The Regency War: Part 3 — Operation Steel Vanguard
The Regency War: Part 3 — Operation Steel Vanguard


March of the Vargr

Krukov had not been quiet since his first offensive in the run up to the Regency War. Instead, after putting down the rebellions against his regime, he once more turned his attention towards the Initiative. Rather than driving on Helsinki once again, and risking yet more of his men on those old battlefields, he turned his attention to another route, north, over the Arctic circle. A massive air wing, anchored in the center by Varyag itself, and on its left and right by Bogatyr and Askel respectively, flew over the Kara Sea, Novaya Zemlya, and the Barents Sea, before falling on Murmansk, the old home port for many of the convoys that had fed the Soviet Union. Now a Blue Zone city, Murmansk played home to one of GDI's then under refit surface action groups, resting and refitting after a long six month stint protecting convoys along the African coast.

The defenders were slow to react as the gargantuan air fleet appeared on the early warning radar of the picket ship GDIS Soya, a Zumwalt derivative built in the immediate aftermath of the Second Tiberium War, and positioned along the northern coast. Its radar only picked up the bare edge of the southern wing, and while it began passing that information along to the defenders at Murmansk, response took time that was not there. The Surface Action Group, a battleship, two Governors, and six obsolete destroyers, were little more than floating anti aircraft batteries, far out of range, and most importantly, low on ammunition. Between the Governors and the Battleships, there were fewer than four hundred anti aircraft missiles remaining in the tubes, and they were still waiting on resupplies for filling their VLS sections. While those missiles had been delivered the night before, work had not yet begun on moving them into position. What could engage were two squadrons of Firehawks, and a squadron of Apollos, a tiny force compared to the vast aerial armada bearing down upon them. On the ground, the primary defenders were the Home Guard, but within hours were two armored companies of the Steel Talons, formed as defenders for the Irvan Institute, and as a quick reaction force elsewhere. Additionally, the naval infantry of the surface action group, although few in number and relatively lightly equipped, were being formed to fight the invaders.
Launching from their airbase southwest of the city, they formed up for a first attack run over the Barents Sea, salvoing a barrage of air to air missiles from maximum range before retreating, rather than holding to engage. The missiles did minimal damage to the fleet, with their onboard seekers unable to hold a lock, and the Barghests they were launched at easily avoided the incoming fire. As they rearmed back at their base, the outer perimeter of antiaircraft emplacements north of the city began to salvo forth barrages of Thunderbolt missiles, contrails and exhaust streaking the skies, and some fired so fast that they blinded themselves in the smoke and fumes. It was not nearly enough. In return, lasers lanced forth from the sky cruisers, each blast obliterating a site, killing radar sites and spotters. Ordered to set their batteries to automatic fire, the Home Guard troops manning the defenses fell back to the city itself, to buy time for reinforcements to arrive. Adding to the incoming fire were the two Governors and the battleship, all three acting as spotters to feed targeting data to the destroyers, unleashing volley after volley of missile fire into the fleet. As missiles burst into screaming fragments among the Barghests and Venoms, they twisted and rolled, avoiding the worst of the incoming fire. But even so, aircraft after aircraft fell from the skies against such an outpouring of wrath.
From the south, every asset that could be spared swarmed forth from air bases across Scandinavia and Finland, forming up into big wings, even stripping air support from the attacks driving into the Russian Steppe to destroy the invaders. As the fighters formed up, transports brought with the aerial armada began to land troops. Many were Gana, but many more were Krukov's Streltsy, light infantry that Krukov had equipped as his personal airmobile guard,many armed with lasers. The Streltsy were one of the few arrows in Krukov's quiver that he had held back in the intense urban fighting at St. Petersburg, an arrow that he now committed to battle in the frozen North. Moving in small teams as they moved through the now abandoned city of Severomorsk, each with Gana support as well as batteries of artillery-flying and otherwise-acting in support, the men quickly routed the handful of Home Guard outposts holding the city, and marched on the primary defensive line for Murmansk itself. A series of bunkers and outposts surrounding the city, it had never been planned for an assault of this size, and especially not from this direction. In prewar planning, this section of the line was simply meant to hold off Brotherhood probes, not receive the full force of a Brotherhood invasion. Bunker after bunker exploded, and the vehicles of the Home Guard fought a desperate retreat, falling back into the apartment complexes of the city itself as they were overrun.
But all was not lost. As Krukov's troops advanced into the city, the men and women of the OSRCT fell through the skies, leaving wakes of flame to their rear. Ordered to land south of the city, and march through it to reinforce the battered and exhausted defenders, the first company instead aimed their pods directly at one of Krukov's flying ships, and made landing upon it, with their pods having been rapidly fitted with electromagnetic grapnels in hopes of being able to stick to the ship upon impact. Manually guiding their pods into contact with the ship, they proceeded to breach as infantrymen, Zone Armour suits serving to provide a comprehensive advantage against the massively outgunned defenders.
Krukov's ships consisted of five decks, A through E, three of which were through decks, and two, the top and bottom, partial decks. Of the landing pods, six impacted the cruiser, two on the A deck, and four more on the B deck. The rest landed on the ground, where they found time to run rampant through the Streltsy's rear, including disabling more than a few batteries of airlifted artillery that they had brought with them. On the ship itself, the men and women of the OSRCT found their bulky armor to be protective, but difficult to move and fight in as they moved through tight corridors towards the bridge and engineering sections. As the Brotherhood crew scrambled to contain them, and later to attempt to destroy the ship rather than allow it to fall into Initiative hands, it was often a war at extremely close quarters, with pistols being used from as little as a centimeter away from the target, and most of the casualties carried off the ships were blunt trauma, rather than gunshots or bladed weapons, a result of the close combat rendering fists and feet the best weapons the OSRCT had with them.
On the ground, they were a desperately needed aid, with railgun rounds and sonic grenades reaping a devastating toll among the Streltsy, and an even more devastating one among the Gana supporting them. Moving in squads, the orbital strike turned the tide of battle, pushing Krukov's infantry back into the hills, and using their vastly superior jetpack mobility to pincer and crush retreating groups with brutal efficiency.
At the same time, in the air, the first wave of reinforcements began to arrive, fed piecemeal into the battle. Rushing in at high speed, the first pass was at long range, with missiles swarming in by the hundreds. Dozens of Barghests and Barghest-bis's dropped from the sky, joined by a somewhat greater number of Firehawks and Apollos. Many were able to punch out, new design wraparound chutes deploying as they fell to the ground, but others were not so lucky, as their cockpits engulfed them in flames, or simply vaporized by direct plasma hits. Autocannon fire and missiles raked the flanks of the Vargyrs, giving cover to the Bogatyr as it tried to escape.
As the air battle raged, the Streltsy found their courage once more, and began a counterattack, pushing back the defenders once more, even with Zone Armor from the OSRCT, the defenders were still outnumbered, and severely outgunned. Sprinting north however, were two companies of mechs from the Steel Talons, eight Havocs and sixteen Titan Mark IIIs in urban combat configurations, weighted heavily with remote weapons systems and point defense. Circling around the city, they impacted the right flank of the battlespace.
A decade ago, this kind of offensive would be buried under salvo after salvo of RPG-43s, as the Brotherhood of Nod retreated in the center while enveloping the unit on both flanks. But today GDI has learned to respect the capabilities of the humble militant, and built technologies to defeat their weapons. While a small force, and a light blow, their arrival signaled the beginning of the end of the battle. While their Gana fought a rear guard, the Streltsy broke for the rear, loading once more into their carryalls, and began to take off, unharried aside from a last few salvoes from the obsolescent destroyers still in their berths, the missile tubes having been nearly emptied towards the air fleet still over the city. It was only as the last of the Streltsy took off, and began the long flight towards their home base, that Krukov's fleet disengaged, and began the long limp home.

To Master Astrotechnician First Class Catharine Hlabisa:
For service above and beyond the call of duty:
RECOGNIZING THAT:
-She boarded a drop pod to join a technical team, despite not being part of the normal drop-forces.
-She performed admirably both under drop conditions and in the scramble to board the Nod Airship Bogatyr.
-She joined Captain Nagasae to storm the bridge of the Bogatyr, dispatching no less than 1 Nod officer and 3 soldiers in the process.
-She brought the Bogatyr under control and disabled the attempts of the engineering crew to self-destruct the ship, and brought it under control to a GDI facility.
THEREFORE: The Golden Eagle is hereby awarded with full distinctions and honors.

War to the Knife

The war in North America had not been going well for the Brotherhood. The American South had been the site of repeated defeats, and the construction of a pair of MARV hubs rendered the region difficult for the Brotherhood of Nod to operate within. The strategic situation had also gone from bad to worse, as the final tranches of Governor class cruisers have increasingly presented a coast that is at risk from GDI bombardment with missiles, and sometimes naval gunfire. With the region's heavy assets almost entirely expended by repeated failed offensives, Gideon decided that it was time to fall back, and reposition to a less damaged region. However, geography made that difficult.
The growth of the American Red Zone had created a great neck by the Great Lakes. On one side, there is GDI, and on the other side, there is Tiberium. One of the closest places between GDI and the Red Zone, this passage is generally thought of as a no man's land. While neither side can really lay claim to the territory, it is also a link to the tribes of American Forgotten, a place where GDI can resupply its Red Zone outposts, and the one remaining link between the Brotherhood of Nod in the American South, and its cousins elsewhere. A link that was in the process of closing. With his usual flair for the dramatic, and the pressure of time upon him, Gideon chose a means of war that would, in his eyes, terrify the Initiative into allowing him free passage. He misjudged that drastically.
Rather than attempting to bypass Chicago, he decided to attempt to reduce the city by bombardment, using a new weapon - the Tiberium shard bomb. Derived from the Tiberium shard launchers used by the Scrin, these are unguided bombs, designed to airburst high above their targets, and rain down a storm of Tiberium onto the target area, inflicting massive damage on a vast area, and more importantly contaminating everything, meaning that extensive and expensive repairs are a requirement for any area targeted by these devices. Fortunately, he never got the chance to deploy them.
In preparation for the use of Tiberium shard bombs, he had begun to assemble rocket batteries and air groups to unleash a bombardment that could have utterly destroyed Chicago. However, he was far, far too slow. The leading edge of Steel Vanguard, launched on January 7th, 2060, landed on the rocket batteries within hours after jumping off. Blasting through nearly everything in Gideon's arsenal, the door to the north slammed shut, with GDI seizing nearly a hundred kilometer long stretch of the Red Zone Border.
The offensive was rapid, slamming into Brotherhood positions that had been there since the first battle of Chicago. One of the closest to the city proper was at Clinton, a mere two hundred kilometers from Chicago itself. Once a small outpost simply there to monitor GDI activities and as a lynchpin on the supply line after GDI secured the territories east of the Great Lakes, Gideon had prepared it as the site of one of the major rocket batteries to reduce Chicago and drive GDI back to open his positions. Assigned to the role was the 11th Battalion of the Steel Talons, veterans of the battle of Chicago, who had spent the last years on repeated descents and raids against the Brotherhood supply lines. Familiar with the terrain, and with Gideon's tactics, the battalion was formed from two mech and one mechanized infantry company. The force, supported on both flanks by regular ground forces troops, drove at top speed towards Freeport, covered by near total Initiative air superiority as part of Operation Steel Vanguard.
As they crossed the open flatlands, they came upon the first of the surprises. The Plasma Scorpion. Orange bolts flashed across a field, blowing craters in the ground. While the first shot missed, the second one hammered home into one of the battalion's Havocs, its shield flexing as it decohered upon impact, ablative armor shattering under the bombardment, and sending the Havoc tumbling to the ground. More fire poured forth as a company of the tank destroyers added their bolts, hammering into the Talons as they scrambled to bring their guns around. Moments after the first shots were fired, railgun shot snapped across the distance, slamming into a Scorpion, and coring it through lengthways. As the Scorpions fell back, each provided covering fire for the others, reaping a toll of damaged equipment with every meter, but it proved to be dramatically insufficient as railgun rounds claimed tank after tank, with even the Havocs claiming a single kill as they flanked around the sides.
As the Steel Talons closed on Freeport, they came upon the first battery of rockets. These were large, single stage, dumbfire solid rockets, spin stabilized with a Tiberium warhead. A modern Hale, little more than a piece of pipe stuffed with explosives, and about as cheap. These were mounted in simple field batteries, four tubes mounted on the back of a standard truck, aimed via pointing the truck in the general direction of Chicago. While accuracy was almost certain to be utterly abysmal, these weapons did not need to be accurate. Rather, saturating an area with high altitude burst weapons, and overwhelming any attempt at point defense with the sheer number of launches made this a weapon of brute simplicity and random terror. Four such batteries were found in the vicinity of Freeport, for a total of ninety six missiles. Elsewhere, another five hundred munitions were found, enough, even assuming a generous failure rate, to wipe Chicago off the face of the planet for all intents and purposes.
To the north, a series of naval landings added to the chaos that Gideon's supply line was thrown into. Driving the Brotherhood into the Red Zone, or cutting them off on the upper peninsula, GDI has secured the region, and significantly better protected Chicago.
In the months since, Gideon has thrown every asset he could into the region from both sides, driving forces south from the north across Lake Superior, and from the south, in a desperate attempt to force the issue. Repeated air attacks have been made, at great cost to Gideon's forces, against Chicago, but any attempt to deploy the Tiberium shard bombs was stopped short of the city, by forward operating bases, by air power, and by the full force of the Initiative's ground armies. Many of these attacks came from the south, and GDI's greatest aid in this has been the Illinois River, a tributary of the Mississippi that still flowed south. While crossing a river is certainly not a severe problem in the mid twenty first century, it is still one of the defining geographic features. Any tank in the modern day can be, and usually is, fully sealed against NCBT threats, often including an internal compressed air tank to keep the engine running even if submerged. The problem is that the air tank is, inherently, small, and incapable of holding enough air for both the engine and the crew, especially for longer operations. However, it does typically carry enough to cross a river, even on a particularly small hulled tank, such as the Scorpion.
The biggest of Gideon's assaults came in late February, driving north, across the Illinois River, into the line of still incomplete fortress towns. With most of their gun batteries still empty, it was the duty of GDI's ground and air forces to stop them. The battle began near dawn, as Gideon's troops surged over the river, mostly armor, with a number of Reckoner APCs to support them. Under the cover of an artillery barrage, rolling over the forward lines of Initiative trops, they drove a salient deep into GDI lines, punching to within fifty kilometers of Chicago itself. However the progress was illusory, as GDI forces concentrated on his flanks, nearly pocketing an armored infantry brigade in the process. While Gideon was once more able to retreat across the river, the battle was conclusive enough for him to stop attempting further offensives against Chicago, and instead to try and regroup his forces that had faced defeat once again.

The Southern Cross

I didn't want to record this, but apparently some among my men – ones whose hearts belonged to me rather than Kane – wished otherwise. They mentioned that no one would believe me if I didn't make these memoirs. That otherwise naysayers would claim my records are embellished and I am just puffing hot air.

Honestly.

Fuck them. Then I dedicate this battle report in the name of Kane first, and the destroyed ego of the unbelievers second. On
both sides. So let us start at how yet again, David toppled Goliath.

But a digression, perhaps. My men mentioned that it's best to amble onto certain metaphors. Here, I agree. The problem with the imagery is that in the days of old, ones like David were more than shepherds. They survived the wild, to keep their flock tended despite the wolves. And the sling, ever humble and overlooked, is a tool most powerful. I had a Gamma lad with me, to research how powerful slings are– after all, Kane said the men of yore are larger than the ones today! – and with a piece of strong fabric, a large rock, and a good arm, his shot cracked the concrete and embedded deep. In this then, the diminutive David is not as hopeless as the popular predicament painted him as.

Much like Goliath then, the Globalists never stood a chance.

Excerpt from The Southern Cross

Stahl had always been a canny operator, throwing massive weight towards what were particular, potentially decisive points. While this has not brought him success in the last decade, that competency has begun to pay off.
The mobilization for major offensives, even in the context of an ongoing war are hard to miss. Stockpiles of critical supplies grow, units held in reserve are pushed forward, civilian supplies are rerouted to provide priority for military needs. Every offensive the Initiative has ever launched can be assumed to have been compromised at some point before it was put into motion. This is not considered a problem due to the three chains on the causation. First, not everyone who notices is a Nod sympathizer. In fact, the majority are anything but– and know more than well enough to keep their mouths shut. Here, the absence of information brings with it a certain 'tell' for Brotherhood apparatus to notice and would lead to talented infiltrators or burnable assets to prod. Second, is the speed of operations. The Brotherhood's decentralized command structure gives it great freedom to operate on the small and immediate scale. However, it is often slow to respond appropriately on the grand scale. This can be seen in the Egyptian Campaign of the Third Tiberium War, where GDI was able to conduct a rapid offensive against a strategic target at Casabad, open a supply line through Alexandria, and then strike against Cairo, without the Brotherhood being able to concentrate its forces against an overall smaller Initiative force. Finally, there is the problem of moving enough weight of metal to actually stop an Initiative army, or at least inflict serious damage.

I had promised to be truthful in this accounting, so I will not deny that it stung. Plans in motion for years upended by an enemy in a manner that is unusually canny of them. Any other one of my compatriots, the grand leaders of this Brotherhood of ours, would cry at the injustice and I wouldn't blame them. That Northern Git probably did. But most of us remembered the teachings of the Legendary Martyr well enough. The Zeroth Lesson.

Adapt.
Always Adapt.

It had been
frustrating to adjust but then flexibility in planning had always been key. In many cases, a plan, ill prepared but executed with great vigor and rapidity is greater than a perfect preparation that is too late. This could be said to be the Essence of the Legendary Martyr. He had fought against the metal of the Initiative and the vileness of the Scrin against unfavorable circumstances every single time and came out on top. And of this, there are many stratagems that could be gleaned forth, each one worth a treatise to pore over. To expedite for the readers, I can tell what I, personally, found to be the most desired stratagem:

To foil a prepared ambush, and crush enemies under the weight of their own momentum.

Excerpt from The Southern Cross

For Stahl however, the stars aligned this quarter. Learning of the planned offensives all along the front, he launched an offensive before GDI could. Having obtained a large number of Afanc-class Gana, he threw them out as shock troops throughout the South American front. Heavy metal and flesh fused in an amalgamation that would be considered unholy, hundreds of them swarm at a time towards GDI positions, being able to endure the attrition of the Amazonian Red Zones and march without much heat signature to surprise the Initiative piecemeal. Despite not expecting spoiling attacks in the first place, the local commanders struck back with vigor. Yet, they had expected this to be a prelude to a large-scale counter offensive and for a vital week, had waited for an grand attack that never truly materialized. The leading commander, Brigadier General Yusuf Escoffier – who had faced Stahl's subordinate years ago – was cannier. He knew that Stahl would not have the manpower to face the Initiative head on. Though the Gana blitz had taken the wind out of the GDI's sails and operational tempo, none were particularly successful in denting the frontage. Correctly, he had estimated that Stahl would have to focus on one area to commit to a breakthrough and in this, Escoffier had started selectively hardening key positions along the Rio de la Plata and up the crossing of Salado river, gearing up for a counter offensive after Stahl's own.

Knowing, however, is not the same as experiencing it.

We have been at war for the span of generations. One either musters an unending hatred for the opposition, to the extent of having that hatred blind at times inopportune or to consider them wayward. That under better circumstances, in another time, we could have been comrades. Some considered this to be heresy. Not me. If those who would consider me apostate for thinking thus and happen to read this: This is how I won and why you lost. The Hajji is venerable and an old frontline general in a time where the young die in droves. Come to think of it, it is not entirely an uncommon causation that older Mohammedans found themselves high on the generalship of both armies. But with the case of Old Escoffier, he is a force to be reckoned with. Not in a peer-to-peer fight. Most Brotherhood Warlords worth their salt would always beat him there but he had the skill to counter our predilections for subterfuge and breakthrough strikes.

He is, however, old. Wizened as he is, he is inflexible in certain matters. He breaks the mold compared to most Initiative generals, but he still thinks with the logic of heavy metal. Of relatively riskless warfare where generals don't lead in front. About the ways of how warfare
should be.

But not how warfare
is.

Once more to those who would call me apostate: Here is how I won.

Excerpt from The Southern Cross

On a crisp late January day, Stahl made his true strike of the war. Taking his elite retinue of irregulars and Black Hand Chapters – ones trained for Red Zone border combat – with him, he repeated Hannibal's feat in miniature. Parceling company sized formations, he set them loose up and down the Andes Mountains. Fighting from positions more than two thousand meters above sea level, they leapfrogged from one peak to another. Here, they were at a major advantage. With laser weaponry not needing to adjust sights from every change in elevation and range, they reaped a significant toll on the Initiative mountaineer defenders. Sudden laser fire might lance out from beyond conventional range, presighted by skirmishing scouts and taking out individual targets before melting into the cover of the peaks. Attacks might come from above, or from other adjacent peaks. All this while a more conventional distraction force roved up and down the Rio de la Plata defensive lines. Commanded by the remote instruction of the still mountain-ranging Stahl, the harassment force engaged their own hit and run taunting strikes. Stealthed artillery platforms striking and vanishing just as quickly, Banshee formations dancing within GDI sensor ranges before fleeing back, all that and more were done. While the quality of the local commanders faltered at times trying to follow Stahl's punishing tempo demands, they had done enough to let Stahl commit to his main objective.

Passing through Aconcagua – the tallest of the American peaks – his increasingly smaller strikeforce headed deeper into Santiago, now a Green Zone Terminus Hub. Here, he split off half his force to serve as distraction and struck Santiago de Chile. Fully fanatical, this remaining force split off into even smaller fireteams and sections, fully ready to die in order to project the appearance of a seemingly larger force. Leading the other half carefully, Stahl pushed onward into the Blue Zone proper, at the small town of Curico. Barely considered a stop point and one supposedly far from any fighting, it had not much worth, barely a mustering half-strength garrison due to the attack on Santiago de Chile.

Against eight Black Hand Chapters and thrice their number in regular fighters kitted with laser weaponry, they were chaff barely able to make distress hails, and served as the first black mark to the GDI, the first strike at a Blue Zone since the Third Tiberium War by an active strike force rather than subterfuge. More than that, Stahl had taken the occasion to unfurl a Brotherhood flag, recorded by his troops and plant it next to the bodies of the dead before leaving the angry pursuit of GDI forces.

Why? Why risk it all?

Well, I would not be a Warlord if I could not lead by example. But more importantly, it was the only thing that
I could do. To plant a flag such as this is not a privilege, it's a responsibility. Only I could rile the GDI to a frenzied fervor, and though Old Escoffier is patient, the constituents are not. Seeing the red gore of their soldiers on blue grounds is one thing. But to see that with my face smiling at the camera? That is another. He had no choice but to retaliate. To send men to death. To wash blood with blood, rather than to wait for it to crust and use his metal implements to scrub them clean.

Here, I have won. But that would not be enough.

Excerpt from The Southern Cross


However, he did not try to hold this position. Rather, he used it as a provocation, a red cape waved before the bull. GDI had to respond, to retaliate and make its strength and power clear. At Cerro Payun, GDI armored forces drove north, attempting to cut off Stah's line of retreat. However, rather than catching a retreating army, it walked into a crossfire of cruise missiles raining in from all sides. While their laser systems flailed at the incoming projectiles, it proved insufficient, and losses were heavy as they retreated.
But these fights were not sustainable. GDI had too many men, too much materiel. Stahl needed to find some way to stall them once more by means other than expending Gana. Rather, after his retreat, he began funneling the old, the sick, the weak and the infirm to the front. Any GDI offensive would be over the corpses of a wave of refugees sent to GDI.

Steel Vanguard, overall, was not particularly successful. Unfortunately, GDI's military has been, across nearly every front, unable to convert substantial material superiority, including a nearly unlimited supply of shells and replacement parts, into battlefield victories. Much of the blame can be laid at the feet of the Brotherhood of Nod, which has used its time unharried by GDI offenses well, laying in trap after trap, defensive line after defensive line. While GDI has certainly gained tens of thousands of square kilometers of territory, little of it is of any real worth, aside from its use as Tiberium harvesting areas. Factories, populations, anything that GDI could have used, had been stripped from the land, and so too were the formations. Rather than standing and fighting to the bitter end, Brotherhood forces have maintained a mobile defense, holding a position for hours, maybe days, and then falling back for new ground.
However, for all of this land, there were broader strategic aims. Red Zones have left the Brotherhood with long sections of very narrow territory. The first drives of Steel Vanguard were meant to cut these sections, and they have. Around the world, sections of Yellow Zone have been bisected by GDI thrusts, serving two key purposes. On one side, GDI can now use these to begin offensives into the Red Zones proper, connecting directly to logistical networks, and without nearly as much threat from the Brotherhood of Nod. On the other, it has left significant parts of the Brotherhood separated and vulnerable. While only some warlords are vulnerable to this kind of offensive, they have been some of the most prominent. Offensives have separated Reynaldo and Krukov, and split Gideon's territory into three.
 
Q1 2060 Results


GDIOnline Q1 2060



War of 2060: The Homefront

Dr. James Granger
With a major war once more rearing its head, it is time for us all to tighten our belts, and for those of us who have been able to rest for a time, to get back to work. I took a job teaching Tiberium science at a local college, because at my age, it is all I am good for. "old men shall repair to the public places, to stimulate the courage of the warriors and preach the unity of the Republic and hatred of kings" is a good enough summary of my role at this point.

  • Here is a link to the guidelines for community service volunteer organizations
  • Here is a link to reporting on the war.

So, how is everyone experiencing the war, and what are you doing, even if you are not going to be called up for service?

KropotkinsGhost
Well shit, I too am in the "too old to fight so let's go fix some stuff" category. Looks like I'll be using these hands for more than just petting my dog and cooking some stew now. Guess I'll look into mutual aid groups to join if the official repair crews find me too old. Viva La GDI Comrades!

Tera Smith [Space Command Exploratory Division]
Writing this from the moon, which is either one of the safest or one of the least safest places at the moment. Will probably have to stay here for a while. I just hope everyone of you makes it through this.

GDIWife
Remember to check your local threads on GDIOnline to see if there are any local groups doing things to help. My area has a group putting together care packages for soldiers in combat zones. It helps you get out and meet people you otherwise wouldn't while at the same time helping those serving.

R.O.U.S.
...GDIWife, hand in hand with people she otherwise wouldn't meet, for the sake of the war effort. Huh. This feels like it's going to be "How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Vol. 2". I'm doing what I can - I had a graphics card I was going to stick in a new computer, but with the war on I'm sending that back to the manufacturer. I can wait for a new computer until after we stop needing computers to kick the warlords' teeth in.

GDIWife
#R.O.U.S I resent that remark. I have supported our brave troops since the beginning, I have just had reasonable concerns with the possibility of inviting NOD supporters into blue zones.

ProfCollingsworth
#Dr. James Granger
Good to hear that you are passing on both knowledge and wisdom to the next generations. Welcome to the ranks of ivy-covered professors. There's not much else I can do myself, but I am helping coordinate some of my students in their projects. And, sadly, providing an available ear for those who have lost friends.

AccomplishingProvidence
#R.O.U.S. you should have known it was too good to last…Still, I'm glad to see mankind once more pulling together to support each other. Humanity's capacity for many things, both good and bad, is always amazing, terrifying, and a bit heartbreaking.
Here's to hoping the damage isn't too bad, at any rate.
#Dr. James Granger I salute your spirit of giving and sacrifice. Thank you for not only setting an example but providing everyone here links and resources to help in these trying times. I will have to see if I have anything I can spare as a donation somewhere, at the least.

R.O.U.S.
Without hope, what are we, really? We have to believe in a future for humanity, even - no, especially in the dark times. But seriously, #GDIWife, I know it's not going to get through to you but YZers are about as much NOD supporters as I am a churchgoer - which is to say, the authority figures dragged me along when I had no other choice and I didn't believe shit. Pardon the swearing.

JetBro
Speaking of charity. Have you heard that the open beta test of the new DLC for GDI-Commander?
About that recent space marine operation, with the capture of the NOD airship?
It seems they wrote that the income will go entirely to support veterans.
To be honest, the idea of making a video game based on the events of a war going on right now confuses me, but why not?

R.O.U.S.
It's fun to watch, at least, even if I'm horrible at it.

GDIWife
#R.O.U.S And how do you tell the difference between the true believers and the ones who only pay lip service? I'm not an idiot, I know not 100% of yellow zoners are nod worshippers. That being said, look at history, where Nod recruits from. Anyway, I don't want to derail this into being about politics, it's about supporting the war effort. What kind of game is GDI-Commander and will it be okay for a new person to video gaming?

R.O.U.S.
...You know, that "supporting the war effort" thing...I'm getting worried about the home front. How are we going to make all the refugees fit? There's gonna be so many...We can't just leave them out there! (That's how NOD recruits, #GDIWife...The downtrodden and dispossessed, promised the necessities they aren't getting, with a sprinkle of theology on top.)

1Fox2FoxRedFoxGreenFolx
*waves little flag* First major battles that I can remember hearing about as they happened! WOoo.... Right now, its just night classes and working when I can at the local coop. A tiny part of me is considering volunteering for Home Guard or something like that. But that shits fucking scary so yeah. Yeah.

Erewhon
#Dr. James Granger selling Your secrets back to You who You call NOD. I have already transferred every one of Your Jests to their secret Jest labs. This will ensure Our Collective Doom arrives soon.

R.O.U.S.
uh...guys...do we need to call InOps on Erewhon now? I don't wanna...

GDIWife
#R.O.U.S Green zones are safe. Anyway, that's the last I'm saying on that issue. #Erewhon Have you been watching Monty Python by any chance?

AgathaH
#JetBro YARRRR! In unrelated news, 50-some pirate hats mass more than you might think.

R.O.U.S.
#AgathaH Clearly you should just batch them. Or get them produced onsite somehow? I don't think there's textile manufacturing up there yet, though.

AgathaH
#R.O.U.S Apparently there's a little, but weaving metal is probably Not Easy. Not that I'd know anything about the pirate flag that showed up attached to Admiral Carter's desk one morning.

R.O.U.S.
Mmhmm. Wink wink nudge nudge cross your fingers where InOps can't see. You know nothing, not at all. Damn that sounds badass.

JetBro
#GDIWife
"What kind of game is GDI-Commander and will it be okay for a new person to video gaming? "
Yes, the game is not very difficult, a shooter with a set of single companies.
#AgathaH
Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum! Although in the context - rather vodka, lol.

R.O.U.S.
…I mean, shooters are shooters. You either have the fast-twitch reflexes and precision for them or you don't, mostly, and then there's an element of tactical positioning on top. I'm horrible at them and I play a lot of games. Mostly because of the twitchy aimy stuff rather than tactics, I hope. Anyway, enough of that diversion, there's a thread for GDICommander somewhere on this website, it's probably worth going and asking there.

JamesandBonesy
Mister H is grumpy. He keeps grumbling about how things are "shoddy", and other things I probably shouldn't say. He does seem to be happy about his new kitten, though. He had a friend come by with a metal leg, which lookeed Really Cool. I think he was joking about it having a laser in it, but I'm not sure.

R.O.U.S.
#JamesAndBonesy ….now I want a laser arm. I don't even need a prosthetic. Why would you do this to me. (</joke>)
But there's definitely not a laser in his leg, anyway. I don't think they've got man-portable laser guns yet, and putting a laser in something you can't aim very well is kind of silly. Can you imagine some guy hopping around shooting laser beams out of his toes? …'scuse me, gotta go submit that to the comic that's looking for spy gadget gags..

Dr. James Granger
#R.O.U.S.
Same way we found space for people after the Third Tiberium War. GDI is no stranger to mass homebuilding campaigns. And at this point, even accepting millions of people would do little more than restore the populations of the Blue Zones to pre Tiberium levels.
These are solvable problems, many of them are solved problems, and while it may delay certain things for a time, there are known solutions, and we can apply them.

AccomplishingProvidence
Look to #Dr. James Granger and his ilk for vision, my friends. Not because he is "innately divine" or the like, but simply as an example of "how do I apply my ideals and desire to help my fellow man". Challenge yourselves to find ways to help others, and to believe it is possible to do so.
#AgathaH I would say that if one accomplishes the "impossible", one is allowed to celebrate with eccentricity.

R.O.U.S.
#Dr. James Granger
Yeah, but aren't we still kind of short of housing? I mean, I guess if there's less demand for military spending…Yeah, I guess. Okay.

AccomplishingProvidence
#R.O.U.S. you underestimate the power of GDI's building capacity. Bear witness to this fully-armed and operational building campaign.

R.O.U.S.
Excuse me while I collect my sides. Isn't Emperor Palpatine more of a Kane analogue, though? Sure has the requisite superweapon fetish.

AccomplishingProvidence
#R.O.U.S. when you get a chance to use a line, you use the line. But I suppose on that level you're correct. Probably a love of drama for both, as well.

RocketMan
#AccomplishingProvidence Ah, I see a fellow man of culture is here.

R.O.U.S.
#AccomplishingProvidence so, "let the references flow through you"? ;P

AccomplishingProvidence
#R.O.U.S. Yes.
#RocketMan one should appreciate the classics, is all. Nothing wrong with a man enjoying classical fantasy cinema.

Crucible
We among the Open Hand have been discussing the best way for us to contribute to the war. We have decided that those of us not working in production, myself included, intend to volunteer as combat medics. Saving lives is the most important thing to me, though I cannot speak for the others, I think many among our number feel the same.

GDIWife
#Crucible Will they actually trust you near the front lines? I don't think I would.

Crucible
#GDIWife I trust GDI to utilise our skills as best as it is able. If InOps decides that the risk is too high to allow individuals of the Open Hand to perform in certain roles, we will find another way to help. If your concern is that we would turn on others, such as slipping information to Warlords, or attacking those under our care, all I can say to assure you is that, by acting as medics, in many regions of the planet we automatically become more likely to be shot by snipers and other enemy combatants. It is not an occupation taken lightly.

FloatingWood
#Crucible, I've heard things about what goes on around the Mediterranean YZs. There's a 'this would've been nuked if InOps had not obviously seeded this' document floating around about what captured GDI personnel can expect depending on where they're caught. Now, InOps being InOps, I'm not sure this isn't slanted to a fair thee well or lying, but you really, really don't want to be caught there. It gets nasty.
#R.O.U.S. To those who say 'it is inconceivable we can fit the refugees' I say this, I do not think you know what that word means. We managed to fit the refugees during and after TW1, we managed to fit the refugees when tiberium ran rampant, we managed to fit the refugees after TW2, we manage to fit the refugees as tiberium took our forests and fields and turned them glassy green, we managed to fit the refugees after TW3, we managed to fit the inflow of refugees from South America after we build those MARV hubs there, we will manage to fit the multitude fleeing from the violence and oppression of Nod. We actually have a good amount of housing capacity spare, we can fit millions. Not in comfort, not without roommates. But safe, warm, and restful, while the good men and women of the engineering corps stamp out apartments by the millions.
#AgathaH Wait, what. That wasn't a made up story? Because when I saw that I thought some PR flack got a test message into the news network.

Crucible
#FloatingWood I served the Brotherhood as a Confessor and now act as the head of a GDI political party. If I were to be captured by a Warlord, the most fortunate outcome I could possibly receive is being publicly tortured to death. It is a risk I am willing to take.

ProfCollingsworth
#GDIWife While I could give an extensive lecture on the effects of bigotry and prejudice that occurred as a result of the emigration of millions of Irish in the 1840s-50s, or the documented damage that the United States did itself during the 1940s with its internment of citizens of Japanese descent, I will instead ask you this question:
Do you consider yourself more of an expert on internal security and threat assessment than the people at InOps who are undoubtedly monitoring #Crucible and their compatriots? If not, then why do you not trust their judgement?
(Edited with thanks to #FloatingWood. I could swear the keys on my keyboard are shrinking on me.)

Dr. James Granger
#FloatingWood, I am not familiar with the precise document you are referencing, but those guides do exist, and are not slanted in the slightest. There are absolutely warlords where the practical guidelines are that it is better to die than be captured. That is obviously not everywhere, but that is one of the reasons why Litvinov has begun attempting more negotiations with the Brotherhood, in order to ensure that the next war is not fought to the knife.

FloatingWood
#ProfCollingsworth You sure you got the timeline for the Irish right? IIRC their big exodus was the 19th century potato famine (and boy was that a fucked up mess).
#Crucible Do us all a favour? Don't die out there. We have less use for dead martyrs than living souls.
#Dr. James Granger I'm sorry to say I would err on the side of caution. Nod has shown a distinct willingness to commit atrocities of all stripes at the slightest provocation. I'm sure their unsuccessful attacks on GDI will bring their worst out, soon. And no, #AccomplishingProvidence, that is not racism. That's unfortunately historically well founded. Nod, when pressed into a corner, tends to shift towards mass murder, executions of POWs and other reprehensible actions. Mostly, I think, in an attempt to horrify 'the soft GDI fools' into backing off. Sometimes, it works. More often, it just means the commando corps gets called into the mess to make a point.

GDIWife
#ProfCollingsworth Last I remember the Irish hadn't killed a few billion people before immigrating. Nod has. Say what you like about yellow zoners, there are certainly fine people amongst them even if there are also Nod fanatics, but Crucible is openly and proudly Nod. He glorifies a man responsible for the death of billions and the poisoning of our planet. Kane is a genocidal maniac and I don't think distrust for (or hatred of) his followers makes me unreasonable.

FloatingWood
Looks up. Well, that's a change of mind.

AgathaH
#FloatingWood Does the H now stand for Harlock? *smirks in the key of ARRRRRR*

FloatingWood
#AgathaH It's preferable to Heterodyne.

YellowZon3r
Well ladies and gents, finally did it. My local Area of Operations recently turned blue. Cleaned up the last patch just last month. There's some minor cleanup work and harvester shifts. They waited a while to make it official But otherwise this old Yellowzone town has gone from yellow to green and now blue. I could keep my job with reduced hours.... Honestly my local town is a bit of a ghost town nowadays. I could just apply to re-deploy further forwards into the yellow. But if I did that I'd be basically in a warzone anyway. So, yesterday went down to my local recruiting office. Recruiter is a nice Lady. Talked about guaranteed college slots after my term is up. Generous pay and benefits. Offering resettlement/ arcology/housing slots in deep blue zones but i don't know if I trust the arcology promise specifically. Also, what am I gonna be doing in a blue zone? So I asked if I'd be able to apply to move to a deep yellow zone instead. She was surprised but doesn't see why not. Giving it a think. If I enlist then my basic starts next week.

AccomplishingProvidence
#FloatingWood, I'm not 100% sure what you're responding to, but you are correct in that being unfairly biased against residents of Yellow Zones is not technically, specifically racist. But a map of the Zones in the world shows some unfortunate truths of where "Yellow Zoners" come from versus "Blue Zoners". And that's before we get into the classism present in some of these arguments.
But more fundamentally, the main argument against Open Hand seems to boil down to "people aren't allowed to change and become better people". If that is the stance someone takes, that's their belief. But I think we need to be honest about such things.
#GDIWife have you actually read the political and theological stances of the Open Hand party? Have you asked them about these things? Or have you just assumed?
#FloatingWood no appreciation for some of the Old Comics, eh? Though it's sad it never finished.
#YellowZon3r good luck.

FloatingWood
#YellowZon3r The arcology promise is not nonsense. It's not particularly likely, with only 1 tour of duty, but the numbers I've seen indicate that military personnel does tend to be first or second in line for an arcology spot.
Just remember that the army is allowed to promise you the heavens, but is not required to deliver. And the moment your signature is on the dotted line, they own your ass.
#AccomplishingProvidence Yellow Zoners are people. Some are good people, some are bad people, most are just average people. Same as Blue Zoners, really.
And hey, I've been one of the people saying 'these Open Hand guys may be crazy because they've got the courage to do this, but they absolutely have the right to and it's way better than having the people they could've convinced to lay down their arms shooting at us'. And aside the whole theology thing, they've got a fairly solid platform.
Also, I have a great appreciation for old comics. Now, that particular old comic I don't particularly like, but Agatha is a perfectly nice young woman.
She's also a Spark. And the Lady Heterodyne is fucking terrifying.

GDIWife
#YellowZon3r I know I'm likely the last person you want to hear this from but good luck out there.


LaserKiwi2000
Was gonna say first world war I have been living through, but it's my second lol. Luckily I updated all my entertainment and such. Auckland's gonna have a relaxed time of this world war, though might lose a few percent of the soldiers we that are being sent to war from here.

Solan
I would say I'm not surprised that I'm being deployed deeper in the Yellow Zones since the expansion of mining is coming up. To think I just used to handle MARVs but now with a war going on I've been swamped with work advising some new commander on the new railgun harvesters being assigned to them. Let me just say Nod is not an easy enemy no matter what the propaganda says. Thank God the casualties for the most part are not deaths and we're transferring them to military hospitals so they can have better care. Our ground forces here are pretty gung-ho on giving a bloody nose to the enemy.


Q1 2060 Results
Resources:‌ ‌930 + 30 ‌in‌ ‌reserve‌ ‌(15‌ ‌allocated‌ ‌to‌ ‌the‌ ‌Forgotten)‌ ‌(35 ‌allocated‌ ‌to‌ ‌grants)‌(+25 from Taxes)

Political‌ ‌Support:‌ 72
SCIENCE Meter: 4/4
Free‌ ‌Dice:‌ ‌7 ‌
Tiberium Spread
19.72 Blue Zone
1.74 Green Zone
24.33 Yellow Zone (86 Points of Abatement)
54.21 Red Zone (72 Points of Abatement)

Current Economic Issues:
Housing: +34 (17 population in low quality housing)
Energy: +9 (+4 in reserve)
Logistics: +29
Food: +14 (+10 in reserve)
Health: +2 (-7 from Wartime Demand) (-3 from Refugees)
Capital Goods: +17 (+20 in reserve)
STUs: +15
Consumer Goods: +23 (-22 from demand spike) (+3 from Private Industry)
Labor: +36
Tiberium‌ ‌Processing‌ ‌Capacity‌ ‌(1845/2470)‌ ‌
Labor Per Turn: +4
Taxation Per Turn: +30
Space Mining Per Turn: +35
Green Zone Water: +6

Status‌ ‌of‌ ‌the‌ ‌Parties‌ ‌
(strong‌ ‌support,‌ ‌weak‌ ‌support,‌ ‌weak‌ ‌opposition,‌ ‌strong‌ ‌opposition)‌ ‌

Free‌ ‌Market‌ ‌Party:‌ ‌228 ‌seats‌ ‌(0;‌ ‌50;‌ ‌28; ‌150)‌ ‌
Market‌ ‌Socialist‌ ‌Party:‌ 486‌ seats‌ ‌(200;‌ ‌150;‌ ‌86;‌ ‌50)‌ ‌ ‌
Militarist:‌ 754 ‌seats‌ ‌(250;‌ ‌254;‌ ‌150;‌ ‌100)‌ ‌
Initiative‌ ‌First:‌ ‌335 ‌seats‌ ‌(0;‌ ‌0;‌ ‌35; ‌300)‌ ‌
United‌ ‌Yellow‌ ‌List:‌ ‌176 ‌seats‌ ‌(100;‌ ‌50;‌ ‌20;‌ ‌6)‌ ‌
Starbound‌ ‌Party:‌ ‌461 ‌seats‌ ‌(300; 100;‌ ‌40;‌ ‌21)‌ ‌
Socialist‌ ‌Party:‌ 426 ‌seats‌ ‌(200;‌ ‌190;‌ ‌26;‌ ‌10)‌ ‌
Homeland‌ ‌Party‌‌: 50 ‌seats (5; 30; 10; 5)
Biodiversity‌ ‌Party‌: ‌34 ‌seats (4; 10; 20; 0)
Reclamation Party: 12 Seats (0; 8; 4; 0)
Developmentalists:‌ ‌1038 ‌seats‌ ‌(500;‌ ‌238;‌ 250;‌ ‌50)‌ ‌

Military‌ ‌Confidence‌ ‌
Ground‌ ‌Forces‌ ‌:‌ Extremely High ‌ ‌
Air‌ ‌Force‌ ‌:‌ ‌Decent‌ ‌
Space‌ ‌Force‌ ‌:‌ Decent ‌
Steel‌ ‌Talons:‌ ‌Low
Navy:‌ Decent ‌
ZOCOM:‌ ‌Decent ‌

Plan Goals
Capital Goods: 35 Points
Consumer Goods: 18 Points
Food: 18 points in reserve
Income: 140 (125) Points
Stations: 1450 Points
Abatement: 14 (11) Points
Processing: 280 points

Projects
Complete ASAT Phase 4
Complete OSRCT Phase 4
Railgun Munitions Development
Complete at least one more phase of Shell Plants
Complete at least one more phase of Ablative Armor
Complete at least one more phase of URLS production
Complete at least one more phase of Wadmalaw Kudzu Plantations
Complete at least one more phase of Blue Zone Arcologies
Complete GDSS Enterprise
Complete at least five phases of Space Mines
Complete at least four phases of Karachi Planned City
Develop and Deploy Mastodon



Markets
GDI's markets have, although not quite collapsed, significantly slowed. With the war on, consumer goods markets have had major runs, with most basic supplies being entirely sold out, and many others being nearly, if not entirely, unavailable due to military requirements. Investments have been effectively zeroed out in anything aside from light industrial production that can be used in military contracting.
The Treasury has not yet authorized major purchases from civilian contractors, but it is an expected move, with even the most centrally planned economies relying heavily on buying civilian production capacity in addition to GDI's own factories.
While civilian confidence is currently high, investing in luxury goods production during a time of war is not only seen as wasteful, it is sometimes considered to be a sign of potential disloyalty. While the goods themselves are prized, increasing production of them is not.

Politics
At this point, Initiative politics have rapidly and severely quieted. While the public opinion is still valued, it is widely seen as the time for the politicians to stand aside and allow the bureaucrats to fight the war. While they will make their opinions on the conduct of the war clear, it is something that will wait until after the war has been fought, and won.

Breakthroughs
The Initiative's scientific departments have pushed a number of breakthroughs this quarter. While development is ongoing in other fields, new technologies reverse engineered from the Scrin remains are still coming out.
First is a development coming out of the force field laboratories. Rather than an improved defensive technology, it is actually an interface technology. With a force field, there is feedback whenever it interacts with an object, say a rock that a Havoc passes over. These force fields also have the ability to distort and shape light that passes through them. While the current proof of concept is a simple button, a force field projecting either green or red, and switching when touched, it is something that has extensive potential for multifunction displays, surround interfaces, and a number of other advanced designs.
More practically, there is the Ion Storm Collector. A derivative of technologies used by the Scrin to supercharge their forces during artificial ion storms produced by other units, the collector is designed to absorb a wide spectrum of energy, most notably that put out by Tiberium. Currently this is extremely fragile, high cost, and low efficiency, but it is hoped that something more feasible can be developed in the coming plan.
Finally there is the development of portal technology. This is a theoretical upending of the entire logistics network, not just for earth, but potentially across the entire solar system and beyond. While currently only theoretical, it is likely to be an expensive project, as punching holes in reality is effectively magic, and will require substantial rewrites of many theories of physics.

The War at Sea
Nearly every Brotherhood warlord with even a relatively short stretch of coast has unleashed the full power of their raiding forces upon GDI's shipping. Losses have been manageable so far, but it is tying down ever more of GDI's naval assets. Most attacks have been by submersible and semisubmersible assets, not submarines. Simply put, a submarine, especially a SST or SSBT, is a deeply complicated machine, requiring masses of skilled and experienced sailors of the right temperament in order to crew and run them, and an even larger force ashore to maintain the supply lines. A semisubmersible vehicle is far simpler, as it can use the outside atmosphere, rather than having to rely purely on internal life support.
While so far, the raiding activities have been warded off with naval escorts, it is only a matter of time before the Brotherhood manages to do significant damage to GDI's ability to maintain global supply networks. With the Navy still distinctly short on modern hulls, and with only a relative few currently under construction, it is likely to be the element that drags GDI's offensives to a halt.

Steel Vanguard
The overall position of the military is that Steel Vanguard is not only already meeting minimum viability, it is time to expand operations and expand the offensives onto new fronts, such as the Australian outback, and offensives up the Russian coastline. Without the defeats that often characterize the opening of wars against the Brotherhood of Nod, the military believes that there have been few better times for GDI to seize territory and secure its rear areas.

Military Priorities
  • Ground Forces
For the Ground Forces, the highest priority must be the prompt delivery of Zone Armor as soon as possible. Otherwise the Ground Forces are ready for significant funding to go to the other branches. While artillery is useful, close air support, battlefield interdiction, and the ability to insert troops into vital locations is equally critical.
The provision of vehicles is currently generally sufficient in numbers and capabilities. However, many of the existing designs lack the space or other requirements for improvements and will require replacement during the coming years.
  • Steel Talons
With only the Mastodon remaining in terms of commitments, the Steel Talons are looking primarily at developing a series of revolutionary technologies, although most will wait until after the war, as they are not yet ready, and there are numerous higher priorities.
  • Air Force
With technological upgrades ready, the highest priority now is delivery to the field, and preferably in great volume. For the Air Force, the wingman drones are a near requirement as soon as possible in order to maintain air superiority, especially with the rapid intensification of the air war, and the sheer punishment that the Varyag class can take.
  • Navy
GDI's naval forces have returned to a point where convoys can expect routine escort, and even attempted blockades can be forced, although not without sacrificing other routes. They see the escort carriers with the naval variants of the Orcas as the next major important area to invest in. However, they are also looking into expanding the number of ships drastically, as less than two hundred modern hulls is simply not enough to cover a global operational zone. With ships developed, they need rapid and massive funding to begin to put resources into the field within the next two years.
  • Space Force
With the OSRCT serving admirably, particularly with the seizure of the Bogatyr, the concept is proven. At this point, expansions of the teams are unlikely to reach service readiness before the end of the war, even in the case of the longest expected war scenarios. Instead, the Space Force is looking to reorient towards additional supporting arms, providing fire support from orbit not just for the Orbital Strike units, but all Initiative forces.
  • Zone Operations Command
ZOCOM sees the two primary priorities as suit upgrades and more importantly the mass delivery of zone amor to other branches in order to turn over significant swathes of heavy infantry and shallow red zone operations to Initiative Ground Forces, Navy, or other branches, and rededicate their efforts to the deep red zones.

[ ] Yellow Zone Fortress Towns (Phase 4) (Updated)
The Yellow Zone fortress towns will be a critical asset in not only taking ground, but holding it. Preparing large numbers of fortifications at critical strategic points and key terrain features will give GDI's military a significant advantage, and much greater ability to fall back on
(Supports Yellow Zone Intensification) (Supports Operation Steel Vanguard)
(Progress 232/250: 20 resources per die) (+4 Housing) [33, 24, 27]

The Yellow Zone fortress towns have been one of the greater disappointments this quarter. While much of the actual buildings have been completed, GDI's ground forces have made neither shells nor tubes available, claiming that they are needed at the battle front. However, a further infusion of resources can make those available by ordering specifically for them through the normal channels for priority orders, bypassing the usual route of the Ground Force's own reserves.
Many of these fortress towns are located to support the invasions, in places like Poland. While not yet completed, these towns have become the core of the vast supply lines supporting the armies of the Initiative, with stockpiles of shells, ablat, food, and the thousand other things that the armies need to fight stored inside them.
Currently, the towns stand nearly empty, really more outposts for the Initiative's armies than dedicated townships. However, they are planned to be that as well, supplying a limited amount of real housing for long term residents, and providing places for rest and relaxation close to the front.

[ ] Rail Network Construction Campaigns (Phase 2)
With the primary military lines completed, the next key step towards a more comprehensive network is refitting and expanding the primary lines between Blue Zone cities. Furthermore, branching lines can be installed in the Green Zones in preparation for further expansion. Such efforts are hoped to ease logistics and evacuations in the case of war.
(Progress 275/275: 15 resources per die)(+4 Logistics)
(Progress 159/300: 15 resources per die)(+4 Logistics) [93, 88, 44, 58]

The construction of new rail lines to the front has been rapid and intensive, a comprehensive network pushing from coastal port cities to the front lines. With casualties high, and progress limited, the rail lines have found themselves being as useful bringing wounded men and destroyed equipment back from the front as they are in bringing equipment to the front. In each direction, vast swarms of trains, whizzing across the countryside at high speed have maintained a vast throughput of supplies. Little else can cover their ability to haul supplies overland, with a single train able to supply an entire division with days, if not weeks, worth of supply, in ways that would take hundreds, if not thousands of trucks to manage.
Looking back at the two hundred years of the rails at war, from Crimea, to the American Civil War, to the World Wars of the 20th century, they have since their inception defined the battlespace in ways that few other human constructions do. A rail line is a lifeline, a means of providing resources, supplies, and most importantly, movement. A division can, with a rail line, embark at one railhead, and in a matter of hours or days move across hundreds or thousands of kilometers. In the planning for the First World War, Germany's operational and strategic plans relied upon its rail network to be able to rapidly redeploy troops from one side of the country to the other, allowing it to take a force numerically inferior to the combined arms of France and Russia, and defeat both in detail, rather than attempt to defend both sides.

[ ] Continuous Cycle Fusion Plants (Phase 5)
With the Initiative's energy needs still substantial, new pods of fusion plants, and expansions to existing ones will be needed to continue pouring resources into the military industrial complex, and provide new weapons in the fight against the Brotherhood of Nod.
(Progress 232/300: 20 resources per die)(+16 Energy) [98, 75]

A further wave of fusion plants have seen continued construction, many placed in the vast frozen north, including a pair solely for powering the Nuuk robotics foundry. These plants are also critical in ensuring that GDI has the power to maintain operations, even in the case of widespread sabotage campaigns and even losses in the face of enemy action. Beyond that, planned operational expansions, most notably to the wingman drones and more importantly new generations of environmental shielding and industrial laser systems.
However, these plants have not yet entered service, primarily due to supply disruptions caused by the war. While there is more than enough supply to go around, fusion reactors are massive, in every sense of the word. This means that even with the ICS construction efforts require special arrangements to ensure there is no disruption to other important cargoes, and with ongoing operations, there are ever more priority one and priority zero cargoes blocking the routes. With fusion plant components priority two, that makes things fundamentally more difficult. But, in any case, the progress made is still substantially more than was expected, and a final wave of resource infusions should fix the problems.


[ ] Nuuk Heavy Robotics Foundry (Phase 1)
GDI needs ever more heavy robots, and ever greater supplies of automation. With projects in the Red Zones, and potentially underground mines, the current construction yards and systems are completely insufficient. Nuuk is planned to be the largest existing robotics construction work. While it will be expensive, it will also provide masses of capital goods.
(Progress 160/160: 20 resources per die)(-1 Labor)
(Progress 320/320: 20 resources per die)(+4 Capital Goods, -2 Labor, -4 Energy)
(Progress 118/640: 20 resources per die)(+16 Capital Goods, -2 Labor, -8 Energy)(Nat 100) [9, 81, 99, 31, 100, 71, 4]

Massive resources have been poured into erecting a vast robotics plant. Nicknamed Santa's Workshop by some of the more spiritually inclined members of the team, it is a testament to GDI's ability to mechanize construction work. What could not be done by man and muscle, can be done with swarms of robots, and in some ways has produced a von Neumann machine. Robots, fresh off the assembly line, poured back into building the facilities. Assembly drones, construction units, diggers. And then there are the thousands upon thousands of robots that do not move, Computer Numerically Controlled units, assembly arms, the paraphernalia of modern industrial society, all pouring out of the assembly bays at Nuuk.
The port has seen multiple fully loaded cargo ships a day in throughput, straining it to the maximum, and the roads from the port to the site are a procession of crawling beetles, an ant line writ gargantuan as truck after truck hauls components and parts to construct the facility. With local tiberium sources being few and far between, a result of the northerly latitudes and the region never having much Tiberium contamination, it has also had to ship in massive quantities of material, an inconvenience, but not a significant one, especially due to its location, midway on the North Atlantic loop, meaning that ships from both Europe and North America can make stops there without too significant a diversion from a best speed course.
The exigencies of war have also created certain breakthroughs in efficiency. While the project has been pouring resources into a hole in a mad dash for speed, its architects do realize that this is not by any means sustainable, and have continued work on high efficiency large scale use of drones,

[ ] Emergency Electronic Resources Reallocation (New)
While GDI supplies many forms of electronic goods to the consumer market, most can also serve military and industrial aims. By reprioritizing the production from sites like Manchester and North Boston, GDI can make temporary boosts to its supply of capital goods. Emergency measures like this are deeply unpopular, especially with the armies of the Initiative planning offensives.
(+10 Capital Goods, -16 Consumer Goods) (Only for the war) (Does not count towards plan goals) (-20 Political Support)

One of the critical flaws of GDI's rebuilding strategy has been a long term shortage of capital goods. While that is being remedied, it has meant that GDI lacks the ability to actually maintain a vast stockpile of reserved capital goods. While much of this has been due to chasing other priorities and ensuring the greater welfare of the Initiative, it has drawn criticism from some quarters as a mistake and poor preparation.
The decision has been made to limit and repurpose a wide variety of electronic goods, not just computer chips, but also those used in everything from smart phones to simple interface chips, rerouted to the heavy industrial reserves. While far from being the only form of important capital goods, they are some of the ones that are hardest to set up new production of, and require single large facilities in ways that most other goods do not.
While initially seen as an overreaction to a war that GDI should have been able to win easily, the slog of the initial offensives has begun to grind down the general opposition to such measures, and left the Treasury still facing widespread disapproval, but at least some level of understanding. While so far GDI has not lost significant masses of capital goods, that is not a situation that can be relied upon in future quarters, even as Nuuk has begun production.

[ ] Reykjavik Myomer Macrospinner (Phase 4)
Further expansion of the Reykjavik Macrospinner is going to focus on heavy myomer bundles, which are keys to mass production of modern zone armor and mech projects as they provide highly efficient mobility options.
(Progress 378/640: 20 resources per die)(+4 Capital Goods, +2 Energy) [20, 46, 12, 84, 76]

The Reykjavik macrospinner has seen major further investment this quarter, as a secondary source of critical capital goods. Take, for example, the Pattern 2027 six axis light and ultralight pneumatic robotic arm variants. A marginal improvement over the pattern 2016 robotic arms, it was a standard element in numerous assembly lines across the Initiative, including both military and civilian assembly units. It is also nearing retirement as the Initiative pushes more modern myomer based arms to more factories, cutting maintenance downtime requirements while at the same time increasing speed, and in some cases, reducing the number of arms needed at any given factory for expected throughputs. The Pattern 2027s are not the only ones reaching end of life, with the Pattern 2031 Heavy six axis arm reaching the same point, with only two years expected before it is completely phased out.
The industrial sites allocated to the maintenance and upkeep of the Initiative's Pattern 2027 and 2031 are unlikely to be simply retired. Rather they are likely to be auctioned off to the private sector, as, while they are no longer useful to the Initiative proper, they are still robotic assembly arms, and they can still be useful to the private market.


[ ] Blue Zone Aquaponics Bays (Phase 1)
With mass immigration and the demands of the plan suggesting significant new farming as a requirement, a new wave of basic aquaponics bays will provide for substantial amounts of food as a basic human requirement. While not as pleasant as the vertical farming projects, or other means, they are very efficient at producing significant amounts of food.
(Progress 140/140 Phase 1, 3/140 Phase 2: 10 resources per die)(-1 Labor, +6 Food) [26, 64]

The war has put paid to any plans to expand Green Zone aquaponics development, with the crumple zones expected to crumple at least in some points, and any development would be at risk of feeding the onrushing armies of the Brotherhood of Nod instead. At the same time, the Initiative does need substantially more food, not only to supply large scale preservation and food reserve exercises, but in light of expected waves of refugees and the demands of the war.
The vast majority of these aquaponics bays are allocated to the production of various staple water crops, most notably beets, but also an array of other root vegetables, as they attempt to produce as many high nutrition calories as possible.

[ ] Freeze Dried Food Plants
Freeze Drying effectively turns most food into permanent, shelf stable systems. While building additional plants to process food in this way will be expensive, it should significantly reduce waste, and increase the lifespan of the stockpiles noticeably.
(Progress 73/200: 20 resources per die)(+5 Food, -1 Energy) [14, 11]

Chuño is perhaps the oldest example of a product akin to freeze drying. Potatoes are placed in areas where it naturally reaches below freezing, and exposed to repeated cycles of freezing and sun drying. Dating back to the Incan empire, the process produces a shelf stable potato suitable for use in a wide variety of dishes. However, that process is slow, and mistakes can ruin everything with ease. The origins of modern western style freeze drying are much more modern. Around the turn of the 20th century, the process was independently discovered by multiple scientists, including Richard Altmann. The process was first used on a large scale to preserve blood plasma and penicillin in the second world war, making shelf stable versions of critical life saving medication. After the war, the process began to be used for food, first by NASA, but later on a much larger scale as a means of preserving food in areas where weight and volume were critical concerns.
The modern plants are fundamentally not too dissimilar to those produced a century ago. Much more heavily automated, more efficient, and substantially more energy efficient, but fundamentally the same. Food is spread onto trays, which are then passed into vacuum chambers, freeze dried, extracted, and put into mylar pouches for long term storage. Or at least that is the plan. While the buildings stand, the plants currently lack the needed machinery, with the vacuum chambers to process the food in particular in short supply, delayed, or intercepted by Brotherhood coastal craft..

[ ] Yellow Zone Tiberium Harvesting (Phase 6)
Driving further into Brotherhood territory is likely to put the Brotherhood on the back foot finally. With the ever increasing red zones, and the completion of this phase, the Initiative will finally control more of the earth's surface than the Brotherhood of Nod. (Supports Steel Vanguard)
(Progress 300/300: 20 resources per die)(3 Points Yellow Zone Mitigation,
+5 Resources per turn)
(Progress 183/300: 20 resources per die) [79, 55, 15, 50, 87]

Around the world, the armies of the Initiative have lurched into offensive motion, emerging from lines of bunkers and networks of fortifications to drive into the increasingly constricted Yellow Zones. While the Brotherhood has fought long and hard, they have been forced back time and time again, as they were buried under the sheer weight of metal arrayed against them.

