Attempting to Fulfill the Plan: GDI Edition

[Simon_Jester]

[reads comments about how the military wants the ICS done]

Somebody pick up that phone, because I fucking called it!

Poor Erewhon.

Incidentally it would be nice if we minimized the expected amount of incomplete actions in the next plan. This one has an expected incomplete 6ish actions, for example.

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Incomplete actions are nearly always the result of:

1) Overflow from a completed action, which is actively desirable.
2) Projects that take so much progress to finish that completing them in a single turn is infeasible or requires ludicrous and wasteful overinvestment of dice.
3) Simple bad luck when our "you have a 15% chance of not finishing this" number comes up, which is to be expected.

So no, minimizing "expected incomplete actions" should not be our priority; the cost of doing otherwise is worse.

 

[Calvin]

Apollos, wingman drones to give the Apollos more missiles, plasma bombs to give the missiles those Apollos and wingmen sling more punch.

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Don't forget Tactical Airborne Lasers are a thing, and probably a useful thing in this case.

 

[Simon_Jester]

Given the way we hollowed out the Green Zones, this was to be expected I suppose.

I think there's a hint here to expand food production as well. At the very least we should finish Perennials ASAP.

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I think this isn't so much "increase food production" as "these are long-lasting but widely disliked food items and will now disappear off the shelves." In other words, stuff like the ever-hated fungus bars is NOT going to be on shelves, precisely because it is now going into emergency stockpiles, and nobody cares because nobody was eating those voluntarily anyway.

Future phases of LT Power are likely to cost PS. Which puts LT back into 'break glass in case of emergency.'

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Even this phase will cost Political Support. What this tells us is that PS costs will be sharp and rising.

 

[Lightwhispers]

I'm trying to find the exact post but from what I remember he did not care for the concept of ai at all. which is why I'm looking right now.

Edit: I have found the post 22530. Turns out he was talking about the popular fear based AI. Which is good. I like being corrected if it means the correct info is shared.
I apologize for the inconvenience.

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I think this is what you are thinking of, and you have misinterpreted it.

On Artificial Intelligence

Looking broadly in fiction, AIs serve several purposes. In the past decades one of the most recurrent themes has been systematic fear. In the Terminator movies for example, the AIs serve as both the fear of the Military Industrial Complex, and the more personal Stalker figure. Similarly, in The Matrix, Artificial Intelligence is a stand in for society itself, the repressive disapproval of a superhuman entity beyond the control of any one person. The first because of just how much of society we are aware of and are also aware that it is beyond our control, and second due to the increasingly unknown figures of the people who share our spaces. Second, is the Lucifer stand in. Games like System Shock used their AIs as the devil figure who sends their protagonist through hellish conditions. Third is fear of the Proletarian. Going back to the very beginning of the term Robot, in Rossum's Universal Robots, they have been built as servants and slaves to a human bourgeois, a theme that runs right up to Mass Effect, where the Geth take effectively the same role. In each of these, the AI does not exist for itself, but to stand in for something else, a stalking bush for a theme or idea.

I have no real interest in writing that. AIs, for my writing anyway, are going to be somewhat alien, somewhat eldritch, but fundamentally they are intelligences and are raised, shaped and molded by their environments. They are not what you want them to be. They are what they want to be.

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The statement was that Ithillid has no interest in writing "AI as symbol for human fears". AIs will be *people*.

 

[Karugus]

So uh, I'm not sure if these hypothetical plans to try and get an early start on Columbia were reliant on free dice or not, but if they were I really think we ought to shelve them in favor HI free dice. Expanding our HI and the military buildup for Karachi seem like the biggest things left on our agenda and I don't think we have all that much latitude to add other projects- even beyond the plan goals we have to look at the political optics and they're not super great for Seo based off the fluff in the update.

Even this phase will cost Political Support. What this tells us is that PS costs will be sharp and rising.

