Mammoth Apostate vs the World 1: "Lost in the Mist"

[Smithsguild]

Close enough to my eight hour mark I doubt it will sway back 4 votes in next 5 minutes... I'm calling it locked. I'm anxious to get this rolling...

[X] hear him out is our winner at 5/2.

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​

Having decided to allow the man to speak his piece, he is ushered into the makeshift 'Council Room' (in reality it's only a Mess tent, co-opted to provide a venue to inform and allow debate between the various section heads to reach consensus and guide our fates.)

"Gentlefolk, I am Nathaniel Gulf and I represent several hundred souls who would like to join your convoy and earn your protection. I know your approached daily like this, and resources are always a concern. But me and my people can guarantee a return on your investment beyond your wildest expectations."

He pulls a thick folder from beneath his arm, and scatters various packets detailing completed, exacting, and beautifully envisioned and realized architectural projects from DARPA, CERN, NRC, CDC, NASA, and on and on.

"My partner Daniel and myself are... No excuse me WERE co-owners of one of the most prestigious firm of architects since the time of Ramses the Great. We are currently living now amongst our former employees, a construction firm that have placed themselves solely at our disposal.

If given leave to join your band of travellers we can all assist with building whatever you like, wherever you want, under budget, and on time. Feel free to send some of your Engineer Corps over to evaluate the equipment we have at our disposal or the knowledge of my crews. You'll find neither lacking.

Further if you help us re-establish our firm wherever you settle we will provide you with a service Sheiks have had bidding wars to obtain...

We will open an Urban Planning & Development facility at your disposal that for a nominal fee will provide you with blueprints for bleeding edge facilities to improve wherever you call home.

That's the pitch Gentles, feel free to discuss amongst yourselves..."

[ ] Accept the offer!
[ ] Call his bluff, have the Corp of Engineers evaluate their worth.
[ ] Decline.
[ ] Write in a counter offer.

Will lock this vote tomorrow morning... I will be around in & out to answer any questions that have crept in. It looks like a twice a day update seems about right for narrative, combat will be a more accelerated schedule probably every 2-4 hours (as my schedule allows).

I do have RL commitments that will sometimes supercede my desire to entertain you.

 

[Nixeu]

Huh? In 2024, the cost of refitting the ruined Jaeger were "prohibitive," but in 2026 it was deemed necessary. What changed? Were they just not replacing lost Jaegers in 2024? Were some critical Jaeger-construction facilities damaged by 2026? Is a large chunk of Jaegers' construction cost the raw materials and not the human time and skill required to assemble them?
Is this something inspired by a bit in one of the films that wasn't well-explained there, either?

Click to shrink...

Greater and sudden demand, I expect. New Breach means a rapid need for expansion, and salvage is usually cheaper, potential need for decontamination aside.

If those parasites didn't include producers of some kind, I question the stability of their biosphere...and if they did, I question why they evolved to be parasites.
(Also, the evolution is going ridiculously fast, but it doesn't rely on evolutionary levels so it's better than a lot of sci-fi.)

Click to shrink...

"Adaptation" would be a better term. And the increased selection pressures, plus the fact that they fed their information on the environment and how they died back to the Precursors neatly accounts for the rapidity of their adaptation. And, given that Kaiju are unnatural, they may have originally been assumed to be parasites, because they exhibited similar behaviors to terrestrial ones. And then they started reproducing on this side of the portal.

Really, these are just an extension of some what we've encountered in Tacit Ronin Vs. The World, which was the quest that inspired Smith to make this, plus Smith's interest in smaller-scale fights.

"Gentlefolk, I am Nathaniel Gulf and I represent several hundred souls who would like to join your convoy and earn your protection. I know your approached daily like this, and resources are always a concern. But me and my people can guarantee a return on your investment beyond your wildest expectations."

He pulls a thick folder from beneath his arm, and scatters various packets detailing completed, exacting, and beautifully envisioned and realized architectural projects from DARPA, CERN, NRC, CDC, NASA, and on and on.

"My partner Daniel and myself are... No excuse me WERE co-owners of one of the most prestigious firm of architects since the time of Ramses the Great. We are currently living now amongst our former employees, a construction firm that have placed themselves solely at our disposal.

If given leave to join your band of travellers we can all assist with building whatever you like, wherever you want, under budget, and on time. Feel free to send some of your Engineer Corps over to evaluate the equipment we have at our disposal or the knowledge of my crews. You'll find neither lacking.

Further if you help us re-establish our firm wherever you settle we will provide you with a service Sheiks have had bidding wars to obtain...

