I say we go with the schism route, get more of the younger tech-priests on our side, though the question is when do we want to start getting into space? As it is, things will get messy one way or another. We should see about informing the rest of the kingdoms some time before we try and take the Mechanicus down.
Vox Vitae: Warhammer AI quest
- Thread starter Neablis
- Start date
- Mature Sci-Fi
meianmaru
The Devourer of Fiction
No worries. There is a reason why I'm for making 10 new manufactories on this turn and researching jamming. Just two to three turns, including this, and I think we might be good to go against AdMech if needed, if including our Aevon allies and potential subversion from the inside.
Also, I think minefields should be added to the blueprints, both ground and space version. The void ones are basically what toboe came up with or rocket pod that fire as soon as a ship gets within range where the rocket can't be avoided.
- Location
- United Kingdom
Even if some or most of them didn't join us I'd say it'd be worth it. The more we subvert the less we have to fight when we go loud, and the easier the transition will be for the Denvan's afterwards.
700 to start, though some have by now been solved/deleted.
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Insult Everyone!
Master of Evil but bad at it.
- Location
- Right behind you~
Honestly, I think our current hacking is good enough to do what we need for now. We may reconsider if/when things get hot with the Mechanicus but we really don't need to be quick to hack RN.
It's probably better to focus our efforts elsewhere. Like the subverting stuff
It's probably better to focus our efforts elsewhere. Like the subverting stuff
Turns last five years, if things go hot with the ad mech it is likely to happen over a much shorter span. What we have when the time comes is all we're getting.
Insult Everyone!
Master of Evil but bad at it.
- Location
- Right behind you~
Maybe so, but nonetheless I think we'll probably get sufficient warning before then in the form of suspicions and such at minimum.
Depends on how we get discovered. If they see through our stealth and figure out we are trying to take out their kill sats it's go time 'roll to see if he blast wave gets that far'.
Alectai
Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion
Basically, the way I see it, there's two steps we need to take to get a 'Good enough' win, but only one before we can effectively force a fait accompli.
We need to neutralize their Dead Hand network and prevent them from glassing the fucking planet (And that still shocks me. They have the spacelift to build enough orbital weapons to wipe the planet clean but not enough to just fucking leave?). Then we need to neutralize their nuclear arsenal. At that point, we can basically announce "Yeah, their monopoly's broken, they've betrayed the agreement, they have to compete fairly now instead of just threaten everyone with nukes", with revealing the former Dead Hand network. Even then, the nuclear arsenal is something we can risk going up against, especially if we have a void shield. This is the reason my plan builds underground spaceports, so we can actually combine that with having the stealth researched to start neutralizing the Dead Hand.
You don't prepare enough ground pointing armaments to glass the planet unless you expect to need them. Everyone knew about their strategic launch capabilities and thought that threat enough for no funny business. A network like this is well beyond the pale.
I'm not looking for a perfect solution, I just want to prevent megadeths from happening in a temper tantrum.
We need to neutralize their Dead Hand network and prevent them from glassing the fucking planet (And that still shocks me. They have the spacelift to build enough orbital weapons to wipe the planet clean but not enough to just fucking leave?). Then we need to neutralize their nuclear arsenal. At that point, we can basically announce "Yeah, their monopoly's broken, they've betrayed the agreement, they have to compete fairly now instead of just threaten everyone with nukes", with revealing the former Dead Hand network. Even then, the nuclear arsenal is something we can risk going up against, especially if we have a void shield. This is the reason my plan builds underground spaceports, so we can actually combine that with having the stealth researched to start neutralizing the Dead Hand.
You don't prepare enough ground pointing armaments to glass the planet unless you expect to need them. Everyone knew about their strategic launch capabilities and thought that threat enough for no funny business. A network like this is well beyond the pale.
I'm not looking for a perfect solution, I just want to prevent megadeths from happening in a temper tantrum.
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meianmaru
The Devourer of Fiction
A honest question, which one you think would work better? Jamming all the kill-sats so that AdMech can't immediately send a signal for them to drop their payloads and then plucking them out of the skies before any potential automated periodic check-in fails? Or hacking them carefully to take control over the whole constellation of them?
I'm kinda on the fence on the issue, mostly leaning towards jamming which I've included in my plan, but I want to debate on it to weigh opinions before the voting starts.
Or this being the Imperium we are talking about they were ordered not to leave. They would also have had to be ordered not to kill the the population out of hand just for rebelling I think.
I think it is the psykers, I do not think this was the governor's pet project, he was the front man for the inquisition which would explain both why this place has not been glassed already, because it would shut down the project and why there is a capacity to glass it floating above, to kill all the psykers if the monasteries start praising Chaos.
