Nolrai
weak to fangs
- Location
- Porltand
Gosh darn it. I some how managed to miss a non contiguous selection of recent chapters, this has thrown off my ability to tell which one is newer.
Ignition (MTG/Multicross, Planeswalker PC)
- Thread starter Alivaril
- Start date
-
- Tags
- fairy tail magi: the labyrinth of magic magic the gathering magical girl lyrical nanoha (magical girl) puella magi madoka magica rwby alternate universe spoilers unreliable narrator earned your happy middle feedback appreciated life slowly gets better metaknowledge is overrated never too much fire setting knowledge not required this can only end well what could possibly go wrong?
Vebyast
Nascent Transhuman
It's all over Jade's description. Every word she chooses drips with disgust.
Jade can't find a single group that she thinks she wants to help. ADVENT is horrifying, XCOM and EXALT are just as bad if not worse, and not one of the other "resistance" organizations is good enough to be used to contrast. That's why I'm calling them all terrorists. This planet's political landscape needs to be burned to the ground.
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Script Mak3r
(Verified Sun God) (Verified Feathers)
- Location
- Hell of Blazing Fires
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Proposal: Focus on ADVENT first. Inform the resistance groups of this. Note to them that, if they want outright cooperation, they're gonna need to be held to higher moral standards. Maybe also note that such improvements would also be required to not be relegated as... obsolete after the xeno threat is gone.
Torgamous
Aspiring Gynoid
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I don't think we actually have that.
But we can have it. Just let Agneyastra scan enough Gems on PMMM (if not just explicitly gotten from mindcontrolled Kyubey).
Nolrai
weak to fangs
- Location
- Porltand
I think you meant either "automatic immune" or "
I really liked the update and didn't find it more than pleasantly confusing. But I am much more okay with confusion than most people, and had read the front page chatter.
Madou Sutegobana
Autocorrupt has been disabled.
- Location
- Twin Realms Mandala
Strangely enough, I thought the vision was of a future event where we gain access to the X-Com plane, not a warning of it having already suddenly appeared.
- Location
- A Table Near You
I'm against jumping in to poke anything, as well. Going by the plane description, XCOM seems like the most factious, volatile plane we currently have access to, filled with dangerous xenotech and a level of ambient danger only a step down from Thedas. We should have an actual plan before stirring that hornet nest, and a clear schedule in anticipation of the inevitable complications.
My inclination is to save XCOM for after Dragon Age; treat it as a target for tech raiding in the medium term, a complex sociopolitical sandbox in the long term, and possibly an eventual objective for
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Vebyast
Nascent Transhuman
No need to freeze, the place has been stable for decades and I don't think I saw Jade see anything impending.
Let's get more information before making this decision, maybe? Regardless of the precise details of the Chosen we're certainly on or around their level; whether we have trouble killing them or not doesn't change the fact that we will wipe the floor with conventional forces up to regimental or capship size, same way we'd thoroughly trash non-named-character foes on any other plane.
Nixeu
Lord of Madness, Harbinger of Llamas
- Location
- Your nightmares.
Given that we think the Obelisks act like big Soul Gems with massive range, that's not the issue. The issue is that their bodies are failing, and they need new ones that can withstand their psionic power. Assuming the issue is the same as canon, anyway, which it does sound like it is.
...I'm going to try and not bite your head off, here. Jade is...naive. Innocent. Not exactly used to making hard choices that can cost lives. These are people who have been through a lot of sh*t. The sort of sh*t that makes otherwise good people do things they wouldn't otherwise.
And I'm willing to bet you none of those organizations has a kill count matching some of the people you're perfectly willing to not only let live, but help. Including Astra and Rein. You can argue they're not AI, and should know better, that it isn't in their programming...but we both know that, in situations like this, trying to be absolutely ideologically pure and only accepting those with absolutely no skeletons in their closets isn't an option. And that, frankly, people make mistakes, especially when in environments like this one. Like, say, the Numbers.
The double standard I've noticed when it comes to dealing with characters from MGLN who have done terrible things and those in other settings is kind of aggravating. Like, people can kill for all the wrong reasons, and still be good otherwise. Applying it to one setting just because you like the characters there, and not in the ones you have no knowledge of, is really annoying. And yes, I know I've done this a bit myself. Like I said, people make mistakes. But I don't think I've gone quite as far as you have here, V.
