STGOD 4 OOC Thread (part 2)

consequences · Post by **consequences** » 2004-09-27 06:11pm

Rogue 9 wrote:
consequences wrote:On another note, Rogue, if you've negotiated a ceasefire, and then blatantly break it, you are in serious danger of losing the Shi Combine. To fit my internal wafflings, there is already a faction that feels that our alliance was primarily with the UP, and died with them.
The negotiations were going on as the attack on Mintar was taking place. The fleet honestly could not be informed in time.

That fleet, no worries, especially considering little things like combat jamming and radio silence that tend to be used. Anything else afterwards will be an official cause for concern

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2004-09-27 07:24pm

The Asgard will be for the time being in Thirdfain's hands. He knows what I'm planning as well as anyone. I have full faith in him.

I'm not quitting formally but I'm not sure I'll be back.

Pablo Sanchez · Post by **Pablo Sanchez** » 2004-09-27 09:55pm

About the Ban Poll

I'm very concerned about the validity of the votes in the ban poll, viz. the fact that we had no less than 17 votes counted, which is more players than are currently participating. We're looking into the possibility of determing precisely which members of the board voted into the poll. Suffice it to say that it may be necessary to run this thing again.

Hotfoot · Post by **Hotfoot** » 2004-09-27 10:16pm

That does sound fishy. Perhaps the best way would be to have everyone PM you with their votes.

Pablo Sanchez · Post by **Pablo Sanchez** » 2004-09-27 10:21pm

Hotfoot wrote:That does sound fishy. Perhaps the best way would be to have everyone PM you with their votes.

My thoughts exactly. Uber-cool Supermoderator connections are being deployed by asking some questions of the Admins as to whether or not they can see precisely who voted in the original thread (which may make this unnecessary or may not) but I doubt that anything conclusive will come of this.

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2004-09-28 03:31am

At this point I'm going to be writing a fic covering this STGOD and its forbearer. I hope that I do justice to the nations but I will be fictionalising things from here on out. That means that your ultrasecret plans might not be included. And plenty of BS won't be.

I hope no one takes offense at my work. And well if you do, tough.

Bugsby · Post by **Bugsby** » 2004-09-28 11:51am

Are we going to make any attempt to finish this one out? At all? It looks like everyone is jumping right over to FSTGOD (which I too am looking forward to.... mmmm.....) but I would like to see a bit of a definite conclusion to the plotline. The plot WILL end pretty quick once the ending twist is thrown out, I just want to be able to get to that twist and resolve the whole thing.

Pablo Sanchez · Post by **Pablo Sanchez** » 2004-09-28 12:19pm

Stormbringer wrote:At this point I'm going to be writing a fic covering this STGOD and its forbearer. I hope that I do justice to the nations but I will be fictionalising things from here on out. That means that your ultrasecret plans might not be included.

Since STGOD4 is basically dead, I think it's safe to tell you that omitting some of the ultra-secret plans that I'm aware of would make your 'fic essentially a sham story. The story of STGOD4 from about the Rape of Terra onward is really two stories--the one everybody could see, and the secret one that was actually driving the plot.

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2004-09-28 01:21pm

Bugsby wrote:Are we going to make any attempt to finish this one out? At all? It looks like everyone is jumping right over to FSTGOD (which I too am looking forward to.... mmmm.....) but I would like to see a bit of a definite conclusion to the plotline. The plot WILL end pretty quick once the ending twist is thrown out, I just want to be able to get to that twist and resolve the whole thing.

Quite frankly at this point I quit. So that's that as far as I'm cocerned.

As for the twist, it isn't much of a twist. You should be able to see it coming.

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2004-09-28 01:23pm

Pablo Sanchez wrote:Since STGOD4 is basically dead, I think it's safe to tell you that omitting some of the ultra-secret plans that I'm aware of would make your 'fic essentially a sham story. The story of STGOD4 from about the Rape of Terra onward is really two stories--the one everybody could see, and the secret one that was actually driving the plot.

