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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Winged One · Sep 13, 2021

veteranMortal said:
Actually getting to see the political face of the authors of our reports is an uncritically good thing. Neither report is objective, and both should be read only in the context of each other, imo.

Agreed. Much as I like Kay more, she's definitely a pessimist and we'd have never known that those Handbiters aren't representative of the true will of the people without Akhtar's report, nor that there is in fact some actual self-governance going on. Now if only we could convince them to stop fucking demonising their comrades who had to turn to prostitution to survive...

Shard of Victory · Sep 13, 2021

Can we do direct vote? Send people house to house if needed with survey: what do you think should be done to X group? To Y?
Bam, instant will of the people, no representatives of dubious validity involved.

Cassiemouse · Sep 13, 2021

After sleeping on the matter I have considered a systematic way to handle this situation. We want to stop the executions, public humiliations and other abuses and here is how I would propose we do it in order of escalating intervention.

First is diplomacy. We should express our concerns to any formal or informal leadership and encourage them to stop the abuses and outline our legal codes on the matter as the model they should follow where possible.

Second is a propaganda campaign. We should broadcast our message to the entire population of the planet to try to stabilize the situation on the planet and provide the space for people to heal and recover before they carry out further rash action that they may regret.

Third is a more soft power option. We cannot compromise the distribution of food and medical aid to the population without violating our ethics and drawing uncomfortable parallels between us and the Charters but if we could attain other forms of material leverage over hardline populations who are carrying out the abuses then we should do so and try to use this leverage to force them to comply with our requests.

Fourth is the unilateral evacuation of the endangered populations to prevent further violence. We offer asylum to any people affected by the abuses and evacuation them from the planet to place them outside of the threat of the hardline populations.

Fifth is armed intervention or evacuation of our military personnel. If the planet becomes so unstable that it's becoming impossible to manage through the above means then we must choose either armed intervention to establish order or to evacuation our military personnel and allow the planet's population to solve it's own problems through the means they best see fit.

I think this outlines my stance on what should be our doctrine in regards to the abuses carried out by the population of this world.

Sara · Sep 13, 2021

Winged One said:
Amazing how much differently I read this section when I remember that Kay is that one autistic analyst lady. While I can certainly believe that she's letting her pessimism and distance from the problem color her perceptions as Akhtar claims, the implications that she's somehow performing some kind of political Machiavellian shit with this slant are kind of insulting. I doubt she would ever pass up an excuse to stop doing that sort of thing. Additionally, she's blatantly projecting either something others have said or her own fears onto the report's tone.

Seriously though, I want wormhole comms, it really feels like communication delays are fucking us over here.

As an autistic person irl, I really, really hate the angle that your pursuing here with your criticism of Ahktar. Arguing that someone is giving a biased and incomplete picture of the facts on the ground isn't the same as 'political machiavellian shit', it kind of happens all the time in reporting like this, i'm glad she called it out.

Even if it was what was being said, the implication here that her autism prevents her from 'political Machiavellian shit' feels extremely fucked up. Yeah, no one on the autism spectrum is even remotely capable of fathoming the concept of manipulation, much less performing it, that's definitely a belief we should internalize when reading anything about Kay from now on.

I just really, really hate this post with all my heart and the assumptions that it makes about not only how Kay's autism affects her but autism in general so fucking much, holy shit. I felt so insulted when I read it it was super hard to not to say something rulesbreaking in reply here.

Nyvis · Sep 13, 2021

Can we just... Not cooperate at all with people who want to execute sexual so called collaborators?

Execution for war crimes is something we can understand even if we disagree. But we're using our supposed anti imperialism as an excuse to let a campaign of murder and mutilation slide by and that's just not okay. If they can't agree to keep retribution proportional and avoid pointless cruelty, why shouldn't we go over them?

Of course, it's possible this isn't the majority opinion on the planet and I'd love to see demonstration of that, but the other factions bowing to the hardliners' narrative doesn't fill me with confidence. We can offer them alternatives, but it's up to them to take them.

Sara · Sep 13, 2021

Nyvis said:
Can we just... Not cooperate at all with people who want to execute sexual so called collaborators?

Execution for war crimes is something we can understand even if we disagree. But we're using our supposed anti imperialism as an excuse to let a campaign of murder and mutilation slide by and that's just not okay. If they can't agree to keep retribution proportional and avoid pointless cruelty, why shouldn't we go over them?

I don't feel like this is a accurate of anyone's take on the matter, even Ultra's. Absolutely no one here or on the discord has argued to give sexual colloborators up, and implying that people have been using anti-imperialism as a excuse to let them go after said rape victims doesn't sound right.

Nyvis said:
Of course, it's possible this isn't the majority opinion on the planet and I'd love to see demonstration of that, but the other factions bowing to the hardliners' narrative doesn't fill me with confidence. We can offer them alternatives, but it's up to them to take them.

