Sterbelicht - One Sacrifice At A Time Against The Galaxy (40K)

What should your focus for the rest of the Quest be?

  • Mercy (Diplomacy and Expansion)

    Votes: 201 74.7%

  • Ruthlessness (Kick the Duchy in the Balls)

    Votes: 65 24.2%

  • Thule (Yeeni Handholding and Piscarian Cuddling)

    Votes: 102 37.9%
  • Total voters
    269
Voting is open
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RandomDwarf said:
Oh boy time to blast these silly people with a "WHY THE FUCK DID YOU GO INTO THE WARP WITHOUT A GELLER FEILD?!?" Speech, this is going to be fun…and did anyone see much chaos fuckery besides the plague?
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Seems like the only overt thing that sticks out is the plague. But if its a Nurgle related plague then there's almost certainly Nurglite cults festering. So this is definitely another crisis we need to address before Chaos related shenanigans overtake them.

Also, are these aliens using something like the Tau's warp skimmer drive? Just that they don't have the expertise to consistently 'skip' between reality and the Warp so they momentarily 'dip' into the Warp every so often.
 
Alectai said:
Frankly, it's Insane they got a working Warp Drive on something that fucking small. These things are massive, which is why voidships are so Xbox Huge.

They're either absurd tech savants or Someone is playing fuckfuck games.
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The fact that they haven't been consumed by Daemons and have only had to deal with "mild auditory hallucinations" makes me think of some Tzeentchian plot.
 
Alectai said:
Frankly, it's Insane they got a working Warp Drive on something that fucking small. These things are massive, which is why voidships are so Xbox Huge.

They're either absurd tech savants or Someone is playing fuckfuck games.
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It's possible they could only build it that small because it's missing most of the needed safety features.
 
Decimus said:
The fact that they haven't been consumed by Daemons and have only had to deal with "mild auditory hallucinations" makes me think of some Tzeentchian plot.
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Or they are using something like the Tau's warp skimmer. Just they don't have it down right so they accidentally 'dip' into the Warp instead of bouncing between the border between reality and the Warp.
 
[] Plan: Monkey Noises
-[] "Warp travel not safe. Faster than light travel not safe. Do not jump. Do not travel. Warp dimension/area hostile." Repeat.

With HeroCooky's warning about imperfect translations, I'm worried that Alectai's plan is too elaborate. I'm hoping that my plan is dumbed down enough while still being coherent.
 
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Alectai said:
Frankly, it's Insane they got a working Warp Drive on something that fucking small. These things are massive, which is why voidships are so Xbox Huge.

They're either absurd tech savants or Someone is playing fuckfuck games.
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Rereading the update, these guys are definitely following the path of the Tau in Warp drive tech or similar to it:

HeroCooky said:
Starshine knew little of how it worked, but she knew enough to know that it 'skimmed' over a dimension of energy, or the underlying architecture of the universe, to propel the ship at speeds faster than light. This allowed the ship it was built into to traverse the distance between systems in a short year rather than multiple decades, as a trio of sleeper ships were attempting now.
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Instead of how the Tau do it which is bouncing between reality and the Warp, these guys are 'skimming' the edge of the Warp. But since they don't have it down right fully they can accidentally dip into Warp proper, which is when shit does horribly wrong.
 
Crafter of War said:
[] Plan: Monkey Noises
-[] "Warp travel not safe. Faster than light travel not safe. Do not jump. Do not travel. Warp dimension/area hostile." Repeat.

With HeroCooky's warning about imperfect translations, I'm worried that Alectai's plan is too elaborate. I'm hoping that my plan is dumbed down enough while still being coherent.
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This is quite literally formatted off of what is scientifically the most Idiot Proof Warning Message ever written. Intended to be comprehensible even to cultures and peoples that might walk the earth eons after we're dust.

Simple concepts backed with clear pictograms, with increasing levels of Clarity regarding the message, beginning with "HEY BAD SHIT HERE" and ending with an actual explanation of what's going on, but still keeping the statements down to single word ideas and universal concepts.
 
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Alectai said:
This is quite literally formatted off of what is scientifically the most Idiot Proof Warning Message ever written. Intended to be comprehensible even to cultures and peoples that might walk the earth eons after we're dust.

Simple concepts backed with clear pictograms, with increasing levels of Clarity regarding the message, beginning with "HEY BAD SHIT HERE" and ending with an actual explanation of what's going on, but still keeping the statements down to single word ideas and universal concepts.
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I do understand what you're going for here. I saw the video about the hurdles of long-term nuclear waste warning messages. The thing is that those messages are an example of what should be conveyed non-linguistically due to how easily language can change over the years. I'm just not confident that our translators will sufficiently cover our bases there.

I'm also worry about the pictograms. While it does help with the non-linguistic part, how exactly are we showing the pictures to them? Cause we have no idea of the computer systems they use, nor the programming language it's running on. Could we instead fly a shuttle over so someone can show the picture to them? Or would that take too long?
 
Okay! Good news, it isn't an emergency situation-just some aliens who don't really understand what the hell they are doing after figuring out Warp-Drives presumably by watching our scouts come and go for a century or so.

