Wings-Of-Change
On the Changiest of wings
- Location
- Somewhere over the rainbow
I started reading this about a week ago, now that I'm caught up I'll have to actually vote and read plans. Damn.
Attempting to Fulfill the Plan: GDI Edition
- Location
- Wall Gazing
Welcome to the party. The panicked screaming is normal.
Indeed, welcome! We're currently in the phase of waiting for the resultspost to be written, so there's some time before you need to seriously consider plans or voting.
And yes, the panicked screaming is normal, so if it becomes too disturbing, there should be some earplugs around. Just be careful if they appear to be glowing green, you may not want to use those ones.
Q1 2065 Results
- Location
- The Underdark
Q1 2065 Results
Resources: 1485+655 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)(-30 Department of Refits) (-240 InOps) (-60 General Pool) (100 in Reserve for Banking)
Political Support: 100
SCIENCE Meter: 4/4
Free Dice: 6
AI Dice: 4 (full bonus)
Dice Capacity 60/60
Tiberium Spread
Surface
26.095 (+0.13) Blue Zone
0.19 (+0.19) Green Zone
0.07 (+0.00) Cyan Zone
24.255 (+.32) Yellow Zone (106 points of mitigation)
49.39 (-.64) Red Zone (94 points of mitigation)
Underground Tiberium infiltration estimates:
0.23 Blue
12.77 Yellow (36 points of mitigation)
87.00 Red (22 points of mitigation)
Next Mutation Roll: Q2 2065
Current Economic Issues:
Housing: +98 (+93 LQ, +5 HQ) (1 high-quality housing per turn)
Energy: +32 (+6 in reserve) (+5 per turn from sub-departments)
Logistics: +30 (-14 from military activity) (-4 from nuclear strikes) (-2 per turn from Fusion yard destruction, 16 total)
Food: +49 (+26 backed reserve, +5 unbacked reserve)
Health: +45 (+6 Emergency Health) (-8 from refugees)
Capital Goods: +48 (+2 per turn from Distributed Industrial Authority) (+496 in reserve)
Consumer Goods: +56 (+10 per turn from Private Industry) (+3 per turn from sub-departments) (-15 from realignment) (Net -2 per turn)
Labor: +16 (+3 per turn from medical care) (+2 per turn from Immigrant qualifications) (-2 per turn from private industry) (-3 per turn from other government) (-1 from graying population) (Net -1)
Tiberium Processing Capacity (2965/4200) (615/1850 HG, 1350/1350 IHG, 1000/1000 X) (HG: 1 per 95, IHG: 1 per 85, X: 1 per 45)
Tiberium Reserve (0/500)
STUs: +13
Taxation Per Turn: +240 (-5 per turn from economic contraction)
Space Mining Per Turn: +100
Maintenance Reductions: +50
Increased Refining Efficiency: +100
STU Production and Consumption
Net: +13 per turn
Production: +44 per turn (6.5 HG, 15.9 IHG, 22.2X)
Consumption: -29 per turn
22 Economy
-6 Tiberium (2 Harvesting Tendrils, 2 Sonic Weapons, 2 T-Glass)
-16 Other (8 Structural Alloys, 6 Hovercraft, 2 Gravitic Shipyard, 2 Microfusion Labs)
7 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
-1 Navy (Lasers)
Projected Fusion Power Plant Decommissioning
-16 Energy, +1 Labor Q4 2065
-16 Energy, +1 Labor Q3 2066
-16 Energy, +1 Labor Q4 2066
-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 (200; 400; 75; 30) 17.6%
Militarists: 629 Seats (300; 100; 200; 29) 15.7%
Starbound: 618 Seats (400; 100; 100; 18) 15.5%
Market Socialist Party: 555 Seats (300; 155; 50; 50) 13.9%
Socialist Party: 493 Seats (250; 100; 93; 50) 12.3%
Free Market Party: 405 Seats (50; 150; 100; 105) 10.1%
Initiative First Party: 334 Seats (0; 34; 100; 200) 8.4%
United Yellow List: 117 Seats(80; 30; 7; 0) 3%
Reclamation: 99 Seats (50; 40; 6; 3) 2.5%
Homeland: 41 Seats (20; 10; 5; 6) 1%
Open Hand: 4 Seats (2; 2; 0; 0) .1%
Total: 4000 Seats (1652; 1121; 736; 491)
Military Confidence
Ground Forces: High
Air Force: High
Space Force: Decent
Steel Talons: Decent
Navy: Decent (Trending to High)
ZOCOM: Decent
Plan Goals
Increase Income by 95
Increase population in space by 7.05k
Provide 4 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 Governor-A refit
Complete at least 1 Ground Forces Zone Armor factory
Complete Regional Hospital Expansions 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.
Codex Tiberium
I sit here, face to the screen, and I am still unsure if I should put words to it. On the face of it, it seems insane, a madness, a heresy. Against the great prophet, against the Messiah himself. But the evidence always comes back, the same, the same, the same.
Tiberium is not natural. It is not some prophesied manna from the heavens. It is a weapon. I know not what fell hand forged this blade, but the results do not lie. There is a maker's mark. Small, so, so small. A circle, a line going up, and a smaller circle attached to the line inside the bigger one. Every sample, once I get the electron microscope pointed at it, despite the refraction from the tib glass, has the same damn symbol.
It adapts, even the smallest samples. It eats even the air, it adapts, I even tried magnetic suspension, and it only held a fragment up for a few minutes before it depolarized, and dropped to start eating the electromagnets. I tried putting it in every containment vessel, every method of holding it away from anything to eat; and sooner or later, it would adapt, changing its very structure until it could eat. Is that not life? Is it not an organism, adapting, changing, overcoming whatever obstacle is put in its way?
I don't know what to believe, what to think. This cancer is eating the world, and I helped it. "Is it alive?" I was asked. I don't know. What does "alive" even mean? It certainly acts like it. A more useful question is if it is intelligent. If it isn't, it is very well-programmed. Either way, whoever created it was a monster.
I was given a new name when I joined the Brotherhood, but I was born Diedrick Hutier. My sins are many, my crimes many more. I was trained by the best, I worked with Mobius the Elder, and the Younger. I chose my path willingly, seeing the promise of Tibeirum and willfully ignoring the danger. I worked on Tiberium seeding, forged blades from it for masters who must have known what it was I was working with, and I was too blind, too foolish to see it.
Initiative Operational Training Centers
The last decade has seen a complete revamp of the IOTC system. While Initiative forces have always tried to train against units that represent the full spectrum of threats that they are expected to fight, the Qatarites, the masses of Brotherhood citizens that have crossed the lines, and the capture of masses of war material, has produced a fundamentally different force at most of the centers, especially those who have focused on irregular warfare, and less so at places that focus on maneuver warfare.
While there is a place for wargames on screens and tabletops, one of the biggest advantages the Initiative has had is their ability to playfight at a tempo that the Brotherhood has rarely been able to match. A brotherhood force can drill, can do field operations, but the process of going up against a full orbat, up to the use of simulated nuclear weapons, airpower, and ion cannon strikes, is something that of the Brotherhood Warlords, only two of the major ones can do, Krukov and the Bannerjees.
Economics
The private markets have been hitting a doom spiral in very rapid fashion. Shortages of skilled labor, Initiative mobilization, nuclear war, and the sprint towards space has seen the start of a major economic crash, with businesses folding every week. So far, it has mostly been reorganizations, with the fire sales of assets keeping other businesses afloat, there is only so much consolidation that can occur. While Initiative automation programs are putting more people out into the job market, this is both a relatively small amount compared to the ongoing trends and by definition people who have been made redundant in roles where automation is making rapid strides. Labor wise, the welfare rolls have been going up for the first time in over a year, and many of them are people who are going to need significant retraining to do the jobs that are still available, given the anticipated trajectory of Initiative automation drives.
Politics
With the fallout from the Karachi invasion beginning to settle, and Litvinov on her way out, there is an opening for a new political balance. The Developmentalists can no longer lead the charge, and Parliament has very much taken notice.
Harrison Carter is, in some ways, the most expected man in the race. Having been important in Initiative politics since 2050, his fifteen year career at the apex of the Initiative has seen him considered for Treasury Secretary, Head of the Space Force, and currently chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Behind him are the vast majority of the Militarist and Starbound parties. While he will not be the only one running, he is considered by many the candidate to beat.
Heading up the opposition to Carter is a member of the civilian side, Secretary of Welfare Arno Engelbrecht. While he is significantly newer to the Initiative political field, the man is a scrappy fighter, who has made a life working on refugee welfare and resettlement. Arno's platform is a relatively hardline one for the civilian side of the Initiative, proposing significant reforms, drawing down support for private enterprise, and focusing heavily on a return to central planning of many critical aspects of Initiative society.
Then there is the 'maybe' candidate: Seo Thoki. While Seo has spent the last eight years in the Treasurer's seat, presiding over a campaign of rapid technological development, the director's chair is something to be earned. Few would blame Seo for stepping back, yet it would not be unexpected for him to run – the broad power afforded to the Treasury Secretary in the wake of the Third Tiberium War seen by many as a potential path to the big seat.
For Seo himself, the director's chair is a measure of security, with few of the potential Directors upcoming being all that willing to encourage such wide rapid and radical technological innovation. On the other hand, he may have delayed too long, and a July Surprise might be his only remaining chance to join the race…
While there are other candidates floating their names, these three big names are most favoured among the Initiative's choices for new leadership.
[ ] Karachi Planned City (Phase 4) (Updated)
Expanding the Karachi corridor will be a substantial undertaking, requiring not just expansions to the city and port facilities, but a series of outposts, some cut from blasted out ruins, but others, entirely new construction, especially with the Shah still maintaining a significant military force in being.
(Progress 473/390: 20 resources per die) (+6 Logistics, +4 Housing, -2 Labor) (Can spend mixed Tiberium and Infrastructure dice, at least 1 die must be Tiberium)
(Progress 83/780: 20 resources per die) (+8 Logistics, +4 Housing, -2 Labor) (+India and Iran Stuff)
Much of the work has been on a series of outposts, a string of pearls lining the track from the Himalayas to the sea. Most are of the same type: long, boxy constructions like unpacked and hollowed-out shipping containers, covered in pale-white concrete and lime. While some have been painted into the earth tones and grays intended to conceal them against the terrain, there are always more that still need such camouflage, and it rarely works well. Hardened against the elements, and the Shah's probing attacks. Ramparts of packed earth wrap around artillery pieces and bunker-built warehouses that are being stocked with spare parts, fuel, and food – the basics to support the network of railways and roads that is already being put to use.
The war with al-Isfahani has been slow, grinding, and difficult. While his stocks of nuclear arms seem to have been mostly depleted – with salvoes of atomic devices slowly petering out, going from hourly, to daily, to (by the end of the quarter) weekly events – the conflict has not slowed or halted but simply moved north, towards what was once Afghanistan. Neither side is ready for a final battle, however – the Shah seems content to restrict his remaining forces to skirmishing, and the Initiative is unwilling to press him as of yet. The 5th Armored Division and other Initiative forces are still licking wounds, binding up limbs, and filling up orbats. Every day, more soldiers are fitted properly with Zone Armor, every day replacement armored vehicles stream from cargo ships in the harbors and down from the Himalayan holdfast, but in many cases it is too little, too slowly. Already, the Initiative has had to let trapped Brotherhood forces retreat on multiple occasions simply because the tip of the spear has been too badly whittled down in previous actions.
The Indian Ocean font on the other hand has become interesting. With GDI holding Madagascar, South Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, and now a foothold in what was once Pakistan, much of the ocean has become contested, with a near constant Initiative air presence. ASW modified carryalls, operating at a mere few hundred meters, loaded to the gills with hardware. The best tool they have is magnetic anomaly detectors. Large metallic objects moving through the water tend to create magnetic anomalies, and while the aircraft often can't precisely pinpoint a target, salvoing air dropped torpedoes on the problem tends to at least give the submarine an uncomfortable day. Beyond that Carryalls are good for this kind of work for two reasons. Range, and more importantly loiter time. An Ox or Orca is significantly faster, but typically can't spend an hour or more just sitting over an area and delivering sticks of torpedoes, laying mines of its own, or otherwise inconveniencing a submarine.
Beyond that, the seizure of Karachi has created a much larger area of permissive airspace for Initiative ASW work. The ideal space is just off the coast of Africa, where there are only a few known port facilities and only so many good angles of approach. This however, is nonviable, due to the number of Barghests that can pounce on low and slow ASW aircraft and then run back under the cover of IADS networks. So, the hunting ground is out in the middle of the Indian Ocean, where the submarines can be anywhere, but that is also where the ASW aircraft, ships, and everything else the Initiative has to hunt submarines can simply loiter until they find their mark.
While Kelpie variants are a constant threat, these Nod craft remain at a considerable energy disadvantage even against the slow and low altitude ASW craft, a constraint imposed by the need to emerge from beneath the water. GDI sub hunting crews are getting wise to the signs of a Kelpie moving in the depths too, and it seems that there are simply not that many Kelpies. Although numbers have varied through the months, roughly one out of six interceptions of GDI ASW units involve Kelpies at all. Not even half of that involve more than 1. The Air Force has learned to keep a CAP somewhat close to the deck to try and pounce on these Kelpie raids, decreasing losses, but Kelpie pilots are wily and cowardly, ducking back into the water when they can't line up a shot in an instant, which is often.
[ ] Postwar Housing Refits (Phase 2)
Expanding the program and shifting yet more housing to higher quality models is something that large parts of the Initiative support in theory, and yet substantial groups oppose it in practice. While the housing is degrading at a noticeable clip, and will eventually either have to be torn down or refurbished, it is a much more complicated question than it first appears.
(Progress 97/150: 10 resources per die) (-5 Housing, +3 High Quality Housing)
(Progress 0/150: 10 resources per die) (-5 Housing, +3 High Quality Housing)
Picking up the refits on the postwar housing has been a relatively slow process. While less due to internal opposition and more due to a lack of overall resources, a lot of the lack of opposition is that the houses have started slowly emptying, a symptom of the Initiative's declining population.
Revitalizing the core urban areas that most of the postwar housing was built in has also become a significant priority, especially as the Initiative has begun pulling in from many of the more inconveniently located fortress towns.
The politics of housing are still complex however, with the housing surpluses creating a significant variety of options in housing. There are significant tradeoffs between access to amenities, quality and size of houses, access to high priority transport routes, military priority, and a thousand other factors that go into the decision to make a home somewhere. For example, for most families, they have elected to move towards tier two cities. Not the great metropoles like New York, Washington, or London, but rather, smaller cities like Boston, Cherbourg, or East London.
At the same time, there are neighborhoods pejoratively referred to as "little Yellow Zones" in most cities in the Initiative, a result of the rapid influx of millions of Yellow Zone refugees since the Third Tiberium War. There are thousands of friction points across the social, political, and economic framework, and so both sides are often happier in the moment staying separated from the other for their social spaces. The bright spot is the decline of the United Yellow List as a political factor, with most of the Yellow Zoners voting for more broad policy based parties, like the Developmentalists and the various socialist parties rather than the identity centered UYL, indicating that integration efforts are succeeding in incorporating the refugees into the greater GDI social fabric without making them feel pressured on account of not being a Blue Zone born citizen.
