[X][RWF] The 3rd is, realistically, at your mercy, but that is no way to treat allies. It would be grossly inappropriate to hold this leverage over them. You will recognize Admiral Malan as the local, ranking representative of the Republic of Rannoch, with absolute power over his domain and empowered to purchase yard space and other goods and services from your government in the Republic's name, credited to their government. This polite fiction, of course, binds the Republic itself not a whit, but the sheer generosity of this deal will represent a major concession on your part when you establish contact with the Republic proper and commence negotiations. Realistically, Malan will do what you ask of him regardless of the formality of your relationship -- but in this case, it would be asking, and to preserve the pretense would require that it ever remain just asking.
[ ][RUNNER] You denied his request. You're not in the habit of arguing suicide missions of this nature. You withdraw without sending any corvettes.
The question is, custom-designed for what? Exploration and blockade running aren't quite the same mission profile. There are some common elements you want either way, such as high operational endurance. But there are other elements not shared, like being able to dodge enemy fire like crazy and have souped-up straight line acceleration to get past the enemy's engagement envelope before they blow you to pieces.
True, though since you'd be going into the unknown, where it is quite possible to run into danger (see: Rachni), I'd imagine these exploration corvettes would probably be capable of a good sprint, usually meant to help them disengage. Admittedly, I'm not sure of the specifics, unless... @PoptartProdigy, care to tell us about functionality of Explorer-class vessels vs our standard corvettes?
We just took out an entire fleet, and what is in all probability their rapid response force is chasing us. They have us outnumbered, and logically they would expect us to fall back, which we've been doing all battle. There is already chaos, chaos enough that a few corvettes just might slip through.
We do not have an organized intelligence summary at the end. Our Exploration Corps is neither fully trained or established.
And we actually have a use for our Hero in our war plans. Best case, our Hero is unavailable for at least a year.
Worst case he DIES. And we won't know either way for a long time.
And while its true that we won't benefit from Kurik's stat bonuses at home while he's off on his expedition, the cold facts are that we've discovered enough new worlds in the cluster that we could spend decades or more setting up mining installations or sponsoring colonies. While the Explorer Corps continuing to see what lies where Virmiran has gone before is certainly useful on some level, and does have a flair of the romantic, since it shows that we are planning for after the war, showing confidence that the enemy before us can be defeated, I think Kurik is more useful going on that run.
You're suggesting that the ECs would bail out in life pods and let themselves be captured by Rachni, as opposed to going down with all hands. As for computers...purge protocols? Self-destruct?
1) Why the presumption they would have a choice?
People survive the loss of their ships, even without taking active steps.
2) What purge protocols? The Explorer Corps has not even been fully established yet.
We're still training people, building ships and working up procedures.
We literally pulled these guys out of training and organization to fight here because it was an all-hands situation.
As a reminder, the whole reason we have this entire war is because the rachni captured samples of a salarian exploration fleet and reverse-engineered their FTL drive and possibly other tech. I am in no hurry to risk gifting corvette-sized barrier tech to the rachni.
Attempting to run a blockade at a subsequent date might be worth doing, as part of a planned strike into a system.
But not in a situation with zero prep time and an incompletely trained corps.
This is also true, but there are other ships we can detail for exploration as well. We do produce a surplus of ships, after all - and frankly, I'd like the Explorer Corps to encourage a sort of boldness. Even if Kurik himself isn't there to organize things at home, his going out into the darkness, boldly doing what no one has done before, sets the tone.
No there aren't other ships we can detail; that's the whole point of the Exploration Corps.
Every other time, they've had to use military corvettes and we've had to spend a Learning Action. The EC avoids both those requirements.
No we do not produce a surplus of ships. Note the lack of naval reserves, like we had when we were producing a surplus of ships.
We have a battle fleet at 73%, a raiding fleet at 60%, and a trashed quarian fleet to rebuild.
We don't exactly have surplus shipbuilding capacity atm.
[X][RWF] The 3rd is, realistically, at your mercy, but that is no way to treat allies. It would be grossly inappropriate to hold this leverage over them. You will recognize Admiral Malan as the local, ranking representative of the Republic of Rannoch, with absolute power over his domain and empowered to purchase yard space and other goods and services from your government in the Republic's name, credited to their government. This polite fiction, of course, binds the Republic itself not a whit, but the sheer generosity of this deal will represent a major concession on your part when you establish contact with the Republic proper and commence negotiations. Realistically, Malan will do what you ask of him regardless of the formality of your relationship -- but in this case, it wouldbe asking, and to preserve the pretense would require that it ever remain just asking.
[X][RUNNER] You denied his request. You're not in the habit of arguing suicide missions of this nature. You withdraw without sending any corvettes.
Time to cash out fam.
Adhoc vote count started by Valkur on Feb 3, 2018 at 1:20 PM, finished with 9428 posts and 53 votes.
