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?
- Location
- A Table Near You
[X] Have one of the parasites grab a communicator from the Pilgrim base and inform those inside that the Hunter is dead.
-[X] Ask if (aside from the Psionic Relay) they have any ADVENT communicators
-[X] Speak into a voice changer and focus on using Portuguese. The auto-translation effect could prove problematic later on.
-[X] You aren't asking them to betray any confidences, but could they point you toward one of the other Resistance factions?
--[X] XCOM, the only faction that gets along with everyone.
--[X] When inevitably asked, say you'd like to commission some armor in exchange for a large amount of scavenged alien material.
Default seems pretty good. One of our objectives was to commission some armor from XCOM, so we might as well take advantage of these maybe-Pilgrims' good will and get pointed in the right direction. If we're lucky, rumors will reach XCOM about how this mysterious group with spider drones and psionic powers killed Hunter, which should go a long way towards building towards trust. (As Alivaril said, they'll probably want to recruit us, if anything.)
-[X] Ask if (aside from the Psionic Relay) they have any ADVENT communicators
-[X] Speak into a voice changer and focus on using Portuguese. The auto-translation effect could prove problematic later on.
-[X] You aren't asking them to betray any confidences, but could they point you toward one of the other Resistance factions?
--[X] XCOM, the only faction that gets along with everyone.
--[X] When inevitably asked, say you'd like to commission some armor in exchange for a large amount of scavenged alien material.
Default seems pretty good. One of our objectives was to commission some armor from XCOM, so we might as well take advantage of these maybe-Pilgrims' good will and get pointed in the right direction. If we're lucky, rumors will reach XCOM about how this mysterious group with spider drones and psionic powers killed Hunter, which should go a long way towards building towards trust. (As Alivaril said, they'll probably want to recruit us, if anything.)
Last edited:
Which kind of implies we don't need to do anything to get XCOM's interest, because if these really are Pilgrims, they'll be reporting that to XCOM anyway.(Congratulations: If these really are Pilgrims, you're about to be a Rumor.)
- Location
- A single human dimension
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Agneyastra can speak Portuguese just fine. She'd simply been assuming you'd want to speak to them yourself, and since you can speak other languages, not doing so would clearly be something she shouldn't ruin in the eyes of her restrictions.
Jade doesn't consider that one murder. Even then, given what the Soul Obelisks might be doing to the Chosen, destroying those might be a mercy.
(Congratulations: If these really are Pilgrims, you're about to be a Rumor.
Joke explanation: In XCOM 2, Rumors are things you spend about 7 days pursuing on the Strategic layer. You sometimes don't find exactly what you were looking for (eg. an already-looted warehouse instead of an intact cache), but you'll still end up with some useful supplies, materials or new personnel. Since Ignition isn't a video game, some of the Avenger's searches now end in failure, some take longer, and some are much quicker. Chasing your Rumor would likely be one such incident and, barring your continued presence, they'd likely finish up their current searches before they came looking for you.
(Assuming they didn't already deploy a squad to defend this particular settlement, which, while unlikely for such a small area, is not unheard of. You think they'd appear within the next four hours if they were going to show up.)
Last edited:
fictionfan
Please sir, may I have some Meows?
- Location
- Tempe, AZ
If they ask any questions about us we can say " Sorry, but your base is clearly compromised. I wish you the best of luck, but I don't think that it is wise for me to give you any information."
That should be fine.
That should be fine.
Last edited:
Nixeu
Lord of Madness, Harbinger of Llamas
- Location
- Your nightmares.
...Do you mean freeing ADVENT troops en masse, or recruiting them to our side, or what?
I think you're confusing the Reapers and the Templars. The Templars don't really need explosives, so far as I know, whereas the Reapers would love more explosives. Their whole thing is sabotage and mayhem.
I mean, even in the intro post, it seemed more like a failure to communicate to me, probably due to the presence of the Sleeper and how easily the aliens can rip information from your mind. The factions aren't properly talking to each other, are maintaining a high level of compartmentalization of information, and are thus stepping all over one another's toes.
But yeah, XCOM's strategic layer was always about establishing communications, and defense missions definitely happened a lot. My own approach of "they can't do anything to stop us if they're all dead" may slightly have warped my recall of how many of which mission types there were. Kind of a "do you recall how many pieces of bread you've eaten?" situation, too, since I drag out my XCOM games pretty freaking hard.