Immediately behind the front lines, mining convoys have begun their work. From railheads in the Green Zones, they have pushed forward, often within ten kilometers of the forward supply depots. This first wave of projects has not focused on abatement, but rather on building up the infrastructure. As the Initiative moves into what has been Yellow Zone for decades, the poor overall state of the transport infrastructure is making things problematic. A combination of Initiative and Brotherhood policies had led to general neglect of large stretches of the road, rail, and other networks that connected the Yellow Zones, with many areas not having seen a maintenance crew in decades, a status that would be problematic even without Tiberium. To put this in context, an Initiative armored division in pitched battle consumes hundreds of tons of supplies a day, with some, especially those with the most modern artillery, peaking at over a thousand. Every gram of those supplies effectively has to come from the rear, and that has been the prime job of the construction crews, as they are the ones with the most experience building long stretches of transport infrastructure into the ruins of the Yellow Zones.


[ ] Railgun Harvester Factories
The Railgun Harvester is a significantly heavier design than previous Harvester systems and so requires a new series of factories. While by the standards of military production these will be overall fairly limited, they will provide a noticeable increase in income, especially from more heavily contested regions. (Supports Steel Vanguard)
[ ] Railgun Harvester Factories (Maputo)
(Progress 138/70: 10 resources per die)(-2 Energy) [99]

The Maputo Harvester Factory in South Africa, has been a major success story for GDI, with harvesters already coming off the lines. Demand for the new harvesters is high, with many near the front seeing them as being a substantial upgrade in terms of not only firepower, but harvesting capacity.
The concept of self escorting assets is not a new one, dating back to the age of sail if not before, where merchantmen armed themselves to fend off pirates and privateers. In more military terms, the B-17 and other American bomber projects were conceptualized as being self escorting, a result of four engine bombers being able to fly higher and faster than any single engine fighter in the 1920s and 1930s. The railgun equipped harvester is the most recent version of this, and while not precisely self escorting, can at least fend off many of the most common attackers. With GDI advancing across many fronts, and pushing out into the Yellow Zones aggressively, many officers and administrators for the forward edge of the harvesting teams, have been screaming for vast numbers of these harvesters, as they provide a means to protect themselves, as opposed to relying on dedicated army support, which is oftentimes only available in small amounts as they continue to push the fronts forward.

[ ] Railgun Harvester Factories (Dandong)
(Progress 45/70: 10 resources per die)(-2 Energy) [6]
Dandong, on the Yalu River, has been nearly on the front line in recent years, with much of its core industry evacuated south and east as it was on the front lines of the Third Tiberium War. However, the new harvester factory has begun to breathe life once more into a city that has often been within shelling distance of the front lines, and was, at one point, considered for conversion into a simple supply base, with its population displaced into other cities in the Korean Blue Zone. However, it is its place so close to the front lines that has made things problematic. The facilities, both port and rail, are jammed with shell transports, spare parts, and columns of tanks passing through the city towards the front lines. While the Chinese front is relatively quiet, that is rarely a safe assumption to make with the Brotherhood of Nod, and so mobilization has been as rapid here as it has been elsewhere.
Despite these problems significant progress has been made, with the outer structure completed by the end of the quarter. The same cannot be said for a number of critical presses, which are needed to form the hull of the vehicle with as few seams as possible, a critical safety measure in an age of tiberium, especially for the lower hull.

[ ] GDSS Enterprise (Phase 4)
Expanding the Enterprise into a proper all in one industrial center, will require a number of new bays and modules. However, before the refineries, material processors, and industrial fabricators can be brought fully online, they will need to be fed with material. (Station)
(Progress 456/765: 20 resources per die)(+2 Capital Goods, +2 Consumer Goods) [68, 9, 90, 54, 80]

The Enterprise, after a long period of no expansions, has begun to see significant development, including the construction of the first of a series of bays. With Enterprise expected to take years and potentially up to a decade to fully construct, GDI knew that it could not design for everything that could be needed out of the station with the initial concept. So a series of three bays, set at 120 degree angles from the station core, were built into the initial concept. This has proven visionary, as there are a number of important designs that GDI has since developed that require orbital construction bays, some of which will do best in zero gravity, such as laser fibers. Others include an orbital shipyard for mass production of gravitic drive ships, large industrial concerns without the need for the decentralization and anti sabotage measures standard on land bound systems, and many more.
Construction has been rapid, with much of the materials needed coming from the Moon, rather than from Earth. While many specialty parts have been shipped up, the Enterprise has reached a point where most of the initial structural members can be produced on the station, with only the admixtures, such as vanadium, molybdenum, and others, being shipped up from earth, often as relatively minor additions to resupply shipments. Currently, much of it is simply skeleton, with cooling pipes and wires leading to nowhere strung out along its length.
Politically, while the war rages below, station construction has rarely been more popular, as GDI sees it as a means to end the fighting. As a means of fighting war exhaustion, few things are seen as being more promising than offering chances to escape, and while Enterprise will not offer an escape, and in point of fact is unlikely to be more than a sword in the Initiative's arsenal, it is one step closer to building a future for humanity among the stars.

[ ] Orbital Cleanup (Stage 8)
With much of the largest and slowest of the debris collected, all that remains is the increasingly small and fast dust and sand remaining in the orbitals. While still significantly problematic, it is unfortunately much less profitable to mine, as there is not enough material left to save launches.
(Progress 85/85: 10 resources per die)(+20R in Reserve)
(Progress 41/85: 10 resources per die) [87]

A surge of orbital cleanup has occurred as GDI scaled up towards war. While typically a low priority for the Treasury, especially in the face of substantial demands for orbital construction, it was considered worthwhile this time both to clear orbits for future development, and as a substantially less costly measure than expanding operations amid the beginning of a war.
Mostly, it has been small particulates, chips of paint, fragments of old fairings, and vast amounts of scattered debris from decades of junked satellites. The income has been marginal at best, mostly poured into construction of the Enterprise, and even then not enough to substantially reduce the number of launches it needs.

However, this does bring the Initiative one step closer to having clean enough orbitals for developments of the low orbit paths that are optimum for close support, some as low as 500-600 kilometers. While some use can already be made of certain orbits, these are not going to be enough for large scale support work, let alone provide decisive edges to the Initiative forces on the ground.

[ ] Neural Interfaced Operating Theater Development
Advances in neuro helmets make it possible to improve upon current generation remote controlled operating theaters by permitting greater precision with the equipment. Rather than reading the inputs from gloves, buttons and joysticks, the neuro helmet will permit the machinery to read the intent of the surgeon and cut only what needs to be cut without needing to risk delays by the microtremor suppressing algorithms.
(Progress 95/80: 20 resources per die) [63]

Automatic support for a surgeon is not exactly a new idea. As long as GDI has been in existence there have been proposals for one form of systemic revision to how surgery is performed, and in some ways the modern surgical operating theater is very different from those of the early 20th century, including most surgeons wearing personalized heads up displays to aid them, and the widespread use of remote waldoes and other mechanisms to provide for improved control. However, a neural interfaced operating theater is a very different creature. Rather than manually inputting commands, the test theaters have the surgeon using mental commands to link together automatic and manual segments. So, in the case of doing stitches for example, the doctor manually starts the process, allows an automated program to conduct the vast majority of the stitch, and then concludes with their own skills. This system is likely to be fairly expensive to deploy, but that is the cost of breakthrough medical technologies.

[ ] Prosthetics Deployment Initiatives (Phase 3)
With significant production placed towards the area, further development will begin targeting not only those of working age, but many who will never work again. Work towards this will be politically popular, especially with the United Yellow List and the Socialist parties.
(Progress 370/320: 15 resources per die)(-1 Health, +1 Labor Per Turn)(+5 Political Support) [55]

With the war starting, GDI has completed its initial production capacity deployments for prosthetic limbs. While there are certainly going to be waitlists, delays, and oftentimes significant problems in supplying the correct size limb to the correct person, those are primarily a wartime problem. IEDs, land mines, and anti tank munitions provide for a constant supply of broken bodies in need of substantial repair.
The war has shown the changing face of battlefield damages. First, laser flash blindness has spiked, rapidly. With glass or ALON panels creating diffraction from incoming laser blasts, many cases have also come from Initiative point defense lasers with allied units being too close to the incoming munition.

[ ] Advanced Laser System Development
With Takeda's notes providing a guiding basis, GDI's efforts to develop a modern equal to the Brotherhood's laser systems have been far faster than could be otherwise expected. An STU core, with associated support systems, will provide a substantial increase in the capacity of the Initiative's lasers.
(Progress 72/60: 30 resources per die) [41]

The fundamental device of the advanced laser system is a fiber laser. Specifically a holmium/ytterbium/infernium doped optical fiber. The last is the key feature, a STU that fluoresces extremely intensively, and with extremely high efficiency, However it has one flaw, a tendency to hold onto energy until it reaches a critical point. This means that any laser has a charge up time, even with the principles of an optical fiber laser, which works by producing a near total internal reflection all along its length, and producing a laser out the end. However, the properties of the fiber are the most important, specifically because it, unlike most forms of laser, can be effectively bent and folded, allowing much more gain medium to be packed into a relatively small space, for example a weapons pod. In fact, the Air Force's laser pod development has been a near perfect testing ground, as the pod itself does not need to provide much in the way of cooling. A simple air intake allows for fast moving air to suck away vast amounts of heat, far more than one shot of the infernium lasers produces.

[ ] Prototype Plasma Weapons Development
While so far projected plasma weapons have not worked out as well as GDI could hope, it is an unparalleled source of destructive power. However, Initiative scientists have developed a compromise system that can cheaply produce relatively small amounts of plasma and project a lance beyond the detonation point. While requiring small amounts of exotic materials, plasma weaponry can provide both standoff capability and significantly increased destructive potential to many Initiative munitions.
(Progress 101/60: 25 resources per die) [35]

Plasma weapons have reached a point of stability, and can be mounted on a number of Initiative weapons systems. However, they are substantially more expensive than any other standard munition, as an effective plasma device requires a small amount of Elerium and a capacitor to feed it. On detonation, it creates a bright green flash, a result of the rapid vaporization of copper compounds in the device.
It is substantially more powerful than any standard chemical explosive in GDI's arsenal, with approximately twice the blast per volume, and substantially more than that by weight. However, it is a pure energetic/particle device, as the blast itself is far too hot and energetic to produce meaningful amounts of shrapnel.
Currently, it is planned to only come in one size, mounted on the Thunderbolt 10, as it provides a missile small enough to double the payload of most Initiative air to air fighters, while maintaining a more than large enough blast radius to kill Barghests, and anything else, both in the air and on the ground.

[ ] Reclamator Fleet YZ-10 South Super MARVs
An improved model, conceptualized after examining the destruction of MARVS before and during the Third Tiberium War, the Super MARV is substantially more expensive, but offers equally improved rewards
(Progress 211/210: 20 resources per die)(Delayed to Q3: 3 Points Yellow Zone Mitigation, 15 RpT) (Nat 1) [1]

Waves of sabotage have spread through the Blue Zones around the world, disrupting supplies and shattering schedules. Although InOps and the general surplus of logistics capacity have made the problems substantially less severe than they could otherwise be, some projects were much more severely impacted. While supplies trickled into the Savannah hub, it was too little, and far too late. The fleet, planned to support a drive south along the Georgia coast and into Florida, has been stuck in its hub all quarter, as their heavy systems trickle in. It was late in the quarter when the last of the necessary supplies arrived, and the next months will be spent on deploying them into the field.
More broadly, the Super MARV is a sign of the rapid advancement of technology. Ten years ago, they were dreams on a whiteboard. Today they are behind the times. While still a powerful combatant, and one that the Brotherhood of Nod still struggles to fight, developments in lasers, shields, plasma weapons, and an array of other devices have left the Super MARV requiring a fundamental redesign from the treads up to remain relevant on the modern battlefield, especially as the Brotherhood unleashes new and ever more terrible weapons of war.

[ ] Tactical Airborne Laser Development
Lasers are one of the potentially most important developments in air to air combat. A critical problem dating back to the first world war has been deflection shooting, judging the amount of lead to give to ensure that bullets intersect from one moving and maneuvering aircraft to another. However, lasers are one potential means of solving that. Due to the nature of the development being an add-on, the expected laser breakthroughs are not going to make this step redundant.
(Progress 102/40: 20 resources per die) [71]

Deflection shooting is based on a simple affair of trigonometry and ballistics. A bullet falls at 9.81 meters per second per second. It travels through the air at some 700 to 1100 meters per second (of course, this varies depending on the projectile). The aircraft being shot at is also traveling through the air at some 100 to 200 meters per second. So, in order for the two to intersect at a range of say 1400 meters, the aircraft doing the shooting must aim some 400 meters ahead of the enemy. And that is at suicidally close range in the age of modern air to air combat.
The Tactical Airborne Laser project has resulted in a gunpod. Simply put, GDI does not yet trust the new technology enough to use it as an integrated part of the aircraft. Rather, it is a detachable component, designed around a gimballed emitter. With its main user likely to be the Firehawk, it is designed with zero degrees of elevation, fifteen degrees of depression, and forty degrees of traverse, creating a substantial target area, one that gives the Firehawk significantly increased means of killing the Barghest. While certainty not able to even the playing field, it means that whenever the Bargest closes, it does so under threat, and will keep taking damage. More importantly, it also synergizes with the drone program, as they can carry the gunpod instead, and buy time for Firehawks to run away or hit stratoboosters, by being ordered to make attack runs on an incoming Barghest.
The gunpod's primary limitation is not, in fact, the diffusion of its laser, or thermal blooming, but rather the articulation of the gunpod. A Minute of Angle is 1/60th of a degree, or, in ballistic terms, a variation of 2.9 centimeters over 100 meters. Now, it is quite possible to get significantly better than that, a half minute of angle is only 1.45 centimeters, and a quarter minute is a mere 0.725 centimeters. But in air to air combat, a hundred meters is well within spitting distance, the kind of range that pilots in the first world war would close to. In more modern times, closing to within a kilometer is rare. With the TAL system, the pod is equipped with half MoA automatic focus adjustments, meaning that there is a fairly coarse grained targeting system at longer ranges. At one kilometer, this means that its target area is a circle, approximately 14.5 centimeters in diameter, and at ten, 145 centimeters. While the former is more than acceptable enough to precisely target engines, weapons and sensors, the latter is somewhat problematic.

[ ] Wingman Drone Development
With the Air Force's current slate of fighters one of the most major limitations is the array of munitions that they can carry. A drone or group of drones, slaved to the sensors and targeting computers of the main fighter can provide additional missile coverage, and provide for something akin to in air reloads, while not requiring as much risk to the fighter itself. While not able to operate in all conditions, they are a substantial upgrade to the potential firepower under most.
(Progress 98/40: 15 resources per die) [67]

The Wingman drone had been desired for nearly a decade. An Air Force pilot is not so much trained, as born in many cases. Reaction speeds, G-tolerance, weight. All as much inborn characteristics as trained abilities, and then there is the requirement to be able to connect well with the AI and neural interface systems, as well as the training. It can take over a year to produce a pilot that can not only survive in an era of lasers filling the skies and missiles from every angle, but thrive.
The Wingman is the solution to that. Instead of risking some of the most valued members of the GDI military on every strike, and in every cockpit, instead, simple drones, designed to hold off the wing of a manned fighter or strike aircraft, and act as a sword and shield. On the one hand it can carry extra missiles, a load of additional sensor units, or other tools, like the newly developed laser pods to increase the flexibility of any given pilot. On the other hand, they are completely and utterly expendable, simple things of circuit and composite, not flesh and blood, meant to be churned out by the hundreds on factory lines, not painstakingly raised and expensively trained.
More practically, the drones are simple conversions of existing GDI air assets. A pilot in full kit weighs approximately a hundred kilograms, plus all of the tools to keep them alive and functional adds cubic meters to the volume of the aircraft, and a ton or more to the weight. By replacing the pilot with a mere handful of cubic centimeters of computer, with no need for oxygenation or a reinforced cockpit, a significant amount of weight can be cut, and the same can be applied to dozens of components, as they no longer need to compensate for the needs of a pilot. The end result is, across the board, from the Orca and Hammerhead, to the Firehawk and Apollo, a lighter, smaller, cheaper aircraft, one that can be produced in massive volumes, and assuming funding is made available, in very short order. Most importantly however, nearly all of the expensive and difficult to produce components, like the engines, remain the same, and are simply being run at lower settings, meaning that there are efficiencies of scale to be had, and logistically, doubling the number of airframes in use is not quite the idiocy that it would be before the age of the drone.

[ ] Orbital Strike Regimental Combat Team Stations (Phase 2)
Developing a second station for a further two battalions will give the Space Force a much needed second string to their bow, providing a backup on the other side of the world, ready to reach out and cover the Initiative's mistakes wherever they should happen.
(Progress 200/195: 20 resources per die) [33]

A second orbital station reached completion this quarter, on the opposite side of the world. However, it has not yet been cleared for full operational status. The station is likely to take six months or more to be fully ready, primarily because the factories that produce Guardians and all of the other implements that the OSRCT use are currently fully occupied with orders from the Ground Forces to ensure their units (primarily in the West Africa theater, but also in other regions) have the supplies that they need to fight the war. In order to get OSRCT units deployed faster a much greater orbital industrial presence is required, at least for expanding operations during the opening months of the war.
This problem has also caused a reassessment within the Space Force itself in terms of immediate priorities. With two battalions operational, and another two likely to reach operational status by the end of the year, it is time to begin preparing for more intensive operations. The key issues are likely to be the availability of orbital support assets, with project Athena being the most recent project under consideration. An orbital laser platform network, Athena would provide high precision fire support, able to be called in at will from any properly equipped unit. While it would require a special allocation of trailer pods to provide a big enough dish to artillery spotting vehicles, and a large enough power supply to reliably punch a readable signal through, that is a marginal cost compared to the ability to rain lasers from orbit on nearly any target in sight. Other proposals include missile pods, precision bombardment systems, and other means of ensuring that the Space Force can provide large volumes of precision fire support to the Ground, Air, and Sea assets of the Global Defense Initiative.

[ ] Escort Carrier Development
With the coming battles with the Brotherhood of NOD primarily existing in the littorals and in small actions, GDI needs a new wave of carriers. However, these, unlike the heavy carriers of the era before the Third Tiberium War, are small designs, built exclusively to carry Orca strike packages and control the airspace around them while being far cheaper than their predecessors.
(Progress 99/40: 15 resources per die) [68]

GDI's new escort carriers had many competing visions. Small, large, drones or no drones. However, with the development of Wingman drones, there was no compelling argument to develop anything besides a carrier designed to support the equipment. While this has resulted in a fifty thousand ton displacement, significantly larger than any other subcapital unit in GDI's arsenal, it has to be that size in order to fit not only twenty four A-16 Orca fighters, but also a dozen Hammerhead helicopters, in addition to the thirty six wingman drones.
The carrier is also emblematic of a new generation of Initiative air defense doctrine. Four independently targeting laser point defense modules, one forward of the main tower, one aft, and then on the other side of the deck about one third and two thirds down the length of the ship, forming a rough trapezoid.
More importantly for the future, it is also the first ship designed with the URLS system as a primary defensive system, with rocket batteries mounted roughly amidships on the port and starboard sides. While a limited defense system, it does provide a means to defend itself. Fundamentally, despite being among the largest classes the Initiative has ever put to sea, its first line of defense is its air wing, and everything else is secondary.
In terms of deployment, the first tranche can use the remaining battleship slipways, which can support some twelve additional hulls in the next four years at a relatively limited cost. For the deployment of the sixty or more that the Initiative needs to free up all of its fleet carriers, a number of new shipyards and slipways will need to be built.

However, immediate needs are substantially more pressing. With operations like Eastern Paris, or other opposed naval landings which have been proposed, the Initiative navy may need to be able to liberate some significant number of carriers from escort operations sooner than the next plan. In that case, there are plans for a rapid construction of thirty emergency carrier conversions, each meant to hold a squadron of Orca attack craft. These are politically severely unpalatable, and something that the Navy does not particularly want, especially at the cost of more proper carriers. The existing model already compromises its defenses substantially in the name of providing an effective asset at low costs, and a merchantman conversion would only further that problem.

[ ] Shark Class Frigate Development
The Shark Class is to be a shorter, thinner, and overall much lighter version of the Governor, including lacking the systems for longer range bombardment systems. Instead, it is primarily oriented towards relatively short ranged air defense, and the constant antisubmarine warfare patrols, filling out GDI's need for convoy escorts.
(Progress 41/40: 20 resources per die) [5]

The Shark Class had a number of competing designs, mostly due to different aspects of the navy having different priorities. In the South Atlantic, the most pressing threat is Brotherhood air and submarine attack, In the South Pacific, it is multivector threats, including surface, submarine, and airborne attack. The result of these two, and many more has been a long lasting stalemate in the design offices, as ships are brought up, rejected, brought up again, rejected, and otherwise stuck in limbo. It was not until the Treasury convened a design board that progress began to be made.

January 1st: Budget released for design studies of Shark-class Frigate.
January 3rd: First eight design varrients, I-VIII submitted.
January 11th: All designs rejected at CUT-1 meeting, design bureaus scramble to restart design work.

The finalized design, brought up near the end of the quarter, is a fundamentally conservative one, built around the same basic scheme as the Governor class. Forward, a single railgun turret, with a point defense laser mounted in a superfiring position behind it. A pair of antiaircraft mounts flank the central tower, followed by forty eight VLS cells (with a typical load being eighteen cells of ASROC and thirty cells of surface to air missiles). In the stern, a raised housing for a pair of Hammerhead helicopters, and a final point defense laser in the stern. While the two point defense lasers are currently crystal beam designs, they are not intended to be such in the final product. Instead, as a naval point defense version of the new Infernium lasers is finalized, that will be installed in its place, with the greater heat efficiency offering a significant improvement in defense quality.

[ ] Tactical Plasma Weapon Development
The Talons have once more proposed a new project to develop tactically usable plasma weapons. While the proposal draws heavily on the previous Merlin Ion Cannon built after the First Tiberium War, it also draws on the improved understandings of Scrin energy weapons.
(Progress 103/40: 30 resources per die) [72]

Plasma weapons small enough to be mounted on something less massive than an orbital weapons platform have long been a dream of GDI. In the early 2000s, GDI prototyped a device designated Merlin. A shoulder mounted ion cannon, somewhat less impactful than a standard shoulder mounted missile launcher of the time, capable of firing substantially faster than any missile launcher built then or now. However, fewer than twenty were ever built, a result of their absurd costs, their bulk, their titanic heat management requirements and the lack of pressing need. In the years since, plasma weapons have repeatedly seen development, but none have reached the point where GDI felt it was ready for deployment en masse. Until today. On the eve of the greatest offensive launched in Initiative history, the Steel Talons developed a fundamentally new set of weapons.
There are three such systems, a lightweight arguably man portable design built for the Marauder suit, a middleweight design built as a direct fire weapon for heavy assault crawlers, and finally a design that will only really be useful for a nascent space navy, too massive to fit on any land bound unit, and too direct fire to be particularly useful for surface navies, outside of a space defense role. While the latter may well see some use, as a security blanket if nothing else, that role is already filled by other weapons in the form of the ASAT network.
Of the three, the first is by far the most interesting. Even for what could well be called a Zone Heavy design, carrying enough missiles that are of a large enough diameter and length to matter on a modern battlefield requires a litany of design compromises. An ion cannon, or at least an ion cannon derived plasma weapon can make use of the extra space, without compromising armor and provide massive endurance upgrades, from being able to empty its entire ammunition load in a matter of minutes, to being able to fight for at least an hour without a recharge.
The second is far more niche. Fundamentally, a railgun, even if GDI is only issuing armor piercing rounds at this point in time, is a flexible platform, able to launch roughly anything, assuming that it fits down the barrel. A plasma weapon on the other hand, has far more to worry about, and has a far less forgiving platform in terms of flexibility and scalability. While the Talons are definitely interested in exploring it, it is not likely to replace the railgun as Initiative standard for quite some time.
Finally, there is the Light Ion Cannon, something that is more a return to an old design than anything else. In the First and Second Tiberium Wars, the Ion cannon was far more of a precision weapon, without the multikiloton payloads of modern blasts. However, the redesign is a far more efficient and elegant design, using a series of lasers to quickly punch a hole in the atmosphere, before filling it with a focused bolt of plasma. Derived from Scrin plasma disruptors, the design has substantial efficiency improvements over the older designs. However, those older designs already exist, and do not require the construction of entirely new production lines to make use of their advantages in currently existing roles.

[-] Havoc Scout Mech Deployment
Rapidly mobile attack units have often been a hole in GDI's forces. However, with the Havoc, that is no longer the case. Two factories, one in Brest, and one in Seoul will provide the penny packets of the Steel Talons with a significant increase in force available, and begin supplying the Zone Operations Command with a sizable number of units of their own.
-[-] Seoul (Progress 110/110: 10 resources per die) (-2 Energy) (Will complete Q1 2060)

The Seoul Havoc factory has begun to produce substantial numbers of Havoc mechs. While too late to make a difference in the raids on GDI research bases across the Russian front, it will still be a welcome increase in the number of mechs available.
More specific to the Havoc, in the time between the first factory's construction and this one, there have been a number of developments. Most notably the shield has been significantly stabilized, by moving two of the projector pods away from the railgun. Electromagnetic flux from the railgun had apparently been disrupting the shield, knocking it out of tune when fired, and current automatic stabilization systems are not good enough to return it to calibration spec. The movement has marginally weakened the shield, but that was to be expected with the first of the GDI units to use a shield system. Other problems, such as the hips and knees rapidly wearing out is much more of a training problem, with pilots instructed to operate the vehicles more gently, reinforced with haptic feedback in the case of high velocity impacts.
In combat the Havoc has been notably useful, with the Space Force requesting a dedicated factory for their own use, and a potential solution to the impact problem preventing rapid deployment of vehicles directly into the combat zone. By punching out fifty to a hundred meters up, the Havoc can come down on its own power, reducing velocity to a survivable point. However, this would likely require an improved jump jet system, as the current designs may well have problems in performing that type of maneuver.

[ ] Neural Interface System Refits (Talons)
The Talons have multiple mech programs that could make use of this system, however it does require an extensive rebuild of their interface systems. Doing so would however significantly improve their performance, both in battle and across terrain, along with hopefully making pilots less reckless with their Havoc knees and hips.
(Progress 83/105: 25 resources per die) [57, 29]

With the Steel Talons widely engaged in combat, and making full demands on their supply lines, slack has vanished from the system as full wartime production needs have effectively blocked off the upgrade, as the alternative would have been to fully stop production of the Havoc and Titan, especially painful right as the Havoc is finally coming into full production. Additionally, the neural interface itself is large and somewhat cumbersome to install, and if not properly shielded, can interfere with other control electronics, causing feedback that varies from annoying to potentially damaging. The factories could have completed the refits on their own, if they could have stopped production for a month in April to bring everything into compliance and iron out the kinks. This will not be happening, nor can anyone foresee an opening for such a stoppage soon. However, with more resources, the bugs can be flushed out of the installations by building a second, practice production line-and then replacing the existing one once the second one is ready to hit production targets. While inefficient, it is an inefficiency brought on by wartime needs, and a result of technological and political developments not always meshing particularly well.

[ ] Security Reviews
GDI has often faced problems with infiltration by the Brotherhood of Nod. A full security review of one department of operations can mitigate or discover infiltration, however it will take a significant amount of effort. (DC 50 + 1 operations die) (Services) (181)

While the Services Department certainly has some issues with the ongoing war, it is clean, or at least the primary staff is. What has been infiltrated is a large number of the supporting roles, including janitorial staff, among others. While they have been cleared to work in secured facilities before, many have been recruited in situ by the Brotherhood, or have been compromised in other ways, for example by cracking their security.
While there has been some suspicion of the AI development team, this has been unfounded. Although there have been at least twenty notable attempts to gain access to the team, all occurred before Erewhon was announced to the world, and showed his problems. After that point, infiltration attempts dropped down to a background hum, rather than being a substantial problem.
 
Q2 2060
Q2 2060
Resources:‌ ‌935 + 30 ‌in‌ ‌reserve‌ ‌(15‌ ‌allocated‌ ‌to‌ ‌the‌ ‌Forgotten)‌ ‌(35 ‌allocated‌ ‌to‌ ‌grants)‌(+25 from Taxes)

Political‌ ‌Support:‌ 72
SCIENCE Meter: 4/4
Free‌ ‌Dice:‌ ‌7 ‌
Tiberium Spread
19.72 Blue Zone
1.99 Green Zone
24.18 Yellow Zone (86 Points of Abatement)
54.21 Red Zone (72 Points of Abatement)

Current Economic Issues:
Housing: +34 (17 population in low quality housing)
Energy: +9 (+4 in reserve)
Logistics: +29
Food: +14 (+10 in reserve)
Health: +2 (-7 from Wartime Demand) (-3 from Refugees)
Capital Goods: +17 (+20 in reserve)
STUs: +15
Consumer Goods: +23 (-22 from demand spike) (+3 from Private Industry)
Labor: +36
Tiberium‌ ‌Processing‌ ‌Capacity‌ ‌(1845/2470)‌ ‌
Labor Per Turn: +4
Taxation Per Turn: +30
Space Mining Per Turn: +35
Green Zone Water: +6

Status‌ ‌of‌ ‌the‌ ‌Parties‌ ‌
(strong‌ ‌support,‌ ‌weak‌ ‌support,‌ ‌weak‌ ‌opposition,‌ ‌strong‌ ‌opposition)‌ ‌

Free‌ ‌Market‌ ‌Party:‌ ‌228 ‌seats‌ ‌(0;‌ ‌50;‌ ‌28; ‌150)‌ ‌
Market‌ ‌Socialist‌ ‌Party:‌ 486‌ seats‌ ‌(200;‌ ‌150;‌ ‌86;‌ ‌50)‌ ‌ ‌
Militarist:‌ 754 ‌seats‌ ‌(250;‌ ‌254;‌ ‌150;‌ ‌100)‌ ‌
Initiative‌ ‌First:‌ ‌335 ‌seats‌ ‌(0;‌ ‌0;‌ ‌35; ‌300)‌ ‌
United‌ ‌Yellow‌ ‌List:‌ ‌176 ‌seats‌ ‌(100;‌ ‌50;‌ ‌20;‌ ‌6)‌ ‌
Starbound‌ ‌Party:‌ ‌461 ‌seats‌ ‌(300; 100;‌ ‌40;‌ ‌21)‌ ‌
Socialist‌ ‌Party:‌ 426 ‌seats‌ ‌(200;‌ ‌190;‌ ‌26;‌ ‌10)‌ ‌
Homeland‌ ‌Party‌‌: 50 ‌seats (5; 30; 10; 5)
Biodiversity‌ ‌Party‌: ‌34 ‌seats (4; 10; 20; 0)
Reclamation Party: 12 Seats (0; 8; 4; 0)
Developmentalists:‌ ‌1038 ‌seats‌ ‌(500;‌ ‌238;‌ 250;‌ ‌50)‌ ‌

Military‌ ‌Confidence‌ ‌
Ground‌ ‌Forces‌ ‌:‌ Extremely High ‌ ‌
Air‌ ‌Force‌ ‌:‌ ‌Decent‌ ‌
Space‌ ‌Force‌ ‌:‌ Decent ‌
Steel‌ ‌Talons:‌ ‌Low
Navy:‌ Decent ‌
ZOCOM:‌ ‌Decent ‌

Plan Goals
Capital Goods: 35 Points
Consumer Goods: 18 Points
Food: 18 points in reserve
Income: 140 (125) Points
Stations: 1450 Points
Abatement: 14 (11) Points
Processing: 280 points

Projects
Complete ASAT Phase 4
Complete OSRCT Phase 4
Railgun Munitions Development
Complete at least one more phase of Shell Plants
Complete at least one more phase of Ablative Armor
Complete at least one more phase of URLS production
Complete at least one more phase of Wadmalaw Kudzu Plantations
Complete at least one more phase of Blue Zone Arcologies
Complete GDSS Enterprise
Complete at least five phases of Space Mines
Complete at least four phases of Karachi Planned City
Develop and Deploy Mastodon



Infrastructure (6 dice)

[ ] Blue Zone Arcologies (Stage 4)
Continuing development of the arcology system will add yet more cities to the list of those with an arcology and expand existing complexes. While it will be expensive, these symbols of Initiative might remain in high demand.
(Progress 1/650: 15 resources per die) (+8 Housing, +4 Consumer Goods, +1 Energy Reserve, -2 Energy)

[ ] Yellow Zone Fortress Towns (Phase 4) (Updated)
The Yellow Zone fortress towns will be a critical asset in not only taking ground, but holding it. Preparing large numbers of fortifications at critical strategic points and key terrain features will give GDI's military a significant advantage, and much greater ability to fall back on
(Supports Yellow Zone Intensification) (Supports Operation Steel Vanguard)
(Progress 232/250: 20 resources per die) (+4 Housing)
(Progress 0/300: 20 resources per die (+4 Housing)

[ ] Blue Zone Apartment Complexes (Phase 2)
A second wave of apartment complexes, dotting GDI cities and snaking between higher and lower density areas will provide a further boost of high quality housing. While not as Tiberium hardened as the arcologies, that is a distant threat, and one that can be safely disregarded in the immediate time frame in favor of housing people in better conditions.
(Progress 28/160: 10 resources per die) (-1 Logistics, +6 Housing)
(Progress 0/160: 10 resources per die) (-1 Logistics, +6 Housing)
(Progress 0/160: 10 resources per die) (-2 Logistics, +6 Housing)

[ ] Rail Network Construction Campaigns (Phase 3) (Updated)
Driving Rail lines into and through the newly claimed Green Zones will serve a dual purpose. First, bringing kiloton after kiloton of supplies to the front lines, and second, providing nearby rail heads to begin preparing for intensive red zone harvesting operations during the war.
(Supports Operation Steel Vanguard)
(Progress 159/300: 15 resources per die) (+4 Logistics)
(Progress 0/325: 15 resources per die) (+4 Logistics)
(Progress 0/325: 15 resources per die) (+4 Logistics)
(Progress 0/325: 15 resources per die) (+4 Logistics)

[ ] Suborbital Shuttle Service (Phase 1)
GDI's fleet of Leopard shuttles has reached a point where at any given time some significant portions are sitting without mission payloads. By retasking them towards suborbital shuttles, they would be able to reach anywhere in the world in a matter of hours at most. This will allow GDI to further tighten the bonds between Blue Zones and significantly cut travel times for critical supplies.
(Progress 0/200: 30 resources per die) (+3 Logistics)
(Progress 0/250: 25 resources per die) (+5 Logistics)
(Progress 0/200: 25 resources per die) (+8 Logistics)

[ ] Chicago Planned City (Phase 4)
A major expansion of the city and the Tiberium Processing center would make Chicago GDI's central Tiberium processing center for North America, and begin converting the area around it. In effect a version of the New Eden project in miniature, it will be a major project, but at the same time, it will be a proof of concept for other planned cities around the world. Not just as beachheads, but as a place to develop wide ranging control networks. Recently, Director Litvinov appears to be hoping to use a proven concept for making safe zones and would be grateful if done. (Supports Autumn Archer and Steel Vanguard)
(Can spend mixed Tiberium and Infrastructure dice, at least 1 die must be Tiberium)
(Progress 3/600: 20 Resources per die) (+2 Housing, -4 Labor, -2 Logistics, -4 Energy) (+3 Red Zone Abatement, +3 Yellow Zone Abatement, +240 Tiberium Processing Capacity.)
(Progress 0/1200: 20 resources per die) (+5 Housing, -4 Labor), (+4 Red Zone Abatement, +4 Yellow Zone Abatement, +480 Tiberium Processing Capacity)

[ ] Karachi Planned City (Phase 1)
Formerly the largest city in Pakistan, Karachi is a prime location for being the Himalayan Blue Zone's primary connection to the outside world. Rather than relying on exposed train lines towards the Russian and Korean Blue Zones, Karachi would serve as a logistics hub, with a much shorter connecting line to the Himalayas, and a port complex. That port complex will service ships running to the Arabian, Australian, and New Zealand Blue Zones, improving connectivity and acting as a forward base towards securing the northern parts of India.
(Progress 0/65: 20 resources per die) (-4 Labor) (Can spend mixed Tiberium and Infrastructure dice, at least 1 die must be Tiberium) (Required For Eastern Paris)
(Progress 0/130: 20 resources per die) (+2 Logistics, +2 Housing, -2 Labor)
(Progress 0/260: 20 resources per die) (+4 Logistics, +2 Housing, -2 Labor)
(Progress 0/520: 20 resources per die) (+6 Logistics, +4 Housing, -2 Labor)
(Progress 0/1040: 20 resources per die) (+8 Logistics, +4 Housing, -2 Labor) (+India and Iran Stuff)

[ ] Tick Rapid Digger System Development (New)
The Tick Tank, one of the Brotherhood's more creative ideas among a long list of them, used rapid automated diggers to allow it to entrench rapidly, even in an open field. The same technologies are likely to be quite useful in rapid construction efforts, and speed the works of many infrastructure programs.
(Progress 0/40: 20 resources per die)

Heavy Industry (5 dice)

[ ] Continuous Cycle Fusion Plants (Phase 5) (Updated)
With the Initiative's energy needs still substantial, new pods of fusion plants, and expansions to existing ones will be needed to continue pouring resources into the military industrial complex, and provide new weapons in the fight against the Brotherhood of Nod.
(Progress 232/300: 20 resources per Die) (+16 Energy)

[ ] 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 36/2400: 15 resources per die) (+32 Capital Goods, +16 Consumer Goods, -2 Labor, -8 Energy) (may aid AI research)

[ ] Nuuk Heavy Robotics Foundry (Phase 3) (Updated)
With the initial production shock labored into existence, further development is predicated on massive investment and expansion of the project, laying massive production lines, and setting them in motion towards one of the largest projects ever envisioned by the Global Defense Initiative.
(Progress 118/600: 20 resources per die) (+16 Capital Goods, -2 Labor, -8 Energy)
(Progress 0/1200: 20 resources per die) (+32 Capital Goods, -2 Labor, -8 Energy)
(Progress 0/2400: 20 resources per die) (+64 Capital Goods, -2 Labor, -16 Energy)

[ ] Suzuka Prototype Hover Chassis Factory
While the current design is a very minimum viable product, it is a viable product, and one where a small stream of production, not just development work should provide greater insights into the technology. At the same time, providing a sizable number of platforms to various use cases allows for people to begin preparing requests for future generations of hovercraft.
(Progress 0/175: 20 resources per die) (+2 Logistics, -2 STU, -2 Energy)

[ ] Crystal Beam Industrial Laser Development (New)
Crystal Beam laser technologies, now released from military exclusivity, is likely to be a substantial upgrade to a wide variety of Initiative technologies, ranging from existing uses, where it is likely to be a substantial efficiency upgrade, to a number of new uses, such as long distance laser cutting.
(Progress 0/80: 10 resources per die)

[ ] Isolinear Chip Development (New)
The scrin derived isolinear chip is a three dimensional optical computer, built as a single unit, compacted down into something that can fit in the palm of one's hand. Even early versions make a modern computer look akin to the devices that put men on the moon, leaving the only real questions being scaling up production to effective levels.
(Progress 0/60: 40 resources per die)

Light and Chemical Industry (5 dice)

[ ] Chemical Fertilizer Plants (Phase 2)
With the initial phase of fertilizers completed, and many of the lowest hanging fruits plucked, the next phase is to begin supplying more specialized nutrients and existing ones in greater bulk. While this will be somewhat more expensive for the rewards, it is still worthwhile.
(Progress 94/300: 15 resources per die) (+4 Consumer Goods, +4 Food, -1 Energy)

[ ] Reykjavik Myomer Macrospinner (Phase 4)
Further expansion of the Reykjavik Macrospinner is going to focus on heavy myomer bundles, which are keys to mass production of modern zone armor and mech projects as they provide highly efficient mobility options.
(Progress 378/640: 20 resources per die) (+4 Capital Goods +2 Energy) (Reduces cost of mech and zone armor projects)
(Progress 0/1280: 20 resources per die) (+8 Capital Goods, +4 Energy) (Reduces cost of mech and zone armor projects)

[ ] Bergen Superconductor Foundry (Phase 1)
With the proof of concept for larger scale superconductors well and truly proven, a large-scale facility capable of producing at least thousands of kilometers of the material is required. Bergen, on the coast of the North Atlantic, will provide a more than suitable location to provide for shipping superconductor tubes around the world.
(Progress 0/95: 30 resources per die) (+1 Energy)
(Progress 0/190: 30 resources per die) (+1 Capital Goods, +2 Energy)
(Progress 0/380: 30 resources per die) (+2 Capital Goods, +4 Energy) (-1 Logistics)
(Progress 0/760: 30 resources per die) (+4 Capital Goods, +8 Energy) (-2 Logistics)(+5 Political Support)
(Progress 0/1520: 30 resources per die) (+8 Capital Goods, +16 Energy) (-3 Logistics) (+10 Political Support)

[ ] Civilian Drone Factories
Civilian drones have a large number of potential uses, ranging from rapid delivery of goods, medicines, and simple recreation. While flying a drone is not the same as flying an actual aircraft, it has often been a popular sport, with drone races (both in stock and custom categories) being a fairly popular sport, especially for children.
(Progress 0/380: 10 resources per die) (+2 Logistics, +1 Health, +4 Consumer Goods) (-2 Energy)

[ ] Medical Supplies Factories
Increasing supplies of medicines and more importantly medical supplies like tubing, masks, blood substitutes, liquid bandages and similar is likely to be quite needed during wartime. While GDI currently has enough, demand is expected to spike rapidly, and more supplies will be needed.
(Progress 0/225: 20 resources per die) (+4 Health) (-1 Energy)


Agriculture (4 dice)

[ ] Agriculture Mechanization Projects (Phase 1) (Updated)
While GDI's current agricultural methods are not particularly labor intensive, a widespread deployment of additional mechanization and statistical analysis should allow for the reduction in overall labor committed to the agricultural sector, and allow that workforce to be allocated elsewhere.
(Progress 0/150: 15 resources per die) (+8 Food, -1 Energy, -1 Capital Goods)
(Progress 0/250: 15 resources per die) (+12 Food, -1 Energy, -1 Capital Goods)

[ ] Blue Zone Aquaponics Bays (Phase 2)
While the refugee swarm has not yet arrived to GDI's borders, it is only a matter of time, and vast aquaponics arrays are one of the keystone solutions to expected rises in demand.
(Progress 3/140: 10 resources per die) (+6 Food) (-1 Labor)
(Progress 0/140: 10 resources per die) (+6 Food) (-1 Labor)
(Progress 0/140: 10 resources per die) (+6 Food) (-1 Labor, -1 Logistics)

[ ] Vertical Farming Projects (Stage 2)
With a first wave of vertical farms completed, a second wave located in less critical cities can begin. While these next waves will be marginally less expensive than the original batch, a result of some efficiencies in the learning process, they are of roughly the same scale and distribution as previous designs.
( Progress 65/240: 15 resources per die) (+4 Food, +4 Consumer goods, -2 Energy)

[ ] Ranching Domes
With the biosphere project well underway, one proposal is to begin producing larger numbers of food animals and animal byproducts by using many of the same methods but with an agricultural bent. While the products and projects will both be expensive, providing real steaks, milk, butter, eggs, and other products, will be a significant boost in consumer goods. The health-care services also will benefit from cattle blood, and more animal test-subjects, not to mention there being zoos again, in time.
(Progress 0/250: 20 resources per die) (+8 Consumer Goods, -4 Food, -2 Energy, -2 Labor) (+5 Political Support)

[ ] Spider Cotton Plantations (Phase 1)
With spider cotton finally having reached a state where it can be used en masse, the only remaining task is to begin building large scale plantations where it can be grown in bulk. While some applications require only small amounts of the silk to produce useful amounts of goods, these fields are few and far between.
(Progress 0/170: 15 resources per die) (+1 Capital Goods)
(Progress 0/180: 15 resources per die) (+1 Capital Goods)
(Progress 0/190: 15 resources per die) (+1 Capital Goods)
(Progress 0/200: 15 resources per die) (+1 Capital Goods)
(Progress 0/210: 15 resources per die) (+1 Capital Goods)

[ ] Wadmalaw Kudzu Plantations (Phase 2)
A substantial expansion of tea production will take Wadmalaw Kudzu from being a simple novelty to a staple of the Initiative. Politically useful, and more importantly a general luxury that can be easily afforded to all who want a source of caffeine.
(Progress 3/300: 10 resources per die) (+4 Consumer Goods) (+10 Political Support)
(Progress 0/450: 10 resources per die) (+8 Consumer Goods) (+1 to all dice)

[ ] Tarberry Development
An engineered legume, Tarberries are intended to be part of the future of Initiative hydrocarbon production. Built to produce substantial quantities of usable hydrocarbons, these plants will be toxic to eat, but easy to process into usable fuels, especially for the vast vehicle fleets of the Initiative military, and possible to use as a source of energy for the Initiative more broadly.
(Progress 0/40: 20 resources per die)

[ ] Poulticeplant Development
A kudzu derivative like the teas currently being produced, poulticeplants are genetically engineered to carry topical medication and clotting agents in order to provide a steady supply of basic medical goods with little to no specialized equipment. While a dedicated chemical works can produce more antiseptics and with better results, they also require specialized staff and treatment plans in a way that these genetically engineered plants do not.
(Progress 0/50: 20 resources per die)

[ ] Freeze Dried Food Plants
Freeze Drying effectively turns most food into permanent, shelf stable systems. While building additional plants to process food in this way will be expensive, it should significantly reduce waste, and increase the lifespan of the stockpiles noticeably.
(Progress 73/200: 20 resources per die) (+5 Food, increases efficiency of stockpile actions, -1 Energy)

[ ] Strategic Food Stockpile Construction (Phase 2)
A further expansion of food stockpiles and granaries in deep reserves, Cut into the frozen wastes at the far northern and southern reaches of GDI's grasp, these will be a final backup for GDI's overall food supply. While they will be far from enough, even at full capacity, they can buy the Initiative critical months in case of massive reverses in its fortune.
(Progress 38/150: 10 resources per die) (+2 Food in Reserve, -4 Food)
(Progress 0/175: 10 resources per die) (+2 Food in Reserve, -4 Food)
(Progress 0/200: 10 resources per die) (+2 Food in Reserve, -4 Food)


[ ] Extra Large Food Stockpiles
Laying in all that is possible in the currently existing storage space will be a significant undertaking, requiring a large surplus beyond what is being consumed. While not the most efficient of options, it is the cheapest of the lot, requiring no real additional construction
(+8 Food in reserve, -16 Food)

Tiberium (7 dice)

[ ] Tiberium Vein Mines (Stage 2)
With the concept proven, vein mines are a fairly expensive, but functional way of attacking underground Tiberium, and providing for a long term abatement strategy, while also not stressing military deployments. While they do have their problems, these are of limited import compared to their advantages.
(Progress 5/195: 20 resources per die) (Additional Income Trickle [20-30]) (+1 Yellow Zone Abatement) (-1 Capital Goods)

[ ] Yellow Zone Tiberium Harvesting (Phase 7) (Updated)
Expanding the offensive, and pushing the Brotherhood back around the world is the future the Initiative not only wants, but needs. Decisive action, driven home with all the vigor the Initiative can muster will buy time and push aside the threat of the Brotherhood, to fight the war against Tiberium. (Supports Steel Vanguard)
(Progress 183/300: 20 resources per die) (small additional income trickle [5-10 Resources]) (3 points of Yellow Zone Mitigation)
(Progress 0/300: 20 resources per die) (small additional income trickle [5-10 Resources]) (3 points of Yellow Zone Mitigation)
(Progress 0/325: 20 resources per die) (small additional income trickle [5-10 Resources]) (3 points of Yellow Zone Mitigation)
(Progress 0/350: 20 resources per die) (small additional income trickle [5-10 Resources]) (3 points of Yellow Zone Mitigation)

[ ] Intensification of Green Zone Harvesting (Stage 5)
A further wave of Green Zone Tiberium harvesting will both improve the logistical connections across the forward Green Zones and provide greater numbers of forward hardpoints and firebases for Initiative troops.
(Progress 63/100: 15 resources per die) (small additional income trickle [5-10 Resources]) (1 point of yellow zone mitigation) (1 Stage available) (Supports Steel Vanguard)

[ ] Red Zone Tiberium Harvesting (Stage 12)
A strike up the Congo river is a substantial investment, but one that can be maintained under current conditions. While further expansion of the attack on the Red Zones is a high priority practically and politically, there are other driving requirements at this time.
(Progress 29/130: 25 resources per die) (additional income trickle [10-20 Resources]) (1 point of Red Zone Mitigation)

[-] Red Zone Containment Lines (Stage 6) (Updated)
With war having erupted in full, operations in Red Zones are currently effectively impossible, as there are significant Nod forces between them and GDI.
(Progress 54/200: 25 resources per die) (additional income trickle (10-15 Resources) (2 points of Red Zone Mitigation)
(Progress 0/200: 25 resources per die) (additional income trickle (10-15 Resources) (2 points of Red Zone Mitigation)
(Progress 0/200: 25 resources per die) (additional income trickle (10-15 Resources) (2 points of Red Zone Mitigation)

[-] Tiberium Glacier Mining (Stage 13)
There are currently no open glacier faces for expansion of mining activity.
(Progress 38/180: 30 resources per die) (-5 Logistics) (additional income trickle [40-60 Resources]) (1 point of Red Zone Mitigation) (0 Stage available)

[ ] Tiberium Processing Plants (Stage 2)
While currently additional processing plants are not an immediately pressing need, they will be a requirement to fulfill plan goals, and will further harden the Initiative's refining capacity.
(Progress 20/200: 30 resources per die) (+600 processing potential) (-4 Energy, -3 Logistics)

[ ] Tiberium Processing Refits (Phase 5) (Updated)
A final wave of postwar, and pre Hewlett Gardener Process redevelopment will retire older processes, and bring the entire Initiative stock of refining capacity to the modern day. However, at this time, it will do little more than expand a surplus, as GDI lacks sufficient Tiberium income to make use of these refineries.
(Progress 6/100: 20 resources per die) (+50 processing capacity [-250 during refits])

[ ] Tiberium Inhibitor Deployment
With the inhibitor prepared, it is time to begin arranging for deployment. While each will be significantly energy expensive and require a major investment of resources, it is now one of the fastest routes to abate the Tiberian menace.
(For Yellow and Red Zones, project is unlocked once all allocated MARV hubs are completed)

-[ ] Blue Zone 1 (Progress 0/100: 30 resources per die) (-3 Energy) (+2 Yellow Zone Abatement) (1 Political Support)
-[ ] Blue Zone 2 (Progress 0/100: 30 resources per die) (-3 Energy) (+2 Yellow Zone Abatement) (1 Political Support)
-[-] Blue Zone 3 (Progress 0/100: 30 resources per die) (-3 Energy) (+2 Yellow Zone Abatement) (1 Political Support)
-[ ] Blue Zone 4 (Progress 0/100: 30 resources per die (-3 Energy) (+2 Yellow Zone Abatement) (1 Political Support)
-[ ] Blue Zone 5 (Progress 0/100: 30 resources per die (-3 Energy) (+2 Yellow Zone Abatement) (1 Political Support)
-[-] Blue Zone 6 (Progress 0/100: 30 resources per die (-3 Energy) (+2 Yellow Zone Abatement) (1 Political Support)
-[ ] Blue Zone 7 (Progress 0/100: 30 resources per die (-3 Energy) (+2 Yellow Zone Abatement) (1 Political Support)
-[ ] Blue Zone 8 (Progress 0/100: 30 resources per die (-3 Energy) (+2 Yellow Zone Abatement) (1 Political Support)
-[ ] Blue Zone 9 (Progress 0/100: 30 resources per die (-3 Energy) (+2 Yellow Zone Abatement) (1 Political Support)
-[ ] Blue Zone 10 (Progress 0/100: 30 resources per die (-3 Energy) (+2 Yellow Zone Abatement) (1 Political Support)
-[ ] Blue Zone 11 (Progress 0/100: 30 resources per die (-3 Energy) (+2 Yellow Zone Abatement) (1 Political Support)
-[ ] Blue Zone 12 (Progress 0/100: 30 resources per die (-3 Energy) (+2 Yellow Zone Abatement) (1 Political Support)
-[ ] Blue Zone 13 (Progress 0/100: 30 resources per die (-3 Energy) (+2 Yellow Zone Abatement) (1 Political Support)
-[-] Blue Zone 14 (Progress 0/100: 30 resources per die (-3 Energy) (+2 Yellow Zone Abatement) (1 Political Support)
-[ ] Blue Zone 15 (Progress 0/100: 30 resources per die (-3 Energy) (+2 Yellow Zone Abatement) (1 Political Support)
-[ ] Blue Zone 16 (Progress 0/100: 30 resources per die (-3 Energy) (+2 Yellow Zone Abatement) (1 Political Support)
-[ ] Blue Zone 18 (Progress 0/100: 30 resources per die (-3 Energy) (+2 Yellow Zone Abatement) (1 Political Support)
-[ ] Blue Zone 19 (Progress 0/100: 30 resources per die (-3 Energy) (+2 Yellow Zone Abatement) (1 Political Support)
-[ ] Yellow Zone 11 (Progress 0/130: 30 resources per die) (+2 Yellow Zone Abatement)
-[ ] Red Zone 7 (Progress 0/120: 30 resources per die) (+2 Red Zone Abatement) (2 Political Support)

[ ] Railgun Harvester Factories
The Railgun Harvester is a significantly heavier design than previous Harvester systems and so requires a new series of factories. While by the standards of military production these will be overall fairly limited, they will provide a noticeable increase in income, especially from more heavily contested regions. (Supports Steel Vanguard)
-[ ] Bissau (Progress 0/70 : 10 resources per die) (+5 Resources Per Turn) (-2 Energy)
-[ ] Dandong (Progress 45/70 : 10 resources per die) (+5 Resources Per Turn) (-2 Energy)
-[ ] Porto (Progress 0/70: 10 resources per die) (+5 Resources Per Turn) (-2 Energy)

[ ] Improved Tiberium Containment Facilities Construction
While not immediately a requirement, building a limited ability to contain Tiberium beyond the limits of GDI's ability to process it, will provide both wartime redundancy and allow for greater offlining of resources. Tank farms of Tiberium are admittedly a security risk, but one not particularly greater than existing Tiberium silos present around the world.
(Progress 0/120: 20 resources per die) (+500 Tiberium Reserve)

[ ] Liquid Tiberium Power Cell Deployment (Phase 1)
With an effective Liquid Tiberium power cell system developed, it is still a political hot potato. While it will be possible to spend political capital to prevent it from being bogged down forever in parliamentary review, at the same time it may well not be worth it, as the cells, plus the needed bunkers to provide both containment and protection against enemy action, are not that much cheaper than fusion for the amount of energy produced.
(Progress 41/140: 20 resources per die) (-5 Political Support) (+8 Energy)

[ ] Enhanced Harvest Tiberium Spikes
Developing a model of Tiberium Spike that not only harvests tiberium, but 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. However, it would also substantially increase the throughput, but at the risk of spreading Tiberium more quickly.
(Progress 0/180: 20 resources per die) (-5 Political Support per die)

[ ] Visceroid Research Programs
Visceroids are some of the bare handful of Tiberium life forms to have survived the mutation, with the Forgotten holding an ever closer relationship with GDI, studies of these creatures may provide secrets to adaptation, or might provide some means of dealing with liquid tiberium deposits.
(Progress 0/120: 15 resources per die) (-10 Political Support)

[ ] Harvesting Tendril Development (New)
A substantial increase in efficiency, a rapid harvesting tendril disrupts the bonds between Tiberium crystals, before acting as an electromagnetic vacuum cleaner, speeding the harvesting process and pushing forward harvesting technologies.
(Progress 0/40: 30 resources per die)

Orbital (6 dice)

[ ] GDSS Columbia (Phase 1)
The development of a first stage of orbital habitats offers a testbed for further evacuations of the most devastated areas. While expensive, stations like this one could be the future of human habitation. These prototypes will not be fit for long term human habitation, however any issues that emerge here are ones that can be solved before trying to live in space. (Station)
(Progress 0/80: 20 resources per die) (5 Political Support)
(Progress 0/165: 20 resources per die) (.25k Permanent residents) (7 Political Support)
(Progress 0/335: 20 resources per die) (.5k Permanent residents) (1 available Bay) (8 Political Support)
(Progress 0/675: 20 resources per die) (1k Permanent residents) ( 2 available Bays) (9 Political Support)
(Progress 0/1355: 20 resources per die) (2k Permanent residents) (3 available Bays) (10 Political Support)

[ ] GDSS Enterprise (Phase 4)
Expanding the Enterprise into a proper all in one industrial center, will require a number of new bays and modules. However, before the refineries, material processors, and industrial fabricators can be brought fully online, they will need to be fed with material. (Station)
(Progress 456/765: 20 resources per die) (+2 Capital Goods, +2 Consumer Goods) (1 available Bay)
(Progress 0/1535: 20 resources per die) (+2 Capital Goods, +2 Consumer Goods) (2 available Bays) (10 Political Support)

[ ] GDSS Shala (Phase 1)
While agriculture on the ground is still capable of sustaining life on earth, Shala, named after the Sumerian goddess of grain and compassion, is aimed at taking this to the skies. While at this point plans are for an entirely experimental station, capable of doing little more than feeding its inhabitants, work done here will be invaluable as the orbits, and eventually other worlds, are colonized. (Station)
(Progress 0/80: 20 resources per die) (5 Political Support)
(Progress 0/165: 20 resources per die) (.1k permanent residents) (+1 Food) (5 Political Support)
(Progress 0/335: 20 resources per die) (.2k permanent residents) (+2 Food, +1 Consumer Goods) (10 Political Support) (1 available Bay)
(Progress 0/675: 20 resources per die) (.3k permanent residents) (+4 Food, +2 Consumer Goods) (15 Political Support) (2 available Bays)
(Progress 0/1355: 20 resources per die) (.4k permanent residents) (+8 Food, +4 Consumer Goods) (20 Political Support) (3 available Bays)

[ ] Orbital Cleanup (Stage 9)
With much of the largest and slowest of the debris collected, all that remains is the increasingly small and fast dust and sand remaining in the orbitals. While still significantly problematic, it is unfortunately much less profitable to mine, as there is not enough material left to save launches.
(Progress 41/85: 10 resources per die) (15-20 resources) (Unlocks Low Orbit Support Satellites)
(Progress 0/85: 10 resources per die) (15-20 resources)
(Progress 0/85: 10 resources per die) (10-15 resources) (Unlocks Orbital Power Stations)
(Progress 0/85: 10 resources per die) (10-15 resources) (+5 Political Support) (20 progress discount on earth orbit satellites)

[ ] Conestoga Class Development
With the outer system beginning to be explored, and the Pathfinder already bringing back massive quantities of scientific information, an improved model can be constructed. A revised version of the Pathfinder design, it will be intended for mass production, once sufficient orbital infrastructure exists to build it.
(Progress 0/60: 30 resources per die)

(These probe missions will be handled in coordination with Carterquest, as the precise mechanics of probing are not a good fit for the high level developmental view of a planquest)

[ ] Outer System Survey Probes
While the outer system is by far the largest of the zones, it is also likely one of the richest, ranging from the Jovian and Saturnine moons, to the gas giants themselves. While getting to them will be a substantial investment, it will also likely be one of the key future development areas as GDI looks towards expansive investment in space development.
(Progress 0/190: 15 resources per die)

Lunar Operations

[ ] Lunar Rare Metals Harvesting (Phase 1)
The Moon's craters hold the remains of the many asteroid impacts that have scarred the moon over millennia. While currently not feasible to mine, it will be the rebirth of the Initiative's non-tiberium based mining and refining infrastructure.
(Progress 0/160: 20 resources per die) (+5 Resources Per Turn)
(Progress 0/145: 20 resources per die) (+5 Resources Per Turn)

[ ] Lunar Regolith Harvesting (Phase 2)
The silicate compounds in the Moon's crust contain extractable levels of iron, titanium, and aluminum, making them incredibly useful as a source of bulk materials. While processing will require massive amounts of energy in some cases, it is also a useful beginning point for developing the solar system.
(Progress 50/330: 20 resources per die) (+2 Light Metals)

[ ] Lunar Heavy Metals Mines (Phase 2)
Heavier metals such as titanium, iron, magnesium, and many others are incredibly useful for a wide variety of industrial and aerospace technologies. There are many subsurface deposits scattered across the moon, some of which are economical for extractive activities.
(Progress 145/385: 20 resources per die) (+2 Heavy Metals)
(Progress 0/375: 20 resources per die) (+2 Heavy Metals)
(Progress 0/365: 20 resources per die) (+2 Heavy Metals)
(Progress 0/355: 20 resources per die) (+2 Heavy Metals)
(Progress 0/345: 20 resources per die) (+2 Heavy Metals)
(Progress 0/335: 20 resources per die) (+2 Heavy Metals)

[-] Lunar Water Mine
Discovered near the south pole of the Moon, small water deposits are currently worthless to the Initiative, but with settlements currently being planned, it is likely to be a key part in ensuring that future settlement is viable without support from the earth.
(+2 Lunar Water)

[-] Helium 3 Harvesting
The lunar surface is not protected by a magnetic field, and so has been bombarded by Helium 3 in significant quantities. While still scarce, there are a few regions of the lunar surface that have been found to have notably high concentrations that are going to be economically viable to extract.

