Lex Sedet In Vertice: A Supervillain in the DCU CK2 quest

[Negation]

Can't speak to Ivo studying it, but the desire to take this action is exactly why I spent an AP in my plan on Santa Prisca. Because that's where the Intergang loot pinata is at.

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[ ] [Bane] Search for Metahumans amongst the Santa Priscan population
DC ??? Bane is unaware of Metahumans but he is quite happy to search for any unusual individuals he comes across and then turn them over to someone who will pay him for it

[ ] [Bane] Look for secret weapons
DC 53 Intergang may be hiding secret weapons in the country. Bane is more than happy to go looking for any such objects.

[ ] [Bane] Search for secret bunkers
DC 60 Santa Prisca has secret bunkers and as a local Bane can cut some time on the search down by narrowing the areas they could be in while the US military concentrates on winning the war

These appeal to me too.

 

[Simon_Jester]

[ ] [Jobs] Change some titles and positions:-
Emily Rice: Part-time tutor to Cassandra

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Yeah, I agree. We'll get a new tutor for Jinx next turn, and let someone with a Ph.D. in physics teach Cassandra SCIENCE!

Yeah I agree with you Pam's would be good but her fanatic attitude could be an issue. (Seeing traitors where there are none) Carl Draper would be good as what he will essentially be doing is setting social traps for people

Click to shrink...

Honestly I think Carl would be good too.

We need four qualifications:

1) Good at the job- needs to be a good manager and a good spymaster; strong Diplomacy-Stewardship-Intrigue combos are recommended here.

2) Is personally stable- is free of personal issues that lead to paranoia or other folly. Someone who is prone to extreme jealousy, paranoia, or rage is a bad choice here, because they may denounce the wrong people for the wrong reasons.

3) Has "Minion Reliability," that is to say, will reliably carry out disagreeable orders because "it's my job." You don't want a minion who has their own ideas about what needs doing, or who refuses to carry out your orders because they disagree with their personality.

4) Conversely, does not have "Hero Unreliability," that is to say, will not spontaneously decide to blow the whistle on dirty dealings if they are somehow uncovered.

...

Mercy is an adequate choice in all four categories; the main reason I don't want to pick her is that being able to assign her as an assistant to other characters is so helpful, and I'm pretty sure her co-op scores will decline if she's assigned this way.

Of the other choices...
Katherine Kane and Felicity Smoak have "Hero Unreliability." If they found out about us doing something really bad, they might well report us to the police.

Lisa Snart doesn't have Minion Reliability, in that we can't be sure she won't allow herself to be bought off to let a spy through our guard. Sam Scudder is very promising in this department but not personally loyal (yet?) and also not Minion Reliable, necessarily. Edward Nygma, while showing no signs of disloyalty in the normal sense, is not Minion Reliable because he doesn't ask for orders when he should, and will disobey orders if he thinks he sees a smarter way to achieve the objective and be wrong about that judgment call. By contrast, someone like Mercy might disobey Lex, but only because she was right and he was wrong, and she'd be damn sure about it before making that call.

Isley's too intense, Karl's too depressed, angry, and insensitive to the feelings of others to run a department, Dahl's too jealous and prone to anger. They fail qualification (2).

Rose Wilson's too inexperienced to run the department. Rebecca doesn't have the skill set, and Roxanne doesn't have the managerial mindset.

That leaves Carl.

 

[Negation]

Isley's too intense, Karl's too depressed, angry, and insensitive to the feelings of others to run a department, Dahl's too jealous and prone to anger. They fail qualification (2).

Rose Wilson's too inexperienced to run the department. Rebecca doesn't have the skill set, and Roxanne doesn't have the managerial mindset.

That leaves Carl

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Roxy? No one would suspect her right?

 

[ebolasos]

Can we maybe hire carls daughter and have them work together as partners if we choose Carl for the job?

 

[Simon_Jester]

General note:

I think that if we want Cassandra to be a well-rounded Hero Daughter in her late teens, we're going to need to start 'sparing' her for her own education actions more often. She needs to learn language, math, science, various diplomacy bits... there's a loooot to learn there. Lex will only sometimes be available for those lessons, and other hero units (like Oswald on "socialize with children" or a tutor on Learning actions) will be available sometimes too, but Cass herself must always be available.

Also, in my plan, we switch Dr. Rice to Cassandra (who is showing signs of being a very gifted child in the STEM subjects, which are Dr. Rice's specialty). Next turn we'll hire Jinx a new tutor, and/or keep a sorceress available to teach her magic.