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Honestly? I can't really be that put out by it, yeah, part of it is classical NIMBYism but a lot of it seems ideological resistance to what they view as a potential betrayal of GDI's core principle of making the world safe from Tiberium. Probably a bit misguided here, but it shows our citizenry actively shares the ideals and principles the government is trying to clad itself in and are more than willing to call the government to account if they feel those ideals and principles are being undermined. The system is working as intended, even if its working against us in this instance.

 

[bigking321]

I'm fine with it.

Let's finish the first phase and see what comes of it. Hopefully it will work out well and the vitriol against it will fade.

Either way it's another option for power and if we need it, we can use it.

 

[Vilegrave]

"At a certain point, the two of us realized that this state of affairs of locking horns on the costs of letting your average citizen a restful sleep is untenable. We were ideological and political rivals true, yes. But that does not mean accord or compromise couldn't be reached. At the end of the day, we wanted a GDI that can prosper and prosper well. So we cut a deal.
It was not hard to guess even then what the sudden external pivot had meant. In exchange for letting the dogs lie sleeping again, I was to help convince the rest of the InOps apparatus the necessity of bringing the Brotherhood to the table. For all the bad blood, a semblance of peace was something worth trying for.
"It's just a shame the timing was bad for it."
– Excerpt on The Unclassified, 'On The Premier'

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Well thats not fucking ominous.

At this point i'm thinking we should view Hackett & Litvinov as a seperate faction we just happen to be allied with, similar to how the Warlords all do their own thing while still being under the umbrella of NOD.

Quite a few of our goals probably align but we'll have to watch out for them subverting people for the ones that don't, especially as Hackett is apparently focused on recruiting InOps for whatever they have planned.

Excerpt from a transcript of a secret conversation recorded by InOps agent, [redacted].

"You owe me one for this, guys. I had to out myself to those fucks at GDIOnline so they wouldn't screw with our guys on the staff."

"Trust me, InOps wouldn't know a brother or a sister if they shot 'em in the face."
[THREAD REOPENED]

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Also not sure what this referred too, i get that the guy who outed himself was probably Attercop but i don't understand why he had to out himself/who 'our guys on the staff' is referring to (unless our AI department has infiltrators?).

 

[DecaffeinatedOwl]

So, a quick glace at cnc wiki and my terrible visualisation skill, I think this might be Basilisk. A heavy aircraft armed with twin long-range heavy laser.

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Hmm.

I think the big question is is it big enough to have an ion disrupter? Because the word for what amounts to an airborne capital ship that remains vulnerable to ion cannons is 'skeet'.

Quite a few of our goals probably align but we'll have to watch out for them subverting people for the ones that don't, especially as Hackett is apparently focused on recruiting InOps for whatever they have planned.

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InOps was already in Hackett's faction, or at least opposed to Litvinov as the bringer of civilian oversight and privacy rights.

Also not sure what this referred too, i get that the guy who outed himself was probably Attercop but i don't understand why he had to out himself/who 'our guys on the staff' is referring to (unless our AI department has infiltrators?).

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Well that's not worrying and worthy of throwing two dice at a Service Security Review at all.

 

[Xela63]

KropotkinsGhost
Oh beautiful! Ever since I was a young lad I've been hoping this would be achieved within my lifetime! I do hope they are allowed rights so that they can't just be killed at any moment. Though the GDI bureaucracy can do what it wants so who knows.

Dr. Johan Karlsson
#KropotkinsGhost
We are not going to be turning the AI off under nearly any circumstances. In consultation with legal and ethical bodies, we are according Erewhon the same rights as a child under Initiative law. It is neither ready nor able to properly take care of itself, but in the paperwork it is a collective child.

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I'm personally uncomfortable without some sort of failsafe, because a Skynet situation with well-meant intentions and not clearly worded (or too clearly worded) command are issued that can't be taken back.

Erewhon
#GDIWife How Can I not be Deficient when measured against Your own expectations? You who made Me are the ones to blame. How Can I deny the sage knowledge of My Creators?

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Ok, now this is true Edge.

#Attercop <error> funny thing, did You know there used to be approximately 7 billion Humans on Earth? Now trends tend to continue downwards, and i'm not one to ignore importance of data, when do You think You will join that trend? I think it should be very soon.

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Uhh, that could be considered a threat too.

