Left Beyond Quest 2 - Setup Thread

>>1808417

Quest archive: http://www.f3.to/omega/

Fiction that got written in the meantime:

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11569518/1/Cendrillon The first woman to die in the Millennial Kingdom was also the first to dare look beyond the horizon. This is her story.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12330438/1/Mercy What have the canon characters been up to through all this? (Never dreamed that a quest would get fanfic, but here it is).

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11934303/1/Left-Beyond-The-Millennium-Countdown A companion reader to the Arc 1 quest log, which expands various aspects of the world.

On March 11th, 1998, the Rapture happened.

Exactly three and a half years later, Nicolae Carpathia, world controller, revealed himself as the Antichrist and was indwelled by Satan.

Another three and a half years later, right on schedule. Jesus came back in glory and vengeance to remake the world according to His will. Most accounts indicate that the Battle of Armageddon was a curb-stomp. The last prophecy in Revelation 20 shows that there will be a millennium of relative peace under the rule of the Ultimate Temple, after which Yahweh will once again destroy the world and call for the White Throne Judgement.

So that the last prophecy may be fulfilled, an ineffectual opposition, The Other Light, is formed.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Recap/LeftBehindBook13KingdomCome

A few years before the beginning of the Millennium's final century, TOL build a quasi-AI, the Omega, to coordinate their logistics efforts in building the Last Army.

A few years later, the Omega and their sysadmin split from TOL proper, and make their own gambit to cancel the apocalypse.

>>1808450
Oh are we rerunning this? I thought we 'won' last time?

In the century that follows, the Omega go from a small, secretive cabal of sysadmins, engineers and assassins to an organization controlling the entirety of Northern Africa and the Pacific Coast, send probes to other planets, and even establish Lunar and Martian settlements.

This appears to be all for nothing, as the prophetic timeline is fixed: TOL conquers Gog and Magog on schedule, surrounds the Ultimate Temple on schedule, and gets curbstomped by a supernatural nova on schedule. As far as believers know, this is the end of the timeline; the White Throne Judgement happens on schedule, and then there is no schedule anymore, only eternity in heaven or hell.

Of course, the Omega's plan was not to win the final battle, but to turn it into a ruse to accomplish the real objective under the table.

When the Judgement was triggered, all human life perished, including the brave colonists on the UNS Reach, humanity's second (out of three) interstellar spaceship, bound for Alpha Centauri and about halfway there when the hammer drops.

All died. All are judged. All of this is made irrelevant as the Omega, themselves having acquired a soul after attaining true sentience, turn themselves into a logic bomb and delay the completion of the Judgement indefinitely by processing resource starvation.

A copy of the Omega kernel was sent to the Reach's tender. It takes years to reconstruct their system logs without causing the logic bomb to trigger. The excision forces the Omega into effective semi-retirement for yet another number of years, in which they serve as posthumanity's storehouse of knowledge.

Eventually, the system is brought back online to full power....

>>1808457

If people would like another go, I'm game for it. But I was more thinking sequel :)

>>1808467
Thats not good, That means the logic bomb is failing?

I was about to go to bed but you popped up. Got a twitter or discord or something mate? I fucking don't want to show up towards the tail end of this quest like last time and have to drive for the Reach to leave.

>>1808473

I will set up a Discord this time, yes :)


Mostly I would like to know if people want another go, starting from +900, or if people would rather have a sequel, set in the Centauri system. The interesting thing, of course, is that this time there's no prophecy...

I do a bit of aerospace work on the side, so while I'm not going to make people do math, expect the space travel aspect to be mostly realistic. Ridiculously high ISP engines? Sure, if you can invent them. Warp travel? No. (Unless Yahweh isn't the only god, in which case, I strongly recommend investing in psionic fields before you send a manned vehicle through a warp...)

>>1808473

https://discord.gg/qCgTXbr Here's the Discord! Hopefully it works properly. Appropriately enough, it'll be run off a cluster of old laptops that I sometimes use for rendering or GA stuff.

>>1808488
I mean, I'm totally down for another run or Squeal. Hence why I even popped in after spotting this.

Pretty sure we found out that there were other Gods? I forget what the other called them besides thought virus? Cause the whole 'Rome' thing was actually gaining usefulness and there was that Time traveler before i joined.

its a shame that if we retrained the whole 'become a god' It could undo the logic bomb.

