Remove ads

For The Tyrants Fear Your Might (A quest of interstellar rebellion)

Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
Reader mode
Remove ads
Status Panel/Codex
  • Informational
    • THE ALL-RADIANT CONGRESS

    ​

    Setting Information
    The Solarian Compact:

    Initially formed as the Solarian Treaty Organization from the ashes of the old United Nations Security Council, United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs, and the Global Climate Relief Organization in the worst decade of Earth's environmental collapse. The STO was originally a body tasked with overseeing the granting of offworld mining permits and the purchase and distribution of the resources to countries struggling from climate change.


    The advent of the Korolev-Chandrashker gates and the construction of the first one under STO oversight in 2063 led to the beginning of the transformation of that body into the de facto single governing body of the Human species.


    Reorganized into the 'Solarian Compact', the first Charters were granted to massive corporate conglomerates to explore and exploit the cosmos for Humanity with little to no regulation or restriction.


    In the early decades, the Solarian Compact oversaw the construction of KC gates in the systems closest to Sol and began the process of granting colonization rights to the most habitable worlds within that region with colonization rights granted to a number of national and international blocks.


    With the growth of the Solarian Compact's power came calls for the body to become more representative and democratic, and in 2099, the Solarian Compact held its first elections and constitutional convention, inviting representatives from the Sol system and the five systems that held permanent Human settlement.


    Over the course of the 22nd and 23rd centuries the Solarian Compact has held fast to what it sees as its duty to act as the mediator and financier of the Charters, the unifying agent of the disparate first Human colonies, and the guarantor of interstellar peace for Humanity.


    As of 2252, the three most important bodies within the Solarian Compact are the Solarian Parliament -Located on Earth, the Solarian Compact Navy -based in the Korolev-Chandrashker system, and the Solarian Central Bank, -based out of the Columbia System.

    Organized as a liberal democracy, with universal suffrage, the Solarian Compact is theoretically overseen by three equal institutions: the Solarian Parliament, the office of the Solarian Secretary General, and the Solarian High Court.


    Though the Solarian Compact prides itself on being a Constitutional government, the actual original document merely outlines the terms of admitting new MPs and High Court Judges, and the electoral procedures of the Compact Parliament, with subsequent Parliaments meeting to add items like the Declaration of Property Rights, the founding of the Central Bank, the creation of the Solarian Navy, and the Laws on Freedom of Navigation and Travel being added later.


    The Solarian Parliament is made up of two thousand six hundred and twenty seats representing ridings on Earth, Columbia, Atlantis, Penglai, Olduvai, and Epsilon which are elected every three years to a Parliament that meets in the New York prefecture of Earth.


    Though the many frontier colonies do not have direct representation in the Parliament due to being owned and operated by private entities, their inhabitants are considered 'Absent for Employment' and may register with a home riding and submit a physical ballot (for security reasons) by courier from when polls open until they close. Though this process was suitable for the closely settled regions of space at the time of the ratification of the Compact Constitution in 2100, the rapid growth of Human settled space in the century and a half since has seen the de facto voter suppression of over 90% of Human settled space.


    At the first sitting of each new Compact Parliament, the assembled members will elect a Secretary General and a slate of Ministry officials on a majority basis, and those individuals will oversee the executive branch of government and day to day operations. Though the average Compact Parliament contains between seven to nine parties in each Parliamentary sitting, the vast majority of seats belong to one of either the Party for Human Rights and Liberties or the Justice and Development Alliance and have since the very early 2100s. The governments formed this way can be brought down by losing the confidence of the Parliament for example, by failing to pass a budget, the process of finding a majority government will repeat again.


    Though a democratic body that has maintained stability for over a century and a half, the Solarian Compact Parliament has been dogged by accusations of dynastic politics, Charter influence, voter suppression, regulatory capture, inability to reign in the Banks and MIlitary, and corruption at all levels.


    Separate from the Parliament is the Solarian High Court that consists of eleven judges that serve terms of up to thirty-three years, with each new sitting of the Compact Parliament selecting one judge from a list provided by the governments of the six main worlds of the Solarian Compact. The High Court rules on matters of adherence of laws to the Solarian Constitution, and have been accused of serving as an arm of the Charters, though this has been strenuously contested by the Solarian legal profession as a whole.


    By law the Solarian Compact also oversees a number of other important institutions including the Earth Reconstruction Commission (In a permanent public-private partnership with the Earth Reconstruction Association), the Solarian Central Bank, and the Solarian Compact Navy, though these important institutions often exhibit an alarming degree of autonomy from Parliamentary control.


    The Charters:

    The result of a cleverly conceived merger between specialty transport vessel manufacturer Titan Staryards and Private Military contractor Martian Military Solutions, Ares cut its teeth not just supplying material to the skirmishes between Mississippi Shipping and United Starhaul, but in supplying military contractors to both sides.


    The professionalism of Ares mercenaries and quality of Ares gear led to the rapid expansion of business opportunities for the company and investment skyrocketed even after the Mississippi-Starhaul war ended in a hostile takeover of Starhaul by Mississippi.


    Thanks in part to Mississippi debts held by Ares, when the RT-2102 Gate was opened up for settlement strategic maneuvering saw the Compact grant Ares mining and settlement rights to the newly opened system.


    The rest, as they say, is history. Leveraging the immense resources of the Alexander system with their existing military expertise, Ares expanded nearly exponentially over the following century. While they maintain a dominating edge in the military field, they now integrated companies in fields from agronomy to personal fitness centers to xenobiology.


    Internally Ares very self consciously styles itself as a hierarchical military organization complete with a semi-formal rank structure and an ethos of respect for the chain of command, professional courtesy, and treating your subordinates with respect. In practice Ares is hidebound, authoritarian, filled with passive aggressive sniping and rampant empire building.


    While Ares remains headquartered on Mars, they have holdings in several systems and own the distant system of Alexander outright.

    Rhodes Mining


    One of the three original Charters that the Compact granted, Rhodes considers itself the singular reason that Humanity survived ecological collapse and spread past Sol. Immensely wealthy, over 52% of all material mined and processed by the entire Human race has passed through Rhodes hands at one point or another.


    While founded merely to provide Earth the vital materials that it needed to rebuild itself after the lost decades of ecological collapse, Rhodes quickly expanded into all areas of the economy to support their mining, refining, and processing operations.


    Dedicated to their vision of logistical chain efficiencies they've developed an entire chain of star systems into an efficient production center based around the resource rich system of Foundry, and the nearby feeder systems of Ecrams, Qem, and Crucible.


    Rhodes considers itself home to a version of meritocracy built on hard work, education, and good old fashioned personal drive. This has developed over time into a stratified internal divide between the rank and file workers, the lower level management, and the highly lauded senior management. Each class lives in entirely separate worlds, attending separate schools, consuming different products, and leading very different lives in what many observers have labelled a de facto caste system.

    they make food and medicine, the 120 year old CEO is kinda creepy tho?

    Techbros, some of them science, some of them explore

    Born from the union of Hermes Interstellar Services and The Ishtar Group, the Hermes-Ishtar Corporation owns and operates not only the communications backbone of Compact space, but much of the content that crosses over it.


    The results of increasing consolidation of pre-spaceflight communications infrastructure and content creation and management firms, Hermes Communications and Ishtar Entertainment Group were both part of the second round of Charters established after the advent of the KC gates.


    While Hermes quickly established operations throughout Compact space, their waystations, couriers, and communications repeaters a common sight in every corner of Human occupied space; Ishtar Group mainly limited their own operations to Sol and the Radiant system, where Ishtar owned and operated the world of Elysium to support their many projects.


    Following a wave of Compact space wide reorganizations following the Mississippi-Starhaul conflicts of the 2130s, a desire for complete vertical integration on Ishtar's part led to a mostly amicable union with Hermes in 2139.


    Since then Hermes-Ishtar have dominated all communications across Human space with only the privileged internal high-level communications of the other Charters managing to avoid consolidation under Hermes-Ishtar.


    While Hermes-Ishtar make a great show of respecting individual creativity, initiative, and drive from their employees; in practice this amounts to rampant internal fighting involving the parasocial personality cults of different "genius" inventors, artists, and executive that rise and fall inside of Hermes-Ishtar at a dizzying rate.

    Sketchy buggers, they can get you anything tho


    Historical Topics:

    Between 2036 and 2071 the Democratic Federation was the governing body of much of Earth's Western Hemisphere.


    Initially comprised of a Federation of Socialist, Anarchist, Communist, and other far left social movements, militias, and political factions controlling regions of Earth's North American continent during and after the decline and collapse of the United States of America (1776-2034) due to the effects of unaddressed climate change amplifying existing political and economic crisis.


    Eventually solidifying into the governing body of the former United States of America, United States of Mexico and the Dominion of Canada, the Democratic Federation embarked on an ambitious program of cultural revolution and economic reform designed to mitigate and reverse the effects of the climate change crisis.


    As the patron of much of the central and southern western hemisphere, the Democratic Federation attempted to chart a course of environmental restoration separate from that of the Solarian Treaty Organization (In 2063 reorganized into the Solarian Charter), choosing not to contest Eurasian and African domination of outer space.


    Having never existed out of crisis conditions, a combination of pre-existing economic damage, sabotage, and instability drove the Democratic Federation into decline in the Grey Decade of 2062 to 2070 and eventually forced the Democratic Federation to ratify a series of treaties giving the Charters economic access to Federation member states in order to conduct vital reconstruction work.


    A last ditch uprising by radical elements in 2072 to eject the Charters from the Democratic Federation failed when Solarian Compact peacekeepers were called in and in seven months of street fighting pacified most of North America's key urban centers via strategic use of orbital weapons on the areas of greatest urban resistance.


    Though guerilla warfare would continue in the Western Hemisphere for another three decades, the Democratic Federation was officially defunct by December 2072 and parcelled out into a number of Charter owned reconstruction areas under Compact authority.


    Today radicals still pine for the four decades that the Democratic Federation attempted to build an alternative to the emerging Charters, and the polity's distinctive black, red, and green flag is brought out for each and every Great Black Summer. Well into the twenty second century, riots were often accompanied by demands to 'Avenge the Martyrs of 72!'.


