Ignition (MTG/Multicross, Planeswalker PC)

[curiosity]

And we really don't want the aliens capturing and analyzing us. They're insanely good at genetic engineering. We'd probably manage to escape, but even bleeding could have bad results.

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The aliens already have Agni-grade augments (Chosen) and our current vessel isn't immortal. The more critical tech we represent is invulnerable Soul Gem.

 

[AramilOniasha]

Except he either escaped their control, or was never actually mind-controlled in XCOM 2, because he actually helped you out a lot. The

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My guess is escaped, because a single Sectoid Commander can't keep Optimus Prime controlled for very long.
But on a more serious note, I'm pretty sure everything after the attack on the XCOMHQ wasn't actually real and that they captured the commander as the first thing, before the actual attack.

 

[Yog]

The things Astra might be able to do with Meld are genuinely mind-boggling. And throwing in EXALT as a rebel faction is pretty sweet, too.

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I'm not sure what you mean. Meld is a fairly generic nanotech which allows one to do genetic tinkering, cybernetics and cross-species transplantation with otherwise relatively low tech.

Agneyastra is picotech, and our body already uses stuff more advanced than Meld for blood equivalent.

 

[curiosity]

I'm not sure what you mean. Meld is a fairly generic nanotech which allows one to do genetic tinkering, cybernetics and cross-species transplantation with otherwise relatively low tech.

Agneyastra is picotech, and our body already uses stuff more advanced than Meld for blood equivalent.

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Sounds like it would let us make body modifications live instead of requiring a body swap. May be particularly useful for our project on Remnant.

 

[fictionfan]

I am very hopeful that Mom will be able to absorb the tech and upgrade her already formidable E-warfare abilities. Not that hopeful about the soul magic because that really has not been a focus for us. Still anything that we can steal we can give to labs in Rement and see if they can improve on it.

 

[curiosity]

You wouldn't have technological superiority there

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You can see that the Sleeper has already made it difficult for you to help XCOM

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Of course, the Sleeper won't have made that easy. I suspect they'll be distrustful of space-princesses bearing gifts. So, I'm thinking we either start our faction, or take over/ally with an existing one. EXALT is a pretty good choice for the former option, being kinda...amoral-to-evil, and thus good to conquer, and the Templars for the second, because they're enlightened psions, and would probably be able to verify we want to help.

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especially since both side will mistake her for an enemy, XCOM because of Sleeper and ADVENT because they know she's not one of theirs

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Solution: if you can't be a benevolent alien overlord, be a goddess. And once we get the hang of the worship thing, we would be able to back up the claim.

 

[fictionfan]

Solution: if you can't be a benevolent alien overlord, be a goddess. And once we get the hang of the worship thing, we would be able to back up the claim.

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After reading one of Ignitions many Goddess debates I figured that the question of definition of a God from the perspective of a mortal is actually easier then we were thinking. You only need two things everything else is an optional extra.

1. The ability to hear and answer prayers. Edit: Thinking some more, even this might be optional. After all kings receive requests and reports as well.
2. The ability to grant access to an afterlife. Either one made and maintained by yourself or otherwise.

Everything else is an optional extra, but if you look at mortal god interactions in every religion I can think of these things are assumed. Or at least for every religion that bothers worshiping the God at all. And given that we are after worship for the power up we should try and figure out these two abilities as fast as we can.

People don't really care if you are a God in some abstract sense. They care what it means for them.

 

[Carrnage]

My muse and I are unusually impatient, so I'll just post this and start the next update operating under the assumption Jade will be staying in Magnostadt. Voting is not locked and can be flipped to "leave." Either way, this is what Jade will see in place of Avatar when she next visits Eternity.

---

A world of White, and... honestly, it's a weird one. Aliens — and not of the human variety — seem to have conquered this Earth some few decades before, instituting a global government known as the ADVENT Coalition. Despite their rather dubious methods of initially asserting control, they actually seem to have been doing a pretty good job — mostly. The alien spiritual (and effective) leaders, the Elders, seem to be outright dead. The Elders are, of course, refusing to properly acknowledge this fact and are doing everything they can to prevent their proper passage onward. As expected, their continued efforts to cling to (un?)life have rewarded mixed results. Their mastery of soul magic may let them offload the damage of transfer onto the bodies they migrate into rather than doing further damage to their own souls, but dodging said damage leaves their vessels as withered, dying husks.

Unfortunately for the human race, these transfers mean taking human vessels. The Elders do, to their credit, seem to be working on a more permanent solution, but in the meantime, they basically require sacrifices of some two thousand humans every single week. Oh, they hide the disappearances under the guise of permanent military service with invasive adjustments, terrorist attacks, or "leaving the cities on relief missions," but you can see where their victims are actually going. The soldiers allegedly join the faceless masses of genetically modified soldiers and the volunteers are "killed by dissidents."

