Vox Vitae: Warhammer AI quest

[ShadeFiende]

Something something...


"Greetings, I am Magos Explorator Vita piloting a restored Ancient vessel discovered in the nearby Denva system. I am here on a mission by the [Insert the title of the highest ranking Mechanicus position found on Denva] on Denva to both identify allied worlds and trade some vitally important STC's found in this vessel with nearby Imperial polities in exchange for any STC's they themselves may have. We would not normally even consider this dissemination of such sacred secrets, but the Crimson Vigil Space Marine Chapter recently stopped in the system and warned that there is a growing danger of enemies belonging to the Archenemy in some relatively nearby systems. To prevent further collapse of the imperium, and to fulfil our oaths to the Omnissiah... and out of sheer necessity, we find it vital that these STC's be shared, as they are especially effective at protecting against the Archenemy. Connect us to your local Mechanicus leadership with all haste, and we will be about our business. Should you have need of supplies or repairs in the mean time, we may discuss further trade."

Offer the Psychic shielding to them as the 'material buff' to smooth things over even further and there we are.

Denva should recognize it as the same tactic that we used to avoid war with the Mechanicus on their world, and it would likely be a fairly simple way of showing ourselves off if we use the admech body we made.


Of course alternatively, we could use our 'true' ancient persona.

"Hello! I am Explorer Vita of the 'Ancient Spark'. Apologies for entering your void-space. I am an ancient from the Dark Age of Technology and was trapped in stasis on Denva until they recently assisted in my revival and helped me reestablish myself. I have come to aid humanity and explore the Galaxy, if you'll permit me to offer some assistance? I have some Tech that helps protect against what the Imperium calls 'the archenemy' and can even suppress psyker abilities somewhat as long as it is maintained. From experience, it also assists Gellar Fields in protecting against the dangers of Warp Travel. If you'd rather we leave, I will simply bid you farewell until the next time I pass through."


Then we could also just... ignore them. show our face so they know we're human, apologize for getting so close, and wish them well before going about our day. Regardless, showing ourselves as human is important to make possible future interactions less instantly hostile.

All the same, I say we stay here for at least two turns. Explore the rest of the planets more in-depth, and improve our Abacus and Gellar field. Though the first and MOST important things will be increasing our RP throughput with the techs we have- HSI, ANI, and the others as needed. The rest is secondary or comes after. Once we've explored the system in-depth, we need to scan that Webway gate. If we can figure out enough habout the Webway... maybe we could open more Webway gates? Or start working on restoring and/or improving it? Long-term projects.

Point is, it would at LEAST help us later on with other techs. And if it exists as a tech we're aware of, it'll passively get discounts over time as we do other research related to warp-craft until its worth getting. Which would be VERY cool.

 

[Fumbles]

I suppose I was a bit harsh. The warp research has been productive, and useful. I figure it will continue to be so, but I worry about neglecting our other fundamentals, like materials, weapons, starship techs and AI techs. I get that we can't do everything all the time tho.

 

[avatar11792]

The good news is there's a lot of warp based technologies. Anything that utilizes the warp includes stuff like Warp sensors, void shields, warp drives, Geller fields, void abacus, etc.

So even after we've run out of obviously juicy bongo treats, there's plenty of things that can be developed by Anexa in the future. What I would really like is for her to develop a better warp drive, I'm sure a Dark age ai and her talents would work very well together to come up with something better than anything 40K has. The Imperium does not even understand really how warp drives work, given the degradation of any form of technological understanding.

 

[Haganeko]

...But do we even know if they *have* anything we want? Like, you're suggesting spending at least two actions in order to get '???', when we could be spending those actions on things we actually know we want. We could get 4 100 point techs for that investment, or 8 50 point ones, by comparison, which sounds way more appealing in my view.

Advanced Materials, Drugs, and Armor articulation all seem iffy to me. In terms of 50 point techs, I would pick out Combat neural Implants, Antigravity, and Medium Defense Installations as all being better deals, and thats without getting into all the great 100 point techs hanging out, like faith studies, warp sensors, personal shy shields, scrapcode immunity, or the half dozen machine spirit ones. Probably toss stealth and GMEI for those, too, though that ones iffier.

Oh, and ANI and HSI are super appealing too obviously.

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Advanced Materials has wide application and is predicted to cheapen a bunch of other tech.
I think we should get these 50s first because they have potential for knock-on effects and cheapening other techs.
In particular, some of these 100s have the potential to be cheapened by these techs or by exchange with imperials (such as the Faith things with these nuns).
And yes, we could just not interact. But in that case, as per my first plan, we can just travel off-system.

