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.

DISCORD LINK:

Join the Wordsmiths Discord Server!

Check out the Wordsmiths community on Discord – hang out with 897 other members and enjoy free voice and text chat.

discord.gg

Setsul · Jul 3, 2024

Some thoughts on the "minor" positions:
No strong feelings about the SUF ambassador.
Surfer Dude is chill and got some reasonable goals. Leaning towards him.
Tindalos-119 got a point about not dying, but doesn't seem to have any standout qualifications beyond being a military hardliner who'd fit in with the Sheolites.
McConnell got more ambitious goals would probably get more done, but a full on general as ambassador pushing for military 'cooperation' could be taken the wrong way, both from the Elysian and the Sheol side.

My read on the chief spooks is this:
He: Most immediate competency. Clear strategic goal and has a plan for how to achieve it. Downside: Most likely to start going after her goal (destabilizing Symphony) whether we authorize it or not. That doesn't disqualify her though if we actually want to do that, and I do.
Lapine: The manager pick. Would probably mostly keep things running, optimize them, and let people cook, while slowly building up capabilities to deal with the looming spectre of the IPA.
Reed: "Do no wrong", but the PCIS might end up not doing much at all, or like He fears it might just end up hiding what it actually does from Reed.

Rafin · Jul 3, 2024

I've been trying and failing to find the chapter where we founded the Permanent Commission on Counter-Espionage as well as the one where we did the same for Diplomacy. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Edit: Found the Diplomacy one.

ScottishMongol · Jul 3, 2024

I think we should give Lilith Lily a massive dose of the spice melange in order to awaken her psychic potential.

The Laurent · Jul 3, 2024

ScottishMongol said:
I think we should give Lilith Lily a massive dose of the spice melange in order to awaken her psychic potential.

Consider how absolutely hilarious a meeting between Lilith Lily and Silvia Greene has the potential to be.

Ekzentric Lohner · Jul 3, 2024

So this is what I'm thinking as a plan:

[ ] Plan: Fuck the IPA
-[ ] [Stance] Engagement
-[ ] [ArmCon] Jennifer Mueller - Traitor to Her Class
--[ ] [Aide] Jeffery Lunarborn Ng - The Old Man
-[ ] [ACInst] Broke/Woke/Bespoke
--[ ] Broke: The IPA - present the Seven Points/April Fools war as their scheme, drag them for being a bunch of mob monarchists, tear them down and ruin their day. The original shitposting plan was blasting the Compact as a whole, but it's okay to be a bit more focused, especially if the people we're targeting less with this new plan can be set against the real threat.
--[ ] Woke: Refugees - That stupid war meant we couldn't send our own ships to aid in the Drake evacuation, but we still want to help. When our local unpleasantness is no longer in the way, we'll be happy to give new homes to people displaced from Drake, or from anywhere else for that matter. No idea if any'll take us up on it, but offering is the right thing to do.
--[ ] Bespoke: Networking - Set up connections to other revolutionary polities. We are, of course, backing the SolComm effort in word and deed, because we do want open communication standards and we do not want to let on that we have an alternative system in the works. But that alternative system is in the works, and we want to be ready to spread it, and spread it only to the revolution.
-[ ][UNS] You decided to appoint Ryan Crossfield Ambassador to the United Nations of Sol with Plenipotentiary Powers, formally recognizing the secession of the United Nations of Sol from the Solarian Compact
-[ ] [SUF] Apollo Xanthopoulos, Psyche Warfare Major
-[ ] [PCIS] Lapine - Pattern Recognition Engine

Combining the Once And Future Shitposter with a spacer-connected aide who wants to restart immigration, for anti-IPA shitposting and maybe helping the innocents we screwed over. Plus laying groundwork for a future secret wormhole rollout.

Making Crossfield the Ambassador to Sol because that makes them happy and keeps Santiago free to diplomance elsewhere (assuming we can get him out safely at some point).

Picking Apollo for Shei because he seems the best for getting them aboard with the propaganda/spycraft approach and Lapine for Espionage because she seems like the best for going against the IPA due to a) awareness of the criminal world and b) recognizing them as the biggest long-term threat.

Setsul · Jul 3, 2024

In character we do not have anything more than well-founded suspicions, no hard evidence that the IPA was involved at all.
Mueller is also firmly anti-charter and not a mindless robot, so if RVB spills the beans before the Okayference starts, she would use that regardless.

