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Grimgravy

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Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire
Jerusalem would be the obvious choice. Grab our peeps and gtfo. The question is how. Barring that, what would be lulziest?
 

Nevill

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We have to assume that the device supplements the missing information from the mind of a person commanding it. Otherwise, without any kind of instructions on how to operate the place and without any knowledge of the creatures that built it (what kind of measurments or coordinates they use), I would not rate our chances very high.

If this is indeed a teleportation device, I believe at least time and place need to be specified. I do not think it is necessary to try and pin down the place to Solar system, Earth etc, because these categories are largely artificial. Why does it have to start with a star system ID and not from a galaxy ID, or even a Universe ID? A place is a place, name it, think of it, and let the device do the rest.

Time needs to be clarified, because there is clearly some kind of distortion going on, some of which we observed ourselves. Given how the creators of these devices are multi-dimensional, and how we ourselves travelled through time on an occasion, it is logical to assume that it might be relevant. Besides, the update is called 'Star Timecube'. :M

Again, the concept of time measurments is artificial. B.C. and A.D. do not mean anything to the device. We will have to rely on it to read the required information from us.

Of the other two fields, I have no idea.

But if we have to accept that this thing can read our mind to get us where we want to be (otherwise we might as well abandon hope and give up), why do we have to limit ourselves to thinking that these fields need to refer to times and places? Why not think of it as of a genie in a bottle that can grant you a wish? It would not be stupid to just form a sentence in four words and let the machine sort it out.

'Get me back home' might do, and there is one place that Angartýr calls 'home'. But since we rely on the abomination to translate for us, I wonder if we should be a bit more specific.

'Jerusalem before Crusader attack'. 'Vinland after we departed' (it would be a fun time paradox to have two Angartýrs, one leading the expedition after the artefact, and one with the artefact in his hands seeing the other off). It can be anything that can be put in 4 words.

That's about the only way I can productively think of what to put in.
 
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LusciousPear

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MCA Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Shadorwun: Hong Kong
Maybe this relates to the numbers we discussed with we were in the pit with all the levels and stairs?

Also, computers work in epochs. Maybe we need to input a year since something really important -- Unix dates are measured in milliseconds starting in 1969. Maybe this other computer works the same way, but for the founding of Atlantean technology? Which, uh, doesn't help us.

Mos guidance systems work both relative and to you, so we're looking for X,Y,Z,(t). I would imagine any advance civilization would be using base 12 and polar coordinates, kinda like we do now. This is some Rendevous with Ramna-level shit.

Just riffing here, bros. I got nothing. Let's go somewhere that minimizes disruption and our sanity lost because we're pretty fucking cuckoo already.
 

Nevill

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I still maintain that with the information we have, the only way we can do anything meaningfully here is to hope that the machine will interpret our input for us. Remove that assumtion, and we are left with a monkey before a computer. Then the probability of something positive happening is zero and we are fucked no matter what we enter.

Most guidance systems work both relative and to you, so we're looking for X,Y,Z,(t).
Do the creators of this place really exist in 4 dimensions like we do? Because so far everything we've seen appears to contest that theory.
 

LusciousPear

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MCA Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Shadorwun: Hong Kong
Oh, good point. I think yeah, we should just use a language with old roots that's familiar to use, and hope for it to do some kind of NLP because it's probably smarter than us.
 

Azira

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Codex 2012
I'd like to be a bit more specific. We do have dates, right? If so, I'd like to input something akin to
"Destination: Jerusalem
Date: xx-xx-10xx(whichever date is two weeks after our departure)
"

Sorry I'm personally not better updated on where we are in the timeline, but the gist should be there.

I'm worried that "after our departure" would be willfully "misunderstood", hurling Agantýr centuries, if not millennia into the future. Call me paranoid if you will, but I don't quite trust this contraption.
 

Nevill

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Great.

They have instant communication readily available (and presumably, radars as well), and they only managed to notify the Council and Angartýr when the two cities already fell? Did the cities fall overnight? What about our own fleet, or army, for that matter?

How would the Western scientific community (can they even be called a community by this year?) retro-engineer the weapons without an underlying fundamental knowledge? If somehow a group of men from middle-ages got a hold of a nuclear bomb, how could they reproduce it without any knowledge of atomic physics and plants to process uranium? To support a war effort on a scale large enough to present danger to a country that have developed the very tools they use, they need industrial capabilities that I am sure do not come in 8 years. It took us about what, 30 years, to adapt our society and economics to new discoveries, and we've had most of the answers from the start by virtue of Atlantis tech, too.

I find the weaponization of Lnu tribes by the horrors to be more beliavable, though it is a question of why the horrors would give them technology on par with ours, and not superior (which they no doubt have access to), if they wanted them to achieve anything of note.

