Victoria Falls: A Post-Collapse American Nation Quest [Down With Victoria!]

[4WheelSword]

thread policy Discussion of politics that does not directly relate to the Quest or to Quest votes are banned from hereon out. This thread policy will be enforced by the Moderation team. Do not ignore it.

 

[random_npc]

As the junior partner?

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Mechanically, we would be in charge of the joint polity. But I don't really care if we're junior or not. It's better to be one state/province of a prosperous powerful nation than an independent minor nation. America had a massive geopolitical advantage due to not having any peers on the continent, that's a position I feel is worth giving up a fair bit of autonomy for if its to a proper democratic central government.

We may not have had the evidence in character, but out of character we did have it.

Poptart told us that if Victoria attacked, there wouldn't even be a roll on how badly they got destroyed.
Poptart also told us that that last attack killed of all but a handful of Victoria's retired forces.

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We knew he was taking desperate actions, and that hinted strongly he was bluffing. But we did't have hard proof. My take was blakcwell was desperate, not that he was necessarily fully bluffing, and an alternative read would be he had effective but extremely costly options he does not want to use.

 

[Ugolino]

Mechanically, we would be in charge of the joint polity. But I don't really care if we're junior or not. It's better to be one state/province of a prosperous powerful nation than an independent minor nation. America had a massive geopolitical advantage due to not having any peers on the continent, that's a position I feel is worth giving up a fair bit of autonomy for if its to a proper democratic central government.



We knew he was taking desperate actions, and that hinted strongly he was bluffing. But we did't have hard proof. My take was blakcwell was desperate, not that he was necessarily fully bluffing, and an alternative read would be he has options he does not want to use.

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Er...you would want to let a potentially erratic NPC faction dictate your policies? Keep in mind, things were almost derailed due to purely internal pressure this time at the drop of a hat. Imagine how bad it would be if we had Farmer-type surprises with a mandate backed by anything up to military force.

For our own peace of mind, an ideal outcome is at least being equal copartners with any other "big states"- and that requires at least a healthy serving of Legitimacy. Wave the metaphorical flag around a bit in between doing your own thing.

 

[clockworkchaos]

I'm currently undecided. But it is worth thinking about the fact that there is a good chance FCNY is probably willing to join us if we can build up and take Victoria. So we could get it back. Unsure, having legit would be nice for conference, but we already got them free world trade so like, not sure we need more.

 

[Ugolino]

I'm currently undecided. But it is worth thinking about the fact that there is a good chance FCNY is probably willing to join us if we can build up and take Victoria. So... meh. Unsure, having legit would be nice for conference, but we already got them free world trade so like, not sure we need more.

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You can still sell after the conference if you're keen on it? Better to use the advantages you have in hand as such, plus the 2AP feels a bit like shortselling atm.

 

[Luminous]

[X] Politely decline. You'd rather hold onto the artifacts, either for the symbolic value or for later resale. Gain +5 Legitimacy.

Isn't the whole point of this to reunite the whole of the United States (and probably parts of Canada *Sheds a tear of maple syrup*)?

 

[Ugolino]

[X] Politely decline. You'd rather hold onto the artifacts, either for the symbolic value or for later resale. Gain +5 Legitimacy.

Isn't the whole point of this to reunite the whole of the United States (and probably parts of Canada *Sheds a tear of maploe syrup*)?

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Either way, the current return on investment just doesn't seem worth the loss if it's all or nothing on sales.

 

[random_npc]

Er...you would want to let a potentially erratic NPC faction dictate your policies? Keep in mind, things were almost derailed due to purely internal pressure this time at the drop of a hat. Imagine how bad it would be if we had Farmer-type surprises with a mandate backed by anything up to military force.

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I asked poptart. if we merged the players would take control of the combined polity. I also trust Poptart to have NPC nations act fairly intelligently.

 

[Rhodes]

[X] Politely decline. You'd rather hold onto the artifacts, either for the symbolic value or for later resale. Gain +5 Legitimacy.

