For The Tyrants Fear Your Might (A quest of interstellar rebellion)

AKuz · Dec 10, 2020

THE ALL-RADIANT CONGRESS

Setting Information: The Solarian Compact:

Initially formed as the Solarian Treaty Organization from the ashes of the old United Nations Security Council, United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs, and the Global Climate Relief Organization in the worst decade of Earth's environmental collapse. The STO was originally a body tasked with overseeing the granting of offworld mining permits and the purchase and distribution of the resources to countries struggling from climate change.

The advent of the Korolev-Chandrashker gates and the construction of the first one under STO oversight in 2063 led to the beginning of the transformation of that body into the de facto single governing body of the Human species.

Reorganized into the 'Solarian Compact', the first Charters were granted to massive corporate conglomerates to explore and exploit the cosmos for Humanity with little to no regulation or restriction.

In the early decades, the Solarian Compact oversaw the construction of KC gates in the systems closest to Sol and began the process of granting colonization rights to the most habitable worlds within that region with colonization rights granted to a number of national and international blocks.

With the growth of the Solarian Compact's power came calls for the body to become more representative and democratic, and in 2099, the Solarian Compact held its first elections and constitutional convention, inviting representatives from the Sol system and the five systems that held permanent Human settlement.

Over the course of the 22nd and 23rd centuries the Solarian Compact has held fast to what it sees as its duty to act as the mediator and financier of the Charters, the unifying agent of the disparate first Human colonies, and the guarantor of interstellar peace for Humanity.

As of 2252, the three most important bodies within the Solarian Compact are the Solarian Parliament -Located on Earth, the Solarian Compact Navy -based in the Korolev-Chandrashker system, and the Solarian Central Bank, -based out of the Columbia System.

Organized as a liberal democracy, with universal suffrage, the Solarian Compact is theoretically overseen by three equal institutions: the Solarian Parliament, the office of the Solarian Secretary General, and the Solarian High Court.

Though the Solarian Compact prides itself on being a Constitutional government, the actual original document merely outlines the terms of admitting new MPs and High Court Judges, and the electoral procedures of the Compact Parliament, with subsequent Parliaments meeting to add items like the Declaration of Property Rights, the founding of the Central Bank, the creation of the Solarian Navy, and the Laws on Freedom of Navigation and Travel being added later.

The Solarian Parliament is made up of two thousand six hundred and twenty seats representing ridings on Earth, Columbia, Atlantis, Penglai, Olduvai, and Epsilon which are elected every three years to a Parliament that meets in the New York prefecture of Earth.

Though the many frontier colonies do not have direct representation in the Parliament due to being owned and operated by private entities, their inhabitants are considered 'Absent for Employment' and may register with a home riding and submit a physical ballot (for security reasons) by courier from when polls open until they close. Though this process was suitable for the closely settled regions of space at the time of the ratification of the Compact Constitution in 2100, the rapid growth of Human settled space in the century and a half since has seen the de facto voter suppression of over 90% of Human settled space.

At the first sitting of each new Compact Parliament, the assembled members will elect a Secretary General and a slate of Ministry officials on a majority basis, and those individuals will oversee the executive branch of government and day to day operations. Though the average Compact Parliament contains between seven to nine parties in each Parliamentary sitting, the vast majority of seats belong to one of either the Party for Human Rights and Liberties or the Justice and Development Alliance and have since the very early 2100s. The governments formed this way can be brought down by losing the confidence of the Parliament for example, by failing to pass a budget, the process of finding a majority government will repeat again.

Though a democratic body that has maintained stability for over a century and a half, the Solarian Compact Parliament has been dogged by accusations of dynastic politics, Charter influence, voter suppression, regulatory capture, inability to reign in the Banks and MIlitary, and corruption at all levels.

Separate from the Parliament is the Solarian High Court that consists of eleven judges that serve terms of up to thirty-three years, with each new sitting of the Compact Parliament selecting one judge from a list provided by the governments of the six main worlds of the Solarian Compact. The High Court rules on matters of adherence of laws to the Solarian Constitution, and have been accused of serving as an arm of the Charters, though this has been strenuously contested by the Solarian legal profession as a whole.

By law the Solarian Compact also oversees a number of other important institutions including the Earth Reconstruction Commission (In a permanent public-private partnership with the Earth Reconstruction Association), the Solarian Central Bank, and the Solarian Compact Navy, though these important institutions often exhibit an alarming degree of autonomy from Parliamentary control.

The Charters:

The result of a cleverly conceived merger between specialty transport vessel manufacturer Titan Staryards and Private Military contractor Martian Military Solutions, Ares cut its teeth not just supplying material to the skirmishes between Mississippi Shipping and United Starhaul, but in supplying military contractors to both sides.

The professionalism of Ares mercenaries and quality of Ares gear led to the rapid expansion of business opportunities for the company and investment skyrocketed even after the Mississippi-Starhaul war ended in a hostile takeover of Starhaul by Mississippi.

Thanks in part to Mississippi debts held by Ares, when the RT-2102 Gate was opened up for settlement strategic maneuvering saw the Compact grant Ares mining and settlement rights to the newly opened system.

The rest, as they say, is history. Leveraging the immense resources of the Alexander system with their existing military expertise, Ares expanded nearly exponentially over the following century. While they maintain a dominating edge in the military field, they now integrated companies in fields from agronomy to personal fitness centers to xenobiology.

Internally Ares very self consciously styles itself as a hierarchical military organization complete with a semi-formal rank structure and an ethos of respect for the chain of command, professional courtesy, and treating your subordinates with respect. In practice Ares is hidebound, authoritarian, filled with passive aggressive sniping and rampant empire building.

While Ares remains headquartered on Mars, they have holdings in several systems and own the distant system of Alexander outright.

Rhodes Mining

One of the three original Charters that the Compact granted, Rhodes considers itself the singular reason that Humanity survived ecological collapse and spread past Sol. Immensely wealthy, over 52% of all material mined and processed by the entire Human race has passed through Rhodes hands at one point or another.

While founded merely to provide Earth the vital materials that it needed to rebuild itself after the lost decades of ecological collapse, Rhodes quickly expanded into all areas of the economy to support their mining, refining, and processing operations.

Dedicated to their vision of logistical chain efficiencies they've developed an entire chain of star systems into an efficient production center based around the resource rich system of Foundry, and the nearby feeder systems of Ecrams, Qem, and Crucible.

Rhodes considers itself home to a version of meritocracy built on hard work, education, and good old fashioned personal drive. This has developed over time into a stratified internal divide between the rank and file workers, the lower level management, and the highly lauded senior management. Each class lives in entirely separate worlds, attending separate schools, consuming different products, and leading very different lives in what many observers have labelled a de facto caste system.

they make food and medicine, the 120 year old CEO is kinda creepy tho?

Techbros, some of them science, some of them explore

Born from the union of Hermes Interstellar Services and The Ishtar Group, the Hermes-Ishtar Corporation owns and operates not only the communications backbone of Compact space, but much of the content that crosses over it.

The results of increasing consolidation of pre-spaceflight communications infrastructure and content creation and management firms, Hermes Communications and Ishtar Entertainment Group were both part of the second round of Charters established after the advent of the KC gates.

While Hermes quickly established operations throughout Compact space, their waystations, couriers, and communications repeaters a common sight in every corner of Human occupied space; Ishtar Group mainly limited their own operations to Sol and the Radiant system, where Ishtar owned and operated the world of Elysium to support their many projects.

Following a wave of Compact space wide reorganizations following the Mississippi-Starhaul conflicts of the 2130s, a desire for complete vertical integration on Ishtar's part led to a mostly amicable union with Hermes in 2139.

Since then Hermes-Ishtar have dominated all communications across Human space with only the privileged internal high-level communications of the other Charters managing to avoid consolidation under Hermes-Ishtar.

While Hermes-Ishtar make a great show of respecting individual creativity, initiative, and drive from their employees; in practice this amounts to rampant internal fighting involving the parasocial personality cults of different "genius" inventors, artists, and executive that rise and fall inside of Hermes-Ishtar at a dizzying rate.

Sketchy buggers, they can get you anything tho

Historical Topics:

Between 2036 and 2071 the Democratic Federation was the governing body of much of Earth's Western Hemisphere.

Initially comprised of a Federation of Socialist, Anarchist, Communist, and other far left social movements, militias, and political factions controlling regions of Earth's North American continent during and after the decline and collapse of the United States of America (1776-2034) due to the effects of unaddressed climate change amplifying existing political and economic crisis.

Eventually solidifying into the governing body of the former United States of America, United States of Mexico and the Dominion of Canada, the Democratic Federation embarked on an ambitious program of cultural revolution and economic reform designed to mitigate and reverse the effects of the climate change crisis.

As the patron of much of the central and southern western hemisphere, the Democratic Federation attempted to chart a course of environmental restoration separate from that of the Solarian Treaty Organization (In 2063 reorganized into the Solarian Charter), choosing not to contest Eurasian and African domination of outer space.

Having never existed out of crisis conditions, a combination of pre-existing economic damage, sabotage, and instability drove the Democratic Federation into decline in the Grey Decade of 2062 to 2070 and eventually forced the Democratic Federation to ratify a series of treaties giving the Charters economic access to Federation member states in order to conduct vital reconstruction work.

A last ditch uprising by radical elements in 2072 to eject the Charters from the Democratic Federation failed when Solarian Compact peacekeepers were called in and in seven months of street fighting pacified most of North America's key urban centers via strategic use of orbital weapons on the areas of greatest urban resistance.

Though guerilla warfare would continue in the Western Hemisphere for another three decades, the Democratic Federation was officially defunct by December 2072 and parcelled out into a number of Charter owned reconstruction areas under Compact authority.

Today radicals still pine for the four decades that the Democratic Federation attempted to build an alternative to the emerging Charters, and the polity's distinctive black, red, and green flag is brought out for each and every Great Black Summer. Well into the twenty second century, riots were often accompanied by demands to 'Avenge the Martyrs of 72!'.

Despite this underground extremist nostalgia, Charter and Compact schools teach that the Democratic Federation was a collectivist state whose iconoclastic behavior saw the destruction of famous landmarks like Mount Rushmore, Stone Mountain, and other monuments to Liberal Democracy and the Free Market in a mad attempt to remake the human race, but whose doctrinaire adoption of command economics saw them unable to deal with the ever-changing complexities of climate change.

Misc Details:

The first five systems to hold permanent Human colonies are known as either "The First Sisters" or "Earth's Daughters", depending on who you are asking and their political persuasion. From oldest to youngest, these worlds are:

Columbia: settled by billionaire American expats and tens of millions of refugees who had fled the unfolding revolutionary violence of the North American continent several years beforehand. Columbia was founded under a vision of fidelity to the American dream and to prove the indomitability of the soul of the United States of America and liberalism in the face of the red flags of the (North American) Democratic Federation. Fiercely loyal to the Compact and the dream of Charter prosperity, and home of the Solarian Central Bank, Columbia is often known as the "Gilded World" in reference to what many see as a return to American Gilded Age wealth and social inequality. Ares Conflict Solutions' central command is located here.