Can we maybe hire carls daughter and have them work together as partners if we choose Carl for the job?

Click to shrink...

She's, um... I'm not sure how old exactly but definitely not out of college. Probably best not.

Roxy? No one would suspect her right?

Click to shrink...

Yes, but her high co-op scores are a very valuable asset I don't want to compromise. I'm kind of trying to groom her as a 'head of hero squad' character by slowly increasing her stats until she can actually boss a three-person collaboration consistently, but that's taking time. If Roxanne starts being distrusted by half the company's hero units, her value to us is significantly damaged.

Carl, by contrast, already has kind of meh co-op stats, but also has a +45 on a certain action we're going to take very frequently anyway, in addition to pretty good Stewardship and Intrigue, and so doesn't NEED co-op to be effective on many/most turns.

...

Aaanyway.

Lex Sedet In Vertice: A Supervillain in the DCU CK2 quest Superhero

This is the threadmarks for a quest in which you lead LexCorp to new highs (and moral lows) as you take the role of a supervillain in the DC universe. I'm still experimenting with stuff so please be patient with me as I try to get stuff to work optimally.

forums.sufficientvelocity.com

OK, I discussed a prospective hero lineup here. Some small variations on the theme here.

Also, @King crimson , I have a question for you contained here. It's about Doctor Moon.

[ ] Assist the US Government with the war effort in Santa Prisca - Katherine
[ ] Fortify LexCorp tower - Carl
[ ] Consult with the DOMA - Pamela
[ ] Recruit Lucy Lane as a personal lawyer - Roxanne, Lisa
[ ] Release what you have - Oswald
[ ] Repair the damaged Supercomputer - NO HERO
[ ] Develop and sell high fashion clothing - Mari
[ ] Develop a social media platform - Felicity, Carol
[ ] Build a secret lab in a remote location - Dr. Moon (Does Moon even HAVE a first name? )
[ ] Build a new LexCorp building (Vienna) - NO HERO
[ ] Begin producing hologram technology - NO HERO
[ ] Investigate Bradford Sackett's death - Rose, Mercy
[ ] Build surveillance satellites - Samuel, Leonard
[ ] Investigate the unknown individual - Nygma, Cerise,
[ ] Learn about Kryptonite - Rebecca, Mick
[ ] Learn from the Red Tornado data - Lex, Cassandra, Karl
[ ] The A.M.A.Z.O. project - Ivo, Marie

---

[X] Plan Research Killer Robots and Start Lexbook.
-[X] Assist the US Government with the war effort in Santa Prisca - Katherine
-[X] Fortify LexCorp tower - Carl
-[X] Consult with the DOMA - Pamela
-[X] Recruit Lucy Lane as a personal lawyer - Roxanne, Lisa
-[X] Release what you have - Oswald
-[X] Develop and sell high fashion clothing - Mari
-[X] Develop a social media platform - Felicity, Carol
-[X] Build a secret lab in a remote location - Dr. Moon
-[X] Investigate Bradford Sackett's death - Rose, Mercy
-[X] Build surveillance satellites - Samuel, Leonard
-[X] Investigate the unknown individual - Nygma, Cerise,
-[X] Learn about Kryptonite - Rebecca, Mick
-[X] Learn from the Red Tornado data - Lex, Cassandra, Karl
-[X] The A.M.A.Z.O. project - Dr. Ivo, Marie
-[X] [Jinx] Educate Jinx about writing and literature- Jinx
-[X] [Bane] Sell captured Intergang weapons to LexCorp
-[X] [Bane] Look for secret weapons
-[X] [Jobs] Change some titles and positions
--[X] Emily Rice -> Part-time tutor to Cassandra
-[X] [Jobs] Add an additional title or position to a unit
--[X] Carl Draper -> Director of Internal Review
-[X] [DIR] Carl Draper

 

[Gumiho]

[X] Plan Research Killer Robots and Start Lexbook.

 

[Negation]

[X] Plan Research Killer Robots and Start Lexbook.

 

[Qudrim8054]

Hey @Simon_Jester, I think we should also start on teaching Cass about diplomacy now that she can talk. Maybe have her interact with other kids and adults might do her some good. Having Emily be her tutor is a fantastic idea, but Cassandra's diplomacy is so low that we should do something about it ourselves.

Still, I'll vote for your plan for now.

[X] Plan Research Killer Robots and Start Lexbook.

 

[b-wolf95]

[X] Plan Research Killer Robots and Start Lexbook.