We will open an Urban Planning & Development facility at your disposal that for a nominal fee will provide you with blueprints for bleeding edge facilities to improve wherever you call home.

That's the pitch Gentles, feel free to discuss amongst yourselves..."

Click to shrink...

I could do with less arrogance, but we really do need these guys, if even half the pitch is true. We're going to need to rapidly build new facilities and defenses. They have the tech for it. Taking them up on it is obvious.

Equally obviously, we should have our engies scope them out first, since we really cannot afford to make a mistake about this. But if they're genuine, they're worth their weight in gold, or possibly even iridium. Probably not rhodium, though, that sh*t goes for like twice as much as either of those.

[x] Call his bluff, have the Corp of Engineers evaluate their worth.

I do have RL commitments that will sometimes supercede my desire to entertain you.

Click to shrink...

That's perfectly reasonable. Your schedule is still pretty fast.

 

[LostDeviljho]

[x] Call his bluff, have the Corp of Engineers evaluate their worth.

Yeah no I want confirmation of quality.

 

[Ultramandalore]

[x] Call his bluff, have the Corp of Engineers evaluate their worth.

 

[Vanestus]

[x] Call his bluff, have the Corp of Engineers evaluate their worth.

 

[Smithsguild]

I think we have achieved a clear consensus.

Mr. Gulf has been listening as you discuss the need to confirm their worth, he is used to being taken at his word and is a bit stunned that you didn't jump at the opportunity from his presentation skills alone.

(Apparently he is used to being wooed and courted for his skills as he claimed. His peacock like ego has taken a blow.)

After asking a rather crestfallen Mr. Gulf for directions a handful of the more knowledgeable Combat Engineers travel to a building about two streets outside the impromptu defensive perimeter where resides the hardy workers of Massarone Construction.

They have taken over the now abandoned 'Hotel Indigo Atlanta Midtown'. In its hayday it must have once been at least a 3 or 4 star hotel, the exterior has had all the doors and windows on the first two floors reinforced with newly made spiked studded burglar bars that feature clean, precise welds.

The streets that had everywhere else been choked with abandoned vehicles and trash are pristinely clear, hosting perfectly parked dump trucks and semi rigs along both sides of the road carrying well maintained heavy equipment and not just regular construction rigs, but also some specialist equipment for both road and railway construction.

Further down the block a stretch trailer holds molds for prefab concrete construction. Parked beyond that is a specialty trailer that is transporting a large scale concrete mixing tower for industrial applications that require on site mixing.

Everywhere you look a level of pride is reflected in the cleanliness and order in which they maintain their gear.

One of the Engineers breaks away when he sees a man climbing out of a rig with a large crane. He steps over and engage the fellow in a little friendly chat. About 10 minutes pass, he claps the fellow congenially on the back, laughs, and then returns.

He whistles lowly and then speaks to his fellow engineers;
"That fellow is apparently not only certified Heavy Equipment Rigging Specialist but is also knowledgeable in safe multiple story collapse,and working confined spaces.
If they're all half as good as him we might want to negotiate some freelance tutoring for 'Our' benefit."

Upon return to the Council tent, the lead engineer merely sweeps his gaze across the assembled councillors and then nods his head emphatically several times and smiles.

[ ] Write in how you handle Mr. Gulf and express your desire to retain his services if that is your wish.

Your oratory and diplomacy skills displayed will impact the level of bonus obtained.

This may take a bit...
Formulate your response and reach consensus. I will check back 8-9 pm EST and see how close you are to a consensus.

Adhoc vote count started by Smithsguild on Jul 2, 2018 at 10:31 AM, finished with 31 posts and 4 votes.

• ---

  4 people have voted

  [x] Call his bluff, have the Corp of Engineers evaluate their worth.

  • Nixeu
  • LostDeviljho
  • Ultramandalore
  • Vanestus

 

[Smithsguild]

OR if as a group you all are uncomfortable with trying to write out a diplomatic response I can offer it as a:

[ ] Diplomacy die roll ( best roll possible on 1d10 = slightly less effective than a mediocre written response). But possibility of exploding dice on a ten...

-----
Still hoping to lock in a vote at about 8 PM EST

 

[GreatWyrmGold]

Greater and sudden demand, I expect. New Breach means a rapid need for expansion, and salvage is usually cheaper, potential need for decontamination aside.

Click to shrink...

I know salvage is usually cheaper and whatnot. I'm just confused why it wasn't cheaper initially.

"Adaptation" would be a better term.

Click to shrink...

Don't you try to pull this microevolution crap on me. Evolution is evolution. (And the jump from parasite to independent organism is not a small one.)

