You're playing as the Xvorzit. And so, here are some options! After this round there's a single round of character creation, and then we're done/ready!
Government choices:
[] The Caste of the Ruler: You are a traditional ruler, newly come to power from a ruling Caste, born and bred for it. You of course must pay attention to the will of the Hive, but in your blood and breeding is rulership, is it not? This traditional form of government has fallen out of favor in most Xvorzit Hives, but there are still proponents of it. Unique Stuff: Custom Trait for Ruling Caste, some insulation from Will Of The Hive Mechanic. Some connection to Castes. This one also includes penalties with democracies. Not huge ones, but you are a monarchy in the 25th century.
The Caste of the Ruler has been bred for this task, and at least in theory you'll do fine! Also, more chance of there being emphasis on kids and such, since there's actually succession.
[] Council of Castes: A council of all of the Castes, Guilds, and other such groups meet. Your character has become master of this council, stitching together alliances and affinities that allow their will to (tend to) dominate the outcome, and so long as they can maintain this, they will hold power. Unique Stuff: Will of the Castes Mechanic, subdued (between Castes and Hive) Will of the Hive mechanic, bloc voting and interesting compromise stuff.
You'll be the premier member on the council, winning friends and influencing enemies, putting together a voting bloc and scratching backs, that sort of thing. Established interests are a thing, as are inter-Caste tensions and the like.
[] The Will of the Hive: You rule as someone directly appointed by the whole of the Hive. The very will of the Hive flows through you, and you meet all the time with its members, knowing your people, as populous as they are, and so long as the People stand with you, anything is possible. Comfortable in the lowest places or the heights of power, you shall be tasked with building an administration that allows you to rule without isolating yourself from the people, from the Hive, which might overthrow you should you disappoint them. Unique Stuff: New Traits, full-on Will of the Hive mechanic, bonuses against intrigue and plots against you, relations bonuses with foreign democracies.
You get to start your own government. Stand with the people, yet build up advisors, move always with the right acts and your Hive will yet grow!
So yeah, choose one, and then we'll get to Character Creation (of the character, that is). Also, feel free to suggest name ideas for the Quest now that the Xvorzit have been chosen.
Alright, starting with Will of the Hive. You begin without an administration, and so getting advisors is good to start with. For each category, you will have a choice, to begin with, to figure out and to implement the will of the people, basically 'Do what people want.' Choices as you unlock them (you can take personal actions to do the same as well) will be marked to indicate that they're what the people at large want. Every turn there's a chance that the people could do it themselves with your inspiration (free action), but you can also implement them. The more actions you do that accord with the 'Will of the Hive' the higher the rating and the more bonuses you get. The Will sometimes contradicts itself, of course. You also get bonuses against Intrigue-actions against you that grow larger. By figuring out what the people want you can gain popularity and the bonuses inherent, moving with and among the people, as it said. But going too far into Will of The People means that to maintain the bonuses you have to spend most of your actions as a mouthpiece, and therein lies what you have to balance if you want to not move with the whims of the man on the street.
You also, in this same paradigm, can talk to the Castes even as a 'Will of the Hive' ruler, and start doing actions that benefit the individual Castes, though this is in some ways a betrayal and you'd have to either balance it against the Will of The Hive or begin moving your administration away from "Listening to the people" towards either (depending on whether you are positive about them or not) "Listening to the best people" or "Totally selling out to a bunch of interest groups."
You can also, third prong of decisions, come up with ideas on your own or build a cadre of administrators (and even bureaucracy which gives their bonuses to rolls) and advisors who will have their own ideas. The risk, or the thing to balance there, is that you'll become isolated from the Will of the Hive, with guards to keep the riff-raff out, advisors to tell you that it's fine to do this and that and the other thing that piss the people of the Hive off, and that creates a lot of tensions and confusion and chance to be overthrown and the people of the Hive might grow apathetic making a lot of actions harder.
Move with the Hive and things go well, or at least, they can, move against it and things can get harder, and yet sometimes the hard thing needs to be done.
So it's more than just a popularity index.
Now, if you choose 'Council of the Castes' as a government plan, rather than as an element of your government, what you have is a council representing each clan. The lawyers, the defense-forces, the magnates, the weavers, the technicians...so on and so forth. Instead of it being a 'all castes in general' mechanic, it'd be based on specific castes, with suggestions from the Police Caste representative like...oh, let's use real-life examples, "Stop prosecuting us for killing unarmed people and we'll give you cudos and trade votes for you on your new economic policy." Or whatnot. Often less negative than that, of course, but you have to balance the desires of the Castes with, well, what's actually right, while getting enough votes to Dominate the Council, since if you lose that (by, say, ignoring the Castes and pissing them off), you just become another voter member and the game changes dramatically.
So, I come back with ideas, though not important ones for this Quest. Of the first great Xvorziti Story-Poem, of the Warrior-Poet-Trader, Bazassiten, who dances and rides with all four feet, who raises his voice in song and command, who wields the blow-dart as well as the Gizakti, a sort of complex, weird-looking flute-like instrument, who "Made himself by singing out/And built himself a body of song and strength" and who trades across the small hives that dot the southern horizon, like the burial mounds of the ancient kings.
Who appeared naked before a judgement by a tyrant-Ruler, wielding not a blow-dart but a Gizakti, defending himself with song, not with strength, and yet capable of great feats, of slaying three Xvorztiti bandits while gravely wounded. Who gives a trilling laugh when asked his/its Hive or Caste, and whether it has ever incubated, whose head-wings are the color of rainbows or the color of muck, depending on who you ask.
Who lived and died and loved and laughed and lusted with both hands to the grindstone of life, to the great and monumental and valuable work that all Xvorziti are engaged in: Living. Who is in all ways the archetype and the ideal of a certain type of Xvorzith person. And for whom beauty and work and money and song and violence and hope and friends were all, in the end, inseparable.
So nothing truly 'relevant' to the Quest was thought up, but I did think.
And so now you begin to make a character. First off, name, age, and...gender.
[] Name: Feel free to make suggestions and vote on ideas, I'll take the one I like best!
Age: This, you don't get to decide. I'll give your age based on what makes sense for your job, background, etc, tc.
[] Gender: 'Male'/'Female'/Either!
Whoo boy, here we go. There is only one sex which has both the capacity to form an egg-sac and the ability to impregnate. All of which is, mind, divorced from...well, from sex. It's a procreative act that's viewed differently than 'having fun' or 'fooling around.' Thus, why is there a choice for gender? Because there are constructions based on wealth and status as well as culture and whether you prefer to/would prefer to be the incubator or implanter should you have kids. Or either! There are some social stereotypes involving both, though the mechanical differences have long been dealt with because of technology, so it won't have a major impact on things. Nowadays, unlike in the past, the largest category is 'either' with who in a pairing (something like marriage, though more planned out) bears the children being a matter of negotiation and what their respective situations are like. Yes, a long explanation, but a necessary one. So in some ways your choice will be cosmetic, and it literally changes nothing physically, but there are social meanings and stuff!
Job/Education: I'll be doing it a bit differently! Instead of taking an educational trait, you instead assign points to categories, and the combination represents your job. Some make more sense than others. Like Martial (all points) wouldn't work that well considering Xvorzith culture, but you can do it if you want. But, say, you put one point into Martial (Ground), 1 into Diplomacy, and two into Stewardship. I could decide that this means your job was a police officer who rose to a highadministrative rank thanks to their skill in both talking/negotiation and managing things. Or...any number of things! Or so on!
You have four points! You can put a maximum of 3 points into a category.
[] Martial (Have to specify which one)
-[] Naval
-[] Ground-pounder
[] Diplomacy
[] Stewardship.
[] Intrigue
[] Learning.
Free Traits:
Being a Xvorzit: It's like Diligent but with Martial -1, Diplomacy +2
One Who Stands with the People: +2 Diplomacy, +1 Stewardship, bonuses to interacting with 'the people of the Hive'.
Lifestyle Traits (choose two)
Now, allow me to explain. These traits govern more than just points, they also open up options and allow me to narrate the character better. They will be important for a number of reasons, thus. Besides building your character, let's use an example. One thing about being in power is that you can indulge your hobbies some. President Obama got to meet Leonard Nimoy, and similarly, if you are a Bazkhiti, there will be a Personal Action 'I'm your biggest fan' in which you get to destress and meet some awesome heroes of yours in the art and the craft, and you have a few 'public funding for the arts' options, and in terms of voice your character will be more given to songs, references to old poetry, and so on. Similarly, your skill at hydroponics means you can help out with some farm options, and certain research actions will be easier. And so on! So though the bonuses are small and in some ways 'inter-changeable' (such as Bazkhit: Songs of Work giving the same bonus as Workers Association) they are very different and unlock VERY different options!
Loner: For your kind, you are a loner, and suffer no penalties when on your own and no anxieties when members of your own species aren't around. But this disconnects you with them. -1 to Diplomacy, +2 to either Stewardship (the lonely worker) or Intrigue (just what is that loner planning?!) .
Bazkhiti: You are an aficionado and singer of a humming, rollicking form of oral story-telling/sung-word-poetry. Both traditional and yet new, its roots reach far into both the past, present and future of your race. +1 Diplomacy and either +1 Stewardship (Songs of Work) or +1 Learning (Songs of the Past), or +1 Martial (Songs of the Surging Hive.)
Architect: To construct the Hives of the future, this is your hobby and even a passion. You shape and sculpt both rock and metal, creating structures that psychological teachings tell help improve the mindset of those who live in them as well as their productivity. +1 Stewardship, +1 Diplomacy.
Hydroponist: You have your own garden in which you grow much, a space of your own that you water and feed and take care of. It gives you peace, of a sort, and teaches you something about how to manage and control things. +1 Stewardship, +1 Learning.
Hive Principlist: You believe that there are principles to governing the Hive. Ones laid down by the learned scholar Grezhan (to roughly translate) and you follow and learn about these. +1 to Stewardship and +1 to either Learning (reading the books) or Diplomacy (convincing others of their merit.)
Hunter: You are experienced at working together with others to hunt the beasts that are sometimes imported to be hunted. On the home world, they had once stalked our ancestors, but through teamwork you conquer and reconquer ancient fears. +1 Martial, +1 Diplomacy.
Workers Association: Your character is a member of a workers Association. Something like a union, this doesn't mean that you're an industrial laborer, workers associations can form anywhere and besides being 'union-like' they are also something like social clubs and places where workers gather together with shared identity to unwind. +1 Diplomacy, +1 Stewardship, plus you have friends!
Administrator: You have experience in administrating other Xvorzit, be it a sports team, a work-gang, a bureaucracy, either way you know how it goes! (+2 Stewardship.)
Seducer/Socializer?: You know how to talk up others at the watering-pit (or as humans would say it, 'the bar') and there's something about you that's hard to resist. (+1 Intrigue, +1 Diplomacy)
Winger: Your parents were old-fashioned and didn't remove your wind-flaps at birth, and thus the back of your head can open, during mating times, to vestigal wings, silky, soft, and colorful. They are rather beautiful and have an exotic beauty. (+2 Diplomacy)
News Junky: You follow the news religiously, argue about it on forums, are tuned into that sort of thing and know just what's going on, even before it's your *job* to know that. (+1 Learning, +1 Intrigue or Diplomacy)
The Lure of other Not-Hives: Aliens fascinate you, and you love learning about their culture. +1 Diplomacy, +1 Learning, bonus to diplomacy with them, but penalty to diplomacy with other hives or internal rolls having to do with culture and tradition.
The Lure of Other Hives: You have a bonus to diplomacy with other Xvorzit Hive worlds due to your interest in the unity of the species. +1 Diplomacy, bonuses to diplomacy with other hives, slight penalty to dealing with aliens.
Poor background: Born in dire circumstances, you have learned the value of hard work and thrift up close, and have risen to impressive ranks. +1 Stewardship, relations and ties with the common worker.
Complications!:
These are ways that things can be made fun! Well, sorta! You have to pick one, and for Will of the Hive, these involve ways in which power came to you.
[] The old leader has died, seemingly peacefully, though you can't always be sure. Loved by the Hive, if not always the best leader, their apparatus and government is partially intact, annoying when/if you want to make a clean sweep, as you MUST, and build your own system (other than the obvious things that remain budgeted.) Expect loyalists everywhere, secrets, suspicions that you are betraying their legacy, that sort of thing.
[] The old leader grew corrupt, separated from the people, and you have seen fit to correct them. You now rule and the shattered remnants of this old government are of course bitter from the loss of privilege and would happily take it all back or ingratiate themselves to you with their bad and disastrous policies and their secret police and...all of that.
[] Once, the Caste of the Ruler reigned, but no longer! Revolution, as the old and corrupt forces are swept out! But that means that the caste of the ruler yet stands, the castes in general are going to be watching you, and it's not an established tradition! Choose one of the two.
