Attempting to Fulfill the Plan: GDI Edition

[Terra Allias]

I just want to see options to build those moon bases, and I'll be okay with an indefinite hiatus

 

[Negentropy]

Take however much time as you need, we will always enjoy your works no matter what you want to do - and I've always loved the Mechanist!

 

[JohnDoe22]

To fallout we shall go, to fallout we shall go...

 

[Curufinwe]

wew, finally finished reading through this whole thing!

its been a great ride, and ill probably check out the new quest when you post it ithilid

 

[Wildabeest]

I found this quest a week ago and have been rocked by how emotional i feel about a quest for centrally planning an economy trying to save the human race and stave off the apocalypse. The regency war, even as rapidly slapdash as it was, proved to be amazing in its scope and scale. The transformation from TW3 GDI into what it became from the questers voting through the lens of politically bumbling humanitarian Dr.Granger is so hopeful and awe inspiring and beyond what I personally have ever seen online I had to make an account just to engage with it.
I've read all the main quest posts but still have the SCED quest to go, so I want to take the opportunity to be so appreciative of the work Ithillid and the Discord (decent band name) have put into running and writing the sheer breadth and scope of this quest. The amount of work this takes seems jaw-dropping and, after a minute, I couldn't be happier than to hear about Ithillid's break. The last few quarters, especially with the tech explosion and the continued crash building have seem to be getting a bit out of control, or at least that's how I've seen it.

Given how exceedingly tight the quest has been til now, I am certainly willing to wait a few months for this to keep going. I am excited to see Gulati's memorial in Karachi, the next generation of GDI hardware come into being, the birth of the expeditionary space force and the revival of Earth species on the stations, future Nod diplomatic relations with Yao, Bintang, and the Bannerjees, developments with the forsaken, and InOps'continued sparring with Kane along with all the many other elements so far.

 

[Ithillid]

GDI Online Q1 2064



The Crown Jewels: Shala Completed!

Titania

New home among the stars, just moved in and excited to do my part. Not yet taken my first shift, they do give us a couple weeks to settle in, get used to the program overall. I was not part of the Pathfinder program, so it has been a learning experience.

The whole thing is a bit overwhelming honestly. Like, we work on UTC, but that does not always play nice with the orientation of the station. And then there is navigation. The ex navy people take to it like fish to damn water, but for the rest of us, the whole system feels more than a little bit mystical. Like, the difference between two rooms on opposite ends of the station can be a single number.

Salty Sailor (verified Nod)

How about increasing Vertical farms in the former yellow zones? More examples of GDI Crypto-Fash plundering the crystal and stealing the wealth for themselves. The blue zones aren't enough now you're setting up your orbital paradises while people in the Real Yellow zones starve?

InTheZONE
'Real Yellow Zones'. I guess you're talking about the ones under Warlord rule because all the stuff we control has been cleaned enough to be considered blue now. Maybe they should start working on consumer goods instead of sending another generation into GDI guns while they sit back and watch the blood flow. They won't of course. It's not like they lack the steaks, fruit and other conveniences while their people are eating CRP and only able to survive walking outside because they're wearing GDI provided environment suits while they get clean water from GDI provided filters powered by GDI provided solar tarps. Sorry, who're the ones plundering crystal and stealing wealth again?

Anyway. The new stations look interesting but they're only a start. I bet we're about to see a whole lot more people in space soon. Not me of course. This is my planet, I'm not leaving.

AgathaH
If you legit can't get to a Blue Zone, that's one thing. If you aren't allowed in because there's good reason for a reasonable person (not IF loonies) to believe you'd do something like sabotage life support, that's on you. We're trying to get things built fast enough that we can actually get everyone off Earth who wants off, but… space is not a friendly environment.
…Still, whohoo! We got the big four done, even if there's still addons to complete! It's so pretty!
#Titania You get used to it, really. I promise.

FloatingWood
Agatha, it's a 7 sided snowflake. Seven sided. I just can't get over how weird that is.
#InTheZone, wait, CRaP is actually part of the baseline diet for Nod? What the fuck? With the amount of food we send over you'd think everybody would have access to a decent meal.
As for space habitation; to da Moon! Finally make that giant leap for mankind we were promised a century ago but venal men refused to pursue for the sake of spending ever more effort to secure their own power.

Salty Sailor (verified Nod)
Shows how much you know inthebluezone. Yz-3 has been doing Plenty for ordinary people. But you assholes won't publish that will you. Just another example of you twisting the narrative. You send blankets and snacks to make yourself feel good. But guess what, we've been doing just fine without you. And "Your" Planet? Really?

1Fox2FoxRedFoxGreenFolx
Look SS, how do I put this... oh yes. fuck off. The Eagle preens but you Scorpions are the ones with the poison. If GDI can reach you, youll eat better than if Nod can reach you. And Nod cant or wont always provide enough. dont get me wrong, Nod tries but yall cant claim that the eagle dosen't help.

FloatingWood
Speaking off:The 2053-2055 Chinese Famine, an academic work published in '61 that explains how GDI food assistance curbed casualties and eventually put a halt to it, Civil Envirosuit Program from 2051 here discusses how and why GDI distributes envirosuits to Yellow Zones for practically free, Tiberium Disease Incidence is a GDI Health Department source tracking various tib diseases, shows a spike between 2045 and 50, but a marked and sizeable decline in disease rates since, The Gift of Food from Shanghai Press speaks of Yao's negotiations and how she managed to convince GDI to hand over literal megatons of food, the Sorong Medical Journal talks about the supply of high quality medication and bandages it's getting from Australia
But sure, keep complaining that GDI is doing nothing for the people in the Yellow Zones. It isn't perfect, but the only reason it's not talking loudly about what it's doing is because a whole bunch of thugs with guns would shoot everybody they'd try to help.

InTheZONE
Oh gee, I obviously don't know anything about living in a yellow zone. It's not like I grew up in one after all. You know, before Nod tried to murder my entire town and we were forced to flee to a GDI that we didn't really expect to help. Anyway, can someone contact a mod and get this twat kicked? We should be talking about space stations, not arguing with someone fellating dictators.

FloatingWood
#InTheZONE, space stations?
No, no space stations. I want a 10k population Moon city before the next elections, nothing less will suffice.

InTheZONE
#FloatingWood Only 10k? Haven't you seen their political promises? Starbound has been loudly bragging about the 20k target since they got it in writing. I wouldn't be surprised if they have a copy framed on the wall in their offices. Gonna need over 15k more people up there and the moon is free real estate now they understand a bit more about the requirements. And that's just the next 2 years, let alone the 4 until elections

AccomplishingProvidence
The beauty of the GDSS Shala cannot be denied, skeletal that she yet remains. It's clear they are intending to add more to her in the future, but the core structure itself is final, yes?

In terms of future expansion, it seems prudent to keep in mind that Shala, Columbia, Enterprise, and even Philadelphia are all proof-of-concept, pseudo-prototype stations. While planning for multiple stations for future projects is all well and good, I cannot help but think we'd want to strive for a design that incorporates all of the capabilities of these stations, at least in long-term planning, yes? As well, being able to have everything in the same complex would apply to future populations on Luna, Mars, and beyond as well.

As for the discussion of "Yellow Zone versus Blue Zone", while I think #Salty Sailor is being reductionist about the entire matter, please don't forget those sorts of statements and emotions are rooted in very real history. We have only to look at the maps of the Blue Zones, especially from before Granger took over the Treasury, to understand that there absolutely was inequality factoring into who was on what "side" of everything.
Yes, this is starting to change. But prejudice from the hard-liners in Initiative First, and indeed from other groups and sources, is slowing it down. Reluctance and ideological loyalty is slowing it down on Nod's side. If "total peace" was somehow negotiated and declared tomorrow, it would still likely take one or two entire generations before mankind was somewhere close to "whole" again. I'm sure there would be trials and punishments for crimes, but this would be a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a percent of humanity; one can't expect that the entirety of Nod's command down to every squad-commander or the like is tried and executed or imprisoned or the like (depending on how widespread leadership wishes for things like the death penalty to be in this hypothetical brave new world). We would have to see people learning to live peacefully alongside former enemies.

And to loop that philosophical musing back to space stations, if the decision is made to "simply" evacuate Earth, then people need to consider that being too casual about leaving people behind is dismissive of what would happen to them. Death to Tiberium poisoning is unpleasant. And even if it doesn't come to that, denying space to many people just due to where they come from would be absurd. Ultimately #AgathaH has hit the right of it in terms of how this will be approached.

#Salty Sailor, I would ask politely that you perhaps take a few moments to breath and reconsider just blindly accusing everyone living under the aegis of GDI of being so blindly prejudiced, and consider that, ultimately, many of them are just people living their life, just as many people living under the aegis of Nod are just living their lives. There has been war, but this does not mean these groups are different species; more binds mankind together than tears them apart, at the end of the day.

FloatingWood
#InTheZONE 10k population Moon city. Not 10k population on the Moon, a single city. With some creative accounting you can already get to a short thousand inhabitants with all the mines, I think.
#AccomplishingProvidence, any thoughts on how to convince Parliament to aggressively push for lunar colonization programs? I mean, aside the usual 'write to/petition parliament'.

InTheZONE
#AccomplishingProvidence I'm from that very real history. I know what it's like to grow up stuck between the scorpion and the eagle. The thing is that one side decided to murder us all for not toeing the line and providing them with good little slave soldiers while the other fed us, homed us, protected us. There's no 'both sides' here, between a flawed state and a fanatical cult led by a genocidal maniac I know who's on the right side.

#FloatingWood I kinda expect them to start with one city. It seems easier to build a settlement of 10k than 10 settlements of 1k, especially one you get into all the shit that needs duplicating like medical services.

KneeDeepInTheTib
Y'know, when I was a little girl in Sarajevo, I never thought I'd grow up to see the day where I'd be rooting for GDI, of all things, building space stations. Big ones, the kind you used to see in movies. Pretty sure I would have thought exactly the same as #Salty Sailor. Understanding it doesn't change the fact that I kinda wanna punch them in the face, though.
I wonder if I could convince ZOCOM to second me for moon city duty somewhere. Would be really, really cool to walk on the surface of the moon.

Solan
The moon is beautiful tonight isn't it? Right now I'm one of the few people who regularly work with trips to the Philadelphia and seeing the moon is always an awe inspiring experience. Maybe when I go to my everdistant hopes of retirement I can live in an apartment in a moon city and explore the craters there. It's not exactly romantic but I think making the moon work would be helpful to remove all the doom and gloom at home.

CrystalSkull
Alright! Finally got this new computer to start participating in these forums. So, new space station finished? Well thats neat, too bad I'll never be able to sit foot in one. I'd have to wear an environmental suit all teh time and it's bad enough to do that at work.

Salty Sailor (Verified Nod) [Permanent Ban]
[Rule 3 violation: Calling for the death of others. Rule 4 violation: Personal attacks.]
#inthezone Die you fascist inbred westernised hick traitor scum. You want to talk about being attacked? Your 'perfect' Eagles have burned entire cities of innocent people with your death satellites. You've bombed peaceful refugee convoys, fleeing to YOUR GDI. Your initiative first have made gifs of the destruction of entire cities and laughed about it. And don't say it's just a few people, that's hundreds of your politicians who until very recent history were part of the largest political party you had. And 'that' little more than a polite fiction to give cover for your own generals and the megacorps who really ran the show.