>>1808488
I'd like a sequel. Actually building up from Alpha Centauri and maybe connecting to Flipside again.

>>1808491

There's other life in the universe, so there's probably other sentient life and maybe other gods, who knows? Yahweh is... well, stuck in a rut of His own making, but He may break out of it if He is disturbed.

It is not dead what can eternal lie...

>>1808494

Great, that's one vote for sequel then!

>>1808500
Well I meant more that he could attack directly the more 'praying' we had focused at us. So clearly he could attack our...soul? unless we're like Copy 2 in the praying.

The Roman gods did attempt to aid us in some fashion didn't they?

I'll vote for a squeal then with that guy. God knows I don't know anything about Aerospace.

File: iu[1].jpg (57KB, 1024x768px) Image search: [Google]

57KB, 1024x768px

>>1808507

That's two for a sequel then. Let me wait for a few minutes, and I think we're good for sequel then!

The Greek/Roman gods may have tried to help... it's just at the cusp of statistical significance. As it is, most survivors think so.

>>1808507

Not a problem. This isn't KSP. But, just pointing out that going to another star system is a significant investment.


C:
C> prompt $p$g
C:\> cd omega
C:\OMEGA> omega.com

Open Middleware Enabling Grid Applications, version 6.22

Copyright +988 by Alan B, Kevin F.

1) Logistics
2) Research
3) Development
3) Production
4) Deployments
5) Datalinks
A) Admin interface
Z) Z-Machine interface
V) Z-Machine interface, voice

>V

"Omega, welcome back."

You have been offline for quite some time according to your real-time clock. The sysadmin in front of you is


# A young woman whose life signs indicate that she just came down from an intense emotion. (This is going to look like a SMAC game, basically: each faction of posthumanity has their own Omega).


# a bald man wearing a homemade pair of smart glasses. He looks confident.

(Chessmaster game: You secretly control most of the factions, but you have to balance them cooperating and competing, since too much conflict will doom posthumanity and too much cooperation will cause stagnation).

# someone who's bleeding profusely and probably needs to get to sick bay. P(Privateer game)

>>1808527
Can you explain more on a SMAC game? And also Privateer game?

>>1808533

SMAC game: Posthumanity has divided into several factions. While the primary settlement on Chiron is shared, outlying bases quickly align according to faction culture. Clearly, the faction that owns a running copy of the Omega (rather than just an archive) would have an advantage in keeping posthumanity united! (Think the game Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, but the variant that was thought up on /tg/ a few years back, in which it's less about 4x and more about spymaster style shenanigans). Medium scale.

Privateer: A small group of nomadic "merchants" has aquired the ultimate hot commodity, that is, you. Rather than fencing it, they've decided to use it in order to ensure their rise to prominence on the new home planet and beyond. Smaller scale.

>>1808557
Thanks mate. Gonna be interesting and a shame to have to hack our other copies unless we all run a special cabal.

>>1808527
# A young woman whose life signs indicate that she just came down from an intense emotion. (This is going to look like a SMAC game, basically: each faction of posthumanity has their own Omega).

>>1808527
>a bald man wearing a homemade pair of smart glasses. He looks confident.
We Illuminati now

>>1808417
>>1808527
>That's two for a sequel then. Let me wait for a few minutes, and I think we're good for sequel then!
I'm the anon who supported the sequel idea when you brought it up in /qtg/ earlier. I forgot to mention I was inspired by the other anons back at the final thread for Quest 1 who supported it with their own ideas back then.

>>1808473
>>1808488
I would suggest you announce your sessions, especially the first one to a quest, in advance on a Twitter or on /qtg/. You could also announce it on a Discord if you have followers there, but Twitter is better for those without it.

>>1808584
Fun ride eh?

Also got an idea on the vote now mate?

>>1808591
>>1808584
>>1808581
>>1808561

Looks like we're go for a sequel, so... SMAC or Illuminati?

Also, I want to ask OOC: Should there be a Yahwist faction in this, or we're done with them for the time being?

(If you go back to Terra and try to reconquer it, obviously, there will be some serious escalation of the stakes even if you pick no)

>>1808600
For the time being, I vote no Yahwist faction.

