SDN Worlds 4 Commentary Thread VI

[Simon_Jester]

As Shroomy might say,

Poor shellshocked admiralses.

v______v

Okay, sorry for freaking out on you like that, Shinn. Though I suggest you at least fill in some partial blurbs in your nation's history; it'd let you write some few-paragraph segments and be a solid contribution to filling out the Holy Empire as an in-game state.

More so than writing descriptions of rifles on the Weapons Page does.
_______________

EDIT: Steve, Shinn seems to have stolen a march on you in dealing with this. I think I understand what he was originally trying to set up; it's unfortunate that we haven't had enough exploration of the characters involved to make it clear exactly what was happening.

That is, that this wasn't about Shinn wanting to throw a gratuitous mundicide into the story, and was about Shinn wanting to explore the psychological flaws of some of his senior naval officers.

[Steve]

Well, the joy of such things is that we're not completely cognizant of what's going on. Rather intel sources just got a report on the loading of the liquid R warheads and forwarded it on.

Now whatever moe-tastic, cutsey anime girl who serves as the Haruhiist ambassador/minister to Westminster can calmly and apologetically inform Lord Prestwick of the Marshal's nervous breakdown and overreaching of authority.

[Simon_Jester]

Oooh.

Good one, Siege.

Though the Umerians are contemplating sending ships for strange and ulterior reasons, and are definitely not compromising their own defense in a material way even if they do. The battle squadron they're dispatching wouldn't be missed, based on their revised estimates of just how much of a threat the Prussian Navy presents in the (unlikely) event of a Prussian-Umerian War breaking out in 3401.

I'm sure you can fill in the blanks on how Zebes affected the galaxy's respect for the Kaiserliche Marine.

[Tanasinn]

RE: Justification, I've been working on a post on and off where the Humanist Union condemns the MEHstomp. Honestly, the only in-character justification I can come up with for this conflict is a desire to pillage the MEH's resources, with perhaps the exception of the Emissaries and the Centrality.

[Simon_Jester]

If the Umerians can capture some of the MEH's supposedly-excellent hardware and bring it home they certainly won't complain. Also, they're trying to develop an expeditionary warfare capability, and view this as a relatively low-risk way to stress-test their arrangements.

But it's a very iffy choice for them, one motivated partly by their current view that the fleet is outsized compared to their immediate defensive requirements (given the poor showing the Prussians make at Zebes). As a player I've never been entirely sure I wanted to participate, and acknowledge that I've been and continue to be hemming and hawing; I just don't know.

[RogueIce]

So for my side of the story, naturally the Shinra Republic would not accept or condone any such genocidal actions from anyone. Just putting that out there.

To address a few other things:

I believe I did make clear my nation's misgivings regarding including the Imperium on this. Of course that's purely OOC so IC valid questions are raised, but it sums up to roughly, "They can deploy Battle Barges and we can't." We'll still watch them as closely as possible, and I'm sure so will Anglia and others who aren't into the whole megadeath thing.

As to the MEH itself as opposed to others, well... I suck at backstory, but my intention for the Shinra Republic was that, until relatively recently, we were very much an inward looking power. So things which went down prior to around 3385 (roughly when Cid Shinra took office) is not something we would have dealt with. Granted it's hard to even read between the lines on that, and the only real hint I gave was in just how many patrol ships I started off with, relative to heavier warships (though that is changing now). So, a little like Umeria in that we're 'recent' members of the whole interstellar expeditionary stuff. And it'd be implausible to go around and try to right all the past wrongs of the galaxy.

To tackle a few of the examples:

My understanding is that most of the worst of Shepistan's anti-psion stuff happened in the past, and they've more or less 'bred out' most psions? And those that do get born still are exiled? If that's not the case, OOC fail on my part, and I'd chalk it up to limited knowledge. I have stated that we have very little diplomatic contact and all. Plus, the MEH pulling their stuff is in my little 'corner' of the galaxy, where Shepistan is on the other side of it.

As for the Imperium and Bragulans, well, we don't want to get entangled in the K-Zone. So we're not going to go righting wrongs there. A bit hypocritical, yes, but that's life in foreign policy alas. And I mentioned above how we kinda consider teaming up with the Imperium a bit of a Deal With The Devil, in a way.

So yeah, I do think there is enough IC justification to wage war, and for me personally to invest relatively heavily in ships, as they have big crap and I don't, so I need the numbers to match up. It may not be perfect and without any question, but well, that's what keeps things interesting, isn't it?

[White Haven]

Hey! You don't get to call it the K-Zone. That's our word. We get to call ourselves that. To you, it's the Koprulu Region!

