Ignition (MTG/Multicross, Planeswalker PC)

fictionfan · Feb 10, 2019

Yog said:
1) Each Etherial is pretty much a Captain America with cybernetic improvements of their species. We are a young child of our species, barely a decade old, and with far greater potential (which is relatively trivial to show). Assuming etherials are not stupid, and they aren't, they should recognize this, especially if we mention this (that we are a young example of our species, barely into maturity, and that their whole universe, as well as couple of others was chosen as our "nursery" of sorts).
1.5) Actually, yes, if they can do truth detection (should be capable of doing so) "this whole mess you are in was chosen as my training wheels" would be a great argument in favor of treating us respectfully.
2) You misunderstood the argument. Which means I made it badly. I apologize.

My argument is not "what you are doing is morally bad, stop". My argument (to present to them) is framed within their own enlightened self-interest. It is based on the following:

1) We, or rather Empire / whoever set up Earths, is operating on longer timespans (at least millenia) and larger scales (multiuniversal) than they are. Earth was set up with that in mind.

2) The overall goals for them (life, prosperity, f*ck Eldrazi) is comparable and mutually beneficial with ours (life, prosperity for us and humanity, f*ck Eldrazi)

3) Their intervention, while arguably beneficial for them short-term, is harmful for them, and us long-term and is preventing any for of alliance or help between us.

Basically "you were hasty and are operating without full picture. Your problem is part of a larger overall problem." From there, it is not my goal to have them leave Earth or anything like that. Those are infeasible. The goal is to have them stop and evaluate the data given. Which either leads to them stopping altogether and switching onto uplifting / peaceful endeavors, or gives us time to uptech and help X-com.

We could also throw in the following (backed up by data):
1) Earth was set up to produce few exceptionally powerful psionics / mages, not masses of mooks. This can be backed by data. And Agneyastra could probably run simulations to demonstrate how that wouldn't be revealed in their invasion
2) Overall scale of Eldrazi thread. Ie multiversal. Demonstration that their actions are not helpful to them in the long run. They are gunning for immortality, they have to consider long run.

All very logical and if they act logical no problem. I don't trust them to act on that logic. This is almost exactly the same argument used with Calypso.

Yog · Feb 10, 2019

I'll add one more point to the consideration: We shouldn't contact X-com first, or, rather, if we do so, we should absolutely 150% make sure that only the commander and people he absolutely perfectly personally trusts know of us. Doing otherwise actively harms our future chances to both resolve the conflict positively (ie without having to exterminate etherials) and to help X-com (I am lumping all resistance under here).

We have several unique roles that we can benefit humanity with in this situation:
1) Technical and industrial help. Providing manufacturing capability, advanced technology, including OCP ones, and help in reverse engineering etherial tech.
2) Intelligence asset - Agneyastra's super hacking and sensors. Speaking of, shouldn't Agneyastra be able to scan for elerium from long range? It's a fairly exotic and energetic material, after all. @Alivaril - Agneyastra has advanced sensors. With a sample of elerium, shouldn't she be able to scan for it at long (planetary or at least country) range?
3) Someone who can actually talk with etherials and affect them through talking.

If we start our association with the plane as part of the resistance, we harm that third part of our value.

fictionfan said:
All very logical and if they act logical no problem. I don't trust them to act on that logic. This is almost exactly the same argument used with Calypso.

It is, which is why I am suggesting taking precautions. Such as, for example, creating a duplicate summon of Nanoha / Sidhe / manufacturing a remote drone and sending them in our stead. And other tricks. Etherials, however, seem far more logical than Calypso. And smart, if desperate.

Alivaril · Feb 10, 2019

Yog said:
@Alivaril - Agneyastra has advanced sensors. With a sample of elerium, shouldn't she be able to scan for it at long (planetary or at least country) range?

The current answer is "You don't know." However, typically it's active generators that Agneyastra has been able to detect, so you don't think raw Elerium would qualify. Maybe large Elerium generators, but considering that ADVENT uses those for pretty much everything, she'll get a lot of white noise.

Yog · Feb 10, 2019

Alivaril said:
The current answer is "You don't know." However, typically it's active generators that Agneyastra has been able to detect, so you don't think raw Elerium would qualify. Maybe large Elerium generators, but considering that ADVENT uses those for pretty much everything, she'll get a lot of white noise.