Keep in mind that if JN OK and/or SolNav have to choose between keeping us happy or keeping the IPA happy, we're going to have a very bad time.
I think that if you want to confront the IPA, you need to include someone for the backroom deals, likely Stardust or Lily, to secure at the very least Olduvai and/or Chronicle as a counterweight. As in, if we accuse the IPA without proof, they could very well declare that they won't join SolComm if the AIC isn't excluded and thanks to ARCHIMEDES it wouldn't even be that controversial. If Olduvai/Chronicle make the demand that SolComm has to include everyone willing to play ball or there's no point, then we could still make it work, but without that JN OK might just cut his losses and shut us out.

That said, I don't think it's even worth confronting the IPA right now. The VDC propaganda, eventually wormholes, and hopefully RVB trying to drag the IPA down with her will have a much larger impact, and until then I'd rather pretend we're just quietly, impotently seething while subverting Waystation and hopefully Akleod.

MSH · Jul 3, 2024

I'd like it established before the vote opens - is this plan or topic voting?

Torgamous · Jul 3, 2024

AKuz said:
Diplomacy Goals: Spreading the good news, never giving an inch to the Charters, full unilateral assertion of independence and total sovereignty in all things, promoting freedom of information.

These seem like serviceable diplomatic orders all on their own.

Setsul said:
push for straight up recognition of our independence. We can let ourselves be negotiated down to "semi-autonomous/self-governing frontier region" or whatever euphemism the Compact prefers as long as JN OK admits that we are in fact a government.

I think this is making the mistake of starting with what we want and going down from there. If we do this, start by demanding that every system get access to Section 33, because we wouldn't have needed to go through all this fuss if there was a system in place for peaceful secession.

Rafin said:
Immortal Commonwealth? It's used multiple times in the speech. Is it an official term now? When did that happen? To me it sounds a bit too optimistic. I get that it refers to the fact that everyone (who wants it) gets immortality treatments now, but it still sounds like claiming to be unsinkable, Titanic style.

We picked Amaranth as our name for the immortality symbolism. It's only to be expected that someone would decide subtext is for pussies.

Ekzentric Lohner said:
--[ ] Broke: The IPA - present the Seven Points/April Fools war as their scheme, drag them for being a bunch of mob monarchists, tear them down and ruin their day. The original shitposting plan was blasting the Compact as a whole, but it's okay to be a bit more focused, especially if the people we're targeting less with this new plan can be set against the real threat.

We don't have shit on the IPA, and unsubstantiated accusations aren't a great foundation to build our diplomatic effort.

slybrarian · Jul 3, 2024

I'll have to reread the PCIS section a couple more times, but right now I am leaning towards Engagement, keeping Muller as our rep, and appointing Crossfield.

Setsul · Jul 3, 2024

Torgamous said:
I think this is making the mistake of starting with what we want and going down from there. If we do this, start by demanding that every system get access to Section 33, because we wouldn't have needed to go through all this fuss if there was a system in place for peaceful secession.

My short term goal is in fact just recognition as any sort of government, on par with the SFREA and IPA. If JN OK wants to go beyond that and grant us full de jure independence I'm not going to stop him, but de facto independence is the realistic goal.
Really, the only part that matters is revoking SolNav's right to shoot at us as whenever they please, we've got all the other ingredients already.

If our opening demand is the effective dissolution of the Compact regardless of what the loyalists might want, we're not going to be taken seriously.
But "demanding" full indepence just for us after we've already effectively had it for years, then letting us be negotiated "down" to just SolNav not shooting at us anymore without SolParl giving the go-ahead would give us what we really need, give JN OK the win he needs to sell it, and is fairly easy to justify right now thanks to RVB. Everyone is going to want some assurances that this isn't going to be repeated everywhere, and he can't exactly exclude us without devaluing any promises he makes in that regard.

ScottishMongol · Jul 3, 2024

[ ] [Stance] Confrontation
[ ] [SUF] General Carl McConnell - Self Taught Soldier Poet
[ ] [PCIS] He Qingyue - Reformed Analyst

Kind of support pairing these together.

The Laurent said:
Consider how absolutely hilarious a meeting between Lilith Lily and Silvia Greene has the potential to be.

