Terminus Quest: A CKII Mass Effect Quest

Martial: Military Outposts

Rolled: 44+11(Minister)+24(Personal)=79. Needed: 36. Success.

Resources, orders, communications back and forth -- it seems that you're never going to be finished building ship basing. At least this time it'll be a matter of reinforcing the hold you already have on your cluster, and it'll let you actually give your home a patrol.

You've been nervous about the Lystheni's secret navy, and who knows what else the galaxy holds?

Outpost set up; basing crisis averted. Selection at bottom of post. -40,000 credits.

Martial: Take Over the Explorer Corps

Rolled: 82+11(Minister)=93. Needed: 16. Greater Success.

Captain Jamar Kurik and the rest of the Explorer Corps's first crop of recruits stand to attention in a massive, cavernous hanger, with the Explorer-class corvettes and the new Revelation-crass frigates to their backs as Minister K'Sharr addresses the Corps, the officers selected to administrate the new formation flanking him.

"Members of the Explorer Corps! You have fought for the realization of this project for years. You have labored for years! You have deployed in service of your mission even before you were ready! And at no point have you disappointed. It is in large part thanks to your efforts that the 3rd Rannoch War Fleet today lies safe in our shipyards, undergoing repairs, rather than languishing in a Rachni scrap bay!" K'Sharr leans back. "Recruits of the Explorer Corps! You are among the first individuals officially registered to this Corps, yet already you have a proud tradition to honor! Look to these men and women; the first of the Corps!" He points, and Kurik stands a little straighter under the attention. K'Sharr says, "They have already distinguished themselves; veterans one and all. Not a one of them without experience in the navy, and all of them saw action in Operation Resurgent Grace! Their skill, daring, and bravery are the example to which you all should aspire!"

K'Sharr leans back again. "We face an enemy that despises our very existence. This is a fight for the lives of all of our people. And not just our people, but the galaxy itself! In a conflict of this scale -- the first truly galactic war! -- necessity calls upon us to deliver a new breed of warrior -- a new breed of soldier. We need somebody to go forth and boldly go into the unknown wherever it is to be found. Whether it be the shrouded danger of enemy fleets, the shadow games of intelligence, or the simple unknown of the reaches of space, you shall be the ones to carry the torch. It will be your ships that first break new ground in systems yet unvisited by Virmirean vessels! It will be your boots that first break the ground of new worlds! Your enemy will be the Rachni, yes, but first and foremost, your enemy will be ignorance itself! Virmire needs good eyes to show it how to act. You all shall be those eyes." K'Sharr looks down. "Captain Jamar Kurik, step forward."

Kurik steps out from the ranks and snaps off a salute. "Sir!"

"Captain, you have already distinguished yourself even above and beyond the standard set by your comrades-in-arms. Your valor, ingenuity, and boldness have left lasting marks on the character of this program. And these are qualities that we feel should be recognized." K'Sharr steps aside, and Rear Admiral Yelena S'Rinna, the new head of the Explorer Corps, takes his place. She looks down at Kurik.

"Captain," she says, "you have demonstrated the finest examples for the Explorer Corps. We have debated this decision long and hard, but in the end, your leadership in challenging situations of all spheres of the Explorer Corps's mission statement has won out. Are you prepared to receive your orders?"

"I am, ma'am!" replies Kurik, eyes straight ahead.

"Good. Your orders are to be the example this Corps needs. To continue to carry the light into the unknown." The command officers' stage is backed by the shadowed back half of the hangar in which the EC recruits stand -- a deployment hangar, meant for the boarding of massive numbers of troops and equipment. As S'Rinna speaks, the lights in that back half come on.

The ship displayed there is gorgeous. Not in aesthetics -- although there clearly were a few asari on the design committee -- but in terms of what it can do. In a sweep of his eyes, Kurik sees state-of-the-art fusion drives, sensors fit for a mining survey ship, kinetic barrier projectors indicating formidable shielding...

...and a three-hundred-meter-long spinal cannon.

S'Rinna smiles. "You are hereby ordered to assume command of the VWS Emancipator, flagship of the Explorer Corps, effective immediately, as the Captain in command of the vessel and her crew."

Kurik isn't quite sure how, but he somehow snaps even further to attention. "Yes ma'am!"

S'Rinna looks out across the assembly. "Sailors of the Explorer Corps...salute!"

With a loud, precise, thud, thousands of boot heels hit the ground as the crews of the Corps come to attention and salute.

