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.
[X] Accept the offer, you can convince Renxiang and sponsorship from even a faction of a count house is a valuable thing.
I was a bit leery at first, but this was always going to happen sooner or later in one form or another. May as well choose one and upset a few rather than choose none and make everyone unhappy.
I was a bit leery at first, but this was always going to happen sooner or later in one form or another. May as well choose one and upset a few rather than choose none and make everyone unhappy.
Yrsillar didn't specifically rule out Xuan Shi, he just said not a lot of people would be going. That applies to everyone else as well.
In terms of who has the potential to maybe warrant an invite, they need to have high status. This is a high noble game, and they'd also have to have enough clout to join despite sect misgivings, or not be from the sect in the first place. We'd want them to not be politically controversial. Their family needs to be willing to let them go.
Xuan Shi is a ducal scion, there's ongoing political efforts for the Cai and Xuan to work together, he isn't incredibly invested in the sect from what we can see, and his family was not only willing but directed him to attend a first-strike mission to the underground for information. It makes sense that the Xuan would be interested in these new foreigners, and it wouldn't be controversial in terms of internal Emerald Seas politics for him to attend this expedition, as far as we know.
- Location
- Colorado
I guess this is what I was thinking of:
Which isn't a hard no, but I'm not going to bet on yrsillar letting us have him. Don't get me wrong I want him, but I think we're leaving him behind to bond with Li Suyin or something.
As for this being a 'high nobles game,' have you ever heard the phrase 'too many cooks in the kitchen?' We want people who are competent enough to help, but not so important that they have too much influence over the negotiations. This one count scion is okay, but we really don't want to load the entire team with people like that. Alingge is both competent and a member of a distinct cultural group who's presence would help show that the empire isn't a monolith. Yu Nuan is a fellow musician who might be able to help with communication and showcasing imperial culture. And neither are so vital to the Sect that they'll fight us over them.
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Arkeus
Crazy cat guy
- Location
- France
So, my impression here is that CRX doesn't actually have the power to force people to come with her. If she were to go at it with just the people arranged by Shenhua, it would be seen as a training wheel diplomacy group with chaperones. By having a scion of the Meng under CRX, one that actually came to CRX and she herself decided to take on, this changes how the mission appears, and it's more of a "CRX establishing her own court and doing her own projects".
By having Meng Diu personally come to Ling Qi about it, Meng Diu is signalling she respects that Ling Qi was the one to talk to Shenhua about said mission, and put political weight behind CRX being an heiress with actual political power and not a child on training wheel. Furthermore, she is also making sure to tell Ling Qi "As her only 'present' retainer, you are the one making the calls on gatekeeping potential other retainers/etc".
As Meng Diu says, this is an investment. She is investing a lot of soft and hard (an actual probably higher cultivation Meng) power into CRX, with the unstated implication that if the diplomacy mission is successful the Meng would share some of the triumph. More personally for Ling Qi, she is directly increasing Ling Qi's political clout by going through her (first time a noble goes through Ling Qi to contact CRX, and this is an actual high noble with an important position) and acknowledging her place as a retainer of a ducal clan rather than a toy of CRX's.
There is also the implication of having a line to her Meng faction if all goes well.
I really don't see a reason to reject the favour Meng Diu is making Ling Qi and CRX, here.
[X] Accept the offer, you can convince Renxiang and sponsorship from even a faction of a count house is a valuable thing.
By having Meng Diu personally come to Ling Qi about it, Meng Diu is signalling she respects that Ling Qi was the one to talk to Shenhua about said mission, and put political weight behind CRX being an heiress with actual political power and not a child on training wheel. Furthermore, she is also making sure to tell Ling Qi "As her only 'present' retainer, you are the one making the calls on gatekeeping potential other retainers/etc".
As Meng Diu says, this is an investment. She is investing a lot of soft and hard (an actual probably higher cultivation Meng) power into CRX, with the unstated implication that if the diplomacy mission is successful the Meng would share some of the triumph. More personally for Ling Qi, she is directly increasing Ling Qi's political clout by going through her (first time a noble goes through Ling Qi to contact CRX, and this is an actual high noble with an important position) and acknowledging her place as a retainer of a ducal clan rather than a toy of CRX's.
