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Come now, we've got multiple graduates from Earth Military Academy among our spacegoons, what's a few hundred million more folks with ties to Earth going to do for our security? Joking aside, I'm pro-immigrant mostly for space goodguy reasons. Plus, we get to keep the special bureau busy and not up to mischief, and I'm not sure how much secret technology matters with the massive gains both UT and the Martian Federation are likely to get from the graveyard planet.
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Oct 7, 2017 08:31
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Crazycryodude posted:If it goes away, then you can start jumping again, yeah. But from the limited sample size we have, it doesn't really seem to, or at least it goes away super slow. Well, the captain of the ship we had space high seas dinner with (who we also think is the one who nuked earth after being recalled) claimed that from their observations at least some part of jump sickness is permanent. And I think we also had an update on our original jump crew had some afflicted people caught conspiring to mutiny the ship? We might have just avoided a similar fate to Earth with a combination of Martian paranoia and our path to Raganui requiring fewer jumps.
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Oct 8, 2017 05:07
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Yes we must meddle in these malign powers, for there is no other way to undo the meddling of the civilizations before us and their now-elder god overlords.
Rawkking fucked around with this message at 23:49 on Oct 17, 2017 |
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Oct 17, 2017 23:47
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I'm not too concerned about colonization from UT, recall that we all descended from colonists of Earth and aren't part of UT. If they start ruling their colonies with an iron fist we can guarantee their independence militarily, if not UT is providing opportunity to live a better life than on that overcrowded, now-moderately-nuked planet. By all means publicize the information responsibly (instead of blatantly hostile fearmongering) so that future colonists can make informed decisions. I *am* somewhat worried about the new ruler of Terra, as she seems to have similar political acumen as Vladimir, mysterious connections, and (most importantly) much grander ambition than her dad who mostly just wanted him and his kleptocrat buddies to live lives of ridiculous opulence. Recall all of those kleptocrat buddies of Vlad have been turning up dead from the intel we know; This girl wants an empire, not exotic luxuries.
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Oct 20, 2017 01:15
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Fray posted:This as elaborated by Scavy: These two things Also, we've got navy ships in range of the gate in case something happens like what happened on pluto? Maybe building some stationary defenses there? I think I remember this being covered several pages back but if it slipped our minds we might make the eastern european nuclear winter look like a calm tropical day.
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Oct 20, 2017 04:21
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I forgot if I explicitly endorsed this, but yes to giving UT a warning, and see if they want to work together on jump sickness.
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Oct 22, 2017 04:55
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Yeah, go for the timeskip until there is a source of potential conflict. Be that aliens, concrete signs of UT/IC loving with us from the host (not just our +/- fanatics and martian paranoia speculating), or otherwise. Arguing over how soft/hard we want to be in our foreign dealings or trying to find this one special trick to deal with jump sickness and hoodwink those extradimensional aliens ("C'thulu hates it!!") has kind of been done to death at this point.
Rawkking fucked around with this message at 00:04 on Oct 25, 2017 |
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Oct 25, 2017 00:01
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I'll cop that I had to google it to recall the reference.
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Oct 26, 2017 10:24
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These are both fantastic choices! I'll choose The Pit
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Nov 2, 2017 17:26
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It's too late for this particular encounter, but could we potentially design some exploratory vessels with microwave weapons to keep ourselves safe in future first contact encounters? I don't remember the details of how they worked when we had them used against us by IC but are they a possible less-than-lethal weapon choice, or can they disable ships in ways that are effectively death sentences for those within them?
