Patrons got to vote on this page.
Cort wants to take a shot at the Dranglaex fleet before they get away.
- Take the shot
- Stand down.
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Bet he took the shot, and it resulted in friendly fire… I mean with his track record so far… 🤦♂️
Yea, the Dranglaex ship he’s aiming at is about to pass in front of a Dreadstar, so it’s evident it will be friendly fire.
totally his mentality previously.. god let patron voters let him grow!
I forgot there’s voting in this story.
Pretty sure everyone and their grandmother would vote to take the shot, knowing what’s at stake, even though Cort doesn’t. That typically means the DM’s gonna pull something nasty.
We know what’s at stake, but we don’t know what he’s firing on. It can be a random evoc. Having a fresh Starcaster take a long shot? With the view of his hand where we can see friendlies in the line of fire? Vote no. Listen to the experienced player.
Also let’s not forget the multiple explicit orders not to fire like that.
Even if the shot goes perfectly, it could still cause irreparable damage to to Cort’s working relationship with the Federation or La’Ni.
You! The one with a long history of not following orders! Why did you not follow my order?
Though that is part of it, it does not bode well for Cort if he does.
The only reason his arm hasn’t been chopped off and the Starcaster given to a replacement they certainly have ready is that Cort is already past some initial hurdles. But if he can’t be relied upon the Federation should rethink that value. Cort isn’t that far ahead in his experience, and lacks the training any replacement would get. The value of him keeping it can quickly be less than giving it to the next…
You would think they would throw his 1.5 braincell rear back in basic to remember how to work as a team and what the consequences of failing to confirm firing lanes are
Yeah voters are overcautious usually. I think they voted to not take the shot.
Ya, i bet the vote would go for shooting but its a tough choice as I feel there would be more to loose than gain from a vote, as i doubt voting yes would actually take down the princes’ ship but could take down an allied ship. Hopefully he shoots and simply misses.
Ya, hard to believe a yes would simply end in destroying/disabling the ship and them getting the starcaster back. I really hope they didn’t pick yes.
possibly, OR, him not taking the shot allows LA’NI to do HER job, who can sense where the starcasters are and actually GET THEM instead of wrangling the hot headed newb.
She can only sense them while they’re being used, and in the same solar system, presumably the prince hasn’t donned the starcaster yet?
Then that’s stupid. I mean, let’s do meta-knowledge here. Cort has no idea what’s in that ship. For him to fire, means that he’s now decided a day after, that he’s not going to obey the Federation, that he doesn’t care about his friends’ safety, and he’s not going to be reliable for the federation. Cort needs to remember at this point, that if he doesn’t play ball, all the Federation needs to do is amputate his arm. And he’s literally in the presence of the one person who could restrain him without issue. On the other hand – I… Read more »
While Tim sometimes presented us with really bad choice in a vote (I recall one, back when everyone could vote, about picking a fight with Federation police force or so, and later Tim’s comment, that if we would pick that one, it would end badly for Cort), I think in this case, it’s possible that Cort damages both the Federation ships, and the Drangalex fleet/ship with their prince and the Starcaster, making chasing them down easier (or maybe possible in the first place), but at a high cost.
I agree that it’s unlikely they will get the Starcaster back, though.
1) Cort takes the shot.
2) Shot hits the Dranglaex.
3) Shot also hits 1 or 2 federation fighters.
4) Message pops up: “Avr. Janora will remember that…”
oh this is gonna end badly
Alright, ignoring the fact that there’s a high likelihood of friendly fire if Cort takes this shot, exactly how does he plan on handling the sudden vacuum caused when the Starcaster blows the arm off of his pressurized space suit?
Leaving aside the Cort dilemma for the moment, how concerning should that ‘not to be boarded’ message be?
I can think of only a few ways to prevent boarding at that point, and most them could cause quite a bit if damage along the way.
They are fanatics. Rather than be captured and interrogated, they´d rather go out with a bang.
My vote would have been to stand down. Too many ships and Cort isn’t too accurate although both can have story consequences.
Shoot and probably blow up ships in the vicinity.