There is also the implication of having a line to her Meng faction if all goes well.
I really don't see a reason to reject the favour Meng Diu is making Ling Qi and CRX, here.
[X] Accept the offer, you can convince Renxiang and sponsorship from even a faction of a count house is a valuable thing.
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Alingge and Yu Nuan both don't have any real diplomatic skills, or even notable social skills if we're going to be real about it. They also don't have the political clout to get involved as anything like a representative of the empire. The Meng are counts so it can work, but anything lower than that is likely to sow broad political dissatisfaction in Emerald Seas. It's too open to criticism. There's also tricky allegiance questions. Yu Nuan isn't connected to anything but the sect, but that's technically an institution of the imperial throne, not the province. Alingge's clan is subordinate to the Luo, which raises the question of why not a Luo representative in the first place? It's messy.
The only reason I suggested Xuan Shi is because his status and clan would make it relatively clean. A really big thing is he's the only Xuan in the territory to possibly act as an observer to proceedings, so his low personal strength for a participant is excused. The Xuan have dealing-with-foreigners cache. They're officially on good terms with Cai and the ES, with overt plans to reopen and strengthen trade ties. It's just not messy. Almost anyone else is messy.
This is also me wanting to tip things towards narrative flow/continuity. Back when Xuan Shi approached us ahead of the underground mission, it was some good setup. But on the mission, he ended up being sidelined, wasting the opportunity. Us going to him for advice for this diplomatic mission and leaving it at that, even while we're now adding other people in our rough age bracket to the mission, feels like the same kind of dropped plot thread for no real reason.
Adding Xuan Shi is a really easy and obvious change to make, and I can't really think of any justification for not doing it. Weaving our plot threads into a sturdier cord has been a strong priority from all sides for some time. So let's do it.
Edit: Heck, Cai Renxiang even explicitly ordered us to try to strengthen bonds with Xuan Shi. Twice! She should be super open to the suggestion of inviting him along. There's like zero barriers here.
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SoothingCoffee
Umumumu
- Location
- The Library
[X] Accept the offer, you can convince Renxiang and sponsorship from even a faction of a count house is a valuable thing.
Seems like the sensible option, imo.
Seems like the sensible option, imo.
Arkeus
Crazy cat guy
- Location
- France
So, all this talk of Xuan Shi caused me to be reminded of previous talk with him.
Xuan Shi also doesn't have the issues inviting most of anyone else would have, as if he gets the blessing of his clan there is little chance for the sect to say No, which isn't the case for, say Allingge. Not only that, but CRX contacting any of the ES clans would show a special relationship to that clan, while inviting Xuan Shi doesn't get into that political quagmire.
His reasoning for going on the underground mission was that the Xuan clan likes knowledge of other civilisation, and Xuan Shi himself wants to help his clan as much as possible. So, I strongly suspect that he would really appreciate going on the mission. Doubly so because he was wary of being too forward to Ling Qi, so her inviting him would reassure him that she actually appreciates him.
Xuan Shi also doesn't have the issues inviting most of anyone else would have, as if he gets the blessing of his clan there is little chance for the sect to say No, which isn't the case for, say Allingge. Not only that, but CRX contacting any of the ES clans would show a special relationship to that clan, while inviting Xuan Shi doesn't get into that political quagmire.
[X] Decline, you can't afford to involve internal politics in something as delicate as diplomacy with an unknown faction.
Pretty pointless to vote this way, but whatever.
I don't think we should try to add the Meng right now. My basic issue is that is basically out of the blue and the clan hasn't done anything to try and get to know us before. It is a lazy and kinda shitty way to both get to know us, and to work with the Cai.
Before this, the conservative noble group that put the most effort into getting to know us was the Lou. Yeah he is a shit and not worth our time, but he did come up to talk to us once and asked us to his party. It was mostly a waste of time (Alingge is cool at least), but he thought we were worth spending some time on. What have the Meng done?