[ ] Drone Logistical Integration
With advances in drone control capabilities more can be done to hand off logistical tasks to automated systems. Although fully automated vehicles on public roads are not likely, many cargo handling facilities can easily be adapted to full automation without the need of a human presence on the work floor.
(Progress 268/240: 15 resources per die) (+6 Labor, -4 Capital Goods, +1 Energy)
Drone integration has required a significant reshaping of the basic workflow, especially the use of quadrotor drones, where the simplest maneuver is not left or right, but up. But, broadly, the principles of logistics remain the same. Although experiments for use of repulsor-equipped drones have concluded with an unsatisfactory result, large quad- and octorotor drones have become a staple of trainyards: singletons or pairs of drones locking onto a standard container, picking it up, and then depositing it on a truck, in a storage yard, or onto another train car. In some areas, drones are making direct deliveries – a train stops, the drones pick the containers up, and deliver them directly to factories and warehouses, cutting out middlemen across the system.
On a larger scale, on many roads you mostly see a system of single- and zero-driver convoys: simple, relatively dumb systems, essentially playing follow the leader with multi-ton trucks. Already fairly widespread, the biggest advantage is that the driver can be entirely removed. Due to practical reasons the work these convoys do is done in relatively dense cities. The first reason is that GDI does not do long distance trucking –the longest truck routes are less than a hundred kilometers. The second is that onboard EVA systems are still a little unreliable without being actively fed data from centralized control networks. Not that this is unique to the EVAs; it is true of human drivers as well, often to a higher degree.
Perhaps the most revolutionary change is the use of automated palletization, where drones in a warehouse assemble a load for delivery onto a plastic skid, stacking packages one on top of another and wrapping the finished package in plastic film. While it may seem simple, arranging and balancing a pallet with dissimilar item sizes and densities has been a challenge for the automation process design crews – the algorithms for properly managing this process may work on GDI's standard chips, but calculating them properly took isolinear processing capabilities.
Once packaged up, the pallets are then moved by a forklift drone onto a larger truck, rolling stock, or even a container for delivery to the other side of the world. Use has been limited thus far due to the fear that NOD might use this as a delivery method for terrorist attacks, and security services are iterating methods to address such risks.
[ ] Nuclear Infrastructure Rebuilding (New)
While the nuclear strikes were, for the most part, aimed at military targets, the destruction of Hampton Roads and Seattle's port facilities, among others, are making noticeable pinch points for the Initiative's overall ability to transport goods.
(Progress 179/200: 15 resources per die)(+4 Logistics) (Reconstruction)
The port facilities hit by nuclear weapons are chokepoints in many cases. Seattle for example, is not just a naval base, it is also a crossroad and an entrepot. The same applies to Hampton Roads, and work has concentrated first on removing those logistical snarls first. This has meant that some of the other, more 'out of the way' targets -- such as the relatively inland myomer macrospinner at Johannesburg – have been lower priority and seen significantly less work.
The first step in reconstruction (and in fact, a fair bit of the work over all) has been in clearance. Multiple ships were in port, and either burned to the waterline, or outright sank due to the blasts. Frigates, destroyers, and cargo ships alike died in the detonation, and raising them has been an involved process, with few good shortcuts available. A swarm of amphibious construction robots has descended on the ports, but the drones can only move so fast before they produce more problems than they are solving, because the step after clearance is dredging out the channels. That is the part of the system that is still ongoing, because even with all the bots and dredging barges assigned the sheer amount of irradiated material that needs to be moved is humongous. Fortunately, the cleanup is easier than dealing with the old superfund sites that dotted the US before Tiberium made the point moot, because the often toxic sludge can simply be dumped in a Tiberium patch or outbreak that has not been capped yet.
[ ] Second Generation Continuous Cycle Fusion Plants (Phase 5)
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 518/270: 20 resources per Die) (+19 Energy) (-1 Labor) (No more than five dice can be spent on 2nd Generation CCF per turn)
(Progress 248/270: 20 resources per Die) (+19 Energy) (-1 Labor) (No more than five dice can be spent on 2nd Generation CCF per turn)
With another wave of plants going offline, the fact that their replacements already went live and another set only requires the test firings, stability, radiation, and other basic checks, is a significant reassurance. Even in the areas where many of the alternative energy options are not viable, the possibility of rolling blackouts was largely if not entirely avoided. What blackouts did occur were minor, with one site in Greenland being the most significant, where two hours of downtime occurred as the local fission plant needed to charge the capacitors to start up the fusion plant, rather than providing full service to the population in the area.
Work on future power solutions has continued. Nothing yet is showing a significant improvement to the Initiative's energy demands, but that is a moving target; between the cost of construction and operating such solutions, the need for ease of use, reliability of the reactors, and demand on strategic materials.. There are reactors designed to produce vastly more power. Elerium-catalyzed fusion can become incredibly energy dense, but such energy densities require unsustainable amounts of elerium, and that is fundamentally the sticking point. To replace any significant portion of the Initiative's overall energy needs with various forms of elerium-catalyzed fusion would require a significant share of the Initiative's total production of stable trans-uranics, including shutting down all production of plasma missiles.
Of course, the Initiative is not only going to be relying on fusion for its power supplies. Fusion has its advantages. It is dialable, it is localizable, it is a substantial amount of power on demand pretty much anywhere GDI wants. Most renewables run into problems with at least part of that. But some don't have to. Orbital solar power for example, out in depths of space, is practicable to deploy, but primarily run into issues of getting that energy back to where GDI wants it. The big problem is putting beamed power through the atmosphere. All current examples have severe problems in loss between the power stations and beamed power linkages back to the groundside base. One radical proposal is to cut out the problem of beamed power with 300 mile orbit-to-surface superconductive power cables, and an orbital ring. Anchoring such a construct is highly dubious, but the proposal is certainly daring.
[ ] Aberdeen Isolinear Fabricator (Phase 2) (Updated)
With the completion of supporting industry, wastewater treatment and logistical connections, Aberdeen has already begun work on the A-wing of its isolinear fabricator. Largely devoted to memory cells and other low-complexity computing devices, the A-wing will serve both as a scale testing facility, and to train the workforce for the larger and more complex works to follow.
(Progress 266/180: 30 resources per die) (+9 Capital Goods, -2 Energy)
(Progress 86/360: 30 resources per die) (+18 Capital Goods, -4 Energy)
The first pallets of isolinear chips have rolled off the production line. Small, tough, low energy, and incredibly high power. Most of the chips are already designated for one thing. EVAs. Masses, and masses of EVAs. Everything from personal assistants, to robotic swarm management, to industrial automation. A machine state on every possible level. The only humans needed are intended to be the ones pointing it in a direction and saying go.
With the completion of the first acceptable production run, work has also begun on the much more demanding B- and C-wing of the Aberdeen complex. B-wing is twice as large as the A-wing, but will have only about the same production due to the use of larger, more complex and flexible isolinear printers. These machines will make possible more than just basic arithmetic and memory units, producing specialist chips and more powerful CPUs. C-wing, on the other hand, is planned to be a dedicated packaging and assembly station, where rather than dispatching all the chips to end users, complete isolinear boards will be built on-site. The outer shells of both buildings are complete, but tooling and training their relatively tiny workforces (who will mostly run quality control and troubleshoot errors) will take time.
[ ] Microfusion Cell Laboratories
Any deployment of the microfusion cells is going to be on a distinctly small scale, in large part due to the combination of the need for hydrogen fuel, and the sheer cost in elerium to produce stable, usable fusion in a package that can be effectively man-portable. However, there are many jobs where the sheer energy density of an MFC would be useful both to the military and more civil administrations.
(Progress 153/150: 25 resources per die) (-2 STUs)
The first MFC units have begun rolling off the production line, and most of them are being sent directly to space. While some are going towards other things, the vast majority are going to supply orbital facilities with emergency backups for the primary reactors, where they share a fuel supply with pretty much everything else, and (in a pinch) tapping a Leopard or Union for a few dozen cubic centimeters of reaction mass is reasonably viable.
[ ] Bergen Superconductor Foundry (Phase 5)
A fifth and final stage of expansions will see Bergen reaching its logistical and practical limits. While building inside of mountain ranges is certainly secure, it is far from ideal, with the final expansion to the facilities requiring a substantial investment in blasting new tunnels into other mountains. Additionally, it will require substantial investments in port infrastructure to move the massive quantities of superconductors out of the region.
(Progress 760/1140: 30 resources per die) (+8 Capital Goods, +16 Energy) (-3 Logistics) (+10 Political Support)
Work has continued on Bergen, despite the threats made against it by nuclear strikes. While the mountain fastness is no longer as protective as it could be, with any strike against it likely to use ground-penetrating bombs, it is still a substantial foundry, and the superconductors are, at this time, irreplaceable. Thankfully, new anti-bombing measures can be rolled into the final production expansion, allowing GDI to meet production quotas and use triple titanium bulkheads, aerofoam shock absorbers, and other measures to ensure that even if a ground penetrating nuclear device enters one production bay, it can be isolated without fully collapsing the entire mountain complex. While it will be significantly less protective against anything over fifty kilotons, and ineffective against anything over five hundred kilotons, those larger devices are rarities in the brotherhood arsenal.
Looking towards the future, GDI's superconductor programs are likely to move towards space. After all, new methods of microgravity construction promise easier mixing of exotic compounds, the product will be needed in massive quantities for the fusion reactors, engines, and all other high power products space infrastructure requires, and because it's not nearly as likely to be hit by a Nod nuclear device.
[ ] Factory Automation Programs
While LCI has already seen substantial downscaling in required labor, it is something that can be brought to an even more extreme level with the deployment of drone control systems, moving people off-site, and reducing the staff counts even further.
(Progress 314/280: 15 resources per die) (+4 Labor, -4 Energy)
The first completely automated factories have started operating. Most of their production is simple things required in bulk, with raw materials brought in by unmanned trucks, moved over the factory floor in minimal light conditions to robots that do not need to see, and stored in cavernous warehouses staffed entirely by machines. This would be a major safety hazard if there were humans on the work floor and for those times that a human presence is required proper lighting is available, but during normal operations these are vast, dark spaces filled with spinning blades, grinding wheels and hammering stamps, cutting corners that would be impossible with a human workforce.
Although some might think this is cheaper than employing humans for the same work, the reality is that the cost is simply calculated differently, and there are advantages to seating people at a production line. Humans may require some training, but they self-adjust, can perform multiple roles, react to changing conditions, and can perform line quality control with complex objects, things even the finest machinery find difficult at best.
The combination of logistics and factory automation programs have had some significant impacts on the Initiative labor market. This quarter has seen a significant bump in unemployment and underemployment. While retraining programs, advanced certifications, and the like are certainly available, as is reassignment, they cannot account for the full measure of freed up labor. Many people are taking the opportunity to go back to school, switch professions, or simply do their own projects, taking advantage of grants and similar to take a step back or pursue their own goals.
[ ] Civilian Exosuits
With the Initiative seeing significant development of myomer-based technologies, and a handful of small companies building so called "recreational" exosuits by hand, it is likely quite possible for the Initiative proper to begin building a substantially refined version, and putting it into the field both to increase labor productivity, and provide a dual use system for some forms of civilian power assisted armor for the Home Guard.
(Progress 94/85: 20 resources per die) (+1 Labor)
Protective equipment has often been difficult to say the least. Awkward, uncomfortable, and heavy in many cases. Even a good respirator, for example, is often difficult to breathe in, as having to draw air through the filters demands extra effort; a fire-resistant suit is bulky on a good day, suffocating on a bad one.
Power armor on the other hand, is a bit different, and serves in three primary roles. First is as a support. While it takes some learning, there are ways to stand in powered armor that require less from an aging body, and a number of skilled manual workers can come back to jobs that they wanted, replacing muscles with myomers, and often working slower than they used to, but still doing the work. Second is protection. Rather than a manual mask and heavy insulation, the power suit has integral cooling and filtration units – making the wearer able to stand mere meters from a pot of superheated alloy, and feel nothing. Third is mobility. A power suit is itself a platform for tools. Many key tools are heavy, bulky, and difficult to move around with. Myomer arms and a sizable battery pack means that the power suit can much more easily carry the tool around to where it is needed, and even provide power without needing to wrestle with cabling.
[ ] Spider Cotton Plantations (Phase 4) (Updated)
Continuing to expand Spider Cotton production is likely to see more uses found, but is at the same time, an expensive process, especially given the sheer quantities of spider cotton required for many of the more out there proposals.
(Plant Genetics)
(Progress 342/175: 15 resources per die) (+1 Capital Goods)
(Progress 157/185: 15 resources per die) (+1 Capital Goods)
With excess production of spider cotton material scientists are conducting experiments to look for further uses of the material, particularly in the armor and clothing sectors. As a high-strength fabric, weaving it together with other fibers and experimenting with thickness has shown potential use as an alternative or supplement to Kevlar in bulletproof vests. While early production models are effective at stopping low-velocity conventional rounds at an affordable price point, they fail to stand up to particle beams and high velocity railgun rounds while also being particularly vulnerable to bursting into flames when placed under sustained laser fire or exposed to flame or plasma.
Research is ongoing, with various blends of fabrics and materials being tested to find ways to offset these issues and offer improved iterations as new techniques and blended weaves are discovered.
Some of the best success has been found in utilizing spider cotton in ordinary consumer fabric blends, rather than attempting to improve on low profile body armor. While not groundbreaking, one team has, in coordination with GDI fashion houses, produced a test run of soft, comfortable t-shirts and undergarments that have been distributed among several of the science teams for further testing. Initial responses are positive, describing the clothing as soft, light, durable and comfortable in both cold and hot climates.
[ ] Laboratory Meat Deployment (Phase 2)
Initial laboratory meat development has a significant oversight, specifically in the expected skill level of the average cook, and so a significant public outreach is needed, not only to reassure people that the food is good, but also to teach people how to cook with meat again.
(Progress 181/170: 15 resources per die) (+6 Consumer Goods, -1 Food, -2 Energy)
GDI is still skeptical of laboratory produced meat – even with significant effort and sponsorship. Not because it is bad, but because it runs into a problem that the vast majority of people have forgotten how to properly cook with red meat. The average person has, at this point, eaten red meat maybe a few dozen times in their lives. The cost of red meat has been such that those who could afford it before GDI started its expansion of the ranching domes almost always ate it after preparation by trained professionals. Even with educational campaigns trying to teach people how to use this (still rare but now more available) treat, most people don't stick around with the novelty.
At least for now, while it is very much a symbol of an Initiative that can afford to set aside resources, time, energy, and scientists to produce substantially similar products to pork and beef, and can make it accessible for the vast majority of the population, it is a symbol that makes them happy just existing on the grocery store shelves, and the occasional treat, rather than a staple of their diets.