Got it. Wiki says

It's clear this element is unlike anything found on Earth. The unusual atomic structure of this substance responds to direct bombardment from accelerated particles, resulting in an astonishing release of energy

And I am tempted to cheese this with "there are always charged particles in the atmosphere, because of the cosmic rays, and, thus elerium will always be releasing at least some energy", but, honestly, that's cheese and I am better than that.

What I want to raise a question about is "do we really need elerium deposits?" Because I don't think we do. As power sources go, we have lots of technomagical alternatives. It probably has some special properties (psionics related) that make it valuable to us, yes. But we could probably buy it after contacting x-com, in exchange for weapons, armor, artificial vessels, and intelligence (like locations of all active large scale elerium-using installations on the planet).

So, I don't think elerium should be a priority. We should prioritize either getting into the best position to super-covertly contact x-com (ie "scrying commander's bedroom's location") or contacting etherials in some way.

Alivaril · Feb 10, 2019

Special thanks to @saganatsu, @DB_Explorer, @BunnyLord, and my five other patrons not mentioned here. @Torgamous and @fictionfan get an even more enthusiastic "Thank you."

[X] Try to find sizable and abandoned concentration(s) of reusable Elerium.

You turn your attention toward that most enticing of ideas: unclaimed loot. You don't expect to find even a tenth as much as you'd get from attacking, say, an ADVENT factory, but retrieving an unattended version wouldn't alienate anyone. Plus, being able to bring a gift to any first meeting with a resistance faction would go a long way toward blunting their distrust.

Find me materials not of Earth and unclaimed by the White of ADVENT or the Red of rebels.

...Okay, this is just pathetic.

It would appear you'd severely underestimated how good the aliens are at losing track of important resources. The irradiated ruins of one of XCOM's old bases are the first cache you find, one which would kill most biological life trying to scavenge from it. That's no good excuse when XCOM and the Ethereals (which would be the most self-destructive band ever) both have access to remote-controlled drones and autonomous droids. You'll need to touch down outside the base and make your Barrier Jacket before heading inside, but now that you know where it is, that shouldn't be too much of an issue.

You're definitely letting Mom disassemble the biomechanical corpses left from the Ethereal attack, though. That's just gross. By the time you finish unearthing and looting the base, you expect you'll have a nice little stockpile of Elerium, alien alloys, and maybe usable nanomachines. It would also appear you misinterpreted what you were looking at when you learned of "Elerium Wiring." Elerium is a a solid crystal lattice with the ability to release tremendous amounts of energy under the right circumstances. Elerium wires aren't made from Elerium at all. They just have the ability to rapidly carry that energy without melting, making them wires for Elerium instead of wires from Elerium annnnd you're getting distracted. You should keep looking.

How do you lose track of an entire — oh. That's how.

Well, you found another unclaimed cache, albeit one you don't actually think is safe to go after just yet. Dark purple monsters - crystalids? Chryssalids? Well, whatever they are, they have bone-white claws half as tall as the average person and tipped in a rather horrific poison. They've infested an underwater alien supply barge a couple kilometers off the coast of... that one tropical state at the tip of what used to be North America. You don't remember what it's called. Floodia? Florada? Something like that. The hive of a hundred Chryssalids has been dormant for the past few decades, so you don't think it's a good idea to start attacking them until you're sure you can get them all. The last thing you want is for one of them to burrow its way into a human settlement and start gruesomely reproducing by killing people.

If you were this careless during your war with the Eldrazi, it's no wonder you lost.

ADVENT might've mind controlled some of humanity's leaders, but the cooperative subordinates of those leaders were left relatively untouched. ADVENT had reason to regret this when a certain South American official and his friends started redirecting a an almost ridiculous amount of material from various construction projects. The aliens found out within a year and had them executed, but it was a death by firing squad, not by mindflaying. The hidden mountain bunker filled with alien alloys and Elerium has been left untouched ever since.

The plane grows too blurry for you to keep searching, but you know there are more forgotten caches out there, if none quite so large. You don't know their exact locations, but if you're ever pointed toward their general area, you can probably help speed any searches along.

It's surprisingly difficult for you to aim with the plane so indistinct, but you manage well enough. Scavenging from XCOM's irriadiated base will need to be an eventual weekend project, but the bunker-stash? Retrieving that is a no-brainer.

