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Terminus Quest: A CKII Mass Effect Quest

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Point of order: Serbia accepted basically every point on the Austrian ultimatum except the one(s) that were deliberately designed to cause a war because literally no nation would ever accept them. And were stuck in there specifically because the Austrians wanted to punish Serbia. Probably a lesson to be learned there, if you want to :turian:negotiate :turian:in that way with the Lystheni.

/historian cap off


At any rate, I'm not sure there is a way out of this without threatening some form of war at some point. If only because our paranoid friends are highly unlikely to take anything we say as honest. Just like we are hardwired (by long experience) to doubt anything they say is honest.

(though we're at least making an effort. Doubt they ever did)
 
Skywalker_T-65 said:
Point of order: Serbia accepted basically every point on the Austrian ultimatum except the one(s) that were deliberately designed to cause a war because literally no nation would ever accept them. And were stuck in there specifically because the Austrians wanted to punish Serbia. Probably a lesson to be learned there, if you want to :turian:negotiate :turian:in that way with the Lystheni.

/historian cap off


At any rate, I'm not sure there is a way out of this without threatening some form of war at some point. If only because our paranoid friends are highly unlikely to take anything we say as honest. Just like we are hardwired (by long experience) to doubt anything they say is honest.

(though we're at least making an effort. Doubt they ever did)
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I mean the trade is a bit one sided in terms of Spies for civilians, but it might be worth it just to get things started.
 
lancelot said:
Plan release is stupid we do this and she'll NEVER take us seriously. She'll poke prod, and lie to us and we'll do this all over again when we catch them out again. We caught spies, their holding civvies hostage. We tell them our full demands along with the carrot and stick, and then see who blinks first. Because we don't need them but they need us.
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Okay, let me spell this out in small words.
Her only point of leverage is the hostages. That's what we want to take away.

And there are domestic considerations for us as well for hostage recovery.
They're our people, who went to Lystheni space under our guarantees of protection, and have been responsible for contributing significant chunks of our trade budget. An effort needs to be made to get them out of the line of fire.

Timewinders said:
This, plus I also suspect that they're working on some kind of superweapon using Precursor tech and are just trying to buy time right now.
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You DO realize that anyone with the ability to build nukes on an industrial scale, such as anyone who has a nuclear armed military, can already do this, right? We had proposals for actual planetkillers in the 50s; look up Edward Teller's proposals for GNOMON and SUNDIAL.
Of all the things I worry about, a precursor superweapon does not even rate.

SAGrognard said:
Asari are cuckoo predators, designed to persuade members of another species to spend resources and effort raising the asari young.
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Yeah this is arrant nonsense.
 
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NavySeel said:
And seem to genuinely care about members of said species, and end up spend far more resources on raising said young since the other species usually die fairly early in they're offsprings life.
The Asari are strange but they aren't this evil eldritch abomination some people want them to be.
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I didn't state that the asari were dickwad cuckoos. Genuinely caring about the individuals of the prey species has survival value when dealing with sapients.
Don't know why you are trying to bring the dickwad argument in, since I did not mention or imply it.
My actual argument was for ruthless predator behavior, does not prevent 'be genuinely nice to thralls'.
 
Nothing more popular than A Government protecting its own people. Just saying.
 
Looks like plan release is in the lead with 10 votes. I hope both sides can at least agree to exchange this much before things go even more downhill.
 
SAGrognard said:
Oh really? Prove your contention.
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Not how it works. You made the assertion of the asari being cuckoo predators; the burden of proof is on you.
But I'll bite.

We know the most about Asari evolutionary origins because they were uplifted by the Protheans.
There's nothing on their planet to suggest a secondary race to whom they could hand over their children to raise. They don't mate with non-sapients, and even in the time period of canon two thousand years hence, significant numbers of asari still mate with each other; Liara was a pureblood and raised by her mother.

So where exactly is said cuckoo behavior supposed to have come from?
Lord Hater said:
Nothing more popular than A Government protecting its own people. Just saying.
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Nothing more unpopular than a quagmire war when you promise a short victorious one.
 
uju32 said:
Okay, let me spell this out in small words.
Her only point of leverage is the hostages. That's what we want to take away.

