True, this Turn doesn't need it and we don't know what's coming next Turn - I don't even remember what Seeds we've already used 🤷
Unless Shattered Archive is our plan for next Turn, in which maybe a Seed might help?
The Secrets' Crusade
- Thread starter Snowfire
- Start date
- Original Sci-Fi
Unless Shattered Archive is our plan for next Turn, in which maybe a Seed might help?
Dmol8
The Undead Unhinged Lunatic of the Web
- Location
- Belgrade,Serbia
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Maybe someone else can figure that out. I just threw together this plan because it seemed obvious to me that we need to take a turn to collect what we have gained already into a more useful shape before moving forward.
Snowfire
Polyglot of Chimera
- Location
- Wordcats
You have a Magi Seed, which is a heavily research based outpost that can match the Adamant's lagless computer core in terms of output. More Seeds are a risk/reward game as whilst very well disguised each additional one ticks up the chance of discovery (not by a lot, these are covert systems, but by some). There's more detail on the two types of Seed currently available and what they're good at in the informational Trailblazer Sidebar.
But they also give you more coverage and ability to easily connect your systems to points of interest. One of the actions you used last turn was to connect the Consolat Archive to your base via hardline, letting you pull out the data and manipulate it safely, unlocking the Shattered Archive action. This isn't something you can do with some of the other locations because you're too far away to link things on a way that could be easily kept hidden.
Your Magi outpost is relatively convenient to all locations, mind, the plan that won that turn built it in the third location listed in the Informational Threadmark, close to the spire. If you want to continue with a research heavy turn, you could shove an action at upgrading it and building out the lab/computer sections, boosting Research actions or those like them.
If you want to investigate things, spend some time studying the Spire's very odd energy signature? Then you probably want to shove a Yume sensor module onto the base chassis. Seeds were designed to be very customisable beyond their core template, to allow for the shifting needs of a given location and/or parameters of a given mission.
Putting it more simply; if you choose to upgrade, I'll provide options to support potential plan goals - and not just the ones of a winning plan. There's a reason that upgrading leads to a subvote.
At the moment, there's no massive need for a new Seed outpost anywhere else, but that's based on current knowledge. If you want to forward plan a frontier outpost, for example, you can absolutely do so.
One other point, for you @Dmol8. The Lending action is capable of supporting Underpinned. It has more limits than a Delving action focused on the biocomputer, but it can do so. The university was AI primary, but it studied reality physics as a secondary topic. There's a growing suspicion that every Consolat institute for further education did that, at one level or another.
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Good to know that, then do you mind updating us if this changes IC in future turns?
I see no reason to modify the current winning plan since we really do need to consolidate and wait for new options to open up anyway.
Well, that's everything in this current stage of the Quest, so nothing new there (but good to have it explicitly stated out)
Snowfire
Polyglot of Chimera
- Location
- Wordcats
If a task is felt to require an upgrade or a full new Seed to support it, you will be told as soon as the characters involved realise that this is the case.
Dmol8
The Undead Unhinged Lunatic of the Web
- Location
- Belgrade,Serbia
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Is the use of Lending action on Underpinned going to get us something more/different than using it on Immaculate Evergreens?
Snowfire
Polyglot of Chimera
- Location
- Wordcats
Immaculate Evergreen is the core archive of the Consolat species on the subject. Lending is a uni library.
But Lending doesn't require you to pass knowledge checks to get anywhere. It will give you (Mary: significantly) less information overall, but it's going to be actively helpful in providing it.
In that case I still think its better to have this under Evergreen, because Mary can't do as much with this as Amanda can (compared to baseline) wrt Evergreen and Underpinnings respectively?
(Because by the sounds of things Amanda won't even know what to look for for Evergreen, and Mary already knows most of what this stuff is for Underpinnings. Unless we can assign Mary to Evergreen although her research AP is already occupied?)
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Snowfire
Polyglot of Chimera
- Location
- Wordcats
Mary gets automatic research AP, so no concern there on having her pulled away. If you go with Evergreens, she will be 100% be taking lead on that. Iris really doesn't enjoy the feeling of a place that has so much data running through it that it almost gives her claustrophobia.
[X] Plan: For the Forest Calls the Rain Edited
-[X] Delve: Immaculate Evergreens 2 AP
-[X] Ripples 2 AP
-[X] Visions in the Jump Mary AP + 1 AP
-[X] Practised Restraint 1 AP
-[X] Spend some time with your family. This will be a balm to you all.