The exception has been in the realm of charcuterie and forcemeat. While most aged sausages are not yet available (though they are in production), a variety of sausages, precooked, smoked, salted, and cold, have started to become available, and see significant demand. Mostly this seems to be because these sausages need at most very minimal preparation. Something like a Spanish style chorizo, in thin slices or cubed, can be added to salads, or simply put on bread with hummus.
"Alright, so this is steak one oh one, with Chef Raul!, first off, heat is your friend. You are not going to overcook this like shrimp or whitefish. Use high heat, a high smoke-point fat, and then sear for three to five minutes per side."
-Stainless Kitchen Season 12 Episode 14
[ ] Red Zone Containment Lines (Stage 6)
With GDI having put its beachheads at the edges of the Red Zones, a further expansion of the containment lines is viable. While somewhat constrained by the limits of the Zone Operations Command, it will both support the Initiative's Forgotten allies, and put more pressure on the Brotherhood's back lines.
(Progress 359/180: 25 resources per die) (additional income trickle (10-20 Resources) (3 points of Red Zone Mitigation) (+1 Energy)
(Progress 179/170: 25 resources per die) (additional income trickle (10-20 Resources) (3 points of Red Zone Mitigation) (+1 Energy)
(Progress 9/170: 25 resources per die) (additional income trickle (10-20 Resources) (3 points of Red Zone Mitigation) (+1 Energy)
The seizure of Karachi has been a notable boon for the Zone Operations Command. While the Shah is still too active in the region to make serious large scale operations viable, there is now an easy, direct link to a large swathe of the Central Asian Red Zone.
Much of the command's spare forces have been allocated to a series of small outposts: penny packets of troops and harvesters spread across hundreds of kilometers, connected as much by the Forgotten that make the space their home as the lasercom and radio systems that allow them to connect to space and the other outposts. Many of these are deep in mountain ranges or at the edge of a Red Zone.
[ ] Hewlett-Gardener Mothballing (Phase 1)
With the xenotech refineries coming online, and the older Hewlett Gardener model refineries significantly outmoded, mothballing the old plants and keeping them as a standing reserve would free up significant resources tied up in their continued operations.
(Progress 115/50: 10 resources per die) (+2 Energy, +1 Logistics, +1 Labor)(Mothballs 300 processing capacity)
(Progress 65/50: 10 resources per die) (+2 Energy, +1 Logistics, +1 Labor)(Mothballs 300 processing capacity)
(Progress 15/50: 10 resources per die) (+2 Energy, +1 Logistics, +1 Labor)(Mothballs 300 processing capacity)
Priority for the mothballing of older Tiberium refineries has gone towards sites that are difficult to reach, or simply out of position for current needs. For example, there are a number of sites near New York City built long ago within the bands of defenses, and mostly used for imports. These days the bulk of the Tiberium they processed is instead shipped to the complexes at Chicago, so they have mostly sat quiet, and can be safely mothballed.
A significant part of the process is emptying and venting the reaction vessels and storage tanks. Processing Tiberium requires a range of catalysts and substrates and produces a soup of variably nasty chemicals. On the easy side, there is arsenic, the highly toxic metal simple enough to store on pallets as ingots and largely harmless as long as they are left alone., On the nasty side however, you have chlorine and fluorine: corrosive, reactive, and toxic heavier than air gasses stored under high pressure as liquids, which require constant monitoring for safety.
[ ] Tiberium Inhibitor Deployment (Updated)
Tiberium inhibitors have by now moved from the experimental deployment to the serial. While each will be significantly energy expensive and require a major investment of resources, it is now one of the fastest routes to abate the Tiberian menace.
-[ ] Blue Zone 3 British Isles (Progress 122/75: 30 resources per die) (-3 Energy) (+2 Yellow Zone Abatement) (+2 Underground Yellow Zone Abatement) (1 Political Support)
-[ ] Blue Zone 18 Himalayas (Progress 78/75: 30 resources per die (-3 Energy) (+2 Yellow Zone Abatement) (+2 Underground Yellow Zone Abatement) (1 Political Support)
-[ ] Blue Zone 15 Iceland (Progress 50/75: 30 resources per die (-3 Energy) (+2 Yellow Zone Abatement) (+2 Underground Yellow Zone Abatement) (1 Political Support)
With serial production ongoing, GDI has begun seriously investing in protecting the Initiative heartlands. The British Isles, Himalayan Blue Zone, and Iceland have all seen significant construction work this quarter. While the Himalayas were always slated for construction, the British Isles and Iceland were very much not. These were historic blue zones, ones that even in the days of the 2030s were, if not safe, safer than much of the rest of the world. It was the surveys, the discovery of veins of Tiberium running beneath them that made them much higher priorities for inhibitor deployment. Outbreaks occurred, but at this point, they had become something of a routine, and even then, were less than common happenings.
Politically, it is about as good as GDI can offer, while people are very much afraid of the ongoing crisis, the encroaching threat is being countered, and rapid construction of new inhibitors has created hope that the Initiative will either buy enough time for evacuation, especially given innovations in space technology and Aldrin, or find a long term solution to Tiberium.
On a practical level, almost all the manufacturing components are based out of Britain or Australia, meaning that to build the Himalayan network, GDI had to ship them in, and rather than use up one of the increasingly scarce suborbital flights, they were cargo on the still being built Karachi line. While one shipment was lost to a Brotherhood raid, and significant portions of it vanished, it is likely that it ended up in Bannerjee hands, and in any case, the inhibitors are actually harder to reverse than the Visitor accelerators.
[ ] Enhanced Harvest Tiberium Spikes (Phase 2) (Updated)
Although the political controversy remains, the fact that the spikes help convert underground tiberium into surface tiberium is enough of an advantage that they are being pushed despite problems.
(Progress 187/180: 20 resources per die) (-5 Political Support) (+10 resources per turn) (+1 Underground Yellow Zone Abatement)
The second wave of Enhanced Harvest Tiberium Spikes has been completed late in the quarter, to a measure of political backlash from the areas in which they were deployed. That backlash, however, has been less than expected, given the growing understanding of the situation in which the world finds itself in with regards to underground Tiberium incursion, and the dedicated efforts of GDI Tiberium scientists like Dr. Granger in communicating the idea that the new spikes may help find a better solution to dealing with Tiberium.
A welcome side-effect of having authorized additional construction is that the crews tasked with installing them have begun to develop something like the familiarity they have with the traditional spikes, quickly raising them and optimizing the spikes' outputs, allowing for additional safety inspections in the time available - which has also helped to assuage public concerns.
"We are late with turning on the spike."
"What makes you think that?"
"My calendar turned over to the next month."
"Your calendar is working on Tokyo time, we are in Portland, Oregon. We've got all day."
-Portland Tiberium Spike 2064-18 construction site
[ ] Impulse Drive Cargo Ship Development (New)
A hybrid drive system, using a combination of a fusion torch and an array of Brotherhood-derived repulsorplates to generate velocities, efficiency, and thrust impossible with standard technology, impulse drives represent a means to fundamentally reshape Initiative launch technology and dramatically increase scalable orbital transport.
(Progress 169/80: 20 resources per die)
Blue-white thunder, a roar to crack the skies, and an accidental short-ranged ballistic missile roared into the sky as the test engine tore itself off the mount and screamed toward the heavens. The engine cut out a few seconds later, falling back towards the ground, its fuel expended.
The program has seen – for lack of a better word – dramatic progress. The design of an impulse drive cargo ship is a fair bit different from existing fusioncraft designs. While the designers have settled on an aerodyne system, the biggest question has been size. On one hand, keeping it on the smaller side – some 45-50 meters long – in a blended wing configuration, would create a single stage craft that would (assuming the math reflected reality in any way) be able to take off and land on nearly any runway the Initiative operates.
On the other end of the spectrum, however, are absolutely massive craft, designed to be literal flying cargo ships carrying thousands upon thousands of tons of cargo, and with the bunkerage to match. While they would need dedicated landing strips wider than anything in standard service if not necessarily longer, these craft would dramatically speed any kind of major space-based infrastructure, and could, if properly configured, carry entire disassembled habitation blocks into space in a single shot.
A significant part of the system is based on the Novahawk's impulse drive, and like the Novahawk, the plates can be run without the mass reaction component of the engine for taxi and takeoff, which is absolutely critical, because the engines lighting off at full power will destroy a runway.
While in the long run, there will be a multitude of designs, large and small, streamlined and spaceborne, right now, the question is fundamentally one more of priority, whether GDI's space program is continuing to aim for large megaprojects, or is beginning the run up to a full evacuation of Earth, because the two need fundamentally different platforms, and different construction plans.
[ ] GDSS Columbia Bays
-[ ] Assembler Bay
While much of the actual industrial work in orbit is being done on Enterprise, and will be done on future Lunar, Martian, and asteroid belt industrial clusters in the future, integrating light industry and automated assemblers will be an expansion of the Initiative's ability to produce goods in space.
(Progress 282/240: 20 resources per die) (+1 Capital Goods, +5 Consumer Goods)
The assembler bay has whirred into action. While its current production of capital goods is somewhat narrowly centered upon basic, industrial-use consumables (like drill bits, grinding wheels, and so on) and a somewhat wider selection of practicality-minded consumer goods like thermal blankets and suit patches, the bay promises a lot more than that in the months and years to come. It represents a continued investment into the Initiative's overall orbital industrial capability, and with its ability to be rapidly reconfigured, it is a good place to begin testing out a number of advanced designs.
Most notably, what is being worked on under the project title 'Keratin'. A system of foamed metal, iterating on Brotherhood ferro-aluminum armors, but using a mixture of steel, titanium, aluminum and small amounts of rhenium. While the alloy is only being worked with on a very small scale, current testing indicates a material that would be a good fit for a number of structural elements, producing a frame that is significantly lighter than most current designs while retaining the required strength. Unfortunately it does run into a number of problems in terms of repairability, but that is only so much of a problem across GDI's fleets, given that repairability often means ripping out the old part and replacing it in its entirety, with how much cheaper metal has become compared to man hours.
[ ] GDSS Shala Bays
-[ ] Experimental Crops Bay (Stage 1)
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 are potentially too risky to allow out into the wild, but could offer a wide array of benefits..
(Progress 217/215: 20 resources per die) (MS) (Unlocks new development projects)
(Progress 2/215: 20 resources per die) (MS) (Unlocks new development projects)
The concepts coming out of some of the laboratories are a mix of the exciting and worrying. Largely, there are three major themes. First is the supercrop, fast growing, highly nutritious, and versatile. Second are a number of projects that have been in development for a number of years in various black sites and secure laboratories that are being transferred over to move up the Technical Readiness Level chart, mostly a series of TRL 3 and 4s that are seen as high-enough priority to put into a more open but still highly secured environment. Third and finally are the crops that the entire program was built for, which are designed to produce a wide variety of results ranging from the practical to the unhinged..
One of the more major ones is a crop that is essentially a hybrid of peas and mint, taking two plants that grow, rather vigorously, and producing something that has a tendency to rapidly outgrow their containment chambers. This has been something of a tendency with food crops that are specifically designed for their swift growth and high yield. However, that is only the most common element.
On the other side are the medications, with a number of ongoing attempts at rapid high intensity production, looking primarily at painkillers, antibiotics, and a number of antiviral packages. While not particularly dangerous, it is a convenient way to bring a large number of programs that were otherwise classified or limited, to production.
Finally, there are the grenade pineapples and their kin. By all accounts made solely for the name, rather than any good reason, they are derived from pineapples and are intended to (when fermented) produce key precursor chemicals for a number of the Initiative's mainline explosives. While currently not as efficient as more conventional methodologies, research is ongoing.
If nothing else, use them for fertilizer. Those nitrates will make your roses bloom up a treat.
[ ] Aldrin Planned City (Phase 2) (Updated)
A ring around the landing site of Apollo 11, the first true city of the Moon will be an enduring symbol of GDI's claim to the stars. A dedicated spaceport, refining, and industrial facility will begin producing a substantial quantity of capital goods, and redefining what it means to live in space. While the first phase was all about the needed construction workers and roughnecks, the second phase will instead focus on enclosing at least a quarter of the city's eventual diameter.
(Progress 720/465: 30 resources per die) (2200 Residents) (+1 Capital Goods, +3 Energy)
(Progress 255/850: 30 resources per die) (5000 Residents) (+3 Capital Goods)
(Progress 0/1700: 30 resources per die) (10,000 Residents) (+6 Capital Goods)
One of the most important pieces of Aldrin was named Eluthia, and has been heading towards completion at a rapid rate. A combined daycare and primary educational facility intended to raise and educate the first children of the Initiative born among the stars. While the first lunar pregnancies occurred long before, previously any pregnancy would be moved to Earth for medical care reasons, they are still very much in the early phases, the women essentially acting as volunteer test subjects for off-world births. It takes a special kind of person to do that, a combination of unwavering patriotism, an absolute confidence in a future worth living for, and a willingness to take risks knowing that things may go wrong and have severe long term consequences.
More broadly, Aldrin is becoming a more self-sufficient city, with its own entertainment districts, industrial hubs, and similar beginning to take shape. Overall, it looks a bit like a snowflake: a central hub, with administrative, security, and other mission-critical facilities in the middle, and then six sectioned and branching spokes projecting out. The spokes are each fairly self-contained, with their own life support systems, meaning that in case of an emergency each can be locked down and survive without the others, although not nearly as comfortably as the seven life support regions working in concert.
"Attention all work crews, we have a special announcement. I understand that everyone was very excited last night, at the topping out party for our latest construction efforts. However, Lloyd the bartender was not happy with your games of 'take the tankards and see who can throw them into the rafters and get them stuck.' As a result, I must inform you that the bar is closed until Lloyd can get a cherry picker to recover all his tankards. And that won't be soon because someone has filled the vehicle bay with barrels again, KARL."
[ ] Regional Hospital Expansions (Phase 2)
While currently, there are few real needs for further expansion in the health sector, the Initiative's population is likely to continue aging, and with the diseases of the old, time of response is critical, as is increasing the automation levels to deal with what is likely to be a sharp decrease in workforce availability in the coming decades.
(Progress 270/270: 25 resources per die) (+4 Health) (-1 Energy, -1 Capital Goods, -1 Labor)
Pushing forward the proliferation of regional hospitals has been a slow process. Most of these new hospitals are out in the relative boondocks;: the sparsely populated borderlands between GDI and Nod, often served by military hospitals at bases and local clinics. The majority of the new hospitals are quite small, little more than an oversized clinic serving the local community's general practice needs, with few on-site specialists present, a number of telepresence and telemedicine options, and generally topping out at a few dozen beds for normal circumstances. They are designed such, however, that in an emergency their capacity for trauma care can be rapidly expanded as a flood of robots clean unused rooms, unpack stores of equipment, prepare operating rooms and in general turn what used to be a community center into a several hundred beds large medical facility whose staff is already being flown in.
This trauma care capacity is primarily slated not for Initiative troops, but rather civilians and prisoners of war. The troops, for the most part, will be cared for very near the front and then evacuated back to the core, rather than being cared for in these smaller facilities.