They have treated us as a non-entity this entire time, not even bothering to send some random scrub to talk to us a bit. How hard would it be to comment on our style and our supposed link to one of their founders? They have to know about that obvious link and could easily use it. But they haven't bothered.
This is a lesson we are learning that if you scorn the political players, don't be surprised to be scorned. They have ignored us this far, and once they find out that we maybe have some useful ideas they want us to do work for them? That is too much. And rude.
I also think this would be abusing our personal link to CRX a bit, as she has been clearly instructed to gather a base of independent cultivators as retainers. When nobles are added it should be someone she has selected and screened, not some random.
I might be fine adding a Meng if any of them had put in any effort into getting to know us. I don't think this one conversation is enough to use our personal connection with CRX to add some stranger, or to get involved in Meng internal politics. And it is a large reward for people who have done nothing to try and earn it.
Pretty pointless to vote this way, but whatever.
I don't think we should try to add the Meng right now. My basic issue is that is basically out of the blue and the clan hasn't done anything to try and get to know us before. It is a lazy and kinda shitty way to both get to know us, and to work with the Cai.
Before this, the conservative noble group that put the most effort into getting to know us was the Lou. Yeah he is a shit and not worth our time, but he did come up to talk to us once and asked us to his party. It was mostly a waste of time (Alingge is cool at least), but he thought we were worth spending some time on. What have the Meng done?
They have treated us as a non-entity this entire time, not even bothering to send some random scrub to talk to us a bit. How hard would it be to comment on our style and our supposed link to one of their founders? They have to know about that obvious link and could easily use it. But they haven't bothered.
This is a lesson we are learning that if you scorn the political players, don't be surprised to be scorned. They have ignored us this far, and once they find out that we maybe have some useful ideas they want us to do work for them? That is too much. And rude.
I also think this would be abusing our personal link to CRX a bit, as she has been clearly instructed to gather a base of independent cultivators as retainers. When nobles are added it should be someone she has selected and screened, not some random.
I might be fine adding a Meng if any of them had put in any effort into getting to know us. I don't think this one conversation is enough to use our personal connection with CRX to add some stranger, or to get involved in Meng internal politics. And it is a large reward for people who have done nothing to try and earn it.
- Location
- UK
[X] Accept the offer, you can convince Renxiang and sponsorship from even a faction of a count house is a valuable thing.
Sword seems more an imperial thing so gonna go with formations bodysuit nerd
More seriously, kinda hoping he's a diviner. The last one we had was kind of a creep and it would be very useful.
Now it leaves the question: is the Meng grandson gonna be a hacker nerd? Or is he gonna be a thuggish swordmaster?
totally not a KLK expy
Sword seems more an imperial thing so gonna go with formations bodysuit nerd
More seriously, kinda hoping he's a diviner. The last one we had was kind of a creep and it would be very useful.
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Su ling was the last diviner i can remenberX] Accept the offer, you can convince Renxiang and sponsorship from even a faction of a count house is a valuable thing.
Sword seems more an imperial thing so gonna go with formations bodysuit nerd
More seriously, kinda hoping he's a diviner. The last one we had was kind of a creep and it would be very useful.
Who is the creep?
- Location
- Dreamland
- Pronouns
- She/Her
You do realize they sent a fifth realm rather than a peer to talk to us? No other clan has done that, if anything this outweighs what other have done. If that isn't taking us seriously I don't know what is. As for earning it, this is specifically them trying to do just that. Seriously, they're doing us a political favor essentially, note the wording of the yes vote.
Plus politics isn't just a "what did you do for me?" game. If we snub a count clan just because they haven't done anything for us yet, we'll look stupid.
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- Location
- Greece
I really hope that when we talk to Cai, we can honestly say something among the lines of "we were told to make political overtures, we got this offer, we thought it would be stupid to just decline, you have all the facts, you can decide optimal course of action" rather than trying to get it past her sneaky like.
