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

Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
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[X] Use your momentum to push for a greater allowance for security forces and their support as well as more of their security infrastructure in the valley (+2 White Sky Favorability, -1 Ministry Favorability)
Im voting 2 just so 3 doesnt win. The plan is 2 diminish the military tension on the embassy after sumit. Xia Ren wont stay most of white plumes will move out for the war arc. We shouldnt sacrifice our hard gained moi points over this we wont be geting more any time soon. We might gain some more white plume points but we might have 2 work with the moi later and we shouldnt ignore the empress completely.
 
Option 3 is precisely to diminish the military tension. It's the Weeping Sentinel herself who requested it after all. We don't want a very protective Violet to feel twitchy all the time. And won't Xia Ren and the White Plumes leaving also help diminish tensions? General Genocide's presence is why the Weeping Sentinel showed up in the first place. I sincerely doubt whichever Emerald Seas Violet gets assigned to the embassy town will be as creepy as Xia Ren, especially with ES nobility favour being so high.
Plus I think it makes the foreign quarter vote easier since with the judges, military cooperation and then all the support staff for the tree lady and her Indigos 90% of the foundation will already have been laid.
Edit: I hope the Violet or at least one of the Indigos turns out to be a Wang. They seem really enthusiastic about finding out more on how Polar Nation city cultivation works.

Second edit: Now that I think about it the Weeping Haven's full staff being present could also help soothe tensions in another way. It would mean that she and her Indigos had their full complement of lower realm interlocutors on hand to communicate with their Imperial counterparts, further putting the White Sky contingent at ease.
 
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ActionKermit said:
I wonder if we park a bunch of high realms at Embassy Town whether that will mean fewer reinforcements for us in the upcoming war arc?
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An Emerald Seas Violet is getting posted to the Embassy Town no matter what option we choose here. 4 Indigos is significant firepower but I don't think their absence would be noticed on the strategic scale.
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Bonus Chapter-Mid Year Conference - Forge of Destiny

“This is all increasingly farcical,” Sima Jiao said irritably. Strands of shadow curled around his fingers as they drummed on the polished surface of the (...)
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"Enough," Yuan He said, his voice booming with an undercurrent of finality. "Your concerns have been heard, but the matter is closed. Unless you can convince all of your colleagues to halve their cultivation salaries…?"
And that was the rub. The Argent Sect had a frankly absurd concentration of power. Two active Seventh realms - himself and the Sect Head - more than ten sixth realms, and many more of the fifth. Supporting such cultivation was beyond the means of any polity smaller than a county. That was not even considering the standing military the Sect maintained. The lands gifted to the Great Sects were rich - but not that rich.
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Indigos are a precious resource but there are a great many more of them than there are Violets. Every Viscounty has at least one Indigo, and the Count clans and Great Sects have a whole bunch.
 
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Karthak Urzak said:
Option 3 is precisely to diminish the military tension. It's the Weeping Sentinel herself who requested it after all. We don't want a very protective Violet to feel twitchy all the time. And won't Xia Ren and the White Plumes leaving also help diminish tensions? General Genocide's presence is why the Weeping Sentinel showed up in the first place. I sincerely doubt whichever Emerald Seas Violet gets assigned to the embassy town will be as creepy as Xia Ren, especially with ES nobility favour being so high.
Plus I think it makes the foreign quarter vote easier since with the judges, military cooperation and then all the support staff for the tree lady and her Indigos 90% of the foundation will already have been laid.
Edit: I hope the Violet or at least one of the Indigos turns out to be a Wang. They seem really enthusiastic about finding out more on how Polar Nation city cultivation works.
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Second edit: Now that I think about it the Weeping Haven's full staff being present could also help soothe tensions in another way. It would mean that she and her Indigos had their full complement of lower realm interlocutors on hand to communicate with their Imperial counterparts, further putting the White Sky contingent at ease.
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It also means that if the Weeping Sentinel does feel the need to respond to something, there's more options than direct 6th realm action. A subordinate, hopefully with better grasp on the nuances of more mortal interactions, addressing the big boss' cause for concern is a dynamic that's less likely to spiral out of control. Hopefully.
 