-[] Velvet Revolution: Hundreds of millions marched, protested. The police came and beat them and still they stood. Spies denounced disloyalists and calls were made to stand together against the foe. The holocasts denounced the protesters as mere rabble-rousers, and still they stood. Stood and marched and met and spoke, wrote books and papers and presented their will to the whole of the world-Hive. And a million marched, hand in hand, upon the capital. Upon the palace, upon the place where the Monarch yet resided. The police paused, the defense forces sat upon the barricade, guns trained. And they did not fire. Would not fire. The Monarch yelled, barked orders, and forward came the wave of Xvorzit, holding hands, singing Bazkhiti songs, waving banners, unarmed but for the power of their presence, but for their songs. Compared to the heavily-armored defense forces they might as well have been naked. In that shimmering night, the old order was swept aside, and now by some process you are declared the new ruler. The caste of rulers yet stands, and their bureaucrats need to be swept aside more fully, and certainly, not discredited if only because the police didn't fire, you shall have to deal with them. (Reward: Feels, lots of feels. A peaceful revolution. Seriously, just picture the march...)
-[] Blood on the Velvet: There were riots, and deaths. Thousands upon thousands died. It could have been far worse, it wasn't a civil war, but in the end the police obeyed orders, in the end you stepped up, did what you had to do, acted as a leader and by this leadership you won. Blood and chitin and the will of the people. And so now the Bureaucrats stand hunted fugitives, the caste of rulers are either dead or worse, fugitives, terrorists who wish for nothing more than your death. The castes fear the might you showed, to channel and control the people's will. They fear that you are exceptional, they fear that you shall shake them from their petty privileges, that you shall remake the world into a better one. They are right to fear. (Reward: Gain one more trait-point and another Lifestyle trait to compensate for the added difficulty of this path! You'll need it.)
Traits, choose four:
This is simple enough, get to it!
Temperate: You are not given to extremes of emotion, and know how to manage your emotions and your money-bag. +3 Stewardship
Charitable: You often give away money to others, being generous with your wealth and good fortune. +2 Diplomacy
Patient (costs 2): You are a bug that bides their time, waits and watches and judges, thinking their actions through. +1 to all but Martial
Kind: You are kind to your fellows, always willing to help out however you can, whether it's taking an extra work shift or giving them some of your food. +3 Diplomacy, -2 Intrigue
Humble: You are humble, aware of your great fortune to be born as you are, and aware that you are just one of a mass of Xvorzit. +1 Diplomacy, and Diplomacy bonuses for a *certain* government type.
Greedy: You desire material wealth above all things, and are undiplomatic, but do have a few extra options for making money with your positions (for yourself at least.) -1 Diplomacy
Temper: For a species not known for its temper or its ability to use this, you are an exception. You not only get angry, but you know how to use this anger. +3 Martial, -1 Diplomacy
Envious: You envy other bugs, whether for their wealth, their friends, their influence...you tend to do so, though you've clearly used it to your advantage, since you're in charge and they're not! -1 Diplomacy, +2 Intrigue
Honest: You tell the truth a lot of the time, and you're not that good at lying! +3 Diplomacy, -2 Intrigue
Gregarious: You're a friendly bug, always laughing and joking, making people smile and working the room almost by instinct. +2 Diplomacy
Just: You are just and evenhanded, giving fairly and looking at each situation carefully before judging it in a manner that is often agreeable to all parties. +1 Learning, +2 Stewardship.
Attractive: Your chitin is clean and buffed, your voice has a pleasing sort of trill, you keep clean and wear clothes to fit well your appearance and the color of your chitin. +1 Diplomacy, personal actions unlocked further regarding being, well, attractive.
Name: Vorzhan
Gender: Either
Age (reduced due to Nat 20 in Main Job bonus): 33
Complication: Velvet Revolution
Traits:
Being a Xvorzit: Diligent but with Martial -1, Diplomacy +2
One Who Stands with the People: +2 Diplomacy, +1 Stewardship, bonuses to interacting with 'the people of the Hive'.
Workers Association (+1 Diplomacy, +1 Stewardship)
Winger (+2 Diplomacy)
Just (+2 Stewardship, +1 Learning) Patient, Temperate (+3 Stewardship)…
Elite Cybernetic Operative: As an incredibly skilled operative and veteran of a number of complex 'jobs' at an early age, you were granted a number of rather impressive cybernetic enhancements as you traveled further into the shady underworld of the Hive that nearly dragged you down. Upon being 'convinced' to quit, many of these were taken from you, but you still maintain a few. Martial +1 (enhanced reflexes, a few minor things), Intrigue +2 (things like the ability to hear someone coming, alerts as to how much noise you're making, etc), +1 to Personal Combat on top of the Martial
Intelligence Operative Gone Intelligent: From a young age you had been dedicated believer in the Monarch and the Ruler Caste, and you joined up after a rocky childhood of relatively normal means. You were good. Very good, naturally good at the spying, the careful hacking, the conversations, and going-dark, and for a while that's what you were. But you learned, both from the education and from the harsh realities of the job. When your commander fell, when you were stripped and barely avoided exile, you dove down deep into the hive, and surfaced only to hack one holo-cast or another, spreading the truth, undermining the government. And when it came down to it, it was you who stopped the Special Forces hardliners from turning a peaceful revolution into a massacre, you who hacked the holo-casts, and though you were more concerned with hunting down a certain...someone, you were selected by acclaim and rough democracy to be the ruler. Martial +3, +Intrigue +5, Learning +2, Diplomacy and Stewardship +1
Stats:
Martial: 1d20 (reroll if below 8): 14+1 (Elite Cybernetic Operative)+3 (Martial)=17 (Personal Combat 18), You know how to command troops, you've watched it done and are very experienced, and beyond the average soldier. But it has been years since you were an elite, a super-soldier, and you are no longer the most dangerous Xvorzit in a room. Any room. That still doesn't mean you can't take care of yourself, and beat soldiers ten years younger with ease (Average trained and experienced Xvorzit soldier has a Martial of 14, average galactic soldier 16, you're above average for a fully-trained and combat-ready soldier.)
Diplomacy: 1d15 (reroll if below 4) 10+1 (Workers Association)+2 (Winger)+1 (Education Trait)+1 (Patient)+2 (Being a Xvorzit)+2 (One who Stands with the people)=19, You are a very charismatic bug, your head-wings quite exotic and beautiful, as some have told you before scandalous proposals. You are diplomatic and impressive in personal conversation, if untrained in the niceties of high society. Many come away from meeting you charmed or overawed, and your visage is a symbol of hope for many during the revolution.
Stewardship: 1d15 (reroll if below 4) 13+1 (WA)+2 (Just)+3 (Temperate)+1 (Education Trait)+ 1 (Patient)+1 (Racial Bonus)+1 (Stands with the people)=23, You know how to manage money, and more than that, people. You know how to make organizational charts and graphs, how to bring people together as much as your former abilities meant you could tear people apart. And you understand money rather well, and just how to gather it, just how to hold onto it soundly, and just how to spend it. +1 Stewardship action.
Intrigue: 1d20 (two rolls, take highest, reroll if below 8 for either of them): 20 (bonus because it was on the first roll)+1 (Patient)+2 (Elite Cybernetic Operative)+5 (Education Trait)+1 (Species bonus)=29, you are an operative the likes of which the world sees few of. There are perhaps none alive with as much experience as you in these dark arts, and you have honed, even after you fell, these skills to the point of a knife, to the acts of the revolutionary and the courage and skill of the bug who intercepted an order to fire that might have made things worse. +1 Intrigue action, turns to +2 if you can get 4 more points.
Learning: 1d20 (reroll of below 8) 13+1 (Patient)+1 (Just)+2 (Education Trait)+1 (species bonus)=18, you have not been to college, and yet you're more than educated enough to get an honorary degree. Far above most people, your mind is a trained and honed weapon, albeit one not much given to literary musing, focused more on the practical.
Current Planetary Info:
Planet Name: Gazinitah
Location: At the edge of most-common Xvorzit space, near a number of human powers as well as the Hexamari.
Species: Xvorzit Hive World, insignificant number of other species (only in the millions)
Population: 14.8 Billion on the Hive World, a few tens of millions elsewhere
Government: Newly formed leadership by consensus of the people
Budget:
Treasury: 5000 Wealth, gotten together from donations, pro-bono work, what was lying around.
Current Income Per Year: ???, I roll dice to see what you get up until you work the situation out. While you're still determining what to do with taxes and where everything is sorted.
Military budget: ???, it's a big black pit of money and proprietary budgeting.
Civilian budget: ???, currently don't have it sorted!
Black-Box Budgets: Unknown, your knowledge of the system means you know that several thousand wealth are spent a year on things like censorship, monitoring, special forces, and other such things.
Tax Income: Estimates are very-high, generating over 10,000 Wealth a turn, though much of that may be earmarked and so on already.
Popular Opinions:
Defense Forces/Police: ???
The Hive: 80, they have great hopes for you!
Space Fleet: ???
Caste of the Rulers: 30, they aren't much happy with you, but as a whole they're still shell-shocked and greatful to be alive.
Other Castes: Unknown, mediumish?
Military:
10 million or so soldiers and/or policemen, the defense forces and police being tangled together, of only partially known efficacy, with outdated weaponry and some less-than-ideal doctrines. Of all sorts of different types and styles of deployment.
Indeterminate number of tanks, many of which are outdated, as well as other armored forces.
Some air-ships and the like for transportation of troops.
Special forces units, often implicated in attempts to maintain order. Such as one of the groups you used to be part of, since disbanded.
Navy: ???, you aren't sure just what you have in the way of spaceships, you do know that there are also marines and the like, as well as partnerships with the military. There are two Battleships, each heavily outdated, the Prince Hazanit and the Pride of Gazinitah. They have not fired their guns in anger in living memory, and are permenantly stationed over the Hive world. Making sure they stayed neutral was an important task to keep anyone from giving...mistaken orders.
Will of the Hive Rating: 0, you're still new to it!
Will of the Castes Rating: Not unlocked!
Other information provided as you get it
Feel free to ask questions about anything you don't understand in the meantime!
Last edited:
Turn 1--2427 CE (A): Martial, Diplomacy and Stewardship choices.
The data flowed and streamed across the screen, a scrawl of information moving so fast, down and down and down, filling the screen, and most of it useless. In a dark and cramped side room of a tertiary government building, our story begins, I suppose. There are many places I could begin to tell you it, but ultimately the story I want to tell is not so much of the super soldier Vorzhan and his adventures, though perhaps that will be another day, but how after the fall of a monarchy, a certain master of the most black and secret arts, hallowed and hated by humans as well as others, rose to a great public position, and how they coped with it in the 25th century of the Common Era. I am biased perhaps, because I have met Vorzhan, and they struck me then as being most impressive, and it is through this chance meeting, that perhaps you will someday read, that I grew interested in the topic and began to explore it.
Much was and is hidden, but perhaps I'll peel back the layers just a little bit. And perhaps you will learn something. The figure before us in this cramped room is about six feet tall, but like no human. Their skin was hard chitin, a deep green mixed with an even deeper brown. Thinnest in those areas, like the arms, where it needed flexibility, it was rather adequate protection, though of course Vorzhan was not naked. His huge black eyes stared at the screen, his mouth working and twisting, nose holes puffing out little breaths. His ears were holes as well, giving her head something of a spare look. Or it might have, except that the back opened up, now in irritation, not interest, to wonderful wings. They are something like a butterfly's, light and silken, spread rather far out, opening up to a lovely combination of purple, yellow, light blues, in strange patterns that could draw the eye into trying, and failing, to find sense in them.
Four legs, ending in four-toed feet, very lightly covered there, most of all, tapped against the ground in an impatient pattern as its hands, ending in five manipulator digits, fly over a virtual keyboard. They are thinner digits, and more flexible than our fingers, but five was still a quite logical number for any being of human size. It was wearing dark clothes, a laser resistant vest under a greater overcoat that hung down to between the first and second set of legs, and a pair of flexible, carapace-tight pants, speed over armor, cut short to allow the legs their full motion.
It let out a sound, somewhere between a chirp and a whistle, and then a slight click, of tongue against the roof of its mouth. Here is where I must intrude this old saying: A Translator is a Traitor. They betray a rich language by translating it into a non-native form, losing everything that makes it great. And if this is true between human languages, how much more true is it of an alien tongue. I can understand Xvorzith, but without some cybermods eve someone from Sol like myself is leery of, I could never speak it. So forgive me throughout this reading, those dear listeners who are Xvorzith, but this is the most poetic and apt translation as I can, doing as much justice to the beauty of the language as I can.
"Well, fuck," Vorzhan said.
