B5 alt-history quest. Rag-tag splinter colony of telepaths sent from 2170 to 2070 and left to an off-network new homeworld and left to fend for themselves. You are their leader.
In 2155, the Centauri changed the fate of humanity as a whole forever by introducing humanity to the galaxy.
In 2161, the Metasensory Regulatory Agency was disbanded in lieu of the openly authoritarian and not-so-secretly supremacist Psi Corps.
In 2170 ... in another time, the Telepath Underground would become large enough to start undermining the Psi Corps' authority. This, too, happened in this time. Only a small collection, made up of second sons and daughters of the original Kith would clandestinely pay to be smuggled out of Earth space by a Centauri cargo freighter, with the intention of establishing themselves as a remote colony made up of telepaths and their families who simply wanted to be free.
Unbeknownst to those colonists, a certain ... interested party ... decided to nudge their path through a hyperspatial tachyon conduit, not only casting them a century back in time, but forever breaking their course of events from what had once been a truly stagnant path.
So -- you are James Alexander, the twenty-seven year old son by artificial surrogacy of the original leader of the Kith, and by dint of being the strongest telepath of the community-- at a rating of P8 -- the leader of a small rag-tag refugee band of human telepath refugees, cast before not only the founding of the Earth Alliance, but before the first telepaths were born on Earth. Your colony ship had sufficient databases along with basic tools and supplies to allow you to live independently, and so you have begun to settle down to build a future for yourself in these wholly uncharted waters.
Year: 2070
Economy:
- Expenses: Null
- Income: Null
Military Assets:
Null
Colonies:
- Kithhame
-- Population: 250, mostly young adults.
-- Planetary status: Marginally habitable. Indigenous wildlife obviously alien but at times oddly familiar.
-- Colonization status: One landed converted Centauri cargo hauler. No jump-engine, but the previous owner never removed the on-board grav plating.
-- Economic status: 3 "lightly pre-owned" Centauri-make autofabbers.
Votes by plan, please:
Each turn is 1 year.
1 Action in each category, only write-ins for now while the dust settles and interest is shown.
Industry:
(Agricultural, economic, and residential leadership actions go here.)
[]
Military:
(Militia, naval, wartime, and such go here.)
[]
Exploration:
(Scouting, mapping, resource survey type actions go here.)
[]
Research:
(Pulling schematics for practical application out of the colony ship's AI, discovering new techniques, biotech, and so on.)
[]
Diplomacy:
(Internal or external diplomatic actions. Building community, negotiating trade deals, and so on.)
[]
Personal:
(Things you do yourself.)
[]
An example plan might look like this:
[] Plan: Example
- [] Industry:
-- [] Use one autofabber to build hydroponic grow-houses, and a second to build housing so we're not all so cramped.
- [] Military:
-- [] Use one autofabber to build infantry gear to hunt large wildlife and secure the area of the colony.
- [] Exploration:
-- [] Search for viable mineral resource deposits in the area of the colony.
- [] Research:
-- [] Review the tech database for best-practices in colony-building.
- [] Diplomacy:
-- [] Talk to the various other family heads and figure out what they think is most important.
- [] Personal
-- [] Work with a few of the better clairvoyant teeps to feel out the minds of the new world, to check if we're alone.
This is the timeline I'm using for knowing what overall is happening in canon.
The Technology database has basically everything to make a world functional as of 2170 (humanity was making its first jump engines and could use tachyonic comms and sensors, but didn't have PPG weaponry or many of the things canon EA possesses. Think somewhere like Mass Effect pre-contact humanity and you're in the right area.) -- but that's not the same as your people knowing how to actually do all those things. You'll have to figure it all out as you go.
Kithhame is off-network; you are disconnected from the galactic society as things stand.
You're on an unknown world with a small community of rag-tag colonists. They are all telepaths so ideas and understanding can be shared directly amongst one another -- but even your colony ship is basically a converted freighter of Centauri make. You have no real mining equipment, enough food and medical supplies to last you through the year and no real need to worry about power for the time being -- while the ship is fairly cramped for a crew the size of yours, the "emergency" fuel accumulators for the on-board fusion reactor are in good repair and will last for at least a decade. (Your people being telepaths were able to ensure you got the best deals possible -- and sometimes a little better than -- from the Centauri you "negotiated" the ship from.)
Adhoc vote count started by Logos01 on Apr 19, 2024 at 10:29 PM, finished with 14 posts and 3 votes.
[X] Plan: Begin with that first certain step
- [X] Industry:
-- [X] Use the autofabber for houses and a greenhouse to establish basic needs
- [X] Military:
-- [X] Use one autofabber to build infantry gear to hunt large wildlife and secure the area of the colony. Clear approaches to the colony to establish good sight-lines and use the third autofabber for a watchtower.
- [X] Exploration:
-- [X] Search for viable mineral resource deposits in the area of the colony. Map the nearby area, and make sure we have a good source of water.
- [X] Research:
-- [X] Review the tech database for best-practices in colony-building, focusing on needs and first defenses.
- [X] Diplomacy:
-- [X] Establish a council with the other family heads, and identify a list of priorities.
- [X] Personal
-- [X] Work with a few of the better clairvoyant teeps to check if we're alone, and any imminent dangers.
Marginally habitable. Indigenous wildlife obviously alien but at times oddly familiar.
1 Basic Minerals deposit found (unexploited)
Colonization status:
One landed converted Centauri cargo hauler. No jump-engine, but the previous owner never removed the on-board grav plating.
1 Basic housing complex.
Economic status:
3 "lightly pre-owned" Centauri-make autofabbers.
1 Basic Greenhouse Farm. Supplies food for ~250 human-years per year.
Diplomacy:
-- Establish a council with the other family heads, and identify a list of priorities.
It was difficult, at first, to decide on what needed doing the most. Everyone had their own ideas. Images flashed amongst the communal "waking dream" of the residents of their shared new home like wildfire, confused and quick with no immediate consensus becoming apparent. To spare yourself the headache, you decided to sit down with the various matriarchs -- the oldest or strongest female telepath of the given family -- of the familiy lineages amongst the community -- this having been the way things were done amongst telepaths for a century, long before either the Psi Corps or even the MRA that preceded them.
There were, in all, six major families so represented. Mira Alexander, Janet Gray, Wanda Runningdeer, Samantha "Mawmaw" Ironheart, Danielle Stoner, and Michio Namikawa. With the exception of "Mawmaw", it was hard to see them as 'matriarchs' -- they were all of them barely any older than you, if not outright younger; while Mawmaw was well into her eighties and more spite and leather than anything else. There were other family names amongst the colonists, of course, but the old habits and genealogies made it clear enough who was related-enough to who to count as part of which family.
Still; with their assistance it was fairly easy to filter through the various thoughts and ambitions of your fellow colonists and sort affairs in order. All in all, delegating to a group that included your wife -- Mira -- was a decision you weren't entirely sure was a genius idea or one that would come back to bite you when you were least prepared for it, but that's life.
Rather than a disorderly and hectic mess, the familiar organization and shared needs with clear direction resulted in a much smoother process of digging into the new world.
Result:
-- Potential morale and unrest problems eliminated for now. People are comfortable with what they know, and the extra voices in the choir singing of harmony helps the colonists work as one towards their shared goals.
Research:
-- Review the tech database for best-practices in colony-building, focusing on needs and first defenses.
More of an ongoing process than anything else, the Namikawas spend much of their time split between watching everyone else and getting their views on what they think is needed, and consulting the ship's AI for best-practices towards setting up in this new world. A number of the more common pitfalls were easily anticipated -- anyone sent out foraging was sent in teams with a Centauri-make bioscanner to ensure wild edibles and animals had no toxins or poisons; and this information was shared to the rest. While the database being of Earth origin did make for an ... interesting ... time working with the Centauri autofabbers, they quickly worked out the data protocols needed to get cross-compatibility for basic tooling and things like processed lumber and common pigments drawn from native flora. Methods of estimating the annual climate cycles by taking soil samples and estimating water-table variability were found and the shelters were adjusted accordingly.
A good thing, too -- you and your peers initially thought that, given the mossy alpine character of the forested area you found yourselves in that you'd have been in for cold winters. Turns out looks were deceiving: on this planet, there were no deciduous plants. You were in a near-tropical zone. Special care was taken to set up a nursing clinic in the colony shelter to run periodic checks for asymptomatic illnesses, and one of the labourers was discovered to have a kind of toe-fungus that could have been quite nasty had it not been caught so early.
Result:
-- The flora on this planet were somewhat deceiving. Your shelters are decently cooled rather than being saunas. Better food storage and warehousing solutions are recommended for the climate. Disease prevention is prioritized, avoiding a potential loss of able workers.
Exploration:
-- Search for viable mineral resource deposits in the area of the colony. Map the nearby area, and make sure we have a good source of water.
Exploration teams are established to make a much more in-depth survey of the local environment. It's a bit eerie, actually, how quiet everything seems to be in the area. Oh, there is wildlife -- much of the larger varieties being some variation of reptilian or avian, rather than mammalian -- but it seems none of the animals you encounter aside from bugs make any kind of noise. There's also a general inexplicable sense of malaise or unease in the air around your scouts.
While the scouts deciding to triple rather than doubling up does impair their progress somewhat, their progress is aided by the use of the colony ship's mapping and wireless telemetry, along with a bit of fabber time borrowed to make some light aerial LIDAR mapping drones.
It's a bit of a trek -- you'd need to establish a vehicle path and trucks to make it practical to work -- but there's a fairly easily accessed minerals deposit only about a hundred klicks east of the landing site; an extinct geothermal vent, with a wide array of useful and less-common mineable resources that should help immensely with getting the tech-base of the shelter kicked off.
Results:
-- The basic area around the shelter is mapped out to the satisfaction of the community for a wide area. While it will require specific effort to set up for proper exploitation, once the mine access and infrastructure is built the colony should not want for any but the truly most exotic of mineral wealth -- at least, not with the community the size it is now. Water is abundant enough, though with the ecology so deceiving filtration and purification is a must. A number of local edibles are registered -- the most interesting of which seems to be a kind of eusocial centipede of all things that produces honey just like bees back on Earth. Though the bioscanners do indicate there are traces of protein in the honey, and little in the way of pollen. It doesn't bear thinking about.
Industry:
-- Use the autofabber for houses and a greenhouse to establish basic needs
Your fellow colonists quickly find that however odd it is to have tropical evergreens, the autofabbers work with the lignocellulose of the branches and trunks just fine. And, well, beach sand is beach sand wherever you go. It takes a bit of ingenuity to get mortar -- the Namikawas resolved this issue via the ship's AI by recommending a basic trawler pull shellfish remains from a nearby river delta; it seems that the scouts' mapping efforts combined with the AI's colonization algorithms showed there would be sufficient lime there to allow a small cement refinery. Thanks to this, the area around the shelter is established with a basic landing and takeoff strip for the ship itself -- mostly to plan that area out should the need to leave arise, and also to ensure the colony's housing and farms don't get in the way of any future use of the ship.
The housing is quite basic. Mostly lumber, simple alum ceramics, particle board, glass, and concrete. Looking like something from almost three centuries ago in the eyes of your people. Still. The Lineages each get their own common compound with a ring of tenement-style apartments and a common area with gardens made from seeds of what your people have already begun to call "Old Earth". This 'rustic' feeling is however offset by the more modern bits and bobs that are found here and there. Lighting, heat pumps, and power -- drawn from the colony ship's fusion reactors -- provided by the use of superconducting cables the fabbers were able to spit out mostly from pine tar. Originally a Markab technology that the Centauri traded to Earth a decade ago.
Despite the scouts finding a fairly large number of wild edibles in the vicinity of the colony, you decided to override Wanda Runningdeer's suggestion to eat off of the land or use open-air farming as a method of "embracing" Kithhame more fully. The unsettling nature of the forested areas made you feel that it would be too great a morale-hit to the general community to have to scavenge or plant in the open. While you would not forbid the practice, you decided to make more use of the seeds that you had brought with you from Earth. In what was more of a concession to the desire not to have more of an ecological footprint than necessary than anything else, you decided to have some of the cleared area set aside for a more mechanized farming setup; use of greenhouses, hydroponics, and aeroponics that would be almost more suitable for asteroid or artificial habitats than planetary colonies, but no less effective for all the same.
The general optimism of having definitively established creature comforts and a place to call our own has resulted in a number of the ... less vigorously employed ... colonists finding alternative means of passing the time. Enthusiastically. While this was met with smirks and compersion for the most part, nobody at all was surprised by the births that happened over the course of the year.
Results:
-- Housing is generously supplied for the colonists. Food production easily meets the needs of the colony. (1 Basic Unit of housing, for now, is enough to easily house 250 people. 1 Food Unit is ~250 human-years' worth of food. These numbers will be subject to revision in future turns. 10 new children born over the course of the year will not result on food shortages.)
Military:
-- Use one autofabber to build infantry gear to hunt large wildlife and secure the area of the colony. Clear approaches to the colony to establish good sight-lines and use the third autofabber for a watchtower.
While it was necessary to scavenge from the ship's on-board resources to set up the bilpro rifles and personal protective gear and "watch" drones and tower, the decision to do so was widely regarded as quite sensible given the feeling of general uncertainty and low-key dread the forest gave. Nobody was quite willing to say it was out-and-out haunted. There was no sense of hostility. But still; better safe than sorry.
Mostly comprised of a couple dozen regular volunteers and whoever Mira decided was lazy enough that week to need a refresher course -- your wife had been a Sergeant in the MRA back in the day -- the reserve militia also doubled as hunters to gather a more varied diet for the colonists, and to put people's minds at ease with the 'haunted' nature of the forest. At first, the hunting itself did not go spectacularly well. For some reason, the local fauna was almost impossible to spot if you were a hunter. Scouts had little issue, as did laborers, but hunters? Nothing.
Wondering if perhaps their natures as telepaths was making their intention more clear than they'd intended somehow -- even after a century there was much humanity still didn't know about telepathy and psionics in general -- Mira decided to equip a few of the watch drones with bilpro single-shot rifles. Sure enough, the drones were able to find plenty of scaled-deer and semi-flightless owl-turkeys (not that this is what they actually were, but the local wildlife was just close enough to those things.) that made for good eating, that the colony's foodstocks were buffed up.
Needless to say, your wife and the militia devotees took this as incentive to start working ever-harder on concealing their psychic presence.
Results:
-- Watchtower and armed sentinal drones established. The general area is cleared of any possible predators you can find. There is something very strange with the forest.
Personal:
-- Work with a few of the better clairvoyant teeps to check if we're alone, and any imminent dangers.
After several months of putting up with the weirdness, you decide to put your skills to the test. There has to be something out there and it almost certainly is psychically aware. The 'haunted' nature of the forest just doesn't happen without there being something underneath it, and sometime after the hot season (you refuse to call it 'winter' when you can wear shorts) -- you and a few of the more skilled 'clairvoyants' amongst your colonists decide to form a choir and try to get to the bottom of things.
It's a common misconception that telepaths require line-of-sight to interact with the minds of another. While there is truth to this, it's also a matter of degrees. Physical contact makes reading and affecting easier than line of sight, and line-of-sight makes reading easier than a more wide-area reading.
But if all you are doing is trying to get a sense of presence, even if you're doing it through walls of lead or over the area of kilometers -- well, that's clairvoyance. Vague impressions of the presences in an area, utterly useless in an urban setting but invaluable when doing search and rescue for lost hikers in the wilderness, your people put this less practiced skill to use. And you certainly discover something.