And the increased selection pressures plus the fact that they fed their information on the environment and how they died back to the Precursors neatly accounts for the rapidity of their adaptation.

Click to shrink...

Increased selective pressures only help if the required variants are already in the population. The traits a parasite needs are far different from what an independent organism needs, and the latter would be maladaptive or at best wasteful for a parasite, and hence eliminated from the gene pool as long as they still lived in their host.
...No idea what the Precursor stuff is about. Are these parasites artificial beings or something? (Pacific Rim lore isn't my strong suit, and this is my first exposure to the apparently-established X vs. the World quest genre.)

(Apparently he is used to being wooed and courted for his skills as he claimed. His peacock like ego has taken a blow.)
...
Everywhere you look a level of pride is reflected in the cleanliness and order in which they maintain their gear.
...
"If they're all half as good as him we might want to negotiate some freelance tutoring for 'Our' benefit."

Click to shrink...

This guy is the Dr. House type—nobody around does what he does better than he does, and he expects everyone else to recognize that. Despite that, I like the way they maintain order in the face of chaos; that alone could help boost morale in our little community.
I'd like to hire him, but I can't think of a good response. Anyone else feel up to schmoozing?

 

[Ultramandalore]

[ ] Diplomacy die roll ( best roll possible on 1d10 = slightly less effective than a mediocre written response). But possibility of exploding dice on a ten...

This looks good to me.

 

[Smithsguild]

I know salvage is usually cheaper and whatnot. I'm just confused why it wasn't cheaper initially.

Click to shrink...

I as the writer viewed radiation contamination as well as the extensive repairs put the reconstruction just on the edge of not being worth the effort; the second breach shifted the Pan-Pacific Defense Corps perception.

The need for as many Jaegers as soon as possible is the determination of it now being worthy of the effort.

Don't you try to pull this microevolution crap on me. Evolution is evolution. (And the jump from parasite to independent organism is not a small one.)

Click to shrink...

I used the wrong taxonomy, not all the contemporary API are parasitic in nature. The first few years kaiju skin lice and their ilk WERE parasites the Precursor used as biological probes to gather information through the hivemind and develop the most current iterations which are stable and capable of breeding and differentiating within a few generations as they were built to evolve at an escalated scale.

Increased selective pressures only help if the required variants are already in the population. The traits a parasite needs are far different from what an independent organism needs, and the latter would be maladaptive or at best wasteful for a parasite, and hence eliminated from the gene pool as long as they still lived in their host.
...No idea what the Precursor stuff is about. Are these parasites artificial beings or something? (Pacific Rim lore isn't my strong suit, and this is my first exposure to the apparently-established X vs. the World quest genre.)

Click to shrink...

Apparently ALL the lifeforms; Kaiju, APIs, and the antiverse plant life from the spores are genetically engineered as war machines and even with the vast differences all kaiju are cloned from the same malleable genetic stock. The Precursors are master geneticist and are waging war on multiple scales discounting the ecological catastrophes they cause when they supplant the local biomes.

---edited in
Stolen from other sources but Earth DNA is 2 strands in an interlocking helix, Antiverse DNA contains 6 distinct strands that bond in a much denser 'twist' making the possible genetic diversity much grander and more complex allowing for abilities that wouldn't readily be producible in naturally occuring evolution.

This guy is the Dr. House type—nobody around does what he does better than he does, and he expects everyone else to recognize that. Despite that, I like the way they maintain order in the face of chaos; that alone could help boost morale in our little community.
I'd like to hire him, but I can't think of a good response. Anyone else feel up to schmoozing?

Click to shrink...

A definite god complex Alpha personality (House assessment is as on the nose an example as anyone could have made...)

-----edited in--- When originally envisioned I was going more Marvels Stephen Strange as he apparently has a less abrasive personality and is willing to work well with us 'lesser' mortals as long as it achieves his goals. House revels in being a dick...

 

[Smithsguild]

What I'm seeing atm is 1 vote Die roll, 1 quasi vote supporting a write in (requires an official Checkbox) and a bare bones what you want stated, attitude you're adopting, any strategies on improving your hurting the House wannabes feelings etc...

An Omake style write in would get best results, but I'm not above trying to acting as a schmooze surrogate on your behalf if you give me a how to blueprint. (player efforts will always trump dice or my efforts), I'm not a hardass QM and I'm in your corner. Not to say I don't intend on challenging you, but I'm TRULY hoping you save the world...

