Forums of the Coast

Also, we will probably want to begin negotiations before we actually land, as the results of those talks will determine our initial strategy.

We need to think of our basic strategies for approaching the Kusanagi, Akashi, and the various small clans.

As I said before, for the Kusanagi I would like to use a combination of the promise to restore the old united world order under their leadership and the promise to end incarnum slavery, plus helping them destroy and subjugate their current rivals. We need to figure out whether this is politically possible, and then work out the details. Drew, you'll probably be the on doing to actual face-to-face negotiations, and this is the most vital of all of the initial diplomacy, so your thoughts are especially important here.

For the Akashi, promising to end Incarnum slavery across the entire world should be sufficient to at least keep them semi-friendly, and hopefully have them join us once they see that we are actually following through on that in the territory under our control. They will only be important initially if we pursue the "Northern Plan", so we may not have to do much with them initially.

For the Bisha and Sanada, as well as possibly other small states in that area, saving them from the Jinnan should be sufficient to get them on our side.

For other smaller states in the Southern Plan, we would promise power over their current neighbors, wealth, and advanced technology. This would be combined with an implicit threat of force as we began to expand.

Overall, how much independence are we allowed to offer states that ally with us?

The biggest problem to negotiations is, since the Delral & Faerskor controls the orbital facilities, they also control who goes in and out of orbit, and thus far the diplomats of the two clans (with a few representatives from the 'rest of the planet', which past diplomats are pretty sure are just puppet representatives under the dwarves/gnomes' control) voice themselves as the formal government of the planet. Trying to bypass this would be politically hostile, if not militarily. At the very least, it be very disrespectful.

Intelligence think they can sneak someone past the defenses easy with a Gespenster or two, but we're talking a very few people.

As I've stated in goals, any short term alliances and treaties you can make on your own, any long terms ones that would prevent them from being outright conquered by the end of the campaign requires higher-up permission.

as per discussion with Drew, should we have a discussion session over this ?
I propose this Saturday at around 6pm.

Might not be a bad idea. I can make 6PM Sat, though somebody may need to call me to remind me to leave Games Club...>.>

(yeah, yeah, I know that I have no say in-character on this)
BBall game is at 3, so I'll be getting back online just about then.

of last night's chat, the current decision of landing location is in Kochikaze.

Next is you guys deciding on how to land and take control in first place. The legions' engineering corps and their nanite construction equipment can get a fortified base down in under a day's time. What that does mean is you can land first before heading out to take the territory you landed in, which might be easier.

So, trying to spark some discussion on how we will proceed, here are some of my thoughts. First off, we definitely want to take the option that Intelligence offered and get a few men on the ground to gather as much specific information as possible. Also, Dai, we will need to public information on Kochikaze that we can get from intercepted signals. Form of government, leaders and their personalities, along with whatever we can find about their armed forces and relations with their neighbors. We will want our men on the ground to try to get more specifics on all this, plus whatever they can find on the disposition of the Kochikaze armed forces.

The first possibility is negotiation. Send in Gabriel along with a diplomatic party, and convince Kochikaze to surrender their autonomy to us. This seems like a long shot, but if you guys have any plausible avenues of approach I'd love to hear them. One thing I thought of was to try to play the smaller clans there against each other in a Prisoner's Dilemma type situation, telling them that they can choose to either surrender to us or be conquered by the clan that does. This seems risky and unlikely to work on the face of it, but maybe you guys can expand and flesh it out into a workable idea.

The second is the Blitzkrieg. We have our fleet assets begin their assault on the orbital defenses in the area overtop of the general area of Kochikaze. As soon as that immediate area is secured, most likely while the battle in orbit is still going strong, our ground forces will deploy almost directly on top of the Kochikaze capital and immediately seize it, hopefully capturing the rulers and forcing an immediate and unconditional surrender. Ideally we would be entering the city limits before they even realize that their is a battle in orbit.

Alternately, we could move in slowly. Wait for them to realize that Delral and Faerskor have been dislodged from orbit, then land and set up a base. Offer the chance to surrender. If they refuse, make a show of force, perhaps an orbital bombardment or a decisive engagement against a portion of their armed forces. Then threaten them with utter annihilation and offer them another chance to surrender.

None of these seem ideal, but they give us a place to start thinking. Suggestions?

