Yes, all these things are eventualities, but the difference is with communication issues they have a better chance to spiral into major problems. The original corruption in virmire took a lot of effort to follow up on. At least three actions in stewardship and one in intrigue. Without constraints on data or need to deliver reports on economic progress directly there is less oppertunity for the growth of corruption do to having a communications tech deficiency.
I think you're exaggerating the degree of worry here. The corruption took a lot of effort to root out because we were taking control of a state that was already massively corrupt to begin with. Dealing with additional ongoing corruption that is new and which emerges in the face of our existing investigative apparatus is a very different kind of problem on a much smaller relative scale.
And again, I don't think it either realistic or desirable that we never ever have a corruption problem again, which you seem to be presenting as the alternative. Did you already think our super-communications would make future problems on the periphery impossible? Were you counting on that? If not, then have you really lost anything?
Again, we already deal with "communication issues" every time we roll weird, or there's a weird vote, or when we have to spend an action, government resources, and a significant amount of credits to do pretty much anything. It's not just Mira having to go in person to the research site. Half a dozen times with the Lystheni, with the DAO, and yes, with our own agencies. Failure due to "miscommunication" has happened more often than you'd think.
Everything about the difficulty is already happening, only instead of "we rolled bad, or talked bad, or just didn't think to do zoom from halfway across the galaxy" there would be a hard reason. A hard reason we could eventually fix, maybe.
Like, why send Councilors at all? Seems like a head of state could just vote remotely. Why travel away from Virmire? Diplomatic meetings, governmental check ins, pretty much anything but military assaults could happen via FaceTime.
But they don't. Mira and our advisors go in person pretty much everywhere, from negotiations to face to face talks to go Check With Our Own Eyes, I have No Idea What's Happening Over There Because I'm Too Busy I Guess. I'm sure Poptart could come up with a good reason for each and every instance, but from reading the text alone it's kind of noticable.
I'm not afraid of a "debuff" that's already happening randomly with less internal consistency to work around.
And again, I don't think it either realistic or desirable that we never ever have a corruption problem again, which you seem to be presenting as the alternative. Did you already think our super-communications would make future problems on the periphery impossible? Were you counting on that? If not, then have you really lost anything?
No, I'm presenting that while corruption will eventually present itself as a problem regardless, it has a greater chance to mothball into a more severe issue in the background with a tech deficiency to make information exchange with distant parts of our polity difficult.
I'm counting on a lack of built in quest mechanical debuff to us communicating with and tracking what is happening in our polity to leave us in a position discover problems earlier and respond to them while the difficulty of fixing them is lesser. We are always going to have problems, but a lack of mechanical debuff let's us discover them more easily and respond before they have a chance to spread or grow entrenched.
Everything about the difficulty is already happening, only instead of "we rolled bad, or talked bad, or just didn't think to do zoom from halfway across the galaxy" there would be a hard reason. A hard reason we could eventually fix, maybe.
No, that's narrative explanations and flavour for things going wrong and the fact that for many important policies you need someone of importance on location cutting a swath through the red tape impeding it or running damage control. It is not a tech deficiency being written into the technology info pages and becoming a quest mechanic by which problems occuring any appreciable distance from virmire have a chance to go unnoticed, or have their severity miscommunicated, or end up with some massive false alert.
it's the difference between something going wrong and the natural narrative conclusion that someone important has to show up to get things fixed or take responsibility for the failure, all of which is simply the narrative role advisors in CK2 quests play, and adding a check we can fail that potentially allows problems to mothball into bigger or harder to correct issues as they go unnoticed and unaddressed.
Except it's not happening at all, because the quest isn't tracking such. Your misconstruing occasional narrative inclusion into a direct effect on action outcome that currently isn't present but which could be added, to our disadvantage. We don't need an extra challenge to overcome. We are fine without one.
Except it's not happening at all, because the quest isn't tracking such. Your misconstruing occasional narrative inclusion into a direct effect on action outcome that currently isn't present but which could be added.
My point is that the "occasional narrative inclusion, below the level of abstraction" communication failures are hard to swallow with our current comms tech. Formalizing it would not just make it make sense, but would open up opportunities to work around it in the future rather than it always being an option.
