Sparta-Gaian relations

[Kassiopeia]

They want to give us Doc: Flex? I bet he'll feel silly after he realises what he just told us. The Gaian pressuring attempts feel pretty silly too, is that the best they can do, was my first thought.

I'll start drafting replies within the hour.

[Kassiopeia]

(That means you can decide what we'll say, in the meantime)

[Googlie]

LL

[Googlie]

As an aside, eventually the Angels, gaians and Morgan will meet the Uni and PK's (or maybe buy the commlinks from Yang)

We need to make sure that we trade everything we get back to the AI so that there is nothing that the other teams can give in exchange. ('cos to buy from the AI, they're now asking in the 225 ec's range, and it'll go up as the game progresses, but the AI will still trade so long as it sees a fair exchange)

All this in the context of .... the others might be able to get Ethical Calculus from Zak or Lal

And as another aside ...... I wonder where the Gaians think we are on the map. We must have surprised them when we appeared beside their mindworm in Yang's territory

[Googlie]

(Note that this post is repeated, for convenience, several posts below)


How about:

The Junta has been considering your request to have us trade to you the technology of Ethical Calculus.

We do realize its importance to the Gaian Union (with its concomitant benefits - the building of Childrens' Creches and changing to a Democratic social engineering choice, which together with running a Planned economy greatly facilitates population growth - especially now that you have the Gene Splicing technology)

For us, too, Ethical Calculus is a key technology, but for different reasons.

If we do decide to make it available to the Gaian Union, it would only be on the following terms, which are not negotiable:

• There would be a trade embargo to third parties for a period of fifteen (15) years
• The Gaian Union would undertake not to build the Citizens' Defense Force Special Project upon researching or acquiring Intellectual Integrity
• The Gaian Union will pay an annual "technology licence fee" to the Spartan Federation of 20 ec's for 10 years. (At any time the balance of the 200 ec's price can be paid as a lump sum)

(It may interest you to know that we already have the technology Doctrine Flexibility. We would be willing to entertain trade offers for it from the Gaian Union)

[Kassiopeia]

we mustn't hike the price up too much. What's more valuable than any amount of credits, right now, is to have them locked in a no-embargo no-CDF position. So maybe 20 credits a turn?

[Googlie]

I'd go along with that (now edited) - and 180 ec's is what it takes to upgrade our 3 rovers to unarmored Impact rovers

We'd better wait until more of the Junta have considered it, though.

maybe a terse "The Junta is considering your request" kind of message right now (more diplomatically than that, though)

And maybe also saying "while we acknowledge that your trading of Industrial Automation to us was indeed helpful, we submit that Gene Splicing, in return, is of not insignificant value to you"

[Googlie]

I guess the gaians didn't "double deal" with the Angels re our commlink

It's been 6 hours or so since the Angels' turn was downloaded, and no-one has contacted us

EDIT: wrong!! see here

[Kassiopeia]

The Junta has convened and is deliberating the matter at hand, and your proposal - due to circumstances beyond our control, we need some extra time to achieve a quorum. Fortunately, as you yourself put it, there is no urgency involved.

I would like to take this opportunity to note, though, that I am sure anyone would be happy to trade without any reluctance Industrial Automation for Gene Splicing, which as a technology is key to any factional long-term strategy. The Junta naturally has a long enough memory to recall such a transaction - you will find the memory of the Junta to be very long.

I'm thinking about the last sentence here. I like the tone - a sort of Godfather-like "do not even consider anything shady". I don't think it comes out as too aggressive, either? Perhaps chance "you will" to "you might", as a sort of gesture of "we haven't lost all hope with you".

[Googlie]

Maybe go even further with this initial reply along the lines of:

If I interpret correctly your Voice of the Planet Special Issue #1: The Others the Gaian Union possesses the technology Progenitor Psych

If this is indeed the case, we would be interested in acquiring it from you

[Googlie]

LOL - crossposted

But I like your version (and the "might" as well, but perhaps ending with a "very long indeed ", which further strengthens it.

Then add the line on Prog Psych, to show that we are indeed open for business (maybe we give flex for Prog and social psych?)

[Kassiopeia]

Added Prog Psych line, and the "might" and the "indeed", and sent it off.

[Googlie]

Just repeating this suggestion (so that the Junta members won't have to go back twenty posts to find it - I've edited it anyway, pointing to here)

Suggestion for Kassiopiea to send to the Gaians:

The Junta has been considering your request to have us trade to you the technology of Ethical Calculus.

We do realize its importance to the Gaian Union (with its concomitant benefits - the building of Childrens' Creches and changing to a Democratic social engineering choice, which together with running a Planned economy greatly facilitates population growth - especially now that you have the Gene Splicing technology)

For us, too, Ethical Calculus is a key technology, but for different reasons.

If we do decide to make it available to the Gaian Union, it would only be on the following terms, which are not negotiable:

• There would be a trade embargo to third parties for a period of fifteen (15) years
• The Gaian Union would undertake not to build the Citizens' Defense Force Special Project upon researching or acquiring Intellectual Integrity
• The Gaian Union will pay an annual "technology licence fee" to the Spartan Federation of 20 ec's for 10 years. (At any time the balance of the 200 ec's price can be paid as a lump sum)

(It may interest you to know that we already have the technology Doctrine Flexibility. We would be willing to entertain trade offers for it from the Gaian Union)

[Googlie]

Extracted from the Embassy files - posted by Illuminatus
You have been honest with us, so you deserve an answer

I feel so ashamed ( )

True, we have not lied (our words were chosen very carefully) and we cannot control what inferences may be drawn from our "truths", so I guess we have been "honest"

GGLIE

[Maniac]

Originally posted by Googlie
If I interpret correctly your Voice of the Planet Special Issue #1: The Others the Gaian Union possesses the technology Progenitor Psych

If this is indeed the case, we would be interested in acquiring it from you

What's the purpose of acquiring Progenitor Psych now? Would you prefer to research Adaptive Economics immediately after EcoEng? If not, would acquiring this tech before we really need it not just increase our tech costs?

Then add the line on Prog Psych, to show that we are indeed open for business (maybe we give flex for Prog and social psych?)

What value do you attach to SocPsych?
(IIRC Zakharov has Social Psych, so we could steal it from him with a probe team if we wanted. Assuming a 2c->1min exchange rate, and assuming a 50% capture rate for the 30-min probe team (thus 50% chance of "losing 60c"), I'd consider SocialPsych to have a value of not much more than 30 credits for us.)


I'm beginning to wonder. When we first contemplated invading Zakharov, the major reason I was in favour was because we could gain lots and lots of techs by doing so. But now IIRC the only techs Zak has that we don't have are Biogenetics, Social Psych and the tech they're researching now. So our probe teams which I assume would accompany our invasion forces have increasingly less to do, and UoP invasion becoming less lucrative.