</outragedblackdude>

[Simon_Jester]

My understanding is that most of the worst of Shepistan's anti-psion stuff happened in the past, and they've more or less 'bred out' most psions? And those that do get born still are exiled? If that's not the case, OOC fail on my part, and I'd chalk it up to limited knowledge. I have stated that we have very little diplomatic contact and all. Plus, the MEH pulling their stuff is in my little 'corner' of the galaxy, where Shepistan is on the other side of it.

My interpretation is that prenatal and childhood exposure to intense Blitzschlag fields has a strong tendency to permanently stunt the growth of certain portions of an esper's brain, based on common sense about how the system is supposed to work in Shep's own descriptions. It did exactly that to one of my own Cabinet officials, for instance.

But the incidence rate of esper abilities in the Shepistani population is probably quite low, as well. In any case, their government probably keeps the numbers a secret or at least manages to hide the full scope of the problem, to the point where it doesn't become a major crisis for them on the international stage.

[Mayabird]

Ahem! The Refuge also has a perfectly legitimate reason to go to war with the MEH and we have been advocating it for a while. Don't know about the rest of these cloacas but we won't complain. At this point I think it's just become the popular thing to do - they're sending a lot of people so we have to also!

On a totally definitely absolutely unrelated topic, Siege and Simon, please don't increase security for your researchers into really, really bizarre physics. No reason why I'm saying that. Nope. *bird whistles*

[Simon_Jester]

And posted!

One... more... chapter and the shooting stops. Just... one... more...

[gasp gasp gasp thud]

Also, apologies to Doc Smith, as I did crib and tweak a passage from him.

[Siege]

Here's the thing: any one nation might have 'perfectly legitimate' reasons to go do whatever the fuck. In fact, they probably have perfectly legitimate reasons to go to war with any of dozens of nations the galaxy over. Or hell, their reasons might even not be legitimate but utterly random; who cares, that's happened somewhat regularly for at least 1,400 years I'm sure. So that's not what's bothering anyone: the bewilderingly random nature of intergalactic politics is quite clear to most observers.

The thing that's bothering many in the Sovereignty then isn't so much that one or two nations decide to go to war over arbitrary reason. It's that over twelve galactic great powers decide to join a grand coalition to go to war against one single nation that for all intents and purposes isn't in any way worse than many nations that have been in existence for centuries or longer. In fact compared to many of those longtime potential targets the Multiversal Empire has been massively timid and barring a few diplomatic gaffes there's not really anything that would explain anyone getting very irate with them, let alone starting a giant multi-national war.

"Other nations did their heinous shit in the past" is not in fact a defense against this sort of thing. The MEH doesn't even have a past, so there's not even anything you can blame them for besides planning experiments on psions since their emergence (since the phenomenon was unknown to them before). Shepistan meanwhile has done all kinds of utterly horrible things to its psions for who knows how long, has in fact been very open about it, and doesn't recognize psions as human to this very day.

At this point I could insert a very obvious reference to Nazis vis-a-vis Neo-Nazis but I'm sure you see why yours is an utterly terrible and massively unconvincing argument already.


Aside from that: Why would we want to increase security for our researchers Maya? They're just doing some interesting experiments into inter-universal whatsits. What could POSSIBLY go wrong?!

Finally and on a secondary tangent, White_Haven, you're not actually in the Koprulu Zone. The K-Zone as far as I know is the Imperium, the Karlacks, the Bragulans, the Collectors, the Sovereignty, and any Wild Space worlds caught inbetween. Nothing more and nothing less than that. You just happen to be on the fringe of the mayhem, much like the Holy Empire, the Ascendancy, the Sassanids and the Pfhor.

[Agent Sorchus]

Siege you are absolutely correct that the psion rationale is horrible and not getting any sympathy from me either. I don't know about the Rest of the Inhumanist league Nations, but that isn't the rationale that I would use. Rather the opening genocidal statements about the orks is how I am rationalizing it, (and since the Bragulans are going to make war and occupy a full nation my troops might as well be there to try and soften the atrocities a little bit.)

[Steve]

Honestly, the Anglian justification is the same as it was over Pendleton, and the MEH is basically being so flagrant about it that even Shepistan looks reserved.

That's not to say that if a Grand Coalition ever formed to put down Shepistan we wouldn't at least be supportive, if not an outright member.

[Beowulf]

First, I actually planned this budget out sometime around January. I just never got around to posting it because of school and generally laziness.