- Location
- The Star Kingdom of Manticore
Ling Qi has shown remarkable candor with Cai in the past which Cai has reciprocated. I am very confident that Ling Qi will discuss this with Cai. If there is one thing they do is talk a great deal about decisions that affect both of them.
- Location
- UK
...How the hell did I forget about Su Ling? I am ashamed of myself
Was thinking of the council guy in outer sect who had us sabotage his rivals.
- Location
- The Star Kingdom of Manticore
Was he a diviner? I thought he was just an info broker....How the hell did I forget about Su Ling? I am ashamed of myself
Was thinking of the council guy in outer sect who had us sabotage his rivals.
- Location
- Finland
Fifth realm nothing, they sent the envoy to the duchesses court.
Fifth realms, are dime a dozen compared to that.
The options are to either slam a door shut at the very people we tried to make nice with during the court scene, or bring in an unknown quantity.
And frankly, most of the expedition will be unknown quantities, and this unknown quantity is going to be very eager to not get egg on their clans collective face.
I understand people not wanting to get into politics, but we are way past that point, we became a focus of politics the second we decided to join Cai, hell, in some ways we jumped into politics the second we talked to Meizhen.
This little show we are doing?
Super political, like, sets a week long literal firestorm over peoples heads political, the whole discussion with lady Meng was pretty obviously her reading things into this people were not intending to write, and i think she was happy, and impressed, by what she saw.
To paraphrase myself, we are the direct vassal of a ducal heir, we can't take a shit without it being political.
Another thing to remember is the only Meng we've seen before is Meng De. While he's been distant and totally (skillfully, using Wang Chao as his scapegoat) stirred up trouble when we first talked to the count scions, we've been avoiding him as well. I'm not willing to call things with him a grudge, more like mutual aversion.
But more pertinent to the offer from Meng Diu here, Meng De isn't necessarily from the same internal faction of the clan as she is. If he's from the more isolationist threads of the clan culture, it's not surprising that he wouldn't have reached out to us. I think it's important to keep in mind but shouldn't act as a barrier when a more open Meng rep does reach out to us. Especially when they're an Indigo cultivator.
Basically, we should remain aware of the fact not all Meng are going to follow along with the intentions of Meng Diu, but the reverse is true as well. The dismissiveness from other corners of the clan aren't fair representations of every Meng we might deal with. We are opening ourselves to risks, but staying closed off is also risky.
It's good practice for dealing with the Bai more, honestly. Looking forward to frustrating a bai boy with our antics and not taking him seriously.
But more pertinent to the offer from Meng Diu here, Meng De isn't necessarily from the same internal faction of the clan as she is. If he's from the more isolationist threads of the clan culture, it's not surprising that he wouldn't have reached out to us. I think it's important to keep in mind but shouldn't act as a barrier when a more open Meng rep does reach out to us. Especially when they're an Indigo cultivator.
Basically, we should remain aware of the fact not all Meng are going to follow along with the intentions of Meng Diu, but the reverse is true as well. The dismissiveness from other corners of the clan aren't fair representations of every Meng we might deal with. We are opening ourselves to risks, but staying closed off is also risky.
It's good practice for dealing with the Bai more, honestly. Looking forward to frustrating a bai boy with our antics and not taking him seriously.
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- Location
- The Temple of the Winds
[x] Decline, you can't afford to involve internal politics in something as delicate as diplomacy with an unknown faction.
Our value to CRX is our loyalty (to friends), which implies being both helpful and truthful in our suggestions to her. Recommending a dude we never meet just because his grandma wants a political link runs entirely contrary to our relationship base principles.
At the very least we would have needed to meet the dude, get a feeling about his goals, and test his usefulness before actually recommending him to anything, let alone our most important social/political link.
Our value to CRX is our loyalty (to friends), which implies being both helpful and truthful in our suggestions to her. Recommending a dude we never meet just because his grandma wants a political link runs entirely contrary to our relationship base principles.
At the very least we would have needed to meet the dude, get a feeling about his goals, and test his usefulness before actually recommending him to anything, let alone our most important social/political link.