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quote:Tinpot dictatorship Yeah, this all tracks. We can either "encourage" the local strongman with money or threats, or we can encourage a revolt as long as we can provide backing. If we do the latter, we need to figure out who's going to be in charge ahead of time so that we can ensure they're the challenger who comes out on top. Specifically, merely fixing the place up is unlikely to lead to a good result; the strongman will find reasons and ways to create misery again. I'm concerned that a solution that actually makes the place better is going to require more than one action, for a questionably valuable result of one corvette and questionably stronger ground forces.
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Jul 9, 2021 17:16
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Christ, Ajax sucks. Why do we want them in the Grand Coalition, again? But yeah, okay, so. Just buying them off would be fairly cheap, we give Dukil a box of chocolates or a pre-war Playboy and he'll pledge his fealty. Unfortunately, loyalty cheaply bought is also cheaply sold, and he could easily turn around and sell Ajax to Achilles on the assumption they can give him more creature comforts as a collaborator. Heck, they might even leave him in charge of his petty fiefdom. The obvious play is to carrot-and-stick him with more gifts for him and his cronies coupled with threats of utter annihilation if he ever betrays us. We're certainly capable of it with our navy as-is. The problem is this requires us to constantly keep an eye on him so he doesn't conveniently forget where his loyalties lie. This is a lot of attention tied up in something that doesn't really materially benefit us, but we can't ignore it because he's right loving next to us. It's a dagger in our back if Achilles manages to smuggle anything over there discretely, or at the very least a neighbor who can constantly monitor our comings and goings. A coup is tempting, BUT will make our neighbors worried if we start toppling governments for our own convenience. I have a proposal. The one thing Ajax has in abundance are people accustomed to harsh conditions and discipline. By our assessment, they'd make supremely good soldiers. I propose we make an offer to hire Ajax natives as mercenaries, to be trained and equipped on Hektor. I suspect Dukil will be happy to have the peasantry taken off his hands in exchange for more personal luxuries, the guy does not give a poo poo what happens beyond his asteroid. In the meantime, we bolster our own ground forces, while showing select citizens of Ajax a better more egalitarian way of living AND training them to be a fighting force more than a match for Ajax's local militia. Once their tour of duty is over and they go home to their impoverished feudal state with heads full of idealism, the old familiar oppressive thugs aren't going to look so threatening anymore. Que homegrown revolution!
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Jul 9, 2021 17:46
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Asterite34 posted:Once their tour of duty is over and they go home to their impoverished feudal state with heads full of idealism, the old familiar oppressive thugs aren't going to look so threatening anymore. Que homegrown revolution! Especially if we gift them some space stingers and space m16s on their way back home!
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Jul 9, 2021 18:22
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I agree with the mercenary plans. Have a agreement where we kit them ourselves and train em to our standards. Make em a crack team or at least close to the levels of our more elite units. Once their term is over, send em back to Ajax, but with a secret cache of weapons. In addition, we should really improve their life support and agriculture infrastructure. This will provide the most direct improvement to the populous that can be tied to us. And if the dictator tries to make it so that it benefits his regime even more, well, that gives the populous even more reason to hate him. Plus, they'd be more fit from bettered conditions. We should hold off mining development till after they are in our sphere.
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Jul 9, 2021 18:45
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Asterite34 posted:The one thing Ajax has in abundance are people accustomed to harsh conditions and discipline. By our assessment, they'd make supremely good soldiers. I propose we make an offer to hire Ajax natives as mercenaries, to be trained and equipped on Hektor. I suspect Dukil will be happy to have the peasantry taken off his hands in exchange for more personal luxuries, the guy does not give a poo poo what happens beyond his asteroid. In the meantime, we bolster our own ground forces, while showing select citizens of Ajax a better more egalitarian way of living AND training them to be a fighting force more than a match for Ajax's local militia. If ya'll want to do this, I'll say that for the cost of one Aid action you can produce two companies (500tons) of special Ajaxite fighters. They'll be better equipped than your militia, but not as well as your assault formations, and I'll also adjust their HP in the database. Training will take four months. This can count as an Inspire since Dukil would probably be happy to ship off his troublemakers.
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Jul 9, 2021 18:45
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Asterite34 posted:I have a proposal. I agree with this. Let's ask for some "cannon fodder" and train up an elite revolutionary vanguard instead. The Hektorites are gonna have reduced vodka rations or whatever for a while and in the meantime Ajax can just continue to coast. No point in rocking the boat when a storm's coming to capsize it.
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Jul 9, 2021 18:51
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I'd honestly say Ajax is a prime example of where regime change might be the best option from the purely pragmatic reason that if we can only reliably get them onside with personal bribes to their leadership then its only a matter of time before Achilles gives them a bigger pay day to betray us at the worst possible moment. I'd say small bribes to the leadership to let us "help" their people. Then fix key infrastructure, then use our position as having helped them not starve or asphyxiate to champion a regime change. Ideally a quietly as possible so we don't scare future bribery targets. Then further bribes in the form of mining infrastructure to feed our ship repairs/building.