 

[Simon_Jester]

Hey @Simon_Jester, I think we should also start on teaching Cass about diplomacy now that she can talk. Maybe have her interact with other kids and adults might do her some good. Having Emily be her tutor is a fantastic idea, but Cassandra's diplomacy is so low that we should do something about it ourselves.

Still, I'll vote for your plan for now.

Click to shrink...

I actually agree. I think that next turn we should put Lex on a "teach Cassandra ???" action aimed in the direction you mention. And some time in the near future we should put Oswald on "socialize Cassandra with ???," which is a Diplomacy action involving children and so will have a massive +20 bonus on the die roll.

I agree that this is a high priority action.

With that said, we're going to also have to shake our addiction to using Lex+Cass as a easy way to break down tough Learning actions. Otherwise, Cass isn't going to get a well-rounded education, and she'll turn into a Martial/Intrigue/Learning monster with extremely mediocre Diplomacy/Stewardship stats. Which isn't too bad I guess, but it's not what we want if we're trying to train her up into an heir apparent who can run the company in Lex's absence or independently run important collaborations.

EDIT:

For that matter, we need to not always have Lex doing Learning himself. It's what he does best, but there would be a lot of advantages to us mega-critting collaborative projects in Diplomacy and Stewardship right now. Building up the power of the corporation is important in the long run.

And we have a very hard time getting those mega-crits without Lex. Having all our mega-crits come in Learning is well and good... up to a point.

 

[ThatGuyWithIdeas]

[X] Plan Research Killer Robots and Start Lexbook.

 

[Negation]

I actually agree. I think that next turn we should put Lex on a "teach Cassandra ???" action aimed in the direction you mention. And some time in the near future we should put Oswald on "socialize Cassandra with ???," which is a Diplomacy action involving children and so will have a massive +20 bonus on the die roll.

I agree that this is a high priority action.

Click to shrink...

Or assign Karl to teach Cassandra biology. He likes kids and is patient with her. Lex can then hire more Stewardship units to take care of business.

 

[Simon_Jester]

Or assign Karl to teach Cassandra biology. He likes kids and is patient with her. Lex can then hire more Stewardship units to take care of business.

Click to shrink...

Karl Helfern has a 0.4 co-op score with Cassandra. The action will still succeed, because Helfern's bonus alone is enough to solo the action... but it won't flourish, though it might be a good way to improve the co-op score between them.

With that said, there are a LOT of ways to handle the "drop Cassandra off for a turn while Lex does something else" issue. It's not a problem. We can drop Cassandra off with Oswald, Mercy, Roxy, even Rose ("teach Cassandra to handle weapons" is something she could help with, I bet).

But we want those actions to go as well as possible, so we want to pick people who are skilled in the relevant areas and have a lot to teach Cassandra, and who have good co-op, even if their stats aren't amazingly high themselves.

However, specifically getting Cassandra's Diplomacy score to a level higher than that of Dr. Ivo is a pretty high priority and probably worthy of Lex's personal attention in the short term.

 

[King crimson]

(Does Moon even HAVE a first name? )

Click to shrink...

Canonically no he does not (in all of comics he never has a first name given)

In fact I'm halfway tempted to say that Dr. Moon isn't even his real name but rather an alias he uses and has gotten used to using in place of his real name.

 

[Negation]

[ ] Develop Vlatava
DC 20 Count Vertigo has given you free reign and essentially a monopoly in his country. As such you can develop it however you see fit. Building up your ally to become dependent on you not only will give you a more useful ally but will also ensure he cannot betray you.

Click to shrink...

Wait a sec. @King crimson if we had chosen this option, we could have a LexCorp HQ there as well right?

 

[King crimson]

Wait a sec. @King crimson if we had chosen this option, we could have a LexCorp HQ there as well right?

Click to shrink...

No there is a separate option for that (DC for building one in Terenverti). It would lower the DC but it would mostly be building other stuff in Vlatava (factories, housing, schools etc.)

 

[Lockheart]

@Simon_Jester, you used Roxanne twice.

I decided to try to make a plan of my own this time.

