[X] Plan Feed Zocom, Orbital VI
A bit late, but whatever, here are my 2 cents.
My preferences for this plan are based on three points:
One, it does Vein mines, which I fully approve of. Subterran Tiberium is our most dangerous enemy on the planet. The time Earth has left is almost wholly dependent on how well, if at all, we can manage subterran growth. We know that although the surface of our blue zones are clean, the underground very much is not as we clearly saw when we had a sudden outbreak in one of our new shipyards. This needs to be tackled, and every little bit helps. This is also one way to gain a better bargaining position against Kaine during any potential TCN bargain. Since underground Tiberium decides when Planet Earth is going kaboom, having a good handle on it will drastically reduce the pressure to acquire it at all cost.
It's also not very strenuous on ZOCOM resources and likely does not demand as many of the currently scarce Power Armor suits, meaning the risk of a disaster in one of the Red Zone actions is less likely.
Two: It commits more dice to Armor factories. This is absolutely crucial to all our future endeavors. Even Karachi. The blurb explicitly mentions that the first stage of factories will just be enough to equip the tip of the spear. Meaning that even more are needed. Building more factories quickly, however, will allow us to transition a larger fraction of our forces to fully armored up infantry. This is desperately needed, especially in Karachi, as the reports we got from the Himalaya underground skirmishes back then showed us that our Infantry was getting chewed up and spat out by their newest Gana models. If NOD India tries to contest Karachi, our infantry will need to be prepared or its going to be painful. If we keep building factories at a rapid pace, not only will we be able to continuously fight and exploit Tiberium in the deep red, we might also have a sufficient amount to see the infantry forces sent to Karachi be all suited up. This will not only be a boon during open conflict, but might even help prevent it in the first place by being a display of how badly GDI wants the Karachi-Himalaya connection, and how willing it is to fight for it.
Three: I dislike the fact that Forging the Golden Spike is putting Erewhon on Green Zone harvesting, especially since it is only Erewhon on it. Narratively, this might read as Erewhon being told to clean up some Green Zone.... alone, like we're telling him to clean up our trash. Sure, Erewhon told us it thinks Tiberium is interesting, but even Tiberium has scut work, and doing Green Zone harvesting alone definitely sounds like scut work. Like, what's the challenge here? Piloting harvesters around? This might lead to Erewhon once again programming some EVAs to do the work and then being bored out of its ones and zeroes.
Also, I'm a bit worried about the security risks. If Erewhon is doing something in the Green Zones, this means that there is now an access point to Erewhon that does not lie in a GDI stronghold or in orbit. I don't want the Remembrancers to decide to infiltrate across our Fortress towns and use their technopathy on some Harvesters Erewhon is remote piloting to directly access him. We know NOD was super interested once the AI was announced, and while they probably freaked about a possible GDI Legion, I don't see them not being interested in getting a look at Erewhon, or alternatively subverting him via technopathy.