And I have a hard time considering it a debuff worth worry over- can you think of a time when we would have been screwed if we only had slower text over long distances? When we get large enough for it to matter I don't think instant zoom is gonna solve or protect from any infrastructure issues. I expect any difficulties from the nerf would also be from bad rolls and "occasional narrative inclusion."
But to be clear, I'm not advocating for it. I'm just against using the debuff as an excuse. This quest more than most asks you to consider its internal logic, which is something I really like about it, and a blank retcon would seriously harm that for me.
And I have a hard time considering it a debuff worth worry over- can you think of a time when we would have been screwed if we only had slower text over long distances? When we get large enough for it to matter I don't think instant zoom is gonna solve or protect from any infrastructure issues.
The crop failure on our colony. Communications issues could have meant a slower response and more devastating impact on it's development.
What solutions do you think we are going to have over the next handful of already swamped with priorities turns? Even if their are ones they'll be gradual and take time to roll out and implement as we continue expanding. We are likely talking decades of work on top of the possible century or more of war ahead of us.
Even when we solve them, congrats, we no longer suffer from this manner of communication issue. Our actions still fail for some other reason you have fewer or possibly more issues with, but they still fail, because just as we do not currently have communications tech as debuff to our actions, we are not going to get to some communications tech bonus that makes us less likely to fail actions.
This is the point you seem to be entirely missing. This isn't a case of justifying past difficulties but by eventually resolving it in the long-term we'll be less likely to fail future actions. This is a case of Poptart retconning this into being as some narrative hurdle for us to overcome, complete with applying it to appropriate actions and background rolls as a debuff we have to deal with, and our reward for overcoming it is to stop having the Debuff applied.
Actions will still fail, and Poptart will simply have to get more creative about what made an action fail, or about the nature of a communications failure if that's still the most narratively sensible reason for an action to have failed.
The Debuff is going to have impact. Poptart isn't going to go through the trouble of a retcon, working out the mechanic in question and what it does and doesn't apply to, making a snazzy entry in the technology info, and not use it in some meaningful way.
Proper communications tech has been vital in improving how we handle a variety of problems IRL. It's hard to narrow down what it does and doesn't apply to, but emergency responses, exposing corruption or other criminal behavior by keeping informed about what's going on in our cluster, and potentially research complications that our researchers might not be able to warn any response teams of if whatever it is gets them while their slowly transmitting tech are problems it lets us keep informed of and avoid extra difficulties in. Poptart wouldn't be excited about making it a quest mechanic if they didn't have a few ideas of how to apply it to make Mira's life more difficult.
Perhaps we have a different idea of what this would entail- I'm imagining text only over the course of minutes to half an hour or so, depending on distance, rather than instant video anywhere. It's hard to imagine how that would hamper effectiveness on the scale of a crop failure in a major colony, unless everyone with any decision making power is based on Virmire for the months it would last.
Either way it's become clear we just fundamentally disagree on how hampering this is. It's understandable considering we don't have a lot of info, but It's frustrating considering I'm having to argue for a position I don't really want. So I'm gonna respectfully back out until and unless Poptart wants more thread engagement on the subject.
EDIT: Turns out I was misremembering. We're only talking about texting and emails as opposed to video calls. I am even further flummoxed as to how this can be considered a significant nerf.
Perhaps we have a different idea of what this would entail- I'm imagining text only over the course of minutes to half an hour or so, depending on distance, rather than instant video anywhere. It's hard to imagine how that would hamper effectiveness on the scale of a crop failure in a major colony, unless everyone with any decision making power is based on Virmire for the months it would last.
Given that the QM explicitly states that they think it would be a challenge that would impact player action? I'm going with hampering enough that we will have to deal with it one way or another. I don't know exactly how and choose not to guess on the specifics but it won't be something we'd be capable of ignoring.
Personally? If it was present at quest start I think it would be a pretty cool setting and gameplay element. It was not though, and working it in now means a major refactor of how we the playerbase actually do things due to its nature as a mechanical obstacle and not just a narrative one. And while I'm not against the introduction of new mechanics the requirement of some sizable retcons in order to facilitate it doesn't sit well with me.
