Realpolitik
- Planned info update by 3/23.
- The overhaul your mother warned you about. Bigger, better and more ambitious than it rightfully should be, yet it is.
- I remember it all so clearly...
- Like a nightmare I can't escape.
- A time of celebration!
- The diamond jubilee had come.
- Whispers from the shore.
- The birds brought with them a murmur.
- Fear the sea.
- It seeks thee.
Beware the...
- Who givest wit to Whales, to Apes, to Owls,
- And kindly speech, to fish, to flesh, to fowls,
- And spirit to men in soul and body clean,
- To mark and know what other creatures mean
- Which hast given grace to Gregory, no Pope,
- No King, no Lord, whose treasures are their hope
- But sinly Priest, which like a Streamer waves
- In ghostly good, despised of foolish knaves.
- Which hast (I say) given grace to him to know
- The course of things above and here below,
- With skill so great in languages and tongues:
- As never breathed from Mithridates lungs.
- To whom the hunter of birds, of mice and rats:
- Did speak as plain as Kate that thrunmeth hats,
- By means of whom is openly bewrayed,
- Such things as closely were both done and said.
- To him grant Lord with healthy wealth and rest:
- Long life to unload to us his learned breast.
- With fame so great to overlive his grave:
- As none I had erst, nor any after have.
(Im)permanence
- What is canon is unchangeable. The First Civilization fell and so too did the Second Empire.
- Skeletons were created (in the Floodlands?) and have no replacement for doing so. Tech has been lost, given up on or restricted in such a way that it does not re-enter broader society. Technological regression is a primary pillar to how Kenshi operates. The greatest advancements can be attributed as root cause for their collapse. Creating something which cannot be effectively controlled underlies this regressive pattern. It's not a question of why is the trend leading to primitivism... this much is obvious, the foundational elements which contributed to that technological height have been swept away causing a freefall effect. Adaptation itself has warped around the inversion of expected technological progression. You may say "Why are there no boats?" The appropriate question is "Why is the Skeleton mentioning lost tech?"
- The concept plays in a purposeful paradoxical fashion. The history of Kenshi colors the culture and modus operandi of interactions amongst the races. Skeletons have sight beyond sight, engaging in ways incomprehensible to anyone outside of those "in the know". This knowledge was once more widely shared and the tapestry of these relationships much clearer and easier to parse. No longer the case, for better or worse(?), that is both the question and answer.
Storylines
- Scarlet Crusade
- Rise of the Anzaian Clique
- The Stonemason's Secret
- The Society of Scholarly Nonsense
- A Man, A Wife and their "Leviathan"
- A Classy Cacti
- Tears of Myr
- Farmer Follies
- Mishap at Mirage
- You can't see! Try and catch me!
- War by the Book
- Treaty of Irdun
- Deadcat Deathclock
- Northern Harmony
- Flotsam, forever more
- An End to the World (As We Know It)
- Search for the Solution
- The Emergence of Sleeping Sickness
- Stay Away! Stay Away!
- Adventures in the Dark
- Syndicate Circus
- Slavery by Another Name
- Something About the Bugs
- Building Bridges to Nowhere
- None May Enter
- Long Ago, In a Temple Not Too Far From Here...
- Hermit's Promise
- Elitist Jerks
- The Hills Howl at Night
- Sermons for Vermin
- I'll show her! This time for sure!
- Baddest Bug Around (Is a Man!)
- Breaking Bad Habits
- If you build it...!
- The Songs of Shore Birds
- Ever been to Avarte?
- Gambling Games!
- Swamper Shuffle
- Them Bends (I can't get no sleep)
- The Best Scrap Ever!
- Handkerchief Incident
- Joke's On You
- Sturdy Sandals (Hot Sands)
- See Only Evil
- Emperor for an Evening
- Distant Sisters (and their squabbles)
- I'm In No Mood!
Chelae
- Now there's a name I haven't heard in quite some time... Did you know: was once the name shared with there very waters? Hmm, hmm, the bay of Chelae seen many a storm. The tide is cruel, the waves rough and the mist unrelenting. Something out there in the ocean sends the worst our way every now and then.
- Future notes
- Graveyard of Ships
- Mercurial Cliffs
- Mercy (on High)
- Ancient Airstrips
- Lighthouse Complex
- Myr (Sunken extents)
- Archipelago Island Hopping
- Chelae Bay (and the Northeastern disconnect)
Narko
- We have to win. This is not a mere obligation. Everything is at stake. Descend with care and caution. You will not find the abyss. For that is not what is... what we are faced with... our plight. The heart of darkness. The black sun beneath. You hear it too, don't you? Right down to the bone.
Okran
- Who...me? Hah, pay no mind! I'm but a humble gardener... planting seeds where I may... Look around you! Green and trees forever... In this verdant sea grows the crimson flower. Beautiful...isn't she?
Focus
- Nothing without cause and reason. The whole of the map plays a role. No truly hidden hands, deus ex machinas, and then, and then, and then...
- Systematized design
- N.E.W.S.
- Canon Route
- Compulsion Clock
- Crisis Procession
- Baton Caravans
- Gambling Mechanics
Narrative Phases
- The mod unfolds through a series of phases, stages, acts, chapters, etc.
