Steve's Q intervention: Should it stand?

[Coiler]

All right. Steve has put this up to the popular vote of the players, to see if they approve of his Q intervention to save much of the people of Astaria.

Three options:

1: Steve's cure works, and Q lowers the deathtoll to 35%, as well as keeping his cure functional

2: Q retcons away the entire Shepistani strike.

3: The game continues as normal.

Vote!

[Sea Skimmer]

Well, the game can keep going as is, or I think Ill just join Steve in quitting since I don’t really have time for this anyway. I can see no purpose to playing in a game in which unpopular actions will lead to BS like this. The active players can decide this, whatever they want is fine by me since its their time.

[Coyote]

It's much better to wave away everyone else's actions with "it wasn't as bad as initially feared..." instead. Heh.

[erik_t]

Two thoughts:

There's no way to keep only players voting in this poll.

Some winning margin needs to be established before this poll, or else everyone will just have another argument about that.

[Lonestar]

This is retarded. Especially since some of the anti-Astarian cheerleaders are now bitching and moaning about the logical course of events after nudging Shep in that direction.

[Steve]

Yeah, well, I thought I was signing on for a slow destabilization campaign to weaken Astaria. Then Shep started talking about using biological weapons en masse to slaughter them and pretty much all his allies, save you, didn't react well (I recall Stas, IC, not being too supportive, if being rather apathetic).

And Erik, that's why I was going to not make the thread an actual poll thread. Rather just have everybody vote on what they wanted and then tally the results.

[CmdrWilkens]

I will put it this way, Steve made a post getting a cure into the scenario. I'm not paticularly concerned about how. Shep retconned it ... and he did it by RPing someone else's country, that is generally a no-no. You can clarify, you can provie context that would make the psot a non-starter but an outright "your post is wrong" is a little much for me. Moreover if it had been Shepistani sceintists on the gournd sampling and dying with the Astarians that would be something but basically Shep RP'd Astaria in order to do so. The cure may not be as effective as Steve hopes but sure as hell if Steve posts that it works then Shep you cannot just handwave it out of existence by RPing someone else because that's a double whammy of wrong.

Now if we feel the need to retcon Steve's invocaiton of Q that's one thing but Shep's retcon was done the wrong way period.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Bombing Shep out of existence has always suited me fine. I envisioned bullshit like this happening some time down the road, and yeah, it hit the fan.

[K. A. Pital]

Bombing Shep out of existence has always suited me fine.

I proposed mass-murdering his entire nation with salted bombs once again somewhere down the road from Day 1 of SDN 2.

And then we shall have... peace

[Shroom Man 777]

I say both their nations are dead.

Dead!

DEAD!!!!!

[K. A. Pital]

They are. Shep lied multiple times for Shepistan to survive.

He invented bullshit radars capable of picking up radar-transparent 0,01 m square targets at 600 km. He automatically claimed Norseman had the bulk of his ships closer than 600 mile limit to Shepistan (what a bunch of bullshit). To detect those ships, Shep would have to have an OTH-Surface Wave radar with a 600 mile range. That is technically unfeasible for even the best OTH-SW radars. He claimed a bullshit timeframe for launch of a single aerostate. He assumed Norseman launched from one or few vessels, when Norseman would most likely use as many as he can to ensure faster launch of balloons. In any case, even if Norseman took hours to launch them all, Shepistan has NOTHING to detect balloons at ranges of 1000 km and beyond, and would have a hard time detecting them at horizon ranges (below 100 km).

He also claimed a downing rate versus VAL balloons far in excess of what the USSR achieved even versus inferior recon ballons at altitudes below 24 km.

So, Shepistan is dead. For all intents and purposes. Shep's bullshit and lies only infuriated me and caused to launch a second wave of balloon attacks with yet deadlier agents, versus the already damaged Shepistan.

[Shroom Man 777]

How can I help in killing Shepistan?

[MKSheppard]

He invented bullshit radars capable of picking up radar-transparent 0,01 m square targets at 600 km.

Oh, because the gondolas containing the bioweapons are transparent to radar through bullshittum!

He automatically claimed Norseman had the bulk of his ships closer than 600 mile limit to Shepistan (what a bunch of bullshit).

They have to be close, otherwise, the balloons are too inaccurate. Want to claim they're further away? Okay fine. Have a balloon or two come down in Shroomania and set off a pandemic.

To detect those ships, Shep would have to have an OTH-Surface Wave radar with a 600 mile range.

No I don't need your hypothetical magi radars.

1.) I see balloons coming up. I draw a rough line along their tracks, and launch a BOMARC down that track line and command it to turn on it's on board radar in surface search mode at a set distance.

2.) BOMARC radios back what it sees to me. It picks up the freighter on it's radar, and radios it back to me.

3.) I command it to go and kill the freighter in autonomous attack mode. It salutes, and dives into the freighter.

He assumed Norseman launched from one or few vessels, when Norseman would most likely use as many as he can to ensure faster launch of balloons.

Because somehow norseman will refit all 100~ surviving ships in his merchant fleet to be balloon doom ships. I can see a dozen or so of them, that's credible. But every last surviving ship.

Shepistan has NOTHING to detect balloons at ranges of 1000 km and beyond, and would have a hard time detecting them at horizon ranges (below 100 km).

Too bad the radar horizon for a target at 100,000 feet from a radar emitter at 0 feet is 720~ km.