More to the point, you're making judgments by reading between the lines of judgements Jade made without meeting any of the people involved. Let's not assume they're irredeemable monsters that need killing until we actually know something about them, shall we?
I was referring to this:
Though, now that I think, objectively it may not be a big number.
Vebyast
Nascent Transhuman
Agneyastra was fucked up by illegal brain surgery and direct orders from a crazy person and has responded fantastically well to ask our intervention.
The Book of Darkness was similarly horribly damaged. Fixing the damage also pretty much zeroed out the likelihood of further offense.
Indira is probably going down. Precia, Jail, and that dude we got a vision of over in Slao are all going down.
If you can show me a straightforward and reliable way to de-radicalize a planet-wide insurgency that hates its enemy enough to gleefully torture captives and keep going through hostile mind-control for twenty years, I'll consider it as a potential solution. How a terrorist organization reached that point only matters insofar as it provides information about the current state of the world and helps us predict how the world will respond to our actions. Right now, XCOM, Exalt, and company all sound like they're awfully solidly set in their ways.
I'm willing to say that we should get more information before we open fire on them, but I fully expect that our first interactions with them will involve stopping them when they try to take advantage of one of our victories to commit some atrocity.
The Book of Darkness was similarly horribly damaged. Fixing the damage also pretty much zeroed out the likelihood of further offense.
Indira is probably going down. Precia, Jail, and that dude we got a vision of over in Slao are all going down.
If you can show me a straightforward and reliable way to de-radicalize a planet-wide insurgency that hates its enemy enough to gleefully torture captives and keep going through hostile mind-control for twenty years, I'll consider it as a potential solution. How a terrorist organization reached that point only matters insofar as it provides information about the current state of the world and helps us predict how the world will respond to our actions. Right now, XCOM, Exalt, and company all sound like they're awfully solidly set in their ways.
I'm willing to say that we should get more information before we open fire on them, but I fully expect that our first interactions with them will involve stopping them when they try to take advantage of one of our victories to commit some atrocity.
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Nixeu
Lord of Madness, Harbinger of Llamas
- Location
- Your nightmares.
Yeah..."gleefully" is not the right word for most of them, if canon is anything to go by. Certainly, the Skirmishers wouldn't be gleeful. They're former ADVENT who managed to remove the mind-control chips. They see the ADVENT troops as kin, albeit brainwashed kin better off dead, an opinion formed from being in their shoes. Don't see the Templars taking joy in it, persay, though they are a tad nuts due to the levels of psionics they're at. Not usually that sort of nuts, though. Reapers...might, their membership is mostly former survivalists, and others who have been through a lot of trauma. Pilgrims and Counsilers don't do much interrogation, I would think. EXALT are bad-crazy, no disagreement.
As for XCom itself...that'd probably be Vahlen. What Vahlen does is incredibly nasty, but it's purely practical. It's not torture in the conventional sense, but merely the process she's refined for pulling information directly from alien brains. It's invasive and painful, don't get me wrong, but it's not derived from hate in any form. Most of the science teams are at least a little horrified by it, much less the troops.
That'd be interrogating aliens or modified ADVENT troopers, by-the-by. As for regular humans, they'd probably be treated quite well, unless, of course, they knew full-well what the aliens are up to. A lot of the resistance is formed from those who saw the reality of what the aliens do with their own two eyes, including, as I said, former ADVENT troopers who had the chips implanted and integrated into their brains ripped out. Most civilians, if captured, would be shown the evidence of what the aliens do. That's usually more than enough to turn someone. If it's not, chances are they're already super indoctrinated by ADVENT.
Similarly, I think only some of the Reapers or EXALT are the sort to actually commit atrocities. Even with the Reapers, they'd probably see it as a waste of time and resources, and a good way to get dead for nothing. ADVENT already spins everything the resistance does into a terrorist attack, so I'd imagine most don't feel a need to prove them right, and probably some need to prove them wrong. Beyond hits on VIPs and civilians caught in crossfire, there ain't a whole lot of point in killing anyone else. Terrorizing the populace does jack-sh*t when you're already made out to be terrifying.
To be clear, "the enemy" for most is the aliens and ADVENT. The civvies in cities are seen as misguided, mostly, and potential recruits if they learn the truth. And there ain't a lot of alien civilians, if any. Same with ADVENT soldiers. And I really don't have a lot of pity for the guys actively and knowingly serving entities who off-handedly sacrifice ~60,000 people a month. The population of a small city.