Important to remember that the person who made the report was called out as having presented in a way as to make the Handbiters seem like the biggest and influential faction, along with the fact that a lot of the 'estimates' in the report are pretty much unverifiable. As best we can tell, the two biggest factions are the Revolutionary ones who are explicitly friendly to ARC and have been helping set up mututal aid networks, and explicitly do not share Handbiter belief's about 'sexual colloborators', and to the extent they've been influenced is that they now want harsher punishments of the LPPT members then they otherwise did.

Nyvis · Sep 13, 2021

Sara said:
I don't feel like this is a accurate of anyone's take on the matter, even Ultra's. Absolutely no one here or on the discord has argued to give sexual colloborators up, and implying that people have been using anti-imperialism as a excuse to let them go after said rape victims doesn't sound right.

The problem is that it isn't about giving them up, it's about going in and rescuing them. I'm pretty sure there's still plenty who haven't come to us for safety and probably can't do so unless we go to them.

People aren't using anti imperialism to argue it's okay, just to argue we shouldn't do anything about it beyond our current actions, and that's enough to worry me.

Sara said:
Important to remember that the person who made the report was called out as having presented in a way as to make the Handbiters seem like the biggest and influential faction, along with the fact that a lot of the 'estimates' in the report are pretty much unverifiable. As best we can tell, the two biggest factions are the Revolutionary ones who are explicitly friendly to ARC and have been helping set up mututal aid networks, and explicitly do not share Handbiter belief's about 'sexual colloborators', and to the extent they've been influenced is that they now want harsher punishments of the LPPT members then they otherwise did.

Is the report wrong about the other factions starting to adopt their attitudes though? That in itself is worrying. I also don't think the depiction of (likely extralegal) retaliations are imagined.

Argent Citadel · Sep 13, 2021

Delegates, consider the following question:

If we observed this situation on a Charter held world, what would we see it as? I believe we would, at very least, criticise their inaction in the face of systemic violence.
Violent repression and punishment is one of the problems in the Charter system we criticize. It is no less wrong when pointed at people we don't like, particularly when its not necessary for wartime exigency.

We should be clearly condemning this violence, and supporting local actors who want a more proportional approach.

Won't that be interfering in their self determination? We're telling someone what they're doing is wrong, bad for them and the people around them. We aren't forcing them to stop, but we have the right to attempt to persuade them in good faith.
Friends don't let friends commit systemic lynching.

Cassiemouse said:
First is diplomacy. We should express our concerns to any formal or informal leadership and encourage them to stop the abuses and outline our legal codes on the matter as the model they should follow where possible.

Second is a propaganda campaign. We should broadcast our message to the entire population of the planet to try to stabilize the situation on the planet and provide the space for people to heal and recover before they carry out further rash action that they may regret.

Third is a more soft power option. We cannot compromise the distribution of food and medical aid to the population without violating our ethics and drawing uncomfortable parallels between us and the Charters but if we could attain other forms of material leverage over hardline populations who are carrying out the abuses then we should do so and try to use this leverage to force them to comply with our requests.

Fourth is the unilateral evacuation of the endangered populations to prevent further violence. We offer asylum to any people affected by the abuses and evacuation them from the planet to place them outside of the threat of the hardline populations.

Fifth is armed intervention or evacuation of our military personnel. If the planet becomes so unstable that it's becoming impossible to manage through the above means then we must choose either armed intervention to establish order or to evacuation our military personnel and allow the planet's population to solve it's own problems through the means they best see fit.

I'd like to endorse @Cassiemouse 's proposal for scaling intervention.

Shard of Victory said:
Can we do direct vote? Send people house to house if needed with survey: what do you think should be done to X group? To Y?
Bam, instant will of the people, no representatives of dubious validity involved.

Also seems like a good idea - expedited elections, even if its limited to provisional committees, ect.

Sara · Sep 13, 2021

Nyvis said:
The problem is that it isn't about giving them up, it's about going in and rescuing them. I'm pretty sure there's still plenty who haven't come to us for safety and probably can't do so unless we go to them.

People aren't using anti imperialism to argue it's okay, just to argue we shouldn't do anything about it beyond our current actions, and that's enough to worry me.

