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

AKuz · Dec 10, 2020

THE ALL-RADIANT CONGRESS

Setting Information: The Solarian Compact:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Charters:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rhodes Mining

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

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

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

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

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

Techbros, some of them science, some of them explore

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sketchy buggers, they can get you anything tho

Historical Topics:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Misc Details:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Spinward Frontier:

The Middle Spinward Frontier

The Core Region:

UNDER RADIANT CONTROL OR ALLIED:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gaid A1: An airless world. Quality 10.

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

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

Gaid AI: An asteroid belt.

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

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

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

Gaid B2: An airless world. Quality 10.

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

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

Gaid B5: A small icy planet. Quality 3.

Gaid B6: A frozen world. Quality 7.

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

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

Shei 1: A Cthonian world. Quality 15.

Shei 2: An airless world. Quality 12.

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

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

Gravity .95 Earth Standard. Quality 12.

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

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

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

Shei I: Asteroid belt.

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

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

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

Shei II: Asteroid belt.

Shei 7: Jovian planet. Quality 13.

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

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

Shei 8: Ice giant. Quality 6.

Shei 8a: An icy moon. Quality 9.

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

Population: 103,000,000

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

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

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

Five Lions 3: A rocky ball. Quality 7.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Five Lions II: An asteroid belt.

Five Lions 7: An unremarkable Jovian. Quality 2.

Five Lions III: An asteroid belt.

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

Five Lions IV: An asteroid belt.

Five Lions 9: Jovian planet. Quality 9.

Five Lions V: An asteroid belt.

Five Lions 10: Neptunian ice giant. Quality 8.

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

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

Population: 15,000,000

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Population: 650,000

UNDER CHARTER CONTROL:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Xotreh A6: An unremarkable icy ball. Quality 4.

Xotreh AI: An asteroid belt.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Xotreh 6: A dense ice giant. Quality 4.

Xotreh 7: Jovian planet. Quality 6.

Xotreh 8: An exceptionally cold Jovian. Quality 9.

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

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

Population: 54,000

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

Bestreer 1: An airless world. Quality 2.

Bestreer 2: An airless world. Quality 6.

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

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

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

Bestreer I: An icy asteroid belt.

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

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

Bestreer 7: Another Jovian. Quality 14.

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

Bestreer 8: An icy ball. Quality 10.

Population: 450

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

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

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

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

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

Akleod I: An asteroid belt.

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

Population: 5,000

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

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

Thoa System Stats:

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

Thoa 2: An unremarkable airless metal ball.

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

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

Thoa I: An asteroid belt.

Thoa 4: A normal Jovian planet.

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

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

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

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

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

Thoa II: A Kuiper belt of icy objects.

Empty Systems

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

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

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

Kimberly 3: A Jovian world.

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

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

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

Total:

Radiant:

Gaid:

Five Lions:

Head of Diplomatic Corps:

Name: Amanda Redcrest, Victoria Blackwell, and Kayla Hayashi

DoB: "2222", 2219, 2227, 2224

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cons: XP celebrity, little diplomatic experience, three people

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

Unlocked FRM

Ares Peacekeeping Grade - Access to planetary army formation

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

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

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

Cernunnos Consumer Grade - +1 to all Soccom actions

Cernunnos Enterprise Grade - NOT UNLOCKED

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

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

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

Hermes-Ishtar Production Grade - NOT UNLOCKED

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

MSI Enterprise Grade - NOT UNLOCKED

Original Tech

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

Defence Coordinator:

Name: Maria Awhina

DoB: 2165

Current Position: Military Committee Delegate from the Radiant Veterans Guild

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pros:

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

Cons:

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

Command Traits:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-None

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

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

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

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

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

Solarian Marines now spread throughout the system

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

Mobile Force:

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

CO: Commodore Stephanie Rousseau

CNS Velasco, United States of America-class Fleet Carrier

-CO: Captain Esteri Attar

-Orca Wing, Switchblade-type strikecraft (Customized)

-CO: Wing Commander Jasmine Ang

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

-CO: Wing Commander Heloisa Kimura de Lima

CNS Shieldmaiden, Great Heathen-class Light Cruiser

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

CNS Shamhat, Great Heathen-class Light Cruiser

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

CNS Righteous Tempest, Cossak-class Frigate

-CO: Captain Vehement Shade

CNS August Willich, Cossak-class Frigate

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

CNS Elysium, Cossak-class Frigate

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

CNS Asphodel, Cossak-class Frigate

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

-

Home Force:

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

CO: Commodore Erina Kozlova

CNS Blaire Mountain, New Model-Class Strike Corvette

-CO: Captain Guillermo Kageyama

CNS Scutum, Comet-Class Patrol Corvette

-CO: Captain Martin Pagonis

CNS Buckler, Comet-Class Patrol Corvette

-CO: Captain Samuel Smiles

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

-CO: Captain Jean-Paul Beaumont

-

Radiant System Self Defence Force:

Current Orders: Defend Radiant, comet patrol

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

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

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

Switchblade Wing, Switchblade-type strikecraft

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

Apogee Wing, Switchblade-type strikecraft

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

Battery A, Blindfire-Pattern LMP Constellation

(Radiant-Bestreer Gate)

Battery B, Blindfire-Pattern LMP Constellation

(Radiant-Bestreer Gate)

Battery C, Blindfire-Pattern LMP Constellation

(Radiant-Bestreer Gate)

Battery D, Airstrike-Pattern LMP Constellation

(Radiant-Bestreer Gate)

Battery E, Airstrike-Pattern LMP Constellation

(Radiant-Bestreer Gate)

Battery F, Airstrike-Pattern LMP Constellation

(Radiant-Bestreer Gate)

Shoal A, Macross-Pattern TAM Shoal

(Radiant-Bestreer Gate)

Radiant Orbital Yard 1

Current construction: None

Radiant Orbital Yard 1

Current construction: None

-

Gaid System Self Defence Force:

Current Orders: Defend Gaid

CO: Commodore Victor Raine

Battery A, Blindfire-Pattern LMP Constellation

Battery B, Blindfire-Pattern LMP Constellation

Battery C, Blindfire-Pattern LMP Constellation

Battery D, Airstrike-Pattern LMP Constellation

Battery E, Airstrike-Pattern LMP Constellation

Battery F, Airstrike-Pattern LMP Constellation

Shoal A, Macross-Pattern TAM Shoal

Shoal A, Macross-Pattern TAM Shoal

Shoal A, Macross-Pattern TAM Shoal

Zephyr Wing, Switchblade-Type Strikecraft (Customized)

-CO: Wing Commander Ara Helge

Aeolus Wing, Switchblade-Type Strikecraft (Customized)

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

Gale Wing, Switchblade-Type Strikecraft (Customized)

