The cesspit of the galaxy. The lawless frontier. The dark edge of civilization. A wretched hive, if one is feeling poetic, of scum and villainy. The Terminus Systems.
Your home.
Honestly, the reputation is exaggerated. Those in Citadel Space like to claim that theirs is the only light of civilization, but that's never been true. They're just more organized...with all that entails.
The Terminus is not a nice place.
Your home is civilized, yes, but it is a raw and turbulent civilization. It is a civilization where the safe places are so because of the fleets they field, and everywhere else merely finds refuge in hope -- the hope that they are too insignificant to notice. It is a civilization completely divorced from the multi-cultural union of the galactic south, where there is nothing to tie together the disparate elements of the wild frontier save a shared distaste for outsiders. It's a place where you have to be strong to take power, and stronger still to keep it. It is a place where there is nothing to catch you, if you fall, save the bonds you forge for yourself. It is a civilization that still pays open homage to the most basic rule of law -- the rule of the gun.
But for all of that, there is beauty in this place. There is a wild and freewheeling desperation for life, for freedom, for something, anything better than yesterday, and it suffuses every inch of this crazy patchwork you call your home. That said, all too often, the best and brightest flee south with the very first scraps of success, aiming for the security and open markets of Citadel Space. The rest are left behind, free to strive for excellence, but deprived of the tools and leaders to help them. In another life, you might have joined those exceptional individuals, whom the Citadel Council courts so very assiduously.
But this is not that life. In this life, you have never known another home. This is your home. And you love it with all your heart.
It's not something you tend to advertise; there's nothing the Terminus enjoys crushing more than an idealistic soul. But nonetheless, you love this place. You love it enough to stay. You love it enough to live its wild beauty.
You love it enough to seize control of your little corner of it, and try and make something better of it. Yes, you love your home. But there are flaws, you know. Flaws like the batarian you've just finished ousting, the obese sack of flesh your closest companions are even now dragging from your office in a tide of tears and hurled curses.
Flaws like really subpar furniture. You shift, trying in vain to get a comfortable seat in the desk chair you've just opened up.
You finally settle into a decent position and promptly tip the chair onto its back legs, resting your legs on the desk in front of you. You sigh, content for a moment.
Then you sit back down. You love your home. You love it enough to save it from itself. From the Citadel's self-interested interventionism. From the Batarian Hegemony who wants this half of the galaxy to be their playground.
From everything. A lofty goal.
You run your hands along your new desk -- a concrete symbol of how much you've achieved, of the final results of your years of hard labor.
Step one's done.
Now it's time for steps two through infinity.
Time to get to work.
You carelessly shove your predecessor's computer to the side and off of the desk, letting it pass from your mind as it smashes to the floor. Then you pull your own out of the bag at your side, fire it up, and connect to the planetary branch of the galactic extranet. You log into the government's internal database -- now, your database.
Then you grimace, because it's a horrid mess. Hell, you can barely find what year it is! This looks like something constructed by a line of blind pyjaks, each one guessing at what the ones before were trying to achieve. You close down the pages and just start taking notes. After all, with the galaxy in this state, you're going to need to have your thoughts organized.
[X] Rachni War Start. (Starting year is 24 CE)
The year is 480, Galactic Standard, and the galaxy has been plunged into hell. Thanks to a criminally careless exploration team, the Citadel stumbled across a new race a couple of decades back -- a race known as the Rachni. Ever since, the Rachni have ravaged the galaxy, pushing the Citadel back on every front. The Citadel Council has ordered system after system abandoned, and now the galactic north stands alone. Never particularly tightly tied to the Citadel in the first place, the north banded together against the Rachni in a loose alliance, hoping that the two titans of the Rachni and the Council will be too focused on each other to lay waste to the north.
These are the first days of the Terminus Systems, and in such chaotic times, there are many opportunities for the ambitious. But you are not the only person looking to take advantage of these opportunities. While the Council mostly couldn't care less about the Terminus, its clients still have interests here, and rumors abound of the aggressive Batarian Hegemony looking to bring you all under its influence. Even in your local neighborhood, danger abounds, for your neighbors won't be thrilled if you prove to be too threatening to their status quo. And even should you resolve all of that, the Rachni have seized huge swathes of the galaxy, and should you draw their attention before you're prepared, you will die under an avalanche of chitin and acid spray.
This is a time of chaos, war, and death, and all that you know may be swept away in the coming years. But this is a time of history and legend, and what happens during the next few years will determine the shape of the galaxy for centuries to come.
ADVANTAGES: Low Council Attention, few established trends impeding you, bonus to neighbor relations due to the outside threat, longest time until the Reapers arrive.
DISADVANTAGES: High Hegemony Attention, few established trends to protect you, Rachni are hostile and will turn attention to you if you are too successful.
[-] Krogan Rebellions Start. (Starting year is 710 CE)
The year is 1100 GS. Centuries after the krogan saved the galaxy by destroying the Rachni, they have in turn become the villains. In hindsight, it was obvious. Uplifted from a post-nuclear Stone Age to modernity in a decade by the salarians, the krogan were never ready to be a people in this galaxy. They chafed at the restrictions the Council imposed upon them and expanded recklessly, given their naturally explosive birth rate. It was only a matter of time before they looked to their, "friends," the Council, for more living space. Now they and the Citadel wage war in the south -- a war that has already ground on for many bloody years. Rumors abound of the Council turning to a relatively new contact, the Turian Hierarchy, for aid, but few indeed imagine that anybody can stand up to the krogan. In the midst of this madness, the north is left alone.
That is not to say that times are peaceful. Those with foresight recognize that a krogan victory will spell almost certain doom for the Terminus, but they are few, and almost everybody else is more interested in using the Council's distraction to further their own place. Including, as usual, the batarians; long a prominent influence in the region, they are as always hoping to exploit the current chaos to tighten their grip on the Terminus further, and draw you all under their control directly or indirectly. Your neighbors are on alert, watching everybody for batarian influence...or for simple ambition.
The south is in chaos, and while mother is away, the children will play. The Terminus struggles against itself. If you play your cards carefully, and manage to outwit the competition, you may rise to the top...and even, someday, attain enough relevance to actually affect the clusterfuck going on to your south.
ADVANTAGES: Low Council attention, still a long time until the Reapers arrive, ability to affect Krogan Rebellions if you gain influence quickly enough.
DISADVANTAGES: Penalty to neighbor relations due to atmosphere of distrust, high neighbor Attention, high Hegemony Attention, Krogan will become hostile should they win the war.
[-] Geth Crisis Start. (Starting year is 1895 CE)
The year is 2197 GS, and for over a millennium, the galaxy has known peace. With the turians acting as the Council's military arm, Council space has been safe and protected, and their interests in the Terminus maintained.
Or so, the story went, because after a quick and brutal conflict, the Quarians have lost their worlds to the Geth, their accidental AI creations, and the Council has done nothing. Well, not nothing. The Council has expelled the Quarians even from their lowly status as a client race and exiled them as a polity. The survivors, huddled aboard a massive armada of ships, have been cast out into the Terminus at large, and it suddenly falls on the people of the Terminus to form the logistical support base that such a colossal fleet requires. To say that you all are displeased would be a massive understatement. Is this not a Council problem? Is the Council not sworn to protect its clients, even if it tells them to wait for actual power until they contribute, "something significant?" For centuries? What good is the Council if they won't let anybody else have power and won't even protect their clients?
Such is the opinion in the Terminus, and the Council's Affiliate Races are just as troubled. For the first time in a millennium, the Council must deal with significant internal dissent, and it knows full well from where that dissent springs. The Council gazes upon the Terminus with sullen eyes, waiting for an opportunity to punish those who have made trouble for the Council at home. Everybody must now tread carefully, all the while trying to figure out what to do about the Quarian Flotilla they must now host. At least the Hegemony has backed off, since the Council is watching so closely.
That said, to the farsighted, the Quarians' expulsion may represent an opportunity rather than a threat...if handled carefully.
Very carefully. The Terminus is in chaos, but when is it ever not? At least you're used to caution.
ADVANTAGES: Low Hegemony Attention, Quarian Flotilla may possibly be exploited, sympathizers among Council Affiliates.
DISADVANTAGES: High Council Attention, Quarian Flotilla is by default a swarm of resource-hungry locusts as far as you're concerned, starting negative Council relations.
[-] Relay 314 Start. (Starting year is 2157 CE)
The year is 2437 GS. Since the end of the Geth Crisis, the galaxy has found equilibrium once again. The Council's Affiliates have settled down into a dull roar from their seething discontent during the Crisis, and the Council has gone back to ignoring the Terminus unless it makes trouble. The Hegemony has moved back in, but done little; they have things essentially the way they like them out here. All of this means that it's open season within the Terminus. With few outsiders making themselves obnoxious, everybody has turned inward and against each other, even the flimsy connections that already were there breaking down with remarkable speed. The Terminus is as disunified as ever, with alliances of convenience forming and collapsing over the course of hours. Amidst all of this, Aria, the new Queen of Omega, observes the chaos from the station she rules and plucks strings, her position at the natural heart of the Terminus allowing her unmatched influence.
This is a quiet time on the grand scale, but activity seethes under the surface. Your greatest threats and largest concerns are your immediate neighbors, and the Council won't care much about you unless you reach the point where your neighbors are no longer a concern. That said, rumors are spreading of the turians having their noses tweaked during an aggressive First Contact with a new race far in the galactic south. If true, that would present a distraction for the Council -- First Contact is always a time of change. The galaxy has been settled in its current form for a long time, and it's time for a change. You feel like being the one to provide it.
You'll just have to be careful of whose toes upon which you step.
ADVANTAGES: Closest to canon games (thus, most familiar), period of nominal peace, no relations penalties with any group, no major threats.
DISADVANTAGES: High Neighbor Attention, all parties have entrenched interests in the region, Humanity has just arrived on the scene and will shortly be aggressively expanding, you have twenty-nine years until the Reapers arrive.
THIS VOTE HAS BEEN CLOSED.
Welcome to Terminus Quest! I've been looking forward to this one.
So, quick overview: this quest will use the quest-style CKII system -- specifically, the derivation used in torroar's, "Warhammer Fantasy: A Dynasty of Dynamic Alcoholism," or Dr. Snark's, "May the Invisible Hand Be With You." See the Rules Post below this one for how specifically this will work, but have an overview here and now.
This system has the players control a civilization or polity by way of their PC, the leader of said polity. The PC's abilities are tracked through a variety of stats -- Martial, Diplomacy, Stewardship, Intrigue, and Learning (and, in many quests, Piety) -- which represent their facility in various areas of administration. The players get a number of actions each year per category.
This quest involves the PC taking control of the planetary government of one of the planets of the Terminus Systems of the Mass Effect universe. Your goal is twofold: to reach a certain level of galactic prominence -- more on that later -- and to survive the coming of the Reapers in 2186 CE. We'll be covering character generation and planet selection in upcoming posts, as your character struggles with their predecessor's god-awful website and compiles their notes on the current situation in the wake of their coup.
I am going to assume a certain level of familiarity with the canon of Mass Effect, but I'll be using the wiki as my primary reference. If you see something you don't recognize, the explanation will probably be in there somewhere, and it has some very good history entries for those who are interested in the quest but not familiar with the source material. I'll still explain anything that's not common knowledge as it comes up, of course.
EDIT: Given that the players picked the literal earliest start, two millennia in advance of canon, newcomers will actually be far less at sea than normal. Some fundamentals of the setting go unexplained, but I wind up establishing a lot in-text.
Anyway, welcome aboard, folks! Hope you enjoy. Keep your eyes peeled over the next few hours; I'll be populating the next few posts with information. Please hold your posts until I reserve the ones I need.
The CKII style of questing is derived from Paradox Interactive's, "Crusader Kings II," a grand strategy game about players controlling nobles in the European Middle Ages. It has proven to be a flexible and durable system well suited to quest adaptations. Play revolves around the main stats of the game's characters. Let's begin with an overview of the stats themselves.
Stats in CKII track characters' facility in various areas of governmental administration. The stats available are Martial, Diplomacy, Stewardship, Intrigue, and Learning. Some systems also include Piety.
Martial
Martial tracks a character's ability to command and run a military force. This is often also the character's personal facility in combat, but some games track this differently. This quest will only rarely have the PC directly take the field in combat, so the two will be conflated for convenience and reduced bookkeeping here. High-Martial characters make excellent generals, admirals, and commanders-in-chief.
Diplomacy
Diplomacy tracks a character's ability to organize and conduct diplomatic endeavors such as ceasefire agreements, trade negotiations, and alliance pacts. High-Diplomacy characters make excellent ambassadors, consuls, and politicians.
Stewardship
Stewardship tracks how financially-minded a character is. This includes all manners of finance, on any scale. Yes, this is one hell of an abstraction. High-Stewardship characters make excellent bankers, business executives, and merchants.
Intrigue
Intrigue is a measure of a character's facility in the arts of subterfuge. This would be things like intelligence, counter-intelligence, and...actually, that's about it. It's spy work and general skulduggery, in all of its applications. High-intrigue characters make excellent spymasters.
Learning
Learning is not an intelligence stat. Learning is the measure of a character's facility in the scientific and scholastic arts. It's Scholarship, essentially; how well they engage with scholarly fields. This includes technical fields. High-Learning characters make excellent scientists, engineers, and doctors.
Piety
Piety is a measure of a character's familiarity with and skill in addressing matters of faith. This stat is traditional to CKII games, but is usually abstracted to mean other things in sci-fi games. In this quest, it is defined as how skilled one is in addressing matters of faith; in other words, one's talent as a theologian. That being said, the stat is absent from the game, per player decision. If taken, it would have been represented by an official Ministry of Faith in the PC's government, thereby making the populace's religion a matter of state policy. As it has been voted against, Piety is not considered a part of this game or an official matter of governance, and, if it arises otherwise, will be addressed through other kinds of actions. That being said, in the meta for my iteration of the CKII system, high-Piety characters make excellent theological scholars, priests, or religious heads.
Play is usually conducted in yearly turns. The players have a variety of projects between which they may choose each turn in separate categories defined by the various stats. These categories represent your branches of government. For instance, in a game where Piety is not taken, the players will have five action categories every turn: Martial, Diplomacy, Stewardship, Intrigue, and Learning actions, representing Departments or Ministries responsible for the categories in question. Each category will have its own action economy, representing the capacity for action each branch of the PC's government has. The players may NOT elect to not take an action in a given category unless their action economy is depleted (in which case they are taking an action, just not any new ones). Actions each have a chance of success rolled against on a d100. The players gain a bonus on this check equal to half the relevant stat of the Minister for that category. Special Personal actions can allow them to add their full relevant PC stat as well. The chance of success translates to a DC which you most roll over -- having to roll under a value is an amusing gimmick, but it's counterintuitive and doesn't add much to a game.
How stats scale is largely arbitrary in CKII quests, so I've elected to include a scale here; this is your rough set of benchmarks for what these numbers mean. I've tried to keep the scale roughly in line with the game's scale, but what they call, "masterful," (13+) isn't even consistent with their own mechanics. I have also expanded the scale upwards. Here's the scale:
Other than the action economy, the players will also have to track their budget of credits. The galactic credit is a standardized, pan-national currency in the Mass Effect universe administered by the Vol Protectorate (The Vol Union, previous to their status as a Turian Client Race). In this quest, the players' balance of credits represents all of the financial assets which they can readily leverage. This represents the amount of liquid funds they have, yes, but also represents the local liquid value of any natural resources to which they have access. This is a grand simplification to reduce bookkeeping on my end, but I think it works. For instance, opening a mine to harvest warship-grade tungsten produces credits; not because you're just selling warship-grade tungsten -- although you probably are -- but because you now no longer have to buy it from traders two or three profit margins away from foreign producers. Thus, the credits you gain from the mine represent both profits from trade and savings on materials otherwise used.
Again, this is not strictly speaking how resource management works, but it makes things much easier on everybody's parts, and makes me far less likely to burn out due to bookkeeping. And, honestly, this is about as involved as the person running a planet should be in resource acquisition anyway. The PC does not need to be tracking every pound of warship-grade metallo-ceramics. That's what cause my previous quest to sputter, which is why we're having this one at all, after all. I'm trying to avoid the same problem recurring.
Now, if something like losing all access to a certain vital resource becomes a possible or present issue, then it'll come to the PC's notice. Think the Axis scrambling to get oil and rubber -- any oil and rubber -- during World War II.
Going into negative credits is possible. If your leader has a Stewardship of 13 or higher or your Stewardship Adviser has a Stewardship of 21 or higher, you can safely go into the negatives as long as your yearly income and any lump sums gained during the year swing you positive again by the start of next year. This represents gifted individuals managing to run the books on the knife's edge, timing project payments and resource allocations perfectly to coincide with new infusions.
However, lacking either of those individuals, or starting a year with a negative credit reserve, imposes penalties to all rolls that scale the deeper the debt goes and the longer you stay there. This is due to credits' nature as an abstraction for all available resources; at negative reserves you're running out of shit with which to fund your projects. I will not make these penalties explicit; not knowing how bad it'll get will scare you more.
The Particulars
Every CKII quest diverges from the standard formula in some way. Mine has a few mechanics that separate it as well.
Attention Mechanics
This mechanic is an addition on my part to represent how relevant various groups' interests said groups consider you to be. In general, this represents very broad divisions -- by default, the Citadel Council, the Batarian Hegemony (given its extreme historical interest and, well, hegemony, in the Terminus), and your neighbors. I abstract them this broadly to avoid bloating your Status Screen with too many contacts to track. Once you gain a certain amount of attention from a broad faction, I start simulating who precisely has taken an interest in you.
Attention is tracked on a scale from 0-100 for each tracked faction. At certain levels of Attention, factions begin taking action with regards to you, depending on how their relationship with you is. For instance, at 11 Council Attention with a hostile opinion, the Council issues diplomatic protests of your recent actions, increasing Attention with all other factions and dropping your opinion with any factions more friendly with the Council than with you. Reaching 100 Attention with any faction triggers drastic measures -- outright declarations of war, formal proposals of alliance or Council membership (not Affiliate status), or other such extreme results. Thus, Attention does not build up to those levels very quickly through the process of daily governance. Mind your Attention; knowing when to increase it and when to try to dump it is key.
