Vox Vitae: Warhammer AI quest

[michaell8000]

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.

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Except those sorts of things are just that valuable that it would be suspicious for us to be able to trade them on the spot we're better off trading plasma guns at best and then setting up a trade deal for delivering personal shields latter.

 

[yeastmobile]

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.

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Thank you I'm happy with that! :3

 

[Insult Everyone!]

We should check if the locals have some generic Psyker crew we can bribe them into handing over.

 

[Ralyx]

I'd really appreciate the notion of Vita approaching any diplomacy by being aggressively chipper. It would be such a departure from the galactic dourness that it'd be quite amusing. There's no reason for Vita to let the rest of the galaxy drag her into acting like a serious sourpuss.

 

[Execute/Dumbo]

While I'd honestly prefer going with 'not my monkeys, not my circus', exploring what we can, then fucking off to the next system, I can respect wanting to talk to the locals. That said, if we do, could we potentially research and produce personal-scale void shields same turn so we could offer them some fresh Rosarii? Or would that require a turn's delay?

 

[Prime 2.0]

While I'd honestly prefer going with 'not my monkeys, not my circus', exploring what we can, then fucking off to the next system, I can respect wanting to talk to the locals. That said, if we do, could we potentially research and produce personal-scale void shields same turn so we could offer them some fresh Rosarii? Or would that require a turn's delay?

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We've always been able to research and produce same turn before. This is a 5 year scale, I don't see any reason why we wouldn't be able to do it this time - save, like, needing to make the promise and provide a timeline for when it's delivered and why they have to wait.

 

[avatar11792]

I'd definitely stick with the backstory of being AdMech and having discovered and repaired a DAOT ship. We have the crew to back that up.

I would offer the following as items to trade/bribe with:

- If we research Power Armor and Advanced Materials, we'll be able to sell them such high quality PA they'll give anything for them.
- Do what we did with the Space Marines from earlier and give them a "gift" of our Plasma Guns. I would only do a batch of 20, but still that's a kingly gift.
- Psy Shields, though teaching them to do the maintenance/repairs might be difficult.
- Tiny In-Atmosphere Void Shields: as already stated, this is a big deal to the Sororitas. Also make any PA we sell them even more tanky.

We can also offer them manufacturing time, allowing them to manufacture their stuff on our systems. It would require them sharing their existing blueprints and designs with our systems, but not only with that open us up to being able to produce their equipment, but they would be able to get masterwork quality equipment on a mass scale, something that would definitely appeal to any sensible tactical commander. It might also be, given they don't seem to be terribly well funded, that they may have a significant amount of equipment that is in shawty repair, meaning we can basically fix all their stuff essentially for very little from their viewpoint.

 

[Alectai]

But yeah, the general idea is "Don't say anything provably false, but let's try not to trigger any berserk buttons either". "Someone with a lot of industrial pull managed to luck out and get a hold of a design for a powerful voidship, and formed a partnership with a sect of the Mechanicus to crew it and set out on an exploratory mission, with the comment that we're hoping to earn a Warrant of Trade when contact is re-established through merits achieved during this disconnection period." Coupled with some 'Sugar' in the form of trade goods--including whatever comes out of our Tiny Void Shields project, and a reason for them to engage (We're not especially well theologically versed, and we're currently leaning towards the Mechanicus, but it's not *too late* to rope us in)

Even if they use Their Own Means to somehow get our obvious backstory... Well, we didn't lie, and our omission makes sense because you're not going to advertise you're a living, breathing Ancient--and anyone with the slightest comprehension of politics and what usually happens to nails sticking up would go "Oh, that's why they want the Warrant of Trade", and hopefully not dig any further.

It's layers, you see?

General hope is to at least open the ports--metaphorically--and get the freedom to come and go through this system--which is going to be important because it's gating the entire western salient--and even If we just go "You've made your ruling, good luck enforcing it"... Well, we don't want them bitching to everyone who passes through either if we defy them, because a lot of people defer to the Sororitas when it comes to acts of faith.

Stretch goals are "They take the bait and start engaging us, because even doing repairs on their gear is effectively us getting Samples of top shelf Imperium wargear, including mass producable, human-scale Power Armor", or extra insight and lore that we can lead into boosting the Faith research we're also doing here. Obviously, a crit might get a missionary-spec bean we can turn into our Commander, because a cute nun in power armor is always desirable in my personal opinion, especially if they're 'Reasonable' enough to actually not just shoot anything that looks at them crosseyed.

EDIT: That being said, my actual write-in is scuffed as hell because I was planning as I wrote it, someone could condense it to something that's less eyeball glazing and I'd appreciate it.

