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Who Needs Harmony?: An MLP Empire Quest

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FictionPack said:
We joined to slap down another genocidal enslaving madman. Not for expanding our borders.
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We aren't the morality police. Our first and primary concern should be for the protection and prosperity of our peoples, secured through the primacy of our empire and the continued expansion of its umbrella of protection. Said primacy and expansion can and must be done through benevolent and generous means no matter how costly, but it is nonetheless necessary as our focus.

We are not an empire of heroes, and doing things for merely righteous reasons without reaping any rewards when they are right there is a waste in imperial manpower and resources. It is also a rather unsustainable attitude in the long-run as our people, no matter how militarized, aren't going to constantly accept the excuse of going off to war just because "it's the right thing to do".

Like, I am aware that not everyone shares my "empire-building" attitude, but you are a complete radical on the other end of the spectrum. You claim it's not our business to do anything with Pegicles should he be captured, but that is very much not true. Regardless of whether anyone holds my same beliefs on establishing a protectorate and integrating Maretonia on multiple levels that I've discussed more in-depth elsewhere, having a say in Pegicles' fate is the bare minimum of what we are owed. It's not a reward but an earned right to be able to at least partially control the manner in which Pegicles is dealt with following the civil war.

It became our business when we openly marched our army to go to direct war in favor of a specific faction, when we literally ripped our economy in half pumping money into the burgeoning IMC, and when we immediately tipped the scales of war against House Storm upon said intervention. You might have some ground to stand on for Pegicles' fate being none of our business had we still been intervening more clandestinely, but it stops being an internal affair when external actors (i.e. Gryphonia) invade for the sake of allied factions.
 
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PyrrosWarrior said:
You claim that it's not our business
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I don't believe I did no?
It wasn't, but it became our business when we involved ourselves. Quite some time ago in fact.

I was merely discussing what we want/hope to achieve after we finish involving ourselves so directly.
We could expand our borders, taking up time from developing what we already have and possibly upsetting a decent amount of the remaining indigenous populace but gaining significantly more resources, or we could help establish our allies for a nation that will fix itself with some possible aid from us here and there and forge stronger international bonds.
There are pros and cons to both approaches. Not the least of which being how we are seen on the global political scale.
 
FictionPack said:
I don't believe I did no?
It wasn't, but it became our business when we involved ourselves. Quite some time ago in fact.
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You directly said it's not our business in contrast to the others talking about ways we can arrange for some kind of trial or forum for Pegicles. You stated it is only the business of the Guard and the Abolitionists

FictionPack said:
Frankly his punishment isn't any of our business.
It's the business of the Abolitionists and the Loyalist Maretonian Royal Guard.
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PyrrosWarrior said:
You directly said it's not our business in contrast to the others talking about ways we can arrange for some kind of trial or forum for Pegicles. You stated it is only the business of the Guard and the Abolitionists
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That in particular isn't for us to decide no. He never actually committed crimes against us as far as I recall. At least not directly.
The crimes he committed where against Maretonia, not us, and Maretonia has leaders the people still look to. I see his judgment as more of an internal affair because he never left his own borders.
If we don't let them judge him then they would certainly object.
You claimed I said the situation as a whole wasn't our business.
He's likely to die in battle in any case making judging him after moot, and it's likely he'd be executed regardless.
 
