Remove ads

The Secrets' Crusade

Reader mode
I rewrote the latter sections of this pieces five different times and stayed up until past 3am before I finally got it right today after sleeping. There's around 1k worth of words that I'll probably end up using depending on the questions you ask here. I appear to be feeling much better about my writing, which is a big part of why these sections have been coming faster - that we actually have interaction here rather than just...my spewing exposition at you seems to be helping too. As with many QMs, I thrive on interaction. These last few chapters have given me so much more than a lot of the ones before, and that has had a definite effect on my writing speed.

Thanks go to @Baughn for checking it over. Coda would have done so too, but I'm a loose cannon who doesn't wait for backup to arrive! Enjoy.
 
Snowfire said:
What would you ask next?
[] How can what we've done here help you?
[] What did your people see in the Hjivin's death? Why did you react so harshly to it?
[] Why did you decide there was no better alternative?
[] Write-in?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

These options are all so tempting. On the one hand I really want to get straight to the point and ask why they decided there was no better alternative, but the other questions also carry much of interest one asking about the future and the other the past. Will we be able to get all the answers we want here or do we have to pick and choose?
 
Assumed hostile until proven otherwise…
Oh.
Such a simple mistake, but a critical one. By being so hostile, by treating the universe with that sort of 'we must pacify them before they attack first?

And one can see how it unfolds and makes a mess of Diplomacy with Shiplords.
The Trauma of that first encounter, perhaps because of the chance the First Secret gets you into trouble, and the Second Secret's potential for Peversion, oh and you have to have enough military strength to satisfy them, though I feel like if your polity is small enough the Shiplords really have no business 'testing' a new race like that… But then again, they wound up bowing to the Red Queen's edicts…Just in time to full hop aboard the 4X smash-train through all other rivals.
 
They watched beings who have no ties beyond vague considerations to the physical world rip a peer polity of the ship lords from reality because it was judged necessary showing that for all the power they have the Uninvolved are such by choice.

It kinda seems like the Shiplords are forcing the escape, forcing an acceptance that MAD cannot work against someone so much more powerful than you that the moment you try it only you die and the Shiplords are fine. They have no problem with people becoming uninvolved because it tips the balance of the Uninvolved who just want to be actually uninvolved.

Its all the shiftiness of the Tarkin Doctrine from the perspective of someone who wants to keep anyone else from inventing the sci-fi equivalent of the atomic bomb by saying if you start enriching plutonium we will just pave your system flat and we don't care if you wanted to just try out a new power source.
 
Zfglx said:
These options are all so tempting. On the one hand I really want to get straight to the point and ask why they decided there was no better alternative, but the other questions also carry much of interest one asking about the future and the other the past. Will we be able to get all the answers we want here or do we have to pick and choose?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

This isn't that sort of vote, or at least it wasn't meant to be. This vote was meant to be about what question should have primary influence on Amanda as she continues her conversation with Kicha, it wasn't meant to be a "and next we have". I was trying to give enough data to let you choose the next point, and I have this awful feeling that I've failed at doing so. The near-total silence since I posted would support that.

To introspect to an audience: I'm concerned that I said a lot of words without actually telling you much, and giving you very little to work with in making this choice feel important. Essentially, what I was happy about not doing last update, I just did again here. To say I feel stupid about this is an understatement. I'm going to start working on some (possibly quite substantial) edits. I doubt they will be ready until tomorrow. With that said, it would help to know if I'm on the right track.
 
Last edited:
[] What did your people see in the Hjivin's death? Why did you react so harshly to it?
To me, this is the million dollar question.
That there's a better way gives teh Shiplord High Command and Central Authority and whoever's in charge a reason to re-think policy, which is the key of what Humanity wants, for them to re-think trying to sort them into their pre-set categories...
The no better alternative is just more re-hashing the arguements we can already guess at, frankly. Admittedly the one benefit is hearing it from teh Shiplord's mouth but...
The important thing, as far as I'm concerned, is that the Shiplords came to fall into their current, brutal form. So figuring out the road to something kinder, that is paramount.
 
Zaealix said:
[] What did your people see in the Hjivin's death? Why did you react so harshly to it?
To me, this is the million dollar question.
That there's a better way gives teh Shiplord High Command and Central Authority and whoever's in charge a reason to re-think policy, which is the key of what Humanity wants, for them to re-think trying to sort them into their pre-set categories...
The no better alternative is just more re-hashing the arguements we can already guess at, frankly. Admittedly the one benefit is hearing it from teh Shiplord's mouth but...
The important thing, as far as I'm concerned, is that the Shiplords came to fall into their current, brutal form. So figuring out the road to something kinder, that is paramount.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Part of my general realisation was that I'd tilted the vote so heavily into making that option important that I should have just not made it a vote. How I end the piece would bias you towards it even if it wasn't extremely important. So what I'm doing with my edits is adding in a section where that question gets asked and Kicha does her best to explain. This may...accelerate your tour somewhat, but hopefully not in a bad way.
 
