Vox Vitae: Warhammer AI quest

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Neablis said:
For air defense you take the same idea and scale it down. The most important thing is the tracking, since things like ballistic missiles or aircraft are small and fast targets. You end up with a tri-barreled set of rapid-recharge lascanons coupled to an advanced targeting computer. You would need at least ten of them and some early warning to be confident in handling a set of nukes, and you'd probably need 50 to be able to stand off the entire mechanicus arsenal, but even a few will provide a nice safety net, though if you want them to be at all concealed you'll need to dig them into camouflage or underground, which will both hide them and make them more resilient to damage.
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So, 750 BP for basic defenses, 3750 BP for full defenses.

@Neablis Does Anexa count as an Imperial tech sample, with all her cybernetics and memories of maintenance?
 
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Let's start with basic anti air.
There are no ships in orbit and space station manoeuvring on our location should be detectable on the noosphere.
 
10ebbor10 said:
Eh, assuming we can effortlessly kill the high ranking Mechanicus without being noticed smacks of Hubris.

We haven't even researched the pre-reqs for hacking imperial tech at this moment.
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A 'high ranking' Mechanicus on a podunk planet that barely has any tech left. We are not exactly on Mars here.

Then we should get on researching that. The only way we can get rid of her is to remove her from life, the sooner we do that the sooner 25% of our actions will not be locked.

Narasan said:
So biologis was never an option.



Some notes on our answer:
-Faith and fact are close to opposites
-We do not know if the omnissiah exists. Our character genuinly doesnt.
-Finding out should be on the agenda at some much later point
-if we want to lie further, we could point out that the local mechanicus is disconnected. -Selling a story about how the specific cult she grew up in is a fantaic splinter of a more reasonable main cult that searchs for the answer of the ommissiahs existence could be possible

Or not. Im really insecure oin this quest. Probably gonna lurk.
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We the players know the answer to this OOC, the Omnissiah both does and does not exist, it's the Emperor and he's pulled a con on Mars. The Machine God does not exist, unless you mean the Fourfold Machine God of the Dark Mech aka Chaos or the Void Dragon, neither of which should ever be worshiped.

As far as IC study does the Machine God as the ad mech see it is a transcendent omnipotent god, it cannot really be found through study since hypothetically if it does not want to be found it wouldn't be. Its existence is unfalsifiable.
 
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Thalya expects a check in every other turn starting next turn. We don't have to interact with her this turn though we definitely need to talk to Anexa about the Omnissiah. We should also spend an action fully repairing the shielding and spend the rest on underground air defenses.
 
She wants 1/8th of our Actions not 1/4th it's every other turn. Also we can just ignore her once we decide we have what we want with this fake identity and just make a new less conspicuous one. Or not make a new identity and just ignore her entirely.
 
Neablis said:
With that finally ticked off your list, you turn your attention back to Anexa. You've been giving her a steady stream of lessons, technical, moral and epistemological. She's continued to soak up the technical content like a sponge, but hasn't really engaged as much as you'd hoped with the rest. You want to deprogram her from the religion of the mechanicus, but you can't out and say that. And it's slow going, with her resistant to any attempt to show her the illogic of their beliefs.

One day she turns to you with a realization of shock and horror. "You don't believe in the omnissiah."

You sigh, and fold your arms, unsure how to respond.

What do you say?
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"I do not believe in the omnissiah as you have been taught. Well done, if you continue like this you will learn the truth of the omnissiah."
+
Some good write-ins on ways for her to realize the contradictions.
 
How's this for a plan?

[] Plan covering all your bases
-[] Diplomacy
--[] Anexa is correct in you don't believe in the Omnissiah, that doesn't mean you're tainted by the Warp. For now you'll have to convince her you believe in the Omnisiah just not in the way most Tech-Priests do. Point out holes in their logic and show her some of the technology you've 'rediscovered' like the Psychic shielding if you need a very convincing example. You won't stop her from worshipping the Omnissiah but you will try to convince her following something or someone like a lemming is a bad idea.
-[] Construction X2 (300+300=600BP) all built at the decoy site
--[] First construction action
---[] Repair Psychic shielding X15 (150BP)
---[] Anti-air defenses, underground X2 (150BP, 10BP)
--[] Second construction action
---[] Manufactory (100 BP, 50 CP)
---[] Anti-air defenses, underground (75BP, 5CP)
---[] Trade goods (25BP)
---[] Basic Biology Research Lab (50 BP, 50 CP)
---[] Basic Technological Research Lab (50 BP, 50 CP)
-[] Research (200RP)
--[] Mechanicus files on the Archenemy (100 RP)
--[] Combat Bot Humanization, Redux (50 RP)
--[] Research building a specialized trade goods factory (50RP)

The psychic shielding being fully intact will be very important, especially later down the line when (not if, when) we encounter Warp-based beings. I imagine everyone wants the anti-air defenses set ASAP so I took that into account and the labs will unlock more Research. The Archenemy will be invuable not only for the information it will provide but also help convince Anexa we aren't corrupted. The combat bot humanization is something I would like to get out of the way. I want the specialized manufactory building to automate the trade good for Aevon so we don't' have to spend BP every turn or so to make it all for them. I would like to build the observatory to see if there are any threats we need to worry about but that will have to wait. Thoughts?
 
I'm strongly opposed to the construction of anti-air defenses.

There's 2 possible scenarios for what happens when we build them.

1) The Mechanicus does not fire a missile at our factories. In that case, it's wasted BP.
2) The Mechanicus does fire a missile at our factories. In that case, they will observe the point defenses. This will raise maximum alarm, because rather than a slightly more advanced factory, their target turned out to be a military facility with weaponry that they did not provide. If we're lucky, they merely nuke it. If we're unlucky, they launch a ground invasion/investigation, discover the tunnel, and discover Vita's ship.