Also, we need to think about the image that we are going to project once we are established. Especially when it comes to negotiating short-term alliances, we need to have some explanation of what we are doing on Chroma. People will be hesitant to ally with us if they know for a fact that we will simply turn on and conquer them afterwards. We could also say that we are here to end slavery, which would give a reason for us to be trying to attack Mohara first and would give some incentive for Akashi, Asa, and Kusanagi to ally with us, but it would make a lot of enemies. We could say nothing, but this wouldn't go over to well during negotiations and could definitely hurt us in allying with Kusanagi. We could tell the truth but offer some autonomy to key allies (such as the Kusanagi). This might or might not be approved by the higher ups.

This is just as important to start thinking about from the start, since we need to be clear and consistent on our message or our enemies will control what people perceive our objective to be, and use this to rally Chroma against us.

Updated Blitz plan:

While our initial scouts are in Kochikaze, they will take a couple items that once belonged to Kasai Kochikaze. This shouldn't be much harder than just going through the trash.

As the initial orbital assault begins, Gabriel will use Discern Location to discover Kasai Kochikaze's location. Sigmund will use his Devotion Weave to teleport the 7th Cross Knight Squadron and the 5th Knight Vindicator Squadron to that location and capture Kasai, teleporting him back to the Berezina.

As soon as Kasai is in custody, we proceed to deploy our ground troops and occupy the Kochikaze capital, then begin negotiations for the surrender of the territory. Negotiations should be brief and straightforward.

I've also thought some more about negotiation tactics. The best method I can see would be to offer the choice between a peaceful surrender and a violent invasion, more an ultimatum than anything else. Use our destruction of the orbital defenses to intimidate, and possibly blow something up from orbit just for good measure.


I'm still not sure how to approach diplomacy once we're established. Thoughts?

So, after some AIM discussion, the consensus has been reached to use the "negotiate" plan.

After we take control of orbit, we will land a group of diplomats to negotiate the surrender of the Kochikaze territory. If this fails, we proceed to make a show of force, either by having the Berezina blow something up or by actually invading, then demand their surrender.

We still need to work out the specifics on how we will approach the Kochikaze. Drew, as our main negotiator this is primarily your responsibility. As I recall, we discussed using the lure of technology and prosperity that it brings, the promise that they will maintain their culture and national identity under our control, with the threat of force if they resist.

If initial negotiations go poorly, we can make a show of force to intimidate them into surrender. While we are still at the table initially, it should be possibly to call down a demonstrative orbital strike.

If negotiations fail entirely, we will land the brigade and set up a fortified base, then quickly seize several key targets while trying to minimize Kochikaze casualties. Possibilities include occupying a major population center, seizing key infrastructure points (does Kochikaze even have these? maybe a large wind farm or something), or something similar. We want a contingency plan in place so that we can move quickly if needed.

Thoughts? Suggestions?

Also, Dai, we're planning to begin negotiations pretty aggressively with the two nations bordering Kochikaze almost as soon as we hit the ground, so the sooner we can get info on them the better.

Reminder : start fleshing out your character, because this game is starting in under two weeks, and if we need a check you can't provide then... =9

Ah, Dai? Can we get some actual fluff about the Imperium and/or Chroma? Like, you know, anything?

Crunch will come in its own time (aka if not this weekend, next, and no sooner. This week is baaaaad for me.)

Penthiae is really about all we have in regards to the Imperium apart from some sparse details about Astraea, and while I don't need to worry about writing for Chroma, I know others do.

Frankly if you want detailed information other than the format types I post at my pace, then you better give me details on what you want. Most DMs are not in the spirit of writing out books in hopes of getting that two paragraphs you actually need, and I'm certainly not one of those generous people as my writing speed sucks =9. So if you shout out "I want stuff" and don't start declaring what stuff is, you get very little cause I know of two billion things to write about and low incentive to write about any of them. Pick the priorities on your information requests properly btw =P.

Given that I currently have zero ideas for either backstory, what I'd really like is something like the region blurbs you see in a campaign setting book (FRCS is the perfect example), but somehow I don't think that's going to happen. As such, I guess social structure and a little more information on the Imperial Heirs. I guess my issue on that is that it's really difficult to write what my main's childhood would have been like and how it would have affected him psychologically without so little information on his parents, not to mention I have no picture of what high-level Imperium life would actually be like (Colin's family from the end of Empire from the Ashes?).