Oh, she does not belong anywhere near power, she should be having psychedelic orgies in the woods. That said, if we give her a hero dose she might end up communing with Elysium's world-spirit or something.

BurnBright · Jul 3, 2024

Lapine is my favorite on a personal level, but He Qingyue seems to have thought things through fairly well as well. I agree that Reed is a mistake, though hopefully she gets put on the regular oversight committee. But we need a focused intelligence service.

Ekzentric Lohner · Jul 3, 2024

Okay, discussion here and on the Discord has convinced me that public Blame The IPA tactics are a bad idea. How about this:

[ ] Plan: Shitposting is magic
-[ ] [Stance] Engagement
-[ ] [ArmCon] Jennifer Mueller - Traitor to Her Class
--[ ] [Aide] Lilith Lily- The Witch
-[ ] [ACInst] The shits we give
--[ ] Shit on Dutchnames: Is RvB a rogue warlord, or is JN OK's word worthless? He promised negotiation, she shat all over that. Publically tar and feather the Compact's flailing with the goal of getting the admiral cut off and told to stop. We might not get explicit acknowledgement of our independence, but we can get the de-facto independence of "SolNav not shooting us".
--[ ] Shit on Humanists: Well, less shit on the humanists and more help their victims. That stupid war kept you from sending your own ships to help the Drake evacuation, but you'd be happy to offer new homes to those who have been displaced from there, or anywhere else for that matter, as soon as your local unpleasantness is no longer in the way.
--[ ] Shit on the IPA: We can't publically call them out - even if we had proof, they'd just say we deepfaked it. But we've got the timing and the characters of all involved to point at for private insinuations against the mob monarchy's manipulations. Stick wedges between the IPA and the rest of the establishment wherever we can.
--[ ] No shit on SolComm: The only way SolComm is going to get off the ground is if many different polities cooperate, and the AIC has enough revolutionary cred that when we ask for it, Alexander and Crucible and Penglai might just listen. If we can secure their buy-in, then that'll give the revolutionary bloc as a whole room to demand net neutrality and other concessions.
--[ ] Super secret good shit: We might be able to slowboat a few messages through to other revolutionary polities in the future. Don't name the VDC explicitly. Be discrete about it, and don't imply that this communication would be anything more than standard tech drops in the vein of Broadcast 3.
- [ ][UNS] You decided to appoint Ryan Crossfield Ambassador to the United Nations of Sol with Plenipotentiary Powers, formally recognizing the secession of the United Nations of Sol from the Solarian Compact
- [ ] [SUF] Apollo Xanthopoulos, Psyche Warfare Major
- [ ] [PCIS] Lapine - Pattern Recognition Engine

Same reasoning as my last plan for Sol, Shei, and the Espionage Coordinator, but replace the Old Man with the Witch to move the IPA undermining to private meetings while using the public shitposting to just cut off support for Dutchnames.

Edit: Changed wording to make it clear we're not actually hinting at wormholes, just laying groundwork for completely unspecified future collaboration beyond stumping for SolComm. Thanks to @Redshirt Army for the suggestions on Discord.

Joppe · Jul 3, 2024

During the conference, we should avoid giving Compact any concessions that would reduce our legitimacy as an already independent power or diminish our ability to defend ourselves. It would undermine not just us, but also all other revolutionary polities that followed our example in breaking away from the Compact. What we should get from the talks is an end to the war, and a semi-permanent ceasefire that lasts long enough for us to recover from the war. Ideally we should also aim to publically weaken Compacts/governments legitimacy in order to speed up its collapse.

Aside from that, the conference is also an excellent opportunity to connect with other revolutionary polities.

