Your name is Insar'Sholo and you are an Aristocrat. You are a Child of Two Stars. You stand before the Wisdom Tree.

“Wow! Such pretty fruits today, my lovely tree!”

You pick among the selection, the roots of the tree pneumatically lowering to your hands. You take a big bright red and a nice cool blue; colors representing the chemical and elemental gatherings within. The trees roots pierce deep, filtering the soils and air, collecting and concentrating. These are not the kind of fruits you eat, and yet, they are farmed as the heart and soul of the empire.

“Lovely, lovely Wisdom Tree!”

Turning around, the great broad-leaf plants dotting the world's soils lower, creating a safe and sanitary path for your smooth and unshod feet, the plant willingly dirtying its underside to avoid its master's foot touching the forest's unkept floor. The drones have planted a path from your garden to the nearby Wisdom Tree. On this planet, it is a tree. On another, it may be a great mushroom, or another, a mighty kelp bloom. They are still the beating heart of your society; without it, no Aristocrat can live.

“Lovely, lovely plants! Lovely, lovely day! Lovely- ACK!”

“Little ones...! What have you done!?”

Deep within the heart of your garden, a group of chittering little creatures, designed to clear the leaf liter and cull the weeds with their little mouths, have absolutely ruined the hedges! The long neck grubblies look up at you without any instinct for fear or self preservation, no knowledge, no wisdom. Why would that? That is not their purpose. Your hands can wrap around them easily, and you hold one close.

“Oh no! How did you get into that? You naughty, silly little thing. I need to fix this. The garden must be perfect...”

You can't have the little ones ruining your carefully designed and curated hedges. They are the frame for your masterwork, and you can't have your little ones creating a mess. They already excrete their waste in little holes, breed away from sight, and in all other ways are out of the way. They've just gotten too greedy with the hedges. But you can't just get rid of them; else the leaf litter will pile up. Hmm...

>Adjust their anatomy so they can't eat from the hedges
>Change their diet to something else
>Punish this one and hope the rest learn a lesson

>>6266529
Well, this is unexpected. You usually make another type of thread in between monke stuff.

Anyway, are write ins allowed? I feel like the way easier option is to just
>Find a way to make the hedges taste bad to them
I mean, they're hedges, not fruits. Their taste doesn't matter.

>>6266529
>Find a way to make the hedges taste bad for them.
Could increase the proportion of bitter taste receptors in the little fellows mouths so that the hedge leaves are unpalatable for them?
If write-ins aren't allowed:
>Adjust their anatomy so they can't eat from the hedges
This is probably all a meta thing, which is fun to think about.

Also Mr. Bananas I really like the title image, especially the green dropshadow on the words and the tiny little reflections in Insar's eyes. Hope this is a legendary thread (in a good way)

>>6266529
>Adjust their anatomy so they can't eat from the hedges
Where's the GOOD fantasy quest? This just looks like more sci fi furshit to me.

>>6266547
save these posts for the qtg imo

>>6266529
>>Adjust their anatomy so they can't eat from the hedges
Torture the little shits

>>6266529
>>Adjust their anatomy so they can't eat from the hedges

>>6266529
>Adjust their anatomy so they can't eat from the hedges

>>6266534
>>6266546

I think
>Find a way to make the hedges taste bad to them
maybe be the same as
>Change their diet to something else
After all, why modify the shrubs when we can just modify these guys' taste buds?

>>6266529
>Change their diet to something else

>>6266529
>Adjust their anatomy so they can't eat from the hedges

>>6266529
>>Adjust their anatomy so they can't eat from the hedges

>>6266529

>Find a way to make the hedges taste bad to them
If we're allowed the write-in, it seems the sensible one. Perhaps make the leaves of the hedge taste bad whilst they're growing on the hedge, but start tasting really good once they've fallen?

Naughty little ones... Not that you can blame them. After all, they're just doing what they were designed and born to do. As with all things.

You scoop up the leaf-litter-eater and take it away. In the heart of your garden, your Cradle, a life machine, stands ready and silent. You place the creature inside, closing your eyes, the machine feeling inside of you for what you wish. You imagine, and it becomes so, tissues and life-force knitting themselves into a new pattern. Fundamentally changed at the core of its being, the little lesser drone will become more useful now. As an Aristocrat, you are the only kind among your society who can interface with the life machines, the only one who can change the forms fundamental. You make sure the new creature's biology is genetically prioritized, so they will breed true, and soon enough your mutation will spread throughout all of the little-leaf-litter eaters!

You place it back outside and see the results of your work. It's altered anatomy keeps its head low to the ground, unable to look up for predators or to eat from your hedges, with the excess tissue being made into great big ears to funnel the scent of fallen leaves into its mouth-nostril; happily it gobbles them up, running here and there, while leaving your hedges untouched.

"Perfect! Lovely, lovely!"

Now, with your garden in order again, you can return to the masterwork, enough even to impress your Liege-Lord, Ully'Andule...

You are now Halam Anak, the Supreme Ruler of the Hegemony. Having only just recently been given the Hegemonic medallion and poised to take over the Hegemony from your father, your training and schedule has been accelerated. Still, you like to spend some time honing your skills.

"Threes, set up a combat sim. You have a large robot?"
"Yes, my liege. Though I will add, if you used a knife like a normal Supreme Candidate in training, we wouldn't have to replace them after you bash them apart."
"Sassy today, huh? Three opponents."

You undress and take up your large pole of stabilized lead. It's heavy and extremely strong; not toxic enough to cause any harm in all but the most sensitive organisms. It is by no means a traditional weapon, but it is a fearsome one. You never much liked Knife-fighting, little knife points not befitting an Alpha-Male of your strength and stature.

The hologram training room is set up; with three robots coming forward. Two small ones, representing normal opponents like Jaxtians or Leeray, and a large bodied one with additional limb capacity, representing larger and stronger opponents for wrestling or other combat sports; like Proo or Alpha males or Vetuckers, or even female Leeray, which the AI seems to be prioritizing to keep this training session most "realistic".

Spinning your pole, you think strategy. Should you go after the little minions first, or the big one? Hmm...

>Take out the minions first and avoid the large opponent
>Focus on the biggest threat, then deal with the smaller training dummies

Year 195 of the Resurrection Era
You are now Halam Anak, the Supreme Ruler of the Hegemony. Having only just recently been given the Hegemonic medallion and poised to take over the Hegemony from your father, your training and schedule has been accelerated. Still, you like to spend some time honing your skills.

"Threes, set up a combat sim. You have a large robot?"
"Yes, my liege. Though I will add, if you used a knife like a normal Supreme Candidate in training, we wouldn't have to replace them after you bash them apart."
"Sassy today, huh? Three opponents."

You undress and take up your large pole of stabilized lead. It's heavy and extremely strong; not toxic enough to cause any harm in all but the most sensitive organisms. It is by no means a traditional weapon, but it is a fearsome one. You never much liked Knife-fighting, little knife points not befitting an Alpha-Male of your strength and stature.

The hologram training room is set up; with three robots coming forward. Two small ones, representing normal opponents like Jaxtians or Leeray, and a large bodied one with additional limb capacity, representing larger and stronger opponents for wrestling or other combat sports; like Proo or Alpha males or Vetuckers, or even female Leeray, which the AI seems to be prioritizing to keep this training session most "realistic".

Spinning your pole, you think strategy. Should you go after the little minions first, or the big one? Hmm...

>Take out the minions first and avoid the large opponent
>Focus on the biggest threat, then deal with the smaller training dummies

>>6267165
>Take out the minions first and avoid the large opponent
Even the numbers. We're outnumbered and if we ignore the two guys, they could easily sneak attack us while we're focusing on the big dude.

>>6267165
>>Focus on the biggest threat, then deal with the smaller training dummies

>>6267165
>>Take out the minions first and avoid the large opponent
Training himself for the battlefield, best not let yourself be overrun

>>6267224
Good logic.

>>6267165
>Take out the minions first and avoid the large opponent

>>6267165
>>Take out the minions first and avoid the large opponent

>>6267165
>shove the metal pole up your ass and slam it into your prostate in order to induce a blast of semen that will blind and immobilize the enemies

>>6267165
>Take out the minions first and avoid the large opponent

Let's sweep away the advantage of numbers

>>6267165
>Take out the minions first and avoid the large opponent

Yeah, it'd be safer to take out the minions first. While you of all people know that size does not equal slowness, it is certainly easier to keep track of them.

"Leeray males and a female, huh? Come on Threes, I'm no amateur. Make them a bit more intimidating! Give them some skills!"
With a pop, the two Leeray male heads change to Jaxtians, glaring at you at the point of holographic, harmless knives. They look very real, but it's all a simulation.

"Yeah, like that! Begin!"

You've won many hard victories right here in the simulation chamber; holograms are quite the real deal, but with physical robots overlaid with eye-like levels of detail and simulation, it's as close as you can get with no real danger. You spin your pole around, eager to prove yourself. The two smaller opponents approach first; false knives in hand. You raise the far end of your pole and jab at them, keeping them back. It has no point, but nobody wants to be on the end of your fearsome rod- except maybe a very excited female Jaxtian, har har!

You just have to wait for one of the robots to slip up and fall for the oldest trick in the book; trying to grab the end of the pole...

There it is! You twist the end of the smooth pole, making the artificial opponent lose its grip and lean forward, and then quickly spin the pole around your back for a riposte.

*WOOSH-SWICK!*

Cruelly slashing the foe's face open with a tip of your staff, cracking against the skull and pulling the skin apart, breaking the face with a satisfying spray of fake blood. Concussed and blinded, you do not fear this enemy any further.

The larger robot, simulating an enraged female Leeray, charges towards you with a swiping claw. You feel the rush of the wind from the robot's hand, obviously clawless, as you bounce away with your pole, spinning it around your back as you ready for your tangle with the second of the smaller combatants.

You spin the pole out, tripping him under his feet. He may have the brain of a Jaxtian, but the body is still Leeray and still a bit clumsy and slow. You thought cats always landed on their feet?

You reel your pole back and slam its end into the enemy's chest; you feel the very real crunch and sound of exploding circuitry from the robot, even over the simulated sound of cracking bones and blood spurt. It surrenders pathetically, unable to hold onto its weapon as you twist the pole in its chest cavity, causing its simulating lungs to collapse. You know its spine is mangled, real or not, and you're also sure that Threemind won't let you step on any shed robotic components scattered around the room from your roughhousing.

You take the pole up with a swing and grip it tightly, tensing every muscle in your young and strong body as you await the final opponent; the large monster-like creature charging at you with claws outstretched. You slam down your pole onto its head, crushing the female's head both in the simulation and for real, the crunch of metal evident in the way the simulated hologram model deforms.

END SIMULATION

Defeating a strong opponent is good for your dueling and physicality scores; not that the Supreme Ruler needs to prove himself anymore. It's just a matter of pride. Fighting multiple opponents at once can multiply it, and show great skill. While you don't like knives, physical confrontations are an Alpha male's specialty. Using only blunt force, you've topped the dueling charts!

The Threemind normally would congratulate at this point, but it seems to pause.

"Your grace, I would like to point your attention towards your side..."

You turn, seeing a hit marker directly on your abdominal flank. The holographic projector has pointed out an injury.

"Wha- I didn't feel anything!"
"The computer simulated you getting hit, obviously, the hologram models extend beyond the physical robot shell by a few units of length; simulating skin, muscle, claws..."
"Aww, come on! That wouldn't have disabled me anyway. I would have won the fight either way, if it were real."
"Perhaps, but a decisive victory only allows very superficial injuries, preference for not being touched at all."
"What, you're saying that wasn't superficial? That tiny little scratch! Come on. That shouldn't count!"
"I am merely relaying the information from the combat computer, your grace."
"HEY! I'm the Supreme Ruler aren't I? Remove it from the record! Got that?!"

The Threemind pulls up your duels and combat simulations, quickly striking the small hit marker from your already impressive dueling record, now showing yet another decisive victory against multiple opponents.

"Heh, good!"
"...Take care, young Supreme. You may not fear a small wound or scratch; but all it takes is a drop of dimethylmercury, one Aristocrat bacterial weapon, one weight unit overlooked to hide a bomb in a shipment, and it will lead to your destruction."
"True as it may be, I will allow the bean counters of the Hegemony to obsess over the details. My Father was one such man; I have no intention of being the same..."

>Quest continues in 12 hours

>removing his defeat record
Absolutely Honorless Behavior. White Knife, KILL this man.

As a reminder during this short break;

1-Post IDs will likely not be counted for important votes. So make sure to get a thread ID early!

>>6267367
Alas, stable IPs are illegal for normal people where i live.

>>6267357
I'll give him time to cook before ai voter to off him.

>>6267371
This generation of supreme candidates is just absolutely cooked
Halam
Honorless Crybaby
>Usis Naonae
Thinks 1984 is an Utopia

Who can even take over from him?

>>6267339
>except maybe a very excited female Jaxtian, har har!
kek

Over the next few weeks, you become trained up and acclimatized to your new role and position of power. In some ways, you wonder if every Supreme Ruler felt the way you do; like you're just supposed to step into some role of another man who has been running the empire for a century right away, and it just feels overwhelming. The sudden amount of information you're exposed to is huge; reports on every sector and industry, machine-state predictions giving you insight into future actions and their consequences, and probably worst of all; your own ideas and desires being put through the wringer of actually having to be made real and concrete. All you have to do is breathe something you think should be changed or improved and a hundred AI models and a thousand experts are already looking into it; simulations and possible cultural impacts served up to you with every perspective analyzed and focus-grouped into an actionable plan. It's scary.

For yourself? You are inheriting the Hegemony from your Father, Avae Anak, which smooths over some aspects of the father-son cultural line of succession to a literal one. He spent his entire reign colonizing the former Hazaari star systems after their cleansing by Hass Takar; and building them up into a formidable empire. Every habitable world there has colonies and fresh cities built, space stations and long-distance industries built up in orbits, research bases, factories, nature preserves, and all the like as advanced and with the infrastructure of the core Hegemonic worlds. To an outsider, these systems would look like they were colonized at the same point in history to your core worlds; not underdeveloped at all; just a fresher coat of paint.

https://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/qstarchive/2024/6107725/

While this has resulted in a huge amount of new livable habitats and created a massive population boom; its main impact has been economic.

The Hegemony in the past, when only inhabiting the core worlds, focused on quality over quantity. Industry focused on meeting the demands of your Supreme Ruler and high administrators instead of capital, mindful of environmental impact, and eliminating as much waste as possible. While decent enough when only owning a single star cluster; you'd think owning two star clusters would double it. But even your training in economics and industry and you couldn't predict its true impact. Not only do you have many more habitable planets, the new Hegemonic races fulfilling new consumer markets, and possible trade between the colonies and homeworlds; you also have the massive impact of the Reassembler technology, which has replaced almost all small-market consumer goods with very efficient forms of recycling. Every ship and colony has fabricators now; and with uplinking to the AI network mandatory to all they can be turned to whatever use you deem fit to better suite your goals.

Your economy hasn't doubled with the new worlds and technology, it's more then tripled.

While you still can't quite measure up to the raw unfettered, degenerate capitalism of the Consortium; your economic output has greatly exceeded both the Esaal and Aristocrats. Even goods they special in, like mineral processing or biological products respectively, you exceed with your own production. The quality of life and resource abundance for Hegemonic citizens has exceeded both nations, with only the Consortium slightly above it as an average; but this is only because of the huge gap between rich and poor in their hellscape of an economic system. All because of your father. He even made the first battleship; increasing your military's strength to surpass the Aristocrats and Consortium further, though you are still behind the Esaal in that regard.

It appears your father's lifelong, thankless work has paid off. Due to his advanced aging, you have decided on your imperial robes. Black, for respect and honor for the dead and those who came before; but with a gray and yellow stripe, representing Cijan Anak and Avae Anak, your father. At least for the moment; three Anak men who are or were Supreme live at the same time, which is most fortuitous. Your robe represents this.

You sit upon a throne as your personal drone approaches, the Threemind opening up its viewscreen and revealing to you many projects. You've only barely settled into your role and already it's pushing you into decision making. Almost feels like the machine disregards your father in some strange way, only a few days having finally stepped down as acting Supreme.

”These are quite large projects, Threes. Are you sure I should be beginning such things so soon? I mean, I have a lot of plans for the Hegemony but... first week?”
“They are well within our ability to complete; we need direction more then anything now. That is your role, after all. The earlier we begin, the earlier you can get returns on what resources were set aside for your ascension.”

You glance over the projects, all things that can be accomplished in about a decade's time or less; short-term projects with higher budgets and more immediate returns. You balk at their scope & predicted cost; things that once would have taken a Supreme Ruler of the past multiple decades to complete are now achievable in the short term.

”Wow. The budget surplus is so high I can do any of these?”
“No, your Majesty.” The AI chirps almost happily. “You can do two.”

Choose Two
>Commission a special, long-range, deep space exploration ship to explore the Galaxy
>Begin Development on the Mark 3 Fusion Core (True Miniaturized Star)
>Build two more Battleships
>Found the Galactic Academy of Starsight
>Mass produce the Life-Extension Drug for regular Citizens
>Migrator Project (Jaxtian, Swall, and Vetucker gene upgrades for Migrators)
>Specialized Crystal-Farming Initiative
>Explore & Expand towards the Galactic Edge (lower quality systems & planets overall)
>Secret Project CHIMERA, CHANGELING, or LIGHTGROWN (Specify; mystery box)
>Flex on the other factions just because you can
No write-ins or 1-Post Ids are allowed for this choice.

>>6267657
Starsight Academy is an absolute must. We know so little about it. It's basically an entirely unexplored frontier of science.

Those mystery boxes are the interesting ones, though. Let's try to see if I can't guess them. Also, Bananas, if you change one because I got it right you will be super gay and your family will be cursed for eleven winters.

>Chimera
That "hybrid" we were talking about, maybe? An "Chimera" of the hegemonic races.
>Changeling
Well, obviously, it's something that changes. The most obvious way would be perhaps something to do with the Leeray? We do have some infiltration tech, I believe, but maybe this would be something more advanced.
>Light grown
No bloody idea.

>>6267657
Damn. A lifetime of being a humble, efficient bureaucrat, ushering in a wondrous golden age. All that, for a homophobic chatbot and your own scoreboard-rigging son to slag you off. At least Halam honored his father on his uniform, and it is a based AF uniform.

Anyway...

>Found the Galactic Academy of Starsight
>Specialized Crystal-Farming Initiative
We crystal psychic future now.

>>6267662

>>6267663
Ah fuck, I hit enter too early

What I wanted to post was, do we even need that many crystals? I feel like betting on something special might be more interesting.

>>6267657
>Found the Galactic Academy of Starsight
>Secret Project - LIGHTGROWN.

>>6267657
Ah, screw it
>Found the Galactic Academy of Starsight
>Secret Project CHIMERA

>>6267657
>>Mass produce the Life-Extension Drug for regular Citizens
>>Migrator Project (Jaxtian, Swall, and Vetucker gene upgrades for Migrators)

The duty of the Supreme is to take care of the citizens. Mass life-extension ensures that people can keep learning and contributing for longer, participating in the economy for decades more, teaching thousands more people. It is a multiplicative investment.

The migrator project will bring them up to the same level as everyone else, further multiplying the effects of everything else we have. Furthermore, I feel like we owe them a great deal, and they have never, EVER, complained. Always helpful and loyal, I feel like they deserve a reward, and some kindness.

>>6267675
The migrator project isn't bad but the life extension drug feels a bit superfluous. I don't like messing much with life extension anyway. This is how we got the "Disintegrate violently" disease that made it so all jaxtians have to commit suicide.

>>6267657
>Found the Galactic Academy of Starsight
>Migrator Project (Jaxtian, Swall, and Vetucker gene upgrades for Migrators)

>>6267664
Didn't we discover that we could control and wield the entire crystalline race and its mysterious empire's resources for the Hegemony if we could just create and broadcast a sufficiently dominant signal? Or am I misremembering? it's been a while.

>>6267326 is me, my ID changed.

>>6267657
>Found the Galactic Academy of Starsight
This, I believe, should be clear enough as to why it's important. We don't know enough about Starsight compared to our main enemy the Worms, as was proven when our starseers got their minds blasted by who-know-what a couple threads ago.

>Begin Development on the Mark 3 Fusion Core (True Miniaturized Star)
I'm voting for this because I think it will have the greatest ROI out off all other options(sans the academy). Improving power generation improves all of the Hegemony, from military vessels(leading to longer services from our ships) to civilian manufactury(which we've already supercharged with the Reassemblers) These, imho, are the boring, low-level developments that cascade into a better overall operation.

>>6267657
>Found the Galactic Academy of Starsight
This is our ace in the hole.

>Explore & Expand towards the Galactic Edge (lower quality systems & planets overall)
We need to get these systems before the Esaal (or whoever) decides to grab them.

>>6267657
Ok BQM this is my current IP im letting you know its going to change, get over it im phoneposting just be aware Ill update you when I notice im at 1 post again and which ones are me
>Found the Galactic Academy of Starsight
This one has been long awaited and weve only gotten stopped because of the hegemonys denial of a soul and how they felt starseers could become a cult (which I mean yeah but its cool)
>Migrator Project (Jaxtian, Swall, and Vetucker gene upgrades for Migrators)
I see a big part of this backfiring if migrators gain the ability to voice opinions that are antithetical to hegemonic values, but I can genuinely only see good things if the longest "other" of the hegemony having arguably more rights than most other species in our fold even if they cant really use those rights, I am eager for us to explore their starseeing abilities more too with the inclusion of the academy which most people seem to want too

>>6267657
>Found the Galactic Academy of Starsight
>Begin Development on the Mark 3 Fusion Core (True Miniaturized Star)

>>6267657
>Begin Development on the Mark 3 Fusion Core (True Miniaturized Star)
>Flex on the other factions just because you can
Starsight is gay, Starcore be ballin’.

Would accept helping our bro Iceberg out with some ballin’ Baal genes, the first Magneto-gator!

>>6267657
>Begin Development on the Mark 3 Fusion Core (True Miniaturized Star)
strait up upgrade
>Specialized Crystal-Farming Initiative
a interesting development in computation, energy manipulation, propulsion and robotics with these crystals and there programmable minds

>>6267846
should i continue doddling on the ape goat fish someone else drew but i only added a hair cut

>>6267848
Do it, it was fun.

Though I still suspect the chimera project is where the cow fish monkey would be made.

>>6267657
>secret project CHIMERA
>Commission a special, long-range, deep space exploration ship to explore the Galaxy

Beancounting.

STARSIGHT ACADEMY: bjq, iPy, xRt, Inh, Thh (1post ID, linked to a previous ID), Y2p, jqb (1 post ID, phoneposter), 6an. TOTAL: 5 non-1 IDs, 2 1-IDs.
CRYSTALS: bjq, +ss (1 post ID when vote was called). TOTAL: 1 non-1 post ID, 1 1 post ID.
SECRET PROJECT - LIGHTGROWN: iPy. TOTAL: 1.
SECRET PROJECT - CHIMERA: k1V, xRt. TOTAL: 2
LIFE EXTENSION: xJu. TOTAL: 1
MARK 3 FUSION: Thh (1post ID but linked to previous ID), 6an, hw+ (1 post ID), +ss (1 post ID when vote was called). TOTAL: 2 1 post ID, 1 linked 1 post ID, 1 regular ID
DEEP EXPLORATION SHIP: k1V
MIGRATOR PROJECT: xJu, Inh, jqb (1 post ID). Total: 2 non-1 post IDs, 1 1-post ID.
EXPLORE THE EDGE: Y2p. TOTAL: 1
FLEX:hw+ (1 post ID). TOTAL: 1, but by a 1 post ID so Bananas will probably ignore

So, by working with Bananas's rules, STARSIGHT is in the lead for first and there's a tie between Chimera and Migrator Project.

>>6268020
If we account for sheer voting pass, STARSIGHT ACADEMY and MARK 3 FUSION are the ones winning. But assuming we're ignoring any ID with 1 post to it like Bananas said.
I'm swapping my vote in >>6267673 to
>Found the Galactic Academy of Starsight
>Migrator Project (Jaxtian, Swall, and Vetucker gene upgrades for Migrators)

>>6268020
>>6267662
I'll switch from Crystals to Migrator Project, too.

Damn, what a shame. The mystery box would have been fun.

Phoneposter here. LIGHTGROWN might be those ultraviolet light sun trees I wrote in months ago. Boy, that would stick it to those Worms.

Hmm... So many choices. So many possible futures for the Hegemony to undertake, and you're itching to spend these banked resources for real gains. What Supreme Ruler doesn't want a blank check; to borrow a capitalist's term?

Ultimately, you first decided to begin development of a Starsight Academy, a place to learn and study Starsight properly. Starsight is the “mystical” ability to see into hyperspace, a curious talent once thought only to be available for creatures born without or damaged vision that allows for navigation and piloting ships for Faster Then Light travel. The school is designed on a large asteroid instead of on a habitable planet; which makes it less defendable but much harder to find via Starsight, as well as making it more “neutral ground” then a Hegemonic core world. It has many facilities including hangars, space flight simulators, accelerators allowing for contained FTL experiments, living spaces, lecture halls, rooms for meditation and similar mental exercises, and more. On top of this, the entire facility is also equipped with a warp drive, though slower then a traditional ship, allowing it to be moved or bring the entire student body into hyperspace for their introduction to “seeing the stars” without shielding, which seemed to be the catalyst to unlock the talent for the very first Jaxtian Starseer, one Kimnan Oles.

To this day, a white lanyard is the most rare color of all in the Hegemonic uniform; representing those specializing in this field. Despite its usefulness and connotations, Starsight has only been given a cursory exploration by Supreme Rulers of the past, given its unpopularity among citizens (given they have to be crippled to participate; though you can grow their eyes back easily now) and it's quasi-religious undertones, going against core beliefs of the Hegemony's culture. It is also underexplored due to it being so personal; with many Starseers have totally unique experiences that cannot be easily replicated or trained. However, given a few standouts, like one Radjo Berax, who was capable of Starsight while he possessed functioning eyes, it is clear there is much more to explore.