*****
It wasn't here. It wasn't that Vorzhan was going to rush ahead, it all was step by step, but she'd been hoping that here at last was the right archive that would have news on Zaeswin. But it was all evidence of something else: an experiment involving a new type of armor, and then a document trying to cover up the failure, and then, well then it devolved into everyone's favorite game: ass covering.
It was distasteful to Vorzhan, even third-hand, documented in the archives by bored spooks, people like he had once been. It wasn't that person anymore, but the line of thought made its legs itch, and it rubbed the first two of them together. It knew this was a bad habit, but back when they were broken, after her...discharge, Vorzhan hadn't been able to help but rub them together, they itched so bad beneath the bandages. And it'd stuck. Their head-wings twitched slightly. Another failure. Never matter, they thought, finding their center, where their mental strength resided. They'd find a lead, and they'd follow it, follow it to the end and see justice.
"Do you expect me to betray my friends, my comrades in arms?" Vorzhan asked, struggling against the restraints, in a dark, musky room that that different from the one she now occupied.
"No, Vorzhan former-builder-caste, I expect only that you will die. After we extract those cybernetics. They are state property," the other bug said, leaning down, black eyes seeming to glean, its chitin a dark blue-green, exotic and strange, laser-scalpel gleaming against the darkness of the room "And I'll kindly have it back. Try not to scream. Too much."
Vorzhan realized it had freezed up for a moment, and shook its head. A human gesture, of sorts, but one picked up things. The room smelled stale, and of mold, not the sort that was cultivated for food. And grubs, the bad kind that rotted in your mouth and made you sick. A miserable place in a miserable corner of the Hive. Yet even here the reach of the old regime could be felt. (Old, ha, he corrected himself as if one couldn't still count the days since it had truly fallen?) One of the soldiers who reported that the new armor was fake was rounded up and sent to a prison camp for several years before being belatedly released and drummed from service. All to hide incompetence and graft. And the only person to pay attention were a few minor spooks doing general monitoring.
And the only person who knew and cared was, now, Vorzhan. She'd have to find this soldier, help them somehow, do justice to their supposed 'disgrace' as an 'inferior worker and second-rate soldier' as their family had been told to explain their imprisonment. Everywhere it looked, the Xvorzit saw only more evidence that it was a worthy goal, ending this sort of thing. And yet, Vorzhan had missed Zaeswin. He'd disappeared almost half a unit before the revolt began, and now the trail was almost three units [ed-somewhat over three weeks] stale. But it had been worth it, of course, making sure that bloodshed didn't occur, that it didn't all fall apart, but now that everything was working, now that she'd soon be working for someone hopefully less corrupt, Vorzhan might yet have leave to follow their hunt for justice. And if not, they'd do it on their own.
They'd been alone before, their Commander shipped off, alive only because of their rank, their friends and comrades are killed, saved only because of a chance friendship and a 'Workers Association' tie with a certain mid-level police captain who'd gotten wind of it. Had stormed in with a warrant for Vorzhan's arrest on other matters only a few minutes before the last of the cybernetics was gone. Only a day before he'd have been executed by firing squad. Arrested, and then dischraged, record sealed, to run, to hide, to make a life as a revolutionary.
And now it was all over. All over but to save the Commander, who might yet be freed. And to bring justice to Zaeswin for the thousands tortured by experiments, killed by spooks, the innocents untold going into his lair and never coming out. Vorzhan could picture it, the ways that Zaeswin could escape. Could, as disgusting as it was, put himself in the madman's carapace, understand the ways where he could use his influence and power to plan an escape. And Zaeswin was perhaps smart enough to see the shape of the architecture, the way the Hive was crumbling around the monarchy with every breath, with every muttered rumor of ruler-caste incompetence. Words but are wind, but the wind can blow through even the most secure hive, and a windstorm can knock down any Xvorzit, no matter how strong.
"Fire! By all of your blasted egg-sacs, fire!" the commander screamed yet again. But against the millions of protestors, walking forward, they could do nothing. Even over the comms the chants could be heard. 'Let the voice of the people be heard/ we are not worker-slaves/ You are not Hatini Priests!' and a thousand other chants, blending and mixing together, a wall of sound. Vorzhan can picture it, the march forward, the beauty of that moment, but he didn't see it.
He was too busy cutting off the mic of the commander before he tried to force their guns to engage automatically, and monitoring the situation across the entire Hive-World, terrified at the last moment that freedom would slither away into the dark recesses to hibernate and wait for another wet season. He was too busy then, sitting in a room not unlike the one he was in now, trying to do the work of twenty himself. And she'd succeeded, or at least done well enough that other than a few scattered incidents, the final night of the Monarchy had been...gentle. Not calm, but gentle. "Gentle" a word which inherently was tied into peace and stability, into the idea of an ordered Hive.
A newly ordered Hive.
Vorzhan knew the hard work was just begun, but it felt like enough of a triumph to smother a thousand setbacks like this. It was then that they felt it. Someone was coming. Vorzhan didn't have the monitoring software, but the proximity of others had a feel, a buzzing in her cybernetics that made their insides feel strange and constricted. It could guess it wasn't hostile, and that's all that kept it from grabbing for the weapon it had hidden in the jacket, a gun quite illegal for civilians in the old regime, and likely to still be illegal in the new regime, in all honesty.
It's a sleek piece, based off of a human design, meant for power. Instead of having hundreds of shots it only had a few dozen, but they could be gotten off quickly, and they packed a lot of punch. Ultimately if you had to empty an entire handgun clip, then you were likely against government officials, who had a lot more than just handguns, at which point it was mere logic to avoid a direct firefight.
So a gun as advanced as could be acquired, designed for sudden bursts of firing or a single, well-timed and aimed shot, that could be hidden on one's person was what Vorzhan had decided on. But they didn't draw it, as the door opened. The other figure was shorter by perhaps half a head, smaller and without head-wings. Its head was tilted, and its legs moved, in a polite pose.
Vorzhan turned, a little slowly, one hand cocking in a carefully neutral way, before asking, "Yes?"
"Sir?" Yalish said. He was a caretaker of the place, a minor functionary who had taken to helping Vorzhan out at the facility the last two days of his search. Short, and with a black caraplace, he was dressed in long scholar's robes, but with a blue-green shirt, a twisted symbol, something like the human 'S' but with more kinks, rested on it. Sessitit, a revolutionary, a martyr. Wearing the shirt was forbidden, or had been. And wearing it was now a symbol, a sign even among those who never would have dared before that they hadn't truly supported the old order. Yalish's voice was a little too deep, not yet fully come into her adulthood, or so it seemed, a bit of unevenness to it.
"Yes? I am pretty much done with this bit of the archive--"
"Humbly I must say...You have been…" there was a pause, and then their voice grew deeper, attempting to sound confident and personal and yet formal at the same time, their tongue clicks just barely fast enough, their whistling cut short by an overemphasis on the chirping secondary-vowels of the old formalities. She dipped her body, and Vorzhan realized what it was.
"Do not bow," Vorzhan said voice carefully informal, wings tipping forward slightly in a reassuring manner, "We are all citizens in whatever comes after. Equals all. Where it matters. The heart below the chitin." He realized he was quoting a popular song, but it seemed to work, and their voice when it spoke again came more clearly.
"You have been elected by acclaim, it's...it's done, Vorzhan. You are rul...in charge." Ruler was a bad word among certain Xvorzit.
Vorzhan was startled, he'd been in the running, but there were four or five other candidates who could claim the same. "What about Kikkizit? Weren't his poems an inspiration, and his jailing an insult, his escape an inspiration? I thought he was leading."
"He has been offered a position at his old University, and he expressed doubts as to whether he would be the best candidate," Yalish said, voice now rising a little higher, as if proclaiming it to the world, "And so he bowed out in favor of the others. Another was thought too implicated in the old regime--"
And not me? Vorzhan thought. I've done worse than you can imagine. But he knew the answer. Acts done in the shadows don't get seen as much as those in the light, such as those who enforced the tax policy or had to argue its laws. Those who killed in its name in the shadows, who heard of them, who cared about them? They were unseen or they were the enemy. Or they came in from the depths into the warmth of day, and did battle with the Hives. As Vorzhan had. And suddenly all was forgiven? It felt cheap, and yet…
"I suppose this makes sense. So I am to be in charge?" he chirped, still baffled, still making sense of it. A mistake had been made somewhere, but he couldn't turn around, he couldn't refuse, he could have if he'd been there. She'd have said no and they'd have found some other candidate. But…
"It is what the people say they want," Yalish said, voice carefully neutral, not sure how to interpret it. The instincts of a born courtier, Vorzhan's read was, not wishing to offend a new monarch, or potentially another refused contender.
"And I should be dashed against the rocks, my chitin cracked like glass, should I disobey the mandates of the people," it said, fiercely, stepping forward, "I should return to my temporary quarters, in order to figure out how to begin." Not that she'd wait until them. Already their mind was on matters.
The well-organized mind was something they understood, and their understanding that it was not merely what one thought but how that mattered was something the Xvorzit shared with the Barsa. The Barsa, who stressed wisdom and virtue, who tried to train even the weakest mind to at least be strong of will and heart and capable of seeing the truth. For his people, it was simpler: they understood the power of organization, of control, and so slowly the thoughts began to coalesce, even as they were led outside and through the hall, Yalish chattering, chittering, and their own words coming almost automatically, the easy patter of conversation that even the least outgoing Xvorzit could do in their sleep. Yalish was eighteen, an intern, a fan of several poets that Vorzhan had heard of--that and a dozen other details were picked up without even trying. You were a little more reticent, but also perfectly skilled at leading the conversation where you wanted it to go without it seeming unnatural.
(An Example roll for something unimportant! Talking! 1d100+Diplomacy+Half-Intrigue=1d100+34=119, critical success!)
The place was small and grimy, the walls in a stripped down style you'd seen done right before. Those grooves in the wall were supposed to hold grubs that glew in the dark to create ambient light, trapped behind glass, changed every few days--eaten, it was rumored, by the staff, for all that they weren't healthy for you--to create a lovely ambient light. Instead there was no glass and no grubs, just grey and brown walls. The closer they got to the outside, the more Vorzhan could hear the sounds. Yelling, cheering, chirping, whistling, talking. A crowd. A huge crowd. Vorzhan could guess at the numbers and know they were the least of them. Only a few tens of thousands, nothing to the Xvorzit, yet certainly more than it expected to face. They went through the wide double-doors, designed for far more people than usually came through, out into a sunny day, this being part of the Hive not covered by any sort of doming.
The sun was high in the sky, beating down on tens of thousands of Xvorzit, crowding around the entrance, kids on shoulders to view you, com-corders everyone. Thousands of videos being shot, no doubt, and he saw a holo-cast drone in the sky as well. Most were workers, wearing the greys and blues of their caste, but with the symbols of Sessitit prominent, and others yet were artists or officials. They moved hastily to bow as a cheer was let out, and then others. "Hail, lawbreaker and hero!" a Xvorzith poet and singer chanted at the front as they moved to bow.
(1d100+19 (Diplomacy)+5 (Hype)=106 THE HYPE IS REAL)
Vorzhan held a hand out and then dipped into a bow, and then lower, and lower, until all four legs were splayed in the dust, their jacket trailing against the ground, head bowed, as they pulled out an...amulet. With the symbol of Sessitit on it, holding it aloft, "Hail Sessitit! Hail the people! Hail the Hive, Hail Gazinitah! I bow to you, the people's servant."
Had the crowd roared before? It went mad, as feet stamped and cheers grew louder and louder.
"I shall do my best," he said, aware of just what he was quoting, "For all who share with me this dream. This vision." One of the poets gaped, and began to chant, a full Bazkhiti.
"And stay with you we shall/ Endless and endless are the stars and the sand/ Yet never shall we abandon you!" they began, and the crowd began chanting that most ancient of song-poems, the tune timeless. At least in theory. Vorzhan wasn't always the best judge, and it'd always seemed too light for the words, the chirps and the melody a bit too...simple? He wasn't the sort who listened to ancient poems, so it wasn't important either way.
Vorzhan rose, her clothes now lightly covered in dust, and she moved forward in a sort of sliding dance, and the crowd began to move, yielding to the sheer force of her advance as she began...dancing through the streets to the cheers and laughs and jokes and songs. In the rough and friendly company of thousands and then thousands behind them and behind them...the crowd only growing. Dancing as others join her.
To dance, to sing, these were the ways of the Xvorzit, these were the communal practices that held a people together, or so some said. To burst into song is nothing, not really, and now's a light moment, not a heavy one. At least, that's what Vorzhan tries to say, in dance.
While in the sanctity of her mind, private even with all of those others around her, she planned. Vorzhan was starting to get an idea of what he wanted to do, and how to do it. It had a lot of work in front of it, a lot to do. But it could make a better world, it wouldn't be hard to do better than the old rulers. One thing at a time, though, and for the moment the leader of fifteen billion Xvorzit danced.
