It's really not. Even ignoring the eventual redundancy as we take over New Heaven in the medium term, the combination of treaty resulting in escalation of Praetorian deniable attacks while making ourselves a higher Priority target is downright dangerous, especially when having two psionic organizations on different continents spreads our security thin.
Meanwhile stewardship can conduct personal projects to help us build up our kingdom of Australia once it's conquered. This significant do to the great deal of work involved in raising them from tourist attractions, corporate owned towns, and slave empires, into modern productive cities.
Mechanically the significance of first consort is greater opportunities and significance in chinese politics, which will trickle into international politics and opportunities, and a strong impact on the narrative going forward.
Piety advisor is the superior choice though? While being stewardship advisor seems like it would grant more material benefits it would have way too many demands for what actions we need to do which would greatly restrict any ability to pursue our own projects or goals using that position and would put more demands on our own time and actions as well to keep up with it. Especially for the next few years as we're winding down the civil war and in the immediate aftermath of it
To be honest the prestige of first over second consort is likely to provide very little mechanical benefit. And as far as interactions with interesting characters go, the only characters I'm aware of that would really matter for would be the empress, her cousin, and Xingke which we'd likely have to spend most of that time just trying to recover from their negative opinions of us for forcing ourselves into the position of first consort and recover the positive opinion we would instead get for choosing second.
If we settle for second consort there will be no incentive for people to vote for interactions with those characters. And "less good" opinion is not "negative" opinion.
Being guaranteed that our child would be heir would be the one real major benefit to first consort, but like I said above, I just don't really see how that outweighs all the negatives.
Being guaranteed we'll have a child to begin with would already be pretty good. First consort is far likelier to have a kid with the Empress than the second, especially considering we don't know how involved of a mother Lihua wants to be and all the other demands on her and Lelouch's time.
That's a not insignificant point that, admittedly, I'd not considered. However, I'd argue that over the next few years or so we're almost certainly going to begin to draw their attention anyway and while it is likely to make us a higher priority target for the praetorians it would also put us in a good position to draw them into the public eye and to target them ourselves.
Further, this is more of an argument for having a runoff vote on what marriage option should be taken rather than an argument in favor of first consort being a superior choice over second consort.
The difference is the resources they'll invest to get the job done increase notably with treaty. It's also one thing to be somewhat more prominent a target, and another to be actively advancing Psionic interests while giving them multiple targets to try and weaken or damage that we have to defend.
We've achieved a level of worldly impact that we are going to face raised stakes naturally, but the combo of these rewards takes things a level further in how much they have it out for us.
Further, this is more of an argument for having a runoff vote on what marriage option should be taken rather than an argument in favor of first consort being a superior choice over second consort.
I've long since stopped caring about which consort position wins as long as we actually marry lihua and don't pass a Piety & treaty combo, and would give anything for the pro marry Lihua voters to do the same. I'm more just clarifying things. In the end, what we gain besides Marriage is more important, as long as we have reason to interact with Lihua. It's been the case for a while now that peoples hang ups over being first consort are the only thing keeping my vote from pulling into the lead, which is ridiculous given 1st instead of 2nd husband part is essentially ⅛ of the total vote.
Meanwhile stewardship can conduct personal projects to help us build up our kingdom of Australia once it's conquered. This significant do to the great deal of work involved in raising them from tourist attractions, corporate owned towns, and slave empires, into modern productive cities.
You vastly underestimate the demands that a stewardship advisor is going to have on their time and project choices when they're a foreign national coming in to take over in a country that is in the end of a civil war and who will likely have to build (or rebuild as the case may be) their office and team almost from scratch.
I'd be amazed if we would have the time and available actions to pursue more than one or two personal projects as stewardship advisor over the next 5 years.
Mechanically the significance of first consort is greater opportunities and significance in chinese politics, which will trickle into international politics and opportunities, and a strong impact on the narrative going forward.
"Strong impact" maybe a bit of an overstatement considering that even if we are the second consort we'll still have access to most of those opportunities and at least some, if not a large amount of those opportunities, are likely to be things we either aren't interested in or just don't have the time and\or resources to pursue.
I really get the feeling that people are horribly underestimating both the new demands that China, and whatever positions we take in it, will place on our time and actions as well as just how few actions we are going to have to pursue the opportunities that it does make available even with the new action slots that will be available.
