Having Kho or Rho command our forces is probably better for almost all battles, with the knights providing tactically applied bullshit where needed. That's why we have The Hounds of Hell as an option.
The options I suggested was when that was not possible. While Rho has good strategic abilities, this is not what I was meaning to replace. I was thinking, while Kho is good, but she is only good in a single place. A single front. What about all the other faceless mooks/droids?
I'm just saying, they would be a viable and useful asset when fighting in meat grinders in long battles on multiple fronts. They do not need to rely on Kho. Rho can still give overall strategic commands. Imagine a random droid accidentally coming upon a valid tactic against the enemy. Now that tactic is automatically spread everywhere raising efficiency by around 0.01% (total ass pull number). Tiny but very helpful with big numbers.
Edit: I've been ninja'd. It seems this is already in place so this can be ignored.
Not with light speed lances. Smart munituons with guided flechtlets and a contested orbit is can just fire a few disposable missles with a few giga ton of nukes.
Having Kho or Rho command our forces is probably better for almost all battles, with the knights providing tactically applied bullshit where needed. That's why we have The Hounds of Hell as an option.
We moved a Relay. And, now that we've done it once, we can do it again, let's say, to the Relay that Kar'shan uses to connect to the rest of the galaxy.
I'm not suggesting that we steal the Relay entirely; that would be both terrifying, and a good pretext for the Citadel races to flip their shit. Again. I'm suggesting that we just tow it, say 30 or so light years* further away from Kar'shan, and leave a nice little beacon to tell them where their Relay is now, with a reminder that we can and will continue to do this in response to more "pirate" attacks, to encourage the Hegemony to keep their focus at home.
*- It was previously argued in other ME Quests that military vessels can travel roughly 30 LY per day, and civilian vessels travel considerably slower due to having more "affordable" (smaller) Eezo cores. So this doesn't really affect the military picture that much for a polity, but does make goods considerably more expensive to ship.
And if 30 lightyears is too short a distance, we can just move it even farther.
Also, a reminder - the Batarians have a wrecked human shipyard in the depths of one of the Gas Giants in their home system, it may be for the best if we go ahead and recover it or otherwise neutralize it.
And if 30 lightyears is too short a distance, we can just move it even farther.
Also, a reminder - the Batarians have a wrecked human shipyard in the depths of one of the Gas Giants in their home system, it may be for the best if we go ahead and recover it or otherwise neutralize it.
Especially since someone else may have similar ideas. I am not at all comfortable with the way that they're behaving right now; by itself, it's much to be expected of the Hegemony, but with everything else going on concurrently, I find myself suspicious of the vanguard's possible use of the Batarians as a proxy to distract and weaken us, and the Light isn't even the only faction that would precipitate such action, given that their creators operate much the same way. Wrecked and offline though it may be, it is still infrastructure of the Elder Darkness, and thus possibly a quite potent factor.
Type: Maybe Diplomatic/Intrigue? Last time it was a Stewardship action to move a Relay, but 1) It was the first time, 2) We were moving it much further away, and 3) We were re-calibrating the thing to point to new Relays. This time I figure the Relay move itself won't take much time or effort; the key issue will be dealing with the diplomatic fallout from the rest of the galaxy potentially flipping their shit over EVE semi-casually messing with the galaxy's highway system.
[] Economic Sanctions, Goddess Style
The Batarians have attacked one of your closest friends, and must be chastised. War is costly and politically risky, but imposing an added burden on Batarian trade would be, hopefully, both simpler and less likely to draw widespread condemnation. Using your ability to move a Relay to relocate the Khar'shan Relay a few dozen lightyears further away from the planet should be relatively quick and simple, and send a clear message of condemnation; the real battle will be afterwards, in the court of public opinion. Mir estimates that she can contain any possible backlash from other polities, though this is by no means guaranteed.
Chance of Success: 70% - Does not reflect the Relay move, but the chance of negative press from other polities.
Sorry for the double-post, but had a thought about how I would have done the Cerberus Playground differently, and wrote this:
Omake: Zaeed Goes to Hell Early Turn 17
Zaeed snapped to awareness as the seal popped open around what he had come to think of as his own, personal chrysalis. He emerged, literally a new man, the sudden lack of old injuries almost painful in their absence. "Glad they let me keep my scars," he graveled, checking his face in a stray reflection, "Wouldn't know it was me otherwise."