Fortunately for your state of mind, the Elders aren't operating unopposed. A rebel (or possibly terrorist if you believe ADVENT) group known as XCOM (Extraterrestrial Combat Unit) is doing their utmost to not only violently oppose the alien threat, but also learn from their technologies and mastery of soul magic. You can't tell if the Elders are leaving XCOM alive simply so they have high-profile scapegoats or if XCOM is genuinely competent enough to avoid destruction. Either way, XCOM honestly doesn't seem to be accomplishing all that much in the way of solid victories. Ones good for morale, sure, but they haven't done real damage since they lost the support of Earth's old governments two decades ago.

You think Mom might actually want you to visit this plane, albeit maybe without all your friends. You wouldn't have technological superiority there, only the results of a separate technological path. Although their path looks like one of the ones that ends in self-destruction, you can steal the stones from their road to improve your own.

However, it doesn't look as though you'll be able to just waltz into an ADVENT city and grab anything shiny. Identity scanners are as common as lightposts and obtaining ID requires, among other things, a brain implant. Or the implant might be the ID. It's hard to tell, honestly. It's a good thing much of the human race still lives outside ADVENT's cities; them, you'll be able to roam freely among. Well, mostly. Some rather unpleasant groups have formed in the absence of governments to stop them. XCOM does support order in some areas, but only in Europe and northern Africa. Their efforts to expand further are ongoing.

There are also six other major resistance factions, albeit ones which aren't as individually powerful as XCOM — which is a bit sad, actually, since XCOM isn't doing too well either. Anyway, the Templar are soul mages willing to embrace madness and other assorted side effects in the name of unlocking further power, EXALT is obsessed with general improvement of human bodies and views the Elders as selfishly interfering, the Skirmishers are those few people who were modified for military service before managing to fight off the accompanying indoctrination, the Pilgrims spread resistance propaganda within ADVENT cities and help extract rebel sympathizers, the Council is a loose network of spies working within ADVENT while feeding information to the other groups, and the Reapers are expert scouts fond of sneaking in and blowing things up.

There's an irritatingly complicated web of who dislikes who, too, which mostly seems caused by their tendency to trip over one another. The fact that ADVENT can tear intelligence from the minds of their captives makes the various factions fear sharing operational details with the others, but in the absence of such? It isn't unheard of for Reapers to assassinate Councillors, Skirmishers to inadvertently draw attention to areas Pilgrims were canvassing, Templar to eliminate alien-modified humans EXALT wanted to study, and so on. You think it'll take you time to puzzle out the full web of likes and dislikes. The various factions are sometimes willing to put aside their differences for sufficiently large operations, but XCOM is usually used as an intermediary and the cooperation is always temporary.

If you want to be absolutely honest, you're not sure who or what you should be helping here, if anyone. The Elders are responsible for some genuinely horrifying atrocities, including ones which filled Earth's old cities with hordes of non-infectious zombies, but ADVENT is, for the most part, a successful post-scarcity society. If you can help the Elders sort out their whole undeath issue, they might create a genuine utopia.

...Well, maybe. The Elders do have a seven-member black ops group comprised of ludicrously enhanced former humans. You don't think their artificial vessels are better than yours, but they might be equal and the effective range of their Soul Obelisks(???) lets them maintain control across the continent they're stationed on. At any rate, this group is known as the Elder's Chosen, or Chosen for short. They're all religious fanatics, sociopaths, psychopaths, megalomaniacs, battle junkies, or some combination of the above, with individual kill counts in the hundreds or even thousands. You're not sure if their insanity is due to the slow soul degradation from their vessel swaps, which they seem to get about a dozen of, or if the Elders decided to upgrade a group of crazy people. Maybe both? Either way, they tend toward being rather territorial and don't team up even when their Obelisk-ranges overlap.

Most importantly, the Chosen have been promised personal rule over large swaths of Earth once the Elders sort out their whole death problem. You think the Hunter would turn his territory into some twisted human hunting reserve, the Missionary would cheerfully twist and rewrite the minds of her victims until they unknowingly reenact various stories, the Warlock would have much worse views on religion and respect than even Mom started with, the Scholar would perform all manner of gruesomely unethical experiments, the Seer would make personal freedom into a... wait, never mind, she died instantly after attacking the Elders or something. So make that six Chosen. Anyway, you have trouble looking at the Assassin and the shapeshifting Sleeper, so you're not sure what they'd do.

You can see that the Sleeper has already made it difficult for you to help XCOM; in Sleeper's early days, it posed as a humanoid (female) envoy from a star-spanning civilization willing to discreetly help XCOM as part of its cold war against the "Ethereals," the alleged true name of the Elders. The damage Sleeper did upon betraying them immediately reduced XCOM from seven bases to five, which soon dropped to four due to supply issues. Sleeper hasn't done anything quite so overtly damaging since then, but it does seem to extract particular delight from attacking XCOM recruitment drives. The various resistance factions may have melee-range (and for XCOM & EXALT, drone-mounted) scanners capable of detecting the nature of Sleeper, but they're exactly that: melee range. If Sleeper spots one of the scanners, it usually just tosses a plasma grenade at the closest group of sympathizers, shoots the scanner-wielder a few times, and runs like hell. At least the Sleeper has died a good seven or eight times so far, the highest out of any of the Chosen. Sadly, the resistance doesn't realize the Sleeper has a limited number of vessel swaps and views it as an undying bogeyman.

