Threads Of Destiny(Eastern Fantasy, Sequel to Forge of Destiny)
- Thread starter yrsillar
- Start date
- Original Users' Choice!
Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
- Location
- Staring into the void
This plays into stealing the starstone slightly, as it makes it look less like we're there to gank them specifically, but ganking them is incidental to stealing the starstone.
- Location
- The Star Kingdom of Manticore
That doesn't seem much better if at all seeing as Star stone might very well have religious value to the cloud tribes.
The idea is securing it
Whether Ling Qi can nab it or not doesnt really.matter, so long as she can keep the other side from securing it back for themselves
There is absolutely no way that if outsiders are attacking another party at a diplomatic meeting, anyone would stand aside with their hands on their hips and go, "huh". Grand alliances aside, the Empire is still everyone's long term enemy.
Nah, itll be the perfect time for it while their leadership is reeling from the Alpha Strike and then getting engaged by the Assault Forces.
They'll be forced to either try and disengage (failing in the attempt) and go for Ling Qi, or send subordinates that Ling Qi is more than capable of dealing with on her preferred terms:
Chaff en masse at a chokepoint
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- Location
- Staring into the void
Inserted tally
DeusExBritannia
Red-White-Black-White
- Location
- Texas
It's a shame the Larceny Skill doesn't exist anymore. If we had it capped at C-rank, securing the Starstone would have been the perfect opportunity to get develop a Larceny Advanced Skill.
We learned a lot here:
-Starstone causes qi constructs to rapidly degrade. Its rare. Whoever is near the Starstone may have techniques that aren't based on Moon qi or the Cai's purification techniques fail.
-We have a name for the Shishigui, they call themselves of Y'lith'kai. Probably their empire's name.
--The Y'lith'kai are allied to the bard-barian.
--They are able to mine and provide the Cloud Tribes with Starstone, and it seems to be able to do so in strategic quantities.
-The White Sky confederation is against working with the Y'lith'kai, but are working with the Yukionna. They're working on their own project. They still hate us.
-The Twelve Star confederation agrees on the attack being premature, have not said anything about the Y'lith'kai, and will attack soon in either case, once their forces are mustered.
--They're built around twelve titles/relics?
So looks like theres several ways that we might want this to go:
-Split the Y'lith'kai off from the Cloud Tribes. The majority of the Cloud Tribes are ambivalent to them, but bribery with large chunks of strategic material can change that.
--Ling Qi has the tools for this - she has the Impure Assassin's Dagger, which if used to wound or kill one of the Cloud Tribe big shots, would immediately trigger a belief of betrayal given the ambient distrust. This could make a good opening strike.
-We actually want the strike to go off sooner. The Cloud Tribes are not ready yet, neither is the Empire, but the Twelve Star Confederation is going to attack soon themselves, so better when they explicitly don't feel ready than when they're fully ready.
-We want the White Sky to stay out of this and do their own thing at a later date.
-We absolutely do not want them to take the Starstone, because that's enough to full arm and armor their elites in a material which will shred formations and qi constructs.
Now to catch up on discussion.
-Starstone causes qi constructs to rapidly degrade. Its rare. Whoever is near the Starstone may have techniques that aren't based on Moon qi or the Cai's purification techniques fail.
-We have a name for the Shishigui, they call themselves of Y'lith'kai. Probably their empire's name.
--The Y'lith'kai are allied to the bard-barian.
--They are able to mine and provide the Cloud Tribes with Starstone, and it seems to be able to do so in strategic quantities.
-The White Sky confederation is against working with the Y'lith'kai, but are working with the Yukionna. They're working on their own project. They still hate us.
-The Twelve Star confederation agrees on the attack being premature, have not said anything about the Y'lith'kai, and will attack soon in either case, once their forces are mustered.
--They're built around twelve titles/relics?
So looks like theres several ways that we might want this to go:
-Split the Y'lith'kai off from the Cloud Tribes. The majority of the Cloud Tribes are ambivalent to them, but bribery with large chunks of strategic material can change that.
--Ling Qi has the tools for this - she has the Impure Assassin's Dagger, which if used to wound or kill one of the Cloud Tribe big shots, would immediately trigger a belief of betrayal given the ambient distrust. This could make a good opening strike.