[X][RWF] The 3rd is, realistically, at your mercy, but that is no way to treat allies. It would be grossly inappropriate to hold this leverage over them. You will recognize Admiral Malan as the local, ranking representative of the Republic of Rannoch, with absolute power over his domain and empowered to purchase yard space and other goods and services from your government in the Republic's name, credited to their government. This polite fiction, of course, binds the Republic itself not a whit, but the sheer generosity of this deal will represent a major concession on your part when you establish contact with the Republic proper and commence negotiations. Realistically, Malan will do what you ask of him regardless of the formality of your relationship -- but in this case, it would be asking, and to preserve the pretense would require that it ever remain just asking.
[X][RWF] You are at war, and Malan has already indicated his willingness to submit to your command. Make sure that he understands that this is no formality, moving forward. While the 3rd RWF remains a quarian asset, it must be under your command. It will of course be returned to the Republic of Rannoch once contact is re-established, but until that time, it behaves as a Virmirean possession. Malan shall receive all of the respect and precedence due his rank, but he will be your subordinate, with all that that implies. This won't buy you any favors from the -- famously xenophobic -- Republic when it comes time for negotiations, but the realities of the situation mean that it really won't hurt, either. You've already bought yourself a lot of future goodwill by saving this fleet in the first place, anyway.
[X][RWF] The 3rd is, realistically, at your mercy, but that is no way to treat allies. It would be grossly inappropriate to hold this leverage over them. You will recognize Admiral Malan as the local, ranking representative of the Republic of Rannoch, with absolute power over his domain and empowered to purchase yard space and other goods and services from your government in the Republic's name, credited to their government. This polite fiction, of course, binds the Republic itself not a whit, but the sheer generosity of this deal will represent a major concession on your part when you establish contact with the Republic proper and commence negotiations. Realistically, Malan will do what you ask of him regardless of the formality of your relationship -- but in this case, it would be asking, and to preserve the pretense would require that it ever remain just asking.
[X][RUNNER] You authorized his request. The chance isn't good, but with the EC running it, you think you have a shot. This kind of thing is held to be impossible, and consequently, has never been tried...so the Rachni will never expect it. Sending him a hurried data packet containing information that you want the rest of the galaxy to have (your available forces, your ability to contribute to the fight, data analysis on the Rachni from this last operation, the rescue of the 3rd RWF, etc.) you gave him a few other ships to boost his chances and sent him on his way. Commits Captain Jamar Kurik and several EC vessels to a blockade run, taking advantage of Rachni weaknesses along the path. All battle rolls along the way will be made with his characteristic martial bonus (19). Failure means death.
[X][RUNNER] You authorized his request. The chance isn't good, but with the EC running it, you think you have a shot. This kind of thing is held to be impossible, and consequently, has never been tried...so the Rachni will never expect it. Sending him a hurried data packet containing information that you want the rest of the galaxy to have (your available forces, your ability to contribute to the fight, data analysis on the Rachni from this last operation, the rescue of the 3rd RWF, etc.) you gave him a few other ships to boost his chances and sent him on his way. Commits Captain Jamar Kurik and several EC vessels to a blockade run, taking advantage of Rachni weaknesses along the path. All battle rolls along the way will be made with his characteristic martial bonus (19). Failure means death.
Well, there's that Admiral. Technically speaking, he has a lot of broad authority. Now, him being explicitly invested with the authority to act as a head of the (detached) Republic of Rannoch is probably something that no longer applies, since naval forces operating beyond literally instant contact of their government for longer than the duration of a relay assault hasn't happened in millennia. That being said, it's not exactly going to be considered scandalous, should you choose to recognize him in that capacity. Given that laws to the effect of, "out of sight of shore, the Admiral is the Head of State," no longer appear in any applicable law books in the galaxy, Malan would presumably face an inquiry upon the re-establishment of contact with the Republic, but even then, you doubt that they would find him to be in violation of his duties.
Presumably we should ask Malan what he thinks of all this, since there may be some obscure quarian law regarding such situations that we don't know... But yeah, as a practical matter it's the simplest viable solution that respects quarian sovereignty and (informally speaking) the honor of the quarian fleet if we simply treat with their commanding admiral as if he's an accredited representative of a temporarily detached government whose decisions are binding except insofar as they are subject to review by the main body of the Republic when contact is re-established.
Unless Sentry Omega is completely unique among all the clusters of the galaxy (which, to be fair, would not be a presumption entirely unsupported by prior evidence), all of its mass relays are in Hoc.
Do we know where all the relays go? Are there any inactive primary relays in the Hoc system, or in the central systems of the Attican Beta and Kepler Verge clusters?
If the answer to those questions are "yes, and no," then the only way the rachni could gain a "backdoor" to our space is by coming up with a chain of secondary relays that lets them 'island hop' from one of their clusters, across the galaxy to us, several hundred light-years at a time, correct?
@PoptartProdigy what I mean is would the information we can give important enough to effective the course of the war? Do our advisors believe it would have a great effect on policy and help us?