"So, how fast can one of these places go from sleepy town clinic to trauma center?"
"Depends; one of the operating rooms is always kept at a low readiness level, of course, and can be prepared for a tele-operating surgeon in 15 minutes if needed."
"I meant, what if they needed to prepare all of the beds and gear?"
"Oh, in that case? The robots will have it ready for staffing before Transport Command is even wheels up."
"... Transport Command said they'd expect to be wheels up within 30 minutes, two hours even if everything goes wrong."
"And?"
-Services Department, Emergency Response Planning Commission.
[ ] Rage Engine Development (Tech)
The Brotherhood of Nod has used, on a limited scale, so-called Rage Generators, subliminal messaging systems that inflict feelings of paranoia, hatred, and fear, able to turn even elite GDI units against each other. While the process is less than useful for GDI in combat applications, various forms of emotional control system could be very useful in treatment of PTSD and other psychological traumas, especially useful in a post-nuclear recovery phase.
(Progress 118/80: 25 resources per die)
The rage engine is a particularly interesting piece of technology. Soldiers have reported a wide variety of effects from it, including twitchiness, heightened aggression, shakes, shivers, and irritability, among a wide variety of other symptoms. On a technological level, the rage engine is actually fairly similar to GDI's own neurohelmets. The big difference is that it is designed not as a short range precision instrument to read and interpret minds, but rather as a broadcast system to change them. Like most systems of mental manipulation it is multispectral, emitting electromagnetic signals, sonics, tremors, even smells and other things, all designed to increase stress levels.
In GDI use, many of the tricks can be converted into something of a 'serenity engine,' using a combination of messaging to produce calm, reduce stress, and otherwise help people maintain self control. While there are going to be some severe issues safeguarding the technology, and in some circles, it is seen as a potential 'lotus eater' device, psychiatrists are hopeful it can help with treating patients who need more assistance than current tools available permit. In any case, use and proliferation of this technology is expected to be tightly regulated.
[ ] Stasis Box Development (Tech) (MS)
While there are many means of preserving things, most require keeping the thing in a particular state, usually either very dry, or very frozen. Adapting the Visitor stasis devices offers significant potential benefits in a number of fields, including food storage, medicine, and high energy industrial applications.
(Progress 120/120: 30 resources per die)
Stasis boxes are one of the weirder technologies that the Initiative has come up with. While the scientists have mentioned words like 'phase rotation' and 'parachronal manipulation,' they are lost in a soup of jargon that even make your eyes glaze over. The impact however is substantial. While the largest working model so far has an internal storage volume that can perhaps fit a large strawberry, or a severed finger – in a briefcase-sized box that weighs over 25 kilos – that strawberry is fresh so long as the battery stays charged.
Work towards a more practical version is still ongoing, but even the finger-sized cargo is useful, primarily for the transport of short-lived radioactive isotopes and other volatile medical substances.
[ ] Advanced Articulation Systems (Tech)
While GDI's Zone Armor is notably effective, it is also quite stiff and difficult to move in. In large part this is due to the Initiative having to protect the joints against Tiberium infiltration, adding mass and restricting movement. As the Visitors did not have quite the same level of problems, their methods are likely to be able to make the Initiative's systems significantly more flexible.
(Progress 89/60: 15 resources per die)
Making a serious attempt at reformatting InitiativeInitaitive articulation systems means a near complete redesign of the entire Zone Armor platform. The current model rests on a network of artificial muscles, who have to rely on a slower system, producing a movement that is sluggish but powerful. A revised system begins at the very most simple principles – with improvements on the boron coatings – but fundamentally requires replacing the entire joint system. The end result promises to be slimmer, faster, and simpler, on top of an improved interface system under the code name of 'Carapace'. Intended to begin the movement in the arms or legs or any other joint almost at the speed of thought; working from neurons and muscles upstream of the point of motion to produce an armor that moves fully with the user, rather than simply trying to mimic.
Honestly? It's about time we had a refresh on our Zone Armor. The existing designs are still fine, but twenty years is a full generation of power-armor. Lots of new weapons and new technology to equip, we'd better start looking into it today if we want to have any for the 2070s.
[ ] Orbital Nuclear Caches
GDI has maintained an increasingly small nuclear stockpile in fortified strongpoints around the world. During the Third Tiberium War, as in previous wars, the Brotherhood of Nod expended significant effort to seize nuclear devices. In order to better secure that arsenal, building a number of small stations in orbit should place them well out of reach of the Brotherhood. Beyond that, adding and upgrading to the arsenal would be a stage of preparation to actually make them usable in politically acceptable ways. (Station)
(Progress 105/140: 20 resources per die) (MS) (Will time out at end of plan)
In some ways, the nuclear caches are very simple things. A swarm of tiny stations, each a little smaller than the old ISS, let alone the great bulk of Enterprise, Columbia, or Philadelphia. Each station is essentially little more than a small habitable blister and a pair of unpressurized cargo holds intended for up to a few dozen nuclear devices. Already, shiploads full of nukes have launched, stripping bare silos and airfields, warships and bunkers. Most of the rest of the project at this point is less about building stations, and more about moving nukes.
Humanity has long theorized about using nuclear weapons for more than just terrestrial warfare. While the radioactive fever dream of Project Plowshare and other theses of nuclear civil engineering are certainly not on the table – now or probably ever – there are many other programs that are possible. A century ago, one of the simplest of these devices was proposed: the Casaba Howitzer, in essence a nuclear shaped charge. Named after a variant of honeydew melon, the device uses a combination of a beryllium case, and a lightweight pusher plate. The weapon would then be pointed at the enemy, producing a cone of superheated plasma roughly twenty degrees across. While the overall efficiency would be abysmal, only a few percent (at best) of the total energy of the bomb, the hope was to create a standoff weapon that could generate impact, without requiring a direct or near-direct hit with one of the nuclear bombs. In principle, the same thing can be done with a series of metallic rods instead, producing collimated x-ray lasers, but again, the efficiency is a problem. Powerful, yes, but still only a few percent of the energy of the device.
In terms of an immediately practical nuclear device, the work is primarily being done under the codename 'Ptolomy', and represents a dual drive system. An Orion drive, with a single nuclear device, a chemical drive, and then a single warhead at the tip. Based from circumlunar space, the system would be able to engage a Visitor ship swarm at net low relativistic speeds. In some ways, the trickiest part is going to be properly timing the initiation, especially given the variables involved.
[ ] Ground Forces Zone Armor (Set 2) (Phase 2) (High Priority)
While the tip of the spear are still equipping themselves with the best that the Initiative can offer, they are a relatively small fraction of the total forces that serve under the striking eagle. A second, substantially larger wave of factories will require both significantly more capital goods, and a sizable workforce to produce enough of the armor to make a difference on those scales.
(Progress 687/285: 20 resources per die) (-4 Energy, -2 Capital Goods, -2 Labor)
(Progress 402/285: 20 resources per die) (-4 Energy, -2 Capital Goods, -2 Labor)
(Progress 117/285: 20 resources per die) (-4 Energy, -2 Capital Goods, -2 Labor)
With the current generation of Zone Armor being soon outdated, the last of the mainline factories has been a noticeable investment. War, it seems, has stoked the need for power armor considerably, but at the same time the existing requirements should be enough to meet the needs of peace – at least until new technology obsoletes GDI's current offering.
With fighting dying down in Karachi, many of the suits that had been stockpiled are being deployed, and many of the units being rotated off the lines are being broken up to serve as training cadres to spread the experience of fighting in powered armor around the Initiative's armed forces. On every front, from the lines in South America against Stahl's legions, to staring down Yao in Manchuria, to the rolling African plains, new forces are armoring up into the combat armor and awaiting further action.
Beyond that, there have been shifts in doctrine, due to many in GDI's TRADOC underestimating how long it takes to fit a new suit of Zone Armor to an infantryman. With the brutal, rapid pace of the Karachi offensive in mind, the time it took for a mission-killed Zone Trooper to be given a new suit, have it properly calibrated, and back in the fight, often left Initiative mechanized forces naked as they made assaults. Beyond that, the short legs of a Zone Trooper unit turned out to be more of a problem than expected. While GDI doctrine maintains that infantry's primary mission is to support an armored force, and the Zone Troopers – when they were present – did a frankly amazing job of it, the uptime rapidly became problematic.
The biggest impact of this is that rather than trying to, at least currently, completely replace a unit's unarmored infantry with powered armor, each unit going forward will have about a third replaced with Zone Armor suits, and the rest maintaining mechanized foot infantry.
[ ] Governor-A Deployment (Refits)
With the refit development finally complete, the requirements in tools and materials for the refits are now known, and the shipyards are ready to begin converting their production and maintenance yards over to supporting both building new Governor-As and refitting the existing inventory to the new standard. The refits include a slate of rationalizations to the yards themselves, incorporating far more automation than before, allowing fewer yard workers to do work that used to require many.
(Progress 265/350: 20 resources per die) (-2 Energy, -3 Capital Goods, +1 Labor)
Work on the refits program has surged, although it will still be months to years before any significant impact is made. A fleet-wide refit to the Governor-A model is at this point long overdue, with the class having noticeable weaknesses in the field of missile defense, among other problems that have emerged over its time in service. While the class is certainly neither obsolescent nor obsolete, working on the refits is a significant problem, especially because quite soon (in relative time), the class will be multiple generations of hardware behind, with a Governor-B model made necessary – alongside updates and replacements for ships both lighter and heavier across the field – and expected to include the addition of revised framing and armor plating; using alien alloys to reduce weight, increase protection, and refine systems; isolinear computers; and a widespread arsenal of new breeds of directed energy weapons. While there have been proposals to add additional missile modules, or other refits to extend its capabilities as a missile platform, those are currently sitting in limbo, primarily because naval doctrine is doubtful it will ever again perform an assignment along the lines of the Karachi invasion, where a major part of the artillery park for the entire invasion was sitting off the coast and slinging missiles and railgun fires at the company level and even below.
[ ] Unmanned Support Ground Vehicle Deployment
While the Talons will not require particularly many vehicles to see a large impact on their total deployable combat force, it will still be a reasonably expensive project simply due to the amount of automation that it requires.
(Progress 59/240: 20 resources per die) (-1 Capital Goods, -1 Energy)
Putting supporting ground vehicles into Steel Talons formations is a challenge – one that TRADOC has been working on, but with relatively little success overall. For the most part, Moas are being assigned to lances of Titans or to Mastodons, swarming around the walkers' feet. Lighter, more nimble walkers often take shortcuts over obstacles that Moas are better off maneuvering around. Some legheads in the Talons grumble that the Moas would have been better off with legs, but their own forces are far from being all Mech-anized.
At the same time, production is starting off slowly. While the Moa do share significant parts commonality with the Predator (notably their tracks are simply two of the track pods on the much larger tanks) they need their own engines, as nothing in the current stock of Initiative standard engine sizes quite properly fits within their more compact chassis. Similarly, weapons have seen major problems, with the modularity and hot-swappable design spec running into some significant issues with getting the sensor and FCS to properly mate.
A/N1: Well, another update down. Master's program, partner's surgical recovery, and starting my student teaching have all taken their tolls on my ability to write. I do have this, I can't have any guarantees about when I will be able to get the next update to you. Hopefully tomorrow, but I genuinely don't know at this point how much energy I will have after my first day in a high school teaching.
A/N2: If you want to help support me, the ko-fi does help significantly. Ko-fi.com/ithillid
Resources: 1485+655 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)(-30 Department of Refits) (-240 InOps) (-60 General Pool) (100 in Reserve for Banking)
Political Support: 100
SCIENCE Meter: 4/4
Free Dice: 6
AI Dice: 4 (full bonus)
Dice Capacity 60/60
Tiberium Spread
Surface
26.095 (+0.13) Blue Zone
0.19 (+0.19) Green Zone
0.07 (+0.00) Cyan Zone
24.255 (+.32) Yellow Zone (106 points of mitigation)
49.39 (-.64) Red Zone (94 points of mitigation)
Underground Tiberium infiltration estimates:
0.23 Blue
12.77 Yellow (36 points of mitigation)
87.00 Red (22 points of mitigation)
Next Mutation Roll: Q2 2065
Current Economic Issues:
Housing: +98 (+93 LQ, +5 HQ) (1 high-quality housing per turn)
Energy: +32 (+6 in reserve) (+5 per turn from sub-departments)
Logistics: +30 (-14 from military activity) (-4 from nuclear strikes) (-2 per turn from Fusion yard destruction, 16 total)
Food: +49 (+26 backed reserve, +5 unbacked reserve)
Health: +45 (+6 Emergency Health) (-8 from refugees)
Capital Goods: +48 (+2 per turn from Distributed Industrial Authority) (+496 in reserve)
Consumer Goods: +56 (+10 per turn from Private Industry) (+3 per turn from sub-departments) (-15 from realignment) (Net -2 per turn)
Labor: +16 (+3 per turn from medical care) (+2 per turn from Immigrant qualifications) (-2 per turn from private industry) (-3 per turn from other government) (-1 from graying population) (Net -1)
Tiberium Processing Capacity (2965/4200) (615/1850 HG, 1350/1350 IHG, 1000/1000 X) (HG: 1 per 95, IHG: 1 per 85, X: 1 per 45)
Tiberium Reserve (0/500)
STUs: +13
Taxation Per Turn: +240 (-5 per turn from economic contraction)
Space Mining Per Turn: +100
Maintenance Reductions: +50
Increased Refining Efficiency: +100
STU Production and Consumption
Net: +13 per turn
Production: +44 per turn (6.5 HG, 15.9 IHG, 22.2X)
Consumption: -29 per turn
22 Economy
-6 Tiberium (2 Harvesting Tendrils, 2 Sonic Weapons, 2 T-Glass)
-16 Other (8 Structural Alloys, 6 Hovercraft, 2 Gravitic Shipyard, 2 Microfusion Labs)
7 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
-1 Navy (Lasers)
Projected Fusion Power Plant Decommissioning
-16 Energy, +1 Labor Q4 2065
-16 Energy, +1 Labor Q3 2066
-16 Energy, +1 Labor Q4 2066
-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 (200; 400; 75; 30) 17.6%
Militarists: 629 Seats (300; 100; 200; 29) 15.7%
Starbound: 618 Seats (400; 100; 100; 18) 15.5%
Market Socialist Party: 555 Seats (300; 155; 50; 50) 13.9%
Socialist Party: 493 Seats (250; 100; 93; 50) 12.3%
Free Market Party: 405 Seats (50; 150; 100; 105) 10.1%
Initiative First Party: 334 Seats (0; 34; 100; 200) 8.4%
United Yellow List: 117 Seats(80; 30; 7; 0) 3%
Reclamation: 99 Seats (50; 40; 6; 3) 2.5%
Homeland: 41 Seats (20; 10; 5; 6) 1%
Open Hand: 4 Seats (2; 2; 0; 0) .1%
Total: 4000 Seats (1652; 1121; 736; 491)
Military Confidence
Ground Forces: High
Air Force: High
Space Force: Decent
Steel Talons: Decent
Navy: Decent (Trending to High)
ZOCOM: Decent
Plan Goals
Increase Income by 95
Increase population in space by 7.05k
Provide 4 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 Governor-A refit
Complete at least 1 Ground Forces Zone Armor factory
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.
