- Location
- Spain
That is weird, last tally had more than 20 votes.
Mandat de l'impératrice des Cieux - Imperial Princess Troubleshooter Space Opera Quest
- Thread starter Whiskey Golf
- Start date
- Original Mature
- Location
- New York
- Pronouns
- He/Him
This is what I got.
Always Late
Lacking in coffee, sleep, and brains
- Location
- Ohio
Ah, that might have been what went screwy: the program automatically read votes since the last tally, instead of the update being selected.
Whiskey Golf
Being of Editing & Technical Assistance
- Location
- Chained to my desk
Whiskey Golf
Being of Editing & Technical Assistance
- Location
- Chained to my desk
People, please try and put the vote in full, Appeal to Pragmatism has three different variations lol 
Anyway we have a clear winner:
[X] Appeal to her pragmatism. She rose to lead the IRG without being beholden to any one faction, purely focused on doing the duty her Empress expects of her. It's in the IRG's interest to assist you: they'll get a close eye on your activities and access to the intelligence you develop. The IRG's professional favor to your team will be repaid in kind.
Anyway we have a clear winner:
[X] Appeal to her pragmatism. She rose to lead the IRG without being beholden to any one faction, purely focused on doing the duty her Empress expects of her. It's in the IRG's interest to assist you: they'll get a close eye on your activities and access to the intelligence you develop. The IRG's professional favor to your team will be repaid in kind.
Whiskey Golf
Being of Editing & Technical Assistance
- Location
- Chained to my desk
I dunno. On the other hand, after sleeping on it... does what little remains of my audience really want an OOC critique of their actions and mistakes? I'm not going to be pulling any punches.
Thebigpieman
I've got this, I think.
- Location
- United States
I don't know, I would be amused.
Tiny_Dic
Carbon Cringe Lifeform | Hyperborean Coomer
- Location
- My Room
Yeah, it'd be interesting to get another perspective on our actions so far
Always Late
Lacking in coffee, sleep, and brains
- Location
- Ohio
What they said. This isn't exactly normal people stuff.
- Location
- Fort Worth, TX
[X] Appeal to her pragmatism. She rose to lead the IRG without being beholden to any one faction, purely focused on doing the duty her Empress expects of her. It's in the IRG's interest to assist you: they'll get a close eye on your activities and access to the intelligence you develop. The IRG's professional favor to your team will be repaid in kind.
Whiskey Golf
Being of Editing & Technical Assistance
- Location
- Chained to my desk
Alas, you were too late - missed the deadline by 4 hours - but your vote won anyhow so no harm no foul.
- Location
- Farther than you think, closer than you expect.
Yeah, I'm always interested in more information about the world, its people, and its politics.
(OOC) Egon System Investigation post-mortem.
Whiskey Golf
Being of Editing & Technical Assistance
- Location
- Chained to my desk
Alright, so let's talk about the Egon System Investigation, which has been a matter of concern for the questers. We're going to be looking at this from several aspects (this is also going to stray a little beyond Egon itself into how we dealt with the aftermath):
Military: kinda overkill, but in terms of military result, it was utter domination. TF Soyeon had enough firepower to hit the pirate base, and the numbers to set cordon and prevent any pirates from fleeing. Leaving Daniel behind to do his intel magic got Yui the investigation leads for Malusial and SA-Caledfwlch, Konnie was able to stomp the pirates hard, and the marine detachments from the all the ships involved + VSS's troops, plus a couple of Rabid Foxes with Major Ueda's IRG team rolled up the resistance inside the pirate base fairly quickly, before the pirates could really dig in.
On the other hand, it led to ramifications in the political aspect. (I did say the smaller your force, the more discreet it was...) Like, as I've said before: this is the equivalent of the US 7th Fleet sending a carrier battle group to go do fact-finding in San Francisco. I really did not expect y'all to choose this. This was not optimal for getting a perfect run.