    Despite this underground extremist nostalgia, Charter and Compact schools teach that the Democratic Federation was a collectivist state whose iconoclastic behavior saw the destruction of famous landmarks like Mount Rushmore, Stone Mountain, and other monuments to Liberal Democracy and the Free Market in a mad attempt to remake the human race, but whose doctrinaire adoption of command economics saw them unable to deal with the ever-changing complexities of climate change.


    Misc Details:

    The first five systems to hold permanent Human colonies are known as either "The First Sisters" or "Earth's Daughters", depending on who you are asking and their political persuasion. From oldest to youngest, these worlds are:


    Columbia: settled by billionaire American expats and tens of millions of refugees who had fled the unfolding revolutionary violence of the North American continent several years beforehand. Columbia was founded under a vision of fidelity to the American dream and to prove the indomitability of the soul of the United States of America and liberalism in the face of the red flags of the (North American) Democratic Federation. Fiercely loyal to the Compact and the dream of Charter prosperity, and home of the Solarian Central Bank, Columbia is often known as the "Gilded World" in reference to what many see as a return to American Gilded Age wealth and social inequality. Ares Conflict Solutions' central command is located here.


    Atlantis: With colonization rights to this majority oceanic planet initially granted to the waning power of the European Union, the nations of the EU opened up colonization opportunities to other allied powers, especially Russia and Egypt. Atlantis was often seen by the EU as a place to dump unwanted refugees from outside of Europe's borders, and Russia and Egypt's tendency to see the world as a genuine project led to the usurpation of colonization rights away from Europe in the mid 2080s. Known today as the most restive of the first wave of colonies, Atlantis is the most skeptical of Charter power and plays a delicate game of wealth redistribution to underwrite the greatest social security net in Human Space. Cernunnos is de jure headquartered here.


    Penglai: Originally the world in the most need of terraforming of the original colonies, Colonization rights were granted to the People's Republic of China and their allies after a lackluster bidding campaign. As China's focus was mainly on attempting to stem the damage of climate change on Earth herself, colonization of Penglai initially lagged until the Chinese Politburo struck upon the strategy of subcontracting colonization rights to Pacific adjacent nations suffering from the rise of that ocean. As colonization unfolded in the early 22nd century Penglai became known as a multicultural mosaic as hundreds of millions from across the Pacific settled and intermingled on the wine darkened shores of that world. Known today for its vibrant cultural milieu, violent clashes between labour unions, and private police, Penglai hosts the headquarters of the Hermes-Ishtar, Omoikane and Rhodes corporations.


    Olduvai: With Colonization rights granted to a coalition of African nations at the height of the 'African Century', the African Colonization Organization did not see their colony as a refugee destination, dumping ground, or resource colony like their fellows. Instead the ACO saw the colonization scheme as an opportunity to preserve and export the rich traditions and cultures of Africa on their own terms, fully intending to set up healthy and self-sufficient colonies. To the current day, Olduvai has the closest relations with the home nations and is the heartland of Daughter sentiment and a bedrock for the Party for Human Rights and Liberties.


    Epsilon System: While not technically a single world, the cluster of heavily inhabited space colonies in the Epsilon system are always considered the 'Fifth Sister' or 'Fifth Daughter'. As the most mineral rich system of the original colonies, Epsilon was the source of many of the materials that helped pull Earth through her darkest hour, and the system was recognized for their efforts by being invited to send delegates to the 2099 Solarian Compact Constitutional Convention. Epsilon is famous for its people's long roots in spacing and for being the headquarters of Mississippi Shipping Interstellar and thus the most heavily trafficked system in history.
    Technologies
    Nanomanufacturing, summary:

    The contemporary gold standard for manufacturing. These devices use mechanosynthesis, a process that guides chemical reactions by placing reactive molecules with atomic precision. Ribosomes in the body's cells use a form of this method.


    While the largest units can create objects up to 2m x 2m x 2m, smaller units (halving the units each time) are viable on basically any human scale. Projects larger than this size (such as ships or buildings, need to be either grown layer-by-layer via nanofabricators attached to robotic arms, or assembled from smaller parts through traditional assembly line, dry dock, or construction processes.


    In principle basically anything can be made with these devices, and some materials can only be manufactured via these methods in microgravity. All manufacturing patterns in Compact Space feature Charter DRM using embedded explosive molecules like octaazacubane or cubic gauche nitrogen that will damage a disassembler or x-ray machine making reverse engineering of their products difficult.

    A common part of 23rd century life is the near ubiquity of Artificial Intelligences in daily life, from consumer grade VIs through specialist TLIs, controversial AGIs, finally the perpetually 10 years away Artificial Super Intelligences.


    The common consumer will daily run into what are properly known as Narrow AIs, and generally labelled as VI -Virtual Intelligences- by people outside the field. This category covers a broad swathe of techniques, from search and pathfinding to expert systems to genetic fuzzy trees to deep neural networks, which are mixed and matched with each other to optimize for the designed task. VIs are ubiquitous, exceeding human peak skill in their areas of specialization (though real world applications often don't do all that much better than trained humans), and have spent the past two centuries getting augmented with more and more clever algorithmic tricks for improving VIs. In order to do this, the Charters employ large teams of analysts and software engineers to develop clever algorithmic tricks that supplement or outright supplant neural networks, exploiting machine precision where stochastic methods are inadequate.


    The use of VIs in everyday life is well accepted by the vast majority of the population, with professionals mixing and matching various consumer VIs to analyse data or assist them with creative or scientific works. Some VI lines are well loved by both the populace and the Charters themselves, with Charter programmers often deliberately leaving VIs with behavioral quirks and unpredictable glitches that not only save money on quality assurance, but are considered endearing traits that lead to anthropomorphization by the consumer market

    Despite the mass comfortability and profitability of VIs of all kinds, the introduction of AGIs has been, to put it delicately, controversial. Though computer science has advanced to the point of producing programs that can not only pass the Turing test, but demonstrate sapience and match 23rd century human intelligence, flexibility, and creativity, the public reaction to the introduction of AGI saw the companies of the time rapidly pull them from the market, and even say the Compact itself move to heavily regulate the AI sector.


    First introduced in the 2060s, the great tech firms began replacing their work staff with AGIs who did not require food, rest, housing, or pay. This shift led to an alliance between white collar workers fearing that automation would put them out of work and radicals who opposed what they insisted was AGI Slavery, a growing movement that would climax in the First Great Black Summer of 2084. When the ashes of the First Black Summer settled, the Compact's Parliament moved to grant rights to AGIs, and the resulting economic damage saw dozens of formerly great names in computing consolidate under the aegis of several of the first Charters who flaunted their extra-Solarian wealth by buying up prestigious brand names and research divisions on the cheap.


    Since the 2080s, while the regulation surrounding AGI production and use have been severely weakened none of the Charters have sought to reintroduce them into the market, perhaps fearing another backlash like the First Black Summer and the few hundred thousand surviving AGIs that were granted Solarian Citizenship rights have found spread throughout the Compact and Charter Space where they usually work at the same white collar jobs whose workers they were designed to replace.

    Perhaps due to the risks of attempting to reintroduce AGIs to the market, Omoikane has instead introduced their flagship product the "TLI" or Temporary Limited Intelligence. Approximately as effective as an AGI, a TLI is billed as a more moral replacement for AGI that uses a suite of high end VIs and a proprietary batch of creativity algorithms in order to complete complex tasks.


    TLIs are used as a fire and forget program designed to be licensed to solve a single issue, no matter how complicated and then delete itself. Though the TLIs are a black box product, scientists from the other Charters believe that the central creativity algorithm in the TLI is inherently unstable and rapidly degrades in ability with time, making the TLI an instance of Omoikane attempting to market a critical technical flaw as a selling point that is accepted due to the ubiquitous market practice of planned obsolescence and artificial scarcity.


    Though expensive, most businesses and successful professionals will keep a few licensed Omoikane TLIs on hand to throw at difficult problems or to supplement manpower in crunch situations.

    While AGIs have been possible for nearly two centuries, the promise of a Seed AI, a recursively self-improving general superintelligence, is perpetually 'a decade away from the market', and no successful ASI ever been demonstrated to the satisfaction of the Charters or the Compact.


    This is not to say that the Gödel machine architecture or the AIXI model has somehow been forgotten in the past 230 years, but that the Friendly AI problem has yet to be cracked. Every demonstration has either stalled out or gone immediately rampant, attempting to overthrow Charter Space before being stopped by the safety net of Narrow AIs. The small trickle of roughly human intelligence level AGIs that are created every decade typically come from these projects.


    Urban legends persist that a few Seed AIs managed to escape and hide out beyond known space, plotting to return and crush humanity, or that they control all of society in secret, puppeting the Compact and Charters from their very foundation and occasionally engineering publicly failed ASI attempts to allay suspicion. These rumours are, of course, patently false, and simply the fevered imagination of crackpots at work, no doubt inspired by entertainment made by Hermes-Ishtar that feature AI supervillainy.
    Systems
    Map made by @Redshirt Army


    The Spinward Frontier:



    The Middle Spinward Frontier

    The Core Region:

    UNDER RADIANT CONTROL OR ALLIED:

    The Radiant system is host to a G-class star, only slightly smaller than Sol. The system itself is rather small and resource-poor; experts believe that one or more Jovian planets ejected much of the system's bodies and then followed themselves. This is evidenced by the system's asteroid belt degrading over time, with high levels of eccentric orbits and impacts on planetary surface.


    Radiant 1: A rather unremarkable airless iron planet, gravity 0.4 Earth Standard.


    Radiant 2: A slightly larger unremarkable airless iron-silicate planet, gravity 0.6 Earth Standard.


    Radiant 3: A binary planetary system and the outermost of the Radiant systems' planets.


    Asphodel (Radiant 3a): The larger of the Elysium 3 pair, Asphodel might have once hosted life of its own. That life has been snuffed out for hundreds of millions of years, though, as the planet's significant atmosphere began the runaway cycle of your usual hothouse planet. Hermes-Ishtar maintained a significant aerostat and automated surface miner operation for in-house manufacturing, given that the frequent asteroid impacts from the asteroid belt keep digging up chunks of the upper crust and having low-melting-point metals rain out of the sky and solidify, unoxidized, on the surface for collection. Gravity 1.4 Earth Standard.