Options: In the first turn or two, because you are coming off a revolution, you have a number of free actions where you have to choose between several options, dealing with the aftermath of the revolution and the like!
At the moment you have around five-thousand Wealth free-floating, total, with a lot else earmarked or out of reach while you try to figure out what is where.
Martial: Now that you're in charge, there's much you have to do. You have some experience in these sorts of things, but it's a big task to handle, and one that for the moment will be a solitary one. (Pick two)
An Old Friend
Hazitean was a buddy of yours back when it felt like things were going somewhere. You were foolish, but you'd really thought that. She (quite insistent in that regard) was more on the standard-forces side of things, and advocated greater participation in naval operations to enforce the Repatriation Treaties. More than that, she argued that a hidebound and broken military system could not be effectively used, and worse was open for abuse and corruption. She eventually left, angry, and you haven't seen her since. But...you could use the help, though you're pretty sure she wouldn't just want to be your advisor, at least not immediately, but she could definitely help. Talk to your friends, send out word, figure out if she's on planet or off, and if off what can be done.
Cost: None
Probability: 50% (would be 40% without Workers Association), failure can mean she can't be found, is far, far away, or doesn't want to talk to you.*
Reward: Find Hazitean, unlock more options regarding her at that point, get her advice, adding +10% to the chance of any other martial actions this turn. Potentially she might help you in other ways. Shinies.
*Just to note, there's a personal action that can increase the chances of this where you look yourself. It adds more than a 'Personal Intervention' would. Just wanted to tell you since you won't see it until the second part of the turn-vote.
Search for an Martial advisor:
You need to find someone to give you advice, and you can't just rely on some vague hope that Hazitean might be lured out of retirement, as much as you miss her. Ask around the soldier castes, dredge up candidates, offer wages if need be, just see what you can find.
Cost: 100 Wealth, 100 Wealth a year (high salary).
Probability: 50% (40% with any actions that involve annoying the soldiery), better rolls mean better candidates.
Reward: A few options, some choices for who to appoint.
Send the Fleets to the colonies.
Still ruled by the various ruler-caste administrators and the like, they are small, population wise. Only, combined in all of the various colonies, a few tens of millions, nothing to be concerned about, and yet they had power beyond that. There are some ships assigned permanently to colonial forces, but more significantly they are vulnerable so long as they are cut off from Gazinitah. They are quite wealthy, all of these colonies or mining depots, for what they produce, the resources that are extracted, and it'd be a shot in the arm. For all of these reasons, you should begin, you've decided, by sending elements of the fleet to...safeguard these areas, not yet invade, but try to keep them close. The way you'll get it done is to talk to the two Battleship Captains you've been communicating with and get them to pass along the orders, hence how you don't need to know the specifics of the fleet to give this order.
Cost: 500 Wealth
Probability: 80%
Reward: Fleets over the colony worlds, further options unlocked, no chance of pirates or counter-revolutionaries, or other polities poaching them.
Gun it!
That Farsha Mk 2 handgun, and its long-gun version, is a horrible gun. You hate that weapon with a passion. As petty a thing as that is, you hold that grudge very deeply. It's a loud, inefficient weapon, a hog of energy and bullets, and you've seen civilians that have better weapons. You could try to convince the soldier-castes to buy some of a better model and make, in fact you have some ideas already. And you're going to start by buying some on the budget you know about, maybe do some trials to show how much better they are?
Cost: 700 Wealth
Probability: 50%, 60% with Talk to the Soldier Caste or What Am I Spending For?
Reward: Your defense forces start using guns that, while not cutting edge, are at least a little less completely and utterly out of date. Also, you're convincing the people who you might be prosecuting to arm themselves better.
What am I spending for?
There are huge outlays of money and wealth that at the moment are just being approved at will, by a separate coffer disconnected from the main budget, for use by the more militant castes to do as they see fit under direction, of course, of the ruling caste. It's a big, black pit of money, as you always knew it was back when you were in Information Services, second only to the Black Budget. Try to get a handle on it.
Cost: Negligible
Probability: 90%, but the lower you roll the more you might miss and the more likely there will be bad news like 'Someone stole all of the pension money and skipped planet' and so on.
Reward: Get a handle on the military budget, you will now receive information to update on the planetary page.
(Free)Security or Liberty?
There have been calls to decrease the scope of the defense forces to interfere in internal affairs. The police should handle it, and the idea that there is a need for forces with special weapons or more militant tactics to deal with crime seems to many a sign of all that was wrong with the old order. Others have argued that in these chaotic times the need is greater than ever. Separating them and enacting laws to further this split would cost little directly, but could cause bruised egos and negative effects. This action is free this turn, though failure would mean a significant setback.
Cost: 50 wealth
Probability: 50%, failure means laws are poorly written, bitterly opposed, or wind up compromising and not fully separating police and defense-forces.
Reward: Separate police and defense forces, updated planet page to represent this, improved opinion of the common Hiver, grumblings among the defense forces, ???
Tanks for Nothing!
You have tanks. Lots of hover-tanks, just sitting there. They weren't rolled out because of fears about the escalation of violence, and there are calls to sell them. Or at least some of them. A lot of them are really, really old and outdated, and apparently keeping them up is expensive, eating up a good deal of resources more than newer models, which while outdated haven't been completely and totally supplamented as useful by every other power in the galaxy. You could sell them, for scrap and parts and--once properly disarmed--for historical re-enactment and other such niche usages.
Cost: Negligible, (basically 0 Wealth when it's all factored in.)
Probability: 70% (Failure means you don't find buyers, get a bad price, some of the tanks get stolen by nuts, so on. You'll still get something.)
Reward: 250 Wealth, 500 Wealth freed up per year, smaller but more up-to-date tank corps. Possibly new Options if you roll well enough. The joy of imagining historical re-enactment with hover-tanks.
With the Fleets
You are not a bug that gets along with ships. You sometimes get a little sick, really, in hyperspace. But you know that the fleets are important, for fighting the pirates, protecting the world, all sorts of things. Learn more about the fleet. How loyal are its officers, other than the few you know personally that you'd be sending orders to and hoping they could work out everything else? How good are its ships, does it have enough in the way of budgeting? There's a lot you don't know, and that's not a good thing when they're sitting overhead with weapons that--were it not for treaties against it--could scour all of the life on the planet if given long enough for a sustained bombardment.
Cost: Free
Probability: 50%
Reward: Fleet information acquired, possibility of gauging the opinion of the fleet towards you, possible improved relationship with them.
Talk to the Soldier Caste
You've known soldiers, you've befriended soldiers and loved and hated those from the soldier castes. They are people just like anyone else, as much members of the Hive as any, and you could talk to them, get to know their desires and their fears, and try to open up to them.
Cost: Free
Probability: 60%
Reward: Improved relations with soldier-castes, get gossip/news/information about their concerns and what their leaders might have in mind.
Special Martial-Criminals and Heroes (Choose 1!)
Investigation: Many, including the great mass of people, argue that only a full investigation into the conduct of the military is warranted, both the defense and police forces. This has the anathema of the ruler castes and the soldiers, of course, but the full-throated support of the people.
Fact Finding Mission:
You could frame it as a fact-finding mission, investigating what if any abuses happened, who would have fired and who wouldn't have, where the corruption might be, and so on, with any punishment to wait until things are absolutely and certainly decided. The people might think you're trying to stretch out investigations enough to sweep it under the table when the media stops paying attention, however. But, you've known people in the soldier caste, can you really just move straight to it without being sure just what has been done and by who?
Cost: 50 Wealth (Legal fees, investigators, etc)
Probability: 80%, roll 1d100 (how bad things are) and then roll 1d100+20 for finding all sources of corruption/seeing how bad things are.
Reward: You get a handle on the situation, possible raised soldier-caste opinion, possible lowered. Possible lowered Will of the Hive opinion.
Firings:
You should move right into it. Ultimately, if there's even decent evidence of abuse, it'd be best to just fire the perpetrators without having to subject them to trials. It's the best way to be sure, and it looks far more proactive than any slow and steady methods available.
Cost: 100 Wealth (Legal fees plus compensation for forced retirement, etc)
Probability: 90%, roll 1d100 (how bad things are) and then roll 1d100+10 for finding it all out.
Reward: Increased opinion by the people, lowered soldier-class opinion, some of the officers and members of the defense forces and police might be fired, leading to some gaps.
Prosecution:
You saw the beatings with your own eyes. Can there be any doubt that there are deep problems and abuses in the system. And the book must be thrown at them. Anyone who seems to have a connection with the crimes of the weeks before the peaceful revolution (already called the Gentle Revolt) should be prosecuted, and you will lean on the courts to make sure this happens.
Cost: 150 Wealth (legal fees, investigators, etc)
Probability: 60%, roll 1d100 and then roll 1d100.
Reward: Greatly increased popular opinion, greatly lowered defense-forces/police opinion, more gaps in the defense forces and police ranks.
OR, you could try
Reconciliation
You could instead argue that ultimately the troops stood down, the abuses were minimal, and that ultimately everyone needs to learn to live together. This has a chance of pissing off the people at large, but would certainly be favorable to the soldiers and others. You'd stage events and meetings to try to bring the sides together in understanding, going there personally or through your friends to try to bridge this gap by whatever means you can.
Cost: 100 Wealth
Probability: ???%, higher you roll, the better it all goes
Reward: Possible decrease or increase in the opinions of you by soldiers, ruler-caste officials, and the workers as a whole. It all depends on how you roll.
Diplomacy: You are charismatic, and you're going to need it. Things are a mess, the diplomatic caste is out of power in theory but not fact, and so you'd better get to work, and fast. (Pick 2)
Caste of Diplomats?
You have an entire caste of diplomats. Just...how good are they? Have they been doing a good job? Are there any candidates from within there that you might promote to ambassadors? Any major problems sneaking up on you? You need to find out.
Cost: None
Probability: 60%
Reward: More options, have some choices for a diplomatic Advisor, ???
What are we In For?
The diplomats made treaties, of course they did. Trade treaties, military treaties, and so on. What are they anyways? Are there any landmines in there that might blow up the entire planet when we trip one? Any opportunities, any good deals, any bad ones? You feel a headache coming on at the thought of everything that could go wrong.
Cost: 100 Wealth
Probability: 70%, 1d100 for how bad/good the situation is.
Reward: Options, learn whether you're doomed, ???
Possibilities: Human Powers?
One of the more obvious ways to look diplomatically is towards the various human powers in the regions. Acquire dossiers on them, learn more about their trading needs, figure out as much as you can about them for the purpose of having more complete diplomatic relationships later on.
Even more obvious are the other Xvorzit hives. Many have governments similar to the one you're trying to set up, so you could talk to them, try to figure out how you might work together. It'd be easier in some ways, though ultimately you are competitors as well as friends in the economic struggle. But it's certainly something you could follow up on.
Cost: 200 Wealth
Probability: 70%
Reward: Options for the option god!
Learn the Will of the Hive
What do the people want, diplomatically? Are there any groups that haven't been heard, are there options that have been ignored because they have come from outside the usual context and the corridors of power? You should ask around, start to get to know the people's will.
Cost: Free
Probability: 70%
Reward: Options, Learn the Will of the Hive on these matters, increased commoner opinion, ???
(Free) Public, Free and Informative
There are going to be news holocasts blossoming like weeds in an untended garden, and at the moment you have neither the time nor energy to regulate them, and perhaps not the will. You could, however, set up a public news station to give people an understanding of your viewpoint and basic political information and the like, free and accessible to all of the public. This is a free (doesn't cost a slot) action in the first two turns, after which it begins to have an action-cost.
Cost: 500 Wealth, 100 Wealth a turn.
Probability: 60%
Reward: A public channel of your own, options, potentially propaganda.
Talk to the Colonies
You could send some ambassadors or representatives and the like to talk to them, make sure things are understood, try to make sure no body gets itchy legs and makes a mistake they'd regret. They are, after all, part of the Hive that you must now lead.
Cost: 100 Wealth
Probability: 50% (60% with sending a Fleet, it sorta...backs their words up some.)
Reward: Open a dialogue with the colonies, Information.
Recall the Ambassadors? (Free)
Do you recall the ambassadors? It might be seen at this point as a signal that you might wish to prosecute them, but leaving them there (the default if this isn't chosen) might lead to them getting up to something, or discussing things without authority. Bringing them back also might increase the chances of figuring out certain things. There's a lot to consider.
Cost: Negligible
Probability: 60%
Reward: Ambassadors reeled back in, ???
Free Action: Treaties and Deals?
You manage to stumble into a debate a month or two into your new administration. What to do about the treaties and deals of the old order? Some argue that legally and morally you should abrogate them all and negotiate anything new from a clean slate, while others argue that this would be folly, and destroy the planet's international reputation for keeping it's words. Others fire back that this is absurd and then someone...well, it got rather out of hand and now you need to decide. And yes, you've already asked about the possibility of figuring out which treaties are bad and pulling out of those. It'd be seen as duplicitious and selective.
