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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Halil said:
Why would we want them to copy other libraries' books while the motivation of increased copying speed is that we can share our books much wider?

Getting other libraries' books on the cheap is not only the less valuable/interesting possibility created by The We, but also assumes that the other libraries are stupid. (In the sense that, once they see how fast your people can copy books and make their revenue streams irrelevant, will let spiders keep doing it)
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We want to copy other libraries books because that's how we get more books in our library. Because they have stuff we don't. And if we can't copy books ourselves we need to pay them to do it or include it into the contract which hurts our negotiating position.
Right now we don't actually have that many interesting books. We got lots of esoterica and some very specific fields (halfling genealogy anyone?) But we don't have any of the big hitters. The things no one else can get. ( Except the liber mortis but that one is not meant for the general library.)
This will hopefully partially rectified by going book mining but we still want other people's libraries.
 
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You know, the thing I like most about the We is that it's been, what, a decade or so of living with the dwarves and they're already looking to make a new colony? And now they know that living in harmony with other sentient beings is a really good way to build safety and numbers. It gives me hope that there will soon be lots of colonies all over the place and the We won't be just an individual but an actual species.

I mean, just imagine getting to see the book-We and the original We interacting in another decade or two.
DragonParadox said:
Skaven Warp engineer: Silly man-things not know good thing when you see it yes yes. :V
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…Man did I choose the worst possible time to go to sleep.
Tobtorp said:
Right now we don't actually have that many interesting books. We got lots of esoterica and some very specific fields (halfling genealogy anyone?) But we don't have any of the big hitters. The things no one else can get. ( Except the liber mortis but that one is not meant for the general library.)
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Aren't there only, like, a dozen copies of that really big book on magic? Unless you're counting that as esoteric. We do have a bunch of elf books on textiles though!
 
Tobtorp said:
We want to copy other libraries books because that's how we get more books in our library. Because they have stuff we don't. And if we can't copy books ourselves we need to pay them to do it or include it into the contract which hurts our negotiating position.
Right now we don't actually have that many interesting books. We got lots of esoterica and some very specific fields (halfling genealogy anyone?) But we don't have any of the big hitters. The things no one else can get. ( Except the liber mortis but that one is not meant for the general library.)
This will hopefully partially rectified by going book mining but we still want other people's libraries.
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I feel like you ignored the latter half of my reply.

1) If someone who can make your revenue streams irrelevant / dry up walks up to you and asks nicely to do so, do you not only say yes but also give them your most prized books?
We can instead use our impossible dwarf favor/standing and soon-to-be-also-broken college favor to get the shinies we so desperately desire.

2) The motivation is wrong. The point of a printing press isn't to copy someone else's collection and let them gather dust in yours forever. It's to disseminate knowledge, ideas, and ways of thinking so that the community The Locals voters so fervently espouse can actually have a place in their life for books and the ideas therein. More importantly, this uplifts not only the local community, but everyone your multitude of books can reach. You do not need Liber Mortis or some other super rare book for this. Even basic history books we have many of can do.
 
Ericwinter said:
You know, the thing I like most about the We is that it's been, what, a decade or so of living with the dwarves and they're already looking to make a new colony? And now they know that living in harmony with other sentient beings is a really good way to build safety and numbers. It gives me hope that there will soon be lots of colonies all over the place and the We won't be just an individual but an actual species.

I mean, just imagine getting to see the book-We and the original We interacting in another decade or two.

…Man did I choose the worst possible time to go to sleep.

Aren't there only, like, a dozen copies of that really big book on magic? Unless you're counting that as esoteric. We do have a bunch of elf books on textiles though!
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More of a very specific field but I actually forgot about it so we got something at least. I still hope book mining will work out. And I will vigorously Schill for book mining next turn.

Also have you heard about our new venture capital idea? Book mining! Why write books if you can hit a book seam and be rich!
 
Dragonofelder said:
This seems like some kind of Cookie Clicker idle game where you gather books
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Boy... Trying to explain cookie clicker to whf inhabitants would be a dozy... Or just regular medieval people...
"We made rocks think and now we are hitting imaginary bakery goods to gain more of them."
Halil said:
I feel like you ignored the latter half of my reply.

1) If someone who can make your revenue streams irrelevant / dry up walks up to you and asks nicely to do so, do you not only say yes but also give them your most prized books?
We can instead use our impossible dwarf favor/standing and soon-to-be-also-broken college favor to get the shinies we so desperately desire.

2) The motivation is wrong. The point of a printing press isn't to copy someone else's collection and let them gather dust in yours forever. It's to disseminate knowledge, ideas, and ways of thinking so that the community The Locals voters so fervently espouse can actually have a place in their life for books and the ideas therein. More importantly, this uplifts not only the local community, but everyone your multitude of books can reach. You do not need Liber Mortis or some other super rare book for this. Even basic history books we have many of can do.
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Ok but for 1) they don't really care? We are so far away from anyone that moving large quantities of books from K8P to anywhere else is still considered a very dangerous journey. It's also constraint by how much books we can actually get as raw material. Again a problem for our position.