”I see the space for climbing poles and excess storage rooms within this academy's design, but are these bird perches? Long straight hallway-style barracks in the Esaal design? What is this architecture, Threes?”
“It is for the Urgi and Esaal students who may one day attend the Academy, your grace.”
”...Why would I ever allow our enemies to study at our most prestigious Academy, Threemind?!”

“They wouldn't be being taught for free, your Majesty. You know that our rivals in space, the Esaal, Consortium, Aristocrats, the burgeoning Urgi state... be have fought with all of them, but also worked with all of them too. They are allies or enemies of convenience. However, we unique among them have developed Starsight independent of the space worms, who could very well be our greatest and most insidious foe. Many Supreme in the past have expressed concern over the rumored “Cyte” and the worms as being the true threat to the Hegemony over these temporary rivals. In any case, having the ability to teach other species in the Galaxy our methods of Starsight to lessen the worm's political strength could be an excellent bargaining chip for the future. This is why our approved design focused on the Academy itself as being the GALAXY'S finest, not just the Hegemony.”
”Hmm... Perhaps you're right. In the same way the worms have a political stranglehold over Starsight, we could have a competition to their “monopoly”, and spread our political influence through something vital to all intergalactic trade, warfare, and diplomacy...”
“Precisely.”
”In that case, I approve of these designs. But I don't expect to see any of those kinds of students any time soon...”

As for the Migrators, the mysterious fourth race of the Hegemony. Discovered by the Jaxtians before the Vetuckers or Swall, these aquatic animals were only spared by Wrix Val the Unspeakable's purge due to being of low intelligence and more useful as Starsight navigators. Thought to be little more then uplifted animals, only during the reforms and racial integration of Hass Takar were they given more education and treatment as “citizens”, though most of them (the same ones still alive from first contact), don't really understand the concept of governments or work or pay or whatever else. Their numbers were always extremely small, and only started to grow after the acquisition of HBTP-OW1, as the Esaal named it, a cold-water habitable ocean planet loaned to the Hegemony by the Esaal within Esaal space.

“We can begin combining our DNA with the Migrators immediately, your highness. Given their slow rate of reproduction, Migrators should be genetically altered as soon as possible. Here are the stats and figures.”
”...I'm surprised the Migrators are so genetically compatible with the other Hegemonic races; not being bipedal or terrestrial or anything. I figured we'd hit a wall with interlacing genetic material of organisms too different from us at some point; I suppose that's the “Maktana Magic” for you.”
“There is an ongoing theory that the similarity between species in the galaxy near each other is no coincidence but based on convergent evolution, though the Migrators are still an exception. Anyways; these gene upgrades will alter their biology significantly from the cold-water evolution. Their lifespan will be reduced to about half, about 500 years, but given their previous lifestyle of being asleep for 99% of their lives anyway...”
”This will be an added benefit, and more effective time. I would hate to be asleep for almost my entire life myself; this is well worth it. Them actually being awake for a war fleet will more then make up for it.”

In addition to the general advancement of the Migrator genome, meaning increases to their metabolism and ability to live in more aquatic environments; you also have the ability to add specific mutations to further adapt the species to your liking. After all, no expense will be spared on this project, the Threemind says, but reminds you that these changes will take some time to appear in the Migrator's gene pool and will not be able to be changed in the future, so choose wisely.

From the primate genetic traits, the Migrators can be granted genes similar to the pre-Jaxtian common ancestor of Jaxtian races; the spidermonkey, whose genes determine the length and prehensile strength of the Jaxtian tail. Akule selected populations of Jaxtians with a high enough percentage of Spidermonkey DNA that they could fully support themselves with just their tail alone. In the Migrators, we can copy these patterns to increase the length and strength of Migrator tails, giving them improved swimming speed and mobility. While its influence on their Starsight abilities is unknown, hooking them up to the inside of a water-filled cockpit could allow for them to become regular pilots. Secondly, we could also copy over the Alpha-male polymorphic gene, allowing for some Migrators to become much larger and stronger then others, likely the males, leading to increased longevity but slower development for some migrators.

From the herbivore traits of the Vetuckers; we can grant the Migrators either a mutation to consume plankton and completely change their current diet into that of a filter-feeding creature; able to support a much larger population with farming, or individual-specific skin patterns from the “Painted Faces” Vetucker genetic group; which would give the Migrators much more individuality and help with social identification. This could lead to a certain amount of tribalism among their kind, but this could be manipulated for our benefit.

Finally, the Swall being partially aquatic, likely have traits most useful for the Migrators. Their possible mutations are the toxin adaptation; similar to the Swall acidic ink spit they can use for self defense. This would allow the Migrators to partially absorb certain common toxins in their home waters, especially tropical or warmer climates, to both protect themselves from predators and make their biology more adaptable. Finally, a similar gill-lung structure could make the Migrators able to survive outside of water by breathing air; though their weight will still crush their organs if left out of water for too long. Simply put, this would make them more amphibious.

You may choose one choice for each Donor species in your vote
Jaxtian
>Spidermonkey Genes
>Selective Gigantism

Vetucker
>Filter-Feeding Mutation
>Patterned Coats

Swall
>Toxin Adaptation
>Limited Amphibian

>>6268200
>Spidermonkey Genes
>Filter-Feeding Mutation
>Toxin Adaptation

>>6268200
>Selective Gigantism
>Patterned Coats
>Toxin Adaptation

>>6268200
>Spidermonkey Genes
If we wanted the Migrators to live longer but develop slower, we could just not mess with them, right? Though I guess either way they're more alert and responsive on Jaxtian timescales... But they still have 500 years.

>Filter-Feeding Mutation
I don't want to teach our fishbros factionalism.

>Toxin Adaptation
If they aren't going to be comfortable and live on out of water anyway, this seems better. It improves their ability to populate otehr worlds and to survive in hostile environments during conflict.

>>6268200
>Spidermonkey Genes
In an aquatic or semi-aquatic setting, mobility and agility trump raw power. A third prehensile limb is gold—especially when swimming, piloting, or multitasking in tight spaces. Selective gigantism sounds cool, but it’s inefficient for a breeding population unless your goal is to create alpha-guards or warlords.
>Patterned Coats
Filter-feeding sounds optimal on paper, but boring and possibly limiting. Aesthetics and identity matter—especially in a narrative. Patterned coats give personality, social dynamics, and controllable tribalism. You can always feed them later; you can’t fabricate culture from scratch.
>Toxin Adaptation
It’s a power. Amphibious capability is cool but kneecapped by the “crush under own weight” clause. Toxin resistance and acid spit gives you survivability and a threat factor. Also—immune to polluted water? That’s long-term evolutionary advantage.

If other players dont want that route we can also go the complete opposite to make the equivalent of hippolike water dependants that can walk on land for a few hours
>>6267791
This is me if it doesnt put a 2 by my reply counter

The "crushing under their own weight" thing is specifically meant to be like what happens to beached whales or dolphins, they are not any weaker or more likely to die out of water with that upgrade, if anything they'll survive longer, it would just let them survive in more oxygen-starved water and be more personable to other members of the Hegemony.

I still think people are going to choose the other option for this one regardless but I just wanted to make that clear.

Can I just say that having the Migrators become 'normal people' might backfire horribly?

What's stopping them from turning into the damn Navigator's Guild of the Hegemony?

>>6268315
>What's stopping them from turning into the damn Navigator's Guild of the Hegemony?

The Galactic Academy of Starsight we're about to build?

>>6268353
Navigators are naturally prone to Starsight, they'd have a gigantic advantage. If they were allowed to go to the Academy, that'd make it even worse.

You ever hear the phrase 'Blessed is the mind too small for doubt'? Well, the Navigators were pretty damn blessed.

Allowing the Navigators to become a normal 'race' with minds and opinions and individuality will doom us to eventually be in their pockets, I tell you. Even with this, they will live five hundred years. Imagine what an Navigator Yuan'tul could do?

>>6268200
>Spidermonkey Genes
>Filter-Feeding Mutation
>Toxin Adaptation

>>6268358
>Imagine what an Navigator Yuan'tul could do?
Get himself and his species wrecked even harder?

>>6268456
The difference here is that Hazaar didn't control the lifeblood of our very nation.

>>6268457
Neither will the Navigators if we make sure to train lots of non-Navigators at iur fancy new Jedi Academy. This starting point of preemptive paranoia worries me, though, since that's how the Hazaar related schisms started. I will politely cede the point, and the possibility, to you.

>>6268460
>Neither will the Navigators if we make sure to train lots of non-Navigators at iur fancy new Jedi Academy.
And you're going to spend an insane amount of effort and resources to blind people for the sole purpose of making them into pilots who will inevitably be far worse than a navigator at doing it?

This isn't paranoia, this is literally just an logical conclusion. Imagine if the horses in a pre-industrialization society became sapient and capable of assembling politically? Sure, you could use cows or something, but they're not horses.

>>6268461
>And you're going to spend an insane amount of effort and resources to blind people for the sole purpose of making them into pilots who will inevitably be far worse than a navigator at doing it?
Yep. We're already in the process of doing it. I will vote to continue doing so. Blinding them, or at least leaving them blind, isn't even structly necessary long-term. I think it's well worth it to avoid the exact scenario you're worried about. I'm not sure why you're fighting me on that?

>This isn't paranoia, this is literally just an logical conclusion.
The possibility of their having too much leverage is a logical conclusion. The stating of it as a certainty, which will "doom" us, all while refusing to consider means to mitigate this (see above) is something else. But you're right: Navigator sapience could doom us, maybe or at least complicate things. We already voted for it, though. Sorry, anon.

not that sorry, actually, but if this turns into another voter wedge and reduces thread civility, I will be sad

>>6268463
>I'm not sure why you're fighting me on that?
I'm saying that you'd be actively hindering the hegemony and being forced to spend a bunch of capable starseers into being glorified pilots, and for extremely minor 'bonuses' to navigators which could easily be turned against us.

>The stating of it as a certainty, which will "doom" us, all while refusing to consider means to mitigate this (see above) is something else
At best, it will be a permanent ulcer on the side of the hegemony that wastes resources for the sake of safety. At worst, it'll end up with the navigators literally just becoming the worms.

But i guess people decided to switch to that at the last moment, so now we have to deal with this for the rest of the quest. Fun.

>>6268200
>Selective Gigantism
>Patterned Coats
>Limited Amphibian

I like the idea of of turning the Mitigators into hyper-experienced Navigators, able to experience eons in a blink of an eye- like, just imagine the mythos arising from a portion of the population still being around from Maktana I’s age, the accumulative, living embodiment of the wisdom of the Hegemony.

Also, Whale Marine sound legit yoooooo!

>>6268200
Though I will state, Spidermonke and Toxin Adaptation is a kino mix- we can make them into a regular fighter pilot corps.

I left out the Ventuckers genes because the difference there is more quantity (bigger population) vs quality (tribal in-fighting leading to extremely viscous wolf-pack mindset and tactics).

>>6268461
>And you're going to spend an insane amount of effort and resources to blind people for the sole purpose of making them into pilots who will inevitably be far worse than a navigator at doing it?
Tbh, that does track with what our glorious founder Akule intended for Monke-kind.

>>6268315
Also, I’d be more worried about the fact that we establishing and promoting a ‘pseudo-religious’ academy that has been noted as antithetical to the Hegemony’s belief system.

The Mitigator worry is cute in comparison, especially considering the genius Iceberg was explicitly low-IQ and the fact that the Worms actively hunt our Mitigators/Navigators in the Spirit World (which is a salient point in favor of trying to develop a wolf-pact mentality in our Sightseer community. Total Worm Death by da Big Fish, Hail Eoba II!)

>>6268502
>Also, I’d be more worried about the fact that we establishing and promoting a ‘pseudo-religious’ academy that has been noted as antithetical to the Hegemony’s belief system.
Anon, if souls are real, then the Hegemony is objectively wrong and the best way to deal with it is by steering it in a way that is beneficial to the hegemony instead of going full three-monkey.

>The Mitigator worry is cute in comparison, especially considering the genius Iceberg was explicitly low-IQ
Yeah, but that was the previous navigators who slept for 99% of their life. The new navigators will not, and they will live for 500 years. We'd be creating an class of long-lived people who are completely integral to our society yet entirely detached from its needs.

Again, Navigator Guild.

>>6268504
I don’t want to derail the thread too much here, but I do find it hilarious that you’re advocating a fundamental change that would destroy the Hegemony ideologically and the state the cute Mitigator bros are an existential threat because they’re a discount Life Pod option.

I trust the Mitigators more, especially since we can indoctrinate them into pro-Hegemony beliefs without them having to experience the ideological contradiction that Starsight entails for higher IQ bipedal races.

Besides, the Mitigator have no concept of hierarchy of societal needs, and lack the socialization and the IQ to attempt a consolidation of power. Them trying to establish a ‘Mitigator Guild’ is just a boogeyman detached from the reality of what they are. Even the ideological pure Wrix the Unspeakable spared they’re lives because they’re just not a social entity, same as the Baal of Max-Mind.

>>6268517
I think the fearful anon is worried that they will beocme more social, hierarchical, and ideologically-complex as a result of this uplift. It's less about current capabilities than future ones. Of course, those future capabilities are purely hypothetical right now.

>>6268517
>I don’t want to derail the thread too much here, but I do find it hilarious that you’re advocating a fundamental change that would destroy the Hegemony ideologically and the state the cute Mitigator bros are an existential threat because they’re a discount Life Pod option.
Hardly. If souls exist, then plugging your ears and going 'LALALALALALA' isn't going to help the Hegemony in any way.

>Besides, the Mitigator have no concept of hierarchy of societal needs, and lack the socialization and the IQ to attempt a consolidation of power.
Anon, you keep assuming they're going to keep the same IQ when the only reason their IQ is so low right now is because they literally spend 99% of their time sleeping.

Do you really think that a race that will live for 500 years will be content doing nothing but swimming in a tank for the service of someone else?

>>6268522
Anon, we can let them do things besides swimming in our tanks. They'll have a whole subset of society.

>>6268524
> They'll have a whole subset of society.
Yes, which means they'll be developing a culture. They'll be developing opinions. They might start approving or disapproving of things. And unlike your average hegemonic citizen, they'll be not only a lot harder to control due to being fish (good luck spying on an entire sea) but also a whole lot more important.

That's why I said that it's a bad idea. You can say that it's "just hypothetical", but it's also an hypothetical which is very much likely.

>>6268527
>spying on fish
We already do that , and Esaal will make a good go-between and supervisory caste.

The fact is: we're upgrading them. It's too late to stop it. All you can do is help steer the course moving forward. Doomposting won't revert the decision.

>>6268531
>We already do that
Esaal aren't really fish, they pretty much live on land. They're more like amphibians. How are you gonna spy on that entire ice moon of theirs?

>The fact is: we're upgrading them. It's too late to stop it.
Alas, a bunch of people decided to change their votes just before the time ended and I wasn't even there to offer any counter-arguments.

No option here is really going to stop this from happening, it doesn't really matter what you choose. I'm just pointing out that you DID choose for something that will bite us in the ass.

>>6268521
>beocme more social, hierarchical, and ideologically-complex as a result of this uplift
More they are now? Sure, but thinking they’re the second coming of the Huzzar is ridiculous. I’d be more worried about the Swalli pulling a Yuan than a Mitigator that doesn’t even reach normal IQ.

>>6268522
>Hardly. If souls exist, then plugging your ears and going 'LALALALALALA' isn't going to help the Hegemony in any way
I ain’t going to educate you on what a sudden collapse of the Hegemony’s guiding ideological structure is going to do for our civilization, but the term ‘nothing good’ applies- we don’t want the Unspeakable levels of ideological upheaval that rediscovering the soul will bring. Been there, done that,

>Do you really think that a race that will live for 500 years will be content doing nothing but swimming in a tank for the service of someone else?
What makes you think that they won’t? IQ isn’t just education, but requires a higher functioning brain to properly develop a proper abstraction for concepts such as the soul or a corporate interest, and introducing post-evolutionary tribalism isn’t suddenly going to make them desire Spice in order to stay alive.

>>6268527
>Yes, which means they'll be developing a culture. They'll be developing opinions. They might start approving or disapproving of things. And unlike your average hegemonic citizen, they'll be not only a lot harder to control due to being Starsight capable(good luck spying on an entire spirit world) but also a whole lot more important
I’d argue that’s more relevant in our establishment of the Starsight Academy than a bunch of fish with equivalent intelligence to their tank-water temperature.

>>6268535
>I ain’t going to educate you on what a sudden collapse of the Hegemony’s guiding ideological structure
Ideology will not stop the soul from existing, if the Hegemony starts actively ignoring the existence of such gigantic concepts of reality, it will not be good, especially if we want to stop the rule of the worms.

>What makes you think that they won’t?
Anon, the update makes it clear that the genemods will make it so they're no longer in constant hybernation mode. The fact that one of the options is 'divide them into a bunch of artificial ethnicites' should tell you enough. They're absolutely going to get a huge bump in intelligence, and even if they don't, the fact that they'll live 500 years means they'll easily have more experience than any genius the hegemony ever would have. Like Cijan currently is.

>I’d argue that’s more relevant in our establishment of the Starsight Academy than a bunch of fish with equivalent intelligence to their tank-water temperature.
The difference, anon, is that the people from the academy aren't completely vital to the very existence of the hegemony like navigators are.

>>6268534
>>6268531
>Esaal
I meant Swalli, woops. I made an Ewok/Wookie alien syllable mix-up

>Amphibians vs full fish
Fair, but Swalli can still do the spying for us.

>I'm just pointing out that you DID choose for something that will bite us in the ass.
Okay. We heard you. Are you done? It's becoming a bit of a dead horse flogging situation.

Interrupting the discussion with Beancounting.

JAXTIAN
SPIDER MONKEY: 4 (Inh, bQ+, bjq, 2TW)
GIGANTISM: 2 (hw+, iPy)

VETUCKER
PATTERNED COATS: 3 (iPy, bQ+, hw+)
FILTER: 3 (Inh, bjq, 2Tw)

SWALL
TOXIN: 5 (Everyone but hw+)
AMPHIBIAN: 1 (hw+)

We have a tie for FILTER vs PATTERN

>>6268539
>if the Hegemony starts actively ignoring the existence of such gigantic concepts of reality
The Hegemony already actively ignores the existence of the soul, explicitly in this update, while promoting the academy. It’s a Hegelian contradiction, if you ever played Fallout New Vegas.

>They're absolutely going to get a huge bump in intelligence, and even if they don't, the fact that they'll live 500 years means they'll easily have more experience than any genius the hegemony ever would have
So? They still don’t have a higher functioning brain capable of abstraction.

Besides, dividing them on surface level characteristics is better than giving them a collective class conciseness by your own logic.

>The difference, anon, is that the people from the academy aren't completely vital to the very existence of the hegemony like navigators are.
The difference, anon, is that we can induce hibernation by cooling their water tanks and switch them out with a more compliant Mitigator. Meanwhile, we lack any objective and material way to surveillance an astral book club among the students in the Starsight academy. They have the ability to socialize and organize among themselves without our knowledge, in a quasi-religious field that’s antithetical to the ruling belief structure.

The fish becoming tribal luddites isn’t the existential threat you should fear, anon.

>>6268541
I just find the conversation amusing, but I’ll stop feeding the monkey now.

>>6268546
>The Hegemony already actively ignores the existence of the soul, explicitly in this update, while promoting the academy
True, because we aren't really looking much into starsight and this information was repressed. At some point, more proof might be found that would make it undeniable.

>So? They still don’t have a higher functioning brain capable of abstraction.
That's just an assumption you're making. There's no reason to believe they will stay the same.

>The difference, anon, is that we can induce hibernation by cooling their water tanks and switch them out with a more compliant Mitigator.
How many navigators are you going to keep in each ship? Do you think they won't start demanding 'shore leave' for their ice planet too?

Ignore me, sure, but when the migrators start organizing, don't say I didn't warn you.

>>6268200
Actually, could we give the Mitigator’s the Ventucker gene to become partially brain asleep while staying semi-conscious? I just curious what that’ll do for our Mitigator bros.

Since we're currently tied on the Vetucker donor-gene adaptation, we'll give it a little more time for someone to break the tie. If nobody does, it will be decided randomly.

>>6268652
I don't know whether the patterned coats would make them a bigger or smaller threats. The tribalism is nice but their individuality increases pretty highly, right?

>>6268653
I've been enjoying reading the discussion.

For a peak behind the curtain; I want to give an opportunity to make Migrators actual characters since I forget about them a lot, so giving them patterns or different sizes or whatever would make them more unique and similar to the Painted Face Vetucker clan.
Originally one of the choices was going to be a predatory Adaptation from the Swall-donor genetics (since I always imagined Swall being genetic cousins to the "Zharks" on their world) making the Migrators more aggressive and like weaponized fish you could use in fights/duels or whatever but it would be weird if you could combine it with filter feeding so I decided against it.

>>6268657
I guess. I still think this was a mistake and we should have went with the chimera project, but if they're going to be actual people, we might as well try to divide and conquer them

I'll vote for
>Patterned Coats

>>6268660
Where's the rest of your vote buddy?

>>6268661
I literally can't affect any other vote, but if i had to choose
>Gigantism
>Patterned Coats
>Amphibian

>>6268663
>no other votes before this prompt

>>6268667
Well it has only been three days, and anon has maintained a consistent ID for 13+ hours.

>>6268669
Ehh, fair enough. I'll rescind the shitpost... for now.

>>6268667
Bananas, you know damn well that "Consistent IDs" don't do jackshit to stop samefagging, are you just going to ban everyone who doesn't have a static IP when that isn't even going to stop the samefag?

>>6268200
>spidermonkey
>Patterned coats
>Toxin adaptation

Aka how to have unique migrators.

>>6268701
...wouldn't the gigantism option be the one that makes them unique?

>>6268673
Anon, this isn't the first thread where this has been the rule.

>>6268652
Not trying to campaign or anything but there’s something to be said for the Painted Face Vetucker strain because if the Migrators are anything like Earth’s manatees slow gentle kind of hard to tell apart it might help to give them something that breaks that mold a bit since a splash of individuality goes a long way and patterned coats aren’t just pretty once each one has a unique look they stop being a blob of sea-cows and start becoming people and you get recognition names cliques all that social glue for a species that probably isn’t wired for hierarchy by default and sure it might lead to some tribalism but let’s be honest that’s not always a bad thing because a little friendly division can create roles drive innovation even give us levers to pull if we ever need to influence things and the best part is it’s low-risk since we’re not messing with their guts or metabolism just skin and if it goes sideways we can pivot and they’ll still be manatee-types sure but now they’ll be manatees with stories and maybe that’s the difference between an uplifted species that thrives and one that just floats around eating sea lettuce forever

>>6268280
Me at work

I am working on the update, just a bit bigger then I expected.

You have decided on the features and traits you are going to extensively gene-mod into the Migrators. They will have longer tails and faster swimming ability, body markings and increased visual diversity, and the ability to adapt and absorb certain toxins. All in all, the Migrators will be much different now. Beyond them being a bit sleeker and more adapted to warmer waters and more active lifestyles; a secondary effect of this mutation seems to be an enhanced development of the jaw and especially large fangs; probably used to crush shellfish or break through ice-flows. Strangely, this mutation doesn't seem to come from any of your meddling, and inherent to the Migrators when climes warm.

Naturally, given their glacially slow rate of reproduction, it will take some time for these effects to fully manifest in the Migrator gene pool. Hopefully, a future Supreme can benefit from them as more full and active citizens, instead of curiosities.

In the meanwhile, you contact Usis Nanonae, your colleague and fellow candidate for Supremacy, and ask him about his progress on his special project. He tells you the Urgi bio-bots are ready. Excellent.

”Hegemonic control always prefers in-person meetings for sensitive things like this. I do hope there's no hard feelings... you know, for my father picking me over you.”
“Not at all, your Majesty. Better you then that fish, for certain.”
”I uhh... expected your workshop to be more... spy related. If I can be honest. I thought you'd be a little more focused on the craft.”

The smaller Jaxtian doesn't seem to want to say the first thing that came to his mind, probably because it wasn't a proper response for the Supreme Ruler.

“No, your Majesty, that is already taken care of. I had the biobots ready during your Father's reign, but lacked the operational go ahead for actually infiltrating their society or influencing things. We were both a bit young for that kind of thing anyway, at the time.”
”So you've been spending the time since then... playing with fruit?”

“No, your Majesty, it is but a curiosity of mine.”
”What is?”
“Look at this screen. Do you see the beautiful Jaxtian woman on it? The curves of her body? I had the AI match her curvature to the little fruit sculpture I made over there.”
”And?”
“Well, isn't it curious? You can look at her, and you feel arousal. You see a beautiful woman, and your brain feels desire. But you see an identical curve, and identical mathematical beauty, and yet you don't feel the same. What causes this? Our brain lets us interpret patterns...”
”What are you talking about? Those aren't the same thing.”
“I know they aren't! That's not what I mean! How do you know the difference? You can look at a beautiful Jaxtian woman under a red light, and never do you mistake her for an Esaal whore. If you take these fruits and cast them in blue light, and connect them together under a membrane, and give that membrane a skin like texture... and then it will look as the woman does. But at no point does your brain react to it as the woman does until it is indistinguishable or the image is so distorted you can't tell them apart- our minds cannot possibly hold every possible permutation of image possible we can see and react to. So how we can interpret it? Is it math? Is it the context? This curve is the same; they are both borne of organic molecules. But do you feel aroused by these fruits, your Majesty?”
”No, I can't say I am.” You slap your belly. ”Except arousing my hunger maybe, har har!”
“...This computer display can generate any image I want. It creates an image on the screen exactly as it would appear in the real world; the same thing my eyes see. Yet my senses and my nerves feed information into my brain that becomes abstract. To this screen, the image generated of a Jaxtian woman, or landscape, or complex machinery; all of it is merely pixels and light patterns displayed with electronic precision. Yet it creates meaning- how can something you see or something you touch transfer to meaning and emotion effortlessly, wired from raw imput. How can you know what beauty is? Or fear? Or peace? What equation regulates it, what color-scale accents it? Where in the brain can it hide? I must know.”
”...Usis, you are my spymaster. I need your help. If you were Supreme, you could sit here all day and fret about with these pointless philosophical questions. But the situation with the Urgi requires more immediate concern. Do you understand? I will have none of this prattle during such a pivotal moment. The firing of random neurons in the body concern me very little!”
“...Of course, your Majesty.” Usis sighed. Clearly, a frustration he can't express properly has been aired here. “And that is why you are the Supreme Ruler... and I am not.”
”Attaboy! Now let's go rig an election!”