You vastly underestimate the demands that a stewardship advisor is going to have on their time and project choices when they're a foreign national coming in to take over in a country that is in the end of a civil war and who will likely have to build (or rebuild as the case may be) their office and team almost from scratch.
I'd be amazed if we would have the time and available actions to pursue more than one or two personal projects as stewardship advisor over the next 5 years.
The Place in her administration votes give us control over Lihua's action pools, not spending our own. This isn't going to be some massive drain on Lelouch's ability to function as a prince of britannia with his own action set, especially without a language barrier to cause issues.
Conversely, given Lihua likely doesn't have much of a Piety staff, this will be dividing our available Cult Manpower in the short term, especially since we still have to complete human testing to start screening for would be chinese psionics among potential recruits.
I really get the feeling that people are horribly underestimating both the new demands that China, and whatever positions we take in it, will place on our time and actions as well as just how few actions we are going to have to pursue the opportunities that it does make available even with the new action slots that will be available.
All of the Marriages, lihua and Meihua, place some strain yes. News flash, just being involved in this war was going to escelate our prominence and political attention, making our situation more complicated and time demanding. The chance to avoid that has passed. At this point, we are getting involved in the politics and development of Lihua's polity whichever of the leading plans win.
The difference is every plan but mine has this happen while increasing the effort we need to put into fending off the praetorians as well, while over focusing in piety, as opposed to splitting our action gains between Stewardship, Learning, with Piety gains to happen in a long run. As I said, if people weren't so fixated on which consort we were, my plan would already be the clear winner, and the above points are why.
I very much disagree... I have seen many good QM course correct in the middle of the vote because they have realized that the vote format was not the most adequate, and most people approved of that change
And in this case @Slayer Anderson himself has admitted that this vote had "legitimate structural issues" and if you combine that with a moratorium which was waaaay too short for such an important vote (The "this should have been brought up during the moratorium" is not a good argument when we only had 6 hours for such an important vote), and that the suggestion of making the marriage vote separate from the rest was posed a long time ago, there are very good grounds to change the format of the vote...
Besides that, I could understand not wanting to change the vote format "for being too late" if a long time had passed since the start of the vote, or if the discussion and/or votes had already died down... But in this case the vote has been open for less than 48 hours, and there is still a lot of activity in the thread, so I don't really understand why it is too late to change the vote format...
What? Piety advisor to China absolutely would give us a great deal that our cult wouldn't. At the absolute minimum it would give us access to all the currently existing research and resources on psionics in China, it would allow us access to, and almost certainly control of, any psionic related artifacts or ruins in China, would expand our ability to pursue psionic projects by giving us additional actions that we wouldn't have to use for other things like we would the stewardship actions, and it would give us a position of authority to speak from publicly in regards to psionics.
Those are just the guaranteed benefits (i.e. there are plenty of others that are "maybe we could do this" or "if we dedicate enough actions to pursuing this" type benefits) and I'm sure there's plenty of other things that I'm not thinking of since that's just what came to mind off the top of my head at the moment.
As far as how restrictive it's going to be, that has almost nothing to do with Lihua herself. It's not a concern of her micromanaging us while staring over our shoulder and complaining anytime we don't do exactly what she wants.
It's about the fact that in the wind up and aftermath of a civil war that a stewardship advisor will simply have a bunch of crisis going on that they will have no choice but to deal with such as preventing massive amounts of civilian starvation and death by making sure that enough food is available to everyone, making sure the needed funds are available for the military and other departments to minimize how long it takes to wrap up the civil war, removing corruption from the Chinese economic apparatuses and preventing new corruption, getting China to the point where it actually has a functional economy and hopefully eventually a healthy one, trying to sort out international trade, etc.
would expand our ability to pursue psionic projects by giving us additional actions that we wouldn't have to use for other things like we would the stewardship actions,
It's about the fact that in the wind up and aftermath of a civil war that a stewardship advisor will simply have a bunch of crisis going on that they will have no choice but to deal with such as preventing massive amounts of civilian starvation and death by making sure that enough food is available to everyone, making sure the needed funds are available for the military and other departments to minimize how long it takes to wrap up the civil war, removing corruption from the Chinese economic apparatuses and preventing new corruption, getting China to the point where it actually has a functional economy and hopefully eventually a healthy one, etc.