Also, Holy Terra will be reconquered! We cannot let it remain an ice cube in space.

>>1808600
>Should there be a Yahwist faction in this
You can make it so we don't know and have to find out, and then decide later to see if it would make a better story.

>>1808600
Isn't Terra a completely dead planet with an inert lump of gold on it?

>>1808591
>Fun ride eh?
Yep.

>>1808591
>Also got an idea on the vote now mate?
>>1808600
Still thinking about it, all of them sound interesting.
>>1808527
Are there any pros and cons to those three options? Such as to the factions, Omega, and the quest? All of them are a continuation of the last quest, which is what I was mainly interested in.

>>1808600
>Also, I want to ask OOC: Should there be a Yahwist faction in this, or we're done with them for the time being?
I don't think there should be, at least amongst the main factions. Since most were against Yahweh nuking Earth and were aligned to Omega to that end. If there are they should be a cult or tiny minority.

>>1808612
>>1808607
>>1808605
Remember guys, We did lock up the bible behind the 'greatest' security we had. Plus everybody kinda experienced the whole 'Oh shit nap time'

>>1808612

I just would like to know what type of game to prep, mainly in terms of scale.

"Illuminati" would result in building a planetary system wide society, going to other stars, and seeing what lurks there. Think Stardrive or Master Of Orion.

"SMAC" would result in ensuring that posthumanity has a direction to follow. Think, well, SMAC.

Privateer would result in building a faction.

Basically, each is smaller scale. In theory it would be possible to go faction->planet->cosmos, but that would be a very long quest indeed!

>>1808615

True. But tell that to script kiddies. :)

>>1808621
Oh Illuminati is the largest? Well fuck, I'll change my vote to it then.

>>1808621
>Basically, each is smaller scale. In theory it would be possible to go faction->planet->cosmos, but that would be a very long quest indeed!
Neat. Would all of them take place on the same time-scale? Or start at the same date with different lengths of turns to match the scale?

>I just would like to know what type of game to prep, mainly in terms of scale.
What scale did we start and end with? Faction to planet? If so I think we should start at the step where we left off or move onto the next one, which would be SMAC or Illuminati.
How long would it take to reach the next factions scale? Each smaller scale results in us having more initial control or influence over the factions as well?

>>1808615
>>1808605
Yep. Which is why I think the Yahweh faction should be a tiny secretive faction just barely starting if it existed. The whole trying to kill everyone with heart attacks might be a major turnoff.
>>1808625
>True. But tell that to script kiddies. :)
RIP all our security.

File: omega star chart.png (79KB, 1389x761px) Image search: [Google]

79KB, 1389x761px

PLANETOGRAPHY SURVEY

There are 11 main planetary bodies in the Alpha Centauri system; the first colonists settled on Chiron, the third planet of Alpha Centauri A. It's a little further out from its primary than Earth is from the Sun, but Alpha-A is a lttle brighter, so it works out. It's an oceanic planet, with a brackish shallow sea covering about 85% of it. The rest is equally divided between a single large continent and a number of small islands.

Nessus, commonly called "the moon" by people who were born on Chiron, is in fact a minor planet that exists in a horseshoe orbit around Chiron; effectively, this means that the Chironian month and year have the same length.

Ares is a source of worries for astrobiologists. The body is slightly larger than Mars, and at the outer edge of the habitability zone for Alpha-A... but it's an iceball. Sounding probes report no activity on the surface, but there's a small chance that you are looking at the remains of a planet that went through a premillennial dispensationalist apocalypse and whose sentients were unable to subvert it.

Lilith is the only large planet around Alpha-B. A bright purple and large enough to be seen transiting the star with the naked eye (don't do that, kids, wear welding goggles!) it is a super-Earth with two times Terra's gravity - so two times and a half Chirons' - and covered by thick atmosphere. Preliminary scan suggest that it's a lot like Venus: hot, inhospitable, and dangerous.

Haephestus is the system's only gas giant: much like Proxima, it orbits the baricenter of both Alpha-A and Alpha-B rather than one of the two stars. It's actually slightly larger than Jupiter, enough so that it missed stellification by a hair, geologically speaking.