Actually, I'm sure there's more going on that I don't know all about. But feel like writing and at least making an attempt to finish some of the character stuff I started. I know that might mean dropping some potential plot twist but it's a fic not a game at that point.

Bugsby · Post by **Bugsby** » 2004-09-28 01:27pm

So what now? Do we declare the game dead and let everyone know what ther real story is?

Pablo Sanchez · Post by **Pablo Sanchez** » 2004-09-28 03:31pm

Bugsby wrote:So what now? Do we declare the game dead and let everyone know what ther real story is?

I'm thinking yeah. If no other member of the AoE has an objection, I'll make it public.

Stormbringer:
What I'm just going to ask you to do is hold off on writing the STGOD4 part of the fic. For my own part, I'm interested in writing a 'fic starting with the end of the current war and the Unification victory, to play out what I had hoped to accomplish.

SirNitram · Post by **SirNitram** » 2004-09-28 03:33pm

Pablo Sanchez wrote:
Bugsby wrote:So what now? Do we declare the game dead and let everyone know what ther real story is?
I'm thinking yeah. If no other member of the AoE has an objection, I'll make it public.

I'm fine with it. Want I should post my part of the Beginning of the End in the game thread, or just let it be revealed here?

Thirdfain · Post by **Thirdfain** » 2004-09-28 03:33pm

That would be sweet, and yeah, let's reveal it.

Pablo Sanchez · Post by **Pablo Sanchez** » 2004-09-28 03:34pm

SirNitram wrote:I'm fine with it. Want I should post my part of the Beginning of the End in the game thread, or just let it be revealed here?

I'll just go through it here. It gets a little long and convoluted, but the payoff is worth it

The Big Secret
or
The Axis of Evil

We'll just start with the kicker and get to the explanation after. *ahem* The Overseer is still alive, and you have all been dancing like puppets on our strings since the Rape of Terra.

Item one is that the actual ruler of the Realm of the Blood King is Basil, as many of you may have guessed. He is the oldest and most powerful of vampires, approaching or more probably attaining the status of D&D godhood (there was more character development that I was going to go into, viz. the fact that he became immortal by simply having too much willpower to let himself die, and then killing the god of death when he came to collect). Being personal witness to the Rape of Terra, he saw an opportunity.

The Overseer was, clearly, a creature of immense power and potential. It was insane and very violent, but it's primary problem was that it considered all "warmlife" a threat. This presented an advantage, because the Vampires were certainly not alive and thus had the unique ability to treat with the Overseer. The machine-mind had hitherto been universally persecuted, attacked, and used, and now it was being put on the run and would eventually be destroyed. The opportunity that Basil saw was that by saving the Overseer from it's inevitable destruction, he would enter its confidence and become it's only ally in the lonely universe.

In exchange for minor recompense (a design for carriers and drone fighters which were produced just in time for this final war) the Vampires sent material aid and endeavored to find a way for the Overseer to strike back and recover its fortunes. In the pursuit of this goal, Basil sold magical assistance to the Ousters in exchange for shipyard machinery. This machinery was immediately shipped to Overseer space, where it was discovered by the Krell.

[OOC: The plan at this stage was to blackmail Thirdfain; either he would enter our secret alliance or Nitram would make sure that further evidence of Ouster aid to the Overseer would be discovered, and the Ousters would be destroyed just like the Arcane. When Thirdfain figured out what was happening to him, he was actually so impressed that he joined willingly . . . we then developed the Elanie "subplot" into a major story element.]

Around this time, of course, you recall that the Arcane Empire was destroyed for aiding the Overseer. The evidence for this was fabricated by the Vampires and the Machines for this very purpose, though of course we succeeded beyond our wildest dreams. The Overseer feared magic and wanted them gone, and Basil knew that the only beings in the universe wise enough to spot his plans and strong enough to kill him were the Mages. So, he quit the secret defensive alliance he had with the mages, and they were set up for a fall. Karsus was executed shortly thereafter, because he was a threat to the integrity of the plan, and because Basil had previously sworn revenge against him (another story entirely).