Alectai said:
[ ] PLAN: Simple and Clear
-[ ] This is a Message about Danger, with other messages included. Pay Attention to it!
--[ ] The Danger is in Travel to the Stars, This is a statement we consider to be important
---[ ] Travel to the Stars moves through a Dangerous Place which needs Special Protection
----[ ] You Did Not Use Special Prortection, DO NOT Travel without Understanding!
-----[ ] Include simple pictograms to help add clarity with these messages. Making use of obvious astronomical data of their home system and where their ship ended up on our side of the line. A simplified version of a Circinus on both sides, and one 'In Travel' with a circle around it, that arrives on both sides, and then a simple version of one of their own vessels leaving without that circle, with a show of it being damaged in the 'Transition' period and ending up on the other side a distorted mess. Make these as simple and clear as we could
------[ ] Work at cracking the language while keeping our envoy here, at least until we can better clarify the terms to them.
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This isn't a bad plan by any means, but I feel like explaining why they aren't allowed to leave isn't something we need to get into for this first transmission and just adds more potential points of failure.

I feel like we could probably say 'you are not allowed to leave this star system' without any explanation and it would serve a similar purpose, at least until we get proper translations going and can explain everything in detail. They seem to view us in a somewhat positive light, so if we just stay put around the jump-point and keep telling them not to leave, then that should buy us enough time to get proper talks going.
 
Crafter of War said:
I do understand what you're going for here. I saw the video about the hurdles of long-term nuclear waste warning messages. The thing is that those messages are an example of what should be conveyed non-linguistically due to how easily language can change over the years. I'm just not confident that our translators will sufficiently cover our bases there.

I'm also worry about the pictograms. While it does help with the non-linguistic part, how exactly are we showing the pictures to them? Cause we have no idea of the computer systems they use, nor the programming language it's running on. Could we instead fly a shuttle over so someone can show the picture to them? Or would that take too long?
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Look, there's a point where we have to accept that we might fail. But we have to assume that we have some way of transmitting messages to them. Or else this is all just a waste of time.

I really don't know how to make it simpler than the message I've put together without potentially giving some openings for a bad actor to fuck around with. "It is utterly impossible to communicate except in words, and it Will be garbled"[/b] taken to the extremes means that if we do a binary "Don't do this", it'll somehow be interpreted as "Do this now" If it's a actual Reality Shaping Curse that Will fuck any method we try to communicate, I'd at least make it have to work a little harder without making it harder to grasp. And if it's simple miscommunication potential due to a lack of shared language, then using simple words and ideas along with simple pictograms should make it as difficult to garble as we can.
 
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We could send multiple messages with different methods to ensure we get the meaning across.
Also why not just make a bunch of pictures showing their ship exploding after going int the warp?
 
anonymousdragon said:
We could send multiple messages with different methods to ensure we get the meaning across.
Also why not just make a bunch of pictures showing their ship exploding after going int the warp?
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That's... That's part of the message I've suggested.

A pictogram of one of our ships (Specifically, the ones they have the most experience with of our ships) going back and forth with a bubble around it, and one of theirs going without the bubble and getting wrecked in-transit and spit out on the other end a mess.
 
Also, this is not going to be the last time we speak to them in decades.

I imagine next turn there'll be an option to further establish communication with these people, so we can better explain the details then.

We just need to get them to stop poking into the Warp without protection.
 
Alectai said:
That's... That's part of the message I've suggested.

A pictogram of one of our ships (Specifically, the ones they have the most experience with of our ships) going back and forth with a bubble around it, and one of theirs going without the bubble and getting wrecked in-transit and spit out on the other end a mess.
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Can we at least add a part where we have someone in a shuttle go over to the ship to show them the pictures in case transmitting doesn't work?
 
Alectai said:
That's... That's part of the message I've suggested.

A pictogram of one of our ships (Specifically, the ones they have the most experience with of our ships) going back and forth with a bubble around it, and one of theirs going without the bubble and getting wrecked in-transit and spit out on the other end a mess.
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Is it worth adding an example of one of our ships without a bubble also dying? Making the point there's a universal risk, since OOC we now know they were getting pruned by something deathwatchy
 
Travler66 said:
I think we found alien cat-girls. If so, I see this as an absolute win.
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You have already found cat-girls. The problem is that they are Imperials. :tongue:

These are space yeens.
Alectai said:
Frankly, it's Insane they got a working Warp Drive on something that fucking small. These things are massive, which is why voidships are so Xbox Huge.
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Well, not when they are utterly primitive Skim-Drives not intended to do more than bounce across the upper-most layer of the Warp. :V

Note that they described a year of travel as a "fast" time. Their drives (which are 200m long btw) are technically impressive for a species new to FTL, but not to anyone who'se been mucking about in space for any lenght of time.
 
Alectai said:
That's... That's part of the message I've suggested.

A pictogram of one of our ships (Specifically, the ones they have the most experience with of our ships) going back and forth with a bubble around it, and one of theirs going without the bubble and getting wrecked in-transit and spit out on the other end a mess.
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Yep, seems about as simple as we can make it. unless they didn't evolve eyesight this should work.

Of course, a more accurate picto-graph would include the ship coming out the other end with beaks tentacles and all manners of spurting fluids, but that's a lot harder to explain in a pictograph.



Its possible that the engine is small enough to fit on their ship for a few reason. The first is lacking safety features, They have no clue how dangerous a warp rupture is, So unlike someone who does they don't have a reason to add like 13 redundancies and bulk it up as much as possible. The second is a Lack of range, Doing something similar to the T'au drives, and instead of opening a hole deep into the warp and traveling, They might be skimming/Bouncing off the surface or traveling through a warp/reality pocket where it overlays instead of punching a full hole, as a way to achieve FTL, at the cost of Range, travel speed and safety and probably a bunch of other problems we don't see... yet

The last possibility is that their is something chaos fucky going on with it, and someone has a plan to get their jollies off to these poor people fucking themselves over with this shiny drive, Either as a ticking time bomb for someone else, A power grab or for shits and giggles.
 
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