 

[Neablis]

I'd also like some listing of the demon-cage status. The Oubliette. Gotta fix that damage too. Can we do that with the repair bay as well, or does it need VBP?

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You can use the repair bay.

Did we get any more research progress from Bongo's attempts or have we pretty much plucked all the fruit off this proverbial tree?

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Not from this. This was kinda him thrashing around inside the proverbial hamster cage when empowered by being in the warp. Further Bongo research lies down the directions of either taking him apart or binding him.

@Neablis could you add the Generator Oubliette psychic HP status to the list?
Also can we use our repair bay BP for fixing it up?

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Done. Also added crew quarters & psychic lab to the list.

Actually wait a sec, if we took diplomats under Vitcan for our Denva boon we would be that much more likely to get some good narrative results asking the Imperials for tech.

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It'd be different. You'd have tens of people reaching out, each aiming at a different part of the imperial beauracracy and trying to exploit cracks, instead of one person trying to figure out the singular best angle to go after.

You can still take the diplomat/spy staff with your last Denva boon if you want. It's a bit metagamey but I'm fine with it.

Bongo is a huge bonus to psy-shield tech if we are research that. It probably combos well with 'faith as a shield' (ie teaching machine spirits devotion to the emperor) psy-shielding if we had some sisters of battle on hand too.

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Teaching meachine spirits what it is to have Faith is probably a follow-on research for you. The Imperium manages it sometimes, but that's by *waves generally at the whole Imperial aesthetic.* You'd be more focused on doing it deterministically.

Having Sisters of Battle on hand would probably have some interesting combinations with the faith-based research too.

I think we need to unlock regenerating psy-shields before trading them since no one else has the DAoT super-manufactories we have which makes it practical to bulk create and repair psy-shields.

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Yes. note that the psy-shields on the vault cost as much as two frigates, and that was after your efficiency upgrade. They're hard to make, and just as hard to repair. They're going to be "lost archaeotech" for most people, and lost archaotech that takes damage but can't self-repair quickly becomes "broken archaeotech."

This tech is duplicated.

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Fixed, thanks.

Can we do something that is them spending a lesser part of their GDP supporting our first build action each turn when we are in a system with them?

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... Hmm. Yes. That's a valid request. Added this option:
-[] Denva: Permanent Manufacturing Assistance
They've already agreed to give you a large chunk of manufacturing down the line. But you started up their their whole industry, and it's not unreasonable to be able to request a smaller chunk whenever you're present.
A further follow-on boon may be spent to set them manufacturing tasks to do while you're gone, so you could leave and then come back to pick up the ships they've built while you were gone, or something along those lines.

Can we also do the research cooperative instead?
Let them research whatever they want, cooperate when we drop by, and exchange the results of research?

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Not really. That would require you to stick around to work with them. If you did technology request it would make it easier later on though, or doable with a second boon the way you're expanding

So the techs i think we will want to look at sooner rather then later is, better sensors both empathy and not (we are explorers after all) grab the chaos resistant machine spirits and psychic shield machine spirits and then maybe some more medical things to move closer to gaining a navigator, or the psychic encryption for protection from seers and such.

Fairly good turn with diplomacy working more or less and some very nice returns on the research roll, but yeh its left us with a few bits of low hanging fruit to grab.

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If you want to go super-hard into being protected from warp-shenanigans this isn't a bad plan. But remember that you might end up facing down a fleet of Tyranids that will just bury you under chitin. Don't mono-focus, or if you do just be aware you'll be underprepared for other threats.

I think we should build more Shuttles?. I say this because we only have one and we no longer have Basic Stealth Assault Shuttles or Basic Stealth Fighters.

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You've got the shuttles on your flagship. That's what is giving you lift capacity. And they're the basic stealth versions. We're just not dealing with fine-grained shuttles anymore, and probably won't in the future.

The conflict between various IoM government organs is a deliberate part of how they are failures. This arc going forward is basically how Vita reacts and deals with that, starting with the Administration & Ecclesiarchy.

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🙄

The research option specifically calls out Vita creating an alternate faith:

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Yes, but. That's somewhat farther down the tree and will probably require either you find a semi-benevolent warp spirit somewhere (not impossible, but will require some good luck) or you build one with a material anchor somewhere, which would both be hard and invite attacks from chaos.

I don't know exactly what it would look like, but it'll be possible with some combination of psytech/faith/warp/machine spirit research.