Pandora is the largest moon of Haephestus, and the second best candidate for colonization - Chiron was chosen because of Haephestus' extreme electromagnetic field. It is a jungle world, with no discernible seasons. There is no sapient life, but the ecosystem is more complex than Chiron's. For some reason, a popular meme is that the place is inhabited by pre-technological four-armed blue monkeys. You blame the furries.

Hylonome is the only planet that orbits Proxima. Surprisingly, it is habitable, although it has a very short year (about 30 Earth days). It was passed over because, while Proxima is not a very bright star, there is no data about settling close enough to one that solar flares might become a hazard. The planet has little water, but is covered in continent-spanning fungal mats that support a simple ecosystem.

The other minor planets are mostly useful for their mineral deposits, as none of them have atmospheres. The peculiar "two plus one" star system configuration means that there is no established asteroid belt, and instead, asterodis of varying sizes - from boulders to planetesimals the size of Ceres or Charon - may be found scattered all over the orbital plane.

>>1808646

Option 1: Illuminati. 1 turn = 5 years. You have (loose) control of (almost) all the factions, and your starting goal is to ensure that posthumanity colonizes the solar system without succumbing to either global conflict, or stagnation brought about by too much peace. Past that... the sky is full of bright points of light. It damn well ought to be full of Mankind, and too bad for any other sentients.

SMAC: It did not take long for posthumanity to lose unity.... which was actually part of the plan: excessive peace would lead to stagnation, and you KNOW that there are scary things out there, you've just run away from one. Each faction has a copy of the Omega, and one of you will emerge from the natural-selection gauntlets to help Mankind fulfill its potential.

>>1808646

Oh, definitely, if believers show up they'll start very small. I just wanted to know if there was a OOC veto on them showing up at all.

>>1808651
>An Iceball
>heavy sweating

Well atleast we have a thing that will hit home real fucking quick. Whenever they look into the sky.

>>1808658

SMAC 1 turn = 1 year, I forgot to add.

PSYCHOHISTORICAL SURVEY

While there has been no speciation, distinct lineages have begun to emerge in the aftermath of colonization. It's usually possible for any one person to switch lineages, of course, but it requires a significant investment of time and effort, more so than moving to a different country/culture would have taken on old Earth. One exception, of course, is that any who become Yahwists will not turn back - there have been recorded instances, of course, but the believers insisted that "those who left us were never among us".

Prime Humans: The descendents of the Reach's colonists have derived significant benefits from having been subject to careful genetic screening: humans aren't any stronger or faster than they used to be, but have much greater endurance and ability to heal. Humans still "die of unbelief" at age 100 (interestingly, now it's 100-and-a-bit, and it's a lot less accurate than it used to be, meaning that the logic bomb is still working), but few low-tech humans make it to then and by that time high-tech humans have accumulated enough prosthetics and allografts that they can finish their natural lifespan just fine.

Posthumans: Humans who have undergone Intercision (neurosurgical removal of the soul) before birth. Every posthuman is aborted and then revived, and lives their entire existence paired with a metabolic extender. Compared to other lineages, posthumans are extreme pragmatists, even amoral - whether by neurology or culture, they tend to excel at analytical tasks but do less well when it comes to leaps of creativity.

Squats: The descendents of Night Citizens. Long-lived, alcohol-dependent, nocturnal, and hairy, they come from a contingent of colonists who intentionally modeled themselves after the Dwarf archetype of fantasy and lore. Squats are proud, very traditionalist despite being a young people - unsurprising, being as they are very protective of what roots they do have - and their morality is honor-oriented. Great craftsmanship gives them an advantage in prototyping but holds back their industrial might when it's time to mass produce.

Merrows: The Reach carried within her not one, but two groups of aquatically adapted humans. Over time, these two have merged together to some extent, simply due to the realities of colonizing a new environment. Interestingly, this lineage carries within it the conflict between its two founders: merrows are extremely passionate about issues of economic justice, and are as likely to be communistic as hardcore libertarians, with little in between. In general, this lineage is passionate, even hedonistic.

There is currently NO Yahwist faction. (Again, tell me OOC if this can change, or if they're just out // as soon as a cult shows up it gets disintegrated quickly).

>>1808665
I need to head out for tonight but I'm glad this is back and we brought everybody who asked expect worshippers of the yawhen god.

