I don't think I posted that, either. I don't actually think that's the case, though our bot forces might do with some renewal. If we did need to be contributing troops to chaos suppression on Secundus I'd prioritize light bots.
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Vox Vitae: Warhammer AI quest
- Thread starter Neablis
- Start date
- Mature Sci-Fi
After reading Alpha and Omega I'm curious about the religious situation on Denva. Have there been any changes in the faith of the world after seeing the Archenemy in all their horror?
Angle
Release Candidate Enby
- Location
- Colorado, USA
- Pronouns
- They/Them/Theirs/Comrade
Eh, a lot of our repairs are replacements, and we can refit things while repairing... But honestly, overall I don't think that matter that much, and sooner is just better. I mostly want it to support warp comms regardless, and because I think it'll unlock a lot of general improvements in our warp technology.
- Location
- Chicago
- Pronouns
- She/They
So, I know there's too much research already, but I was thinking about how we had to borrow Denva's shuttles to be able to cut into the nest, and thinking about how we just tend to build infantry bots with dakka rather than a combined armed force, recent events not withstanding.
So I'm picturing a combination boarding pod, shuttle, and gunship. Something that can cut through armor to discharge borders, give air support to bots on the ground, and move them from the Spark to wherever.
And that got me thinking- is there narrative space for an ace pilot as a crew role? Usually they'd do inserts and extractions under fire as the main source of exposure to the mc party, but Vita uses body doubles rather than risk people. And they can't really be a commander either, given the immediate focus flying requires. So I don't think there is...
But a workhorse gunship transport could be really iconic, and would fill a lot of needs.
So I'm picturing a combination boarding pod, shuttle, and gunship. Something that can cut through armor to discharge borders, give air support to bots on the ground, and move them from the Spark to wherever.
And that got me thinking- is there narrative space for an ace pilot as a crew role? Usually they'd do inserts and extractions under fire as the main source of exposure to the mc party, but Vita uses body doubles rather than risk people. And they can't really be a commander either, given the immediate focus flying requires. So I don't think there is...
But a workhorse gunship transport could be really iconic, and would fill a lot of needs.
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"Spontaneously failing" means means pieces of it will break for no reason now and then—which means the thing as a whole will degrade over time.
Sorry. I mistook you for LightLan; my bad.
I mean, sure. But then it makes sense to get the tech that lets us get more RP out of our Cogitare first, no? Getting Denva going more quickly means we need to spend less effort propping them up when the time comes, too.
As for Demonology... personal preference, I guess. I just want to get refitting that Oubliette into an Advanced Technology Lab yesterday.
Angle
Release Candidate Enby
- Location
- Colorado, USA
- Pronouns
- They/Them/Theirs/Comrade
Eh, we'd be spending 250-450 RP on that roughly, depending on whether or not we also spend an action setting up R&D. It might pay off? But if we want it to pay off in time to get warp comms, it's need to give us, like, an *extra* 150 RP per turn. And warp comms is the thing I think we really need, so if it's not gonna pay off in time to get that faster, then I'm not super enthusiastic about it.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Ehhh, I think that's only the tripwires? Like, it's specifically saying "the tripwire versions of your shields" when talking about spontaneous failures, even down to us making them less able to detect corruption so the failures didn't happen as often. It's only a problem at all because they're designed to fail to signal a breach.
Full shielding isn't meant to break as part of its function, so I think the "long time without maintenance" upgrade for non-tripwires is something else.
Neablis never weighed in on it that I can recall, but if it's possible, that's probably something we'd at least need Interchangeable OMC control for:
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Remote OMC pilots are the most re-usable pilots!
Though for best results we'd need the OMC quick-swap tech.
Also, we'd want to research both bombers and boarding, since right now the only proper space-to-space small craft role we've got the tech for is fighters. We've been misusing planetary landing craft for all our boarding operations.
EDIT: Bombers are a design task, we just never did do the design. Void shielded stealth bombers would be a pretty funny thing to pull out next time someone bothers us.
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- Pronouns
- He/Him
Going to sleep soon, guess I should ask this before I go to bed so we can actually budget for stuff.
@Neablis, since we might be getting it this turn, what's a ballpark figure for the added design cost in RP from using Small-Scale Design-Integrated Psy Shields? Meianmaru wants to build our bots back with shielding, and I'd like to give Denva design(s) for shielded housing and/or clothing, but we don't know how much RP we'd need to earmark for either of those things.
Also, considering there's not been any HP-lost-over-time-on-its-own mechanic thus far on our shields that I can recall, what does the Psychic Shielding Reliability's ability to make our non-tripwire shields "last a long time without maintenance" mean? More specifically, how important is it to Denva's ability to support widespread shielded housing/infrastructure?
@Neablis, since we might be getting it this turn, what's a ballpark figure for the added design cost in RP from using Small-Scale Design-Integrated Psy Shields? Meianmaru wants to build our bots back with shielding, and I'd like to give Denva design(s) for shielded housing and/or clothing, but we don't know how much RP we'd need to earmark for either of those things.
Also, considering there's not been any HP-lost-over-time-on-its-own mechanic thus far on our shields that I can recall, what does the Psychic Shielding Reliability's ability to make our non-tripwire shields "last a long time without maintenance" mean? More specifically, how important is it to Denva's ability to support widespread shielded housing/infrastructure?
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meianmaru
The Devourer of Fiction
The tanks would not have been for boarding or boarding defenses. They would have been solely to be used on Denva for psychic scanning and responses against things like potential chaos spawns, etc. popping up. Even if the feasibility of that happening seems unlikely right now, I admit. Still, those numbers are actually pretty low, because remember: this is a planet we are talking about, with still an enormous amount of people even after a chaos invasion. On that scale, 400 tanks is diluted to very small numbers.