Hopping to his feet, Zaeed hit a few reflex triggers with practiced motions, activating the self-checks and diagnostics for all the new chrome he had just been given. Reflex enhancers, neural boosters, even an exobrain/tac computer setup, all married to the biological upgrades he had also received in the last, Zaeed checked his internal chronometer, ninety-seven minutes, fourteen seconds. Feeling all the checks come up green, Zaeed allowed his newly enhanced senses to extend outward, noting how different the shuttle's staging area felt when he could perceive his entire field of vision with perfect clarity.
And, speaking of perfection, there was Angel Kho, standing on a stage overlooking Zaeed and the rest of his hundred strong class, each like him emerging from their own chrysalises.
"Welcome back to Olympus, Launch Group One." Had it been on anyone else's face, Angel Kho's smile could have been called innocent. On her? Zaeed didn't know what to call it. Great girl, Angel Kho. Good to have in a fight; the least competent flirt Zaeed had ever seen, not that he'd ever tell her that. He'd still prefer to have Jesse back: that shitty, old rifle that had finally given up the ghost just a year ago and was still giving him phantom limb pain even today, but Angel Kho was a decent enough compensation.
The Angel continued, and Zaeed paid half attention as he finished up his self-checks, "While you all finish up diagnostics, I'll be giving a last-minute briefing. As you are all aware, you, the inaugurating Launch Group of the Cerberus Playground Initiative, have just been put through the most advanced upgrade process that the Eventide is capable of bestowing. Our nanobiotech has made its way into every cell of your bodies, both installing new dedicated systems, which you should already be checking if you don't want the next bit to be extremely painful, and upgrading existing ones.
"At the same time, your mind, not your brain, that was undergoing renovations, your mind was put through an accelerated ten year training program, where you were acclimated to your new upgrades, trained in any additional weapons and combat tactics that your own combat training may have been lacking in, and given a rundown of all the tactics and strategies that we anticipate could be useful in attempting combat with the Light of Ruin, all in the time it took to shuttle you here.
"Congratulations: with great effort, and some amount of luck, you each have a shot at hitting the lowest percentile of what a Stage 3 Human was projected to have been capable of, making you stronger, faster, and smarter than any non-engineered organic being in the galaxy is projected to be capable of.
"And, starting right now, we will be testing those upgrades, and all that training, to destruction, in the most brutal series of live-fire exercises that we can think of."
Angel Kho's expression didn't change, but Zaeed could tell that she was hiding a much larger grin. "Now let's be clear; it is not our intention to kill any of you, here in Cerberus's Playground. We have in fact done everything possible to keep you alive, or, failing that, to ensure that you don't die even when you are killed. Every one of you has been infused with tracking and diagnostic nanobiotech, which link up to the strongest, sub-molecular scale sensor suite that artificial intelligence can devise. You are now, and for the next year will be, as monitored and real-time scanned as it is possible to be without ceasing to be biology and instead becoming high-energy particle physics. We will be maintaining these scans in real time; rest assured that even if you are killed, even if you are rendered into an expanding cloud of vapor, we will have the ability to put you back together again.
"Let me be absolutely clear. As of this moment, just reaching this point, standing at this precipice with all your fellows, all of you are heroes." Zaeed remained stoic as the tone of Angel Kho's speech changed, although he could tell that many in the launch group did not. "As you all know from our conversations in the sims, myself, Mother Eve, and the rest of the Angels have taken a personal interest in the development of each one of you, and without exception we like what we saw.
"This test, this 'final exam' as it were, is not to test your ability to be the best of the best: you already are. What we are trying to do, here at what is effectively the end of your training, is ascertain if you have a quality that the Elder Darkness, ancient Humanity, lacked: the ability to fully master your emotions, your fear, your fatigue, even your ignorance. Ancient humanity fled from their emotions, engineering them out of their genepool, and in so doing engendered an apathy that drove them to isolate themselves and eventually die alone. We believe that a select few of you have the ability to fully master your emotions, to harness and leash your willpower, and in so doing become a leader, a Knight of the Eventide who can lead the others against the Light.
"After all: as of this moment, you are, one and all, 'only' Human. We of the Eventide wish to see if some of you can be something more."
Then the floor snapped open, and, with the countdown timer hitting two minutes, forty-three seconds, one hundred people dropped into freefall.
Zaeed snorted at the startled screams surrounding him. "Pucker up, whiners," he growled, senses already focusing in on trying to find a viable landing strategy, "It's not like the lady didn't warn us we were already starting."
I had a few objections to the way that the current Cerberus Playground actions work. Rather than bitch about them, here's what I would have done differently.
Issues addressed:
Our combat school now teaches things before throwing the poor goons to the wolves. This takes a lot of the luck and arbitrariness out of the process, since even those killed should have been well aware of what killed them, as they've trained in all the individual aspects of the course already, even if combining them in the exact way the Playground does is new.