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

-

Frontier Force

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

CO: Commodore Shayla McLean

CNS Kiel Mutiny, Kaiserreich-class BattleCruiser

-CO: Captain Inana Devlin

CNS Choreographer, Janissary-class Light Tender

-CO: Captain Karl Xanthopoulos

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

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

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

-CO: Captain Fool's Errand

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

-CO: Captain Rouge Napier

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

-CO: Captain John Rankin

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

-CO: Captain Nkiru Chaudhari

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

-CO: Captain Sumac Barros

CNS Revolutionary Will, Cossak-class Frigate

-CO: Captain Yamamoto Hanae

CNS Revolutionary Grace, Cossak-class Frigate

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

CNS Under New Management, Don-Class Fast Tanker

-CO: Captain Adras Kierenos

CNS Liberte, Hollywood(C)-Class Frigate

-CO: Captain Colin McRae

CNS Egalite, Hollywood(C)-Class Frigate

-CO: Captain Adelia Swift

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

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Krall · Sep 11, 2021

Sara said:
I absolutely don't think we are powerless and have no influence and everything we try will fail. Theirs's a lot we can do to influence our situation and succeed at various goals. I just think what your suggesting, specifically, is suboptimal. Not agreeing with the specific course of action you want to go with isn't being some sort of doomer, I am proposing something different after all.

I was talking about sending a diplomatic to Sol specifically. You seem to think doing so can only have negative effects and can't possibly influence anything to our benefit.

Sara said:
Anyway, the reason they would know the explosions on the surface of Ares are destroying real cities and killing children is the same way the ARC did at first despite not having people on the ground. Their ships have sensory capabilities able to pick those up images and signals from these planets the same as ours. The Sheolites were engaging in open warfare with 21st century tech against them on a continental scale, it wasn't exactly something Ares was trying to hide from ships in the same solar system.

Incorrect - we were told that's what was happening down on the surface by Rousseau. You can't use sensors to pick up people in underground bunkers.

Sara said:
As for why the mainstream media and quite a lot of smaller ones will do this, which you'll is not the same as every single news outlet and influencer which as far as I can tell are words you're trying to put in my mouth, is because we literally started a war against, at the very least, a megacorp with a monopoly on the mediasphere along with the inhabited galaxy's comm structure, and another one with a monopoly on the military industrial complex. That's assuming we haven't also pissed of Rhodes and every Charter with a system on the Osilam, which I think might be literally all of them.

You literally said "Every mainstream news outlet and influencer", so no I didn't put words in your mouth. HI doesn't have a monopoly on all media, it's just heavily dominant in that area. It can't have total control over the media, because the current ruling party that wants to regulate the Charters more came to power, and they must've had media support.

Sara said:
If we did send out a 'propaganda broadcast' without the FRM and revolt instructions, how long exactly would you feel comfortable waiting before sending the eventual second broadcast with the FRMs, telling people to revolt? Because HI isn't going to tell us in advance when they will finish implementing their counter project, and if they do it before we send a hypothetical second broadcast, we're kind of fucked.

Not sure exactly, maybe a year? Why? How is this relevant to us not sending information with our diplomats?

Angelform said:
And we will know that… how exactly? Last I heard our information gathering in Charter space amounted to listening in on HI's news shows.

To clear this up, I believe the bug we're exploiting with the hack can't be fixed without what's essentially a firmware update, which means physically going to each and every comms buoy to install new code to completely fix it - after they've actually figured out how to fix it, of course.

Model DC.14F said:
Are you sure? I thought since it was a software hack, the counter project would be having to find what backdoor in the centuries-old mess of a code we used and releasing a universal patch.

I think it was said that we'll be hijacking the Compact's emergency broadcast system, meaning that every system connected to the Interstellar Network will get the broadcast, no exceptions. The good news is that, due to being a Compact mandated override, there is no way to block out our broadcast specifically. The bad news is, iirc, that they is nothing prevent the charters from doing the same thing Gentle Respose did and taking the physical hardware offline.

While this would cut the entire star system off, something taboo to the interconnected Charters, undoubtedly some failsons would take the opportunity to do so to run their colony like their own personal kingdom. So even if it is possible to send the FRM in a second broadcast, it would be risky, since a significant amount of frontier systems may now be unable to receive it.

This is a good point - specific star systems or sectors of Charter space could cut themselves off from the comms network and prevent our broadcast going out to those areas. That drastically impacts the viability of a Second Broadcast, so sending information with the diplomatic team instead of via a lesser First Broadcast would be a better idea.

Angelform · Sep 11, 2021

Elero said:
For one thing, we (probably?) are going to send a courier with our diplomats to Earth and probably want to leave said courier around to carry them back home if they need to bail out, so while it's floating around in space it can keep its eyes open. And nothing stops us from extending our information gathering network in general. If the charters get to send 'journalist' into our space, it would only be fair to send some of our own.

That seems exceedingly optimistic.

There will be no 'bailing out'. If the Charters or Compact decide our diplomats don't get to go home then no ship in existence is going to help them. FTL being gate-based means moving through enemy held territory is nigh-impossible.

Our courier is going to be in Sol. One of hundreds, if not thousands, of systems in Charter space. Its ability to see anything wide scale is negligible.

We might, AP permitting (it won't, it never does), be able to insert agents into the neighbouring systems. However even going half a dozen systems down the chain is still only a tiny portion of Charter space. And honestly the ability of a 'journalist' to keep an eye on star ships doing maintenance on buoys is negligible.

Krall said:
I was talking about sending a diplomatic to Sol specifically. You seem to think doing so can only have negative effects and can't possibly influence anything to our benefit.

And I for one agree with their reasoning.

To clear this up, I believe the bug we're exploiting with the hack can't be fixed without what's essentially a firmware update, which means physically going to each and every comms buoy to install new code to completely fix it - after they've actually figured out how to fix it, of course.

That it will take them a long time isn't in dispute.
The point of contention is that after we have used the broadcast once, we cannot then hold further broadcasts in reserve because the fix could come at any moment with no warning. Every turn we didn't use it we would risk it becoming less effective without us knowing, if not outright obsolete.

Sara · Sep 12, 2021

Krall said:
. Somehow every single news outlet and influencer

Krall said:
I was talking about sending a diplomatic to Sol specifically. You seem to think doing so can only have negative effects and can't possibly influence anything to our benefit.

I'm sure it can influence specific things on the margins, give us some more info about current Earth politicos, I just don't think it's likely to do the things you wanted to do, and likely to get a crucial chunk of our diplomatic team killed or disappeared into a Compact blacksite around the times we;'d need them most.

Krall said:
Incorrect - we were told that's what was happening down on the surface by Rousseau. You can't use sensors to pick up people in underground bunkers.

Cyanblackstone said:
"Via what observations we are able to make without attempting to break into secure Ares communications or moving too close to Sheol orbit, we estimate that the population on Sheol's inhabited continent is at least eighty million people living at a roughly early twenty-first century level of technological development. Apparently, they "forgot" to give any of the prisoners working contraceptive devices, and their kids (and their grandkids, and their great-grandkids) are all down there too.