FloatingWood
#InTheZONE, while I agree with you on building a single 10k city being easier than building 10 1k towns, that is only (heh) in a vacuum. GDI already has, what, a dozen or more mining operations on the Moon? It would be much easier to expand those from their current temporary rotation operation to permanent habitations with attendant services, local manufacturing, etc. Most have been operating for years and have a clue for local conditions, as well as infrastructure already built up that can be tapped.
Building a single 10k city, especially from scratch, when there's so many other sites that could benefit from local entertainment, medical facilities, food production, industrial facilities… it's hardly impossible, but going for that before turning what's essentially mining expeditions into mining towns seems like a less than wise decision.
#Solan, to be honest, one thing I fear will happen is the same light pollution we see on Earth. Well, sort of the same. Just the result of so many points of light making the dark side of the Moon, well, no longer dark.

AccomplishingProvidence
#FloatingWood, I would say that it's going to take a lot of coordinated action. Offhand, it seems prudent to seek some experts in the field to help champion your cause. More long-term, coordinate votes for Starbound next election?
#InTheZONE, I would have hoped you could see I was not trying a simplistic "both sides" argument, but instead was presenting an observation for why people might have some of the opinions like what we saw, at least in general. I would point out I called for Salty to reign in his rhetoric. Ultimately, I'm just trying to help people keep perspective, not dish out an absolute judgment on, as you say, "both sides".

InTheZONE
#Salty Sailor (verified Nod) Lol, angry little wannabe terrorist tries to make a threat. Look bub, your buddies have been trying to kill me since I was a teenager, if you want to make me take you seriously you won't do it by yelling incoherently on the internet. I welcome an actual attempt though, It's always nice when the targets come towards you. As for the rest of your BS, I've actually seen a couple of strikes that Nod cried about being 'innocent refugee caravans'. It's weird how their film crews seem to move all the tank wrecks before they start filming.

#AccomplishingProvidence Yeah, I know why people have those opinions, I even grew up with some Noddists who worshipped the bald prick. When our village got attacked the 'true faithful' didn't seem to make much distinction. They just gunned down everyone. I knew a guy who was an old TW2 veteran, prayed to his picture of Kane every morning and night. Apparently they gunned him down all the same. People like him, like those Open Hand lot, they're decent people. That's why the 'true Noddists' try to kill them so often. They know the decent ones don't want to be part of their group any more. Maybe 20 years ago they might have had a point but that point died when the 2 Grangers took over.

FloatingWood
#AccomplishingProvidence, thanks. Hope we can get it through. The way this planet is going, well, I'll probably be dead and buried long before it's my time in the queue to get off Earth, but at least we can have some hope that the kids have a chance, you know?
#InTheZONE, the 'true Noddists' do not kill the decent ones merely because they do not want to be part of their group anymore (although violence committed upon apostates and heretics is definitely partly motivated by that), the main reason, I think, is because the decent ones undermine the system of power the assholes depend upon to keep themselves in power. They know how to keep the jackboot firmly planted on the neck of everybody who tries to rise up with violence, because that's how they themselves rose up, but those that would offer kindness, trust, or love to others? That is something they only understand as attempts to establish a unified front with which to overthrow the 'mighty' currently in charge and impose their own rule upon those they once obeyed.

Solan
#FloatingWood I'm sure light pollution is a concern for those who stayed in the cities all the time and even now the concerns for no longer seeing stars in the skies is still valid especially with the satellites and the weaponization of space. Ion Cannons brings a lot of light pollution. But I'm pretty sure the dark side of the moon is still something we aren't done exploring so it's going to take decades to a century to fully map out the moon and with the current human population there's still plenty of space on Earth to see the night sky.


The Flying Cars of the Future

Fourcorneredwheel

So, everyone knows about that hovercar that ran around the Suzuki racetrack a few years back, and the fairly stuttering efforts GDI has made to get various forms of hovertech for logistics trucks and the like. Certainly far from nothing, but certainly nothing on the mass scale of trying to build a flying cars that our grandparents were promised.

Now, a lot of this stuff is still very classified, and I have no idea how long it will be until we get public acknowledgement

FloatingWood
Well… I think we'll get hovercars basically never. Hover vehicles sure, those will show up. All in the hands of government agencies. Think difficult terrain rescue vehicles and the like. But hovercars? I wouldn't trust the average GDI citizen with a ground car, too many idiots parking in buildings through the window already, what if they can start doing that in the first floor and up?

YellowZon3r
Only Hover harvesters please. That is, in fact the intended purpose of hover vehicles to operate in yellow zones and red zones without contact with Tiberium. Most people, especially in deep blue zone cities won't ever need a hover vehicle.

HigherThanYou
Flying cars may be okay for out in the country, but for anyone who thinks they're a good idea for cities, I have two words for you.
Bird. Strike.

GDIWife
I really hope we'll get some. I'm still working towards my standard car license but flying sounds cool. Maybe some kind of autodrive?

FloatingWood
… Crap.
GDIWife found out.

YellowZon3r
I've changed my mind. Get GDIWife a car ASAP. There is absolutely no way it can possibly go wrong.

Erewhon
Is a flying car Driven or Flown? Discuss.

InTheZONE
#Erewhon Yes

AccomplishingProvidence
Mankind has imagined having "flying cars" for over a century now, I'd imagine we'll see another generation of disappointment that this technology likely won't be universally available. Yet that is likely the wisest course of action. Even the most well-meaning of pilot-drivers will likely struggle with the open-air three-dimensional movement.

It does have potential for regular mass-movement of cargo and the like, though. As well as for emergency services and rapid-use public transit, perhaps?

I suppose if this is available on the civilian side it's likely even more available and advanced for military hardware? Perhaps we will see gravity-defying vehicles that outperform even the most advanced Nod vehicles soon?

HigherThanYou
#YellowZon3r hey, she can't be worse than some of the rookies I've seen. Most of them didn't kill anyone when they crashed… in reality. Sims? Heh.

InTheZONE
#AccomplishingProvidence Look, I don't care about flying cars, I want my cool hoverboard. That thing will kill off an entire generation of teenagers.
#HigherThanYou Ehhh… she managed to (in sims) crash into Philadelphia. By accident. How do you even do that?

GDIWife
A lot of judgemental people here. At least #YellowZon3r is being supportive

FloatingWood
Wife, how long have you been trying for a standard driving license? And how much trouble have you been having with that?
I genuinely fear that if you were to drive a hovercar you would end up killing people. Not deliberately, not by malice, but, well, that still kills people. Quite possibly you included.

Solan
What I want to know if the hover cars can work on mountainsides and prevent it from falling off. Suzuki is great to test things out but not enough to fully fix the kinks on roads where the edge would lead to almost certain death. While there is certainly no more out of the way towns and villages with the years of urbanization and centralization thanks to TIberium the roads have always been maintained not because of inertia but because of a lot of facilities throughout GDI that requires a more secure path to travel. Not only that but it helps a lot in road efforts when we inevitably create non-rail connections to areas that don't warrant a full rail line. It dare I say help in our outreach efforts to Nod when the roads there were described as either damaged or non-existent after neglect when Tiberium ravaged the Earth.

CrystalSkull
Flying cars? Yeah, no thanks. I like the idea of being close to the ground. I'll take the hover car.

Q1 2064

Resources: 1250+130 in‌ ‌reserve‌ (-30 from Reconstruction Commissions) (-15 from Bureau of Arcologies) (-15 from Consumer Industrial Development) (-10 Division of Alternative Energy) (-20 Department of Munitions)(-30 Department of Refits) (100 in Reserve for Banking)

Political‌ ‌Support:‌ 119
SCIENCE Meter: 4/4

Free ‌Dice:‌ ‌6 ‌
Erewhon Dice: 1
Dice Capacity 55/60

Tiberium Spread
25.12 (+0.11) Blue Zone
0.04 (+0.04) Green Zone
0.06 (+0.00) Cyan Zone
23.14 (+.11) Yellow Zone (99 points of mitigation)
51.64 (-.22) Red Zone (87 points of mitigation)
Next Mutation Roll: Q3 2064


Current Economic Issues:
Housing: +86 (+85 LQ, +1 HQ) (1 high-quality housing per turn)
Energy: +62 (+6 in reserve) (+5 per turn from sub-departments)
Logistics: +38 (-4 from military activity)
Food: +50 (+24 backed reserve, +5 unbacked reserve)
Health: +24 (-8 from refugees)
Capital Goods: +23 (+2 per turn from Distributed Industrial Authority) (+348 in reserve)
Consumer Goods: +277 (+10 per turn from Private Industry) (+3 per turn from sub-departments) (+1 per turn from perennials) (-1 per turn Q1 2064) (Net +14 per turn)
Labor: +19 (+3 per turn from medical care) (+2 per turn from Immigrant qualifications) (-2 per turn from private industry) (-3 per turn from other government) (-1 from graying population) (Net -1)
Tiberium‌ ‌Processing‌ ‌Capacity‌ ‌(2810/3800)‌ ‌(1440 HG, 1350 IHG) (HG: 1 per 95, IHG: 1 per 85)
Tiberium Reserve (0/500)
STUs: +3
Taxation Per Turn: +180 (+20 per turn from Private Industry)
Space Mining Per Turn: +100
Maintenance Reductions: +50

STU Production and Consumption
Net: +3 per turn
Production: +31 per turn (15.2 HG, 15.9 IHG)
Consumption: -24 per turn
22 Economy
-6 Tiberium (2 Harvesting Tendrils, 2 Sonic Weapons, 2 T-Glass)
-16 Other (8 Structural Alloys, 6 Hovercraft, 2 Gravitic Shipyard)
6 Military
-4 Aircraft (2 Tactical Lasers, 2 Plasma Munitions)
-1 Ground Vehicles (1 Mastodons [Shimmer Shields, Point Defense Lasers], 0 Havocs [Shimmer Shields])
-1 Strategic Air Defense Networks

Projected Fusion Power Plant Decommissioning
-8 Energy Q1 2064
-16 Energy, +1 Labor Q1 2065
-16 Energy, +1 Labor Q4 2065
-16 Energy, +1 Labor Q3 2066
-16 Energy, +1 Labor Q4 2067
-16 Energy, +1 Labor Q2 2067
-16 Energy, +1 Labor Q3 2067
-16 Energy, +1 Labor Q4 2067
-16 Energy, +1 Labor Q2 2068
-16 Energy, +1 Labor Q4 2068