Figured you might, after this update.
Honestly, I'm kinda surprised that EXALT actually seem like decent people in this setting that we can work with. They were originally zealots who sabotaged your sh*t in XCom: Enemy Within, and went to extremes with body modification that even Dr. Vahlen, aka "Warcrimes-chan", aka "I modified aliens in ways even the Ethereals might have been too afraid to do", found unacceptable. If the woman who probes alien brains, gives people multiple hearts and skin that lets them cloak, and who somehow made a Berserker even more angry, is looking at your modifications to the human body in horror, you've gone way too far.
God, the Hunter is such a sarcastic ass, even in death. I love it. I swear, dying amuses him more than it makes him mad.
Honestly, the second one makes sense. Training to not die like that again is what I'd do, in their shoes.
Lol. Just what I always wanted to be when I grew up.(Congratulations: If these really are Pilgrims, you're about to be a Rumor.
I suspect their communications on their plans for future actions are probably the main area where the communications breakdown is at it's worst. Data about caches, past engagements, and enemy actions probably propagate quite easily, but any data that, if it leaks to ADVENT, could get their operatives killed, is probably heavily controlled. Unfortunately, that's also kinda the data they need to share to not accidentally end up killing each other or getting in each others way.
Carrnage
Human
- Location
- New Zealand
Is that a legal or illegal restriction?
For later, we might want to try to use the summoning dimensional shutdown to prevent them from removing there tech via the teleporty part.
[X] Have one of the parasites grab a communicator from the Pilgrim base and inform those inside that the Hunter is dead.
-[X] Ask if (aside from the Psionic Relay) they have any ADVENT communicators
-[X] Speak into a voice changer and focus on using Portuguese. The auto-translation effect could prove problematic later on.
-[X] You aren't asking them to betray any confidences, but could they point you toward a way to contact the other factions?
--[X] XCOM, the only faction that gets along with everyone.
--[X] When inevitably asked, say you'd like to commission some armor in exchange for a large amount of scavenged alien material.
Making it on the other factions terms means that they'll be more likely to say yes, but otherwise a good plan.
[X] Have one of the parasites grab a communicator from the Pilgrim base and inform those inside that the Hunter is dead.
-[X] Ask if (aside from the Psionic Relay) they have any ADVENT communicators
-[X] Speak into a voice changer and focus on using Portuguese. The auto-translation effect could prove problematic later on.
-[X] You aren't asking them to betray any confidences, but could they point you toward a way to contact the other factions?
--[X] XCOM, the only faction that gets along with everyone.
--[X] When inevitably asked, say you'd like to commission some armor in exchange for a large amount of scavenged alien material.
Making it on the other factions terms means that they'll be more likely to say yes, but otherwise a good plan.
- Location
- A single human dimension
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Jade actually rather wants to visit these days, especially after her waking dream of going to an almost MG-exclusive arcade. It sounded like it'd be a lot of fun and it'd be nice to trade magic tips with Magical Girls.
Agneyastra is incapable of answering that question, which makes you think it might fall under "illegal." They're usually the overzealous ones when it comes to making sure she can't do stuff that might lead to a restriction being removed, sometimes including telling you that something is illegal.
Last edited:
Madou Sutegobana
Autocorrupt has been disabled.
- Location
- Twin Realms Mandala
We should let them know the Hunter will come back, and it would be better for them if they aren't to be found in the area. And maybe we could offer to help them make record time, in exchange for stuff they'd have to leave behind or destroy.
- Location
- Pittsburgh, PA
I'm also curious. The rapid heat transfer involved in being hit with a laser flash-boils the water in your cells, thus causing them to burst open.
Typically, a "kill shot" to the head would shatter the skull into pieces, as expanding steam inside the skull cavity forced open the seams of the former growth plates. Even if his head didn't outright detonate due to having a synthetic adamantium skeleton or something, there wouldn't be much left besides boiled meat Jell-O and some well-cooked spare ribs hanging off the skull. The eyeballs would've popped, the teeth would blow apart, and it just generally wouldn't be left in any sort of functional state.