S'Rinna comes to as well, her hand hovering by her brow. "Dismissed!"

Explorer Corps transition handled par excellence, with the MoW actually managing to complete several ship orders the MotS had delayed for months or years due to budget restraints...including the VWS Emancipator, lead and only ship of the new Emancipator-class Survey Cruisers (naval designation code CS). Explorer-class corvettes formalized as Survey Corvette ship class (KS) with military corvettes re-branded as a distinct class (now KK); Revelation-class Survey Frigates (FS) commissioned. Corps formalized as a branch of your navy under the command of Rear Admiral Yelena S'Rinna. -20,000 credits.

Diplomacy: PR, Always PR

Rolled: 100+11=111. Needed: 33. Natural Critical Success.

You rejected the Bill of Declaration for many reasons. Concerns that just then, right as you were reaching out to the Citadel, was not the right time. Worries about the lack of formal input you would have on the Bill. Far and away, though, your largest was your concern about the Assembly, in their first major decision, trying to circumvent your veto authority by trying to pass a bill to pass a bill, sight unseen.

There were reasons you kept the veto. You need to look after the defenses of Virmire rather than having to worry about a bill being passed by civilian outsiders that might undermine that by mistake. A part of that obligation is the need to form external alliances, and that means that you need to have input and deciding power over whatever terms Virmire seeks for independence -- whatever those terms may or may not be! You cannot afford to let a bill pass that jeopardizes the possibility of military cooperation with the Citadel in the future. You cannot. If independence is best for the people of Virmire, you will support it. You will initiate it! And if it isn't the best thing for the people, then it'll be because you make the Council weep tears of blood and credits in reparation for leaving you all to die with no notice at all. You will do what is best for Virmire no matter what agenda it fits! And you will not be backed into a corner that might jeopardize that.

And...you say that. You say just that, over and over. You say it on public broadcast. You say it in front of crowds of reporters. You say it, over and over again, to the Secessionists, in your regular meetings with the party's leadership.

You start seeing shame in their eyes, after a while. These are the people who spearheaded the Bill of Declaration; the ones who dared to organize in opposition to you. And as your public speeches turn their public support against them and you repeatedly throw into their faces that your job is bigger than their desire to secede, you see them coming to regret that choice.

You have gutted the Secessionist party as a political force. Their support base has collapsed, and even the party's internal motivation has begun to wither as a result of your campaign. They continue to meet and discuss their concerns, especially as you continue to hear those concerns, but Kirai is all but certain that if you declared independence tomorrow, the Secessionists would simply fade away. That may even happen on its own, should you refrain. Those supporters they have not managed to hold have returned to your camp once more. No gain of loyalist sentiment in broader Virmirean populace. -15,000 credits.

Diplomacy: Investigate the Secessionists

Rolled: 30+11(Minister)=41. Needed: 29. Success.

As for the Secessionists themselves, your meetings reveal a far less nefarious picture than you had originally envisioned. This wasn't organized in advance; it just so happens that a lot of these delegates to the Assembly genuinely did run on a secessionist platform, and when you vetoed the bill, organizing in support of their position was the obvious next step.

It's honestly somewhat frustrating to you. You want to be a check on the spread of political parties, not the cause of them. And yet, you can't see how you could have avoided this. At least you've stepped on them hard enough that they're already flagging.

At any rate, the leadership has been cooperative -- honestly, they seemed relieved that they didn't have to go in against you, perhaps recognizing it as political suicide. At any rate, they have presented to you a list of concerns:

1. That they and their supporters (much reduced) desire a clear, legally-binding resolution removing Virmire from Citadel administration.
2. That they wish for there to be formal reparations to Virmire from the Citadel.
3. That following the war, they want Virmire to have the right to claim, as the foundation of their new state, the territory they will be fighting to secure -- and, realistically and necessarily, develop.

There are smaller sub-issues, and everybody has a different mental image of what precisely independence would look like, but at the end of the day, those are the issues on which they as a party could agree. Despite the loss of support they experienced as a result of your PR maneuvers, you know that their stance is one shared by a large slice of your population -- and, realistically, that precious few people even outside their members would object to any of those terms. These would be a solid basis on which to build an eventual declaration of your own.

Secessionists cooperative with your investigation. Information on common principles gained. You now know what any eventual Declaration would need to contain, at minimum, in order to gain the party's approval. Bear in mind that this party can speak only for itself and its (present and former) membership -- but those were the politically-active ones, were they not? -15,000 credits.