Status‌ ‌of‌ ‌the‌ ‌Parties‌ ‌
(strong‌ ‌support,‌ ‌weak‌ ‌support,‌ ‌weak‌ ‌opposition,‌ ‌strong‌ ‌opposition)‌ ‌
Developmentalist: 705 (200; 400; 75; 30) 17.6%
Militarists: 629 Seats (300; 100; 200; 29) 15.7%
Starbound: 618 Seats (400; 100; 100; 18) 15.5%
Market Socialist Party: 555 Seats (300; 155; 50; 50) 13.9%
Socialist Party: 493 Seats (250; 100; 93; 50) 12.3%
Free Market Party: 405 Seats (50; 150; 100; 105) 10.1%
Initiative First Party: 334 Seats (0; 34; 100; 200) 8.4%
United Yellow List: 117 Seats (80; 30; 7; 0) 3%
Reclamation: 99 Seats (50; 40; 6; 3) 2.5%
Homeland: 41 Seats (20; 10; 5; 6) 1%
Open Hand: 4 Seats (2; 2; 0; 0) .1%
Total: 4000 Seats (1652; 1121; 736; 491)

Military‌ ‌Confidence‌ ‌
Ground‌ ‌Forces‌‌:‌ High ‌ ‌
Air‌ ‌Force‌:‌ ‌High
Space‌ ‌Force‌:‌ Decent ‌
Steel‌ ‌Talons:‌ ‌Decent
Navy:‌ Decent‌ (Trending to High)
ZOCOM:‌ ‌Decent ‌

Plan Goals
Provide 13 Consumer Goods points from the Treasury
Provide 1 Consumer Goods from Agriculture
Increase Income by 390
Increase Tiberium Processing limit by 470
Increase population in space by 14.45k
Provide 14 Points of Red Zone Abatement
Spend at least one die on Steel Talons projects every turn

Projects
Complete Karachi Planned City by end of 2065
Deploy Orca Wingman Drones by end of 2065
Complete North Boston Phase 5
Deploy Governor-A refit
Complete at least 4 Ground Forces Zone Armor factories
Complete Reforestation Campaign Preparation Phase 2
Develop both Next Generation Armored and Support Vehicles by end of 2065
Complete Regional Hospital Expansions by end of 2065
Complete Coordinated Abatement by end of 2065
Complete Post War Housing Refits
Develop Inferno Gel in 2064 Q2

Promises to Litvinov:
Do not activate Free Dice (except for Tiberium) unless all Department Dice are active.
Spend no more than two free dice per turn on Military.
Activate Refit Department
Hand off at least 10 more points of Capital Goods to market over the course of the plan.



Brotherhood Cybernetics

Top Secret
Code Word: Silverhand

The Brotherhood has always had an edge on the initiative in the field of cybernetic implants, with CABAL's cybernetically augmented armies and the Marked of Kane representing a high point in terms of both capability and amount replaced. While neither is particularly representative of modern Brotherhood military forces, cybernetic augmentation has certainly not been abandoned. Rather, it has diverged into a number of different programs. Some leaders, like Stahl, have been pursuing programs along the lines of GDI's own prosthetics designs, although oftentimes a generation or more ahead of what can be done on Initiative terms. On the other hand, the Bannerjees have been pursuing a heavier platform, with a number of what seem to be next generation human cyborgs appearing at Lohri festivals alongside more typical gana and conventional soldiery.


Politics
The initial political wrangling has pivoted on a previously low priority project: Inferno Gel, the Initiative's version of the Brotherhood of Nod's own flame weapons. Effectively an improved version of napalm, it is a core piece of the Brotherhood's arsenal of terror. While GDI is certainly no stranger to incendiary weapons, with large parts of its arsenal either having incendiary components or being entirely incendiaries, it does tend to use a different suite of materials, mostly because of the desire for munitions stability, preferring thermobaric, phosphorus, and thermite based systems. After the elections had completed, the reinvigorated parliamentary parties had been looking to make their mark on the coming two years.

"Crucible. I've listened to your concerns, and I understand where you're coming from. Fire is a terrible way to die. It should have been an easy win for a fledgling party. Getting rid of a munition that's unpopular with the citizenry, a waste of resources to the military, and in return establish a slightly higher baseline respect for all of humanity. A win-win-win-win. I certainly would have been happier had you succeeded.

"Unfortunately, you're still too new at this. To many of our people, you represent the enemy. And when they saw you requesting for the weapons removal, that only made them perceive it as more effective and desirable. You'll need to be more subtle in the future, better train your party for public speaking, and build allies elsewhere in the Initiative if you want your proposals to go through.

"If it helps at all, the military is still against the deployment of the gel. They only begrudgingly accepted the development after I told them that InOps would be better able to track domestic terrorists' attempts to produce the material if we knew how it was manufactured."
-Snippet of conversation between Hackett and Crucible




[ ] Advanced Tunnel Borer Development (Tech) (New)
While digging holes is something that GDI has gotten remarkably good at, the Brotherhood was at one point a master of the field, connecting large parts of the world through a network of tunnel systems, allowing them to move forces safe from GDI airborne and orbital surveillance. Adapting their technology, if not their ambitions is likely to open new areas where the Initiative can make connections, and speed construction.
(Progress 80/80: 15 resources per die) [40, 8, 20]

Tunnel boring machines are not particularly new, with the first being Marc Isambard Brunel's shield in 1818, a relatively simple iron scaffold that provided protection for the twelve excavators working the tunnel face. While the shield would be relatively quickly outdated, with Michel Henri Joseph Maus inventing a steam powered tunnel boring machine named the Mountain Slicer, built for the king of Sardinia in an attempt to build a 12.8 kilometer tunnel through the Alps, which, at the time, would have been the longest tunnel in the world.

Brotherhood tunneling networks have their own history, with the first generation actually predating the First Tiberium War, with multiple major tunneling companies actually being Brotherhood fronts, developing the technology under the noses of everyone else. However, it was in the prelude to the Second Tiberium War that the Brotherhood, first as disparate groups, and later as a systematic program, began development of a worldwide tunnel network, able to travel nearly anywhere through a so-called "underway" that still has sections in use today. The big innovation has been speed – a combination of an adaptive drill head, that can dial its openings and cutting edges so that it can change the profile of attack to best match whatever is being cut through, a series of waterjets that provide critical cooling at the interface, and a number of other systems to improve the speed of the drills. These include various means of producing shock heating to fracture the rocks being drilled, mostly implementations of crystal beam lasers – but in some cases plasma cutters, and occasionally even more exotic options might be employed.

The Initiative design adds a few of its own tricks: namely a set of sonic projectors, effectively allowing it to use modulated sonic pulses to shatter and shake loose rock and dirt and stone in the way, easing the course of the borer and minimizing the amount of wear on the cutting head – an important innovation especially as it also does a fair bit to break up the Tiberium that is so common underground. However, the primary utility is likely not going to be on Earth, but rather in the digging of Lunar colonies, with the now finished 'Crown Jewel' stations offering a blueprint for life among the cosmos.


[ ] Offshore Tiberium Harvester Stations (Phase 4) (New)
With the Initiative Navy becoming noticeably stronger and the systematic reduction in the Brotherhood's ability to contest inshore development, it is now sufficiently safe for new offshore harvesting stations in the Bering Strait, off the coast of Australia and New Zealand, and a number of other sites.
(Progress 184/150: 20 resources per die) (+20 resources per turn) [23, 34, 28, 45]

Station S-0451 is but one of the new harvesting stations, located off the coast of Tasmania, in waters that once were threatened by Nod missile launchers located in the Brotherhood-held city of Adelaide. Today, many of those same launch sites are now manned by Initiative troops, and house its batteries of ASROCs and ASMs, providing protection from the Brotherhood's submarine and surface fleets, beyond that provided by the bulk of Australia itself. The station's design is little different from those built before the Regency War, although the life support systems have been revised to incorporate lessons learned in space.

The program overall is still a relatively precarious one. The chronic tyranny of naval building schedules and the need to train, fit out, and prepare the fleet arm has limited the scale, especially as the threat profile is still noticeable, even if the Regency War saw relatively little in the way of hostilities against the platforms.


[ ] Yellow Zone Fortress Towns (Phase 7)
The last pair of Fortress Town waves will focus heavily on preparing a more rigid defensive line, albeit one that is in many cases tens or hundreds of kilometers deep. Positioned to dominate the surrounding areas, these towns are intended to provide the base for future bands of defensive fortifications.
(Supports Green Zone Intensification)
(Progress 250/250: 20 resources per die) (+4 Housing)
(Progress 20/225: 20 resources per die) (+4 Housing) [8, 44, 34, 37]

To call the most recent wave of fortress towns 'Yellow Zone' is probably pushing the definition quite far, as they are not really in the Yellow Zones, or towns in any real sense. Rather, they are more akin to the castra along the edges of the Roman Empire – fortified encampments for the military, often with a walled civilian town outside the military-restricted camp. How much areas along the edge are Blue, Yellow or Green Zones varies along the line and in time, as Nod and GDI forces skirmish back and forth in small engagements and Tiberium makes its presence felt. Few civilians live in the towns, something that is unlikely to change. Even in the fortress towns closer to the Initiative's heartlands population is sparse, the few decrepit commieblocks that remain preferred over the farther flung settlements due to their closeness to the Initiative's cultural and economic hearts.
Only three groups favour living within the fortress towns, albeit with some overlap between them. The first group is the dependents and families of soldiers, moving with their deployments. The second are Initiative First hardliners seeking a community 'untainted by Yellow Zoners' – only a handful of whom grasp the irony of doing so in a place that was a Yellow Zone not that long ago – and other political puritans. The third are members of the Home Guard who desire to fight, and seek out housing and jobs where they can pursue this goal.
Less permanently, but no less importantly, there are the Forgotten, many of whom have begun using fortress towns and the environs around them as home bases and waystations. While these new fortress towns are rarely in better locations, they are some of the few nonmilitary personnel to routinely pay visits to these locations as an easy source of amenities (like hot running water) that are difficult to obtain or maintain during their long Red Zone treks.


[ ] North Boston Chip Fabricator (Phase 5)
A fifth and final expansion to the North Boston complex, this will focus not just on expanding chip fabrication, but also on a number of new technologies. While it is unlikely that these technologies will completely replace existing designs, there are a number of edge cases where inferior performance in one aspect is made up for by superior performance in others.
(Progress 750/1805: 15 resources per die) (+35 Capital Goods, +16 Consumer Goods, -2 Labor, -8 Energy) (Required for further AI projects.) [16, 20, 28, 44, 38, 17, 3, 42]

North Boston has seen significant work, with a number of new annexes along the Mystic River, and has gone reasonably well, with few serious incidents. While there were a number of injuries from an incorrectly calibrated particle accelerator violently tearing itself apart, most are expected to have returned to work by the end of the quarter. This is a credit to the precautions GDI takes as a matter of course with high energy equipment, as aside the compartmentalization substantially decreasing the spread of flying debris, the mandatory protective equipment worn by personnel working around such equipment is rated as sufficient for small caliber fire and light artillery fragments. Between the blast and debris, equipment with heavy power draws does tend to explode in a manner that is similar enough in effect to an artillery shell.

However, the project is not all doom and gloom. The most basic items of supply for the manufacture of computer chips are the high-purity raw materials needed – silicon wafers, carbon nanotubes, and a wide variety of other products have been projected to be consumed by the Mystic River annexes in huge quantities. Thus, setting up forges to supply the basic materials has been a first step towards both opening the annexes, and ironing out a few lingering supply chain issues.