Is the idea that his 'sleeve was so thoroughly variant from human biology that it didn't have much water in it (ceramic teeth, weird synthetic polymer muscles, etc) and thus died less messily, or that he somehow managed to talk with exploded teeth and shredded facial musculature, or that he was speaking via radio transmission, psionic manipulation of atmospheric particles, or some other non-vocal method?
- Location
- A single human dimension
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Mom reports that about half his head was missing when she reported him dead, so yes, he was most definitely using some weird method to talk as a giant rock (Soul Obelisk). No residue was left behind after the disappearance of his corpse.
EDIT: The central control unit for the prison loudspeakers could accept input from an external radio source, which is presumably how he was using them to communicate.
Last edited:
That went about as I expected, nice!
Huh, apparently Hunter can be present as a disembodied soul or something (since his body has already departed).
edit: Ninja'd. That makes more sense.
Last edited:
- Location
- Germany
2. and 3. would only apply if we would actually intervene in the war itself, instead of just saving a few people.
1. is based on a pretty ruthless argument which I don't think Jade would agree with. Really, waiting until they've been slaughtered by the Blight and can't put up as much resistance?
And as a meta-argument, Alivaril nearly discontinued the quest because he couldn't see Jade get into any conflicts she'd actually be challenged by, since she can train until any opposition is crubstomped. If we wait until the Blight is over and we're powerful enough to trivialize any other challenges on Thedas, the plane looses most of its narrative value.
We have three motes of Blue and summoning only costs two. In the future, we should keep that third mote in reserve. We can always get Red through fire conversion, but we can't generate Blue.
They have 1-2 weeks until he returns.
May I remind everyone that
Let's ask for the techniques necessary to work with elerium and alien alloys ourselves instead, please.
- The aliens already know how to process their own alloys, so it isn't knowledge the resistance needs to keep secret.
- We can always negotiate down, but not up. If they refuse to share the techniques, we can still fall back to the commission idea.
- We won't need to return here whenever we want to build something with those materials.
- We only pay once for the knowledge, making it cheaper overall.
- We can include Agni tech in our armor without sharing it with XCOM.
[X] Have one of the parasites grab a communicator from the Pilgrim base and inform those inside that the Hunter is dead.
-[X] Speak into a voice changer and focus on using Portuguese. The auto-translation effect could prove problematic later on.
-[X] You aren't asking them to betray any confidences, but could they point you toward one of the other Resistance factions?
--[X] XCOM, the only faction that gets along with everyone.
--[X] When inevitably asked, say you'd like to trade a large amount of scavenged alien material for the knowledge how to process those alloys.
Last edited:
Vebyast
Nascent Transhuman
[x] Have one of the parasites grab a communicator from the Pilgrim base and inform those inside that the Hunter is dead.
-[x] Ask if (aside from the Psionic Relay) they have any ADVENT communicators or know where you can steal one.
-[x] Ask Agneyastra to do the talking this time; until you've practiced it, you'd rather not have to worry about slipping up and leaving behind an artifact of your more exotic capabilities.
-[x] Ask them if they can help you get in touch with their parent organization - you doubt that it'd be safe for a tiny outpost like this to have a ready way to contact XCOM or another of the resistance organizations.
I want to have an entire vote dedicated to figuring out exactly what we want to ask XCOM for, since that's likely going to be somewhat finicky. Additionally, given how hard communication is, I find it unlikely that this small base will have a reliably communications channel for another organization; I'd expect those to be kept at slightly higher levels to minimize the chances of them falling into enemy hands. So we go up now and sideways at a higher level.
-[x] Ask if (aside from the Psionic Relay) they have any ADVENT communicators or know where you can steal one.
-[x] Ask Agneyastra to do the talking this time; until you've practiced it, you'd rather not have to worry about slipping up and leaving behind an artifact of your more exotic capabilities.
-[x] Ask them if they can help you get in touch with their parent organization - you doubt that it'd be safe for a tiny outpost like this to have a ready way to contact XCOM or another of the resistance organizations.
I want to have an entire vote dedicated to figuring out exactly what we want to ask XCOM for, since that's likely going to be somewhat finicky. Additionally, given how hard communication is, I find it unlikely that this small base will have a reliably communications channel for another organization; I'd expect those to be kept at slightly higher levels to minimize the chances of them falling into enemy hands. So we go up now and sideways at a higher level.
