Just to be clear -- they wouldn't be able to even understand the concept. The hives aren't smart enough to use tools without a human's guidance. They have bodies that allow it, but even the collective intelligences aren't smart enough to figure that sort of thing out.
It's the /hiveminds/ that are pre-sapient. The individual kobolds are basically as smart as dogs or raccoons.
I know, but I doubt they're going to be that way forever.
And, keep in mind that I'm completely ignorant of Babylon 5 lore, but why would random species evolve to have telepathy? Maybe there's something out there that we haven't found yet, so I'd advise playing it safe in whatever small ways we can.
I know, but I doubt they're going to be that way forever.
And, keep in mind that I'm completely ignorant of Babylon 5 lore, but why would random species evolve to have telepathy? Maybe there's something out there that we haven't found yet, so I'd advise playing it safe in whatever small ways we can.
In the universe of Babylon 5, naturally telepathic species can and do evolve. But with exceedingly rare exceptions they are incapable of becoming sapient. (In the extended canon, there's literally /one/ example of a naturally intelligent telepathic species in the entire galaxy. That's not show canon though.)
Mind you -- this is NOT information known to the colonists. The fact that all telepaths in civilized Younger Races are the product of Vorlon interference is completely unknown to your people.
Your people have done the basic genetic analysis of the kobolds to know the only way the hives can get smarter is through evolutionary change over geological time scales unless you somehow tamper with them.
Note: the inline spoilers are about lore learned in B5 series, which i saw some years go, i could be wrong.
While i did not know about that bit, all sentient telephats were made by the Vorlons (not that our colonist know that) at least as far as i know, the narns did have at one point have telepath but They lost them when the shadows visited their planet, they died to throw off the shadows from their world
What this translates to us, is that our colonist may not believe these telepathic Kobolds cannot become a problem, they will never become sentient, but our colonists don't know that.
That said, our influence could change that, we could initially adopt them, and slowly uplift them? we don't know what constant contact between our collective telepathy and their hive minds would do.
That said, our influence could change that, we could initially adopt them, and slowly uplift them? we don't know what constant contact between our collective telepathy and their hive minds would do.
So one of the things about the kobolds is that they're actively attracted to humans (well human teeps but that's all there is to see.). The Runningdeers -- the closest the colony has to proper xenoecologists -- who studied the critters had to actively resist the attempts by the hives to connect to them.
The hives just aren't /smart/ enough to be uplifted, however. They can follow precise instructions, but they can't comprehend them.
They aren't going to spontaneously blossom into a higher form or something. Short of actual genetic changes there's no chance of them becoming a tool-using or language-comprehending culture. The /only/ reason they could be used for menial labor is that it's orders of magnitude easier to teach a rhesus monkey to work a hand crank when you have mind-to-mind communication.
Like -- it's novel and strange to your people that the hives can exist at all; and it's true that the hives are smarter than the individual kobolds -- but the absolute smartest hive you've seen after searching is still not smart enough to intentionally shape tools or make fire. They can act with extreme coordination and do things like dig tunnel complexes or make tree nests from broken branches or pick up and throw rocks or sticks to ward off predators. But that's as far as it goes.
Right. That would be the domesticating route. These things literally seem to want to self-domesticate. Like, in the presence of an unguarded human mind they'll pick up the things the human teep is thinking about doing and just instinctively do them like the human /was/ their hive mind of the individual kobold.
If you didn't know better you'd assume they were literally engineered to have this response to human-like minds.
As others have noted, the main thing that makes the Ironhearts and Grays dislike that idea is not wanting to be be Psi Corps.
Old post - Maybe start by letting them mix with the colony then?
[X] Basic start of a plan for feedback
Kobolds - start with a balanced approach of letting them mingle with the colony.
industry - build the mine and things needed to run it
research - things needed for environmentally friendly mining.
military - something to do with training to hide their presence/stealth?.
exploration - would putting a basic survey/gps satellite up work? I.e topographical/visual map of the region.
Diplomacy - work out a good policy of how to interact with the kobold to avoid exploitation/harm "does diplomacy work for this?".
Personal - go though the documentation/guides for building/running a colony "if possible with any others with free time in a leadership position"
Well...
Seeing this i will use the concept of Cid Meiers beyond Earth of Purity, Harmony and supremacy
Leaving them stay wild would be purity, adopting them would be either Harmony (pets) or supremacy (work force). Note this is to classify what we do, at lest for me.
I'm in for adopting the Kobolds, they seem the perfect companions for us, the colony's mood would surely improve with them, which is what i would like.
[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.
Quick question, can I combine the industry and research action in one turn? Say, if I researched better food storage, can I then set my industry to produce warehouses using that same research? I don't think researching that would take up an entire year.
That plan works for me. I more wanted to keep things in mind. I figured getting our own autofabber built would be a "what is the status of our own" thing sometime soon
As for GPS, I vote we call it KLIN for Kith Longitudinal Information Network. (Back acronyms aren't necessarily my thing)
So..