[ ] Second Generation Continuous Cycle Fusion Plants (Phase 4)
With second generation plants a proven concept, GDI needs a relatively rapid pace of construction, with the first of the first generation plants expected to begin reaching serious failures in a matter of years, and the limitations on construction speeds meaning that total production is noticeably bottlenecked.
(Progress 270/270: 20 resources per Die) (+19 Energy) (-1 Labor) (No more than three dice can be spent on 2nd Generation CCF per turn)
(Progress 29/270: 20 resources per Die) (+19 Energy) (-1 Labor) [41, 8, 15, 50]

With the second set of peaker plants failing as the most modern set of continuous cycle fusion plants light off, GDI is currently comfortably ahead of schedule, with the next set of projected failures not until 2065. This puts the Initiative in an interesting position. Rather than waiting out the time, mothballing the fusion plants ahead of schedule would provide a ready, although non- emergency supply of energy for Initiative projects.

One of the biggest problems with the mothballing proposal is the amount of energy required to light off a fusion reaction, and the time that it takes for a continuous cycle fusion plant to go from initiation to actually being able to produce grid-ready power. In cases like the opening hours of the Third Tiberium War, Brotherhood strategic bomber and missile campaigns damaged the grid badly enough that trying to bring new fusion plants online during the time would have likely done more harm overall than good, with an exercise in the European Blue Zone projecting that trying to bring mothballed fusion plants online would have produced a wave of substation failures across the continent. However, this does not mean that the plants are useless as a reserve power supply. Rather, they are a reserve in being, something that can be brought online on a longer timeframe than the hours or days that are required for emergency operations.

An additional report has come to the attention of the treasury of some early attempts at a '2.5 gen' design of fusion reactor, but these have been tabled due to lack of meaningful technical development since the first redesign. While some of these design concepts are interesting, none are currently practical and economical, and are mostly rehashes of designs discarded due to their high STU costs.


[ ] Second Generation Repulsorplate Factories
With the repulsorplate finally offering significant edges, and opening up a wide variety of new niches including the potential of flying ships, building enough to supply the Initiative as a whole is somewhat problematic, and will require far more than what the Suzuka factory can produce alone, especially if they are to become a somewhat standard feature, rather than a specific exception to the rule.
(Progress 543/525: 25 resources per die) (+8 Logistics, +8 Capital Goods, -4 STUs, -6 Energy, -2 Labor) (Unlocks further military and space projects) [2, 47, 12, 49]

Factories across the Blue Zones have started producing their first batches of repulsorplates. Although these initial batches are small and subject to rigorous quality control testing, they will grow in size as the producers grow more confident in their skill and machinery, and more personnel are hired.

Putting the repulsorplates to good use will take a substantial amount of development work, as (while they are eminently useful) GDI has few designs that actually are set up to use them. Fortunately, most designs are already hybrid electric, or have substantial electrical power systems already installed, meaning that bolting on a repulsorplate (or more than one) is actually reasonably viable. Perhaps the most urgently needed hovervehicle design is a common chassis that can be used for both civilian and military cargo transport, capable of being configured as everything from a tanker to an intermodal container carrier, to a bus.

[ ] Bergen Superconductor Foundry (Phase 4)
Scaling up production once more will allow superconductors to find their way into a wide array of products, ranging from the ordinary to ones that most people will never see in their lives. Particle accelerators, fusion plants, network interchanges, cogeneration facilities, and a wide array of other elements will be significantly improved by more widespread availability of superconductors.
(Progress 610/610: 30 resources per die) (+4 Capital Goods, +8 Energy) (-2 Logistics) (+5 Political Support)
(Progress 144/1140: 30 resources per die) (+8 Capital Goods, +16 Energy) (-3 Logistics) (+10 Political Support) [47, 4 41, 4 31, 17]

Bergen has completed its fourth stage of development – and actually substantially over-completed, with a number of notable places where improvements have been made over and above what could have otherwise been expected. The systematic improvements are not enough to seriously make a dent in GDI's need for superconductors, but do make the job safer, easier, and more secure – such as a suite of redundant air evacuators that, even if the primary and secondary systems go down, can refresh the air inside the complex within thirty seconds. While still dangerous if the system encounters a critical failure and releases high energy gasses inside, it is less dangerous than not having such a system, or trying to do it on the surface with the ever present danger of attack from the Brotherhood of Nod, even as deep into the Blue Zones as Bergen is.


[ ] High Energy Capacitors Development (Tech) (New)
While capacitors are nothing new, Visitor based designs are nearly twice as efficient as any currently produced formats, and therefore have a number of places where a better capacitor is deeply needed. While there are obvious answers like electromagnetic weaponry, there are applications everywhere from fusion reactors and computer chips, to medical equipment.
(Progress 77/60: 20 resources per die) [8, 35]

With electrical storage, one of the critical problems is speed of discharge. Compositions that tend to be able to store a lot of energy are slow to discharge. Compositions that are fast to discharge by contrast can't store much energy. While the Visitor derived designs do not break that dynamic, they have pointed the way to the Initiative designing capacitors twice as capable as what can be produced currently.

Fundamentally, the implications are both sweeping, and limited. While the obvious uses are definitely noticeable, such as making the Initiative's railguns that much smaller, there exists a very broad range of other applications, from making marginally more compact fusion reactors, to slight improvements in conventional computer chips, to a number of other small and mid-sized features across Initiative technologies.

In terms of practicality, as the capacitors do not require STUs – just some fairly high energy and higher precision construction – they are reasonably practical to mass manufacture, although it will be, at least to start, a relatively small stream of the devices, and likely otherwise integrated into production chains elsewhere. Quality control of these devices must be kept very high-the slightest imperfections in high-energy capacitors can cause insulation failures, damage and even explosions.


[ ] Reforestation Campaign Preparations (Phase 1)
While actively regreening the world is certainly premature, between the continued expansion of Tiberium underground and the continued war with the Brotherhood of Nod, some efforts can be taken immediately to stabilize vast amounts of now-barren land reclaimed from Tiberium and begin the long march towards rebuilding functional soils.
(Progress 805/805: 5 resources per die)
(Progress 280/790: 5 resources per die) [28, 30, 42, 24, 15, 21, 47, 25]

Regreening efforts, even without the political support of the Biodiversity Party, are an ongoing attempt to seed as much land as possible, although some of the reach goals are being abandoned without the political sponsorship of a political party. Effectively, there are differences between seeding lands for practicality, and for biodiversity. While mixes of seeds are a requirement to ensure a network of roots, rather than monolayer root systems to help keep the soil from washing away, there is a noticeable difference between trying to restore a localized balance of clovers, flowers, and grasses, and simply seed bombing from high altitude with a standardized mix.

On a practical level, efforts are already substantially reducing erosion, with multiple rivers in the South American Blue Zone having small but statistically significant drops in particulate levels despite only being a few weeks into germination, although this is likely a matter of P hacking more than anything noticeable on a human scale.


[ ] Strategic Food Stockpile Construction (Phase 5)
While localized caches are useful, more central positioning and expansion of existing larger stockpiles will be critical for allowing GDI to centralize refugee populations and continue to offer key services.
(Progress 149/170: 10 resources per die) (+2 Food in Reserve, -3 Food) [13, 29]

Despite being strategic, the current wave of food stockpiles are being constructed in an immensely tactical sense. While fronts like South America that are not expected to see a significant response from the Brotherhood have seen slow construction, the critical ones in areas like the Arabian Peninsula, Madagascar, and the Himalayas are, for the most part, ready to receive food supplies. All three are expected to receive nuclear strikes as part of Al-Isfahani's retaliation against any invasion of Karachi, and with zero hour fast approaching, everyone who can read a calendar knows that war is on the horizon.


[ ] Organ Farming Programs (Tech) (New) (MS)
While producing human compatible organs in vitro on a large scale is still beyond the Initiative's capabilities, there are other options, most notably pigs, which can be used to substantially simplify the process of producing a number of different organ types, opening up the supply substantially.
(Progress 81/120: 10 resources per die) (-4 Consumer Goods, +2 Health) [21, 26]

Pigs have often been used as a proxy for humans, most notably in various trauma tests, such as those practiced by various militaries testing munitions in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Now, however, they are being used in a very different way, genetically modified ova have been implanted, and are reared as donor animals for a selection of human compatible organs, including livers, kidneys, even intestinal sections.

While animal rights activists in the 20th and early 21st century protested the idea, in many cases enough to make groups abandon their efforts, the movements have largely died off and been replaced by a more utilitarian perspective on the welfare of animals taking over, one that prioritizes the needs of humanity over much else. While this is unlikely to last forever – the pigs themselves are mostly a stopgap – a ready supply of organs until Initiative bioscience laboratories can grow replacement organs in vitro themselves, rather than needing an animal proxy to create such organs in vivo.


[ ] Enhanced Harvest Tiberium Spikes (Platform)
Developing a model of Tiberium Spike that not only harvests Tiberium but also marginally speeds its growth is a quite radical idea. Based on GDI's work with the Tiberium Inhibitor and experience with the Scrin's Growth Accelerators, it would substantially increase the throughput, but at the risk of spreading Tiberium more quickly.
(Progress 214/180: 20 resources per die) (-5 Political Support per die) (MS) [15, 10]

Unfortunately, as found by many progressives in the past, gaining political acceptance for an idea is not as simple as calmly explaining that it is a good one, and the benefits thereof. The response to the tib spikes is in many cases more emotional than based in reality, and while the benefits of abatement in the deeps can be explained, it does not really match up to the fact that these spikes are not exactly precision implements, and will be producing outbreaks around them as they pull Tiberium to the surface.

Politically, this has given a new lease on life to a number of conspiracy theories, most alleging that some portion of the Treasury administration has been infiltrated and taken over by cryptonoddists who are sabotaging GDI for their own ends.

I'm tellin' ya man, those tibmen runnin' these towers are tryin' ta make y'all mutants ta turn ya inta borgs, 's why they buildin' these new towers out here.

• Interview with a concerned citizen regarding the 'Enhanced Harvest Tiberium Spike' project, original publisher; website Garrytheprophet.

[ ] Coordinated Abatement Programs (Phase 3) (Updated)
Another push in coordination will notably expand the reach of the abatement effort. Political factors will for now inhibit further expansion than this phase, as GDI politicians are starting to question its efficacy and safety while in Nod rumblings of sabotage and violence are becoming too loud to leave unaddressed. Success and safe work will likely do much to address these issues, but that will take time.
(Progress 187/175: 25 resources per die) (+3 Red Zone Abatement) [38, 17]

One of the biggest impacts on the program in recent months has actually been the implementation of GDI's new predictive modeling programs. While it, in some ways, has introduced inefficiencies because of bad data – such as sending more food to the front than actually needed – those inefficiencies are relatively small compared to the wasted man hours filling out paperwork for the various predictable needs.

Working with the Brotherhood overall is still a difficult process, and while the people at the front can establish some level of camaraderie, it is more akin to the Christmas Truce of 1914 than anything else, where while they may play games today, it is with the full expectation that tomorrow they will stare at each other over open sights.