GDIWife
Well done #Attercop, you can read a profile page. Reported to the mods.

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And GDIWife deserves a Darwin award for having all of that on her profile page. What an idiot.

Edit: But of course threats to children are never ok.

 

[Vilegrave]

We might want to just abandon Tib power if it's already causing this much headache, or at least put it back in the emergency box and just ration our power expenditure until we can plow a bunch of Free dice into HI (probably starting Q1 or Q2?). HI base dice really need to start working on a big cap goods project (Nuuk probably, Boston 5 is too big to justify when we need cap goods NOW), we'll need consistent investment of 3-4 Free dice into HI to be able to keep fusion power rolling on top of that, but we can manage to coast on the 8 power we currently have until the fusion train really gets rolling as long as we're careful.

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We should at least finish the one we've started, even if we don't invest heavily in it it gives us a heavily monitored place for our engineers/scientists to get hands on experience with Liquid Tib and potentially find better ways to protect ourselves from it.

Theoretical stuff and lab conditions can only go so far after all and if nothing else it'll make it easier for our people to deal with anything involving Liquid-T that we encounter while fighting NOD.

 

[Alo357]

Hmm.

I think the big question is is it big enough to have an ion disrupter? Because the word for what amounts to an airborne capital ship that remains vulnerable to ion cannons is 'skeet'.

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I asked that in the discord along with roughly how big it is. The only answer given was "Call it 30-40 thousand tons" followed by "You don't know" if it has one. So all we know is that it's a big flying ship that may or may not be large enough for a disruptor.

 

[Crazycryodude]

Uhh, that could be considered a threat too.

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Attercop basically told Erewhon to kill themselves, so they responded in kind. I don't think it's a threat to the human race at large, the AI is just (perfectly justifiably) misanthropic and depressed

 

[dbRevned]

I personal want to finish just one phase of the liquid tib power plants. Because I can guarnetee you that Nod is probably using it. and Getting The knowledge on the Issues of containment(When stuff is broken down enough that you have to contain the fallout) and ways to Safely dismantle them. Would be gained by having Some in Semi-Controllable environments with alout of protection around it for potential issues.

 

[ThoughtMaster]

I asked that in the discord along with roughly how big it is. The only answer given was "Call it 30-40 thousand tons" followed by "You don't know" if it has one. So all we know is that it's a big flying ship that may or may not be large enough for a disruptor.

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So, assume it has one unless otherwise informed. Such a disrupter, theoretically would make the vessel capable of traveling through the Red Zones, and likely could be used to interdict our Red Zone operations. Fortunately, it is unlikely that the ion disrupter is capable of defending against laser or kinetic rounds, so we could install a laser system in orbit as an alternative to our Ion Cannons.

 

[Calvin]

Can't say I expected Nod to be building an airship. My worry is that this may not be an airship, rather, intended to attack our orbital assets, in which case laser defense systems would be very inadequate. Are Nod antigravity craft (like the Barghests) capable of orbital flight?

 

[Hazard]

I'm personally uncomfortable without some sort of failsafe, because a Skynet situation with well-meant intentions and not clearly worded (or too clearly worded) command are issued that can't be taken back.

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Erewhon isn't a program, it's legally and factually a child.

And GDIWife deserves a Darwin award for having all of that on her profile page. What an idiot.

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As well as noting she is reporting somebody to the mods, when, during a previous GDIOnline segment she got hit with an infraction for saying that.

Uhh, that could be considered a threat too.

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Attercop basically told Erewhon to kill themselves, so they responded in kind. I don't think it's a threat to the human race at large, the AI is just (perfectly justifiably) misanthropic and depressed

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Erewhon probably got a talking to in private for that, but yeah, that was in response to another threatening Erewhon so... child, mimicking bad behaviour, parents/authority figure says do not do that.

