Contact with the Hive

[johndmuller]

There was also a similar wierd thing many moons ago where IIRC someone in the Hive posted something about us and the Cycon about the time we first met them. At the time, it was a little odd, but also attributable to speculation (both us and the Borg were then taking a lot of turn time) and/or random goat getting targetted on the Borg I suppose, since our goats seemed to be secure.

I also noticed that thread too late to see the original material, so I don't have any more or better ideas than the last time.

Certainly they can draw inference from keeping track of what techs we Pirates and the Borgs need from the Hive's collection, but that would be somewhat limited and not necessarily conclusive, depending on what techs they have as well as what we have. They could most likely have noticed that we and the Borg both got IndAuto at the same time or otherwise made deductions such as our noticing that both the Hive and Drones had IndAuto, but the Hive was missing one of the basic prereq's, meaning some trade or such had taken place.

There may be some useful info in the game file with the dialog between us and the Borg from the trade-negotiations box, should they care to wade through that.

OTOH, there could be something more shady going on, but in that case I would think that Voltaire would have been more conscious about keeping secrets and wouldn't accidentally post a thread in the wrong forum.

So I would go with another round of getting Drogue's goat, and I would say good for them, maybe they can get Maniac's too.

[Flubber]

NO negotiations other than that posted earlier. I was not copied on Voltaire's message. I would go back offering any lower level tech but do we really want biogenetics-- applied physics might be nice but I would frankly prefer to skip to impact.

AS for the mystery Hive posting about us, I have pm'ed Drogue and requested a copy, citing game fairness. I will post it here or in a separate thread for discussion.

[Flubber]

THis is the last message from the Hive


Sometime during the night a ship pulled into the Bay. Sleek and narrow the schooner could have only been built by the masterful shipwrights of the Peace. In the morning light the rover mapping expedition discovered the ship anchored to their northwest.

"Sir I think you should see this."

"Can it wait?", Kody sighed as he closed the blueprints.

"There appears to be a Peace ship outside and they're transmitting a message", the technician replied.

A look of surprise crossed Kody's face. "Patch the message in", he finally said.

The vidscreen activated and a tall bearded man with an eyepatch appeared. "After our long expeditionary journey. We hope we can have a fruitful exchange of trade and tech. Our Ambassador Cap'n Flubber deals with all that sort of thing. In the meantime here's a keg of Xenorum for the hard working and faithful hive brethern." From outside the tent a slight splash could be heard accompanied by faint cheers from the rover team.

"You better tell the men to save half for the CCC that or Voltaire will have them recycled if he finds out", Kody said ruefully to his aide.

Kody sat thoughtly for a moment then attempted to contact the chairman. An secretary answered, politely informing him that the chairman was not to be disturbed. He then tried to contact his peers, but there was a disappointing lack of response.

"Ambassador Flubber is requesting to speak with you", his aide said disturbing his train of thoughts.

"Of course patch him through."

"Greetings from the Peace faction. We were pleased that one of our citizens came in contact with yours such that messages may now be passed between us. We greet you in friendship." The figure in the vidscreen smiled and made a gesture of welcome. "I am ambassador Cap'n flubber, trade represenatative o' the council o' Cap'ns."

"Greetings ambassador Captain Flubber. It is indeed an honour to greet you.", Kody said nodding his head in respect. "I am Kody, I'm not much for titles though so the ones Voltaire gave me never stuck." Kody smiled at that thought.

"Greetings Kody", Flubber replied before launching into what sounded largely like a rehearsed speech. "Our faction is one of seabourne merchant traders. In that vein we would be interested in a treaty and possible tech trades."

That would agreeable to us as well, Kody thought silently.

"I will ask our operations cap'n to provide me with a list of techs we might be able to trade and if you could so the same, we might be well on the way to profitable dealings."

Flubber paused before continuing on. "All types of deals are considered . . . We are interested in pieces o' eight, tech , commlinks or anything else. So send me a message in a bottle and we can begin the wheelin' and dealin'"

"I have authorisation to make a few offers", Kody said. "The hive has the techs Biogenetics, Loyalty and Applied Physics. We can offer any two of those in exchange for flexibility."