I think this whole thing is an imperial experiment forgotten in a holding action, potentially because its architect was killed unexpectedly, though 160 years isn't that long, they could show back up.
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- Location
- florida
One of these things requires navigators. Warp drives. And astropathic communications.
- Location
- United Kingdom
For all we know their capabilities have degraded such that they can only maintain what they have in space, rather than building anything new.
We know they only seem to be using a small part of that big space station.
- Location
- US
In addition to what DragonParadox said, that's assuming the orbital weapons aren't older and just being maintained by the remaining Mechanicus.
Leaving the system is also probably out of the question without Void Abacus blueprints or a Navigator, even assuming they can manufacture ships and warp drives.
- Pronouns
- Zack
Are we going to tell Aevon about what we discovered in space?
Alectai
Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion
[X] Plan: Killsats means Vita will not be going to space today T_T
-[X] Free: This is an absurd amount of firepower aimed at a planet that can't resist, what is the deal, it can't just be sheer greed and conservatism, is there an actual reason for it? See if you can find out what this is.
-[X] Diplomacy: Admech Shooshing
--[X] Somehow, the deal keeps getting worse all the time! Still, we need to keep poking around the corners to keep them complacent. Provide our regular report, with some speculation as to what might be found. Now that we actually have an understanding of what a Machine Spirit is, we've got more of the terminology that can be used to deflect suspicion too. While we're at it, we should see about starting to consolidate some of our gains--we've got the fundaments of a following, and we're loathe to actually conduct a complete purge--especially now that you know that there's potential in the Mechanicus to be something worthy, held back by a bunch of regressive toughs, if we can get followers on the inside who can help, we might manage to avoid a complete wipeout when the time comes for the status quo to shift. (Thalya report, followed up by starting to capitalize on those initial seeds we've sown to start assembling a following in our own right. Allies inside could be worth their weight in your exotic material of choice when things get noisy.)
-[X] Construction (+1,100 BP)
--[X] 2x Concealed Spaceport (-600 BP, -50 CP)
--[X] 4x Manufactories (-400 BP, -200 CP)
--[X] Shield Repair (-50 BP)
--[X] Trade Goods (-50 BP)
-[X] Research x2 (400 + 10 Anexa RP)
--[X] Small-craft Stealth (100 RP)
--[X] Medium Void Shield Installation (100 RP)
--[X] Brain Implants (40 + 10 Anexa RP)
--[X] Faster Hacking (150 RP)
--[X] Secrets of the Machine Spirits (10/200 RP)
-[X][Anexa] Research - assists a research action you take, granting +5xLevel RP to the action. Will level on successful roll, scaled by the importance of the tech.
As mentioned in my previous remarks, the thrust of this plan is "Start capitalizing on the seeds we've sown to see if there's any following to harvest, in order to get the necessary vectors we need to hamstring the ground-level response when the shit hits the fan. We build two concealed Spaceports (Underground probably isn't the right word for it), which gives us 20 berths for small craft--enough to transfer 500 Ground BP to Void BP (Or, when things settle down, convert 1,000 Ground BP to Void BP), as well as have strike craft ready to go. We still gain +200 BP out of this as well, and with the completion of Small-Craft Stealth, we'll be able to design actual stealth craft to start working at de-fanging the Mechanicus' response.
It'll be even funnier if we can actually leverage Faster Hacking to convert the killsats into something we can exploit, by making them "Check In" if they get a launch order, which will cover us in the face of surprise attack as well, since they'll have to inform us before they start launching, and we can launch our own countermeasure to shut down the megadeths. We should be in a position to strike a blow against their nonsense soon with this setup, as well as having a fine carrot to entice those who haven't gone completely mad in the form of our extremely high quality augments.
-[X] Free: This is an absurd amount of firepower aimed at a planet that can't resist, what is the deal, it can't just be sheer greed and conservatism, is there an actual reason for it? See if you can find out what this is.
-[X] Diplomacy: Admech Shooshing
--[X] Somehow, the deal keeps getting worse all the time! Still, we need to keep poking around the corners to keep them complacent. Provide our regular report, with some speculation as to what might be found. Now that we actually have an understanding of what a Machine Spirit is, we've got more of the terminology that can be used to deflect suspicion too. While we're at it, we should see about starting to consolidate some of our gains--we've got the fundaments of a following, and we're loathe to actually conduct a complete purge--especially now that you know that there's potential in the Mechanicus to be something worthy, held back by a bunch of regressive toughs, if we can get followers on the inside who can help, we might manage to avoid a complete wipeout when the time comes for the status quo to shift. (Thalya report, followed up by starting to capitalize on those initial seeds we've sown to start assembling a following in our own right. Allies inside could be worth their weight in your exotic material of choice when things get noisy.)
