The Practice War [Complete]

kitsune9 · Mar 22, 2017

Alright then so long as the two are linked, I'll vote for both. I don't like the wording of the wish quite as much as I like the wording of Dare but it's a workable option and it will be adjusted to fit if it wins the vote.

edit: There separate votes so I didn't want say the first part to lose because I voted for the second one.

[X] I dare because it is humanity's gift. Like Prometheus before them; the dragons gave us fire. You state that we dare profane a gift. How dare you tell us what we should do with the last gift of those you murdered.
[X] "You say we profane it? I say you dishonor it! This gift is the legacy of the dragons you slew without mercy, honor, or justice, and I wield it to protect my people. If you think your cause is so righteous, then I want to Understand!"

edit again: Then how am I supposed to add your wish to the earlier option
[] Plan Daring Understanding
edit: adding X's once more

Coda · Mar 22, 2017

Er... no, you can't mark two votes; they're NOT linked. I meant, whatever you vote for last is the vote that counts for you.

ArdanKhael · Mar 22, 2017

Rask said:
What benefit do we gain from Truth? We send info to the SL, who will be absolutely sure it's true. All right. Now what? Is it supposed to see the error of its ways?

I wrote this down when I first posted the option, but basically it's reaction tells us wether they are aware of what they are actually doing. If they aren't, we can make a social attack on their very society, if they are we can tell the uninvolved that the Shiplords are actually worse then thought and get them involved. Either way, we get valuable intel from his reaction, while him swearing at us may yield some nuggets of valuable intel, but it may also be lying.

The other advantage is that he stays distracted and therefore less likely to break free before reinforcements arrive. I suspect if we get a crit or high enough roll the rest of the fleet may be getting distracted as well.

These are the ones I can think of, who knows what Snowfire has in mind as well?

Snowfire · Mar 22, 2017

Coda said:
Actually... @Snowfire, would this be a meaningful way of structuring the option?

[] Speak Understand
- [] "I have done nothing but defend my people, but I don't know why we have to fight like this. I want to Understand. Why the tribute slaughter? Why the fleet games?" (Plan: Secrets Unveiled)
- [] "You say we profane it? I say you dishonor it! This gift is the legacy of the dragons you slew without mercy, honor, or justice, and I wield it to protect my people. If you think your cause is so righteous, then I want to Understand!"

I'm not sure it would work in terms of separating the vote out, especially if people were voting for both. Someone with more knowledge of NetTally would have to weigh in on this.

kitsune9 · Mar 22, 2017

Snowfire said:
I'm not sure it would work in terms of separating the vote out, especially if people were voting for both. Someone with more knowledge of NetTally would have to weigh in on this.

What did you mean when you said that the Understanding wish, could be added to the dare vote. Are you going to automatically combine them because they work together or was it people can vote for both of them because they don't conflict and can both go into the update.

edit: sorry

Snowfire · Mar 22, 2017

kitsune9 said:
What did you mean when you said that Understanding, could be added to the dare wish. Are you going to automatically combine them because they work together or was it something else.

I'm a little hesitant to add Understanding directly to the 'I dare' ones, because those involved didn't directly vote for it. At the same time, the words and intent behind the statement are close enough to function with each other, so I may do so anyway.

The primary issue is putting two separate sentences together with the Understanding vote like Coda did. Yours was actually fine, I can mash the Understanding together with I dare.

It's more that these two options, currently in the lead:

- [] "I have done nothing but defend my people, but I don't know why we have to fight like this. I want to Understand. Why the tribute slaughter? Why the fleet games?" (Plan: Secrets Unveiled)
- [] "You say we profane it? I say you dishonor it! This gift is the legacy of the dragons you slew without mercy, honor, or justice, and I wield it to protect my people. If you think your cause is so righteous, then I want to Understand!"

are very different.

The Word is actually (I can't believe I'm saying this) secondary, it's what Amanda says right now that's important to the next update.

Rask · Mar 22, 2017

ArdanKhael said:
I wrote this down when I first posted the option, but basically it's reaction tells us wether they are aware of what they are actually doing. If they aren't, we can make a social attack on their very society, if they are we can tell the uninvolved that the Shiplords are actually worse then thought and get them involved. Either way, we get valuable intel from his reaction, while him swearing at us may yield some nuggets of valuable intel, but it may also be lying.

The other advantage is that he stays distracted and therefore less likely to break free before reinforcements arrive. I suspect if we get a crit or high enough roll the rest of the fleet may be getting distracted as well.