From a QMing perspective, it's another challenge to throw at the players that they can deal with, but still meaningfully impacts their actions. From the player perspective, it lets me slide another element of play into things that doesn't massively complicate the narrative, but gives y'all another system to engage with that I think would be cool. It's really the retcon aspect that has me hesitating, I'm not very fond of them.
My main assertion as too this being likely to cause us notable problems, is that Poptart terms it as both a challenge for players to deal with and a system with which we may be forced to engage, and intends to develop a mechanic to apply.
My main assertion as too this being likely to cause us notable problems, is that Poptart terms it as both a challenge for players to deal with and a system with which we may be forced to engage, and intends to develop a mechanic to apply.
That could just as easily mean a "there's now room between us and canon and so opportunity to develop better comms in the future" challenge rather than a "we're now nerfed and have to act with one arm tied behind our backs in communication" challenge. I struggle to see how only losing voice and facial inflection would be enough to constitute the latter.
That could just as easily mean a "there's now room between us and canon and so opportunity to develop better comms in the future" challenge rather than a "we're now nerfed and have to act with one arm tied behind our backs in communication" challenge. I struggle to see how only losing voice and facial inflection would be enough to constitute the latter.
This is going to be a mechanical debuff. It is going to have impact and meaning to make up for the retcon that Poptart doesn't like and all the work involved in implementing it. This will include consequences in the event we find ourselves unable to address the issue in timely manner, much like the political backlash from maroon sea being put off too long.
The degree of consequence, like the amount of work involved in improving our comms tech, is yet to be defined. Regardless, we have enough problems on our table already in my opinion. We are fresh from a particularly terrible luck turn during a very high upheaval term which has us adjusting to a number of new quest elements that we didn't have to account for prior to recontact. We don't need an additional plate to balance with accompanying complications to certain actions that we likely wouldn't be able to start working to resolve until our learning actions are free turn 38.
This is going to be a mechanical debuff. It is going to have impact and meaning to make up for the retcon that Poptart doesn't like and all the work involved in implementing it. This will include consequences in the event we find ourselves unable to address the issue in timely manner, much like the political backlash from maroon sea being put off too long.
...I think you're projecting a lot, a lot, of "this will happen this will happen this will happen" stuff with absolute confidence, to the point of confidently predicting things I really have to question whether you know.
I frankly have no idea exactly what the implementation of this would look like if I did go for it, so I for one am watching with bated breath for what comes next.
I frankly have no idea exactly what the implementation of this would look like if I did go for it, so I for one am watching with bated breath for what comes next.
...I think you're projecting a lot, a lot, of "this will happen this will happen this will happen" stuff with absolute confidence, to the point of confidently predicting things I really have to question whether you know.
It just feels like a natural conclusion for to be an somewhat impactful change, with the challenge aspect making it something of a negative one until it's overcome. First there is the Retcon, then figuring out how everything applies to the quest and building a course for countering it, and writing out it's entry in technologies. Feels like too much extra work for it to be of no consequence. Is it really worth all that extra work if it's not going to be something that impacts the narrative?
Encrypting information usually doesn't make the information take up "more room."
For instance, the message "we attack at dawn" contains eighteen characters of information, including the space between words. An encryption scheme usually won't take the eighteen-characters message and make it significantly more than eighteen characters. It will just replace those eighteen characters with different characters, according to some complex set of rules known to both the sender and the recipient.
If anything, artificially restraining bandwidth access to galactic civilization might have the opposite effect to what you correctly say the Reapers would desire. If communications are low-bandwidth, lots of information travels by high-latency physical methods. When the only way to send a message fast was with a telegraph, people continued to write a lot of messages in the form of physical letters, because sending a ten page document as a telegram was quite costly and impractical for most purposes. If you weren't in enough of a hurry, the savings of having your message arrive four days from now might be worth it. Likewise, if data uplinks over the FTL comm network are limited to, say, fifty kilobytes per second, nobody's sending the bulk of their data traffic down the pipe. Anything big will never get sent that way at all; it'll just be loaded onto a hard drive and flown from one place to another in a courier ship.
