[X][TIMING] Veto, you belligerent idiots.
[X][BUOYS] General Distress Call
[X][BUOYS] Update the Maps
[X][BUOYS] Reconnaissance Pulse
let's see if we get a reaction from the citadel, depending on what it is we may be able to use inaction now that they are informed we survived the initial Rachini wave that swept over their inadequate defenses. Basically at this point if they don't move to aid us, we can use that as a much more solid reason for independence.
More or less on the fence, but i rather have Mira ride on the wave of popularity a bit longer and shown as working with the assembly by passing the very first bill. The future problems will be future problems after we have worked out our immediate problems.
Veto a popular bill that is the first might send the wrong signal to our population and fuel the challengers to our leadership.
We have such a massive political advantage that we can afford to take one big hit and still have a pretty secure hold on power.
Look, I'm not opposed to declaring independence as such. But right now, our map information on who holds which clusters is about forty years out of date, and we are only just now firing up to communicate with the outside galaxy for the first time in decades.
I think this is not a good time to jump up and down and make an irreversible commitment on an issue where our thinking may be very informed by what we learn from updating our maps or from the aftermath of our distress call.
[X][TIMING] Pass. Virmire First.
[X][BUOYS] Update the Maps
[X][BUOYS] Reconnaissance Pulse
[X][BUOYS] Bank a probe
and I kinda want to bank our last buoy for later. I mean the reconnaissance pulse will probably only be useful for a year or 2 at the most since fleets move so I'd rather save at least one since these things seem to be a bit of a pain for us to grab at the moment.
[X][TIMING] Veto, you belligerent idiots.
[X][BUOYS] General Distress Call
[X][BUOYS] Update the Maps
[X][BUOYS] General Distress Call x 2
As far as we know, the council only need to contest Hades Gamma to open potential supply lines.
I'm also hearing conflicting stories about the council too. They are so weak they can't hold Virmire sized colonies against the Rachini, but they're strong enough to uplift an entire planet from you 1950s human tech to 2nd tier power during a war... call it 20 years at the longest in order to have the Krogans turn the tide and achieve strategic victory in 50 years.
Imo, these facts are irreconcilable. Now, the council might not be able to take ground from the rachini, but that doesn't mean they are losing colonies either
We're not going to tell the Citadel that we've declared our independence. Firstly, because it would decrease the chance of us receiving the support we need. Secondly, because it'd be a waste of time that we need to spend on outlining the military situation and possible strategies to defeat the Rachni.
Maybe you should think with your head as well before accusing other players of being foolhardy morons.
You want to vote for the National Assembly to PUBLICLY DECLARE independence.
And then you want to state that you aren't going to tell the Citadel about it. How?
You are assuming that they are incompetent. Or that we are superhumanly competent.
Do you think that if/when we get back in contact that Citadel civilians won't talk to their family members? That Asari matriarchs won't talk to other asari matriarchs? That dalatrasses won't talk to each other?
That the simple names of our ships won't give us away, when they go from VWS/VDV to a new designation representing independence? When we fly a new flag?
We need them for survival. We need them as a counterweight to the Batarians, possibly the Krogan, maybe even the Turians.
We need them for tech exchange. We need them for trade.
We aren't the lystheni. Never go lystheni.
And I am calm. A little surprised at the pattern of voting, but calm.
They abandoned us with zero warning and didn't even have the courtesy of MacArthur pulling out of the Philippines promising to return in force. They just upped stakes and abandoned their positions leaving a poorly trained and ill-equipped Home Guard to fight against a tier-one freight train.
This isn't true. They ordered abandonment of colonies they couldn't defend; that means evacuation.
We're a planet of six billion(five billion then); evacuation was not possible.
If the Citadel were actually up anything like you describe?
They would have wiped out our system infrastructure to deny it to the Rachni and attempted to clean out our databases to deny them tech information. Scorched earth, like the British did to the French fleet at Mers el Kebir to deny it to the Germans.
After all, it's demonstrable that it was because the previous salarian expedition didn't sanitize their databases and technology that we are fighting the Rachni now.
Adhoc vote count started by uju32 on Jan 10, 2018 at 6:39 PM, finished with 7835 posts and 26 votes.
