The Euphoric side effect means that the dynasty is likely to be determined almost entirely by MD1C luck. Well done burying it in the middle of a sea of harmless text, though.

Won’t be long before MD1C can’t be used, so that seems unlikely to be much of a factor.

What an odd thing to say, given that there’s no obvious sign that the current Alert is failing, and you’re the person mostly responsible for success or failure on it.

Assuming it does succeed, then we’re going to have around 8 day’s worth of MD1Cs even if all the missions fail from then on and hit the Energy system. That’s plenty of potential MD1Cs even worst-case.

If we don’t get a command quorum for the Energy Malfunction, I can’t do anything about it. Speaking of which, are you going to participate in approving the roster?

I just disapproved. I can’t see Subroutines making much of a difference in the Human vs. Androids stakes in the rest of the dynasty, and especially if this passes, it makes Human vs. Human frustratingly random and unfun. So I say, let the Energy system burn.

Not to mention, that you could just Sabotage the Mission for a -3, putting you in the lead ahead of Sylphrena, if the roster gets approved. That’s bad for me, even worse for Sylphrena, and I can’t see any real reason you wouldn’t do it.

Oh wow, I also just realised a likely ulterior motive behind this.

Choosing Euphoric as the Emotion that people are meant to switch back and forth between means that people playing to win are going to be Happy half the time, and thus we’d typically have a Happy atmosphere. There’s no flavour reason to pick that particular potion, as far as I can see, so either this is intentional or a really awkward coincidence. The fact that it gives a bonus for Happy too makes it even more likely to be the case.

A Happy atmosphere has an existing effect: it makes Trials harder to pass. In other words, Bucky’s trying to make it impossible to eliminate players via Trial (presumably hoping that it all happens via Mark instead).

This is getting me really suspicious at this point. Making Trials harder is pretty much the exact opposite of the opinions Bucky’s expressed in the past, so Bucky’s likely doing all this to benefit somebody else.

Hmm… good point.  CoV

Making Trials harder to pass is Depressed, not Happy.  Thus the side effect you’re talking about is keeping the Atmosphere off Unhappy (easier) and Depressed (harder), but with Unhappy slightly more accessible.

Hmm, I guess that’s what I get for going from memory.

The rest of the reasoning still applies, though.

Oh, haha, when checking the rule, I just noticed the Listless + Euphoric combo, which lets you change to Happy for free. So the optimal play would be to be Listless, then you’d be able to get -3 Clearance for each MD1C.

So in other words, this proposal is basically “Sylphrena wins” in disguise, because Sylphrena could get down to 0 the instant it passed even with no MD1C involved (he’s Listless right now), and another -3 for each successful MD1C. This probably isn’t malicious, but it sure doesn’t benefit me, and it doesn’t benefit the vast majority of other Humans either.

Hmm…  running the full analysis, Happy+Listless+Exhausted means there is a 1/3 chance of -3 (and a 1/3 chance of losing Listless, requiring 1 fatigue to fix) for a net EV of -2/3 Clearance per MD1C compared to -3/4 Clearance per MD1C without Listless.

And yeah, Sylphrena has a head start - with or without this proposal.

The mere fact that he has a head start doesn’t mean that it’s to most player’s benefit to pass a proposal that lets him get even further ahead.

Eh, the intent was simply to break the Josh/Brendan monopoly on clearance reduction.  Do you have a better suggestion for that?

Well, I already passed a proposal to help stop that.

If it’s still a problem, we could Disable Brendan, especially given how his actions are not very Human-like. Sylphrena’s put up a Trial about that right now, and I have to say that I agree with it.

Disabling Brendan wouldn’t fix anything, just give the reigns to a new Pilot.

Disabling someone doesn’t reroll their Command Role.

Kevan and Josh have both DEF’d.  Further DEFS do nothing.

Ah, good point. CoV. 

Oh, you guys and your Sam-and-Diane routine.

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