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Abrogation (Steampunk)

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Vebyast said:
Yeaaaaaah, this is a setup. They've been bottling us up with the specific intent of making us more powerful. They've even prepared a beautiful little battlefield for us to go off on, complete with trash mobs that we can disassemble, people that can empower our first surge, and a weak region for us to take over. Hell, they've even been carefully not telling us anything about this region. And of course we walked right into their plan. Giant fucking landslide, even.

Okay, so what do we do here? After we get people to read the damn discussion instead of just voting and running away, I mean. :/ I feel like this post is just wasted effort. But assuming that at least someone reads it - do we want to cap this off with killing our parents for being total assholes? Do we hold on to the first surge, walk back home, and nuke the place before anyone realizes we're not dancing on their strings? Something else entirely? Because fuck this.

@Alivaril: You have a gift for making antagonists that make me want to make them suffer.
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Like I said, I just really want to see a Surge.
 
Vebyast said:
Yeaaaaaah, this is a setup. They've been bottling us up with the specific intent of making us more powerful. They've even prepared a beautiful little battlefield for us to go off on, complete with trash mobs that we can disassemble, people that can empower our first surge, and a weak region for us to take over. Hell, they've even been carefully not telling us anything about this region. And of course we walked right into their plan. Giant fucking landslide, even.

Okay, so what do we do here? After we get people to read the damn discussion instead of just voting and running away, I mean. :/ I feel like this post is just wasted effort. But assuming that at least someone reads it - do we want to cap this off with killing our parents for being total assholes? Do we hold on to the first surge, walk back home, and nuke the place before anyone realizes we're not dancing on their strings? Something else entirely? Because fuck this.

@Alivaril: You have a gift for making antagonists that make me want to make them suffer.
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It does certainly seem a bit convenient. More to the point, it sounds like something Alivaril would set up. Not sure if it's actually malicious, or if it's just an attempt to make us a better Inspired.
Execute/Dumbo said:
Wait, so did they predict we'd go this way out of the four possible destinations, or did they somehow set up scenarios for each of the four directions? I feel like the parents are pretty big chessmasters if they've set this up so absurdly far in advance.
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We've been traveling for two days, on a stolen horse Construct. Which might just have a tracker in it. I'd certainly put something of the sort in my likely-expensive/valuable abomination-steed. That gives them more than enough lead time to set this or a similar scenario up in any of the directions we chose.
 
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Nixeu said:
We've been traveling for two days, on a stolen horse Construct. Which might just have a tracker in it. I'd certainly put something of the sort in my likely-expensive/valuable abomination-steed. That gives them more than enough lead time to set this or a similar scenario up in any of the directions we chose.
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Does it though? At least one of our potential destinations was a heavily populated area. It would seem a little difficult to stage a situation like this in that environment. And this seems like a lot of work to set up. I think you're underestimating the time it would take.
Adhoc vote count started by Shebe Zuu on Dec 27, 2017 at 1:02 AM, finished with 72 posts and 29 votes.
  • [X] Let your gift start the Surge and start making your way down. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
    [x] Don't let the Surge start, but keep it ready if it becomes necessary - you're going to go down there and find some answers.
    -[x] Grab and interrogate a peasant. They can't all be fighting to the death out in the open.
    -[x] Look for a machine black-box or brainbox to extract logs from.
    -[x] Stay relatively stealthy. If this turns out to be a game or something, you want to be able to get away with no one the wiser.
    [X] Turn around and leave. As much as you like the idea of thwarting two fools misusing their gifts, there's no denying that a battlefield is inherently dangerous. The clockwork might not be much of a threat, but the people? They could be problems.
    -[X] Search for a town or city. Surely even these Inspired aren't stupid enough to stifle trade,right? You should have enough money to buyenough parts for a few small inventions.
    [X] Let your gift start the Surge and start making your way down. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.​
    -[x] Avoid civilization until you've likely left the territory of the warring Inspired. Any area needing to deal with them probably won't be too happy to see yet another Inspired.
    [X] Turn around and leave. As much as you like the idea of thwarting two fools misusing their gifts, there's no denying that a battlefield is inherently dangerous. The clockwork might not be much of a threat, but the people? They could be problems.
    -[x] Avoid civilization until you've likely left the territory of the warring Inspired. Any area needing to deal with them probably won't be too happy to see yet another Inspired.
    [X] Turn around and leave. As much as you like the idea of thwarting two fools misusing their gifts, there's no denying that a battlefield is inherently dangerous. The clockwork might not be much of a threat, but the people? They could be problems.
    -[x] Search for a town or city. Surely even these Inspired aren't stupid enough to stifle trade, right? You should have enough money to buy enough parts for a few small inventions.
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Nixeu said:
We've been traveling for two days, on a stolen horse Construct. Which might just have a tracker in it. I'd certainly put something of the sort in my likely-expensive/valuable abomination-steed. That gives them more than enough lead time to set this, or a similar scenario, up in any of the directions we chose.
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Two days to set up a small war between two groups plus the inspired factories to produce the weapons, and for long enough that there's been over hundreds of corpses already littering the ground.
Could they do that? Are Inspired way more terrifying than I thought if they can get so many farmers trying to kill each-other and at least some factories within maybe a day and a half?
 