[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.
Quick question, can I combine the industry and research action in one turn? Say, if I researched better food storage, can I then set my industry to produce warehouses using that same research? I don't think researching that would take up an entire year.
Yeah, absolutely. You can also allocate an autofab to your research action if there's a big enough prototyping project to be covered by it.
If you do a research action in a turn and your industry action depends on it, I'll just take that into account for the narrative beat timing when writing up the turn. They take place over a years' time so there's wiggle room on that. As things stand you've already done a research action for basic needs for the colony so something like a Basic Storage Facility would be something you can already do. (Would add +10 to the storage cap for all categories, costing 2 Minerals.)
You can also use a personal action to oversee some kind of pet project as well as long as it's well understood at the time.
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.)
[]
Well that event roll took over the turn in a way I didn't expect it to.
Just to clarify: the water purifier and battery equipment were stored away safely so you don't have to worry about rebuilding them, your watch drones, nor the weather satellites.
It's just the Greenhouse and Hab Complexes that were wiped out due to not being weather-hardened.
I'll go ahead and open the vote directly for you guys but I anticipate the next turn to be on Wednesday evening. I'm going quickly for now because these are very early days -- so don't expect me to keep this pace up forever.
Is there any specific lore reason as to why family units are so important? I keep seeing Matriarch this and that and my 21st century democracy senses are tingling.
EDIT: I've tried looking into Babylon 5 tech, but it's a bit too much to learn about in so short a time, any comparisons that could be made with other franchises in terms of tech levels?
Is there any specific lore reason as to why family units are so important? I keep seeing Matriarch this and that and my 21st century democracy senses are tingling.
It's how the telepathic community was organized during the Metasensory Regulatory Agency period. Since telepathic abilities are mostly matrilinear, and general humanity was so suspicious of teeps in general, the founding families of telepathic society were led by the mothers of the family, and families would be fairly insular due to ostracism.
The Kith were also a significant part of it, with the members of that "precursor" group taking much of their culture into both the Psi Corps and the Telepath Resistance. "The Corps is Mother, the Corps is Father" comes from them. Your character, James Alexander, is the biological-through-artificial-insemination son of Desa Alexander, the Mother of the Kith, albeit born long after she died of old age -- like many telepaths you are a product of the various breeding programs the nations were running to produce as many and as strong of teeps as they could.
Your colony is basically a bunch of Space Gypsies who are squatting on unoccupied territory right now. Very clannish.
OOC/Doylistically, it was an easy way for me to establish in-Quest factions and subcultures for you folks to balance based on B5 canon. And to be honest -- there's only a couple hundred of you guys. Any attempts at democracy would wind up being a a Homeowners' Association right now.
EDIT: I've tried looking into Babylon 5 tech, but it's a bit too much to learn about in so short a time, any comparisons that could be made with other franchises in terms of tech levels?
That's one of the reasons why I chose a pre-canon group. As a /rough/ guideline, take Mass Effect's tech and strip out anything eezo based, and that's a good guideline. There are a few small differences based on setting-dependent physics (tachyons for example) and lore-stuff like the fact that Earth was using "binary liquid propellant" or "bilpro" (which apparently act like hybrid gunpowder and coilgun -- a series of pulsed explosions rather than just one -- weapons) weapons before they had plasma weaponry.
2170 Earth in Babylon 5 had a lunar and Mars colony and was under one unified government, and had a light sprinkling of alien technology because the Centauri "gave" Earth a hyperspace jumpgate to explore the interstellar beacon network. So you'd not be too far off if you thought in terms of what 2150 Systems Alliance could do.
If you look at something and think, "A real-world version of humanity that can colonize Mars could do this", then it's in-scope for what you might find in the ship's database.
You could for example use your Exploration action to have the colony ship perform a 1-time harvest of asteroids to bump up your Mineral stores significantly.
That being said, the ship you guys have /IS/ of Centauri make, so it's actually more advanced than anything in the database. One of the ways that's especially true is in the fact that the ship has artificial gravity deck plating. Which you could spend a Research action to try to reproduce -- although as your colony is now that would be a purely "I ran the scanner over the component and fed the data into the autofabber" scenario.
The ship was purely civilian make though, so it has no weapons.
[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???)
The current real world global TFR is just above 2. That translates to 17 births per 1,000 people.
Your colony has had 10 births a year in the last two years, giving you a TFR of around 5. Which is Baby Boom era birth rates. You'd need something like ectogenesis pods (iron womb) tech and creche rearing if you wanted to go much higher.
That would have cultural consequences. You did break away from an organization that was attempting forced breeding practices after all.
Either way with human growth times it'll be about 20 years before you get your next human Pop Unit. So your most immediate way to bypass this problem is adopting more Kobolds and heavy reliance on automation.
[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.
We don't need defenses yet, but we will need to swing into storage and I'd like to have it on hand when needed. I'm focusing on industry and research this turn.