It doesn't help that the previously mentioned scanners seem to use the presence of a soul to determine whether a given person is the Sleeper in disguise. You think it could detect your Soul Gem if you were to show it to them, but they'd probably be shooting by then. XCOM and EXALT have even started designing their drones to immediately attack or outright detonate upon detecting someone without a soul. You can't even go to an outpost beyond the Sleeper's range since it is the only Chosen to appear all across the globe. Maybe because the other Chosen view it with scorn and don't view the Sleeper as a real competitor? You're still not sure how its Obelisk is supposed to move, though. It has to be a different design, you're sure of that much.

On a related note, XCOM is now down to two stationary bases, both of which are closer to supply depots (or expendable bait), and a flying command cruiser — the Avenger — stolen from the aliens, which is stealthed and most definitely not expendable. If the Avenger falls, XCOM would be left headless and helpless. This, more than anything else, makes you suspect the Elders are deliberately leaving them alive. XCOM was dismantled with brutal efficiency initially, but the Elders were stopped just short of the death blow? It just smells fishy to you.

Even before they got truly desperate, XCOM fell firmly among those believing the ends justify the means. They're not above using a combination of torture and mental deconstruction on human ADVENT officials in order to obtain information, to say nothing of what they do to captured aliens.

...Which ADVENT apparently does right back to them, or maybe even did first, but... ugh. You don't want to think too hard about this, but you suspect you will anyway. You can at least give them credit for not taking the easy way out and only calling it necessary; they're not above incorporating alien genetic modifications into volunteers with the assistance of nanomachines known as Meld. Not to the experimental extremes EXALT goes to, mind, but you still respect the courage involved there. If EXALT's means weren't even worse than XCOM's, you'd respect them, too; some of their volunteers replace their entire bodies from the neck down with robotic parts just so they can better fight ADVENT.

The mana levels of this third Earth are, for most of the world, rather abysmal, but you think it's worth noting that the Avenger somehow produces somewhere between four and eight motes. You're not sure why you'd be able to bond to it when the same doesn't hold true for your pendant. If it's a mana generator, why can you bond to it? And if it's a land, why can it move?

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hopefully wed be able to steal an avatar body for mom to to reverse engineer buffing our next vessels.

 

[Nele]

[X] Wait until your next scheduled planeswalk to see what's happening. It's not as though you could do anything with the knowledge anyway. The stupid Jewel Seed incident is already dominating your schedule.

 

[Torgamous]

So it's just like MGLN, Remnant, PMMM, and Avatar.

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This has always said PMMM I didn't get canon confused with a quest why would you suggest such a thing

 

[Vebyast]

As for it being out-of-place, that was actually my initial reaction. Like...as a plane in this setting, it feels weird. Even Girl Genius has magic, even if some, possibly most of it, is sufficiently advanced science. But the Psionics of XCOM just...doesn't feel much like mana magic, to me. I guess I can see it being made more like mana magic, but it would require major changes. Honestly, I'm kinda surprised it's not a seperate magic system (unless I'm wrong, and it actually is one).

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Mana magic is foundational, but there are plenty of power sources that can contest it. For example, the vast majority of Earthland runs ethernano instead of mana magic, and PMMM was entirely soul-powered instead of mana. XCOM seems to understand soul-tech well enough that they can build it into expendable munitions (drones that explode on detecting something that doesn't have a soul) and hand-held scanners, which fits perfectly well.

On XCOM-Earth itself... yeah, we're burning it all to the ground and taking over. The aliens are evil assholes; Jade mentions that fixing their death issues might mellow them out a bit, but I kind of doubt that XCOM were the ones that started committing atrocities, and regardless of the original circumstances they're by now too entrenched to be fixed. The terrorists that're against them are similar; just look at how how hard it is to fix this kind of thing when it happens IRL.

We probably can't waltz in and solo ADVENT the way we can take most places, but I'm sure that we shouldn't have too much trouble intercepting and murdering the quirky miniboss squadChosen, assassinating the heads of the various terrorist organizations, and installing AIs in places to set up our own faction. This... honestly seems like a nice place to go if we just want to punch evil in the face and have it mean something, and I think that I'm on board for that plan if we want to train up before the jewel seeds.

 

[Sapient_Ham]

We probably can't waltz in and solo ADVENT the way we can take most places, but I'm sure that we shouldn't have too much trouble intercepting and murdering the quirky miniboss squadChosen, assassinating the heads of the various terrorist organizations, and installing AIs in places to set up our own faction. This... honestly seems like a nice place to go if we just want to punch evil in the face and have it mean something, and I think that I'm on board for that plan if we want to train up before the jewel seeds.