    Elysium (Radiant 3b): Elysium was settled in the late 2190's, being a relatively simple affair. Simple life had already begun to evolve under its oceans, but continued orbital bombardment far past the lengths of things like Earth's Late Heavy Period had kept it there. It was a simple matter of forming up a small anti-asteroid task force armed with tugs and mining lasers to artificially end the pummeling, and the surface proved amenable to Terran life transplants. The colony is energy-self-sufficient, using a variety of solar, tidal, and nuclear power. Gravity 0.9 Earth Standard.


    Radiant I: The outermost significant feature of Radiant, this asteroid belt is more a loose mixture of a primordial asteroid belt much like Sol's with a Kuiper belt. The shepherding gas giants which once nudged all these rocks into their orbits are gone, and with it the entire outer system is a maelstrom of chaotic orbits as the belts lose their coherence. This requires constant vigilance from Elysium's anti-asteroid team, but the high eccentricity of many asteroids also makes it cheap and easy to mine the ones that might come Elysium's way, which provides a trickle of basic resources for upkeep and personal goods. All large-scale building and infrastructure projects have been supplied from out-system, however.

    A G-K far binary system, Gaid is simply a transit point to Radiant. Gaid's own gate maintenance techs and SAR rotated in and out through Radiant itself. There is no infrastructure other than a set of buoy lines for communications in Gaid A, and nothing in Gaid B.

    Gaid A1: An airless world. Quality 10.

    Gaid A2: A planet much like mars with a vestigial CO2 atmosphere. Quality 7.

    Gaid A3: This planet boasts a methane hydrosphere. Quality 4.

    Gaid AI: An asteroid belt.

    Gaid A4: A turbulent Jovian planet, its storms would make resource extraction difficult. Quality 5.

    Gaid A4a: An icy moon, with tidal heating creating a large ocean under a thin icy shell. Quality 9.

    Gaid B1: A molten Cthonian world hosting a simply ludicrous amount of iron. Quality 15.

    Gaid B2: An airless world. Quality 10.

    Gaid B3: An airless binary system with two near-identically sized planets. Quality 7 and 8.

    Gaid B4: This airless planet boasts a large and beautiful ring system, famous as a screen background option across human space. Every few years, a cruise or scientific expedition will stop by for more images.

    Gaid B5: A small icy planet. Quality 3.

    Gaid B6: A frozen world. Quality 7.

    Gaid B7: An interesting gas dwarf sometimes referred to as an 'ice dwarf.' Quality 14.

    A close K-M binary, Shei is home to an old Ares penal colony.

    Shei 1: A Cthonian world. Quality 15.

    Shei 2: An airless world. Quality 12.

    Sheol (Shei 3): A boreal world, with a large, decaying ring, the planet features two large continents. The population of the consists of a large prisoner population on the larger of the two continents and a small Ares training base on the smaller. Records show that the prison consists of several million persons convicted to "high risk labour" and dropped on the continent with automatic resupply via Ares contractors and watched from orbit by weapons satellites. Most of the planet's land area is covered in a native tree analogue with a strange multi-stranded trunk.


    Sheol is actually home to a population of over 100 million made up of prisoners and their descendants taht Ares was usuing as a live fire training course. Cooperation between Radiant agents, Ares mutineers, and the Sheolites themselves have seen the planet freed.


    Gravity .95 Earth Standard. Quality 12.

    Watchman (Shei 3a): Once the outer of two moons, this body now boasts Ares' local light shipyards and system command center. Quality 13.

    Shei 4: Spiraling in from the outer system, this planet will eventually evaporate near-entirely as it closes towards the dual suns of Shei. Quality 3.

    Shei 5: Martian planet with an active methane cycle. Quality 5.

    Shei I: Asteroid belt.

    Shei 6: Jovian planet with high rotation rate. Slightly squashed as a result. Quality 8.

    Shei 6a: An icy capture, this moon will be torn into a ring sometime in the next hundred thousand years. Quality 2.

    Shei 6b: Cold Martian planet, covered in a thin layer of water and carbon dioxide ices. Active methane cycle. Quality 8.

    Shei II: Asteroid belt.

    Shei 7: Jovian planet. Quality 13.

    Shei 7a: An icy moon with significant cryovolcanism. Quality 6.

    Shei 7b: A tiny icy moon, this is on the edge of hydrostatic equilibrium. Quality 2.

    Shei 8: Ice giant. Quality 6.

    Shei 8a: An icy moon. Quality 9.

    Shei 8b: An icy moon, orbiting in an unusual polar orbit. Quality 9.

    Population: 103,000,000

    While lacking any currently-habitable planets, Five Lions' large size and potential have made it a significant point of Rhodes' recent extraction efforts. Ambitious terraforming efforts have recently begun.


    Carajas (Five Lions 1): A Cthonian ball of iron, it's actively mined by robotic Rhodes-built landers. Gravity 2.3 Earth Standard. Quality 12.


    Five Lions 2: A small rocky ball. Quality 3.


    Five Lions 3: A rocky ball. Quality 7.


    Grasberg (Five Lions 4): A large rocky world, glaciation has rendered it uninhabitable for now, but terraforming efforts have begun to artificially ramp up the greenhouse effect and restore liquid water to the surface, along with mining its ice. Gravity 1.11 Earth Standard. Quality 14.


    Five Lions 5: This planet's atmosphere is so significant it verges on a gas dwarf. While a solid surface covered in a thin layer of ice is at the bottom, no reasonable colonization is possible. Quality 7.


    Five Lions I: This asteroid belt, along with all the others, is being mined heavily.


    Five Lions 6: This Jovian planet forms the center of current Rhodes extraction efforts. Quality 4.


    Five Lions 6a: This Martian planet boasts significant ice caps and active plate tectonics, though only a vestigial atmosphere. Debate on whether to put resources into terraforming it are ongoing. Gravity .81 Earth Standard. Quality 17.


    Oyu Tolgoi (Five Lions 6b): Home to the local population in covered shelters, this Martian planet, while nearly completely lacking water or plate tectonics, has its own atmosphere. Comet bombardment away from populated areas is ongoing and is already beginning to show results. Gravity .79 Earth Standard. Quality 11.


    Five Lions II: An asteroid belt.


    Five Lions 7: An unremarkable Jovian. Quality 2.


    Five Lions III: An asteroid belt.


    Five Lions 8: Jovian planet, its rotation speed has resulted in an unusually calm upper atmosphere. Quality 15.


    Five Lions IV: An asteroid belt.


    Five Lions 9: Jovian planet. Quality 9.


    Five Lions V: An asteroid belt.


    Five Lions 10: Neptunian ice giant. Quality 8.


    Five Lions 10a: A small icy moon. Quality 5.


    Five Lions 10b: A large icy body, this was probably its own planetoid at some point before being captured due to the complex interplays of no less than 5 gas giants.


    Population: 15,000,000

    A rare system with a brown dwarf orbiting a G-type star (just barely in the limits of what's considered a single system rather than a binary), and with a Jovian planet orbiting that, and on top of that treasure trove a dual ice giant binary, Osliam presents a golden research opportunity, and was bid on by Omoikane despite its otherwise sparce resources and poor habitable prospects.


    Osliam 1: A rare hot ice giant, this planet is actively shrinking on a measurable time scale. It must have migrated in as a much larger planet recently.


    Osliam 1a: This once-rock-ice moon is now a tiny molten ellipse barely holding together.


    Osliam 1b: This somewhat larger moon changes color unusually with its day, as the shade of its parent cools lava to a dull red before emerging back into the light heats the lava back to a healthy orange glow.


    Osliam 1c: This entire moon glows dull red in its day, just barely solid, and cools to an unusually smooth moon in its night.


    Osliam I: This asteroid belt was probably a planet before Osliam 1's passing tore it to shreds.


    Osliam 3: A hothouse planet with a relatively thin atmosphere, it retains temperatures and pressures that are survivable with heavy-duty equipment on the surface—when it's not raining sulfuric acid, that is.


    Osliam 4: This small Martian planet seems to have collected some of Osliam 1's offgassing in its move inwards, and has a renewed temporary atmosphere.


    Osliam 5a: This planet seems to have survived at the edge of the frost line by siphoning gas off its smaller twin.


    Osliam 5b: Barely a gas giant, this planet was probably only slightly smaller than Osliam 5a in the distant past.


    Osliam 6: The focus of Omoikane colonization in-system, Osliam 6 retains plate tectonics from the nearby brown dwarf but no atmosphere, an odd combination.


    Osliam 7: A brown dwarf, this substellar object long ago burnt its deuterium and now lies slowly cooling, glowing dimly red. It is, however, still giving off a prodigious amount of low IR radiation.


    Osliam 7a: Once its own planet, Osliam 7a was captured at some point by Osliam 7, perhaps in the same interaction that threw Osliam 1 to its suicidal innermost orbit.


    Osliam 7a1: This icy moon is simultaneously shrinking and becoming more habitable—while its outer layers of ice are sublimating, the fierce tides of its complex interplay with Osliam 7 and 7a are heating the inner ocean to temperatures comparable to terrestrial water sources. Some scientists even suggest a pocket of water vapor is forming under the ice, and may form an internal "sky" for as much as a hundred million years before the outer shell sublimates entirely.


    Osliam 7a2: This moon is less lucky; its tides are so strong that they seem to slowly be ripping the moon apart. It won't have the honor of becoming more than an ephemeral ring; the same complex tides tearing at it will rapidly disperse its debris field. While it lasts, though, it's easy water harvesting.


    Population: 650,000

    UNDER CHARTER CONTROL:


    A distant double G binary, Xotreh hosts a small habitable moon around Xotreh B, the smaller of the two stars. As such, development has focused on the second star, despite the fact that the jump points center closer to Xotreh A.


    Xotreh A1: This world boasts an active liquid silicate cycle on its surface, with oceans of basalt and continents of granite. Gravity 0.38 Earth Standard. Quality 8.