  • They didn't need to prepare all of the areas - pushing us in this direction was trivial. The other directions were pretty unpalatable all around; the only real competition was the Blackburn candidate, which wouldn't have been a thing at all if not for an oddly-placed QM infopost.
  • They didn't have to set this up in two days, nor did they specifically have to set this particular battle up - all they had to do was ensure that this region was a warzone and that the forces involved were using conscripts and low-grade cookie-cutter automata. Once those conditions are true it's inevitable that we run into a battle like this if we go in this direction.
  • If we're really going to be paranoid, it's plausible that they made these automata themselves. Nothing says that the strategic situation is anything like what this battle suggests - for all we know these peasants are being mind-controlled, the automata have been in storage for three years, and the entire thing went off when our parents realized we'd left and hit the "activate keikaku" button.
@Alivaril: Can we recognize any styles on the tech here?
 
Execute/Dumbo said:
Two days to set up a small war between two groups plus the inspired factories to produce the weapons, and for long enough that there's been over hundreds of corpses already littering the ground.
Could they do that? Are Inspired way more terrifying than I thought if they can get so many farmers trying to kill each-other and at least some factories within maybe a day and a half?
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They could have had everyone and everything ready beforehand, then start the battle as we approach.
 
Vebyast said:
  • They didn't need to prepare all of the areas - pushing us in this direction was trivial. The other directions were pretty unpalatable all around; the only real competition was the Blackburn candidate, which wouldn't have been a thing at all if not for an oddly-placed QM infopost.
  • They didn't have to set this up in two days, nor did they specifically have to set this particular battle up - all they had to do was ensure that this region was a warzone and that the forces involved were using conscripts and low-grade cookie-cutter automata. Once those conditions are true it's inevitable that we run into a battle like this if we go in this direction.
  • If we're really going to be paranoid, it's plausible that they made these automata themselves. Nothing says that the strategic situation is anything like what this battle suggests - for all we know these peasants are being mind-controlled, the automata have been in storage for three years, and the entire thing went off when our parents realized we'd left and hit the "activate keikaku" button.
@Alivaril: Can we recognize any styles on the tech here?
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I don't think it's fair to say that our parents could predict the way the players were going to vote... and even if this is a setup - it seems to be one designed to benefit us, so why not go along with it, at least for now?
 