Adhoc vote count started by Questor on Aug 24, 2021 at 10:47 PM, finished with 190 posts and 28 votes.
  • [X] Plan Constant Harassment at Work
    - [X] Launch a constant 24/7 low-level skirmishing attack on Mare-a-thon
    - [X] Basically, the point here is not to affect a breakthrough. The point here is to sap Maretonian's morale, force them to stay awake for days. Make their body and mind weak enough for the final assault
    - [X] Use bottled fuels and fire arrows to set buildings on fire. Intermittently switch out the direction and intensity of the attack to force the defenders to plug the gap and keep watch on every part of the castle. Target the sergeants to kill or wound. Make loud noises. Get Kaboom to deliver some very loud fireworks. Cause as much chaos as you can to deny the defenders any rest.
    - [X] Rotate your troops to keep them fresh. Play conservatively and keep it safe. Don't be afraid to retreat at the first sign of trouble. The plan is to cause chaos, not win the small fights.
    - [X] While they're at it, the skirmishing units can take note of any important intel that can be used for the final attack. Troop deployments, number and composition, supply depot, the status of the walls, etc.
    - [X] When the Marethonians are sufficiently worn down, launch the final attack and storm the castle.
    [X] Dig In: Park your army within visual range of the city, put it to siege, and wait. With Pegicles forces concentrated as they are, they have to be consuming a great deal of supplies. Supplies that he will find difficult to replenish with his city in an isolated area of the nation, and an army outside ready to intercept any shipments he might try to sneak through. Despite having travelled hundreds of miles, your supply situation is actually better than his! All you have to do is wait him out, and eventually, he'll have no choice but to sally forth from his city to attack you, forcing him to give up the advantage of its defenses.
    [X] Dig In
    [x] Scorched Earth: On the other hand, you may not be content to simply wait for however long it takes for your enemy to get frustrated enough to attack you. Mare-a-Thon is a great fortress, but it's position in the sky means it can't grow it's own food. That task falls to the numerous farms and plantations scattered across Pegicles' territory. You can't lock down each and every one of those farms to prevent them from supplying Storm forces...but you can certainly set them on fire. Most of them are owned by Nobles loyal to Pegicles anyway, and a few even have slaves working on them, so you certainly have a justification for doing so. Of course, Griffons setting fire to the Maretonian countryside will doubtlessly paint a less than positive picture of you and your force
    [X] Scorched Earth: On the other hand, you may not be content to simply wait for however long it takes for your enemy to get frustrated enough to attack you. Mare-a-Thon is a great fortress, but it's position in the sky means it can't grow it's own food. That task falls to the numerous farms and plantations scattered across Pegicles' territory. You can't lock down each and every one of those farms to prevent them from supplying Storm forces...but you can certainly set them on fire. Most of them are owned by Nobles loyal to Pegicles anyway, and a few even have slaves working on them, so you certainly have a justification for doing so. Of course, Griffons setting fire to the Maretonian countryside will doubtlessly paint a less than positive picture of you and your forces...
    [X] Storm Them: Defensive fortifications can only get you so far. Your cannon may not be effective against a Flying Fortress, but you have hundreds of Pegasi of your own, each capable of launching lightning strikes against Mare-a-Thon. Between them and the overwhelming numbers your Griffons can provide, you should have enough of an upper hand to take the Cloud Citadel with an all-out assault.
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Majority vote seems pretty clear.

Vote Closed.
 
FictionPack said:
That in particular isn't for us to decide no. He never actually committed crimes against us as far as I recall. At least not directly.
The crimes he committed where against Maretonia, not us, and Maretonia has leaders the people still look to. I see his judgment as more of an internal affair because he never left his own borders.
If we don't let them judge him then they would certainly object.
You claimed I said the situation as a whole wasn't our business.
He's likely to die in battle in any case making judging him after moot, and it's likely he'd be executed regardless.
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There's no difference between "as a whole" or "just the punishment" or whatnot because, as I said, any potential for his fate is the bare minimum of how Maretonia and Gryphonia interacts after the civil war not as a reward but as an earned right. You don't have a Great Power go to full-on war bringing the biggest and strongest army in the known world and suddenly claim said power has no right to sit at the deciding table. That is not an internal affair at that point.
 