Setsul · Jul 3, 2024

I took some time to think things through properly, just to make sure.
Confrontation would work, but probably also be fairly unimpressive. Crucible, Alexander, and Penglai are simply much bigger fish and they don't exactly need us to coordinate them. We're in no position to invade Symphony, let alone Asgard, so any offensives would be limited to Iyuhi and low population systems beyond Relay, while hoping the Triage Command doesn't care enough to come over. Sure, there's covert operations, but we can also run those without screaming it from the rooftops.
Isolationism is sort of a safe play. If we say nothing, we can't say the wrong things. It also makes us unthreatening and more likely to be simply left alone by anyone except the SFREA, who we should be able to handle. Not a bad option if we just want to buy time to get wormholes to the VDC, but I think it leaves a lot on the table.
Engagement can be better than either, but we need to play it correctly, which is much more difficult. Still, it's our best bet for eventually uniting the big nominally loyal polities, Olduvai and Chronicle, and the firmly revolutionary ones, Alexander, Crucible, and Penglai, in one power bloc. We're in the middle between the extremes of Crucible (fight SolNav all day every day) and Olduvai (just a loyal Sovereign Commonwealth, nothing to see here), we're well-known, and communication is our thing. SolComm could be incredibly useful if we want to make wormhole comms public at some point.
So I'll stick with Engagement.

Recognising the UNS is not a given. It's entirely viable to put it off for now and wait for the Compact to fracture a bit more before pissing them off again.
If we do send Mueller, who'll push for independence, and recognize Sheol and maybe Trescore as independent, but not Sol, then it's going to look very hypocritical.

For the Okayference Representative, I'll try to eliminate a couple to make things simpler, because with the aide there'd otherwise too many combinations to think about.
Santiago would be hilarious, but he's a Confrontation candidate and doesn't really work with Engagement, I think. He'd be great for stirring shit up, but is neither respected nor willing to play ball with the loyalists, and as an aide he's just end up stealing the show because of his fame. Especially if we recognize the UNS, sending Santiago to the Okayference right through KC would also be thumbing our nose at SolNav. We already did that once with the 201st Propaganda and it came back to bite us.
Jeffery Ng is more of an Isolationism candidate in my opinion. Play nice with the neighbours, appear non-threatening. I mean that also works with Engagement, but he doesn't do anything for general cooperation or SolComm specifically, only immigration. Asgard hates us, Symphony seems more or less firmly under the control of Emily Weissmann, who also hates us, and both Drake and the Drakean augment refugees hate us. The Triage Command is parked in Tereshkova. In the short term, we'd be getting a lot of spies and not much else, and in the long term all bets are off anyway.

I think we should definitely send an aide to balance things out.
I'd want one respectable candidate, one for backroom deals, one who can take centre stage, one who can at least appear conciliatory.
Between the four candidates we've got, there's a lot of combinations that can fit that into two people.

Stardust: Front woman, wants to de-escalate, pro SolComm, can also do backroom deals, but not respectable and we'd need a new chief diplomat.
Mueller: Respectable, can front, but here to stir shit up. Pro SolComm and independence, should be paired with someone calmer for the backroom deals.
Lily: Front, backroom deals, will try to get the more radical reformists on our side, but not respectable.
Crossfield: Respectable, backroom deals, outwardly conciliatory while getting up to shady shit, but definitely needs a front woman. Also technically the better choice for UNS ambassador and he can't do both.

Stardust + Crossfield would be the calmest combo.
Stardust + Mueller could be very balanced.
Mueller + Lily would be the most controversial.
Mueller + Crossfield should be fairly balanced.
Lily + Crossfield would be all of the backroom deals for days.

I'm not sure yet which one I want. Sending Crossfield does have the added benefit that we'll still have someone at the Okayference even if the candidate from Radiant gets intercepted, but he'd be without instructions and have to play things by ear.

Ultrackius · Jul 3, 2024

Confrontation for sure, and I'd like to send Theo to the meeting (maybe with the class traitor or the cultist as an aide) and the soldier poet to Sheol. As for ops, the reformed analyst seems like the best option

Not sure for specific orders though

TheArcanist · Jul 3, 2024

As much as I want to go guns blazing with a confrontational stance, we're currently still dealing with the pretty dire consequences of our belligerent diplomatic posture and I'm very unconvinced we can survive any amount of persistent negative attention from one of the major galactic factions - the IPA has thrown us into an existential crisis through what amounts to an annoyed flick of their fingers.

Engagement is more to our interests, and our survival is to the interest of the galactic revolution as a whole.

Cassiemouse · Jul 3, 2024

"-engagement, reaching out to all that will hear us with words of renewed friendship. No longer will we approach our rivals and neighbours with belligerent fervour. Instead, we will work together to guide all the peoples of the galaxy towards a peaceful and prosperous future. One free of war and cruelty."

A future free of war and cruelty is what we want. Hopefully this is the best way to accomplish it.