The entire point of the above-ground site is that it's expendable. If the Mechanicus decides to fire it, we want them to be able to destroy it, so that they think they won and do not investigate further. Only in the final years before coup/launch should defenses be built.
 
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Picio said:
It's 40k more suspicious would be some place that is not armed. :)
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That's not true at all.

Again, lasguns are stuff the local powers can not built on their own. All their military gear has to be bought from the Mechanicus.
Trying to defend a facility against the Mechanicus is a challenge to their authority, to the control they hold over this planet. If they discover such a challenge, they will crush it, and then they'll try to look for who decided to crush them, and crush them too.

We want them to think (well ideally we want them to think this is a furniture factory). But if not that, then we want them to think they blew up something like that advanced chip fab. A simple bop across the nose, no need for follow up attacks.
 
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Neablis said:
One day she turns to you with a realization of shock and horror. "You don't believe in the omnissiah."
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"And what is the Omnissiah, girl? The body of Machine God in the physical world? A being wielding the power of Machine God? The Machine God itself? A name given to supposed concept of omniscience? You'd be surprised how many important projects got nowhere because leading Magi disagreed on dogma. But I digress.
I believe that there is Truth. The fact, the measurable existence and laws that govern it. I believe that Quest of Knowledge is how we uncover the Truth. But we experience existence through senses, which are fallible, and thus we sometimes find incorrect or incomplete information. But if you observe something enough times and compare your observations, you will find patterns. And if you compare enough patterns, you may find some of those underlying laws. You may find part of the Truth.
I don't particularly care about the place of my philosophy within the greater theology. Like I said, many Magi hold incompatible opinion on the nature of Omnissiah. What matters is the knowledge. The Truth, or however you want to call it. Because it is measurable fact, the same in all existence. Mass attracts mass. Hydrogen is less dense than helium. Two plus two equals four. This is another lesson: information you believe in and information you act on need not always be the same. I share this with you as a reward for your discoveries"
 
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10ebbor10 said:
That's not true at all.

Again, lasguns are stuff the local powers can not built on their own. All their military gear has to be bought from the Mechanicus.
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I read many books in 40k and quite frankly i have seen everything from Hives throu churches and habb blocks/ houses to damn outhouse returning fire.
If it dose not have some defences it is automatically suspicious to me.
 
Picio said:
I read many books in 40k and quite frankly i have seen everything from Hives throu churches and habb blocks/ houses to damn outhouse returning fire.
If it dose not have some defences it is automatically suspicious to me.
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None of that is relevant to the situation on this planet, where we were explicitedly told that military gear is in short supply because the Mechanicus keeps a very tight handle on it, to the point where the local powers can not even independently manufacture a simple lasgun and have to rely on them for all their gear.

You have to consider the story in the thread, not in some random novel set on a different planet in a different part of the galaxy, centuries if not millennia from the present.
 
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10ebbor10 said:
None of that is relevant to the situation on this planet, where we were explicitedly told that military gear is in short supply because the Mechanicus keeps a very tight handle on it, to the point where the local powers can not even independently manufacture a simple lasgun.
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Yes, but it is a factory with is important so they would defend it however they can.
 
Picio said:
Yes, but it is a factory with is important so they would defend it however they can.
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Why?

There's 2 possibilities here.
1) The Mechanicus does not detect it, so deploying the defenses was a waste of equipment.
2) The Mechanicus does detect it, and will keep firing until it's destroyed. So deploying the defenses was a waste of equipment+ risks escalating the conflict into an all out war.

Do you think the Mechanicus is going to go "hey, we decided to destroy your factory, but you intercepted our missile so we decided not to? Have fun committing tech heresy."
The defenses are usefull only when we decide to go for a full confrontation with the Mechanicus, not before.
 
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Unrelated, I think we have another option to mess with Thalya.

She's the military arm of her domain, so start cracking codes and pass the results to the local government (possibly double deal a bit, by selling the results to Aevon, for them to sell to the local power).
 
I would rather we have the defenses and not need them then need them and not have them. Besides, they'll be underground, making them very hard to detect.
 
10ebbor10 said:
Why?

There's 2 possibilities here.
1) The Mechanicus does not detect it, so deploying the defenses was a waste of equipment.
2) The Mechanicus does detect it, and will keep firing until it's destroyed. So deploying the defenses was a waste of equipment+ risks escalating the conflict into an all out war.

Do you think the Mechanicus is going to go "hey, we decided to destroy your factory, but you intercepted our missile so we decided not to? Have fun committing tech heresy."
The defenses are usefull only when we decide to go for a full confrontation with the Mechanicus, not before.
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After first rocket they will get yell at by Magos Vita for shooting at Her installation and trying to kill fellow servants of machine god.
So they will be happy they have found this weird magos or try again and start mechanics civil war.
I would rather be found then get hit by a nuke.
 
"I forgot more about the Omnissiah than you could ever learn in your pathethic circuitfucking life,you smelly little fucking femcel.Now shut your yappering trap and do your fucking job,you no-good sack of shit!"
This girl needs some tough love,I say,I say.
 
Picio said:
After first rocket they will get yell at by Magos Vita for shooting at Her installation and trying to kill fellow servants of machine god.
So they will be happy they have found this weird magos or try again and start mechanics civil war.
I would rather be found then get hit by a nuke.
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That's an even worse idea.

Because now they're not dealing with a rogue state facility, but with a rogue member of the Mechanicus, exchanging technology with a nationstate without authorization from the enclaves.
It will just burn both of our secret identities.

(Also, what Mechanicus civil war. We have 0 support amongst the Mechanicus, and 2 enemies. No one will side with us).
 
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