Abrogation (Steampunk)

[Alivaril]

@Alivaril How "fast-moving" would something have to be to be stopped? Would it stop a war-clank? Would it stop a guy with a sword? How about someone trying to punch us in the face?

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Barring something like someone jumping off a cliff just to slash at you, you don't think it would block Warclocks or swords by default. You think you might be able to upgrade it later to fix that or even improve the original design, but you won't know the latter for sure until and unless you Surge. Ironically enough, you think the very thing which makes Empowered deadly, their speed, would work against them in this case and bring them above the requirements.

Unless their fists were armored or contained heavy amounts of metal due to, say, being a Fused, you're mortally certain the punch would not be stopped regardless of speed.

How long do we think the army will take to reach its destination?

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Some fourteen hours of marching or so, you suspect. So around midday tomorrow.

EDIT:

I think that I may not have expressed myself clearly; would that be for a piece of mind-affecting equipment (basically Glory Girl's aura of awe) or for a suit of armor that's just ridiculously stylish? Or is Inspiration good enough that that those are the same thing?

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They wouldn't be the same thing, but you don't think Inspiration would object to a tiny bit of mind control among enemies. So either or both.

 

[Vebyast]

Some fourteen hours of marching or so, you suspect. So around midday tomorrow.

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Okay, that is an issue - it sounds likely that our Inspiration would still be recovering if we Surged now, and we'd lose our chance to use this army for a Surge. Given that, I'm actually going to vote against spending a Surge on this. Umm. Other things we could build...

Can we do loudspeakers without a surge? I'd want... loud enough to make it basically impossible to think, and certainly loud enough to prevent officers from giving orders. The idea would be use portals to drop them into the camp in the middle of the night (specifically, about 4 AM) to support a Surge.

 

[Alivaril]

Can we do loudspeakers without a surge? I'd want... loud enough to make it basically impossible to think, and certainly loud enough to prevent officers from giving orders. The idea would be use portals to drop them into the camp in the middle of the night (specifically, about 4 AM) to support a Surge.

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You might be able to make something to amplify your voice, but...

1: Nothing that loud.
2: You think it might make your voice sound excessively metallic and artificial. Either that or echoing enough to make you impossible to understand.

 

[Vebyast]

You might be able to make something to amplify your voice, but...

1: Nothing that loud.
2: You think it might make your voice sound excessively metallic and artificial.

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Blast.

I assume we'd need to Surge to build something like "augmented reflexes to improve our ability to deflect bullets with Skybreaker"?

Okay, we need some kernel to build our invincibility on. We can't just tell them we're invincible and expect them to believe it, we have to demonstrate something that looks like it and let them fill in the blanks. Last time we got away with it because nobody actually shot at us, they were too busy fighting and we shut down the clanks. This time we can expect some officers to react to our appearance by giving orders to open fire, so we need some way to survive that.

I think that I edited this in too late, so re-asking for visibility: @Alivaril How well does our Inspiration think its proposal will handle shockwaves? If our enemies had something like, say, Biggest Voice or a Bigger Gun loaded with high-explosive ammunition, would the non-ferrous magnetic shield protect us adequately? I'm thinking about the "like what people can build but better" information we have about the equipment of the enemy Inspired and assuming that they'll have at least one thing that's basically a mortar or rocket launcher. edit: For that matter, it's possible the army will also have some grenadiers, which'd present the same issues.

 

[Alivaril]

@Alivaril How well does our Inspiration think its proposal will handle shockwaves? If our enemies had something like, say, Biggest Voice or a Bigger Gun loaded with high-explosive ammunition, would the non-ferrous magnetic shield protect us adequately? I'm thinking about the "like what people can build but better" information we have about the equipment of the enemy Inspired.

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It would almost certainly protect you from at least a tiny bit of the shockwave and any shrapnel, but you don't think it'd properly protect from the rest of it. A Skybreaker portal facing the wrong way might help serve as a deterrent or shield to prevent such attacks.

 

[BurnNote]

[X] Go along with the Surge. Even if it means delaying your attack on the army, you really should have proper protection.

Always swag. And I'm honestly not even sure why were attacking besides materials, which we have now.

Also, it's taken me an embarrassingly long time to realise that we're playing as a Mek

 

[Gr33n34r]

Were attacking because people voted for the attack in order to get a second huge surge and earn a new shiny instead of just leaving and building upour gear more sedately.

 

[Vebyast]

No, we're using this to equip ourselves so that we can pull off the attack successfully. They're going to enter calcified territory tomorrow and our Inspiration will not have recharged enough for a second Surge by that time. We're only going to get one Surge here and you're all voting to waste it all on the prep.

I'm not just looking for "sedately", that's our entire character! We don't just Surge all the time! That's what weak Inspired do! We've been warned about that multiple times in the last few updates!