It was well trained enough that we were willing to commit Kurik and the EC to a screening action.
Plus we have data others wouldn't, such as the feedback from the mapping pulse. What we have is good enough. We will never have a perfect opportunity, and thus must take advantage of those we have.
Best case, our Hero is unavailable for at least a year.
Worst case he DIES. And we won't know either way for a long time.
I vehemently disagree. Losing one hero temporarily in order to get the rest of the galaxy in motion is a price that is frankly, dirt cheap. The chance of failure and permaloss makes it somewhat less attractive, but it isn't as if we haven't been dealing with that for a while now.
This is untrue.
At the moment there are ~15 or 16 unexploited mining systems on the map. At 2 systems per turn, that's 8 years.
And do you realistically think we'll finish setting up colonies at that kind of pace? Or that there won't be overlap between mining interests an colonies, meaning that it won't necessarily be 2 a year?
...you mean the 1st Battle Fleet, which successfully accomplished its objectives with only a small loss in capacity? The EC and the elite crews and commanders that comprise it? The people of Virmire, which will die eventually if we don't get reinforcements?
People survive the loss of their ships, even without taking active steps.
They could just as easily not survive the loss of their ships. Particularly if its a corvette being shredded by a cruiser, or the like, and people aren't in hardsuits when depressurization comes.
As a reminder, the whole reason we have this entire war is because the rachni captured samples of a salarian exploration fleet and reverse-engineered their FTL drive and possibly other tech. I am in no hurry to risk gifting corvette-sized barrier tech to the rachni.
And what makes you think they haven't already captured this technology? They were fighting the Citadel for quite a while, after all. Indeed, the Citadel just halted a massive offensive from the Rachni...
Attempting to run a blockade at a subsequent date might be worth doing, as part of a planned strike into a system.
But not in a situation with zero prep time and an incompletely trained corps.
An opportunity we won't have for at least a year or so, while we rebuild the Quarian Fleet, and bring our fleets back to capacity. And in that time, we may well have lost the opportunity to capitalize on our information advantage, or shorten the course of the war.
No there aren't other ships we can detail; that's the whole point of the Exploration Corps.
Every other time, they've had to use military corvettes and we've had to spend a Learning Action. The EC avoids both those requirements.
And what are those military corvettes if not ships we can detail?
No we do not produce a surplus of ships. Note the lack of naval reserves, like we had when we were producing a surplus of ships.
We have a battle fleet at 73%, a raiding fleet at 60%, and a trashed quarian fleet to rebuild.
We don't exactly have surplus shipbuilding capacity atm.
As I recall, we did produce an amount in surplus of what we lost. We then used up the reserve to create our new fleets, but if we were indeed running a deficit of ships, instead of a net surplus, as at the beginning of the quest, I think we'd in much worse shape.
As a reminder, the whole reason we have this entire war is because the rachni captured samples of a salarian exploration fleet and reverse-engineered their FTL drive and possibly other tech. I am in no hurry to risk gifting corvette-sized barrier tech to the rachni.
Short-term, I dislike more the possibility of the Rachni getting insights into Virmire's current state of affairs, either from prisoners or from computer data.
[X][RWF] The 3rd is, realistically, at your mercy, but that is no way to treat allies. It would be grossly inappropriate to hold this leverage over them. You will recognize Admiral Malan as the local, ranking representative of the Republic of Rannoch, with absolute power over his domain and empowered to purchase yard space and other goods and services from your government in the Republic's name, credited to theirgovernment. This polite fiction, of course, binds the Republic itself not a whit, but the sheer generosity of this deal will represent a major concession on your part when you establish contact with the Republic proper and commence negotiations. Realistically, Malanwill do what you ask of him regardless of the formality of yourrelationship -- but in this case, it would be asking, and to preservethe pretense would require that it ever remain just asking.
[X][RUNNER] You denied his request. You're not in the habit of arguing suicide mission of this nature. You withdraw without sending any corvettes.
I vehemently disagree. Losing one hero temporarily in order to get the rest of the galaxy in motion is a price that is frankly, dirt cheap. The chance of failure and permaloss makes it somewhat less attractive, but it isn't as if we haven't been dealing with that for a while now.
True, though since you'd be going into the unknown, where it is quite possible to run into danger (see: Rachni), I'd imagine these exploration corvettes would probably be capable of a good sprint, usually meant to help them disengage. Admittedly, I'm not sure of the specifics, unless... @PoptartProdigy, care to tell us about functionality of Explorer-class vessels vs our standard corvettes?
Explorer-class corvettes were designed with a broad mission profile in mind; scientific and military exploration away from resupply. Accordingly, the ships were designed with high operational endurance in mind. They are equipped with excellent survey gear and scientific facilities. However, they are also expected to encounter hazardous situations their tonnage does not equip them to address. Accordingly, the vessels have impressive acceleration profiles and powerful FTL drives, at the cost of more than a handful of reloads for the torpedo launchers.