It explains why the action is so expensive in terms of resources and AI time. After all, if PETER is the one managing the Playground, why did the action require any AI/Advisor time at all? And why does the Playground cost as much IO as our entire Faction had in Turn 1 to operate? Brute-force upgrading, VR-training, and then running essentially personal Vita-chambers for the entire class might have the costs make sense.
Canon Shepard was actually extensively modified, first by Alliance Military docs and later by Cerberus. By the end of ME 3 he was a rather extensive melding of man and machine. If we're making artificial Shepards we need to capture that aspect too: he wasn't just well-trained, but was a six-billion-credit man as well.
Type: Maybe Diplomatic/Intrigue? Last time it was a Stewardship action to move a Relay, but 1) It was the first time, 2) We were moving it much further away, and 3) We were re-calibrating the thing to point to new Relays. This time I figure the Relay move itself won't take much time or effort; the key issue will be dealing with the diplomatic fallout from the rest of the galaxy potentially flipping their shit over EVE semi-casually messing with the galaxy's highway system.
[] Economic Sanctions, Goddess Style
The Batarians have attacked one of your closest friends, and must be chastised. War is costly and politically risky, but imposing an added burden on Batarian trade would be, hopefully, both simpler and less likely to draw widespread condemnation. Using your ability to move a Relay to relocate the Khar'shan Relay a few dozen lightyears further away from the planet should be relatively quick and simple, and send a clear message of condemnation; the real battle will be afterwards, in the court of public opinion. Mir estimates that she can contain any possible backlash from other polities, though this is by no means guaranteed.
Chance of Success: 70% - Does not reflect the Relay move, but the chance of negative press from other polities.
Cost: 0 Industrial Output
Turn to Complete: 1 Turn
On the one hand, this is good; on the other... is it actually enough, though? It sends a very clear "you have irritated the Eventide" message, and also does it without going too far into all but ensuring that everything devolves into mayhem as far as inter-polity relations are concerned. The relay network is a logistical godsend, making any meaningful endeavour towards an interstellar empire no longer wildly impractical, and we would be tweaking it, forcing every ship to engage in costly and slow personal FTL in order to transit the relay, yet without being too onerous of an issue, only a great inconvenience because ships do, after all, have said personal FTL drives. These are Batarians, though; what impact could we actually expect?
The simply fuel costs would be appreciable; that's a definite factor, and one that compounds the economic severity in driving up the cost of anything that uses said fuel, to have far-reaching effects on Batarian trade. Too, travel time simply takes longer, itself hampering the flow of trade, as well as exacerbating all the factors of operating a ship (equipment wear, crew supplies, etc.) for simply engaging in more of ship operation. In a single act, we would effectively hobble the Batarian economy, with added benefits of hampering the activities of their military for similar reasons. Looking at canon, though, I'm not sure that it would really accomplish much; the canon Hegemony suffered a similar fate through different means in sanctions by the Citadel that left them described as a paper tiger, yet they still went around being... themselves-ish, in a word, simply doubling down all the harder, and for cultural reasons that are hard to stamp out. The Batarians are an enormously vainglorious people, with arrogance rivaled only by their self-delusion; if we do anything to them at all, we're automatically the bad guy unjustly trying to oppress them because they have the right to practice their culture and the power to stand against the enemy. They genuinely believe that they are right to act as they do, and that any who oppose them are both evil for doing so and somehow arbitrarily inferior. The activities of the Hegemony are not an issue that can be settled through rational argument because they neither attribute meaningful value to arguments against them nor think that they should, holding to the idea that they themselves would be wrong to do so... and that's even if they don't have an unseen third party subverting them to be divisive and contrary.
I think moving Khar'shan's relay is a course of action meriting serious consideration, but not as a singular solution with the aim of solving problems with the Hegemony by itself, only part of a larger answer. To that end, we might turn to ourselves. To resolve the problem that is the Hegemony without inciting panic and alienation, as well as actually doing so in an efficient manner that also doesn't unduly interfere with our other efforts towards our multitude of other goals, we would need to address it carefully and subtly, and I find myself noting that we have a daughter who is eminently capable of deftly applying influence that is in and of itself entirely innocuous save that it is calculated to reverberate off of the interactions of others to basically just see everything turn out alright, very much falling into the role of a divine meddler behind the scenes engineering the world in accordance to their benevolent will... but she's nice about her manipulation, helpful and supportive, so what if we turned a daughter towards a similar behaviour, but one who is just downright mean? I'm wondering if we could not only have an angel who ensures that all is well to foster a serendipitous harmony against the efforts of the Batarians, but also a smug, malicious devil who acts as an incarnate curse, delighting in seeing the struggles of the enemies of the Eventide crumble in vain and in contrast fostering misfortune as she ensures that all somehow goes perfectly wrong at every turn, a saboteur of civilisations superstitiously and all too accurately decried as the source of all evil that plagues them.