There are minds out there. You are in fact not alone on Kithhame.
But ... they are ... small. Frail. Vulnerable. Oh-so-very limited. But also ... connected. Your circle of clairvoyants, escorted by Mira and her men, follow the sense of a fragile web to one of the "knots" or "clusters" even as it obviously tries to avoid your attention and move away as you approach, until you feel a sense of realization and acceptance settle into a small cluster.
The animals you discover are ... not what you expected. Individually, the creatures are barely even qualified to count as pre-sapient. Some kind of hive-mind of reptilian monkeys -- one of your colonists laughingly says they're like kobolds from the games he played as a kid, and the name stuck.
The woods, it turns out, are home to several 'hive-tribes' of the creatures. And herein lie a dilemma: even as a hive, the creatures are astonishingly simple. But once they begin to get to know you and your people, the fear and 'haunted' nature of the forest dies down remarkably.
It seems that simply by being in their presence, their web wants to entangle your people into itself. It's almost laughably easy for your people to completely dominate a small knot of four or five kobolds' minds. Even the weakest teep amongst you -- a low P3 -- can handle two as though they were extensions of herself without a strain. You? You could handle an entire tribe-unit.
You could use the work-force, certainly. But should you? These creatures are incapable -- even collectively -- of working out things like making simple wooden spears or knapping flint. But despite their diminutive stature, they have the necessary manual dexterity and an almost eagerness to submit themselves to even the weakest of your people.
But should you? Even if they want you to -- do you have the right?
Results:
-- Pre-sapient race "forest kobolds" discovered. Individually barely smarter than clever dogs, their small "tribal-unit" hives barely qualify as 'pre-sapient'. Their hives seem to want to submit themselves to you -- is this the most rapid domestication in history? Their anatomical capacity to full human-like manual dexterity would make the colony wildly more successful. Or they could be left alone and perhaps encouraged to develop on their devices, albeit at the pace of natural evolution no one making this decision would live to see its consequences whatever they may be.
There are advocates for both strategies amongst your people. Do you take a more balanced approach, or wholesale buy into one or the other?
---------------------------------------------
Votes by plan, please:
Each turn is 1 year.
1 Action in each category, only write-ins for now while the dust settles and interest is shown.
Kobold Decision:
(Adopt/domesticate the mossy scaleybois? Work to avoid entanglement? Some balance between the two?)
[]
Industry:
(Agricultural, economic, and residential leadership actions go here.)
[]
Military:
(Militia, naval, wartime, and such go here.)
[]
Exploration:
(Scouting, mapping, resource survey type actions go here.)
[]
Research:
(Pulling schematics for practical application out of the colony ship's AI, discovering new techniques, biotech, and so on.)
[]
Diplomacy:
(Internal or external diplomatic actions. Building community, negotiating trade deals, and so on.)
[]
Personal:
(Things you do yourself.)
[]
Scheduled vote count started by Logos01 on Apr 20, 2024 at 12:22 AM, finished with 22 posts and 6 votes.
[X] Plan: It's a brave new world
- [x] Kobolds
-- [x] Get them used to is by letting them mingle in the colony.
-[X] Industry:
--[X] Start mining operations (1 autofabber) and water filtration/purification plants, as well as sewage maint. (1 autofabber)
-[X] Military:
--[X] Produce more watch drones and set up a local sensor grid, keep watch over the surrounding areas, and create an orbital network of locator and weather satellites to give warning of storms. (1 autofabber)
-[X] Exploration:
--[X] Do an in-depth study of the local fauna & flora, as well as the local climate and biosphere, and try to predict any future problems that might arise. Determine likely floodplains and what is vulnerable to tropical weather. (We are in the tropics.)
-[X] Research:
--[X] Look up ecological mining, and food storage . Research power systems and requirements.
-[X] Diplomacy:
--[X] Establish arbitration with some of the teeps to keep things fair internally. We don't really need police or courts yet, but we want to lay the foundations of fairness and justice.
-[X] Personal:
--[X] Work with the Council to set up a registry/census, and try to figure out the people's long-term needs, wants, skills/education, etc.
[X] Plan: Establishing the Basics
-[X] Industry:
--[X] Establish a water filtration/purification plant, and use any leftover time to work on roads and vehicles, 2 autofabbers.
-[X] Military:
--[X] Produce more watch drones and set up a local sensor grid, keep watch over the surrounding areas, and work with the exploration team to aid their studies once complete, 1 autofabber.
-[X] Exploration:
--[X] Do an in-depth study of the local fauna & flora, as well as the local climate and biosphere, and try to predict any future problems that might arise.
-[X] Research:
--[X] See how to best store food over long periods in this climate, focus on trying to prevent spoilage and disease.
-[X] Diplomacy:
--[X] Establish a small community police to deal with any civil disputes and keep order.
-[X] Personal:
--[X] Work with the Council to set up a registry/census, and try to figure out the people's long-term needs, wants, skills/education, etc.
- Colonization Basics.
Can build Tier 0 "Basic" basic facilities with autofabber action.
- Energy Production Tier 1
Can design specialty Tier 1 facilities for power production. Most will require a Basic Autofactory.
- Ecological Architecture.
Can perform special actions to modify buildings to better perform or integrate better with local environment. (Example: "Storm Hardening").
Colonies:
Kithhame
Population:
Humans: 1 Unit (~270 people)
Kobolds: 3 Units
Planetary status:
Marginally habitable. Indigenous wildlife obviously alien but at times oddly familiar.
Planetary Storms hit every 5 years. (2072,2077,2082, etc.. Causes -1 to all facilities that turn. Chance of facility loss.)
1 Basic Minerals deposit found (Lightly Exploited).
Colonization status:
One landed converted Centauri cargo hauler. No jump-engine, but the previous owner never removed the on-board grav plating.
1 Basic housing complex.
Economic status:
3 "lightly pre-owned" Centauri-make autofabbers.
1 Basic Greenhouse Farm. +2 Food, -0 Energy
1 Basic Mine Complex. +2 Minerals, -0 Energy
Kobolds:
-- Get them used to is by letting them mingle in the colony.
The decision about what to do with the "Kobolds" nearly split the colony apart. The Grays and Ironhearts wanted everyone to avoid the creatures and were talking about cracking down hard on anyone who dared try to exploit them. Things almost came to a loggerheads when one of the hunting teams was discovered to be using them for foraging and as bloodhounds for catching more game.
It was almost the first disaster under your watch -- the Grays and Ironhearts were furious for a while, and would not accept any input from the team themselves. You ultimately ordered the team to take over the graveyard shift on the watchtowers for a month and otherwise confined to quarters for the entire time. It wasn't perfect, but it did drive home a very important lesson: you needed a set of rules that everyone could actually agree on -- or at least a formal way to decide what was and wasn't okay, because Mira left you sleeping on the couch for a week since you didn't back her up in defending her men.
The situation became even worse when it was discovered that one of the more mischevious hives had worked out how to sneak into the greenhouses and was laboring alongside the workers there. Again the Grays had called for blood, and it wasn't until the matter was explained that the workers had tried to shoo the creatures out of the hive no less than three times before finally giving up and adopting some as mascots -- never actually assigning them tasks but praising the animals when they very clearly wanted to be friendly and were simply expressing that.
And that would become the compromise for handling the animals; it would be permitted for a colonist to 'adopt' a single "kobold", but only if the creature approached the colonist -- and heaven help you if the Grays found out you had been abusing or exploiting the creature. The Kobolds of course had other ideas about how this dynamic would work out, as nobody had really thought through what it meant that they were a genuinely hiveminded organism -- adopting a single kobold meant allowing a bond between a person and a hive. The minds of individual kobolds were almost completely indistinct from each other; short of physically tagging them it was really impossible to tell one from another.
Over the course of a few months this would settle down into a more feasible dynamic; as the humans organised themselves along Family lines, the kobolds started to do so as well, establishing a hive per family by digging out a barrow on the given Family compound, and in short order it was quite common to see gaggles of the creatures following one or another group as they went about their business.
The Kobolds would mostly be warned away from anything truly dangerous, and otherwise the clear intent was to simply share space with them. This didn't stop the creatures from almost predictively mimicking the scouts, guards, and laborers as they went about their work -- it seemed that the hivemind structure tuned the creatures to anticipate the needs of the collective, and since no matter how well shielded the colonists' minds were, there were frequently traces of what someone doing something that needed doing that would echo telepathically ... the creatures would pick up on that and perform the task alongside the human, if they had the means.
Result:
-- "Kobold pets" perk acquired: 3 Kobold pops, all self-sufficient, and will fulfill up to 50% of staffing requirements for any non-automated facilities. Cannot perform research. Cannot perform diplomacy. Where applicable, perk will increase facility yields by +1/turn.
Industry:
-- Start mining operations (1 autofabber) and water filtration/purification plants, as well as sewage maint. (1 autofabber)
The colony was able to breath a sigh of relief when the mine came "online", such as it were. A simple system of a resin-bound gravel surface on beach-sand was used to lay down a vehicle track between the colony landing sight and the mine, and many once-idle hands were made all the more diligent. The mineshaft itself wasn't a complicated affair -- mostly just an open pit that was created by drilling down boreholes and filling with tubes of bilpro and detonated, so the material could be hauled back by hand until enough ore was gathered to set up an electric lorry and some proper drilling and shaft protection could be set up. If anything the hardest part was keeping the 'bolds out of the pit, since they couldn't really understand the concept of "danger close". Setting minders to attempt to guide the creatures towards minding how the ore was stored in shacks or loaded into and off of the lorry seemed to do the trick, however. Everybody was quite studious about keeping them from any genuinely dangerous areas, actually -- nobody wanted to get yet another moralizing earful out of the Grays about the subject, especially not when they actually agreed with said Family on the issue.
One of the first things that was done with the new minerals output -- was to set up a proper nanoparticulate filtration system for the colony's water and sewer output. This significantly reduced the possibility of unknown diseases affecting the colonists ... or the local ecology being contaminated by unprocessed waste. You had to admit that drinking your first sip of water that hadn't been someone's urine the day before was ... quite pleasant. Especially since this represented yet another step of true self-sufficiency, as you were no longer running off of rain catchment and the ship's processing facilities.
Result:
-- Basic Mine established. Kobold pets perk increases output to +2 Minerals. Basic Housing can now sustain 2 Pops thanks to proper water processing (improved hygiene, luxuries, denser housing structures thanks to modern plumbing). Basic Greenhouses will now yield +2 Food thanks to abundant water supply.
Military:
-- Produce more watch drones and set up a local sensor grid, keep watch over the surrounding areas, and create an orbital network of locator and weather satellites to give warning of storms. (1 autofabber)
About halfway through the year, the Runningdeers came to you and mentioned something -- the kobold hives seemed to be increasingly studious about the barrows they were building for themselves in the housing complexes. No longer mere dirt tunnels, they'd taken to gathering rocks and tree-branches and building something akin to beaver dams only beneath the surface. It seemed an odd thing, but the diffuse nature of the hiveminds made it almost impossible for anyone to really communicate with them the way you would a human mind. Glimpses, flashes, and impulses were all they could really convey to your people.
But that was still enough to give your intuition a malaise. Having more watch drones built up to expand to a wider area so you could confirm your suspicions, you discovered that the more remote kobolds and creatures were also bunkering down. This information was enough to make a rather critical decision. You allocated most of the mineral yield that was available from the new mines to a new task -- establishing a battery supply to keep the colony running for a day, and building orbital satellites that could be deployed by taking the colony ship into the black. Simple radar/lidar scopes with the most basic of tachycom functionality, they would transmit their data back to the surface.
You'd barely landed when the telemetry was confirmed: The tropical belts of the planet were almost a solid ring of storm fronts. Based on the data you were seeing, the entire planet would be engulfed in a global month-long storm, working down from the poles to the equator over the course of two months. A scientific marvel, certainly, but for your people it was just short of a horror-show.
There was simply no way the structures your people had made the previous year would survive the severity of the storms. The ship was in fine fettle to take your people up, and you could pack away the more complex machinery you'd already made -- with the amount of warning you now had, there was no concern that your people were at risk of tragedy. And ironically it turned out your chosen landing site was actually one of the better places to weather the storms.
You'd just not built with such weather systems in mind.
Result:
-- Watch drones and weather satellite system deployed. Major disaster barely averted. Basic Greenhouse and Basic Housing destroyed, but no pops or reserves lost. The simple nature of the mine means it would remain functional.
Exploration:
-- Do an in-depth study of the local fauna & flora, as well as the local climate and biosphere, and try to predict any future problems that might arise. Determine likely floodplains and what is vulnerable to tropical weather. (We are in the tropics.)
The uncanny valley effect of the "should be arboreal, but is actually tropical" evergreens and hanging mosses of the natural climate your original landing site is located in is surveyed to a much broader degree. You'd chosen, initially, a fairly flat place to land that was out of the way of any major jetstreams or tidal risks -- the heavily forested nature of the area a well-understood ecological niche that was well-sheltered from major issues.
This was as it turned out just not quite prescient enough to get the job done. There were other possible locations your people might relocate to, but there was no indication they'd be much better than what you'd initially chosen. The northern and southern latitudes would be even harder -- largely barren and windswept, their storm cycles being much more frequent than the equatorial belt area. It does get fairly easy to identify flood-plains when they can be observed actually flooding, however, as your people make their way back down after The Storm.
There is one oddity of the local plant and animal life however: there is very little in the way of poisonous or venomous biology. Not merely to humans, but also in terms of where you would expect to find it in Earth-like ecological niches.
Result:
-- Local ecology better understood. Easier time foraging/scavenging. Climate cycle data added to weather data after storm is ended shows planetary storms occur once every 5 years. While there are other sites for new cities to be built, your initial landing site is not in any observable way superior or inferior to any of them. Plus, your people had built ties of friendship with the local Kobolds... it didn't seem right to just leave them to their fate even if there was no room for any on the colony ship.
Research:
-- Look up ecological mining, and food storage . Research power systems and requirements.
The time spent aboard the colony ship waiting for the weather to stop being obnoxious is a time spent in contemplation and meditation for the most part. People reminisce old fond memories and share them, imagine constructed scenarios from old stories and retell them to each other in chorus, and generally while away the time. The Namikazes however are more ... industrious ... with their time. After Wanda Runningdeer's self-recriminations in not noticing the stormsigns sooner given the time her people and the Alexanders spent hunting and patrolling the forest, the rest of the colony realized that the old Earther mentality of humanity being utterly dominant over nature just ... didn't hold anymore.
You'd have to "share space" as it were, for Kithhame was not a tame or timid planet. It was wild and would not submit. Nor should it be made to.
The rest of their time was spent scouring the database for ways to build in harmony with rather than in contest against nature, as well as how to be more robustly prepared against the challenges your new world could send your way. One particular design that Michio rather latched onto was the so-called "storm dissipator" model solar power satellite. By shifting from water-transparent to water-heating EM frequencies, solar satellites and reflectors could shift from providing power to receiving stations without affecting weather to disrupting storm cells and breaking up storm fronts as they formed.
Results:
-- New builds will have eco-friendly/eco-hardened character. Will affect caps on structures, but will also avoid ecological impacts over time. New power facility able to be built: Basic Stormlight System. +2 Energy/turn. -2 Minerals. Reduces severity of stormy weather for targeted areas of planet. Requires orbital lift capacity to deploy/maintain.
