Lab_Accident
A 2D 1D4
- Location
- Your dreams
I mean. We DID screw up. But there's absolutely no use dwelling on it, it's not gonna fix anything. So let's just move on to solutions.
DoofQuest- a Disney Villains Victorious CK2-Style Quest
- Thread starter Made in Heaven
- Start date
- Crossover
- Location
- USA
The "human" solution... right. You do realize what that's implying, right?
It's not just about numbers. Jumba would add +19 yes, but that's only 7 higher than what Janus would provide, and 7 more doesn't reduce critfail chance by 7% like it used to, so its not as beneficial as you think. And with Jumba and Janus both on council, we would still have to deal with a 4% critfail penalty on genetics actions unless we found another genetics hero to actually do the actions themselves. And it would mean we couldn't use Jumba to smash through high DC genetics actions anymore, as he would provide a smaller bonus towards genetics actions. (But split across two actions, assuming we take two genetics actions a turn).
Lifeandlice
Practitioning side-character
- Location
- Usa
What solution? Piss off the people and government more by breaking a known criminal out of jail? Leave one of our best learning units in jail?
- Location
- Germany
Changed it to "humane" after you copy-pasted it because it started sounding iffy to me.
- Pronouns
- He
Uhmm, we didn't have any such personal this turn.
Uhm... I... Uhm....
Icheckedandtherewasnoactiontorrmoveflubberfromlearningactionsanywhere.
Like, yes, it was mentioned in mirage turn, I think? That we have the option?
But that was a long time ago.... And all the flubber options were crossed out.
Was it a write in suggestion?
Edit: Tobbed
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- Pronouns
- He/Him
Yes, it was.
For some reason I really thought you'd taken it.
We double checked.
A lot.
ReaperofInterest
Herald of Disaster
Um...is there anyway we could just change Ludivine's trait roll by 1, retcon this as a terrible dream, and do the write-up for getting rid of Flubber next turn in the spirit of "we made a small mistake when adjusting to new mechanics, so let's not do anything too major on the first turn"?
- Location
- Germany
That´s why you think *Hard* before you roll-back turns, people...
Lab_Accident
A 2D 1D4
- Location
- Your dreams
Next turn, we have Olivia Dickens as a Hero Unit which, even if she critfails, the action will never be traced back to us. So there's that.
We do two genetic actions next turn, then? What would that look like? A +71 before the Hero Units are added... Nah, the DCs would still be too high to comfortably tackle. We could tackle one high DC Genetic action with Jumba and one low one (vehicles or other dimensions) with somebody else, then.
I mostly don't want to permanently bench Lizzy and Technor because if we're gonna assemble a Black Ops Heroball capable of breaking into Impel Duck, we'd need both of them.
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Anyway, we probably have to brainstorm a replacement Learning councilor.
Learning (38)
Ludivine von Drake 40 (17% chance to do a different action)
Jumba 39 (+30 To genetics, +20 to GalFed Tech)
Queen Lizzie 32
TECHNOR 30 (can be overclocked)
Wendy Wower 28 (+30 to AI and Robots)
Wasabi 24 (+20 to non-combat Optics & Energy)
Gomez 24
Janus Lee 24 (+20 to Genetics and Vehicle Design)
Alan Bradley 23
Ludivine is unavailable for reasons.
Jumba is a terrible pick for reasons of personality, losing access to his powerful traits and further mad science seeming unwise at this time.
Lizzie is already mentioned in the initial Council update as unlikely to do well as a councilor.
Technor is a possibility, although it'd mean effectively benching one of our best units.
Wendy is unavailable at this time.
Wasabi is probably fairly viable personality-wise. There has been mention of people wanting to put him in Stewardship if Janus can be reshuffled to Learning.
Janus is already in council, possibly stuck in the Stewardship seat.
Finally, there is Alan. His bonus would be +11, he is keeping dark secrets from us and his expertise is not immediately relevant to the things we are likely to research in the close future, but it is not as if he is doing anything else useful at the moment and given his own memetic level bad luck we may as well put him somewhere where he doesn't have to roll.