However, notice the word "would" in my use there. This is due to the following:
Due to this being brought up to me on discord by Prime, I'm re-evaluating my plan. As the idea was to use those units as mobile scanners, tanks included for their mobility, that is out of the window for now. And as we cannot know the result of the rolls for research yet and so the exact effects and the costs, we cannot use the SSDIP for the Specter redesign either.
My secondary plan is to start building up static detectors. Which is the anti-infatry bunker which does have integrated psychic shielding built-in.
Use them as static checkpoints. A bit costly when compared to the cost-savings we shoudl get from the SSDIPS. But I think that paying for the capability to have it available immediately would be worth it. Anyway, going to probably rejigger a lot of my plan due to this and after looking through all the other comments for anything relevant when I have the free time to do so.
Using tanks is still kinda bad, but why would you want to scan from the ground level anyway? Ah, you also cut Empathy at Range, and concluded that without it you had to put the scans at street level? I can see that.
You're right that that's not enough tanks for that (though I'm at a loss on why there were medium tanks proposed) but...I don't think Vita needs to build those units. Denva has more industry, is right there, and can build all the relevant technologies provided we tell them The Taste of Chaos, which we definitely should.
meianmaru
The Devourer of Fiction
Because of a Boon. We get a Boon if we spend an action on helping Denva solve their issue, which Taste of Chaos and having units will help with.
But:
Throwing in an extra tank division on top of that seems unnecessary?
meianmaru
The Devourer of Fiction
I'd rather have them be unneccessary even on a middling roll, rather than not have them at hand on a bad roll of 1-5 or something like that. But like I said earlier, I will take a look at the exact ratios again when I'm reworking the plan.
I'll piggyback off of this and ask:
@Neablis, do we need to build troops to get the Cleanse Chaos boon (like we dis with Klyssar's Nest), or is getting Taste of Chaos and spending an action helping Denva with coordination, using the tech, and what reinforcements we have enough?
- Location
- Queensland, Australia
I mean, even if we don't advance our cybernetics quality much beyond what we currently have, there are absolutely ways of creating cybernetics which would if anything make the diplomats more effective and I'm including 'beauty' in that. Not just various cybernetic implants and organs that allow such things as 'the cybernetic equivalent of empathy without any touch of the warp' via various social insight augmentations, pheromones making it so people are more relaxed, happy and open even if we stick to things unlikely to trigger chemical sensors (something that we should either have or be able to develop very soon with our Drugs critical success) and everything else.
The fact they're cybernetics as well probably won't scare the various Ex-Imperial populations too much either due to there being fairly widespread use of cybernetics even outside the AdMech. Though not the best stuff and very much weighted towards the wealthy. Admittedly, there would be some groups that see that as 'heretical', an abomination or unclean because it taints and twists the 'purity of the human form' but it wouldn't be that common.
It's just, you know, the AdMech who are the greatest uses of cybernetics and are the ones who produce at the very least the designs of the cybernetics even if an authorised manufactory might be what produces the (lowest level) cybernetics in question. A sub-culture of humanity which have an extremely strong bias towards the distinctly non-human and mechanical look. Rather than 'Humanity Perfected'.
Which now has me curious what sort of aesthetic the diplomat corps might end up developing for themselves as they probably won't all go for Anexas' style, let alone the 'original' styles. Maybe they'll go with Victans if he's developed his own style, though I don't think he's gone deep enough into cybernetics to really make that a thing?
Either way, I'm sure there's a lot of historical records of versions that would be quite appealing to even the average Imperial population.
Yeah. It'll reduce/remove the design costs on psychic shielding on your blueprint tab. The SSDIPS is for bots, the Void one is for ships.
Fixed, thanks.
As ever, depends on rolls. A good success and up will probably leave the RP cost for psychic shielding unchanged (i.e, doubling it over the base design). I don't know exactly what I'll do for normal or poor success, but 3x or 5x base cost is probably in the ballpark.
For designing houses? You probably wouldn't do the design work on that yourself, since you handed Denva your design tech. You could probably help, and in that sense any amount of RP from 10-100 would help out.
You don't need to. But it might help, especially with mediocre rolls. The job is "accurately detect chaos-rituals and blessings hidden across half a planet." Being able to detect that is what you need to expect to solve it in a single action, but having mobile units with psychic shields will help, as will having longer-ranged or more delicate sensors.
A note on boons:
Boons are a somewhat fluffy category. They're when you contribute something "significant" to Denva. That will change over time and with their needs - and with your rolls. I've named the things where if you accomplish the task then you'll earn a boon, and those tasks don't require much more than a normal success on a die. If you don't roll well, then a second action will polish it up, even if you roll badly on that one too.
But there are lots of other things that'll earn you boons too, it's just that most of them aren't so easy. Examples are giving them a grounding in psytech (but you'd probably need at least two more techs for that, maybe more), building out their military academy & navy (but with Vita's inexperience that would require a crit or multiple actions), giving them the technology to scale juvenat (right now it's too expensive to make) or building out several other tech trees and transferring it over. Really, anything that will be transformational as they build an interstellar society. But don't nickel-and-dime techs either. The key is transformational. Things that will change the game they're playing.
- Location
- Somewhere on Earth
Quarantine
A woman wakes up to gunfire.
It's not unusual. It wouldn't be the first time, nor the last. She ignores it as she stumbles through her room, the windows boarded shut, and tests the water coming from the tap. She knows any toxin that would have gotten through the new water filters would be invisible to the naked eye, but it's with some sense of relief that it seems as fine as it's been for years. She cleans herself in a dark room, the light having long burned out and without the credits to replace it.