Diplomacy:
-- Establish arbitration with some of the teeps to keep things fair internally. We don't really need police or courts yet, but we want to lay the foundations of fairness and justice.
The incident with the Grays and the hunters made it clear -- you can't just make arbitrary decisions when things go pear-shaped and expect everyone to be happy about it. If nothing else, that way lies tyranny. It may not be glamorous, but the lines between the various families is getting more clear as time goes by. While having diversity of thought and opinion is a good thing -- nobody wants to be the lockstepped jackbooted thugs of the Psi Corps, the simple matter is that there aren't enough of you and disaster is simply too close with no help coming. You're all in this together.
Over the course of the months the follow The Storm, you get together with the Matriarchs and make it clear that you are deeply concerned about what might have happened if someone had refused to leave their home behind -- or, heavens forbid, an entire Family had. Or if someone else were found exploiting the kobolds. Or something even worse. After discussing the issue with them, you get them all to agree formally and publicly that the Council will at times of dispute or in the face of the need for justice follow a formal and transparent process for making decisions.
The Lineages and their Clan Matriarchs was working for the most part so far -- it just needed a formal charter around it to smooth some of the edges. The Grays actually took to this notion with some aplomb, what with their tendency to get lost in historical minutiae. You supposed it took their minds off of the hardship of these last few months, and gave people something to focus on. They would eventually work up a Colony Charter that established Family Meetings, the need to take meeting notes and a process for a family to ask (require) a Matriarch to step down should the family in question decide she wasn't doing a good enough job.
You weren't sure what to make of the fact that they wanted to call you the All-Father though -- except that you managed to talk them down to Lead Patriarch. Still too pretentious, but at least it wasn't ... that.
Results:
-- First steps towards formal government of Kithhame established. Possible inter-family disputes given peaceful path to resolution. Something to call yourself should alien explorers make first contact with you.
Personal:
--Work with the Council to set up a registry/census, and try to figure out the people's long-term needs, wants, skills/education, etc.
While the need for seeing this done is more apparent than ever given The Storm, the simple fact that everyone's minds are mostly on it. There's some dispute over whether or not to split the colony into two locations, but that's nipped fairly quickly by Mawmaw Ironheart who points out there's only one colony ship.
Generally speaking the Matriarchs take this notion into hand and feed you back something of a report based on each Lineage's tendencies:
Alexanders
Militarists, Leadership,
Grays
Moralizers, Freedom, Fairness, Historians
Runningdeers
Environmentalist, Individualist, Secretive
Ironhearts
Practicality, Cooperation
Stoners
Cunning, Trade, Word-as-Honor
Namikawas
Technophile, Beauty, Communal
They explain their family's tendencies in more lengthy terms of course, but those keywords are good terms to describe their generalized sentiment. Teep families differ from mundanes in this regard -- the constant sharing of inner thoughts and the strength with which values are adhered to causes synchronization.
As to the personal skills -- your people were not hand-picked for their abilities, and being underground "criminals" who chose separation rather than violence, there wasn't much opportunity for real training or higher education. What skills your people have are often more a matter of sentiment and preference than actual knowledge -- memories and lived experiences can be shared from one individual to the next as needed with a bit of careful telepathic effort. Mira, your wife, for example -- she joined the Telepath Underground when the charter for the Psi Corps made it clear that it was now illegal for a telepath to be a member of the EarthGov military and thus her lifelong career as a noncom was over. Those skills and perspectives have been shared over time with the other members of the Alexander Family and the militia members. The actual training of militia work for your people thus largely boils down to physical fitness training and adjusting her memories of shooting to a different body-type.
Results:
-- Description of the Families' 'character' as keywords for planning. Immediate wants boil down to "rebuild". Next turn will include "Rumors" section showing what would make each Family happy or what they're most upset about. (OOC: Census for personal skills is not the scope I'm hoping to run here. Think civilization builder not Swiss Family Robinson.)
Votes by plan, please:
Each turn is 1 year.
1 Action in each category, only write-ins for now while the dust settles and interest is shown.
Industry:
(Agricultural, economic, and residential leadership actions go here.)
[]
Military:
(Militia, naval, wartime, and such go here.)
[]
Exploration:
(Scouting, mapping, resource survey type actions go here.)
[]
Research:
(Pulling schematics for practical application out of the colony ship's AI, discovering new techniques, biotech, and so on.)
[]
Diplomacy:
(Internal or external diplomatic actions. Building community, negotiating trade deals, and so on.)
[]
Personal:
(Things you do yourself.)
[]
Scheduled vote count started by Logos01 on Apr 22, 2024 at 10:28 AM, finished with 39 posts and 6 votes.
[X] Plan: Build it better.
-[X] Industry
--[X] Rebuild the structures we lost in an hardened way, with hardened tunnels during storm season. Set up some batteries and a basic warehouse(2 autofabbers) Increase production to keep up with pace of consumption and later building.
-[X] Military
--[X] Set up workshop classes for practical skills.
-[X] Exploration
--[X] Map further out in concentric circles. Look for deposits, and such. Rank them in vulnerability to storms and needed mitigation measures.
-[X] Research
--[X] Look up orbital shuttles, start designing and storing an defense network for later use (i.e prep it for when it's needed), and finally, vehicles. Build curricula for groups, including adults who may want to increase their skills. And.. building a secured mostly underground building that can resist the storms.
-[X] Diplomacy
--[X] Set up community spaces, keeping in mind the weather (1 autofabber)
-[X] Personal
--[X] Work on the research goals.
[X] Plan: No Bicycles Allowed.
-[X] Industry
--[X] Rebuild the structures we lost, the Greenhouse and Hab Complexes, then set up some batteries for energy storage, 2 autofabbers.
-[X] Military
--[X] Set up workshops and classes for people to learn practical skills like wilderness survival, first aid, how to use a gun, etc.
-[X] Exploration
--[X] Start a survey to produce detailed maps of the planet, and watch for areas that might be useful for further expansion.
-[X] Research
--[X] Research orbital shuttles and long-range all-terrain vehicles to transport both resources and people.
-[X] Diplomacy
--[X] Set up a few community spaces for people to enjoy their free time and socialize more, a park, library, canteen, etc, 1 autofabber.
-[X] Personal
--[X] Host a feast/party for the colony, to celebrate our progress so far and encourage people to look towards the future. (How do I encourage people to procreate in a way that doesn't sound creepy AF???)
Military Assets:
-- Basic Reservist Militia.
-- Basic Watch Drones.
- Colonization Basics.
Can build Tier 0 "Basic" basic facilities with autofabber action.
- Defense Basics.
Can build basic military gear, both personal and semi-autonomous drones.
- Energy Production Tier 1
Can design specialty Tier 1 facilities for power production. Most will require a Basic Autofactory.
- Ecological Architecture.
Can perform special actions to modify buildings to better perform or integrate better with local environment. (Example: "Storm Hardening").
- Kobold Veterancy Archives.
Eliminates potential unskilled labor penalties. Grants +1 bonus to tasks requiring extreme skill (combat rolls, medical performance, etc.,)
Tier 0:
- Basic Autofab: -1 Energy Prod. Allows 1 Autofab Action/turn. Cost: 1 Autofab Action. 2 Minerals.
- Basic Militia Gear. Allows 1 pop to perform military actions. Cost: 1 Autofab Action. 1 Minerals.
- Basic Hab Complexes. +1 Pop Cap. Cost: 1 Autofab Action.
- Basic Greenhouses. +1 Food Prod. Cost: 1 Autofab Action.
- Basic Mines: +1 Minerals Prod. Cost: 1 Autofab Action.
- Basic Lumber Camp: Reduces non-pop food costs by up to 1 per turn. Cost: 1 Autofab Action.
- Wind/Solar Farm: +1 Energy Prod. Cost: 2 Minerals. Up to 1 Autofab Action (build multiple with 1 action.) (Cannot be Storm Hardened.)
- Syngas Reactor: +1-3 Energy/-1-3 Food Prod. Cost: 2 Minerals. 1 Autofab Action.
- Basic Autofactory: -2 Energy Prod. Allows 3 Autofab Actions OR 1 Autofactory Action. Cost: 2 Autofab Action. 5 Minerals.
- Gunshuttle. -1 Energy Prod. Allows 1 Orbital Operation /turn. Cost: 2 Autofab Actions. 10 Minerals. 10% chance of shuttle loss each Operation.
Industry:
-- Rebuild the structures we lost in an hardened way, with hardened tunnels during storm season. Set up some batteries and a basic warehouse(2 autofabbers) Increase production to keep up with pace of consumption and later building.
The colony's previous research into ecologically viable building and applying that to better surviving the storms resulted in the initial attempts at rebuilding to get frozen as the Namikazes produced a design that was viable thanks to the Centauri autofabs having higher precision than Earth's equivalents. By deploying a structural plastic 'mesh' that standard concrete could then be poured into, the product would be a form of "plascrete" that was by all measures more than up to the task of withstanding the penta-annual storms.
A series of bunkers designed to ensure that your people would be able to ride out the worst of the storms was then built in the place of the previous Hab Complex and Greenhouse. These new "Storm Hardened" facilities were more cramped due to the extensively reinforced walls and need to ensure that during the worst storms a colonist would not need to go to the surface for any purpose, but they got the job done. Even if it was a bit weird to see a greenhouse with 10 centimeter thick roofing made of transparent armaplas.
You may have gone a little overboard with ensuring the colony's "doomsday prepping" when it came to the storage capacities however -- especially as you wound up dipping into the autofab time that was supposed to have been allocated to building communal areas for the Families to still be able to intermingle without having to leave the colony.
Still, all in all it did work out. You were confident the echoing emptiness of the warehouse block would be replaced with cramped passageways and stuffed to the brim shelving any day now.
Military:
-- Set up workshop classes for practical skills.
Combined with Research and Personal Action.
Exploration:
-- Map further out in concentric circles. Look for deposits, and such. Rank them in vulnerability to storms and needed mitigation measures.
The new arts of loaning skills between members of the colony (see Research Action) is put to the test in a practical exercise as the scouts are sent out with the best available ecological and geological understanding that they can hold onto for the trip. The results are a significant gain over what might have been found otherwise. Not only were two additional viable minerals deposits found, but a hillside bog was discovered to have a native flora that strongly resembled peat on Earth, but with a twist -- an analysis of the biology of the plant was shown to have developed a survival mechanism in response to the penta-annual planetary storms in the form of undergoing hypergrowth when its ponds are struck by lightning. With a bit of management and the right equipment, this could be a massive boon to the colony's need for biomass.
-- Results:
2 New Minerals Deposits found. 1 "Storm Peat" Deposit found. (KVA resulted in increased yield.)
Research:
-- Look up orbital shuttles, start designing and storing an defense network for later use (i.e prep it for when it's needed), and finally, vehicles. Build curricula for groups, including adults who may want to increase their skills. And.. building a secured mostly underground building that can resist the storms.
There are ... a number ... of orbital shuttle designs in the database. Unfortunately, almost all of them require fusion reactors -- albeit small ones -- in order to operate. To say nothing of the onboard computers and the like that would be required to make them viable. That doesn't stop the youngest Namikaze from coming at things from a slightly different angle, however. While it would be limited in function and scale, the old Lunar Colony shuttle designs were kept in the historical databases. With just a "little tweaking", he promised, the colony's bilpro synthesizer could be scaled up to provide enough delta-v to make for an interplanetary shuttle.
One of those tweaks, mind you, included retrofiting the cockpit to have shock absorbers. But it wouldn't need fusion reactors to get you to interplanetary range.
In the meantime, in a rare moment of synchronicity that nobody could really put a focus on, all of your people decided to come together to start working on making the skillsharing telepathic techniques you were relying on more effective. To accomplish this, not only did everyone pitch in to assemble a fitness course and marksmanship exercises, but some of your old MRA teep "hardening" training was included. The recent near-misses with possible loss of life had made you more concerned about loss of the skills and knowledge your people had won in the recent years, or had brought with you from Old Earth. It was the Grays, of all people, who finally proposed a solution for this problem: the kobolds.
As it turned out, the Grays had been attempting to plumb the depth of the kobold hive-minds in terms of how much of their own history they really understood and remembered. And what they discovered as a result of this was that to a certain extent much of the memory of incidents was not stored in any one kobolds' mind, but in the network itself. And while the hives could not understand information that a human mind allowed into that network, a different human could later on retrieve it. Thanks to this, and the closeness that your people had come to share with the animals as a result of intermingling, your people could literally "pick up" not just task specific memories, but also shards of mindset and styles of thought. This would allow even the most uneducated member of the colony -- as long as they had a kobold nearby whose hive had the relevant expertise in its network -- to act as a proper expert in a given function while "holding" the mind-imprint.
-- Results:
Gained: Gunshuttle Design. Tier 0. Not for the faint of heart. Despite name, not militarized. "Look at me. You are the bullet now."
Gained: Kobold Veterancy Archives. Eliminates possible skill penalties, tasks requiring expertise/veterency get +1 bonus.
Diplomacy:
-- Set up community spaces, keeping in mind the weather (1 autofabber)
Given the need for safe warehousing being greater than the perceived need for communal spaces, and the Hab Complexes having these already, in the end this plan was not exactly perfectly carried out even though people did give it their best go. A series of open tents and handmade wooden tables and games were created without access to the autofabber that was allocated to warehousing.
All in all, the various families decided they rather liked the idea of having a get-together to enjoy the weather once a month or so to just keep up with each other, and avoid becoming too insular. Not to mention that getting out into the sun and watching the sky on a clear and pleasant warm day really made it sink in how Kithhame was everyone's "forever home" -- in a way that made some of the dread from The Storm wear off.
And if you turn a blind eye to the occassional poker game where "favors" are traded between consenting adults under a beautiful starlit sky ... it's mostly because you're distracted by Mira. In a good way.
Result:
-- Colonial unity strengthened. Open-air bazaars chosen for monthly inter-family meetings/bar-b-q/excuse-to-get-drunk. Stoner Family much happier now that some minor trade -- if only for handmade tchotchkies and luxury foods -- has allowed them to start angling for profit.
Personal:
-- Work on the research goals.
See Research Action above.
Votes by plan, please:
Each turn is 1 year.
1 Action in each category, only write-ins for now while the dust settles and interest is shown.
Industry:
(Agricultural, economic, and residential leadership actions go here.)
[]
Military:
(Militia, naval, wartime, and such go here.)
[]
Exploration:
(Scouting, mapping, resource survey type actions go here.)
[]
Research:
(Pulling schematics for practical application out of the colony ship's AI, discovering new techniques, biotech, and so on.)
[]
Diplomacy:
(Internal or external diplomatic actions. Building community, negotiating trade deals, and so on.)
[]
Personal:
(Things you do yourself.)
[]
Scheduled vote count started by Logos01 on Apr 24, 2024 at 5:30 PM, finished with 58 posts and 4 votes.
[X] Plan: Year 4, Still Setting Up.
--[X] Build mine in Storm Peat, Build Greenhouse. (2 autofabbers) *If* we get to 10 minerals, build a secured autofactory. If not, build vehicles and intensify production in existing mine. (last autofabber)
--[X] Hunt, gather more experience with guns
-- [X] Work with the military, but really, maybe see what fish are in nearby oceans? See if they're edible?
-- [X] Look up iron wombs, alternate launch systems and health care infrastructure we can do now and how to grow. Let them research what they want after that. Who knows what they'll find?
