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.
They will be suprised nt us ready for them. This doen't sounds like much, but it's a real table turner( I know a bit of military tactics, though I am no expert)
- Location
- Greece
I kind of disagree with the fact that option 3 has a marginally worse position. I think that, should a fight start, it gives us the best position, cuz we are the better ambush predator here, and countering an ambush damages it hard.
The reason I have been convinced about option 3 is because it actually gives us the optimal position on whatever the spiders choose to do. If they choose to negotiate, we reap maximum benefits, and if they choose to attack, we gain the high ground. Option 2, by contrast, tries to predict their behavior and change it, which may fail hard if our read of them is wrong and leave us with worst of both worlds for a chance at intimidation.
Springboarding of this analysis to say that I do think that many people here make the mistake of assuming all options are equal because they are presented that way. A lot of them seem to be given some merit the other options do not have.
But here is the thing, they have to seem equal to be options, but that doesn't mean they are. An option can be bad without it being a trap if its in character to consider. Even if yrsillar meant them to be equal, he has stated, if I remember correctly (hope I am not confusing him with another QM), that he reads the arguments about each option and lets them affect it, meaning that an option that has a lot of good arguments backing it becomes a lot better and potentially capable of being the best of all worlds, if said arguments are well thought. (big if though)
I posit that option 3 is optimal, and that the advantages of options 2 and 1 are circumstantial/gambley at best. I may be wrong in my estimation, sure, but I want to state, for the record, that I disagree in the hypothesis that options have equal merit and thus that the only thing that changes is the achieved objective(s) and/or risk (with highest risk always giving more objectives), asserting instead that some options are just better in general.
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- Location
- Third planet from the star named Sol
- Pronouns
- He/They
[X] Pretend that you have not noticed their duplicity and play polite for as long as possible to draw out information. Subtly set yourself up to counterattack their ambush.
EternalObserver
eYe Gaze baCk
- Location
- The Void
Insert Tally
- Location
- California
[X] Enter and engage, but be prepared. Use the trappings of Cai authority and your own power to intimidate them into backing down. If they attack anyway, this is a grouping you can handle.
This is some weird readings of what other people are saying. And honestly, you seem to be relying on wishful thinking instead of a textual basis.
So first, people aren't saying "Option two is the only peaceable approach". They're saying basically two things. "Option two is the only one where Ling Qi tries to make peace" and "Option two is the most likely to result in a peaceable resolution". These are both very very easily defensible takes.
Second, they're ambush predators who habitually attack weak or unprepared prey from advantage. They are currently hunting us as food. Letting them persist in their perception that they have the advantage in the situation plays into their predator instincts. Confronting them openly short-circuits their typical pattern of hunting. This may or may not work, but it is the option which looks at their nature as spirit beasts and tries to navigate the situation with it in mind, for our own benefit. Option 3 does nothing like this, letting the spiders' hide->prepare->ambush loop play out uninterrupted.
It makes perfect sense for an ambush predator to break off an ambush to aware prey, so your attempt at highlighting contradiction is something of a false dichotomy. There's nothing inconsistent, and nothing humanocentric, about the idea we can possibly nudge them out of trying to eat us. It's your argument which seems to be throwing out all nuance on how an entity's nature influences its reaction to situations, by insisting on hard binaries of things being ONE or the OTHER. In reality, everything is shades of inclination, predilection, and instinct. A spider is going to do spider things because that's what they do, but they're also intelligent creatures capable of communication. It's not some big contradiction.
Lastly, you've been consistently escalating your rhetoric about option 2 being BIG STRONG LING QI BULLY SPIDERS option, which is pretty ridiculous. You're claiming that the option is about cowing the spiders into submission to do whatever we want, but it plainly isn't. The entire purpose of option 2 is to present ourselves as formidable. The goal is to get to the negotiation table without being thought of as food, no more no less. That's it. Going on about "gunboat diplomacy" when our demand is "stop trying to eat me, so we can talk" is pretty silly.
Like, seriously, you're framing standing up tall and making noise when facing a bear as some deeply immoral unfair act of subjugation. While defending a plan that amounts to deliberately leaving out food for the bear laced with poison and shrugging that it doesn't have to eat the food and yelling at it would be mean. It's incoherent.
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Option 2 escalates the situation, with the hope that the spiders will be unwilling to match. Continuing to resist us under after we invoke the Cai is treason and will have them be executed if they lose in most likely a very unpleasant way. Fear of this might result in them deciding to give way to our demands without a fight but, once the fighting starts, they have no reason not to attack us with all they've got as their lives are already forfeit.
Option 3 deescalates the situation, with the hope that the spiders will be willing to match. Under this approach we do not invoke the Cai, making them attacking us merely a personal affront and thus ours to forgive. If we want them to surrender after they start attacking, option 3 gives them the opportunity to do so with minimal consequences.
Option 3 deescalates the situation, with the hope that the spiders will be willing to match. Under this approach we do not invoke the Cai, making them attacking us merely a personal affront and thus ours to forgive. If we want them to surrender after they start attacking, option 3 gives them the opportunity to do so with minimal consequences.
Option 3 does not deescalate the situation. It leaves the scale of the situation untouched. Openly, anyway, it escalates in secret but that doesn't matter for our purpose here.
Describing option 3 as de-escalatory is deeply misleading, because it makes it sound like we're trying to calm down the situation. But we're not! There's no effort to calm the situation down, in option 3. Option 3 has exactly two things it tries to do: gain intel and prepare to counterattack the spiders. Nothing about option 3 speaks to any hope whatsoever of avoiding conflict.
