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Petals of Titanium -- My Life as a Mecha Setting Bridge Bunny Quest

Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
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[X] Do it by the book

Yeah, option 2 might be something, though definitely a bit risky. Option 3 or 4 however... Really good but the problem is we don't have the talent to do these. If we had picked Mechanics as our secondary talent instead of Languages, Codes and Ciphers then 3 or 4 would be the choices to take.
 
Pyro Hawk said:
[X] Do it by the book

Yeah, option 2 might be something, though definitely a bit risky. Option 3 or 4 however... Really good but the problem is we don't have the talent to do these. If we had picked Mechanics as our secondary talent instead of Languages, Codes and Ciphers then 3 or 4 would be the choices to take.
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The mechanics option would have been about hardware and some engineering. Scans+mechanics would have let you like, modify a mecha's scans to be better or do something cool, or help repair some stuff in a pinch. This is a software problem, though, and Amani theoretically could do either of those.
 
... Does this mean that Languages, Codes and Ciphers includes knowledge of computer programming @Gazetteer ?

Or do you just mean that as she's a trained Long Range Scans specialist, she's also received basic training in the code that runs the sensor systems and analysis programs, such that she doesn't need to run for a specialist every time that a minor glitch or bug means she needs to fix something for the systems to work. And instead she knows which pre-built tools to grab to do it for her, and maybe how to guide those tools in picking how they modify themselves if they can't immediately solve the problem?
 
For the officers arrayed around the conference room of the Holy Solar Empire ship HDMS Amaranth, it has proven to be an opportunity to come close to their intended target while remaining substantially hidden. The facility's long range capabilities, while impressive, do not infer the same sort of special powers of detection on their short range scanners or technicians, so long as the covert task force doesn't do anything to betray their presence early.
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Is the advantage of the high risk option the fact that North might notice the main enemy fleet, and prompt the good Captain to go "Catch the fastest ship in the solar system if you can suckers!". Well that, or the Countess proving why Sir Issac Newton is deadly in space.
Sir Ivanov, Captain of the Amaranth and commander of the assembled task force, leans over the table the holographic representation of Phoebe, ignoring the moon itself to highlight the trailing orbital habitat. Pushing 100 standard years, he shows no sign of retiring anytime soon. "We know from intercepted transmissions, that they leave only a skeleton crew on the actual moon, and their entire senior command structure is housed on the station." He smiles grimly -- the heretics' communications were laughably easy to intercept and decrypt. It was as if they've learned nothing in their ten year reprieve. "We hit it hard and fast, before they can bring a proper defence to bear. It's not fortress grade. We have enough firepower to overwhelm their defences. What little they have."
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... huh I wonder if the issue with the sub lieutenant being unable to contact the station has to do with the crew being incompetent, and/or having incredibly lax discipline? Also they apparently picked up a religious bent of the none tolerant variant, and by the looks of things war will be moving into this region of space.
Tang, commander of the first of the Amaranth's escort ships, frowns, pointing down to the defence equipment "Lightly defended or not, sir, those anti-space guns they have moon-side can tear through Green's mech squad if they get half a chance." Ignoring the deeply uncharitable look Commander Green is now shooting her, she continues, "I would respectfully suggest, sir, that we make sure to time the attack as soon as the communications complex has gone out of range. This rock doesn't even have a ten hour rotational period, and that's less time than I'm comfortable with, even if things go as simply as planned."
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So the planet side guns might save us...
"We're here to put out their eyes and ears in the outer system," Tang says, her thin lips pressing together with dislike. "Our orders are to carry out a surprise attack, not specifically to avoid all detection after the fact." Ivanov often thinks it's fortunate that the Amaranth, a Flower-class light carrier, houses the entirety of the task forces mecha forces, limiting Tang's exposure to the gruff mecha commander.
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They've apparently got 5 mecha remaining to our 2.
Ivanov turns to look at the most junior officer present, a serious young woman, her complexion and hair a smart contrast to the sleek white lines of the pilot suit she still wears. Green's lieutenant is some sort of rising star pilot, who has been leading the scouting passes that they've been carrying out around the installation, and so far, doing them well in that new prototype model of hers. Ivanov had raised an eyebrow when Green took a message partway into this meeting, and again when the girl had arrived, but Green is steady enough, even if he does like his theatrics. "Report, Lieutenant," he allows.
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Lovely they've got a prototype mecha, and a potential ace using it.
Rather than respond, Song screams: Something fast, faster even than the Vespulas, has just gone active on her scans, and darted in close, dodging both her fire and then her attempted blows at melee range in order to drive something that looks very much like a five metre long spike through her mecha's chest. Through the cockpit. The last image any of you have of Ensign Suyin Song's face is intense fear, followed by a horrible slackening, before the feed finally cuts out.
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Looks up what what mecha we have... long ranged type, and a general purpose type... unless the countess is that superb of a pilot they're going to get wrecked.
[] Do it by the book
It will take as long as it takes, but you'll be able to trust the display data.
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The somewhat safe option in the sense that it'll insure what data the Countess is given is accurate, but takes precious time to do so when our opponents have a stupidly fast mecha.
[] Skip redundant testing
You can shave off a significant amount of time by skipping over certain checks and processes. Fast, but with a higher chance of false positives on the scan.
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Giving our resident sniper bad data is a terrible idea.
[] Patch together the ship's completed scans with the mecha squad's
The mechas have weaker, shorter range scans than the Rose, but you can chain the two sets of data together to produce something workable now. Very fast, but with poorer fidelity predictive tracking for things like velocity and flight paths over distances.
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Terrible idea as our opponent is confident they can take the station itself, and the only thing we can bring to the field that might stop that is a veteran.
[] Network with Phoebe
The scans that Phoebe possesses -- the station as well as the lunar platform -- are far more powerful than anything your ship has in terms of raw data processing. With the connection Mazlo has already established, you could theoretically take that and use it to create a fast, very high fidelity map of the battle space. However, integrating disparate hardware and software from different eras is always risky, and there's a chance that something will go wrong or cause delays. A high risk, high reward gamble.
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I'm seriously contemplating this for boon a "very high fidelity map" would be for a sniper, but am uncertain if it is worth the risk atm.
 
