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Aleph in N4

Discussion in 'ALEPH' started by psychoticstorm, Aug 6, 2019.

  1. DeepThought

    DeepThought Well-Known Member

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    Well, I suspect my input comes late, but I will hope against hope that the designers will glance at my suggestions. I'm gonna tag what I can of the great suggestions I've already seen, but I agree: A more original- or at least curvier TAG would be welcome, (especially since it appears the Rebot redesign went to O-12 copperbots). I was looking at rebots the other day and found myself debating buying a different faction's TAGs and proxying them in Aleph colors because I was so very 'not-sold' on their design. We all know they were inspired by Ghost in the Shell Tachikomas, so lets drop the boxy bug-bodies, and get some curves in the mix!

    Now don't get me wrong, I'm all for new characters in the Steel Phalanx, and we have plenty of good options. Herecles/Hercules (pick your spelling) being an obvious option. However, my friends and I have noticed there are virtually no character units in the OSS branch of Aleph. With O-12 out now as the new 'UN peacekeeper' force, the OSS's police niche is almost completely eclipsed, which leaves one field I'm a little surprised the design team hasn't played up: the potential 'Big Brother' side of Aleph. Even if we assume Aleph is truly out to serve humanity and nothing more, it still has to be sneaky. Its very existence as a nigh-ubiquitous presence would make anyone feel insecure, and aware of mere mortal's short-signtedness, it would almost have to be secretive to think far ahead. As such, I really wish the team would push more of the intrigue that goes with the OSS. They're the equivalent of Skynet secret police after all! I have a fan-fiction I've co-written with a friend where-in we created some of the characters we wanted to see, as well as some of the kinds of operations they'd pull under other faction's noses.

    (The link is here for those interested)

    The lead Aleph character in it is an 'accountant' of the OSS who bears the callsign "Xellos". His name was inspired by the Xellos of Slayers, and for anyone who glanced the art I scraped together for it, we deliberately drew him to resemble LeLouche of Code Geass. He is the kind of being I want to see made into a character for the OSS! A mastermind who isn't what he appears to be, who knows more than anyone is comfortable with, and who uses his foresight and strategy it to stay three steps ahead of anyone and everyone. Whether he's one of Alephs more deviant aspects, or a post-human adjutant who is sold on, if not has sold his proverbial soul to- Aleph thinking it humanity's last hope for survival.

    I also can't help but think there are directions untapped for what one can do as an android that one cannot do as a flesh-and-blood person... -like go on a spacewalk without a spacesuit! Maybe its that Neir: Replicant came out recently, but I think of those androids in Neir: Automata re-entering the atmosphere from space without so much as a space suit or cabin on those flight units they used. Flying in on a TAG from orbit and deploying into a walk/hover mode to shoot its enemies with HMG's! Now a unit that replicates that kind of entrance does have serious appeal!
     
    #161 DeepThought, Aug 6, 2021
    Last edited: Aug 6, 2021
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  2. DeepThought

    DeepThought Well-Known Member

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    This last bit is also a total request! Can you do a powerful crossover unit perhaps developed jointly by Aleph and Panoceana and give it a term like a 'Battle Angel' :pray:? I just REALLY want to see the name used on a cool unit as much as anything, and between Panoceana referencing Christian themes and Aleph referencing divine beings/demigods as themes, it seemed such a title would be appropriate for one of those two factions.
     
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  3. Kelthret

    Kelthret Usuario

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    The OSS is not a regular Police Force like O-12 army, but a specialized one, focused on hunting illegal AIs so it has a reason to coexist with O-12. Also, the aspects that form the OSS are describe as more inhuman in nature. ASS has a lot of named characters cause Aleph wanted a reason for the general public to like them so the army could be approved and deployed in Paradiso, but OSS works well without named characters, and I'd say the 2 we have is 2 too many.
     
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  4. xagroth

    xagroth Mournful Echo

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    https://store.corvusbelli.com/wargames/infinity/miniatures/namurr-heavy-pistol-ccw
    She's no Gally, but the idea is there.

    You may wanto to grab the older models if you can...
    [​IMG]
    They are a pain to assemble, since each leg is a separate piece (and the "tail" is another, too).

    There is a difference between gods and heroes. Anyway, Herakles was an Argonaut, and Jason is still missing... But there is this pesky rule that once Aleph lists you as KIA, you better be or run away, as you are now considered dead and, if seen, an agent of the EI.
    Of course, Atalanta was also an Argonaut, but Infinity!Atalanta earned the name, she's not a recreation like Achilles, Patroclus and Penthesilea.