Don’t shoot and later have the crew learn that he was pointing at the Evoc that had the Starcaster. Disgruntled crew treats Cort poorly with mumbled “Hey, way to stand there while the Drang make off with the Starcaster. Idiot.” type of insults.
I think I’d have voted the same, however, we could add to the Don’t Shoot ramification list that knowing that whatever Price Kelias (assuming it’s his ship Cort’s locked on to) does from here on could’ve been prevented would weight heavy on his conscience.
What are you talking about? He is in army. He got direct order. Nobody will question him not shooting.
Nobody SHOULD question it, perhaps. Doesn’t mean that people will not.
Even though the decision is on La’ni, since she gave Cort the order to stand down, but that doesn’t mean nobody will blame him for making the decision to listen to her order (and that includes Cort himself).
Well, if he doesn’t take the shot, we don’t know it yet. (well, maybe Patreons do, I don’t)
Does not matter. There are likely only a handful of personms that know he’s ebing told tro stand down, and when they find out the opportunityt they missed, they’re not going to back him up.
i would have voted same… but! i would have hope that our lance major is on her own search and recover mission.
I mean honestly, if he blows up half of their own fleet in order to retrieve the starcaster, they would probably consider that a win.
… if he actually hits the right ship in the process.
I don’t know about that. IMO, they would rather consider cutting the arm off and giving it to someone who is a better frigging shot (not to mention better at following orders).
Well that is a different issue. Him being a good shot and if they keep him around, is separate from what they would be willing to lose to keep the starcaster from falling to their enemy. I think what they are willing to lose, is a lot.
Ok I´ve consulted the crystal ball and it says: Cort will fire but will fail to control the power. He will be badly injured, at the same time create a blast that will evaporate halft the enemy fleet as well as one or two dreadstorms. Still the other Starcaster will emergency jump away. Everyone will be scared shitless how he is able to channel so much power, at the same time he will have friendly fired a couple of thousand crewmen on those dreadstorms. He will be plagued by this and will try never to fire that thing again.
Ohhh, that’s an evil choice to give the readers!! Can’t wait for tomorrow! I feel like following orders is the right call.
Btw Tim, you switched S/Z in rendezvous in panel 2.
Take the shot! Take the shot!
Seems like the Dranglaex admiral is ordering the Evocs to self destroy
He isn’t immortal just because he has the starcaster. If he fires it, there’s no way his suit isn’t breached from his arm getting charcoaled. He could risk hitting allies, revealing to the dangralex that there’s another starcaster right there and possibly who has is, and let’s be honest, if he nails the shot and prevents the other starcaster from falling into enemy hands… story’s not gonna last much longer.Tim wouldn’t let it happen. So there is absolutely 0 positive aspects to having him shoot.
Let’s say he nails the shot and kill the prince’s brother. That would initialize a revenge arc from the fascist super empire, going from selective destruction to a galactic purge through purifying flames of whatever their God is.
Starcasters can’t be everywhere.
That… wouldn’t really change anything? The Dranglaex are already on a sacred mission to cleanse all unworthy life (everything, everyone) from the entire universe. There is no selective destruction to move up from, they’re already devoted to omnicide.
The only reasons they’re not burning everything on sight yet is that they first need to win the war, and harvest enough resources to fuel the next genocide when they are done exterminating this galaxy.
Is Cort aware that this is currently a fight for a Starcaster device?
Anyway, I don’t think taking the shot is a good idea. The friendly fire potential aside, the chances, in general, are low to hit the one ship he needs to hit.
There is also the issue of providing intel. It can not be in his interest or the federation’s interest to make the Dranglaex aware of his existence as a Starcaster.
It could be interesting though.
The dranalex think there are only 4 starcasters. They got 1 the federation got 2.
The odrosian starcaster is not really found yet, unless they got intel that someone did.
So the other side has 2 and you take 1, and now they still have 2? How many does the other side have?
They Dranglaex do know about Cort having ‘their’ missing Starcaster. Their agents were looking for it, and Cort escaping with it was one of their reasons to kick off the invasion now.