I guess it depends on what you mean by rescuing and going to them. Multiple people have brought up the idea of treating sexual collaborators and other people only tangentially related to the company refugee status, along with doing stuff like offering them transportation off of gentle repose. I don't think anyone would object to doing what we can to make it easier to get to friendlier territory for those people, which doesn't even neccesarrily mean ARC territory/

If your saying we should colonize the planet and impose ARC law on them, I think any military intervention akin to that is likely to make things a whole lot worse for everyone involved, including the people you want to help them since their not exactly immune to collateral damage from ARC bombs or bullets. It'd likely start up a local popular, experienced insurgency against us that will only radicalize the populace further, and alienate portions of our a military along with the half of troops that come from Sheol that might object to ARC unilaterally declaring a planet under rule by their military. Any of the people we're trying to help caught in the wartorn zone we created are likely to end up with the lives in even more danger too, due to a breakdown of civil order making extralegal punishments more prevalent, ARC aggression sending people who understandably want the people who live there to be able to control their planets fate into the hands of the already ARC skeptical radicals, and inadvertently killing large numbers of people were trying to protect.

If you have other ideas beyond just telling people what we believe is wrong, doing our best to take in refugees, and using our prisoners as leverage to get them to adopt an actual justice system I'm all ears for it, but recent events in rl news have hardened my belief that theirs's a lot of ways even supposedly well meaning interventions can make things worse even for already fucked over members of a populace.

Nyvis said:
Is the report wrong about the other factions starting to adopt their attitudes though? That in itself is worrying. I also don't think the depiction of (likely extralegal) retaliations are imagined.

Seemingly so, since it doesn't really argue that their starting to adopt their exact attitudes, just that other factions have become more willing to argue for things like extradition of LPPT members and execution of them. I don't neccesarrily with the death penalty, but I don't think it's the sliperry slope people are making it out to be. Sheol also executed people under similar criteria, and I don't think that's some slippery slope into wanting to murder rape victims, as shown by how their reacting here.

The depiction of extralegal retaliations probably aren't imagined, I kind of suspect that stuff happened on every planet were involved in including Elysium before the story, so it makes sense to me it also flares up here. I think the best thing we can do for people is say we think it's wrong, take in who we can, and begin setting up criteria to give over actual war criminals like the execs who ordered the creation of the fathom we have under guard, thereby granting the factions most inclined to have a real justice system legitimacy in the eyes of the people.

From what Cetashwayo said in discord, it worked in similar situations based off this like, so I have faith it's a method of sorting things out here without putting a gun to political dissidents heads and disallowing self rule.

Shard of Victory · Sep 13, 2021

Argent Citadel said:
Also seems like a good idea - expedited elections, even if its limited to provisional committees, ect.

Alow me to expand: I do not mean elections, I mean direct vote by people of Gentle Response on matter directly concerning everyone of them: what to do with enforcers of capital, collaborationists, and "collaborationists" I mean deciding the fate of people by vote of the people. Not by decisions self-appointed leaders, not by distant Radiant, but by masses. This is truest to popular character of our Revolution - power from below, not from above.

Cassiemouse · Sep 13, 2021

We could decide to not intervene more than we already are by providing food and medical aid but it would result in a whole lot of people being executed. Many of them innocent or only marginally culpable in the crimes of the leadership. I think a light touch is best but it's good to outline when it's necessary to escalate a situation. I do think as far as armed intervention goes we should only make that choice if a definite plurality of the population requests we do so.

Sara · Sep 13, 2021

I kind of wish people weren't talking in complete generalities insofar as what 'intervention' and 'escalation' means to them in this context. Suffice to say I and a lot of others who are skeptical of using ARC military in a actual shooting capacity against the current rebel communities at the moment have put up a number of things the ARC could do to influence the situation on the ground for the better.

What I'm against in general is any push to authorize a actual armed conquest to 'stabilize' the region, even if it supposedly for the populace's own good, least of which because even setting aside how our own allies and military might react to those orders it would almost certainly create a popular insurgency against us that would explicitly get a lot of innocent people killed by prosecuting war against it, including a large number of the people we supposedly want to help while further radicalizing the populace towards a even uglier path for a long, long time.

Nyvis · Sep 13, 2021

Sara said:
I guess it depends on what you mean by rescuing and going to them. Multiple people have brought up the idea of treating sexual collaborators and other people only tangentially related to the company refugee status, along with doing stuff like offering them transportation off of gentle repose. I don't think anyone would object to doing what we can to make it easier to get to friendlier territory for those people, which doesn't even neccesarrily mean ARC territory/

If your saying we should colonize the planet and impose ARC law on them, I think any military intervention akin to that is likely to make things a whole lot worse for everyone involved, including the people you want to help them since their not exactly immune to collateral damage from ARC bombs or bullets. It'd likely start up a local popular, experienced insurgency against us that will only radicalize the populace further, and alienate portions of our a military along with the half of troops that come from Sheol that might object to ARC unilaterally declaring a planet under rule by their military. Any of the people we're trying to help caught in the wartorn zone we created are likely to end up with the lives in even more danger too, due to a breakdown of civil order making extralegal punishments more prevalent, ARC aggression sending people who understandably want the people who live there to be able to control their planets fate into the hands of the already ARC skeptical radicals, and inadvertently killing large numbers of people were trying to protect.