 

[GreatWyrmGold]

Apparently ALL the lifeforms; Kaiju, APIs, and the antiverse plant life from the spores are genetically engineered as war machines and even with the vast differences all kaiju are cloned from the same malleable genetic stock. The Precursors are master geneticist and are waging war on multiple scales discounting the ecological catastrophes they cause when they supplant the local biomes.

Click to shrink...

Ah. The more you know.

Stolen from other sources but Earth DNA is 2 strands in an interlocking helix, Antiverse DNA contains 6 distinct strands that bond in a much denser 'twist' making the possible genetic diversity much grander and more complex allowing for abilities that wouldn't readily be producible in naturally occuring evolution.

Click to shrink...

...I don't think I've seen a handwave that clashes against every discipline of biology at once. Kinda wish the technobabblers said the "zoological weapons" bit and left it at that...

-----edited in--- When originally envisioned I was going more Marvels Stephen Strange as he apparently has a less abrasive personality and is willing to work well with us 'lesser' mortals as long as it achieves his goals. House revels in being a dick...

Click to shrink...

Maybe he'll seem more Strange with more screentime.

1 quasi vote supporting a write in (requires an official Checkbox)

Click to shrink...

I'm kinda waiting for someone better with wording people to suggest something before I submit a vote.

 

[Nixeu]

I know salvage is usually cheaper and whatnot. I'm just confused why it wasn't cheaper initially.

Click to shrink...

Probably decontamination being a pain. After they've had a while to let the short-lived isotopes run out, it gets easier. Plus, it's worth it if you need Jaegers fast.

Don't you try to pull this microevolution crap on me. Evolution is evolution. (And the jump from parasite to independent organism is not a small one.)

Click to shrink...

...My dad is a microbiologist. I grew up hanging out in college biology labs. Yes, I know evolution is evolution, and that "macroevolution" is just a lot of microevolution over time. In this case, "evolution" is something of a poor term, IMO, because, in many ways, Kaiju are best thought of as machines. The engineers got the feedback and adapted their designs, in this case, which is why they adapted so fast.

Increased selective pressures only help if the required variants are already in the population. The traits a parasite needs are far different from what an independent organism needs, and the latter would be maladaptive or at best wasteful for a parasite, and hence eliminated from the gene pool as long as they still lived in their host.
...No idea what the Precursor stuff is about. Are these parasites artificial beings or something? (Pacific Rim lore isn't my strong suit, and this is my first exposure to the apparently-established X vs. the World quest genre.)

Click to shrink...

Ah. Yeah, the Kaiju are less giant monsters, and more massive bioweapons meant to alter the environment of the Earth to their creators' needs. Basically, they're extradimensional alien invaders. They're also silicon-based, and tend to contain exotic isotopes not found on Earth. Their blood is toxic, caustic, and often radioactive, too.

Apparently ALL the lifeforms; Kaiju, APIs, and the antiverse plant life from the spores are genetically engineered as war machines and even with the vast differences all kaiju are cloned from the same malleable genetic stock. The Precursors are master geneticist and are waging war on multiple scales discounting the ecological catastrophes they cause when they supplant the local biomes.

Click to shrink...

"Master geneticists" is an understatement, honestly. In Tacit Quest, they've made biological positron cannons. And biological nuclear engines. So yeah, they treat biomass like it's a structural metal, and genes like they're computer code. It's yet to be seen if they're as good in this, but given that it's Smith at the wheel, I'm expecting the answer is "yes".

Edit: Wait, they made a Kaiju that flooded the entire atmosphere with radiation and electrically charged particles. Yeah, they're pretty damn good. Even if most Kaiju aren't quite at that level of power.

 

[Smithsguild]

"Master geneticists" is an understatement, honestly. In Tacit Quest, they've made biological positron cannons. And biological nuclear engines. So yeah, they treat biomass like it's a structural metal, and genes like they're computer code. It's yet to be seen if they're as good in this, but given that it's Smith at the wheel, I'm expecting the answer is "yes".

Click to shrink...

When even in cannon kaiju blood without any outside influence becomes an aerosolized mist that acts as a bastardized lovechild of nerve agent and something that destroys the respiratory system I felt justified in an emphatic yes.

...I don't think I've seen a handwave that clashes against every discipline of biology at once. Kinda wish the technobabblers said the "zoological weapons" bit and left it at that...

Click to shrink...

If it suits your personal headcanon better go with that... I'm easy and want my players happy . Go with the precepts of biology as the human race understands it are merely suggestions at the level the precursors can modify genetics.

 

[GreatWyrmGold]

If it suits your personal headcanon better go with that... I'm easy and want my players happy . Go with the precepts of biology as the human race understands it are merely suggestions at the level the precursors can modify genetics.