Oh, @Neablis, if we want to build planetside manufactories in this system, what are our options? I want to know for comparison purposes, mainly.

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Pretty much just Ascalon Primus. You might be able to do it on the far side of the planet from the city, but they might just start schlepping across the planet to attack you.

We should poke local mechanicus. They may be more reasonable surrounded by sea of fanaticism and idiocy.

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There's like 100 of them in total. And they're pretty much permanently bullied by the two other Adeptus.

Anyway, juice probably isn't worth the squeeze here at the moment, I guess we can just do a quick "Yeah, fair enough, I'll stay out of your hair, Emperor be with you" thing and go, and they won't flip their shit, seethe, and mald while we're gone, it's only if we stay close or try something funni and do poorly that things'll get spicy @Neablis ?

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Depends on what you mean by "Things'll get spicy" They have a limited capacity to do anything to you - depending on what you open yourself up to.

Ummm, it's an Eldar ship, right? Isn't the Warp, like, really not safe for them?

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I know what I wrote.

@Neablis that depiction of the gas giant was beautiful.
Is my silly idea of having some of the small-c crew making documentaries in the background on the cards, or is it too silly?
And if it's not too silly, would some members of a "diplo/spy cadre under Vitcan" be able to work with one or two of the tech priests on it?

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That's more a diplomatic team thing, yeah. Not too silly - especially if you wrote in to the action that picked them up that you want them to catalog all the stuff you find so you can share it with Denva/anybody else friendly. It'll whet their appetite for the stars even more.

If nothing else, I at least want to fill out our troop compartment a little more at some point.

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It's maxxed. You took all the bots you had on Denva:

Available ground forces:
2000 Light Machine-spirit humanized infantry bots (2x20 = 40 CP)
1000 Medium Machine-spirit humanized Infantry Bots (20 CP)
3000 Heavy Machine-spirit humanized Infantry Bots with Machine Spirit Jammers (3x20 = 60 CP)
4000 Heavy Machine-spirit Infantry Bots (4x20 = 80 CP)
CP costs for infantry bots work as breakpoints in increments of 1000. So 50 or 500 or 1000 bots all cost 20 CP, and 1001 costs 40 CP. Abstraction, y'all.

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-[] Research x2 (400 + 65 RP)
--[] Maybe there's a point to medical school (20 RP, complete)
--[] Improved Passive Stealth (50 RP)
--[] Ground Manufatory Efficiency (50 RP)
--[] Improved Armor Articulation (50 RP)
--[] Machine-Spirit Chaos Resistance (35 + 65 RP)
--[] Machine-Spirit controlled Psychic Shields (50 RP)
--[] Drugs? Drugs. (100 RP)
--[] Advanced Materials (95 RP)

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That's a lot of research. I did this to myself, didn't I. Maybe I should be less free with research bonuses? Naww. It'll get better once you get further out into the tech trees and costs go up.

I've been doing some idle brainstorming and I think I have a concept on how our robots could use some kind of psychic power even if we don't end up becoming psychic.

Our shields are able to project a meaning into the Warp (our 'No' to any questions about corruption), so what if we try to turn that shield outwards? basically throwing it at a Daemon and disorienting them with the sound of a very loud, constant 'No'?

I imagine that'd be how the alternative shielding meanings tech would explain it?

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That's "alternative shielding meanings." Though that's more about developing alternate designs that can say other things. Including things like "Suffer" or "Die"

Hey @Neablis do we know if the city built into the volcano has a Sump?

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You don't know. It definitely goes down a ways, but you have no idea how far or what's at the bottom. Kilometers of rock tend to be hard to see through, they're an excellent insulator for sensors.

I'm wondering what would be better for finding the webway gate normal sensors or warp sensors (Empathy as Sensors, below).

Thoughts?

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It'd probably help. But you should be able to find it with normal sensors, you just need to look. Unless it's hidden inside a moon or something.

The Musings of a Corsair​

"Make sure those metals are stored where they can be grabbed quickly," Nyon-Kroh command his menials. "I want to make for the nearest Craft world, they should still be short of the rarer metals for another year and this will net us a tidy profit." And the supplies I managed to get from that monkeigh will go for quite a while, all for the information of an old webway gate. That gate was still working when he checked last millennia.

