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May The Invisible Hand Be With You - (Star Wars CK2-Style Quest)

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It's gonna end up hilarious either way.
drake_azathoth said:
Father: "You are both here to represent a certain point of view. Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker, representing the Light Side of the Force. And Darth Traya, representing the Dark Side of the Force."
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Anakin stared at Ciaran with horror. "So you are the Sith Lord the Jedi have been suspecting!"
Ciaran rolled her eyes. "Don't be daft, Anakin. Obviously I am a completely unrelated Sith Lord."
"Yeah like we're going to be stupid enough to fall for that!" Anakin fired back, glancing at his master... who raised his hand to his face to rub his brow like he was beginning to feel the mother of all headaches coming on. "I sense no deception from her, Anakin." Anakin stared at Ciaran in disbelief, who raised her eyebrows and added "The Sith Lord you're after is actually Chancellor Palpatine, by the way." "Okay now you're just obviously making stuff up-"

--a bit later--

"You're still a Sith Lord! You're no better than him!" Anakin yelled accusingly.
The Sith Lady he had thought a friend smiled faintly. "You know, when Sheev wanted personal power he started a war that embroiled the galaxy. When I wanted personal power, I started a charity. This choice must be so hard for you."

--a lot later--

Though Ciaran was almost driven back by the pressure of the Force emanating from the wrinkled old man, nothing could be heard in his voice as Lord Sidious spoke. "You know, even now I don't understand it at all. My plans in tatters, the galaxy united behind you, but you came from nowhere, you had no special advantage.. and you overtook me so easily." Rocks crumbled in the air as the rage of a Sith Lord earthed itself, and Sheev's voice began to betray some of his frustration. "How is it possible?!"
Ciaran smiled her enigmatic smile, even as she held her lightsaber in a guard pose. "Omake bonuses."
Debris crumbled to the ground around the Chancellor, his concentration broken. "What."
"The stories told about me in the galaxy, there were so many ... you know, statistically they give me a 20% advantage on average. In time, my investment strategy allowed this advantage to compound. That is what truly defeated you, in the end - not the Force, or some prophecy, but simple compound interest--" and that's as far as she got before Sheev's scream of fury bathed the room in lightning.
 
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So, Who thinks that Father invited Lady Ciaran JUST to troll with Daughter and Son? something like: "behave, OR ELSE"

Whumbly said:
Ahsoka: Wait, this means I was right. The Abyss Watchers are run by a Sith.
Ciaran: From a certain point of view. My Sith title is more... honorary than any reward for time spent learning.
Obi-Wan: How does one get an 'honorary' Sith title?
Ciaran: Impress the ghost of a Sith Lord enough that they bestow their title.
Anakin: Which Sith Lord was it?
Ciaran:... err... Darth Traya.
Anakin and Ahsoka: *shocked expressions*
Obi-Wan: ... Now that you mention it, I can picture that.
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...
I can picture that, after all that Obi went through due to Ciaran, he just CAN'T muster strength to be surprised, shocked (+ not his love life, so thats a pluss)
 
XenonPrime said:
Oh goodness no, Ciaran is greedy, selfish, possessive, vengeful, ruthless and generally quite passionate and impulsive iin her casual interactions.

Much of the good she does is whimsical, calculated for her benefit or for the sake of one her people.

Ciaran does as she wills, not for any moral motivation.

Ahem, as an aside I really like getting to Ciaran's hunches from the outside is really cool
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It's called enlightened-selfinterest: you do good to others to get some good out of it,
And thats OK
 
Unrelated to the (awesome) update: it's been about 30 pgs, so here's another omake tally.

At last count:
Publicola said:
giving us a total of 22 omake bonuses for Turn 26.
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Since then, we've added four more, pushing our total to 26 omake bonuses for Turn 26.

Since we gain those Courier Ships (+1 Hero Action) and the Bothan Spynet (+1 Intrigue Action) this turn, our final cap is actually set to 38. That means we'll want twelve more omakes between now and whenever Dr. Snark finishes this Mortis mini-arc if we're going to hit the cap for next turn.