They probably don’t know about Cort joining the Federation (yet), but if they now see another Starcaster on the Feds side it should be pretty obvious what happened.
I’d have voted no. La’Ni doesn’t seem unreasonable so far, and Cort has NEVER done an outer-space shot before. And he would have no idea the other starcaster was stolen, either. I don’t think he would take the shot against orders unless he for sure *knew* something big was going down, or was trying to save Speck or something.
May sound boring but:
Stand down
If he showed any type of skill or talent when he was using a star caster I would say go for it. But he has so far only accidently discharged it twice and had training with people who only have third hand experience with it
I think the Cort in the story so far showed better insight than to recklessly try to help and does the smart thing instead
I will say that It would be more in line that he try to fly closer to get a better shot
the wrongest possibile choice in the history of wrong choices, great
I’m a patron and I took that vote. I won’t spoil you what happens, but I wonder how it would have gone if the vote went the other way.
I’m remembering the “Ethan McManus, Space Archaeologist” series where some outrageous choices ultimately led to favorable outcomes.
IIRC, Tim said this was planned very differently from the Space Archaeologist series, and that the votes were mostly to direct storytelling, rather than a straight “choose your own adventure” with the entire thing pre-planned. However… I also remember Tim reminding everyone that the name of the series is The Starcaster Chronicles, and not The Cort Ryder Chronicles, and that it was 100% possible for us to vote for something that would get Cort killed. I think that’s why so many of the early votes leaned towards Cort making poorer choices that he would end up paying for long-term, because… Read more »
What were Cort’s poor choices early on?
Other than pretending to be a marshal, not dumping Nyrah, or not betraying the Sun Devils, I am not sure what was dumb or really bit him. The worst decision I remember happening was “left path” in the temple, and there was NO way to know anything about what was best there.
If the vote was between: Cort takes the shot anyway, fails to destroy any D-ex ship but destroys a couple Fed ships, Cort takes the shot anyway, manages to destroy Kelias’s ship, kills the crew in the process and Fed will recover the Starcaster, but there were Fed casualties, Cort takes the shot anyway, manages to destroy Kelias’s ship, kills the crew in the process and Fed will recover the Starcaster, the shot was precise and there were no Fed casualties, Cort stands back, the choice would be clear. As it is, the vote is a shot in the dark.… Read more »
cort, buddy, um you have practiced, but not in a live fire long range moving target situation. please for the love of all the stars, listen to the more experienced starcaster user? otherwise your gonna blow up a lot of bad guys, but you also most likely will hit good ships as well. some poor janitor on that federation cruiser is gonna be minding his own business and be like “wtf” when he suddenly sees “ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: SURVIVED THE NUKE”
Take the shot
You friendly fire 0% of the shots you don’t take.
…”you Starcast only if and when I tell you”…
The odds that the shot he has is on THAT cruiser is minimal. The odds that the Laws of Story mean he hits a friendly in the process are high.
I imagine that both choices will lead to regret.
While I want him to take the shot, the absolute smartest thing to do is just stand down.
I’d almost bet that people blindly voted to take the shot though.
Dreadstorms have a “Buy one Get one” discount… Right?
Fiery Nebula…I forgot about the voters
Wouldn’t Cort’s starcast burn through part of the suit he’s currently wearing?
Oh god, I hope the vote was no, stand down but I fear it was yes, take the shot.
i hope he stood down. in universe you would take the shot but meta any man and his dog knows its the wrong choice given Cort’s track record.
Thank you, Tim, for including the decision tree in this page. I truly appreciate it!
I know we don’t get to vote here, but my thought process: As a viewer, I know that they have the starcaster and I would absolutely take the shot. However, Cort has no idea that they have the starcaster. So if I were Cort, knowing what I know, and not knowing what I don’t know, the correct decision is to stand down.
Wouldn’t want the federation thinking I was a loose cannon.
Shooting would tip off the Dranglaex there are two rooks on the board
Oh yeah. This was the CLOSEST vote yet in the series. As I recall it was something like 52% vs 48%.
So, which do you guys think won out in the end?