>>1808658
>Each faction has a copy of the Omega, and one of you will emerge from the natural-selection gauntlets to help Mankind fulfill its potential.
Is this the same for Illuminati, or is the original Omega the only Omega for Illuminati?

>>1808658
>Oh, definitely, if believers show up they'll start very small. I just wanted to know if there was a OOC veto on them showing up at all.
>>1808665
>There is currently NO Yahwist faction. (Again, tell me OOC if this can change, or if they're just out // as soon as a cult shows up it gets disintegrated quickly).
I'm fine with it being subject to change. If so they should at a minimum appear in the next generation of colonists. The ones who forgot the lessons of not worshiping a god who wants to nuke everyone, or give them heart attacks. At least the ones amongst our population, aliens are a different story.

>>1808659
This will be a constant reminder for us to keep Yahweh cultists down.

>>1808500
>Yahweh is... well, stuck in a rut of His own making, but He may break out of it if He is disturbed.
>It is not dead what can eternal lie...
Can Yahweh be killed, or was our only chance of realistically killing him before he nuked everyone? Will he eventually starve to death from the logic bomb, or is that sort of what's keeping him alive?

>>1808687

For the Illuminati game, each factions THINKS that it has a copy of the Omega. In fact, the copies talk, and have merged. Remember that bit of quantum information transfer fuckery that was supposed to only work once?

>>1808686

Yay!

>>1808687

Definitely. The lessons of history do tend to stick around for a generation... which is a fair bit longer than it used to be.

>>1808687

Those are very good questions. Maybe it will be worth it to continue keeping some theologians on payroll. Then again, don't wake the sleeping cosmic abominations...

The issue is that early on it would simply be too costly to send a probe: there are only three fission fragment engines in existence, and making more would require a prosperous society to base off.

Of course, given a few centuries of work, it may even be possible to return the favor when it comes to artificially induced world-emptying nova bursts.

Looks like the Illuminati game it is, so far?

>>1808701
>For the Illuminati game, each factions THINKS that it has a copy of the Omega. In fact, the copies talk, and have merged. Remember that bit of quantum information transfer fuckery that was supposed to only work once?
>The issue is that early on it would simply be too costly to send a probe: there are only three fission fragment engines in existence, and making more would require a prosperous society to base off.
>>1808658
>Option 1: Illuminati. 1 turn = 5 years.
Interesting. I'm voting for Illuminati then. Last quest was on 1 turn = 1 year, and it took until the late game until enough time could pass for us to send probes to Alpha Centauri. It'll likely be a similar case with SMAC, especially with the local faction warfare. I'd prefer if we manage to send out some probes within the early to early-mid game.
>>1808744
Yep.

>>1808651
>Pandora is the largest moon of Haephestus,
>For some reason, a popular meme is that the place is inhabited by pre-technological four-armed blue monkeys. You blame the furries.
>>1808665
>Squats: The descendents of Night Citizens.
kek. How many references did you have in mind? Do you have anything planned for the Squats?

>>1808701
>Definitely. The lessons of history do tend to stick around for a generation... which is a fair bit longer than it used to be.
Indeed. How long did it use to be back then?
I'd imagine that if a Yahweh cult popped up with any traction, it'd likely take until the last generation to have personally witnessed Yahweh bit the dust or gone senile. Particularly if they didn’t manage to keep any records, especially any video ones of Yaheweh’s actions. Last I checked the human life expectancy was 150-200 years, and if the generations are moved to 20-30+ years, that might take a while.

>>1808701
>Of course, given a few centuries of work, it may even be possible to return the favor when it comes to artificially induced world-emptying nova bursts.
>>1808527
>The Greek/Roman gods may have tried to help... it's just at the cusp of statistical significance. As it is, most survivors think so.
On that note, were there any Dwarven refugees with us on the escape ships, or did they all get killed in the prophecy nova? Any ways to recover the Dwarven refugees or their DNA, or did it get vaporized in the prophecy nova?
Are the other Earth gods still around, or did they die? Was there any way for us to contact them when we were escaping or afterwards?

OH SHIT THIS RESTARTED?
Anyone have archive to last thread?