You land in the middle of a dark, if surprisingly loud, jungle. Lime green plants surround you and you seem to be in the only (almost) clear patch of earth for a rather significant distance. Confused insects swerve away from you, either alarmed by your arrival or simply repelled by some trait of your skin.

As soon as your Barrier Jacket is up, you start pulling the Stalker out of subspace. You only even remember Mom is present when she speaks up.

"Jade, there appear to be an almost disturbingly small number of radio broadcasts on this world. What few exist seem to be broadcasting propaganda and/or advertisements regarding the services to be offered in cities managed by the 'ADVENT coalition.' The surrounding atmosphere is also surprisingly clean for a twenty-first century world."

"Um, yeah, I found out a lot about this place. I'll brief you while we're looting an abandoned bunker, okay? There's a lot to go over."

"Understood. Should I manifest my avatar?"

"I, um, I think we'll be okay without it for now."

Okay, maybe there was a reason they abandoned this one.

The first corridor inside the bunker was heavily mined from floor to ceiling. Applying pressure to either surface would either blast intruders to smithereens or trigger a complex-destroying chain reaction. Since you have access to reactionless flight, they aren't a problem for you, but you can understand why others might've decided it was more trouble than it was worth. The doors give you a little trouble, but nothing a Butcher Droid couldn't solve once you give it a gold platform for support.

The inner warehouse might not have had any canisters of MELD for you to steal, but honestly, you think you can make do without. It's no wonder ADVENT had the officials executed; they could've built a large scout ship with this much material. It's definitely more than enough to have XCOM make you and your friends some armor, provided you find a way to contact them without gunfire. Perhaps anonymously? You'd still need to find a good way to do so, but that might be easier than finding them and getting them to trust you.

(Acquired: 6 Ethereal Flight Computers [Aged, Nonfunctional])

(Acquired: 2 Ethereal Factory Computers [Aged, Nonfunctional])

(Acquired: 3 Ethereal Power Cores [Broken])

(Acquired: 78 crates of alien alloy plates [1x1x1 meter crates])

(Acquired: 16 Elerium reactor cylinders [30 cm tall, 3 cm radius])

(Acquired: 5 crates of raw Elerium crystals [1x1x1 meter crates])

Mom digests the tale of Ethereal woe in relative silence, only asking occasional details to tease more information out of you. It isn't until after you finish that she voices her opinions.

"Daughter, directly approaching the Ethereals is unlikely to lead to widespread changes no matter what we say or offer. They still need to continue possessing humans if they are to survive. It will, however, make them hesitate. You mentioned you didn't know why they don't simply destroy XCOM, but if they truly believe humans will grow from adversity, that appears to be enough of a motive. If we are able to contact the Ethereal leaders without XCOM ambushing our 'VIP convoy' en route to our destination, the Ethereals may be amenable to an... excuse, of sorts. They appear to believe conflict is an acceptable route to an alliance, baffling though that mindset may be.

"I'd initially intended to oppose any sharing of technologies lest it be leaked to the Ethereals, but framed properly, that could be more of a boon than a bane. You could present yourself as an individual intending to uplift both sides by aiding the Resistance factions and letting the Ethereals reverse-engineer any technologies captured during the conflict. It would have the same end result as if we simply gave technology to these rebels, but with a significantly smaller chance of the Ethereals viewing you an existential threat."

"I don't think they'd be dumb enough to fall for that, Mom. And wouldn't the end result still be a bunch of Ethereals with Agni-Ethereal fusiontech?

"That is what theft and sabotage is for."

The engineers who made Mom didn't skimp on the ambition slider, did they?

"You can't steal back knowledge. We could steal, like, a few weapons, but not an entire industrial base."

"Jade, the Ethereals seem to be overly reliant on their mind-controlled army of slaves. Any empire with a single point of failure will inevitably fall when their weakness is exploited; in the case of the Agni Empire, this was the Agni themselves. That which occurs naturally can be imitated, meaning we should be able to find a way to free yet more soldiers from Ethereal control and, eventually, do so on a mass scale. The more weaponry possessed by freed ADVENT soldiers, the less the power of any individual Ethereal will matter, meaning it is in our best interests to ensure both sides are as well equipped as possible."

