I mean so long as they don't roll a nat 100 and it works.
Naw. Like... Even the most practical Star Wars stuff (like the rods from god concept or the brilliant pebbles proposal) are big fat targets in the sky that are super cheap and easy to destroy from the ground while being insanely expensive and verrrry inaccurate.
Most of the Star Wars ideas wouldn't even be able to do any damage to the ground, nor track things fast enough to hit anything in space, and even if they could, the countermeasures are pretty easy. And the damn things are STILL sitting ducks in orbit that we can easily and cheaply kill.
(Remember, it is easy to get something high, it is hard to get something going fast, which is what an orbit is. So launching something on a sub-orbital trajectory to intercept the very predictable orbit of the target is something easily done, and since the thing in orbit is going fast, the interceptor can be quite slow, and let the target's own momentum do the damage.)
So a crit success would be to demonstrate how bloomin' stupid the idea is with such persuasive power that the politicians drop the thing and NEVER try again.
Unlike how the US has been trying to make Star Wars happening for 40 years now, because the idea of being invulnerable to the nastiest weapons on Earth has enormous seductive power. That and giant space lasers makes the SF nerds excited ('cuz even ones who know it wouldn't work, like me, get starry eyed at what the economies of scale required to build that kind of mass of weaponry in orbit could do for the rest of a space program...)
Honestly, for the US to be thinking of this stuff now, under a more staid Prez than Reagan, I wonder if they have already gotten a crit fail.
Either that, or this is how their military is dealing with the steady stream of Soviet space successes. "No, we have a space program really! Look at our GIANT SPACE LASERS!"
I wouldn't be entirely opposed to cooperating with the military, just so we can make sure they don't waste TOO much money proving to themselves that the idea is DEFINITELY stupid, also, a cooperative stance towards the military could be politically useful. But my gut says it is probably a bad idea and we should firmly declare our program a peaceful civilian enterprise.
Cooperating with the military would probably undermine Intercosmos anyway (the military will desire more secrecy, not exactly super compatible with telling German, Indian and Chinese engineers how to design payloads for our rockets and regularly having friends visit Yariyev...)
As far as the update:
The political shake-up could have gone worse. It seems that the politburo has if anything become a more hardened with the arrival of Tolokinnikov. Semyonov has de-prioritized the struggle in the colonial and post-colonial worlds and instead has chosen a man who favors direct focus on the Americans.
Note that Babkov has survived the purge (no surprise, while a hawk, he was on Semyonov's side in the crisis). But assuming that Balakirev is at least giving us accurate information about the priorities of his fellow politburo members, I suspect that the two diplomats in the politburo may have bonded over a bunch of non-professionals almost getting them both nuked, since Babkov's foci now are very fitting for a hawkish interpretation of Semyonov's worldview (or at least, what Klimenko believed Semyonov's worldview to be) and my interpretation is that Tolokinnikov's promotion is a sign that Semyonov has moved to a more hawkish position.
But given Balakirev's political inexperience, my guesses about Semyonov's outlook should be taken with plenty of salt.
My feeling is that Semyonov is weaker than he looks right now. Purging the party is gonna bring back bad memories of Stalin and alot of folks in the SupSov - maybe even in the Politburo - are going to be thinking "if he did THAT to Romanov, I bet he could have me arrested just as easy". Also, Semyonov has reduced the power of the SupSov and moved power much more towards the Party and the Politburo. That's going to have annoyed plenty of people who had gotten comfortable with the Mikoyanist statism. As such, I think Semyonov's actual staying power has sharply decreased.
I have to say, the Balakirev report had me hoping that Balakirev would be more sensitive to at least a utilitarian sort of environmentalism. But no... That was entirely too optimistic of me. Balakirev is totes into the war against nature.
Anyway. Let's talk about bureaucratic actions.
I currently favour the revolutionary approach of Doing Our ****ing Job(tm). Only propose reforms that we see as being necessary or that are uncontroversial. Put lots of dice into focus. I am not sure I even want to do any coalition assessments. If we fail that roll, Balakirev comes away with some horrible takes like the delusions that dashed Voz. It might be better to be willfully ignorant. Cultivate a reputation as a politically neutral actor. Or cultivate a reputation as an idealist, one who does not care about coalitional influence trading but who speaks his mind and works in service to ideals above expediency.