So, Shepistan is dead. For all intents and purposes. Shep's bullshit and lies only infuriated me and caused to launch a second wave of balloon attacks with yet deadlier agents, versus the already damaged Shepistan.

And destroyed the world. Congratulations.

[K. A. Pital]

Oh, because the gondolas containing the bioweapons are transparent to radar

They do have a small RCS, Shep. Even if you go with 1m square. Whcih is the RCS of a fast-moving 4,5 generation fighter.

Have a balloon or two come down in Shroomania and set off a pandemic.

"Pandemic"? From several small releases? Why didn't the leaks of bioweapons in USSR cause a "pandemic"? Bullshit. Yeah, maybe several epidemics are in order. Maybe hundreds of thousands of people will die in nations which are unprepared for biowar. Well tough luck, mister Genocidal Warmonger.

But every last surviving ship

There's no "refit" needed to launch VAL balloons. Bullshit again.

Too bad the radar horizon for a target at 100,000 feet from a radar emitter at 0 feet is 720~ km.

Horizon? Yeah, but you'd detect a 1m square target? Are you seriously telling me this? And that's not considering the Astarians making the shape of their BW containers optimized for lower RCS.

And destroyed the world.

Yeah, explain how the "world" which the CSR doesn't give two shits about, is "destroyed".

[Steve]

Can't this argument be done in the comment thread? Ideally people should be posting their votes so we can make sure to screen out non-player votes.

[CmdrWilkens]

Yes Steve is right, if you want to comment about how the game has moved forward then go to the comment thread.

Anyway I'm all for letting Steve's post stand as called. Bioweapons are NOTORIOUSLY hard to plan how they will affect a populaiton. Even in past mass death sceanrios and pandemics you never look at killing more thna 2/3rds and truly effecient bioagents will start killing off faster than they can transmit to the next generation, paticularly if they are enginered for a high mutation rate.

[K. A. Pital]

I agree.

Moreover, Shep refuses to follow the same standard when it comes to him. If he gets struck with >1 ton of bioweapons, it's "10% dead" in his nation and "5%" in Lonestars', since Lonestar has a "good medical system", but when Shep strikes the world at random with >1 ton of bioweapons per nation, that's supposed to trigger "APOCALYPSE"? When most nations already operate under Martial Law and have completely closed borders? Is Shep a lunatic?

Shep lost. A third-world shithole can't trigger world apocalypse.

[Norseman]

If Q creates a cure within a week or two would we really seee 35% die-off in Astaria? I'm genuinely curious here... IT does seem a tad excessive when you consider the counter-measures, incubation time etc, etc. SO how about the Q made cure is distributed to all other nations except Shepistan?

[K. A. Pital]

I think we should stick to having some sacrifices made to kill Shepistan. After all, no other nation had a war plan to murder EVERYONE in the world, so we just did what we had to for the safety of all.

The CSR wanted to procure cobalt devices for apocalypse doomsday deterrent weapon, but it would take years to make. Apparently Shep did not want to wait. He died as a result.

[Norseman]

Yes but still 35%? Given the nature of the shutdown, the deus ex machina cure, and the speed at which it arrives 35% seems rather excessive. 5%-10%, with a heavy hit among the former slaves, seems reasonable to me. However I won't get into a big argument about it.

Also if we grant the Q miracle then the rest of the world gets the cure, and suffers only minor (1%-5% losses) each while Shepistan burns.

Just my two cents.

[Shroom Man 777]

I'd love to see Asstaria somehow make it, even if it's in a very much ravaged form.

Lady Margaret can be played by Milla Jovovich, versus the zombies!

[CmdrWilkens]

Yes but still 35%? Given the nature of the shutdown, the deus ex machina cure, and the speed at which it arrives 35% seems rather excessive. 5%-10%, with a heavy hit among the former slaves, seems reasonable to me. However I won't get into a big argument about it.

Also if we grant the Q miracle then the rest of the world gets the cure, and suffers only minor (1%-5% losses) each while Shepistan burns.

Just my two cents.

We are still looking at several weeks in-game time plus the fact that with such a large slave/poor populace your helathcare infrastructure is not going to be prepared to deal with this. In turn this mans a lot of folks in the late stages of the disease not being able to come back even from the Q cure. In other words they may not have Shroombola but their immune system is weakened nd the next bout of pneumonia kills them. 35% may be too high but 10% is too low and in this case I'd be inclined to rate thigns higher since Shep did make a second strike which, in turn, means you would have to distribute more cure and (again) your infrastrucutre isn't set up to do that even with Cascadian help.

Long story short Wilkonian observers should be in country this evening (real time) and I'm planning to have them announce casualties in the 20-25% range unless anyone paticularly objects to this.

[Shroom Man 777]

As long as Shepistan DIES, it's all good.

[Norseman]

Long story short Wilkonian observers should be in country this evening (real time) and I'm planning to have them announce casualties in the 20-25% range unless anyone paticularly objects to this.

I assume that is in Astaria proper? Since South Velaria didn't seem to get targetted either time.

One thing I'm thinking is that Astaria will be able to bring in extra labour from South Velaria, which can function as sort of a population buffer to accept this shock.

[K. A. Pital]

Norse you QUIT the game.

Have some decency not to screw over basic realism. You got hit with hundreds of tons of biological weapons.