Still, an ancient monkeigh that spoke the old tongue was not something you come across even on the rare occasions. Leaving his menials to it and returned to his quarters with one of the more lovely looking mon-keigh following behind him silently, for a mon-keigh at least, carrying the ingredients that were handed over. He was expecting drugs of some kind, recreational, combat, stimulants, and the like. He was surprised to see meat, fresh meat too as well as some fruits, vegetables, both without seeds of course, he'll give her that, some containers with a white substance called milk, and a selection of seasonings and spices. Vita apparently also included a monkeigh cookbook. Val-Tena, his personal chef, loved trying new recipes and to be able to study ones from the time of the Human Federation will please her greatly.

As he walked towards his personal quarters, he mused on the chance meeting with this Vita. It was rare to meet a mon-keigh that spoke the tongue of their superiors, more so one that knew the tongue of the old ones. The ship itself, the equivalent of an Imperial Grand Cruiser no doubt, was unlike any design he'd seen in his long life, and that itself was a feat. It was black like the Necron warships but that was the only similarity; sharp angles with many orange lights certainly gave the ship a unique, sleek look. It certainly was not lacking in weaponry either, he counted at least a half dozen lance batteries, plenty of macrocannons as well as a solid wall of point defense. Honestly, it was a good thing Vita decided to contact him instead of engaging weapons. His ship would've been able to outrun hers, no doubt, but with a haul of material and slaves? He doubted that but a good corsair knew when to push their luck and when to cut and run.

Arriving at the entrance, his Seer was awaiting him, staff in hand, with a terse look on her face. Ah, she wanted to talk to him about a discovery she made of the ancient mon-keigh's ship. Now that he thought about it, he noticed how the outside of the vessel seemed oddly quiet when aboard.

"Shel-Nathi, always a pleasure to see you." The captain welcomed, gesturing like he was going to hug her.

"Spare me the theatrics," she stated. "I want to talk to you about the mon-keigh ship."

Nyon-Kroh simply chuckled, Shel-Nathi was blunt for an Eldar, a side effect of spending half her life among the humans. Still, he appreciated her getting right to the topic instead of the elaborate dance of words and posturing most Eldar would conduct. "Of course, of course. But I must insist you join me for dinner. I got quite the collection of ingredients from the captain of the vessel." Shel-Nathi rolled her eyes but followed him inside.

With the menial heading to the kitchen, this left the two Eldar alone in the dining hall which had enough space to fit thrice their number with room to spare. Hands clasped and leaning forward, the captain spoke, "So, you said you could not penetrate the ship, yes?"

"Not without damaging the psionic shielding on the ship." The Seer responded, her staff leaning against the table but still within reach should she need it.

He raised an eyebrow, "Psionic shielding?" The Corsair questioned. At the time, he assumed it was a particularly skilled monkeigh Psykic or something. But to hear the ship itself was protected from the Warp and, consequently, She Who Thirsts was intriguing.

The Seer nodded. "The entire ship seemed to have a protective bubble around it, repeating one word every time I touched it, No."

Not the word he would have picked but they must have chosen it for simplicity. "Interesting. Would you have been able to get through it?"

She got that look of steel in her eyes he loved to see. "Undoubtedly, but it would have taken me time and effort to go all the way through. Enough to give them ample warning."

The captain hummed and leaned back slightly, considering everything. He thought back to the exchange. When their ship entered the hanger, that pressure he had forgotten about, that constant pull disappeared. Well, not disappeared, it became noticeably muted. Much less focus was required to keep his emotions in check and it was rather nice to have the voices be quiet for once. In fact, thinking about Vita, he realized something. She seemingly had no presence in the Warp.

Nyon-Kroh has seen many different mon-kieghs over his long life. Most of their souls stood out like a candle would. Their pet Psykers were generally brighter, more akin to a bonfire. The Blanks as they refer to the off putting mon-keigh have no presence and even repel the Warp itself. Vita, however, seemed to just exist. She didn't interact with the Immaterium in any significant way, neither standing out nor repelling it. Her soldiers had a bigger presence than her and theirs was much dimmer compared to the average mon-keigh. Not to mention that daemon she had locked up deep in her ship. He only noticed it because he was so close to the thing behind all that psionic shielding.

"The more I think about you, Vita, the more interesting you become." The Corsair mused. "Might be worth doing more business with her in the future."

"That's the thing," Shel-Nathi, interrupted his wandering thoughts, "I had trouble divining her futures earlier. Her psionic shielding is able to hinder everything involving the Immaterium."

Nyon-Kroh blinked in surprise before laughing softly. "Very interesting, Vita. But that's enough musing for now. Aleth should have dinner ready any moment."

Not a moment later, the door to the kitchen opened, revealing Aleth, his best cook, pushing a hovering trolly with two pure white trays, each with a set of three of what he would later find out were called tacos which were apparently eaten with his hands. Odd flavor but it wasn't unpleasant.