-We actually want the strike to go off sooner. The Cloud Tribes are not ready yet, neither is the Empire, but the Twelve Star Confederation is going to attack soon themselves, so better when they explicitly don't feel ready than when they're fully ready.
-We want the White Sky to stay out of this and do their own thing at a later date.
-We absolutely do not want them to take the Starstone, because that's enough to full arm and armor their elites in a material which will shred formations and qi constructs.
Now to catch up on discussion.
Heh so just a bit of possible insight into what nasty things the Starstone can be used to accomplish...
Anyways from dark dreams on RR.
Since I just realized we've probably actually seen what Ogodei used the arrowheads for, and if my speculation is correct one of the reasons he was so successful has to do with the fact that traditional Imperial doctrine relies upon formations to support a garrison allowing them to hold out long enough for reinforcements to reach them. This is something of an issue if a Great Khan has an arrowhead that can just "Nope!" the protections of a major city, and well the natural mobility available to the Cloud Nomad they can literally blitz key logistical points, which has me curious whether, or not Ogodei was Prisim before he became infamous.
Anyways from dark dreams on RR.
She doesnt
Her stealth and disguise would be seen through by the Cyan Cloud Barbarian once he puts his back into it
For the record, I've voting for engaging fighters at the rim. THAT SAID, I think everyone is focusing way too much on the idea that Ling Qi has to carry off the star stone if she focuses on securing it. She'll try, sure, but in practice she can execute that mission by making sure it stays right where it is and that none of the bad guys run off with it. Spend her effort ganking any enemy who tries to pick it up and run off with it.
[X] Plan Star Stealing Shenanigans
- Location
- Florida
[X] Plan Bishoujo Battle: Barbarian X Bard
-[X][Guan Zhi] The Twelve Stars confederation representatives
-[X][Cai Renxiang] The Shishigui representatives
-[X][Ling Qi] Target Shishigui
[X] Plan Strategic Support Stymieing
-[X][Guan Zhi] The Twelve Stars confederation representatives
-[X][Cai Renxiang] The Shishigui representatives
-[X][Ling Qi] Weaken or eliminate the forces on the rim before empowerment can begin
Not really a fan of ignoring the Cyan in Xcom door breach
-[X][Guan Zhi] The Twelve Stars confederation representatives
-[X][Cai Renxiang] The Shishigui representatives
-[X][Ling Qi] Target Shishigui
[X] Plan Strategic Support Stymieing
-[X][Guan Zhi] The Twelve Stars confederation representatives
-[X][Cai Renxiang] The Shishigui representatives
-[X][Ling Qi] Weaken or eliminate the forces on the rim before empowerment can begin
Not really a fan of ignoring the Cyan in Xcom door breach
Big question about the situation - is the fresh starstone a tactical threat, or just strategic? It seems it can be made into talismans or weapons, but could the Twelve Cloud guy use it as is to cast some horrible attack? Or a passive tactical problem - does it disrupt Qi badly enough to do things like eat our whole mist if we tried to affect an area including it, or just mess up things in direct contact? (extra bad if it disrupts area techniques that would surround it even if we try to exclude an opening around it).
Also, does "securing" the stone mean trying to take it and flee the battle, or setting up to hold the position?
Because there's a lot of talk and even @yrsillar on discord concerning theft, but the second sounds a lot better to me.
Leaving our allies hanging sounds like a bad idea even if we knew how to move it, except to lure the enemy towards reinforcements. On the other hand fighting in the caldera at all means setting up lots of area control arts, and we could probably cover the stone while also supporting our allies - unless it eats Qi too badly.
Also, does "securing" the stone mean trying to take it and flee the battle, or setting up to hold the position?
Because there's a lot of talk and even @yrsillar on discord concerning theft, but the second sounds a lot better to me.
Leaving our allies hanging sounds like a bad idea even if we knew how to move it, except to lure the enemy towards reinforcements. On the other hand fighting in the caldera at all means setting up lots of area control arts, and we could probably cover the stone while also supporting our allies - unless it eats Qi too badly.
When you're doing a door breach in XCOM, you don't waste shots on the boss you're not going to kill with your opening. You pick off the targets you can actually put down so that you reduce the counterfire you're about to take.
