Vox Vitae: Warhammer AI quest

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[X] Plan: Mag-Rail To Heavens

We better get our deck in order and ducks in a row. Failure is not an option with 4 billion innocents on the line if we are too hasty to act.
 
...So, this is a bit embarassing. To anyone who has voted for my plan:

I think that I got the math for my plan wrong. Again. Luckily, this is nothing major, it leads to just there being 50 less production in the third construction slot than I thought there was. And so I can solve that just by changing the amount of stealth fighters produced from ten to eight. Just letting you all know.

EDIT: My plan after the adjustments (also, if someone could check the math I would deeply appreciate it, I do not trust myself anymore with it):
meianmaru said:
[X] Plan: Mag-Rail To Heavens
-[X] [Free] Poke around some more in the databases, looking for anything in particular.
--[X] You believe its yet again time for diving into the distinctly non-wonderful world of the faith of the Priesthood of Mars. This time, you are looking into its various internal sects. What are their goals and means, basically always being some form of technology they specialize in. Their philosophical and theological outlooks into technology as well as knowledge. The amount of political (and so almost always also military) power they wield. Maybe most importantly, what and who can be declared Heretek, and for what reason. Because if you are going to be sneaking in education to the acolytes of the Enclaves, you need to understand how to conceal them better in to the byzantine labyrinth that is the Mechanicus. Should also help maybe in finding fault-lines in hindering their cooperation.
-[X] Construction x3 (5900 GBP = 1300 GBP + 1950 GBP + 2650 GBP)
--[X] Construction slot, 1st (1300 GBP)
---[X] 13x Manufactories (100 BP, 50 CP)
--[X] Construction slot, 2nd (1950 GBP)
---[X] 14x Manufactories (100 BP, 50 CP)
---[X] Underground Magnetic Catapult launch system (550/3000 BP, 50 CP)
--[X] Construction slot, 3rd (2650 GBP) (50/50 of non-noticable surface installations)
---[X] Underground Magnetic Catapult launch system (3000/3000 BP, 50 CP) 2450 BP
---[X] 8x Basic Stealth Fighters (25 BP, 5 CP) (8/25 for global anti-ICBM coverage when needed, currently stored in spaceports)
-[X] Research x1 (200 RP)
--[X] Research slot, 1st
---[X] Blueprint: 50 RP - Basic Stealth Fighters (25 BP, 5 CP)
---[X] Machine spirit jamming (150 RP)
-[X] Pay rent (Trade Goods, Aevon 45 -> 20)
-[X] Anexa passive action: Education - Roll to level, difficulty is 10+5xLevel
-[X] Additional Votes
--[X] Educate (if Victan becomes available, apply here in helping to conceal your education to the Acolytes if game-mechanics-legal)
--[X] Now (Write-in): Tell Anexa that you've found a warp-based cognitohazard. Limit the information to the basics of the nature of the Chaos, and the rough warning signs. Also tell her about your plans for the miniaturized shielding, as well as potentially a modification to her brain augmentation implant, mimicking the general function of what you've done to yourself. One might be enough, but both would likely be safer. Though if she doesn't want the implant-modification (if it works at all), you understand. It would likely be pretty invasive. You are planning to tell the specifics later, hopefully after figuring out how to shield her from the worst of the danger in some way. But even if those mitigation measures don't pan out perfectly, tell that you are still committing to revealing the full truth of what you know later anyway. Because you trust that she can navigate the dangers involved, and also because you might end up needing help if your shielding fails.
--[X] Yes (Write-in): Let Victan first know about your slow efforts at subverting small numbers of acolytes in the Enclaves, and introduce Anexa. Then a bit later on, tell him what you have managed to put together what happened since your accident. Touch on the topic of Chaos very lightly, even less than you did with Anexa. Just that something has had an observable effect on the a type of shielding on your ship which had gone out of general use, and is a cognitohazard... Especially dangerous to you. And then reveal why that matters in this context, and why you need Aevon as allies. Admit that your mere existence endangers their world due to how the Mechanicus sees you. Tell him the truth about you being an AI, and how you would very much like to have a safe port in a galaxy that is very hostile to beings like you. Then tell him why you want the people of Aevon as your allies. Because way back then, when Victan was first assigned as your contact? You weren't lying about his people reminding you of those from your past, those who are nowdays called the Ancients. Finally, show him what you are building and designing to take out the kill-sats and nukes. Admit that the more you interact with the Enclaves of the Adeptus Mechanicus, the less hope you hold for a peaceful solution for Aevon with them. Even without revealing your existence as an AI or disguised as an "Ancient", they will desperately cling to their monopoly over technology. So regardless if you want to force them to the negotiation table or break their presence on the planet, you have to be able to nullify their WMDs first. And if he wants to help you in saving his planet and his people by trying to subvert what you both can in the Mechanicus, the offer remains open.
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[X] Plan Mag-Rail to Heavens

After completing the Mag-Rail, we should build the 150 missiles, research advanced stealth fighters, build 20 of them and launch the attack, we should be more than ready by then.
 
