MrRobot
In doubt there's always the Sun!
What? Sorry im totaly lost on that one.
Who Needs Harmony?: An MLP Empire Quest
- Thread starter Questor
- Start date
Lurking_Badger
Cheese Enjoyer
- Location
- Wisconsin
The Ministry of Intelligence is a very obviously big government building. This is a bit strange since it is where our spy networks are based out of and organized. People from other nations act weird when a griffin points to the building full of people that do espionage. The humor comes from the juxtaposition of having people that are normally sneaky have an obvious headquarters.
w34v3r is adding on to this by saying a bistro, a modest eatery that many would frequent, is attached to said building full of spies.
MrRobot
In doubt there's always the Sun!
I mean we don't have a hiden vilage full of ninja like kyoryu so yeah ots a building, sometimes we need to know stuff without asking, the empire should not act on supposition aftherall.
Lurking_Badger
Cheese Enjoyer
- Location
- Wisconsin
Well, I think it is mostly a surprise because of how large it is and that it has its own building. For most of history there would be a spymaster and spy-rings but nothing big. Most spies didn't have regular salaries and military intelligence operations only lasted as long as the wars they were part of.
It was only in the 1800s that many governments found an ability and need to pay for permanent staff and agents. The first permanent military intelligence service was only created in 1850 by the Austrian Empire. The first independent agency fully in control of only espionage was only created in 1909 by the British. Before that you would just have a foreign affairs which was spying and diplomacy.
Bit of a ramble but to summarize, it is a bit strange to have your own building only for spying in a medieval setting.
FictionPack
Monochromatic Ursine
- Location
- Tennessee
- Pronouns
- He/Him
If you have sensitive information, please go turn it in at your resident spy base. Foreign turncoats are guaranteed free amnesty if your story checks out.
- Location
- Very very lost
But if it doesn't... Well don't worry about that
- Location
- I think somewhere. I might be nowhere though
It's obviously where the Empire catalogues and stores books and scrolls. Durrrrr. Why else would it be called the Ministry of Intelligence?
I've also heard that's where the sausage gets made, but I've yet to see a butchery around there. Don't know what that was about
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Lurking_Badger
Cheese Enjoyer
- Location
- Wisconsin
You walk in to the public lobby and go to the front desk. The secretary then asks if you have an appointment, sensitive information, are a foreign spy, there for the guided tour, or need directions to the gift shop. A surprising number of people that admit to being spies and actually are. Also, a surprising amount of revenue comes from the gift shop.
- Location
- SF Bay Area
"I was spying in Gryphus and all I got was this lousy t-shirt!"
although in all honesty if anyone broke into the Ministry of Intelligence, it would assume that there was a mistranslation of "library" as all the Ministry seems to do is store and collate data, or mathematicians.
... Now once you get away from the tour route then you find the Griffon in a nice suit calling himself my his surname first, then full name.
MrRobot
In doubt there's always the Sun!
Well i dont think that anyone truly would end up saying much, like maybe celestia but that would make luna facehoof, in a world where wizards can scry a lot of places the big building with spys is not too dissimilar than a wizard tower.
But declasify a lot of good theater scrips from time to.
time.
My name is Ken, chi-ken
But declasify a lot of good theater scrips from time to.
time.
My name is Ken, chi-ken
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Being fair, the office is called the Ministry of Information, not the Ministry of Intelligence, which to innocent ears might sound like a bureaucratic survey and logistics office that collates data and provides reports for other ministries to use for their projects. But yes, to those in the know it's pretty obvious what the ministry actually does, but just because you know where the office is and who's in charge doesn't mean you know where they're working or who's working for them.
It's obviously where the Empire catalogues and stores books and scrolls. Durrrrr. Why else would it be called the Ministry of Intelligence?
I've also heard that's where the sausage gets made, but I've yet to see a butchery around there. Don't know what that was about
And strangely their is also a cafeteria in the building which does make it's own sausage which only seems to confuse visitors more.
*Years later after some information becomes declassified*
Luna: And somehow this was the group of people who discovered he changelings without them even knowing.
Ravenburg's ghost: I will be honest at times we don't even know how we did so well.
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- Location
- Very very lost
Ravenburg's ghost : And could you send me back to the afterlife, it is much more comfortable
Random guard : GHOST AHHHHHHH!!!
Ravenburg's ghost : Preferably before you are accused of necromancy
- Location
- his hidden lair
Considering the collective trauma of Sombra, I think it's a given the Empire is going to take an incredibly dim view of any magic that remotely looks like summoning or binding. Even an optimistic assumption about using 'mindless' undead runs into problems.
Execution probably isn't going to be a given but I can't imagine the Empire will be anything but draconian when dealing with anything it considers 'Dark Magic'. Sombra left way too much of an impression, and culturally the Empire prides itself on saying 'fuck anything associated with that guy'.
- Location
- his hidden lair
While yes, as we develop the state's magical apparatus, we've got to lay ground rules- we don't *need* to research whatever we decide is dark magic to counter it. We're not, nor will we ever be a magical society, we didn't rely on magical puissance to defeat Sombra, nor Pegicles. We killed them. We shanked them. We blew them to hell. All we needed to know was the bare necessities of how to free the enslaved, and how to use our runes to counter teleportation.