-[X] Dedicate personal time to try and understand how you've all made so much progress in the last few weeks. Maybe it's just luck and new data. Maybe.
Alright then, if people feel like gambling to get something else done now? I'm not sure whether having a floor on how little information we can get is worth though, what do you people think?
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
"Practice. Not Research." Delightful.
Snowfire
Polyglot of Chimera
- Location
- Wordcats
Hey, she's right
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] Plan: For the Forest Calls the Rain:
It's Research AP, not Mary AP, but the plan itself is fine.
It's Research AP, not Mary AP, but the plan itself is fine.
- Location
- Queensland, Australia
I mean, there was a fair bit of discussion on dropping a Yume seed at either the second or fourth locations, as that gives us access to system-level scanning, absolute scanning of anything on the planet (up to the Yume's sensor limits at least) and also means we have a Main Base that can be expanded to include any facility which doesn't need immediate proximity to a site for best use. Though the recent discoveries about the forest next to the fourth site suggests we'll probably be wanting to have either a Magi or a variant of it focused on data storage and processing over research module installed on it.
Impetuous Insights
Snowfire
Polyglot of Chimera
- Location
- Wordcats
Everan's veil felt stiff around him, as if restricted by the intangible tension threaded across the little bridge of the creche-group's transport. Aki-lai had never been built for analysis, and it showed, but Shiplord technology was built to be easily reconfigurable. They'd made the most of that in the last few weeks, drifting aimlessly across the featureless black of near-deep space, just within relay range.
"I believe we have something," Niden said, calm certainty reflecting in every angle of his veil. He stood at the centre of the bridge, surrounded by a gently pulsing weave of data. Some true, much inference, but he'd never have asked the group here to talk about nothing. "There are other possibilities, and the issues of comparison hold. But Krea was right when we started this."
The dreamer of the creche-group had been quick to point out that they were some of the only non-Hearthguard to have spoken with the object of the enormous search now silently consuming so much of internal network capacity. It didn't change that they were utterly, hilariously, outgunned by the processing power those networks could bring to bear. But it did give them something that the primary search didn't seem to have: a direct, personal connection and the identity markers to go with it.
It wasn't all of them, and it was only a short while, she'd said. But it was for a moment that mattered. We got to see them react to what the Sorrowful said, and we all saw the calm-shock they presented afterwards.
It had been a shock to hear that from her. Krea had passion, yes, and heart. But reading the intricacies of veils had never been a specialty of hers. For her to see that first, long enough ahead to point it out and be a surprise? It had been a clear statement of how much this meant to her, to pay such close attention. And it had forced the rest of the creche-group to reexamine their assumptions on the nature of the trio who they'd shared the Sorrowful's broadcast with.
Which had, too, led them to the data Niden had just finished analysing.
"What finds?" Raine asked. Her own veil fluttered with something that wasn't quite impatience. No matter personal feelings, everyone wanted to know what Niden must have found to call this meeting.
"It took some doing," he began, his veil shifting gracefully through edges of diligence. "But I was able to query the general visitor records for our recent friends. I then spent two more interstellar queries on confirming the data, because it just didn't make sense."
"What do you m-" Krea had stepped up close to the web of data Niden had strung together, subtle manipulators of her veil brushing across it, reading the markers. But she froze in place as she brushed one of the largest intersections, veil spiking with tension a moment later, rippling markers that were edged on fear.
"As Krea has just found," Niden's veil twitched, enlarging the data node his creche-sib had touched for the others present. "These are the dates that the system has logged for the three we met, and the rest of their pilgrim group. Third, First, Second and Fourth."
At first glance, the dates were just that, markers in the galactic standard that the Shiplords had used for millions of cycles. But Krea's reaction, and Niden's focus, forced the others to look closer. And as they did, something tugged at Everan's thoughts, something missing in the numbers. Niden's veil flickered the motion of a raised hand, asking for time to finish. Surprisingly, Krea gave it, even as she turned away from the model, the angles of her veil shifting, excitement rising to replace fear.
"And as I'm sure you're seeing, the travel times don't line up." Niden made a small gesture with a manipulator, lines extended between the four Sorrows, connecting them in a chain. Text flickered out from each line, two lines. One was the expected travel times between each connected Sorrow, rote data, easily available. The other was the time it had actually taken for the creche-group they'd sat with to make the journeys.