What year is it now, anyway? 1200 AD? Is the technology level on par with early 20th century now? Somehow, we've made less progress in the last 100 years than we did in the previous hundred. :|

Why would our strategy and tactics be modern, if the last 100 years were peaceful, with no conflicts to test their efficiency?

By the way, did we hear anything from our battle priests, or were they left in the desert when we abandoned the city? Not that they are very important in the grand scheme of things...
 
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Baltika9

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By the way, did we hear anything from our battle priests, or were they left in the desert when we abandoned the city? Not that they are very important in the grand scheme of things...
You say that now. Wait until we have airborne sorceror viking paratroopers.
:yeah:
 

Azira

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Meh, this is fiction. I can roll with the unbelievable. I mean, the horrors of IA weren't enough of a clue already? You really don't think they'd be content to sit in their ruined city after Agantýr went away, did you?
 

Nevill

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Meh, this is fiction. I can roll with the unbelievable. I mean, the horrors of IA weren't enough of a clue already? You really don't think they'd be content to sit in their ruined city after Agantýr went away, did you?
Well, this is blamed on Kraka and presented as a natural consequence of a technology leak that happened 8 years ago.

Which brings up a miriad of questions. The construction of a single battleship takes years with the infrastructure and specialists in place. Do they have plants already to mass-produce the weaponry? Who works these plants? Did they pass the industrialization stage (which is one long and bloody process)? What kind of government are they under? What about economics? The challenges of industrial age cannot be met on a feud-by-feud basis.

It's just that technology by itself does nothing, as we have seen in Vinland. It takes rebuilding the society from the ground up to really make use of that technology.

Such a rebuild is possible to do in a short timeframe of several decades if there is a God-Emperor figure guiding the process, the one that the people would follow unquestionably, but imagining something similar to what Vinland went through in feudal Europe requires a real stretch of imagination. :)

Unless, of course, the Dark Gods already have the rest of the world as their puppets and have started pulling the strings.

Then again, if they wanted to eradicate Vinland, they could have given their minions nuclear warheads and spaceships instead of warships and howitzers.

I will roll with it, I just find the current development odd.
 

Cassidy

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They have instant communication readily available (and presumably, radars as well)

If they had radars already, they would not be worried about any invasions. Radio was just invented by 1110.

Did the cities fall overnight?

Smaragdur has a reputation, so whether overseas invaders, native auxiliaries or something completely different and horrific was responsible for its downfall is a mystery. Gullholm is presumed fallen, because the last report they received from it was about a large, seemingly European army emerging from the far north and after that there was no more communication, but it may yet be holding on.

What about our own fleet

Could never be large enough to patrol all the coast of the continent. There will be options about engaging the enemy forces at sea.

or army, for that matter?

Smaragdur or Gullholm are only towns despite their valuable natural resources, because the latter is too cold to draw a lot of immigrants and the former... it has the reputation of being a nightmare made real. Most of the standing army is in The City because it is the economic heart and by far the most populated city of Vinland. It can be considered the only city of Vinland, because all other settlements are towns, for a policy of incentives for continual territorial expansion caused most migrants to be the ones founding new settlements instead of moving to already existing towns. Furthermore, having a fully mobilized army all time is expensive: this is one thing that could turn the tides: Vinland can afford to mobilize every able-bodied man if necessary, while their enemies cannot. Furthermore the improvement of education caused a minor downfall of birth rates, although death rates went down much more so the overall population growth is increasing every year much faster than that of the disease-ridden European countries, which "medicine" remains medieval and backwards.

How would the Western scientific community (csn they even be called a community by this year?) retro-engineer the weapons without an underlying fundamental knowledge?

How would a bunch of religious fanatics in the grim derpness of the far future without any sense of scientific method build spaceships? Someone or something is giving or gave them Standard Template Constructs blueprints and "recipes" with very clear instructions on how to do this or that that don't require whoever is following such instructions to the letter to understand the science behind them. That is another thing: they literally cannot into advancing beyond that unless their sugar daddy or mom steals more tech from Vinland and write "recipes" on how to replicate it, which makes finding and putting down whoever is the mole as important as getting involved in the war effort, if not more.

To support a war effort on a scale large enough to present danger to a country that have developed the very tools they use, they need industrial capabilities that I am sure do not come in 8 years


Something could be playing with time dilation, perhaps someone in the know gave a really big help to get certain parts of Europe industrialized.

Maybe the steam engine prototype was already studied and copied by the Eldritch Khazarians long before Angartýr retrieved it back then

What year is it now, anyway? 1200 AD?

Nope, it is 1110 AD

Is the technology level on par with early 20th century now?

Roughly on par with early 1910s, except petroleum is problematic because the only currently known source is Smaragdur, which also means retaking it will be critical for any plans that involve a future air force or tanks.

Why would our strategy and tactics be modern, if the last 100 years were peaceful, with no conflicts to test their efficiency?