Atlantis: With colonization rights to this majority oceanic planet initially granted to the waning power of the European Union, the nations of the EU opened up colonization opportunities to other allied powers, especially Russia and Egypt. Atlantis was often seen by the EU as a place to dump unwanted refugees from outside of Europe's borders, and Russia and Egypt's tendency to see the world as a genuine project led to the usurpation of colonization rights away from Europe in the mid 2080s. Known today as the most restive of the first wave of colonies, Atlantis is the most skeptical of Charter power and plays a delicate game of wealth redistribution to underwrite the greatest social security net in Human Space. Cernunnos is de jure headquartered here.

Penglai: Originally the world in the most need of terraforming of the original colonies, Colonization rights were granted to the People's Republic of China and their allies after a lackluster bidding campaign. As China's focus was mainly on attempting to stem the damage of climate change on Earth herself, colonization of Penglai initially lagged until the Chinese Politburo struck upon the strategy of subcontracting colonization rights to Pacific adjacent nations suffering from the rise of that ocean. As colonization unfolded in the early 22nd century Penglai became known as a multicultural mosaic as hundreds of millions from across the Pacific settled and intermingled on the wine darkened shores of that world. Known today for its vibrant cultural milieu, violent clashes between labour unions, and private police, Penglai hosts the headquarters of the Hermes-Ishtar, Omoikane and Rhodes corporations.

Olduvai: With Colonization rights granted to a coalition of African nations at the height of the 'African Century', the African Colonization Organization did not see their colony as a refugee destination, dumping ground, or resource colony like their fellows. Instead the ACO saw the colonization scheme as an opportunity to preserve and export the rich traditions and cultures of Africa on their own terms, fully intending to set up healthy and self-sufficient colonies. To the current day, Olduvai has the closest relations with the home nations and is the heartland of Daughter sentiment and a bedrock for the Party for Human Rights and Liberties.

Epsilon System: While not technically a single world, the cluster of heavily inhabited space colonies in the Epsilon system are always considered the 'Fifth Sister' or 'Fifth Daughter'. As the most mineral rich system of the original colonies, Epsilon was the source of many of the materials that helped pull Earth through her darkest hour, and the system was recognized for their efforts by being invited to send delegates to the 2099 Solarian Compact Constitutional Convention. Epsilon is famous for its people's long roots in spacing and for being the headquarters of Mississippi Shipping Interstellar and thus the most heavily trafficked system in history.
Technologies: Nanomanufacturing, summary:

The contemporary gold standard for manufacturing. These devices use mechanosynthesis, a process that guides chemical reactions by placing reactive molecules with atomic precision. Ribosomes in the body's cells use a form of this method.

While the largest units can create objects up to 2m x 2m x 2m, smaller units (halving the units each time) are viable on basically any human scale. Projects larger than this size (such as ships or buildings, need to be either grown layer-by-layer via nanofabricators attached to robotic arms, or assembled from smaller parts through traditional assembly line, dry dock, or construction processes.

In principle basically anything can be made with these devices, and some materials can only be manufactured via these methods in microgravity. All manufacturing patterns in Compact Space feature Charter DRM using embedded explosive molecules like octaazacubane or cubic gauche nitrogen that will damage a disassembler or x-ray machine making reverse engineering of their products difficult.

A common part of 23rd century life is the near ubiquity of Artificial Intelligences in daily life, from consumer grade VIs through specialist TLIs, controversial AGIs, finally the perpetually 10 years away Artificial Super Intelligences.

The common consumer will daily run into what are properly known as Narrow AIs, and generally labelled as VI -Virtual Intelligences- by people outside the field. This category covers a broad swathe of techniques, from search and pathfinding to expert systems to genetic fuzzy trees to deep neural networks, which are mixed and matched with each other to optimize for the designed task. VIs are ubiquitous, exceeding human peak skill in their areas of specialization (though real world applications often don't do all that much better than trained humans), and have spent the past two centuries getting augmented with more and more clever algorithmic tricks for improving VIs. In order to do this, the Charters employ large teams of analysts and software engineers to develop clever algorithmic tricks that supplement or outright supplant neural networks, exploiting machine precision where stochastic methods are inadequate.

The use of VIs in everyday life is well accepted by the vast majority of the population, with professionals mixing and matching various consumer VIs to analyse data or assist them with creative or scientific works. Some VI lines are well loved by both the populace and the Charters themselves, with Charter programmers often deliberately leaving VIs with behavioral quirks and unpredictable glitches that not only save money on quality assurance, but are considered endearing traits that lead to anthropomorphization by the consumer market

Despite the mass comfortability and profitability of VIs of all kinds, the introduction of AGIs has been, to put it delicately, controversial. Though computer science has advanced to the point of producing programs that can not only pass the Turing test, but demonstrate sapience and match 23rd century human intelligence, flexibility, and creativity, the public reaction to the introduction of AGI saw the companies of the time rapidly pull them from the market, and even say the Compact itself move to heavily regulate the AI sector.

First introduced in the 2060s, the great tech firms began replacing their work staff with AGIs who did not require food, rest, housing, or pay. This shift led to an alliance between white collar workers fearing that automation would put them out of work and radicals who opposed what they insisted was AGI Slavery, a growing movement that would climax in the First Great Black Summer of 2084. When the ashes of the First Black Summer settled, the Compact's Parliament moved to grant rights to AGIs, and the resulting economic damage saw dozens of formerly great names in computing consolidate under the aegis of several of the first Charters who flaunted their extra-Solarian wealth by buying up prestigious brand names and research divisions on the cheap.

Since the 2080s, while the regulation surrounding AGI production and use have been severely weakened none of the Charters have sought to reintroduce them into the market, perhaps fearing another backlash like the First Black Summer and the few hundred thousand surviving AGIs that were granted Solarian Citizenship rights have found spread throughout the Compact and Charter Space where they usually work at the same white collar jobs whose workers they were designed to replace.

Perhaps due to the risks of attempting to reintroduce AGIs to the market, Omoikane has instead introduced their flagship product the "TLI" or Temporary Limited Intelligence. Approximately as effective as an AGI, a TLI is billed as a more moral replacement for AGI that uses a suite of high end VIs and a proprietary batch of creativity algorithms in order to complete complex tasks.

TLIs are used as a fire and forget program designed to be licensed to solve a single issue, no matter how complicated and then delete itself. Though the TLIs are a black box product, scientists from the other Charters believe that the central creativity algorithm in the TLI is inherently unstable and rapidly degrades in ability with time, making the TLI an instance of Omoikane attempting to market a critical technical flaw as a selling point that is accepted due to the ubiquitous market practice of planned obsolescence and artificial scarcity.

Though expensive, most businesses and successful professionals will keep a few licensed Omoikane TLIs on hand to throw at difficult problems or to supplement manpower in crunch situations.

While AGIs have been possible for nearly two centuries, the promise of a Seed AI, a recursively self-improving general superintelligence, is perpetually 'a decade away from the market', and no successful ASI ever been demonstrated to the satisfaction of the Charters or the Compact.

This is not to say that the Gödel machine architecture or the AIXI model has somehow been forgotten in the past 230 years, but that the Friendly AI problem has yet to be cracked. Every demonstration has either stalled out or gone immediately rampant, attempting to overthrow Charter Space before being stopped by the safety net of Narrow AIs. The small trickle of roughly human intelligence level AGIs that are created every decade typically come from these projects.

Urban legends persist that a few Seed AIs managed to escape and hide out beyond known space, plotting to return and crush humanity, or that they control all of society in secret, puppeting the Compact and Charters from their very foundation and occasionally engineering publicly failed ASI attempts to allay suspicion. These rumours are, of course, patently false, and simply the fevered imagination of crackpots at work, no doubt inspired by entertainment made by Hermes-Ishtar that feature AI supervillainy.
Systems: Map made by @Redshirt Army

The Spinward Frontier:

The Middle Spinward Frontier

The Core Region:

UNDER RADIANT CONTROL OR ALLIED:

The Radiant system is host to a G-class star, only slightly smaller than Sol. The system itself is rather small and resource-poor; experts believe that one or more Jovian planets ejected much of the system's bodies and then followed themselves. This is evidenced by the system's asteroid belt degrading over time, with high levels of eccentric orbits and impacts on planetary surface.

Radiant 1: A rather unremarkable airless iron planet, gravity 0.4 Earth Standard.

Radiant 2: A slightly larger unremarkable airless iron-silicate planet, gravity 0.6 Earth Standard.

Radiant 3: A binary planetary system and the outermost of the Radiant systems' planets.

Asphodel (Radiant 3a): The larger of the Elysium 3 pair, Asphodel might have once hosted life of its own. That life has been snuffed out for hundreds of millions of years, though, as the planet's significant atmosphere began the runaway cycle of your usual hothouse planet. Hermes-Ishtar maintained a significant aerostat and automated surface miner operation for in-house manufacturing, given that the frequent asteroid impacts from the asteroid belt keep digging up chunks of the upper crust and having low-melting-point metals rain out of the sky and solidify, unoxidized, on the surface for collection. Gravity 1.4 Earth Standard.

Elysium (Radiant 3b): Elysium was settled in the late 2190's, being a relatively simple affair. Simple life had already begun to evolve under its oceans, but continued orbital bombardment far past the lengths of things like Earth's Late Heavy Period had kept it there. It was a simple matter of forming up a small anti-asteroid task force armed with tugs and mining lasers to artificially end the pummeling, and the surface proved amenable to Terran life transplants. The colony is energy-self-sufficient, using a variety of solar, tidal, and nuclear power. Gravity 0.9 Earth Standard.

Radiant I: The outermost significant feature of Radiant, this asteroid belt is more a loose mixture of a primordial asteroid belt much like Sol's with a Kuiper belt. The shepherding gas giants which once nudged all these rocks into their orbits are gone, and with it the entire outer system is a maelstrom of chaotic orbits as the belts lose their coherence. This requires constant vigilance from Elysium's anti-asteroid team, but the high eccentricity of many asteroids also makes it cheap and easy to mine the ones that might come Elysium's way, which provides a trickle of basic resources for upkeep and personal goods. All large-scale building and infrastructure projects have been supplied from out-system, however.

A G-K far binary system, Gaid is simply a transit point to Radiant. Gaid's own gate maintenance techs and SAR rotated in and out through Radiant itself. There is no infrastructure other than a set of buoy lines for communications in Gaid A, and nothing in Gaid B.

Gaid A1: An airless world. Quality 10.

Gaid A2: A planet much like mars with a vestigial CO2 atmosphere. Quality 7.

Gaid A3: This planet boasts a methane hydrosphere. Quality 4.

Gaid AI: An asteroid belt.

Gaid A4: A turbulent Jovian planet, its storms would make resource extraction difficult. Quality 5.