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I was trying to decide if the farseer thing was canon - but the two omakes worked well together. It may not all be 100% canon, but you're most of the way there. He should have also felt Cia as a powerful psyker, she was nearby.

Are they? There have to be trade-offs there. And it seems strange that we would get just as much research if we didn't take the research boon as we would if we did. @Neablis, can you elaborate? Maybe tell us what Vita expects to get, at least?

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The research boon is multifaceted. Part of it is you sharing the basics and the general idea of a technology with them, then them doing that. Otherwise what they'll do is less centralized, more general, more spread out over many areas. They're more likely to research basic civilian tech, smaller improvements under the level of abstraction. The research boon not only makes their own research more ambitious, it also focuses that research in a specific direction, so their emerging R&D sector is especially good at whatever category you point them at.

But they'll still do research without it. It'll just be an across-the-board small improvements rather than specific thrusts. Though they have good reason to go after void OMC.

Meanwhile, don't forget that we can just fuckin' hack Ascalon for their data, lul. Back in Denva we were even able to see the memories of tech priests, so we can even get glimpses of their parchment records here and there. That will let us know more options for subversion.

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Parchment is hard to hack. But yeah, servo-skulls have cameras, and you might be able to hack a few of those.

Good point about the hacking though. @Neablis, that's another thing we might want - techs for hacking their databases the same way we did Denva and the Mechanicus way back in the first few updates.

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That's not really a tech, since they have similar technology. That's an action - probably in the diplomacy realm. "Hack them to figure out X." Giving it a specific target will increase depth in return for breadth.

The Human Spirit

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I like this. I'm not going to label it canon because it's not going to be this easy, but it's a very good starting point for one potential avenue of combating Chaos, several techs down the Faith research tree. It's going to be complex, it's going to be hard, and there are lots of little details that require it to be your primary focus, but the core idea is one direction I could imagine the quest going.

A real Sororitas in this situation would show up with a chainknife and wearing nothing but purity seals, screaming at the sky and demanding the xenos filth to dare sully a holy world of the God-Emperor that they might be exterminated to the very last of their disgusting kind. These "Sororitas" are not true militants.

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They have been stuck on their current system for a few centuries, unable to properly go forth and smite in His Name. That'll blunt the conviction of any order.

...Actually, @Neablis, can we do a free action diplomacy mini turn with them the same way we did with the spess mahreens and the eldar? I think it would be appropriate.

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No. They inflate turns too much. Diplomacy action or nothing.

Fair point, but we still don't know how much contact they have with their neighboring systems. A misstep here could be costly for us.

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You haven't seen any void ships at all, and in fact most of them probably left when the Imperium abandoned this sub-sector. Hydroponics exist, Vita can probably see some sign of them, in addition to the gardens under the caldera.

Also - personal shield generators might be an interesting tech here, since it'll effectively unlock conversion shield stuff like Rosariuses. I think the profligation of different shielding technology is dumb and want to collapse it down a bit.

 

[Aineko]

That's a lot of research. I did this to myself, didn't I. Maybe I should be less free with research bonuses? Naww. It'll get better once you get further out into the tech trees and costs go up.

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The way the discounts have been working makes it really, really tempting to wait until techs are down to the minimum cost and pick them up in bulk then.

Not necessarily always the best plan, but really tempting.

 

[DecaffeinatedOwl]

-[#] Diplomacy:
--[#]"Penitent Flame Actual, This is Spark of the Ancients. We acknowledge your instructions to leave the Ascalon system but cannot comply at this time due to damage to our Gellar Generator. We are presently conducting repairs, and expect to be underway within the year."
--[#]Regularly check in with Ascalon Primus, both to reassure them that we are 'making progress' on repairs and to casually drop hints that we may be amenable to lending our technical assistance in the meantime.
---[#]If they don't bite, we can leave to...Caldereth? Apparently enroute to Tiran.

Which is to say we can use either the Explorator story or the Ancient story, but spread out over many conversations over the course of a year instead of trying to convince the suspicious canoness all at once.

 

[Prime 2.0]

My concern is that the roll result will determine the RP generated by the tech. But I see your point that as long as it's generating some RP it will eventually pay for itself.

@Prime 2.0, has shown pretty good judgement on tech importance in past. So unless someone objects strongly I'll flip-flop back to Anexa on ANI.

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I disagree with this logic - the point of the research isn't to pay for itself, it's to provide a persistent increase in our RP into the open-ended future. I expect us to do research a lot of times in that future...