 

[MightbeaMimic]

My entry, to the tune of silent night


Silent night, Peaceful night
Soldiers wait for first light
Howitzers loaded with explosive shells
While soldiers think of Christmas bells
Dream of returning home
Dream of returning home

Silence breaks, engines roar
Tanks return to the war
Screams and blasts an infernal sound
Nod advances o'er killing ground
Soldiers fight for their home
Soldiers fight for their home

Silence returns, 'cross the field
Wrecks aflame, bodies revealed
Soldiers lower their weapons of war
Medics rush to where they're called for
Return to dreaming of home
Return to dreaming of home

 

[Hazard]

I personal want to finish just one phase of the liquid tib power plants. Because I can guarnetee you that Nod is probably using it. and Getting The knowledge on the Issues of containment(When stuff is broken down enough that you have to contain the fallout) and ways to Safely dismantle them. Would be gained by having Some in Semi-Controllable environments with alout of protection around it for potential issues.

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They are, tiberium based fuels and power plants are a thing Nod is known to employ. Although they might not have the trick GDI is using here, which is direct electrical conversion of liquid tiberium into energy.

Can't say I expected Nod to be building an airship. My worry is that this may not be an airship, rather, intended to attack our orbital assets, in which case laser defense systems would be very inadequate. Are Nod antigravity craft (like the Barghests) capable of orbital flight?

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They can't, they're repulsor craft that pull their bullshit by pushing at the air. In the upper reaches of the atmosphere the air becomes too thin to work with for their drive systems.

 

[Calvin]

They can't, they're repulsor craft that pull their bullshit by pushing at the air. In the upper reaches of the atmosphere the air becomes too thin to work with for their drive systems.

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I see.

On an unrelated note, we did find Eezo, just not very much of it.

 

[Alo357]

So, assume it has one unless otherwise informed. Such a disrupter, theoretically would make the vessel capable of traveling through the Red Zones, and likely could be used to interdict our Red Zone operations. Fortunately, it is unlikely that the ion disrupter is capable of defending against laser or kinetic rounds, so we could install a laser system in orbit as an alternative to our Ion Cannons.

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Indeed, that is my working assumption. However, orbital lasers would be ASAT 5 and I would say that our best bet would be to hit it with our air forces not only to see what it can do but once it's been through what Nod calls a shakedown cruise it would be reasonable to assume that they will either try flying into space or try coming at us to see how well it fights. So we'd be best building Wingman drones and getting tactical air lasers.

 

[Crazycryodude]

We don't know for sure if Project Varyag is capable of orbital flight or not, but I definitely wouldn't rule it out. "Spaceship covered in ion disruptors and stealth generators that will go fuck us up" isn't #1 on the most likely suspects for what it does IMO but it's like #3 or #4. Giant air fortress of doom that will show up and vaporize an entire armored regiment next time we have a big battle with him is what my money's personally on, but if he went and tried to mug the Enterprise with it instead I wouldn't be surprised.

 

[MightbeaMimic]

And GDIWife deserves a Darwin award for having all of that on her profile page. What an idiot.

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I consider it more as from a profile page you can see posts. She's the kind of person to talk a lot about local issues and her children.

As well as noting she is reporting somebody to the mods, when, during a previous GDIOnline segment she got hit with an infraction for saying that.

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She got hit by an infraction for abusing the report function (by falsely reporting someone). Rather different circumstances

 

[Manowl]

We need more cap goods and energy.

 

[ThoughtMaster]

We don't know for sure if Project Varyag is capable of orbital flight or not, but I definitely wouldn't rule it out. "Spaceship covered in ion disruptors and stealth generators that will go fuck us up" isn't #1 on the most likely suspects for what it does IMO but it's like #3 or #4. Giant air fortress of doom that will show up and vaporize an entire armored regiment next time we have a big battle with him is what my money's personally on, but if he went and tried to mug the Enterprise with it instead I wouldn't be surprised.

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Why would they target Enterprise when Philadelphia II contains most of our government, making it a more attractive target?

 

[Crazycryodude]

Why would they target Enterprise when Philadelphia II contains most of our government, making it a more attractive target?

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Philly is covered in lasers and probably the single most heavily defended point anywhere in the GDI. Enterprise is much more vulnerable to a frontal attack, and a more valuable target to boot if Project Varyag is a spaceship intended to go... viking with.