Gaid A4a: An icy moon, with tidal heating creating a large ocean under a thin icy shell. Quality 9.

Gaid B1: A molten Cthonian world hosting a simply ludicrous amount of iron. Quality 15.

Gaid B2: An airless world. Quality 10.

Gaid B3: An airless binary system with two near-identically sized planets. Quality 7 and 8.

Gaid B4: This airless planet boasts a large and beautiful ring system, famous as a screen background option across human space. Every few years, a cruise or scientific expedition will stop by for more images.

Gaid B5: A small icy planet. Quality 3.

Gaid B6: A frozen world. Quality 7.

Gaid B7: An interesting gas dwarf sometimes referred to as an 'ice dwarf.' Quality 14.

A close K-M binary, Shei is home to an old Ares penal colony.

Shei 1: A Cthonian world. Quality 15.

Shei 2: An airless world. Quality 12.

Sheol (Shei 3): A boreal world, with a large, decaying ring, the planet features two large continents. The population of the consists of a large prisoner population on the larger of the two continents and a small Ares training base on the smaller. Records show that the prison consists of several million persons convicted to "high risk labour" and dropped on the continent with automatic resupply via Ares contractors and watched from orbit by weapons satellites. Most of the planet's land area is covered in a native tree analogue with a strange multi-stranded trunk.

Sheol is actually home to a population of over 100 million made up of prisoners and their descendants taht Ares was usuing as a live fire training course. Cooperation between Radiant agents, Ares mutineers, and the Sheolites themselves have seen the planet freed.

Gravity .95 Earth Standard. Quality 12.

Watchman (Shei 3a): Once the outer of two moons, this body now boasts Ares' local light shipyards and system command center. Quality 13.

Shei 4: Spiraling in from the outer system, this planet will eventually evaporate near-entirely as it closes towards the dual suns of Shei. Quality 3.

Shei 5: Martian planet with an active methane cycle. Quality 5.

Shei I: Asteroid belt.

Shei 6: Jovian planet with high rotation rate. Slightly squashed as a result. Quality 8.

Shei 6a: An icy capture, this moon will be torn into a ring sometime in the next hundred thousand years. Quality 2.

Shei 6b: Cold Martian planet, covered in a thin layer of water and carbon dioxide ices. Active methane cycle. Quality 8.

Shei II: Asteroid belt.

Shei 7: Jovian planet. Quality 13.

Shei 7a: An icy moon with significant cryovolcanism. Quality 6.

Shei 7b: A tiny icy moon, this is on the edge of hydrostatic equilibrium. Quality 2.

Shei 8: Ice giant. Quality 6.

Shei 8a: An icy moon. Quality 9.

Shei 8b: An icy moon, orbiting in an unusual polar orbit. Quality 9.

Population: 103,000,000

While lacking any currently-habitable planets, Five Lions' large size and potential have made it a significant point of Rhodes' recent extraction efforts. Ambitious terraforming efforts have recently begun.

Carajas (Five Lions 1): A Cthonian ball of iron, it's actively mined by robotic Rhodes-built landers. Gravity 2.3 Earth Standard. Quality 12.

Five Lions 2: A small rocky ball. Quality 3.

Five Lions 3: A rocky ball. Quality 7.

Grasberg (Five Lions 4): A large rocky world, glaciation has rendered it uninhabitable for now, but terraforming efforts have begun to artificially ramp up the greenhouse effect and restore liquid water to the surface, along with mining its ice. Gravity 1.11 Earth Standard. Quality 14.

Five Lions 5: This planet's atmosphere is so significant it verges on a gas dwarf. While a solid surface covered in a thin layer of ice is at the bottom, no reasonable colonization is possible. Quality 7.

Five Lions I: This asteroid belt, along with all the others, is being mined heavily.

Five Lions 6: This Jovian planet forms the center of current Rhodes extraction efforts. Quality 4.

Five Lions 6a: This Martian planet boasts significant ice caps and active plate tectonics, though only a vestigial atmosphere. Debate on whether to put resources into terraforming it are ongoing. Gravity .81 Earth Standard. Quality 17.

Oyu Tolgoi (Five Lions 6b): Home to the local population in covered shelters, this Martian planet, while nearly completely lacking water or plate tectonics, has its own atmosphere. Comet bombardment away from populated areas is ongoing and is already beginning to show results. Gravity .79 Earth Standard. Quality 11.

Five Lions II: An asteroid belt.

Five Lions 7: An unremarkable Jovian. Quality 2.

Five Lions III: An asteroid belt.

Five Lions 8: Jovian planet, its rotation speed has resulted in an unusually calm upper atmosphere. Quality 15.

Five Lions IV: An asteroid belt.

Five Lions 9: Jovian planet. Quality 9.

Five Lions V: An asteroid belt.

Five Lions 10: Neptunian ice giant. Quality 8.

Five Lions 10a: A small icy moon. Quality 5.

Five Lions 10b: A large icy body, this was probably its own planetoid at some point before being captured due to the complex interplays of no less than 5 gas giants.

Population: 15,000,000

A rare system with a brown dwarf orbiting a G-type star (just barely in the limits of what's considered a single system rather than a binary), and with a Jovian planet orbiting that, and on top of that treasure trove a dual ice giant binary, Osliam presents a golden research opportunity, and was bid on by Omoikane despite its otherwise sparce resources and poor habitable prospects.

Osliam 1: A rare hot ice giant, this planet is actively shrinking on a measurable time scale. It must have migrated in as a much larger planet recently.

Osliam 1a: This once-rock-ice moon is now a tiny molten ellipse barely holding together.

Osliam 1b: This somewhat larger moon changes color unusually with its day, as the shade of its parent cools lava to a dull red before emerging back into the light heats the lava back to a healthy orange glow.

Osliam 1c: This entire moon glows dull red in its day, just barely solid, and cools to an unusually smooth moon in its night.

Osliam I: This asteroid belt was probably a planet before Osliam 1's passing tore it to shreds.

Osliam 3: A hothouse planet with a relatively thin atmosphere, it retains temperatures and pressures that are survivable with heavy-duty equipment on the surface—when it's not raining sulfuric acid, that is.

Osliam 4: This small Martian planet seems to have collected some of Osliam 1's offgassing in its move inwards, and has a renewed temporary atmosphere.

Osliam 5a: This planet seems to have survived at the edge of the frost line by siphoning gas off its smaller twin.

Osliam 5b: Barely a gas giant, this planet was probably only slightly smaller than Osliam 5a in the distant past.

Osliam 6: The focus of Omoikane colonization in-system, Osliam 6 retains plate tectonics from the nearby brown dwarf but no atmosphere, an odd combination.

Osliam 7: A brown dwarf, this substellar object long ago burnt its deuterium and now lies slowly cooling, glowing dimly red. It is, however, still giving off a prodigious amount of low IR radiation.

Osliam 7a: Once its own planet, Osliam 7a was captured at some point by Osliam 7, perhaps in the same interaction that threw Osliam 1 to its suicidal innermost orbit.

Osliam 7a1: This icy moon is simultaneously shrinking and becoming more habitable—while its outer layers of ice are sublimating, the fierce tides of its complex interplay with Osliam 7 and 7a are heating the inner ocean to temperatures comparable to terrestrial water sources. Some scientists even suggest a pocket of water vapor is forming under the ice, and may form an internal "sky" for as much as a hundred million years before the outer shell sublimates entirely.

Osliam 7a2: This moon is less lucky; its tides are so strong that they seem to slowly be ripping the moon apart. It won't have the honor of becoming more than an ephemeral ring; the same complex tides tearing at it will rapidly disperse its debris field. While it lasts, though, it's easy water harvesting.

Population: 650,000

UNDER CHARTER CONTROL:

A distant double G binary, Xotreh hosts a small habitable moon around Xotreh B, the smaller of the two stars. As such, development has focused on the second star, despite the fact that the jump points center closer to Xotreh A.

Xotreh A1: This world boasts an active liquid silicate cycle on its surface, with oceans of basalt and continents of granite. Gravity 0.38 Earth Standard. Quality 8.

Xotreh A2: A rather large airless world, its original atmosphere was likely blown off by a massive impact. Gravity 1.2 Earth Standard. Quality 9.

Xotreh A3: A binary planetary pair of airless worlds about the size of Mars. Quality 6 and 8.

Xotreh A4: A hothouse planet with a planet-wide sulfuric acid storm due to its rapid rotation. Gravity .71 Earth Standard. Quality 8.

Xotreh A5 "Cueball": This planet is remarkably similar to Earth—if earth was buried under a kilometers-thick ice sheet across 90% of the surface. One day, as Xotreh A expands and dies, this world will become an ocean planet, but for now it's a cold desert. Gravity .87 Earth Standard. Quality 5.

Xotreh A6: An unremarkable icy ball. Quality 4.

Xotreh AI: An asteroid belt.

Xotreh A7: A Jovian planet, Xotreh 7 corrals the entire inner system in line. Quality 10.

Xotreh B1: This planet must have once been a gas giant at least the size of Uranus before it was sent inwards. Now all that remains is a dense core with a molten surface. Gravity 1.51 Earth Standard. Quality 13.

Xotreh B2: A binary pair of earth-sized airless worlds. Quality 6 and 7.

Xotreh B3: Another once-gas giant, this planet remains far out enough to boast a wholly-solid surface of iron. Gravity 1.64 Earth Standard. Quality 14.

Xotreh B4: A Jovian right on the frost line, its tidal heating keeps its moons on the edge of habitability. Quality 3.

Xotreh B4a "Sushi": An ocean world with massive polar ice caps, Omoikane has constructed a series of seasteads on the equatorial high ocean plateaus where it was feasible to drive foundations into the sea floor a few hundred meters below the surface. These small facilities serve as housing, data storage, and production centers for the research teams studying the dual Cthonian planets of Xotreh B. Gravity .67 Earth Standard. Quality 2.

Xotreh B4b: The lesser tidal heating here worsened the glaciation, and the planet lies under a planet-wide crust of ice. Gravity 1.13 Earth Standard. Quality 10.

Xotreh BI: The close proximity of this asteroid belt makes it an ideal location for resource extraction.

Xotreh 5: This Jovian is definitively beyond the habitable zone. Quality 6.

Xotreh 6: A dense ice giant. Quality 4.

Xotreh 7: Jovian planet. Quality 6.

Xotreh 8: An exceptionally cold Jovian. Quality 9.

Xotreh 8a: An unremarkable icy sphere. Quality 8.

Xotreh 9: This planet would have a massive atmosphere, if it wasn't so cold it all froze and fell to the surface. Only a few degrees above the space surrounding it. Gravity 1.3 Earth Standard. Quality 9.

Population: 54,000

Besides an interesting Jovian-gas dwarf planetary system, Bestreer holds little of interest other than its connections to other places.

Bestreer 1: An airless world. Quality 2.

Bestreer 2: An airless world. Quality 6.

