Civil Service Tests
Currently, a lot of the administration in the colonies is selected by means of Caste based decisions and political influence. Tests could be administered to weed out those that don't deserve it on their own merits, and it could help gain further control over those that lead and influence the colonies.
Cost: 50 Wealth
Probability: 70%
Reward: Civil Service Tests, idea might spread beyond colonial administrators.
Military Duties
You could open up some new taxes, import and export duties in order to pay for the military bleeding. In the long term, it might dampen economic growth, but it could make a quick patch for the shortfall that can then be fixed later.
Cost: Free, for now.
Probability: 100%
Reward: 250 Wealth toward the military budget. Small opinion drop across the board.
(Ongoing) Open Up Avenues
This is ongoing, and will be continued unless you vote to discontinue it. So you can ignore it, though at some later date you might decide that the markets are tapped out and that continuing to spend 100 Wealth on it will provide no bonuses. Indeed, it is possible for that to happen, eventually.
Cost: 100 Wealth a Turn
Probability: ???
Reward: Continues the program. No need for a slot.
Exemptions Must Go
The ruler caste doesn't pay taxes. The merchants don't pay import fees. The military caste have a 50% exemption on all taxes. The diplomatic caste is immune from all import and export fees, as well as any fees on gifts they receive, and there are a thousand other exemptions. Some are not entirely bad and might be turned into some sort of tax credit or reduction scheme, such as with teachers, or with builders and property taxes or so on, but a lot of it just can't be defended at all. Rip it all away and let the light of taxation finally hit them.
Cost: 250 Wealth
Probability: ???, rolling better means you get more.
Reward: 500-1000 Wealth a turn, targeted groups will like you less.
Lower Taxes
The counterpoint is that the exemptions, while unfair, are also the only thing keeping the system going. As utterly messed up as the taxation system is, if everyone was getting hit equally it'd fall apart. More efficiency, some argue, could lead to depressed economic growth. Yet at the same time lowering taxes would lead to a large shortfall, and in the long term everyone admits it isn't a solution.
Cost: 100 Wealth
Probability: 50%
Reward: -800 Taxation income, tax burden reduced, mitigates the possible side effects of Exemptions Must Go, but might create difficulties in the future. Increased opinion of you across the board, though.
(Hive )There's Power in a Workers Association
Long hours, beatings, suppression of workers rights. You cannot accept any of this, and it has to stop now. Start by setting up some commissions. And if any of them get in your way, any of those so-called 'public corporations' that allowed this, you have no compunctions about destroying them. Patiently, slowly, justly, but if it comes down to it, destruction is better than the situation as it is now. Plus, it'd be really, really cathartic.
Cost: 25 Wealth a Turn.
Call: High
Time: 1d4 Turns
Probability: 100%, rolls less than 40 add another year onto the time.
Reward: You shall BREAK them. You shall make it so that the worker no longer fears those who would exploit them, and if they stand in your way it shall be the last mistake they make.
Touristy Mines?
It seems like a silly idea, but Kikkizit says it might work. The mines often have deep historical significance, and they are around some formerly nice wilderness area. Work, time, and effort could be put in to restore these areas as a test for future, more extensive, work in land management, and they could become a tourist attraction.
Cost: 100 Wealth
Probability: 70%
Reward: 10-20 Wealth a turn, start a fledgling tourist industry, might unlock some Learning options.
(Hive) Trauma Centers
Those that are hurt cannot be un-hurt. You cannot turn back the hands of time, but you can punish the guilty, prevent these things from happening, and open up psychological groups to allow them to cope with all that's happened, among other things. These abuses didn't used to be common, and they are disgusting, against everything Xvorzith culture is meant to embody, and yet you have a feeling that the disgust and rot is going to have to be cleansed, bit by bit, to restore Gazinitah to what it might have been.
Cost: 50 Wealth
Call: Medium
Probability: 90%
Reward: Open up more clinics for those who have suffered abuse and rape, either at the hands of an employer or otherwise.
Talk to the Castes
These 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.
Judicial Activism
Judges are terrible, chosen by inter-caste mechanics, and not remotely fair. You can solve all of these, taking the selection away from the judicial caste, for the moment doing it via appointment and eliminating those judges that don't measure up. Eventually you'll have to stop doing it by hand, it's not efficient, but for the moment there's at least enough information to start throwing out the worst offenders and starting with a clean slate, however difficult in time and work (with lawyers) it would be.