Speedemon22 said:
After completing the Mag-Rail, we should build the 150 missiles, research advanced stealth fighters, build 20 of them and launch the attack, we should be more than ready by then.
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For the purpose I'm planning for the fighters as global anti-ICBM network (25 is the minimum for total global coverage for this role), basic stealth should be more than enough. They should engage the kill-sats only as an emergency fallback measure, in case the missiles don't take out all of them and then even the (I'm planning 3-to-5) anti-orbital lances turn out to be not enough. I'm also planning building a jamming installation if it turns out to be good enough for the job (so based on the roll) as fallback measure if the hacking roll doesn't go well. And of course, the medium void shield to weather through anything that slips the net.

Basically, the idea is to have redundancies and partially overlapping measures that should do the job, instead of trusting one method to be perfect.
 
I understand that the largest threat is the most likely nuclear armed kill satellites in orbit, and in that regard I do understand we need to take them out first, but I do feel like a lot of these plans are focusing on that part of the upcoming war against the mechanicus and not necessarily what we would need to do after that.

After that we need to crack the enclaves, and while hacking is a useful tool, and while recruiting as many open-minded mechanicus as we can is a good idea to subvert them from the inside hopefully, we can't depend solely on those two things to switch the enclaves over peacefully. At some point there will be open conflict, and we don't have any ground forces. It's a great idea to develop stealth fighters and get a bunch of air support, but without ground forces we're not going to have the ability to conquer land and hold on to it.

After this turn we need to dump some serious BP into building up our infantry forces, a mixture of non-human and human. We'll need to build more shuttles than the ones we have, and ideally we would research (and build) stealth shuttles to give them that extra edge in making rapid insertions of our forces into enclave territory hopefully before they expect it.

In terms of research, we'll also need to do some research into tanks and artillery, as those will be needed to supplement our infantry. Developing various aerial and ground support drones might be a very good idea as well, smaller than conventional aircraft or tanks but can still mount fairly useful weapon systems on them, and would be disposable in a way that may be we want to spare our robotic soldiers from certain areas. I get fuzzy feelings inside when I imagine a swarm of aerial drones all equipped with vehicle-grade lascannons, with swarm intelligence to synchronize all of their attacks smoothly and effortlessly.

Lastly, it might be a good idea for us to develop nuclear or plasma munitions of our own, specifically to crack open void shielded installations like I imagine the enclave has. Obviously we can do our best to try to hijack mechanicus nuclear and plasma warheads and missiles, but we definitely want to have a reserve of those on our own.



Aside from our necessary military buildup, I do fully support us developing human sized miniaturized anti-chaos shielding. I feel those should be mandatory on all of our human companions, so the earlier we develop them the better, before we have a lot of companions we're trying to supply with them.
 
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avatar11792 said:
I understand that the largest threat is the most likely nuclear armed kill satellites in orbit, and in that regard I do understand we need to take them out first, but I do feel like a lot of these plans are focusing on that part of the upcoming war against the mechanicus and not necessarily what we would need to do after that.
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I am in my plan, actually. My solutions are called: more manufacturing capacity, more manufacturing capacity and more manufacturing capacity.

But more seriously, there is a reason I'm maxing out the low-hanging fruit of aboveground manufactories for this turn. Its just lets us do more of everything, be it for ourselves or our allies. Better techs are nice thing to have in the long-term, but just having more guns now that can do their job well enough for their role is a very powerful approach.
 
Angle said:
Diplomacy, subversion, or hacking. We get the democratic nations on our side, we pursue diplomatic efforts and subversion while we research better hacking methods. Between the three, we should be able to force the admech to a resolution that doesn't require us to just kill them all. And if we absolutely have to, then ultimately, that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make. Better the admech than anyone else on the planet, and we need them out of the way one way or another.
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So, basically, the same thing I am voting for.

Except not starting the slow process of subversion until much later, and planning mostly on killing everyone anyways. Idk. It seems like if you want a peaceful solution working on it BEFORE the entire faction feels like they're trapped with nothing to lose is the time for it.

The reason I say we will never have a better chance is that right now, we could be trying to subvert people who think "wow, that explorator has done cool tech and smart ideas!" rather than people thinking "that bastard abomination just liked Tommy!"

meianmaru said:
This is not even mentioning the fact that Neablis has been hinting to us to not take too long. We are on a clock, and all our preparations against the AdMech might get overturned when something else drops in. So no. I'm not taking another multiple decades to attempt a perfect internal revolution for the Mechanicus.
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Building up to fight mechanicus, fighting and winning a war against three enclaves, rebuilding, and THEN pivoting to deal with other threats seems like it'll eat a lot more of the clock than trying to subvert them while continuing to build, and not fighting unless we are attacked.