There's louder gunfire as she finishes, walking out into the apartment hall, watching the other residents walk out, uncertain glances between each other. They stay silent, taking the stairs down to the exit, where two robotic guards level their weapons at them. She dismisses that as all too normal, and looks outside to the gang fight petering out with the intervention of the quarantine army. Something like two dozen bodies are scattered across the street, their emblems being ripped off and thrown into an incinerator, but visible enough to her that she could remember them from the gunfight days ago, and another before then. By now there had to be a hundred dead between the two gangs, and yet still more fought, and would fight, and die, for an incomprehensible goal.
As the guards cautiously stepped aside, leaving the group to file out into the paths given to them, the woman tried not to think about what had hovered over her life for decades. There was an infectious madness, slithering its way through the city, cut back by brutal killings of madmen and lunatics, but never seeming to end. The city itself was scarred by the worst of it, when the cults had screamed their oaths over great speaker towers as artillery thundered and crashed against the earth, an army marching through her streets and buildings tumbling down. That was being repaired, but the madness still stuck its branches out, ruin appearing where it went. Broken windows, the remnants of hastily erased markings scrawled across building walls, the detritus of an uncaring population, and bullet-scarred stone filled the street.
She looked away from the sight, out to the edges of the city, where she could see the tall, imposing barricades covering the road out. There she could see more soldiers, some sitting, most at alert, the glint of their rifles pointed towards her group as they were guided down the marked path. The soldiers on the wall, though she wouldn't know, had their losses, though very few to the cults. Most were to stress, the struggle of killing their own people driven to madness for reasons they didn't fully understand. To most, this would haunt them for the rest of their lives. To the woman, it didn't matter much. She picked at her thick sleeves out of habit.
She was directed into an expansive fabricated warehouse by more robotic guards, stepping into the crowded disaster relief shelter, whispers dominating the room. She took her ID chip to the rations desk, its attendant behind a thick glass barrier, and looked away from her weak reflection as she took the bag of canned rations he slipped through the slat underneath. She'd heard they'd tried something more traditional at first, hot food and water brought out on demand, but there had been… strife. There always was. Always someone too willing to do something terrible.
Yelling pierced through the whispers of the room, hundreds of eyes snapping to a heated argument. One of them was almost vivid red with rage, teeth grinding and eyes wild, and before anyone could do more than back away there was a glint of grey and three ear-piercing gunshots. The red faced man dropped to the ground, the other party standing with the smoking gun in their hands, face as numbly horrified as those around him.
People parted against the mass of robotic guards marching into the scene of the crime. Following carefully behind them was human guards, demanding the shooter surrender. When he tried to speak, they insisted he be silent, and when he finally dropped the weapon, they roughly arrested him, about to drag him away. Another voice spoke up, finger pointed at someone else in the crowd, skin dirtied and hair matted by lack of care. They accused them of wearing a sigil buried underneath their clothes, of plots and weapons stocked within their room. The guards seemed to hesitate, but soon enough the robot's weapons were raised again, the figure shoved to the ground, searched, cuffed, and soon to be taken away.
Were they a cultist? Was the dead man a cultist? It was hard to say. Certainly, the woman knew of the warning signs of an early cultist, how one was a shortened temper and almost rabid aggression, but what wore people down was knowing that it could simply be the response of someone driven to the edge by a city seemingly falling apart. Would it be irrational to accept that one's newfound hedonism was simply a victim seeking relief from the strife around them? Shouldn't you accept the man dirty and matted had simply fallen behind on self-care underneath the stress of it all? Could you afford to?
It wasn't the woman's problem. She looked away, following the crowd as it started to move again throughout the room, pausing by requisitions for one single lightbulb, the request marked carefully on her record. She took her new clothes, new blankets, and left.
She paused by the post office, hesitating for a moment, but it was quiet enough for her to feel safe entering. She walked up to the desk, showing her ID, muttering her request. The pitying look the agent gave her made her stomach sink. The request for communication with her family has been denied, her letter returned without explanation. They hesitated for a moment, almost uncertain as to whether to speak further at all, but eventually continued. At least, they said, her family had been notified she was alive.
It was cold comfort. Almost all contact in or out of the city was cut off, some even within the city. She didn't hear what was happening in the outside world, and nobody else seemed to know. She didn't know what happened to the people the guards took. She couldn't know the meaning behind what they screamed as they were taken away. So she shambled out of the office, back towards her home, bag feeling heavier than ever on her shoulders. Every so often, she could swear she caught a glimpse of a blade in the hands of one of the passersby, a glint of madness in the eyes of someone sitting by the sidewalk. But she was safe, or as safe as anyone could be within the quarantine, taking the patrolled streets, but careful not to get too close to the twitchy gaze of guards marching down the roads.
Finally, she returned home, locking her apartment door, barring it as best she could. She laid her food out on the table, the clothes to the side, and took the lightbulb out, carefully carrying it to the bathroom. The light it made stung her eyes, and cast the room into sharp relief. The shattered porcelain of the sink, the scars across her arms, and the sigils drawn in blood covering the mirror, hiding the burning stare of her eyes.
"I'm not mad." She muttered, and brought a shard to her arm. "I'm not mad. I'm not mad. I'm not mad. I'm not mad."
There are many terrible things about a cultist. The damage they cause. Their slavish devotion to a hateful faith. But perhaps the worst is the mind as it struggles under the weight of that madness. That infectious madness.
