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

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    • Supporting the blood path will result in literally millions of mortals being killed. Even if everything our visitor said is perfectly true that alone would make it unacceptable to support them.
     
    [] Yes. Declare for the Noble Devil Alliance. Invade the Jingshen Clan. Declare war on the Righteous Path.

    As always, we dont have enough time to grow, but then again who does in a Xiania, also if this does go through, wont we need to cancel the mission to Song?
     
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    Mochinator said:
    Even then. That doesn't explain how we're going to fortify the area in time for the trials? Or how we will have the manpower to defend it after the trials. Even if as claimed this trial will go with minimal casualties, it doesn't ignore basic logistics that our lands have more then doubled in size and as can be seen from this turn, effort + manpower is needed to hold and consolidate the land.

    Having to defend against a Righteous Thrust at the same time because we also declared war against the entire Righteous Side? That sounds like a really bad idea. His literally buying us with resources that have not been obtained. The resources he's offering will only come if the dice all land in our favor.

    There's nothing concrete in terms of resources being offered to wage this war, just a share of the pie AFTER victory is won. Any deal that has nothing concrete behind it is a bad deal.
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    Olivebirdy was talking about letting Altar Lord kill the Nascents, but not invading them until after the Trials. Thus, no need to fortify the area.
    Once it's been claimed, we don't need to defend it so hard because there's no enemies that can reach Jingshen territory? Any attacks will be coming from the Scorpion Road because Jingshen doesn't have any adjacent enemy territory.

    Your point about this choice being a gamble is fair, though.
     
    One thing I think is important to note is that easily getting the Jingshen's land is a massive deal, even in the short term, just because of Blind the Thief.

    Remember, the wealth curse is only negated for new lands, and this would count. On top of that, these lands are already flush with spirit stones, so that's even better than it initially appears.
     
    There's nothing really stopping us from saying No now, then cutting off Spirit Stones with a new agreement after the Trials. Or pressing Jingshen to the point that they cut off stone shipments in protest.
     
    Alright so the real main question here isn't 'is the Altar Lord telling the truth', it's 'can we win without him'?

    It looks like if we say no the Altar Lord will continue on his path and that will involve working against us in the 'normal' sense. We'll still be in a stalemate here and be largely depending on our biggest baddest Good Seeds making quick enough progress to outpace whatever the hell heaven is doing so we can actually resist. If this is truly the case and refusing him won't bring about direct opposition from the Evil Guys Club then this is a viable path assuming we can actually arrive at the peak in 2000 years one way or another.
    The sub question for this route is 'will attempting to climb beyond heaven's ability to crush in 2000 years require us to declare against the Righteous Path anyway?' because if we're going to end up doing it we might as well do it when we'll get benefits for it.

    If we say yes we get the desert and presumably the Righteous sects vanish from this sea in due course. Where does that leave us? Much bigger but still at the mercy of another power and this one is full of Evil Guys (hence the club). If the Altar Lord keeps to his implied word then we'll be working with him to secure our spot from heaven's will, whether through offense or defense. We still don't know what is involved in his 'plan' but there's pretty much no way we don't end up doing some really vile things when working with a bunch of evil sects. Even if Altar Lord was some kind of paragon of virtue in a sea of evil and he mostly just seems pragmatic.

    Based on what we know so far I think the answer is 'yes we can win without him' and so we have no need to debase ourselves in the name of 'survival'. I'd rather keep the Righteous Sects around and rush our top seeds to the peak as quickly as possible so we can get our own glimpse at whatever the heck Altar Lord has knowledge of. There's no guarantee that reaching those lofty heights will give us more info, but at worst we'll be in a much better position to act and might be able to go loot it from him. Only 'might' because he's proven very willing to destroy information to keep it from our hands already.

    If we say no, however, we really might have to start taking more risks and greedily seize as many opportunities for GS growth as we can manage so we can actually get some more people at the Big Boy Table. With the power of the Altar it's unlikely that DAS will be defeated before we get swole ourselves. Perhaps this can be revisited when we have more information instead of taking his hand here and hoping its legit and not bait.

