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Abrogation (Steampunk)

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Kaizuki said:
Some sort of personal protection, whether that ends up being a force field or a suit of fucking armor. Being squishy when you don't need to be is just stupid. If we had a force field we could walk at these goons, Skybreak half of them and Surge using the other half. We do not have a force field. This will apply constantly to every situation we find ourselves in until we fix our squishiness -- we'll blow up the Inspired's big gun and then we'll still be marauding around his shit hoping for an opening because we can't risk exposure to even a random Human with a steam-powered rifle.
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Kaizuki said:
Stable housing that isn't public. Fuck sleeping in inns, hotels, or generally anywhere there are other people around that we don't trust. Food isn't nearly as big an issue, because people travel often enough that we should be able to walk into just about any town/city and walk out minus some money and plus some rations. This doesn't even need to be impressive, it could just be a small vehicle with a seat that can recline into a flat position for sleeping on.
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These two can be simultaneously addressed with a suit of power armor; pad the inside right and you can sleep anywhere.

Kaizuki said:
Getting the fuck out of the League. This place is a nightmare on so many levels. The Inspired all have their workshops in cities full of other Inspired and armies of Empowered. The League almost certainly operates Inspired-hunters on a regular basis to catch up new Inspired that Spark inside of the League. And all of those things support each other instead of working against each other, at least on enough of a basis to maintain this League as a successful entity. We can't operate safely here, and we can't operate on a large scale at all.
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I think that I'm going to disagree on the overall danger level for this area. Frankly, I'm not sure the Empowered are a huge threat to us. Skybreaker instantly kills anything that can't resist thousand-mile-an-hour winds. Get enough armor to survive sneak attacks and we should be pretty much unassailable. Armies we'll be able to trash once we get some basic armor and a weapon that has a setting less lethal than "kill them all at once". The Inspired are the real threat; they're the ones that can pull out lasers, poison gas, invisible biomechanical assassins, and all the other things that could slip past all our defenses and kill us before we can bring Skybreaker to bear. And the Inspired here are weak. They're kept that way by the Empowered.

That said, I'm not sure we want to operate on a large scale this close to our parents.


[x] Abduct and interrogate a scout.
-[x] Use Skybreaker to hide in a tall tree. Wait for a scout to cross your path. Open a portal behind them, bag their head to keep them relatively quiet and disoriented, and choke them out with Skybreaker. Then pull them through a portal to get some privacy.
--[x] Try to avoid leaving scrapes on the ground. You're going for "eaten by trackless forest monster", not "dragged through portal".
-[x] Quickly fabricate a voice-changer. The action of the steam rifle should provide suitable materials.
-[x] Standard questions: Who, what, when, where, why.
-[x] Specific:
--[x] They're mercenaries, right? Short description of the company and its history.
--[x] What was up with that battle?
--[x] What is their current goal?
 
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curiosity said:
I don't think people here are going to settle for mediocrity which is the League.
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That was 100% a joke and an alternative interpretation of using the same color for "resources" as was used for "people."

Still, that's entirely your prerogative. I stand by the reasoning I used when making this one of the original starting directions; different risks, different risk types, different rewards, around equal overall. However, as with my other quests, this is a sandbox, not a questline. You aren't constrained to any given area unless you decide you want to be.
 
[X] Vebyast

Let's grab some info to see if Surging on this army is feasible.
 
Vebyast said:
-[x] Quickly fabricate a voice-changer. The action of the steam rifle should provide suitable materials.
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To be sure: @Alivaril, does this feel like something we can do? It affects the risk-reward for this action somewhat.

Also, while I'm thinking about it, edits and further explanation.

I'm not sure if we want to attack this army. We don't know enough. If nothing else, we can't attack until we identify (and neutralize) the Inspired. We may find out something about the strategic situation that indicates that we should not (or should) attack. We may find out something that indicates a better course of action than attacking. So our first course of action is to gather information. Abducting a scout isn't that hard, and I'm going to take a leap of faith here and trust Lorelei to not be totally incompetent with her information about scouts disappearing into the woods and monster populations. Seriously, Lorelei, don't fuck this up.

[x] Abduct and interrogate a scout.
-[x] Use Skybreaker to hide in a tall tree. Wait for a scout to cross your path. Open a portal behind them, bag their head to keep them relatively quiet and disoriented, and choke them out with Skybreaker. Then pull them through a portal to get some privacy.
--[x] Try to avoid leaving scrapes on the ground. You're going for "eaten by trackless forest monster", not "dragged through portal".