Click to shrink...

...Alright, you're asking for it.

1. This isn't a matter of genetic engineering, it's a matter of chemical science. Unless you've mastered technobabble physics, you're not going to break chemistry with your skill at genetic engineering. That would be like programming so well you break the Landauer Limit.
2. How can you wind this six-stranded DNA more tightly than normal DNA? It's already wound as tightly as can be; if you tried to twist it any further, chemical bonds would start breaking. And why would you want it more tightly-wound to begin with? Standard DNA doesn't take up enough space to matter, winding it more tightly wouldn't change its volume, and doing so would greatly increase transcription times due to needing to be unwound further.
3. Six-stranded DNA is ridiculous. Putting aside how changing the chemical structure would make that obviously distinct from deoxyribonucleic acid, what's the point in having more than two strands? You don't get one "bit" per base per strand, you get one "bit" per base. If you want to improve the information density of your genetic polymer, you change the amount of information encoded in each "bit"; e.g, instead of just having four distinct chemicals encoding 64 states in three-bit packages, you might have ten chemicals encoding 100 states in two bits.
4. Not that information density would do much. I mean, I guess you could save a little on raw materials, but DNA isn't that big of a contributor in that regard.
5. At the end of the day, differences in genetic code do diddly squat to expand the power of genetic differences. In fact, I'd say it's one of the few systems that you could drastically alter without changing anything about an organism (assuming you updated the transcription process and whatnot to work with the new standard). Genes can control the expression of other genes, encode proteins, and that's about it. If you are limited to the same 20 amino acids as Earth-based life uses, you can't do anything Terran life can't. If you want your new life to be able to do biologically impossible things, you need to produce biologically impossible proteins.
6. Not that that would help, since the limitations of biological life are tied directly to the laws of physics and what it means to be biological life rather than, say, mechanical life or magically-animated life. If you're still affected by gravity, if you still need to eat food, if you're still growing from a zygote to adult, you will face those same limitations. Like I said at the beginning, no amount of programming know-how is going to let you overcome hardware limitations.

 

[Cmd. Frost]

Hey Smithy, hows this for a pilot?

Ezra Carter, Amputee, mechanic.

Standing at 6'2 Ezra draws attention where ever she goes, her prosthetic arm gained from an accident rebuilding Mammoth only enhancing this effect. In most cases an injury like this would have lost Ezra her spot as a ranger but a lack of alternatives kept her in. To compensate for the injury Ezra was going to be moved to the left side however thanks to several modifications to the pilot interface Ezra was able to turn her disability into an advantage.

Ezra's Perk: Cybernetic reflexes, can re-roll 2 failed block or parry actions against attacks at Mammoth's right side(Cannot use both re-rolls on the same attack, does not work if the right arm is destroyed or otherwise incapable of blocking or parrying)



Anyway, hows this for a vote:

[X] Our engineers have given your team and equipment the once over and have all come to the conclusion that not only are you and your team as good as you say, but you were actually down playing the quality of your services. In light of this we would like to apologize if you were insulted by our actions however I'm sure that you too understand that in the current situation we can't afford to take chances, regardless you and your team are more than welcome to come with us.

Someone else will need to clean this up but I think I got the idea across, this guy has an ego and the skills to back it up so lets fan that fucker into an inferno.

 

[GreatWyrmGold]

Sounds good to me.

[X] What Commander Frost said.

 

[LostDeviljho]

[X] Our engineers have given your team and equipment the once over and have all come to the conclusion that not only are you and your team as good as you say, but you were actually down playing the quality of your services. In light of this we would like to apologize if you were insulted by our actions, however I'm sure that you too understand that in the current situation we can't afford to take chances. Regardless, you and your team are more than welcome to come with us.

Fixed the grammar a bit.

 

[Smithsguild]

Firstly, I want to apologize to my other readers for the upcoming rant. OGRE MODE ENGAGED

...Alright, you're asking for it.

Click to shrink...

Stop right there... No sir, you are the one asking for it.

You have apparently confused my composed and congenial behavior, as my being weak or easily bullied. You are wrong.

Of your first 4 posts in this thread, 3 have been mostly asking me to justify my narrative or putting my justifications to the level of scrutiny one would expect to receive when submitting a collegiate paper to ones professor. I have not asked to be schooled by you, but an occasional brief personal convo to keep my techno bullshit palatable is acceptable -ONLY IF- you offer a viable science based solution that will easily fit the narrative frame.