Learning (38)
Ludivine von Drake 40 (17% chance to do a different action)
Jumba 39 (+30 To genetics, +20 to GalFed Tech)
Queen Lizzie 32
TECHNOR 30 (can be overclocked)
Wendy Wower 28 (+30 to AI and Robots)
Wasabi 24 (+20 to non-combat Optics & Energy)
Gomez 24
Janus Lee 24 (+20 to Genetics and Vehicle Design)
Alan Bradley 23
Ludivine is unavailable for reasons.
Jumba is a terrible pick for reasons of personality, losing access to his powerful traits and further mad science seeming unwise at this time.
Lizzie is already mentioned in the initial Council update as unlikely to do well as a councilor.
Technor is a possibility, although it'd mean effectively benching one of our best units.
Wendy is unavailable at this time.
Wasabi is probably fairly viable personality-wise. There has been mention of people wanting to put him in Stewardship if Janus can be reshuffled to Learning.
Janus is already in council, possibly stuck in the Stewardship seat.
Finally, there is Alan. His bonus would be +11, he is keeping dark secrets from us and his expertise is not immediately relevant to the things we are likely to research in the close future, but it is not as if he is doing anything else useful at the moment and given his own memetic level bad luck we may as well put him somewhere where he doesn't have to roll.
VicSage
Not Crazy
- Location
- Czechoslovakia
Not a speck of Good is showing, so the Evil must be growing. Is the duckly staff a-glowing? Is the CEO atoning?! YES! The rolls keep getting shakier for the Rollers, keep on Rolling! And they're CERTAINLY NOT SHOWING, ANY SIGN THAT THEY ARE SCROLLING!!!
b-wolf95
Secretly a good boy
Honestly, given that Ludivine's trait is based off of the Absentminded trait, which is a negative trait, it does make sense to make it proc on 1 instead of 6.
I mean, it probably won't get retconned like that, but it's a nice thought, at least.
Lab_Accident
A 2D 1D4
- Location
- Your dreams
Can Technor be overclocked as a Councillor? What would that even look like?
And Jinx the entire category? I'm not fully convinced this entire mess wasn't his fault somehow.
I joke (mostly).
No, just took the hero list from Strat's hero rankings.
This is how Technor would work as a councilor.
[ ] Technor
THE MECHANICAL MAN
Without the need for doctor-patient confidentiality, Technor can leave his Ego Module in the 'on' position all the time! His power-hungry nature has been sated in the literal, but not metaphorical sense. He is the type to prefer grandiose, destructive mad science, large construction projects, and the occasional bout of petty evil. He will approve plans that thumb their nose at the government up to (but not including) things that could actually get you assassinated. He is unlikely to care much for public opinion.
Here are the descriptions of other possible candidates, for the sake of completeness.
[ ] Jumba
Evil Genius
Jumba will provide a +15 bonus to genetics projects he oversees, and will frequently bring you ideas for new and terrible creations. He will approve plans likely to result in chaos, whether on a local or global scale.
[ ] Lizzy
Ants. ANTS. ANTWOMAN.
Lizzy likes insects. Lizzy is bad at social interactions.
Yeah uh. Don't expect… much.
[ ] Alan Bradley
Life of Alan
Alan has no idea why you chose him, but he is willing to do his best. Aside from certain… odd preferences related to the digital realm, he seems to have a good head on his shoulders. Whether you agree to his requests to tighten up cybersecurity is up to you. Alan has a +10 to rolls involving designing or implementing computer programs, and an extra +5 specifically for security coding.
[ ] Wasabi
Paranoid Perfectionist
Wasabi raises the DC by 5 on all actions he oversees but also raises the crit failure threshold by 10 (compared to base), as he insists on getting everything right and not getting anything wrong. He is likely to balk at anything that appears risky.
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- Location
- USA
Maybe not caring about public opinion and snubbing the government is not the best choice after this flubber mess.
Personally, I think moving Janus to Learning Councilor and Wasabi to Stewardship makes the most sense if we're allowed to do it. If not, just put Wasabi on learning.
I'd favour Wasabi in Learning.
However, we'd want to know how his thing works under the new crit rules.
Wasabi raises the DC by 5 on all actions he oversees but also raises the crit failure threshold by 10 (compared to base), as he insists on getting everything right and not getting anything wrong. He is likely to balk at anything that appears risky.
