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Attempting to Fulfill the Plan: GDI Edition

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Simon_Jester said:
Or that, though it makes it very hard for me to imagine how the aliens' governance structure and internal politics work.
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We have no real idea of how there governance structure and internal politics work but they are operating outside of there territory without much ability to transport anything until a tower gets built so there probably isn't much oversight before that. Until then anyone not on planet is going to be totally dependant on the info delivered by those on planet with no reliable way to check if they are telling the truth. If say the reaper faction was destroyed but everyone left on planet blames either natives or the reapers own incompetence then its probably hard to prove otherwise, especially if they have time to cover up the evidence. I'd imagine everyone knows that they are lying but proving it is very hard.

I may be completely off but to me normal alien mining operations look like different subfactions grab as much of the planet from the natives as fast as they can because fighting the natives should be fast and easy. Then whilst the towers are building they start squabbling amongst eachother. How bad this gets probably varies, it might not get past a bit of spying and sabotage but if someone starts shooting at you you want the ability to fight back.

We don't have a lot of info so this is mostly conjecture and it isn't really a system that would function for long term governance but I don't think its supposed to be, just a underhanded way to get a bit of extra influence or hurt a rival in a situation where no one can prove you've broken the rules. Its not really very different to a mass effect corporation doing shady stuff in the terminus systems because they think no one will call them on it.
 
We don't know exactly what the history of the Visitors is, but from what we do know they seem to be a kind of horrible post-scarcity society. The Reapers and Travelers are "sects" and "cults" within the whole of the Visitors, and Kane too calls them a "cult". Fueled by tiberium, they can have anything they like, at the expense of everyone else. While they may have some kind of recognizable government, they may not even really need one.

Why they seem to target lifebearing planets instead of rocks nobody cares about, I couldn't say. Both the Reapers (kill everything KILL) and the Travelers (we love mind control and body horror) suggest some extremely hostile sociology, though. They don't appear to have any kind of baseline form, I'm guessing the result of morphological shifts that now reach as far back in their history as tiberum use is.

I think the simplest conclusion is that use of and adaptation to tiberium just...ate the rest of whatever they were, and selected for the worst kinds of winners. If they really have been out here dodging the Mass Effect Reapers on top of that, probably not a great environment.

I believe someone said that Secret History of the Visitors is on their breakthrough list somewhere, so I guess we'll see.
 
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Phht said:
I bet the Secret History is somewhere in Scrin 1-5. Good luck getting to it with our +5 bonus~
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We have the same chance we always did, actually. If a dice roll after mods and roll-over lands above 100, we get two techs: the highest remaining on the gacha, and the dice result -100. So if we rolled 98+5=103, we'd get techs 99 (100 is taken) and 3.
 
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Ithillid said:
Er, it is not a railgun tech. It is a plasma shaping tech. Basically none of it applies to anything but plasma guns.
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The odd thing is that I don't think we actually have any plasma throwers - our only explicit plasma munitions are warheads to otherwise traditional munitions, such as might be fired from a rail gun. Does it apply to particle guns and iron cannons?
 
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MSH said:
Why they seem to target lifebearing planets instead of rocks nobody cares about,
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I think the reason they prefer life bearing planets is because tib grows on them faster. It eats organic stuff faster than just rock and animals can help spread it around as they travel. Also its very useful so before the mutations start any existing civilisation is encouraged to experiment with it and help spread it to get access to more of it.
 
...Shield piercing ION CANNONS.

Bintang, you picked the right year to make a deal with us! Otherwise, the first naval engagement involving use of ion cannons after that tech gets deployed would be hilarious.

Also, all those tasty Nod facilities hidden under Ion Disruptors? Om Nom Nom.
 
Forget Nod - if this works on ion cannons...GDI's alpha strike on the Visitor invasion wouldn't have split them into thirty drone vessels, it just would have killed them all then and there.
 
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Right now I think the only plasma cannons we have on a tactical level are the ones mounted on Titan mechs. Which apparently are 'medium weight ion cannons'. We deployed them in Q4 2062. So currently only a year in the field. Going to take a bit before we get enough data and experience with them to get a project to deploy them in the main military forces.
 
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As for how to explain all the gacha pulls...

We could say Nod gacha are stuff we grabbed during the Regency War, given all the territory we took from Nod. But more amusing from my perspective would be if some of those InOps "Shadow Teams" we've funded snuck in and stole some of the tech from Nod facilities. Better yet would be if Nod wasn't aware of the theft until we started deploying something based on it. >.>

As for Scrin gacha... It appears that the Australian Threshold tower is now in BZ. One of the European towers might be as well? And of course, the northern NA tower that we had mentioned in game is now in BZ as well. Some of the stuff could be passed off as stuff we captured during TW3 that we couldn't unravel secrets of until quantum computing became a thing or some other tech developed sparked insight. Phase munitions would be a good example of "something we captured during the War that we just now made a breakthrough on."
 
Prime 2.0 said:
Does it apply to particle guns and iron cannons?
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Ithillid said:
Both of those are plasma weapons, yes.
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Huh...

That's actually really interesting. I don't think we've upgraded our ion cannons much. This could be a really nice boost to them. Especially if they are going to be important for our space ship weapons.

And the particle gun part is neat as well. We've got the basic tech ready to research and we've got the modern ones waiting on that. Add in this visitor tech and we've got quite a boost ready to go. Again, good for space platforms.
 
bigking321 said:
Huh...

That's actually really interesting. I don't think we've upgraded our ion cannons much. This could be a really nice boost to them. Especially if they are going to be important for our space ship weapons.

And the particle gun part is neat as well. We've got the basic tech ready to research and we've got the modern ones waiting on that. Add in this visitor tech and we've got quite a boost ready to go. Again, good for space platforms.
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This has been discussed a while back, but ions are a type of particle, and ion cannons a particle beam weapon. Arguably, developing the nod particle weapon technology in and of itself should lead to improved ion cannons.

Which means we have three separate technologies we can develop to pimp the hell out of those things, one of which is already available. I say we should get started on that - The outer system visitors won't know what hit them!
 
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Well, that's extremely good. That makes our medium tactical plasma guns more viable outside of a Steel Talon specialty, improves our ion cannons, but also make the Nod particle weapons much more desirable.

Of course, we'd need to invest in microfusion technology as well because all of this sounds very energy expensive, but we're already heading in that direction anyway.
 
Nottheunmaker said:
Of course, we'd need to invest in microfusion technology as well because all of this sounds very energy expensive, but we're already heading in that direction anyway.
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We've always been interested in doing them but there's always been something higher in priority to do and STUs were in short supply.

Now we are starting to finally clear out what needs doing in heavy industry and we can get STUs much easier than before.

So, yeah, microfusion is definitely coming. That tech branch has a lot of potential applications for several areas.
 
Simon_Jester said:
Yes, I'm just a bit surprised that we would find such ammunition on this expedition, which is implied to have been basically a mining expedition protected by the equivalent of technicals.
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At one point the Visitors call us Humans the Scrin. If they were expecting to tangle with a peer power or a proxy thereof they would have bought and then brought their equivalent of AP ammo into this expedition.
 
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Q4 2063 Results
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    • GDIOnline Q4 2063



    Parliamentary Election Results 2063: First Among Equals


    Dr. Henry Ormonde

    Alright, so election results are in, finally, and here they are. Have some thoughts, still pretty disjointed at this stage, but here they are.

    Developmentalist: 705 (-333 seats) 17.6%
    Militarists: 629 (-125 seats) 15.7%
    Starbound: 618 (+157 seats) 15.5%
    Market Socialist Party: 555 (+69 seats) 13.9%
    Socialist Party: 493 (+67 seats) 12.3%
    Free Market Party: 405 (+177 seats) 10.1%
    Initiative First Party: 334 (-1 seat) 8.4%
    United Yellow List: 117 (-59 seats) 3%
    Reclamation: 99 (+87 seats) 2.5%
    Homeland: 41 (-9 seats) 1%
    Open Hand: 4 (+4 seats) .1%
    Biodiversity: 0 (-34 seats)


    Devs and Mils took a shellacking this round. Not surprising, between endorsing Litvinov's negotiations with the Brotherhood of Nod, and the growth of Starbound. Beyond that, the reinvented Free Market Party got a lot of defections, so if you are seeing familiar names, that is not a coincidence, as did the Market Socialist, and Socialist parties.


    Biodiversity is one of the sadder cases here. Basically, from initial results, it looks like Reclamation ate their lunch, and what few candidates were viable effectively got taken under their wing. The big things seem to have been fearmongering on the part of Yellow Zone derived populations, the revelations of just how badly the war on underground Tiberium has been going, especially with the detonation at Mount Belaya, and the rise of a much larger faction of Starbound voters. Aside from that, the idea of biological diversity just kind of pales in comparison

    Initiative First is holding steady at 334 seats, lost one, but that is effectively meaningless in the grand scheme of things. Looking sort of more broadly, I would guess that Initiative First is about half of the population strongly dissatisfied with how the Initiative has conducted itself in the last decade, and very unused to being locked out of the halls of power. Their time in the wilderness has done them few favors in terms of stability and sanity though.

    AgathaH
    Starbound Represent! Looks like more people are getting on board the "get off this rock" train. Which, well, we're working on it. (Or maybe the "space is cool" train, which it definitely is.)

