@Terminal, I have also made an NPC nation. Is it okay? If it needs any changes, I'll fix it. Or do we not need a NPC?

@Terminal, I have also made an NPC nation. Is it okay? If it needs any changes, I'll fix it. Or do we not need a NPC?

We can have NPCs, but I would not go as far as to say we have NPC nations sheets. In @Willy Vereb's case they might just want to settle for including a list of NPC factions and planet-states surrounding their territory along with brief descriptions of them.

These aren't poster nations, so they don't exactly pull focus - and they are also NPCs, which means anyone can use them. Employ with caution.

<Snipped quote by SgtEasy>

We can have NPCs, but I would not go as far as to say we have NPC nations sheets. In @Willy Vereb's case they might just want to settle for including a list of NPC factions and planet-states surrounding their territory along with brief descriptions of them.

These aren't poster nations, so they don't exactly pull focus - and they are also NPCs, which means anyone can use them. Employ with caution.

Okay. I guess the Orrors needs to be dumbed down a little

Poor NPC nations. I wonder how many will survive.

Early reasons for conquest!

@Terminal - On the centerpiece Initiative I may not have been as clear as I should have--it's not outright brainwashing but applied stimulus indoctrination. In runs on the notion that beauty is not subjective, and that it can be calibrated to have desired effects upon desired viewers. On the base level it's a broad spectrum 'appreciation' for the various structures and overall composition by which it falls together, with considerations given to a plethora of sensory awareness--running the gamut from sight and sound to smell and electrorecption. On the surface this just means bituman's have 'making worlds pretty' down to a science.

The personal pull comes from interaction with bitumans and exposure to bituman culture--with intensity on the effect proportionate to the time one remains immersed. This is because subliminal messages lace just about everything one can see/hear or interact with. It relies on the idea of 'pitfalls' based around the type of entertainment or recreation an individual may seek out of their own accord, with the vector of indoctrination calibrated to the specific 'profile' of those most likely to become its targets. What sort of people are likely to look for prostitutes? Illegal substances? Nightclubs? It's an active effort administrated over by some of the most powerful intellects in existence--machine or otherwise.

Think of it like this, soldiers aren't going to call off an attack just because the city their bombarding leaves them awe struck--but immigrants and detainees are going to have a higher turnaround than they would with other nations and operatives in 'deep cover' might end up going native.

That's my take on it anyhow.

In runs on the notion that beauty is not subjective, and that it can be calibrated to have desired effects upon desired viewers. On the base level it's a broad spectrum 'appreciation' for the various structures and overall composition by which it falls together, with considerations given to a plethora of sensory awareness--running the gamut from sight and sound to smell and electrorecption. On the surface this just means bituman's have 'making worlds pretty' down to a science.

Beauty is subjective between species. There might even be species which do not have a concept of beauty. So yes, it would very much need to be adjusted and specifically calibrated for specific species.

The personal pull comes from interaction with bitumans and exposure to bituman culture--with intensity on the effect proportionate to the time one remains immersed. This is because subliminal messages lace just about everything one can see/hear or interact with. It relies on the idea of 'pitfalls' based around the type of entertainment or recreation an individual may seek out of their own accord, with the vector of indoctrination calibrated to the specific 'profile' of those most likely to become its targets. What sort of people are likely to look for prostitutes? Illegal substances? Nightclubs? It's an active effort administrated over by some of the most powerful intellects in existence--machine or otherwise.

Think of it like this, soldiers aren't going to call off an attack just because the city their bombarding leaves them awe struck--but immigrants and detainees are going to have a higher turnaround than they would with other nations and operatives in 'deep cover' might end up going native.

That's my take on it anyhow.

As long as it needs to be specifically calibrated to particular species then yeah, sure - and that will be a process involving lots of intensive psychological and neurological study. Just be sure to emphasize that point and I will approve your application.

I'd say that it would need to be more minutely calibrated if the intention were to target and effect a specific person within a desired timeframe, but as a whole the initiative should be fairly effective. Everything is deterministic, including the psyche. Bitumans can accurately assume certain values to be in place based on approximate levels of intelligence and the activities a person chooses to engage in. Like everything there'd be a margin of error to account for but on the whole I think it's a pretty solid foundation.