-- [X] We're a new colony. What about our festivals? Should we make new ones? Discuss a charter/list of rights we guarantee, discuss iron wombs for consensual use by families.
-- [X] Asteroid mining. Go on a date with Mira.
[X] Plan: Too Tired For Name.
--[X] Build mine in Storm Peat, 1 autofabber *If* we get to 10 minerals, build a secured autofactory. If not, build vehicles and another mine on one of the mineral deposits, 1 autofabber for both.
--[X] Set up a framework for a more formal and organized defense force, keeping further expansion in mind. Organize a more structured training regimen for new recruits/interested civilians.
-- [X] While the colony ship is back in space, use its sensors to map the planet in more detail. Hunt for more food in the leftover/spare time.
-- [X] Look up iron wombs, health care infrastructure, and better/higher quality autofabbers.
-- [X] Focus on building more amenities and storm-hardened communal spaces, 1 autofabber, use food form storm-hardened. Discuss a charter/list of rights we guarantee, and discuss iron wombs for consensual use by families.
-- [X] Asteroid mining. Go on a date with Mira.
Military Assets:
-- Basic Reservist Militia.
-- Basic Watch Drones.
- Colonization Basics.
Can build Tier 0 "Basic" basic facilities with autofabber action.
- Defense Basics.
Can build basic military gear, both personal and semi-autonomous drones.
- Energy Production Tier 1
Can design specialty Tier 1 facilities for power production. Most will require a Basic Autofactory.
- Ecological Architecture.
Can perform special actions to modify buildings to better perform or integrate better with local environment. (Example: "Storm Hardening").
- Kobold Veterancy Archives.
Eliminates potential unskilled labor penalties. Grants +1 bonus to tasks requiring extreme skill (combat rolls, medical performance, etc.,)
Tier 0:
- Basic Autofab: -1 Energy Prod. Allows 1 Autofab Action/turn. Cost: 1 Autofab Action. 2 Minerals.
- Basic Militia Gear. Allows 1 pop to perform military actions. Cost: 1 Autofab Action. 1 Minerals.
- Basic Hab Complexes. +1 Pop Cap. Cost: 1 Autofab Action.
- Basic Greenhouses. +1 Food Prod. Cost: 1 Autofab Action.
- Basic Mines: +1 Minerals Prod. Cost: 1 Autofab Action.
- Basic Lumber Camp: Reduces non-pop food costs by up to 1 per turn. Cost: 1 Autofab Action.
- Wind/Solar Farm: +1 Energy Prod. Cost: 2 Minerals. Up to 1 Autofab Action (build multiple with 1 action.) (Cannot be Storm Hardened.)
- Syngas Reactor: +1-3 Energy/-1-3 Food Prod. Cost: 2 Minerals. 1 Autofab Action.
- Basic Autofactory: -2 Energy Prod. Allows 3 Autofab Actions OR 1 Autofactory Action. Cost: 2 Autofab Action. 5 Minerals.
- Gunshuttle. -2 Energy Prod. Allows 1 Orbital Operation /turn. Cost: 2 Autofab Actions. 10 Minerals.
- Basic Kelp Farm. +1 Food, -1 Food Cost, -1 Energy Prod. Requires deposit. Cost: 1 Autofab Action, 1 Minerals.
- Build Storm Peat Deposit. Adds a Storm Peat deposit to the planet. Cost: 1 Autofab Action, 10 Food.
Tier 1:
- Basic Fusion Reactor: +2 Energy Prod. Cost: 1 Autofactory Action. 2 Minerals.
- Storm Nullifier Satellites: +2 Energy Prod. Cost: 1 Autofactory Action. 5 Minerals. (Mitigates Storm Turn Penalty.)
- Standard Shuttle: Allows 1 Orbital Operation /turn. Cost: 1 Autofactory Action. 12 Minerals.
- Exowomb Nursery: -2 Energy Prod, -1 Food. Counts as extra pop for Pop Growth calculations. Cost: 1 Autofactory Action. 2 Minerals. 2 Food.
Colonies:
Kithhame
Population:
Humans: 1 Unit (~290 people)
Kobolds: 3 Units
Planetary status:
Marginally habitable. Indigenous wildlife obviously alien but at times oddly familiar.
Planetary Storms hit every 5 years. (2072,2077,2082, etc.. Causes -1 to all facilities that turn. Chance of facility loss.)
3 Basic Minerals deposit found (1 Medium Exploited. 2 Unexploited).
1 "Storm Peat" Deposit Found (1 Lightly Exploited). ( Build mine to produce +1 Energy/turn, -1 Food Cost/turn.)
2 Kelp Forest Deposits Found (2 Unexploited). (Build Kelp Farm to produce +1 Food, -1 Food Cost.)
Industry:
-- Build mine in Storm Peat, Build Greenhouse. (2 autofabbers) *If* we get to 10 minerals, build a secured autofactory. If not, build vehicles and intensify production in existing mine. (last autofabber)
The designs for the Peat Mine were a bit unusual. Building a hardened syngas facility on-site and wiring the peat bogs up with Tesla Coils to simulate frequent lightning strikes was straightforward enough, as was directly feeding the yield into the burners. The surplus result from this was a quantity of energy that could, startlingly, produce nearly as much power as a shuttlecraft-scale fusion reactor, all with dramatically simpler machinery. The energy was sufficient to improve the colony's main mine as well despite it being quite a distance away.
Which was a major reason why you didn't quite "pay attention" when you noticed some of your earthwork vehicles going missing for a couple of weeks along with half of the Stoners. An event you in retrospect really should have paid more attention to even after your superficial inquiry showed they were attempting to construct an artificial Storm Peat deposit near the shoreline. And while their plan could have worked, if they'd had the biomass to start it off in the first place, the reality of what their actions were a cover for was quite the scandal once it was figured out.
-- Results:
Basic Mine built on Storm Peat deposit. 2nd Basic Greenhouse now online. Powered Machinery perk added to Basic Mine (increases Energy Cost by -1, increases production by +1).
Build option gained: Storm Peat Deposit. Cost: 1 Autofab Action, 10 Food. Adds a Storm Peat deposit to the world.
Military:
-- Hunt, gather more experience with guns
It took some time without Mira's help, but the Alexanders in general finally managed to get the "knack" of not merely concealing their telepathic presence -- no, they went a step beyond that to camouflaging their existence telepathically. A sort of "Notice-Me-Not" field, not quite invisibility but the next best thing. Especially when it came to hunting. Another ranging area was cleared of the more dangerous wildlife, and while care was taken to not take too much from any one roaming herd, the need was becoming apparent to cull herds of herbivores lest they start overfeeding.
Exploration:
-- Work with the military, but really, maybe see what fish are in nearby oceans? See if they're edible?
The scouts and explorers' efforts to survey the seas went interestingly to say the least. Entire shoals of plant-animal hybrid organisms were discovered in the relatively near shores. Interestingly, they seemed to have multiple stages of biological/morphological development. At the earliest stage they were not much different than barnacle-like "seed pods" that attached to the underleaves of giant kelp "trees", only to hatch into squid-like tripodal animals roughly the length and size of a human leg where they would bask in the sunlight during the day and delve to consume detritus on the seabed let over from other organisms' decay. After reaching a maximum maturation size, however, they would swim into one another in a cannibalistic furball resulting in a lump that would attach to the seafloor ... and slowly extend a trunk upwards to become new kelp trees.
Oh, and they tasted really great with a bit of lemonpeel shavings or shredded into redsauce.
It was during the efforts of exploring the extent of these "kelp forests" that a second, even greater discovery was made: you were not the first people to colonize this world. An entire city was found, just beneath the waves. Made from a similar material as the kelp trees, it seemed to be comprised of once-living biomechanoid structures. And it was ... not alive, no; not conscious, either. But the whole city had a telepathic presence. The machines themselves were telepathically receptive. Whoever had originally built this place -- rather than use keyboards and screens, they made machines that could receive and convey telepathic messages.
The idea of touching fossilized "minds" that had been dead for longer than the human species existed was a daunting one, but all the more amazing for the sheer truth of it.
The possibilities of what you could learn from this place were just mind-boggling. Not that you expected to do anything more than scratch the absolute surface of the place's abilities in your entire lifetime.
-- Results:
2 nearby kelp forest deposits discovered. (Can build Basic Kelp Farms to exploit for 1 Food, -1 FoodCost. Cost: Autofab action, 1 minerals.) ( 1 Deposit + KVA) Alien Ruins special discovered. (Unlocks biotech, telepathic interface, and cybernetics technology paths for research actions.) (Event Roll bonus.)
Research:
-- Kinda let them look aimlessly, but make sure to look up alternate launch systems and iron wombs.
The discovery of the alien ruins took precedence over other forms of research, for the most part, this year. The underwater city was an amazing complex -- you weren't entirely sure why it was built underwater, given the fact that the buildings and facilities were all quite obviously meant to be occupied by an air-breathing species. Your best guess, based on the datastreams the telepathic computers were willing to divulge, was that the city -- outpost, really -- was meant to study the development of the Kobolds. There were hints that the study was also meant for "economic" purposes; the biomodding vats in the deeper levels of the domed buildings were themselves meant to make sample individuals "more useful" for a highly advanced race.
It was the Namikaze's efforts to try to find analogues to the things they found beneath the waves within the colony's technical database that showed the most progress through the year. A kind of magnetic catapult system that somehow worked even underwater was beyond your people's ability to reproduce, but a far more primitive mag catapult merely to launch shuttles from the surface? That was feasible -- and while it was energy intensive, the harmonic field equations Michio was able to extract from the aliens' launch platforms reduced that cost drastically to the point where it would be feasible for your colony's efforts.
Given other discussions that had happened through the course of the year, such as the Stoners' efforts with their "smuggled" clone vats, the Namikazes found themselves frequently asked about the implications of human cloning and the possible caveats of using it for themselves. What they found in the data archives was agricultural patterns for animal exowombs. This wasn't exactly new technology -- the megacorps liked to use the exowombs for more exotic and carefully engineered animal breeds or meat-and-dairy production purposes. But what was buried beneath the Megacorp-ese was that there was absolutely nothing in the tech that prevented it from being used with people. There were even notes and documentation on the process. As unsettling as it was to realize that many corporate wage-slaves were literally born into servitude on old Earth, the fact remained that this technology was something else you could build for yourselves if you wished to.
-- Results:
Gunshuttle Energy requirement increased by 1. Chance of explosion on operation eliminated.
Exowomb Nursery technology unlocked. (-2 Energy, -1 Food/turn. Each building counts as 1 Pop for pop growth calcs. Cost: 1 Autofactory Action. 2 Minerals. 2 Food.)
- Diplomacy:
-- Establish festivals. Discuss with other families about how best to set up how to use the wombs/if we should later and make sure they're still treated as equal to everyone else.
The colony having survived for over four years, now, and supplies finally starting to come in enough that you could be confident in the future -- the time had come, you and the Matriarchs felt, to establish some official colonial holidays and celebrations. Things were no longer so tight, no longer so uncertain. There was plenty to be had and things were definitely looking upwards. Hell, you weren't even dependent on the colony ship so much anymore. You had a definite future as a people.
This was to be celebrated, and to be considered fully. The celebrations were big hits, even if they were technically also big wastes of food. But it didn't matter -- your people were free.
Of course... the looming threat in the back of everyone's minds was always still there. What would you do when your people finally made contact with humanity again? And it was either that or some other race. There were just so very few of you, but there was simply no way any of your people could even begin to justify the ways of tulhe Psi Corps and its "reproductive regimen". There was a lot of heat over this discussion -- what was the optimal family size, how could the colony afford to have so many of its people unable to work when every hand was needed? Oh, this wasn't a new discussion by any means.
It was Michio's discovery of the cloning vats in the ancient ruins below the sea that truly drove the colonists to discussion -- or, rather, the Stoners' somehow successful attempts to obtain two of the things and power them up to see if they could be made compatible with human beings. They'd not succeeded (thus far), but still. This was no longer a theoretical discussion. Hard-and-true rules were needed. Clones, vatgrown, whatever -- your people needed answers as to how to handle them and they needed these answers now.
Old philosophical thought experiments were written into actual law. The first truly official laws the colony had, and they were about the non-difference between natural and vat-born members of the community; and how the use of exowombs was to be considered just another form of pregnancy with the same rights and considerations and dignities offered to both mother and child.
It said something about the Families, but you weren't quite sure what.
-- Results:
Moral quandaries surrounding the possible use of Exowomb Nurseries reduced significantly. Acceptance rate, should they be implemented, much higher.
Annual holidays and festivals added to monthly meetings, improving colony morale and unity further. (Annual Festivals perk added to colony. -1 Food/turn, ????? Chances reduced 1 tier.)
Personal:
-- Asteroid mining. Go on a date with Mira.
Getting time away from the growing responsibilities of managing the colony as a whole was getting harder and harder. There was just always so much that needed doing. That didn't stop you and Mira from managing to sneak off for a while during the Springfall Festival -- a celebration of your ship making its landing -- to do what young married couples do to let off stress. You'd had an entire picnic planned and everything (and wasn't making that a surprise a challenge!) and found a lovely cove above a cliff-face in the nearby shoreline. The day was just lovely. The season not too hot, nor too cold, with a steady breeze and sea-spray making its way up the cliffs. You could have done without Mira laughing at your attempts to keep up with her pace in the forest undegrowth on the way back home though.
It wasn't until a month or so later that you both felt the initial kindling of new minds within her, and you knew. It wasn't anything you'd specifically planned for, not by a long shot, but it was also something you both could not be more thrilled about. Or terrified about.
You had wanted to make the lifting of the Colony Ship a special event with you and Mira; another chance to get away from it all and reaffirm your marriage. Her pregnancy made that a more difficult affair -- what with how she was having a rougher go of the process than average, even with the medical care your people could provide. You were somewhat thankful for the month or so away -- she had a Drill Sargeant's lungs and her unsual hormone level swings made her completely unafraid to chew your ear off when mood struck.
-- Results:
1d10+1 Minerals harvested. (d10 result == 3. +1 from KVA. )
Mira's pregnancy's resulting in twins -- Juniper and Aspen -- increased the colonist's views of the acceptability of Exowomb tech, due to the roughness of her recovery. ( -1 performance to Military actions this turn due to Mira being laid up. )
Votes by plan, please:
Each turn is 1 year.
1 Action in each category, only write-ins for now while the dust settles and interest is shown.
- [] Industry:
(Agricultural, economic, and residential leadership actions go here.)
-- []
- [] Military:
(Militia, naval, wartime, and such go here.)
-- []
- [] Exploration:
(Scouting, mapping, resource survey type actions go here.)
-- []
- [] Research:
(Pulling schematics for practical application out of the colony ship's AI, discovering new techniques, biotech, and so on.)
-- []
- [] Diplomacy:
(Internal or external diplomatic actions. Building community, negotiating trade deals, and so on.)
-- []
- [] Personal:
(Things you do yourself.)
-- []
Scheduled vote count started by Logos01 on Apr 27, 2024 at 4:57 AM, finished with 28 posts and 8 votes.
[X] Plan: Energy, Education, Morale.
--[X] Build a storm-hardened autofactory in a central location around the colony, 2 autofabbers, 1 food.
--[X] Dedicate one group to culling the herds, another to perfecting the psychic stealth techniques, and another to running security on the alien ruins. Have the second group teach those techniques to the others once they're done, then aid the first group if they're still culling.