Cost: 150 Wealth
Probability: 55%+10
Reward: Judicial oversight, options.
Lawyer Up
The standards for lawyers is both far too strict and far too lax. Call attention to their problems and change the standards in a way that doesn't lead to as much railroading. It'd take money, potentially money you don't have, but it'd improve standards some. Mauris is rather explicit on how much their fellow lawyers might sorta, well, suck.
Cost: 100 Wealth a turn.
Probability: 75%+10
Reward: Better lawyers and law-situation. Options might eventually open up (given time.)
(Hive) Out With The Old
This one is simple compared to the other, and easy as heck. Chop through all of the old, outdated laws in order to make a slimmer, more accessible law book, and then make it available for the public. Sure, most of the public *won't* read it, but they could if they wanted to, which is what matters.
Cost: 50 Wealth
Probability: 90%+5
Reward: Opinion increase, laws start to make a little more sense.
(Hive) Palace Fees
No. Get rid of it. You cannot possibly accept this as a valid use of economic power of your country, and you have to at least reduce it. It'll be dicey, and there might be calls against it from some, while others call for its complete elimination. You'll try to balance it, reducing it greatly while not leading to protest or dislike.
Call: Medium
Cost: 50 Wealth
Probability: 70%
Reward: 500-1000 Wealth, potential raised/lowered ruler/worker opinion. The rest of that money (300-800 Wealth) would have to be gotten at in the budget more subtly because it's less obviously payoffs and might cause a bigger stink.
(Hive) Caste Signifiers
It is currently legal to require prospective employees to undergo genetic testing, and, more than that, one's caste or former caste can be found on most forms of identification. Thus while in theory caste prejudice is being broken down, at least at the lower levels, in practice there are many ways to detect it. While some castes don't have identifiable genetic markers, others do, and others have 'common' genetic factors, or the like. In any case, the ID tells the whole story. You could ban all testing for those certain factors, and begin actions to shut down this form of quiet discrimination.
Cost: 50 Wealth
Call: Medium
Probability: 60%+20
Reward: Improved opinion with several groups, lowered opinion with others. Other things.
Equality Division
A division could be founded, of police and other figures, specifically to deal with the rising tide of inter-caste crimes. Not just crimes, but also discrimination. Both could be covered and investigated by the police, though it'd start slow and might also target some from less fortunate castes striking upward.
Cost: 25 Wealth a turn.
Probability: 60%+5
Reward: Equality Division founded, crimes solved, opinion relatively neutral.
Economic Coordination
Now that a large number of companies are owned and controlled by the government, coordination could be improved between them. The miners could be fed with government provided food, the companies on the stock markets could base their decisions on each other, and the mines could provide resources for--as an example--electronics for one of the companies that is owned. It'd be coordination of the sort that might not be popular with business types, but it could have some advantages.
Cost: 50 Wealth a turn
Probability: 70%
Reward: ??? Wealth.
Expand the Grid, Part 1
Studies could be done to carefully arrange things so that several different segments of Gazinitah, each with wildly different economic issues and congestion problems could all try the grid. If it can't work everywhere, it can't work anywhere. This would be a careful, slow, deliberate gesture, and most of 'the Hive' wouldn't see the benefits yet.
Cost: 500 Wealth
Probability: 65%
Reward: ???, Expand the Grid, Part 2 unlocked
(Hive) The Grid Is All
Or you could do all of it at once! No trials, no waiting, the time is now and the word is 'go!'
Cost: 5000 Wealth
Probability: 30%
Reward: Entire planet is now in a transportation grid. The chance of this will increase and the cost decrease as you do component parts, but if you REALLY want to spend 5000 Wealth and take a ⅓ chance right now, nobody's going to stop you, are they? It's the sort of ambitious thing that the Hive would love...if it worked and didn't bankrupt everyone.
Public Parks
Recreating the entire agricultural order is not on your agenda at the moment, and so you've told Kikkizit to shelve the plans until there is less on your plate since even looking at it for too long does horrible things to you, but public parks sounds nice, safe and uncontroversial, and Kikkizit talked you through it in a way that both allowed you to understand it without creating too many difficulties. Plus, it'd improve morale.
Cost: 75 Wealth
Probability: 60%
Reward: Parks start getting built, people get happier. Maybe you can go to one of them sometime and relax away from economic duties?