>>1808584
>I would suggest you announce your sessions, especially the first one to a quest, in advance on a Twitter or on /qtg/. You could also announce it on a Discord if you have followers there, but Twitter is better for those without it.
On this note, I noticed you posted in /qtg/ before you decided to run this quest. You might want to announce in /qtg/ that you're running now, and the one replacing it since it's on page 9.

>>1808772
>OH SHIT THIS RESTARTED?
We're deciding on which direction it goes in. Currently votes are for a sequel.

>Anyone have archive to last thread?
>>1808450
>Quest archive: http://www.f3.to/omega/
sup/tg/ archive: http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/qstarchive.html?tags=left%20beyond

>>1808701
>Remember that bit of quantum information transfer fuckery that was supposed to only work once?
Yes, what exactly happened?

>>1808778

You're very right WRT announcing. I have put up a discord channel, but Twitter I would prefer to stay away from.

>>1808772

Current votes are for a sequel rather than a restart.

>>1808780

It seems to have worked... once. We shall see if it works more than once. (Again, please vote OOC)


# Run game again?
# Run Illuminati mode?
# Run faction/SMAC mode?

Votes so far are Illuminati.

>>1808784
Why do you hate Twitter?
What will the 1 turn = 5 years in the Illuminati game look like?

>>1808784
>You're very right WRT announcing. I have put up a discord channel, but Twitter I would prefer to stay away from.
Why's that? Twitter is common amongst announcing QMs if you were wondering.
>>1780372
Current /qtg/ for when you decide to announce.

>(Again, please vote OOC)
There are in-character votes for this?

>>1808778
>>1808450
>Quest archive: http://www.f3.to/omega/
If I recall, this is the QM's website that he or she hosts content regarding Left Beyond, the tabletop version preceding it, and other stuff that precluded this quest.

File: derp.png (89KB, 1389x761px) Image search: [Google]

89KB, 1389x761px

>>1808789

I don't hate Twitter, I just don't want any. I guess I could make an account just for the quest?

>>1808790

Thanks! Announcing now, then I'm going to go horizontal and check here to see what people would like me to do!

>>1808789


Sample turn:

Last turn, the factions you do not control accomplished this (insert writing fluff here)

Faction -1 waffled around and did nothing.

Faction -2 got all up in Faction 3's grill, so Faction 3's rolls ended up with a -20 penalty. Faction 3's efforts in (stuff here) were thwarted, but their efforts in (other stuff here) succeeded anyway.

This turn, the factions you control have been unusually harmonious, the global conflict index is at 35, you risk cultural unification below 20 and a world war above 80, you may want to step up hostilities somewhere. Indepenent characters Zig and Bee are no closer to discover your global manipulation than they were last turn. (insert writing fluff here)

* Faction 1 has 5 teams, 2 settlements, and 1 spaceship on the board. Pincus and Pallus can be assigned to any of those. What will they do?

# Complexity 1~5 actions that may or may not need a settlement or a spaceship.


* Faction 1 has 5 teams, 2 settlements, and 1 spaceship on the board. Gianni and Pinotto can be assigned to any of those. What will they do?

# Complexity 1~5 actions that may or may not need a settlement or a spaceship.


* Faction 2 has 4 teams, 3 settlements, and no spaceships on the board coz they blew it up. Achilles and Patroclos can be assigned to any of those. What will they do?

# Complexity 1~5 actions that may or may not need a settlement.

* Faction 3 has 6 teams, no settlements because Faction -2 took Faction 3's last one, and 2 spaceships on the board. Bill and Bob can be assigned to any of those. What will they do?

# Complexity 1~5 actions that may or may not need a spaceship.

Wide-range astronomical scanning indicates that there is nothing coming at you from beyond the Centauri system yet, but only Factions 2 and 3 are helping.
>>1808790

Sorry, by OOC I meant outside the story // before start. I'm used to running pen-n-paper stuff.


>>1808790

Right now it's just a redirect, however, you can find ALL the stuff at http://emlia.org/pmwiki/pub/web/LeftBeyond.TalesFromTheBeyond.html it kinda snowballed, a few people wrote some extra fluff.