Presumably we should ask Malan what he thinks of all this, since there may be some obscure quarian law regarding such situations that we don't know... But yeah, as a practical matter it's the simplest viable solution that respects quarian sovereignty and (informally speaking) the honor of the quarian fleet if we simply treat with their commanding admiral as if he's an accredited representative of a temporarily detached government whose decisions are binding except insofar as they are subject to review by the main body of the Republic when contact is re-established.
Okay, fair point. That said:
Do we know where all the relays go? Are there any inactive primary relays in the Hoc system, or in the central systems of the Attican Beta and Kepler Verge clusters?
If the answer to those questions are "yes, and no," then the only way the rachni could gain a "backdoor" to our space is by coming up with a chain of secondary relays that lets them 'island hop' from one of their clusters, across the galaxy to us, several hundred light-years at a time, correct?
There are inactive relays in all of those clusters, and you do not know where they go. In theory, the Rachni could, upon finding another connection to Sentry Omega, primary or secondary, use it immediately. However, they would be stuck on your side unless they were capable of taking on and wiping your entire navy. This is because it takes days to weeks to activate a relay. Unless they could beat you, they would have no way back. Even Rachni are not that accepting of risk.
@PoptartProdigy what I mean is would the information we can give important enough to effective the course of the war? Do our advisors believe it would have a great effect on policy and help us?
I expect a more offensive posture, as opposed to a more defensive posture.
Again, its one thing to face what you think is an endless horde. It's another thing to know that the enemy's logistics train is not all cracked up to be, and that another push might tip the balance.
Edit: And thank you for the details on the ships, @PoptartProdigy!
@PoptartProdigy, when can we expect the galaxy map to get updated with the info from the 3rd RWF? Like, who exactly holds the Pheonix Massing and are there any other changes on the map from the Citadel/Terminus side?
t was well trained enough that we were willing to commit Kurik and the EC to a screening action.
Plus we have data others wouldn't, such as the feedback from the mapping pulse. What we have is good enough. We will never have a perfect opportunity, and thus must take advantage of those we have.
All hands situation, with a ten dreadnought fleet bearing down on our battle fleet. We then used them as screen, because desperation.
Note how we DIDN'T commit them to the Nubian Expanse before invading it initially, although it was an option.
It's true. He might die. But then he could have died this turn. Just as Mira could have. Or any time we commit forces. Yet we rushed in and took advantage of an opportunity to rescue a war fleet, didn't we? Despite the risks?
Because the juice was worth the squeeze, and the risks were clearly quantifiable, as was the payoff.
We had a battlefleet to save, and detailed intelligence on enemy dispositions that was barely hours old,. Furthermore we were close to establishing numerical parity with enemy ships, not even counting the fleet we were relieving, AND we had a Masterful admiral in overall command.
We stacked literally every advantage we could before going toe to toe with six dreads, and still had to deal with a ten dread relief fleet.
Here, we know dickall what's beyond the Hades Nexus relay besides a multi-dreadnought Rachni fleet, have no clear lines of retreat, and would be grossly outnumbered. The fact that we take risks doesn't make them any less carefully calculated.
I vehemently disagree. Losing one hero temporarily in order to get the rest of the galaxy in motion is a price that is frankly, dirt cheap. The chance of failure and permaloss makes it somewhat less attractive, but it isn't as if we haven't been dealing with that for a while now.
He might die and not get to ally lines.
He might get there and not be convincing; Diplomacy 11.
He could be convincing and everyone else could be tapped out of short or medium term military strength.
There are literally too many points of failure for me to be comfortable sending off our Personal Action(Intrigue) proxy.
And do you realistically think we'll finish setting up colonies at that kind of pace? Or that there won't be overlap between mining interests an colonies, meaning that it won't necessarily be 2 a year?
...you mean the 1st Battle Fleet, which successfully accomplished its objectives with only a small loss in capacity? The EC and the elite crews and commanders that comprise it? The people of Virmire, which will die eventually if we don't get reinforcements?
The raiding fleet that just lost 1 in 7 of it's effective strength?
Whose entire raison d'etre is to operate behind enemy lines in the hope that when the time comes, the battle fleet will be there to extract them?
And what makes you think they haven't already captured this technology? They were fighting the Citadel for quite a while, after all. Indeed, the Citadel just halted a massive offensive from the Rachni...
You are now making an affirmative claim, for which you need to present evidence that they have indeed acquired Citadel tech.
There is a reason we went to the trouble of sanitizing the battlefield of Quarian technology.
An opportunity we won't have for at least a year or so, while we rebuild the Quarian Fleet, and bring our fleets back to capacity. And in that time, we may well have lost the opportunity to capitalize on our information advantage, or shorten the course of the war.
In the meantime of which we have multiple use-cases for Captain Kurik, from searching for Progenitor and Prothean ruins that might give us a tech edge in this war, to running down further high yield mines for exploitation, to serving as our Intrigue proxy for actually analyzing the raw intelligence we generated during this entire operation.
