- Pronouns
- He/Him
GOD FUCKING DAMNIT!? WE need to make this Inquisitor disappear at some fucking point.
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Loyalty is its own Reward (A Traitor Legion Chapter Master Quest)
- Thread starter ThunderOwl
- Start date
I can't say that is exactly what I was expecting, but it's certainly consistent with the prior information we had about Mitsuhide and her methods.
Mitsuhide has moved up from "keep her in check" to "Let's plan an assassination before the war ends".
Nicholas Brooks
Redeemer and Destroyer
- Location
- United States
Yes it is, because we know Katerina has an excellent reputation and can expedite this a lot. Her replacement could have just gotten by from family connections and is incapable of doing any actual work, which is just as likely if not moreso than someone who actually has merit. That is literally the stereotype of Administratum upper levels: incompetents with powerful friends.
Would Abraham be upset if we ripped her head off during this campaign?
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- Pronouns
- He/Him
*Us when hearing about what Mitsuhide did*
Anybody who can't competently manage the paperwork of their duties and is dedicated to keeping their position, either by themselves or browbeating their subordinates into doing it for them, is going to be assassinated, re-assigned, back-room-puppeted, or otherwise be eliminated by their competitors. Any family connections at this level will be countered with opposing family connections because the Imperium is huge and powerful families riddle the upper echelons, with all the backroom dealing that implies.
Stereotypes are frequently deliberately peddled despite their falsity, because portraying yourself as being less powerful/capable than you are is a very valuable political/social tool. There is, in fact, a minimum bar of competence and dedication to achieve Katerina's position, and it's fairly high. Though perhaps not quite as high as any of us would like.
Nicholas Brooks
Redeemer and Destroyer
- Location
- United States
That isn't proving me wrong, that just tells me "most of the time it's the family with the most weight to throw around that gets their puppet in place" rather than innately needing to be good at bureaucracy. Politicking is mostly not applicable to actually running a good administration.
A "good administration" for who?
The "good" that any given bureaucrat serves doesn't significantly change the skill requirements needed to reach a high position, it just influences what pot the ass sitting in the seat chooses to shit in on any given day.
It is a fundamental requirement of any middle- or higher-level administrator to be proficient at paperwork, people-spinning, basic data-finding, and how to at least monitor the systems around you. If you can't do that, you will be replaced quickly. Either because you're a fucking deadweight hindrance (or actively corrupt) in an objectively good administration, or because you're weak and can be pillaged in an objectively bad one.
That is one of the classic characteristics in real-world dystopian bureaucracies; high turnover as people constantly one-up each other, and only the most competent and willing-to-use-it actually keep their positions for extended periods of time. Such systems invariably remove people who can't keep up in short order.
We do not have as much control over who replaces Katerina as I would like, both because we're Astartes and because Mitsuhide's still around. But we do still have friends and leverage we can apply, and if we kill off Mitsuhide relatively quietly that leaves us and the assorted noteworthies on Lezo as the (probably) biggest block of influence on who gets chosen next.
We can work with that to increase our chances of getting someone who serves our own ends competently, or at least won't try to actively hinder us.
Luminous
God Save The Queen
- Location
- Victoria, BC, Canada
Breakout, either through the air or on ground, link up, and push into the Patriarch. We can stuff the Lord Sector safely onto our ship where he can issue orders from the Vox while being safe from assassination.
Damn, we really shoukd have come here with more than a single company and a few squads
Damn, we really shoukd have come here with more than a single company and a few squads
Nicholas Brooks
Redeemer and Destroyer
- Location
- United States
Good in the sense of "effective" or "efficient". The Imperium is known to have all kinds of people in all kinds of positions of power who only got there because they are either a relative of someone important (and thus nigh-impossible to remove) or specifically being good at manipulating people, even if their skills for the job itself are lacking. After all, if your uncle is some bigshot Rogue Trader with enough money and connections to buy out the sector you're working in, who the Hell is actually going to get rid of you and risk an unimaginable backlash? Any required work can be pawned off to an underling or twelve because you've got the money for it.
And yeah now that she's dead we don't have much choice but to assassinate Mitsuhide and try and find someone decent that will not be against us, but that doesn't change my opinion that her death is the worst thing that could have happened here.
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Noroboro
Consistency is key and I’m consistently tired :)
- Location
- Canada
Okay, our friendly Adept dying is incredibly unfortunate and the fact that fucking Mitsuhide had a hand in that has changed things. She willing let loyal Imperial citizens die and that means she is a full blown traitor.
Regardless, what is everyone's thoughts on how we get out of here? The Arbites scattering is unfortunate but I'm thinking we try and punch through the lines. I was tempted to try and sneak out but I don't think we should. I feel like the GC will be swarming the underground now that we've been pushed back to the palace.