Rawkking fucked around with this message at 04:27 on Nov 12, 2017 |
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Nov 12, 2017 04:24
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A bit early to get excited over the loot guys, backup is over a day away for our brave martians. Or at least the cruisers? It seems these nebula dwellers are in fact very optimized for operating in a nebula (several layers of armor for fast movement even in the nebula, tiny tonnage to be almost impossible to detect without them turning on actives, electronic warfare to futz with people targeting them further in the already murky nebula, their weird weaponry that might not have flaws of conventional targeting systems?), and there are life pods so not just drones? I've got a feeling we've found some aliens that have developed a successful survival strategy for not getting their civilization wiped out like every other civilization we've found so far. A shame that strategy requires silencing anything that gets too close to discovering their home, so unless they give up on their strategy and open comms to seek reconciliation we have no choice but to treat them as the existential threat they probably view us as. Edit: Good point on the atmosphere, but is it possible they have void habitats or just regular aurora colonies with infrastructure to deal with their preferred atmosphere? If they're living in this nebula to hide from space horrors it doesn't necessarily mean the planet they originated from is anywhere nearby. Rawkking fucked around with this message at 05:25 on Nov 13, 2017 |
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Nov 13, 2017 05:09
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GunnerJ posted:My best guess is that this is a nearly totally automated scout outpost that only wakes up ship crews in the event of unknown contacts. This makes the most sense considering what we have seen. Contrary to my earlier opinion it seems likely they don't habitate this nebula if their defense crew in system only exists in cryogenic stasis. Yes inform Terra
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Nov 13, 2017 20:32
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Group up and press the attack If we split up we *might* be able to save some of us by getting out of sensor range, but like everything needed to be useful in this nebula the aliens have already proven to have better sensor tech than us, right? If we all run as a group I just see whatever else is in this system attacking us at the best possible time for them.
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Nov 15, 2017 02:14
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So the mechanics of Aurora, the ECM we've seen them use, and the nebula futzing things further means we want to engage at point blank range even when the target is much, much bigger than our ships? I can accept that, but if anyone wants to write an effortpost on hit chance mechanics (or link to one earlier in the thread if it exists) I'd read it.
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Nov 16, 2017 05:12
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Nevets posted:My guess is that we won't be able to take the Shiva intact. Based on what we've seen of these aliens in their comet base it looks like they are either nerve stapled drones or dedicated fanatics. That base was a long term cryo storage facility for several dozen alien soldiers. They were woken up by automated systems, boarded the ships, and if the fight had gone better for them they would have returned to their coffins and gone back to sleep. Who knows how long a deployment lasts for them, months, years, decades? They most likely are sacrificing all their personal connections when they take that posting; when (or if) they get back their progenitors will be dead, their mates aged, and offspring grown. Either they don't have any such connections or service to their nation is the only thing that matters to them. In both cases I don't think they'll willingly surrender no matter how crippled the ship is, so we'd have to try and board them & hope they don't scuttle the ship before we can take full control. We can't let some random aliens out-fanatic us, someone draw up blueprints for deep space guard posts STAT. 1B, 1A if the outsystem is not nebula. 2B, since we have microwaves this is sort of feasible, otherwise I'd say 2A. Rawkking fucked around with this message at 19:46 on Nov 17, 2017 |
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Nov 17, 2017 19:41
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Don't really think planning massive genocides, annexations, and enslavement is in order for now, especially as we don't know why they're hostile and so much in this interstellar world is unknown and crazy. Every single alien civilization that we're encountered evidence of aside from this one has gotten utterly annihilated for reasons that are probably space cthulus. Maybe they know something we don't about how that happens and staying hidden in their space and killing anyone that comes poking around is the only way they can ensure their safety? Even for more mundane reasons we know nothing about their government and how complicit their average citizen is with the response we've encountered so far. I'm not saying we should try to peacefully contact them for the nth time or whatever, they're our enemies and we're effectively at war with them so they should be dealt with accordingly. But if after realizing they can't snuff us out they decide to reach out to us we should listen to the explanation they give us. And then probably expect them to pay reparations for the way they treated us and to ensure our safety should they ever try this again, which probably means they give us access to their apparently superior technology. Rawkking fucked around with this message at 05:24 on Nov 20, 2017 |
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Nov 20, 2017 05:17