Rose alone is enough for the war effort, especially considering her Killer instinct.
Carl is responsible for fortifying anything and everything.
Roxanne seems to be our go-to girl for negotiations. Plus, if DOMA studied Woodroe's remains and research, they may be aware of the pheromones and be suspicious, no matter justified or not, so sending Pamela is not the best decision for this particular diplomacy role.
I admit that I just didn't know what to do with Lisa this turn.
Oswald deserves to finish the action he worked on for so many turns, even if the action would auto-complete itself without him.
Mari, too, deserves to spend some time on her own ambitions.
Felicity and Carol have good synergy, and I want this action to succeed.
Dr. Moon can make his lab himself.
Katherine is an intuitive choice to search for criminals, after all, she would become Batwoman in the other life. Mick and Leo are there mainly to increase the coop score between the martial units for future turns.
We cannot mess up building surveillance satellites, it will ruin us. Sam and Mercy together should do the trick.
For Brain, characters from the previous turn, minus Lisa. She did almost nothing to contribute the action with Ed as a head, so I put her somewhere she could actually help.
The main thing we wanted to know about kryptonite before using it on cars is if it is hazardous and if yes, how to negate it. And Karl is actually a biologist.
We need to succeed in Red Tornado action in order to make Ivo's work manageable, so Lex and Pam here.
Ivo and Marie on AMAZO, as usual.

The action with Cass can be changed by the mood of the thread. Personally, I remember that Cass did ballet in comics, and liked it.
I used Rebecca to teach Jinx magic. I know that their coop is abysmal, but the action is comparatively easy (10dc), so I am cautiously optimistic that by teaching her magic first Rebecca will decrease Cerise's influence on Jinx.

As for Bane, we wanted Intergang (alien) technology to play with, and kind Dr. Moon needs something to do next turns. Additionally, it was agreed with Count that we will research metahumans, and we need to find them first.

[X] Plan Let kids be kids.
-[X] Assist the US Government with the war effort in Santa Prisca - Rose
-[X] Fortify LexCorp tower - Carl
-[X] Consult with the DOMA - Roxanne
-[X] Recruit Lucy Lane as a personal lawyer - Lisa
-[X] Release what you have - Oswald
-[X] Develop and sell high fashion clothing - Mari
-[X] Develop a social media platform - Felicity, Carol
-[X] Build a secret lab in a remote location - Dr. Moon
-[X] Investigate Bradford Sackett's death - Katherine, Leonard, Mick
-[X] Build surveillance satellites - Samuel, Mercy
-[X] Investigate the unknown individual - Nygma, Cerise
-[X] Learn about Kryptonite - Karl
-[X] Learn from the Red Tornado data - Lex, Pamela
-[X] The A.M.A.Z.O. project - Dr. Ivo, Marie
-[X] [Cass] Teach Cassandra ballet
-[X] [Jinx] Teach Jinx magic - Rebecca, Jinx.
-[X] [Bane] Sell captured Intergang weapons to LexCorp
-[X] [Bane] Search for Metahumans amongst the Santa Priscan population
-[X] [Jobs] Change some titles and positions
--[X] Emily Rice -> Part-time tutor to Cassandra
-[X] [Jobs] Add an additional title or position to a unit
--[X] Carl Draper -> Director of Internal Review
-[X] [DIR] Carl Draper





Edit: with some suggestions from Simon, here are some revised plans.

Here we use the fact that Rose has now better intrigue than Mercy to reshuffle heroes a little. Tornado and Unknown individual actions still have relatively high chance of failure.

[X] Plan Let kids be kids, Mk2.
-[X] Assist the US Government with the war effort in Santa Prisca - Katherine, Mick
-[X] Fortify LexCorp tower - Carl
-[X] Consult with the DOMA - Roxanne
-[X] Recruit Lucy Lane as a personal lawyer - Lisa
-[X] Release what you have - Oswald
-[X] Develop and sell high fashion clothing - Mari
-[X] Develop a social media platform - Felicity, Carol
-[X] Investigate Bradford Sackett's death - Rose, Mercy
-[X] Build surveillance satellites - Samuel, Leonard
-[X] Investigate the unknown individual - Nygma, Cerise
-[X] Learn about Kryptonite - Karl, Dr. Moon
-[X] Learn from the Red Tornado data - Lex, Pamela
-[X] The A.M.A.Z.O. project - Dr. Ivo, Marie
-[X] [Cass] Teach Cassandra ballet
-[X] [Jinx] Teach Jinx magic - Rebecca, Jinx.
-[X] [Bane] Sell captured Intergang weapons to LexCorp
-[X] [Bane] Search for Metahumans amongst the Santa Priscan population
-[X] [Jobs] Change some titles and positions
--[X] Emily Rice -> Part-time tutor to Cassandra
-[X] [Jobs] Add an additional title or position to a unit
--[X] Carl Draper -> Director of Internal Review
-[X] [DIR] Carl Draper