Arjac · Jul 3, 2024

Diplomatic Stance

Obviously, a Confrontational approach would be ideologically ideal, to provide a unified front with other revolutionary powers.
However, as others have said, Engagement seems to be the more practical option, playing to our strengths while buying us time to rearm and prep for any attacks from the IPA.
Isolationism fails on both fronts. We didn't take War to the Knife just to flee from the rest of the galaxy.

Armstrong Rep

Stardust is great, but she's our head, and I'd prefer to keep it that way.
Mueller is a fine choice for first or second. Iffy on her finer negotiation style, but she'll get her face on camera and can net us a PR win.
Ng could be a worthwhile counterbalance if we have a more radical Rep take point, but he doesn't feel like the right person for Okayference overall. Might be a good pick for an Ambassador slot later.
Lily seems like a good choice for backroom dealing, but maybe not the best face of AIC if we want sympathy for 7 points war. I'd put her in second slot.
Crossfield is in a similar place to Lily, funny enough. Best choice for networking the revolution, but not a good pick for front-facing PR.
Santiago is likely our most radical choice, and the best if we still wanted to crap on OKs table. But that seems a bit too antagonistic for Engagement Stance.

Setsul said:
Stardust + Crossfield would be the calmest combo.
Stardust + Mueller could be very balanced.
Mueller + Lily would be the most controversial.
Lily + Crossfield would be all of the backroom deals for days.

Currently leaning towards Mueller + Crossfield for a balanced approach that keeps Stardust in place

Armstrong Instructions

I believe in not over-complicating this stuff.

Gain recognized independence
Regain access to galactic comms network
Network with revolutionaries
1. Use 7 points war as leverage where needed

UNS Rep

I'd support keeping Santiago where he is. We sent him there for a reason.

Still need to read the Shei and Espionage pages further before having a take

Redshirt Army · Jul 3, 2024

Here's where I'm at with the planning:

[ ] Plan: Redshirt Draft v0.1

-[ ] [Stance] Engagement
-[ ] [ArmCon] Jennifer Mueller - Traitor to Her Class
--[ ] [Aide] Lilith Lily- The Witch OR [Aide] Ryan Crossfield - The Millenial

Engagement seems like the most productive path going forward. Isolationism cuts off our ability to influence things, but doesn't do much to stop things from influencing us. It's an illusion of safety at most. Being more Confrontational could work if we're lucky, but has a high risk of calling more trouble down on our heads before we even recover from RVB's latest adventure. Engagement plays to our strengths - and not just media and espionage, but also communication networks and research. More time to build up our tech base is golden, and SolComm and the galactic internet are worth preserving if we can manage it.

Mueller as the Front Woman, and either Lilith or Crossfield for the backroom talks, seems like the most reasonable approach to me. Crossfield is more outwardly conciliatory, but Lilith is probably better at actually convincing individual people. Crossfield is also a good Ambassador to the UNS, so I'm currently leaning Lilith.

-[ ] [ACInst] The Essential Elements
--[ ] The Dutch Dilemma: Is RvB a rogue warlord, or is JN OK's word worthless? He promised negotiation, she shat all over that. Publicly tar and feather the Compact's flailing, and force JNOK to either publicly cut off RvB from support, or cripple his credibility with the other polities here.
--[ ] The Political Play: Acknowledge the sovereignty of the other revolutionary groups, and accept their acknowledgement of the AIC in turn. See to what extent you can present as a united bloc, backing up their other demands of the compact as our diplomats find reasonable.
--[ ] The SolComm Situation: Losing the shared communications link would be a legitimate loss for humanity. The only way SolComm is going to get off the ground is if many different polities cooperate, and the AIC has enough revolutionary cred that when we ask for it, Alexander and Crucible and Penglai might just listen. If we can secure their buy-in, then the revolutionary bloc as a whole will have room to demand true net neutrality, among other concessions.
--[ ] The Message Mystery: We might be able to slowboat a few messages through to other revolutionary polities in the future. Don't name the VDC explicitly. Be discrete about it, and don't imply that this communication would be anything more than standard tech drops in the vein of Broadcast 3.

- [ ][UNS] You decided to appoint Ryan Crossfield Ambassador to the United Nations of Sol with Plenipotentiary Powers, formally recognizing the secession of the United Nations of Sol from the Solarian Compact

We need to recognize their secession if we're going to maintain the revolutionary cachet for SolComm to work out. Crossfield is the better choice, but obviously if he's sent as Aide, give it to Santiago instead.