If you have other ideas beyond just telling people what we believe is wrong, doing our best to take in refugees, and using our prisoners as leverage to get them to adopt an actual justice system I'm all ears for it, but recent events in rl news have hardened my belief that theirs's a lot of ways even supposedly well meaning interventions can make things worse even for already fucked over members of a populace.

We could just remove all the people they're likely to target and only bring them back once standards for trials and sentencing have been agreed to. The idea that this won't require some measure of intervention is a stretch though. I don't expect they're going to sit back while we take away their targets. If we just open up to refugees without doing much, I expect their extremists to start targeting people trying to get to us to leave. They've had enough time to identify all the collaborators and "collaborators".

Sara said:
I kind of wish people weren't talking in complete generalities insofar as what 'intervention' and 'escalation' means to them in this context. Suffice to say I and a lot of others who are skeptical of using ARC military in a actual shooting capacity against the current rebel communities at the moment have put up a number of things the ARC could do to influence the situation on the ground for the better.

What I'm against in general is any push to authorize a actual armed conquest to 'stabilize' the region, even if it supposedly for the populace's own good, least of which because even setting aside how our own allies and military might react to those orders it would almost certainly create a popular insurgency against us that would explicitly get a lot of innocent people killed by prosecuting war against it, including a large number of the people we supposedly want to help while further radicalizing the populace towards a even uglier path for a long, long time.

So we let them kill a chunk of the population for the crime of getting raped? What if we try the nicer methods and the extralegal retaliations don't stop or they stop people from emigrating, leaving them at the mercy of people who want to mutilate them?

I don't think occupying the planet is a solution by any means and I'll oppose that. But we might need to secure people who want to leave against opposition. We at the very least shouldn't rule that out categorically. We should of course try to negotiate a peaceful solution to the case of sexual "collaborators", and hopefully they will let them leave, but considering there is a radical minority who is outright mutilating people over it, I'm not too confident this will be entirely peaceful.

This doesn't mean we ought to stay and impose our rules on them. But we need to make it clear we won't tolerate retaliation against people who are clearly also victims of the harmful system and will take action to ensure that if necessary.

Sara · Sep 13, 2021

Nyvis said:
We could just remove all the people they're likely to target and only bring them back once standards for trials and sentencing have been agreed to. The idea that this won't require some measure of intervention is a stretch though. I don't expect they're going to sit back while we take away their targets. If we just open up to refugees without doing much, I expect their extremists to start targeting people trying to get to us to leave. They've had enough time to identify all the collaborators and "collaborators".

I think you're taking my disagreement personally when you're not actually representative of the ideas I'm worried about.

So we let them kill a chunk of the population for the crime of getting raped? What if we try the nicer methods and the extralegal retaliations don't stop or they stop people from emigrating, leaving them at the mercy of people who want to mutilate them?

I don't think occupying the planet is a solution by any means and I'll oppose that. But we might need to secure people who want to leave against opposition. We at the very least shouldn't rule that out categorically. We should of course try to negotiate a peaceful solution to the case of sexual "collaborators", and hopefully they will let them leave, but considering there is a radical minority who is outright mutilating people over it, I'm not too confident this will be entirely peaceful.

This doesn't mean we ought to stay and impose our rules on them. But we need to make it clear we won't tolerate retaliation against people who are clearly also victims of the harmful system and will take action to ensure that if necessary.

I don't think anybody except maybe like, one specific person here who keeps getting dogpiled by everyone is representative of the ideas you're worried about.

Anyway, offering ways to contact ARC and request extradition to friendly territories to the limits of what are peaceably possible isn't something I see much objection too.

On the other hand, kidnapping literally everyone on the planet we think might be extrajudicially targeted including people even we would conclude have done horrendous things and turning guns on anyone who resists a invasion into their territory to do so is likely to make things a lot, lot worse then where things stand right now. Like, exponentially worse.

If you're worried about Handbiter influence now, you're going to get a lot more worried when we create thousands of martyr's to their cause, discredit the most popular factions that can weigh in against them by their association with us, and start turning tons of moderates towards their causes when a ARC gunship accidentally blows up a family of four for the first time.

The second that we start doing something that turns into regular firefights with the locals is the moment when we lose any legimitate non military means to influence the situation, all the extra judical killings everywhere spike up by a order of magnitude, and we start killing a bunch of innocent people by turning what's otherwise a peaceful collaboration into a actual war.

I guarantee no one, not even the sexual collaborators as a group, are going to be helped by turning Gentle Repose into the ARC's Afghanistan.

Nyvis · Sep 13, 2021

Sara said:
I don't think anybody except maybe like, one specific person here who keeps getting dogpiled by everyone is representative of the ideas you're worried about.