This was a major victory, but we still had the problem of saving the Overseer from destruction. This actually proved to be exceedingly simple, as the Monacorans had been unwise enough to trust the task to mercenaries. We simply outbid them and the Krell entered our camp, secretly. You may have noticed the strange changes in the behavior of the Adar Krell character. The Machines now converted a number of their cyborgs to the purpose of impersonating an independent power, the Etern (in a particularly devious move, the Etern actually believed themselves to be free people, so that there was no possibility of them ever giving the plan away). With significant material aid from their new allies, they set about the task of rebuilding their armed forces. The alliance at this point was called the Axis of Evil or the Four Faces.

At this point we had a little bit of time to play with. We had to wait until the Overseer was prepared to participate in a military action, which would take quite a while. We filled up this space by maneuvering the Unification and UPA alliances closer to a conflict; inserting Elanie into the control position over the Ousters; and maneuvering the Ousters into a close "cooperation" with the Unification.

Eventually, of course, Elanie triggered the war with the UPA. The Unification was the stronger alliance, especially with the aid of the Ousters and Krell, but it was not so much stronger that it would not take an exhausting fight to win victory. The plan was for the Ousters to ensure that they did not take too many losses during this war--they were accomplishing this by concentrating their efforts in a slow and careful fashion against the White Suns Commonwealth, whereas the rest of the Unification participated in a headlong rush for territorial aggrandizement.

You may recall that the Ousters repeatedly made reference to their terms of peace, whereby they would kill 6,000,000 citizens and destroy installations of equal value--an eye for an eye, and all that. What you didn't know was that they fully intended to stick by those statements and would have displayed quite righteous indignation as the Unification pressed ahead against the UPA. They would be so indignant, in fact, that they would leave the alliance, sign a casus belli ante bellum peace with the UPA, and then wait until the diminished forces of the Unification and UPA had effectively destroyed eachother. We did not doubt, however, that the Unification would win in the end, and extract a humiliating peace treaty.

At which point the Ousters, Vampires, and Krell would announce that they simply could not tolerate such a victory and issue surprise declarations of war against the Unification powers and they would be bringing the Overseer's reconstituted fleet to the party with them. The Unification Fleets would be overextended into UPA territory, leaving their homeworld centers of production easy prey for lightning strikes. The fleets themselves would be severely depleted and facing a force which was fresh and significantly larger than their own. They would not fare especially well.

The peace treaty would be a cross between Versailles and some of the more humiliating medieval treaties. War indemnities to all members of the Axis, colonial worlds annexed away, an official apology to the Overseer, and official oaths of fealty from the Royal Families of Monacora, Asgard, and Manticore to the Throne of the Blood King. The Unification would effectively become dominions of the Axis sphere. And, of course, Basil planned to dominate the Axis personally. After all, he founded it, he saved the Overseer from destruction, he planned the war and rise to power, and his protegè controlled the Ousters.

The UPA would be so severely depleted by their war with the Unification that they would not be a threat for years or decades, and even then they would never catch up to the Axis. Geographically speaking, they were also isolated from Veithan aid and could thus be dominated by the Axis in years to come.

The Veithans were the potential wrench in the works, but we were counting on them to either express diplomatic disapproval of the Unification's war, or to militarily oppose the Unification--which I'm fairly sure they were gearing up to do as the STGOD4 crashed to a halt. If the Axis of Evil swept in and overran the Unification in a lightning campaign, the Veithan Accord would be dislocated politically because they could not stop us without contradicting their earlier statements and actions.

The Axis in general and Basil specifically would thus be in the position of Hegemon of Known Space--not necessarily overcoming the Veithan Accord immediately, but eventually. The Elanie, Basil, and the Overseer all being effectively immortal, they could afford to be patient and take their time. Eventually the Ousters would become publicly known as the domain of Elanie and here own coven of vampires, and some centuries down the line Basil would also put her on the thrown of Temesvar. The personal union of the two vampire states would continue until they were effectively indistuingishable from one another, thus forming one superstate.

. . .