Player Mandates
People don't just wake up and decide to stage a coup. Coups require a lot of preparation and support -- and you're no different. You got into power by promising something to somebody, and you'll have to deliver unless you want to look like you can't follow your own word. To spice up the early game, I've decided that your character made promises to the people in exchange for the popular support required to take their position. The nature of this promise varies depending on what you all vote in as your primary stat; a Martial-focused character will have promised military victories or development, a Stewardship-focused character will have promised an expanded economy, etc. These are only examples, mind, not what I plan on offering exactly. Your character will need to live up to this particular promise before too long, or else risk domestic protests as they're viewed as failing to live up to their word. You can buy some time there by making obvious efforts towards your promise, but that can't last forever -- because then you start looking incompetent instead.
These mandates may recur upon PC succession, depending on the nature of that succession. For instance, in democratic elections, candidates -- not just you -- can elect to take a mandate in order to court popular support, making it the foundational support of their campaign platform and making their political success or failure dependent on their ability to fulfill that agenda. Coups inevitably has somebody promising things to one or many people which need to be achieved.
End Game
This Quest will end someday. I've decided to codify that.
Paradox Interactive has another grand strategy game, this one called Stellaris and set in an original sci-fi universe. It doesn't adapt nearly as well as CKII does, but it does offer a series of ending conditions, the concept of which I've adopted.
Your aim is to bring your civilization to a certain level of galactic prominence in one of a few measures. I've chosen to break these up according to stats.
A Martial Victory is achieved by conquering the galaxy. No more, no less. You must be the only polity standing to achieve this victory. This is achievable with any form of government. The Reapers regularly achieve this type of victory.
A Diplomacy Victory is achieved by having significant and enduring political influence with every other polity in the galaxy -- defined as being able to sway the politics of other nations with your influence alone. The canonical Council has nearly achieved this type of victory, and as far as the Terminus goes, the canonical Batarians already have.
A Stewardship Victory is achieved should you become capable of crashing the galactic economy, single-handedly, on demand. Simple as that. The canonical Vol Protectorate has achieved this type of victory.
An Intrigue Victory is achieved by having near-complete access to the highest levels of classified intelligence in the entire galaxy. The canonical Cerberus and the Shadow Broker have achieved this type of victory. The STG has in fact not, due to their unawareness of the Thessian Beacon for over two thousand years. The scrubs.
A Learning Victory is achieved by mastering indoctrination-free Reaper-level eezo tech or making practical and competitive a completely different tech tree. Both of these options are of comparable difficulty. By technicality of having indoctrination, the Reapers have not achieved this type of victory, but in spirit we all know very well that they have.
A Piety Victory -- should it wind up being relevant -- is defined as successfully imposing your particular governmental policy of faith upon the entire galaxy, through whatever means are necessary. The Reapers regularly achieve this type of victory (the Catalyst counts).
The game ends when you have achieved any one of the above types of victory, and when you defeat the Reapers. Yes, and. You must do both to, "win."
The game ends in a loss if your entire state is wiped out. Avoid this.
Combat Mechanics
My previous quest burned out due to mechanics weariness. I would like to avoid this recurring. Here is how combat works in this quest, lifted directly from the update in which I introduced it:
The new iteration of the battle system uses d50s and runs on degrees of success rather than the typical greater/critical success system. Each side rolls a d50 and adds the full martial score of its commanding officer. Victory margin by five or less (10% margin) is a single degree of success. Close-run thing, but the exchange is in your favor. Please note that a single corvette scoring a single degree of success against a full battle fleet just indicates that they meaningfully delay the battle fleet, not that they do serious damage. More than five and up to double the result of the losing side is two degrees of success. Solidly in your favor. In the prior example, the corvette actually damages something minor, also involving a fairly troublesome delay. More than double the result of the loser is three degrees of success. Very strongly in your favor. The corvette actually kills something before evaporating under massed firepower.
Administrative Overclocking
Introduced during the Year 17 Results, Administrative Overclocking introduced two features found in some other iterations of the CKII quest system: Double Down, and Expedite. Here is how they work in this quest:
Once per year, you may opt to double down on or expedite one of your selected options. All project costs for that project are doubled (hits to income, even permanent hits, are only doubled for the duration of the option itself). In exchange, the project gains access to the following bonuses: for doubling down, the relevant Minister's bonus is not halved, but rather doubled from base (i.e., Shurna would grant +46 rather than +12); for expedited, the project, if successful, completes in half the time (mathematical rounding), but gains no bonuses towards its roll (thus, a five-year project would complete in three years, but gain no additional bonuses towards completion). You do not need to take either of these options in a given year, although you always may. In order to Double Down on or Expedite a given option, include, "Double Down," "DD," "Expedite," or "EX," as a sub-vote of the option in question, to whit:
[ ] Plan Name
-[ ] Option To Be Boosted
--[ ] Double Down/DD/Expedite/EX
-[ ] Option Not To Be Boosted
-[ ] Etc.
You may not double down on or expedite free options.
As of Turn 36, in part due to costs getting away from me, you may now do this with two options in a given year.
Rolling
In this game, you get to roll the dice.
There are rules.
First, wait for me to call for rolls. This will often be in the same post as I close the vote, but sometimes it will not be. This is because this thread tends to chug merrily along even after vote close, and rolls can get buried under a page or so of comments. This isn't crippling or anything, but it's mildly tedious, so I tend to call for rolls only when I'm ready to start writing and get the results down on, "paper," so to speak.
Second, don't bother calling your rolls; I just call for a given number of them, and take the first of that number to show up, applying them in order to the options selected.
Hero Units
Hero units are individuals specialized within a given area of a given field -- thus, a Martial hero might be an Army officer, as opposed to a, "general Martial expert," in the way advisers are. For every action you take relating to a hero's area of specialty, I roll against twice the option's DC, with no bonus. If that check passes, the hero applies their full relevant stat to the main roll for the option in addition to personal or adviser bonuses. Heroes can appear multiple times in a year with no penalties.
Hero bonuses are random, but if you wish, you can make one apply with a personal action, representing you instructing that your Ministers break out the real experts for this one. This locks the hero down to that option and means their bonus will apply (particularly useful if they have a high stat where you have a low one, hello Mister Intrigue 15 Kurik), but burns an action and means that the hero will not appear on any other actions.
You acquire heroes through critical successes, and heroes come in different levels based on the kind of critical success. Not every critical success will result in a hero unit. A regular critical success, if it yields a hero unit, yields a Taylor-class hero unit. Named for the singularly unimpressive cheating bastard Jacob Taylor, this hero unit does one thing very well, or two things acceptably. This is the kind of person who can make or break a project. The next step up, received from greater critical successes, is Anderson-class, for Captain Anderson in his prime. Andersons can do a couple of things quite well, or spread out and become generalists in several fields. The next level is Normandy-class, describing the capabilities of non-Taylor Normandy crew members and attained from Ultimate Critical Successes. These are people who can change the course of a civilization from the right spot. They have multiple excellent stats, and very few if any poor ones. Finally, there is Shepard-class, resulting only from a Natural Critical Success. They are bad at nothing, and probably really good at everything. These are the kind of people who change the galaxy from a standing start.
Mira, when she was a wandering mercenary, was a Taylor-class hero. When she was enlisted in Virmire's Army, she hit the peaks of Taylor class and started edging into Anderson-class. When she was a General (and after she broke into the Navy, but prior to her becoming Minister of War), she was a solidly Anderson-class hero unit, and as she stands now she's sitting square at Normandy-class (many Normandy-class heroes peak higher, but she has a lot of high stats).
Hero units will be rare. These are exceptional individuals, and they arise only in exceptional circumstances. Furthermore, being exceptional is dangerous -- if a hero gets their bonus in on an option, and it fails dangerously...you might not get them back. But for the times they pull out a clutch save, you'll love them. And if they get involved in events that in turn hit critical successes, they can (very, very rarely) improve further.
Voting Rules
By default for the regular year turns, voting is approval plan voting, with victory by plurality. You vote for any number of cohesive, "plans," of options, and the plan with the most votes, majority or not, is victorious. You need not vote for plans that do not contradict each other; feel free, in fact, to vote for any you find acceptable, even that number is one.
Sometimes, options selected during year posts are fiddly enough that they warrant further resolution in the form of event chains. These chains will by default be by tasked approval voting, with victory by plurality. I will divide the options into separate tasks where applicable, labeled like so: [ ][MARTIAL], or, [ ][INTRIGUE]. These tasks are counted separately from one another on my vote tally software, making them easier to count. You may vote for as many or as few of these tasks as you like, and within each task may select any of the options that you like, even mutually contradictory ones. Within each task, the single option with the most votes, even if it does not constitute a majority, wins.
I will occasionally use different voting schemes, when warranted. I will announce this when I do.
I will impose moratoriums on all votes before opening them, to allow discussion. I will post a threadmark opening the vote; if there is no threadmark after the most recent story update, the vote is not open. All votes will be held open for at least twenty-four hours from the end of their moratorium, to ensure that all time zones get the chance to participate, unless an immediate and overwhelming consensus emerges, with one exception: even a unanimous consensus of voters larger than any other turnout in the history of the quest within an hour of the vote opening will not convince me to close year posts before a full twenty-four hours have passed. They are too important to the regular running of the quest.
Year votes in particular, but all votes in practice, will permit write-ins. I reserve the right to moderate these write-ins for how much of a load they impose on my end. This applies whether or not write-ins are explicitly listed among your options.
QM Availability
My schedule is weird. Expect either an instantaneous response, or a response time of days. I usually can respond quicker to questions posed on my Discord server (link in the Informational threadmarks).
Mira T'Vael. Age: 187, Galactic Standard Years. Asari. The Player Character.
Martial: 21-2+3+4 (26): Despite your young age, you have developed into a combatant and commander of incredible mastery. You possess an understanding of combat and command that few people can rival, let alone surpass, and it's rare that you find your match even among the annals of history's greatest military leaders. You are a Legendary soldier and commander.
Diplomacy: 12+2+2 (16): In the chaos of your overthrow of the Ministry of Finance, you have found how to bring the fire in your chest to the surface and show the world the passion you hold for your job and the cause for which you fight. You can hold people spellbound with your personality, although impressive as it is, it is but a single trick. You are a Competent diplomat.
Stewardship: 18+2-2+1 (19): Despite your occasional tendency to lose your head in the grip of your latest rash idea, you have a keen understanding of logistics and the lessons they imply. You have a very practiced eye for numbers. You are an Expert steward and manager.
Intrigue: 10-2 (8): While your talents are many, subtlety is not one of them. You are forthright and blunt, and have little grasp of subterfuge in yourself or others. You are a Poor schemer.
Learning: 15+2 (17): You've always held an interest in the sciences, and your mother ensured that you received the traditional strong asari education in them. You could have been comfortable as a scientist, in another life. You are an Expert scholar.
Traits
Biotic: Like all asari, your nervous system is seeded with Element Zero, and with proper concentration you can call upon it to warp mass to your will. This makes you an exceptionally dangerous enemy to face in personal combat. You gain a quarter of your Martial score to any personal combat checks.
Asari: Your people are widely renowned as diplomats and scholars, and the Republics encourage this in their children. Sadly, despite a long and proud warrior tradition, your people have little cultural respect for notions of modern and unified intelligence or military endeavors. +2 to Diplomacy and Learning, -2 to Martial and Intrigue.
Retired General: Your chosen pursuit before you came to Virmire was mercenary work, plain and simple, and once you settled here, moving into the local military was simple sense. Afterwards you rose through the ranks swiftly, and served as the Minister of War before you took power personally -- albeit, in part due to the ranks above you suffering horrid attrition in the war. Nevertheless, you are a trained soldier and officer, with all of the understanding of the art of war that that entails. +3 to Martial, +2 to Stewardship.
Firebrand: Over a near-decade of rulership, your characteristic impulsiveness and tendency to leap into action did not fade. However, in the grip of your outrage over the state of your Ministry of Finance, you found a way to channel that fire and hold a crowd spellbound with the sheer force of your personality. +2 to Diplomacy, -2 to Stewardship.
Fleet Master: Multiple times, you have launched multi-cluster offensives involving hundreds of warships in truly intense fighting. You now truly understand the practicalities of commanding not just a fleet, but a nation's entire navy, in active combat. While your military career began on the ground, it's clear to see that you have come to a true mastery of the realities of naval command. +4 to Martial, +1 to Stewardship.
Advisers
These are the beings who run the Ministries of your government, and advise you on matters relating to their specialty.
Toral K'Sharr
Toral immigrated to Virmire from Khar'shan as a child and has spent his entire adult life in the military -- much of it by your side. He now serves as your Minister of War.
Logistics Pioneer: Toral has spent his time keeping the fleets of Virmire supplied and provisioned -- experience put to the test in the lead-up to the Attican Beta relay assault. He has studied the art of military logistics and applied that knowledge. The experience has taught him much of how to manage fleet supply. +1 to Martial, +2 to Stewardship, +1 to Learning.
Marae Dantius
Matron Dantius took you and Lissa in when you arrived on Virmire, renting the two of you a room in her home. She encouraged your ambitions, and now applies old experience as a consul on Sur'Kesh to your administration as Minister of Relations.
Knife's Edge: Lissa spent most of the first two decades of your administration of Virmire struggling against a constantly-strained budget, trying to keep the various endeavors of your government funded in the face of constant resource shortages. Once the economic drought receded -- only for the storm clouds of a looming unemployment crisis to appear -- she found that her experience gave her some crucial insight in how to eke every drop of gain out of your sudden surplus. +3 Stewardship.
San Shurna
San Shurna is a canny volus who managed to find a position leading the Ministry of Intelligence. She is the only member of your predecessor's administration who kept her position.
Originally from Irune, Fulka Pak is your Minister of the Sciences in the wake of Korun's death. The man's work in the field of education has wrought profound changes in him. In his chosen field, he works with a frenzied fervor. He has truly found a cause for which to fight.
Reinvigorated: Finally getting to work on his dream project of public education on Virmire has put a shot in Pak's arm, giving him more energy and passion to put into his work. +1 to all stats.
Hero Units
Sometimes, exceptional individuals come to your attention; the kind of people who can have a massive impact on the galaxy.
Secretary Tamara Kirai
Your Asari Secretary of Public Relations, Matriarch Kirai is already aggressively seeking influence within your administration, pushing her opinions into the discourse in a thousand ways -- as expected. Also as expected, she is as good as she is infuriatingly condescending. She is without a doubt one of the best in the galaxy at her job, and just as doubtlessly a disruption. Tamara Kirai was introduced before the formalization of the Hero Units system, and thus works differently. She is slaved to providing an additional personal action and to occasionally providing unforeseen options.
Legendary Matriarch: At your urging, Kirai has been practicing her combat skills for some time; she displayed what she had learned in her takedown of the Ardat-Yakshi Cyntha Li'Sai. Kirai now wields the full might of an asari matriarch with consummate skill. She uses half again her highest stat on any personal combat checks.
Captain Jamar Kurik
Anderson-class. Captain of the Explorer and one of the first recruits of the new Explorer Corps, Captain Kurik is a military veteran with astounding initiative and a love for the unknown. As a founding member of the elite Corps, Kurik is always at the edge of things, leading his crew into the unknown on the battlefield, the intelligence game, and the frontiers of space. Kurik may activate for scouting operations, military skirmishes, survey missions, and covert operations.
Taylor-class. Admiral of the 3rd Raiding Fleet, Mordin Sentra distinguished himself in Operation Insight, a raid of unprecedented depth into rachni space after the 511 Offensive. Insight was able to uncover buildup for a renewed offensive against Citadel space. With the element of surprise ruined, the rachni called off their offensive, giving the Citadel crucial time and space to recover. Mordin is a military man, plain and simple, and has a keen eye for weaknesses in enemy defenses. Mordin may activate for military-facing missions, particularly raids.
Normandy-class. Born under the name Irae Folan, Talani Shalaya served in Virmire and the Attican Commonwealth's military throughout the Rachni War, concluding her career after the Battle of Eletania as a war hero. First coming to your notice during the Ardat-Yakshi Crisis, Shalaya was hiding as a member of the Ministerial Security Agency at the time. After a strong performance during the battle with Beka Vilar, she served a pivotal role in that conflict. Ultimately, she revealed her true identity as an ardat-yakshi in the final battle with Lysa Vauln, demonstrating a mythical level of power in your defense. She surrendered to your custody, afterwards, and ultimately, you chose to retain her as your personal advisor and agent in the handling of homegrown ardat-yakshi in the Commonwealth. She remains a fugitive in asari space, and her original identity must remain a closely guarded secret. Talani Shalaya may activate for any mission relating to her duties as the Commonwealth's ardat-yakshi specialist.
War Demon: An ardat-yakshi who has spent decades harvesting battlefields of dying rachni, Shalaya is a being of horrifying power, and a trained commando of impressive skill. She is an overwhelming opponent against nearly any opposition. She adds triple her Martial score to any combat checks.
Reckless (Mira T'Vael): You throw your all into everything you do, regardless of the consequences. Unfortunately, this passion is untempered by age or wisdom -- by asari standards, you are after all very young. You are at times impulsive or rash. Time may temper this to something better, but for now you still sometimes act before you think. -2 to Diplomacy and Stewardship.
Medical Reformer (Durrahe Korun): Minister Durrahe spent much of his time in the MotS office working towards the reformation and modernization of Virmire's medical facilities from the catastrophic state in which they were when you took office. In doing so, he has developed a keen understanding of system reform and medical practice. +2 to Stewardship and +3 to Learning.
Fleet Coordinator (Mira T'Vael): Your term in office has been typified by the movements of fleets in space, and you have consequently gained a keen understanding of how to coordinate large masses of warship tonnage while on the campaign, bringing your forces to bear on the single most optimal point. +2 to Martial.
Agent Mordin Yularen
Fleet Admiral Shiera Namal
Minister of the Sciences Durrahe Korun
Durrahe Korun
Your Salarian first Minister of the Sciences, and a lifetime Virmire native, Korun was responsible for Virmire's medical infrastructure and its government research facilities. He died in 501 GS at the age of 32.
