Hmmph... this junior is a good seed [Cultivation Management Quest]

occipitallobe · Oct 2, 2020

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TehChron · Dec 11, 2020

Its actually not remarked upon, but if we can buy another century of peace from the Battle Blood Cannibals that gives us time and opportunity to take advantage of the Devil Bees own Civil War and take territory from them from a much safer position.

If we force their Civil War to last even longer and potentially horrifically destabilize them until after the next set of Trials, we can nab territory from them as well without having to worry about the Jingshen interfering and trying to force us out of the territory grab. Especially since they only have two Early Nascent Souls right now. Both of which are things that Manuel is more than capable of overcoming himself with a more stabilized Golden Devil Clan behind him.

Whereas no matter what, there's the risk of Old Cannibal really following through on his threat of forcing us to kill him or die in turn while the Jingshen take advantage of the attempted mutual annihilation. That's the inevitable threat we're facing from the Jingshen no matter what we do. And while this is absolutely a better time than most for us to commit to such a thing, it's still not optimal from my own perspective.

I don't exactly have a problem with us going to War in that manner, but I am taking this tact because its the alternative that costs us the least.

cheesyme · Dec 11, 2020

[X] Offering Him The Farm

Humbaba · Dec 11, 2020

TehChron said:
The only way this would be different is if we went for a war of extermination on the Blood Cannibals off the bat. Because by that argument, every second that we allow the Cannibals to survive is enabling them to commit to the mass slaughter of innocent mortals and thus we are huge bastards for doing so. Which is on the table, so fair, but it's not like you'd be advocating actually following through on that otherwise.

The Clan's long since become accustomed to the reality that not every injustice that we see can be removed with our base strength. That's what makes every mortal the Clan can protect so precious. The fact that living under the Golden Devils is a far better fate than they would otherwise receive.

There is a gaping moral chasm in between not destroying yourself in pursuit of helping literally everyone on the planet and offering to build a vastly more effective sacrificial altar for the tyrant next door and who considers murdering an entire city of 50,000 alongside torturing one of our core formations to death as a polite opening to negotiations where he desperately needs our help.

Even giving them back because we can't possibly hold them (along with advice to the locals to flee) is less morally repugnant. Because it isn't actively aiding and abetting Old Cannibal by helping him breeding people to eat faster.

At the moment he's substantially weakened. He's had a century in which he has had to choose between recovering himself, helping his sect recover and trying not to death spiral. Sure, we're a lot weaker too, but we've just spent literally all our discretionary wealth on fortifying against him, where fortifications are our superpower. I don't want to give him another century of getting back up to full strength on our dime.

What?

It's literally the same type of deal as what we're doing with the SPS in the North, and it's not like we're considering that a potential leak of Clan secrets. Let alone sticking Manuel in the middle of that territory in the first place.

This entire line of argument is farcical on its face.

The strength purity sect:

Are only a potential direct problem in the longest possible term.
Have basically all their nascent souls tied up in the war, they're unlikely to have one to spare a century or so getting around our protections. Especially while we've got an entire legion camped out on them. Unlike Old Cannibal who'd be living in it constantly and have little else to do for your proposed century of peace.
Divine Saber palace have already stolen a bunch of our stuff. SPS are unlikely to get more than that even if they try and are, again, far enough away that it is unlikely to be an issue in even Manuel's natural lifetime. Whereas if Old Cannibal starts teching up to our level that's an immediate problem.

@occipitallobe are "Heavenly Rewards" for "Just" actions ever going to be on the table for the Golden Devils? Because that assumption sounds optimistic to the point of me needing to have it clarified in the absence of evidence otherwise.
[/QUOTE]
It's literally part of the Curse of Karma going away. We're back to the baseline for the world which is Heaven can and will reward or punish you according to you actions.

TehChron · Dec 11, 2020

Humbaba said:
There is a gaping moral chasm in between not destroying yourself in pursuit of helping literally everyone on the planet and offering to build a vastly more effective sacrificial altar for the tyrant next door and who considers murdering an entire city of 50,000 alongside torturing one of our core formations to death as a polite opening to negotiations where he desperately needs our help.

Even giving them back because we can't possibly hold them (along with advice to the locals to flee) is less morally repugnant. Because it isn't actively aiding and abetting Old Cannibal by helping him breeding people to eat faster.