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Jul 9, 2021 18:55
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It's not gonna hurt our bonafides with Menelaus if we end up supporting an overthrow of authoritarianism, either. Pity we can't just tell the Menelausans that we're planning on loving over Tovarishch Pustyak, they'll have to deal with thinking we're working with the baddies until we can trust them (or at least parts of their government) enough to bring them in. Fray, I want you to know that I love the leader of Ajax being a literal strongman and I deeply appreciate the joke. habeasdorkus fucked around with this message at 19:15 on Jul 9, 2021 |
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Jul 9, 2021 19:12
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I'm torn between Bwen's plan and Asterlites. While we won't get much out of them regardless and don't want a rep for toppling governments I seriously doubt that anyone elsewhere cares what happens to Ajax's bloody tinpot dictator. And as long as he is in charge nothing will change on Ajax to make them worth expending effort on because the minute we look away and expended effort will be yoinked by Velentin Dukil. Thus I propose a combination of the two plans. We hire the Ajaxites as mercenaries and organize them up as a revolutionary vanguard, then send them in to bring about the revolution. With our oversite of course. Ideally we want a regime we can genuinely trust and work with, and that improves the lot of Ajax rather than installing our own strongman puppet.
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Jul 9, 2021 19:15
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Boat Stuck posted:Especially if we gift them some space stingers and space m16s on their way back home! I would be concerned that they have an insurance policy, like families held hostage to ensure that exactly this doesn't happen. Revolutions are messy.
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Jul 9, 2021 19:28
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This is just making me wonder about Hektor's political system. How far from Ajax are we?
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Jul 9, 2021 19:30
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GunnerJ posted:This is just making me wonder about Hektor's political system. How far from Ajax are we? We are fairly close in space terms. A short hop really. Governmentally we are a semi-meritocratic Oligarchy in game, and in thread are a goonmind democracy.
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Jul 9, 2021 19:42
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Volmarias posted:I would be concerned that they have an insurance policy, like families held hostage to ensure that exactly this doesn't happen. yeh revolutions are messy, but imo holding hostages would make us look bad. If we are gonna do that we might as well just take over the damned rock ourselves at that point. Because it would get out we are holding hostages to keep the Ajax government in line.
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Jul 9, 2021 19:43
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Boomboomf22 posted:yeh revolutions are messy, but imo holding hostages would make us look bad. If we are gonna do that we might as well just take over the damned rock ourselves at that point. Because it would get out we are holding hostages to keep the Ajax government in line. Oh, I'm not saying we hold hostages. I'm saying that they will, specifically to prevent the mercenaries from coming home to do a coup
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Jul 9, 2021 19:56
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Volmarias posted:Oh, I'm not saying we hold hostages. I'm saying that they will, specifically to prevent the mercenaries from coming home to do a coup ohhh sorry I missread your post. Humm that is an issue.
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Jul 9, 2021 19:57
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Put another vote in the Operation Hammer's Hummers pile. Hire oppressed citizens as mercenaries, with extra classes in revolution and functional government. The first big question is how do we keep the spies and true believers that are going to get mixed in from reporting back home. The second big question is how do we get credit for improving Ajax from people who want a new regime, while also getting credit for respecting Ajax's sovereignty? Invite people to audit classes while they are here for medical treatment?
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Jul 9, 2021 20:08
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I don't think the training revolutionaries plan is a good way to improve things on Ajax. Even if it works, there's probably like a 99% chance whoever ends up in charge of the revolutionaries just moves into the Strongman's palace and continues the system. It's how the system is set up even if they want to change things. The only way we can really count on improving things is to do it ourselves, which we can't afford the expense or time to do right now with Achilles threatening. That said, it could be an excellent plan for convincing the other asteroids we're not rubber-stamping Ajax's government without actually doing anything about it. If anyone expresses concerns about how we're handling Ajax we could even invite them to send advisors to help with "training" our
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Jul 9, 2021 21:13
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Won't the other rocks be very suspicious of anything we do after we fairly openly help one government be overthrown?
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Jul 9, 2021 21:17
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Bremen posted:That said, it could be an excellent plan for convincing the other asteroids we're not rubber-stamping Ajax's government without actually doing anything about it. ...is this a thing any of them care about? Achilles isn't unpopular because it's an oppressive dictatorship, but because it's an expansionist hegemon that nukes people. Just fix their life support and move on.