Services (5 dice)

[ ] Automatic Medical Assistants
GDI's medical system is extensive, however it is also significantly overworked. By supplying a number of automated assistants to conduct routine procedures the valuable manpower can be concentrated working on more important and skill based fields.
(Progress 0/300: 20 resources per die) (+2 Health, +4 Labor, -4 Capital Goods, -2 Energy)

[ ] Neural-Interfaced Operating Theaters
While much of the funding for this can come from the welfare department, other parts, such as the capital goods required to set up these complex and highly technical rooms, will need to come from the Treasury, and the Services department.
(Progress 0/160: 20 resources per die) (+6 Health, -2 Capital Goods)

[ ] Professional Sports Programs
With GDI's situation stabilizing rapidly, professional sports programs will provide entertainment and be a significant marker of a return to normalcy. While it will require some work to provide dedicated arenas, and set up systems for recruiting players, the program will prove very politically popular.
(Progress 0/250: 10 resources per die) (+2 Consumer Goods, -1 Health, -1 Labor) (+10 Political Support)

[ ] Advanced Electronic Video Assistant Deployment
The Advanced EVA system will need substantial pools of computer supplies for deployment, but should substantially improve the overall output of the Initiative. It will also require significant assistance from the field, which makes it somewhat problematic for immediate deployment beyond the need for capital goods.
-[ ] Infrastructure (Progress 0/200: 20 resources per die) (+3 to field dice) (-6 Capital Goods, -3 Energy) (Locks 1 field die until project is complete)
-[ ] Heavy Industry (Progress 0/200: 20 resources per die) (+3 to field dice) (-6 Capital Goods, -3 Energy) (Locks 1 field die until project is complete)
-[ ] Light and Chemical Industry(Progress 0/200: 20 resources per die) (+3 to field dice) (-6 Capital Goods, -3 Energy) (Locks 1 field die until project is complete)
-[ ] Agriculture(Progress 0/200: 20 resources per die) (+3 to field dice) (-6 Capital Goods, -3 Energy) (Locks 1 field die until project is complete)
-[ ] Tiberium(Progress 0/200: 20 resources per die) (+3 to field dice) (-6 Capital Goods, -3 Energy) (Locks 1 field die until project is complete)
-[ ] Orbital (Progress 0/200: 20 resources per die) (+3 to field dice) (-6 Capital Goods, -3 Energy) (Locks 1 field die until project is complete)
-[ ] Services (Progress 0/200: 20 resources per die) (+3 to field dice) (-6 Capital Goods, -3 Energy) (Locks 1 field die until project is complete)
-[ ] Military (Progress 0/200: 20 resources per die) (+3 to field dice) (-6 Capital Goods, -3 Energy) (Locks 1 die until project is complete)
-[ ] Bureaucracy (Progress 0/200: 20 resources per die) (+3 to field dice) (-6 Capital Goods, -3 Energy) (Locks 1 field die until project is complete)

[ ] Human Genetic Engineering Programs
The human genome is a mess, especially in the modern day. Starting with an extreme bottleneck in diversity, and being evolved for a group of endurance predators on the open savannah rather than sedentary office workers, there are many things that can be done to either fix problems such as lactose or gluten intolerances, or increase the variability of the genome.
(Progress 0/120: 25 resources per die) (-5 Political Support)

[ ] Hallucinogen Development
While the Brotherhood's version is far too strong, and far too risky for any use outside of warfare, it might have more therapeutic uses if reformatted substantially. Exploring the more civilian applications may prove to be little more than a wild goose chase, but could also provide a new generation of critical lifesaving, and quality of life increasing drugs.
(Progress 0/60: 15 resources per die)

Military (8 dice)
[ ] Advanced ECCM Development The development of countermeasures to better punch through, and punch out in certain cases, Brotherhood means of battlefield jamming, will have significant impacts on the functionality of Initiative long range sensors. While Tiberium will still be significantly problematic in increasing effective ranges, it will be significantly less impactful than Tiberium and Brotherhood sensor countermeasures.
(Progress 0/40: 20 resources per die)

[ ] ASAT Defense System (Phase 4)
A final main control station in the Earth orbitals will provide a significant layer of redundancy, and prepare the system for substantial expansions.
(Progress 36/220: 20 resources per die) (Station) (High Priority)
(Progress 0/495: 30 resources per die)

[ ] Stealth Disruptor Development
The research to create improved sensor systems for detecting stealth also produced a method of actively disrupting it via feedback. However, current systems are quite bulky and require significant deployment to work beyond extremely short ranges. With development however, an improved model is likely possible, and potentially a key tool for blocking fixed positions, rather than relying on battle nets.
(0/40: 15 resources per die)

[ ] Inferno Gel Development
Derived from the Brotherhood of Nod's flamethrower systems, Inferno gel is a weapon of terror more than anything else. However, it does have its uses, and one of those is as a means of killing vehicles rapidly. By drenching a vehicle in pyroclastic gel, many of the soft systems can be destroyed, and the people inside blinded and likely immobilized.
(Progress 0/40: 10 resources per die) (-5 Political Support)

[ ] Ferro Aluminum Armor Refits
With the system offering a cheaper and more effective means of protecting some section of GDI's more lightly armored forces, it can be widely deployed at a relatively cheap cost. However it will require some significant effort to make the deployment happen due to the sheer number of factories that require changes to their procedures to account for the new armor.
(Progress 0/350: 5 resources per die)

[ ] Strategic Area Defense Networks (Phase 1)
While defending the vastness of GDI's territories is effectively impossible, especially with the distinctly limited effectiveness of missile based ABM and ACM systems, there are areas which are much smaller, and can be defended effectively without requiring hundreds of installations. Mecca and Chicago for example can both use small numbers of defense sites to render them significantly hardened against Brotherhood strategic strikes. (Supports Autumn Archer)
(Progress 0/350: 20 resources per die)
(Progress 0/400: 20 resources per die)
(Progress 0/400: 20 resources per die) (-2 Energy)

[ ] Reclamator Hubs (Updated)
While Massive Armored Reclamation Vehicles proved themselves on the field of battle in the Third Tiberium War, they are difficult to construct and maintain in the field in significant numbers. By establishing regional hubs, MARV units can harvest and process more Tiberium, allowing for more units to be supported.
(20 resources per die) (Tiberium dice can be used, each project requires at least two military dice before Tib dice can be used) (Blue Zone Hubs support Autumn Archer)
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Blue Zone 1 (Progress 39/335) (Roshchino) (2 Points Yellow Zone Mitigation, 10 RpT, +5 Political Support)
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Blue Zone 2 (Progress 58/335) (Richmond) (2 Points Yellow Zone Mitigation, 10 RpT, +5 Political Support)
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Blue Zone 3 (Progress 0/335) (Manchester) (2 Points Yellow Zone Mitigation, 10 RpT, +5 Political Support)
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Blue Zone 4 (Progress 0/335) (Abu Dhabi) (2 Points Yellow Zone Mitigation, 10 RpT, +5 Political Support)
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Blue Zone 5 (Progress 0/335) (Lisbon) (2 Points Yellow Zone Mitigation, 10 RpT, +5 Political Support)
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Blue Zone 6 (Progress 0/335) (Tokyo) (2 Points Yellow Zone Mitigation, 10 RpT, +5 Political Support)
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Blue Zone 7 (Progress 0/335) (Dandong) (2 Points Yellow Zone Mitigation, 10 RpT, +5 Political Support)
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Blue Zone 8 (Progress 0/335) (Mendoza) (2 Points Yellow Zone Mitigation, 10 RpT, +5 Political Support)
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Blue Zone 9 (Progress 0/335) (Canberra) (2 Points Yellow Zone Mitigation, 10 RpT, +5 Political Support)
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Blue Zone 10 (Progress 0/335) (Pretoria) (2 Points Yellow Zone Mitigation, 10 RpT, +5 Political Support)
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Blue Zone 11 (Progress 0/335) (San Diego) (2 Points Yellow Zone Mitigation, 10 RpT, +5 Political Support)
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Blue Zone 12 (Progress 0/335) (Wellington) (2 Points Yellow Zone Mitigation, 10 RpT, +5 Political Support)
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Blue Zone 13 (Progress 0/335) (Touba) (2 Points Yellow Zone Mitigation, 10 RpT, +5 Political Support)

-[ ] Reclamator Hub Blue Zone 14 (Progress 0/335) (Antananarivo) (2 Points Yellow Zone Mitigation, 10 RpT, +5 Political Support)

-[ ] Reclamator Hub Blue Zone 15 (Progress 0/335) (Reykholt) (2 Points Yellow Zone Mitigation, 10 RpT, +5 Political Support)

-[ ] Reclamator Hub Blue Zone 16 (Progress 0/335) (Magadan) (2 Points Yellow Zone Mitigation, 10 RpT, +5 Political Support)

-[ ] Reclamator Hub Blue Zone 17 (Progress 0/335) (Paamiut) ((2 Points Yellow Zone Mitigation, 10 RpT, +5 Political Support)

-[ ] Reclamator Hub Blue Zone 18 (Progress 0/335) (Lhasa) (2 Points Yellow Zone Mitigation, 10 RpT, +5 Political Support)

-[ ] Reclamator Hub Blue Zone 19 (Progress 0/335) (Maputo) (2 Points Yellow Zone Mitigation, 10 RpT)

-[ ] Reclamator Hub Yellow Zone 1 South (Progress 0/335) (Kannur) (3 Points Yellow Zone Mitigation, 15 RpT)
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Yellow Zone 1 East (Progress 0/335) (Puri) (3 Points Yellow Zone Mitigation, 15 RpT)
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Yellow Zone 1 West (Progress 0/335) (Mandvi) (3 Points Yellow Zone Mitigation, 15 RpT)
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Yellow Zone 2 (Progress 0/335) (Nha Trang) (3 Points Yellow Zone Mitigation, 15 RpT)
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Yellow Zone 3 (Progress 0/335) (Qingdao) (3 Points Yellow Zone Mitigation, 15 RpT)
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Yellow Zone 4 (Progress 0/335) (Laoag) (3 Points Yellow Zone Mitigation, 15 RpT)
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Yellow Zone 5 (Progress 0/335) (Luwuk) (3 Points Yellow Zone Mitigation, 15 RpT)
-[ ] Reclaimator Hub Yellow Zone 6 (Progress 0/335) (Perth) (3 Points Yellow Zone Mitigation, 15 RpT)
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Yellow Zone 7 (Progress 0/335) (Adelaide) (3 Points Yellow Zone Mitigation, 15 RpT)
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Yellow Zone 9 (Progress 0/335) (Guaymas) (3 Points Yellow Zone Mitigation, 15 RpT)
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Yellow Zone 12 East (Progress 0/335) (Montevideo) (3 Points Yellow Zone Mitigation, 15 RpT)
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Yellow Zone 12 West (Progress 0/335) (La Serena) (3 Points Yellow Zone Mitigation, 15 RpT)
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Yellow Zone 13 North (Progress 0/335) (Algiers) (3 Points Yellow Zone Mitigation, 15 RpT)
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Yellow Zone 13 South (Progress 0/335) (Lagos) (3 Points Yellow Zone Mitigation, 15 RpT)
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Yellow Zone 14 (Progress 0/335) (Nacala) (3 Points Yellow Zone Mitigation, 15 RpT)
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Yellow Zone 15 (Progress 0/335 (Valencia) (3 Points Yellow Zone Mitigation, 15 RpT)
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Yellow Zone 16 (Progress 0/335) (Berbera) (3 Points Yellow Zone Mitigation, 15 RpT)
-[ ] Reclamator Hub YZ-18 (Progress 0/335) (Varandey) (3 Points Yellow Zone Mitigation, 15 RpT)

-[ ] Reclamator Hub Red Zone 1 South (Progress 0/335) (Tripoli) (3 Points Red Zone Mitigation, 25 RpT)
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Red Zone 2 North (Progress 0/335) (Congo River) (3 Points Red Zone Mitigation, 25 RpT)
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Red Zone 2 South (Progress 0/335) (Dar Es Salaam) (3 Points Red Zone Mitigation, 25 RpT)
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Red Zone 3 North (Progress 0/335) (Istanbul) (3 Points Red Zone Mitigation, 25 RpT)
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Red Zone 3 South (Progress 0/335) (Beirut) (3 Points Red Zone Mitigation, 25 RpT)
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Red Zone 4 North (Progress 0/335) (Hong Kong) (3 Points Red Zone Mitigation, 25 RpT)
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Red Zone 4 South (Progress 0/335) (Chattogram) (3 Points Red Zone Mitigation, 25 RpT)
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Red Zone 5 North (Progress 0/335) (Tuaran) (3 Points Red Zone Mitigation, 25 RpT)
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Red Zone 5 South (Progress 0/335) (Banda Aceh) (3 Points Red Zone Mitigation, 25 RpT)
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Red Zone 8 North (Progress 0/335) (Wyndham) (3 Points Red Zone Mitigation, 25 RpT)
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Red Zone 8 South (Progress 0/335) (Eucla) (3 Points Red Zone Mitigation, 25 RpT)


Zone Operations Command

[ ] Infantry Recon Support Drone Development
One advantage of the Zone Armor is that every man has a significantly more powerful radio than could be given to any infantry force. While long range drone operations are significantly contraindicated by the nature of Red Zone environments, small "pop up" drones should provide advanced reconnaissance, and act as forward sensor platforms.
(Progress 0/40: 10 resources per die)

[ ] Backpack Rocket Launcher Development
With the Zone Operations Command ever more intensely engaged with the Brotherhood of Nod, backpack systems are one of the easier ways to substantially increase firepower. While not always the most convenient location, by shifting around the power pack somewhat, nearly any Zone Operations Command unit can have a limited supply of short to mid range indirect fire options at their disposal.
(Progress 0/50: 10 resources per die)

[ ] Zone Defender Revision
The Brotherhood of Nod's Black Hand Armor systems are strong combat assets, with massive slabs of heavy armor over a power assisted frame. The Zone Defender shares much of its goals with the Black Hand's approach, and design studies and prototyping will begin preparing for a better defended and cheaper version of the design, likely an aid to mass deployment of Zone Armor, especially for second and third line forces.
(Progress 0/40: 15 resources per die)

[ ] Zone Lancer Development (New)
A variant of the Marauder suit refitted with a personal plasma gun, the Zone Lancer is intended to augment and support the already extremely capable antiarmor capacity of the Initiative's Zone Armored forces, and provide a viable replacement for the Marauder's limited ammunition.
(Progress 0/40: 15 resources per die)

Air Force

[ ] Wingman Drone Deployment (High Priority) (New)
With the Wingman drones, GDI has begun to lay out a platform for a future of warfare, primarily built around pilot survivability, and preparing for a series of larger and more intensive aerial campaigns around the world.
- [ ] Orca Wingmen (Progress 0/550: 20 resources per die) (-2 Labor, -6 Energy, -2 Capital Goods)
- [ ] Firehawk Wingmen (Progress 0/450: 20 resources per die) (-1 Labor, -6 Energy, -2 Capital Goods)
- [ ] Apollo Wingmen (Progress 0/210: 20 resources per die) (-4 Energy, -1 Capital Goods)
- [ ] Hammerhead Wingmen (Progress 0/400: 20 resources per die) (-4 Energy, -1 Capital Goods)

[ ] Tactical Airborne Laser Deployment (New)
Lightweight, high efficiency and utterly lethal infernium lasers, capable of fighting at ranges that had been previously exclusive to missiles, and doing severe damage to nearly any asset in the Brotherhood's arsenal. Deployment will be somewhat costly, but should rapidly shift the balance of power in the air.
(Progress 0/210: 20 resources per die) (-2 STUs, -3 Energy)

[ ] Apollo Fighter Factories
With the Barghest-bis, and the new Vertigo-bis, GDI needs more of the high end of its fighter arsenal. While the Firehawk remains capable, it is far from enough in the modern day, and needs to be entirely replaced in the air superiority role.
-[ ] San Francisco (Progress 0/80: 15 resources per die) (-4 Energy)
-[ ] Maputo (Progress 0/80: 15 resources per die) (-4 Energy)
-[ ] Rotterdam (Progress 0/80: 15 resources per die) (-4 Energy)

[ ] Ultralight Glide Munitions Development
The Brotherhood's glide system has a potentially extremely useful role in GDI's combat systems. Specifically in GDI's glide munitions. While deployable wings are not a new invention, this will cut weight and space, while increasing control as the entire surface can be flexed with a high degree of precision.
(Progress 0/40: 10 resources per die)

[ ] Plasma Warhead Factory (Phase 1) (New)
The T-10E (Plasma) is probably the most expensive missile of its size ever built by the Initiative. Relying on rare stable transuranic elements, it has significant value, both in air to air and air to ground roles, providing massive damage, and a small form factor. However, it does need a dedicated, if small, production line to provide a trickle of missiles to take out specific high value targets.
(Progress 0/90: 10 resources per die) (-1 STU)
(Progress 0/90: 10 resources per die) (-1 STU)


Space Force

[ ] Orbital Strike Regimental Combat Team Stations (Phase 3) (Updated)
With the first two rapid response stations assembled, if not yet fully ready for action, further development will begin focusing heavily on larger stations, not just to act as immediate reinforcements for embattled holdings, but forces intended to crush the Brotherhood under a rain of metal from the skies.
(Progress 5/295: 20 resources per die)
(Progress 0/395: 20 resources per die)

[ ] Orbital Defense Laser Satellite Deployment
An initial battery of sixty defense satellites will provide a wrapping of protection for critical sites in orbit. While the Space Force does not currently see a pressing need for them as an immediate reaction to the Brotherhood, they will provide a substantial support asset, especially in the face of the likely proliferation of countermeasures to the Ion Cannons.
(Progress 0/240: 20 resources per die)

[ ] Skywatch Telescope System
While no longer a requirement for further exploration of the solar system, a constellation of Skywatch telescopes will be useful for the Space Force as well, an early warning tripwire in case of another alien invasion or asteroid bombardments.
(Progress 0/95: 10 resources per die)

[ ] Orbital Nuclear Caches
GDI has maintained an increasingly small nuclear stockpile in fortified strongpoints around the world. During the Third Tiberium War, as in previous wars, the Brotherhood of Nod expended significant effort to seize nuclear devices. In order to better secure that arsenal, building a number of small stations in orbit should place them well out of reach of the Brotherhood.
(Progress 0/175: 20 resources per die) (Station)

[ ] Tactical Ion Cannon Network (Phase 1) (New)
While the idea of smaller, more numerous Ion Cannons is tactically useful, this first stage is expected to be tightly connected to the existing network, piggybacking off the existing control centers and sharing bandwidth on the ASAT network. This will limit the number of commanders who can access the network, but ensure that the limited deployment is employed in the most critical or advanced fronts.
(Progress 0/275: 20 resources per die)

Ground Forces

[ ] Universal Rocket Launch System Deployment (Phase 3)
Yet more missile production is going to do little more than begin preparing the ground for the reintroduction of MLRS platforms, either wheeled or hover, to GDI ranks, and lay in vast stockpiles of everything but naval missiles. However, at this time, it is still not a bad idea, as GDI is about to embark on grand offensives covering much of the world.
(Progress 0/200: 15 resources per die) (-2 Energy)

[ ] Shell Plants (Phase 6) A further wave of shell plants, aimed at producing a vast swarm of guided shells, enough to maintain a viable supply as GDI vastly increases shell expenditures during the exigencies of wartime.
(Progress 7/150: 10 resources per die) (-1 Energy)

[ ] Railgun Munitions Development
While the Initiative has deployed railguns for decades, the only munition has been some form of inert slug, either an ovoid in early designs, and a fluted dart in later ones. Typically, this has been all that is needed, with its sheer kinetic force capable of doing much of the damage. However, with rail weaponry taking up an ever larger part of the Initiative's arsenal, more forms of ammunition are likely to be required.
(Progress 0/60: 10 resources per die) (High Priority)

[ ] Ablat Plating Deployment (Stage 5)
A final wave of Ablat production will allow for stockpiles to be built ahead of potential Brotherhood energy weapons development, and allow for replacements at a much higher rate than currently used. It will also mark an end to the plan goals for production of Ablat, which should make the Militarists in Parliament quite happy.
(Progress 54/200: 10 resources per die) (Very High Priority)

[ ] Ground Forces Zone Armor (Set 1)
The Initiative's Ground Forces are ready to begin refitting to an entirely zone armored force. The refit will create a leaner, harder, and drastically more lethal force, one that can engage the best that NOD has to offer, and come out on top. While this first wave of factories will only be enough to equip the tip of the spear, that is the area with the most vital set of requirements (High Priority)

-[ ] New York (Progress 0/200: 20 resources per die) (-2 Labor, -4 Energy, -1 Capital Goods)
-[ ] New Sevastopol (Progress 0/200: 20 resources per die) (-2 Labor, -4 Energy, -1 Capital Goods)
-[ ] London (Progress 0/200: 20 resources per die) (-2 Labor, -4 Energy, -1 Capital Goods)
-[ ] Tokyo (Progress 0/200: 20 resources per die) (-2 Labor, -4 Energy, -1 Capital Goods)
-[ ] Pyongyang (Progress 0/200: 20 resources per die) (-2 Labor, -4 Energy, -1 Capital Goods)
-[ ] Santiago (Progress 0/200: 20 resources per die) (-2 Labor, -4 Energy, -1 Capital Goods)

[ ] GD-3 Rifle Development
The GD-2 has served well for almost thirty years. However, in the modern day it is no longer serving GDI's overall needs as well as it once did. Between the need to counter the ever more common biomechanical creatures, the hoped for switch to Zone Armor, and the potential of laser and particle beam weapons a new system is required to serve in a set of very different roles than the GD-2.
(Progress 0/30: 10 resources per die)

[ ] Hallucinogen Countermeasures Development
With the Hallucinogen grenades deployed by the Brotherhood of Nod being a critical threat to GDI's ability to hold positions, the development of effective physical and pharmacological countermeasures to these devices is an important aid to troop survivability.
(Progress 0/40: 15 resources per die)

Navy

[ ] Escort Carrier Shipyards (High Priority) (New)
As GDI has a vast need for escort carriers, there are two tracks. First is simply building a number of supporting elements to build carriers between supporting the battleships. Second is building a number of dedicated shipyards for their production. While both will require substantial infrastructural investments, the former is substantially cheaper than the latter
-[ ] Battleship Yards (Progress 0/120: 20 resources per die) (-3 Energy, -1 Capital Goods)
-[ ] New York (Progress 0/240: 20 resources per die) (-5 Energy, -2 Capital Goods)
-[ ] Dublin (Progress 0/240: 20 resources per die) (-5 Energy, -2 Capital Goods)
-[ ] Nagoya (Progress 0/240: 20 resources per die) (-5 Energy, -2 Capital Goods)

[ ] Merchantman Carrier Conversions
With the Merchantman conversions, switching a substantial number of ships to carry Hammerheads and Orcas instead of cargo, it is a both politically and practically problematic approach. While certainly theoretically possible, and something that GDI has the design specifications to do. It will be a stop gap measure.
-[ ] Low Commitments (Complete all Escort Carrier Shipyards by end of Q4 2063) (Progress 0/200: 20 resources per die) (-15 PS)
-[ ] High Commitments (Complete all Escort Carrier Shipyards by end of Plan) (Progress 0/200: 20 resources per die) (-10 PS)

[ ] Heavy Support Laser Development (New)
The Navy needs not only a light laser, for fighting bombs, but also a heavier support laser, designed for long range engagements against incoming munitions. With initial goals being horizon to horizon capability, and rapid engagement of multiple targets, upgraded missile defense lasers are one of the most important features for naval survivability in the near future.
(Progress 0/50: 20 resources per die)

(Offensive Navy)

[ ] Island Class Assault Ships
The Island class is a dedicated assault ship, designed to handle the V-35 Ox as its mainstay alongside the Hammerhead and Orca attack craft. Each is also intended to be a general support facility for the first days of landing operations and provide support from deep holds.
(Progress 0/40: 20 resources per die)

[ ] Victory Class Monitor Development
A dedicated littoral combat ship, designed around a series of mission packs, ranging from 203mm rifles and rocket batteries, to anti-submarine and anti mine warfare. Intended to be a general purpose support ship for offensive operations against the Brotherhood of Nod, it will fill a wide range of purposes that GDI has often not had the resources to fill effectively.
(Progress 0/40: 20 resources per die)

(Defensive Navy)

[ ] Shark Class Frigate Shipyards (High Priority) (New)
The Shark unfortunately is of a size that GDI cannot simply reuse an existing ship's extra slipways to build the class. Too small for even the older destroyer shipyards, it needs much of its own dedicated space.
-[ ] Quonset Point (Progress 0/300: 20 resources per die) (-6 Energy, -2 Capital Goods)
-[ ] Seattle (Progress 0/300: 20 resources per die) (-6 Energy, -2 Capital Goods)
-[ ] Melbourne (Progress 0/300: 20 resources per die) (-6 Energy, -2 Capital Goods)


Steel Talons

[ ] Mastodon Heavy Assault Walker Development
The Mastodon Heavy Assault Walker is intended to be a smaller, and substantially cheaper, replacement for the Mammoth Mk 2. Armed as a breakthrough asset, with anti aircraft missile launchers and rapid fire chin mounted artillery, the Mastodon is as much a weapon of terror as a weapon of war.
(Progress 0/30 : 10 resources per die)

[ ] Medium Tactical Plasma Weapon Deployment (New)
A medium weight ion cannon, capable of being fielded on the Titan and other Initiative vehicles, and as a secondary weapon on other systems, is a potentially substantial increase in direct firepower. Deployment is likely to be small scale however, as it is less flexible, barring further delays in deployment of variable munitions for the Initiative's railguns.
(Progress 0/80: 30 resources per die)

[ ] Light Combat Laser Development (New)
Effectively an Initiative version of the same laser system found on the Brotherhood's Venoms and raider buggies, the light combat laser is likely to be an effective endurance upgrade across a wide number of systems, even if it is less directly effective. For many vehicles however, it will be filling a secondary role as an antimissile laser, shooting down incoming RPGs and bombs.
(Progress 0/40: 25 resources per die)

[ ] Heavy Combat Laser Development (New)
A heavy direct fire beam laser, this is currently more of a curiosity than anything else, especially with the performance of the Initiative's current railgun arsenal. However, the Talons are very interested in experimenting further with laser technologies, and this may well lead to advances in other fields.
(Progress 0/40: 20 resources per die)

[ ] Modular Rapid Assembly System Prototypes
With the Initiative going on a large-scale offensive, more of its supporting assets need to be moved to smaller units, to give them greater freedom of movement and increased striking power. Shrinking down the system used by various Initiative buildings even more than they already are should allow the ability to cram significant portions of the utility of a full base into a mobile platform.
(Progress 0/125: 20 resources per die)

[ ] Neural Interface System Refits (Talons)
The Talons have multiple mech programs that could make use of this system, however it does require an extensive rebuild of their interface systems. Doing so would however significantly improve their performance, both in battle and across terrain, along with hopefully making pilots less reckless with their Havoc knees and hips.
(Progress 83/105: 25 resources per die)


Bureaucracy (4 dice)

[ ] Administrative Assistance
While the bureaucrats of the Treasury are not specialists in the many complex technical jobs the projects need, they are experts in paperwork. By offloading part of a sub-department's administrative work onto the bureaucrats directly, project specialists will have to spend less time writing reports. The extra paperwork involved tends to make this slightly inefficient in terms of manpower though.
(Spend 2 Bureaucracy dice for 1 operations die, that die is rolled without bonuses)

[ ] Security Reviews
GDI has often faced problems with infiltration by the Brotherhood of Nod. A full security review of one department of operations can mitigate or discover infiltration, however it will take a significant amount of effort. (DC 50 + 1 operations die)

[ ] Make Political Promises
While Seo's parliamentary support is currently stable, it is possible to make additional promises to shore up his position, and make parliament and other political figures happy with him. While this will require expansion of the plan goals, it will also provide other benefits.
(Initiates Subvote)

[ ] Interdepartmental Favors
By reaching out to the other departments and providing aid to them, the Treasury can improve its overall position within the broader Initiative. While this will require resource allocation to their projects, that is a small price to pay in exchange for political favor
(Initiates Subvote)

[ ] Conduct Economic Census
It has been over a decade since GDI took a comprehensive census of its economic affairs outside of its own industrial efforts. With taxation becoming an ever more noticeable part of the Initiative's economic base, a better understanding of the people and companies is likely advantageous.
(DC 100/150/200/250)

[ ] Conduct Civil Satisfaction Surveys
With immigration and displacement having moved millions of people around the world, a better look at the population as a whole, and what their problems are is likely useful. While this kind of information gathering is difficult and time consuming, it is also critical to knowing who is where, in a degree of detail greater than even GDI's all consuming surveillance state can know.
(DC 90/120/150/180)

[ ] Request Reduction in Plan Commitments
With the current state of emergency, it is possible to request a reduction in commitments from both parliament and other parties that the Treasury has asked favors of, to reflect the need for vast investments in areas outside of those envisioned two years ago. While Parliament is likely to be loath to make significant reductions, there are a number of marginal projects that can be cut, or traded out for other goals.
(-6 Political Support Per Die) (DC 120/160/200/240)

** 4 Hour Moratorium on Voting **


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4AUY-v1nsE

And thanks to @Derpmind the probability array
Infrastructure 6 dice +34
-[] Blue Zone Arcologies (Stage 4) 1/650 6 dice 90R 4%, 7 dice 105R 29%, 8 dice 120R 70%, 9 dice 135R 93%
-[] Yellow Zone Fortress Towns (Phase 4) 232/250 1 die 20R 100%
-[] Yellow Zone Fortress Towns (Phase 4+5) 232/550 3 dice 60R 17%, 4 dice 80R 72%, 5 dice 100R 97%
-[] Blue Zone Apartment Complexes (Phase 2) 28/160 1 die 10R 18%, 2 dice 20R 89%, 3 dice 30R 99%
-[] Blue Zone Apartment Complexes (Phase 2+3) 28/160 3 dice 30R 33%, 4 dice 40R 85%, 5 dice 50R 99%
-[] Rail Network Construction Campaigns (Phase 3) (Upated) 159/300 1 die 15R 9%, 2 dice 30R 84%, 3 dice 45R 99%
-[] Rail Network Construction Campaigns (Phase 3+4) (Updated) 159/625 4 dice 60R 2%, 5 dice 75R 34%, 6 dice 90R 78%, 7 dice 105R 97%
-[] Rail Network Construction Campaigns (Phase 3+4+5) (Updated) 159/950 8 dice 120R 11%, 9 dice 135R 43%, 10 dice 150R 77%, 11 dice 165R 95%
-[] Rail Network Construction Campaigns (Phase 3+4+5+6) (Updated) 159/1275 11 dice 165R 4%, 12 dice 180R 20%, 13 dice 195R 49%, 14 dice 210R 78%, 15 dice 225R 93%
-[] Suborbital Shuttle Service (Phase 1) 0/200 2 dice 60R 36%, 3 dice 90R 91%
-[] Suborbital Shuttle Service (Phase 1+2) 0/450 4 dice 110R+ 5%, 5 dice 135R+ 43%, 6 dice 160R+ 84%, 7 dice 185R+ 98%
-[] Suborbital Shuttle Service (Phase 1+2+3) 0/650 6 dice 160R+ 4%, 7 dice 185R 29%, 8 dice 210R+ 69%, 9 dice 235R 93%
-[] Chicago Planned City (Phase 4) 3/600 5 Tib dice 100R 2%, 6 Tib dice 120R 27%, 7 Tib dice 140R 72%, 8 Tib dice 160R 95%
--Note: Infra/Tib dice makes this complicated.
-[] Karachi Planned City (Phase 1) 0/65 1 Tib die 20R 90%, 2 Tib dice 40R 100%
-[] Karachi Planned City (Phase 1+2) 0/195 2 Tib dice 40R 50%, 3 Tib dice 60R 96%
-[] Karachi Planned City (Phase 1+2+3) 0/455 4 Tib dice 80R 8%, 5 Tib dice 100R 55%, 6 Tib dice 120R 91%, 7 Tib dice 140R 99%
--Alt: 6 Infra 1 Tib die 98%
-[] Karachi Planned City (Phase 1+2+3+4) 0/975 9 Tib dice 180R 4%, 10 Tib dice 200R 24%, 11 Tib dice 220R 60%, 12 Tib dice 240R 87%, 13 Tib dice 260R 97%
--Alt: 6 Infra 3 Tib dice 180R 2%, 6 Infra 4 Tib dice 200R 15%, 6 Infra 5 Tib dice 220R 50%, 6 Infra 6 Tib dice 240R 80%, 6 Infra 7 Tib dice 260R 95%, 6 Infra 8 Tib dice 280R 99%
--Note: Infra/Tib dice makes this complicated.
--Note: Karachi Phase 5 is a PITA.
-[] Tick Rapid Digger System Development (New) 0/40 1 die 20R 100%
Heavy Industry 5 dice +29
-[] Continuous Cycle Fusion Plants (Phase 5) 232/300 1 die 20R 77%, 2 dice 40R 100%
-[] Continuous Cycle Fusion Plants (Phase 5+6) 232/600? 4 dice 80R 28%, 5 dice 100R 75%, 6 dice 120R 96%
-[] North Boston Chip Fabricator (Phase 5) 36/2400 26 dice 390R 3%, 27 dice 405R 9%, 28 dice 420R 21%, 29 dice 435R 39%, 30 dice 450R 59%, 31 dice 465R 76%, 32 dice 480R 88%, 33 dice 495R 95%
-[] Nuuk Heavy Robotics Foundry (Phase 3) (Updated) 118/600 5 dice 100R 15%, 6 dice 120R 56%, 7 dice 140R 88%, 8 dice 160R 98%
-[] Suzuka Prototype Hover Chassis Factory 0/175 2 dice 40R 50%, 3 dice 60R 94%
-[] Crystal Beam Industrial Laser Development (New) 0/80 1 die 10R 70%, 2 dice 20R 100%
-[] Isolinear Chip Development (New) 0/60 1 die 40R 90%
Light and Chemical Industry 5 dice +24
-[] Chemical Fertilizer Plants (Phase 2) 94/300 2 dice 30R 17%, 3 dice 45R 74%, 4 dice 60R 97%
-[] Reykjavik Myomer Macrospinner (Phase 4) 378/640 2 dice 40R 17%, 3 dice 60R 74%, 4 dice 80R 97%
-[] Reykjavik Myomer Macrospinner (Phase 4+5) 378/1920 18 dice 360R 7%, 19 dice 380R 19%, 20 dice 400R 39%, 21 dice 420R 61%, 22 dice 440R 80%, 23 dice 460R 91%
-[] Bergen Superconductor Foundry (Phase 1) 0/95 1 die 30R 45%, 2 dice 60R 95%
-[] Bergen Superconductor Foundry (Phase 1+2) 0/285 3 dice 90R 19%, 4 dice 120R 68%, 5 dice 150R 94%
-[] Bergen Superconductor Foundry (Phase 1+2+3) 0/665 7 dice 210R 5%, 8 dice 240R 26%, 9 dice 270R 59%, 10 dice 300R 85%, 11 dice 330R 96%
-[] Civilian Drone Factories 0/380 4 dice 40R 13%, 5 dice 50R 55%, 6 dice 60R 87%, 7 dice 70R 98%
-[] Medical Supplies Factories 0/225 2 dice 40R 8%, 3 dice 60R 60%, 4 dice 80R 94%
Agriculture 4 dice +24
-[] Agriculture Mechanization Projects (Phase 1) (Updated) 0/150 2 dice 30R 63%, 3 dice 45R 96%
-[] Agriculture Mechanization Projects (Phase 1+2) (Updated) 0/400 4 dice 60R 7%, 5 dice 75R 43%, 6 dice 90R 81%, 7 dice 105R 96%
-[] Blue Zone Aquaponics Bays (Phase 2) 3/140 1 die 10R 3%, 2 dice 20R 74%, 3 dice 30R 98%
-[] Blue Zone Aquaponics Bays (Phase 2+3) 3/280 3 dice 30R 23%, 4 dice 40R 73%, 5 dice 50R 96%
-[] Vertical Farming Projects (Stage 2) 65/240 2 dice 30R 40%, 3 dice 45R 89%, 4 dice 60R 99%
-[] Ranching Domes 0/250 3 dice 60R 42%, 4 dice 80R 86%, 5 dice 100R 99%
-[] Spider Cotton Plantations (Phase 1) 0/170 2 dice 30R 45%, 3 dice 45R 91%
-[] Spider Cotton Plantations (Phase 1+2) 0/350 4 dice 60R 27%, 5 dice 75R 72%, 6 dice 90R 94%
-[] Spider Cotton Plantations (Phase 1+2+3) 0/540 6 dice 90R 14%, 7 dice 105R 48%, 8 dice 120R 81%, 9 dice 135R 95%
-[] Wadmalaw Kudzu Plantations (Phase 2) 3/300 3 dice 30R 13%, 4 dice 40R 61%, 5 dice 50R 92%
-[] Wadmalaw Kudzu Plantations (Phase 2+3) 3/750 8 dice 80R 5%, 9 dice 90R 24%, 10 dice 100R 56%, 11 dice 110R 82%, 12 dice 120R 95%
-[] Tarberry Development 0/40 1 die 20R 100%
-[] Poulticeplant Development 0/50 1 die 20R 95%
-[] Freeze Dried Food Plants 73/200 1 die 20R 13%, 2 dice 40R 80%, 3 dice 60R 99%
-[] Strategic Food Stockpile Construction (Phase 2) 38/150 1 die 10R 28%, 2 dice 20R 89%, 3 dice 30R 99%
-[] Strategic Food Stockpile Construction (Phase 2+3) 38/325 3 dice 30R 18%, 4 dice 40R 67%, 5 dice 50R 94%
-[] Strategic Food Stockpile Construction (Phase 2+3+4) 38/525 5 dice 50R 6%, 6 dice 60R 37%, 7 dice 70R 74%, 8 dice 80R 94%
-[] Extra Large Food Stockpiles 1 die auto
Tiberium 7 dice +39
-[] Tiberium Vein Mines (Stage 2) 5/195 2 dice 40R 54%, 3 dice 60R 97%
-[] Tiberium Vein Mines (Stage 2+3) 5/385? 3 dice 60R 3%, 4 dice 80R 46%, 5 dice 100R 90%
-[] Yellow Zone Tiberium Harvesting (Phase 7) (Updated) 183/300 1 die 20R 38%, 2 dice 40R 97%
-[] Yellow Zone Tiberium Harvesting (Phase 7+8) (Updated) 183/600 4 dice 80R 23%, 5 dice 100R 76%, 6 dice 120R 97%
-[] Yellow Zone Tiberium Harvesting (Phase 7+8+9) (Updated) 183/925 7 dice 140R 10%, 8 dice 160R 45%, 9 dice 180R 82%, 10 dice 200R 97%
-[] Yellow Zone Tiberium Harvesting (Phase 7+8+9+10) (Updated) 183/1275 10 dice 200R 2%, 11 dice 220R 17%, 12 dice 240R 49%, 13 dice 260R 80%, 14 dice 280R 95%
-[] Intensification of Green Zone Harvesting (Stage 5) 63/100 1 die 15R 100%
-[] Intensification of Green Zone Harvesting (Stage 5+6) 63/200 1 die 15R 18%, 2 dice 30R 91%
-[-] Intensification of Green Zone Harvesting (Stage 5+6+7) 63/300 2 dice 30R 17%, 3 dice 45R 82%, 4 dice 60R 99%
-[] Red Zone Tiberium Harvesting (Stage 12) 29/130 1 die 25R 54%, 2 dice 50R 99%
-[] Red Zone Tiberium Harvesting (Stage 12+13) 29/260 2 dice 50R 20%, 3 dice 75R 85%, 4 dice 100R 99%
-[-] Red Zone Containment Lines (Stage 6) 54/200 1 die 25R 9%, 2 dice 50R 87%, 3 dice 75R 99%
-[-] Red Zone Containment Lines (Stage 6+7) 54/400 3 dice 75R 11%, 4 dice 100R 68%, 5 dice 125R 97%
-[-] Red Zone Containment Lines (Stage 6+7+8) 54/600 5 dice 125R 7%, 6 dice 150R 43%, 7 dice 175R 83%, 8 dice 200R 97%
-[-] Tiberium Glacier Mining (Stage 13) 38/180 1 die 30R 13%, 2 dice 60R 89%, 3 dice 90R 99%
-[-] Tiberium Glacier Mining (Stage 13+14) 38/360 3 dice 90R 18%, 4 dice 120R 75%, 5 dice 150R 98%
-[] Tiberium Processing Plants (Stage 2) 20/200 2 dice 60R 63%, 3 dice 90R 98%
-[] Tiberium Processing Refits (Phase 5) 6/100 1 die 20R 61%, 2 dice 40R 100%
-[] Tiberium Inhibitor Deployment (Blue Zones) 0/100 1 die 30R 52%, 2 dice 60R 99%
-[] Tiberium Inhibitor Deployment (Red Zones) 0/120 1 die 30R 32%, 2 dice 60R 95%
-[] Railgun Harvester Factories 0/70 1 die 10R 85%, 2 dice 20R 100%
-[] Railgun Harvester Factory (Dandong) 45/70 1 die 10R 100%
--Alt 1 Admin Assistance die 90%
-[] Improved Tiberium Containment Facilities Construction 0/120 1 die 20R 35%, 2 dice 40R 97%
-[] Liquid Tiberium Power Cell Deployment (Phase 1) 41/140 1 die 20R 56%, 2 dice 40R 99%
-[] Liquid Tiberium Power Cell Deployment (Phase 1+2) 41/280 2 dice 40R 15%, 3 dice 60R 81%, 4 dice 80R 99%
-[] Enhanced Harvest Tiberium Spikes 0/180 2 dice 40R 10PS 72%, 3 dice 60R 15PS 99%
-[] Visceroid Research Programs 0/120 1 die 15R 40%, 2 dice 30R 99%
-[] Harvesting Tendril Development (New) 0/40 1 die 30R 100%
Orbital Industry 6 dice +26
-[] GDSS Columbia (Phase 1) 0/80 1 die 20R 67%, 2 dice 40 R 99%
-[] GDSS Columbia (Phase 1+2) 0/245 2 dice 40R 6%, 3 dice 60R 61%, 4 dice 80R 95%
-[] GDSS Columbia (Phase 1+2+3) 0/580 6 dice 120R 15%, 7 dice 140R 53%, 8 dice 160R 86%, 9 dice 180R 98%
-[] GDSS Enterprise (Phase 4) 456/765 3 dice 60R 17%, 4 dice 80R 71%, 5 dice 100R 96%
-[] GDSS Enterprise (Phase 4+5) 456/2300 20 dice 400R 6%, 21 dice 420R 19%, 22 dice 440R 40%, 23 dice 460R 63%, 24 dice 480R 82%, 25 dice 500R 93%
-[] GDSS Shala - Same as Columbia
-[] Orbital Cleanup (Stage 9) 41/85 1 die 10R 98%
-[] Orbital Cleanup (Stage 9+10) 41/170 1 die 10R 13%, 2 dice 20R 82%, 3 dice 30R 99%
-[] Orbital Cleanup (Stage 9+10+11) 41/255 2 dice 20R 15%, 3 dice 30R 72%, 4 dice 40R 97%
-[] Orbital Cleanup (Stage 9+10+11+12) 41/340 3 dice 30R 15%, 4 dice 40R 65%, 5 dice 50R 94%
-[] Conestoga Class Development 0/60 1 die 30R 87%, 2 dice 60R 100%

-[] Outer System Survey Probes 0/190 2 dice 30R 31%, 3 dice 45R 86%, 4 dice 60R 99%

-[] Lunar Rare Metals Harvesting (Phase 1) 0/160 2 die 40R 58%, 3 dice 60R 95%
-[] Lunar Rare Metals Harvesting (Phase 1+2) 0/305 3 dice 60R 12%, 4 dice 80R 61%, 5 dice 100R 92%
-[] Lunar Regolith Harvesting (Phase 2) 50/330 3 dice 60R 25%, 4 dice 80R 76%, 5 dice 100R 97%
-[] Lunar Heavy Metals Mines (Phase 2) 145/385 2 dice 40R 4%, 3 dice 60R 54% 4 dice 80R 92%
-[] Lunar Heavy Metals Mines (Phase 2+3) 145/760 6 dice 120R 2%, 7 dice 140R 21%, 8 dice 160R 56%, 9 dice 180R 85%, 10 dice 200R 97%

-[-] Lunar Water Mine (Inactive)
-[-] Helium 3 Harvesting(Inactive)
Services 5 dice +27
-[] Automatic Medical Assistants 0/300 3 dice 60R 16%, 4 dice 80R 67%, 5 dice 100R 94%
-[] Neural Interfaced Operating Theaters (New) 0/160 2 dice 40R 60%, 3 dice 60R 96%
-[] Professional Sports Programs 0/250 2 dice 20R 2%, 3 dice 30R 49%, 4 dice 40R 90%
-[] Advanced Electronic Video Assistant Deployment 0/200 2 dice 40R 25%, 3 dice 60R 82%, 4 dice 80R 99%
-[] Human Genetic Engineering Programs 0/120 1 die 25R 28%, 2 dice 50R 92%
-[] Hallucinogen Development 0/60 1 die 15R 88%, 2 dice 30R 100%
Military 8 dice +26
-[] Advanced ECCM Development 0/40 1 die 20R 100%
-[] ASAT Defense System (Phase 4) 36/220 2 dice 40R 45%, 3 dice 60R 93%
-[] ASAT Defense System (Phase 4+5) 36/715 7 dice 140R 11%, 8 dice 160R 45%, 9 dice 180R 79%, 10 dice 200R 95%
-[] Stealth Disruptor Development 0/40 1 die 15R 100%
-[] Inferno Gel Development 0/40 1 die 10R 100%
-[] Ferro Aluminum Armor Refits 0/350 3 dice 15R 2%, 4 dice 20R 32%, 5 dice 25R 77%, 6 dice 30R 96%
-[] Strategic Area Defense Networks (Phase 1) 0/350 3 dice 60R 2%, 4 dice 80R 32%, 5 dice 100R 77%, 6 dice 120R 96%
-[] Strategic Area Defense Networks (Phase 1+2) 0/750 8 dice 160R 7%, 9 dice 180R 30%, 10 dice 200R 63%, 11 dice 220R 97%, 12 dice 240R 97%
-[] Strategic Area Defense Networks (Phase 1+2+3) 0/1150 13 dice 260R 9%, 14 dice 280R 28%, 15 dice 300R 55%, 16 dice 320R 78%, 17 dice 340R 92%

MARVs (Update) (Major Update)
-[] Reclamator Hubs 0/335 3 dice 60R 4%, 4 dice 80R 41%, 5 dice 100R 83%, 6 dice 120R 98%
--Alt: 2 Mil 1 Tib dice 60R 6%, 2 Mil 2 Tib dice 80R 58%, 2 Mil 3 Tib dice 94%
-[] Reclamator Hubs x2 0/670 7 dice 140R 6%, 8 dice 160R 30%, 9 dice 180R 65%, 10 dice 200R 89%, 11 dice 220R 98%
--Alt: 2 Mil 4 Tib dice 120R 2%, 2 Mil 5 Tib dice 140R 24%, 2 Mil 6 Tib dice 160R 67%, 2 Mil 7 Tib dice 180R 92%
-[] Reclaimator Hub BZ-1 (Roschino) 39?/335 3 dice 60R 16%, 4 dice 80R 57%, 5 dice 100R 94%
-[] Reclaimator Hub BZ-2 (Richmond) 58/335 3 dice 60R 27%, 4 dice 80R 77%, 5 dice 100R 97%
--Alt: 2 Mil 1 Tib die 60R 36%, 2 Mil 2 Tib dice 80R 88%, 2 Mil 3 Tib dice 100R 99%

Zone Operations Command
-[] Infantry Recon Support Drone Development 0/40 1 die 10R 100%
-[] Backpack Rocket Launcher Development 0/50 1 die 10R 97%,
-[] Zone Defender Revision 0/40 1 die 15R 100%
-[] Zone Lancer Development (New) 0/40 1 die 15R 100%

Air Force
-[] Orca Wingmen Drones (New) 0/550 6 dice 120R 15%, 7 dice 140R 51%, 8 dice 160R 83%, 9 dice 180R 96%
-[] Firehawk Wingmen Drones (New) 0/450 5 dice 100R 22%, 6 dice 120R 63%, 7 dice 140R 90%
-[] Apollo Wingmen Drones (New) 0/210 2 dice 40R 17%, 3 dice 60R 75%, 4 dice 80R 97%
-[] Hammerhead Wingmen Drones (New) 0/400 4 dice 80R 9%, 5 dice 100R 49%, 6 dice 120R 85%, 7 dice 140R 98%
-[] Tactical Airborne Laser Deployment (New) 0/210 2 dice 40R 17%, 3 dice 60R 75%, 4 dice 80R 97%
-[] Apollo Fighter Factories 0/80 1 die 15R 62%, 2 dice 30R 99%
-[] Ultralight Glide Munitions Development 0/40 1 die 10R 100%
-[] Plasma Warhead Factory (Phase 1) (New) 0/90 1 die 10R 52%, 2 dice 20R 98%
-[] Plasma Warhead Factory (Phase 1+2) (New) 0/180 2 die 20R 39%, 3 dice 30R 90%

Space Force
-[] Orbital Strike Regimental Combat Team Stations (Phase 3) (Updated) 5/295 3 die 60R 28%, 4 dice 80R 81%, 5 dice 100R 98%
-[] Orbital Strike Regimental Combat Team Stations (Phase 3+4) (Updated) 5/690 7 dice 140R 10%, 8 dice 160R 42%, 9 dice 180R 77%, 10 dice 200R 94%
-[] Orbital Defense Laser Satellite Deployment 0/240 2 dice 40R 4%, 3 dice 60R 54%, 4 dice 80R 91%
-[] Skywatch Telescope System 0/95 1 die 10R 47%, 2 dice 20R 96%
-[] Orbital Nuclear Caches 0/175 2 dice 40R 53%, 3 dice 60R 95%
-[] Tactical Ion Cannon Network (Phase 1) (New) 0/275 3 dice 60R 39%, 4 dice 80R 87%, 5 dice 100R 99%

Ground Forces
-[] Universal Rocket Launch System Deployment (Phase 3) 0/200 2 dice 30R 23%, 3 dice 45R 81%, 4 dice 60R 98%
-[] Shell Plants (Phase 6) 7/150 2 dice 20R 72%, 3 dice 30R 98%
-[] Railgun Munitions Development 0/60 1 die 10R 87%, 2 dice 20R 100%
-[] Ablat Plating Deployment (Stage 5) 54/200 2 dice 20R 70%, 3 dice 30R 98%
-[] Ablat Plating Deployment (Stage 5+6) 54/400 3 dice 30R 2%, 4 dice 40R 34%, 5 dice 50R 78%, 6 dice 60R 97%
-[] Ground Forces Zone Armor (Set 1) 0/200 2 dice 40R 23%, 3 dice 60R 81%, 4 dice 80R 98%
-[] GD-3 Rifle Development 0/30 1 die 10R 100%
-[] Hallucinogen Countermeasures Development 0/40 1 die 15R 100%

Navy
-[] Escort Carrier Shipyards (Battleship Yards) (New) 0/120 1 die 20R 22%, 2 dice 40R 87%, 3 dice 60R 99%
-[] Escort Carrier Shipyards (New) 0/240 2 dice 40R 4%, 3 dice 60R 54%, 4 dice 80R 92%
-[] Merchantman Carrier Conversions (New) 0/200 2 dice 40R 23%, 3 dice 60R 81%, 4 dice 80R 98%
-[] Heavy Support Laser Development (New) 0/50 1 die 20R 100%
-[] Island Class Assault Ships 0/40 1 die 15R 100%
-[] Victory Class Monitor Development 0/40 1 die 15R 100%
-[] Shark Class Frigate Shipyards (New) 0/300 3 dice 60R 14%, 4 dice 80R 64%, 5 dice 100R 93%

Steel Talons
-[] Mastodon Heavy Assault Walker Development 0/30 1 die 10R 100%
-[] Medium Tactical Plasma Weapon Deployment (New) 0/80 1 die 30R 72%, 2 dice 60R 100%
-[] Light Combat Laser Development (New) 0/40 1 die 25R 100%
-[] Heavy Combat Laser Development (New) 0/40 1 die 20R 100%
-[] Modular Rapid Assembly System Prototypes 0/125 1 die 20R 27%, 2 dice 40R 93%
-[] Neural Interface System Refits (Talons) 83/105 1 die 25R 100%
--Alt: 1 Admin die 25R 94%
Bureaucracy 4 dice +24
-[] Administrative Assistance 2 die auto (+1 free die this turn with no bonuses.)
-[] Security Reviews: DC50 1 die 90%, 2 dice 100%
-[] Make Political Promises 1 die auto
-[] Interdepartmental Favors 1 die auto
-[] Conduct Economic Census DC 100/150/200/250, DC 250 3 dice 42%, 4 dice 86%, 5 dice 99%
-[] Conduct Civil Satisfaction Surveys DC 90/120/150/180, DC 180 2 dice 36%, 3 dice 87%, 4 dice 99%
-[] Request Reduction in Plan Commitments DC 120/160/200/240, DC 240 2 dice 12 PS 3%, 3 dice 18 PS 49%, 4 dice 24 PS 89%, 5 dice 30 PS 99%
--Alt DC 200 2 dice 12 PS 21%, 3 dice 18 PS 77%, 4 dice 24 PS 98%
--Alt DC 160 2 dice 12 PS 54%, 3 dice 18 PS 94%
--Alt DC 120 1 die 6 PS 20%, 2 dice 12 PS 85%, 3 dice 18 PS 99%
Last Security Review
Services 1 turn ago 2060 Q1
Infrastructure 2 turns ago 2059 Q4
Tiberium 2 turn ago 2059 Q4
Military 4 turns ago 2059 Q1
Agriculture 5 turns ago 2058 Q4
Light/Chem 6 turns ago 2058 Q3
Orbital 9 turns ago 2057 Q4
Heavy Ind 10 turns ago 2057 Q3
Bureaucracy 12 turns ago 2057 Q1
--Note: Additional bonuses are +5 to Development projects, +5 to technology working groups, and +5 to station building.
--Note2: Anyone who wants a copy of the current version of the excel sheet I use to help make these Arrays can have one; just send me a PM if you're interested.
--Note3: You can use this calculator to calculate the effects of the Admin Assistance dice on specific projects.
--Note4: The most recent version of the Array is most often the Informational threadmarked version.
 
Last edited:
Q2 2060 Results


The Refugee Crisis, Healthcare, and the War

GDIWife
So it seems there has been a recent influx of massive numbers of refugees trying to get access to the blue zones. This has collapsed the healthcare system, strained housing and logistics, is affecting food supplies and, worse, it seems there has been a sudden wave of sabotage of critical facilities as a result of InOps being overwhelmed. I know some of you will shake your head at me and say "Of course it's just IF complaining about immigration again" but you have to see what's happening.

Representative Hasim Aydin (UYL)
For all long time residents looking to help people settle in look for any welcoming comittees. Working as a group not only let's you reach out to others more effectively, it also provides you with materials and training to better help others navigate the GDI bureaucracy. If you have a strong political affiliation check your preferred party to see if they have one set up, otherwise you can check here for a list of independent and nonpartisan efforts.

FloatingWood
It was to be expected that with war would come a refugee crisis, but I'm surprised by just how underprepared GDI seems to have been. Seriously, it's not as if we haven't had practice you know?

Dr. James Granger
I no longer have any formal access to GDI decisionmaking, but would be completely and utterly unsurprised to find that the problem is less that GDI cannot or will not provide adequate provision for the healthcare system, and more that it is split in too many different ways and is spending heavily on the military and industrial projects that help generate refugees.

ProfCollingsworth
One thing that I have noticed is that whenever a surge of refugees comes in, throughout history, the perception is generally that things are not ready/not working, when the reality is simply that the system is sorting out the inputs and working to deal with the influx, but there is very little visible action at first.
Granted, a lot of times, the system was not ready, and there was a delay in responsiveness, but whether that is the case this time is something we will not be able to determine for some time.

Crucible
I would like to cut through the doom and gloom that has settled over GDIOnline of late. While many might say the situation is overwhelming, I have seen and worked with some of the frontline workers. They have been doing amazing work and should be immensely proud.

There are an unfortunate multitude who feel that the glory of GDI shines greatest in its military power and triumphs. I would argue that the glory of GDI is in the sense of relief a child feels when they can breathe clean air without a mask. When the starving are fed, and the homeless housed.

Things are not perfect, but they don't need to be. They just need to be better than they were. For many, despite the war, the coming months and years will be better.

GDIWife
The biggest problem here is that every dollar the treasury spends on this refugee crisis is a dollar not going towards fixing the SEVERE equipment shortages that some branches of the military are going through. It means fewer forts, fewer planes, fewer ships, even fewer BULLETS that are all desperately needed at the front lines!

FloatingWood
It also means fewer Nod soldiers that need forts, planes, ships and bullets to keep away from those they would mean harm.
#Dr. James Granger, sure, but where are the stockpiles that the government is supposed to keep and maintain to manage surge demands like this? It's been 10 years since the war ended, but I vividly remember there being a lot of refugee infrastructure during those years that is pretty much nowhere to be seen now.
#ProfCollingsworth, if it was just sorting out the inputs and outputs we would be hearing about 'there is a shortage of hospital beds in a few places, but we are moving in personnel and mobile hospitals and moving patients that can be moved to hospitals with spare capacity'. But it isn't. Instead, it's 'our medical system is under incredible strain and there are practically no beds spare'.

MermaidKyoto
#GDIWife, I'm clearly able to see that your qualifications on this matter are as vast as they are on many others. I'm not sure you're aware how much money the treasury has been spending on the military, but the refugee crisis could have been avoided if we'd spent less on guns and more on our medical system. We could literally have robots doing triage instead of nurses on the frontlines right now, if some people hadn't been dragging their feet and assigning production to some big shiny military project. Or if we had some actually decent housing instead of 'fortress town' collective barracks to assign these refugees to. If you had ever spent three months in one of those, I doubt you would be so utterly lacking in sympathy.

Dr. James Granger
#FloatingWood. We tried to rebuild as best we could under my term, but even in a decade, it is a lot of work, and at many times we did not have the luxury of building up vast stockpiles of reserve supplies. And in all honesty, I am fairly certain that actual supplies are not the problem, so much as it is a skilled workforce. And that is a problem that I tried to solve, but almost certainly was unable to do enough to solve.

ProfCollingsworth
#FloatingWood I was referring more to the issues with housing, feeding, and keeping track of refugees. It sounds like the medical issue is definitely an actual problem, not just something that looks like one, and hopefully that will be resolved soon. Of course, I could go on about how much better we have things than in the 19th and 20th centuries, and probably would if certain nosy students weren't reading over my shoulder, even if preventing that sort of digression is probably a good thing. Some things should require a bit of effort to look up, and making sure a trash can or other vomit receptacle is nearby.

GDIWife
#MermaidKyoto Of course, such a great idea there. Why not spend less on the military? It's not like we're under attack! I'm sure if you just tell Nod that you need to spend the money on massive surge healthcare projects, of course they'll be happy to sit back and wait until we're ready. Get a grip, this is exactly the time for massive spending to the BRAVE SOLDIERS who are actually PROTECTING these hospitals. Either that or get used to the healthcare under NOD, I'm sure it's just great.

MermaidKyoto
#GDIWife
You are completely without a grip on the situation. Our healthcare system is still recovering from the last war, and I know for a fact that military spending for the past year or so has been flirting with 'take over the world' levels of expenditure. You may be happy to see other departments cannibalized for staff and funds, but I am not!

FloatingWood
#ProfCollingsworth, I'm kinda worried about the food production numbers, to be honest. I mean, we have a margin, but we don't have that big a margin. And sure, we can survive another lean time, but we can survive that for only so long, and I'd rather not go back to fungus rations. Housing seems mostly covered, if not necessarily luxurious. Plenty of fortified towns in the GZs to park people in until the BZ housing gets built. Or, I suppose, the BZs overtake the towns. We only just got worldwide BZ rated territory back up to pre-TW3 levels, and it seems like a steady expansion there.

GDIWife
#Mermaid Kyoto Maybe you haven't realised this but all that funding has been barely enough! We're doing well in most places only due to the funds given to the GDI Military. Also, you seem to be forgetting that without all of that we'd be having mass deaths in several branches. Even now a lot of forces are overstretched. I for one am glad that they haven't been forced to start conscripting again. We need to spend in order to get metal and we need to spend metal to protect the meat.

MajorMiner
#GDIWife You seem to alternate between believing that GDI has unlimited resources to expend, and severely limited resources. Just in case you are actually unaware of the current situation, the Treasury is in charge of Tiberium Harvesting. That's where the resources come from. Sure, things need to be done to it, including refining, manufacturing, and such, but that's beside the point. There's only so much we can harvest at one time, and we're digging as much as we can out of the ground. Maybe you should shut up and leave things to the people who actually know how things work.
Also, I've been hearing some interesting things through the grapevine. More "novel technologies"?

FloatingWood
#MajorMiner, only the raw metals and stuff. Plenty of other resources GDI has, megatons of grains, vegetables, 'meat', fungus, beans, cloth and so forth and so on.

GDIWife
#MajorMiner I don't and have never believed that GDI has "unlimited resources to expend". I think they're using the LIMITED resources they have poorly. And maybe I would shut up and leave things to the people who know how things work if those people weren't DRIVING THE SYSTEM TO COLLAPSE. For God's sake they start building ships for the navy NOW? NOW! Where were these docks 2-3 YEARS ago when they actually would have BUILT SHIPS!

JetBro
Yeah, sometimes the habit of not selling things you no longer need pays off. Of course, I love situations when there are peppy stories about breakthrough technologies on the news, and you yourself look in a panic at a smoking motherboard, and you understand that if you hadn't forgotten to sell your old PC, then I would now be left without a job, because the processors are on sale NOT AT ALL.
No, of course I understand that it's more difficult for a bunch of people than for me, but the war is there, and I'm here, and it's sad to say the least in a crisis without a job.
#GDIWife
The resources that the government didn't spend on ships, it spent on making the fucking war go beyond the blue zones.
And so that people like me could whine about a burned-out processor, and not sit in the ruins and eat the last mushroom bar ... well, or an unlucky noddy, lol.

GDIWife
#JetBro My POINT (if you're not too busy mourning your computer to get it) is that there is CLEARLY a mismanagement problem in the treasury. They want to allow refugees and don't build what they need for it, they want to win a war and leave our navy with mostly TW3 ships and our pilots falling from the sky, they want to build the economy and have 0 reserves for the most crucial goods.

