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Threads Of Destiny(Eastern Fantasy, Sequel to Forge of Destiny)

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LimitlessMemes said:
Not really. People are curious about Hanyi, and acknowledge that Ling Qi was mentored by her mother, but that's it. In the greater scheme of things, Ling Qi is a street rat who just started cultivating, and is only third realm. Nobody is going to jeopardize negotiations over us.
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Ling Qi is the cause for the current negotiations. And in declaring that she will be here, she makes removing her a sign of duplicity, either by her or the ES in general, which then leads to damaging to budding relationship between the two polities.
Is this a permanent irrepairable damage? Probably not, but it is damage. And Shenhua already trusted Ling Qi (and CRX) to spearhead this diplomatic initiative, we put ourselves in the middle of it, and she will let us keep doing it as long as we keep providing results.
 
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Empiricist2 said:
Why is her experience relative to other greens relevant?
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Because unlike in the Empire all Ice Nation emissaries are green. They can't sent say a violet ambassador it'd be counter productive. They have to send a green (or maybe a cyan at most). So her power level doesn't disqualify her. The relevant metrics are age and experience. And while she doesn't have much no-one in the insular ES has any more either. So if you don't have any experienced foreign diplomats sending back the one that has had some small success already makes sense. Not to mention that being from a common background sort of helps her because she's less indoctrinated. I don't see how sending a snobish xenophobe of a noble be an improvement.
 
Main crux of diplomacy between nations without cheap instant long distance communications is that an interpersonal rapport between the diplomats is critical - you need people who are inclined to interpret each other's words favorably, and be able to seek clarification on the greater diplomatic context without fear.

Ling Qi, through a combination of being cynical of imperial propaganda, a Truth based core insight, compatible mentor, compatible bound spirits and compatible personal history, has forged a decent bond with Jaromila, allowing her to make much more headway in less time. This sort of genuine understanding is hard to force, sometimes people just happened to click.

So, while Ling Qi isn't the only option, she's an excellent choice in her own right, whereas another ambassador sent by Shenhua would be highly competent, their blindspots may not play quite so nicely.

In practical terms its should be a matter of "Ling Qi spends a chunk of time making introductions for the new ambassador as she hands over the role" vs "Ling Qi spends a chunk of time preparing for the role of ambassador, and picking support staff to cover for lacks".

Neither are an inherently better job for the Cai, though taking ambassadorship for herself is an extremely profitable and leveragable position for Ling Qi and Cai Renxiang.
People willing to trade metal for wood alone is hilariously profitable. You could probably see Bao Qian's eyes pop with green stones XD
 
veekie said:
People willing to trade metal for wood alone is hilariously profitable. You could probably see Bao Qian's eyes pop with green stones XD
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They're not willing to trade metal for wood, they consider wood to something valuable enough to demand it as bloodprice... which isn't that much different. Everyone's been talking about trade but this expedition is mostly about securing a non-aggression pact with the White Sky and it's various attendant tribes. Trade comes later.
 
Zeful said:
They're not willing to trade metal for wood, they consider wood to something valuable enough to demand it as bloodprice... which isn't that much different. Everyone's been talking about trade but this expedition is mostly about securing a non-aggression pact with the White Sky and it's various attendant tribes. Trade comes later.
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And the vote that will take place is explicitly about what will come later. This expedition has already succeeded in securing a non-aggression pact, although the exact details of it still need to be worked out.
 
I'm starting to come around to ambassadorship.

Really, I just want to know who we will stop getting to see with the partial cast reset. If it means less of Meizhen or Su Ling, I'm against it. Sadly, it probably means less Suyin but I have accepted that and we already have the cyan breakthrough potion hook to spur further interactions.
 
Aranfan said:
I'm starting to come around to ambassadorship.

Really, I just want to know who we will stop getting to see with the partial cast reset. If it means less of Meizhen or Su Ling, I'm against it. Sadly, it probably means less Suyin but I have accepted that and we already have the cyan breakthrough potion hook to spur further interactions.
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Based on what Yrsillar said so far I'm PRETTY sure we'd still be physically based in the Sect for the next couple of years, but with obligatory expeditions beyond the Wall and to set up our fief claims.

It'd be a pretty long while before our new fief could be considered safe for our still mostly mortal household to move into unless its into a fortified bunker they can't leave.

Our friends should still be our friends, but the Sect(i.e. the Sect Nosy Aunts Club and Elders) would be gradually distancing from us as we formally align with the Cai.
The Young Emerald Seas Nobles should if anything be MORE aggressive in forming contacts with us if it gets out that we got a prime piece of meat in our teeth, because they want a bite.
So of our social circle:
-Liao Zhu - War heating up and he's aiming at Core Sect, likely see him less simply because we don't share a command.