Because unless I misunderstand, this description works with the old rules.
b-wolf95
Secretly a good boy
Would not be surprised if the Learning councilor position already has a DADA-style curse where something forces the seat to be emptied by the end of every turn. Fate already hates our guts, what one more curse at this point
Lab_Accident
A 2D 1D4
- Location
- Your dreams
It all depends on what options we have to get Ludivine out. If there's achievable legal options, then Wasabi could be an idea. If not, then a certain level of snubbing the government will be required, and Wasabi is likely to veto a prison break. The last thing we need is to have the option of using extra-legal means locked before we can even consider it.
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XX/XY
AProcrastinator
You can Certainly Try
- Location
- Getting Somewhere
- Pronouns
- She/Hers
XX/XY
Have you ever stepped into an alternate dimension, before?
What am I saying. Of course you have! You've been in a post office, right? An airport terminal. A particularly long parking lot, or a Buy N Large, after midnight. One of those "liminal spaces" those kids online are always going on 'bout.
But you've never noticed that you were doing so, probably. Beyond, of course, that vague sense in the back of your spirit that you are someplace you weren't, just a moment ago.
That's because you are/aren't, of course. Most dimensions that are near each other look an awful lot like each other, you see. The same thing, but slightly to the left. Everything and everyone is as you know it, but there's a few air molecules displaced around your pinky toe that weren't before. Things like that.
You walk out of those liminal places, and you and the alternate-universe double you swapped with are... probably back where you belong? And if not, well, no one will ever notice. Not even you.
...or maybe I'm just blowing smoke up your keister. Other dimensions are things of science fiction, after all. Who knows how they function, really, or if they even exist? And no one knows how post offices work, come right down to it.
But certain assumptions can be made, when everything is taken into consideration. Once one stops blowing smoke, and starts considering statistics and chaos theory, the likeliest answer becomes entirely clear. Any dimension, contrasted to our own, is likeliest to be one of two things. And yes, either it will be shockingly similar to ours - nearly indistinguishable - identical in almost every way -
- but also, it may be wildly different. The kind of different that only an entirely aside set of physics could account for.
What it won't be is the middle ground. There's not gonna be any of that sci-fi nonsense, should other dimensions ever be proven to exist. No mirror universe where everyone has an evil goatee. No alternate timeline where so-and-so evildoers won this-or-that war. No ocean worlds, where everybody's a mermaid, but everything else otherwise ticks on as it always has.
And it's not gonna be the same as Earth, except that everyone is the opposite gender. That's the kind of stuff you'd only see on bad shows on TV.
It is dark out, and has been for some time. There is a container of Chinese takeout - teriyaki chicken with chickpeas - that is going gummy after hours of being untouched. There is the noise of crashing trash cans, outside.
Ludwig von Drake, leading scientific expert on everything, stares into the boob tube, reflecting.
He is... he is he. Always has been. He is he, and she is she. He is over here, and she is over there. He got the house, she got the car. Other than that, there are no differences, he thinks. And when Ludwig thinks, he tends to be... well, he tends to be an odd duck.
But he also tends to be right.
(Except, apparently, where Flubber is concerned, and where responsibility is concerned, and where people are concerned for you, Ludwig, you're pushing yourself too hard, Ludwig, take a break-)
He'd heard the press conference being announced, earlier that day. Had the opportunity to see what the hubub was, bub. Decided to skip out, because er, to be honest, the thought of watching it turned his feelings into a gordian knot that no amount of sideways thinking was ever gonna untangle. Happy? Sad? Angry? Happy? Sad? Red? Blue? Red, red, yellow, yellow, purple, orange, blue -
- green.
Ludwig considered himself a man of science. A duck of science. The duck of science. The method, the means, the meaning of science: the advancement of the modern mind was the creed Ludwig lived by.
But there was no scientific explanation for the shiver he'd felt run up his spine, earlier that day.
(More than a shiver. A certainty. But that thought's beyond mere not-science, beyond simple quantum entangling, or fairy tales, and reaching into the idea he'd had nightmares about, that maybe he'd split his very soul -)
A hunch, some might call it. Others might say what he did next was more a premontion. He'd made note of the time. He'd compared it to the timing of the conference, the events therein, making sure to take time zones into account.
And he'd watched the consequences come crashing down, with Ludivine left there in the rubble. Left there to foot the bill.
Hardy-har-har.