Akira Oda (Treasury)
The problem for GDI and the Treasury in particular is that the amount of resources we spend will never be enough. The ravenous maw of needed projects are always there since we have goals set by Parliament to complete. While there have been hiccups in some areas in the past, the capacity of our military to prosecute a global war on all fronts has never been higher. Even then we have to acknowledge that the plan we made for what seemed to be another four years of interbellum needs to be adjusted in light of our military's desire to ensure the blue zones won't be attacked as brazenly during the Third Tiberium War. It is still difficult to think about the scale of our operations since even when humanity has been reduced to nearly a sixth of its population our ability to surpass the destruction of our ancestors grows even larger.

#FloatingWood I sympathize with your complaints about the civilian side of the equation. I know the refugee situation has been exceptionally straining to our society. However, even with all the hospitals tending to those most in need we have to acknowledge that more needs to be done and is done for the sake of everyone in this war. One thing I will say is that the situation is being handled and let it not be said that the situation for refugees has not improved when they get here and while healthcare is in a regrettable state right now people are being fed with more regularity and have a roof on their head more luxurious than ever before. While we need to do better because the houses are not to our standard and the food can get bland but not as bad as fungus bars if you all remember that.
#MajorMiner I would like to say all these novel technologies aren't bad, they're expensive on a civilizational scale. I do hope you stay safe out there and can get in an armed harvester soon.
Lastly, great to see you safe and healthy #Dr. James Granger.

AccomplishingProvidence
Perhaps we should all stop and take a deep breath right now. There's a lot of good, genuine concerns here, but it feels more than a bit heated…

campfire_council4
For a bit of good news, something that's not in shortage is Housing. All the Green Zone housing that people were moving out of before the war is still here, and ready to serve. And a lot of it isn't Green anymore, but Blue! It's been a joy to see Terminus City 11-C fill back up again. As crazy hectic as it's been getting folks settled in, it's worth it to give them somewhere to live in where they can walk around outside without masks. Not to mention clean food and water, 'net access, sometimes a way to contact lost family members even. The city's cautious, somewhat shocked, but also lively. There's even been talk of starting up a garden project using spare supplies from the aquaponics buildings.

I know it's not all sunshine and rainbows even here behind the lines, but I'm hopeful there's light at the end of this tunnel for all of us.



Q2 2060 Results
Resources:‌ ‌985 + 35 in‌ ‌reserve‌ ‌(15‌ ‌allocated‌ ‌to‌ ‌the‌ ‌Forgotten)‌ ‌(35 ‌allocated‌ ‌to‌ ‌grants)‌(+25 from Taxes)

Political‌ ‌Support:‌ 72
SCIENCE Meter: 4/4
Free‌ ‌Dice:‌ ‌7 ‌
Tiberium Spread
20.41 Blue Zone
1.80 Green Zone
23.87 Yellow Zone (96 Points of Abatement)
53.92 Red Zone (72 Points of Abatement)

Current Economic Issues:
Housing: +40 (27 population in low quality housing)
Energy: +10 (+4 in reserve)
Logistics: +20 (-10 from raiding) (-7 from military activity)
Food: +22 (+10 in reserve)
Health: -1 (-8 from Wartime Demand) (-5 from Refugees)
Capital Goods: +13 (+37 in reserve) [-10 at End of War ] [+3 in Q1 2061, +2 in Q2 2061 ]
STUs: +13
Consumer Goods: +27 (-22 from demand spike) (+3 from Private Industry)
Labor: +36
Tiberium‌ ‌Processing‌ ‌Capacity‌ ‌(1895/2470)‌ ‌
Labor Per Turn: +4
Taxation Per Turn: +30
Space Mining Per Turn: +35
Green Zone Water: +6

Status‌ ‌of‌ ‌the‌ ‌Parties‌ ‌
(strong‌ ‌support,‌ ‌weak‌ ‌support,‌ ‌weak‌ ‌opposition,‌ ‌strong‌ ‌opposition)‌ ‌

Free‌ ‌Market‌ ‌Party:‌ ‌228 ‌seats‌ ‌(0;‌ ‌50;‌ ‌28; ‌150)‌ ‌
Market‌ ‌Socialist‌ ‌Party:‌ 486‌ seats‌ ‌(200;‌ ‌150;‌ ‌86;‌ ‌50)‌ ‌ ‌
Militarist:‌ 754 ‌seats‌ ‌(200;‌ ‌304;‌ ‌150;‌ ‌100)‌ ‌
Initiative‌ ‌First:‌ ‌335 ‌seats‌ ‌(0;‌ ‌0;‌ ‌35; ‌300)‌ ‌
United‌ ‌Yellow‌ ‌List:‌ ‌176 ‌seats‌ ‌(100;‌ ‌50;‌ ‌20;‌ ‌6)‌ ‌
Starbound‌ ‌Party:‌ ‌461 ‌seats‌ ‌(300; 100;‌ ‌40;‌ ‌21)‌ ‌
Socialist‌ ‌Party:‌ 426 ‌seats‌ ‌(200;‌ ‌190;‌ ‌26;‌ ‌10)‌ ‌
Homeland‌ ‌Party‌‌: 50 ‌seats (5; 30; 10; 5)
Biodiversity‌ ‌Party‌: ‌34 ‌seats (4; 10; 20; 0)
Reclamation Party: 12 Seats (0; 8; 4; 0)
Developmentalists:‌ ‌1038 ‌seats‌ ‌(470;‌ ‌268;‌ 250;‌ ‌50)‌ ‌

Military‌ ‌Confidence‌ ‌
Ground‌ ‌Forces‌ ‌:‌ Very High ‌ ‌
Air‌ ‌Force‌ ‌:‌ ‌Decent‌ ‌
Space‌ ‌Force‌ ‌:‌ Decent ‌
Steel‌ ‌Talons:‌ ‌Low
Navy:‌ Low ‌
ZOCOM:‌ ‌Decent ‌

Plan Goals
Capital Goods: 31 Points
Consumer Goods: 16 Points
Food: 18 points in reserve
Income: 90 Points
Stations: 1139 Points
Processing: 280 points

Projects
Complete ASAT Phase 4
Complete OSRCT Phase 4
Railgun Munitions Development
Complete at least one more phase of Shell Plants
Complete at least one more phase of Ablative Armor
Complete at least one more phase of URLS production
Complete at least one more phase of Wadmalaw Kudzu Plantations
Complete at least one more phase of Blue Zone Arcologies
Complete GDSS Enterprise
Complete at least five phases of Space Mines
Complete at least four phases of Karachi Planned City
Develop and Deploy Mastodon

Politics
The current politics are primarily not played in the halls of power. Rather, it has taken the form of petition and protest. A groundswell of popular opposition to Yellow Zone refugees and general unrest over the conduct of the war has weakened the ruling coalition. The defeats at sea and in the South American theater are problematic, especially with former Hawk leadership chomping at the bit for greater power and influence. While the Militarist line is holding strong, and the men and women in the field overwhelmingly have fallen towards the Militarists rather than Initiative First, the home front has begun to waver. While none of this has reached a point where it could see mandates for change, or significant problems on the street for that matter, that is a potential risk in the longer term.

While the war is the claimed reason, a more significant reason is likely the overstretched nature of Intelligence Operations, and the ongoing sabotage campaigns in the Blue Zones. VBIEDs, drone strikes, and wrecker operations, all claimed by the Brotherhood of Nod as true faithful striking back against the invaders, have made the situation on the ground significantly more confused and chaotic. While it is estimated that under five percent of Yellow Zone refugees have any knowledge of specific actions, it is more than enough for widespread suspicion and mistrust towards them, and calls for collective responsibility are becoming increasingly strident.

Tiberium Infusions
While still not with the safety margins that the Welfare department would like, the first widespread use of Tiberium Infusions have begun under an Emergency Use Authorization, primarily for the front line combat troops that have pushed to the edges of the Red Zone and had various forms of containment failure. With casualties from these causes higher than at any point in the last twenty years aside from the Scrin invasion, events have given the Welfare department the top cover they needed to begin moving on the topic, and begin putting the new developments into the field. While this does put them on a timer, it is at least a timer far longer than Tiberium would have given them.

Rebuilding
It is only six months into the war that the Brotherhood of Nod has managed to inflict significant economic damages. In response, there are a range of options for the Treasury Secretary, ranging from direct intervention for highly strategic areas, to allocating greater resources, to simply allowing local operations managers and station chiefs to manage the reconstruction efforts out of their own resources and their own recognizance. Each has its own benefits and problems, especially as GDI continues to push forward into Brotherhood heartlands.


Brotherhood of Nod
Of the warlords in the remnants of Mexico, Jose Luis Mondragón is probably the most well known and capable. With Gideon relatively far away, Mondragón has chosen to strike out on his own. While not as politically skilled as Gideon, he has been one of the more technically adept of the warlords, and a source of many of Gideon's walkers. He is just as unlikely to negotiate as, like Gideon, he is heavily influenced by the Black Hand.
With his position trapped between the encroaching Red Zone and the Initiative controlling his coastlines, he is a cornered rat, one that may well lash out if pressured. However, he is not expected to launch into a death or glory attack at this moment, as that seems to have been one of the division points that led to his split with Gideon.

In the great north, there are dozens of minor warlords. While the region is mostly barren and relatively poor in Tiberium, it does have one thing that the Brotherhood of Nod desperately needs. Massive volumes of empty terrain. Jessica Majors, one of the most experienced mining hands in the region, has rallied them to Krukov's banner in the name of better working conditions and greater appreciation for their work.

Majors has vast amounts of tiberium for the amount of population that she has to work with, and is believed to not be particularly interested in continuing the war with GDI. While her record in combat against GDI is relatively good, winning battles across the north-eastern front, they have primarily been against relatively small and lightweight GDI forces during the opening weeks of the Third Tiberium War. Since then, her record has become far spottier and more mixed, losing battles north of Seattle during the reconquest, commanding a major conflict at Calgary in 2048, before linking up with GDI forces during the 2049 war against the Scrin and then turning on them, and failing to protect the northern of the two North American threshold towers.


Captured Technologies

In a raid on Jacksonville, Florida, GDI captured a number of technologies. First is a new model of shield, code named Buckler. Essentially a revision of Gideon's earlier attempts at shielded units, it projects a defensive field across a lightweight mobile frame, somewhat similar to the armored skirts used in previous wars as a means of protecting against anti-tank rifles and shaped charges. While a tank's power pack is not able to provide more than three to five square meters of protection against even light threats, those can be across any covered facing.
Second is a revised version of the Mantis combat drone, including a fully functioning core and support equipment.

Breakthroughs
The Scrin and the Brotherhood of Nod have both used extremely small scale fusion cells, primarily to power their weapons. GDI has now begun an extremely promising version, based heavily on the plasma munitions developed for the Air Force. Using a small amount of Elerium, the problem is that as the reactors grow larger, they become more and more unstable. This instability is a cubic function of the total volume of the reaction, and thus becomes totally ungovernable after only a slight increase in size. Even before that however, gamma radiation spikes leak through the casing, limiting the size further down.
Second is a derivative of the Brotherhood's harvesting claws. While GDI's rakes are quite effective, they only really harvest the first three to five centimeters down, and deeper Tiberium is often left effectively alone. The Brotherhood choses a different method, with a more limited but deeper harvesting, instead of sweeping large amounts of surface Tiberium into the harvester, as has been done since the earliest days of Tiberium harvesting, it digs deeply into the ground, pulling up Tiberium from the roots, and is able to tear through rocks in order to get to the Tiberium.

Blue Zones Reclaimed
Around the world, Blue Zone cities have held small celebrations. While subdued due to the Regency War as well as civil defense measures implemented to prevent the Brotherhood from using large gatherings as cover for sabotage and terrorism, the marking of yet another step towards normality with a return to the old borders has steeled the Initiative's population. While the analysts at the Treasury are even more subdued, it is a landmark step in a new direction, and a vindication of the policies of Secretaries Granger and Seo, as even in the face of escalating security threats and Tiberium beginning to mutate into more abatement resistant forms, they have continued pushing back the green menace, and seem poised to continue this pattern for the foreseeable future.

Shells
With current levels of shell production GDI is rapidly depleting its shell stockpiles. Much of this is expected, as GDI is engaging in rapid, sweeping offensives across huge swathes of the world, and so deploying hundreds of additional batteries of guns at any given time. While the supply of guided shells will be depleted in five to seven months, the supply of standard shells is substantially better, with approximately ten months until depletion. While reductions in the pace and intensity of offensives will slow the rate of depletion, Ground Forces Command does not believe that to be advisable at this time.

Primarily this is a result of the massive expenditures associated with global offensives, and far from a new normal. Under regular circumstances, where the Initiative is not trying to fight on every front and against every foe, current production levels will maintain and rapidly increase the stockpile.

Other consumables are in a similar state. While stocks are being depleted rapidly, they are at a point where significant action can make a substantial difference. Additionally, while not particularly viable at this time, there has been some effort put towards offering up a plan to spin off a section of the military procurement bureau to focus entirely on the various consumables needed by the military.

Military Priorities
  • Ground Forces
In immediate terms, the key priority is the allocation of more resources towards consumables production to slow the bleeding and provide enough support to maintain the thrusts of Steel Vanguard.
Currently, the allocation of revolutionary technologies, both for infantry and vehicles is a relatively low priority, especially as GDI is currently winning the war on most fronts.
  • Steel Talons
With only the Mastodon remaining in terms of commitments, the Steel Talons are looking primarily at developing a series of revolutionary technologies, although most will wait until after the war, as they are not yet ready, and there are numerous higher priorities.
  • Air Force
With technological upgrades ready, the highest priority now is delivery to the field, and preferably in great volume. For the Air Force, the wingman drones are a near requirement as soon as possible in order to maintain air superiority, especially with the rapid intensification of the air war, and the sheer punishment that the Varyag class can take. While current deliveries are helping, and will substantially reduce overall casualties in the long run, further investment in the field will help further increase GDI's capability in the air war.
  • Navy
Currently, the Navy has substantial problems, between a significant increase in the intensity of the raiding, and the demonstration of Brotherhood capabilities in both surface and submarine warfare. The delivery of new hulls, as soon as possible and in as great a number as possible is considered vital.
  • Space Force
With the OSRCT serving admirably, particularly with the seizure of the Bogatyr, the concept is proven. At this point, expansions of the teams are unlikely to reach service readiness before the end of the war, even in the case of the longest expected war scenarios. Instead, the Space Force is looking to reorient towards additional supporting arms, providing fire support from orbit not just for the Orbital Strike units, but all Initiative forces.
  • Zone Operations Command
ZOCOM sees the two primary priorities as suit upgrades and, more importantly, the mass delivery of zone armor to other branches in order to turn over significant swathes of heavy infantry and shallow Red Zone operations to Initiative Ground Forces, Navy, or other branches, and rededicate their efforts to the deep Red Zones.

[ ] Yellow Zone Fortress Towns (Phase 4) (Updated)
The Yellow Zone fortress towns will be a critical asset in not only taking ground, but holding it. Preparing large numbers of fortifications at critical strategic points and key terrain features will give GDI's military a significant advantage, and much greater ability to fall back on.
(Supports Yellow Zone Intensification) (Supports Operation Steel Vanguard)
(Progress 250/250: 20 resources per die) (+4 Housing)
(Progress 300/300: 20 resources per die (+4 Housing) [70, 41, 16, 45]

In contrast to the difficulties of the last quarter, as Initiative troops surged ahead, fortress towns emerged behind them quickly and in great numbers. Each of the rapidly constructed towns is little more than walls, bunkers, and a swarm of prefabricated buildings, often flown in and assembled on site with hand tools. A significant part of the pace of construction has been because of the refugee swarms. With the Initiative pushing ever further into core territories of the Brotherhood of Nod, the population have often been defecting in droves, meaning that fortresses have become the first wave of processing centers and holding areas, collecting refugees until they can be brought back in a train not loaded with Tiberium.
At the same time, many of the rear line positions - built in the early days of the Fortress Town concept - have not fired their weapons in anger for months, and in some cases years. Nearly all are actually well inside the blue zones, and some have gone so far as to dismount their old smoothbore 152mm guns. Of these, only a few have received replacements, as the process of upgrading had only begun to reach them before the war began.

Got rotated off active duty due to the cyber-leg, and they put me in charge of the greenhorns and grandpas they have manning one of the new-build fortress towns. Thought we were gonna be pretty lonely, until an entire convoy of Forgotten rolled up, and the brass told us to ride herd on the lot of them until full services are hooked up for the duration of their stay. Which I mean, yikes, I don't want to think about having to fight those Gammas! One of those ladies clutching a couple of kids doesn't look like a mom, she looks like a scorpion-wearing militant hardass. She keeps eyeing my guns, and I'm not sure if she's plotting to steal them and kill me, or trying to figure out how to steal my job.
  • Owen Higgs, Foreman

[ ] Rail Network Construction Campaigns (Phase 3) (Updated)
Driving Rail lines into and through the newly claimed Green Zones will serve a dual purpose. First, bringing kiloton after kiloton of supplies to the front lines, and second, providing nearby rail heads to begin preparing for intensive red zone harvesting operations during the war.
(Supports Operation Steel Vanguard)
(Progress 300/300: 15 resources per die) (+4 Logistics)
(Progress 128/325: 15 resources per die) (+4 Logistics) [29, 65, 73]

The war has displaced tens of millions, almost entirely in the Yellow Zones. While many have either chosen or been forced to flee before Initiative advances, a tithe has chosen instead to move toward the Initiative lines. While the rails have continued carrying food, fuel, and ammunition forward, in nearly every case on their way back they are loaded to the safe limits (and occasionally beyond) with refugees, especially those on direct routes to a Blue Zone. With every new line, there is more spare capacity to move the refugees efficiently, instead of having to truck or march them up to hundreds of kilometers to a railhead before being able to move people and their belongings the oftentimes thousands of kilometers to core GDI territories.

More militarily, while the Initiative relies heavily on trucks for the last ten kilometers, every single kilometer of rail matters. The most vulnerable point of the entire supply line is the terminus depot, the far end of the rail line. With a train stuck there until it is unloaded, and often with limited storage capacity on-site, being able to directly crossload from the train to an awaiting truck is incredibly valuable, especially due to being able to disperse the supplies into a number of separate caches, rather than keeping it all at one concentrated site.

The dispersed rail network has also rapidly added to capacity. With GDI's train production units working at full speed, there is simply more rail being laid than they can swiftly build cars and engines to fill. These swarms of new trains shall travel across new stations, crossroads, junctions, and most importantly, lines, which have given GDI not just the ability to rapidly move between the points of civilization on a map, but to many places at the uninhabited edges of the Blue Zones.

[ ] Tick Rapid Digger System Development (New)
The Tick Tank, one of the Brotherhood's more creative ideas among a long list of them, used rapid automated diggers to allow it to entrench rapidly, even in an open field. The same technologies are likely to be quite useful in rapid construction efforts, and speed the works of many infrastructure programs.
(Progress 52/40: 20 resources per die) [13]

The Tick tank was a particularly odd piece of Brotherhood hardware from the Second Tiberium War. From the Second World War onward, many tanks had various forms of either drop-down digging blades or attached components to allow themselves to go hull-down in any terrain. However, the Tick's version is fundamentally more complicated and ambitious. Rather than simply covering up the lower glacis, as most other systems attempted, the Tick's design was able to dig the tank into a position where it could fight with only its turret exposed.
To do this, the Tick had a deployable rotating drum cutter between the tracks, using a gearing system to connect that to the tracks. The system has always been a bit finicky, and could be unreliable. However, even when it worked poorly, a partial deployment was enough to cut an entrenchment for the tank to fight in.

The Initiative's version is substantially more reasonable. Rather than trying to dig a tank in, and make the sacrifices in internal space required, it is a set of cutting blades attached to a tractor, designed as a rapid enclosed trench digger, something that can be put into action without nearly as much preparation as other options.

[ ] Continuous Cycle Fusion Plants (Phase 5) (Updated)
With the Initiative's energy needs still substantial, new pods of fusion plants, and expansions to existing ones will be needed to continue pouring resources into the military industrial complex, and provide new weapons in the fight against the Brotherhood of Nod.
(Progress 330/300: 20 resources per Die) (+16 Energy) [2, 38]

The war has done anything but slow fusion power plant assembly. With ever more demands for new fusion complexes, and expansions to existing ones, the push for ever more plants and gigawatt upon gigawatt of energy has rarely been more intensive. Work has continued around the clock, with the slowest thing being the time for fused parts to cool, and for the concrete to cure. Corners have begun to be cut, with only minimal cladding being put on before operations are near ready, and the rest being put on as time and resources allow. While certainly safe enough, especially as the worst thing that can happen is a radioactive steam explosion, it is not making the inspectors particularly happy.

[ ] Nuuk Heavy Robotics Foundry (Phase 3) (Updated)
With the initial production shock labored into existence, further development is predicated on massive investment and expansion of the project, laying massive production lines, and setting them in motion towards one of the largest projects ever envisioned by the Global Defense Initiative.
(Progress 352/600: 20 resources per die) (+16 Capital Goods, -2 Labor, -8 Energy) [87, 89]

Investment in Nuuk has been unfortunately reduced this quarter, as despite the need for a new wing of the facility almost as soon as the core complex was completed, the demands of the war are quite intensive.

The new wing, laid to the south of the core facility, is focused on heavy transport and construction robots. Behemoths, Crabs, and the other multi-terrain, multirole units, useful everywhere from the Himalayas to coastal construction, have not yet begun to roll out of the foundry, but shipload after shipload of myomer bundles have arrived to ensure that when the final stages are completed production can begin immediately.

Similarly, the new Tick series digger robots have had a production line of their own start construction. While initial production will be slow, with maybe a dozen units produced a month, the scalability is high, with up to six hundred a month at maximum production from the south wing of the facility.

Beyond the Nuuk project itself, there is the problem of the port facilities. As Nuuk was one of the destination cities during the evacuations of the 2030s, it has port facilities, and relatively good ones for a city of its size. However they are drastically insufficient for the massive demands about to be placed on them. Work is underway to add a half dozen new loading cranes, able to transfer some fifty containers an hour apiece between the quay and the cargo ships that will come in as part of the great northern route between the North American and European Blue Zones.
Currently, the building is still distinctly incomplete, with masses of equipment - ranging from heavy presses to build the casings, to wire extruders for the hundreds of kilometers of standard-gauge wiring it will consume with every day of operation - still being awaited for installation. While work is slated to continue at a rapid pace, it will need substantially more funding to reach production readiness quickly.

[ ] Isolinear Chip Development (New)
The Scrin-derived isolinear chip is a three-dimensional optical computer, built as a single unit, compacted down into something that can fit in the palm of one's hand. Even early versions make a modern computer look akin to the devices that put men on the moon, leaving the only real questions being scaling up production to effective levels.
(Progress 123/60: 40 resources per die) [89]

The term chip originates with the old English forcippian, "to pare away by cutting." Under this definition, the isolinear computer does not have chips, rather it has integrated, individually constructed optical circuitry. The core element is quartz -or in scientific terms, silicon oxides - deposited in cryptocrystalline layers before being fused into a single block, ready to operate as a complete computer. Acting to distort the light, serving as the millions upon millions of switches, are microimpurities, inserted into the structure as it is built from the bottom up. Current models are extremely crude compared to those in use by the Scrin. The first iteration of isolinear circuitry is 75mm long, 25mm wide, and about 5mm thick, with a further inert "tab" of 10mm on one end. While not yet quite capable of beating out the best the Initiative has to offer in terms of computing technology, it is substantially tougher, and vastly more compact.
One of the first beneficiaries has in fact been Erewhon. With its limited need for support, the first isolinear fabricator has been dedicated to its needs, and has started slowly replacing silicon and germanium with pieces of isolinear quartz. While this has not improved its overall stability, it does seem to have given it marginal improvements in its ability to conduct operations.

[ ] Reykjavik Myomer Macrospinner (Phase 4)
Further expansion of the Reykjavik Macrospinner is going to focus on heavy myomer bundles, which are keys to mass production of modern zone armor and mech projects as they provide highly efficient mobility options.
(Progress 514/640: 20 resources per die) (+4 Capital Goods +2 Energy) (Reduces cost of mech and zone armor projects) [70, 18]

The Reykjavik macrospinner has continued to add production, with a series of geothermally heated grow pools being added. Iceland is one of the best sites in all of GDI for such activities. Open aquifers cycle energy from deep within the earth, erupting forth in a storm of heat and steam. While long tapped, with Icelandic peoples using the heat from volcanoes and geothermal wells to bake rye breads for almost as long as there have been people on Iceland, it was not until the 20th century, that experiments began to generate electricity from this.
However, the water and steam as it first emerges is far too hot for use in the grow pools, the water often near or above 100 degrees celsius. Above about sixty degrees, the water will rapidly and irreversibly denature key proteins. So, instead of directly using the heat, it is a secondary, and sometimes even tertiary cooling loop; with the water first being passed through power plants, and then under roadways, before arriving at the macrospinner for use heating the grow pools, having been brought down to somewhere between thirty and fifty degrees, depending on time of year and a number of other factors. While not quite as reliable as purpose-built and dedicated heating units, it is drastically cheaper in an area that is geothermally active.

[ ] Medical Supplies Factories
Increasing supplies of medicines and more importantly medical supplies like tubing, masks, blood substitutes, liquid bandages and similar are likely to be quite needed during wartime. While GDI currently has enough, demand is expected to spike rapidly, and more supplies will be needed.
(Progress 129/225: 20 resources per die) (+4 Health) (-1 Energy) [10, 19, 28]

It can often be difficult to visualize just how much stuff a medical facility goes through in a day. Broadly speaking, little is practically reusable. A scalpel for example, like any knife, blunts with use, and so, beyond the need to sterilize it, rapidly becomes significantly less useful. Beyond that there are the vast numbers of consumables. In all, a single patient can produce up to between 10 and 13 kilograms of waste per day. While some of that is simply living waste, things like food scraps for example, much of it is things like masks, tubing, scalpels, and mostly, packaging. Nearly every piece of medical equipment comes in single-use packaging, oftentimes sterilized under radiation, leaving vast amounts of waste.

However, this is because of critical safety concerns. While most hospitals operate under various means of ensuring sterility and preventing cross-contamination, ensuring that the implements of healing remain safe is of the utmost priority. And that is what the facilities currently under construction are meant to do. Not to produce drugs, or antibiotics, or for that matter conduct any other form of direct healing, but give people the tools that they need to do the work.

The war has placed great strains on these supplies, with vast demands for critical services near the front, and critical care units mobilized for both refugees and the frontal care. Mobile surgical centers serve in this role, many able to operate while fully buttoned up. It is a testament to both the hostility of the environment and the willingness of warlords to strike at such sites that doctors and nurses see some of the highest per capita casualty rates, only beaten out by the ranks of the officers corps, and field medics. The former for their small number, and the latter due to many warlords preferentially targeting them with the same eagerness they have for hitting the surgical centers.

[ ] Blue Zone Aquaponics Bays (Phase 2)
While the refugee swarm has not yet arrived to GDI's borders, it is only a matter of time, and vast aquaponics arrays are one of the keystone solutions to expected rises in demand.
(Progress 140/140: 10 resources per die) (+6 Food) (-1 Labor)
(Progress 30/140: 10 resources per die) (+6 Food) (-1 Labor) [32, 4 59]

The demand for food has been rapidly increasing. With wave after wave of refugees arriving, demand for food has skyrocketed, leaving the Initiative, even with substantial increases in production, barely treading water in multiple keystone areas, most notably core assets like carbohydrates and vegetable protein sources. With demand expected to increase substantially as core brotherhood territories are raided or conquered, GDI has little choice but to invest substantially in food production to avoid shortages, which will be problematic both politically and economically.

Most of the new bays are primarily devoted to staples, with the largest section being legumes, and other sources of plant proteins. Following that are starches, with all other produce being a distant third at best. With the incoming substantial increase in food production required by adding multiple percentage points to the population under GDI's control, even with maximum effort there is still likely to be belt tightening occurring, as there are limits to how swiftly production can be increased.

[ ] Freeze Dried Food Plants
Freeze Drying effectively turns most food into permanent, shelf stable systems. While building additional plants to process food in this way will be expensive, it should significantly reduce waste, and increase the lifespan of the stockpiles noticeably.
(Progress 126/200: 20 resources per die) (+5 Food, increases efficiency of stockpile actions, -1 Energy) [29]

Construction of the freeze dried food plants has continued to be slow. While the preparation and packaging sections are complete, making the actual freeze drying units and supplying them in sufficient numbers has been a severe problem. Even with shipping demand high, and temporary spikes in demand occurring across the Initiative, there remains enough surplus capacity to run at full operations. The problem has been demand on the specialized equipment, as other facilities have been making a run and stocking up on spare parts and assemblies that are also needed for these factories.

Politically, the demand for stored food is not particularly easy to avoid. The shadow of the Third Tiberium War and the long lean years following it looms large in the political scene, especially as the organization of the modern political system emerged in that time period. With GDI seeing the potential for a long lasting high intensity conflict, and one where the Brotherhood has little compunction about targeting civilian infrastructure, the political interest in building a strong reserve against potential future shortages has remained high, despite GDI winning on nearly every front. At the same time, Parliament has been, on average, signaling a willingness to put off demands placed during a time of peace, to allow the treasury to focus on a time of war.

[ ] Yellow Zone Tiberium Harvesting (Phase 7) (Updated)
Expanding the offensive, and pushing the Brotherhood back around the world is the future the Initiative not only wants, but needs. Decisive action, driven home with all the vigor the Initiative can muster will buy time and push aside the threat of the Brotherhood, to fight the war against Tiberium. (Supports Steel Vanguard)
(Progress 300/300: 20 resources per die) (small additional income trickle [10 Resources]) (3 points of Yellow Zone Mitigation)
(Progress 302/300: 20 resources per die) (small additional income trickle [10 Resources]) (3 points of Yellow Zone Mitigation) [75, 34, 22, 41, 52]

The Initiative's armies of engineers have followed the proper armies at a close remove, laying down rail and road. Beyond that, they have begun to move from what had once been a borderland between the Initiative and the Brotherhood, into territories that had been Noddist for decades on end. Here, there are hundreds of mining hubs, a key element of Brotherhood approaches to tiberium mining. Each hub is linked to a series of outposts that in turn harvest from one or more outcroppings in the region. While the Brotherhood does use Tiberium spikes widely, they are far less averse to having Tiberium outbreaks in regions very close to human settlement. Local authorities put much less effort into early response, leading to a large number of relatively small Tiberium fields, often only discovered when a patrol runs into it. GDI fields on the other hand are typically either rapidly contained, or have a longer delay as other areas are higher priority for the specialist teams, leading to more highs and lows.

[ ] Intensification of Green Zone Harvesting (Stage 5)
A further wave of Green Zone Tiberium harvesting will both improve the logistical connections across the forward Green Zones and provide greater numbers of forward hardpoints and firebases for Initiative troops.
(Progress 146/100: 15 resources per die) (small additional income trickle [10 Resources]) (1 point of yellow zone mitigation) (1 Stage available) (Supports Steel Vanguard) [44]

Oftentimes far behind the lines, the Treasury's tiberium construction teams have been hard at work. With the last quarter's construction mostly focusing on providing infrastructure rather than developing Tiberium extraction capability, GDI's new wave has flipped that, rapidly containing hundreds of patches of Tiberium, and capping more than a few with Tiberium spikes. The work has been rapid, with little in the way of interference by the Brotherhood. While there have been many stay-behind forces and scattered pockets of resistance bypassed by the advancing GDI forces, the former have tended to blend into the refugee convoys passing back into urban territory, and the latter are typically fairly well contained, although some have managed to break out and run rampant for days or weeks before they either go to ground or are hunted down.

[ ] Railgun Harvester Factories
The Railgun Harvester is a significantly heavier design than previous Harvester systems and so requires a new series of factories. While by the standards of military production these will be overall fairly limited, they will provide a noticeable increase in income, especially from more heavily contested regions. (Supports Steel Vanguard)
-[ ] Dandong (Progress 105/70 : 10 resources per die) (+5 Resources Per Turn) (-2 Energy) [60]

The railgun harvester in combat has not been quite as revolutionary as it could have been hoped. Part of this is a matter of how action has been shifting. When the Brotherhood of Nod breaks through to the harvesters, it is not a small raiding force, or a group of militia taking potshots with rocket launchers or mortars. It is an armored knuckle. Scorpion tanks, Avatars, or their lighter Centurion cousins who have forced a gap in GDI lines, and have seized upon the opportunity to run rampant. While the rapid fire railgun is certainly more than capable of penetrating weak points in the armor, the harvester lacks sufficient armor over critical areas to survive the fire of their harasser. Similarly, the fire of Venoms, Vertigos, or even the occasional Barghest gun run can be blunted, but losses (often significant ones) still occur as fires cross in the skies. In areas without the new harvesters, the fights go in much the same way, with only marginally lighter losses for the Brotherhood of Nod. The keystone protectors of the mines are not the harvesters, but the armored forces of the Initiative.

-[ ] Porto (Progress 44/70: 10 resources per die) (+5 Resources Per Turn) (-2 Energy) [5]

The Porto harvester factory, ordered to better support the invasion of southern Europe, has run into severe problems primarily due to the victories won there. With the logistics lines overwhelmed moving hundreds of thousands of people to the deep Blue Zone, and the shifting of units to begin sieges of the southern Spanish cities that are Reynaldo's heartland, it is not a particularly easy time to arrange substantial construction projects.

Additionally, Reynaldo's guerilla forces have followed the refugees in, and have begun a campaign of terror and sabotage against the worksite, alongside hundreds of others. Mostly this takes the form of various autonomous drone attacks, and deniable wrecker actions, a low intensity approach that minimizes their risk in the broader environment. While InOps does practice a strong panopticon, and some have been caught, it has not done much to slow the rate of sabotage.

[ ] GDSS Enterprise (Phase 4)
Expanding the Enterprise into a proper all in one industrial center, will require a number of new bays and modules. However, before the refineries, material processors, and industrial fabricators can be brought fully online, they will need to be fed with material. (Station)
(Progress 765/765: 20 resources per die) (+2 Capital Goods, +2 Consumer Goods) (1 available Bay)
(Progress 102/1535: 20 resources per die) (+2 Capital Goods, +2 Consumer Goods) (2 available Bays) (10 Political Support) [81, 61, 57, 88]

Rapid work has continued on the Enterprise. While falling behind schedule to complete in the eighteen months remaining in the plan, it is not far behind, and catching up will simply require further infusions of resources.

At the same time, the final shape of the station is beginning to take form. It is an ugly creature, a mass of functional components exposed to the vastness of space, coated in radiators. At both ends, rings covered in mounting points for new industry are still taking shape, with one bay ready to be filled, and two others nearing completion. It is the first and last of its kind, a prototype ugly duckling, built in a tumultuous time as Humanity takes some of its last steps to claim the heavens. Future stations are likely to be sleek, modular designs, built to last and for specific purposes, rather than the general-purpose prototype of the Enterprise.

As for the bays, there are many competing visions, each championed by its own faction.

The Developmentalists see the clear purpose of the station as a prototype, an asset to be leveraged to claim the Solar system as a whole, favoring conversion into a shipyard, building both fusion and gravitic drive ships, but also as a birthing point for large chunks of station components. Enterprise may be the only one of its kind, but, fundamentally, as a station high in Earth's gravity well, it can do things that are difficult or impossible down on Earth.

Their main opposition however is the Militarist party, seeing Enterprise's more immediate uses. Most notably its ability to support further development of the OSRCT concept that has proven its validity repeatedly in the last six months of heavy action. With the current war their immediate focus, they see it as a means of providing GDI with an incredibly rapid means of reinforcement, building orbital support satellites, combat equipment, and advanced equipment that is difficult to manufacture properly on Earth.

[ ] Orbital Cleanup (Stage 9)
With much of the largest and slowest of the debris collected, all that remains is the increasingly small and fast dust and sand remaining in the orbitals. While still significantly problematic, it is unfortunately much less profitable to mine, as there is not enough material left to save launches.
(Progress 85/85: 10 resources per die) (20 resources) (Unlocks Low Orbit Support Satellites)
(Progress 85/85: 10 resources per die) (15 resources)
(Progress 32/85: 10 resources per die) (10-15 resources) (Unlocks Orbital Power Stations) [78, 31]

As part of a series of cost saving measures, GDI has run many more clearance operations, harvesting some of the last remaining free floating elements in orbit. Beyond that, the Initiative has started to shift strategy. Rather than simply covering the navigation hazards, it has begun a proactive decommissioning campaign, focusing on items like the early ASAT network, communications units, and other systems that have survived, and are still functioning, but are now in a state of disrepair.

However, with this the low orbits now have vast amounts of real estate available for development. Between decades of communications, sensors, and other satellites in the region, it had been notably congested, with previous constellations often leaving their units in orbit, rather than attempting to plan for end of life demands. This real estate already has been planned for. The Space Force intends to add some 120 new light ion cannons, plus hundreds more support lasers and kinetic impactor launchers. However, the keystone will actually be a new model surveillance system, using low orbit extremely precise cameras, plus a large number of EVAs, to begin to spot the minute distortions created by stealth fields. A standard surveillance satellite has resolutions as low as ten to fifteen centimeters on the ground, still far too coarse to find these distortions. In order to effectively detect them, a resolution of below five centimeters is required, and that is likely to only shrink as the Brotherhood builds improved stealth models.

[ ] Neural-Interfaced Operating Theaters
While much of the funding for this can come from the welfare department, other parts, such as the capital goods required to set up these complex and highly technical rooms, will need to come from the Treasury, and the Services department.
(Progress 122/160: 20 resources per die) (+6 Health, -2 Capital Goods) [6, 62]

While the operating theaters themselves are complete, the system as a whole has run into a number of issues. To begin with, nearly all of the experts in neural interface training and the neural interfaces themselves are either military or (in far smaller numbers) Treasury staff. This has meant that the end users have had to rely on a very small cadre of technicians from the Treasury, especially when it comes to learning how to use the new system, and calibrating the machines. With neural interfaces, each brain is unique, and while it is not something where you need a different neurohelmet for each person, it is something where everyone needs to have their mental imprint and sensor settings on file in the computer, a process that takes a substantial amount of time to complete, as they need to go through every command possible with the system.

At the same time, there are problems on the medical side, specifically in the training allocations. With the medical system increasingly overstressed by waves of wounded and refugees, there are simply not enough practitioner hours to both provide care in an immediate sense and learn an entirely new system, even if that system was faster, cheaper, and substantially more efficient than traditional medical methodology.

[ ] Tactical Airborne Laser Deployment (New)
Lightweight, high efficiency and utterly lethal infernium lasers, capable of fighting at ranges that had been previously exclusive to missiles, and doing severe damage to nearly any asset in the Brotherhood's arsenal. Deployment will be somewhat costly, but should rapidly shift the balance of power in the air.
(Progress 219/210: 20 resources per die) (-2 STUs, -3 Energy) [25, 46, 70]

The TAL factory has begun supplying the first new laser pods to the air force. This has brought both significantly higher loss rates and vastly higher claimed kills among squadrons equipped with the new laser systems, primarily Firehawks.

Current Firehawk doctrine calls for Launch on Contact, firing off dozens of missiles at long to extreme range, rather than trying to close into more effective ranges. Substantial expenditure of missiles, even assuming hit rates of below five percent under some circumstances, is a cheap cost to pay compared to the losses of men and aircraft involved in the relatively close range engagements produced by the TAL. Simply splashing the laser across a section of the hull is not enough to produce instant lethality. It does have a burn time, and holding a point on an incredibly maneuverable fighter is quite difficult, leading to shorter engagement ranges as they hunt for kills.

However, it is a substantial upgrade in lethality on the average. While Barghests make it problematic, they are actually a relatively limited part of most battlefields. Over three quarters of the targets out there are Carryalls and Venoms, both of which suffer badly against the new TAL. Carryalls, especially, have effectively no defense and are not nearly maneuverable enough to avoid taking critical damage. There have been times, such as the battle preceding the assault on Cheyenne Mountain, when a mixed force of Venoms and Carryalls simply absorbed every missile fired on them. Today, that problem is substantially less real; a Firehawk can loiter in the battle space to recharge its laser before making another gun run. While the effectiveness of the Firehawk does substantially decrease after the first missile attack, it is not nearly as useless as it was before.

Looking at longer term combat asset deployment, the Air Force is looking back and reconsidering the Crystal Beam Laser. With current limitations on STU production, it is not viable to try to equip every airframe with Infernium lasers, especially when considering the sheer number of drones that are likely to be the future of the GDI airborne arsenal. While future airframes are likely to carry integral lasers, including refits to the Apollo, Aurora, and Orca lines, these are likely to be short range crystal beam based point defense lasers, intended to reduce losses, rather than more powerful lasers designed to kill enemy aircraft.

[ ] Plasma Warhead Factory (Phase 1) (New)
The T-10E (Plasma) is probably the most expensive missile of its size ever built by the Initiative. Relying on rare stable transuranic elements, it has significant value, both in air to air and air to ground roles, providing massive damage, and a small form factor. However, it does need a dedicated, if small, production line to provide a trickle of missiles to take out specific high value targets.
(Progress 53/90: 10 resources per die) (-1 STU) [27]

The Plasma Warheads have run into further issues, this time in mass production. Part of it is a matter of methodology. Cast explosives, even in complicated patterns, have been produced for nearly two centuries. Nuclear implosion devices, for over a century. The science and art of building an explosive is a place where generations have honed the same skills, and stood on each other's shoulders. The elerium charge device is a fundamentally different system, a simple electronic circuit that just happens to release a sizable amount of energy into the surrounding environment.

This has meant that standard hiring practices simply don't work. While there are plenty of people who know how to build an explosive to Initiative specification, and plenty of people who can do each individual component of the device, the system as designed is not particularly easy to line up with existing skillset classifications and qualifications. Battering through the Initiative's bureaucracy and ensuring the qualifications of the staff will unfortunately take another round of focus and funding.

[ ] Wingman Drone Deployment (High Priority) (New)
With the Wingman drones, GDI has begun to lay out a platform for a future of warfare, primarily built around pilot survivability, and preparing for a series of larger and more intensive aerial campaigns around the world.
- [ ] Apollo Wingmen (Progress 351/210: 20 resources per die) (-4 Energy, -1 Capital Goods) [84, 98, 91]

The Apollo series Wingman drones have so far had a limited effect. While popular with pilots and ground crews, there are far from enough of them yet. While much of initial production can be taken from the spare parts and excess production for the manned version of the Apollo, not everything can be, and those components are a severe bottleneck so far. While this is expected to be resolved in the coming months as production ramps up on a separate supply line, it is not yet ready.

In combat, there are two key problems, one inherent to the design, and the other a flaw that can be remedied. First, it congests the attack space. With every additional airframe, the flight paths to ensure that a gun run is safe, and not backstopped by, for example, a squadron of Firehawks, becomes substantially more complicated. With the Initiative relying on filling airspaces to ensure enough volume of fire in order to kill highly maneuverable Brotherhood fighter craft, battles rapidly become highly complex and tightly choreographed dances in the sky, ones that Wingmen complicate by being typically fairly tight to their paired aircraft.

Second is actually that pilots want significantly more customizability on their control interfaces. As the Apollo was never built with Wingman drones in mind, it lacks many options pilots want, especially when an Apollo and the Wingman are carrying more than a total of three munitions options. It is not a problem that requires more than software rewrites and a patch is coming, but it is a symptom of the extremely rushed schedule to begin bringing the aircraft into service.

"Brothers and Sisters: By order of the High Commander of our order, the <indecipherable> now will use the following guidelines for kill-counts with regard to GDI drones. To the best of our ability, <indecipherable> the drones separately. Kills that cannot be confirmed as either drone or piloted will count as 1/2 of a kill, rounding down to the nearest whole integer. This will slow kill-count inflation, and focus our energies where they belong. Slay the GDI meat, and ignore the distracting metal that attempts to flutter around in your sensors."
-Intercepted transmission, South American Yellow Zone.


[ ] Shark Class Frigate Shipyards (High Priority) (New)
The Shark unfortunately is of a size that GDI cannot simply reuse an existing ship's extra slipways to build the class. Too small for even the older destroyer shipyards, it needs much of its own dedicated space.
-[ ] Quonset Point (Progress 360/300: 20 resources per die) (-6 Energy, -2 Capital Goods) [95, 45, 44, 72]

Quonset Point was at one time a naval base, and then later converted into a civilian airport. Now, it is a shipyard. Chosen due to being relatively far from large scale civilian inhabitation, it could host work around the clock to convert both decayed industrial park and broken down runway into a massive shipbuilding complex, a production line for frigates running east to west starting with subcomponent assembly as much as ten kilometers away, and all concluding at a series of twenty slipways on the coast. This assembly line of ships allows for rapid production, with one ship in the slipway and being assembled, while other components are being built for the next one in line.

Unfortunately, even with every time-saving measure possible using modern technology, it will take months to build each ship, and then months more of fitting out, sea trials, and training before it is ready to be commissioned as a fighting ship. The first squadron is at least a year out, although subsequent waves will rapidly drop as they can start construction long before the slipway itself is cleared.

[ ] Merchantman Carrier Conversions
With the Merchantman conversions, switching a substantial number of ships to carry Hammerheads and Orcas instead of cargo, it is a both politically and practically problematic approach. While certainly theoretically possible, and something that GDI has the design specifications to do. It will be a stop gap measure.
-[ ] High Commitments (Complete all Escort Carrier Shipyards by end of Plan) (Progress 150/200: 20 resources per die) (-10 PS) [39, 59]

A merchantman, fundamentally, is as much of an empty tub as it is possible to build. Every one of these ships has a singular purpose, to haul vast amounts of cargo long distances. While this is problematic for a warship, it is highly useful for a carrier, especially a VTOL carrier in the modern day. However, compromises made during construction to facilitate this purpose make it relatively limited in maneuverability, and without good locations for a number of sensor systems, especially those that require large amounts of flat area high up on the ship.
One feature that all modern carriers share is a contained and armored hangar deck. Rather than expose the aircraft to not only the salt air and spray, but ion storms coming off the land, they are contained within an environmentally sealed hangar deck, a shirt sleeves environment for work.

The armoring is the problem, specifically because it has to be able to move out of the way. While on a standard carrier, this feature would have been designed in from the get go, on the conversions this requires a significant amount of work. The result has been a set of funiculars, with four platforms. One at the bottom, one at the top, able to launch and recover two aircraft at a time. This design was chosen specifically because it allowed for the best seal on the carrier's deck without obstructing flight operations.

In terms of defenses, while they do carry a quartet of T-20e configured antiaircraft launchers and a pair of point defense lasers, they lack the sensor complement or power to make best use of the systems allocated to them, and internally do not have nearly as much protection, leaving any hit as a potentially lethal one.

Politically, while the Navy is severely unhappy about needing them, it does recognize that they are needed, especially with the ongoing losses to raider groups, and more importantly the loss of multiple cruisers and other heavy assets in naval battles this quarter. The necessities of war require such vessels, in order to free up carriers for more dangerous routes. While, for example, the northern Atlantic routes are relatively secure - with most of the danger coming from trans-Arctic submarine attacks which are often suppressed by the ring of GDI airbases and masses of low-flying V-35s doing anti-submarine operations - and can be serviced by the conversions, other routes are far less safe. The riskiest routes are the runs from South America to Australia and New Zealand, followed shortly thereafter by the runs across the Indian Ocean, both to the Middle East and Australia, and will need proper carriers in large numbers to properly protect convoys.

[ ] Neural Interface System Refits (Talons)
The Talons have multiple mech programs that could make use of this system, however it does require an extensive rebuild of their interface systems. Doing so would however significantly improve their performance, both in battle and across terrain, along with hopefully making pilots less reckless with their Havoc knees and hips.
(Progress 170/105: 25 resources per die) [87]

As the production lines have finished their refits, the first neural interface systems have begun to hit field units. While so far only a marginal number have been deployed to the field, the units that have gotten the refits, mostly in the deeper Blue Zones, are quite happy with them. For one, they have begun requesting about half again as many units as previous copilots are now able to pilot a mech on their own. This is especially the case for Titan companies, as the integrated system now allows a mech to be adequately fought without a second person assisting. While there are still significant advantages to having a pair of operators, the Talons current thinking is that those best apply to the commanders rather than the rank and file. So, in the proposed system, a squadron of Titans would remain an eight man unit, but with six mechs instead of four, with the Commander and the Second operating in the rumble seat to manage the unit as a whole, while the pilot drives.

The other elements of the Steel Titans have their own praise, with the Havocs offering the most complaints, mostly of hip and knee pains. The Logistics department has noted that units equipped with the new neurohelmets are significantly less likely to require replacement hips and knees.

"Had a guy coming back from a long patrol in a Wolverine decide he was just gonna go to bed after reporting in. So he tried to walk into the CO's office and make his report, forgetting he was still in the Wolverine."
-Anonymous


A/N: This ended up basically done before the battle segments, so I finished it up and pushed it out. Over the next few days I am aiming to finish writing up the battles and get those out to you as well. However, on the 13th and 14th, I am travelling, so there is a lot of other stuff I need to be doing as well.
 
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The Regency War, Part 4: No More Terrible Thing - Gideon
The Regency War, Part 4: No More Terrible Thing -Gideon

Gideon was not having a good day. To call it bad was an understatement, terrible was simply not enough. Not only had Mondragon abandoned him, raising his own banner in the west, in the north, another had claimed the loyalty of all the Brotherhood in the North, one that swore loyalty to that damned fool Krukov at that.

But more locally, things were going from calamitous to apocalyptic. While GDI had not claimed much of his territory, there were tank columns as far south as Jacksonville and one had even penetrated all the way to the Mobile Bay MARV hub.

Gideon's ravaged home base had become increasingly reliant on shipments of goods from other parts of his holdings, depleted of heavy military hardware by multiple repeated massive failed major offensives and with MARVs and Initiative airpower along both the northern and western fronts. With those cut off, Gideon has found himself in a corner, forced to rely on what material he can beg from other warlords, most notably Mehretu, but also Stahl and others. Stahl, with his well known distaste for Gideon's methods, primarily sends what little he can get away with, rather than actually sending good equipment. Yet, with the Initiative's armored columns running deep into his home territory, many of the port facilities that Gideon has relied on have been targeted either by airstrikes, blown up by engineers, or, in some cases, thoroughly pillaged, especially the one in Jacksonville, which has seen vast columns of trucks going north, carrying with them hard begged technologies of war.

The Jacksonville raid was one of many conducted during the course of this war, and is a key part of the Initiative's new Deep Strike doctrine. While in previous wars, for the most part, the Initiative tended towards a defensive posture, in this one, the Initiative has been intensely, almost single mindedly, aggressive.

Relatively small forces - typically an augmented brigade, although they can get significantly larger - can detach from supply lines for a matter of days, penetrate deep into Nod territory, run rampant in the backlines for a time, and then retreat towards friendly territory. The Jacksonville raid differed only in two factors: distance and success. In terms of distance, it was an offensive over two hundred kilometers deep into enemy territory, without a secure supply line. Most operations of the type are less than a hundred kilometers deep, raiding the nearer positions, but still close enough to the rest of the Initiative forces that it is possible for even the slower assets to rabbit back within range of the massed artillery parks of the front line.

In terms of success, it was able to close one of Gideon's ports, at least for a time, and rampage through areas that GDI has been effectively unable to meaningfully access since before the Third Tiberium War.

The force taken was a specially formed augmented brigade. At the core, it was a pair of mechanized regiments and an armored regiment, all backed by a substantial number of independent battalions, including one battalion of powered armor, scraped together from small detachments of ZOCOM as far away as Chicago. There are few forces like it in the world, with only the North American Blue Zone having ZOCOM commitments that can be seriously reduced, as Savannah and Chicago are enveloped within the steadily expanding Blue Zones.

The force formed up on May 2, drawn together from previously far flung positions. By the 11th, it was fully equipped and supplied, with well over a week's provisions and supplies, including a massive fuel convoy to feed the vehicle fleet. While Initiative vehicles are fuel efficient, the sheer number and size of them means that for each combat vehicle there is another truck full of fuel to feed it on an operation like this one, in a somewhat similar manner to how armies before the age of steam could not effectively operate more than about six days before running out of carried rations.

The force struck southwest at first, avoiding the marshy lands along the coast, and drove inland at top speed, many of the power armored troops locked to specially mounted bars on the hulls of the Predators at the van. Taking a route that a previous offensive had smashed open, they drove south, into the Georgian heartlands. Before long, they were deep in Nod territory, bypassing or destroying whatever rear line forces opposed them. From combat records, over five hundred missile attacks and many more smaller actions occurred over the next three days, as the raiding force wound its way first southwest and then back towards the southeast, often breaking from the road network and going cross-country to avoid concentrations of Brotherhood forces.

The battle at Jacksonville however was far more of a close-run thing. With GDI forces a small flying wedge, and Jacksonville one of the largest still open ports for Gideon it was well defended. The other option of Jacksonville's size was Tampa, and all of the other ports under Gideon's control combined could barely match even one of the big two.

Jacksonville is split by the St. John's River, in the middle of a vast marshland. Once home to camp Cuba Libre in the dying years of the 19th century, the land played host to vast swarms of malaria-carrying mosquitoes and all of the other forms of muck and disease. Among the many southern cities reinvented by the automobile, white flight, and the racism-driven redesigns of the mid- to late 20th centuries, by the dawn of the 21st it was a sprawl of tangled streets and strip malls, a beacon of the failures of American urban planning. However, in the modern day it is a very different place: a military port, and a churning logistical hub. Much of the imported material for the invasion of BZ-2 in 2047 passed through the city, as did the Legendary Insurgent.

Under normal circumstances, the small force available to GDI would be nowhere near enough to take the city, which played home to heavy mechanized forces and multiple chapters of the Black Hand. However, these are far from normal circumstances, with Gideon's peninsular forces stripped to the barest of bones to shore up his positions northward, especially as the MARVs coming online have made operations increasingly difficult. What remained of the defenders was a grab-bag of shattered units - like the White Lions, who had been withdrawn from the front, reduced from some eight hundred battle brothers and thousands of confessors to 150 battle brothers, 800 confessors and less than a thousand other personnel in various supporting aspects - and a locally raised home guard. The quality varied heavily, in total being little more than a bucket of spit, stiffened with a handful of buckshot. Some units were shattered both practically and morally, Gideon's calls for sacrifices having meant little but sound and fury in the face of GDI's industrial war machine and ever-encroaching advance.

As the northern raiding force approached, the decision was made not to allow them to go in on their own, but rather as part of a pincer movement. An OSRCT force of some three thousand soldiers (most in zone armor) was deployed, dropping south of the city to cut supply lines and create a second front. The vast majority of the defenses were positioned north of the city, anchored on one flank by the Okenfenokee swamp, and on the other by the Atlantic Ocean; in a long line of some eighty kilometers, using the natural curve of the land and rivers to make an advance more difficult. Nothing in the region beyond the swamp was enough to make things particularly troublesome for a modern armored fighting vehicle, and the line of fortifications was a complicated mess, undermanned and low on supplies and spare parts. Even before the beginning of the Regency War, the defenses had been light. In 2047, with GDI over a thousand kilometers away, it was little more than a picket line of anti-aircraft positions - an early warning line and enough to offer a somewhat more than token amount of pain for an incoming aircraft. Even in the mid-2050s it had remained light, despite GDI pushing forward into the Carolinas. It was only with the beginning of the construction of the Savannah MARV hub that it was seriously considered that GDI could actively threaten Jacksonville itself.

The attack began late at night, at around 23:30 on May 15, after a half hour of allowing the force to transition from a thin column to a broader wedge, and rearranging some of the elements so that the forward units were some of the freshest available. With no easy flank, there was little choice but to smash headlong into the defenses, supported by air bases in northern Georgia and the Carolinas.

In their front were the Charleston Riflemen (as with many of their fellows, understrength and low on supplies), militants who had lost their home soon after the Third Tiberium War. While few were native to the region, the unit was a blooded force, one that had held off similar armored assaults before and in some cases in far less favorable terrain - although in those cases it had much more support. As missiles soared in from the Blue Zone's rocket artillery batteries, a few dozen T-20Es found their mark among the Riflemen. Bunkers and Reckoners exploded into scrap and rubble marked by the popping of exploding ammunition, all before the first tanks came into view. Firing on the move, railgun slug after railgun slug punched holes through Brotherhood positions, focusing their fire on control hubs as best as possible, and destroying turrets where it was not. Entire sections fell silent as the first wave of the air strikes flew in, laying fire all up and down the line to create confusion as the tanks crashed into St. Marys River and began climbing up the other bank.

As they did so the Charleston Riflemen, battered and disorganized, opened fire at point-blank range. Having held their missiles in reserve, they unleashed every rocket they could fire from their RPG-43s and new RPG-59s, swarms of green streaks racing towards the Predators as they emerged. In return, scything hailstorms of bullets cracked against entrenched positions and skipped over rooftops, while laser blasts lit up the night, swatting down missile after missile as the tanks formed into a defensive line and zone troopers and grenadiers moved up. Even so, missiles slipped through. A laser can stop one missile, or even a stream of them, but no defense is perfect and the limitations of the turret mean that a massed, short range barrage can punch through and land hits - usually not enough to kill a tank, but enough to be problematic. However, even with the heaviest readily-available munition being a 120mm mortar round mounted on the expedition's Pitbulls and the 200mm T20 rockets either carried or mounted to a number of the other vehicles, the Nod forces that moved were suppressed, and could only carry out what were effectively suicide attacks.

Breakthrough occurred within minutes, the GDI wedge cracking the front line and advancing forward at a rapid pace, Brotherhood units scattering before them. To the south of the city, the OSRCT landed in relatively good order, and began forming for what would be their largest operation to date. The two launching stations had left them somewhat scattered, in two clusters separated by a matter of kilometers. However, that still left them on time, on target, and the best equipped paratrooper force in the history of mankind.

Advancing to meet them were the White Lions. While the existence of the OSRCT had been disclosed since their battle at Murmansk, their precise capabilities had not been fully demonstrated. There, they had fought as boarders and power armored marauders. Powerful to be sure. Dangerously capable, of course. But still nothing that the Brotherhood had not faced and defeated before. That, in this case, was a dangerous underestimation, with the forward elements of the White Lions encountering dismounted squads of Zone Raiders at 11:45, and collapsing back on the rest of the advancing force by 11:55 after a short and sharp firefight.

The White Lions, following their near destruction in previous battles, had reorganized into nine companies in three battalions. The First, Fourth and Ninth companies were at the vanguard of the force, and would form the left flank in the battle to come. The Second, Fifth, and Eighth companies comprised the second battalion and right flank. And finally, the Third, Sixth, and Seventh companies - all marginally understrength and with little in the way of mechanized equipment beyond their complement of Reckoners, buggies, and attack bikes - formed the third battalion and the center. Beyond the core infantry complement, under normal circumstances the force would have been well supplied with a whole litany of support vehicles, from anti-aircraft companies operating swarms of expendable Mantis drones, to assault battalions of Purifier warmechs and batteries of Spectre artillery. Here however, the force was significantly lighter, with none of the customary weapons (many of which required significantly more skilled maintenance and upkeep than standard Brotherhood equipment) available to the force. Instead, in addition to being a fully motorized force, the White Lions could call on a mere company of Flame Tanks, and two more of Scorpions. If there was a silver lining to all this however, it was the number of artillery tubes they could count on: a full six batteries of Spectre artillery, sitting on an effectively infinite supply of shells.

After first contact with a small scouting force, the battle quickly ramped up, the fast moving OSRCT committing to a frontal attack and moving into a general engagement. A matter of minutes after first contact, railgun streaks ripped open the night with blue-white flashes as ferrous shot flash heated from the friction. At the same time, the Nod artillery began its own bombardment, with the Spectres firing as quickly as they could be loaded, and any units of the OSRCT that could not quickly come to close grips with the enemy were pounded by a constant barrage. While the armored forces suffered, the infantry were surprisingly hit far less hard. Some of this could easily be down to how dispersed a unit of Zone Troopers can be, with a single man covering dozens of meters of front, and capable of repositioning within a few hundred meters faster than any armored fighting vehicle.

At the same time, with the line to the north breached near its western end, other piecemeal units, many of them small and understrength formations began peeling away as the GDI invaders punched through. They advanced steadily, making an average speed of over thirty kilometers per hour even with resistance stiffening as they closed on the city.

In the south, the OSRCT force closing to battle brought them within close particle-beam shot, and railgun rounds snapped across the distances in fractions of a second. Hammering home, the advantages of the OSRCT became obvious. The Scorpions lasted mere minutes as they were riddled by infantry fire. The flame tanks fared even worse, barely able to bring their weapons to bear before they found their own doom. It was the infantry fight that was the closest. While a particle beam is still a lethally-effective weapon, able to cut through a Zone Trooper's armor in mere seconds, it is a limited one, and the speed of Zone Troopers on the bounce makes it difficult to retarget - especially with how much flash and thunder can be produced by the modern battlefield. Conventional light enhancement or infrared night-vision goggles turn railgun rounds and laser blasts into blinding flares that take precious seconds to recover from. While Zone Troopers share some of the same problems, they have far greater preparations and a wider sensor fusion array, allowing them to operate at reduced efficiency even without their core visual and infrared sensors providing useful input.
Similarly, the difference in weight made itself known. Despite some initial chaos as troops oriented themselves and shook out into combat formations following the drop, the OSRCT was an effectively full strength formation. The White Lions by contrast had something at best approximating 15-20 percent of their total nominal strength, and had been repeatedly reorganized to try and maintain an acceptable number of maneuver units, even as they became lighter and lighter as casualties mounted. Despite their willingness to come to blows, the Lions collapsed as units evaporated in the face of overwhelming fire; and by the edge of Jacksonville proper the force had gone from 'spent' to 'obliterated,' with the officers leading one last suicidal counterattack carrying the chapter's emblems high.

In the north, the last stronghold was the airport. Originally built nearly a century prior at the dawn of the age of the commercial jetliner, with the age of the VTOL having arrived in full it had turned into a series of open defensive fields. A complex of defensive positions were arranged along the north of the airfield, using the open ground of the former northern runway as a killing field. It could be held by a small force against ten times their number. Unfortunately for the Brotherhood however, it would be fundamentally compromised by GDI through the simple expedient of a flanking maneuver, created by the angle of approach. Instead of marching down the ruins of the ancient I-95 - still the best invasion corridor, and one that could effectively carry Initiative troops from the far north of BZ-2 all the way to the tip of Florida - the Initiative force had come down along State Route 301 to what was once Callahan and then followed State Route 23, putting the GDI soldiers' approach directly on the flank of the defensive position anchored on the airport. The airfleet stationed there had nearly finished getting off the ground by the time GDI arrived, with only a few handfuls of heavy bombers, and two squadrons of Carrryalls left on the ground. The ground garrison on the other hand, without their heavy defenses to protect them, routed instead of fighting and fled pursued by the incoming GDI forces, who were then able to seize the defenses without significant effort expended.

