synodiporia_ooc | Jaunt Restart Planning OOC Post

This is where we can put IC or OOC ideas for the location and timing for everyone getting returned to the Jaunt world.

Claudia's pulling for Lodestar, since a chunk of Fallenheart was headed there anyway. Her ideal time preference would be 'plausible travel-time deniability' but she's not married to that. Worst case, The Portori Did It.

Time-wise, Armin suggested using the full '14 minutes before' window to land somewhere other than Fallenheart, and then all Travelers who want to beat up a Nation-Eater portal to just outside Fallenheart and start psychic-spamming to get its attention.

Shinji wants to do whatever will help rebuild the fucking food supply. He's not picky.

If they're going to go back right after the vote and going back in time wins, 10 or 12 minutes ago gives them a day or two to get things in order, since they know now that portalling back to Liminal to make things is a bad idea.

If you've got or have discovered plot information you want to share, put it here.

Edited 2020-01-09 09:45 (UTC)

Bernkastel used her Oracle of Probability powers here to determine that they have a much, much better chance of receiving actual useful help from Fallen Wrath than from any other Spire, with Fallen Heaven and Lodestar a distant second and third.

Like, Katadorlandia is 70% compared to 55% from the other two, it’s ridiculous.

I'm just copying both of them here since I'm at work and why switch journals?

"Naoya would like to use Opportunity for Renewal to find a new path forward. I'd think that the need to run from the Nation-Eaters is a pretty damn big loss."

"Boy howdy, does it ever.

Okay. The existing paths Travelers have suggested have fallen along three basic lines:
1) Destroy the Nation Eaters
2) Empower the Vale with enough psychic power to defend itself, if possible
3) Teach the residents of the Vale to avoid detection

And the existing paths suggested for the problem of the dying earth have largely been:
1) give the Vale the technology, knowledge, or resources to jumpstart their ecology

The way Opportunity for Renewal works, it won't suggest anything along those lines. It looks for the new answer, not the best answer.

The new answer is:
1) Get these people out of the Vale."

And

"Path to Profit - What would it take to destroy all of the Nation Eaters?"

"Options:
-decrease the earth's mass by 67%
-expand the earth's volume by 50%
-demagnetize the earth's core
-cool the earth's mantle until it solidifies

While this seems ridiculous at first, Casper will develop a new idea as a result of this...

What exactly does the data set 'all the Nation Eaters' comprise?"

There were two big group Sifts recently - I shared the info on plurk, but in case people haven't seen those I'm posting the results here as well. I'll put them in seperate comments in case people want to add anything to one or the other.

On the Shadow Tower data:

the available data is not a complete inventory of all knowledge about aquaculture, delving, and rail transit - it's essentially the map data on the second floor, and the browser cache on the fifth floor - everything that was taken offline to be cross-referenced or researched in the months or years before the rebellion. This is still a huge and useful amount of data, but it isn't enough to rebuild the psychic technologies and knowledge of the Protectorate completely.
the Towers have the same layout. Floor one: foyer/security. Floor two: cartography/map data. Floor three: office space. Floor four: material storage, including material cached by executives. Floor five: shade server backup data & ongoing research & computation projects. The index crystals are missing; sorting the raw data is work for about a dozen Factors to take about a year on (for all living Factors... still about a week). Floor six is power, broadcasting, and the link to the rail network. Those big, semi-collapsible open-sided trapezoids are Protectorate boxcars.
the energy stored in the Shadow Towers would be sufficient to run utilities for a few weeks, but it's not meant as long-term storage - just a distribution hub for nightly dreampush energy from tens of thousands. It's not clear if there are enough people left alive to power even the Vale-wide irrigation network indefinitely. That said, concentrating people in a smaller area would allow that area to restore utilities... but it would also draw Nation Eaters faster.
those origami robots are far beyond the capabilities of Protectorate technology or understanding.

On the environmental data:

The Earth has lost about 83% of its original water. The Vale is making do with about 4% of its original water, but 17% of the original water still exists, just not on the surface. This means, under ideal conditions, if 100% of water was clean and available, the Vale could produce around 4x as much food as it does now, the equivalent of 6 inches of rain in a year.
most of that water is deep under the soil in the bottoms of the original oceans. Any surface water would be likeliest, and cleanest, near the Earth's poles.
using Tower records to locate water, excavate, and irrigate, and combined Traveler scientific knowledge, it is possible to pump enough water from the bottom of the Mediterranean to sustain life in the Vale for several thousand years, if a power source equivalent to 30,000 humans (about half the Vale) dreampushing is provided. This is about 1 megawatt, if one seeks alternative power sources.
however, that amount of psychic power is well above what it takes to draw a Nation Eater, and not enough to do that AND create Protectorate=style shields (which only sometimes stopped Nation Eater attacks).
The two viable solutions appear to be moving the inhabitants of the Vale to another location, where water is more available, or providing an adequate alternate power source.
The water at the bottom of the Mediterranean would have to be cleaned of radioactive material - it's possible that thorium fission reactors or thermionic batteries could be created. However, there's no obvious way within the timespan of a Jaunt to retrieve that material, build a sufficient material infrastructure, or teach the Vale to safely use nuclear power.

This is less world-shatteringly widescale informative than the other power uses here, but Gil still used Path to Profit to try and work out how to make a more efficient battery for the Magnators.