These are the ones I can think of, who knows what Snowfire has in mind as well?

I'm pretty sure the Shiplords know exactly what they are doing. They had billions of potential human test subjects to refine their understanding of how humans work. Case in point: the SL commander knew enough about human psychology to create an opening he could use against Amanda. Being confronted with Amanda's perspective on their actions may not necessarily impress them. "Silly human, it thinks it's people."

As for being worse than thought: it's pretty hard to top abducting most of the population and using it for spare parts. There's also better ways to stop the Shiplord from breaking free - like just mending the cracks in his prison.

kitsune9 · Mar 22, 2017

Snowfire said:
The Word is actually (I can't believe I'm saying this) secondary, it's what Amanda says right now that's important to the next update.

I know that if voting for the second understanding variant made it more likely for the first variant to beat out the Dare vote I would drop it, word or not. I added it because it didn't conflict with the vote I wanted to win and I didn't see the harm in including it.

As for linking it to the dare vote. I think your going to have to use your judgement as a GM on that one.

Coda · Mar 22, 2017

So really there's two votes here: One for what to say, and one for what word to Speak if any. This means that my proposed structure is upside-down. I don't know how to organize that for NetTally in order to HAVE the votes run at the same time, but basically it's:

* What to say
- * Dare
- * Why
* Words of Power
- * Do not use
- * Understand
- * Truth

Snowfire · Mar 22, 2017

Coda said:
So really there's two votes here: One for what to say, and one for what word to Speak if any. This means that my proposed structure is upside-down. I don't know how to organize that for NetTally in order to HAVE the votes run at the same time, but basically it's:

* What to say
- * Dare
- * Why
* Words of Power
- * Do not use
- * Understand
- * Truth

You can make it partition the votes. I think the correct setting for this would be 'by line' but I can look up the wiki to check.

But yes, your post is pretty much completely correct. It's an issue I'm finding with extensive write-in votes where your options are very open, but I honestly am not sure how to deal with that when your options need to be that open to allow for meaningful choice and storytelling control by you the players.

Any suggestions on how to fix this would be incredibly appreciated.

noliar · Mar 22, 2017

Snowfire said:
Ok, folks?

I appreciate this debate, I really do, it shows that you're involved and that you're passionate about the quest and there's no greater gift a QM could be given. But at the same time, some of you need to calm down. Something that I've been trying to do this entire quest is reward you for keeping to character, even when it's sub-optimal, or at the very least not punish. Opinions on character aside however, there are few things that I'm pretty sure I've stated before are not the case coming into this debate.

There is no communications link to Shiplord 'Fleet Command' or what have you. Lagless communications cannot punch a signal through interstellar space without purpose built and large installations to do so. I have said this before, but it seems to merit being said again. There are no Shiplords thousands of lightyears away watching or puppeting the ships you're fighting. It's just the Tribute Fleet and their crews.

Your scan-sat network around the heliopause would have detected the separation of a courier from the Shiplord fleet. It has not. Therefore, no such courier or observer exists. Aliens, what can you do.

On the nature of Practice, however, I will quote the OP here.

I am not saying that that's all there is to it, but this is known in as much as humanity knows anything about Practice.

So, take a breath, and have a fresh vote tally. For reference, I am merging @MTB's Secret's Unveiled plan with the verbal responses similar to it, as the orders currently present in the rest of the plan are what Lina and co. would be doing anyway.

Vote Tally : Original - Sci-Fi - The Practice War | Page 162 | Sufficient Velocity
##### NetTally 1.7.10.1

[9] I dare because it is humanity's gift. Like Prometheus before them; the dragons gave us fire. You state that we dare profane a gift. How dare you tell us what we should do with the last gift of those you murdered.
[6] Plan: Secrets Unveiled?
-[6] Plan: MTB — https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/posts/8119032
[5] 'I pity you... to see only such as small part and misunderstand so completely' Speak 'TRUTH' and send it your memories of what you experienced tapping into the aura (or however you want to describe it) of the Medicament cruiser.
[3] "Desecrator? I saw your ship! I saw what you did to my people! AND YOU CALL ME A DESECRATOR?"
[2] "You say we profane it? I say you dishonor it! This gift is the legacy of the dragons you slew without mercy, honor, or justice, and I wield it to protect my people. If you think your cause is so righteous, then I want to Understand!"
[1] Plan: ◈Death Sign — https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/posts/8111747
[1] Plan Gank The Support
[1] they are bound for now escape the bridge and meet up with your reinforcements
[1] Plan: ◈Threat Management and Intelligence — https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/posts/8116460

Total No. of Voters: 29

I will say that @Coda's integration of the currently winning option is a good one if you wish to add Speaking a Word to Amanda's response.