It affects more.tribes timetable for jumping into the conflict so it's a strategic element for sure
The specifics of.its usage are eh
But it's a threat by virtue of upping the numbers of Cloud Barbarians wed be fighting at the very least
Cecylene
Eternal Idea Engine
- Location
- Massachusetts
- Pronouns
- He/They
The primary idea behind taking the stone now rather than defending it until such a time that it can be retrieved is that our interest is two fold, one being keeping the stone out of enemy hands and two being having it available for study.
Keeping the bulk stone out of enemy hands is as doable as you suggest, being that we prevent anyone from taking it. However should someone choose to cut their loses and take what they can there is the risk of them splitting the stone to take pieces of it that suddenly increases the difficulty in preventing someone from acquiring enough of the stone for continued usage against the Empire. Alternatively, they could use the stone for some purpose to effect the battle such as enhancing its known "radiation" powers to some likely deleterious effect on our group.
Equally so, the Shishigui could hide the stone back in the earth as easily as they drew it up potentially for later retrieval by an underground team of theirs or the stone could be reduced to uninteresting fragments, being of size/quality that the Empire is already aware of. While a victory condition for asset denial it is still otherwise a failed objective.
Taking it during the closest thing to a surprise round we can get against these forces under what would effectively be the protection of an artillery barrage, allows us to move it to territory more advantageous to ourselves. If that's only as far as hiding it out of the Shishigui's ability to manipulate it or placing the Unknown-Unknown danger as far away from our vanguard forces as possible that is a decent benefit as well, keeping the battle to thing we are more able to predict rather than letting what is effectively a MacGuffin we cannot begin to guess at what it can do sit in the midst of our assault. Maybe it's not as bad as we thought, maybe its effectively harmless until treated with special reagents but I am not particularly fond of leaving something that our enemies know more about in the middle of our combat zone.
If someone chases us, we are pretty damn good at playing keep away and that's resources not engaging the rest of our Assault force. Not indefinitely but enough so that it matters in a scenario like this when we have the Shiny and not them.
Assuming you will is as much a gamble as taking a shot with 90% odds in XCOM though so I think you ought to extend the metaphor a bit
- Location
- Charlton, NY
[X] Plan Star Stealing Shenanigans
-[X][Guan Zhi] The Twelve Stars confederation representatives
-[X][Cai Renxiang] The Shishigui representatives
-[X][Ling Qi] Securing the Starstone
I originally thought this plan was just Wind Thief memes, but it's more than that.
1) We're concerned about the barbs' buff train. But, WOG says if we isolate the green elites, the buff train won't happen nearly as strongly. So, we don't have to necessarily make our primary objective to weaken the perimeter,
2) We have to counter cyan with cyan. Even CRX went down to a bit of shen from that pseudo-fourth realm the interlude described. No way around this one. Guan Zhi has to go after the Twelve Stars, or we are going to get ganked and fast.
3) If we secure the star stone - which we don't need to take away to do, we can just squat on it - we're close enough to catch the elites in our domain and isolate them, including the shishigui and the Twelve Stars. That's close enough to 'fighting in concert with CRX' that I'm happy with it.
So, star stealing shenanigans it is.
-[X][Guan Zhi] The Twelve Stars confederation representatives
-[X][Cai Renxiang] The Shishigui representatives
-[X][Ling Qi] Securing the Starstone
I originally thought this plan was just Wind Thief memes, but it's more than that.
1) We're concerned about the barbs' buff train. But, WOG says if we isolate the green elites, the buff train won't happen nearly as strongly. So, we don't have to necessarily make our primary objective to weaken the perimeter,
2) We have to counter cyan with cyan. Even CRX went down to a bit of shen from that pseudo-fourth realm the interlude described. No way around this one. Guan Zhi has to go after the Twelve Stars, or we are going to get ganked and fast.
3) If we secure the star stone - which we don't need to take away to do, we can just squat on it - we're close enough to catch the elites in our domain and isolate them, including the shishigui and the Twelve Stars. That's close enough to 'fighting in concert with CRX' that I'm happy with it.
So, star stealing shenanigans it is.