Father of Medicine: Durrahe Korun, following his discharge from the Virmirean Navy, spent the whole of his life devoted to the field of medicine, curing the lethal and pandemic Rachni Plague before going on to serve twenty-two extremely distinguished years as the Minister of the Sciences. He took a medical field that was a hopelessly backwards mess and left it an efficient and robust industry, flourishing so wildly that it sparked a general revival of public interest in the educational field. He will, without a doubt, be remembered as a founding father of the Virmirean field of medicine for as long as the field endures. +3 to Stewardship and +6 to Learning.
Population: Present Population: 9,285,325,299 (5,210,567,200 Salarian [~56%], 2,115,408,750 Batarian [~23%], 1,092,104,933 Asari [~12%], 867,244,416 Volus [~9%]). 712,417,481 colonial population (~8%). Censuses every five years; next census 519 GS.
Credit Reserves: 913,800.
Yearly Income: 303,000.
The Attican Commonwealth is a multi-cluster polity located in the Attican Traverse, in the galactic East. An elective dictatorship led by a Prime Minister, this unlikely success story of the Rachni Wars has fallen from its position as the crown jewel of the Citadel's colonies only to rise to galactic prominence through its successes in the war. Now independent, and led from its homeworld of Virmire, the Commonwealth aims to establish itself as a player of galactic prominence, in a galaxy caught between three competing, or warring, superpowers.
Virmire is a lush and populous multi-racial world in Hoc, the relay system of the Sentry Omega star cluster, and it is split between vast oceans, island chains scattered across the surface, seasonal ice caps on the poles, and a couple of continents. Once a colony world under the direct authority of the Citadel Council, Virmire is now the centerpiece of an independent, multi-world republic, and a member of the Terminus Alliance united in presenting a challenge to Citadel hegemony and resisting the Rachni Swarm's aggression.
Maps
I like maps.
Galaxy Map
A fully up-to-date map of the galaxy.
A galaxy map is a supremely useful tool for reading the shape of the galaxy, but sadly lacks the detail to dig into things such as secondary relays. There are two means by which I address this. First, the inestimable @Versharl, who makes these maps, represents chains of secondary relays which link primary clusters with dashed, winding lines.
The second mean is by listing how many connecting secondary clusters your controlled space has. The list measures all clusters, which you either control or contest, that link via secondary relay most closely to one of your controlled primary clusters. Secondary relay chains are included as subsets of the clusters to which they link.
A map containing all systems within your home cluster which your government has either surveyed or finds to be of particular interest. Will be updated as you explore more.
Martial
Your various military enterprises.
Navy
In the age of the mass effect engine, the primacy of the army has been forgotten. There are no, "land powers," in the modern era; a military power lives and dies on its navy alone. While planets must eventually be stormed, a navy can compensate for an army's weaknesses through the use of orbital bombardment. But without a navy, armies can't even reach their opponents. A navy is key to any nation that hopes to secure its interests in a hostile galaxy. In modern parlance, a navy is taken to mean all of the explicitly void-borne militarized hardware a nation possesses. This includes warships, transport vessels under military command, and shipboard marine forces, among others.
This is yours. Thanks to your rigorous armament program, you have developed into a player of true prominence. You are now a tier two power in truth. You are capable of reliably projecting power over several star clusters, although you lack the capacity for truly galactic power projection. Your logistics network has also grown and matured, allowing you to maintain operations on this scale. Your marines serve a role in ship defense, ship and station boarding actions, and as special forces executing special operations during planetary assaults.
You have fully embraced Beshkarian Doctrine, a doctrine of systematic commerce and logistics raiding on an unprecedented scale, proposed by the Admiral of the 1st Raiding Fleet (formerly the 2nd Defense Fleet), Fleet Admiral Beshkar. Beshkar emphasizes a mix of conventional main battle fleets to handle territory defense and relay assaults, and smaller raiding fleets built around battlecruisers to handle the work of trans-relay logistics and commerce raiding. Raiding fleets are slightly (slightly) less than half the size of battle fleets. However, they do not have the combat power of even half a battle fleet in a stand-up fight, due to their lack of dreadnoughts.
Virmire's fleets are planned around the goal of many smaller fleets large enough to handle regular duties, but which require reinforcements to handle larger tasks. While this means they need to coordinate multiple commands in emergencies, it allow them to handle more territory in the course of normal operations. Taken in tandem with your doctrinal demand for the regular performance of very expert operations and tactics, your navy demands a fearsome level of quality from its personnel.
Virmire's primary bottleneck on the size of its navy is the availability of qualified personnel. You have slack manufacturing capacity and a significant fiscal surplus; you are now at the point where you need to designate some commands as the dumping ground for the less talented.
See the Lore Screen for warship descriptions and roles.
The Explorer Corps is your elite scouting formation, and with recent adjustments to its mission statement, is now responsible for military scouting and survey, along with support of intelligence operations in hostile, contested, or threatened space. While the EC is not meant for fleet actions, its vessels do carry armaments. For especially risky missions, it possesses a trio of Survey Cruisers, a CL-scale vessel complete with spinal cannon, although still optimized for the EC's mission profile.
1st Battle Fleet (Commanding Officer Fleet Admiral Kashka Yi'hun; flagship VWS Republican II [Devastator Class Dreadnought]). Based out of Hercules, Attican Beta; relay defense duties, Hercules, Attican Beta. At 100% strength.
2nd Battle Fleet (Commanding Officer Fleet Admiral Lirak Suna; flagship VWS Devastator [Devastator Class Dreadnought]) Based out of Hoc, Sentry Omega; strategic reserve. At 100% strength.
1st Raiding Fleet (Commanding Officer Admiral Beshkar; flagship VWS Durrahe Korun [Durrahe Korun Class Battlecruiser]). Based out of Hercules, Attican Beta; awaiting new assignments. At 100% strength.
2nd Raiding Fleet (Commanding Officer Admiral Ulannavael Semateth; flagship VWS Sheerak II [Durrahe Korun Class Battlecruiser]). Based out of Newton, Kepler Verge; awaiting new assignments. At 100% strength.
3rd Raiding Fleet (Commanding Officer Admiral Mordin Sentra [NEAR RETIREMENT]; flagship VWS Shiera Namal [Durrahe Korun Class Battlecruiser]). Based out of Dakka, Nubian Expanse; awaiting new assignments. At 100% strength.
Explorer Corps (Commanding Officer Rear Admiral Yelena S'Rinna; flagship Survey Cruiser VWS Emancipator). Administrative headquarters in Hoc, Sentry Omega; dispersed throughout various commands on scouting and survey missions. At 100% strength.
Naval Security Board (CL-class defense platforms deployed to strategic locations, along logistics networks, and at population centers, at strength to serve as tripwire forces in the event of hostile incursions). On station at deployment zones. Obligations overfulfilled and reserves equipped fully.
Virmire Void Marines (2,000,000 beings under arms, Commanding Officer General Vira Salam). No present degradation in strength.
A lot of slack in production has abruptly opened up; given the decision not to actively push into Maroon Sea over the past year, the NSB's orders have taken priority.
Army
In the modern galaxy, armies have shifted firmly into the back seat. While armed forces are needed to storm planets in the end, wars can often be won without bothering at all; destroy the enemy's navy and there's nothing they can do. Thus, planet-based forces have shrunk in prominence. In the modern era, the army is taken to mean any forces based out of planetary infrastructure. This includes wet-water navies, air forces, and any and all land armies.
Your army has been the eternal unfavorite child of your military, and has gotten the least funding or attention due to the naval nature of this war. While massive expansions -- at least partially motivated by the need to alleviate unemployment crises -- and subsequent, if yet-incomplete, reforms have given you a proportionally gargantuan force with a solid core of crack troops, there remain many more reforms to enact. It struggles against the rachni, who specialize in ground combat. Even storming Eletania, a world cut off from resupply for decades, cost you five million troops. After well-funded study, you have established what must be done. In addition to a reform of your sadly-overstretched command structures, you require a fundamental revolution in the manner in which your army wages war, pivoting to an intensely mechanized style of combat that strives to make the incredible cost of combat on Rachni worlds material rather than personal. Your hardened core is worthy of a proper tier two power, but your army as a whole remains sadly tier three. You are capable of protecting Virmire and simultaneously projecting power across a single cluster.
The Commonwealth's army, optimized to the task of fighting on a planet where much of the exploited surface is covered by island chains and oceans, has extensive amphibious and wet-water naval elements. Your troops are well-adapted to an island-hopping campaign, and your wet-water navy is practiced, efficient, and well-equipped. You also have substantial holdings on the continents, and you are quite able in a conventional fight. However, if asked on what the specialization of the Commonwealth's armies is -- insofar as an army of a billion people can have force specialization -- the answer is unquestionably, "oceanic operations."
Your army is in the process of reform, and the lessons of Eletania have shown you some avenues towards an improvement in stable recruitment practices on this scale. For now, you find it somewhat difficult to replace casualties.
Army Forces
Army of the Commonwealth (CiC General of the Commonwealth Manala Kashar)
Attican Regular Forces (CiC General of the Army Samara Tanarael); "The Regulars"
100,000,000 beings in service
Void-dropped, mechanized forces with organic interplanetary transport capabilities, designed with the capability of projecting force within and beyond Commonwealth space
"Volunteer," formation that recruits civilians as well as freely from the (conscription-fed) PDF
Covert Action Group (Commanding Officer Colonel Ilena Alia); "The Headhunters"
22,000 beings in service
Special operations force, light infantry, specializing in direct action and intelligence gathering
Recruits from the Regulars; headquartered on Eletania
Planetary Defense Forces (CiC General of the Army Grishak Valar); "The Territorials"
100,000,000 beings in service
Standing planetary garrisons responsible for making occupations difficult; no void transport capabilities; include wet-water navies, mechanized forces, and planetbound air forces, but also plentiful light infantry formations meant to fight on under hostile orbitals
Conscript force, but accepts volunteers, and welcomes recruits from the Civil Mobilization Forces
Civil Mobilization Forces (CiC General of the Army Yunatal Silendral); "The Civvies"
800,000,000 beings in service
Light or self-motorized infantry exclusively with no heavy fire support and free range time on weekends
Theoretically a paramilitary force in the event of invasion, in practice a civil engineering force used as a tool of a growing command economy wherein everybody is issued and required to maintain a rifle, and otherwise does civil engineering work as a full-time job
Conscript-staffed force, drawing from areas of the Commonwealth high in unemployment to relieve that burden
Diplomacy
Your various diplomatic endeavors.
While Virmire remains relatively inexperienced in engaging with foreign polities, you have done your best to get your foreign relations personnel up to snuff, and now feel confident in your people's ability not to make embarrassing mistakes.
In addition, you've really grown proficient in domestic affairs. Your Ministry of Relations is experienced and effective at the task of engaging with the populace, and are headed by a veteran of centuries in the political world.
Relations
The measure of what any given faction thinks of you. Tracks only factions with whom you have active contact.
Rachni: -100. Unrelentingly hostile.
Citadel Council: 12. The Council is greatly disappointed by your decision to prioritize relations with the Terminus Alliance. They are not hostile, but they definitely view you as somebody whose interests diverge from yours.
-Salarian Union: -2. The Union is not thrilled by your decision to shelter the Lystheni, and you have found their spies in your territory. You may expect further, low-level hostility from them in the future.
-Asari Republics: 19. Your former home is somewhat disappointed in your governance of Virmire and the Commonwealth, but your achievements are glamorous, and certain influential Matriarchs appreciate your good sense in consulting them regarding your response to [CLASSIFIED AS NEED-TO-KNOW BY ORDER OF THE PRIME MINISTER].
-Republic of Rannoch: 62. The Republic is isolationist, xenophobic, and somewhat paranoid...but you have saved hundreds of thousands of their people. The return of the RWF, and your acceptance of their terms of recompense for your hosting (and theft of quarian military technology) have ensured that things have settled down to a generally positive tenor.
-Batarian Hegemony: 43. The Hegemony appears to have decided to use you as an example of batarians' ability to contribute to a multi-species environment, in a very unsubtle bid to make a point to the Council. You maintain a military mission with them with the aim of knowledge sharing on matters of doctrine.
-Vol Union: 35. The Union appreciates your good sense in negotiations with them, your continued commitment to the Credit, and your willingness to open up free migration between their space and the garden world of Vol Kam Prime. They consider you a rational business partner, albeit one lamentably placed largely out of reach thanks to your allegiance to the Terminus Alliance.
-Illuminated Primacy: -21. The Hanar have been unstintingly polite to you, and utterly averse to opening diplomatic relations. They have lodged a standard diplomatic protest over your exploitation of Prothean ruins; you imagine it is only the standard protest because they presumably are not yet aware that you stormed the ruins and blew up all of the security robots.
-Courts of Dekuuna: -17. The Elcor disapprove of what they view as Virmire's reckless expansionism and militarism, along with your diplomatic unpredictability in the years leading up to your alignment with the Terminus Alliance. They have closed their space to you, and do not permit an embassy, requiring official communications to go through the Citadel.
Terminus Alliance: 68. The Alliance remains a fan of their newest signatory, but is unhappy with your handling of the Maroon Sea.
-Omega: 90. While President Su'val may have private reservations about the Commonwealth, officially, she is your number one advocate. She does not enjoy having to defend leaving a cluster completely open.
-Korlus Technocracy: 62. In joining the Cooperatives, you have strengthened their grip on power, and thereby improved the stability of the Alliance -- all to Korlus's benefit. Governor Gaim has sent a very blunt note regarding the Maroon Sea.
-M.I.C. Border Region: -33. The Border Region has lodged a protest with your embassy regarding your words of support for the Cooperatives, objecting to your, "Cavalier dismissal of the interests of polities less directly integral to the war effort." They have not directly communicated regarding the Maroon Sea, but Shereel tells you that they're leading the effort to censure you.
-Jondam Corporate Nation: 20. The JCN does not typically appreciate competition, and your civilian ship exports have been slicing into the JCN's share of the market. While you are a political ally, they doubtless view you with some wariness.
-Northern Defense League: -10. The NDL, the other member of the Protestants, has lodged a rote protest with you regarding your support for the Cooperatives, albeit in gentler and less charged terms than the M.I.C. Border Region. They've also spoken up with disapproval regarding the Maroon Sea.
-Tamaras Republic: 12. The Republic is pleased by your more representative government form than is typical of many Terminus governments, but gravely disappointed by your decision to spurn them in favor of the Cooperatives.
-Rim Dominion: 50. You are a fellow member of the Alliance and a fellow participant with the Cooperatives. They expect any fallout from the Maroon Sea situation not to touch them, but they don't think well of it.
-The Remnant: 73. The Remnant owe you a debt of some magnitude, and with your close cooperation with them in Terminus politics, they have grown ever closer to you. Their reaction to the Maroon Sea situation has...dramatically...soured their view of you, albeit they still like you quite a bit.
-Frontier Confederacy: 90. The Confederacy views you as possibly the greatest hero in the galaxy, and their personal advocate to the Alliance. They appear to be reacting to the Maroon Sea situation with an air of, "She definitely has a plan."
Attention
How relevant you are in the eyes of others.
Rachni: 35. What's this...?
Council: 20. The Council has lost you to the Terminus. They pay you less attention than they pay the Alliance as a whole, now.
-Salarian Union: 58. You are sheltering a clan they once declared to be outlaws, although you've paid them off to drop the charges. Still, they have their eyes on you.
-Asari Republics: 72. Now that the [CLASSIFIED] has been dealt with, they await word of your policies going forward.
-Republic of Rannoch: 34. You have given the RoR what they wanted. They're happy with you, and mostly content to let you be, but you've earned enough trust that they have made noises about an embassy exchange.
-Batarian Hegemony: 50. You have their curiosity and attention.
-Vol Union: 32. The Vol Union have made noises about interest in further economic cooperation, but have made clear that they have no means of doing so, given your membership in the Terminus Alliance.
-Illuminated Primacy: 5. The Hanar know you to have exploited Prothean ruins, and do not approve, but beyond that have no more reason to care about you than they do any other polity.
-Courts of Dekuuna: 0. They have cut off all direct contact with you and directed that any communications be forwarded through their embassy on the Citadel.
Terminus: 50. The Terminus Alliance view you as a new member of the Cooperatives faction, one still finding their place within that faction.
-Omega: 83. While you have fallen in with Su'val's faction, she isn't done with you yet; she's constantly working to advance legislation strengthening the Alliance, and she foresees the Commonwealth having ample role in that.
-Korlus Technocracy: 39. They have observed your encroachment into the world of civilian shipbuilding with minor interest, but no action, yet.
-M.I.C. Border Region: 54. You've joined their factional opponents, and taken a hammer to their relative prominence. They will be looking for ways to wing you. They think they see one...
-Jondam Corporate Nation: 72. The JCN is salivating at the thought of a new market to tap, but also wary -- they are a rival ship producer within Terminus space. You should expect them to act to gain leverage on your economy in the near future.
-Northern Defense League: 47. You have aligned with the NDL's opponents.
-Tamaras Republic: 62. Your alignment with the Cooperatives has gravely endangered the Republic's long-term objectives, and they will be trying to reorient their efforts.
-Rim Dominion: 32. The Rim is far from the front and from you, and has little to speak of with you.
-The Remnant: 50. The Remnant have aligned themselves with you, and will follow your lead in the Alliance.
-Frontier Confederacy: 50. While not quite as desperate for or as obsessed with a strong patron as the Remnant, the Confederacy shares the same scar of Rachni assault, and have hitched themselves to your wagon in the Alliance.
Domestic Politics
As a democratically-elected leader, the attitude of the people is of more immediate concern to you than more autocratic states.
You are a widely-beloved figure on Virmire, commanding near-unilateral control over Virmire's government through sheer force of personality. In general, the government does what you command, and your incredible ability to direct the state to the benefit of the war means that generally, the people do what you command.
The Attican Commonwealth's legislature, the Assembly, is a body of representatives of geographically-defined constituencies determined by computer programs every census. With the shift of the census to a 5-year interval, Delegates to the Assembly now serve 5-year terms, with no term limits. The Assembly is empowered to pass legislation, but all bills are subject to a unilateral veto from the Prime Minister. Thus, bills are usually either trivial or of immense importance, with none of the usual stuff concerning the operation of government. Constituencies are designed to strike a balance between representing localities and maintaining rough parity of population between constituencies. At present, districts attempt to produce one Delegate roughly per ten million citizens. At the moment, there are 850 Delegates in the Assembly.
Commonwealth Security Party
Issues: Establish a solid power base in the Assembly.