Anyway, offering ways to contact ARC and request extradition to friendly territories to the limits of what are peaceably possible isn't something I see much objection too.

On the other hand, kidnapping literally everyone on the planet we think might be extrajudicially targeted including people even we would conclude have done horrendous things and turning guns on anyone who resists a invasion into their territory to do so is likely to make things a lot, lot worse then where things stand right now. Like, exponentially worse.

If you're worried about Handbiter influence now, you're going to get a lot more worried when we create thousands of martyr's to their cause, discredit the most popular factions that can weigh in against them by their association with us, and start turning tons of moderates towards their causes when a ARC gunship accidentally blows up a family of four for the first time.

The second that we start doing something that turns into regular firefights with the locals is the moment when we lose any legimitate non military means to influence the situation, all the extra judical killings everywhere spike up by a order of magnitude, and we start killing a bunch of innocent people by turning what's otherwise a peaceful collaboration into a actual war.

I guarantee no one, not even the sexual collaborators as a group, are going to be helped by turning Gentle Repose into the ARC's Afghanistan.

I really don't have an agenda beyond extracting anyone who is at a threat and who we wouldn't condemn for actual collaboration. I don't love the death penalty but killing their own oppressors is something I'm not going to risk things over. But if they're not okay with letting us extract all willing "collaborators", are we really arguing we should let them?

It wouldn't turn into Afghanistan because the goal isn't to decide how they rebuild their nation. It's to ensure people who don't want any part in it and haven't been part of the violence can choose to leave it. They'll have to console themselves with executing the soldiers and executives.

Sara · Sep 13, 2021

Nyvis said:
I really don't have an agenda beyond extracting anyone who is at a threat and who we wouldn't condemn for actual collaboration. I don't love the death penalty but killing their own oppressors is something I'm not going to risk things over. But if they're not okay with letting us extract all willing "collaborators", are we really arguing we should let them?

It wouldn't turn into Afghanistan because the goal isn't to decide how they rebuild their nation. It's to ensure people who don't want any part in it and haven't been part of the violence can choose to leave it. They'll have to console themselves with executing the soldiers and executives.

You have, in the past few posts, outright said that you think your plan will require us to use military force to invade communities that don't cooperate and fight off the people who try to stop us. That was your point of contention with me I suggested limiting ourselves to extracting people through peaceful means. I don't think your grappling with what that's going to mean in practice. The people who would disagree with us about this are armed, experienced, hardened guerilla fighters with ample access to military hardware after the war that recently ended who would be engaging us in communities full of people. If we turn into a fight, no matter how restricted are ROE is we're going to kill a heapload of people in these communities, and a lot of people who otherwise are turned off by handbiter sentiment but want to preserve their autonomy are going to look at our enemy combatants, many of which they see as heroes who fought against Cernunnos rule even before the ARC stepped in when winning was nowhere near a sure thing, and start empathizing with these extremist a lot more.

It's not going to stop there, because Gentle Reposites are people with pattern recognition, and the second words gets out of the first time we did this which in a world with Comm tech like this can be extremely fast and extremely distorted against us, we're going to end up with a way worse epidemic of pogroms then anything you're imagining now.

Depending on our logisitical capabilities we could maybe evacuating literally every target all at once, but would require us to simultaneously occupy every community that decides to not comply with us for very long stretches of time. I don't think I need to explain why that's going to become a bloodbath and seen as a overreach by wide swathes of a population who are already skeptical enough, but not skeptical enough to want to fight us until we do this. And those sentiments aren't going to disappear when we pull out of those communities after days, weeks, or more likely months of finding people, reaching out to them, and rounding them up in a warzone either.

I get that you want to help people these people, I do too, and while I'm a lot more optimistic about peaceful options then you are based off historical precedent in similar situations, even if I wasn't that doesn't mean I'd be in favor of starting up armed conflict here. If we do that, we''' definitely end up killing a lot, lot more people then we would ever end up saving or would be hurt by genuinely doing nothing which no one seems to be for anyway. Sometimes their are no great options, just less bad ones. Not every problem should, or even can be solved, by shooting at it unfortunately.

Ultrackius · Sep 13, 2021

Winged One said:
Agreed. Much as I like Kay more, she's definitely a pessimist and we'd have never known that those Handbiters aren't representative of the true will of the people without Akhtar's report, nor that there is in fact some actual self-governance going on. Now if only we could convince them to stop fucking demonising their comrades who had to turn to prostitution to survive...

we dont actully know that they dont represent the "true will of the people", from the reports I would say it seems like they do

clockworkchaos · Sep 13, 2021

Tatbee said:
The Osliam-chain taskforce had enough time to survey an entire population, and tally 1000s of deaths.

So they've certainly had time enough to condemn such acts, and should know to do that themselves, without the input of Congress.

Yet I see no mention of any condemnation, in the report.