Next plan is more of a compromise. We use Case as a hero unit instead of teaching her. It lets us use her instead of Pam on Tornado, and Pam instead of Roxy on DOMA, and Roxy on Brain hunting, making that action more manageable. The Tornado action is still not too good.
[X] Plan Magical Jinx and hunting for Brain.
-[X] Assist the US Government with the war effort in Santa Prisca - Katherine, Mick
-[X] Fortify LexCorp tower - Carl
-[X] Consult with the DOMA - Pamela
-[X] Recruit Lucy Lane as a personal lawyer - Lisa
-[X] Release what you have - Oswald
-[X] Develop and sell high fashion clothing - Mari
-[X] Develop a social media platform - Felicity, Carol
-[X] Investigate Bradford Sackett's death - Rose, Mercy
-[X] Build surveillance satellites - Samuel, Leonard
-[X] Investigate the unknown individual - Nygma, Cerise, Roxanne
-[X] Learn about Kryptonite - Karl, Dr. Moon
-[X] Learn from the Red Tornado data - Lex, Cassandra
-[X] The A.M.A.Z.O. project - Dr. Ivo, Marie
-[X] [Jinx] Teach Jinx magic - Rebecca, Jinx.
-[X] [Bane] Sell captured Intergang weapons to LexCorp
-[X] [Bane] Search for Metahumans amongst the Santa Priscan population
-[X] [Jobs] Change some titles and positions
--[X] Emily Rice -> Part-time tutor to Cassandra
-[X] [Jobs] Add an additional title or position to a unit
--[X] Carl Draper -> Director of Internal Review
-[X] [DIR] Carl Draper

 

[Negation]

No there is a separate option for that (DC for building one in Terenverti). It would lower the DC but it would mostly be building other stuff in Vlatava (factories, housing, schools etc.)

Click to shrink...

Hmmm... maybe we should put Carl + Nygma on this next turn since both have high Stewardship & Co-Op.

If they don't know what to do with an entire country to play with I will smack them.

 

[FakePriest]

Canonically no he does not (in all of comics he never has a first name given)

In fact I'm halfway tempted to say that Dr. Moon isn't even his real name but rather an alias he uses and has gotten used to using in place of his real name.

Click to shrink...

I bet he have different names depending on country. Maybe he didn't even remember his birth name himself. Why would he? It doesn't matter for his studies.

 

[Swedish15]

[X] Plan Research Killer Robots and Start Lexbook.

 

[Simon_Jester]

The Metropolitan Clan, Ch. 33​

The Fall of Petersburg

After the introduction of Leland Luthor's armored steam cars to the battlefield, the Siege of Petersburg collapsed within two weeks. The Confederates, already stretched thin by Union forces extending to wrap their lines around the city, and woefully undersupplied thanks to Union cavalry raids cutting the railroads, had no effective and lasting answer to the fighting vehicles. Confederate artillery and close-combat assaults by parties of 'grenadier' tank-hunter units knocked out dozens of steam cars during the fighting, but no more than a few at a time in any one place- but not enough to matter.

The slow, grinding losses of armored cars proved meaningless in the face of the sheer productivity of Luthor's Metropolitan factories. The Metropolis Locomotive Works could replace and refurbish steam cars nearly as fast as they were destroyed, and Grant continued to feed them into the front, pressing home assault after assault. Confederate morale began to crumble in the face of the virtually invincible "infernal machines," which were often stopped but never thrown back. The steam cars advanced only gradually, accompanied by Army Corps of Engineers units to clear obstacles their all-terrain wheels could not cross. But the advance was inexorable.

Lee was losing ground and soldiers fast. The grenadier units that had made a promising debut on December 9th had taken devastating losses and ultimately failed to prevent the Confederates from having to fall back. Each retreat meant more of Lee's soldiers would be forced to occupy hastily constructed, inadequate fortifications that provided poor shelter from Union bombardment and presented less of an obstacle to Union assaults. And while his artillery could snipe at Grant's "land ironclads," and was arguably the only asset at Lee's disposal capable of deterring them from launching an attack, that, too, was becoming a fragile hope. Whenever the Army of Northern Virginia deployed massed artillery close enough to the front to fire accurately on approaching armor, it came under heavy bombardment from superheavy Union siege mortars.

