TreeQuest: Magitech (Riot Quest)
It is a risk. True.
It is not impossible.
When we get to that, can we do it priority style?
Sir Plusse
Overly Vicious Quester
- Location
- Kansas
I'm just going by my own interests here, honestly: I have no desire to participate in espionage, and so I will not participate in espionage regardless of what wins. While I can't guarantee this opinion is the majority, I can count on it being common enough to actually impact our ability to do so.
Besides, if you're that set on espionage-ing the Woo Clan, you can just... do it anyway. All we're voting on is what to do about the local cell, I'm pretty sure.
The Froggy Ninja
The Blade Will Never Die
But doing something about the local cell would alert the other cells. Which compromises any effort to wipe them out entirely.
If it comes up as a perishable opportunity and there is enough forest interest to do it I'd join counter intelligence work against the woo ( as a magic research tree).
Alone it isn't worth it to me, but if we get a team going that would be a great opportunity.
You not being interested and voting against is fair, just disagree with the idea that we have no chance to pull it off.
Personally, I'd be down for committing to help make this happen if it's a viable option.
- Location
- Goose Land
And the spy games begin!
A wide spread of options accounting for a wide variety of concerns and objectives.
You might want to edit this as it currently refers to the "perfect evidence" option rather than the "Walk Away" option.
Personally....
How do you define Serious Commitment?
Right now, I'm thinking that we have a devious opportunity here, as well as a shot to massively infiltrate the Woo well beyond any time frame I was expecting.
The specific details will depend a lot on, well, the specific details.
But what I'd like is an additional option @Robinton of
[ ] [Talanburg] Serious Commitment
This option would essentially be an internal Forest declaration of "We are going to commit Resources, Dice, and Focus Actions if necessary, to subvert the Woo Clan Spy Assets as subtly and as far reaching as possible, with a goal of the Woohoos not noticing, starting with the Talanburg Cells."
This would essentially be a "If we get a sufficient majority vote, preferably at least 60% of votes, we preemptively agree to basically AutoFocus: Find and Subvert WooHoo Spy Assets, so that this course of action is actually followed through" vote.
If 60%, or more, of voters agree that this is an idea worth committing to, then that's an agreement to invest what's needed to actually get this job done, be it Resources or Focus Actions, because those are the Communally available assets able to be committed to this.
If this wins, then ideally we sweep up the current Woohoos, set them to operate at "continue as normal, with enough sabotage to allow their WC handlers think they were just thwarted, not compromised, while we manage to, well, thwart their efforts", continue the Talanburg negotiations, and then begin wrapping up the rest of the Woo Clan Assets over the next several turns.
If we actually committed to trying to dismantle the entirety of the Woo Clan's spy operations, that's a very rare circumstance where I'd actually be willing to vote for using our AutoFocus system for something.
The Froggy Ninja
The Blade Will Never Die
I'd be down for that.
If we committed to "Destroy the Woo Spy Network Entirely", I'd even be willing to commit my stored bonus success to it.
Even if I really want to use it for setting up Marta Yarrow.
Even if I really want to use it for setting up Marta Yarrow.
The Froggy Ninja
The Blade Will Never Die
A farmer sleeper agent tried to sabotage us and when we looked into it this turn, we found a woo clan spy network.
- Location
- Goose Land
It probably won't be necessary, especially if people with more versatile action selections commit their dice to advancing The Project, and if we dump a full commitment of AutoFocus into it.
The Truth/Lie Negacion will likely also help out with the general project, though I'm pretty sure we're a goodly bit aways from that.
It will vary significantly depending on just what Action Types are relevant to Intrigue Operations (Communication is very likely, Growth a solid possible in regards to setting up Relays to extend our Mind Reading Range), but I expect our Focus Actions to still be pretty effective in helping the situation.
When we first made proper contact with Talanburg, we ended up stumbling into a sleeper agent farmer who attempted to threaten the Mayor into not negotiating with us.
We destroyed their threat before the Mayor saw it, and have been quietly observing and poking at the situation telepathically ever since.
It seems that we managed to break their telepathy protections, and confirm that they're Woohoo Agents, just in time for them to attempt to make good on their threats.
As this is a complicated subject, Robinton gave us a sneak peak to give us time to discuss and think about courses of actions.
Current discussion seems to lean towards "This is a phenomenal opportunity to massively screw over the Woohoos and get so much intel on them oh my god".
A write in of "Have a Committed Vote right here right now (when we get to this vote) to dedicate Community Forest Assets (Resources and Focus Actions) to get this job done as effectively as possible" has been suggested, and against expectations it has not been shouted down as a bad idea.
