Arcadia Progress Report
Moving into your second year as Lead Director, much of Arcadia's focus was concentrated on the two projects that you'd begun the year before. Here you found one of the larger differences between Arcadia and your time as President. Where then you'd been able to move between various priorities easily, something Arcadia lacked, there was an upside. Once fully staffed and focused, your research teams built year on year on the progress made before. Sometimes this could discover new ways to parse the data and give new avenues of resolution of further study. Others would benefit from long term data processing. And sometimes, it was simply to have the time to finish what you'd started. It might be embarrassing, but it was true.
Your work on reverse-engineering what you'd created the year the Contact Fleet arrived had gone very well, but a combination of circumstance and pure bad luck had held you back just short of success. It was frustrating to have failed so slightly with Phoebe, Mary and you all working together. Yet it had happened and as the year turned new, you wondered if there was a way to make that a good thing. What you were doing had been done before, but never quite so…intimately. With that in mind you resolved to make the lessons count, and there was no one better to help with that than Phoebe. In this, much like yourself, she could find a way to resolve her own frustration, and success will come this year. You with the research teams would be enough.
Clairvoyance: 90 + 26 (Learning) + 23 (Phoebe) + 5 (Momentum 1) + 35 (78 vs DC 70, Mary bonus activated) = 179 + 149 = 328/150
In the end, it wasn't even 'just' you and Phoebe. In her singular appearance outside of her own projects within the Institute, Mary involved herself in the final parts of the reverse engineering and what came after. It's the latter that draws her more than anything else, but you're glad to have her regardless; you know what she's capable of. First though, comes finishing the system you'd created. It's not easy to take an Artefact of Practice and break it down to something that doesn't require it, and you weren't sure that what you named a Clarion is completely uninfluenced by Practice. But they could be built without Potentials and that's what mattered in the end. After testing several of the final models yourself, you found them to be mere imitations of your Artefact, but more than capable of the purpose they'd been designed for.
With that done, you delved deeper. Phoebe's help was much more limited here, concerned that directing her Focus at parts of the process might trigger the same backlash that Insight's contemporaries were savaged by decades ago. It wasn't just her life she was protecting, though it was priceless enough on its own; she was also protecting Project Insight. And yet it mattered little, beneath the blistering power of your best friend's mind. Mary has always been known in some circles as the Daughter of Secrets, with a knowledge of the science behind them greater than any other human in existence. Creating the Clarion used that knowledge throughout, but it also expanded it. The process of that learning gave Mary the time to actually record her thoughts in a medium more permanent than her oft-times frighteningly swift creative process.
You'd hoped for some theoretical papers, maybe some experiments. Mary produced what anyone else would call a partial thesis on the nature of how the process of Practice on a device can be untangled, the science buried beneath it and some of the first written work she'd ever produced on how the soul is involved in the process. You're not quite sure what to think when Mary called it terribly incomplete and in need of major rewrites. Still, you were a bit distracted that day. The Contact Fleet's representatives had asked to talk to you. Specifically. It wouldn't take long, just a day or two, and Mary actually encouraged you to take up the offer. What they wanted to talk about is obvious.
Clarion production begun early in the year. Rollover banked (+178) for future Practice reverse-engineering/Soul science projects. Research Action satisfied. Kendl and other delegates want to talk.
Do you want to see the Contact Fleet interaction? (2-3 Interludes maximum, would involve votes.)
[][Contact] Yes
[][Contact] No
That wasn't the only star that burns bright on Arcadia's crown this year, either. Work on the archives hidden within the Olympus Colleges continues, with Vision leading the way through the twisted paths of secured data in search of the codes she needs to unlock the system. Although she'd gained access to the database, the AI didn't believe herself capable of breaking the security measures around them. Something else was required to gain full control over the files, with Vision noting some peculiar limitations on her ability to work between the restrictions. Something that pre-Sorrows humanity had done, replicated by Practice. Her own curiosity in what those systems might be able to do if replicated brought her into the project again before you could even ask her to help. It's entirely out of your field, but according to the specialists assigned to the project what Vision had been showing them was astounding.
Of course, the focus of the project remained what it always had, access and analysis of the information still secured by the Spire's infowar defences for reasons that were twofold. Making sure that nothing in there could threaten you, and finding out what was in there that could help. You missed Marcus. His abilities would be perfect for this.
Olympus Unleashed: 100 + 91 + 26 (Learning) + 25 (Vision) + 10 (Mary Coordination) + 5 (Momentum 1) + 15 (87 vs DC 70, Iris bonus activates at 50%) = 267+ 43 = 310/250
Perfect, but ultimately, unnecessary. Iris was drawn into the project for much the same reasons as Vision, the two perspectives just different enough to work in support of each other instead of in unison. The mere echo of Mary's presence assumed in the voice of her daughter proves enough to inspire a fervour in the research teams that makes her very proud. They dug into the link that the two AIs created, trying to find ways to replicate the process used to create it. You're pretty sure they could have found a way, too, if what came next hadn't completely invalidated the need.
Somewhere in the depths of the Olympus system, Iris and Vision find something. Fragments of code, that even infomorphs like themselves found impossible to explain in full. A theory emerges from the records uncovered later, but their initial reaction is that they're looking at the remains of an entity much like themselves. After ensuring that no malicious code is present, Vision tries to access one of the fragments with help from Iris; at an infospace level your daughter had been designed to do things like this. The results are not what any involved had expected, and you're quite certain that the stress of that short space of time when Iris and Vision proved entirely unresponsive were rather bad for your sanity. But you can't argue with the results.