"It's not until you compare them that you realise exactly how far out the numbers are. I've run a comparison on the current figures for an old-model Pacifier drive," a third line of text flickered into being next to the rest as he spoke. "It's much faster, and might be enough if somehow they got their hands on one of the new drives, if the output estimates are right. But that just raises even more questions. We all know how much those drives cost, and the number of them outside of military hands is a bare handful."
The sum was, quite frankly, absurd. And the three they'd met, they hadn't had the age to build up that sort of reserve. And none of the rest of the best guesses as to the rest of their creche-group had either, according to the minimal records available on all of them.
Public records, sure, but none of them had anything more than the barest of network presence. That wasn't the picture of people who had centuries of fab-time to throw at a modern flickerdrive. So how had they moved so fast?
"Where do they go?" Raine asked. It was a mark of how far ahead the more withdrawn member of the creche-group truly was, that question. "Speed is the how. We need their where."
"Two things, then," Niden said. He was smiling through his veil, clear pleasure in the gentle lines reflecting his creche-sib's question. "Their speed, it only makes sense if this group had some sort of purpose. A really important one. You don't shove a drive this expensive into a non-Pacifier hull without a damn good reason. Just coming to the Sorrows…that isn't one.
"Second, I was able to backtrack their path at the Fourth thanks to a few favours. They went to the Last Memory, then to the Forum." A momentary confusion shifted all veils, what a human might have called a blink.
The Last Memory was perhaps the most enduring monument to the Shiplord's failings, the loss of an entire, friendly star nation all in the name of control. Many like this group often wondered if that had been worth it, given all the Teel and their various allies had given and could have continued to offer? None of them were sure.
But going there, actually visiting the monument, not even Krea had suggested it. Everyone knew that the door in its depths had never opened. But…everyone knew that the Third Sorrow's simulations had never been solved. Except now they had.
What if–
Krea won the race.
"You think they found something," she breathed. Her veil shifted, rippling out the passionate need to understand. To know. "That the door opened for them, that whatever was beyond, it told them somewhere to go."
"I do. I've not a shred of proof, but it feels right." Another gesture, it was rare for him to make so many, and the data node of travel times collapsed. Replacing it was a set of coordinates, and headers to historical files so old that one could almost taste the weight of years lingering on their long-archived contents.
"Which leads us to the where," he went on, shifting a nod to Raine as he returned to her question. "Or at least what might be it. If I'm right, I can't see the internal network search getting it. They don't have our dots."
Raine shifted uncomfortably at the reminder, but held her reply. Just like the rest of them, she wanted the answer Niden had found. A system schematic blossomed around the coordinate marker, a system Everan recognised immediately, that Niden must have known they would from long cycles of histographic study.
"You can't be serious," he said flatly. Niden's smiling angles only sharpened.
"Where did the Teel'sanha focus their last century, Everan?" he replied, as if the words were self-evident.
The nominal leader of the creche-group turned to the others, finding expectant attention, wondering. Now he could see the dots that Niden had drawn across this mystery, the lines that might, just might, trace a picture of the truth. It didn't stop the motions of a heavy sigh, though, as he stared up at an image of the star system that had birthed the Shiplords' greatest friends and greatest scar.
"The Consolat Origin," he said, each word steady, slow, the beat of a solemn march. The tension around him burst at the words, yet somehow wrapped even tighter around his heart. They could go there. It wouldn't even take them very long. But if Niden was correct, what would they find? Only one way to find out, Ev, he found himself thinking, mimicking for a moment the bright tones that Krea would be sure to offer. She'd be right, too, though that didn't make him feel any better.
"I'll get us underway," Thalim murmured, the first words that the typically more boisterous member of the creche-group had spoken so far. He didn't ask. What would have been the point? They'd all committed to this weeks before when they'd agreed to search, to go looking alone instead of joining the mass effort.
Raine gravitated towards Everan as Thalim interfaced with the Aki-lai's systems. It wasn't quite running, but she clearly wanted away from the rapidly building nexus of data and noise that surrounded Niden and Krea. The two most dedicated to the search. Her veil twitched, just so, and Everan sighed back.