But perhaps she's safe. Perhaps this madness is all too mundane. Just the result of a mind driven to extremes by the paranoia and uncertainty of a world gone mad.
Could you afford to believe that?
---
A lot of thanks to @random_npc for helping me write this! I hope this isn't too edgy, and I promise I'm not trying to be all 'boo hoo chaos is unstoppable we should just give up', but I did want to explore a bit of life in the quarantine zones, and what it'd be like, how scary chaos would be, for everyone involved. If it doesn't fit Neablis' idea of how the quarantine zones work, I'm more than happy to accept that.
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avatar11792
Et Sic Incipit
- Location
- Planet Earth, North America
Wow, that was... intense. I feel so sorry for all of them, that is a horrific bubble to be trapped in.
Very well written, you did a great job tapping into multiple kinds of horror.
Very well written, you did a great job tapping into multiple kinds of horror.
- Location
- colombia
nice,seems fitting,chaos as a disease that spreads murderous madness
if someone is infected is too late and they have to be killed
and all things considered,the story is rather tame as things go
>grandpa caring his family untill they devolve into nurglite cultists
>a mother kills her kids induced by khorne
>a brilliant lad slippery slopes into a freedom fighter against the brutal robot occupation,eventually devolving into a tzeench cultist
>a soldier has to pull the trigger on a bunch of teens and kids deemed ''compromised'' by chaos
>slaneshi gangster kidnapping a family and breaking them down into hedonist addicts
i think the biggest thing about writting truly tragic stuff is that is has to feel tiring,bitter and anti-climatic
it has to feel like a waste
if someone is infected is too late and they have to be killed
and all things considered,the story is rather tame as things go
>grandpa caring his family untill they devolve into nurglite cultists
>a mother kills her kids induced by khorne
>a brilliant lad slippery slopes into a freedom fighter against the brutal robot occupation,eventually devolving into a tzeench cultist
>a soldier has to pull the trigger on a bunch of teens and kids deemed ''compromised'' by chaos
>slaneshi gangster kidnapping a family and breaking them down into hedonist addicts
i think the biggest thing about writting truly tragic stuff is that is has to feel tiring,bitter and anti-climatic
it has to feel like a waste
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JuliusClonkus
Scatterbrained Speculator
- Location
- Federal Reichspublic of Karlsland
And yet, this is kindness. Kindness for those who may yet be saved, even as the ones who are infected are forced to watch as slowly, they are being twisted into something monstrous by something that clings to them and eats them from the inside out, until a stranger wears their skin. How much of this woman's self-mutilation is Chaotic impulse and how much is a tortured mind trying to forcibly excise the parasitic growth spreading through her very soul?
- Location
- Somewhere on Earth
Shrug, part of what I wanted to express, though I wasn't really able to fit it in there, was that this is legitimately a temporary problem. It's being managed, it'll leave scars, big scars, but it's not hopeless, and progress is being made. It's just cold comfort for the innocents caught in the crossfire, because a lot of the suffering Chaos inflicts is a collapse of human systems of trust that we take for granted in day to day life. Not everyone has to be a cultist, just some, because that some means you stop being able to trust others.
Like, the leftover cultists are scattered, lacking in power, and tightly quarantined. Vita is already rushing techs to identify and weed them out, we can handle it. These horrible, grim things don't need to happen because the cults don't have that kind of power, and yet even then Chaos still finds a way to scar the innocents around it.
So, my current thinking is one of these:
[] Plan: Spring Cleaning 1
-[] [Repair Bay]
--[] Fix 110 BP of Hull damage
--[] Repair 19 HP of Outer Hull Psy-Shields (95 BP)
--[] Rebuild Psy-Lab (200 * 1.5 = 350 BP)
--[] Start rebuilding Psy-Lab Shields 59 HP (295 * 1.5 = 442 BP)
-[] [Void Miners] Fix 11 Aerithon manufacturies to Machine-Spirit Standards (1100 BP)
-[] Research x2 (2x200 + 85 (Anexa) + 56 (80 Cogitare) = 541)
--[] Empathy at a Distance (200)
--[] Demonology (100)
---[] Anexa
--[] Hardware Encryption (50)
--[] Taste of Chaos (100)
--[] Design: Chaos Hunter
---[] Base: Humanised Medium Bot (65 BP, 25 RP, 200 CP)
---[] Basic Stealth (+32.5 BP, +25 RP)
---[] Machine Spirit (+32.5 BP, -180 CP)
---[] Psychic Shielding (+585 BP)
---[] Less-lethal armaments (32.5 BP)
---[] 20 Cogitare Design (-25 RP)
---[] Total: 25 RP, 750 BP, 20 CP
--[] Faith is my Shield? (60)
--[] Advanced Materials (Overflow, presumed 6)
-[] Order: Chaos Cleansing (use Taste of Chaos)
-[] Construction (6660 BP):
--[] Fix the hangar: 3000 BP
--[] 2x Chaos Hunters: 1500 BP
--[] Fix 21x Aerithon Manufacturies to Machine-Spirit standard
Or:
[] Plan: Spring Cleaning 2
-[] [Repair Bay]
--[] Fix 110 BP of Hull damage
--[] Repair 19 HP of Outer Hull Psy-Shields (95 BP)
--[] Rebuild Psy-Lab (200 * 1.5 = 350 BP)
--[] Start rebuilding Psy-Lab Shields 59 HP (295 * 1.5 = 442 BP)
-[] [Void Miners] Fix 3 Aerithon manufacturies to Machine-Spirit Standards (300 BP)
-[] [Void Miners] Produce 1x Chaos Hunters (see below, 750 BP)
-[] Research x2 (2x200 + 85 (Anexa) + 56 (80 Cogitare) = 541)
--[] Collab R&D (250)
--[] Demonology (100)
---[] Anexa
--[] Hardware Encryption (50)
--[] Taste of Chaos (100)
--[] Faith is my Shield? (60)
--[] Advanced Materials (Overflow, presumed 6)
--[] Design: Chaos Hunter
---[] Base: Humanised Medium Bot (65 BP, 25 RP, 200 CP)
---[] Machine Spirit (+32.5 BP, -180 CP)
---[] Psychic Shielding (+585 BP)
---[] Less-lethal armaments (+32.5 BP)
---[] Basic Stealth (+32.5 BP, + 25 RP)
---[] 20 Cogitare Design (-25 RP)
---[] Total: 25 RP, 750 BP, 20 CP
-[] Order: Chaos Cleansing (use Taste of Chaos)
-[] Order: set up Denva R&D (use Collab R&D
This repairs many fewer manufactories and jas a worse chaos cleansing in exchange for still starting the R&D train immediately.