- [ ] [SUF] Apollo Xanthopoulos, Psyche Warfare Major

Apollo is the best choice for coordinating our espionage with Shei, and the Engagement path is going to be espionage heavy. This both means we can be more effective, and means that our ambassador will be in a good position to show Shei what our tangible plans are, instead of them thinking we're just messing around with being concilliatory without an end goal.

- [ ] [PCIS] Lapine - Pattern Recognition Engine OR [PCIS] Samantha Reed -Concerned Politician

Reed brings up reasonable points about avoiding abuse - that was ultimately a major part of the ethos that Maria founded our military with, and having a similar approach to our espionage sector isn't the worst idea. It's also worth noting that Reed and her ideas aren't going to just disappear if she isn't made the head of PCIS - she's part of a major enough movement in GenCon to make the shortlist. We're going to need to appease that group soon anyhow, or it'll spill over into a more general political fracturing.

Lapine is an excellent candidate on the merits, and compared to Reed is far more likely to get us an actionable intelligence agency quickly - and every quarter year counts when events are going as quickly as they are. It's ultimately a question of whether we can afford the slower buildup of going with Reed, or if we're better off going with Lapine for the immediate security and then trying to deal with the oversight issues Reed brought up afterwards, when it'll be much harder but the immediate crisis point may have passed.

Setsul · Jul 3, 2024

Arjac said:
Currently leaning towards Mueller + Crossfield for a balanced approach that keeps Stardust in place

Yeah, I edited that one in right before you posted. It's weird that I forgot that one because it's also the one I was leanding towards.
It also keeps Mueller which I like because I don't want to retcon that decision and otherwise it just doesn't work with travel times, and now is the best time to demand something more substantial than just another ceasefire.
Crossfield because I do worry about IPA shenanigans. I'd rather have a marginally "worse" UNS ambassador than lose out on all the opportunities the Okayference provides.

Ultrackius · Jul 3, 2024

No concessions! No retreat! No concilliation!

Derpmind · Jul 3, 2024

I'd like to do a full post going over everything, but I'm just not up to that today. So this is an anemic argument, but. Our actual long-term goal is as follows:

Develop WormTech.
Smuggle WormComms to revolutionary polities.
???
Destroy Profit forever.

Everything we decide here should be keeping that in mind. If lying, choosing odd policies, and/or strange diplomatic choices helps our goal, then we should do so. We're not here to play fair or honest. We're playing to win.

Ekzentric Lohner said:
--[ ] Super secret good shit: We might be able to slowboat a few messages through to other revolutionary polities in the future. Don't name the VDC explicitly. Be discrete about it, and don't imply that this communication would be anything more than standard tech drops in the vein of Broadcast 3.

Redshirt Army said:
--[ ] The Message Mystery: We might be able to slowboat a few messages through to other revolutionary polities in the future. Don't name the VDC explicitly. Be discrete about it, and don't imply that this communication would be anything more than standard tech drops in the vein of Broadcast 3.

I'm worried that this might tip our hand, and increase the chance that said tech transfer gets intercepted. We don't know how secure the meetings at this conference are going to be.

slybrarian · Jul 3, 2024

I largely agree with Derpmind that being cute about future messages is a bad idea. If and when we get them out, let it be a pleasant surprise. I'm assured that comrade general secretaries everywhere love a good surprise.

Setsul · Jul 3, 2024

[ ] Plan: We're just here to talk!
-[ ] [Stance] Engagement
-[ ] [ArmCon] Jennifer Mueller - Traitor to Her Class
--[ ] [Aide] Ryan Crossfield - The Millenial
-[ ] [ACInst] Let's talk!
--[ ] About that invasion: Complain loudly and publicly about the AIC getting attacked during JN OK's ceasefire. Only shut up about it if JN OK offers something better than yet another secret ceasefire.
--[ ] To each other: Establish communications with as many revolutionary polities as possible, the IPA doesn't count. Arrange for future communications (encryption keys, couriers) without involving or even hinting at the VDC or wormholes. At most hint at normal tech sharing (SOSA) and mutual defence pacts (LIS) that are better discussed where SolNav isn't listening.
--[ ] About borders: Recognize the sovereignty of any non-Humanist polity that recognizes the AIC in turn. The SFREA is fair game, but only recognize the IPA as the new government of Epsilon at most.
--[ ] On the internet: Push for SolComm, both publicly and in private. As much as it hurts, it needs everyone to work, even the Humanists, but do not budge on net neutrality.
-[ ][UNS] You decided to appoint Theodore Santiago Ambassador to the United Nations of Sol with Plenipotentiary Powers, formally recognising the secession of the United Nations of Sol from the Solarian Compact
OR [ ][UNS] You decided to maintain Strategic Ambiguity
-[ ] [SUF] Apollo Xanthopoulos, Psyche Warfare Major
-[ ] [PCIS] He Qingyue - Reformed Analyst