Political: Well, we know what happened: Yui brought a goddamn invasion fleet to Egon, 4th Fleet leadership thought Yui was invading and launching a coup and Kanda in all his paranoia got tilted, Konnie and Himeno nearly came to blows... That said, here some good decisions were made; choosing to Disclose to Kanda and Johnny has served to relieve his suspicions, and he is no longer paranoid that Yui sus. He's also weak to Yui making moccachino for him, just the way he likes it. Not gonna lie, this was an area where you could have chosen poorly and gotten penalised for it, but it went about as well as could be. Choosing to Probe Kanda Gently was the right choice, building up from the softening of his attitude after going Disclosure; if y'all had decided to aggressively probe him you'd have gotten his tail up and annoyed him and he'd have been less forthcoming that what we got. Instead of a heart to heart conversation (one where Yui held Shiki's hand and squuezed it at least four times, the utter deviant), you'd have gotten a lot of stonewalling and deflection. (As opposed to a mostly sincere conversation, albeit influenced by Kanda's salt and biases.)
So let's talk about some other possibilities:
Had you all chosen [ ] Small Task Force or [ ] Medium Task Force , we'd skip the issues with 4th Fleet and Kanda's complaint would never happen, because he wouldn't have gotten tilted by a cruiser squadron (4 CL) or a cruiser group (4 CA + 8 CL). I should note that I had Konnie allude to her preferred choice in the narrative:
I don't think anybody picked up on that at the time, though. Maybe I need to be more explicit in the narration when I'm evaluating whether a choice was good or bad.
Small TF would have meant that Yui would have left 2 CLs in Egon to investigate and taken 2 CLs to escort her back to Jinko-sei; this means that the joint IN-VSS force is hitting the pirate base with 2 IN CLs, 2 VSS DDs, and 3 VSS armed merchantmen, which is yikes. The senior CL skipper would try to YOLO and eventually succeed, but VSS and IN take damage, at least half the pirate ships escape and by the time the pirate base is secured, they've managed to destroy evidence, so the only investigation lead you'd get is Malusial. Still, who knows: We might well meet the the Duke of Malusial's daughters, Lady Siti Nuratago binti Zekhar-Curchille and Lady Siti Nurtakao binti Zekhar-Curchille, some time in the future...
Medium TF means 4 CA, 8 CL, 1 BC (Konnie's flagship Kongo). Returning to Jinko-sei (2CA 2CL)and leaving Konnie's stay-behind force means that she'd have 1BC 2CA 4CL assault force and 2CL guard force. Note spreadsheet below to compare force levels:
The Med TF's pirate base subjugation force is indeed smaller (this isn't counting VSS' 2 DDs and 3 armed merchantmen as partner force tho). It's not overwhelming firepower, but it's still enough to deal with the pirates and seize the base (and you don't tilt Kanda), and you'll still get the Malusial and SA-Caledfwlch leads. There's a chance one of the pirate ships slips away, but it's slim and anyhow VSS is alright to mop up any stragglers.
I should think it goes without saying that you made the right decision to leave Daniel and Konnie behind in Egon to investigate. If you left either of them alone, or done a complete pullout, you'd be coming back straight away to the capital with an incomplete picture of the situation. (I'll let you all imagine how badly that could have played out.) It's also a good thing nobody voted to confiscate VSS's weapons; best case, Lee Bashkan would have gouged Konnie and Daniel more for VSS' assistance (as it was, ITL he charged them a reasonable price with a reasonable profit). But eh, that's not really a big deal.
"Whiskey what if we had taken the Medium Task Force overall?"
Ah, roads not taken. So, you'd have sidestepped the problem of Kanda getting tilted and demandingsatisfaction explanations. Reports would have been made to 4th Fleet, Konnie would have been asked to keep her task force in Egon till Himeno got there, and then when Daniel got back to the capital and reported the results to Yui, you'd have gotten the option of joint investigations with 4th Fleet's intel people, looking into Malusial or SA-Caledfwlch. (You may assume that right now, 4th Fleet are not sitting on their asses and are in fact doing their own investigations.)
Tl;dr: Military overkill triggered political consequences, but just about managed to salvage the situation, helped by how Egon was, as I always saw it, the tutorial arc of this quest. It was something of a wakeup call, to give the readers a taste of consequences, intended and otherwise, to their actions. In the absolute worst case if y'all had managed to really screw things up with Kanda, Johnny would have stepped in to mediate and talk him down, but Candy wouldn't be talking to Yui for a while, and if you'd chosen to reach out to Navy friends for assistance with your intel team, Kanda would have told you to go piss up a rope.