As I recall, we did produce an amount in surplus of what we lost. We then used up the reserve to create our new fleets, but if we were indeed running a deficit of ships, instead of a net surplus, as at the beginning of the quest, I think we'd in much worse shape.
We were running a surplus before we changed our fleet structure and doctrine, but we sure as hell aren't running one now.
Adhoc vote count started by uju32 on Feb 3, 2018 at 5:22 PM, finished with 9450 posts and 56 votes.
[X][RWF] The 3rd is, realistically, at your mercy, but that is no way to treat allies. It would be grossly inappropriate to hold this leverage over them. You will recognize Admiral Malan as the local, ranking representative of the Republic of Rannoch, with absolute power over his domain and empowered to purchase yard space and other goods and services from your government in the Republic's name, credited to their government. This polite fiction, of course, binds the Republic itself not a whit, but the sheer generosity of this deal will represent a major concession on your part when you establish contact with the Republic proper and commence negotiations. Realistically, Malan will do what you ask of him regardless of the formality of your relationship -- but in this case, it would be asking, and to preserve the pretense would require that it ever remain just asking.
[X][RUNNER You authorized his request. The chance isn't good, but with the EC running it, you think you have a shot. This kind of thing is held to be impossible, and consequently, has never been tried...so the Rachni will never expect it. Sending him a hurried data packet containing information that you want the rest of the galaxy to have (your available forces, your ability to contribute to the fight, data analysis on the Rachni from this last operation, the rescue of the 3rd RWF, etc.) you gave him a few other ships to boost his chances and sent him on his way. Commits Captain Jamar Kurik and several EC vessels to a blockade run, taking advantage of Rachni weaknesses along the path. All battle rolls along the way will be made with his characteristic martial bonus (19). Failure means death.
[X][RWF] You are at war, and Malan has already indicated his willingness to submit to your command. Make sure that he understands that this is no formality, moving forward. While the 3rd RWF remains a quarian asset, it must be under your command. It will of course be returned to the Republic of Rannoch once contact is re-established, but until that time, it behaves as a Virmirean possession. Malan shall receive all of the respect and precedence due his rank, but he will be your subordinate, with all that that implies. This won't buy you any favors from the -- famously xenophobic -- Republic when it comes time for negotiations, but the realities of the situation mean that it really won't hurt, either. You've already bought yourself a lot of future goodwill by saving this fleet in the first place, anyway.
[X][RWF] The 3rd is, realistically, at your mercy, but that is no way to treat allies. It would be grossly inappropriate to hold this leverage over them. You will recognize Admiral Malan as the local, ranking representative of the Republic of Rannoch, with absolute power over his domain and empowered to purchase yard space and other goods and services from your government in the Republic's name, credited to their government. This polite fiction, of course, binds the Republic itself not a whit, but the sheer generosity of this deal will represent a major concession on your part when you establish contact with the Republic proper and commence negotiations. Realistically, Malan will do what you ask of him regardless of the formality of your relationship -- but in this case, it would be asking, and to preserve the pretense would require that it ever remain just asking.
[X][RUNNER] You authorized his request. The chance isn't good, but with the EC running it, you think you have a shot. This kind of thing is held to be impossible, and consequently, has never been tried...so the Rachni will never expect it. Sending him a hurried data packet containing information that you want the rest of the galaxy to have (your available forces, your ability to contribute to the fight, data analysis on the Rachni from this last operation, the rescue of the 3rd RWF, etc.) you gave him a few other ships to boost his chances and sent him on his way. Commits Captain Jamar Kurik and several EC vessels to a blockade run, taking advantage of Rachni weaknesses along the path. All battle rolls along the way will be made with his characteristic martial bonus (19). Failure means death.
[X][RUNNER] You authorized his request. The chance isn't good, but with the EC running it, you think you have a shot. This kind of thing is held to be impossible, and consequently, has never been tried...so the Rachni will never expect it. Sending him a hurried data packet containing information that you want the rest of the galaxy to have (your available forces, your ability to contribute to the fight, data analysis on the Rachni from this last operation, the rescue of the 3rd RWF, etc.) you gave him a few other ships to boost his chances and sent him on his way. Commits Captain Jamar Kurik and several EC vessels to a blockade run, taking advantage of Rachni weaknesses along the path. All battle rolls along the way will be made with his characteristic martial bonus (19). Failure means death.
This is still the weirdest thing of your worldbuilding imo. Why the hell are there still unexplored clusters if all the Relays are so easily accessible. Holding a relay is the greatest defensive position in space. I would have expected the Asari or whoever is first in space in each cycle to open and claim all the relays and just settle the closest planets to those relays long before doing more to explore their clusters. Means your logistics are massively simplified, you can easily concentrate your fleets from all over the galaxy and you have tons of relays you can use as defensive positions before the enemy gets anywhere close to your important clusters.