 

[Undead Martyr]

Would it be possible to use this Surge in front of the Army, and build on the shield design to make us invulnerable or whatever? Something which repulses metal could, in theory, be repurposed to repulse the was the magnetosphere with enough bullshit science....

 

[Alivaril]

Would it be possible to use this Surge in front of the Army, and build on the shield design to make us invulnerable or whatever? Something which repulses metal could, in theory, be repurposed to repulse the was the magnetosphere with enough bullshit science....

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You think so, yes. That still puts you back to square 1 as far as extra "don't get shot before you're invulnerable" preparations go, though.

 

[Kai Merah]

The real question is, does Inspiration have a recharge time. Can we ask our Inspiration whether it thinks it'll still be up for a flying fortress if we build a bullet-deflector here?

 

[Alivaril]

The real question is, does Inspiration have a recharge time. Can we ask our Inspiration whether it thinks it'll still be up for a flying fortress if we build a bullet-deflector here?

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You don't know why mentioning "Flying fortresses" seems to do a better job than the numerous other times you've asked that over the last few hours, but as far as you can tell, the answer to that question is an exuberant "Yes" followed by "...Maybe" and concluding with "Part of one?"

EDIT: You didn't originally specify a timeframe, but upon trying to get elaboration, you find that Inspiration seems to want to do it sooner rather than later. EDIT 2: Basically whenever you feel safe doing so.

 

[Kai Merah]

You don't know why mentioning "Flying fortresses" seems to do a better job than the numerous other times you've asked that over the last few hours, but as far as you can tell, the answer to that question is an exuberant "Yes" followed by "...Maybe" and concluding with "Part of one?"

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I'm okay with part of a flying fortress! Like, a flying tower? A flying room? We can upgrade as we go along! Can I confirm that whatever we build will still be able to fly though? Preferably indefinitely?

I love our Inspiration so much. She's so cute and enthusiastic! She must be related to Upgrade-chan!

 

[Alivaril]

(Put in thread upon request)

So in the realm of "not thinking about X or Y," there's a problem with blaming people for not considering aspects you consider obvious, or considering them and coming to a different conclusion. Down a similar path lays me getting annoyed when you guys don't think about, for example, any downsides of Surging while you're being stalked by something or someone you can't properly detect.
You are going to miss things. I consider it a good day if the playerbase, as a whole, manages to correctly interpret 70% of the results of a post. Y'all don't have access to my notes, you aren't omniscient, and sometimes, putting weight on one theory means denying others. Extra emphasis on that last one.

For example, say you think X or Y monster might be a magical illusion of some sort, and the way to break it is by slashing at it. What if you're wrong? You end up facing 800 pounds of angry and very much solid murderbeast.

EDIT:

Can I confirm that whatever we build will still be able to fly though? Preferably indefinitely?

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Inspiration must reluctantly concede that you'll probably need to do it in bite-sized junks. It could likely make a glider-that-shouldn't-be-able-to-fold-so-small, turbine, and attached perpetual generator to start off, for example, but a room is probably too ambitious.

 

[TheBiggerFish]

I'm okay with part of a flying fortress! Like, a flying tower? A flying room? We can upgrade as we go along! Can I confirm that whatever we build will still be able to fly though? Preferably indefinitely?

I love our Inspiration so much. She's so cute and enthusiastic! She must be related to Upgrade-chan!

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inb4 actually true

 

[Kai Merah]

any downsides of Surging while you're being stalked by something or someone you can't properly detect.

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Um. I am now rather concerned. Um. Does this mean it might not be safe to Surge at all in the vicinity of the army?

But, but, muh flying fortress...

EDIT:

Inspiration must reluctantly concede that you'll probably need to do it in bite-sized junks. It could likely make a glider-that-shouldn't-be-able-to-fold-so-small, turbine, and attached perpetual generator to start off, for example, but a room is probably too ambitious.

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Inspiration-chan, if we didn't make a bullet-deflector and just focused on Surging for the flying fortress... could we make a room then? Or maybe a flying truck? It may be worth Surging if we do it in front of the army with all that belief and all those witnesses... And if we got part of a flying fortress out of it...

 

[Vebyast]

EDIT: You didn't originally specify a timeframe, but upon trying to get elaboration, you find that Inspiration seems to want to do it sooner rather than later.

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....Okay, that's very much not what I was expecting. Useful.

How much sooner is "sooner"? Our best chances will probably be:

• As they break to set up camp tonight. Certainly better than doing it on the road, mostly since they'd be all clustered up, wouldn't have their weapons ready the way they do now, and wouldn't have officers alert and ready to give orders. However, the Inspired would also be alert and ready.
• While the Inspired are dead asleep at 4 in the morning. We'd have some time to ramp up the Surge-Invulnerability before the Inspired woke up and started taking shots at us, but it'd be harder for us to get an audience and we'd ramp up more slowly, with the worst case being that we don't have invuln up by the time one of the Inspired can find us and get a shot off.