And to think this all started with the reasoning of "we need to be careful, better be fully prepared..." Danger, risk and opportunity comes in many forms.
I should also note, by the way, that we are no longer playing with a safety net. Y'all fuck up means you gotta deal with the consequences of your actions.
Military: kinda overkill, but in terms of military result, it was utter domination. TF Soyeon had enough firepower to hit the pirate base, and the numbers to set cordon and prevent any pirates from fleeing. Leaving Daniel behind to do his intel magic got Yui the investigation leads for Malusial and SA-Caledfwlch, Konnie was able to stomp the pirates hard, and the marine detachments from the all the ships involved + VSS's troops, plus a couple of Rabid Foxes with Major Ueda's IRG team rolled up the resistance inside the pirate base fairly quickly, before the pirates could really dig in.
On the other hand, it led to ramifications in the political aspect. (I did say the smaller your force, the more discreet it was...) Like, as I've said before: this is the equivalent of the US 7th Fleet sending a carrier battle group to go do fact-finding in San Francisco. I really did not expect y'all to choose this. This was not optimal for getting a perfect run.
Political: Well, we know what happened: Yui brought a goddamn invasion fleet to Egon, 4th Fleet leadership thought Yui was invading and launching a coup and Kanda in all his paranoia got tilted, Konnie and Himeno nearly came to blows... That said, here some good decisions were made; choosing to Disclose to Kanda and Johnny has served to relieve his suspicions, and he is no longer paranoid that Yui sus. He's also weak to Yui making moccachino for him, just the way he likes it. Not gonna lie, this was an area where you could have chosen poorly and gotten penalised for it, but it went about as well as could be. Choosing to Probe Kanda Gently was the right choice, building up from the softening of his attitude after going Disclosure; if y'all had decided to aggressively probe him you'd have gotten his tail up and annoyed him and he'd have been less forthcoming that what we got. Instead of a heart to heart conversation (one where Yui held Shiki's hand and squuezed it at least four times, the utter deviant), you'd have gotten a lot of stonewalling and deflection. (As opposed to a mostly sincere conversation, albeit influenced by Kanda's salt and biases.)
So let's talk about some other possibilities:
Had you all chosen [ ] Small Task Force or [ ] Medium Task Force , we'd skip the issues with 4th Fleet and Kanda's complaint would never happen, because he wouldn't have gotten tilted by a cruiser squadron (4 CL) or a cruiser group (4 CA + 8 CL). I should note that I had Konnie allude to her preferred choice in the narrative:
I don't think anybody picked up on that at the time, though. Maybe I need to be more explicit in the narration when I'm evaluating whether a choice was good or bad.
Small TF would have meant that Yui would have left 2 CLs in Egon to investigate and taken 2 CLs to escort her back to Jinko-sei; this means that the joint IN-VSS force is hitting the pirate base with 2 IN CLs, 2 VSS DDs, and 3 VSS armed merchantmen, which is yikes. The senior CL skipper would try to YOLO and eventually succeed, but VSS and IN take damage, at least half the pirate ships escape and by the time the pirate base is secured, they've managed to destroy evidence, so the only investigation lead you'd get is Malusial. Still, who knows: We might well meet the the Duke of Malusial's daughters, Lady Siti Nuratago binti Zekhar-Curchille and Lady Siti Nurtakao binti Zekhar-Curchille, some time in the future...
Medium TF means 4 CA, 8 CL, 1 BC (Konnie's flagship Kongo). Returning to Jinko-sei (2CA 2CL)and leaving Konnie's stay-behind force means that she'd have 1BC 2CA 4CL assault force and 2CL guard force. Note spreadsheet below to compare force levels:
The Med TF's pirate base subjugation force is indeed smaller (this isn't counting VSS' 2 DDs and 3 armed merchantmen as partner force tho). It's not overwhelming firepower, but it's still enough to deal with the pirates and seize the base (and you don't tilt Kanda), and you'll still get the Malusial and SA-Caledfwlch leads. There's a chance one of the pirate ships slips away, but it's slim and anyhow VSS is alright to mop up any stragglers.