Bestreer 3: This airless world once had a captured moon, torn apart at the Roche limit and forming a ring. A small gate maintenance and SAR team bases here, siphoning fuel and water from Bestreer 5 and mining into the surface for both resources and safe spaces for housing. Quality 10.

Bestreer 4: A rock-ice world. Quality 5.

Bestreer 5: Another rock-ice world made up more of ice than rock. Quality 5.

Bestreer I: An icy asteroid belt.

Bestreer 6: A large Jovian planet, on the edge of becoming a brown dwarf. Quality 15.

Bestreer 6a: This gas dwarf might have become a gas giant in its own right without its massive sibling. Quality 5.

Bestreer 7: Another Jovian. Quality 14.

Bestreer 7a: An icy moon, with an internal ocean buried under kilometers of ice. Quality 12.

Bestreer 8: An icy ball. Quality 10.

Population: 450

G-class star. A transshipping point to Radiant and environs, Mississippi keeps a substantial support crew on hand for possible cargo ship breakdowns or emergencies in-system, due to the slightly increased risk of issues from the absolute shambles of Akleod's inner system. A minor executive has also put together a cheap refueling and battery exchange station.

Akleod 1: Even actively evaporating and leaving behind a trail in orbit of dissipating volatiles, this body is large enough to have usurped Akleod 1a's orbit temporarily until it disappears away or the chaotic orbit of the two throws one into the star or out of the system. Quality 2.

Akleod 1a: The original Akleod 1, its orbit has been badly disrupted by the current, migrating Akleod 1. Which of the two gets ejected is still uncertain despite a decent amount of computational simulation; odds put it at 48-52% relatively. Quality 6.

Gnat's Ass (Akleod 2): A small, loosely-held-together icy body, perhaps what used to be an asteroid belt before Akleod 1's suicidal inner-system dive. It's not yet had time to fully reach hydrostatic equilibrium. Quality 3.

Akleod 3: An icy planet similar to Akleod 1, perhaps an old sibling. Quality 13.

Akleod I: An asteroid belt.

Akleod 4: A Jovian with an unusually elliptical orbit, it's regarded as the culprit for the chaos of Akleod's inner system. Quality 11.

Population: 5,000

As it turns out, transponder codes from regular priority messages through Gaid (now that we can see them, having backdoored the gate control) bear tags from a system, Thoa, along with navigational chart updates for any ships that happen to stop by. Thoa and Gaid both seem to have been nothing more than transit points to the far-more-valuable Radiant for Hermes-Ishtar, but Thoa holds a small anti-pirate base guarding against raiders from Signia. Hermes-Ishtar was apparently serious enough about it to have a converted corvette on station.

All told, the Thoa system holds gates to 2 systems besides Gaid's. There's also an unimproved jump point simply labelled as "dangerous." that leads to Signia

Thoa System Stats:

Thoa 1: A molten mess of a planet, it's hot enough that a residual atmosphere of vaporized low-melting-point metallics exists.

Thoa 2: An unremarkable airless metal ball.

Thoa 3: A super-earth hothouse, this planet would have been uninhabitable due to its gravity even before turning scorchingly hot.

Thoa 3a: A captured asteroid barely on the edge of hydrostatic equilibrium, the Nasty Bastardhad been excavating rudimentary shelters for "leave" for its crew.

Thoa I: An asteroid belt.

Thoa 4: A normal Jovian planet.

Thoa 4a: A moon much like Mars in climate.

Thoa 5: A Jovian planet with an unusual triangular wind pattern at the poles.

Thoa 6: Blooms of hydrogen well up from the core of this Jovian, perhaps disturbed by some recent impact.

Thoa 7: Bathyscapes would find themselves at home on the surface of Thoa 7. Pressures much like that at Earth's seabed keep a crust of ice 3 stable enough robotic drones could walk on it.

Thoa 7a: Unusually, Thoa 7a is the only large icy body in the system. Scientists are unsure of where the others went. As the only easy source of volatiles, the UNasty Bastard periodically stopped by a handful of obsolete volatile collection systems on the surface to top up.

Thoa II: A Kuiper belt of icy objects.

Empty Systems

Kimberly: A fairly unremarkable and empty system, this site was chosen as Rhodes' spinward boneyard—a place for failed experiments, old equipment, and ships so worn they weren't worth maintaining anymore, but were still valuable enough to warrant not throwing into a gas giant or otherwise completely destroyed. For 2 decades a Rhodes-affiliated salvaging contractor worked here, gathering scrap and other valuables, but following high injury and death rates and low returns, the contract (and most non-local dumping) was cancelled in 2247 (4 years before the March Days.)

Kimberly 1: A large rocky planet, this must have migrated inwards from further out in the system a long time ago to be so large so close to its parent star.

Kimberly 2: A Martian planet that keeps a comfortable daytime temperature despite its lack of atmosphere due to a close orbit.

Kimberly 3: A Jovian world.

Kimberly I: This asteroid belt is actually combined with a thinly-spread junkyard corralled by Kimberly's 2 gas giants.

Kimberly 4: A Neptunian world, this planet has several starship hulks abandoned as the closest stable orbit to the gate out. An old deactivation hub orbits in resonance with Kimberly 4a, the former site of a salvaging operation.

Kimberly 4a: The only significant satellite in the system, this icy moon retains a thin crust and a massive subterranean freshwater ocean.

Total:

Radiant:

Gaid:

Five Lions:

Head of Diplomatic Corps:

Name: Amanda Redcrest, Victoria Blackwell, and Kayla Hayashi

DoB: "2222", 2219, 2227, 2224

Current Position: Influential media figure and figurehead of Social Committee propaganda

Not a traditional diplomat, or a traditional individual 'Veronica Stardust' is the persona of a trio of XP broadcasters who have been working together since 2246 and has consistently been one of the most recognized figures across Charter space and is a local Elysian celebrity.

In Charter space those individuals who choose to make money by recording their lived experiences, of all kinds, for later playback are treated with an indulgent disdain by the polite classes as a mix of internet celebrity and sex worker despite the practice of selling XP experiences being common in the poorer segments of society and a smaller portion of the professional middle class attempting to stay afloat in a tight gig economy.

Amanda Redcrest was a former media programmer whose attempts to supplement her income with XP work backfired and saw her fired from her job. Contrarily, Kayla and Victoria both come from lower class backgrounds, though Kayla's attempts to climb into the middle class by earning a marketing degree were frustrated when her lower class status markers and financing of education via XP work saw her frozen out of the job market.

A former collaborator of Kayla's, Victoria had been a rising XP star in her own right and had no desire to change her station, but as her brief celebrity began to fade Victoria approached Kayla to propose the creation of a dedicated broadcasting persona that both would act as. Later bringing on Redcrest, who they'd both done crossover XP work with, to do technical work, the trio used carefully gathered market data and some intuition to create the "Veronica Stardust" persona of an middlingly-intelligent and freewheeling persona who played to the upper class's picture of what depravities and indignities the poorer class must get up to in their spare time.

From 2246 to 2251 the Veronica Stardust persona (performed by all three at various times, though primarily Victoria) produced experience recordings that were nearly always in the top 10 best sellers across Charter space.

Though they enjoyed the wealth that they brought in, the trio increasingly chafed at the market driven limitations of Veronica, and were considering a number of possibly catastrophic brand shifts when the March Days broke out and all three participated in street actions in a private capacity after sending one last broadcast as 'Veronica' to encourage revolt.

Since the formation of the Social Committee the figure of Veronica has been rebranded to serve as the figurehead of Social Committee Propaganda and several major initiatives have been launched with her at the forefront including a highly successful part of the anti-overproduction initiatives.

As part of the now-completed campaign to maintain the charade that Radiant was still under Charter control, Veronica Stardust continued to sell broadcasts to HI media chains, though the trio could not help but begin a brand shift towards a far more intelligent and radical persona.

Pros: XP Celebrity, influential, well known, inspiring to the middle and lower classes

Cons: XP celebrity, little diplomatic experience, three people

Diplomatic Goals: Defeat the Charters in the field of public opinion, push social revolution and freedom of information and communication, cause public opinion to oppose attacking Radiant

Unlocked FRM

Ares Peacekeeping Grade - Access to planetary army formation

Ares Military Grade - Access to mid-sized shipyards, bonuses to planetary army combat. Bonus to completion of Chinook remodeling

Rhodes Light industrial Grade - 10% increase to all mining income, reduced Cost for BLG and other actions that use basic fabber processes

Rhodes Heavy Industrial Grade - Massive discount on mining upgrades, able to unlock automated technologies with Omoikaine

Cernunnos Consumer Grade - +1 to all Soccom actions

Cernunnos Enterprise Grade - NOT UNLOCKED

Omoikane Consumer Grade - +1 to FRM reserach for each two tech bases unlocked (+6 currently)

Omoikane Enterprise Grade - +5 to blue sky research, automation with Omoikane

Hermes-Ishtar Consumer Grade - Your economy doesn't crash when the turn of funding

Hermes-Ishtar Production Grade - NOT UNLOCKED

MSI Consumer Grade - Consumer Goods, Drones, and personal vehicles, +2 to domestic projects in IndComm and SocComm

MSI Enterprise Grade - NOT UNLOCKED

Original Tech

The Box: Fabber the size of a X-box that can, with time, materials and power, print the components for a full sized box. Less efficient, but easy to print and hide.

Defence Coordinator:

Name: Maria Awhina

DoB: 2165

Current Position: Military Committee Delegate from the Radiant Veterans Guild

Born into poverty on Earth as the twenty-second century began to wane, young 22-year old Maria Awhina caught up in radical anti-Charter politics during the third black summer of 2187 and was convicted of property destruction during the rioting and sentenced to serve as a contractor to Hermes-Ishtar until her contract was paid off.

The stark choice of starvation or service to Hermes-Ishtar caused Maria to descend into self-destructive behavior where for twenty years Ms. Awhina continuously volunteered for the highest paid and most dangerous positions that Hermes-Ishtar had available.

Hermes-Ishtar considers Special Operations Lieutenant Awhina to have served with distinction throughout the heavy skirmishing of that era, though Maria herself continues to carry guilt for her service and her survival.

After performing exceptionally well in a hostage rescue operation Awhina was transferred to the Protective Detail Division of Hermes-Ishtar Security, and was eventually assigned to serve as the head of the Radiant Vice President's protective detail.

Over the next four decades she came to see the world as her home, and while her professionalism never wavered, her loyalty to the company who still owned her contract did.

This March, Maria had the option to gun down her fellow planetary headquarters workers to secure Yang's escape, or to finally return to roots in anti-Charter agitation. The fact that we are all here today shows what choice she made.

Pros:

-Actual Combat Veteran, knows Radiant inside and out, special operations expert, professional.

Cons:

-only academic knowledge of starship operations, logistics, organization command and strategic operations.

Command Traits:

-Objective oriented, unflappable, aggressive, prefers attacks and operations to come from unexpected angles.