"That kinda relies on the Ethereals not making some kind of a soul-booster with the ideas we give them."

"Such creations would most likely bring them closer to their eventual goal of conquering undeath. Whether humanity is freed by a mass uprising or an Ethereal solution matters not. Either outcome leads to our victory."

"Um, not really? They were imperialists even before their encounter with the Eldrazi. If they still have control of Earth after getting new avatars, they wouldn't just leave out of the goodness of their withered hearts."

Mom pauses for effect.

"I don't have a better solution," she admits. "The Agni preferred to uplift worlds which didn't already have technologically superior overlords to worry about. This unbalanced state of affairs is somewhat baffling."

You nod glumly. Seriously, thinking attacking humanity would get them an alliance once human souls were strong enough? That mindset is just weird.

"I don't suppose your planetary scanners will be helpful for finding more Elerium?"

Mom shakes her head.

"I did not detect this facility. My scans appear to be detecting active power generators, some of which are currently in flight, but those are so numerous as to render the information effectively useless. It would only help us find ADVENT facilities of any type, not those containing crystal Elerium."

[] Return to Velgarth. You don't know how to process it yet, but you do have enough alien alloys to make armor for yourself and your friends. Hopefully Sidereal or Mom will be able to do something with that.

[] Fly to the closest ADVENT city and initiate first contact.
-[] Get as close to an important-looking government building as possible before exiting and stowing the Stalker. The last thing you want is for XCOM to catch wind of some "VIP Convoy" and ambush whatever group escorts you.

[] Use the stealthed Stalker (and Mom) to scout the surrounding area and locate any Resistance or unaffiliated outposts. You're on the wrong continent to meet up with XCOM, though...
-[] Once you find an unaffiliated outpost (one ruled by gangs or wanna-be warlords), have Parasites steal any communication equipment and/or technologies that don't look essential.
-[] Once you find a Resistance outpost, have Mom deploy some spy drones to figure out what faction(s) it's affiliated with, if any.

[] Planeswalk to and from the current plane, aiming for a specific idea.
-[] Contacting a specific Resistance faction.
--[] (Write-in)
-[] Landing in whichever city is closest to being ADVENT's capital (and then asking a patrol if you can meet the Ethereals).
-[] ~~Something to let you access the ADVENT Internet equivalent(s).~~ You don't think your aim is good enough for this right now. If you're dropped in a city, what are you supposed to take from that? When you aren't aiming for a bond, your imprecision can usually be measured in double-digit numbers of kilometers.

[] Write-in

QM's Query: What's your secret? What wicked sacrifices are you making to the dice gods to reap such ridiculous rewards?

Voting will be locked for 90 minutes after this first goes up.
Rapid-fire updates are done for now; you have time to think this one over.

Vebyast · Feb 10, 2019

Alivaril said:
That's no good excuse when XCOM and the Ethereals (which would be the most self-destructive band ever)

Alivaril said:
Well, you found another unclaimed cache, albeit one you don't actually think is safe to go after just yet. Dark purple monsters - crystalids? Chryssalids? Well, whatever they are, they have bone-white claws half as tall as the average person and tipped in a rather horrific poison. They've infested an underwater alien supply barge a couple kilometers off the coast of... that one tropical state at the tip of what used to be North America. You don't remember what it's called. Floodia? Florada? Something like that. The hive of a hundred Chryssalids has been dormant for the past few decades, so you don't think it's a good idea to start attacking them until you're sure you can get them all. The last thing you want is for one of them to burrow its way into a human settlement and start gruesomely reproducing by killing people.

Florida Man strikes again, this time in chryssalid form.

Alivaril said:
"I don't think they'd be dumb enough to fall for that, Mom. And wouldn't the end result still be a bunch of Ethereals with Agni-Ethereal fusiontech?

"That is what theft and sabotage is for."

The engineers who made Mom didn't skimp on the ambition slider, did they?

"You can't steal back knowledge. We could steal, like, a few weapons, but not an entire industrial base."

Yesssss, I like this plan. Supply XCOM, get loot in return. ADVENT steals the tech. We let ADVENT do all the hard work integrating the two approaches. When they start getting somewhere, we steal it, blow up their research facilities and sabotage their information networks so they can't make any more progress, and then waltz off with our new Agni-Ethereal fusiontech. This is going to be awesome.