"The prisoners appear to be heavily armed and at least twice during our time here we have witnessed large scale deployment of Ares forces from the training bases into the prisoner's cities and have at observed at least one instance of craft launched from the planetary surface being fired on by the orbital weapons satellites controlled from Sheol's moon of Watchman.

We we were able to tell this without getting particularly close to the planet or pick up secure Ares communications before we talked to Rosseau, not after.

Krall said:
You literally said "Every mainstream news outlet and influencer", so no I didn't put words in your mouth. HI doesn't have a monopoly on all media, it's just heavily dominant in that area. It can't have total control over the media, because the current ruling party that wants to regulate the Charters more came to power, and they must've had media support.

Krall said:
. Somehow every single news outlet and influencer

Yes, and you'll notice when you take the word mainstream out of it the meaning becomes extremely different, so let's not pretend those are the same thing. Anyway, it makes perfect sense for them to still have a monopoly over it despite their being two parties. Even in real life massive corporations like fund both sides regardless of rhetoric to have leverage over them, because said parties often don't have to huge a difference on them while in power. If the current party was really interested in reigning them, they wouldn't effectively have entire planets under their control where people can't even vote and the ones who do have their ballots stuffed by the charters, or the myriad of human rights abuses that goes down.

I'm sure their happy to satisfy as many markets as possible by giving Fair and Balanced coverage in aggregate, but when stuff actually effects their financial interests in extreme ways like how the ARC and Sheol Rebellion are dealt with, I'm sure their also extremely willing to give marching orders to influence what people are seeing to a astounding degree.

Krall said:
Not sure exactly, maybe a year? Why? How is this relevant to us not sending information with our diplomats?

Because it helps me point out that even the people in favor of the plan to do two broadcasts, giving our enemies knowledge of our capabilities beforehand and attempt to do damage control before giving people who can't even influence the election the tools to revolt on their own, will buy us a grand total of maybe a years time if they don't get it done before that and we miss our chance.

I don't think enough time to get out, I don't know, a single other carrier is worth gambling on not being able to get the second broadcast off or are diplomats lives or voiding the terms of the ceasefire, dragging us into another war but this time without the other revolts.

Krall · Sep 12, 2021

Sara said:
I'm sure it can influence specific things on the margins, give us some more info about current Earth politicos, I just don't think it's likely to do the things you wanted to do, and likely to get a crucial chunk of our diplomatic team killed or disappeared into a Compact blacksite around the times we;'d need them most.

I think it's still worth it to try. There are a lot of unknowns involved here and we could easily miss important opportunities if we don't attempt it.

Sara said:
We we were able to tell this without getting particularly close to the planet or pick up secure Ares communications before we talked to Rosseau, not after.

Okay, you're right, my apologies. I still think the Solarian Navy didn't necessarily know all the details of it - Ares could've fobbed them off with any number of excuses, or the Navy could've not examined the colony too closely, etc.

Sara said:
Yes, and you'll notice when you take the word mainstream out of it the meaning becomes extremely different, so let's not pretend those are the same thing. Anyway, it makes perfect sense for them to still have a monopoly over it despite their being two parties. Even in real life massive corporations like fund both sides regardless of rhetoric to have leverage over them, because said parties often don't have to huge a difference on them while in power. If the current party was really interested in reigning them, they wouldn't effectively have entire planets under their control where people can't even vote and the ones who do have their ballots stuffed by the charters, or the myriad of human rights abuses that goes down.

I'm sure their happy to satisfy as many markets as possible by giving Fair and Balanced coverage in aggregate, but when stuff actually effects their financial interests in extreme ways like how the ARC and Sheol Rebellion are dealt with, I'm sure their also extremely willing to give marching orders to influence what people are seeing to a astounding degree.

I think you're nitpicking a bit here, but also I have to emphasise that I'm not imagining the government/Daughter Party will actually reign in the Charters significantly, just that they'll avoid deregulating the Charters and letting them go hogwild. I'm aiming for a do-nothing "Biden" to buy time, not a "Sanders" who might actually do something. (Apologies for the political oversimplification but you get what I mean.)

Sara said:
Because it helps me point out that even the people in favor of the plan to do two broadcasts, giving our enemies knowledge of our capabilities beforehand and attempt to do damage control before giving people who can't even influence the election the tools to revolt on their own, will buy us a grand total of maybe a years time if they don't get it done before that and we miss our chance.

I don't think enough time to get out, I don't know, a single other carrier is worth gambling on not being able to get the second broadcast off or are diplomats lives or voiding the terms of the ceasefire, dragging us into another war but this time without the other revolts.

Would sending the information with our diplomats actually violate the terms of the ceasefire?

Sara · Sep 12, 2021

Krall said:
I think it's still worth it to try. There are a lot of unknowns involved here and we could easily miss important opportunities if we don't attempt it.

On the other hand, finding those unknowns likely means leaving our diplomatic corp including our chief one to die or be imprisoned for life in horrible conditions in a time when medcomm priority is only going to grow, so its obviously without opportunity costs. Or moral ones, depending on if you care about those.

Krall said:
Okay, you're right, my apologies. I still think the Solarian Navy didn't necessarily know all the details of it - Ares could've fobbed them off with any number of excuses, or the Navy could've not examined the colony too closely, etc.

Sheol had a captive population of tens of millions engaged in near constant total war with 21st century technology which even the ARC's much less technologically advanced probes then an entire Solarian Fleet, which is supposed more advanced then even charter tech, picked up without even being near the planets orbit, on the part of the planet that is supposed to be a dumping ground for criminals.

I think the Solarian Navy is about as likely to have noticed as someone who would notice a bear in your driveway when they left the house. Not literally impossible to miss, but then not a lot of things are.

Krall said:
I think you're nitpicking a bit here, but also I have to emphasise that I'm not imagining the government/Daughter Party will actually reign in the Charters significantly, just that they'll avoid deregulating the Charters and letting them go hogwild. I'm aiming for a do-nothing "Biden" to buy time, not a "Sanders" who might actually do something. (Apologies for the political oversimplification but you get what I mean.)

I wasn't nitpicking, that was a pretty important distinction you were missing, and sure I actually think that too. The problem is it doesn't really matter functionally, because the charters as is could steamroll us whenever they want, with the main things stopping them from before being the fact they wanted to prevent the economic disruption that are existence is. That is very quickly going to become a moot point post election no matter what we do for obvious reasons.

Krall said:
Would sending the information with our diplomats actually violate the terms of the ceasefire?

What? No, the broadcast itself would. The part where even your plan involves control of the 'airwaves' bon vilify style across the entirety of charter space and dropping arguably unverifiable evidence of some of the worst cruelties the charters have inflicted on people. Even if by some weird artifact of the treaty drafting literally taking control of HI property and plugging our own propaganda through it for who knows how long isn't technically a violation, the real humans making decisions for the charters aren't going to care about that technicality.

