Vox Vitae: Warhammer AI quest

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Aineko said:
(I'm figuring the warbands are locked out of certain key areas because they haven't killed the ship or broken its guidance systems yet.)
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I'm decently certain that these tribes have zero ability to do anything technologically. They're likely surviving due to automatic food delivery in the mess halls, and know that "this chair with holes takes away bad-smelling stuff."
We're not talking about crew anymore, but their great, great, great, great, great, great grandchildren, if they were unfortunate enough to have female crewmembers at all.
Any possible schooling is likely oral tradition at this point.

We have to consider that this system has been abandoned for centuries and the fact that anyone is alive at this point is a miracle.
 
Asheram said:
I'm decently certain that these tribes have zero ability to do anything technologically. They're likely surviving due to automatic food delivery in the mess halls, and know that "this chair with holes takes away bad-smelling stuff."
We're not talking about crew anymore, but their great, great, great, great, great, great grandchildren, if they were unfortunate enough to have female crewmembers at all.
Any possible schooling is likely oral tradition at this point.

We have to consider that this system has been abandoned for centuries and the fact that anyone is alive at this point is a miracle.
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They don't exactly have zero ability. They're exiting the ship to salvage from habitats, and using (broken) void suits to do it. And I'm sure they have some primitive metalworking to turn bits of formerly-useful ship hardware into better muscle-powered tools for killing each other.

I'd assumed the people on the ship had invaded it from the habitats, but you're right, crew descendants is also possible.

It's not necessarily of practical importance, but worth noting that these people didn't so much forget critical technical capabilities as never have them to begin with. They're ex-Imperium, which means that before the fall almost all the maintenance and some of the technology operation skills for Imperial-level tech were reserved to the Mechanicus. The ship's original crew members, minus the people who probably were able to get on the last ship out, couldn't have done that much better than their current-day descendants. Except that less stuff was already broken in their day.
 
I'm a little doubtful that they've fallen quite that far. I do largely agree though.

I think we're better off just trying to take control of the ship via an escalating series of attempts until we hit something that works, starting with just trying to hack it (which I'm optimistic about), then trying to hack it with the aid of forces literally dropped on the outer hull, then maybe trying to actually board the interior via teleportation, and ending with "sabotage the engines and have shuttles nudge it into an orbit of our choice".
 
Aineko said:
It's not necessarily of practical importance, but worth noting that these people didn't so much forget critical technical capabilities as never have them to begin with. They're ex-Imperium, which means that before the fall almost all the maintenance and some of the technology operation skills for Imperial-level tech were reserved to the Mechanicus. The ship's original crew members, minus the people who probably were able to get on the last ship out, couldn't have done that much better than their current-day descendants. Except that less stuff was already broken in their day.
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Of course. I'm unsure of what I was thinking since I forgot about the evacuation and precisely what qualifies as a "skilled worker" in the Imperium. If anyone "skilled" was left behind we can be decently certain that whatever they knew, they knew by rote and not actual understanding of what exactly they were doing.
We're not dealing with technicians or bridge officers, we're dealing with coal stokers in charge of a spaceship, and that was before the generational shift.

Edit: I'm doubly certain you're right now in that they're locked out of certain areas of the ship, I'd even wager it's the majority of the ship, because ships like that tend to have internal security in case of plebian uprisings.
That said, it's been 200 years and it's likely that any servitor manning those security systems likely have broken down. Might still be some though.
 
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Concerning the ship, it's agreed the inhabitants are likely decedents of the original crew and/or a mix of the station inhabitants that, whenever the automated vessel docks with a station sally out to either salvage what they can with semi-functional void-suits or send raiding parties armed with mostly primitive melee weapons with a few Imperial weapons, I'd say stubbers or laz rifles. The overall goal agreed upon is to take control of the ship hopefully peacefully but with force if needed and provide some aid before heading to the next system then back to Denva to organize a relief force.
 
This plan intend to begin solving the problem we have in this system sufficient enough we'll be able to leave within three turns at most. Maybe 2, if things turn out well.