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[ ] Do it by the book

This is a highly contested vote, but i'd like to go for the unpopular option of doing it by the book.

...although, 'high risk, high reward' is a classic trope that always succeeds for a reason. Though that might be wishful thinking on my part.

Hmm...
 
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Yun said:
Lovely they've got a prototype mecha, and a potential ace using it.
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Prototype mecha, female pilot, enemy... I think we have Anja's competition for the spot of "show MC's love interest".

[X] Network with Phoebe

This is a use it or lose it situation, because Phoebe Base isn't going to be around much longer.
 
Narratively speaking, the high risk high reward choice would be the one that turns out to be right, but if it's up to the RNG by the book is safer.

[X] Do it by the book
 
[X] Network with Phoebe

What was the saying? Million-to-one odds always succeed? Yes, this is risky, but given the enemy's level of superiority, if we don't gamble and take the "safe" path... we may well all be dead anyway.
 
[X] Do it by the book

Because we are a code-breaker and a scanner. We are not the mecha pilot who's job it is to be a hot-blooded idiot. That's Ito's job.
 
[X] Network with Phoebe

PRETTY sure this is our only chance of spotting the big spiky thing coming for our butt before it's right in our face.
 
Pyro Hawk said:
... Does this mean that Languages, Codes and Ciphers includes knowledge of computer programming @Gazetteer ?

Or do you just mean that as she's a trained Long Range Scans specialist, she's also received basic training in the code that runs the sensor systems and analysis programs, such that she doesn't need to run for a specialist every time that a minor glitch or bug means she needs to fix something for the systems to work. And instead she knows which pre-built tools to grab to do it for her, and maybe how to guide those tools in picking how they modify themselves if they can't immediately solve the problem?
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Scans requires a high knowledge of the various software suites used for the purpose and sometimes means taking data from one source and using it in another. 3 and 4 aren't so much about hacking as they are, respectively, about making different datasets line up and work together, and making sure your ship's systems interpret data gathered elsewhere on an unfamiliar setup correctly.

You're in a mecha setting while an intense battle is going on and your contribution is fiddling with spreadsheets and stuff to make the map better for everyone else.
 
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Thinking about it, 'By the book' is obviously the 'reliable' option.

But win or lose, will it be enough?

I don't know.

But i think we should go all out.

