[LP CYOA] Epic

[Baltika9]

It's... beautiful!

Edit: will we be able to choose where the Mercenary heads off to start his family? Or is it automatically Kiev?

 

[treave]

No to both. Where he goes is rather unimportant to the narrative since it skips 800 years to 1815, Waterloo. The history of his house for those years will be railroaded. I might do a chapter in 1715 during the Ottoman-Venetian War, but it depends.

Each chapter should cover one character. Tentatively, 1850s Egypt/Africa, 1890s Victorian London, then World War I, then II, then the Cold War, next the early 90s, and finally the last protagonist in 2015 for the final chapter. The actual adventures during the various chapters will depend on the offspring chosen, and the spouses picked will determine the choices of offspring to play as in the subsequent generation. Relics, contacts, relationships, perhaps inherited abilities will be passed on, mostly. Having a character die will cut the chapter short, though depending on the circumstances a relative might pick up the plot line a bit later with their own investigation into the character's death.

It will be a history-on-rails narrative, at least overtly, since the story focuses on the secret war behind the scenes as the various groups prepare for the prophesied apocalypse. No lol let's shoot Hitler before he rises to power metagaming based off the players' knowledge of actual history will be had here.

At any rate, it's not set in stone. I'll put up the choice of which LP to do once we've concluded this one.

 

[Baltika9]

The Chinese LP sounds cool, but this is too awesome.

Unless, of course, we'll get a chance to pit our nerd-officer against the Mongol Invasion.

 

[treave]

No Mongols. And it's more of an open world martial arts tale with a dozen factions and reputation tracking than Romance of the Three Kingdoms strategic play. Which I have no confidence in guiding because Codex. Open world is better, the fuckups will be more hilarious when you break the setting.

 

[Anabanana]

No Mongols. And it's more of an open world martial arts tale with a dozen factions and reputation tracking than Romance of the Three Kingdoms strategic play. Which I have no confidence in guiding because Codex. Open world is better, the fuckups will be more hilarious when you break the setting.

Goddamnit treave, I love classic wuxia lit and this sounds like the CYOA of my dreams. Can you please make it into a game if you don't do it as a CYOA so I can play it?

 

[Kipeci]

So, it's confirmed that we're going with this over the Chinese one, then?

 

[Azira]

I see nothing confirmed. It was just a teaser, just as the preview of the chines CYOA was.

 

[treave]

There'll be a vote at the end of this LP. I plan on doing both eventually, just that I don't think I can pull off running both at once. Probably.

If you're familiar with wuxia literature you'll be glad to know the reputation revolves around an orthodoxy-heresy scale which shifts depending on how obedient you are to the 'code of honor' in the pugilistic world. Because it's always fun to cross the various straight-laced orthodox sects over some misunderstanding and have them put out a bounty on you. Or have some crazy, eccentric heretics decide you be an excellent role figure due to your reputation and try to enshrine you as their leader whether you want to or not. There will be no Jade Empire Open Palm Closed Fist Light Side Dark Side bullshit philosophy here.

 

[TOME]

I would much rather stay in this universe, maybe play an immortal trying to win one of the earlier games for Masters?

We don't know a thing about Shulgi and we didn't take the council info, so A is bound to fail.

I'm fairly certain that surprise attack is "not out of expectation", he'll be ready for it. He'll just activate the defenses and bring down the corridors.

C. Time to test this power. It will be unexpected and might work now that he isn't expecting it.

 

[Esquilax]

I'm fairly certain that surprise attack is "not out of expectation", he'll be ready for it. He'll just activate the defenses and bring down the corridors.

C. Time to test this power. It will be unexpected and might work now that he isn't expecting it.

Not the sort of surprise attack that Senya has - he won't expect that. Look, this guy is expecting Shulgi and in many ways, is just like Shulgi himself: arrogant and too dependent on things going according to his expectations. As Kayerts said, the sort of attacks that Senya has aren't something that he'll expect because he's so certain that we're Shulgi. He'll probably account for Boshen's head being used as a projectile weapon, but there's no way he'll account for our limb-severing tentacles.

We have to be aware of the great cost that this power brings, and I'm not yet ready to pay it. Remember this?

Cognisance.

As I perceive, I am perceived.

In that briefest instant, an unfathomably vast entity stirs, an existence I can feel but not observe directly, and I get a distinct sense of possibilities extinguished.

We've reloaded already, and to make matters worse, our psycho alter-ego was killed a few times by Shulgi. Yes, this single use of the Observer's power won't damn us, but it all adds up. We have alternatives here, and it's best not to rely on a desperate last resort as a first resort.

To make matters worse, once he's gone, any knowledge he's had is gone as well. So if it turns out Shulgi is still kicking around, good luck finding out:

You delete the fella, but whatever he has done remains. Kinda like deleting the cause but not the effect. If it were a database you'd leave behind invalid references to an entry that doesn't exist.

@treave, does this mean that deleting him would also erase the memories of all that knew him? So, if we erase him, would the other Council members know if he was ever gone?

 

[Esquilax]

Brace yourselves everyone, this is tin-foil hat time. Esquilax has gone full retard.

