Fair. You've made your points in response to mine, and I respect your reasoning. YOUR game, YOUR story, YOUR calls to make.
Last set of replies, won't bother you any further.
As long as the slave route doesn't inherently break the story, no argument from my side. But you seem very much aware of that, so, I don't need to worry.
That's excellent news, because I thought we were beyond 75%, frankly. But yeah, with some reworks to earlier scenes (and I know the pain of having to rewrite supar early chapters, trust me...) and knowing that there ARE more twists and turns to come as I expected, then I think you got this.
One last warning, if I may: Keep in mind that the Syl'vanar you created is noted as THE singular most powerful nation in your world. And as the prior uprisings and their consequences (like chipping the elves) have shown - it MUST be resilient to change, even if only from institutional inertia and the simple MASS of forces at its disposal, political, military, judical, religion etc. etc.
You'll only break such a regime with either a singular, but devastating blow, or by slowly chipping away at its fundamentals. And the system WANTS to keep it together, so reprisals are to be expected, no matter how fragile the system is. For an extreme example: 3rd Reich, or even the Soviet Union (the final throes of which we are experiencing right now with the War against Ukraine).
(Speaking, for example, about the paint attacks - change to another way of detection, and the attacks are nullified. Just so far, noone bothered. Just as far as the mercenaries attacking Night Owl Clan haven't tried overwhelming force, or at all, since the 3 (!) old model mechs arrived.)
That being said, your talks about the fragility of a nation in fear are entirely correct. Take the entirety of the former Eastern Bloc as an example. So, I rest easy knowing you know what you're doing.
And as far as your comments about the manager are concerned... You are also entirely correct, and I am/was probably overthinking it.
That being said, I'll respectfully disagree regardless - if the main choices are linear, which they are, flavour can only do so much to make HIM the player avatar.
So I will stick to it - in that case, having an established persona to assume right from the get-go would be my preferred choice, so that the player always knows what to expect.
But as I said, the "char" of the Manager is starting to become somewhat established later on, without the need to make him a "real" char at all.
And if that's the case, I won't be able to immerse myself in him - but that hasn't stopped me before from playing this game, and judging by all the other comments, nobody else cares much either. So, to be blunt about it, if you're reworking some of the earlier parts later anyway, with just a bit more polish this'll work just nicely. :D
Thank you for taking your time to read & reply to what I had to say, and I hope that, regardless, it was somewhat useful for yourself as well.
Once again, thank you a lot for creating this game. I'll look forward to further releases.