Lots of compromises. We don't want to get too greedy again.
Mueller is going to push for independence and it would be great if we get it on paper, but we just want JN OK to put a leash on SolNav in public instead of behind closed doors because that really didn't work the last time. And if he refuses to take a stand, well, then we can turn up the pressure and talk about mutual defence pacts in public because they're clearly needed.
Crossfield is a case of good enough. Stardust or Lily might let us get more done in terms of publicity and reaching out to other revolutionary polities, but the Okayference is too important to put all our eggs in one basket while the IPA is in an egg-breaking mood, and Santiago, especially on his own, would just fan the flames instead of getting us breathing room.

Okayference stuff is ordered by how many factions it involves.
We want some concessions out of JN OK and a leash on SolNav or failing that publicly embarrass him.
Everyone expects us to talk to the other revolutionary polities, so we will. We should act like we would if the VDC wasn't ride or die with us and we didn't have wormhole comms. That a one-time pad works just as well for a message that tells Alexander about wormholes as it would for boring diplomatic pleasantries is a happy coincidence. Same for ways to identify a genuine AIC messenger who made the trip incognito on civilian ship, those work just as well once we involve the VDC, and they'll make the IPA and others overlook our VDC friends who carry the really juicy stuff.
While we pretend to play nice, we need to actually pretend to play nice. Yes, that means playing nice with the Loyalists who are willing to place nice with us. That is diplomacy. North and South Korea are both recognized by all UN members except each other because there's a difference between wishing something didn't exist and pretending that it doesn't while you can clearly see it. A neat side effect is that the more de facto independent polities start talking directly to each other, the less powerful the Compact is. A bunch of Loyalist polities squabbling amongst each other are less dangerous than if those same polities still listened to the PM.
SolComm is potentially extremely useful. We will need to work with everyone on that, because even a single missing system can mess things up. It's better to cooperate with polities we hate on this one than to try and make it work without them, because then either the space internet is dead anyway or we're back to SolNav enforcing things at gunpoint in the uncooperative systems. Net neutrality and SolNav not having free reign to show up anywhere unannounced anymore are more important than ideological differences here. Long term we want to bring Chronicle and Olduvai into the revolutionary bloc proper and this is our first in with them.

I'm still on the fence about recognizing the UNS' independence.
It is a provocation, but right now we should be able to get away with it since it can be framed as retaliation for RVB's pro gamer move.
On the other hand, we don't actually get anything from pleasing Sol, and if we want to go for a more subtle "yeah sure, we're all still part of the Compact" to paralyze SolNav and get closer to Olduvai and Chronicle, then it actually hurts.

Surfer Dude for Sheol. Partially because they need to chill, partially because I think there might be some synergy with the espionage cooperation that's mentioned.
I think we can roll the dice on He. If she's an IPA plant 30 years in the making then we're screwed anyway and beyond the immediate concern of whatever the hell is going on behind Akleod, the PCIS should mostly be focused on the SFREA while the VDC is in a much better position to do anything about Epsilon and the IPA elsewhere. Combined with Apollo Xanthopoulos I could see Shei getting in on the fun setting up an insurgency on Symphony, while the Sheolites would probably the worst at trying to infiltrate the spacer mafia and I simply can't see them sitting around doing nothing.

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

Been Better

I miss Wildstar...

Aspiring Gynoid

Creature of Fable

I miss Wildstar...

Market Atheist

Retreating Backwards

Diplomatic Stance

Armstrong Rep

Armstrong Instructions

UNS Rep

Cannon Fodder

Creature of Fable