Could also do SSDIPS, but honestly we have so much BP right mow I think saving the 150 RP is more valuable.
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[] Plan: The Eye of Vita V2
-[] Repair Bay (997/1,000 BP)
--[] Fix all hull damage. (110 BP)
--[] Repair all damage to Outer Hull Psychic Shielding. (19 HP, 95 BP)
--[] Rebuild the Basic Psychic Experimentation (200 * 1.5 = 350 BP)
--[] Start rebuilding Psy-Lab Shields 59 HP (295 * 1.5 = 442 BP)
-[] Construction: Gain build points equal to your build capacity, write in what you spend them on. | 5,340 VBP (Aetherion Manufactories) + 1,100 VBP (Voidforge Miners) + 600 VBP (Spark Manufactories) = 7,040
--[] Finish Psy-Lab Shields +76 HP [135 HP total] (380 * 1.5 = 570 VBP)
--[] Replenish remaining Light Machine-spirit tanks up to 100 (150 BP)
--[] Replenish remaining Medium Machine-spirit tanks up to 100 (375 BP)
--[] Replenish remaining Specters back to 1,000 and then construct an additional batch of 1,000 (200 BP)
--[] Replenish remaining Heavy Machine-spirit humanized Infantry Bots with Machine Spirit Jammers back to 1,000 and then construct an additional batch of 1,000 (380 BP)
--[] Replenish remaining Medium Humanized Machine-spirit Infantry Bots back to 1,000 and then construct an additional batch of 1,000 (200 BP)
--[] Repair the 41 damaged manufactories around Aetherion into Machine Spirit Orbital Manufactories (4,100 VBP)
--[] Build stasis pods to contain the 500 captured chaos cultists. (1,000 BP at the previously mentioned 2 BP / Person rate)
--[] Build 13 Personal Void Shields (65 BP)
-[] x2 Research: Gain research points equal to your research capacity, to be spent designing new blueprints or researching projects. Write in what you spend them on. | 400 RP + 85 (Anexa) + 60 (Cogitare) = 545 RP
--[] The Taste of Chaos (Makes your warp sensors very sensitive to Chaos-associated markers. More useful in detecting cults than individuals, though will be able to detect chaos blessings. Like to unlock further research to screen for ever-smaller amounts of chaotic influence) (100 RP)
---[] Anexa active Action: Research - assists a research action you take, granting +5xLevel RP to the action. Will level on a successful roll, scaled by the importance of the tech.
--[] Empathy at Range (Makes your warp sensors active at longer range, unlocks further research to pinpoint psychic activities from across the solar system. Half of the prereq for basic warp-based FTL communication) (200 RP)
--[] Large-Scale organic-machine Control (Allows OMC implants to control any kind of industrial production, including shipyards and non-military megastructures. Leads to further technology to improve the amount of CP one person can control.) (75 RP)
--[] Superconductive Shenanigans (A flat production boost of 5-15% depending on rolls) (50 RP)
--[] Abacus Manufacturing (Unlocks the void abacus ship equipment) (50 -> 100/100 = 50 RP)
--[] Faith is My Shield (Understanding the benefits of Faith. May unlock further research to allow Vita to design a less objectionable faith optimized for warp protection, and help develop better psyker training programs. Likely to unlock further understanding of relics and their usage.) (15 -> 75/75 = 60 RP)
--[] Intelligence Coding (Helps you understand your own code. Prerequisite to building new AIs, starts command point tree and automation tree, also unlocks personality-checking research) (170 -> 180/400 = 10 RP)
-[] Diplomacy/Subversion: Talk to people. (Write-in goal & method)
--[] Talk to the Stellar Ascendancy government.
---[] Try to help them establish an organization for rooting out chaos. The Anti-Chaos Bureau? Coordinate with W.
----[] Victan active action: Diplomat-Spy - assists any diplomacy action you take, granting +Level to the dice to the action. Will level on a successful roll, scaled by the significance of the action.
-----[] Victan gets 13 Personal Void Shields to distribute between himself and members of his staff, or hand over as totally-not-bribes, or to give to field agents in the new agency as he feels best.
----[] Cia: Assist the Stellar Ascendancy's new Anti-Chaos Bureau with initial field operations mopping up any chaos cults they find.
-[] Free Action: Give the Stellar Ascendancy some technology...
---[] Give them Abacus Manufacturing and Warp Drive technology.
---[] Give them Large-Scale organic-machine Control.
---[] Give them warp scanner technology incorporating Empathy at Range and The Taste of Chaos for detecting chaos cults.