Second, I'm not sure why people are acting like this budget is coming out of left-field. I have been clear since day 1 that every Emissary planet is an industrial hellhole that exists solely for the purpose of producing more war machines. In keeping with my fluff I even gave up a lot of starting GDP by lumping bonuses on 3 sectors instead of simply taking the numerous open sectors around me.

As for a story post about it I am not sure what I could really give besides pointless exposition. Slave-drones slave away doing the only thing they are capable of doing? Transports transporting materials from point A to point B?

I am not gaming the system and have said that if 25% is simply forbidden I will scale back to whatever is the allowable maximum. I fully expect that other nations could be concerned if they discover the extent of my military build-up. Hell, that right there is good story fodder. While OoC you know that I can only keep this up til mid 3402 in game you don't. And you can rightly have worries that the Emissaries are just going to keep building until they consume the galaxy. Because in many ways that is exactly our plan, just not on the time scale that most factions are used to working in.

To me this seems like a lot of ado about nothing. I am not poised to strike anyone but the NPC target we have all staked claims on. I am not going to take over as military leader of that quadrant of space, let alone the game. And I am not objecting to people having in-game reactions to it. So, as I see it, it fits my factions fluff, doesn't upset game balance, and presents new RP opportunities. The only problem is if there is a set hard-limit to spending and if there is I have already conceded to scale back to that. So, could someone please lay out what their objections are?

As Simon said earlier, the first line is really not all that appealing of an explaination. There are ways to have indicated a move to a heavy military expansion before this. The Emissaries aren't all a single monolithic AI, so there could have been a debate amongst the leadership about the best way to increase the Emissaries influence. Even if there is just a single thinker at the top of the whole iron machine, there could be some sort of order to go increase production of military hardware, or internal monologue to indicate a build up. The problem isn't that you're building up. The problem is that you posted your build for 3400 after the year 3401 had begun, as well as nearly simultaneously posting your intention to claim a large section of space, including going to war against the MEH, making it look like your build is a retcon in order to support that effort. If you had a build for 3400 more in line with what other people have, and only bumped up for 3401, I'd have no problem.

---

Tianguo rationale for joining the MEHstomp: As a human first nation, they see the eradication of non-humans (under a fairly loose definition of human, actually), as one of their strategic goals. That the leader of the MEH is an alien, supported by a number of AI's, offends them. They don't mind that the MEH planned for the obliteration of the Orks (or at least, would wish them luck). However, since other people are joining in on the idea of breaking the power of the MEH government, they're quite willing to help ensure the destruction. They're freedomizing the fatties from the tyranny of the alien/AI menace. It's also a relatively low risk way to blood my commanders.

[Dark Hellion]

The way I see it the "newness" of the MEH is probably contributing to why some members of the Coalition are so gung-ho. There is probably a lot of pent up frustration about various crimes and acts that these nations regard as heinous that they can't do anything about because of the complex nature of galactic politics. But the MEH has no existing political connections, no past to get in the way of people who want to punish what they see as a heinous institution. The MEH has done nothing to garner any sympathy or respect and have admitted to wanting to commit atrocities. Thus they are an excellent target for many nations to vent upon.

This venting is probably also a distraction for other political concerns that the leaderships of these nations don't want to deal with at the moment. And once this became apparent others hopped on the bandwagon. I think there should be a lot of interesting political fallout from this and I think it should liven up the game.

As for why the Emissaries will be destroying the worlds in A26: the Emissaries have a very black and white world view, either you are part of the solution or you are part of the problem. With their extrauniversal origin, the claimed godhead of their leader, and political skills that make my battleships look diplomatic the MEH are part of the problem. And we eliminate problems. Absolute destruction of planets is simply the most efficient way of doing so as it requires no ground forces, no caring for prisoners, no need to produce food or shelter for them and no need to deal with insurgencies. And the death of billions is statistically insignificant next to the total number of sentients in the galaxy. In the end everyone and everything is simply numbers to us, even us.

As Simon said earlier, the first line is really not all that appealing of an explaination. There are ways to have indicated a move to a heavy military expansion before this. The Emissaries aren't all a single monolithic AI, so there could have been a debate amongst the leadership about the best way to increase the Emissaries influence. Even if there is just a single thinker at the top of the whole iron machine, there could be some sort of order to go increase production of military hardware, or internal monologue to indicate a build up. The problem isn't that you're building up. The problem is that you posted your build for 3400 after the year 3401 had begun, as well as nearly simultaneously posting your intention to claim a large section of space, including going to war against the MEH, making it look like your build is a retcon in order to support that effort. If you had a build for 3400 more in line with what other people have, and only bumped up for 3401, I'd have no problem.