 

[tapkomet]

I don't see word of poptart on any states being repelled, only that less is expected of you?

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I think it can be inferred that any of the states in/around former USA (or completely foreign nations, for that matter) that aren't fond of the idea/history of US will inherently not be great fans of a high Legitimacy faction. (That said, I personally think it's worth, I'd like to raise the legitimacy)

 

[Ugolino]

I asked poptart. if we merged the players would take control of the combined polity. I also trust Poptart to have NPC nations act fairly intelligently.

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Intelligently isn't the issue. Factions can be intelligent and still not act in the national interest.

 

[picklepikkl]

Changing my vote; I'm still not high on becoming USA 2.0, but I am moderately high on the prospect of diplomatically annexing FCNY someday.

[X] Politely decline. You'd rather hold onto the artifacts, either for the symbolic value or for later resale. Gain +5 Legitimacy.

 

[thamuzz]

I don't see word of poptart on any states being repelled, only that less is expected of you?


Actually why aren't the sellers voting to split the difference and sell enough of the artifacts for 1 AP? It has a little of both.

Anyway, back at a computer and writing that after action report now.

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Given the discussion around the Constitution back in chargen, do you really think there aren't some revivalist states for whom Legitimacy will act as a malus?
Those who want to see the USA of old reborn will flock to high Legitimacy. Those who want to build something new will be repelled. Those who want to survive/grow/thrive and aren't particularly concerned about legacy will ignore the stat entirely.

 

[Himiko]

[X] Politely decline. You'd rather hold onto the artifacts, either for the symbolic value or for later resale. Gain +5 Legitimacy

 

[Ugolino]

Changing my vote; I'm still not high on becoming USA 2.0, but I am moderately high on the prospect of diplomatically annexing FCNY someday.

[X] Politely decline. You'd rather hold onto the artifacts, either for the symbolic value or for later resale. Gain +5 Legitimacy.

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Yeah. The reason to sell now is short-term gains over playing the long game, one way or another.

 

[Aranfan]

My ideal outcome for legitimacy is that we federate with FCNY and NCR and that puts the resultant polity over 25.

 

[random_npc]

Intelligently isn't the issue. Factions can be intelligent and still not act in the national interest.

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We'd share the same long term goal, uniting the north American continent, and we'd be one of at most four big players, and would have a fair bit of clout as the ones who broke victora.

 

[Bullmoose]

I'm a fan of less legitimacy because I'm more interested in building something new/different.

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I mean, we already are very different (better in my mind) than the old US. In fact if someone is going to claim the mantle and possibly reunite the US and stand up to Alexander, I would prefer it would be us.

 

[Ugolino]

Given the discussion around the Constitution back in chargen, do you really think there aren't some revivalist states for whom Legitimacy will act as a malus?
Those who want to see the USA of old reborn will flock to high Legitimacy. Those who want to build something new will be repelled. Those who want to survive/grow/thrive and aren't particularly concerned about legacy will ignore the stat entirely.

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I don't see any sorts of states we'd want to include that would be fatally put off by the thread's take on medium Legitimacy, no?

The fundamental ideas are perfectly fine. The icons are fine. It doesn't have to be a Xerox to use the tools to advance its goals.

We'd share the same long term goal, uniting the north American continent, and we'd be one of at most four big players, and would have a fair bit of clout as the ones who broke victora.

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Problem is current events make me very nervous about assuming we can't be stung by politics even- especially- in tight corners or about key issues. Being equals is fine but being the junior partner is...concerning.

 

[Chaos Blade]

Well, thank democracy this is over.

The fact that Buffalo mostly voted to stay probably means that folks in Congress aren't pleased, but we got our wargoal.

That said, we got our wargoal by progressively doubling down. And the thing with that is that you can't pull it off forever. So for next time, I hope that we approach the prospect of escalation more clear-sightedly.