-Meizhen - She was going to petition her family to be emissary to Cai Renxiang's court, so likely more scenes.

-Suyin - Less time probing Sect places with her for goodies(though there may be some kind of push to go nuts on the map before we're done). However, Bao Qingling is connected to us through Meizhen and Bao Qian(who may not leave even if hit with a stick if he hears about the business opportunities), so I expect little change until we officially move into our fief.

-Su Ling - There IS that Gan ship being floated around, but as far as I can tell, Su Ling has no particular loyalties to the Sect except as a means of getting stronger, and is more invested into looking out for the little folk. Recruitable I suspect, assuming we make the effort.
 
Aranfan said:
I'm starting to come around to ambassadorship.

Really, I just want to know who we will stop getting to see with the partial cast reset. If it means less of Meizhen or Su Ling, I'm against it. Sadly, it probably means less Suyin but I have accepted that and we already have the cyan breakthrough potion hook to spur further interactions.
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As others keep saying, Meizhen is here for CRX not the Sect. If CRX moves closer to the ice ladies Meizhen will either follow or at least visit frequently. Su Ling is interesting in that she's very valuable to the Sect in the current circumstances, but she doesn't really have any personal inclination toward it. This route may mean less Su Ling for the immediate future, but I doubt Su Ling is going to be a Sect lifer like Li Suyin. And we've kind of already killed most of Su Ling's screen time. RIP. For now at least.

Aside from obvious stuff, I think we'll end up seeing more Wang Chao up until we fully break from the Sect. His family has a lot of land on the border after all, so his clan will be pestering him for info on us and the ice ladies. We probably won't see him much after unless his family wants him to be a more permanent liaison to us or something.
 
veekie said:
Based on what Yrsillar said so far I'm PRETTY sure we'd still be physically based in the Sect for the next couple of years, but with obligatory expeditions beyond the Wall and to set up our fief claims.
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dycouza said:
ABEO NO NAD ABEOToday at 5:04 PM
What does it mean to still be in the area, with the diplomacy route? Are we still even technically members of the sect? Do we live there? Does our family? Squating in one of their caves while being 99% day-to-day subordinate to another authority seems like something the sect would actively hate on principal
YrsillarToday at 5:06 PM
Your family will stay where they are for now but yeah you'll be moving toward surveying your own place with CRX, you'll still have access to cultivation sites for awhile but yeah your gona start moving out
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So no, I doubt we will be at sect. Like why would the sect let you stay when you are just being a leech and not doing anything for the sect in return.
 
DdraigZek said:
So no, I doubt we will be at sect. Like why would the sect let you stay when you are just being a leech and not doing anything for the sect in return.
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The timeframes involved are a little unclear. We'll "start moving out" but I could see that taking a while when the first step is "surveying" the land we'll be moving to. Until we formally leave we'll likely still be doing missions with the Sect but those will start to wrap up as the Sect has less and less reason to reward us and thus we have less reason to participate in their missions.

We have a lot of good will built up so the splitting will probably be fairly amicable on either side and we will still have to be participating in the war (after all, we'll be living not that far from where many of the Cloud Tribes live) so it won't exactly be us leaving them in a lurch.

I really hope that the majority of the ES has consumed enough propaganda that they don't realize just how valuable this opportunity is, as we'll be in a fairly vulnerable position for a couple realms.
 
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DdraigZek said:
So no, I doubt we will be at sect. Like why would the sect let you stay when you are just being a leech and not doing anything for the sect in return.
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Because our fees are paid by the Cai?
Same way all the other noble scions at the Sect are, they don't plan to stay, they pay their fees, they live in the Sect and have free use of its facilities as appropriate for their rank. They leave when they are recalled or when they find themselves plateauing at the 500 rank barrier.

The Elders won't be dropping opportunities in their laps.
 
our story might be a far more realistic and character driven than traditional xianxia story but it is xianxia. tournaments are displays of potential. a sect tournament in xianxia
wouldn't be a performance match or a sport event .closet analogy would be a military exercise or a weapons test . political connections of a intersect tourney aside missing out in the tourney could be a major blow to CRX .
 
DdraigZek said:
So no, I doubt we will be at sect. Like why would the sect let you stay when you are just being a leech and not doing anything for the sect in return.
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We still have aided the sect in a war and we could well become one of the distinguished alumni of the sect. Also by maintaining a good relationship with us the sect might be hoping to maintain the good relations long after we have left - which we eventually will do.
 
