- Location
- Earth
Still considering whether to do that or fish on AI speciality for her.
Vox Vitae: Warhammer AI quest
- Thread starter Neablis
- Start date
- Mature Sci-Fi
meianmaru
The Devourer of Fiction
I would be more intererested in LL's plan if it had a construction or used our free BP on getting at least juvenat. Also, I would suggest putting Anexa into Intelligence Coding to fish for a crit and a specialty in Intelligence Coding. Now that would be a powerful specialty, especially when she already has a specialty in Machine Spirits.
EDIT: ninja'ed
Driven by Apathy
Formerly known as Brain_Caster
My stance is as follows:
- Acknowledge their sovereignty over their homeworld, and set up the necessary legal framework to ensure they can't be conquered and exploited by elements within Denvan civilization.
- Seek mutual defense against hostile third parties. Open trade relations to enchance prosperity and standards of living for both sides.
- Actively interact with the Vellkar in order to learn more about them as a species, a culture, and as individuals. Figure out what kind of people they would be if they found themselves in a position of power.
- If the prognosis for how a powerful Vellkar culture would behave is a positive one, set them on the path to become powerful via tech transfer.
Either you don't (didn't - hopefully the above clarifies things) understand my stance at all, or, frankly, your standards of what constitutes hostility are kind of warped.
I re-read the story and checked every mention of the Vellkar before my first post on the issue. My conclusion was that what we know about them seems quite positive, but that ultimately we do not know much about them at all. Given the scale of potential consequences of empowering them, we owe it to the galaxy to check and know what we're doing before going through with it. A year or two of having Victan study them and form a more conclusive picture of what they're like is the least we should do.
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- Location
- Boston
Good point on both counts.
@LightLan, it would only cost 500BP to build these as part of our orbital facility.
Edit: this would be two juvenat facilities producing enough for 100 people (total). Which completely covers Victan staff.
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- Location
- Earth
This should get them into the ship, if that's legal to do.
With rules as written it should be... I am feeling like Bongo right now.
@Neablis
They can be replaced at the repair bay. No need to lug around a stock of fresh ones in case the operators of the defence can manage to activate them and use them to reinforce in time to prevent a boarding. That seems like a suboptimal use.
Still dislike the way you're approaching the Velkar... also, minor correction: I think you mean 80 Cogitare.
Oh, and... mind exposing the calculations on the cost of that academy?
And personally, I think we'll need to just remake the Spark. Having psy encryption on the body shields seems too important.
Gwen can still help with a military action even as a generalist, and she can provide a bonus as she levels. The bonus will be 10 less than for the strategist, but it will also cover other important dice rolls.
You're proposing we withhold medicine and civilian manufacturing from a people who have shown us no hostility. Who have shown the Denvans no hostility.
I am not proposing we hand them nova cannons or even the means to get off planet.
You call my standards warped, but my standards here mostly boil down to "let's be better than 19th century Europe". I'm asking for the very minimum, and the fact that you're not willing to see this baffles and worries me.
Your potential consequences seem silly. What, they're going to turn into a scary interstellar empire....while their homeworld is in Denva right next to our burgeoning benevolent interstellar power?
It sounds like you are understanding the defenses as outright including some hundreds of ablative bots?
I, meanwhile, am noting that Vita, with her own boarding preparations, always loses bots from the troop bay, sometimes in bulk, when boarded. And figuring that without those additional ablative bots we would still have to be hit somewhere.
- Location
- Boston
We have plenty of BP, I don't feel the need to cram them into the ship right now.
Id prefer to do one larger overhaul of the ship down the road, preferably after getting more cramming techs.
Driven by Apathy
Formerly known as Brain_Caster
Firstly, no, I'm not proposing we withold medicine. As for manufacturing, if there's a way to give them civilian manufacturing without also enabling them to establish the kind of heavy industry needed for militarization, I'm open to suggestions.
Secondly, I'm proposing we withold manufacturing for less than one turn. Just long enough for Victan to study them and form an opinion on them and ensure there are no unwelcome surprises. That's far from being an excessive level of caution.
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[] Plan: Welcome to the Neighbourhood
-[] Diplomacy: meet the Velkar and (assuming mo red flags) give them a starting package for production: manned manufactury blueprints, manufactury omc, etc. Offer to help adapt our medical techniques to their biology and needs.
--[] Do not initially provide means of warfare.
