Q2 2025
Humans Surviving: 6,291,984,171
Expat Chinese Riots
Someone, most likely a provocateur from one of the other powers, tried to spread news that the new housing being built wasn't actually going to work. Thankfully, that part of the message was quickly buried -along with some covert help- when the French president was spotted eating luxury Chinese food at a private meeting. Somehow this was taken by the internet and evolved into some kind of statement of celebration at the fate of China and things rapidly spiralled out of control.
Thankfully the riots seem mostly uncoordinated for now, but they are disrupting construction efforts across the Union as they, along with anyone else who felt like rioting, occupy city centers and set fire to public infrastructure. There is a smaller group of rioters that are focusing unusually heavily on critical locations producing equipment for sealed housing and agriculture, suggesting that the foreign agitators are still present.
(-10 Public Confidence. -1 Infrastructure and Industry Dice.)
Military Specialists
As painful as it was to look through your contacts and see so many missing, at least you had a few that you could contact that would help. One of which you had never met before you practically tripped over the woman in the hallway after exiting a meeting with the Council. Her surprisingly insightful comments on the nature of alternate dimensions had you look her up further, a bit of digging later had you in contact with some of her former clients and they had nothing but praises to sing.
You decided to include her for the interviews for the hell of it, you had a good feeling.
[] Kamikoshi Sorawo
A rather plain looking woman, excluding her odd heterochromatic eyes, but her record speaks for itself when it comes to Dimensional shenanigans. She has plenty of experience with odd creatures, places that defy the laws of physics and squad-scale military actions. Her history, as difficult as it was to get with the worldwide internet fritzing, shows she dropped out of school somewhere in her teens, so you don't expect much book knowledge from her. But in practical matters she's undoubtedly the world expert.
- Well Respected: She has the admiration and respect of the many groups she has taught and led into the unforgiving madness beyond reality. (+2 Military Dice, +10 to Military Dice)
- Interdimensional Wanderings: Sorawo has been to places that laugh away the mere suggestion of logic and seen creatures that seem closer to concepts than physical entities. (+1 Dimensional Dice, +5 to Dimensional Dice)
- Uneducated: While far from stupid, she did drop out of school to go adventuring across dimensions. (-5 to Military and Dimensional Dice) [L]
- Odd: Sorawo would easily agree that she's a little touched in the head, but it does give her startling insight into the nature of unusual things. (Odd.)
[] Oskar Meier
A rather old and stout German man who you have occasionally worked with when you need a more military perspective on something. He has spent most of his life in the Bundeswehr alternating between drill sergeant and prototype tester. You can't comment on his personal skills, but he does posses a great theoretical knowledge on warfare and strongly advocates for the importance of robotics for military purposes. Honestly it's one of the only reasons you talk.
- Military Theorist: Oskar is very well read on modern military theory, which is perhaps less useful than one would imagine, considering the rapidly changing situation. But he is eager to learn. (+2 Military Dice, +10 to Military Dice)
- Well Connected: He's been doing the rounds at influential bars for decades, if not for the emergency he'd probably be relaxing there right now. (+1 Industry Dice. Drunkard.) [L]
- Robotics Supremacist: While he understands the need for flesh, he dreams of a military of sturdy, reliable steel.
Traits with an [L] next to them can be altered via Personal Actions, such as trying to get them to drop a bad habit or finish their education.
Reminder that the options presented to you are being passed through the personal opinions and biases of the characters who are in charge of them, this include specialists modifying voting options.
Resources:
Temporarily Infinite
Political Support: 50(?)
Public Confidence: 45/100
Free Dice: 1/1
Economic Factors
(Each unit provides for 10,000 people. 1 Sealed Housing keeps 10,000. 1 Sealed Agriculture feeds 10,000)
Sealed Housing: 0
Sealed Agriculture: 0
Decontaminated Water: 0
Sealed Power: 0
Sealed Industry: 0
Radiation Suits: 5 +5
Infrastructure (3 + 7 Temporary Dice -1 Temporary Dice)
[] Sealed Housing (Stage 1)
Begin designing and testing the structures that are going to be new new home for humanity for the foreseeable future, they must be proof against Collapse Radiation for decades with minimal maintenance while remaining comfortable enough not to drive their inhabitants insane. As soon as your designs are finished they will be submitted to the Emergency Council for massive crash construction.
(207/300 +10 Public Confidence)
[] Sealed Personnel Transportation
Design transports that can safely get someone from A to B while preventing them from dying a horrible death via Collapse Radiation. Much of the technology being used in this has been repurposed from military NBC systems found in armoured vehicles.
(0/100)
[] Sealed Logistical Transportation
Design transports that can move goods around the Union without allowing them to be irradiated, rendering them deadly to humans. This will include a complete redesign of logistic hubs to allow the contents to be delivered and picked up without leaking radiation everywhere.
-[] Trains (0/200) (Stage 1)
-[] Lorries (0/100) (Stage 1)
-[] Cargo Ships (0/200) (Stage 1)
[] Sealed Power Plants
The technology maintaining the radiological seal on the new housing requires 24/7 power, even an outage for just a few hours will begin to let radiation seep in. A new model of Nuclear Reactor, much smaller, but both easier to operate and faster to build must be designed. These new reactors can be emplaced locally to sealed housing to ensure constant power throughput.
(176/300)
[] Water Decontamination Plants (Stage 2)
Dedicated water purification plants for sealed housing, the density of Collapse Radiation is well above what was previously though, thus new plants need to be made. Multiple layers of decontamination are applied to scrub every trace of radiation from the water, driving up the expense and complexity significantly. The difficult nature of the purification imposes a hard cap as to both how long decontamination takes and the amount of water than can be decontaminated per plant.