    WhatsInAName
    Is it just me, or did anyone else not vote this time around? I saw that the big parties were pretty cohesive in getting things done for everyone across a broad spectrum of issues in the last session, so I was fine with the status quo. Figuring that it would continue that way, I decided to spend the day on myself instead.

    FloatingWood
    I'd hoped Biodiversity would've done better. With the extent of territory that humanity is reclaiming from tiberium, and with even Nod managing to BZ levels of tiberium containment in select areas I had hoped that there would be a desire for restoring free nature.
    Doesn't look that likely now. At least Reclamation probably will push similar policies.

    Going to be interesting what Starbound is going to be pushing for over the next 4 years. Their rhetoric of 'a million in space by the end of the decade' is such obvious hyperbole that even their pundits admit it's an aspiration rather than a realistic goal, but I can see the appeal of not having to deal with tiberium.
    Just, you know, have fun remembering that on the other side of the glass is an environment that is quite possibly even more lethal than a Red Zone.

    #WhatsInAName, and this is why you vote.

    ScissorsBeatRock
    #FloatingWood I'd hesitate calling space more hostile than the Red - I swear to Hashem the tib contamination is actively targeting the hatches and other structural weak points half the time. And 'fast and painful' death beats 'slow and painful,' which is what rock lung gets you in the end. I hope Starbound manages to deliver on those promises; it'd be nice to get my kids off this rock.

    CatQueen
    Market Socialist Party: +69 seats. hehe funny number. And a bit oof to the developmentalists shame.

    InTheZONE
    A disappointing performance by the Militarists. Far too many people seem to believe we can cut military funding and trust Nod not to take advantage. Just like after TW2.
    FloatingWood
    And TW1. 'Nod is beaten, we can focus on something else' is a common issue when it comes to GDI's politics. I'll say this though; after the events of the Regency War I can understand that sentiment. Another major engagement does not seem likely to me since GDI has demonstrated it commands a rather substantial military advantage, and at least some of Nod's higher ups are willing to talk and deal rather than shoot.
    And, well, kinda like with the post TW2 era, we do need to deal with tiberium. I'm just glad that this time GDI is more willing to deal with tiberium contamination beyond its own borders. The way the Yellow Zones basically were abandoned is and remains a blot on GDI's record, and it's not something that will be mended easily.

    AccomplishingProvidence
    Also, it does not seem like the development of the military has been abandoned. Is the military receiving less funds? Yes. Is it being left to lie fallow? No. So it then becomes the more subtle discussion of "how much do they truly need?"

    InTheZONE
    Ideally enough they're not driving 30 year old tanks while Nod keeps making new shit. I have friends in the Navy who're saying that the funding they're getting seems to be all over the place, the Air Force is complaining that most of their aircraft are getting outdated, ZOCOM is screaming due to the amount of overwork they've had and the ground forces have been getting ZA which I'll admit I benefit from but wars aren't won with just dismounted infantry, no matter how badass.

    GDIWife
    I agree with #InTheZONE here. The state of our military is terrible but all the treasury seems to care about is making refugees comfortable rather than keeping all of us safe.

    FloatingWood
    Eh, the Predator is a good enough tank, although as I understand it it's getting long in the tooth and when people start talking about upgrading it you get nervous laughter from the engineers and mechanics. It'll still core a Scorpion of any make, but maybe it's a good idea to start from a clean sheet of paper for a nextgen tank?
    Not sure what the navy is complaining about, they've got those fancy ass new ships coming, Governors, Sharks, those light carriers. They aren't short on ships as far as I can tell.
    The chairforce seems to be thinking they'll need to fight off a full on alien invasion force all by themselves, so they seem to have drawn in all the peacocks towards themselves. They're not fighting anything alone, and space command has the primary job there. Chairboys need to get used to being stuck in the soup while the exciting work is being done in climate controlled rooms in orbit directing really big guns.
    ZOCOM's complaints, at least, are fair. Ish. Let them take a breather while the GF gets itself familiar with the zone suits, there's abatement to be done.

    InTheZONE
    #GDIWife Fuck off.
    #FloatingWood I'll admit I'm not a Tanker but nervous laughter hell, I swear those things are creaking from the extra weight just sitting there. It's been upgraded far beyond what the initial designers imagined in their wildest dreams and because of that the core systems are basically running right on the edge of their capabilities.
    As for the Navy, they had a long time with essentially no funding other than the Governors meaning they went into the war knowing that our convoys were gonna be fucked. The Treasury then finally gave them the carriers they wanted and most of the Shark yards (Most. The last shark yard has only just started work on its complement of ships) so they decided to shift to focus on convoy protection. Treasury decides nope, you're getting the Islands. Sort of. They're gonna design them then sit on the design for a while not doing anything about them anyway. At least recently they've recently started making up for this. Rather late though.
    The Air Force gets called the chair force a lot and I get it, it's a funny joke. Less funny when you see what happens when Firehawks have to fight Barghests and you end up recovering a smoking corpse from the wreckage though. Or if you end up on a battlefield without GDI having Air Superiority and have to withstand constant air attacks. Sure, the drones help. Hopefully they get round to actually finishing deploying the full set of them soon. More is needed.

    FloatingWood
    #GDIWife, a radical thought.
    Those refugees are often the very old, the very sick, and the ambitious.
    What happens when one's honoured father or mother enjoys the highest standard of care, only thing you have to do is show up, peaceably, and if you want, work towards maintaining the system that permits such kindness to exist?
    If you manage to convince those refugees that peace and friendship with GDI is genuinely the best option for a long and happy life, they will convince those where they lived that it is so, and it makes violence and war much harder to inflict upon GDI.
    The isolationism of yesteryear most likely did more to fuel terrorism than what the government's doing now. Now it's not GDI that bars the doors and shuts the windows to stifle a people yearning to be free, and no matter what the propagandists will say, people aren't stupid and know this.

    HigherThanYou
    I want to see what designs they actually come up with when the space fighters are finalized - unless we get something special for drives, they will be something very different from the Apollo, but I expect them to be pretty darn fun even so. Just don't let #GDIWife in one, or we might lose Luna.

    InTheZONE
    #FloatingWood Not just the old, sick and ambitious. Also teenage kids like I was who lost everything to Nod and want a chance to get their own back. Over a decade now and I like to think I've made my mark, as have a hell of a lot of other ex YZ refugees. Alas, to wastes of oxygen like IF none of that shit matters nearly as much as where you were born.

    Solan
    My opinion on this is we're having a diverse parliament after the elections. I know I'm a bit late to the party but I got busy with a lot of stuff. So from what I'm checking people have been concerned about the glowing green rock that destroys the world and the economy. Two important yet very different concerns because of the wonders of scientific journalism and a chance that people are hiring outside the government. I'm not going to sugarcoat this but the Developmentalist got what they deserved for being so inconsistent in their economic policies because a Developmentalist in Tokyo will say the wonders of Socialism while his fellow partymate in Osaka will say that more of the economy should be open to private investment. It was a mess because during the debates no one had a firm grasp of what the Developmentalists want we know what the socialists want, the market socialist, even the free marketeers so that's no excuse and people have been waiting for the last grand old party of GDI to implode for over a decade now. The glowing green rock platform was just as bad, there were advocates for space, for more blue zones, and some were saying the reports were a lie so we shouldn't trust it. Reclamation, Starbound, and even Open Hand had better Tiberium policies than whatever they had since the status quo isn't cutting it anymore and the Treasury already made a goal for space in Litinov's 2nd term and the first half of parliament's term.

    In terms of military spending decreases happening across the board I do echo #InTheZone that there are a lot of problems with the purse strings right now for the MIC which the Militarists and the IF love even if who gets to own what is up for debate. Right now the procurement arm of the Armed Forces is the Treasury and the current dearth of procurement related spending is because of the well, more pacifist policy of the current administration. The Office of the Director has always been going on with a peace dividend after the Third Tiberium War and especially after the Regency War. The Militarists just got shafted because orders come from up high that peace, space, and abatement are for this term. But, it's not all bad the Steel Talons basically got their wishlist of research projects finished or in production and I've heard the Space Force is getting some love especially when voices from Starbound are growing larger. Sure there is some belt tightening but what the Armed Forces needs is the next generation of warfare and not more of the same besides even Litinov understands basic logistics so we already have a Munitions Office attached to the Treasury to give us more ammo. It's the military's version of arcologies afterall.

    FloatingWood
    Speaking of the Open Hand; I wouldn't expect much from them.
    They've got 4 MPs to handle everything, and they're all new. Not sure any of them have governing experience in a municipal or zone government, but parliament is an entirely different playing field; municipal and zone government legislators generally aren't dealing with literally hundreds of voting members at a time.