Model DC.14F · Sep 12, 2021

Sara said:
I think the Solarian Navy is about as likely to have noticed as someone who would notice a bear in your driveway when they left the house. Not literally impossible to miss, but then not a lot of things are.

Personally, I think it would more like someone not 'noticing' a bear in their neighbor's driveway when they leave. Regardless of how many bear growls or screaming there is. Because they don't want it to be their problem.

Chances are the Solarian Navy SOP is to engage in willful ignorance and head-in-the-sand observations. Its true if they really wanted to, they could have easily found out about Sheol or any another abuses on the various colonies we've seen. But they don't, because if they did find out that would mean they would have to actually intervene. We've seen this already, when the Compact Fleet refused to actually help the charter forces in the Osliam Chain against us, because it was a 'internal Charter labour disputes', despite clear evidence of our existence and operations. And this can be considered a good thing, as it implies that the Solarian Navy won't interfere with us unless the Compact actually gives them clear and direct orders to. Hence why we want the elections to result in an adminstration that is, at worst, apathetic towards us.

BTW, since Ambassador Stardust was the one(s) to suggest the right for us to send diplomats to Sol:

We did manage to secure a right of petition for Radiant representatives to travel to Sol to petition the Compact for redress. Naturally this trip is to be made under the utmost secrecy to prevent 'undue panic', but when the news does drop we need to have a diplomatic team in the First Colonies rather than months away. Even if such a team would be in great danger.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

It implies that they see the risk is worth it. I don't suppose any of the QMs would be willing to gives us Stardust's reasoning for risking it, and what such a team would be expected to accomplish?

Sara · Sep 12, 2021

Model DC.14F said:
Personally, I think it would more like someone not 'noticing' a bear in their neighbor's driveway when they leave. Regardless of how many bear growls or screaming there is. Because they don't want it to be their problem.

Chances are the Solarian Navy SOP is to engage in willful ignorance and head-in-the-sand observations. Its true if they really wanted to, they could have easily found out about Sheol or any another abuses on the various colonies we've seen. But they don't, because if they did find out that would mean they would have to actually intervene. We've seen this already, when the Compact Fleet refused to actually help the charter forces in the Osliam Chain against us, because it was a 'internal Charter labour disputes', despite clear evidence of our existence and operations. And this can be considered a good thing, as it implies that the Solarian Navy won't interfere with us unless the Compact actually gives them clear and direct orders to. Hence why we want the elections to result in an adminstration that is, at worst, apathetic towards us.

This is a example the exact opposite of what your trying to say though, where the Solarian Navy knows exactly what is going on and chooses not to do anything about it, and thus don't actually have to intervene at all given if knowledge of anything would rouse them to action it would be a literal revolt against the compact. A similar situation would be if the Solarian navy knew and choose to do nothing because the powers that be choose to continue letting it happen if not encourage it, which is what I'm suggesting is happening.

As far as the election thing, all though I suspect the current party would more likely then the opposition to do that since I'm sure the resulting war would create some fun opportunities for the charters if they got to solely prosecute i, I think you're putting the cart before the horse.

It's not sufficient to just keep the Compact navy off our back because the Charter's could already take the compact Navy, and more importantly, HI and Ares alone can definitely take out the ARC if they really want too. Their main reasons for not sending a sufficent force, as I've said earlier, are going to be a moot point post election.

If the election happens and their's a apathetic government in power, we're still screwed because the Charter's dont need help to defeat us. Combine that with any broadcast leaving the ceasefire as not worth the paper it probably isn't even printed on in the space future, we should be looking for ways to mitigate that upcoming invasion, like encouraging and spreading the tools for revolts all across compact space.

Elero · Sep 12, 2021

What "the Charters" can do is frankly irrelevant because "the Charters" are not a unified actor, they are rivals that won't suddenly all work together to help solve HIs problems. They'll celebrate that HI and Ares are distracted and wasting money and not give a rat's ass about us unless we provoke them.

Sara · Sep 12, 2021

Elero said:
What "the Charters" can do is frankly irrelevant because "the Charters" are not a unified actor, they are rivals that won't suddenly all work together to help solve HIs problems. They'll celebrate that HI and Ares are distracted and wasting money and not give a rat's ass about us unless we provoke them.

Which setting aside we just helped a rebellion on a Rhodes world and given the Osiliam chain I'm pretty sure are in the process of provoking Cernunnos and Omoikane the same way we pissed off the first two, is cold comfort because HI plus Ares are by themselves capable of militarily defeating the ARC.

Which is very, very, relevant to our situation right now.

Edit: Not to mention we share a 'border' with a MSI system, which if I saw the ARC 'conquer' every other Charter's world for reasons that explicitly also applied to me, I'd atleast be hoping the other 5 put it down before it started screwing with my investments out of sheer pattern reognition.

Cyanblackstone · Sep 12, 2021

Sara said:
Sheol had a captive population of tens of millions engaged in near constant total war with 21st century technology which even the ARC's much less technologically advanced probes then an entire Solarian Fleet, which is supposed more advanced then even charter tech, picked up without even being near the planets orbit, on the part of the planet that is supposed to be a dumping ground for criminals.

I think the Solarian Navy is about as likely to have noticed as someone who would notice a bear in your driveway when they left the house. Not literally impossible to miss, but then not a lot of things are.

Do keep in mind that the primary role of the Compact Navy this far out on the Frontier is mostly to guard gates under construction and keep Charters from getting nosy about the tech. Which are rare and tightly scheduled. So, the easiest way to keep the Compact Navy from noticing is to schedule operational pauses in your "training exercises" for the time they come through.

Sara · Sep 12, 2021

Cyanblackstone said:
Do keep in mind that the primary role of the Compact Navy this far out on the Frontier is mostly to guard gates under construction and keep Charters from getting nosy about the tech. Which are rare and tightly scheduled. So, the easiest way to keep the Compact Navy from noticing is to schedule operational pauses in your "training exercises" for the time they come through.

it's bit a moot point since they definitely know now, but I can buy that he Charters can keep a number of things secret that way for a period of time, but probably not a generations long war where the enemy has a 8 digit populace number and access to the same technology as modern day earth. Just picking up the wrong signal would give the game away eventually, and if Ares was trying to keep it hidden, that just gives the other side every reason to make it not so. Even a cursory glance at the science makes it seem like it wouldn't be prohibitively difficult for Sheolites to keep a eye on the warp gates for when the ships appear, their already watching space due to Ares use of orbital bombardments, and sending distress signals via laser among other things that would be held underground until the fleet is spotted coming by.

Sure, they could blow up the site you send the messages from but that then defeats the purpose of ending the training exercise and is likely pointless since by the time they've noticed the message has likely already been sent. It would only has to work once, after all, and a timespan of Sheol's entire history of armed resistance that eventually resulted in multiple generations growing up entire underground bunker cities with the industry to outfit a OTL modern army I imagine would give plenty of tries.