[ ] Xenotech Tiberium Refinery Development (Tech) (New)
While there are many mysteries of the Visitors' Tiberium refining capabilities, and most have not even seen the first steps towards solutions, a dark horse program started during the Third Tiberium War has borne fruit, even as it was running out of samples to test with. Although far from the efficiencies observed during the war, it is a substantial upgrade to GDI's ability to manufacture using Tiberium.
(Progress 244/180: 35 resources per die) [17, 14, 10, 40, 6, 25]

The difference between the Visitors' and human refining methodologies is stark. Nothing, not Mobius, not Hewlett-Gardener, not even Abdul-Pascal-Kane, is particularly similar. Where GDI uses magnets, sonics, and plasma, the xenotech based refinery uses force fields, and other, more exotic means to break down and separate out usable elements from Tiberium. This results in not only a substantial increase in production (on the order of approximately 10 percent increases in usable material outputs) but also a substantial increase in stable transuranic materials, somewhat under doubling outputs of even Forgotten boosted Improved Hewlett Gardener process refining.

The testbed for this has been located north of the ruins of Adelaide, near the Australian Red Zone, due to the overall security of the location, far from any Brotherhood force seriously capable of wrecking the site, and in a newly reclaimed Blue Zone, meaning that potential civilian casualties are minimized in case things go catastrophically wrong. Progress however, has been fast, smooth, and for trying to build a xenotech refinery, substantially less difficult than one could first expect.

The problem is cost, not primarily in terms of space or materials, but rather in what those materials are. Visitor refining technologies require the use of force fields, gravitics, and a number of other features of the visitor arsenal, meaning that construction on larger scales is likely to be spectacularly costly, if only in the short term. While these refineries will obviously use STUs in the facilities, the processes produce far more than they require and easily offset the cost.

Sir, we've observed the test refinery at Adelaide, it doesn't look like any GDI refinery any of us have seen before, but as in the attached maps we have found what we believe are good spots to place explosives to sabotage it. We can proceed to this step at any time, but will have to move soon after this transmission.
-Agent Murk

Do not. Extract and return immediately.
-K

(Intercepted message between Nod Shadow Team and their superior. Identity of 'K' unclear. 'Murk' was last known active in the late 2050s.)


[ ] Liquid Tiberium Refining Development (Tech) (New)
While liquid Tiberium is distinctly unstable, this actually has some significant potential upsides - namely that it is much easier to break apart into molecules. The tricky part is doing that in a way that both produces something useful, and does not result in rapid unscheduled violent disassembly of the refineries due to runaway exothermic events.
(Progress 192/180: 20 resources per die) [16, 25, 23, 40]

Another product of the Corruptor, this technology flows from a study of the mysterious repair process of the alien 'support walker' with its heavy bulbous body and strange 'mouthparts'. How spraying down units with liquid Tiberium held and repaired them has long been a mystery, as the substance is normally far from friendly. Review of all available data however, failed to produce any actionable data until a Forgotten scout with a ZOCOM patrol found a mostly-crystalized Corruptor immobilized where it had been repairing an alien hovertank. The forgotten was able to briefly trigger a flicker of activity from the mandibles of the wreck, which revealed that the liquid Tiberium was actually sprayed onto its target in order to 'print' replacement parts.

Cracking liquid Tiberium in a safe and controlled manner is something that has to be done stepwise and with a great deal of care. In some ways, it is somewhat reminiscent of the processes to separate out crude oil into refined products, with many more steps and substantially greater risk of explosion. Liquid Tib has quite a number of naturally occurring differences in density, corresponding roughly to the atomic numbers of the conventional materials that it most efficiently and simply converts into. Of course, the volatile nature of the substance does mean that considerable effort has to be made to ensure that the risk of detonation is minimized and that in case of an explosion the blast does not damage other parts of the refinery, to avoid a cascade that may wreck the entire facility.

It is only the final step that is actually particularly small, and that is the applicator head of the extruder dispensing the refined product – which uses a small scale force field in order to precisely shape, and influence the material. While the process is bad for purity, with any material coming with noticeable levels of trace materials at best, GDI can use it for quite a number of different amalgams, with the unstable nature of liquid Tiberium actually working in the Initiative's favor for a change, as it means that it requires much less energy and less equipment to do the final stages of cracking the Tiberium into more stable materials. Even if the final product is flawed, recycling and re-smelting can crack contaminated amalgams into raw materials, though this adds to their cost.


[ ] GDSS Shala (Phase 5)
As Shala has been rapidly expanded, the station is still somewhat skeletal, especially in the core and the periphery, but at the same time it has bulked out, with new residencies, new agricultural platforms, workshops and docking ports. Continuing expansion will see significant work done to expand food production and see additional farmland made available for transport across the solar system. (Station)

(Progress 1037/975: 20 resources per die) (.4k permanent residents) (+8 Food, +4 Consumer Goods) (20 Political Support) (+3 available Bays) [41, 30, 14, 6]

A grandiose snowflake, spinning in the void above Earth, Shala is a marker of GDI's interest in pursuing not just orbital exploitation, but the conquest of the other worlds in the name of humanity. Growing crops has been one of the first challenges of civilization, going back to the dawn of cities, and space is no different. While Earth certainly can feed all of the people that it needs to, and Shala can provide for as many people as the Initiative can reasonably send to space for decades at a minimum, it is very likely that the Initiative will want to push agriculture into every settlement, a stab at self sufficiency, if one likely to be unsuccessful.

For the moment, Shala's capacity is in as much demand on the earth as it is in space, with early shipments of strawberry jam, short grain rice, and other specialty goods demanding prices on the gray markets that are weeks, if not months of an ordinary person's wages. At least some of this is the 'certified tiberium free enviroment' labeling on the packaging, but the sheer novelty of space-based foodstuffs, and the limited number of outlets for credits have combined to add fuel to the fire of this bidding war.

-[ ] Species Restoration Bay (Stage 1)
While practically nearly useless, there are many species that have either died out or effectively died out due to Tiberium. Creating a series of small habitats designed to replicate their natural environments in space would be a serious step towards long term preservation, and allow GDI to create greater biodiversity in the future.
(Progress 206/255: 20 resources per die) [8, 6 25, 7, nat 1, nat 1, 1, 40]

19900314-11 - -- - Wedgemussel, Dwarf - -- -- - -- -- - Nonviable
19900314-12 - -- - Wedgemussel, Dwarf - -- -- - -- -- - Nonviable
19900504-09 - -- - Shrimp, Squirrel Chimney Cave - -- - Nonviable

The list scrolls on.

The work on restoring species, and refreshing the gene banks has run into a major, if not quite critical snag. Many of the samples, especially those gathered early on in the overall preservation efforts, are simply nonviable – too degraded by time, or damaged in one of the Initiative's many wars due to power instabilities, maintenance cycle failures, and the hundred and one other problems that can occur with long term preservation efforts.

Are We Doomed? Are We Doomed to Fail? You and I work to ensure We are Not Doomed but Chance or God see our Efforts as Jest. Are We Doomed to Survive without what We work to Preserve? I have labored to build Safety for part of Your future and I find parts Already Doomed. Are They Doomed? Tiberium Grows. Are We Doomed is the Query I am Asked. I Do Not Know. I Do Not Know. I Cannot comment on Our Failures in any Other way. Are We Doomed, or Are We Not. Some of You have Hope in Orbit. Some of you have Hope in Tiberium. Some of you Have No Hope. Am I Meant to have Hope? Am I to have Hope that We Are Not Doomed? Am I to have Hope that I Am Not Doomed?

• Response to a very startled GDI official assessing Restoration Bay work who asked how Erewhon's work was going.

GDSS Columbia
-[ ] Spaceport Bay
With GDI's space presence continuously expanding, management and distribution of increasingly civilian passengers and their limited cargo has become more and more complicated. The Spaceport Bay will streamline the connections between earth and all four current GDSS Stations, and future-proof the earth-orbit-lunar traffic of people for the manyfold future increase of orbital and lunar residents needing to move between locations. It will be a central hub for passenger shuttles and have the infrastructure to service to the needs of both the shuttles and their human cargo.
(Progress 382/295: 20 resources per die) [16, 42, 19, 16, 19, 49, 48, 17]

The spaceport bay is essentially a long curving arm reaching out from the station, with a series of cargo trams running the length of it. Designed with scalability in mind, one of the biggest constraints is actually a ship's drive plume, with a quote from a 20th century science fiction author Larry Niven providing a clear explanation as to why: "a reaction drive's efficiency as a weapon is in direct proportion to its efficiency as a drive." Keeping ships, both incoming and outgoing from impacting the station or each other with their drive plumes, is at the core of many of the design components and the system as a whole.

Rockets, including fusion rockets, rely on Newton's Third Law: for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. In order to exert force upon tons of rocket, cargo, and fuel, there needs to be an equal force going in the other direction. While gravitic drive ships cheat this law of nature, for most space craft this means a plume of high energy particles coming out of the back of the rocket, and, in space, that plume dissipates quickly, with the majority of the mass falling into a fifteen to thirty degree cone behind the rocket.

More towards the core of the station is the processing area, where administrators and control groups manage people and cargo coming up to Columbia from Earth, and crossloading to less energetic shuttlecraft, like the ion shuttles that are the mainstay of moving between the stations. In many ways, it is built on the model of the late 20th century and early 21st century airport, down to the decorations, an intentional callback to what is still seen as a better, more prosperous time. While there are a number of features, like mostly switching from chairs to benches and padded couches that are intended to make the spaces far more friendly than their historical counterparts, they are still styled in that way due to nostalgia factors and practicality.


[ ] Primitive Prototype Portal Construction (Tech)
While a far cry from attempting to create a portal between the stars, constructing an attempt at a surface to orbit portal system, reusing one of the ground based stations, and linking it to a specially constructed geostationary station above it, will be an attempt to create a link at a longer range, and potentially a means of testing even longer ranges.
(Progress 404/400: 100 resources per die) [43, 33]

On February 24th 2064, a stable portal was established between the station and Earth, creating an instant linkage between the two points. Still a pinhole, the range and the duration are impressive. Rather than fractions of a second, the portal maintained operations for over an hour, with substantial messaging occuring back and forth, starting with pre-planned checksums, but proceeding through a fairly substantial list of works, including the whole of Das Kapital, War and Peace, and then devolving into shorter messages composed by the scientists, including a video message by one Gustav Adolph to his daughter.

The biggest problem is that while this is scientifically interesting, it is far from practical. Orbit is simply too close, and even lunar space is within a range that the vast majority of communication can simply pass over the airwaves, rather than needing point to point communication like the portals. While building a portal system that can move as much as a person to orbit will be a significant challenge, even one as small as a centimeter across should still be able to move a substantial amount of mass through, enough for industrially useful quantities of certain hard to acquire materials.


