Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

[Alliterate]

all our stuff on Skaven is heavily classified though.

Also different colleges have different traditions.
The Grey cultivates loyalty to the empire, of course they share what they can to help the empire.

Click to shrink...

I think the conversation was focused on sharing- potentially useful- magical techniques and knowledge, I know I was.

The Skaven work though falls more into what you rightly identify as the Grey Colleges Intelligence Agency tradition. It's a top secret topic in its own right, with the Conspiracy of Silence. It could never be widely circulated.

 

[Valmond]

all our stuff on Skaven is heavily classified though.

Click to shrink...

Because wrong person learning from it will make the empire go BOOM.
Not because of any magicla mystery shit.
Magical knowledge is dangerous, there's a good reason to keep lot of the stuff secret until the person proves themselves able to be trusted with it.
Though colleges probably go too far in keeping secrets from each other in places, but i don't have enough in setting knowledge to judge which parts are that.

 

[Briefvoice]

I've been kind of surprised that there hasn't been more thread interest (or maybe I haven't been reading during the right times) in looking into the elementalists. I mean... Bok is a modified elemental, right? And if you want to talk a magical AI that can follow commands and act independently, well... (gestures at elementals).

 

[HavocKeeper]

Out of interest has any one saved the old wind reader and beyond trait descriptions?

Click to shrink...

You can probably find them quoted somewhere if you dig enough, but *looks at number of pages* yeah.

Found the original trait quoted by veekie here:

Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest Fantasy - Users' Choice!

So lets see, our cool shit: We're legit scary in psychological warfare. Still can improve though. We're now at least as smart as our boss. We're getting decent as a wizard. We can feel the Winds properly now. Handy, though also potentially dangerous if we overextend or gaze into the abyss. So...

forums.sufficientvelocity.com

Which, looking at it now, was before Boney reworked the magic stat. I don't have the time at the moment, but the quickest way would probably be to search the trait names in veekie's posts, I remember him going over updates and what we gained quite often.

 

[Kornet]

I've been kind of surprised that there hasn't been more thread interest (or maybe I haven't been reading during the right times) in looking into the elementalists. I mean... Bok is a modified elemental, right? And if you want to talk a magical AI that can follow commands and act independently, well... (gestures at elementals).

Click to shrink...

We have been informed that Mathilde is very much prejudiced against emlemenatalists.

 

[Ericwinter]

Oh god, I just had the best(and worst) idea ever.
Mathilde's Mini-Mes.

 

[Derpmind]

No way, I refuse to learn to use another weapon just because it can set people on fire or whatever. We own like three guns.

Click to shrink...

Belegar Boon: Ok. So what do you need? Besides a miracle superweapon.

Thread Madness: Guns. Lots of guns.

Belegar: *beep beep beep WHOOSH*

Thread Sanity: Neo Mathilde. No one has ever done anything like this.

Thread Madness: That's why it's going to work. *smacks gun*

 

[storryeater]

So I know you guys want AI to get past the "do you mean daemons" connudrum, but it may also have another use. Consider this:

E X P A N D B R A I N

Why? think about it, it is where the really op stuff is walled behind. Quaysh? needs a multimodal brain. Divine magic? too complicated for a human brain to comprehend. Ancient tomes? May turn a mortal brain mad. I may posit that the rreason Nagash needed the vampire brew was to expand brain most of all and immortality was a side benefit. We need to expand brain if we are to break past humanity's magical limitations and play ball with the elves, the dragons or maybe even the Slann.

 

[Jyn Ryvia]

people are aware that the Gold Orders 'AI' is closer to a rumba then Siri or Alexa or what have you.

like, still really, really useful. but we aren't getting shadowy mini-me's out of it. it's going to have to be simple commands and routine actions.

 

[Sir_Travelsalot]

So I know you guys want AI to get past the "do you mean daemons" connudrum, but it may also have another use. Consider this:

E X P A N D B R A I N

Why? think about it, it is where the really op stuff is walled behind. Quaysh? needs a multimodal brain. Divine magic? too complicated for a human brain to comprehend. Ancient tomes? May turn a mortal brain mad. I may posit that the rreason Nagash needed the vampire brew was to expand brain most of all and immortality was a side benefit. We need to expand brain if we are to break past humanity's magical limitations and play ball with the elves, the dragons or maybe even the Slann.

Click to shrink...

So what you're saying is that we must find a way to unlock the brain's potential?



I don't have a problem with this.

 

[Saidoro]

So I know you guys want AI to get past the "do you mean daemons" connudrum, but it may also have another use. Consider this:

E X P A N D B R A I N

Why? think about it, it is where the really op stuff is walled behind. Quaysh? needs a multimodal brain. Divine magic? too complicated for a human brain to comprehend. Ancient tomes? May turn a mortal brain mad. I may posit that the rreason Nagash needed the vampire brew was to expand brain most of all and immortality was a side benefit. We need to expand brain if we are to break past humanity's magical limitations and play ball with the elves, the dragons or maybe even the Slann.

