So, I think I should clarify the political aspect of the Ziraneé empire a bit. Ziraneé society is practically tribal, in a way most of the other civilizations consider them primitive (but most of them wouldn’t say it to their faces). The Queen showed to be too confident and failed to protect her daughters and her own position against an inferior force (because she didn’t thought they needed to bring all the army for a routine inspection) and because of that, she’ll be shunned by her entire House.
The fact that she’s alive only makes it worse, because most Ziraneés would rather die in the battle or kill themselves than run away from such defeat.

Which is why she's basically handed things over to Suria, I assume?

>>351409

Yeah. Although that point will be further explained in the quest itself.

Oh, um, is it Ziranée or Ziraneé?

Ah, the old "If I can find a way to kill you, you deserve to die."

I'm still a little confused with how killing her daughters and failing to kill her is just as good, but I'll take your word for it.

>>351417

It's Ziraneé, but I think I've written it wrong as many times I've done it right.

>>351419
because if she didn't run away she would of died. and in their society running away is the same, if not worse, then being dead.

>>351424
oh, and that is why she keeps having her daughter make the decisions. because she wasn't the queen at the time it doesn't count for her so she is still viable to be a queen.

I plan on resume updating by Thursday, so if anyone wants to submit another outfit design, now it's the time to do it!

well great guys, why did so many people not want the deal? they wanted power, we want power. we would help each other get power. i don't see what was so horrible about it?

>>352019
People were too intolerant of an imaginary religion to do business with them.

Way to burn a bridge

>>352020
Yes because they desired to be submissive pawns to someone else it seems, considering that it was a good way to consolidate a power source!

>>352030
what? i can't parse that, can you rewrite it?

More that the church were offering the world in exchange for a very vague asking of 'support'. Either they would not be able to deliver on their promise, or they WOULD, meaning they would easily gain enough power to take over (especially when Suria ends up depending on them for her power).

>>352032
she offered everything the CHURCH had. not the world. and the support was just that whenever something involving the church came up after we got into power we would give the church better deals.

So! Since it looks like we're going to go after the local space pirates to restore trade routes, anyone have ideas on how to do that? I can think of two:

Bring in more guards to protect merchant vessels. This seems unfeasible to me, since there's no obvious way for us to recruit the large numbers we'd need. We're just one person; we won't be able to guard the routes by ourself.

Or, we could track down the pirates' hideout and stop them at the source. This is a much more likely plan, and might stop the problem completely. The question is how to find the pirates.

Maybe we could lure them out with a fake merchant ship and follow them afterwards. But there's a chance they wouldn't notice the ship or would recognize it as an obvious trap.

our total resources are:
1 Ex queen, well trained in combat.
1 Self, trained from childhood to be a queen eventually.
1 Highly advanced space superiority fighter with neat custom mods like FTL drive

We aren't an army and shouldn't fight... but our space fighter is a useful start. Think of games like wing commander Privateer.

Our VIABLE options as I see them are (from best to worst):

1. Do freelance missions for money with our space fighter, money = power. Eventually upgrade to a carrier and found a mercenary company with yourself as owner and commander of the company and mother as our top advisor. Make sure to use some of the funds to buy shares in news media to ensure they report things your way.
2. Go to a ship shop and trade the fighter for a freighter, hire a crew, make them call you captain, do trade runs for money. Build up an economic empire and hire mercenaries. Make sure to use some of the funds to buy shares in news media to ensure they report things your way.
3. Find a CAUSE, joing the cause, become a leader of that cause, have idealists working under you for that cause and make yourself a name. News media is independant, have to pick a cause they like.

Being a hero will help, a LOT, with securing the support of the people... but there are two ways to be a hero.
A. Be in command of a large paramilitary force and lead them to decisive victories in military campaigns in which you have the moral high ground. It just so happens that you have more soldiers, better weapons, better equipment, and better training and smear your opponent with the bad PR. And you are well protected yourself. - VERY HIGH CHANCE OF SURVIVAL & SUCCESS.
B. Personally engage in lots of risky combat against overwhelming odds and win every time - VERY LOW CHANCE OF SURVIVAL & SUCCESS!

Our plan than should be, I think, 1-A. We aim to build ourselves up as the leader of a mercenary company we own and gain public support via news media PR and picking our fights.

Seriously? The oldest trick in the book?

Where the hell is our mother/bodyguard?

WHY IS EVERY DRINK ALWAYS POISONED!?

>>357540

I don't think she's been poisoned, the bartender just has short patience for swaggering tourists.

>>357540
A better question is why do people keep on chugging strange drinks offered to them by shady men.

>>357547
This is a valid point. One would think all these space commandos, lost heirs to the throne, lonely tourists, and criminal masterminds would be more careful. Ah well.

>>357540

The ironic thing is before people started getting upset about it, it was probably going to just be a strong alcoholic drink. Now Starit would be a fool to pass up the opportunity to slip in a mickey. PLOTWARD HO

Not everyone can think of everything all the time. Most things only appear obvious in hindsight.
This is exactly why the characters depend on your suggestions. So make them.

Now focus on dealing with the situation at hand, and let it be a lesson for next time.