[ ] Network with Phoebe
 
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Well, this looks fascinating.
A quick question though
Gazetteer said:
[x] The Imperial Navy of the United Solar Empire (in exile)

After a succession crisis led to a bloody civil war, the clear winners were the late emperor's eldest son and his newly rebranded Holy Solar Empire. The losers, loyal to the emperor's middle daughter, his chosen successor, fled in defeat to Saturn in the hopes of recovering and regrouping.
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Gazetteer said:
The emperor's preferred successor had been his son, a volatile firebrand with a strong martial bent, who openly talked about punishing 'deviant members of imperial society'. The Electors, hoping to avoid putting such a temperment on the throne, instead chose his cousin -- a solid, staid, altogether unremarkable woman of middling talent and little charisma. A compromise empress.
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So our faction being the Emperor's preferred successor has been rethought? Either's fine, just confused by the contradictory information. Though its a little disappointing our leader is apparently kind of plain, she's definitely preferable to the apparent nutjob running the other side.

As for the vote, always go for broke. We're the protagonist in a mecha setting, we're gonna make the impossible happen even if we're not in the cockpit.

[X] Network with Phoebe
 
Redshirt Army said:
[X] Network with Phoebe

What was the saying? Million-to-one odds always succeed? Yes, this is risky, but given the enemy's level of superiority, if we don't gamble and take the "safe" path... we may well all be dead anyway.
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Broken Base said:
Honestly if a delay or error ends up killing us, we were probably screwed anyway given the decent amount of time we have to wait for the normal method.

[X] Network with Phoebe
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I don't think we should expect one of the options to result in all of us dying. That strikes me as unnecessarily alarmist. We still have most of the advantages the officers of the Amaranth were worried about, including the station itself being alerted before they intended it to be. The consequences for our choices, I feel, are more likely to be specific.

The Amaranth "houses the entirety of the task forces mecha forces." How well can our two remaining mecha hold up against them? Can we get accurate enough sensor data fast enough to assist? Will either of our remaining mecha pilots die if we don't help fast enough? Or if we don't see new threats coming for them?

They're using the debris field as cover to slip closer to hit the station first. Can we find all of them and any surprises they have? Will they manage to destroy the station's comms or guns? Or both?

After the attack, they'll still potentially be in the debris field with all the comm interference that implies. Can we keep them from escaping into the debris field afterward? If they succeed in any of their goals, can we keep them from reporting their success to rest of their fleet?

If we don't go by the book, what will our personal repercussions be? If the people using our data have to deal with unexpected problems with it, how well will they be able to compensate?

The difference between the two approaches we're looking at isn't that we all die if we pick this one or the other, it's that they risk failures in different areas. The "by the book" approach risks failure in any contest that we encounter soon, but it is reliable, and we're nearly guaranteed to succeed in any scan-data related issues that crop up after it's complete (mecha movements, ships hiding in the debris field, torpedoes' movements). Networking with Phoebe, on the other hand, potentially can succeed and succeed spectacularly in every way, but it also risks failure in every area, and we won't know where failures might pop up until they happen, if we can even tell then.
 
[X] Network with Phoebe
fuck it, zera has me convinced. Mecha show conceits it is. Let's go for the long shot.
On the other hand, this could wind up being like Sir Pratchett's 999,997 to one odds of hitting a dragon in the 'voolnerables' by shooting a bow upside down, blindfolded, while singing the hedgehog song-
Surviving the aftermath will be exactly a million to one.
 
Zeratoth said:
Well, this looks fascinating.
A quick question though



So our faction being the Emperor's preferred successor has been rethought? Either's fine, just confused by the contradictory information. Though its a little disappointing our leader is apparently kind of plain, she's definitely preferable to the apparent nutjob running the other side.

As for the vote, always go for broke. We're the protagonist in a mecha setting, we're gonna make the impossible happen even if we're not in the cockpit.

[X] Network with Phoebe
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Oh no. Yeah, that was super poorly worded in the original post on my part. I've gone back and retroactively edited that to read "his legally appointed successor." The messup between her precise relation to the emperor is 100% just me forgetting that I'd stated that for sure, though and thanks for pointing that out as a contradiction. I've changed that in the latest update to reflect that she is the usurper emperor's half-sister rather than his cousin.
 
Gazetteer said:
Oh no. Yeah, that was super poorly worded in the original post on my part. I've gone back and retroactively edited that to read "his legally appointed successor." The messup between her precise relation to the emperor is 100% just me forgetting that I'd stated that for sure, though and thanks for pointing that out as a contradiction. I've changed that in the latest update to reflect that she is the usurper emperor's half-sister rather than his cousin.
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so we serve the candidate the emperor wanted or not?
 
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