On looking at this further, I think that we actually need to go in the middle of the night. We actually need to get shot at and not be harmed to start the ball rolling. The problem is if the Inspired start shooting before the soldiers do, because I don't think that it's safe for us to assume that we can survive their weapons. Which I think means we want to attack in the middle of the night; we port in, start causing a ruckus, be bulletproof in response to early responders, use that to make us more bulletproof to survive the next wave, use that to survive the Inspired, then really get going.

Down a similar path lays me getting annoyed when you guys don't think about, for example, any downsides of Surging while you're being stalked by something or someone you can't properly detect.

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I suppose I should read a bit more deeply into that mention of the bullet-deflector being good against Empowered. Great.

Okay, so why hasn't it attacked us yet, what are its motives, what might prompt it to attack us, what would its response be to this small Surge, what would its response be to the bigger Surge... bah.

Inspiration must reluctantly concede that you'll probably need to do it in bite-sized junks. It could likely make a glider-that-shouldn't-be-able-to-fold-so-small, turbine, and attached perpetual generator to start off, for example, but a room is probably too ambitious.

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Is that due to fundamental limitations on the size of a single Surge, or would that be Inspiration expecting to be tired out by today's Surge?

 

[Alivaril]

Um. I am now rather concerned. Um. Does this mean it might not be safe to Surge at all in the vicinity of the army?

But, but, muh flying fortress...

EDIT:

Inspiration-chan, if we didn't make a bullet-deflector and just focused on Surging for the flying fortress... could we make a room then? Or maybe a flying truck? It may be worth Surging if we do it in front of the army with all that belief and all those witnesses... And if we got part of a flying fortress out of it...

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Surge Mechanics.

You don't think so. It seems more like that a "flying fortress," even a single room of it, would be a number of projects rolled into one and would require a significant amount of mass. You can rearrange reality, turn one material into something more helpful. But as far as you can tell, you can't make it from scratch.

 

[Kai Merah]

You don't know why mentioning "Flying fortresses" seems to do a better job than the numerous other times you've asked that over the last few hours,

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Looking at this, I'm wondering if Inspiration's greater response regarding a flying fortress might be because of whatever is stalking us. Does she sense something dangerous around and want us to get out? But we have Skybreaker for that. Or, if she's like a Worm shard, could she be pinging off some other Inspired with a talent for flying fortresses? Is there an invisible flying fortress or something like that above us right now?

*paranoia intensifies*

 

[SerbobIV]

[X] Go along with the Surge. Even if it means delaying your attack on the army, you really should have proper protection.

The only thing better than defence is defence your foes don't know to prepare for.

 

[Nixeu]

As if to add insult to injury, you find a simple smiley face carved into a nearby tree when you look up from dismantling your third Warclock.

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We made a friend! Yay!

So in the realm of "not thinking about X or Y," there's a problem with blaming people for not considering aspects you consider obvious, or considering them and coming to a different conclusion. Down a similar path lays me getting annoyed when you guys don't think about, for example, any downsides of Surging while you're being stalked by something or someone you can't properly detect.
You are going to miss things. I consider it a good day if the playerbase, as a whole, manages to correctly interpret 70% of the results of a post. Y'all don't have access to my notes, you aren't omniscient, and sometimes, putting weight on one theory means denying others. Extra emphasis on that last one.

For example, say you think X or Y monster might be a magical illusion of some sort, and the way to break it is by slashing at it. What if you're wrong? You end up facing 800 pounds of angry and very much solid murderbeast.

Click to shrink...

Good things to keep in mind. Of course, the reason I didn't do that is two-fold. First, I had class today, and just got on. Second, I figured who or what was doing this wasn't particularly aggressive towards us, and also knew what we were. Hell, my gut was telling me that we've got a ninja guardian following us, under orders from our parents to keep us safe.

I mean, it sounded like they managed to carve that smiley face into a tree right in-front of us while we were working, and sneak away before we noticed. If so, they could have killed us at any point in that process via sneak attack. So I kinda figured they were at least not aggressive towards us.

...And now I'm wondering if the Blackburn gave birth to a ninja-Inspired, and they're patiently waiting for us to get the show started before the usual courtship ritual begins. Thanks for going down bizarre rabbit-holes, brain. Appreciate it.