Stewardship: Expand the FDO

29+10(Minister)=39. Needed: 11. Success.

Director Virani smiles and nods to you. "Prime Minister. A pleasure to see you again. Thank you for taking the time to grant me this meeting."

You nod back. "Of course, Director. We can both agree that the FDO plays a vital role in our economy. You've more than proven your office's value. And that is why I have decided to grant your request to double its funding"

Virani tilts her head, smirking. "Then why am I here? Just to tell me? You would have sent a message. You have more important things to be doing. So...?"

"Smart woman," you say, nodding. "You requested that I expand your remit as well as your budget. You're here today to sell that idea to me."

Virani doesn't even blink. She flips her datapad up from her lap, swipes her fingers across the screen, and brings up a document. "I took the liberty of preparing notes."

You give her a stern look.

She shrugs. "I knew what you'd probably want to discuss. May I begin?"

You wave your hand at her, leaning back.

Clearing her throat, the matron says, "The FDO has, during its tenure, been responsible for consistent and reliable increases in the infrastructural quality of Virmirean space. Not only have we opened new mining colonies with regularity, we have overseen the construction of infrastructure projects in service to current and future expansion. We have saved the wider Ministry of Finance invaluable time and attention. However, that is not the only form of aid we can render." She looks up. "We are responsible for mining interests, and them alone. However, they are not the only installations we can build. In particular, another interest of the state has been research stations. In addition to being invaluable additions to the war effort, these stations could serve a vital role in extending Virmire's logistics network deeper into the Sentry Omega cluster. Any station expands our network of available ship docks. With the mission statement of the FDO being to expand our ability to move within the cluster, having the ability to construct these stations will prove invaluable."

"You could make that argument for all space installations in general," you observe. "Do you want a remit to handle all space-based construction now?"

"Of course not," says Virani. "That would be absolute overkill. What I want is the authority to do my job. You've told me to build bridges, but if a system has no mining prospects, but rather has research or military opportunities, the only thing I can do there is build free-floating docks, which any further development will render obsolete." She sits back. "At the moment, I don't strictly need this authority. I can build a pipeline to SO 28 and its surrounds on mining systems alone; I have. All relevant interests you're likely to pursue in the near future have acceptable paths. But if you ever want to develop SO 25 for the volus, or even if we simply explore more and find additional opportunities we wish to exploit, that won't always remain the case."

You lean forward. "Yet, that doesn't answer one of my core concerns with the issue. Your remit is building bridges, not funding research. Research is something in which I take an interest. First and foremost, my priority is to build ships and fight Rachni, but we must never forget that our thin technological edge is an advantage. I fund research with that in mind. If your priority is infrastructure, that is not strong incentive to develop out-of-the-way research opportunities."

She sets her datapad down. "That's true, but it is easily enough solved: communicate with me. Tell me what the research priorities are. I don't need you to spend time micromanaging my outpost selection -- that's why my job exists at all. But if you simply communicate to me how urgent a priority a given research goal is, I can fit that into my lists."

You lean back, considering.

FDO budget doubled, effective next year. Options below for the extent (or existence) of your expansion of the FDO's remit. -35,000 yearly income.

Stewardship: Rebalance Food Production

Rolled: 74+10(Minister)=84. Needed: 21. Greater Success.

Happily for everybody, the task of feeding your guests is one with solutions, and one you have no trouble addressing. Lissa sends out notices to the farming and fishing communities scattered across the surface of Virmire, and just like that, harvest yields and the yearly culls shift slightly. On this scale it's not a matter of making serious sacrifices elsewhere; the quarians have a bare fraction of your overall population. The issue here is just a matter of scraping together an exact dietary plan for every quarian on the fleet. Every meal of every day is going to be the same collection of foods, in the same amounts, without variation.

Lissa does this without significant difficulties, fortunately. The food production system swings smoothly into place. It's nothing they weren't already making, after all. The harvest and cull come in, and the quarians tuck in.

Malan has already, with an interesting mixture of gratitude and amusement, relayed his people's good-natured griping about the monotony of the meals. Apparently, the last remnants of their onboard supplies have swiftly become a reward for excellent performance.

It's probably not a permanent solution -- morale will be a very clear and present danger for quarians during their long stay, and an unbroken monotony of food won't help that. But for now, they eat, drink, and be merry enough for your purposes.

Food crisis solved. The hit to morale was less severe than expected, for now. -30,000 credits.

