Turn 1, 2427 CE (A)--Results!
Martial:
An Old Friend
Needed: 13 Rolled: 73+10 (83), major success!
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.
Send the Fleets to the Colonies!
Needed: 20. Rolled: 97+10 (107), Super-Critical Success!
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.
Reward: Information, ambassadors recalled, options.
What Are We In For?
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.
Soldiers: 40+10=50, very, very carefully neutral.
Will of the Hive: Still 0
Will of the Castes: N/A
