To the Triangulum Galaxy

[Lunaryon]

Your day starts like any other...

BREEP BREEP BREEP

You glare throgh blurry eyes at the source of the offending sound.

BREEP BREEP BREEP

The damned alarm clock continues to scream at your shrilly, even as a hand roughly slaps at it, and after a moment the sound stops. Peace. Quiet. You roll over in bed, grumbling at the past version of you who decided that you needed to have your alarm go off an hour before you actually needed to be awake.

...

It's nearly thirty five minutes later that you stumble out of bed and into the bathroom.

Another ten minutes pass before you exit the bathroom, a yawn on your lips as you shoulder on a bathrobe and finally truly start your day. Naturally this means Coffee. One cup is really all you should be having...

You stifle a yawn as you start on your second, and having finished gathering your documents and folders and notes, you take a third out with you to the car. You've got plenty of time, it's close to an hour before you actually need to arrive.

The traffice in DC is as terrible as ever.

You sit in your car, waiting for the light to turn green.

Waiting.

Waiting.

Waiting for the car in front of you to notice that the light is green.

...and now you are waiting again.

Thankfully the white car that you were sitting behind ended up turning left to get onto the highway, so you don't have to worry about being stuck behind them again. Now, you just have to hurry onwards so that you can get to work on time.​

And end up hitting every single fucking red light along the way.

Suffice to say you do not get to work on time. Entering into the office, you head through giving a short nod to the doorman, and quickly flashing your ID to the guard at the elevator.

The ride down the elevator is quiet, but comfortable. Entering into the office space itself, you head down the hall until you reach a familiar room, with a familar plaque on the the door.

Beneath the plaque is a small image of your home nations flag.

[ ][Director] Your name! What is it?
- [ ] Your gender

[ ][Nationality] American -- +2 Martial, -2 Intrigue, Trait: Bunnyears Lawyer - The men and women under your command have a tendency to be a bit odd, but they are the best at what they do. Your units have a higher chance of developing traits from missions, but also have a higher chance of things going off the rails as well.
[ ][Nationality] Russian -- +2 Intrigue, -2 Diplomacy, Trait: Reverse Compatibility - Bonus to reverse engineering discovered tech, but a malus to developing new tech
[ ][Nationality] Japanese -- +2 Learning, -2 Martial, Trait: Advanced Prototype - the research cost of developing new technologies is higher, but completing a research project gives research points to related projects
[ ][Nationality] British -- +2 Diplomacy, -2 Stewardship, Trait: Royal Guard - Units are less likely to gain traits through missions, however they gain a slight increase to EXP gain
[ ][Nationality] Chinese -- +2 Stewardship, -2 Learning, +1 Martial, -1 Diplomacy

Your stat vote is a ranked vote - 1 is the most wanted, and 5 is the least wanted.
[ ][Stat] Martial
[ ][Stat] Intrigue
[ ][Stat] Diplomacy
[ ][Stat] Stewardship
[ ][Stat] Learning

Entering into your office, you immedietely notice that there are two envelops on your desk. Opening the first of the letters, you start to read.

the letter reads

​

the letter reads

CLASSIFICATION BB-27593 DELTA OMEGA
DESTROY AFTER READING​

Director,

Following the successes of the Atlantis Project, and the noteworthy lack of Ori presences within both the Pegasus Dwarf Irregular Galaxy and the Ida Galaxy, you have been selected to lead the Triangulum Galaxy Colonization Project.

You are hereby instructed by the International Oversight Advisory Committee to create a stable and fully self-sufficient colony for the Tau'ri within the Triangulum Galaxy as a means of preserving the culture and history of the people of Earth should it and it's allies fall to the Ori.

Thanks to the efforts of Doctors Meredith Rodney McKay and Daniel Jackson, along with the rest of the Home World Security Science Division, we have deciphered an Eight Chevron Gate Address that we have determined connects to the Triangulum Galaxy. All evidence that we have points to this address connecting to an Alteran Atlantis Class Cityship, which we have tentatively identified as the 'El Dorado'.

Contained within this file is all all the information that the Atlantis Project has gathered on the design, structure, and workings of the Atlantis Class Cityship, along with a list of dossiers of personal who have been authorized to take part in this expedition. You need to choose from the following -

Head of Security
Lead Diplomat
Administrator
Head of Reconnaissance
Lead Researcher

Remember, your mission is to create a self-sufficient colony, as it takes over six months to travel the distance between the Triangulum and the Milky Way by Hyper space, and we will not be able to send anyone to reinforce or resupply you until the Ori have been pushed back.