Codex Tiberium
I sit here, face to the screen, and I am still unsure if I should put words to it. On the face of it, it seems insane, a madness, a heresy. Against the great prophet, against the Messiah himself. But the evidence always comes back, the same, the same, the same.
Tiberium is not natural. It is not some prophesied manna from the heavens. It is a weapon. I know not what fell hand forged this blade, but the results do not lie. There is a maker's mark. Small, so, so small. A circle, a line going up, and a smaller circle attached to the line inside the bigger one. Every sample, once I get the electron microscope pointed at it, despite the refraction from the tib glass, has the same damn symbol.
It adapts, even the smallest samples. It eats even the air, it adapts, I even tried magnetic suspension, and it only held a fragment up for a few minutes before it depolarized, and dropped to start eating the electromagnets. I tried putting it in every containment vessel, every method of holding it away from anything to eat; and sooner or later, it would adapt, changing its very structure until it could eat. Is that not life? Is it not an organism, adapting, changing, overcoming whatever obstacle is put in its way?
I don't know what to believe, what to think. This cancer is eating the world, and I helped it. "Is it alive?" I was asked. I don't know. What does "alive" even mean? It certainly acts like it. A more useful question is if it is intelligent. If it isn't, it is very well-programmed. Either way, whoever created it was a monster.
I was given a new name when I joined the Brotherhood, but I was born Diedrick Hutier. My sins are many, my crimes many more. I was trained by the best, I worked with Mobius the Elder, and the Younger. I chose my path willingly, seeing the promise of Tibeirum and willfully ignoring the danger. I worked on Tiberium seeding, forged blades from it for masters who must have known what it was I was working with, and I was too blind, too foolish to see it.
Initiative Operational Training Centers
The last decade has seen a complete revamp of the IOTC system. While Initiative forces have always tried to train against units that represent the full spectrum of threats that they are expected to fight, the Qatarites, the masses of Brotherhood citizens that have crossed the lines, and the capture of masses of war material, has produced a fundamentally different force at most of the centers, especially those who have focused on irregular warfare, and less so at places that focus on maneuver warfare.
While there is a place for wargames on screens and tabletops, one of the biggest advantages the Initiative has had is their ability to playfight at a tempo that the Brotherhood has rarely been able to match. A brotherhood force can drill, can do field operations, but the process of going up against a full orbat, up to the use of simulated nuclear weapons, airpower, and ion cannon strikes, is something that of the Brotherhood Warlords, only two of the major ones can do, Krukov and the Bannerjees.
Economics
The private markets have been hitting a doom spiral in very rapid fashion. Shortages of skilled labor, Initiative mobilization, nuclear war, and the sprint towards space has seen the start of a major economic crash, with businesses folding every week. So far, it has mostly been reorganizations, with the fire sales of assets keeping other businesses afloat, there is only so much consolidation that can occur. While Initiative automation programs are putting more people out into the job market, this is both a relatively small amount compared to the ongoing trends and by definition people who have been made redundant in roles where automation is making rapid strides. Labor wise, the welfare rolls have been going up for the first time in over a year, and many of them are people who are going to need significant retraining to do the jobs that are still available, given the anticipated trajectory of Initiative automation drives.
Politics
With the fallout from the Karachi invasion beginning to settle, and Litvinov on her way out, there is an opening for a new political balance. The Developmentalists can no longer lead the charge, and Parliament has very much taken notice.
Harrison Carter is, in some ways, the most expected man in the race. Having been important in Initiative politics since 2050, his fifteen year career at the apex of the Initiative has seen him considered for Treasury Secretary, Head of the Space Force, and currently chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Behind him are the vast majority of the Militarist and Starbound parties. While he will not be the only one running, he is considered by many the candidate to beat.
Heading up the opposition to Carter is a member of the civilian side, Secretary of Welfare Arno Engelbrecht. While he is significantly newer to the Initiative political field, the man is a scrappy fighter, who has made a life working on refugee welfare and resettlement. Arno's platform is a relatively hardline one for the civilian side of the Initiative, proposing significant reforms, drawing down support for private enterprise, and focusing heavily on a return to central planning of many critical aspects of Initiative society.
Then there is the 'maybe' candidate: Seo Thoki. While Seo has spent the last eight years in the Treasurer's seat, presiding over a campaign of rapid technological development, the director's chair is something to be earned. Few would blame Seo for stepping back, yet it would not be unexpected for him to run – the broad power afforded to the Treasury Secretary in the wake of the Third Tiberium War seen by many as a potential path to the big seat.
For Seo himself, the director's chair is a measure of security, with few of the potential Directors upcoming being all that willing to encourage such wide rapid and radical technological innovation. On the other hand, he may have delayed too long, and a July Surprise might be his only remaining chance to join the race…
While there are other candidates floating their names, these three big names are most favoured among the Initiative's choices for new leadership.
[ ] Karachi Planned City (Phase 4) (Updated)
Expanding the Karachi corridor will be a substantial undertaking, requiring not just expansions to the city and port facilities, but a series of outposts, some cut from blasted out ruins, but others, entirely new construction, especially with the Shah still maintaining a significant military force in being.
(Progress 473/390: 20 resources per die) (+6 Logistics, +4 Housing, -2 Labor) (Can spend mixed Tiberium and Infrastructure dice, at least 1 die must be Tiberium)
(Progress 83/780: 20 resources per die) (+8 Logistics, +4 Housing, -2 Labor) (+India and Iran Stuff)
Much of the work has been on a series of outposts, a string of pearls lining the track from the Himalayas to the sea. Most are of the same type: long, boxy constructions like unpacked and hollowed-out shipping containers, covered in pale-white concrete and lime. While some have been painted into the earth tones and grays intended to conceal them against the terrain, there are always more that still need such camouflage, and it rarely works well. Hardened against the elements, and the Shah's probing attacks. Ramparts of packed earth wrap around artillery pieces and bunker-built warehouses that are being stocked with spare parts, fuel, and food – the basics to support the network of railways and roads that is already being put to use.
The war with al-Isfahani has been slow, grinding, and difficult. While his stocks of nuclear arms seem to have been mostly depleted – with salvoes of atomic devices slowly petering out, going from hourly, to daily, to (by the end of the quarter) weekly events – the conflict has not slowed or halted but simply moved north, towards what was once Afghanistan. Neither side is ready for a final battle, however – the Shah seems content to restrict his remaining forces to skirmishing, and the Initiative is unwilling to press him as of yet. The 5th Armored Division and other Initiative forces are still licking wounds, binding up limbs, and filling up orbats. Every day, more soldiers are fitted properly with Zone Armor, every day replacement armored vehicles stream from cargo ships in the harbors and down from the Himalayan holdfast, but in many cases it is too little, too slowly. Already, the Initiative has had to let trapped Brotherhood forces retreat on multiple occasions simply because the tip of the spear has been too badly whittled down in previous actions.
The Indian Ocean font on the other hand has become interesting. With GDI holding Madagascar, South Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, and now a foothold in what was once Pakistan, much of the ocean has become contested, with a near constant Initiative air presence. ASW modified carryalls, operating at a mere few hundred meters, loaded to the gills with hardware. The best tool they have is magnetic anomaly detectors. Large metallic objects moving through the water tend to create magnetic anomalies, and while the aircraft often can't precisely pinpoint a target, salvoing air dropped torpedoes on the problem tends to at least give the submarine an uncomfortable day. Beyond that Carryalls are good for this kind of work for two reasons. Range, and more importantly loiter time. An Ox or Orca is significantly faster, but typically can't spend an hour or more just sitting over an area and delivering sticks of torpedoes, laying mines of its own, or otherwise inconveniencing a submarine.
Beyond that, the seizure of Karachi has created a much larger area of permissive airspace for Initiative ASW work. The ideal space is just off the coast of Africa, where there are only a few known port facilities and only so many good angles of approach. This however, is nonviable, due to the number of Barghests that can pounce on low and slow ASW aircraft and then run back under the cover of IADS networks. So, the hunting ground is out in the middle of the Indian Ocean, where the submarines can be anywhere, but that is also where the ASW aircraft, ships, and everything else the Initiative has to hunt submarines can simply loiter until they find their mark.
While Kelpie variants are a constant threat, these Nod craft remain at a considerable energy disadvantage even against the slow and low altitude ASW craft, a constraint imposed by the need to emerge from beneath the water. GDI sub hunting crews are getting wise to the signs of a Kelpie moving in the depths too, and it seems that there are simply not that many Kelpies. Although numbers have varied through the months, roughly one out of six interceptions of GDI ASW units involve Kelpies at all. Not even half of that involve more than 1. The Air Force has learned to keep a CAP somewhat close to the deck to try and pounce on these Kelpie raids, decreasing losses, but Kelpie pilots are wily and cowardly, ducking back into the water when they can't line up a shot in an instant, which is often.
[ ] Postwar Housing Refits (Phase 2)
Expanding the program and shifting yet more housing to higher quality models is something that large parts of the Initiative support in theory, and yet substantial groups oppose it in practice. While the housing is degrading at a noticeable clip, and will eventually either have to be torn down or refurbished, it is a much more complicated question than it first appears.
(Progress 97/150: 10 resources per die) (-5 Housing, +3 High Quality Housing)
(Progress 0/150: 10 resources per die) (-5 Housing, +3 High Quality Housing)
Picking up the refits on the postwar housing has been a relatively slow process. While less due to internal opposition and more due to a lack of overall resources, a lot of the lack of opposition is that the houses have started slowly emptying, a symptom of the Initiative's declining population.
Revitalizing the core urban areas that most of the postwar housing was built in has also become a significant priority, especially as the Initiative has begun pulling in from many of the more inconveniently located fortress towns.
The politics of housing are still complex however, with the housing surpluses creating a significant variety of options in housing. There are significant tradeoffs between access to amenities, quality and size of houses, access to high priority transport routes, military priority, and a thousand other factors that go into the decision to make a home somewhere. For example, for most families, they have elected to move towards tier two cities. Not the great metropoles like New York, Washington, or London, but rather, smaller cities like Boston, Cherbourg, or East London.
At the same time, there are neighborhoods pejoratively referred to as "little Yellow Zones" in most cities in the Initiative, a result of the rapid influx of millions of Yellow Zone refugees since the Third Tiberium War. There are thousands of friction points across the social, political, and economic framework, and so both sides are often happier in the moment staying separated from the other for their social spaces. The bright spot is the decline of the United Yellow List as a political factor, with most of the Yellow Zoners voting for more broad policy based parties, like the Developmentalists and the various socialist parties rather than the identity centered UYL, indicating that integration efforts are succeeding in incorporating the refugees into the greater GDI social fabric without making them feel pressured on account of not being a Blue Zone born citizen.
[ ] Drone Logistical Integration
With advances in drone control capabilities more can be done to hand off logistical tasks to automated systems. Although fully automated vehicles on public roads are not likely, many cargo handling facilities can easily be adapted to full automation without the need of a human presence on the work floor.
(Progress 268/240: 15 resources per die) (+6 Labor, -4 Capital Goods, +1 Energy)
Drone integration has required a significant reshaping of the basic workflow, especially the use of quadrotor drones, where the simplest maneuver is not left or right, but up. But, broadly, the principles of logistics remain the same. Although experiments for use of repulsor-equipped drones have concluded with an unsatisfactory result, large quad- and octorotor drones have become a staple of trainyards: singletons or pairs of drones locking onto a standard container, picking it up, and then depositing it on a truck, in a storage yard, or onto another train car. In some areas, drones are making direct deliveries – a train stops, the drones pick the containers up, and deliver them directly to factories and warehouses, cutting out middlemen across the system.
On a larger scale, on many roads you mostly see a system of single- and zero-driver convoys: simple, relatively dumb systems, essentially playing follow the leader with multi-ton trucks. Already fairly widespread, the biggest advantage is that the driver can be entirely removed. Due to practical reasons the work these convoys do is done in relatively dense cities. The first reason is that GDI does not do long distance trucking –the longest truck routes are less than a hundred kilometers. The second is that onboard EVA systems are still a little unreliable without being actively fed data from centralized control networks. Not that this is unique to the EVAs; it is true of human drivers as well, often to a higher degree.
Perhaps the most revolutionary change is the use of automated palletization, where drones in a warehouse assemble a load for delivery onto a plastic skid, stacking packages one on top of another and wrapping the finished package in plastic film. While it may seem simple, arranging and balancing a pallet with dissimilar item sizes and densities has been a challenge for the automation process design crews – the algorithms for properly managing this process may work on GDI's standard chips, but calculating them properly took isolinear processing capabilities.
Once packaged up, the pallets are then moved by a forklift drone onto a larger truck, rolling stock, or even a container for delivery to the other side of the world. Use has been limited thus far due to the fear that NOD might use this as a delivery method for terrorist attacks, and security services are iterating methods to address such risks.
[ ] Nuclear Infrastructure Rebuilding (New)
While the nuclear strikes were, for the most part, aimed at military targets, the destruction of Hampton Roads and Seattle's port facilities, among others, are making noticeable pinch points for the Initiative's overall ability to transport goods.
(Progress 179/200: 15 resources per die)(+4 Logistics) (Reconstruction)
The port facilities hit by nuclear weapons are chokepoints in many cases. Seattle for example, is not just a naval base, it is also a crossroad and an entrepot. The same applies to Hampton Roads, and work has concentrated first on removing those logistical snarls first. This has meant that some of the other, more 'out of the way' targets -- such as the relatively inland myomer macrospinner at Johannesburg – have been lower priority and seen significantly less work.
The first step in reconstruction (and in fact, a fair bit of the work over all) has been in clearance. Multiple ships were in port, and either burned to the waterline, or outright sank due to the blasts. Frigates, destroyers, and cargo ships alike died in the detonation, and raising them has been an involved process, with few good shortcuts available. A swarm of amphibious construction robots has descended on the ports, but the drones can only move so fast before they produce more problems than they are solving, because the step after clearance is dredging out the channels. That is the part of the system that is still ongoing, because even with all the bots and dredging barges assigned the sheer amount of irradiated material that needs to be moved is humongous. Fortunately, the cleanup is easier than dealing with the old superfund sites that dotted the US before Tiberium made the point moot, because the often toxic sludge can simply be dumped in a Tiberium patch or outbreak that has not been capped yet.
[ ] Second Generation Continuous Cycle Fusion Plants (Phase 5)
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 518/270: 20 resources per Die) (+19 Energy) (-1 Labor) (No more than five dice can be spent on 2nd Generation CCF per turn)
(Progress 248/270: 20 resources per Die) (+19 Energy) (-1 Labor) (No more than five dice can be spent on 2nd Generation CCF per turn)
With another wave of plants going offline, the fact that their replacements already went live and another set only requires the test firings, stability, radiation, and other basic checks, is a significant reassurance. Even in the areas where many of the alternative energy options are not viable, the possibility of rolling blackouts was largely if not entirely avoided. What blackouts did occur were minor, with one site in Greenland being the most significant, where two hours of downtime occurred as the local fission plant needed to charge the capacitors to start up the fusion plant, rather than providing full service to the population in the area.