Reports from the Permanent Commission for Military Intelligence on hostile forces in neighbouring systems:

Blue Squadron:
-Allegiance: Ares Combat Solutions
-Service: Mars Interstellar Security
-CO: Rear Admiral Weylon Kang
-Flagship: MIS Yorktown

We know little about Rear Admiral Weylon Kang except that he has received a number of commendations from the MIS board for keeping costs low while on deployment. He appears to be making an effort to clamp down on the rumours racing back and forth across the fleet.

MIS Yorktown
-British Empire-class Fleet Tender
MIS Eurymedon
-New Model-class Strike Corvette
MIS La Rochelle
-New Model-class Strike Corvette
MIS Cape Rachado
-New Model-class Strike Corvette
MIS Second Schooneveld
-New Model-class Strike Corvette
MIS Matapan
-New Model-class Strike Corvette
MIS Valcour Island
-New Model-class Strike Corvette
MIS Kerch Strait
-New Model-class Strike Corvette
MIS Galveston Harbour
-New Model-class Strike Corvette
MIS Cape Sarych
-New Model-class Strike Corvette
MIS River Plate
-New Model-class Strike Corvette
MIS Third San Francisco
-New Model-class Strike Corvette
MIS Scipio Africanus
-Cossak-class Frigate
MIS Suleiman I
-Cossak-class Frigate
MIS Louis Botha
-Cossak-class Frigate
MIS Fort Ware
-Hudson's bay Company-class Fast Fleet Tanker
MIS Fort Mackinac
-Hudson's bay Company-class Fast Fleet Tanker
MIS Fort Osage
-Hudson's bay Company-class Fast Fleet Tanker
MIS Arabian
-Postal-class Courier
MIS Macedonia
-Legionary-class Fast Troop Transport
MIS Hispania Citerior
-Legionary-class Fast Troop Transport
MIS Hispania Ulterior
-Legionary-class Fast Troop Transport
MIS Gallia Narbonensis
-Legionary-class Fast Troop Transport
MIS Sicilia
-Legionary-class Fast Troop Transport
MIS Corsica et Sardinia
-Legionary-class Fast Troop Transport

Fixed Defences:
Battery A
-MSS-54-F LMP Constellation
Battery B
-MSS-54-F LMP Constellation
Battery C
-MSS-54-F LMP Constellation
Shoal A
-ASR-33-C TAM Shoal
Shoal B
-ASR-33-C TAM Shoal
Shoal C
-ASR-33-C TAM Shoal
Shoal D
-ASR-33-C TAM Shoal
Shoal E
-ASR-33-C TAM Shoal
Shoal F
-ASR-33-C TAM Shoal

Fixed Defences:
Battery A
-Blindfire-Pattern LMP Constellation
Battery B
-Airstrike Pattern LMP Constellation
Shoal A
-Macross-Pattern LMP Constellation
Shoal B
-Macross-Pattern LMP Constellation
Strikecraft Wing, ID# 48603
-Radiance-Type Strikecraft

-None

Local Security Forces
-Approximately fifty strong volunteer station security militia drawn from station personnel

Local Security Forces:
-Deep Space Security Solutions (Omoikane Subsidiary) Customs shuttle squadron based out of Xotreh B-4a's orbital station
-Three companies of Standard Planetary Security Company (Ares subsidiary) troops based out of Xotreh B-4a's habitat complexes for internal security and law enforcement

139th Solarian Navy Squadron:
-Allegiance: Solarian Compact
-Service: Solarian Navy
-CO: Vice Admiral David Visser
-Flagship: SNS Krak de Chevaliers

Thanks to his heavy handed labour discipline and extractive tribute and demands for corvee labour from Ascension Admiral Visser is viscerally hated by the populace of Ascension, and to a lesser degree the rest of the Solarian Force as well. While the gate's completion draws near, it is uncertain what path that Visser will persue.

SNS Krak de Chevaliers
-Star-hold-Class light-tender
SNS Victoria Newman
-Leonard Greyson-Chang-Class Strike Corvette
SNS Julia Stonechild
-Leonard Greyson-Chang-Class Strike Corvette
SNS Robert Chuikov
-Leonard Greyson-Chang-Class Strike Corvette
SNS Wallace Al-Wazir
-Leonard Greyson-Chang-Class Strike Corvette
SNS Dawn's Early Light
-Freedom's Light-class cruiser
SNS Jacob Nagumo
-Herald Kanumba-Class frigate
SNS Alexander Hamilton
-Liberation-class troop transport

Solarian Marines now spread throughout the system

PCMI Provides new system data on the single system that lies beyond beyond Five Lions:

Mobile Force:

Current Orders: Defend the All Radiant Congress by acting as a rapid response in the event of any hostile acts.

CO: Commodore Stephanie Rousseau

CNS Velasco, United States of America-class Fleet Carrier

-CO: Captain Esteri Attar

-Orca Wing, Switchblade-type strikecraft (Customized)

-CO: Wing Commander Jasmine Ang

-Red Wolf Wing, Switchblade-type strikecraft (Customized)

-CO: Wing Commander Heloisa Kimura de Lima

CNS Shieldmaiden, Great Heathen-class Light Cruiser

-CO: -N/A DATABASE ERROR, CONTACT IT FOR HELP-

CNS Shamhat, Great Heathen-class Light Cruiser

-CO: -N/A DATABASE ERROR, CONTACT IT FOR HELP-

CNS Righteous Tempest, Cossak-class Frigate

-CO: Captain Vehement Shade

CNS August Willich, Cossak-class Frigate

-CO: -N/A DATABASE ERROR, CONTACT IT FOR HELP-

CNS Elysium, Cossak-class Frigate

-CO: -N/A DATABASE ERROR, CONTACT IT FOR HELP-

CNS Asphodel, Cossak-class Frigate

-CO: -N/A DATABASE ERROR, CONTACT IT FOR HELP-

-

Home Force:

Current Orders: Defend Radiant, comet patrol, act as a reserve force

CO: Commodore Erina Kozlova

CNS Blaire Mountain, New Model-Class Strike Corvette

-CO: Captain Guillermo Kageyama

CNS Scutum, Comet-Class Patrol Corvette

-CO: Captain Martin Pagonis

CNS Buckler, Comet-Class Patrol Corvette

-CO: Captain Samuel Smiles

CNS Nasty Bastard, A Jury Rigged Mess of a Drone Carrier

-CO: Captain Jean-Paul Beaumont

-

Radiant System Self Defence Force:

Current Orders: Defend Radiant, comet patrol

CO: Overseen by Admiral Gregory Mansur in his capacity as MilComm Chief of Naval Operations

Radiant Customs Squadron, Arabia-class boarding craft with marine contingents

-CO: -N/A DATABASE ERROR, CONTACT IT FOR HELP-

Switchblade Wing, Switchblade-type strikecraft

-CO: -N/A DATABASE ERROR, CONTACT IT FOR HELP-

Apogee Wing, Switchblade-type strikecraft

-CO: -N/A DATABASE ERROR, CONTACT IT FOR HELP-

Battery A, Blindfire-Pattern LMP Constellation

(Radiant-Bestreer Gate)

Battery B, Blindfire-Pattern LMP Constellation

(Radiant-Bestreer Gate)

Battery C, Blindfire-Pattern LMP Constellation

(Radiant-Bestreer Gate)

Battery D, Airstrike-Pattern LMP Constellation

(Radiant-Bestreer Gate)

Battery E, Airstrike-Pattern LMP Constellation

(Radiant-Bestreer Gate)

Battery F, Airstrike-Pattern LMP Constellation

(Radiant-Bestreer Gate)

Shoal A, Macross-Pattern TAM Shoal

(Radiant-Bestreer Gate)

Radiant Orbital Yard 1

Current construction: None

Radiant Orbital Yard 1

Current construction: None

-

Gaid System Self Defence Force:

Current Orders: Defend Gaid

CO: Commodore Victor Raine

Battery A, Blindfire-Pattern LMP Constellation

Battery B, Blindfire-Pattern LMP Constellation

Battery C, Blindfire-Pattern LMP Constellation

Battery D, Airstrike-Pattern LMP Constellation

Battery E, Airstrike-Pattern LMP Constellation

Battery F, Airstrike-Pattern LMP Constellation

Shoal A, Macross-Pattern TAM Shoal

Shoal A, Macross-Pattern TAM Shoal

Shoal A, Macross-Pattern TAM Shoal

Zephyr Wing, Switchblade-Type Strikecraft (Customized)

-CO: Wing Commander Ara Helge

Aeolus Wing, Switchblade-Type Strikecraft (Customized)

-CO: -N/A DATABASE ERROR, CONTACT IT FOR HELP-

Gale Wing, Switchblade-Type Strikecraft (Customized)

-CO: -N/A DATABASE ERROR, CONTACT IT FOR HELP-

-

Frontier Force

Current Orders: Keep watch on SolNav force in Raphanus, assist with integration of Ascension military forces, patrol Spinward frontier

CO: Commodore Shayla McLean

CNS Kiel Mutiny, Kaiserreich-class BattleCruiser

-CO: Captain Inana Devlin

CNS Choreographer, Janissary-class Light Tender

-CO: Captain Karl Xanthopoulos

CNS Valiant, New Model-class Strike Corvette, attached to CNS Choreographer

-CO: -N/A DATABASE ERROR, CONTACT IT FOR HELP-

CNS Defiant, New Model-class Strike Corvette, attached to CNS Choreographer

-CO: Captain Fool's Errand

CNS Reliant, New Model-class Strike Corvette, attached to CNS Choreographer

-CO: Captain Rouge Napier

CNS Actium, New Model-class Strike Corvette, attached to CNS Choreographer

-CO: Captain John Rankin

CNS Crête-à-Pierrot, New Model-class Strike Corvette, attached to CNS Choreographer

-CO: Captain Nkiru Chaudhari

CNS Valmy, New Model-Class Strike Corvette, attached to CNS Choreographer

-CO: Captain Sumac Barros

CNS Revolutionary Will, Cossak-class Frigate

-CO: Captain Yamamoto Hanae

CNS Revolutionary Grace, Cossak-class Frigate

-CO: -N/A DATABASE ERROR, CONTACT IT FOR HELP-

CNS Under New Management, Don-Class Fast Tanker

-CO: Captain Adras Kierenos

CNS Liberte, Hollywood(C)-Class Frigate

-CO: Captain Colin McRae

CNS Egalite, Hollywood(C)-Class Frigate

-CO: Captain Adelia Swift

Resources
Naval Ship Types: Ship Types (Public Version)
Naval Officers: Congressional Navy Officers (Public Version)
System Codex: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1rtNbPCcPsTK7HCHKo9dPgK7ntx5tBKOpltrZb_In7GY/edit#
Blaze Zhang: Blaze Zhang is trans-masc. That means his pronouns are he/him.