"Wise, this dream?" she asked. It was clear in the set of her veil and the tone itself that she already had her opinion.
"Who can say," he replied. For a moment, his veil reflected the concern and weight of a Shiplord orders of magnitude his own young age, drawn into the waves of a seemingly helpless shrug. "But we already chose."
"Onwards, then?" Raine sighed.
"Onwards."
"I believe we have something," Niden said, calm certainty reflecting in every angle of his veil. He stood at the centre of the bridge, surrounded by a gently pulsing weave of data. Some true, much inference, but he'd never have asked the group here to talk about nothing. "There are other possibilities, and the issues of comparison hold. But Krea was right when we started this."
The dreamer of the creche-group had been quick to point out that they were some of the only non-Hearthguard to have spoken with the object of the enormous search now silently consuming so much of internal network capacity. It didn't change that they were utterly, hilariously, outgunned by the processing power those networks could bring to bear. But it did give them something that the primary search didn't seem to have: a direct, personal connection and the identity markers to go with it.
It wasn't all of them, and it was only a short while, she'd said. But it was for a moment that mattered. We got to see them react to what the Sorrowful said, and we all saw the calm-shock they presented afterwards.
It had been a shock to hear that from her. Krea had passion, yes, and heart. But reading the intricacies of veils had never been a specialty of hers. For her to see that first, long enough ahead to point it out and be a surprise? It had been a clear statement of how much this meant to her, to pay such close attention. And it had forced the rest of the creche-group to reexamine their assumptions on the nature of the trio who they'd shared the Sorrowful's broadcast with.
Which had, too, led them to the data Niden had just finished analysing.
"What finds?" Raine asked. Her own veil fluttered with something that wasn't quite impatience. No matter personal feelings, everyone wanted to know what Niden must have found to call this meeting.
"It took some doing," he began, his veil shifting gracefully through edges of diligence. "But I was able to query the general visitor records for our recent friends. I then spent two more interstellar queries on confirming the data, because it just didn't make sense."
"What do you m-" Krea had stepped up close to the web of data Niden had strung together, subtle manipulators of her veil brushing across it, reading the markers. But she froze in place as she brushed one of the largest intersections, veil spiking with tension a moment later, rippling markers that were edged on fear.
"As Krea has just found," Niden's veil twitched, enlarging the data node his creche-sib had touched for the others present. "These are the dates that the system has logged for the three we met, and the rest of their pilgrim group. Third, First, Second and Fourth."
At first glance, the dates were just that, markers in the galactic standard that the Shiplords had used for millions of cycles. But Krea's reaction, and Niden's focus, forced the others to look closer. And as they did, something tugged at Everan's thoughts, something missing in the numbers. Niden's veil flickered the motion of a raised hand, asking for time to finish. Surprisingly, Krea gave it, even as she turned away from the model, the angles of her veil shifting, excitement rising to replace fear.
"And as I'm sure you're seeing, the travel times don't line up." Niden made a small gesture with a manipulator, lines extended between the four Sorrows, connecting them in a chain. Text flickered out from each line, two lines. One was the expected travel times between each connected Sorrow, rote data, easily available. The other was the time it had actually taken for the creche-group they'd sat with to make the journeys.
"It's not until you compare them that you realise exactly how far out the numbers are. I've run a comparison on the current figures for an old-model Pacifier drive," a third line of text flickered into being next to the rest as he spoke. "It's much faster, and might be enough if somehow they got their hands on one of the new drives, if the output estimates are right. But that just raises even more questions. We all know how much those drives cost, and the number of them outside of military hands is a bare handful."
The sum was, quite frankly, absurd. And the three they'd met, they hadn't had the age to build up that sort of reserve. And none of the rest of the best guesses as to the rest of their creche-group had either, according to the minimal records available on all of them.
Public records, sure, but none of them had anything more than the barest of network presence. That wasn't the picture of people who had centuries of fab-time to throw at a modern flickerdrive. So how had they moved so fast?
"Where do they go?" Raine asked. It was a mark of how far ahead the more withdrawn member of the creche-group truly was, that question. "Speed is the how. We need their where."
"Two things, then," Niden said. He was smiling through his veil, clear pleasure in the gentle lines reflecting his creche-sib's question. "Their speed, it only makes sense if this group had some sort of purpose. A really important one. You don't shove a drive this expensive into a non-Pacifier hull without a damn good reason. Just coming to the Sorrows…that isn't one.