Or just wrap a spare cloak around his head, if we have one. Choke with Skybreaker, instead of just beating him up or trying to hold it against him, to further reduce the chance of discovery and make it harder for the scout to fight back. Do what we can to reduce suspicion. Pull the scout back through a portal so we have as much time as we need.

-[x] Maintain anonymity.
--[x] Quickly fabricate a voice-changer. The action of the steam rifle should provide suitable materials.
--[x] Keep the bag over his head and stay behind him so you don't have to worry about your appearance.

We'll have to figure out what we're going to do with the scout afterward, but if we decide to return him to the army, we'll want to make sure they get as little information about us as possible. To that end, we first make sure our appearance isn't a factor. The bag will help here, and stay behind the scout anyway just in case the bag isn't as effective as we think. Try to hack together a quick voice-changer so our voice doesn't give us away.

Note to self: If we do send the scout back, check to make sure we don't leave any hair on or near him.

-[x] Standard questions: Who, what, when, where, why.
-[x] Specific:
--[x] They're mercenaries, right? Short description of the company and its history.
--[x] What was up with that battle?
--[x] What is their current goal?

Standard questions. I'm sure that Lorelei will come up with some that I've forgotten. Some of this will just be following leads once the scout starts talking.

If the scout doesn't talk up front, break to voting to decide how to handle it. The best course of action will depend on the scout's demeanor, training, and motivation, and should probably be handled by vote.

Break before wrapping up the questioning. The thread will certainly raise some questions that Lorelei doesn't think to ask, and we'll want to put some thought into disposing of, returning, or releasing the scout when we're done.
 
Motile Mollusc said:
Important question: Will it be a Wilhelm scream?
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You may imagine it as such if it makes you happy.


Vebyast said:
@Alivaril, does this feel like something we can do? It affects the risk-reward for this action somewhat.
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IC: You're not entirely sure. Maybe? "Biggest Voice" was one of your first potential inventions, so Inspiration may be more willing to help you with the basic idea than it normally would.

OOC timesaver: Yes, but it'd only work once or twice and you'd need to kidnap a warclock for the parts. Unless you're willing to burn a Surge on it, of course.

IC again: You could probably pitch your voice differently enough that you wouldn't need one.
 
Alivaril said:
and you'd need to kidnap a warclock for the parts
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...Huh. Does this seem feasible? Would we be able to do so unobserved? I think that they were all marching in groups within line of sight of the main body of the army. Do they look dumb enough to walk through a portal if we put it in front of them or would we have to get creative? How observable would it be if we just plonked a portal down in front of one in the middle of a group and let it walk through? How hard would it be to disable the warclock so that we can start stripping it for parts?

(@Alivaril: Yes, those questions are directed at Lorelei's opinion/evaluation, if she has one)
 
Vebyast said:
...Huh. Does this seem feasible? Would we be able to do so unobserved? I think that they were all marching in groups within line of sight of the main body of the army. Do they look dumb enough to walk through a portal if we put it in front of them or would we have to get creative? How observable would it be if we just plonked a portal down in front of one in the middle of a group and let it walk through? How hard would it be to disable the warclock so that we can start stripping it for parts?
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Disabling them would probably be pretty easy; you don't think these have any method of distinguishing friend from foe on their own. In addition, you're pretty sure your staff would bite them as well.

While most warclocks are in front of the army, there are a few accompanying scouts. You may very well be able to grab one of them at the same time.
 
Alivaril said:
there are a few accompanying scouts. You may very well be able to grab one of them at the same time.
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Excellent!

Also, these people really are idiots, aren't they? Scouting with dumb muscle? That's a special kind of defeating-the-point. o_O

After we interrogate this scout, if it's easy enough, we should pick off all the others, gank their warclocks, and build something. @Alivaril, can we tell how many scouts they have out? Can we tell how many warclocks they have out with the scouts? Say we kidnapped all the scouts, maybe 1.5x as many as they have out right now if they try to replenish their scouts and continue to be stupid about it, and got all of the warclocks that are currently deployed with the scouts; does Lorelei feel that that would power anything like a half-decent Surge? If we don't for for a full-up Surge, what else could we build? Fabricate a light truck, kit-bash a horse-sized draft clank, crummy and slow but still bulletproof powered armor, anything like that?
Alivaril said:
In addition, you're pretty sure your staff would bite them as well.
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...Huh. That's neat.

I think that we can pull this off, then.