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Nevets posted:If they really are just killing everything that comes near them in order to remain hidden then that means they are so terrified of discovery that: No, they wouldn't need to literally find the home planet of any species that ends up in their home turf and slaughter everyone there because it's the only way to be sure. They don't even need to be completely terrified of the dimensional horrors either, they could just be the level of unnerved with them we are and have some bit of knowledge we don't about how the "incursions" that the facility talked about can be avoided by their seeming strategy. With how adapted they are to the nebula both at hiding in it and fighting in it I could see them managing to survive through a few of these rises and falls of civilizations we've seen evidence of. The flavor text of this system Saros provided us about strange signals but nothing found and with technological advantage they have I could see a system like this being viewed by a galactic empire as some kind of space bermuda triangle where nothing is found (because the pit aliens good at hiding due to their baffling and sensor tech and the nebula) except for when ships just disappear mysteriously, with the end result being people deciding to just leave this seemingly haunted system alone. Or did you mean that if my theory is right they might try to genocide us now? Because yeah, that might happen since we managed to stumble upon one of their installations, survived their attack, and presumably got word out. They might give up on their strategy if it keeps failing though, electing to risk whatever increased chance of annihilation by the horrors interacting with us might bring instead of dealing with the more immediate consequences of being at war with us. Who knows, maybe after we secure the system they'll formally contact us and tersely demand we leave the system and leave them alone, and then we can press them for sweet sweet alien lore and technology. Rawkking fucked around with this message at 07:04 on Nov 20, 2017 |
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Nov 20, 2017 06:59
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POOL IS CLOSED posted:C. A scout jumping will just result in readied defenders on the other side. Jumping en masse will probably put our ships at the explodey end of missiles. Can you elaborate on this? Do the pit aliens not know we're in the adjacent system? I guess that makes sense, we at least don't have FTL communication so word doesn't reach our command unless a ship jumps and then communicates normally, but on the other hand they did send in that giant carrier after us. I'll vote c for now, though giving a brave goon the opportunity to go in alone sounds pretty tempting. We now probably know that the imp class doesn't have a jump drive on it, which isn't surprising given the role it was in when we encountered it. Rawkking fucked around with this message at 18:40 on Nov 22, 2017 |
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Nov 22, 2017 18:22
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Affi posted:Honestly what we're hearing might be interstellar communications. Did we have two imps escape? One was found hanging out at the jp and blown up, I thought that was the only one.
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Nov 22, 2017 18:47
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Yes uh... okay... y'all can carry on with that discussion So this latest update states that the life pods of these creatures are tightly sealed cryopods with no method to open them aside from prying them open? Is it common for escape pods to be cryopods in human ships, or have these crabpeople elected from a different design we do, perhaps to keep the contents alive for extended periods? Maybe their culture is much less willing to expend resources trying to rescue their people so they've designed escape pods that can last a long, long time in space after launch, maybe only to be recovered when they have a ship that is in the area for other reasons. This could mean a number of things. The best guess I have is they aren't very sociable/don't form bonds with others (familial/friendship/mate pair bonding or otherwise) so no one really cares about rescuing them and the escape podded aliens themselves don't really care about waking up from cryosleep many years later when everyone they knew is dead. Would also explain why their comet base we stumbled upon probably just had everyone in cryosleep before we showed up. Dealing with jump sickness might be another reason, in that sending a ship to retrieve escape pods might be undesirable if they don't have jump gate technology so they prefer doing it much less frequently. Actually, have we tested how people in cryosleep are affected by jump sickness, if they are at all? Rawkking fucked around with this message at 01:14 on Nov 28, 2017 |
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Nov 28, 2017 01:12
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RA Rx posted:Well, maybe we can genetically engineer them to be edible. Plus maybe make each generation more delicious and dumber than the previous one. Stellaris has taught me that this is just a different type of slavery than the kind we immediately think of when we say "enslavement". Rawkking fucked around with this message at 02:39 on Nov 30, 2017 |
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Nov 30, 2017 02:35
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Pharnakes posted:Guys I think we are all missing the most important point about fart crabs here. They are sentient (presumably) and can thus be used to pay the jump tax. Lock some up in cages on an otherwise automated (but not full AI) ship and use that to jump through resources and components without anyone we care about getting hurt. The moment where the horrors from beyond the veil recoil and say "what the hell, mortals?" Rawkking fucked around with this message at 21:28 on Nov 30, 2017 |
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Nov 30, 2017 21:25
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If we want help, our only option here is to send a ship to Nova Sol to ask Terra for help, right? All of our nebula-capable craft are already in system. I'm also wondering why the pit aliens didn't send these AND the shiva after us at once, especially if The Fortress is heavily guarded. Maybe the defenses are stationary or something. Or maybe we did just get really lucky like Sauros commented on in our update haha.
