I personally just don't want to start a rebellion when we have no idea what the actual political issues are, where we can't easily recruit very good soldiers, and for us to be much stronger before doing so.
One person (Cirella the Siren) was mentioned to have the power to use their ethos to create essentially 1000 invincible soldiers.
Notably, the mechanic of Cirella's power seems to be something like "if hit one of my soldiers, you hit
ALL my soldiers, but 1/1000th as badly." So if someone hits a Cirella's Thousand soldier in the neck with a big axe, instead of Cirella now having 999 living soldiers and one decapitated soldier, she will still have 1000 living soldiers, all with identical 0.12-millimeter-deep cuts in the side of their necks.
There are obvious practical limitations to this ability, mind you- chief among them area effects that don't rely on individual damaging wounds. A fragmentation bomb probably wouldn't work too well because each individual bit of shrapnel would only penetrate 1/1000th or so as far, so you'd just have a lot of soldiers sheepishly brushing bits of metal out of themselves. But flames or poison gas could work pretty well, I should think, and the unit wouldn't have exceptional ability to keep going through conditions that affect
everyone in the unit. Though depending on the range limitations, they could very well just have 990 soldiers hang back singing the song, and send the other 10 forward singing the song, and push through damn near
anything.
We are unlikely to become politically aware until it becomes far, far too late to do anything about it. Our only plausible chance for a loyal army is to lean on Martin with our sorely-bought advantages; and we need to do so now.
...What?
Lilly has supernatural abilities that are burgeoning rapidly in many directions. She's already repeatedly demonstrated supernatural ability to manipulate others (right words, right time). All she did on Captain Martin was supercharge this ability to get a few paragraphs of explanation for
WHY the words were right so that she can accurately assess how well it worked. She could easily develop several supernatural social manipulation powers. She can easily enhance
ANY body of soldiers the same way she enhanced the Harmuph militia, gaining their loyalty by aiding them in battle.
Just because this is the only opportunity
now known to Lilly to obtain a loyal army, doesn't mean this is the only opportunity to obtain a loyal army.
She could literally just run away to a foreign country and start fresh, possibly among people with fewer preconceived notions about "owning her" or about what she can and cannot do. Remember, the thread title is "It's a Girl's
World," not "It's a Girl's Small Town And Immediate Environs."
Ah, yeah. You're right. It's hard to wrap my mind around infinity sometimes. Lilly can just write out every permutation of plan to exist, circumventing the need to actually do the thinking bit.
Writing out every possible permutation of the plan doesn't help you if you don't know which permutation is best. It just gives that poor abused/misused meta-power a larger stack of indistinguishable papers to sort through.
To quote Roger Zelazny, "It means nothing to be able to transport yourself anywhere if you are a fool in all places." Having a billion billion plans, without the ability to tell which one is going to work, is useless.
Also learning politics often is less difficult than you'd think, especially if we get the right ethos and are in an actual city. The most important bits is to just talk to right people at the right times. Which we actually should be able to do fairly well.
After all, "talk to the right people at the right times" is one of Lilly's literal superpowers, and one of the first ones she learned.
Waters will certainly be hunting us. With < 5 party members, will have no chance in an actual battle, so our only recourse is not to be found.
Waters has other things to do, and his jurisdiction is finite. We could just, y'know, get away farther and faster than he can realistically pursue in a short amount of time? Or where if he does pursue us, he has to act carefully to avoid antagonizing peers?
Come to think of it,
his Ethos revolves heavily on being able to manipulate territory he thinks of as 'his.' Forcing him to chase us 50-100 miles in a random direction, to a place he doesn't rule, might actually weaken him significantly.
But {Contention Prognosticator} told us that one would kill the other, so eventually we will engage in battle. So, effectively, going on the run means we will be forced to engage Waters with our own personal power, rather than with an army on our back.
Our personal power is increasing... but at a great enough rate to battle his entire party?
Come to think of it, this may be the strongest argument that we cannot avoid this fight, so must gain as many allies as possible.
If I recall correctly, [Contention Prognosticator] told us "one shall kill the other." Firstly, there was nothing about it being a personal face-to-face killing; we could set in motion a sequence of events where Waters dies offscreen or dies as part of an overall disaster. Secondly, "distant future" is a very wiggly term. It may well be that the best course of action for us is to evade him for a year, then come back overwhelmingly powerful and splatter him all over the landscape with a casual exertion of effort.
When your greatest underlying power is nigh-unlimited
growth potential combined with prodigious growth rate, hastening to confront enemies because you will inevitably have to fight them sooner or later can be a losing game. You may be better off with the "later" option.
Distant future is within 5.5 years, as that is the planned duration of the quest.
I don't think you actually know that.
Are we likely to have another chance to gain 200 people's loyalty in 5.5 years + Captain Martin's sure loyalty to the end?
Bet on it. Lilly has superpowers that include "say the exact right words to someone at the exact right time," "exactly impersonate a desired set of behaviors," and assorted other manipulate-other abilities. She is still developing those powers
rapidly.
You are
sorely underestimating the range of possible options she may have in the future for recruitment. The world is not limited to Harmuph and its immediate environs.