So, tldr: Like one or two turns ago we ended up stumbling into Woo Clan Spies, and we've been passively observing them to obtain intel and figure out their telepathic defenses. Turns out they only have one layer of said defenses, and we have now broken their encryption. Current vote suggestions from Robinton basically boil down to "Cash it in now for political brownie points, sweep up the network for our own ends in Talanburg, or play the long game and try to take the fullest advantage possible regarding Woo Clan Spy Networks." Current discussion leans "Pull Them Out Root And Stem" if not "Infect, Convert, Direct."
For a military context, with our available assets, this has the potential to be as lethal and poisonous to the Woo Clan Invasion efforts as fully connected and directed Anti-Meme Spiders.
Seriously, that's how big this could be, as long as we fully commit to the opportunity dropped in our laps.
This being the key question here - it's only worth it to pull them up by the roots if we actually commit to dedicating our focus to pulling them up by the roots.
What wallis said.
Or another, shorter take:
Remember our new friends the refugees?
The Faction that wanted to murder them (and may cause future troubles) has a spy network to do evil stuff, a spy network they are using (less than successful) to hinder our Talanburg diplomancy.
We have the chance to screw up their capacity to do evil by messing with their spy network.
We just need to dedicate ourselves so the delay in Talanburg diplo isn't wasted.
As a magic + research tree I'm gonna support it with researching magics, like (defense against) illusion or truth or [whatever else could come up].
I'm sure there are lots of possibilities to aid this.
Many that are useful outside of spy vs spy stuff.
(UL communication rings that act like much weaker relay trees while worn by our connected friends?)
Why?
Because:
I do not appreciate trying to murder our friends.
I do not appreciate attacks on us making new friends.
I do not appreciate the threat of future actions like above.
- Location
- Goose Land
Subvert all of the spy network, ideally.
The great thing about fingering enemy intelligence assets while being a telepathic hivemind is that we can get so much information out of them, on top of turning them into a misinformation weapon against the Woohoos.
It'll require a significant investment in Relays, Mental Scanning, and if we can super rush it, Lie, Truth, and Truth/Lie Magic.
- Location
- being near locations is my passion.
Hmmm. Two things.
Doing a reread, and we have long been able to make nuts that slowly release heat, and slowly 'release cold' over the course of several weeks. Those might be useful as a trade good to the the two towns, and the ice ones useful in the summer for the villagers (I expect our salamander friend would probably have winter covered). I wonder if our Unusual Lumber Trees can be trivially reconfigured to producing a lot of them, or if it would take actions to give that capability.
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Second, I have had some vague thoughts of making a pair of 'very long wave em emitters [slightly different wavelengths]' and placing them a fair distance apart (measured down appropriate precision needed, we players can maths that out, since we know that the planet has approx a 4k radius or diameter) and activating them as soon as we detect portals opening, and then measure the relative angles of the two beams of radiation from the perspective of the portal, and use that to triangulate where the portals are being opened from.
I've only had a few hours sleep, so my maths feels wonky - a third emitter might(?) be needed to narrow the portal's source down to one possibility, not sure. Spatial warping in the area might also give wonky results?
This of course depends on the source being on the same physical world/dimension as the forest (which I think is the case) and the place not being shielded from long wave em radiation for some reason, or have high tier 'conceptual' anti-divination protections that can detect our intentions though maybe our Void magics would prevent any such protections from knowing the intention behind the emission of those em waves, and thus not impede them.
Doing a reread, and we have long been able to make nuts that slowly release heat, and slowly 'release cold' over the course of several weeks. Those might be useful as a trade good to the the two towns, and the ice ones useful in the summer for the villagers (I expect our salamander friend would probably have winter covered). I wonder if our Unusual Lumber Trees can be trivially reconfigured to producing a lot of them, or if it would take actions to give that capability.
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Second, I have had some vague thoughts of making a pair of 'very long wave em emitters [slightly different wavelengths]' and placing them a fair distance apart (measured down appropriate precision needed, we players can maths that out, since we know that the planet has approx a 4k radius or diameter) and activating them as soon as we detect portals opening, and then measure the relative angles of the two beams of radiation from the perspective of the portal, and use that to triangulate where the portals are being opened from.
I've only had a few hours sleep, so my maths feels wonky - a third emitter might(?) be needed to narrow the portal's source down to one possibility, not sure. Spatial warping in the area might also give wonky results?
This of course depends on the source being on the same physical world/dimension as the forest (which I think is the case) and the place not being shielded from long wave em radiation for some reason, or have high tier 'conceptual' anti-divination protections that can detect our intentions though maybe our Void magics would prevent any such protections from knowing the intention behind the emission of those em waves, and thus not impede them.
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Sir Plusse
Overly Vicious Quester
- Location
- Kansas
Not really seeing how this would work, really. I mean, it's a portal. By definition, that means things pass through it (in context, it teleports anything that passes through); that implies that any radiation would react as if it had travelled X distance with X being (distance to our side of the portal + distance from the other side of the portal to the nearest surface capable of reflecting the radiation), as opposed to Y where Y is (distance from point A to point B).