I made a serious mistake in the first draft. Only 10 years passed after the retrieval of the device, and in those ten years Vinland leaped from steam engines, arquebuses and culverins to automobiles, bolt-action rifles, howitzers, machineguns, prototype SMGs, airplanes and crude tanks,

chemical weapons(future choices on whether or not to employ them included) and a rapidly developing study of relativistic, quantum and subatomic physics which may eventually lead to the ethical dilemma on whether Rome and Constantinople should be nuked or not to bring a rapid end to the horrible war that would be dragging on by then.

Why would our strategy and tactics be modern, if the last 100 years were peaceful, with no conflicts to test their efficiency?
10 years rather than 100. And it is more about logistics and communications, fields where Vinland is way ahead of their foes. Basically their foes were only taught how to stand a chance of killing by the one who gave them all. No medicine, no bigger deals. Hell, they cannot even retool the weapons factories in Europe to mass manufacture essential goods instead, and are stuck in medieval crap and feudalism, which is why Vinland can afford to suffer as much as the Russians did in WW2 endure much worse casualties, relatively, and still win the war. Vinland's military structure is very close to become Napoleonic --> Clausewitz if necessary, already strictly meritocratic, while their enemies are still resorting to levies and nobles fulfilling duties to their lieges but now with big guns too.

By the way, did we hear anything from our battle priests, or were they left in the desert when we abandoned the city?

They were never heard of again, but they knew well what they were getting into.

The construction of a single battleship takes years with the infrastructure and specialists in place.

They have just a core of a modern navy, exclusively made of Byzantine vessels, and the rest is made of outdated sailing ships, many not even designed with cannons in mind. As for how the infrastructure came to be, something is really fishy about the whole event.

Do they have plants already to mass-produce the weaponry?

Yes, but they treat them in a cargo cult way and lack the knowledge to build them without guidance from someone... or something.

Who works these plants? Did they pass the industrialization stage (which is one long and bloody process)?
Serfs, slaves or waged workers, depending on the country. As for industrialization stage, like explained before, it is literally an one-trick pony for warfare, production of anything other than armaments remains medieval.

What kind of government are they under? What about economics?

Medieval states, the most centralized being the ERE, for now.
 
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Nevill

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Shadorwun: Hong Kong
Cassidy said:
Nope, it is 1110 AD
Ah. Sorry about that. There is probably a typo, then:
Cassidy said:
And so, the peaceful first year of the new century proceeded, and things have grown very peaceful in the next ten decades

Cassidy said:
Something could be playing with time dilation, perhaps someone in the know gave a really big help to get certain parts of Europe industrialized.
They still need to go through some severe social changes to be able to compete with our industry. I mean, when you take half of the peasants off the fields to work the factories and switch the burden of feeding them on the remaining peasants, you are bound to have a backlash.

Unless those changes were small-scale, which brings me to the question - what do we know about Europe and its offensive/industrial capabilities? Can they refill their losses in machinery as easily as we could? By the looks of it, if we can hold the first push, they will just run out of steam.

Cassidy said:
And it is more about logistics and communications, fields where Vinland is way ahead of their foes.
Pretty much, yes. My first thought was that with the technological advantage we have we can bleed them dry long before they would be able to bleed us.

That is another thing: they literally cannot into advancing beyond that unless their sugar daddy or mom steals more tech from Vinland and write "recipes" on how to replicate it, which makes finding and putting down whoever is the mole as important as getting involved in the war effort, if not more.
Who is our current spymaster, again?

ethical dilemma on whether Rome and Constantinople should be nuked or not to bring a rapid end to the horrible war that would be dragging on by then.
I no longer regret not going with IA.
:bounce::bounce::bounce:
 
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Nevill

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Hm. I see two or three battle plans here, depending on which invention we are willing to support.

1) Develop aircraft, mobilize the adults of the city, and retake Smaragdur. From there you would be able to bomb everything into oblivion, including the ships with reinforcements.
2) Develop radars, mobilize everyone, cut them from reinforcements on the seas, and kill the natives. With no one to fight for them, the war will soon come to a halt.
3) Develop machinegun, mobilize a small contingent, and bunker down in the City, hoping that your allies will help you eventually.

There is a natural synergy of allying with Wyandot and offering them the lands of the rebellious tribes as payment.

1. AB Contact the natives and the ones with the navy to support us. Not keen on sharing our weapons with the rest, though I might consider E.
2. B Aircraft.
3. B Take enough so that it would not drag the quality of the forces down.
4. B Kerosene Smaragdur.
5. E Reward our allies, punish our enemies.
6. x Undecided for now.
 
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Grimgravy

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Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire
1. ABC
2) F>B
3)B (if 2F wins) A if not
4) C (if 2 F wins) B if not.
5) Some combination of E and F. The Wyandott don't need everything and we need some room to grow.
6)A>D
 

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