Messages

151

World / Re: The Mercantile Guild

« on: November 16, 2015, 04:34:20 pm »

if the yeshans' economy cant support the expansionist pushes, then it seems plausable. if they economy of the yeshan empire CAN support its expansionistic philosophy, then we might see the reverse, that the empire spreads apace with its means, and the merchantile guild is ultimtely confronted with a very large, rapacious neighbor to the north who might not have much compunction about taking controll of lands more previously controlled by guildsmen. if there is no financial leverage to hold over yesha's head, then its going to come down to how well the two nations behave  if they cant cripple the yeshan economy with an economic attack and take over that way, and have to throw down in a ship war (which, lets face it... we all wanted.)  it might be that at the beginnign of hostilities between the yeshans and the MG, the trade flow stops along the borders of yesha, and both sides start suffering very badly, in yesha they cant sell their stuff, in the guild there's less stuff, and fewer people to sell it to. before the blood starts raining from the sky, we might see serious problems within the two nations.

152

World / Re: The Mercantile Guild

« on: November 16, 2015, 01:51:14 am »

as to the chaledonians being a long lost region of a larger nation of wich the fjordlandrs were part, from what we know of the chaledonian history, we know tat they have been isolated since before the great environmental disasters that brought low the rest of the world, but because of their resources, they didnt suffer with the ecological destruction of the rest of the world, in fact as i recall, they didnt even notice. when a fjordlander showed up there in an airship built on the gabrielan archetype, they realized they could cross the obscenely treacherous pass between the island of chaledon and the mainland by air, and when they did were appalled by the ecological destruction they found in the rest of the world.

what interests me with all this is how the merchantile guild would use the relative defecits and strenghts of the various nations to make a tidy profit, and with this profit, i imagine fund and create a powerful fleet of airships both of their own design, and also likely a smattering of foreign ships as well, both adapted and if need be, hired outright.

as for their involvement with the yesha, there's no reason to only suspect their involvement with one another, the yesha are the largest faction on the map both in terms of naval power, size and presumably raw industrial resources (and therefore presumably a large number of manufactured goods as well) OF COURSE they are trading with one another, the mercantile guild could not pass up such an opportunity!!
The MG is a group of traders so close to psychotically obsessed with gaining wealth through trade that i wouldnt doubt that the other factions couldn't help but look at them askance. they aren't EXACTLY warmongers, but they are prepared for EVERY contingency, and prepared to make a profit no matter what happens. the profit margins for proviting warships to warring states would undoubtedly be astronomical, and as such, we must assume that the MG would negotiate EITHER non agression treaties so they can sell war suplies to both sides for a HUGE margin, or cast their lot in with one side or the other either for a lot of cash (whatever cash is in this world) or for some kind of OVERBEARING advantage over a faction that harried them.

153

World / Re: The Mercantile Guild

« on: November 15, 2015, 10:43:49 pm »

the baronies have huge mountain ranges, and i dont know if this is entirely facetious, but i thogut there was usually iron deposits in mountains... have i played too many RPGs? maybe i have... at any rate it does seem that besides probably some wood and definitely salted fish, the fjordlanders are not fantastically natural resource rich. it's not very well defined what the landscape of the fjordlanders is, but we can look at the map, and it looks like a lot of ocean, and some forests, and a metric ton of fjords. my assumption that king Gregor would like shiny stuff from other parts of the world was based on the fact that he was king and therefore likely to want luxury goods, and luxury goods are prime trade.

154

World / Re: The Mercantile Guild

« on: November 14, 2015, 07:44:43 pm »

my feelings about that conflict is something like a juxtaposotion between making something for yourself, and stealing it from someone else. also in the lusse's travels entry for anglean raiders, it says that the chaladonians have offered (for no clear reason other than 'peace' but who really beleives that...) have offered protection to the villagers of Hanat against raids from the angelans.

in that respect, the guild are "both" they would be happy to create a cutting edge technology EVERYONE would be willing to buy for a LOT, they would love that, but also willing to buy something on the cheap in cathedral and sell it for a lot in Nalm. that said part of their infrastructure is having a navy powerful enough to protect, as much as it is economical, their trade fleets.
im imagineing from waht i know of the various nations what sorts of trade goods the MG would be interested in, please jump in anyone if you think of somethign i didnt, or disagree on any point. here goes

