StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Shroom Man 777 wrote:

Oh no, comparisons of the BSE and the IoM!

The real differences between the two states, in my opinion, have far more to do with the fact that Bragulans aren't humans and vice versa than they do with do with any real change in basic structure.

Now, the differences between Bragulans and humans are quite important, so there are very noticeable differences. The conceit is that the underlying structure is in some ways similar.

Heh.. more or less correct... but ah... you can't expect a man to be everywhere at once. That's the point of a civil service, albeit one that is huge and byzantine as to be expected.

As for secret projects... hmm... The Emperor has plans yes... and he thinks in terms of the centuries...

PeZook wrote:So, is the CEID going to try and mindfuck Gepetto into revealing his findings?

As I explained to Simon earlier, CEID isn't really in the business of mindjacking CIs/AIs unless there's A) a really good reason to or B) they've pissed off the Directorate sufficiently for it to go into full-on Spite Mode. If CEID had reason to believe Gepetto had come across some piece of vitally important strategic information then they might consider it, but since that's not the case he might just be asked to answer a few questions and that'll be that. To the Directorate the Collectors are just annoying weird-ass robots, and its agents have more important things to do than mess with every anthropologist trying to do a social study out in the boonies.

Not to mention, the guy is an Umerian official and stuff. That's like CEID mindjacking Sidney Hank for his... pleasant interactions with Unit T-X.

Who said the interactions were pleasant?

Well, okay, I get the point.

PeZook wrote:Who said the interactions were pleasant?

Sidney Hank?

Shroom Man 777 wrote:Not to mention, the guy is an Umerian official and stuff. That's like CEID mindjacking Sidney Hank for his... pleasant interactions with Unit T-X.

Actually, Geppetto is not a Umerian official, just a Umerian Type Four-with-extensive-list-of-modifiers citizen. Though his 'senior self' has several ongoing contracts with the Technocracy, and he's a valued consultant on issues touching on his specialty, Geppetto is a private citizen.

---

Fingolfin_Noldor wrote:Heh.. more or less correct... but ah... you can't expect a man to be everywhere at once. That's the point of a civil service, albeit one that is huge and byzantine as to be expected.

Yes. I'm looking at the historical record of the 'real' God-Emperor as much as anything else, since you seem to have imported the essential nature of the man more or less wholesale. The entire passage:

“Very true. This is the first thing to remember about Heraclius: that he is in many ways his own greatest foil. The Emperor is prone to create that which will undermine his ambitions in the future, for he does not easily perceive the flaws in his creations once they are in operation. He is by nature a maker; he is not by nature a maintainer of that which he has made. So long as something continues to fulfill the broad outlines of his purpose, he tends to be lax about supervising the details. Instead, he prefers to turn to the next grand project of construction or conquest. Many of the inefficiencies of the Byzantine state result from this, when his old creations start to go astray from lack of close supervision while he is distracted by his new ones.”

Was in large part an allusion to the Horus Heresy.

As for secret projects... hmm... The Emperor has plans yes... and he thinks in terms of the centuries...

My read is that he's a man with century-scale plans, but (like any normal human) a decade-scale attention span at best. He compensates by force of will... but there's a natural tendency, once he's got something running that he's been working on for three hundred years, to abandon it and let it run.

That's even more true when the previous Great Project is distracting him from the next one. So arguably the God-Emperor has a bit of a monomania problem, though monomania isn't really the right word; it's not bad enough to be accurately described that way.

This can turn round and bite him in the ass at times, with the Horus Heresy and the runup to it being the most obvious symptoms. The Emperor got increasingly out of touch with the Primarchs- partly a matter of necessity, yes, but I get the feeling that he wasn't really trying to supervise them, not even on the minimal level needed to say things like "Angron is painting his room red, collecting skulls, and listening to heavy metal music with the volume turned up to 'Murderdeathshatter your Skullfucking Planet?' What is this shit? I'd better go upstairs and give the boy a good talking-to!" On the occasions when he did censure one of the Space Marine Legions for misbehavior, he usually did it ineffectively and with excessive brusqueness, with the result that they became more alienated and thus more vulnerable to subversion, not less.

