"That seems likely enough - though it might take a few more steps of follow through to complete the process of acceptance. It's unforunately rather easy for people to find themselves conveniently forgetting lessons they've learned, I've found." 

Her tone is more long suffering than snippy, though there's plenty of traces of that.

"Yeah, some lessons don't stick unless you stick around to make them."

"Still, sounds pretty doable." More notes, then her eyes drift back to the space battle.

"How much leeway can you give me on swapping builds between missions?"

"In what sense?"

"If I take Hogwarts magic, I'm looking at sinking either three quarters or my whole budget into one purchase. That'll serve me well in a lot of places, and be usable in most, but swapping it out goes well over the ten token swap limit between missions."

"You can swap out perks with a value greater than 10 tokens, but you will still only get 10 tokens freed up, and if you take any points out of the perk, it will be non-functional. This process can be repeated to allow the swapping out of higher cost perks, if desired."  

She nods and looks down at her notes, then at the catalog. "With the five-token identity purchase, can you make me an admiral authorized and ordered to take over the whole defensive fleet and command it into the battle against the invaders?"

She shakes her head. 

"The 'Identity' option grants a role that is more non-specific than that. At 5 tokens, you could still get you a reasonably senior role on one of the ships or a reputation as a genius tactician with an unimpeachable loyalty, which might still be fit for purpose, especially with the aid of psychic paper or the like." 

"That probably works, but I'll need to fit a low-perk mission in before the battle if I want to be sure. Do you know if the fleet has FTL comms and sensors, and whether the battle takes place at sane scales or or knife-fighting range?"

Her lips purse a little. 

"They have FTL comms and sensors, I believe, and some capacity to fight at both of those ranges." 

"Okay, definitely psychic paper, possibly five-token identity, very likely upper-left blue, fill the rest of the budget with tactics and space combat skills. Talk my way into tactical command of the whole battle, or at least as much of it as I can manage, give a speech to inspire everyone to peak performance, and use superhuman tactical and command skills to win the battle as hard as possible."

"An eminently reasonable approach." 

She nods approvingly. 

"Got opinions on whether or not to spring for the identity, Jun?"

"I feel like your intuition is perhaps rather backwards - in so much as psychic paper is helpful, I think it would be as a privilege escalation attack based on implicit trust in your Identity and the visible content of your character, rather then something that you should rely on being effective as a way to commandeer something as secured as a large war fleet in a combat zone by simply insisting that it is 'What your paper say'." 

"Fair point. Both then. Definitely need a ten-pointer before the battle, though."

A quiet and sharp little nod. 

"Hm. I think probably the best ten-pointer is going to be helping Artea. That's mostly a case for charisma and social engineering, not the big guns, no serious need for stealth or power. Just persuasion."

"It's perhaps the least demanding of the missions, in that sense - though the mission in Angevon is similarly more or less purely social." 

"Oh! Good point. That might be an even better fit. Some political skills and persuasion skills would handle that pretty tidily, plus some version of identity that gets me in enough to talk to King Jaino. Think the three-pointer'd do?"

"A three point identity is likely around the minimum you'd need to not to be instantly laughed away for asking, I'd think, rather than enough to expect a positive answer." 

"So a fiver and be ready to talk fast even with that, just to be sure. I can fit enough social skills to convince the king not to delay into five points, though, that should be doable: two-point political maneuvering, two-point persuasion, one-point governmental policy. Maybe swap the maneuvering and the policy?"

"I'd consider sincerity and perfect diplomat as well - it's not necessarily that you need to have any great mastery of politics in general, merely that you need to be able to make a persuasive case on the subject, and cut through his hesitations, which might justify a somewhat different approach." 

"Good picks, both, but my budget's getting tight for that. Maybe switch to a three-point identity, take sincerity and perfect diplomat, add a point each of persuasion and politics, and count on the combo to talk my way into the meeting? Alternatively, swap perfect diplomat for a hyperspecific 'attending and addressing the king and royal court of Angevon' one-pointer to free up a couple?"

She taps her finger against her lip. 

"A three token identity would be enough to insert you as a reasonably senior member of the palace help, if you think that would be sufficient? I might be able to find you a role that would give you room to see him in the course of your duties for two, though it'd likely be a little more awkward to make use of  You might also want to consider an upgraded basic equipment purchase - it seems likely feasible to get a meeting through a bribe, or a chain of them, with enough ready funds." 

"As I understand it, an important aspect of the scenario is that the king himself is an outlier in how reform minded he is - so it may not be much use to address the court as it is."