-- [X] Explore the alien ruins in detail, but do so very carefully while cataloging everything, ask for some protection details from the militia.
-- [X] Research both psychic and regular educational programs/facilities, and discover the pros and cons of both methods. Help the exploration team with the alien ruins in any spare/free time left over.
-- [X] Build more permanent and storm-hardened communal spaces for people to enjoy their free time, 1 autofabber, and 1 food. Set the Council to organize and set up these spaces as libraries, canteens, sports centers, and theatres as is practical/affordable.
-- [X] Help the exploration team with their study of the alien ruins, keep spending time with Mira when you can.
[X] Plan: Improve the settlement
--[X] Build a storm-hardened autofactory in a central location around the colony, 2 autofabbers, 1 food.
--[X] Hunt and improve techniues, issue a second in comand in case Mina is indisposed gain. We don't wnt a repeat of last year
-- [X] Take the ship and do a system prospection
-- [X] Research both psychic and regular educational programs/facilities, and discover the pros and cons of both methods. Research wht problems the storm nullifier could have.
-- [X] Build more permanent and storm-hardened educational facilities, 1 autofabber, and 1 food. practical/affordable. School, libraries, etc.
-- [X] Also bring up more things that could be usefull but can be... sensitive (Cibernetics, genetherapy, etc. there re mny things that could be Taboo, the sooner that they re brought up, the sooner we can del with them)
-- [X] Help the exploration team with their study of the alien ruins, keep spending time with Mira when you can.
Event Roll: 95 ( <-- not joking, I almost re-rolled this on principle. Ugh.)
Year: 2075
Economy:
Income:
+4 Food Units
+3 Minerals
+2 Energy
Expenses:
-5 Food Units
-5 Minerals
-3 Energy
Reserves:
6/15 Food Units
5/20 Minerals
0/10 Energy
Military Assets:
-- Basic Reservist Militia.
-- Basic Watch Drones.
- Colonization Basics.
Can build Tier 0 "Basic" basic facilities with autofabber action.
- Defense Basics.
Can build basic military gear, both personal and semi-autonomous drones.
- Energy Production Tier 1
Can design specialty Tier 1 facilities for power production. Most will require a Basic Autofactory.
- Ecological Architecture.
Can perform special actions to modify buildings to better perform or integrate better with local environment. (Example: "Storm Hardening").
- Kobold Veterancy Archives.
Eliminates potential unskilled labor penalties. Grants +1 bonus to tasks requiring extreme skill (combat rolls, medical performance, etc.,)
- Psi-Amps (Primitive)
Through the use of electrically charged Psi-Crystals, a telepath can -- very clumsily -- use telekinetic abilities. The surface has barely been scratched with this.
Tier 0:
- Basic Autofab: -1 Energy Prod. Allows 1 Autofab Action/turn. Cost: 1 Autofab Action. 2 Minerals.
- Basic Militia Gear. Allows 1 pop to perform military actions. Cost: 1 Autofab Action. 1 Minerals.
- Basic Hab Complexes. +1 Pop Cap. Cost: 1 Autofab Action.
- Basic Greenhouses. +1 Food Prod. Cost: 1 Autofab Action.
- Basic Mines: +1 Minerals Prod. Cost: 1 Autofab Action.
- Basic Lumber Camp: Reduces non-pop food costs by up to 1 per turn. Cost: 1 Autofab Action.
- Wind/Solar Farm: +1 Energy Prod. Cost: 2 Minerals. Up to 1 Autofab Action (build multiple with 1 action.) (Cannot be Storm Hardened.)
- Syngas Reactor: +1-3 Energy/-1-3 Food Prod. Cost: 2 Minerals. 1 Autofab Action.
- Basic Autofactory: -2 Energy Prod. Allows 3 Autofab Actions OR 1 Autofactory Action. Cost: 2 Autofab Action. 5 Minerals.
- Gunshuttle. -2 Energy Prod. Allows 1 Orbital Operation /turn. Cost: 2 Autofab Actions. 10 Minerals.
- Basic Kelp Farm. +1 Food, -1 Food Cost, -1 Energy Prod. Requires deposit. Cost: 1 Autofab Action, 1 Minerals.
- Build Storm Peat Deposit. Adds a Storm Peat deposit to the planet. Cost: 1 Autofab Action, 10 Food.
- Cultural Center. 0/0/0. Negates all Cultural Crisis penalties when complete. 4 Food per stage. (Core / Ring / Wings )
Tier 1:
- Basic Fusion Reactor: +2 Energy Prod. Cost: 1 Autofactory Action. 2 Minerals.
- Storm Nullifier Satellites: +2 Energy Prod. Cost: 1 Autofactory Action. 5 Minerals. (Mitigates Storm Turn Penalty.)
- Standard Shuttle: Allows 1 Orbital Operation /turn. Cost: 1 Autofactory Action. 12 Minerals.
- Exowomb Nursery: -2 Energy Prod, -1 Food. Counts as extra pop for Pop Growth calculations. Cost: 1 Autofactory Action. 2 Minerals. 2 Food.
Colonies:
Kithhame
Population:
Humans: 1 Unit (~300 people)
Kobolds: 3 Units
Planetary status:
Marginally habitable. Indigenous wildlife obviously alien but at times oddly familiar.
Planetary Storms hit every 5 years. (2072,2077,2082, etc.. Causes -1 to all facilities that turn. Chance of facility loss.)
3 Basic Minerals deposit found (1 Medium Exploited. 2 Unexploited).
1 "Storm Peat" Deposit Found (1 Lightly Exploited). ( Build mine to produce +1 Energy/turn, -1 Food Cost/turn.)
2 Kelp Forest Deposits Found (2 Unexploited). (Build Kelp Farm to produce +1 Food, -1 Food Cost.)
Industry:
-- Build a storm-hardened autofactory in a central location around the colony, 2 autofabbers, 1 food.
The implementation of the autofactory goes without a credible hitch. Thanks to the abundant biomass stocks from the Storm Peat mine, the Storm Hardening using plascrete was even able to override certain geological issues. Namely, the discovery of a fairly deep inert volcanic magma tunnel along the lines of where the factory was being built. Careful examination showed that the tunnels were truly old -- too old to be spelunked safely, certainly, but not too old for sending some drones down carefully reinforced passageways to ensure any future collapses of the tunnels would not negatively impact the colony.
Military:
-- Dedicate one group to culling the herds, another to perfecting the psychic stealth techniques, and another to running security on the alien ruins. Have the second group teach those techniques to the others once they're done, then aid the first group if they're still culling.
Asking so many people to be on "active duty" militia for such prolonged stretches was something that might have been an excessive burden in previous years. But with the overall security of knowing that there could not possibly be any resource shortages, the colonists all agreed that the planned tasks for the year was a solid one. While there was some grumbling amongst the Stoners in particular about having their access to the ruins curtailed, this was offset by their strong advocacy for the psi-stealth technique.
Which didn't trouble you at all.
You weren't any more sure about how to feel about it when you had tea with Danielle in one of the new rec rooms to ask her thoughts on the matter, and she mentioned the idea of hiding an entire building from distant minds. That was some seriously "pie-in-the-sky" thinking. You'd call it delusional, if not for something else you'd found a couple months earlier.
-- Results:
Tech unlocked: Psi-stealth. (Future hunting actions +1 result, Militia +1 stage effective in combat rolls. Further potential later in quest.)
Alien Ruins not recklessly explored.
Exploration:
-- Explore the alien ruins in detail, but do so very carefully while cataloging everything, ask for some protection details from the militia.
The militia were quite diligent in their task of keeping on duty-station at the ruins. A fact that had, you were sure, "little" to do with the fact that you were using the monthly meetings to reward the "workers of the month" and giving a special category just for the militiamen, with bonus days off and luxury food privileges. Sure, this meant that a certain portion of the colony was fueled with chocolate and whiskey for a day or two but hey. Progress is progress.
Speaking of progress, the explorers were equally diligent in their careful assessment of the ruins. First by drones, then by kobold -- their minds being individually "small" enough that they could stand in proximity with the psionic interfaces without triggering them, just in case but still telepathic enough to actually feel the things. Great care was taken to disconnect anything that looked like it should be a conduit or pipe -- always in ways that could be quickly, albeit by mechanical means, reconnected. The flooded and mired sections were cleared out one room and corridor at a time, through painstaking means. Energy readout and motion sensors were strapped everywhere one could be spared, along with a room-by-room laser-comm mesh fed through gaps in the walls (or just drilled through, where necessary -- the material was clearly once quite strong but after tens of millennia of aging and stress fracturing it was barely any stronger than common steel) -- to ensure that there was no possibility of loss of contact no matter how deeply into the structures anyone went.
-- Results:
Alien ruins now rendered as fully safe to explore as it is possible for your people to actually do so with. All structures mapped, all possibly movable objects given tags and locators.
Research:
-- Research both psychic and regular educational programs/facilities, and discover the pros and cons of both methods. Help the exploration team with the alien ruins in any spare/free time left over.
With "Team Tiny Terror Tots" coming to the age now where back on Earth they would be getting enrolled into the school system, and the total lack of anything remotely like that available anywhere on the entire planet, the Matriarchs have been pushing more and more for a formalized regime of education for the kids. Especially one that would be better resource-management-wise than homeschooling or carrying tykes and teens around with you as you go about your work.
Eventually it was initially settled upon that different parent "teams" would take on the role of teacher of the week for the gagglesome, ensuring that the various Clans didn't isolate too much amongst themselves or stray from common values of the community -- whatever a given Clan/family taught kids "at home" was one thing, but the classroom was a place for all. While it has been ... or will have been? Time travel is hell on tenses -- a century since the first confirmable teeps showed up in the human population, formal and proper education of telepathic abilities or their use in children pedagogically has been poorly studied in general. A hybrid approach was therefore selected, where a main teacher would provide "mundane" lessons, while a secondary "choirist" (usually the spouse of the teacher) would run surface-level scans on the kids to ensure they each saw the rate the others were learning at and thus shared moments of realization or struggle as a group rather than isolating anyone. Each child otherwise, given the age ranges, were to be allowed to study more-or-less at their own pace for much of the day.
Nobody was quite sure yet how to handle when the kids inevitably started awakening from latent status -- but that was a bridge everyone would cross when they got there. One thing was for sure; the draconian measures the Psi Corps had been implementing? Near-torturous week-long sessions of "tolerance training"? No Kithhame child would go through that. Not on your watch.
Much ado was also made of your personal discovery that year, though beyond simply understanding how to operate the basic machine itself and power the crystals it produced with electrical currents without damaging them -- well, even that was quite the achievement all things considered. (See Personal Action for full details.)
-- Results:
Community Schooling model adopted. Future generations will have common base set of values in addition to Clan culture.
Tech unlocked (See Personal Action Results).
Diplomacy:
-- Build more permanent and storm-hardened communal spaces for people to enjoy their free time, 1 autofabber, and 1 food. Set the Council to organize and set up these spaces as libraries, canteens, sports centers, and theatres as is practical/affordable.
While the quinquennial (once every five years) storms are a largely manageable threat that can be, for day to day life, ignored most of the time -- the fact of their looming presence and the underlying sentiment that the capital city of Kithhame should be a general model for future expansion where the storms are more frequent has become an expectation for the colony in general. People in general have also mostly been just plain growing accustomed to living underground for most of their time.
So the establishment of communal spaces as much underground as fully enclosed domes -- made of meter-thick transplas, anchored to plascrete pylons that run thirty feet below bedrock -- are a fairly significant commitment to the fact that as far as your people are concerned, Kithhame is not just their home now, but also their dominion. Entire biome sections are transplanted from nearby areas; a small kelp forest, a simulated "steppe" area for storm peat -- complete with tesla coils to simulate growth cycles -- along with woodlots to ensure the kobold hives have a far more natural home to inhabit beneath the domes -- though those samples will need careful tending and adjusting to be more than mere failed curiosities. Meeting rooms and recreational areas are established. Library areas are established -- though it'll be years before they're properly filled out. Areas are marked out for meeting spaces, performances, and so on. Most of it empty for now -- but at least there are grand ideas for future builds.
-- Results:
Cultural Center (Core) Built. (Stage 1 of 3.) ( 5 Food Consumed for build. ) ( Reduces "Cultural Crisis" by 1 step. )
Personal:
-- Help the exploration team with their study of the alien ruins, keep spending time with Mira when you can.
You were working with the explorers on the alien ruins -- mostly just on account of your being the strongest teep and therefore the most likely to set off anything if something could be set off when you making sure no mechanisms could be triggered by them -- for a few months when you felt traces of something more functional than the generic telepathic interfaces that were in various places throughout the facility. After carefully following those traces from a considerable distance and proxy, you eventually found, quite deeply buried and underneath what felt like a mile of muck and sand, a still functioning device. It was another month before anyone was even willing to enter the same room as the machine with even a drone. Another month after that before it was deemed safe enough to be examined more closely.
There were a number of other machines there, from which it was clear this was once some kind of basic repair workshop. None of the other machines actually worked anymore -- the ones that hadn't degraded into nothingness completely -- and even the one machine that did ... was something you were only willing to consider "understood" at all because of its more-complete psionic interface.
And you say "psionic" rather than "telepathic" because, amongst other things, there was something like the equivalent of the hardcoded drivers one finds in an electronic fan or speaker in the device, and that information was accessible to your mind with gentle probing. There was still no such thing as a mind there -- but the machine had a static presence where a mind would be. Which is why you knew what it did. It made the psionic crystals that the interfaces used. If given a feedstock of basic sand and carbon, its embedded psionic "framework" would embed psionic potential into a crystal it would then spit out into a feed-belt for further processing. The feed-belt was long-since gone, of course -- but adding a simple pair of hoppers with carbon-black and powdered sand along with an electrical current would let the machine produce more of these crystals -- the very crystals that allowed telepathic communication with machines directly.
Or, as it turns out when you carefully, under direct observation by the entire Namikaze clan, channeled your mind through a crystal which was attached to a powered-on drone's radio receiver, allowed you to utilize telekinesis despite not being a teek yourself. The drone itself went flying across the room at a rather remarkable rate. It was later discovered that the psi-crystal had been miswired and instead of acting as a transceiver, it had been absorbing electrical current and thus acted as an amplifier for your psionic ability, allowing it to manifest physically rather than just as thought. The crystal itself cracks when transferring so much telepathic and electrical current in a completely uncontrolled manner -- but it was the smallest crystal the machine would let you make; and the machine itself is working just fine.
Votes by plan, please:
Each turn is 1 year.
1 Action in each category, only write-ins for now while the dust settles and interest is shown.
- [] Industry:
(Agricultural, economic, and residential leadership actions go here.)
-- []
- [] Military:
(Militia, naval, wartime, and such go here.)
-- []
- [] Exploration:
(Scouting, mapping, resource survey type actions go here.)
-- []
- [] Research:
(Pulling schematics for practical application out of the colony ship's AI, discovering new techniques, biotech, and so on.)
-- []
- [] Diplomacy:
(Internal or external diplomatic actions. Building community, negotiating trade deals, and so on.)
-- []
- [] Personal:
(Things you do yourself.)
-- []
Scheduled vote count started by Logos01 on Apr 30, 2024 at 2:53 PM, finished with 48 posts and 11 votes.
[X] Plan: Forewarned is forearmed.
--[X] Build a Storm Nullifier Satellite, 1 autofactory, and use the colony ship to get it into orbit. Have the ship mine the system for minerals once it's finished with the satellite.