COMMENT!

Snowfire said:
"You won the Contact Fleet free, as so many others have," Kicha explained, sweeping a hand through the regimented order of War Fleets clustering at the Shiplord border. That was as expected, at this point. "But according to the simulation, you also made Sphere's Minds listen."

The border of the Sphere was very different. If you'd remembered correctly, it should be a fifth of the way into the gap between the two polity's territory. Instead, it hadn't moved at all.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Well played.

"The simulation is as perfect as we can make it," the Shiplord continued. "We've built it from everything we ever recovered about the Hjivin, and with that and the Seventh, the simulations can make incredibly accurate predictions.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
...The Seventh.

That's the first clue we have about the Seventh Secret.

While we can't say just from this, we can reasonably speculate on what the Seventh Secret might be.

I'm guessing either "post-facto remote viewing," "information theory," or some form of entropy reversal that can, by extension, be applied to information and computation. Putting about 40/50/10 odds on each of the three possibilities.

"You gave me a formal recognition phrase that fell out of use over three hundred thousand cycles ago." There was honest laughter in the Shiplord's words, something no human had ever heard. "Perhaps one in every ten million who visit this place know it. Fewer than a hundredth of them use it."
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Wow.

So she's kept track of billions of visitors...

What would you ask next?
[] How can what we've done here help you?
[] What did your people see in the Hjivin's death? Why did you react so harshly to it?
[] Why did you decide there was no better alternative?
[] Write-in?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Ooooooh. ALL tempting questions.

justinkal said:
Well that's certainly an interesting offhand mention.

A confirmation that Secrets beyond the Sixth exist, and a vague hint as to the general direction one of them entails.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
@Snowfire has told us in so many words that there are eight, as I recall.
 
So, the Hearthguard is a Shiplord faction opposed to the current state of affairs, but doesn't have the political power to change things...
So, it's important to find out what political factions they can recruit to take advantage of the current situation.

Or I could be getting ahead of myself.

But it seems to me that the best thing right now is to find out more about the Hearthguard (and Shiplords in general), because I think we need to know more about the Shiplords to do this properly.

[] What did your people see in the Hjivin's death? Why did you react so harshly to it?

Edit: vote overridden by events.
 
Last edited:
So you know how I said Kicha was going to explain? Yeah, apparently not. Amanda decided to hare off into unknown territory and then Vega had opinions.

I do think that this vote stands to be just a little more impactful though. I can hope, at least.

The edits are now in place, though they're less edits and more "hey I added a continuation". We'll get back to other avenues that you might be interested in, um, later? Yeah...later is probably about right. Honestly I'm just trying to increase the wordcount of this post at this point without being stilted in the hopes that it creates an OP alert so that people notice. I guess ~150 words should do it? Hope so. Reopening voting. Sorry for all my drama about this one, but I really do think what I've put in now is better.

I would advise that people reread the section. Voting may now take place.
 
Last edited:
I'm thinking one of the last two options here. I'm not sure I want to blow Practice wide open in a place as heavily sensor-ed up as this, but we need to make the point very, very clear.

If we go for the Projection, we can say we fell into a memory imprinted on the planet from what happened here, after having gained some knowledge on accessing memories from the Marionettes. It's not even a lie, except perhaps by implication.
 
Lightwhispers said:
Question: If we choose Reverie, could that be detected by anyone outside the room?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Probably not? You've never done this with anyone but a single Marionette and a few humans. Metaconcert was a metaphorical nuclear initiation. The Reverie you shared with Lorelli was barely a ripple by contrast.

Really depends where on that scale you land. Or in other words, Kalilah's note isn't really driven by humour.
 
Last edited:
[] The Truth(Reverie) - You learnt from the Marionette Observer during Second Contact that it was possible to share memories between races. This could be an extremely blatant use of Practice, but it would make the point impossibly clear.
...
I feel like we need to be LOUD here. The Shiplords have had...Well, this lady was THERE, she's been trying to fight the good fight but she's been mulling over this sucker ever since-this is like trying to explain to someone who's stuck on a puzzle game level that no, you actually need to move THIS way, not THAT way that you're so sure is the way to do things, so a degree of LOUD is needed to get her to listen, first and foremost.
 