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Before JS? Please, no. The schedule can't take any more of this horrible abuse. Someone's going to have to stage an intervention, at this rate.

 

[Torgamous]

I'm sure that we shouldn't have too much trouble intercepting and murdering the quirky miniboss squadChosen, assassinating the heads of the various terrorist organizations, and installing AIs in places to set up our own faction.

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I'd be more comfortable treating the race that built the Temple Ship as Agni-tier until proven otherwise. No leaving AIs lying around to be hacked, and treat the Chosen as the badass transhuman warriors they almost certainly are.

 

[Nixeu]

So it's just like MGLN, Remnant, PMMM, and Avatar.

I think it's quite a nice addition. It doesn't take much to give the aliens relative parity with the Agni, and doing so doesn't push anything else above the threshold where we just want to hide from the plane until we're able to pull Calypso out of Hell and build a new one just for her roll over the main attractions on the way to the big fish. And, hell, maybe that hook at the end can be spun to be about the Eldrazi.

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...And not into a reference to the original sequel? Which it clearly is?

The aliens already have Agni-grade augments (Chosen) and our current vessel isn't immortal. The more critical tech we represent is invulnerable Soul Gem.

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I...don't know if I'd call the Chosen our equals, unless they got buffed. They're surprisingly squishy in the games...though that might have something to do with my tendency towards overwhelming firepower and really good snipers and CQC experts.

My guess is escaped, because a single Sectoid Commander can't keep Optimus Prime controlled for very long.
But on a more serious note, I'm pretty sure everything after the attack on the XCOMHQ wasn't actually real and that they captured the commander as the first thing, before the actual attack.

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The answer is "splitting timelines", or the simulation thing, from what I recall. Which makes sense. Telling your fans outright that the last game didn't happen kinda tends to tick them off. So, people are free to go with the earlier "different timeline" thing from interviews, or the "simulation" explanation, if they want.

I'm not sure what you mean. Meld is a fairly generic nanotech which allows one to do genetic tinkering, cybernetics and cross-species transplantation with otherwise relatively low tech.

Agneyastra is picotech, and our body already uses stuff more advanced than Meld for blood equivalent.

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Ah, but the Meld works on existing systems. Quite well, in-fact. And the Meld was able to achieve quite impressive things in the hands of the Ethereals, was it not? I believe Astra could probably use it to modify Artificial Vessels without necessitating a Vessel change.

I am very hopeful that Mom will be able to absorb the tech and upgrade her already formidable E-warfare abilities. Not that hopeful about the soul magic because that really has not been a focus for us. Still anything that we can steal we can give to labs in Rement and see if they can improve on it.

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That's the other thing. They have really good data on psionics. They use it as we would radio waves, or other electromagnetic forms of wireless communications. That's pretty valuable tech, I think.

Solution: if you can't be a benevolent alien overlord, be a goddess. And once we get the hang of the worship thing, we would be able to back up the claim.

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"Sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Unlikely to work. Especially since the "Elders" are basically worshipped like gods. That's going to make it a hard sell.

Mana magic is foundational, but there are plenty of power sources that can contest it. For example, the vast majority of Earthland runs ethernano instead of mana magic, and PMMM was entirely soul-powered instead of mana. XCOM seems to understand soul-tech well enough that they can build it into expendable munitions (drones that explode on detecting something that doesn't have a soul) and hand-held scanners, which fits perfectly well.

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Oh yeah. The data on psionics is going to be delicious. Especially the technological means of awakening, amplifying, and channeling it.

On XCOM-Earth itself... yeah, we're burning it all to the ground and taking over. The aliens are evil assholes; Jade mentions that fixing their death issues might mellow them out a bit, but I kind of doubt that XCOM were the ones that started committing atrocities, and regardless of the original circumstances they're by now too entrenched to be fixed. The terrorists that're against them are similar; just look at how how hard it is to fix this kind of thing when it happens IRL.

We probably can't waltz in and solo ADVENT the way we can take most places, but I'm sure that we shouldn't have too much trouble intercepting and murdering the quirky miniboss squadChosen, assassinating the heads of the various terrorist organizations, and installing AIs in places to set up our own faction. This... honestly seems like a nice place to go if we just want to punch evil in the face and have it mean something, and I think that I'm on board for that plan if we want to train up before the jewel seeds.

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Uh...the "terrorist" organizations are the resistance forces. The Reapers, Skirmishers, Templars, and Councilers? They're not irredeemably evil, by any means. Pilgrims sound like good guys, too. Killing them is not going to help things. EXALT...are definitely more of a problem, though. Wouldn't mind wiping them out. They're fanatics who gene-mod to a point Vahlen finds excessive and immoral. And she jams sh*t in alien's brains to get information out of said brain.