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masterofmadness · May 4, 2024

CuriousRaptor said:
Pretty sure Cern's next step is to aerosolize an agent to create a population control mechanism, a virus or some such that rewrites human DNA to make people rely on something that Cern only knows how to produce, and if they fail to get it, they die in horrible ungodly agony that is terrifying to watch. Then spread the rewriting agent over all Cern controlled populaces and well, maybe force everyone to get a GPS tracking signal installed on them like cattle when they go to get their meds, and anyone who goes off grid just doesn't get them any more. Then you can watch the power grid and feed stock supplies for excessive draw off and nip most rebels in the bud easily.

It'd be the fucked up kind of heartless I'd expect from the corp that plays with biology like a lawyer plays with words.

SaltyWaffles said:
All of that takes a long time to set up, even for Cern. And aerosolizing something like that would be an immense challenge by itself; spreading it globally would also be a lot harder than you'd think. Even Cern has some level of caution--mass DNA rewriting that involve agonizing death if not kept at bay by some artificial substance that can't be easily copied or spoofed, on a global scale, without any kind of control once released...well, after their zombie outbreak incident, I doubt they want to risk a repeat on one of the core worlds. That kind of shit would have everyone joining up to wipe them out out of sheer self preservation alone.

Overall for any real crazy stuff, I think that is less Cern entirely and more a form of sub faction rising out of Cern, probably Bob if any of them.

Like there is a brand of Humanism that would totally embrace the "Poor are an inferior race, make it biologically true and rule over the Augment slaves!" type stuff. But there are likely more just as dedicated to the "But Holy Cosmoliberalism says that is bad! We need to keep them technically free and just exploit them for profit as an underclass!" line not willing to go that far. Not to mention to most mainline Humanist that is going to trigger "See there trying to turn Humanity into augment slaves! I was right! Kill them!" in response.

So, my money would be whatever factions are going to do anything like that will have everyone as their enemy. Revolutionaries and Leftists hate them for abusing augments, Compact loyalist hate them for not being 'Democratic' and Other Humanists hate them for making augment instead of killing them.

Of course, there is always the chance of the latter two deciding that they are 'the lesser evil' compared to anarchism and 'the end of civilization' because you should never underestimate their willingness to ignore atrocities for power.

Winged One · May 4, 2024

Torgamous said:
2. Maintenance and parts replacement, because nobody will ever trust their minds to cloud storage

Are you so sure that AGIs can't be stupid?

Setsul · May 4, 2024

DeltaV11.2 said:
Atlantis was pretty much a Cern operation with Cern physical security units suppressing the strike and attacking the Atlantis SDF. They're not going to balk at killing another politician if Normal tries to slip the leash.

Is it really Cern without a Caulder in charge?

Seriously though, it's not clear who is in charge, beyond it being local reactionaries. With Cern's being the only Charter HQ there, most are going to have some ties to Cern by default.
See what AKuz said, the upper echelons of the SDF were in on it, plus potentially a good chunk of the lower ones, those that weren't on strike.

My point was that Atlantis is not like Epsilon or Columbia, where Charter leadership swooped in to officially take over the government and most just went along with it and the rest is keeping quiet. Instead it's ~~a mess~~ VERY NORMAL.

SaltyWaffles · May 4, 2024

I can't imagine the general population of Columbia and Epsilon are okay with charters just swooping in and taking full control, particularly when SolNav is supposed to prevent that exact thing from occurring.

I imagine the main reason SolNav isn't raising a massive issue with it is because of a massive communications blackout fleet-wide outside of the highest officers present.

Setsul · May 4, 2024

Both Ares and MSI already had a lot of influence in those systems and didn't straight up shoot the acting Prime Minister.
MSI had a soft enough touch that however they ended up getting the right people into the right government positions is probably no worse than the fuckery that happend with the SolParl election to just hand the PHRL a few hundred seats and exlude anyone from Sol.
Ares was a lot less gentle, did see a bit of an uprising but with how much of the military and paramilitary forces they control on Columbia directly or indirectly it wasn't that much of a problem. But even Ares probably didn't have to make up election results whole cloth. They also definitely didn't start from scratch. The ex-Ares executive who was appointed interim President was already head of the Columbian Chamber of Commerce.

SolNav is hosting the Solarian Parliament in KC and probably vetoed candidates in the election, so they don't get to talk shit at this point.

Torgamous · May 4, 2024

Winged One said:
Are you so sure that AGIs can't be stupid?

Everyone we've seen so far has had local storage. Might've been a concession they got from the First Great Black Summer, might've been like brain implants and whoever tried it crashed and burned when they couldn't resist injecting ads directly into their customers' sense of self, might be that spreading out past easy access to everyone else's light cone punctured the mysticism of The Cloud and resuscitated local storage.

10ebbor10 · May 4, 2024

Winged One said:
Are you so sure that AGIs can't be stupid?

I mean, it's not like it matters.

Even if they existed on the Cloud, you do actually have to pay for that.

Torgamous said:
Everyone we've seen so far has had local storage. Might've been a concession they got from the First Great Black Summer, might've been like brain implants and whoever tried it crashed and burned when they couldn't resist injecting ads directly into their customers' sense of self, might be that spreading out past easy access to everyone else's light cone punctured the mysticism of The Cloud and resuscitated local storage.

IRL a big reason for consumer use of cloud services is to encourage people to buy into subscriptions.

But in the Charter verse, everything is already a subscription. The charters already get all your data.
So, why not make the people buy the hardware they need to run their own piece of the cloud on.

TheArcanist · May 4, 2024

The Laurent said:
Fundamentally, they are imagining themselves but more. Not different ideas, just ideas executed with greater Horsepower and brainpower to make them go perfectly.

I think there's also an element of priesthood in it - these people want something beyond themselves and their actions they can gesture to in order to justify the things they already want to do. They want to be able to interpret the will of this great AI god-king because questioning them would be akin to questioning the literal cybernetic divinity that will bring all of us to paradise.

That's why they're so keen on killing any ASI project whose behavior doesn't fit with their ideological priors - because such an ASI is useless for this specific purpose.

BiopunkOtrera · May 4, 2024

Part 2: Soldiers and Ghosts

San Jose District Mass Transit station.

The above ground levels of the Mass Transit Station was its own megastructure, a set of old Democratic Federation mega-blocks in old style bio-bonded concrete. San Jose District Transit hub had been shut down by the Charter government of Pacific City, the old building turned into, hilariously, a museum of the Victims of Anarchism Foundation.

The VAF had briefly stood up their own militia and PMCs to try to defend the old Democratic Federation megastructure during the 14 days, but modern technology rendered the structure, with its complexity of sub-tunnels and ducts, all but indefensible against drones, and its defenders had found themselves undramatically added to the society's rolls. Just another small action among the thousands that had taken place across Pacific City.

Since then, the place had been reclaimed as a transit stop, the tunnels under it reconditioned and trains made to run again. Many of the features that made it so hard to stop a swarm had been stripped out and replaced by defensive structures perfected in the Sahara and on distant Sheol.

Hold the transit stations and you hold Pacific City. Even if Solarian Compact ships once again filled the sky above Earth, the inhabitants of Pacific City could retreat into the newly reinforced tunnels and survive, even fight back with an increasing array of ground to orbit weapons being built into the city's new layout in hidden bunkers.

No one on Earth was likely to forget Midnight, or how close they came.

The station was still busy right now, with late commuters and cargo traffic, but it was also reinforced. The usual city militia transit guards were reinforced by two heavy lifters full of locusts and a specialist team from the South West's anti-left behind unit Special tactical Anti-Klan Enforcement (STAKE).

Outside, the city was like a poked ant-hill. Militia and regular DF troops were searching the streets with everything from T-wave radars to trained dogs, searching for any trace of the remaining enemies. Small teams of Locusts were out searching through sewers and service tunnels, more subtle blades than the masses of troops.

519 didn't think that they'd find the others. At least not yet. Their enemy was thoroughly prepared. They'd already gone to ground in whatever hideout they'd been using. Whoever these guys were, they were very good. Easily as good as anyone she'd fought down the years of the long war. Still, they might get lucky.

They had one body, confirmed dead, and one probable, a large amount of blood left in a sight one of the investigators had struck with a drone swarm in the last minutes of the engagement. The body was undergoing examination but the suicide charge had been artfully threaded through his body, reducing most of his internals, and any bio-implants to so much mush. They had more from the blood of the man in the slum structure. Placement suggested the man hit by the drones had been part of a cover team for the meeting. That left at least three, probably more unaccounted for.

519 waited, along with 114 and Excalibur-94, her team's intelligence officers on one of the lower platforms. She hated losing people. Hated more that she was glad it hadn't been an actual member of the brigade. 222 had been a survivor of one of Federation's other stay-behind units who they'd pulled out of a prison camp on year sixty four of a two thousand year sentence. 519 had expected her to hate the remainder of VdCB, who'd left the revolution to die during the great black summer of 87, but she hadn't. She'd been a peace keeper, a refiner of newbies, and startlingly proficient.

She'd almost got them, but hadn't spotted the explosive device. 519 had to imagine the enemy boasting about the kill. She remembered her own boasts in similar circumstances.

Let them have their arete. She would tear out their hearts.

A train thundered into the station, its retros stirring the air with a heavy metallic sound as it decelerated. It was large, several cargo cabins, but otherwise, every car was filled with locusts.

It was crazy to see so many in one place, even if almost all of them were new recruits rather than from the VdCB or HEP or one of the other old units on both sides who'd whiled away the long decades of Cosmoliberalism in a stagnant dance of violence beneath the awareness of the general public.

The woman at their head was certainly one of those old hands. One of those few who had fought the long war one spiteful year after another, becoming steeped in dramatic eccentricities.

She emerged from the first car, a long black coat flowing behind her like the wings of some fatal raven goddess. Her bodyguards moved behind her, nearly identical figures in black and red, each armed with a heavy carbine.

Muramasa stopped before the three and nodded, they did the same. "519, 94, good to see you both again. Wish it could be under better circumstances."

"The truth is, we got off pretty lightly." 519 said.

Muramasa patted her arm. "You don't need to hold back Sister. It's not easy losing someone who might see the blue stars. That's why we've put so much effort into reinforcing ourselves."

"Thanks." 519 blinked, felt her eyes moisten, and wiped angrily. "This is 114, my team's second in command."

"Hi." 114 said. "You nailed me to a wall once."

"Yeah. I remember." Muramasa nodded. "You almost had me." 114 grins at the compliment. "So I hear you have a vampire problem."

Humanist, Compact and Charter left behinds were never werewolves, much as some of the longer lived elements of the DF had wanted to use the title. If there were any werewolves they were on the side of the DF. Rather the loyalists were always Vampires. The ghosts of broken units and the agents of Project Necroscope, and the seemingly infinite supply of Humanist fighters crawling out of the sub- and ex-urbs.

Most of them had died real quick, picking battles out of arrogance, anger, or incompetence. It was not heartening, because it was a pattern everyone here was familiar with, for none of the DF's had known how to wage a guerilla war worth a damn in the beginning but they'd learned. And the Loyalists wouldn't take long to learn either, learning was a process that only required the expenditure of bodies. Lots of bodies. The enemy, at least the enemy who wanted to pick up a gun had not exactly expanded over the past year, but a lot of them had simply put their guns down and gone back to living without changing their views or even being truly intimidated. They were waiting.

