Arcanist The Next Generation

 

Patch notes!
No Man Alive – Now effects minions as well instead of just heroes. Now limited to direct command.
No Man Behind – Now effects minions as well instead of just heroes. Now limited to direct command.
Super Slayer: Altered natural crit damage bonus to be +2 damage instead of x4.
Intimidation: Altered to not impact entire battlefields in mass combat and instead only affect on a per squad basis.

Fixed hero unit paychecks not being calculated into expenses
Removed Hero Unit influence generation
Fixed a bug where sam was getting infrastructure upgrades for free
Reduced influence gain from military assets since they were sort of made back in the day when your army was 300 dudes and the formula hasn’t scaled well.

 

 

Diadome was an absolute clusterfuck if you don’t mind me saying. It could have been worse but those arcurans also tried to interfere with a match directly but couldn’t figure out how to get through the barrier spell.

Walter and Winter are on their way to Utewa, with some traveling involved. Koharrel is on the way to meet up with the first fleet.

I’ve prepared some information about Koharrel’s mission beyond the news report. The planet is called Sugnam, home to a race of hard shelled aliens that have until now been the victims of slaving efforts. Sugnam was discovered to have primitive sapient inhabitants over four hundred years go, with technology equivalent to the industrial revolution. Though the ones who discovered this established slaving and mining operations. With most enslaved Sugnam serving to mine the fuel resources of their own planet and turn it over to their captors. The independent company holding them captive has continued these mining operations for the last two hundred years. Though recently we have reason to suspect the authentic Revenants dealt a major blow to their operations that resulted in a few of the slaver’s starships falling into sugnamian hands, which they prepped in secret. It is also suspected that the same Revenants may have helped them figure out how to work the ship enough to leave the planet and seek help within the Reach.

Currently a moderate Tungsten Teeth fleet consisting of a carrier, assault carrier, and accompanying destroyers, starhips,and cruisers is on the way to auction their services to the highest bidder. As well as other independent mercenaries from the local galactic area. As advisor I will caution to be careful, the Reach is already wary of us behaving as galactic police and might push back on the matter.

Wonaya mentioned there are perhaps hundreds of golden worlds she has seen in the Hive Worlds, you practically can’t throw a space moth without hitting one. The problem is that unlike places such as Koura, these worlds have things living on them. The Hive Worlds are overflowing with life, and every world that is perfectly habitable to us is also habitable to things that can eat us. If you want she can just tell you where to find one based on whether or not you would rather deal with intelligent species or a wild world where nothing really involved for higher intelligence. No matter which one you pick you can expect disease, parasites, stinging insects, big things with big claws and big teeth, and it is a very real concern that you can bring them home with you without knowing. Spores from hive world plants can get on your clothes and very few eco systems outside of the hive worlds can find a balance with such highly evolved alien organic elements. One spore from a hive world can threaten to overrun any other planet’s natural vegetation entirely in a few thousand years give or take. However, there are three within a month’s travel of Diadem, which is already a border station to the hive worlds and though we’re a bit off to the side of a place like Kuhas we do still have a local economy catering to the few reachers that make this voyage already at the far docks.

In all it isn’t a matter of finding golden worlds, it’s picking which kind of problem you want to deal with of those available. Two months voyage in a standard ship will lead you to one such world inhabited by an intelligent space faring species who sell food to the Reach. If you wanted to try something easy to start off. It belongs to the Exny though, who have certain reputations to be considered.

There is a nearby golden world that is currently the working project of House Evershar to begin colonizing which already has an orbiting station that can be used as a pit stop. It is mostly a mining operation featuring aliens from around the reach to do the physical labor while Evershar works to keep them from being eaten by ravenous termite looking things.

The first problem with expanding the broadcast network is range. We’d need to set up Aethernet beacons at each station along the network, which includes tens of thousands of stations. We could try to negotiate with the Reach Broadcast Network to help us figure out how they did it, though they aren’t quite like solian broadcasts. They also have limited coverage throughout the Reach and this is all in part due to the various powers that be all resisting nationalization of the Reach. One notable example nearby is the Quavaol station a short distance aways. They have a particularly critical position as a major trade hub connecting the central Reach to the Northern Reach where we live. A few other similar stations are similarly notable bottlenecks, but the important detail is that even the Reach Broadcast Network cannot jump through this station because they refuse to let anyone set something up like that. Also the last beacon we tried to deploy six years ago got scrapped and salvaged by pirates during a conflict in the area. We could put about four beacons between us and Kuhas to get live information feeds with them and they’ve been fairly cooperative ever since Allison figured out the conspiracy that doesn’t really seem like a conspiracy to us still.