Shebe Zuu said:
Does it though? At least one of our potential destinations was a heavily populated area. It would seem a little difficult to stage a situation like this in that environment. And this seems like a lot of work to set up. I think you're underestimating the time it would take.
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North was a "trail of towns and cities", which doesn't sound like a heavily populated are, but more a major highway between settlements. East was the demense of an ally of our family. And north-north-west was also war-torn. So...
Vebyast said:
  • They didn't need to prepare all of the areas - pushing us in this direction was trivial. The other directions were pretty unpalatable all around; the only real competition was the Blackburn candidate, which wouldn't have been a thing at all if not for an oddly-placed QM infopost.
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Also, up until recently, it would have been some Inspired's territory. Possibly one that knew our parents.
Shebe Zuu said:
I don't think it's fair to say that our parents could predict the way the players were going to vote... and even if this is a setup - it seems to be one designed to benefit us, so why not go along with it, at least for now?
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They really don't need to. Allies in one, maybe two directions, and neutral territory in the others? Just airlift out some guns, mechs and peasants, and you're golden, assuming you can't get your ally to do it for you. Hell, it's entirely possible that all directions led to forces allied with our parents in some way, even the ones they didn't mention.

As for it benefiting us, I wouldn't be so sure about that. There could be hidden dangers, here.
Alivaril said:
No. You're reasonably confident your parents didn't make the battling clockwork, nor did any of their close allies; they'd have aneurysms before they fielded anything so clumsy.

...And you/we should really go to sleep.
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Translation: we're getting overly paranoid. Fair enough. And yeah, we really should. 'Night.

Edit: Of course, if they're that bad, it could be on purpose. Maybe it's a trap for Inspired, in-general, not us.
 
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My guess is it's some sadistic amateur Inspired playing with their toys.

[x] Let your gift start the Surge and start making your way down. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
 
Vebyast said:
Now that you point it out, uh. @Alivaril, is the "first surge" thing common knowledge? I'm starting to think this is a setup.
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...Was that not clear? I thought that it was obvious; the sort of thing that everyone knows so clearly that it doesn't need to be talked about. I thought that the only reason people were still voting to do it was because they wanted to do the thing anyway.
 
Vebyast said:
Yeaaaaaah, this is a setup. They've been bottling us up with the specific intent of making us more powerful. They've even prepared a beautiful little battlefield for us to go off on, complete with trash mobs that we can disassemble, people that can empower our first surge, and a weak region for us to take over. Hell, they've even been carefully not telling us anything about this region. And of course we walked right into their plan. Giant fucking landslide, even.

Okay, so what do we do here? After we get people to read the damn discussion instead of just voting and running away, I mean. :/ I feel like this post is just wasted effort. But assuming that at least someone reads it - do we want to cap this off with killing our parents for being total assholes? Do we hold on to the first surge, walk back home, and nuke the place before anyone realizes we're not dancing on their strings? Something else entirely? Because fuck this.

@Alivaril: You have a gift for making antagonists that make me want to make them suffer.
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I seriously doubt they planned for our brother to be born. I likewise seriously doubt that they deliberately set things up with the objective of generating a particularly powerful Inspired who also hated them.

I think it far more likely that they had some reason to think that letting us actually express our Inspiration would end very badly for them. I have no idea where they got that idea, but it would make sense, and there's a number of places where they *could* have gotten it.

They could not possibly have planned *which day* we'd choose to flee, which means that this war wasn't part of the plan, if there *was* a plan. This is easily explained by the fact that our character is weirdly sheltered. This is obviously the work of some very weak Inspired - possibly weak Inspired in the service of rulers who are *not* Inspired. As for why our parents haven't rolled over them yet? Not sure, but there are all sorts of potential political reasons that would make sense.

Also... this battlefield itself doesn't particularly contribute to any reasonable plan they might have had. There's nothing here that specifically pushed us in any particular obvious direction. If your'e saying that they did this, then you're doing it out of some "they're obviously chessmasters, so they're obviously in control, so obviously they chose this so obviously there's a reason." That's a rather long chain of conjecture without a whole lot of support.