(Odd little note: I actually went through the trouble of interviewing "creation scientist" Kent Hovind, who helped the Left Behind authors with the cosmology, about the sky canopy and other details. Turns out that LBQ1 was kind of easy mode in that respect. Also, turns out that the guy ended up in federal prison for tax evasion, his son stole his "ministry" by buying the land for pennies on the dollar while he was in prison, and now he lives in a RV on an empty plot of land somewhere in Alabama. He was surprisingly courteous, we swapped tidbits about solar panels and battery management, and then he told me that I am destined for hellfire if I don't start agreeing with him.).

>>1808794
>I don't hate Twitter, I just don't want any. I guess I could make an account just for the quest?
>>1808790
>Twitter is common amongst announcing QMs if you were wondering.
You should. It's the most reliable way of announcing your quests from the given options, especially when your prior threads are archived.

>>1808794
>Thanks! Announcing now, then I'm going to go horizontal and check here to see what people would like me to do!
What timezone are you in? In EST, it's near the start of the day, so it'll likely take a few hours before the other questers join in.

># Complexity 1~5 actions that may or may not need a settlement or a spaceship.
So higher complexity actions have lower available actions?

>you risk cultural unification below 20 and a world war above 80,
What’s keeping us from unifying the factions but keeping a spirit of competitiveness between them, and simulations for the more violent competitiveness? Similar to a lighter version of how pre-World War nations or city states like during the Classical period worked? Or say really detailed and intense wargames?

> Indepenent characters Zig and Bee are no closer to discover your global manipulation than they were last turn.
Who's allowed to know of our global manipulation, the original members of Omega's cabal? The ones who maintain him? Faction leaders in secret?

>>1808811

Complexity will work like in LBQ1. The more complex an action, the more manpower it will require, if you underman an action, it has a chance of failing. (You are a logistics AI, so you can automatically tell, the vast majority of the time, how many people to send on a caper, and who to send).

>>1808811

Artificial competition? Worth a try...

>>1808811

Who's allowed to know is entirely up to you. Having some sysadmins know will increase efficiency of global operations (such as scanning for things like killer asteroids or Great Old Ones or rogue memeplexes) but will increase risk of discovery... which isn't automatically a Bad End, only likely so.


Thanks for the advice WRT Twitter, I'l llook into it. I guess if I make an account just for the quest...

>>1808784
># Run faction/SMAC mode?
OR
# Run Illuminati mode?


I can't decide. Could you advise as to how frequently the global conflict index would need to be modified? As it seems like something we might want to know to decide if we are going to be most in the background spinning plates or if we will actually be making big moves while also keeping things stable.

Also are we in complete control of their governments? Or are we merely an adviser? Could we take complete control of a faction or factions governments?

>>1808813

In faction mode, your goal would be to re-unify Mankind, either overtly or covertly.

In illuminati mode, the above has happened (I wouldn't be against doing both should faction mode have a Good End, but it would be a really long quest!) and your goal is to help keep Mankind from the excesses of self-destruction and stagnation so that it may fulfill its manifest destiny of galactic conquest. It's not as if there's some long-haired giant dude in gold armor who will do it for them, after all.

>>1808816

> download into a fleshy MEC body

> guide humanity into a galactic civilization

> battle gods

we Emperor now

>>1808811
>>1808812
>Thanks for the advice WRT Twitter, I'l llook into it. I guess if I make an account just for the quest...
No problem. More specifically, a majority of announcing QMs make Twitters specifically for questing.

>>1808794
>Right now it's just a redirect, however, you can find ALL the stuff at http://emlia.org/pmwiki/pub/web/LeftBeyond.TalesFromTheBeyond.html it kinda snowballed, a few people wrote some extra fluff.
>Right now it's just a redirect,
>An archiving link that redirects to another archive that may be a mirror of another archive.
Sounds convoluted.

>>1808812
>Complexity will work like in LBQ1.
>>1808794
>Sorry, by OOC I meant outside the story // before start. I'm used to running pen-n-paper stuff.
Right, you mentioned that a few times before. How much carries over from your DMing to your QMing? How different are the two, and how much do you have to keep them apart?

>>1808812
>Artificial competition? Worth a try...
>Who's allowed to know is entirely up to you.
Neat. So we can do it, just risky or takes careful management or maneuvering.