    Also damn he knows Manuel is important. Amusing that he calls Manuel 'old man' too.
     
    No7sHere said:
    Supporting the blood path will result in literally millions of mortals being killed. Even if everything our visitor said is perfectly true that alone would make it unacceptable to support them.
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    Where did you get that impression? Altar Lord will kill Jingshen's Nascents only. The clean-up will be done by us. Then all we need to do is stop the shipments of Spirit Stones to the war. We're not obligated to directly help them fight wars or kill mortals. All he's asking is to halt trading and secure the desert. We aren't targeting innocent Jingshen civilians.

    The Blood Path is already killing millions of mortals while fighting the Demon War. Whatever our decision, that will not change but Altar Lord is at least pragmatic and has an ideology that's different from the usual Predatory Blood Practitioner so we can get him to reduce casualties. See how he's disgusted with his own Elders with their edgy names like Fleshharrower.

    But if we don't help, he will continue to be desperate, so that means he's got no incentive to shorten the massacre.
     
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    What we need to do now is to build up as much as we can. The will opposing is growing and if we are going to overcome the heavens we need to replace it with something better or what is the point?
     
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    TheSleeper said:
    [X] No. Stay the course you have charted so far. You will not throw your plans away on the word of a Blood Path criminal.
    what we need to do now is to build up as much as we can. The will opposing is growing and if we are going to overcome the heavens we need to replace it with something better or what is the point?
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    There's a 12 hour moratorium, so hold on to your vote for now.
     
    Hey, uh, not sure if anybody actually brought this up, but joining the Noble Devil Alliance means betraying our current allies. Specifically SPS and the Flood Dragon Gang. And that'd kind of a shitty thing to so IMO, even leaving out the fact that this is gonna cause about half of our auxilia, some of our clan members, and a whole lot of vassals to either be really fucking pissed at us or rebel. Before you ask, no I don't have a citation, im using common sense and the fact that our vassals aren't really evil or fine with blood path for the most part.
     
    No7sHere said:
    If we allow the blood path to win, they will literally consume entire cities in the plains and they will have been directly enabled by us.
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    They're already consuming cities, and will be driven to more extreme measures as they continue to lose and get more desperate. Replacing the Blood Path and becoming strong enough to oppose Heaven's Will ourselves requires seizing opportunities. The Altar Lord getting some breathing room means he can exert more pressure on preventing massacres. It could even be included as part of the deal, making it a clause of the binding deal to reduce predation.

    @occipitallobe Is there room for negotiating the deal? Like adding a clause to minimizing mortal casualties in the war?

    TheSleeper said:
    What we need to do now is to build up as much as we can. The will opposing is growing and if we are going to overcome the heavens we need to replace it with something better or what is the point?
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    We ARE planning to replace it with something better. This would be an alliance of convenience, we're not suddenly bosom buddies with Blood Path. We can prevent more tragedy by getting powerful enough to end the Blood Path once and for all, it was called out as an option by Altar lord if he wins because he's an ideologue that doesn't even like his methods.
     
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    Helping the blood path eat 90% of all mortals in the region seems reprehensible, and Heavens shadow is growing in power anyway. We would be replacing all our neighbors with blood path warmongers in exchange for some desert, which doesn't seem worth the costs that defending our lands would entail in that case.
     
    Resonant said:
    We ARE planning to replace it with something better. This would be an alliance of convenience, we're not suddenly bosom buddies with Blood Path. We can prevent more tragedy by getting powerful enough to end the Blood Path once and for all, it was called out as an option by Altar lord if he wins because he's an ideologue that doesn't even like his methods.
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    How though?
    I think something a lot of people here are missing is that we ain't xianxia protags. Nobody in the clan is going to be able to reach spirit severing. We can't really overthrow the heavens or destroy blood path or whatever. Even beyond that, we can't even wipe out altar lord if he turtles up, since he still has about a thousand years (500 turns) before he dies, and in that time, we can't kill him near thr altar.
     
    wrecksalot said:
    Helping the blood path eat 90% of all mortals in the region seems reprehensible, and Heavens shadow is growing in power anyway. We would be replacing all our neighbors with blood path warmongers in exchange for some desert, which doesn't seem worth the costs that defending our lands would entail in that case.
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    We could try to negotiate with the Altar Lord to enforce minimal mortal predation as part of the binding agreement? Heavens shadow is growing in power, but Blood Path is growing weaker and I'm unsure if we can get strong enough to act as counterbalance.
     