Valmond said:
I suspect people would have preferred our current situation where Jaromila generally does not change the numbers without our permission.
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I would have preferred this. I don't care about the mechanical impacts of Jaramilla on MOI. I wish we had more scenes in the narrative about her placating MOI or ES. considering the commission queue a side story of Jaramilla POV is a pipe dream but I wish at least we can see the scenes that show Jaromilla is as interested as our group in creating this relationship. We know this to be true but a scene or 2 showing it will be great .That Skyship scene helped but maybe a another similar instance. Right now this feels like LQ and by extension ES is the major driving force behind this and jaromilla and WS is a piece that is being moved
 
promethus said:
I would have preferred this. I don't care about the mechanical impacts of Jaramilla on MOI. I wish we had more scenes in the narrative about her placating MOI or ES. considering the commission queue a side story of Jaramilla POV is a pipe dream but I wish at least we can see the scenes that show Jaromilla is as interested as our group in creating this relationship. We know this to be true but a scene or 2 showing it will be great .That Skyship scene helped but maybe a another similar instance. Right now this feels like LQ and by extension ES is the major driving force behind this and jaromilla and WS is a piece that is being moved
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I would argue that the WS are being moved, or rather they were until they started to buy in. Early on, it's outright stated that some parts of the WS were feeling like she and our group were dragging everyone along. I agree about Jaromilla, though; it'd be cool to see more of her efforts here.
 
[X] Use your momentum to push for a greater allowance for security forces and their support as well as more of their security infrastructure in the valley (+2 White Sky Favorability, -1 Ministry Favorability)
 
[X] Fully support White Sky desires including the emplacement of their sovereigns full court on a permanent basis (+2 White Sky Favorabilty, +1 Polar Theocracy favorability, -1 Ministry and -2 White Plume favorability.)

I dunno I just vibe with this more.
 
Adhoc vote count started by Doramas on Dec 3, 2023 at 9:16 AM, finished with 358 posts and 178 votes.
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[X] Fully support White Sky desires including the emplacement of their sovereigns full court on a permanent basis (+2 White Sky Favorabilty, +1 Polar Theocracy favorability, -1 Ministry and -2 White Plume favorability.)
 
Caigate claims another scalp.

"Fuck any and all authority other than your own" seems to be baked into the Xianxia genre at a fundamental level, so Ling Qi going "we live in a society" comes as quite the shock to the system to a certain demographic of readers.
 
[X] Fully support White Sky desires including the emplacement of their sovereigns full court on a permanent basis (+2 White Sky Favorabilty, +1 Polar Theocracy favorability, -1 Ministry and -2 White Plume favorability.)
 
Karthak Urzak said:
"Fuck any and all authority other than your own" seems to be baked into the Xianxia genre at a fundamental level, so Ling Qi going "we live in a society" comes as quite the shock to the system to a certain demographic of readers.
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Wow, it's almost like people think that "Having a superior means that they hold power of life and death over you, and will use it freely to make you do whatever they want."

Which isn't the case at all, but you wouldn't know it from how many people screech at Caigate.
 
People have no clue about how feudal power structures work.
Everyone is either a vassal, or irrelevant.
You do not get to exist as a person of influence without being part of the chain of fealties and oaths.
 
[X] Use your momentum to push for a greater allowance for security forces and their support as well as more of their security infrastructure in the valley (+2 White Sky Favorability, -1 Ministry Favorability)

Don't want to pin down ES resources standing off an ally when we've got war on two or three other fronts coming.
 
Glau said:
[X] Use your momentum to push for a greater allowance for security forces and their support as well as more of their security infrastructure in the valley (+2 White Sky Favorability, -1 Ministry Favorability)

Don't want to pin down ES resources standing off an ally when we've got war on two or three other fronts coming.
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We're already pinning down a Violet no matter how this vote turns out. Adding four Indigos isn't that big by comparison. And the Count clans and Great Sects have a ton of Indigos.
Per Word of Yrs when Yuan He and his 108 companions ambushed and killed Ogodei no more than 12-20 of them were Violets. The rest were Indigo (and Cyans, but iirc they only served as batteries for Yuan He's ritual).
One each from the Wang, Luo, Jia and Argent Peak for example and we already have the full complement.
 
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Karthak Urzak said:
Caigate claims another scalp.