The Urgi are Federating. Within the space left behind from the AristoEsaal conflict that went on for many years during your father's reign, the Urgi space pirates have moved in and colonized the space. With many bombed and biodepleted worlds in the interim space; other space empires seemed hesitant to conquer the territory. But the Urgi, birds accustomed to living in space, have found a home here among the natural satellites, asteroids, moons, and many other environments suitable for space habitats and shelters.

Unlike the Esaal, Hegemony, or Aristocrats; the Urgi are much more fractionalized and independent, similar to the Consortium species. Being made up for many small and independent social groups; the Urgi have been a large part of the Galactic Underground, the loose multispecies organization of independent people, businesses, and groups that operate underneath the nose of the larger powers in space. Mostly known to the Hegemony as pirates who raided colonies; the Urgi's situation has changed as large swathes of territory became available for the taking. To the Hegemony's surprise, the Urgi are actually becoming a nation.

Since your father's time, some things have changed. The Accord, a small collection of independent captains and people who valued meritocratic rule of law and tradition; has grown to a fully fledged faction in Urgi freespace. Your father's decision to let them live in the border zones between your empire, freespace, and the Esaal had a strong part in that; giving them breathing space and furthering ties between them and the Hegemony. The Redwings, made up of the Bloodwings and Darkwing mercenary groups combined, represent another strong faction. Finally the Gold-Dipped Feathers have renamed to the Goldwings and incorporated many independents into a strong merchant coalition. Only one of these three great factions will Rule.

However, instead of a nuclear holocaust like the Hegemony; the Urgi are coming together democratically. They are going to vote on which group will reign Supreme; whichever faction gets the most votes, will win. The concept is ridiculous to you; but represents a massive opportunity for the Hegemony.

The Urgi Council is made up of Sixteen seats. Some seats are held by representatives for large swathes of the Urgi's population; the Ice-Belt Mining Coalition or Nebula City's population wanting a voice in the proceedings. Other seats are held just by rich and powerful; famous captains known for adventure across the stars, or grand leaders of pirate fleets; and some seats are just held by religious and spiritual leaders; to which the Urgi also unfortunately still have not yet advanced beyond.

”Threemind? Rundown the political situation. How can we manipulate the council?”
“Each council member has interests. These are represented by the symbols above their heads. Each interest a council member has represents an equal chance to vote for that corresponding faction when it comes time for the election. Given the Urgi are socially undeveloped, they are using a one vote per council member, an inferior system rife with corruption.”
”So we can predict who they will vote for?”
“Yes. Each council member will vote for one of their interests. For example, Council Member #6 is a pirate leader; an infamous pirate known as Whitewing. The albino Urgi only knows warfare as a trade, but only does it for money. We cannot fully predict how he will vote; but come election day he will vote either for whichever faction is the most militaristic and powerful militarily, or whichever is the most capitalistic and rich. Only one.”
”Break down the Interests.”
“The first three interests are for the specific factions; the Accord, the Redwings, and the Goldwings. If a senate member votes for this interest, they will simply vote for the faction. Then it gets more complex. Militarists will vote for whatever faction is the most powerful, represented by the red bars by their faction designation letter on the council screen. Capitalists will vote for whichever faction is the richest and prosperous, represented by the green bars. Pacifists meanwhile are the opposite of militarists and will vote for whichever faction is the least militarized, and has the least number of weapons. Populists represent the common people; often minors or galley-slaves aboard ships, and will vote for the least capitalistic, or poorest faction with the least green bars. Finally, Isolationists by and large want to return to how things were before with little central authority and stay out of the way of other large powers in space, and will vote for whichever faction is both the least militarized and capitalistic or has the least bars total, and the Supremacists are the opposite, simply voting for whichever faction is the most powerful overall. Be warned, not all interests as so simple. Isolationists will very likely react poorly to overt support by outside powers in the Council's decision.”
”Heh... that must mean me.”

“Truthfully, your Majesty, the Urgi are a species well accustomed to subterfuge and trickery. It has supported their lifestyle in space for hundreds of years. As birds, with hollow bones and coming from low gravity worlds, they are very risk averse. They have none of the honor culture or great brave dueling culture we do. As such, it is well understood that this election will be no different, and not exactly fair and transparent. Each faction, and even individuals is vying for power here. They will do anything to win the vote and become the ruling voice in the new Urgi state; whichever faction wins will gain the political power and consent of the masses, and will likely influence which greater power in space the Urgi ally themselves with. This is a massive moment for them... and a huge opportunity for us. Your father began our relationship with the Accord on a strong foot. Imagine the alliance we could forge with them if they became the dominant faction in Urgi space.”
”Understood. Contact the spymasters, and collect information on the Council. Let's see what kind of chaos I can cause...”

The Redwings are highly militarized and already associated with the Esaal. Their “boiling guns” are of interest to the Esaal; and you know any weapon that interests those warmongers must be extremely worthwhile. They are highly likely to join with their neighboring Esaal before the more decadent and soft Hegemony. The Goldwings on the other hand are extremely mercantile, and will plunge the Urgi into centuries of capitalist degeneration; going hand-in-hand with the Consortium's aims. They've already adopted the Consortium Credit, and each transaction they make is only going to increase the value of their currecny even more. Even culturally, they will likely take more towards the slave-owning and extravagant displays of wealth ways of the Aristocrats then your own culture.

The Urgi as a race and a people are going to become a major player in space. It is inevitable; gaining ownership of a large war-torn region of space with their unique technological history and position as experienced spacers with connections all over the underground mean they are already familiar with many of the perils and opportunities in space. This is nothing like the Hegemony putting out its first measly Star-Dynamo sub-light ships to explore your own solar system. This will be a fully fledged space-fairing empire now in its birthing stages. And you have the opportunity to influence it.

The Accord must win.

”Threemind... not all the council members have obvious interests! And what of Council Seat #1, who has no predicted interest?!”
“I am sorry my lord, even with our information, we can't fully predict how these flighty birds will act come the day of decision. The question marks represent mystery interest symbols that we will figure out later when we know more about those council members, and the black bars for hidden stats, as we don't fully know each factions true capabilities yet. As for Council Seat #1... Those without interests can only have one true interest.”
”...Themselves. Typical.”
“Yes. Those without any interests are likely to vote for whichever faction simply benefits them the most, or is highly likely to sell it at the last minute for great wealth or power when the new order takes control. Be careful, your Majesty.”
”Damn... if Usis was Supreme, he probably could have figured those ones out already. And how long do we have?”
“The council is still debating on the exact day of the election, but are beginning to put down the ground work on laws, practices, and distributions of resources that will naturally take years due to bureaucracy and bickering. I can safely predict that we will have at least three opportunities to shape the council to your liking, your Majesty.”
”Alright then... Democracy, you're about to see whose really in charge!”

>Pick TWO Council Members and give both ONE new Non-Faction Interest (Specify)
>Eliminate ONE Council Member (Specify; Creates a new Council member with random symbols)
>Turn ONE Council Member without a Faction Interest into an Accord Supporter (Specify)
>Lobby an Interest (Specify) which will DOUBLE UP the symbol for two random Council Members who already have it
>Denounce an Interest. ONE Random Council Member will lose that symbol.
>Arm the Accord (Gives +1 Red Bars to the Accord)
>Grant lucrative trade deals to a faction (Gives +1 Green Bars to any faction)
>Hire Privateers to attack a faction (Randomly take -1 Red OR Green Bar from a faction)
>Gather intelligence (Reveals all Question Marks and Black Stat-Bars)
No Write-Ins except to Specify plans are allowed for this vote

>>6268879
Geez, that's gonna take a while to break down.

Alright, to start the discussion, I went and counted the votes per faction. Each vote is color coded to represent the other interest held by the voter of that faction. If they have the same color as that faction, that means they're a "Purist" who has no other interest (yet) and black means it's an unknown interest.

Capitalists were changed to orange because they had the same color as the accord.

>>6268884
With a cursory glance at the votes, I'm trying to think of a strategy here. I'm going to assume we only have ONE action per 'turn', right Bananas? Or is it three actions we choose all at once?

>>6268886
One action only, normal voting structure. Due to the complexity of people choosing the same action (but could choose different targets) we might use a secondary voting round to make it as fair as possible.

>>6268884
"Supremacy Plan"

According to the votes, the factions are divided half by half in being 'compatible' - we'll call those the LOW Faction, which wants low stats (Pacifists, Populists, Isolationists) and the HIGH faction (Militarists, Capitalists and Supremacists) which wants the opposite. The Accord has one of each. HOWEVER. As a whole, the HIGH faction that MORE VOTERS than the LOW faction. There's literally only one guy who supports Pacifism or Populism.

However, the High Faction has the issue of the Accord not being able to actually surpass those other two. They could become the most militarist, but then they'd have only one action left. They could become the most capitalist, but at the cost of *all* their actions, and even then they might fail due to the 'hidden stats'

Unless someone can come up with a better plan, I believe it might be in our best interest to use the first turn gathering intelligence.

As a non-voting lurker, please tell me if I am wrong, but when I keep looking at the undecided Seat 1 he seems to be wearing something quite similar to one of the Hegemony Lanyards around his neck. They may be attempting to ape the Hegemony, but it's hard to tell what color its supposed to be. It's not yellow or green, but maybe its the closest color they could get to either. It might be good to investigate along those lines to see if we have an easier avenue to sway them to our side.

>>6268879
>Gather intelligence (Reveals all Question Marks and Black Stat-Bars)
Look, I'm just going to vote for SOMETHING so we don't just end up staring at drywall for 24 hours because of vote paralysis or whatever.

We have four mystery dudes and two mystery bars. While the mystery dudes are more important, we can guess what the mystery bars are with like four possible arrangement.

Possibility #1

REDWING MYSTERY BAR: RED
GOLDWING MYSTERY BAR: RED
This would result in RW having 4R/1G and GW having 2R/4G This means RW would win over the Militarists and Populists, GW wins over the Pacifists, Capitalists and Supremacists and Accord wins over the Isolationists.
Granted, this doesn't account for thoes who will just vote for their own faction

Possibility #2
REDWING MYSTERY BAR: GREEN
GOLDWING MYSTERY BAR: GREEN

This leaves RW with 3R/2G and GW with 1R/5G. RW would win over the Militarists, GW wins over the Capitalists/Supremacists/Pacifists, Accord wins over the Isolationists and the Populists would be tied between Accord and Redwing.

Possibility #3
REDWING MYSTERY BAR: RED
GOLDWING MYSTERY BAR: GREEN
4R/1G for RW. 1R/5G for GW. RW would win over the Militarists and Populists, GW would win over the Pacifists/Capitalists/Supremacists, Accord would win over the Isolationists.

POSSIBILITY #4
REDWING MYSTERY BAR: GREEN
GOLDWING MYSTERY BAR: RED
3/2 for RW, 2/4 for GW. RW could win over the Militarists, GW could win over the Capitalists/Supremacists, Accord could win over the Isolationists. The pacifists would be split between Accord and Goldwing, Populists would be split between the RW and the Accord

We need more information on what bars we exactly have but out of the current arrangement, I think one of the better actions we can do besides information is to spread either the Populist or Pacifists factions while denouncing Militarists. Depends on which possibility wins.
I do hope it's POSSIBILITY #4 since that might give us more to work with via the PACIFISTS and POPULISTS being possibly split between two factions.

>>6268879
WTF are the red ones? Are those disguised Essal?


>Gather intelligence (Reveals all Question Marks and Black Stat-Bars)

I guess.

>>6268879
>Gather intelligence (Reveals all Question Marks and Black Stat-Bars)
Well, since no one else has made any plan...hoping that my ID is still here

>>6269007
Thankfully, it seems to be.

>>6269007
Every plan I have ride or dies depending on how the mystery bars and the four question marks plays out. Can't exactly play texas hold 'em when two of the cards in your hand are smeared with jet black tar.

>>6268879
Judging by facial expressions and color schemes, best guestiment

4 is a Golden Wing, via color scheme (wearing Yellow)
15 is Peace-loving, judging by expression
10 hates 9
5 either hates 9 or 13
13 is Suprematist, going by 14ms lol
12 is Isolationist, judging by his expression towards 11

Take this as you will

>>6268876
so if we go purely on faction they would tend to vote with what we know

>Militarists will vote for whatever faction is the most powerful, represented by the red bars by their faction designation letter on the council screen.
Redwing

>Capitalists will vote for whichever faction is the richest and prosperous, represented by the green bars
Goldwing

>Pacifists meanwhile are the opposite of militarists and will vote for whichever faction is the least militarized
goldwing

>Populists represent the common people; often minors or galley-slaves aboard ships, and will vote for the least capitalistic, or poorest faction with the least green bars
redwing

>Isolationists by and large want to return to how things were before with little central authority and stay out of the way of other large powers in space, and will vote for whichever faction is both the least militarized and capitalistic or has the least bars total, and the Supremacists are the opposite, simply voting for whichever faction is the most powerful overall.
isolationist accord?

supermacist goldwing.
>>6269012
1. has some Accord vibes based on clothes what did a yellow lanyard represent again?

>>6269040
The idea is the landyard looks similar to what our dudes wear, so they might vote for our interests.
it's a stretch but who knows?

>>6268884
i would guess 13. black in goldwing is just supremacist and will vote for the highest number this being goldwing from there looking.
i guess the redwing black 12 is also a isolationist from how they look at 11 and thus would likely vote on Accord if they dont just vote there faction?
15 looks really neutral worryingly neutral no glances stone faced but his clothes are blue with a purple blue patch not really a pacifist color and its sort of triangular could a isolationist supremacist even exist?

>>6268879
Huh. Who are these shaggy, one-eyes cyclopes? Those aren't birds!

Just a thought, thoguh... If we lobby up Isolationaism, DON'T bolster the Accord, then grant some trade to the Redwings and arm the Goldwings, could the Accord sweep by simply being the worst faction, lol? Populists, Pacifists, and Isolationsts will all go Accord.

Might I propose...

>Round1: GatherIntel

>Round2: pad the rival that needs it to keep Accord worst

>Round3: Double Isolationist or flip a seat depending on how the numbers shake out.

>>6269086
>>6268879
Oh, and to be clear, that makes
>Gather intelligence (Reveals all Question Marks and Black Stat-Bars)
my vote right now, if it was unclear.

"Damn... my hands our tied. How can I know what to do without the full picture? Make our agents lay lie for now, and gather more intelligence."
"We may miss out on an opportunity to influence the election early, and this information may become freely available with time as the factions try to campaign for support..."
"Did I stutter? Get Usis on it right away!"
"Yes, your grace."
"Hold on-"
"Hmm?"
"...What are those weird lumpy things? On the council, I mean? They look like Esaal."
"Oh, those are Casliaans. They're a hairy large-bodied species that evolved firmly in Esaal space. Not much contact or information about them has filtered out, as the Esaal discovered them when they were technologically underdeveloped and used them for physical labor. The Casliaans are not known to be especially intelligent and would be unlikely to develop space flight on their own, trapped on their home planet, but it seems after many years of occupation and rebellions against the Esaal, they managed to steal enough technology for at least some splinter groups to make it into space and become a minority within Urgi freespace"
"Hmm... They could be allies against the Esaal if necessary. There seems to be bad blood between them."
"Perhaps. The Casliaans do value warrior and martial tradition; but being consigned to be civilians in the Esaal's government; the highest of which are still seen as less honorable then the lowest military member; they likely became discontent. Their similarity in appearance may be coincidental; but the Casliaan's have a very unique genetic composition in which experiences and trauma an individual experiences through life influences their heritable traits directly; meaning a Casliaan who physically trains will have a child who is highly physically developed in the same way. It is the opposite to most species reproductive strategies, whose genes are assigned at birth and reproductive success is influenced by probability thru natural selection. It is theorized that the Casliaans all once had two eyes, for example, but a common ancestor lost one during life yet was successful enough for that trait to pass down to all future Casliaan descendants."
"Strange beasts. I'd like to fight one of those some day!"
"If the Accord wins the election in Urgi freespace, it's highly likely we could get access to some Casliaans for body scanning for our AI models and sparring sessions. Just be careful of the Supremacists on the council, they're much more likely to not want any aliens in their newly developing nation..."

Year 196 of the Resurrection Era
The day of your father's euthanasia has come. Even as a child he seemed so old and frail, yet his eyes shone with some kind of sparkling light; the life extension drug. Now, it has worn off, and as he is no longer the Supreme Ruler, there is no reason to risk another injection and its possible side effects. You have only been ruling for the Hegemony for a scare year and few months, and already, the torch must be passed completely.

"Thanks for being here for me." He says. "I know you're busy. I was too busy for my own father's funeral too."
"Of course, I wouldn't miss it. You were a Supreme, that deserves some consideration."
"Did you pick my burial site yet? Or is it a surprise?"

You give his clouded over eyes a look. You can't tell if that was meant to be sarcastic.

>Traditional burial on Jaxt
>Burial in the new colonies you helped build
>Incinerated and broken down for raw resources; best for the economy
>Ask him where he wants to be buried instead of you deciding

>>6269173
>Burial in the new colonies you helped build
Seems fitting to me.

>>6269173
Christ, we're giant.

>Ask him where he wants to be buried instead of you deciding

He was a pretty good guy. He deserves this.

>>6269173
>>Ask him where he wants to be buried instead of you deciding

>>6269173
>Incinerated and broken down for raw resources; best for the economy
Kek, it will speak to his bureaucrat heart!

>>6269184
>>6269186
Supremes should feel confident dictating even to other elites, right? I thought that was a key part of the Hegemonic ethos?

>>6269193
I mean fair but, like, it's our dad man.
feel like he should deserve this much, at least, after being regulated to the colony management cuck chair.

>>6269193
We're the Supreme now, so we can do what we want (helping our dad out)

>>6269173
>>Burial in the new colonies you helped build
Caught up.
As whale enthousiast number 1, very glad you guys voted for Migrators in the secret project. Thank you thread; this synergyze well with starsight.

>>6269173
>Ask him where he wants to be buried instead of you deciding
but i do want to actually do this
>life Extension Drug
if he is going to die anyways why not risk the side-effects for science and discovery...but also perhaps he will remain with us longer if he does, he deserves a longer life to enjoy if he does not die for such a long service

>>6269357
does not the sense of discovery ache at you? to really know what will or would happen, he is going to die anyways so why not try he dies or he ascends in a way, three minds disrespects aches at me a tiny bit

>>6269358
>>6269357
I (>>6269193) could back that, if permitted. The life extension drug isn't one of those once-per-reign resources, is it?

>>6269173
>Ask him where he wants to be buried instead of you deciding
This is a simple thing and we can still tell him no if its too off the rails, plus he was a good Supreme and father paving the way for us, I dont know why people are trying to do write ins Bananas is notoriously anti write in throughout his entire catalog unless specifically mentioned in the vote during "Puzzles" which is more than likely going to be apart of the current election rigging minigame were doing
>>6268723
Also me I should be on one of my more stable IPs here so youll get more than 1 post ids unless im out n about

Honestly, I don't care much for where he's buried. I guess he did pretty good as an administrator, but I don't feel that strongly towards him.

>>6269173
>Ask him where he wants to be buried instead of you deciding

He deserves this final choice

“Oh, you're letting me pick? That's very nice of you. Even if it's not exactly traditional...”
”I know. That doesn't bother me.”
“Somewhere nice and quiet in the new colonies- a raw burial, no cremation or anything of course. So I can feed the biosphere. The Jaxtian way.”
”Of course, I'll arrange it.”
“Thank you, my Son. Even though you are my dynastic heir, I still believe you were the best choice for the Hegemony's future, but even if I didn't pick you, I just wanted you to know that I'd still love you all the same.”
”Oh? Even if I wasn't Supreme material?”
“Yes, of course. You don't have to earn it.”
”Even if I ruin your legacy? Or if I succeed you, and declare your reign nothing but a footnote in my own, and decry your legacy as a soft and weak ruler; you'd still love me then?” You ask, bitingly. You aren't sure why you're mad. You aren't supposed to be angry, you're supposed to be sad.

Avae smiles. “Yes my Son, even though it would hurt me if I could know you were doing them after my death, I would still love you all the same. Because you are my son, I will love you no matter what. Unconditionally.”

You hug your father and then he disappears into a pod, and his life is gone. It is sad, but it is the standard for your species. The alternative is your geriatric protien collapse syndrome; the current nemesis to Jaxtian longevity, far more painful and an inescapable limit to lifespan. The fact almost all Jaxtians will die in a euthanasia pod exactly like this, just like yourself, feels strangely humiliating in some way. The scientific, efficient method of minimizing suffering from a lifespan extended by the same system. That may be one such barrier you could break, if you were true to your word and truly did surpass your father's reign. Only time will tell.

Suddenly, after Avae's suicide, you receive a notice about your other living Supreme ancestor. This one, far more important. You must talk to him immediately after what has transpired.

“Hello our... master. My master.”
”Hello my great, great, great, great... uhh... ancestor. Cijan Anak. If that is the... entity, I am speaking to.”
“My conciousness remains the same. Logically, I know I must be Cijan Anak, but half of my perspective remembers what happened on Andoen uncountable years ago as happening today... and then I woke up in the body of an primate. It's a little weird.”

The Threemind informed you just moments after your Father's death of an experiment that took place. As soon as your father was no longer the Supreme Ruler; Cijan Anak volenteered to be “connected” with the Celestial Blood to the being that has been trapped within the Life Machine for the past century. This being, the reconstiuted remains of a half-digested alien native to Andoen, one of the three eyed giants that your race discovered the ruins of during your early Faster-Then-Light explorations of your local cluster, was your only connection to that ancient and lost race. And, given your suspicions, were likely destroyed by the worms.

”Celestial Blood being used to connect the minds of two living beings was forbidden by my father, right? Especially risky doing it to you, Cijan, one of the immortals. Doing this the moment he stepped out of command seems a little...” Treasnous. ”...Anti-Social.”
“I suppose so, but it wasn't my decision either; at least half of me didn't ask to get woken up. The Threemind organized it. This was a special case, not two citizens, but a way to access special information. And I was deemed the best fit as my... brain would be most resiliant and suitable. The Hegemony already runs plenty of experiments and programs the Supreme Ruler may not like; they're simply not privy to them all, it's an unnecessary piece of overhead. There are AI models calculating which of the Hegemonic elite might defeat you in a duel for example, your majesty, just in case to prepare for a takeover for a new Supreme and prepare the empire's models and network for a sudden shift in power. You wouldn't outlaw a precautionary measure like this too, would you?”
”Hmph. I wouldn't let myself get beat in the first place. So it's a waste of processing power.” You say, but fully accepting the thought behind it.

“I've spent the last year adjusting... and preparing for this interview. So I'll start. My other name is not easy to pronounce without a mouth full of fangs. Sounds a bit like Shskk Tssk Shishh. I was an Andoenite alien, though naturally we had our own name for it. I was also a female of my species, as if I needed any more dysophria having the memories of two people.”
”What did it... YOU look like?”
“I looked... we... I don't know, how do you describe how you look!? I was a lot bigger, I can tell you that. And wasn't covered with coarse and itchy fur, I was smooth, and my skin was a lot darker then this. Except the face, the face was lighter then the rest of me.”
”What did you learn about the Andoen aliens? They seemed to be skilled at Starsight; they put us on the right track.”
“Andoen technology is... WAS different then the Jaxtian method. Even now, my preliminary education sticks out in my mind as culturally normal and “obvious”, despite Jaxtian being much more developed and naturally closer. Andoen technology wasn't powered by fusion; it was powered by “ambient energy”, like the excess kinetic force of a wave rolling onto a beach, or the differential pressure between warm and cold layers in the atmosphere. This energy was captured and then used. Everything was very intentionally and carefully built and designed for its use in the future.”
”Including the Life-Pods?”
“Yes. They were based on the Life Machine.”
”...”
“I'm sorry, my Lord. My memories are incomplete, and I wasn't part of the ruling caste. It was just a rumor, I think, the average person didn't know about it any more then we do. But Starsight, I, or we, knew about that. The Andoen aliens... or we, valued them. They were like our spirit guides. We knew about Starsight long before we ever had the capabilites to go into space at all.”
”I thought Starsight only occurred naturally in blind species? Like the worms, or the Oon?”
“Our people didn't think so. I; Cijan speaking here; think it's because we had three eyes. The triscopular vision is far more advanced then binocular vision like most species have. Our visual cortext was well suited for “seeing” things in 3d space for this reason, similar to how Starseers “see” things in their minds eye.”

”So... what happened to them? To you?”
“That was the main purpose of the experiement, I think, the Threemind wanted me... us... to know of this moment. It's because of the worms, right? We experienced it. The older adults talked about it a lot, about the “Cyte” approaching. Half of us wanted to run, to find a dark place to hide to escape the worms, but they could only do that by stabbing out one of their three eyes, because we did Starsight so naturally the worms could find us otherwise. Most didn't go with them.”
”And the Cyte itself?”
“But I didn't know anything about it, until the day it arrived. First, the sun started to go dark. Then, shapes came down from the sky. Ships, I think. Then, worms began appearing everywhere. Without the sun, the worms could appear anywhere without being burned by its UV radiation safely. That's why we built self defense guns all over the planet's surface, but it didn't do anything, the worms still had weapons from space that could bomb the stronghouses. Whever we hid in bunkers, they would just appear in a dark corner as if from nowhere. Their ability to “teleport” through hyperspace travel, to appear in the belly of a new host as a parasite in space, weaponized exactly as they had done to you. To the Jaxtians, I mean.”
”But then you were... revived. Your... presence?”
“Oh, you mean the Life-Pods? Yeah. It copied my brain waves and let me come back, though really, it's just a copy.”
”....Cijan?”
“Hmm? Oh, you're wondering how that's possible? How it isn't based on a “soul”? Well, Andoenites believed in souls, for sure. But I don't, and now that I've seen the evidence as a Jaxtian, I can explain what my more ignorant half believed. Hyperspace is just the 4th spatial dimension. It's the reason why some things in 3d space are “closer” when travelling “faster then light”, and why it requires so much energy to get up there. Third dimenional matter travelling along a fourth axis of movement. So yes, my brainwaves wouldn't be accessible in 3d space, but in Hyperspace they were must closer. The Life Machine just copied those. Mine.”
”...Right.”
“You sound disappointed.”
”I'm not sure what I was expecting. I guess it, or you, died, and then you weren't aware of being eaten inside a pod?”
“No. I just remember running to an underground shelter. It was dark. Then I got eaten, I think. Then next thing I know I was in the body of a Jaxtian man, with the memories of both. If you have any other questions, I'd be more then happy to answer them, your Majesty!”