    YellowZon3r
    Oh, right, elections. Well excuse me for not voting, was just a tiny bit busy. No. I didn't go to the emergency site myself, but enough crew were shuffled around that I was working double shifts and even a few triples. Militarists losing seats is gonna sting down the line if the budget for overtime gets slashed, though the military's harvester pilots will likely see their numbers finangled so we fall under the Tiberium budget rather than defense. But to put my amateur opinion on it, I'll wait for the full analysis but it seems like the Devs losing seats is gonna be softened somewhat by seats either going to other parties, or the incumbent changing party registration just prior to the elections and retaining their seats. And even in cases where they lost outright to a new challenger, starbound and the socialists are generally sympathetic to the developmentalist technocrats broad aims, they just have ideas where specifically funding should be allocated. "Oh no, the devs are creaking and breaking apart." Look at the broader coalitions, pork barrel projects and vote trading arrangements between various political blocs, and we're likely to to see the broadly supportive mega-coalition politics continue. Relations with Nod are warming, but uhh, that still leaves tiberium and the tiberium based space aliens as outside threats that parliament can co-operate on.

    Q4 2063 Results

    Resources: 1300+65 in‌ ‌reserve‌ (-30 from Reconstruction commissions) (-15 from Bureau of Arcologies) (-15 from Consumer Industrial Development) (-10 Division of Alternative Energy) (-20 Department of Munitions) (100 in Reserve for Banking)

    Political‌ ‌Support:‌ 99
    SCIENCE Meter: 2/4

    Free ‌Dice:‌ ‌6 ‌
    Erewhon Dice: 1
    Dice Capacity 55/60

    Tiberium Spread
    25.01 (+0.02) Blue Zone
    0.06 (+0.00) Cyan Zone
    23.03 (+.02) Yellow Zone (104 points of mitigation)
    51.86 (-.04) Red Zone (89 points of mitigation)


    Current Economic Issues:
    Housing: +81 (+81 LQ, +0 HQ) (0 population in low quality housing) (+1 high-quality housing per turn)
    Energy: +48 (+6 in reserve) (+5 per turn from sub-departments)
    Logistics: +32 (-4 from military activity)
    Food: +42 (+24 backed reserve, +5 unbacked reserve)
    Health: +24 (-8 from refugees)
    Capital Goods: +21 (+2 per turn from Distributed Industrial Authority) (+325 in reserve)
    Consumer Goods: +260 (+10 per turn from Private Industry) (+3 per turn from sub-departments) (+1 per turn from perennials) (-1 per turn Q1 2064) (Net +14 per turn)
    Labor: +27 (+3 per turn from medical care) (+2 per turn from Immigrant qualifications) (-3 per turn from private industry) (-2 per turn from other government) (Net +0)
    Tiberium‌ ‌Processing‌ ‌Capacity‌ ‌(2790/3800)‌ ‌(1440 HG, 1350 IHG)(HG: 1 per 95, IHG: 1 per 85)
    Tiberium Reserve (0/500)
    STUs: +7
    Taxation Per Turn: +160 (+20 per turn from Private Industry)
    Space Mining Per Turn: +100
    Maintenance Reductions: +50
    Green Zone Water: +5

    STU Production and Consumption
    Net: +7 per turn
    Production: +31 per turn (15.2 HG, 15.9 IHG)
    Consumption: -24 per turn
    18 Economy
    -6 Tiberium (2 Harvesting Tendrils, 2 Sonic Weapons, 2 T-Glass)
    -12 Other (8 Structural Alloys, 2 Hovercraft, 2 Gravitic Shipyard)
    6 Military
    -4 Aircraft (2 Tactical Lasers, 2 Plasma Munitions)
    -1 Ground Vehicles (1 Mastodons [Shimmer Shields, Point Defense Lasers], 0 Havocs [Shimmer Shields])
    -1 Strategic Air Defense Networks

    Projected Fusion Power Plant Decommissioning
    -8 Energy Q1 2064
    -16 Energy, +1 Labor Q1 2065
    -16 Energy, +1 Labor Q4 2065
    -16 Energy, +1 Labor Q3 2066
    -16 Energy, +1 Labor Q4 2067
    -16 Energy, +1 Labor Q2 2067
    -16 Energy, +1 Labor Q3 2067
    -16 Energy, +1 Labor Q4 2067
    -16 Energy, +1 Labor Q2 2068
    -16 Energy, +1 Labor Q4 2068


    Status‌ ‌of‌ ‌the‌ ‌Parties‌ ‌
    (strong‌ ‌support,‌ ‌weak‌ ‌support,‌ ‌weak‌ ‌opposition,‌ ‌strong‌ ‌opposition)‌ ‌
    Developmentalist: 705 (-333 seats) (200; 400; 75; 30) 17.6%
    Militarists: 629 Seats (-125 seats) (300; 100; 300; 29) 15.7%
    Starbound: 618 Seats (+157 seats) (400; 100; 100; 18) 15.5%
    Market Socialist Party: 555 Seats (+69 seats) (300; 155; 50; 50) 13.9%
    Socialist Party: 493 Seats (+67 seats) (250; 100; 93; 50) 12.3%
    Free Market Party: 405 Seats (+177 seats) (50; 150; 100; 105) 10.1%
    Initiative First Party: 334 Seats (-1 seat) (0; 34; 100; 200) 8.4%
    United Yellow List: 117 Seats (-59 seats) (80; 30; 7; 0) 3%
    Reclamation: 99 Seats (+87 seats) (50; 40; 6; 3) 2.5%
    Homeland: 41 Seats (-9 seats) (20; 10; 5; 6) 1%
    Open Hand: 4 Seats(+4 seats) (2; 2; 0; 0) .1%


    Military‌ ‌Confidence‌ ‌
    Ground‌ ‌Forces‌‌:‌ High ‌ ‌
    Air‌ ‌Force‌:‌ ‌High
    Space‌ ‌Force‌:‌ Decent ‌
    Steel‌ ‌Talons:‌ ‌Decent
    Navy:‌ Decent‌ (Trending to High)
    ZOCOM:‌ ‌Decent ‌

    Plan Goals
    Provide 20 Consumer Goods points from the Treasury
    Provide 1 Consumer Goods from Agriculture
    Increase Income by 430
    Increase Tiberium Processing limit by 470
    Increase population in space by 16.85k
    Provide 17 Points of Red Zone Abatement
    Spend at least one die on Steel Talons projects every turn

    Projects
    Complete Karachi Planned City by end of 2065
    Deploy Orca Wingman Drones by end of 2065
    Complete North Boston Phase 5
    Deploy Governor-A refit
    Complete at least 4 Ground Forces Zone Armor factories
    Complete Transorbital Fighter Development or follow on heavy ship development
    Complete 2 phases of Reforestation Campaign Preparation
    Develop both Next Generation Armored and Support Vehicles by end of 2065
    Complete Regional Hospital Expansions by end of 2065
    Complete Coordinated Abatement by end of 2065
    Complete Post War Housing Refits

    Promises to Litvinov:
    Do not activate Free Dice (except for Tiberium) unless all Department Dice are active.
    Spend no more than two free dice per turn on Military.
    Activate Refit Department
    Hand off at least 10 more points of Capital Goods to market over the course of the plan.
    Complete Improved Hewlett Gardener Refits before end of plan






    Politics

    The now much-reduced Developmentalist party – while it can still be considered the senior branch of the ruling coalition – is now first among equals rather than the titan that the others give tribute to.

    The election also leaves Litvinov in a notably precarious situation, with a much more fractious and divided base of support. While she does represent the Initiative as a whole, and is not subject to recall - nor for that matter does she need Parliament's continuing approval - there is much that she cannot do without Parliament's support. She is also being blamed in some quarters for the realignment of the Initiative's political system, with her unpopular diplomatic initiatives deactivating portions of the voter base and otherwise pushing people away from the core parties that had supported her.

    While Litvinov herself is not particularly accountable to Parliament, a dictator in waiting rather than a prime minister, she is herself not particularly happy in her role, between the war past, and the war yet to come.


    Markets
    The markets are beginning to brace for a severe labor crunch, as the Initiative's pool of usable talent is beginning to shrink dramatically. While there are still untapped human resources available both to them and the Initiative government, it is still uncomfortably tight.

    Similarly, while people are beginning to substantially scale up production, they are beginning to run into the limits of the markets as demand area after demand area is filled, and competition is beginning in earnest, with a series of merger negotiations beginning in November. While the vast majority are not completed yet, it is likely that GDI will be seeing a landscape dominated by a relative handful of major cooperatives. While they are mostly centered around various forms of conventional LCI manufacturing, and otherwise exist in the services market, many of the largest are looking at various forms of government contracting as a future revenue stream, although none have yet been able to land contracts for things like spider cotton, myomers, or other products that are within their reach to begin manufacturing on their own resources.

    Breakthroughs
    Tiberium-Core Missiles
    The Brotherhood of Nod, for much of the last twenty years has fielded Tiberium Core missiles in tactical roles, most often from the racks of their stealth tanks. The missiles use a solid Tiberium core, mounted to a hot and fast burning rocket motor, and effectively act as kinetic kill vehicles, slamming a Tiberium dart into a target at supersonic to low hypersonic speeds. While building them is not particularly hard, there are two tricks that make things interesting. First is the seeker head, which has to deal with quite a bit of Tiberium radiation in trying to find its target, and offers the potential for noticeable improvements in that area. Second is the motor itself, which, while conventional, is fairly handy as a high speed tactical rocket motor.

    Rocket Fuel
    While GDI has broadly disinvested in chemical rocketry due to the advent of fusion flight, and more recently the prototyped impulse drive on the transorbital fighter program, there have been breakthroughs in the field, in part derived from the Corruptor, and other Visitor weapons and fuel systems. While the program as a whole is unlikely to unseat the fusion and impulse systems, it is far from worthless, with potential applications in terms of both solid and liquid fuel rocketry, with offering safer, higher energy, and less demanding fuels.