[x] Abduct a scout-warclock pair.
-[x] Take the scout first. Open a portal behind them, bag their head to keep them quiet and disoriented, get Skybreaker around their neck, and pull them back through while choking them out and letting Skybreaker bite. Close the portal as soon as the scout is on your side.
-[x] Once the scout is out, open up another portal and take the warclock.
-[x] Retreat to a distance to avoid other scouts. Try to avoid leaving tracks that suggest portal shenanigans; no suddenly-cut-off drag marks, for one. Doing this on rocks would be a bonus.

Scout first. It sounds like the warclocks are dumb enough that they can't sound the alarm and will just blithely ignore their handler going disappearing; @Alivaril, double-check from Lorelei on that? Not specifying any details of taking out the warclock because that'll certainly depend on details that'd be too difficult for us to hammer out; I could see it being as simple as reading the password off its helmet and ordering it to walk through a portal after us. Try to disguise our capabilities if at all possible.

-[x] Maintain anonymity.
--[x] Quickly fabricate a voice-changer from the warclock's corpse. No surge.
--[x] Keep the bag over the scout's head and stay behind him so you don't have to worry about your appearance.

Maintain anonymity. If we want to do something else with warclock parts we should probably be able to kidnap another one without much trouble.

-[x] Standard questions: Who, what, when, where, why.
-[x] Specific:
--[x] They're mercenaries, right? Short description of the company and its history.
--[x] What was up with that battle?
--[x] What is their current goal?
--[x] Anything he has about the strength, specialties, and gear of the Inspired.

Add another question here; we do care about what the opposed Inspired can do.

I think at this point the failure mode is "scout has a way to communicate that we don't know to shut down". What'd be the worst possible outcome... army is actually a hive-mind? Is there any sort of chance that that's the case? It'd explain why they were fighting to the death and casually chatting two days apart.
 
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Vebyast said:
Say we kidnapped all the scouts, maybe 1.5x as many as they have out right now if they try to replenish their scouts and continue to be stupid about it, and got all of the warclocks that are currently deployed with the scouts; does Lorelei feel that that would power anything like a half-decent Surge?
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No.


Vebyast said:
I think at this point the failure mode is "scout has a way to communicate that we don't know to shut down". What'd be the worst possible outcome... army is actually a hive-mind? Is there any sort of chance that that's the case? It'd explain why they were fighting to the death and casually chatting two days apart.
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You really don't think that's even remotely likely. The few attempts to make hive minds using humans have ended rather horribly for everyone involved and they never went above about a hundred people in scale.



Vebyast said:
After we interrogate this scout, if it's easy enough, we should pick off all the others, gank their warclocks, and build something. @Alivaril, can we tell how many scouts they have out? Can we tell how many warclocks they have out with the scouts?
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You cannot tell, no; you can see some of the scouts, but won't be able to see all of the ones in a given area until you get close. Including ones you can't see, you're guessing three dozen with ten of them accompanied by warclocks.


Vebyast said:
Scout first. It sounds like the warclocks are dumb enough that they can't sound the alarm and will just blithely ignore their handler going disappearing; @Alivaril, double-check from Lorelei on that?
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Rather than sounding the alarm, they're likely to just passively follow their handlers and not attack anything.
 
Alivaril said:
Rather than sounding the alarm, they're likely to just passively follow their handlers and not attack anything.
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Wow they're dumb.

...Okaaaaay. Do we think we'd be able to hack the entire warclock force en mass? Or are they so dumb we can't take them over from range like that? If we were able to take them over and turned them against the soldiers, who would win? Do the warclocks have a nonlethal setting? That'd probably be a cool way to open a fight. Would probably also bait out the Inspired, I think?

Actually, how are they commanded? Depending on the mechanics, I bet we could subvert them without any sign by opening small portals near them to give quiet orders.
Alivaril said:
No.
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Do we require surges for anything interesting? Or could we, I don't know, use half the warclocks to cobble together a little vehicle that'd let us make off with the other half?
 
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Vebyast said:
...Okaaaaay. Do we think we'd be able to hack the entire warclock force en mass? Or are they so dumb we can't take them over from range like that?
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Most warclocks like this can obey basic commands given by an individual in physical contact with a specific controller, or by commands given by the remotes themselves. With mass-produced warclocks made by a nation cautious of Inspired, odds are you'd only be able to suborn a handful of them based on what you learn from any given warclank.


Vebyast said:
Do we require surges for anything interesting? Or could we, I don't know, use half the warclocks to cobble together a little vehicle that'd let us make off with the other half?
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You can make basic firearms, incendiary devices, clocks, time-delayed devices, armor, clothes, bombs, medicines, and tools without using a Surge. Most items more advanced than that would require a Surge.
 
