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The Last Daughter -- Dragon-Blooded Sorcery School Quest

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dptullos said:
We have consequences
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Consequences we may only be exasperating by revealing our sworn kin status. It gives Maia an Alibi yes, but in the eyes of some it also provides a motive. Ambraea is after all a known enemy of Peleps Nalri. It comes down to whether we trust the exalted girl trained to be an assassin for over a decade to have covered her tracks well enough.

While some will be convinced by our testimony other will only be convinced of our complicity and Maia's where before there might have been many suspects. The timing of the reveal will look particularly suspicious to some.
 
[X] Announce your status as Maia's sworn kin, lie to protect her

Would feel kind of hypocritical to me to do otherwise?
 
Romv said:
[X] Announce your status as Maia's sworn kin, lie to protect her

Would feel kind of hypocritical to me to do otherwise?
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Don't only look at this as protecting Maia vs not protecting Maia. Do you think Maia is likely too be caught and punished? Then announce the hearthmate and give her an Alibi. If you think she did a good job covering her tracks? Vote to leave things be and avoid drawing more attention to the two of them.
Randino Treviani said:
Consequences we may only be exasperating by revealing our sworn kin status. It gives Maia an Alibi yes, but in the eyes of some it also provides a motive. Ambraea is after all a known enemy of Peleps Nalri. It comes down to whether we trust the exalted girl trained to be an assassin for over a decade to have covered her tracks well enough.

While some will be convinced by our testimony other will only be convinced of our complicity and Maia's where before there might have been many suspects. The timing of the reveal will look particularly suspicious to some.
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These are some of the deeper nuances to the situation. There is also Clan Iselsi's response and the Empress's as well. There is risk in both of these and comes down to whether you prefer to trust Maia's competence or Ambraea's status more. At least that's my take on things.
 
Randino Treviani said:
Consequences we may only be exasperating by revealing our sworn kin status. It gives Maia an Alibi yes, but in the eyes of some it also provides a motive. Ambraea is after all a known enemy of Peleps Nalri. It comes down to whether we trust the exalted girl trained to be an assassin for over a decade to have covered her tracks well enough.

While some will be convinced by our testimony other will only be convinced of our complicity and Maia's where before there might have been many suspects. The timing of the reveal will look particularly suspicious to some.
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I was distracted by the voters who said that this was Maia's problem, not our problem.

However, you are right to say that it may be best for us to simply trust in her expertise as an assassin.
 
[x] Attempt to keep the secret for at least another year, stay out of it

She did this to keep us from having to act on it. So let's test that.
 
Randino Treviani said:
Don't only look at this as protecting Maia vs not protecting Maia. Do you think Maia is likely too be caught and punished? Then announce the hearthmate and give her an Alibi. If you think she did a good job covering her tracks? Vote to leave things be and avoid drawing more attention to the two of them.
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I'm not sure that this is really what the vote is about. The way I read it and Gazetteer's explanation , suspicion is guaranteed to fall on Maia. The vote is about whether we vouch for her, clearing her from any legal consequences, or we let Maia handle the suspicion herself.

I don't think Maia is going to be caught entirely if we don't vouch for her, but I think she will run into quite a bit of trouble with the school, House Peleps, and/or the legal system.
 
PeepTheSheep said:
I'm not sure that this is really what the vote is about. The way I read it and Gazetteer's explanation , suspicion is guaranteed to fall on Maia. The vote is about whether we vouch for her, clearing her from any legal consequences, or we let Maia handle the suspicion herself.

I don't think Maia is going to be caught entirely if we don't vouch for her, but I think she will run into quite a bit of trouble with the school, House Peleps, and/or the legal system.
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Can the QM clarify? I changed my vote without really changing my mind. For me, the question is not whether we will intervene to aid Maia, but whether actively intervening would do more harm than good.
 
dptullos said:
Can the QM clarify? I changed my vote without really changing my mind. For me, the question is not whether we will intervene to aid Maia, but whether actively intervening would do more harm than good.
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I think these two posts from the vote and the QM make it clear that intervening will only help Maia:
Gazetteer said:
However, you have it in your power to give Maia a false alibi that no one will be able to contest without publicly calling you a liar: As Maia's Hearthmate, your word about where she was when Nalri went missing would carry great weight, should it come into question.
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Gazetteer said:
Since people seem to be misunderstanding what this choice represents, please remember that this vote is not about just saying "we're hearthmates and I can vouch for her" out of nowhere, it is about whether or not you say this when the question of "did Maia have anything to do with this" comes up anyway.
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The vote is about whether we want Ambraea to get dragged in to the situation by helping Maia, or to stay out and let Maia face the full brunt of the consequences.
 
