it. 'Not being destroyed by a rogue Elementalist' is a great incentive for people to support a culture of care towards these immense powers.
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Rihaku said:
*Fairly safe
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Consider the difference in the above quotes on their relative safety. And notice the way the without form blurb is worded as basically the elementalists being a horrifying threat to everyone else that scares them into line.
 
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Byzantine said:
It's about if they are allowed to do that without being trained first. Agents have to be trained, while in without form there isn't any required training.
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That just plainly isn't true?
Rihaku said:
Without Form - Elementalists will be free to use their powers as desired, though violations of the law will be prosecuted to its full extent. Voluntary training and advisory bodies will exist for Elementalists, with a certificate of completed training privileging access to many Elementalist-only perks such as advanced commission into the military, favorable insurance rates for contracting work performed via Elementalism, authorization to use one's Element as a mercenary or privateer, and so on and so forth. Training will emphasize the responsible usage of power and the delicacy of the balance by which Elementalists exist within, and are supported by, the society around them.

The administration of these training programs, the dispensation of Elementalist-related benefits, the organization of elite Elementalist-only special forces, and the protection of Elementalism-related rights shall be directly overseen by the Crown Office, headed by those officials demonstrating both exceptional competence and loyalty to throne.
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As you see here, even for Without Form, a certificate of training is required for things like privilege to do mercenary work. Likewise, in the realm of non-violent work like construction, Agents of the Throne at most requires only minimal training for civilian elementalism licenses, if any at all, and while Without Form does not require licenses for the work the be legal, obtaining a license is still incentivized by way of insurance rates.
 
Aabcehmu said:
As you see here, even for Without Form, a certificate of training is required for things like privilege to do mercenary work. Likewise, in the realm of non-violent work like construction, Agents of the Throne at most requires only minimal training for civilian elementalism licenses, if any at all, and while Without Form does not require licenses for the work the be legal, obtaining a license is still incentivized by way of insurance rates.
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Indeed, I seem to be coming up with bad examples.

The difference in risk, however, is quite bluntly stated and being ignored because you aren't seeing where the change comes from.
 
Aabcehmu said:
"Somewhat risky" versus "Fairly safe" is not what I'd call the starkest difference.
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It sounds rather significant to me, but I'm not the best at interpreting what Rihaku means.

I know that Regimentation is the next step.

Rihaku said:
*The safest option, almost guaranteed not to blow up the Kingdom by the time you return.
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And even it doesn't have a 0% chance of blowing up in our face.

Based on past results... somewhat risky is probably around 7% or so and fairly safe around 3-4%. Almost guaranteed, of course, being 1%.
 
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So, that was basically a timeskip. 5 IC days of work in one update that was mostly banter about how much Hunger didn't enjoy his coronation. To be fair it sounds like a boring crown. His efforts were not spectacularly effective. State of the country went from meh to adequate. For most people that's good progress in a week but remember Hunger has to leave now.

The quest mechanics are not impressed: a partial Rank award with what seems like an Arete rebate (we shouldn't have over 8 at this point in the cycle normally) and the picks generated are nothing to do with writing an excellent constitution - the primary effort - or setting up an enhanced administration but just worries about his high Charisma. Notably there is no sign of a new defining advancement here. Have we outright failed to unlock it? If so one would expect putting picks towards Stranglethorn to be back on the table. Maybe it will resolve when we've voted on the Elementalists. Which is a cost even if we eventually do get it because these two picks will have to go to something weaker than Stranglethorn (or the mystery box if it turns out better) and there is not much time to generate more picks before the Tower.

Taken on its own Be The Change was a marginal success. In context it was a failure.

[X] Honing
[X] Agents of the Throne
 
noliar said:
The quest mechanics are not impressed: a partial Rank award with what seems like an Arete rebate (we shouldn't have over 8 at this point in the cycle normally)
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???

We came into this update with more than 8 before the vote locked. Which was about an average of 4 across 2 updates. Hardly extraordinary.
 
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Byzantine said:
???

We came into this update with more than 8 before the vote locked. Which was about an average of 4 across 2 updates. Hardly extraordinary.
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Ignoring the Arete though, it does seem the two picks here are from the travel, not from our work on the constitution. Which does seem to indicate mediocrity.

[X] Just Take Echoes

The solution to our CHA issue is simple, buy OaF, then buy Ruling Ring, with our high rank base for the extreme reality manipulation provided by the Ring people who would be too badly affected simply never meet us!

Or if that isn't possible, for the times Hunger truly has to expose himself to those who can't take it there's a wide range of anime staples that can be re-purposed, sunbeams, steam, amnesia... The list is truly long.

[X] Regimentation

I don't think this is the best option, but I truly find it hard to care about the Elixir, so out of sight out of mind has a significant ooc benefit.
 
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noliar said:
Really? Crown took us down to near 0 and the thread hasn't seemed particularly buzzing since.
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No. Crown took us to 5.3. We started with 10.9 and reached 17.3 in that update.

noliar said:
So, partial Rank but no arete rebate.
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Why are you assuming this? If Rihaku doesn't say it, which he has not, the char sheet can't be updated with it, which makes no sense.

