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Beneath Celestial Depths (An Arpeggio of Blue Steel Quest)

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[X]Reexamine the control systems. Brute Forcing this worries you, but you can't just ignore them...

[X] Do something with Mary:
-[X] Stargazing
-[X] Tell stories of your past.
 
TheBleachDoctor said:
Little message from all three QMs incoming:
We don't appreciate the insinuations that we lied or tricked you about the nature of Insane mode.
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Aaaaand late to the apology.

Still going to apologize for any slight.
I totally didn't intend for my post to sound aggressive. :(


Just surprised that we really are in Dark Souls-tier difficulty.

That being said... DS is indeed hard, but not impossible.
 
meganeshounen said:
Just surprised that we really are in Dark Souls-tier difficulty.

That being said... DS is indeed hard, but not impossible.
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an againm I feel I must remind you all that this is what you asked for

I wasn't here yet when we were voting on difficulty, therefore I have free reign to criticize every last one of you

I'm pretty sure that's how it works
 
kinigget said:
an againm I feel I must remind you all that this is what you asked for

I wasn't here yet when we were voting on difficulty, therefore I have free reign to criticize every last one of you

I'm pretty sure that's how it works
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Now, now, let's not be too hasty in critcising people.

I just want a nice story to read.
Especially if I participated in the voting AFTER the difficulty vote.
Just like you. Chill, dude.
 
*wakes up* *reads new post*

Depth 6 said:
200 years.
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......

Daaaaaaaaaaaaamnnnn. We've been really out of it. Now I'm really interested about all the faction-y stuff. We were sabotaging the Crimson Fleet two hundred years ago, gotta wonder if what we did has been evened out over the years, or --more likely considering this is a quest and our choices at the beginning are important-- if our actions impacted them enough that they've been maximized and magnified over the centuries. Suddenly it makes sense why a little helping and a little sabotaging matters so much in the grand scheme of things.

Do we explicitly know that fighting is still happening? I mean, we don't really know anything about this time other than what Mary's told us. And remember how she reacted in the very first post? Her first reaction after figuring out that we were Fog was to laugh and then hug us. Which would imply that she (and maybe the rest of the world) consider Fog Mental Models to be a normal thing, since she didn't even consider being afraid of us. Or that she's had personal experience with benevolent Fog and learned that we're not all bad, and is consciously or subconsciously applying that experience here.

Still this quest has to have conflict somewhere, considering we're on insane mode, so there must be something happening in the world. Mary getting shipwrecked somehow (natural? fight?) is kinda suspicious considering you'd think humanity would keep a close eye on Design Children. Unless they're so prolific in the future it isn't a big deal. Possibly ties into the Mary being on a Fog ship (and getting to know the MM) that was helping her in someway thing. But that's just conjecture.

Well, stuff to find out going forward, I guess. At least now we've got the non-brute-force-y control examination option we had hints of from back in Depth 4.

[X]Reexamine the control systems. Brute Forcing this worries you, but you can't just ignore them...

[X] Do something with Mary:
-[X] Stargazing
-[X] Tell stories of your past.
 
ensou said:
Her first reaction after figuring out that we were Fog was to laugh and then hug us. Which would imply that she (and maybe the rest of the world) consider Fog Mental Models to be a normal thing, since she didn't even consider being afraid of us. Or that she's had personal experience with benevolent Fog and learned that we're not all bad, and is consciously or subconsciously applying that experience here.
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More points in the 'Blue Steel rules the world' column.
 
[X]Reexamine the control systems. Brute Forcing this worries you, but you can't just ignore them...

[X] Do something with Mary:
-[X] Stargazing
-[X] Tell stories of your past.
 
[X]Reexamine the control systems. Brute Forcing this worries you, but you can't just ignore them...

[X] Gather/salvage conventional materials.
-[X] From broken parts of the sub pen.

[X] Do something with Mary
-[X] Bring her along so she can watch
 
[X]Reexamine the control systems. Brute Forcing this worries you, but you can't just ignore them...

[X] Do something with Mary:
-[X] Stargazing
-[X] Tell stories of your past.
 
[X]Reexamine the control systems. Brute Forcing this worries you, but you can't just ignore them...