At the moment he's substantially weakened. He's had a century in which he has had to choose between recovering himself, helping his sect recover and trying not to death spiral. Sure, we're a lot weaker too, but we've just spent literally all our discretionary wealth on fortifying against him, where fortifications are our superpower. I don't want to give him another century of getting back up to full strength on our dime.

And that's perfectly valid, I'm hardly saying its a bad idea.

I'm just saying it'd be better to maintain those defenses since we'd be gunning for him eventually anyway, and chances are we could always just let the Array collapse without providing future maintenance anyway before setting him up for a war to the knife we actually are prepared for.

Plus the Devil Bees represent a much more low-effort objectionable Blood Path to raid and weaken with our armies if you're so gung ho about the subject. Safer too, with fewer rival powers in a position to screw us over for taking a bite out of them. I think the preferable choice is clear in that regard. It's not like we're going to let them survive inevitably, but right now telling Old Cannibal guarantees us eating attacks from at least a peer, and potentially worse if the Jingshen decide to join in while we're vulnerable.

That's just the long and short of it.

Humbaba said:
he strength purity sect:

Are only a potential direct problem in the longest possible term.

Have basically all their nascent souls tied up in the war, they're unlikely to have one to spare a century or so getting around our protections. Especially while we've got an entire legion camped out on them. Unlike Old Cannibal who'd be living in it constantly and have little else to do for your proposed century of peace.

Divine Saber palace have already stolen a bunch of our stuff. SPS are unlikely to get more than that even if they try and are, again, far enough away that it is unlikely to be an issue in even Manuel's natural lifetime. Whereas if Old Cannibal starts teching up to our level that's an immediate problem.

1. So what? Either they're at risk of stealing our secrets or they aren't, and that wasn't raised as a possible outcome at all. We could always just have Old Cannibal agree to respecting Copyright Laws in front of that Deal Enforcing Treasure like the last time, and problem solved.
2. You're acting like the SPS betraying us is an inevitability, when it hasn't even been raised as a potential risk in the first place. Let's not equate the two. The Shopping Cart Test is in full effect here.
3. What has the Divine Saber Palace stolen, exactly? I'm actually curious about this.

Humbaba said:
It's literally part of the Curse of Karma going away. We're back to the baseline for the world which is Heaven can and will reward or punish you according to you actions.

No, we're not actively being cursed by a malignant force of hostile divine providence.

If we were at baseline, the more dangerous Tribulations wouldn't be a thing. But they are, and so we demonstrably are not.

Rakuhn · Dec 11, 2020

We've only defended the most likely approaches against the Cannibals. They are just as capable as they ever were of attacking through our vassals, bulking up on consuming the (vastly larger number) of mortals therein, and then pushing into our main territories.

This is very definitely a war that we can lose, especially if outside powers meddle. Even victory is no guarantee of survival, as we'd be weakened enough that the (also blood cultivators) Devil Bees or the Jingshen clan could swipe away whoever is left.

No matter what we do is going to be 'immoral'. What we can do is try to do the least harm.

jjffjhjf · Dec 11, 2020

I guess we can't empty the entire land of mortals first before we give it back?

Nordlending · Dec 11, 2020

I wouldnt mind a normal war against the Cannibals lile thing the Devil Bees did.

But The Old Cannibal is threatening an All-In.

Killer_Whale · Dec 11, 2020

[X] Veekie

Humbaba · Dec 11, 2020

TehChron said:
And that's perfectly valid, I'm hardly saying its a bad idea.

I'm just saying it'd be better to maintain those defenses since we'd be gunning for him eventually anyway, and chances are we could always just let the Array collapse without providing future maintenance anyway before setting him up for a war to the knife we actually are prepared for.

Plus the Devil Bees represent a much more low-effort objectionable Blood Path to raid and weaken with our armies if you're so gung ho about the subject. Safer too, with fewer rival powers in a position to screw us over for taking a bite out of them. I think the preferable choice is clear in that regard. It's not like we're going to let them survive inevitably, but right now telling Old Cannibal guarantees us eating attacks from at least a peer, and potentially worse if the Jingshen decide to join in while we're vulnerable.

That's just the long and short of it.

I heavily disagree. The Devil Bees are in civil war, but as their old hated enemy (us) coming in and kicking down their door, even for a raid, is more than likely to get the two sides to pivot and join together to mess us up. Especially since they nearly got us last time and it was only a long slog and luck that let us grind them to a halt. Reminding them of that rather than letting them grind each other down is a poor idea. We can't take the mountains easily either due to the presence of all the wild Abyssal devil bee hives.

