[LP CYOA] Epic

[treave]

Firstly, they can't interfere directly right now without taking an avatar. Secondly, they supposedly set the rules themselves. They will bend but not break the rules outright for whatever reason best known to them alone. Though given that no one besides them knows all the rules, this might be a moot point. Thirdly, once they're done with the victor they usually collapse the universe and start anew anyway, so a few rotten apples are of no concern, at least not to the point they have to take the trouble to cross over and reprogram the drones from this side.

At any rate, the system is locked and they appear to have no inclination to attempt to change it even if it is to their benefit, and that is all you know.

Anyway, if you guys want to chance warping to and fro in order to build a stellar bomb, then I'll happily offer you guys a shot at it with a D. No skin off my back.

 

[Smashing Axe]

Let's just use the sun, we can get a new one once we wipe the masters out.

 

[Baltika9]

Wait, Shulgi is still trapped in the Sun. I wonder what will happen with his scattered nanites in the Masters' dimension? Will the blast destroy them, or will we be creating another cosmic mystery?

 

[treave]

There won't be a dimension once you're done with it.

 

[Baltika9]

Sucks to be him then, I guess.

What does the team look like for 3C?

 

[Smashing Axe]

What's Ean's power level like now? Is he stronger than he's ever been? How does he compare in power to your run of the mill immortal in the current era?

 

[treave]

You'll have a small, fast ship full of named characters. And mechs, of course.

As for Ean's power I addressed that in a previous post, strong enough.

 

[Anabanana]

Haha, great update, treave. I would vote BAA just because it seems like the quickest and cleanest way to go about things, but do we really want to kill off Shulgi for good in the process? Hmm. Voting BCC for now, the mooks can distract the League while Ean and the gang take the Masters head on for MAXIMUM GLORY!

EDIT: Flopping to BBA.

EDITEDIT: Flopping back to BCC.

 

[Kipeci]

Do we need that Sun thing?

 

[Baltika9]

What is the estimated damage from depriving Terra of a Sun?

 

[Esquilax]

treave, are the Star League attacking Empire space at the moment? If so, it seems like 1B is the way to go since it saves us the time of attacking our own people. I mean, if the defectors are going to end up fighting the Star League forces in their system for us, then why bother going after them anyways? The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

I'm very wary about 2A/B. We don't know what sort of consequences collapsing an entire dimension could result in, and it's quite possible that the Masters have a contingency for this sort of situation over the millions of times that they've played this game. And even if we do succeed in taking out their dimension, I don't know what the results of that would be. Nevertheless, taking on the Masters in their home dimension seems like a fucking insane proposition.

A war with the Star League is not a great alternative either. The technology of our CF and the nanotech that Senya is implanted with is all produced (and thus prone to interdimensional manipulation) by the Masters, so we really have to be aware of that if we're going to fight a war in which the odds are rigged against us. Getting rid of all that fancy tech is a must in a direct war with the Star League. Expect the possibility of having to fight CF's like the one that we made, without using any Master tech on our side. It's a serious disadvantage, but that's what it's going to take to fight these fucks.

Another possibility is a Trojan Horse strategy. Surrender to the Star League so that the defenses open up to us, while creating a bomb with the 2D strategy while they are unawares. But then there's the possibility of being discovered along the way.

Very tough series of choices here.

 

[Jester]

BDA
Good update, doubt that we will be able to defeat masters head on. Probably we either win game and try to not fulfill ending conditions or we blow things up. I wonder how much data corruption will it make.

Hmm is B dimension collapsing thing or galaxy range high explosive?

 

[Esquilax]

Wait a second:

“I can’t say everything, but Project V involves a weapon that the League is working on. It will end the war with our victory, and requires pieces of an artifact from our gods. We have been bestowed one piece, while the Empire holds another. It turns out that what I managed to take was a fake. Adrahasis predicted my coming. We fled, but were captured - I was separated from the rest of my team and put on the Belesis. Twintails and the others were put as bait where the distress signal you detected was coming from.”

treave, do we possess the remaining pieces of Vajra after we defeated Marduk? It occurred to me that Vajra could provide an alternative to Marduk's plans:

“I will explain that matter. Now, the gateway to the dimension of these gods… the Masters, if you will, exists in a heavily guarded sector at the center of the galactic core. The Imperial Crusade aimed to turn Earth into an alternative entrance. Now, the Devourer’s method to do so, and the tool he would have used, are lost to us, no thanks to acertain hotshot. We do not have the knowledge nor the capability to turn Earth into another gateway to the Masters’ dimension.”

Sure, Marduk's knowledge is lost to us, but perhaps there's more than one way to skin a cat here; if we manage to steal the piece of Vajra in the League's possession in a lightning assault headed by Ean while most of the Star League's forces are distracted attacking Empire space (1B), perhaps with all three pieces we can create an alternative gateway of our own into their dimension. We don't necessarily have to win a rigged war - we just need to bypass the defenses that the Masters have set up in our way, and Vajra could provide an opportunity to do that.