Leader: Council of racial representatives. Membership fighting internal challenges. Alliance Opposition agenda.
Assembly Seats: 11%.
Status: The remnants of the Secessionist Party, having fallen under the influence of the remnants of the old Racial Coalition Party. Now focused more on a broad, socially-conservative agenda, they will be much harder to dislodge than their single- or limited-issue predecessors. They fervently oppose the Commonwealth's membership in the Terminus Alliance.
Prosperity Party
Issues: Infrastructure projects, heavy industry priority, leadership ambitions.
Leader: Kal Veem, Volus, Colonial Reform agenda. Position secure.
Assembly Seats: 35%.
Status: The technocratic Prosperity Party has remained stable throughout the upheavals within the Assembly and benefited greatly from the collapse of the Secessionists. They remain a momentary ally of PM T'Vael and her loyalists in the GPP, although their new status as the most powerful party in the Assembly has them contemplating fielding a Prime Ministerial candidate next election. They are agitating for a reform of Virmire's colonial network, calling for a fleshing-out of the ties that bind your polity together.
Galactic Progress Party
Issues: Social liberalism, Terminus Alliance membership and integration.
Leader: Veska Torta, Batarian, Galactic Economy agenda. Fielding discussions on party focus.
Assembly Seats: 26%
Status: Coalescing out of the informal Loyalist party, the GPP has as their primary policy platform the establishment of a cohesive, distinct Attican society and culture. As a part of their methodology, they embrace Terminus Alliance membership as a means of reintegration into the galactic economy as an independent actor, although they tend to leave economic matters to their PP coalition partners. They remain your staunch supporters. The weak draw of their primary issues, however, has many members calling for a revision to their approach.
Socialist Party
Issues: Government welfare reform.
Leader: Alamvael Surrovesh, Salarian, Hardline agenda. Freshly ascendant.
Assembly Seats: 7%
Status: The Socialist Party has emerged from its leadership struggle invigorated by new, young leadership promising to push aggressively for reform. The loss of many of their traditional backers, however, has hurt their ability to project political force. They are seeking new backing.
Militarist Party
Issues: Social militarism, educational reform, Terminus Alliance membership.
Leader: Bregar Shan, Batarian, Recovery agenda. Position secure.
Assembly Seats: 21%
Status: Initially born to express those favoring your more aggressive posture in the war, the Militarists have, over time, become the political expression of a popular movement favoring a militaristic Attican culture, in addition to their advocacy of maximum practical military aggression. They favor the Terminus Alliance as foreign partners. They look fondly upon your educational reform project, and are your firm supporters. At the moment, they agree with your pause in operational tempo while new forces come online and old losses are made good.
Polling
Mira T'Vael (Asari. Offensive military and militarist liberal platform): 67% public approval. NO MANDATE ACTIVE. PLAYER CHARACTER.
Unchosen Prosperity Candidate.
Unchosen CSP Candidate.
Shuri Amaelen (Asari. Pacifist and radical liberal platform): 0% public approval. "RESIGN IN FAVOR OF MIRA," MANDATE ACTIVE.
Prominent Demographic Issues
With the continued development of Virmire's political culture and the increasing distance from the more desperate days of the War, a more nuanced political scene has developed. Survival no longer overrides everything.
Racial Breakdowns
Batarian
The Batarian populace is highly politically-mobilized and incredibly cohesive in the aftermath of a social upheaval against Hegemony loyalists during the early days of the War, and today form a crucial element of the support base of multiple parties. Multiple batarians serve in party leadership, and your most serious contenders for the PM's office -- including your couped predecessor -- have mostly been batarians. Republicanism as an ideal is strongest among batarians, who seek to build a new way of doing things to distinguish themselves from their cultural past.
Batarians are primarily driven by militarist and socially-liberal issues, participating heavily in the MP and GPP.
There are limited numbers of Hegemony loyalists who are intensely conservative, but they are relatively insignificant.
Asari
Also highly mobilized, the asari demographic is small enough that they do not typically form the bedrock of political parties. However, their high concentration of matriarchs with significant economic and social capital mean they provide disproportionate numbers of potent power brokers.
Matrons and matriarchs who remember the old Council days are alarmed by the swift changes Attican culture are wreaking upon their children, and tend to swerve towards the CSP as a result, bringing their formidable heft to the picture. They have some fondness for SP causes, but have generally pulled away in favor of the CSP following the parties' partnership dissolving.
Most maidens, like yourself, are far more invested in a specifically Attican identity, having formed intense bonds to their homeworld absent the outlet that maidenhood adventures provide. While few join the MP, that portion is growing. Most join the GPP, but they form a startlingly large portion of the SP.
Salarian
Your largest demographic, the salarians are also by far your least politically mobilized. Dalatrasses remain the primary power brokers in their society, and civic engagement among the males is low. Their numbers are such that there are significant numbers of salarian politicians regardless, but they command no special weight.
Salarians are broadly invested in many parties, although Dalatrasses favor the CSP. The largest salarian party is the PP, but they form a decisive second bloc in the MP as well, and there are significant contingents in the GPP. While salarians in brute numbers are rare in the CSP, Dalatrass money and influence is key to the party's functions.
A small but vocal group of salarians has entered leadership roles in the SP, and the Dalatrasses have recently been reacting to attempts at outreach with defensiveness. You suspect there is trouble brewing.
Volus
The volus demographic is something of a middle ground in terms of voter participation. While they do vote in numbers, their influence is primarily felt via economic weight, as a significant amount of economic capital in the Commonwealth is in Volus hands, the legacy of the Council days when Volus conglomerates were heavily invested in the colony.
Volus mostly favor the PP. A secondary stance is the GPP, owing in part to your inclusion of volus Ministers in your government and your efforts in securing them a proper colony world.
Volus voters lag in turnout behind asari and batarian demographics and tend to vote in line with economic interests due to cultural issues. The memory of the Vol Union is strong due to long lives and an unavoidable biological alienation from the rest of the populace. While those economic interests tend to vote PP due to the proven success of that strategy, attempts to more closely integrate volus into the Attican culture will likely drive a shift towards the CSP amongst stakeholders.
Issues
Militarism
The question of the Commonwealth's devotion to the war. Despite the emergence of other relevant issues with the waning of the immediacy of the Rachni's threat, the question of how much to commit to the war remains the largest electoral issue in the Commonwealth. At this point, the answer is, "Yes," with the only conflict being on how aggressive you should be. You have traditionally supported an aggressive approach to the war, acting to disrupt rachni operations as a rule of general doctrine. The degree to which your success in the war drives your political invulnerability is difficult to overstate, and exerts a massive, warping influence on Attican politics.
The Militarist Party exemplifies the desire for aggression, to the point that it transcends simple support of investment. They are the political instantiation of a popular movement advocating for the transformation of Attican society into the galaxy's foremost military machine. A young person's movement, they have a strong support base of batarians.
Members of the populace supporting a more defensive approach to the conflict generally come from asari and salarians, albeit for different reasons. The younger ones see economic priorities as more important, while older dissenters oppose you in particular and believe that, unchecked, you will naturally lead the Commonwealth to disaster.
Aggressive stances draw support broadly from all demographics on a very broad basis, in large part because you have brought the Commonwealth to great success with that approach. The Army as a majority supports this approach.
The most radical views in favor of social restructuring along militarist lines have their support base in batarian demographics, and also is the majority view in the Navy, including the Void Marines.
Standard of Living
The question of people getting to be sick of multiple salarian generations having passed from the world knowing nothing but abject destitution. The conflict here is between technocratic policies favoring government takeover of failing economic sectors to keep things from disrupting the primary aim of war production, and more socialist policies calling for direct government intervention to improve the standard of living. You have tended to favor technocratic policies.
Technocrats draw wide support from the population, in large part due to your long cooperation with the Prosperity Party in using technocratic policies to keep things going. In particular, volus and their elites are a cohesive bloc behind this issue. Logistical and backline forces in the military, across both branches, strongly support technocratic causes.
Socialist policies formerly found patronage from asari matriarchs, but the SP's messy split from the CSP alienated this source of support. Now, most of the active support for these policies is drawn from young asari and salarians.
Social Structure
The question of your state's national identity, between one unique to the polity and one rooted in the old racial states and the structures you inherited from them. For now, it has limited play, although there are hints that it may gain broader appeal. The Militarist Party's focus on general social militarization is something of a variation on the liberal stance, given that it wants a specifically Attican culture and for that culture to be predominantly martial in character. You are a radical and somewhat militarist liberal as far as this is concerned, favoring an Attican culture with a militaristic educational system.
Most of the older, prominent stakeholders in the Commonwealth are fiercely conservative, propping up opposition to your agenda via economic, social, and political capital.
Batarians as a rule are the beating heart of the liberal movement, having come first to the issue decades ago, the second the blockade fell and the Hegemony could no longer violently object to them. Batarian elites are the only racial elites to vote liberal as a rule, and batarian numbers keep the voting membership strong. Young asari votes are beginning to form a strong bloc here, as well. Army veterans and personnel tend to at least be favorable to liberal causes.
Terminus Alliance Role
The question of the Commonwealth's role in the Terminus Alliance. With Virmire having taken a fairly prominent role in the Alliance, most are satisfied with the state of affairs. This is presently a tertiary issue, although you expect it to heat up a lot as your economy reintegrates with the rest of the galaxy's. You have actively pushed for Virmire to take a leading role in the Alliance.
Opinions on this issue are presently and strongly party-dependent, as it is viewed as a much lesser priority. Parties aligned with you are satisfied with the position you have secured, with their concern now being how you use your role to advance your other interests. Opposition parties tend to be more skeptical of the Alliance, with the CSP outright declaring your membership a mistake.
Colonization
While building a colony is expensive, colonization is first and foremost a matter of political will. You need to talk people out of their homes and into the unknown for uncertain rewards. Thus, colony efforts start in the Ministry of Relations.
There is presently low enthusiasm for colonization missions. With Eletania settled and unemployed Atticans mostly being sucked up by the Civil Mobilization Forces, you have essentially tapped your ready supply of candidates for moving off-world.
Ignoring things such as mining, research, or military outposts -- which are not intended for permanent habitation -- you presently have four (4) colonization prospects on the ledgers.
Dressel Prime: The Dressel system contains a garden world optimized for dextro amino acid life forms. A rare find in the galaxy, this planet is nonetheless presently worthless to you, as you have no populations of dextro life forms.
Machar Prime: The site of the former front line of your intelligence war with the old Lystheni state, Machar contains the site of the Lystheni's most prominent intelligence coup: Machar prime, an old Yulair world. Now a post-garden world due to extensive kinetic bombardment long in the past, Machar Prime is nevertheless still life-bearing, and could support a colony. It is currently the best of your available prospects, sad as that is.
Xibek Sha Prime: The old Yulair homeworld is also a post-garden world capable of sustaining life, and could be settled if you so chose. With the clearing of the Anarchy Spheres across the planet's surface, the planet is ready to accept colonial expeditions, although they would be restricted to areas not presently under study.
Tressamine Prime: A lush garden world ripe for colonization! The site of a Yulair facility of unknown purpose, you have no intention of settling Tressamine Prime until you understand what the Yulair were doing here.
Stewardship
Your various spheres of finance and administration.
Virmire is an incredibly prosperous system -- the surrounding systems even more so -- but you have difficulty leveraging those resources. Two centuries of poorly-managed or desperation-driven development has resulted in a badly stretched infrastructure, and the corruption of the previous administration has done you no favors. You have, throughout your administration, worked tirelessly to address these issues, but there remains a lot of work to be done.
Between financial difficulties and the ever-hungry maw of the war effort, however, you have been forced to prioritize gains over reform time and again in order to accrue enough supplies for the war effort. Your budget is more secure now than it ever have been before, but that is largely the result of renewed trade with the wider galaxy and your increasing exploitation of resources within your own territory. To tell the truth, what you have is an inefficient mess, but you have had precious few opportunities to address that. Furthermore, while you have plenty of resources now, you don't fool yourself that this will persist; there's always another expense coming, and you have at least one more vast expansion planned for your Navy, and an overhaul of your Army that promises to be ruinous.
Bureau of Colonial Management
Set up during the Sixth Century Drive, the BCM is responsible for organizing and supporting colony efforts. In mechanical terms, this is why you no longer have to take the multi-stage options that characterized the colonization of Assilia; you now pick a colony, dump budget into the BCM, and they handle it. The BCM is also responsible for the economic maintenance of your colonial network, and that's what they use their yearly budget doing, although any true crises are beyond the realm of standard procedure and require attention from you.
They have clashed multiple times with the more entrenched FDO over the matter of the FDO's influence over colony efforts. After the latest of these clashes, you ruled in the BCM's favor, and the FDO has now completely ceded control of the colony process to the BCM.
The BCM is presently devoted to planning the colonization of Eletania. With recovery efforts regarding the Navy mostly complete, they are preparing once more to colonize Eletania, and will be requesting funding soon.
The current Director is a batarian named Koram Vak, a batarian male. His priority is establishing footholds throughout the Commonwealth's space -- ideally in relay systems -- in order to support a broader colonial push.
Sorva Prime: The sole point of interest in Hoc's neighboring system of Sorva, Sorva Prime is a full-fledged garden world. It has recovered from its harvest crash; the locals are feeding themselves, and have enough surplus to sell it to the rest of the Commonwealth. Their next objective is to begin tapping into their planet's natural resources.
Assilia Prime: Sharing a system with a planet composed nearly entirely of metal, Assilia Prime is a world destined for life as an industrial powerhouse. Despite its thin atmosphere, your first-ever colony is the current jewel of your colonial network. The colony is ringed by countless orbital refineries turning the ore from the metal world into usable product, and orbital factories churn out finished products in droves. With shipments now arriving on Virmire, the colony serves as a powerful message as to the promise of colonization. Furthermore, with colonization now firmly established, hydroponics and dome farms planetside have grown to the point where the population can feed itself, ensuring that the colony can go fully self-sustaining if they need to.
Xarin Tul Prime: Another garden world, Xarin Tul Prime makes Virmire's third full garden world. More distant from Hoc than Sorva Prime, Xarin Tul Prime nevertheless develops quickly. Colony planners make full use of the planet's single, vast megacontinent, centralizing development and installing extensive ground infrastructure to ensure that the colony's settlements form a vast, self-supporting network. The colony is feeding itself thus far, but have yet to really start feeding goods back into your broader economy.
Vol Kam Prime: Your only volus garden world is something of a political coup for you. It secured quite a bit of favor for you with your volus populations, and has given them a place in your polity where they can walk without the benefit of pressure suits or advanced environmental engineering. It should help to ensure that the volus minority does not fall into irrelevance, over time. You have also opened free migration between Vol Kam Prime and the Vol Union. The colony has rapidly set to work setting up an adequate source of food, and is now self-sustaining. Various investors from the Union have also immigrated, and brought with them seed funding to establish enterprises on the planet.
Nimal Pak Prime: The centerpiece of a microcluster within Sentry Omega, Nimal Pak Prime is the natural focus point for the combined mineral wealth of entire star systems. Protected by the military bases in Vayrule, supported by the fruits of the surrounding systems, and the focus of an intense colony drive and a decade-long effort at buildup, this promises to be an industrial world of unparalleled quality. Despite the massive amount of setup it has demanded, the world has reached profitability in record-breaking time, and promises to bring in more profit still. That said, it is not a garden world; they still rely on food imports from Virmire.
Taramnal Prime: The former Lystheni homeworld, while not the most hospitable world, is broadly fit for sapient inhabitation. Since the integration of the Reorganized Lystheni Colonies to the Commonwealth, you have been reworking Taramnal to serve as the administrative node for that segment of space -- only sensible, given the thin logistical trail you have to support the area. Lystheni administration has left two marks on the world. First, it is entirely self-sustaining, and could survive with minimal disruption if completely severed from your capital. Second, despite a rapid influx of former Lystheni from worlds of Morael Prime and Sumak Prime, the population is tiny, under twenty million. Dalatrass Shereel has begun producing more daughters than typical for the Lystheni, in order to close the gap between them and your core salarian population.
Eletania: Your newest colony, Eletania is still establishing its first permanent settlements, and it realistically never promises to be your most populous colony. With a mere 10,000,000 residents and choked by allergenic spores, it is an economically marginal planet. While you have ready access to antihistamine drugs permitting unshielded exposure to the spores for brief periods, most settlements will remain confined to higher altitudes. The colony's primary value is political, in anchoring your presence within and claim to the Hercules system and the Attican Beta cluster. It also serves to solidify your military presence in the region with a civilian population base.
Foreign Development Office
Your Foreign Development Office is responsible for the exploitation of your claimed space. It is responsible for the management and establishment of orbital installations within the Sentry Omega cluster, as well as support of ground colonies, including the colonist selection process. The Director is a salarian named Kamta Lirabel. She champions a focus on diversifying Virmire's economic interests as a whole polity, following Shalla Virani's near-monofocus on Nimal Pak. With a current budget of 120,000 credits per year, the FDO will automatically settle systems and fund special projects as mandated by its Director.[/SPOILER]
For my own reference:
Systems adjacent to a system containing Virmirean infrastructure cost 25,000 credits to exploit.
Systems adjacent to an infrastructure-adjacent system cost 35,000 credits to exploit.
Systems at a farther remove cost 50,000 credits to exploit.
I reserve the right to arbitrarily scale the first and last cases' costs in the case of extraordinary circumstances.
Mines yield 20,000 credits per year, High-Output Mines yield 30,000 credits per year, and Top-Tier Mines yield 40,000 credits per year.
The Director of the FDO may, depending on the current mission, invest in non-outpost improvements to various space-based prospects. These improvements will be priced and rewarded arbitrarily.
Intrigue
After decades of a hands-off policy wherein you allowed Shurna to handle her own business, you have finally pried into the MoI. As a result, you learned that it was catastrophically understaffed, propped up only by Shurna's frenzied micromanagement and the Ministry's extreme (and expensive) focus on signals intelligence. With re-contact, the paradigm is no longer even remotely sustainable. With time, and the help of the Lystheni's old agents, you have overseen a broad expansion in the number of personnel available to this Ministry and are in the process of adding ongoing replacement capacity.
Counterintelligence Division
CI Division is the branch of your intelligence service responsible for intelligence operations within Commonwealth territory, and specifically the early detection and countering of threats to that territory by way of infiltration, sabotage, or espionage.