A war that destroys their manufacturing and technical capability, and some of ours, much of our allies military, all of their combat injuries and most of ours is going to leave us in a worse position against external threats than just absorbing the admechs. Especially if we get hit in the middle of fighting a war, or it's immediate aftermath.

This may be Warhammer but our best and stealthiest move is not to fight.
 
Subversion or no subversion we have to do the industrial build up anyway, so I think we should get it done now and then we have an asset (the massive industrial complex) that can be used to deal with the mechanicus, build a ship or in general throw resources to whatever problem comes our way.
 
meianmaru said:
For the purpose I'm planning for the fighters as global anti-ICBM network (25 is the minimum for total global coverage for this role), basic stealth should be more than enough. They should engage the kill-sats only as an emergency fallback measure, in case the missiles don't take out all of them and then even the (I'm planning 3-to-5) anti-orbital lances turn out to be not enough. I'm also planning building a jamming installation if it turns out to be good enough for the job (so based on the roll) as fallback measure if the hacking roll doesn't go well. And of course, the medium void shield to weather through anything that slips the net.

Basically, the idea is to have redundancies and partially overlapping measures that should do the job, instead of trusting one method to be perfect.
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Don't forget, if we want to actually deal with the Enclaves we're gonna need more than a dozen Troop Transports and probably some Heavy Infantry to deal with the Skitarii.

As said, we can get a splinter faction started up there, but in the end we are going to need to put boots in there to help out our acolytes b/c the only way they'll take charge is through a civil war.
 
@Glau I think you might be downplaying just how much we will need to teach the mechanicus members that side with us if we go with subversion. Because if we don't give them knowledge then they will likely backslide when we leave. We will still need to put significant (if slightly less) effort into getting them up to spec.
 
Glau said:
So, basically, the same thing I am voting for.

Except not starting the slow process of subversion until much later, and planning mostly on killing everyone anyways. Idk. It seems like if you want a peaceful solution working on it BEFORE the entire faction feels like they're trapped with nothing to lose is the time for it.

The reason I say we will never have a better chance is that right now, we could be trying to subvert people who think "wow, that explorator has done cool tech and smart ideas!" rather than people thinking "that bastard abomination just liked Tommy!"
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A peaceful solution would be nice, but reducing the odds of the planet being glassed and billions dying is a lot more valuable. If there were a button that said 'every single magi and all their dependents die but there is absolutely no chance of those stations going off' I would vote to push it in an instant. Even a limited WMD attack on civilian centers would produce orders of magnitude more deaths than there are people alive in those enclaves.
 
Glau said:
Building up to fight mechanicus, fighting and winning a war against three enclaves, rebuilding, and THEN pivoting to deal with other threats seems like it'll eat a lot more of the clock than trying to subvert them while continuing to build, and not fighting unless we are attacked.

A war that destroys their manufacturing and technical capability, and some of ours, much of our allies military, all of their combat injuries and most of ours is going to leave us in a worse position against external threats than just absorbing the admechs. Especially if we get hit in the middle of fighting a war, or it's immediate aftermath.

This may be Warhammer but our best and stealthiest move is not to fight.
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Neablis has said the following on the topic:
Neablis said:
It's still something you could go for, and there are upsides. Denva would build itself into a functional spacefaring nation faster if it had the expertise and resources of the enclaves instead of having to build all of that up from scratch by itself.

But yeah, doing that would slow you down, and there's an argument to be made that once you can stop worrying about hiding you can start busting industry and build them a complete orbital infastructure in a single action.
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So yeah, while there would be benefits, if we want to move fast? The need to hide has been contantly crippling how fast we can safely build installations not concealable as native non-high-technology structures. And like Neablis said in that quote? Use a single action and bam, an orbital infrastructure has sprung up. The Men of Stone and Iron were kinda OP for a reason, and even if a big chunk of it was due to their easy access to a complete STC database? It wasn't only because of that.

In the end, quickly sweeping aside at least the WMD arsenal of AdMech will allow us to do so much more for both ourselves and others. And while I'm planning to try subvert some parts of them, yes, this is mostly supplementary in breaking the AdMech's hold on the planet. If it gets us revolutionaries that we can side with, nice. If it nets us some more crew, that works too. If it doesn't give us anything, too bad, but we can move on.