Alivaril said:
armor
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Need to do this before we leave. Horse probably won't care about the extra weight, especially since the vast majority of our distance is coming from Skybreaker. I don't feel like armor will slow down our use of Skybreaker much. And a little bit of armor goes a long way.
Alivaril said:
Most warclocks like this can obey basic commands given by an individual in physical contact with a specific controller, or by commands given by the remotes themselves. With
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And the Inspired probably have the remotes. Or the leaders of this mercenary band. Hmm. If we can find a way to stay within 3km of the army for a while, we may be able to identify the Inspired by looking for the people that can give orders of the warclocks. Portals from above should be okay surveillance.
 
The question of how to secure the scout and his info without giving him time to set off an alarm would be much easier if we could simply harvest memories from removed brains.
 
Vebyast said:
...Huh. That's neat.

I think that we can pull this off, then.
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...Both me and Alivaril have pointed this out before this...
Alivaril said:
You can make basic firearms, incendiary devices, clocks, time-delayed devices, armor, clothes, bombs, medicines, and tools without using a Surge. Most items more advanced than that would require a Surge.
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Sweet.

[X] Vebyast

Because I appeared to have helped suggest things for this vote. Yay for helping!
 
By the way, @Vebyast do we really need a voice disguiser? Alivaril has said we could probably get away with just pitching our voice differently, and I'd rather use the parts on basic armor rather than a voice changer
 
Alivaril said:
Or at least copies of the remotes. Odds are each mounted officer has control of one or two squads.
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If they're copyable, we can presumably copy them. Hmm. No, that'd require a Surge. I suppose we could try the remote-abduction trick on the officers too? No, after the first one or two they'd dismount, mix in, and potentially link arms, which'd prevent repeats. We'd only get one or two squad of warclocks, not enough to cause serious damage. And we still haven't done anything about the damn Inspired.
Kai Merah said:
By the way, @Vebyast do we really need a voice disguiser? Alivaril has said we could probably get away with just pitching our voice differently, and I'd rather use the parts on basic armor rather than a voice changer
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We can grab another warclock to make armor and I fully intend to do so before we leave. These scouts are apparently pathetic enough that we're confident in our ability to not get killed while abducting them. I don't think that we can abduct these scouts undetected - in fact, our only reliable KO involves agonized screaming which we'll be hoping to muffle and I'm 100% sure that they'll send a squad out to investigate - but we have WoG that there are forest monsters actively eating people and we can pass our attack off as one of them. With that as cover, abducting three or even four soldiers isn't any more suspicious than two.

I'm going for the added safety of a voice changer because identity disclosure is about the worst possible outcome that doesn't involve us being dead. You'll note that I'm also leaving a bag over this guy's head so he can't tell that we're using portals. When we dump him, I'm going to have to remember to make sure that none of our hair got left on his clothing while we were fighting. I disagree with Kai's evaluation of this encounter/region as an endgame level-capped deathtrap, but we're absolutely not yet ready for an Empowered. Hell, without this army to power a Surge I think that we wouldn't even be ready for a single Inspired. We're too slow and too unarmored; they'd throw a rock at our head, or shoot at us with a totally mundane gun, and we'd be dead before we knew they were even there.
Nixeu said:
...Both me and Alivaril have pointed this out before this...
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Alivaril based his evaluation on precognitive word of god. He's literally writing in a convenient monster attack to cover up our abduction attempt. And I think that we can pull off abducting a single scout, and that only thanks to that meddling. I still haven't come up with anything even halfway reasonable for dealing with the rest of the army. Unless we strike gold in our interrogation I'm still expecting to be forced to leave without doing anything significant.
 
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Vebyast said:
Alivaril based his evaluation on precognitive word of god. He's literally writing in a convenient monster attack to cover up our abduction attempt. And I think that we can pull off abducting a single scout, and that only thanks to that meddling. I still haven't come up with anything even halfway reasonable for dealing with the rest of the army. Unless we strike gold in our interrogation I'm still expecting to be forced to leave without doing anything significant.
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I was referring to the fact that our staff 'bites' people. We've pointed it out a collective total of three times, but it seems to have only stuck on the third try.
 
Alivaril said:
No, he knew that bit.
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The 'neat' in response to the post seemed to indicate otherwise. Like...he was just responding to you saying it would bite the guy. And said "neat" like the fact that those who touch our staff without our permission get bit was new.
 
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