And there are domestic considerations for us as well for hostage recovery.
They're our people, who went to Lystheni space under our guarantees of protection, and have been responsible for contributing significant chunks of our trade budget. An effort needs to be made to get them out of the line of fire.


You DO realize that anyone with the ability to build nukes on an industrial scale, such as anyone who has a nuclear armed military, can already do this, right? We had proposals for actual planetkillers in the 50s; look up Edward Teller's proposals for GNOMON and SUNDIAL.
Of all the things I worry about, a precursor superweapon does not even rate.

Yeah this is arrant nonsense.
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Nukes aren't a threat if they're not able to deliver them. But a superweapon that could destroy our fleets would leave Virmire defenseless.
 
uju32 said:
Okay, let me spell this out in small words.
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Stop being condescending. It's really not that hard.
uju32 said:
Her only point of leverage is the hostages. That's what we want to take away.
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Which means you're going to encourage similar behavior in the future. You're advocating that we hand over a group of spies in return for a group of civilians that they captured with the specific intent of using it as leverage against us. What's going to stop them from doing so again if we don't put our foot down now?
uju32 said:
And there are domestic considerations for us as well for hostage recovery.
They're our people, who went to Lystheni space under our guarantees of protection, and have been responsible for contributing significant chunks of our trade budget. An effort needs to be made to get them out of the line of fire.
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Nobody but us and our advisors is privy to the negotiations. It's not going to be a PR problem.
EDIT: And I doubt the Lystheni are going to kill them, so we'll figure out a way to get them out if we go to war.
 
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MTB said:
Iraq. Afghanistan. Middle East.
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Public reception is a only a problem if we are a democracy or republic. :V A complete quagmire might be acceptable if Mira is forced to take up the mantle of dictator great protector. (War or no war I can get something out of it. =W=)
 
Timewinders said:
Nukes aren't a threat if they're not able to deliver them. But a superweapon that could destroy our fleets would leave Virmire defenseless.
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Smuggling a nuke in a cargo container into Virmire orbit is not going to be impossible.
Not in a country where 45% of our population is Salarian.
Hell, intercepting a frigate that simply jumps into Virmire orbit from the system border, is difficult enough.

Seriously, enough with the superweapon talk.
This is Mass Effect, not Perry Rhodan or EE Smith.
Versharl said:
Stop being condescending. It's really not that hard.
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Sorry. A little annoyed, but that's no excuse for discourtesy.
Versharl said:
Which means you're going to encourage similar behavior in the future. You're advocating that we hand over a group of spies in return for a group of civilians that they captured with the specific intent of using it as leverage against us. What's going to stop them from doing so again if we don't put our foot down now?
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No we aren't. Because that's the first phase of the negotiation. Not the only one.
We are entirely capable of waiting to take our pound of flesh.
Versharl said:
Nobody but us and our advisors is privy to the negotiations. It's not going to be a PR problem.
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That isn't true. It's literally on the news.
"Despite this, the diplomatic summit to be held in the LBZ system of Carrovai remains on schedule. The Prime Minister's delegation is scheduled to arrive later today, with the Lystheni communicating that they shall do the same-"
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There will be communiques when it's done. Our chief of staff has connections with the corporations. There's almost certainly a audiovisual recording going on both sides for both our diplomats and intelligence analysts to look over.
What was discussed here is not going to remain secret.
 
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uju32 said:
That isn't true. It's literally on the news.
There will be communiques when it's done. Our chief of staff has connections with the corporations. There's almost certainly a audiovisual recording going on both sides for both our diplomats and intelligence analysts to look over.
What was discussed here is not going to remain secret.
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Plus nothing would stop Lystheni from sending copy of the negotiation to our media for political reasons. Their embassy is still functioning. We ought to be glad we gutted the corrupt parts of the government early or we will leak like a storm drain.
 
uju32 said:
Not how it works. You made the assertion of the asari being cuckoo predators; the burden of proof is on you.
But I'll bite.