Following the collapse of both the White Lions and the northern defenses, the city was laid bare, pincered between the advancing brigade to their north and the incoming OSRCT to their south. With little more to give, and little will to fight, the primary factors that prevented an immediate collapse of the Brotherhood defenders was the fragmentation of the city's defenses, and the chaos in the command structure. By 0550 however, the city was effectively under GDI control, with isolated pockets being most of what remained of the defenses.

"Jacksonville is ours and fairly won" were the first words transmitted to GDI high command in the aftermath of the battle, followed by requests for ships and the establishment of an air transport corridor. The latter was especially important, as even though GDI had seized the city in a matter of hours, it was far from controlling the surrounding environs, and even basic shoulder-launched missiles (of the kind for which there were over ten thousand rounds remaining in the city arsenal) could threaten incoming aircraft from beyond the security perimeter.

The seizure of the city brought with it a general looting of Brotherhood equipment. While Home Guard units were first established as ad-hoc territorial defense forces equipped with whatever could be found, GDI has made a concerted effort to ensure that such forces are properly equipped for their duty. While most are now roughly equivalent to a mechanized infantry unit with organic artillery support and the requisite logistical train to service them, the immediately-available transportation equipment was vastly insufficient to haul the treasure trove of equipment home. Many of the Brotherhood's haulers had fled before the Initiative's assault, and what remained was destroyed in the fighting. Bringing in cargo ships was also impossible, as a pair of Falaks had been sunk in the river by GDI missile strikes. Instead, an air corridor was established, with dozens of flights traveling across the sea towards Bermuda and then navigating back towards BZ-2, splitting up by purpose. Wounded were evacuated on the longest route, headed directly back to Washington. Salvage went to Charleston, and finally prisoners were taken to Savannah for internment.

In terms of intelligence, it was at once a titanic windfall and not much at all. While the total seized materials amount to some 150 terabytes of information* and several hundred kilograms of sensitive hardcopy, there is a vast shortage of actual time and resources for Intelligence to analyze, process, and most importantly disseminate this information. At this point, the full resources of the Intelligence community for GDI is being poured into counterinsurgency, weeding out infiltrators and saboteurs among refugee columns, and providing immediate tactical information. While this is an absolute windfall that will pay dividends for years to come, the immediate gains are limited but noticeable.

However all was not entirely black. Havana and the other Caribbean outposts had been reporting victories against the Initiative's sea convoys, and while the Initiative had far more aircraft - and better ones at their disposal - Gideon had a critical advantage: an internal line. He could (barely) manage to gather his forces, hit a target on the edges of a blue or green zone, and then bug out before the strike was absolutely swarmed under by a dogpile of Initiative Firehawks, and more notably Apollos. Even with all of their speed, it still takes time for Apollos to respond - more than enough for a squadron of Barghests to pounce on whatever targets of opportunity present themselves, and then run for safety under the umbrella of Nod air defenses.

One such raid was on the Indianapolis Junction. Once the site of a major city, today it is all but abandoned; just a few skeletal buildings, with scrappers and crabs crawling through its rusted hulks, tearing the corpse of the city down for building materials. The site is also a relatively major rail hub, serving as a connection between the northern links towards Chicago, and western ones toward the Richmond-New York urban corridor. With both supply lines joining, it feeds operations across the interior American south, from the Appalachian mountains to the edges of the Chicago salient.

While now comfortably inside the Blue Zone, it is far from settled, a lower priority for the Air Force - between the needs to defend Chicago, and support the offensives across Gideon's territory, the junction itself lacks a properly layered air defense commensurate with its importance. While Chicago is less than two hundred kilometers away, close enough that GDI air power could be in the area in a matter of minutes, and the site itself played home to numerous anti-aircraft batteries, laid out in a now standard three ring approach, it was far from invulnerable to attack.

GDI anti aircraft tactics have evolved significantly in the last decade. In 2050, the baseline approach was a studded defense. Even with the best sensors available at the time, a Vertigo bomber - the most common intruder in anti-aircraft operations - would not be detectable outside the range of a high velocity 47mm antiaircraft rotary autocannon. So instead of trying to create a deeply-layered defensive network, most of the emphasis was on a mix of studs and points. Studs (or forward batteries) are often simple arrays of four to six guns scattered in some random pattern around a base, while points served to defend particular hardpoints.

In the modern day however, there have been several major upgrades, allowing a return to principles closer to an IADS approach. These are typified as three rings. The first, outermost ring is primarily built around the autocannon, and is known as the tripwire, with the sensors at each battery creating an overlapping field some twenty to fifty kilometers out from the point of defense. Behind them, ten to fifteen kilometers out from the point of defense are the emplacements of the primary ring, which are loaded down with long Thunderbolt missiles, either racked up in box launchers ready to be barraged forth in vast numbers, or using variants of the Pacifier launch system to add even more range and velocity to the platform. Finally, within five kilometers of the point of defense is the last line of systems: a mixed battery of guns and missile launchers, which serve to bleed any leakers through the first two lines.

In most cases this exists more in the ideal than the practical. At Puerto Madryn for example, there is a gap created by the geography of the site, with positions out on a peninsula, and a wide water gap, where the defenses are loosened. Similar problems appear across the Initiative, where hills, mountains, water, and weather create problems for the defenders, ones that the Brotherhood of Nod is often quick to exploit. However, at Indianapolis, few of those problems apply, and with the city coming down in short order a near-ideal layout has been arranged.

Gideon gathered together what remained of his air force - mostly squadrons of Venoms and Vertigos, little different from the arsenal found in the Third Tiberium War, his forces of Barghests effectively depleted or shattered by six months of grinding defeat and his repeated attempts to break out of his encirclement. What remains had been gathered towards some of the few remaining intact air bases at Gideon's disposal, or dispersed towards forward positions. What he needs at this point more than anything else is space and time - things that a decisive strike towards a junction like Indianapolis can buy him - in order to relocate further south, and evacuate critical aspects of his military and infrastructure base. By crippling GDI logistics capacity in the trans-Appalachian south, he could buy months - potentially up to a year - where he could draw valuable forces and more importantly infrastructure away to safety.

The night of May 7, the first wave of the air strike began, squadrons of Vertigos flew nape-of-the-earth, muffled engines quietly whining away as they passed over empty fields. To get there, they had been forced to take a long dogleg from the south east, where a salient had emerged, creating a gap in GDI's sensor coverage. Slipping the Vertigoes in, they had passed through multiple layers of defenses, from the front line mobile anti-aircraft batteries to the fortress towns, approaching the outskirts of the junction around 2200 under cover of darkness.

At the same time Shadow Teams, many of whom had been part of stay-behind forces using hidden bunkers and boltholes to keep their munitions, emerged from hiding, hitting critical radar sites and other sensor sites with ruthless precision. Guarded by mechanized infantry, the sites were primarily built around air defense. While this meant that the wing packs of the Shadow teams were little more than liabilities, on foot the shadow teams were still able to cut their way through the defending infantry and begin laying charges. As the central command stations began detecting the incoming airstrike, the Shadow's explosives - laid in weapons emplacements and targeting systems - began to go off, waves of detonations rippling across the first and second defensive lines and punching a hole for the incoming bombers.

The innermost batteries surrounding the junction opened fire shortly after the bombers opened their bays, engines revving up to a low roar as they increased their acceleration. Burst after burst of shrieking blue-white railgun darts slashed across the sky, incandescent as they burned through the atmosphere. Behind them followed a swarm of missiles, mostly proximity-fuse fragmentation T10s, with a handful of Quick Maneuver missiles mixed into the barrage. Aircraft after aircraft fell to the ground, but it was too little, too late.

Bombs rained down from the open bomb bays of the Vertigo squadrons, mostly smaller 50- or 100-kilogram devices, with dozens of tiberium shard bombs mixed in, laying down a storm of green upon the junction. With the first Apollo still over a minute away, the Vertigos began to make their turn, closing bomb bays and vanishing back into the night. Two of the trailing squadrons however were somewhat slow in escaping, and were pounced on by the incoming interceptors.

In 1941, the 588th Night Bomber regiment was flying Polikarpov U-2 biplanes. Training aircraft built from 1928 onward the Polikarpov had a top speed of 152 kilometers per hour. The Me-109s that their German opponents flew had a stall speed only marginally lower, making it extremely difficult to fight them - to the point where of the 23,672 sorties flown by the regiment, only 32 members died of all causes combined. The Vertigoes found themselves in a somewhat similar position, with very different results. Low, and by this point incredibly slow - to the point where the self same Me-109s could well have attempted to make intercepts - as they turned away from the blasted ruins beneath them, they were intercepted by Apollo fighters going well over twice the speed of sound. Even in an age of guided missiles, the Apollos only had seconds before their airspeed would send them slashing past the Vertigoes. With guns it would have been impossible. With missiles and EVA assistance, the primary limiting factor was somewhat more prosaic: the limited capacity of the internal munitions stores on an Apollo.

The two tailing squadrons were all but obliterated by the rain of missiles, but it was effectively too little, too late. Even as the last of the planes closed their bays and engaged stealth fields once more, two of the inbound missiles initiated impact detonation mode, a final last ditch attempt to make a kill, and one, either by good fortune or good aim slammed into the port wing of one of the Vertigos, causing the stealth field to first flicker, and then fail completely as the aircraft spiraled towards the ground, pulling up into a controlled crash-landing at the last moment.

The damage to the site was massive and comprehensive. Now riddled with green shards, and while much of the rails and ties are still more or less in the same place, that is far from enough to run a train through, let alone complicated switching or using the site as an entrepot. With the site destroyed, and with it tens of thousands of tons of supplies, munitions, and equipment lost or forced to reroute, GDI offensives are set to grind to a near halt as units run out of critical equipment. Even with the rapid growth of the logistics networks and the number of secondary lines, too much was staged for transit through the Indianapolis junction to rapidly reorient towards other lines.

In terms of larger consequences, Gideon has struck a meaningful blow. While a marginal one, likely buying him only weeks or months, and almost certainly less than a year, it does put an end to any ambitions for the Initiative to close the American South as a front. At the same time, politically Gideon is ever more likely to fall into the orbit of another warlord. While geographically the ones that would be most responsive are Stahl and Reynaldo, the former has an intense dislike of the man, and the latter is currently facing offensives deep into his core territories.

If there is a silver lining to all this , it is that Indianapolis was lightly-manned, fundamentally transitory, and far from any nearby settlement. With containment operations ongoing, there is little need to concern GDI's population or work around their needs.

*To put this number into perspective. If we assume 300 dpi greyscale images, a single square inch consumes about 300 bytes of data. A page of A4 consumes about 8 megabytes. In those terms, this would be about 17.36 million pages of A4. It is far from being all image files.
 
The Regency War: Part 5 - Mighty Fortresses
The Regency War: Part 5 - Mighty Fortresses

Theater: South America
Unlike the other regions, the War in South America has been going poorly for GDI. While Escoffier is talented enough as a general, Stahl is one of the best in the world and has used the confusion of the refugee wave he sent to GDI lines well, preparing to win a series of major victories -- ones that have made GDI bleed heavily in the region.

With the Initiative goaded into offensives after the defeats and frustrations of the first three months of fighting, Escoffier launched an attack north, driving across the open plains of northern Argentina in an attempt to cut the neck of Stahl's position at the critical city of Rosario, the open connection between the front line spread across the continent and the Brotherhood's industrial hubs at Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo on the Brazilian coast. Stahl anticipated the offensive; it was the obvious weak point, a place where GDI had to go if it wanted to win the war in South America.

At the same time, the offensive was championed by politics. Local groups had long been frustrated by GDI's inability to secure the region, especially after the attacks on Rio over a decade ago. With Stahl's recent demonstrations of skill and ability however, that had reached a fever pitch, and even GDI's tendency to ignore local politics does have its limitations.

With the navy unable to detach anything heavier than a hydrofoil to support the invasion, GDI's air and ground forces had to do the heavy lifting on their own. Preparations began as early as the 7th of May, with additional squadrons of Firehawks and Apollos being transferred in from the West African theater, along with the vast majority of Apollo Wingman drones so far produced. These movements were part of a grand shuffle that shifted forces roughly clockwise around the Atlantic Front - moving assets away from the battlefields of North America and Europe, where the fighting had been intense but successful with GDI gaining victory after victory. Similarly, additional ground assets had been redeployed (mostly flown in from North America as well), including an armored division which left much of its equipment behind, and re-equipped from the local caches and depots.

By the end of May, the preparations were complete. With few points of contact between GDI forces and the enemy and Stahl having maintained a very mobile defensive force, GDI troops began to advance rapidly northwards on a narrow front, pushing from Green Zone positions near the Atlantic Ocean towards Buenos Aires and Rosario to strike a killing blow by cutting the critical supply chain off from the rest of the Brotherhood in South America.

Rather than try to fight GDI in a pitched battle, Stahl instead stalled for time, conducting a rapid fighting retreat using both standard Scorpions and a small number of the new plasma gun carriers. Stahl had made significant modifications to the latter compared to Gideon's initial design, opting to remove many non-critical systems in exchange for armoring the vehicle to a minimum acceptable standard.

GDI's initial advance was rapid, but with a pair of modifications to standard battle drill. A deep thrust along a narrow front comes with the risk of getting flanked on the axis of advance; so Escoffier secured his right flank with the Atlantic ocean, and every few kilometers the lead elements of the assault force peeled off to establish a secure position on the left flank. Doing so inevitably slowed down the advance, and offered Stahl valuable hours to react and concentrate his forces for a counter attack to pin Escoffier against the coast and cut GDI's own supply lines. Being no fool, Escoffier had expected this tactic, but the weight and ferocity of the assault was greater than anticipated.

The counterstroke began with a massive barrage of missiles streaking in from the north and west -- both the short range missile barrages of the stealth tanks (acting as ballistic chaff to distract missile defenses), and the cruise missiles that Stahl is growing infamous for. The response was simple: spread out, dig in, and wait for air support. Even in a massive crossfire like the one the assault force was facing, most of the missiles would not hit, and each missile has a relatively limited blast radius – especially against enemies with even a bare minimum of entrenching. Every meter of reduced threat in turn reduced the volume of the space that the defensive guns on the Predators needed to cover. And so even as tiberium-core missiles burst above and around them, GDI troops held firm, finding what cover and concealment they could as they waited both for the inevitable Nod follow-up, and for their own fighter- and bomber cover to reach them. While a combat air patrol was above the region, Stahl had waited for a low point – the existing patrol was low on both fuel and ammunition, and their replacements had not yet arrived.

With shrieking slivers of hateful green raining down upon the Initiative, Stahl's own troops made their move; orange bolts blasted into Initiative positions as his plasma tanks hit the leading edge of the advance, while along the flank up until about a hundred kilometers from the edge of the Green Zone, Stahl's troops hammered home. Hull-down binary propellant cannons sent streaks of fire forth, and at the same time, hidden pockets (passed over during the initial advance) erupted into swarms of Gana, rushing out to engage whatever unit was closest. While outnumbered, outgunned, and operating independently, they were collectively one more measure of mayhem on an already chaotic and disrupted battlefield.

Even with the Initiative troops having fallen to digging entrenchments with a will, the unexpectedly fierce shock attacks had their intended effect; they were too slow, too confused, and too disorganized to set up a proper defensive line. Rather, each of the dispersed companies – and in few cases battalions – were fragmented.. While they supported each other as best as possible, it was a piecemeal response, with the middle ranks often being unable to effectively coordinate. While Escoffier was able to order the broad strokes, and call in support from across the Blue Zone, the commanders at regiment- and brigade-level and higher were often unable to do much. A lieutenant, captain, or (to a lesser degree) major can each fight on nothing more than laser- and wideband short-range communications. A colonel or brigadier on the other hand needs larger and far more powerful communications devices, which are both relatively easily tracked and a priority for destruction by the Brotherhood as a consequence. While such tracking is far from precise enough for the equipment to be targeted from tens or hundreds of kilometers away by a missile launcher, a shadow team bold (or foolish) enough to be willing to break cover during a missile barrage to go hunting can certainly find them, and at least attempt to take them out.

With over a hundred thousand men engaged north of the Green Zone in a poor position, retrieving them was a high priority. Every remaining asset that could be spared surged north, wave after wave of aircraft surging for the combat zone at best possible speed with afterburners lit. Under normal circumstances, the Apollos would go first, sweeping the airspace before Firehawks and Orcas made their entrance. Here however, while the first wave was Apollo-heavy, the first squadrons on the scene were two of Firehawks and one of old A-15 Orcas. Scrambled from a nearby airbase and without the time to build speed and altitude they came in relatively low and slow – easy prey for the Barghests waiting for the response. A swarm of them dove in from high altitude, their plasma guns ripping green streaks across the sky. While two Barghests fell as GDI pilots snapped lucky shots with their QAAMs, they were joined by over half a dozen Firehawks in the first moments of battle, as well as four of the Orcas.

Soon enough dozens of other squadrons from across South America began to arrive on the scene, and scattered over the battlefield in dribs and drabs, hitting targets and then turning to return to base for re-armament. With hundreds of fighters behind them, rather than trying to close for better missile efficiency many GDI craft instead caracoled – closing only to long range, salvoing off a load of missiles into whatever looked threatening, and returning to base to clear the way for the squadron that had arrived seconds or minutes after them to shoot their own volley.

But as they returned home, the threat was not over. Stahl's men elsewhere had noticed the squadrons heading home and, on their own initiative, sortied interdictor and interceptor groups to harry returning squadrons as they raced for the border of the Blue Zone with the bulk of their munitions expended.

Even with the full weight of the Initiative's local air arm assisting, the battle on the ground was going poorly. Pinned down and strung out along a long front, with nothing to their rear but the sea, the only way out was a call back to a more brute-force and callous time: the line of fire. GDI's orbital assets hammered down with every weapon available as they passed over the region and unleashed indiscriminate fire into the strip of land that the Brotherhood was attacking from. Searing blue ion cannon flashes cut across the land, and kinetic impactors sprayed down like an artillery barrage from the ages before explosive fillers. The Brotherhood positions became a blasted alien moonscape, filled with craters of jagged glass, a result of the flash heating of an ion cannon strike, followed by the pummelling of orbital kinetic fires.

With the battle raging in northern Argentina, it was time for the stealth squadrons to strike. Staged out of a small airbase at the southern tip of Brazil, a full wing of Vertigo bombers took a circuitous low-and-slow route out over the Atlantic ocean, aiming for the same industrial centre that Stahl had failed to strike in an earlier engagement. With every fighter and drone GDI could send busy with the main force of Stahl's own as they tried to support Escoffier's army, the airspace above Puerto Madryn was unfortunately open, only contested by a partial squadron of A-16 Orcas which had been mauled in the previous fighting and had half their strength unavailable. When the Vertigos hit the edge of the defensive fields approximately fifty kilometers short of their target, the Orcas manoeuvered to intercept, and volleyed off air-to air missiles. While a half-dozen of the Vertigos either exploded or began falling towards the surface, the others pushed through the barrage, tail guns blazing away in arcs of screaming tracers as the Orcas closed and brought their railguns to bear. Inert bolts punched lengthwise through the bombers' hulls, but without any added payload in the penetrators each Vertigo took precious seconds to bring down as icepick after icepick raced through, searching for something vital.

While a further four Vertigos fell under the hail of railgun fire, others limped onward to the release point, launching a wave of munitions towards the industrial park, before turning and trying to break away. Harried by the Orcas on their way out, the remaining bombers nonetheless managed to escape without suffering further losses.

At the industrial park, a rumbling echoed from the blasts of the submunitions. While most of the industrial buildings stand, everything on and around them is far less than intact. Vehicles burned in the bombardment as surface tanks holding flammable liquids collapsed, and the cooling units and heat exchangers that dotted the surfaces of the buildings were reduced to shredded scrap metal.

In some ways, however, the Initiative was lucky. Stahl sent thirty-six aircraft to strike the location, of which twenty-six survived to release their pair of heavy cluster bombs. While not quite as effective at making concrete fly as a high explosive bomb of the same weight, cluster ordnance was chosen for its ability to shred the hundreds of softer parts of the plant. The damage is severe, with the entire plant taken offline, but it is not permanently disabled. Much of the plant can be restored immediately, while some other sections are expected to take many months to rebuild with local resources.

Elsewhere up and down the Blue Zone, similar strikes occurred, with squadrons hitting train yards, fuel centers, and other sites of military and industrial significance. Although some facilities are semi-permanent losses and require complete rebuilds, others can be brought back online in a matter of months. While the combined total tonnage of the strikes was comparatively light - less than was dropped on Germany during a single day in the Second World War - it was relatively precise and disabled several key points, which has ground many critical elements of GDI's South American industry to a halt.

The defeat of Escoffier's offensive and the coming rearrangement of Initiative command structures in the region marks the end of Operation Steel Vanguard in South America. Central command believed that further investment would be a matter of sending good resources after bad, and that any assistance granted to the South American front would result in little besides heavy losses.



Theater: Europe
In Europe, the Brotherhood of Nod has seen defeat after defeat, crushing victories won by GDI as they rolled through once-sunny fields and across ancient wine country; the twisted, sickly but persistent vines still holding on in bare patches even as armored steel beasts rolled through them.

The Warlords of Europe responded to GDI offensives slowly, baulky teams fighting their own battles rather than working together. As citadels and fortresses fell to the onrushing tide, the warlords chose to retreat, or to fortify their own holdings rather than try to come to each other's aid. While Reynaldo's men waged their war of terror and irregular guerilla action against GDI's backlines, the front surged forward, crushing towards the coast and running up against the edges of the Red Zones.

But the greatest battle was in Spain. At the ancient capital of Madrid, the self-styled Baron Ricardo Venuela called his banners forth, ready to hold the line and his city until the bitter end. From the north and west it is protected by the Sierra de Gredos mountain range, and from the south and east, by rolling hills. The city had been besieged before, most recently over a century ago during the Spanish Civil War.

As the Baron tried to rally his bannermen, only a few came to his aid. Rather than an army of tens of thousands, only a bare trickle came forth, mostly infantry – the dregs that could be spared, rather than the armored elite that he had been promised.

As he tried to summon more, the jaws of the Initiative closed on the city.

Amid the peaks of the Sierra de Gredos, the fighting had raged for weeks, with hundreds of GDI artillery pieces unleashing kilotons and kilotons of ordnance in a ruinous bombardment, and ion cannons shrieking down from the heavens, causing Nod hardpoints to vanish in flares of coruscating plasma. In the foothills below the mountains, some sixteen Initiative battalions made push after push, advancing by company and platoon, pincering individual positions as they painstakingly moved the front line forward.

The Initiative battalions were understrength formations, recovering from the last quarter's fighting. Salamanca had been used as a place to put weakened but not quite expended units into a fighting reserve. Here, the long-used beam cannon proved its worth time and again as a sniper's weapon, with long-range precision fire reaching out and blasting Initiative tanks. While the vast majority survived due to their ablative plates, it was in many cases a close-run thing. However, all of this amounted to little more than a distraction; the tanks often had layers of ablat three or four plates thick on their forward aspect, inviting fire in order to pin down Venuela's arms in the mountains.

The fighting in the mountains was ultimately a sideshow. It was in the south that the decisive battles would be fought, at the ancient walled city of Toledo. The open terrain allowed an entire Initiative armored brigade to push across the river west of the city, outflanking the defenders. However, the city itself still commanded the battlefield, and had to be reduced much like any other fortress to deny Brotherhood forces a point from which they could sally.

Held by two chapters of the Black Hand, it was a hard position, but drastically outnumbered. Rings of entrenchments – some new and some years old – had turned the curve of the river into a veritable fortress. On the southern and western sides of the city the approaches had been mined, with the side of the river nearest to Toledo fortified with concealed bunkers. Buildings had been gutted and repurposed all along the bank of the river, adding reinforced interiors, laser cannons, and plasma guns. Others had been demolished for mortar pits, or had fighting positions for tanks concealed inside them. The keystone however was an Ion Disruptor, although of a substantially smaller scale one than was found in the battle at Temple Prime. The city, its civilian population long vanished, was little more than a series of nested fighting positions.

Even with all the fire and fury raining down upon the city, it was taking too long. With a small-scale Ion Disruptor shielding the city, reduction or suppression via orbital bombardment was not viable. There was little choice but to try to take the fortress city by siege or storm, and with the pocket being reduced by the day and supply lines strained to support GDI's forces in the area, storm was the only viable option, – unless months of planning and campaigning were to go to waste.

The Ion Disruptor is a technology that has quietly proliferated, much to the Initiative's frustration. While there have been rumblings of its existence in documents and spy reports for years, it is only fairly recently that it has become a serious part of Brotherhood doctrine. While still substantially too expensive and far too large to be used everywhere, ion disruptors are a fundamental disruption to the tactical and strategic environment, one that takes GDI's greatest advantage and removes it from play. While the system does have its flaws, including a reliance on large and obvious projectors that can be destroyed from the ground or air once located, those flaws pale in comparison to the advantages it gives the Brotherhood.

Juggernaut artillery opened the battle proper shortly before dawn on the 19th of May, blasting shell after shell downrange. Shortly thereafter, batteries of Overseers began blasting away, raining 152mm shells down on the city. But even with masses of fire pouring in, the Brotherhood were giving as good as they got, counter-battery fire lashing out as gun calculators whirred – laying down deadly barrages of their own in return.

Rather than attempting a cross-river assault, one brigade was left to guard the southern approaches while the remainder of the GDI force shifted north of the river, away from the city, and then hammered back down from the north. After forty-eight hours of unceasing bombardment the city was a burning ruin – shattered buildings revealed the fighting positions within them, and then those same positions were blasted to smithereens under Initiative artillery fire. But still the defenders of the city held on, with acolytes of the Black Hand remaining hidden in tunnels and camped amid the shattered remnants of buildings, needing to be dug out of their hidden tunnels and blockhouses.

The Initiative's forces began picking their way forward, screening infantry advancing under covering fire from Guardians, Pitbulls, and Predators. And here the Brotherhood showed its cleverness once more. Nicknamed Sprinklers after the spray of grenades they created, the devices were simple iterations upon the throwing assistance found in Second Tiberium War era grenadier equipment. A simple electric motor spun an arm, catching from a vertical tube of grenades, then launched the grenade on a ballistic trajectory; and as the arm returned to retrieve a new projectile, it triggered a ratcheting mechanism to turn the launcher. While most were simple sprayers of fragmentation grenades, some were flinging magnetic devices, designed to adhere to the sides and bellies of tanks advancing forward. While these Sprinklers were many in number, each was cheap, and entire batteries could be either operated by a single observer or simply triggered by a well-placed tripwire or sensor.

Reynaldo's Confessors still carry a rotary rifle as their standard weapon; it has three rates of fire: slow, medium, and fast. Before the Third Tiberium War, most preferred to operate on the slow setting, using controlled bursts and laying down suppressive fire, allowing greater exposure to motivate the men around them. Now they had switched to the fast setting, making full use of the multiple barrels to empty their magazines in seconds, before ducking back behind cover to reload. Assuming the bursts hit, they will pound through even the improved body armor of an Initiative soldier. With the high rates of fire however, most did not, the recoil of the gun kicking the barrel up even as the erstwhile target dives for cover upon hearing the first crack.

The approach used by the Initiative to secure the city was a simple one. A Predator would advance down a road until fired upon, at which point it returned fire with its remote weapons system as the Guardians and infantry escorting it poured their own shots in or (often) called in artillery strikes rather than expose themselves. With the city already consisting largely of tossed rubble, it was a slow process, but one that limited casualties. Even so the fighting was hard and often confused, with a myriad of concealed tunnels and boltholes disgorging pockets of resistance behind the front lines, often resulting in rapidly-changing orders as the Initiative force reacted to suppress all of those same pockets.

The defenders held strong even as they were overwhelmed by fire, and refused to surrender until the Initiative destroyed the Ion Disruptor and seized one of the few remaining command posts to broadcast the news. Even then, some refused to lay down their arms and resistance continued, resulting in the ruined city being reduced to ash and cinders by orbital bombardment.


With the road to Madrid opened by the collapse of Toledo, the Initiative armies drove north, quickly surrounding the city and laying siege. Unlike Toledo, Madrid's defenders were far less motivated, and demoralized from the flashes of Ion cannon strikes over the last days. Rather than trying to hold, many surrendered, with columns of prisoners of war trickling north and west, towards Blue Zone POW camps, awaiting clarification as to their status.

"This will cost ya, y'know?"
"The deal is sealed and my testament is that. An oath."
"Lighten up, wouldn't ya? You're no fun."
"The situation is not. This damnable War needn't occur."
"Yet, you're fighting."
"It'd be a disservice to
us if we don't."


Phillipe Fournier is one of the many refugees that surged forth in the progress of Steel Vanguard.

Phillipe Fournier is sick. That was what Initiative doctors said in hushed whispers, as they saw green lesions pockmarking not just his skin, but also that of his innards.

Phillipe Fournier is one of abnormally many, in this regard. He testified that he and hundreds like him had toiled at the edge of Red Zones, to mine Tiberium crystals without adequate protection or regular breaks. He needed help, for this was more than the wracking coughs of Tib Lung or searing fever of the Green Pox. It was worse.

Phillipe Fournier is rushed deeper into the Blue Zone. For the front is never safe, and the allotment of medical supplies are needed for those in dire need of them. For all that his situation was critical, it seemed stable enough to not land him in the operating table.

Phillipe Fournier and dozens more like him were carried on the backs of the Carryalls, alongside many more evacuees assigned deeper into the European Blue Zones. Their path would take them closer to Brittany, and the provincial capital of Rennes.

That medical fleet of Carryalls never made it there, its guards slain and the evacuees scattered to the winds all over the French countryside. For Phillipe Fournier and the dozens more like him were not mere evacuees. They were Reynaldo's Chosen. His Guerrilleros one and all.

And the first act of Captain Phillipe Fournier and the men under him was to crash half of that fleet of Carryalls, into the harbors and industrial sectors of Vannes on the western coast of France.

The falling aircraft were merely the most dramatic of the many actions Reynaldo's guerillas took. The term first rose to fame during the Napoleonic wars, specifically the peninsular campaign of 1808 to 1814, where Spanish and Portuguese citizenry fought against the French invaders. Now, however, they are a very different affair. GDI's Intelligence Operations division -- massively overstressed, with hundreds of refugees for every one of their officers – has struggled to maintain the panopticon. Ever more has begun to slip through.

Many of the more successful operations are relatively simple. Remotely deployed hacking attacks to play Brotherhood propaganda are common. While not directly damaging, such is a clear showing that GDI is not safe, especially as it often can take hours to track down the source and shut it off. Otherwise, spreading pamphlets and other forms of word-of-mouth propaganda are keystone elements of the approach. A single dedicated operative or a small team can spread unrest and mistrust with mere words, with less overall risk than attempting direct action against secure GDI facilities.

Of course, widespread direct action has also seen extensive use. Often a mix of Chosen inserted among the refugees and local recruits, across GDI a range of attacks have occurred, ranging from simple suicide operations, to stochastic terrorism, a range of IED systems, and complex operations using drones and precision weapons. All of them with a simple clear set of aims: sow distrust of Yellow Zone refugees among the Initiative population, increase friction between GDI and the refugees, and create push-back against the idea of long-term occupation of territories outside the Blue Zones.

The war in Europe has however been a great success, a grand victory for the Initiative, and one that has seen territories that were last in Initiative hands some fifty years ago once more returned to their rightful place. It is unfortunate that GDI is paying so high a price for victory, not only in material terms, but in cultural and social ones. Once grand cities, rebuilt in the 20th century following the Spanish Civil War once more rendered to rubble strewn streets.
 
The Regency War: Part 6 - Masters and Commanders
The Regency War: Part 6 - Masters and Commanders


Mehretu

The African theater could be easily divided into three fronts. First and most significant is the South African theater, focused primarily on the long patch of land in the southern savannah regions. Then there is the West African theater – while GDI there controls the coast, there is a long inland strip still controlled by the Brotherhood. This was at one point the territory of the Ten Rings, a group of minor Warlords who held themselves to something resembling the traditions of the Barbary Coast of old. Third and last is the Horn of Africa. The Somali Coast has long been a source of piracy but it was also a center of trade and one point along a long route that circumnavigated the Indian Ocean.

Mehretu had not let up on his efforts to leverage the Caravanserai and the Arabian Warlords to his cause. When assassinations did not bring him a war against the "Invaders" in Mecca, Medina, and Jeddah, he turned to more direct options. The Horn of Africa loomed large in this scheme; once the land where he and Kane had sabotaged some of the earliest of GDI's attempts to build the massive Mammoth Armored Reclamation Vehicles, now it is a means of leveraging combat assets against the Initiative. While the coastline itself is heavily patrolled, with both naval infantry and warships making a position there completely and utterly untenable, it is in the inland territories where Mehretu could make his move. While out of range for tactical ballistic missiles due to the ASAT network's presence – putting a stop to nearly anything that crests at over a hundred kilometers up – a conventional strike via a depressed firing angle is more than feasible, able to hit GDI infrastructure in Jeddah and everything short of the core of Mecca itself. This attack itself would be compounded with a full-thrust naval landing on the calm yet scorching coastal plain of the Tihamah, allowing Mehretu's forces to make an ingress point south of Jeddah.

The Caravanserai were not about to allow the strike to occur. Allowing a launch or an attack on Jeddah would end in Mecca ruined as well as shattering the still-fragile truce. However, this did not mean that the Caravanserai forces would brook GDI involvement. Though they have acceded to the Initiative their civil victories and allowed them to peddle GDI's ideals in this manner, the Caravanserai would have to – and must – prove the legitimacy of their cause. That they are Amir al-Mu'minin, – 'Commander of the Faithful' – instead of GDI and that it is their remit to protect the remaining holy cities against fellow Brotherhood aggression.

For their part, the GDI acceded to this rationale, withdrawing most of their garrison barring those needed to man the Jeddah posting with an equal draw-down on technical experts. Notwithstanding the tenuous peace, the manpower needed to otherwise press Mehretu on the coasts could be used to fuel offensives elsewhere, joining the reserves for the full-court press on the South African theater properly. More cynically, the more the Caravanserai bleeds, the better odds it is for GDI to integrate them with less fuss.

GDI's military theorists and spies have marked the Caravanserai as a force composed of 'light metal' forces, using a combination of Carryalls and Reckoners to transport troops and firepower. This led to some assumptions that against GDI's own 'heavy metal', they would flounder once forced to an engagement. That even against peer opponents, they would take significant casualties and vehicle kills, in the same way that Brotherhood forces favored their strikes against GDI's own armored columns. To the disappointment of these self-same analysts, however, the scenario above did not manifest.

What the analysis missed is the fact that though the Caravanserai always relied on the goodwill and patronage of their fellow Warlords to ferry Hajj pilgrims, they still retained a considerable industrial base focused on servicing their vehicle pool and committing to abatement prior to GDI's arrival. Though their diplomatic posture ensured that nothing more than minor skirmishing occurs between fellow Brotherhood factions, the tour of duty of Caravanserai soldiery is one inseparable from their vehicles. Deployed along the cardinal east and west routes, Caravanserai soldiers fight against some of the more treacherous terrains a Post-Tiberium Earth has to offer. In contrast to some of the more schizophrenic operational security employed by Brotherhood forces elsewhere, the nature of their assignment meant that these Hajj Protection Cadre are extensively trained in all aspects of their vehicle pools, from basic maintenance to operational limits. And not unlike their Ghazi predecessors, this made them maneuver warfare veterans, if focused on the logistical aspect more than the operational one.

As the First Commander of the Hajj, it was Al-Rashida's duty to face off against Mehretu. More than duty even, for the aging man nursed a black grudge on the Warlord for the death of his grandson. More than motivated and with nothing to lose, he had repelled the attack on Jeddah with a timely missile barrage of his own, driving Mehretu's cruisers and semi-submersibles back to Port Sudan and the outlying ports in the first quarter of the year. In this second quarter, right around the Islamic Sacred Months and the Hajj, Mehretu showed that he did not care for the observances, and attempted to make his strike. Al-Rashida had predicted this, keeping his forces at high readiness for such an occurrence while resting those troops that he could spare, and prioritizing them for cycling through Mecca.

With the Red Sea mostly held by GDI, including multiple hydrofoil squadrons sitting at Jeddah, and even more in the gulf, both sides had to be careful. While a short sprint from the Horn of Africa to the coast is certainly possible, it would be a very difficult strategic play, leaving Al-Rashida little choice but to take the offensive, and destroy the launchers himself. In total, Al-Rashida had some sixty thousand fighters to work with, although not all could be deployed immediately. While the Caravanserai have few dedicated landing ships, they certainly had a large number of air assets, enough that, assuming the beachheads were secure, they could surge their entire force to the beaches and support them in a matter of hours.

Late in the second quarter, Al-Rashida made the critical call to move forward, using GDI's constant naval presence as a screen to bring his landing ships within a kilometer of the intended beachheads, before making a final sprint to the landing sites.

With Northern Somalia being relatively mountainous there were few really good landing sites. While the ideal would have been near Bosaso, to take advantage of a road through one of the few mountain passes available, the only really practical area would be to the west of Maydh, where a soft open beach was available for invasion.

The initial landing was near uncontested, Mehretu's forces having been held behind the hill lines, tucked away in deep complexes of earthworks, avoiding the worst of GDI missile and naval bombardments. With Al-Rashida putting forty out of his sixty thousand men ashore by the end of the first day's transit, he quickly pushed inland, engaging Mehretu's forces amid the foothills of Mount Shimbiris, and driving them back.

Unfortunately, while the original period was highly coordinated, much of the internal operations were significantly less so, with the Caravanserai driving deep into the territory, and GDI only getting the occasional glimpse into the depths of the operation, partially because while it is one thing to take significant offensive action against a fellow member of the Brotherhood of Nod, it is quite a different thing to do so with the aid of, and in coordination with, GDI.

What is known is that Al-Rashida managed to conquer or convert significant parts of the territory to the Caravanserai's cause, and raiding operations in the western half of the Indian ocean have dropped significantly, with only the occasional Indian raider or submarine asset making its way into that theater. While Mehretu certainly has operational control of raider groups operating out of Southern africa, it is facing significant problems from Madagascar based defensive networks.

Elsewhere, in the north, near Oslo, something very different was occurring. Deep in the Blue Zone, the Bogatyr had been landed in soft ground, and had been quickly surrounded by a base. Six companies of the Talons – two of Titans and four of Havocs – plus an array of supporting arms surrounded the site as engineers and scientists turned the ship into an anthill, tarps and scaffolding rising around it, and the whole vessel began to be examined from the bolts and welds to the reactor core.

The Order of the Remembrancer was certainly not about to allow this affront to Krukov (and by proxy the rest of the Brotherhood of Nod) to stand.

Sweeping across the moonlit swamps north of the city, the Order, led by Kemal, approached the outer defenses: a small outpost manned by a pair of Havocs, their night vision far superior to anything that could be found on a human – but with only two of them, there were gaps in the sweep that could be exploited.. Kemal approached, relying on his technopathic abilities to blind the Havocs, until he could get close enough to leap. One of the weaknesses of the Havoc is its dorsal-mounted emergency escape hatch – a 'weakness' that nearly anyone would agree is generally inaccessible to saboteurs. Kemal proved them wrong; the hatch clicked open as he placed his hand beside it, and in one smooth motion he slid out a silenced pistol and shot twice. As the other Havoc twitched and began to call out, Kemal's partner (one of the other members of the order) had clambered up. The other hatch clicked open, but not before the second pilot had managed to jam down on the mech's firing triggers, sending a wave of explosions and a screaming hail of railgun fire out into the night – blindly trusting that the noise would alert the camp as he died.

In camp, some two kilometers away, the sound of explosions and weapon-fire had awoken a hornets' nest. Pilots sprinted towards their mechs, carefully laagered around them so that the armored bows would protect the camp. At the same time the infantry complement (many of them only in environmental suits) rushed towards entrenched positions and mounted weapons. It had been expected that the Brotherhood would send a force to try and keep their secrets. The only question had been 'when.'

With the known unreliability of targeting systems, the reaction was a resurrection of an idea from the Second World War. Known as the Canal Defense Light, it was a carbon arc light mounted on a tank, and used to dazzle foes by presenting an extremely intense light source cranked up to a near-blinding intensity. In the modern day the approach was somewhat simpler: a strip of LEDs, cranked up to maximum output. At the same time, most vehicles and other systems had been set up with manual control and manual targeting in mind. While so-called 'glass cockpits' have substantial advantages in everything from tanks to walkers to rifles (for example the GD-2's digital optic, which significantly reduces laser blinding effects), the ability to do things manually like they had been done in the 20th century had never been removed. It was still quite possible to fire over open sights.

Discovered, and with GDI mobilizing to defend, the vastly outnumbered team cut their losses and circled north toward the broken, mountainous terrain that acted as the long spine of the country. While they were able to dodge GDI patrols and go to ground, it is likely that they are still in GDI territory and slowly picking their way towards friendly space as they avoid orbital surveillance and local patrols.

Finally, there is the conventional war. While Mehretu certainly prefers to operate on a smaller scale and far from his borders, the war itself has still been dragged to his doorstep. Conflicts have so far been relatively small scale, and Mehretu – although far weakened from his height before the Third Tiberium War – has husbanded his forces carefully, avoiding direct confrontation while bloodying the Initiative's nose for poking too far into his territories. So far, most of the operations have been little more than skirmishes – dogs circling before the fight – as GDI and Mehretu both give each other a wide berth. For the Initiative, it is a matter of practicality. Mehretu, while dangerous, is unlikely to launch grand, sweeping strokes into the Blue Zones, allowing for resources to go elsewhere – either reinforcing successes in Europe and North America, or following up on failures in South America and beyond. However, this quarter has seen a number of major battles.

The largest of these was at the Shashe River, north of where it merges with the Limpopo. A GDI mechanized brigade was preparing bridges across the river, part of a series of operations to push forward potential routes to seize new defensive lines forward of the current positions – to create salients where Mehretu's territory can be broken up into pockets, much like Gideon.

The brigade was laid out in a defensive laager up against the river as they began driving posts to build a semi-permanent bridge across the river. While pontoons and the like certainly can and do work, even with the seventy-ton-and-greater behemoths found across GDI's armored complement, they are not permanent structures, and are easily cut or destroyed by even relatively lightweight munitions. More permanent bridges are significantly more resilient to the kind of attacks favored by Mehretu, and every one of them erected (even if later destroyed) is a new angle of attack for GDI to push deeper into his territories.

At the Shashe however, Mehretu had decided that enough was enough, and had dispatched a mobile stealth force to push GDI back. Arraying on the ridge opposite, above the riverine depression, Mehretu had deployed a series of stealth tanks and Spectre batteries. At the same time a mobile force had deployed to the west positioned to hammer GDI into the river, pincering them against terrain features and multiple Brotherhood forces.

The GDI force was not without its own resources and scouting assets. Spotting the incoming offensive, it began to take rapid steps to extricate itself from the trap that it had been placed in. While maintaining an external laager, it began to rapidly pack. However, a construction battalion does not pack fast, especially not with multiple deployed bridge constructors and the robot swarms that do much of the work.

By the time the Brotherhood forces were ready, GDI had nearly managed to pack up for a retreat; skirmishing began around noon, and GDI began to push southward by around 1300. The battle became a running fight, with GDI battalions finding good ground and holding it while the convoy passed by. Unable to disengage with the need to defend the comparatively slow column, the Initiative forces were harried every step of the way,

On the long retreat back to the cover of Green Zone bases, GDI losses were heavy; an entire battalion became trapped as they held for too long, and the others faced heavy losses from rear-aspect shots taken by their Brotherhood pursuers. While the construction battalion escaped effectively intact, it was at the cost of significant forces – and with GDI not currently planning major offensives in South or West Africa, it is a slight that will likely go unanswered in both the immediate and more distant terms.


Bintang
Bintang has been allowed to run wild and fight where she willed before disappearing under stealth fields or the waves, leaving even Auroras unable to respond in time. A clear example of this is convoy H-795 – H for heavy, and 795 being a three-numeral random code for that particular convoy. Originating in Comodoro Rivadavia and traveling to Christchurch, it is one of several convoys that have been hit. Fifty Initiative cargo ships, plus an escort of one carrier, two Governors and a battleship were making their way to New Zealand, carrying a cargo of heavy industrial supplies – primarily computer chips and robots. While land-based air could cover the vast majority of the route, there is a 1.5 thousand kilometer gap in the roughly 8.5 thousand kilometer path between the Blue Zone air bases that were providing cover, where neither side has much (if any) ability to loiter. While Initiative aircraft are long-ranged, flying low enough and slow enough for ASW patrols is fuel-hungry, and effective antisubmarine warfare takes a significant amount of persistence.

The convoy, despite its accompanying aircraft carrier, was ambushed by a pair of Brotherhood submarines as it passed out of range of effective cover from Puerto Montt, deep in the mid-Pacific. The two submarines launched a combined salvo of low-flying cruise missiles; of the dozen launches, six were intercepted by a combination of missile- and laser-fire from one of the Governors, and three more were intercepted by the carrier, while a final loss slammed into the ocean – missing its target by roughly seven meters off the stern. But the surviving two missiles slammed into one of the convoy ships, detonating in an orange-green flare. While the crew survived and evacuated, the ship most certainly did not, and sank to the bottom of the ocean with its cargo.

The Orcas operating as the anti-submarine patrol began to converge on the launching submarines, as an ASROC from each of the Governors leapt from their tubes. However, damage estimates are minimal. Even when followed by a further eight torpedoes from the Orcas, only two hits were registered, and neither seemed to do critical damage to the vessels as they popped canisters of SAMs and dove for the deeps.

There are three main weapons in the Initiative's anti-submarine arsenal: mortars, rockets, and torpedoes. Mortars are the smallest, simplest, and most prolific weapons system available. Essentially a series of small spigot mortars, the basic system fires an array of 20-kilogram charges in some pattern. While there are dozens of systems, they are all basically intercompatible, with reconfigurations depending on location and role. The most common of these are various forms of grid-firing systems, usually laying a barrage some six to eight kilometers out. While these have extremely limited effect – with less than one submarine being sunk or significantly damaged by these systems per year – it is a useful means of providing the basics of self-defense for merchantmen, and a system that can be mounted in place of other things (such as the Governor's point defense systems) in areas where the Vertigo is a relatively managed threat compared to missiles and submarines. Most of these can also fire barrages of sonic charges or use sonic submunitions to increase effective kill radii, although this severely limits acceleration and therefore range. These munitions primarily serve as close-range (within a 1.5 to 2 kilometer radius) defense against torpedoes.
Rockets are a somewhat more recent addition to the arsenal. The basic mechanism is simple: a standard torpedo is strapped to a rocket booster and then flung out in the general direction of the enemy (far enough away that friendly ships can be assumed to be safe) and then parachutes down into the sea before commencing a spiral search pattern. These are the most lethal devices in the initiative arsenal, primarily through sheer volume of use. As they are found on everything from coastal defense rings, shore artillery batteries, and nearly every ship the Initiative operates, they are often launched in great numbers – even if the average torpedo does nothing more than kicking up some Tib from the sea floor.
Finally, there is the torpedo. A standard, universal system, the torpedo is the same device as launched from the anti-submarine rocket system. However, there are significant speed and altitude limitations where it can be launched – ones that are easily outsprinted by Firehawks, Orcas, and the like. This means that under normal conditions, they are primarily launched from V-35 Oxen and Hammerhead attack helicopters when the craft are configured for ASW work. Although they can be fired from many ships using either built-in torpedo tubes or (far more often) deck-mounted torpedo launchers or gantries, this is relatively rare, as VLS cells are more multiuse. While deadly, it has limited aspects – primarily with the Orca, as it is typically flying too fast at too low an altitude for good torpedo functioning.

Almost as soon as the Brotherhood launched its strike, the submarines dove from their barely-subsurface launch positions and went deep, cold, and quiet, working their way out on a slow arcing evasion pattern that took them north and east under the edge of the effective range of the South American air bases, but then out again before the V-35s could arrive.

Over the course of the next twenty four hours Bintang's forces made repeated attacks, often pincering Initiative ships between salvoes of cruise missiles while other ships (running deep and quiet and using the cover of the attack) made their way into range to lay spreads of torpedoes into the path of the convoy. These attacks hit time and time and time again, with each one having leakers punching through the defense network to sink ships. Two hit the Governor GDIS Monterey as it put itself between the incoming missiles and the transports. The first hit the stern, blowing off the rear defense mounts and the aircraft hanger. The second, as it had begun to limp, slammed into the main tower in a green-orange flash of its own.

Approximately eighteen hours in, as the troops on board had begun to be worn down by strike after strike, Bintang's surface fleet (a trio of cruisers, and one larger heavy cruiser) sailed into range, vanguarded by a hailstorm of missiles that hammered into the group. Two of the Brotherhood ships were later identified as Beludak and Nantaboga, a pair of what Bintang called Ular-class cruisers – the name translating to 'snake' in both Brunei Malay and Indonesian. The other two ships have not been identified yet; one was another Ular, and the last, larger cruiser was a Naga. The Naga-class is a severely shrunken version of the Rajanaga, with a similarly scaled-down armament and about four-fifths the displacement of an Initiative Governor. The Ulars comparatively are primarily missile ships, designed to support the Nagas from long range and neutralize GDI air superiority.

While many of the supporting aircraft were grounded due to pilot exhaustion, damage, or the need to refit and refuel, the attack raised against the small fleet was still substantial. Over two squadrons of Firehawks fitted out with antishipping munitions – a mix of guided bombs and missiles – flew forth to deal with the intruders. Some sixty missiles rained down from the group and the ships in turn lit up, laser point defense systems blazing away and detonating missile after missile, the three Ulars weaving a defensive net before the Naga's advance. As the strike closed to bomb range, the Ulars returned fire with a barrage of their own missiles – sending two to four SAMs against each of GDI's fighters, in turn forcing drops at longer range and worse angles than the pilots were trained for as they broke to avoid the missiles; the ships' point defenses again scythed through the incoming munitions. This time however, the seas around the ships erupted in a storm of water as bombs missed by mere meters, and one slammed home into one of the Ular class cruisers, leaving it limping.

As the ships closed on the convoy, the remaining Governor and the battleship sortied towards them, leaving the convoy with only the carrier's element to protect them as they raced towards New Zealand and safety. The first shots were fired well over the horizon, an endless rain of railgun fire as the battleship and Governor both dropped a constant barrage of low-powered, high-angle shots towards the flotilla attacking them. Taking hit after hit with yet more rounds splashing around them, they closed until the bulk of the battleship began to rise over the horizon; the Naga's guns belched out ribbons of hate, blasting into the superstructure of the battleship with abandon – stripping sensor masts and tearing away point-defense emplacements – as the GDI ship brought the first salvo of direct-fire, high-velocity railgun rounds to bear. While two of the six shots missed (one fifty meters off the port bow, and a second whipping less than fifty centimeters off the starboard hull), four slammed into the Naga – one tearing off a plasma gun, a second ripping through the radar, and two more penetrating the hull. While secondary detonations rippled through the Brotherhood ship, the surviving plasma guns retargeted and opened fire on the Governor, slamming one blast into the B turret, and another into the port hull – a stream of molten metal and screaming atmosphere ripping into the cruiser, with the water pressure from its speed splitting the side of the ship open and slewing it to broadside.

With the convoy limping into effective strike range of GDI ground based air, the raiders slunk off, vanishing into the mid-Pacific vastness. The battleship would take until the next day to arrive at its port, and would see a significant number of repair crews allocated to its needs.

As GDI offensives into the interior of Australia launched off in early May however, Bintang was forced to act more decisively. Gathering together her major surface combatants, she took a convoy of her own south, towards the northern end of the Australian Yellow Zone. Eight Ulars, a pair of Nagas, six submarines, and the Rajanaga sailed south with a group of cargo haulers, to meet GDI in battle and bring relief to the embattled Australian Brotherhood.

To oppose the Rajanaga, the Initiative had a relatively rag-tag force. Two carriers (the Kunetsov and the badly damaged Ntwadumela), a pair of battleships (the Rinjani and the Etna, the latter with only half of its weapons systems surviving), twenty hydrofoils, and a handful of obsolescent escorts were all that were available to meet the onrushing combat group. However, that was backed by a much larger force of land based aircraft, including two squadrons of Aurora bombers and three wings of Firehawks. While more was present on the continent, much of it was to the south, assisting in the conquest of Adelaide.

Bintang's fleet took a land-hugging route, using the island of Papua New Guinea and a series of major ion storms to hide themselves from view; they curved around the north of the island to position themselves a mere thousand kilometers from Townsville at the edge of the Australian Red Zone – and the largest settlement within reach. While within range of GDI anti-shipping missiles, many batteries only had a relative sliver of their angle, as the north-south axis of the Blue Zone blocked many of the batteries and those that were not blocked would only be able to cover a few kilometers of ocean with their fire.

The fleet broke into three components. The Rajanaga and the cargo vessels (mostly salvage that she had hung onto from raids against GDI forces) were the first element, sailing on a dogleg course from the tip of Papua New Guinea to the northern peninsula of Australia some eight hundred kilometers away, before turning to the southeast and the Yellow Zone. The second was the screening element, taking a more open-water route a few hundred kilometers east, sailing more or less directly south from the separation point. Finally, the submarines began to fan out into a barrier between the Blue Zone naval bases and the screening force.

First detected shortly after dusk, the ships of the second element had been running dark and quiet, but were picked up by a patrol of hydrofoils running interdiction operations against the north of Australia. While the hydrofoils ran for port, the response was immediate. The carrier at sea and every available land-based aircraft immediately launched into strike operations, with just under a hundred and fifty Firehawks – loaded to the gills with anti-ship missiles – lumbering into the sky less than an hour after first contact. Each Firehawk carried three such missiles, for a total launch weight of well over four hundred.

Shortly thereafter the screening group found themselves in the middle of a somewhat problematic position as hundreds of missiles screamed in. The Ulars maneuvered to cover the Nagas as lasers flashed out, shredding through the incoming storm of missiles. Hundreds were shot down, but with the unending storm of fire many slipped through the defense network, and some managed to make hits. Missiles slammed into the Ekakapak (one of the Nagas), and the ship began to make a long, gentle starboard turn as its propulsion on that side came to a standstill. On the other side of the task group, another missile had found its way to one of the Ular's VLS pods, and flames erupted as fuel and explosives combusted and blew out the side of the ship.

The battleships, moving closer to bring the ships within effective range of their railgun batteries, placed themselves in a crossfire. To their stern lay Bintang's submarine fleet, to their bows the still-oncoming battlegroup of Ulars and Nagas. As the two groups closed to range, the Ulars began bombarding the two battleships with a hailstorm of missiles. In response, the battleships began their own sequence of maneuvers, tacking port and starboard to both throw off some sliver of the missiles, and allow some of the crystal beam lasers a few seconds to cool as they were masked by the bulk of the ship.

From the stern however, all six of the submarines unleashed their own barrage. One that paled in comparison to the Ulars, but critical – the point defense system was overwhelmed. As the missiles closed, the secondary point defense battery – electrolasers, micromissiles, flechette swarms – opened up, flares streaking from the upper works of both ships as they tried to distract some portion of the incoming munitions. It was not nearly enough.

The two battleships were savaged by the barrage – even the missiles damaged or destroyed by the secondary point defense battery spewed sprays of shrapnel across the ships, riddling the outer hull with pockmarks at best, and shredding sensor systems and communication arrays at worst.

However, a battleship is a tough creature. So long as they do not take a hit to the below-water citadel, or lose the relatively small crew compartment, even direct hits from anti-shipping missiles are far from lethal. As they closed to range with the Nagas, and the direct fire gunnery of the Ulars, they were able to begin exchanging blows. Two Ulars were hammered into scrap by a hailstorm of railgun fire. At the same time, they were pelted with fire; bolts of plasma screamed in, with blast after blast hammering into the Rinjani's port batteries, melting railguns and penetrating interior compartments. One screamed skywards as its capacitor banks detonated, the pent up energies unleashed in all directions.

Swarmed by the cruisers, pelted with gunfire and savaged by missiles and plasma, the two battleships had little choice but to ride out the storm, especially as a second massed air strike was inbound. As another wave of Initiative airpower reached out, the cruisers broke for the north, attempting to escape from the incoming forces – but by the time the Brotherhood flotilla detected incoming fighters it was too little, and far too late as another barrage of anti-ship missiles launched towards the cruisers. Once more lasers flashed in a brilliant storm of light, and missiles burnt by the dozens and hundreds, with yet more missing the maneuvering cruisers as they fled. Some however found their marks, and Nod ships rippled with secondary explosions.

It was too late for the battleships however. The Etna was already slipping beneath the waves, too damaged for the still-functioning pumps to keep her afloat. While the Rinjani was able to limp home, the ship would later be found not only to have severe damage across some sixty percent of her surface, but key structural members had extensive microfracturing, as well as multiple places where they had cracked outright from being flash-heated.

At the same time, the Rajanaga had completed its objective, delivering the cargo group safely into the hands of the Australian Brotherhood, and had begun to head north, withdrawing beyond the range of GDI's forces, as did the submarines and surviving other assets

Assessing total losses for Bintang's force is somewhat difficult. While one of the Nagas and three of the Ulars can be considered confirmed kills, savaged by the guns of the battleships, it is far harder to tell what the state of the other ships is. While the second air strike did make a substantial number of hits, damage assessment was spotty with the strike being launched from long range in an attempt to save the battleships from destruction.


Minor Raiders

Merchant convoys are often a matter of security through obscurity. The oceans are vast, and the eyes of the Brotherhood limited. Keeping as much as possible to deep-water mid-oceanic routes maintains a significant degree of safety for most Initiative convoys. However, this does not apply everywhere. In places like the Caribbean and a number of other straits and archipelagos, there is either no choice (or no efficient choice) to go around. These are the favored ambush positions, where raiders can simply sit behind radar cover of the islands until opportunity strikes, and attack at relatively close range and high speed – getting in under the missiles and railguns of the defending ships before unleashing their preferred close-attack missiles and torpedoes.

Elsewhere, things get substantially more difficult. Even with a semi-submersible cheesebox on a raft, an Initiative ship can reliably see it well before it sees them. A proper submarine can get much closer, but in turn has limited visibility, and oftentimes significantly limited speeds.
There are many tactics that the Brotherhood uses to hunt merchant convoys, ranging from the large and obvious to the small and discrete. The largest is commonly known as the 'stampede method.' While Initiative convoys are quick, they can be herded. Using large mosquito fleets, a convoy can be herded into a minefield or prepositioned submarine assets as they try to avoid engaging a seemingly overwhelming number of targets. While a somewhat risky play, especially when the Initiative is supplying air cover in the form of a carrier or ground based aviation, there are a number of areas (especially in the Pacific) where such protection is somewhat difficult at best.

Another approach uses the Wing in Ground Effect to make rapid missile and laser attacks. While not particularly stealthy, WiGE vehicles can be hard to spot up until they begin vectoring in an attack run, and can break contact relatively quickly – although only by conducting oblique attacks.

In this quarter's operations these small-scale raiders have been overwhelmingly successful, in many cases as a result of the Initiative not being able to supply nearly enough escorts. While more risky convoys – such as those to Australia and New Zealand, or between South America and West Africa – always have a GDI naval presence, others often have to make do. For example, the North Atlantic route is patrolled and ties down about ten modern warships at any given time, but it is still routinely raided – with submarines using the arctic ice shelf or icebergs for cover until they can break out and do damage before vanishing. Elsewhere, strikes have been daring and aggressive, with boarding parties being a common feature of operations where the Initiative has not been able to provide escort. So far these operations have not reached a point where most day-to-day operations are substantially impacted, but losses are high and unsustainable. While not an immediate choke on the Initiative's ability to wage large-scale offensives, if these rates of loss are maintained (let alone increase) the ability for the Initiative to supply long-range logistical support will begin to rapidly decline.

While the Regency War is a global conflict, it is not a place of uniform supply consumption. While the materials needed to supply large-scale operations, like GDI offensives in Europe or the Americas, are measured in kilotons and megatons, other fronts are far more quiescent. These range from places where the local warlord is carefully not making offensive maneuvers, like China, to areas where GDI has treaties and agreements like the Arabian peninsula. Even in these locations there is some demand for consumable supplies beyond those needed to refresh the stockpiles and for training, but it is far lower than what is consumed by even a relatively quiet open front like, for example, the Siberian operations theater, where distances are long enough and populations low enough that neither side has managed to move the front line significantly.

With other areas needing the supplies much more than, for example, the Arabian Peninsula, GDI has been shipping those supplies to other Blue Zones – in that case primarily to South Africa and Australia, although some have been shipped as far as South America to supply Escoffier's drive.


The Australian Campaign

With the Australian continent beginning to cool, GDI launched into a wave of sweeping offensives. With much of the continent covered by Red Zones and the short but brutal bloodletting initiated by the execution of Killian Qatar, the warlords remaining were fragmented and low on resources, trapped between GDI and the deep Red Zones. The remainder fell rapidly under the influence of Bintang, as the only remaining warlord in the region with enough influence to seriously oppose GDI.

Much of the region is simply inhospitable. Even with modern life support technologies to draw moisture from the air, stillsuits, and a wide variety of other technologies, there is simply not nearly enough water to support large inland populations. This means that the vast majority of the population is on the coastal extremes, where they can make use of desalination plants to ensure sufficient water for both farming and their own needs.

The big remaining strategic target was the city of Adelaide. While the Brotherhood had spread the population all throughout the region, the city itself was still an important civilian population center, and an infrastructural core. Traditionally, it had been protected by ASM and coastal artillery batteries spread across the islands and peninsulas south of the city, and protected from GDI offensives by the strength of the Yellow Zone warlords. With the rapid and massive expansion of the Australian Red Zone, and the death of Killian Qatar, the strength of the Australian warlords was not what it once was.