    Civilian Augmentics
    The Initiative is facing an absolute quantum leap in cybernetic technologies, in part due to an improved understanding of Visitor technology. An eye prosthesis is likely to go from being a large scale procedure, requiring the use of an external neurohelmet, to one that is functionally an outpatient procedure, although acclimating to the eyeballs is still a lengthy process.

    Visitor EM Capacitors
    There are a substantial number of technologies that rely on infusions of massive amounts of electrical charge over the course of a very short period of time, from computers and fusion reactors to lasers, railguns, electromagnetic forming, and nuclear arms. A conventional capacitor can store less than three kilojoules per kilogram, while prototype Visitor derived designs can store over seven. While the absolute energy load is still far less than a battery, let alone most fuels, the ability to rapidly store and draw more than double the total energy previous designs could at the same weight will make a significant difference in a wide selection of areas.

    Phased Plasma Munitions
    There are many methods to cohere plasma. Both GDI and the Brotherhood of Nod have often used the beam rider methodology, creating a low resistance pathway via laser, because it is one of the simplest means and most reliable means to hold plasma in a high enough energy range to help. There are other methods, and the Visitors use a mix to produce phased plasma rounds, ones that manipulate the plasma itself to cohere bolts that both extend range, and provide increased penetration.

    Median Tiberium Refining
    The Visitors' mastery of Tiberium makes the Brotherhood of Nod's look like they built their refineries in a cave, with a box of scraps, which, to be entirely fair, they often are. While GDI cannot mimic their technology, let alone improve on it, there are many lessons to be learned from their means of processing, although it is very likely that they are near-completely separate in terms of process from existing HG and IHG systems.

    Scrin Articulation Systems
    The Visitors used a wide array of biomimetic systems to create often frighteningly lifelike war machines, in many cases quite similar to the myomer systems that GDI and the Brotherhood of Nod use, but considerably more advanced. Smaller, lighter, more reliable, more durable, the articulation offers a combination of improvement in everything from mechs, to arms.

    Particle Shields
    While the Visitor shields proper are still beyond GDI's understanding, multiple breakthroughs have been made in producing a high power stressed shield, using elements from the Brotherhood of Nod, GDI's own research including the Firestorm Project, and nearly every last functional shield projector that remains from the Visitors' attack over a decade ago. The results so far are expensive, but at least in theory capable of taking hits from nearly anything in the Brotherhood tactical arsenal, although far short of most operational, let alone higher level munitions.



    [ ] Blue Zone Arcologies (Stage 4)
    Continuing development of the arcology system will add yet more cities to the list of those with an arcology and expand existing complexes. While it will be expensive, these symbols of the Initiative might remain in high demand.
    (Progress 465/465: 15 resources per die) (+8 High Quality Housing, +4 Consumer Goods, +1 Energy Reserve, -2 Energy)
    (Progress 29/450: 15 resources per die) (+8 High Quality Housing, +4 Consumer Goods, +1 Energy Reserve, -2 Energy) [3, 78, 55]

    Continuing arcology construction has only partially solved the actual distribution of people. While there are enough units to house everyone up to a high standard, and the construction has been pushing down rental costs as it increases supply, neither has been enough to really induce population shifts that would make the refits (although needed) less disruptive.
    However this has meant that finally, there are open spaces in arcologies, and while GDI certainly does not practice rental systems that intentionally encourage a certain percentage of properties standing vacant, there are advantages to the system, with a certain amount of the arcology rooms being able to be converted to other needs such as short term residential so that major upgrades can be done over the course of several years in some of the oldest arcologies, and otherwise being able to do more thorough upkeep and maintenance without forcing people to move on a regular basis.

    [ ] Rail Network Construction Campaigns (Phase 6)
    Further work on the rail networks will be focused primarily on preparing the ground for exploitation of the interior, especially in light of the pushes into the Red Zones and creating new environs for Initiative exploitation.
    (Progress 108/245: 15 resources per die) (+4 Logistics) [80]

    Work on the rail lines has been a combination of rebuilding in Siberia and expanding GDI supply bases, with an eye towards resupply operations in future offensives, both against the Brotherhood of Nod and elsewhere. At this point, with the SADN laid out and coming online, GDI High Command is willing to begin putting symbolic pressure on the Brotherhood of Nod, taking half- and quarter-steps towards declared nuclear redlines. While actual offensives are still substantially off the table, they are going to see just how jumpy the Brotherhood is – one more step in a careful display of brinkmanship, a dance that both Initiative and Brotherhood have danced a hundred times before.

    Although not an immediate concern, GDI has also begun preparing for a major expansion of rail assets, specifically a major route joining the eastern and western North American Blue Zones. With the front lines being less than five hundred kilometers apart, preparation has already begun for a sizable sprint activity to join the two together, as it is one of the areas that shows – by an order of magnitude – the best return on investment in terms of rail traffic at this point.

    [ ] Suborbital Shuttle Service (Phase 3)
    A final and most significant step, prioritizing even more Leopards for the suborbital role will make it so that GDI can establish a regular network of flights, and create efficiencies of scale rather than brute forcing the problem. While there are significant limits imposed by the turnaround time of a Leopard class fusioncraft, there are also significant advantages.(Progress 154/150: 25 resources per die) (+8 Logistics) [95]

    The first regularly scheduled transglobal flight, from Siberia to London, landed on December 12, 2063, a suborbital hop that carried primarily passengers rather than cargo. The passengers were selected by lottery, as the chance to visit a far distant Blue Zone is rare enough, and the system novel enough, that there were far more applicants than seats.
    On a practical scale, the suborbital shuttles are certainly not going to serve as GDI's primary means of air transport. Rather, they are going to fill a niche similar to the Concorde jets of the late 20th century, offering a high-speed, high-priority passage at a premium; but unlike the Concorde, with a fleet with enough of a mass budget to provide immediate response capabilities in case of disaster or invasion.

    Similarly, there has been limited preparation for the use of the flights as evacuation points, with most (although not all) of the designated strips maintaining a small stockpile of food, water, clothing, toiletries, and other necessities to spin up refugee housing in a matter of hours, with supplies for a little over a thousand on instant notice, and storage for much more if GDI has reason to believe that they will be needed.

    [ ] Second Generation Repulsorplate Factories
    With the repulsorplate finally offering significant edges, and opening up a wide variety of new niches including the potential of flying ships, building enough to supply the Initiative as a whole is somewhat problematic, and will require far more than what the Suzuka factory can produce alone, especially if they are to become a somewhat standard feature, rather than a specific exception to the rule.
    (Progress 365/525: 25 resources per die) (+8 Logistics, +8 Capital Goods, -4 STUs, -6 Energy, -2 Labor) (Unlocks further military and space projects) [4, 94, 89, 42]

    Work has begun on building a practical repulsorplate. While there is still substantial progress left to be made before GDI can actually match the Brotherhood's theoretical knowledge, let alone practical and institutional, the progress made has been rapid and comprehensive.

    However, there are fundamental problems with the progress of the program. The biggest is the security measures around the STU supply, and with it, the severe limitations on who is allowed to work at the plants. While the extensive security precautions simply cannot last forever due to the ever growing demand for more STU-using technologies, which in turn draws upon a shrinking pool of personnel that are both educated in the technologies and capable of passing the required background checks, for as long as those requirements exist there is a major limit in how much GDI can expand its implementation of xenotech.


    [ ] North Boston Chip Fabricator (Phase 5)
    A fifth and final expansion to the North Boston complex, this will focus not just on expanding chip fabrication, but also on a number of new technologies. While it is unlikely that these technologies will completely replace existing designs, there are a number of edge cases where inferior performance in one aspect is made up for by superior performance in others.
    (Progress 406/1805: 15 resources per die) (+35 Capital Goods, +16 Consumer Goods, -2 Labor, -8 Energy) (Required for further AI projects.) [88, 8, 44, 94]

    After years of neglect, work has restarted on the North Boston project, and it will be a massive expansion, adding an entire separate campus even further north, with multiple dedicated research labs and a mandate to develop a new generation of chips. Lying on the south bank of the Mystic river, the new complex is taking over areas that have lain abandoned for decades, part of the great cutbacks experienced as the region densified during the Second Interbellum.

    Modern chip manufacturing has, in large part, run into a series of hard physical limits, with one of the most noticeable being electron tunneling. In quantum mechanics, many things traditionally described as particles also have wave functions, and can actually pass through materials that they otherwise should not be able to. Finding other means of developing processing power, or reducing wastage are, at this point, the only two means available to the Initiative to improve chip manufacturing capabilities, beyond simply applying larger chips.


    [ ] Second Generation Continuous Cycle Fusion Plants (Phase 3)
    With second generation plants a proven concept, GDI needs a relatively rapid pace of construction, with the first of the first generation plants expected to begin reaching serious failures in a matter of years, and the limitations on construction speeds meaning that total production is noticeably bottlenecked.
    (Progress 275/275: 20 resources per Die) (+19 Energy) (-1 Labor)
    (Progress 117/270: 20 resources per Die) (+19 Energy) (-1 Labor) (No more than three dice can be spent on 2nd Generation CCF per turn) [98, 83]

    The power plants have begun to come online, and another wave is well on the way. While this is far from enough to take the entire load, given how many of the first generation plants are scheduled to be decommissioned in the coming months, it is still a major step forward.