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Jul 9, 2021 21:50
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I like the space fedaykin idea. Train them, fix their life support, send them back with heads full of revolution. The goal here is to get ajax on side so we can start snowballing as a local hegemon, so lets do that and have overthrowing the tyrant as a slightly longer term scheme. sebmojo fucked around with this message at 22:03 on Jul 9, 2021 |
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Jul 9, 2021 22:01
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Poil posted:Won't the other rocks be very suspicious of anything we do after we fairly openly help one government be overthrown? Rolling into town as "liberators" runs completely completely counter to our stated goals, though. I'm leaning towards swallowing the Dukil toad for now, train some troops from Ajax, offer to help fix their life support (without explicitly aiming towards bettering everyone's life - Dukil should realize that if his people die he's soon be left with nobody to rule over), and keep building our own coalition. Once that is done, we can work towards closer political alignment.
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Jul 9, 2021 22:11
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Gnerally agree in the short term it's better to work 'with' the strongman via gives/support as is appropriate to the local populace to help us get on their good side (I mean, if we give them basic food it probably makes them much happier to see us long term). Also agree on hiring mercenaries - plus it gives us better insight to to the place and gives us more troops which we may not be in the best state for. Plus if we're hiring, it's known, and we're giving good standards to the locls long term it has the higher quality folks there being interested. I'd like to think on/agree on giving limited support to the locals just to make sure long term they like us - if we can make it clear we're giving support separate from the strongman/paying him off so he doesn't care too much (?) it hopefully sets us on a good long term path if the locals are happy with us. Also just general thoughts, no vote.
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Jul 9, 2021 22:32
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We should also train some engineers and send them back, also with heads full of revolution.
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Jul 9, 2021 22:35
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frankenfreak posted:Yeah, I don't like the idea directly playing the regime change game as the first step in what is supposed a "charm offensive". I mean Asterite's original plan of "showing them how good life can be" is good, but I wouldn't bank on it ending in an uprising that ends up with who knows what kind of new leadership, if the Hektor-trained troops even revolt and not just get co-opted by Dukil anyway. The problem I see with this is it's two of our bribe actions for one poor asteroid (Fray said training the troops would cost an aid action, but get us some troops, and either fixing the environmental controls or helping with the mining would be another). I'm not saying it's a bad idea, just that we should be aware of how much we're spending. From a previous post we have 4 Bribes, 2 medical access, and 2 establish trade. It doesn't sound like Ajax really needs either of the latter two, so we'll still have more resources in our pocket for the other asteroids, but it does mean we're using a quarter of our bribe options for one poor asteroid that we all agreed would be the easiest to get on our side.
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Jul 9, 2021 22:54
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Solid point. Are we going to get all the reports before we vote? Tbh the cool factor of a container load of hardened vaccdogs is the most attractive element for me.
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Jul 9, 2021 23:15
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A possible alternate plan is to offer access to our newly minted Medical specialists, using a single Medical Access action. The place is rather sickly on top of everything else, and I bet Dukil and his boys would love to have their militias nice and healthy. ...and then we can dangle taking that AWAY from them forever after they've grown accustomed to it. Not like they're gonna force our doctors to perform surgery on them at gunpoint as a matter of course, and like hell our doctors are gonna start giving away access to our stuff to be reverse-engineered. Medicine isn't something you can get the hang of by seeing it done once in a while and winging it. This is a heinous idea I do not endorse, btw, plus it assumes Achilles doesn't have its own medical techs to offer with fewer (or more palatable anyway) strings, but this is me brainstorming here.
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Jul 9, 2021 23:16
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Asterite34 posted:A possible alternate plan is to offer access to our newly minted Medical specialists, using a single Medical Access action. The place is rather sickly on top of everything else, and I bet Dukil and his boys would love to have their militias nice and healthy. As a variant on this, we could offer medical access to all residents of Ajax, explicitly and publicly. If Dukil concedes to this, then we've become incredibly popular and indispensable to his subjects. If he pisses us off and we cut ties, he could be facing a revolution just from that. But if he tries to keep access to his loyalists, that will also sharpen the contradictions on Ajax.
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Jul 9, 2021 23:19
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We should fix their life support just because we dont want to see yet another light go dark in the endless silent madness of space. Not even as a bribe action, but as a "Jesus christ youll all die if you dont accept our help" action.
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Jul 9, 2021 23:29
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Deadmeat5150 posted:We should fix their life support just because we dont want to see yet another light go dark in the endless silent madness of space. Not even as a bribe action, but as a "Jesus christ youll all die if you dont accept our help" action.
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Jul 9, 2021 23:32
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sebmojo posted:We should also train some engineers and send them back, also with heads full of revolution. It would be irresponsible to train a bunch of revolutionary troops without also giving them a post revolution career path. One that doesn't involve more killing or rulership.
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Jul 9, 2021 23:35
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habituallyred posted:It would be irresponsible to train a bunch of revolutionary troops without also giving them a post revolution career path. One that doesn't involve more killing or rulership. A veterans program designed to help ease transition back into civilian life or federal service. Remember service guarantees citizenship. Would you like to know more?