I'd be more comfortable treating the race that built the Temple Ship as Agni-tier until proven otherwise. No leaving AIs lying around to be hacked, and treat the Chosen as the badass transhuman warriors they almost certainly are.

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Seconded. They've got a galactic empire, from what we know. They're not pushovers. They're only particularly interested in Earth because humans have (relatively) powerful and healthy bodies, and the capacity for psionics. They're the vessels the Ethereals have been conquering and experimenting to find for the last several...centuries, let's say. Possibly millennia.

 

[Vebyast]

Before JS? Please, no. The schedule can't take any more of this horrible abuse. Someone's going to have to stage an intervention, at this rate.

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I'd prefer to have at least some combat experience, and knocking over an ADVENT patrol or small installation should be possible, rather safer than anything we could do on Velgarth, Earthland, or Remnant, and morally uncomplicated. They are not superior to our tech, only on par, and we are waaaay stronger than would be suggested by our tech level alone. @Alivaril: If Agneyastra knew there was a fight on, how hard would it be for her to win a fight against a Stalker-equivalent air superiority fighter? How close would it be?

Seconded. They've got a galactic empire, from what we know. They're not pushovers. They're only particularly interested in Earth because humans have (relatively) powerful and healthy bodies, and the capacity for psionics. They're the vessels the Ethereals have been conquering and experimenting to find for the last several...centuries, let's say. Possibly millennia.

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I'm going to be honest, sometimes it feels like there's nothing in this entire multiverse that we can consider actually doing something about because even the most pathetic of mooks are wanked like they're physical deities on the level of Earthland's high-end deities.

We took a Djinn, in the middle of his tower, and it wasn't even fair; if we'd been out to kill him instead of stealing his stuff, we'd have just shot him in the head after landing Spellsteal. I doubt there are more than a dozen magical girls on Earth that could survive a couple salvos from Agneyastra. And that's not even taking into account the Stalker, which is, let's remember, a top-tier air-superiority platform from a tech-base that is on par with Elder tech. Look:

If Sleeper spots one of the scanners, it usually just tosses a plasma grenade at the closest group of sympathizers, shoots the scanner-wielder a few times, and runs like hell.

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Plasma grenade! We can do that kind of thing at will, cheap enough that we barely have to care about the cost, and fast enough to beat someone that's trying to draw a sword on us. And running like hell when faced with a patrol with a scanner. Not "vanishing", not "teleporting away", not "disappearing into the shadows and killing them one by one", not even "running away, then coming back to pick them off with a sniper rifle" - it lobs a grenade at the nearest cluster, kills the guy with the scanner so it can't be followed, books it, and doesn't come back. So, what, the single most feared element of the quirky miniboss squad can't reliably take a foot patrol when it has total surprise?

Edit:

Uh...the "terrorist" organizations are the resistance forces. The Reapers, Skirmishers, Templars, and Councilers? They're not irredeemably evil, by any means. Pilgrims sound like good guys, too. Killing them is not going to help things. EXALT...are definitely more of a problem, though. Wouldn't mind wiping them out. They're fanatics who gene-mod to a point Vahlen finds excessive and immoral. And she jams sh*t in alien's brains to get information out of said brain.

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The pilgrims are not explicitly listed as being a Problem, but...

There's an irritatingly complicated web of who dislikes who, too, which mostly seems caused by their tendency to trip over one another. The fact that ADVENT can tear intelligence from the minds of their captives makes the various factions fear sharing operational details with the others, but in the absence of such? It isn't unheard of for Reapers to assassinate Councillors, Skirmishers to inadvertently draw attention to areas Pilgrims were canvassing, Templar to eliminate alien-modified humans EXALT wanted to study, and so on. You think it'll take you time to puzzle out the full web of likes and dislikes. The various factions are sometimes willing to put aside their differences for sufficiently large operations, but XCOM is usually used as an intermediary and the cooperation is always temporary.

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That "and so on" makes it pretty clear to me that the paragraph ran out of space, not that the Pilgrims aren't doing the same crap.

 

[Nixeu]

I'm going to be honest, sometimes it feels like there's nothing in this entire multiverse that we can consider actually doing something about because even the most pathetic of mooks are wanked like they're physical deities on the level of Earthland's high-end deities.

We took a Djinn, in the middle of his tower, and it wasn't even fair; if we'd been out to kill him instead of stealing his stuff, we'd have just shot him in the head after landing Spellsteal. I doubt there are more than a dozen magical girls on Earth that could survive a couple salvos from Agneyastra. And that's not even taking into account the Stalker, which is, let's remember, a top-tier air-superiority platform from a tech-base that is on par with Elder tech. Look:

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...*sigh*

...This pissed me off significantly more that I think it should. But we literally just had a plane removed because it was too easy, and you think considering the replacement to be challenging is "wanking pathetic mooks"? I am having serious trouble staying even remotely polite right now.