Edit: It's also kinda implied that ADVENT Burgers are, indeed, made of people. Just to give you some perspective on what they're up against.
Edit 2: Wait...how, exactly, would they be committing atrocities? They, and we, are going to be forced by our lack of numbers to use guerilla tactics. Unless the target itself is to commit an atrocity, that means doing what you came to do, and moving out. This isn't going to be two groups of soldiers standing in a field or in a trench and shooting at each other. Dispersing into the city to commit crimes after winning against the local squads is such a stupid idea that I doubt any of them do it, because reinforcements are probably coming.
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- Location
- Germany
Disclaimer: I played XCOM but only watched a let's play of XCOM 2, so sorry of I mix things up a little.
If Jade takes a bit of time in Eternity to look at their networks, what can she tell us about them? Does she think Agneyastra could get supremacy, or at least stay undetected while data mining? Is the infrastructure electronic or psionic? Does she notice codices?
Her only offense we actually know about is that in the future, she
The Ethereals allow no less than seven resistance groups to exist.
As to visiting the plane... it isn't combat we should be wary about. Yes, our artificial vessel, barrier jacket and shields probably allow Jade to tank against a sectopod. Sidhe will get her Linker Core during the JS incident, so she won't be defenceless.
Our Stalker (mach 13) is on par with a Firestorm from the first game, which can intercept all UFOs:
The real problem are mental/hacking attacks. If there is the slightest risk of our friends, devices, knowledge or technology falling into enemy hands, we shouldn't go anywhere near psionic individuals. On other planes, nobody has both mind control and the tech level to reproduce Agni tech. If the Ethereals get their hands on Agneyastra's database? We condemn that plane by making them basically unbeatable.
Due to that, I definitely support dealing with Thedas first and leaving XCOM for later.
IMHO, the reason the Avenger counts as a land seems simple: it houses a permanent population. The large amount of mana is probably due to the high impact it has on the world.
I propose the following question to Neph:
Nope, your post was within bounds of what Alivaril stated w.r.t. that the new plane will be challenging:
Agneyastra can craft linker core from exotic materials that are no longer in production. Repurposing energy generators is not her preferred technique. To the rest of the plane (minus Jail, who stole the tech, and Indira), linker core creation is a lost art.
Actually, not necessarily. Ancient Belka could have used existing Linker Cores from dying people, so artificial LC could still be an Agni-only tech.
Definitely lost in canon, in MGLN Belka didn't collapse completely so Wilfried may be able to create them from scratch.
The signal carrier is important, because
On that topic, @Alivaril:
If Jade takes a bit of time in Eternity to look at their networks, what can she tell us about them? Does she think Agneyastra could get supremacy, or at least stay undetected while data mining? Is the infrastructure electronic or psionic? Does she notice codices?
That isn't a valid argument as we swore to Sidhe and promised Nanoha to take them with us on our trips:
Since they can't escape via planeswalking, neither can we rely on it. I hope we'll be able to lessen that problem once we learn Thought Projection, since the basic version would be enough for negotiations and Jellal's variant might work for combat.
Jade isn't sure whether to help any group because ADVENT despite its atrocities created a stable society. That doesn't mean that all resistance groups are deplorable.
You did notice that Jade's opinion is more nuanced than that, right? While she calls the acts "plain wrong" and "horrifying atrocities", she still accepts the necessity of some of them and can "respect the courage involved". Jade isn't as naive as you seem to imply.
... apart from ongoing human sacrifices (2000 per week). Still, the death toll of the Blight is higher, so freezing and then visiting Thedas is preferable. Besides, against the darkspawn we have to deal with far less moral dilemmas.
Pardon me, but what? With what army? She's a 400 years old SSS-rank Red mage with incredible mana reserves thanks to artifacts. Oh, and she has the support of a small empire.
Her only offense we actually know about is that in the future, she
Agneyastra warned us because a hostile Indira would be a massive threat, and the thread inflated it into scenarios what she might do. What did she actually do that you would accuse her of?
The Ethereals allow no less than seven resistance groups to exist.