First we bombard any obvious chaos stations from our ship to reduce their presence in the system. That won't get everyone, but it will get most of them.

Then we take over the transport ship either by diplomacy or violence. They do not seem to have any other significant transport between stations, so that'll nicely isolate the stations from each other and leave them to deal with at our leisure.
Or more likely whoever we decide to prop up.
Victan will have a lot of vetting to do.

Cia will get some active experience in combat relatively safe. She is well armored with power armor, a personal void shield and a psychic weapon. The imperial iconography sporting ship is also the least likely thing to have active chaos influence in this system.

[] Plan: Kick Chaos in the shins, grab the transport ship
-[] [Free] Fix damage to psychic shields. Vita Core (75/135->135/135 @ 300 BP), Bongo Oubliette (303/540->443/540 @ 700 BP) [1000/1000BP repair bay expended, 485BP of damage left]
-[] [Free][DATA] how do the inquisitors deal with chaos infiltration?
-[] Orders/Diplomacy x2: Blow up all stations being obviously aligned with chaos with your ship. Get the transport ship under your control by diplomacy or violence (or a combination). Try to get the people on the transport ship to surrender. Send troops against anyone not willing to surrender. Send bots in the first wave, but let Cia go with the second wave of bots so she can get some experience in. Find out who could be propped up against chaos with the information gained from the transport ship, iconoclasts highly preferred, imperials willing to learn might have to suffice. Cause you won't stay here forever. The goal is to only prop them up enough against chaos, not nearly as much as the Denvans, especially if besides chaos there are only hardcore imperialists left.
-[] Research x2 (400 RP + 70 Anexa RP + 42 Tech-Priest RP)
--[] Personal-sized Psychic shielding (100 RP)
--[] Help Cia's Training (50 RP)
--[] Empathy at Range (200 RP)
---[] Anexa assist
--[] Machine Spirit Chaos resistance (100 RP)
--[] Machine Spirit-controlled Psychic Shields (50 RP)
--[] Basic Active Stealth (22->34/75 RP)
-[] Anexa active Action: Research
-[] Victan active action: Help with diplomacy.
-[] Cia Active Psyker improvement
 
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Seems like if we take and uplift the ship, it'll go around to all the stations and be able to drop off food and tech. It'll also be able to purge the chaos stations with more advanced weaponry.

I like the idea of keeping the ship on the circuit, and putting it as the centerpiece of our humanitarian efforts. It's the only active distribution chanel for that in the system.
 
Glau said:
Seems like if we take and uplift the ship, it'll go around to all the stations and be able to drop off food and tech. It'll also be able to purge the chaos stations with more advanced weaponry.

I like the idea of keeping the ship on the circuit, and putting it as the centerpiece of our humanitarian efforts. It's the only active distribution chanel for that in the system.
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There are also several factions on the ship itself, so odds are we can make one of them work for us.
 
Hmm. I wonder how religious syncretism works in 40k? IRL, religions copy each others rituals and stuff all the time. Can we do the same? Copy mechanicus rituals in order to get a quick boost against chaos, without accepting the rest of their religion? I guess we'd need to do faith studies to be be sure. :/

I suppose we'd probably still need a religion to syncretize them *with*...
 
It's not the religion that matters, but the orientation of the subject's soul. The religion can just be used as a tool for that purpose. Armor of contempt works by abrogating thought and feeling only rage towards chaos.

The other side of things depends on how interventionist you think the Emperor is.
 
I don't see making friends with the ship going very well.

Everyone else in the system is isolated from one another and jointly at war with the ship, but practically it's a very slow paced war from their perspective that only very briefly goes hot for a given station once in however many years it takes the ship to visit each station.

The ship is at war with everyone and fights a new battle with a fresh enemy every time they visit somewhere with inhabitants.

The ship factions are going to be far more accustomed to violence, and see themselves as having far more to gain from it given I'd be surprised if fighting the stations and preparing to fight the stations didn't make up pretty much their entire culture.
 
Glau said:
Seems like if we take and uplift the ship, it'll go around to all the stations and be able to drop off food and tech. It'll also be able to purge the chaos stations with more advanced weaponry.