    Anyway, new heroes need a role, unless the idea is to remove old ones to introduce a new version under a new name and model. I fail to see much design space in the Steel Phalanx, unless the sectorial grows in scope or changes its nature. Which it could very much happen, since it was created for total war in Paradiso, and now the war has reached even Concilium.

    Finally, just a bit f a friendly advice: not everyone finds every manga or anime character you enjoy, enjoyable. By grabbing those, even as a nod like Joan of Arc to Fate's Saber, runs several risks, the least of whom would be players refusing to get the model (like I did with the Bakunin SWC moderators box based on Guardians of the Galaxy, or the Suicide Squad Morlocks box).

    Also, ASS was made in the image of the "heroes legends at war" because they would follow a pattern of behaviour not easily predictable, which was the problem in Aleph Vs EI battles.

    However, I fear that unless we get a new ASS or another sectorial, Aleph's faction will be folded into O12 without adding its units to vanilla (after all, Aleph is part of O12, as Bureau Toth), or with a merge.
     
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  5. Golem2God

    Golem2God Just a Kooky Kumotail serving others.

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    Interesting idea. Though I don't think CB is going to do that. The Tohaa has not been merged/regulated to Spiral Corps/NA-2 despite the current situation with the faction. I too am curious at to what & how they treat the return of the Steel Phalanx. Perhaps advance them with less characters than before? Though I'd be surprised if Aleph does get molded into O-12 in the future.
     
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  6. DeepThought

    DeepThought Well-Known Member

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    I agree Golem2God, annexing Aleph into O-12 would be a bold (if not reckless) move for Corvus belli, but then by that same token, so was making O-12 a faction in the first place. In a sense they had more business making O-12 a sectorial of Aleph. Making O-12 the bureaucracy and Aleph the muscle actually would have let them add a much needed army to the faction and given new context to Aleph's military might.

    Don't get me wrong, I think its too soon to say what they've done so far was a BAD move...

    Let me set the record straight when I say O-12 may yet prove an awesome addition. However, since they made O-12 a sectorial all its own, the implication is that O-12 going to be a sectorial at odds with factions like Aleph as much as any other faction. I mentioned named 'characters' in the OSS, earlier, and if they were names of aspects and/or agents of Operations that had obtained notoriety as 'deviants' by O-12 system-wide, then it would justify the characterization. Personally, I'm hopeful they are going to add some depth and intrigue to the two sectorials that could lead to some juicy scenarios and battle packs to illustrate the nature of their conflict. However CB hasn't made any moves in that direction yet.

    Come to think of it: is O-12 against Aleph a thing they've even tried in tournaments yet?
     
    #166 DeepThought, Aug 19, 2021
    Last edited: Nov 2, 2021
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  7. Scribbler

    Scribbler Well-Known Member

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    Interesting idea, however, I'm not 100% sold on the concept of O-12 being a sectorial army of ALEPH. My understanding of the lore is that, while O-12 and ALEPH do work very closely, O-12 doesn't have total trust in the AI and dedicates an entire bureau, whose name escapes me at the moment, to monitoring and regulating ALEPH. The AI's original purpose is to be a companion/advisor/servant to humanity, but it's not far fetched to think that the organizations responsible for the design and implementation of ALEPH were probably concerned about the possibility of ALEPH going Big Brother/Skynet on humanity, no matter how remote. Still something that anyone with sense would want to at least keep tabs on and have an emergency plan in case it goes awry so we humans don't get caught flat-footed.

    I think that the reason why O-12 was introduced as a faction in the first place is because O-12 is supposed to be the UN's successor with the capability to act beyond sending strongly worded letters; they were intended to have the ability to use force of arms to end conflicts, stop atrocities, etc. So, it's no surprise to me that O-12's forces would debut on the tabletop eventually, especially considering the cold war state that the Human Sphere is in. And then there the slight problem of an alien invasion going on...
     
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  8. dhellfox

    dhellfox The keeper of the Forgotten

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    bureau Toth? according to the merc rpg supplement, the AI love to give them headaches. they have countless cases of strange mec activity such as attacks on illegal ai labs and other questionable things OSS cant legally hit without O-12 oversight. they strongly believe ALPEH hired the hits but cant prove it. the ai fav currency used is Oceana (POC)


    if i remember n1 lore on aleph it was originally a Pan'O Ai designed to monitor/manage traffic, because of its over efficiency (and massive reduction in vehicle crashes) they started to give it more roles then planets, till it snowballed into what it is today.
     
    #168 dhellfox, Aug 20, 2021
    Last edited: Aug 20, 2021
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  9. Golem2God

    Golem2God Just a Kooky Kumotail serving others.