--[X] Have the militia draft up various emergency plans, then practice responding to them. (Fires, storms, medical emergencies, wildlife attacks, etc.)
-- [X] Explore the ruins, produce dedicated exploration gear to keep everyone safe and whole, 1 autofabber.
-- [X] Research the best practices for building and designing long-term inhospitable habitats, then research better medical practices for colonies, keeping in mind the lack of educated personnel, 2 autofabbers to set up clinics/pharmacies/whatever, 2 food for storm-hardened.
-- [X] Set up a public forum in one of the communal spaces to discuss the future of the colony in more formal and certain terms. (Government, economy, law, etc, think long term.)
-- [X] Attend the meetings at the forum, help with exploring the ruins, and then spend some time with Mira and the militia to give advice and suggestions on the plans.
[X] Plan: Psi tech?
--[X] Build a Storm Nullifier Satellite, 1 autofactory, and use the colony ship to get it into orbit. Have the ship mine the system for minerals once it's finished with the satellite.
--[X] Have the militia draft up various emergency plans, then practice responding to them. (Fires, storms, medical emergencies, wildlife attacks, etc.)
-- [X] Explore the ruins, produce dedicated exploration gear to keep everyone safe and whole, 1 autofabber.
-- [X] Research remains of workshop we found in alien city last Turn. Try to figure out what could other devices there be used for and how those psi crystals are made(so we dont need to rely on single machine making them) and what else could we use them for in practice. 2 autofabbers build any reconstructed prototypes for testing what they could do or experimental psi crystal using devices.
-- [X] Set up a public forum in one of the communal spaces to discuss the future of the colony in more formal and certain terms. (Government, economy, law, etc, think long term.)
-- [X] Attend the meetings at the forum, help with exploring the ruins, and then spend some time with Mira and the militia to give advice and suggestions on the plans.
Military Assets:
-- Basic Reservist Militia.
-- Basic Watch Drones.
- Colonization Basics.
Can build Tier 0 "Basic" basic facilities with autofabber action.
- Defense Basics.
Can build basic military gear, both personal and semi-autonomous drones.
- Energy Production Tier 1
Can design specialty Tier 1 facilities for power production. Most will require a Basic Autofactory.
- Ecological Architecture.
Can perform special actions to modify buildings to better perform or integrate better with local environment. (Example: "Storm Hardening").
- Kobold Veterancy Archives.
Eliminates potential unskilled labor penalties. Grants +1 bonus to tasks requiring extreme skill (combat rolls, medical performance, etc.,)
- Psi-Amps (Primitive)
Through the use of electrically charged Psi-Crystals, a telepath can -- very clumsily -- use telekinetic abilities. The surface has barely been scratched with this.
Tier 0:
- Basic Autofab: -1 Energy Prod. Allows 1 Autofab Action/turn. Cost: 1 Autofab Action. 2 Minerals.
- Basic Militia Gear. Allows 1 pop to perform military actions. Cost: 1 Autofab Action. 1 Minerals.
- Basic Hab Complexes. +1 Pop Cap. Cost: 1 Autofab Action.
- Basic Greenhouses. +1 Food Prod. Cost: 1 Autofab Action.
- Basic Mines: +1 Minerals Prod. Cost: 1 Autofab Action.
- Basic Lumber Camp: Reduces non-pop food costs by up to 1 per turn. Cost: 1 Autofab Action.
- Wind/Solar Farm: +1 Energy Prod. Cost: 2 Minerals. Up to 1 Autofab Action (build multiple with 1 action.) (Cannot be Storm Hardened.)
- Syngas Reactor: +1-3 Energy/-1-3 Food Prod. Cost: 2 Minerals. 1 Autofab Action.
- Basic Autofactory: -2 Energy Prod. Allows 3 Autofab Actions OR 1 Autofactory Action. Cost: 2 Autofab Action. 5 Minerals.
- Gunshuttle. -2 Energy Prod. Allows 1 Orbital Operation /turn. Cost: 2 Autofab Actions. 10 Minerals.
- Basic Kelp Farm. +1 Food, -1 Food Cost, -1 Energy Prod. Requires deposit. Cost: 1 Autofab Action, 1 Minerals.
- Build Storm Peat Deposit. Adds a Storm Peat deposit to the planet. Cost: 1 Autofab Action, 10 Food.
- Cultural Center. 0/0/0. Negates all Cultural Crisis penalties when complete. 4 Food per stage. (Core / Ring / Wings )
Tier 1:
- Basic Fusion Reactor: +2 Energy Prod. Cost: 1 Autofactory Action. 2 Minerals.
- Storm Nullifier Satellites: +2 Energy Prod. Cost: 1 Autofactory Action. 5 Minerals. (Mitigates Storm Turn Penalty.)
- Standard Shuttle: Allows 1 Orbital Operation /turn. Cost: 1 Autofactory Action. 12 Minerals.
- Exowomb Nursery: -2 Energy Prod, -1 Food. Counts as extra pop for Pop Growth calculations. Cost: 1 Autofactory Action. 2 Minerals. 2 Food.
Colonies:
Kithhame
Population:
Humans: 1 Unit (~310 people)
Kobolds: 4 Units
Planetary status:
Marginally habitable. Indigenous wildlife obviously alien but at times oddly familiar.
Planetary Storms hit every 5 years. (2072,2077,2082, etc.. Causes -1 to all facilities that turn. Chance of facility loss.)
3 Basic Minerals deposit found (1 Medium Exploited. 2 Unexploited).
1 "Storm Peat" Deposit Found (1 Lightly Exploited). ( Build mine to produce +1 Energy/turn, -1 Food Cost/turn.)
2 Kelp Forest Deposits Found (2 Unexploited). (Build Kelp Farm to produce +1 Food, -1 Food Cost.)
Industry:
-- Build a Storm Nullifier Satellite, 1 autofactory, and use the colony ship to get it into orbit. Have the ship mine the system for minerals once it's finished with the satellite.
With the deployment of the Storm Nullifier Satellite, the whole colony felt a stress reduced from their shoulders. While the hazards of Kithhame were still present and a healthy respect of the newfound world would never leave your community if they knew what was good for them, the simple fact that the homes, food, and infrastructure were safe from the world's worst had taken away an edge to daily life that nobody even really noticed until it was gone.
Your original plans of deploying the Storm Nullifier being a short-enough operation to allow the use of the colony ship for asteroid mining however was cut short by the extensive number of fine micropositioning over the course of the weeks it took to properly deploy the incredibly delicate array of reflector and polarizer panels along with their actuator mechanisms. Unfortunately, the need to keep the ship's fuel levels high enough to allow for an emergency evacuation of the colonists meant that it wasn't possible to do two operations at once.
-- Results:
Storm Nullifier Satellite deployed. No asteroid mining action allowed (only 1 Orbital Operation per turn per launch vehicle.)
Military:
-- Have the militia draft up various emergency plans, then practice responding to them. (Fires, storms, medical emergencies, wildlife attacks, etc.)
It was supposed to be just another exercise. Simple readiness operations. Most of the colonists had taken the practice drills for granted, the alarms and whistles and hustling of that week's ready-standby militia volunteers on common activities. If your people hadn't been telepaths, it would likely have taken much, much longer for the community to realize what was happening. By the time the ground started shaking it became fairly obvious what was actually going on -- or so you had thought.
It turned out that your colonists building underground was something of a double-edged sword. Another facet of this world's biosphere revealed itself in the form of an unaccounted for -- due to the extreme distances involved having required aerostats or hovercraft to make the survey reach that far -- organism with a hunger for the very walls of your colony. And the precious foodstuffs stored within the warehouse and enclosed gardens your people depended on for your daily meals.
A work of fiction turned into all-too-real life on this alien world: sandworms. Ten meters long, encrusted with calcite and emitting hyper- and sub- sonic staccato rhythms, the creatures swam through the vibrating soil as though it were thick water. And they ate through the walls of the warehouse while your people could barely do more than watch.
Thankfully the damage they did to the walls themselves was fairly easily repairable, and these ones were largely herbivorous and ignorant to the threat an armed militiaman with a bilpro repeater rifle represented: there was no outright loss of life, but in fighting off the creatures as came through the boreholes they chewed through the plascrete walls, several of your people suffered concussions, broken bones, or in one case a misfired round required surgical care to restore full function to a man's hand.
Scans and dissection of the animals' remains after the incident revealed that they were native to the subarctic regions, and had been lured far away from their home by the scent of a massive deposit of their natural diet; of their three stomachs, two were something akin to termite guts -- filled with specialized bacteria capable of extracting bioavailable nutrients from concrete. Remains of prior meals showed this to be a product of the creatures' normal diet: "stonebush" -- a kind of sagebrush-like tumbleweed plant that resembles sea corals in that it excretes a calcite much like cement to weigh itself down and "glue" itself to the surrounding sands of the perennially storm-addled region. The worms must have been blown far from their normal homes by arctic storms and worked their way towards the plascrete of the colony on scent and watertable flow.
More must be done to learn about how likely a recurring threat this is and what can be done to turn the creatures away from your colonies; facing constant raids of the storage and greenhouse facilities of this scale is simply untenable.
-- Results:
New ecological pest revealed: sandworms. Militia readiness reduces biomass losses and injuries two steps. -4 food, no deaths. XX% chance of sandworm infestation event each turn.
Exploration:
-- Explore the ruins, produce dedicated exploration gear to keep everyone safe and whole, 1 autofabber.
The ongoing cataloging of the alien ruins, by contrast, goes much more swimmingly. With the production of specialized equipment and tooling to make the exploration that much safer -- more exploration drones, proper hazmat suits, elevator systems to make entry and exit a rapid affair, as well as the atmospheric sealing and normalization of the ruins themselves -- made continuing search much more feasible. A few relatively more intact interface panels were found to hold intact datacrystals, even.
You weren't sure if it was more or less surprising that ruins older than the human species contained datacrystals that were compatible with the centauri-sourced computer systems Earth was using when you left the homeworld -- or at least, compatible enough that you could draw viable data down from from them into airgapped terminals of your own make. What was entirely unsurprising, however, was that the data on those crystals was for the most part entirely unintelligible. The onboard simple AI of your colony database was able to decode a few items, however; but none of them were very meaningful. Genetic sequences you identified as being the genomes of native flora and fauna; the trigopods and kobolds in particular had several repeating instances.
The ruins themselves, physically speaking, were wholly explorable now. All that remained was to understand what it was your people were looking at; something that was hardly helped by the inability to tell the difference between a bathroom toilet and a server core.
-- Results:
Alien ruins fully safe for exploration and analysis.
10 Alien Datacrystals retrieved. 0.01% decoded.
Research:
-- Research the best practices for building and designing long-term inhospitable habitats, then research better medical practices for colonies, keeping in mind the lack of educated personnel, 2 autofabbers to set up clinics/pharmacies/whatever, 2 food for storm-hardened.
The colonial database had multiple recommendations for how to encourage residents to avoid feeling "stir-crazy" or "cabin-fever" while in interior facilities. Some of these things were fairly obvious; wide-open spaces, lots of indirect synthetic daylight on day-night cycles. Other aspects were less so; buildings-within-buildings with digital display ceilings to simulate skylines to fool the senses into feeling outdoors. Disguised support columns reworked to look like trees rather than artificial constructs. Digital displays in recessed cubbies with glass panes to emulate windows. Optimized "jeffries tubes" (as one of the older colonists jokingly called them) service crawlways for multi-function cable, piping, and conduit throughways. A number of different digging and tunnelling methods that would allow for faster construction of deeper and broader tunnels and excavation on shorter timeframes rather than use of bilpro explosive boring and carting away rough stone. The collective combination of which being that future Storm-Hardened facilities would be able to be built faster, and in ways that are less inconvenciencing nor impairing of the building's intended function.
Simultaneously, the Namikazes spent much of their time buliding out an extension of the Community Center -- a Medical Suite. They installed in it the best sensor equipment the autofabber they'd been allocated could construct based on the colonial database's designs, and simultaneously used up several months' worth of the colony ship's computer in coding a new "Automated Medical Assistant Intelligence", or AMAI. Encoded with an almost sickeningly sweet "personality", AMAI had near full autonomous control over the surgical arms on the biobeds and was designed with a small complement of hover-drones equipped with field sensors and triage drones that were comprised of first-aid kits, teleoperated arms, and stretchers on wheels.
You would have looked askance at all of this were it not for Mira advising that Michio was sick of people coming to her with bumps and scraped knees on account of deciding that having "Doctor" for a title was 'close enough'. (She was a roboticist, not a medic!)
-- Results:
Automated Field Hospital added to Community Center. -1 Energy, -1 Medical Emergency Impact. Cost: 1 Minerals.
Diplomacy:
-- Set up a public forum in one of the communal spaces to discuss the future of the colony in more formal and certain terms. (Government, economy, law, etc, think long term.)
A single meeting room in the colony library was converted into a formal legislative area. The shelves there were arranged at your careful insistence with sections in which would be written the decisions and day-to-day operational logs of the Matriarchs and yourself, as you established the rules and policies which would inevitably, you explained, become the basis of your people's constitutional charter and the body of precedents your future judicial bodies would need to draw from when making decisions. To that effect, you encouraged the room to be considered the go-to space when any discussions might be had that could affect the colony long-term, insofar as actual planning went.
Nobody was really sure why you were this concerned about something that would at best be a consideration for your children's children, but ... it didn't hurt anything either, and it did seem sensible enough as arguments went.
-- Results:
You got the ball rolling on getting people worried about what shape your government will take when there's enough of you to actually need one.
Personal:
-- Attend the meetings at the forum, help with exploring the ruins, and then spend some time with Mira and the militia to give advice and suggestions on the plans.
Mira was for the most part too busy on working with her fellow militiamen setting up seismic sensors to get better warning for when the sandworms might return, as well as trying to chase down where the heck they came from in the first place, to spend overmuch time with you being involved on your other work. Given the gleam in her eyes, you certainly didn't want to get in her way about the issue. It did give you time to dote on the twins though, so that was always good.
The meetings at the forum, on the other hand, were anything but. Nobody was all that interested in attending them in the first place; any actual issues, it was generally felt and agreed, would be either taken care of inside the "family" or else brought up by the Matriarchs amongst one another. Your own position as overall head was more a matter of taking care of the sorts of things where a single voice was needed -- and with everyone sharing their views through direct mental connection there was never a doubt about the unity of the all. They could tell you cared about it, but by the time a given meeting was to be held everything that such an event could address had already been. Everything, that is, except the petty nuisance discussions. So that's exactly what you were left discussing: who was downwind of who, who hadn't showered recently enough, whose kid deserved special attention in the classroom, and so on and so on.
By contrast, the work with the survey team studying the alien ruins and psi-crystal fabricator was going much better. You now had the ability to reliably control the size of the crystals formed, though you still had no real idea how the machine was making them in the first place. You were also quite certain it was the only such machine -- and while you didn't know how it was making the crystals, you had discovered that the casing material the machine used was sensor-transparent and had a seam you could fit a sub-millimeter fiber-optic camera through. Thanks to this you now had an idea of the components the thing was made from and could, you felt, even attempt your hand at making a copy of the machine. It would take several copies of the crystals the machine itself made to do so, and you'd need to carefully mimic what you were certain was circuit diagrams on them somehow -- but you wouldn't have to disassemble the actual machine to do so. And this might give you more insight into how the crystals themselves worked.