Regardless, what is everyone's thoughts on how we get out of here? The Arbites scattering is unfortunate but I'm thinking we try and punch through the lines. I was tempted to try and sneak out but I don't think we should. I feel like the GC will be swarming the underground now that we've been pushed back to the palace.
Nicholas Brooks
Redeemer and Destroyer
- Location
- United States
No matter what we're not flying out. Without the support of the Guard we're quite fucked against Cult AA. Personally I'm tempted to hold down the fort given our relative lack of forces available to punch through the Genestealer Cultists but at the same time I am now worried Mitsuhide will just obstruct any relief efforts to ensure we die. So not much choice except to punch through and pray I guess.
Noroboro
Consistency is key and I’m consistently tired :)
- Location
- Canada
Yeah, I refuse to fly out as well. I don't trust a single Thunderhawk to carry out a the Lord Sector. If we had extra Thunderhawks then maybe but in our current state? No way. Also, there's no way Mitsuhide would try to hinder relief efforts, remember, Cartagena is working with us and Harker. To the public, he was 'humiliated' by the Mist Shrikes so Mitsuhide is more than likely wanting to keep him alive.
Holding the fort is also viable but I feel like punching through before the cult can bring more forces to bear is the better choice.
I'm not denying that the new person probably has some important backers. However, this is one of, if not the most, important positions in the Sector we're talking about. If you can't get the job done, either yourself or through ensuring you have competent subordinates to do so, you can't rise to this high of a position under most circumstances, which amounts to much the same thing from a practical perspective.
The only exceptions are if there are powers that operate significantly above the Sector level involved, and the Imperium has ensured those are few and far between. No Segmentum level organizations are based here, nor are there any massive Rogue Trader dynasties.
As for assassinating Mitsuhide, I don't think that's an option here. If it was, then I have to imagine Inquisitor Harker would have had us do so the second he discovered she was messing around with a can of worms that the Emperor personally ordered sealed for all eternity. My money's on the Inquisition by and large disapproving of extrajudicial killings of their members. The Radicals because they want the protection a Tribunal provides, the Puritans because killing prominent Imperial power players without hard proof is one way Puritans slowly become Radicals.
I think you're overestimating her antipathy towards us by an order of magnitude. We simply aren't that insanely useful for Harper in his feud against her. Their's is a war of shadows, a war that we simply aren't well-equipped to fight. Even if she was willing to sabotage the defense to that degree, I have to think she's got agents amongst the Sector Lord's court she doesn't want to lose. Hell, said agents might even include the Lord Sector depending upon how much influence she thinks she has over him.
Luminous
God Save The Queen
- Location
- Victoria, BC, Canada
That's... a bit of a stretch. Plenty of power holders let less important people in the Imperium die all the time.
I don't think assassinating her is as off the table as you say it is.
But even if you're right, then we do have another option the Inquisition will be much more willing to accept; Kidnapping and Containment on suspicion of Genestealer infection. After all, nobody can assume innocence where filthy mind-stealing xenos is involved.
We'll have to wait for the next turn to tell us exactly what Severus knows so we can spin it properly, but there's a huge difference between, say, marching a few thousand Guardsman off to die in stupid fashion, and crippling Sector-wide logistics by murdering (or allowing the murder) of a high Administratum official. One would demand they replace a WHOOOOOOOLE lot of people, the other is a much more serious crime with a smaller group of criminals to punish and gives a lot more social/political wiggle room for us to make a mess.
As for voting, I'm struggling to come up with a write-in that maximizes our chances, so here's a stopgap vote;
-[] Punch through the Encirclement: While the Cult of the Four-Armed Emperor still surrounds the palace, a concentrated push by the remaining forces might penetrate their lines and allow you to reagroup with the rest of Imperial forces, taking the Lord Sector with you.
Whatever we do, we cannot stay here because the two biggest and most competent field commanders - us and the General - cannot afford to remain stuck under enemy encirclement while assholes and traitors run around in the background.
Given that we won by narrowest margins last time and this is very shortly afterwards, I see this as our high-certainty high-risk move; we'll probably break out with our VIPs intact, but it's probably going to hurt.
-[] Sneaking through the Underground: Taking a page from the cult's own attempt, you might try to sneak the Lord Sector alongside a Mist Shrike escort through the sewers.
This one plays to our current strengths - small elite units - and minimizes damage, but increases the likelihood that said damage will be VIPs.
@ThunderOwl I'd like your feedback on a question;
-[] Extraction by Air
How likely is it that the Cultists have sub-orbital capable AA, and in Severus' opinion would doing a vertical burn to sub-orbit, then sub-orbit hopping to the nearest Astartes-populated friendly airspace maximize the overall (of all possible options) chances of getting the VIPs away safely?
Because if there's one thing that Thunderhawks excel at that most other Imperial-available craft don't, it's the ability to go cleanly from space to ground and vice versa at high speeds.