 

[armentho]

if we gonna try befriend the crazy bolter bitches we definetly gonna need take up on those faith research courses for a while
at least to develop theological rethoric that can satisfy them

 

[random_npc]

--[ ] 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)

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this lie conflicts directly with what we told the Astarte's, and there is a non zero chance that the two may talk. We don't need them to like us, at most we need to avoid them marking us down as someone to extra hate.

so maybe something along the lines of "I assure you, this ship is of human make. but if you wish me to depart in peace, I shall simply leave you be." if they ask who we are we can simply tell them an explorer, retuned to the stars after a long long time. It's vague cryptic and not pressing any buttons to piss them off.

don't get clever, don't leave another story of who we are floating around to make us seem untrustworthy, simply end the conversation without further engagement. We have little to gain from attempting to interact with the sisters.

 

[Prime 2.0]

so maybe something along the lines of "I assure you, this ship is of human make. but if you wish me to depart in peace I shall." if they ask who we are we can simply tell them an explorer, retuned to the stars after a long long time. It's vague cryptic and not pressing any buttons to piss them off.

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These are good details to hash out - I'd just like to point out that wanting the warrant of trade and having mechanicus help aren't incompatible with our story to the marines at all. We would love to have that warrant, the mechanicus aboard are helping us explore and find things of note, the explicitly help with searching ruins and such.

The main thrust of Alectai's plan is fine. We can indeed put emphasis on different details, and us telling the marines we're an ancient does not mandate we tell everyone. The astartes probably even think that it'd be infeasible for us to prove that story every single time, the way we did it for them.

 

[random_npc]

These are good details to hash out - I'd just like to point out that wanting the warrant of trade and having mechanicus help aren't incompatible with our story to the marines at all. We would love to have that warrant, the mechanicus aboard are helping us explore and find things of note, the explicitly help with searching ruins and such.

The main thrust of Alectai's plan is fine. We can indeed put emphasis on different details, and us telling the marines we're an ancient does not mandate we tell everyone. The astartes probably even think that it'd be infeasible for us to prove that story every single time, the way we did it for them.

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true, maybe simply leave as they requested. Like I said, I don't see them as a useful means to interface with the wider imperil system. They are by the standards of the imperium, extra xenophobic and militant, and not that hooked into the levers of power. So maybe something more along the lines of.

"xeno? you think I would fly such a vessel? bah, if you wish solitude may you have it."

give no information, simply leave, give no information, simply leave. At most imply we where offended they called our ship of Xeno make since it might be seen as odd we didn't at least get angry about that. Overall, I am in favor of minimizing interactions because I don't think giving them reason to know or care about us would end well. If we want to seek a warrant of trade, we would want to work with either (mundanely) corrupt institutions who we can just bribe, or pragmatic ones who care more about the fact we're powerful and reasonable than our opinion on religion.

 

[Nightlord256]

@Alectai, here is a condensed version of the diplomatic action. I think this capture the main points of what you wanted.

Introduce yourself as an aspiring Rogue Trader sponsor of an Explorator Survey Expedition, using an archaeotech ship design rebuilt with your resources. You aim to secure a Warrant of Trade but, given recent warnings from the Knights of the Crimson Vigil, you seek to survey this system to assess any rising threats. Offer your Tech-Priests' expertise and your onboard manufactories to assist in repairs or produce hard-to-obtain goods. In exchange, request permission to explore the system unhindered for a few years, emphasizing your goodwill and willingness to learn more of their faith. Your hope is to establish a peaceful, productive arrangement that benefits all parties.

 

[Haganeko]

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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If it helps, I am much more in favour of getting those tasty, tasty 50 RP projects than a lot of the thread.

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.

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Would such an attempt help discount hacking tech, or would we need to hack someone non-Imperial, or would hacking practice not help at all?

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.

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It's also a case that some of the cheaper tech right now is very ripe for cheapening other important tech.

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.

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I think in the past Anexa has always been assigned one of her projects to be "primary", and she only gives a bonus/levels from that one, even when she overflows to another one.

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.

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Issue is Bongo is inside the shield, and did by far the most damage, so it would not be affected by Gellar Field tech and probably only minorly affected by Void Abacus tech.
I still don't think the scrapcode tech is "this turn" urgent, since it got nowhere near breaking our shields. We can get demonology next turn and then bind it.

-[ ] 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)

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Might I interest you in ditching the tiny shields until we know they want to trade, and get instead some of the stealth tech that's likely to cheapen our sensor tech?