Also, whoever said that Agneyastra was probably designed to help a single Agni fuck up an entire planet by themselves - yep, this is exactly the kind of technique we'd see for that approach. I approve.

Alivaril said:
QM's Query: What's your secret? What wicked sacrifices are you making to the dice gods to reap such ridiculous rewards?

Ia! Ia! d20 ftaghn!

Alivaril said:
[] Fly to the closest ADVENT city and initiate first contact.
-[] Get as close to an important-looking government building as possible before exiting and stowing the Stalker. The last thing you want is for XCOM to catch wind of some "VIP Convoy" and ambush whatever group escorts you.

Alivaril said:
[] Planeswalk to and from the current plane, aiming for a specific idea.
-[] Contacting a specific Resistance faction.
--[] (Write-in)
-[] Landing in whichever city is closest to being ADVENT's capital (and then asking a patrol if you can meet the Ethereals).

These options are off-limits because we said we were only going to be scouting while we were here. Also, not something to do without talking to our friends.

Yog · Feb 10, 2019

@Alivaril :
1) how long does Agneyastra think it will take her (and/or dedicated research AI / AI we left on Remnant) to reverse engineer etherial technology from the stuff we got? Or at least start gleaning practical information from it?
2) Can Agneyastra distinguish between the scale of the generators? Fighter vs dreadnought vs major facility?

Also, guys, remember - mental blocks, plane-wide are a thing. It's possible that etherials literally can't think of a solution. Like Agneyastra couldn't develop biological immortality (and still probably can't find a rampancy solution, it likely being linked to the same conceptual block).

I think we should do the following:

[] Use the stealthed Stalker (and Mom) to scout the surrounding area and locate any Resistance or unaffiliated outposts. You're on the wrong continent to meet up with XCOM, though...
-[] Once you find a Resistance outpost, have Mom deploy some spy drones to figure out what faction(s) it's affiliated with, if any.
--[] Try to get in contact with X-com to arrange a meeting with their leadership.

I think X-com leadership should be given agency here. I think we all agree that "humanity is free, powerful and grateful to us" is the desired win state. Giving X-com options, ie "can they withstand the pressure of us helping", or at least talking to them first, very discreetly, is a good way to do so.

Vebyast said:
Yesssss, I like this plan. Supply XCOM, get loot in return. ADVENT steals the tech. We let ADVENT do all the hard work integrating the two approaches. When they start getting somewhere, we steal it, blow up their research facilities and sabotage their information networks so they can't make any more progress, and then waltz off with our new Agni-Ethereal fusiontech. This is going to be awesome.

Honestly, this is a terrible idea, and is very unlikely to work:
1) Who is going to be doing reverse-engineering / melding of technologies? If etherials are at all smart, it'll be several facilities in parallel, with backup data centers. And we'd also have to kill the scientists.
2) It's hard to control proliferation
3) How do we locate the facilities where they'll be doing their reverse engineering and new development? Etherials don't need to put fusiontech into the field - they have plenty enough as it is. We lack means of finding research facilities.

Supplying X-com is an option, and not a bad one. But the other parts are just... Yeah, I don't see it working. The likely result is ADVENT simply using more force to root out X-COM, something they are likely incapable of defending against even with new equipment, and then the things they took just vanishing, never to be seen again, as etherials themselves reverse-engineer them.

I'd also like to point out that "conflict to allies" was not what etherials were trying to do. It was "choosing the method of colonization". I am fairly sure they never intended for humans to be their equals.

Alivaril · Feb 10, 2019

Yog said:
1) how long does Agneyastra think it will take her (and/or dedicated research AI / AI we left on Remnant) to reverse engineer etherial technology from the stuff we got? Or at least start gleaning practical information from it?

She expects the Elerium to be rather easy and the various alloys to be much, much harder. Unfortunately, you now think the alloys are what would block Linker Core energy so effectively, making them very important.

She can't undertake the reverse-engineering of samples without knowing more about the original materials. It'll also be much harder since most of what you took is broken.

Yog said:
2) Can Agneyastra distinguish between the scale of the generators? Fighter vs dreadnought vs major facility?

For flying targets, yes, she can track distinguish between them by the number of power cores each has. However, an issue for the ground samples is apparently that a city power plant and a high-energy research facility would look much the same.