The earliest proper defenses came with the rise of Brother Marcion, who envisioned Adelaide as the site of a glorious stand, a place where his battle brothers could fight GDI head on and emerge victorious as desert warriors and buried airbases invaded the Blue Zone. In pursuit of this, the original network comprised a network of hidden marshaling points, defense towers, and battery after battery of artillery hidden beneath disruptor fields.

However, as Killian rose to power, the defensive network shifted. No longer was it a place for a grand battle, but something rather more prosaic: a tar-pit to slow GDI advances – heavily automated, with few of the elements of the glorious defense remaining. Arrays of laser and shredder turrets controlled from networked hardpoints served just as well, and were far less wasteful of manpower that could be moved to other points.

Now, the defenses are still primarily Killian's work, but maintained without her resources. Many sections have been abandoned entirely, while others have seen shortenings, rationalizations, and increased networking, further reducing the number of men needed to man the works. One of the topics that GDI had discussed with those who came into the Initiative's arms was the state of the defenses. However, that information is now a decade out of date, and much of it has changed – in detail if not on the macro scale. While significant parts are still the same, others have changed drastically – often simplified, with less sophisticated devices and systems replacing hardpoints. By GDI's best estimates, roughly one in eight of the Obelisks of Light no longer function, nor do about one in sixteen of the antiaircraft sites.

The offensive launched in early May, with initial drives conquering hundreds of kilometers a day, but that would not last. The most major of these conflicts in the early phase was the center of population and the port city of Adelaide.

General Alfred Dorne – a veteran of campaigns across the Australian continent – established a rapid offensive, with flying wedges of light vehicles driving across the open desert north of Adelaide, taking on the Brotherhood's methods. While risky, the attack cut the supply line to the north, while fleets of hydrofoils and constant air patrols maintained a blockade from the southern approaches – leaving the city and the majority of the Yellow Zone's population trapped in a GDI pocket. At that point, it was only a matter of time and siegeworks. Recognizing this, many of the Brotherhood forces in the city chose to surrender rather than fight to the end, with the lines collapsing as local commanders took their own initiative to raise white flags. The campaign turned to refugee operations as GDI's armored units shifted north, beginning a slow march across the desert.

This northern campaign rolling up the Brotherhood faced severe logistical challenges. While the Brotherhood's tiberium power sources and mobile units could effectively flit from hardpoint to hardpoint – many times using disruption fields or more conventional camouflage to mask their movements – GDI had to ship everything in, across road networks that were never particularly good or comprehensive.

With Adelaide on the edge of a vast Red Zone, and effectively cut off from GDI logistical networks, it was the job of the civil engineers to build rails to the city – cutting through minefields, entrenchments and bunkers to lay a straight and level path back to the Blue Zone cities. While many in the city refused to leave, tens of thousands more took GDI's offers to move back. With much of the city's infrastructure effectively intact, there are many proposals of what to do with it, but all will have to wait for the end of the war, with the logistical infrastructure tied up in other operations at this time.

After savaging GDI naval assets in the northern Australian theater, Bintang managed to deliver masses of weapons, primarily RPG-59s, but also a wide array of other modern weapons, including Stahl-pattern laser sniping devices, advanced combat armor, Mantis drones and numerous other systems.

However, even before the delivery of kilotons of new hardware, the offensive was already running into trouble, primarily due to logistics. For both sides, it is a relatively simple equation. For any given logistics truck and crew, they have ten to twelve hours a day of operations. A load in one such truck takes an average of an hour to turn around at each point. Exceptions do exist: for example, water trucks (which can be drained in minutes), versus bags of rice, which can take significantly longer. That means that the primary limitation on throughput is actually transit time. Assuming an average speed of 45 kilometers per hour, a single truck can take about four loads of material to the front line a day at 45 kilometers from depot to the front. Increasing the distance to 90 kilometers drops it to two to three loads per day, and at 150 kilometers or more, it is, at best, one load a day. Now, this is usually less of an issue. On well built and maintained roads, or even the decades-out-of-maintenance roads of Europe or the Americas, 45 kilometers per hour is noticeably pessimistic. During the BZ-2 Counter-offensives in 2047, convoys maintained an average road speed of 90 kilometers an hour (and some runs were substantially closer to 135 kilometers per hour) due to having clear roads, straight lines, and orders to move quickly to minimize the threat of stay-behind units and pockets of resistance that had not been completely cleared. Even in the Yellow Zones across most of the world, where there is substantial legacy infrastructure, 45 kilometers per hour is pessimistic – sixty or seventy is more average there. In Australia however, the territory being fought over never had the level of development to make that possible, with even the major highways being two lanes across hundreds of kilometers of bare scrubland at best.

Additionally, there are severe problems in the shape of the infrastructure. The vast majority of the transport links are north-south, adding substantial length to try to use them for military efforts. Even with GDI adding a number of east-west rail lines, and the rapid construction of fortress town hardpoints, there are simply too few across far too much territory to significantly cut the length of the supply line, especially as the front continued the northern push. This left Dorne's offensive running into significant problems, especially as the arms delivered by Bintang's run began filtering to the front. With Brotherhood resistance stiffening rapidly, leading elements began to face increasingly effective ambushes, with prepositioned ATGMs, minefields, artillery and entrenchments proving increasingly lethal as units ran short of ablative plates and shells. Even with a series of bands of new east-west rail and fortress town lines, Dorne made the decision to slow his offensive and find good terrain, allowing the offensive to stall across most of the line in mid-June, after one of the single largest terrain grabs in the war.


The Siege of the Himalayas

Blue Zone 18 has often been a relative backwater for the broader Initiative. While certainly important, and an outpost in the deepest regions of the Yellow Zones at one time – and now a narrows between Blue and Red Zones – it has not been a site of major industrial development. While not autarkic, the Himalayan Blue Zone is highly self-sufficient.

The siege, however, has more in common with that of storied Troy, rather than something more modern. It is not a thing of vast artillery barrages, strategic bombing, or, for that matter, grand victories and defeats. It is a slow, creeping thing. GDI held tight in its mountain keeps, the paths to them covered with battery after battery of railguns, entire fleets of artillery, and a near constant overflight of ion cannons standing ready to blast troop concentrations out of existence. It is a war of will and persistence, with the Brotherhood picketing the valleys and forming outposts on the hills, cutting the men and women who call the mountains home off from material supply. From the high watchtowers, observers can see Gana march and mill. The air warning radar sees raid after raid, but none come to give battle.

The Himalayas, barring some paradigm-changing developments, will be able to hold out for four to six years without problems, then facing increasing problems for much of the decade following that – as systems begin to break down due to a lack of specialized parts, skilled labor, and other tools. However, this will be a slow process, and one that can be slowed to a crawl with existing technologies so long as they are deployed.


Overall

In terms of overall progress, the most recent quarter has been far more successful than the first, with major ground gains and the Initiative running rampant around the world. While marred by major defeats as the Warlords turned their eyes towards particular goals and forced issues that the Initiative would have rather remained unsolved, these have involved the personal attentions of the very highest ranks of the Brotherhood, and the most elite of their forces. Elsewhere, the rank and file have been decisively outmatched, and in some cases overmatched by GDI's ability to strike rapidly and decisively deep into their home areas.

Similarly, around the Brotherhood, the severe localism of the warlord era has been problematic for them. Localized commanders (sometimes down to the level of companies and battalions) are used to operating independently, and so often break from their orders when given commands that would lead to their destruction, even when it would have saved far larger units elsewhere.

Even with numerous major defeats and the Brotherhood able to continue striking severe blows against GDI, GDI has seized vast stretches of territory, and is expecting to continue the progress found this quarter. Even if the offensives have to be called to a halt, and the forward elements called back, there are likely to be significant shifts in territory and population held for six months to a year after the end of active conflict.

Beyond the major active battlefronts, GDI has not so far attempted to bring vast new territories under its direct control. Rather GDI's forces have focused on destroying the Brotherhood's core weakness: its trained and equipped manpower. By bringing the Brotherhood to battle time and time again, it has managed to break many of the best the Brotherhood has to offer.
 
Q3 2060
Erewhon Dice: Erewhon has reached a point where it can begin assisting on projects. For most intents and purposes it is currently an administrative assistance die, but cannot get criticals in either direction. Natural ones result in you losing access to Erewhon for some turns as he gets critical stability assistance. Natural 100s on the other hand have a chance to result in small bonuses to Erewhon's stats.

Bays: Bays, especially the industrial bays of the GDSS Enterprise are something like a class selection. Beyond the immediate bonuses there are a wide array of softer bonuses often originating from two or three bay combos. These will have significant influence on which space projects you will be getting in the future, and what shape they take.
I pointed out two of the combinations in the Q2 2060 results post, but there are many others. These are the result of having multiple bays with overlapping foci. To reuse an example the set of Station Bay/Fusion Bay/Gravitic bay will be leading towards cheaper lunar, martian, belt, and beyond industrialization and settlement. It will also lead towards having a much more sizable first dedicated shipyard project. This of course is not the only combo available.


Q3 2060
Resources:‌ ‌985 + 35 in‌ ‌reserve‌ ‌(15‌ ‌allocated‌ ‌to‌ ‌the‌ ‌Forgotten)‌ ‌(35 ‌allocated‌ ‌to‌ ‌grants)‌(+25 from Taxes)

Political‌ ‌Support:‌ 72
SCIENCE Meter: 4/4
Free‌ ‌Dice:‌ ‌7 ‌
Erewhon Dice: 1
Tiberium Spread
20.41 Blue Zone
1.80 Green Zone
23.87 Yellow Zone (96 Points of Abatement)
53.92 Red Zone (72 Points of Abatement)

Current Economic Issues:
Housing: +40 (27 population in low quality housing) (-5 per turn from refugees)
Energy: +10 (+4 in reserve)
Logistics: +20 (-10 from raiding) (-7 from military activity)
Food: +18 (+10 in reserve)
Health: -1 (-8 from Wartime Demand) (-5 from Refugees)
Capital Goods: +13 (+37 in reserve) [-10 at End of War ] [+3 in Q1 2061, +2 in Q2 2061 ]
STUs: +13
Consumer Goods: +27 (-22 from demand spike) (+3 from Private Industry)
Labor: +36
Tiberium‌ ‌Processing‌ ‌Capacity‌ ‌(1895/2470)‌ ‌
Labor Per Turn: +4
Taxation Per Turn: +30
Space Mining Per Turn: +35
Green Zone Water: +6

Status‌ ‌of‌ ‌the‌ ‌Parties‌ ‌
(strong‌ ‌support,‌ ‌weak‌ ‌support,‌ ‌weak‌ ‌opposition,‌ ‌strong‌ ‌opposition)‌ ‌

Free‌ ‌Market‌ ‌Party:‌ ‌228 ‌seats‌ ‌(0;‌ ‌50;‌ ‌28; ‌150)‌ ‌
Market‌ ‌Socialist‌ ‌Party:‌ 486‌ seats‌ ‌(200;‌ ‌150;‌ ‌86;‌ ‌50)‌ ‌ ‌
Militarist:‌ 754 ‌seats‌ ‌(200;‌ ‌304;‌ ‌150;‌ ‌100)‌ ‌
Initiative‌ ‌First:‌ ‌335 ‌seats‌ ‌(0;‌ ‌0;‌ ‌35; ‌300)‌ ‌
United‌ ‌Yellow‌ ‌List:‌ ‌176 ‌seats‌ ‌(100;‌ ‌50;‌ ‌20;‌ ‌6)‌ ‌
Starbound‌ ‌Party:‌ ‌461 ‌seats‌ ‌(300; 100;‌ ‌40;‌ ‌21)‌ ‌
Socialist‌ ‌Party:‌ 426 ‌seats‌ ‌(200;‌ ‌190;‌ ‌26;‌ ‌10)‌ ‌
Homeland‌ ‌Party‌‌: 50 ‌seats (5; 30; 10; 5)
Biodiversity‌ ‌Party‌: ‌34 ‌seats (4; 10; 20; 0)
Reclamation Party: 12 Seats (0; 8; 4; 0)
Developmentalists:‌ ‌1038 ‌seats‌ ‌(470;‌ ‌268;‌ 250;‌ ‌50)‌ ‌

Military‌ ‌Confidence‌ ‌
Ground‌ ‌Forces‌ ‌:‌ Very High ‌ ‌
Air‌ ‌Force‌ ‌:‌ ‌Decent‌ ‌
Space‌ ‌Force‌ ‌:‌ Decent ‌
Steel‌ ‌Talons:‌ ‌Low
Navy:‌ Low ‌
ZOCOM:‌ ‌Decent ‌

Plan Goals
Capital Goods: 31 Points
Consumer Goods: 16 Points
Food: 18 points in reserve
Income: 90 Points
Stations: 1139 Points
Processing: 280 points

Projects
Complete ASAT Phase 4
Complete OSRCT Phase 4
Railgun Munitions Development
Complete at least one more phase of Shell Plants
Complete at least one more phase of Ablative Armor
Complete at least one more phase of URLS production
Complete at least one more phase of Wadmalaw Kudzu Plantations
Complete at least one more phase of Blue Zone Arcologies
Complete GDSS Enterprise
Complete at least five phases of Space Mines
Complete at least four phases of Karachi Planned City
Develop and Deploy Mastodon




Infrastructure (6 dice)

[ ] Blue Zone Arcologies (Stage 4)
Continuing development of the arcology system will add yet more cities to the list of those with an arcology and expand existing complexes. While it will be expensive, these symbols of Initiative might remain in high demand.
(Progress 1/650: 15 resources per die) (+8 Housing, +4 Consumer Goods, +1 Energy Reserve, -2 Energy)

[ ] Yellow Zone Fortress Towns (Phase 6) (Updated)
Future waves of Fortress Towns will be positioned deeper into formerly Brotherhood territory, and require substantial networks of roads, rails, and other means of support. While not yet at the limits of GDI ability to construct and support such facilities, they are substantially ahead of most other civilian infrastructure.
(Supports Green Zone Intensification) (Supports Operation Steel Vanguard)
(Progress 0/300: 20 resources per die) (+4 Housing) (-1 Green Zone Water)
(Progress 0/300: 20 resources per die) (+4 Housing) (-1 Green Zone Water)

[ ] Blue Zone Apartment Complexes (Phase 2)
A second wave of apartment complexes, dotting GDI cities and snaking between higher and lower density areas will provide a further boost of high quality housing. While not as Tiberium hardened as the arcologies, that is a distant threat, and one that can be safely disregarded in the immediate time frame in favor of housing people in better conditions.
(Progress 28/160: 10 resources per die) (-1 Logistics, +6 Housing)
(Progress 0/160: 10 resources per die) (-1 Logistics, +6 Housing)
(Progress 0/160: 10 resources per die) (-2 Logistics, +6 Housing)

[ ] Rail Network Construction Campaigns (Phase 4) (Updated)
With rail lines pushing ever further forward, they are becoming a substantial strain on GDI's ability to protect its rear. However, with few other options, these are a requirement for substantial further advances into the Yellow Zones, and the destruction or capture of core Brotherhood territories.
(Supports Operation Steel Vanguard)
(Progress 128/325: 15 resources per die) (+4 Logistics)
(Progress 0/325: 15 resources per die) (+4 Logistics)
(Progress 0/325: 15 resources per die) (+4 Logistics)

[ ] Suborbital Shuttle Service (Phase 1)
GDI's fleet of Leopard shuttles has reached a point where at any given time some significant portions are sitting without mission payloads. By retasking them towards suborbital shuttles, they would be able to reach anywhere in the world in a matter of hours at most. This will allow GDI to further tighten the bonds between Blue Zones and significantly cut travel times for critical supplies.
(Progress 0/200: 30 resources per die) (+3 Logistics)
(Progress 0/250: 25 resources per die) (+5 Logistics)
(Progress 0/200: 25 resources per die) (+8 Logistics)

[ ] Chicago Planned City (Phase 4)
A major expansion of the city and the Tiberium Processing center would make Chicago GDI's central Tiberium processing center for North America, and begin converting the area around it. In effect a version of the New Eden project in miniature, it will be a major project, but at the same time, it will be a proof of concept for other planned cities around the world. Not just as beachheads, but as a place to develop wide ranging control networks. Recently, Director Litvinov appears to be hoping to use a proven concept for making safe zones and would be grateful if done. (Supports Autumn Archer and Steel Vanguard)
(Can spend mixed Tiberium and Infrastructure dice, at least 1 die must be Tiberium)
(Progress 3/600: 20 Resources per die) (+2 Housing, -4 Labor, -2 Logistics, -4 Energy) (+3 Red Zone Abatement, +3 Yellow Zone Abatement, +240 Tiberium Processing Capacity.)
(Progress 0/1200: 20 resources per die) (+5 Housing, -4 Labor), (+4 Red Zone Abatement, +4 Yellow Zone Abatement, +480 Tiberium Processing Capacity)

[ ] Karachi Planned City (Phase 1)
Formerly the largest city in Pakistan, Karachi is a prime location for being the Himalayan Blue Zone's primary connection to the outside world. Rather than relying on exposed train lines towards the Russian and Korean Blue Zones, Karachi would serve as a logistics hub, with a much shorter connecting line to the Himalayas, and a port complex. That port complex will service ships running to the Arabian, Australian, and New Zealand Blue Zones, improving connectivity and acting as a forward base towards securing the northern parts of India.
(Progress 0/65: 20 resources per die) (-4 Labor) (Can spend mixed Tiberium and Infrastructure dice, at least 1 die must be Tiberium) (Required For Eastern Paris)
(Progress 0/130: 20 resources per die) (+2 Logistics, +2 Housing, -2 Labor)
(Progress 0/260: 20 resources per die) (+4 Logistics, +2 Housing, -2 Labor)
(Progress 0/520: 20 resources per die) (+6 Logistics, +4 Housing, -2 Labor)
(Progress 0/1040: 20 resources per die) (+8 Logistics, +4 Housing, -2 Labor) (+India and Iran Stuff)

[ ] Indianapolis Reconstruction Surge (New)
Restoring the functionality of the Indianapolis railway junction and restoring the ability of GDI forces across trans appalachia to engage in further offensive operations may well be of enough value to significantly disrupt the ongoing buildup of other infrastructural goals.
(progress 0/150: 10 resources per die) (Can spend mixed Tiberium and Infrastructure dice, at least 1 die must be Tiberium)

Heavy Industry (5 dice)

[ ] Continuous Cycle Fusion Plants (Phase 6) (Updated)
With the Initiative's energy needs still substantial, new pods of fusion plants, and expansions to existing ones will be needed to continue pouring resources into the military industrial complex, and provide new weapons in the fight against the Brotherhood of Nod.
(Progress 30/300: 20 resources per Die) (+16 Energy) (-1 Labor)

[ ] 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 36/2400: 15 resources per die) (+32 Capital Goods, +16 Consumer Goods, -2 Labor, -8 Energy) (may aid AI research)

[ ] Nuuk Heavy Robotics Foundry (Phase 3) (Updated)
With the initial production shock labored into existence, further development is predicated on massive investment and expansion of the project, laying massive production lines, and setting them in motion towards one of the largest projects ever envisioned by the Global Defense Initiative.
(Progress 352/600: 20 resources per die) (+16 Capital Goods, -2 Labor, -8 Energy)
(Progress 0/1200: 20 resources per die) (+32 Capital Goods, -2 Labor, -8 Energy) (+1 to Infrastructure dice)
(Progress 0/2400: 20 resources per die) (+64 Capital Goods, -2 Labor, -16 Energy) (+1 to Infrastructure dice)

[ ] Suzuka Prototype Hover Chassis Factory
While the current design is a very minimum viable product, it is a viable product, and one where a small stream of production, not just development work should provide greater insights into the technology. At the same time, providing a sizable number of platforms to various use cases allows for people to begin preparing requests for future generations of hovercraft.
(Progress 0/175: 20 resources per die) (+2 Logistics, -2 STU, -2 Energy)

[ ] Crystal Beam Industrial Laser Development
Crystal Beam laser technologies, now released from military exclusivity, is likely to be a substantial upgrade to a wide variety of Initiative technologies, ranging from existing uses, where it is likely to be a substantial efficiency upgrade, to a number of new uses, such as long distance laser cutting.
(Progress 0/80: 10 resources per die)

[ ] Isolinear Chip Foundry Anadyr (New)
With the Isolinear chip a reality, rather than a work of science fiction, GDI can begin substantial development of a prototype small scale chip fabricator. While it will be a massively expensive project, it is putting resources towards a new generation of computing technology that leaves all existing models in the dust.
(Progress 0/320: 50 resources per die) (+4 Capital Goods) (-2 Energy)

[ ] Puerto Madryn Reconstruction Surge (New)
With the destruction of significant portions of the Puerto Madryn industrial complex, and significant damages to a number of other major industrial complexes across South America, personal attention of the Secretary of the Treasury can make significant progress in fixing the problems
(Progress 0/60: 10 resources per die) (+3 Capital Goods)

[ ] Western Europe Reconstruction Surge (New)
With Western European industrial hubs under continuous attack by insurgents, rapidly rebuilding them may well do a significant amount as a propaganda piece. While far from guaranteed, it may well be worthwhile to engage in significant rebuilding efforts in this region.
(Progress 0/40: 10 resources per die) (+2 Capital Goods)

[ ] Division of Alternative Energy (New)
While the bulk of GDI's energy needs will continue to be supplied by the mass production of large scale fusion plants and fusion complexes, it is not the be all or end all of potential energy production. With vast open stretches of space, GDI can afford to detach effort to build substantial numbers of these facilities around the world.
(+3 Energy per turn, -10 Resources per Turn, -1 Heavy Industry Dice)

Light and Chemical Industry (5 dice)

[ ] Chemical Fertilizer Plants (Phase 2)
With the initial phase of fertilizers completed, and many of the lowest hanging fruits plucked, the next phase is to begin supplying more specialized nutrients and existing ones in greater bulk. While this will be somewhat more expensive for the rewards, it is still worthwhile.
(Progress 94/300: 15 resources per die) (+4 Consumer Goods, +4 Food, -1 Energy)

[ ] Reykjavik Myomer Macrospinner (Phase 4)
Further expansion of the Reykjavik Macrospinner is going to focus on heavy myomer bundles, which are keys to mass production of modern zone armor and mech projects as they provide highly efficient mobility options.
(Progress 514/640: 20 resources per die) (+4 Capital Goods +2 Energy) (Reduces cost of mech and zone armor projects)
(Progress 0/1280: 20 resources per die) (+8 Capital Goods, +4 Energy) (Reduces cost of mech and zone armor projects)

[ ] Bergen Superconductor Foundry (Phase 1)
With the proof of concept for larger scale superconductors well and truly proven, a large-scale facility capable of producing at least thousands of kilometers of the material is required. Bergen, on the coast of the North Atlantic, will provide a more than suitable location to provide for shipping superconductor tubes around the world.
(Progress 0/95: 30 resources per die) (+1 Energy)
(Progress 0/190: 30 resources per die) (+1 Capital Goods, +2 Energy)
(Progress 0/380: 30 resources per die) (+2 Capital Goods, +4 Energy) (-1 Logistics)
(Progress 0/760: 30 resources per die) (+4 Capital Goods, +8 Energy) (-2 Logistics)(+5 Political Support)
(Progress 0/1520: 30 resources per die) (+8 Capital Goods, +16 Energy) (-3 Logistics) (+10 Political Support)

[ ] Civilian Drone Factories
Civilian drones have a large number of potential uses, ranging from rapid delivery of goods, medicines, and simple recreation. While flying a drone is not the same as flying an actual aircraft, it has often been a popular sport, with drone races (both in stock and custom categories) being a fairly popular sport, especially for children.
(Progress 0/380: 10 resources per die) (+2 Logistics, +1 Health, +4 Consumer Goods) (-2 Energy)

[ ] Medical Supplies Factories
Increasing supplies of medicines and more importantly medical supplies like tubing, masks, blood substitutes, liquid bandages and similar is likely to be quite needed during wartime. While GDI currently has enough, demand is expected to spike rapidly, and more supplies will be needed.
(Progress 129/225: 20 resources per die) (+4 Health) (-1 Energy)


Agriculture (4 dice)

[ ] Agriculture Mechanization Projects (Phase 1)
While GDI's current agricultural methods are not particularly labor intensive, a widespread deployment of additional mechanization and statistical analysis should allow for the reduction in overall labor committed to the agricultural sector, and rapidly increase food production by a significant margin
(Progress 0/150: 15 resources per die) (+8 Food, -1 Energy, -1 Capital Goods)
(Progress 0/250: 15 resources per die) (+12 Food, -1 Energy, -1 Capital Goods)

[ ] Blue Zone Aquaponics Bays (Phase 3) (Updated)
With refugees swarming GDI's borders, and the population expected to increase by some substantial number of percentage points across the next year, massive new and expanded aquaponics bays are going to be a core element in being able to feed that population. While other facilities can help, these will be the backbone of what can be done.
(Progress 30/140: 10 resources per die) (+6 Food) (-1 Labor)
(Progress 0/140: 10 resources per die) (+6 Food) (-1 Labor, -1 Logistics)
(Progress 0/140: 10 resources per die) (+6 Food) (-1 Labor, -1 Logistics)
(Progress 0/140: 10 resources per die) (+6 Food) (-1 Labor, -1 Logistics)

[ ] Vertical Farming Projects (Stage 2)
With a first wave of vertical farms completed, a second wave located in less critical cities can begin. While these next waves will be marginally less expensive than the original batch, a result of some efficiencies in the learning process, they are of roughly the same scale and distribution as previous designs.
( Progress 65/240: 15 resources per die) (+4 Food, +4 Consumer goods, -2 Energy)

[ ] Ranching Domes
With the biosphere project well underway, one proposal is to begin producing larger numbers of food animals and animal byproducts by using many of the same methods but with an agricultural bent. While the products and projects will both be expensive, providing real steaks, milk, butter, eggs, and other products, will be a significant boost in consumer goods. The health-care services also will benefit from cattle blood, and more animal test-subjects, not to mention there being zoos again, in time.
(Progress 0/250: 20 resources per die) (+8 Consumer Goods, -4 Food, -2 Energy, -2 Labor) (+5 Political Support)

[ ] Spider Cotton Plantations (Phase 1)
With spider cotton finally having reached a state where it can be used en masse, the only remaining task is to begin building large scale plantations where it can be grown in bulk. While some applications require only small amounts of the silk to produce useful amounts of goods, these fields are few and far between.
(Progress 0/170: 15 resources per die) (+1 Capital Goods)
(Progress 0/180: 15 resources per die) (+1 Capital Goods)
(Progress 0/190: 15 resources per die) (+1 Capital Goods)
(Progress 0/200: 15 resources per die) (+1 Capital Goods)
(Progress 0/210: 15 resources per die) (+1 Capital Goods)

[ ] Wadmalaw Kudzu Plantations (Phase 2)
A substantial expansion of tea production will take Wadmalaw Kudzu from being a simple novelty to a staple of the Initiative. Politically useful, and more importantly a general luxury that can be easily afforded to all who want a source of caffeine.
(Progress 3/300: 10 resources per die) (+4 Consumer Goods) (+10 Political Support)
(Progress 0/450: 10 resources per die) (+8 Consumer Goods) (+1 to all dice)

[ ] Tarberry Development
An engineered legume, Tarberries are intended to be part of the future of Initiative hydrocarbon production. Built to produce substantial quantities of usable hydrocarbons, these plants will be toxic to eat, but easy to process into usable fuels, especially for the vast vehicle fleets of the Initiative military, and possible to use as a source of energy for the Initiative more broadly.
(Progress 0/40: 20 resources per die)

[ ] Poulticeplant Development
A kudzu derivative like the teas currently being produced, poulticeplants are genetically engineered to carry topical medication and clotting agents in order to provide a steady supply of basic medical goods with little to no specialized equipment. While a dedicated chemical works can produce more antiseptics and with better results, they also require specialized staff and treatment plans in a way that these genetically engineered plants do not.
(Progress 0/50: 20 resources per die)

[ ] Freeze Dried Food Plants
Freeze Drying effectively turns most food into permanent, shelf stable systems. While building additional plants to process food in this way will be expensive, it should significantly reduce waste, and increase the lifespan of the stockpiles noticeably.
(Progress 126/200: 20 resources per die) (+5 Food, increases efficiency of stockpile actions, -1 Energy)

[ ] Strategic Food Stockpile Construction (Phase 2)
A further expansion of food stockpiles and granaries in deep reserves, Cut into the frozen wastes at the far northern and southern reaches of GDI's grasp, these will be a final backup for GDI's overall food supply. While they will be far from enough, even at full capacity, they can buy the Initiative critical months in case of massive reverses in its fortune.
(Progress 38/150: 10 resources per die) (+2 Food in Reserve, -4 Food)
(Progress 0/175: 10 resources per die) (+2 Food in Reserve, -4 Food)
(Progress 0/200: 10 resources per die) (+2 Food in Reserve, -4 Food)

[ ] Extra Large Food Stockpiles
Laying in all that is possible in the currently existing storage space will be a significant undertaking, requiring a large surplus beyond what is being consumed. While not the most efficient of options, it is the cheapest of the lot, requiring no real additional construction
(+8 Food in reserve, -16 Food)

Tiberium (7 dice)

[ ] Tiberium Vein Mines (Stage 2)
With the concept proven, vein mines are a fairly expensive, but functional way of attacking underground Tiberium, and providing for a long term abatement strategy, while also not stressing military deployments. While they do have their problems, these are of limited import compared to their advantages.
(Progress 5/195: 20 resources per die) (Additional Income Trickle [20-30]) (+1 Yellow Zone Abatement) (-1 Capital Goods)

[ ] Yellow Zone Tiberium Harvesting (Phase 9) (Updated)
Expanding the offensive, and pushing the Brotherhood back around the world is the future the Initiative not only wants, but needs. Decisive action, driven home with all the vigor the Initiative has to offer, will put even more pressure on increasingly small Yellow Zone pockets. While a cornered animal is the most dangerous, every kilometer taken reduces the resources available to the enemy. (Supports Steel Vanguard)
(Progress 2/325: 20 resources per die) (small additional income trickle [5-10 Resources]) (3 points of Yellow Zone Mitigation)
(Progress 0/350: 20 resources per die) (small additional income trickle [5-10 Resources]) (3 points of Yellow Zone Mitigation)

[ ] Intensification of Green Zone Harvesting (Stage 6)
A further wave of Green Zone Tiberium harvesting will both improve the logistical connections across the forward Green Zones and provide greater numbers of forward hardpoints and firebases for Initiative troops.
(Progress 46/100: 15 resources per die) (small additional income trickle [5-10 Resources]) (1 point of yellow zone mitigation) (2 Stages available) (Supports Steel Vanguard)

[ ] Red Zone Tiberium Harvesting (Stage 12) (Updated)
A strike up the Congo river is a substantial investment, but one that can be maintained under current conditions. While further expansion of the attack on the Red Zones is a high priority practically and politically, there are other driving requirements at this time.
(Progress 29/130: 25 resources per die) (additional income trickle [10-20 Resources]) (1 point of Red Zone Mitigation)

[ ] Red Zone Border Offensives (Stage 1) (New)
With the Initiative now controlling significant stretches of territory along the edges of Red Zones, it is high time to begin exploiting them for their resources. While it will be expensive to do so, this kind of work can both fuel an economic boom, and push back the Red Zones while expanding GDI control.
(Progress 0/200: 25 resources per die) (Additional income trickle [15-30 resources]) (2 points of Red Zone Mitigation)

[-] Red Zone Containment Lines (Stage 6)
With war having erupted in full, operations in Red Zones are currently effectively impossible, as there are significant Nod forces between them and GDI.
(Progress 54/200: 25 resources per die) (additional income trickle (10-15 Resources) (2 points of Red Zone Mitigation)
(Progress 0/200: 25 resources per die) (additional income trickle (10-15 Resources) (2 points of Red Zone Mitigation)
(Progress 0/200: 25 resources per die) (additional income trickle (10-15 Resources) (2 points of Red Zone Mitigation)

[-] Tiberium Glacier Mining (Stage 13)
There are currently no open glacier faces for expansion of mining activity.
(Progress 38/180: 30 resources per die) (-5 Logistics) (additional income trickle [40-60 Resources]) (1 point of Red Zone Mitigation) (0 Stage available)

[ ] Tiberium Processing Plants (Stage 2)
While currently additional processing plants are not an immediately pressing need, they will be a requirement to fulfill plan goals, and will further harden the Initiative's refining capacity.
(Progress 20/200: 30 resources per die) (+600 processing potential) (-4 Energy, -3 Logistics)

[ ] Tiberium Processing Refits (Phase 5)
A final wave of postwar, and pre Hewlett Gardener Process redevelopment will retire older processes, and bring the entire Initiative stock of refining capacity to the modern day. However, at this time, it will do little more than expand a surplus, as GDI lacks sufficient Tiberium income to make use of these refineries.
(Progress 6/100: 20 resources per die) (+50 processing capacity [-250 during refits])

[ ] Tiberium Inhibitor Deployment
With the inhibitor prepared, it is time to begin arranging for deployment. While each will be significantly energy expensive and require a major investment of resources, it is now one of the fastest routes to abate the Tiberian menace.
(For Yellow and Red Zones, project is unlocked once all allocated MARV hubs are completed)

-[ ] Blue Zone 1 (Progress 0/100: 30 resources per die) (-3 Energy) (+2 Yellow Zone Abatement) (1 Political Support)
-[ ] Blue Zone 2 (Progress 0/100: 30 resources per die) (-3 Energy) (+2 Yellow Zone Abatement) (1 Political Support)
-[-] Blue Zone 3 (Progress 0/100: 30 resources per die) (-3 Energy) (+2 Yellow Zone Abatement) (1 Political Support)
-[ ] Blue Zone 4 (Progress 0/100: 30 resources per die (-3 Energy) (+2 Yellow Zone Abatement) (1 Political Support)
-[ ] Blue Zone 5 (Progress 0/100: 30 resources per die (-3 Energy) (+2 Yellow Zone Abatement) (1 Political Support)
-[-] Blue Zone 6 (Progress 0/100: 30 resources per die (-3 Energy) (+2 Yellow Zone Abatement) (1 Political Support)
-[ ] Blue Zone 7 (Progress 0/100: 30 resources per die (-3 Energy) (+2 Yellow Zone Abatement) (1 Political Support)
-[ ] Blue Zone 8 (Progress 0/100: 30 resources per die (-3 Energy) (+2 Yellow Zone Abatement) (1 Political Support)
-[ ] Blue Zone 9 (Progress 0/100: 30 resources per die (-3 Energy) (+2 Yellow Zone Abatement) (1 Political Support)
-[ ] Blue Zone 10 (Progress 0/100: 30 resources per die (-3 Energy) (+2 Yellow Zone Abatement) (1 Political Support)
-[ ] Blue Zone 11 (Progress 0/100: 30 resources per die (-3 Energy) (+2 Yellow Zone Abatement) (1 Political Support)
-[ ] Blue Zone 12 (Progress 0/100: 30 resources per die (-3 Energy) (+2 Yellow Zone Abatement) (1 Political Support)
-[ ] Blue Zone 13 (Progress 0/100: 30 resources per die (-3 Energy) (+2 Yellow Zone Abatement) (1 Political Support)
-[-] Blue Zone 14 (Progress 0/100: 30 resources per die (-3 Energy) (+2 Yellow Zone Abatement) (1 Political Support)
-[ ] Blue Zone 15 (Progress 0/100: 30 resources per die (-3 Energy) (+2 Yellow Zone Abatement) (1 Political Support)
-[ ] Blue Zone 16 (Progress 0/100: 30 resources per die (-3 Energy) (+2 Yellow Zone Abatement) (1 Political Support)
-[ ] Blue Zone 18 (Progress 0/100: 30 resources per die (-3 Energy) (+2 Yellow Zone Abatement) (1 Political Support)
-[ ] Blue Zone 19 (Progress 0/100: 30 resources per die (-3 Energy) (+2 Yellow Zone Abatement) (1 Political Support)
-[ ] Yellow Zone 11 (Progress 0/130: 30 resources per die) (+2 Yellow Zone Abatement)
-[ ] Red Zone 7 (Progress 0/120: 30 resources per die) (+2 Red Zone Abatement) (2 Political Support)

[ ] Railgun Harvester Factories
The Railgun Harvester is a significantly heavier design than previous Harvester systems and so requires a new series of factories. While by the standards of military production these will be overall fairly limited, they will provide a noticeable increase in income, especially from more heavily contested regions. (Supports Steel Vanguard)
-[ ] Bissau (Progress 0/70 : 10 resources per die) (+5 Resources Per Turn) (-2 Energy)
-[ ] Porto (Progress 44/70: 10 resources per die) (+5 Resources Per Turn) (-2 Energy)

[ ] Improved Tiberium Containment Facilities Construction
While not immediately a requirement, building a limited ability to contain Tiberium beyond the limits of GDI's ability to process it, will provide both wartime redundancy and allow for greater offlining of resources. Tank farms of Tiberium are admittedly a security risk, but one not particularly greater than existing Tiberium silos present around the world.
(Progress 0/120: 20 resources per die) (+500 Tiberium Reserve)

[ ] Liquid Tiberium Power Cell Deployment (Phase 1)
With an effective Liquid Tiberium power cell system developed, it is still a political hot potato. While it will be possible to spend political capital to prevent it from being bogged down forever in parliamentary review, at the same time it may well not be worth it, as the cells, plus the needed bunkers to provide both containment and protection against enemy action, are not that much cheaper than fusion for the amount of energy produced.
(Progress 41/140: 20 resources per die) (-5 Political Support) (+8 Energy)

[ ] Enhanced Harvest Tiberium Spikes
Developing a model of Tiberium Spike that not only harvests tiberium, but 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. However, it would also substantially increase the throughput, but at the risk of spreading Tiberium more quickly.
(Progress 0/180: 20 resources per die) (-5 Political Support per die)

[ ] Visceroid Research Programs
Visceroids are some of the bare handful of Tiberium life forms to have survived the mutation, with the Forgotten holding an ever closer relationship with GDI, studies of these creatures may provide secrets to adaptation, or might provide some means of dealing with liquid tiberium deposits.
(Progress 0/120: 15 resources per die) (-10 Political Support)

[ ] Harvesting Tendril Development
A substantial increase in efficiency, a rapid harvesting tendril disrupts the bonds between Tiberium crystals, before acting as an electromagnetic vacuum cleaner, speeding the harvesting process and pushing forward harvesting technologies.
(Progress 0/40: 30 resources per die)

Orbital (6 dice)

[ ] GDSS Columbia (Phase 1)
The development of a first stage of orbital habitats offers a testbed for further evacuations of the most devastated areas. While expensive, stations like this one could be the future of human habitation. These prototypes will not be fit for long term human habitation, however any issues that emerge here are ones that can be solved before trying to live in space. (Station)
(Progress 0/80: 20 resources per die) (5 Political Support)
(Progress 0/165: 20 resources per die) (.25k Permanent residents) (7 Political Support)
(Progress 0/335: 20 resources per die) (.5k Permanent residents) (1 available Bay) (8 Political Support)
(Progress 0/675: 20 resources per die) (1k Permanent residents) ( 2 available Bays) (9 Political Support)
(Progress 0/1355: 20 resources per die) (2k Permanent residents) (3 available Bays) (10 Political Support)

[ ] GDSS Enterprise (Phase 5)
Upgrading the GDSS Enterprise to a fully functioning orbital industrial station will make significant progress towards giving humanity an interplanetary future. The goal is small scale fabrication of nearly every needed component for space travel and habitation, a test bed for future development and
(Station)
(Progress 102/1535: 20 resources per die) (+2 Capital Goods, +2 Consumer Goods) (+2 available Bays) (10 Political Support)

[ ] GDSS Enterprise Bays (1 available) (New)
-[ ] Military Bay
Converting the open slot to military production offers significant developmental potential due to the ability to do large amounts of manufacturing without the stresses of gravity interfering with the process. While not everything will be aided by such a construction, this will make the OSRCT significantly less dependent on massed fusion launches from ground support facilities.
(Progress 0/450: 20 resources per die)
-[ ] Advanced Materials Bay
Across a wide selection of fields within materials science, the ability to make objects in zero gravity has significant implications, ranging from optics and large scale crystals, to alloys and composites. While small scale production as done in such a bay will be of limited overall use, it is likely to heavily inform future projects.
(Progress 0/400: 20 resources per die) (+8 Capital Goods)
-[ ] Satellite Bay
Most satellites are very low density constructions, with much of their bulk composed of materials such as foamed aluminum or layers of foil. By specializing the Enterprise towards building these units, there are significant cost savings due to being able to haul up materials by the ton, rather than having to figure out how to fit them into a launch. Additionally the satellites themselves will be significantly more refined, as they do not need to undergo the difficulties of a chemical or fusion launch.
(Progress 0/400: 20 resources per die) (Discounts Satellites by 20 points)
-[ ] Station Bay
The largest limitations on the size of a station are the dimensions of the Leopards and Unions doing the construction. For example, there is significant use of ten meter struts on both stations, rather than longer ones that can take greater loads per kilogram. This in turn means that there are thousands upon thousands of joins, adding hundreds of tons of material that do not need to be there. Building a dedicated bay for building large scale station components will both increase the strength of the stations, and substantially decrease their costs.
(Progress 0/400: 20 resources per die) (-1 Capital Goods) (Discounts stations by 10 points)
-[ ] Gravitic Shipyard
With the exception of GDIS Pathfinder, GDI cannot effectively reach beyond the moon in a reasonable amount of time. While the throughput of a fusion craft is higher within that boundary, attempts to exploit Martian and belt resources, let alone materials beyond the belt, require the construction and maintenance of dozens of gravitic drive ships capable of long range transits. While still too limited in acceleration to move people and materials off earth, the same problem certainly does not apply to many of the other areas of interest in the solar system.
(Progress 0/450: 30 resources per die) (-2 STU, -1 Capital Goods)
-[ ] Fusion Shipyard
Currently, all GDI fusion craft are designed with the ability to climb out of the Earth's gravity well as a core function. However, with the moon and beyond as goals of GDI's space program, the need for substantial numbers of heavy transit vessels is critical. Large fusion tenders, either in short legged manned, or long legged unmanned designs can serve to fill key niches as part of a complex of transport solutions across the solar system.
(Progress 0/500: 20 resources per die)

[ ] GDSS Shala (Phase 1)
While agriculture on the ground is still capable of sustaining life on earth, Shala, named after the Sumerian goddess of grain and compassion, is aimed at taking this to the skies. While at this point plans are for an entirely experimental station, capable of doing little more than feeding its inhabitants, work done here will be invaluable as the orbits, and eventually other worlds, are colonized. (Station)
(Progress 0/80: 20 resources per die) (5 Political Support)
(Progress 0/165: 20 resources per die) (.1k permanent residents) (+1 Food) (5 Political Support)
(Progress 0/335: 20 resources per die) (.2k permanent residents) (+2 Food, +1 Consumer Goods) (10 Political Support) (1 available Bay)
(Progress 0/675: 20 resources per die) (.3k permanent residents) (+4 Food, +2 Consumer Goods) (15 Political Support) (2 available Bays)
(Progress 0/1355: 20 resources per die) (.4k permanent residents) (+8 Food, +4 Consumer Goods) (20 Political Support) (3 available Bays)

[ ] Orbital Cleanup (Stage 11)
With much of the largest and slowest of the debris collected, all that remains is the increasingly small and fast dust and sand remaining in the orbitals. While still significantly problematic, it is unfortunately much less profitable to mine, as there is not enough material left to save launches.
(Progress 32/85: 10 resources per die) (10-15 resources) (Unlocks Orbital Power Stations)
(Progress 0/85: 10 resources per die) (10-15 resources) (+5 Political Support) (20 progress discount on earth orbit satellites)

[ ] Conestoga Class Development
With the outer system beginning to be explored, and the Pathfinder already bringing back massive quantities of scientific information, an improved model can be constructed. A revised version of the Pathfinder design, it will be intended for mass production, once sufficient orbital infrastructure exists to build it.
(Progress 0/60: 30 resources per die)

[ ] Leopard II Factory (New)
The Leopard II, as developed by the SCED is a general upgrade, both in size and performance over the original design. With the need for more launches, and substantially more complicated flight profiles, another major fusion yard is required, this one located near Kagoshima to expand the sites of fusion production away from Mehretu.
(Progress 0/350: 20 resources per die) (5 point lunar discount, 5 point station discount)

(These probe missions will be handled in coordination with Carterquest, as the precise mechanics of probing are not a good fit for the high level developmental view of a planquest)

[ ] Outer System Survey Probes
While the outer system is by far the largest of the zones, it is also likely one of the richest, ranging from the Jovian and Saturnine moons, to the gas giants themselves. While getting to them will be a substantial investment, it will also likely be one of the key future development areas as GDI looks towards expansive investment in space development.
(Progress 0/190: 15 resources per die)

Lunar Operations

[ ] Lunar Rare Metals Harvesting (Phase 1)
The Moon's craters hold the remains of the many asteroid impacts that have scarred the moon over millennia. While currently not feasible to mine, it will be the rebirth of the Initiative's non-tiberium based mining and refining infrastructure.
(Progress 0/160: 20 resources per die) (+5 Resources Per Turn)
(Progress 0/145: 20 resources per die) (+5 Resources Per Turn)

[ ] Lunar Regolith Harvesting (Phase 2)
The silicate compounds in the Moon's crust contain extractable levels of iron, titanium, and aluminum, making them incredibly useful as a source of bulk materials. While processing will require massive amounts of energy in some cases, it is also a useful beginning point for developing the solar system.
(Progress 50/330: 20 resources per die) (+15 resources per turn)

[ ] Lunar Heavy Metals Mines (Phase 2)
Heavier metals such as titanium, iron, magnesium, and many others are incredibly useful for a wide variety of industrial and aerospace technologies. There are many subsurface deposits scattered across the moon, some of which are economical for extractive activities.
(Progress 145/385: 20 resources per die) (+20 resources per turn)
(Progress 0/375: 20 resources per die) (+20 resources per turn)
(Progress 0/365: 20 resources per die) (+20 resources per turn)
(Progress 0/355: 20 resources per die) (+2 Heavy Metals)
(Progress 0/345: 20 resources per die) (+2 Heavy Metals)
(Progress 0/335: 20 resources per die) (+2 Heavy Metals)
(Progress 0/325: 20 resources per die) (+2 Heavy Metals)
(Progress 0/315: 20 resources per die) (+2 Heavy Metals)


[-] Lunar Water Mine
Discovered near the south pole of the Moon, small water deposits are currently worthless to the Initiative, but with settlements currently being planned, it is likely to be a key part in ensuring that future settlement is viable without support from the earth.
(+2 Lunar Water)

[-] Helium 3 Harvesting
The lunar surface is not protected by a magnetic field, and so has been bombarded by Helium 3 in significant quantities. While still scarce, there are a few regions of the lunar surface that have been found to have notably high concentrations that are going to be economically viable to extract.

Services (5 dice)

[ ] Automatic Medical Assistants
GDI's medical system is extensive, however it is also significantly overworked. By supplying a number of automated assistants to conduct routine procedures the valuable manpower can be concentrated working on more important and skill based fields.
(Progress 0/300: 20 resources per die) (+2 Health, +4 Labor, -4 Capital Goods, -2 Energy)

[ ] Neural-Interfaced Operating Theaters
While much of the funding for this can come from the welfare department, other parts, such as the capital goods required to set up these complex and highly technical rooms, will need to come from the Treasury, and the Services department.
(Progress 122/160: 20 resources per die) (+6 Health, -2 Capital Goods)

[ ] Professional Sports Programs
With GDI's situation stabilizing rapidly, professional sports programs will provide entertainment and be a significant marker of a return to normalcy. While it will require some work to provide dedicated arenas, and set up systems for recruiting players, the program will prove very politically popular.
(Progress 0/250: 10 resources per die) (+2 Consumer Goods, -1 Health, -1 Labor) (+10 Political Support)

[ ] Advanced Electronic Video Assistant Deployment
The Advanced EVA system will need substantial pools of computer supplies for deployment, but should substantially improve the overall output of the Initiative. It will also require significant assistance from the field, which makes it somewhat problematic for immediate deployment beyond the need for capital goods.
-[ ] Infrastructure (Progress 0/200: 20 resources per die) (+3 to field dice) (-6 Capital Goods, -3 Energy) (Locks 1 field die until project is complete)
-[ ] Heavy Industry (Progress 0/200: 20 resources per die) (+3 to field dice) (-6 Capital Goods, -3 Energy) (Locks 1 field die until project is complete)
-[ ] Light and Chemical Industry(Progress 0/200: 20 resources per die) (+3 to field dice) (-6 Capital Goods, -3 Energy) (Locks 1 field die until project is complete)
-[ ] Agriculture(Progress 0/200: 20 resources per die) (+3 to field dice) (-6 Capital Goods, -3 Energy) (Locks 1 field die until project is complete)
-[ ] Tiberium(Progress 0/200: 20 resources per die) (+3 to field dice) (-6 Capital Goods, -3 Energy) (Locks 1 field die until project is complete)
-[ ] Orbital (Progress 0/200: 20 resources per die) (+3 to field dice) (-6 Capital Goods, -3 Energy) (Locks 1 field die until project is complete)
-[ ] Services (Progress 0/200: 20 resources per die) (+3 to field dice) (-6 Capital Goods, -3 Energy) (Locks 1 field die until project is complete)
-[ ] Military (Progress 0/200: 20 resources per die) (+3 to field dice) (-6 Capital Goods, -3 Energy) (Locks 1 die until project is complete)
-[ ] Bureaucracy (Progress 0/200: 20 resources per die) (+3 to field dice) (-6 Capital Goods, -3 Energy) (Locks 1 field die until project is complete)

[ ] Human Genetic Engineering Programs
The human genome is a mess, especially in the modern day. Starting with an extreme bottleneck in diversity, and being evolved for a group of endurance predators on the open savannah rather than sedentary office workers, there are many things that can be done to either fix problems such as lactose or gluten intolerances, or increase the variability of the genome.
(Progress 0/120: 25 resources per die) (-5 Political Support)

[ ] Hallucinogen Development
While the Brotherhood's version is far too strong, and far too risky for any use outside of warfare, it might have more therapeutic uses if reformatted substantially. Exploring the more civilian applications may prove to be little more than a wild goose chase, but could also provide a new generation of critical lifesaving, and quality of life increasing drugs.
(Progress 0/60: 15 resources per die)

[ ] Hardlight Interface Development (New)
While the Scrin's shield technologies are still poorly understood, one of the oddball technologies currently in development is hardlight interfaces, using the shields to project holograms that can be interacted with in a three dimensional environment. While not useful for everything, it does offer far more customizable interfaces, and can do significant work for computer assisted design and similar needs.
(Progress 0/40: 15 resources per die)

[ ] Mind Shields Development (New)
There are many different means of interfacing with the brain. While mind control experiments using chemicals, sonics, and a wide variety of other methods have proven to be less than effective at best, the Scrin did have multiple assets that could mind control human populations. The mind shield is intended to significantly reduce the effectiveness of these methods, and potentially the Order of the Rememberancer's technomancy.
(Progress 0/120: 20 resources per die)

[ ] Expand Resettlement Programs (New)
With the war putting millions upon millions of people into refugee columns and temporary camps, putting a substantial amount of resources towards resettlement for the duration of the war will see increases in both working population, and housing demand, while taking some of the burden off of other parts of the Initiative.
(-5 Resources per Turn)

Military (8 dice)
[ ] Advanced ECCM Development
The development of countermeasures to better punch through, and punch out in certain cases, Brotherhood means of battlefield jamming, will have significant impacts on the functionality of Initiative long range sensors. While Tiberium will still be significantly problematic in increasing effective ranges, it will be significantly less impactful than Tiberium and Brotherhood sensor countermeasures.
(Progress 0/40: 20 resources per die)

[ ] ASAT Defense System (Phase 4)
A final main control station in the Earth orbitals will provide a significant layer of redundancy, and prepare the system for substantial expansions.
(Progress 36/220: 20 resources per die) (Station) (High Priority)
(Progress 0/495: 30 resources per die)

[ ] Stealth Disruptor Development
The research to create improved sensor systems for detecting stealth also produced a method of actively disrupting it via feedback. However, current systems are quite bulky and require significant deployment to work beyond extremely short ranges. With development however, an improved model is likely possible, and potentially a key tool for blocking fixed positions, rather than relying on battle nets.
(0/40: 15 resources per die)

[ ] Inferno Gel Development
Derived from the Brotherhood of Nod's flamethrower systems, Inferno gel is a weapon of terror more than anything else. However, it does have its uses, and one of those is as a means of killing vehicles rapidly. By drenching a vehicle in pyroclastic gel, many of the soft systems can be destroyed, and the people inside blinded and likely immobilized.
(Progress 0/40: 10 resources per die) (-5 Political Support)

[ ] Binary Propellant Exploration (New)
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 0/60: 10 resources per die)

[ ] Ferro Aluminum Armor Refits
With the system offering a cheaper and more effective means of protecting some section of GDI's more lightly armored forces, it can be widely deployed at a relatively cheap cost. However it will require some significant effort to make the deployment happen due to the sheer number of factories that require changes to their procedures to account for the new armor.
(Progress 0/350: 5 resources per die)

[ ] Strategic Area Defense Networks (Phase 1)
While defending the vastness of GDI's territories is effectively impossible, especially with the distinctly limited effectiveness of missile based ABM and ACM systems, there are areas which are much smaller, and can be defended effectively without requiring hundreds of installations. Mecca and Chicago for example can both use small numbers of defense sites to render them significantly hardened against Brotherhood strategic strikes. (Supports Autumn Archer)
(Progress 0/350: 20 resources per die)
(Progress 0/400: 20 resources per die)
(Progress 0/400: 20 resources per die) (-2 Energy)

[ ] Reclamator Hubs
While Massive Armored Reclamation Vehicles proved themselves on the field of battle in the Third Tiberium War, they are difficult to construct and maintain in the field in significant numbers. By establishing regional hubs, MARV units can harvest and process more Tiberium, allowing for more units to be supported.
(20 resources per die) (Tiberium dice can be used, each project requires at least two military dice before Tib dice can be used) (Blue Zone Hubs support Autumn Archer)
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Blue Zone 1 (Progress 39/335) (Roshchino) (2 Points Yellow Zone Mitigation, 10 RpT, +5 Political Support)
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Blue Zone 2 (Progress 58/335) (Richmond) (2 Points Yellow Zone Mitigation, 10 RpT, +5 Political Support)
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Blue Zone 3 (Progress 0/335) (Manchester) (2 Points Yellow Zone Mitigation, 10 RpT, +5 Political Support)
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Blue Zone 4 (Progress 0/335) (Abu Dhabi) (2 Points Yellow Zone Mitigation, 10 RpT, +5 Political Support)
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Blue Zone 5 (Progress 0/335) (Lisbon) (2 Points Yellow Zone Mitigation, 10 RpT, +5 Political Support)
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Blue Zone 6 (Progress 0/335) (Tokyo) (2 Points Yellow Zone Mitigation, 10 RpT, +5 Political Support)
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Blue Zone 7 (Progress 0/335) (Dandong) (2 Points Yellow Zone Mitigation, 10 RpT, +5 Political Support)
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Blue Zone 8 (Progress 0/335) (Mendoza) (2 Points Yellow Zone Mitigation, 10 RpT, +5 Political Support)
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Blue Zone 9 (Progress 0/335) (Canberra) (2 Points Yellow Zone Mitigation, 10 RpT, +5 Political Support)
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Blue Zone 10 (Progress 0/335) (Pretoria) (2 Points Yellow Zone Mitigation, 10 RpT, +5 Political Support)
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Blue Zone 11 (Progress 0/335) (San Diego) (2 Points Yellow Zone Mitigation, 10 RpT, +5 Political Support)
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Blue Zone 12 (Progress 0/335) (Wellington) (2 Points Yellow Zone Mitigation, 10 RpT, +5 Political Support)
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Blue Zone 13 (Progress 0/335) (Touba) (2 Points Yellow Zone Mitigation, 10 RpT, +5 Political Support)
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Blue Zone 14 (Progress 0/335) (Antananarivo) (2 Points Yellow Zone Mitigation, 10 RpT, +5 Political Support)
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Blue Zone 15 (Progress 0/335) (Reykholt) (2 Points Yellow Zone Mitigation, 10 RpT, +5 Political Support)
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Blue Zone 16 (Progress 0/335) (Magadan) (2 Points Yellow Zone Mitigation, 10 RpT, +5 Political Support)
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Blue Zone 17 (Progress 0/335) (Paamiut) ((2 Points Yellow Zone Mitigation, 10 RpT, +5 Political Support)
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Blue Zone 18 (Progress 0/335) (Lhasa) (2 Points Yellow Zone Mitigation, 10 RpT, +5 Political Support)
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Blue Zone 19 (Progress 0/335) (Maputo) (2 Points Yellow Zone Mitigation, 10 RpT)

-[ ] Reclamator Hub Yellow Zone 1 South (Progress 0/335) (Kannur) (3 Points Yellow Zone Mitigation, 15 RpT)
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Yellow Zone 1 East (Progress 0/335) (Puri) (3 Points Yellow Zone Mitigation, 15 RpT)
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Yellow Zone 1 West (Progress 0/335) (Mandvi) (3 Points Yellow Zone Mitigation, 15 RpT)
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Yellow Zone 2 (Progress 0/335) (Nha Trang) (3 Points Yellow Zone Mitigation, 15 RpT)
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Yellow Zone 3 (Progress 0/335) (Qingdao) (3 Points Yellow Zone Mitigation, 15 RpT)
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Yellow Zone 4 (Progress 0/335) (Laoag) (3 Points Yellow Zone Mitigation, 15 RpT)
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Yellow Zone 5 (Progress 0/335) (Luwuk) (3 Points Yellow Zone Mitigation, 15 RpT)
-[ ] Reclaimator Hub Yellow Zone 6 (Progress 0/335) (Perth) (3 Points Yellow Zone Mitigation, 15 RpT)
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Yellow Zone 7 (Progress 0/335) (Adelaide) (3 Points Yellow Zone Mitigation, 15 RpT)
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Yellow Zone 9 (Progress 0/335) (Guaymas) (3 Points Yellow Zone Mitigation, 15 RpT)
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Yellow Zone 12 East (Progress 0/335) (Montevideo) (3 Points Yellow Zone Mitigation, 15 RpT)
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Yellow Zone 12 West (Progress 0/335) (La Serena) (3 Points Yellow Zone Mitigation, 15 RpT)
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Yellow Zone 13 North (Progress 0/335) (Algiers) (3 Points Yellow Zone Mitigation, 15 RpT)
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Yellow Zone 13 South (Progress 0/335) (Lagos) (3 Points Yellow Zone Mitigation, 15 RpT)
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Yellow Zone 14 (Progress 0/335) (Nacala) (3 Points Yellow Zone Mitigation, 15 RpT)
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Yellow Zone 15 (Progress 0/335 (Valencia) (3 Points Yellow Zone Mitigation, 15 RpT)
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Yellow Zone 16 (Progress 0/335) (Berbera) (3 Points Yellow Zone Mitigation, 15 RpT)
-[ ] Reclamator Hub YZ-18 (Progress 0/335) (Varandey) (3 Points Yellow Zone Mitigation, 15 RpT)

-[ ] Reclamator Hub Red Zone 1 South (Progress 0/335) (Tripoli) (3 Points Red Zone Mitigation, 25 RpT)
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Red Zone 2 North (Progress 0/335) (Congo River) (3 Points Red Zone Mitigation, 25 RpT)
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Red Zone 2 South (Progress 0/335) (Dar Es Salaam) (3 Points Red Zone Mitigation, 25 RpT)
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Red Zone 3 North (Progress 0/335) (Istanbul) (3 Points Red Zone Mitigation, 25 RpT)
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Red Zone 3 South (Progress 0/335) (Beirut) (3 Points Red Zone Mitigation, 25 RpT)
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Red Zone 4 North (Progress 0/335) (Hong Kong) (3 Points Red Zone Mitigation, 25 RpT)
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Red Zone 4 South (Progress 0/335) (Chattogram) (3 Points Red Zone Mitigation, 25 RpT)
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Red Zone 5 North (Progress 0/335) (Tuaran) (3 Points Red Zone Mitigation, 25 RpT)
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Red Zone 5 South (Progress 0/335) (Banda Aceh) (3 Points Red Zone Mitigation, 25 RpT)
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Red Zone 8 North (Progress 0/335) (Wyndham) (3 Points Red Zone Mitigation, 25 RpT)
-[ ] Reclamator Hub Red Zone 8 South (Progress 0/335) (Eucla) (3 Points Red Zone Mitigation, 25 RpT)


Zone Operations Command

[ ] Infantry Recon Support Drone Development
One advantage of the Zone Armor is that every man has a significantly more powerful radio than could be given to any infantry force. While long range drone operations are significantly contraindicated by the nature of Red Zone environments, small "pop up" drones should provide advanced reconnaissance, and act as forward sensor platforms.
(Progress 0/40: 10 resources per die)

[ ] Backpack Rocket Launcher Development
With the Zone Operations Command ever more intensely engaged with the Brotherhood of Nod, backpack systems are one of the easier ways to substantially increase firepower. While not always the most convenient location, by shifting around the power pack somewhat, nearly any Zone Operations Command unit can have a limited supply of short to mid range indirect fire options at their disposal.
(Progress 0/50: 10 resources per die)

[ ] Zone Defender Revision
The Brotherhood of Nod's Black Hand Armor systems are strong combat assets, with massive slabs of heavy armor over a power assisted frame. The Zone Defender shares much of its goals with the Black Hand's approach, and design studies and prototyping will begin preparing for a better defended and cheaper version of the design, likely an aid to mass deployment of Zone Armor, especially for second and third line forces.
(Progress 0/40: 15 resources per die)

[ ] Zone Lancer Development
A variant of the Marauder suit refitted with a personal plasma gun, the Zone Lancer is intended to augment and support the already extremely capable antiarmor capacity of the Initiative's Zone Armored forces, and provide a viable replacement for the Marauder's limited ammunition.
(Progress 0/40: 15 resources per die)