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We're a bunch of 7-foot tall super soldiers in power armor. Stealth may be one of our areas of expertise, but subtlety most definitely is not. With luck we might be able to assassinate her, but not without leaving enough evidence to condemn us. We aren't the Officio Assassinatorum here!
That won't hold up against a cursory examination, nevermind the kind of scrutiny kidnapping an Inquisitor will result in. Mitsuhide just provided a ton of extremely valuable intel, including the location of the Magus. Why would the Broodmind allow one of its supposed agents to give up such damaging information, especially when U.S. attacking the Underhive with conventional forces is looking more and more like a real possibility.
Where's the proof? Only thing we know IC she did was not tell us that Kalivnova was at the local Administratum HQ, which can be written off as a case of miscommunication, and didn't bother to give her bodyguards (which is understandable given her lack of manpower).
A big enough bomb, there is little to no usable evidence. And it's not like the cultists are all that short on stuff to make big bombs with, or that we can't find depopulated ambush places in a war-torn Hive to use said bomb.
Because any xenos smart enough to organize a rebellion like this is smart enough to recognize the value of killing off smaller pieces to get bigger ones. Because unlike humans, these Genestealers have no sense of self-preservation beyond what serves the Hive Mind. A single Magus patsy is worth nothing compared to an Inquisitor, and sacrificing patsies to control where your enemies go is a time-honored tactic.
Which is why I fucking told people we would need to wait to see what comes up in the next update. Because spinning something without all the relevant information is hard and frequently foolish.
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Setting aside whether or not such a bomb would leave no evidence, Mitsuhide isn't going to provide us with a precise schedule of when she will be vulnerable. I have to imagine that an experienced Radical Inquisitor will be capable of hiding her exact itinerary from us, at least while we're still distracted with the whole Genestealer mess.
If she does make her movements known, it's probably because she will be traveling with enough loyal defenders so as to make an assassination effectively impossible without severe collateral damage.
A Magus isn't just some random pawn. With our recent killing of the Primus, it is probably the most valuable piece the Cult has besides the Patriarch. That information alone is enough to make claims of Mitsuhide being subverted sound dubious. The locations of major Cult bases (intelligence which can be pretty easily verified as accurate) turns those claims from "dubious" to "laughable".
My point is that Mitsuhide is an experienced professional when it comes to these sorts of dirty deeds. I highly doubt that she left enough evidence for an amateur like Severus to condemn her.
I'll concede the first point.
Your second point doesn't account for the issue we have no way of knowing whether or not the information is still valid. Because that happens a LOT in information warfare - you get really good intel, gear up and go after it, only to find that some shit happened off-screen that makes your intel useless. Now apply that to a telepathically-connected hivemind, and a shady fuck-fuck-game Inquisitor.
True. But there's a fair bit we can do without formally judging her, and once again how and what we spin depends entirely on what ThunderOwl tells us next turn, which neither you nor I know.
Noroboro
Consistency is key and I’m consistently tired :)
- Location
- Canada
[X] Punch through the Encirclement: While the Cult of the Four-Armed Emperor still surrounds the palace, a concentrated push by the remaining forces might penetrate their lines and allow you to reagroup with the rest of Imperial forces, taking the Lord Sector with you.
Luminous
God Save The Queen
- Location
- Victoria, BC, Canada
[X] Punch through the Encirclement: While the Cult of the Four-Armed Emperor still surrounds the palace, a concentrated push by the remaining forces might penetrate their lines and allow you to reagroup with the rest of Imperial forces, taking the Lord Sector with you.
We can pretty much assume that the stronghold information will remain valid for quite some time. The Genestealers aren't really in a position to move their strongholds around at the moment. They're far more likely to add fortifications instead.
The Magus intel meanwhile might very well have already gone bad, courtesy of the Mist Shrikes. With the Primus dead, the Magus will likely be forced to take a far more frontline role to compensate, leaving far less time to perform rear-line operations in an underhive stronghold.
Regardless, unless we can demonstrate a clear instance where Mitsuhide led us into a trap, any accusations of Genestealer subversion will fall on deaf ears at best and attract negative attention to the Mist Shrikes at worst. Suffice it to say, we won't be getting that lucky, for exactly that reason, among others.
Unfortunately, no matter what avenue of attack we may have, it's a virtual certainty that Mitsuhide is better in that arena than we are. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if she ends up smearing us with our failure. I think that our best option is to hand whatever information* we have to Harper and let him take it from there.
*Assuming we actually have anything worth mentioning, which is far from guaranteed
If I remember correctly a genestealer cult has only a singel primus who is borne for this role, the cults offensive potential should be not insignificantly impacted by his death.
And this Kelemorph is suprisingly dangerous maybe we should attempt to asassinate him
And some good news, if they continue to take back the middel hive they may threaten the sige of the palace.
Also was the sabotage of the supply convoys the work of their second reductor
And they hit our logistic again I really hope that doesn't cause to much problems.
I don't know if we have the forces nedded to take adventage of this
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