I mean, conspiracy theories are great and all, but....
 
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guys, guys. Slow down a bit alright?

You're massively over-analyzing this

do you want to use this opportunity to have our first surge or not?

that's really the only thing you need to worry about right now
 
Sirrocco said:
I seriously doubt they planned for our brother to be born.
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They started doing this when we were seven-ish. I don't think that their plans involved a brother at all - they just saw it as yet another opportunity to piss us off. That or they're just terrible people and saw no reason not to double down on their terribleness.
Sirrocco said:
I think it far more likely that they had some reason to think that letting us actually express our Inspiration would end very badly for them. I have no idea where they got that idea, but it would make sense, and there's a number of places where they *could* have gotten it.
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The issue is that this position doesn't have an endgame. If they thought that we were that dangerous they should have just killed us. Like, this is number three on the Evil Overlord List. Right now they're just maximizing the badness when it does happen. Self-fulfilling prophecy and all that.
kinigget said:
guys, guys. Slow down a bit alright?

You're massively over-analyzing this

do you want to use this opportunity to have our first surge or not?

that's really the only thing you need to worry about right now
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...Yes? That's the question I'm trying to answer right now. Because, depending on the strategic context, the timing and application of our first surge may have consequences that reach far beyond the immediate effects.
 
Vebyast said:
The issue is that this position doesn't have an endgame. If they thought that we were that dangerous they should have just killed us. Like, this is number three on the Evil Overlord List. Right now they're just maximizing the badness when it does happen. Self-fulfilling prophecy and all that.
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It sort of does have an endgame?
Alivaril said:
Sometimes, you wonder if your parents deliberately made your gift this desperate. You used to get sensible projects, but the more time that goes by without a single proper completion, the less prompting it needs and the more inane ideas you get.
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Keep going until all received ideas are, frankly, rather stupid and useless.
For example, trying to get past some clockwork constructs gives 'table cloth' and 'remove planet' instead of 'stealth device', 'flying machine' or 'better clockwork construct'.
It's still a rather bad idea, and would completely fail if the inanity resets after a successful Surge, but it would keep her both alive and incapable, without resorting to a lobotomy or the like.

If we were being generous, we could posit that they were aiming to push the Inspiration into the Weird&Wonderful sections - accessing ideas that aren't available to the common Inspired, at the cost of only being able to get those sections. Marry her off to someone with access to the more normal options and they can work together to create wonders unheard of!
It seems likely to work poorly, but 'parents miscalculate when planning child's future' is hardly unusual.
 
Vebyast said:
The issue is that this position doesn't have an endgame. If they thought that we were that dangerous they should have just killed us. Like, this is number three on the Evil Overlord List. Right now they're just maximizing the badness when it does happen. Self-fulfilling prophecy and all that.
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There's a lot of space between "Let's not let her ruin our toys" and "Oh god, kill her now". And there could be a lot of reason not to kill us even if we were a threat. For example, killing your daughter, who hasn't even completed a single project yet, would make you look weak. Or maybe they kept us from completing a project for shits and giggles.

We simply don't have anywhere near enough information for sensible speculation. We could spent all day coming up with various sensible scenarios, and still be blindsided by the truth.
 
I'm just seeing people rabbiting off down massively convoluted conspiracy theories based on next to no information at all, and would like to advise them to not do that
 
kinigget said:
I'm just seeing people rabbiting off down massively convoluted conspiracy theories based on next to no information at all, and would like to advise them to not do that
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*shrug* The resulting decision (gather information before taking action) is fairly reasonable. Whether or not this is a set up, it does seem...off. There's a lot of details that don't make sense. Why arm such terrible soldiers with such unusual guns? Why are they the same for both sides? Why use such crappy, mass-produced garbage? Why haven't our parents conquered this place out of the unbridled rage of a professional watching amateurs do everything wrong? There's no real harm in attempting to get more information.
 
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