Kody paused wondering how much he should reveal to the Peace. "We intercepted a few transmissions indicating you already have had dealings with the CyCon."

Kody forwarded the intercepted message before continuing. "Perhaps you would like to exchange the CyCon comm link in exchange for the Drone Comm link?"

"I'm giving you an invitation to come ashore and perhaps finish the negotiations there", Kody said smiling. "Your crew are of course invited too, we're having roasted mutobunny."

Kody grinned as he remembered how Rokossovky declared all mutant bunnies be destoried after getting a particularly bad sadle sore. It was a pity because the mutant bunnies were pretty fast. However, at least they made nice mutton.

"I will perhaps talk to you tonight after you have convened with your council." Kody bowed before shutting the vidscreen off.

Kody looked back at the blueprints. So little time and so many tasks to complete

[johndmuller]

Good to see that they're keeping up their half of the prose.

I'm still thinking that we can deal with each of the others for Doc:Flex without much difficulty if we can make deals where they can't retrade the Doc:Flex for a little while (long enough for us to find the Drones and see about trading it to them). While I dunno that it is long enough, I would think that we could expect them to accept a 5 year trade embargo in exchange for getting the Doc:Flex right away. If we want more time to make sure we find the Drones, we could start out asking for a 10 year embargo and if they didn't buy that, we could offer to limit the restriction so it only appled to the Drones in exchange for the longer period.

If we just think about the 'take any 2 of the 3 techs' offer they put on the table (putting aside the possibility that they have higher order techs that we might like better), I would be inclined to go for Doc:Loyalty for one, as they are likely to be the only source of that for a while (except of course that they may very well have already traded it to the Drones). After that, I might lean toward Applied Physics as the second.

I'm not particularly interested in the commlinks trade, as they will be a long time discovering the Borg on their own, and we should not be very long discovering the Drones.

[Flubber]

Johndmuller

I agree with your analysis on the techs offered but thought I would try for nonlinear or HEC as a requested tech for doc flex-- I don't know for sure that they have either but it would be fine to request it eh-- I would love to be able to skip app physics and pick it up from some AI super-cheap later if need be--

[Hercules]

I can go along with this.

[Makahlua]

That's good if we can't get good enough weapons just yet - extra armour might carry the edge against Roze

And I like one-for-one trades better anyway

[Hercules]

So have we advised them of our wishes. Are we trying to conclude a comprehensive deal at this time or simply a treaty with more detailed discussions as the turn comes round.

[Flubber]

I was waiting to see what people thought of my looking for a higher level tech rather than taking two lower level ones-- I'll wait about another 3-4 hours for opinions and then send them my wish list

Treaty-- Our econ rating is higher so we benefit more

No comm trades-- we will find the drones soon ( I won't say that)-- note we should consider selling comms if we get a sense that someone is close to building the EMpath guild-- the problem is that no one will pay once the guild is on its way if they expect council to be called

Trade-- we also have a lot of lower level bunk that I can offer them but my key would be to get a good weapons or armour tech in return for, our crap if I can manage it . Doc flex will be discussed but not really available yet unless the deal is super sweet

All trades to be subject to verification by a vote here

[johndmuller]

Opening with a request for a higer level tech is fine with me. as is the treaty and the no to comm trades.

Promises of future techs are OK with me too, although we may wish to be more careful about the exact wording so that we do not get into other situations like with the Borg researching Doc:Flex instead of something new to pay back their tech-debt to us. (We should also be leaning on the Borg to make sure that they refrain from any more of that activity.)

We may wish to engage the Hive and/or the Drones in pact(s) also, although when FM gets into vogue (IIRC, someone may already be in it), the balance of trade may turn against us if we are not willing to use FM ourselves. It is reasonably feasiible to negotiate a kick-back, however, or other quid pro quo, in exchange for an otherwise uneven trade balance. In principle, I have nothing against pacting with everyone. assuming the commerce is reasonably covered, and to the extent that the PUT and Borgs were not seriously exercised by our relations with their supposed enemies.