There are inactive relays in all of those clusters, and you do not know where they go. In theory, the Rachni could, upon finding another connection to Sentry Omega, primary or secondary, use it immediately. However, they would be stuck on your side unless they were capable of taking on and wiping your entire navy. This is because it takes days to weeks to activate a relay. Unless they could beat you, they would have no way back. Even Rachni are not that accepting of risk.
Can the physical direction a mass effect relay "points" be used to deduce the direction it points to a reasonably high degree of accuracy? Could we look at a relay and say "gee, this probably points to the XYZ cluster, unless there's another cluster just about on the direct line drawn through us and them" just from looking at it, without firing it up to see where it goes?
I'm guessing "no, not really," because that would remove a LOT of the uncertainty associated with firing up inactive mass relays.
This is still the weirdest thing of your worldbuilding imo. Why the hell are there still unexplored clusters if all the Relays are so easily accessible. Holding a relay is the greatest defensive position in space. I would have expected the Asari or whoever is first in space in each cycle to open and claim all the relays and just settle the closest planets to those relays long before doing more to explore their clusters. Means your logistics are massively simplified, you can easily concentrate your fleets from all over the galaxy and you have tons of relays you can use as defensive positions before the enemy gets anywhere close to your important clusters.
The problem with doing this is illustrated rather neatly by exactly the situation we are now in, namely that if you open the wrong relay you may be opening up a can of worms you cannot easily seal again.
I suspect that mass relay openings are only done under normal conditions when whoever controls the relay system is reasonably confident that they can at least defend the system against whatever kind of attacks they might expect to come through the relay. Or at least can whistle up a credible-sized battlegroup to do so. Or something.
Now, you may point out "the asari, being first into space, could have opened all the relays long before anyone else." The catch is, the first species into space in a given cycle has no reason to assume they are the first, and in fact good reasons to assume they're not. Statistically speaking, only a small minority of all intelligent species throughout galactic history can be first in a cycle, and when you don't know about the cycles you can only assume ONE species in all the galaxy was 'first.'
That species is probably not you.
Therefore, it behooves a reasonably sensible species to be a bit cautious about gallivanting all over the galaxy, before building up some degree of industrial and logistical base to contend with possible galaxy-sized opposition. And especially before at least mostly assimilating the big pile of extra technology gained from things like "discovered your first relay and know how Element Zero works." Otherwise you risk, to crib from The Avengers, letting the galaxy know that your homeworld is ready for a higher form of war, when it really, really isn't.
We then used them as screen, because desperation.
Note how we DIDN'T commit them to the Nubian Expanse before invading it initially, although it was an option.
Because the juice was worth the squeeze, and the risks were clearly quantifiable, as was the payoff.
And how is this situation not just as desperate? Or the risks quantifiable - do we not still have intelligence on enemy dispositions that is barely hours old? As well as the knowledge that the relief fleet seems to be focused on trying to preventing our escape, not keeping something else from moving in deeper?
In your own words, we knew "dickall" about what was within the Hades Nexus, beyond the fact that the Quarians were burning there. We didn't scout it, certainly. We launched a raid, and an assault in the belief the Quarians would make it there.
Quarians, who burned for the Hades Nexus, as they had no viable lines of retreat, taking a desperate risk. Just as we also took a hell of a risk, even with stacking everything, careful calculation or not. And we succeeded.
He might die and not get to ally lines.
He might get there and not be convincing; Diplomacy 11.
He could be convincing and everyone else could be tapped out of short or medium term military strength.
Yes, he could die. Yes, his Diplomacy might not be convincing, but I don't his personal diplomacy has to be, when it would have come off running the Rachni blockade with valuable data. The TA was interested in linking up. The RoR no doubt is interested in an offensive, given the 3WF behind enemy lines. Again, knowing you have another force which can accomplish things behind enemy lines changes the calculations and risks you are willing to take, as opposed to if you're thinking you're fighting a horde alone.
There are literally too many points of failure for me to be comfortable sending off our Personal Action(Intrigue) proxy.
It takes time to get these things up to full production, and by the time we ran out of areas to colonize/mine, we could have rebuilt the EC.
The raiding fleet that just lost 1 in 7 of it's effective strength?
Whose entire raison d'etre is to operate behind enemy lines in the hope that when the time comes, the battle fleet will be there to extract them?
What's your point, exactly? I don't see how this is relevant to a discussion of whether or not to send Kurik off to do a blockade run.
You are now making an affirmative claim, for which you need to present evidence that they have indeed acquired Citadel tech.
There is a reason we went to the trouble of sanitizing the battlefield of Quarian technology.
The fact remains that our EC Corvettes stand the best chance of getting through with their acceleration profiles and powerful FTL drives. And that if we don't make contact and pass along what we know, any impact from our beacon use is going to be both short term and limited to what we can pull off, as opposed to the larger fleets of the TA and the Citadel.