On an individual fight scale, we're definitely able to hold our own. But they have more toys than us. Six people with amped-up soul magic and bodies is not something we're going to be able to beat with just the three of us. One, certainly, but not all six. And they have a whole hell of a lot more bodies and resources to throw at problems we do. Jade and company can win battles just fine. Winning the war is just a bit more complicated.

Plasma grenade! We can do that kind of thing at will, cheap enough that we barely have to care about the cost, and fast enough to beat someone that's trying to draw a sword on us. And running like hell when faced with a patrol with a scanner. Not "vanishing", not "teleporting away", not "disappearing into the shadows and killing them one by one", not even "running away, then coming back to pick them off with a sniper rifle" - it lobs a grenade at the nearest cluster, kills the guy with the scanner so it can't be followed, books it, and doesn't come back. So, what, the single most feared element of the quirky miniboss squad can't reliably take a foot patrol when it has total surprise?

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I'm not super worried about the Sleeper, if that's the case. She's an infiltrator, not a warrior, and she's the one who's died the most. But the Assassin does stealth incredibly well, and the Hunter's a ridiculously good shot. And the Warlock would hide in the shadows and throw summons at you, and raise the dead.

I'd also like to point out that, if that's "all it can do" and it's that feared, maybe you're missing something.

The pilgrims are not explicitly listed as being a Problem, but...
That "and so on" makes it pretty clear to me that the paragraph ran out of space, not that the Pilgrims aren't doing the same crap.

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Given that I see absolutely no behavior in that paragraph that warrants out-and-out murder, I fail to see your point. That they're tripping over one another just means they need to coordinate better. Not that they're somehow worthy of death.

 

[Torgamous]

So, what, the single most feared element of the quirky miniboss squad can't reliably take a foot patrol when it has total surprise?

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As you've noted, their tech base is on par with ours. That should make their quirky minibosses more dangerous than Jail's, since he's only got scraps of ours to work with. So, either the foot patrols are more dangerous than you give them credit for, which given the presence of Meld augmentation isn't out of the question, or this behavior is out of choice rather than necessity, or some combination of the two.

I'm going to be honest, sometimes it feels like there's nothing in this entire multiverse that we can consider actually doing something about because even the most pathetic of mooks are wanked like they're physical deities on the level of Earthland's high-end deities.

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I don't understand why you feel that way or why that's relevant to the Chosen. XCOM has actual mooks. If you want to abduct a muton to wrestle I'm game.

 

[Alivaril]

I...don't know if I'd call the Chosen our equals, unless they got buffed. They're surprisingly squishy in the games...though that might have something to do with my tendency towards overwhelming firepower and really good snipers and CQC experts.

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Spoiler: OOC XCOM

Try fighting them on a higher difficulty without magnetic weapons or convenient cars to detonate with a Reaper. 30 or more HP on their first appearance, which occurs when you have 3-4 damage weapons? It can rapidly become a horror show, no buffs needed.

...I mean, I'm neither confirming nor denying if I did, I'm just saying they stop being pushovers on higher difficulties.

Jade thinks (or will think) their vessels may, at the least, be equal to her own. Whether they'll actually be able to put up a fight or beat her is a different story. At worst, Jade thinks she could just 'walk out; Barrier Jackets make wonderful safety vests.


(Also, @Vebyast, please tone it down. I know you're frustrated, but you're being needlessly hostile. Remember to eat if you haven't.)

Alivaril: If Agneyastra knew there was a fight on, how hard would it be for her to win a fight against a Stalker-equivalent air superiority fighter? How close would it be?

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Air battles against mass-based weaponry, of which Stalkers used to make heavy use of, were (sometimes) literal missile tag. If Agneyastra landed a hit, the Stalker would be heavily damaged or outright destroyed. If the Stalker landed a hit, Agneyastra's avatar would need to be remade, but that wouldn't take long. A 1v1 against such agile opponents is more-than-less a nightmare scenario for all those involved.

That being said, Agneyastra is now capable of simultaneously piloting the Stalker and her own avatar, so she basically wins by default. If it wasn't available, she could almost certainly dodge the armaments of an enemy Stalker until she was the only one still armed. They were not designed for 1v1 combat; Stalker squadrons used missiles to make dodging impossible via saturated fire, making them much less effective when there aren't enough of them to prevent dodging.

TL;DR: Agneyastra wins that one. With XCOM2, you're more likely to fight something similar to light cruisers, though, which were more heavily armored than agile aannnnnd Agneyastra would still win against. It's when heavy cruisers or light battlecruisers show up that she losses the ability to do meaningful damage, but she could still dodge just fine.

Anyway, g'night all!

 

[Yog]

I'd prefer to have at least some combat experience, and knocking over an ADVENT patrol or small installation should be possible, rather safer than anything we could do on Velgarth, Earthland, or Remnant, and morally uncomplicated. They are not superior to our tech, only on par, and we are waaaay stronger than would be suggested by our tech level alone. @Alivaril: If Agneyastra knew there was a fight on, how hard would it be for her to win a fight against a Stalker-equivalent air superiority fighter? How close would it be?