Edit: and if you really want to get down to it, Ling Qi's attitude in either approach seems more relevant. A relevant line for this is "Such a blatant use of a good faith request annoyed her." Option 2 has Ling Qi trying to diplomacy, making a commitment to making communication work, so she's deciding at the outset to not let her annoyance run her response too hard. Option 3 has Ling Qi reacting in tune with her annoyance, and striking back at the spiders for their duplicity.
If we're looking at how Ling Qi treats defeated spiders in either approach, quarter seems a lot more likely in 2 than 3, just in terms of her mood. That said, I doubt the difference would be significant.
Describing option 3 as de-escalatory is deeply misleading, because it makes it sound like we're trying to calm down the situation. But we're not! There's no effort to calm the situation down, in option 3. Option 3 has exactly two things it tries to do: gain intel and prepare to counterattack the spiders. Nothing about option 3 speaks to any hope whatsoever of avoiding conflict.
Edit: and if you really want to get down to it, Ling Qi's attitude in either approach seems more relevant. A relevant line for this is "Such a blatant use of a good faith request annoyed her." Option 2 has Ling Qi trying to diplomacy, making a commitment to making communication work, so she's deciding at the outset to not let her annoyance run her response too hard. Option 3 has Ling Qi reacting in tune with her annoyance, and striking back at the spiders for their duplicity.
If we're looking at how Ling Qi treats defeated spiders in either approach, quarter seems a lot more likely in 2 than 3, just in terms of her mood. That said, I doubt the difference would be significant.
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EternalObserver
eYe Gaze baCk
- Location
- The Void
I don't really care which one wins, but just cause of that (stupid argument)
[X] Enter and engage, but be prepared. Use the trappings of Cai authority and your own power to intimidate them into backing down. If they attack anyway, this is a grouping you can handle.
[X] Enter and engage, but be prepared. Use the trappings of Cai authority and your own power to intimidate them into backing down. If they attack anyway, this is a grouping you can handle.
- Location
- United States of America, Michigan
I think anyone who thinks we can avoid conflict with any option is going to be disapointed
Alectai
Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion
This.
Which is why I categorically reject the idea that option 2 is the peaceful action, I don't think any option but option 1 avoids a fight here. And Option 1 is flagrantly the "Show weakness to strangers" option.
- Location
- the internet
Ya know, I don't care about the outcome of this particular vote that much. But some people giving arguments that are based on their own interpretation with no basis in textual evidence or word from the author. It annoyed me to the point that i got drawn into the argument and now I care more than I would've otherwise. I just want people to stop framing option 3 as deescalation because it's the opposite. It's literally choosing the more passive action, letting the attack happen with no attempt to stop it. At least in option 2, there's a chance that they may realize that we're not easy prey, that without the element of surprise they're not going to do great in this fight. There's a possibility, however small, that once they realize this they'll surrender. If so, we can recommend leniency to Shenhua and argue that the spiders will be useful contacts for info.
There is literally no reason to fight them at all. This is completely pointless. So many people here are getting so fixated on option 3 being slightly tactically superior if fighting breaks out that they're missing that we don't need to fight them at all. If we can't at least try to negotiate with some neutral Greens with whom we have no quarrel, why are we even going on this trip to negotiate with people on the other side of a war from us?
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I mean We don't need to fight them but also it isn't like option 3 is us going in guns blazing, option 3 is we go in and talk with them normally and ready ourselves to respond to their aggression. If the spiders decide that they can negotiate something out of us (admittedly low odds) then we aren't committing to attacking them. Likewise in option 2 if the spiders are sufficiently intimidated by the two prey creatures that they outnumber and equal, and in some cases exceed, in cultivation level (I think also low odds) you haven't committed to attacking them, feels like conflict is pretty likely just sort of depends whether we think we're better negotiators or intimidators.
- Location
- the internet
I agree with this except for the part that poses option 3 as the negotiator option. Like you said yourself, the odds for that are very low. Personally I think the odds there are low enough to be nonexistent.
- Location
- Finland
The reason i went with the non posturing with preparation to counter any ambushes is not because of what spiders might do, but what we do.
If the spiders attack us, then that's on them, but we have given them the ability to choose their actions.
And, what happens after the fight? Do we try to subjugate them? Kill them? Convince them to ally with us? What?
I just think that giving them a change, no matter how unlikely they are to take it, for peaceful discussion, and then proving ourselves a better ambush predator if they do decide to ambush us makes for a better story, and has some potential for better (read: more interesting) long term relationship (if one is to be had, which i doubt).
If the spiders attack us, then that's on them, but we have given them the ability to choose their actions.
And, what happens after the fight? Do we try to subjugate them? Kill them? Convince them to ally with us? What?
I just think that giving them a change, no matter how unlikely they are to take it, for peaceful discussion, and then proving ourselves a better ambush predator if they do decide to ambush us makes for a better story, and has some potential for better (read: more interesting) long term relationship (if one is to be had, which i doubt).
If you'd actually stuck to the argument that you don't think a fight is avoidable, we'd have avoided a lot of acrimony.
I mean, if you want the counter-ambush to play a part, then yes duh option 3 is the way to go.
But if you're invested in "giving them a chance, no matter how unlikely they are to take it, for a peaceful discussion" then option 2 is literally the one that does that most overtly. It's Ling Qi saying she knows their intentions, that it wouldn't go well for them, and that she'd like to talk peacefully anyway.
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