FDO Report

This year's report has something of an anticipatory feel to it, as Virani reports the settlement of SO 27 as the system of Simalya.

You actually blink at that. You were certain that you'd be seeing her crowing about colonizing SO 28 itself. It seems she anticipated your surprise, though, and included her reasoning -- logistics. Simalya is about as direct a waypoint to SO 28 as Tarramir is, and the more places through which she can route traffic once the microcluster really takes off, the better she'll feel. It is, you admit, a good argument. More than that, it reassures you that she isn't letting her pet project go to her head with the goal finally within sight. She's keeping her office's directives in mind.

She further notes that she has elected to bank the remainder of her budget in anticipation of a spending spree this upcoming year, so you acknowledge that she doesn't exactly have to wait long.

+15,000 yearly income.
Intrigue: Databanks

Rolled: 49+12(Minister)+15(Hero Unit)=76. Needed: 31. Success.

Jamar Kurik and his tech specialist, a salarian named Ramier, stroll through the corridors of the RSS Perseus, following the Virmirean maintenance crew on its way to the engineering spaces. Once nobody is looking, the two dart off down a side corridor.

"One of the do-not-enter zones is just down this way," murmurs Kurik, pulling up their map. "Should be a spot to slice in there, given where we're restricted."

"Assuming we aren't caught," snaps Ramier under his breath. "Why I let you pull me into these things, Captain, I'll never know..."

"Orders aren't suggestions," says Jamar in a breezy tone, smirking. "So, if you're looking for somebody to blame..."

"Of course," says Ramier, rolling his eyes. Then he comes to a halt, hissing as he and Kurik duck back around the corner. "Oh, fantastic."

A quarian soldier stands at a panel tucked into a corner, working away at something. She glances back once, noticing nothing, before returning to her work.

"And that's what we want," whispers Kurik, peering down the corridor at her.

"That?" snaps Ramier under his breath. "Captain, there's a tech right there! We need to find another spot."

"We can play off getting lost once, not twice," replies Jamar, glancing around. His eyes light on a side passage. He checks his map. "...and I have a plan."

Moments later, the woman turns at the sound of approaching footsteps before her hand snaps down to her sidearm. "Hey! You're not supposed to be here!"

Jamar gives her a friendly smile, hands in plain view. "Sorry. I was just passing by the corridor on other business, and...well, I was quite taken by the sight."

She raises a skeptical eyebrow at him. "That so?"

"Oh yes," he says. "I must admit, I've never seen a quarian outside of armor before. Not in person." He chuckles. "All the thoughts just flew out of my head."

Despite herself, a tiny flush appears on her cheeks.

Ramier, creeping towards the panel behind her after looping through a few passages, shakes his head. I will never understand how these people get anything done with their mating impulses always on like that.

Data secured. Quarian shipbuilding techniques, tactical doctrine, and engineering manuals recovered. -25,000 credits.

Intrigue: Digging For Receipts

Rolled: 97+12(Minister)=109. Needed: 46. Greater Critical Success.

Reading between the lines, Shurna's people had quite the adventure getting their hands on this data.

With the command you now possess over the Lystheni's transmissions, it wasn't difficult for them to get their hands on the names of some of the Lystheni's command staff. What military they have appears, at first glance, to be somewhat part-time; partially due to their population bottleneck imposed by resource limitations, and partially because they appear to be trying to obscure who's a member of their navy by always having deployments be excused as, "business trips." You haven't yet found anybody who doesn't fit in their duty rotations around a full-time job elsewhere in Lystheni society.

It is...stunningly inefficient, yet entirely typical of the paranoia you now expect from Lystheni.

The exciting bit appears to be their slow work at infiltrating this military. It turns out that, with a bit of makeup, your salarians can pass for the Lystheni's dominant phenotype, and from there it was a matter of a few extremely careful forays into their wider society to ask some leading questions.

Only for them to find that this was not, in fact, the way to go about things.

Vague questions led to the vague answers people give to members of their in-group who can be presumed to already know necessary context, which went back to your analysts for cross-checking. Then those vague questions got a little more specific, and thus so did the answers. Pass by pass, your agents verified small pieces of data, until they had a clear picture of the nature of the Lystheni Navy.

Namely, that nobody even in the navy knows how big it is or what's in it! Everything is compartmentalized. Nobody knows everything. It's maddening.

And then, one of your agents catches an idle comment about Requisitions being a pain in the cloaca about getting materials to them on-time, and something clicks.

A week of reviewing surveillance footage later, your agents finally get their lead.