Cyanblackstone · Sep 12, 2021

Sara said:
it's bit a moot point since they definitely know now, but I can buy that he Charters can keep a number of things secret that way for a period of time, but probably not a generations long war where the enemy has a 8 digit populace number and access to the same technology as modern day earth. Just picking up the wrong signal would give the game away eventually, and if Ares was trying to keep it hidden, that just gives the other side every reason to make it not so. Even a cursory glance at the science makes it seem like it wouldn't be prohibitively difficult for Sheolites to keep a eye on the warp gates for when the ships appear, their already watching space due to Ares use of orbital bombardments, and sending distress signals via laser among other things that would be held underground until the fleet is spotted coming by.

Sure, they could blow up the site you send the messages from but that then defeats the purpose of ending the training exercise and is likely pointless since by the time they've noticed the message has likely already been sent. It would only has to work once, after all, and a timespan of Sheol's entire history of armed resistance that eventually resulted in multiple generations growing up entire underground bunker cities with the industry to outfit a OTL modern army I imagine would give plenty of tries.

Watching low-earth orbit and watching the gates are very different capabilities. So is being able to point a laser accurately at them.

Also, don't forget that much of the war consisted of covert action with occasional conventional flareups. A lot of the fighting was of Ares specops teams specifically destroying facilities that could alert others or could let Sheol advance technologically, usually in the face of heaps of Sheolite casualties.

clockworkchaos · Sep 12, 2021

Report to General Congress- Osliam Chain [2254/09/15]

Preface-

So, in good news, we've got the com buoys… working well might be generous, since the data transfer rate is like, a matter of megabytes, if we are lucky. But we have some light-speed network for high priority communication, rather than trying to courier it. As such, we have multiple different reports, I've tried to place them in a readable order.
-Sarah Cheng Osliam Communications Committee

Report #1 (Waystation System) [2254/09/10]

Our campaign has continued by asserting Congressional Navy control over the Waystation system's orbitals and transfers. Since the entry of Revolutionary Grace and Egalite into the system, the outer station has opted to keep it's remaining craft close to base. Based on their craft profiles I believe three frigates could have easily taken the system, however, being mindful of the distance from repairs and the need for force preserving in the lead up to our approach to the Ascension system, I have opted to have our craft remain at distance until the main force arrives, instead transmitting propaganda broadcasts towards the outer system that highlight out the untenability of their situation.

We received no reply until the main force entered the system, at which point the surrender was sent within an hour of the light cone from the main force arriving at the station. Per contingency instructions, Revolutionary Grace and Egalite stayed to manage the surrender, while Revolutionary Will had been dispatched ahead to scout the Capitata system. With the two systems beyond being Ascension, which contains the largest Charter base in the area, and Raphanus which houses the Compact Naval detachment, it is my intention to scout the remaining systems with all due caution.

For the Waystation colony itself, the arrival of needed supplies has, according to our diplomats, reduced the hostile feelings the colony has for us. Talk among some of testing how much we really allowed freedom by seeing what would happen should they choose to democratically elect Zhang has been halted by the official "NO TAKEBACKS" campaign started by Zhang himself.

Discussion with Martin Korman, the primary supply Waystation manager has also given us valuable information on the supplies each faction demanded. The "Oslium" faction, which reported to Mr. Martin, and operated under the authority of Vice President Mendez, was headed in system by one "Kevin Warboru". They are based in the station that was recently taken. Their demands focused primarily on supply materials (such as fuel, food and other necessities), raw materials, and weapons (though Waystation did not have weapons in the amounts or quality demanded). The "Ascension faction" which claimed its Authority in the name of the "Omoikane corporate board" was led by one Ethan White. Their focus was on space station components that came with the colony ships. Stations which notably, were not built in the Waystation system.

Both offered nominal compensation, in the "Oslium" faction's case as company script. For the "Ascension faction" compensation took the form of DRM rights for mid-grade Omoikane admin VIs. Upon receiving this information we requested to check the VIs and were granted access. However, based on preliminary tests, we do not believe that these Administrative VIs were self-aware or operating at all in a Near Human capacity.

Report #2 (Gentle Repose) [2254/09/17]

Aid Commision Report-

Part 1: Overview

Gentle Repose was a colony of an estimated 667,000 people according to data from before our own revolution. At current estimates, 606-607,000 people remain. This represents 60,000 people dead, or nearly 10% of the population in a span of two years. More accurately, the primary famine occurred within the last year. This scale of deaths is only matched in Elysian history by the Persephone dome collapse. Even Sheol, which boasts much higher death counts, would consider a 10% death rate within a year to be an unbelievable tragedy. Additionally, death rates that high tended to be the result of orbital bombardment. Mass deaths within a concentrated area that wiped out cities. The famine affected everyone, and led to acute hunger across the region. The degree of trauma and damage cannot, in any sense, be overstated.

Part 2: Military-Violence

Total estimated deaths in the liberation and post-liberation period stand at around 6,000. Of those, an estimated 5,500 took place during the liberation (defined as the period from the arrival of Revolutionary Grace to planetary orbit until the last Cernunnos holdouts were overrun). Of those deaths, the most accurate estimations exist for the Cernunnos executives. 5 executives were killed, with a further 3 missing, presumed dead at unknown time. 122 Cernunnos employees were confirmed killed. Based on the known current prison population an estimated 200-300 are presumed dead within that period. An estimated 1,500 LPPT were killed. The number killed in active fighting, vs the number killed in summary executions is unknown.

Or the remaining deaths, 1,300 were estimated as being those of 'active combatants' who participated in the insurrectionary movement against the system government. The vast majority of those deaths occurred during the period when Cernunnos drones were still armed and active.

The remaining 2,400 deaths are estimated as being those of non-combatant civilians. Determining which among those were considered collaborators is beyond the scope of the current report. At the moment, estimates on the deaths caused by each side are also uncertain, though at the moment, civilian testimony estimates that while the majority of deaths were caused by heavy weapons from LPPT teams, there were significant deaths caused by rebel groups as well. From reports given by reliable sources, the majority of these deaths were caused by personal mortar fire used by rebel cells to destroy entrenched positions.

Post-action rebel reports groups cite the number of civilian deaths being a result of limited experience with using such heavy weapons systems. However, in urban areas zoned for higher ranking Cernunnos employees and contractors, civilians reported a callous disregard for their life and wellbeing. These reports claim that the rebel groups displayed a callous disregard for their live as they were considered collaborators who had been 'living the good life' for being assigned a higher calorie budget by the Cernunnos executive team. It must be emphasised that these reports are limited, and not universal across the Gentle Repose, as there existed many different rebel groups. (See map appendix C)

Of the 500 deaths post-liberation, 350 occured as executions by a known group. 72 were extrajudicial (defined here as no group claiming responsibility), of which 5 were killed by former LPPT members. The remaining deaths were due to the consequences of injuries sustained pre-liberation, or could be directly linked to health complications from starvation.