I should think it goes without saying that you made the right decision to leave Daniel and Konnie behind in Egon to investigate. If you left either of them alone, or done a complete pullout, you'd be coming back straight away to the capital with an incomplete picture of the situation. (I'll let you all imagine how badly that could have played out.) It's also a good thing nobody voted to confiscate VSS's weapons; best case, Lee Bashkan would have gouged Konnie and Daniel more for VSS' assistance (as it was, ITL he charged them a reasonable price with a reasonable profit). But eh, that's not really a big deal.
"Whiskey what if we had taken the Medium Task Force overall?"
Ah, roads not taken. So, you'd have sidestepped the problem of Kanda getting tilted and demanding
Tl;dr: Military overkill triggered political consequences, but just about managed to salvage the situation, helped by how Egon was, as I always saw it, the tutorial arc of this quest. It was something of a wakeup call, to give the readers a taste of consequences, intended and otherwise, to their actions. In the absolute worst case if y'all had managed to really screw things up with Kanda, Johnny would have stepped in to mediate and talk him down, but Candy wouldn't be talking to Yui for a while, and if you'd chosen to reach out to Navy friends for assistance with your intel team, Kanda would have told you to go piss up a rope.
And to think this all started with the reasoning of "we need to be careful, better be fully prepared..." Danger, risk and opportunity comes in many forms.
I should also note, by the way, that we are no longer playing with a safety net. Y'all fuck up means you gotta deal with the consequences of your actions.
Axslashel
I am a pessimist not a realist.
- Location
- Land of the Midnight Sun
I voted for the heavy task force and I would do it again. Fite me! We had just learnt that the 13th fleet would be disbanded so I personally wanted to do a final grand show of force with it. Was kind of disappointed we did not bring the whole fleet.
But then we had another vote where the winning option was the task force ships one by one slipping away from Jinko Sei. So when we arrived in Egon we all looked even more suspicious than if we had just departed all at once. I think you you pick an option you have to commit to it. By trying to do the stealthy option with the very much not stealthy task force made it extra sus.
But then we had another vote where the winning option was the task force ships one by one slipping away from Jinko Sei. So when we arrived in Egon we all looked even more suspicious than if we had just departed all at once. I think you you pick an option you have to commit to it. By trying to do the stealthy option with the very much not stealthy task force made it extra sus.
Whiskey Golf
Being of Editing & Technical Assistance
- Location
- Chained to my desk
Actually no, the Staggered Departure didn't actually make you look sus. It's just a bunch of squadrons independently leaving Jinko-sei on training cruises while the rest of the fleet was holding station there, it's nothing really out of the ordinary. Ships on detached duty is always a thing.I voted for the heavy task force and I would do it again. Fite me! We had just learnt that the 13th fleet would be disbanded so I personally wanted to do a final grand show of force with it. Was kind of disappointed we did not bring the whole fleet.
But then we had another vote where the winning option was the task force ships one by one slipping away from Jinko Sei. So when we arrived in Egon we all looked even more suspicious than if we had just departed all at once. I think you you pick an option you have to commit to it. By trying to do the stealthy option with the very much not stealthy task force made it extra sus.
Now, the screening arrival in Egon did look kinda sus, but that wouldn't really have been an issue if we had jumped in with the cruiser group, because the thing that tilted the alert was all the jump wakes from the capital ships, at which point when 4th Fleet HQ received the ping they looked back and then shit themselves.
To clarify: it's not that the Small TF or the Medium TF wouldn't have been detected; they absolutely would have been detected. But 4th Fleet wouldn't have been so freaked out by 25 warships (5 of them capships) showing up in one system.
But I get how you feel. Go Big or Go Home.
Axslashel
I am a pessimist not a realist.
- Location
- Land of the Midnight Sun
Well it is more that the staggered departure looks sus when taken together with all those ships appearing at once in a system. If we had a left as a unit it would be less sus to appear all in a single force in Egon. By staggering our leave it is obvious we were trying to hide our deployment. Personally I would have preferred if we announced we would conduct a "show the flag" operation in force before even leaving but not tell where we are going.