I know asymmetric encryption, at least, is supposed to increase the data requirements by a third.
That said, this is NOT my field. Someone with handson experience would have a better idea.
Like I said, I would rate the dispersal of cheap, high bandwith FTLcomm to only be slightly behind the availability of cheap mass effect based FTL as a Reaper strategic policy objective.
Wouldnt be surprised if they went to the trouble of just putting one on the Citadel.
I don't know. I think either of those could have been done by faking authentication protocols used by a low-bandwidth system to gain access to give instructions to the system.
Trying to deploy a network-wide covert cyberwarfare attack on the multi-cluster communications backbone of an entire civilization in wartime? A civilization that they had literally never met before the war broke out?
And doing it with a low bandwith system?
I think thats imputing rather more capability to an already bugfuck scary antagonist faction than Im comfortable with
Even with the advantage of discovering a backdoor.
To be fair, the rachni could use our survey results and then just make adjustments accordingly for places where we say "this planet is unlivable because the ambient temperature is over 70 degrees Celsius at the poles" or something like that. Worst case, they'd send down some workers and see how they fare; when the Citadel surveyor talking about Eletania says "danger, insanely allergenic crap in the atmosphere that will kill you" do they mean something that only kills puny asari and salarians, or do they mean something that will kill rachni, too? Sending down some workers to take a whiff of that horrible hyper-pollen or whatever it is will cost the rachni little enough.
Oh, Im sure that they use captured Citadel maps as a starting point. It would be dumb not to.
However, look at our experience in Attican Beta.
The number of uninhabitable rocks that we have found a Rachni presence on in Attican Beta suggests the presence of an active and vigorous Rachni survey and colonization program.
Furthermore, we know from experience the significant costs of establishing and sustaining colonies in relatively nearby planets.
The setup costs for multi-cluster colonies, shipping hundreds of millions of Rachni and the industrial equipment required for even just extractive colonies are going to be eyewateringly expensive; even if as a society you can shrug off drone losses, the industrial ones and the shipping costs(because interstellar transport during a war is limited) are another matter.
Its likely to actually be cost-effective for the Rachni to build dedicated survey ships for every cluster they conquer.
Maybe half a squadron of unarmed frigate/light cruiser hulls with additional sensors replacing the standard railgun loadout, and shuttles in place of torpedoes. Drone/soldier crews, and leave the Rachni Queen in charge back near the Relay, or on a secure planet, so you're not risking anything that isnt easy to replace.
I'd bet on it being cheaper than losing the time and resource investment of a colony by a dumb fumble.
In regards to this, I believe you are referring to asymmetric primitives like public key encryption or key exchange mechanisms for example. These primitives are bulky because they must rely on mathematical problems that do not have compact representations relative to symmetric cryptography. However, in real life and any reasonable implementation of encryption, the use of asymmetric cryptography is minimized where possible exactly because of this problem. Therefore while establishing the connection may be somewhat bulky and you may occasionally need to perform rekeying which may cause momentary interruptions(because you may need to use more bandwidth for certain kinds of rekeying*), in general an encrypted connection should be fairly light in terms of overhead for bandwidth.
Let us assume we have an protocol which performs rapid(ie on the order of tens of seconds to minutes) rekeying using a key exchange for forward secrecy. Forward secrecy is useful because it ensures that even if key material used at a particular point is leaked, any future keys (and therefore content) will still remain secure. Let us now assume that the designers decided to use McEliece** as the key exchange mechanism for rekeying. For the key exchange, both sides generate fresh McEliece keys** for the key exchange and they use the largest parameter set(mceliece8192128). This means we need to exchange from both sides the public key and ciphertexts. This means that we have 1358032 bytes (1357824+208) for both sides to send to the other party. Doubled up, this means that a total of aproximately 2716.06 KB of data needs to be exchanged. Assuming that we can spare in addition to the voice/media channel around 22 kb a second, we can complete an entire key exchange in 2 minutes. Of course, this might be a bit extreme. Using similar security levels but with a different key exchange mechanism (NTRUPrime) and the bulkiest parameter set sntrup1277 (in terms of size), we need both parties to transmit to the other side 3914 bytes (1847+2067). This means a total of 7.828 KB needs to be sent for the key exchange to be completed. Assuming that we need to complete the key exchange in under 10 seconds continuously, we need less than 1 KB/s capacity to keep this up continuously. This is much more practical and should be reasonably secure.