While killings were brought rapidly under control after the liberation, assaults, often for the purpose of public humiliation, have been endemic. Examples of this endemic behavior can include hair shaving, forced marching through abusive crowds, and very most commonly humiliation via food.

With the Gentle Repose executive team almost exclusively being kept under guard by Congressional Liberation Army landing forces or the most disciplined rebel groups, these humiliations tend to most fall upon collaborators and non-combatant former employees. Former LPPT members are sometimes targets, though when targeted, they were favoured with much more severe humiations that led to deaths in a handful of cases.

In the case of serious attacks on former LPPT personnel, in the majority of cases (Upwards of 90%) their captors claim that the violence was initiated by the former LPPT members, but direct observation show that over half of the time (55% of observed incidences) such violence was caused by deliberate provation on the part of the captors. While sample sizes are small enough that we would caution against drawing firm conclusions based on this data, we cannot reject out of hand worries of systematic underreporting of prisoner abuse.

Either through explicit exile, or willing refugee, many collaborators, and accused collaborators, have been displaced from their homes. Due to ARC controlled (see 'Part 3: Political' below) territory being seen as 'friendly' many such displaced persons have found themselves under the protection of our Congressional Liberation Army Corps landing forces. Limited numbers of internally displaced persons and the use of CLAC fabbers have kept these areas from descending in major material deprivation, but had we witness a larger IDP influx forming a larger body of persons under CLAC landing force care, this could easily have overwhelmed available housing and other resources.

The release of the records has had mixed results. In some cases it was found that the agitators of violence were themselves, in-fact, collaborators, and had been advocating for extreme measures in order to turn attention away from themselves. But for every instance of this, another of a community that had settled to some semblance of peace found themselves at high tensions. In some cases the validity of records were denied due to 'missing' people who were 'known' to be collaborators. Nor have the records done anything about so-called 'sexual collaborators'.

Part 3: Political

Despite Gentle Repose having a population barely the size of a small city, the lack of any centralized authority among the rebel groups has resulted in hundreds of newly formed local authorities claiming legitimacy. For this report, we have broadly broken these groups into three major categories. Though it must be emphasized that in truth each newborn organization is unique.

The first, and perhaps largest category is what we have termed 'basic self-governance'. These represent a group, be it a town, former rebel group, or former camp. In a sense, it could be argued that all groups are this with the two types below sub-units. Governance in this case is only in the most nominal sense for some, lacking anything beyond personal charisma or loose affinity groups to keep them functional.

The first subset dubbed 'opted non-self governance' are groups that are effectively governed by the All-Radian Congress. While this is sometimes at request, it has other times been the simple result of there being no real authority that has appeared of any sort, and by setting up food distribution and medical care, ARC has been treated as the legitimate government. While this may seem shockingly passive, it is our current speculation that this is the result of trauma, and will hopefully pass. That said, for now, significant parts of Gentle Repose' habitable landmass are effectively controlled by either Congressional or Sheolite military and relief forces. However this plays into the problems in outlined in section 4.

The third group type are 'growth communities'. These are communities with ambitions to incorporate all others and grow into a true planetary government. Due to Congressional and Sheolite relief forces possessing an overwhelming military presence and an idealistic outlook, these groups are seeking to do so by peaceful means. In practice two 'strategies' have taken off. The first, dubbed the "traditionalist", seeks entry into the All Radiant Congress as a planet with full representation. Two groups of note: the Revolutionary Society, and the Revolutionary Coalition have undertaken this strategy, as of now the Revolutionary Society has proven more effective at co opting other, smaller, organizations.

The second strategy, which is of greater concern comes from the sarcastically named 'Hand Biters' (The moniker being a derisive nickname adopted by a rebel group in response to Cernunnos broadcasts that the insurrectionary groups were "biting the hands that feed them", a phrase that had clear anti-augment overtones)This group has opted to continue to 'bite the hand that feeds' strategy by advocating for policies that are often supported by significant portions of the populace, but which the more traditional groups avoided out of, in this groups claims, a desire to mollify ourselves and the Sheolites.

Of the 350 estimated executions, 300 were carried out by the Hand Biters or groups affiliated with them. Additionally their actions have affected both the Revolutionary Coalition and Society. Both groups have taken up the Hand Biter's harsh rhetoric and previous dialogue about rehabilitation and reconciliation has started to disappear from their dialogue. Of the remaining executions, the majority came within the last month as groups took harsher stances LPPT members with accelerated trials, as well as a few junior executives, and have promised that the remaining will be properly tried, 'and then executed'.

As this rhetoric increases the former LPPT members' sentiment of 'they are going to kill us all, so we might as well take them with us' as one put it, which has seen increased violence in detention centers across the planet, has also increased.

Part 4: Prisoners, Exiles and Sexual Collaborators

During liberation, the Congressional Liberation Army Corps landing forces took some of the most heavily fortified areas, resulting in capture and surrender of some of the most prominent members of the growers' coalition. In addition many of the surrenders of garrisons without fighting were to ARC explicitly and specifically, and not to any rebel groups, which has resulted in the ARC having a huge number of prisoners in detention on Gentle Repose. While the intent has always been to give the prisoners fair trials, uncertainty as to who will perform said trials has left them still in ARC hands.

This has led to Hand Biter accusations that we are not allowing justice by refusing to give these criminals over to the people for trial and execution. While it is the opinion of this coalition that this is primarily a political strategy played for influence this does not change the fact that it is happening. While debate over who would get the prisoners has always been heated, the leaders of the other coalitions have also begun to issue their own increasingly heated demands for the prisoners to be handed over to them instead causing all attempts to work out agreements acceptable to all parties collapsing.

At this point giving the prisoners over to any such group would likely massively increase their prestige, and would be an implicit sign of our favour.

In addition either through explicit exile, or willing refugee, many collaborators, and accused collaborators have been displaced, and many have found themselves displaced to regions under Congressional or Sheolite control. The Hand Biters do not consider this group to be distinct from our other prisoners and have also demanded their inclusion, whether or not their place of origination was within the territory of Hand Biter aligned groups. Previously content to quietly ignore it, the other leaders have begun discussing concerns that war-criminals may have slipped into our territory to avoid justice.

The final, and perhaps most unpleasant topic is that of 'sexual collaborators'. Sexual collaborators is a term used for those accused of giving sexual favors to Cernunnos aligned persons in exchange for food or other favours. These people are not accused of reporting on their neighbors, nor of violence, but only of sexual favors. Despite this, retaliation and humiliation of them has been as enthusiastic as all other categories of collaborators. Unlike other collaborators, no evidence stands for these actions, only accusations, as the captured records do not record what was by all accounts off the books transactions. Nor do any records show if these transactions were entirely voluntary.