If anyone can retrace ADVENT's reason to keep rebel groups around, it's mom. After all, she is an AI able to advise royal Agni on planetary takeovers and specialized in
Therefore, I definitely want Agneyastra's opinion on why they let XCOM et al. live. Harvesting technological and psionic developments? Keeping unrest to known groups? Excuse to keep recruiting for the military? Scapegoats?
As to visiting the plane... it isn't combat we should be wary about. Yes, our artificial vessel, barrier jacket and shields probably allow Jade to tank against a sectopod. Sidhe will get her Linker Core during the JS incident, so she won't be defenceless.
Our Stalker (mach 13) is on par with a Firestorm from the first game, which can intercept all UFOs:
Speeds from hologlobe flight times said:
The real problem are mental/hacking attacks. If there is the slightest risk of our friends, devices, knowledge or technology falling into enemy hands, we shouldn't go anywhere near psionic individuals. On other planes, nobody has both mind control and the tech level to reproduce Agni tech. If the Ethereals get their hands on Agneyastra's database? We condemn that plane by making them basically unbeatable.
Due to that, I definitely support dealing with Thedas first and leaving XCOM for later.
IMHO, the reason the Avenger counts as a land seems simple: it houses a permanent population. The large amount of mana is probably due to the high impact it has on the world.
I propose the following question to Neph:
3 of 55 voters wanted to visit Avatar on our very first planeswalk, and the plane took fifth place (of nine) on where to visit after our meeting with Olivie. I doubt Neph learned much from her visions of those potential events, and it's been a long time since they lay in the future for her to view, but we may as well ask. After all, she's our only potential source of information on bending now.
Nixeu
Lord of Madness, Harbinger of Llamas
- Location
- Your nightmares.
Thank you for taking the time to verify I did not accidentally break friend's confidence for me. I'd have done it myself, but I've been busy.
...I hadn't thought of that. Thank you.
...I hadn't caught that. That's not an entirely invalid point on Jade's part, either. Their medical technology is absolutely spectacular. With a bit more empathy throughout their command structure, I could definitely see ADVENT becoming something much more utopian. But I don't think I agree that fixing their body issue would fix everything. They are still quite casual with their use of mind-control.
Could be negligence, if they're busy with their own things. It could also be to farm recruits. Mind-control is certainly an option for them, after all. The Chosen Hunter was implied to have been a former Reaper, in his dossier. So it's certainly not outside the realm of possibility that they're looking to train a crop of exceptional soldiers to harvest later.
I...can't really argue with that. I mean, in theory, we could get by if we operated a resistance faction at one remove, basically working with the head of one, or founding one with a head that we then cooperate with. But going into combat ourselves is, indeed, a really bad idea, if they can overwhelm our, or Astra's, defenses, or otherwise capture us.
- Location
- Germany
That's actually a strong indicator that Neph did in fact have visions where we visited Avatar. After all, it's additional information compared to our recent scan from the Blind Eternities, so it had to come from observation from within the plane.
Yeah, I don't think that would work either.
Oh, on comparing their tech level with ours...
- Defensively, LC magic should trump anything below UFO weaponry.
- Offensively, we lack much of the Agni tech base and probably need to slowly whittle their Chosen down.
- We lack data on the e-war capabilities of codices, but once we know their tricks I'd bet on Agneyastra.
- Aircraft tech is probably on par, though we can't bring an Agni fleet to bear and would thus loose in a confrontation.
- Agni artificial vessels are on par with the Chosen.
- Agneyastra's scanners and reverse engineering are unrivaled. The Ethereals needed to lethally process tens of thousands of humans to get the genetic information for the avatar project. We just need to be within 400m to scan biological advantages, and e.g. the sample size of Ethernano wizards was a hundred at most.
Personally, I hope Jade can get her hands on a Cyberdisk. A potential silicon-based organism would be brilliant.
- Location
- A single human dimension
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Jade is pretty sure the Elders spent all their soul-swaps already, thus why she considers them "dead." If they tried to occupy a new body without dodging the soul damage, they'd fully die regardless of their wishes.
In other words, they'd probably need something like the Agni infinite soul-swaps or a vessel they can somehow assume control of without spending a swap they don't have.
._. I know I jumped the gun on sharing this plane, but I'd prefer not to go that far just yet. (She'd need to make a second trip into Eternity to look for any such info.)