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Dec 2, 2017 00:45
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You know when reading how the fight was going bad I was seriously considering suggesting we flee through the Nova Sol jump point for uh... "strategic reasons". And now well, poo poo. Tell them everything about the enemy. And if possible squad jump our relatively combat-capable nebula fighters through the Nova Sol jump point after the Rakshashas go in while everyone else withdraws to Raganui, transponders on so we don't get fried by panicked Terrans. I do want to observe the Terrans fight but just having a scout craft do so seems selfish and liable to hurt our relations with them. Also we really, really don't want the Terrans to lose. Rawkking fucked around with this message at 04:54 on Dec 2, 2017 |
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Dec 2, 2017 04:52
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Well I guess observe away then. Hopefully outside the nebula the relative speeds of the combat ships involved are more advantageous for humanity.
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Dec 2, 2017 04:59
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Also I've noticed the spacedorfing sheet that I'm the proud commander of a "fast salvager" spacecraft... ... just how fast are we talking? And how stealthy? and how long does salvaging take anyway? It seems likely it's a civilian design so a heroic ninja salvaging of the Shiva wreckage isn't possible due to not having enough armor layers to be fast at all in this nebula
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Dec 2, 2017 06:16
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I guess I didn't do a proper bold text response to overwrite my previous vote, so regroup at Raganui, don't try to be heroes riding in our combat ships to Nova Sol to save UT because we won't get there in time to affect the outcome of the battle. Vote to warn UT and tell everything about the enemy still stands. Which probably means that poor scout ship has to go jump back into Nova Sol and enjoy another experience from the horrors from beyond again. Rawkking fucked around with this message at 07:49 on Dec 2, 2017 |
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Dec 2, 2017 07:44
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How do our incoming dreads compare, combatwise, with the Rakshasha class vessels present? I'm all for Terra and Mars jointly invading the pit after we've secured the safety of our systems but I think we need to retreat at least long enough to repair all the significant damage to our fleet. Unless UT wins against the incoming ships in a big way, I think we need to abandon the system until we've recovered. We can't secure the system militarily and we can't really even keep a scout hiding in the nebula as the pit aliens are both more stealthy and have better sensors. Rawkking fucked around with this message at 00:21 on Dec 3, 2017 |
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Dec 3, 2017 00:18
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sebmojo posted:Terra is being given a change to prove itself. Tell them everything. You know, this will be the first time (at least that we know of) that Terra faces ship to ship combat in this LP, huh?