Adding onto that, I am aware that making this a ranked vote may have been more open, but I actually have a reason for not doing so this time.

Shiplords are good at stealth, the solar system is huge and this is not Amanda's area of expertise. Amanda has no business making that assumption. Further, the ships in the battle are fast and tough enough that they have a good chance of some running away if they all commit to that, which may happen at any time, especially if they have important intelligence.

I believe you when you say there is no monitoring ship but that information is so OC that I'd consider it cheating to base IC decisions on it.

It is wildly out of character for Amanda to act so sub-optimally in a fight with all these lives on the line. She's an experienced politician, she's been doing combat training, for ten years she's been preparing for this war including oversight of security and counter intelligence - she isn't going to get suckered by a leading insult no matter how passionately she wants to refute it. I expect her to have the moral confidence to remember that she does not owe the Shiplords an explanation. I expect her to have the info-sec discipline not to put any unnecessary detail into a question.

The things she wants to say are the things she says to the mirror in between the weeping and vomiting after the battle.

TheEyes · Mar 22, 2017

Snowfire said:
You can make it partition the votes. I think the correct setting for this would be 'by line' but I can look up the wiki to check.

But yes, your post is pretty much completely correct. It's an issue I'm finding with extensive write-in votes where your options are very open, but I honestly am not sure how to deal with that when your options need to be that open to allow for meaningful choice and storytelling control by you the players.

Any suggestions on how to fix this would be incredibly appreciated.

If you want to do something like the above, the best way I think is to partition by Task. Kinematics actually wrote a whole manual on how to use the tally program; the section on creating Tasks is here:

Task

Following the bracketed marker, you may optionally include a 'task' contained in brackets. For example:
[x][Name] Rose

A task identifies a vote line that can be grouped and compared with other votes with the same task value when constructing the final tally output.
A task may be added to any line, however only the first line of a partitioned component will have its task used to identify the entire component.
[x][Name] Rose
[x][Race] Hydrangea
-[x][Element] Earth

In the above example, if the vote was not partitioned, the task would be Name. If the vote was partitioned by block, you'd have Name and Race as the identified tasks, since the Element line would be part of the Race block. If the vote was partitioned by line, all three tasks would be used for grouping.
Note that ranked votes are always partitioned by line, and that base plans are considered one entire block if the vote is partitioned by block, regardless of any other indented elements.

So if you wanted to have people vote:

[][WORD] Understand
[][Dialogue] "I have done nothing but defend my people, but I don't know why we have to fight like this. Why the tribute slaughter? Why the fleet games?"

That would be a thing you can do, but really I think we're far enough along that this would just be more confusing. Something to keep in mind for next time though?

Snowfire · Mar 22, 2017

TheEyes said:
If you want to do something like the above, the best way I think is to partition by Task. Kinematics actually wrote a whole manual on how to use the tally program; the section on creating Tasks is here:

So if you wanted to have people vote:

[][WORD] Understand
[][Dialogue] "I have done nothing but defend my people, but I don't know why we have to fight like this. Why the tribute slaughter? Why the fleet games?"

That would be a thing you can do, but really I think we're far enough along that this would just be more confusing. Something to keep in mind for next time though?

Thank you! I will need to make time to read that manual.

Given that the voting choices seem to have solidified at this point, I'm tempted to treat the pages since the update as a preliminary and do a final vote here. It seems to happen a lot with the pure write-in options I've been giving, so I might just have to start making that a trend when I give open-ended write-ins. Which I will continue to do so where it matters.

Would anyone object to me moving to this being standard in these cases? It does extend the votes somewhat, but it gets a better read of your opinions in a lot of cases. I would probably use partition by Task in this case. I understand it's asking 30+ people to vote all over again, but I think past examples have shown it gives more clarity to run a preliminary and then move from there. As I don't want to start pushing in voting moratoriums of multiple days (the only other way I can think of to work through this) this seems like the only viable option.

TheEyes · Mar 22, 2017

Snowfire said:
Thank you! I will need to make time to read that manual.

Given that the voting choices seem to have solidified at this point, I'm tempted to treat the pages since the update as a preliminary and do a final vote here. It seems to happen a lot with the pure write-in options I've been giving, so I might just have to start making that a trend when I give open-ended write-ins. Which I will continue to do so where it matters.