CID maintains listening posts throughout your controlled space, playing on the Ministry's overall specialization in signals intelligence. They have turned that expertise towards the Rachni. Working closely with your military, the MoI has been working to crack open the rachni's habitual secrecy. They have expanded the listening post network with the cooperation of the raiding fleets, which now routinely seed sleeper probes during their raids to bolster your knowledge of rachni activities. The activities of these sleeper probes are the preserve of Foreign Intelligence Division, once deployed.
CID routinely works to vet the activities of government officials and those with connection to government work; however, Shurna warns you that, with the galaxy at large now back in contact, you should expect that some foreign informants will slip through the net. She is, however, reasonably confident that your embassies are secure, as of your recent sweep of them.
CID is presently investigating a tip from Council Lystheni Shereel about suspicious attempts at outreach from other Attican Dalatrasses.
Foreign Intelligence Division
FID is a service of significantly lower reach and influence than CID, given its relative infancy. FID's primary mission is obtaining intelligence regarding the Rachni. To that end, they make use of signals intelligence operations, overwhelmingly, closely working with military forces -- and, in particular, the Commonwealth Void Marines, the Explorer Corps, and the Covert Action Group -- to conduct military operations gathering sapient intelligence to confirm leads turned up by signals intelligence. The FID has also had operations within foreign, non-Rachni polities added to its list of responsibilities, but is still adapting to the new procedures and duties that role entails, especially since they can no longer drop a battalion of CAG on any problems.
Learning
Virmire lumps a good many scholarly and doctoral fields under the same administrative heading, with several component councils representing individual fields.
Medical
All's well.
Research
The Ministry of the Sciences is responsible for hearing all research proposals put to the government, and maintains a discretionary fund for the purposes of budgeting for such proposals. These grant requests do not come to your attention unless the Minister feels they are of sufficient significance (i.e., Virmire's background research rolls have borne enough fruit that you're actually on the cusp of unlocking a new technology, and thereby get an option for it).
Virmire maintains extensive research outposts throughout Sentry Omega, including some Prothean sites. Most prominently, however, are the artifacts of a a race dated to about 1,200,000 years ago, called the Yulair. Their relics are scattered widely across the cluster, and you've recently launched an expedition to their homeworld in the Xibek Sha system.
Emdriss: The dilapidated refinery station within this system displays promising automation principles in its machinery. If you can reverse-engineer the principles behind the tech -- or even just the tech itself -- you'd find it far easier to expand your industry. You've already derived some principles applicable to power generation.
Sikel: An old Lystheni station, Sikel boasts a massive array of looted Yulair artifacts, along with your most dangerous research project to date -- the aptly-named Anarchy Sphere, and the seventy-three duplicates you retrieved from Xibek Sha Prime. Sorting through and cataloging everything here will take decades.
Machar: The site of your first flashpoint with the Lystheni, Machar was one of the most intact Yulair ruins within Sentry Omega. A full, ruined city remained standing there. The Lystheni pillaged it, but you've set a research outpost there, in the hopes of reconstructing the pre-Lystheni state of the world in partnership with the Sikel site. Thus far, cross-checking with the Sikel site suggests that the primary benefit will be in social sciences.
Larel: Larel is a post-garden world showing signs of heavy orbital bombardment. The surface is dotted with Yulair ruins, presumed left over from cities on the surface. There's nothing in particular promising about Larel save the scale of the project. Cataloguing is in progress, and you're seeing applications in nearly every scientific field popping up.
Sumak: One of the Lystheni sites you've appropriated. Sumak hosts an orbital shipyard in a state of considerable disrepair. It boasts a degree of automation similar to the Emdriss station, with some systems still functional and autonomous after over a million years of neglect. Your researchers are carefully examining the active systems and their attempted interactions with the inactive ones, hoping to derive some insights into manufacturing technologies.
Morael: Morael hosts a subterranean city of Yulair design. The place has been thoroughly studied by the Lystheni. Morael apparently fell by force; the city shows signs of small arms fire and a lot of death. It doesn't look like it was evacuated prior to being stormed. There are artifacts from every slice of Yulair life here, most in states of heavy disrepair. No sign of the attackers...unless the Yulair were the attackers. Lystheni records and your own examinations indicate that the most promising kinds of study available are sociological and xenological.
Xibek Sha Prime: The homeworld of the mysterious Yulair species, Xibek Sha Prime boasts the most extensive ruins you've ever seen and a tantalizing, if dangerous, prize: seventy-three anarchy spheres, spread out across the world. You have evacuated them to the Sikel site and are in the process of sifting through the ruins on the planet.
Morael Prime: A Lystheni world hosting Yulair ruins in the form of a cluster of underground bunkers, half-collapsed by orbital bombardment. There are likely only marginal gains to be made here; the Lystheni never found much.
Sumak Prime: Another Lystheni world, this one with the shattered remnants of orbital installations forming a loose ring. Picking through the wrecking and piecing it together is likely to be the work of decades.
Tressamine: A complex of yet-unknown purpose on the surface of a lush garden world, the Tressamine site is a massive mystery you've yet to unpack -- and will need to, if you want to safely settle the world in question!
Aside from the Yulair, of course, there are many and varied opportunities.
Tessavar: Home to a planet with a wildly shifting orbit courtesy of vast eezo deposits and a lightning-charged atmosphere, Tessavar promises countless insights into the nature of element zero fields, and has already provided the spark for your domestic infantry-scale kinetic barriers.
Amalinya: Amalinya hosts a Prothean military base, once populated by reflexively hostile combat drones. Over a decade of effort has seen the ruins cleared, and the researchers have now settled down to examining the wrecks for usable insights on their construction and operation.
Kisak: Coreward-Spinward of Hoc, this planet is porous, shot through with massive tunnels all the way to and through the core. It's a geological and structural headscratcher.
Bloodshot: Morbidly-named, this site merits the appellation. What appears at first glance to be an unusually dense and lopsided asteroid field is, on closer examination, the shattered remnant of a planet. A chilling sight...and a (hopefully not) urgent mystery. CIVILIAN TRAVEL TO THIS SYSTEM HAS BEEN FORBIDDEN BY RECOMMENDATION OF THE EXPLORER CORPS.
Gigara: A system gathered around a black hole, Gigara offers a rare opportunity to observe a stellar corpse up close and personal, as well as seeing how this manner of entity interacts with the universe.
Isel: A system hosting a red supergiant approaching the end of its lifespan, expected to go supernova and possibly form a black hole within the next few ten thousand years.
Veedrac: A planet rendered uninhabitable by severe weather patterns, Veedrac is an excellent opportunity to test things for weather endurance, in architecture and other fields of engineering.
Education
By (uncontested, by you) order of the Assembly, the MotS is responsible for a comprehensive rework of Virmire's educational field. Minister Fulka Pak has made this his personal project. Over the past two terms, he has committed to an intense and ongoing reform and expansion of your educational facilities, utterly transforming them.
You have elected to give your schools a Martial focus. You are in the process of implementing a review of your curriculum to establish new practices in line with this focus, specifically in how to ensure graduates are more prepared, on average, for the physical rigors and mental discipline required for military service. While they have a very different focus, educational principles imparted by experts from the Asari Republics are assisting this process. You are also in the process of an expedited effort to establish military finishing academies to train promising students and graduate them directly into the military.
Yes, and you were the ones to invent them. Yes, they work.
But Lasers-
Actually, at this stage of things not even GARDIAN lasers have been developed.
Ground-to-Orbit Weapons?
Possible but ineffective. Just build defense platforms.
Kinetic Barriers?
Yes -- but just barely. Barriers are a tech hardly a century old, and the ensuing state of constant, economy-draining war since their invention has not been conducive to improving them in grand leaps and bounds. Compared to the barrier tech of the games, these barriers are incredibly inefficient and weak. Even against their contemporaries, they stop only a few rounds. The first barriers were pioneered on dreadnoughts, it took decades of work to scale them down to smaller vessels, and you only just unlocked mass production infantry barriers within the last decade.
UPDATE: As of Year 33 Results: 512 GS, it has become more than clear that kinetic barriers have matured significantly and are the next grand evolution in warfare. Combat takes much longer now, and losses are less decisive among forces that have them.
What's the Balance of Offense Versus Defense?
Where Mass Effect 1 saw personal protection being a decisive factor, with the state of the art rendering soldiers capable of shrugging off fully automatic fire from multiple shooters, this quest has the situation quite reversed. The invention and rapid improvement of the mass accelerator has swiftly outpaced defense technology's efforts to keep up. Armor can be useful against shrapnel, and very occasionally can stop a bullet. Therefore, you equip your soldiers with personal armor. However, nobody with sense relies on armor. Nine times out of ten, it won't even stop a pistol round.
With the mass adoption of kinetic barriers, this has begun to shift.
...Stealth Drives?
Get out.
I Remember That Mass Effect Had A Lot of Antimatter-Based Tech
Oh, hell yeah, the Council of the games era is practically casual about antimatter. Hell, the Cain -- an infantry weapon -- uses antimatter as launch material. Every warship uses it as its drive fuel.
That said, we're presently playing through the Rachni Wars. It's only a few years after 0 CE. We're two millennia shy of the games' time. Some things have to change.
And thus, fusion torches, the thing that garbage-tier civilian freighters used in the games, are now the cutting edge, state of the art military drives, and antimatter has not been practically harnessed.
Relays?
Relays! (Posted as of Turn 17 Results.)
As per canon, there are two types of relays: primaries, which come in linked pairs with no theoretical but some in-practice range limits; and secondaries, which connect to any other secondary relay within a few hundred light years.
When I had to decide how relays worked in this quest, in addition to cutting through the hilariously inconsistent depiction of the network in the games, I had to resolve the following quandary:
Relays connect over hundreds of light years and we're meant to buy that any of the relays in the game are secondaries? Are they serious? Does BioWare not realize how big the Milky Way is? I have to make a readable map with these rules!
My first decision was to quietly retcon secondaries to be, "short-ranged, but not that short, Jesus Christ BioWare."
This worked until I then realized that there was literally no reason not to flag this as yet another part of their delightfully interesting lore into which BioWare simply neglected to invest even the slightest fucking effort. Unfortunately, I came to this realization c. Turn 16, so a retcon was in order. *bitter sigh*
Going through the story, you will see references to secondary relays. If they occur prior to Turn 17 Results: 496 GS, mentally paper them over with the words, "Primary relay to [relevant destination]." I'm not going back and fixing all of them. I'll spot-check any I have occasion to notice, but no more than that.
Here's how relays now work on my galaxy map (in the Status Screen, made by the endlessly helpful @Versharl): The solid connections are all primary relays. All of 'em. Why all? Well, secondaries connect over hundreds of light years. I have simplified this to 1,000 light years for all of them. Now look at that map. If you measure from one tip of the galaxy to the next, and then divide that length into one hundred equal-sized pieces...
...there you have a thousand light years. That is minuscule. Thus, we're not showing secondaries on the map. Instead, secondary relay connections will be something tacked onto the clusters shown. The number of active secondary relays within range of a cluster becomes a resource like any other; effectively a measure of a cluster's depth. Secondary-accessible relays -- including any along relay chains -- of which Virmire holds de facto control are tracked in the same slide as the Galaxy Map in the Status Screen, down below the map itself.
Now, theoretically, there's nothing stopping one from jumping up a chain of secondary relays in order to circumvent a primary link. In cases where somebody successfully does this, the connection will be represented by a dashed line. As of now, no such routes exist.
Also, don't try to attack an enemy cluster like this unless you are supremely confident in your attacking fleet's odds of success against the theoretical combined might of your victim's entire navy in an endurance slugging match with no resupply. Relays take days to weeks to activate, so your fleet is going to be in for a fun time while waiting for their only route home to open up.
A note on relay designations: secondary relays are designated as the, "[relay's cluster] secondary relay." Primary relays are designated as the, "[relay's cluster]-[destination cluster] relay," which can be abbreviated for convenience and ease. Thus, the (currently inactive) secondary relay in Sentry Omega is the, "Sentry Omega relay." The primary relay in Sentry Omega connecting to Attican Beta is the, "Sentry Omega-Attican Beta relay," or the, "SO-AB relay."
State of the Galaxy
Races on the Galactic Stage
Asari and Salarians are the only races with a Council seat on the Citadel. However, the Volus, Hanar, Elcor, Batarians, and Quarians all hold affiliate status with the Citadel Council. Of those races, only the Volus, Quarians, and Batarians hold a meaningful galactic presence. The Hanar's Enkindler Faith sets them apart, and they have yet to develop the proselytizing tendencies of canon to motivate them to bridge that gap. The Elcor, being extremely conservative, still have not approved civilian migration away from their own territories, especially considering the current state of galactic war. The Quarians are inveterate isolationists, separated from Council Space by institutional paranoia, distance, and a quarter galaxy filled with Rachni. However, they have emerged from their space during the war to coordinate with the Terminus Alliance.
The Rachni are also on the galactic stage, and quite hostile to everything else.
Galactic Civilization
At this point in time, much of the legislation around which the games' world was formed has not yet been drafted. Most notably, the Citadel Conventions aren't even under consideration, and the Treaty of Farixen, itself only established after the appearance of the Turian Hierarchy on the galactic stage, isn't even a dream. The galaxy is still a massive frontier, and few great galactic treaties have been created. The Citadel and its structure of dominant members and subordinate associates have been established, but essentially nothing else about the modern Citadel exists.
The Terminus Systems exist as the Terminus Alliance, a military-economic-political union much like a combined EU and NATO. It is united in opposition to the Citadel's political hegemony over the galaxy and against the Rachni Swarm's desire to destroy everything. It is quite a bit weaker than the Citadel, but the Citadel is unable to take advantage given the current state of the galaxy. The Alliance is using this to best advantage.
The Spectres do not exist.
The Shadow Broker does not exist. To the best of your knowledge.
Naval Combat Doctrine
First of all, while Mass Effect tears much from WWI-era naval combat, discard your preconceived notions. It varies in places.
Warship Doctrinal Roles
While tonnage is a more accurate yardstick of a vessel's holistic combat potential than length, the critical role spinal cannons play in modern combat demand that a warship's classification be derived from how long it is. A ship with a kilometer-long spinal cannon can be built up according to battlefield needs, but no ship of 500 meters, no matter how overengineered, can match a dreadnought in open combat. Thus, the following classes are determined by vessel length measured from engines to spinal cannon muzzle.
Dreadnoughts: Naval Designation Code BB, these 800-meter-to-kilometer-long vessels mount powerful spinal cannons, less significant broadside turrets, and formidable point defenses. They are heavily armored and shielded. Despite the name, these are actually more analogous to later evolutions of the historical battleship than the original HMS Dreadnought which so revolutionized ship design. Dreadnoughts are the premier line combat vessels, capable of destroying any ship of lesser size in single combat or even uneven combat. They possess peerless effective range and combat power. They are also incredibly expensive investments, racking up bills that would bankrupt minor powers and straining even major powers' economies. A dreadnought is a strategic power projection asset, meant for the heaviest of combat or orbital sieges. They are never committed without great care -- much less considering the immense costs of doing so even without combat.
Battlecruisers: Naval Designation Code BC, these kilometer-long vessels (no variation, as only one kind exists) are a new development in galactic terms, a development pioneered by Virmire. Early Virmirean doctrine -- before it had the capacity to manufacture dreadnoughts -- was to take down Rachni dreadnoughts by cruiser swarms, but that left the Rachni's cruisers unattended. Enter the battlecruiser. Boasting the armaments and firepower of a true dreadnought, with a massive spinal cannon, potent broadside turrets, and impressive point defense suites, battlecruisers save on costs and weight by only armoring and shielding themselves to heavy cruiser levels, thereby allowing their powerful engines to drive them through a fight at cruiser speeds. While strictly inferior to a dreadnought in the artillery duels that dominate much of space combat, battlecruisers rule a melee, maneuvering at cruiser pace while delivering capital firepower. Battlecruisers also hold great promise as raiding ships -- able to engage and retreat from targets at the required pace of cruisers while fielding the firepower of a full dreadnought, shortening engagements further and forcing defenders to respond very fast, and in greater force than most counter-raiding forces can muster in the time required.
Heavy Cruisers: Naval Designation Code CA, these vessels run from 500 to 700 meters in length. They are powerful line combat vessels, but lack the peerless superiority that makes the dreadnought queen of the battlefield. Heavy cruisers are nonetheless potent vessels, and in all but the largest of battles will be the heaviest combatants on the field. They are designed to provide a solid anchor to a line of cruiser, "infantry," in battle, directing coordinated salvos of spinal cannon fire against hard targets. They also possess limited broadside turrets for truly chaotic melees. Most colonies capable of maintaining a military make heavy cruisers their flagships given their far cheaper cost in comparison to dreadnoughts.
Light Cruisers: Naval Designation Code CL, light cruisers are the, "infantry," of a fleet. Relatively cheap to build, these 300-400 meter long ships are the smallest vessels upon which a spinal gun is a practical weapons mount. This represents an immense leap in firepower and versatility from the alternatives, and makes CLs the most common sight in any navy outside of mass combat. CLs are the go-to ships for, "show the flag," missions and regular patrols. They typically do not mount broadside turrets, but make up for this deficiency in a melee with great agility, able to keep up with and maintain target locks on even the nimblest of small vessels with a skilled hand at the helm. Versatile and cost-effective, the light cruiser is a vital part of any fleet.
Frigates: Naval Designation Code FF, frigates are the doctrinal equivalent of real-life destroyers. Screening vessels which rely on speed over armor, these ships are mostly equipped with torpedoes; at a mere 100 meters in length, mass accelerator cannons just can't be mounted at great enough sizes to outperform torpedo runs. Frigates tend to stick with and screen capital vessels until a general melee forms, at which point they form into small wolf packs and strike crippled enemy vessels with their torpedoes. Frigates can be built cheaply, and in great numbers, and thus make for an excellent skirmishing ship. They do not decide combats on their own, but a fleet without frigate support will find itself helpless against one with a more effective screen.