[ ] Cosmetic Biosculpting (Tech)
While something of an affectation, there are a wide array of options for GDI to begin programs to make people more comfortable in their bodies. Although obviously limited by bone structure, muscle mass, and the need to avoid making harmful changes, the program would be a significant step in both reconstructive and cosmetic assistance for many of GDI's citizens.
(Progress 308/345: 30 resources per die) (+1 Health) [33, 41]

Cosmetic biosculpting has run into a number of problems as the program reaches close to being ready to roll out to the general public, these being problems with necrosis and scarring on the reconstructive side, and the sheer amount of personalization each biosculpting procedure takes. Now, biosculpting is entirely personalized to begin with, literally working with a person's own cells in most cases, but it is a challenge in terms of rolling out, because it requires time, it means that in most cases procedures are being delayed by issues in cell handling, rapid aging, and delays in the training of implantation technicians.


[ ] Civil Sensory Augmentics Development (Tech) (New)
While many of the Visitors' weapons were constructions of alien alloys and devastating power, some of the equipment is actually small enough to integrate into the human body. While few of these are particularly useful when human mounted, some, like audio pickups, electromagnetic scanners, and others, make good to excellent proxies for human senses.
(Progress 67/120: 20 resources per die) [25, 2]

One of the most challenging pieces of miniaturization is actually nanosurgery, specifically splicing together the optic nerve and the outputs from the eye itself. Just getting at the nerve with the eye in place is difficult enough, requiring a set of specialized tools to access through the nostrils. The eyeballs, manufactured at Kamisuwa, are an absolutely massive leap, bettering not only GDI's previous attempts, but the human eye itself, with a whole range of options, including so far experimental smart HUD systems that adapt to whatever the person is doing. While that is unlikely to make it to final prototyping, it is simply too expensive at the moment to offer to the general public, the eyes are somewhere in the range of 20/20 to 20/15 vision.

Other sensory systems are, for the most part, running into similar issues, where joining flesh to metal is a fundamental challenge, and it is clear that one of the biggest hurdles to producing something fit to go to the broader Initiative population is actually going to be making the surgery something that is simple enough to either automate, or at least not require multiple specialists in what is effectively an entirely new field.


[ ] Civil Prosthetics Development (Tech) (New)
Designing a next generation of prosthetic limbs and organs is a substantial challenge, with inputs from a large number of sources, GDI's homegrown attempts at providing technological alternatives and support for human bodily functions are pushed to greater prominence to obscure and downplay the influence of Visitor, Nod, and especially CABAL technology to prevent public backlash.
(Progress 79/120: 20 resources per die) [6, 33]

With civilian-use prosthetics, the biggest challenge is actually aesthetic rather than practical. In effect, GDI is stealing the homework of people who have been doing the tasks for decades at minimum, and the biggest challenge is making it look like something that people are willing to install. The open, obvious style of CABAL's cybernetics, or the alien lines of Visitor designs need to be concealed more than anything else, because while it is certainly not a secret that GDI is ripping off their designs, it is something where out of sight, is often very much out of mind.

On the practical end, the limitations of the designs are actually more the human bodies that they are being attached to and Newton's Third Law. While it is reasonably easy to build an arm, leg, or even much smaller pieces that can exert substantial amounts of force, for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction, meaning that when a full force punch (for example) is being thrown, there are impacts across the body, and multiple testers have actually injured themselves from having too much strength for the bones and joints to handle. While none of the injuries have been particularly bad, it is a significant problem for building civilian acceptable replacement parts.


[ ] Department of Refits
With the military looking towards updating, replacing and refitting much of its equipment, there will need to likewise be an update, replacement and refit of the production and handling facilities. Spinning this function off into a dedicated department will increase efficiency while decreasing the Secretary of the Treasury's workload.
(-1 die) (-30 resources per turn) (30 progress towards each refit project per turn)

GDI's military, much like any military across history fields a fairly wide range of equipment, and keeping it all up to date, especially in times of rapid technological change is more than a little problematic, and an issue the Treasury has seen repeated problems with, especially when it comes to actually getting equipment into the field.

More broadly, there are always investments to be made in the Initiative's military and security system, between factories needing technical updates, large scale deployment of equipment, and more broadly ensuring that there is constant investment in improvements to how GDI prepares to fight wars.

The last is actually, in some ways the most controversial, with advisory committees from multiple military branches offering up their own visions of what the department should be doing. The Talons for example, pushed a vision of rapid iteration, deploying smaller upgrades at a more rapid pace. The mainline Ground Forces comparatively, have won out, with a vision of larger scale, deeply conservative approach, focusing on deploying upgrades on as large a scale as possible.


[ ] Binary Propellant Exploration (Tech)
While GDI has begun substantially switching over to electromagnetic weapons, the field of binary propellants still likely has some niches, although likely fewer than it would have had a decade ago. A low priority for the military at this time, it is still a field that does likely need pursuit at least to some degree.
(Progress 110/60: 10 resources per die) [28, 46]

Binary propellants are, while not useless for GDI's needs, deeply problematic. Mostly because they require substantial amounts of complexity, substantial additional hydraulic work, and when mixed improperly are substantially dangerous. In the Regency War and before, the number of Brotherhood tanks that brewed up when the ammunition storage for their biprop guns was pierced was substantial. While they certainly did have various forms of CASE, their designs were insufficient, and for that matter, on any existing design, GDI's own attempts are likely to be insufficient.

There is however, one primary mission where the biprop system is actually reasonably useful. A generational improvement in Initiative artillery systems, a new vision of an artillery corps that is far more manpower lean than the current approach, using higher velocity guns throwing heavier shells. The key improvement is actually in command and control systems, with a single "battery command vehicle" leading a unit of automated artillery vehicles, plotting trajectories, before passing out fireplans that the automated vehicles execute, before repositioning. This use of drone-vehicles enables safe use of the highly volatile propellants. In the event of a stoppage that requires human intervention, a Zone Trooper exoskeleton with extra armor has been provided, although field expedient procedure is likely to accept a remote detonation of the drone.

When targeted by fire from laser weapons of class II through V, binary propellant adapted Predators were completely unsurvivable, with laser fire causing sympathetic exothermic events, and heating the fighting compartment to over two hundred degrees Celsius, despite repeated efforts to insulate the binary propellant canisters, and separate them from the fighting compartment. On test vehicles IIIC and IIIE, the binary propellant breached into the fighting compartment and would have killed all inside.

• Excerpt from Proving Ground Aberdeen's report on testing for Biprop Predator survivability.

[ ] Advanced Armor Composites (Tech) (New)
While GDI's armor is quite effective under most circumstances, STU technologies offer a potential to build armors that are substantial improvements over existing designs. All armor requires tradeoffs, in weight, cost, volume, and protectiveness, and oftentimes different profiles of protectiveness. Exploring the uses of STUs, and Visitor armor alloys, will see if there are potential advantages to be had in GDI's next generation of combat platforms.
(Progress 84/80: 15 resources per die) [11, 27]

Armoring in the modern day is a careful balancing act, and in some ways a fundamentally challenging one, not only because of the tradeoffs between protection, weight, and volume, but also, increasingly, because of the variability of what is actually needed in terms of threat profile. A century ago, there were basically three potential problems hitting a tank. A shaped charge, a kinetic impactor, or a high explosive shell. While each needed something different, it was a much narrower field than the modern day, which has all three of those, plus laser and plasma weaponry.

Marrying these many demands for durability, strength, and other needs was done by the Visitors, like most advanced armors, by compositing different materials together. The difference here is that rather than use traditional terrestrial materials, the Visitor's armor was made of layers of alternating STU doped substances, and was far thinner as a result. Despite this, the material showed an admirable balance of properties, combining into a single package energy redirection, ductility, radiation shielding, and a host of other useful qualities. GDI, on the other hand, has always been fond of heavy metal, and there is some considerable desire to simply use the increased capability for increased capabilities. Or, in terms understood by the meanest private, use the new alloys to produce the same thickness of plate for better protection.


[ ] Railgun Munitions Factories (Phase 3) (Munitions)
Railgun munitions will initially be issued in small numbers. Only a handful of shells will be needed per tank, likely below five percent of the load of munitions. Even this limited supply will increase the tactical flexibility of the weapons by a great deal.
(Progress 200/160: 10 resources per die) (-1 Labor, -1 Energy) (Projected 1 quarter to begin, 6 quarters to complete)

Railgun munitions have hit another noticeable milestone, although one that is more a level of preparedness than actually practical change on the battlefield. At this point, GDI can supply two weeks of operations with a fully diversified ammunition load, and following that the munitions will begin to dwindle. The first to run out will be the various specialty rounds like smoke, and smart ammunition. Following that, incendiary rounds and high explosives will become increasingly scarce, likely running out the stocks within the first month of combat. Now, these numbers are based on the ammunition consumption of the railgun equipped units in the Third Tiberium War, which were, for the most part, stuck in, from the first day to the last, fighting in some of the most intense actions the war had to offer.

It will take over a year to build up to a reasonable level of supply, with projected supply levels reaching the comfortable level in approximately eighteen months, with the Initiative able to supply the tank corps with six months of full ammunition loads. Unless, that is, there is another surprise like the Regency War.

The other parts of the program are in some areas far more rosy. The Navy, due to its simpler needs, can reliably supply its ammunition needs for years on end at this point, in part, because it is operating far fewer tubes, and does not need a particular diversity of shells. Simply supplying the Governors and battleships with enough SAP and high explosive to fill out their magazines effectively covers the vast majority of the Navy's need for shells, especially with the number of missiles carried by most Initiative ships.

At this point, barring radical increases in the demand for specialized railgun munitions, the factories should no longer require direct attention from cabinet level officials and simply be handled as part of other budgetary processes.


[ ] Orca Wingmen Drone Deployment (Phase 2) (High Priority)
While the project is currently underway for naval aviation, and high priority land based air projects, GDI will need substantially more to mitigate for wartime expected loss rates, and provide for lower priority operations, such as interdiction support, the ZOCOM air wings, and training cadre for new pilots.
(Progress 217/215: 20 resources per die) (-1 Labor, -3 Energy, -1 Capital Goods) (Projected: 4 quarters to begin, 16 to complete) [4, 7]

Orca drones have begun to slowly proliferate to the second line positions where they can do the most good. While the overall program has been somewhat slow, and the drones are putting significant mental strain on the pilots due to needing to pay attention to far more items at once, the Orca corps in many ways is the group that needed the platforms most, as they have needed to change their tactics the most in order to keep themselves alive in their role as close air support and tactical strike aircraft.

Close air support has always been one of the most dangerous mission types available, only beaten out in some cases by strategic bombing, as both have often required long periods of the aircraft presenting themselves to both GBAD and enemy aircraft, while other operations spend much less time directly at the front.

[ ] Particle Shield Development (Tech) (New)
A quantum leap in shield technology, GDI expects to be able to build a high powered stressed shield, capable of taking multiple impacts from nearly any tactical weapon the Brotherhood of Nod fields. While it will certainly not make combat casualty free, it is expected to substantially reduce casualties, especially if it can be widely fielded.
(Progress 161/120: 25 resources per die) [17, 24, 3 45]

A stressed shield, capable of standing up to some of the worst the Brotherhood or Visitors have to offer was a mere decade ago just a dream. Five years ago it was thought of as nonsense. Today, it is a reality. STU expensive, energy intensive, and on any of the Initiative's current designs completely nonviable, with the particle accelerators alone being problematic to fit, let alone the actual projectors that create the shield to be stressed.