Would anyone object to me moving to this being standard in these cases? It does extend the votes somewhat, but it gets a better read of your opinions in a lot of cases. I would probably use partition by Task in this case. I understand it's asking 30+ people to vote all over again, but I think past examples have shown it gives more clarity to run a preliminary and then move from there. As I don't want to start pushing in voting moratoriums of multiple days (the only other way I can think of to work through this) this seems like the only viable option.

So basically voting in two phases, with plan proposals first then ranked task-partitioned voting second? I can get behind that.

kitsune9 · Mar 22, 2017

edit: So long as you use some way to get people to show up for the second round it works for me.

noliar said:
It is wildly out of character for Amanda to act so sub-optimally in a fight with all these lives on the line.

I don't agree but for reference

We know exactly how stealthy they are, we also know how good our scanners are. The fact that these two pieces of information combine to tell us that their aren't stealth ships in hiding is a piece of reasonable in character knowledge. If nothing else because we had those experts nearby giving us reports as their fleet spent hours closing in.
Their ships could run, however the fact that we have practice at all is huge certainly bigger then any other information they could get from this and their response was blind rage and charging in for the kill not sending someone home with a message. Which makes it reasonable to believe that they won't choose to run over something that we say.

Coda · Mar 22, 2017

Two-phase voting seems good to me. +1

Snowfire · Mar 22, 2017

TheEyes said:
So basically voting in two phases, with plan proposals first then ranked task-partitioned voting second? I can get behind that.

Exactly. I'll give it a bit of time to see if any others weigh in, then put together another temp threadmark.

WTB an @Thread alert trigger for the quest forum...
I should really actually write this up as a suggestion

Sightsear · Mar 22, 2017

Snowfire said:
Thank you! I will need to make time to read that manual.

Given that the voting choices seem to have solidified at this point, I'm tempted to treat the pages since the update as a preliminary and do a final vote here. It seems to happen a lot with the pure write-in options I've been giving, so I might just have to start making that a trend when I give open-ended write-ins. Which I will continue to do so where it matters.

Would anyone object to me moving to this being standard in these cases? It does extend the votes somewhat, but it gets a better read of your opinions in a lot of cases. I would probably use partition by Task in this case. I understand it's asking 30+ people to vote all over again, but I think past examples have shown it gives more clarity to run a preliminary and then move from there. As I don't want to start pushing in voting moratoriums of multiple days (the only other way I can think of to work through this) this seems like the only viable option.

I like it! Hopefully it won't turn into an abomination that turns upon its masters, but otherwise formalizing this structure seems pretty reasonable!

2684

PrimalShadow · Mar 22, 2017

Snowfire said:
Would anyone object to me moving to this being standard in these cases? It does extend the votes somewhat, but it gets a better read of your opinions in a lot of cases.

I'm not the biggest fan of this idea. Mind you, sometimes doing a preliminary phase is necessary - especially if there are multiple write-ins and the leading option has rotated a decent amount throughout the course of the vote - but when applied universally it has the chance to stretch boring votes out unnecessarily.

Snowfire · Mar 22, 2017

PrimalShadow said:
I'm not the biggest fan of this idea. Mind you, sometimes doing a preliminary phase is necessary - especially if there are multiple write-ins and the leading option has rotated a decent amount throughout the course of the vote - but when applied universally it has the chance to stretch boring votes out unnecessarily.

It would only be for the ones with major numbers of write-ins and/or where a different voting style would allow for a clearer result.

I would not be applying it to turn votes or more clear-cut ones. I'm not that insane

PrimalShadow · Mar 22, 2017

Snowfire said:
It would only be for the ones with major numbers of write-ins and/or where a different voting style would allow for a clearer result.

It is not always clear a-priori that a given vote will have a major number of write-ins. This is why I think that this 2-phase voting is best applied on a case-by-case basis, not as a standard.

Snowfire · Mar 22, 2017

PrimalShadow said:
It is not always clear a-priori that a given vote will have a major number of write-ins. This is why I think that this 2-phase voting is best applied on a case-by-case basis, not as a standard.

I mean, if one option is clearly winning, then I'd waive the second stage. It's more for cases like this one, which have been reasonably common over the character focused combat interludes the last few weeks, and written up somewhere so that people are prepared for it.