Many of the treaties, such as the Repatriation Treaty and several of the ones that are behind the Galactic Consensus, you'd no doubt rejoin as soon as you can, but even those you'd have to pull out of...at least temporarily. On the other hand, do you want your hands bound by the dead agreements of the past?
[] Yes, get rid of all treaties, start fresh.
[] No, we will stick with our currently obligations under the old government.
Stewardship: Ultimately, the economy must be preserved, the industry must flow onwards, and you need to get a handle on what needs to be changed and what doesn't. You're in a rich sector, but the policies of the Caste Rulers have perhaps hampered growth, some say. Others say they prized growth over the good of the workers. Either way, there is must work to be done. (Pick 4)
Trade Traffic?
You have some idea of who your trade partners are, and surely you'll learn more when you figure out where the Treaties are kept, but learning more is important, as is making sure that they haven't been majorly disrupted by the events of the past month*, and figure out the specifics of trade and just who is involved in it.
*Translated
Cost: 400 Wealth
Probability: 70%
Reward: Figure out trade-traffic, major trading partners, open up economic information on who is profiting from it.
Study the Workers' Plight
You know there is abuse. You mean to stop it, ultimately. Hours too long by their own laws, work too dangerous in a day and age when there's no good reason to use workers as if you're back on the home-planet, back when the Industrial Revolutions, to borrow the human phrase, were going on. You could investigate into these abuses, and get to the bottom of it.
Cost: 500 Wealth
Probability: 70% (50% with 'Restore Productivity)
Reward: Learn more about potential abuses, open up options, potentially increase worker opinions, potentially reduce merchant opinions.
Restore Productivity
On the other hand, whatever the workers are going through, you need to get the factories going back full speed. Provide encouragement towards this happening, funds if need be, grants to the private businesses that keep the Hive running. Ultimately, if you are going to not lose your place in the galactic economy, you need to act.
Cost: 750 Wealth
Probability: 60% (50% with 'Study the Workers' Plight).
Reward: Potentially increased mercantile-caste opinions of you, potentially decreased worker opinions, economic production resumes full-tilt, income gained from that.
Talk to the Castes
The castes were the ones that ran the bureaucracy that the ruler-castes led, they organized the economy, they did much of the middle-management. And they have been cast aside for the moment. You could reach out a hand and talk to them, learn about their concerns and see what they know?
Cost: Free
Probability: 80%, roll 1d100+Stewardship+½ Diplomacy to see how they take it.
Reward: Information, more knowledge of what they think of you. Opens up options.
Judge Not
The Judicial body is a mess of laws applying to different castes, of strange exceptions and corruption from top to bottom. You should know, you monitored the private communication of a few judges who were sentencing peaceful protestors as terrorists. You need to begin getting a handle on it, asking around, having some lawyers do pro-bono work in order to figure out where even to begin with this mess.
Cost: Wealth 100 (the time the lawyers working with you could have spent helping out other things)
Probability: 70%
Reward: Options, learn more about the Judicial Caste and the state of the laws.
Budgetary Matters
Right now people are almost literally shoveling money out the door with no idea what it's going for. You need to learn what the budget is and where this is all going for, push past the obscruities and exemptions and departmental budgets, and get what's actually going on. It won't help with the Military, that's separate for...some reason, and will be for a while yet, but it's a vital step in order to be able to actually understand what the hell's going on.
Cost: 200 Wealth (People helping you, mostly)
Probability: 80%
Reward: Learn just what your mainline budget is, opens up options.
Search for an Advisor
You need help. Being able to fund a resistance movement or a secret holo-cast channel or do your household budget with your eyes closed and not counting off on your digits is not the same as running a world economy. Search for someone to help you.
Cost: 200 Wealth, 100 Wealth per turn to budget for him.
Probability: 100% (roll to see how good of a selection you find to choose from.)
Reward: An economic advisor. If they have a higher Stewardship than you than you can finally have time to take a breath without numbers swimming through your head. Your +1 Stewardship, if replaced by Advisor's bonus, becomes +1 Personal Action! So the number of actions stays the same for Stewardship, but more free time, yay!
Learn the People's Will
The workers hunger for change, you can learn what they want, what they truly need economically. New roads? New laws? What is it they want and need? You need to know if you are to rule them, don't you?
Cost: Free
Probability: 80%
Reward: Options.
Implement the People's Will
You could also see and act at the same time, doing what seems most popular to those you talk to. Not just listen, but be a mouthpiece for their will. It is your duty, is it not?
Cost: Variable, half-cost of regular
Probability: ???
Rewards: Do a Stewardship action (from a secret list of what they want), get improved Will of the Hive score.
Solicit the People
You need money, and you have neither taxes currently in your grasp or other methods. Ask for donations, for help, for people to donate their time and energy to help this government work. It's a group effort, but it's definitely something you can encourage.
Cost: 100 Wealth
Probability: 60% (80% with 'Wipe the Slate Clean', 40% with 'Keep them all.')
Reward: Steady stream of Wealth donated, more stable income for next turn.
The Moneybags
The ruler-castes, the bureaucrats, they have money stored away, hidden away. The rich, the powerful they always do. Vast fortunes immune to taxation, immune to sense, covered in blood. You could free it, as it were. Fuck what the former rulers say, the money belongs to the people, through your own will, to spend for their betterment.
Cost: 200 Wealth
Probability: 50%
Reward: ??? Wealth, Caste and Ruler-Caste opinion lowered, perhaps dramatically, ???
Free Taxes Options
The taxes are unfair, too high, and rather dangerous, ultimately, to the operation of any reasonable system. Everyone agrees on that, but what they don't agree on is what to do about it. You have three general proposals that have been given to you.
Wipe the Slate Clean
The taxes are bad. Not all of them, but to try to tell apart good and bad is foolish. Instead, you could eliminate all taxes and then start right from the beginning afterwards and write a new tax code later on. You'd have to rely on donations and stored wealth, so it might be a little bit touch and go, however, but this is a very popular option, as nobody believes that, even when implemented, the taxes will be nearly as bad as they used to be.
Cost: Loss of All Tax Income (though all of it is already going to ??? sources, so it wouldn't be lost income...directly just yet.)
Chance: 50% (60% with 'Solicit The People.')
Reward: No more taxes...for now! Clean slate to start over next turn. Increased worker opinion. ???!?
Keep them All
Not forever, but for the moment you should simply stick with the taxes as is, and change them or modify them later. It will give you a solid tax base, at the very least, but will piss some people off. Quite a few, really.
Cost: 100 Wealth
Probability: 70% (60% with 'Solicit the People.)
Reward: Keep taxes as is, Worker opinion drops.
Find the Right Ones
You are not a tax lawyer, and the tax lawyers aren't always to be trusted, but you could try to determine what exactly works and what doesn't. Dig through the archives, talk to economists, try to figure out at least a decent first cut that ends the most abusive practices and exceptions, even if it needs further cutting. In theory it could give the advantages of both, or it could wind up ending quite poorly.
Cost: Nominal
Probability: 30%
Reward: Dedicated stream of revenue established, Opinion of the Hive/former-rulers might go up, down, or sideways, ???.
****
Alright, and posted. Now, since I know this isn't Warhammer or another common/popular Dynasty game, there might be questions about some of the actions, such as what this or that means, or so on. Feel free to ask me questions, and I'll answer to the full extent that Vorzhan would know.
Wow, this is long. I could put it in spoilers for each category in the future if that helps? What does everyone think? Incidentally, I have the second half of the turn done, and in total it's nearly 10k in words.[/Spoiler]
Last edited:
Turn 1--2427 CE (A): Intrigue, Learning and Personal
We have a winner! So, here's the winner and here's the second part.
[X] Send the Fleets to the colonies.
[X] An Old Friend
[X] Reconciliation
[X] What are we In For?
[X] Learn the Will of the Hive
[X] (Free) Public, Free and Informative
[X] Recall the Ambassadors? (Free)
[X] No, we will stick with our currently obligations under the old government.
[X] Trade Traffic?
[X] Learn the People's Will
[X] Judge Not
[X] Budgetary Matters
[X] Keep them All
Intrigue: This is your area, this is what you know best. And it is in disarray. The forces that monitored and controlled, jailed and beat the Xvorzit are now in chaos, special forces deserting or hiding for fear of vengeances, and more than that, there is Zaeswin on the loose. The machines and tools of control, of the dark and secret knowledge, all of them currently lay in disarray. At your feet. Yours to command. (Pick 3)
Hunting Zaeswin
He is a monster. He destroyed your unit, he tortured your friends and ripped your cybernetics out of you screaming, and might have murdered you if he'd had the chance. A pure monster, he has unknown ties to multiple intergalactic forces, including the Iashec, and was one of the most powerful figures in the old order, almost as powerful as the monarch. And then, just before the revolution, he disappears. He's not going to get away that easily, and you're going to find him. Find him and get justice, and learn what he's done.
Cost: 300 Wealth
Probability: 20% (You're sending regulars to do your job, what do you expect, Mr. Bug?). Much higher if you get involved of course. See Personal.
Reward: Find out where Zaeswin is hiding, opens up options, gives chance for 'Infiltration Turn', you get to be called Bug, Vorzhan Bug.
Your old Commander
It was several years ago that they were packed off to a prison world. You are reasonably sure ol' Yaziha is alive, though you can't be entirely sure. Either way, you should rescue them. The student has likely surpassed the master, but they mean so much to you. They taught you everything you knew, back before their fall, back before the world stopped making sense. You cannot leave them behind.
Cost: 150 Wealth
Probability: 60%
Reward: Free Yaziha, talk to them and get advice/information. Feels.
The Bugs in the System
A one time only chance. At the moment the many systems of monitoring and control that had most average systems hacked, with built-in backdoors and bugs and viruses, a whole system, lies inert. It will be destroyed, and most of it should be. But, there are certain things that might be useful. Just in case, to monitor for terrorism or crime, or to make sure you have something to build on later. If it is all allowed to be swept clean, it'll take a lot of work to put anything else back in place.
Cost: 200 Wealth
Probability: 60%
Reward: Keep a bare-bones system of secret-monitoring functioning, more options, ???
The Infernal Archive
Records were kept, in theory. In reality it's a rat's nest, and it's hard to tell. Many are encrypted, speaking of dark deeds, or hidden from one part of the Black Budget. The thing is a tangle. But within all of it might lie secrets, or information on Zaeswin, your target. Either way, you need to learn more about just what the government was up to.
Cost: 100 Wealth
Probability: 40%
Reward: +10% to all other Intrigue rolls this turn, opens up tons of new options. Information.
What are they saying?
The Ruler-Caste, the former Monarch and so on were immune to at least the bugs and programs you have access to, but you could find the codes for where they are monitored and work on setting up your own spy network. You need to know what they're saying and thinking, and whether they are planning anything against you. They gave up peacefully, but they certainly didn't *choose* to give up.
Cost: 300 Wealth
Probability: 50%
Reward: Monitor the former Monarch and her children and allies, open up options.
Colonial Eyes and Ears
The colonies are a big question mark. You could rectify this through viruses, agents, and other such forms of infiltration, but it's a long journey with forces you aren't entirely sure of. But considering the dangers the colonies pose, and are in, it might just be worth it. The operations would be delicate and complicated, but you just might be able to do it.
Cost: 400 Wealth
Probability: 30%/40% (with either Military or Diplomatic versions of dealing with the Colonies)/60% (with both)
Reward: Information. Options.
Redeeming the Aroane Special Group
The most famous special-forces group is the Aroane. There are many, but you have a friend or two who used to be in that group, and former friends still in there. Their reputation was marred by their actions, including a (peaceful) raid on the house of a protest-leader and scholar, but they are useful and the largest and (though the public might not believe it) least given to brutal and repressive acts, the true monsters hiding in the shadows, not so public that people spoke of the "ASG" in a very public way.
Cost: 200 Wealth
Probability: 40%
Reward: Aroane checked out and cleared of potential subversives, public opinion restored to 'neutral/those-scary-people', options opened up.
Open Government?
There have been calls to open the action of the government so all can see it. You could do so...at least for the non-classified stuff, setting up sites and document retrieval for the non-sensitive Diplomatic, Stewardship, Martial and Learning actions, while keeping the Intrigue carefully hidden. It'd increase public trust, at the very least, though also increase public scrutiny.
Cost: 100 Wealth
Probability: 70%
Reward: Open Government holo-casts and VR/web-sites, increased public opinion, increased public pressure.
Cyber-Agents
You need to improve agents, and just as importantly, make sure you know the access codes and shut-offs for the cybernetically enhanced agents so that you can grant more of them, deactivate them for those who are let go but...aren't let go of living, and otherwise get a handle on this most-vital security issue.