"Second, I was able to backtrack their path at the Fourth thanks to a few favours. They went to the Last Memory, then to the Forum." A momentary confusion shifted all veils, what a human might have called a blink.
The Last Memory was perhaps the most enduring monument to the Shiplord's failings, the loss of an entire, friendly star nation all in the name of control. Many like this group often wondered if that had been worth it, given all the Teel and their various allies had given and could have continued to offer? None of them were sure.
But going there, actually visiting the monument, not even Krea had suggested it. Everyone knew that the door in its depths had never opened. But…everyone knew that the Third Sorrow's simulations had never been solved. Except now they had.
What if–
Krea won the race.
"You think they found something," she breathed. Her veil shifted, rippling out the passionate need to understand. To know. "That the door opened for them, that whatever was beyond, it told them somewhere to go."
"I do. I've not a shred of proof, but it feels right." Another gesture, it was rare for him to make so many, and the data node of travel times collapsed. Replacing it was a set of coordinates, and headers to historical files so old that one could almost taste the weight of years lingering on their long-archived contents.
"Which leads us to the where," he went on, shifting a nod to Raine as he returned to her question. "Or at least what might be it. If I'm right, I can't see the internal network search getting it. They don't have our dots."
Raine shifted uncomfortably at the reminder, but held her reply. Just like the rest of them, she wanted the answer Niden had found. A system schematic blossomed around the coordinate marker, a system Everan recognised immediately, that Niden must have known they would from long cycles of histographic study.
"You can't be serious," he said flatly. Niden's smiling angles only sharpened.
"Where did the Teel'sanha focus their last century, Everan?" he replied, as if the words were self-evident.
The nominal leader of the creche-group turned to the others, finding expectant attention, wondering. Now he could see the dots that Niden had drawn across this mystery, the lines that might, just might, trace a picture of the truth. It didn't stop the motions of a heavy sigh, though, as he stared up at an image of the star system that had birthed the Shiplords' greatest friends and greatest scar.
"The Consolat Origin," he said, each word steady, slow, the beat of a solemn march. The tension around him burst at the words, yet somehow wrapped even tighter around his heart. They could go there. It wouldn't even take them very long. But if Niden was correct, what would they find? Only one way to find out, Ev, he found himself thinking, mimicking for a moment the bright tones that Krea would be sure to offer. She'd be right, too, though that didn't make him feel any better.
"I'll get us underway," Thalim murmured, the first words that the typically more boisterous member of the creche-group had spoken so far. He didn't ask. What would have been the point? They'd all committed to this weeks before when they'd agreed to search, to go looking alone instead of joining the mass effort.
Raine gravitated towards Everan as Thalim interfaced with the Aki-lai's systems. It wasn't quite running, but she clearly wanted away from the rapidly building nexus of data and noise that surrounded Niden and Krea. The two most dedicated to the search. Her veil twitched, just so, and Everan sighed back.
"Wise, this dream?" she asked. It was clear in the set of her veil and the tone itself that she already had her opinion.
"Who can say," he replied. For a moment, his veil reflected the concern and weight of a Shiplord orders of magnitude his own young age, drawn into the waves of a seemingly helpless shrug. "But we already chose."
"Onwards, then?" Raine sighed.
"Onwards."
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- Location
- Florida
... I honestly kinda hope they do catch up to us, and we can all have an honest, fascinating conversation.
Snowfire
Polyglot of Chimera
- Location
- Wordcats
Less military leadership and more internal search leadership. Kicha did a very good job totally not hiding things.
The Shipteens avoided all of her work via you just talking to them.
Given that use of the First Secret seems to be an inherent biological feature of the Neras, I would think they come from the era between the 'deaths' of the Consolat and the Teel'sanha. A species that was born after the Secrets came into existence, but before the Shiplords became anything resembling their current selves.
Snowfire
Polyglot of Chimera
- Location
- Wordcats
Fun aside: Neras racial history (though memory might be more correct) actually does go back to pre-Secret timescales. I called them contemporaries to the Shiplords for a reason.
Noted.
Granted, in the context of the galaxy's status and timeline, any civilization that started traveling between the stars during that era I specified and is still active might as well be a contemporary. They're going to have a mastery of the Secrets that far outstrips everything else besides the Shiplords.