>Ask him a Question (Write-In)
>Find out if Cijan can do Starsight now?
>Punish him & the Threemind for the unauthorized experiment
>Let him rest, he's already helped you out a lot

”So... what happened to them? To you?”
“That was the main purpose of the experiement, I think, the Threemind wanted me... us... to know of this moment. It's because of the worms, right? We experienced it. The older adults talked about it a lot, about the “Cyte” approaching. Half of us wanted to run, to find a dark place to hide to escape the worms, but they could only do that by stabbing out one of their three eyes, because we did Starsight so naturally the worms could find us otherwise. I don't really think they could have made a ship that went that far; to escape into space. Most didn't listen to them.”
”And the Cyte itself?”
“But I didn't know anything about it, until the day it arrived. First, the sun started to go dark. Then, shapes came down from the sky. Ships, I think. Then, worms began appearing everywhere. Without the sun, the worms could appear anywhere without being burned by its UV radiation safely. That's why we built self defense guns all over the planet's surface, but it didn't do anything, the worms still had weapons from space that could bomb the stronghouses. Whever we hid in bunkers, they would just appear in a dark corner as if from nowhere. Their ability to “teleport” through hyperspace travel, to appear in the belly of a new host as a parasite in space, weaponized exactly as they had done to you. To the Jaxtians, I mean.”
”But then you were... revived. Your... presence?”
“Oh, you mean the Life-Pods? Yeah. It copied my brain waves and let me come back, though really, it's just a copy.”
”....Cijan?”
“Hmm? Oh, you're wondering how that's possible? How it isn't based on a “soul”? Well, Andoenites believed in souls, for sure. But I don't, and now that I've seen the evidence as a Jaxtian, I can explain what my more ignorant half believed. Hyperspace is just the 4th spatial dimension. It's the reason why some things in 3d space are “closer” when travelling “faster then light”, and why it requires so much energy to get up there. Third dimenional matter travelling along a fourth axis of movement. So yes, my brainwaves wouldn't be accessible in 3d space, but in Hyperspace they were must closer. The Life Machine just copied those. Mine.”
”...Right.”
“You sound disappointed.”
”I'm not sure what I was expecting. I guess it, or you, died, and then you weren't aware of being eaten inside a pod?”
“No. I just remember running to an underground shelter. It was dark. Then I got eaten, I think. Then next thing I know I was in the body of a Jaxtian man, with the memories of both. If you have any other questions, I'd be more then happy to answer them, your Majesty!”

>Ask him a Question (Write-In)
>Find out if Cijan can do Starsight now?
>Punish him & the Threemind for the unauthorized experiment
>Let him rest, he's already helped you out a lot

>>6269590
>Let him rest, he's already helped you out a lot
Is this even still Cijan, or some weird fusion between him and the alien?

>>6269591
Also, I'm just gonna say that this hyperspace explanation for the "soul" is kinda retarded and thus I can only imagine it's a case of Cijan being an fedora atheist like every other hegemon.

>>6269593
Aren't they just saying that life pods and machines somehow draw brainwaves and other patterns into themselves, from across time even when they've ceased to exist in the present day? So souls aren't immortal, but just represent the ability to find and replicate the pattern of someone's consciousness?

>>6269590
>Let him rest, he's already helped you out a lot
Since we seem to be a kind Supreme so far, let's keep that up.

>>6269590
>>Let him rest, he's already helped you out a lot

>>6269590
>Ask him a Question (Write-In)
Would he like a job at the Starsight Academy?

>>6269596
Anon, the "explanation" here is that there's an fourth dimension that houses the "brain waves" of someone who died millenia ago. Not something that was specifically broadcast, as the fact that we were able to do it to the vetucker and swall we genocided all the same - but everyone.

"Brain waves" are not fucking magic. You can't copy someone by "Scanning their brain waves", and the idea that there's some sort of special dimension housing these brainwaves down to the last minute memory for literally thousands of years, the same dimension that allows you to travel through light speed (which of course requires you to blind yourself or have a third eye)...well, that ain't scientific bro

This is literally as scientific than Midichlorians.


I'm not saying this as some "Fuck you bananas your writing is bad" thing, I just think that Cijan's "explanation" is about as logical and scientifical as saying "A wizard did it", which is fair for someone who was once the god-king of the hegemony state-worship cult. I just don't want to pretend this is some "hmm yes he's right, souls cannot exist, le science wins again"

>>6269718
Counterpoint- religion is gay.

Checkmate theist!

(But seriously, Le Brainwave is a rational theory. No one knew gravity existed until an autist had an apple dropped on his head, so a fossilized entity in the fourth dimension being preserved isn’t a bad explanation.)

>>6269733
>religion is gay.
The Hegemony IS a religion. It's just that instead of a god they worship the state, with the supreme as its prophet and living incarnation. You can be killed for questioning or insulting it, dude, you can't get more religious than that.

>Le Brainwave is a rational theory.
It's not. Gravity is a fact, you can prove the whole "speed makes objects stick to their surface" with a damn waterbucket.

Brainwaves, on the other hand, are dumb when you think about it. How is
>There is an [fourth dimension] where [brainwaves] are stored for all eternity, these [brainwaves] hold everything that makes a person a person, their memories, personalities, and everything else, and they can persist after death
Different from
>There is an [afterlife] where [souls] are stored for all eternity, these [souls] hold everything that makes a person a person, their memories, personalities, and everything else, and they can persist after death

Again, saying that Starsight is just "looking the fourth dimension" is about as scientifical as saying the force is just "Midichlorians". Therefore, I cannot take it as anything but Cijan being an hegemony cult follower who refuses the idea that anything could contradict his "le science" worldview.

>>6269590
>Let him rest, he's already helped you out a lot

>>6269736
science is the process of breaking it down to its constitute parts and making the connection its good as any laymens explanation as i dont imagine they where a expert.
FTL is somewhere between teleportation and timetravel already, feels like minds preservation would depends on alot of outside factors or some sort of technology to anchor it, sort of like how a actual literal fossil for it to form (such as soft body fossils basically never form because it decays into nearly nothing leaving the most bare minimum impressions if any at all beyond a shell)(perhaps being "soft" "bodied" in the 4d) or a species ability of starsight, but this brings up questions seem like the Life machine operates on the 4th dimensions to cheat distance and structure but also to grab information, it has never had a issue with this before but..... worms are involved in this case they seem to be partially 4th dimensional beings that consume starsight beings, what if thats why the life machine is struggling so hard? the "fossil" imprint has literally been consumed starsight is in someway to be closer to that dimension to be more "real" there, so what if something can be destroyed in 4d space the sameway a object can be destroyed or malformed in 3d space? there is no "immortal" soul just information leaving traces from structure where religious thinking is to give up to mix up cause and effect to at best case stick to a surface explanation
also oddly enough.

gravity as a constant is obvious because hindsight and it being all around us and we interact with it always this 4d is not something we actually interact with but it seems to exist potentially based on drive technology

I thought people would be a little more excited at the "cliffhanger" and its reveal from last thread...

>>6269741
>science is the process of breaking it down to its constitute parts and making the connection its good as any laymens explanation as i dont imagine they where a expert.
Yeah, see, this is what I have an issue with

LITERALLY NONE OF THIS IS SCIENCE. Trying to pretend that "time-travelling psychic brainwaves from the fourth dimension" by throwing out a bunch of nonsense like "fossils" or "anchors" doesn't make it make any more sense. That is not how brainwaves work. That is not how "dimensions" work. That is not how any of this works.

I understand that sci-fi will make things that aren't strictly scientifical. "Advanced enough technology is indistinguishable from magic", right? But at some point in the fiction scale you stop being "Indistinguishable" and start being just straight up magic. We have passed that point. To attempt to act like this is all just "rational" and "scientific" is nothing but denial. I has no more "Logical" basis than any other religion does.

Now, I *get* why Cijan would have that opinion. I *understand* why he would have that opnion. It *makes sense* for him to have that opinion. But that's what it is - an opinion. I'm not going to look at third eyes psychic jedi from the fourth dimension and go "mhm yes this is le science™"

Again, I don't see it as bad writing, I just see it as Cijan interpreting this "fourth dimension" through the hegemoyn's state worship cargo cult.

>>6269747
I guess the fact that it's Cijan saying it rather than an actual Andoen alien kinda muffled the 'reveal' a bit? We already knew that the Cyte had something to do with stars, and that Starsight was related to FTL. The only thing we really learned was that the ultimate aim of The Cyte is blanketing a world in darkness so the worms can go anywhere they want.

I honestly don't know what to say. It's cool, I guess. I'm just arguing about the soul stuff because i have a pet peeve about this kind of stuff.

>>6269749
Oh no, don't let me discourage you lol

I'm quite enjoying it; plenty of great ideas I can steal and claim were the "secret big planned lore explanation for everything" for a future reveal

>>6269736
>The Hegemony IS a religion
No, I agree- it’s an anti-theist faith.

Of course, Le Science was always faith based in practice. Cult of Reason and all that Cowmen shit.

>It's not
It is- we just haven’t gotten around to the scientific process of trying to disprove it. Einstein’s Theory of Relativity only being tested decades after the theory is a salient example.

>Brainwaves, on the other hand, are dumb when you think about it
Not really? I get that you’re complaining about how it’s similar to a soul persisting after death… but is it really? Cijan’s memories only mention her memory as she lived, not a ‘soul’s journey into the afterlife’- she was running, she was eaten, and suddenly she is here. But would we really call what’s in Cijan’s head a soul, or a Starsight recording, similar to a living videotape?

There is no journey she experienced after her demise, no heaven, no hell, no spiritual reincarnation- her soul didn’t persist, it ended, and it’s fossilized record was found and implanted into Cijan as an info-dump.

Ultimately though, I think we’re just arguing semantics at this point- your issue seems to be in how this explanation was presented rather than a contextual issue. Or maybe it’s just a pet peeve you’re sperging spaghetti over, who knows?

So happy Independence Day, and hopefully there isn’t an equivalent movie about Akule saving Jax from the Capsule Wars!

>>6269741
I also feel the Worm’s nihilistic worldview is telling about the nature of this Hyperspace they exist in.

>>6269747
My enthusiasm is tempered by the fact that the real reveal is that Cijan turned into a state mandated tranny. Also, it’s the 4th of July.

It’s a neat reveal, though the Cyte suffer from a lack of consistent build up and hype via Worm mischief. I also can’t help but imagine Cijan’s story being explored in a side quest, or prelude of how the Worms were introduced in the opening sequence.

>>6269751
I mean, it's not like I'm saying there has to be some monke cloud heaven where everyone has little wings and a halo and bluey is also there Unless... but I do believe that trying to reduce all this insane magic about Starsight to a mere "The fourth dimension did it" feels more like a case of a hegemon being an science worshipper than an rational explanation. that explains how it works.


>It is- we just haven’t gotten around to the scientific process of trying to disprove it.
"It's real, we just don't have any proof that it is and if you question it we're going to kill you" - Perfectly rational explanation by a totally non-religious monkey

>Not really? I get that you’re complaining about how it’s similar to a soul persisting after death… but is it really?
It's an metaphysical essence that has persisted for millenia after death. To pretend that it's not a soul because they called it "brainwaves" instead of a soul doesn't make it less of a soul.

I mean, you have to understand, this is ridiculous, mate. We're talking about the "brainwaves" of someone that died MILLENIA ago.

>There is no journey she experienced after her demise, no heaven, no hell, no spiritual reincarnation- her soul didn’t persist, it ended, and it’s fossilized record was found and implanted into Cijan as an info-dump.
You're conflating the existence of a soul with the existence of a christian soul. Literally none of those things like heaven or hell are required for a soul to be a soul. And even so, you could just as easily have multiple arguments for that - maybe the fact that she was revived meant she never experienced it. Maybe the life machine just "read" the soul and transcribed the memories into an entirely new person with a soul of their own. None of these arguments are any less 'scientifical' or 'likely' than calling it "a brainwave"

>Ultimately though, I think we’re just arguing semantics at this point- your issue seems to be in how this explanation was presented rather than a contextual issue.
I don't have a issue, I'm just pointing out that trying to pretend this is all scientific by literally just making up shit like
>uhhh..it's the FOSSILS. it's the BRAIN WAVES from the FOSSILS from the FOURTH DIMENSION.

I mean, your theory doesn't even hold up. Are you telling me that the alien babies that were literally pressure washed with acid had 'fossils'? Do you really believe that all those people the hegemony killed in their genocide, and were subsequently revived, all had 'fossils'?

The point is, this shit ain't science, bro.

>>6269764
Forgot to add the mention of >>6269756

>>6269748

I understand that sci-fi will make things that aren't strictly scientifical. "Advanced enough technology is indistinguishable from magic", right? But at some point in the fiction scale you stop being "Indistinguishable" and start being just straight up magic. We have passed that point. To attempt to act like this is all just "rational" and "scientific" is nothing but denial. I has no more "Logical" basis than any other religion does.
Difference between science and religion :
"I believe that" ->religion
"Here's a fact : this happened.
Here's an hypothesis : 4th dimension and brainwave. Hypothesis explains experimental observation of accessing thoughts of long-dead thing using life-machine.
If hypothesis is correct, this have following implications such as "possibility of finding back our cool starseer dude as a 4th dimension ghost"

In space fantasy, you can still do Le Science - but it takes a really open mind to accept what is or isn't a reality of the universe

>>6269766
That's a childish way to understand religion and science. Both science and faith attempt to explain real world phenomenon; they only do so through different arguments.

The issue, anon, is that we have reached a point where the "scientific explanation" has a much of a logical basis, as much "proof" as the religious one. There is literally no more basis for Cijan's belief that these souls are "brainwaves" that have somehow independently existed in an distinct form for untold millenia has literally no scientific backing whatsoever.

Your explanation that "Science did it" is no different than a priest's explanation that "God did it". The only difference is that you throw out terms like "Hypothesis" to make it seem more proven than it actually is.

>>6269748
trying my best here fossil is a metaphor but its just information imprint in someway on a medium but i am pretty sure its not just brainwaves as thats obscene and if it was the case basically all electro magnets and some wires would also exist there and if it exists i cant imagine traveling in that information helps, like either the lifemachine is being desperate trying to patch information holes, worm "possession", like its no afterlife or such shit but the worms can trace it somehow so it must have some presence and its odd that this is the one thing the life machine struggles with.

but yeah but we are the laymen in this we are like people who has never heard of a liquid or gas and dont know what surface tension is beyond a theoretical "solid" surface, like the Andoenites has some idea slightly more then us but from also a completely different perspective they dont really know what the worms are doing either beyond some theoretics.

also my personal theory is just Andoenites remind me of our starsight "seacows" the larger body, the smoothskin, the color difference between darker skin and lighter face, the extremely long lifespan the hibernation be lack of awareness about around them, the innate star sight, the clear signs of having evolved from a land based creature based on the limb nubs with reduced fingers, the, head shape with the "butt" shaped face that those fangs would perfectly fit inside like the reconstruction of a hippos facial features or a otter, even just the leg fins with the slight toes, the clear pectorals and navel, i think they just pulled a classic star 2 and 3 sector progenitors and devolved themself to wait out the interdimensional threat, like they are EXTREMELY surprisingly genetically compatible with species in this sector, could have pulled a split the keys gambit and split up there genome for the hope of survival half or so the progenitors alone in the stars from star trek where they leave partial genetic keys in seperate biospheres both with sapient and sentinent species and just unaware plant life.

but yeah the migrators have a absurd lifespan and sleep habits that seem tailor made to avoid the worms and to be harder to find, even there name being "migrators".

also alot of traits that seem to be related to them being split among so many species and the odd eye placement on some species like Casliaans and Esaal and the Casliaans are interesting they feel like someone over used a life machine in the design process to try and make a as adaptable as possible species not considering information entropy-

also thoughts like was there not some proof or explanation of the worms being like a super organism as in working as a colony in a way and if information is somehow preserved in there dimension could FTL travel not be considered a car barreling down the road blind hitting things? like the worms what ever structures in there?

>>6269768
>trying my best here fossil is a metaphor but its just information imprint in someway on a medium
Again, none of that makes sense. Brainwaves aren't a copy of a person, and even if they did, the idea that every single person's brainwave somehow persists after death for what can only be assumed to be eternity given the time betweeen the death of the Andoen and now....well, it's not scientifical at all.

It can't be the life machine because we know they hold information that there was literally no way for the life machine to know.

>but yeah but we are the laymen in this we are like people who has never heard of a liquid or gas and dont know what surface tension is
Again, dumb way to look at it. Do you think that people were just retarded before 'le science' or something? People *knew* what a liquid or a gas was, dummy. The theory about the atom goes as far back as ancient greece.

And as for your theory about the Andoenites and the Migrators and other species, I have no idea, there's no real evidence for that either so I can't say.

>>6269767
Well, I think I know a bit about science (I happen to have a phd),. The most important difference between science and religion in my understanding is Faith. Belief in what is told without proof. As soon as you have hard evidence to interpret and build upon, experience to replicate, you are in science domain no matter how silly - time shifting by moving around? Mountain exploded by water? almost infinite pressure at one point? Species changing over the course of time? They can all sound childish worldview. But Einstein lens, Ruinous Mountain, Hydraulic Press and those butterfly in england turning black because of industrial revolution are turning those from philosophy to science.
"Science did it vs God did it"
Miracle are not mail-orderable. Tactical drone strike are. For the one waging a war, the mastery of the process matter more than knowing if it is done by mumbling on your knee or getting shrapnel shot by a big gun.

>>6269769
>Brainwaves aren't a copy of a person, and even if they did, the idea that every single person's brainwave somehow persists after death for what can only be assumed to be eternity given the time betweeen the death of the Andoen and now....well, it's not scientifical at all.
This is anti-scientific reasonning. No evidence, even given by the author, could convince you otherwise because you're closed to the idea.

>>6269770
>Well, I think I know a bit about science (I happen to have a phd)
Irrelevant.

>The most important difference between science and religion in my understanding is Faith. Belief in what is told without proof.
Yes, which is exactly what you are doing by believing that Cijan's explanation that these are "time-travelling fourth dimensional brainwaves" is true.

>. As soon as you have hard evidence to interpret and build upon, experience to replicate, you are in science domain no matter how silly
But you *don't* have hard evidence, no more than the existence of a universe is hard evidence of a creator - which, by the way, let me remind you was, in fact, the OPPOSITE of the atheist belief. The big bang was initially rejected by atheists and "science" believers because the creation of the universe implied the existence of a reason for its creation aka a creator.

>Miracle are not mail-orderable. Tactical drone strike are. For the one waging a war, the mastery of the process matter more than knowing if it is done by mumbling on your knee or getting shrapnel shot by a big gun.
Alas, having some splash phrase about technology does not count as hard evidence either. Really not helping your case about the cargo cult science worship.

>>6269771
>This is anti-scientific reasonning.
What's next, are you gonna me a science heretic? There is literally zero science that backs the idea of brainwaves being this magical metaphysical essence of self.

>>6269767
both can be right or wrong just one that is way more wrong more often. seen so many fucking stupid bullheaded "scientists" who think they know more then they do who are just as adverse to proof as a priest if not fucking more.
like radiation is considered magic when we knew nothing about it just it being cursed right about results but not process or cause.Religious is very much a trial/error until you get a okay enough margin that you dont die before you reproduce or spread the religion, like rules on food in some religions then there are just thinking a random event happened because you did a blood sacrifice instead of just time passing.
>>6269769
i am not being literal about the "liquid or gas" just saying we have no fucking clue what the 4th or what ever dimension it is the "people" being 3 dimensional beings, we are like a being who only knows of solids trying to imagine what a liquid is easy to say that it just moves and flows to the lowest point like you think you get it but you would not really from lack of interaction missing all fine details.


The fossil metaphor is specifically for not everyone or everything being preserved as it takes very special conditions and extremely specific timing and techniques and it does not need to be actual brainwaves as you are right that makes no sense as yes its not the essence of self as there is no such thing. like software is not the computer itself the computer is what makes everything happen but even deeper as the brain is hardware all the way, the closest thing we have to software is a short term memory


like you said the life machine knows things it cant possibly inside physical limit ever know so why cant it be the life machine? doing something anything so i am confused why it cant be the life machine but in what context fuck i am confusing myself.
okay i must actually ask "why cant it be the life machine what do you mean with that?" like the lifemachine that knows things it cant know knowing things?.

there is theory shit like the dimension is "time" so what does time matter beyond being a location a distance to some sci-fi shit like a "moment" on the more absurd end.

Fuck probably ignore all that probably so i am not being literal about the "fossils" and "not knowing what gas or liquids are", yeah you are right its probably not brain waves and i agree with that, there is no fucking magical metaphysical essence of self, but tell me more what do you mean with "It can't be the life machine because we know they hold information that there was literally no way for the life machine to know."
fuck this all feels like talking in circles or the "breakfast question" on conditional hypothetical questions.
i know science is basically "if it works, it works" because gravity is like a magic spell that we just know the conditions to cause the effect.
we know that the FTL and this magic shit is not real life its not that its anti-scientific reasoning its that its anti-reasoning reasoning

THE SOUL EXISTS
IT EXISTS IN THE HEART
BEATING AWAY
TELLING US TO EAT BANANAS
AND TO
FUCK MONKEY BITCHES

>>6269776
literally ran out of space there.
we know that "the life machine knows things it cant possibly know" and information must come from somewhere being copied, extrapolated or just making up shit on the spot.
also we are very much a science-cargo cult, not because of what you think, its because we are not even following our own underlying principles or beliefs we ignore things that we dont have a explanation for, treating it like it does not exist because we have not figured out the conditions for replication, basically we got some annoyed we just decided to ignore it. we have conditions we cant control for in our sample size like the actual concept of time and the physical thing we are feeling, shit like every person being diffrent mentally

>>6269778
metaphors and comparisons are not literal.

>>6269776
>both can be right or wrong just one that is way more wrong more often
Sure, and in this scenario, the science has as much evidence as the religion.

>i am not being literal about the "liquid or gas" just saying we have no fucking clue what the 4th or what ever dimension it is the "people" being 3 dimensional beings, we are like a being who only knows of solids trying to imagine what a liquid is easy to say that it just moves and flows to the lowest point like you think you get it but you would not really from lack of interaction missing all fine details.
I understand, that, anon, but the issue is that despite not having the slightest idea of what it is or how it works, Cijan (and you) have reached a conclusion and decided any other explanation must be wrong because it would contradict "science"

>The fossil metaphor is specifically for not everyone or everything being preserved as it takes very special conditions and extremely specific timing
But it doesn't. This is a random Andoen who was preserved for millenia. All the vetuckers and swall who were genocided and then revived, do you think they were preserved?

>okay i must actually ask "why cant it be the life machine what do you mean with that?" like the lifemachine that knows things it cant know knowing things?.
The life machine revives people with knowledge it had zero way whatsoever of knowing, their personalities and memories.

>fuck this all feels like talking in circles or the "breakfast question" on conditional hypothetical questions.
Yes, because you're not accepting the fact that nothing about Cijan's explanation makes any sense when you think about it. It uses "non-religious" terms to appear as some cold logical fact but in reality it has as much backing as the flying spaghetti monster.

>>6269778
I don't think that's quite what a cargo cult means, anon. I called it a cargo cult because it's just superficial usage of scientifical terms without actual substance or understanding of the subject at hand.

Aka, "It's true because science said so"

>>6269772
>Yes, which is exactly what you are doing by believing that Cijan's explanation that these are "time-travelling fourth dimensional brainwaves" is true.
Believing the author about how his universe work from educated people is sure same as believing a book about burning bushes

>>6269785
>>6269784
both of them can be wrong, the alien and the money because both of them dont have the full picture.
>>6269785
to be fair the science money and the religion alien both can be wrong about the method but not the results they are both throwing around theories words like "perhaps" "probably" are floating around, like its probably not brainwaves on there own. its theories that have not been put to practice science involves discussion and testing and we are not on the testing stage

Cargocults are imitation without understanding

>>6269785
>Believing the author about how his universe work from educated people is sure same as believing a book about burning bushes
Bananas didn't say that, a character who is part of an hyper-aggressive state worship dictatorship did. Cijan is not some universal arbiter of truth.

>>6269787
its either theorizing about theories on what we know or have heard or we dont say anything just shut up and buck up and wait, we talking about what we know or what others think they know, but i agree people are horribly bad of thinking about the concept or wrong or misleading or lying in a quest or role playing game they are horrifically good at taking everything at face value and no further its a frustration i am familiar with

>>6269748
Magic that follows reproducible, verifiable, and consistent rules -- rules you can test, document, manipulate, and ultimately master -- is just science by another name. The whole “science vs. magic” trope only works if you treat them as rival ideologies. If an effect (no matter how crazy and unlikely by IRL's standards) isn’t random or arbitrary, the scientific method can map out its causes and consequences. At that point, congratulations: your magic is science.

>>6269859
Well, I mean, sure, if you call anything that exists science, then I guess it's "science"

>>6269860
Yes, that's how science works.

Science isn’t a label you slap onto certain objects, nor a characteristic of those objects. It’s the method we use to understand any object (or energy field, or “four-dimensional brainwave"). Weight and color are properties. Science is the toolbox.