Scans reveal Rahlken’s Ship is currently just a little west of the Vessian homeworld.

The Viper team has been sent to…actually that Quavaol station I just mentioned to check in on piracy activity. Such bottlenecks are obviously a prime place for piracy.

I’ve compiled the locations of the “high chance” places to find the Diadem keys we’re looking for.

We’ve covered the Utewa Academy and Blaiken Throne World. Nekhul is the original homeworld of the Ika and might have one. It is in what are now the hive worlds. Reachers say the place is pretty bad, no one seems to come back from it except some hive species by sheer quantity of unintended attempts. There is still a high chance that Nelta has one but that is still a bit of a shot in the dark without further investigation. The last one we are 80% sure has one going by reports that a crew of frontier explorers had one ‘just in case’. The problem is finding it. It was one of the Ika’s many attempts to explore beyond the galaxy. The flotilla that left the galaxy has never been heard from since it left communications range of the Ika. For all we know they made it to the next galaxy, they could also have been lost somewhere between galaxies.

Nyah! Hehe, no that one was on purpose because it drives you crazy. Your door guards love it though. Anyways I got that report you wanted. It’s a long list, hundreds long. Pre-industrial primitive civilizations exist everywhere in the galaxy and usually just aren’t worth the notice I guess. Some are being exploited by Reachers like the Sugnam and others are largely left alone. I got some options though I put near the top of the list.

There are some very plant-like people in the Hive Worlds nearby who are known to be intelligent but their current technological capability is very primitive. A few of their members are actually in the Reach network, some were abducted to be used as livestock during the famine. This sort of solidified why people take strong quarantine precautions against those worlds. A few got loose by growing spores in the people who were eating them and caused a whole Dread Space incident on one of the Reach stations then they just sort of stuck around since then rather than go home. So, approach, sample, and transport with extreme caution. That station is just theirs now, no one ever went to reclaim it. They can’t leave it since they don’t know how ships work but they get enough solar radiation to stay alive. Actually we could go to the station instead of the planet if you’re feeling brave. It’s been left alone for the last two centuries.

Meanwhile here in the Reach, there is a poor defenseless primitive world who most  people ignore since their world is so barren of resources they will likely never become galactic anyways. They live on a world with incredibly low metallic resources or moisture, its basically a planet with abnormally high occurrence of deserts with the natives living in the oasis’s in between. Good opportunity for a safe contact for experimentation with whatever guidance you want to offer. Not highly contested, not very strong civilization, and somewhat scrawny people.

If you want to go gambling, I have this one for you. There is a planet on the southern side of the reach, so already a problem as it is a long trip. Reachers tend to avoid the place because the natives are psionic life forms. Violent tribalistic psionic life forms who live in other creatures psyches. So upon landing you won’t know which squirrel contains one that might hop aboard you. They can be resisted with wards but not communicated with unless the wards are down or they inhabit something that understands language.

In terms of uplifting projects, well you can pick a fight for the good stuff. There is a planet of terrifying warlords who took down a Reacher starship with bows. Though the Tungsten Teeth like to ‘uplift’ small communities of them to act as recruits along with some of the local network stations. So if you start spreading Federation ‘guidance’ on that world, we’re going to have to fight a few stations and merc bands for colonization rights.

In all, lot of options but they’re generally fairly meek. Pre-industrial and not already uplifted usually means we’re plucking through the ones who weren’t interesting enough to anyone else either. I could just set up a missionaries program for the order and we can let that take a few centuries to pay off though if you like.

If I knew what we’re trying to accomplish here I might be able to narrow down the options a bit better and see what else we might find.

Also you’re up to about seven hundred and eighty six binds because you keep handing them out. There are measurable differences with your plane and abilities, kind of. In the realm of ‘hypothesis’ rather than ‘definitely correlated’. They suspect its having an effect on the energy levels according to some of their readings but over such a scale as a whole plane its really hard to say if that is the case or if they just turned their measuring equipment two degrees to the left. The current theory is that because you made a universe in there, that the effects of worshippers are less pronounced though less required. Had you made a private sanctuary type of plane like Jaerda did it might have more impact but also you wouldn’t have Renjala’s Rim. Also umm, I’m kind of new. Did you name that yourself?

As for our current diplomatic relations, umm here we go.