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You both misunderstand. It's not that it will "eventually pay itself off", it's that if we roll bad on HSI, we'll get a followup tech dedicated to fixing it just like we do every time we roll a poor success.

Most effects of a good roll will be things we will get eventually either way, especially with Anexa having a specialty on it - and those that aren't are themselves techs we research and can get through crits on other techs, especially foundational ones. So the question then comes back to: Which crit is better? One that gives us that RP generation right away, or the foundational tech to HSI which may help with getting it anyways in addition to all the goodies foundational techs get?

So, I argue that the foundational tech getting a crit would still be better. I'll admit, HSI is a wonderful target, there's a better argument for it being the priority over a foundational tech than most, but I'm unconvinced.


Anyways!


Something I'd like to point out that's very, very fishy about this situation:

This is a zealous imperial world in the same system as an actively used webway gate. The Eldar clearly must have some arrangement to make this not be a team fortress 2 style fighting-bases-next-to-each-other clusterfuck, despite the imperials very much wanting to do that if they find out about it. So why haven't they?

Your best guess is that the different bureaucrats and priests are too busy arguing with each other and using your presence as a way to score points against each other to actually talk to you.

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Infighting. Lots and lots of infighting, between factions balanced enough that they can paralyze each other even moment to moment. Very convenient for the Eldar. Too convenient.

I'm betting this situation is engineered, and I'm now a bit uncertain about the heavy handed "play kingmaker" diplomatic approaches I suggested earlier - because if we don't find out what, exactly, the Eldar intend with their little game here, then us flipping the table on Ascalaon may cause problems for us by way of the eldar fucking with us for ruining their careful setup. Certainly, we won't be able to count on any societal changes we enact sticking if the elves watching find the results unacceptable.

Point being, I am gonna tentatively recommend that we not disrupt the balance of power down there just yet. At least, not until we make contact with that webway gate and find out what the eldar's plans were.

Diplomacy is still possible, especially if there isn't much in the way of data to access via hacking just yet, but the world order over there may have to keep for at least this turn.

Anyways, I need to actually read people's diplo write-ins. I kinda doubt I'll have the energy to do a lot more, but I think I remember something about personal void shields being a really really really big deal to sororitas? Something to consider.

 

[MonkeyTypewriter]

That's a lot of research. I did this to myself, didn't I. Maybe I should be less free with research bonuses? Naww. It'll get better once you get further out into the tech trees and costs go up.

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Look on the bright side, nobody's suggesting that we assign one of Anexa's RP to each tech, giving her the maximum number of rolls per turn and hence many more chances to level up. That would be a bit too much.

 

[Aineko]

Something I'd like to point out that's very, very fishy about this situation:

This is a zealous imperial world in the same system as an actively used webway gate. The Eldar clearly must have some arrangement to make this not be a team fortress 2 style fighting-bases-next-to-each-other clusterfuck, despite the imperials very much wanting to do that if they find out about it. So why haven't they?

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Well, if the canonized omake is accurate, it might be that the webway gate isn't actually used that much, or at least wasn't before the Imperial withdrawal?

The chaotic environment where the gate is let ships go in and out of it without easy observation, but probably wouldn't stop the Imperium from outright camping the gate when they had a proper presence here.

 

[Silver719]

I don't think Hacking Ascalon is as much an option as people think. The Administratum and Ecclesiarchy are the ones in charge, and they both have one thing in common.

They write their records down, and store physical copies. The fucking barbarians.

 

[Prime 2.0]

I don't think Hacking Ascalon is as much an option as people think. The Administratum and Ecclesiarchy are the ones in charge, and they both have one thing in common.

They write their records down, and store physical copies. The fucking barbarians.

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Yeah, neablis sent the reality check. Not worth doing if it takes a whole action imo, but if it can be fit inside of a diplomacy action I wouldn't be opposed to throwing it in and getting to see what those servoskulls see.

Well, if the canonized omake is accurate, it might be that the webway gate isn't actually used that much, or at least wasn't before the Imperial withdrawal?

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Well, it's used at least enough that us parking ourselves near it will get some attention, and I'd say that qualifies.

I'd rather not rely on the omake's canon label too much, personally - Neablis isn't early NN Omicron, he's not putting these things in the threadmark order as part of the required reading of the narrative or anything like that. Best as I can tell he's just indicating that he's picking and choosing stuff he likes about them without telling us what.

Though admittedly he hasn't said anything that detailed, I just notice that he's marking things canon while saying they have very clear non-canonical elements, lol.