Once we trade the Doc:Flex to the Borg and/or PUT, they may not be long in finding each other; thus we would probably want to trade the links at that point. If we were sneaky (and of course we are), we could try to trade their links to both of them at the same time, although given the way that the game gives out reciprocal commlinks, we would have to manipulate it so that they had both accepted their deals to us before we accepted either of our deals to them.

[Flubber]

Originally posted by johndmuller .

Promises of future techs are OK with me too, although we may wish to be more careful about the exact wording so that we do not get into other situations like with the Borg researching Doc:Flex instead of something new to pay back their tech-debt to us. (We should also be leaning on the Borg to make sure that they refrain from any more of that activity.)

I am very careful with exact wording. Anyone that has negotiated with me knows that there are ALWAYS very specific rules. I would have suggested something like a 10 ec a turn fee for every turn after 5 turns it took them to repay the tech. Both numbers are negotiable but if you can't get an absolute guarantee of when a tech will be returned, you want to make sure to get something out of it

[Flubber]

MY latest message to the Hive


-------------------------------------------------------------


Greetings Honored Kody


WE can address your offer as part of a a discussion of what we are seeking and what we are offering in trade.

First we are seeking a treaty which we think is only fitting for two nations engaging in trade and commerce. We believe it to be a natural part of the friendly and strong relationship we seek.

WE do not seek the Drones comm freq at this time. Quite frankly, we believe we will meet them shortly anyway since it is no great leap to consider that they must be close to you. WE place a high value on commlinks but would entertain offers.

Our tech position has been to not trade our maps or doc flex to anyone ( needed time to bury our treasure you see). This has been modified somewhat in that it is possible that we could trade doc flex for the right price. However we know that this tech is not widely known on this world. So if we were to trade it we would seek a 10 year "no trading" clause for that tech. We would accept similar limitations if seeking a tech of yours if it was important to you.

WE also have available ind base, soc psych and doc mob.

You have offered us two of biogenetics, app physics, and doc loyalty for doc flex . . . We are not prepared to accept this deal at this time. While 2 techs for one is enticing and generous generally , the specific techs are not of much immediate interest and I believe that 2 of them have been offered to us by others on more than one occasion. Combine this with doc flex being the tech sought and we just don't see enough value there


WE are more interested to know if you have any higher level techs such as HEC, nonlinear, GS or other higher level techs or the prospect of acquiring them, and would be willing to trade such techs. Such techs would be of interest to us and we could certainly work a deal, including doc flex if that was what you sought.

Among the techs listed thus far, we could be interested in doc loyalty ( possibly for one of our techs -- not doc flex) - -- app physics is of marginal interest ( we would rather acquire the techs above it) and biogentics is almost worthless to us ( pressure domes have rec tanks built in)

There you go . .. No deal on your offer unfortunately but I think there is much room for reaching a deal. In dealing , we will consider all types of offers or requests including cash, comms, council votes, boundary agreements-- SP agreements and future tech considerations . . . basically anything you might want to discuss . All negotiations ARE subject to ratification but generally I have broached our dealings with the council before contacting you.

To summarize, we are looking for higher level tech than that offered and would be willing to deal. Doc loyalty is of some interest in a one-for one swap. App physics perhaps also but I would have to double-check on that one.

I apologize in my delay in contacting you and hope that this message has given you a sense of what we are looking for.


Ambassador Flubber

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I tried to be general enough to leave room to deal-- I truly am not that interested in app physics if there is any chance at all we can get the weapons tech above it. Also by not seeming eagar at all, we show that we place little value on those techs and therefore they won't expect much in return if we do want them

[Flubber]

Pacting with the Hive would almost certainly work to our benefit. The low Hive econ rating and the predisposition of the Hive members makes Planned a contining near-certainty so I won't broach kickbacks with them--

[FlameFlash]

I'm liking what's going on...

I'm going to try and be more responsive here in the threads instead of just on e-mail from now on...

I enjoyed how freaked out Kody was to the discovery that we discovered them. They were already handling a few internal matters and we just added to their issues, I loved it.

[Hercules]

It's a long summary( Flubbers), but in my view an accurate report on events so far.

I still think we are in a some sort of driving seat.

But I will not now underestimate the analytical capability of the Hive team.

Their spam capability is beyond compare