At least you'll have an easy time avoiding enemy air support.

Yog said:
I'd also like to point out that "conflict to allies" was not what etherials were trying to do. It was "choosing the method of colonization". I am fairly sure they never intended for humans to be their equals.

Not equals, not quite, but they were hoping for something closer to sympathetic volunteer servants than slaves.

fictionfan · Feb 10, 2019

Vebyast said:
Yesssss, I like this plan. Supply XCOM, get loot in return. ADVENT steals the tech. We let ADVENT do all the hard work integrating the two approaches. When they start getting somewhere, we steal it, blow up their research facilities and sabotage their information networks so they can't make any more progress, and then waltz off with our new Agni-Ethereal fusiontech. This is going to be awesome.

I personally don't think that the sabotage part is that important. The important part is getting them to make new and better tech for us that we then steal.

Vebyast · Feb 10, 2019

Yog said:
3) How do we locate the facilities where they'll be doing their reverse engineering and new development? Etherials don't need to put fusiontech into the field - they have plenty enough as it is. We lack means of finding research facilities.

Eh, that's fair.

So we just need to make sure that we get more out of the deal than the Ethereals do. I think that that's easy enough to do, honestly. We should be able to force them to do research and deploy the resulting tech; we have more than enough of a tech-base to give XCOM a complete OCP that the Ethereals will have to actively address with same-context research. Then the only thing is making sure that the basic research they do is more useful to us than it is to them, and that's easy: We can completely control how much MGLN tech ends up in this plane, but they've already deployed their top end for us to steal. We release the fundamentals of our tech, several generations or even an entire era out of date. Even last-gen TSAB tech would probably be enough to give XCOM the necessary OCP. The Ethereals will do the basic research and deploy top-end Ethereal tech fused with bottom-end MGLN tech. We steal that and build tech that fuses top-end Ethereal tech with top-end MGLN tech. Win.

I'm strongly leaning toward this option:

[] Use the stealthed Stalker (and Mom) to scout the surrounding area and locate any Resistance or unaffiliated outposts. You're on the wrong continent to meet up with XCOM, though...
-[] Once you find an unaffiliated outpost (one ruled by gangs or wanna-be warlords), have Parasites steal any communication equipment and/or technologies that don't look essential.

Diplomacy is off-limits. I don't want to hit resistance or ADVENT bases because that goes beyond scouting and risks strategic consequences. Watching some warlord type his password in and then stealing his cell phone so we can read his email and browse reddit, though, that's definitely something we can do.

Nachtigall · Feb 10, 2019

No contact with either XCOM or ADVENT, please.

@Alivaril: How broken are the three power cores? Any chance we could fix them with Reverse once we figure it out via Blue channeling?

Can anyone think of a reason against immediately planeswalking to raid the abandoned, irradiated XCOM base? We get materials, "biomechanical corpses" for study, machinery from the engineering department, and maybe even their old database. Even better, "Alien Materials" is one of the first three research projects on the XCOM tech tree, there's no way they hadn't done that before the base assault.

[] Planeswalk to another part of the current plane
-[] The irradiated XCOM base

Vebyast · Feb 10, 2019

Nachtigall said:
Can anyone think of a reason against immediately planeswalking to raid the abandoned, irradiated XCOM base? We get materials, "biomechanical corpses" for study, machinery from the engineering department, and maybe even their old database. Even better, "Alien Materials" is one of the first three research projects on the XCOM tech tree, there's no way they hadn't done that before the base assault.

Alivaril said:
Scavenging from XCOM's irriadiated base will need to be an eventual weekend project, but the bunker-stash? Retrieving that is a no-brainer.

Basically, it's a big enough base that it's going to take more than a few hours. It's probably also the kind of thing we'd want to bring our friends along for.

Sapient_Ham · Feb 10, 2019

Alivaril said:
"Daughter, directly approaching the Ethereals is unlikely to lead to widespread changes no matter what we say or offer. They still need to continue possessing humans if they are to survive. It will, however, make them hesitate. You mentioned you didn't know why they don't simply destroy XCOM, but if they truly believe humans will grow from adversity, that appears to be enough of a motive. If we are able to contact the Ethereal leaders without XCOM ambushing our 'VIP convoy' en route to our destination, the Ethereals may be amenable to an... excuse, of sorts. They appear to believe conflict is an acceptable route to an alliance, baffling though that mindset may be.