Yes and dealing with.those issues with give Lelouch enormous power and influence in China, which will be a spring board for Australian stuff and massive help with Britannian stuff.
Piety option will, especially coupled with treaty, just have us be an even biggest target for assasination as well monofusing us.om psionics to the exclusion everything else. If that sounds fun to you, you do you, but I would prefer there to be a wide range of activities for us to apply Lelouch in.
What? Piety advisor to China absolutely would give us a great deal that our cult wouldn't. At the absolute minimum it would give us access to all the currently existing research and resources on psionics in China, it would allow us access to, and almost certainly control of, any psionic related artifacts or ruins in China, would expand our ability to pursue psionic projects by giving us additional actions that we wouldn't have to use for other things like we would the stewardship actions, and it would give us a position of authority to speak from publicly in regards to psionics.
None of these are things our new prominence and wealth can't acquire from us, and given a lot of these are probably more family heirlooms than property of the state, I doubt we get much, as the absense of a developed ministry means a majority of this is not in lihua's sphere of control or even awareness.
It's about the fact that in the wind up and aftermath of a civil war that a stewardship advisor will simply have a bunch of crisis going on that they will have no choice but to deal with such as preventing massive amounts of civilian starvation and death by making sure that enough food is available to everyone, making sure the needed funds are available for the military and other departments to minimize how long it takes to wrap up the civil war, removing corruption from the Chinese economic apparatuses and preventing new corruption, getting China to the point where it actually has a functional economy and hopefully eventually a healthy one, etc.
Yes, this is covered in previous discussion of the obligations part of the position that every Place in her administration deals with, offset by the fact that they are her actions we are spending, stewardship having more actions than most, and there is some small leeway for personal projects in all positions. There is also the bonus of Chinese good will for all those War recovery, corruption uprooting(lelouch has a trait usefull for this) and bettering of chinese quality of life we will be succeeding in, both from Lihua and her people.
As far as how restrictive it's going to be, that has almost nothing to do with Lihua herself. It's not a concern of her micromanaging us while staring over our shoulder and complaining anytime we don't do exactly what she wants
Lihua is going to have obligations for us in all variations when it comes to a place in her administration. We'll have some wiggle room, but overall, meeting obligations has us left to ourselves or even given more leeway as needs drop(more significant in the robust Chinese stewardship ministry that is a priority for budget and manpower), while not doing so results in increased scrutiny and budget cuts.
At this point, I have to acknowledge the reality that for all the people discussing the nuance of various aspects of the vote, it's essentially devolved into a vote over which marriage is preferred. I suggest @Slayer Anderson simply close the vote on their return, with the marriage decided by which plan is in the lead, and start a run off task vote on [Position], [Rewards One], and [Rewards Two] will resolve the current issue with the marriage over dominating the vote nicely.
So first off, I want to say this decision has been a long time in coming looking back on it.
I started this quest back in 2019 when I was in a very, very different place in my life than I am now. I won't go into specifics, because there are a lot of them, but suffice to say I had a lot more free time to dedicate to this sort of thing.
The sad truth is that I just no longer have that kind of time and it's been showing in both how much I can dedicate to this quest and the kind of quality in recent posts and decisions I've been making.
This week, this quest has eaten about ten solid hours in terms of Q&A and keeping up with the discussion so I know when I need to moderate content. You all have been very well behaved, but that doesn't mean I get to avoid taking responsibility for what gets posted in-thread or for not stopping an incipient flame war. Just today, answering questions and responding to requests ate my break-time on my day job. So that can't happen anymore. Period. But, for a quest like this where people are working on formatting plans and votes and have to do that inside a tight time frame? It kind of has to. Otherwise I get discussions like what what's happening right now, where things are getting tense and people are finding hills to die on. Which means I have to keep reading all the comments and responding to questions just in case someone goes to far and I have to report people when insults come out. All of this eats more time that I really don't have.
This is all also very stressful and it takes time away from my other writing projects. Many of which are money-makers on Patreon & Subscribestar. So, cynically, that adds another reason I just can't keep running the quest.
But I'm not killing the quest. Not yet.