For reference, here are the four new omakes since the last tally:
Panory said:
Old Scoundrels​
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Stealthy said:
Courier Is A Vague Term
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Dovahsith said:
Of Hatred and Confusion​
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Panory said:
Nothing of Value​
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Say since Anakin is not married to Padme, and due to the big rolls Ciaran could easily talk Anakin in staying as the Balance than going back once he gain Ciaran's oath in siding the CNS with the Jedi against the CIS and looking after Padme. Also Ahsoka looking after herself in that prison break mean she's ready become a Knight so Anakin would let her go to be her own person.
Since Anakin's mother is alive with her own life and Obi Wan would understand then I would think he can let go of his ties.
 
Andres110 said:
He wasn't married to Padme at the beginning of the Clone Wars. It's been 3 years since the time when they canonically married and it's entirely possible that they've tied the knot by now.
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Ciaran would have known and she would crash the wedding in order to steal the bride for the road trip so to speak.
Actually galaxy trip.
 
huh.. that might be a Nice Meta goal for the game. cause Sidious to suffer a BSoD just before we launch our final strike upon him. leave him going "what?" over an over as we strike him down.
 
Jrin said:
Ciaran would have known and she would crash the wedding in order to steal the bride for the road trip so to speak.
Actually galaxy trip.
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I'd prefer if they had successfully kept it a secret from Ciaran. Her reaction when she founds out how excellently Padme kept a secret from her, and that the secret was as big a one as being married to Anakin, would be priceless.
 
Killerflood said:
What you all need to do is to read some Nietzsche. I don't mean the stereotypical Nietzsche either (Nihilism), I mean really read his works and try to understand them. One of the cornerstones of his philosophy is that "good" and "evil" are concepts made from society and that these concepts are metaphysical ideas and purely subjective. Neither of them are based in fact and "good" for one person is "bad" for another.

I would really hazard to say that Ciaran is "beyond good and evil." She has her own morals, her own goals, and her own desires. None of these have come from the galaxies views on morality but her own experiences and the challenges that have come from them. She's not good because of already stated reasons but she isn't bad either for (once again) already stated reasons. She's constructed her own morality which can't be simply categorized in black/white which is an issue for us since we tend to base "heroes" and "villains" on such a spectrum.

And we love her for it.
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So does that mean that we were invited to be the Mother's representative? I mean if the Father is balance, the Daughter is Light, and the Son is Dark, what is the Mother?
 
Panory said:
You're making me feel like I'm slacking.
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'Omake Dragon' only contributes 14 omakes for our upcoming turn? Sheesh, pick up the pace, that's barely half our total.

/s

(...in case it wasn't obvious before)

Nah, the tally is mostly to remind myself (and everyone else...) to get around to writing those omakes flitting in the back of my mind (and theirs...). I'm nearly done with the galaxy survey, but I haven't actually typed up the 'Briefing' omakes proper, not to mention the 'Dossier' ones I mentioned before. I should be able to get one or two done before the next turn, though.

Hopefully others will have ideas of their own to work on as well. For instance, @NexysDhyArchen, whatever happened to the rest of your 'potential omake' megalist? Any plans there?
NexysDhyArchen said:
Before I head to work, I think I'll just bite the bullet and fight my writer's block with a small vote: Which of these ideas would people like me to work on more?