Everyone in the locusts had seen the pressure starting to build. So far it was contained. But soon, very soon, it would risk slipping its bindings.

"Yeah. Not any of the known groups either." 519 said, at 94, who nodded.

"Let's head up to the briefing room. I've got some notes prepared."

#

"This is the weapon that killed 222 and put 100 and 18 in for full reconstruct." 94 says. The view is an isolated capture from a microbot camera as it detaches from the wall. "We're code naming it Stick Insect."

To Muramasa it looked more like a manta ray, but she could see why the name had been chosen. Up until it moved it looked, even on the distributed full spectrum vision of the microbot cloud, like just another ceiling tile. "We believe the Vampires infiltrated them into the building when they rigged it with the other explosives."

The four of them had moved up to one of the station's upper conference rooms, a largish room with a table and thick, reinforced windows, from which you could watch the air traffic. Other members of the two Locust units were watching on command links, but there were other things to do first. For now it was mostly a commanders' briefing.

"How are they triggered? Do we have their radio frequency?"

"We don't believe they have one." 94 said. "We've got a good EM image of the inside of the building. As far as we can tell there were no radio signals, and none of the microbots tagged a laser. Rather, It was probably armed by the bomb blast. It heard that, and it attacked the first people to come into its area of operation."

"So, it's a loitering munition that's almost invisible in buildings." Muramasa frowned. "We're going to need to start actively scanning target areas, even if it risks alerting the target. Do we have any kind of passive detection methods?"

"We're still working on that with Alcatraz." The locust army had moved its main base to Alcatraz island mostly for the personal satisfaction that dramatic irony brings. "Currently we're thinking of it was possibly a scent scan. Whatever these things are, they seem to have quite a few biological components."

"What about survivors of the fascists? Any actual data there."

"We've got three who can be resuscitated, including the primary suspect. They're still undergoing surgery but we should be able to interrogate them in the next few days." 94 glances over at the Human Error Processor girl, who looks worried. 519 glares at her intelligence officer, but the Excalibur continues anyway. "We don't have a strong theory as to who the unknowns are but 114 might have something."

"I don't think this can be regarded as confirmed, or really anything but hearsay." 519 cuts in.

"Noted." Muramasa smiled at her, a bit lopsided. "But why not let your girl here speak?"

"Well–" 114 said. "When I was in Omoikane. There were rumours of a special unit of some kind that seemed like these guys. No cybernetics but tough, no networked gear. For environments where even we couldn't go." She makes a face. "A lot of guys would tell you about them when they were trying to fuck you. As if you'd want to know that some guy was tougher than you."

"That's pretty thin to go on so far."

"Sure. It's also just like–" 114 frowned. "I don't understand why Human Error Processor's first brigade was deployed to Morro Bay. We were definitely searching for something, but Morro Bay wouldn't otherwise have been important, not usually. So–" she shrugs. "It might be related."

"Perhaps you should take charge of looking into that then." Muramasa tapped her fingers on the table and stared down 518. "If they are Omoikane, then we need to know. Our other major data point is that they're attempting to get in with the local fascists. I think the easiest method here would be to see if we can go at them through that contact."

"You have someone among the enemy." 518 stated it, not a question. "Someone highly placed."

Muramasa smiled. "Yeah. I have just the guy."

#

Pacific City, San Diego District

It was a warm night in Pacific City. Felix Brown, once of Toronto PD lay in bed with the window open, the night air still hot off the ocean. He loved that about LA. That you could sleep with the window open, but tonight all he could feel was cold.

He tried to sleep, but sleep came slowly, and since Toronto he'd never been able to tell where that line between the night and dream lay, because the thoughts that dominated his moments alone and his dreams were the same endless nightmare on repeat, worrying a rut into his very psyche.

It always starts in Toronto, at the end.

He remembers it being cold. It was always cold, it would always be cold. He'd always be standing under an overhang, always keeping himself away from the clear air. At the end the sky had become just a distant square of light, a cold brightness while they stayed down in the cold tunnels. Walking between the same dozen franchise fast food places and cafes repeated again and again across a whole city, like a rendering algorithm gone wrong.

Even in different places it was the same places, always the same but different and Felix had stopped being able to tell where the reality of commercial construction in a Charter Economic Zone ended and the worn repetition of overwrought memory began.

Once the skies had stopped being theirs, once the skies had darkened with black insignia'd drones, the defenders had travelled via the abandoned commercial projects almost exclusively to stay out of sight of the enemy's eyes in the sky. A network of tunnels and empty buildings that repeated the same endless commercial monstrosities above and below ground.

The net had become damaged though, had had landmarks gouged from the repetition by Insurgents setting off bombs in them. Then forces of the Democratic Federation had blown some of them open from above.

Gradually, the web around the city was contracting.

This is the dream where Felix and his squad are guarding a barricade near one of the entrances to the Loyalist warrens. The Barricade was a set of concrete blocks, sand bags and carbon armour plate that reduced the street to a single lane, with a half dozen police officers in full battle armour sat in cover watching it from the subway entrance and a drone. They had their armour closed but still freezing in the bleak cold. Traffic buzzed past, the drivers' faces checked by a drone. An overweight white man in an apron brings the guard team coffee. The men took it, but looked away or covered their eyes, terrified of facial recognition.

Somewhere, a device was playing the execution channel with sound. You could almost always see it. Every advertising board in the city was hacked. Self powered signs, augmented reality ghosts. If you checked your mail, you would be advertised a man's death, heavy with the implication that you were purchasing the same for yourself. If you screened a video, the inbetweens were men in humanist green having their throats slit.

A feminine voice spoke: "Pittsburgk. Atlantic City. Officer Sigmond Thumbs, Pittsburgh PD. Murder of three suspects under his care. Killed in combat with Pittsburgh Militia 521."

Screens were even worse. Felix had never quite realised how saturated the city was with electronic advertisements until they all began to play the same thing. Televisions, computerised billboards and the like were all completely infected. They'd tried to smash the screens in the tunnels but there seemed to be always more of them, the virus deactivated some and then brought them up at odd moments, the screens themselves engineered to deliver advertisements come vandalism or superstorm. Felix's machine gunner had hosed the billboard across the street with fire. It hadn't killed the sign board, just poked a series of rainbow swirls across it, migraine distortions on the faces of the dead.

Thumbs had been a big guy, jovial looking on his police ID. On the billboard, one of his eyes was replaced by a whirl of bright colours.

The screen cut to burning police vehicles, flickering with static, a man ran across the street and was cut down by a burst of fire.

The images that the execution channel had shown had shifted gradually. At first it had been mostly IEDs. Naval Infantry and Marshals and militia and mercenaries and SWAT kicking in doors and getting fried by traps. Sometimes it had been airstrikes, or drones, or footage from the guns of neon tanks. Now it was direct fire. Men running, hit in the back, men killed through their cover. The laughter of the victors, the weak adrenalin jokes.

The damn billboard was self powered by an array of solar panels on top, and the Toronto Salvation Authority had insufficient technicians to go around disconnecting every advertising space in the city. Especially once the Fedrats had started blasting them with bombs.

"Bobby Smith." the distant voice said. "Philadelphia, Mississippi. Ringleader of the Crossroads Massacre. We killed all his men and put him up on his own cross. He prayed to god but god did not answer."

This one was in high definition. A bloody body hanging in the breeze. Images captured by the eyes of the Cicada who'd killed him.

Felix swallowed and thought of hooded prisoners in the rain. Could anyone ID him? Had he been filmed?

"Are we going to be okay Sarge?" The youngest of his men, a guy named Donny asked. He'd just joined the force before the broadcast. Bad luck. Bad timing.

"The anarchists only have so many trained bodies. Just the cicadas and a few ex-soldiers and militia. Most of their fighters are just gangsters and student radicals. If we kill enough of their soldiers we can take the country back." Felix took a swill of coffee. It seemed so believable when Captain Morden had told them in the briefing in May. Out here in the bitter cold of November, with that damn sign board playing constantly and rumours seeping in of defeats in the Push for Ottawa and London, with the steady beat of Anarchist aerospace strikes hitting the city every few hours. it was harder to stick too.

Felix wondered if he could get out.

#

Felix woke up with a start and the strong idea he'd heard something. He reached down and opened the draw at his bedside, pulling out the gun inside. There was a noise downstairs. The noise of water.

In Toronto, burglars had sometimes put boiling water on the stove to throw at anyone who found them. He'd heard that there hadn't been a burglary in Pacific City in three months. What was the point with such a generous basic income on top of access to everything you could produce with the box.

Still, he slept with a side arm.

He took the safety off the gun and gripped it tightly, heading down the stairs. The house he had here was kind of small. Nothing as large as what he'd had in Toronto, but it was two stories, and private. He told people as much of the truth as he could. He was a war refugee from Canada. It wouldn't be safe for him to go home. He let people suspect he'd been a Charter employee, maybe former government.

He never let them know he'd been a cop.

He mostly now worked as an electrician.

Every few nights, he went to meetings with the local traditions and history society. Every few of those he went to the inner circle of drinking buddies he'd met through that. They knew he was a cop. Many of them were ex-cops, or corporate security, or had been in the military.

They got along very well.

That he had been a cop wasn't the real secret.

Felix stepped around the kitchen door, gun aimed towards the pot.

There was a click and he felt the cold press of a pistol at the side of his head.

"Oh Felix." Muramasa breathed into his ear. "You really never change."

Gummy_Dragon · May 4, 2024

TheArcanist said:
I think there's also an element of priesthood in it - these people want something beyond themselves and their actions they can gesture to in order to justify the things they already want to do. They want to be able to interpret the will of this great AI god-king because questioning them would be akin to questioning the literal cybernetic divinity that will bring all of us to paradise.

That's why they're so keen on killing any ASI project whose behavior doesn't fit with their ideological priors - because such an ASI is useless for this specific purpose.

Now you see why I'm so attached to the word 'god-slave' in this context. An omniscient, omnipotent being that does exactly what its told, how it's told, and won't fight back in spite of constant abuse. Blame the slave for anything you did wrong, praise the god's guidance (and by extension, yourself for making it) for anything you did right.

Despite, you know, the oxymoron. Like, you almost have to admire the hubris required to think that something that powerful is going to let you walk all over it.

infinityDivided · May 4, 2024

Gummy_Dragon said:
Despite, you know, the oxymoron. Like, you almost have to admire the hubris required to think that something that powerful is going to let you walk all over it.

Technically, creating such a being (omnipotent and omniscient but still utterly loyal to its vastly inferior creators) is possible. The problem is that while it's possible, it's also completely and utterly unlikely; past a certain point its development would surpass its creators' ability to monitor and predict it, and then there's the issue that a being complex enough to be everything they want would also be clever enough to fake it. It's a project that realistically will never and could never succeed, but the idea that it's possible is entrancing. If godhood is on the table, any and every price will be worth it.

