Last Days of the Kuvexian War

It seems like, by and large, the majority of players who have spoken on the matter, on discord and on the forums, seem uncomfortable with the idea of blowing up planets unless we can be assured that there's no civilians. This is why I made my suggestion so that things didn't have to be significantly rewritten while still presenting an RP that players are comfortable with, which is frankly one of the most important things when it comes to big events like this, that people are both being included and that they are comfortable with what is going on.

If people don't like what's going on, they won't participate, and a public event with low participation can't be called a real success regardless of the outcome of the battle. If we have only the people who have currently expressed support for the current plan play, we'll have two maybe four players participate, and no amount of big-name characters bringing massive fleets can make up for that low participation.

Given the structure of Kuvexian culture and IRL aspects, I don't think it's unreasonable for everyone to think that Glimmergold is heavily populated by noncombatants.

I feel like Fletcher's plan is pretty simple and takes advantage of the unique circumstances.

1. Lure away defenders
2. Commandos destroy stuff preventing teleport
3. Move into system via wormhole and teleport to planets
4. Wreak as much havoc as possible
5. Retreat once things get too overwhelming

Is it not clear?

It's clear what he's saying, but the plan ignores the information provided by Yui thus far. The Star Army already has ongoing operations in Kuvexian space that haven't lured away any of Glimmergold's "fifty thousand" defenders, who exist in Yui's situation report despite the Yamataian presence in their sector. Given Glimmergold's entrenched status, Shida has already said what frontline SAINT forces have the ability to do, and it didn't include deep insertion commando raids to set up a subsequent invasion.

Not much else to say; only answering because you've asked for an explanation here after Shida's reaction to Fletcher. I'm writing posts based on the status of Star Army forces in Kuvexian space plus what's been explicitly shared with us in-character. Really hope everything works out because, prior to a few hours ago, we had an easy and carefree setup for a subsequently epic final battle that would probably include a lot of the scenes being talked about as flat-out alternatives.

Well I already feel like this is going a certain way. The plan is blowing up the planets and I don't see alternatives being accepted. Instead of just adding further argument I'll remove my self from the conversation.

I won't be joining in but I hope those who do rp have fun and enjoy the wars end.

I say maybe hold off on making a decision about participation until more details about the planets come to light and/or alternative plans are rejected/accepted. No need to quit outright before we know the score here.

I mean, the future's not set in stone, that's why we're RPing this. We could just let The Opportunity slip by and then watch the Essai grumpily fish around for some other fleet to support their efforts.

Essentially we're in World War 2 for 5 RPed years and we've been offered the chance by the Essai to watch them use their A-bomb if we can provide enough ships to cover its delivery. The use of nuclear weapons on civilian cities at the end of WW2 is still controversial to this day, but no one can deny it effectively ended the war. We're here in this thread because the GMs voted to end the war. Mere months ago Kuvexian brought their own planet-crackers to the Kikyo Sector at the Third Battle of Nataria. Turnabout is fair play. And Nepleslia or the NDC aren't actually being asked to blow up these worlds or attack any innocent civilians, just to kill enough Kuvexian warships for the Essai to do their thing.

I understand that Yui's calling Nepleslia's leadership NPC cowards for having cold feet about the mission has caused bad feelings on the OOC side as well as IC. But it was never supposed to be an OOC thing about the players controlling those characters. Yes, I did get irritated IRL.

I set out to give everyone a huge battle that gave everyone an opportunity to participate and I still think the scenario meets those goals and hope you guys will get onboard. If you guys need more info IC feel free to ask for it there.

> If you guys need more info IC feel free to ask for it there.

One thing that hasn't been clear is the nature of the system we are attacking. Is it Fort Knox where pretty much everyone is military and highly restricted getting in and out like Alex and Raz have suggested or is it more like New York or London like others have suggested?

People have been asking for it in-thread, and FWIW I'd rather see us figure out a way to make this event work for everyone rather than everyone remaining stubborn. However, that has to go both ways, both from the players and the GM.

For the NDC, we took a long time to come to our decision and it was a difficult one. For us, and I think for a lot of people, participation in the thread hinges on information that has yet to be forthcoming, and people are having to make assumptions about the nature of our target.