[X] Do something with Mary:
-[X] Tell stories of your past.
-[X] Play games.
-[X] Ask her if Aliens are real.

Well I mean, 200 years later...

Maybe Alien Invasion or something? I admit it's really hard to come up with much future planning with 200+ years of difference now. That's loads of time for every character involved to die/change ectera and what happened to them is basically 'what makes the most sense viewed through the eyes of the GM's'. And lots of fudge room because '200 years' means a lot can happen.

So... I don't know the GM's well enough to predict how they'd change things based on 200 years of change.

So yeah. Whoo cool change and all but it does sort of make it really hard to plan any sort of 'how to deal with the factions' because 200 years.


For all we know now, no one outside the Fog remember we exist. Or, we're remembered by the world as the Brave Heroine that saved the world. Or we're the great EVIL that will one day reawaken and use it's shadowy words to whisper lies.

... Probably neither, but I'd say the first two are more likely based on our choices. And if we assume that any hostile elements are in small numbers/out of power like Rebels or something... then I guess I'm not too sure how this is INSANE besides uh I guess maybe having to survive the Rebels and make it to the Federation :V

Best guess is we're gonna have to fight Aliens/Dimensional Powers.
Best Guess 2 is we're fighting Rebels who are against the current (Blue Steel) power.
Best Guess 3 is we're fighting with Rebels who are against the current (RED FLEET) power.

Those seem like the three likeliest challenges. The 200 years + Fleet of Fog's existence makes me think the first is most likely.
 
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[X]Reexamine the control systems. Brute Forcing this worries you, but you can't just ignore them...

[X] Do something with Mary:
-[X] Tell stories of your past.
-[X] Play games.
 
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Anyway with this reveal we can now hazard more about the 'difficulties'

Assuming my bit about 'different levels of gear' was correct... then we might also assume the 'years in the future' part is also a variable.
So the harder the difficulty the further into the future we are maybe. Assuming all the ships weren't offline for 200 years. If that's the case then the difficulty doesn't effect time. Also note that LORE IS EFFECTED by difficultly so yeah.

Because if we assume that technology has advanced then, us losing all our gear while a large hindrance does set us up for 'late game huge improvement' as we can completely remodel ourselves into 200 year future super ship thanks to our SUPER CORE.

While Easy would basically be just a modest improvement and we'd have our cool tricks, heck it might even just be -same time- and we'd be working with the winning faction. Maybe we'd be helping them chase down / investigate the losing factions and build 'world peace' with them?

I guess Normal would be some +Rep and maybe a bigger improvement, but I think it'd be more us being solo and basically keep on doing what we were doing until one faction became the top.

Hard would well... Habbakuk would remember the name "Surcouf" for the rest of her days. I think Hard would revolve around us and Habbakuk. Maybe Habbakuk when she got a Mental Model would be obsessed over us and the quest/background Lore would be dealing with that. We'd most likely have needed to go AFK/Heal up for a long time, and we'd come-into a world where 'Winning Faction' + 'Habbakuk' have changed everything.

Insane is well... uh throw everything we know up in the air and try and figure out what happened when it lands I guess?
 
[X]Reexamine the control systems. Brute Forcing this worries you, but you can't just ignore them...

Need to see what we can grab without being too invasive.

[X] Do something with Mary:
-[X] Tell stories of your past.
-[X] Play games.

So... it's been 200 years.

200 years where most of the Fog wasn't shooting down orbital launches since they seem to have been taking a nap.

200 years where human sensors put in satellites have evolved, with whatever Fog reverse-engineering has taken place.

200 years to set up a facial recognition database/program to use the satellites and which is most likely filled with all the faces of all the Mental Models as high priority targets

And you want to watch the sky? From a former military base which, if the human commanders know their job, would at least receive a cursory glance from time to time to determine if someone is on their turf? Am I the only one who sees a problem with this?

How about limiting ourselves to talks/games underground and pushing the stargazing session to later, when the base has been looted of everything that can be looted and we are on our way out? Being seen by a satellite is a minor risk, ok, but I'd prefer no risk to a minor risk, especially since we don't have anything to defend ourselves or even mitigate a detection.
 