Specifically, the moment she'd dropped the - she called it vulcanization fluid? Just, that? Uncreative, unimagiantive, sloppy? Not even a snappy name, that's how little she thought this through?! - the vulcanization fluid. That was the moment of his premonition. The, the cold, the skip of the heartbeat.
The certainty that he was about to die.
It was a Eureka! moment, after a fashion, as most near-death experiences are. A self-contained truth. Evidence that he is she, and she is he, and that they are both, together, the same person. Ludwig/Ludivine, stretched out over time, liminal space, and two different consciousnesses.
It's the ultimate proof that their relationship is one grandiose, overwrought act of purest self-loathing.
But look again. See, like quantum states, how the evidence shifts, when observed. How a thought can be both a particle and a wave. The same moment, the same circumstance, the same Eureka!, and then the opposite realization:
She can't be him. They look vaguely alike, but they're from entirely different universes, in the end. Ludivine proved that the moment she lifted up that vial of Flubber for all to see, and doubled down the moment the vulcanization fluid hit the green, green, green.
Because Ludwig would never have done this.
And evidently, Ludivine would.
She is taken away in chains. He knows this. He's been told this. He doesn't have to have been told this, to know this. He hasn't watched it happen, though. Forgone conclusions are not... they are not scientific, you see. Science is about cataloguing the unknown, not watching as...
...it is so hard for women to make a name for themselves, in such a male-dominated field. In such a male-dominated world, heh. So maybe that explains it: his own ego, his own achievements - beaten down, instead of propped up. It's no matter. The ruins are for archaeologists to dig through. He doesn't need to see her losing her... credibility. Her status. Her bright future. Her...
Her.
The TV flickers in the dark room. The clock creeps close to midnight. The air is stale, and muggy, even so late in the year, and carries the scent of spoiled teriyaki.
His finger has hovered over the rewind button, for some time.
Her.
His.
He hits the play button.
"Wait, wait, no! It's safe, I'm telling yoo, dis was a total coincidence! Wun inna million chance! Let me joost try again and-!"
Ludivine hated him. She'd made that very clear. As clear as a shard of glass, between the ribs. He was a mature adult; he got why. He'd handled so much poorly: the genesis, the conditioning, the lack of peer review, the, the assumptions he made. The horrid ownership he presumed over another living, thinking being. Everything she had done since the moment she was born was hating him, and everything she had ever done was justified.
And he understood that. He liked to think he could fire back with the best of them, give as good as he got, pay enmity unto enmity, but the sheer fact of the matter was: Ludwig was an old man who assumed the world belonged to him, and Ludivine was a young woman who deserved a better world than his.
Sure, he hated her, too. But the scientific method, the creed he claimed to live by, is the revelation of truth. The one that Ludwig really hated was him, because he knew she was the hero of their shared story.
And he, the one with the goatee. The dark reflection.
She told him time would take him, the last time that they spoke. He was only part Toon, she reminded him, and therefore the furthest thing from timeless. She declared that when he was buried, she'd be there over his grave, to claim his work for herself, and do with it the things he never could. To be the second chance. To steer, instead of trampling. To move the world, without hurting the people living on it. To be him, but right, this time.
Because unlike Ludwig, she would choose to think.
"You lied to me."
He sits on a chair with a too-short leg, staring at the flicker of the screen, and Ludwig von Drake feels like he's all alone in this world.
FunkyEntropy
Occasionally insightful, possibly grumpy
- Location
- Los Angeles
Honestly I'm not sure what I find more amusing - that she managed to critfail on Flubber of all things or that this whole thing happened basically immediately after we'd picked her as a councilor. I not even mad, I'm too busy laughing at the absurdity of it.
- Location
- Australia
I think part of the reason for all the fires is that the voters seem to be consistently playing like a tourist where the votes don't really matter, going for the more interesting or dramatic options instead of the more predictably beneficial mechanical options. On the other hand I get the impression that if we play it safe then the QMs would throw us more fires or make enemies more competent to keep interesting so I'm not sure I can really criticize the touristy playstyle too much, especially with all the rule changes and weird stuff interfering with a more strategic playstyle.
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BlueWerewolf25
The Dreamer
- Location
- Wouldn't You Like To Know?
- Pronouns
- He/His/Him
Yeah... yeah, that sounds about right. Good writing as always, AProcrastinator. I'm sure Ludwig has a lot to think about... to say nothing about Ludivine as she's dragged away to Impel Duck.