-[] Repair Bay (997/1,000 BP)
--[] Fix all hull damage. (110 BP)
--[] Repair all damage to Outer Hull Psychic Shielding. (19 HP, 95 BP)
--[] Rebuild the Basic Psychic Experimentation (200 * 1.5 = 350 BP)
--[] Start rebuilding Psy-Lab Shields 59 HP (295 * 1.5 = 442 BP)
-[] Construction: Gain build points equal to your build capacity, write in what you spend them on. | 5,340 VBP (Aetherion Manufactories) + 1,100 VBP (Voidforge Miners) + 600 VBP (Spark Manufactories) = 7,040
--[] Finish Psy-Lab Shields +76 HP [135 HP total] (380 * 1.5 = 570 VBP)
--[] Replenish remaining Light Machine-spirit tanks up to 100 (150 BP)
--[] Replenish remaining Medium Machine-spirit tanks up to 100 (375 BP)
--[] Replenish remaining Specters back to 1,000 and then construct an additional batch of 1,000 (200 BP)
--[] Replenish remaining Heavy Machine-spirit humanized Infantry Bots with Machine Spirit Jammers back to 1,000 and then construct an additional batch of 1,000 (380 BP)
--[] Replenish remaining Medium Humanized Machine-spirit Infantry Bots back to 1,000 and then construct an additional batch of 1,000 (200 BP)
--[] Repair the 41 damaged manufactories around Aetherion into Machine Spirit Orbital Manufactories (4,100 VBP)
--[] Build stasis pods to contain the 500 captured chaos cultists. (1,000 BP at the previously mentioned 2 BP / Person rate)
--[] Build 13 Personal Void Shields (65 BP)
-[] x2 Research: Gain research points equal to your research capacity, to be spent designing new blueprints or researching projects. Write in what you spend them on. | 400 RP + 85 (Anexa) + 60 (Cogitare) = 545 RP
--[] The Taste of Chaos (Makes your warp sensors very sensitive to Chaos-associated markers. More useful in detecting cults than individuals, though will be able to detect chaos blessings. Like to unlock further research to screen for ever-smaller amounts of chaotic influence) (100 RP)
---[] Anexa active Action: Research - assists a research action you take, granting +5xLevel RP to the action. Will level on a successful roll, scaled by the importance of the tech.
--[] Empathy at Range (Makes your warp sensors active at longer range, unlocks further research to pinpoint psychic activities from across the solar system. Half of the prereq for basic warp-based FTL communication) (200 RP)
--[] Large-Scale organic-machine Control (Allows OMC implants to control any kind of industrial production, including shipyards and non-military megastructures. Leads to further technology to improve the amount of CP one person can control.) (75 RP)
--[] Superconductive Shenanigans (A flat production boost of 5-15% depending on rolls) (50 RP)
--[] Abacus Manufacturing (Unlocks the void abacus ship equipment) (50 -> 100/100 = 50 RP)
--[] Faith is My Shield (Understanding the benefits of Faith. May unlock further research to allow Vita to design a less objectionable faith optimized for warp protection, and help develop better psyker training programs. Likely to unlock further understanding of relics and their usage.) (15 -> 75/75 = 60 RP)
--[] Intelligence Coding (Helps you understand your own code. Prerequisite to building new AIs, starts command point tree and automation tree, also unlocks personality-checking research) (170 -> 180/400 = 10 RP)
-[] Diplomacy/Subversion: Talk to people. (Write-in goal & method)
--[] Talk to the Stellar Ascendancy government.
---[] Try to help them establish an organization for rooting out chaos. The Anti-Chaos Bureau? Coordinate with W.
----[] Victan active action: Diplomat-Spy - assists any diplomacy action you take, granting +Level to the dice to the action. Will level on a successful roll, scaled by the significance of the action.
-----[] Victan gets 13 Personal Void Shields to distribute between himself and members of his staff, or hand over as totally-not-bribes, or to give to field agents in the new agency as he feels best.
----[] Cia: Assist the Stellar Ascendancy's new Anti-Chaos Bureau with initial field operations mopping up any chaos cults they find.
-[] Free Action: Give the Stellar Ascendancy some technology...
---[] Give them Abacus Manufacturing and Warp Drive technology.
---[] Give them Large-Scale organic-machine Control.
---[] Give them warp scanner technology incorporating Empathy at Range and The Taste of Chaos for detecting chaos cults.
Construction - Bring the remaining manufactories around Aetherion online (And build a couple of new ones), replace our destroyed troops and tanks and bring our total numbers up to the 10,000 we can carry, build stasis pods for all of our cultist prisoners so that they won't be constantly chipping away at our psy-shields with chaos-thoughts, and the last few spare points make some personal void shields because those are always a good trade item.
Research - Get taste of chaos because it lets us detect any organized cultist activity and stomp on it, Anexa focuses on this because that's a really important capability to have, then get empathy at range because it lets one sensor complex cover the whole system and is also a pre-req for warp comms. Finally grab large-scale OMC so that Denva and the Cogitare will be able to operate shipyards without needing thousands and/or tens of thousands of people. Grab superconductors to finally get that extra 5-15% industrial capacity. Finally finish abacus manufacturing so that we can build ships and get another Denva boon. Finish faith is my shield for additional understanding of warp-mind interactions and also so that we can look into designing a counter-chaos religion or two (It'll probably be really easy to make a faith for the Cogitare, less easy for Denva as a whole). Make a little progress on intelligence coding so that eventually we'll finish it.