- Politics and Posturings Part 2
- Ciaran becomes a Kaleesh Goddess
- HK-47 has a Mind Trip
- Ciaran Does some Meditation
- The Next Generation meets Thrawn for Dinner
- What Could have been the Shatterpoint Crit reward
- A Serious Ciaran is a Scary Sight
- Thrawn makes an Opponent
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Likewise, if someone wants to expand any of the scenes from actions this turn, there's a ton of potential there:
  • The first chess match between Ahsoka and Thrawn after the 'rescue' from the Transdoshan moon
  • Jango's reaction when he's finally 'read in' by Ciaran et al. and learns the full details of what we're dealing with
  • This scene:
Dr. Snark said:
You're not 100% sure on the specifics of what happened there, but apparently Grievous managed to carve a path through the exogorths that allowed salvage teams to move the remains of the Legacy out of the asteroid field before they looked into it...and they hit the jackpot.
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  • ...Not to mention the reaction by our salvage teams (as they try not to get distract by Grievous being ridiculously awesome) or by the Kaleesh once Grievous returns home to hang the taxidermied head of a giant mutant exogorth above his mantle...
  • The Fall of Rush Clovis. Specifically, the fact that he was exposed as a traitor while on Coruscant, which means he was probably in the Senate and in the company of other Senators (cough Padme) when the news broke. Not to mention the fact that the arresting authorities would have been the Senate Bureau of Intelligence, under orders from Armand Issard (one of the members of Palpatine's Inner Circle). This would be a good opportunity to finally put a face to one of the behind-the-scenes names we'll be dealing with, not to mention the potential of a reaction scene when Palpatine realizes one of his most-useful pawns just threw a different most-useful pawn in jail and threw away the key...
  • The whole codebreaker recovery mission. Bonus points if you show how The Silencer's interference managed to save Siri Tachi's life. Even more bonus points if you give us a scene with Talesan Fry after the fact, to give us a narrative hook to recruit the guy next turn. Seriously, he's awesome, and he'd benefit immensely from our protection -- win-win all around.
  • Did anyone else notice that Kal Skirata's group tracked down Ko Sai this turn? On top of our recruiting a bunch of doctors & researchers to help them out, their part of the plot is puttering along pretty smoothly. I'd love to see some scenes from Kyrimorut -- between the Karada doctors, Ko Sai, the pregnant Jedi, the injured commando, and all the rest, I imagine it's getting fairly crowded....
  • I'd also love it if someone introduced a Indiana Jones-type character as a recurring hero for archaeology omakes. I want to see the ongoing adventures of our Discovery Corps teams, as they explore some of the biggest Force sites and shrines in the galaxy. It doesn't even need to be about Phateem -- people could write omakes about any of the archaeology missions that we'll be picking in the future...
The same applies to any of the other actions -- we have a lot of potential actions to pick from next turn, which means there's a lot of fodder for writing up events that haven't happened yet. Anyone want to write an omake on the Abyss Watchers infiltrating Thyferra to steal a couple samples of the bacta-producing fungus and finally ending their monopoly on galactic health? How about Asajj Ventress's homecoming to Rattatak? Possibilities!
 
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Sinsystems said:
Well we are probably one of the most active people these days who are positioned in the middle of Ashla and Bogan (original names for the Light and Dark sides of the force) thus making us the one most likely to understand the stuff that's about to happen.
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So... you're saying that we're the one in the middle, the Bendu? :D

Whumbly said:
flying around in the Scimitar (whose stealth field is powered by Dark Side Crystals)
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Source? The Scimitar's cloaking device is powered by stygium crystals, and I haven't seen anything to indicate those are of the dark side...

Andres110 said:
He wasn't married to Padme at the beginning of the Clone Wars. It's been 3 years since the time when they canonically married and it's entirely possible that they've tied the knot by now.
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...We're the best information broker in the galaxy, and we have wiretaps in the Senate and major Coruscant starports. Yeah, if they got married, we would have found out about it.


Very unrelated, but I was looking through Teron's original thread, and came across a few rather prescient posts:

Entropy Engineer said:
Hmm now that we are back on topic about science. What type of improvements do we want to make to our troops? Should we focus on making our cyborg parts as discrete as possible to the point it's undetectable or should we focus on gene mods that transform our soldiers in the next generation super soldier acid spitter included. Should we see if we can create our own medical nanobots to combine the biological and machine? Should we focus on creating bio computers or should we focus on improving and specializing droid programming. Mabye we could create whole new species customized to fit our needs. But in order to see what we can create we need to see how much we can push the new learning system. I looking forward to breaking it :drevil: muhhahahaha. (Huh there's actually an auto correct for diabolical laughter.)
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Finagle007 said:
Do you even need to ask?
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Also:
Deathwings said:
You know what I'd really like to see ? An omake of Cheriss looking over HK-47's original specs and quietly freaking out that this 4000 years old piece of history somehow manage to outstrip 99.9% of contemporary droids even in its current sorry state.
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Turns out we didn't need an omake, we managed to turn this into an action!
 