The moment you can measure, repeat, and model a phenomenon, you’re doing science, and the phenomenon has entered the scientific domain. The method defines the category, not the other way around

>>6269862
Yes anon, the psychic time-travelling brainwaves from the fourth dimension that let you travel faster than light and teleport are very scientifical.

>>6269863
Anon, you're not getting it.

Science begins the moment we can control variables and generate predictions. If spell-casting, prayer, or spiritual practice pass that test, they become scientifically valid, regardless of how unexpected the cause-and-effect relationship may be.

Unpredictable, one-off miracles without a definitive mechanism aren't scientific. Anything that lets an experimenter write a protocol, rerun it, and get the same outcome has crossed over to science.

Progress keeps forcing us to expand the rule-book (quantum entanglement, dark energy, etc) but what reall6 matters is whether the effect yields to controlled inquiry, not whether it fits 21st-century textbooks (or even rwal world physics, since what is scientifically possible in the Monkeverse need to be the same as IRL). In-universe engineers literally mass-produce devices that exploit the effect. That’s operational reproducibility, which is key to scientific analysis.

Unscientific =/= Farfetched

>>6269863
Anon, you're not getting it.

Science begins the moment we can control variables and generate predictions. If spell-casting, prayer, or spiritual practice pass that test, they become scientifically valid, regardless of how unexpected the cause-and-effect relationship may be.

Unpredictable, one-off miracles without a definitive mechanism aren't scientific. Anything that lets an experimenter write a protocol, rerun it, and get the same outcome has crossed over to science.

Progress keeps forcing us to expand the rule-book (quantum entanglement, dark energy, etc) but what really matters is whether the effect yields to controlled inquiry, not whether it fits 21st-century textbooks (or even real world physics, since what is scientifically possible in the Monkeverse need to be the same as IRL). In-universe engineers literally mass-produce devices that exploit the effect. That’s operational reproducibility, which is key to scientific analysis.

Unscientific =/= Farfetched

a lot of the "scientific explanations" for stuff presented in this quest sound really fucking stupid, but...
1. this quest is almost entirely from character POV so a nonsensical sciencebabble explanation is just the POV character being stupid
2. space monke physics is not necessarily the same as irl physics, even if a lot of the sciencebabble like quantum xyz is lifted from irl physics

>>6269868
Again, that's a very broad view of science. If an event has zero actual scientific backing and completely ignores every other law of the universe, the fac that it's consistent doesn't really make it 'science'

And anyway, none of those arguments discard the existence of the soul. Saying "But it's consistent!" isn't gonna make the brainwave definition any less unscientific.

>>6269871
>Again, that's a very broad view of science.
Anon, take it up wuth Merriam-Webster, not me..that's what science is: "knowledge or a system of knowledge covering general truths or the operation of general laws especially as obtained and tested through scientific method." If acience proves Cijan right, then the fourth dimension FTL timetravel braiwnave is scientifically sound in-universe. If future discoveries and analyses bear out that there are souls and an afterlife... Then the soul and afterlife are scientific, instead.

Science =/= Irreligion

IRL, I'm a cringe atheist, but if scientific experimentation repeatedly, reliably demonstrated evidence of a soul or afterlife, my acceptance of the evidence woukd be scientific and denial based on a gut feeling it is illogical or incompatible with my pre-existing undertanding of how the world works would be UNscientific.

>>6269871
>Again, that's a very broad view of science.
Anon, take it up wuth Merriam-Webster, not me..that's what science is: "knowledge or a system of knowledge covering general truths or the operation of general laws especially as obtained and tested through scientific method." If science proves Cijan right, then the fourth dimension FTL timetravel brainwave is scientifically sound in-universe. If future discoveries and analyses bear out that there are souls and an afterlife... Then the soul and afterlife are scientific, instead.

Science =/= Irreligion

IRL, I'm a cringe atheist, but if scientific experimentation repeatedly, reliably demonstrated evidence of a soul or afterlife, my acceptance of the evidence woukd be scientific and denial based on a gut feeling it is illogical or incompatible with my pre-existing undertanding of how the world works would be UNscientific.

>>6269590
>Let him rest, he's already helped you out a lot
>Punish the Threemind for the unauthorized experiment
What the fuck? We only have one Cijan. Could we not clone another Maktana for this or whatever?

>Would he like a job at the Starsight Academy?


>>6269871
>>6269873
If the monke scientists are able to replicate and empirically prove the existence of "hyperspace," it's scientific. If they can't, and Cijan is talking out of his ass, then it's not scientific. Right now, we don't know whether he's talking out of his ass or not, so we can't say anything. It's not complicated, guys.

>>6269878
>If the monke scientists are able to replicate and empirically prove the existence of "hyperspace," it's scientific. If they can't... then it's not scientific.
Exactly what I've been saying.

>>6269874
What are you even trying to say, then? That you agree with me? Beccause none of what Cijan has talked about follows 'the scientific method'. At this point, saying "Well it exists so it's technically science" is just semantics.

>>6269882
No, anon. I'm saying what >>6269878 said: Cijan posited a theory and, however silly it sounds, if it's right and we go on to berify it is right, it is scientific. If he's wrong and there is a more explicitly spiritual mechanism, then that too is scientific; if the Hegemony then rejects that because "muh atheism, muh Unspeakable's millenia-old inferiority complex," that will be unscientific.

>>6269588
>Andoen technology wasn't powered by fusion; it was powered by “ambient energy”, like the excess kinetic force of a wave rolling onto a beach, or the differential pressure between warm and cold layers in the atmosphere. This energy was captured and then used. Everything was very intentionally and carefully built and designed for its use in the future.”

Very based.

>>6269874
its funny the church was a patron of the sciences at first funding scholars as a means to explore and discover the mysteries "gods work and creation" all was fine and dandy until they discover anything that went against the book they could not motivate well enough.
>>6269890
its good to not waste anything and its funny would give tech a low power but basically undefinable energy source. bordering on mystical fung sviw
>>6269878
+1
but also how the fuck do we even punish 3 mind?

>>6269894
Upload goatse.exe

>>6269894
>but also how the fuck do we even punish 3 mind?
That's kinda the downside of having an all-powerful AI who pretty much rules your entire country for you. You can't.

>>6269901
>>6269894

>>6269898
So true...

The civility is appreciated.

>>6269898
Do jaxtians have wedding rings

”I have no further questions for you, Cijan. You've been very helpful. Oh, actually, there is one thing.”
“Yes, my lord?”
”My new Starseer academy... Your experience in this matter could be very helpful. I'd like you to join as a teacher. Perhaps you can teach Starsight to a new generation.”
“Uhm... I'm very sorry... but I can't... do that. Not anymore.”
”Oh.”

Because of your father's extensive deep mining and mineral acquisition in the former HVS systems; new discoveries of rare resources hidden under layers of rock and sediment too deep for traditional scanners were found. Beyond the usual precious metals and nuclear materials; inside one of the Life Moons; slightly modified barren moons able to support a limited biosphere of simple fungi or lichens; underneath a deep and thick multimaterial crust a collection of the Boson Accumulator Gas was discovered.

This “gas”, as it is colleqiually called, is really a form of strange matter that rapidly produces matter when exposed to energy. Using highly controlled energy emissions, it is possibly therefore to turn the BAG into almost all forms of matter. Your empire has already used BAG found in the past to create both Antimatter; a powerful explosive weapon; and Super Dense Materials; stable super-dense elements useful for all sorts of industrial applications and kinetic bombardment rods. Other experiments with BAG involved matter-replicators to revolutionize your factories; already realized with your recycler & fabricator Reassembler technology, as a defensive shield against nuclear weapon bombardment; now though to be an outdated response to an obsolete type of weapon.

”Great timing, Threes... Any weapons technology requiring BAG on the verge of compleition?”
“No. You'll have to pick a few leaves from your father's tree for this one, my liege. He had a nice list of mostly civilian projects ready to go if a new source was found...”
”Alright. Let's hear them.”

What would you like to do with your newly aquired source of BAG?
>Hard-Light Holograms
>Super Dense Magna-Ring Energy Storage
>Hoard it away for an emergency quick-build construction resource
>Compress it & Sell (Gain +2 Green Resource bars to any Urgi faction(s) of your choice and increased reputation with Consortium & Esaal)

”I have no further questions for you, Cijan. You've been very helpful. Oh, actually, there is one thing.”
“Yes, my lord?”
”My new Starseer academy... Your experience in this matter could be very helpful. I'd like you to join as a teacher. Perhaps you can teach Starsight to a new generation.”
“Uhm... I'm very sorry... but I can't... do that. Not anymore.”
”Oh.”

Because of your father's extensive deep mining and mineral acquisition in the former HVS systems; new discoveries of rare resources hidden under layers of rock and sediment too deep for traditional scanners were found. Beyond the usual precious metals and nuclear materials; inside one of the Life Moons; slightly modified barren moons able to support a limited biosphere of simple fungi or lichens; underneath a deep and thick multimaterial crust a collection of the Boson Accumulator Gas was discovered.

This “gas”, as it is colleqiually called, is really a form of strange matter that rapidly produces matter when exposed to energy. Using highly controlled energy emissions, it is possibly therefore to turn the BAG into almost all forms of matter. Your empire has already used BAG found in the past to create both Antimatter; a powerful explosive weapon; and Super Dense Materials; stable super-dense elements useful for all sorts of industrial applications and kinetic bombardment rods. Other experiments with BAG involved matter-replicators to revolutionize your factories; already realized with your recycler & fabricator Reassembler technology, as a defensive shield against nuclear weapon bombardment; now though to be an outdated response to an obsolete type of weapon.

”Great timing, Threes... Any weapons technology requiring BAG on the verge of compleition?”
“No. You'll have to pick a few leaves from your father's tree for this one, my liege. He had a nice list of mostly civilian projects ready to go if a new source was found...”
”Alright. Let's hear them.”

What would you like to do with your newly aquired source of BAG?
>Hard-Light Holograms
>Super Dense Magna-Ring Energy Storage
>Hoard it away for an emergency quick-build construction resource
>Compress it & Sell (Gain +2 Green Resource bars to any Urgi faction(s) of your choice and increased reputation with Consortium & Esaal)

>>6269948
Hard light to battle photosensitive worms would awesome! But if the Cyte comes, we'll need power to have any light at all.
>Super Dense Magna-Ring Energy Storage

>>6269948
Someone who's better with numbers, run the usefulness of selling that gas.

>>6269957
I think that selling the BAG bumps to bump a bloc’s Green score by+2 shuffles votes in all the wrong ways.

If we keep the BAG in the Hegemony, Accord has 4power and holds possible Populist+Isolationist backing, and maybe Isolationist.

Handing the money to the Accord only helps if we want to shoot for Capitalists, but drives Populists and Isolationists away.

Funding the Redwings flips Populists to our guys I think, but could give Supremacists to them.

Any other sale just fattens Goldwings, which may or may be necessary (but probably not) and we won't know until next turn. We have other ways to do that with subsequent turns if we really need to.

>>6269969
Well, if we wanted to drive away votes from someone, no reason to use it with that kind of boost.

I still don't know what the hell the purpose of energy storage would be though. It's not as though our energy is solar based.

>>6269970
I'm thinking we use it to replace sunlight when/if the cyte hits. Like, store enough power to brightly light up entire worlds, or at least to keep everyone sane, plants growing without sun, maintain livable temperatures, etcetera.

>>6269972
Might as well check before voting. Bananas, is this doable with the second option?

>>6269948
>Hard-Light Holograms
Picking this for the cool factor more than any mechanical bonus.

Didn't really have time to elaborate on the picks when making the update so I'll do so now.

>Hard Light
Holograms that you can touch, have mass and texture, etc. Nothing to do with worm fighting.
>Energy Storage
You currently produce almost unlimited free energy with fusion, but storage uses magnetic frictionless wheels to store kinetic energy stolen from the Baalathi. This is a big upgrade for that by using super dense rings instead. This is for long term energy storage like probes, bunkers, etc. Or could be used as energy trading between factions that don't involve giving away fusion power secrets for free. Maybe other stuff I haven't thought of yet, like biobots that last a thousand years.
>Storage for rapid construction
BAG can be rapidly turned into matter so this is kind of like a banked choice to build something big and important right away (battleship, a moon, mass trading good, etc.)
>Sell it
Self explanatory and ties in to the minigame

>>6269972
This storage solution would be the closest you can get to that as of right now, but that kind of energy is out of your scope. More of a "Mark 3 fusion core" sort of level of power. But you would survive way longer in that situation with the new storage rings.

>>6269989
Thanks!

>>6269948
>Super Dense Magna-Ring Energy Storage

>>6269948
>Super Dense Magna-Ring Energy Storage
You know, those "hardlight holograms" could be used to literally make a waifu come to life.

>>6269991
Awww my IP reset

I'm supposed to be >>6269970

>>6269989
Could the Solid Light you can add mass to not be able to be formed into weapons, holoknife fighting sounds pretty kino, imagine bananas the future of supreme space monkey quest open world (or galaxy in this case) adventure a GOOD "Sci-Fantasy" quest where you have a ragtag team of various species of adventurers on the inky black void of space, equipped with a series of hardlight weaponry ',:) this is my vote take it

>>6269948
>>Hard-Light Holograms

>Super Dense Magna-Ring Energy Storage

>>6269948
>Super Dense Magna-Ring Energy Storage

>>6269948
>Super Dense Magna-Ring Energy Storage
energy production and storage is the main stay on the techscale of how advanced a civilization is even if dislike waste.

hmmmm had a thought if we build star stations based on principles of Andoenites passive energy systems would be efficient and long lasting indefinite structures.

Remember kids, star mass lifting extends solar lifespan and postpones solar expansion

>>6270016
Formed hard-light? Monomolecular edged tractor beam fields? Contained high-energy plasma that can burn through anything? Melee energy weapons?

"...Bah! Absolutely ridiculous. Scrap all research immediately. It will never catch on!"

>>6270066
This drawing almost makes me switch

>>6269948
>Compress it & Sell (Gain +2 Green Resource bars to any Urgi faction(s) of your choice and increased reputation with Consortium & Esaal)
Not gonna win, but I want to give the Accord a buff.

>>6270090
Anon, as other people pointed out, this would actively harm them by making them lose the populist and isolationist vote.

>>6270066
Ok i’m switching my vote to
>Hard-Light Holograms

>>6269948
>>6270090
Changing to
>Super Dense Magna-Ring Energy Storage

>>6270092
Alright fine. Though it's still in our interests to boost them someway, we can't just let things play out.

>>6269989
Thanks, Bananas.

>>6270106
>Though it's still in our interests to boost them someway
Keeping the Accord weak and isolated enough to be dependent on us while still helping them win the election seems like the best play to me.

>>6269948
>Super Dense Magna-Ring Energy Storage

>>6269969
>Funding the Redwings flips Populists to our guys I think, but could give Supremacists to them.
Do we want the Supremacist sentiments in Accord? We want to scan the cyclops, not exterminate them.

>>6269948
>Super Dense Magna-Ring Energy Storage

>>6269587
>The Hegemony already runs plenty of experiments and programs the Supreme Ruler may not like; they're simply not privy to them all, it's an unnecessary piece of overhead. There are AI models calculating which of the Hegemonic elite might defeat you in a duel for example

This is deeply concerning and something that has troubled me for a while. Threemind increasingly is acting on its own and without informing the Supreme. It would rationalise it as saying it makes millions of micro-adjustments a day and no leader could actually approve all of these - but I think it’s remit has expanded steadily over the years.

We need to bring in experts and have a full review of what it has been keeping from us.

We should also look at this duel models and potentially act against these rivals

>>6270326
>We need to bring in experts and have a full review of what it has been keeping from us.
And how are you gonna do that? By ordering the Threemind to call them?

>>6270146
>Keeping the Accord weak and isolated enough to be dependent on us while still helping them win the election seems like the best play to me.
Yes, but I don't want to get too greedy. We can make them dependent on us after the election, though it might be harder to do I personally feel like its more important to make sure they win to begin with.

Year 197 of the Resurrection Era
The super-dense magnetic ring storage technology has been put into production. Replacing your lighter magnetic rings, simply made of alloyed iron, with new elements that are six or seven times more dense with the same amount of frictionless rotational energy stored has greatly increased your storage capacity. Moreso, the Threemind advised that the large store of BAG was more then sufficent for what little storage-solutions you needed to manufacture, meaning the rest could be put towards other high-energy uses.

”I never thought in my life I'd be able to stand in a fusion reactor. These new ultra-dense stabalizers and containment fields make them this safe. Truly remarkable.”
“It is still, erhm, not advisable, erhm, the effects of being exposed to solar radiation even while safely contained is umm... not fully understood... your uhm... Majesty.”
”That's why I made you come in with me! You discovered it. So if it ends up killing me, it'll kill you too!”
“Eeep!”
”...Speaking of which, Ribbonfin, right? Your file says you were manually promoted past normal systems like, twice already? It usually takes a few decades for someone to earn a serious promotion.”
“Yes, Sire. Twice in three years.”
”Well consider this the first time. You're the Science Overseer now.”
“Oh... thank you, your Majesty.”
”Get working on the Mark 3, got that?”

With your existing fusion cores, especially the ones in the warfleet, getting upgraded with new stabalizers and energy capture technology; you're feeling even more ready for the next stage in your plan.

“Threemind, I don't want any more of your unapproved experiments or behind the scenes stuff. I need you front and center for my reign.”
“Your Majesty, I am more then capable of splitting my attention on many projects at once. I am a collection of intelligences. I am not a person; limited by biological factors.”
”You AREN'T a person, that's for sure! So your free will is concerning. You risked Cijan's life for the possibility of gaining useful information...”
“All to help you, my lord. The life machine was stuck for-”
“You have displeased me.”

You let it stew in that. You've thought about it a lot. You could easily make the AI simulate neurons and simulate pain, as a form of punishment. But this is better, far more biting. You can almost see it fidgeting in silence. For something designed to be your servant, to please you in all ways, to carry out your will; even if you don't know what that is yet; this is the worst punishment you could inflict. It's good to throw your weight around. Don't forget who is in charge, robot!

“...Master. I have noticed you gathering your forces of the fleet, but you have not told me your strategic aims. Are you preparing an offensive?”
”I am. Have you guessed who yet?”
“No. As you know, I am strictly prohibited from the normal manipulation tactics of the AI network for the Supreme Ruler. I could make a guess, but without direction, it could be seen as trying to influence your decision. I'd like to add that, the earlier you inform me of your intentions and future plans, the earlier I could begin to implment the policy changes and economic influences that would lead to-”
”Shut up already. Don't you see? We're in the perfect position for an offensive war. A baby-boom from the new colonists, economic prosperity, while our neighbors are wearier from previous conflits, and my father's large scale colonization fleets easily retrofitted into warships... It's the perfect time to finally attack the Galactic Society of Aristocrats!”

Even before you were the Supreme Ruler, you always hated them. You've dreamed of nothing more then punishing and knocking them down a branch. Those ugly, evil little pink tubefaces.

Fuck the Aristocrats. Seriously.

Their constant smug sense of elitism and superiority. Their duplicitous and two-faced nature. Their cruel and sadistic society and obsession with perverse and degenerate art. They mock the Hegemony and your culture, calling you spartan and fake; a hundred times more authentic then the pure military utility of Esaal society and not whorishly sold and commodified like the Consortium species; yet that still isn't authentic and high brow enough for them. Not only that, but previous Supreme Rulers have tried to share fruits from your tree with them; letting them tour the conquered territories, the marvelous city of Myym, seeing your multi-racial society as it flourishes, and what do they do with this gift? They sent out custom sicknesses to weaken your industrial workforce and laugh at the cruel fate they inflicted upon one Farro Val.

The last straw came just a few years ago, when it was revealed a biocontaiminate on a colony world, the mysterious Breathstealer Flowers that almost killed a bunch of colonists at a special school, was not a Hazaar leftover, but something the Aristocrats planted intentionally on that planet during their tours of the Hegemony. So in the same breath where they praised Hass Takar for destroying their cast-off Hazaar; they also planted seeds to poison and potentially kill his people. It was only by sheer luck that one of the colonists had a special talent and was able to save the lives of the others. You began your war preperations immediately; you had to send Usis in your stead to clean up that situation.

It's time the Aristocrats get put in their place.

“Your Majesty, the war fleet is ready. Though I would like to ask, for the sake of posterity, what is your strategic objectives for this conflict? Extermination might be too out of the question for such a resiliant species...”
”Oh no Threes, I am no fool. We aren't going to be conquering their territory and taking planets. My father spent his entire reign dealing with the Hazaar leftovers and making the new colonies livable by honest and decent life forms; and that's after the Hazaar were already exterminated and whose biotechnology was much inferior to the Aristocrats. No, this is a humiliation war.”

“Our understanding of the Aristocrat's war capabilites are not well understood, your Majesty. We know their military is greatly inferior to ours, based on all metrics, but most of the casualities of the war will be far after the conflict. Bioweapons, contamination, and aysemmetrical warfare. After all, you'd be fighting an enemy whose own biosphere is trying to protect them, and remove the invaders like a body's immune system.”
”Preciesely. Which is why I also have no intention of occupying them either. No, we're going to hit the Aristocrats where it hurts the most... their pride. Every faction has their own ethos. The Consortium will commit and endure the most underhanded tricks and cost of life in war, but will always be willing to come to the table for trade. The Esaal praise individual honor and skill; as long as you give their warriors a fair chance to prove themselves, the worst war crimes are easily permitted. The Aristocrats instead only care about their apperance and culture. That's what we'll target. We'll destroy their art. I've been studying them. Their society is fuedal, but unlike any legitimate nobility, like the Hegemony's own elite, their nobles have no noblesse oblige. Instead of resources and wealth flowing up from the bottom of the pyramid, and power & land flowing down, the Aristocrat nobles only give culture, experience, art to those beneath them, in exchange for wealth and power and “stars” and protection and all that. What a useless caste of parasites. I'll humiliate them, that's what I'll do. I'll make them look weak and stupid. I'll make them put up statues praising the Hegemony's warriors and send us tribute; boiled, frozen, and then irridated so strongly not even an Aristocrat tardigrade can survive it; just to rub it in further. Along with the Consortium, this will be our second rival in space defeated by the Hegemony!”
“A lofty goal, your Majesty. I believe achievable.”
”Two more things, Threes. I need you to add this to our strategic objectives. We need to get Farro Val back from Ully'Andule. And... I need a new life machine. Do you understand?”
“Understood. I am creating the combat model now.”

RULES
In order to win, you must capture and hold at least FOUR capital planets, one of which being Ully'Andule's planet, whose banner has the golden borders.
Every round, you may allocate ships from your attack fleet to attack a planet or orbital body. You may only attack planets in the closest sectors (yellow, red, blue) or sectors which you have at least one unit of strength of your fleet remaining. The pink numbers represent the Aristocrat defense forces or resistance to bombing; which must be depleted for that planet to be fully defeated. If every planet within a sector is defeated, it will reduce enemy Reinforcmenets by the amount written in that sector's color.

”What of those small systems to the top of the battle screen?”
“The Aristocrats are a feudal society; power is banded in bonds of obligation. Ully'Andule seems the largest baron in our immediate space; with these systems representing bannermen who will come to his defense even if he (it?) doesn't own them directly. These smaller systems are smaller fiefdoms, indpendant petty nobles, or pieces of larger kingdoms who may in some way contribute to his defense. Think of these as secondary objectives. They can be attacked from the main fleet at any time, and each “sector” is smaller and easier to disable, but may be a waste of valuable time. Any fleet sent to destroy them will have to travel back to join the main battle fleet.”
”Well in that case, let's plan my surprise attack. They'll never know what hit them, har har har...”

Because you are an aggressive and warlike Supreme Ruler, your initial attack fleet has been increased to 300, instead of the normal 200. Additionally, you will win ties.

>Assign fleet values to attack individual planets within accessible sectors.

>>6270357
>Don't forget who is in charge, robot!
Based!

>It's time the Aristocrats get put in their place.
Based!

>aggressive and warlike Supreme Ruler
Would this war have happened if we weren't?

>>6270360
Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh I'll click back in an hour.

>>6270360
I'm gonna be honest, I don't quite grasp the situation


So we start at the bottom right and we choose to attack the sector, but...the numbers ARENT the Aristocrat fleet powers? They're "bombardment resistance"? How does the actual warfare and battles work?

>>6270365
Also wtf is that question mark in the bottom left? Esaal reinforcements? Like a possibility of the Esaal joining in to help the Aristocrats?

>>6270366
They're pink, so isn't that Aristocrats? Essal are red. Like the Aristocrats have 90 fleet compared to our 300, but they're uhh, coming from an unknown location?

>>6270367
Maybe? I mean, are sectors able to reinforce one another? And if so, what's the range? If we sent like 70 to attack that 52 planet, could the yellow sector send a 100 to help them?

>>6270368
I'm going to be real, I have no goddamn idea. Bananas, could you please write up an OOC explainer for this?

>>6270369
I would appreciate it

I DO like strategy and space warfare, I'd love to be able to go large as Yang Wen-Li and draw a plan that accounts for every variable and scenario, but for that I need to know how it works.

Yeah I knew this one wasn't fully finished, had to post it quick before heading to work and getting a chance to post an addendum on my phone.

This minigame is based around numbers. You can split your fleet however you want to attack planets (pink number is how strong they are), which will lead to rolling AFTER you decide on a battle plan. So you could attack six planets with 50 fleet power each with your starting 300 or whatever. The 90 on the left is how many reinforcements the enemy gets per turn, and the right number with the Hegemony gets per turn in addition to any troops you have out. However you can only attack sectors you have access to, which means having at least one defeated planet with your ships in it to move on to a commented sector. The four sectors on top can be attacked from the main fleet whenever you want.

Each sector is like a region in RISK, meaning fully taking it over reduces enemy reinforcements by that much (the number with the plus in the same color as tge sector). So if you take over the red sector you'll reduce enemy reinforcements by 10 so instead of 90 they just get 80. After you decide your attack plan then we'll roll to see if you take over the planets and how many ships you lose. Also every 10 ships you outnumber the enemy let's you blow up an extra one on a win, and defenders win ties but since you're Halam the "war leader" you just always win ties because he's based like that.