"Fuck any and all authority other than your own" seems to be baked into the Xianxia genre at a fundamental level, so Ling Qi going "we live in a society" comes as quite the shock to the system to a certain demographic of readers.
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Wow, they did my boy Gu Tai dirty.

But yeah, I kinda get how people fall into this trap, and it's mostly cause the political power dynamics of the sect were gonna bake in the oven longer. Putting aside the fact that the sect is its own power hierarchy that we'd be a part of, and have to get bossed around in, the great sect is headed for political power struggle stuff between the authority of the Duchess and the Empress. There's always a bigger boss.
 
So... there are some meaningful arguments in favor of going all in, and I get that, but I see things a bit differently.

First, we get a saving throw on each of the decrements, right? I didn't just imagine that? So getting +1 to one person and -1 to another means that the net is actually a bit above zero. There's no saving throw on the 2nd or higher loss. Please, please someone correct me if I'm wrong here.

Second, these favorability ratings don't just vanish into a puff of nothing when the debates are done. They persist - in how favorable those groups are toward this little outpost in some cases, and how favorable those groups are to us personally in others. I feel like no one's tracking on that.

So we should be thinking about who we're going to be dealing with in the future and by how much. We're tied to CRX. I guarantee that we'll be dealing with the White Plumes going forward. Polar Theocracy... is likely to be rather more distant. That's why I'm not such a huge fan of setting WP favor on fire at two-for-one it order to get PT favor. Similarly, if this really turns into something resembling Fief Quest, we're likely to interact with the White Sky more than we do with the Ministry, and the Ministry gets a save.

That's how I'm seeing it, anyway. If someone sees gaping holes in my logic or something, please let me know.
 
Karthak Urzak said:
Caigate claims another scalp.

"Fuck any and all authority other than your own" seems to be baked into the Xianxia genre at a fundamental level, so Ling Qi going "we live in a society" comes as quite the shock to the system to a certain demographic of readers.
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What does he mean by better prospects? We were/are a barely Green Baroness. The prospects he's talking about all come from HIGHLY influential people/families/clans, whom we SPECIFICALLY chose to interact with to get ahead!

Unless we chose to stay in the Sect for in-game Years, we wouldn't see much better prospects! We chose to get on the Progress train early and now we're doing the first real Diplomatic efforts the Empire has made in forever, speed-ran the hardest requirements for advancement through Green/Bronze, and successfully helped the FUTURE DUCHESS grow into a better person.

We chose to step out of the Kiddie pool and make REAL impactful changes and gained further opportunities for Unique/Stronger growth.
 
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Karthak Urzak said:
We're already pinning down a Violet no matter how this vote turns out. Adding four Indigos isn't that big by comparison. And the Count clans and Great Sects have a ton of Indigos.
Per Word of Yrs when Yuan He and his 108 companions ambushed and killed Ogodei no more than 12-20 of them were Violets. The rest were Indigo (and Cyans, but iirc they only served as batteries for Yuan He's ritual).
One each from the Wang, Luo, Jia and Argent Peak for example and we already have the full complement.
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There's a reason the white plumes are unhappy with it, and given there's already going to be a foreign violet right on the border, it's probably not because the threat is hugely greater.

I'm unwilling to hand wave away pinning down high realms with 'oh, of course we have enough of them' because if we did, we wouldn't have to worry about the upcoming war either.
 
Glau said:
There's a reason the white plumes are unhappy with it, and given there's already going to be a foreign violet right on the border, it's probably not because the threat is hugely greater.

I'm unwilling to hand wave away pinning down high realms with 'oh, of course we have enough of them' because if we did, we wouldn't have to worry about the upcoming war either.
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If it was really a problem, Xia Ren would put her foot down. That's why she is here. The fact that it costs just two favorability points means that she can handle it.

I feel this is a perfect example of "not our problem". The summit is our responsibility, not the overall state of the war effort. It is our responsibility to use all the resources we have available to make the summit the greatest success we can. If is our responsibility to fight for those resources, because everybody else will, too.
 
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The only real problem I have with the all in option is that it will tie down quite a few high realm cultivators, especially when we're supposed to be heading into two wars that will take who knows how long to wrap up.

Any deficiencies in defense due to lowered high-realm cultivator presence and the resulting casualties and damage inflicted will most likely be blamed on us, even though yeah the overall war effort certainly isn't our problem.
 
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