I like the idea of keeping the ship on the circuit, and putting it as the centerpiece of our humanitarian efforts. It's the only active distribution chanel for that in the system.
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... That uplift, as you say, is going to take up to three decades, and that's only assuming they're not taking the food for themselves and invade the stations proper.
Neablis said:
They're basically a bunch of tribalists running around on an automated ship. You'd be better served inviting a bunch of them aboard, having your tech-priests run a school for them for 20-30 years, then coming back to drop them off.
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Edit: We're much better off by hauling anyone out of the ship onto a station and turn the Ship into a giant (fully automated) meals-on-wheels.
 
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Neablis said:
-[] Does in vitro have something to do with wine? (100 RP) Unlocks the ability to clone basic humans (Unlocks the cloning bay, as well as further technology to clone things other than baseline humans, like humans without brains for organs or humans with more dramatic genetic mutations. Along with brain implants may lead to personality backups).
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I'll vote for whatever plan has this in it. If we want to explore at more than a snail's pace than we need to get on this. It's already gonna take at least 4-5 turns even if we start now.
 
redpotato4 said:
I'll vote for whatever plan has this in it. If we want to explore at more than a snail's pace than we need to get on this. It's already gonna take at least 4-5 turns even if we start now.
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To be honest, we'd need that, and then the follow-on tech for navigator gestation, and then probably several other medical technologies just to be safe, and then at least a few turns for our baby navigator to grow up...

I'd rather just invest in better void abaci, ship / warp travel technology generally, ftl communication, etc.

We could probably turn ourselves into an interstellar von neumann swarm in the same amount of time for better results.
 
KyleDaScourge said:
To be honest, we'd need that, and then the follow-on tech for navigator gestation, and then probably several other medical technologies just to be safe, and then at least a few turns for our baby navigator to grow up...

I'd rather just invest in better void abaci, ship / warp travel technology generally, ftl communication, etc.

We could probably turn ourselves into an interstellar von neumann swarm in the same amount of time for better results.
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Navigator is likely our best warp travel option for 300RP investment:
Neablis said:
It's closer to 30. This is me attempting to incentivize you to get better void navagiation/hatch the navigator bean. If you train them up decently then you'll be able to travel that far in a single action, and go 5-10 systems as part of an exploration action. Mobility good, yo.
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10x travel range, explore 5-10 systems with a single exploration action!
 
redpotato4 said:
I'll vote for whatever plan has this in it. If we want to explore at more than a snail's pace than we need to get on this. It's already gonna take at least 4-5 turns even if we start now.
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While I'm mildly in favor of opening up our nav-egg, and do not think the thing where people insist on several hundred points of side research before pushing the clearly marked go button is correct, I'm curious what you're expecting the benefit to be for exploration. ISTM we're spending almost all our time actually in-systems either poking around or cramming in research actions. We haven't yet expended a single action on just traveling.

I don't know what the move options will be like with better navigation. But my guess is we'll get more distance on the 'move and explore' and 'just move' actions, but the same amount of exploration.

EDIT: Looks like that matches the word of QM.
 
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Aineko said:
While I'm mildly in favor of opening up our nav-egg, and do not think the thing where people insist on several hundred points of side research before pushing the clearly marked go button is correct, I'm curious what you're expecting the benefit to be for exploration. ISTM we're spending almost all our time actually in-systems either poking around or cramming in research actions. We haven't yet expended a single action on just traveling.

I don't know what the move options will be like with better navigation. But my guess is we'll get more distance on the 'move and explore' and 'just move' actions, but the same amount of exploration.
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If we ever want to go trade with Asuryani or deal with the Drukhari, or really just operate on a larger scale than the local sub-sector, we need a Navigator. See post above yours for benefits.
 
LightLan said:
Navigator is likely our best warp travel option for 300RP investment:
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If I may, if you really want to do beef up our exploring capabilities then I'd suggest to spend all those points into our Abacus instead. It's more reliable and it doesn't rely on speed-growing a navigator and slaving him/her to the navigational station.
Take some FTL comms as well, and we can have multiple fully automated explorer ships with Void Abacuses for something that's far, FAR cheaper than what you're suggesting.
 