And when have I ever said he was? The fact remains that there are other explorers. Other people who could be sent off. Whereas here and now, he's the best chance we have to get a message out.
We were running a surplus before we changed our fleet structure and doctrine, but we sure as hell aren't running one now.
Explorer-class corvettes were designed with a broad mission profile in mind; scientific and military exploration away from resupply. Accordingly, the ships were designed with high operational endurance in mind. They are equipped with excellent survey gear and scientific facilities. However, they are also expected to encounter hazardous situations their tonnage does not equip them to address. Accordingly, the vessels have impressive acceleration profiles and powerful FTL drives, at the cost of more than a handful of reloads for the torpedo launchers.
@Rivenscryr I'm quite worried about the data packet getting into Rachni hands- one of our main advantages is they don't know our capabilities and that we've been punching above our weight and taking risks.
I do agree we have to make contact or die.
@PoptartProdigy What does Mira know of the chances for potential alternatives for getting messages out? I presume Intelligence is looking at this. What was the latest Intelligence evaluation of being able to compromise the Rachni network, even briefly, say from the (presumable) examination of buoy tech?
[X][RWF] You are at war, and Malan has already indicated his willingness to submit to your command. Make sure that he understands that this is no formality, moving forward. While the 3rd RWF remains a quarian asset, it must be under your command. It will of course be returned to the Republic of Rannoch once contact is re-established, but until that time, it behaves as a Virmirean possession. Malan shall receive all of the respect and precedence due his rank, but he will be your subordinate, with all that that implies. This won't buy you any favors from the -- famously xenophobic -- Republic when it comes time for negotiations, but the realities of the situation mean that it really won't hurt, either. You've already bought yourself a lot of future goodwill by saving this fleet in the first place, anyway.
[X][RUNNER] You denied his request. You're not in the habit of arguing suicide mission of this nature. You withdraw without sending any corvettes.
[X][RWF] You are at war, and Malan has already indicated his willingness to submit to your command. Make sure that he understands that this is no formality, moving forward. While the 3rd RWF remains a quarian asset, it must be under your command. It will of course be returned to the Republic of Rannoch once contact is re-established, but until that time, it behaves as a Virmirean possession. Malan shall receive all of the respect and precedence due his rank, but he will be your subordinate, with all that that implies. This won't buy you any favors from the -- famously xenophobic -- Republic when it comes time for negotiations, but the realities of the situation mean that it really won't hurt, either. You've already bought yourself a lot of future goodwill by saving this fleet in the first place, anyway.
[X][RUNNER You authorized his request. The chance isn't good, but with the EC running it, you think you have a shot. This kind of thing is held to be impossible, and consequently, has never been tried...so the Rachni will never expect it. Sending him a hurried data packet containing information that you want the rest of the galaxy to have (your available forces, your ability to contribute to the fight, data analysis on the Rachni from this last operation, the rescue of the 3rd RWF, etc.) you gave him a few other ships to boost his chances and sent him on his way. Commits Captain Jamar Kurik and several EC vessels to a blockade run, taking advantage of Rachni weaknesses along the path. All battle rolls along the way will be made with his characteristic martial bonus (19). Failure means death.
revised vote.
Diplomatic gains are secondary to unified and formalized chain of command, especially since we have a unique doctrine and people have to follow it.
Not having a unified command structure is a recipe for a quagmire.
Yes, he could die. Yes, his Diplomacy might not be convincing, but I don't his personal diplomacy has to be, when it would have come off running the Rachni blockade with valuable data. The TA was interested in linking up. The RoR no doubt is interested in an offensive, given the 3WF behind enemy lines. Again, knowing you have another force which can accomplish things behind enemy lines changes the calculations and risks you are willing to take, as opposed to if you're thinking you're fighting a horde alone.
Shepard came back with valuable data on the Reapers. More than once. Fat lot of good it did.
Like it or not, even if you have wonderful information, you still have to present it in a convincing manner, organize it clearly, and avoid getting bogged down in political issues or interpersonal issues that would distract the people you're talking to. Just dropping a bunch of data in someone's lap is absolutely no guarantee that they, who are in a different situation from you and are in fact not even the same species as you, will make the same decisions you'd make.
Also, uh... I'm not sure how you go from "one of the quarians' major fleets is now cut off behind enemy lines" to "the quarians are no doubt interested in an offensive." Given that they've probably lost anywhere from, oh, 20-30% of their entire navy just from this one fleet, and their other fleets have probably taken damage too, they may be in no shape to even contemplate anything other than direct self-defense.
As opposed to the certain doom that awaits all of us, if we don't get reinforcements, which has been explicitly and repeatedly communicated to us?
Well, we just got some reinforcements. Technically.
More seriously, we have some time to make a plan to get more. All the major players in this war just got done fighting major offensives, or are still in the process of doing so. It's unlikely that they can keep up their momentum forever. They're not going to be able to sustain heavy fighting for year after year without an operational pause. Hell, we need an operational pause just to repair all our damaged ships.