Click to shrink...

We're not going to be able to do that with magical minds made of Ulgu, though. If they can understand and channel any wind it will be Ulgu, and if it's made of a wind besides Ulgu we won't be able to hook it up to our brain.

 

[SuperSonicSound]

people are aware that the Gold Orders 'AI' is closer to a rumba then Siri or Alexa or what have you.

like, still really, really useful. but we aren't getting shadowy mini-me's out of it. it's going to have to be simple commands and routine actions.

Click to shrink...

I mean it's not even that advanced, it's basically the IFF from burning shadow mixed with go to target and maul.

 

[Jyn Ryvia]

So what you're saying is that we must find a way to unlock the brain's potential?



I don't have a problem with this.

Click to shrink...

now Sir_Travelsalot this is a Warhammer thread, do it right.

 

[Ericwinter]

So I was looking back at the chapter where we gave It Queekish to Algard, and noted that we actually got demon-checked just from our papers. Then we dropped Queekish, and impressed him so hard it got a Great Deed. I wonder how he'll react when Feldmann goes back to him and says "by the way, I worked things out with Mathilde, and wouldn't you know it, she had literally all the Skaven tech hidden in her mountain. I mean, how crazy is that?". All the accidental flexing right there.

 

[Sir_Travelsalot]

now Sir_Travelsalot this is a Warhammer thread, do it right.

Click to shrink...

Wrong Warhammer.

 

[Jyn Ryvia]

Wrong Warhammer.

Click to shrink...

checkmate!

 

[Glau]

I have an idea for a Marienburg action.

First of all, we acquire magic-enhanced narcotics, sourced from either the Golds or the Jades probably. Second, we push them on Marienburg's leaders. Third, we threaten to cut their supply unless they stop playing silly buggers. They could refuse and try substitute the magic drugs with mundane versions, but they'll find the normal stuff just isn't enough for them, they need the good stuff, and so in their desperation they concede at least somewhat in order to satiate their addiction.

Click to shrink...

Ugh. I am very much against playing East India company with the Opium wars, and even less interested in doing the CIA with crack and the inner cities. If we want to go full villan, I'd go with Omegahugger. Armies of the undead seem a bit more moral...

I worry that, if we just ordered a seviroscope from the Golds, any repeats would come out non-uniform - every enchanter that built one would build a different visualization. That'd be less than ideal. The possibility of that happening makes me want to take the seviroscope project on ourselves to make sure we satisfy as many of our extra requirements as possible, e.g. replicability.

Click to shrink...

How sure are we that there is a consistent reality we can explore, rather than just viewpoints filtered through souls? I mean, if a moon can shift phases within a few miles of travel, that kinda suggests that the assumption of an objective 'magic' layer is in doubt- it'd be like trying to understand quantum phenomenon by abstracting away the observer. Can't be done.

Every person with Windsight perceives the same things, they just perceive them all differently, no matter if they're both from the Grey College or if one's from Ind and another's from Laurelorn. IIRC Ambers tend to see 'spirits' for one example.

Click to shrink...

I'm still not sure that 'seeing things differently' is different from 'reality is different to different observers. There's an assumption that magic works like physics, and can be tested with consistency, that I'm very unsure about.

If a replicable seviroscope would actually be that revolutionary, I have to wonder what difficulties exist with the idea that have kept people from attempting it.

Click to shrink...

Probably because it would be revolutionary only to the people who don't have windsight and can't use magic- anyone with the ability to do something like this already has a natural ability to do so. We don't try and install braingate implants with a few hundred pixels of visual resolution on sighted people, you know?

 

[Exmorri]

How sure are we that there is a consistent reality we can explore, rather than just viewpoints filtered through souls? I mean, if a moon can shift phases within a few miles of travel, that kinda suggests that the assumption of an objective 'magic' layer is in doubt-

There's an assumption that magic works like physics, and can be tested with consistency, that I'm very unsure about.

Click to shrink...

Lock it in through material interaction, and I'm fairly sure it'll settle down to something consistent. Kill someone with magic missile, there won't be any observer uncertainty about whether he's dead. Knock a glass over with move, it's not going to jump back up on the table in the presence of a Runelord's antimagic.

that kinda suggests that the assumption of an objective 'magic' layer is in doubt- it'd be like trying to understand quantum phenomenon by abstracting away the observer. Can't be done.

Click to shrink...

I really don't think quantum physics works that way.