We pretty much won't ever need someone to look into Necromancy in order to understand how to defeat it for instance. Kill the necromancer. Shank the dead. Orichalcum the ghosts. Maybe with fire and whatever magical support we can muster since orichalcum is a limiting factor.
Edit: It sort of bears mentioning that in the two major wars the Empire has fought it was against factions heavily reliant on magic both times. And the Empire trounced them. Neither time would I say we sought to understand their specific magic to defeat it.
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- Location
- his hidden lair
I don't know man, looks like the Crystal ponies are healing as well as can be expected. Likewise with Maretonia. I know this flies in the face of SV's love for empiricism and technocratic solutions based on knowledge and understanding- but sometimes throwing the ring into the fire solves the problem. Magic is just another tool for us, and we've proven remarkably adept at addressing magic with other tools at our disposal. Even the teleportation strikes were just facilitating pinpoint precision bombing. I'd much rather spend what little magical know how we have on improving our tools or finding new ways of applying existing tools than studying black magic to fight it. We can shoot a necromancer just fine, we can't shoot away the refertilization of the Crystal Protectorate. That's the sort of thing where our magical know how should be going, along with things like scrying, messaging, movement, and runes- all things that compound on all our existing strengths.
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Shoot all the necromancers you want, unlike Sombra their spells don't always stop working because you kill them. There's multiple variants that get actively worse.
Sombra was an enchanter (both kinds), summoner, umbramancer, and crystalmancer, not a necromancer.
This is precisely why we need to have non-stupid rules and definitions in place. We need to actually know what we're banning, and how to deal with it.
Furthermore there might not be anything we need to ban so much as regulate, bans rarely achieve their stated objective.
Sombra was an enchanter (both kinds), summoner, umbramancer, and crystalmancer, not a necromancer.
This is precisely why we need to have non-stupid rules and definitions in place. We need to actually know what we're banning, and how to deal with it.
Furthermore there might not be anything we need to ban so much as regulate, bans rarely achieve their stated objective.
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Indeed Crystalmancy, Object enchantment, and Umbramancy all seem well enough especially since we already have the first two.
Regarding how we handle the different forms of mind control such as bodyjacking, illusions, and even remote control curses that can easily shock their victims to death.
Such things should obviously be banned and defined by their utilization in practice for each given case such that using an illusion to hide a spare key or even your master bedroom is legal while manipulating beings into doing things such as attacking friends that look like enemies or ignoring a clear path in favor of a toll bridge is clearly illegal.
Regarding summoning legality should depend on what is being summoned, where from, how, and where to.
If someone decides to pull a troll from a distant cage and out of a hat inside a public area that is a recipe for tragedy while a rabbit summoned by that same method is merely all in good fun.
If someone decides to summon evil spirits from some other plane capable of possessing creatures and blending in, that is a way to potentially cause empirewide destruction.
I feel that while restrictions are needed, necromancy should be permitted in limited capacity.
Reanimation and enchantment of a heart to function as long as magical energy is available and in a carefully regulated manner if possible would be especially valuable for medical purposes.
- Location
- Italy
Honestly my opinion of how to treat dangerous magics is pretty simple: VERY heavy restrictions/bans, with possible exceptions for government led research teams in cases in which we believe the benefits to be worth some risk, to decide on a case by case and with appropriate safety measures.
Maybe we could have some kind of list of people authorized to practice some specific magics, for example necromancy depending on how it works.
example: summon ghost of victims to find out who's the murderer, or to allow for closure to family and friends. Or uses in medicine.
Another example could be mind reading, which could be allowed on suspects of very grave crimes to prove either their guilt or innocence (possibly with assurance they won't be prosecuted for unrelated minor crimes found out this way), or on patients of psychologists (with patient's permission) or psychiatrist (to better determine the problem)
As a reminder, I think we were told Sombra's mind control in this quest was born from medical research. The helmets were supposed to be used for... Something, I don't remember, I think it was some kind of psychological help, and Sombra tampered with it.
Maybe we could have some kind of list of people authorized to practice some specific magics, for example necromancy depending on how it works.
example: summon ghost of victims to find out who's the murderer, or to allow for closure to family and friends. Or uses in medicine.
Another example could be mind reading, which could be allowed on suspects of very grave crimes to prove either their guilt or innocence (possibly with assurance they won't be prosecuted for unrelated minor crimes found out this way), or on patients of psychologists (with patient's permission) or psychiatrist (to better determine the problem)
As a reminder, I think we were told Sombra's mind control in this quest was born from medical research. The helmets were supposed to be used for... Something, I don't remember, I think it was some kind of psychological help, and Sombra tampered with it.
- Location
- Very very lost
To help people who are partially or fully paralyzed
- Location
- Italy
That was a good use of very dangerous magic. I wouldn't even be against researching it again one day.. but we now know of its dangers, so... VERY limited production and access to the helmets, failsafes, and so on, if we ever actually go through it