And yes you can say "Well of course he couldn't supervise the Great Crusade personally, it had gotten too big and he was busy working on the Human Webway/Golden Throne/Astronomican complex." But in a sense that's the point: he was too busy working on a project that consumed virtually all his time and efforts, with an eye to completing it as fast as possible, to keep an eye on the previous project that had consumed virtually all his time and efforts.

Thus, the main conclusion of my analysis: the God-Emperor is in some ways his own worst enemy, and he is often constrained in his actions by the intangible bounds created by his own past Great Projects.

Also, just out of curiosity, which if any of the Primarchs is "Aurelian Komnenos" of the "Anatolian Guard" supposed to be reminiscent of? The focus on siege warfare reminds me of Dorn... or Perturabo.

We so need Chaos right now. Give Byzantium some fun.

Or, alternatively, go rock it out in Cananaan!

To PeZook:

The Geppetto storyline is taking care of itself; can't speak for the one you have going with Siege.

Yeah, I meant that I really should be more involved in those two things, but that bit just formed itself in half an hour and went off the keyboard after some chatting with Shroom

I shall now attempt to push the other things ahead.

Simon_Jester wrote:That's even more true when the previous Great Project is distracting him from the next one. So arguably the God-Emperor has a bit of a monomania problem, though monomania isn't really the right word; it's not bad enough to be accurately described that way.

This can turn round and bite him in the ass at times, with the Horus Heresy and the runup to it being the most obvious symptoms. The Emperor got increasingly out of touch with the Primarchs- partly a matter of necessity, yes, but I get the feeling that he wasn't really trying to supervise them, not even on the minimal level needed to say things like "Angron is painting his room red, collecting skulls, and listening to heavy metal music with the volume turned up to 'Murderdeathshatter your Skullfucking Planet?' What is this shit? I'd better go upstairs and give the boy a good talking-to!" On the occasions when he did censure one of the Space Marine Legions for misbehavior, he usually did it ineffectively and with excessive brusqueness, with the result that they became more alienated and thus more vulnerable to subversion, not less.

And yes you can say "Well of course he couldn't supervise the Great Crusade personally, it had gotten too big and he was busy working on the Human Webway/Golden Throne/Astronomican complex." But in a sense that's the point: he was too busy working on a project that consumed virtually all his time and efforts, with an eye to completing it as fast as possible, to keep an eye on the previous project that had consumed virtually all his time and efforts.

That kind of depends. He supervises foreign policy and defence policy, though he leaves to those who have clearly better eptitude at having economic policy. He does however keep check on the Imperial treasury to ensure there's enough money to finance a Crusade if there's need for one.

On the issue of Great Crusade, he did supervise it from end to end, though of course the technicalities and details are left to the generals, excepting the personal Crusade Expeditionary Force he commands, which is the largest among all the commands. General direction of the war was given by him. After the Crusade of course, he provided much of the energies for the rebuilding. Now that the rebuilding is over, he lets the machinery of government run affairs for the most part. He's not the most hands on Emperor around, but he does get daily reports etc. as expected of a head of state. As of now, the Senate is expected to run civilian affairs, while foreign and military, and to some extent finance is under the purview of the emperor. These days much of the work is surbordinated to the sons though he still gives the final word.

During the Karlack war, formal direction was led by his three sons. He merely looked at the plans and gave his approval. Belisarius Komnenos was the overall leader, but he has to confer with his brothers before direction is taken. The Emperor was involved in the final battles that led to the stalemate. THe only thing was Shady and I never got around to write them.

As for personal projects, there are some. In some ways, he's something of a God Emperor of Dune, with respect to one project, and also there's other projects he attends to. If there is one failing he might have created, which is fairly obvious, he has crafted a society so commited to the notion of war, that his empire does need someone who has the will to lead and mould this fairly unstoppable force. Who can replace him is indeed a question mark. Belisarius is more or less the next in line, and his brothers do respect him because he is the most even handed and fair among the three.