If my grammar, scientific technobabble, or narrative skills are so repugnant to you that you cannot accept it without disruptive comments/ongoing protest for 'more real science' further breaking the immersion of a game based on giant robots punching giant monsters in violation of square cube law. I suggest you either meekly accept I hold no degrees and techno babble bullshit will the be standard fare here and you scale your protests back by a factor of ten, or you seek your entertainment elsewhere.

Bottom line it is MY alternate universe you are a guest... Behave or I will seek moderator assistance in reining you in or barring your participation.

/Rant off

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On to why everyone else is here.

Cmd. Frost I truly love the concept, actually the QM's usually assign the Perks for balance reasons but I'm thinking yours may work . If your fellow council members throw their consensus behind it we can try it as purposed. (Reserving the right to modify as needed).

The consensus appears to be leaning towards the no roll camp, if everyone approves the LDG grammar fixed version of Cmd. Frosts plan we can lock it and proceed. Or if we want it as written. Functionally they are so close IMO as to be the same for purpose of result.

---Edit
Considering this locked, making your write up.
​

 

[Smithsguild]

As you first begin to speak, Nathaniel Gulf meets your gaze with a petulant smirk. But as soon as he catches your overall tone and the conciliatory words he warms visibly. By the end he is grinning...

"Gentlefolk I am so pleased, If you have no further need of me at the moment I need to get back to the Hotel and let all the boys know were no longer unemployed." He chuckles. "So much to do... when you need us just send a runner and will be ready to work if you give us an hour? Nah, 45 minutes notice."

Without a backward glance, he whizzes out of the room, a man on a mission.

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Massarone Construction Company gained: 10% off all city construction costs, this includes city stats as well as dedicated stat based Augments/Mods.

Urban Planning & Development facility gained: (conditional) Requires you to have a city. This is a FREE research Augment in the truest sense of the word, it cost Zero resources, requires no actions on your part, and does not occupy a research augment slot.

Urban Planning & Development - This Free augment Cost 500 r per use -Cumulative- (one use per turn) to receive blueprints for a city augment. Using this facility is a free action. 10 research points equals actionable blueprints. You gain +1 research point for each point in the research stat, additional points are gained by a using a standard action. "Research Aug (aug name) grants an unmodified d10 roll; on a 'natural' 8 gain +1 research point, on a 'natural' 9 gain +2 research points, on a natural 10 gain 3 research points. Multiple standard actions may be used in same turn on same aug. Example: City w/t 3 research gets a Blueprint researched to 3/10, multiple additional research rolls will be required, however each Aug gained are intended to represent a natural 10 roll on an independent research roll. (IE. Nearly as perfect an Aug as I can envision).
​

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​

Now it's time for you get back to the business at hand.

As the interim leadership the council has a rough decision to make.

Dig in temporarily at Atlanta and wait for Bracer Phoenix? The Combat Engineers are confident they can improvise the foundation of a more permanent settlement and even if you abandon it later the citizens of Atlanta will benefit from your hard work -or- should you attempt to recover your Shatterdome & find the Commander in Savannah?

[ ] Discuss and submit a plan.
​

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----edit: For the record you received the best result possible on schmoozing Mr.Gulf. ​

 

[Smithsguild]

Further Clarification for Urban Planning and Development;

This center draws on the expertise of Daniel and his partner. If you have a plan they will do their best to comply to draw up plans for it. That however is not their strength. They are creative whirlwinds. If you point them to a city stat you want to enhance with an aug or mod and step back and allow them to work their architectural magic I doubt you will ever be disappointed. If you have no clue what you need they will analyze the city and offer you a blueprint of what they think you'd benefit the most from.

 

[GreatWyrmGold]

Of your first 4 posts in this thread, 3 have been mostly asking me to justify my narrative or putting my justifications to the level of scrutiny one would expect to receive when submitting a collegiate paper to ones professor.

Click to shrink...

1. If you include details, I generally interpret that to mean the details are important. When important details don't make sense, I point them out. Hopefully, I get clarifications that make them make sense before they become important.
2. Grumbling about technobabble should never be taken as a reason to try and justify technobabble more. First off, trying to justify how you're breaking the laws of physics is what gets you into this mess. If you had just said "The Precursors are really good at genetic engineering," I'd accept that. If you had said "The Precursors are space wizards," I'd have accepted that. I don't care about following the laws of physics, I care about not misrepresenting them. If you don't understand the difference, you are not qualified to write science fiction.
3. How am I supposed to interpret you describing the rules of biology as "my personal headcanon"? How am I supposed to react to you acting as if your technobabble deserves the credit of being taken at all seriously when you ignore the ways that it breaks every law of chemistry without solving any of the problems it's meant to solve?
4. There has been crap-all to do in this thread. Literally the only conversations anyone is interested in having are about the lore, because that's all we have at this point. We have zero idea of the strategic situation or internal politics, so we can't discuss those. We don't even know the fucking goals of the Quest, beyond "don't get everyone killed". Oh sure, we have some numbers, but we have no context on what those numbers mean. The only thing we have any detail about is the lore, so that's what we discuss. If you didn't want us discussing the details of your technobabble, why the hell did you give us so much detailed technobabble? If you wanted us to discuss literally anything else, why didn't you give us anything else with enough detail to discuss?)