Cost: 200 Wealth
Probability: 40%
Reward: Any agents that escape a purge won't have military-grade cybertech available. Can track your own agents. Can train more and give them Intelligence-Grade cybernetics.
Learning: Can knowledge set you free? It's possible, it did for you, and the advancement of technology and education is a priority in your new government, albeit one that has to compete with all of the other things you have to do. There's just so much to do and so little time. (Pick 2)
No budget for Apples?
There are complaints that the school budget is inadequate and that it can't wait for things to be sorted out. Kids grow up no matter what. You could provide some funds, at the moment a drop in the bucket in some senses, to keep things running as best you can for the moment, and sort out a real solution later.
Cost: 500 Wealth per turn
Probability: 80%
Reward: Nothing goes wrong, teachers don't strike or have to work without pay, gratitude there, things keep on going, albeit on a bare-bones budget.
What Do They Teach Kids These Days?
You hear a lot about the problems of the school. Low budgets, yes, but also inferior curriculum, old VR Headsets or even poorer schools having to use paper books, strange requirements that make no sense, and huge doses of propaganda, with many teachers as much agents of the state's control as educators. There are a lot of complaints, a neverending stream of them, and you can begin looking in it. Maybe commission a panel of experts, get to working out what to do?
Cost: 200 Wealth
Probability: 80%
Reward: Options, a lot of new options. A panel of people to give new (good and bad) ideas, to you.
Virtual Production
There have been suggestions to further study virtual-reality technology. Brain uploading's a no-go, but the technology of entering another reality temporarily is well-established, but there might be new technologies produced from it, not only important for education--such as better historical simulators and Virtual-Teachers--but potentially for training soldiers and producing for export.
Cost: 50 Wealth
Probability: 70%
Reward: Better Virtual Reality stuff, opens up more of the same sorts of research.
The Professor is Needed
You have but a single idea for who your Advisor on matters of education, scientific policy and so on should be. You will have many, no doubt, and have had many give their advice. It's a huge field, after all. And some would call for you to grab a brilliant scientist, but you know just the Xvorzit for the job. The professor, Ulizin, who declined the post of leader. Popular, beloved, erudite and learned, surely he's the best choice for the job.
Cost: 50 Wealth (Salary) per turn.
Probability: 60%
Reward: Get a Learning Advisor, open up possibilities. See the alternate dimension you if the first vote of Character Selection had won!
Implement the Hive's Will
There are many ideas in Gazinitah. Many patents filed, or that would have been filed. You could give an opportunity for independent inventors to use your facilities, pursue their ideas, their dreams, and see what comes of it. Which could very well be nothing, a giant explosion or a ruined lab, or it could be something...spectacular.
Cost: 100 Wealth
Probability: ???
Reward: Grab Bag of Mystery Shinies? Or nothing? Who knows!
Take A Pill
There are many illnesses that shouldn't exist, but do. Cured long ago, often simply and easily, their costs are yet beyond the average worker. You could tackle this problem any number of ways, but at the moment, you judge opening free clinics and the like is far, far beyond you, considering at the moment you aren't entirely sure how much your budget is, what you're spending, how you are going to pay month-by-month, let alone the state of medical care. However, you could have scientists and doctors work on trying to reduce the cost of medical equipment and find new ways to do the same things only cheaper.
Cost: 400 Wealth
Probability: 50%
Reward: New medical tech, health benefits start spreading slowly to the masses. Potential upswing in wealth over the next few years thanks to improved health.
Foreign Examples
There is a lot of technology from other places that your scientists could study. Other places often make things you cannot, and other species have their specialties and their skills. You could try to get them to gather and study some foreign technology, buying the patents or just the object, or otherwise trying to reverse engineer them. It's not entirely above-board, and what you'll get is a grab-bag as to whether it'll be useful, but it's certainly possible.
Cost: 200 Wealth
Probability: 25%
Reward: Grab bag of foreign tech advancements, potentially Wealth if any of them are marketable.
Personal: In all of this you do find some time for yourself, to spend as you wish. (Pick 2)
Personal Intervention
(will vote on what you Intervene on later.) Take a guiding hand in something, directing it, even more than you already are, spending a very large amount of your time and effort on it, free time as it were.
Cost: Free
Reward: Bonus equal to your stat on an action (+19% for Diplomacy, etc)
Activating Cybernetics
You were once a fully kitted-out cybernetically-enhanced soldier and spy. That's not going to happen again, but you could at least get a little bit of your old technology back, and just as important, the monitors so you don't have to feel someone else coming from the way it vibrates against your chitin, and can instead, you know, just be alerted. There are a number of minor things that can be done as well, without even getting into high-level military-grade stuff.
Cost: Negligible (a Wealth or two, I'll just call it free.)
Probability: 100% for +1/50% for +2/30% for +3
Reward: Cybernetics to enhnace your personal combat and Martial and Intrigue. The (+) represents how many points you'll have to spread about, as it were, and you can buy specific enhancements in a sort of 'Turn Results aftermath' thing.
What Are Friends For?
You are part of a Workers Association. These are friends, people who cared for you and whom you still care for. You could get the gang back together, talk, de-stress, maybe get their advice.
Cost: Free
Probability: 65%
Reward: Get the gang back together. Relieve some stress. Potential other benefits.
Hunt for Zaeswin
It's your job as much as anything else. You could take some time and follow up leads in your free time, direct the agents, and find this villain. You know more than anyone the sheer scope of their plans, even if you can't even guess at what Zaeswin truly desires.
(As a note, you can also do a PI on 'Hunting Zaeswin separate from this, representing you providing aid to the separate investigation so that two different groups (you and your spies) are both working the angles, following what might be many different leads.)
Cost: Free
Probability: 60%
Reward: All that 'Hunting Zaeswin' said. Chance for that action increased to 50% if you fail this action, 60% if you succeed.
Meeting An Old Friend
You could also make your search for that old friend personal. Go the the right places, talk to old friends, you don't have to just order people to do things, you're your own free agent. And you're her friend, and that's what matters.
Cost: Free
Probability: N/A
Reward: Increase odds of "Meeting An Old Friend" by Diplomacy+Martial as opposed to a PI which would just be the latter. So a 37% boost.
****
Alright, and good job for Deathstorm50 for guessing one of your potential options!
Vorzhan stretched his legs as he stepped into the hotel room. He didn't have a home base, a palace, those were associated with the fixed old order. Instead he moved from place the place, like some ancient monarch of one of the species that weren't as fixed as the Xvorzit were. His legs had been itching even worse lately, and when the door closed he noticed something. The blinds were open, which seemed...he grabbed his gun and pressed his body up against the grey walls. Yes, there was no doubt, someone was in here. It was one of those feelings you developed. The bad thing about moving around was that it meant the stronger security measures weren't possible, though then again, it did create a certain unpredictability.
That was now breached. Vorzhan picked up the com, and she'd move slightly. Exact places weren't needed, and they'd move the gun slightly, shifting it as they stepped forward. One leg, forward, two three four, reading to duck. "Hafphit B," they said, the code-word for 'potential enemy in building.' It would take only a few moments for the guards to descend, but there was a strange sound. A bottle broke. "Come out with your arms raised above your head!"
There was a voice like none he'd heard in years, that slight rumble to it, like gravel, the way it stretched some of the clicks too long, almost like a slurring and yet nothing like that at all. "Where's the good shit? A food-nest should have something other than a package of grubs and...is this moldly, did you?"
If it had been Zaeswin, well--it would be convenient, sure--but Vorzhan wouldn't have been much more surprised than she was. Really? "Hazitean?"
"Your security and your lackies are all subpar. The old regime might have, probably has, infiltrated them all, and they shall soon strike. I am here to save you. And eat grubs. Mostly saving you. And beating you upside the head for putting out that holo-poster." Well, that was new, Vorzhan realized. Their tone was weaving erratically, as if they were having trouble letting their words flow out in the proper way.
Vorzhan slipped around the corner and trained it on...yes, that was Hazitean, in all her glory. She was tall for a Xvorzit, and her arms were rather thick. Some sort of worker-caste, or she had been, with brown-grey skin, lightening almost into white around her neck and the ends of her legs. She was dressed in heavy armor, the sort for storming fortifications, and it covered her face.
"This isn't my room, just using it and…" Vorzhan began, before realizing how utterly absurd the idea of having to justify the food in their room. They stepped forward and said, "Are you okay? I haven't seen you in forever and then--"
"I saw it everywhere. I wasn't even on this blasted planet until five units ago. Blasted, blown up, like a bomb, all of them after me, and I don't even look quite like me. You're hopeless, like a…"
She trailed off, her speech having caught something of a stutter, "Hopeless nothing. They're probably plotting against you, I've heard you're planning on letting them all get away. Those. Those monsters. The liars. The thorax-lickers. They. Why did you call me…"
"Because I might need your help," Vorzhan said, moving forward, "Why did you come?"
"Because you're hopeless. Hopeless like a...do you have Garta, I need a...a something, a drink?" Up close, behind the helmet, her eyes were twitching in a rather unhealthy way.
"I can get you a drink, I can get whatever you need. It's good to see you." He reached her, and moved a arm, resting it over her shoulder. She was shaking, and her voice became a rail.
"They lied to me. Betrayed me. Kicked me out, said...said, well I'll show them what they said. Ruined me. It wasn't fair."
Vorzhan doesn't know what to say but begins stroking her neck, before finally the words came, "I know it isn't fair, but it can get better…"
She makes a rather impolitic cough and reaches out, pulling out a mini computer and said, "They think they're so great with their encryptions and their budgets and their numbers. This is...their budget. Cut it to the bone, execute the traitors by firing squad, create a new...a new something that…"
"Is that a…" Vorzhan said, trailing off. Attached to her hip was a detonator, the sort that could blow up this entire room and leave not a single piece large enough to identify. They'd ask how she got it and hid it, but they knew a dozen ways to hide and obscure that sort of thing, "I can help you, and you can help me. Just...calm down."
"Listen. I'm sorry, okay, I just...fuck, I get so damn emotional and…" she nuzzled her head against his neck, "I missed you and didn't miss you. Like a sniper aiming for the fuel tank. Just...I'll get something to drink and then we can t-talk and then…"
"Yes, it'll be okay, I know it's been hard, and I wonder where you've been all this time and…"
The door burst open and a dozen guards in heavy armor carrying huge guns stormed in. Vorzhan grabbed her arms to keep her instincts from kicking in, and he said, dumbfounded, "Oh. This isn't what I thought it was…"
"God, what the fuck took you pieces of grub-shit so long?" she asked, her voice oddly casual, even conversational.
If Vorzhan wasn't there, they might have 'accidently' beat her half to death when she resisted arrest. As it was, they had their friend back. Albeit a bit...changed. Troubling.
Rewards: +10 on 'Send the Fleets' but not on Reconciliation Road because are you insane? Well, she sorta is, and you can be pretty sure her advice isn't helpful. Complete 'What am I spending on' for free, the results of that will come in the post where I give all the data you got this turn.
Occupying Vorzhan just as much as that in the first few weeks is sending on orders for the fleet to protect the colonies, both those in system and in the other two main systems that are colonized, Yal System and Vash System (one and two, translated) as well as the several other smaller colonies. He moves the earth and the sky, sending supplies constantly and communicating with the Battleship captains, eventually getting them to agree that one of them will go with each fleet as a symbol, so long as enough Heavy cruisers stay in place to defend the homeworld. And so onward the fleet goes, they organizing the rest.
And Vorzhan gets back only sporadic word for the next month or two, before hearing word of successful contact, most of the colonies pledging their loyalty and...in Vash System, a dozen ships appeared out of Hyperspace and were fought off by the force there. Their make wasn't on record, but they seemed somewhere between military and pirates in their technology, and while--with luck and apparently some skill--none of your ships is destroyed (though all of theirs managed to escape back into Hyperspace, albeit some badly crippled), several are hurt badly enough by missiles that they are sent back, in no state to patrol.
Vorzhan has a meeting with the young Captain of the Nasgin, a light cruiser, in a pub they were staying at. The young man--in the cut of their clothing their identification was rather clear--looked nervous as they stepped forward and said, before introductions had even been made, "Thank you." His wings shifted in a complex pattern of nervous anticipation.
"For what?" Vorzhan asked, reclining back, legs nervously itching as always.
"For trusting us to do what's right. For giving us a chance."
The rest of the conversation goes well after that splendid start, but though quite intelligent, Bissen has no idea what to make of the ships, though they caught data of it. Vorzhan expresses bafflement themselves. Does so and then goes back and compares it to what data they'd gotten weeks before from rescuing their Commander. The same…? They have to run it by Hazitean, but that's what it seems like.