Demon King: Thinks we’re flakes because Valencia still isn’t a god.
Archons: Aren’t even paying attention to us except for Mahuea. There are also a surprising number of them. We confirmed the existence of another fire archon in the elemental plane somewhere around where Zenaka is.
Abyssal lords: There are fourty eight of them that we know of. Valnacht is the big one near the Sol system though. We have made no contact with them up to now, though it is likely they are on negative terms with us because Kanika already contacted them to smooth things over with Abyssal plane.
Necrosi: It’s on sight with these guys. They are not formally members of the Hassani but they have a very strong defensive pact now. They love Kanika and Sakhessa, the two undead rulers.
Celestials: They’re on our team already. Though I understand from your notes here that it would be a ‘tense alliance’ with Ankathi?

In all if they’re not your friend already they’re probably Kanika’s friend at this stage. Meaning altering relations with them will be a bit of a political undertaking. Also I’m still not sure why Lord Euron is here.

 

Chevalier stated he would remain in retirement for now, still pursuing the path of philosophy and writing archives to pass down the results of his studies to future generations of Voidforged. He’s over in section 3A and built a little museum garden library thing where he continues to ponder the meaning of existence. Like a nerd.

Vanessa agreed to come back though, she doesn’t have as much going on. She’s up in that corner over there, the shadowy one. Still not the most talkative and I think she’s hiding from the rookies. Now that she’s the veteran, the OG, the most combat experienced, the wise old woman in the barracks, and what have you- they try to ask her for war stories a lot and she is still a loner. So I think she’s hiding in the control room so that the rookies will ask you questions instead of her.

Ever since trying to work on Arsene I have been attempting to better standardize core interfaces methods, though the problem of transferring them between bodies is sort of where the hiccup is. I actually experimented on this by swapping the cores of Vanessa and Adrienne. Vanessa did not gain the ability to use her hands, if anything it was worse, and Adrienne could not stand up without assistance from a rope. Unfortunately, Vanessa is made entirely out of sharp things so the rope plan went south and Adrienne was stuck on the floor until we got a lifter to put her back on the maintenance table.

Currently we can move things around a lil bit, though cores can sometimes be unique. Auvray is a particular example, so is the Cradle. Their cores aren’t going to fit with aaaaanything else purely due to size. Souris I might be able to put in a little drone though. Maybe I can come up with some sort of little robot dog for Malgier and similar classes of voidforged. Though I’ll revisit the adapter work to see what might be done. There probably is some merit to making sure they can all enter into humanoid bodies just to give them access to the rest of the Federation if they want to hang out with the humies.

As for formalizing a guide to the diadem wild life, which we still have since we made the first one so this would technically be the second edition, to be noted one issue is that they keep coming up with new models to probe our defenses with. Actually it’s been a real problem, over the years things get progressively more dire if we refuse to adapt to their adaptations to our adaptations to their adaptations to our adaptations to their adaptations. Though that is sort of why I created Malgier, he can hunt the big tunneling shits that keep popping up in the Squats behind the front lines. Souris is good for dealing with the ceiling stickers too. Though I’ve gone ahead and updated the survival guide as you asked.

We could start a new drug company though sourcing for manufacturing is to be considered. The farms up top are strained to the limit as it is so we might want to consider where we get our supplies. Unless we figure out a way to synthesize some stuff from motor oil. To that end, the Federation has left a wide open hole in their drug laws. Lancaster opted for the ‘eh do whatever you want to yourself’ approach back at the founding of Somnus government. So we can inject these suckers with anything! Deniau has been been trying to make the most addictive thing possible but I need more test subjects since Voidforged don’t do drugs.

 

Who do you want to send to look for Kennae and where? Also I get the impression no one can humble your sister. She’s just not a humble person.

As for the Phantoms, I’ll give a brief summary of the requested information.

 

Kanika is usually in Thenica but not where you would think. The capital of Thenica is the former Shetou city of Sacheon as it has the most infrastructure to serve this role. Reports indicate she is more frequently found in a random swamp in the countryside rather than the palace. It actually wouldn’t be hard to reach this unguarded swamp she uses as her personal sanctuary. Apparently it is due for construction to get it into shape to serve as her new castle, but she hasn’t bothered to divert the resources to the construction yet since she is still investing heavily into rebuilding Sol. This is the most vulnerable location we can think of as per your request. Though she is just as often at the palace, Aureum, aboard the fleets, or just wandering the galaxy to sort through various external affairs. It is hard to keep track of her as she has powerful pandem casters as her assistants who both learned the Renjala’s rift to take her wherever she wants to go whenever she wants to be there. Honestly the problem isn’t getting to her, its what do you do once you get there?