In the third week of December, Lee began sending an increasingly desperate series of messages to Richmond. His position was untenable, but Union cavalry had established blocking positions defended by multiple Luthor gun batteries along all the major roads out of the city on the south, and their artillery was in a position to sweep much of the Appomattox River if he tried to cross back towards the capital. Even if Lee could somehow make it to the Richmond fortifications without massive casualties, the capital would be cut off from all hope of resupply. There was no obvious reason why the combination of heavy artillery and "infernal machines" couldn't simply crush through those defenses as easily as it had around Petersburg.

On December 20, 1864, four years to the day after the state of South Carolina declared its secession from the Union, Robert E. Lee unconditionally surrendered the stranded Army of Northern Virginia to General Grant. Confederate officials and civilians fled Richmond into the countryside in great numbers. This had a demoralizing effect on the garrisons of Richmond's fortifications, and desertion rates rose exponentially. By the time Union forces began appearing around the defenses by December 26, there was little interest in withstanding a protracted siege, and the city's military commanders surrendered on the 28th..

Downfall

The other Confederate armies were faring little better. Fort Fisher, the key defense of Wilmington- the last Confederate port of any consequence- was hard pressed and would fall to assault within days. Sherman's army had cut all the way to the Atlantic coast in Georgia by taking Savannah and was now starting a rampage up into the Carolinas- the Confederacy was not cut not in two, but in three pieces. An army under Sheridan had finally conquered the Shenandoah Valley, the "breadbasket of the Confederacy." There were only a handful of pockets of Confederate territory left unoccupied by Union forces, and these were mostly rural territory of little or no strategic value.

By New Year's Day, 1865, it was clear that the war was all but over. Remaining Confederate armies, faced with the threat of entire army corps from the Army of the Potomac being free to reinforce their federal opponents, began to surrender. Confederate president Jefferson Davis managed to escape Richmond before the Union army showed up, and even to make it on horseback to the Army of the Tennessee (now under command of Joe Johnston once again), in hopes of continuing the war. But Johnston informed Davis that the situation was hopeless, and that he intended to surrender to Sherman. Davis fled once again, in the direction of Wilmington, in hopes of reaching the city before it was cut off and escaping to Europe- but was captured by a Union patrol on January 23.

There was no formal declaration of overall Confederate surrender, at least not in a timely manner. Individual Confederate states and military formations yielded to their Union counterparts when and as they saw fit, over the course of January and February 1865. The last Confederate land army to surrender was the army's Indian Division under Cherokee chief and general Stand Watie, a force operating in remote areas in northern Texas and the southern parts of what is now Oklahoma- and mainly operating against other Cherokee. The last Confederate naval unit to surrender was the CSS Shenandoah, a commerce raider that had slipped into the Pacific Ocean, and which preyed mainly on whaling ships that were themselves far from home and out of touch with national affairs. The Shenandoah did not surrender until October 1865, having sailed back around most of the planet to yield to the neutral power of Great Britain rather than run any risk of being executed as pirates by the U.S. government.

However, despite a handful of remaining holdouts, by the end of February it was clear that the war was effectively over and that organized Confederate resistance was dissolving. President Lincoln had been confirmed in reelection in November of the previous year, even before Grant began to crush Petersburg; now, on March 4, 1865, he gave his second inaugural address to a nation that was could finally hope to know peace.

Spoiler: "Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address"

Fellow Countrymen:
At this second appearing to take the oath of the presidential office, there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement, somewhat in detail, of a course to be pursued, seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest absorbed the attention, and engrossed the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented. The success of our arms is as well known to the public as to myself; and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all.

On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago, all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil-war. All dreaded it -- all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war -- seeking to dissolve the Union, and divide effects, by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than let it perish. And the war came.

One eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the Southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was, somehow, the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union, even by war; while the government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war, the magnitude, or the duration, which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with, or even before, the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces; but let us judge not that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered; that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh!" If we shall suppose that American Slavery is one of those offences which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He has given to both North and South, this terrible war, as the woe due to those by whom the offence came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a Living God always ascribe to Him?

We make fond, fervent prayers of thanksgiving that this mighty scourge of war seems now to pass away. Yet, had God willed that it continue, until all the wealth piled by the bond-man's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil should be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, should be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it should then be said "the judgments of the Lord, are true and righteous altogether"

With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan -- to achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.

Metropolis in Victory, Luthor in Victory

The end of the war came as a profound relief to the citizenry of Metropolis. While the return of soldiers to the city would be slow, return they did. While the Army of the Potomac would still need to be fed as they gradually stood down, they no longer consumed vast mountains of bullets and gunpowder. While U. S. Navy warships still came and went in the Metropolis Navy Yard, some of them were coming in to be retired forever, including nearly all the large fleet of 'thunderer' ironclads that had been built for coastal operations during the conflict.