Additionally, none of the local powers want the Golden devils back at all. Divine Saber palace is one of our two picked enemies and is already inclined to punch our shit in when given the opportunity, more so given we screwed up their relationship with Jingshen with the Soul parasite.

The Sorrowful balcksmith sect is literally camped out on our old lands and makes mad bank off being on one of our trade routes, so won't want us getting a toehold. They're also strong allies of strength purity and can push us that way.

Actually dealing with the Cannibals now, whilst they're significantly starved and the Jingshen can't move openly due to SPS is probably one of if not the best chances we'll get. Yes we're weakened, but so are they and we've spent a lot to boost up our advantages.

1. So what? Either they're at risk of stealing our secrets or they aren't, and that wasn't raised as a possible outcome at all. We could always just have Old Cannibal agree to respecting Copyright Laws in front of that Deal Enforcing Treasure like the last time, and problem solved.
2. You're acting like the SPS betraying us is an inevitability, when it hasn't even been raised as a potential risk in the first place. Let's not equate the two. The Shopping Cart Test is in full effect here.
3. What has the Divine Saber Palace stolen, exactly? I'm actually curious about this.

You're doing that extremely annoying thing again where you bring up a point, and then immediately move the goal posts when I answer you. You suggested that there was no concern that the SPS palace could steal secrets. I pointed out that it was still something they could do, but there was a much lesser chance for various reasons and either way it was less concerning due to their distance, now you go "OH YOU'RE ACTING LIKE SPS WILL INEVITABIBLY BETRAY US" to distract from the point. Stick to the original argument please.

The Divine Saber palace are the ones who helped run us off our old lands after we fought the predecessors to the Abyssal Devil bees, and learned a bunch of our formation secrets due to squatting on the stuff they took from us.

EDIT: Flipping autocorrupt.

Edit 2: Thought I remembered something on the curse, but can't find it.

Anders · Dec 11, 2020

[X] War to the Knife

uri · Dec 11, 2020

TehChron said:
It turns his core territories from being utterly inhospitable, to being mostly inhospitable with a core of verdant land

His lands aren't inhospitable they just have the problem of housing blood path cultivators that killed too much of the mortal population, again they have the place to house thier mortal they just don't have the mortals.

TehChron · Dec 11, 2020

Humbaba said:
I heavily disagree. The Devil Bees are in civil war, but as their old hated enemy (us) coming in and kicking down their door, even for a raid, is more than likely to get the two sides to pivot and join together to mess us up. Especially since they nearly got us last time and it was only a long slog and luck that let us grind them to a halt. Reminding them of that rather than letting them grind each other down is a poor idea. We can't take the mountains easily either due to the presence of all the wild Abyssal devil bee hives.

And we can't afford to pay for them to grind one another down if we're sinking all of our wealth into fighting the Blood Cannibals and then recovering from fighting them to the death.

So my point still stands there.

Humbaba said:
The Sorrowful balcksmith sect is literally camped out on our old lands and makes mad bank off being on one of our trade routes, so won't want us getting a toehold. They're also strong allies of strength purity and can push us that way.

And how will they do that? All they're doing is squatting on former Clan lands. They're a crafting power with absolutely zero force projection. If anything, they'd just be an anvil to our proverbial hammer.

Humbaba said:
Actually dealing with the Cannibals now, whilst they're significantly starved and the Jingshen can't move openly due to SPS is probably one of if not the best chances we'll get. Yes we're weakened, but so are they and we've spent a lot to boost up our advantages.

And that's why I'm fine if skipping straight to fighting to the knife wins.

I just think that the Devil Bee Civil War is a more profitable opportunity to take advantage of, whereas returning the Blood Cannibals to a death spiral is as simple as letting the hypothetical "murder palace" - as you term it - not get repaired, and thus fall apart without our intervention.

Humbaba said:
You're doing that extremely annoying thing again where you bring up a point, and then immediately move the goal posts when I answer you.

You're objecting to my own points.

Pointing out why your objections dont matter is my prerogative. That isn't moving the goal posts, that's you trying to run down a tangent that doesn't matter.

Humbaba said:
Stick to the original argument please.