The flipside is that the Navibean is a bean, and thus ,can do more than warp navigation.

(The fourth dimensional angle of course is that Navigators are held together by spit and prayer, especially as they get older)
 
Asheram said:
If I may, if you really want to do beef up our exploring capabilities then I'd suggest to spend all those points into our Abacus instead. It's more reliable and it doesn't rely on speed-growing a navigator and slaving him/her to the navigational station.
Take some FTL comms as well, and we can have multiple fully automated explorer ships with Void Abacuses for something that's far, FAR cheaper than what you're suggesting.
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Neablis said:
-[] Improved Void Abacus (125 RP) You understand how the Void Abacus works now, and you think you can tweak it to be better. That involves some amount of expanding and improving its connection to the warp though, so you're far from certain (Improves your Void Abacus design to be faster and better at warp jumps, though still inferior to an average navigator. May unlock further optimization of Void Abaci, including for cost/unstable warp jumps).
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Neablis said:
-[] Abacus Manufacturing (100 RP) You understand all of the physical parts of an abacus. Now you need to figure out all of the manufacturing techniques needed to actually put one together. (Unlocks the void abacus ship equipment)
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That's 225RP to still be less effective than an average Navigator.

Our Navigator is not average, it was the best result on the loot table.
Which we can get for only 75RP more.

Neablis said:
-[] Does in vitro have something to do with wine? (100 RP) Unlocks the ability to clone basic humans (Unlocks the cloning bay, as well as further technology to clone things other than baseline humans, like humans without brains for organs or humans with more dramatic genetic mutations. Along with brain implants may lead to personality backups).
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Neablis said:
-[] Navigator Gestation (200 RP) You have a navigator fetus. You don't know what to do with that beyond the obvious. So, how would you do it? Well, you doubt you could just implant it into somebody. From the traces left behind on Klyssar's nest you should do this in a tank. (Allows you to turn the navigator fetus into a navigator baby) Locked behind the Does in vitro have something to do with wine? and maybe a followup tech depending on rolls.
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LightLan said:
Navigator is likely our best warp travel option for 300RP investment:
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It's 300 RP for the very basics, but I'd much rather have more than the basics in case something goes wrong (Someone rolls a 1).

The basic technology for navigators is..

-[] Does in vitro have something to do with wine? (100 RP)
-[] Navigator Gestation (200 RP) "Locked behind the Does in vitro have something to do with wine? and maybe a followup tech depending on rolls."

And to actually be comfortable that a low roll wouldn't result in something nasty happening to the kid I'd also want...

-[] Understanding Mutations (150 RP) Because Navigators are mutants.
-[] Complex genetic enhancement (150 RP) Because it's required for the next thing...
-[] Navigator Genetics (400 RP) "basic understanding of navigator genetics. Will unlock further technology to improve the health of navigators" "Locked behind Complex genetic enhancement"

Which all comes out to a thousand RP even assuming we roll well on navigator gestation and not accounting for any necessary-looking follow-on techs from navigator genetics to make sure we can actually look after the little guy properly. All for an admittedly very significant increase to our ability to get around, despite the fact that we still have quite a bit to do locally.
 
Asheram said:
... That uplift, as you say, is going to take up to three decades, and that's only assuming they're not taking the food for themselves and invade the stations proper.
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Taking over the ship seems like both the best way to distribute whatever else we do and the best way to monitor and disrupt chaos spreading between stations. I think we have to assume there's a chaos faction or four on the ship, given the way they fight everybody, so we should probably start there with Cia and our bots.

It'll also serve as a good test case of whether it's better to try and reclaim chaos stuff or just burn it with starfire.

Turn it into a food, parts, and atmosphere distribution system after. It should have plenty of empty space given it was collecting materials for transshipment.


As far as the navibean goes, relying on a guess about what is two or three points down the tech tree rather than what we've got right here seems arrogant. Especially given we've already had two tech trees closed from bad roles.
 
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