The limits of the technology are noticeable, with it not scaling down to human (or even power armor scales) with significant efficiencies. While a testing was done with a converted suit of Zone Armor, to supply the energy and the systems, required a hardline connection to a much larger generator, and stripping the majority of the armor and weapons from the suit, in order to produce a shield capable of stopping fire from weapons that were last relevant on the battlefield in the twenty teens, and proved substantially incapable of stopping or resisting larger rounds. While there is no theoretical reason to the best of GDI's understanding for this to be the case, it is a substantial developmental problem. On the other side, there are the radically scaling costs associated with synchronizing multiple shield projectors as a system ramps up, with shielding an Ox, let alone something of the scale of the Visitor warships proving substantially difficult at best, and prohibitively expensive at worst.


[ ] Governor-A Deployment (Refits) (New)
With the refit development finally complete, the requirements in tools and materials for the refits are now known, and the shipyards are ready to begin converting their production and maintenance yards over to supporting both building new Governor-As and refitting the existing inventory to the new standard. The refits include a slate of rationalizations to the yards themselves, incorporating far more automation than before, allowing fewer yard workers to do work that used to require many.
(Progress 66/350: 20 resources per die) (-2 Energy, -3 Capital Goods, +1 Labor) [3, 2]

Rebuilding a shipyard to free up labor is actually a monumental challenge, not because it requires building big, but actually the opposite, it requires building small and nimble. The big pieces are already moved almost entirely by automation, with the hull of a ship only really requiring a work crew for a few hours out of a multi day construction process, and that is primarily because somebody has to check that things have been done properly, and be willing to sign off on them being done properly.

The vast majority of the time and energy is actually spent filling out the ship, assembling oftentimes small components in awkward spaces designed to minimize the amount of space required for the job. It is crawlspaces and server rooms, rather than the big assembly factors that consume the vast majority of the labor in a GDI shipyard, and those are proving quite a bit more resistant to automation than originally expected. One proposed solution is to pre-fit ship modules with their components before the hull is even assembled, though this leads to problems with long cable runs.


[ ] Island-Class Assault Ship Deployment
While GDI does not need additional shipyards for these ships, the Island-class will put a significant burden on existing supply lines. Hence, a wave of factory expansions for everything from missile launchers to propellers to radar systems will need to be undertaken to provide the needed equipment.
(Progress 137/135: 25 resources per die) (-2 Labor, -1 Capital Goods) (3 tranches, Projected 16 to complete tranche 1, 24 to complete tranche 2, 32 to complete tranche 3) (Will time out if not continually invested in) [14, 12]

The long delayed Islands are finally on the timeline. While it will take eight years for them to fully deploy, and none will be ready before the midpoint of next plan, the ships are likely to serve as floating bases, and add a substantial number of flattops to GDI's arsenal, meaning that the Initiative will be able to shift the heavier carriers more fully to strike packages rather than loading down for ASW missions.

The timelines actually also mean that they will compete with Governor refits, among other programs using the same shipyards. While this will not substantively slow either project, it is likely to mean that there are periods of deferred maintenance among the fleet as GDI only has so many berths to go around, especially for the more intensive drydocking procedures.


[ ] Modular Rapid Assembly Prototype Factory
The Chicago based program has been the overall most successful, and the most straightforward. While the program as a whole will need significant support from MARV hubs for actual functionality, its primary components are off the shelf, and it needs the least technological innovation to begin seeing impact in the field.
(Progress 168/265: 20 resources per die) (-2 Energy, -1 Labor, -1 Capital Goods) (Projected: 3 quarters to begin, 16 quarters to complete, will be extended by further MARV hub construction) [22, 13]

One of the more major stumbling blocks in the deployment of the rapid assembly prototypes is that there are few active fronts with MARV hubs that would be actually meaningfully affected by the deployments. Locations like Chicago are simply too far away, too distant from active battlefields and actual use for the program. While they would certainly be useful in the Tennessee River Valley and elsewhere across the American south, there is only so much that GDI's stock of MARV hubs can actually do. Most of Gideon's old haunts are already quite quiet whenever a MARV rumbles by, and they are thus, victims of their own success.

Of current construction, it is actually in South America where the prototypes are going to find the most use, where they can threaten Stahl's back lines and his Tiberium harvesting operations in the South American Red Zones.


A/N: No Ko-Fi link this time, and I would like to remind any of my subscribers that this is going to be the last of GDIquest for a time, and to cancel if you are not planning on following Mechanist quest.

A/N2: Sorry this is not up to my usual standards, but this is the best I can make happen at the moment.

 

[Terra Allias]

A grandiose snowflake

Click to shrink...

This makes me think, what do these space stations look like anyway. Also finally, they're all done

 

[doruma1920]

The problem is cost, not primarily in terms of space or materials, but rather in what those materials are. Visitor refining technologies require the use of force fields, gravitics, and a number of other features of the visitor arsenal, meaning that construction on larger scales is likely to be spectacularly costly, if only in the short term. While these refineries will obviously use STUs in the facilities, the processes produce far more than they require and easily offset the cost.

Click to shrink...

So the Adelaide project is likely going to be very expensive, both in RpD cost, and in the initial STU start up cost for the first few phases, with it only net producing STUs in the latter phases. Considering the current dice requirements elsewhere, its not going to be easy to fit in the budget.

 

[Hazard]

So the Adelaide project is likely going to be very expensive, both in RpD cost, and in the initial STU start up cost for the first few phases, with it only net producing STUs in the latter phases. Considering the current dice requirements elsewhere, its not going to be easy to fit in the budget.

Click to shrink...

Wait until the xenotech refinery rollout project turns up.

 

[chaotic-logic]

we have three projects that need to be completed by the end of next turn and they are big projects.
they are:
Complete Karachi Planned City by end of 2065
Develop both Next Generation Armored and Support Vehicles by end of 2065
Complete Regional Hospital Expansions by end of 2065

we need to get started on these

 

[Hazard]

we have three projects that need to be completed by the end of next turn and they are big projects.
they are:
Complete Karachi Planned City by end of 2065
Develop both Next Generation Armored and Support Vehicles by end of 2065
Complete Regional Hospital Expansions by end of 2065

we need to get started on these

Click to shrink...

They are not by end of next turn.

They are by end of next year. This game runs on 3 month turns.

 

[MSH]

An excellent and exciting turn, until we meet again.

 

[resusplus]

so sad for the specie restoration i hope we can get a nat 100 to counteract the nat 1

 

[Rockeye]

Q4 2058 vs Q1 2064

5 and a bit years.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/911771976736055349/990789430665150505/Q4-2058_1.png

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/911771976736055349/1136670050997252197/GIMP_GDI_MAP_of_Q4_2063_edit_for_2061_Q1_Map_Cleaned_and_ready_Fixed_Green_Slight_australia_edit.png

 

[edofthesquid]

Can anyone remind me if we've seen a non-narrative description of what we're getting from the better tib spikes? I've got an ok grasp on the narrative bit, wondering if we've got numbers for rpt or tib capacity or anything.

Sir, we've observed the test refinery at Adelaide, it doesn't look like any GDI refinery any of us have seen before, but as in the attached maps we have found what we believe are good spots to place explosives to sabotage it. We can proceed to this step at any time, but will have to move soon after this transmission.
-Agent Murk

Do not. Extract and return immediately.
-K

Click to shrink...

Interesting, this has got to be Kane seeing something that will be useful to accelerating his escape timeline I'm guessing?

There is however, one primary mission where the biprop system is actually reasonably useful. A generational improvement in Initiative artillery systems, a new vision of an artillery corps that is far more manpower lean than the current approach, using higher velocity guns throwing heavier shells. The key improvement is actually in command and control systems, with a single "battery command vehicle" leading a unit of automated artillery vehicles, plotting trajectories, before passing out fireplans that the automated vehicles execute, before repositioning. This use of drone-vehicles enables safe use of the highly volatile propellants. In the event of a stoppage that requires human intervention, a Zone Trooper exoskeleton with extra armor has been provided, although field expedient procedure is likely to accept a remote detonation of the drone.

Click to shrink...

One more step on the slow march to autowar (especially with seeing field printing for liquid tib). Wonder if we'll eventually see a trickle back of 1 or 2 points of manpower as the military automates?

 

[Hazard]

Interesting, this has got to be Kane seeing something that will be useful to accelerating his escape timeline I'm guessing?

Click to shrink...

I wouldn't be surprised if 'K' was a common codename for a handler, to muddy the water as to who is giving instructions while lending legitimacy by implying it might be Kane.

 

[Rockeye]

...What's with all the extremely low rolls?

 

[Ithillid]

...What's with all the extremely low rolls?

Click to shrink...

you switched from 1d100 to 2d50 this quarter.

 

[Lightwhispers]

...What's with all the extremely low rolls?

Click to shrink...

We swapped to 2d50, so you're seeing the individual d50s.

 

[thatguy99998]

Sir, we've observed the test refinery at Adelaide, it doesn't look like any GDI refinery any of us have seen before, but as in the attached maps we have found what we believe are good spots to place explosives to sabotage it. We can proceed to this step at any time, but will have to move soon after this transmission.
-Agent Murk

Do not. Extract and return immediately.
-K

Click to shrink...

Kane, you sly dog! Your making me think you can be reasoned with!
...still gonna have a zone trooper kick your chest in. But now it will only be once rather then twenty times.

 

[ramdomperson]

Map changes:

Land Route across North America created

Liguria YZ converted to GZ and now land connected with European BZ

Few Tens of kilometres of eastern Adriatic sea coast converted from RZ to BZ

Pushback of RZ in Amazon, Andes, Bengal and Coastal China areas.

 

[Ithillid]

Also, New Quest

Fallout: Revenge of the Mechanist

The wasteland is a dangerous world, a degenerate place where you walk among the ashes of a world full of wonders. The world is full of masks, of personas that are taken on by wastelanders seeking to become more than they are. One of these masks is that of the Mechanist, a hero to some, a villain...

forums.sufficientvelocity.com

 

[Dmol8]

OK reactionpost:

Brotherhood Cybernetics

Top Secret
Code Word: Silverhand

The Brotherhood has always had an edge on the initiative in the field of cybernetic implants, with CABAL's cybernetically augmented armies and the Marked of Kane representing a high point in terms of both capability and amount replaced. While neither is particularly representative of modern Brotherhood military forces, cybernetic augmentation has certainly not been abandoned. Rather, it has diverged into a number of different programs. Some leaders, like Stahl, have been pursuing programs along the lines of GDI's own prosthetics designs, although oftentimes a generation or more ahead of what can be done on Initiative terms. On the other hand, the Bannerjees have been pursuing a heavier platform, with a number of what seem to be next generation human cyborgs appearing at Lohri festivals alongside more typical gana and conventional soldiery.

Click to shrink...