Order of Chaledon:
as you mentioned the chaledonians have some measure of biotech, i am uncelar however if it is genuinely sweet advanced gene manipulation or just sophisticated husbandry and unique and very useful breeds of normal-ish animals or even animals that have survived there in the seemingly undisturbed natural landscape of the former world that have gone extinct and therefore are unknown in the rest of the world. the exotic or bizarre animals would OBVIOUSLY delight the rarefied sensibilities of a merchant lord, and as such we'd imagine the upper echelons would want them. also depending on what kinds of medicinal or biological marvels could be traded for (just because chaledon doesn't want it to get out or doesn't offer it OPENLY doesn't mean there wouldn't be a contraband market the guildsmen would be part of.)

Anglean Republic:
having the most advanced weapons would mean they would be able to use fewer vessels to protect their trade routes, so a certain amount of either original r&d or buying blueprints from other nations. presumably the Angleans who would pay a LOT for raw materials, which they are perpetually short of, but and have a lot of super sweet tech for sale,

Arashi League:
Despite years of intermittent conflict, the arashi who have similarly sweet tech from examining salvaged old world vessels that have crashed in the desert, but have their own serious natural resource issues, but in food and water, rather than ship-making materials, which they have a lot of because of the constant influx of wrecks in the desert. as such, a courageous merchant trader might be tempted to bring water and food to an arashi city to made a tidy profit.

Fjord Baronies:
Fish i guess? the fjordlanders basic governmental makeup suggests to me that there are lords and nobility of various means who woudl also be interested in luxury goods as well. the baronies in the past had been largely agricultural, and given that the area is relatively green, it might easily be that they are big on the food exporting business. other than that we dont really know much about them, they also have large cities and forests and mountains, so they might be fairly well off for natural resources. given that baronies are GENERALLY fairly self sufficient, or else the lord wouldn't hold the political and economic autonomy that they must to maintain his barony. it might be that the merchantile guild there woudl be more like traders of general goods. exporting raw materials: wool, wood, ore, etc, and importing finished items: textiles, metals and other finished products of all varieties that  city folk and craftsmen would want.

Yesha: Like the baronies i imagine the trade going in and out of yesha would be nuanced in terms of playing the markets than the angleans or the arashi who have unavoidable and serious resource needs. the yesha would probably be importing and exporting luxury goods of many kinds, along with a variety of manufactured goods, and given that they control the flayed hills, probably iron and apparently water come out of that region.

SOOOO, who knows if jess will show up and be like... that's not like that at ALL, but till then, lets have some fun!

155

World / Re: The Mercantile Guild

« on: November 14, 2015, 12:58:15 am »

i feel like ive done a fair bit of back research, and have no idea where you decided that chaledon and the arashi were once one nation, given that chaledon is an island across the whole map, and famous for being isolated during the catastrophe, so much so they didnt even realize there had BEEN a catastrophe.
as for the trading dangerous tech, the chaledonians have lots of natural resources, but not a lot of ancient tech, as such have created a lot of NEW tech, stuff they actually understand, so i dont imagine they woudl want potentially catastrophic ancient tech from the arashi league.

156

World / Re: The Mercantile Guild

« on: November 12, 2015, 03:41:53 pm »

the arashi can sustain a war because they are inherantly scavengers by nature, whatever teh war was about you can bet that he arashi sold all the wrecked ship parts and the dead soldiers gear. they are sustained by two aspects: firstly that there is a lot of old tech lying in the desert for one reason or another, and so they are similar to the angleans in that their technology is based on adapting and reverse engineering the ancient tech, and as such they have pretty fantastic technology. secondly, the arashi can always find NEW wrecks worth salvaging, ships destroyed and cargo spilled on the dunes by natural causes or attack by ambush...
as for essential supplies that cant be found in the desert, namely food most likely, they can trade for it legitimately, selling the srap and pillaged goods from the MG to have enough cash to buy food and supplementary water
i sort of want to steer this back to the MG, as there is a discussion of arashi culture and tactics elsewhere.