-- Results:
Mira too busy hunting sandworms for close cooperation.
Forums not very successful at this time. Nobody seems to be taking them seriously.
Psi-crystal synthesizer machine may be reproducible?
Votes by plan, please:
Each turn is 1 year.
1 Action in each category, only write-ins for now while the dust settles and interest is shown.
- [] Industry:
(Agricultural, economic, and residential leadership actions go here.)
-- []
- [] Military:
(Militia, naval, wartime, and such go here.)
-- []
- [] Exploration:
(Scouting, mapping, resource survey type actions go here.)
-- []
- [] Research:
(Pulling schematics for practical application out of the colony ship's AI, discovering new techniques, biotech, and so on.)
-- []
- [] Diplomacy:
(Internal or external diplomatic actions. Building community, negotiating trade deals, and so on.)
-- []
- [] Personal:
(Things you do yourself.)
-- []
Scheduled vote count started by Logos01 on May 6, 2024 at 9:28 PM, finished with 38 posts and 7 votes.
-[X] Plan: Storms are Coming
- [X] Industry:
-- [X] Harden the mines. Try and make improvements to existing infrastructure to mitigate penalties and raise food production.. (2 autofabbers)
- [X] Military:
-- [X] Patrol, look for sandworm nests within the region.
- [X] Exploration:
-- [X] Work with the military to locate likely nests and methods of ingress.
- [X] Research:
-- [X] Pest Control. Psi tech research, as well. Use last autofabber as needed to build defenses or warning systems.
- [X] Diplomacy:
-- [X] Work on improving the cultural center, adding more to it. (Work on reaching step 2) (autofactory)
- [X] Personal:
-- [X] Go prospecting for minerals in orbit.
[X] Plan: Advancing Onward
--[X] If we have 5 or more minerals at the start of next turn, build another Storm-Hardened Autofactory, 1 autofabber, 1 food, then also build a Storm-Hardened Syngas Reactor, 1 autofabber, 1 food, set it to whatever setting gets our energy balance neutral. If we do not have 5 or more minerals at the start of next turn, then build two more Storm-Hardened Mining Complexes, 2 autofabbers, 2 food.
--[X] Stay on watch, use the drone network as needed to locate any Sandworm nests.
-- [X] Once the nests are found, study the Sandworms using the drones from a distance and their relation to the local ecosystem, try to figure out if killing them will have any long-term effects.
-- [X] Research Psi-Tech, with a focus on the telepathic interfaces for computers and machinery.
-- [X] Work on improving the cultural center, adding in a central computer core that incorporates the telepathic interface, 1 autofactory, 5 food. Also, check up on people to see how they're doing and impress upon them the importance of staying safe and indoors to avoid accidents.
-- [X] Take the colony ship into orbit for asteroid mining.
- Colonization Basics.
Can build Tier 0 "Basic" basic facilities with autofabber action.
- Defense Basics.
Can build basic military gear, both personal and semi-autonomous drones.
- Energy Production Tier 1
Can design specialty Tier 1 facilities for power production. Most will require a Basic Autofactory.
- Ecological Architecture.
Can perform special actions to modify buildings to better perform or integrate better with local environment. (Example: "Storm Hardening").
- Kobold Veterancy Archives.
Eliminates potential unskilled labor penalties. Grants +1 bonus to tasks requiring extreme skill (combat rolls, medical performance, etc.,)
- Psi-Amps (Primitive)
Through the use of electrically charged Psi-Crystals, a telepath can -- very clumsily -- use telekinetic abilities. The surface has barely been scratched with this.
- Telekinetic Weapons
Can use unengraved but larger psi-crystals to create heavy recoilless slug-thrower weapons, though they require hip or backpack power supplies.
- Psionic Interfaces
Telepathic interface technology can now work reliably with human-made computer components.
Tier 0:
- Basic Autofab: -1 Energy Prod. Allows 1 Autofab Action/turn. Cost: 1 Autofab Action. 2 Minerals.
- Basic Militia Gear. Allows 1 pop to perform military actions. Cost: 1 Autofab Action. 1 Minerals.
- Basic Hab Complexes. +1 Pop Cap. Cost: 1 Autofab Action.
- Basic Greenhouses. +1 Food Prod. Cost: 1 Autofab Action.
- Basic Mines: +1 Minerals Prod. Cost: 1 Autofab Action.
- Basic Lumber Camp: Reduces non-pop food costs by up to 1 per turn. Cost: 1 Autofab Action.
- Wind/Solar Farm: +1 Energy Prod. Cost: 2 Minerals. Up to 1 Autofab Action (build multiple with 1 action.) (Cannot be Storm Hardened.)
- Syngas Reactor: +1-3 Energy/-1-3 Food Prod. Cost: 2 Minerals. 1 Autofab Action.
- Basic Autofactory: -2 Energy Prod. Allows 3 Autofab Actions OR 1 Autofactory Action. Cost: 2 Autofab Action. 5 Minerals.
- Gunshuttle. -2 Energy Prod. Allows 1 Orbital Operation /turn. Cost: 2 Autofab Actions. 10 Minerals.
- Basic Kelp Farm. +1 Food, -1 Food Cost, -1 Energy Prod. Requires deposit. Cost: 1 Autofab Action, 1 Minerals.
- Build Storm Peat Deposit. Adds a Storm Peat deposit to the planet. Cost: 1 Autofab Action, 10 Food.
- Cultural Center. 0/0/0. Negates all Cultural Crisis penalties when complete. 4 Food per stage. (Core / Ring / Wings )
Industry:
-- Harden the mines. Try and make improvements to existing infrastructure to mitigate penalties and raise food production.. (2 autofabbers)
While it was something of a 'rush' to get things taken care of, given the approach of the Quinquennial Storm, it was also a fairly straightforward process. Time to spare on the hardening of the mine facilities due to using mostly local resources in both cases meant that some leftover time was available to do "finishing touches" on the greenhouses and habitat areas.
It was unfortunate therefore that the lack of power supplies meant that the ambitions to improve the greenhouses with more autonomous machinery needed to be nixed. It wasn't like the colony was struggling for food anyhow, though -- even with the efforts to grow Earth-native fauna from seedstocks to populate the Ring section of the Community Center.
The Stoners in particular were somewhat nonplussed by this; they had apparently been hoping to start establishing a luxuries "market" based on the ever-growing food surplus. Of course, any resentment they might have felt over this not happening was broadly agreed to be a product of their attempts to make it a surprise for the rest of the colony -- if they had simply mentioned it then you might not have sunk so much of the biomass yield and harvestables into completing the Community Center.
-- Results:
Storm Hardened trait applied to Peat Mine and Basic Minerals Mine. No improvements made to Greenhouses due to lack of ability to use them.
Bad Morale from failure to complete hidden agenda amongst Stoner Clan (no markets for you!)
Military:
-- Patrol, look for sandworm nests within the region.
As it turns out, animals that literally swim six or more feet below the surface don't leave much in the way of visible signs on the surface to be tracked. But there was also very little in the way of noticeable ground tremor activity -- there were a few false positives, but they all turned out to be dry lightning storms rolling in. Easily accounted for with your weathermapping satellites, but still a nuisance.
-- Results:
No meaningful hits. As far as you can tell, there is no active sandworm activity in the forested area surrounding the colony. Wherever they came from last year, they were a long way from home.
Exploration:
-- Work with the military to locate likely nests and methods of ingress.
Attempting to discern how they might have arrived in the area of the colony, however, was slightly more successful. The creatures after all were not all that small -- portable seismographs reading the subsoil above the bedrock in the area of the forest and surrounding ecosystems revealed that while individual worms could come from a number of areas, the easiest routes for swarms were fairly traceable. The evergreen-jungle trees had fairly robust root networks, spreading out and quite deep as well -- likely a further adaptation to resist being blown over by storms -- and this would make it difficult for larger worms to move in groups through the forested areas. But there were plains and valleys which were more prairie-like, and these could be set up with seismometers as an early warning perimeter if necessary.
Given how cheap the infrasonic listening devices were, a fairly broad 'fence' of them was planted just in case -- if nothing else, it would give the Militia much better time to respond to another incursion. Though how to address one was another story; none of the colony's weapons would be at all effective given the sheer depth the animals travelled at.
-- Results:
Sandworm attack damage mitigated 1 step due to establishing early warning methods to detect their approach.
Research:
-- Pest Control. Psi tech research, as well. Use last autofabber as needed to build defenses or warning systems.
(Early warning system: see exploration action).
Different possible approaches were considered to detect or better control the sandworm nuisance. Various proposals were made. One of the cheapest was to create water canals down to the bedrock layer -- and while that could be done, it would represent an impediment to future colony growth to say nothing of the lightning risk mineralized water would create in colony areas. Another suggestion was to plant rows and rows of trees in the plains areas -- and while this might also reduce the scope of attacks it would take years if not decades to be effective and nobody was sure if the root networks wouldn't just be eaten through. It took one of the Runningdeers to suggest that you could possibly mimic one of the herbivores' natural predators somehow to result in an expedition to be proposed for the following year -- when the storm cycle had somewhat abated -- to search the animals' native habitat to see if there were in fact some carnivore that hunted the sandworm herds that could be used to ward the animals off.
In happier news, the psi-crystal research project has gone just about as well as could be hoped. The Namikazes collectively spent much of the first half of the year simply correcting the previous glitch and finding the interface-terminals roughly bug-free: your computers and drones could now use telepathic signals instead of keyboards or displays, so long as you had the crystals for it. They'd even hooked a small number of crystals up to small toy humanoid robots for mock duels for the kids. (And the adults who felt like betting on household chores as their wagers...).
Repeating the initial incident with the charged psi-crystals on the other hand was ... not unsuccessful. The Greys and Namikazes who worked on this noticed that it was fairly easy to induce a single directed impulse to anything "facing" the crystals, but their capacity to deliver a charge was largely limited to how much electrostatic charge had built up in the crystal itself. Still; this did mean that by using some of the larger variety that the psi-crystal machine could make, you could probably design and manufacture telekinetic "shotguns" or "coilguns". Nothing incredibly impressive there, but the ability to directly use an electrical charge rather chemical propellant meant such weapons could hold more ammunition and maybe hit harder. Something that was looking quite valuable given just how many rounds your militiamen had to use to take down the worms given their thick and mineralized hides -- the things were tougher than kevlar, to say nothing about their tolerance to abrasive, thermal, or electrical impacts. The telekinetic weapons designs Mira's people were recommending were oversized designs that were clearly meant to take advantage of the fact that the crystals imparted kinetic energy without recoil. Meaning much heavier weapons could be used without breaking the wielder.
A far more interesting result, however, came from Namikaze Shirou's attempts to see what could be done with some of the engraved circuitry patterns the crystals in the psi-crystal forge machine had; most of which were duds... except one particular pattern, which instead of imparting directional energy to anything the crystal's main face was pointed at -- would resist the passage of any energetic variance in the area immediately facing the crystal. Kinetic, electrical, thermal, photonic; so long as the electrical energy held out and Shirou (or any other teep focusing on the engraving)'s focus was sustained, the area in front of the crystal would apply that electrical energy to resisting the flow of said passing energy. As this was as yet only in an area less than 10 cubic centimeters in front of the crystal itself, there wasn't a lot of practical application to be had here. But it was proof that much more could be done here. Perhaps even direct telekinetic deployment of thermal or electrical energy without a need for physical slugs. Or laser weapons?
-- Results:
Cooperation with explorers and military to reduce sandworm attacks by -1 severity.
Follow-up on pest-control to occur next turn. (This will not count against Research actions.)
Psi-Drone technology unlocked. (Requires Psi-Crystal Machine action. 2 Minerals. 1 Energy. Creates 1 "pop" of Psi-Drones. Can be allocated to facilities in lieu of other workers.)
Telekinetic Militia unlocked. (Requires Psi-Crystal Machine action, 2 Minerals. +1 Effectiveness over Basic Militia.)
Diplomacy:
-- Work on improving the cultural center, adding more to it. (Work on reaching step 2) (autofactory)
With the full surplus and in defiance of the winds and constant lightning strikes, not only do your people continue the Colony Center, but the actual facility itself is fully completed. The Core, which houses main "functions of state" as well as the main colony archives to date -- printed and microfiche library as well as banks of datacrystals, in the most hardened area of the center, are complemented by the various miniature biomes of the native flora and easily-zoo-housed fauna to represent how Kithhame is now the core of your people's heritage. And while it digs deep into the bedrock, the Core also rises ten stories into the sky with an utterly absurd amount of plascrete and structural plastics, as well as walls of two-meter-thick transplas, to represent your people's will to never cower despite any and all adversities.
The outer Ring is established in acknowledgement of the colony's origins, with as close to microbiomes as you can get by bioprinting seeds and eggs in the autofactory to suit what your people were beginning to call "Old Earth". The Ring itself is established with multi-leveled "open-air" (by which you mean meter-thick transplas roofing) commerce facilities that should be sufficient for decades to come. A mall of Kithhame if you will. Places for you and your children and your childrens' children to set up shop and work on whatever professions they see fit, be it basketweaving, tattooing, general medical practitioner, psi-crystal engraver, jazz busking, or book salesman, or anything between or beyond.
The Wings -- two of them, as 'great loops' which connect as a figure-eight back to the Ring -- are established as more infrastructure for the colony itself; one wing in which AMAI is relocated, which will also function as a future for any research or scientific academia as the case may be, and the other is established more as a logistics hub for the colony as whole, with the intention of monitoring future traffic -- aerial, orbital, or vehicular -- as well as the needs of the militia to have a "central command and control"; these facilities are made even "harder" than the rest of the Community Center as a whole, with redundant "double-hull" exteriors, no windows to speak of, and a large number of 'airlock' style entrances for rapid controlled ingress/egress.
-- Results:
Community Center completed. Potential Cultural Crisis events negated. Four "sub-facilities" slots unlocked -- one occupied by medical center, "AMAI".
Possible economy updates in future turns.
Personal:
-- Go prospecting for minerals in orbit.
Spending an entire month in space, as it turns out, doing nothing but hunting down shiny rocks for your "collection" back at home, is a fairly great and un-stressful way to leave Mira and 'bolds to watch over the kids.
It had absolutely nothing to do with the way she was polishing the barrel of her 50mm semiautomatic telekinetic shotgun. Nor the gleam in her eye when she kept doing so. Even a deep scan would confirm that. Totally.
-- Results:
10 (1d10 == 9, + 1 KVA ) minerals obtained.
You got your wife a cannon. Wives love cannons.
Votes by plan, please:
Each turn is 1 year.
1 Action in each category, only write-ins for now while the dust settles and interest is shown.
- [] Industry:
(Agricultural, economic, and residential leadership actions go here.)
-- []
- [] Military:
(Militia, naval, wartime, and such go here.)
-- []
- [] Exploration:
(Scouting, mapping, resource survey type actions go here.)
-- []
- [] Research:
(Pulling schematics for practical application out of the colony ship's AI, discovering new techniques, biotech, and so on.)
-- []
- [] Diplomacy:
(Internal or external diplomatic actions. Building community, negotiating trade deals, and so on.)
-- []
- [] Personal:
(Things you do yourself.)
-- []
Last edited:
Turn 8: Southern Fried Tentacles and Playdatus Interruptus
Scheduled vote count started by Logos01 on May 10, 2024 at 11:31 PM, finished with 23 posts and 7 votes.