-[X] Construction (+1,100 BP)
--[X] 2x Concealed Spaceport (-600 BP, -50 CP)
--[X] 4x Manufactories (-400 BP, -200 CP)
--[X] Shield Repair (-50 BP)
--[X] Trade Goods (-50 BP)
-[X] Research x2 (400 + 10 Anexa RP)
--[X] Small-craft Stealth (100 RP)
--[X] Medium Void Shield Installation (100 RP)
--[X] Brain Implants (40 + 10 Anexa RP)
--[X] Faster Hacking (150 RP)
--[X] Secrets of the Machine Spirits (10/200 RP)
-[X][Anexa] Research - assists a research action you take, granting +5xLevel RP to the action. Will level on successful roll, scaled by the importance of the tech.
As mentioned in my previous remarks, the thrust of this plan is "Start capitalizing on the seeds we've sown to see if there's any following to harvest, in order to get the necessary vectors we need to hamstring the ground-level response when the shit hits the fan. We build two concealed Spaceports (Underground probably isn't the right word for it), which gives us 20 berths for small craft--enough to transfer 500 Ground BP to Void BP (Or, when things settle down, convert 1,000 Ground BP to Void BP), as well as have strike craft ready to go. We still gain +200 BP out of this as well, and with the completion of Small-Craft Stealth, we'll be able to design actual stealth craft to start working at de-fanging the Mechanicus' response.
It'll be even funnier if we can actually leverage Faster Hacking to convert the killsats into something we can exploit, by making them "Check In" if they get a launch order, which will cover us in the face of surprise attack as well, since they'll have to inform us before they start launching, and we can launch our own countermeasure to shut down the megadeths. We should be in a position to strike a blow against their nonsense soon with this setup, as well as having a fine carrot to entice those who haven't gone completely mad in the form of our extremely high quality augments.
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Shard
One and Many
- Location
- Malaysia
If the Killsats are in space, then if their payload is like, nukes, wouldn't getting a killsat to explode in space basically wipe out all the other Killsats in a massive chain reaction? Nuclear explosions in space are pretty wild and more importantly rapidly wipe out electronics. I don't think the Mechanicus will have had actually planned for hostile control of the orbitals. They probably expect that if anyone is controlling the orbitals the killsats are defunct already anyhow.
Even something like, idk, Super Kessler Syndrome could deal with a lot of killsats if their sophistication isn't too far ahead.
Even something like, idk, Super Kessler Syndrome could deal with a lot of killsats if their sophistication isn't too far ahead.
Alectai
Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion
I don't think they're bunched up in one place, since it's explicitly a "The entire planet gets glassed indiscriminately" formation. You can't do that just by having one cluster of killsats.
I'm also not assuming that blowing one up will cause a chain reaction, Admech tech may be shifty, but the one thing that's nearly universal is the shit's almost apocalypse proofed.
- Location
- Australia
@Alectai - assuming no one has more pressing questions to ask, could we add a free-action inquiry using what databases we have access to to see what, if anything, we can find out about Denva Prime and potential Vellkar survivors (with particular interest in whether the Mechanicus or others have noticed any changes or activities since the Great Rift formed)?
I'm a bit confused by this - what are you asking for? A new weapon to go on ships? Being able to deploy antitank mines? I think if there's interest you could probably build stealth missiles that you drop off in orbit to be able to take out the satellites in mass later.
This feels like a question for me - so let's talk about the difference in some more detail.
Hacking opens up new subversion possibilities. Right now you could, as a subversion action, attempt to hack the mechanicus nukes or orbital satellites. There would be a roll, and how well you rolled would determine the outcome - all the way from "Now the mechanicus knows somebody tried to hack them" to "You can change the targets/orders of the satellites." Getting better tech will improve the outcomes on that - change the probability distribution of the roll, and let you do things like target all of the satellites instead of just the ones that pass over your base.
Jamming is a combat-oriented solution. Once you research the tech you can create "jamming modules" as installations or ship weapons whose purpose is to bombard the satellites (or any other target you can link them to) with signals designed to confuse their machine spirits. It won't totally neuter them but it will slow them down and make them less effective. A combination of some jammers, a shield and either fighters or some anti-orbital lances would be a good way to protect yourself against the mechanicus weapons. But on their own the jammers are not a good solution to protecting the entire planet. The jamming may also serve as a good personal tool in actions, but it won't be as significant for that as the hacking will be.
Yes. They explicitly don't have the main reactor of the space station going. 95+% of it is cold and dark, and they're at a far-flung section, not in towards the center where the important stuff like the docks, control room, reactor, life support are.
Yeah, this. Besides, when you destroy most nukes they don't explode unless they're antimatter, they just turn into radioactive debris.
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