And it all would have worked, if the STGOD hadn't died. Curses, foiled again.

SirNitram · Post by **SirNitram** » 2004-09-28 04:50pm

The only things I could possibly add were what the whole deal with the Four Faces were. The posts were made a giant foreshadowing element. And now to explain WHAT THE HELL was up with them.

Destruction. The Overseer, of course. It embodies the asskicking and killing and is, of course, represented by an Overseer minion.

Madness. A little obvious. The man who saw too much and went mad? Adar of the Krell, who started going bonkers after he made a deal with the devil. Though he never did cut out his eyeballs.

Corruption. As the statue was corrupted on the outside, this was easier to miss. It's the Vampires, who trade purity of body and spirit for absolute power.

Excess. Everyone's favorite evil barbarian hordes, the Hajr. It really was almost too obvious; a non-cyborged chick whose unearthly tall and beautiful? The nature result of Ouster genemodding.

Straha · Post by **Straha** » 2004-09-28 05:01pm

That plan is nasty (and very very cunning, you have my respect,) but wouldn't have worked the way you put it if only because you lack the men necessary to fight the war that supreme conquest would have demanded, (I think that stormbringer and I together had something like 70 planets. I know I had 40 under my control, and I think Stormbringer had something like 30) Thirdfain would be taking casulties, I know that the Krell had some major casulties, and the Vampire fleet being half sized would have been too small to cut off the bulk of us. Then you have to hope that the Veithan Accord doesn't see this as a major swing in power to the hands of the too few (and given your history with them I don't see it as too unlikley a solution) and come in on our side. The plan would have produced something like a Genocide war MK II with no side ever having the ability to strike the absolute final killing blow to the other.

Rogue 9 · Post by **Rogue 9** » 2004-09-28 05:02pm

And we've all been had. My congratulations. I was slightly suspicious of the Excess aspect of the Faces, but dismissed it as a coincidence, as I'm sometimes too wont to do. But even if someone had caught on, I doubt the whole mess would have been unraveled before it was too late.

Post by **Alyrium Denryle** » 2004-09-28 05:06pm

wow... just... wow...

Rogue 9 · Post by **Rogue 9** » 2004-09-28 05:10pm

Well, as long as we're into plot exposition, I did have one sort of semi-secret for the war. Agent Fisher was going to offer my escaped fleets sanctuary, secretly for as long as possible. Admiral Fisher (what a coincidence, eh?) wasn't so cut off from supplies as you supposed, Thirdfain. The ruse wouldn't have held out for long, but long enough to lay on the hurtin' while the Unification was tied up. Unfortunately for the purposes of counteracting this plan, the idea was to whack the Asgard while their fleets were otherwise occupied...

Agent Fisher · Post by **Agent Fisher** » 2004-09-28 05:15pm

Impressive.

I wonder if my nation would have been overlooked?

given that we were small, and very few knew about us.

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2004-09-28 05:17pm

Rogue 9 wrote:Unfortunately for the purposes of counteracting this plan, the idea was to whack the Asgard while their fleets were otherwise occupied...

Except I made sure that my fleet were strong enough to repel you at home unless you sacrificed your home. Sorry but I had both bases covered well.

Pablo Sanchez · Post by **Pablo Sanchez** » 2004-09-28 05:22pm

Straha wrote:That plan is nasty (and very very cunning, you have my respect,) but wouldn't have worked the way you put it if only because you lack the men necessary to fight the war that supreme conquest would have demanded, (I think that stormbringer and I together had something like 70 planets. I know I had 40 under my control, and I think Stormbringer had something like 30)

Try and remember that you're fleets would be exhausted and deployed far from your home space. The number of your planets would be more a liability than an advantage.

Thirdfain would be taking casulties, I know that the Krell had some major casulties, and the Vampire fleet being half sized would have been too small to cut off the bulk of us.

Half-size? What? We had fewer combat vessels, but what we had was more effective, and we had the Overseer. Even before the war we had enough muscle between the four of us to kill the Unification. We were only being sure and deploying a triple cross. I would estimate that your forces would be outnumbered by as much as 2:1 by that stage of the war and what you did have would be outclassed.