Both Commodore Mclean and Delegate Alexander appear to have agreed on an unstated but pursued policy of protection of those accused of such. This included offers of escort to any who felt unsafe within their own territory, leading to a large displaced population of those accused of sexual collaboration. Once again, the Hand Biters do not consider this group to be distinct from any other group and have demanded they be handed over for trial and execution. As of yet, the other groups have not followed suit by making similar requests.

While otherwise in agreement with the Hand Biters on their brand of rough justice our, sexual collaborators are the one group that our Sheolite Contingent have not shown any indication of agreement with Hand Biter demands. Having experienced their Ares corporate overlords only as training expeditions and orbital bombardment, they don't have experience with living with them, and as such, the only sexual encounters were obvious and undeniable rape. Arguments over weather 'sexual collaberators' are rape victims by another name or a type of collaborator they didn't have have led to loud arguments and even outright brawls.

Part 5: Health Outcomes

Health outcomes can be divided into two primary concerns, short-term and long term. Short term, the immediate caloric intake and nutritional needs are now being met. This leaves two short-term concerns. First augments with specific diet needs can have organs damaged as a result of the deprivation and in such cases, the full effect may not manifest at the moment of deprivation. While close monitoring is ideal, the far-flung communities make it difficult.

The second concern is a new catalogued disease that appears to have taken hold on the planet. Said disease is a cold-like virus that, in healthy individuals, appears to be little more than a small cough, but has proven to be dangerous for the already compromised bodies of Gentle Repose inhabitants. It should be emphasised that it is not a full-on plague, and thanks to medical care and a willingness to throw modern pharmaceuticals at the problem, deaths have been kept low, but it is a worry, not least of which because it was likely brought from off-world. We have recommended a period of quarantine for new arrivals, as Gentle Repose cannot handle diseases that would be unnoticeable among Sheolite or Elysian populations.

Long term, the outcomes are much more difficult to discern and likely to be dire. Not only has the famine ravaged the population, but many are augments with limited health documentation for long-term deprivation effects. Gentle Repose will need significant long-term stationied nurses and unlicensed-practitioners.

Part 6: Meme analysis

While a dedicated meme analysis is a hallmark of anthropological study, limited time has prevented a full study. In brief, two competing factors have worked on Gentle Repose to establish a meme-culture. The first, the widespread distribution of the population, worked to make long-distance communication far more valued than the closer communities of say, Five Lions or Sheol. Working against that is the abysmal state of the internet, which is only barely better than the stopgate internet created for Sheol which has made more data intensive AR memes unfavored. While the net was suppressed during the last two years, with the restoration of communication memes have flowed again, as much a proxy for political warfare as anything else.

1. Title: Recording taken 5 second before death
(no picture, text only)
"Aw does McLean want cheeseburger, does kitty want cheeseburger?"

2. Title: It me
Picture of a small kitten following a mountain lion. The mountain lion is labeled "McLean" the kitten "my gay ass". A followup post adds "I'm an augment."

3. Title: Crime and punishment
(Drawn comic. With low-rest artstyle comics a drawn stick-figure with sparkles is used to represent an Elysian. A round belly with a top-hat for corporates. Augments cat ears. etc)

(Panel 1) Elysian: You don't have to kill them, we put our execs away in Tatarus.
(Panel 2) Picture of beach ad, the smiling man in the picture has been given the signature drawn top-hat. The caption above reads 'Tatarus'.
(Panel 2) Elysian (dark brooding background): Did we… go too far?

4. Title: Handbiters
Video of screaming toddler

Part 7: Personal notes

This section contains personal notes that do not represent the full committee

1: Kay Maclaine-

One element that I do not feel the report adequately covers is the segregated nature of punishments. Among punishments for collaborators (and accused collaborators) the punishments for augments tends to far outweigh punishments for non-augments. One typical example of this is 'earing' which is the mutilation of augmented ears, a punishment that does not happen for baselines, or far more extensive and painful shaving. These punishments are often framed as 'they want to be baselines/worked with the human supremacists so they should be forced to look like it' ; they represent a continued societal strain of anti-augment sentiment and unequal punishment.

This is especially prominent in those who get accused of sexual collaborations. Based on data from interviews of refugees, (see attachment) augments were twice likely to be accused of sexual collaboration. It should be emphasized that these harsher punishments, calls for these harsh punishments, and accusations of 'sexual collaboration' were not limited to baselines, and were prominent in both augment and baseline populations.

2: Jennifer Akhtar-

I think that the report as a whole has biases coming as it does from a team dominated by a middle-class 'analyst' baseline. The report focuses almost entirely on the broad overview of the misery caused, and not on any of the achievements in self-governance that has been achieved by this planet in a remarkably short time.There isn't any talk of the 'house to house' checking the Revolutionary Coalition to make sure that anyone and everyone had food and meds if needed, despite it being the signature accomplishment that put them on the map and made the the widest spread Coalition. From the way the report reads, you would think the Handbiters were the biggest faction.

The report treats the planet as a problem to be solved. Not people with agency. For all that has been done here, we could not have done it without the self-aid networks that were set up by the planet, but from this report you'd think we were doing all the work. It's insulting and rather unpleasant to have the report focused on such given that a report on a a planet of mostly augments who have just fought off a genocide.

The whole report, and Kay's personal comments, are tilted in a way that makes it seem like the people of Gentle Repose and implicitly augments in general are of course responsible for our own oppression. All the things here are 'estimates' because they can't say anything with accuracy since its based on the worst horror stories presented to credulous 'delegates.'

Kay's writing dominated 90% of the report and she's mad about the minor part that didn't get in. Her whole policy and way of presenting the data is flawed and honestly just fuck her.

(50 more notes follow.)

AN: Jennifer Akhtar was infracted for this post and received 25 points.

Sara · Sep 12, 2021

Cyanblackstone said:
Watching low-earth orbit and watching the gates are very different capabilities. So is being able to point a laser accurately at them.

Also, don't forget that much of the war consisted of covert action with occasional conventional flareups. A lot of the fighting was of Ares specops teams specifically destroying facilities that could alert others or could let Sheol advance technologically, usually in the face of heaps of Sheolite casualties.

It's more that watching both seems like it would fit well within their capabilities as has been described. OTL Earth was getting images of say, pluto, around 1930, and the equipment to do so only got exponentially smaller, easier to build, and more accurate as time went on.

The laser stuff to do it is a few decades old, but honestly the easiest, lowest tech, hardest to notice/interdict, and most practical option mostly just involves sending radio waves. To put it in perspective, based off the speeds of the ships given in universe and distances between warp gates, I'm pretty sure a sizeable NGO dedicated to astronomy wouldn't have trouble making the means to do so back in the 60s, in ways that would be fairly difficult to actually catch until they actually decided to use them send a signal out.

Edit: And that's assuming they don't pick up the normal, nondirected at them signals coming from the planet. I've mostly just assumed they shrugged their sholders and went 'internal charter labor dispute' like they have when we kicked Ares out of the system

Krall · Sep 12, 2021

clockworkchaos said:
Talk among some of testing how much we really allowed freedom by seeing what would happen should they choose to democratically elect Zhang has been halted by the official "NO TAKEBACKS" campaign started by Zhang himself.