Work on future power solutions has continued. Nothing yet is showing a significant improvement to the Initiative's energy demands, but that is a moving target; between the cost of construction and operating such solutions, the need for ease of use, reliability of the reactors, and demand on strategic materials.. There are reactors designed to produce vastly more power. Elerium-catalyzed fusion can become incredibly energy dense, but such energy densities require unsustainable amounts of elerium, and that is fundamentally the sticking point. To replace any significant portion of the Initiative's overall energy needs with various forms of elerium-catalyzed fusion would require a significant share of the Initiative's total production of stable trans-uranics, including shutting down all production of plasma missiles.
Of course, the Initiative is not only going to be relying on fusion for its power supplies. Fusion has its advantages. It is dialable, it is localizable, it is a substantial amount of power on demand pretty much anywhere GDI wants. Most renewables run into problems with at least part of that. But some don't have to. Orbital solar power for example, out in depths of space, is practicable to deploy, but primarily run into issues of getting that energy back to where GDI wants it. The big problem is putting beamed power through the atmosphere. All current examples have severe problems in loss between the power stations and beamed power linkages back to the groundside base. One radical proposal is to cut out the problem of beamed power with 300 mile orbit-to-surface superconductive power cables, and an orbital ring. Anchoring such a construct is highly dubious, but the proposal is certainly daring.
[ ] Aberdeen Isolinear Fabricator (Phase 2) (Updated)
With the completion of supporting industry, wastewater treatment and logistical connections, Aberdeen has already begun work on the A-wing of its isolinear fabricator. Largely devoted to memory cells and other low-complexity computing devices, the A-wing will serve both as a scale testing facility, and to train the workforce for the larger and more complex works to follow.
(Progress 266/180: 30 resources per die) (+9 Capital Goods, -2 Energy)
(Progress 86/360: 30 resources per die) (+18 Capital Goods, -4 Energy)
The first pallets of isolinear chips have rolled off the production line. Small, tough, low energy, and incredibly high power. Most of the chips are already designated for one thing. EVAs. Masses, and masses of EVAs. Everything from personal assistants, to robotic swarm management, to industrial automation. A machine state on every possible level. The only humans needed are intended to be the ones pointing it in a direction and saying go.
With the completion of the first acceptable production run, work has also begun on the much more demanding B- and C-wing of the Aberdeen complex. B-wing is twice as large as the A-wing, but will have only about the same production due to the use of larger, more complex and flexible isolinear printers. These machines will make possible more than just basic arithmetic and memory units, producing specialist chips and more powerful CPUs. C-wing, on the other hand, is planned to be a dedicated packaging and assembly station, where rather than dispatching all the chips to end users, complete isolinear boards will be built on-site. The outer shells of both buildings are complete, but tooling and training their relatively tiny workforces (who will mostly run quality control and troubleshoot errors) will take time.
[ ] Microfusion Cell Laboratories
Any deployment of the microfusion cells is going to be on a distinctly small scale, in large part due to the combination of the need for hydrogen fuel, and the sheer cost in elerium to produce stable, usable fusion in a package that can be effectively man-portable. However, there are many jobs where the sheer energy density of an MFC would be useful both to the military and more civil administrations.
(Progress 153/150: 25 resources per die) (-2 STUs)
The first MFC units have begun rolling off the production line, and most of them are being sent directly to space. While some are going towards other things, the vast majority are going to supply orbital facilities with emergency backups for the primary reactors, where they share a fuel supply with pretty much everything else, and (in a pinch) tapping a Leopard or Union for a few dozen cubic centimeters of reaction mass is reasonably viable.
[ ] Bergen Superconductor Foundry (Phase 5)
A fifth and final stage of expansions will see Bergen reaching its logistical and practical limits. While building inside of mountain ranges is certainly secure, it is far from ideal, with the final expansion to the facilities requiring a substantial investment in blasting new tunnels into other mountains. Additionally, it will require substantial investments in port infrastructure to move the massive quantities of superconductors out of the region.
(Progress 760/1140: 30 resources per die) (+8 Capital Goods, +16 Energy) (-3 Logistics) (+10 Political Support)
Work has continued on Bergen, despite the threats made against it by nuclear strikes. While the mountain fastness is no longer as protective as it could be, with any strike against it likely to use ground-penetrating bombs, it is still a substantial foundry, and the superconductors are, at this time, irreplaceable. Thankfully, new anti-bombing measures can be rolled into the final production expansion, allowing GDI to meet production quotas and use triple titanium bulkheads, aerofoam shock absorbers, and other measures to ensure that even if a ground penetrating nuclear device enters one production bay, it can be isolated without fully collapsing the entire mountain complex. While it will be significantly less protective against anything over fifty kilotons, and ineffective against anything over five hundred kilotons, those larger devices are rarities in the brotherhood arsenal.
Looking towards the future, GDI's superconductor programs are likely to move towards space. After all, new methods of microgravity construction promise easier mixing of exotic compounds, the product will be needed in massive quantities for the fusion reactors, engines, and all other high power products space infrastructure requires, and because it's not nearly as likely to be hit by a Nod nuclear device.
[ ] Factory Automation Programs
While LCI has already seen substantial downscaling in required labor, it is something that can be brought to an even more extreme level with the deployment of drone control systems, moving people off-site, and reducing the staff counts even further.
(Progress 314/280: 15 resources per die) (+4 Labor, -4 Energy)
The first completely automated factories have started operating. Most of their production is simple things required in bulk, with raw materials brought in by unmanned trucks, moved over the factory floor in minimal light conditions to robots that do not need to see, and stored in cavernous warehouses staffed entirely by machines. This would be a major safety hazard if there were humans on the work floor and for those times that a human presence is required proper lighting is available, but during normal operations these are vast, dark spaces filled with spinning blades, grinding wheels and hammering stamps, cutting corners that would be impossible with a human workforce.
Although some might think this is cheaper than employing humans for the same work, the reality is that the cost is simply calculated differently, and there are advantages to seating people at a production line. Humans may require some training, but they self-adjust, can perform multiple roles, react to changing conditions, and can perform line quality control with complex objects, things even the finest machinery find difficult at best.
The combination of logistics and factory automation programs have had some significant impacts on the Initiative labor market. This quarter has seen a significant bump in unemployment and underemployment. While retraining programs, advanced certifications, and the like are certainly available, as is reassignment, they cannot account for the full measure of freed up labor. Many people are taking the opportunity to go back to school, switch professions, or simply do their own projects, taking advantage of grants and similar to take a step back or pursue their own goals.
[ ] Civilian Exosuits
With the Initiative seeing significant development of myomer-based technologies, and a handful of small companies building so called "recreational" exosuits by hand, it is likely quite possible for the Initiative proper to begin building a substantially refined version, and putting it into the field both to increase labor productivity, and provide a dual use system for some forms of civilian power assisted armor for the Home Guard.
(Progress 94/85: 20 resources per die) (+1 Labor)
Protective equipment has often been difficult to say the least. Awkward, uncomfortable, and heavy in many cases. Even a good respirator, for example, is often difficult to breathe in, as having to draw air through the filters demands extra effort; a fire-resistant suit is bulky on a good day, suffocating on a bad one.
Power armor on the other hand, is a bit different, and serves in three primary roles. First is as a support. While it takes some learning, there are ways to stand in powered armor that require less from an aging body, and a number of skilled manual workers can come back to jobs that they wanted, replacing muscles with myomers, and often working slower than they used to, but still doing the work. Second is protection. Rather than a manual mask and heavy insulation, the power suit has integral cooling and filtration units – making the wearer able to stand mere meters from a pot of superheated alloy, and feel nothing. Third is mobility. A power suit is itself a platform for tools. Many key tools are heavy, bulky, and difficult to move around with. Myomer arms and a sizable battery pack means that the power suit can much more easily carry the tool around to where it is needed, and even provide power without needing to wrestle with cabling.
[ ] Spider Cotton Plantations (Phase 4) (Updated)
Continuing to expand Spider Cotton production is likely to see more uses found, but is at the same time, an expensive process, especially given the sheer quantities of spider cotton required for many of the more out there proposals.
(Plant Genetics)
(Progress 342/175: 15 resources per die) (+1 Capital Goods)
(Progress 157/185: 15 resources per die) (+1 Capital Goods)
With excess production of spider cotton material scientists are conducting experiments to look for further uses of the material, particularly in the armor and clothing sectors. As a high-strength fabric, weaving it together with other fibers and experimenting with thickness has shown potential use as an alternative or supplement to Kevlar in bulletproof vests. While early production models are effective at stopping low-velocity conventional rounds at an affordable price point, they fail to stand up to particle beams and high velocity railgun rounds while also being particularly vulnerable to bursting into flames when placed under sustained laser fire or exposed to flame or plasma.
Research is ongoing, with various blends of fabrics and materials being tested to find ways to offset these issues and offer improved iterations as new techniques and blended weaves are discovered.
Some of the best success has been found in utilizing spider cotton in ordinary consumer fabric blends, rather than attempting to improve on low profile body armor. While not groundbreaking, one team has, in coordination with GDI fashion houses, produced a test run of soft, comfortable t-shirts and undergarments that have been distributed among several of the science teams for further testing. Initial responses are positive, describing the clothing as soft, light, durable and comfortable in both cold and hot climates.
[ ] Laboratory Meat Deployment (Phase 2)
Initial laboratory meat development has a significant oversight, specifically in the expected skill level of the average cook, and so a significant public outreach is needed, not only to reassure people that the food is good, but also to teach people how to cook with meat again.
(Progress 181/170: 15 resources per die) (+6 Consumer Goods, -1 Food, -2 Energy)
GDI is still skeptical of laboratory produced meat – even with significant effort and sponsorship. Not because it is bad, but because it runs into a problem that the vast majority of people have forgotten how to properly cook with red meat. The average person has, at this point, eaten red meat maybe a few dozen times in their lives. The cost of red meat has been such that those who could afford it before GDI started its expansion of the ranching domes almost always ate it after preparation by trained professionals. Even with educational campaigns trying to teach people how to use this (still rare but now more available) treat, most people don't stick around with the novelty.
At least for now, while it is very much a symbol of an Initiative that can afford to set aside resources, time, energy, and scientists to produce substantially similar products to pork and beef, and can make it accessible for the vast majority of the population, it is a symbol that makes them happy just existing on the grocery store shelves, and the occasional treat, rather than a staple of their diets.
The exception has been in the realm of charcuterie and forcemeat. While most aged sausages are not yet available (though they are in production), a variety of sausages, precooked, smoked, salted, and cold, have started to become available, and see significant demand. Mostly this seems to be because these sausages need at most very minimal preparation. Something like a Spanish style chorizo, in thin slices or cubed, can be added to salads, or simply put on bread with hummus.
"Alright, so this is steak one oh one, with Chef Raul!, first off, heat is your friend. You are not going to overcook this like shrimp or whitefish. Use high heat, a high smoke-point fat, and then sear for three to five minutes per side."
-Stainless Kitchen Season 12 Episode 14
[ ] Red Zone Containment Lines (Stage 6)
With GDI having put its beachheads at the edges of the Red Zones, a further expansion of the containment lines is viable. While somewhat constrained by the limits of the Zone Operations Command, it will both support the Initiative's Forgotten allies, and put more pressure on the Brotherhood's back lines.
(Progress 359/180: 25 resources per die) (additional income trickle (10-20 Resources) (3 points of Red Zone Mitigation) (+1 Energy)
(Progress 179/170: 25 resources per die) (additional income trickle (10-20 Resources) (3 points of Red Zone Mitigation) (+1 Energy)
(Progress 9/170: 25 resources per die) (additional income trickle (10-20 Resources) (3 points of Red Zone Mitigation) (+1 Energy)
The seizure of Karachi has been a notable boon for the Zone Operations Command. While the Shah is still too active in the region to make serious large scale operations viable, there is now an easy, direct link to a large swathe of the Central Asian Red Zone.
Much of the command's spare forces have been allocated to a series of small outposts: penny packets of troops and harvesters spread across hundreds of kilometers, connected as much by the Forgotten that make the space their home as the lasercom and radio systems that allow them to connect to space and the other outposts. Many of these are deep in mountain ranges or at the edge of a Red Zone.
[ ] Hewlett-Gardener Mothballing (Phase 1)
With the xenotech refineries coming online, and the older Hewlett Gardener model refineries significantly outmoded, mothballing the old plants and keeping them as a standing reserve would free up significant resources tied up in their continued operations.
(Progress 115/50: 10 resources per die) (+2 Energy, +1 Logistics, +1 Labor)(Mothballs 300 processing capacity)
(Progress 65/50: 10 resources per die) (+2 Energy, +1 Logistics, +1 Labor)(Mothballs 300 processing capacity)
(Progress 15/50: 10 resources per die) (+2 Energy, +1 Logistics, +1 Labor)(Mothballs 300 processing capacity)
Priority for the mothballing of older Tiberium refineries has gone towards sites that are difficult to reach, or simply out of position for current needs. For example, there are a number of sites near New York City built long ago within the bands of defenses, and mostly used for imports. These days the bulk of the Tiberium they processed is instead shipped to the complexes at Chicago, so they have mostly sat quiet, and can be safely mothballed.
A significant part of the process is emptying and venting the reaction vessels and storage tanks. Processing Tiberium requires a range of catalysts and substrates and produces a soup of variably nasty chemicals. On the easy side, there is arsenic, the highly toxic metal simple enough to store on pallets as ingots and largely harmless as long as they are left alone., On the nasty side however, you have chlorine and fluorine: corrosive, reactive, and toxic heavier than air gasses stored under high pressure as liquids, which require constant monitoring for safety.
[ ] Tiberium Inhibitor Deployment (Updated)
Tiberium inhibitors have by now moved from the experimental deployment to the serial. While each will be significantly energy expensive and require a major investment of resources, it is now one of the fastest routes to abate the Tiberian menace.
-[ ] Blue Zone 3 British Isles (Progress 122/75: 30 resources per die) (-3 Energy) (+2 Yellow Zone Abatement) (+2 Underground Yellow Zone Abatement) (1 Political Support)
-[ ] Blue Zone 18 Himalayas (Progress 78/75: 30 resources per die (-3 Energy) (+2 Yellow Zone Abatement) (+2 Underground Yellow Zone Abatement) (1 Political Support)
-[ ] Blue Zone 15 Iceland (Progress 50/75: 30 resources per die (-3 Energy) (+2 Yellow Zone Abatement) (+2 Underground Yellow Zone Abatement) (1 Political Support)
With serial production ongoing, GDI has begun seriously investing in protecting the Initiative heartlands. The British Isles, Himalayan Blue Zone, and Iceland have all seen significant construction work this quarter. While the Himalayas were always slated for construction, the British Isles and Iceland were very much not. These were historic blue zones, ones that even in the days of the 2030s were, if not safe, safer than much of the rest of the world. It was the surveys, the discovery of veins of Tiberium running beneath them that made them much higher priorities for inhibitor deployment. Outbreaks occurred, but at this point, they had become something of a routine, and even then, were less than common happenings.