 

[Alectai]

You can discuss the matter, I'm about to head to bed.

 

[WillRobinson]

Issue is Bongo is inside the shield, and did by far the most damage, so it would not be affected by Gellar Field tech and probably only minorly affected by Void Abacus tech.
I still don't think the scrapcode tech is "this turn" urgent, since it got nowhere near breaking our shields. We can get demonology next turn and then bind it.

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Bongo isn't dealing significant enough damage from within the shield to care about. At best Bongo does more damage but not enough to overcome the Oubliette. The external damage is the one that could vary wildly and cause problems if we travel.

 

[MSH]

We certainly should not be empowering an orthodox Imperial society, and reformatting their society isn't our business. Denva is investment enough on that front.

Just see if we can get anything useful out of the vacation and move on to another system.

 

[Prime 2.0]

Bongo isn't dealing significant enough damage from within the shield to care about. At best Bongo does more damage but not enough to overcome the Oubliette. The external damage is the one that could vary wildly.

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We can get both before we leave tbh. I kind of expect that worse warp rolls will amp up bongo as well, not just the external pressure, and in that case he'll still provide the lion's share of damage.

Which, you know, being on the inside and all we should expect that.

We certainly should not be empowering an orthodox Imperial society, and reformatting their society isn't our business. Denva is investment enough on that front.

Just see if we can get anything useful out of the vacation and move on to another system.

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Kind of agreed? I'm game for softening them for Denva, but I wouldn't go out of our way for it. Mostly I just want to see what juicy samples and intel we can get out of them.

Depends on what opportunities appear, as usual.

 

[Aineko]

Bongo isn't dealing significant enough damage from within the shield to care about. At best Bongo does more damage but not enough to overcome the Oubliette. The external damage is the one that could vary wildly and cause problems if we travel.

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They both did quite a lot of damage, albeit not enough to pose a threat this time, but the Oubliette is a lot more strongly fortified than the exterior.

 

[Haganeko]

[] Plan: House Cleaning
-[] 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)
--[] If anything is left over, put it in Advanced Materials.
-[ ][FREE] Apologize for spooking them, we're just an exploratory cruiser on a survey mission, we'll keep to the outer system until we've finished maintenance and then get on our way.
-[ ][FREE] Repair all shield damage (Repair Bay covers all of it!)
-[ ] Explore:
--[ ] Caldereth
-[] Anexa: research Machine-Spirit Chaos Resistance
-[] Victan: Passive
-[] Cia: Active improvement
-[] Denva: Research (Cybernetics)

Free actions taken from Alectai's plan.
I put stuff into drugs so we might have stuff to trade with the Eldar in future, and some into Advanced Materials, but I have been thinking we might go into Demonology now since Bongo is quickly outliving its usefulness. Could also be convinced to take the Faith Shield instead of something else.
Also unsure on whether to take Cybernetics or Automation for Denva.

Click to shrink...

An alternative:
[] Plan: Let's stay a turn
-[] 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)
--[] If anything is left over, put it in Advanced Materials.
-[] Diplomacy
--[] Introduce ourselves as Vita, an explorer in a refuebished ancient ship. Talk to all factions, get a base read on what they might offer us (especially interesting samples!) and what we might offer them.
-[][FREE] Repair all shield damage (Repair Bay covers all of it!)
-[] Anexa: research Machine-Spirit Chaos Resistance
-[] Victan: Diplomacy
-[] Cia: Active improvement
-[] Denva: Research (Cybernetics)

In this case Drug research would be more important since we wanna trade with the Eldar.

That's because it's not a diplomacy action, just a quick response.

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Updated plans:
[] Plan: House Cleaning
-[] 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)
--[] Faith is My Shield? (100 RP)
--[] Advanced Materials (95 RP)
--[] If anything is left over, put it in Advanced Materials.
-[ ][FREE] Apologize for spooking them, we're just an exploratory cruiser on a survey mission, we'll keep to the outer system until we've finished maintenance and then get on our way.
-[ ][FREE] Repair all shield damage (Repair Bay covers all of it!)
-[ ] Explore:
--[ ] Caldereth
-[] Anexa: research Machine-Spirit Chaos Resistance
-[] Victan: Passive
-[] Cia: Active improvement
-[] Denva: Research (Automation)

[] Plan: Let's stay a turn
-[] 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)
--[] Tiny In-Atmosphere Void Shields (100 RP)
--[] Advanced Materials (95 RP)
--[] If anything is left over, put it in Advanced Materials.
-[] Diplomacy
--[] Introduce ourselves as Vita, an explorer in a refuebished ancient human ship. Mention meeting the Knights of Crimson Vigil, mention how we can fix things or even offer some anti-chaos tech. Talk to all factions, get a base read on what they might offer us (especially interesting samples!) and what else we might offer them.
-[][FREE] Repair all shield damage (Repair Bay covers all of it!)
-[] Anexa: research Machine-Spirit Chaos Resistance
-[] Victan: Diplomacy
-[] Cia: Active improvement
-[] Denva: Research (Automation)

Changed things a bit to account for some great ideas from Alectai's latest plan and revise the Denva research focus to Automation.