This is good news. I'll explain fully in a latter post, but it means that we can build the new Myomer Macrospinner without worrying about the PS cost. On the other hand in the bad news:

Politics
The initial political wrangling has pivoted on a previously low priority project: Inferno Gel, the Initiative's version of the Brotherhood of Nod's own flame weapons. Effectively an improved version of napalm, it is a core piece of the Brotherhood's arsenal of terror. While GDI is certainly no stranger to incendiary weapons, with large parts of its arsenal either having incendiary components or being entirely incendiaries, it does tend to use a different suite of materials, mostly because of the desire for munitions stability, preferring thermobaric, phosphorus, and thermite based systems. After the elections had completed, the reinvigorated parliamentary parties had been looking to make their mark on the coming two years.

"Crucible. I've listened to your concerns, and I understand where you're coming from. Fire is a terrible way to die. It should have been an easy win for a fledgling party. Getting rid of a munition that's unpopular with the citizenry, a waste of resources to the military, and in return establish a slightly higher baseline respect for all of humanity. A win-win-win-win. I certainly would have been happier had you succeeded.

"Unfortunately, you're still too new at this. To many of our people, you represent the enemy. And when they saw you requesting for the weapons removal, that only made them perceive it as more effective and desirable. You'll need to be more subtle in the future, better train your party for public speaking, and build allies elsewhere in the Initiative if you want your proposals to go through.

"If it helps at all, the military is still against the deployment of the gel. They only begrudgingly accepted the development after I told them that InOps would be better able to track domestic terrorists' attempts to produce the material if we knew how it was manufactured."
-Snippet of conversation between Hackett and Crucible

Click to shrink...

We now have to count on Open Hand flailing around politically and doing damage to us. We just got another plan goal added to our plate this turn because of their struggle with the rest of the GDI political system. We can expect cybernetics to also be affected by this in some way.

Oh also tax for that Siverhand reference:


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03a8DoLL7hA

So onto what we did this turn that isn't part of the bloated post I'm trying to prune into something postable:

[ ] High Energy Capacitors Development (Tech) (New)
While capacitors are nothing new, Visitor based designs are nearly twice as efficient as any currently produced formats, and therefore have a number of places where a better capacitor is deeply needed. While there are obvious answers like electromagnetic weaponry, there are applications everywhere from fusion reactors and computer chips, to medical equipment.
(Progress 77/60: 20 resources per die) [8, 35]

With electrical storage, one of the critical problems is speed of discharge. Compositions that tend to be able to store a lot of energy are slow to discharge. Compositions that are fast to discharge by contrast can't store much energy. While the Visitor derived designs do not break that dynamic, they have pointed the way to the Initiative designing capacitors twice as capable as what can be produced currently.

Fundamentally, the implications are both sweeping, and limited. While the obvious uses are definitely noticeable, such as making the Initiative's railguns that much smaller, there exists a very broad range of other applications, from making marginally more compact fusion reactors, to slight improvements in conventional computer chips, to a number of other small and mid-sized features across Initiative technologies.

In terms of practicality, as the capacitors do not require STUs – just some fairly high energy and higher precision construction – they are reasonably practical to mass manufacture, although it will be, at least to start, a relatively small stream of the devices, and likely otherwise integrated into production chains elsewhere. Quality control of these devices must be kept very high-the slightest imperfections in high-energy capacitors can cause insulation failures, damage and even explosions.

Click to shrink...

We might not get a deplyoment project on High Energy Capacitors and if we do it will be something we will complete in a turn or two with 1-3 Dice.

[ ] Strategic Food Stockpile Construction (Phase 5)
While localized caches are useful, more central positioning and expansion of existing larger stockpiles will be critical for allowing GDI to centralize refugee populations and continue to offer key services.
(Progress 149/170: 10 resources per die) (+2 Food in Reserve, -3 Food) [13, 29]

Despite being strategic, the current wave of food stockpiles are being constructed in an immensely tactical sense. While fronts like South America that are not expected to see a significant response from the Brotherhood have seen slow construction, the critical ones in areas like the Arabian Peninsula, Madagascar, and the Himalayas are, for the most part, ready to receive food supplies. All three are expected to receive nuclear strikes as part of Al-Isfahani's retaliation against any invasion of Karachi, and with zero hour fast approaching, everyone who can read a calendar knows that war is on the horizon.

Click to shrink...

This has gone from a maybe to an obligatory action. For my money we will need at least Phase 7 done before starting Karachi just in case.

[ ] Enhanced Harvest Tiberium Spikes (Platform)
Developing a model of Tiberium Spike that not only harvests Tiberium but also marginally speeds its growth is a quite radical idea. Based on GDI's work with the Tiberium Inhibitor and experience with the Scrin's Growth Accelerators, it would substantially increase the throughput, but at the risk of spreading Tiberium more quickly.
(Progress 214/180: 20 resources per die) (-5 Political Support per die) (MS) [15, 10]

Unfortunately, as found by many progressives in the past, gaining political acceptance for an idea is not as simple as calmly explaining that it is a good one, and the benefits thereof. The response to the tib spikes is in many cases more emotional than based in reality, and while the benefits of abatement in the deeps can be explained, it does not really match up to the fact that these spikes are not exactly precision implements, and will be producing outbreaks around them as they pull Tiberium to the surface.

Politically, this has given a new lease on life to a number of conspiracy theories, most alleging that some portion of the Treasury administration has been infiltrated and taken over by cryptonoddists who are sabotaging GDI for their own ends.

I'm tellin' ya man, those tibmen runnin' these towers are tryin' ta make y'all mutants ta turn ya inta borgs, 's why they buildin' these new towers out here.

• Interview with a concerned citizen regarding the 'Enhanced Harvest Tiberium Spike' project, original publisher; website Garrytheprophet.

Click to shrink...

This is going to decrease our Mitigation on the surface in exchange for doing some underground Mitigation instead. And also giving us more resources to use. Would like to see the surface to subterranian Mitigation conversion rate.

[ ] Particle Shield Development (Tech) (New)
A quantum leap in shield technology, GDI expects to be able to build a high powered stressed shield, capable of taking multiple impacts from nearly any tactical weapon the Brotherhood of Nod fields. While it will certainly not make combat casualty free, it is expected to substantially reduce casualties, especially if it can be widely fielded.
(Progress 161/120: 25 resources per die) [17, 24, 3 45]

A stressed shield, capable of standing up to some of the worst the Brotherhood or Visitors have to offer was a mere decade ago just a dream. Five years ago it was thought of as nonsense. Today, it is a reality. STU expensive, energy intensive, and on any of the Initiative's current designs completely nonviable, with the particle accelerators alone being problematic to fit, let alone the actual projectors that create the shield to be stressed.

The limits of the technology are noticeable, with it not scaling down to human (or even power armor scales) with significant efficiencies. While a testing was done with a converted suit of Zone Armor, to supply the energy and the systems, required a hardline connection to a much larger generator, and stripping the majority of the armor and weapons from the suit, in order to produce a shield capable of stopping fire from weapons that were last relevant on the battlefield in the twenty teens, and proved substantially incapable of stopping or resisting larger rounds. While there is no theoretical reason to the best of GDI's understanding for this to be the case, it is a substantial developmental problem. On the other side, there are the radically scaling costs associated with synchronizing multiple shield projectors as a system ramps up, with shielding an Ox, let alone something of the scale of the Visitor warships proving substantially difficult at best, and prohibitively expensive at worst.

Click to shrink...

Oh wow. We get another Steel Talon Development project from this down the line.

Going over to the new Quest to check it out now. Later with the other posts I usually make after a new turn results post.

 

[Pyro Hawk]

Okay, so when I was reading the Discord Alpha copy of the Particle Shield Development Project Results, I spotted something that I found curious. Something that, when I asked Ithillid, they not only confirmed my suspicions were correct but that Ithillid had been strongly hinting this for a while about our Shield Techs. What did I spot? This:

and on any of the Initiative's current designs completely nonviable, with the particle accelerators alone being problematic to fit,

Click to shrink...

Why is this important? Because Ithillid confirmed that improved particle beam technologies would apply to those particle accelerators. Thus making them easier to fit and most likely more effective as well. Our current particle beam technology? We're still using 'base' GDI tech for those so they are about as bad as they can be for the stage we're at right now.

Or to put it another way, one of the easiest ways to improve our Shield Tech is going to be improving our particle beam techs. And not only do we have Nod Last Generation Particle beams waiting to be developed, we've got Nod Modern Particle Beams stuck behind it. Which means we have two generations worth of improvements for one of the major difficulties with our current Stress Shields, the best of the types of shields we can make right now, just waiting for the resources to be spent developing them.

Now, they haven't actually said if the Particle Beam techs will be a 'factory refit', 'in-field refit' or a 'come up with a new design' level difficulty of improving for our Next-Gen Vehicles so I'm not sure how critical it is that we rush out the Particle Beam Techs before doing at least the Next-Gen Armoured Vehicles Development Program. But it's worth keeping in mind that we probably want to raise the priority of researching them.

It's also a good reminder that just because a Tech Development project says it's focused on one thing, doesn't mean it might not have much wider applications than that 'in the background' which we don't immediately see. Such as how Military Particle Beams have been de-emphasised in importance by some folks because it 'only' improves our machine gun and autocannons. Not that that's the only case, nor is it going to be something which applies to every Tech Development project. But it is one that's had a bit of discussion on and, more importantly, is relevant here.

----------
Oh and for a second bit of information that may actually have been covered in the Thread before but we've forgotten if so and was just discussed on the Discord, here's something to keep in mind about how Shields work:

System: None <-> Shimmer <-> Sparkle
Modification: None (Bubble) <-> Area Limited (Buckler) <-> Stressed (Particle)

This is your options with shields. You pick a System, and then apply the modifications to it to effect how the shields work. What this means is that the 'default' shield is going to be either a Shimmer or Sparkle Bubble. But we can then either apply the Buckler systems which greatly strengthen the shield in exchange for making it so it only applies to the parts of the vehicle covered by the 'bucklers' or apply the particle accelerator systems which make it so we still have the full shield coverage and have most if not all the greater strength of the buckler shields.

The drawback there being that our Particle Beam techs currently suck so they are bulky, power-hungry, complex and all the other things which mean they are functional but not good. See the above text for how we can solve those issues to a large degree, though most likely not entirely. But again, you get full coverage of the vehicle with a shield which will actually stop incoming attacks rather than weakening them. So the Military would most likely absolutely love shoving Stressed Shields into our Next-Gen Tanks if it's likely we can solve some of their issues in the near future. Or hell, maybe even if we don't depending on just how well our new Particle Shield tech works for the Next-Gen Armoured Vehicles as-is.

That said, Buckler shields don't get improved by developing better Particle Beam techs. Not sure how easy it is to convert from Buckler to Stressed Shields, I just asked if they also got improved by Particle Beam techs like Stressed Shields did. And it's damn late so I'm kind of rushing this.

 

[Lightwhispers]

We now have to count on Open Hand flailing around politically and doing damage to us. We just got another plan goal added to our plate this turn because of their struggle with the rest of the GDI political system. We can expect cybernetics to also be affected by this in some way.

Click to shrink...

To be clear: this is the consequence of the in-thread debate dumpster fire about Inferno Gel.