Alastor Mobius Toth
***** ***
- Location
- Neon Ghetto
I dunno, tutorial or no, I feel like traveling in a single grand fleet to Egon would have set of all sorts of flags for people who aren't Kanda. Large capship fleet isn't inconspicuous, and the first inhabited fleet it passes through is going to start talking like hell about it, because what the fuck just happened? That kind of news travels.
How harder would it have been to sweep it under the rug if Sumeragi had learned we sent a battlegroup into Egon? For that matter, how much would it trigger them?
How harder would it have been to sweep it under the rug if Sumeragi had learned we sent a battlegroup into Egon? For that matter, how much would it trigger them?
(OOC) Institutions versus Persons
Whiskey Golf
Being of Editing & Technical Assistance
- Location
- Chained to my desk
So, if we look back at this vote, and the one before, and at the last couple of story posts and sidestories...
I'm gonna level at y'all, I really did not see this coming. After the bits I've written where I talk about personal loyalty, after the whole Loyalty sidestory, even the Himehajime sidestory...
So, an idea that I have been trying to get across is that of personal loyalty. Yui's bio blurb talks about how her fleet is loyal to her, I've talked IC and OOC about how she emulates Johnny in building personal loyalties. Konnie threw herself on her sword and deliberately lost face to cover for Yui and Ahri (but mainly Yui). Flashback Memory!Masatada talks about how Johnny's loyalty would be unbreakable if Yui was Empress because he loves her, and people will follow Johnny where he goes because loyalty is a two-way road.
IC, Yui herself is trying to build personal connection/loyalty between Johnny and Ahri, and knows that if Johnny is loyal to Ahri, a good chunk of the Navy will be loyal to Ahri because they follow his lead.
...And then we come to the vote on whether to get IRG or Navy assistance for the investigation team, and y'all chose the IRG because it looks less sus than the Navy. Despite having zero friends and connections in the Guard.
Ngl I very confuse. I dunno, either I'm really bad at conveying ideas in my writing, or y'all are looking at things from a different mindset than I am lol >_>;;
I do find it interesting that despite the things I've tried to seed about personal loyalty, about personal connections, the voters have chosen to place their trust in institutions instead of people. I dunno, maybe that's the whole Western liberal democratic social paradigm: the institution is bigger than the person. But we're not in a liberal democracy, this is a feudal space empire.
In a way, the most recent vote was an experimet of sorts. I wanted to see whether this trend of emphasising the institution rather than the person would continue. I figured it was a 1 in 3 chance y'all would go for the institution vote... but y'all did, again.
Anyway, I'll just peel back the curtain a little on the current vote:
So, to sum things up, this vote was once again a matter of approach, between the personal and impersonal. It's on a sliding scale between appealing to Tarisa Manandal, and appealing to the Commanding General of the Imperial Royal Guard. Let's look back at the votes:
This approach is all about appealing to Tarisa Manandal, the girl who joined the Guard out of duty, who's carrying on her family's legacy. Over a dozen generations all in uniform: that's a really strong family tradition, a really strong sense of duty and patriotism. With this approach, you're presenting yourself as a patriot, just like her, someone who appreciates her service beyond a simple platitude, someone who wants to build that same sort of legacy. It's telling her, "I'm doing this for the same reasons you are." Had this vote won, well, there is still more work and conversation to be done, but you have a good chance of not needing to do any favors to get IRG assistance. This would be setup for getting Tarisa into your orbit as a friend. She'll still do her due diligence, of course, but she'll be thinking, "If she's telling the truth, then she really isn't a threat at all." What you're saying here is "Help me build my power base because I will use it to serve."
This approach is appealing to General Manandal, the soldier who is loyal to her oaths. You're presenting yourself to her professionally, one officer to another: apolitical, sworn to the same oaths, serving Her Majesty. This is reflected in how you would owe that favor to General Manandal: you would be trading on your reputation as a naval officer, as a commander, on the people who can vouch for you. It's a good thing that your Uncle Johnny is also Fleet Admiral Sir Yonatan Chew, Commander Fleet Operations, the 3rd in Command of the Imperial Navy, a guy with a pretty solid rep. (Good thing also he swept your fight with Kanda under the rug.) What you're saying here is "Help me build my power base, because we're on the same side, our goals are aligned."