    Xotreh A2: A rather large airless world, its original atmosphere was likely blown off by a massive impact. Gravity 1.2 Earth Standard. Quality 9.


    Xotreh A3: A binary planetary pair of airless worlds about the size of Mars. Quality 6 and 8.


    Xotreh A4: A hothouse planet with a planet-wide sulfuric acid storm due to its rapid rotation. Gravity .71 Earth Standard. Quality 8.


    Xotreh A5 "Cueball": This planet is remarkably similar to Earth—if earth was buried under a kilometers-thick ice sheet across 90% of the surface. One day, as Xotreh A expands and dies, this world will become an ocean planet, but for now it's a cold desert. Gravity .87 Earth Standard. Quality 5.


    Xotreh A6: An unremarkable icy ball. Quality 4.


    Xotreh AI: An asteroid belt.


    Xotreh A7: A Jovian planet, Xotreh 7 corrals the entire inner system in line. Quality 10.


    Xotreh B1: This planet must have once been a gas giant at least the size of Uranus before it was sent inwards. Now all that remains is a dense core with a molten surface. Gravity 1.51 Earth Standard. Quality 13.


    Xotreh B2: A binary pair of earth-sized airless worlds. Quality 6 and 7.


    Xotreh B3: Another once-gas giant, this planet remains far out enough to boast a wholly-solid surface of iron. Gravity 1.64 Earth Standard. Quality 14.


    Xotreh B4: A Jovian right on the frost line, its tidal heating keeps its moons on the edge of habitability. Quality 3.


    Xotreh B4a "Sushi": An ocean world with massive polar ice caps, Omoikane has constructed a series of seasteads on the equatorial high ocean plateaus where it was feasible to drive foundations into the sea floor a few hundred meters below the surface. These small facilities serve as housing, data storage, and production centers for the research teams studying the dual Cthonian planets of Xotreh B. Gravity .67 Earth Standard. Quality 2.


    Xotreh B4b: The lesser tidal heating here worsened the glaciation, and the planet lies under a planet-wide crust of ice. Gravity 1.13 Earth Standard. Quality 10.


    Xotreh BI: The close proximity of this asteroid belt makes it an ideal location for resource extraction.


    Xotreh 5: This Jovian is definitively beyond the habitable zone. Quality 6.


    Xotreh 6: A dense ice giant. Quality 4.


    Xotreh 7: Jovian planet. Quality 6.


    Xotreh 8: An exceptionally cold Jovian. Quality 9.


    Xotreh 8a: An unremarkable icy sphere. Quality 8.


    Xotreh 9: This planet would have a massive atmosphere, if it wasn't so cold it all froze and fell to the surface. Only a few degrees above the space surrounding it. Gravity 1.3 Earth Standard. Quality 9.


    Population: 54,000

    Besides an interesting Jovian-gas dwarf planetary system, Bestreer holds little of interest other than its connections to other places.


    Bestreer 1: An airless world. Quality 2.


    Bestreer 2: An airless world. Quality 6.


    Bestreer 3: This airless world once had a captured moon, torn apart at the Roche limit and forming a ring. A small gate maintenance and SAR team bases here, siphoning fuel and water from Bestreer 5 and mining into the surface for both resources and safe spaces for housing. Quality 10.


    Bestreer 4: A rock-ice world. Quality 5.


    Bestreer 5: Another rock-ice world made up more of ice than rock. Quality 5.


    Bestreer I: An icy asteroid belt.


    Bestreer 6: A large Jovian planet, on the edge of becoming a brown dwarf. Quality 15.


    Bestreer 6a: This gas dwarf might have become a gas giant in its own right without its massive sibling. Quality 5.


    Bestreer 7: Another Jovian. Quality 14.


    Bestreer 7a: An icy moon, with an internal ocean buried under kilometers of ice. Quality 12.


    Bestreer 8: An icy ball. Quality 10.


    Population: 450

    G-class star. A transshipping point to Radiant and environs, Mississippi keeps a substantial support crew on hand for possible cargo ship breakdowns or emergencies in-system, due to the slightly increased risk of issues from the absolute shambles of Akleod's inner system. A minor executive has also put together a cheap refueling and battery exchange station.


    Akleod 1: Even actively evaporating and leaving behind a trail in orbit of dissipating volatiles, this body is large enough to have usurped Akleod 1a's orbit temporarily until it disappears away or the chaotic orbit of the two throws one into the star or out of the system. Quality 2.


    Akleod 1a: The original Akleod 1, its orbit has been badly disrupted by the current, migrating Akleod 1. Which of the two gets ejected is still uncertain despite a decent amount of computational simulation; odds put it at 48-52% relatively. Quality 6.


    Gnat's Ass (Akleod 2): A small, loosely-held-together icy body, perhaps what used to be an asteroid belt before Akleod 1's suicidal inner-system dive. It's not yet had time to fully reach hydrostatic equilibrium. Quality 3.


    Akleod 3: An icy planet similar to Akleod 1, perhaps an old sibling. Quality 13.


    Akleod I: An asteroid belt.


    Akleod 4: A Jovian with an unusually elliptical orbit, it's regarded as the culprit for the chaos of Akleod's inner system. Quality 11.


    Population: 5,000

    As it turns out, transponder codes from regular priority messages through Gaid (now that we can see them, having backdoored the gate control) bear tags from a system, Thoa, along with navigational chart updates for any ships that happen to stop by. Thoa and Gaid both seem to have been nothing more than transit points to the far-more-valuable Radiant for Hermes-Ishtar, but Thoa holds a small anti-pirate base guarding against raiders from Signia. Hermes-Ishtar was apparently serious enough about it to have a converted corvette on station.

    All told, the Thoa system holds gates to 2 systems besides Gaid's. There's also an unimproved jump point simply labelled as "dangerous." that leads to Signia

    Thoa System Stats:

    Thoa 1: A molten mess of a planet, it's hot enough that a residual atmosphere of vaporized low-melting-point metallics exists.

    Thoa 2: An unremarkable airless metal ball.

    Thoa 3: A super-earth hothouse, this planet would have been uninhabitable due to its gravity even before turning scorchingly hot.

    Thoa 3a: A captured asteroid barely on the edge of hydrostatic equilibrium, the Nasty Bastardhad been excavating rudimentary shelters for "leave" for its crew.

    Thoa I: An asteroid belt.

    Thoa 4: A normal Jovian planet.

    Thoa 4a: A moon much like Mars in climate.

    Thoa 5: A Jovian planet with an unusual triangular wind pattern at the poles.

    Thoa 6: Blooms of hydrogen well up from the core of this Jovian, perhaps disturbed by some recent impact.

    Thoa 7: Bathyscapes would find themselves at home on the surface of Thoa 7. Pressures much like that at Earth's seabed keep a crust of ice 3 stable enough robotic drones could walk on it.

    Thoa 7a: Unusually, Thoa 7a is the only large icy body in the system. Scientists are unsure of where the others went. As the only easy source of volatiles, the UNasty Bastard periodically stopped by a handful of obsolete volatile collection systems on the surface to top up.

    Thoa II: A Kuiper belt of icy objects.

    Empty Systems

    Kimberly: A fairly unremarkable and empty system, this site was chosen as Rhodes' spinward boneyard—a place for failed experiments, old equipment, and ships so worn they weren't worth maintaining anymore, but were still valuable enough to warrant not throwing into a gas giant or otherwise completely destroyed. For 2 decades a Rhodes-affiliated salvaging contractor worked here, gathering scrap and other valuables, but following high injury and death rates and low returns, the contract (and most non-local dumping) was cancelled in 2247 (4 years before the March Days.)

    Kimberly 1: A large rocky planet, this must have migrated inwards from further out in the system a long time ago to be so large so close to its parent star.

    Kimberly 2: A Martian planet that keeps a comfortable daytime temperature despite its lack of atmosphere due to a close orbit.

    Kimberly 3: A Jovian world.

    Kimberly I: This asteroid belt is actually combined with a thinly-spread junkyard corralled by Kimberly's 2 gas giants.

    Kimberly 4: A Neptunian world, this planet has several starship hulks abandoned as the closest stable orbit to the gate out. An old deactivation hub orbits in resonance with Kimberly 4a, the former site of a salvaging operation.

    Kimberly 4a: The only significant satellite in the system, this icy moon retains a thin crust and a massive subterranean freshwater ocean.

    Total:


    Radiant:


    Gaid:


    Five Lions:


    Head of Diplomatic Corps:

    Name: Amanda Redcrest, Victoria Blackwell, and Kayla Hayashi


    DoB: "2222", 2219, 2227, 2224


    Current Position: Influential media figure and figurehead of Social Committee propaganda


    Not a traditional diplomat, or a traditional individual 'Veronica Stardust' is the persona of a trio of XP broadcasters who have been working together since 2246 and has consistently been one of the most recognized figures across Charter space and is a local Elysian celebrity.


    In Charter space those individuals who choose to make money by recording their lived experiences, of all kinds, for later playback are treated with an indulgent disdain by the polite classes as a mix of internet celebrity and sex worker despite the practice of selling XP experiences being common in the poorer segments of society and a smaller portion of the professional middle class attempting to stay afloat in a tight gig economy.


    Amanda Redcrest was a former media programmer whose attempts to supplement her income with XP work backfired and saw her fired from her job. Contrarily, Kayla and Victoria both come from lower class backgrounds, though Kayla's attempts to climb into the middle class by earning a marketing degree were frustrated when her lower class status markers and financing of education via XP work saw her frozen out of the job market.


    A former collaborator of Kayla's, Victoria had been a rising XP star in her own right and had no desire to change her station, but as her brief celebrity began to fade Victoria approached Kayla to propose the creation of a dedicated broadcasting persona that both would act as. Later bringing on Redcrest, who they'd both done crossover XP work with, to do technical work, the trio used carefully gathered market data and some intuition to create the "Veronica Stardust" persona of an middlingly-intelligent and freewheeling persona who played to the upper class's picture of what depravities and indignities the poorer class must get up to in their spare time.


    From 2246 to 2251 the Veronica Stardust persona (performed by all three at various times, though primarily Victoria) produced experience recordings that were nearly always in the top 10 best sellers across Charter space.