As it turned out, only two people in Lystheni society have enough information to paint an accurate picture of their fleet's numbers and composition. The Dalatrass...and her High Admiral. A male who apparently died several years ago in an industrial accident...and yet has the curious habit of personally buying every bulk purchase of the material you've identified as going to the Lystheni navy, every time under a different name.

Stunningly inefficient. Entirely typical of their usual paranoia.

And yet, not paranoid enough, because when your agents make a covert raid on his home...

Itemized fleet roster for Lystheni navy secured, complete with vessel blueprints. At some point, the Lystheni stole your frigate designs, because they've reproduced them whole cloth. Their corvettes and light cruiser model, on the other hand, are their own make, and pathetic models at that. The entire thing put together is about the size of the Explorer Corps, and by the looks of it, that's all that the Lystheni can currently support without complete industrial collapse. -32,000 credits.

Learning: Dispense the Fun Coupons

Durrahe's people work overtime this year to get the medical program out the door. It has come together far more swiftly than they ever dared to hope, and already they've managed to draw back active oversight from the project and turn it over to the state bureaucracy.

All that's left now is the waiting.

Option unlocked; completes in five years.

Learning: Emergency Response

Rolled: 15+11(Minister)+17=43. Needed: 51. Slim Failure.

Even as the MotS works frantically to get the medical revival program moving, you spearhead the work on the quarians' medical emergency. You contribute mostly by lending your authority to places that need it -- authority to give this medical supplies transport the right-of-way over any traffic, authority to release this many credits to this pharmaceuticals corporation, and on, and on -- while Durrahe gets to work telling you where it's needed. You both work yourselves to the bone.

You can tell when it's not going to work out when the day finally comes where Durrahe tells you where not to spend your effort. Despite a funding push on the scale of the medical programs you're implementing, and despite the desperate need...it's just not enough to make a whole new medical industry pop up overnight. It happens...but too slowly.

You watch, helpless, as resources run short and the laws of triage come into effect.

The day after Durrahe first tells you to let something lie, you call Malan into your office and let him know to tell his soldiers that they need to start getting ready to say goodbyes.

After he fought his way through the Hades Nexus and the Nubian Expanse, you figured you'd never see anything capable of breaking this man.

You don't feel great about the fact that he had the chance to prove you right.

While you managed to get your medical industry working and producing the right goods, it came too late for many. The quarians' medical crisis is solved.

They no longer have the problem of having some hands going spare. -50,000 credits.

---

Credit Reserves: 398,000 credits.

Yearly Income: 298,000 credits.

Where did you build the military outpost that will be the future base for the 3rd RWF for the duration of their stay?

[ ][BASE] SO 13. Trailing of Tamure, SO 13 offers intriguing naval maneuver training opportunities thanks to the complex gravitational interactions seven stars around a black hole create. Furthermore, likely as a quirk of its formation, the system is very isolated from even its nearest neighbors, making it much easier to enforce security. After all, it being convenient to nothing means that the only people there are people with reason to be there. If the quarians are going to base out of your territory, they might as well keep sharp, and your own forces will benefit as well.
[ ][BASE] Now directly neighboring your space with the exploitation of Tarramir, SO 31 is valuable, not merely for the outer-system gas giants suitable for drive discharges and easily accessible to incoming craft, not merely for the low-gravity inner-system planet ideal for ground-based shipyards for anything up to and including heavy cruisers, not merely for the fact that its crust is as hard as nature makes rock and is all but impervious to orbital bombardment -- it also serves as an iron-clad anchor for the SO 28 microcluster, which Virani has begun to finally exploit.

What is your stance on the state of the FDO's remit?

[ ][FDO] You trust neither Virani's focus nor her ambition. Her remit remains the same.
[ ][FDO] Virani makes good points regarding research outposts, and communicating your priorities to subordinates is not a new idea. Durrahe can funnel project requests to her via Lissa.
[ ][FDO] In addition to research outposts, you will give Virani the authority to build military outposts. The obvious basing benefits will keep her building them as often as she can.
[ ][FDO] While giving the FDO total authority over full colonies would be a horrid mangling of their mission, they have proven their talent at the colonist selection process, in their own operations and in your preparations to settle the prospect in Assilia. In addition to the above, also integrate the Office into the selection process for new colonies as a matter of course.

TWO-HOUR MORATORIUM. THIS VOTE IS NOW CLOSED.

Let me know if I made any mistakes, folks! Now...

*collapses, unconscious*