As for the Anatolian Guard, they are similar to the Dorn derived chapters.

A complication for the Coalition, and perhaps for the pirates as well.

Broadly what I'd expected: the strategic equivalent of unrestricted submarine warfare to disrupt our operations.

I'll be putting more together on that in due time, but I have other plates to juggle as well.

Hmm. How to show reaction to this...?

I'm dying over here! Herding cats.... HAH!


I really get a kick out of these Geppetto stories, Simon.

If you got a kick out of the last one, the next one will lob you clear over the horizon. See, I will be trying to be funny this time...

Oooh! Oooh! I know what's going to happen! I even checked the math to make sure! Priorities call! Yay!

I promise I will improve on my output if we can get to it faster!

Mayabird wrote:Oooh! Oooh! I know what's going to happen! I even checked the math to make sure! Priorities call! Yay!

I promise I will improve on my output if we can get to it faster!

Indeedy, but first Geppetto must pass through Bragspace. Any number of strange things can happen in Bragspace...

Great posts, guys. Force Lord, you're really coming out and its good to see you writing Space Denial! That's some good tactico-strategico-militaro stuff, mang. To think, you went from getting your stealth ship caught by goddamn Anglicans to persecuting a big pirate war complete with convoy warfare. Mang, they grow up so fasts! *sniffs*

Simons, I also dig these Gepetto stories. Your conversationings are very cool and nicely done, mangs. I leiks. Now, continue to the next installment!

Mayabirdies! Fook! Fook! FOOK! PRAWNSHIT!

The fact that Shroom has appropriated Evangelion-related imagery for his depiction of the Crucifer has planted the seeds of yet another harebrained idea in my head, which I can't quite piece together. A Langley-based offshoot of the original Byzantine Orthodox Church that reveres Duchess Asuka, mixed with deranged otaku from Old Earth who worshipped both Langley historical figures and the alien corpse nailed to the Crucifer...

Added a size chart to my naval OOB. Note that my ships aren't actually ovals (no shit, right?). May change in the future, but if it does, expect it to be replaced with a revision, not simply dropped entirely. Should come in handy for anyone doing stuff with me, though.

Hmm. Nice size chart, though since so many different people's sense of ship scales varies, we have to be careful about trying to match things up. I mean, I imagine my light cruisers being in the same general size range as your heavies... though they're relatively low-density, low firepower per ton designs, so that's not unreasonable.

Shinn Langley Soryu wrote:The fact that Shroom has appropriated Evangelion-related imagery for his depiction of the Crucifer has planted the seeds of yet another harebrained idea in my head, which I can't quite piece together. A Langley-based offshoot of the original Byzantine Orthodox Church that reveres Duchess Asuka, mixed with deranged otaku from Old Earth who worshipped both Langley historical figures and the alien corpse nailed to the Crucifer...

Yes. They must be led by a mysterious being who is not a dolphin and does not enjoy getting spanked either!

Who steals panties!

Simon_Jester wrote:Hmm. Nice size chart, though since so many different people's sense of ship scales varies, we have to be careful about trying to match things up. I mean, I imagine my light cruisers being in the same general size range as your heavies... though they're relatively low-density, low firepower per ton designs, so that's not unreasonable.

This was naturally a concern of mine as well, and may eventually lead to me resizing my ships as I feel necessary/as suits the mood of the game. The fact that the Union prizes efficiency in ship design (and thus, doesn't build super high-tech ships) and efficiency over crew comfort allows me some wiggle room when fluffing inter-nation size differences.

Gah, I really can't catch a break; a week of no Net connection, some family visits and stuff, and now some problems with my enrollment files (the fuckers apparently lost part of them ). And I can't spend as much Net time as I used to from now until the end of January because I have to start studying for my comprehensive exams (provided the file thing gets sorted out so I can properly enroll for it). So I have to play catch up with the game again.

Goddamn! Malachuschus! What shit timings!

I will misses yous!

*hugs*

v____________v

Yes! We must have more interstellar diplomatic fiascos!