Corvettes: Naval Designation Code KK, corvettes are 50-meter-long warships that form the absolute lowest end of the combat spectrum. Corvettes fill the role of picket ships, mounting large point defense suites for their size. These and their limited complements of torpedoes also find them a role in a combat melee, striking enemy torpedoes out of the void while unleashing their own to punish targets that stray too close to the capital ships corvettes are tasked with screening. Furthermore, they can be churned out en masse, making them as expendable as any warship can be -- and they need to be, since even glancing hits from any munition outside of point-defense projectiles are quite capable of crippling them. Corvettes are not a battle-winning ship on their own, but woe betide the commander who discards them from consideration; effective use of corvettes in a battle can make the capital ships they support fight like double their number.
Range In Mass Effect Combat
Mass Effect combat is, before anything else, a game of range.
EXTREME range: tens of thousands of kilometers. This is first contact. Under normal conditions, only dreadnought and battlecruiser cannons can be effectively employed. Dreadnoughts and your battlecruisers rule the field here with unquestioned supremacy, although dreadnoughts firmly take precedence.
LONG range: singular thousands of kilometers. Cruisers become combat-effective, although heavy cruisers of course enter firing range first. Commanders must decide here whether or not to commit to the fight or withdraw, satisfied with a simple artillery duel. Dreadnoughts remain the queens of the field, but cruisers in sufficient numbers can destroy dreadnoughts. Battlecruisers are at their weakest of any range other than a knife-fight, being under the effective fire of both dreadnoughts and cruisers while not gaining any advantages.
MEDIUM range: hundreds of kilometers. This is the general melee. Fleets intermingle, and commanders can now order screening vessels on attack runs. Cruisers begin to edge out dreadnoughts, as their greater maneuverability begins to tell in closer quarters where dreadnoughts have a tougher time laying their decisive main cannons on target, and can be more easily flanked. Battlecruisers are the queens of the field, able to target dreadnought firepower with cruiser maneuverability. Battlecruisers can and should engage in one-on-one contests with enemy dreadnoughts.
CLOSE range: ten kilometers or less. Frigate/corvette engagement range. Torpedoes rule the field. Point-defense becomes a useful weapon. Spinal cannons are useless, as targets can maneuver too quickly to acquire a firing solution. Thruster exhaust is a hazard. Nobody stays here for very long, one way or the other. The balance of power shifts sharply due frigates primarily and corvettes secondarily, the only vessels built to fight in this environment.
Fields of Engagement
It is very difficult to force an enemy to battle who does not wish to fight. With the advent of practical FTL, a commander who wishes to disengage now has an easier time of it than ever before. Pursuit is possible once an fleet goes to FTL, but the pursuer is at a heavy disadvantage. Broadly, general fleet engagements occur only when either both sides think they have a decisive advantage, or when the defender is forced to defend an immobile target. Thus, outside of vanishingly rare, "field engagements," there are three recognizable types of general engagement in modern space combat.
Relay Assaults: As the only practical form of galactic travel, Mass Relays are the beginning and end of strategic depth and power projection. Those who control the relays, control the course of the war. Thus, the first large engagements in a war are often fought over these vital stations. These battles favor the defender, and heavily; the attacker can drift up to tens of thousands of kilometers, very unpredictably, and is almost invariably forced to reorient themselves upon transition. Even when things go right, that places the attacking fleet very close to the defenders from the start. Relay Assaults are brutal and frantic affairs, typically over within minutes. Attackers need to attack in force if they hope for victory.
Asset Defense: An interstellar economy depends on its off-planet assets -- be that mines set up on inhospitable worlds, or research centers on empty asteroids. Attackers who wish to avoid a general engagement often target these to remove the defender's capacity to wage war. Asset raids that develop into general engagements are often accidents; given the necessarily dispersed nature of these installations, there are vanishingly few that are worth the investment of a battle fleet. Instead, a raid turns into a small engagement when the attackers decide to press against resistance, the defenders call in reinforcements, the attackers call in their reinforcements, and the whole thing snowballs. As a general rule, nobody holds the advantage in these kinds of battles; while the tactical situation inevitably favors somebody, the general nature of these fights does not inherently benefit either attacker or defender. Raids that escalate this far are matters of opportunity, with attackers and defenders escalating simply because it's grown so much already. These battles often take weeks of fighting, retreating, reinforcing, re-consolidation, and counter-attacking as the situation grows with neither side willing to back away completely with such a prime opportunity to hand. Victory goes to the side that gets reinforcements before its enemy, and crushes the enemy's present forces before the balance of power shifts again. These battles are uncommon, with most commanders tending to disengage rather than roll the dice.
Garden World Sieges: Inevitably, it comes to the population centers. The very act of credibly assaulting a garden world indicates that the war is going in the attackers' favor, and the nature of these battles doesn't help the defenders at all. With no galactic regulations on the use of space-borne weapons against garden worlds, defenders are forced to use their ships as figurative and literal shields against enemy fire. Vessels that rely on dodging no longer can without consigning their civilians to nuclear winters, while attackers can maneuver freely. Moving away from the homeworld allows the attackers to move into orbit uncontested, and fire from there with the homeworld at their backs. Defenders typically need a heavy numbers advantage to hold orbit against a determined attacker, and if they have that, such attacks rarely occur. Sieges can be long battles, but defenders are well-advised to seek opportunities to end them quickly if they gainfully can; every minute they delay puts their objective at further risk.
Hey, So What's Canon Here?
Unusually, the wiki takes precedence over all. The Mass Effect games do a poor job of representing and exploiting the lore established by the worldbuilding team(s), and (increasingly, the further into the games one gets) instead favor a much more generic sci-fi universe, although a well-written one. I am here for Mass Effect, and want it to be very Mass Effect. Furthermore, given the expanded scope of this quest in comparison to games canon, I simply need to rely on the wiki to plug gaps in the games already, and such makes it a simple decision to award it precedence.
This is not to say the games will be discounted -- that would be absurd -- but canon conflicts will almost without variation be resolved in favor of the wiki. For example, space combat begins at tens of thousands of kilometers instead of within visual range. Visual range is reserved for clusterfuck knife fights that one either swiftly departs -- whatever the outcome -- or accepts as one's grave.
And one other thing: I have one absolute rule. "Cut Content Is Not Canon Content." The writers cut a lot of stuff from the games, and canon in general. A lot of this was a good idea. Some of it was a regrettable loss. None of it is canon to this quest. Perhaps I'll happen to run across it, think that it's a cool idea, and implement it as part of my fanon, but it is not the canon on which I am basing this quest. I am not case-by-casing every obscure point of cut lore. If I can't find it on the wiki or a gameplay video with ten minutes, some guidance, and without seeing the words, "in early versions of the game," "in cut scenes," "cracking open the game's files shows some dummied-out content," or any spiritual variation thereof, then as far as this quest's interpretation of the games' canon goes, it does not exist, and never did.
Cut Content Is Not Canon Content.
Wait A Minute, What Pronouns Do I Use With You?
While it is amusing to see people responding to me chiding folks for assuming me to be male by referring to me as a woman, my preference is in fact for gender neutrality. "They," for preference. Usage is shifting, it's valid, and whether or not it's proper grammar is not precisely the important issue at play here, is it?
Canon Timeline vs. Terminus Timeline
Point of Divergence
The quest's timeline diverges from canon as of Mira's coup, as in OTL, for our purposes, she remained Minister of War until her death in 482. This is where Virmire begins to diverge from canon; every change in the quest timeline from my headcanon of OTL springs -- or doesn't -- from this change.
Changes Over Mira's First Term
Virmire was isolated as of the start of the quest, and the players' actions did not do enough to disrupt wider paradigms until Year 3, 482 GS -- the year of Mira's OTL death. In OTL, the Rachni battle fleet that showed up, dreadnought in tow, finished off Virmire's increasingly-starved navy, Mira dying with it.
This spelled the end for Virmire. While individual soldiers on the surface put up a valiant fight, Mira's death and the Prime Minister's incompetence, along with a general neglect of the army throughout the war, made Virmire's armies hopelessly disorganized in the face of the Rachni invasion. By 487, the Rachni had cleansed the planet of sapient life.
In our timeline, however, Mira had made the navy her top priority, and as such, had the numbers and quality to defeat the dreadnought and its fleet, albeit with substantial losses. This caused the first ripples of change in the wider galaxy. Even to the Rachni, a dreadnought is no trivial investment. Forces needed to be redistributed. The Rachni's offensives elsewhere suffered, as Virmire's priority rose. The effect wasn't yet significant, but it was there. It increased in magnitude over the course of the first term as the Rachni diverted more and more forces to Virmire's border as they could be spared. This came to a head in 489, when Mira led the Virmirean Navy through the Sentry Omega-Attican Beta relay and shattered the Rachni forces waiting there. This firmly threw the course of the war off-track, as the Rachni scrambled to readjust. Their offensive suffered and stagnated.
Where in canon Virmire was a graveyard, here it had emerged as a dangerous irritant in the Rachni's rear areas.
Changes Over Mira's Second Term
This trend continued throughout the following decade, as the Rachni poured resources into the effort of crushing Virmire. In OTL, their offensives at this time continued at the usual grinding pace for the early stages of the war with little variation, the Citadel and Terminus still firmly on the back foot thanks to an undistracted Swarm.
Here, those offenses faltered and sputtered out as the Rachni poured more resources into the effort of smashing Virmire. Operation Resurgent Grace proved to be the final and decisive blow which put the Rachni on the defensive, and badly. The rescue of a Rannoch War Fleet and the damage done during the operation left the Rachni wholly incapable even of holding their current gains, and they had to voluntarily cede ground -- although this would not become clear on Virmire for years yet.
Furthermore, Virmire managed to briefly re-establish contact with the wider galaxy. Where in canon, the Rachni were on a slow drive through the galaxy, here they were on the defensive and giving ground thanks to Virmire's key position to disrupt the Rachni war effort.
As Of, "Excerpts From Mira T'Vael, by Lorna Shak, Part 6"
Slayer Anderson said:
So... @PoptartProdigy - I understand if you can't/won't answer this due to OOC knowledge, but I was wondering if you could offer some insight into exactly how divergent this timeline is from the OTL, at this point? Just curious.
Oh, hilariously. Virmire was a graveyard with Rachni tenders. The Lystheni survived in the form of ten thousand refugees who fucked off out of the cluster on a generation ship and then drifted for centuries while they waited out the apocalypse. The Citadel was currently under attack. Yes, currently, as in, right now, rachni warships were bombarding the turtled-up Citadel. Pretty much the darkest hour of the war, relieved only due to the rachni overextending in the flush of victory and getting their asses turned inside-out by an elcor fleet.
(The Rachni, thanks to the elcor's stubborn isolationism, had no idea at this stage of things that the elcor even existed. They were not expecting a war fleet when they jumped to that cluster.)
That Rachni fleet turning up with a bad case of the deads caused a hole in the patrol patterns which the shattered remnants of the Combined Citadel Fleet were able to exploit in relieving the Citadel. After that they managed to keep Serpent, at least, clear.
You roll your neck, sighing. It's been a hell of a year. Hell of a few years, in fact. With the Rachni ravaging the galaxy, everybody has had a rough time of it. Your home planet hasn't suffered as badly as some -- nobody has suffered like the planets the Rachni conquer -- but that's not to say you're well off.
[-] Korlus, the Junkyard World. Title: Planetary Governor.
It's a measure of how far the Citadel has fallen that they've abandoned a Relay one connection away from the Citadel. But nonetheless, they did, reasoning that the Rachni haven't pushed into the galactic west thus far, and that their forces were more needed further east. That, realistically, is the only reason the Korlus revolution succeeded -- when the planetary governor rallied the other governors in the Eagle Nebula and, "kicked out," the Council forces, they only succeeded because there wasn't anybody to kick. Korlus was simply allowed to fall -- a junkyard planet that the Citadel didn't care about enough to send forces to hold. Of course, all of that means little. If the Council ever wishes to reclaim the cluster in which you reside, there isn't anything here that could stop them. Your independence survives on their indifference.
Of course, all of that is a long way off. The Council doesn't care about you. The Rachni are on the other side of the Terminus. Your concerns are far more local. Namely: the Eagle Nebula fractured the very day it left Citadel Space, and it has gone on fracturing yet further ever since. Korlus in particular has caught the brunt of this. The Governor's office has changed hands time and again, its power growing more and more nominal with each passing year. As it stands, the Governor controls the continent upon which their office sits, and nothing more. The rest has fallen to petty warlords, scrabbling with each other for the scraps and acknowledging you in name only. Before you do anything grand or ambitious, you first have a planet to unify. Beyond that, Korlus is a garbage scow with a climate; you are a junkyard world that is near-hostile to all life. You boast no agriculture, a violently toxic atmosphere, hideous crime rates, no local industry, and on top of that, you have a tiny population. Perhaps the Rachni would like this planet, and perhaps some race capable of living and thriving in conditions like this would spread rapidly...but no such race exists on the galactic stage at this time.
But there is one upside. You are the trash and recycling center for every cluster with a connecting Relay to you, and have been for centuries. Ships from every polity in the galaxy die on Korlus, and there's enough here to form a massive fleet which even your population could use to become mighty, if you could gain the infrastructure to build it. On top of that, the recycling orbitals haven't been too badly neglected, and if properly cared for could possibly be converted to other things. Finally, the Eagle Nebula is chaotic and disunified, and there are rich colonization and prospecting sources here. If you could get them under your influence or control, you could command quite the gem.
ADVANTAGES: Rich local cluster, intact orbital infrastructure, current Council indifference, junkyard from heaven, Rachni War currently distant.
DISADVANTAGES: Toxic hellscape, no local production, tiny population, warring states period, gain Council Attention faster due to being next-door neighbors.
[-] Omega, the Eezo Boom Town. Title: Overseer.
At one point, the asteroid Omega was mined by the Protheans for the trove of element zero within. Eventually they gave up, defeated by its thick, metallic crust. Only recently did nature achieve what they failed to do; a collision with another asteroid cracked it in half, exposing its trove of eezo to the galaxy. Instantly, dozens of corporations rushed in to claim its riches.
Enter the Rachni.
After the Council abandoned Omega along with the rest of the Terminus, ownership has passed from one Overseer to the next with insane speed as those individuals left behind scramble to reach the top of the heap. Its position within Sahrabarik, the relay system of the Omega Nebula, places it at a relay hub second only to the Citadel itself. In the new Terminus Systems, the being in charge of such a location could command great influence, playing their cards right. You produce and export insane amounts of eezo -- you'll never want for the stuff, and get rich off of selling it. You trade with everybody -- everybody -- and they trade right on back, bringing a never-ending stream of supplies at favorable rates for the asteroid that produces such treasures. Beyond that, Omega is a state-of-the art mining facility, offering streamlined and beautiful housing with efficient and well-constructed technology.
There is, as ever, a downside. While Omega is well-positioned as far as trade goes, it needs to be -- you produce nothing. If trade is disrupted, you starve -- and war is rather infamous for disrupting trade. Beyond that, while you have a few million people, that's not a lot in galactic terms, and both your system and the cluster surrounding it have limited prospects for colonization. In general, Omega is a place of fabulous wealth, but one that can only exist with the aid of trade and influence from other clusters. Any being ruling here would need to secure their cooperation -- through whatever means necessary -- and then secure it from the Rachni, who aren't as far away as you'd prefer.
And most mysterious of all is the strange relay orbiting at the edges of the system -- a relay that glows orange, and from which nobody has returned. The relay Omega-4. It's an eternal mystery -- as far as you're concerned, it could mean anything.
ADVANTAGES: Eezo mining boom town with new and modern facilities, increased neighbor Attention and opinion gains due to trade, massive Mass Relay hub.
DISADVANTAGES: Heavy reliance on foreign trade, few colonization prospects even within your cluster, Rachni are near enough to pose a regular raiding threat, limited if relatively substantial population.
[X] Virmire, the Garden World. Title: Prime Minister.
Very, very near to the place where the Rachni emerged into the galaxy thank to the Citadel's idiocy lies a beautiful gem of a world that once was the focus of the largest colonization drive in Citadel Council history. Virmire. Your home. Beings from several races came to settle here -- this lush garden world, bursting with resources. People flocked en masse to the planet rumored to be just this side of paradise. Its fields produce nigh-endless harvests, its mountains vomit forth valuable metals and minerals, and its oceans burst with flavorful, hearty fish. You host a population of billions, and boast an orbital infrastructure rivaled by few worlds outside of the homeworlds. You produce most everything you could need right here at home, and field armies and fleets of your very own. You are a truly self-sustaining world -- and, in times of peace, were an exporter, a profitable and wildly successful experiment in multi-species colonization.
You are also under siege. Virmire is on the furthest explored edges of the Relay network, and there is at present one known connection -- the Attican Beta cluster, which for years has been in the hands of the Rachni. Your fleets fight daily to repel the insects from the Relay, surviving only because of what you presume to be a fierce struggle with the Citadel elsewhere. You have no communications or connections to the outside galaxy. You know nothing of what has happened since you were cut off. And worst of all, you know of no way out. The relays in your system doubtless have other connections, but nobody has dared to try them. You don't even know with what else you share your own cluster. You are backed into a corner.
But your people are united. Despite the criminal incompetence of the previous administration, the people have come together in support of survival and their determination to stand alone, against the Rachni threat and the Citadel who abandoned you. These may be the final years of the colony on Virmire, but if it is the end, you will make it such an end as to inspire awe in the hearts of those who learn of it. Sadly, you suspect that nobody ever will, and that thousands of years from now your home will be devoid of sapient life, meriting only a few lines in description of a promising colonization prospect. But if that is your end, you'll go to it fighting tooth and claw.
ADVANTAGES: Garden world with massive population, prime exporter if trade partners can be contacted, united populace, strong and established military, developed ground and orbital infrastructure.
DISADVANTAGES: Completely under siege, unexplored local cluster, unknown Relay connections, must effect a breakout and get reinforcements soon or face annihilation and a Bad End.
THIS VOTE HAS BEEN CLOSED.
This is the year 24 CE. Some things are very different. Omega isn't a hideous cesspit. Yet. Virmire actually hosts a significant colony, albeit one that, had you taken any other start, would have been cleansed of all sapient life by the Rachni -- and still might be.
But some things never change, and Korlus is still a trash heap.
I like to imagine how different things might have been, 2000 years back. It's fun to expand on the game's canon.
You grimace as you start typing in some notes about Virmire. Your home is beautiful, yes -- but while you by default haven't suffered like those who have fallen to Rachni, you're not far off. More children of Virmire die every day in the Navy. It's just fortunate that the Rachni can't starve you out.