Also, while I like the AdMech in the setting as ridiculous cyborg fanatics with a great vibe and lore? I'd rather not deal with them as a still-existing faction on this planet by the time we leave. Salvage what we can from them if we can, help the locals we actually like and then start building our ship. Like, I fail to see a reason to play it nice and slow with the fundamentalist-cyborg-zealots strangling the local technological and scientific development in its crib. With nukes as an option if they feel like its necessary.
 
Insult Everyone! said:
One of the leaders in the past did. Don't forget, they're the abandoned dregs. Not the cream of the crop.
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I wouldn't be so sure about Thalya being just "dregs". Any Magos who has or has had ties to the Inquisition is someone you should be careful about.
Neablis said:
With that you disconnect and reach out to somebody you weren't expecting to talk to for a long time, if ever. Thalya Alpha-tricent is the organizational head of the Denva enclave, the largest and most powerful of the mechanicus enclaves. She's not the undisputed leader of even the Denva enclave, but she's probably the most influential member of the mechanicus on the planet. Joy.

Your files on her aren't complete - but you do know she is a Magos Dominus and responsible for a significant amount of the military forces the mechanicus can command on Denva Secundus. Beyond that you know she's been on Denva about two hundred years, but her files from before that are redacted under the seal of something called the Imperial Inquisition.

Of course there's a fuckin' Inquisition. And I'm sure I'll just love reading about it later.
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meianmaru said:
Like, I fail to see a reason to play it nice and slow with the fundamentalist-cyborg-zealots strangling the local technological and scientific development in its crib.
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Because building up to fight them, then fighting a war of conquest against them, and THEN building our orbital infrastructure is going to be slower and more wasteful than just building our infrastructure while subverting them.

I'm running under the assumption that my way will actually save us time and resources as opposed to fighting a war against them first. War is EXTREMELY wasteful and destructive.

We can aim to win with all our toys, or we can aim to be the last woman standing after a nuke exchange.
 
Glau said:
Because building up to fight them, then fighting a war of conquest against them, and THEN building our orbital infrastructure is going to be slower and more wasteful than just building our infrastructure while subverting them.

I'm running under the assumption that my way will actually save us time and resources as opposed to fighting a war against them first. War is EXTREMELY wasteful and destructive.

We can aim to win with all our toys, or we can aim to be the last woman standing after a nuke exchange.
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If things go well sure, if things go badly a few... dozen cities get leveled that would be a drain in our resources.
 
Glau said:
Because building up to fight them, then fighting a war of conquest against them, and THEN building our orbital infrastructure is going to be slower and more wasteful than just building our infrastructure while subverting them.

I'm running under the assumption that my way will actually save us time and resources as opposed to fighting a war against them first. War is EXTREMELY wasteful and destructive.

We can aim to win with all our toys, or we can aim to be the last woman standing after a nuke exchange.
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First: still not faster than if we do it by ourselves by not wasting time to engineer a succesful revolution. Because every turn we spend in hiding is crippling the speed of our growth. Second and maybe more importantly: not worth the risk if the subversion/revolution/negotiations/etc. fails. Crippling the WMD capabilities comes first, and I'm not in favour of sacrificing our information advantage for a chance of taking care this more peacefully.

Because that it would be. Just a chance.

Which is why I've been so adamant about having multiple methods with overlap to cripple the WMDs from a total surprise. Besides, my plan already has the Education-option for the acolytes picked, and I'm willing to invest a little bit more to them in the future. I just don't believe it should be taken as more than a tertiary approach towards taking care of the problem that is the local AdMech.
 
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Would it be possibly to smuggle the components to make underground voidshields and anti-orbit lance's to the various major cities? That way we could at least protect the civilians.
 
Toboe said:
@Neablis
Spare rockets in Orbit (i.e. left over after killsat destroying Alpha Strike was successfull) can be used as rocket artillery against ground targets, right? (Assuming targets on the ground below their orbit position)
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Yes and no. They're designed to hit soft orbital targets and while you certainly can point them at the planet they won't be the most accurate or destructive. They're too light to be effective kinetics and will get bounced around by the atmosphere enough that their hit zone is like a kilometer across. Fine at hitting armies or cities, not so great for precision.

Aura Dragon said:
Would it be possibly to smuggle the components to make underground voidshields and anti-orbit lance's to the various major cities? That way we could at least protect the civilians.
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Not easily, no. Those are big facilities, and they'd need to be disguised as well. It would be possible, but it would take both cooperation, advanced stealth shuttles and probably 3-4x the build cost for each.

Ah - there's something that's explicitly called out in the rules that I want to make sure I highlight. A single mag-rail can transport 500 bp of stuff to space per turn action. That includes missiles. So next turn with a single magnetic launch system each action will only be able to send 100 basic stealth missiles or 50 advanced stealth missiles up. Just making sure that's understood.
 
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