as for the fine points of the dispute between teh league and the guild, i always assumed that the arashi were harrying the guildsmen's trade routes. theres nothing to be gained form conquering large swathes of desert (unless the oases that the arashi cities are centered around are rare enough that the guildsmen who also live in a ashen plain might covet, although they travel enough that i cant imagine they couldnt find water somewhere not surrounded by hardened desert dwellers.) so unles teh arashi wanted big swathes of stinking fetid ash wastes, i have to assume there are caravans or convoys passing over the deserts that the desert people were attacking, causing the guild to decide to put an end to their aggression once and for all, and attacked them, out of self defense, of course

157

World / Re: The Mercantile Guild

« on: November 11, 2015, 01:51:49 am »

i tried catching up on the cantina stories but there is just way too much to get through to start at the beginning...

basically we know where they started, and have some idea of the people now through knowledge of their current government, sort of, and their culture, again sort of, because of their dress and the faction highlight.

im having a hard time squaring the merchant guild as mafiosos given how they dress and where they came from. its certainly possible that there are merchant families that weird tremendous power, but because of the origin of the fleet as a governmental group and the fact that we know they have a formal military of some kind, im thinking it might be like the navy in the age of sail, except more concerned with economic advantage and control than military advantage and control, ie. the fleet is a branch of the governmental armed services. you'd enlist to be a merchant sailor, your money would be split between the merchant guild that runs the fleets and the captains and crews keep some of course, as they did for capturing prices in teh Royal navy. this woudl allow for the extraordinary wealth of the merchant captains as we know exists, as well as a cohesive military, especially one that could maintain a grueling war with the arashi for years. if the trading fleets were privatized, they wouldn't bother fighting the arashi, there's no percentage in fighting hardened targets when there are markets in cathedral.

158

World / Re: The Mercantile Guild

« on: November 09, 2015, 03:55:22 pm »

the origins of the merchant fleet were not for money and power though, so if you are right, wed have to explore that transition from an exploratory fleet centered around curing a plague (which they end up succeeding at) transitions, after the plague is cured, to the family buisness mafioso system you envision.  whatever the intentions of the fleet at its inception, we still dont know who it was that sent them, so it may not be a transition at all, it might have been the richest families to begin with that sent out the explorers.

that said, the fleet of ships to protect the web of marketplaces sounds more like the fleet that found the cure, while the merchants themselves might have to rely on the governmental fleet to protect them. if it were ME i woudl be very leery of huge corporations with private armies vying for control of the skies. the more successful the merchants become, the more dangerous they become (unless of course as i have suggested that the business of trading is so volatile that the individual merchant companies don't survive for ever, and will eventually get a run of bad luck and fall apart.) if the government maintains a strict ownership over teh military escorts on convoys it solves two problems as i see them:
1: what happened to the exploratory fleet? they are all very capable sailors and dealers, but they didn't ALL find the cure, and some are certainly more capable than wealthy, so what did they do as a society with these altruistic capable sailors? made them the navy of course to go to strange lands where brave polyglots would be uniquely able to do the job.
2: it helps the government stay in power! having the rich families have to rely on you to keep them safe creates the reliance on one another (what normal people call 'cooperation') and the specialization required for seamless trade across the world, and keeps the government (probably the heads of all the guild's merchant houses) is therefore invested in the safety of the merchandise, and the merchants invested in the guild. gotta pay your dues or the guild wont keep your ships safe, and if you dont pay, nobody will keep you safe, and the angleans or the arashi will pick you off faster than you can say 'all aboard for Nalm.'