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I know this was said by GM but... I still am having problems with this - because nothing I remember from XCOM suggests anything on par with even canon MGLN, much less what we have access to here.

As to "knocking over an ADVENT patrol"... Why? If we know of Elders' issues, would it not be more reasonable to contact them?

 

[Nixeu]

As you've noted, their tech base is on par with ours. That should make their quirky minibosses more dangerous than Jail's, since he's only got scraps of ours to work with. So, either the foot patrols are more dangerous than you give them credit for, which given the presence of Meld augmentation isn't out of the question, or this behavior is out of choice rather than necessity, or some combination of the two.

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Alternatively, much like many who are specialized for infiltration, getting found out kinda f*cks up the Sleeper's plots. Her name seems to come from the term "sleeper agent", so it's entirely possible her thing is infiltration and disruption via psionics. Stuff like making Resistance forces switch sides or attack one another.

Not everyone is part of the big resistance forces, so they may not all have the tech to detect the Sleeper. And she could easily have the people of that outfit then join another resistance outfit, including the big ones...with planted compulsions to sabotage sh*t. Which would explain the reputation.

Air battles against mass-based weaponry, of which Stalkers used to make heavy use of, were (sometimes) literal missile tag. If Agneyastra landed a hit, the Stalker would be heavily damaged or outright destroyed. If the Stalker landed a hit, Agneyastra's avatar would need to be remade. A 1v1 against such agile opponents is more-than-less a nightmare scenario for all those involved.

That being said, Agneyastra is now capable of simultaneously piloting the Stalker and her own avatar, so she basically wins by default. If it wasn't available, she could almost certainly dodge the armaments of an enemy Stalker until she was the only one still armed. They were not designed for 1v1 combat; Stalker squadrons used missiles to make dodging impossible via saturated fire, making them much less effective when there aren't enough of them to prevent dodging.

TL;DR: Agneyastra wins that one. With XCOM2, you're more likely to fight something similar to light cruisers, though, which were more heavily armored than agile aannnnnd Agneyastra would still win against. It's when heavy cruisers or light battlecruisers show up that she losses the ability to do meaningful damage, but she could still dodge just fine.

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Sounds about right. Issue is, they actually have a fleet. Quite a large one. And we're unlikely to be getting one to that plane anytime soon. So, the more subtle approach seems warranted, lest they call in the fleet.

I know this was said by GM but... I still am having problems with this - because nothing I remember from XCOM suggests anything on par with even canon MGLN, much less what we have access to here.

As to "knocking over an ADVENT patrol"... Why? If we know of Elders' issues, would it not be more reasonable to contact them?

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They're willing to mulch an egregious number of people to make shiny new bodies, and have conquered, enslaved, experimented on, and weaponized, multiple sentient species, over the course of centuries. Mostly for their own benefit, so far as we know. There's been implications that there's something worse than them that's looming, some unknown threat, which is driving them to find new hosts, but nothing confirmed. And even then, the idea that they did all of that out of some desire to save the species they tortured and warped to their own ends is very difficult to believe. Either way, they're in it for themselves. I'd really rather not work with them, thanks.

As for them being equal to MGLN, it might be more accurate to say each is the master of their own fields. Their tech is wildly divergent, to say the least, given how much both depend on Linker Cores and Psionics, respectively. But War of the Chosen does show off the alien's tech quite a bit more than the base game did, and it is pretty impressive. And it was always kind of implied that they could be pulling their punches, either to gather data, or because the Ethereals' attentions are elsewhere, depending on the game.

 

[Torgamous]

nothing I remember from XCOM suggests anything on par with even canon MGLN

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The Temple Ship is on par with the Saint's Cradle and the rest is canonically sandbagging.

 

[Carrnage]

Whatever else we need to get data from the avenger any lead on mana generating ships could lead to our own variants.

I totally want a mana generating flagship that produces a mote of each colour.

 

[Nixeu]

The Temple Ship is on par with the Saint's Cradle and the rest is canonically sandbagging.

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In the first game, anyway. Second game is a bit more iffy, and "sandbagging" might not be the right word. Seems more like their leadership is just not leading very effectively or attentively, which would make sense. They're busy trying to fix their host issues. And, of course, their previous tactical and strategic calculator is now working against them, which can't help.

That said, living swarms of nanotech that replicate abilities, portals, endless revival machines, and instant teleportation are all pretty decent feats, technologically. Their weapons tech is definitely on the weak side, but that's always struck me as simply being because they see no need to develop it much further. It serves their purposes pretty nicely as is, and they have other goals to reach.

It's also entirely possible the Ethereals are their main R&D guys, and their focus would almost exclusively be on fixing their body issues. Hell, they may just steal their non-psionic/bio tech from captured species, or use scientists from conquered species to develop it. It would explain a lot. And they do seem to be using human experts to help them out on Earth.

Whatever else we need to get data from the avenger any lead on mana generating ships could lead to our own variants.