... discover if Shulgi is alive or find out more about Mere Tarliss' desertion, IF that was Mere Tarliss.

I am beginning to really think Mere is Shulgi, can't see a young immortal like that defeating the much more experienced and powerful Shulgi in combat.

If it is the true Mere, that only raises more questions.

You know, I've been having a lot of questions about Mere and the circumstances under which she saved us:

Suddenly, an emergency communication comes in – from an enemy shuttle near the jump point. It’s identifying itself as Mere.

“Hoshikawa, get away from that drone!” She doesn’t bother with any formalities, screaming at me with urgency in her voice.
...
“How did you know I would be here?”

She shrugs. “I didn’t. I only identified you when you broke away from the fleet and charged Volkin’s ship. I was travelling with Delta as a consultant.

Okay, so according to Mere, she didn't know we were coming and she happened to be on Volkin's ship at the time. So she's basically saying that thanks to this happy coincidence, our asses were saved. But I do find it unusual that Mere was already on her shuttle near the jump point before the drone was launched. Then she tells us that she didn't know it was us, that this was all happenstance. I mean, imagine the odds of Mere being around at exactly the right place and alerting us at the right time to warn us of danger. You'd have to be really lucky, right?

Then there's the question of why Mere would suddenly defect:

“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.

She said this as if it was certain, but then you have to ask "why the fuck would someone defect to the losing side all of a sudden?" Mere isn't Ean - she isn't going to join a losing side out of sheer moral duty and idealism, she's always struck me as pretty pragmatic. Okay, so Mere never liked the Council and she didn't rat us out about the quantum computer, true, so maybe she found the Council's secret and wants revenge. Hey, that could be it.

But then you have to ask how the youngest immortal in the League would find a piece of knowledge that important and closely guarded to begin with. She got captured by the Empire on a covert mission not too long ago, how the fuck would she manage to get something like this? A millenia-old chessmaster with a boundless thirst for knowledge might find out about this independently, but someone that low on pecking order?

Of course, this could all be a red herring by treave, but many things don't add up. But now we head to the enemy fortress, just as our friend is expecting Shulgi to fall into his trap, only we're not Shulgi, and thus outside of his expectations...

The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he doesn't exist.

 

[treave]

No, the database metaphor applies to the records of fate, the perception of the people living in the universe doesn't get retroactively changed. All they'll notice is this guy was here, then now he's not. As for Mere... there are a few possibilities that come to mind.

She's Shulgi.
She's a double agent.
She's unwittingly serving the purpose of another, more experienced and smarter player in this conflict.
Happy coincidence, you're all just paranoid.

Or perhaps even a combination of two or more of the above.

Also, do expect a difference in information obtained from an interrogation (if it works) compared to a smooth con (if it works). I don't feel that what you hear in one case should be exactly the same as what you get in the other.

 

[Anabanana]

I think I'm going to vote A for this. Also I really hope Mere turns out to be Shulgi. It'd be the best twist in the entire CYOA. ;D

 

[Esquilax]

I think I'm going to vote A for this. Also I really hope Mere turns out to be Shulgi. It'd be the best twist in the entire CYOA. ;D

Haha, well Dario did turn out to be Dio, so maybe it's something else now. I'm still sticking with B because A is too risky while C is a horrible waste with dire consequences, but I am considering ways that we can make the con work on this guy by piecing together what we know. We need to work out the time frame they've known each other:

After all, we have pitted our intellects against one another for half a millenium – oh, there is no need to act surprised. We both knew this was coming.

So Shulgi's known this guy ever since Earth's location became uknown to the Masters. I wonder how Shulgi got in contact with the League, and a Council member at that, while Earth was isolated. Not only that, this Council member decided to play along and not reveal Earth's location; I suppose he figured that Shulgi was more useful to him without any of his Council pals knowing about him.

Moving on:

“Dragonwarden?” laughs the man, ignoring Boshen’s outburst. “Another of your names, then – you seem to be collecting plenty. Does that have anything to do with how you took down the Great Devourer? Your monkeys invented a pretty good machine there. It is the same one currently running riot in my hangars, I presume? I wouldn’t want to face it down one on one, so if it is a threat towards me, it is pretty effective. Colmar and Versais would relish fighting it however.”

Okay, so the last time Shulgi and this guy talked was before our alliance with the Empire. Speaking of names that Shulgi's collected, I can think of one: Senya Hoshikawa. No wonder this guy believes we're Shulgi.

...the Star League demanded that the Federation hand over the perpetrator of the Gray Death Incident, claiming that their own kin had perished when it happened.

The man who caused this disaster was known only as Shulgi.

He had revealed himself soon after the Gray Death had spread, managing to hijack every single broadcast on Earth. Appearing in the visage of the boy named Hoshikawa, the disguise he had used to assassinate the princess Kyrie, he had claimed responsibility for the Gray Death, the Lothal drop, and the attempted coup d'etat of the former Shinar Empire. All of this, he claimed he did because humanity was sheep and had been complacent for far too long.
...
And then, finally, in a chase that lasted more than a year, Shulgi was finally cornered by the Star League spec-ops and the bulk of the surviving Federation military. He was captured and executed by being sent into the sun, sealing the deal between the Federation and the Star League...