And for 2) even with several hundred spiders we still don't get near a good printing press.its just so much faster to print a page with it then to write it down. And our library was mostly seen as a research library and a doomsday vault.
 
Do the We understand the concept of fiction, or would it confuse them to see that people have written down 'erroneous' or contradictory information which to a heavy extent depends on imagination and made-up worlds?
 
Tobtorp said:
Boy... Trying to explain cookie clicker to whf inhabitants would be a dozy... Or just regular medieval people...
"We made rocks think and now we are hitting imaginary bakery goods to gain more of them."
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Tbh the life a peasant is very similar to an idle game. One action, repeatedly.
Although yes it's more complicated then that, especially in WHF
 
Parabola said:
Do the We understand the concept of fiction, or would it confuse them to see that people have written down 'erroneous' or contradictory information which to a heavy extent depends on imagination and made-up worlds?
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They are known to be fairly curious about everything. It'd be educational.

That said, I'm most interested in how much it increases their socialization, as they get to work with humanoids in roles outside of combat and hunting.
 
Parabola said:
Do the We understand the concept of fiction, or would it confuse them to see that people have written down 'erroneous' or contradictory information which to a heavy extent depends on imagination and made-up worlds?
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More importantly if the We begin to understand fiction, how long until Mathilde gets to add Spider "Romance" to her collection?
 
Halil said:
I feel like you ignored the latter half of my reply.

1) If someone who can make your revenue streams irrelevant / dry up walks up to you and asks nicely to do so, do you not only say yes but also give them your most prized books?
We can instead use our impossible dwarf favor/standing and soon-to-be-also-broken college favor to get the shinies we so desperately desire.

2) The motivation is wrong. The point of a printing press isn't to copy someone else's collection and let them gather dust in yours forever. It's to disseminate knowledge, ideas, and ways of thinking so that the community The Locals voters so fervently espouse can actually have a place in their life for books and the ideas therein. More importantly, this uplifts not only the local community, but everyone your multitude of books can reach. You do not need Liber Mortis or some other super rare book for this. Even basic history books we have many of can do.
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I'm, not sure why you seem to be suggesting that other libraries would like us destroying their revenue streams? And in fact freely hand over their prized possessions to help us do it better?
 
Halil said:
Why would we want them to copy other libraries' books while the motivation of increased copying speed is that we can share our books much wider?

Getting other libraries' books on the cheap is not only the less valuable/interesting possibility created by The We, but also assumes that the other libraries are stupid. (In the sense that, once they see how fast your people can copy books and make their revenue streams irrelevant, will let spiders keep doing it)
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I'm not sure where you're getitng the idea that scribing is a bargaining chip. At the moment, we want scribes so that once we reach a deal with other libraries, we can act upon that deal and copy the materials that they agree to share with us. The We are unable to do that, because there are significant logistical challenges in moving that many giant spiders across a continent.
 
ReImagined said:
I'm not sure where you're getitng the idea that scribing is a bargaining chip. At the moment, we want scribes so that once we reach a deal with other libraries, we can act upon that deal and copy the materials that they agree to share with us. The We are unable to do that, because there are significant logistical challenges in moving that many giant spiders across a continent.
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Why not just bring the books to the library?
 
Also now that voting has calmed down and it seems like the we win I'm very curious about how this new "job" will change the library-we. Will they develop more vocabulary to name things? Will they maybe even name themselves differently? Will they try to approach others to try and be more social now that their up there? How will their lesser need to go hunt affect their physiology? Will they decrease in size and increase in dexterity? (This one will probably take a looking time but still interesting)
 
veekie said:
On the other hand the Windfall we observed requires a Wind to either attract itself or the streams to each have a Dhar core.

Net result is the same, but the Dhar goes from convenient simplifying element to absolutely essential.
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Well, yeah? Of course Dhar is an essential part of the system due to its attractive properties. The point I was making is that the specific types of Winds in the leyline don't matter, and do nothing to attract or repel other Winds in the environment beyond the fact that we need multiple types present to keep what's already drawn in stable.
 
Dragonofelder said:
Why not just bring the books to the library?
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Boney said:
- A note on libraries: The possessiveness of some potential recruits is not as much of a concern as you might think. in this era, most libraries only ever lend out books if they have multiple copies or to exceptionally trusted individuals. They don't work the same way as modern libraries, where almost everything is expected to go out the door on a regular basis.
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Even if you were consider Mathilde an exceptionally trusted individual, I'd gather that there's a difference between lending out a few books and lending out your entire catalogue.
 
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