Then you have to hope that the Veithan Accord doesn't see this as a major swing in power to the hands of the too few (and given your history with them I don't see it as too unlikley a solution) and come in on our side.

Wishful thinking. There simply wouldn't be enough time for them to completely realign their policy. Even if they did try to stop us, we would still have ample time and resources to completely cripple the Unification while fighting a defensive war against the Accord.

The plan would have produced something like a Genocide war MK II with no side ever having the ability to strike the absolute final killing blow to the other.

Not quite.

Rogue 9 · Post by **Rogue 9** » 2004-09-28 05:23pm

Stormbringer wrote:
Rogue 9 wrote:Unfortunately for the purposes of counteracting this plan, the idea was to whack the Asgard while their fleets were otherwise occupied...
Except I made sure that my fleet were strong enough to repel you at home unless you sacrificed your home. Sorry but I had both bases covered well.

What, when all I've got are two battle fleets, you think I'm going to commit to full fleet engagements? Unless you were spread out too thin to stop me, I'd find somewhere I could take on, bombard, and leave.

Spyder · Post by **Spyder** » 2004-09-28 05:25pm

oooh, my turn!

Spyder and the Dekhrynova brothers as seen today were all constructs resulting from three AI's residing in a massive complex below the surface of Matar. The trio were human once but were forced to merge with the machines during Minmatar's golden age before the decline. That's how they were able to sniff out the corrupt senators so easilly, the machine had access to Matar's entire security and communications infrastructure. Needless to say, this is Spyder was able to come back, he was simply rebuilt.

Now, as for Unity Station. I was actually planning on proposing a sort of united nations concept, then when I looked at the thread Straha had beaten me to it. So I counter proposed to have the UN structure built on a space station. The official excuse was that it wouldn't disrupt operations on New Tortuga, the real reason is that if I acted quickly, Minmatar could build it, and possibly to some extent control it. The first step was to request permission to do the initial surveying, the next step was to have Dr Braddock say "ok, let's do it. Inform the New Tortugans of what we're planning." It's not entirely asking permission, it's just letting them know what's going on and waiting for an objection. I find the opt out approach is best when you want people to agree to stuff. A few days later "oh look, we actually happen to have a suitable station back home that just needs assembly, isn't that convenient?"

The station itself was to accomplish two goals

1-Provide a tool for the Minmatar to keep their fingers on the pulse of galactic politics

2- Provide an excuse for the Minmatar to establish a garrison in the region

It was working pretty well until the Tortugans suddenly realised that there was a small gathering of Minmatar warships and a battle fortress in high orbit. So I promised them that the Unity Neutrality pact would apply to them to. The Minmatar would defend the Tortuga and maintain peace throughout the system while establishing a garrison on the doorstep of allied worlds while coming off smelling like roses.

Alliances.

One thing the Minmatar were very careful of was its alliance structure. It would have dealing with anyone that asked but would not sign into any formal alliances save for the defense pact between Minmatar and some of the Unification members. Note, that the Minmatar did not want to side completely with the Unification as this would disenfranchise potential UTO clients, the Alliance. This brings us to the next phase:

The UTO

The UTO had one purpose and it wasn't to facilitate free trade. It was to bankroll the expansion of the Minmatar fleet. The Minmatar had a small number of ships that were quite crappy by modern standards save for the Xeron fighters, so obviously I needed to put a system in place that would give the Minmatar reasons to expand the fleet without seeming hostile while providing a means to pay for it. Minmatar was already defending Monacora, so there was already a limited demand for new ships, in addition to this the Minmatar would agree to defend any trade convoy from piracy or foreign attack (regardless of alliance status). Thirdfain actually caught on to this and so was promised a contract for constructing numerous deep space trade depots that would actually double as floater colonies.

Plans for later down the track:

Once Minmatar was established as an economic super power, future plans included getting other nations to fight proxy wars on Minmatar's behalf, start claiming planets and declare Minmatar an empire.