 

[MSH]

Imperials absolutely use computers. They're just...weird about it.

 

[WillRobinson]

An: Wanted to try and write some justification for why and how a Farseer might not have been able to predict our resurgence, kept the name vague and the character bare just in case Neablis had plans for a Farseer character showing up next turn.

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Interesting. I actually think psychic investigation of Vita and Denva might end up primarily 'confirming' our cover story, since most people on Denva don't have psychic shielding. So any thoughts leaking out into the Sea of Souls are going to be about Explorer Vita.

Maybe swap out the gellar fields for faith studies? I think scrapcode immunity should cover us for warp travel, without the ~100 damage we took there we could do three jumps in a turn and still cover it all with our repair bay.

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I suspect that improving Gellar Fields and Void Abaci will essentially have us rolling on a different, less severe table for Warp travel events, while scrap-code immunity just fully counters one potential type of problem that we're already very resilient against.

Train Cia more safely, to start with, then make things safer for her in general. Further out, give us more resistance to chaos and further our understanding of the warp.

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There's also the 'make a new Faith' angle, which would be helpful for, say, Denva or our Crew. The potential of being able to argue, with evidence, that certain components of the Imperial Creed feed the ruinous powers is also an enticing possibility.

The Aquila also proved effective in provoking Bongo, so it's probably applicable to Daemonology, and possibly other aspects of Psytech.

 

[Insult Everyone!]

I'm very tired and not sure if the color I chose is taken for 40k representations of any of the chaos entities

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Khorne is red.
Tzeentch is blue.
Nurgle is green.
Slaanesh is pink or purple.

So yeah... Probably pick a different color. Had me worried until I reread the A/N. Maybe make it a two colour thing.

 

[Alectai]

Well, that's a useful little prospect, the bit about the conversion fields. Gimmie a sec to try and take this into account.

 

[Alectai]

[ ] Plan: Look, it's clear we have a weakness for space nuns
-[ ][FREE] Fix Psi-Shields (Repair Bay covers this)
-[ ][FREE] Database Dive: What are the Space Nuns anyway? Seriously?
-[ ] Explore:
--[ ] Detailed exploration in Ascalon
-[ ] Diplomacy:
--[ ] Oh boy oh boy, more zealots. Fortunately, if this is more along the lines of Cia, this... Might be doable. Introduce yourself as the sponsor and partner of an Explorator Survey Expedition, making use of a design recovered from an early dark age vessel that was discovered in the region, and constructed using your resources. You do have certain aspirations towards acquiring a Warrant of Trade when contact can be re-established with the greater Imperium, but a recent meeting with the Knights of the Crimson Vigil have shown that the Sector's getting a little hectic with threats. Hence the mission, to see where they are and who's still in one piece. If they'd still prefer to keep you at arm's reach, you understand. Otherwise, you have a staff of talented Tech-Priests on hand if there's any devices that need maintenence, and you've got several manufactorums on board that can manufacture any goods they might need that they can't produce on site. We'll be able to spend a few years here doing a more detailed survey of the system with their permission, and can easily multi-task if we have to. (TL;DR: We're an 'Aspiring' Rogue Trader who has deep pockets and a ship built according to an archaeotech schematic, and we've got a staff of skilled tech-priests and manufactories on board and we're willing to trade. We'd like to be able to do an in-depth survey of the system while we're here, as part of a general "Map the region" push spurred on by some Concerns brought up by a recent amicable contact with the local Space Marines, but if we can use this as a pretext to at least be able to come and go without any real drama, that'd be ideal. If questioned, comment that our theological education was--sadly--lacking beyond some of the basics, but we're entirely willing to learn. Give them some carrots and samples of what we have and we'll see if we can use that to soften them a bit--and if they actually need some advanced stuff fixed, that'd save us some time on our other projects too. It'd be interesting with our Faith studies as well, to compare what they say with everything else we've gotten)
-[ ] Research (200 + 65 Anexa RP)
--[ ] Faith is my Shield? (35 + 65 Anexa RP)
--[ ] Tiny In-Atmosphere Void Shields (100 RP)
--[ ] Okay, maybe there's a point to Med-School (20 RP, Finished!)
--[ ] Scrapcode Immunity (45/100 RP)
-[ ][VICTAN] Help with the Diplomacy
-[ ][ANEXA] Research Faith is my Shield?
-[ ][CIA] Active Training (We've got a hefty shield specifically for her lab, she is free to push the envelope a little bit)

This is a good opportunity to try pushing the Faith is my Shield option, and Tiny In-Atmosphere Void Shields might make a heck of a carrot to get them talking, if we can produce Conversion Fields. Presenting ourselves as a not entirely well catechised, but well-meaning explorer with money, resources, and Mechanicus connections, and we might get them hammering down our doors to stop them from 'Converting' us, especially given the treasures we can offer. 350 BP isn't a lot compared to what we left behind in Denva, but it's still a colossal amount of production ability for small scale trade.