In other words, it would only work to try to measure how big the other side is, which... well, we can already do, roughly.
...Does give me the idea of trying to fire a laser through the next monster portal that shows up, though.
- Location
- being near locations is my passion.
Right, but the thing you're not seeing is that I had three hours sleep and was functionally drunk. Relatedly, I've just woken up from the World's Most Needed Nap
I might end up posting a sketch of my idea if using words doesn't work because I think I see where what I intended to communicate and what you picked up differed.
Basically, the emitters release a constant stream of very low frequency photons - in a full sphere, and those low energy photons go all the way through the earth from the emitters to our enemy's base in a straight line, and then they are one of two things happen:
1. The portals act as doorways like the gates from 'Stargate SG1', except the person making the portal can designate an arbitrary exit point rather than needing machine to link to.
2. The portals act as 'Star Trek transporters' that 'beam' entities or directly swap two regions of space
'Cuz I thought it was the first option.
Actually, I've had a thought - even if these portals work by teleporting objects/swapping volumes of space, provided the emitters are always on then the next time anything is teleported to us then any low energy photons that are currently passing through the bodies of the incoming foes will be teleported with them.
Photons that were travelling in a certain direction when the beings they were passing through were teleported.
And if we have two sets of photons being emitted from two distant locations, and then those wavelengths are detected coming from something teleporting in, then we can know the relative angle of those two beams as they were passing through the incoming entity.
And if we know their relative angle of the beams as they pass through the entity, we can do some trig 'cuz we know the precise distance the emitters are from eachother.
(Or we need three emitters, I'm still unsure about that point)
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Feck. There is a problem if it's teleporting as opposed to a 'doorway' being opened - we'd need to make what is functionally radio antennas for the precise wavelengths we're emitting, but it would need to totally surround - in 3d - the the space foes were being telepoted in to. I'm finding it hard to imagine such a structure being subtle.
Unless the teleport takes time to happen, and we can detect the early stages. The bomb looked to take quite some time to appear after we first detected something happeneing, so maybe if we had something collapsible that we could snap into place if we had 5 to 10 seconds wraning?
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I'm not saying you're incorrect here about how the portals work, it's just that the term 'portal' always makes me think 'doorway' as opposed to 'teleporter' and if you are incorrect here that would make my idea so much more viable, so I'm going to ask @Robinton to confirm if things are 'beamed in' like star trek, or if short-lived doorways are opened and things physically walk through them?
[note, 'physically swapping two regions of space' would be the same as beamed in in this context, if that's whats going on]
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I wouldn't be opposed to having a spy network of our own but I'd rather we build our own from the ground up rather than trying to hijack someone else's.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I'm willing to go into this for my action, at least, though I'm not going to be very helpful at it yet.
Sir Plusse
Overly Vicious Quester
- Location
- Kansas
There seems to be a bit of a miscommunication here. I specified the "teleport" thing because, strictly speaking, the common doorway is considered a portal, so I felt I needed to be more specific that it was the "links two drastically different locations" type of portal rather than the mundane "who built a door here" type.
- Location
- being near locations is my passion.
@Sir Plusse
First, we don't need a full sphere detection apparatus if we assume that the portals will open above-ground, so a thin wire mesh the right size to pick up on the wavelengths would work fine if it was buried underground. This would be subtle, which is good.
I assuming this detection apparatus would be easy to install with a mix of basic level metal and earth magics.
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The main information we want is the relative angle between the two beams of electromagnetic radiation from the point of the portal, which we can calculate from where the two beams hit the detection apparatus as we will know exactly where the portal opens.,
Then using that angle, and knowing the exact distances between the two/three emitters, we can calculate the location the portal was opened [i.e. where the enemy is] relative to the emitters.
Edit: the information we seek is [where the blue line and the black lines intersect the detection apparatus], and we know where the portal[/where foes are being teleported to] is as we can just look at it.
Of course, this only works for portals that open up close enough to the forest to allow for precise observaion, and not any that are far away like the ones that released the last set of vines.
First, we don't need a full sphere detection apparatus if we assume that the portals will open above-ground, so a thin wire mesh the right size to pick up on the wavelengths would work fine if it was buried underground. This would be subtle, which is good.
I assuming this detection apparatus would be easy to install with a mix of basic level metal and earth magics.
------
The main information we want is the relative angle between the two beams of electromagnetic radiation from the point of the portal, which we can calculate from where the two beams hit the detection apparatus as we will know exactly where the portal opens.,
Then using that angle, and knowing the exact distances between the two/three emitters, we can calculate the location the portal was opened [i.e. where the enemy is] relative to the emitters.
Edit: the information we seek is [where the blue line and the black lines intersect the detection apparatus], and we know where the portal[/where foes are being teleported to] is as we can just look at it.
Of course, this only works for portals that open up close enough to the forest to allow for precise observaion, and not any that are far away like the ones that released the last set of vines.
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