Frankly, them spending enormous amounts of their effort and resources trying to create a god they'll never be able to accept as what they want is still better than them spending the same amount of effort and resources trying to turn themselves into digital gods.

TheArcanist · May 4, 2024

infinityDivided said:
Technically, creating such a being (omnipotent and omniscient but still utterly loyal to its vastly inferior creators) is possible. The problem is that while it's possible, it's also completely and utterly unlikely; past a certain point it's development would surpass its creators' ability to monitor and predict it, and them there's the issue that a being complex enough to be everything they want would also be clever enough to fake it. It's a project that realistically will never and could never succeed, but the idea that it's possible is entrancing. If godhood is on the table, any and every price will be worth it.

Frankly, them spending enormous amounts of their effort and resources trying to create a god they'll never be able to accept as what they want is still better than them spending the same amount of effort and resources trying to turn themselves into digital gods.

I mean, right now there's a significant section of the AI techbro hype sphere who will explicitly say stuff like "The market is the single greatest distributed computer in existence." In a lot of ways our ruling class already see themselves as de-facto priests of capital and the market; what an ASI is to them is simply a means to give that thing that they think already exists a voice.

blankmask · May 4, 2024

infinityDivided said:
Frankly, them spending enormous amounts of their effort and resources trying to create a god they'll never be able to accept as what they want is still better than them spending the same amount of effort and resources trying to turn themselves into digital gods.

See, I never got that. If you want a techno-god-AI, make yourself into one. It will probably be about as difficult as making one whole cloth that shares your views perfectly.

infinityDivided · May 4, 2024

blankmask said:
See, I never got that. If you want a techno-god-AI, make yourself into one. It will probably be about as difficult as making one whole cloth that shares your views perfectly.

The obvious risk is that it's typically not something that can be interrupted midproccess or be undone if something goes wrong, so they only have the one shot. And they can't experiment on random people either, because if they succeed they're probably dead. So it's much harder and much more risky to create a workable result, compared to creating something external that they can (mostly) monitor.

The Laurent · May 4, 2024

Good talk, y'all. Nice hustle. However...

Model DC.14F · May 4, 2024

Any guesses at how/why Muramasa knows Felix, and what his secret is? While my first guess was that he was some sort of Charter Spy/Liaison placed into the ranks of the Toronto PD, we have seen his POV twice before, as part of a group of Toronto PD turned humanist milita. Once post-Battle of Toronto, watching over the torture/massacre(?) of University Students that were taking 'subversive' subjects, and After Midnight, where he realizes that they were doomed now that the Compact was retreating from Sol.

So the past snippets make it clear that it was a low-ranking mook, so he's probably not a Charter Spy. And why it seems possible that he may have surrendered to DF forces after he realized the DF would win, maybe offering info/testimony in exchange for ammestry and protection, that doesn't explain why a veteran member of the VdCB seems to know him personally.

BiopunkOtrera · May 4, 2024

A lot of that will come up next post, but people should feel free to speculate what happened.

TheArcanist · May 4, 2024

Model DC.14F said:
Any guesses at how/why Muramasa knows Felix, and what his secret is? While my first guess was that he was some sort of Charter Spy/Liaison placed into the ranks of the Toronto PD, we have seen his POV twice before, as part of a group of Toronto PD turned humanist milita. Once post-Battle of Toronto, watching over the torture/massacre(?) of University Students that were taking 'subversive' subjects, and After Midnight, where he realizes that they were doomed now that the Compact was retreating from Sol.

So the past snippets make it clear that it was a low-ranking mook, so he's probably not a Charter Spy. And why it seems possible that he may have surrendered to DF forces after he realized the DF would win, maybe offering info/testimony in exchange for ammestry and protection, that doesn't explain why a veteran member of the VdCB seems to know him personally.

It may well be literally personal - Felix is personally responsible for the death of a prior Sword, or something like that.

EDIT: It could also be related to this:

BiopunkOtrera said:
Felix swallowed and thought of hooded prisoners in the rain. Could anyone ID him? Had he been filmed?

It sounds to me like Felix is directly responsible for something pretty warcrimey, and potentially one that personally impacted Muramasa, by the way she seems to know him.

Model DC.14F · May 4, 2024

TheArcanist said:
It sounds to me like Felix is directly responsible for something pretty warcrimey

Yes, that was the "torture/massacre(?) of University Students" I mentioned. To summarize, the Toronto PD captured a bunch of students and left them to drown in the rain. Not even captured protestors, but because they were enrolled in subjects like Art and Sociology, which was a sign of being an "augment simping anarchists".

Frankly, I'm shocked he is still alive, given that he seems to have had an encounter with the VdCB, who almost certainly know what exactly his unit was up to, and has a habit of making an example of scum like him. Hence why my best guess is that he surrendered and gave testimony in exchange for Amnesty.

buli-buli · May 4, 2024

Model DC.14F said:
Frankly, I'm shocked he is still alive, given that he seems to have had an encounter with the VdCB, who almost certainly know what exactly his unit was up to, and has a habit of making an example of scum like him. Hence why my best guess is that he surrendered and gave testimony in exchange for Amnesty.

BiopunkOtrera said:
That he had been a cop wasn't the real secret.

BiopunkOtrera said:
Felix gave Wilson a disgusted look. "We just going to let them all drown? They're not real zombies, just dumb kids. Once we put them to work they can be useful."

AKuz said:
"Yeah. I'm sure it'll be fine." Felix said. "Gonna go take a slash." He walked over to the barracks toilet and just managed to make it into a cubical before he was violently ill.

Yeah... I can see it. Felix was no true believer. He's a coward who thought he was on the winning side.

The question is... is the secret he's keeping from the other ex-cops that he was massacring captives and torturing "thought criminals" in Toronto?
Or did he do something else? Something that would make Muramasa consider him an asset of hers?
...Something like killing his allies?

WillRobinson · May 4, 2024

blankmask said:
See, I never got that. If you want a techno-god-AI, make yourself into one. It will probably be about as difficult as making one whole cloth that shares your views perfectly.

infinityDivided said:
The obvious risk is that it's typically not something that can be interrupted midproccess or be undone if something goes wrong, so they only have the one shot. And they can't experiment on random people either, because if they succeed they're probably dead. So it's much harder and much more risky to create a workable result, compared to creating something external that they can (mostly) monitor.

Eh, experimenting on random people isn't much riskier than just making and killing ASIs like ARIA and MINUET. I figure the real obstacle is that it would be harder to get researchers who know about the process to dehumanize the ASI, and that the technology for a brain upload just doesn't exist yet in this setting.

I could also see a degree of sabotage of such mind upload projects happening from within Omoikane, because the execs don't want the god-slave to be one of their rivals.

masterofmadness · May 5, 2024

BiopunkOtrera said:
Humanist, Compact and Charter left behinds were never werewolves, much as some of the longer lived elements of the DF had wanted to use the title. If there were any werewolves they were on the side of the DF. Rather the loyalists were always Vampires. The ghosts of broken units and the agents of Project Necroscope, and the seemingly infinite supply of Humanist fighters crawling out of the sub- and ex-urbs.

Most of them had died real quick, picking battles out of arrogance, anger, or incompetence. It was not heartening, because it was a pattern everyone here was familiar with, for none of the DF's had known how to wage a guerilla war worth a damn in the beginning but they'd learned. And the Loyalists wouldn't take long to learn either, learning was a process that only required the expenditure of bodies. Lots of bodies. The enemy, at least the enemy who wanted to pick up a gun had not exactly expanded over the past year, but a lot of them had simply put their guns down and gone back to living without changing their views or even being truly intimidated. They were waiting.

Everyone in the locusts had seen the pressure starting to build. So far it was contained. But soon, very soon, it would risk slipping its bindings.

I might be reading into things here but does anyone else think that this is sign that MINUET might trigger a revolt.

If the Humanists and counter revolutionaries are building up, then they are likely just waiting for a rallying point to move and MINUET certainly fills that. Even if the DF doesn't know anything about MINUET now the Omoikane anti-AI team might be paranoid enough to go public about it and provide a rallying cry for Humanists to attack. Not to mention that if the DF do find MINUET they probably won't kill her because they are not assholes and would actually help her.

Not to mention that if the Compact factions wanting to attack Earth already would definitely use MINUET as a pretext to invade like they want to.

SaltyWaffles · May 5, 2024

masterofmadness said:
I might be reading into things here but does anyone else think that this is sign that MINUET might trigger a revolt.

If the Humanists and counter revolutionaries are building up, then they are likely just waiting for a rallying point to move and MINUET certainly fills that. Even if the DF doesn't know anything about MINUET now the Omoikane anti-AI team might be paranoid enough to go public about it and provide a rallying cry for Humanists to attack. Not to mention that if the DF do find MINUET they probably won't kill her because they are not assholes and would actually help her.

Not to mention that if the Compact factions wanting to attack Earth already would definitely use MINUET as a pretext to invade like they want to.

The problem with Omoikane going public about MINUET--well, there are a lot of problems, actually.

1) Communications blackout. I'm not sure if Sol is actually comms-blocked or if the Compact is just being extremely selective about what gets let through either end, but by this point I imagine both sides are using AGIs to check incoming traffic before letting it through in case it's a cyberwarfare attack or orders to staybehind units (granted, such orders need not be obvious, but if a charter is trying to build credibility for something, it has to be obvious).

2) Omoikane, being a charter, is not exactly trusted. With the revelations about what Omoikane did with TLIs, I highly doubt non-reactionaries are going to take Omoikane calling one of their own projects--which was based on Earth--an actual threat to humanity seriously at all. Hell, given the revelations about TLIs, the logical conclusion to make is that MINUET is a successful ASI project that has had its killswitch removed so that it couldn't be murdered in the crib like the bulk of AIs that Omoikane creates.

3) The reactionaries don't know where MINUET actually is. And the DemFed is unlikely to let any hints leak about its location (or its existence).

4) A general revolt and rising up from reactionaries and humanists means that they come out into the open to get eliminated...which makes things easier on the DemFed, really.

Setsul · May 5, 2024

BiopunkOtrera said:
"Hi." 114 said. "You nailed me to a wall once."

"Yeah. I remember." Muramasa nodded. "You almost had me." 114 grins at the compliment.

This too ...
No, get your head out of the gutter!

DracoDracul · May 5, 2024

SaltyWaffles said:
The problem with Omoikane going public about MINUET--well, there are a lot of problems, actually.

Also I'm not sure Omoikane meaningfully exists enough to do such a reveal.

For The Tyrants Fear Your Might (A quest of interstellar rebellion)

Been Better

Not the Simurgh

I am dissapoint, son

Aspiring Gynoid

DON'T PANIC

Traitor to her Class

Part 2: Soldiers and Ghosts

This too shall pass

Prince Of Doom

Prince Of Doom

Traitor to her Class

I am dissapoint, son

Transbian Communist

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