Questor said:
Adhoc vote count started by Questor on Aug 24, 2021 at 10:47 PM, finished with 190 posts and 28 votes.
  • [X] Plan Constant Harassment at Work
    - [X] Launch a constant 24/7 low-level skirmishing attack on Mare-a-thon
    - [X] Basically, the point here is not to affect a breakthrough. The point here is to sap Maretonian's morale, force them to stay awake for days. Make their body and mind weak enough for the final assault
    - [X] Use bottled fuels and fire arrows to set buildings on fire. Intermittently switch out the direction and intensity of the attack to force the defenders to plug the gap and keep watch on every part of the castle. Target the sergeants to kill or wound. Make loud noises. Get Kaboom to deliver some very loud fireworks. Cause as much chaos as you can to deny the defenders any rest.
    - [X] Rotate your troops to keep them fresh. Play conservatively and keep it safe. Don't be afraid to retreat at the first sign of trouble. The plan is to cause chaos, not win the small fights.
    - [X] While they're at it, the skirmishing units can take note of any important intel that can be used for the final attack. Troop deployments, number and composition, supply depot, the status of the walls, etc.
    - [X] When the Marethonians are sufficiently worn down, launch the final attack and storm the castle.
    [X] Dig In: Park your army within visual range of the city, put it to siege, and wait. With Pegicles forces concentrated as they are, they have to be consuming a great deal of supplies. Supplies that he will find difficult to replenish with his city in an isolated area of the nation, and an army outside ready to intercept any shipments he might try to sneak through. Despite having travelled hundreds of miles, your supply situation is actually better than his! All you have to do is wait him out, and eventually, he'll have no choice but to sally forth from his city to attack you, forcing him to give up the advantage of its defenses.
    [X] Dig In
    [x] Scorched Earth: On the other hand, you may not be content to simply wait for however long it takes for your enemy to get frustrated enough to attack you. Mare-a-Thon is a great fortress, but it's position in the sky means it can't grow it's own food. That task falls to the numerous farms and plantations scattered across Pegicles' territory. You can't lock down each and every one of those farms to prevent them from supplying Storm forces...but you can certainly set them on fire. Most of them are owned by Nobles loyal to Pegicles anyway, and a few even have slaves working on them, so you certainly have a justification for doing so. Of course, Griffons setting fire to the Maretonian countryside will doubtlessly paint a less than positive picture of you and your force
    [X] Scorched Earth: On the other hand, you may not be content to simply wait for however long it takes for your enemy to get frustrated enough to attack you. Mare-a-Thon is a great fortress, but it's position in the sky means it can't grow it's own food. That task falls to the numerous farms and plantations scattered across Pegicles' territory. You can't lock down each and every one of those farms to prevent them from supplying Storm forces...but you can certainly set them on fire. Most of them are owned by Nobles loyal to Pegicles anyway, and a few even have slaves working on them, so you certainly have a justification for doing so. Of course, Griffons setting fire to the Maretonian countryside will doubtlessly paint a less than positive picture of you and your forces...
    [X] Storm Them: Defensive fortifications can only get you so far. Your cannon may not be effective against a Flying Fortress, but you have hundreds of Pegasi of your own, each capable of launching lightning strikes against Mare-a-Thon. Between them and the overwhelming numbers your Griffons can provide, you should have enough of an upper hand to take the Cloud Citadel with an all-out assault.
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Majority vote seems pretty clear.

Vote Closed.
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Well here we go folks! Whatever you voted for let's all pray for the fall of Pegicles for we have been denied it too long already and it is long overdue.
 
FictionPack said:
We joined to slap down another genocidal enslaving madman. Not for expanding our borders.
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Let's be real: most of us joined for both.

Most of us are very interested in expansion, as long as we can maintain a good reputation with the Maretonians citizens (and other polities in general), and at the same time we wanted to remove Pegicles because we expected him to become a problem in the future, as his would be a kingdom incompatible with ours.
PyrrosWarrior said:
We are not an empire of heroes, and doing things for merely righteous reasons without reaping any rewards when they are right there is a waste in imperial manpower and resources. It is also a rather unsustainable attitude in the long-run as our people, no matter how militarized, aren't going to constantly accept the excuse of going off to war just because "it's the right thing to do".
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I kinda disagree here, in that it's not necessarily unsustainable. The gryphons already hold a decently romanticized view of wars. It's not unreasonable to imagine, in the long term, our culture shifting to a "The heroes of the world, keeping the darkness at bay" mentality.