Putting together the temp-threadmark now, it'll go up shortly. Thank you all for your advice <3

Snowfire · Mar 22, 2017

So the current vote, mutilated as it is, stands thus:

Vote Tally : Original - Sci-Fi - The Practice War | Page 162 | Sufficient Velocity
##### NetTally 1.7.10.1

[11] I dare because it is humanity's gift. Like Prometheus before them; the dragons gave us fire. You state that we dare profane a gift. How dare you tell us what we should do with the last gift of those you murdered.
[8] Plan: ◈Secrets Unveiled? — https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/posts/8122867
[5] 'I pity you... to see only such as small part and misunderstand so completely' Speak 'TRUTH' and send it your memories of what you experienced tapping into the aura (or however you want to describe it) of the Medicament cruiser.
[3] "Desecrator? I saw your ship! I saw what you did to my people! AND YOU CALL ME A DESECRATOR?"
[1] Plan: ◈Death Sign — https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/posts/8111747
[1] Plan: ◈Threat Management and Intelligence — https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/posts/8116460
[1] Plan Gank The Support
[1] they are bound for now escape the bridge and meet up with your reinforcements

Total No. of Voters: 31

For the purposes of this vote, I'm going to list the top three, and all Words that have been suggested to go with them.

[][WORD] Understand
[][WORD] Truth
[][WORD] None

[][Dialogue] "I have done nothing but defend my people, but I don't know why we have to fight like this. Why the tribute slaughter? Why the fleet games?"
[][Dialogue] "I dare because it is humanity's gift. Like Prometheus before them; the dragons gave us fire. You state that we dare profane a gift. How dare you tell us what we should do with the last gift of those you murdered."
[][Dialogue] "I pity you... to see only such as small part and misunderstand so completely"
[][Dialogue] Write-in

This will be a Task Based Ranked vote (see below for details)

Task

Following the bracketed marker, you may optionally include a 'task' contained in brackets. For example:
[x][Name] Rose

A task identifies a vote line that can be grouped and compared with other votes with the same task value when constructing the final tally output.
A task may be added to any line, however only the first line of a partitioned component will have its task used to identify the entire component.
[x][Name] Rose
[x][Race] Hydrangea
-[x][Element] Earth

In the above example, if the vote was not partitioned, the task would be Name. If the vote was partitioned by block, you'd have Name and Race as the identified tasks, since the Element line would be part of the Race block. If the vote was partitioned by line, all three tasks would be used for grouping.
Note that ranked votes are always partitioned by line, and that base plans are considered one entire block if the vote is partitioned by block, regardless of any other indented elements.

Ranked Votes
Ranked votes allow you to set a preference order for individual vote options. The aggregate result will be calculated based on the currently selected algorithm in Global Options. The default uses the Ranked Instant Runoff algorithm. See the page on Ranked Voting for more details on algorithm selection.
Example vote:
[1] Sword
[2] Spear
The above vote would indicate that your first preference for a weapon is a sword, and that your second choice (if sword doesn't win) is a spear.

You may vote for multiple different rankings within the same post if you identify them by task. For example, if you want to do rankings for both the character's weapon and their background at the same time, you might have:
[1][Weapon] Sword
[2][Weapon] Spear

[1][Background] Squire
[2][Background] Noble

As will shortly be included within the Mechanics Corner section, Two-Stage Voting of this type will be the go-to process in the event of pure Write-in votes like this one, if only to allow for codification of plans and for leaders to emerge. In the event that one option is sweeping the board, I will waive this. Given that I have already done this several times now in character focused votes, clarifying it seemed like a wise idea.

TheEyes · Mar 22, 2017

Snowfire said:
[][Dialogue] "I have done nothing but defend my people, but I don't know why we have to fight like this. Why the tribute slaughter? Why the fleet games?"
[][Dialogue] "I have done nothing but defend my people, but I don't know why we have to fight like this. I want to Understand. (Why the tribute slaughter? Why the fleet games?)"

Aren't these the same thing? What happened to the "throw OpSec out the window" option that the majority apparently voted for?

And we should be using ranked votes for this, to prevent strategic voting.

Snowfire · Mar 22, 2017

TheEyes said:
Aren't these the same thing? What happened to the "throw OpSec out the window" option that the majority apparently voted for?

And we should be using ranked votes for this, to prevent strategic voting.

Flub. My copy-pasta is weak. And alteration to ranked will be up in the next few moments. You're right.

The Practice War [Complete]

Polyglot of Chimera

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Polyglot of Chimera