Last edited:
- Location
- A single human dimension
- Pronouns
- She/Her
So uh, I think I mentioned this already, but that was born from an extremely narrow view of "Challenge" (basically combat only) that I've since gotten over. Don't worry about meta-arguments.
You do currently have one R/U land open, but you're on a plane with entirely too many mind-affecting soul mages. Blue-you was uncomfortable with taking any mana away from the allowance for Firewall.
[x] Have one of the parasites grab a communicator from the Pilgrim base and inform those inside that the Hunter is dead.
-[x] Ask if (aside from the Psionic Relay) they have any ADVENT communicators or know where you can steal one.
-[x] Ask Agneyastra to do the talking this time; until you've practiced it, you'd rather not have to worry about slipping up and leaving behind an artifact of your more exotic capabilities.
-[x] Ask them if they can help you get in touch with their parent organization - you doubt that it'd be safe for a tiny outpost like this to have a ready way to contact XCOM or another of the resistance organizations.
-[x] Ask if (aside from the Psionic Relay) they have any ADVENT communicators or know where you can steal one.
-[x] Ask Agneyastra to do the talking this time; until you've practiced it, you'd rather not have to worry about slipping up and leaving behind an artifact of your more exotic capabilities.
-[x] Ask them if they can help you get in touch with their parent organization - you doubt that it'd be safe for a tiny outpost like this to have a ready way to contact XCOM or another of the resistance organizations.
- Location
- A Table Near You
Oh, that's even better. If the maybe-Pilgrims don't have a method of contacting XCOM, we can just leave a few parasite droids behind to see if anyone shows up. Overall, decent chance we could get into contact with XCOM today, and with about the best possible introduction we could hope for.
Nanoha's going to feel so silly. It's only been a few hours, and Jade's already well on the way to accomplishing all of these.
Getting the knowledge of how to process Elerium and alien alloys would be ideal, yes, but isn't asking suspicious? It sorta implies we think we'd be better at processing alien material than the largest and most well-equipped resistance faction, if only we knew how.
@Alivaril, how does Jade think XCOM would react to her asking?
Last edited:
Did Alivaril ever comment on if Agneyastra can reverse engineer the soul obelisks for long range control
- Location
- A single human dimension
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Probably exasperation, "It's really too complicated for you to do with makeshift tools," and an invitation to their engineering team. When you refused, they might share some information, but you doubt they'd give up more than the bare basics without knowing you much better (if ever).
You don't know. (x2)
Last edited:
fictionfan
Please sir, may I have some Meows?
- Location
- Tempe, AZ
Yes, but he obviously knew they were there which means their location is compromised and other stuff is likely to be sent.
- Location
- Pittsburgh, PA
If I remember correctly, the main issue Vahlen had with EXALT was that they were fast-tracking things too much, to the point where they were using their operatives as the beta-testers for "hey, does this new experimental mod design have any horrible nightmarish flaws when put into action?", as well as them being a little too willing to tinker with peoples' brains to make better (and/or more compliant) soldiers. XCOM is willing to sacrifice operatives when it's needed, but casually consigning a significant percentage of them to horrible Cronenbergian fates just to save on MELD was a step too far for them.
Likewise, EXALT had a definite "we're the real protagonists, make room" vibe, planting infiltrators and fucking over XCOM to further their own operations. Presumably, the apocalyptic intervening years between Enemy Within and XCOM 2 weeded out the more boneheaded elements of their leadership, and the remainder could see the writing on the wall.
- Location
- Tarn-Vedra
[X] Have one of the parasites grab a communicator from the Pilgrim base and inform those inside that the Hunter is dead.
-[X] Speak into a voice changer and focus on using Portuguese. The auto-translation effect could prove problematic later on.
-[X] You aren't asking them to betray any confidences, but could they point you toward one of the other Resistance factions?
--[X] XCOM, the only faction that gets along with everyone.
--[X] When inevitably asked, say you'd like to trade a large amount of scavenged alien material for the knowledge how to process those alloys.
-[X] Speak into a voice changer and focus on using Portuguese. The auto-translation effect could prove problematic later on.
-[X] You aren't asking them to betray any confidences, but could they point you toward one of the other Resistance factions?
--[X] XCOM, the only faction that gets along with everyone.
--[X] When inevitably asked, say you'd like to trade a large amount of scavenged alien material for the knowledge how to process those alloys.