Considering how far Semyonov has stuck his neck out, and how big a prize the ministry is (meaning anyone who moves to gain influence over it would alarm other players) I think we're fairly safe from a direct assault. IMO the most serious danger is of Balakirev making some bad move that alarms other players and makes them feel they have to move against him.
Another approach might be, we don't assess the coalitions in the SupSov, we instead pick actions we think will make the political weather. Instead of trusting Balakirev's inexperienced assessment of the SupSov, instead, put forth a bold program that will establish us by actions as a man who is useful to certain actors - for example,
Agricultural Land Reassessment to establish us as a friend to the rural party interests, or
Free Enterprise Licensing to establish a group of enterprise managers who owe Balakirev personally (though this particular option may have long-term downsides). And so on. There are a few options that could be woven together to make Balakirev the man of a (preferably) not too powerful a constituency (if we curry too much favour with a powerful group, Balakirev marks himself out as a major player, and thus a threat). As such, if we do try to make political weather, we should probably lean into Balakirev's country boy nature. We have a few options for that.
If we seek political allies, spending 1 dice on every option might be... Acceptible. However, I would VERY much rather we didn't have the political newb try to emulate Voz. The old snake had the extraordinarily corrupt bite to back up his enjoyment of jargon-dense barking. As such I DON'T think that Balakirev should try to rebuild the conservatives under his leadership, nor do I think he should try to rebuild the technocrats. We might get a crit success or something awful like that and end up with a powerful block under the control of a political dummy. I do not want to repeat Voz's mistakes when the system is still reeling from the shock of Semyonov's purge.
Especially as Balakirev seems to show a preference for rebuilding the technocrats, and I don't want to tie our PoV character to whatever crusty relics miss the glory days under Voz!
IMO the political ally who is most in accord with the threadviet's aims is Semyonov. But if we are attached to Balakirev, the GenSec is probably a poor ally. Even if he doesn't use and throw Balakirev away weakening the ministry (which probably isn't a terrible thing for the Union overall), as I mention above, I think Semyonov just scared alot of people, and we may not want to tie ourselves to him.
The political ally that I think would be best for Balakirev is Podgorny. Pod got dunked on hard for being too dovish, which means Balakirev aligning with him wouldn't be too much of a threat to Semyonov, since Podgorny is recovering from a bad political year, and also very much was against the policies that almost got Semyonov (and the Union) nuked. Also, Podgorny is retiring soon, and therefor Balakirev aligning with him is only a problem until 1977, and thus might not be an urgent enough problem for anyone to try and undermine our minister out of fear.
Also, Podgorny has been cunning like a fox and implacable like a glacier. He's been the constant outsider and yet still managed to come out leading the 3rd most powerful political faction until Romanov's fall. If anyone could teach Balakirev how to handle politics in the SupSov, it's Podgorny. And perhaps most importantly, Balakirev has something Podgorny will want bad: power to actually liberalize the Soviet Union before he has to retire. No-one else can really offer that to Podgorny. Even if Semyonov offered the ministery to Pod for a coalition, Semyonov would face resistance just because it would be a further consolidation of power.
Also, Podgorny might enjoy the opportunity to mold Balakirev. Or, you know, he could find Bala's Vozbrained-ness deeply bloody annoying.
And while I don't place high odds on this, it might be that Balakirev might be able to succeed Podgorny as leader of the liberal wing of the Party.
Plus, it would be fun to actually get a Podgorny-view of politics. Voz and Klim both had a deep antipathy for the man and what he stood for.
On the downside of courting Podgorny: we'd move right when I want to move left. At least on the economy (actually am in favor of the social and particularly the Party reforms Podgorny wants to do).