Edit Addition:
On a related note, another consideration occurs to me: while we could move a relay in detriment, we could also do so beneficially; might we offer such services to others? Inverting the complications expressed above, maneuvering someone else's relay to a superior position could serve as no small act of good will or bargaining option. Optimising relay positioning throughout Covenant space might be something to pursue anyway, but it might also be something to address with the Citadel Council as well, perhaps bringing in Volus advisors. Sometimes it's kinda handy to have a friendly god helping out.
Looking at canon, though, I'm not sure that it would really accomplish much; the canon Hegemony suffered a similar fate through different means in sanctions by the Citadel that left them described as a paper tiger, yet they still went around being... themselves-ish, in a word, simply doubling down all the harder, and for cultural reasons that are hard to stamp out. The Batarians are an enormously vainglorious people, with arrogance rivaled only by their self-delusion; if we do anything to them at all, we're automatically the bad guy unjustly trying to oppress them because they have the right to practice their culture and the power to stand against the enemy. They genuinely believe that they are right to act as they do, and that any who oppose them are both evil for doing so and somehow arbitrarily inferior. The activities of the Hegemony are not an issue that can be settled through rational argument because they neither attribute meaningful value to arguments against them nor think that they should, holding to the idea that they themselves would be wrong to do so... and that's even if they don't have an unseen third party subverting them to be divisive and contrary.
While part of this is true, the Batarians were able to be a functioning, if not particularly beloved, member of Citadel society for roughly two thousand years in canon (and I presume here as well), before various political pressures combined with Reaper influence on their leadership pushed them into the frothing madness you see in canon. I agree that it's probable that we're going to have to make a concerted, long-term effort to root out the problems in Batarian society, in particular the influence of the Leviathan of Dis if it's there, but it's also possible that a single act of "godly" power like we would be displaying here could at the very least cause enough internal disruption that the Batarians would be forced to focus on internal matters for awhile at worst, and possibly cause the non-brainwashed population to rebel at best.
Essentially this is a last gasp effort; after this then you're right that a full on low-level reformat of Batarian society is what will be required, and that will take a large enough impact on our Action economy that, depending on how the Metacon and Light of Ruin situations develop, it might not be worth the effort.
Military force doesn't need to be our first and only solution.
From the wiki :
Batarians place an extremely high value on social caste and appearance, and overstepping one's place is frowned upon. Effective caste status can be bought on an ongoing basis like a subscription service, allowing the buyer to worm their way into the elite circles of batarian society given enough funds. Casting aspersions on the monetary worth of a social better is considered a serious insult.
How about we simply buy us a few Batarians to keep the rest in line?
Or do some accounting, and threaten to reveal financial details if they don't put a stop to the raids.
Military force doesn't need to be our first and only solution.
From the wiki :
How about we simply buy us a few Batarians to keep the rest in line?
Or do some accounting, and threaten to reveal financial details if they don't put a stop to the raids.
The Batarians are a slave based polity, so odds are that bribery may directly or indirectly involve buying slaves as gifts or tokens of status.
That said, we must compare such a decision to the alternative. Wars are not bloodless, and if we move the relay, the economic consequences will not only fall upon the Batarian upper class. The lower classes of the affected planets will suffer a lot more.
While part of this is true, the Batarians were able to be a functioning, if not particularly beloved, member of Citadel society for roughly two thousand years in canon (and I presume here as well), before various political pressures combined with Reaper influence on their leadership pushed them into the frothing madness you see in canon. I agree that it's probable that we're going to have to make a concerted, long-term effort to root out the problems in Batarian society, in particular the influence of the Leviathan of Dis if it's there, but it's also possible that a single act of "godly" power like we would be displaying here could at the very least cause enough internal disruption that the Batarians would be forced to focus on internal matters for awhile at worst, and possibly cause the non-brainwashed population to rebel at best.
Essentially this is a last gasp effort; after this then you're right that a full on low-level reformat of Batarian society is what will be required, and that will take a large enough impact on our Action economy that, depending on how the Metacon and Light of Ruin situations develop, it might not be worth the effort.