Politically, it is about as good as GDI can offer, while people are very much afraid of the ongoing crisis, the encroaching threat is being countered, and rapid construction of new inhibitors has created hope that the Initiative will either buy enough time for evacuation, especially given innovations in space technology and Aldrin, or find a long term solution to Tiberium.
On a practical level, almost all the manufacturing components are based out of Britain or Australia, meaning that to build the Himalayan network, GDI had to ship them in, and rather than use up one of the increasingly scarce suborbital flights, they were cargo on the still being built Karachi line. While one shipment was lost to a Brotherhood raid, and significant portions of it vanished, it is likely that it ended up in Bannerjee hands, and in any case, the inhibitors are actually harder to reverse than the Visitor accelerators.
[ ] Enhanced Harvest Tiberium Spikes (Phase 2) (Updated)
Although the political controversy remains, the fact that the spikes help convert underground tiberium into surface tiberium is enough of an advantage that they are being pushed despite problems.
(Progress 187/180: 20 resources per die) (-5 Political Support) (+10 resources per turn) (+1 Underground Yellow Zone Abatement)
The second wave of Enhanced Harvest Tiberium Spikes has been completed late in the quarter, to a measure of political backlash from the areas in which they were deployed. That backlash, however, has been less than expected, given the growing understanding of the situation in which the world finds itself in with regards to underground Tiberium incursion, and the dedicated efforts of GDI Tiberium scientists like Dr. Granger in communicating the idea that the new spikes may help find a better solution to dealing with Tiberium.
A welcome side-effect of having authorized additional construction is that the crews tasked with installing them have begun to develop something like the familiarity they have with the traditional spikes, quickly raising them and optimizing the spikes' outputs, allowing for additional safety inspections in the time available - which has also helped to assuage public concerns.
"We are late with turning on the spike."
"What makes you think that?"
"My calendar turned over to the next month."
"Your calendar is working on Tokyo time, we are in Portland, Oregon. We've got all day."
-Portland Tiberium Spike 2064-18 construction site
[ ] Impulse Drive Cargo Ship Development (New)
A hybrid drive system, using a combination of a fusion torch and an array of Brotherhood-derived repulsorplates to generate velocities, efficiency, and thrust impossible with standard technology, impulse drives represent a means to fundamentally reshape Initiative launch technology and dramatically increase scalable orbital transport.
(Progress 169/80: 20 resources per die)
Blue-white thunder, a roar to crack the skies, and an accidental short-ranged ballistic missile roared into the sky as the test engine tore itself off the mount and screamed toward the heavens. The engine cut out a few seconds later, falling back towards the ground, its fuel expended.
The program has seen – for lack of a better word – dramatic progress. The design of an impulse drive cargo ship is a fair bit different from existing fusioncraft designs. While the designers have settled on an aerodyne system, the biggest question has been size. On one hand, keeping it on the smaller side – some 45-50 meters long – in a blended wing configuration, would create a single stage craft that would (assuming the math reflected reality in any way) be able to take off and land on nearly any runway the Initiative operates.
On the other end of the spectrum, however, are absolutely massive craft, designed to be literal flying cargo ships carrying thousands upon thousands of tons of cargo, and with the bunkerage to match. While they would need dedicated landing strips wider than anything in standard service if not necessarily longer, these craft would dramatically speed any kind of major space-based infrastructure, and could, if properly configured, carry entire disassembled habitation blocks into space in a single shot.
A significant part of the system is based on the Novahawk's impulse drive, and like the Novahawk, the plates can be run without the mass reaction component of the engine for taxi and takeoff, which is absolutely critical, because the engines lighting off at full power will destroy a runway.
While in the long run, there will be a multitude of designs, large and small, streamlined and spaceborne, right now, the question is fundamentally one more of priority, whether GDI's space program is continuing to aim for large megaprojects, or is beginning the run up to a full evacuation of Earth, because the two need fundamentally different platforms, and different construction plans.
[ ] GDSS Columbia Bays
-[ ] Assembler Bay
While much of the actual industrial work in orbit is being done on Enterprise, and will be done on future Lunar, Martian, and asteroid belt industrial clusters in the future, integrating light industry and automated assemblers will be an expansion of the Initiative's ability to produce goods in space.
(Progress 282/240: 20 resources per die) (+1 Capital Goods, +5 Consumer Goods)
The assembler bay has whirred into action. While its current production of capital goods is somewhat narrowly centered upon basic, industrial-use consumables (like drill bits, grinding wheels, and so on) and a somewhat wider selection of practicality-minded consumer goods like thermal blankets and suit patches, the bay promises a lot more than that in the months and years to come. It represents a continued investment into the Initiative's overall orbital industrial capability, and with its ability to be rapidly reconfigured, it is a good place to begin testing out a number of advanced designs.
Most notably, what is being worked on under the project title 'Keratin'. A system of foamed metal, iterating on Brotherhood ferro-aluminum armors, but using a mixture of steel, titanium, aluminum and small amounts of rhenium. While the alloy is only being worked with on a very small scale, current testing indicates a material that would be a good fit for a number of structural elements, producing a frame that is significantly lighter than most current designs while retaining the required strength. Unfortunately it does run into a number of problems in terms of repairability, but that is only so much of a problem across GDI's fleets, given that repairability often means ripping out the old part and replacing it in its entirety, with how much cheaper metal has become compared to man hours.
[ ] GDSS Shala Bays
-[ ] Experimental Crops Bay (Stage 1)
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 are potentially too risky to allow out into the wild, but could offer a wide array of benefits..
(Progress 217/215: 20 resources per die) (MS) (Unlocks new development projects)
(Progress 2/215: 20 resources per die) (MS) (Unlocks new development projects)
The concepts coming out of some of the laboratories are a mix of the exciting and worrying. Largely, there are three major themes. First is the supercrop, fast growing, highly nutritious, and versatile. Second are a number of projects that have been in development for a number of years in various black sites and secure laboratories that are being transferred over to move up the Technical Readiness Level chart, mostly a series of TRL 3 and 4s that are seen as high-enough priority to put into a more open but still highly secured environment. Third and finally are the crops that the entire program was built for, which are designed to produce a wide variety of results ranging from the practical to the unhinged..
One of the more major ones is a crop that is essentially a hybrid of peas and mint, taking two plants that grow, rather vigorously, and producing something that has a tendency to rapidly outgrow their containment chambers. This has been something of a tendency with food crops that are specifically designed for their swift growth and high yield. However, that is only the most common element.
On the other side are the medications, with a number of ongoing attempts at rapid high intensity production, looking primarily at painkillers, antibiotics, and a number of antiviral packages. While not particularly dangerous, it is a convenient way to bring a large number of programs that were otherwise classified or limited, to production.
Finally, there are the grenade pineapples and their kin. By all accounts made solely for the name, rather than any good reason, they are derived from pineapples and are intended to (when fermented) produce key precursor chemicals for a number of the Initiative's mainline explosives. While currently not as efficient as more conventional methodologies, research is ongoing.
If nothing else, use them for fertilizer. Those nitrates will make your roses bloom up a treat.
[ ] Aldrin Planned City (Phase 2) (Updated)
A ring around the landing site of Apollo 11, the first true city of the Moon will be an enduring symbol of GDI's claim to the stars. A dedicated spaceport, refining, and industrial facility will begin producing a substantial quantity of capital goods, and redefining what it means to live in space. While the first phase was all about the needed construction workers and roughnecks, the second phase will instead focus on enclosing at least a quarter of the city's eventual diameter.
(Progress 720/465: 30 resources per die) (2200 Residents) (+1 Capital Goods, +3 Energy)
(Progress 255/850: 30 resources per die) (5000 Residents) (+3 Capital Goods)
(Progress 0/1700: 30 resources per die) (10,000 Residents) (+6 Capital Goods)
One of the most important pieces of Aldrin was named Eluthia, and has been heading towards completion at a rapid rate. A combined daycare and primary educational facility intended to raise and educate the first children of the Initiative born among the stars. While the first lunar pregnancies occurred long before, previously any pregnancy would be moved to Earth for medical care reasons, they are still very much in the early phases, the women essentially acting as volunteer test subjects for off-world births. It takes a special kind of person to do that, a combination of unwavering patriotism, an absolute confidence in a future worth living for, and a willingness to take risks knowing that things may go wrong and have severe long term consequences.
More broadly, Aldrin is becoming a more self-sufficient city, with its own entertainment districts, industrial hubs, and similar beginning to take shape. Overall, it looks a bit like a snowflake: a central hub, with administrative, security, and other mission-critical facilities in the middle, and then six sectioned and branching spokes projecting out. The spokes are each fairly self-contained, with their own life support systems, meaning that in case of an emergency each can be locked down and survive without the others, although not nearly as comfortably as the seven life support regions working in concert.
"Attention all work crews, we have a special announcement. I understand that everyone was very excited last night, at the topping out party for our latest construction efforts. However, Lloyd the bartender was not happy with your games of 'take the tankards and see who can throw them into the rafters and get them stuck.' As a result, I must inform you that the bar is closed until Lloyd can get a cherry picker to recover all his tankards. And that won't be soon because someone has filled the vehicle bay with barrels again, KARL."
[ ] Regional Hospital Expansions (Phase 2)
While currently, there are few real needs for further expansion in the health sector, the Initiative's population is likely to continue aging, and with the diseases of the old, time of response is critical, as is increasing the automation levels to deal with what is likely to be a sharp decrease in workforce availability in the coming decades.
(Progress 270/270: 25 resources per die) (+4 Health) (-1 Energy, -1 Capital Goods, -1 Labor)
Pushing forward the proliferation of regional hospitals has been a slow process. Most of these new hospitals are out in the relative boondocks;: the sparsely populated borderlands between GDI and Nod, often served by military hospitals at bases and local clinics. The majority of the new hospitals are quite small, little more than an oversized clinic serving the local community's general practice needs, with few on-site specialists present, a number of telepresence and telemedicine options, and generally topping out at a few dozen beds for normal circumstances. They are designed such, however, that in an emergency their capacity for trauma care can be rapidly expanded as a flood of robots clean unused rooms, unpack stores of equipment, prepare operating rooms and in general turn what used to be a community center into a several hundred beds large medical facility whose staff is already being flown in.
This trauma care capacity is primarily slated not for Initiative troops, but rather civilians and prisoners of war. The troops, for the most part, will be cared for very near the front and then evacuated back to the core, rather than being cared for in these smaller facilities.
"So, how fast can one of these places go from sleepy town clinic to trauma center?"
"Depends; one of the operating rooms is always kept at a low readiness level, of course, and can be prepared for a tele-operating surgeon in 15 minutes if needed."
"I meant, what if they needed to prepare all of the beds and gear?"
"Oh, in that case? The robots will have it ready for staffing before Transport Command is even wheels up."
"... Transport Command said they'd expect to be wheels up within 30 minutes, two hours even if everything goes wrong."
"And?"
-Services Department, Emergency Response Planning Commission.
[ ] Rage Engine Development (Tech)
The Brotherhood of Nod has used, on a limited scale, so-called Rage Generators, subliminal messaging systems that inflict feelings of paranoia, hatred, and fear, able to turn even elite GDI units against each other. While the process is less than useful for GDI in combat applications, various forms of emotional control system could be very useful in treatment of PTSD and other psychological traumas, especially useful in a post-nuclear recovery phase.
(Progress 118/80: 25 resources per die)
The rage engine is a particularly interesting piece of technology. Soldiers have reported a wide variety of effects from it, including twitchiness, heightened aggression, shakes, shivers, and irritability, among a wide variety of other symptoms. On a technological level, the rage engine is actually fairly similar to GDI's own neurohelmets. The big difference is that it is designed not as a short range precision instrument to read and interpret minds, but rather as a broadcast system to change them. Like most systems of mental manipulation it is multispectral, emitting electromagnetic signals, sonics, tremors, even smells and other things, all designed to increase stress levels.
In GDI use, many of the tricks can be converted into something of a 'serenity engine,' using a combination of messaging to produce calm, reduce stress, and otherwise help people maintain self control. While there are going to be some severe issues safeguarding the technology, and in some circles, it is seen as a potential 'lotus eater' device, psychiatrists are hopeful it can help with treating patients who need more assistance than current tools available permit. In any case, use and proliferation of this technology is expected to be tightly regulated.
[ ] Stasis Box Development (Tech) (MS)
While there are many means of preserving things, most require keeping the thing in a particular state, usually either very dry, or very frozen. Adapting the Visitor stasis devices offers significant potential benefits in a number of fields, including food storage, medicine, and high energy industrial applications.
(Progress 120/120: 30 resources per die)
Stasis boxes are one of the weirder technologies that the Initiative has come up with. While the scientists have mentioned words like 'phase rotation' and 'parachronal manipulation,' they are lost in a soup of jargon that even make your eyes glaze over. The impact however is substantial. While the largest working model so far has an internal storage volume that can perhaps fit a large strawberry, or a severed finger – in a briefcase-sized box that weighs over 25 kilos – that strawberry is fresh so long as the battery stays charged.
Work towards a more practical version is still ongoing, but even the finger-sized cargo is useful, primarily for the transport of short-lived radioactive isotopes and other volatile medical substances.
[ ] Advanced Articulation Systems (Tech)
While GDI's Zone Armor is notably effective, it is also quite stiff and difficult to move in. In large part this is due to the Initiative having to protect the joints against Tiberium infiltration, adding mass and restricting movement. As the Visitors did not have quite the same level of problems, their methods are likely to be able to make the Initiative's systems significantly more flexible.
(Progress 89/60: 15 resources per die)
Making a serious attempt at reformatting InitiativeInitaitive articulation systems means a near complete redesign of the entire Zone Armor platform. The current model rests on a network of artificial muscles, who have to rely on a slower system, producing a movement that is sluggish but powerful. A revised system begins at the very most simple principles – with improvements on the boron coatings – but fundamentally requires replacing the entire joint system. The end result promises to be slimmer, faster, and simpler, on top of an improved interface system under the code name of 'Carapace'. Intended to begin the movement in the arms or legs or any other joint almost at the speed of thought; working from neurons and muscles upstream of the point of motion to produce an armor that moves fully with the user, rather than simply trying to mimic.
Honestly? It's about time we had a refresh on our Zone Armor. The existing designs are still fine, but twenty years is a full generation of power-armor. Lots of new weapons and new technology to equip, we'd better start looking into it today if we want to have any for the 2070s.