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Dec 3, 2017 03:14
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Telsa Cola posted:Im enjoying this 21st century discussion about how much élan we need in our space forces. I wonder how Saros feels picking through all these votes and discussions for the one thing he actually asked us to vote on  Not that I'm at all innocent
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Dec 4, 2017 05:04
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I mean bold texting votes for stuff he didn't actually ask us the vote on in addition to bolding for stuff he did ask us and regular chatter. But yeah it probably isn't that bad and if it is Saros would tell us edit: oh yeah and since the vote is pretty unanimous he doesn't really have to tally votes this time, good point
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Dec 4, 2017 08:41
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Send and split, set phasers to maximum elan
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Dec 5, 2017 20:17
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I appreciate that the AI of a wrecked ship is threatening these human explorers to stay off its planet... and that the ship is so advanced that it could probably take out the entire martian navy despite being unable to move
Rawkking fucked around with this message at 03:54 on Dec 8, 2017 |
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Dec 8, 2017 03:50
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Saros posted:
Hooray, space relevance achieved! Saros, can I request a ship name for my vessel (I assumed I'd get a random one or something)? Acquisitions Incorporated seems like a fantastic name for a salvage ship.
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Dec 9, 2017 00:24
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Do we know what type of missiles the pit aliens are using on their missile Rakshasha? I don't know if Aurora missiles follow a nuclear -> fusion -> antimatter -> something worse than antimatter progression for missiles that a lot of space 4x games use, but it would be interesting if we could semi-confirm whether or not the pit aliens were the ones who glassed all those relatively recent colonies that were destroyed with antimatter weaponry.
Rawkking fucked around with this message at 09:19 on Dec 9, 2017 |
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Dec 9, 2017 09:16
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If Terra did gently caress this up, what would that even look like? I mean earlier people were saying they might have glassed a colony, but how does an expedition force do that accidentally? Did some crab planet start accelerating towards a Terran exploratory fleet with active sensor on, refusing all hails, and a bunch of Terra goons voted to shoot first?
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Dec 13, 2017 08:06
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You know if you want to go maximum  (and I certainly do), assuming both types of missiles fit in the same launcher the fact that they shot genocide bombs at the fighters and the missiles that made it to the planet were conventional might suggest the crab operators don't actually know which missiles are which. Meaning someone else might have made the ships and put the crabs in as pilots (or the crabs discovered these ships somewhere).Though there's a much more sensible explanation: the crabs didn't expect the resistance they met due to them being much faster and such and so had the genocide missiles loaded, switching to conventional missiles afterwards. Though since that salvo was shot at the colony they might have ran out of genocide missiles or something. Rawkking fucked around with this message at 08:30 on Dec 13, 2017 |
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Dec 13, 2017 08:20
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Does Aurora's mechanics allow technology sharing?
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Dec 19, 2017 02:08
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That plan (edit: Dominion of Sol v2 that is) is amazing in its grandeur, not sure if I support it but it's amazing! I heavily worry it is going to make our dissidents, the Mars Firsters, blow a huge, massive gasket. An existential threat to Mars sort of a blown gasket. But if we somehow pulled it off, it'd be something that's for sure.
Rawkking fucked around with this message at 23:37 on Dec 20, 2017 |
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Dec 20, 2017 23:34
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Nevets posted:I'm assuming the Earth/Mar First groups are nationalist groups with xenophobic & populist leanings. Those sorts of groups tend to take a short term view towards military expenditures. During peacetime they don't want to waste money & men on peacekeeping, nation building, goodwill missions, etc. but when faced with an imminent threat they'll flip to the other end of the spectrum and be calling for disproportionate responses. Make the crab menace public and they will be baying for blood. I suspect a significant amount of the Mars firsters are going to scapegoat us on opening this can of crab meat in lieu of actually trying to comprehend the disturbing nature of all the stuff we infodump on them. And then trying to replace us/people that support us in the martian senate with the populist strongmen replacing us advocating that they can handle this situation better than we can, boasts of building a big beautiful wall around the Raganui JP, etc. We're in a better situation as far as military legitimacy goes than Terra but we have +/- fanatics not + fanatics, I doubt things are going to go anywhere near as smoothly as the plan wants it to go. But with the incredible audacity of it all and this being a LP and not a real thing I'm definitely looking forward to what happens if we do go through with it.
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Dec 21, 2017 01:24
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