    One of the more major challenges to the continuing buildup of fusion plants is providing enough fuel. While supplying a fission plant with fuel is a fairly simple, if difficult and hazardous procedure, a fusion plant has very different requirements, simply because of the size of the atoms being fused. Elemental hydrogen effectively requires cryogenic transport, and beyond that, has a bad habit of slipping out of the tanks it is being contained in, meaning that it is deeply impractical to store long term, especially given that a megaWatt of energy production capacity requires about a microgram per second of reaction mass.

    What this means is that heavy water has to be produced, usually in sizable quantities at centralized facilities, and then shipped out to power plants. Thankfully, decomposing the heavy water into the deuterium meant to be fused into helium is itself not a particularly hard process to carry out on-site at each reactor. Electrolysis is not really a significant hurdle to producing fuel from heavy water, as it only takes 237 kilojoules to disassociate a mole of water, yielding not only the desired hydrogen, but also oxygen, which is often simply vented as a waste material due to the small quantities involved per power plant.

    [ ] Bergen Superconductor Foundry (Phase 4)
    Scaling up production once more will allow superconductors to find their way into a wide array of products, ranging from the ordinary to ones that most people will never see in their lives. Particle accelerators, fusion plants, network interchanges, cogeneration facilities, and a wide array of other elements will be significantly improved by more widespread availability of superconductors.
    (Progress 523/610: 30 resources per die) (+4 Capital Goods, +8 Energy) (-2 Logistics) (+5 Political Support) [82, 14, 48, 28]

    Bergen has seen significant work in adding yet another major set of superconductor fabricators to the complex. Unfortunately the expansion has not yet completed, with a number of the highly specialized chemical industries and associated capital also being required for Tiberium processing and facing shortfalls of their own.

    Overall, the Initiative has a desperate need for superconductors, as fusion plants require them in large quantities, as do nearly all of the future military programs. Fortunately the civilian side of demand is slower on the uptake, in large part because they are not using nearly so much energy. There are very few items in a given home, if any, that could actually take advantage of the amount of energy that can be pushed through even a very narrow gauge superconductor connection, let alone more standard sized ones.

    There is a key safety risk in using them however. When a superconductor breaks its temperature threshold (15 degrees C in the case of a modern Initiative version) it can no longer take the current that it is passing, and in most cases explodes rather violently, oftentimes instantly converting into gas and plasma as there is now a substantial amount of energy with nowhere to go.


    [ ] Reforestation Campaign Preparations (Phase 1)
    While actively regreening the world is certainly premature, between the continued expansion of Tiberium underground and the continued war with the Brotherhood of Nod, some efforts can be taken immediately to stabilize vast amounts of now-barren land reclaimed from Tiberium and begin the long march towards rebuilding functional soils.
    (Progress 737/805: 5 resources per die) [67, 4, 19, 6, 39]

    The preparations are all but completed for substantial reforestation campaigns to begin in earnest. While the Initiative has already started seeding flights for many of the first wave of areas, mostly those deemed highest risk of gullying (like the southern elements of BZ-2), the program as a whole will require thousands more, and a follow-on array of programs to ensure that the seeding has actually worked. Surveys will mostly be carried out by Tib spotters and abatement crews, as they are the personnel on the ground for the vast majority of the territory affected.

    The impacts however, are going to be felt over the course of decades rather than weeks or years however, and there are serious concerns that the program, without political interest from Parliament, especially given the collapse of the Biodiversity party, and it folding into Reclamation, that the program will effectively be abandoned. At least, until GDI stabilizes the Tiberium situation in a more permanent manner, especially given the twin hits of the doom clock, and the Mount Belaya explosion.

    [ ] Agriculture Mechanization Projects (Phase 2)
    Expanding the robotization of agriculture to rapidly improve the total food supply will require vast numbers of units, produced in dozens of robot foundries around the world but mostly supplied by Nuuk and the myomer macrospinners, with their efficiencies creating cascade effects.
    (Progress 300/230: 15 resources per die) (+12 Food, -1 Energy, -1 Capital Goods) [68]

    Putting food on the table at this point is a fairly simple affair, with GDI running a significant surplus, and in large part not only feeding itself but providing substantial food aid to both the Forgotten and the Brotherhood of Nod. In the future, especially with a continually shrinking human population, the largest challenges of the Initiative's food programs are going to be logistical – a problem of moving food from where it can be made at a reasonable systematic cost, to a place where the people are.

    One of the interesting pieces is that not all of the mechanization is human-replacing, so much as human-augmenting. Within the aquaponic bays for example, much of the harvest has been mechanized, with machines that automatically lift fully grown trays out of the water, and carry them over to sorting, which is still primarily human-driven, reducing the number of overall jobs while minimizing the amount of wasted time.

    While there are going to be substantial ongoing issues between the need for skills retraining and personnel displacement, the density of labor per square kilometer has substantially dropped due to mechanization, and an even more increased centralization of labor as the roboticized workforce has pushed most of the jobs into the maintenance barns, rather than the fields.

    [ ] Improved Hewlett-Gardener Refits (Phase 2)
    While there are now IHG plants in production, and a number of smaller and secondary plants in the middle of the conversion process, there is still a significant amount of work to be done before even touching the grandiose assemblages of Jeddah, Chicago, or similar.
    (Progress 210/210: 35 resources per die) (Converts 450 processing capacity)
    (Progress 2/200: 35 resources per die) (Converts 450 processing capacity) (-1 Labor) [68, nat 1]

    The deployment of IHG plants ran into significant problems this quarter, primarily due to industrial workflow issues, and more importantly a crunch in the available skilled labor supply. The equipment for processing Tiberium requires extremes of both temperature and pressure, and in many cases extreme corrosion resistance as well. Manufacturing this equipment presents a set of requirements that when overlapping can result in the need for specialist manufacturing skills. These are skills that the Initiative has an educational pipeline for (and one that can be fairly rapidly scaled up as needed), but can run into severe issues on occasion, as those with a natural interest in the field are often fewer than the actual demand.

    With the surprise announcement of advanced, Visitor derived Tiberium refining methodologies however, there are very open questions about the future of the refit program, as it appears that the new methodology outstrips HG and IHG methods, and requires substantially different processing methodologies, although they are likely to be extremely STU intensive, although the final form is far from being completed.

    [ ] Coordinated Abatement Programs (Phase 2) (Updated)
    While certainly not an easy thing, and with significant security risks to large detachments of Initiative troops, the coordinated abatement projects have been of significant value to the warlords that are participating; they are more willing to both put their own resources in, and do more to dissuade the radical side of the Brotherhood from interfering.
    (Progress 180/180: 25 resources per die) (+3 Red Zone Abatement)
    (Progress 93/175: 25 resources per die) (+3 Red Zone Abatement) [15, 92]

    The systematic deployment of Initiative assets into Brotherhood territory has been a substantial success. On both sides of the line however, there are significant voices suggesting that the program, as young as it is, be canned, with most pointing out the dangers of allowing such intermingling of forces, and one Initiative First representative calling it "akin to sticking your [hand] in an industrial shredder."

    On the practical level, the results speak for themselves. Tiberium is being pushed back, and while the remnants are being harvested by the Brotherhood, aiding their attempts to rebuild after the devastation wreaked by the Third Tiberium War and the Regency War following it, the warlords that have allowed GDI into their confidences are also the ones with the furthest to go. Yao for example offers little threat according to most InOps analysts, between an extremely shallow backline, and the strength of the nearby Blue Zones.

    "If Nod somehow achieves a complete victory over GDI, humanity will still exist. If Tiberium wins, humanity will be extinct. I don't like either of those outcomes, but the second is worse."
    -- Daniel O'vaw, Reclamation Party MP


    [ ] Tiberium Vein Mines (Stage 10)
    While no longer positive in terms of abatement resources freed up, vein mines still represent a significant way for the Initiative to increase its Tiberium mining output without either requiring significant conflicts with the Brotherhood of Nod, or putting its men and material at significant risk in the Red Zones of the world.
    (Progress 150/150: 20 resources per die) (Additional Income Trickle [25-35]) (-2 Capital Goods)
    (Progress 4/165: 20 resources per die) (Additional Income Trickle [25-35]) (-2 Capital Goods) [74]
    Income 1d3: [2] = +30 RpT

    The Initiative's mining programs have undertaken further expansion. However there is significant public fear surrounding them, with the opening of a mine near instantly spiking requests for new housing - in some cases doubling or even tripling the volume of such overnight. The public fear caused by the Mount Belaya explosion has fundamentally changed how the Vein Mine program is viewed both outside and inside the Treasury.

    The mines themselves however have been going fairly well, between expansions and a series of new precautions, including expansion of the use of multi point sonar sweeps to find pockets of liquid Tiberium. While the use of sonar and ground penetrating radar is nothing particularly new, the use of multiple sensors to better localize pockets so that the Initiative can mine around them has been seeing some success, although not enough to prevent two more breaches in LT pockets this quarter, although fortunately neither detonated.