159

World / Re: The Mercantile Guild

« on: November 05, 2015, 01:11:21 am »

        the mercantile guild is a government that is a conglomerate of merchant companies, they have a treaty which I've forgotten the name of, so it seems likely they pay some tithe to a centralized government, likely to pay for some kind of contract enforcement agency of some kind. also likely that these funds are also what fund the mercantile guilds naval ships that they use to escort and protect the trading convoys that are the life-blood of the nation from raiders (likely Arashi or Anglean attack, given their geography and philosophical predisposition.)
       I still don't know how the guild's actual merchants act, and who their allegiance is to. from the fluff their trade fleet begins because of an altruistic drive to find the cure for the disease ravaging their homeland. we have no way to know how much of that attitude still survives to the present day. depending on what the treaty says, and how much of that altruistic attitude survives to present day, the fleet could be the mafioso style you invision, or actual governmental agents of some kind, serving the interests of Vyshtorg. i guess we will have to wait till someone at muse gives us some hint as to what is in the treaty.

160

World / Re: The Mercantile Guild

« on: November 03, 2015, 02:05:16 am »

         we don't really know how much solidarity there is between the various merchant houses, or even really how the merchants are organised, whether it is a large number of independent freelancers because the markets and or merchants themselves are too volatile or too xenophobic (or merchants too territorial) to share or be allowed to share,  small number of large organised (perhaps as suggested-hereditary) "ruthless operator" maybe  mafia-y companies, or if they all work for a centralized government.
       we DO know that they have people in almost EVERY major city, and they all owe allegiance somehow to Vyshtorg, but not how much that allegiance is worth, or how the network is protected, either by the individual companies or by the guild with the navy as a national asset.

161

World / The Mercantile Guild

« on: October 18, 2015, 03:47:12 pm »

so we have talked about all of the factions, except for the MG.
what we know: the mercantile guild came about after a plague struck the lands to the south, decimating the population and driving the pilots across the land to desperately find a cure for their country-men and -women. In their travels to find a cure they developed a large network of contacts, when the cure was found, they used these contacts to create a huge trade empire. they have outposts all over the world, and trade routes connecting presumably most if not every city.
they control territory to the south in an area called "the vastness" and their capital city is Vyshtorg. Their bird is the swan, their colors are gold and white. the Mobula is based on a Mercantile guild design, having a lot of storage space for transporting goods, good visibility for spotting ambushes, and LOTS of guns for fending them off. the railings are sophisticated but not ostentatious, as the wealth brought by the trade empire has not caused them to forget that their forefathers created the trade empire to rescue their people from plague, a plague which claimed the lives of too many of their citizens.
nowadays their trade empire spans across the world, but because of the ubiquitous dangerous from raiders of various kinds, they have a vast naval fleet to perform escort duties and protect their interests. they have been in some kind of conflict with the Yeshans for a while, although i think i remember someone from muse saying that the conflict had died down some or even completely these days, likely due to either territorial disputes along their mutual border in the south-west of the map or the arashi's continued attacks on MG convoys of goods through the arashi desert and the wastes (the arashi desert it stands to reason is conrolled by the arashi, and we know the desert nomads, who I'm presuming are the arashi, captured Nalm because of lusse's travels entry on battle on the dunes, so it stands to reason they control  the desert between nalm and the arashi desert itself as well, if only because no one else could live there even if the wanted to, which they don't. I would love to hear from muse if this is incorrect)
SO: this is some of what we know, and some of what I have guessed. we are going to pass out of the canon into my feelings on the MG. some of it is shards of canon sourrounded by my own embellishment, so some things might make you think 'no duh, we already know that from the faction feature article." Yes you might very well have done, read on, there's more.
i imagine that the mercantile guild traders are like the elite of any large trade city.  they are dressed impeccably (although because of the history of the MG, not ostentatiously.)    we know they can speak many languages and can make a passable job in local customs of various kinds, especially in areas with which they trade often. the merchant companies themselves, although from a tradition of selfless service to the national benefit, have followed the arc of history away from altruism towards self interest. while some social conventions that are nods to the more idealistic age are maintained, the merchants and their companies serve money: that which allows them to survive as a merchant, and to thrive as such. they are 'ruthless operators,' as we heard from the prologue video, who survive most likely because they value so highly their own survival (and by that I, of course, mean the stacks of gold seen in the same.) the mercantile guild acts with all the compassion of a epidemic, when they need to, ironically. the design of the mobula suggests something about their psychology: they are not at all squeamish about using violence. you would expect a ship designed to defend trade caravans or trade goods to be able to defend itself against attack in some kind of reactive way: guns on the sides and back, where danger might be lurking from a hiding foe. what we see is a ship that is designed with excellent sight lines, and is intended to sight, turn to face and engage fully, overwhelmingly any threat to the interests of the guild.
That is how i imagine them, chime in, how do you see them?