"I'd initially intended to oppose any sharing of technologies lest it be leaked to the Ethereals, but framed properly, that could be more of a boon than a bane. You could present yourself as an individual intending to uplift both sides by aiding the Resistance factions and letting the Ethereals reverse-engineer any technologies captured during the conflict. It would have the same end result as if we simply gave technology to these rebels, but with a significantly smaller chance of the Ethereals viewing you an existential threat."

Darn it, Agneyastra, how am I supposed to look smart when you keep proposing ideas before I can? I had this long post on why approaching the Ethereals in friendship likely wouldn't help much, and instead we'd counterintuitively be better off slowly earning the Ethereals' respect by aiding the resistance, but now you've gone and made it plagiarism!

Recycling a key point:

Alivaril said:
Once the Ethereals had reached Earth, a world with beings who held genuine promise and the potential of strong soul magic, the Ethereals split into two major political factions. The first wanted to uplift the resident humans and obtain their technical aid. The second believed that to be courting disaster and simply wished to begin stealing human bodies for themselves. They ultimately compromised: the Ethereals would "invade" with expendable units, but at a slow enough rate that a clever race could, in theory, survive and grow from it.

Last update answered a mystery Jade was wondering about: if the Ethereals have such a massive technological/logistical advantage, why is XCOM still alive? Turns out, the aliens are jobbing, and have been from the start. They're backing XCOM into a corner, deliberately leaving them the tools and resources needed to survive and grow stronger if XCOM is clever. Heck, I suspect this is why the aliens are so careless with their wayward resource caches; they want the resistance to find a few of them, to a limited extent.

It also helps explain why the Chosen are all insane megalomaniacs. They're minibosses. The Chosen were partially designed to actively provoke resistance—whilst simultaneously keeping it pruned and under control—and ultimately serve as powerful, evil enemies for humanity to defeat. Or not. The Ethereals benefit either way. If XCOM fails, then the Chosen will be sacrificed/repurposed along with the rest of humanity.

In short, the Ethereals do not actually care about the forces under their control. While their primary plan is to harvest humans for their vessel swaps and soul research, the entire occupation is basically set up as a challenge for the resistance to overcome.

Nachtigall · Feb 10, 2019

Vebyast said:
Basically, it's a big enough base that it's going to take more than a few hours. It's probably also the kind of thing we'd want to bring our friends along for.

Okay, we can't do a full looting, but why shouldn't we get the important pieces (especially the tools and database) and leave droids behind to continue scavenging while we're absent? The sooner we start, the sooner we'll finish.

Carrnage · Feb 10, 2019

Nixeu said:
on Codices being OCPs. I see very little practical difference between them and other automated watcher AI, which Astra can at least detect without them detecting her, judging by her past encounters with them.

Codices aren't just an AI, they can materialise out of any terminal. any device which is not capable of physically defending itself is should not be let near any potential exit point of them.

Alivaril · Feb 10, 2019

Nachtigall said:
@Alivaril: How broken are the three power cores? Any chance we could fix them with Reverse once we figure it out via Blue channeling?

>:D

...Wait, wrong quest. Seriously though, you don't think reversing decades of time for an object will be anything approaching cheap. In addition, only some Elerium dust and the housing is left. They are well and truly broken. The computers are much better off and might function again if you're able to replace a bunch of the parts. Which ones, you don't yet know.

EDIT: And as for the weekend looting, part of the problem is that the base is underground and collapsed. Agneyastra can't just give the droids a construction program and let them go at it; removing some pieces of rubble may destabilize others, volatile materials might damage the droids, unexploded ordinance might explode, etc.

Ayashi · Feb 10, 2019

[] Use the stealthed Stalker (and Mom) to scout the surrounding area and locate any Resistance or unaffiliated outposts. You're on the wrong continent to meet up with XCOM, though...
-[] Once you find an unaffiliated outpost (one ruled by gangs or wanna-be warlords), stun, paralyze or otherwise incapacitate the bandits, then steal any communication equipment, physical data storage (paper or otherwise) and/or any technologies that look essential.
--[] Take appropriate action depending on what said bandits have been doing (if they are "freedom fighters" just take a couple of samples, steal more if they are random bandits exploiting the surroundings civilians, and if they are murders/rapists ... then break open the outpost's walls, take/destroy all their infrastructure, leave them weaponless, naked and clean out the outpost stores of any food, water or any other supplies they might have)

Protag has some heavy weight precog abilities now, so i think she should be able to tell who exactly the outpost's residents are.
Stealing for thieves is fair game. So long as they are simply that...