Estimate, not tally. Big difference. They also haven't remotely surveyed every person and are relying on limited surveys, and there are places where the answer is 'go away you annoying person.'

Winged One said:
Amazing how much differently I read this section when I remember that Kay is that one autistic analyst lady. While I can certainly believe that she's letting her pessimism and distance from the problem color her perceptions as Akhtar claims, the implications that she's somehow performing some kind of political Machiavellian shit with this slant are kind of insulting. I doubt she would ever pass up an excuse to stop doing that sort of thing. Additionally, she's blatantly projecting either something others have said or her own fears onto the report's tone.

Seriously though, I want wormhole comms, it really feels like communication delays are fucking us over here.

I don't think that Jennifer thinks Kay Machiavellianly choose the report. It's more than, when the report was written, they had arguments over what went in and where. Kay has a analyst background. Which met that her data had good statistical backing. That she knew how to argue why certain things should go in a report. Not because she's a natural at it, but because her job has been to produce statistical data and she knows how to argue it. And for Jennifer, who likely didn't have access to the same training, watching as Kay's data and estimations are taken over hers. When it's a augment uprising, and Kay is some human woman looking at it. Well, it's frustrating, and might cause her to see motivations that arn't always there. At the same time, Kay might also have opinions like that, but enough middle-class training to keep hers to herself because that's her way of writing reports.

Things like "Kay's report seems more objective, does that count for anything especially when she has training to do that?", or "Jennifer is a augment.... but she ARC, not Gentle Repose, does that count for anything?". "Kay is autistic, does Jennifer saying 'fuck Kay' take on a different tone knowing that?" All of which are... well.... down to your own perception.

Rat King said:
Can we replace Kay with Akhtar?

No, because neither of them has any formal power here, Kay got more in the report because the other members agreed to those parts. Well Kay technically does as a delegate, but that isn't report power. But hey, if you want to override democratic elections feel free.

Sara said:
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.

Why? It turns out, reports are done by people. And people have to make choices about what they write about. To be blunt, what ARC wanted from the report was impossible. People constantly complain about how we don't know the situation 'on the ground' at the moment. This is because people are constantly used to the 24 hour news cycle, where of course information is instant. How could it not be? But what ARC wanted, a report, done in under a month that managed to get accurate surveys, opinions, and statistics in a environment that had no central authority, was widly spread out, and just went through a famine, all while also dealing with medical and other needs.... was always impossible.

Good reports, accurate reports take time. This report did it's best, but it used estimates. It used stories from those who were talking. It made judgement calls when people argued about what to report. It had to, because any actual report of the objectivity level would take a year and require 2,000 pages. So they made choices.

Sara · Sep 13, 2021

clockworkchaos said:
Why? It turns out, reports are done by people. And people have to make choices about what they write about. To be blunt, what ARC wanted from the report was impossible. People constantly complain about how we don't know the situation 'on the ground' at the moment. This is because people are constantly used to the 24 hour news cycle, where of course information is instant. How could it not be? But what ARC wanted, a report, done in under a month that managed to get accurate surveys, opinions, and statistics in a environment that had no central authority, was widly spread out, and just went through a famine, all while also dealing with medical and other needs.... was always impossible.

Good reports, accurate reports take time. This report did it's best, but it used estimates. It used stories from those who were talking. It made judgement calls when people argued about what to report. It had to, because any actual report of the objectivity level would take a year and require 2,000 pages. So they made choices.

I've been pretty explicit in the discord with saying I think any sort of accurate idea of whats going on the ground is going to take literal years. That's we don't have a way to fix that doesn't really make our ability to decide things based on this information less complicated.

Personally, to add on to what I said in what you quoted, I think the bits about what groups seemed more influential or popular on the ground atleast to our best estimation, or what the current conditions post famine looked like we're things that probably should have made into the report rather then us only finding about due to what I guess are the equivalent of forum posts by those involved given the infraction.

Even guesses at what groups on the ground we need to work with are more popular, populous, powerful, influential, ect then others is going heavily affect the calculus we have when we decide how we interact with them to influence the region.

A world where pro arc moderate likes the Revolutionary Society represent a majority that are rapidly gaining ground via aid networks and one where killing and torturing 'sexual collaborators' who are skeptical of ARC influence as a whole is a default position by the people even if they just represent guesses are going to take somewhat different approaches.

Nyvis · Sep 13, 2021

Sara said:
You have, in the past few posts, outright said that you think your plan will require us to use military force to invade communities that don't cooperate and fight off the people who try to stop us. That was your point of contention with me I suggested limiting ourselves to extracting people through peaceful means. I don't think your grappling with what that's going to mean in practice. The people who would disagree with us about this are armed, experienced, hardened guerilla fighters with ample access to military hardware after the war that recently ended who would be engaging us in communities full of people. If we turn into a fight, no matter how restricted are ROE is we're going to kill a heapload of people in these communities, and a lot of people who otherwise are turned off by handbiter sentiment but want to preserve their autonomy are going to look at our enemy combatants, many of which they see as heroes who fought against Cernunnos rule even before the ARC stepped in when winning was no where a sure thing, and start emphasizing with these extremist a lot more.