Thomasfoolery said:
Ignoring the Arete though, it does seem the two picks here are from the travel, not from our work on the constitution. Which does seem to indicate mediocrity.
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Rihaku confirmed they are from adventuring. There are a lot of possible causes though, Including the constitution simply not having sufficient personal stakes for Hunger, or Gisena and everyone else doing more.

And the fact we already spent the extra pick we got from it on Crown.
 
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Without form is bad because it essentially makes everyone who isn't an elementalist a second class citizen. At least Agents makes them work for the perks.

Regimentation goes too far in the other direction and places too many restrictions on its use which kind of defeats the point of picking them for the government building.
 
Byzantine said:
Including the constitution simply not having sufficient personal stakes for Hunger,
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Considering where much of the impetus for it came from, and how hard and long he worked on it this seems a stretch.

Byzantine said:
everyone else doing more
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Which would be Hunger doing mediocre.

Byzantine said:
And the fact we already spent the extra pick we got from it on Crown.
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This seems possible, I didn't get the impression it was merely prepaying the reward from the task when reading that option, but in hindsight that could be it. The fact we got less from this than giving Letrizia a magic system seems a bit off in that case though.
 
I am auctioning my vote! Possibly not my omake power, though - I'm not sure how that subsystem works, but it might be more efficient to sent that all toward Arete.
 
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You know, Rihaku's really been harping on that Charisma-suppression stuff, both in and out of update. That's setting off warning bells for me. Generally, when Rihaku draws focus to something there's a reason for it.

[X] Sky Veil

I dislike spending Arete on something like this, when we could be saving it for a new artifact or magic upgrade we can get from the Walls of Myth on the way back from this tower. But I can't ignore what seems like a rather obvious hint from the QM. I have the feeling that if we do not take Sky Veil we'll end up regretting it...
 
[X] Sky Veil
[X] Agents of the Throne

What a shame, it seems this vote is mostly decided after this short period. Ahh, the price of a reasonable sleep schedule. I understand the allure of just Saving and getting such a great combat boost, but I don't want to procrastinate on such a important choice on how we approach or Charisma in the future. Indeed, I would actually prefer Halo to honing here, because at least the later commits us to a strategy of mitigation. With Honing, we just have to hope for the future I guess.

The price of the 7 Arete Advancements matters little in my mind; with the Arete patron bonus coming up, our average of 3 Arete a day becomes 6 Arete a day, meaning we can afford to take FBs like this with some frequency. It won't be much of a delay at all.

I must stress the importance of actually deciding upon a path here, where we have the biggest opportunity to affect it. If you are concerned about combat, I suggest you take Halo and accept working through intermediaries. If you want Hunger to interact with people normally, take Sky Veil. But just delaying here might be too late; we have subverted all of the kingdoms we met so far! An amusing factoid, but also a potentially problematic one. Either accept this pattern with Halo and find other ways to interact with people or mitigate it with Sky Veil.

Choosing nothing at all may very well lead us into a situation you might not enjoy. Given the average-to-low participation last vote, we better decide this now than muddle along with no commitment. It will give us far less headaches in the future.
 
Zampano said:
The Pact is Sealed. Friendship established. :V

I enjoy talking about ideas, and your ideas are interesting. I bet that we could look at a situation and agree about the harms involved, but then spend days figuring out a compromise about how to address those harms. We can definitely look forward to more conversations in the future :)
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Glad to hear it! I look forward to it.
Zampano said:
Done correctly, you and I might discover that our disagreements stem from endorsing the idea "government exists to redress harms" instead of "government exists to prevent harms".
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I think it's more like "government is a coordination tool". Unfortunately, there are reasons for not immediately going hivemind if the capacity is available.
(For reference, I'm thinking A Miracle of Science style individuals-who-can-access-the-synthesis-and-share-priorities-with-it, more than Aphelion-style permanent-synthesis-as-soon-as-the-brains-get-used-to-each-other. The former is very possibly something I'd sign up for.)
Zampano said:
...but the idea that compound interest has moral valence (or a distinct moral valence from simple interest) is still not something I'm prepared to accept
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I recommend you read Debt: the First 5,000 Years. It's a lot of where I'm pulling this from, at least the bits I've seen from it.
Zampano said:
People should be able to take actions that may cause harm to themselves. Collections (or couples) should be able to mutually undertake actions that may cause harm to themselves.
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On the one hand that's true, and on the other hand I do think there are still useful distinctions between a bunch of kids playing with skateboards, a married couple doing BDSM, and someone trading sexual communication for money? Or even trading sex-for-money on a debt basis, rather than on ...an employment basis? I feel like there's a moral difference between attracting a spouse via dowry and/or promise of a stipend to live on, and paying someone a fixed sum to have sex with you or make you pornography.
Not sure I can articulate those differences to your satisfaction. Probably a lot of it is about power-imbalance type harm, which I think society should minimize as much as possible, and some of it is about what sort of social role I think sex should have, based on my understanding of it as something sacred.

Anyway, back to the quest!
 
If Sky Veil did something like cover the evening sky in cloud cover, that would be one thing. But turning into a mundane cloak? Screw that. We're also about to hit the place with Evening Sky lore, so we will probably be given the chance to see further/more relevant enhancements to it in a bit.
 
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