Don't present strawmans then lol

uri said:
His lands aren't inhospitable they just have the problem of housing blood path cultivators that killed too much of the mortal population, again they have the place to house thier mortal they just don't have the mortals.

Nah, they are mostly inhospitable. The effects of the desert the deeper you go into it increase the effects of the attrition cultivators experience for trying to go there in the first place. Naturally, a desert of such extreme temperate aren't exactly great places for mortals either. This is a known quality of this region, in fact.

uri · Dec 11, 2020

TehChron said:
"murder palace" - as you term it - not get repaired, and thus fall apart without our intervention.

And you think that old cannibal won't see such a huge liability and account for in any treaty we make?

TehChron · Dec 11, 2020

uri said:
And you think that old cannibal won't see such a huge liability and account for in any treaty we make?

And then Manuel would demand concessions for making any such demand as regular maintenance on that. Like what happened the last time we negotiated with Old Cannibal and we had to vote on three different counteroffers from him, leading to our current circumstances.

Going back to the hospitability thing for a moment.

occipitallobe said:
[ ] The Organ Meat Desert. Nearly devoid of Qi, but with many creatures and Spirit Stone mines to make up for it. You will primarily use Spirit Stone Cultivation. It is easy to hide in the desert, though difficult to build fixed defenses.

Enemy Attrition ++++
Wealth ++++
Defenses -
Population --
Cultivator Numbers --

And the Blood Cannibals are even worse off, given their proximity to:

The Qi-Draining Desert

As one heads further into the desert, the thinness of Qi becomes something else entirely. A dead zone, where Qi is actively drained from you. For a Qi Condensation cultivator, it is death in minutes. A Nascent Soul might cross at the cost of immense wealth, consuming decades of a Clan's wealth to go from one Region to another. Devoid of creatures, plants, water, and even Qi, the Qi-Draining Desert can be entered, and indeed, some valuable relics have been found there, but straying too far into it is death.

So yeah, the depths of Blood Cannibal territory are at the very edges of that. Much like how the Devil Bees are taking advantage of their proximity to the Hives to the south, the Blood Cannibals are inevitably experiencing the effects of being in such close proximity to their own boundary thingamajig.

TimEd · Dec 11, 2020

[X] War to the Knife

I mean, we may have lost quite a few upper level management, but I am pretty sure we are set to win a War to the Knife due to the boosts we made to our lower levels.

The "best" part is that if we bleed now, the Blood Cannibals seem like they would be losing exponentially.

TehChron · Dec 11, 2020

TimEd said:
The "best" part is that if we bleed now, the Blood Cannibals seem like they would be losing exponentially.

Well, nah, if we go to a war to the knife it's probably gonna be to the death lol

There's not going to be any winning or losing saving us paying however much it costs to see Old Cannibal dead once and for all. Everything else is gonna be up in the air past that point, however.

Granted that was always gonna be the case when we went for finishing off the Blood Cannibals anyway.

TimEd · Dec 11, 2020

Really, my hope is that the Blood Cannibals are just as crippled as us due to that Nascent Soul stripping their forces/resources bare.

Sure this will be painful for us, but I dont think any faction is 100% free to take advantage of this right now? And lastly, I don't think any faction would guess just how lopsided the losses were for the Trials this time.

Also on the mercenaries, where were they sent to patrol again? Was it a specific bit of it, or just scattered wherever?

Katana1515 · Dec 11, 2020

[X] War to the Knife

Not convinced by any of the other options presented, though will endeavour to keep an open mind.

uri · Dec 11, 2020

TimEd said:
Sure this will be painful for us, but I dont think any faction is 100% free to take advantage of this right now? And lastly, I don't think any faction would guess just how lopsided the losses were for the Trials this time.

Jingshen are free to attack us if they see a good enough opportunity, an opportunity that they would gain if we go to war with the cannibals, we can gain more by fighting Jingshen with the cannibals the fighting the cannibals.

Humbaba · Dec 11, 2020

TehChron said:
And we can't afford to pay for them to grind one another down if we're sinking all of our wealth into fighting the Blood Cannibals and then recovering from fighting them to the death.

So my point still stands there.

And how will they do that? All they're doing is squatting on former Clan lands. They're a crafting power with absolutely zero force projection. If anything, they'd just be an anvil to our proverbial hammer.

And that's why I'm fine if skipping straight to fighting to the knife wins.