Of the three approaches, this is the least personal. You're appealing to the Commanding General of the Imperial Royal Guard, and by extension, the IRG as an institution. This is you acknowledging that you understand the IRG's position and you know how the game is played, so you're appealing to the self-interest of the institution. You know that some factions of the Guard see you as a threat to Ahri, you're aware that what you're doing can be seen as establishing a power base (which literally was the reaction of your IRG liaison and the Commanding General), so you choose to appeal to pragmatism and self interest. It's why the the favor you will trade will be owed to the institution. What you're saying here is "If you help me build my power base, you can put your people right beside me."
(In a way, from a certain point of view tho, pragmatism is, emotionally, the safest option. You don't need to get to know the person, you can just keep things impersonal and professional. But I digress.)
Make no mistake, you're never going to get out of trading favors. At this level, that's just how things are done: a favor for a favor. But by presenting yourself as a Patriot in the same mould as Tarisa, there was a chance that she'd be so moved, have such a positive reaction to you being exactly her kind of person, only interested in service, that she could have said yes, no favors needed.
But, I mean. There's nothing wrong with presenting yourself as a pragmatist towards the Commanding General of the IRG. And the conversation isn't over yet. But you've definitely made things harder for yourselves by reaching out to the institution that has no ties or connections with you. The Navy might have looked sus, but you'd be reaching out to friends, allies, people who already trust you, so you wouldn't need to justify yourself to them. And hell, maybe your sempai who was on FADM Chew's staff with you wanted you to take on a promising young kouhai for your staff, as your favor to her...
Tl;dr: none of the options were bad per se, just different in presentation and approach.
I'm gonna level at y'all, I really did not see this coming. After the bits I've written where I talk about personal loyalty, after the whole Loyalty sidestory, even the Himehajime sidestory...
So, an idea that I have been trying to get across is that of personal loyalty. Yui's bio blurb talks about how her fleet is loyal to her, I've talked IC and OOC about how she emulates Johnny in building personal loyalties. Konnie threw herself on her sword and deliberately lost face to cover for Yui and Ahri (but mainly Yui). Flashback Memory!Masatada talks about how Johnny's loyalty would be unbreakable if Yui was Empress because he loves her, and people will follow Johnny where he goes because loyalty is a two-way road.
IC, Yui herself is trying to build personal connection/loyalty between Johnny and Ahri, and knows that if Johnny is loyal to Ahri, a good chunk of the Navy will be loyal to Ahri because they follow his lead.
...And then we come to the vote on whether to get IRG or Navy assistance for the investigation team, and y'all chose the IRG because it looks less sus than the Navy. Despite having zero friends and connections in the Guard.
Ngl I very confuse. I dunno, either I'm really bad at conveying ideas in my writing, or y'all are looking at things from a different mindset than I am lol >_>;;
I do find it interesting that despite the things I've tried to seed about personal loyalty, about personal connections, the voters have chosen to place their trust in institutions instead of people. I dunno, maybe that's the whole Western liberal democratic social paradigm: the institution is bigger than the person. But we're not in a liberal democracy, this is a feudal space empire.
In a way, the most recent vote was an experimet of sorts. I wanted to see whether this trend of emphasising the institution rather than the person would continue. I figured it was a 1 in 3 chance y'all would go for the institution vote... but y'all did, again.
Anyway, I'll just peel back the curtain a little on the current vote:
So, to sum things up, this vote was once again a matter of approach, between the personal and impersonal. It's on a sliding scale between appealing to Tarisa Manandal, and appealing to the Commanding General of the Imperial Royal Guard. Let's look back at the votes:
This approach is all about appealing to Tarisa Manandal, the girl who joined the Guard out of duty, who's carrying on her family's legacy. Over a dozen generations all in uniform: that's a really strong family tradition, a really strong sense of duty and patriotism. With this approach, you're presenting yourself as a patriot, just like her, someone who appreciates her service beyond a simple platitude, someone who wants to build that same sort of legacy. It's telling her, "I'm doing this for the same reasons you are." Had this vote won, well, there is still more work and conversation to be done, but you have a good chance of not needing to do any favors to get IRG assistance. This would be setup for getting Tarisa into your orbit as a friend. She'll still do her due diligence, of course, but she'll be thinking, "If she's telling the truth, then she really isn't a threat at all." What you're saying here is "Help me build my power base because I will use it to serve."