I've given my suggestion multiple times, but frankly, it comes down to how this is handled on the GM level; whether effort is made to accommodate the large majority of players who are uncomfortable with the idea of killing civilians en-masse, or whether we go full Vietnam/Dresden/Hiroshima and declare "There are no civillian Kuvexians" or something else to the effect of "They're all VC when the bombs drop"

How this is handled will affect how people look back on the Kuvexian War OOC and how people see Yamatai IC. and OOC Do we want to remember this time as a period where people were shut out of participation or had their thoughts and preferences ignored? Do we want to alienate Yamatai from everyone in the Kikyo sector, prompting only further fragmentation of our playerbase?

Hey Wes!

The NDC FMs actually discussed exactly the A-Bomb scenario in WW2 as a parallel to this attack and it's why we agreed to support the offensive. That said - those bombs, while massive in scale, were still limited to war-relevant locations. America even dropped fliers warning citizens about the upcoming attack (although we struck in places not on the fliers...)

All the NDC is asking is that we ensure that the destruction is limited to the places where it needs to be limited to. If Yamatai were to say, "All of these planets are computer worlds and their support staff only; our intelligence says that they have a minimal civilian presence due to security concerns" then we're on board with deleting them entirely. If there's a world that's 10% financial centers and 90% residential/agricultural/whatever, then we volunteer to bombard that 10% into nothing and leave the rest unscathed.

Yamatai has our support in ending this, we just want to avoid wanton destruction if possible.

What I had in mind is it's essentially a cluster of planet-sized banks the size of a solar system (plus one Fort Knox planet). There are large numbers of civilians who work at the bank planets of course from CEOs to janitors. These banks all have also private para-military forces, most of which have already attacked Yamatai and other factions, or have paid mercs to do the same. They're not military in the sense the Star Army of Yamatai is, but they're fully involved in the war. People should ask IC so this information is better explained to all parties involved.

One I idea I had was you could try to basically point the metaphorical gun at Glimmergold and say "sign this treaty or the Essai will fire." But the Essai are the Kuvexians' opportunist competitors. They want to blow up the Kuvexian banks so various economically-disrupted species will have to turn to the Essai as their new support system. I fear I'm already saying too much OOC info so if you want more you should dig in actual RP.

I'll edit my post to give Yamatai an opening to explain that, just so we can keep things moving.

The problem I think perhaps is that when you say 'planet-sized bank' we are thinking more New York or Tokyo than say the Bank of America Corporate Center Skyscraper. Does that fit better with how you are picturing things?

Also, been meaning to ask what the style of this thread will be. In the Nataria thread, people generally were having to GM for themselves, since you were mostly doing the broad strokes stuff, so people had to decide for themselves how much they were able to make a difference since you couldn't account for players actions in the GM posts, should we expect mostly the same thing? Just trying to figure out if we'll need to figure out our own little 'plot' of the battle for the NDC or if we can be more reactive.

Soban said:

The problem I think perhaps is that when you say 'planet-sized bank' we are thinking more New York or Tokyo than say the Bank of America Corporate Center Skyscraper. Does that fit better with how you are picturing things?

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They're basically the Death Star from Star Wars, but owned by some evil cyberpunk version of Wells Fargo.

Alex Hart said:

Also, been meaning to ask what the style of this thread will be. In the Nataria thread, people generally were having to GM for themselves, since you were mostly doing the broad strokes stuff, so people had to decide for themselves how much they were able to make a difference since you couldn't account for players actions in the GM posts, should we expect mostly the same thing? Just trying to figure out if we'll need to figure out our own little 'plot' of the battle for the NDC or if we can be more reactive.

Click to expand...

It'll probably be similar to Nataria where I will post some "big picture" things and the people who join will have fairly free reign to show the impact they're making at the ship and character levels.

Will the impact they make at fleet levels be reflected in the GM posts, or will those only concern Yamatai stuff and only big picture stuff within that? (Examples: If the NDC fleet were to stop some flanking fleet of destroyers that was about to catch Yamatai's battle line unawares or if Nepleslian fighters and bombers disrupted and routed a battleship force)

Yeah, I'll try to react to everything that is making an impact. I just expect a lot of people posting so it's hard to make posts that include every individual character.

Please edit the battle page to show what ships you're bringing to the fight:

Hopefully the NDC's tiny contribution provides some measure of help, though we may have to get a bit creative with how we make a difference with so few ships.