 

[T_of_A]

Probably because it would be revolutionary only to the people who don't have windsight and can't use magic- anyone with the ability to do something like this already has a natural ability to do so. We don't try and install braingate implants with a few hundred pixels of visual resolution on sighted people, you know?

Click to shrink...

Seviroscope would be revolutionary for actually teaching magic though.

 

[SuperSonicSound]

Seviroscope would be revolutionary for actually teaching magic though.

Click to shrink...

Yes but you'd need enough of them to share like ten per college and then you'd be training all wizards to learn to cast through a seviroscope I suppose that'd probably shape their wind sight to a large degree by association which if it puts even half the apprentices onto the path of Mathildes windsight would be amazing.

Then I envisage how much AP it'd take to make that many Severioscopes and I'm like fml. That's only viable if it's possible to make the scope with a Lesser magic equivalent or at best simple spell equivalency if we want to mass produce them and even then I suspect the result will be daunting to achieve.

 

[Tasoli]

So I know you guys want AI to get past the "do you mean daemons" connudrum, but it may also have another use. Consider this:

E X P A N D B R A I N

Why? think about it, it is where the really op stuff is walled behind. Quaysh? needs a multimodal brain. Divine magic? too complicated for a human brain to comprehend. Ancient tomes? May turn a mortal brain mad. I may posit that the rreason Nagash needed the vampire brew was to expand brain most of all and immortality was a side benefit. We need to expand brain if we are to break past humanity's magical limitations and play ball with the elves, the dragons or maybe even the Slann.

Click to shrink...

I don't think partial AI - which is probably a VI- is the answer to Quaysh. However there is a neat spell idea in that, which I will crib from Nasuverse, behold Thought Acceleration and Memory Partition.

Memory Partition
Memory Partition (分割思考, Bunkatsu Shikō) is an ability used by the superior alchemists of Atlas. Paired with Thought Acceleration, the very proof that one is an Atlas alchemist, it is the ability to partition their thoughts to form multiple independent thought processes. While normal people can only have a single "room" in their brain and focus on one thought, partitioning adds partitions to the one room to create multiple rooms. The prerequisite for the superior alchemists of Atlas is at least three rooms, while five is on the level of a genius. Sion Eltnam Atlasia can manage seven partitions, while a past Academy Director had achieved eight partitions.

... Sion uses it to calculate the opponents movements in battle, think out multiple separate ideas at once, and calculate data she gathers.

Thought Acceleration
Thought Acceleration (高速思考, Kōsoku Shikō) is the main magecraft of Atlas alchemists. Fast thought is only a prerequisite to it, and it is truly the ability to multi−expansion diagrams. Thought Acceleration is the proof of an alchemist, while Memory Partition is a proof of their facilities.

Click to shrink...

As Ulgu is the Wind of Thought, accelerating our thoughts and partitioning our minds in order to work a problem from multible angles and make calculations faster should be doable.

 

[Jyn Ryvia]

Yes but you'd need enough of them to share like ten per college and then you'd be training all wizards to learn to cast through a seviroscope I suppose that'd probably shape their wind sight to a large degree by association which if it puts even half the apprentices onto the path of Mathildes windsight would be amazing.

Then I envisage how much AP it'd take to make that many Severioscopes and I'm like fml. That's only viable if it's possible to make the scope with a Lesser magic equivalent or at best simple spell equivalency if we want to mass produce them and even then I suspect the result will be daunting to achieve.

Click to shrink...

Well, maybe, If it can be proven that you can standardize wind sight (at lest a little bit) I feel its something you only need to get rolling, the people in charge of teaching in the college will do the rest.

even if mathy never makes another, the teaching wizards will be able to make their own. not as good maybe, but it would start the process of standard wind sight.

 

[ninjafish]

nobody's explained whats so cool about the magic windscope.
why is the windscope cool? whats supposed to be neat about it?

Click to shrink...

Read the the thread like everyone else.

But for the record, its supposed to help Kragg figure out golden age magic/rune hybrid stuff.

 

[Briefvoice]

Well, maybe, If it can be proven that you can standardize wind sight (at lest a little bit) I feel its something you only need to get rolling, the people in charge of teaching in the college will do the rest.

even if mathy never makes another, the teaching wizards will be able to make their own. not as good maybe, but it would start the process of standard wind sight.

Click to shrink...

Unless of course you can't standardize wind sight.

 

[ninjafish]

I feel like trying to move all the Golds to the Chaoslands when there may be a Marienburg war in the offing – a war we pushed for – seems irresponsible.

>Apprentice arrives, fresh-faced and eager
>Mathilde tosses him a book
>Gosh Master Mathilde, what's this-
>It's the Liber Mortis
>You touched it, they'll never believe you didn't. We're in this together now kid
>Now come hold the light while I mess about with this Brass Orb

Click to shrink...

That would be such an awful dick move to pull on someone else./