    [ ] Enhanced Harvest Tiberium Spikes (Platform)
    Developing a model of Tiberium Spike that not only harvests Tiberium but also marginally speeds its growth is a quite radical idea. Based on GDI's work with the Tiberium Inhibitor and experience with the Scrin's Growth Accelerators, it would substantially increase the throughput, but at the risk of spreading Tiberium more quickly.
    (Progress 145/180: 20 resources per die) (-5 Political Support per die) (MS) [23, 34]

    To call the political response to the Treasury's work on enhanced harvest Tiberium spikes apoplectic is an understatement. Wild fears of the enhanced harvest spikes accelerating Tiberium growth deep below and on the surface have found fertile ground in a fearful political body, with multiple subcommittees grilling high level Treasury officials behind closed doors about the risks, conjuring feverish images of another Tiberium detonation or vast swaths of territory being swallowed by the crystal due to one miscalculation or another in the application of the xenotech.

    The practical spike on the other hand, is actually far safer. It is not simply an accelerator strapped to a spike. It is using technology from the Visitors to summon Tiberium towards the surface, not accelerate its spread. While the differences from the standpoint of surface abatement are mostly academic, the technical differences are fundamentally vital to making a product that even the most risk-averse of Treasuries would be willing to field. Even so, there are significant concerns about the safety of the program, both in terms of the safety of the systems themselves, and their safety from the Initiative public.

    "The Treasury's actions are nothing less than a betrayal of the ideals that the Initiative was founded on. We came together to stop the spread of Tiberium, not spread it for Christ's sake!"
    • Anonymous

    [ ] GDSS Columbia (Phase 5)
    The final planned expansions to the station, adding another two thousand souls to its population, have been started, but there is still much work to be done, with the array of bays available, and the broader problem of shifting the station from a rapidly constructed habitation to something that is livable as a long term project. (Station)
    (Progress 1017/1015: 20 resources per die) (2k Permanent residents) (+3 available Bays) (10 Political Support) [22]

    GDSS Columbia has been, at long last, finalized. A first home away from the bounds of Earth, a first step on the long road to colonizing space. While there is still much to be done on board, with a new batch of people making themselves at home, and beginning to modify the space to their own needs. Many elements of Erewhon's designs are actually being retained, but not all, with people preferring their own styles and their own approaches to living.

    There are fundamental differences between survival and living, and between a house and a home. Columbia is currently a house, but far from being a home, even for the ones who have been living there the longest.

    Lessons are however, already being learned, with the last of the Pathfinders already tapped out, and a number of far less experienced colonists being brought up as a control group, and they are running into far more issues. A major one is actually getting used to artificial gravity. While most things are the same, there are a few minor differences, and getting used to them has caused a number of minor injuries, with the most common actually being people cutting their own hands due to knives slipping.

    "This is only a first step. Mankind must, and will, break free of the shackles of our dying world. - Adm Harrison Carter

    -[ ] Hospital Bay
    All of the Initiative's space stations are generally decently equipped with medical supplies. However, they lack cutting edge equipment. While they can theoretically conduct most surgeries developed before the mid 20th century, that is still a fairly limited spectrum, and for most really serious cases, the best that they can be expected to do is stabilize a person for delivery to terrestrial hospital systems. This would fix that.
    (Progress 355/300: 20 resources per die) (+1 Health) [93, 39]

    Work on the hospital bay has finalized. While far from the full features of some of the Initiative's best hospitals, the grand complexes that London, or Tokyo, or any of a dozen other major cities host, it is something, and by the standards of the 20th century, quite a significant something. It is actually one of the most automated medical systems in Initiative service, in large part because a hospital system actually requires substantial overhead in terms of population per unit of service.
    Like most of the Initiative's medical system, it is fundamentally designed around the needs of trauma care, but it is a very different set of traumas than exist on the surface. It is dealing with vacuum exposure for example, a virtually unheard of set of damages on the surface.
    Otherwise, Erewhon's criticism of the system does have some validity. While most of the standard procedures are covered, a large section of care, ranging from cancer treatments (although there are some approaches in the pipeline that may change that) to childbirth are not or only minimally covered, in large part because Columbia does not have a large enough medical staff to effectively handle them.


    [ ] GDSS Shala (Phase 5)
    As Shala has been rapidly expanded, the station is still somewhat skeletal, especially in the core and the periphery, but at the same time it has bulked out, with new residencies, new agricultural platforms, workshops and docking ports. Continuing expansion will see significant work done to expand food production and see additional farmland made available for transport across the solar system. (Station)
    (Progress 868/975: 20 resources per die) (.4k permanent residents) (+8 Food, +4 Consumer Goods) (20 Political Support) (+3 available Bays) [18, 15, 81, 71, 60, 20, 2]

    While it had been hoped that Shala would be finalized in this quarter, a series of major and minor issues have meant significant delays. One of the bigger problems was actually a hydraulic leak. Two of the high-pressure water lines developed cracks, one of which was external, spraying water out that crystallized near-instantly, propagating back into the pipeline, and creating cascading pressure problems across the system. Similarly, pinhole leaks in multiple habitation sections, created in part by a high pace of construction, have needed to be sought out, and fixed, another delay in an already delayed and over budget process.

    Now that Shala's shell is finished, it is an opportune time to lock-in what bays will eventually be added to the station. Of the seven available slots, one slot is currently occupied by a Fruiticulture Bay. Choose six (6) additional bays to lock-in. A bay can be selected multiple times (x1, x2, etc.). Vote is by plan.

    -[ ] Core Crops Bay
    Simply adding on additional bays filled to bursting with core crops, such as beans, rice, and corn, would do little more than add a significant amount of orbital food production, cutting down marginally on lift requirements, but at the same time doing little to improve the lives of current orbital inhabitants or their ground bound relatives.
    (Progress 0/295: 20 resources per die) (+6 Food)
    • While GDI does not need this quantity of food for the moment, it has three key advantages. First, it provides the opportunity to build orbital food stockpiles that can be deployed to the surface at a moment's notice. Second, it means that GDI does not need to rely as much on surface food production that is vulnerable to Brotherhood disruption. Otherwise, it prepares the ground for larger scale habitation faster, due to not having to worry nearly so much about establishing local food supplies.
    • Militarist Support/Starbound Opposition
    • Multiple bays would do little but expand food production, limited to no impact on food diversity or technological advancement.


    -[ ] Fruticulture Bay
    Growing trees on Earth is generally considered a waste of time, with a years long process before they begin producing, and the potential for them to be either damaged by war or infested by Tiberium being far too high for GDI planners. Growing trees in orbit would be a symbol of GDI's confidence in their ability to sustain habitation on other worlds, and significantly add to the food diversity available to the Initiative.
    (Progress 0/295: 20 resources per die) (+8 Consumer Goods) (+5 Political Support)
    • While ultimately fruit would still be doled out by lottery, especially the longer term varieties, it would ensure that GDI can produce enough for most people to at least have some tree fruits in their diet, assuming that reselling does not happen.
    • General Political support.
    • Fully luxury goods, panem et circenses

    -[ ] Experimental Crops Bay
    Even with the biosphere on its last legs, there are some ideas that GDI scientists are too nervous about the potential of them getting out. Extremely fast growing crops, biological sources of explosives, medicine, and volatile compounds, and a wide variety of other ideas that are potentially too risky to allow out into the wild.
    (Progress 0/255: 20 resources per die) (MS) (Unlocks new development projects)
    • While Seo is quite excited about numerous potential projects presented by the agricultural department, Dr. Dinesh Bora has reminded him that any novel crops are to be shared with Nod. Severely curtailing the number of projects that the GDI is willing to authorize.
    • Likely to include requirements for low/zero gravity in most cases to render the samples useless to the Brotherhood.
    • Militarists, Initiative First Oppose, others support or are neutral.
    • Multiple bays would both increase and speed the array of new crops, including programs for radiotrophic crops that could be grown for example on the lunar surface.

    -[ ] Habitation Bay
    While adding significant new housing to Shala was not in the preliminary design documentation, it would be a step towards the goal of 20 thousand souls living full time off Earth, and even with Shala's high level of automation, more hands have almost always increased farm outputs.
    (Progress 0/295: 20 resources per die) (+1k Permanent Residents)
    • While a relatively wasteful use of the space, it would be an immediate progression towards the goal, and not require work on lunar or other habitation stations.

    -[ ] Animal Husbandry Bay
    While most of the effort is going to plants, animals have oft been a significant part of human agricultural work. Most animals will be farmed for various forms of animal products, dairy, eggs, and the like, as growing animals for consumption in space conditions is terribly wasteful in most practical terms.
    (Progress 0/255: 20 resources per die) (+6 Consumer Goods)
    • Increase in the diversity of food that spacers eat, improving morale and long term health.
    • Relatively inefficient use of cubic space
    • Supported primarily by Developmentalist and market interests.
    • Otherwise unpopular.
    • Some ability for scientific experimentation.