Andres110 said:
This isn't "neutral" or "good", this is Even Evil Has Standards, and she even stated that morality ISN'T why she draws a line.
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Ah citing tropes- truly compelling. I can do it too! Nominal Hero

My point wasn't that Ciaran was good, or that she wasn't a villain- it's just that Ciaran is the special kind of 'bad' force users in Star Wars that isn't remotely related to the Darkside. And that Ciaran's 'evil' is the kind that while morally reprehensible is mutually profitable, her's is the sort of insidious thing that people don't want to stop because it's ultimately beneficial for them and in general ignoring any poor souls ground in the gears.

In a macro scale- in a very sense Ciaran is the big good in a real way. She's the mastermind fighting the sith, she's saving billions and deescalating the war. In the micro sense her crimes are only marginally less heinous then a lot of the foes she's fighting. That's why she's an interesting character and why I'm dismissive of people pigeonholing her as a simple darksider.
 
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Publicola said:
...Pretty sure @deadcrystal was referring to the Baron Do Sages:
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I was yeah. That said we've got so many darned things we need Ciaran to learn I'm not sure we can list it as a remotely high priority.

Stealthy said:
Form III: Soresu. Almost purely defensive, it's about living long enough to not lose. So it's not great at killing your opponent if they're wielding a lightsaber, but it's fantastic at not dying. A true master can also use it to control the battle... but that'll be difficult given our chose opponent. On one hand, we're not gonna kill Sidious using Soresu. On the other hand, we have Makashi for that and it's not like we're relying on our lightfoil/saber for that anyway. It's the most commonly used form in the Jedi Order, and our good friend Obi-Wan Kenobi has become the master of Soresu. So easy learning opportunity here and easy strategic value.
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My issue with Soresu is the listed weakness that it doesn't really do anything. We don't need it for blaster protection and the only other thing it's good for is outlasting your opponent. If you can't outlast your opponent it does absolutely nothing for you except meaning you lose slower. You still lose though. I can see the reasoning for it, partic with having access to Obi-Wan, and viewing it as a supplement.

Stealthy said:
Form IV: Ataru. At the end of the day, even Jedi get bored with the plain defensive Form III style, and so they made Forms IV and V; the offensive forms of the Jedi Order. Ataru is very aggressive with a focus on speed, power, and acrobatics. That's right, this is the Bouncing Yoda form. It's super fast, offensive, and evasive... but bad in prolonged fights and in tight spaces. It's weaknesses are bad, and really unsuited for Ciaran.
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Yeah, agreed, not a good fit.

Stealthy said:
Form VII: Juyo/Vaapad. Aka, the Sith Style. Vaapad is the Darkside-less version that Windu made up, and that only he has mastered. Juyo is very Sith-like in that you pour fury and emotion into your strikes. Become power and chaos all in one. This is without a doubt the most powerful and deadly of all the forms, with the drawback being the whole emotion dark-side bit. The Jedi generally don't like it because of this, and the Sith love it accordingly. It's probably what Sidious will primarily use against us to try and eviscerate everyone, and Vaapad is the reason that Windu is so damn deadly. Wanna take this? I figure we're better off not. Especially because, well, just guess who we'd have to learn it from. Yup.
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I figure if we were going to learn this we'd just go ahead and try and pick up the proper Sith form. I mean, I think Snark said that with Vectivus's teaching Ciaran already channels rage when she fights, just only when she actually attacks rather than constantly, making it a very very effective combo with Makashi for guard breaking.

Edit: I think the KOTOR games mentioned that even complete masters of the lightsaber in the modern day don't remotely compare to the ancient Sith masters of combat who'd trash every modern user trivially.

Stealthy said:
Overall, Soresu is the right pick for now based on availability and usefulness against Palpatine. It's something we really want to learn before fighting him, and we have the best teacher we could have standing right there as a personal friend.
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Alright, I'm convinced. Don't know what order we'll want to prioritise training actions in, since we need to finish off Blazing Chains and we've got a lot to do with Shatterpoint, but sure.

Dr. Snark said:
Breathing in and reminding herself that Darth Traya wouldn't show any apprehension at a time like this,
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Am I right in thinking that Ciaran and Asajj are the only people who know she's the new Darth Traya?