- It (conveniently by design) proceeds with the potential crises along the latitudinal span.
- While the mod does rework the base game in many ways it still maintains the fundamental geopolitical balance of powers.
- This means the War in Bast is the focal point both in Vanilla Kenshi and Reapolitik. Events inherently branch from the course this war follows and the conclusion it reaches. Realpolitik ensures this conflict will seek a conclusion with or without player input - the wheels spin against the player at all times.
- Which deals with the DLU and crisis triggering. The Deadcat Deathclock is, as a rule, latched behind either the aftermath of the War in Bast (see the Treaty of Irdun scenario) or pronounced player affected activities throughout the north, acting primarily against parties other than the Cannibals (Unification can still occur in spite of warfare against Cannibal-kind, visit the ((future)) Cannibal Invasion notes).
- Thus...
- At the table:
- United Cities
- The Holy Nation (Scarlet Crusade)
- Dune Bandits
- Rebel Farmers
- Cannibal (Scouts, initially)
- Vagrants & Unaligned
- Side table:
- Flotsam Ninjas
- Deadcat
- Cannibals (Eastern)
- Cannibals (Western)
- Cannibal Hunters
- Tech Hunters & Machinists
- Slaver Nobles
- Traders Guild
- Shek Kingdom (Special condition!)
- Mercenary Guild
- Concerned parties:
- Noble Circle
- Peripheral Imperials
- Southern Imperials
- Anti-Slavers
- Reavers
- Crabbers
- Western Hive
- It's key to understand that the moment Realpolitik's overrides kick in is when we enter a state of organically branching reality. What the mod strives to do above all else is place appropriate guardrails on the mod's ability to proceed through the state network. Due to how busy the juggler can become at times and the wide variety of results within a rich network of possibilities the simple principle emerged
- PLAY BACKWARDS!
- Everything can be predicted when the outcomes are predetermined, no matter how cumbersome the in-between seems the answer set at both ends is known. Which leads to a question...
- How does The War in Bast conclude, since it must?
- A Holy Nation Defeat
- A United Cities Defeat
- A "Defeat" of Both, see below
- A Cannibal Victory
- A Rebel "Victory" (Not to be confused with...)
- A Bandit "Victory"
- Inconclusive Retreat (Read as Neutral "Victory")
- United Cities Total Victory
- Holy Nation Total "Victory"
- The Holy Nation outcome is the most conditional because it offers a good moment to bring up...
- The Canon Route
- The Holy Nation have a special role to play in the mod's overarching narrative. One of these points is dominated by the following fact
- The Holy Nation will never fully occupy the desert.
- Likewise, much of the Holy Nation's borders are either preset, subject to future loss or in a state of temporary access. This is kept in check by the procession of events and crises which occur throughout the mod's main storyline. Many things may occur in cases of Holy Nation victories - though for each expansion is an expected contraction. Let's talk about the aftermath of a United Cities Defeat and Holy Nation Total Victory scenario given this leads to...
- The Treaty of Irdun
- In the event the world (or player) decides to press for the HN running the table at Bast the UC will be encouraged to sue for peace. This will leads to a series of unique events throughout the desert as the Scarlet Crusade (and its ecstatic loyalists) begin to enforce the new peace upon the desert fringes. This is new ground for the Holy men and a much needed page turn to a long overstayed affair with the imperial military. The Okranite presence becomes more of a happenstance to the (perceived and real) failure of imperial defenses. Morale begins to waver in earnest and the Empire (at least the desert wing) is forced to accept its peculiar armistice status with their now nearer rival. The counterbalancing aspect of this is found in the chaos this induces to the regions neighboring Bast and the behaviors of the factions found within. In isolation a Holy Nation victory is ground gained for them and lost for the UC. Remember to consider for all the other parties at the aforementioned tables.
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- What of the Cannibals?
- What of the factions related to or reliant upon the northern corridor being "accessible"?
- What of Flotsam? Are the Western Cannibals still in check?
- What of the Rebels? Are the Eastern Cannibals still in check?
- What of Deadcat? Oh, that's right!
- This is where a necessary guardrail is checked for. The Holy Nation just did something they haven't done in seeming decades - gained ground.
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- If the north is stable and ripe for proceeding with events... then it does. As like how the War in Bast is amplified to escalate until its conclusion so too are other regions and event chains activated based off reaching an unlocking (unlatching) event. This can occur through other concurrently available means (like the listed checks combining into their own "key"). However, the canon route, if followed, enforces this chain of events to occur one after another. This journey takes the player across the whole of the map... concluding where you might expect.
- While there is an implied urgency to all this one of the driving factors is ensuring the "late game" (which is what the crisis chain is entirely a part of) does not unlatch and unleash too soon. Which is the ultimate point of the keyring system. All content is available but is carefully locked behind necessary barriers to maintain early and middle game experiences until a player has signaled to the world they're fully prepared to partake. The dial moves slowly. When thousands of states are in play it can feel glacial. The best panacea for fears of runaway momentum is to ADD MORE CONTENT! It is that easy, really. The difference between 3 states to turn over Bast and 33 (conclusively, in one way) is a palpable increase in time to reach that end (even if the player abstains).