Air Force

[ ] Wingman Drone Deployment (High Priority)
With the Wingman drones, GDI has begun to lay out a platform for a future of warfare, primarily built around pilot survivability, and preparing for a series of larger and more intensive aerial campaigns around the world.
- [ ] Orca Wingmen (Progress 0/550: 20 resources per die) (-2 Labor, -6 Energy, -2 Capital Goods)
- [ ] Firehawk Wingmen (Progress 0/450: 20 resources per die) (-1 Labor, -6 Energy, -2 Capital Goods)
- [ ] Hammerhead Wingmen (Progress 0/400: 20 resources per die) (-4 Energy, -1 Capital Goods)



[ ] Apollo Fighter Factories
With the Barghest-bis, and the new Vertigo-bis, GDI needs more of the high end of its fighter arsenal. While the Firehawk remains capable, it is far from enough in the modern day, and needs to be entirely replaced in the air superiority role.
-[ ] San Francisco (Progress 0/80: 15 resources per die) (-4 Energy)
-[ ] Maputo (Progress 0/80: 15 resources per die) (-4 Energy)
-[ ] Rotterdam (Progress 0/80: 15 resources per die) (-4 Energy)

[ ] Ultralight Glide Munitions Development
The Brotherhood's glide system has a potentially extremely useful role in GDI's combat systems. Specifically in GDI's glide munitions. While deployable wings are not a new invention, this will cut weight and space, while increasing control as the entire surface can be flexed with a high degree of precision.
(Progress 0/40: 10 resources per die)

[ ] Plasma Warhead Factory (Phase 1)
The T-10E (Plasma) is probably the most expensive missile of its size ever built by the Initiative. Relying on rare stable transuranic elements, it has significant value, both in air to air and air to ground roles, providing massive damage, and a small form factor. However, it does need a dedicated, if small, production line to provide a trickle of missiles to take out specific high value targets.
(Progress 53/90: 10 resources per die) (-1 STU)
(Progress 0/90: 10 resources per die) (-1 STU)


Space Force

[ ] Orbital Strike Regimental Combat Team Stations (Phase 3)
With the first two rapid response stations assembled, if not yet fully ready for action, further development will begin focusing heavily on larger stations, not just to act as immediate reinforcements for embattled holdings, but forces intended to crush the Brotherhood under a rain of metal from the skies. (Station)
(Progress 5/295: 20 resources per die)
(Progress 0/395: 20 resources per die)

[ ] Orbital Defense Laser Satellite Deployment
An initial battery of sixty defense satellites will provide a wrapping of protection for critical sites in orbit. While the Space Force does not currently see a pressing need for them as an immediate reaction to the Brotherhood, they will provide a substantial support asset, especially in the face of the likely proliferation of countermeasures to the Ion Cannons.
(Progress 0/240: 20 resources per die)

[ ] Skywatch Telescope System
While no longer a requirement for further exploration of the solar system, a constellation of Skywatch telescopes will be useful for the Space Force as well, an early warning tripwire in case of another alien invasion or asteroid bombardments.
(Progress 0/95: 10 resources per die)

[ ] Orbital Nuclear Caches
GDI has maintained an increasingly small nuclear stockpile in fortified strongpoints around the world. During the Third Tiberium War, as in previous wars, the Brotherhood of Nod expended significant effort to seize nuclear devices. In order to better secure that arsenal, building a number of small stations in orbit should place them well out of reach of the Brotherhood.
(Progress 0/175: 20 resources per die) (Station)

[ ] Tactical Ion Cannon Network (Phase 1)
While the idea of smaller, more numerous Ion Cannons is tactically useful, this first stage is expected to be tightly connected to the existing network, piggybacking off the existing control centers and sharing bandwidth on the ASAT network. This will limit the number of commanders who can access the network, but ensure that the limited deployment is employed in the most critical or advanced fronts.
(Progress 0/275: 20 resources per die)

Ground Forces

[ ] Universal Rocket Launch System Deployment (Phase 3)
Yet more missile production is going to do little more than begin preparing the ground for the reintroduction of MLRS platforms, either wheeled or hover, to GDI ranks, and lay in vast stockpiles of everything but naval missiles. However, at this time, it is still not a bad idea, as GDI is about to embark on grand offensives covering much of the world.
(Progress 0/200: 15 resources per die) (-2 Energy)

[ ] Shell Plants (Phase 6)
A further wave of shell plants, aimed at producing a vast swarm of guided shells, enough to maintain a viable supply as GDI vastly increases shell expenditures during the exigencies of wartime.
(Progress 7/150: 10 resources per die) (-1 Energy)

[ ] Railgun Munitions Development
While the Initiative has deployed railguns for decades, the only munition has been some form of inert slug, either an ovoid in early designs, and a fluted dart in later ones. Typically, this has been all that is needed, with its sheer kinetic force capable of doing much of the damage. However, with rail weaponry taking up an ever larger part of the Initiative's arsenal, more forms of ammunition are likely to be required.
(Progress 0/60: 10 resources per die) (High Priority)

[ ] Ablat Plating Deployment (Stage 5)
A final wave of Ablat production will allow for stockpiles to be built ahead of potential Brotherhood energy weapons development, and allow for replacements at a much higher rate than currently used. It will also mark an end to the plan goals for production of Ablat, which should make the Militarists in Parliament quite happy.
(Progress 54/200: 10 resources per die) (Very High Priority)

[ ] Ground Forces Zone Armor (Set 1)
The Initiative's Ground Forces are ready to begin refitting to an entirely zone armored force. The refit will create a leaner, harder, and drastically more lethal force, one that can engage the best that NOD has to offer, and come out on top. While this first wave of factories will only be enough to equip the tip of the spear, that is the area with the most vital set of requirements (High Priority)

-[ ] New York (Progress 0/200: 20 resources per die) (-2 Labor, -4 Energy, -1 Capital Goods)
-[ ] New Sevastopol (Progress 0/200: 20 resources per die) (-2 Labor, -4 Energy, -1 Capital Goods)
-[ ] London (Progress 0/200: 20 resources per die) (-2 Labor, -4 Energy, -1 Capital Goods)
-[ ] Tokyo (Progress 0/200: 20 resources per die) (-2 Labor, -4 Energy, -1 Capital Goods)
-[ ] Pyongyang (Progress 0/200: 20 resources per die) (-2 Labor, -4 Energy, -1 Capital Goods)
-[ ] Santiago (Progress 0/200: 20 resources per die) (-2 Labor, -4 Energy, -1 Capital Goods)

[ ] GD-3 Rifle Development
The GD-2 has served well for almost thirty years. However, in the modern day it is no longer serving GDI's overall needs as well as it once did. Between the need to counter the ever more common biomechanical creatures, the hoped for switch to Zone Armor, and the potential of laser and particle beam weapons a new system is required to serve in a set of very different roles than the GD-2.
(Progress 0/30: 10 resources per die)

[ ] Hallucinogen Countermeasures Development
With the Hallucinogen grenades deployed by the Brotherhood of Nod being a critical threat to GDI's ability to hold positions, the development of effective physical and pharmacological countermeasures to these devices is an important aid to troop survivability.
(Progress 0/40: 15 resources per die)

Navy

[ ] Escort Carrier Shipyards (High Priority)
As GDI has a vast need for escort carriers, there are two tracks. First is simply building a number of supporting elements to build carriers between supporting the battleships. Second is building a number of dedicated shipyards for their production. While both will require substantial infrastructural investments, the former is substantially cheaper than the latter
-[ ] Battleship Yards (Progress 0/120: 20 resources per die) (-3 Energy, -1 Capital Goods)
-[ ] New York (Progress 0/240: 20 resources per die) (-5 Energy, -2 Capital Goods)
-[ ] Dublin (Progress 0/240: 20 resources per die) (-5 Energy, -2 Capital Goods)
-[ ] Nagoya (Progress 0/240: 20 resources per die) (-5 Energy, -2 Capital Goods)

[ ] Merchantman Carrier Conversions
With the Merchantman conversions, switching a substantial number of ships to carry Hammerheads and Orcas instead of cargo, it is a both politically and practically problematic approach. While certainly theoretically possible, and something that GDI has the design specifications to do. It will be a stop gap measure.
-[ ] High Commitments (Complete all Escort Carrier Shipyards by end of Plan) (Progress 150/200: 20 resources per die) (-10 PS)

[ ] Heavy Support Laser Development
The Navy needs not only a light laser, for fighting bombs, but also a heavier support laser, designed for long range engagements against incoming munitions. With initial goals being horizon to horizon capability, and rapid engagement of multiple targets, upgraded missile defense lasers are one of the most important features for naval survivability in the near future.
(Progress 0/50: 20 resources per die)

(Offensive Navy)

[ ] Island Class Assault Ships
The Island class is a dedicated assault ship, designed to handle the V-35 Ox as its mainstay alongside the Hammerhead and Orca attack craft. Each is also intended to be a general support facility for the first days of landing operations and provide support from deep holds.
(Progress 0/40: 20 resources per die)

[ ] Victory Class Monitor Development
A dedicated littoral combat ship, designed around a series of mission packs, ranging from 203mm rifles and rocket batteries, to anti-submarine and anti mine warfare. Intended to be a general purpose support ship for offensive operations against the Brotherhood of Nod, it will fill a wide range of purposes that GDI has often not had the resources to fill effectively.
(Progress 0/40: 20 resources per die)

(Defensive Navy)

[ ] Shark Class Frigate Shipyards (High Priority)
The Shark unfortunately is of a size that GDI cannot simply reuse an existing ship's extra slipways to build the class. Too small for even the older destroyer shipyards, it needs much of its own dedicated space.
-[ ] Seattle (Progress 0/300: 20 resources per die) (-6 Energy, -2 Capital Goods)
-[ ] Melbourne (Progress 0/300: 20 resources per die) (-6 Energy, -2 Capital Goods)


Steel Talons

[ ] Mastodon Heavy Assault Walker Development
The Mastodon Heavy Assault Walker is intended to be a smaller, and substantially cheaper, replacement for the Mammoth Mk 2. Armed as a breakthrough asset, with anti aircraft missile launchers and rapid fire chin mounted artillery, the Mastodon is as much a weapon of terror as a weapon of war.
(Progress 0/30 : 10 resources per die)

[ ] Medium Tactical Plasma Weapon Deployment
A medium weight ion cannon, capable of being fielded on the Titan and other Initiative vehicles, and as a secondary weapon on other systems, is a potentially substantial increase in direct firepower. Deployment is likely to be small scale however, as it is less flexible, barring further delays in deployment of variable munitions for the Initiative's railguns.
(Progress 0/80: 30 resources per die)

[ ] Light Combat Laser Development
Effectively an Initiative version of the same laser system found on the Brotherhood's Venoms and raider buggies, the light combat laser is likely to be an effective endurance upgrade across a wide number of systems, even if it is less directly effective. For many vehicles however, it will be filling a secondary role as an antimissile laser, shooting down incoming RPGs and bombs.
(Progress 0/40: 25 resources per die)

[ ] Heavy Combat Laser Development
A heavy direct fire beam laser, this is currently more of a curiosity than anything else, especially with the performance of the Initiative's current railgun arsenal. However, the Talons are very interested in experimenting further with laser technologies, and this may well lead to advances in other fields.
(Progress 0/40: 20 resources per die)

[ ] Modular Rapid Assembly System Prototypes
With the Initiative going on a large-scale offensive, more of its supporting assets need to be moved to smaller units, to give them greater freedom of movement and increased striking power. Shrinking down the system used by various Initiative buildings even more than they already are should allow the ability to cram significant portions of the utility of a full base into a mobile platform.
(Progress 0/125: 20 resources per die)


Bureaucracy (4 dice)

[ ] Administrative Assistance
While the bureaucrats of the Treasury are not specialists in the many complex technical jobs the projects need, they are experts in paperwork. By offloading part of a sub-department's administrative work onto the bureaucrats directly, project specialists will have to spend less time writing reports. The extra paperwork involved tends to make this slightly inefficient in terms of manpower though.
(Spend 2 Bureaucracy dice for 1 operations die, that die is rolled without bonuses)

[ ] Security Reviews
GDI has often faced problems with infiltration by the Brotherhood of Nod. A full security review of one department of operations can mitigate or discover infiltration, however it will take a significant amount of effort. (DC 50 + 1 operations die)

[ ] Make Political Promises
While Seo's parliamentary support is currently stable, it is possible to make additional promises to shore up his position, and make parliament and other political figures happy with him. While this will require expansion of the plan goals, it will also provide other benefits.
(Initiates Subvote)

[ ] Interdepartmental Favors
By reaching out to the other departments and providing aid to them, the Treasury can improve its overall position within the broader Initiative. While this will require resource allocation to their projects, that is a small price to pay in exchange for political favor
(Initiates Subvote)

[ ] Conduct Economic Census
It has been over a decade since GDI took a comprehensive census of its economic affairs outside of its own industrial efforts. With taxation becoming an ever more noticeable part of the Initiative's economic base, a better understanding of the people and companies is likely advantageous.
(DC 100/150/200/250)

[ ] Conduct Civil Satisfaction Surveys
With immigration and displacement having moved millions of people around the world, a better look at the population as a whole, and what their problems are is likely useful. While this kind of information gathering is difficult and time consuming, it is also critical to knowing who is where, in a degree of detail greater than even GDI's all consuming surveillance state can know.
(DC 90/120/150/180)

[ ] Request Reduction in Plan Commitments
With the current state of emergency, it is possible to request a reduction in commitments from both parliament and other parties that the Treasury has asked favors of, to reflect the need for vast investments in areas outside of those envisioned two years ago. While Parliament is likely to be loath to make significant reductions, there are a number of marginal projects that can be cut, or traded out for other goals.
(-6 Political Support Per Die) (DC 120/160/200/240)

[ ] Allocate Resources to Reconstruction Commissions (New)
Rather than directly dictating from the top down the projects that require the highest priority, and surging resources to fix them, a more general reservation of resources to solve these problems can speed the repair of damages across the Initiative, rather than focusing potentially excessive amounts of energy on individual projects that may or may not be worth pursuing.
-[ ] Minimal (5 resources per turn)
-[ ] Marginal (10 resources per turn)
-[ ] Aggressive (20 resources per turn)
-[ ] Maximal (30 resources per turn)

** 4 Hour Moratorium on Voting **

And thanks to @Derpmind for the probabilities array.

Infrastructure 6 dice +34
-[] Blue Zone Arcologies (Stage 4) 1/650 6 dice 90R 4%, 7 dice 105R 29%, 8 dice 120R 70%, 9 dice 135R 93%
-[] Yellow Zone Fortress Towns (Phase 6) (Updated) 0/300 3 dice 60R 28%, 4 dice 80R 82%, 6 dice 100R 99%
-[] Yellow Zone Fortress Towns (Phase 6+7) (Updated) 0/600 6 dice 120R 14%, 7 dice 140R 54%, 8 dice 160R 87%, 9 dice 180R 98%
-[] Blue Zone Apartment Complexes (Phase 2) 28/160 1 die 10R 18%, 2 dice 20R 89%, 3 dice 30R 99%
-[] Blue Zone Apartment Complexes (Phase 2+3) 28/160 3 dice 30R 33%, 4 dice 40R 85%, 5 dice 50R 99%
-[] Rail Network Construction Campaigns (Phase 4) (Updated) 128/325 2 dice 30R 38%, 3 dice 45R 92%
-[] Rail Network Construction Campaigns (Phase 4+5) (Updated) 128/650 5 dice 75R 10%, 6 dice 90R 50%, 7 dice 105R 86%, 8 dice 120R 98%
-[] Rail Network Construction Campaigns (Phase 4+5+6) (Updated) 128/975 8 dice 120R 3%, 9 dice 135R 21%, 10 dice 150R 56%, 11 dice 165R 84%, 12 dice 180R 97%
-[] Suborbital Shuttle Service (Phase 1) 0/200 2 dice 60R 36%, 3 dice 90R 91%
-[] Suborbital Shuttle Service (Phase 1+2) 0/450 4 dice 110R+ 5%, 5 dice 135R+ 43%, 6 dice 160R+ 84%, 7 dice 185R+ 98%
-[] Suborbital Shuttle Service (Phase 1+2+3) 0/650 6 dice 160R+ 4%, 7 dice 185R+ 29%, 8 dice 210R+ 69%, 9 dice 235R 93%
-[] Chicago Planned City (Phase 4) 3/600 5 Tib dice 100R 2%, 6 Tib dice 120R 27%, 7 Tib dice 140R 72%, 8 Tib dice 160R 95%
--Note: Infra/Tib dice makes this complicated.
-[] Karachi Planned City (Phase 1) 0/65 1 Tib die 20R 90%, 2 Tib dice 40R 100%
-[] Karachi Planned City (Phase 1+2) 0/195 2 Tib dice 40R 50%, 3 Tib dice 60R 96%
-[] Karachi Planned City (Phase 1+2+3) 0/455 4 Tib dice 80R 8%, 5 Tib dice 100R 55%, 6 Tib dice 120R 91%, 7 Tib dice 140R 99%
--Alt: 6 Infra 1 Tib die 98%
-[] Karachi Planned City (Phase 1+2+3+4) 0/975 9 Tib dice 180R 4%, 10 Tib dice 200R 24%, 11 Tib dice 220R 60%, 12 Tib dice 240R 87%, 13 Tib dice 260R 97%
--Alt: 6 Infra 3 Tib dice 180R 2%, 6 Infra 4 Tib dice 200R 15%, 6 Infra 5 Tib dice 220R 50%, 6 Infra 6 Tib dice 240R 80%, 6 Infra 7 Tib dice 260R 95%, 6 Infra 8 Tib dice 280R 99%
--Note: Infra/Tib dice makes this complicated.
--Note: Karachi Phase 5 is a PITA.
-[] Indianapolis Reconstruction Surge (New) 1 Tib die 10R 5%, 2 Tib dice 20R 85%, 3 Tib dice 30R 99%
--Alt: 1 Tib die 1 Infra die 20R 82%, 1 Tib die 2 Infra dice 99%
Heavy Industry 5 dice +29
-[] Continuous Cycle Fusion Plants (Phase 6) (Updated) 30/300 3 dice 60R 38%, 4 dice 80R 86%, 5 dice 100R 99%
-[] Continuous Cycle Fusion Plants (Phase 6+7) 30/600 6 dice 120R 14%, 7 dice 140R 51%, 8 dice 160R 84%, 9 dice 180R 97%
-[] North Boston Chip Fabricator (Phase 5) 36/2400 26 dice 390R 3%, 27 dice 405R 9%, 28 dice 420R 21%, 29 dice 435R 39%, 30 dice 450R 59%, 31 dice 465R 76%, 32 dice 480R 88%, 33 dice 495R 95%
-[] Nuuk Heavy Robotics Foundry (Phase 3) (Updated) 352/600 2 dice 40R 4%, 3 dice 60R 54%, 4 dice 80R 93%
-[] Nuuk Heavy Robotics Foundry (Phase 3+4) (Updated) 352/1800 15 dice 300R 2%, 16 dice 320R 8%, 17 dice 340R 25%, 18 dice 360R 50%, 19 dice 380R 73%, 20 dice 400R 89%, 21 dice 420R 96%
-[] Suzuka Prototype Hover Chassis Factory 0/175 2 dice 40R 50%, 3 dice 60R 94%
-[] Crystal Beam Industrial Laser Development 0/80 1 die 10R 70%, 2 dice 20R 100%
-[] Isolinear Chip Foundry Anadyr (New) 3 dice 150R 10%, 4 dice 200R 59%, 5 dice 250R 92%
-[] Puerto Madryn Reconstruction Surge (New) 1 dice 10R 85%, 2 dice 20R 100%
-[] Western Europe Reconstruction Surge (New) 1 die 10R 100%
-[] Division of Alternative Energy 1 die auto
Light and Chemical Industry 5 dice +24
-[] Chemical Fertilizer Plants (Phase 2) 94/300 2 dice 30R 17%, 3 dice 45R 74%, 4 dice 60R 97%
-[] Reykjavik Myomer Macrospinner (Phase 4) 514/640 1 die 20R 14%, 2 dice 40R 81%, 3 dice 60R 99%
-[] Reykjavik Myomer Macrospinner (Phase 4+5) 514/1920 16 dice 320R 4%, 17 dice 340R 15%, 18 dice 360R 34%, 19 dice 380R 58%, 20 dice 400R 78%, 21 dice 420R 91%
-[] Bergen Superconductor Foundry (Phase 1) 0/95 1 die 30R 45%, 2 dice 60R 95%
-[] Bergen Superconductor Foundry (Phase 1+2) 0/285 3 dice 90R 19%, 4 dice 120R 68%, 5 dice 150R 94%
-[] Bergen Superconductor Foundry (Phase 1+2+3) 0/665 7 dice 210R 5%, 8 dice 240R 26%, 9 dice 270R 59%, 10 dice 300R 85%, 11 dice 330R 96%
-[] Civilian Drone Factories 0/380 4 dice 40R 13%, 5 dice 50R 55%, 6 dice 60R 87%, 7 dice 70R 98%
-[] Medical Supplies Factories 129/225 1 die 20R 44%, 2 dice 40R 95%
Agriculture 4 dice +24
-[] Agriculture Mechanization Projects (Phase 1) 0/150 2 dice 30R 63%, 3 dice 45R 96%
-[] Agriculture Mechanization Projects (Phase 1+2) 0/400 4 dice 60R 7%, 5 dice 75R 43%, 6 dice 90R 81%, 7 dice 105R 96%
-[] Blue Zone Aquaponics Bays (Phase 3) (Updated) 30/140 1 die 10R 30%, 2 dice 20R 90%
-[] Blue Zone Aquaponics Bays (Phase 3+4) (Updated) 30/280 2 dice 20R 42%, 3 dice 30R 86%, 4 dice 40R 99%
-[] Vertical Farming Projects (Stage 2) 65/240 2 dice 30R 40%, 3 dice 45R 89%, 4 dice 60R 99%
-[] Ranching Domes 0/250 3 dice 60R 42%, 4 dice 80R 86%, 5 dice 100R 99%
-[] Spider Cotton Plantations (Phase 1) 0/170 2 dice 30R 45%, 3 dice 45R 91%
-[] Spider Cotton Plantations (Phase 1+2) 0/350 4 dice 60R 27%, 5 dice 75R 72%, 6 dice 90R 94%
-[] Spider Cotton Plantations (Phase 1+2+3) 0/540 6 dice 90R 14%, 7 dice 105R 48%, 8 dice 120R 81%, 9 dice 135R 95%
-[] Wadmalaw Kudzu Plantations (Phase 2) 3/300 3 dice 30R 13%, 4 dice 40R 61%, 5 dice 50R 92%
-[] Wadmalaw Kudzu Plantations (Phase 2+3) 3/750 8 dice 80R 5%, 9 dice 90R 24%, 10 dice 100R 56%, 11 dice 110R 82%, 12 dice 120R 95%
-[] Tarberry Development 0/40 1 die 20R 100%
-[] Poulticeplant Development 0/50 1 die 20R 95%
-[] Freeze Dried Food Plants 126/200 1 die 20R 56%, 2 dice 40R 99%
-[] Strategic Food Stockpile Construction (Phase 2) 38/150 1 die 10R 28%, 2 dice 20R 89%, 3 dice 30R 99%
-[] Strategic Food Stockpile Construction (Phase 2+3) 38/325 3 dice 30R 18%, 4 dice 40R 67%, 5 dice 50R 94%
-[] Strategic Food Stockpile Construction (Phase 2+3+4) 38/525 5 dice 50R 6%, 6 dice 60R 37%, 7 dice 70R 74%, 8 dice 80R 94%
-[] Extra Large Food Stockpiles 1 die auto
Tiberium 7 dice +39
-[] Tiberium Vein Mines (Stage 2) 5/195 2 dice 40R 54%, 3 dice 60R 97%
-[] Tiberium Vein Mines (Stage 2+3) 5/385? 3 dice 60R 3%, 4 dice 80R 46%, 5 dice 100R 90%
-[] Yellow Zone Tiberium Harvesting (Phase 9) (Updated) 2/325 3 dice 60R 23%, 4 dice 80R 80%, 5 dice 100R 99%
-[] Yellow Zone Tiberium Harvesting (Phase 9+10) (Updated) 2/675 6 dice 120R 4%, 7 dice 140R 35%, 8 dice 160R 76%, 9 dice 180R 96%
-[] Intensification of Green Zone Harvesting (Stage 6) 46/100 1 die 15R 100%
-[] Intensification of Green Zone Harvesting (Stage 6+7) 46/200 1 die 15R 1%, 2 dice 30R 82%, 3 dice 45R 99%
-[] Red Zone Tiberium Harvesting (Stage 12) 29/130 1 die 25R 54%, 2 dice 50R 99%
-[] Red Zone Tiberium Harvesting (Stage 12+13) 29/260 2 dice 50R 20%, 3 dice 75R 85%, 4 dice 100R 99%
-[] Red Zone Border Offensives (Stage 1) (New) 0/200 2 dice 50R 45%, 3 dice 75R 95%
-[] Red Zone Border Offensives (Stage 1+2) (New) 0/400 4 dice 100R 33%, 5 dice 125R 83%, 6 dice 150R 99%
-[-] Red Zone Containment Lines (Stage 6) 54/200 1 die 25R 9%, 2 dice 50R 87%, 3 dice 75R 99%
-[-] Red Zone Containment Lines (Stage 6+7) 54/400 3 dice 75R 11%, 4 dice 100R 68%, 5 dice 125R 97%
-[-] Red Zone Containment Lines (Stage 6+7+8) 54/600 5 dice 125R 7%, 6 dice 150R 43%, 7 dice 175R 83%, 8 dice 200R 97%
-[-] Tiberium Glacier Mining (Stage 13) 38/180 1 die 30R 13%, 2 dice 60R 89%, 3 dice 90R 99%
-[-] Tiberium Glacier Mining (Stage 13+14) 38/360 3 dice 90R 18%, 4 dice 120R 75%, 5 dice 150R 98%
-[] Tiberium Processing Plants (Stage 2) 20/200 2 dice 60R 63%, 3 dice 90R 98%
-[] Tiberium Processing Refits (Phase 5) 6/100 1 die 20R 61%, 2 dice 40R 100%
-[] Tiberium Inhibitor Deployment (Blue Zones) 0/100 1 die 30R 55%, 2 dice 60R 99%
-[] Tiberium Inhibitor Deployment (Yellow Zones) 0/130 1 die 30R 25%, 2 dice 60R 94%
-[] Tiberium Inhibitor Deployment (Red Zones) 0/120 1 die 30R 35%, 2 dice 60R 97%
-[] Railgun Harvester Factories (Bissau) 0/70 1 die 10R 85%, 2 dice 20R 100%
-[] Railgun Harvester Factory (Porto) 44/70 1 die 10R 100%
--Alt 1 Admin Assistance die 90%
-[] Improved Tiberium Containment Facilities Construction 0/120 1 die 20R 35%, 2 dice 40R 97%
-[] Liquid Tiberium Power Cell Deployment (Phase 1) 41/140 1 die 20R 56%, 2 dice 40R 99%
-[] Liquid Tiberium Power Cell Deployment (Phase 1+2?) 41/280? 2 dice 40R 15%, 3 dice 60R 81%, 4 dice 80R 99%
-[] Enhanced Harvest Tiberium Spikes 0/180 2 dice 40R 10PS 72%, 3 dice 60R 15PS 99%
-[] Visceroid Research Programs 0/120 1 die 15R 40%, 2 dice 30R 99%
-[] Harvesting Tendril Development 0/40 1 die 30R 100%
Orbital Industry 6 dice +26
-[] GDSS Columbia (Phase 1) 0/80 1 die 20R 67%, 2 dice 40 R 99%
-[] GDSS Columbia (Phase 1+2) 0/245 2 dice 40R 6%, 3 dice 60R 61%, 4 dice 80R 95%
-[] GDSS Columbia (Phase 1+2+3) 0/580 6 dice 120R 15%, 7 dice 140R 53%, 8 dice 160R 86%, 9 dice 180R 98%
-[] GDSS Enterprise (Phase 5) 102/1535 15 dice 300R 4%, 16 dice 320R 16%, 17 dice 340R 39%, 18 dice 360R 66%, 19 dice 380R 85%, 20 dice 400R 95%
--GDSS Enterprise Bays (1 available) (New)--
-[] Military Bay 0/450 5 dice 100R 22%, 6 dice 120R 63%, 7 dice 140R 90%
-[] Advanced Materials Bay 0/400 4 dice 80R 9%, 5 dice 100R 49%, 6 dice 120R 85%, 7 dice 140R 98%
-[] Satellite Bay 0/400 4 dice 80R 9%, 5 dice 100R 49%, 6 dice 120R 85%, 7 dice 140R 98%
-[] Station Bay 0/400 4 dice 80R 9%, 5 dice 100R 49%, 6 dice 120R 85%, 7 dice 140R 98%
-[] Gravitic Shipyard 0/450 5 dice 150R 22%, 6 dice 180R 63%, 7 dice 210R 90%
-[] Fusion Shipyard 0/500 5 dice 100R 6%, 6 dice 120R 36%, 7 dice 140R 74%, 8 dice 160R 94%

-[] GDSS Shala - Same as GDSS Columbia.
-[] Orbital Cleanup (Stage 11) 32/85 1 die 10R 89%, 2 dice 20R 100%
--Alt: 1 AA die 63%, 1 AA die 1 Orb die 99%
-[] Orbital Cleanup (Stage 11+12) 32/170 1 die 10R 4%, 2 dice 20R 76%, 3 dice 30R 99%
--Alt: 1 AA die 1 Orb die 54%, 1 AA die 2 Orb dice 95%
-[] Conestoga Class Development 0/60 1 die 30R 87%, 2 dice 60R 100%
-[] Leopard II Factory (New) 3 dice 60R 2%, 4 dice 80R 32%, 5 dice 100R 77%, 6 dice 120R 96%

-[] Outer System Survey Probes 0/190 2 dice 30R 31%, 3 dice 45R 86%, 4 dice 60R 99%

-[] Lunar Rare Metals Harvesting (Phase 1) 0/160 2 die 40R 58%, 3 dice 60R 95%
-[] Lunar Rare Metals Harvesting (Phase 1+2) 0/305 3 dice 60R 12%, 4 dice 80R 61%, 5 dice 100R 92%
-[] Lunar Regolith Harvesting (Phase 2) 50/330 3 dice 60R 25%, 4 dice 80R 76%, 5 dice 100R 97%
-[] Lunar Regolith Harvesting (Phase 2+3) 50/650? 6 dice 120R 4%, 7 dice 140R 26%, 8 dice 160R 63%, 9 dice 180R 88%, 10 dice 200R 98%
-[] Lunar Heavy Metals Mines (Phase 2) 145/385 2 dice 40R 4%, 3 dice 60R 54% 4 dice 80R 92%
-[] Lunar Heavy Metals Mines (Phase 2+3) 145/760 6 dice 120R 2%, 7 dice 140R 21%, 8 dice 160R 56%, 9 dice 180R 85%, 10 dice 200R 97%
-[] Lunar Heavy Metals Mines (Phase 2+3+4) 145/1125 11 dice 220R 10%, 12 dice 240R 32%, 13 dice 260R 61%, 14 dice 280R 84%, 15 dice 300R 95%

-[-] Lunar Water Mine (Inactive)
-[-] Helium 3 Harvesting(Inactive)
Services 5 dice +27
-[] Automatic Medical Assistants 0/300 3 dice 60R 16%, 4 dice 80R 67%, 5 dice 100R 94%
-[] Neural Interfaced Operating Theaters 122/160 1 die 20R 100%
-[] Professional Sports Programs 0/250 2 dice 20R 2%, 3 dice 30R 49%, 4 dice 40R 90%
-[] Advanced Electronic Video Assistant Deployment 0/200 2 dice 40R 25%, 3 dice 60R 82%, 4 dice 80R 99%
-[] Human Genetic Engineering Programs 0/120 1 die 25R 28%, 2 dice 50R 92%
-[] Hallucinogen Development 0/60 1 die 15R 88%, 2 dice 30R 100%
-[] Hardlight Interface Development (New) 1 die 15R 100%
-[] Mind Shields Development (New) 1 die 20R 28%, 2 dice 40R 92%
-[] Expand Resettlement Programs (New) 1 die auto
Military 8 dice +26
-[] Advanced ECCM Development 0/40 1 die 20R 100%
-[] ASAT Defense System (Phase 4) 36/220 2 dice 40R 45%, 3 dice 60R 93%
-[] ASAT Defense System (Phase 4+5) 36/715 7 dice 140R 11%, 8 dice 160R 45%, 9 dice 180R 79%, 10 dice 200R 95%
-[] Stealth Disruptor Development 0/40 1 die 15R 100%
-[] Inferno Gel Development 0/40 1 die 10R 100%
-[] Binary Propellant Exploration (New) 1 die 10R 87%, 2 dice 20R 100%
-[] Ferro Aluminum Armor Refits 0/350 3 dice 15R 2%, 4 dice 20R 32%, 5 dice 25R 77%, 6 dice 30R 96%
-[] Strategic Area Defense Networks (Phase 1) 0/350 3 dice 60R 2%, 4 dice 80R 32%, 5 dice 100R 77%, 6 dice 120R 96%
-[] Strategic Area Defense Networks (Phase 1+2) 0/750 8 dice 160R 7%, 9 dice 180R 30%, 10 dice 200R 63%, 11 dice 220R 97%, 12 dice 240R 97%
-[] Strategic Area Defense Networks (Phase 1+2+3) 0/1150 13 dice 260R 9%, 14 dice 280R 28%, 15 dice 300R 55%, 16 dice 320R 78%, 17 dice 340R 92%

MARVs
-[] Reclamator Hubs 0/335 3 dice 60R 4%, 4 dice 80R 41%, 5 dice 100R 83%, 6 dice 120R 98%
--Alt: 2 Mil 1 Tib dice 60R 6%, 2 Mil 2 Tib dice 80R 58%, 2 Mil 3 Tib dice 94%
--Alt B: 1 Mil 1 AA 2 Tib dice 80R 41%, 1 Mil 1 AA 3 Tib dice 100R 88%, 1 Mil 1 AA 4 Tib dice 120R 99%
--Alt C: 2 AA 2 Tib dice 80R 25%, 2 AA 3 Tib dice 100R 78%, 2 AA 4 Tib dice 120R 98%
-[] Reclamator Hubs x2 0/670 7 dice 140R 6%, 8 dice 160R 30%, 9 dice 180R 65%, 10 dice 200R 89%, 11 dice 220R 98%
--Alt: 2 Mil 4 Tib dice 120R 2%, 2 Mil 5 Tib dice 140R 24%, 2 Mil 6 Tib dice 160R 67%, 2 Mil 7 Tib dice 180R 92%
-[] Reclaimator Hub BZ-1 (Roschino) 39?/335 3 dice 60R 16%, 4 dice 80R 57%, 5 dice 100R 94%
-[] Reclaimator Hub BZ-2 (Richmond) 58/335 3 dice 60R 27%, 4 dice 80R 77%, 5 dice 100R 97%
--Alt: 2 Mil 1 Tib die 60R 36%, 2 Mil 2 Tib dice 80R 88%, 2 Mil 3 Tib dice 100R 99%

Zone Operations Command
-[] Infantry Recon Support Drone Development 0/40 1 die 10R 100%
-[] Backpack Rocket Launcher Development 0/50 1 die 10R 97%,
-[] Zone Defender Revision 0/40 1 die 15R 100%
-[] Zone Lancer Development 0/40 1 die 15R 100%

Air Force
-[] Orca Wingmen Drones 0/550 6 dice 120R 15%, 7 dice 140R 51%, 8 dice 160R 83%, 9 dice 180R 96%
-[] Firehawk Wingmen Drones 0/450 5 dice 100R 22%, 6 dice 120R 63%, 7 dice 140R 90%
-[] Hammerhead Wingmen Drones 0/400 4 dice 80R 9%, 5 dice 100R 49%, 6 dice 120R 85%, 7 dice 140R 98%
-[] Apollo Fighter Factories 0/80 1 die 15R 62%, 2 dice 30R 99%
-[] Ultralight Glide Munitions Development 0/40 1 die 10R 100%
-[] Plasma Warhead Factory (Phase 1) 53/90 1 die 10R 100%
-[] Plasma Warhead Factory (Phase 1+2) 53/180 1 die 10R 15%, 2 dice 20R 83%, 3 dice 30R 99%

Space Force
-[] Orbital Strike Regimental Combat Team Stations (Phase 3) 5/295 3 die 60R 28%, 4 dice 80R 81%, 5 dice 100R 98%
-[] Orbital Strike Regimental Combat Team Stations (Phase 3+4) 5/690 7 dice 140R 10%, 8 dice 160R 42%, 9 dice 180R 77%, 10 dice 200R 94%
-[] Orbital Defense Laser Satellite Deployment 0/240 2 dice 40R 4%, 3 dice 60R 54%, 4 dice 80R 91%
-[] Skywatch Telescope System 0/95 1 die 10R 47%, 2 dice 20R 96%
-[] Orbital Nuclear Caches 0/175 2 dice 40R 53%, 3 dice 60R 95%
-[] Tactical Ion Cannon Network (Phase 1) 0/275 3 dice 60R 39%, 4 dice 80R 87%, 5 dice 100R 99%

Ground Forces
-[] Universal Rocket Launch System Deployment (Phase 3) 0/200 2 dice 30R 23%, 3 dice 45R 81%, 4 dice 60R 98%
-[] Shell Plants (Phase 6) 7/150 2 dice 20R 72%, 3 dice 30R 98%
-[] Railgun Munitions Development 0/60 1 die 10R 87%, 2 dice 20R 100%
-[] Ablat Plating Deployment (Stage 5) 54/200 2 dice 20R 70%, 3 dice 30R 98%
-[] Ablat Plating Deployment (Stage 5+6) 54/400 3 dice 30R 2%, 4 dice 40R 34%, 5 dice 50R 78%, 6 dice 60R 97%
-[] Ground Forces Zone Armor (Set 1) 0/200 2 dice 40R 23%, 3 dice 60R 81%, 4 dice 80R 98%
-[] GD-3 Rifle Development 0/30 1 die 10R 100%
-[] Hallucinogen Countermeasures Development 0/40 1 die 15R 100%

Navy
-[] Escort Carrier Shipyards (Battleship Yards) 0/120 1 die 20R 22%, 2 dice 40R 87%, 3 dice 60R 99%
-[] Escort Carrier Shipyards 0/240 2 dice 40R 4%, 3 dice 60R 54%, 4 dice 80R 92%
-[] Merchantman Carrier Conversions 150/200 1 die 20R 92%, 2 dice 40R 100%
-[] Heavy Support Laser Development 0/50 1 die 20R 100%
-[] Island Class Assault Ships 0/40 1 die 15R 100%
-[] Victory Class Monitor Development 0/40 1 die 15R 100%
-[] Shark Class Frigate Shipyards 0/300 3 dice 60R 14%, 4 dice 80R 64%, 5 dice 100R 93%

Steel Talons
-[] Mastodon Heavy Assault Walker Development 0/30 1 die 10R 100%
-[] Medium Tactical Plasma Weapon Deployment 0/80 1 die 30R 62%, 2 dice 60R 99%
-[] Light Combat Laser Development 0/40 1 die 25R 100%
-[] Heavy Combat Laser Development 0/40 1 die 20R 100%
-[] Modular Rapid Assembly System Prototypes 0/125 1 die 20R 27%, 2 dice 40R 93%
Bureaucracy 4 dice +24
-[] Administrative Assistance 2 die auto (+1 free die this turn with no bonuses.)
-[] Security Reviews: DC50 1 die 90%, 2 dice 100%
-[] Make Political Promises 1 die auto
-[] Interdepartmental Favors 1 die auto
-[] Conduct Economic Census DC 100/150/200/250, DC 250 3 dice 42%, 4 dice 86%, 5 dice 99%
-[] Conduct Civil Satisfaction Surveys DC 90/120/150/180, DC 180 2 dice 36%, 3 dice 87%, 4 dice 99%
-[] Request Reduction in Plan Commitments DC 120/160/200/240, DC 240 2 dice 12 PS 3%, 3 dice 18 PS 49%, 4 dice 24 PS 89%, 5 dice 30 PS 99%
--Alt DC 200 2 dice 12 PS 21%, 3 dice 18 PS 77%, 4 dice 24 PS 98%
--Alt DC 160 2 dice 12 PS 54%, 3 dice 18 PS 94%
--Alt DC 120 1 die 6 PS 20%, 2 dice 12 PS 85%, 3 dice 18 PS 99%
-[] Allocate Resources to Reconstruction Commissions (New) 1 die auto
Last Security Review
Services 2 turns ago 2060 Q1
Infrastructure 3 turns ago 2059 Q4
Tiberium 3 turn ago 2059 Q4
Military 5 turns ago 2059 Q1
Agriculture 6 turns ago 2058 Q4
Light/Chem 7 turns ago 2058 Q3
Orbital 10 turns ago 2057 Q4
Heavy Ind 11 turns ago 2057 Q3
Bureaucracy 13 turns ago 2057 Q1
--Note: Additional bonuses are +5 to Development projects, +5 to technology working groups, and +5 to station building.
--Note2: Anyone who wants a copy of the current version of the excel sheet I use to help make these Arrays can have one; just send me a PM if you're interested.
--Note3: You can use this calculator to calculate the effects of the Admin Assistance dice on specific projects.
--Note4: The most recent version of the Array is most often the Informational threadmarked version.
 
Q3 2060 Results


GDIOnline Q3 2060



Reconstruction or Corruption? Local Administration and "Reconstruction" Funding

RiverWalker
The Treasury just opened up a massive bloody reconstruction fund and are dumping resources all over everybody. Now, the only question is how much of the fund is actually going to go towards reconstruction, how much goes into various slush activities, and how much gets turned into indoor pools for bureaucrat mansions?
Now, my belief is that, at least in my area, most of it will go towards slush, things like building temp housing for refugees (worthwhile, I am not one of those Firster bastards), a fairly large chunk will vanish into somebody important getting a nice house or spare parts for their car. (where are our cars you damned treasury calculators?)

FloatingWood
Last I checked the Dutch Regional Police Organization had a capable forensic accounting division, and they did say they are watching the money flow quite carefully. No doubt there's a bunch of people that will get away with squirreling away the money, but not nearly as many as you'd think.
I mean, this isn't some kleptocracy where everybody is bought and buyable, despite the FMP's best efforts in the 30's and 40's.

GDIWife
#RiverWalker This "Firster Bastard" thinks that they need to be throwing more funding towards InOps to stop some of these places getting blown up by refugees in the first place, or are you ignoring the news of those medical aid workers they murdered?

Moth-to-Fire
#RiverWalker
It's not like we need cars in the blue zones GDI and predecessor governments have been excellent about providing public transportation options even if they are inherently designed to facilitate refugees fleeing expanding tiberium fields or Nod offensives. The only places you would need personal transport these days are the yellowzones or if you are deep in the woods in like Alaska/Yukon and Scandinavia.

FloatingWood
#GDIWife InOps should've gotten that money years ago. Training takes time, you know? And hey, the Treasury is going to be beaten like a money pinata in just over a year, and finally we'll see some proper funding go to Services again.
#Moth-to-Fire We kinda do need cars in the BZs. I know, it's kinda shocking I'm saying it. But the vehicle fleets of a number of transport companies are getting absolutely run ragged trying to keep up with the increasing demand in shipping. There's a lot of talk of a few coops reestablishing the old DAF and Volkswagen brands and setting up car and truck factories with the machinery that is going to become available after the current bout of fighting settles down a little.

GDIWife
#FloatingWood I see you're ignoring the fact that there has been one party in particular that has already been calling for better security, a slower refugee flow (so InOps gets a chance to actually do their jobs) and things of that nature. Maybe you should try Initiative First next election, rather than the current parties in control that seem to have been waiting until too late to fund vital things. More ships? Late. More InOps funding? Late. Better medical programs? Late.I don't want to see what we'll find out they've delayed next.

KropotkinsGhost
If I were to give a cynical percentage of how much of the money is going into bureaucrat swimming pools I would say about 20%. But that's just the nature of the state baby. Hopefully some of that funding goes into fixing my city, we got potholes the size of rhinos(remember those?) and the bullet holes to boot.

Moth-to-Fire
#FloatingWood
Would light transport/logistics vehicles not already be covered being crucial to the flow of goods in society? You kinda phrased things like you were wanting personal cars. While nice they aren't necessary given the population densities of most of the bluezones one only needs to look at Japan for proof of that. Yes there are trucks and vans that transport goods but I think that is being taken care of with local production. If you want to leave the cities on your own time tables you can always rent a car.

Dr. Johan Karlsson
From the Erewhon team, well, we got some slice of that funding, a fairly small slice, mostly as a just in case measure. We used it to lay in some extra Silicon and spare parts for other mission critical systems.

FloatingWood
#GDIWife I think I'll skip the authoritarian nationalists thank you. Badness lies that way.
#KropotkinsGhost I'd pay attention to what gets termed as 'battle damage', I wouldn't be surprised by a large number of enterprising municipal governments redesignating deferred maintenance as such for funding. Not that I blame them for it, exactly, but it'd draw funding away from the actually blown up bits.
#Moth-to-Fire Thing is, every company involved in road transportation is coping with aging vehicle fleets, including the car rentals. Road vehicles aren't really designed to last longer than a decade, you know? And most of them have been running for longer than that, and in many cases taken weapons fire at least once. The repair facilities are making bank, but even they are running into the issue of a low part supply.

GDIWife
#Dr. Johan Karlsson I'm glad you're doing what you can to look after Erewhon. I hope that wherever you are is safe and as far away from Nod Saboteurs as possible (and I understand you can't say anything about where that is).
#FloatingWood I didn't realise not trusting people currently murdering civilians and aid workers counts as authoritarian nationalism. Especially since the whole concept of a "nation" is effectively dead now.

Moth-to-Fire
#FloatingWood, noted this is an area I am unfamiliar with being a New Yorker born and raised. Mostly use the subway and most of the road vehicles I do see seem to be in good enough order I never really thought about it.
#GDIWife, how long ago that the people in the yellow zones used to be our fellow countrymen? If the next neighbourhood over was a yellow zone would you turn them down? It's just a BS division being used by politicians to justify them giving themselves more power. It's Yellow Zoners now, how long until that is dropped and it's Blue Nod Sympathizers? These people need an other to justify their use and abuse of power.

Night-Runner
#GDIWife Why do you have to keep being so mean? I've heard my parents talking late at night when they think I've gone to sleep and they're scared because of people like you! I was too little to remember much when we came over the border but I remember them talking about getting a chance to find something better. All they wanted was somewhere safe and you want to throw them back out!

WhatsinaName
Well, I dunno about the rest of you, but here in Seattle, we only got 'raided' by Nod twice, if you can call the aborted air attacks that. But apparently that was enough for the Treasury to send a chunk our way. The City Council decided to use it not on slush activities, but on supplementing the Refugee funding that the Treasury has given out. Every man, woman, and child who's coming here has gotten basic care packages with new clothes, hygiene kits, clean food and water, and a warm place to sleep. Without the 'reconstruction' funding, the council was only going to be able to fulfill the last with the allocated refugee funding.

GDIWife
#Moth-to-Fire I don't care if someone was once my countryman, countries are just lines on a map. I care about the scorpions in their midst.
#Night-Runner Sweetie, you don't have to be worried, we don't want to throw out good people like I'm sure your parents are. The problem is that there are bad people that hide with the good ones. We just want to be able to find them to protect all the good people, including you and your parents

Moth-to-Fire
We seem to have gotten a little sidetracked by a local IF advocate (again) in terms of treasury spending and how much mysteriously turns into private aquariums? I dunno, given what we read about treasury hunts for infiltrators and embezzlers I expect most of it will be put to good use, or at least themeparks and local industry.

FloatingWood
#WhatsinaName For all that some people think food, water and a bed to sleep in is enough, it's really only a start. Clean clothes, a bath, hygiene equipment, a school for the children. It means more than many think when it comes to convincing people that GDI isn't all that bad. Maybe not perfect, but not bad either.
#Moth-to-Fire I've no doubt at least 5% disappears into some private account without proper justification. I mean, if the road crews repair the road and they charge 50 000 tic for the job but between maintenance and devaluing of the equipment, costs of raw materials and the wages of the labourers it costs the company 45k, well, that is fair business, especially if the road is good for a few more years, as it should be.
It'd be a whole other thing if they charged 50k, poured in some gravel for 500, stiffed the labourers for their hours and made the rest disappear into the director's pockets you know?

OceanMan
#FloatingWood I dunno, they're pretty watchful about anything that counts as 'official resources.' One guy I sailed with a while back - real old salt, he worked shipping since before the last big war - tried to pull something with the cargo about a year back. I don't know what it was, I only learned from the captain afterward - but he was there one run and before we finished unloading on the other end he was gone. InOps arrested him right on the pier.

WhatsinaName
#FloatingWood I'm aware, it's just that setting up all the supporting infrastructure past the initial needs takes more time (and money) than we've gotten. I know the Treasury has been busy and all, but getting some things done before the war to ease the way for refugees would've been nice. Then again, that just spirals into an argument about 'woulda, coulda, shoulda' that isn't productive when the Treasury was already committed pre-war (so weird to think of the 50s and not 40s as pre-war now…), so I'll leave it there.

FloatingWood
Yeah, the war kicked off without any meaningful preparation AFAICT. It's almost as if high command went from 'keep down the fort' to 'maximum offensive' in a day. We're lucky the boys and girls were on the ball, from the earliest offensives they seemed almost as surprised to get stuck in this hard as we were.
I suppose that's one way to achieve a strategic surprise, but still.

InTheZONE
I can neither confirm nor deny whether it was a surprise for us too ;)
That being said, we've been prepping for this from the beginning. We're punching them hard and I've come back to find that not everything is on fire so I call that a fairly massive win for the good guys.
Oh yeah, Hi again all of you, it's been a while but I've been busy. Target practice.

FloatingWood
#InTheZONE I'll say. The ongoing collapse of the Australian front has been getting a lot of cheers, let me tell you. And sure, most we're taking is sand with bits of tib scattered around, but I've been hearing the news talk about charging Normanton to close Nod's last remaining 'major' harbour in eastern Australia. Although 'major' is quite a claim.
If that happens, well. I suspect eastern Australia is going to be firmly GDI for quite a while, some naval raiding aside.
Although, Zone, you got any thoughts about the extra funding the disaster relief office is getting for wartime repairs? AFAIK the BZs haven't seen nearly as much damage done to them as GDI heartlands suffered during TW1, 2 and 3.

InTheZONE
#FloatingWood To be honest I'm more experienced with breaking things than replacing them. I've also been pretty out of it with regards to news (although we all heard about the OSRCT making one hell of an entrance to the fight, so much for the jokes about them being a training unit). If things need fixing then they're gonna need funding for it so it sounds good to me. At least we're not replacing everything from the ground up this time

ProfCollingsworth
I've heard that some of the reconstruction funding is going towards fixing damage from previous attacks, or going into hardening existing infrastructure, but this is a bit recent for me. Historically this sort of funding does result in a certain amount of waste, but has also been used to patch up damage that probably would not have been addressed otherwise. We'll see which end things lean towards this time.

DropMan
#InTheZONE
We were a training unit. Some of us are freaking cowboys with more balls than sense.

Solan
Apparently working with harvesters and MARVs means I am enough of an office jockey to be tied into a desk and transferred as a military attaché towards the reconstruction funds in my theater. While I doubt any official will be blatant enough in their corruption. The fact that I'm here and not in the front does mean something is going on since these types of postings does mean the pace of operations is slackening since I doubt we can sustain high-tempo operations going for a full year straight, and believe me the Army would have loved it but the other branches have a vote fortunately. Either way I think I would be posted soon enough to GDI's Pacific holdings since I did mention my family hailed as refugees to Japan and they would need more people for the Asian theater anyway after the Navy is taking a beating.

Q3 2060 Results

Resources:‌ ‌975 + 10 in‌ ‌reserve‌ ‌(15‌ ‌allocated‌ ‌to‌ ‌the‌ ‌Forgotten)‌ ‌(35 ‌allocated‌ ‌to‌ ‌grants)‌(+25 from Taxes) (-5 from Resettlement) (-30 from Reconstruction commissions)

Political‌ ‌Support:‌ 54
SCIENCE Meter: 4/4
Free‌ ‌Dice:‌ ‌7 ‌
Erewhon Dice: 1
Tiberium Spread
20.56 Blue Zone
2.65 Green Zone
22.65 Yellow Zone (94 Points of Abatement)
54.14 Red Zone (70 Points of Abatement)

Current Economic Issues:
Housing: +35 (32 population in low quality housing) (-5 per turn from refugees)
Energy: +15 (+4 in reserve)
Logistics: +25 (-9 from raiding) (-7 from military activity)
Food: +18 (+10 in reserve)
Health: +3 (-9 from Wartime Demand) (-10 from Refugees)
Capital Goods: +30 (+67 in reserve) [-10 at End of War ] [+4 in Q4 2060, +1 in Q1 2061 ]
STUs: +11
Consumer Goods: +34 (-22 from demand spike) (+3 from Private Industry)
Labor: +38
Tiberium‌ ‌Processing‌ ‌Capacity‌ ‌(1900/2470)‌ ‌
Labor Per Turn: +4
Taxation Per Turn: +30
Space Mining Per Turn: +55
Green Zone Water: +6

Status‌ ‌of‌ ‌the‌ ‌Parties‌ ‌
(strong‌ ‌support,‌ ‌weak‌ ‌support,‌ ‌weak‌ ‌opposition,‌ ‌strong‌ ‌opposition)‌ ‌

Free‌ ‌Market‌ ‌Party:‌ ‌228 ‌seats‌ ‌(0;‌ ‌50;‌ ‌20; ‌158)‌ ‌
Market‌ ‌Socialist‌ ‌Party:‌ 486‌ seats‌ ‌(200;‌ ‌150;‌ ‌86;‌ ‌50)‌ ‌ ‌
Militarist:‌ 754 ‌seats‌ ‌(250;‌ ‌254;‌ ‌150;‌ ‌100)‌ ‌
Initiative‌ ‌First:‌ ‌335 ‌seats‌ ‌(0;‌ ‌0;‌ ‌35; ‌300)‌ ‌
United‌ ‌Yellow‌ ‌List:‌ ‌176 ‌seats‌ ‌(105;‌ ‌45;‌ ‌20;‌ ‌6)‌ ‌
Starbound‌ ‌Party:‌ ‌461 ‌seats‌ ‌(300; 100;‌ ‌40;‌ ‌21)‌ ‌
Socialist‌ ‌Party:‌ 426 ‌seats‌ ‌(200;‌ ‌190;‌ ‌26;‌ ‌10)‌ ‌
Homeland‌ ‌Party‌‌: 50 ‌seats (5; 30; 10; 5)
Biodiversity‌ ‌Party‌: ‌34 ‌seats (4; 10; 20; 0)
Reclamation Party: 12 Seats (0; 8; 4; 0)
Developmentalists:‌ ‌1038 ‌seats‌ ‌(478;‌ ‌260;‌ 250;‌ ‌50)‌ ‌

Military‌ ‌Confidence‌ ‌
Ground‌ ‌Forces‌ ‌:‌ High ‌ ‌
Air‌ ‌Force‌ ‌:‌ ‌Decent‌ ‌
Space‌ ‌Force‌ ‌:‌ Decent ‌
Steel‌ ‌Talons:‌ ‌Low
Navy:‌ Low ‌
ZOCOM:‌ ‌Decent ‌

Plan Goals
Capital Goods: 11 Points
Consumer Goods: 12 Points
Food: 18 points in reserve
Income: 65 Points
Processing: 280 points

Projects
Complete ASAT Phase 4
Complete OSRCT Phase 4
Railgun Munitions Development
Complete at least one more phase of Ablative Armor
Complete at least one more phase of URLS production
Complete at least one more phase of Blue Zone Arcologies
Complete GDSS Enterprise
Complete at least four phases of Space Mines
Complete at least four phases of Karachi Planned City
Develop and Deploy Mastodon
Complete All remaining Escort Carrier Shipyards




Corpse Starch

Corpse Starch is a nickname for a set of high-bioavailability, high-nutritional density "foods" that form the very most basic rations for the Brotherhood of Nod. Produced from whatever is available, it is an even more indiscriminate baseline than the Initiative's Fungus Bars. It is also even less palatable, with one evaluator commenting, "It will keep you alive indefinitely, but you'll wish it wouldn't."

While it certainly can be produced from people – both captured manuals and the Commando's data trove reflect this – it is not the standard. Humans are omnivores with slow reproduction rates and long growth times, and from that perspective only slightly better than lions, tigers, and other obligate carnivores as a food source.

Politics
While the war has been ongoing for the last nine months, there have been increasingly vocal minorities pushing back against further offensive action. Although the population is ready to continue making sacrifices, the fact of the matter is that sizable minorities see the offensives as not being worthwhile, and only really asserting GDI control over populations that despise GDI and most of the things that it stands for.
Outside of the antioffensive group, most people seem relatively happy that the conflict has been going as well as it has, but distinctly disappointed by the seeming lack of disaster readiness marked by the severe reductions in critical consumer goods, sharp decrease in medical availability (with veterans groups being particularly noisy about this problem), and the lack of food stockpiling before the war.

Assessing the political leanings of the refugees has been difficult. While polling by official bodies and non governmental organizations has been attempted among the first wave, many seem to be taking it more as a loyalty test or exam than an honest poll. While the response rates are high, they do not seem to be entirely honest, telling the interviewers and the pollsters what they think the interviewers want to hear instead. The answers given are overwhelmingly pro-militarist and -developmentalist, with a surprising number answering Initiative First.
More indirect polling has shown a significantly different set of policy positions, looking to draw down hostilities, and a focus on the basics.

Private Industry
While the surging population and need has created an environment where agile private businesses can turn massive profit, as wages can be pushed down and goods can be served at high prices, this has been far from the truth. While investment in private industry has skyrocketed, wartime rationing has choked down on explosive economic growth, but after the war, when capital goods are available once more, rapid and explosive growth is expected.

The Home Guard At War
While previous operations have often tested the Home Guard's mettle, their ability in a sustained full scale war has often been questioned. In this war, the Home Guard have shown similar performance to previous conflicts, holding positions quite well, and often having to be lectured on when and where to retreat.

Overall, the Home Guard are increasingly better equipped, with many of the units in hotter theaters effectively looking like (if not training like) standard line units. Much of the Home Guard is now better equipped than GDI line forces were during the Third Tiberium War, with many formations fielded as mechanized infantry forces mixed in with a handful of armored formations. Although they are well equipped and their morale excellent, the Home Guard is a force made up of reservists who have not dedicated their lives solely and exclusively to military service and their skill and level of training reflects this.



[ ] Rail Network Construction Campaigns (Phase 4) (Updated)
With rail lines pushing ever further forward, they are becoming a substantial strain on GDI's ability to protect its rear. However, with few other options, these are a requirement for substantial further advances into the Yellow Zones, and the destruction or capture of core Brotherhood territories.
(Supports Operation Steel Vanguard)
(Progress 325/325: 15 resources per die) (+4 Logistics)
(Progress 39/325: 15 resources per die) (+4 Logistics)

Around much of the world, rather than pushing the rails out, there has been systematic backfilling, building not only rails, but the infrastructure to support the rails. While a modern train does not require the networks of fueling stations, watering stations, and the array of other amenities that the trains of the 19th and 20th centuries did, they are still massive, complicated arrays of machinery, and require constant upkeep and maintenance (especially those that take the long green and yellow zone routes), not only to ensure that there is no accidental Tiberium exposure, but also because the Brotherhood tends to shoot at them fairly regularly. While to a certain extent, GDI can use a hub and spoke methodology, doing deep maintenance at a limited number of sites (such as Chicago, Washington, New York, and roughly half a dozen other places in BZ-2), the continued expansion of the Green Zones has made that increasingly nonviable as more trains populate the track and more of them are on high maintenance routes.

Beyond the backfilling, many of GDI's territorial gains in the past months have been across areas with little in the way of pre existing infrastructure. The offensive towards Jacksonville for instance has been able to use the remnants of the old highway system to better supply the forces at the front; however in Siberia and Australia, the rail and road networks effectively do not exist, and so construction has to work from scratch rather than leveraging existing infrastructure.

[ ] Yellow Zone Fortress Towns (Phase 6) (Updated)
Future waves of Fortress Towns will be positioned deeper into formerly Brotherhood territory, and require substantial networks of roads, rails, and other means of support. While not yet at the limits of GDI ability to construct and support such facilities, they are substantially ahead of most other civilian infrastructure.
(Supports Green Zone Intensification) (Supports Operation Steel Vanguard)
(Progress 112/300: 20 resources per die) (+4 Housing) (-1 Green Zone Water)

Progress on building more fortress towns has been slow. While progress has been made towards the construction, multiple problems have left aggregate, prefabs, and artillery tubes gathering dust in Blue Zone warehouses rather than in the field. The biggest has been relocation. Rather than being able to fill out empty freight cars, trains heading towards the front have had to carry passenger cars instead, in order to bring hundreds or thousands more people back. Beyond that, hospital cars have also been an increasing part of the train network's load, as wounded need to be evacuated in the face of stiffening resistance from the Brotherhood, and weapons leaving ever more terrible wounds.

[ ] Indianapolis Reconstruction Surge (New)
Restoring the functionality of the Indianapolis railway junction and restoring the ability of GDI forces across trans appalachia to engage in further offensive operations may well be of enough value to significantly disrupt the ongoing buildup of other infrastructural goals.
(progress 196/150: 10 resources per die) (Can spend mixed Tiberium and Infrastructure dice, at least 1 die must be Tiberium)

"The site was glowing green. While the Brotherhood has used Tiberium seeding in the past, this was different. Rather than being in relatively clear pockets, the shard devices had scattered viable shards in an even layer over everything, and with the number of devices used, the entire target area had to be completely written off."
Excerpt from 'Assessment of the strike at Indianapolis Junction​

While the first teams to be on site arrived less than two hours after the bombers left, they were barely enough to evacuate the survivors of the raid. While not too damaging in human terms, in material terms, for all intents and purposes Indianapolis was gone, and all that remained was to encircle the area and begin abatement protocols. Fortunately, the raid had only contaminated a relatively small area, about twenty kilometers across at the widest point, and well under fifty square kilometers total. The problem is that clearing contamination of this kind is a slow, labor- and capital-intensive process, even with dozens of Shatterers and Pacifiers being conscripted to speed the process along and create paths and gaps to subdivide the area into more manageable chunks. But much of the work was done by harvester teams and the Chicago MARV hub's fleet, sending the MARV fleet into the city to first crush all buildings that still stood, and then creating broad sweeps through the exclusion zone.