The end of the American Civil War meant an end to conscription and war taxation. It meant an end to the deaths of family members and loved ones. It meant an end to the fear of Rebel attack- though the Confederates never engaged in more than espionage and minor naval raiding in the vicinity of Metropolis, the city was comparatively exposed for most of the war.

The end of the war meant that the city might soon hope to restore some measure of internal peace across its ethnic and racial divisions, perhaps more so than it had enjoyed before the war. It meant expansions of commerce- or at least, commerce not devoted to pouring supplies and munitions into the hungry Army of the Potomac. It meant a lasting and irrevocable end to the institution of slavery, and freedom unlike anything ever before known for African-Americans.

The end of the war meant many things, to many people, in Metropolis.

For the city's largest industrial conglomerate, it meant great disruptions, on many levels.

Leland Luthor had thrown himself almost obsessively into the creation of new weapons for three years. It is well established by the man's biographers that the death of his father had driven his innate gifts as an inventor to remarkable heights. In his quest for retribution, with the full resources fo Luthor Steam and Steel at his command, he did more than any other single man in history to prototype the war machines that would shape the coming age of industrial conflict: the turreted, armored battleship, the machine gun, and the tank. All these things had been deployed against the Confederate states in the beginning, middle, and end of the war, to crushing effect.

Leland's name was cursed or dreaded by tens if not hundreds of thousands of men, across a thousand miles of former Confederate territory. It was blessed by tens or hundreds of thousands more throughout the nation, in the victorious armies and even among some of the African-American freedmen who had gained their liberty in the outcome of the war- an ironic turn of events, given that LS&S had been one of the largest slaveowning entities in America in 1860.

Insofar as one man can get his revenge against an entire nation, Leland Luthor had gotten it. But what now?

Leland remained, as various members of the Luthor family had been for nearly two hundred years, a business magnate of Metropolis, Maryland. The end of the war presented bright economic prospects at every turn. But Leland had largely neglected corporate affairs in favor of building war machines since 1862. Despite this, his businesses had survived and even done well during the war years, for Lucius had left him a commercial empire well suited to profit from the great expenses of the Civil War, and he was not without able subordinates to manage it.

But some of these same subordinates had plans and ideas of their own. And others would have much to say about the success or failure of his future undertakings, as the war-wizard of Metropolis struggled to adapt to a future of peace and commerce.

 

[Simon_Jester]

@Gumiho
My plan double-booked Roxanne. I just now fixed it. Could you go back and amend your vote or just vote for the plan name?

@Simon-Jester, you used Roxanne twice.

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Crud, you're right. Fixed.

I decided to try to make a plan of my own this time.

Rose alone is enough for the war effort, especially considering her Killer instinct.

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Rose certainly IS enough... but I just blew 2000 XP on her Intrigue score so that she and Mercy could combine to give us a +50 on the die roll on Intrigue actions as a teamup. We're a bit hard up for good Intrigue teams, as opposed to just individuals with scores in the mid-teens.

Given that investigating Sackett's death is probably going to be fairly hard, and that we ideally want a success that gives us clues as to who this invisible asshole is and who he works for which will probably only happen on a high-scoring crit... Well, I want a strong team on that task.

Roxanne seems to be our go-to girl for negotiations. Plus, if DOMA studied Woodroe's remains and research, they may be aware of the pheromones and be suspicious, no matter justified or not, so sending Pamela is not the best decision for this particular diplomacy role.

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I can think of a lot of reasonable precautions DOMA could take to avoid issues like that (if nothing else, teleconferencing), and on the whole DOMA has been very open with us and shows many signs of trusting us to work with them in good faith- which we mostly have, so far; we've held back a bit but we haven't tried to cheat or control them.

With that said, I think it best to flip things around, put Lisa on the DOMA liaison role (Diplomacy 13 on a DC 12 task) and Pamela on recruiting Lucy Lane (Diplomacy 25 on a DC 33 task). Roxanne would be quite adequate to either choice, but I don't think she should be doing that instead of helping investigate the Brain.

Katherine is an intuitive choice to search for criminals, after all, she would become Batwoman in the other life. Mick and Leo are there mainly to increase the coop score between the martial units for future turns.