 

[Mithrill]

[ ] Plan: Look, it's clear we have a weakness for space nuns

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Can you squeeze in database dive into Sororitas? Was a free action IIRC

 

[MSH]

Khorne is red.
Tzeentch is blue.
Nurgle is green.
Slaanesh is pink or purple.

So yeah... Probably pick a different color. Had me worried until I reread the A/N. Maybe make it a two colour thing.

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Yellow/Gold is the Emperor, and Black/White is Malal (who is not canon yes he is goodbye).

That doesn't leave a lot of options. Actually, it literally only leaves orange and that kind of belongs to the Tau. But hey, orks, necrons, and Nurgle are all green and nobody complains about that.

Humanity could be fairly represented by red, or by the shades of blue and green which represent the long-despoiled Earth.

 

[Prime 2.0]

-[ ] Explore:
--[ ] Either an in depth survey of Ascalon, or Caldreth--depending on the results of the Diplomacy action.

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Oi! The eldar webway gate is in this system. Explore for that before we leave, lol.

What part of the diplomacy action does us going to Caldreth even depend on?

 

[michaell8000]

Plan

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Alectai I usually like your plans even if I put my own up but this one is just outright no if we're exploring then we're looking for the webway because corsairs aren't the only ones who can use it plus that gas giant has been picking up a bunch of stuff with Tyranids in the sector it might've picked up a derelict carrying them which would be a good catch.

The diplomacy is kinda fine a bit too wordy

Then the research the only thing in that list that I'd vote for is faith shield we're suffering a huge backlog and doing infantry equipment for a maybe trade is just not worth the time.

For trade we have heavy infantry weapons which includes good plasma guns the nuns will be more than happy with seriously the space marines were surprised and suspicious from receiveing 50 of them a less militant Sororitas would probably flip their shit if we give them 15

 

[Alectai]

Uh, we are exploring this system though? This is the system the Webway gate is in. We only don't do that in my plan if we somehow roll a nat 1 on the diplomacy, which isn't impossible I guess.

 

[Prime 2.0]

Then the research the only thing in that list that I'd vote for is faith shield we're suffering a huge backlog and doing infantry equipment for a maybe trade is just not worth the time.

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While I agree that leaving the system before we've found the gate is silly, personal scale shields are of large holy significance to the sororitas, specifically. Researching it so we can trade them some will overwhelmingly hotrod our diplomacy.

Me personally, I'd like to put the runoff RP towards scrapcode immunity or one of the paths to RP-generating tech like advanced neural implants since we reasonably know we're going to do some of them. If we decide we want to follow up with power armor for, say, buttering these folks up further we can do that after we know them better imo.

Uh, we are exploring this system though? This is the system the Webway gate is in. We only don't do that in my plan if we somehow roll a nat 1 on the diplomacy, which isn't impossible I guess.

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Wait, was that the condition? Why would the nat 1 force us to move on, anyways? They can't do shit about us.

As for the gate, Neablis said we have to look for it specifically. A general system survey won't do it except maybe on a crit or something.

 

[Alectai]

While I agree that leaving the system before we've found the gate is silly, personal scale shields are of large holy significance to the sororitas, specifically. Researching it so we can trade them some will overwhelmingly hotrod our diplomacy.

Me personally, I'd like to put the runoff RP towards scrapcode immunity or one of the paths to RP-generating tech like advanced neural implants since we reasonably know we're going to do some of them. If we decide we want to follow up with power armor for, say, buttering these folks up further we can do that after we know them better imo.

Wait, was that the condition? Why would the nat 1 force us to move on, anyways? They can't do shit about us.

As for the gate, Neablis said we have to look for it specifically. A general system survey won't do it except maybe on a crit or something.

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It's narrative in the sense that "If they get so angry they spontaneously will themselves spaceflight potential and suddenly get swole." That's the kind of outlying thing I mean.

That being said, I can adjust for clarity.

EDIT: Done.

 

[Silver719]

Reminder that opening with a lie is something we can't take back. I'd prefer if we only lied by omission, especially since if we need to we can just. Leave.