Gil wants to use Path to Profit to work out how the locals, with particular focus on Magnators, Nectors and known information on the Towers, would be able to make more efficient batteries than their shitty vinegar ones. His goal is a car battery but he presumes that's not especially realistic, given the circumstances, and will be happy with like. A D-cell or AA equivalent.

Nectors could fabricate everything needed for molten salt thermal batteries - desalination work is already a big part of that they do. They need to be hot to work, but could be stored near campfires, ovens, and forges to gather charge. Sodium thermal batteries are about 3 volts; double a D cell, and are rechargeable. The battery needs to be welded shut; but compared to acid-based batteries, the technology needed is simple. A heated battery discharges electricity as it cools and has a lifespan of a few hours.
Batteries like this would not be very portable, given temperatures, but could easily be public utilities - one at every cookfire or oven.

Using information from the Towers, it would also be possible to build deep-sea wells that draw up thorium-contaminated water. The thorium, cleaned out of the water, could be used in nuclear thermal batteries - but that's a much higher level of tech.

Definitely not plot-shaking but probably relevant if fighting a Nation Eater winds up being a go, Liara's Sift on the Nation Eaters' data showed that they're vulnerable to electrical attack and interference, but are strengthened by heat and pressure.

Here's where you can spitball ideas, brainstorm, and otherwise plot what to do once the Jaunt restarts.

Ideas:

- Casper, maybe Hajime, maybe someone like Gil (or other people with good physical strength) can handle convincing Katadors for defense purposes or strike teams?

- If you can convince them, probably Qabil and Chara can rally their people for handling things like supply distribution and backup power (in terms of the Magnators standing by and the others feeding them if needed).

- ???

- Profit???

There's also Kleio, who may or may not still have friends in their ranks. We are Unsure.

(Ios probably doesn't, tho.)

For those who ICly don't end up where they want to be, or for general ~~Thresher Maw~~ Nation Eater avoidance/luring, may I present the latest in nonpsionic Jaunt travel convenience, as coined by Bii,

~The Lightcycle Caravan~
(not just for lightcycles)

I think we have enough characters who have/can make transportation or mounts to move small teams around, especially if we double up people on bikes. The advantage of course is that these don't attract NEs like portals. Comment below to start the running list.

Altaïr can make a lightcycle with Constructive Enlightenment, but that may wait a week if he burns it on something else first. He also has a less portable clockpunk bike, but it would need to be modified for sandy terrain. It runs on mana (like Dreamcatchers) but I forget if that pings NEs...

He is currently heading for the expedition to the High Tables but can do stuff on the way.

Edited (another bike) 2020-01-10 09:10 (UTC)

Both Thorne and Chie have lightcycles, so if Chie gets woken up inside Kleio, that's them taken care of. (Thorne's already getting woken up inside Chara.)

Thorne can also summon a single horse, but then we'd have to worry about what the horse would eat.

Maria has an adolescent gryphon who might be able to carry double if the other person is also small enough.

Edited 2020-01-09 23:32 (UTC)

Jaina has one lightcycle for loan (I think Altair has dibs). She's also fully capable of making lightcycles. She'll be remaining with the civilians since she's not equipped for this scale but is equipped for crowd control. :p

Kanji has both a lightcycle *and* a Jangwa hoverbike! The latter would need fishing out of Liminal via a portal, oops, but it's there for extra transport!

Minako has a lightcycle; Yukki can make them via CE.

Raidou has a dragon. As a bonus, the dragon has lightning and ice spells for emergencies. Raidou and Yukki also have forms that allow them to fly by themselves, and Cassandra has Druidry, which would let her transform into a bird or other flying animal for the purpose as well.

Edited 2020-01-11 17:46 (UTC)

Gil plans on hiring some Magnators and Nectors to make Better Batteries TM, but I don't know what he'll do after he's got that ball rolling.

Delaunay is suggesting creating a Katador or Magnator ally in whatever Spire they end up in. (This would work especially well with someone who is already well-suited for Katador or Magnator lyfe.)

I am not sure what any of my characters will be doing, but...

Post-dreamscape (which is going up today), Cassandra will be able to temporarily take on her Abyssal form with no corresponding loss of humanity, which will allow her to devour and/or Cuisinart Nation Eaters to death if need be. This is probably not something she should do around the locals. She was also looking into curing the cultists of their brainwashing, or at least revealing the tampering to them, before the Jaunt was interrupted.

Raidou, of course, has his demons, and Alice would love to befriend some Nation Eaters to death. But he may also be needed elsewhere, since he has five of the origami robots and various spells and skills that are helpful for exploration. He also has Constructive Enlightenment and Liminal Manipulation II, so he could probably make at least some survival equipment. And he has plant manipulation abilities from Albion and the Bando, so he could in theory help with that as well.

Minako has Personas, Nova Venezian alchemy/steampunk chemistry, and Most of the Liminal Skills, so she can be put to work making things if need be. She's also got a lightcycle and Sift, and is willing to teach the latter.

Yukki has Constructive Enlightenment and can make Infoglasses and/or Lightcycles and/or survival equipment for the High Tables expedition. She also has a Hecatite form and can fuse with Bismuth if need be; how or if that would help for High Tables exploration, I'm not sure.

A place to vote out of character in the same way that the IC post has a way to vote in character.

Jaunt Restart Planning OOC Post

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