Jade is assuming that Nanoha will want to spend some significant time post-JS with her friends and family. Jade is reluctant to bring along Sidhe, but her assistance would be useful in determining whether alien mooks are sapient and/or redeemable. Maybe a copy?
Hopefully, Sidhe would accept being left for a bit to train up her newly-acquired Linker Core Magic.
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- Location
- Germany
Actually, could we covertly eliminate their leadership and take over ADVENT? Get rid of the Ethereals and Chosen, impersonate the Speaker with a governor AI, profit?
We can decry the avatar project as a rogue scientist. It's not as if XCOM didn't have those as well, right, Dr. Vahlen?
I'd want to see XCOM's reaction if we turn ADVENT into actual benevolent alien overlords...
That just gave me the image of an Etheral turning into a MG
Well, when we eventually look at the plane, I'll vote to go right back to Eternity and investigate their networks.
To properly learn LC magic, Sidhe needs two years of remedial maths. Additionally, Sidhe would probably at least want to experience what her copy did. Both problems can be solved with memory banks, which makes improving them even more urgent.
Nontheless, that doesn't change my opinion that we should stay on track (short term todo)
- freeze Thedas
- deal with the jewel seeds
- deal with the book of darkness
- claim MGLN's low hanging fruit before Indira can
- get Sigurd's summoning bond
- visit Thedas
For our XCOM shopping list:
- mass scan humans with psionic potential
- artillery cannon used in the Avenger assault
- inorganic enemies (cyberdisk, codex, spectre)
- meld, elerium
fictionfan
Please sir, may I have some Meows?
- Location
- Tempe, AZ
Also fill in an gaps in our biology knowledge. Also for the sake of our own curiosity compare the history of the 3 Earths. There are political, history and social experts that would give up a limb for this chance.
Also we want their cheap soul scanners. That would be really helpful.
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- Location
- Germany
Melee range scanners that detect the "presence of a soul" are rather limited. Sure, if we can increase the range we have a great scanner for intruders, but as-is we'd need hundreds to secure a perimeter.
I don't think we ever asked Agneyastra whether she has the designs for her own scanners. Planetary range dimensional pulse scan for AA-rank energy signatures, 400m phaseshifted scanner with at least molecular resolution, 20m soul scanner able to detect patterns like the mage gift...
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Nixeu
Lord of Madness, Harbinger of Llamas
- Location
- Your nightmares.
I wouldn't quite call Vahlen a "rogue scientist", barring her actions in Alien Hunters. She was well aware she had a tendency to do immoral things just to see what she could discover. She apparently had the Commander and her other XCom colleagues act as a balance for this. Without them, though...well, she made things which even the Ethereals said "oh hell no" to creating, even though they likely could, for example, make male Vipers.Actually, could we covertly eliminate their leadership and take over ADVENT? Get rid of the Ethereals and Chosen, impersonate the Speaker with a governor AI, profit?
We can decry the avatar project as a rogue scientist. It's not as if XCOM didn't have those as well, right, Dr. Vahlen?
I'd want to see XCOM's reaction if we turn ADVENT into actual benevolent alien overlords...
The funny thing is, that could actually solve their problem. As far as I know, making a new Magical Girl body doesn't actually run down their body swaps, because the Soul Gem is their actual body, and they're just puppeting their MG and normal bodies. I think. I could very well be wrong on that, but I'm pretty sure Homura "died" more than four times, in her dozens of resets.That just gave me the image of an Etheral turning into a MG
Hye
Reader of The Long Words
- Location
- In the middle of a story
You know, I honestly forget that this is a planeswalker fic at times, despite it being right there in the title
Maybe our strategy on XCOM should be something like holding territory (overthrow some warlords or something) and building a functional state, then we can establish ourselves as a regional power and figure out a way to talk to the major powers without putting ourselves directly in the firing line
Yeah, but even considered as a trolley problem, there are lots of things on every other world we can go to that kill more than 2000 people per week. We can't freeze every world forever until we have the maximum ability to deal with their problems. Stable doesn't mean everything's perfect, it means the situation will be basically the same next week as it was last week.
Yeah, but even considered as a trolley problem, there are lots of things on every other world we can go to that kill more than 2000 people per week. We can't freeze every world forever until we have the maximum ability to deal with their problems. Stable doesn't mean everything's perfect, it means the situation will be basically the same next week as it was last week.
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- Location
- ireland