My only real objection is limiting extraction to peaceful means if it means letting people die.

If their autonomy is used to ensure people who are target of retaliatory mutilation aren't allowed to leave, fuck their autonomy.

Sara said:
It's not going to stop there, because Gentle Reposites are people with pattern recognition, and the second words gets out of the first time we did this which in a world with Comm tech like this can be extremely fast and extremely distorted against us, we're going to end up with a way worse epidemic of pogroms then anything you're imagining now.

Depending on our logisitical capabilities we could maybe evacuating literally every target all at once, but would require us to simultaneously occupy every community that decides to not comply with us for very long stretches of time. I don't think I need to explain why that's going to become a bloodbath and seen as a overreach by wide swathes of a population who arre already skeptical enough, but not skeptical enough to want to fight us until we do this. And those sentiments aren't going to disappear when we pull out of those communities after days, weeks, or more likely months of finding people, reaching out to them, and rounding them up in a warzone either.

I get that you want to help people these people, I do too, and while I'm a lot more optimistic about peaceful options then you are based off historical precedent in similar situations, even if I wasn't that doesn't mean I'd be in favor of starting up armed conflict here. If we do that, we're definitely end up killing a lot, lot more people then we would ever end up saving or would be hurt by genuinely doing nothing which no one seems to be for anyway. Sometimes their are no great options, just less bad ones. Not every problem should, or even can be solved, by shooting at it unfortunately.

I'd rather not use that method, and I think we ought to negotiate first. But ruling it out entirely while those people are getting killed or mutilated is just not acceptable to me. Hopefully the more reasonable revolutionary factions will let us extract them, since they seem unable to contain the extralegal retaliation, and this won't be necessary. We should definitely start by negotiating for that. But I don't want us to start those negotiations with less bargaining power because we're already ruling out doing anything if some of them just say no or things escalate even more.

It's not between your option or my option, it's between your option plus my option if it fails and your option with no backup or pressure.

Sara · Sep 13, 2021

Nyvis said:
My only real objection is limiting extraction to peaceful means if it means letting people die.

If their autonomy is used to ensure people who are target of retaliatory mutilation aren't allowed to leave, fuck their autonomy.

I'd rather not use that method, and I think we ought to negotiate first. But ruling it out entirely while those people are getting killed or mutilated is just not acceptable to me. Hopefully the more reasonable revolutionary factions will let us extract them, since they seem unable to contain the extralegal retaliation, and this won't be necessary. We should definitely start by negotiating for that. But I don't want us to start those negotiations with less bargaining power because we're already ruling out doing anything if some of them just say no or things escalate even more.

It's not between your option or my option, it's between your option plus my option if it fails and your option with no backup or pressure.

If your worried about these people lives, this really, really should not even be a option we let them think we're considering.

I get it, fuck their autonomy because their bad people. The problem is that a lot of people on the planet are going to reasonably be more sympathetic then we are to people wanting to preserve their autonomy, especially from a foreign power which is mostly made up of a populace that historically oppressed theirs, partially with a undercurrent of implying their too savage to rule themselves in the past.

Those sympathies are going to get much, much stronger when any attempted invasions inevitably start blowing up people's loved ones and their currently existing sympathies to people we want to protect are going to get much weaker when advocating form them isrhetorically linked to people who restarted a war via fighting their way into a number of communities, occupying them long enough to get whoever they want out, and leaving not just dead people they see us heroes because they once foguth cernunnos but the rubble of their homes and random civilians who got caught in the crossfire.

Even threatening military intervention after the end of such a apocalyptic conflict like that is, based off historical evidence, going to massively push public opinion away from our demands and you yourself have argued before that you think their inevtibly going to call those threats a bluff which you would then support acting on.

I cannot say this enough, but bringing forth the specter of restarting armed conflict on Gentle Repose as a ultimatum for our position, much less actually doing so, is going to kill way more of the people you want to save then any other option we could take short of executing innocent people ourselves.

Forgothrax · Sep 13, 2021

Unfortunately, as much as it grinds my gears, I think we are better off supporting the moderate factions with words and supplies than we are anything else. The HBs are planning an execution deathspiral which will start with collaborators and spin out to anyone insufficiently pure, it appears, but attacking them will legitimize them. Empowering the moderate factions to do it for us may marginalize the HBs instead. We cannot afford a long lasting insurgency given how capable fabbers are and sparking one will cost more lives in a year than we save.