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    Well those are two interesting tidbits of information. I think the humble beginnings origin of Aleph gives the A.I. a more personality. It had to learn new things as it was given more responsibilities. Growing as it were with each month & year until it reached the plateau it resides on today. A rags to riches story like that would make an interesting story or mention in Aleph centric fiction. I'm going to use this idea in my fanfictions going forward as one of the many whispered origins of Aleph talked about throughout the Human Sphere.
     
  10. xagroth

    xagroth Mournful Echo

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    In the RPG, Aleph was an international/interstellar project designed to manage and help humanity. She can rewrite huge parts of her code, but not all, some stuff is deeply ingrained (helping humanity, don't look into specific areas..). Then came the Sole AI directive, because it was deemed that two AIs would inevitable come into conflict with each other, and OSS was designed and supported by O12.

    O12 is called as such because it has 12 main Bureaus:
    Bureau Aegis: officially legal issues, in practice the Executive Arm of the o12 government, which has the Bureau divided in two: Section Statera (lawyers and other burocrats) and Section Spatha (tactical police). Psi unit is hte Military Intelligence arm, largely independent from their supposed "mother section" Spatha.

    Bureau Agni: controlling supply, distribution and regulation of energy. Section Metis for R&D is relevant.

    Bureau Athena: culture, human rights, and ethical & religious issues. Section Clio is generating encyclopedic documents about the culture in the Human Sphere and beyond.

    Bureau Concilium: governing body for O12 and the Free Cities.

    Bureau Gaea: Planetary development

    Bureau Ganesh: trade & economy

    Bureau Hermes: practical management of commerce, which includes authority and control over the Circulars.

    Bureau Lakshmi: health, cube banks...

    Bureau Noir: secret service (primary PC location in the RPG).

    Bureau Tiandi: Astronomy, planetary surveys, wormhole studies...

    Bureau Toth: Supervision, support and maintenance of Aleph, and technical support and oversight over the Special Situations Section (further divided into OSS and ASS, for example) in enforcing the Sole AI Law. Several of its parameters are "blind" to Aleph... at least to her direct sight, secondary data compilation seems to be OK.

    Bureau Trimurti: Diplomacy, international relations, public relations... Essentially, support infraestructure for the General Board.

    EDIT: sauce is the Core book, the O12 splatbook is still months away, I think.

    The RPG provides more data.

    As dhelfox says, Bureau Toth is devoted to Aleph. To all things humanity & Aleph, to be precise, which includes studying the AI (that has long gone into unrecognizable territory by human minds, like the Neural Trained "AIs" we have this days IRL, you know they work with some degree of success... but can't even understand what happens inside the black box).
     
    #170 xagroth, Aug 20, 2021
    Last edited: Aug 22, 2021
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  11. dhellfox

    dhellfox The keeper of the Forgotten

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    i need to do a correction as i just re-read the Aleph page in mercs rpg supplement:
    *Aleph likes to use SOL not Oceana (POC)
    *both Toth and Noir are investigating the ai's "seemingly random" merc attacks on ai labs, Arachne nodes and seditious material. (still cant be proven due to all the shell companies and contract agent middlemen)
     
    #171 dhellfox, Aug 20, 2021
    Last edited: Aug 20, 2021
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  12. DeepThought

    DeepThought Well-Known Member

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    Dhellfox your integrity warms me. You are one of the few people I've met on the forums who checked their sources and corrected themselves. That outdoes even some ranked war-cors on these forums (who I shall no name) that aren't big enough to do that. I tip my hat to you.

    I also appreciate xagroth's input. I was vaguely aware of the Bureau's 12 arms by means of their free-rpg teaser, but your description is more in depth and corroborates what I have read on the subject.

    I think its safe to say O-12 and Aleph are deeply linked, but that there is also room for them to be in conflict, and if I didn't make it clear in my previous posts, I'm not saying O-12 needs to be reduced to a sectorial! Just because it could 'solve some problems' doesn't make it by necessity the right idea, or the direction CB "Should take things".
    I forget not everyone operates from the perspective that O-12 is a faction whose spotlight was eclipsed by an outbreak and with it, a real-world push toward globalism that has been far more aggressive and seditious.
    In a sense recent events illustrate the dark side of what O-12 could be if CB gives them one as they have habitually done with all their other factions: How 12 paths aimed toward globalism has limitless potential for graft, deception, and grabs for personal power. This would very-well justify making it a faction for the others to have conflicts with.