I totally want a mana generating flagship that produces a mote of each colour.

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It does sound like it's worth investigating. The Avenger was a repurposed alien aircraft, with a somewhat unusual-looking power-source. It could very well be from the reactor. Which would be pretty sweet, if that's the case.

 

[Vebyast]

Alternatively, much like many who are specialized for infiltration, getting found out kinda f*cks up the Sleeper's plots. Her name seems to come from the term "sleeper agent", so it's entirely possible her thing is infiltration and disruption via psionics. Stuff like making Resistance forces switch sides or attack one another.

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On an individual fight scale, we're definitely able to hold our own. But they have more toys than us. Six people with amped-up soul magic and bodies is not something we're going to be able to beat with just the three of us. One, certainly, but not all six. And they have a whole hell of a lot more bodies and resources to throw at problems we do. Jade and company can win battles just fine. Winning the war is just a bit more complicated.

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I think that you missed a few sentences. Specifically:

You don't think their artificial vessels are better than yours, but they might be equal and the effective range of their Soul Obelisks(???) lets them maintain control across the continent they're stationed on.

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One Chosen per continent, their control radii do not extend past their continent, and their vessels are not observably stronger than ours. In fact, in some cases we are demonstrably and significantly superior: again, if the Sleeper was anything like us the response to detection would be "Rip the nearest trooper's head off, throw it through the next-nearest trooper's chest, and proceed to rampage bare-handed through the offending squad turning them into red mist and flying metal fragments". The rest of the Chosen look like they can similarly match or better us in their specialties but are utterly outclassed by us in others. The canon Assassin carries a sword and a shotgun and Agneyatra wins dogfights with air-superiority platforms, the Hunter's aim won't help him when we teleport into melee, I'd be quite surprised if the Missionary can mind-control an air-to-ground missile, etc. The Warlock and the Scholar are probably the most dangerous, and solely because they sound like the ones that focus on hax. And we can just save their continents for later!

I doubt they can OHKO us or lock us into the plane, so if a fight starts going bad we can at worst just Planeswalk out, wait until the next morning for our mana and linker core to regen, and then come back for another go. Planeswalking and the Stalker mean that we can be in and out before capital ships can respond, and even if they do arrive Agneyastra can dodge literally all day. MGLN's tech focuses almost entirely on turning individuals into personal powerhouses. Battles in MGLN are decided by personal duels between the four or five strongest people in-system because those four or five can each mop the floor with every other combat-capable asset in the system. The Saint and the Agni Royal fight, and then whoever wins cleans up other side's army or just accepts their surrender. XCOM-Earth offers nothing that matches the power that a single high-end MGLN mage brings and we're bringing three of them. In short, I'd expect the chosen to be a pain in our ass almost solely because we'll have to kill them a dozen times each.

XCOM-Earth will be difficult primarily because of its scale and the fact that it's a planetary-scale political superfund site. At worst, every time we get into a fight, the Chosen risks a life and we risk that day's mana and that hour's linker core charge. The bigger problem by far will be figuring out how to weaken the various factions enough that we can gain ground with our own. Which is a much more interesting problem anyway, in my opinion.

And I'm not even suggesting getting into that right now. I just want to pop over, knock over some patrols or a few smaller installations, get some harder data on the Chosen, and maybe draw one of them out to test them if it looks favorable. Jade's done a ton of simulation but we haven't had control during a fight in a long, long time, and I am extremely uncomfortable going into the jewel seeds without even one fight under our belts.

 

[Yog]

They're willing to mulch an egregious number of people to make shiny new bodies, and have conquered, enslaved, experimented on, and weaponized, multiple sentient species, over the course of centuries. Mostly for their own benefit, so far as we know. There's been implications that there's something worse than them that's looming, some unknown threat, which is driving them to find new hosts, but nothing confirmed. And even then, the idea that they did all of that out of some desire to save the species they tortured and warped to their own ends is very difficult to believe. Either way, they're in it for themselves. I'd really rather not work with them, thanks.

As for them being equal to MGLN, it might be more accurate to say each is the master of their own fields. Their tech is wildly divergent, to say the least, given how much both depend on Linker Cores and Psionics, respectively. But War of the Chosen does show off the alien's tech quite a bit more than the base game did, and it is pretty impressive. And it was always kind of implied that they could be pulling their punches, either to gather data, or because the Ethereals' attentions are elsewhere, depending on the game.

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Without knowing the level of technological development of the species they conquered, the conquest by itself is a pretty meaningless feat. Their modifications were nothing very impressive, outside of maybe the Chosen. Reliance on psionics (it's soul magic here, right?) is a point, but I'm not sure it's a point in their favor. MGLN nations can manufacture (and implant) linker cores on demand. It's a very important plot point that Etherials cannot engineer "the gift" ex-nihilo, even if they might be able to enhance it in species that already have it naturally. They don't even seem to be able to predict if the species has "gift capacity" without very long, very invasive study.