 

[Aineko]

While I'm not really on team 'urgent warp upgrades', picking up the improved abacus tech might also help there.

 

[Warer]

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.

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Steel Gray, cuz of all sapient lifes [DETERMINATION]. Nice and understated too, not pompous not announcing itself grandly, merely the will to go on when it gets hard and be kind in spite of everything that tells you, begs you and screams at you not to be.

 

[Angle]

Looking at a variant of Nightlords plan:

[] Plan Webway Gate and HSI:
-[] Research, 2 actions (400 + 65 RP):
--[] Empathy as Sensors (100 RP)
--[] Scrapcode Immunity (100 RP)
--[] Ok, maybe there's a point to medical school (Finish for 20 RP)
--[] Advanced Neural Implants (85+65 RP)
---[] Anexa
--[] Human Simulation Implants (0 -> 95 RP / 150 RP)
-[] Explore, 1 action:
--[] Go looking for that webway gate.

Alternatively:

[] Plan Quick Trade and HSI:
-[] Research, 2 actions (400 + 65 RP):
--[] Empathy as Sensors (100 RP)
--[] Scrapcode Immunity (100 RP)
--[] Ok, maybe there's a point to medical school (Finish for 20 RP)
--[] Advanced Neural Implants (85+65 RP)
---[] Anexa
--[] Human Simulation Implants (0 -> 95 RP / 150 RP)
-[] Diplomacy, 1 action:
--[] Introduce yourself to anyone and everyone as Vita the Ancient, and see if any of them are willing to make quick trade deals. Mention meeting the Knights of Crimson Vigil, show them video footage that we managed to get along with said knights, mention how we can fix things or even offer some anti-chaos tech. If they don't want to trade, check their databases for easy quiet hacking, and move on.

Probably won't make us any major friends, but we might get something out of it. Failing that, maybe we'll manage to hack into something and get some value from it.

And yes, this introduces us as an ancient - but they can get as mad about that as they like, they don't have the capability to do anything about it. And if it makes them more likely to want to trade with us, all the better.

 

[michaell8000]

[ ]Greetings from Vita the explorer totally a human

-[ ] 2xReaserch 400RP
--[ ] Advanced Neural Implants (150 RP + Anexa 65RP) = (Complete 315RP left)
--[ ] Basic power armor (100 RP) = (Complete 215RP)
--[ ] Human Simulation Implants (150 RP) = (Complete 65RP)
--[ ] Improved Armor Articulation (50 RP) = (Complete 15RP)
--[ ] Ok, maybe there's a point to medical school (30/50) = (45RP/50RP 0RP left)
--[ ] Empathy as Sensors (100 RP) =(overflow)
-[ ] Diplomacy
--[ ]your name is Vita an explorer from a long dead human state, and while your ship is not imperial it's a human design your goal is to investigate the sub-sector in the face of two major threats that you've been told about by the Knights of the Crimson Vigil Astartes chapter you're willing to trade for Information for information as well as some heavy weapons and Armor.

Right, so my idea is getting Advanced Neural Implants and Human Simulation Implants to improve RP, basic power Armor, and improved Armor articulation for trade goods to the Sororitas that won't be stupidly generous, then putting more RP into medical school and empathy as sensors for overflow want to get empathy next turn any because it might help with hunting down a web-way gate.

We explore the next turn

also, a reminder currently 20BP is enough for 1000 heavy weapons so assuming 20BP will cover 1000 power armor with one build turn we can supply 8000 heavy weapons and power armor alongside 1000 melee with our current cap

 

[DragonParadox]

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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Or the local Imperials have sensors so shit they cannot see the Eldar who find their blindness really damn funny. Keep in mind we almost did not see that corsair and we have decent tech. If this planet by a roll of the dice happens to have particularly bad sensor tech by Imperial standards the eldar could have just let them be. After all the very thing that makes you suspicious 'surely no zealous system would be in bed with the eldar' would make visitors all the less likely to suspect the presence of the gate. Ascalon could be camouflage for the Eldar.