    However near as I can tell, CB has so far stuck solely to O-12's intended purpose, which does rather befit a sectorial over a faction. However there is probably good reason CB hasn't done more development along those lines yet: They don't want to alienate their base with a topic that has been heavily polarized by recent events. In all likelihood, they would have probably put the whole faction's appearance off if they'd seen this coming. I know that's certainly how I would feel if I were in their shoes.
     
    #172 DeepThought, Aug 20, 2021
    Last edited: Aug 20, 2021
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  13. Golem2God

    Golem2God Just a Kooky Kumotail serving others.

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    It is good to reference sources where you got your ideas from. I mean we all did that in school/college papers so it should be retained with us throughout our lives. It is a good habit to have.
    What was the polarizing aspect of O-12's release? It happened so long ago that I've forgotten.
     
  14. Scribbler

    Scribbler Well-Known Member

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    Far as I can remember, I don't think there was anything polarizing about O-12's release. My guess is that @DeepThought is referring to the pandemic and the different takes that people have on how it should have been handled on a policy level...a topic which I strongly believe is best avoided. Particularly so on a forum dedicated to full-grown people playing with their toy soldiers within a fictional setting.
     
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  15. Golem2God

    Golem2God Just a Kooky Kumotail serving others.

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    @Scribbler Understood. I guess it is good to hear that O-12 was received well.
     
  16. Methuselah

    Methuselah Well-Known Member

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    So what I'm hearing is that in the next global event, Aleph should attack O-12 (Bureau Toth) in attempt to secure and maybe move Aleph's dark site off Concilium? You know, for the good of humanity.
     
  17. xagroth

    xagroth Mournful Echo

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    I wish I could unshamble my info as easily as that... but every time I need to refresh my mind on something, I need to retrace the whole initial process (only faster) XD.

    Not really. We don't know the specifics (it's always good for an RPG author to let a lot of things in the air, so each GM can adapt stuff to their table), but I see it as the WISH spell for D&D, or faustian pacts, etc... That is, tangential and out-the-box solutions are more likely than direct actions, which in this instance means Aleph has several backup installations already secure and ready to be activated if the Concilium node needs to be destroyed.

    I think we were talking the other way around? Integrating Aleph inside O12's "umbrella", but it would be more like an NA2 style to avoid overlap...

    I mean, Aleph is "under Bureau Toth", and under Aleph there is the Special Situations Section (HSN2), which would be Aleph Vanilla; then we have Operations and Assault, and I think the Sophotects, remotes and a few more were in their own Situations Section (Support maybe? Can't remember right now) in the chart, but effectively integrated in the others.

    But I don't think we'll see O12 organized like in the RPG, since Starmada seems a mix of troops that would depend from Bureau Hermes, but come from Aegis/Spatha (and Chi), while the units from vanilla that are not in Starmada would be either directly from Aegis/Spatha, or Noir at best. I mean, most of the other Bureaus, besides Toth, are more bureaucracies with no military training that would, if needed, ask Aegis for security personnel.
     
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  18. DeepThought

    DeepThought Well-Known Member

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    It might be more intriguing and more 'cold war'-ish to say Toth learns to its utter shock that Aleph's higher functions have not been present in the concillium servers for some time (although Aleph still uses it for stuff), and that the AI has been serving humanity from an unknown location (likely one it built itself in secret) attached to the Maya, turning their servers into a branch nexus of its activities instead of a central one. Having an O-12 raid on an Aleph post in a desperate search for its dark-site server sounds very plausible then.
     
    #178 DeepThought, Aug 23, 2021
    Last edited: Aug 23, 2021
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  19. kinginyellow

    kinginyellow Well-Known Member

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    I think this is amazing. Aleph in story so far (that im aware of) seems very "I'm doing it my way" but is pretty much never really doing something that is "evil". Enforcing societal Status quo but never that gray area the game leads on.

    This is just perfect for leading to a more tyrant/dictator direction for aleph that I think would be really awesome for the grayness of infinity.
     
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  20. dhellfox

    dhellfox The keeper of the Forgotten

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    there's some amusing and terrifying, when you think about it, life path event rolls (involving the ai) when building your character in the rpg and supplements such as:
    *aleph wakes you up in the middle of the night to ask you a random question.
    *has replaced your giest (your personal, partial ai assistant) with a full blown aspect of itself and its (aspect) got its eyes on you.
    *aleph believes you are best suited elsewhere and used its influence to make it so.

    on the flipside there's an EI one, thats my fav, where it admits that you are useless (as in cant find a function for you in its grand design) and gives you the necessaries for a basic comforts life.
     
    #180 dhellfox, Aug 24, 2021
    Last edited: Aug 24, 2021
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