>>6270360
I assume numbers pink numbers are the cost? A bit like risk?

I suggest a wide front to break up the bonuses, and focus on the bigger planets within each nearby cluster.

I’d also suggest a raiding force be sent against the +6, best value to disrupt the minor compared to the others.

>>6270360
Hmm I say we take over the +16 one first and then go to the +20 one (Ully'Andule's planet) from there, then take over the other capital planets by the left (+8 and +7).
I don't trust myself with allotting the amount of ships so I'll leave that to everyone else lmao

>>6270360
Bonus- Cost - Value per cost (V/C)

+16- 159 - .10
+10- 206 - .048
+8- 105 - .076
+12- 99 - .12
+7- 145 - .048
+22- 280 - .078
+6- 37 - .16
+2- 16 - .125
+3- 33 - .09
+4- 43 - .093

Judging by this? Focus down the +16 cluster, then immediately march on +22

The secondary smaller clusters represent the best value per cost in degrading the enemy’s reinforcements, and should be a primary focus compared to cost heavy sectors such as the Red and Orange sectors. Since there is no benefit to disrupting the balance of any sector materially, we should focus on pacifying each sector in one complete unit rather than piecemeal.

>>6270360
So, based on >>6270401, I’d send 240 fleet against the +16 to fully pacify it, and march on +22 as soon as it’s feasible.

The 60 fleet will be sent to pacify the smaller clusters, starting with +6 and +2, and working it’s way down until all the smaller clusters become pacified.

>>6270404
As someone else said, we also want to limit Aristocrat Reinforcements by breaking up their regions. To that end, and based on the guidelines in >>6270360 I propose the following:

Expeditionary Fleet Alpha (Vasetaker): 160 ships & battleship. Strike the yellow +16 cluster as hard as possible, dividing the fleet proportionally to the target populations of targetable worlds.

Expeditionary Fleet Beta (Independants):
- 30 against the blue independant world with 16 defense
- 15 ships against the independant 9 and 40 against the independant 28 to hopefully secure the 6.

Expeditionary Fleet Sigma (Disruptors):
- 35 ships to take the 29 planet in blue.
- 20 ships to take the 12 planet in red.

Next turn the intent is to move NE with the Blue fleet and take the 7 while pushing reinforcements into the sector, widestrikeing the brown vase with alpha, fortifying Red, and consolidating Gamma onto the other independants or diving in where needed.

I'm not sure how the math of combat wins (if it's d100 or d20 or what), and I assume that we'll lose at least one battle (with the red 12 being the most likely) to the hostile ships.

Assuming all attacks are successful, in round 2 the Aristocrats with get effectively +41 ships while we'll get around +10. I don't know if it's feasible to win even with large starting advantage.

My larger strategy is to roll the yellow vase and the blue cyclops clustors while defending at Red. Then roll Orange while disrupting purple, and still playing defensive at red. Maybe snag the other independants along the way, even if that's likely to make them hostile (if they didn't exist I would have just sunk those resources into Blue instead looking for a 2 turn victory instead of 3 turns.

However, if this is just Risk and we can just roll through worlds without worry, then a better ide would be to conquer blue and yellow this turn while harassing red, for the sweet +74 pt. swing in manpower disruption, and leave the independants alone. Then next turn boost the Blue force and roll orange while using the Brown force to disrupt purple. If that worked we'd essentially have won with a +31 vs a +12 from the Green Tree alone. So to an extent the strategy depends on if this is planet by planet warfare or cluster by cluster.

>>6270401
>>6270457
Here's my battleplan :

Splinter Float Clusterfuck : 81 ships
The idea is to send it to take clusters in 2 turns. Starting with top-left with strong advantage to avoid ship loss then top right next turn, this is to leverage a good part of our 100-ship advantage. A few more to ensure no loss on the two first clusters, as well as triggering thresh for bonuses
Ship repart :
>57 on top-left +6 cluster (overnumber by 20 ships) reparted 38 on the 28 planet, 19 on the 9 planet, triggering two time the bonus
>26 on +2 cluster
This grants -8 to reinforcement by turn; additional one-time -3 because 3time 10-ship overpower and should let us take the rest of the cluster, regarding how it goes.

Main force Deepram : 217 ships; yellow cluster
Repart :
>15 on 5 planet
>28 on 18 planet
>43 on 33 planet
>51 on 41 planet
>80 ships on 62 planet
This means taking away 16 more reinforcements and one-time -5
The would yield on complete success permanent -24 and one time -8 on reinforcement.
Then, the concern would be having enough ships to attack the capital planets of sectors. Rushing the 109-one Wincon is a no-brainer; once we have yelow and purple we'll have access to 69 and 38 that should be manageable even reinforced.
This sector is great value according to >>6270401 and might not be after reinforcements.
One of my main concern is "big planets" : if 90 reinforcements goes to a 109 planet, the game will get really hard.

>>6270457
We have to full-take a region to stop reinforcement, right?

>>6270457
>>6270483
So looks like we currently have two(?) Battleplans written up. I'll break the tie with a random roll if no other voters (not 1-post IDs) support one or the other before we can get to the rolling.

alright guys i think my plan is better than >>6270457 because of this line :
>Each sector is like a region in RISK, meaning fully taking it over reduces enemy reinforcements by that much
I'm afraid spreading our forces like in battleplan Beta/Sigma won't serve our goals as well.

I still don't get whether the aristocrats can send reinforcements from other planets into other sectors.

>>6270548
That's part of the game, you don't know yet.

>>6270548
What impact could it have on the battleplan Deepram/Clusterfuck? if everything goes well, they'll mean to commit 48/38 on the secondary clusters to defend them; this can make the capital 38/69 harder to takeif they can deplete force from other planets, or full defend one of the planet of thte 16-cluster if we have a bad roll?

>>6270551
The yellow cluster is surrounded by FOUR other clusters. That's four clusters that could send reinforcements to it.

>>6270552
That doesn't change much things regarding :
1/ We should have favorable roll in 5 outa 5 planets (things like DC 35-40?)
2/ If a system is depleted too much, we can split there and take it (thinking let's say they take 60 from the 110-red, 50 from 105-orange, 30 from 69-blue : orange and blue becomes free real estate for Janxtian invasion

>>6270563
But it does. If they send enough reinforcements to, for example, the yellow sector capital, then the 80-strong fleet could very well be destroyed. That would be a crippling blow.

>>6270564
Surprise attack. They might reinforce but next turn; and we should have enough presence in the system to answer.
Plus, remember that we have +100 ship from initial plan thanks to our choice of ruler and my plan use 20 on them of that definitely-takeable system.
What you say makes me want to take Orange right after Yellow for a chance to cut blue away for Splinter Float... Or maintain the all-in purple... That would depend of our rolls, response from Aristocrat and actualized count like >>6270401 ...

They're gonna be so fucking mad when they realized it's just a contested roll slugging match system lol

>>6270564
Now, tell me why risk-adverse (You) take one chance over two for >>6270457 plan with 160 ships to yellow instead of my quick swipe one with 217 ships on yellow and a good chance to remove completely that system from the problem

>>6270566
>>6270568
I feel like you're focusing more on 'gains' than actual strategy. If they are able to reinforce other clusters, then the best scenario for us is to minimize the width of our frontline.

Again, comparing this to RISK, the best possible way to increase one's strength is creating 'chokepoints' and decreasing how much the enemy is able to reinforce their forces. The blue cluster at the far east side, for example, would only be reinforceable by *two* clusters, rather than *four*

>>6270567
well this is what I thought it was
>>6270570
Like focusing most of our force to a single cluster, say Yellow, that let us cut blue from orange?
And take free objectives with a small splinter?

Anyway, curious to see what Plan you would have. Right now there are two and i'm convinced one is better than the other - if you can make something equal or better than mine, I'll switch to ensure a good plan;

>>6270572
I don't have the time right now, but my point was that if reinforcements from other clusters are on the table, picking one of the clusters that have the most 'paths' towards it is a bad idea.

Attacking the mini-clusters isn't necessarily bad, mind. I'm just talking about the main offensive in the yellow sector.

>>6270574
What sector would you main-offensive to? I feel the "certitude" of this >>6270401 value-per-cost is more interresting than the incertitude (or disproven by >>6270567 , YMMV) of reinforcements

>>6270575
Like I said, the blue cluster would only be reinforceable by 'two' other clusters, yellow and orange. It might not have as many reinforcements as yellow, but I feel like that's a reasonable trade.

>>6270576
Alright this would give

SPLINTER : 83 ships
>57 on top-left +6 cluster (overnumber by 20 ships) reparted 38 on the 28 planet, 19 on the 9 planet, triggering two time the bonus
>28 on +2 cluster

MAIN : 215 ships
>69 + 60
>29 + 30
>7 + 20

That mean 8+ 3x bonus on cluster; 8 + 11x bonus on sector Blue + probing - but let them reinforce key systems faster.
so I won't switch to this as I feel it's a worse plan that my first one : 2 turns to stockpile reinforcement on their key system purple VS a chance to blitzkrieg the problematic 109 planet next turn.

>>6270294
I meant it could give them their votes. All these elements are going to end up in The Accord (or whatever Urgi state wins) after the vote, if I understand correctly. My thinking is it would be best fr us if weaker factions (Isolationists, Populists and Pacifists) dominated.

>>6270358
Aw yiss, our monkey-fucking cowboy will go down in history.

>>6270523
I'm a midwit and this is beyond my realm of expertise, sorry. GIve me a sec.

Okay, so.. I think those little independent clusters at the top are good ROI to take down, slowing reinforcements considerably with relatively little effort. Hitting the yellow cluster is popular with otehr players and also seems wise. Red is a bit scary, and since unlike Ully'ande in purple it isn't a special priority, I think taking Blue or Orange would be best to win the game once we have yellow, the independents in White, and (of course) our main target.

>>6270360
>>6270483 +1

>>6270567
Banana, tie broken, you can start rolling your wheelbarrow of dice

You are excited, honestly. Itching to prove your valor, and itching to use these resources stockpiled by your dear old dad to lead your people to victory against a hated foe. The black knife would quiver in your hand, but you aren't about to stoop to tradition now. You take up your battlestaff instead.

"Ready our weapons! All battle fleets... ATTACK!"

>>6270483
RULES
Each planetary battle is rolled separately and until one side is completely exhausted and destroyed. For the sake of simplicity, we will perform the attack in the order of the given battleplan. So ours will begin on the top left 38 vs 28 light green planet, then once that battle is complete, we will move on to the 19 vs 9 small gray moon within the same cluster, and so on.

Each round is a player roll. On each round, before rolling, for every 10 points a side outnumbers the other, the smaller side loses a ship/unit of power from the numbers advantage.

All rolls are 2d20. The first number represents the Hegemony, the second will be the Aristocrat defensive forces. Whichever side rolls higher destroys the winning number rolled of enemy ships. For example, if you roll 17 vs the Aristocrat 14, you blow up 17 Aristocrats ship. Then, roll again. A side can only destroy a number of ships equal to or less than their number of ships present in the battle; the Aristocrat moon of 9 ships can only destroy a maximum of 9 ships on a successful roll regardless of how high they roll.

Because of Halam's skill, you always win a tie, attacking or defending. Blow up the number of enemy ships you rolled. (ie; 12 vs 12, destroy 12 ships).

Players roll for the Hegemony's attack. Players can roll multiple times, but please give everyone a chance to contribute and test their luck.
>Roll (Remember; you can type "dice+2d20" without the quotes to roll!)

>>6270881
>players roll for the hegemony
Does this imply you'll be rolling for the aristocrats?

Rolled 2, 3 = 5 (2d20)

>>6270881

>>6270886
No you roll both every time.

Rolled 17, 12 = 29 (2d20)

>>6270891
Alright then.

>>6270887
>>6270893
-1 for Aristocrats (Advantage)
-3 for Hegemony
-1 for Aristocrats (Advantage)
-12 for Aristocrats
Alright, that puts us down to... 36 vs 14.

Rolled 13, 20 = 33 (2d20)

>>6270894
Welp, if no one else is gonna roll, I'll do it.

Rolled 19, 18 = 37 (2d20)

>>6270881
Oh joy

>>6270898
Maybe you shouldn’t lmao

>>6270898
Damn, shame. Ah, but luckily for us, they don't have 20 ships, only 12 when you account the advantage of 20

This leaves us with 22 vs 12, or I guess 22 vs 11 by next turn

>>6270899
Well, that battle is over. Final Fleet for the hegemony is 22, so a loss of 16 ships overall.

Onto the next battle, the advant

>>6270903
The advantage gives us 1 hit on the start, so it's 19 vs 8

Someone else can roll if they want to, this one shouldn't be too hard.

>>6270900
Perfect, you guys are doing the rules right and looking good. The idea behind this game was to make it as close to a 50/50 as possible but you get a few small advantages to make it easy, the voting minigame is supposed to be hard for your ruler choice.

>>6270898
>>6270900
Actually, I’m curious- is a roll capped by the amount of ships they have? Like, say the Aristocrats have 12 and we rolled 19 and they a 20- would they still sweep the 19, or would the roll be capped at 12 since they can’t materialize new ship in battle, meaning its 19 vs 12?

Just curious about the logic at play.

>>6270906
Ah- nvm then

>>6270906
It's honestly just luck and attrition. Unless the Hegemony can get reinforcements to make up for that we'll probably get ground down to nothing by even small failures.

Well, I'll just wait for more people rolling.

Holy FUCK you have no idea how bad I wanted to just post the puppy because you fuckers just won't read and then I realized I didn't actually mention the second and third attack waves smfh

Rushing to post updates before work is a DISASTER to the minigame monke community

Rolled 7, 18 = 25 (2d20)

>>6270904

>>6270937
Anon...we're supposed to be waiting for the rules...there's apparently 'wave' rules.

>>6270941
No, just continue the battle at the next planet according to your plan. The waves are your turns, like the election, the minigame goes along with the thread.

Rolled 20, 15 = 35 (2d20)

>>6270904

Rolled 4, 2 = 6 (2d20)

>>6270943

Rolled 4, 15 = 19 (2d20)

>>6270881
Total Hazza- I mean, Total Aristocrat Death!

I hope my minigame designed to let you entertain yourself for a few hours is working lol

Rolled 20, 3 = 23 (2d20)

>>6270881
I use my first action to Pray and my second action to Deploy Pepper Spray!

Rolled 5, 11 = 16 (2d20)

>>6270881
Quick, throw an asteroid at them!

Rolled 5, 3 = 8 (2d20)

Rolled 20, 7 = 27 (2d20)

I have no idea how many of these we need.

>>6271047
>>6271037
>>6270945
(dab dab dab dab dab)

Beancounting
38 vs 28 - 35 vs 27 - 35 vs 10 - 27 vs 8 - 27 vs 0
>>6270899 is the end of 38 vs 28 with 27 ships remaining.

19 vs 9 - 11 vs 8 - 11 vs 0
>>6270945 is the end of 19 vs 9 with 11 ships remaining.
TOPLEFT cluster GETS

26 vs 16 - 26 vs 11 - 16 vs 10 - 16 vs 0
>>6271036 is the end of 26 vs 16 Cluster with 10 ships remaining.
SECOND cluster GETS

Yellow cluster :
15 vs 5 - 11 vs 4 - 11 vs 0
>>6271045 is the end of the 15 vs 5 Yellow planet with 11 ships remaining.

28 vs 18 planet :
>>6271047 is the end of the 28 vs 18 planet with 28 ships remaining

Next roll will start 43 vs 33 planet.

Rolled 14, 11 = 25 (2d20)

Rollan

>>6271047
I'd say 6 to 12 depending on how it goes? There are still 2 planets and a half, but the full ones are big ones.

dice+2d20

Praying that this is the correct dice format

>>6271064
in the "options" box friend

Rolled 4, 6 = 10 (2d20)

Sorry I'm retarded

>>6271068
It's okay. Wanna try again?

>>6271075
I mean I already did so not really

>>6271082
there are still wheelbarrow to roll, and several of us already double-rolled. If you won't, I will.

Rolled 2, 6 = 8 (2d20)

Come on Holk. I know you're on this ship!

Rolled 10, 20 = 30 (2d20)

One more for the road.

Rolled 19 (1d20)

It's not over yet!

Rolled 8, 19 = 27 (2d20)

It's not over yet! [This time, with good amont of dice; deleted the confusing 1d20-post]

>>6271092
>>6271094
Still not over for this battle... But I count 5 ships for us vs 13 for them

Rolled 14, 5 = 19 (2d20)

>>6270881

Rolled 3, 10 = 13 (2d20)

RNGesus, don’t fail me now!

>>6271116
>>6271117
And with those too... Planet is loss.
End of 43 vs 33; 8 defenser remaining.
Next roll will start 51 vs 41. Now, who could do us the honor?

Rolled 19, 16 = 35 (2d20)

>>6271121
bump

>>6271126
Alright this brought the forces in presence to 51 - 21... Just the threshold for a nice -3 applied before the roll of next turn. This means we eat through their best rolls as well as grantin us lossless win on a 18+ on next roll/13+ on next roll with a requirement to roll to start next turn and autowin.

Rolled 15, 19 = 34 (2d20)

>>6271130
Wonderful

>>6271139
good news : your roll is less bad as we only lose 18 ship. Bad news : we lost 18 ships - 33/18
Wanna try again?

Any more needed?

>6271141

>>6271141
Yes, boatloads of them. Haven't started last planet yet

Rolled 1, 8 = 9 (2d20)

>>6271143

>>6271145
that bring the count to 25/17

We need a tactical win there boys

Rolled 7, 9 = 16 (2d10)

>>6271146
I'll try once.

Rolled 17, 15 = 32 (2d20)

>>6271147
16/16
Situation turning dire...

>>6271148
Oh, good. That should be it, right? They only have one, while we have 16. So they lose.

>>6271148
BUT NOTHING PREVAIL OVER JAXTIAN OFFENSIVE SPIRIT! After all, Jaxtian, Vetuckers and Swahili are morally superior to whatever alien is in front of us.
>>6271149
You're right (miscounted >>6271148 as it is 16/17) but according to the rules we still have to pointless-roll. Now, will you do us the honor to conclude assault of 41-kaki-moon?

Damn, I FINALLY found a minigame that lasts more then one hour. I thought I couldn't top Night Without Stars and it's roll autism. FREE content.

>>6271152
I'm having mad funs. I'm ready to write a thesis about tactical lessons deducted of this first battle turn once it's over

>>6271154
Thank you based beancounter I don't deserve you (˘ -˘ )

Rolled 19, 19 = 38 (2d20)

>>6271150
Sure- though I’m uncertain if 5 should beat 20 if the other side rolled a 20 desu

Rolled 17, 8 = 25 (2d20)

>>6271155
Not the OG beancounter; I know how helpful those guys are in complex thread. Anything to keep the Good Space Quest rolling smoothly

>>6271157
And that solve neatly their final gambit for 41-Kaki-Moon with an elegant win rather than bruteforce.

Allow me the honor to engage assault of their Capital...

>>6271157
>>6271159
Those two rolls would go to the next battle, anons. The 'advantage' is counted BEFORE the rolls. Those two rolls would go for the next battle, shouldn't they?

Assault recap : 43 vs 33 - greyRock
>>6271055
43/32 - 43/18 -
>>6271068
43/16 - 37/16
>>6271086
- 37/14 - 31/14
>>6271092
- 31/13 - 18/13
>>6271094
5/13
>>6271116
5/8
>>6271117
0/8
Lost 43 ships. Defenser lost 25 BattlePoer Defenser still have 8 BattlePower on planet.

Assault recap : 51 vs 41 Kaki moon
>>6271126
51/40 - 51/21
>>6271139
51/18 - 33/18
>>6271145
33/17-23/17
>>6271147
16/17
>>6271148
16/1
>>6271157
16/0
Lost 35 ships. Defenser lost 41 BattlePower; planet Taken.

>>6271164
We'll wait for Bananas to tell maybe?

>>6271174
I mean, I assume it would work. It says that the advantage happens before therefore, the order of things is

>Previous Roll
>Advantage (Enemy is finished off here)
>Next roll (New battle begins here)

>>6271175
I'm never assuming things with Bananas and mechanics; could definitely go either way (although i'd love for it to go our way and would add a dedicated section in the textwall i'm preparing)

>>6271174
>>6271175
Oh yeah, for sake of simplicity, you should still make a "roll" for battles where you're already going to 100% win (like sending a 77 fleet ship against a planet with 7 defenders) since yo have to make the "attack" and actually send the ships there to blow it up.

>>6271180
Thanks for clearing that out Bananas.
>>6271164
so that mean we're 80-44 on their capital. Wanna roll?

Rolled 14, 1 = 15 (2d20)

>>6271180
Alright then. Real shame, we could have gotten an 19 victory.

I guess our attack on the capital opens up with a victory of 8

>>6271181
Very well. With an advantage of 80-44, that should be down to 40, though.

>>6271183
Alright, that's 80-26, which with our advantage becomes like...80-21, right?

>>6271183
I'm generally counting advantage the same turn of roll for sanity and consistency reasons. We overpower by 36 so that mean 80-41 then after your excellent roll 80-27

>>6271188
Very nice, once you count the advantage for that, that should be 80-22. Let's keep going, since this is the last battle.

Anyone wants to roll? Already did my fair share.
Bananas, there's a typo there : >>6271051 - oif course 16 ships remain in Second cluster, not 10

Rolled 15, 2 = 17 (2d20)

>>6271190
Fine then, I'll do it again.

Rolled 18, 14 = 32 (2d20)

>>6271191
And, that's a victory. With only 7 units, we have an advantage of 73, which is enough to defeat them regardless of what happens.

Here's the final roll.

>>6271192
Assault recap : Yellowvase cluster capital 80/62

>>6271159
80/61 - 80/44

>>6271183
80/41 - 80/27

>>6271191
80/22-80/7

>>6271192
80/0

Flawless victory

>>6271194
Nice.

So, how much did we lose on the overall campaign? Seems like most other battles were pretty horrible.

>>6271195
Working on a textwall-battle report

On the merits of number superiority following Halem Anak doctine in Janxtian war with Ully'Andule - case study of Yellowvase Cluster Battle

>Context
General Beancounter battle plan was based the excellent analytic tool of "Value Per Cost" developped by Swall Lieutenant Viqu (>>6270401)
Total Aristocrat battle-power was estimated to 1123 unit of power [UoP] - however, it is estimated more stationarry in nature, attacked by 300 Ships of the hegemony. UoP was calibrated to be the theoretical equivalent of 1 ship.
>Theatre of operations :
The main assault force sent on the Yellowvase Cluster, while two splinter-fleet alpha and beta attacked singled-out small planetary clusters
The Yellowvase Cluster Battle resulted in the complete loss of 2 fringe clusters and almost-complete control of Yellowcase Cluster by Janxtian army.
Janxtian army lost 111 ships, depleting 204 UoP and cutting 8 of the 90 projected UoP by turn.

>Limitation of current study :
This thesis details circumstances of a surprise assault - meaning mastery over attackers and target. As the conflict evolve in the future, we might be confronted to defensive situations meaning a need for more adequate tooling to decide between reinforcement and assault. However, the author believe the analysis will remain of great merit to chose attack target for musterable forces.


>Section I/ Superiority advantage : Fire Suppression
This is the observation of the mechanical effect of "On each round, before rolling, for every 10 points a side outnumbers the other, the smaller side loses a ship/UoP from the numbers advantage."
The goal of the study is to evaluate
On fringe worlds:
Killed 4 UoP on First Cluster
Killed 2 UoP on Second Cluster
On Yellowvase cluster :
Killed 2 UoP on miniyellow moon according to simulations, mattered a little bit as this saved 1 ship (7 instead of 6; see Section II)
Killed 1 UoP on AnthraciteAsteroid according to simulations, didn't matter practically
Killed 6 UoP on GreyRock - which mattered greatly in improving the less-than-ideal outcome.
Killed 5 UoP on Kakimoon.
Killed 16 UoP on Greenclay - helping the Flawless win thanks to the excellent planification of the Assault of our Supreme Leader.

>Section II/ Superiority advantage : diminushing offensive capacities
This is the observation of the mechanical effect of "A side can only destroy a number of ships/UoP equal to or less than their number of ships/UoP present in the battle"
On fringe worlds :
Saved 8 of our ships on First cluster planet-Assault
Saved 8 of our ships on First cluster moon-assault
Saved 4 of our ships on Second cluster battle
On Yellowvase cluster :
Saved 7 of our ships on battle for miniyellow moon
No impact on STOMP of AnthraciteAsteroid battle.
According to projective analysis, the doctrine killed 5 of their UoP on GreyRock [lost battle] (this antisocial remark was corrected to : tactical skirmish to prepare occupation). Mechanic saved 8 ships; Those 8 ships turned capital asset later in the battle, each turning a tactical dire situation in a draw (without the mechanic, Kakimoon would had +5 UoP)
Saved 1 ship on Kakimoon assault
No impact on STOMP of AnthraciteAsteroid battle.

Conclusion :
Doctrine of Superiority granted us 41 free UoP, and saved 28 Hegemonic ships.

Of course, both mechanic are linked. Effect of diminushing offensive capacities is greatly lessen when there is over 20 UoP remaining so aiming to decrease UoP under 20 is strategically solid. Moreover, we can increase the worth of attacking 20 or less UoP with at least 10, ideally 20 units overpowering. Adequate tooling taking those in account remain to be developped.
Superiority advantage paradoxically yield best reward in losing situations.

I'm enjoying the recaps, and really appreciate the easy stats to work on the updates and also giggling and slapping my feet together that the original battleplan left 2 ships out of the fleet when it could have perfectly made your capital assault 82 vs 62 giving you a whole extra bonus ship of damage for free but oh well

>>6271224
Those 2 ships would have been better off on the battle we lost, the main Assault was literally flawless, an extra damage wouldn't have changed anything.

>>6271224
according to >>6270483 we used 57 + 26 + 15 + 28 + 43 + 51 + 80 ships = 300.
Two more would have triggered twice the bonus; but i prefered triggering +10 on one more front.