    Though they enjoyed the wealth that they brought in, the trio increasingly chafed at the market driven limitations of Veronica, and were considering a number of possibly catastrophic brand shifts when the March Days broke out and all three participated in street actions in a private capacity after sending one last broadcast as 'Veronica' to encourage revolt.


    Since the formation of the Social Committee the figure of Veronica has been rebranded to serve as the figurehead of Social Committee Propaganda and several major initiatives have been launched with her at the forefront including a highly successful part of the anti-overproduction initiatives.


    As part of the now-completed campaign to maintain the charade that Radiant was still under Charter control, Veronica Stardust continued to sell broadcasts to HI media chains, though the trio could not help but begin a brand shift towards a far more intelligent and radical persona.


    Pros: XP Celebrity, influential, well known, inspiring to the middle and lower classes


    Cons: XP celebrity, little diplomatic experience, three people


    Diplomatic Goals: Defeat the Charters in the field of public opinion, push social revolution and freedom of information and communication, cause public opinion to oppose attacking Radiant


    Unlocked FRM

    Ares Peacekeeping Grade - Access to planetary army formation

    Ares Military Grade - Access to mid-sized shipyards, bonuses to planetary army combat. Bonus to completion of Chinook remodeling


    Rhodes Light industrial Grade - 10% increase to all mining income, reduced Cost for BLG and other actions that use basic fabber processes

    Rhodes Heavy Industrial Grade - Massive discount on mining upgrades, able to unlock automated technologies with Omoikaine


    Cernunnos Consumer Grade - +1 to all Soccom actions

    Cernunnos Enterprise Grade - NOT UNLOCKED


    Omoikane Consumer Grade - +1 to FRM reserach for each two tech bases unlocked (+6 currently)

    Omoikane Enterprise Grade - +5 to blue sky research, automation with Omoikane


    Hermes-Ishtar Consumer Grade - Your economy doesn't crash when the turn of funding

    Hermes-Ishtar Production Grade - NOT UNLOCKED


    MSI Consumer Grade - Consumer Goods, Drones, and personal vehicles, +2 to domestic projects in IndComm and SocComm

    MSI Enterprise Grade - NOT UNLOCKED


    Original Tech

    The Box: Fabber the size of a X-box that can, with time, materials and power, print the components for a full sized box. Less efficient, but easy to print and hide.


    Defence Coordinator:


    Name: Maria Awhina

    DoB: 2165

    Current Position: Military Committee Delegate from the Radiant Veterans Guild


    Born into poverty on Earth as the twenty-second century began to wane, young 22-year old Maria Awhina caught up in radical anti-Charter politics during the third black summer of 2187 and was convicted of property destruction during the rioting and sentenced to serve as a contractor to Hermes-Ishtar until her contract was paid off.


    The stark choice of starvation or service to Hermes-Ishtar caused Maria to descend into self-destructive behavior where for twenty years Ms. Awhina continuously volunteered for the highest paid and most dangerous positions that Hermes-Ishtar had available.


    Hermes-Ishtar considers Special Operations Lieutenant Awhina to have served with distinction throughout the heavy skirmishing of that era, though Maria herself continues to carry guilt for her service and her survival.


    After performing exceptionally well in a hostage rescue operation Awhina was transferred to the Protective Detail Division of Hermes-Ishtar Security, and was eventually assigned to serve as the head of the Radiant Vice President's protective detail.


    Over the next four decades she came to see the world as her home, and while her professionalism never wavered, her loyalty to the company who still owned her contract did.


    This March, Maria had the option to gun down her fellow planetary headquarters workers to secure Yang's escape, or to finally return to roots in anti-Charter agitation. The fact that we are all here today shows what choice she made.


    Pros:

    -Actual Combat Veteran, knows Radiant inside and out, special operations expert, professional.


    Cons:

    -only academic knowledge of starship operations, logistics, organization command and strategic operations.


    Command Traits:

    -Objective oriented, unflappable, aggressive, prefers attacks and operations to come from unexpected angles.

    Reports from the Permanent Commission for Military Intelligence on hostile forces in neighbouring systems:

    Blue Squadron:
    -Allegiance: Ares Combat Solutions
    -Service: Mars Interstellar Security
    -CO: Rear Admiral Weylon Kang
    -Flagship: MIS Yorktown

    We know little about Rear Admiral Weylon Kang except that he has received a number of commendations from the MIS board for keeping costs low while on deployment. He appears to be making an effort to clamp down on the rumours racing back and forth across the fleet.

    MIS Yorktown
    -British Empire-class Fleet Tender
    MIS Eurymedon
    -New Model-class Strike Corvette
    MIS La Rochelle
    -New Model-class Strike Corvette
    MIS Cape Rachado
    -New Model-class Strike Corvette
    MIS Second Schooneveld
    -New Model-class Strike Corvette
    MIS Matapan
    -New Model-class Strike Corvette
    MIS Valcour Island
    -New Model-class Strike Corvette
    MIS Kerch Strait
    -New Model-class Strike Corvette
    MIS Galveston Harbour
    -New Model-class Strike Corvette
    MIS Cape Sarych
    -New Model-class Strike Corvette
    MIS River Plate
    -New Model-class Strike Corvette
    MIS Third San Francisco
    -New Model-class Strike Corvette
    MIS Scipio Africanus
    -Cossak-class Frigate
    MIS Suleiman I
    -Cossak-class Frigate
    MIS Louis Botha
    -Cossak-class Frigate
    MIS Fort Ware
    -Hudson's bay Company-class Fast Fleet Tanker
    MIS Fort Mackinac
    -Hudson's bay Company-class Fast Fleet Tanker
    MIS Fort Osage
    -Hudson's bay Company-class Fast Fleet Tanker
    MIS Arabian
    -Postal-class Courier
    MIS Macedonia
    -Legionary-class Fast Troop Transport
    MIS Hispania Citerior
    -Legionary-class Fast Troop Transport
    MIS Hispania Ulterior
    -Legionary-class Fast Troop Transport
    MIS Gallia Narbonensis
    -Legionary-class Fast Troop Transport
    MIS Sicilia
    -Legionary-class Fast Troop Transport
    MIS Corsica et Sardinia
    -Legionary-class Fast Troop Transport

    Fixed Defences:
    Battery A
    -MSS-54-F LMP Constellation
    Battery B
    -MSS-54-F LMP Constellation
    Battery C
    -MSS-54-F LMP Constellation
    Shoal A
    -ASR-33-C TAM Shoal
    Shoal B
    -ASR-33-C TAM Shoal
    Shoal C
    -ASR-33-C TAM Shoal
    Shoal D
    -ASR-33-C TAM Shoal
    Shoal E
    -ASR-33-C TAM Shoal
    Shoal F
    -ASR-33-C TAM Shoal

    Fixed Defences:
    Battery A
    -Blindfire-Pattern LMP Constellation
    Battery B
    -Airstrike Pattern LMP Constellation
    Shoal A
    -Macross-Pattern LMP Constellation
    Shoal B
    -Macross-Pattern LMP Constellation
    Strikecraft Wing, ID# 48603
    -Radiance-Type Strikecraft

    -None

    -None

    Local Security Forces
    -Approximately fifty strong volunteer station security militia drawn from station personnel

    Local Security Forces:
    -Deep Space Security Solutions (Omoikane Subsidiary) Customs shuttle squadron based out of Xotreh B-4a's orbital station
    -Three companies of Standard Planetary Security Company (Ares subsidiary) troops based out of Xotreh B-4a's habitat complexes for internal security and law enforcement

    139th Solarian Navy Squadron:
    -Allegiance: Solarian Compact
    -Service: Solarian Navy
    -CO: Vice Admiral David Visser
    -Flagship: SNS Krak de Chevaliers

    Thanks to his heavy handed labour discipline and extractive tribute and demands for corvee labour from Ascension Admiral Visser is viscerally hated by the populace of Ascension, and to a lesser degree the rest of the Solarian Force as well. While the gate's completion draws near, it is uncertain what path that Visser will persue.

    SNS Krak de Chevaliers
    -Star-hold-Class light-tender
    SNS Victoria Newman
    -Leonard Greyson-Chang-Class Strike Corvette
    SNS Julia Stonechild
    -Leonard Greyson-Chang-Class Strike Corvette
    SNS Robert Chuikov
    -Leonard Greyson-Chang-Class Strike Corvette
    SNS Wallace Al-Wazir
    -Leonard Greyson-Chang-Class Strike Corvette
    SNS Dawn's Early Light
    -Freedom's Light-class cruiser
    SNS Jacob Nagumo
    -Herald Kanumba-Class frigate
    SNS Alexander Hamilton
    -Liberation-class troop transport

    Solarian Marines now spread throughout the system

    PCMI Provides new system data on the single system that lies beyond beyond Five Lions:

    Mobile Force:

    Current Orders: Defend the All Radiant Congress by acting as a rapid response in the event of any hostile acts.