Another thing that this does is answer the "where will Ling Qi's border fief be" question quite handily. It seems like we're very likely to end up with the nearest Imperial outpost/town to the neutral ground, which may end up hosting an embassy. It would also almost by default end up a major stop for people carrying trade goods to or from our new allies, which means that barring some disruption, our little town will end up a very rich, and shockingly multi-cultural place, by Imperial standards.
 
promethus said:
our story might be a far more realistic and character driven than traditional xianxia story but it is xianxia. tournaments are displays of potential. a sect tournament in xianxia
wouldn't be a performance match or a sport event .closet analogy would be a military exercise or a weapons test . political connections of a intersect tourney aside missing out in the tourney could be a major blow to CRX .
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Hardly. Real achievements trump arena matches...provided you don't lose the arena match.

Being entrusted with and succeeding at a diplomatic expedition is itself higher prestige than winning a tournament.

The actual issue is that the tournament is neutral prestige, everyone appreciates a good facebeating, while the diplomatic effort is inherently political, as the mercantile and ES traditionalists will cleave closer while the isolationists will be offended.
 
JohnnieBoy123 said:
I really hope that the majority of the ES has consumed enough propaganda that they don't realize just how valuable this opportunity is, as we'll be in a fairly vulnerable position for a couple realms.
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Funnily enough the war works in our favor there. Assuming (reasonably) that our fief will be at the border with ice nation/cloud tribes, then any move against us while the war lasts would be endangering border security and thus treasonous. Plus there probably gonna be troops active nearby which will be a further stabilizing factor. It also means of course that we'll be expected to be active in the war effort, which again if we don't screw things up will make us popular with the militaristic clans (e.g. Wang). That plus our expected trade alliance with the Bao and we should be at a pretty good place when the war ends in a couple of years.
 
Yrs appears to be saying that regardless of which route we choose, Ling Qi will continue to be based at the Sect for the six to twelve months or so before moving on. It's just that we get a choice between Wall stuff that is relevant to our future domain or fighting in the Intersect tournie. I strongly suspect that surveying our new domain will also involve some fighting, just not of the tournament variety. There is a war going on after all, and hostile spirits are plentiful.

LimitlessMemes said:
That doesn't really change the overall point. Emerald Seas is where we have to live and actually run a household. We are retainer to the heir to the provincial ruler. Renxiang certainly isn't going to run off to join us beyond the Wall long term, she has larger responsibilities.
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We're going to be running a border barony. That means the people on the other side of the border are going to be more relevant to our domain than the domains on the opposite end of the Emerald Seas. Our ability to establish both peace and trade with our non-imperial neighbors will directly impact both the security and wealth of our domain (and the safety of our family members) as well as our clout within the Duchy.

If CRX's dream is at all reflective of what is likely to occur, CRX may well be given a viscounty of her own to manage on the border to cut her teeth on alongside her left hand.
 
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Ok, so there might have been a missunderstanding regarding what i mean with wanting a more proactive protagonist:

Currently we/Ling Qi are largely motivated by 3 things: 1. Advancing our Cultivation, 2. Friends and Family and 3. things we were told to do.

1. and 2. are Ling Qi's motivations and i dont have any issue with them. However, even together they are so incredibly broad that they can fit to a lot of future developments. We could become a housewife, a court musician, a baron, a popstar, an adventurer, a general, a diplomat or a lot of other things, so we have a lot of options to choose from.

But here comes the issue: almost all the politicing, advancing in the sect, joining military exercises or even joining the inter sect are all motivated by Shenhua/CRX/the Sect told us to do it. This is in my opinion the core of the issue with the status quo.

With the diplomat choice we have since the caldera fight a narrative of Ling Qi being proactive and it were our choices and her actions that made this option possible in the end.

So in the end, I would be a lot more comfortable with the intersect option if the reasoning for going there was more along the line of 'this lets us work towards (insert motivation here)' and less 'shenhua told us to win the competition'
 
Yep no matter which route we decide we really need to work out our goals for next upcoming months that aren't cultivation to meet green or bronze target. If we go sect route, who will be our enemies mainly in the war be for those months(likely the rats), what info gathering or exercises should we do for intersect, what skill set and arts will be needed most to master.

The we'll need to work Qi being more proactive, spending more time with her friends, improving relations with polticals clans we gotten to know their, trying to do sect missions ourselves instead of waiting around and what goals we want her to set that not Shenrua ones. Note were well on our way to beating sect ranking requirements so no need to discuss that.

Remember we need to build moment and not jump at shinys so either we choose Diplomacy or Sect route and stick with a plan for those months we left there.
 
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