--[] Victan assignment
-[] Diplomacy: develop Denva's R&D sector
-[] Research x2 (400 + 85 + 60 = 545):
--[] Immaterium Understanding (200)
--[] Collab R&D (250)
--[] Nova Cannons (95 + overflow, if any)
-[] (Spider) Gwen: Seer
This sadly does not complete Nova Cannons, but it gets very close (maybe finishes it, if Collab R&D goes well)
- Location
- Earth
I don't think we are going to get to that before we leave? And we'll want juvenat for our diplomats when we leave.
We want to do all of:
Warp comms (450 RP+)
Navigator (250 RP)
Actually build ships (Some of the boons earned this turn will go towards that either directly or via building manufactories)
avatar11792
Et Sic Incipit
- Location
- Planet Earth, North America
Velkar... I just like the way the other guy wrote it, that's why I copied it.
I'll fix the numbers on the cogitare, thanks.
That entire section of Academy costs I copied from the Academy City plan. Like I said before, I'm kind of terrible with the numbers aspect of plan making, so he put that down I just copied it. I have added on traits from the void warship design system, I'm not sure if we can do that, but if we can that would account for a fair chunk of the cost.
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meianmaru
The Devourer of Fiction
I'm more than fine just a quick and dirty refit like this. Also... Can we build juvenat production into void installations? Or can we only build them into our flagship with Vita on it, or the ground? Because we currently don't have permissions for building anything on any planetary surface. And while I think it might be relatively easy to get the rights, it might still require a diplomacy action. Considering that anything that Vita does is big and impactful, the local governments would probably want to know what their land is being used for.
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Driven by Apathy
Formerly known as Brain_Caster
Okay, this looks rather more reasonable than what you seemed to be advocating for earlier.
Might I suggest specifiying that we're assigning Victan to studying them and leaving the final choice on whether or not they should receive technological assisstance to him?
Another minor concern: "Offer to help adapt our medical techniques to their biology and needs" sounds like something that would require us to dedicate an action to it, if they take that offer. I'm not sure we can currently afford that. If the Denva system gets overrun by outside forces, then everyone in it - including the Vellkar - will be thouroughly screwed. So we should probably focus on space militarization for now.
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Odd thought. Deva is moving towards post scarcity where intellectual labor has more or less completely replaced physical labor?
Have we given them juvinate? Because ending aging and returning the elderly to the working population seems like a straight up fix to their demand for intellectual labor.
We want them to have it eventually anyway. It's a dramatic change, but they are in the middle of a dramatic change anyway, so what's an even bigger change to their society?
It means their population will rapidly expand to fill the needs of their expanding stellar empire.
And giving them juvinate seems like something that would be a hell of a boon.
Have we given them juvinate? Because ending aging and returning the elderly to the working population seems like a straight up fix to their demand for intellectual labor.
We want them to have it eventually anyway. It's a dramatic change, but they are in the middle of a dramatic change anyway, so what's an even bigger change to their society?
It means their population will rapidly expand to fill the needs of their expanding stellar empire.
And giving them juvinate seems like something that would be a hell of a boon.
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- Location
- Earth
That's a little too restrictive for my tastes.
Those guys are legitimately worried about getting bombed from orbit (again).
Include at least the in-atmosphere void shields in the offer.
10ebbor10
DON'T PANIC
- Location
- Present
This whole thing relies on a rather silly double standard though.
We never checked before we gave technology to Denva, to the Mechanicus, to the chaos infected ships, or to infected algae people. Heck, to the extent that we did check, we found several red flags. The mechanicus has a long history of malevolent shenanigans, Denva had times where local nations decided to go to war rather than progress, and the chaos ships had active chaos infestations.
Each of those situations was far more dangerous, far more likely to result in permanent trouble.
So, why the sudden paranoia now?
Edit: And it is, absolutely, paranoia. You're relying on the culture to exhibit several, never before seen traits, and then also somehow overpower the far more advanced Denva in the same system. It just doesn't make much sense. Like, even if they were hostile, and we have them tech, Denva can beat them. They don't have the infrastructure.
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Consider that Vita has always fought with a single ship, taking all the enemy's boarders at once. Additionally, Neablis has said Prep includes some bots. We would need to provide those bots, but I think investing in not just the ship space, but also the cost of the extra bots, just in case it gets boarded and the prep is insufficient and the bots make a difference seems like making the ship less effective (less space for other stuff) and more expensive (paying for all the extra bots), meaning we build fewer of them. I'm not arguing the bots cannot help. I'm saying they're not worth the price.
Firstly, my proposal (to which you said "absolutely not") is we give them medicine and civilian manufacturing. Are you expecting them to derive space travel and a military build-up from first principles quickly?