Before the Burning, Olympus and the other pre-Sorrows Martian research centres had been overseen by a central intelligence entrenched in the Spire; a tailored entity you discover was referred to as Nabu. It had been something very close to Vision, but not quite capable of fully independent thought. When the Restoration occurred, the massive act of Practice pulled through parts of it, but the new systems couldn't parse the code. Only pieces of a much larger whole remained and it's those that Vision and Iris discover. An echo of a mind.
A mind that had as close to full administrative access as any.
As the year comes to an end, Mary is still berating Iris for the truly reckless risks she took, but also praising her at random for what that risk won in return. Full access to the restricted databanks of the old College, with the ability to extend those permissions freely. There's no Second Secret data in there, but there is some theory on the First Secret and…other possibilities. There are some similarities here to what Mary found in the Red Tower, but they're far more complete.
Iris and Vision gain Trait: Echo of Nabu. Restricted databanks fully indexed and unlocked. Rollover banked (+60) for future Secret-based research. General bonus unlocked to Secret-based research. Research Action satisfied.
Part of Mary's lenience is a result of how some of the database material proved of more immediate use than you'd expected. The humanity that first met the Shiplords lost, it's true, but the Dragons went down swinging. Killing two Collectors whilst under assault by anti-Second Secret construct weaponry couldn't have been easy. Mars was the centre of the fleet's design and construction. Even if the Second Secret mechanisms for how their weapons were constructed are gone, how they worked remained. Much of the data is useless, but some could have merit. Lina proves welcoming towards anything you can give her, and is quick to network your specialists with her own R&D teams.
Since you stood down, Lina's carried through on the projects you helped her lay out during your final year in office. Her new designs are well into prototyping stages now, but there's still ample room for improvement before she brings them into full production. The possibility of new weapons is met with tentative interest, which you can understand. The trinity of missiles, particle beams and gravity shear has ruled the stars for longer than humanity has known fire. Breaking that monopoly would take something very special. Some attention is directed to the new studies, but the true contribution of Arcadia to the process is something quite different. Lina's prototypes are miracles of human ingenuity, all the more so for not requiring a single piece of Practiced technology in their core systems. She still uses it where she can, but the limitations of the Makers are very understood.
What Lina asks for is help with integration. Bringing all of the systems in the new designs together hasn't been easy, but she wants to push the envelope. Analysis of the Collector hulls has suggested a fluidity of internal structure that makes modular construction look like a half-melted set of toy blocks. You've delved into this matter already, giving your ships the ability to repair and reconfigure under fire. This is bigger.
Blades of Infinity: 80 + 26 (Learning) + 10 (Mary Coordination) = 116/200
War Office Development: 91 + 42 + 10 = 143 + 116 = 259/200.
So you give it your all. From the beginning, it was obvious that what you're trying to create here was a far more advanced version of the reconfiguration nanotech researched after the Second Battle of Sol. In that, the work done last year on infrastructure support is a major boon. There are similarities between the linking nanotech refined there and what the combined team tries to create this year. To build the weapons that the FSN needs, you need a foundation that is as strong as it is adaptable. With the addition of Inviolate Matter to capital ship designs, this philosophy is made a great deal harder; fluid reconfiguration lies wholly at odds with ship components that can't come too close together without losing coherency. There are ways around that, however and not for nothing is Arcadia recognised as the greatest collection of human talent since before the Sorrows.
Adaptive modularity isn't the only thing that Arcadia finds itself pursuing in the fields of war, either. Generational refinements of core systems are well underway by the year's end, and one of your teams is pushing the boundaries on what they think could be an efficient contemporary to particle weapons at knife-ranges. How useful something like that would be against a Regular Fleet, you're not sure, but you produce the designs all the same. The War Office can decide if they're usable. You also find a solution, or at least a stopgap, to the Inviolate Matter issue. There's still a ways to go to deliver the foundation Lina's asked for, but you're definitely on your way.
First stage development complete. Rollover banked (+59). Research action unsatisfied.
Finally, there's the matter of your own, more personal development project. With the Residence's workshop unavailable, you take over an unused lab within the Institute complex to experiment with the Practiced devices you've created. Part of you is tempted by the idea of making something new again, but it takes time to adjust to a new Artefact and you've not had enough yet to consider making another. It still leaves you several options. There are the two creations that Mary gifted you after you opened the Elder's Vault, half-forgotten and still unknown respectively. Spending the time to understand them would be its own reward, and could even lead to the opportunity to integrate them into your Unison Platform. Assuming that's even possible for the crystal you created, of course.
Or there's your scanner. You could integrate that with Sidra this year, now that you've unlocked enough of its secrets to be able to produce Clarions. You're not really sure what it would do in combination with a Unison Platform, but given the example of your Concert Set, it would almost certainly be something good.
Due to having constructed an Artefact very recently and a poor roll, you are currently incapable of building a new Artefact at this time. This limits you to study of current devices, or integration of one with your Unison Platform.
[][Tinker] World's Remedy - Study
[][Tinker] Blackbody Mystery - Study
[][Tinker] Mender's Eye - Integration