The first line was simple honesty, and don't pretend that I am the only one that let things slip through the cracks. As for 3400 being done... there are still plenty of posts being made for game year 3400 all of which cause more game change than my military appropriations. And I began my massive military movements even before this order was in so it had no influence on my fleet movement. So please, give me an actual reason that doesn't stink of being "I don't like someone else building more toys than me".

[Shroom Man 777]

Good post guise.



I'd like to make a note on the rubiconium/vegemite thing. It's perfectly sensible for the Haruhiists to have some R-based weapon, specifically designed to fuck over their potential enemy the Brags, yeah, so I'm cool with that.

But I just want to say that if everyone and their moms starts stockpiling on rubiconium or vegemite weaponry, I won't be quite cool with that.

Simon_Jester made rubiconium/vegemite. Yes it is a knock off of tiberium from Command and Conquer, but in the context of this universe he basically has it as a totally toxic substance that the Umerians dabbled with, and the Prussians screwed up with, and the Shepistanis weaponized with for their big fuckoff nukes. His original article also states that the Brags have some of the largest deposits in the galaxy, and in-game he also had the Umerians actually acquiring Bragnukes to learn how to better work with vegemites and such.

The thing is, one of the themes of the Bragulans is that they use radiation and radioactive substances for everything. That's their shtick. Their nukes are more radioactive, their fossil fuel is spiked with plutonium, even their bullets are coated in radioactive stuff. That's part of their theme.

Other PC nations have other themes. Some have ultra-tech cyberpunky dimensional reality warping things with hyper-fields and dark energy. Others have lots of pew-pew rayguns and particle cannons and nifty clean science fictiony stuff. Others have strange metaphysical ominous and incomprehensible strange tech straight from space hell. Others have hardish sci-fi, I guess, with lots of guns or whatever in space, sure. That's their shtick. Instead of vegemite-encrusted strat nukes, Byzantines have stuff like nova cannons and cyclonics and virus bombs. Etcetera.

There's no problem with using rubiconium-boosted weapons. Shepistan makes use of them, and Umeria for all their scientific know-hows are still getting into the game. The Lost uses similar exotic materials too. And Bragule is exporting a lot of V.

Anyway, my point is that while it is okay, I just don't want that stuff proliferating too much because the gratuitous use of extremely hazardous and highly radioactive material is one of the Bragulans' primary shticks, and one of their ways to compensate thematically for their lack of whiz-bang gadgets, since they're still stuck with vacuum tubes and switchboards and analog computers and magnetic tape cassettes.

[KhorneFlakes]

Well, I'm in the game now. Just a matter of getting the backstory typed up and organized, and setting up the Imperial Army.

Hopefully I'll actually remember the rules

Oh, and bullcrap! I posted my part Taiidan stroy update, and the schizophrenic post system went and deleted it! *inhales*

Blood for the Blood God! Skulls for the Skull Throne!

[Mayabird]

I type my posts on a doc offline (or a Google doc if I'm collaborating) and copy and paste them here when I'm done. No timing out or whatever issues so I lose hours of work. Also, woohoo another retcon!

[Simon_Jester]

Look on the bright side, Amy. The percentage of nations in the galaxy which you now have to worry about being seriously theologically unsound just went down slightly!

[Shroom Man 777]

THE MCNAMARA OF SPACE! Siege, that was excellent. I'm so sorry that I jumped the gun, literally, and posted the incomplete thing which I didn't know was incomplete. The extended interview, with McNamara's declaration of the nature of the WAR ECONOMY and such, is actually quite compelling. It's funny how this intended joke character ends up standing for something quite deep.

We're still totally doing the Shepistani assassinations though.

Also Simons, the battle of Ze Bees was awesomes.

[Simon_Jester]

There's still a little more.

[Force Lord]

*waits for someone to intercept my message to the MEH*

[Steve]

Due to Siege's post with Nisa about the MEHstomp, I'm altering the timeframe to move the Shroom Fighter events up to March.

[Force Lord]

Due to Siege's post with Nisa about the MEHstomp, I'm altering the timeframe to move the Shroom Fighter events up to March.

Ah. I don't know if this alters my characters' interaction with Shroom Fighter, that is, my spies, Redav, and the whole issue with Francus.

[Steve]

Due to Siege's post with Nisa about the MEHstomp, I'm altering the timeframe to move the Shroom Fighter events up to March.

Ah. I don't know if this alters my characters' interaction with Shroom Fighter, that is, my spies, Redav, and the whole issue with Francus.

Nah