You need to do this because if you reuse keys in the key exchange, the compromise of those past keys may threaten the security of the key that you are generating now.
The reason why one might want to go with McEliece is because it has a far more stable security analysis and has been around as a scheme for a very long time(since 1978). It is also pretty useful if you already have shared the necessary public key material and are either fetching it from a local provider or have cached it locally and are reusing the same public key because then you only need to exchange the ciphertext data which is extremely compact(at most 208 bytes, comporable to RSA-2048 in terms of size). Other post quantum schemes like NTRUPrime have a better sizes for rekeying with fresh public-private keys however. We also haven't discussed using schemes that are even more compact like Kyber which would only require 3136 bytes which would be even smaller than NTRUPrime.
Like I said, this is not my field.
I am not really qualified to speak authoritatively on modern encryption schemes, let alone those of an alien civilization thats supposed to have been spacefaring for at least 500 years, when the in-universe version of Earth is still in the first century AD.
Mira went in person because Mira took power in a military coup and somebody abruptly requesting control over significant military assets after a long period of innocuous requests pinged all of her, "I am about to be me'd," instincts. She is a dictator, albeit an elected one. Personal presence is a significant part of her control mechanism for governance.
I think if I adopted this idea for data transmission -- which I do love -- I'd necessarily be asking the thread for some significant amount of grace in ignoring the earlier portions of the text where it contradicts things. Which I'm not 100% averse to doing, but it's not my first option.
From a QMing perspective, it's another challenge to throw at the players that they can deal with, but still meaningfully impacts their actions. From the player perspective, it lets me slide another element of play into things that doesn't massively complicate the narrative, but gives y'all another system to engage with that I think would be cool. It's really the retcon aspect that has me hesitating, I'm not very fond of them.
New colonies/outposts not yet on the network, or using mini comm buoys with less bandwith
Established planets whose interstellar comm equipment has been damaged, destroyed or sabotaged
Ships out of range of comm buoys
These things are discrete chunks of infrastructure that dont share the invulnerability of relays.
They will fail for benign reasons, and sinister ones; everything from manufacturing defects to an accident during deployment to a collision with a wayward ship, to getting fried by a solar flare to getting potted by hostile enemy fire.
Furthermore, you only see things on the network that are actually put on the network.
If someone doesnt put stuff there, or the planetary transmitters are being censored or arent working, you need to send people to the area anyway. That was the point of at least the first two ME games.
Also worth noting that ME is a multi-species galactic community who all evolved under different circumstances and different sensory windows. Salarians see into UV. Batarians have four eyes. Hanar are aquatic and communicate with bioluminesence. Volus evolved in a methane atmosphere.
All of this affects what they can see or sense naturally, in the absence of cyberware (which, to be fair, is very much a thing in ME. See biotic amps). Catering to each species preferred sensory needs is going to broaden the bandwith requirements.
I dont really see how interstellar galactic society works without the relatively generous bandwith to accomodate all this.
Narratively, you would also significantly tilt things towards the (current)antagonist faction who already have interstellar telepathy
And that choice would significantly limit your ability to do things like use Asari Republic talk shows as jumpoff points for Virmirean plot points.
Much of the potential for gain that I see is in the form "and this is a reason for someone important to actually go out there and see something for themselves" or "and this is a reason why the person on the spot has to make decisions that cannot be dictated to them by somebody fifty light-years away talking to them over a Space Zoom call."
Given that our quest tends to remain tightly over the shoulder of a handful of specific individuals, while describing action spread across a respectable fraction of the Milky Way galaxy, this is a good thing in my opinion.
We already need to do that anyway.