I just think that the Devil Bee Civil War is a more profitable opportunity to take advantage of, whereas returning the Blood Cannibals to a death spiral is as simple as letting the hypothetical "murder palace" - as you term it - not get repaired, and thus fall apart without our intervention.

You're objecting to my own points.

Pointing out why your objections dont matter is my prerogative. That isn't moving the goal posts, that's you trying to run down a tangent that doesn't matter.

Don't present strawmans then lol

Nah, they are mostly inhospitable. The effects of the desert the deeper you go into it increase the effects of the attrition cultivators experience for trying to go there in the first place. Naturally, a desert of such extreme temperate aren't exactly great places for mortals either. This is a known quality of this region, in fact.

Allright I'm going to give this one last go.

Firstly, I don't appreciate the way your acting. Please quit accusing me of "Strawmanning", and posting "lols".

Regarding the question of our arrays being looked at and copied or the knowledge used by the blood cannibals. I pointed out that you were proposing to build a very large array in the centre of enemy territory for an opposing Nascent soul to live on, and that there was therefore a very real danger of them using their 100 year of peace time to examine that array in order to gather knowledge on clan arrays, either to copy them or to discover weaknesses.

You then claimed that such a danger could equally apply to the strength purity sect. When I agreed that it could, but provided several reasons why there was less danger there you instead pivoted to an entirely different point, accusing me of saying the strength purity sect would inevitably betray us, which both has nothing to do with the current topic (could our arrays potentially be copied) and was not an argument I had made. That you responded to my pointing out your shifting of goalposts with "That's my argument, stop strawmanning" does not make me feel you are arguing in good faith.

We do not necessarily need to pay for the devil bees to grind each other down, as it is entirely possible that their two nascent souls will keep the engagement going on their own.

Sacred blacksmiths are huge trading partners with Strength purity and are basically impossible to remove due to being super fortification specialists. Given we're reliant on Strength Purity sect at the moment, they could easily have strength purity sect lean on us, or supply the Divine saber palace and/or the devil bees with no blowback.

I would also note that it was only by going to discord that I found you were only proposing to build the array, and not to pay for it's upkeep as the wording of your vote
" A Waycastle is more than capable of supporting hundreds of thousands of mortals with enough resources bent towards the task, it is simply a matter of powering and maintaining the Array. Offer Old Cannibal the opportunity to create in the heart of his own territory a verdant paradise capable of single handedly sustaining even his own voracious appetite for blood, and in exchange there will be no need for war in the short term. " heavily implies that you are having the clan create and pay for the array which you describe as it would be less costly than the costs of defending ourselves from the dying cannibals.

The idea that "We won't actually maintain it" is mentioned nowhere in your vote or your original reasoning and is frankly still unclear without reading elsewhere. Whilst this does make it marginally less objectionable, I highly doubt old cannibal will fall for it.

uri · Dec 11, 2020

TehChron said:
So yeah, the depths of Blood Cannibal territory are at the very edges of that. Much like how the Devil Bees are taking advantage of their proximity to the Hives to the south, the Blood Cannibals are inevitably experiencing the effects of being in such close proximity to their own boundary thingamajig.

yet they were fine before a vast amunt of their mortal pupolation go cunsumed.

Nyssar · Dec 11, 2020

[X] Negotiate

TehChron · Dec 11, 2020

Humbaba said:
Firstly, I don't appreciate the way your acting.

Well, that's a shame then.

I don't appreciate you accusing me of doing things I'm not doing just because you're not demonstrably winning an argument with me.

uri said:
yet they were fine before a vast amunt of their mortal pupolation go cunsumed.

Yeah, which is why the Waycastle idea is about returning sustainability to them. Which is otherwise the objective of them taking back the Molds and the Crags. Its also why Old Cannibal is threatening mutual death. The losses he'd incur from prosecuting the war in full will shove him deeper into the death spiral unless he gets some kind of massive boon to let his Blood Path bounce back immediately afterwards.

It's literally a matter of life and death for his Blood Cannibals now.

Sara · Dec 11, 2020

[X] War to the Knife

I'll be honest, not exactly keen to further the guy who literally is called Old Cannibal, ability to bootstrap his own power as well as his disciplies via mass death by industrializing it's capacity. Let's just get this war over with.

dbRevned · Dec 11, 2020

[X] War to the Knife

Hmmph... this junior is a good seed [Cultivation Management Quest]

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