A thought strikes you, and you open up the governmental database again.
Something's been troubling you. One of your predecessor's most controversial decisions.
During a time when the whole of Virmire must be devoted towards the task of resisting the Rachni, your predecessor elected to spend time and resources establishing a Ministry of Faith.
You honestly can't figure why he chose to do it. Ignoring your personal feelings on the matter, he can't have thought that it would have gone over well. You understand the rationale -- faith can be a powerful motivator, and establishing government control of that must have been tempting indeed. But the people just saw valuable credits going into something that wasn't the military. Millions of credits building churches instead of ships.
Well. He didn't prune the naval budget for this. He wasn't that stupid.
No, he was more stupid still. He pruned the military's bereavement fund, already slashed to the bones by simple necessity. "The Pillars of Strength will bring them more comfort than any amount of base money!"
Idiot.
That said, it's a lot easier to keep something than it is to pass it. As a few of your advisors have pointed out, it would be simple enough to keep it in place, and take a hand in your people's worship while your predecessor gets the blame. Their implication is obvious.
[-] As it happens, you agree. If history has shown anything, it is that faith is powerful -- even in this more secular day and age. Whether or not you wish to evangelize for anything in particular, it is only responsible to ensure that a Ministry exists to regulate these matters. (This quest will include a Piety stat and a Ministry of Faith. Opens up Piety-focused PC's and Piety victories -- check the Rules Screen, which is now up. The public's religious leanings are the concern of your government as a matter of policy.)
[X] You shot them down, however. In this day and age it is not the responsibility of the government to regulate matters of faith. This Ministry is a waste of time and funds, and an unacceptable intrusion into the people's private lives. Matters of faith may arise, but there is no sense in devoting an entire Ministry to such a situational issue; unless you had an interest in imposing your own views, you wouldn't have enough work to make it useful. (This quest will not include a Piety stat or a Ministry of Faith. Piety victories disabled. The official policy of your government is that faith is a private matter. If it makes itself a public matter, it will be dealt with by the appropriate department of your administration.)
THIS VOTE IS NOW CLOSED.
Quick vote here. If I see consensus emerge rapidly, I'll close soon.
This vote is not determining whether or not you want to be blindsided by religion. This is determining whether or not your government is active in matters of faith, as opposed to reactive. If you keep the MoF, you are actively pushing your version of how faith is meant to be to your people. You have to; there's legitimately not enough to justify its existence otherwise, as the "Shoot it down," vote mentions. If you vote to axe it, matters of faith to which you must react are simply issues like anything else, and are handled by your other ministries as normal, without penalty.
You tap away at your computer for hours, laying out everything of which you can think. It's by no means an exhaustive list -- that will come in the next few weeks, as you reorganize your new government -- but it's a good start, for personal notes.
Then, as the sun sets beneath the breathtaking view your office has of the ocean, you sigh, lean away from your work, and take a moment to just breathe.
You've been years at this, struggling to take over this planet to save it from that fat sack of scum you just evicted. To the rest of your people, you're the Prime Minister -- their leader, and, hopefully, savior. Even to those who have stood with you -- some of them friends from your childhood -- you're more symbol than living being. It can get exhausting -- and the work has only just begun!
As far as most of your fellow citizens are concerned, your life began when you took power. And, of course, you did it in the best way you knew how.
* * *
[1][STATS] Martial. You have been a fighter your whole life, and you signed onto the Virmire military as soon as you possibly could to defend against the Rachni. With the support of the military, and the promise to force a military breakout from your cluster within the decade, you launched a coup to smash your way out of the trap the Rachni have you in. You're under no illusions as to how easy it will be, but you know that with the right approach, it's possible. It's time to stop bunkering down and start trying to escape. You have sworn to break the military blockade on the Sentry Omega cluster within ten years of game start. This is your Mandate, and if not done will result in severe domestic unrest.
[4][STATS] Diplomacy. Virmire is a republic, and you approached it like a republic. Once the leadership's failings became clear, you led a movement demanding a referendum for a change of government. You won, and the Prime Minister refused to honor the results. Revolution was the logical next step, and few indeed were they who sided with the old regime. The military, in particular, stayed out entirely, vowing to swear allegiance to the winner as long as the fighting was done with in a month. Easy enough. You took office on the platform of mutual defense; you promised to re-establish contact with the wider galaxy and gain support from somebody out there, to better withstand the Rachni threat. You have sworn to find a way to contact the wider galaxy and forge an alliance with somebody for mutual defense. This is your Mandate, and while you specified no firm deadline, if you're facing re-election in ten years with no progress made, your prospects aren't good.
[2][STATS] Stewardship. It's a sad fact that you can find corruption wherever you go, but some places are worse than others. Your predecessor, appallingly, let it run wild. Despite the threat just outside your gates, he encouraged bribes and racketeering, and now the government is an unholy mess. Inefficiencies abound, doing more to cripple your fleet than a dozen skirmishes lost. You came to power promising the people that you would clean up the mess and set things right. Your Mandate is to clean up the corruption and inefficiency in Virmire's government, and ensure that the flow of credits is smooth and transparent. If you don't -- or worse, indulge in the corruption yourself -- you'll be out faster than you can blink.
[5][STATS] Intrigue. Fact of the matter is, if pressed, a lot of your most fervent supporters would find it difficult to say exactly why you're the one in power now. You made a lot of speeches, and secured a lot of friends. You have quite a few contacts in the Ministry of Intelligence who eased your coup's way considerably. But when it comes down to it, you've avoided saying anything specific in public. You've made no grand promises, because those can be used against you. But...a person can't get to where you've gotten without promising something to somebody, and your friends in Intelligence got their promises from you. Not that you disagree with their aims, but actually doing it is going to be one hell of a job. Publicly, you have no Mandate; just don't screw up. Privately, Intelligence only supported your coup on your promise to establish a series of hidden listening posts on the other side of Virmire's relay, in order to better watch the rest of the galaxy. There's just one problem: the blockade fleet in the way. Not doing it is not an option; if ten years have passed and you have nothing to show for it, you can expect Intelligence to find a PM they can trust to live up to their promises.
[3][STATS] Learning. Disease has always been the greatest killer in war. That's faded in recent times, but sometimes things just go wrong. And wrong they went. Virmire was wracked with a plague at the worst possible time -- possibly something the Rachni gave to a Marine on a boarding action, who gave it to somebody on leave. One way or the other it spread, and while the PM and his staff holed up in their offices, the people died. Enter a doctor, their eyes heavily bagged from lack of sleep, and a syringe filled with a desperate cure. You're hailed as a saint by some, for slaying the epidemic. You're hailed as a savior by more, for leading the outraged charge to throw down the coward who left you all to die. As far as you're concerned, though, you're just a person with a job to do. Your Mandate is to update Virmire's flagging medical infrastructure so that the military can do its job in peace without worrying about its support base dying of plague.
* * *
Of course, there's always something that came before. Always. And your past is written in your face; the Council encourages its members to adopt roles according to race, and while anybody can become anything, cultures that stratified will leave a mark no matter what you do.
* * *
[X][RACE] Asari. You were born on Thessia, and came to Virmire during the course of your traditional Maidenhood travels. Abnormally for your people, you fell in love with the place instantly, and settled here with a friend. Since then you've become known as a firebrand -- a young woman by any measure, determined to make her mark on her new home. Bonus to Diplomacy and Learning; penalty to Martial and Intrigue. Asari are long-lived, and can expect to reach a thousand years in lifespan easily; you are one hundred and fifty-six. All asari are biotic.
[-][RACE] Salarian. You are among the fifteenth generation of salarians born on Virmire, and have always made your family proud with your accomplishments. You are a son of Virmire born and bred, and have always felt far more loyalty to your birth home than to distant Sur'Kesh, with the main branch of your family so divorced from the reality of your life. You are fiercely proud of and loyal to the only home you have ever known, and even though your people have no grand military traditions, you will ensure that Virmire stands strong in the face of the Rachni threat. Bonus to Intrigue and Learning, penalty to Martial and Diplomacy. Salarians live to thirty-five, on average. You are twelve. Few salarians are biotic, and you are no exception.
[-][RACE] Batarian. There are no castes on Virmire. It was a condition the Council set, when the Hegemony wanted in on this lush garden world that the Council wanted to colonize jointly. Your family was among one of the waves of immigrants lucky enough to secure passage from the Hegemony's heartland with you, their young son, in tow. To secure their freedom, carefully hiding even the fact that they viewed it that way. And here they have found freedom. You personally took part in the last of the sparks of internal conflict between the Hegemony loyalists who tried to maintain an unofficial caste system despite the Council's laws, and those who wanted to forge their own path. You were victorious. There are no castes on Virmire. You made it so. Bonus to Martial and Stewardship, penalty to Learning and Diplomacy. Batarians live, on average, one hundred years. You are twenty-eight. You are biotic -- a fearful secret when you were in the Hegemony, and a point of pride now.
[-][RACE] Volus. Few indeed are those of your people who chose to come to Virmire. It is a strange, sweaty hell with a lethally-thin atmosphere. Much of the surface is covered with oceans of liquid water rather than good, healthy ammonia, and the air is so thin that the fluid even spontaneously escapes its oceans in gaseous form, hanging in the very air. The insane fools who love Virmire so find this normal, and call it, "humidity." Madness. But for all of that, you will admit that there is a terrifying beauty in this place -- the kind of awe that one might feel standing next to a volcano. In this place you have made your home, trading away comfortable security in exchange for wonder and adventure. Because there's always an opportunity out here, and for you, that's reason enough for a woman to brave the daily terror. Bonus to Stewardship and Intrigue. Penalty to Martial and Learning. Volus live to two hundred and thirty-four on average; you are forty-eight. You are not biotic.
* * *
Still, what's past is past, and there's work to be done. You adjust your seat and settle down at your computer. The time for reflection is over. It's time to make some calls.
THESE VOTES ARE NOW CLOSED.
For this update, we will be using ranked voting. For each task, please rank your votes from your most favorite (1) to least (5 for STATS, 4 for RACE). This would look like, for instance: "[1][RACE] Volus," or, "[3][STATS] Stewardship." For the STATS vote, the winning order of stats will be the order of your PC's base stats from highest to lowest, with the top-ranked stat being the PC's highest base stat and the one whose backstory and Mandate you will adopt. For the race vote, the top-ranked vote wins flat-out.
The galaxy is a lot less populated in this time period. While there are more races on the galactic stage than these four -- the quarians, elcor, and hanar -- they are at this time period extremely isolationist. The Republic of Rannoch is separated by distance and institutional paranoia from the rest of the Council, the Illuminated Primacy hasn't developed the evangelical tendencies that brought them into the wider galaxy, and the Courts of Dekuuna are still contemplating the controversial step of permitting civilian migration away from their territories.
I'm going to let this update sit overnight. I need to sleep sometime, after all. Please think carefully and vote wisely. Have fun!
You open the door to the conference room and stride in.
Your entrance goes unnoticed. Those within are too busy screaming at each other.
"I'm not letting you slash the procurement budget because you want to buy some painkillers!"
You sigh quietly, sidling over to your seat at the head of the table and starting to take out your notes. The batarian shouting is Toral K'Sharr, your newly-appointed Minister of War. Toral was one of your aides in the military for years, and was the natural choice for Minister in the wake of your coup.
The salarian he's shouting at is Durrahe Korun, your Minister of the Sciences. Korun bristles back at your old subordinate, crossing his arms. "I'm not asking for your budget, Minister! And it's hardly something as simple as painkillers. The Rachni Plague might be under control, but it's a clear indication that we need to update our medical infrastructure! If we have people dying of disease, your navy will wither!"
"Let's just all calm down a moment, please," says one of the other two asari in the room. "Nobody is demanding a slice of anybody else's budget." Your Minister of Relations, Marae Dantius, leans forward over the table, making sure to look them both in the eye. "We all just want to do our jobs as well as we can-"
"Don't patronize me!" snaps K'Sharr. "Like it or not, there's only so much to go around! My budget is stretched as it is; I need more, not less! Somebody has to take a cut, and it can't be me. The navy has less than half the ships it had last year! We need to be expanding production; tripling it!"
Lissa S'Voi is your oldest friend and your Minister of Finance. Lissa came with you on your Maidenhood, and followed along when you declared your intention to settle on Virmire. Honestly, she's never been much of a fighter -- she handled your money. But she's always been your loyal companion, and you can't think of anybody you'd rather have with you.
She leans forward now, slapping the table. "We can't afford to triple production. Forget getting slices of somebody else's budget; the whole government doesn't have the resources on hand for that, not if we want to keep running the sewers. And how do you suggest we get ahold of the shipyards for that kind of manufacturing? I would figure that you at least would know our limitations there."
And with that, chaos erupts once more, everybody screaming at the top of their lungs as tempers run wild.
You rest your head on your fist, sighing. You're supposed to run this? Maybe you were too hard on the last PM. Nobody's even noticed you yet.
Well, nobody except for one.
San Shurna, your volus Minister of Intelligence, catches your eye and nods gravely. She's the only member of the last PM's administration to hold her post -- and only because she bought her way in. As you launched your coup, she contacted you and gave her word to allow your coup without opposition from her people. No explanation. She just turned her coat. You still don't know why, but you're loath to fire her -- you're hardly the most subtle person around, and you need somebody good. And by all indications, she is good.
You return her nod with a wary one of your own. She turns back to the table.
"If I may-" She takes one of the gasping breaths her species is known for. "-interject? I believe we have a visitor."
Lissa glances over first, then does a double-take at seeing you. She nudges Marae in the side as she argues with Toral.
"-pointlessly antagonistic! We need to work -- wait a moment, Lissa -- together, not spring apart at the first- Lissa, wait-" Her eyes finally fall on you, and she gasps. "Madame Minister!"
The room falls silent. After a stunned moment, Toral springs to attention, saluting. "Ma'am!"
"At ease, Toral," you say, smirking in your seat. "Why don't we all sit down?"
They do, suddenly sheepish as the tension dissipates.
"We don't have the time to be fighting each other," you say, shuffling your notes. "Times are desperate, and we're all going to be disappointed by the time we're done here." You look up. "I don't have time to babysit you all. Don't waste your time yelling at each other for scraps of budget." You see Marae pinching the bridge of her nose in exasperation at your phrasing. You give them all a thin smile. "You're going to need to save up that frustration for me."
You open up the file containing your notes and get ready to disappoint some people.
* * *
Current Reserves: 100,000 credits.
Yearly Income: 10,000 credits (gained at start of next turn).
Martial: "I'll be straight with you, Minister T'Vael. We're in trouble. With the loss of the First Fleet beyond the relay last year our navy was cut in half, and the Rachni have been whittling us down piecemeal since then. If we want to achieve your promise of breaking the siege on schedule, we're going to need to build up, a lot. We're short of everything. The good news is that we still have a roughly proportional navy. If I had to identify any one shortfall, it's our corvettes. The attrition is intense. That's a problem in itself, but honestly we can't deal with that yet. Our number one priority has to be increasing ship production. At this rate we're going to be combat-ineffective in two years, and it'll be down to ground fighting. We can hold the Rachni at the Relay for now, but we need to boost production before we try anything else."
Choose 1.
[X] Expanding Production: There's a simple problem facing you. You lack the industrial capacity to replace your losses. Oh, you produce ships, and they get to the front, but you lose more than you produce. You need to build some more shipyards and get ships churning out. It doesn't have to be a lot -- it can't be -- but you need to at least stop losing ships. That said...good, quick, or cheap. Pick any two. Time: 1 year. Chance of Success: 90%. Cost: 40,000 credits. Effect: Ship production achieves net stability.
[-] Repurposing Production: Building new shipyards is a costly proposition at a time when money is dearly stretched. You could save a lot by instead repurposing civilian orbital production. Of course, while that saves in the short term, you then lose out on the revenue that civilian production generates, and that's less production moving through the economy. Time: 1 year. Chance of Success: 90%. Cost: 20,000 credits. Effect: Ship production achieves net stability. -500 yearly income due to damage to civilian economy.
[-] Emergency Refits: You don't need to outright boost production; you need more ships in space to plug the gaps while you get the resources to let you really develop your navy. And the various civilian vessels in-system are mostly just sitting idle. Requisition those ones, get them into your existing factories, and slap some barriers and guns on them. Time: 1 year. Chance of Success: 70%. Cost: 5,000 credits. Effect: Flood the front with garbage-tier, "warships," to buy time for you to secure the resources needed to really get your navy running. Navy takes significantly heavier losses for the duration.
Diplomacy: "I admit that my office hasn't been busy lately, Madame Minister. But just because we're cut off doesn't mean that we can rest idle. Someday we'll have contact with other people again. Whether that's because we manage to break out or because we find somebody else completely new, we need to be ready for it. For that matter, there are a few things that we could try right now, although it would be a long time before we heard anything back. Here are my proposals."
Choose 1.
[-] Draft First Contact Protocols: The Council has protocols, but they're completely inapplicable to your situation. You're not negotiating from the position of the most powerful polity in the galaxy; you're a single planet under siege. If there's somebody else sharing the Sentry Omega cluster with you, or deeper into the Relay network, you need to be ready. Time: 1 year. Chance of Success: 65%. Cost: 5,000 credits. Effect: Draft a set of First Contact Protocols in the event of successful contact with new alien civilizations while you search for a way out of Sentry Omega.
[X] Ministry Reorganization: Virmire was, until the Rachni came, a colony of the Council, and since then it has been entirely devoted to military pursuits. You've never needed a truly professional Ministry of Relations. Thus, most of your people are charming amateurs. Marae, Matron that she is, has worked in this craft before, as a consul on Sur'Kesh. If you give her the word, she can get to work getting you a proper Ministry. Time: 1 year. Chance of Success: 55%. Cost: 15,000 credits. Effect: Restructure your Ministry of Relations, replace inexperienced and unprofessional staff with merely inexperienced staff, lose debuffs to Chances of Success from everybody being slightly shit.
[-] Light Into the Void: The comm beacons were the first bit of infrastructure to go, but you still have FTL transmitters. They still transmit without a receiving node. You don't even know how long it takes for those signals to propagate when they're not being bounced from node to node, but they certainly do propagate...and it's the only way you have of contacting anybody. Time: 1 year. Chance of Success: ? Cost: 10,000 credits. Effect: Fire up the old FTL transmitters, budget the energy grid towards them to overcharge them, and send out regular distress calls at random into the galaxy. Pray that somebody is in the way and listening...and that they're not inclined to worsen things.