 

[Vebyast]

There's not much we can do about our stalker in the first place. We have pretty much zero information on it, beyond knowledge that it has ridiculous speed and perception and it's made it clear that it's not going to communicate with us. So we basically have three options:

• Go fishing and hope it's terrible at keeping its mouth shut
• GTFO and hope it can't follow us, which is unlikely given how fast it apparently is
• Ignore it and hope we don't piss it off

I'm trusting Alivaril to not give us trap options that instantly bad-end the quest, so I'm assuming that this upcoming Surge won't end with us dead. Especially given that this is one of the most loaded sets of defaults I think I've ever seen in questing on SV; there's no way a quest thread would avoid a trap like this. Quest threads have the self-control of a pre-verbal toddler with an empty stomach and an open bag of marshmallows. Presenting them with a vote like "Take the awesome shiny!" vs "Don't take the awesome shiny, be stupid instead", with costs that are only available in non-threadmarked Q&A and difficult to analyze on top of that, is well past "QM putting a thumb on the scale" and into territory more like "I'm impressed the QM could even walk with a lead brick that big up his sleeve".

Of course, I could try to abort this vote and get people to try to go fishing, but I figure that I have about as much chance of doing that as I do of convincing the thread to vote for "build the stupid armor". There's also not much reason to do it now instead of waiting to do it next vote, when I'll be able to push it through without having to force my way through the defaults. It's not going to bad-end the quest on the spot, and that means it's just not worth spending energy on.

 

[Nixeu]

There's not much we can do about our stalker in the first place. We have pretty much zero information on it, beyond knowledge that it has ridiculous speed and perception and it's made it clear that it's not going to communicate with us. So we basically have three options:

• Go fishing and hope it's terrible at keeping its mouth shut
• GTFO and hope it can't follow us, which is unlikely given how fast it apparently is
• Ignore it and hope we don't piss it off

I'm trusting Alivaril to not give us trap options that instantly bad-end the quest, so I'm assuming that this upcoming Surge won't end with us dead. Especially given that this is one of the most loaded sets of defaults I think I've ever seen in questing on SV; there's no way a quest thread would avoid a trap like this. Quest threads have the self-control of a pre-verbal toddler with an empty stomach and an open bag of marshmallows. Presenting them with a vote like "Take the awesome shiny!" vs "Don't take the awesome shiny, be stupid instead", with costs that are only available in non-threadmarked Q&A and difficult to analyze on top of that, is well past "QM putting a thumb on the scale" and into territory more like "I'm impressed the QM could even walk with a lead brick that big up his sleeve".

Of course, I could try to abort this vote and get people to try to go fishing, but I figure that I have about as much chance of doing that as I do of convincing the thread to vote for "build the stupid armor". There's also not much reason to do it now instead of waiting to do it next vote, when I'll be able to push it through without having to force my way through the defaults. It's not going to bad-end the quest on the spot, and that means it's just not worth spending energy on.

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The smiley could be considered communication. I think they were either thanking us for taking out the scouts, or trying to indicate they're not going to attack us.

Other than that, yeah, you pretty much nailed it. The bandwagon is too strong to fight at the moment, and I doubt this will instantly kill us.

 

[Kai Merah]

Of course, I could try to abort this vote and get people to try to go fishing

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I considered constructing a vote along the lines of "try to build a scanner/detector instead". But we'd probably have to Surge to build anything with a chance of catching our stalker or their devices, and if it was hostile, it might jump on us while we're Surging.

I mean, the whole point of making a scanner would be to find our stalker so it'd be safe to mini-Surge on our armor. But we'd need to Surge to build an appropriate scanner in the first place, so... kinda useless. If we wanted to play it totally safe, could vote to "gtfo with the parts you've scavenged" and hope that Skybreaker is enough to leave the stalker behind. Or we could maybe vote to 'port away with our parts, Surge somewhere away from the army, and presumably our stalker, then come back. But I'm not sure Skybreaker has enough battery for that, plus the assault afterwards.

 

[Vebyast]

I considered constructing a vote along the lines of "try to build a scanner/detector instead". But we'd probably have to Surge to build anything with a chance of catching our stalker or their devices, and if it was hostile, it might jump on us while we're Surging.

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Pretty much. I was considering going for something like "sniper array, for locating, tracking, and combating fast stealthy single targets", which'd have utility for dealing with the Inspired as well, but came to the same conclusions - if Surging for armor isn't viable, neither is Surging for any other defense against it.

If we wanted to play it totally safe, could vote to "gtfo with the parts you've scavenged" and hope that Skybreaker is enough to leave the stalker behind. Or we could maybe vote to 'port away with our parts, Surge somewhere away from the army, and presumably our stalker, then come back.

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On top of the battery issues you mentioned, I don't like our chances of breaking contact even with Skybreaker. I doubt that we're keeping Neighilist anywhere near the army, and we're keeping our parts on Neighilist, so our stalker can A) track us through a portal-jump of a couple kilometers, B) sense us well enough to understand our question, and C) move those couple kilometers fast enough to respond with a smiley face.