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The problem is, it's not a Martial action, it's an Intrigue action, and Katherine's the only really good Intrigue character we've put on the task. Leonard is kind of meh at Intrigue, Mick is actively terrible at it, and neither of them has good co-op scores with Katherine.

If we really wanted to do what you describe, we should put Katherine on the Santa Prisca action and assign Leonard and Mick to that, because then we'd be playing to the men's strengths instead of their weaknesses. This would increase the chances of critting the action and getting co-op increases among the heroes involved in the task, too.

By contrast, we don't know the DC on "investigate Sackett's death" but it could be pretty high. It's quite possible that Katherine+Leonard+Mick (effective combined Intrigue +27 on the die roll) would simply fail, maybe even fail hard, and that recriminations might blow up among them as a result, lowering their co-op scores.

We cannot mess up building surveillance satellites, it will ruin us. Sam and Mercy together should do the trick.

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Well yes- but so would Sam and Leonard; their combined Intrigue is high enough for a pretty much assured success

For Brain, characters from the previous turn, minus Lisa. She did almost nothing to contribute the action with Ed as a head, so I put her somewhere she could actually help.

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I agree with removing Lisa. The problem is that Edward+Cerise, while a good enough Intrigue team to find them last turn, isn't good enough to be confident of beating DC 88. They need more muscle... but about the only person who gets along that well with Nygma, and has a decent Intrigue score, and is available, is Roxy. Which is why I pulled her off the Diplomacy actions.

The main thing we wanted to know about kryptonite before using it on cars is if it is hazardous and if yes, how to negate it. And Karl is actually a biologist.

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That's... a fair point. I could happily swap out Karl for Rebecca, put Rebecca on the Red Tornado action for the same reason I put Karl on it (co-op of 0.9 with Lex, we get +1 AP/turn if that score increases), and have Karl working on kryptonite.

The problem, then, is that Karl alone doesn't actually have a good chance of success on the project, and Karl doesn't work well with many Learning hero units who are available this turn except maybe Doctor Moon- we could take him OFF the secret lair project and hope he doesn't do anything too insane and sadistic with the kryptonite research.

We need to succeed in Red Tornado action in order to make Ivo's work manageable, so Lex and Pam here.
Ivo and Marie on AMAZO, as usual.

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Lex+Pamela isn't... quite as strong a Learning teamup as Lex+Cass+(another hero). I was hoping to not just succeed on that action (which Lex+Pamela probably would), but to completely blow the doors off of it with an exploding crit.

The action with Cass can be changed by the mood of the thread. Personally, I remember that Cass did ballet in comics, and liked it.

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I would strongly support 'learn language' actions. Cassandra learning ballet is well and good, but she's massively behind her developmental level on language skills and we should be taking that seriously.

The only reason I'm not putting Cass on that now is because I specifically plan to throw Lex+Cass at it as a powerful teamup next turn if humanly possible.

I used Rebecca to teach Jinx magic. I know that their coop is abysmal, but the action is comparatively easy (10dc), so I am cautiously optimistic that by teaching her magic first Rebecca will decrease Cerise's influence on Jinx.

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This is not such a bad idea. I didn't choose it, because I've come to the realization that if Cerise really wants to spirit Jinx away, and if she's really the mythological Circe, she can probably do it whether we like it or not, by the simple expedient of asking Jinx to get in her chariot and offering her candy. Jinx has a higher co-op with Cerise than with almost anyone else on our roster, after all, and if Cerise is the mythical Circe, she could easily and quickly escape far beyond our ability to find her in a timely manner.

So given that Cerise hasn't already run off with Jinx, I suspect that she's not only, or even primarily, here in hopes of doing so.

 

[ebolasos]

[X] Plan Let kids be kids.

 

[Simon_Jester]

Hmmm... maybe we should put Carl + Nygma on this next turn since both have high Stewardship & Co-Op.

If they don't know what to do with an entire country to play with I will smack them.

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Nygma is a bad choice for that action because it involves interacting with people a lot. Nygma's Stewardship is good as long as he's sitting in an office dealing with expected contingencies and spreadsheets and planning and org charts and whatnot.

He stinks when it comes to dealing with people who aren't beholden to him, or taking advantage of unforeseen opportunities that involve negotiation. I want him very far away from our development projects.

Carl is a viable choice in his own right, though- as is, say, Mari. Oddly, Sam+Mick or Sam+Leonard would probably work there too, though they can make a LOT of things work and Sam's real genius is Intrigue actions.

 

[HavocOrder0999]

[X] Plan Research Killer Robots and Start Lexbook.