I had something already preliminarily written up, so I went ahead and made the second post. Hope that making a sort of flashback section where I discussed what happened immediately after the move is okay.

I'd say that it would need to be more minutely calibrated if the intention were to target and effect a specific person within a desired timeframe, but as a whole the initiative should be fairly effective. Everything is deterministic, including the psyche. Bitumans can accurately assume certain values to be in place based on approximate levels of intelligence and the activities a person chooses to engage in. Like everything there'd be a margin of error to account for but on the whole I think it's a pretty solid foundation.

Except they are dealing with alien species they know literally nothing about who do, in fact, have subjective perspectives of beauty - if they even have a concept of beauty at all, or aesthetics for that matter - whose psychology may be so foreign and contrary to your preconceived notions of thought that even if they took every single step in that little dance of yours, choosing to stay in your amusement parks and play your games and looki at all your sculptures, your system might then completely fail to produce the desired effect.

And so I am afraid I am going to have to insist that it will need to be calibrated for every individual species. I'm not saying it will take you years to calibrate, but it will take some time and careful analysis. It's not an unreasonable thing for me to ask, it's just playing fair with the other posters. I'll even let you have it pre-calibrated for Humans since you have prior details on their physiology and have had considerable time to study it.

All I'm implying is that the non-bitumans have the capacity to be effected--even if a culture/species doesn't capitalize on cultural or artistic pursuits to completely lack a mind capable of appreciating them would demonstrate certain intellectual failings. Some races (like your own) might be more resistant due to plenty of factors (shorter lifespans, goal-centric/highly actualized populace, etc.) But I really have to reaffirm this is the continued effort of vast, non-human intelligences working in tandem to produce a single composition of stimuli that spans nearly a hundred systems and has nothing that it could possibly be accurately compared to. Like how eldritch is a go word for truly inconceivable horror 'bitumesque' would be its equal and opposite expression. There works are inconceivably beautiful, able to strike a chord with beings of sufficient intelligence.

If you're still insistent on reigning it in I'll let the issue drop. It's your RP after all

So would you argue it would work on an Arm, a machine that has no concept of beauty or entertainment?

And @Terminal, I shall see what I can do. The All-Mother can be thought to have lost most of her memory due to complete power loss, managing to recover her "OS" only so to say. With memory loss also comes a general loss of personality and regression to a "young" state. There are also no military ships to detail as of now, or troops.

I suppose I am more able to accept the idea with the added caveat that the system merely has the capacity to affect other species - which is more reasonable than the impression I originally had.

Go ahead and add your sheet to the characters tab, and I'll add you to the OP.

A supremely boring post made, but it is late AF and I wanted to get things squared away before I write something actually interesting tomorrow. People near me, if they want to be discovered by the Exploration Fleet, should let me know, and we can get our collaborate on.

Also, how are we going to do the deciphering of alien languages?

@Willy VerebSo, I'll leave it to you whether or not your nation detects the tachyon sensor burst (hopefully I wrote that well enough to make sense in the post). Just thought it might be an interesting way to say "hello."

A supremely boring post made, but it is late AF and I wanted to get things squared away before I write something actually interesting tomorrow. People near me, if they want to be discovered by the Exploration Fleet, should let me know, and we can get our collaborate on.

Also, how are we going to do the deciphering of alien languages?

I have universal translators with a galaxy's wealth of linguistic and other communication knowledge.
With some effort I may even convert the Bitumens' smell-communication to intelligible human words.

@Willy VerebSo, I'll leave it to you whether or not your nation detects the tachyon sensor burst (hopefully I wrote that well enough to make sense in the post). Just thought it might be an interesting way to say "hello."

Well, it'll probably take a good while to reach me but I'll react when it's appropriate, yes.

I'll assume that the Cessians will have something similar then: they harvest memories, and linguistic systems would be of interest to the Dream. Hopefully translation will be pretty easy for my almost-sentient AI.

@Keyguyperson, @SgtEasy, and @Nilesapa, as best as I can tell you guys are the closest to me, so feel free to PM me as well if you want to encounter my small exploration party.

@Terminal, I added a bit about the All-Mother herself. Not entirely sure what else I can add, her opinions on each section?

I forgot this one a thing.

*sees Key is doing Abh*

Tis time for the rise of the New Roman Empire once again.