[X][BUOYS] Update the Maps: You can't count on a brief call to give you all the information you'll need to direct your breakout efforts. Ping the Rachni comms network for a detailed update on what exactly their held space is presently. Updates galaxy map to accurately reflect the present state of Rachni-held relays.
[X][TIMING] Veto, you belligerent idiots.
[X][BUOYS] General Distress Call
[X][BUOYS] Update the Maps
[X][BUOYS] Reconnaissance Pulse
We simply don't know enough about the situation with the Citadel in-universe to make an educated decision at this point. I'm going to assume we can say as much, and a Veto doesn't lock Independence out forever (I assume, because that's how bills work in real life). If Canon is accurate thus far, the Citadel is getting their assess handed to them, and aren't in a position to help. But that's the thing. IF Canon is accurate. This isn't canonical ME. For all we know, in this timeline, the Citadel is stalemated on the nearest front, and we're in a perfect position to help them break through on this front. We just don't know.
What I'd like to do is delay until we get the map update, both IC and OOC. We can make a decision then. Hopefully, GM lets us say as much. Making the Veto less 'Yeah, no.' and more 'Not until we make sure it's not a terrible idea.' Besides, the Rachni might turn a big fleet to take us out if we make enough of a nuisance of ourselves, and then we'll probably need the Citadel's help. They're probably a lot less inclined to help a colony that went Independent than a protectorate that retained it's loyalty despite being basically abandoned (I'm not gonna sugarcoat it, that's basically what happened) and this seems too hasty. Well, maybe hasty's not the right word since it's been a couple decades since major contact with the Citadel, but you get what I mean.
I'm not saying we couldn't get a Good End, but it's probably going to be harder. Heck, the Rachni could have pulled their fleets back here for a couple years so they could earn themselves enough breathing room with the Citadel to commit a huge force to take us out before we start clawing our way up to a major threat rather than a major annoyance.
On th eindependence vote: while saying yes is the only real choice, we should likely attach some riders to it, like.
1: while it dose make us independent, it dose not bind us to remain independent from the council. I.E. once contact with the council is re-established, it dose not block the planet/cluster/government from entering negotiations to re-join the council. though such a re-joining would have to be put up for another vote for approval after the terms were negotiated.
Alternatively...
Is there a possible third action to Table the vote till next turn or until contact with the citadel has been re-established?
We don't Vote yes on the proposal, but give them the go ahead to begin preparing it. once contact has been re-established and we get the councils side of the story, we will vote yes or no on this matter.
You want to vote for the National Assembly to PUBLICLY DECLARE independence.
And then you want to state that you aren't going to tell the Citadel about it. You are assuming that they are incompetent.
Or that we are superhumanly competent.
Do you think that if/when we get back in contact that Citadel civilians won't talk to their family members?
That the simple names of our ships won't give us away, when they go from VWS/VDV to a new designation representing independence? When we fly a new flag?
Errr, what? I'm talking about the message we'll be sending out. The only way they'll realize we've declared independence at this point is if we tell them. What happens after they've committed their forces to reestablishing permanent contact with us is far less important.
I'm not quite sure why you're being so dramatic and feel the need to interpret peoples' arguments in the least charitable light possible but it's really rather tiring.
I'm also hearing conflicting stories about the council too. They are so weak they can't hold Virmire sized colonies against the Rachini, but they're strong enough to uplift an entire planet from you 1950s human tech to 2nd tier power during a war... call it 20 years at the longest in order to have the Krogans turn the tide and achieve strategic victory in 50 years.
Imo, these facts are irreconcilable. Now, the council might not be able to take ground from the rachini, but that doesn't mean they are losing colonies either
They were too weak to stop the rachni from cutting off Virmire then (that is, 30-40 years ago). Their ability to fend off the rachni from any more of their colonies, while mobilizing the industrial efforts it takes to uplift the Krogans, is presumably the result of the Council's own economic and military buildup. They're probably not nearly as militarized as us overall, but they're probably a lot more militarized than they were a century ago.
On th eindependence vote: while saying yes is the only real choice, we should likely attach some riders to it, like.
1: while it dose make us independent, it dose not bind us to remain independent from the council. I.E. once contact with the council is re-established, it dose not block the planet/cluster/government from entering negotiations to re-join the council. though such a re-joining would have to be put up for another vote for approval after the terms were negotiated.