[X] Agreed. Sell the artifacts from the treaty directly to FCNY, along with the attendant Legitimacy boost. Gain +2 free AP for this upcoming turn.
I don't really feel like being the reborn United States, I'd rather be our own thing.

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No doubt, we were all bullshitting one another and that, from a game perspective is simply great.
Though the low roll probably will hurt us politically, it argurably hurt Victoria far more, they might have profited from a high roll there, even, at least narratively, could have called the voting rigged or waxed on Marxist subversion/perfidy and that would have worked for them but here? god, this is probably the worst case scenarion for the vics and Blackwell in particular

As far as I'm concerned, it's a good enough way to roll these important events. If there's enough of an advantage of ours on our side, we win the vote anyways, so its 100% not just a roll of the dice.

[X] Politely decline. You'd rather hold onto the artifacts, either for the symbolic value or for later resale. Gain +5 Legitimacy

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Eh, I just feel like in a collective game one or two dice rolls done by one of the players is sorta ....ehhh... I mean we could work with some other system using a few rolls from different players (up to a maximum) and average them (we could even use something out of Eclipse phase for the crits and Margin of Success) but that is just me

That said, and as mentioned above, the low roll might not have helped us but by jove it hurt the vics

 

[Horologer]

I'm currently undecided. But it is worth thinking about the fact that there is a good chance FCNY is probably willing to join us if we can build up and take Victoria. So we could get it back. Unsure, having legit would be nice for conference, but we already got them free world trade so like, not sure we need more.

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TBH, +5 Legitimacy just for the duration of the conference is not worth giving up 2 AP.

But I'm more concerned about the diplomacy that follows after the conference. We want to convince other communities to join with us, and Legitimacy is useful for that. Regardless of how closely we want to hew to the old United States, it's useful to invoke its legacy.

 

[Karugus]

[X] Politely decline. You'd rather hold onto the artifacts, either for the symbolic value or for later resale. Gain +5 Legitimacy

Being a fairly legitimate successor state out in the Midwest should give us a lot stronger diplomatic position at the conference. The sooner we can get our selves associated as the forefront of a popular restorationist movement the sooner we start looking like an expansionistic regional hegemon.

Pan-nationalist movements can be incredibly powerful, they worked in India, Italy, and they would have worked earlier in Germany had the Prussian king wanted to set that precedent. I'm pretty much no scenario is 2 AP worth not getting that sort of force working in our favor.

 

[Cyberphilosipher]

Isn't the whole point of this to reunite the whole of the United States (and probably parts of Canada *Sheds a tear of maploe syrup*)?

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There there...We will restore rightful Canadian Clay as a long term goal.

 

[DanBaque]

[X] Agreed. Sell the artifacts from the treaty directly to FCNY, along with the attendant Legitimacy boost. Gain +2 free AP for this upcoming turn.

 

[Dessard]

Some thoughts on legitimacy - I'm generally not that interested in remaking America or a unified state across its former territory. But being too low in it compared with others, I think, may force us into conflict with them. After all, if they're a legitimate successor state that who are we squatting on their land? There will be a lot of pressures on them to pressure us. Consider the PRC at its formation and formerly Chinese territories. Wheras if we also have some claim to similar legitimacy I think there's more latitude to decide freely what to do.

 

[Vocalend]

I just am of the opinion that people who have good life without the fear of starvation's n trumps artifacts any day of the week.

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But no one is starving. We already spent our AP to ensure that our welfare state schema works to the best of its abilities. Our basic needs are met, is the main thing.

I'll still take it over legitimacy, personally, since I don't actually value legitimacy that highly.

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Well, neither do I. All I advocated for is the fact that Legitimacy is good as a bargaining chip for a diplomatic conference that involves Americas Successor States. And again, nothing says we can't trade these artefacts off as a more literal bargaining chip to other polities. High or Low Legitimacy is, after all, never inherently bad. Just that now, we are in a situation where we can modify the level to one that can suit our needs.