Sakhessa is usually at the capital of Sacheon trying to manage things. She goes everywhere on her golden hover-throne and her real home is still Aureum which she returns to at the end of each day. Though, portals. She is at all times guarded by members of her golden legion and the notorious basilisk that is usually curled up on her hover-throne’s extended platform. She is most vulnerable while at Sacheon obviously, which is where she spends her work day.

Deinuu is usually hanging out with Sakhessa or somewhere in the galaxy causing trouble. He’s actually really hard to track. Last we saw him he was in the eastern part of the galaxy but we have no idea what he was doing out there as it is beyond our current network. However, if he isn’t with Sakhessa he is frequently alone.

Faelyn: Mostly lurks around Aureum and manages their fleets. Her primary activities as of late have been preventing piracy and alien invasions. As well as maintaining border security and intercepting suspicious visitors who are on their way to Sol. The problem with picking her off is that Aureum is unassailable. The Warrens entrance is now so heavily guarded that we would lose our entire fleet trying to approach the planet inside the Warrens entrance. However, there are two ways in and security is a lil more lax about the side facing the deeper Warrens. Though that requires finding a Warrens entrance, scouting a path there, and not getting found by the Blaiken. Let alone approaching through narrow tunnels undetected. Infiltration is the most viable option but they do not allow any mortal into Aureum unless they are implanted with ‘security assurances’.

Eliza Pierce as you learned, is a horrifying aberration that has transcended all logical ability to understand as a creature. She’s usually at SV2, the capital estate of the Jaal’Darya where she continues her experiments. Ever since the war, Jaal’Darya has been reinforced heavily. Though honestly Eliza herself is more terrifying than the turrets, security systems, and standing army of monsters that protect the facility.

Valencia Desoir can often be found either at the Desoir estate in the northern continent of Thenica or at the Sacheon capital keeping up her work maintaining all the money. She is surrounded by her own family members and has been provided guards by the Hassani. It is likely that at some point in between those two places she is at her most vulnerable but we don’t have more information on her day to day life.

Yasrena is not even where she appears to be at any time. The true Yasrena, also known as The Shadow, is in the Shadow Plane at all times and just possesses people to make appearances around the galaxy. Technically they show up to the Astral Order meetings, that is when they are most vulnerable. The obvious danger there is they cannot be killed outside their own plane and the first person to piss her off is going to lose the war within a year.

Agallias isn’t even in Sol or Auwana. They’re just hanging out on some alien world they conquered and rule over three alien systems as their deified ruler. Which to be fair, he is a titan. So…can’t really say they’re wrong. Agallias as a member is somewhat disconnected from the rest of the Hassani council. He is powerful enough that they have to acknowledge him but he’s much more concerned with doing his own thing. Apparently his hobby has become trying to build new worlds as he once built Thenica. Apparently he’s got great approval ratings though as he is genuinely trying to create new paradises for his mortals. He seems them as his personal ant farm or something. He seems interested in however Renjala started creating a new pantheon lately and has been researching into the matter to see if he can do so as well to seed life for his new people. He really just shows up if they call for him.

Sabrae is in her newly reconstructed Beldobaan fortress. She almost never leaves it.

The Hydra never leaves Aureum as far as we can tell. Relying on agents to do anything that would otherwise require them to go somewhere. They’re the size of a small mountain so for obvious reasons, they don’t really go places since they can’t fit through most locations.

As fro Kaylen, she also spends most of her time at Estelcar, the former Alnae capital that has been rebuilt for governing that hemisphere of Thenica and keeping the ex-alnaeans and drow a good distance apart from each other. Though efforts are being made to ease racial tensions and Kaylen has been, likely forced, into a marriage with a drow to act as a celebrity couple. Not sure if that’s being done to humiliate her further, begin easing public tensions between the two races, or both. There has actually been a lot of effort on Sakhessa’s part to calm that ancient war down. Especially now that so few elves are left. Anyways, Kaylen is usually at Estelcar and while she herself isn’t under the heaviest guard the building she works in is guarded by beholders and liches. Actually several of them just work there but they happen to be a significant obstacle to consider if we were to raid the place. She is also often in the direct presence of higher members of the Hassani as she is in the highest ranking position of any mortal so she has to report to the Hassani council’s delegates. I would however say she is most vulnerable at night when she is at home and sleeping. Though the estate includes other elven councilors and is at least decently guarded. Also as a note with this whole rescue operation, if she’s thoroughly brainwashed enough to fight her rescuers don’t forget she’s still a grandmaster and fighting her is a big enough problem. She likely is the guard for that estate.

Also you know an actual lich, they can probably teach you incarnum better than Natasha but yes she technically could.