Good luck, and choose wisely.
Richard P. Woolsey
American Representative of the International Oversight Advisory Committee​

This is... Well this is a thing that you were not expecting. Worse, this is just the first of the two letters, so there is probably even more news in the second letter. You take a few moments to slowly read over the letter a second time, trying to figure out what to make of this.

Shaking your head, you realize that before anything else, you really do need to figure out who you were thinking of placing in the different positions that you would need.

[ ][AdvisorM] Head of Security
[ ][AdvisorI] Head of Reconnaissance
[ ][AdvisorD] Head Diplomat
[ ][AdvisorS] Administrator
[ ][AdvisorL] Head Researcher

Spoiler: Dossiers

Marco Ellison
Age: 28
Sex: M
- Martial - 19
- Intrigue - 1
- Diplomacy - 5
- Stewardship - 0
- Learning - 2

Jace Shmitt
Age: 34
Sex: M
- Martial - 12
- Intrigue - 19
- Diplomacy - 1
- Stewardship - 5
- Learning - 4

McKenzie Squires
Age: 26
Sex: F
- Martial - 15
- Intrigue - 10
- Diplomacy -13
- Stewardship -13
- Learning -17

Amie Nairn
Age: 50
Sex: F
- Martial - 13
- Intrigue -14
- Diplomacy -13
- Stewardship -9
- Learning -0

Aleksandra Greer
Age: 21
Sex: F
- Martial -3
- Intrigue -6
- Diplomacy -13
- Stewardship -17
- Learning -14

Athena Connors
Age: 43
Sex: F
- Martial -15
- Intrigue -12
- Diplomacy -5
- Stewardship -6
- Learning -17

Maiya Delaney
Age: 30
Sex: F
- Martial - 19
- Intrigue -13
- Diplomacy -19
- Stewardship -17
- Learning -12

Owen Lester
Age: 22
Sex: M
- Martial -6
- Intrigue -2
- Diplomacy -14
- Stewardship -4
- Learning -2

Lilliana Snyder
Age: 17
Sex: F
- Martial -6
- Intrigue -11
- Diplomacy -0
- Stewardship -16
- Learning -21

Huey Leon
Age: 43
Sex: M
- Martial -13
- Intrigue -14
- Diplomacy -7
- Stewardship -19
- Learning -9

Peyton Kinsey
Age: 18
Sex: M
- Martial -5
- Intrigue -17
- Diplomacy -11
- Stewardship -0
- Learning -7

Cade Carty
Age: 22
Sex: M
- Martial -11
- Intrigue -3
- Diplomacy -2
- Stewardship -1
- Learning -7

Bethan Dyer
Age: 60
Sex: M
- Martial -1
- Intrigue -17
- Diplomacy -20
- Stewardship -15
- Learning -2

Mariah Tate
Age: 32
Sex: F
- Martial -18
- Intrigue -15
- Diplomacy -5
- Stewardship -2
- Learning -1

Kay Reese
Age: 20
Sex: F
- Martial -11
- Intrigue -10
- Diplomacy -17
- Stewardship -19
- Learning -15

Roscoe Mccormick
Age: 32
Sex: M
- Martial -9
- Intrigue -18
- Diplomacy -16
- Stewardship -2
- Learning -16

Cayson Brandt
Age: 33
Sex: M
- Martial -16
- Intrigue -17
- Diplomacy -1
- Stewardship -11
- Learning -6

Cooper Rush
Age: 28
Sex: M
- Martial -9
- Intrigue -3
- Diplomacy -6
- Stewardship -18
- Learning -15

Blessing Wharton
Age: 50
Sex: F
- Martial -2
- Intrigue -4
- Diplomacy -16
- Stewardship -13
- Learning -9

Kara Travers
Age: 23
Sex: F
- Martial -3
- Intrigue -7
- Diplomacy -4
- Stewardship -12
- Learning -14

Fannie Mendoza
Age: 56
Sex: F
- Martial -7
- Intrigue -7
- Diplomacy -7
- Stewardship -7
- Learning -7
Trait: Odd Paperwork - There is something very... strange about this paperwork. You worry that it won't match the actual person.

Jordan-Lee Franco
Age: 24
Sex: M
- Martial -19
- Intrigue -15
- Diplomacy -1
- Stewardship -11
- Learning -14

Alysia Stewart
Age: 42
Sex: F
- Martial -3
- Intrigue -13
- Diplomacy -3
- Stewardship -8
- Learning -2

Viktor Macias
Age: 22
Sex: M
- Martial -8
- Intrigue -9
- Diplomacy -9
- Stewardship -19
- Learning -1

Mary Rhodes
Age:99
Sex:M
- Martial -1
- Intrigue -1
- Diplomacy -1
- Stewardship -1
- Learning -1
Trait: Odd Paperwork - There is something very... strange about this paperwork. You worry that it won't match the actual person.