162

Gameplay / Re: Ship design concept: Aircraft Carrier

« on: October 04, 2015, 03:59:55 pm »

given how hard it might be to even hit somethign moving as fast as im imagining the airplane must fly, i was thinking that all damage to the thing might not be able to be repaired, you just fly it till it falls apart on you. you can set up the airplanes up in advance in the loadout screen, and if they shoot out the gun but dont kill you, you should go buy lottery tickets! i was imagining the mechanic working more like a heavy gun, it would be a airplane launcher, it just hurled you into space, and you have to pick up speed as you fall enough to fly. there woudl be launchers of various kinds, as there are various airplanes designed already to come in alliance mode. so as i imagined it, youd have a ship with a heavy weapon loadout option, like a galleon for example, and just stick one of these launchers on it, and away we go! i like the idea of having a real feasable reason to take ANYTHING but the spyglass as a gunner or engineer, so id hope that the piloting tools would be useful. i was thinking that in terms of gameplay, the wheel wouldn't turn the ship exactly, but tip the ship, so you could do barrel rolls and the like, i think it woudl also allow you to take really tight corners and stuff.
the weapons and handling, i think it might be cool that the weapons were unique to each airplane chassis, i think there's a Gatling one, a bomber and an incendiary bomber as i recall. that sounds so very awesome. balance woudl be SOOO hard, the guns arent really designed to hit something that small and fast, and even though you cant just camp a pyramidion's blindspot because you cant stop moving, it might still be wayy overpowered to be able to bring 2 heavy weapons to bear and a light weapon and a airplane to boot... (im assuming the gunner is cycling his hwachas or whatever guns he has downstairs)

163

World / Re: What faction will you fight for?

« on: October 02, 2015, 11:08:43 am »

Depending on how the factions turn out, in either going with the barony or the Arashi, even though my clan last time I checked was more excited by the order of Chaladon, so I guess we will have to negotiate haha

164

World / Re: Lies, Dirty Lies, and Propaganda

« on: October 01, 2015, 10:27:39 pm »

the chaledonians think they are so clever, with their farms, their 'science' (as if these farmers knew the first thing about the open sky) and their soft hearts.  i have heard them say that their farmers work harder than anyone, but we all know they spend half of their time working out how to do less work, these 'acedemics' are nothing more than petulant children, trying to make their comfortable life COMPLETELY devoid of all strain. we know of course that it is that hardship that makes men out of babies, that without the testing desert, noone would truely know if they were strong enough to really be free. THINKING you are free is simply not enough. only when you have felt the desert sun on your back, and laughed it off, can you say that you can survive anywhere, that you can survive anything, that no man can set you against something you cannot overcome, that anything is possible: that you are TRULY free. these green worshipers think that a comfortable life is a good life, they dont even know how to look

janis, instructor of boys

165

World / Re: The Anglean Republic

« on: October 01, 2015, 08:48:56 pm »

as i understand the information that we have so far, the angleans are raiders: that's how they interact with the outside world primarily. other factions dont really like them, and they are a threat to everyone, but they aren't going to INVADE. They dont want more territory, they want your stuff! the angleans i think was said in one fo the pax videos are technologically advanced, but resource poor. this explains why they have to keep raiding: they need more metals and food and feul and bullets and stuff, or their whole society is going down the tubes (haha get it because they all live underground!)  the angleans are primarily subterranian dwellers living in the ruins of the old world, they have used those ruins to develop seriously advanced tech.
as for government, they are a republic, that means they have representatives who assemble to vote on laws and such.  it might be elected representatives, or heads of clans, or whatever! republics might have some kind of executive branch, king, prime minister, president, consul etc.
hyper teched, resource poor. i'd imagine they might have some trade or interaction of some kind with the chaledonians, wo are natural resource rich