This approach is appealing to General Manandal, the soldier who is loyal to her oaths. You're presenting yourself to her professionally, one officer to another: apolitical, sworn to the same oaths, serving Her Majesty. This is reflected in how you would owe that favor to General Manandal: you would be trading on your reputation as a naval officer, as a commander, on the people who can vouch for you. It's a good thing that your Uncle Johnny is also Fleet Admiral Sir Yonatan Chew, Commander Fleet Operations, the 3rd in Command of the Imperial Navy, a guy with a pretty solid rep. (Good thing also he swept your fight with Kanda under the rug.) What you're saying here is "Help me build my power base, because we're on the same side, our goals are aligned."
Of the three approaches, this is the least personal. You're appealing to the Commanding General of the Imperial Royal Guard, and by extension, the IRG as an institution. This is you acknowledging that you understand the IRG's position and you know how the game is played, so you're appealing to the self-interest of the institution. You know that some factions of the Guard see you as a threat to Ahri, you're aware that what you're doing can be seen as establishing a power base (which literally was the reaction of your IRG liaison and the Commanding General), so you choose to appeal to pragmatism and self interest. It's why the the favor you will trade will be owed to the institution. What you're saying here is "If you help me build my power base, you can put your people right beside me."
(In a way, from a certain point of view tho, pragmatism is, emotionally, the safest option. You don't need to get to know the person, you can just keep things impersonal and professional. But I digress.)
Make no mistake, you're never going to get out of trading favors. At this level, that's just how things are done: a favor for a favor. But by presenting yourself as a Patriot in the same mould as Tarisa, there was a chance that she'd be so moved, have such a positive reaction to you being exactly her kind of person, only interested in service, that she could have said yes, no favors needed.
But, I mean. There's nothing wrong with presenting yourself as a pragmatist towards the Commanding General of the IRG. And the conversation isn't over yet. But you've definitely made things harder for yourselves by reaching out to the institution that has no ties or connections with you. The Navy might have looked sus, but you'd be reaching out to friends, allies, people who already trust you, so you wouldn't need to justify yourself to them. And hell, maybe your sempai who was on FADM Chew's staff with you wanted you to take on a promising young kouhai for your staff, as your favor to her...
Tl;dr: none of the options were bad per se, just different in presentation and approach.
At some point we were going to have to get further in bed with the IRG anyways, it's the cost of doing business. I actually think that even without the Institutions vs Personal mindset argument it was and is a very viable choice medium-long term, even the pragmatism works fine as the first impression. It's a foundation with which to build off of and doesn't close any doors.
Hopefully the favor the IRG pulls on is something that we can back wholeheartadly that can lead to more than just a simple 'I scratch my back etc' relationship. These kinds of choices can honestly be seen as opportunities rather than just drawbacks and I think we're still in the stage where opening doors and seeing whats behind them is kinda nessicary. This in and of itself is a fact finding mission in a way, it's just perhaps maybe a little riskier than it could've been. At the end of the day I'd rather have both the Navy and the IRG on good terms with us than not, and while institutionally I'm sure the IRG want's to owe the Navy as little as possible and might outright be hostile to them at times keeping the peace at home when a civil war is brewing is probably one of those balancing acts that just has to be done.
Hopefully the favor the IRG pulls on is something that we can back wholeheartadly that can lead to more than just a simple 'I scratch my back etc' relationship. These kinds of choices can honestly be seen as opportunities rather than just drawbacks and I think we're still in the stage where opening doors and seeing whats behind them is kinda nessicary. This in and of itself is a fact finding mission in a way, it's just perhaps maybe a little riskier than it could've been. At the end of the day I'd rather have both the Navy and the IRG on good terms with us than not, and while institutionally I'm sure the IRG want's to owe the Navy as little as possible and might outright be hostile to them at times keeping the peace at home when a civil war is brewing is probably one of those balancing acts that just has to be done.