Snowfire said:
[] The Truth(Projection) - Show Kicha what you found on the other world, a memory left seared into the world by the actions of the Uninvolved. Use the projection systems of the room to do so.
Lea: Shouldn't we at least try to tell the truth?
[] The Truth(Reverie) - You learnt from the Marionette Observer during Second Contact that it was possible to share memories between races. This could be an extremely blatant use of Practice, but it would make the point impossibly clear.
Kalilah: I'm just going to be over here. Ready to glass the continent.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
So I definitely want to do one of these two. I'm leaning towards the latter because wow hammering the point in will probably be important. Going loud though... well we learned a lot and I think I'd rather lock in some potentially monumental gains and be forced to bug out than play it too safe and not be fully believed.
Edit: never mind I'm blind and didn't see Snow's post up above. I thought Reverie was much higher risk that it apparently is. Still a possible risk from what I can tell, but not a guaranteed one like I mistakenly thought.
 
Last edited:
[X] The Truth(Reverie) - You learnt from the Marionette Observer during Second Contact that it was possible to share memories between races. This could be an extremely blatant use of Practice, but it would make the point impossibly clear.
 
This is precisely what I was hoping for - contact and conversation with a Shiplord (who was there for the Second Sorrow, omfg), natural and Practiced insights helping bridge the connection, and 'You have revealed yourself. I will not allow you to do so alone.'. Beautiful. Thanks Snowfire.

And I completely agree with y'all, the only possible way to respond is the truth. Anything less demeans what we're doing here. Just a question of which delivery method to use, which...I'm honestly not sure about. Having trouble coming up with the pros and cons of each (other than the possibility of detection, which has already been addressed.) Interested to see what others come up with, and I'll keep thinking.
 
Hrrm...
If I'm right, to put it in Shiplord terms, unhelpful though that might be, Project is to Witness, but Reverie is to Remember.
Seeing what happened, versus living through it.
 
Pathos said:
They watched beings who have no ties beyond vague considerations to the physical world rip a peer polity of the ship lords from reality because it was judged necessary showing that for all the power they have the Uninvolved are such by choice.

It kinda seems like the Shiplords are forcing the escape, forcing an acceptance that MAD cannot work against someone so much more powerful than you that the moment you try it only you die and the Shiplords are fine. They have no problem with people becoming uninvolved because it tips the balance of the Uninvolved who just want to be actually uninvolved.

Its all the shiftiness of the Tarkin Doctrine from the perspective of someone who wants to keep anyone else from inventing the sci-fi equivalent of the atomic bomb by saying if you start enriching plutonium we will just pave your system flat and we don't care if you wanted to just try out a new power source.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Minor point of order: plutonium enrichment is generally used for weapons manufacture (as it is much more convenient for weapons manufacture than uranium), though it is a necessary part of breeder/burner reactors.

[X] The Truth(Projection) - Show Kicha what you found on the other world, a memory left seared into the world by the actions of the Uninvolved. Use the projection systems of the room to do so.
-[X] Inform her (beforehand) we can also use Practice to share the memory on a much more profound level, but if nothing else, it's likely to trip off sensors.

I'd rather not go completely loud until we need to, and going full-on Reverie without discussing it beforehand seems like something which could freak a person out.
That said, in order to not have the galaxy burn, we need to play nice with the Shiplords, and establishing trust early really helps with that. It doesn't hurt matters that I can't really think of any military significance to that bit of information.
 
Last edited:
[X] The Truth(Reverie) - You learnt from the Marionette Observer during Second Contact that it was possible to share memories between races. This could be an extremely blatant use of Practice, but it would make the point impossibly clear.
 
[X] The Truth(Projection) - Show Kicha what you found on the other world, a memory left seared into the world by the actions of the Uninvolved. Use the projection systems of the room to do so.

[X] The Truth(Projection) - Show Kicha what you found on the other world, a memory left seared into the world by the actions of the Uninvolved. Use the projection systems of the room to do so.
-[X] Inform her (beforehand) we can also use Practice to share the memory on a much more profound level, but if nothing else, it's likely to trip off sensors.
 
Last edited:
[X] The Truth(Projection) - Show Kicha what you found on the other world, a memory left seared into the world by the actions of the Uninvolved. Use the projection systems of the room to do so.
[X] Inform her (beforehand) we can also use Practice to share the memory on a much more profound level, but if nothing else, it's likely to trip off sensors.

Practice makes Shiplords kind of jumpy it seems like. Let's not envelope our new friend in it until AFTER she learns it doesn't mean standing inside an arcane explosion as it goes off, which is probably what Shiplords think of Uninvolved Power.
 
[X] The Truth(Projection) - Show Kicha what you found on the other world, a memory left seared into the world by the actions of the Uninvolved. Use the projection systems of the room to do so.
 
Reader mode
You must login or register to reply here.
Remove ads
Back
Top