Don't worry, when the grim human commanders see us headpatting the design child they had delayed capturing/rescuing, they will think the child tamed us or something. Or dissolve into puddles of dawwwwww
 
Cathon Grimeye said:
And you want to watch the sky? From a former military base which, if the human commanders know their job, would at least receive a cursory glance from time to time to determine if someone is on their turf? Am I the only one who sees a problem with this?
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We already went outside once apparently with no cover? Cuz apparently the entire top is flat.

Q.E.D if they have sats good enough to spot us, they've spotted us already and we're on a timelimit.

OTHO there's also no argument towards decreasing the risk of them spotting us via other means as well. So fair enough, removed Stargazing from my vote.
 
[X]Reexamine the control systems. Brute Forcing this worries you, but you can't just ignore them...

[X] Do something with Mary:
-[X] Tell stories of your past.
-[X] Play games.

The 200 years time skip is a needless headache imo, but eh.
 
[X]Reexamine the control systems. Brute Forcing this worries you, but you can't just ignore them...
[X] Do something with Mary:
-[X] Tell stories of your past.
-[X] Play games.
 
angelofwhim said:
Do MREs last 200 years? o_O

Mary! Stop eating those things right now!
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Forget MREs, where the hell did Mary get Strawberries on a rock?! :confused:
LightMage said:
We already went outside once apparently with no cover? Cuz apparently the entire top is flat.

Q.E.D if they have sats good enough to spot us, they've spotted us already and we're on a timelimit.

OTHO there's also no argument towards decreasing the risk of them spotting us via other means as well. So fair enough, removed Stargazing from my vote.
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We were only outside for a few minutes, and I doubt any military is going to keep an abandon base under constant surveillance 24/7. Mary was washed up on the top of the island for an unknown amount of time before finding the hatch, and no one came looking, suggesting they don't have the tech to constantly look at an abandon base (with little to no vegetation) and use facial recognition from orbit to identify a Design Child.

However, I wouldn't put it past them to have some kind of passive monitoring, looking for anyone in the region or tries to access the base a la ships, Fog, or other groups digging around. Mary would've then been too small for it to notice and slipped in through a door that apparently had no/little security.

Hmm, given that access from the outside seems rather lax (while the door was relatively hidden, it was just a ladder leading into the base, no checkpoint, blast-doors, etc.) suggesting that this bases wasn't ever all the important, except perhaps as a supply depot? Nearly emptied out, there would've been little reason to keep a serious eye on it, just relying on the base's computer to tell if anything goes wrong.

...
Actually, how did our ship even get in there without anyone noticing us squatting here? Our automated systems apparently brought us here sometime after ganking Habbakuk, so that suggests that this base has been around for close to 200 years, still with power and working computers, and no one came to check on it (Or at least no one came to check on it in the many years Mary has been living here).

Yeah, we really need to check out what's going on.


[X]Reexamine the control systems. Brute Forcing this worries you, but you can't just ignore them...

[X] Do something with Mary:
-[X] Tell stories of your past.
-[X] Play games.
 
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[X]Reexamine the control systems. Brute Forcing this worries you, but you can't just ignore them...

[X] Do something with Mary:
-[X] Tell stories of your past.
-[X] Play games.
 
MobiusC said:
...
Actually, how did our ship even get in there without anyone noticing us squatting here? Our automated systems apparently brought us here sometime after ganking Habbakuk, so that suggests that this base has been around for close to 200 years, still with power and working computers, and no one came to check on it (Or at least no one came to check on it in the many years Mary has been living here).

Yeah, we really need to check out what's going on.
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Gonna follow that up with that apparently we had no idea this base (or even island?) Existed.

Which means that ...

A. We're in another Universe/Alt-Dimension.
B. The Island MOVED, 200 years => Somehow this island was moved from it's old position which is why we don't recognize it.
C. Artificial Island, someone besides our automated systems put us here.
D. Somehow we forgot this island was here but we used to know it existed/was abandoned or whatever before ->200 years happened.
 
Question: when we went outside and calculated the time, did we notice anything else out of place? As repeatedly mentioned , it has been 200 years. Where was it stated that the three factions are still active? It's possible that the world could have ended up like Fallout with an M.A.D. scenario and Mary came from a fallout shelter or some equivalent. Or have I been playing the game too much......
 
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