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Jul 9, 2021 23:37
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habituallyred posted:It would be irresponsible to train a bunch of revolutionary troops without also giving them a post revolution career path. One that doesn't involve more killing or rulership.
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Jul 9, 2021 23:43
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I favor plan Frugal Shopper. Free bribe: Give the strongman some quality food or video games or whatever, framing it as a diplomatic gift to hopefully avoid looking bad when he somehow finds a way to use it to oppress people more. Bribe/Aid: Fix the environmental system. In return, try to get him to agree to some sort of mutual defense agreement, where we stand united against external threats, like those pirates that are apparently giving the Achilleans such trouble (he has much more to gain than us, but it's a stepping stone). The troops would be nice but I worry about being spendthrift on the first possible asteroid.
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Jul 10, 2021 00:02
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sebmojo posted:We should also train some engineers and send them back, also with heads full of revolution. I agree with this. We might end up needing an Engineering Corp or two to spare, in addition to just Space Mujahadeen. Plus it further empowers Ajax to solve its own problems, not just with its lovely oppressive government, but also its decaying infrastructure. Gives 'em something to do in (hypothetical at this point) peacetime. Sort of a G.I. Bill kind of deal.
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Jul 10, 2021 00:05
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Bremen posted:I favor plan Frugal Shopper. Agree. Ajax is in horrid shape so somewhere I'd rather leave the foundation of it available for the future. And I honestly don't think that paying off a local strongman is gonna have that many reprecussions. Pragmatically Ajax interacts with no one and there are plenty of petty dictators around this section of space. So long as it's not effecting neighbors I'm not sure there will be that much of a response ot it. Agreeing here on this proposal for now and agreeing on no troops.
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Jul 10, 2021 00:17
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Iirc we can circle back round to the training troops, but I feel its an important part of eventual force projection and there will be a lead time.
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Jul 10, 2021 00:19
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Asterite34 posted:Space Mujahadeen Pro band names here
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Jul 10, 2021 00:50
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People in the Discord are making good points about limited resources. To that end, it's been suggested that we skip the mercenary idea for now. Instead, use 1 Bribe to fix the environmental systems, because it's the humanitarian thing to do; also use the Free Bribe on Ajax's dictator to further sweeten the deal, but Ajax must agree to the following: Hektor is allowed to publicly tell the people of Ajax that Hektor fixed their environmental systems due to our humanitarian values and shared vision for a more prosperous sector, etc etc. This should count as an inspire. If we can't spread our By the way, it's not impossible for an authoritarian regime to transition to a hybrid or democratic model. And there's an argument that places with lower populations transition more easily. South Korea and Taiwan are good examples. Both involved the US propping up their tinpot dictators (free bribe) and investing in some infrastructure (bribe) while slowly prodding them to democratize (inspire). Perhaps Ajax's current dictator has a son that may be more enlightened? "Patient" regime change would be a longer play, but less resource-heavy and lower risk/less destabilizing. Boat Stuck fucked around with this message at 01:05 on Jul 10, 2021 |
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Jul 10, 2021 00:54
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Boat Stuck posted:Hektor is allowed to publicly tell the people of Ajax that Hektor fixed their environmental systems due to our humanitarian values and shared vision for a more prosperous sector, etc etc. This should count as an inspire. This seems like a real weird request, since if we we're talking to the people of Ajax we can say whatever we want anyways. If you were going to request something like that it would be to request the Strongman tell people who fixed environmental. But I don't favor that anyways. Our goal here isn't to undermine the leader, and it definitely isn't to be bald faced about our attempt to undermine the leader right in front of him. Let's fix it and he can try to claim he fixed it to his own people if he wants, or more likely that he convinced us to do it, because it will obviously be our technicians doing it.
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Jul 10, 2021 01:07
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I like what I'm seeing. I'll probably close discussion after another day or so. Let's focus the discussion a bit. -I'm not seeing support for an immediate invasion or coup, so let's take that off the table. -Some people want to do enviro systems plus bribing the leadership. I've also seen a few people talk about fixing the mines instead. -A whole lot of people support recruiting the mercenaries. This will probably happen unless the thread changes its tune. -A couple people suggested using your medical card. I'd suggest deciding how much you're willing to spend right away. Enviro/mines/medical plus bribes is one spend. Adding the mercs is a second. Decide how badly you want those troops and maybe an eventual coup (since the latter seems to be what has a lot of you salivating). sebmojo posted:Solid point. Are we going to get all the reports before we vote? I said something earlier but want to press this point: You all don't have to fully persuade a colony as soon as you meet them, you do have some time. But don't drag your feet - waiting six months to collect all the info for perfect goon optimization may not work out the way you want. As always in this LP, other factions have agency and can make things happen.
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Jul 10, 2021 02:13
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