However, there's the matter of finding the fucking thing in the first place. Also, I don't know if this might backfire horribly; it's quite possible that the moment we put Vajra together, the Masters will simply teleport it to our enemies, granting them victory. Perhaps having it under Ean's possession would make it impossible for them to take it from us? After all, he isn't bound to the Masters.

 

[treave]

You don't have any pieces, it's been black holed. I did say it was on the Emperor physically. Completing it would have been an alternate way to reach the Masters, but that's no longer possible.

The Star League are currently consolidating their hold over Imperial territory with little resistance. They have perhaps 200,000 ships in the area, with another 200,000 defending their own space. Numerically you are not that disadvantaged thanks to the Imperial fleet. As for the technology, the Masters can't actually interact with it physically unless it specifically came from them like the quantum computer. It's not a real problem, this is the reason we pursued black hole technology. They can't redirect a wormhole or close it. Attempting to affect a person mentally, playing with their perception while passing through a hole, yes. Not much they can do besides that short of manifesting and showing their full strength. Anything else will be manipulation and a reliance on the League to do their work. Senya doesn't have any nanites either, they were flushed out when he got his tentacles back.

 

[Azira]

We wont need the sun once we finish the Masters. Senya will then kick the Overseer's butt and rewrite the universe with Better Rules.

And as treave already stated, the CF tech does not rely on Master tech. The nanites were inactivated when Sekh implanted Senya with tentacles again. He's "free".

Take the sun, make it into a WMD and fuck the masters. We'll need ships to cut off the League at its roots, while half of its own fleet is off into Empire space. We cut the head of the snake, attack their homeworld and have Ean the Tree curbstomp them, once their defeat is acknowledged, we bomb the masters and all's golden.

 

[Anabanana]

So, about the surrender option. How exactly are we going to sneak in a gigantic sunbomb Trojan Horse-style without our captors noticing that we have it?

 

[Baltika9]

From this

They can access it in limited ways, mostly via the Star League. They don't have full access, and probably can't as long as Ean and Sekh are around. They could probably retrieve Vajra from a black hole if they manifested themselves fully and rewound time, but that's actually more trouble than it's worth to them.

Basically if you black hole Vajra you can expect it to be gone.

it looks like Ean and Sek can double as scrambling devices against the masters, too.

I'm personally leaning towards sending an infiltration team while distracting the League with the fleets. If we wiped the floor with the dude that was supposed to devour them (and it seems like Ean could've done the same thing had the fight been on the ground), plus all the superhumans we have on our side, I think we can take 'em. Destroying their knowledge seems like a tremendous waste.

And I can't see a better way to finish off this LP than a Jagged Alliance 2-style seek-and-destroy campaign through the Masters' reality with our Hall-of-Fame. (And a Senya-Ean trollteam.)

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

BAA - (I'm a lamb after all.)

Leaving the traitors to the League will ensure we're finished with the bomb before the enemy comes a'knocking.

We're at the end and and facing the Masters. We can't afford to do half-assed things like using jupiter or stupid things like rushing the gateway head-on. If we defeat the league, they'll just collapse the universe with us in it. If we invade, our forces will be wiped out before they reach the Masters by the planet destroying turrets. Also, Senya may not have immortal tech, but Ean is loaded with it isn't he, treave - or did eating the voices mean devouring the nanites too? If he still has immortal tech in him, they could use it against us should we attempt the stealth route.

Besides, these are the Masters we're talking about. Do you think they'll be defenseless when inviting in the most powerful beings their experiment has to offer? They'll be ready for almost any fight we could possibly put up. A sun bomb being the exception to that "almost"...

And anyone who votes 2d after treave's warnings that the masters will figure out what's up is asking for what happens next.

 

[Storyfag]

And anyone who votes 2d after treave's warnings that the masters will figure out what's up is asking for what happens next.

You should know by now that I'm still rooting for Dio, and the Masters are his descendants

 

[Baltika9]

BAA - (I'm a lamb after all.)

Leaving the traitors to the League will ensure we're finished with the bomb before the enemy comes a'knocking.

We're at the end and and facing the Masters. We can't afford to do half-assed things like using jupiter or stupid things like rushing the gateway head-on. If we defeat the league, they'll just collapse the universe with us in it. If we invade, our forces will be wiped out before they reach the Masters by the planet destroying turrets. Also, Senya may not have immortal tech, but Ean is loaded with it isn't he, treave - or did eating the voices mean devouring the nanites too? If he still has immortal tech in him, they could use it against us should we attempt the stealth route

Ean was free from the Masters ever since Crete, which is why Zeus couldn't disable our powers and the Naram-Master/YHWH couldn't mind-controll us like Athena and Artemis.

It seems to me that Ean can extend his ability on our whole reality. And if he can do that, then can also probably shield other immortals from Master influence. That, however, is speculation. Anyway, infiltration isn't a suicide: we have six months to prep The Normandy a supermobile BHE powered carrier ship with CFs that Senya and Rei can plug into. We will make it through, it's the other side where shit will start going down.