Secondly, you are arguing for at least one turn of delay, since there are no half-turns. A turn during which they are in negotiation with Denva from a position of salient weakness, where we could even the scale.
Thirdly, yes, it is an excessive level of caution. We have interacted with them before, Victan has interacted with them before, and the framing where everyone else is dangerous until proven otherwise is how the Imperium became what it is. Vita is better than that.
Driven by Apathy
Formerly known as Brain_Caster
The Denvans and Mechanicus were humans, thus a known quantity. If we knew half as much about the Vellkar as we know about humans, I would not be concerned at all.
Like I said, what we know about the Vellkar seems quite positive. There just isn't enough of it for my taste. I have high hopes for the Vellkar, but the WH40k galaxy is a hostile one. Trust, but verify. The verifying part is not one that should be neglected.
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Just to check then... @Neablis
Would it be possible to write-in research, construction, and diplomacy actions to design, build, and have the Cogitare operate an Orbital University Campus similar to the Uplift Campus design you suggested a while ago?
My thinking is that while this probably wouldn't solve everything in one turn, it would give significant bonuses going forward to diplomacy actions that could...
Organize Stellar Ascendancy R&D.
Straighten out their military training issues.
Help overcome their remaining internal divides between the planetary nations.
Deepen ties with the vellkar by way of offering their government(s) a number of scholarships.
Further organize the Cogitare and establish them as a neutral non-governmental organization.
Provide a likely recruitment pool for volunteers to help establish vellkar medical data and adapt our cybernetics and medical technology to their physiology.
I was thinking it would use roughly the same stats you provided for the Uplift Campus you suggested a ways back.
forums.sufficientvelocity.com
Would it be possible to write-in research, construction, and diplomacy actions to design, build, and have the Cogitare operate an Orbital University Campus similar to the Uplift Campus design you suggested a while ago?
My thinking is that while this probably wouldn't solve everything in one turn, it would give significant bonuses going forward to diplomacy actions that could...
Organize Stellar Ascendancy R&D.
Straighten out their military training issues.
Help overcome their remaining internal divides between the planetary nations.
Deepen ties with the vellkar by way of offering their government(s) a number of scholarships.
Further organize the Cogitare and establish them as a neutral non-governmental organization.
Provide a likely recruitment pool for volunteers to help establish vellkar medical data and adapt our cybernetics and medical technology to their physiology.
I was thinking it would use roughly the same stats you provided for the Uplift Campus you suggested a ways back.
Vox Vitae: Warhammer AI quest Mature - Sci-Fi
Nope, Your crew buffs your actions, they don't replace them. Even when Victan is flavorfully doing a lot, in actuality you're backing him up and it requires your attention. I've read about him, and that led to reading about the whole Arks of Omen shenanigans. Fun! You really can never have...
forums.sufficientvelocity.com
Yes, but it isn't that helpful due to the low yield production we currently have.
Extra bots are very cheap. Troop bay is even cheaper. Only the CP is significant. (Would be much better with quick swap OMC.)
And any ship under attack should expect to be attacked seriously, not with unfocused flailing.
I was hoping to use the one-time manufacturing boon near the end of our stay to rebuild the spark. I am particularly concerned for our lack of Encryption on the main shields.
It's exactly the same, with one added sentence for Victan aiding and another two spelling understood things out.
I believe Nova Cannons plus actually building ships are enough militarization for now. And I would be happy to spend some RP to give these people medicine, yes.
I was hoping to use our presence for now and offer self-defence capabilities later, but you are right about shields.
And this is why my vote is sworn specifically to anti this agenda.
10ebbor10
DON'T PANIC
- Location
- Present
Okay, this is entirely about you believing that the Velkar could be like "genetically" evil, and humans are genetically good?
That is an incredibly stupid framing.
Evil is not genes, chaos is not genes, tyranny is not genes. The Imperium is not a fascist theocracy because it's in it's genes. (And, TBH, given that the Imperium exists, your logic would suggest that we never give humans technology, because look at what kind of fuckery humanity got up. They're clearly not to be trusted as a species, having both made massive contributions to chaos, and independently invented their own genocidal empire).
Vita, and we , knew far less about the various human factions she aided than we now know about the Velkar.
What you have is not "trust but verify". Again, if we had that we would not have trusted all the humans. What you have is just standard Imperium Xenophobia. The Xeno is a perfidious threat, but the humans are fine (despite you know, more than half of all fuckery having human origins.)
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