Reward: Colonies protected, options opened there. Increased chances of 'With the Fleets' next turn. Found the end of a ball of yarn (see further below).
Reconciliation Road
Needed: ??? Rolled: 82, pretty good!
Vorzhan decides not to take up Hazitean's suggestion to lock the people and the worst criminals in a room, reveal their crimes, give the citizens guns and let them 'reconcile' with their abusers in whatever way it sees fit, instead sticking with a rather less...violent strategy.
It goes better than there is any reason to expect. Now, the meetings often end with awkwardness and small-talk, but slowly it grows, talking, talking it out, what they were made to do by the old regime. Mostly. Many of the soldiers, too many, seem a bit hesitant to accept any blame, and even more understandably many workers hesitate to forgive those who hesitate to ask for it. Yet ultimately the great mass of it is done. Hard feelings are very present, and four months into the process a big leak reveals that several figures involved in the 'Road', as some people called it, 'To Reconciliation' were guilty of serious crimes. But instead of scuttling the venture, it merely set it back, as the soldiers rejected their commanders and fellows, cutting them off from their social networks.
The leaks are just the beginning, there was a lot of crimes that have been carefully noted or swept under the table, as many mutter, but ultimately it seems to be working. Mostly. What to do with the guard who beat several prisoners to death and yet told stories about how they always felt for their prisoners before the truth came out, and dozens and dozens of figures like that...now that's the difficult part.
Reward: Opinion of Military +5, Opinion of Workers/etc +5, situation stable for now, albeit very...unstably so.
Diplomacy:
Learn the Will of the HIve
Needed: 30 Rolled: 13, moderate failure
Ultimately there are two problems. First, and seemingly the most obvious reason Vorzhan eventually stops talking to people about diplomatic actions in those last months is the crowd of voices. Everyone has an opinion, and they all contradicted and were a mess.
But the reason they were a mess, well. The treaties. The average person on the street didn't know how things were. And Vorzhan was glad every day that, at least for the most part, that was so. The alternative was riots in the street.
Reward: You get nothing. Try again next time.
Stick to the Treaties
Vorzhan sends a message. A galactic announcement that they will uphold all of their former treaty obligations. It was the only sensible thing. So why the hell were they watching images of the Sol Parliament yelling in fury over the action, news articles asking about corruption, what the… And then messages of support from Iashec and several People's Republics.
When they finally went through all of the treaties, though, they understood.
Recall The Ambassadors
Needed: 40 Rolled: 86, very solid success
There are, Vorzhan says, things that need to be discussed. There is no danger, but the ambassadors should be recalled in order to formulate their new policies, whatever they are. It goes off without a hitch, all of them returning, though the diplomat to the Iashec world, Mauvis, seems particularly reluctant.
He talks to many of them and learns something rather troubling. Many of them received, or were offered, bribes in the last week before they left, before Vorzhan had made his announcement, to urge 'This new King, Vorzhan' to uphold the treaties. Mainly by Iashec. It's yet another portent of doom, Vorzhan would later decide.
But what matters is that they're all there and now what to do with them can be figured out. And how to staff all of the embassies that are temporarily abandoned.
Needed: 30 Rolled: 48, secondary roll...4. 4, I shit you not. This will be good.
Vorzhan felt sick the more they saw of it. Document upon document, and the problem was not just the presence but the absence.
First, what was absent. They weren't in the Repatriation Treaty, designed to hit the slave (and clone-slave) trade at its core, sending slaves back by species to their homeworlds when rescued, instead of tying them up in legal arguments. And besides that it was a matter of huge import, and the government had claimed it was part of it. Everyone had believed it. Ships had come and gone as part of 'anti-slavery patrols' only to have, apparently, gone nowhere at all, or to meet with the Iashec. The Iashec aren't signatories of the treaty either, and did all sorts of things that were against the spirit and letter of the Repatriation treaty. The government had apparently followed their lead. , who are...not signatories of the treaty, and apparently done things not involved in one of the most famous and important intergalactic history. And that wasn't the first or last treaty that Gazinitah hadn't signed that everyone--on Gazinitah that is-- had thought they had. Somehow they'd managed to be something remarkably close to a rogue-power without being entirely aware of it.
And they owed huge amounts of money to Iashec and other powers, had guaranteed raising a large fleet in the case of war under any circumstances, whether the Iashec were aggressors or on the defensive, the various powers owned portions and buildings on the planet itself, where they made money hand-over-fist with tax-free treaties. The mass of treaties all but made Gazinitah a client-state of the Mercantile Republic.
Vorzhan took sick the day she'd figured that one out, and had been ill for a week.
Reward: Well, knowledge is power. Having a bunch of treaties you can no longer repudiate that bind you into an alliance with a slave-holding, rogue nation on the other hand...is the opposite of power. Options are opened up, though at the moment, Vorzhan is taking the 'ingest chemicals and lie curled in a heap while Hazitean suggests drastic actions' option. Drastic actions like liquidation of assets. And firing squads. Of course that's Hazitean's solution to a lot of problems that have been presented.
Public, Free and Informative
Needed: 40, Rolled: 22, minor/moderate failure
The problem is ad-time and money. There's interest and Vorzhan even gets it set up with several different announcers, but they can't compete and need more public funding to stay afloat, and so at the moment they mostly drift along, outshone by all of the other better-funded private programming. It's a problem that can be fixed, though in some ways it's a relief because it might have required one to actually talk about the mess with the treaties, or spin it. Instead it goes mostly unnoticed, though not perhaps for long.
Reward: Opened up a new action next turn, 'Fair, Balanced and Properly Funded.' Station established, it just isn't doing its job at all.
Stewardship:
Learn the People's Will
Needed: 20 Rolled: 28
At first Vorzhan is as skeptical of it as he eventually became of discussing diplomacy with the average person. The complaints seemed trivial: not enough stores in their area, bad supplies of packaged grubs. This, that and the other thing. Then a real concern got brought up, about a company, and then two or three, doing bad quality control. As in, Jasiphus Worms accidently being replaced with cheaper Ulin worms. The former were delicious, long and slimy, perfect for being cut up for salads or heated and cooked, their pus used as a garnish, for a meal all their own. The latter were toxic and known to lead to brain diseases, and tasted bad as well. It seemed that some companies were getting lax with the consumer safety.
As well, there were genuine complaints about utilities being overpriced, about caste restrictions for jobs, about the inadequacies of public transportation...finally, towards the end of the first half-year, quite a bit of information had been gathered, through person-to-person talks of the sort that were the lifeblood of the government as it was envisioned already.
Reward: Options, opinion of the people increases a few points.
Keep the Taxes
Needed: 30, Rolled: 25
Of course, the People's will was also that the taxes be eliminated, and so not doing so rather meant Vorzhan had more than a few angry conversations, and there were even protests. Not a huge number, but it was clear the people felt betrayed, and taxes did apparently dip more than a little with protest non-payment. Turns out people don't like being incredibly heavily taxed while all of the exemptions that lead huge portions of the elite being all-but-tax free.
Vorzhan weathers the criticism and hopes that they'll be able to fix some of the myriad problems that have been rather loudly and angrily called to their attention over the past months.
Reward: Options, pretty much all of the worker-opinion raising thus far is undone. At least it's not any lower, though.
Budgetary Matters
Needed: 20 Rolled: 38, success
Against all of that, Vorzhan is glad that they've managed to get a handle on the budget. It seems, in total, to be about ten or eleven thousand Wealth a year, but split off into categories, many of which don't entirely make sense. Graft, most likely, and social welfare and education seem to be overfunded compared to, say pensions for governmental officers, debt servicing to the Iashec, and all sorts of other things. It's a mess, honestly, though there is some spare money lying around, a sort of 'discretionary fund' that you're pretty sure has mostly been used as a piggy bank.
Reward: Options, will be given a full rundown of the budget, 500 Wealth a turn in income/wiggle room currently to add to the rest of the income.
Judge Not
Need: 30 Rolled: 55, very solid success
The Judicial Caste has only its education and rearing to recommend itself, it was one of those 'artificial castes' that has no basic in real genetics, and its rather corrupt reign--well, as a whole, there are plenty of fine individuals--over the justice system was only hindered by other elites trying to edge into their sunlight. Lawyers have investigated and brought disbarment charges against the very worst, though it's honestly a drop in the bucket. The laws are broken, those that enforce the laws are broken, those that judge the laws are broken, and there are rumbling that those that prosecute the laws and defend those accused of breaking the laws are also...less than adequate.
Either way, it's at least helpful to know.
Reward: Information, Options. Increased Workers opinion from looking into this.
Trade Traffic
Need: 30 Rolled: 81. Far, far, far too well.
Iashec. Iashec. Iashec. Vorzhan is getting sick of the name, and that's before further information comes up. Information about Zaeswin. All of it seems to be routed through the Mercantile Republic or its allies even when it's not the most efficient. That business seems to be continuing, but cautiously...however it's barely taxed at all and large parts of it are exempt. Great, just great.
Reward: Options, trade starts to pick up, 200 Wealth a turn in 'taxes.'
Intrigue:
Your Old Commander
Needed: 40 Rolled: 73
Agents are sent out, heading to the third system under the nominal control of Gazinitah, starting early, as early as Vorzhan had started his ultimately successful attempt at finding his old friend. They head to the planet, slipping in as part of a shipment of supplies. The prison-warders are nervous, but not sure whether the new government will need them, and they easily find the Yaziha in one of the isolation chambers, exhausted, tired, but still spry, and begin planning a full break-out. Which is when things get dicey.
Ships appeared overhead, dozens and dozens of them, many of them badly scarred from what the agents could see, and they headed down to the surface. They'd had to break early, but they'd made sure to take the most important and loyal prisoners with them as they escaped into the wilds. The rest and the prison-guards apparently boarded the ships, which hung there for a while, firing down shots, including plasma-rounds against all logic and decency, as the group desperately skittered from out abandoned hab to another, low on oxygen in a harsh landscape, but able to travel underground. Until eventually they just left, and pickup was requested, and now your Commander was safe and sound, though exhausted, saying only a few words to Vorzhan at the time. Yaziha was hardly recognizable, and Vorzhan stared at them for a bit before moving in for a clasp of the hands.
"You have to stop Zaeswin. I've...I should talk to…" he paused and took a breath, "A bug like that, his plans don't stop with just Gazinitah. For him, the world is not enough, not one, not ten...he's playing on the galactic stage, was even all those years ago."
"I'm going after him," Vorzhan chirpped, "I'll bring him to justice."
"I would like to help."
"Are you sure you…"
"I can," Yaziha said, "At least provide advice. Let me do this. I'm not senile yet."
Just as notably, the damage on the ships matches the damage provided by the fleet, which means that these two actions: the flight of the personnel, the move against the colonies, these are by the same people.
Reward: +5 to 'Hunt for Zaeswin, retrieved your commander, mostly safe and sound, +5 to Intrigue rolls next turn.
Bugs In the System
Needed: 40, Rolled: 63
It's not that hard, ultimately, to slip a few lines of code here and there. Thus far it hasn't picked up much, other than a few criminal actions that are routed to the defense forces, but what matters is that it's kept open, and Vorzhan spends several long nights working to make sure it isn't detected, and it seems that it's all hidden. Compared to the mass of bugs and monitoring before, it's like a single predator cleverly hidden in the dust, dirt, and underbrush of the landscape, watching and waiting.
Reward: Information-security system, options, etc.
Hunt for Zaeswin
Needed: 40 Rolled: 20+10 (big success)+5 (Yaziha)=35, minor failure
Vorzhan ultimately can't blame them. Even with her advice on the means and sources that they operate, they're dealing with a very slick operator, and more than that, with an intelligence culture that is far too inwardly focused. They just click about, and those with wings on their head use them to subtly show their disappointment, but towards the end they do make breakthroughs, albeit ones that aren't all that helpful. Apparently there are hints that Zaeswin might be any number of a dozen different places, but that there's strong evidence that he might at least be heavily involved with one place in particular. The Moons of Endonni, a 'colony world' of sorts that was known for its lawlessness and the laxity of its rule. It was a place given to the worst sorts of slavery, crime, and piracy. The sort of place which was too well-defended for any hasty actions, but which no doubt leaked like a sieve. What they weren't able to tell was what its defenses were, or where Zaeswin's contacts would likely be found. It's something, though, and Vorzhan makes sure to thank them as they consider
Reward: Options, information, a web of possibilities.
Learning:
No Budget for Apples
Needed: 20 Rolled: 47
It turned out to be in desperate need, and they are very grateful. Not all of the teachers, and there is attention called to the fact that they often have to cut out huge parts of their education that are propaganda, and that many in high positions are rather wedded to the old system to a worrying degree, but in talking to them--and Vorzhan has dozens of open-meetings with the teachers to make sure the money goes to the right places. It's, by all accounts, a success, and it does help offset some of the withering protests and speculation involving their rule, still young and already starting to be sometimes criticized for its appeasement of the old orders.