    -[ ] Species Restoration Bay
    While practically nearly useless, there are many species that have either died out or effectively died out due to Tiberium. Creating a series of small habitats designed to replicate their natural environments in space would be a serious step towards long term preservation, and allow GDI to create greater biodiversity in the future.
    (Progress 0/255: 20 resources per die)
    • Current stocks are starting to reach their lifetime limits before they degrade to the point of non-viability. Currently unable to reconstitute DNA from computer storage for those that have already degraded too much. Many lifeforms never had samples taken in the first place.
    • First bay restores creatures from stocks and starts replenishing them, tiny increase in genetic diversity over time.
    • Multiple increases the number of creatures restored and microbiomes created. Scientists may also introduce genetically modified lifeforms to fill missing ecological niches.
    • Mixed popularity: wasteful space spending, but it does improve the signal that the GDI believes that Tiberium can be beaten, and that some of Tiberium's destruction has been stolen from it.

    -[ ] High Efficiency Void Crops Bay
    There are a number of extremophile bacteria, lichen, and similar that are able to grow even in the airless, highly irradiated void of space. With extensive genetic engineering and experimentation, it may be possible to engineer human edible crops that can be farmed and harvested with a minimum of material and maintenance.
    (Progress 0/210: 20 resources per die)
    • Boost to biotech.
    • Esoteric enough to be neither popular nor unpopular
    • Can increase future colony self-sufficiency, and reduce colony cost. More impactful for larger colonies, and ones further from Earth, than are expected to be built in the next decade.

    [ ] Primitive Prototype Portal Construction
    While a far cry from attempting to create a portal between the stars, constructing an attempt at a surface to orbit portal system, reusing one of the ground based stations, and linking it to a specially constructed geostationary station above it, will be an attempt to create a link at a longer range, and potentially a means of testing even longer ranges.
    (Progress 279/400: 100 resources per die) [73, 43]

    Work has continued on the portal program. While the habitable parts of the station are already complete and in the process of pressurization and crewing, the uninhabitable parts, including the ansible array itself, are far from being ready, with the biggest problems being the alignment of the portal elements in a way that will actually allow them to generate the wormhole, rather than dumping massive amounts of energy into a system and hoping it will not produce explosions.

    [ ] Library Enhancement Programs
    While GDI maintains, and has maintained for decades an expansive and up to date public and research library system, plus a significant digital environment for both preservation and accessibility, a major round of updates to the library network would certainly not go amiss, especially as the library buildings themselves are often significantly multirole.
    (Progress 241/180: 15 resources per die) (+5 Political Support) [57]

    Libraries have a tendency to become more cramped and uncomfortable over the course of their lifespan. Books, materials, new capabilities, and the like tend to be added to a space, filling it in ways that are oftentimes painful to reverse. While expanding the space can certainly help, that only makes the problem start over in many ways, with the collections once more beginning to expand to fill the space allocated to them. The alternative, for facilities without the room or the will to expand their footprint, is to weed aggressively, condensing and removing outdated parts of the collection. While a certain amount of removal and disposal of damaged goods is a normal part of library operation, it is normally acceptable to leave somewhat out-of-date histories on the shelf or to leave a book with some slight dog-earing in place. Similarly, electronics might be kept in service longer, while seeing much heavier use, if no replacement is forthcoming. Now they are, and many a vintage 2040s computer is headed at last to recycling, or more often reallocated to a legacy hardware program, where older computers are refurbished, and assigned to less intensive work, such as archival programs and similar.

    The library enhancements are already beginning to show results, although only marginal ones, because the libraries were already centers of Initiative life and culture. They were in use, and with many of the updated libraries, there is nobody there for them to add to their service rosters. People are, for the most part already using the libraries for whatever services the library can offer, and adding more has mostly meant cannibalizing its own attendance.


    [ ] Cosmetic Biosculpting While something of an affectation, there are a wide array of options for GDI to begin programs to make people more comfortable in their bodies. While obviously limited by bone structure, muscle mass, and the need to avoid making harmful changes, the program would be a significant step in both reconstructive and cosmetic assistance for many of GDI's citizens.
    (Progress 194/345: 30 resources per die) (+1 Health) [62]

    Work has continued on building up the infrastructure for biosculpting. While often not talked about, one of the more major issues is actually in recovery facilities. Although biosculping does not require the same degree of immune system suppression that, for example, an organ transplant does, it still requires a substantial amount of recovery time in most cases, and while not all of it has to be in supervised facilities, it does require some of that as well.


    [ ] University Program Updates
    While the university system and the Initiative's research institutions have been pumping out breakthroughs at a pace not seen since at least the latter half of the 20th century, the results have been far from evenly spread. A relative handful of elite universities such as Oxford and the University of Tokyo have snapped up much of the funding and expertise, creating a narrow pipeline for personnel to be trained in breakthrough technologies. While fixing that will not be an easy process, it is something that can be remediated.
    (Progress 310/250: 15 resources per die) (-1 Capital Goods) (Increases Labor outputs) [74]

    While there has not been a single overarching solution to the problems faced by the Initiative's university system, and it is too late in the school year to institute the reforms, preparations have begun for a number of improvements in the physical structure of a large slice of the Initiative's universities, and a systematic recruitment program for promising scientists often on a six year contract to begin proliferating the knowledge base beyond elite universities. Although this will have substantial teething troubles, and likely a significant number of issues as culture clashes and social interdiction are all but certain, it is the only way the Initiative has to bring classes in subjects like repulsorplate design or fusion engineering to the vast majority of its population.

    "The difference between trying to teach repulsorplates at MIT and trying to teach repulsorplates at SACTI is like night and day. The students want to do things so differently here, and the teachers are a nightmare to work with ."
    - Attica Bryan


    [ ] Governor-A Development (Platform)
    The Governor class cruisers are a bit of an oddball in the Initiative fleet. Designed before the advent of modern laser based point defense systems, the ships lack in a number of significant ways, including missing forward aspect anti-missile defense systems. The -A model will be a rather thorough redesign, stripping the Governor of nearly all of its upperworks to reposition a number of features, add a second laser point defense mount, and switch some of its other mounts to Thunderbolt-based missile launchers.
    (Progress 127/40: 15 resource per die) [91]

    The Governor-A is about as much of a redesign as the American Super Hornet program of the late 20th century. While many of the systems below the waterline are unchanged – pebble bed reactors have not changed particularly much in the last decades, and many of the other components are similarly modern – others have to be completely reworked. Copper and silver are stripped out in exchange for superconductors, sections of steel and composite for U-series alloys, ablative sections added across the ship to counter Brotherhood laser systems. Even the life support systems have been significantly redesigned to take on the lessons of Shala, Columbia, and Enterprise.

    Above the waterline, however, it is a complete redesign from the turrets backwards on. The turrets of paired superfiring railguns see little in structural revisions, although there are some substantial improvements beneath the armor – most notably the addition of buckler shields to reinforce the frontal glacis, rendering them far more resistant to the kind of fires that Bintang has previously used against Governor-class ships to great effect. Behind them rests the primary tower, with a laser system newly mounted to it, flanked by crystal beam platforms to add even more antimissile firepower. The missile system has been refitted, adding a second section of VLS cells, a further sixteen much smaller ones, designed around T20E type missiles; and then the hangar has remained effectively unchanged, except for switching out anti-aircraft guns for a pair of missile pods, along the lines of those used on GDI's recent carrier classes.

    [ ] Island-Class Assault Ship Deployment
    While GDI does not need additional shipyards for these ships, the Island-class will put a significant burden on existing supply lines. Hence, a wave of factory expansions for everything from missile launchers to propellers to radar systems will need to be undertaken to provide the needed equipment.
    (Progress 70/135: 25 resources per die) (-2 Labor, -1 Capital Goods) (3 tranches, Projected 16 to complete tranche 1, 24 to complete tranche 2, 32 to complete tranche 3) (Will time out Q1 2064) [39]

    The Island class has been a source of much frustration for the Navy, with the Treasury seeing it as enough of a priority to keep on the docket, but not enough to actually fund the project – especially as the role for the ship has increasingly narrowed, between the introduction of orbital shock troops and the threat of nuclear retaliation to naval landing operations.

    The actual practical work has been relatively straightforward, with some complications as Treasury working crews have had to avoid disrupting shipyard schedules, especially as it coincided with a maintenance wave on some of the Initiative's heavier ships, many of whom are co-hosted at those self-same shipyards.


    [ ] Shark-Class Frigate Shipyards (High Priority)
    The Shark is unfortunately of a size that GDI cannot simply reuse an existing ship's extra slipways to build the class. Too small for even the older destroyer shipyards, it needs much of its own dedicated space.
    Seattle (Progress 251/230: 20 resources per die) (-6 Energy, -2 Capital Goods) (4 Tranches, Projected: 8 quarters to complete tranche 1, 15 quarters to complete tranche 2, 22 quarters to complete Tranche 3, 29 quarters to complete Tranche 4.) [72]

    The long demanded Shark class has had a reasonably successful career already, taking over escort duties around the world and doing a good enough job of it. While it is debated how much the reduction in losses is due to the decrease in Brotherhood activities against GDI and how much is the dramatic increase in capabilities that the Shark class offers, there is a substantial decrease in those losses and the impact of replacing the aging escort fleet with modern vessels upon that is certainly not zero.

    One of the biggest problems in judging the class's effectiveness has been the lack of major Nod naval activity that cannot be explained by ways other than the Shark class. There has been no fleet action beyond freedom of navigation exercises, while Nod naval interdiction activity has seen a substantial drop with the end of the Regency War.