Lainey Bellamy
Age:26
Sex: F
- Martial - 17
- Intrigue -5
- Diplomacy -15
- Stewardship -8
- Learning -19

Hoorain Cherry
Age: 29
Sex: F
- Martial -16
- Intrigue -12
- Diplomacy -14
- Stewardship -5
- Learning -15

Aaron Barr
Age: 25
Sex: M
- Martial -21
- Intrigue -21
- Diplomacy -21
- Stewardship -21
- Learning -21
Trait: Odd Paperwork - There is something very... strange about this paperwork. You worry that it won't match the actual person.

Jason Wright
Age: 29
Sex: M
- Martial -3
- Intrigue -15
- Diplomacy -0
- Stewardship -6
- Learning -16

Nimra Salinas
Age: 33
Sex: M
- Martial -17
- Intrigue - 9
- Diplomacy - 4
- Stewardship - 18
- Learning - 15

Francheska Audiotore
Age: 99
Sex: M
- Martial -10
- Intrigue -10
- Diplomacy -10
- Stewardship -10
- Learning -10
Trait: Odd Paperwork - There is something very... strange about this paperwork. You worry that it won't match the actual person.

Jorden Shea
Age: 35
Sex: M
- Martial -7
- Intrigue -11
- Diplomacy -3
- Stewardship -18
- Learning -12

Anabelle Heaton
Age: 25
Sex: F
- Martial -5
- Intrigue -16
- Diplomacy -18
- Stewardship -3
- Learning -15

Farhaan Lara
Age: 52
Sex: F
- Martial - 16
- Intrigue - 16
- Diplomacy - 16
- Stewardship - 16
- Learning - 16
Trait: Odd Paperwork - There is something very... strange about this paperwork. You worry that it won't match the actual person.

---

Welcome!
​

This is To the Triangulum Galaxy, A Stargate quest in the style of the CKII system!! 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 -- which represent their facility in various areas of administration. The players get a number of actions each turn per category.

This quest in particular involves your character being elected as the Director of an Extra-galactic colony for the Tau'ri. At the moment the quest has a single goal... Reach a point of self-sufficiency that you do not need the power and influence of the Tau'ri to stand on your own.

Now, I am going to assume that readers have a certain level of familiarity with the Stargate mythos, but if you have questions ask away, I can normally provide pointers to wiki pages that explain things, but anything that isn't particularly common knowledge will likely be explained when it comes up.
Anyways, welcome to the quest, and I'm going to see about getting the threadmarked posts updated, but that will likely have to wait till after work tomorrow for some of that.​

 

[Lunaryon]

Rules Screen*​

The Basics

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.

Play is usually conducted in bi-weekly 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. 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.

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:

0-4: Incompetent
5-8: Poor
9-12: Decent
13-16: Competent
17-20: Expert
21-24: Masterful
25-28: Legendary
29 and higher: Incomparable

Other than the action economy, the players will also need to keep track of their budget. Your budget, or Credit 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.

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. I abstract them this way 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. Once we get to a point where there are factions, I will edit this.

Player Mandates

[ERROR SECTION UNDER DEVELOPMENT]

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.

[ERROR SECTION UNDER DEVELOPMENT]

The game ends in a loss if your entire state is wiped out. Avoid this.

Combat Mechanics

Here is how combat works in this quest:

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.

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.

Voting Rules

By default for the regular 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.

Turn posts incorporate an automatic twelve-hour moratorium for the purposes of discussion, short- and long-term planning, and the proposal of write-ins for me to consider. Event chain posts will incorporate two- to three-hour moratoriums. 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

[CURRENTLY WAITING UPDATE TO NEW SCHEDULE]

*Stat screen developed by PoptartProdigy​

 

[Lunaryon]

Director Advisors Heroes

• Attributes Traits Titles Personal Relations

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• Martial Intrigue Diplomacy Stewardship Learning

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• Title Title Title Title

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[Lunaryon]

Status Screen

 

[Lunaryon]

Lore go here

 

[Lunaryon]

Thread is now open

 

[Hadrian.Caeser]

This looks like it could be fun. Is it on Spacebattles too?

 

[Lunaryon]

I'm afraid that since it's been over a week without a single vote that this is dead on arrival.

I'll eventually return to this idea, but it's going to need some reworking to make it easier to handle.