>Not everyone can think of everything all the time. Most things only appear obvious in hindsight.
Some things are obvious to everyone who has a brain... the problem with tg is that many posters don't.
Consider if you will how many people tried voting for whoring out the main character, the virgin teenager princess.

>>357557

I don't think at any point was her virginity mentioned was it? Where did that even come up if it did!?

Starit 2012/04/30(Mon)13:56 No. 52069 ID: 31015f
File 133581941921.png - (162.69KB , 1200x640 , houses.png )

Ok, so someone asked me to make like a little chart with the crests and features of the five Ziraneé Houses, I thought it was a good idea and that more people would like to see it, even if just out of curiosity, so here it is.

About differences in behavior and politics: They’re actually not really dependant on the House they belong to, but their Queen. Most Ziraneés are so loyal to their current queens that they’ll adapt to her way of thinking, points of views and politics. They’ll rarely openly question her, only in extreme cases. So, for example, during the reign of Lyra V’Azhue, most Azhue citizens followed her example, being pragmatic, resourceful and determined. For the same reason, right now the Yrian house is the most open to trades with other species and civilizations, they also tend to be more tolerant and hedonistic.

Now I know that feeling of getting into a quest right at the last link in a chain of updates where the suggesters kept dropping the ball, our character is backed into an inescapable corner, and the few choices left look like they all lead to the same unavoidable bad fate. *sigh*

Starit, if you don't mind answering, would Suria laying down her weapons and surrendering have led to a significantly better outcome, or the possibility of one, or would the only difference be that she got cuffed instead of stunned, or just ended up stunned either way? I'm guessing that I should have gone with my first instinct to surrender instead of jumping on the bandwagon that greatly overestimated Suria's abilities.

And asking this is about two weeks too late to make a difference, but was the recap post >>/quest/527391 also a retcon of Suria's inventory? Because according to >>/quest/440624 and >>/quest/444269 she had the weird force field gun and a universal toolkit on her in addition to the laser gun and stun whip, and there was no money left on the clean card. I'm guessing the weird gun shouldn't have been allowed to fit in the dress, but the toolkit might have. Having that might have changed our actions, but it's moot by now.

I didn't want to surrender because her aunt is at the party and since we look like we're part of the azhue clan I was afraid they would just turn us over to her which would be game over. Plus whatever we do now I hope they'll blame her aunt so we'll inadvertently hurt her while were try to build up an army to take her down.

>>74847

Yeah, I confess I retconned the weird gun, because it wouldn't make sense that if her captors left her with that. She still had the toolkit, even if it wasn't specified in the recap. My bad. Still, given the options, it wouldn't have changed the situation (the toolkit doesn't have a welder, before anyone asks.)

And different actions might or might have not given different results, I'm sorry but I can't answer to that.

>>74860
Thanks for clearing up the inventory stuff. Guess it also means we didn't have any cash left, though it really doesn't matter anymore now. And I understand you not wanting to give anything away about what may or may not have happened.

>>74852
Surrender or not, for what Suria did up to that point she was going to be brought to a holding cell no matter what. But if she surrendered they likely would have restrained her instead of stunning her, leaving a tiny possibility of escape while she was led to the cell. Even if there was zero chance to escape along the way, since Suria didn't have to sleep off the stun she may have been brought before the executive director before Zurabai, getting our word in before that snake-bitch's.

>>74874
eh,don't think it matters anymore anyhow as I'm pretty sure we're fucked now unless some kind of twist or deus ex machina happens.

I think the big difference surrendering might have made was we wouldn't have had to spend a longish while unconscious. Which means we might have been dragged before the ant-boss before our Aunt escaped the illusion shenanigans. That would have put us in a slightly better position, where we might have been able to find an angle and play things to our advantage. Well, more so than we can here. We don't have an angle with Auntie. She just needs us dead.

>>74881
she was never under the illusion, both her and her bodyguard had chip in them the protected them from the illusion.

Before we get into trouble by overestimating the capabilities of Suria's personal shield could you clarify a few things about it, Starit? Like, can it absorb the strike of a physical weapon such as a hammer or knife? Will it block the stunning effect of a stun whip or other non-lethal weapon that uses direct contact to stun? What about physical projectiles such as bullets, darts, or thrown items? And can it only take three hits before depleting its power cell?

>>75699

Oops I should've read this earlier, shouldn't I?

The shield only deflects energy projectiles, such as laser and plasma beams. It should be able to protect her fro stunning whips and rays too.

It will not protect her from any kind of physical attacks tho. Any kind of melee weapons, darts, anything thrown at her or the remote possibility of firearms... the shield won't stop those.

The shield should take between 5 or 7 hits before it runs out of juice. It will need new batteries then.

>>75728
Thanks for the reply, Starit. So Suria's shield is down to about 4 to 5 hits, depending on how strong the hits are, yes?

I assume the shield batteries are not rechargeable, or if they are they require a special charger or more time than we have to recharge, so how common are compatible replacement batteries? Even ones that would only work for one or two hits?

>>75746

The batteries in the unit she's wearing aren't rechargeable, but rechargeable batteries can be bought and used in the same model.

Of course there's no time now to charge them, so she's stuck with the ones she has for now.