    Beyond the hard factors, there are numerous softer factors to consider. For most of the Initiative's lightweight escort ships, they had been designed decades ago, with a very different idea of how to design a ship, and the importance of crew comforts. Especially now, with U series alloys being reasonably widespread, the most recent tranches of Shark frigates have seen noticeable increases in crew comforts, and improved protection. While an extra cubic meter of ammunition or capacitor bank is somewhat meaningless on the scale of a Shark, spreading that out to ensure that the crew has slightly more space in their bunks is substantially noticeable.


    [ ] Transorbital Fighter Development (Platform) (High Priority)
    While GDI does not expect another Scrin attack anytime soon, building prototypes for transorbital capable fighters, able to conduct operations in space and the upper atmosphere, is a relatively high priority as both a line of defense and a way to begin developing tactics and strategies for warfare amid GDI's orbitals.
    (Progress 74/60: 20 resources per die) [38]

    A transorbital fighter in some ways runs into the same problems that produced the MiG-25 Foxbat. Speed of reaction is absolutely critical, as a Visitor force, by the time it breaches atmosphere, is already becoming increasingly lethal, and stopping them before they can hit atmosphere requires punishingly high velocities, especially as currently there are no means of basing fighters in the orbitals or on the Moon. Much like the Foxbat then, the answer has been scramble speed, cutting every corner possible to make a fighter that can go as high as possible, as fast as possible, and not worrying about most other factors, especially in light of the existential threats both are designed to counter.

    The design as originally produced is relatively conservative as a concept and notably massive for something that can be described as a fighter. It starts with taking the drive core from a Leopard II, and strapping a number of repulsorplates to it, to produce what has been called an impulse drive, offering half again the thrust that a Leopard II can muster. Add on to that the weight reductions made by eliminating substantial amounts of the life support by shrinking the habitable area to a small three-person cockpit, cutting the vast majority of the cargo capacity down to a pair of weapons bays, and building around a lifting body concept to improve atmospheric performance, and the fighter is reasonably capable, although if the Visitors do return in anything close to the forces that they did in the first invasion, the fighters are expected to be expended completely within the first twenty four hours of operations. These fighters have been given the designation of ASF-1 Sabers.

    [ ] Ultralight Glide Munitions Deployment (Munitions)
    Deploying widespread glide munitions will take a significant pool of time and resources. While they will not replace the full spectrum of Initiative weapons, anything to extend standoff ranges and allow the Initiative to preserve both pilots and airframes is worth serious consideration at a minimum.
    (Progress 165/165: 10 resources per die) (-1 Energy) (Projected 3 quarters to begin, 9 to complete)
    (Progress 35/150: 10 resources per die) (-1 Energy) (Projected 3 quarters to begin, 9 to complete)

    Lightweight glide munitions have begun to be rolled out in fairly small numbers to training units, starting the process of getting them standardized across the Initiative, as a new generation of standoff weaponry. While it will take a substantial amount of time to actually proliferate, let alone build up a stock sufficient for major operations beyond Karachi (which is currently planned to include every munition of the type not expended during training operations that can be produced), it will begin to make the lives of Brotherhood ground assets significantly more difficult by simple presence, even if only a tiny fraction of the munitions in use are the new glide types.

    One thing that has been experimented with on a small scale, although not to any great success, has been the concept of dual-drive munitions. The approach is reasonably simple. Take a standard Initiative anti-radiation missile, and one of the smaller glide munition chassis. Mate the two together so that the ARM can be released at a predetermined point. Use that to substantially extend the operational range of a reasonably standard munition.

    There are two main advantages to this system. First is that the approach offers substantially longer loiter times and more importantly increases the suppression effect of anti-radiation missiles. Any reasonably competent Brotherhood unit is quite capable at countering anti-radiation missiles, however, being able to have missiles loiter for minutes or hours on end, simply circling above the battlefield in high-efficiency turns means that Brotherhood antiaircraft and sensor systems need to be held back or operate in lower performing modes in order to avoid attack. Second, it means that the operator has a massively larger standoff range than previously expected, meaning that planes do not need to risk themselves nearly as much, and various forms of toss bombing can be used to narrow the risk window even further. The problems arise in the multiple releases, where there were often failures to separate and failures to acquire once separated. The two problems are unfortunately, so far difficult to resolve, as the solutions that have so far worked to make one less of a problem, such as changing the release angle, also worsen the other.

    [ ] Orca Wingmen Drone Deployment (Phase 2) (High Priority)
    While the project is currently underway for naval aviation, and high priority land based air projects, GDI will need substantially more to mitigate for wartime expected loss rates, and provide for lower priority operations, such as interdiction support, the ZOCOM air wings, and training cadre for new pilots.
    (Progress 196/215: 20 resources per die) (-1 Labor, -3 Energy, -1 Capital Goods) (Projected: 4 quarters to begin, 16 to complete) [76, 2]

    The air war has, in recent times often not been in GDI's favor, especially as the Brotherhood shifts ever more of their forces to repulsorcraft such as the Barghest, and the ever more common Bis variant. The Brotherhood has also been expanding their use of anti-aircraft laser systems, primarily buggy mounted during the Third Tiberium War, but found across their forces in the modern day. While mostly not as much of a threat as they once were, the A-16 Orcas are still facing substantial loss rates, especially on gun runs, to the point where most crews have begun dismounting the railguns that are one of the standout features of the class, preferring the marginal advantages in terms of speed and agility that the weight reductions offer.

    While the Wingman project has not been a particularly high priority for the last few years, work has once again restarted, with the Initiative pouring substantial work into a number of factories, and while it has run into issues – primarily with some of the electronic systems on the Wingmen needing recalibration in large parts of the world due to spikes in atmospheric particulate after the Mount Belaya explosion – these are not particularly huge issues, and GDI has significant experience in the field in any case, due to continuing operations during the aftermath of the Temple Prime explosion.


    [ ] Modular Rapid Assembly Prototype Factory
    The Chicago based program has been the overall most successful, and the most straightforward. While the program as a whole will need significant support from MARV hubs for actual functionality, its primary components are off the shelf, and it needs the least technological innovation to begin seeing impact in the field.
    (Progress 102/265: 20 resources per die) (-2 Energy, -1 Labor, -1 Capital Goods) (Projected: 3 quarters to begin, 16 quarters to complete, will be extended by further MARV hub construction) [71]

    Work has begun on actually providing the Talons, and the MARV program in general with the rapid assemblers. A MARV is a substantial project, one that requires specialized tooling, and there are in fact not that many factories to produce those parts. Fortunately, most of the really expensive parts are not going to fit in the crawler variant, as the factory parts require that volume, and unfolding the system is going to take nearly all of the facings that could otherwise be used to mount those same systems.

    The doctrine for crawlers has, in large part, not yet been written, as, while Sandhurst, West Point, and the like have all had substantial classes working with the theory of crawler combat, primarily at the graduate and postgraduate level, GDI has not had any crawlers to practically test the combative theories. Broadly, there are two current theoretical frameworks for crawler usage. The first can be described as the "support" doctrine, where the crawler's primary purpose in combat is as a more mobile repair station, scrapping damaged vehicles for parts in order to sustain combat operations at a higher tempo, keeping units rotated to the front and allowing GDI to operate with a thinner reserve. The second is the "offensive" doctrine, using the crawlers in support of MARV operations to sustain an escort fleet, driving out of Red Zones around the world into the Brotherhood backline and wreaking havoc by pushing into and out of Red Zones repeatedly.


    A/N1: This ran into a few delays, between mental health issues, and me having multiple major events to work in real life over the last couple of weeks.
    A/N2: https://ko-fi.com/ithillid All of your support has been greatly helpful, and is absolutely appreciated.
     
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    • Good time for us to finally get back to doing North Boston, seems we're gonna be entering a labor crunch before the plans out and we'll need many capital goods to automate our way out of it
     
    The post that was promised! And it seems that IHG refits have collapsed right out of the plan. That's...helpful, actually!

    Translating some of the hints in the military section:

    - Our tanks are ancient, but are still superior to Nod tanks. That's GDI for you. We need a replacement tank but it isn't yet a major priority.
    - GDI's Admiralty thinks we're crazy or possibly fucking with them, the long-term damage that was done to the Navy in turns past has been replaced by an erratic mix of funding. We should seek to even out their ship environment, which will take a while.
    - Air Force want more but are largely being greedy, however they are technologically outclassed by Nod. Anti-Air and Superiority should be our focus while we fix that.
    - Space Force are mostly a political problem, unless the Visitors attack next turn, I'm sure the odds of that are minimal so it's all good.
    - Seo:"Wow, cool science!" Litvinov: "Seo, ZOCOM is drowning." Seo: "This ain't about them." (We should minimize expansion.)
    - Ground Forces benefits from the Zone Armor and it will eventually allow them to take over duties from ZOCOM, but it's also not a direct military benefit in most regards.

    As for our space station...

    [ ] Plan Having Tasted The Fruit, Nothing Shall Be Impossible For Them
    -[ ] Fruticulture Bay x1
    -[ ] Experimental Crops Bay x1
    -[ ] High Efficiency Void Crops Bay x1
    -[ ] Species Restoration Bay x1
    -[ ] Animal Husbandry Bay x1
    -[ ] Habitation Bay x1

    Let a new seed sprout in the cold of the void.
     
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