Always Late
Lacking in coffee, sleep, and brains
- Location
- Ohio
Apologies for not going back over the discussion myself before sticking my head in, but IIRC part of the idea of branching out of the safe zone of the Navy was the gathering of allies. With the navy itself divided between the central and theatre commands, and more than a few of them pulling their own plans to take over the empire for varying reasons, it didn't seem like the personal loyalty was all that strong. And as an out-of-universe thing, personal loyalty and feudalism is a failed system. We live in the era of MeToo, of government coups being tweeted and streamed live, and social media having more influence over how people engage with their nation's and global politics than conventional media. Why would we put all our money on Uncle Johnny when one scandal, like the whole Sumeragi deal, could tear apart that lifetime accumulation of sterling reputation in the navy? Not to mention this is all very much why Ahri is being kept a total secret. This isn't Star Wars where there's a whole bunch of one-off Philosopher Kings who have near total power but have the peerless moral character and intellectualism to wield that power to the benefit of their planet, and often give part of that power back to a representative assembly so the people have a voice and say.
Plus nobody wants to play the Eastern European/Corporate America Oligarch system, this is all meant to be an escape from reality.
Strictly speaking personally here, I think there's an element that is in theory covering both but by your own word kinda isn't: Culture. The shared ideals and beliefs. Until the revelation that about half the Guard wants to pull a Praetorian and put Yui on the throne, It's been reiterated continually that the IRG is fanatically loyal to the Empress. They swear Space Marine level loyalty to whoever's in the seat so they should theoretically already have that loyalty to, their own image of, Ahri. Plus the fact is, or at least should be, that Ahri and Yui can't rule with just family support. Her ruling coalition needs more allies, and turning the IRG from an enemy of Yui into a friend/counterweight sounds like a straightforward idea... on paper.
In practice, the only shared beliefs people seem to have is "trust only family, as in whatever social circle you have, everyone else is an enemy". When the option that best handles the ideals of the empire and service to the Empress, the patriotism option, is built entirely around playing the person, it almost begs the question of just how salvageable this whole empire is. If public service has no moral weight and is entirely phrased as an almost capitalist "What have you done for me today", then there doesn't seem like much we could actually discuss. After all, you did say that line of thought would be like the jaded character realizing the big naive speech by the protagonist is being played completely earnestly and honestly. I guess I could put it like this: I hear and think I understand the rules of the game. I think the rules are going to lead to us losing. So I wish to alter the rules, if not outright flip the table. But if you as the GM say "I have bolted the table to the floor", all I'm going to do is throw my back out and piss off other people.
But that's mostly down to me trying to quickly get a response out before work, and even during the past when I had more time to sit and ruminate on the quest I've missed pretty big keys, so what the hell do I know? For all I just said, I could be 200% wrong about the entire thing.
Axslashel
I am a pessimist not a realist.
- Location
- Land of the Midnight Sun
@Whiskey Golf What about the "Meet Ahri and the power of moe" write in option?
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Always Late
Lacking in coffee, sleep, and brains
- Location
- Ohio
I think we already got a semi-direct answer to that: Bad End.
- Location
- The Frozen North
- Pronouns
- He/Him
At least for me when I voted for the IRG plan it wasn't that I found the Navy sus, more that I was thinking it would be a good idea to form good relations with the IRG since Yui doesn't know them much and vice versa, so working with them would be a good opportunity for that. Though now I see that a better/more reliable way that could be done would be through personal relationships, so it makes me regret my previous vote for the dialog with the general. That one I voted for thinking that it was the most likely to work (plus I didn't want the meet Ahri write-in to win since Whiskey seemed to hint a couple times that it wasn't the best idea and pragmatism was the other big vote) but perhaps they were all equally likely. Making friends with her seems like it would have been pretty useful, but at least the conversation isn't over yet.
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Axslashel
I am a pessimist not a realist.
- Location
- Land of the Midnight Sun
We did? Because to me this does sound a lot like building personal connections.
Always Late
Lacking in coffee, sleep, and brains
- Location
- Ohio
Translation: Yui has kept the fact that Ahri made her main source of news Foxthot-4chan concealed from everyone except her closest aide, someone who she can rely on to take to her grave. Breaking this secret that not even Yui and Ahri's surrogate father Johnny knows is going to have Consequences, and normally I'd let you all drive straight off that cliff.
After that, everyone got pretty much scared straight.