Dr. Snark said:
"Listen old man, you have no idea how bad it was."
"You kidding me? You grew up on a damn sand planet, I thought you'd be used to it by now."
"Believe me, spend enough time on Tatooine and you will learn to hate sand. It's coarse and rough and irritating, and it. Gets. Everywhere."
"It can't be that bad-"
"Everywhere."
"...Even the booze?"
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The most important relationship to mention, Anakin's hatred for all things Sand related.

Dr. Snark said:
He paced around for a few more moments before he sighed, walked over to Ciaran's cabin and punched in the override code for the door. As it opened he saw that Ciaran didn't even respond; she was in the middle of meditation of all things. It seemed to Silas like it hadn't been that long since she would adamantly refuse to do any sort of activity that involved 'serene contemplation' or whatever her parents had told her was "absolutely necessary" to learn the Force but...here she was, looking for all the world like any other Jedi.
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Well, knowing Ciaran I doubt it's all that serene, and more just her focusing.

Dr. Snark said:
Suddenly, as though it had always been there, a colossal diamond-shaped monolith appeared right in front of the Jedi shuttle. It was an eerie sight as the structure was almost entirely black save for the glowing red lines that ran across its surface.
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Welp. Guess I'm gonna have to go watch that Clone Wars three parter to get prepped for this.

Sinsystems said:
Oh yes!! Hopefully we can keep Anakin from killing them, because I seriously don't want to deal with Abaloth at any point in the future.
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Recall that the previous Darth Traya actually wanted to kill the force itself. With her observance of history and seeing the constant back and forth between wielders of the dark and light she saw it as a force that manipulated everyone in the galaxy and crushed everyone underfoot. She may have eventually relented on that and changed her mind, decided the force wasn't actually playing a game with all life in the galaxy.

But she didn't know about the Celestials. Living manifestations of the force that are everything she thought the force was and hated it for. She would have wanted them all dead very very badly.

XenonPrime said:
Looking at Silas, I'm guessing he's really not comfortable with where Ciaran's ambitions are leading, I'm assuming it's her dive into the Force rather than specifically Sith things, although I doubt he'd be exactly thrilled with any of that either.
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Yeah, going by what he said about not being able to follow her it's that he doesn't really have the slightest clue about any of the Force stuff so it's not something he can really get.

dredloki said:
i... i kinda want ciaran not to be ciaran in this. i want her to put on her mask and take the name darth traya . if a sith tells you that you can be turned to the dark side, you know you need to change.
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Well I don't know whether she has the Kalee mask with her, but her going as Darth Traya would be interesting.

Stroth said:
Ciaran is a villain. She's just careful not to become a monster as well.
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Yea.

ThoughtMaster said:
So does that mean that we were invited to be the Mother's representative? I mean if the Father is balance, the Daughter is Light, and the Son is Dark, what is the Mother?
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From cursory googling on Abaloth she's basically living Chaos. So uh...kinda?

Publicola said:
Likewise, if someone wants to expand any of the scenes from actions this turn, there's a ton of potential there:
  • The first chess match between Ahsoka and Thrawn after the 'rescue' from the Transdoshan moon
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The thing I like about that omake series is that it doesn't do the whole 'learning chess makes you good at strategy' thing. Like sure, they play chess, but the chess is just a vehicle, a metaphor, a talking tool they use when Thrawn is discussing strategy and tactics. He makes her actually think about things, encourages her to keep her mind flexible and keep adapting to circumstances, keep considering different perspectives.

SlyOverlord said:
Would be ironic if he decided to show up and lecture everyone on how balance actually work. But alas, I doubt we will meet him anytime soon. His planet isn't exactly a popular location for a Force expedition.
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The Bendu...does not like visitors. He's the balance, sure, but his position in the balance is mostly just the mutual 'leave me alone and I'll leave you alone'. Dude just wants to sit peaceably on his creepy bug planet.
 
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ThoughtMaster said:
So does that mean that we were invited to be the Mother's representative? I mean if the Father is balance, the Daughter is Light, and the Son is Dark, what is the Mother?
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An evil, psychotic eldritch abomination demon thing the likes of which the Galaxy has never seen, being more at home in 40k than Star Wars.
 
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