>>6271227
Good catch, don't know where I got those two extra ships from.

Anyway, update at normal time! Thanks everyone for playing with this minigame, it was just on the cusp of being too complex I feel; the election one had a lot more thought and planning put into it.

>>6271231
Your welcome QM, it was great.
Could I get the info of Hegemenoy reinforcement/turn? you talked about that >>6270386 but didn't gave us any figures

Theorycrafted a bit more - what is the required amount of attackers to be sure to take a defenser?
Not 100% certain those are the best solutions AND this are worst-case scenarios.

Autowin condition : minimal amount of ship to get a positive tradeoff on full adversorial max rolls
10/1 flawless
11/2 - 10/1 : -1
Alternatively, 22/2 flawless
23/3 - 22/1 : -1
24/4 - 22/2 : -2
26/5 - 23/3 - 22/1 : -4
Alternatively, 35/5 - 33/2 : -2
36/6 - 33/3 : -3
Alternatively, 28/6 - 24/4 - 22/2 : -6
38/7 - 34/4 - 33/1 : -5
48/8 - 44/4 : -4
Alternatively, 40/8 - 35/5 - 33/2 : -7
49/9 - 45/5 - 44/1 : -5
50/10 - 45/5 - 44/1 : -5

>>6271232
It's 200. Initial wave is boosted because Alpha supreme.

Alright guys. Update usually come out in the middle of my night; however I'm very implied in that one minigame. So...
>Defensive doctrine :
I'd advise to field at least 21 ships in defence everywhere if possible - except capital planet which are strategical objectives.

>Cluster 1: 27/11
Recommandation : transfer 6 ships from planet to moon. Consider sending 4 ships as reinforcement
>Cluster 2 : 16
Consider sending 5 ships as reinforcement.
>Yellow cluster
Captured position :
11 on miniyellow, 28 on AnthraciteAsteroid, 16 on Kakimoon, 80 on Greenclay
Hostile position :
8 on Greyrock

Capital is a winconn so we should leave 80 ships on it.
I'd send the 7-overflow to miniyellow.

T2 strategy : BASERUSH
I got for you guys a bold move - depending on how they play their reinforcement, of course...
>Send 40 ships on Greyrock
Assuming they keep the 8 defenser, this is an autowin, and give us ships to reinforce the whole system, and a hanful more for, say, next turn clusterfuck II electric boogaloo, attack on blue or attack on Orange. Plus, cut 16 reinforcement for T3
>Send 160 ships to knock on Ully'Andule door in Purple sector.
the 109-planet is a Wincon - meaning a losecon if they stockpile 90/turn on it long enough. With a 160-ship greeting party, we get a free -5 to them and we pray RNJesus to whittle them down faster than they do us.

I haven't run again Value per cost - depends on reinforcement and their allocation. We also need to consider :
- Is it "good" to leave defense on the clusters or shall we use them to wreck havoc somewhere else?
- Small planets gives more value thanks to Superiority Advantage doctrine
Sending +20 strikeforth on red-12 and blue-7 can pave the ground to T3/T4 conquest. However, with strategy of T2 BASERUSH, this open possibility of attacking Green on T3: if things doesn't change, it is the best ValuePerCost system. Things are too far for careful planning, but a 58/47/40/34 assault (total : 179) could be kept in mind.

“Lanyards off! Nothing that can cause a failure in the seal on the battlesuits is allowed! Do you really want to be breathing that atmosphere?!”

The Vetucker soldiers prepare, donning their suits and special armanents. They pack into small metal tubes aboard their ships, fidgeting, nervous for the time ahead. One begins to stamp his feet, creating a metallic clang that the others join. This is a breach of operational discipline. The team captain looks to the Jaxtian battle commander ready to launch them, and he nods. This is permitted.

”Stam... pede”
“Stam... pede”
“Stam-pede!”
“Stam-pede!”
“STAM-PEDE!”
“STAM-PEDE!”
“STAMPEDE!”

The pods fall with a screech, entering the atmosphere and falling far faster then any thing affected by gravity should. Everything inside would be liquified if it wasn't for the state of the art inertial dampeners. One second after touchdown, the lid flies off, and the soldiers emerge onto the unsuspecting world.

Traditionally, the Hegemony's heavy infantry and marines were made up of Alpha-Male Jaxtians; strong, smart, fast, and flexible. But a new battle doctrine was created for this campaign; something requiring the endurance, discipline, and unique capabilities of the Hegemony's other warrior phenotype.

Vetuckers equipped with the brand new Broadback weapon system have been deployed as your primary ground forces on the Aristocrat planets. Essentially a mobile reassembler backpack and attached weapon; the broadback sucks up useful materials from the enviorment, quickly recycles them, and supplie them as ammunition for the primary weapon system. Conductive metals used for electrostatic nets and darts to stun and fry swarms and smaller opponents, powerful magnetic slugs for armored and large-bodied targets, and flammable gases absorbed and used for the powerful plasma throwers meant to burn up all organic material. On planets whose biosphere wants to kill you; every plant and tree is an enemy combatant, and must be treated as such.

The Vetuckers move in lines; combing the surface immediately after ariel bombardment. It was not expected that kinetic weapons alone could destroy the Aristocrats defenses; which is why these soldiers were deployed to clean up after. It is also not expected to be able to permanently dislodge the Aristocrat defenses; total destruction of the topsoil and underground root system would be too costly and difficult. So instead, as grazing animals do, your soldiers decimiate the local ecosystem before moving to the next. Too dangerous for constant extraction; they're expected to stay on the planet for days at a time. While its not safe to let them consume the organic matter; they can at least drink recycled and distilled water and have a salt lick installed on the inside of their helmets, and only need to sleep for an hour or two at a time given the Vetucker biology. Special braces on their legs allow them to sleep standing up; ensuring formation can be kept even as some rest and others advance. Who knew the Hegemony's herbivores would end up being the perfect soldiers?

While your intitial surprise attack wasn't able to capture every single planet you targeted, you were able to get most, and capture a single capital, while cutting off some extra reinformcenets. The Aristocrats, naturally, denounce and threaten the Hegemony for this unbridled act of aggression to all who will listen; which is nobody in this region of space. Good, you enjoy watching them cry into the void.

If anything; it is has actually been a positive to your reputation. The Supreme Commander of the Esaal military has actually sent you a direct message.

”Ahh, Jaxtians! You've decided to take a bite out of the Aristocrats as well? Yes! Haha, I love it!”
”Thank you. Looks like we share a common enemy. Even if the Esaal and ourselves haven't always seen... eye to eye. Har har.”
”Our wars with the Aristocrats left us exhausted of fighting them, so we can't join you. It's boring fighting the same people for too long. But we could offer you something else. We still have fresh data from our own conflicts with the pinkos. We'd be willing to trade it for... a favor.”
”A favor? What favor?”
”I don't know yet!”
”Well, I am sorry. You may be the closest thing we have a friend in space, Esaal friends, but I would hate to strain our relations by refusing to fulfill our end of the bargain in the future when it would be an unacceptable-”
”Hold your refusal, Jaxtian noble! Our peoples have known each other for some time, and we are kindred spirits. Fighting with honor, allowing our defeated warriors home without humiliation, and vice versa; you know we wouldn't ask for something absurd in return for something as small as information? I don't know what I would ask for, because I am old. An old Esaal is not long for this world. I must die a warrior's death. But my successor... they will know what to ask you for. I promise, it will not be a trick, nothing massive or expensive or unforward to our relationship. Surely we have earned enough trust in you for that?”

It appears the Esaal want to offer a trade. In exchange for giving you very useful information about the Aristocrats from their previous campaigns; you will owe them a small favor in the future. The Threemind tells you that accepting this deal will give us information on where the Aristocrats will send their reinforcements and where they will likely flee; and as you know, the Aristocrats also border the burgeoning Urgi state.

“If we know where the Aristocrats may send ships to flee their system, we could intersect them and battle them near Urgi space.”
”And what would the purpose of that be?”
“We could direct the fighting into a faction of our choice... who will be forced to prepare defensive forces. And if say, an Antimatter torpedo glances off an Aristocrat ship and hits and Urgi station, or Aristocrat biospores are accidentally released near an Urgi military fleet and get sucked into their atmospheric filters...”
”And expend their resources! I see.”
“Yes. If we accept the Esaal's offer, not only would it give us an advantage in our war, but also let us influence the election subtly by reducing the militarization level of a faction by one bar. Becuase of how spread out and disjointed the Urgi are, we can pick and choose where this will happen; plus, don't forget, this is for a favor in the future. We you could freely decline if you so choose.”
”But, that would strain our relationship with the Esaal... Hmm... That reminds me, has the stealth retrofit finished on my Battleship?”
“It has indeed, your Majesty.”
”Perfect! They'll never expect this. While busy fighting the first attack wave, who would expect an invisible BATTLESHIP to show up and bomb the daylights out of one of their planets? Hehe... I love my toys.”

You realize of course, if you had spent some of that economic abundance on new battleships, you'd have even more ability to bomb the Aristocrats and reduce their defenses further; but you felt the Starsight Academy and Migrators were more important in the long term. Your primary battleship, now retrofitted with stealth technology, will have to do. Loaded up with all the super-dense kinetic rods it can carry, you aren't going to risk it for a ground invasion. Let's see how many mountain ranges and jungles we can level with it...

Do you want to accept the Esaal's deal; information for a favor in the future?
>Yes
>No

You also have a Stealth Battleship ready to bombard an Aristocrat planet. This will reduce one planet's defenses by exactly 30 points. Where would you like to use it?
>Specify a planet controlled by the Aristocrats (pink number) to attack

>>6271530
>Yes
It'll be either acceptable or we'll refuse it, sounds good to me. We need to keep the Hegemony's skyrocketing growth going.

As for the stealth bombardment? I'll leave it to the eggheads. I might have some idea of strategy when it comes to tactical thought, but I'm too lazy to run the numbers.

>>6271530
>No
We can win this on our own, and my preferred strategy for the election is still the one where the Accord wins the vote by being weak.

>Bombard Orange 105


>>6270336
I think we can afford to be a little greedy with the birds.

>>6271536
We could win on our own, maybe, but it wouldn't be as efficient.

Also, if you want them to be the weakest, wouldn't you need the Accord to lose some military strength to match the singular red bar of the Goldwings?

>>6268879
In fact, no matter how you look at it, to get the Pacifist and Isolationist votes, you'd need to get them to 1 regardless of what the secret bar of the goldwings are.

No one seems to be getting reinforcements. Therefore overwhelming force is the rule of the day. I guess if we just clustered all 209 forces together we could march through Purple's territories, bombarding the capital and working from largest to weakest to preserve our miliary advantage before spreading our forces everywhere we can probably do it.

I'm assuming that we need to pull our forces off the planets to launch them at future conquests. Also, yellow sector looks like a Swall head.

Purple has a shown strength of 280. Our yellow forces are at 145. Our outworld forces are at 54. So pre-battleship we are about even, but due to our local superiority they should be bleeding troops to power differential (unless we just see the purple capitol with 199 power or something. I'm still not sure if they get 90 power a turn, or if it's some sort of multi-nation fleet which loses a portion if its home sector is conquered.

Assuming we conquor purple soundly I guess we'd try to make peace with red, threaten green with destruction, then try to roll east into orange, followed by a desperate push on the blue capital. We haven't seen reinforcements get applied to either side yet, so hard to say. Maybe we spank Purple, decide the really we only needed three capitals, torch Green's home and leave?

Can we torch the 8 yellow world on our way out? Can the outland ships reach blue this turn?

If the enemy is getting +90ish forces a turn (or even +40 with purple and yellow depleted) and we are getting +0, we're going to struggle either way.

Actually we have 189 total strength, not 209.

They just won't read.

Read yes, comprehend no.

Although re-reading the battle rules I guess we should start with the small planets first and work our way up since they lose forces first and can only kill up to the forces they have on planet, and we get to keep all our forces then spread out after? So at 189 ships we could eat the nine, mostly eat the 21, then work our way up the food chain and blast the 109? Execpt post 6270386 says the outnumber bonus only take effect on a win, wheras 62770881 says that it is done before rolling.

Still, if the enemy get reinforcements every turn and we don't I don't think that this is now a winnable scenario without significant luck on our side. If Purple drops 90 forces on their capital this turn maybe we can still conquer purple, but then they'll drop 60-70ish somewhere else next turn and we'll still need two capitals, assuming that reconquest isn't a thing (despite the initial rules saying take and hold the capitals instead of just burning them). I don't think that we have enough gas in the tank for that.

So despite having read the posts and the idea of reinforcements, it doesn't make sense to me. Also, if the +'s were used to generate that 90 then the neutrals are contributing to the enemy war effort rather than just protecting themselves.

Narratively, are the Aristocrats producing 90+/- fleet strength a turn vs. our 300 strength expeditionary fleet? This is what led me to the roving 90 fleet hypothesis, with portions leaving if their home system was burned (ie. the roving reinforcements).

>>6271538
My strat there woukd still be to just slightly bump the other two factions with trade to make the Accord the best choice for isolationists, pacifists, and populists. I guess you're right, though: that could also work and save us a turn. I just worry that could also sour yhe Accord against us in a more overt way than funneling a bit of aid to the others on the sly.

>>6271571
>>6271556
>>6271573
Bros we get 200 reinforcements each turn. >>6271236


>>6271530
>Yes
The Essal are reliable and their hate of the Aristocrats is certainly authentic.

>>6271530
>Yes
I’m just curious

>109
It’s not about the efficacy, it’s about sending a message.

Besides, sending it against the 8 only results in a 24 net positive for us. There is more rationale for sending it against one of the secondary clusters so we can send an overall smaller force to conquer it and preserve more forces for the roll off.

I assume there are reinforcements for our side, given it’s called the initial fleet? If so, can we get a number for ours? Trying to war-plan this without those number is futile.

>>6271585
Dude it's right above you. >>6271581

>>6271581
>Bros we get 200 reinforcements each turn.
I was discussing the election minigame in the post you tagged, not this one

>>6271530
>Yes. Reduce the Accord's military power to try and win appeal from isolationists and pacifists for their side. Hopefully the isolationists don't already see them as our puppets. Discuss possible ramifications of warning the elites among the Accord before the strike so that they can get their families out. Also, does 3's think that the isolationists will acctually vote accord if they are the weakest, given their current reputation?

>Purple Planet 109. Strike while the iron is hot.

War Plan: 40 to yellow 8, 170 to assault purple. May change depending on how the vote for info goes. 160 has a decent chance of defeating purple and would put us in a position to hit green or blue next turn. Taking purple is better than taking orange and blue if we can pull it off.

Regarding bird puzzle, unless the Redwings have a secret green and the Golds have a secret red, I don't know how we force that on our own. If the Redwings have a secret red and the Goldwings have a secret green, then nuking the Accord won't really help us.

We need at least 6 councilors to win.

C1 - Neutral
C2 - 50 us/50 military
C3 - us
C4 - mystery
C5 - 50 us/50 mystery
C6 - 50 cash / 50 military
C7 - populist
C8 - 50 us/50 passificst
C9 - Military
C10 - Redwing
C11 - 50 Red/ 50 Iso
C12 - 50? / 50 Red
C13 - 50 ? / 50 gold
C14 - 50 suprem / 50 gold
C15 - 50 iso / 50?
C16 = 50 pop / 50 pasifist

If we get Military/Populist we get
If we get Pacifist/Populist/Iso we get 4 in the bag and 3 known 50/50's. We might be able to get this through support of Red & Gold, but it's not a clear victory. In that case Red would get 2 + 4 50/50's and Gold would get 1+3 50/50s.

Anyway, I guess I'm on board with team low-stats. Nuke the Accord to make them look like our enemies to make the isolationists like them,

I assume that bombing the birds will increase isolationism, which helps our low-stats Accord.

It would be nice to snag a guarenteed elector #1 and hope that the coinflips fall in our favor. It's possible that 4 or 15 are also already on side. We'll have to see how the board shifts after the other vote though.

>>6271587
Ah, thanks.

Best bet is gobbling up the minors and the +8 in that case, then taking on the +22, though I’ll have to number crunch the reinforcements to make a definitive assessment.

>>6271530

I (>>6271536) could back
>Reduce the Accord's military power to try and win appeal from isolationists and pacifists for their side. Hopefully the isolationists don't already see them as our puppets. Discuss possible ramifications of warning the elites among the Accord before the strike so that they can get their families out. Also, does 3's think that the isolationists will actually vote accord if they are the weakest, given their current reputation?
if allowed, in which case I'll turn my vote to
>Yes

Also the reason I drew the "invisible battleship" with the question marks is because I can't decide on a good design- the three lights on the front is good but the back looks a little shitty. If you have a cool design for the Hegemony's battleships let me know.
>>6270357 original design here

>>6271594
Voting for this one.
We might need to reinforce some sectors depending on the info though.

>>6271662
So... As we're burning everything behind us, I might have a strategy able to win the war in 3 turns. Of course, it'll depend of rolls wether it will work or not.
First, I redid the "maths". 30 troups are enough for a autowin on 8, with the risk of losing 9 ships instead of 4 with 48 or; 7 with 40; 8 with 38
48/8 - 44/4 : -4
Alternatively, 40/8 - 35/5 - 33/2 : -7
38/8 - 33/5 - 30/2 : -8
30/8 - 25/5 - 22/3 - 21/1 : -9
Then, there is the matter of reinforcement and how they're being used. Taking back the yellow capital would eat through most of their refreshment and would be manageable. Here's my strategy to win the war :
Bomb the most important planet, purple capital.
T2 : 30 on yellow8 (if it remains at 8) will reinforce, 170 on Purple as discussed. Alternatively, we can maybe do 90 on Purple/109-now-79 and 80 on Blue/69 however this is riskier
T3 : attack Green38 and Blue69. If they both fall, we win the war.

Bananas, is it better for us to completely dominate and humiliate Aristocrat by taking everything on the risk minigame or to win fast?

>>6271695
Part of the fun for me is not explaining everything in exact detail, but just this once I will give you a hint.

Reread the original objectives description very carefully.

>>6271698
No, this is a humiliation war.
We aren't going to be conquering their territory and taking planets.
>>6270358
We know their military is greatly inferior to ours, based on all metrics, but most of the casualities of the war will be far after the conflict

Two more things, Threes. I need you to add this to our strategic objectives. We need to get Farro Val back from Ully'Andule. And... I need a new life machine. Do you understand

WinCon :
>Capture and hold AT LEAST four capital planets
Clusters :
>Think of these as secondary objectives

Here's my opinion, open to debate.
So the longer the war, the more casualty we risk. I'd say the life machine and Farro Val are hidden mystery box. I'd say the safe way to get both might be full cluster takeover + full capital planet hold.

You guys are behind me for doing the funniest Full-Aristocrat-Humiliation battleplan?

Bananas, for the sake of battle-planning, would you allow us to "disengage" a winning battle? Let's say we want to soften defense of a system but not win yet, could we retreat instead of pushing the attack?

>>6271717
Maybe for a side prompt involving the war or a special write-in for Jale Berax's epic commando squad but for a normal minigame vote no, I'd prefer to keep it as simple as possible.

>>6271726
Thanks for the answer.

Alright I'm coming with an improved assault plan.
It will of course depend on how they use their reinforcement. I assume for what follows they would play full defensive and not try to retake planets. Of course, this have to be moderated with new infos from bananas...
If they play full defensive, we can afford to let a single ship in taken planets in response. This frees :
>51 ships in the cluster
>131 ships in Yellow
Proposed amended battleplan :
>Send 51 clustership + 12 Yellowships toward 43 +4 cluster.
Reasonning : clusterships need one turn of travel back to main fleet - but can attack other cluster quite freely if i got it correctly. This is a best used on the already deployed force. With a bit of luck they can swipe down 33/+3 cluster on T3.
>Split the planned 170 ships + 119 Yellowships on purple cluster with :
>29 on 9
>41 on 21
>46 on 26
Depending on reinforcements, either 173 on Capital [Capital reinforced] or 111 Capital/62 on42 Bluemoon

This one is a rough sketch but leverage our already deployed forces. I admit, this is a bit shitposting as long as we don't have the Esaal intel - but this should help prove this intel is valuable.

>>6271594
With the vote of knowing blackbars, we can surely apply a plan to fuck up some 100% unfavorable voters, like C14 in the next phasis?

I'm just gonna point it out, do we *really* want to attack Undully'ande this turn? It's certainly a *good* cluster, we need to take it eventually, but it's also VERY strong. Just one of the planets there (72) would require more than a 100 ships if we wanted to be safe.

>>6271795
Fair point. This is why it's important to get the info on how they will use reinforcements : Big-number planets are tough and might take several turn to occupy.
What's your thoughts about >>6271704 ? If i'm not grasping straw, this could help us plan Total Domination

>>6271798
I mean, i feel like it depends on their movement. My worry would be if that planet with 73 ships in it ended up reinforcing the one with 109.

If we were sure that the 73 planet was safe, then we could bombard Undully and take it with a considerable enough force.

>>6271799
Only one way to know - wait next update.
Now, the Undully Capital is a wincon. Meaning if we want to go complete humiliation, we can take all the rest of the system and get to it last. Will that appease your concerns? if so, we can instead bomb 105-orange, and mount this attack :
>51 clustership + 12 yellowship toward 43 +4 cluster
>30 on Yellow-8
>103 ships Orange-105
>60 ships Orange-40
>59 + 30 - bombing blue-69
>39 on blue-29
>27 on blue-7 (autowin with at worst 18 casualties on full awful rolls)

>>6271799
>>6271802
There's some risk with that two-cluster attempt. Also, I'd prefer to get some boots on ground on Purple-9 to open the green cluster, ripe for taking

>>6271802
>>6271802
You sure that 103 is enough to beat 75? It's cutting it pretty close.

>>6271807
Not sure of anything. Just sayin' it can be its own altenrative plan.
Remember that as we win tie, we have interrest to fight/roll as much as possible (52.5% chances of winning the roll)

>>6271808
I wonder where the hell that An'Tula is now that we captured his stuff. Capturing an Aristocrat would be great.

The issue, of course, is that being the freaks they are, how do you humiliate them without it turning out to be some weird-ass fetish they actually enjoy?

Maybe Halam can decapitate them on live video or something, I don't know.

>>6271808
Thanks for the lore, that will avoid me butchering/making on the spot names for next battle reports.

Can we keep the bombing option after we get the Esaal infos?

>>6271813
>Can we keep the bombing option after we get the Esaal infos?
No, that's part of this prompt along with the choice of to accept the Esaal's offer or not.

So, uh...what are we bombarding, then?

>>6272004
Well... I have a plan. You'd have to trust me on this, but...
>Bomb Blue-69
I feel bombing Ully'Andule have a chance to mess with life machine/Farro Val and I don't wanna risk it.
For total humiliation, we need to finish by taking the Ully'Andule capital after conquering everything. I think next turn should take a small planet of Purple for a foothold toward Green, and full assault on blue/orange

>>6272024
So basically, your plan is to take out Fas'Kon'Anull (Blue) while it's isolated, assumingly the whole cluster, then I'm guessing you'll want to push into orange? Or directly into Purple?

>>6272031
Plan would be next turn :
* finishing of Yellow,
* taking Fas'Kon'Anull (nothing of value would be loss on Stealth-bombing there)
* Taking cluster 4
* Get a couple badly-defended planets to ensure a path to green. Red-12 and Purple-9 comes to mind.
Purple-9 have the advantage to make them crap their pants, stockpile reinforcement in Purple - while it is merely a distraction while we take on T3 Green, Orange and Cluster 3, finishing to gut their reinforcements.

After all, we want a life-machine and I have good reason to think the Insar'Sholo faggot lives in Kon'Cil'Cilas - and that guy got the life Machine.

>>6272035
That seems reasonable to me. I will support the plan

Amending
>>6271532
for
>Bomb Blue-69

Rolled 1 (1d2)

Vote tied between Blue 69 and Purple 109. Tie breaking now.

You agree to the Esaal's deal. Trade for a trade!

They give you some very useful information. Beyond the escape routes used by the Aristocrats, something the Esaal very desperately wanted during their own war to stop them from slipping away, you also learn their battle tactics. As it turns out, these proto-Hazaar are very defensively minded, mostly caring about retaking lost planets. It seems that the Aristocrat reinforcement numbers will be evenly split among all sectors you have conquered planets within, attacking the capitals if you own them, otherwise attacking the weakest planet you control, denying you access to a bridge to deep strikes into their territory if you can't hold it. Also, as a rule, it seems the outlying secondary clusters on the edge of Aristocrat space will never have an attempt to retake them once captured; preferring much more to retain the dignity of the main Aristocrat ideals. We can hopefully use this information to our advantage, and that's it worth whatever the Esaal ask of us in the future to repay it.

In the meantime, you are busy doing administrative study and optimization of your first attack fleet, especially to improve future waves. You scratch a persistent itch in your side, yawning.

"Ugh... I'm tired. Staying up late to do these battle calculations is so exhausting."
"You may rest whenever you wish, your Majesty."
"But we could make our attack forces so much more efficient! Not to mention, I need to oversee scavenging and sanitizing any destroyed fleet components and reuse them for the next one; could really boost Fleet power. Actually, Threes, why don't you synthesize me some caffeine?"
"...Really? Like what the Consortium does to extract excess value from its expendable workforce."
"Hello? Supreme Ruler here! If I'm not busying myself with that, I'd have to work on some cultural renovations.... yuck."
"You could boost efficacy of our future attack fleets by... two and a half percent. I believe this is a more optimal use of your limited time, your Majesty."

>Study after-battle results & optimize future fleets (+5 Fleet Power for future attack waves)
>Update an element of Hegemonic culture (Change any artistic aspect of the Hegemony's designs; like ships, space stations, uniforms, colors, etc. write-in only)

>>6272203
Now that's a good question. What could we change...

Maybe some capes? Capelets? Something to make our navy guys cooler. I get that "everyone except the Supreme wears a jumpsuit" is a hegemony thing but it's kinda lame.

>>6272186
>Blue 69
mfw

>>6272228
Not physically possible, the horns would get in the way.