Diplomacy - Give Denva a bunch more tech, including chaos-detectors, void abaci, and warp drives. The latter two immediately translate to one boon from Denva. Then have Victan try to help them set up an anti-chaos police force using all the anti-chaos tech we've given them, chiefly our new system-wide chaos detectors, to hopefully let them not only stomp all the existing cults but stay on top of preventing any new ones from forming. This hopefully gets us a second boon.
Next turn would ideally go into step one of my kickstart the singularity plan, with collaborative R&D research and a diplomacy action to help Denva establish their own research industry making use of it. If we can also squeeze in research engineering our own faith, then we would be in an excellent place with two boons for an immediate social intervention to introduce the religion and a long-term one to help it proselytize. We would hopefully have one boon remaining at that point from helping setup their R&D. We would also bring the shipyard back online and be ready to start churning out ships going forward.
Research - Get taste of chaos because it lets us detect any organized cultist activity and stomp on it, Anexa focuses on this because that's a really important capability to have, then get empathy at range because it lets one sensor complex cover the whole system and is also a pre-req for warp comms. Finally grab large-scale OMC so that Denva and the Cogitare will be able to operate shipyards without needing thousands and/or tens of thousands of people. Grab superconductors to finally get that extra 5-15% industrial capacity. Finally finish abacus manufacturing so that we can build ships and get another Denva boon. Finish faith is my shield for additional understanding of warp-mind interactions and also so that we can look into designing a counter-chaos religion or two (It'll probably be really easy to make a faith for the Cogitare, less easy for Denva as a whole). Make a little progress on intelligence coding so that eventually we'll finish it.
Diplomacy - Give Denva a bunch more tech, including chaos-detectors, void abaci, and warp drives. The latter two immediately translate to one boon from Denva. Then have Victan try to help them set up an anti-chaos police force using all the anti-chaos tech we've given them, chiefly our new system-wide chaos detectors, to hopefully let them not only stomp all the existing cults but stay on top of preventing any new ones from forming. This hopefully gets us a second boon.
Next turn would ideally go into step one of my kickstart the singularity plan, with collaborative R&D research and a diplomacy action to help Denva establish their own research industry making use of it. If we can also squeeze in research engineering our own faith, then we would be in an excellent place with two boons for an immediate social intervention to introduce the religion and a long-term one to help it proselytize. We would hopefully have one boon remaining at that point from helping setup their R&D. We would also bring the shipyard back online and be ready to start churning out ships going forward.
Rationale...
I hadn't realized we had quite so much to do with the repair bay, Credit to Nightlord256 I believe for pointing that out and giving specifics on what needs to be fixed.
Getting the psy-lab fully repaired involved taking out the two new orbital manufactories the original plan had us constructing.
Lastly, Cia has been retasked from passive training to actively assisting the Stellar Ascendancy as a temporary field agent helping their new anti-chaos organization stomp on any existing cults that the new scanners find, and then nip any new cults in the bud as soon as they become sufficiently established as to show up on the sensors or are otherwise found by more normal investigation.
Getting the psy-lab fully repaired involved taking out the two new orbital manufactories the original plan had us constructing.
Lastly, Cia has been retasked from passive training to actively assisting the Stellar Ascendancy as a temporary field agent helping their new anti-chaos organization stomp on any existing cults that the new scanners find, and then nip any new cults in the bud as soon as they become sufficiently established as to show up on the sensors or are otherwise found by more normal investigation.
Firstly, get the Spark fully repaired and the troop bay restocked to full capacity for the first time in quite awhile.
Secondly, get all of the remaining Aetherion Orbital Manufactories back online to maximize our available VBP for next turn.
Thirdly, build stasis pods for our captured cultists so that there is absolutely zero chance of them escaping or getting up to any mischief and also so that their constant chaos-thoughts won't be a constant drain on our psychic shielding. Our repair bay could probably easily keep up with that, but why put up with it at all?
Secondly, get all of the remaining Aetherion Orbital Manufactories back online to maximize our available VBP for next turn.
Thirdly, build stasis pods for our captured cultists so that there is absolutely zero chance of them escaping or getting up to any mischief and also so that their constant chaos-thoughts won't be a constant drain on our psychic shielding. Our repair bay could probably easily keep up with that, but why put up with it at all?
The Taste of Chaos lets us detect cults with our warp sensors. As soon as we have the ability to detect cults, the Stellar Ascendancy Armed Forces can go stomp on them. As soon as all the cults are stomped on we get another boon from Denva and also have less to worry about when it comes to continuing to trust them with stuff. This won't detect individual chaos agents, but there will likely be follow-ups to do that, and lone chaos-gunmen aren't anywhere near as much of a threat anyway. Anexa gets to focus on this because detecting cults is by far the most important capability coming online this turn.
Empathy at Range lets us and the Stellar Ascendancy only need to build a single chaos cult detector to cover the entire system instead of, at minimum, one per planet / population center. It is also one of three pre-reqs for warp comms, and of the two that we could research this turn it's the more immediately useful.
Large-Scale organic-machine Control will significantly aid the Stellar Ascendancy with rebuilding their space forces by making it possible to build and run a shipyard with a couple of dozen people instead of tens of thousands. It will let the Cogitare do the same thing, which is important because the Cogitare won't have tens of thousands of members for around a hundred years, whereas they are projected to have single-digit thousands by the time we leave the system, and finishing this research early and making sure they're trained with it will mean that those single-digit thousands will be more than enough to operate the entire Aetherion Industrial Complex, including using the shipyard to construct and send us any ships that we ask for once we're back into exploration mode.
Superconductive Shenanigans is an extremely cheap boost to all of our industry that has been sitting in our tech tree for too long for lack of the RP to get to it. Next turn we'll have 7,800 VBP from the Aetherion Industrial Complex and even a 5% boost to that is nothing to sneeze at regardless of everything else.