 

[Esquilax]

So, about the surrender option. How exactly are we going to sneak in a gigantic sunbomb Trojan Horse-style without our captors noticing that we have it?

The way I figure it, a Trojan Horse ploy would involve using wormholes to sneak the bomb into the Master's dimension, so 2D. This would mean BDA: We let our forces abandon us, allowing them to distract the 200,000 Star League ships attacking Empire space while we forge our bomb from another nearby star. Being outnumbered would give us a believable pretext for surrendering on account of being greatly outnumbered by the Star League. The problem in this case won't be sneaking in the bomb itself, it'll be that all those trips using wormholes to create our bomb will attract the Master's notice, as treave said.

Nevertheless, I see this as the only possible way that we can use bombs while surrendering. If we try to do anything within our own galaxy, the Star League will know. As much as I like Lambchop19's suggestion on paper, how will we remove the Sun from our own galaxy to use as a weapon, then surrender without the League being aware once we go through the gateway? I just don't see how we can use a bomb from our backyard without them figuring out that something is amiss. I'm not saying that using wormhole tech to use a starbomb from elsewhere doesn't have its problems, but we're sure to be found out if we try to surrender while trying to create a bomb in our backyard.

Other strategies I see as viable (feel free to correct me) are as follows:

Full-on War (ACB)

Here we dedicate ourselves to kicking the Star League's ass completely within six months - hard as hell, but doable. We would recoup all of our forces, then utilize our Master-proof tech as a means to defeat the Star League despite the Masters trying to rig the odds. This is a time-intensive task and I don't think we'll have the time to create a bomb and beat the League within the given time frame; I think we can only pick one option here. So either you commit to bombing the Master's dimension, or you commit to beating them at war.

Actually, war won't work. The system is designed for the Star League to win every single time, and I don't see how we're special in any way. The fact that Marduk sought an alternative gateway instead of opting to fight the Star League in direct combat speaks volumes here.

And honestly, I've got plenty of misgivings about nuking the Masters - we don't know what sort of consequences collapsing the center of the universe will entail, nor are we sure about what sort of contingencies they have in store for something like this. I just don't see this problem is quite so easy to solve. However, I'd like to hear from Azira on how we can make AAB work. He seems to really want to nuke shit.

Mission: Impossible (BCC)

This is Baltika9's proposal. While we use the dissenting forces within the Empire's forces to distract the Star League and the Masters, we put together the greatest team of bros ever assembled to sneak through the Master's dimension in a Shepardian suicide mission. The problem is that unlike the Marduk we faced here, the Masters we encounter will be at full strength, and that's if we're lucky enough make it past the planet-busting turrets.

The upside is that making our way through the turrets with a small force is far more likely than it is with a big one. Also, here the time limit will work in our favour, allowing us to create one hell of a fucking CF. Other than that, the technology and personnel we have are relatively immune to fuckery/tampering from the Masters, but that doesn't mean we still can't get the shit kicked out of us in a million other ways.

Basically, there's no easy way out here - every plan we put together is going to have drawbacks, it's just a question of which has the least.

 

[Baltika9]

Mission: Impossible (BCC)

Don't be such a drama queen.

Anyway, two reasons why I don't want to use our Sun as a nuke: one, it will fuck up our planet without a source of heat and light, and there's no guarantee we'll be able to fix it; and two, I want to see Shulgi in the final epilogue, years later, in a free universe, chilling with Senya and Ean in a bar; he does still owe us a drink.

 

[Baltika9]

Wait, wait.

On the other side of the long table are Adrahasis and his twin sister, Adrasteia. Apparently they are rare offspring borne from a union between two immortals. Having had the chance to talk to Adrasteia on the way back she was definitely unlike her more thoughtful brother. Adrahasis tells me that she takes after their father. “That reminds me, I probably owe them a nice boat.” I hear the Tree-Emperor muttering to Sekhenun, glancing at the twin immortals.

What? Could someone please explain this one?

 

[ScubaV]

Mission: Impossible (BCC)

Don't be such a drama queen.

Anyway, two reasons why I don't want to use our Sun as a nuke: one, it will fuck up our planet without a source of heat and light, and there's no guarantee we'll be able to fix it; and two, I want to see Shulgi in the final epilogue, years later, in a free universe, chilling with Senya and Ean in a bar; he does still owe us a drink.

I don't always agree with Baltika, but when I do... Bros: Courageous Champions

 

[Esquilax]

“I will explain that matter. Now, the gateway to the dimension of these gods… the Masters, if you will, exists in a heavily guarded sector at the center of the galactic core. The Imperial Crusade aimed to turn Earth into an alternative entrance. Now, the Devourer’s method to do so, and the tool he would have used, are lost to us, no thanks to acertain hotshot. We do not have the knowledge nor the capability to turn Earth into another gateway to the Masters’ dimension.”

Aw fuck, it just occurred to me that if we stayed as Marduk's hostage we could possibly have figured out the method Marduk would use to create an alternate gateway into the Master's dimension. Hard to say what sort of information we would have recovered from him, but if it was this, then... ouch.