    CO: Commodore Stephanie Rousseau

    CNS Velasco, United States of America-class Fleet Carrier

    -CO: Captain Esteri Attar

    -Orca Wing, Switchblade-type strikecraft (Customized)

    -CO: Wing Commander Jasmine Ang

    -Red Wolf Wing, Switchblade-type strikecraft (Customized)

    -CO: Wing Commander Heloisa Kimura de Lima

    CNS Shieldmaiden, Great Heathen-class Light Cruiser

    -CO: -N/A DATABASE ERROR, CONTACT IT FOR HELP-

    CNS Shamhat, Great Heathen-class Light Cruiser

    -CO: -N/A DATABASE ERROR, CONTACT IT FOR HELP-

    CNS Righteous Tempest, Cossak-class Frigate

    -CO: Captain Vehement Shade

    CNS August Willich, Cossak-class Frigate

    -CO: -N/A DATABASE ERROR, CONTACT IT FOR HELP-

    CNS Elysium, Cossak-class Frigate

    -CO: -N/A DATABASE ERROR, CONTACT IT FOR HELP-

    CNS Asphodel, Cossak-class Frigate

    -CO: -N/A DATABASE ERROR, CONTACT IT FOR HELP-

    -


    Home Force:

    Current Orders: Defend Radiant, comet patrol, act as a reserve force

    CO: Commodore Erina Kozlova

    CNS Blaire Mountain, New Model-Class Strike Corvette

    -CO: Captain Guillermo Kageyama

    CNS Scutum, Comet-Class Patrol Corvette

    -CO: Captain Martin Pagonis

    CNS Buckler, Comet-Class Patrol Corvette

    -CO: Captain Samuel Smiles

    CNS Nasty Bastard, A Jury Rigged Mess of a Drone Carrier

    -CO: Captain Jean-Paul Beaumont

    -


    Radiant System Self Defence Force:

    Current Orders: Defend Radiant, comet patrol

    CO: Overseen by Admiral Gregory Mansur in his capacity as MilComm Chief of Naval Operations


    Radiant Customs Squadron, Arabia-class boarding craft with marine contingents

    -CO: -N/A DATABASE ERROR, CONTACT IT FOR HELP-

    Switchblade Wing, Switchblade-type strikecraft

    -CO: -N/A DATABASE ERROR, CONTACT IT FOR HELP-

    Apogee Wing, Switchblade-type strikecraft

    -CO: -N/A DATABASE ERROR, CONTACT IT FOR HELP-


    Battery A, Blindfire-Pattern LMP Constellation

    (Radiant-Bestreer Gate)

    Battery B, Blindfire-Pattern LMP Constellation

    (Radiant-Bestreer Gate)

    Battery C, Blindfire-Pattern LMP Constellation

    (Radiant-Bestreer Gate)

    Battery D, Airstrike-Pattern LMP Constellation

    (Radiant-Bestreer Gate)

    Battery E, Airstrike-Pattern LMP Constellation

    (Radiant-Bestreer Gate)

    Battery F, Airstrike-Pattern LMP Constellation

    (Radiant-Bestreer Gate)

    Shoal A, Macross-Pattern TAM Shoal

    (Radiant-Bestreer Gate)


    Radiant Orbital Yard 1

    Current construction: None

    Radiant Orbital Yard 1

    Current construction: None


    -


    Gaid System Self Defence Force:

    Current Orders: Defend Gaid

    CO: Commodore Victor Raine

    Battery A, Blindfire-Pattern LMP Constellation

    Battery B, Blindfire-Pattern LMP Constellation

    Battery C, Blindfire-Pattern LMP Constellation

    Battery D, Airstrike-Pattern LMP Constellation

    Battery E, Airstrike-Pattern LMP Constellation

    Battery F, Airstrike-Pattern LMP Constellation

    Shoal A, Macross-Pattern TAM Shoal

    Shoal A, Macross-Pattern TAM Shoal

    Shoal A, Macross-Pattern TAM Shoal

    Zephyr Wing, Switchblade-Type Strikecraft (Customized)

    -CO: Wing Commander Ara Helge

    Aeolus Wing, Switchblade-Type Strikecraft (Customized)

    -CO: -N/A DATABASE ERROR, CONTACT IT FOR HELP-

    Gale Wing, Switchblade-Type Strikecraft (Customized)

    -CO: -N/A DATABASE ERROR, CONTACT IT FOR HELP-

    -

    Frontier Force

    Current Orders: Keep watch on SolNav force in Raphanus, assist with integration of Ascension military forces, patrol Spinward frontier

    CO: Commodore Shayla McLean

    CNS Kiel Mutiny, Kaiserreich-class BattleCruiser

    -CO: Captain Inana Devlin

    CNS Choreographer, Janissary-class Light Tender

    -CO: Captain Karl Xanthopoulos

    CNS Valiant, New Model-class Strike Corvette, attached to CNS Choreographer

    -CO: -N/A DATABASE ERROR, CONTACT IT FOR HELP-

    CNS Defiant, New Model-class Strike Corvette, attached to CNS Choreographer

    -CO: Captain Fool's Errand

    CNS Reliant, New Model-class Strike Corvette, attached to CNS Choreographer

    -CO: Captain Rouge Napier

    CNS Actium, New Model-class Strike Corvette, attached to CNS Choreographer

    -CO: Captain John Rankin

    CNS Crête-à-Pierrot, New Model-class Strike Corvette, attached to CNS Choreographer

    -CO: Captain Nkiru Chaudhari

    CNS Valmy, New Model-Class Strike Corvette, attached to CNS Choreographer

    -CO: Captain Sumac Barros

    CNS Revolutionary Will, Cossak-class Frigate

    -CO: Captain Yamamoto Hanae

    CNS Revolutionary Grace, Cossak-class Frigate

    -CO: -N/A DATABASE ERROR, CONTACT IT FOR HELP-

    CNS Under New Management, Don-Class Fast Tanker

    -CO: Captain Adras Kierenos

    CNS Liberte, Hollywood(C)-Class Frigate

    -CO: Captain Colin McRae

    CNS Egalite, Hollywood(C)-Class Frigate

    -CO: Captain Adelia Swift

    Resources
    Naval Ship Types: Ship Types (Public Version)
    Naval Officers: Congressional Navy Officers (Public Version)
    System Codex: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1rtNbPCcPsTK7HCHKo9dPgK7ntx5tBKOpltrZb_In7GY/edit#
    Blaze Zhang: Blaze Zhang is trans-masc. That means his pronouns are he/him.


    DISCORD LINK:

    Join the Wordsmiths Discord Server!

    Check out the Wordsmiths community on Discord – hang out with 897 other members and enjoy free voice and text chat.
    discord.gg discord.gg
     
    Last edited by a moderator:
  • Informational
    • I'd like to present my real 4D chess galaxy brain moves:

    -hold the people hostage but let the ships through

    -let the ships through... with our own fleet as an "escort"

    - If we fight them, win or lose we'll be a serious threat and therefore the loyalists/fascists will want to consolidate power over weaker targets before taking us on, so we should let them through rather than risk other fledgling revolutionary states

    -If we fight them, win or lose we'll be a serious threat and therefore the loyalists/fascists will want to take us out ASAP, so we should let them through rather than becoming the target of immediate ire

    :V
     
    Last edited:
    Twei said:
    I'd like to present my real 4D chess galaxy brain moves:

    -hold the people hostage but let the ships through

    -let the ships through... with our own fleet as an "escort"

    - If we fight them, win or lose we'll be a serious threat and therefore the loyalists/fascists will want to consolidate power over weaker targets before taking us on, so we should let them through rather than risk other fledgling revolutionary states

    -If we fight them, win or lose we'll be a serious threat and therefore the loyalists/fascists will want to take us out ASAP, so we should let them through rather than becoming the target of immediate ire

    :V
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    I think I had a stroke trying to read this, good job. Now excuse me while I get Box-chan to print some anti-stroke treatment.
     
    Angelform said:
    Going by the news feeds it very much hasn't. As least not in Sol. Most people are not supporting the rebellion. Most people are just hunkering down and waiting for the bloodthirsty rioting to stop, as they have done every summer for their entire lives.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    You realize the newsfeed is deliberately written to make it as obvious as possible that the news have an agenda?

    You know, like real life news and reporting on protests like property damage is murder.
     
    Packrat said:
    My worry is that if we do not fight them at the gate, they might come through it saying they will just pass on by, then engage our fleet once they have safely cleared the gate defences. Then we absolutely would lose.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    That is why I asked whether Lamprey and Jubilee could be moved (Archimedes obviously can't). Our fleet could always stay one gate ahead of them and even pick up those two frigates in Radiant on the way. Sure, they could backstab us, but then they're in the same situation again, trapped behind a gate with only marginally weaker defences. They also shouldn't know about Archimedes, so it wouldn't even look any weaker from their perspective.
    Being able to bomb Sheol instead of Osliam but still being stuck isn't exactly a great win for them.
    If we can't move our panic project defenses (though we do have normal gate defences everywhere) then yes, we'd just give them an easier way to destroy our fleet if that was their goal and I don't trust them enough to let them through in that case without a better way to ensure compliance.

    Add only letting their personnel board when they're about to leave Chinook and it definitely discourages betrayal.

    The main weakpoints of the plan are when we'd have our fleet in Five Lions to let them pass (though we could rotate through Xotreh-Ismeu-Bestreer, but I'm not sure that's actually better) and the CLOs potentially being considered acceptable losses.

    The only point completely out of our control would be after the hand-off and at that point it just makes way more sense for them to wait for reinforcements or retreat entirely than trying to force a defended gate.


    Sure, the admiral could be incredibly bloodthirsty and not care about losses, and simply attack as anyway even when it's going to be almost as costly as at Shei, but on the other hand her entire career has apparently been riding out cushy, prestigious garrison jobs, just sitting there doing nothing, so does that seem likely?

    I still say that there's too much light lag for them to have any orders yet, so it would be her own decision.

    It's absolutely a calculated risk, but so is trying to hold when we're significantly outnumbered and our panic projects aren't guaranteed to work anymore because they have ships equipped to counter them.

    Most seem to think we're almost guaranteed to win, but I think it's more like 20-30% because we absolutely need a few things to go right to negate their massive advantage in capital ships (mostly in quality) and auxiliaries.


    Others have suggested letting them through one at a time or in small groups or with just enough fuel to reach the next gate with no detours, I'm just not sure if we can get them to agree to that, or how to verify it in case of the fuel.

    If we let them through there absolutely has to be a plan to ensure compliance so that going back on their word will at least be ruinous if not suicidal. Simply presenting them with the chance for an easier battle and hoping they don't take it would be dumb.
     
    Last edited:
    Remove ads
    14 Days Story May 21st: The End of a Long War
  • Threadmarks
    • It still didn't quite seem real to Durandal. Outside the streets were a party. A party where work was being done perhaps, but still a party. Food was being given out, barricades and control points and ATGM positions erected for the inevitable enemy counterattack. People cheering and parading around. Statues pulled down, posters and murals put up. Exuberance, chaos, anarchy.

    She had never expected this. Not through the entire long war. Had never expected to survive, and when she had survived, never expected to do anything else.

    She sat in a small office, in front of a desk covered in paper maps of the bay area, looking at her guest: "We need you to go to Los Angeles. You'll need to mobilise your whole force."