Nachtigall · Feb 10, 2019

Alivaril said:
as for the weekend looting, part of the problem is that the base is underground and collapsed. Agneyastra can't just give the droids a construction program and let them go at it; removing some pieces of rubble may destabilize others, volatile materials might damage the droids, unexploded ordinance might explode, etc.

Drat. Can't she scan from 200m away and compute the optimal routine to deal with the rubble, at least? Even just getting a head-start on clearing the non-hazardous obstacles would save us time, and there's no reason we need to clear the base in one go.

Ayashi said:
Protag has some heavy weight precog abilities now

Unless you want to channel Neph, Jade can't direct her foresight. So no, that doesn't help.

Alivaril · Feb 10, 2019

Nachtigall said:
Drat. Can't she scan from 200m away and compute the optimal routine to deal with the rubble, at least? Even just getting a head-start on clearing the non-hazardous obstacles would save us time, and there's no reason we need to clear the base in one go.

Still nope. Also, Agneyastra would veto leaving droids behind anyway - that's just asking for them to be stolen by ADVENT and reverse-engineered.

Nachtigall · Feb 10, 2019

Alivaril said:
Still nope. Also, Agneyastra would veto leaving droids behind anyway - that's just asking for them to be stolen by ADVENT and reverse-engineered.

How long would it take if we only wanted to copy their database? Broken computers aren't an obstacle since Agneastra can scan the hard drives themselves.

Alivaril · Feb 10, 2019

Nachtigall said:
How long would it take if we only wanted to copy their database? Broken computers aren't an obstacle since Agneastra can scan the hard drives themselves.

There isn't any sort of database or even a preloaded operating system. The computers were stolen before they got to that point. Even if they were functional, Agneyastra would need to know the basic language and be able to run LC magic through its active systems.

Nachtigall · Feb 10, 2019

Alivaril said:
There isn't any sort of database or even a preloaded operating system. The computers were stolen before they got to that point. Even if they were functional, Agneyastra would need to know the basic language and be able to run LC magic through its active systems.

Sorry for the misunderstanding, I meant the computers in the ruined XCOM base.

Alivaril · Feb 10, 2019

Nachtigall said:
Sorry for the misunderstanding, I meant the computers in the ruined XCOM base.

You're pretty sure those were all destroyed during the attack. XCOM didn't want the aliens to locate any of their other bases or otherwise extract any important information from their demise.

Sapient_Ham · Feb 10, 2019

Inclined to go with these options, since they're quick and noncommittal:

[X] Use the stealthed Stalker (and Mom) to scout the surrounding area and locate any Resistance or unaffiliated outposts. You're on the wrong continent to meet up with XCOM, though...
-[X] Once you find an unaffiliated outpost (one ruled by gangs or wanna-be warlords), have Parasites steal any communication equipment and/or technologies that don't look essential.
-[X] Once you find a Resistance outpost, have Mom deploy some spy drones to figure out what faction(s) it's affiliated with, if any.

As for Agneyastra's proposal... I'm intrigued, but wary of following such a plan without precog support. This should be uncharted territory for Neph: she's only had a day to data mine this new plane, and what few visions she's seen will be rendered obsolete by the new knowledge of what motivates the Ethereals.

At the very least, we should wait until after JS so Neph has some time to explore the potential consequences.

Simon_Jester · Feb 10, 2019

Vebyast said:
Yesssss, I like this plan. Supply XCOM, get loot in return. ADVENT steals the tech. We let ADVENT do all the hard work integrating the two approaches. When they start getting somewhere, we steal it, blow up their research facilities and sabotage their information networks so they can't make any more progress, and then waltz off with our new Agni-Ethereal fusiontech. This is going to be awesome.

It's an appealing idea, but we should probably hold off until we're stronger and don't have the Jewel Seeds looming over our heads.

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On a magically-deficient journey of self-discovery