Any idea as to the real reason that Shulgi took the heat for our alter-ego's crimes?

“Physically, I suppose.” He shrugs, a small smirk crossing his lips. “I am connected to the entirety of Vajra Shula through the quantum computer. Nothing that happens onboard is beyond my knowing or my reach. In here, you have only progressed so far because I have allowed you to. Your little detour to the database facility was not out of my expectations either." The man leans forward, his grey eyes gleaming with arrogant humour. "Did you like what I allowed you to find? Consider it a token gift to kick off our meeting."

As Senya suspected, he's bullshitting. If he knew what we were looking through, it wouldn't be so heavily encrypted and he'd know that we weren't Shulgi just as soon as we started looking for information on the Masters. Shulgi knows more about the Masters than the League does, he wouldn't bother looking through their limited info on the matter.

"I could bring the corridors down on your head if I so wished. But then I presume you would only find some other way to vex me, so it seems we are forced to talk for now.

Um, I could like, totally kick your ass and stuff, but I don't want to! There is some truth here, but he'd really rather not resort to fucking up the entire fortress. He just told us that we don't stand a chance if they have the superweapon, so why risk the fortress? I'd call his bluff on this one.

 

[Baltika9]

SHUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUULGIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!!!

HE'S EVERYWHERE!
Seriously, the next LP should have him as a cameo.

 

[Kayerts]

Alternatively, Gallardo might have built a Shulgi replica for the League to execute.

Definitely agree that this guy thinking Shulgi's alive is suspicious. Shulgi's execution was a big deal for the League; if this much better-informed bro thinks he might have survived it, that's interesting.

 

[treave]

Or he could just be paranoid. Really, some kid appears out of nowhere, builds political support on Earth, orchestrates the defeat of the Dragon Emperor and gains the support of his legions? Anyone paying attention would suspect something. Even the least detailed of Mere's reports would provoke suspicion, particularly since he was connected to Shulgi before this. Who's to say the dickhead didn't pull a switcheroo?

Or Mere could be purposely feeding him reports that made him think you're Shulgi. Because she's Shulgi.

 

[Anabanana]

Or perhaps we're Shulgi and we just think we've been playing Senya all this time! That's why he thinks we're Shulgi, we're actually Shulgi!

 

[Baltika9]

But Mere is also Shulgi.

 

[Storyfag]

Or perhaps we're Shulgi and we just think we've been playing Senya all this time! That's why he thinks we're Shulgi, we're actually Shulgi!

I see. The only way treave could let us play Shulgi and not fuck up epically was to not tell us we're playing Shulgi! Well played

 

[Baltika9]

Flopping back to Broshen!
It'll suck if he dies.

 

[treave]

Wouldn't there be a greater risk of him dying if you toss him at the enemy? Sometimes I don't get the thought processes of you guys.

 

[Baltika9]

Well, it'll suck, but it's the only way a bro like him should go out. Anyway, I just reviewed the arguments in favor of B and flopped, that was just me being lazy.

So, unless this guy is stalling for time to let Alpha catch us unaware, we're fine.

 

[treave]

I would think that the same lack of knowledge that makes A dangerous to navigate would also mean B is as much of a gamble because you don't know what his abilities are. Too bad no one wanted the Council infodump even though I hinted that one or more of them might be on-board.

 

[TOME]

Guys, guys. This is do or die time. Don't you think an immortal that old has battled against both gieloths and other immortals? The only weapon we have and he won't expect is the degeneration field. The disintegration won't work because he has regeneration and I'm sure he knows how to counter the slowing effect (or he could just be super fast). So that leaves us weapons he is familiar with; tentacles and gravity suit. Tentacles, really? Against a being that is programmed to kill gieloths? And gravity suit against super human? We can't even beat the lowliest of Dunamis with it and he is at least on par with Shulgi. (Unless he is Shulgi?)

We can't go and waste our surprise element on a half witted attack. After that it will be too late to pretend to be Shulgi. Or try to delete him. We won't get the chance. So vote anything but the B.

@Esquilax, this time you seem to want to have your cake and eat it too. You want to disable the Vajra Shula, hijack Vajra, destroy alpha, get this immortals knowledge about the council, Shulgi, masters, League's military, etc (well a little bit exaggerated, but you get the gist). The objective was to destroy or disable Vajra Shula, everything else will make this infiltration more likely to fail and us getting captured/killed. So let's do what we came to do and get the hell out.

We can delete him. We should delete him. Why? First of all, we need to test the ability. treave said it won't tip the iceberg on ghostpocalypse so that's not to worry. It will have some effect, but not too much. Sure it should only be used as a last resort, true, but we need to test it first. Remember Ean's hunger anyone? Treat this like that. I wonder could he have been able to eat the Tree if he had not become familiar with the ability? Senya needs to do the same. Become familiar with it, add a new weapon to the repertory but use it as a last resort. Our enemies won't get any weaker at this point of the game, so soon we will be back at the same situation we were with Shulgi: we can delete but at the cost of dying or worse.