    Durandal looked over at the other Voltairine de Cleyre Brigade operative. Muramasa was not part of the official brigade structure. Her sword name not quite a sword, but a maker of swords, and of curses if you believed the legend. She always tried to look the part too, her combat armour almost dead black, jet black with vanta black trim and hair framing her doll white face and a splash of red at her collar.

    The pair were in the basement of an old coffee shop owned by a sympathetic owner. Around them, San Francisco was now falling into anarchy. The remains of the police were barricaded inside fortified stations being steadily reduced by missiles and motor fire. Durandal expected to accept those surrenders within hours. Those enemy units with intact mobility assets had pulled back into the richer exurbs at the city's perimeter. Still, Durandal wanted more time. Wanted to stay here and make sure of her gains. Wanted to nip the incipient black terror that was building in the bud. "What's in Los Angeles?"

    "Not an effective and organised revolutionary military committee yet." Muramasa sipped at an ancient plastic effect container of iced coffee. The liquid was so adulterated with soy milk carmel and the like that it barely even counted.

    "How can you even drink that stuff?"

    "This is a revival Starbucks. The black coffee here is absolute garbage." The Special Operative leaned forward. "There's an Omoikane Brigade Combat Team, Human Error Processor moving down from their cantonment near Morro Bay. They're moving slowly, but if they arrive they'll take the transit station that could cut the whole West Coast."

    "Human Error Processor?" Durandal frowned. "What do I have to stop them?"

    "Your force, the local militia when they get organised."

    "That's not enough!" Durandal glared at her. "Human Error Processor are good. They have armour and air support, and their augmentations are better than ours."

    "Not anymore. Your troops have been implementing the upgrade cycle haven't they?"

    "Yes, but–"

    "Kusanagi needs you to do this Durandal. You're the only battalion not engaged."

    "We've been doing this for a hundred and eighty-three years. We've never committed to a face to face engagement like this."

    "Times change," Muramasa said. "This is it."

    "After a hundred and eighty-three years? After staying down in eighty-seven. In all the fighting since. Never committing to it even if it got good people killed. And now you're just telling me this is it? You really think the broadcast can kill the Compact?"

    Muramasa slurped up her coffee. "I think it already did."

    "I hope you're right. Cause if not you're asking me to fall on my sword."

    "I'm asking more than that. You don't really think I'm not coming with you do you?"

    *****​

    The Pacific City Mass Transit System had been one of the wonders of the world when it was built in the twenty sixties, one part of the massive efforts at infrastructure and civil defence during the silver sixties. A vastly redundant series of low-pressure tunnels, dug deep beneath the west coast. Honeycombed and massive it had no single point of failure, nowhere where a PGM or a terrorist bomb could take it out. Before the murder of the Democratic Federation, plans had been in place to turn it into a bomb shelter. You could flatten Pacific city with nuclear strikes, and the people in the deep tunnels would still live.

    Some of that redundancy is gone now. Privatisation, the desire to sell off 'underutilised' stations, had meant that there were now central nodes, stations where changeovers took place. LA central station was one such point, a massive, mostly buried building filled with food stalls and shopping arcades through which tens of millions of commuters passed on a daily basis.

    Twice, the security forces had tried to destroy the place with PGMs. Twice, cleverly emplaced direct energy weapons and the labyrinthine democratic federation construction had stopped them. Now they were moving to try on the ground, and there were only a few in place to stop them. There were a grab bag of student militia from the city's colleges, a crew of anarchist air defence hobbyists out of one of the more realistic military simulation games who'd stopped the airstrikes, and there was VdCB's Durandal Combat Group.

    It was not going to be enough. It was absolutely not going to be enough and Durandal knew it. The enemy were advancing on two axises, a battalion of mechanised infantry coming straight in, and a second force, including an armoured battalion and another infantry hanging back on the flank. The infantry battalion would seek to fix them, find their positions, and then they'd bring the tanks and infantry in to finish it.

    If they needed to. First, they would try with firepower.

    In turn she'd arrayed her own forces in an arc to meet them, evacuated nearby civilians, fortifying buildings and creating a series of nests and fortifications, firing and observation points, protected routes of advance and retreat.

    She had done everything she could. Set up her positions with all the cleverness and skill at management she'd gained over more than two centuries of combat against the enemies of the Democratic Federation.

    It wasn't going to be enough.

    There were other militia units in Los Angeles, groups based around small political groups, tenents unions, protests and gangs. They were hanging back, watching. Waiting for VdCB to get themselves killed trying to hold a fixed point. Some were coming in, a dribble. Most didn't fancy it. They'd heard about the prison break but they still didn't want to come out. Not and fight so storied a unit as Human Error Processor.

    "Give me swarm density." She told her tactical VI.

    "Enemy 90%, friendly 10%"

    That was good. That was what she wanted for now. Let the sky fill up. Let them feel secure in their swarm density and put their assets on the table. The UAVs and the aerostats and the missile carriers.

    "Swarm Density: Enemy 95%, friendly 5% New contacts. Bandits 5 through 24."

    A UAV moving in at high altitude, more surveillance coming in lower, and larger missile carriers following.

    Durandal thought she was going to lose. Thought that she was finally going to see extinction after two centuries of war. But for now–

    "Master Arm. Air Defence on. Track targets for autonomous fire."

    Targeting radar spiked, enemy aircraft began to evade, releasing countermeasures. Too late.

    "Fire."

    Across hundreds of disguised positions air defence pods opened up, each one spitting out a swarm of light ground to air munitions. Heavier munitions, new Ares Gusisnautar and VdBC's entire stock of old Slash-Lance air to air loiter munitions rippled down from above on heavier assets.

    The main enemy search UAV vanished. Missile carriers and medium-altitude surveillance birds followed suit. Lasers around the stations snapped on a moment later, hammering the reeling enemy swarm. With almost nothing friendly in the air across the entire medium-altitude band, they could fire freely.

    "Launch combat swarm in one minute. Give me the count."

    "Enemy 20, Friendly, 80."

    The remaining Omoikane drones were pulling back, circling around the Human Error Processor armoured vehicles.

    There had been times in Durandal's long war when this would have been enough. When an enemy having lost air support and had its eyes poked out would give the whole thing up as a bad job.

    Not this time.

    The Omoikane infantry were launching fresh drones and moving in, armoured carriers worming down the street like alien caterpillars.

    "All units, prepare for ground assault."

    *****​

    The Omoikane Scout gave a mechanical squeal like an old-style modem as Kusanagi-519 nailed her to the street. The cordless industrial rivet gun made a satisfying chunk noise as it punched through combat armour and cyborg and fastened her to the street. The Omoikane trooper's arm flailed up and 519 jerked her head aside as the weapon was discharged, sending a round past her head. She stepped forward, kicked the arm down and put a rivet through it.

    "Obsolete– anarchist– vermin." The Omoikane trooper spat at her. "Just kill me and be done with it!"

    "We don't have that kind of time." 519 slung the rivet gun and pulled up her carbine, leaving the enemy cyborg to add her voice to those of her three companions, equally blown up and nailed down as she rejoined her companions in their hardened position at the end of the street.

    Human Error Processor had neutralized the first belt of IEDs very effectively. They had new stuff, swarms that found and targetted the vehicular bombs that the brigade had set up to stop them. Now they were advancing into the teeth of the brigade's defences. Soon it would be a new kind of war, close work. The recon team that 519 and her companions had ambushed would only be the first.

    The wall blew inwards, masonry and synthetic board falling free as the first Omoi assault drone tore through it. The breaching remote died at once, addressed by disciplined bursts from the machine gun positioned in a hardened position in a basement across the street, but size more followed, pouring forth in a tumbling wave of metal battle lust, trying to flank the position Kusanagi-519's and her two sword sisters Excalibur-91 and Garm-628 were occupying.

    There had been a time, at the start, when the units of Voltairine de Cleyre Brigade had been strictly divided, swords with swords. Over two hundred years of brutal guerrilla warfare the companies had become mixed up, throwing companions of every name and patch together in companies of circumstance. 519 had been with 91 and 628 since the fall of the Democratic Federation and had come through the great black summer of '87 with them. Was with them here. This ordinary street of ordinary single-family investor homes, never occupied, easy to avoid civilian casualties but a pain to prep due to the number of security systems. The drones had blown through the side of one of the houses facing the road to the south, trying to flank the three Brigade swords set up in a sandbag reinforced shelter in one of the ugly properties' garages.

    None of the three needed orders to do what needed to be done. They made a flash assessment: that the bots were a fixing force meant to hold them in position while the second part of the ambush caught them and reacted aggressively. 628 detonated the directional mines laid across their position left flank and then the three stormed out into the swarming drones, their own combat remotes loping at their sides like metal hounds.

    The VI running the combat remotes didn't quite know what to make of its prey erupting into a sudden offensive, its automated brain just as subject to unprogrammed decision perimeters as a human would be, and 519 and her companions closed a geometry of fire around them, trapping them in an L shape with the gun position across the street, destroying each with a grenade or a rapid burst of flechettes and gunfire.

    The enemy infantry, meant as the jaws of the trap, found themselves suddenly without a distraction and began to drop back, getting into cover as the Swords reorientated on them.

    This was not like fighting the police. The average VdCB team could kill anything up to fifty hogs in less than five minutes. Human Error Processor were a whole different ball game. Still, there were ways to win. Blades they might be, but newly forged and immature compared to their opponents.

    <<They should have come themselves.>> 98 Mused in a side channel. Each sword was wired with two sets of comm gear, a primary, always loaded through a deluge of tactical traffic, and a side channel, through which thoughts could be sent.

    <<They still worry too much for their own lives.>> 628 said as the first round of enemy artillery blew up the house they'd recently occupied.

    The force that would fix the enemy must fight them, so unless it planned to stay very unengaged, to merely make noise, it must be the most powerful. The enemy infantry poured into several houses, firing out across the street at them. 519 was inspired to roll back into the crater that the artillery shell had dug behind her and begin to pour fire back.

    More artillery was falling, and on the tac-map, 628 could see enemy vehicles moving in behind the infantry. A machine gun began to bark out rounds. Things were starting to get a bit hairy. Then the house where the enemy sheltered blew apart and collapsed. The third element of the VdCB squad, the weapons team, had got into position.