Abacus Manufacturing has to get done to let us build more ships. It will also let the Stellar Ascendancy and Cogitare do the same and net us another boon from Denva.
Faith is My Shield is sitting partially complete in our tech-tree and is a pre-req for engineering our own anti-chaos religion. Hopefully we will be able to at least get started on actually doing that next turn, and doing so soon should allow us to both take best advantage of the current upheaval and trauma in the system and make use of a couple of boons we're likely to have at the time to maximize the adoption rate of our new religion.
Intelligence Coding gets the remainder because it's also sitting partially complete in our tech-tree and it's absolutely something we do need to finish eventually, it's just that more immediate priorities keep coming up.
Empathy at Range lets us and the Stellar Ascendancy only need to build a single chaos cult detector to cover the entire system instead of, at minimum, one per planet / population center. It is also one of three pre-reqs for warp comms, and of the two that we could research this turn it's the more immediately useful.
Large-Scale organic-machine Control will significantly aid the Stellar Ascendancy with rebuilding their space forces by making it possible to build and run a shipyard with a couple of dozen people instead of tens of thousands. It will let the Cogitare do the same thing, which is important because the Cogitare won't have tens of thousands of members for around a hundred years, whereas they are projected to have single-digit thousands by the time we leave the system, and finishing this research early and making sure they're trained with it will mean that those single-digit thousands will be more than enough to operate the entire Aetherion Industrial Complex, including using the shipyard to construct and send us any ships that we ask for once we're back into exploration mode.
Superconductive Shenanigans is an extremely cheap boost to all of our industry that has been sitting in our tech tree for too long for lack of the RP to get to it. Next turn we'll have 7,800 VBP from the Aetherion Industrial Complex and even a 5% boost to that is nothing to sneeze at regardless of everything else.
Abacus Manufacturing has to get done to let us build more ships. It will also let the Stellar Ascendancy and Cogitare do the same and net us another boon from Denva.
Faith is My Shield is sitting partially complete in our tech-tree and is a pre-req for engineering our own anti-chaos religion. Hopefully we will be able to at least get started on actually doing that next turn, and doing so soon should allow us to both take best advantage of the current upheaval and trauma in the system and make use of a couple of boons we're likely to have at the time to maximize the adoption rate of our new religion.
Intelligence Coding gets the remainder because it's also sitting partially complete in our tech-tree and it's absolutely something we do need to finish eventually, it's just that more immediate priorities keep coming up.
Firstly, this consists of handing over a lot of technology.
Abacus and Warp Drive production nets us an immediate boon and was something we decided to do forever ago anyway. The Stellar Ascendancy absolutely needs to be able to design and build their own ships.
Large-Scale organic-machine Control, as discussed in the research section, will vastly simplify building those ships for them. I cannot understate how much easier I expect it will be for them to build and run OMC Shipyards as opposed to manual ones.
Giving them our new chaos detector technology will let them become the only human polity in existence that can immediately detect and step on any chaos cults as they form. I'd say it also has good odds of letting them detect and squash genestealer cults as well, which is a bonus.
Stasis technology will give them the safest possible option for long-term storage of captured cultists, which pairs nicely with the drug technology we already gave them for non-lethally capturing those cultists.
Lastly, we give Victan a handful of personal void shields in case he needs to totally-not-bribe some people or keep himself and some of his guys safe, then we send him to help the Stellar Ascendancy actually make use of all this new technology to establish an organization for rooting out chaos within their territory.
Cia goes along to be a temporary field agent with the new Anti-Chaos Bureau while they mop up any already established cults detected by the scanners and then stomp out any new ones as they arise for a bit, until hopefully we're confident that they're ready to operate fully independently at the end of the turn.
Abacus and Warp Drive production nets us an immediate boon and was something we decided to do forever ago anyway. The Stellar Ascendancy absolutely needs to be able to design and build their own ships.
Large-Scale organic-machine Control, as discussed in the research section, will vastly simplify building those ships for them. I cannot understate how much easier I expect it will be for them to build and run OMC Shipyards as opposed to manual ones.
Giving them our new chaos detector technology will let them become the only human polity in existence that can immediately detect and step on any chaos cults as they form. I'd say it also has good odds of letting them detect and squash genestealer cults as well, which is a bonus.
Stasis technology will give them the safest possible option for long-term storage of captured cultists, which pairs nicely with the drug technology we already gave them for non-lethally capturing those cultists.
Lastly, we give Victan a handful of personal void shields in case he needs to totally-not-bribe some people or keep himself and some of his guys safe, then we send him to help the Stellar Ascendancy actually make use of all this new technology to establish an organization for rooting out chaos within their territory.
Cia goes along to be a temporary field agent with the new Anti-Chaos Bureau while they mop up any already established cults detected by the scanners and then stomp out any new ones as they arise for a bit, until hopefully we're confident that they're ready to operate fully independently at the end of the turn.
@Neablis given what you've said about write-ins, I wanted to run my plan by you before finalizing it ahead of the actual voting. Particularly, building stasis pods for our captured cultists at 2 BP/Prisoner in the build action, and using a diplomacy action with Victan and Cia assisting to help Denva and W set up some kind of anti-chaos police organization making use of warp scanners with empathy at range and taste of chaos to find and squash cults. Or would I be better just writing an orders action to squash all the cults we can find with that same tech?
Edit - And also, I suppose, building two batches of various bots and having the first count as "Bring our current stock of however many are left after the battle at the nest up to an even thousand" just to get the numbers simplified.
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