It was only in the second month of the quarter that the first rail connection through the city was restored, and not until the last week that the last of them was. Beyond that, there is still significant work to do rebuilding not only the dual-use and civilian infrastructure at the site, but also to rebuild the network of air defenses.

[ ] Continuous Cycle Fusion Plants (Phase 6) (Updated)
With the Initiative's energy needs still substantial, new pods of fusion plants, and expansions to existing ones will be needed to continue pouring resources into the military industrial complex, and provide new weapons in the fight against the Brotherhood of Nod.
(Progress 300/300: 20 resources per Die) (+16 Energy) (-1 Labor)
(Progress 153/300: 20 resources per Die) (+16 Energy) (-1 Labor)

Even more fusion plants have been added to the field. In most cases, rather than entirely new plants, (a common measure to ensure greater redundancy in case of Brotherhood bombing raids and hardening against storm damage) the new systems are additions to what are by now increasingly large fusion complexes, many with dozens of reactors to feed the voracious maw of the Initiative's military industrial complex. One of the largest complexes is in Nuuk, where it is almost entirely dedicated to feeding one of the largest robotics plants in the world. While others currently compete with it in size, the planned scope is beyond anything previously conceived of.

The oldest of the plants, those in the first wave of functionally experimental models, have begun to show significant signs of aging. While their experimental nature means they were certainly not expected to last decades like a fission reactor, it is a worrying sign for the entire first generation of reactors. While these signs of aging are far from critical, it does mean that they are drawing significantly more man hours in maintenance.

[ ] Nuuk Heavy Robotics Foundry (Phase 3) (Updated)
With the initial production shock labored into existence, further development is predicated on massive investment and expansion of the project, laying massive production lines, and setting them in motion towards one of the largest projects ever envisioned by the Global Defense Initiative.
(Progress 600/600: 20 resources per die) (+16 Capital Goods, -2 Labor, -8 Energy)
(Progress 143/1200: 20 resources per die) (+32 Capital Goods, -2 Labor, -8 Energy) (+1 to Infrastructure dice)

Further investment into the Nuuk complex has seen what is in effect a small city appear from nearly nothing, turning square kilometers of frozen wasteland into massive industrial blocks, many of them filled with machines producing more machines. While not a true Von Neumann system, it is close enough that GDI only needs to supply materials and plans, and it will effectively build itself.

Beyond the immediate project, significant efforts have begun going to making the complex far more self-sustaining, with a small chip fabricator beginning construction, alongside a myomer spinner, and other light and heavy industrial elements, integrating a vertical supply chain, and more importantly reducing the number of ships needing deadhead runs*. While the complex will always need shipping to make work, it is hoped that by increasing the amount of on hand production, that the import and export volumes can be much more balanced.

In terms of Erewhon's assistance, it has been a particularly good influence. While its error prone nature has limited what it can efficiently manage, it is a good worker, and popular with many of the crews, with many of its fleet getting unauthorized artwork added to them by workers in their off hours. While it has a tendency to work harder rather than smarter, and give often overly generous safety margins, those have been steadily reduced over the course of the quarter as it became more comfortable with its tools.

*In the context of shipping, a deadhead run is a run where a cargo ship or aircraft does not have a cargo to carry.

[ ] Medical Supplies Factories
Increasing supplies of medicines and more importantly medical supplies like tubing, masks, blood substitutes, liquid bandages and similar is likely to be quite needed during wartime. While GDI currently has enough, demand is expected to spike rapidly, and more supplies will be needed.
(Progress 335/225: 20 resources per die) (+4 Health) (-1 Energy)

After delays last quarter as servicemen and refugees died from lack of proper supplies, shipments have finally begun to go out in significant amounts. While supplies are still short, with rationing of such basics as surgical masks (although this has been supplemented with secondary standards EN:149-2050, and other nonsurgical mask standards that are also required to filter particulate between .3 and 3 microns), tubing, and hundreds of other items.

At this point, the problem is not so much production as it is medical professionals. While GDI can certainly increase training quotas and encourage citizens to join the medical profession, medical personnel take time to train and prepare for a difficult and demanding job. It takes years to train a nurse, a doctor a decade or more. On the other end of the spectrum is medical automation support, ranging from increasing the number of robots associated with the medical field, to pushing various forms of neural interface. Every step towards making a single doctor or other medical professional more efficient is a significant step towards increasing the effectiveness of the overall medical system.

[ ] Reykjavik Myomer Macrospinner (Phase 4)
Further expansion of the Reykjavik Macrospinner is going to focus on heavy myomer bundles, which are keys to mass production of modern zone armor and mech projects as they provide highly efficient mobility options.
(Progress 640/640: 20 resources per die) (+4 Capital Goods +2 Energy) (Reduces cost of mech and zone armor projects)
(Progress 50/1280: 20 resources per die) (+8 Capital Goods, +4 Energy) (Reduces cost of mech and zone armor projects)

Reykjavik is now actually producing significantly more than local demand can consume, and is planned to go even further. With most of the production going towards large, long bundles, it has a large and increasing stockpile of such units sitting in temperature controlled warehousing, due to a lack of immediate demand. With the Talons increasing their stockpiles of mechs due to the recent conversion to cheaper neural interface systems, and the Ground Forces increasingly interested in the Havoc, it is likely that that project will get the go-ahead in the near future.

While it is almost certain that there will be future projects producing even more myomer bundles, it is likely that they will be both smaller scale and far more distributed. Although Reykjavik is extensive and efficient, it is also a vulnerability, only viable due to both volcanic support and its position as one of the sites furthest from the Brotherhood of Nod in the world. Private industry – even hammered by the war effort, rationing, and the need for capital goods for supplies – has expressed significant interest in beginning to produce their own myomer bundles, both because it is a relatively cheap capital good to produce in the small and very small scales, and a means of significantly increasing their efficiencies elsewhere.

[ ] Bergen Superconductor Foundry (Phase 1)
With the proof of concept for larger scale superconductors well and truly proven, a large-scale facility capable of producing at least thousands of kilometers of the material is required. Bergen, on the coast of the North Atlantic, will provide a more than suitable location to provide for shipping superconductor tubes around the world.
(Progress 71/95: 30 resources per die) (+1 Energy)

The Bergen facility has been the site of relatively rapid construction. While the preparations have been in place for years at this point (factored into a number of other infrastructure projects), actually breaking ground has been a momentous point. With numerous projects needing larger supplies - including improved fusion, refits to the electrical grid, updated railgun models, and some prototype energy weapons platforms – the superconductors from this plant are likely to prove, if not revolutionary, then at least significantly reformist.

On the ground, construction has been difficult as the city has a distinct lack of usable flat land. Rather, it is surrounded by mountains and fjords, with little free space. Instead of trying to level a mountain, it was decided to work within the constraints and use old mining techniques to cut a series of chambers and paths through the surrounding mountains. While this does not mean that the site is completely invulnerable to attack, it does mean that it rates as a strategic shelter, and would survive most attacks short of a direct hit by a ground-burst nuclear device.

[ ] Wadmalaw Kudzu Plantations (Phase 2)
A substantial expansion of tea production will take Wadmalaw Kudzu from being a simple novelty to a staple of the Initiative. Politically useful, and more importantly a general luxury that can be easily afforded to all who want a source of caffeine.
(Progress 300/300: 10 resources per die) (+4 Consumer Goods) (+10 Political Support)
(Progress 56/450: 10 resources per die) (+8 Consumer Goods) (+1 to all dice)

Adding more bays to produce the kudzu is simple enough, though it is still lacking in terms of caffeine content, with many people compensating by brewing what has become nicknamed "kudzu espresso" or "Turkish kudzu" using extremely high ratios of tea to water – often creating something in the range of 40 to 80 milliliters, with two or more times the infusion base compared to standard, intended to be consumed in a single gulp for a reasonable caffeine hit.

More interestingly, something else has been going on with the kudzu plantations. While the popularity of the tea is limited, a small but rapidly growing collection of private hobbyists and a handful of small cooperatives have begun using it to make kombucha as a commercial product. With alcohol licensing relatively easy to obtain, most have been producing a single fermentation kombucha between .5 and 2 percent alcohol. While some have done double-fermented kombuchas that end in the same vicinity as a low-alcohol beer, this is a relative rarity due to the expense of sugar. While currently, none have a scale to be officially carried (ex, found in a GDI canteen, cafeteria, or similar) or for the use of GDI's global distribution networks, it is only a matter of time, especially with the number of backordered brewing tanks.

[ ] Lunar Heavy Metals Mines (Phase 2)
Heavier metals such as titanium, iron, magnesium, and many others are incredibly useful for a wide variety of industrial and aerospace technologies. There are many subsurface deposits scattered across the moon, some of which are economical for extractive activities.
(Progress 385/385: 20 resources per die) (+20 resources per turn)
(Progress 217/375: 20 resources per die) (+20 resources per turn)

The moon is ever more populated. While still effectively empty, numerous additional mining facilities to exploit resource rich sections of the lunar Mares have been erected on the normal patterns. With the expansion of the Enterprise each of these facilities, (and a number of facilities receiving major expansions as part of the program) is producing a substantial amount of material resources that do not need to be hauled up Earth's gravity well.

Maintenance launches have taken an ever-larger portion of the space launch capacity of the Initiative. While still a minority, and the Leopard and Union make this easy in comparison to trying to manage this with chemical rockets, the need to bring the ships themselves back to Earth for maintenance and upkeep is itself a significant stressor on the fleet. Beyond that, needing to bring people down to Earth for rest, recreation, and to reunite with families is another significant addition, as is supplying them with food, water, and oxygen on the lunar bases.

Politically, Starbound has put forward a bill to once more exempt space derived resources from reallocation, but with the campaign to reduce or reorient plan commitments, there has been a wave of warning grumbling from the bill's primary backers. While not withdrawn yet, it is likely to happen if Starbound sees the Treasury as withdrawing too much support from their space goals.

[ ] Yellow Zone Tiberium Harvesting (Phase 9) (Updated)
Expanding the offensive, and pushing the Brotherhood back around the world is the future the Initiative not only wants, but needs. Decisive action, driven home with all the vigor the Initiative has to offer, will put even more pressure on increasingly small Yellow Zone pockets. While a cornered animal is the most dangerous, every kilometer taken reduces the resources available to the enemy. (Supports Steel Vanguard)
(Progress 325/325: 20 resources per die) (small additional income trickle [5-10 Resources]) (3 points of Yellow Zone Mitigation) (+5 Resources Per Turn)
(Progress 174/350: 20 resources per die) (small additional income trickle [5-10 Resources]) (3 points of Yellow Zone Mitigation)

A further surge of Yellow Zone mining has taken place, entirely in territories secured by GDI in the last months of fighting. While not as productive as could be hoped, it is still an increase in the resources available to the Initiative.

In Australia, the end of open fighting has not meant the end of resistance, with camps being raided for everything from food and medical supplies to weapons and tiberium. While the number of railgun harvesters is somewhat limited, there are enough to fend off a significant number of these attacks, especially as many of these are by marauding light infantry forces with limited ammunition and no supply line.

Conditions in these new mines are rough, with work crews cooped up in small prefabricated shelters – many of them older designs, as GDI's continued expansions of yellow zone mining and the need for replacements in other sectors have depleted years of stockpiled supplies. Additionally, with the refugees consuming ever more resources and needing ever more temporary housing close to the supply lines, they have also claimed a significant number of the Yellow Zone-rated prefabricated barracks and housing. Additionally, with ever more military assets forward deployed into Green and Yellow Zones, that is placing another key stressor on the same supply line.

[ ] Harvesting Tendril Development
A substantial increase in efficiency, a rapid harvesting tendril disrupts the bonds between Tiberium crystals, before acting as an electromagnetic vacuum cleaner, speeding the harvesting process and pushing forward harvesting technologies.
(Progress 98/40: 30 resources per die)

The Harvesting Tendril is a marvel of modern engineering: mating short range sonic emitters, electromagnets, and human-adapted xenotechnology to the problem of tiberium harvesting. While the Scrin managed to fit the system into a long, flexible tendril, GDI's version is significantly more crude – more or less a simple tube with quite a large number of greebles on it, attached to a sweeping turret.

While so far testing has occurred on a modified railgun harvester platform, it has demonstrated significant advantages, with tests suggesting an efficiency improvement of approximately ten percent over previous designs, and more importantly in some ways, deeper penetration than existing sweepers, with less soil disruption.

In late September, the testbed was transported to the Northern Italian Red Zone, where it underwent a further round of testing, this time against a glacier face. While not enough to stop a glacier, the system fundamentally simplified harvest, being able to play back and forth across over a dozen square meters, rather than needing to sweep up shards of Tiberium from a shattered face.

In terms of safety, it is very important that the sweeper be cleared and turned fully off before the harvester returns to base. In two cases, the stripping functions compromised crew PPE during testing. While certainly worrying, it is simply another dangerous piece of equipment, and in some ways significantly less dangerous than the sweeping arms, which can and have removed limbs caught inside them.

[ ] Neural-Interfaced Operating Theaters
While much of the funding for this can come from the welfare department, other parts, such as the capital goods required to set up these complex and highly technical rooms, will need to come from the Treasury, and the Services department.
(Progress 188/160: 20 resources per die) (+6 Health, -2 Capital Goods)

The deployment of the operating theaters with neural interfaces has already been a significant impact, allowing GDI to reallocate a large number of nurses from ICUs and surgical bays to more general purpose nursing affairs, including many of the health problems faced by the refugees, at least on a part time basis. While combat medicine staffs remain fully on duty, for much of the Initiative the problem comes less from acute dangers, and more from chronic health problems; and the same applies to many of the refugees – ranging from needing intensive vaccination regimens, to various early-stage Tiberium exposures, such as rock lung among others.

Additionally, these make adding robotic assistants even more useful, as a single medical professional can ride herd on a whole swarm of robots, in much the same way that construction crews often have robotic workforces many times more numerous than the number of humans on the worksite. Rather than needing to focus on a single patient, for most routine operations a significant portion of the time the patient can be handed off to a robot for all but the most specialized of work, giving doctors and surgeons more time to focus on other problems.

[ ] Automatic Medical Assistants (Updated)
GDI's medical system is extensive, however it is also significantly overworked. By supplying a number of automated assistants to conduct routine procedures the valuable manpower can be concentrated working on more important and skill based fields.
(Progress 101/300: 20 resources per die) (+5 Health, +4 Labor, -4 Capital Goods, -2 Energy)

The development project for Automatic Medical Assistants has been significantly diverted by the deployment of neural interfaces. Instead of being a simple bed or operating table with integrated tooling, sensors, and the like, it is now a mobile platform, designed to assist doctors, nurses and other medical professionals in their day to day operations.

The basic platform for the assistants is a two-meter-tall mushroom. At the base is a simple set of rubber tracks, providing a modicum of mobility – although it is by any standards slow-moving. However, this is in trade for having a very stable platform and the ability to turn on the spot. Around the perimeter of the tube-shaped trunk are a series of two dozen collapsing arms, and a series of compartments for storing (and sterilizing) various medical implements, with the core being a sizable battery pack to feed everything. Finally there is the saucer head, which is the basic platform for a wide array of sensors, and rotates independently of the body.
Functionally, these operate on a client system. A server rack in the hospital will provide centralized direction, while a RAM-centric memory bank on the machine itself will load directions as needed.

"While some may have found it entertaining, tampering with hospital computer systems and uploading a new voice pack to the robotic assistants is unacceptable. Not only could patients have been frightened, it shows a lack of respect for your co-workers and the hospital as a whole."
-notice in Cambridge Central hospital
"The kids loved it, and it was great for a laugh"
-scrawled beneath said notice
FIND A SENSE OF HUMOR, MEATBAG
-printed in block letters below the first comment

[ ] Mind Shields Development (New)
There are many different means of interfacing with the brain. While mind control experiments using chemicals, sonics, and a wide variety of other methods have proven to be less than effective at best, the Scrin did have multiple assets that could mind control human populations. The mind shield is intended to significantly reduce the effectiveness of these methods, and potentially the Order of the Remembrancer's technomancy.
(Progress 222/120: 20 resources per die)

A mind shield is a fundamentally complicated affair, as it has to perform two somewhat contradictory tasks. First, prevent somebody else from controlling the user's brain. Second, avoid mind-controlling the user. The second is in some ways more important than the first, especially as even rumors of problems can create breakdowns of social trust in other ways. As seen with the anti-vaccination campaigns of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, unsubstantiated complications (usually autism) can be devastating to public health measures, and should be avoided as much as possible.

A mind shield as developed by the Initiative is a two-layer passive/active system, a subcutaneous mesh, essentially a faraday cage for the brain made out of a gold and STU alloy wire, and a pair of transcutaneous implants behind the ears, that can be used for electromagnetic stimulation of the brain in case the user believes that they have been compromised. Testing the system has its own difficulties however. While GDI believes that this system will work, there are few really good options to test it without ethical complications. The only one that is actually functional, is the interface systems used by the Talons and the Air Force, and that is in and of itself a problematic approach, because that uses electrochemical signature recognition, rather than the direct interfaces from brain scans of mind controlled individuals.

In terms of field expedients in the case of encountering mind control, the scientists have relatively few usable suggestions. While there are placebo options available – including the use of a foil hat (gold or silver foil is best, aluminum or other if needed), or the adaptation of TENS machines to military use – none are believed to be particularly effective.

[ ] Expand Resettlement Programs (New)
With the war putting millions upon millions of people into refugee columns and temporary camps, putting a substantial amount of resources towards resettlement for the duration of the war will see increases in both working population, and housing demand, while taking some of the burden off of other parts of the Initiative.
(-5 Resources per Turn)

Much of the work of resettlement is little more than rote interactions and data entry. While tedious, GDI has found that this work goes much more smoothly when done human to human, rather than via the semi-canned responses of an EVA. Humans come off as more comforting and authentic in nearly every case, important for keeping often scared and stressed refugees calm. With the refugee wave a temporary problem, GDI has hired tens of thousands of people into temporary positions to conduct interviews, supporting each with an EVA to do the data entry and feed information into the bureaucracy. Results have so far been slow to come in, with most still in training and interviewing so far.

[ ] Heavy Support Laser Development
The Navy needs not only a light laser for fighting bombs, but also a heavier support laser, designed for long range engagements against incoming munitions. With initial goals being horizon to horizon capability and rapid engagement of multiple targets, upgraded missile defense lasers are one of the most important features for naval survivability in the near future.
(Progress 112/50: 20 resources per die)

The Heavy Support Laser prototype began fairly simply, taking a pre-existing laser turret and replacing the crystal beam lasers with a pair of air force laser pods. While very effective, especially after some refinements to the gimbal, they were far from worth the cost, as even with the limited number needed by the navy (some 3000 to 3500 units for the refits, and then a further 750-1000 a year to supply both replacements and ensure that new-build ships are fully supplied) the new design was not sufficiently improved over existing CBL lasers to justify the supply of STUs needed. So, it was back to the drawing board. Designs for scatter lasers were rejected (due to not being precise enough), as well as rapid-fire lasers (not powerful enough), and a wide array of other approaches to the problem due to one issue or another.

The final result is actually somewhat 'disco-ball' looking. Rather than using a single lensing array, the laser system has a set of beam splitters and independently-gimballed targeting lenses, with a somewhat more powerful infernium laser than the Air Force's model serving as a power source. While the target density is only somewhat better than existing CBL design, so long as the incoming fire is not on a single axis it can be engaged with far more effectiveness, with up to six separate targets being engaged by a single pulse. However, it also functions in Single Target Mode (where the full power of the beam is used against a target) which can cut down incoming missiles out to the horizon – although saturation barrages are still problematic. The problem in the latter case is that even a thoroughly obsolete HY-2 (NATO Seersucker and Silkworm) – approaching at an altitude of eight meters, at subsonic speeds – can saturate a single emitter with less than a dozen missiles, simply because it cannot fire fast enough to engage all of them before impact. Primarily this relegates the single target mode to more strategic defense in the older style, against incoming high angle ballistic missiles, or for layered defensive schemes.

[ ] Shell Plants (Phase 6)
A further wave of shell plants, aimed at producing a vast swarm of guided shells, enough to maintain a viable supply as GDI vastly increases shell expenditures during the exigencies of wartime.
(Progress 171/150: 10 resources per die) (-1 Energy)

The current shell situation is fairly desperate, although this is a result of GDI's choices and can be resolved in short order with policy changes. While GDI has been pushing forward around the world, six months of constant offensive action have depleted stockpiles shockingly quickly, leaving munitions depots nearly bare as the Initiative gears up towards hammering home yet more offensives deeper into the Brotherhood's territory. While many of the attacks are advancing under the cover of massed artillery barrages, with well drilled crews and technological assistance delivering an unceasing barrage of shells as quickly as the guns can be loaded. Now that GDI commanders have accurate guns and plenty of shells, they have increasingly begun to use them, sending shell demand spiraling out of control.

Additionally, guided shells are in increasing demand in some unusual areas, places like Australia and Europe, where despite the decline of organized line formations of the Brotherhood of Nod, there is still significant armed resistance. While a guided shell can't quite shoot around a building, it is notably more accurate, allowing for effective danger close fires, and reducing (but certainly not eliminating) the risks of such engagements.

This last of the individual shell construction programs is enough (for now) to stave off depletion of the shell stocks, as a single guided shell can often do the work of several unguided ones – saving the latter for simpler duties, such as demolition of entrenched positions. With fronts stabilizing, the war is still likely to drag on, but the grand offensives that gobble down shells in vast quantities are likely to be an increasingly rare thing.

[ ] Wingman Drone Deployment (High Priority)
With the Wingman drones, GDI has begun to lay out a platform for a future of warfare, primarily built around pilot survivability, and preparing for a series of larger and more intensive aerial campaigns around the world.
- [ ] Firehawk Wingmen (Progress 215/450: 20 resources per die) (-1 Labor, -6 Energy, -2 Capital Goods)

The Firehawk Wingman program has made significant progress on airframe construction. While engines and avionics will be drawn from the broader Firehawk program, the airframe is a significant revision, with a set of completely redesigned canards and wings, due to a shifted center of mass. Without the titanium bathtub, life support, and pilot's seat near the nose, the center of mass shifted back about half a meter.

The biggest problem is the sheer number demanded. While the Apollo has been taking over an increasing number of air superiority missions, the Firehawk is still the general-purpose strike craft of the Initiative, the mainstay of its carrier fleet, and has been in production and service for over two decades at this point. Development started shortly after the end of the Second Tiberium War, as GDI's "Universal Orca" concept proved its limitations. With so many airframes, across such a wide array of formations, production will have to be rapid and massive, needing thousands of drones produced just to reach a meaningful number, in a very short span of time.

With the program far from ready to begin producing functional aircraft, significant further investment is needed. Although the critical moments of the war have likely already passed, and there are already noises about reconfiguring the project, completing some parts before others and beginning a small trickle of functional drones, rather than an immediate flood. While a potential option, currently those noises are little more than discontented militarist politicians wanting photo opportunities with new hardware.

[ ] Plasma Warhead Factory (Phase 1)
The T-10E (Plasma) is probably the most expensive missile of its size ever built by the Initiative. Relying on rare stable transuranic elements, it has significant value, both in air to air and air to ground roles, providing massive damage, and a small form factor. However, it does need a dedicated, if small, production line to provide a trickle of missiles to take out specific high value targets.
(Progress 90/90: 10 resources per die) (-1 STU)
(Progress 90/90: 10 resources per die) (-1 STU)
In a far cry from the bureaucratic hurdles of the last quarter, this time around plasma missile factories have been rushed towards completion, with the new round going from empty grounds to fully certified in under 120 days. So far production has been slow, with less than fifteen hundred produced. While more are expected, currently failure rates are high, as are manufacturing defects as all of the various components are dialed in during the shift to mass production.

However, they have had their first shots fired in anger, a pair being launched in the Georgia campaign against a Barghest-Bis. The first shot missed, the second detonated about half a meter from the Barghest's hull – half-melting the aircraft, and sending it spiraling towards the ground. In terms of more broad effectiveness, the fuses have been repeatedly set longer and longer, with current fusing standard out to between seven-point-five and ten meters, although some have settings as high as twelve meters.

I want to file a complaint. We had eight plasma missiles shipped in last week – and two of them went missing immediately! I know who did it, and I want those commandos reprimanded for stealing from our stocks – yes, I said STEALING. Not 'requisitioning outside normal chains of command', not 'Accelerated material acquisitions'! They stole those warheads and skipped town on the next Ox out of my base, and I want to make it clear that those were Air Force property and those jar-heads aren't getting any!
  • Colonel Timothy MacPherson, Quartermaster Porto AFB

Hey general, give my thanks to the egg-heads who dreamed up this lovely little package of BOOM. I got one onto a NOD Redeemer and the flamethrower ammo chain-reacted and blew it sky high – we found the head half a klick away.
  • Esme Hardtmann

[ ] Merchantman Carrier Conversions
With the Merchantman conversions, switching a substantial number of ships to carry Hammerheads and Orcas instead of cargo, it is a both politically and practically problematic approach. While certainly theoretically possible, and something that GDI has the design specifications to do. It will be a stop gap measure.
-[ ] High Commitments (Complete all Escort Carrier Shipyards by end of Plan) (Progress 205/200: 20 resources per die) (-10 PS)

Late in the quarter, the first wave of serious carrier conversions hit the waves. While the project is complete from the Treasury's point of view, it is a bleeding sore from the Navy's.

From here, it will take months of training to make the carriers actually work. While most of the crews are drawn from the full carriers, it is a very different experience, without things like automated landing assistance (because the landing pads on a merchantman conversion are quite different from a standard carrier), and the differences in defensive systems. The first months of service will be working up in one of the protected seas, far from Brotherhood systems. Following that, they will begin to operate along secondary and tertiary routes, mainly areas where land based air can serve in a supporting role, while the carrier is primarily running ASW operations and maintaining a 24/7 patrol over the convoy.

While it will not free up ships for further expansion of operations, adding between ten and fifteen flattops to the operational pool at any given time does bring the navy significantly closer to being able to maintain more sizable carrier forces in high intensity environments.

"Putting these ships into service is going to be like ripping your shirt to staunch a bleeding wound – it will do the job, but it's not sterilized, it comes at extra cost, and it's a dramatic flourish that may not actually be needed depending on the situation. Or like a tourniquet – you stop the bleeding, but maybe at the cost of bloodflow that causes even more damage."
- Lee Shimin, Militarist, Naval Committee.

[ ] Shark Class Frigate Shipyards (High Priority)
The Shark unfortunately is of a size that GDI cannot simply reuse an existing ship's extra slipways to build the class. Too small for even the older destroyer shipyards, it needs much of its own dedicated space.
-[ ] Melbourne (Progress 172/300: 20 resources per die) (-6 Energy, -2 Capital Goods)

The Melbourne frigate yard has made good progress this quarter. While far from complete, it has been an ambitious project. The first of their kind for GDI in the region-and subject of considerable local debate, the project has had an extremely active good idea fairy. Some of them include building double-wide dual-use construction docks, or building modular bay systems into the frigates to speed upgrades. However, with the war on, nearly all of these ideas have been shot down, with the project on track to build a full production system on a fairly standard model. What has been decided on as a final shape however, is quite ambitious. With no local shipbuilding tradition on this scale, much of the workforce has to be imported or trained in situ, with a training yard already completed, and the first intake registering now. For the rest of the project, many items are still on the drawing board. Inland works will feature massive cranes and rail-ways to move half-completed segments of ship around, turning out bow, stern, CIC, and reactor hull segments, as well as a crowning superstructure.

Beyond the project itself, there has been another Australian project gaining steam, the Adelaide Planned City concept. One of the biggest problems is security. With the city surrendered almost entirely intact, a far larger proportion of the population has refused offers to move to nearby Blue Zones. With many of them having spent their lives under Brotherhood control, and suspicions (although little true evidence) of strong confessor and remaining Brotherhood presence, it has become something of a political football passed back and forth between political groups, even those considered to be typically allied.

[ ] Escort Carrier Shipyards (High Priority)
As GDI has a vast need for escort carriers, there are two tracks. First is simply building a number of supporting elements to build carriers between supporting the battleships. Second is building a number of dedicated shipyards for their production. While both will require substantial infrastructural investments, the former is substantially cheaper than the latter
-[ ] Battleship Yards (Progress 152/120: 20 resources per die) (-3 Energy, -1 Capital Goods)

GDI's battleship fleet has been gutted in significant ways since the beginning of the Third Tiberium War. Beyond heavy losses due to air strikes and naval battles, it has certainly not reached its former highs due to the yard spaces for them being cannibalized for the Governor class. Although rebuilding of the fleet is still ongoing, due to losses both in relative peace, and heightened during the war, there is enough slack in the yard schedules to build a small number of escort carriers, so long as parts are supplied. As the carriers use mostly standard high-tech components – the same radar panels and dishes, the same LIDAR emitters, the same gun systems for the most part as other GDI ships – for the battleship yards, most of the construction has focused on upping production of these specific systems, while using stored versions for the actual construction.

The sites for these new carriers are mostly in yards far from conflict, mostly in the north Atlantic. One, for example, is being built in Newport News. At this point the keel is still in sections, and the ship is unlikely to be completed for over two years at absolute minimum, as it is currently a deeply secondary priority to repairs on the Karisimbi and Elbrus, both damaged by air strikes out of South Africa – although neither particularly critically. The Karisimbi has lost one of its railguns, and the Elbrus has jammed its rudders. While it will be completed with time, currently work is slow, with the staff primarily working on other projects and only building the carrier as they have spare time.

[ ] Allocate Resources to Reconstruction Commissions (New)
Rather than directly dictating from the top down the projects that require the highest priority, and surging resources to fix them, a more general reservation of resources to solve these problems can speed the repair of damages across the Initiative, rather than focusing potentially excessive amounts of energy on individual projects that may or may not be worth pursuing.
-[X] Maximal (30 resources per turn)

An outpouring of resources has gone to the various local commissions and committees that manage reconstruction. However, much of this funding, at least from the early reports, is actually not going into rebuilding immediate damages. Rather, much of it has gone to various forms of deferred upkeep, refugee management, and a number of other projects, most too small scale for the Treasury to bother managing directly. Most of this is due to GDI simply not needing much in the way of actual reconstruction, and instead having a significant problem with deferred maintenance, some of which has been offset since the end of the Third Tiberium War a decade ago. Other parts are problems where the Initiative and the Treasury have simply not gotten around to fixing them, like intersections that tend to produce traffic jams, undersized roads, and train stations with poor connections to other means of transit. While all of these projects will be useful small scale operations, their overall impact is going to be seen in the aggregate more than anything else.

[ ] Request Reduction in Plan Commitments
With the current state of emergency, it is possible to request a reduction in commitments from both parliament and other parties that the Treasury has asked favors of, to reflect the need for vast investments in areas outside of those envisioned two years ago. While Parliament is likely to be loath to make significant reductions, there are a number of marginal projects that can be cut, or traded out for other goals.
(-6 Political Support Per Die) (DC 120/160/200/240) (252)

With the war going as well as it is, and with significant gains by GDI, Parliament is fairly unwilling to allow the Treasury to reduce its goals. While there are some areas with a certain amount of wiggle room, many of those are putting a separate goal in place, often for something that has become a higher priority due to the contingencies of war.

In the field of food reserves, it is a particularly sticky wicket, because food security is one of the few fields where failure is a political kiss of death. The only way that efforts to ensure a strong stockpile can be deferred is by making frankly absurd levels of commitments for the next plan. With these levels, even the rapidly increasing population of GDI can eat well for months, even assuming a near total cease in food production.

(Pick up to four, vote by plan)
Plan Goals
Capital Goods: 11 Points
-[ ] Complete Anadyr and Industrial Lasers Before end of Plan
-[ ] Complete Anadyr and -5 Political Support
Consumer Goods: 12 Points
-[ ] Complete Ranching Domes
Food: 18 points in reserve
-[ ] Increase Stored Food by an additional 40 points by the end of next plan
-[ ] Increase Stored Food by an additional 30 points by the end of next plan and -5 Political Support
Income: 65 Points (No real point in giving you options)
Processing: 280 points
-[ ] Complete Hewlett Gardener Refits and increase income by 250 points
-[ ] Increase income by 350 points
Projects
Complete ASAT Phase 4
-[ ] Complete SADN Phase 2
-[ ] Disregard for -10 PS
Complete OSRCT Phase 4
-[ ] Complete Phase 3 and -5 Political Support
-[ ] Disregard for -15 Political Support
Railgun Munitions Development
-[ ] Disregard for -10 Political Support
Complete at least one more phase of Ablative Armor
-[ ] Disregard for -5 Political Support
Complete at least one more phase of URLS production
-[ ] Disregard for -5 Political Support
Complete at least one more phase of Blue Zone Arcologies
-[ ] Complete at least three more phases of Blue Zone Apartments
Complete GDSS Enterprise
-[ ] Complete Three Phases of Shala and three phases of Columbia
Complete at least four phases of Space Mines
-[ ] Complete at least three phases and -5 Political Support
-[ ] Disregard for -15 Political Support
Complete at least four phases of Karachi Planned City
-[ ] Commit to completing five phases by end of next plan
-[ ] Commit to completing Chicago Planned City by end of Plan, and four phases of Karachi by end of next plan
Develop and Deploy Mastodon
-[ ] Develop Mastodon and -5 Political Support


A/N: Chicago is both cheaper, and has become a heavy industrial project that will produce capital goods, and consumer goods rather than abatement. Still gives processing capacity though. SADN has received significant discounts due to improved laser defense systems.

Edit: Also, four hours for discussion.
 
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The Regency War Part 7- On Many Fronts
Winding Down the War

While the Regency War as a whole is certainly far from over, it may well be time for the Treasury to begin to scale back its own contributions to the war effort. While the war is likely to go on for months or years longer it has, by GDI's own expectations, been overwhelmingly successful. The closure of a front, multiple strikes deep into Brotherhood territory, the success of diplomatic efforts to convince the Caravanserai and Yao Qinglian to maintain at least an armed neutrality, and the seizure of hundreds of millions of people have made this a triumphant victory lap for the policies of the two Grangers.

Between the territorial and population gains, multiple sources have made it clear that Operation Steel Vanguard has to draw to a close – not just on a single front, but across multiple fronts. For one, the merchant fleet is still taking difficult-to-replace losses even if those losses have slowed recently; and cutting down on overall consumption will have ripple effects, especially as a much greater number of escort assets are coming off the lines. Another is the tidal wave of refugees that need to be integrated and have their standard of living brought up to GDI normal, rather than becoming a permanent or semi-permanent underclass. At this point, few of the new in-development technologies will reach the battlefront in meaningful numbers before the offensive (if not the war) ends.


Jose Luis Mondragón

The northern reaches of Mondragón's territory had never been the most populated, or for that matter hospitable to human life. The largest cities historically in the area were established not in accordance with natural territory but rather in open defiance of them. Cities like Phoenix existed in the middle of the Sonoran Desert, and were vast sprawling cancers of suburban blight, kept alive by massive infusions of external supplies – most notably water diverted from the Colorado river. However, Phoenix had died long ago – a result of the destruction of many of the diversions of the Colorado river, and the need for far more practical approaches to habitation. Rather than large concentrations of population in the middle of the desert, habitation is primarily spread out, with clusters under mesas and along canyon walls (some of which have effectively become arcology cities) hidden away from the sun and the peering eyes of GDI.

Despite its small population, the region had long been a center of technology for the Brotherhood, aiding in the development of advanced walkers (including technologies stolen from the Southwestern Training Facility during the Second Tiberium War), modern laser systems, and reverse engineering a crashed prototype to begin designing what would become the Barghest. While the region was once under General Varga (a drug addict who wasted the strength of the Brotherhood before and during the Second Tiberium War) it has seen significant reforms.

With his limited population, and the difficulty of infantry operations in the vast deserts, Mondragon has instead chosen to focus his forces around a heavy complement of mechs. Four-meter Dreadnaughts and their taller Centurion, Purifier, and Avatar cousins make up the vast majority of the forces. While the common Scorpion, Beam Cannon, and Stealth Tank among many others are certainly present among Mondragon's forces, they are certainly not the centerpiece.

At sea, the naval front has been incredibly quiet, partially due to the relative geography. Baja California sits a mere two hundred kilometers off the coast, within easy missile range for GDI AShM batteries, not to mention coastal artillery batteries replete with 203mm rifles at high angle and heavy duty railgun emplacements taken off of decommissioned battleships at the end of the Third Tiberium War. While not the most heavily fortified coastline in GDI territory, it is more than enough to thoroughly suppress the Brotherhood's naval ambitions and allow for nearly free sea operations. This is especially true because GDI does not use the Gulf of California to conduct merchant operations, instead preferring the ports of San Diego and Los Angeles further north on the Pacific coast to conduct its business.

For both sides, the environment is punishing. While it is a very dry heat, overheating is still an issue, and most of the water has to be shipped in. For GDI, much of the water is coming from desalination plants up and down the California coast. Both sides have extensive logistical tails shipping water in massive convoys – prized targets for marauding Firehawks and Vertigos. The average person needs between three and four liters per day to stay properly hydrated. In a desert, when working hard and sweating, it is closer to five, and for some six. GDI's troops have had special supplies laid in, with extra rations of kudzu tea, salt tablets, and sugar pills for every soldier. The Brotherhood on the other hand had supplied their troops from emplaced reservoirs, and with stockpiles that had been built up for decades.

While GDI does not typically expect to be able to achieve strategic and tactical surprise in its offensive operations, in this case, the Brotherhood's intelligence services (usually memetically good) had severely dropped the ball. Launching across the Colorado River, GDI's armored columns faced absolutely minimal resistance, and drove deep into Mondragon's territory. In one case, a Spectre battery had bunkered down for the night, and the first time they realized that a GDI offensive was ongoing was when an infantry platoon arrived to take their surrenders. In this initial offensive GDI overran some half-a-dozen high energy research sites – Nod had been using the vast open desert for much the same reason that Trinity had a century prior: it was a place where even the worst of detonations could be written off as nothing more than blasting a piece of wasteland to dust. As part of the operation, GDI managed to rescue a number of tiberium scientists that were captured during the Third Tiberium War and had been forced to assist at these sites.

In combat, both sides gave it their all: operating from vast stockpiles of war supplies, and with limited room to maneuver, especially for Mondragon's forces. With many of the weak points overrun in the initial hours, and forward hard points either surrounded or suppressed, Mondragon's forces chose to fight until they could fight no more – and in many cases were quite successful. Probably the most important of these were their plasma-armed forces, which while few in number were exponentially more capable of inflicting damage on GDI offensives than any other weapon in their arsenal. A term coined in another desert half a world away a century prior certainly had some meaning here. 'Brewing up,' referring to how a tank on fire looked something like an improvised fire used for making tea, was a common sight in the mid-20th century, with the vast array of temperature-sensitive explosives and other combustibles housed within a relatively thin steel can.

A modern Predator tank comparatively is much more difficult to inflict that kind of damage on – as their munitions are darts of solid metal, but a direct hit from the new plasma guns that have begun to proliferate through the Brotherhood of Nod can send the turret skyward from the detonation of the battery pack and capacitors violently discharging in a short-circuit. This detonation is however far from certain. It requires that the capacitor bank be fully charged or nearly so (between 85 and 90 percent charge at minimum) before explosive liftoff of any degree can occur. While at lower charge levels (around 30 to 40 percent) a sudden failure can still pop the turret out of its housing, that is a very transitory weakness – effective only for a matter of seconds as the capacitor spools up. Far more common is brewing up of another sort, as the alloys of the tank's hull and components hit their flash point and ignite.

While such plasma weapons are not completely new, they are very difficult to defend against conventionally due to the combination of area of impact and the amount of energy they impart. Defending against a laser is (while certainly not easy) at this point a well-known discipline, where spreading the impact is the best method of protection. A plasma blast comparatively is often hitting over several square centimeters to begin with, and so areas around the center are already saturated as defenses attempt to spread the blast.

Nevertheless, much of the area is nearly perfect tank country (even if it's not quite as flat as some parts of the world) with vast open deserts, and in large parts of the region the only cover available is the curvature of the Earth. Here, GDI's railguns are able to be used to devastating effect, so long as spotters are available to lay the fall of shot tens of kilometers away. In many cases, GDI units fought from below the curve of the horizon, pummeling plasma-armed positions from ranges where they could not effectively shoot back. Unfortunately this tactic was not possible everywhere, due to the pace of the initial advance leaving GDI units oftentimes within meters of a bolthole or entrenched position.

The largest fight of this period was at Woolsey Peak, just south of Phoenix and overlooking the Gila River. Originally the site had been excavated in the early 21st Century in an attempt to avoid the prying eyes and blazing Ion Cannons of the Initiative. Since then it had expanded into a warren of caves, tunnels and hidden factories; home to a sizable population, as well as sizable food reserves and other supplies. While the initial advances cut the city off from resupply, the defenders refused all offers of surrender and were too dug in for artillery to reduce the target, leaving this one a job for the Grenadiers.

The Initiative smart disc grenade is, in effect, a miniature suicide drone, with AI guidance systems adding significant range and precision to its use. While not quite precise enough to choose which window pane it goes through, it can certainly choose the window, and comes in a number of special configurations. When it came to clearing the city, these grenades and their capabilities were invaluable, especially with the number of doglegs, blind corners, and kill boxes embedded throughout the facility. With the power supply knocked out in the early hours of the fight, and emergency backups running low days later, much of the fight was conducted amid crimson twilight as emergency light strips tried to keep the dark away.

NVGs on both sides were often blinded by flaring flashbangs and gouts of flame, while both sides improvised flash-hiders for their guns to prevent becoming instant targets as they fired. However, the defense – while ferocious – was fundamentally untenable, as GDI could cycle troops in and out effectively at will and (with multiple entrance points) construct an ever-tightening noose around the defenders. Fighting still rages in the depths, but it has become a slow and grinding affair – with GDI being extremely cautious, expending industrial output rather than manpower as much as possible, and the Brotherhood reduced to skulking in shadows that they had owned mere weeks previously.

While the initial defeats were bad, they were far from crippling; and Mondragon personally rallied forces up and down the lines, bolstering position after position as he did so – roaming in a company of Centurion battlemechs, and repeatedly exposing himself to fire in attempts to pull together shattered units. While designated a priority target by theater and front commands, he demonstrated a stunning mix of luck and skill in avoiding attacks on his person. And even though multiple Centurions in the company fell, all were in his bodyguard, rather than the man himself.

Even with these bold actions, the material superiority of GDI made itself known, and units evaporated under the combined firepower of multiple Initiative battalions. Mondragon was thrown back time and time again, with the last battles reaching to the south of the old Mexico-US border. This unfortunately has not resulted in serious gains of territory under GDI administration, or for that matter significant shifts in population. With most of the populace to the south (especially along the coast), fighting has not yet reached them; and Mondragon's Black Hand forces have been primarily held in reserve, ready to surge into action to defend his core territories.


Krukov

The western front in Russia has been mostly quiescent, a result of the embarrassing defeat at Murmansk and the loss of the Bogatyr. However, the other two Varyag-class cruisers have been a force in being, making it incredibly difficult to advance. Even with the increasing number of Apollo drones in the area, it is still effectively impossible for GDI to advance without sacrificing armored columns to some of the heaviest lasers on the face of the planet. At the same time, with the threat of the OSRCT, an ever-more-capable Initiative air force in the region, the proliferation of plasma missiles, and the sheer number of anti-aircraft batteries in the region, Krukov is ill-inclined to make an aggressive drive into GDI territories.

The far east, however, is a different picture. Yusuf Escoffier, fresh from his defeat at the hands of Stahl, has brought with him a diverse force, mostly veterans of the repeated campaigns against Stahl and his elites. Beyond that, Krukov's own forces are relatively weak, mostly in the hands of a number of smaller subordinate warlords, and oftentimes sharing territory with Yao Qinglian's own forces.

The earliest phase of the offensive quite nearly bogged down, as GDI formations ran into dense and well-organized interlinking defensive networks, supported by a number of new assets, including the Avenger.

The Avenger is a fundamentally conventional tank, built to counter GDI's increasing firepower advantage that has made the aging Scorpion obsolescent – although far from obsolete, for the moment. A large-bore biprop gun, backed by heavy armor and an unmanned turret, the Avenger can penetrate nearly any tank in GDI's arsenal, at least at close range. At long range, GDI's railgun velocities give them a significant edge in penetration, but they lose out marginally in accuracy. To put the difference in perspective, at an engagement range of between 2500 and 3000 meters, a GDI railgun on a Predator chassis will have between three and four centimeters greater dispersion than the Avenger's main gun. In terms of practical accuracy on the battlefield, this is effectively immaterial, as this is a third of the diameter of the projectile being fired. Beyond the main armament, many Avengers (although far from all of them) seem to carry a land mine rack or mine launcher on their rear hull. While the captured model does prevent an Avenger from effectively firing over its rear, it does not prevent traverse over the rear, and gives the Avenger the ability to lay a defensive minefield in front of the vehicle – which was used to great effect in early battles as GDI troops did not expect the capability. Since the first wave of engagements however, it has primarily served as a delaying tactic, making it difficult for GDI to exploit breakthroughs rather than actually inflicting significant damage.

Beyond the Avenger, most of the kit has been relatively lightweight: for example a new missile for the Militant squads – a fire-and-forget heavy ATGM designed for remote launch and activation – improved optics for rifle teams, and a proliferation of laser systems based on the Stahl pattern.

In the air, however, the situation was quite different.. The Brotherhood simply had no answer to the rapid proliferation of Apollo drones. While only about a third of the Apollos in the air had Wingman drones, they proved a highly effective force multiplier, with most squadrons operating as four elements instead of three – two four-man teams, and two two-man teams. Such formations could and did maintain an aggressive posture, usually with the pairs drawing out a response, while the four-man elements pounced from high altitude with guns and missiles blazing away. At the same time, the Brotherhood's surface airfields were among the highest priority targets, with Aurora strikes laying strings of cratering charges to destroy airstrips, or blasting logistics yards to oblivion. On multiple occasions, GDI bombers managed to catch Brotherhood forces still on the ground with cluster bomb strikes. By the end of the first week, the number of Barghests still operating against GDI forces were reduced to a mere handful of either skilled or incredibly lucky pilots, who knew how to make the absolute best use of their airframes' superior mobility – avoiding QAAMs and ensuring strikes against the more vulnerable Firehawks and Orcas rather than marauding Apollo patrols.

As the initial defenses collapsed under the assault GDI was able to run wild, sprinting westward with little resistance. However, the limited rail networks proved a source of great difficulty, with leaps forward of fifty or a hundred kilometers slowed to a halt as troops pause to allow for roads to be built up behind them, and rail construction crews laying kilometer after kilometer of rails to support the offensive. By the end of the quarter, the advance had ground to a near-halt, with GDI forces advancing an average of less than a kilometer per day simply due to the slow speed of the rail construction in the region. With trucks often going over broken and swampy terrain (making at best twenty to thirty kilometers an hour), advancing significantly beyond the railheads would take an inordinate number of trucks, and often involved making hard decisions about what would be transported forward. Fortunately, the airbases (mostly constructed well before the Regency War) comprising another leg of the support network were close enough to the edge of the Blue Zone to create an air bridge across the North Pole to other Blue Zones. While airborne supply and CAS were always available, they were far from enough to allow for major offensives beyond the limits of the rail network.

This was when Krukov's subordinates attempted to stage a counterattack, seeing the slow pace of advance as potential weaknesses. In doing so, they found themselves hitting and bouncing off of well-supplied GDI positions, with lines of heavily entrenched Initiative forces and hull down heavy armor deflecting the attacks time and time again, while heavy rocket launchers, artillery, and air strikes exacted a devastating toll on Brotherhood counterattacks. The most capable of these were performed by Pavchenko's forces, mostly situated on the southern end of the front. For the most part, he operated with a fairly light and mobile complement, choosing to bleed the Initiative rather than fight it out. Across much of the front, GDI forces had to contend with stealth tank raids. While significantly limited in effect due to the proliferation of effective sensors, many of the units that mount those sensors are still extremely vulnerable to the stealth tanks that they hunt.

The southern end of the front crawled forward under a steady rain of shells and missiles. While Initiative artillery batteries could and did deliver three to five times as much fire in return to Nod bombardments, most were either too late, or were spent destroying decoys and dummy units. Many of these were simple metal mockups, properly painted and lacquered, but with metal barely thick enough to be stable. Others were more proper drones, a simple computer system commanding an obsolete unit through preprogrammed routines, moving and shooting to portray a particularly incompetent crew. Interspersed among them were real positions, manned by real forces, creating a very problematic situation for GDI. On one hand, trying to brush aside Brotherhood assets with the van of the column had potential to be not only incredibly bloody as GDI's lighter units ran face-first into heavier Brotherhood opposition, but oftentimes would make the offensive take even longer than the alternative. On the other hand, deploying from marching formation into attack positions (even if not immediately under fire) created a pause in the advance, and a ready target for artillery fire from the Brotherhood of Nod.

As summer declined, the offensive had been a success, even as it ground to a halt. While the region is barely settled (or for that matter, developed), it is a further step towards separating and isolating Qinglian, and a step on a long and hard road towards the Himalayan Blue Zone from the north. While the Varyags have stubbornly remained in action – a pair of dragons not yet slain by GDI arms – Krukov is ever more encircled in a ring of rocks and steel. Future campaigns, especially once the navy is able to sponsor large numbers of landing operations, are likely to try to seize a number of the arctic islands and cut off the Canadian route that has begun feeding him raw materials.


Gideon

Following Gideon's disastrous defeat during the raid on Jacksonville and the destruction of the Indianapolis railway junction, GDI allowed the western theater to settle down into a stalemate to instead switch the weight of the advance and launch another drive down the Eastern Seaboard. Piggybacking on the old American rail and interstate system, GDI forces had a nearly endless supply of shells, missiles, and spare parts to work with. While the system is far less intact south of the Blue Zone, it is still functional enough to be brought up to Initiative standards in relatively short order, without having to keep roads and lines closed for weeks or months on end for upgrades and refits.

Under a sweltering summer sun, GDI and Brotherhood forces battled across the gullied terrain, with both sides taking advantage of the plentiful hull down positions. Often an attacking force could approach from an oblique angle, only poking their heads out some tens or hundreds of meters away. While the fighting was fierce, the harshest struggle was not against the enemy, but against the elements. As usual for the late summer, the area was hammered by hurricanes passing up along the eastern seaboard. But storm and wind and rain was a welcome relief from the sweltering summer heat. Most afternoons, by 1500 the temperatures reached between 40 and 45 degrees, often with nearly a hundred percent humidity. Under these circumstances, people can die of exposure in a matter of hours if doing anything unprotected, let alone trying to fight in armor that does not breathe. For both sides active cooling suits, while encumbering, are a necessity, and even then most combat occurs in the early morning before the heat of midday brings the vast majority of the fighting to a halt.

The second battle of Jacksonville was far less positive for GDI. Having been driven back to the same defensive line as the one broken by the raiding force mere months earlier, Gideon threw in every resource he had, as it was his last chance to hold before GDI was able to cut his eastern and western forces apart in detail. The position of the old Charleston Riflemen had been reinforced, and the whole line – from the swamp to the sea – was the site of hasty construction, as layers of missile emplacements, artillery parks, and entrenched armor prepared to face the Initiative onslaught.

On the first day of the battle following a short but sharp preparatory barrage, GDI forces attempted to force the front line – with multiple breakthroughs as superheavy battalions became breaching crews – driving across the river into the teeth of the Brotherhood as missiles and railgun shots lept forth to devastating effect. Every few seconds, another of Gideon's tanks, another bunker, or another fighting position was blasted from existence under the guns of the Mammoth tanks. But even these behemoths were far from invincible. Plasma guns raked the advancing armor mercilessly; and pelted by every munition that the Brotherhood could throw at them not a single one of the committed superheavy battalions remained combat-viable by nightfall. They had however done their job, and the Initiative had broken through; pushing south of the river, and to the east of Jacksonville, they had reached the St. John River.

Following the breakthrough of the first day, the Initiative became increasingly bogged down. Gideon committed yet more forces, throwing every combat formation he had into the battle front, shoring up positions south of the river even as the ones to the north were annihilated under the oncrushing GDI advance and a rolling barrage of artillery. While modern shell casings contain relatively little metal (only really a disk at the base that acts as sealant with the rest being combustible) the bombardment still produced mountains of expended munitions, piled meters high in many places.

With the airport fighting position having been demolished by the Initiative in the raid on Jacksonville, Gideon fell back into the city proper, engaging in a brutal street-to-street and often room-to-room fight at point-blank range. To help clear the city, the OSRCT had been dropped behind GDI lines, adding a hard core of power armored troops in a stopgap effort to reduce the losses of urban combat. Assault groups advanced into the center of the northern part of town – Zone Troopers leading the way, backed by columns of armor and mechanized infantry. In the city itself, combat was extremely short ranged, with Gana clashing at close quarters, whirling brawls of laser and guns, but also claws and snapping jaws. Among those evacuated were dozens of Zone Troopers, their armor mangled around one of their extremities by the force of an Afanc bite. With all the ferocity of the fighting, GDI's advantages in weight of meat and metal proved decisive, crushing the defending units as they either fought or tried to reposition.

However, the sky battle was significantly more problematic, with Gideon throwing every Barghest and Barghest-bis at his disposal into the teeth of the GDI advance, and as the day wore on, the exchange rate began to tilt in his favor. Partially this was due to the limited number of aircraft available, as GDI has leapt forward by hundreds of kilometers, adding ever more distance to the time for a flight to return to base. Beyond that, it is also a problem of endurance. Even (and perhaps especially) with the speeds of modern aircraft, by the time that an aircraft has launched, traveled to the battle space, and is in position to begin an attack run, the battle in the air could have shifted half a dozen times or more. While a Barghest can in theory fight for hours on end with nothing but its plasma cannons, most GDI aircraft by comparison can expend their entire arsenal in less than a minute, meaning a constant procession of incoming and outbound aircraft. For the most part the incoming airways were at significantly higher altitudes, with Firehawks hitting the stratoboosters to rain down upon Barghests, Venoms, and the Brotherhood armies below with all the fury they could manage. Apollos cut bleeding ribbons out of the air force, but at the same time, the Brotherhood unleashed their full anti-aircraft arsenals – stealth tanks breaking cover to unleash barrages of SAMs before sprinting away to avoid the inevitable counterbattery barrage from 152 and 203mm rifles from the attacking force.

As the second day ground to a halt, both sides exhausted by close-quarters fighting, GDI held the north of the river, and Gideon the south, with neither side willing to commit to forcing a crossing. Rather than engage in a third day of brutal fighting and even higher losses, GDI chose discretion and pulled back north of the city; directly north of the river that had been the first line of defense. There, Initiative forces settled in to lick their wounds, rest, repair, and refit for another battle, another river, and another town.

To the west (as the Initiative had been repulsed from Jacksonville), Gideon had a far more even fight. With the majority of the Initiative's effort on the front hurled at Jacksonville and the defensive lines there, a number of units had been split off to try to begin cutting off the more northerly forces and link up with the MARV hub at Mobile Bay. Neither objective was achieved due to the local opposition.

With Gideon fully committed to fighting it out at Jacksonville even if it took all summer, local command had fallen to Kristen Summers, a relatively young officer who had been rocketed up the ranks by dint of survival. Opposing her was Colonel Mateo Vega, a rising star in GDI ranks, having joined after the Third Tiberium War, and a veteran of the battles of Chicago and Savannah. The senior-most of the colonels in the flank guard, he was put in charge mere days before the offensive was to begin as a result of Brigadier General Claude Adams dying in a Shadow Team attack as he inspected a forward position.

Originally the offensive was an exploitation attack, with multiple GDI forces having made runs through this part of Gideon's territory going both directions – either launching from the MARV hub back towards GDI's front lines, or launching from the front lines towards the MARV hub as reinforcements. The operation was planned to be of a limited scale, with a brigade-sized force as the initial operation, expanding out to divisional strength if there was enough success to justify expanding the operation from a soft to a hard splitting of Gideon's positions once more.

The offensive began as scheduled, with a small force of two battalions beginning the attack south of Atlanta, attempting to bypass the brutal city fighting and instead seize positions between the coast and the city for a link up with the MARVs near Pensacola. A further three attacked along a parallel route north, and a sixth and seventh on a route directly south. Another two, rounding out the force, were a mobile reserve, one held for the northern flank, and another on the southern. On the drive west, the strongest defensive positions were along the Chattahoochee River, some 120 kilometers from the launching-off point of the offensive. However, rather than wait behind that position, Summers chose to push forward, engaging GDI forces at Radium Springs with a small force of her own – mostly older Scorpion tanks and a handful of Afanc-class Gana.

Taking positions on the high ground west of the Flint river, her forces found themselves decisively overmatched. Rather than forcing the issue with Predator tanks and their mechanized support, Colonel Vega requested air support, and a squadron of A-16s was quickly on their way, raining hellfire down upon the Brotherhood forces. While the initial blocking force was annihilated by the air strike, it would be far from the last conflict on the Flint river. And, by calling in the strike, Vega allowed the Brotherhood precious time to regroup.

Forced back from Radium Springs, the two began to effectively shadowbox, with units of the Brotherhood using their speed and knowledge of the terrain to maintain contact while avoiding battle as best as possible. For days on end, a relatively small number of Brotherhood troops kept Vega jumping at shadows and slowing the advance. Engagements at Newton, Leary, and Arlington were inconclusive, but with each step, Vega was able to push forward, and justified the full division, in the hopes of destroying more Brotherhood formations and continuing the drive towards the MARV hub, cutting Gideon's positions in twain once more. However, each of these was won less by competent tactics, and more by weight of fires, with Vega moving overly cautiously in each case, allowing the Brotherhood to slip from his grasp time and time again.

As GDI's material superiority made itself known here again, as the Initiative was able to persist in the advance, pushing ever further west. But with each day of pushing, Vega spread himself thinner and thinner, putting ever more of his troops to guard flanks and rears, rather than concentrating them at the spearpoint. By the time the force reached the Chattahoochee, it was effectively spent, with only a pair of battalions in the lead, and everything else committed to another role. While the offensive was mismanaged, Vega had avoided an embarrassing defeat against Gideon, and the offensive is in good standing to be continued with far greater forces (as Jacksonville is not currently worth the effort expended) and a more aggressive commander.


Raiders

While a GDI cruiser, freighter or battleship can easily weather even the worst storms on the planet so long as they are actually at sea, the far smaller and lighter raiding fleets cannot. And while the submarines can stay safe and sound below the waves, the noise of the storms can make finding Initiative shipping difficult. With routes like the Caribbean often under storm cover, convoys can follow large storms with only a nominal escort, freeing up protection for shipping in calmer waters and in turn making significant dents in the ability of raiding groups to engage GDI forces.

Raider groups have also begun stepping down their operations of their own initiative, especially those sponsored by more distant warlords. This has in turn begun a cascading cycle, where the Initiative navy has been able to reallocate more assets to destroying the raiders that are still active rather than taking on more quiet areas. However, with the array of naval assets lost in the South Pacific due to Bintang's offensive, the average has unfortunately not increased all that much.


War of the Forgotten

The Forgotten have not been sitting this war out, but rather waging one of their own. With much of the Brotherhood's back lines exposed to the Red Zones, Forgotten tribes friendly to GDI have been conducting a war of their own against the Brotherhood: hitting refineries, power plants, and industrial sites, systematically reducing the Brotherhood's ability to wage war. However, they have been doing their best to avoid more civilian infrastructure, such as farms and houses. For most of the first six months of the war, this was a fairly low-impact conflict, with the important sites being far more defended than the Forgotten could reasonably attack. However, with GDI victories and the destruction or capture of a substantial number of Brotherhood combat formations, the back line has been increasingly stripped for reinforcements, with Brotherhood officers making the judgment call that GDI offensives were more of a threat than Forgotten raids.

In the last quarter the raids have stepped up significantly, hitting multiple back-line research sites, and seizing scientists, research data, and a wide array of other materials – much of which has begun to filter back to the Initiative. While much of the data and materials are copies from other raids, that is to be expected, especially with the Forgotten often operating in widely-separated areas, and often out of communication with other groups.


Overall

The war elsewhere has bogged down significantly, in large part due to delays in supplies of shells, ablat depletion, and the simple fact that GDI is trying to conduct more sustained operations deeper into enemy territory on a less intact supply line than they ever have before.

In South America, the conflict has reduced to a low simmer, with a handful of small offensives on each side trying to claim some position of strength. While Escoffier's replacement, one General Jin Daesung, has been settling into his position, neither of the leaders has yet chosen to test the other's mettle, leaving the conflicts to subordinates on both sides. In most cases this has led to a very limited fight with low losses, as neither side seems to have the appetite for a sustained battle.

In Western Europe, the sabotage campaign has picked up steam, and the Brotherhood there has begun winning more skirmishes – making it ever more difficult for GDI to amass the forces and supplies to siege the major cities on the southern coast of Spain, or to begin reducing the Vichy area. Part of it has been a supply line for the insurgency that has been incredibly difficult to trace. While some materiel is clearly coming from pre-positioned caches, the areas deeper in the Blue Zones have also been seeing an increase in high-sophistication attacks, but without InOps being able to trace the source of the supplies used. Matching no existing GDI or (known) Brotherhood pattern, tracking down the source is proving difficult.

In Africa, operations on both sides have slowed to a crawl with increasingly desultory barrages and counterbarrages. In North Africa, the Caravanserai have been able to begin centralizing their control, even over areas that have traditionally not been Muslim. While it is something of a reach for them, GDI's presence has given them a major advantage, especially in being able to strip many of their back-line areas of troops to secure the region. Mehretu has been trying to send men and supplies to fight the Caravanserai, but with continuing GDI pressure – even if fairly light – he has been unable to spare much.
 
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