[X] Plan: power underwhelming
- [X] Industry:
-- [X] Build Basic Autofactory (2 autofab, 5 minerals)
-- [X] Build Syngas Reactor (1 autofab, 2 minerals) (burn -2 FoodCost from peat mine for +2 energy)
-- [X] Build Basic Fusion Reactor (1 autofac, 2 minerals)
- [X] Military:
-- [X] Protect Exploration group from potentially hostile fauna. Maybe supplement colony food stores with some light hunting.
- [X] Exploration:
-- [X] Begin planetary biosurvey. Focus on identifying potentially hazardous flora/fauna. Maybe we can catch the next sandworm-level-problem before they're chewing on our colony.
- [X] Research:
-- [X] We need a design for a satellite that can detect and track spaceships entering our solar system. Ideally quiet, passive sensors only. Bonus points for tracking potential planetary impactors.
- [X] Diplomacy:
-- [X] If the stoners are going to try to establish an economy, let's talk about the basics. What is money; is it pure fiat, or is it based in something? How do you prevent abuses of wealth? Are we going to do taxes? Long term this can cause big issues, so let's do it right.
-- [X] Suggest basing 'money' on productive capacity - currency can be exchanged for a specific amount of autofabber runtime. Suggest community-owned fabbers could regularly pay out "production credits" to all citizens.
- [X] Personal:
-- [X] Yeah, a human can easily psychically dominate a group of kobolds. But what if you didn't? Try to sink into the kobold group-mind, see what you can learn. Also, take your wife on some nice dates.
- [X] Plan: The Next.. .5 year plan?
-- [X] Industry: Build Fusion Power Plant. Build out mines. Build out greenhouse, since Stoner clan apparently wants to be capitalists. (Autofactory, autofabber)
-- [X] Military: Build emergency caches, send to help with the expedition.
-- [X] Exploration: Assist with expedition to the sandworms area.
-- [X] Research: Work on the expedition, also continue research on psi-tech. Work on ways to move the colony ship core as a backup to the Comm Center.
-- [X] Diplomacy: Work on setting up a routine council so clans can *tell each other* goals they have, or even just regular telepathic meetings, so we can have an agenda. Discuss potential research outposts in storm or underwater. (Well, I mean.)
-- [X] Personal: A date with Mira. Doing some mining if we have time.
Military Assets:
-- Telekinetic Militia. (+1 Effectiveness)
-- Basic Watch Drones.
-- 1 Squadron of Improvised Tactical Ground Effect Vehicles.
== Database Techs
- Colonization Basics.
Can build Tier 0 "Basic" basic facilities with autofabber action.
- Defense Basics.
Can build basic military gear, both personal and semi-autonomous drones.
- Energy Production Tier 1
Can design specialty Tier 1 facilities for power production. Most will require a Basic Autofactory.
- Ecological Architecture.
Can perform special actions to modify buildings to better perform or integrate better with local environment. (Example: "Storm Hardening").
- Space Operations.
Spaceports, Shuttles, Sensor Grids, and bears. Oh my!
- Ground Effect Vehicles.
Amphibious colonial survey design found in database. Increases efficacy of surveys, patrols, and hunts.
== Social Development
- Production/Energy Credit Economics
Basic and specialist pops have a minimum output that will always be met, and maintenance cost.
== Kobold Techs
- Kobold Veterancy Archives.
Eliminates potential unskilled labor penalties. Grants +1 bonus to tasks requiring extreme skill (combat rolls, medical performance, etc.,)
- Squadlink Technique.
Provides +1 effectiveness in small units from superior coordination.
- Stealth Technique.
Can allow militia members to remain undetected by sentient beings.
== Psi-Crystal Techs
- Psi-Amps (Primitive)
Through the use of electrically charged Psi-Crystals, a telepath can -- very clumsily -- use telekinetic abilities. The surface has barely been scratched with this.
- Telekinetic Weapons
Can use unengraved but larger psi-crystals to create heavy recoilless slug-thrower weapons, though they require hip or backpack power supplies.
- Psionic Interfaces
Telepathic interface technology can now work reliably with human-made computer components.
Tier 0:
- Basic Autofab: -1 Energy Prod. Allows 1 Autofab Action/turn. Cost: 1 Autofab Action. 2 Minerals.
- Basic Militia Gear. Allows 1 pop to perform military actions. Cost: 1 Autofab Action. 1 Minerals.
- Basic Hab Complexes. +1 Pop Cap. Cost: 1 Autofab Action.
- Basic Greenhouses. +1 Food Prod. Cost: 1 Autofab Action.
- Basic Mines: +1 Minerals Prod. Cost: 1 Autofab Action.
- Basic Lumber Camp: Reduces non-pop food costs by up to 1 per turn. Cost: 1 Autofab Action.
- Wind/Solar Farm: +1 Energy Prod. Cost: 2 Minerals. Up to 1 Autofab Action (build multiple with 1 action.) (Cannot be Storm Hardened.)
- Syngas Reactor: +1-3 Energy/-1-3 Food Prod. Cost: 2 Minerals. 1 Autofab Action.
- Basic Autofactory: -2 Energy Prod. Allows 3 Autofab Actions OR 1 Autofactory Action. Cost: 2 Autofab Action. 5 Minerals.
- Gunshuttle. -2 Energy Prod. Allows 1 Orbital Operation /turn. Cost: 2 Autofab Actions. 10 Minerals.
- Basic Kelp Farm. +1 Food, -1 Food Cost, -1 Energy Prod. Requires deposit. Cost: 1 Autofab Action, 1 Minerals.
- Build Storm Peat Deposit. Adds a Storm Peat deposit to the planet. Cost: 1 Autofab Action, 10 Food.
- Cultural Center. 0/0/0. Negates all Cultural Crisis penalties when complete. 1 Autofab Action, 4 Food per stage. (Core / Ring / Wings )
- Basic Vehicular Maintenance Bay. Provides 'care and feeding' for 1 squadron of storm-hardened GEV's. -1 Energy. Cost: 2 Autofab Actions, 2 Food, 2 Minerals. Includes the squadron.
The entire colony could breath easier today, as you activate the first locally built fusion reactor. It's an incredibly basic one -- barely suitable for a standard orbital shuttle, and small enough to fit inside a standard bedroom. But let the heavens weep, for it was made by your people. The fires of the heavens themselves were once again in your hands. Your people would never go back into the dark again.
The engines of industry were slowly picking up steam for your people, and you couldn't be prouder of them. The activation of the reactor had been timed for the Settling Day festival for the year and while your youngest colonists couldn't really understand what was so special about something so dinky, they were certainly happy to partake in the festivities. The cakes made with glazes of Earth Chocolate and local honey certainly helped their morale -- and everyone was certainly happy to watch them celebrate and play in the warm afternoon.
-- Results:
Autofactory count now 2.
Basic Fusion Reactor built.
Syngas Reactor built, operating at 2/3 max yield.
Military:
-- Protect Exploration group from potentially hostile fauna. Maybe supplement colony food stores with some light hunting.
Not to be outdone by the Runningdeers' antics with the colonial survey design they somehow got through the surplus autofactory -- and heavens alone know where they got the resources for it -- Mira had decided that just in case, the old bilpro equipment that had been set aside could be affixed with some simple mechanisms to the long-legged amphibious craft, so they could be used in the better defense of the colony if necessary. The resulting hunting expedition for larger fauna and deposits of wild edibles having a much easier time dragging around their haul made the end result far more enjoyable for everyone involved of course, but that was hardly a major surprise.
Exploration:
-- Begin planetary biosurvey. Focus on identifying potentially hazardous flora/fauna. Maybe we can catch the next sandworm-level-problem before they're chewing on our colony.
The Runningdeers had spent much of their time the previous year designing and considering the necessities of performing a fairly rapid planetary biosurvey -- with only a couple of years in which to get it done, as everyone was feeling the overall pressure -- but they still came up aces in the effort. Turns out that the eggheads back on Old Earth had published a number of designs for exactly this purpose which some sticky-fingered -- well, sticky-brained but that's awkward to say -- members of their Clan had managed to make off with from the EarthForce colony planners who were, at the time your people left, contemplating this very problem. A fairly rugged hybrid-lift amphibious ground-effect-vehicle; with graphene and boron-weave shelled wings topped with solar cells, and an air-breathing battery to provide the maximum trip capacity, the vehicle could skim over the surface of sea, prairie, and dunes alike at velocities that would make wide-ranging trips a matter of minutes where wheeled off-road vehicles would take hours; all while having a cargo capacity of a dozen tons.
Somehow they'd taken it upon themselves to scavenge the necessary materials from somewhere when they realized that the secondary autofactory would be up-and-running but idle for long enough for a proper facility to house and assemble the craft to be completed. What had been looking like it might be an effort of over a decade to properly complete would now -- thanks to the loan from the military of a contingent of the basic watch drones -- take far, far less time.
Already the effort was paying dividends: the first survey vehicle deployed went straight to what was suspected to be the native habitat of the sandworms; the dunes just bordering the subarctic tundra. Therein it was discovered, through careful seismic monitoring and rapid deployment, that the sandworms as your people knew them were in fact a nomadic "herbivorous" race, in a strange sort of pseudo-symbiosis with their own dietary source: the stonebushes in their youngest form needed the broken-up sandy soils to take root in, and the passing of the worms as they swam through what should be permafrost resulted in the soil being broken up enough for that to happen. While this was interesting, the bigger discovery was that there was more than one variety of sandworm -- the herbivore, and the carnivore.
The creatures that attacked the colony had predators. Predators that could be mimicked.
In terms of other interesting moments; there was also a species of ... you would hesitate to call it a whale-catfish, but it was certainly the size of whales, with the general body-plan of what seemed like a catfish, and semi-prehensile whiskers that liked to try to catch anything skimming along the surface of the oceans. Arming the GEVs had been a good idea -- but what hadn't had been Mira's attempt at leaning out the window of the vehicle she was in to "show these bitches who's the boss."
-- Results:
Planetary biosurvey will complete in 1 more turn.
Possible repellant method found for driving away sandworms.
The Alexanders have been "quietly" collecting large quantities of the "fixin's" for pan-fried catfish.
Research:
-- We need a design for a satellite that can detect and track spaceships entering our solar system. Ideally quiet, passive sensors only. Bonus points for tracking potential planetary impactors.
Again the Namikazes are happy enough to search through the colonial databases for any offerings of sensor satellites. What they find is a fairly standard design, overall easy enough to make in the batches required. However, there is one sticking point: they require some kind of ground control facility to actually provide the data back to. While you can use the colony ship for this purpose, it would be much better to have a "proper" CNC within the Community Center to do this task.
It is noted that a central server as had been previously thought of could also get this done, along with allocating a simple meeting room to terminals. An alternative option could be, however, building a proper spaceport. The tachyonic beacon array included in the database's spaceport designs having the capacity to not only provide navigational tracking for any hyperspace that could lock onto its timed-pulse encryption, but could also act as a sensor to detect craft approaching the system before entering.
You do find yourself wondering if the psi-crystals could possibly be used to enhance these functions; they do after all have the ability to detect thoughts. And hyperspace is known to significantly enhance the distance at which a telepath's abilities were effective...
-- Results:
Sensor Grid design unlocked. ( Passive Mode reduces effectiveness 2 steps. -2 Energy. Cost: 1 Orbital Operation, 5 Minerals, 1 Autofactory Action.)
Spaceport design unlocked. (3 stage facility. -2 Energy per stage. Provides subfacility slots for orbital-related activities. Cost: 1 Autofactory Action, 5 Minerals per stage.)
Diplomacy:
-- If the stoners are going to try to establish an economy, let's talk about the basics. What is money; is it pure fiat, or is it based in something? How do you prevent abuses of wealth? Are we going to do taxes? Long term this can cause big issues, so let's do it right.
-- Suggest basing 'money' on productive capacity - currency can be exchanged for a specific amount of autofabber runtime. Suggest community-owned fabbers could regularly pay out "production credits" to all citizens.
The Stoners are very pleasantly surprised by this line of conversation. They enthusiastically "glomp" onto it, mentally speaking. Before you even know it, you've found yourself committed to building a new autofactory that will be provided with 2 Food and 2 Minerals in feedstocks specifically to provide for colonist's cashed-in Credits. They assure you that this will avoid burnout and disunity as the colony becomes more well-established over time, and sing your praises for months.
-- Results:
Credit system established. Next turn you are required to build a new Autofactory that will reserve 2 Food and 2 Minerals for colonist private spending. Credit-based economics prevent morale and pop performance from dropping below a minimum.
Personal:
-- Yeah, a human can easily psychically dominate a group of kobolds. But what if you didn't? Try to sink into the kobold group-mind, see what you can learn. Also, take your wife on some nice dates.
It takes several tries to get the trick of floating amongst the kobold-minds without letting them latch onto you at all but rather amongst them. They just adhere too quickly. But you do eventually get there. Just feeling the weaving threads of their minds as the interacting pulses therein manage to assemble into a whole greater than the sum of its parts; it takes a month just to get the stealth technique down to the level it won't interfere with the mossy green scaled critters while still present enough to actually interact with their minds fully; and another couple of months of just observing and watching before it clicks. While it wouldn't work in any way similarly for humans as it does for the kobolds, there's nothing truly preventing the creation of this mesh-weave amongst your fellow telepaths. It would only be an emulation; a product of active cooperation, rather than a true mind unto itself as with the kobolds -- and required a great deal of trust and cohesive operation -- but for four or five people actively creating a telepathic pseudo-mind, having an "overseer" that was aware of each of them could make their cooperation immensely more effective.
Your dates with Mira consist of various fishing strategies. You very carefully do not think about or mention the fact that the puntgun was banned for a very good reason back on Old Earth. Your expeditions out beyond the perimeter of the colony are often "coincidentally" on the path of one or another of the scouts -- and they just so "happen" to have some scrounged up bit of some sweet or another. Just another way your people show their appreciation for you and Mira, really, but ... well, maybe you were old fashioned but you did want genuine privacy at least once in a while to show your wife how much you appreciated her without literally the entire colony feeling the reverberations of it. The upshot of this however is that you find your twins are very friendly with Wanda Runningdeer's own boy, as a result of you taking her aside to ask for a little more decorum.
Well, it's good for their socialization. But still. You watch little Iron like a hawk every time he's around your little girls. Mira thinks it's cute -- your reaction that is. And she isn't too old-fashioned to let anyone else know about it.
-- Results:
Squadlink psi technique obtained.
Mira is very enthusiastic about plinking. And playdates for the twins.
Votes by plan, please:
Each turn is 1 year.
1 Action in each category, only write-ins for now while the dust settles and interest is shown.
- [] Industry:
(Agricultural, economic, and residential leadership actions go here.)
-- [] MUST INCLUDE 1 AUTOFACTORY, AND A SOURCE OF 2 FOOD AND 2 MINERALS FOR CREDIT SYSTEM.
- [] Military:
(Militia, naval, wartime, and such go here.)
-- []
- [] Exploration:
(Scouting, mapping, resource survey type actions go here.)
-- []
- [] Research:
(Pulling schematics for practical application out of the colony ship's AI, discovering new techniques, biotech, and so on.)
-- []
- [] Diplomacy:
(Internal or external diplomatic actions. Building community, negotiating trade deals, and so on.)
-- []
- [] Personal:
(Things you do yourself.)
-- []
Psi tech research, as well. Use last autofabber as needed to build defenses or warning systems.