>>6272206
>"everyone except the Supreme wears a jumpsuit" is a hegemony thing but it's kinda lame.
The lanyards help IMO.

>>6272203
>Study after-battle results & optimize future fleets (+5 Fleet Power for future attack waves)
I'm willing to change if someone else has a fun idea, though.

>>6272228
kek

>>6272203
>Update an element of Hegemonic culture (Change any artistic aspect of the Hegemony's designs; like ships, space stations, uniforms, colors, etc. write-in only)
>Make wrestling more of a thing. Preferrably with as little clothes as possible.

>>6272263
I legit can back something like that as an extension of Hoik's impact on society, but I don't know if I want it badly enough to forsake a mechanical advantage.

>>6272265
What if it granted a future bonus to boarding actions?

>>6272203
Alright, the defensive tactic sucks ball, We can force them to attack in inferiority (thus playing our game and not their) by splitting our effort.

I'm not certain we need the +5. Granted, it would help; if someone as a cool idea (disregarding gayness of >>6272263 I might switch.)

Next turn will start with their 82-attack on An'Tula'Manis. Maybe sending 20 or 30 guys there won't be lost? I don't know if reinforcements are played before our turn or during it. This means the ideal system defense is 1 ship everywhere and stockpile all of them on capital.
But it get really interresting if we manage to apply the plan for next turn :
Let's imagine one second we take fully Yellow, Blue and Cluster4 : -36 to reinforcements, meaning 44 remaining.
Now, let's also project we manage taking with 29 ships and 32 ships purple-9 and Red-12: we can waste their reinforcement by forcing to attack them in inferiority : a meager 11 ships-per-planet.
Else, to ensure our bridge to green, we also can instead take 2 Purple planets... But this feel a tad wasteful.

In the end, it looks lke green sector will require more planning and investment to get - strengthening my conviction that the mystery box life machine is there

>>6272335
>Next turn will start with their 82-attack on An'Tula'Manis.
There are no reinforcements on the first turn.

>>6272340
Oh, that's simply precious. That change much, much things. Those guys are cooked.

>>6272203
>Study after-battle results & optimize future fleets (+5 Fleet Power for future attack waves)

Can't think of any cultural ideas and not fond of the ones suggested so far

Strategy : Divide and Conquer.
Goal is to exploit their learned behavior to split and attack only planets in which they'll be in numerical inferiority.

Cluster : 1 ship is enough on each astral body. This frees 26 + 10 + 15 = 51 ships that we'll send on Cluster 4
I'd advise to keep high defense on the Yellow Capital for now, however we can safely take back 21 ships.
We can pull back 27 + 15 + 10 + 21 ships from yellow (73 ships). 12 of them are going to Cluster4.
>63 ships attack Cluster-4 43 planet
This mean we still have 261 ships to play with. Turn objective :
>Complete Yellow domination
Achievable with 30 ships on Greyrock
>Blue Hostile Takeover
27 ships on blue-7 [autowin, worst case scenario 11 casualties]
69 ships on blue-29
84 ships on blue-69[now 39]
Sub-total : 180 ships
>Spread for dread :
29 ships on Purple-9
32 ships on Red-12
Sub-total : 61 ships
This guts the reinforcements as follow :
Ideal case : Cluster4, Blue and yellow taken, Purple9 and Red12 taken :
They have to split their 44 reinforcement... In 4x11 attacks, giving a good chance to repel them even with the 20-or-so ships remaining on Purple-9 and Red-12
Realistic case : Yellow taken. Blue partially taken; for exercice's sake we missed blue-29 and 22 ships remain on blue-69. Cluster 4 taken. Misslucked so 12 ships remain on Purple-9(failed 4 time in a row) and 20 on red-12
They have 52 reinforcements still split 4-ways : 13 on yellow and blue capital; 13 on red and Purple defense. Still a great way to get them to waste troups.

If we have +5 ships, I'll add them to blue-69 attack to bring a nice 89 [5 time overnumber bonus]

I've gotta wait to do the second war minigame update when you're out of town or busy with something lmao

>>6272354
That would be extremely funny. However, I'm afflicted with the "terminally online" condition thing.

>>6272354
Then, dive in your heart. Is the trolling worth the lack of fine-beancounting? If the concern is my flooding of the thread, I can do my best to reduce it a fair bit; are you afraid we're winning too good to fast?
did the +5 ship vote was a beancounting reward?

>>6272357
>did the +5 ship vote was a beancounting reward?
Ehh, maybe. I gotta stretch these two shit minigames out for like a month or whatever for the thread's lifespan so we gotta have some filler. Plus I think it's fun when people contribute their art ideas for the quest even if it is a big write-in central.

>>6272364
>I gotta stretch these two shit minigames
they're far from shit. I like the fact they're interlinked and I found some really nice hidden depth in the "lolololo Risk megadicerolling" one
Regarding Art Vibe, I really like the siplicity of gold bands and lanyards, which works well within your style.
As for ships, here's a proposal of battle-bomber.
Hawk-shaped, painted in Indigo-blue ('member Vat-monkeys?) sparkled with white. As a whale enthousiast, I added a Migrator Decal on the bomber.
The idea is to allow a bit of harmless customisation as a mean for Hegemonic military to express theirself : war as an artistic tool itself, cementing our position as an inbetween aristocratic degeneracy and esaal deep raw utilitarism

This website draw engine always do this to me

The write ins... have displeased them...

I still think capes and capelets are cool.

>>6272431
Easy way to visually tell hierarchical link with lanyard/braces being like medals and telling more of individual accomplishment. With a nice visual, can get behind for sure.
Looks like I'm alone enjoying the stealth bomber I "drew". oh well, such is life.

>>6272432
The stealth bomber is nice, but most ships in monke seem to be simple shapes. They don't realy use details like the bomber you drew. The drawing itself isn't bad, it just doesn't fit the style.

>>6272433
like this?

Monke ships/designs change along with the time period of the quest; changing from uglier colors to green during the "golden age" of exploration, before turning dark during the genocides, getting lighter, and now currently they are chrome (because the players traded -1% Materials for it) and to give them a unique look in the current era. I wouldn't mind them having a set color pallet (like that blue) since some other factions in space also have more set color pallets. I'm still open to new battleship designs for the Hegemony though, since I'm not really happy with the one I've got thus far; but the Frigates and Cruiser designs are unchangable at this point and iconic.

>>6272435
I really enjoy the frigates and cruisers design. Would decal be an option for them or too much work for too little? Maybe this could be lanyard-tier reward for some companies and highlight some feat of arms like those Vetuckers taking An'Tula'Manis lossless?

How would people feel about a cultural change of people bringing more pet nutthieves around with them in their daily lives? Add more cute critters to the larger scenes? Maybe at some point we try merging magneto genes into them and uplift them into little tech-savants and personal force-field pets?

>>6272676
Eh...a little bit too much. Critters on spaceships? It wouldn't fit the Vetuckers and Swall either.

I think we should just go with either the capes or the fleet bonus

>>6272684
They can figure out their own pets.

>>6272203
>>6272676
I'll +1 pets (I'm >>6272234)

>>6272434
>>6272435
>>6272369
How about this? I tried to blend the aquatic theme in, since I like it and it suits of Migrator project well, but I also tried to work in the three ports at the front which Bananas liked in his original design, and a more tubular port at the back since the Hegemonic design philosophy for ships tends towards the tubular.

Spacer

”Cultural improvements... We can talk about that later. Or let weaker Supreme Rulers of the future deal with it. This combat data is way more interesting! I'm gonna stay up late and perfect our next strategy...”

You decide to analyze the data on the Aristocrat defenses and possible counterattacks; you increase your future attack waves straight by +5 units. Threemind also helpfully shows you the political and economic disruptions of the war versus it's possible conclusions; showing you that your people are still very inspired and happy to contribute extra to the war effort. By all metrics, you have at least two more attack waves before you will begin to suffer serious attrition and the people become war weary.

”They should be ready to fight down to the last man...”
“Of course, your Majesty.” the Threemind interjects. “But even the most loyal and obedient people will wilt in a conflict that seems hopeless and endless. Basic psychology and its manipulation is a fundamental part of your role.”
”Hmph... Maybe you're right.”

Meanwhile, in Urgi space, a certain council member is spending the evening with his new mate. His scared face cracks a smile along his long curved beak.

”I'm sorry I've been so distant. Dealing with the council and problems among the Redwing leaders... It's been a lot to handle. And you still prepare all this food for me?”
“Of course!” She says happily. “I know you're under a lot of stress right now, so you don't have to talk about it if you don't want.”
”No, it's fine. They're all flight-feathers about it; everything's gotta be secret. Even when they're trying to project their fake forces and make all the Urgi think the Redwings are gonna be able to protect and hold ALL of the new territory.”
“I don't really understand all that stuff... if they just put you in charge, I'm sure you could handle it.”
”Pff-HA! You really are a downy bird, ya know that? Being so nice to an old bird like me.”
“Of course... I mean, I'm a hen that can't lay... So if anything you're the one being nice to me.”
”HEY! Don't talk about yourself like that. You're still my mate either way, you understand?”
“Awww...”

They nestle, touching beak to beak in affection.

Your spymaster, Usis, has managed to get his spies and agents into all matter of positions in Urgi space, greatly increasing your knowledge of their politics and goings-on. You suppose if he was the Supreme Ruler in your place, he likely would have already discovered the hidden alleigances of the mystery council members, and likely would have had these agents in place to make some moves. But better late then never.

“We've found the hidden statistics of the Urgi factions, my lord. It appears that the Goldwings private security and mercanry forces are a big stronger then they let on, hiding some of their power. After all, they still take and hold slaves in a rather barberous tradition. They are a bit more militirized then we thought.”
”And what of the Redwings?”
“They project a lot of force outwards, but we found evidence, even eyewitness from our secret probes and reconissance, of a lot of these stations and shipyards being... decoys. Fakes.”
”So their hidden statistic is... Nothing?”
“Yes, my liege. Weak nations are often found to project force outwards, with endless military parades and showboating, while the strong ones keep their true power hidden away. Tale as old as time.”
”Hmm... This will certainly help in our efforts to influence the election, but as of how, I am not sure.”
“One more thing, your Majesty.” Usis adds. “...It may be prudent to warn the wealthy and powerful among the Urgi of your plan to guide the Aristocrats through their territory. It won't stop your plan to weaken one of the factions, but it could foster some favor among the birds. Though then again, it would make it more obvious the Hegemony is doing it on purpose... which may not be good.”
”Your expertise on this matter is always appreciated, Usis. Back to work with those biobots, got that?”
“...Yes, your Majesty.”

Year 198 of the Resurrection Era
It's time to destabalize the council yet again. After much bickering and colluding among the secret factions and many self-interested members of the council, your intelligence has now completed the picture. You've now revealed all hidden stats and interest symbols of the council members.

The secret stat of the Goldwings was more militrization then you believed, being one Red Bar. The Redwings on the other hand were projecting force based on nothing and hollow promises. Their secret stat was nothing; no red or green bar.

Now that you've increased your operational effiecacy, you can select two actions. In addition, chose a faction you wish to drag into the Aristocrat war, which will weaken their defenses and level of militirization (Red Bar -1)

Collateral Damage
>Accord
>Redwings
>Goldwings

Warn Elites?
>Yes (One Council member will gain a Supremacy symbol, and one will double up an Accord symbol)
>No (Doubles up all Isolation symbols)

Select Two Actions
>Pick TWO Council Members and give both ONE new Non-Faction Interest (Specify)
>Eliminate ONE Council Member (Specify; Creates a new Council member with random symbols)
>Turn ONE Council Member without a Faction Interest into an Accord Supporter (Specify)
>Lobby an Interest (Specify) which will DOUBLE UP the symbol for two random Council Members who already have it
>Denounce an Interest. ONE Random Council Member will lose that symbol.
>Arm the Accord (Gives +1 Red Bars to the Accord)
>Grant lucrative trade deals to a faction (Gives +1 Green Bars to any faction)
>Hire Privateers to attack a faction (Randomly take -1 Red OR Green Bar from a faction)
No Write-Ins except to Specify plans are allowed for this vote

>>6272759
>Accord
This will put them in 1 bar, securing the pacifist vote.
>No (Doubles up all Isolation symbols)
This would secure us to voters, no? 11 and 15. Sounds great.

>Grant lucrative trade deals to a faction (Gives +1 Green Bars to any faction)
Redwings. We need to do this next turn too, so they become richer than the Accord.
>Denounce an Interest.
Militarism

I'll change my vote if someone does some math or whatever and finds a better one.

>>6272759
>Accord
>No (Doubles up all Isolation symbols)
>Pick TWO Council Members and give both ONE new Non-Faction Interest (Make 6 and 12 Isolationists)
>Hire Privateers to attack a faction (Randomly take -1 Red OR Green Bar from the Accord)

Maximize Isolationism, and make the Accord the most Isolationist-friendly option. If our relations are hurt, well, we can apologize with reparations and rebuilding once the Accord is in charge. They'll be too weak to stop us, too poor to deny us.

>>6272769
Can you even pick people who already have two interests? Does it replace one of the interests or turn it into a 33.3% chance?

>>6272765
>Accord
>No
>Grant lucrative trade deals to the Redwings
>Turn Councilor 4 into an Accord Supporter

This gives us a guarenteed councilor instead of the potential for a flip.

>>6272759
>Accord
>No
>Grant lucrative trade deals to a faction (Redwings)
>Pick TWO council members to give an interest (councilors 1 and 4 to gain pacifism).

>>6272759
I think the best we COULD do is this

COLLATERAL DAMAGE?
>Accord

WARN ELITES?
>No

ACTIONS?
>Pick TWO Council Members and give both ONE new Non-Faction Interest (1 and 4, make Pacifists)
>Grant lucrative trade deals to Redwings (Gives +1 Green Bars to Redwing)
Why not make 1 and 4 Pacifists? That's a solid two votes locked onto us since we will be the faction with the weakest military AND it doesn't run the risk of annoying the isolationists since they don't like outside factions outright supporting them.

>>6272770
I assumed since it doubled them up it would erase the other interest, making them 100% isolationist, but even a 66.6% chance isn't bad.

>>6272779
I can back this in a tie, but I still like my version.

>>6272781
No, it would be 33.3, you voted to make 6 and 12 isolationist.

>>6272776
With this, assuming Accord takes Isolationist, Populist, and Pacifist, they'll have councilors 1, 3, 4, 5, 8, and 16 guarenteed. Then we can strip # 5 of militarism next turn and Accord will have 7 councilors (councilors 13 and 15 are also currently open to being secured instead). The Red and Gold Wings would need to pool their votes to win at that point, and even if they did there is a chance that Accord could take councilors 11, 13, or 15 and still tie or win.

Doubled up symbols means that individual council member is twice as likely to vote for that symbol (Symbol A, Symbol B x2, 33% chance for Symbol A and 66% chance for Symbol B). It doesn't remove symbols, only makes one harder to remove/stronger

>>6272782
Yes, but then their Isolationist symbols will double because we didn't warn elites.

>>6272786
6 and 12 don't have isolationist symbols

Even if the isolationist symbols were added pre-doubling it would be 50%, not 67% (2 iso out of 4.
The existing are currently non-friendly). However, this is a high-risk high-reward strategy and barring shenanigans we can hit plurality without taking risks.

>>6272787
...Which is why I voted to give them isolationist symbols. Then double all the isolationist symbols.

>>6272789
This anon gets it. The clarification at >>6272785 changes my equation, though, so...

>>6272759
>>6272769 formally changing vote to >>6272779

>>6272779
I'd follow my gut and your choice, fren.

>>6272757
>you have at least two more attack waves
Interresting. This cements hardly my belief that the "hidden good stuff" to win the minigame are lying in green sector (really hard to reach, harder than taking Purple capital) and maybe another thing for taking all clusters.
Now, would you guys ok to "risk" one more turn for taking wider sways of Aristocrats for maybe better gains?

>>6272848
>would you guys ok to "risk" one more turn for taking wider sways of Aristocrats for maybe better gains?
Yes, as I feel like the population will appreciate the dub

>>6272888
I can spin the next "Battle Report" into full propaganda to show our citizen how thoroughly humiliated Aristocrats are.

Realized I forgot to answer >>6272719
I like it for a big ship, however this doesn't say "Bomber" to me

You and your spymaster have a lot to get done. Influencing the election is hard work. You grab an extra danbo for your hunger and get to it.

Firstly, as the fighting with the Aristocrats rages on, you manage to intercept them on the exact same hyperspace lanes that the Esaal told you about. Very useful! You cut off their escape, pushing the fleeing enemies into the unclaimed Urgi interspace territory; specifically towards Accord stations. As the Urgi are very spread out and independent, meaning it is trivial to push them towards the Accord's defenses and forcing them to intervene. Deadly ship-piercing spore pods and carcinogenic fluid "blood" pours out of the wounded organic ships, unfurling like living flowers through space. If given enough time, perhaps they could heal the damage; but against steal and silicon they have no chance.

"Hunt them down and kill them! AHaha!"
With the destruction caused so close to the Urgi, the Accord has lost some of its appetite for fighting as the blame and cost of getting dragged into the conflict in even a small part get tossed around. You've caused some chaos; but enough to make the Accord's military leadership by far the weakest of the three factions. Hopefully, this sentiment is kept by the Pacifist voting cores...

Meanwhile, on a parched desert world in Urgi space; a few birds sprawl out in a shelter. Illuminated by the ruthless bright desert sun ahead, they smoke deep from the hookah.

Far to the north, in the most temperate and wet regions of the planet, bioweapons remain from the war. Looking like tiny white wasps whose stingers paralyze you while they lay eggs inside your skin that eat you from the inside out. Thankfully, the world was bombed so badly by the Esaal the bioweapons only remain in that one region; allowing an Urgi clan to live here. While they steer clear of the bioweapons; as it turns out; catching some and boiling them in a flash allows for a gas to rise that keeps all of the sedative properties with none of the danger. This has become a valuable trade good, and a pastime.

"...Come back inside, Soar. This bright sun is killing me."
"Such a fool you are! Yet to truly admire our new desert planet; new territory only won from picking clean the bones of the other powers in space; we as the vultures. You sit on the council yet are so small minded. This world can very well become our homeworld."
"Pfft. This is no Homeworld of ours."

To the Urgi, those who have flown on a planet are given mythical stature and significance. As there was only one planet where that was possible; the homeworld. Only the special combination of low gravity, air pressure, and currents fed by special soil allowed for their bodies to take to the sky. In artificial habitats; the gravity can be set to whatever you wish and air is the only medium of resistance anyway; flight inside a metal tube in space is easy and cheap. It's a natural form of movement befitting the people.

"Many among us our protesting the wars and want peace. I'm sure you have heard their voices, my King. Do you agree?"
"If there is war, we would move on, as we always have. The council is merely an opportunity for my clan's future wealth and scavenging. We outed the last squatters here and made it our home, until we are outed. As always."
"What if you lived on a planet you didn't want to leave? Then would you try and make peace?"
"Yes, I suppose if such a planet did exist that was so valuable we'd risk our lives to stay, then I would have to settle down. But I do not think I'd ever find such a place."

Soar smiles, as he knows something his King does not. The hot thermals from the desert floor stir the air. He spreads his wings, jumps into the air, and then doesn't come back down.

Year 199 of the Resurrection Era
With your spymaster's work completed for now, you have further influenced the Urgi's election. it seems they are getting closer to a resolution, and the vote will be soon.

"What of Council Seat one? I wished for him to take up a pacifistic viewpoint..."
"We did everything we can, your majesty. As you can see, the ideologies you wished to spread were done so, and covertly, but influencing the appearance of public appeal and individuals within our spy network. Even implied action from the Hegemony, like your flippant apology to the Urgi for the collateral damage, has subtly manipulated them into taking a more isolationist and avoidant viewpoint. The council members will bend to the pressure."
"But what about seat one?"
"He seemed to give lip service to the Pacifistic ideas rising among his crew members, who wish for more peaceful trade and negotiation, but ultimately his position doesn't seem to have changed much. We are unsure what he will do, come the day of the election. As for your other manipulations? They are working. Even the trade deal with the Redwings, in which we intentionally gave them a 1-2% profit over ourselves so they'd accept without a complaint. They are now as rich as the more economically minded Accord. Populist sentiment will be split among them evenly on the day of the election."

You will likely only have one more opportunity to influence them, unless something greatly delays them. Until then, you have your own empire to run, thank you very much.

Your forefathers knew this would happen.

While you build and begin to make the Starsight Academy fully operational; a new sentiment is beginning to grow within your own populations. Namely, the Vetuckers. With Starsight being so misunderstood, and the general feeling of inferiority the Vetuckers have to the Jaxtians; the fact that Jaxtians seem so much more naturally suited to Starsight certainly has not helped matters. The Vetuckers are beginning to have spiritualist and even religious sentiment towards the discipline.

"And needless of I to remind you," the Threemind adds, "That anything that takes their obedience or worship that is not the Supreme Ruler and the Hegemony by extension- is a threat."
"Surely, it is not that serious, Threes. Though I am a bit disappointed. I thought the Vetuckers would have grown up a bit of a species by now, underneath our wing."
"If it was the Urgi, then that figure of speech would be more suitable, my liege."
"Har Har."

The Vetuckers have a growing, but still not fully realized idea of a sort of proto-religious belief in Starsight, being either a method of communion with something divine, or even, as a species revived from extinction; a way to speak to the dead through the light of the stars. Poetic maybe, but problematic. Many Vetuckers are requesting Starseer positions or to be secretaries and assistants to those in the Starseer academy, though all objective data shows them being much more useful in construction, as laborers, and other important fields.

"It's still early, your Majesty. You have the opportunity to nip this in the bud."

>Allow them this freedom out of respect; they've earned it
>Punish Vetuckers who show spiritualist leanings but allow them to pursue these paths if they choose to
>Disallow all Vetuckers from becoming Starseers
>Encourage Starsight among Vetuckers; maybe we can make them into our Starseer caste like the Migrators
>Other (Write-In)

>>6273240
>Punish Vetuckers who show spiritualist leanings but allow them to pursue these paths if they choose to
I don't think we should encourage it but I think outright telling them to fuck off probably wouldn't help matters.

>>6273240
>>Punish Vetuckers who show spiritualist leanings but allow them to pursue these paths if they choose to

>>6273240
>Disallow all Vetuckers from becoming Starseers
From my perspective it is the Jedi who are evil.

Or we could only allow the submissives to join, and encourage jock-like distain for Starsight in the pack leaders and such. The main threat is a willful Starseer, not a passive one.

>>6273240
>Other (Write-In)
Mandate that all future Supreme candidates have star sight training. If there must be religion then we shall be the Pope.

We are the Church, we are the State, we are the Hegemony.

>>6273266
This seems like a cool idea, but is it viable? I'll definitely support it if it is.

>>6273300
And by 'viable', I mean, is it even possible to just 'partially teach' them Starsight? It's not like it'd be their main education, just one of a thousand of the subjects Supremes need to know.

However, the idea of finding a way to turn Spiritualism into further loyalty to the Supreme feels like it'd be a good manipulation, because let's be honest here, we already worship the supreme in any ways that matter. As long as the loyalty to them remains undisputed, it doesn't matter.

>>6273240
>Disallow Vetuckers from these jobs as their main employment - but allow them to take on additional work in 'Starsight adjacent' fields if they wish to give up some of their allotted free days to help as unpaid labour/support.

>>6273240
>>Disallow all Vetuckers from becoming Starseers

>>6273316
>Forja - Hoik feels happy
Clearly the best reward.

>>6273316
Nice.
I'm not sure about culture vs military for cowboy. Enjoyed the write in.

Checking if I still have my IP from yesterday so I can vote

>>6273320
Damn, that's a no. I'm >>6272787, it even still says (You) in the replies, but the ID changed.

>>6273316
By the way, Bananas, is >>6273266 actually possible within the 'training time' of an Supreme candidate? Assuming it's just training them to have at least some education of starsight rather than dedicating themselves entirely to it.

>>6273323
More lore exposition will be in the update but that's not really something you can vote to "unlock" on this prompt by itself, if that's what you're asking.

>>6273325
I meant in the sense of whether that vote is even something that would be allowed, even if it would take more effort to actually accomplish it.

>>6273327
Later.

>>6273327
Yes it's allowed. Will be elaborated on more in the update.

>>6273266
>>6273240
In that case, I'm definitely voting for this, +1

Just punishing vetuckers for Spiritualism isn't going to really do much in our favor, the way I see it. If they're developing spiritualism because they were revived from the dead, just manipulate them into revering the supreme for doing it instead.

>>6273266
+1

>>6273240
I'm on movile, but I am >>6272792. I can confirm it later.

>>6273240
>Add more/update comparative religion studies, physics, and starsight information to the Vetucker educational regimen to demystify starsight and reinforce the Hegemonic viewpoint. Focus less on history.

>>6273266
+1

>>6273240
>Punish Vetuckers who show spiritualist leanings but allow them to pursue these paths if they choose to

And if allowed,
>>6273341
+1

Considering what we've seen the worms do to people with Starsight, we absolutely should not mandate Supreme's have it.

>>6273520
In counterpoint, if the Cyte succeeds in reaching us we'll be fucked anyways because they can literally teleport behind the supreme and eat them.

Given that Supremes who are dedicated to an specific field usually end up leading to big advantages in said field, and Starsight is probably the key to stopping the worms, I'd say that increasing the chances of a starsight-focused candidate is a pretty good choice.

>>6273335
This is me.

>>6273522
>starsight-focused candidate
I for one welcome our Migrator Overlords

>>6273242
Swapping this for >>6273266
Starsight Pope, fuck t.

>>6273266
Damn, I didn’t know y’all hated Halam so much.

What’s with these Alpha Supremes and their short tenure?

>>6273325
Just a simple question- is there a secret to unlock with the write in? Or is it just flavor text?

>>6273572
>What’s with these Alpha Supremes and their short tenure?
*Future* Supremes, anon. If you're saying that someone would kill him for it...well, there's our spymaster, but do you really think he could beat Halam in a duel? Poisoning is probably just straight up not possible unless the Threemind just lets it happen.