The reasons I think it is likely worth the risks to send off Kurik:
-That 10-dread doomstack we were facing was taken off of border garrisons. It wasn't a reserve force, the Rachni weakened their front lines to put it together. So, the Rachni are (possibly temporarily*) hurting for reserves. And we can be pretty sure that none of our allies actually know that.
*It's possible that they have a lot of ships in for repairs, given that they just halted their advance into Citadel space, and got hit by the Terminus/Quarian fleets.
-We have a pretty good map of Rachni space, which includes relay links our allies may well not realize exist.
- Kurik can tell the Quarians that the 3RWF is alive, and helped us kill 5 dreadnoughts. Likely to provide a massive morale boost. Even if they're not ready to renew offensives now, it will still help.
-Giving our allies much more than a brief idea of how we're doing, and serving as a figurehead for Virmire's cause, is likely to significantly improve odds of relief efforts being mounted. Especially if we give him leave to release video of the screening effort. (The public loves a badass.)
Still think it's not a sure thing, but definitely not a choice to be written off easily.
@PoptartProdigy, when can we expect the galaxy map to get updated with the info from the 3rd RWF? Like, who exactly holds the Pheonix Massing and are there any other changes on the map from the Citadel/Terminus side?
This is still the weirdest thing of your worldbuilding imo. Why the hell are there still unexplored clusters if all the Relays are so easily accessible. Holding a relay is the greatest defensive position in space. I would have expected the Asari or whoever is first in space in each cycle to open and claim all the relays and just settle the closest planets to those relays long before doing more to explore their clusters. Means your logistics are massively simplified, you can easily concentrate your fleets from all over the galaxy and you have tons of relays you can use as defensive positions before the enemy gets anywhere close to your important clusters.
Can the physical direction a mass effect relay "points" be used to deduce the direction it points to a reasonably high degree of accuracy? Could we look at a relay and say "gee, this probably points to the XYZ cluster, unless there's another cluster just about on the direct line drawn through us and them" just from looking at it, without firing it up to see where it goes?
I'm guessing "no, not really," because that would remove a LOT of the uncertainty associated with firing up inactive mass relays.
Not until the first time it's used, is my headcanon. Obviously, in-game cinematics show them oriented to their line of travel, but equally obviously, there's some reason one can't just use that and a straight edge to determine facing prior to opening a relay. So I think the relay orients to its partner upon first use (or every time, for secondaries).
@PoptartProdigy What does Mira know of the chances for potential alternatives for getting messages out? I presume Intelligence is looking at this. What was the latest Intelligence evaluation of being able to compromise the Rachni network, even briefly, say from the (presumable) examination of buoy tech?
[X][RWF] The 3rd is, realistically, at your mercy, but that is no way to treat allies. It would be grossly inappropriate to hold this leverage over them. You will recognize Admiral Malan as the local, ranking representative of the Republic of Rannoch, with absolute power over his domain and empowered to purchase yard space and other goods and services from your government in the Republic's name, credited to theirgovernment. This polite fiction, of course, binds the Republic itself not a whit, but the sheer generosity of this deal will represent a major concession on your part when you establish contact with the Republic proper and commence negotiations. Realistically, Malanwill do what you ask of him regardless of the formality of yourrelationship -- but in this case, it would be asking, and to preservethe pretense would require that it ever remain just asking.
[X][RUNNER You authorized his request. The chance isn't good, but with the EC running it, you think you have a shot. This kind of thing is held to be impossible, and consequently, has never been tried...so the Rachni will never expect it. Sending him a hurried data packet containing information that you want the rest of the galaxy to have (your available forces, your ability to contribute to the fight, data analysis on the Rachni from this last operation, the rescue of the 3rd RWF, etc.) you gave him a few other ships to boost his chances and sent him on his way. Commits Captain Jamar Kurik and several EC vessels to a blockade run, taking advantage of Rachni weaknesses along the path. All battle rolls along the way will be made with his characteristic martial bonus (19). Failure means death.
Not until the first time it's used, is my headcanon. Obviously, in-game cinematics show them oriented to their line of travel, but equally obviously, there's some reason one can't just use that and a straight edge to determine facing prior to opening a relay. So I think the relay orients to its partner upon first use (or every time, for secondaries).
For the primaries that actually makes a lot of sense- an inactive primary relay is almost certainly going to "drift" over time. Tidal forces and impacts from tiny bits of space dust and whatnot would give it a (ridiculously small) amount of rotation, and over millenia of having its systems powered down that would result in the relay drifting out of line with its partner. Keeping a relay pointed onto a target would require active, powered systems, and an inactive relay would not have those.
I'm not so sure about secondary relays automatically pointing... well, the amount of energy required would be ridiculous, but they are megastructures of unthinkable power, so that's not entirely unreasonable. On the other hand, the sheer size of a relay means that it would probably take considerable time for the secondary relays to align, which in turn puts more limits on what they are capable of and how they can be used.