Which is a problem with the current decision, as well. You're expecting us to pull reasonably detailed plans out of thin air despite having given us nothing to work with. I don't know a single detail which would help me make any kind of plan. I guess I could go by my gut instinct of priorities and choose one of the two options given...if it was presented as a multiple-choice question. But it's not, it's an essay question, and you haven't given us any materials to study.

 

[Smithsguild]

1. If you include details, I generally interpret that to mean the details are important. When important details don't make sense, I point them out. Hopefully, I get clarifications that make them make sense before they become important.
2. Grumbling about technobabble should never be taken as a reason to try and justify technobabble more. First off, trying to justify how you're breaking the laws of physics is what gets you into this mess. If you had just said "The Precursors are really good at genetic engineering," I'd accept that. If you had said "The Precursors are space wizards," I'd have accepted that. I don't care about following the laws of physics, I care about not misrepresenting them. If you don't understand the difference, you are not qualified to write science fiction.
3. How am I supposed to interpret you describing the rules of biology as "my personal headcanon"? How am I supposed to react to you acting as if your technobabble deserves the credit of being taken at all seriously when you ignore the ways that it breaks every law of chemistry without solving any of the problems it's meant to solve?
4. There has been crap-all to do in this thread. Literally the only conversations anyone is interested in having are about the lore, because that's all we have at this point. We have zero idea of the strategic situation or internal politics, so we can't discuss those. We don't even know the fucking goals of the Quest, beyond "don't get everyone killed". Oh sure, we have some numbers, but we have no context on what those numbers mean. The only thing we have any detail about is the lore, so that's what we discuss. If you didn't want us discussing the details of your technobabble, why the hell did you give us so much detailed technobabble? If you wanted us to discuss literally anything else, why didn't you give us anything else with enough detail to discuss?)

Which is a problem with the current decision, as well. You're expecting us to pull reasonably detailed plans out of thin air despite having given us nothing to work with. I don't know a single detail which would help me make any kind of plan. I guess I could go by my gut instinct of priorities and choose one of the two options given...if it was presented as a multiple-choice question. But it's not, it's an essay question, and you haven't given us any materials to study.

Click to shrink...

There's the door... you are welcome to use it by your decision or I can summon a Mod. In my opinion you are no longer welcome.

 

[Cmd. Frost]

On to why everyone else is here.

Cmd. Frost I truly love the concept, actually the QM's usually assign the Perks for balance reasons but I'm thinking yours may work . If your fellow council members throw their consensus behind it we can try it as purposed. (Reserving the right to modify as needed).​

Click to shrink...

​

Came up with the idea from a magazine article I read a few weeks ago about a gamer who was trying to modify her prosthetic arm for playing StarCraft 2, seemed like a good idea to transfer over with some decent limitations. Ezra can only move the right arm faster so a movement bonus or dodge re-roll was out, as well as blocking or parrying attacks from the left side, I had originally planned on there not being a limit and instead applying a penalty that got larger the more the perk was used because that wasn't what the interface was built for but this seemed like a better idea.

ALSO:

[X] Dig in temporarily and send out the scouts as far as they dare to search for Phoenix.

 

[Nixeu]

...Alright, you're asking for it.