    We never have time to do what we should, and often gamble hugely to try to make time.

    Altar Lord hates dealing with his literal xianxia antagonist "equals" and had to beat them into submission to hold his plan together. A plan which isn't even to keep the Blood Path alive, because he admitted it will end up gone either from Heaven crushing them or us cleaning house afterwards. He just want to reach out and destroy Heaven's grip on everything like the Sea-Conquering Army did. To Reach Heaven Through Violence.
     
    Resonant said:
    We could try to negotiate with the Altar Lord to enforce minimal mortal predation as part of the binding agreement? Heavens shadow is growing in power, but Blood Path is growing weaker and I'm unsure if we can get strong enough to act as counterbalance.
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    Even if Altar Lord can keep all of his disciples in line, which I doubt, that still means that all the other sects are going to continue to eat tons of mortals. I don't think that joining the Blood Path alliance on the grounds that maybe we can convince all the blood path people to stop using blood path is a solid plan
     
    wrecksalot said:
    Even if Altar Lord can keep all of his disciples in line, which I doubt, that still means that all the other sects are going to continue to eat tons of mortals. I don't think that joining the Blood Path alliance on the grounds that maybe we can convince all the blood path people to stop using blood path is a solid plan
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    The Demonic Altar are the main offenders for mortal predation though. Curbing their appetite would objectively be a greater good for the region. We're not convincing them to stop using their cultivation method, that's impossible. We're moderating their rampage in exchange for giving them some breathing room, while we grow powerful enough to contest Heaven and end the need for Blood Path itself, by gaining enough strength to fight both eventually.
     
    This is tricky. On the one hand, the Blood path are absolutely evil, and if we help then millions of mortals will die, and we'll directly become embroiled in a bitter war with other factions. Many righteous sects hated us before, or only slowly accepted us over millennia and centuries, despite us not having done anything wrong. If we side with the cannibalistic and murderous adherents of the Blood Path, and betray our erstwhile allies among the Righteous sects, then they will have a personal grudge against us, and will stop at nothing to destroy us if they can. If we lose, then it's almost certainly game over for us.

    On the other hand, if Heaven can reassert itself and establish hegemony, then in the long term that potentially means even more suffering, as all potential threats will be crushed and eliminated, regardless of whether they were actually evil or not. How many other factions have or will go the way of the 'Golden Devils', and become pariahs unjustly subjected to dreadful persecution? If Heaven wins it gets rid of the worst excesses and enforces stability, but that status quo will still be unjust, and suffering will still abound in the long term.

    If we ally with the Blood Path, then we burn any diplomatic bridges we have left, become complicit in the slaughter of millions (or perhaps billions, given enough time) of innocents, and we commit ourselves to a conflict we're not ready for. While we might win riches, we might also lose the best seeds of the next generation, and even if we have victory there'll still be a need for further war and bloodshed against the Blood Path once all this is over.

    Allying with the righteous sects is safer in the short term, but if we can't outpace heaven's curses upon us then we'll be consigning ourselves to inevitable extinction with no hope of survival. I guess this partly comes down both to whether or not we're prepared to gamble our survival on this, and whether we're prepared to commit atrocities for the 'greater good' or not.

    So, we need to decide both whether we're willing to gamble in a desperate war that may increase the chances of our survival, and whether we're prepared to pay the price in innocent blood if we do.
     
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    Resonant said:
    The Demonic Altar are the main offenders for mortal predation though. Curbing their appetite would objectively be a greater good for the region. We're not convincing them to stop using their cultivation method, that's impossible. We're moderating their rampage in exchange for giving them some breathing room, while we grow powerful enough to contest Heaven and end the need for Blood Path itself, by gaining enough strength to fight both eventually.
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    How are we going to moderate this though
     
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