PeepTheSheep said:
I think these two posts from the vote and the QM make it clear that intervening will only help Maia:

The vote is about whether we want Ambraea to get dragged in to the situation by helping Maia, or to stay out and let Maia face the full brunt of the consequences.
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Thanks, this helps a lot!

I am changing my vote back. While I am willing to trust in Maia's skills as an assassin, I definitely want Ambraea to come to her aid if she gets in trouble.
 
PeepTheSheep said:
I think these two posts from the vote and the QM make it clear that intervening will only help Maia:



The vote is about whether we want Ambraea to get dragged in to the situation by helping Maia, or to stay out and let Maia face the full brunt of the consequences.
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This is correct. The one where Ambraea lies for Maia exposes her to more risk, and makes her complicit in Maia having literally murdered their classmate, but it can shut down suspicion unless someone is literally willing to call Ambraea a liar. Ambraea's mom will have an opinion about this (you don't know exactly what this opinion will be).

The option to just keep quiet leaves Maia to deal with it, and maybe she does, but it doesn't attach Ambraea as directly to any potential consequences. This isn't secretly the option that's less likely to get Maia punished at all.

The things you should be keeping most in mind for this vote are:

- What kind of message does this action send to Maia, particularly in light of that argument she and Ambraea had? What kind of relationship do they have? How deep does your disapproval of this course of action run?
- Do you want Ambraea to be known as the person who swore a Hearth oath with her secondary school girlfriend in their fifth year? This has benefits for this situation, but cannot be taken back.
 
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Ambraea: "My 'my girlfriend and hearthmate was not involved in Nalri's murder' shirt has people asking a lot of questions already answered by my shirt."
 
Gazetteer said:
What kind of message does this action send to Maia, particularly in light of that argument she and Ambraea had?
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Yeah.

Not a vote I particularly want to think about, but at least one of Maia's objectives here is to protect Ambraea. Ambraea being complicit, putting her reputation at risk, etc, isn't going to make her happy.

Meanwhile, there's only so high a priority Maia is going to give her own self preservation. Ambraea becoming complicit is probably the most effective punishment Ambraea is actually willing to carry out for the murder. But to punish someone is to claim the right to punish someone.
 
[X] Announce your status as Maia's sworn kin, lie to protect her

So there are several things at play here. On the one hand, we could trust Maia to have done her job well. On the other hand, she wasn't acting out of what her job would consider good reasons, so there's no reason to expect her execution to be up to snuff either. Lying may protect her from legal consequences unless someone is willing to publicly call Ambraea a liar, but that does nothing to prevent people from drawing their own conclusions and privately taking extralegal measures, which we've kind of surrendered any standing to complain about, under the circumstances.

So I don't think this is necessarily the right move; I suspect that as a matter both of Dynastic politics and of playing the odds the correct course is to let Maia deal with a cloud of suspicion that she successfully prevents from conclusively closing on her, while letting everyone else assume that she acted unilaterally. What I do think is that this is the Ambraea move, for good or ill.
Gazetteer said:
- What kind of message does this action send to Maia, particularly in light of that argument she and Ambraea had? What kind of relationship do they have? How deep does your disapproval of this course of action run?
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It's a real mess because Maia is simultaneously looking to objectify herself (justify her actions as acting as a weapon on our behalf) while leaning on deep personal bonds to justify acting autonomously (I will do things that you don't want and have specifically told me not to do, for your own good). Telling her "I don't want you to unilaterally take on huge risks to yourself, for my sake, against my wishes, and if you do so I will step in to help protect you from the consequences, even at cost to me, which I hope might discourage you from trying again" can be read as "I won't respect your right to make decisions about what risks you're willing to take, or what you value and how you weigh the balance, even if I disagree with them".
 
Gazetteer said:
- What kind of message does this action send to Maia, particularly in light of that argument she and Ambraea had? What kind of relationship do they have?
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That, in my opinion, is the single biggest issue. Because when you become really seriously involved with someone, you don't get to pick and choose to only have their back when they've handled everything in their lives perfectly, you either have their back in tough times or you don't. And if you don't, well, you're not really that serious, are you?

It's not really a very subtle message, telling Maia "Good luck with that murder charge, I could help out but that would be bad for my reputation, so...yeah, no." That's a pretty clear signal where she stands with Ambraea, and it's more on the order of "expendable tool" rather than "loved one".
 
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