[ ] Orbital Nuclear Caches
GDI has maintained an increasingly small nuclear stockpile in fortified strongpoints around the world. During the Third Tiberium War, as in previous wars, the Brotherhood of Nod expended significant effort to seize nuclear devices. In order to better secure that arsenal, building a number of small stations in orbit should place them well out of reach of the Brotherhood. Beyond that, adding and upgrading to the arsenal would be a stage of preparation to actually make them usable in politically acceptable ways. (Station)
(Progress 105/140: 20 resources per die) (MS) (Will time out at end of plan)
In some ways, the nuclear caches are very simple things. A swarm of tiny stations, each a little smaller than the old ISS, let alone the great bulk of Enterprise, Columbia, or Philadelphia. Each station is essentially little more than a small habitable blister and a pair of unpressurized cargo holds intended for up to a few dozen nuclear devices. Already, shiploads full of nukes have launched, stripping bare silos and airfields, warships and bunkers. Most of the rest of the project at this point is less about building stations, and more about moving nukes.
Humanity has long theorized about using nuclear weapons for more than just terrestrial warfare. While the radioactive fever dream of Project Plowshare and other theses of nuclear civil engineering are certainly not on the table – now or probably ever – there are many other programs that are possible. A century ago, one of the simplest of these devices was proposed: the Casaba Howitzer, in essence a nuclear shaped charge. Named after a variant of honeydew melon, the device uses a combination of a beryllium case, and a lightweight pusher plate. The weapon would then be pointed at the enemy, producing a cone of superheated plasma roughly twenty degrees across. While the overall efficiency would be abysmal, only a few percent (at best) of the total energy of the bomb, the hope was to create a standoff weapon that could generate impact, without requiring a direct or near-direct hit with one of the nuclear bombs. In principle, the same thing can be done with a series of metallic rods instead, producing collimated x-ray lasers, but again, the efficiency is a problem. Powerful, yes, but still only a few percent of the energy of the device.
In terms of an immediately practical nuclear device, the work is primarily being done under the codename 'Ptolomy', and represents a dual drive system. An Orion drive, with a single nuclear device, a chemical drive, and then a single warhead at the tip. Based from circumlunar space, the system would be able to engage a Visitor ship swarm at net low relativistic speeds. In some ways, the trickiest part is going to be properly timing the initiation, especially given the variables involved.
[ ] Ground Forces Zone Armor (Set 2) (Phase 2) (High Priority)
While the tip of the spear are still equipping themselves with the best that the Initiative can offer, they are a relatively small fraction of the total forces that serve under the striking eagle. A second, substantially larger wave of factories will require both significantly more capital goods, and a sizable workforce to produce enough of the armor to make a difference on those scales.
(Progress 687/285: 20 resources per die) (-4 Energy, -2 Capital Goods, -2 Labor)
(Progress 402/285: 20 resources per die) (-4 Energy, -2 Capital Goods, -2 Labor)
(Progress 117/285: 20 resources per die) (-4 Energy, -2 Capital Goods, -2 Labor)
With the current generation of Zone Armor being soon outdated, the last of the mainline factories has been a noticeable investment. War, it seems, has stoked the need for power armor considerably, but at the same time the existing requirements should be enough to meet the needs of peace – at least until new technology obsoletes GDI's current offering.
With fighting dying down in Karachi, many of the suits that had been stockpiled are being deployed, and many of the units being rotated off the lines are being broken up to serve as training cadres to spread the experience of fighting in powered armor around the Initiative's armed forces. On every front, from the lines in South America against Stahl's legions, to staring down Yao in Manchuria, to the rolling African plains, new forces are armoring up into the combat armor and awaiting further action.
Beyond that, there have been shifts in doctrine, due to many in GDI's TRADOC underestimating how long it takes to fit a new suit of Zone Armor to an infantryman. With the brutal, rapid pace of the Karachi offensive in mind, the time it took for a mission-killed Zone Trooper to be given a new suit, have it properly calibrated, and back in the fight, often left Initiative mechanized forces naked as they made assaults. Beyond that, the short legs of a Zone Trooper unit turned out to be more of a problem than expected. While GDI doctrine maintains that infantry's primary mission is to support an armored force, and the Zone Troopers – when they were present – did a frankly amazing job of it, the uptime rapidly became problematic.
The biggest impact of this is that rather than trying to, at least currently, completely replace a unit's unarmored infantry with powered armor, each unit going forward will have about a third replaced with Zone Armor suits, and the rest maintaining mechanized foot infantry.
[ ] Governor-A Deployment (Refits)
With the refit development finally complete, the requirements in tools and materials for the refits are now known, and the shipyards are ready to begin converting their production and maintenance yards over to supporting both building new Governor-As and refitting the existing inventory to the new standard. The refits include a slate of rationalizations to the yards themselves, incorporating far more automation than before, allowing fewer yard workers to do work that used to require many.
(Progress 265/350: 20 resources per die) (-2 Energy, -3 Capital Goods, +1 Labor)
Work on the refits program has surged, although it will still be months to years before any significant impact is made. A fleet-wide refit to the Governor-A model is at this point long overdue, with the class having noticeable weaknesses in the field of missile defense, among other problems that have emerged over its time in service. While the class is certainly neither obsolescent nor obsolete, working on the refits is a significant problem, especially because quite soon (in relative time), the class will be multiple generations of hardware behind, with a Governor-B model made necessary – alongside updates and replacements for ships both lighter and heavier across the field – and expected to include the addition of revised framing and armor plating; using alien alloys to reduce weight, increase protection, and refine systems; isolinear computers; and a widespread arsenal of new breeds of directed energy weapons. While there have been proposals to add additional missile modules, or other refits to extend its capabilities as a missile platform, those are currently sitting in limbo, primarily because naval doctrine is doubtful it will ever again perform an assignment along the lines of the Karachi invasion, where a major part of the artillery park for the entire invasion was sitting off the coast and slinging missiles and railgun fires at the company level and even below.
[ ] Unmanned Support Ground Vehicle Deployment
While the Talons will not require particularly many vehicles to see a large impact on their total deployable combat force, it will still be a reasonably expensive project simply due to the amount of automation that it requires.
(Progress 59/240: 20 resources per die) (-1 Capital Goods, -1 Energy)
Putting supporting ground vehicles into Steel Talons formations is a challenge – one that TRADOC has been working on, but with relatively little success overall. For the most part, Moas are being assigned to lances of Titans or to Mastodons, swarming around the walkers' feet. Lighter, more nimble walkers often take shortcuts over obstacles that Moas are better off maneuvering around. Some legheads in the Talons grumble that the Moas would have been better off with legs, but their own forces are far from being all Mech-anized.
At the same time, production is starting off slowly. While the Moa do share significant parts commonality with the Predator (notably their tracks are simply two of the track pods on the much larger tanks) they need their own engines, as nothing in the current stock of Initiative standard engine sizes quite properly fits within their more compact chassis. Similarly, weapons have seen major problems, with the modularity and hot-swappable design spec running into some significant issues with getting the sensor and FCS to properly mate.
A/N1: Well, another update down. Master's program, partner's surgical recovery, and starting my student teaching have all taken their tolls on my ability to write. I do have this, I can't have any guarantees about when I will be able to get the next update to you. Hopefully tomorrow, but I genuinely don't know at this point how much energy I will have after my first day in a high school teaching.
A/N2: If you want to help support me, the ko-fi does help significantly. Ko-fi.com/ithillid
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I can't decide if the creators were merely neglectful monsters (who didn't consider what might happen if someone like the Scrin decided to drop it on a planet with intelligent life), or if they were genuinely malicious in creating a weapon that just so happens to also effectively make money/resources.
That said, if we're really lucky on long term research into tiberium and it's an expert system rather than actively intelligent, maybe we could create a more controllable variety we could use for mining off planet. Drop it on an asteroid, vacuum up the resulting crystal, refine as needed in space. Hell, maybe add deliberate shutdown safeguards if it sees some sort of control method attempts (so if someone "accidentally" drops it on a habitable world with unaware natives they can manage to shut it down).
- Location
- USA
We are getting underground tib mit numbers now. Which will make the last few turns interesting as we know what we need to do to try and increase those. Overall results are looking good and we are closing in on finishing all of our goals in time as well as getting other projects done.
Though also looks like we might want to start a power armor design refresh before the year is done.
Though also looks like we might want to start a power armor design refresh before the year is done.
Shard
One and Many
- Location
- Malaysia
"Surely with a mechanism to produce literally anything they want, people wouldn't dump this on planets with intelligent life. Any civilization so malicious would have already destroyed itself."
Night_stalker
Slava Ukraini!
- Pronouns
- He/Him
This brings to mind a bit from The Andromeda Strain, where a panel of doctors postulates how one defines life, and well, using the criteria of takes in energy and converts it.
The rebutal is simple. Someone shows up with 3 objects that prove the theory doesn't quite work-
A black cloth, a watch with radium dial, and granite.
Granite here, is relevant because in his words, it's like us understanding a record being played at one revolution per century.
In my opinion, Tiberium is alive.
The fuuuucking Tau!I sit here, face to the screen, and I am still unsure if I should put words to it. On the face of it, it seems insane, a madness, a heresy. Against the great prophet, against the Messiah himself. But the evidence always comes back, the same, the same, the same.
I knew they were out to get us from the start.
Nah, not the Tau. This symbol is from a different franchise.
Other thoughts:
Codex Tiberium: *screaming intensifies*
-It's impressive that Stahl can be as good as he is at warfare without the resources to do full-scale military exercises. I expect he does as many smaller-scale ones as he can, but it's still impressive.
-Economy is in pain, and likely will get worse before it gets better. It might be worthwhile to see if we can dump another tranche of Resources into the GDI general fund, to help with the safety nets.
-Karachi War is grinding down, which is good. I wonder what the underwater range is for Kelpies? Seems like it is pretty good, to allow them to try to intercept ASW aircraft without putting their parent craft at risk.
-The UYL party leadership has to be kinda weird, politically, because their ultimate goals being met mean that the party dissolves.
-Isolinear chips feed our EVA snack cravings.
-MFCs going into space makes sense - that's somewhere that energy density is important, security risks are lower, and if they need to be swapped out, that's possible.
-Labmeat becoming sausage-type products makes a lot of sense. And scents.
-Yikes, I am reminded how nasty the soup of chemicals that Tib refining creates. And that's with the relatively-safe H-G method.
-Losing a shipment of Inhibitors is... annoying from the logistical side, but arguably a good thing from the "fighting the Rock" side.
-Impulse drives GOOOO! Hopefully, in a more controlled manner.
-Assembler bay has started working on endo-steel, since we already have ferro-aluminium?
-Pineapple grenades. There are some happy nerds up on Shala.
-New-model Zone Armor sounds nice. Hopefully the new design will help with the uptime issues we have seen with the current model.
-As is standard with naval design, putting any significant effort into pushing out a refit/design sparks BuShips to create an entirely new one.
Dmol8
The Undead Unhinged Lunatic of the Web
- Location
- Belgrade,Serbia
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
That right there is the Bungee symbol. As such one of the crossover universes we are in besides Mass Effect is at least one of these three: Marathon, Halo or Destiny.
I was making a joke and you can't deny the similarities.
Dmol8
The Undead Unhinged Lunatic of the Web
- Location
- Belgrade,Serbia
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
I was making a joke and you can't deny the similarities.
Not similarities. The Tyranids are 40k's take on the Zerg, the Tau are 40k's on the United Nations Space Command.
"Crossover" is a strong word. The existence of the symbol does not necessarily imply the existence of other things from the source universe. (For example, despite Kane's species being an expy of the Bentusi from Homeworld, the quest is not actually a crossover with that game universe.)
Nah, not the Tau. This symbol is from a different franchise.
Other thoughts:
Codex Tiberium: *screaming intensifies*
-It's impressive that Stahl can be as good as he is at warfare without the resources to do full-scale military exercises. I expect he does as many smaller-scale ones as he can, but it's still impressive.
-Economy is in pain, and likely will get worse before it gets better. It might be worthwhile to see if we can dump another tranche of Resources into the GDI general fund, to help with the safety nets.
-Karachi War is grinding down, which is good. I wonder what the underwater range is for Kelpies? Seems like it is pretty good, to allow them to try to intercept ASW aircraft without putting their parent craft at risk.
-The UYL party leadership has to be kinda weird, politically, because their ultimate goals being met mean that the party dissolves.
-Isolinear chips feed our EVA snack cravings.
-MFCs going into space makes sense - that's somewhere that energy density is important, security risks are lower, and if they need to be swapped out, that's possible.
-Labmeat becoming sausage-type products makes a lot of sense. And scents.
-Yikes, I am reminded how nasty the soup of chemicals that Tib refining creates. And that's with the relatively-safe H-G method.
-Losing a shipment of Inhibitors is... annoying from the logistical side, but arguably a good thing from the "fighting the Rock" side.
-Impulse drives GOOOO! Hopefully, in a more controlled manner.
-Assembler bay has started working on endo-steel, since we already have ferro-aluminium?
-Pineapple grenades. There are some happy nerds up on Shala.
-New-model Zone Armor sounds nice. Hopefully the new design will help with the uptime issues we have seen with the current model.
-As is standard with naval design, putting any significant effort into pushing out a refit/design sparks BuShips to create an entirely new one.
Economical pain is mostly a result of not having enough manpower to throw at the economy. Unfortunately, Nod has decided to no longer let us raid its backyard for spare manpower it's got lying around, and the other option requires a population that is a lot more willing to procreate and has a 20 to 25 year lead time while at the same time eating more manpower.
Kelpie underwater range doesn't need to be particularly large if they and their parent craft can go deep enough.
Isolinear is going to improve our civilian computing. Not necessarily because isolinear tabs are going to be integrated into home computers, although that will no doubt happen eventually, but because it's going to free up a lot of otherwise very high end silicon chips.
Keep in mind that the mentioned substances in the mothballing blurb? Those are just elements. We're not even talking about the more complex chemicals that might be involved or spat out which would make arsenic, fluorine and chlorine look like a bunch of underachievers.
Consider; fairly deep fresh water ponds for use by literal space ships as landing and take off areas.
I am awaiting the discovery of the pomme grenade.
I've stated before, but Tiberium was seemingly specially made to mouse trap pre space flight societies and kill them. It's so useful to ensure it's spread in its first stage and *just* containable enough to lull societies into false sense of security or hubris and then it flips to "Kill everything" mode.
We're gonna have an orbital elevator soon but instead of transporting things up to space it transports energy from space to earth... or we can do both... you know we can strap casinos and strip club to the side to generate revenue as well... maybe a gun too at the top.
It is a glowing weak spot that screams attack me for more damage but come on, we all know mega structures never ends up getting destroyed in a very cool cinematic way right?
It is a glowing weak spot that screams attack me for more damage but come on, we all know mega structures never ends up getting destroyed in a very cool cinematic way right?
TaliesinSkye
Occasional Editor
- Location
- Northeast Ohio, United States
As someone who mostly just follows the threadmarks, what are the feelings in the thread on the stay and fix Earth vs. evacuate Earth long term decision?
Personally I wanna fight for the Earth till the end even if we have to replace most of it with machinery.
We are likely going to be negotiating with Kane for the Tiberium Control Network.
The good shit instead of the monkey model that canon GDI managed to get.
TaliesinSkye
Occasional Editor
- Location
- Northeast Ohio, United States
What is the control network capable of?