We can and should offer asylum, we can and should attempt to lead by example. I think going in hard at any point will just be knifing ourselves in the back, much as I'd like to see the HBs deported to Tartarus until their victims are free and clear and some semblance of structure exists.

Nyvis · Sep 13, 2021

Sara said:
If your worried about these people lives, this really, really should not even be a option we let them think we're considering.

I get it, fuck their autonomy because their bad people. The problem is that a lot of people on the planet are going to reasonably be more sympathetic then we are to people wanting to preserve their autonomy, especially from a foreign power which is mostly made up of a populace that historically oppressed theirs, partially with a undercurrent of implying their too savage to rule themselves in the past.

Those sympathies are going to get much, much stronger when any attempted invasions inevitably start blowing up people's loved ones and their currently existing sympathies to people we want to protect are going to get much weaker when their rhetorically linked to people who restarted a war via fighting their way into a number of communities, occupying them long enough to get whoever they want out, and leaving not just dead people they see us heroes because they once foguth cernunnos but the rubble of their homes and random civilians who got caught in the crossfire.

Even threatening military intervention after then end of such a apocalyptic conflict like that is, based off historical evidence, going to massively push public opinion away from our demands and you yourself have argued before that you think their inevtibly going to call those threats a bluff which you would then support acting on.

I cannot say this enough, but bringing forth the specter of restarting armed conflict on gentle Repose as a ultimatum for our position, much less actually doing, is going to kill way more of the people you want to save then any other option we could take short of executing innocent people ourselves.

You're the only one who talk about invasion and occupation.

We're still allied and helping them on the ground. I don't think they're going to openly try to stop us from extracting people. But we could easily equip our own missions on the planet to resist if people try to stop them from extracting their designated scapegoats. We're already down there to help with food and health. I don't expect them to make it policy to oppose us, I'm more worried about hardliners lashing out because we're taking away their targets than the revolutionary organizations officially telling us we can't do so.

Forgothrax said:
Unfortunately, as much as it grinds my gears, I think we are better off supporting the moderate factions with words and supplies than we are anything else. The HBs are planning an execution deathspiral which will start with collaborators and spin out to anyone insufficiently pure, it appears, but attacking them will legitimize them. Empowering the moderate factions to do it for us may marginalize the HBs instead. We cannot afford a long lasting insurgency given how capable fabbers are and sparking one will cost more lives in a year than we save.

We can and should offer asylum, we can and should attempt to lead by example. I think going in hard at any point will just be knifing ourselves in the back, much as I'd like to see the HBs deported to Tartarus until their victims are free and clear and some semblance of structure exists.

the moderate factions don't seem to be able to stop the extralegal murder and mutilation though, so even if we convince them to not execute all collaborators and "collaborators", is that good enough if the handbitters are still targeting them? We can and should negotiate with the moderates to let us extract any of the targets of retaliation they aren't seeking for war crimes but I don't think this is going to be entirely smooth and peaceful even then.

Hell I expect we'll see at least some retaliation against our unrelated missions on the planet for our stances against execution of all collaborators. We should really prepare for that.

Forgothrax · Sep 13, 2021

Nyvis said:
the moderate factions don't seem to be able to stop the extralegal murder and mutilation though, so even if we convince them to not execute all collaborators and "collaborators", is that good enough if the handbitters are still targeting them? We can and should negotiate with the moderates to let us extract any of the targets of retaliation they aren't seeking for war crimes but I don't think this is going to be entirely smooth and peaceful even then.

Is it that they cannot stop it, or that they don't want to right now? I suspect it's more an issue of the latter, and if we press for a reasonable trial in court of law as the standard with enforcement they may stand against the HBs. At the very least, we may be able to turn public opinion to supporting trial with punishment as sufficient to clear collaborators of guilt and thus, if the HBs are still trying to execute them, we can mobilize public opinion to marginalize them.

Nyvis · Sep 13, 2021

Forgothrax said:
Is it that they cannot stop it, or that they don't want to right now? I suspect it's more an issue of the latter, and if we press for a reasonable trial in court of law as the standard with enforcement they may stand against the HBs. At the very least, we may be able to turn public opinion to supporting trial with punishment as sufficient to clear collaborators of guilt and thus, if the HBs are still trying to execute them, we can mobilize public opinion to marginalize them.

We can and should push for trials. But I don't think that'll save people who are still out, aren't really accused of a war crime, but still face retaliation for being collaborators or "collaborators". It doesn't even require a majority against them, just a few angry people and a majority not caring enough to use their limited resources to stop it.

Of course we can offer to take them in and we should do that too. I'm not sure how easy that will be and I expect some lashing out as we take away people's scapegoats, though. But we should definitely try to work with the more reasonable revolutionaries to see if they'll let us do it.

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