This quest is almost five years old and it's meant a lot to me. I've had a lot of fun writing it. More than that, the people who've participated deserve better than to be left hanging.
So I'm going to write a series of epilogues after settling the current vote. It may take a couple months, there will likely be a few more simple yet impactful votes, but I just can't keep doing this. If I try, I sincerely believe it's going to run the quest into the ground in terms of quality and quantity of updates. A contributing factor in this decision is also the fact that, with the latest series of incidents, Lelouch has largely 'made it' in terms of quest goals. He's advanced almost as far as it is possible to. There isn't all that much momentum left in how things settle out, just some minor details. The pirates of Australia no longer truly matter.
This is no one's fault. This is not any group's fault. No one who asked me questions today should feel bad about doing so. No one who tagged me should regret it.
Quests are a very time-consuming endeavor when you get beyond a certain complexity and this quest is far, far beyond that.
This is the nature of the beast. I just don't have the time anymore. I'm sorry.
So, Kallen's going to Japan, that's settled. Incredibly one-sided.
Clean Lelouch/Leihua Vote:
[ ] Marry into the Chinese Royal Family
-[ ] Marry Lihua as First Consort
-[ ] Marry Lihua as Second Consort
-[ ] Marry Meihua
[ ] Do NOT Marry into the Chinese Royal Family (1 Extra Reward Next Vote)
VOTE PERIOD IS 24 HOURS. NO MORATORIUM. VOTING IS OPEN.
I will not be available for questions. I will be stepping away from the computer for a while and then I need to work on something else.
I will be keeping an eye on the thread to ensure there are no blame-game shenanigans.
Adhoc vote count started by Slayer Anderson on Apr 3, 2024 at 9:40 PM, finished with 525 posts and 116 votes.
[X] Accept. Kallen may return to Japan and spend this year at her leisure.
[X] Plan: Left Hand of the Empress
-[X] The Empress' Hand in Marriage.
--[X] As Second Husband.
-[X] A Place in Her Administration.
--[X] Piety
-[X] A Formal Non-Aggression Treaty & Defensive Treaty Between the Federation & Britannia.
-[X] The Taklamakan Desert Research Grant & Small Political/Trade Favors (For Charles).
[X] Plan Alliance without Imperial Marriage
-[X] Her Cousin's Hand in Marriage.
-[X] A Place in Her Administration.
--[X] Piety
-[X] A Formal Non-Aggression Treaty & Defensive Treaty Between the Federation & Britannia.
-[X] The Taklamakan Desert Research Grant & Small Political/Trade Favors (For Charles).
[X] Plan A Better China
-[X] The Empress' Hand in Marriage.
--[X] As First Husband.
-[X] A Place in Her Administration.
--[X] Stewardship
-[X] Key Natural Resource Monopolies in Extraction Rights.
-[X] Psionic Recruitment & Research Foundation on Chinese Soil.
[X] Plan Backdoor to Everything
-[X] The Empress' Hand in Marriage.
--[X] As Second Husband.
-[X] A Place in Her Administration.
--[X] Piety
-[X] A Formal Non-Aggression Treaty & Defensive Treaty Between the Federation & Britannia.
-[X] Key Natural Resource Monopolies in Extraction Rights.
[X] Plan: Imperial Alliance & Mutual Benefits
-[X] The Empress' Hand in Marriage.
--[X] As Second Husband.
-[X] A Place in Her Administration.
--[X] Stewardship
-[X] A Formal Non-Aggression Treaty & Defensive Treaty Between the Federation & Britannia.
-[X] Psionic Recruitment & Research Foundation on Chinese Soil.
[X] Plan A Better China(as Second Husband)
-[X] The Empress' Hand in Marriage.
--[X] As Second Husband.
-[X] A Place in Her Administration.
--[X] Stewardship
-[X] Key Natural Resource Monopolies in Extraction Rights.
-[X] Psionic Recruitment & Research Foundation on Chinese Soil.
[X] Plan: Research and Productivity for A Better China
-[X] The Empress' Hand in Marriage.
--[X] As Second Husband.
-[X] A Place in Her Administration.
--[X] Stewardship
-[X] The Taklamakan Desert Research Grant & Small Political/Trade Favors (For Charles).
