A Little Talk

[Balrogga]

It seems you missed on my point I was making.

Imitating my people would not be successful because of the group mind we share. If you posed as one of us, your mind would not be part of the Group Consciousness. It would make you stand out like The Human Torch during a lunar eclipse. I understand the concepts of fudging the story for conformity but ignoring beings that are not linked to the Collective is way too far out of character to even consider the suspension of belief. It would be like Skiss ignoring another Skiss that smelled like bunnies(food) or CF ignoring the elven stormtroopers walking into his Imperial Palace carrying large munitions.

That simply means I cannot be any of the primary target nations but I will be required to act as support for those who are.

[Otagia]

CF! You found someone who would tolerate you? Its a miracle!

Something of a slump.

Something of a slump.

Something of a slump!!!

....They have pills for that.

[Godular]

Balrogga's case kinda applies to me as well.

Attempting to impersonate a Kython will get the impersonator/infiltrator straight up killed (laughed at, too). Visitors are heavily (however subtly) scrutinized. Unauthorized ships, if uncloaked, are targeted by defensive platforms and confronted with a "Submit Identification and Intent Immediately" message (noncompliance leading to summary termination, although some allowances are made in the event that ship comms are down). If cloaked, the unauthorized ship is not sent the "Submit Identification and Intent" message, instead simply targeted and terminated. Coming in cloaked is considered a hostile act just the same as opening fire. They will spot it, and they will be pissed.

This is my primary objection to the Infiltrator line, is that some folks are bloody fuggin' hard to infiltrate.

As for the Uber-Tyranids thing... that just strikes me as a "ONOZ <INSERT OBLIGATORY ENTITY HERE> IN MASSIVE NUMBERS WHATEVER SHALL WE DO WE ARE SURELY DOOMIFIED."

[Abh]

Then do you or Balrogga have any potential solutions you would like to present?

[Sskiss]

Okay, so impersonating a Kython, Sskiss or Ta, NAr/Childer would be fraught with difficulty (for various reasons) and so the impersonator(s) would be more than likely doomed to failure....

This got my thinking, we all know, and sometimes, like to tout our nations' or races' strength, but what about our weaknesses? I think such things add "character" to the nation or race as a whole. I know my races weaknesses and how they can be used against us. I know some of you (CF comes to mind) have mentioned their weaknesses in the past as well.

[New Dornalia]

This got my thinking, we all know, and sometimes, like to tout our nations' or races' strength, but what about our weaknesses? I think such things add "character" to the nation or race as a whole. I know my races weaknesses and how they can be used against us. I know some of you (CF comes to mind) have mentioned their weaknesses in the past as well.

Yes. What are your weaknesses, anyway? Curious, that's all....

EDIT: And Godular....umm.....not quite the reductio ad absurdum I was looking for. But point noted. In defense of it, lemme say that I'm just trying to think of ways around or through the problems posed. That's all. Got any solutions?

[Megas]

Well, the infrastructure of Megas is comparable to an America that is a few more ticks to the right on the political and moral scale. It is a confederation of planets that require very little documentation to travel between, so if you can get to one, you can get to all of them. Surveillance is restricted to public areas, and limited in its capacity therein. Incoming foreigners are mind-probed by an Augment if they come to Megas through proper channels. However, there area a plethora of ways to slip through. Foreign trade ships are scanned thoroughly, but only once, for contraband at border trade stations, and scans of ships flying ESUS colors are usually more lax than other ships.

So, basically, compared to some of the other nations around here, Megas is a quite free and friendly society, and foreigners are very welcome. I suppose that would be its most distinct weakness.

[Balrogga]

The biggest weakness we all have is our allies. The nations that are hardest to infiltrate can be infiltrated by their supposed friends. Isn't that clear?

Granted it will not be the same but if suddenly your allies were acting against you there would be a number of reactions such as not associating with them or right out leaving because you cannot trust your "friends" anymore. If the GFFA was suddenly working against ND, what would your IC reaction be? How about if the ESUS members was working against Sskiss?

There might even be IC reasons to leave the alliance (for the RP only) because of trust issues. Use old wounds like those from the Civil War. CF & friends and I had some pretty bad blood between us back then. There were even accusations of genocide backed by footage of piles of human bodies. (I finished my Evolutionary Project and turned my humans into Childer and they left their bodies behind leaving piles of corpses I used in false claims of genocide.)

As far as weaknesses, one that has been exploited in the past was when Chron and MM created a mini Eye of Terror in the Cluster.

The Entropy afflicted a ship I had in the area and changed the crew. The changes carried through to the rest of the nation through the Link (group consciousness thingie) and several things happened. I became more chaotic, loss the ability to use the clones the Ta'Nar was inhabiting (extreme pain caused by feedback much like migraines from hell) and more paranoid than before. Normally that would only happen to the crew of that one ship but the Link carried it through to the entire nation.

There is a sacond example of that happening right now in an RP Azaha, Godular, and myself are participating in. Godular let the Kython Genome go to Azaha and he used Daemonflesh in his version. Unfortunately, the Entropy is affecting me. The RP is currently ongoing and we will all have to wait to see where that one leads.

Use paranoia against the nations you cannot infiltrate. The reason you can't infiltrate us is because we are already paranoid enough to set up defenses like those. Carry it further to use those traits to drive a rift between us and our allies to fragment the two alliances.

If we are worth our salt we will RP the effects and we all will be made weaker because of it. Just make sure the split is recognized as IC and not OOC so we really don't lose our membership by being good RPers and following plot to be forced to leave.

[Godular]

Actually, the Godulans themselves are rather free-wheeling in terms of visitors. If you get past all the rigamarole and are actually there just to visit or conduct some sort of leisure activity, they are in many respects some of the most gracious hosts one could hope to encounter.

They can switch from "Identify yourselves or we will kill you where you stand" to "We would recommend the hotel on the hillside over yonder. It has a most spectacular view of the lake..."

Of course, they are also tremendously paranoid about their technologies, and as a general rule are about as forthcoming with tactical information as vacuum is with breathable air. Even getting stellar cartography charts requires significant amounts of haggling...

About the only real consideration that the Godulans, though unable to be penetrated, would typically be inclined to avoid involvement in any form of Infiltration fiasco, no matter how widespread. Every nation around them might get penetrated by terrorist cells, but for the most part the Godulans would not care. They'd be willing to take refugees from whatever fighting and whatnot, but otherwise they'd just sit back and watch.

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As for my 'solution'... you know me... I always point at Sithy.

[Sskiss]

Yes. What are your weaknesses, anyway? Curious, that's all....

Outside stimuli can override our rational/logical faculties. Smells and scents are especially potent in this regard. This is an ancient evolutionary mechanism involving hunting (to detect prey), territory (to mark it as "This is my space, stay away") and reproduction ("I'm ready and available"). We are territorial on both an individual and collective level. We barely have the social cohesion to form an advanced civilization. We require very ritualistic traditions and behavioral patterns dictated by our own evolutionary heritage to actually coexist and prevent us from tearing each other apart. It is coded within our genes.

Also if we become hungry enough and no food is avialable (a rare occurance nowadays) we steadily loose our sentience. The mind becomes "blank".

We rarely receive visitors (and are rarely seen on other peoples worlds) on our worlds and precautions must always be taken when they arrive.