Right now we're not quite there yet. We might never get there, really. But we could.
 
PyrrosWarrior said:
There's no difference between "as a whole" or "just the punishment" or whatnot because, as I said, any potential for his fate is the bare minimum of how Maretonia and Gryphonia interacts after the civil war not as a reward but as an earned right. You don't have a Great Power go to full-on war bringing the biggest and strongest army in the known world and suddenly claim said power has no right to sit at the deciding table. That is not an internal affair at that point.
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? when did he say we would not sit at the deciding table for the after war discussions?
All he is suggesting is that we decided on the single matter of the enemy leaders fate before we even get to that table, that we leave his trial and fate up to the internal factions should he live.
A trivial concession for us but simi-important for them. Perfect for getting a small amount of goodwill and trust before the real discussions of the post-war fates begin by not trying to dispute it.
 
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I don't think we are really going to have the chance of taking him alive because a lot of the guys with us were either slaves or know someone who was so they are going try Thier best to kill him that is challenge number 1 number 2 is I don't think Mr skyhorse is going to want to be taken alive at all and have a one or multiple ways out and number 3 is if we do catch him I don't think that neutral prison guards will get close enough in time for him to Not run into a "unfortunate accident" like falling down the stairs well carrying a bunch of knives he somehow got a hold of?
 
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To me, it's more beneficial to take Pegiclis alive, if only to execute him later.

In the middle age like this you need something that will mark the end of a war. Something 'Official' that will tell anyone that 'yes, war is over. You can stop stabbing each other' and no this battle is not enough as there will still be stubborn people, not radical, and those who hadn't heard the news who will still fight each other thinking the war is still ongoing. That there is still hope for them like Pegiclis had escaped or the Pegiclis who is dead is a decoy. This execution is to curbstomp those thoughts and really hammer in the fact that the war is over.

Which a public execution is good for. It's public so that civillans from far and wide can witneess it and confirms the war ending, it's provide the face for the 'Evil' of the war that will soon be dead, and it serve as a show of power that there is no one else to contest us considering we are really executing the guy without interruption.
 
Somebodynobody10 said:
Where was this mentioned?
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Questor said:
Then there's the simple option of just straight up throwing things from a great height down at your soldiers. A chair or table can kill even a Knight, especially when it's falling at terminal velocity.
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Questor said:
There is a sort of internal structure to cloud settlements, as well as architectural weaknesses. The city is built upon a sort of "foundation" of cloudstuff that is designed to be more buoyant than is typical, and serves to stabilize the city as a whole. If that foundation were significantly damaged or disrupted, the city would start to come apart.
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This implies that the cloud material is used to keep non cloud material in the sky.
Plus they certainly aren't eating clouds up there so they must be capable of holding weighty materials that aren't pegasi.
 
FictionPack said:
This implies that the cloud material is used to keep non cloud material in the sky.
Plus they certainly aren't eating clouds up there so they must be capable of holding weighty materials that aren't pegasi.
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No, it doesn't.
It just means there are different types of cloud and that their furniture isn't necessarily made of cloud.

You decided on to interpret this comment without checking with the GM.

@Questor Are there buildings made out of non-cloud materials on the city and if not, can we reconsider our stance since the plan would've been made thanks to a mistaken take on your words..?
 
Somebodynobody10 said:
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No, it doesn't.
It just means there are different types of cloud and that their furniture isn't necessarily made of cloud.

You decided on to interpret this comment without checking with the GM.

@Questor Are there buildings made out of non-cloud materials on the city and if not, can we reconsider our stance since the plan would've been made thanks to a mistaken take on your words..?
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Just google MLP Las Pegasus. That should give you decent overview.
 
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