Stewardship: "Well, I bet you're sick of hearing it, Mira, but I've got trouble too. It's no secret that your predecessor liked his bribes, and I can't even track where most of the money is going right now. We're losing so much right now, it's not even funny. I'd recommend that we get started on that right away. It'll buy us some goodwill, free up a lot of lost cash, and make the office a little less scary for me to be in. That said, it's going to take a while to get results. This is a massive project, and we need money soon. If you want to work on some more practical projects first, I have some proposals. All of them designed to get us some more...well, everything. I'm sure you've noticed that we're short."
Choose 1.
[-] Taking Stock: Your predecessor was a corrupt piece of shit, and under his tenure, your government caught that disease, and badly. Virmire produces everything it needs in embarrassing excess, but you're losing several mountain ranges of the stuff through inefficiencies and bribes. It needs to be fixed...but it's going to be a long project. To start with, you need to figure out where it's all going. Time: 1 year. Chance of Success: 60%. Cost: 10,000 credits. Effect: Get an understanding of the staggering monument to excess and greed that is your government at the moment.
[-] Roadways and Trains: Virmire is very highly developed for a colony less than a century old, but...well, it's less than a century old and has expanded far more quickly than expected. Your infrastructure on the ground is embarrassingly ad-hoc and can't really handle the load of production efficiently. It'd be a large investment up-front, but some simple transit system improvements would ease the load on trade substantially, and that means credits. Time: 1 year. Chance of Success: 90% Cost: 20,000 credits. Effect: Ground infrastructure is modernized and streamlined. +10,000 Yearly Income, future development is easier and cheaper.
[X] Off-World Mining: Your home system of Hoc has some other bodies than Virmire itself, generally with only sparse development. Nemata in particular is a valuable prospect, being loaded with heavy metals, but the difficulty of working in a hothouse planet meant that exploitation was slow to progress. Fortunately, with the initial settlements already established, you can expand your mines there with relative ease by tapping into some veins that have been mapped out for a while. Time: 1 year. Chance of Success: 80%. Cost: 10,000 credits. Effect: +1,000 Yearly Income, +50,000 credits.
Intrigue: "Your predecessor tended to neglect my-" gshk "-Ministry, Madame Minister. I hope to establish a better-" gshk "-working relationship with you. While traditional methods of spying are fruitless against the Rachni, the MoI has been looking into-" gshk "-other ways we might productively spend our time. My proposals are in your secure inbox-" gshk" -with all of the appropriate encryption, I assure you."
Choose 1.
[-] Domestic Affairs: Lissa is an excellent accountant, but the problems she faces are extreme. If you're willing to authorize it, Minister Shurna is willing to task the Counter-Intelligence Division to assist, assisting her in finding those magnifying the corruption issue and removing some of the worst offenders. Nothing lethal, of course. But illegal...well, yes. Time: 1 year, Chance of Success: 70%. Cost: 10,000 credits. Effect: Must be taken in conjunction with, "Taking Stock." Significantly lowers the difficulty and cost of follow-up actions to, "Taking Stock," and increases its Chance of Success by 10%. Failure by more than ten may result in exposure and a scandal.
[X] The Sentry Network: At one point, the MoI created a new kind of surveillance satellite with a very low detection profile. The intent was to seed them on the other side of the Relay for better intelligence on the Rachni, but...impractical, of course. However, there are quite a few still lying around. Launching these listening posts at the edges of the system would be a very cheap proposition, and in the numbers available would grant some very good visibility of the neighboring systems in the cluster. Not very detailed, but enough to tell if there's something out there. Time: 1 year. Chance of Success: 90%. Cost: 5,000 credits. Effect: Gain low-detail live observation of surrounding systems.
[-] Bugs On Bugs: It's an unfortunate reality that the Marines attached to your fleet regularly have to fight boarding or counter-boarding actions against the Rachni. It's a horrible prospect, but it does present a somewhat...mostly...completely insane opportunity. San wants to secretly attach Intelligence Division agents to some of your vessels and task them with getting tracker beacons, listening devices, and hidden cameras onto Rachni soldiers and workers, in the hopes that some will make it back to their ships and transmit valuable data. It's...a long shot, she admits, and even a successful operation would be very costly in terms of lives and materiel. But when you think of what a success could mean, your knees go weak. Time: 1 year. Chance of Success: 30%. Cost: 30,000 credits. Effect: Gain snapshots of first-hand data on Rachni and their vessels.
Learning: "Madame Minister. I have compiled a report for you on what remains of the Rachni Plague. Currently, fewer than 4% of the population exhibit symptoms, and a mere 0.00000032% are expected to encounter lethal complications. However, I do still recommend that we pay major attention to our medical infrastructure; as Minister S'Voi could tell you, we're rather showing our rate of expansion. However, if you have other priorities in mind, I of course have other proposals on hand. We are not quite as direly pressed as the military. Turning away from the Medical Council, the Engineering Council has forwarded a proposal regarding the fleet, and the Research Council has forwarded a proposal from the Astronomy Board."
Choose 1.
[X] Medical Information: The first step to any revision of a troubled system with an unclear fix is assessment. The overwhelmed response to the Rachni Plague and a general shortfall in medical health indicates that problems exist, but to avoid making them worse you need to gather information first. Time: 1 year. Chance of Success: 70%. Cost: 10,000 credits. Effect: Sponsor inspection and field trials into the likely causes of the shortfalls in medical care in search of a set of solutions upon which you can act.
[-] Up To Code: It's not surprising that the Citadel doesn't approve of their colonies having local military forces with cutting-edge tech. Frankly, we can't get cutting-edge tech. But our vessels are a little dated even beyond that. Engineering is requesting a grant to attempt to bring our warships up to a more modern standard. If they find something, the military will need the budget and breathing space to put vessels in for refit, but it would be well worth it. Time: 1 year. Chance of Success: 60%. Cost: 25,000 credits. Effects: Gain access to modern-day refits for present vessels, and begin constructing such vessels by default.
[-] To Boldly Go: Whether or not a breakout from Sentry Omega is even feasible is, frankly, unknown. It would only be responsible to explore other avenues of escape. But before you touch the Mass Relays, with all of the now-obvious risks which those entail, it would be prudent to secure your flanks. An exploration mission is only wise, and the Research Council assures you that they don't even need a grant. Just a loan of some corvettes, which they would return good as new. Time: 1 year. Chance of Success: 75% per corvette. Cost: 10 corvettes for one year. Effects: Survey neighboring systems in the Sentry Omega cluster for issues or opportunities. Failure by more than ten may result in the loss of corvettes.
Personal: You have your own things that need doing as well. You have a life outside of this office...sometimes.
Choose 1.
[X] Personal Attention: Sometimes, a project needs all hands on deck, including yours. Time: 1 year. Chance of Success: 100%. Cost: none. Effect: Oversee one of your chosen actions personally, adding your full stat in the relevant category (i.e., Martial for Martial actions) to the success roll.
-Added to, "Ministry Reorganization."
[-] Get To Know San: Your Minister of Intelligence is a woman you can't read and don't know, and is much better at her job than you are. Try to fix this. Time: 1 year. Chance of Success: 40%. Cost: none. Effect: Develop a friendly professional relationship with San Shurna. Possible Intrigue gains for critical successes.
[-] Speak To the People: You have the support of the people, and should never take it for granted. Beyond that, they could use some cheering up, you'll bet. Time: 1 year. Chance of Success: 50%. Cost: 1,000 credits. Effect: Run a series of public broadcasts. Raise popularity with the populace. People who like you better are more likely to be willing to work for you.
THESE VOTES ARE NOW CLOSED.
I've updated the Rules Screen with the info, but here's how this works; you roll a d100 for every action and try to beat the Chance of Success. i.e., for a 75% chance, you try to roll a 26. You gain a bonus on this check equal to half the relevant stat of the Adviser of that category (i.e., half of Toral's Martial stat for Martial actions).
If you fail an action, you'll most often get a null result, but a sufficiently spectacular failure can lose you things, and I've noted the special cases where there's high risk up above. Natural 1's are automatic and critical failures regardless of the Chance of Success, and vice-versa for 100's.
As a reminder, as set out in the voting policy, voting is by plan; you vote for a single, cohesive plan for what you're doing during the year. Vote for only one; this is not ranked voting this time. For these year posts, I'm going to impose a 12-hour moratorium. During this time, brainstorm, chat, and propose write-ins for me to add to the list; I may not accept your suggestion, for various reasons, but I'll consider them all and tell you why not.
I hope you enjoy the first real update of Terminus Quest, folks! Have fun, and I'll see you in the thread! See ya!
AS ONE MORE REMINDER, TWELVE-HOUR MORATORIUM BEFORE VOTES OPEN. I'LL IGNORE YOURS IF IT POSTS BEFORE THEN. THAT'S 4:30 P.M. GMT TOMORROW.
[x] Plan Get Shit Done v2
-[x] Expanding Production
-[x] Ministry Reorganization
-[x] Off-World Mining
-[x] The Sentry Network
-[X] Medical Information
-[X] Personal Attention
--[X] Ministry Reorganization
Year 1 Results: 480 GS
Martial
46+11(Minister)=57. Required: 11. Success.
You stare down at the shipyard from above through a reinforced window, arms clasped behind your back. "Quite the improvement."
"But still not enough," mutter Torul from your right.
"Enough that we won't lose ships. Anymore." You sigh. "Well, on net."
Torul wordlessly passes you the casualty reports.
The two of you stand in silence for a moment.
"...we need more resources," you say, kneading the bridge of your nose. "This alone wiped almost half of our reserves. We can't build up enough on the trickle that's making its way to us."
"Not my department," says Torul, shrugging. "That's Minister S'Voi's job. I wish you luck, though. We're going to have a hell of a time of it." He pauses. "We may need to consider cheaper options-"
"I said no."
"Minister T'Vael-"
"I am not putting living beings on death traps like that."
"I understand your reluctance, but we may not have a choice. Any expansion costs money, and we need to start expanding soon."
"Durrahe has a proposal to get us better ships."
"And that will help. But no matter what, we will eventually need more. And with every expansion taking chunks like this out of our resources...we may need to buy ourselves some time to repurpose our existing yards."
You stare down at the light cruiser taking shape -- the first one of the two meant to replace the ones you lost this year. "...I'll think about it."
He nods. "Thank you. I hope you find another solution."
You give him a grim nod and go back to watching the new vessel.
As of year's end, you have achieved net stability in naval vessels. You can now replace your losses. However, that was the whole year without enough capacity to do so. This year you experienced a net loss of 2 light cruisers, 5 frigates, and 9 corvettes.
You stare down at the datapad in frustration. "...this isn't going to work."
"Not yet," replies Marae. "Patience, Mira."
"Marae, I'm looking at a year of effort and cost that went nowhere," you reply, giving your friend a foul look. "Yes, patience. I get it, asari are patient. But we need to be able to move quickly, or we're going to die. Relations is already in the position of having to prove itself useful. We can't afford projects failing to meet their deadlines!"
Marae gasps. "You don't mean-"
You slash your hand across at waist level, grimacing. "No. I'm just frustrated. It's what people are going to think, Marae. As far as the average citizen is concerned, your Ministry is a pit for money and talent, and little else. Having a year with nothing to show doesn't help."
"I understand all of that, but I wasn't just spouting platitudes when I preached patience," says Marae. "Mira, yes, it's true: we've had difficulties. Honestly, a lot of the people I have here...they're not suited to this kind of work. Most of them, in fact."
"Great," you mutter. "I have two Ministries full of rot."
"Maybe so," says Marae, unruffled. "However, I wouldn't worry too much if I were you. Yes, we have a problem -- but unlike Finance, this is rather simpler. Wipe and replace. Start again from the ground up."
You look up at her. "...I suppose that would let you have essentially free reign to put your policies into place..."
"That's the point," she replies, smiling demurely.
"You're going to have to shut down for...Goddess, at least another year. You'll get nothing done," you say.
"But at the end of that year, you'll have a professional Ministry of Relations," she says, smiling. "My word on it."
Slim Failure. Ministry of Relations is unsalvageable in current form. However, this makes the solution rather simple: fire everybody -- or almost everybody -- and hire a new Ministry which Marae can train as she likes. Action is locked for an additional year and will auto-succeed next year.
* * *
Stewardship
30+10(Minister)=40. Required: 21. Success.
The video call starts up with a flicker of static before stabilizing. Lissa's face appears. "Hello, hello? Mira? You there?"
"I hear you, Lissa," you say, shuffling through some tax forms. "Give me good news, sister."
"Aw, that's sweet."
"Lissa."
"Fine, fine! I do have good news! The mining drones have made the first breakthrough, and the miners are following them in. Looks like a fantastic seam of palladium. This is going to come in a lot of handy."
"Is it as we expected?" you ask, jotting down a few notes.
"Oh, yes. We're going to pull a lot of metal out of the ground this month. Further work later is going to bring in even more credits over time, too."
"That's good to hear," you say. "No problems?"
"None."
You smile, glancing at your friend. "I'm glad to hear that. Stay safe down there, Lissa."
"You stay safe over there!"
You roll your eyes. "See you next week." You cut the call and go back to your forms.
+50,000 credits from initial breakthrough into the richest parts of the vein. +1,000 credits to Yearly Income as the rush stabilizes afterwards.
* * *
Intrigue
57+12(Minister)=69. Required: 11. Great Success.
"Madame Minister, we have a-" gshk "-problem."
You look up at San Shurna, already feeling tired. "Minister Shurna, I am very busy. Unless the Sentry Network has catastrophically failed somehow, I would like to have this conversation later."
"It's not a failure," she says, her voice uncharacteristically brisk. "We-" gshk "-found something."
You stiffen in your seat, your head snapping up. "What? Tell me everything!"
Shurna hands you a datapad. "Do not upload that-" gshk "-to anything. The listening posts have picked up ship activity in Sentry Omega-4. Coreward of us." gshk
Your eyes race through the report. "Five vessels, frigate-class? Not an overwhelming force..."
"But one that should not be here." gshk "We don't have any information on who these vessels are, Madame Minister. Either there's another race out there-" gshk "-we haven't met yet, or these are renegades of some sort."
You slap down the datapad in annoyance. "As if we didn't have enough to be concerned with..."
"Whoever they are, they're not alone out there," warns Shurna.
"I know," you reply, looking up with an annoyed grimace. "I'm familiar with fleet logistics, Minister."
"Of course, Prime Minister. My-" gshk "-apologies. In that case -- where would you be hiding your support base, were you them?"
You lean back with a sigh. "I don't know. This cluster is a mystery to us -- obviously. At the very least I'd have it well away from the Relay system. Whoever they are, I doubt they've missed our presence here -- not if they're right next door. If they're a new race, they'll be scanning for anything they can. If they're renegades, they had to enter that way and they know about us already. Either way, their support base will be well ahead of the Relay either for security's sake or by happenstance."
"In that case, good," says Shurna. "The Network already have some preliminary survey data on the nearby systems." gshk "We'll still need to send ships to explore, but we've identified some gas giants that-" gshk "-should be suitable for drive core discharges."
"That will expand our effective range," you mutter, cradling your head. "Thank you for the report, Minister Shurna."
"My duty, Prime Minister."
Sentry Listening Post Network set up. Exploration rolls for nearby systems become slightly easier. Small force of frigate-sized vessels detected in neighboring system.
* * *
Learning
85+10(Minister)=95. Required: 31. Great Success.
"This is appalling," you whisper, staring at the city in shock.
You're in one of the primarily asari settlements on Virmire. This area is rich in eezo deposits, and it's leaked into the environment. As a result, only asari can really settle here safely if they're going to have children -- other races might get biotics, sure, but their kids might also be born with malignant tumors.
And given what you're seeing here, there's no way those children would survive that.
"Agreed," says Durrahe, his lips pinched in an angry scowl. "A city of four hundred thousand, and they have twelve doctors."
You shake your head. "I knew that we were stretched, but this...?"
He sighs. "Disease has never been an issue for Citadel space. I'm not surprised the Council never made a point of calling for doctors. Not for a colony. Not when their own governments' races need doctors as well. Not if it wasn't an obvious problem." He scowls. "How many people died waiting in line for my cure?"
"Just another reason to hate the Council," you say, folding your arms.
"Agreed."
The two of you watch as the line outside the doctor's office you're overlooking finishes wrapping around the block for a third time.
"Tell me there's good news," you say.
"Somewhat," he replies. "Supply rises to meet demand, as always. A network of unofficial clinics has sprouted up -- here, and all across the planet. The people there aren't doctors -- they often have no medical training at all."
You knead your brow. "Good news?"
"The good news is that this network is fairly organized," he replies. "They have a few canny administrators running things, and they've elected to place the clinics at the disposal of the actual doctors. Typically, from our studies, doctors tend to delegate treatment duties to them after the doctors diagnose, except for the truly urgent work. It's not perfect, but it's there. By all indications, we should be able to make use of it. The workers at these clinics aren't doctors, but from what we've found, it won't be a stretch to train them up to nurse standards and get their clinics official funding. We'll still be well behind modern standards, but by offering these workers training, we'll be able to at least get consistent, official coverage, and fewer people will suffer from amateur mistakes."
"That's good to hear," you say, scrubbing at your face. "Goddess, it's been a long year." You stare down at the line for a moment. "I think I admire them, you know," you say. "The clinic workers."
"They're not entirely altruistic," he snorts. "Most of them still charge credits." Then his voice softens. "But yes. Admirable. They saw a need, and filled it. I don't care to imagine what might have happened if they hadn't stepped forward."
You nod fervently.
Extent of medical infrastructure shortfall now apparent. However, your studies picked up on the unofficial clinic network, which is in a fit state to be exploited. Follow-up options reduced in cost and difficulty.
* * *
Personal
You lent your personal assistance to Marae's Ministry reorganization. While it regrettably was not successful, with the two of you working on it you are at least now sure that you've exhausted all options of remediation before your current, nuclear option.
* * *
End Year 1
Hope you had fun, folks! The Year 2 post will be up later today! Status Screen has been updated with the new information; I'll need to reorganize it soon with all of the data that needs to go there!