We know the most about Asari evolutionary origins because they were uplifted by the Protheans.
There's nothing on their planet to suggest a secondary race to whom they could hand over their children to raise. They don't mate with non-sapients, and even in the time period of canon two thousand years hence, significant numbers of asari still mate with each other; Liara was a pureblood and raised by her mother.

So where exactly is said cuckoo behavior supposed to have come from?

Nothing more unpopular than a quagmire war when you promise a short victorious one.
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Okay, the one and only prothean sample we have is an unrepentant troll.
Jerking over 'lesser species' is socially acceptable behavior to our sample size of one.
He claims that the asari were created as prostitutes for the client races.
Setting them up as cuckoos is not exactly out of character for a troll.
And in that case yes we do know why they have behavior suitable for making sapients happy about raising their young.
It was designed into them.
You then attempt to assert evolution. I am dubious. Fifty thousand years sounded like a lot to Bioware types, but is very short in evolutionary terms.
Particularly since gengineers tend to put effort into making their design genes stable, keying them to critical metabolic paths etc.
 
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Warning: DON'T DO THIS
  • Staff Post
    • Lord Hater said:
    Hey can I let you in on a secret or two? We don't do that shit like you make it sound. An by the way, your shit smells too.

    So fuckoff.
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    don't do this Someone making a shitty 'hurr hurr Florida' joke is not license or excuse to flip out at him and start cussing up a storm in a public thread. This is not an infraction, but you've started to gain a track record of Rule 3 trouble, so keep yourself chill. Take 24 hours out of the thread to cool.
     
  • Staff Post
    • Initial thoughts: It's quite possible she's bluffing. Or, it's an initial position, which are almost always, by nature, excessive.

    After reading the responses: wow, a lot of people seem to be in a vaguely megalomaniacal* "she has defied me, war is the only response" mode. Diplomacy, from pretty much all the descriptions I've seen of it, starts with a lot of mutually incompatible positions and talking past each other. That doesn't at all mean that we can't get something reasonable out of her.
    *or having already decided that negotiations are worthless, and so not wanting to bother with them.

    I suppose I favor something like Plan Release, although I'd like to rub her nose in "the people we're holding are spies, which isn't covered by our treaty. We're being magnanimous in agreeing to this, even though we don't have to."

    [x] Plan Release

    And as for all the arguments in this vein:
    Versharl said:
    Which means you're going to encourage similar behavior in the future. You're advocating that we hand over a group of spies in return for a group of civilians that they captured with the specific intent of using it as leverage against us. What's going to stop them from doing so again if we don't put our foot down now?
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    This is the start of the negotiations, and it is intended to remove the only leverage that the Lystheni have against us. Once we get our people back, the only real restrictions on us are logistical and moral. (What our capabilities limit us to, and what we won't do because Mira has a conscience.)

    Also, could people please stop advocating things that are likely to get us declared a rogue state by the Citadel Council? (Genocide, indiscriminate planetary bombardment, etc.) Mira's likely to be around for quite a while, and I'd very much prefer for Virmire to have a reputation as at least trying to negotiate in good faith...
     
    SAGrognard said:
    Okay, the one and only prothean sample we have is an unrepentant troll.
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    Citation for this.
    If you're saying that whatsisface, the last Prothean, was making materially false statements about the origins of the species to the best of his knowledge, please give us a citation.
    SAGrognard said:
    You then attempt to assert evolution. I am dubious. Fifty thousand years sounded like a lot to Bioware types, but is very short in evolutionary terms.
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    The asari existed before the Protheans decided to uplift them. On Thessia, even; they didn't spring up ex-nihilo in a lab, they were discovered.
    That means there's an evolutionary record to backtrack prior to Prothean manipulation.
    SAGrognard said:
    Particularly since gengineers tend to put effort into making their design genes stable, keying them to critical metabolic paths etc.
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    We have zero evidence for any of this. Whether RL, or in the game.
     
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