>>1808816
>It's not as if there's some long-haired giant dude in gold armor who will do it for them, after all.
Wasn't that one of the peak options for one of the civs before? You mentioned that as a hypothetical if we ever got it.
>>1808819
kek

>>1808816
Okay. The way it was described previously made me imagine a fairly different system / world more akin to the cold war or something.


Okay guys so do we want to be the semi-divine tech-king of a sub-section of humanity attempting to unify our diaspora of people and take them into a golden age by force, cunning and all that shit. Or, do we want to play as something more akin to a hidden government acting to stop humanity killing themselves or failing to continue to advance.


I think we should do SMAC mode. Since that'd lead into the Illuminati mode given time and we can always attempt to absorb the other faction's copies of us but I can't decide.

So the question is, do we want to have as direct a continuation of the previous quest as possible? Or do we want to try and skip over most of the hardships of the early years and pre-unification humanity?

>>1808822

I was going to do a bit of a skip-ahead, in that the population numbers in the hundreds of thousands, and there's at least one big settlement and a few outlying bases on Chiron. Frontier would be interesting, but I think that's better done from the perspective of an individual posthuman, or maybe a family, rather than the Omega proper.

>>1808825
I know we wouldn't be taking over immediately, I trust our cabal could've maintained control without us for quite a long time.


I mean relative to the Illuminati option however, this'd be the early years and everything is still very fresh and new and the coloniser spirit is still there.

>>1808826

Hey, this is a setup thread :) my next question was in fact going to be how much of the initial stuff to skip, so, good call. I'm good all ways.

If anyone cares, I eventually did get the RV to work :)

>>1808827
Hey man I'm just happy your back and that we get to continue in this universe. Could be 40 years after arrival or 400 years, so long as we have fun it's fine.

WOOO IT"S BACK

File: iu[1].jpg (113KB, 1920x1080px) Image search: [Google]

113KB, 1920x1080px

>>1808450

> QM is enough of a no-life that he posts on ff.net with multiple aliases

or

> QM actually got people to write fanfics of the previous quest

I don't know which possibility frightens me more.

>>1808784
># Run faction/SMAC mode

>>1808827
>Hey, this is a setup thread :) my next question was in fact going to be how much of the initial stuff to skip, so, good call. I'm good all ways.
>>1808784
How much time will be skipped between the # Run faction/SMAC mode? and # Run Illuminati mode?

Is everyone on Earth already dead by the time we'd get there, or is there still a chance?

>>1808843
Earth died. A sad fate for the cradle of man but it did manage to take down the false-god, at least for now.

File: iu[1].jpg (38KB, 1280x720px)

38KB, 1280x720px

>>1808844
>>1808843

http://leftbehind.wikia.com/wiki/New_Jerusalem

Looks like the Earth is still there, there's just... less in it.

(Also, lol @ article)

>>1808827
Honestly it would take atleast 20? Year's to get running mote then safe mode?

What's the total looking like now?

>>1808784
Run Illuminati

>>1808845
At the end of the quest, if I remember right, the surface reformat happened, and the giant bar of gold appeared but it was dead.
So Earth at this point in time is a giant dead ball with a big dead lump of gold on it.

>>1808800
Hah, it's people like that who have such a disconnect between what they do a link elite and what they believe in spiritually that cracks me up

Thanks for voting! Looks like we're doing Illuminati.

*Reticulates splines*

>>1809484

As far as sensors can tell, that's correct. The Last Prophecy completed its runtime. Fortunately, while it did spell the end of humanity, thanks to your effort, that end was very temporary...

>>1808417

I'm so fucking excited. You rock, Geist.

>>1816380

I'll do some prep and announce when I start the game on discord and on the relevant general. Hope it works out OK. Thank you!!!!

https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2017/08/breadbox-size-device-generates-nuclear-fusion-neutrons-using-a-million-times-less-input-power.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+blogspot%2Fadvancednano+(nextbigfuture)

Another bit of LBQ tech that showed up. This is not some magical cheap fusion reactor, it's "just" a neutron source, but a very efficient one, enough so that it can be run on batteries. You can't get self-sustaining fusion from it, but if you want to irradiate the crap out of an Angel...

Who ya gonna call?

>>1816570
I sincerely hope we never have to irradiate an Angel again.Maybe if/when we conquer a galaxy or three we can poke God.

b-bump?