Alternatively...
Is there a possible third action to Table the vote till next turn or until contact with the citadel has been re-established?
We don't Vote yes on the proposal, but give them the go ahead to begin preparing it. once contact has been re-established and we get the councils side of the story, we will vote yes or no on this matter.
No, we pretty clearly have to veto this now. We can veto and say "let's vote on it again LATER," but that still leaves us vetoing this in the short term.
If we veto independence, with nearly 3/4 of the legislature supporting it, there is NO WAY this will be the last we hear of the idea, so your 'third option' is likely to arise.
Errr, what? I'm talking about the message we'll be sending out. The only way they'll realize we've declared independence at this point is if we tell them. What happens after they've committed their forces to reestablishing permanent contact with us is far less important.
Just because the Council may not know we've formally declared independence next year doesn't mean they won't find out soon, as soon as communications are established in any serious form, including blockade runners slipping through rachni-held space or things like that. We're going to have a long, awkward period of decades where the rachni are still very much a threat, and where we are independent of the Council.
I'm not even opposed to that as such, but I'd like us to at least wait a year to figure out what's going on, what the map looks like after roughly half a century of galactic warfare, and how the immediate aftermath of our distress call goes.
Errr, what? I'm talking about the message we'll be sending out. The only way they'll realize we've declared independence at this point is if we tell them. What happens after they've committed their forces to reestablishing permanent contact with us is far less important.
Is the message coming from "the Citadel world of Virmire", the "Independent colony of Virmire", the Interstellar republic of Virmire?
Is it signed by an elected Prime Minister and Assembly or a Colonial Governor? The Citadel's Intel services are going to go over the message and it's corroborating references with a fine tooth comb, and they are much better at this than we are.
And no, you can't just leave it unsigned if you don't want it to be ignored as a Rachni psyop ploy.
I'm not quite sure why you're being so dramatic and feel the need to intepret peoples' opinions in the least charitable light possible but it's really rather tiring.
I'm not sure where you are getting this from.
I've been pretty courteous in disagreeing with people. I may think you've missed stuff, and are making the wrong decision, but I don't see where you're getting this from.
Look, I'm pretty sure that there's a solid majority for at least functional independence among the player base. There has been since the game started.
I personally don't have much of a preference about how it goes, as long as we can squeeze the best deal available.
Thing is TIMING.
Claiming independence at this time makes shit unnecessarily difficult domestically and internationally.
There are native Citadel supporters on our planet, in business and politics; even in our Cabinet. There is no need to antagonize them for a name change.
We do not need to pick this fight, even if we could win it. It's a distraction.
And we simply have too little information extant at this time.
Are there mandatory military aid programs that Citadel worlds can take advantage of, that WE can claim if we get back in touch with the Citadel?
Do we have to renegotiate a mutual defence treaty in the middle of a war?
Do colonies claiming independence have to pay off debt for their development to their mother world?
There's a thousand and one complications that come due if we choose to secede in the middle of a war, especially since we need external(read Council) help to survive.
NOTE:
The Citadel is not functionally opposed to independent worlds.
According to it's wiki entry, Ilium was officially independent, not part of the Asari Republics, even though part of Citadel space.
Noveria was technically not part of Citadel space, despite being rented by human corporations right on the human-salarian space border.
We see repeated mention of independent asari and salarian worlds in canon.
The Council is reasonably flexible about diplomatic matters, as long as you pick the right time and do your due dilligence.
Adhoc vote count started by uju32 on Jan 10, 2018 at 7:22 PM, finished with 7845 posts and 30 votes.
[X][BUOYS] Update the Maps: You can't count on a brief call to give you all the information you'll need to direct your breakout efforts. Ping the Rachni comms network for a detailed update on what exactly their held space is presently. Updates galaxy map to accurately reflect the present state of Rachni-held relays.
They don't have to wish us ill for us to thoroughly fuck things over by making political decisions..
There may well be laws that prevent the export of categories of military or industrial hardware to non-Citadel nations(the US has this).
There may be accountability regulations about how we use miltech(the US has this).
There may be caps on how much they can send to non-Citadel nations, at a time when everyone wants military spending.
All of this shit takes time and effort to change, at a time when time and effort is at a premium because genocidal war.
You underestimate just how important minding your p's and q's are in international relations.