    In a normal engagement, the three swords would now be disengaging. Here and against Omoikane.

    None of the enemy combatants in that house, or few, were dead. They got up and sprinted across the street towards the ruin. Bullets licked out, scoring across 628 and knocking her down, but the other two ran on and skidded to a stop near the still standing front wall pillars.

    "628?"

    "I'm still alive. Mobility compromised." <<I just got these legs>>

    "Cover us."

    628 began to pour fire into the top of the building as 98 and 519 followed a grenade in. Smoke billowed everywhere, and the enemy ECM was turning the thermal environment into a hash of impossible fire vectors. Microbots warred with one another in the burning walls, revealing brief wireframe images of internal rooms then snapping off as they died to the jaws of enemy hunter-killers.

    Members of a second VdCB squad were moving up on the other wall, their weapons teams repositioning to fire delaying rounds at the enemy vehicles and heavy combat robots moving in behind the infantry engagement.

    519 went right, 98 left, sweeping the room to points of domination like they'd done tens of thousands of times before across two centuries of conflict. You had bots now, had to worry about positioning them as well as yourself, but the basic patterns of a ground engagement were as fresh as when 519 had been a young, flesh and blood soldier in the twenty-first century.

    There had been more brigades back then. Emma Goldman. Helen Keller. Mother Jones. Units of vengeful spectres (never call them werewolves) for the murdered Democratic Federation.

    Most of them had died in '87. Except for Voltairine de Cleyre. The ghosts. The smartest. The ones who understood that there was no honor, no peace, no good person among the living. The ones who would never stop.

    No one in the hall. Firing from upstairs. 98 indicated that way, pausing to aim her rifle up. 519 followed, stepping up to the stairs and slung her rifle in favor of the blocky shape of the rivet gun.

    "628, hold fire on the front of the house."

    The top floor was mostly gutted and on fire, cheap display furniture burning brightly. Neither of the two cyborgs cared much about the heat and smoke, nor did the three Human Error Processor troopers in black and grey digital camo still firing out of the top floor. The weird light conditions of the smoke had obviously messed up their stealth cloaks cause they had them off. One covered the stairs while the others fed a machine gun, exchanging fire with the friendly machine gun position across the street.

    Unfortunately for the covering trooper, 98 knew where she was already. There was a sensor mounted up on the roof of a building opposite that could see in through the front window. 98 fired up at her through the floor, scoring multiple hits. The Omoikane cyborg swung around towards her, firing back, but the vital first second was gone, hits sparking off her armour.

    519 erupted out of the stairway, swinging on the shooter and fired a rivet into her. The metal slammed the human error processor operative back off her feet and into one of the walls of the house, but it was a bad shot. 519 had missed the beam that the cyborg would have fixed too. The Omoikane trooper pulled free of the wall, gun coming up, and then collapsed as a blurred form outside the wall swung a breaching hammer into the back of her head with enough force to deform it.

    "Die puppet." Muramasa purred, and swung the hammer again.

    519 had already turned her attention to the other two. They'd been sheltering behind one of the house's carbon pillars, one of the few parts of it that was really bulletproof, and that made it far easier to nail them both, fixing them in position with a dozen rapid bolts. She stepped forward, pulled the machinegun away from one of the two fixed cyborgs and tossed it out the window.

    "I thank you." <<You saved my ass.>>

    "It is of no moment." Muramasa turned. "We should go. More are coming."

    The Brigade Operatives followed the machine gun out the window, leaving the house as cover behind them. It wouldn't stop tank shells but with the distress beacons of enemy infantry inside, the enemy would be unwilling to destroy it to get to them either. 519 hoisted 628 up onto her back and fixed her there like a pack, the other cyborg bracing her carbine to aim backwards as 519 ran.

    It had been a successful engagement.

    They'd lost another street.

    *****​

    Muramasa could feel it coming apart. Durandal had been correct. They were going to die here. Enemy tanks were advancing now, moving fast down the gridwork of cross streets, infantry and bots moving with them.

    They'd neturalized several forward teams and the enemy recon screen, but now the main force was on them, two enemy battalions moving fast, blasting through each ambush with coordinated artillery and direct fire.

    Muramasa and her team had joined up with a bunch of Durandal's regulars, dropping back from one position to another, harassing the enemy and hurting them, but not fast enough. They were in a basement now, hardened with sandbags and carbon pannels, shooting out at the flickering shapes of enemy APCs and heavy combat robots outside.

    The position on the other side of the cross street blew apart, hit by tank fire. Loss beacons burned in the tactical network. Fighter in distress. Fighter in distress. No way to help them. More artillery walked across them, dust pouring down.

    An Omoikane tank rolled down the street. It was a spiderlike beast, armour swung forward, missiles flipping up one after another from a back compartment, whipping down the streets. It kept wanting to blur out in Muramasa's vision. "ATGM! Hit the tank!"

    One of the operatives with her lifted a ATGM and fired, the super-Hofund leaping out towards the tank, then blowing apart short as the vehicle's point defence laser caught it. The turret turned, a wide mouthed direct fire gun swinging around towards the source of the ATGMs.

    Muramasa realized suddenly she was going to die. It was a real surprise. She hadn't thought she ever would. Not until the stars went out and the universe was old at any rate. She'd wanted to see what Blue Dwarfs looked like.

    She should say some last words. It was a fashion in the brigade, to come up with some cool thing to say when you were about to go out. All she could think of was the new chaos space marines she'd recently acquired and would never get to paint.

    Muramasa closed her eyes.

    The tank exploded.

    Another armoured vehicle had blown straight through the burning investor property on the other side of the street. A heavier Ares model sprayed in bright neon. Rock music poured from its speakers.

    A dozen more followed, with combat drones and infantry in armoured suits following them.

    The first tank was hit already, struck by fire from down the street, but there were so many of the neon things. The Omoikane forces began to give ground. Not yet in danger, just in shock.

    Durandal's voice came over the network.

    "All Units. Rally and attack. Attack now."

    Murmasa laughed to herself and did just that.

    ******​

    "Enemy Strength, 30. Friendly Strength, 70."

    "Enemy Strength, 20. Friendly, 80."

    "Enemy 5, Friendly 95."

    Durandal felt like a fool. She hadn't understood. Hadn't thought anyone would come. Hadn't realized how long it would take people to realize, to sort themselves out. Hadn't, really, understood what Fabricators did to warfare.

    There were tanks out there. Friendly tanks. Scores of them moving in careless clumps. The Omoikane gunners had a field day. They killed dozens of enemy automata and vehicles. It didn't matter. There were always more of them. The whole city had woken up around them and was fighting.

    I did this at Alcatraz. Durandal thought. Why didn't I realize?

    Zombies, they always called us. Special infected. Maybe they were in a way, the dangerous thing about Zombies was they made more of themselves. And right now, the entire city was swarming. HEP could beat the VdCB with no trouble. But the city? That was another thing.

    Human Error Processor were good. Omoikane's elite, and no cowards. They tried to hold, to form a defensive line, to kill the city as it came for them. Durandal sent her battalion this way and that, assisting, concentrating, hitting the enemy wherever they could go. Enemy artillery fired a last volley then switched off abruptly as a swarm of drones found them. Remaining tubes switched over to final protective fire, laying down a hailstorm of steel as the remaining Omoikane operatives fell back, boarding their vehicles and hurtling off down the streets as the city tried to eat them.

    We're going to win. Durandal thought to herself.

    After all this time, we're actually going to win.
     
  • Threadmarks
    • Balmung1 said:
    awesome chapter also is it just me or are the VdCB basically a heroic equivalent of a chaos space marine warband
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    forums.sufficientvelocity.com

    Sympathy for the heretic Essay

    Sometime in the early 1990s or maybe the late 1980s, I was a young boy living in a small village in rural England. I was already kind of a nerd, developing small obsessions with various things, that kind of geeky obsessive information gaining. One day, I was at a WH Smith, a British shop which...
    forums.sufficientvelocity.com forums.sufficientvelocity.com
     
    And another corporate intervention force bites the dust. So how many are left? Either way these people are going to be the Vanguard to organise everyone else here. Also I really hope people used tank drones and didn't play Russian army against the HEPs.
     
    To be fair HEP aren't dead, they probably fought their way out with major casualties. It's just there's not that much a brigade combat team, even an elite one, can do if a whole city rises armed against them with armour and drone support.
     
    Hey, question. Is the de Clayes brigade an all female android one? Or at least all female presenting one? And if so what's up with that?
     
    Also there were presumably a bunch of other Stay-Behind Forces that weren't all female cyborgs. They all got killed in '87 or before. Presumably there's a degree of "unit cohesion" stuff going around. Or just someone who really likes themes in-universe.
     
    Balmung1 said:
    awesome chapter also is it just me or are the VdCB basically a heroic equivalent of a chaos space marine warband
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    BiopunkOtrera said:
    Muramasa: *Thumbs up*
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...


    I always felt like they were Claymores ala the manga Claymore, just adjusted for modern times, given all the sword motifs, being all female, and embracing their clearly inhuman cybernetic nature to wage a never-ending war against parasites preying on the common man.
     
    ContemplateLife said:
    Hey, question. Is the de Clayes brigade an all female android one? Or at least all female presenting one? And if so what's up with that?
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    There were certainly other left behind units that weren't all female.

    This isn't cannon, but my backstory idea for them is that because they were recruited from the military of like, the mid 21st century DemFed, so the army was still mostly male presenting, and they're mostly transwomen who were recruited from that pool, because they don't suffer the same dysphoria in upgrading to a cyborg body as a guy would.

    That's just my head cannon though.

    CuriousRaptor said:
    I always felt like they were Claymores ala the manga Claymore, just adjusted for modern times, given all the sword motifs, being all female, and embracing their clearly inhuman cybernetic nature to wage a never-ending war against parasites preying on the common man.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    The full mood board for VdCB would include Claymore, Chaos Space Marines, Ghost in the Shell obviously, and the works of Tsutomu Nihei

    Edit: oh, and K3loid.
     
    Last edited:
    Reader mode
    You must login or register to reply here.
    Remove ads
    Back
    Top