1. This isn't a matter of genetic engineering, it's a matter of chemical science. Unless you've mastered technobabble physics, you're not going to break chemistry with your skill at genetic engineering. That would be like programming so well you break the Landauer Limit.
2. How can you wind this six-stranded DNA more tightly than normal DNA? It's already wound as tightly as can be; if you tried to twist it any further, chemical bonds would start breaking. And why would you want it more tightly-wound to begin with? Standard DNA doesn't take up enough space to matter, winding it more tightly wouldn't change its volume, and doing so would greatly increase transcription times due to needing to be unwound further.
3. Six-stranded DNA is ridiculous. Putting aside how changing the chemical structure would make that obviously distinct from deoxyribonucleic acid, what's the point in having more than two strands? You don't get one "bit" per base per strand, you get one "bit" per base. If you want to improve the information density of your genetic polymer, you change the amount of information encoded in each "bit"; e.g, instead of just having four distinct chemicals encoding 64 states in three-bit packages, you might have ten chemicals encoding 100 states in two bits.
4. Not that information density would do much. I mean, I guess you could save a little on raw materials, but DNA isn't that big of a contributor in that regard.
5. At the end of the day, differences in genetic code do diddly squat to expand the power of genetic differences. In fact, I'd say it's one of the few systems that you could drastically alter without changing anything about an organism (assuming you updated the transcription process and whatnot to work with the new standard). Genes can control the expression of other genes, encode proteins, and that's about it. If you are limited to the same 20 amino acids as Earth-based life uses, you can't do anything Terran life can't. If you want your new life to be able to do biologically impossible things, you need to produce biologically impossible proteins.
6. Not that that would help, since the limitations of biological life are tied directly to the laws of physics and what it means to be biological life rather than, say, mechanical life or magically-animated life. If you're still affected by gravity, if you still need to eat food, if you're still growing from a zygote to adult, you will face those same limitations. Like I said at the beginning, no amount of programming know-how is going to let you overcome hardware limitations.

Click to shrink...

Like I said, they're silicon-based, so their DNA-equivalent is drastically different. I'm not sure if Kaiju need to breathe. If they do, they can go a long time without air. Food most likely goes towards making themselves bigger. So they don't need it, as much as desire it. At least some of them probably survive off of internal nuclear power, if not solar, or something completely alien. They're coming from a different world, if not dimension. And, to boot, the Square-cube law has been altered to allow for giant robots and monsters.

Basically, apply less biology, treat them like silicon-meat robots. Some will, of course, have more biological traits. But they're also going to have biological versions of mechanical things. They will be completely engineered entities.

Now it's time for you get back to the business at hand.

As the interim leadership the council has a rough decision to make.

Dig in temporarily at Atlanta and wait for Bracer Phoenix? The Combat Engineers are confident they can improvise the foundation of a more permanent settlement and even if you abandon it later the citizens of Atlanta will benefit from your hard work -or- should you attempt to recover your Shatterdome & find the Commander in Savannah?

Click to shrink...

Digging in isn't mutually exclusive with trying to retake the Shatterdome, but I don't know tbout surrendering the initiative.

1. If you include details, I generally interpret that to mean the details are important. When important details don't make sense, I point them out. Hopefully, I get clarifications that make them make sense before they become important.
2. Grumbling about technobabble should never be taken as a reason to try and justify technobabble more. First off, trying to justify how you're breaking the laws of physics is what gets you into this mess. If you had just said "The Precursors are really good at genetic engineering," I'd accept that. If you had said "The Precursors are space wizards," I'd have accepted that. I don't care about following the laws of physics, I care about not misrepresenting them. If you don't understand the difference, you are not qualified to write science fiction.
3. How am I supposed to interpret you describing the rules of biology as "my personal headcanon"? How am I supposed to react to you acting as if your technobabble deserves the credit of being taken at all seriously when you ignore the ways that it breaks every law of chemistry without solving any of the problems it's meant to solve?
4. There has been crap-all to do in this thread. Literally the only conversations anyone is interested in having are about the lore, because that's all we have at this point. We have zero idea of the strategic situation or internal politics, so we can't discuss those. We don't even know the fucking goals of the Quest, beyond "don't get everyone killed". Oh sure, we have some numbers, but we have no context on what those numbers mean. The only thing we have any detail about is the lore, so that's what we discuss. If you didn't want us discussing the details of your technobabble, why the hell did you give us so much detailed technobabble? If you wanted us to discuss literally anything else, why didn't you give us anything else with enough detail to discuss?)

Which is a problem with the current decision, as well. You're expecting us to pull reasonably detailed plans out of thin air despite having given us nothing to work with. I don't know a single detail which would help me make any kind of plan. I guess I could go by my gut instinct of priorities and choose one of the two options given...if it was presented as a multiple-choice question. But it's not, it's an essay question, and you haven't given us any materials to study.

Click to shrink...

Some of that is the carry-over from another quest at work, I think, combined with Smith's inexperience. He was outlining the stuff new to vets of this type of quest. Several of us know the score decently well, though I think I'm the only one who has said anything that was involved in the beta testing. Seems like Highwind is occupied.

We...probably should have seen this issue coming. The dangers of beta-testing with experienced people: they don't see crap like this until the fan is hit by it. Sh*t.