Reward: Worker opinion increases by a bit, teacher opinion by rather more than a bit, options unlocked.
The Professor is Needed
Needed: 40 Rolled: 44, wow, you narrowly did it!
It takes dozens of meetings to convince him. They keep on backing out and frowning and worrying about their colleagues and it eventually takes them getting together as a group and telling Kikkizit that they need to accept. The mild-mannered professor had eventually agreed, but only if they could accept their own advisors, chosen from among the faculty, to help them with the parts, especially the science, where they worried at their capacity.
Either way, choosing Kikkizit is very popular, and likely to pay off in the long run, which is why Vorzhan spent all of those resources.
Reward: It costs +50 more Wealth than expected, get a new Learning Advisor, open up new actions, +1 Learning Action, +10 for Learning actions in the future involving education, thanks to advisors no penalties (though no bonuses) for science-y type learning rolls. You'll get their character sheet in the follow-up/budget-information update.
Personal:
Hunt for Zaeswin
Need: 40 Rolled: 76+5 (Yazik)=81, big success!
After months of investigation, Vorzhan has the great misfortune not to be surprised at all. They couldn't leave the planet, not with all they had going, so they had to rely on their chain of contacts, but that didn't mean they sat around and waited. Thousands of documents, files, and conversations come and go. And a lot of them don't tell the leader anything directly, but what it does build up, even more than they'd already know, was a pattern of operation. A way Zaeswin went about doing things and the sorts of targets and actions that they did. A monster or no, they were neither predictable nor random, falling somewhere in between, and following the money was always the first rule.
Agents nearly died doing so, yes, but slowly he constructed a set of trails, a guess. No, more than a guess, a partial certainty that a ship bearing Zaeswin had passed through a set of locations before stopping on Asurin. And there it is where the trail, half a month old, was either lost or stopped. And perhaps stopped. It was a tempting feeling, like standing at the edge of a precipice and watching the targets below. Dangerous, perhaps, but Vorzhan became more and more sure, a certainty that they couldn't explain or describe. A gut feeling, as the humans might term it. Working long hours, driven by the need for justice, and a thousand other things, a bug hit upon a name and reference as seen through a comm-signal picked up by a trade ship that conveniently went that way.
Maybe that's why Vorzhan was so sure. Asurin was a Iashec world, even called a 'pleasure world' in the brochures, where the rich went to enjoy all of the comforts that a population of 'workers' and the like could provide. A dangerous den, but also a rich one, influential. A hornets' nest considering everything else they'd found out. Certainly no direct strike there, not with the entire world in the palm of their scaly hands. Even further, they had a location, a place where the name had come up just a week before, so close, so very tantalizing. It was a rather well-known gambling den, know as the "King's Pride" or the "Den of Rulers" but most often translated as Royal Casino.
There, Vorzhan was sure, the next step on finding the target lay.
******
Wealth: 5000 Wealth
Expenditures: 500 Wealth a Turn (Teachers)+ 100 Wealth a turn (Learning Advisor)+200, one time (System)+150 (Old Commander)+300 (Hunting)+500 (Old Friend)+100 (Reconciliation)+100 (In for)+500 (100 a turn afterwards) (Public)+400 (Trade)+100 (Judge Not)+200 (Budgetary)=3150
Income:+500 (Budgetary)+200 (Trade)+30d100 in support and income from the people and the like...rolled a total of 1672=2372
Final: 4222 Wealth
Opinions:
Workers=80+3+1=84, despite some outrage, you're overall keeping to their expectations.
Tanks: 1200 Wealth (1/3rd of forces are old and cost 500 Wealth a turn in upkeep, the rest combined cost 700 Wealth a turn)
Airships and other in-planet transports: 1800 Wealth
Special forces: 800 Wealth
Pensions, Healthcare, etc: 1400 Wealth
Police: 2000 Wealth
'Gifts' and other funds that seem obviously BS: 800 Wealth
Military Research: 50 Wealth a turn. Seems to consist entirely of bribes and places to put soldiers that can't be pensioned off.
Naval Forces: Unknown, between 1-2 thousand a turn
Total: 10-11k a turn
Payment: 9.5k a turn in investments and taxes are funneled towards them. It seems that...foreign investments and the like make up the rest. Likely from the Iashec.
Civilian Budget:
Social Welfare: 800
Civil Development: 1300
Education: 1100
Diplomatic fees and other things: 600 (suspicion that a lot of this is under the table)
Research stimulus: 500
Palace Fees, Luxury Goods, State Ceremonies, salaries and pensions for retired ruling-caste members, etc: 1300
'Piggy Bank': 0 (you're raiding it now as usable income.)
Colonial administration: 700
Other/Misc: 1000
Debt Servicing: 1700, mainly to the Iashec, currently interest is 4.5% and you are paying back at a rate of 5% per turn, just ahead of interest...but not, it seems, ahead of debt accumulation. Every two turns this will be recalculated.
Total: 9000 Wealth
Income paid: All of it, albeit getting more difficult in the last years, apparently, with debt servicing, leading to inflation and cutting of the education and Research budget among other things. Economists estimated that the current trend was unsustainable and would fall apart within 3 years in secret records.
Debt (total): 35500
Iashec Debt: 29,000
Debt to various Iashec-aligned human worlds: 3,000
Debt to Stendar: 1,000
Debt to the Hexamari Heretics: 1000
Debt (at 0% interest and flexible repayment) to Sol (basically a 'please spend this on not opressing your people, thanks' loan):1,500
Total meaningful debt: 34,000
Current debt accumulation per year: 2500ish Wealth*
Character Sheets
Name: Hazitean
Gender: Female
Species: Xvorzit
Age: Mid-thirties
Position: Kinda-sorta-but not quite a Martial Advisor
A/N: I'm going to try something new here. There will be votes in the news session! Not huge ones, but they might effect some options next turn, and they do have consequences.
Turn One News
Economy Roll: 1d100+10 (Lenient policies)+5 (Figure out Stewardship Budget)+5 (Military Budget known)-5 (What's Our Black Budget)+5 (Colony connections anticipated to be reopened)-5 (Taxed like sin)+5 (Optimism)-5 (No Stewardship Advisor)+11 (Stewardship)=1d100+31=87, above average.
Local
Fundamentals of the Economy?: Despite the problems, the economy chugs along. Not entirely, the factories of some places are closed, still, but more than expected people return to their daily lives, hug their kids, eat their grubs or fowl or whatever they wish, and the economy grows. Hope, perhaps, is there, and the policies of Vorzhan, whose very title hasn't been worked out, but certainly not King, seem to be working. There are reports of their discussion with important figures, their reconciliation, the way--in the judicial muddle of reform--the caste restrictions aren't being held to as well, and so despite the heavy taxes coming in on things like purchases, risk-taking spreads. Not all of it wise, some of the investments don't pay off in trade, but the upswing generates more money moving back and forth, and against all expectation, bouyed by the relatively modest aims of the revolution thus far--though still weary--the economic elites don't run, don't attempt to flee the planet or try to sabotage the economy. (+100 Wealth from increased taxes and public faith in your government, allowing you to inflate the currency a bit with less economic worries, per turn starting next turn.)
A People Unleashed: Music, movies, games, entire festivals dedicated to things that wouldn't see the light of day. People party in the street early on, and even half a year later there are a lot more outdoor meetings to discuss politics, or watch explosions, or engage in any number of a thousand hobbies and interest. The world is waking up, or so it seems, from a deep slumber, and while some of that activity is economic, much of it is cultural. Which brings up the defense forces and permits. Some gatherings have come about without the proper permits, which are expensive and currently restricted, requiring approval from a high-ranking military official who, at the moment, is rather too lost for the job. Thus a few choices present themselves.
[] Abolish Permits: Let the people meet however they want, it won't hurt anything, other than your pocket-book a little. (-100 Wealth a turn, people meet more freely and meet more.)
[] Keep them as is: At the moment every bit of money you can get your hands on is needed.
[] Attempt to streamline them, but still require them. (Short term loss of -25 Wealth a turn, less restrictions, might lead to more people paying the fees. Roll 1d100+Stewardship, target DC=40.)
A Song That Sweeps: Songs and dance are a part of literally every culture that has ever reached the stars, and there are albums and videos galore on Gazinitah. Were even during the days before the revolution. But with anti-government Bazkhiti now the mainstream, many make it big, really big. And one, Beskis the "Bard" (she uses a recording of a human saying that word and has some rather daring cyber modifications that allow her to incorporate human rhyme schemes and some of their beats and musical patterns into her work) has made a huge splash. Number one on most of the charts, she was sworn that all profits shall go towards the children of Gazinitah. And thus, by her donations and those she's inspired, for the next two turns you have 100 Wealth a turn earmarked towards education. What do you do with it?
[] Add it to what's spent on education directly.
[] Use it to replace some of the 500 you spend a turn, making a surplus for other use, but not increasing funding in reality, instead holding it steady.
[] Save it to spend on Learning projects having to do with Education.
What is it Good For?: With the demand for internal security slacking, many less-than-willing recruits are quitting, as are less martial defense forces. It's not a flood, more a steady trickle, but on a certain scale it's huge, hundreds of thousands demobilizing, representing several percents of the 10-million strong army sitting around, there to...restore order. The question of what that means is clear in everyone's eyes, as is the fact that many of their comrades have been revealed to be less than savory. (60 Wealth less spending, taken from Police and Infantry primarily, as well as support staff. Which means more money starting next turn to move around as you see fit.)
[] Add it to a category
-[] What?
[] Use it to reduce the loans granted by the Iashec, even if it's a bucket against the ocean.
Intergalactic News
A New Government: The intergalactic government isn't sure what to make of the new Gazinitah government. It's withdrawn its ambassadors, kept its tax system and kept to its treaties, and the reconcilliation could be anywhere between a good and a bad move, but it hasn't made any risky ploys and word has gotten out about the lack of state censorship seen so far, and other promising signs that at least for the moment have kept democracy-watchers and the like hopeful. (International interest somewhat positive, more economic activities might be done, somewhat increased chance for businesses to get foreign loans. Potentially some level of tourism as 'observers' come and go.)
Ilwari Raid: The Ilwari have found and raided another slaving den, this one using cloned Ilwari to provide erotic pleasures to its clients, as well as hosting cloned-Barsa bouncers and other exotic attractions for the humans. Including two Xvorzit. If Gazinitah actually had signed the treaty, they'd get them back just like that, but instead they are stuck in limbo, and the case will no doubt soon leak to the public.
[] Send a representative to try to get them back, and then care for them (-5 wealth for specialized care if they agree, doing a good deed, DC: ???)
[] Don't send one, it's a matter that can be figured out later.
Moved to Tears: On a larger scale, the human intergalactic music scene continues. One particularly popular singer has begun a tour meant to draw attention to the importance of democracy and hope, having come from a rather war-torn human polity. Ulla, always called by her first name, is rather wildly popular, selling multi-billions in song and album sales, as well as, of course, billions of illegal but unprosecutable downloads on top of that. Her tour is selling out, and even some Barsan and other worlds are booking her, riding off the back that every species has a segment of their population obsessed with the culture of each and every single other species. As a new democracy, Gazinitah could request a show.
[] Yes, send someone to talk to her 'people' and work out time and schedules (-25 Wealth, DC ???, Potentially large foreign and domestic opinion boost.)
[] No, it's too likely to be brushed aside, and besides, that's wealth that could be used otherwise. (Nothing happens, she keeps on going, passes Gazinitah by on her way to Yalinea, another Hive World, known for its long-standing democracy, that *has* requested a show.)
Elections: In other news, a major parlimentary election was held on Sol and its member-planets, amid argument and controversy. But by a centrist alliance and owing to an impressive showing by its party leader, the PLK, there is a new government in charge of Sol and overseeing its member-worlds provincial governments. The new Prime-Minister is Mutumbo, apparently the nephew of a famous Sol Navy Captain. Cabinets will no doubt soon be set up, arguments started, but for the moment the most powerful democracy in human history rested at another peaceful turning point. Similar, it seemed to Vorzhan, to all that their own transition turned out to be. Peaceful. They aren't a scholar, and even Kikkizit has only some ideas as to their politics, though increased investment in foreign affairs and movements against internal corruption were apparently some of the topics of the latest election.
[] A representative could be sent to congratulate the new government and try to re-open diplomacy, though it might come off as too desperate or favor-seeking, but it could be a welcome topic. It's hard to tell. (DC ???)
[] A quiet word could be sent through channels to make a public announcement along the lines of 'congratulations on the peaceful transition of power'
[] No, it's too hasty and might be viewed badly by those watching, such as the Iashec.
[] Perhaps you have an even crazier idea? Send yourself? Attack his government? Write-it-in!