This made me actually laugh out loud.

clockworkchaos said:
Gentle Repose was a colony of an estimated 667,000 people according to data from before our own revolution. At current estimates, 606-607,000 people remain. This represents 60,000 people dead, or nearly 10% of the population in a span of two years. More accurately, the primary famine occurred within the last year. This scale of deaths is only matched in Elysian history by the Persephone dome collapse. Even Sheol, which boasts much higher death counts, would consider a 10% death rate within a year to be an unbelievable tragedy. Additionally, death rates that high tended to be the result of orbital bombardment. Mass deaths within a concentrated area that wiped out cities. The famine affected everyone, and led to acute hunger across the region. The degree of trauma and damage cannot, in any sense, be overstated.

And this made me suck in air through my teeth. Fuckin' yikes.

All the stuff about punishments for collaborators was pretty horrifying too, though at least releasing the information we had didn't lead to pogroms with thousands dead like I feared. We need to be careful now, since we have a lot of power to play kingmaker, but we still want to assert Gentle Reposeans' right to political autonomy and self-government, should they wish it. I think we can safely exclude the idea of giving any favour to the Handbiters, though.

Sara · Sep 12, 2021

clockworkchaos said:
2: Jennifer Akhtar-

I think that the report as a whole has biases coming as it does from a team dominated by a middle-class 'analyst' baseline. The report focuses almost entirely on the broad overview of the misery caused, and not on any of the achievements in self-governance that has been achieved by this planet in a remarkably short time.There isn't any talk of the 'house to house' checking the Revolutionary Coalition to make sure that anyone and everyone had food and meds if needed, despite it being the signature accomplishment that put them on the map and made the the widest spread Coalition. From the way the report reads, you would think the Handbiters were the biggest faction.

The report treats the planet as a problem to be solved. Not people with agency. For all that has been done here, we could not have done it without the self-aid networks that were set up by the planet, but from this report you'd think we were doing all the work. It's insulting and rather unpleasant to have the report focused on such given that a report on a a planet of mostly augments who have just fought off a genocide.

The whole report, and Kay's personal comments, are tilted in a way that makes it seem like the people of Gentle Repose and implicitly augments in general are of course responsible for our own oppression. All the things here are 'estimates' because they can't say anything with accuracy since its based on the worst horror stories presented to credulous 'delegates.'

Kay's writing dominated 90% of the report and she's mad about the minor part that didn't get in. Her whole policy and way of presenting the data is flawed and honestly just fuck her.

(50 more notes follow.)

AN: Jennifer Akhtar was infracted for this post and received 25 points.

Honestly the idea that we're mostly getting a distorted picture of whats going on, on the ground both from what our people their are telling us and our people are choosing to write about is a bit concerning.

Rat King · Sep 12, 2021

Can we replace Kay with Akhtar?

Ultrackius · Sep 12, 2021

Hand Biter gang, uncritical support

Torgamous · Sep 12, 2021

clockworkchaos said:
2. Title: It me

3. Title: Crime and punishment

"Everything the light touches is our kingdom."

"What about that beach resort?"

"You must never go there!"

Ultrackius · Sep 12, 2021

Krall said:
This made me actually laugh out loud.

And this made me suck in air through my teeth. Fuckin' yikes.

All the stuff about punishments for collaborators was pretty horrifying too, though at least releasing the information we had didn't lead to pogroms with thousands dead like I feared. We need to be careful now, since we have a lot of power to play kingmaker, but we still want to assert Gentle Reposeans' right to political autonomy and self-government, should they wish it. I think we can safely exclude the idea of giving any favour to the Handbiters, though.

On the contrary, I think we can safely exclude the idea of giving favor to anyone but the Handbiters, they are far and away the best option here

Rat King · Sep 12, 2021

Ultrackius said:
On the contrary, I think we can safely exclude the idea of giving favor to anyone but the Handbiters, they are far and away the best option here

Our policy should be to not favor any of them, honestly.

bdun140 · Sep 12, 2021

Ultrackius said:
On the contrary, I think we can safely exclude the idea of giving favor to anyone but the Handbiters, they are far and away the best option here

I would disagree, for one rather important reason.

As this rhetoric increases the former LPPT members' sentiment of 'they are going to kill us all, so we might as well take them with us' as one put it, which has seen increased violence in detention centers across the planet, has also increased.

See this? This right here? This is prime reason to get the Hand Biters to cool their jets. I'm not going to deny them a right to be angry, but this kind of behavior can and most likely will wind up creating more problems than it solves.

LucidProp · Sep 12, 2021

clockworkchaos said:
3. Title: Crime and punishment
(Drawn comic. With low-rest artstyle comics a drawn stick-figure with sparkles is used to represent an Elysian. A round belly with a top-hat for corporates. Augments cat ears. etc)

(Panel 1) Elysian: You don't have to kill them, we put our execs away in Tatarus.
(Panel 2) Picture of beach ad, the smiling man in the picture has been given the signature drawn top-hat. The caption above reads 'Tatarus'.
(Panel 2) Elysian (dark brooding background): Did we… go too far?

Okay, this made me laugh and made the update a lot more enjoyable.

Congress demands its daily meme intake.

clockworkchaos said:
4. Title: Handbiters
Video of screaming toddler

Accurate.

Screw the Handbiters. They're an extremist minority that refuses to consider why their fellows would work for the Charters under threat of starvation. They absolutely must be dwarfed and crushed politically by more moderate factions that won't execute anyone that smells of Charter influence.

I'm beyond disgusted that some people see the Handbiters and think they should be supported.

Ultrackius · Sep 12, 2021

bdun140 said:
I would disagree, for one rather important reason.

See this? This right here? This is prime reason to get the Hand Biters to cool their jets. I'm not going to deny them a right to be angry, but this kind of behavior can and most likely will wind up creating more problems than it solves.

The LPPT is in jail, what can they do?

And if they try anything, we just hand them off to the biters first. Cant shoot back when youve already been executed for your crimes

The Laurent · Sep 12, 2021

Hannz said:
Okay, this made me laugh and made the update a lot more enjoyable.

Congress demands its daily meme intake.

Accurate.

Screw the Handbiters. They're an extremist minority that refuses to consider why their fellows would work for the Charters under threat of starvation. They absolutely must be dwarfed and crushed politically by more moderate factions that won't execute anyone that smells of Charter influence.

I'm beyond disgusted that some people see the Handbiters and think they should be supported.

Though it should be noted that the Revolutionary Coalition has been driven into greater radicalism (if not even close to Hand-Biter levels) on the prisoner issue by the Hand Biters and the perception, whether it's true or not, that they represent 'The Will of the People.'

But nobody's actually held any sort of election or so on in any way, so.

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