Another... Interesting idea: what if we dedicate a bunch of focus to ship building?
with an effective demotion of Romanov from the politburo along with a reassignment to the management of the Far Eastern Shipbuilding Industry
[]Vladivostok Shipyards: The naval yards in the Far East have some of the cheapest labor and a significant market for merchant shipping between all CMEA members. Expanding the construction of large hulled container and tanker ships domestically will be essential to keep up with current American standards. If the Soviet merchant fleet is to be modernized it needs to be funded now and expanded now to compensate for deficiencies in block-wide production. An entirely new generation of ships will have to be built to break with old standards and the dogged obsolescence that has remained a major part of naval construction. (240 Resources per Dice 0/200) (-54 CI4 Electricity +5 Steel +2 General Labor +1 Educated Labor) (High Profitability)
If we help Romanov get the shipyards up and running in Vladivostok (which we want anyway, since we're gonna need a whole bunch of shipping soon) he might be able to help Bala find his feet politically.
But probably the new head of the ministry spending lots of time with a formerly influential member of the Politburo and Chairman of the Presidium would be painting a target on our boy's back.
Could be fun tho!
Also thought'd I'd mention something I haven't seen brought up, which is that getting too high a result could also be a bad thing, ala the sociology purge. Dunno how too high a result could be a bad thing here but it's def a possibility to keep in mind.
Probably getting too good a result would make people treat Balakirev as a serious political threat, and try to destroy him.
But if we get a good deputy then Bala getting used by semy to improve worker conditions and pushing down the managers and then dropped wouldnt be that bad. But narrowing the role of the ministry is scary...
Yes... Ruining Balakirev's political career to cut down the manager class to size wouldn't be the worst thing.
Bala has great boni and if we manage to counteract his severe lack of touching grass he could be quite valuable to manage the oil crisis as the one who created our scary report.
Hah! Severe lack of touching grass. :-D
Unrelated, what would happen if we actually did the river reversals? I read somewhere no one knew but the top suggestions were "the artic melts completely" and "the glaciers expand massivly" which are opposites. I kinda want to do it tbh, just to see what would happen and for the sheer hubris, I will always support hubris
We kill the Siberian swamps, that's what happens if we do full river reversal. And I don't get the impression that Balakirev is at all the sort of guy to only reverse the rivers a little. It is a pretty major and important ecoregion, especially due to its importance for migratory birds.
As for the impact on the Arctic ocean, it would make it more saline, and reduce nutrients in the surface waters, it would also make it colder, since the Siberian rivers are relatively warm. I am not sure if it would cool the Arctic enough to slow global warming to any significant degree though.
All I know is that the ecological damage river reversal was expected to do scared the OTL Soviet Union (though mostly they just were scared by the cost) and considering the OTL Soviet war against nature, anything that scared those mad lads really scares me.
And I say this despite kinda wanting to build the mega project for the sheer sake of megalomania and see Central Asia bloom... I like big projects, I cannot lie.
Anyway, moving on from political commentary and talking about the specific options we have:
Local Meat Production Grants
This option sounds like one of the few ways we have at the moment to provide more meat that isn't a CJD risk. Our critfail a wee while ago means I would very much rather not touch
Domestic Meat Programs as further intensification of factory farming would only scale up how bad the consequences of that critfail are.
Then again, CJD only killed like, 100 people out of every million in the UK. We fund plenty of projects (like building cars and coal power plants) that kill way more Soviet citizens, so maybe worrying about the meat supply isn't something we should be too concerned about?
Vegetable Production Modernization
This actually sounds kinda useful. We're using scarce water to irrigate more arid land. But more vegetables is good...
Urban Beautification Programs
Yes! Want!
And heck, I want everything in services...
Bureaucracy options that just sound like plain good ideas:
Agricultural Land Reassessment
Expand Town Classification Codes
Drive Through Euro Adoption
CMEA Good Prioritization
Housing Sector Reform
Also, all of you who voted last turn to let the SupSov handle fighting the enterprise manager's lies about the environment? Good on you! If my preferred option had won, Balakirev would have been able to interfere with the students investigating the crisis. Instead Klimenko passed the ball to an organization Balakirev doesn't understand well enough to interfere with yet...
Regards,
fasquardon