It doesnt matter how wide and fast the transmission pipe is if you cannot trust the person/persons on the other end of the line to point the sensors properly, or ask the proper questions.
Or that someone isnt censoring any transmissions pointed at the comm buoy.
I mean, Noveria, Feros and Illium were all on the FTLcomm network in the games; Illium was a significant financial center.
You still had to physically go there in order to discover the Rachni Queen and the Thorian respectively, and to follow up on Nassana Dantius. You only find things on a network that are put on the network.
I'm just exhausted about the communications thing. I feel like people are reading a lot into it that I don't think would be there even if the retcon proceeded, but I can't imagine Poptart wanting to go ahead with a retcon in the face of this level of opposition anyway, so it's kind of a moot point.
@PoptartProdigy What is the current status of the Exodus Cluster? Have the Batarians returned to their former colonies and what is its legal status?
Do the Council still recognise it as Hegemony territory still considering it was part of the Hegemony before the Rachni came based on the Galactic Map?
@PoptartProdigy What is the current status of the Exodus Cluster? Have the Batarians returned to their former colonies and what is its legal status?
Do the Council still recognise it as Hegemony territory still considering it was part of the Hegemony before the Rachni came based on the Galactic Map?
Presently under joint Council administration; the Hegemony is not yet ready to return. There is a standing agreement that it is their claim when the time comes, but as of now that's the front line and they don't wanna put their population out there again.
@PoptartProdigy Sorry to be a bother again but have you decided to add more races that could be discovered in the Quest compared to the Cannon Races?
Also how do the Quarians and Volus utilise Levo-Amino Worlds since they can't Colonise them?
Also can the Vol Union claim any Ammonia World in Council Space??
@PoptartProdigy Sorry to be a bother again but have you decided to add more races that could be discovered in the Quest compared to the Cannon Races?
Also how do the Quarians and Volus utilise Levo-Amino Worlds since they can't Colonise them?
Also can the Vol Union claim any Ammonia World in Council Space??
I have some ideas for original races for y'all if you wander far enough off the beaten path of canon.
Neither is very expansionist, so it hasn't actually come up yet, but likely they'd either sell colony rights (Vol Union) or simply let the planet be (Republic of Rannoch).
That is not a legal right they possess, but they are diligent in seeking to purchase colonization or residency rights for such worlds, and often succeed due to a willingness to spend generously on that priority. The quarians, meanwhile, do no such thing. While increased living space is a high priority for the Vol Union, the Republic of Rannoch places a higher premium on social control.
Are levo-biosphere worlds and dextro-biosphere worlds more or less equally common? Or is there a bias that makes one or the other significantly more common, and if so, about how common?
[X][EXTINCTION] Only bombard worthless rocks. You want to preserve anything you know to contain valuable resources or facilities, but there's no harm in scratching the worthless asteroids that the Rachni occupy purely to be a pain in the ass off the list.
[X][FAVOR] Investment. The finances of Irune are without equal. You want that money moving to prop up enterprises within your space, on generous terms.
Are levo-biosphere worlds and dextro-biosphere worlds more or less equally common? Or is there a bias that makes one or the other significantly more common, and if so, about how common?
If we go by the planets in Sentry Omega and known Lore it seems like it would be Levo more than Dextro more than Ammonia.
Levo > Dextro > Ammonia
Which also translates to the number of Races with most being Levo except for Quarians/Turians/Volus.
Also in Cluster there are 4 Levo Garden Worlds (+ 3 Post-Garden and several Habitable) with only 1 Dextro Garden World (Dressel Prime) and 1 Ammonia Garden World (Vol Kam Prime).
Obviously other Clusters might see different numbers (Like less Gardens to Habitables for sure) but it seems likely that at least Levo far outnumber Dextro and Ammonia.
Of course the difference between Dextro and Ammonia Worlds could be anything but I like to think that Dextro still outnumber Ammonia.
Are levo-biosphere worlds and dextro-biosphere worlds more or less equally common? Or is there a bias that makes one or the other significantly more common, and if so, about how common?
All right, let's close this up. Let's see what the tally has to say.