(19/200 +5 Public Confidence)
Industry (3 + 2 Temporary Dice -1 Temporary Dice)
[] Automated Factories (Stage 1)
Many factories already make use of heavy automation for increased efficiency, in the future there won't be enough people nor will it be safe to try filling out the gaps with humans. This new design of automated factory will be capable of taking a shipment of materials and outputting the finished product entirely autonomously.
(0/300)
[] Remote Worker Drones
Humans won't be able to exit their homes without bulky radiation equipment, they need some way to work on the outside world. This first, extremely rushed, model is a simple wheeled drone with two arms fit for attaching either graspers or tools. Not much is known about the disruptive effect Collapse Radiation has on communications, so this first series sports a thick cable connecting it back to the operator.
(0/300 -10 Public Confidence)
[] Sealed Agriculture Facilities (Stage 1)
No-one knows if Collapse Radiation will render the land entirely barren, but any food grown in the presence of the stuff will be equally inedible by humans, perfectly sealed facilities need to be created that can supply the similarly sealed housing. Designing facilities capable of growing the bare minimum essentials for human life is just as important as housing.
(98/200 +15 Public Confidence)
[] Simplify NMRS Production
The new radiation suits have been rushed into production everywhere that has space to make them, but they are complex and cumbersome designs. The necessity of near absolute isolation makes mass production difficult, it would greatly speed production if you could simplify that somewhat. Not particularly popular with the populace, who see it as creating "second rate" products that their lives depend upon.
(0/200 -5 Public Confidence) (+5 to Radiation Suits per turn)
Services (3 + 1 Temporary Dice)
[] Smart Management
Now that you have introduced the absolute basics of automation, you can work at replacing as many inefficient humans from the management chain as possible and providing intelligent tools to the rest.
(0/200 +1 Free Dice -10 Political Support)
[] Establish Massive Scale Evacuation Plans
It is going to be required to move massive quantities of people as the radiation cloud begins to encroach upon the borders of the Union. People will feel a lot more reassured that the Government has a plan to get them out of the way, regardless of how useful that actually is.
(68/150 +20 Public Confidence)
[] Identify VIP For Housing Shortlist
Identify the people who can provide the most value to humanity by remaining alive. Researchers, Engineers and (reluctantly) Politicians. This is a project that must never find it's way into the public eye, for it would spark riots like wildfire.
(0/50)
[] Establish Military VIP List For Housing Shortlist
By promising members of the military housing if the worst comes, you can make sure that they are not going to turn against you
when the worst comes.
(0/50 -30 Public Confidence)
Military (3 Dice + 1 Temporary Dice)
[] Establish Special Operations Barracks
Create a military unit specialised for operating in the worst conditions imaginable, they can't safely move within Collapse Radiation until they are given further equipment, but they have extensive experience operating in
normal radiation. Everyone hopes that the experience carries over.
(0/100)
[] Military Robotics
Any kind of combat inside Collapse Radiation is insanely perilous for human operators. A sharp edge or a single bullet will compromise their suit and spell certain death for them. You know just the thing. Robots do not tire, they do not bleed and they do not care about Collapse Radiation.
(92/200)
[] Collapse Radiation Refits (Stage 2)
The data from your expedition has directly lead to better filters and procedures for dealing with CFR, time to put it into action. At least the Military will be happy.
(26/100 +5 Political Support)
[] Interdimensional Creature Visors
Maybe those nervous returnees are on to something with their camera trick. For whatever reason humans can't see or notice the creatures, but they show up on recordings just fine. You should be able to create some kind of visor that allows them to be seen, or use an AI to identify the creature and reproduce it on the visor in some human visible manner. Your jumpy staff refuse to go out as "bait" to test them though. Not that you blame them.
(0/50) (Requires Special Operations Units)
[] Interdimensional Creature Sensors
The briefing you read on the situation stated that these creatures have Collapse Fluid in their blood, and the few snippets of combat you saw from the away mission seem to confirm this. Perhaps you can use your new CFR detectors to create something that can detect their presence? There is arguably the more difficult task, convincing someone to test one.
(0/100) (Requires Special Operations Units)
[] Armoured Exoskeleton Suits
In something of a happy coincidence, the exoskeleton designed for the Military variant of radiation suit has a small amount of extra weight capacity that is going unused. Accordingly, one of the first things the military had come to ask was if you could
please find some way to add some armour so soldiers aren't given a death sentence from being near shrapnel.
(0/100 +5 Political Support)
Dimensional (3 Dice)
[] Review Existing Records
You were handed an enormous amount of records and very few of them were sensibly labelled, but you know that somewhere in here are the documents the EU had gathered on Collapse Fluid and these Interdimensional Creatures.
(0/50)
[] Reality Sensors?
Well, you now know that Collapse Fluid somehow weakens the barriers between dimensions, also proving that alternate dimensions exist at the same time. Having some way to detect these fluctuations or weak spots would be incredibly useful at finding places these Interdimensional Creatures -
Note, come up with a better code name- were crawling into our reality through.
(0/300)
[] Take Deeper Readings
Using your new CFR detectors and radiation suits, you can send people deep inside the lethal zones to take significantly more detailed readings. Perhaps you could even try to devise some way to find concentrations of Collapse Fluid? Once again, the away team refuse to be sent to their deaths poking around territory filled with cognitohazards that want to eat them.
(0/200) (Requires Special Operations Units)
Personal (1 Dice)
[] Personal Project - Digital Minds
As much as it grates on you that you had to leave your latest breakthrough behind in China, you can use what you learned to create an experimental new type of AI. This version is nowhere near what you were approaching before, but it's a step back in the right direction.
[] Social
Spend time with someone
-[] Military Specialist
+5 Dice Bonus
[] Dice Type?