-[X] Psionic Recruitment & Research Foundation on Chinese Soil.
[X] Plan Land Grab with formal Title
-[X] The Land of India, as a Fief.
-[X] Recognition of your claims in Australia & Support Enforcing Them.
-[X] A Personal Noble Title & Income
-[X] Her Cousin's Hand in Marriage.
[X] Plan A Union of Dynasties and Economies + a different Agenda.
-[X] The Empress' Hand in Marriage.
--[X] As Second Husband.
-[X] A Place in Her Administration.
--[X] Stewardship
-[X] Recognition of your claims in Australia & Support Enforcing Them.
-[X] A Formal Non-Aggression Treaty & Defensive Treaty Between the Federation & Britannia.
[X] Plan Alliance without Imperial Marriage
-[X] Her Cousin's Hand in Marriage.
-[X] A Formal Non-Aggression Treaty & Defensive Treaty Between the Federation & Britannia.
-[X] The Taklamakan Desert Research Grant & Small Political/Trade Favors (For Charles).
-[X] Recognition of your claims in Australia & Support Enforcing Them.
[X] Plan Land Grab
-[X] The Land of India, as a Fief.
-[X] Recognition of your claims in Australia & Support Enforcing Them.
-[X] Exemption from Taxation in All Trade under Your Name.
-[X] Her Cousin's Hand in Marriage.
[X] Plan Alliance without Imperial Marriage (Stewardship edition)
-[X] Her Cousin's Hand in Marriage.
-[X] A Place in Her Administration.
--[X] Stewardship
-[X] Psionic Recruitment & Research Foundation on Chinese Soil.
-[X] The Taklamakan Desert Research Grant & Small Political/Trade Favors (For Charles).
[X] Plan A Better China with Uncle Victor
-[X] The Empress' Hand in Marriage.
--[X] As First Husband.
-[X] A Place in Her Administration.
--[X] Stewardship
-[X] Psionic Recruitment & Research Foundation on Chinese Soil.
-[X] The Taklamakan Desert Research Grant & Small Political/Trade Favors (For Charles).
[X]Plan: Humanities Interest
-[X] The Empress' Hand in Marriage.
--[X] As Second Husband.
-[X] A Place in Her Administration.
--[X] Stewardship
-[X] The Taklamakan Desert Research Grant & Small Political/Trade Favors (For Charles).
-[X] A Formal Non-Aggression Treaty & Defensive Treaty Between the Federation & Britannia.
[X] Plan Backdoor to Everything
-[X] The Empress' Hand in Marriage.
--[X] As Second Husband.
-[X] A Place in Her Administration.
--[X] Piety
-[X] A Formal Non-Aggression Treaty & Defensive Treaty Between the Federation & Britannia.
-[X] The Taklamakan Desert Research Grant & Small Political/Trade Favors (For Charles).
thanks for all the writing you have done on this quest, i have enjoyed it greatly since i discovered it and i wish you all the good luck i can give to you.
Thanks for everything and doing your best to keep us updated and informed as much as you reasonably could. Ending or not, it's still way better than simply leaving things on an indefinite hiatus with no announcement whatsoever.
That said... I do think we have better chemistry with Meihua. I would hope this at least takes into account her thoughts on this potential arrangement.
[X] Marry into the Chinese Royal Family
-[X] Marry Meihua
[X] Marry into the Chinese Royal Family
-[X] Marry Meihua
I am sad to see this quest go, as honestly it ranks highly on the list of stories I've read. But I loved every second of it and I can see after the series of incredible rolls that have happened that unless the quest took a very radical shift we are nearing end game so honestly not as devastating as it could be.
at this point we have looming but not particularly urgent(?) alien invasion, good ties with the major players in Britannia, so no emblem of bloodshed(?)to worry about. China is firmly shaking hands with Britannia (based off the large number of votes). Japan is our only real "enemy". That we don't already have plans to deal with. Schneizel and Cornelia have plans for Russia and another polity I forgot about. So that's a solid chunk of the world under Britannia "rule"/froendship.
My biggest regret is no more Gino moments. Those were fun.
So basically, thanks for everything! Glad we get a proper ending to what has been a fun ride.
And maybe someday in the far future we will get a code geass/mass effect sequel about Lelouch and his crazy cult? Jkjk