Scheduled vote count started by PoptartProdigy on Mar 15, 2024 at 12:28 PM, finished with 436 posts and 79 votes.
[X][MAROON] Conventionally. Deploy the 2nd Battle Fleet to Maroon Sea. Have one of your raiding fleets pick up patrol duties in Sentry Omega. That will provide a powerful deterrent to any attempts at moving in, and if the rachni try anyway, you should be able to hold long enough to bring in reinforcements.
[X][EXTINCTION] Only bombard worthless rocks. You want to preserve anything you know to contain valuable resources or facilities, but there's no harm in scratching the worthless asteroids that the Rachni occupy purely to be a pain in the ass off the list.
[X][FAVOR] Investment. The finances of Irune are without equal. You want that money moving to prop up enterprises within your space, on generous terms.
[X][FAVOR] Ask for something on behalf of the Terminus Alliance, which they will pick, in exchange for one vote of your choice passed without a veto in the Council.
--[X] Treatment and support. Fundamentally, this is a public health issue, and you'll treat it as such with an eye to allowing victims to function in society as best they can.
[X][EXTINCTION] Bombard almost everything besides locations of particular value. While some locations the Rachni occupy hold value in mundane resources and infrastructure, they're nothing we can't replicate ourselves or get elsewhere with little issue. However a few places hold unique or extremely valuable resources that are absolutely worth the effort of taking by force such as Precursor ruins and significant Eezo deposits.
[X][MAROON] In force. All three raiding fleets are now coming off of patrol duties, and the 2nd Battle Fleet is held in Sentry Omega for situations that require a reserve, just such as this one. Send all of them to Maroon Sea while you figure out a more permanent solution. If the Rachni have decided they've smelled weakness, they'll be terminally disappointed.
--[X] You will inform the Terminus Alliance of the truth of ardat-yakshi, and they will develop their own policies, over which you will have some influence [BREACH].
--[X] You will share the truth with the Cooperatives faction as a whole, which will subsequently develop its own policies; you will have significant influence.
[X][EXTINCTION] Bombard everything the Army doesn't veto. Every Rachni garrison to your back is another foothold from which the Rachni can swiftly reestablish themselves should they retake or even contest a cluster. Have the Army draw up a shortlist of targets it wants maintained to test reforms on, but otherwise, tell the Fleet that it's a free-fire zone.
[X][MAROON] Lightly. Second one of the raiding fleets. They won't be able to strongly hold the system, but they'll be there to satisfy your critics. If the Rachni do come, though, the fleet will be forced to conduct a fighting retreat hoping to buy time for reinforcements.
[X][MAROON] Conventionally. Deploy the 2nd Battle Fleet to Maroon Sea. Have one of your raiding fleets pick up patrol duties in Sentry Omega. That will provide a powerful deterrent to any attempts at moving in, and if the rachni try anyway, you should be able to hold long enough to bring in reinforcements.
[X][EXTINCTION] Only bombard worthless rocks. You want to preserve anything you know to contain valuable resources or facilities, but there's no harm in scratching the worthless asteroids that the Rachni occupy purely to be a pain in the ass off the list.
[X][FAVOR] Investment. The finances of Irune are without equal. You want that money moving to prop up enterprises within your space, on generous terms.
[X][PLAN] Plan Business as usual even if they are Ardat-Yakshi.
-[X] Republics cooperation. How closely will you work with the experts in this field? They will have conditions.
--[X] You will pass information on ardat-yakshi fugitives back and forth, but little more (you must take no options marked, [BREACH].
-[X] Scope of reveal. You can do nothing to compel others to keep the secret save whatever is available to you, in-character.
--[X] You will establish a formal government agency to handle the matter of ardat-yakshi within Commonwealth space.
-[X] Ardat-yakshi recruits. Do they have a place in these efforts?
--[X] You'll recruit them in advisory capacities to inform policy.
-[X] Aim of efforts. What are you planning on doing about the ardat-yakshi? To an extent all of these will happen, but what is your point?
--[X] Treatment and support. Fundamentally, this is a public health issue, and you'll treat it as such with an eye to allowing victims to function in society as best they can.