From what I can put together, the Batarians were part of the Citadel for no more than about two thousand years or so, but how much less being ambiguous, only described as some time after the Volus established an embassy around that time. During their time as a member, though, they seem to either be little different than their later compromised selves or already long since subverted by the enemy, with the poor situation by the time of canon start only coming after a few hundred years of similar history, highlighted by, as summarised, "1785 CE, a batarian fleet bombarded the salarian colony world of Mannovai; in 1913, the Batarian Hegemony annexed the independent asari colony of Esan; and in 2115, Citadel forces skirmished with batarian forces on the planet Enael", followed by the Hegemony severing all ties with the Citadel when the Council for some reason decided to do nothing rather then demand that the Systems Alliance get out and stay out of the next shiny thing they wanted, and then the lead-up to the Skillian Blitz and Torfan not long after. Granted, events could well be quite different here than per canon, but the Batarians have quite the history of being... themselves-ish, to the point that I think we're simply already past the point of having any chance of cowing them with the single act, and there may never have been any time at all that it would have worked; I we'll have to resign ourselves to defaulting to a more extensive effort. At this point... I just don't think there's any hope at all of resolving the matter simply short of the Hegemony turning out to be pawns of the Leviathans with whom we come to some sort of alliance... which itself raises a troubling point: the omake in which the Hegemony was indeed subverted by the Leviathans was rated semi-canon, not simply outright non-canon, so at least some aspect of the omake had some degree of meaningful significance, be it thematic or the more obvious.
How about we simply buy us a few Batarians to keep the rest in line?
Or do some accounting, and threaten to reveal financial details if they don't put a stop to the raids.
It is an interesting avenue of thought. With the way that their society operates, sufficient wealth offers legitimate potential to exert a measure of influence. Essentially, one could buy politicians, and ones inclined to promote agreeable policy for wanting the continued support of their backers. Wealth is something that we could certainly provide. Could we get Batarian individuals to accept our support in return for acting in accordance with our will? Could we ensure that such individuals not deviate once elevated? Greater station would enable them to more easily secure wealth independently, but they would have a decidedly difficult time matching what they would lose for alienating us, and we could always offer plentiful negative encouragement as well, should the metaphorical carrot not suffice. It would be an intriguing course of action to pursue; could we effectively co-opt the Hegemony and turn them into a puppet state? Third-party subversion could be a troublesome complication, though, especially if—as is likely the case—the highest levels of government with authority and influence superseding any of our own pawns are already under their control, though that would not necessarily be an insurmountable issue with enough lower-level support. Perhaps an even more pressing point, though, buying the Batarians' own government out from under them would simply take time, time which we may well not have. That said, could we expedite the process with compounding actions to subvert the Hegemony to our own ends all the more quickly? We have no shortage of options for mitigating the significance of those who would stand in the way of our hypothetical agents. Perhaps we could make it work? Remove the enemy's pawns, supplant them with our own, and add another race to our cause? Is it worth doing? Is not doing so worth doing, or acceptable? ...do we just find the idea of buying the Hegemony funny enough to demand it? We may decide it to in fact not be our best option, but an option it indeed is.
Maybe, maybe not. Shadow Broker had bought the highest caste rank to gain access to the Hegenomy and he never set a foot to there. Of course, it is entirely possible that he had a patsy there as the "official" holder of the position.
Just brainstorming, but @Crystalwatcher you were pondering what technologies could be unlocked by getting access to the Elcor's eezo-based electronics miniaturization tech? Here's some ideas:
Computonium - The most generic option: combine Elcor electronics miniaturization tech with Elder Darkness compute tech to make smaller, faster processors and data interconnects.
Level I - +1 Learning Action
Level II (gated behind the ability to generate eezo from matter generators) - Integrates additional processing power into all combat units, allowing Eve or one of her angels to "assume direct control" at will. +10 to Combat rolls.
Bubble Tech - The Elcor's electronics miniaturization tech works by including three dimensional grids of eezo micro-nodes into electronic circuit boards, creating essentially a semi-permanent spacial warp that hides active electronics inside a "bubble" of spacetime that's bigger on the inside. Elder Darkness compute tech doesn't use anything as crude as electrical signals to transfer data, but it's possible to use this spacial warp to hide the volume of other things. Benefits include bonuses to Intrigue, and then Combat as eventual eezo generation allows us to casually compress all our tech while maintaining the same effective power.
Artificial Biotics - The ability to miniaturize electronics isn't itself particularly useful, since the Darkness moved beyond using electricity for anything long ago, but the extensive research that the Elcor have done on the behavior of eezo at micro and nano scales gives us the ability to integrate biotic "magic" techniques in our combat units. Things like being able to use Charge to do combat teleports with vehicles and eventually ships.
