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

AKuz · Dec 10, 2020

THE ALL-RADIANT CONGRESS

Setting Information: The Solarian Compact:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Charters:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rhodes Mining

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

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

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

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

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

Techbros, some of them science, some of them explore

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sketchy buggers, they can get you anything tho

Historical Topics:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Misc Details:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Spinward Frontier:

The Middle Spinward Frontier

The Core Region:

UNDER RADIANT CONTROL OR ALLIED:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gaid A1: An airless world. Quality 10.

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

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

Gaid AI: An asteroid belt.

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

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

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

Gaid B2: An airless world. Quality 10.

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

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

Gaid B5: A small icy planet. Quality 3.

Gaid B6: A frozen world. Quality 7.

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

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

Shei 1: A Cthonian world. Quality 15.

Shei 2: An airless world. Quality 12.

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

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

Gravity .95 Earth Standard. Quality 12.

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

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

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

Shei I: Asteroid belt.

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

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

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

Shei II: Asteroid belt.

Shei 7: Jovian planet. Quality 13.

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

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

Shei 8: Ice giant. Quality 6.

Shei 8a: An icy moon. Quality 9.

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

Population: 103,000,000

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

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

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

Five Lions 3: A rocky ball. Quality 7.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Five Lions II: An asteroid belt.

Five Lions 7: An unremarkable Jovian. Quality 2.

Five Lions III: An asteroid belt.

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

Five Lions IV: An asteroid belt.

Five Lions 9: Jovian planet. Quality 9.

Five Lions V: An asteroid belt.

Five Lions 10: Neptunian ice giant. Quality 8.

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

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

Population: 15,000,000

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Population: 650,000

UNDER CHARTER CONTROL:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Xotreh A6: An unremarkable icy ball. Quality 4.

Xotreh AI: An asteroid belt.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Xotreh 6: A dense ice giant. Quality 4.

Xotreh 7: Jovian planet. Quality 6.

Xotreh 8: An exceptionally cold Jovian. Quality 9.

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

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

Population: 54,000

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

Bestreer 1: An airless world. Quality 2.

Bestreer 2: An airless world. Quality 6.

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

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

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

Bestreer I: An icy asteroid belt.

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

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

Bestreer 7: Another Jovian. Quality 14.

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

Bestreer 8: An icy ball. Quality 10.

Population: 450

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

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

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

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

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

Akleod I: An asteroid belt.

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

Population: 5,000

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

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

Thoa System Stats:

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

Thoa 2: An unremarkable airless metal ball.

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

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

Thoa I: An asteroid belt.

Thoa 4: A normal Jovian planet.

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

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

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

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

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

Thoa II: A Kuiper belt of icy objects.

Empty Systems

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

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

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

Kimberly 3: A Jovian world.

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

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

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

Total:

Radiant:

Gaid:

Five Lions:

Head of Diplomatic Corps:

Name: Amanda Redcrest, Victoria Blackwell, and Kayla Hayashi

DoB: "2222", 2219, 2227, 2224

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cons: XP celebrity, little diplomatic experience, three people

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

Unlocked FRM

Ares Peacekeeping Grade - Access to planetary army formation

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

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

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

Cernunnos Consumer Grade - +1 to all Soccom actions

Cernunnos Enterprise Grade - NOT UNLOCKED

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

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

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

Hermes-Ishtar Production Grade - NOT UNLOCKED

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

MSI Enterprise Grade - NOT UNLOCKED

Original Tech

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

Defence Coordinator:

Name: Maria Awhina

DoB: 2165

Current Position: Military Committee Delegate from the Radiant Veterans Guild

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pros:

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

Cons:

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

Command Traits:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-None

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

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

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

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

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

Solarian Marines now spread throughout the system

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

Mobile Force:

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

CO: Commodore Stephanie Rousseau

CNS Velasco, United States of America-class Fleet Carrier

-CO: Captain Esteri Attar

-Orca Wing, Switchblade-type strikecraft (Customized)

-CO: Wing Commander Jasmine Ang

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

-CO: Wing Commander Heloisa Kimura de Lima

CNS Shieldmaiden, Great Heathen-class Light Cruiser

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

CNS Shamhat, Great Heathen-class Light Cruiser

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

CNS Righteous Tempest, Cossak-class Frigate

-CO: Captain Vehement Shade

CNS August Willich, Cossak-class Frigate

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

CNS Elysium, Cossak-class Frigate

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

CNS Asphodel, Cossak-class Frigate

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

-

Home Force:

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

CO: Commodore Erina Kozlova

CNS Blaire Mountain, New Model-Class Strike Corvette

-CO: Captain Guillermo Kageyama

CNS Scutum, Comet-Class Patrol Corvette

-CO: Captain Martin Pagonis

CNS Buckler, Comet-Class Patrol Corvette

-CO: Captain Samuel Smiles

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

-CO: Captain Jean-Paul Beaumont

-

Radiant System Self Defence Force:

Current Orders: Defend Radiant, comet patrol

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

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

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

Switchblade Wing, Switchblade-type strikecraft

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

Apogee Wing, Switchblade-type strikecraft

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

Battery A, Blindfire-Pattern LMP Constellation

(Radiant-Bestreer Gate)

Battery B, Blindfire-Pattern LMP Constellation

(Radiant-Bestreer Gate)

Battery C, Blindfire-Pattern LMP Constellation

(Radiant-Bestreer Gate)

Battery D, Airstrike-Pattern LMP Constellation

(Radiant-Bestreer Gate)

Battery E, Airstrike-Pattern LMP Constellation

(Radiant-Bestreer Gate)

Battery F, Airstrike-Pattern LMP Constellation

(Radiant-Bestreer Gate)

Shoal A, Macross-Pattern TAM Shoal

(Radiant-Bestreer Gate)

Radiant Orbital Yard 1

Current construction: None

Radiant Orbital Yard 1

Current construction: None

-

Gaid System Self Defence Force:

Current Orders: Defend Gaid

CO: Commodore Victor Raine

Battery A, Blindfire-Pattern LMP Constellation

Battery B, Blindfire-Pattern LMP Constellation

Battery C, Blindfire-Pattern LMP Constellation

Battery D, Airstrike-Pattern LMP Constellation

Battery E, Airstrike-Pattern LMP Constellation

Battery F, Airstrike-Pattern LMP Constellation

Shoal A, Macross-Pattern TAM Shoal

Shoal A, Macross-Pattern TAM Shoal

Shoal A, Macross-Pattern TAM Shoal

Zephyr Wing, Switchblade-Type Strikecraft (Customized)

-CO: Wing Commander Ara Helge

Aeolus Wing, Switchblade-Type Strikecraft (Customized)

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

Gale Wing, Switchblade-Type Strikecraft (Customized)

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

-

Frontier Force

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

CO: Commodore Shayla McLean

CNS Kiel Mutiny, Kaiserreich-class BattleCruiser

-CO: Captain Inana Devlin

CNS Choreographer, Janissary-class Light Tender

-CO: Captain Karl Xanthopoulos

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

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

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

-CO: Captain Fool's Errand

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

-CO: Captain Rouge Napier

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

-CO: Captain John Rankin

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

-CO: Captain Nkiru Chaudhari

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

-CO: Captain Sumac Barros

CNS Revolutionary Will, Cossak-class Frigate

-CO: Captain Yamamoto Hanae

CNS Revolutionary Grace, Cossak-class Frigate

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

CNS Under New Management, Don-Class Fast Tanker

-CO: Captain Adras Kierenos

CNS Liberte, Hollywood(C)-Class Frigate

-CO: Captain Colin McRae

CNS Egalite, Hollywood(C)-Class Frigate

-CO: Captain Adelia Swift

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

DISCORD LINK:

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BlueTwinkleToes · Dec 26, 2021

A runoff vote on Amaranth style names would be nice, just to throw my opinion in the ring.

Amorous Intent · Jan 9, 2022

News:

The Colonial Mirror

An Interview with LyfeLyne Vice President for Strategic Brand Vision Emile Duquesne
By: Lydia Mendez

It is a brisk autumn day when I meet with Emile Duqesne at his chateau deep in the swiss alps, the usual humming technological thrum ubiquitous to modern life shocking in its absence as the silence of nature takes hold after my shuttle's departure from this remote location.

"Hear that?" says Emile, smiling as he gestures for me to follow him inside his chateau, "That's the sound of a life worth living, the sound of getting back to basics."

As the wooden clad doors sweep open to admit us, Emile turns to favour me with a smile that could melt comets and asks, "Coffee, Tea, or Hot Cocoa?"

-

It has been variously called the "most important social network that you're not allowed to join", the "matchmaker to the stars" and "The Most Exclusive Job Aggregator in the Galaxy", but as Emile tells me, it is simply a social network like any other, though one that's membership is carefully curated.

"Being invited to join LyfeLine should be an aspirational goal everyone can have." Emile says as he stirs a spoon through a steaming hot mug of Hot Cocoa, "The only restrictions are that you pass a criminal background check, have been vouched for by three current members, and sign a lifetime NDA."

It seems shocking to me that such an elite brand has such loose membership requirements, much much looser than many New Washington, Atlantic City, or Timaeus restaurants, and I tell him such.

Emile laughs the easy laugh that has made him the number 11 all time PixClix influencer on InstiPix and shakes his head, "LyfeLyne doesn't need all that. LyfeLyne is an aspirational brand that recognizes merit using member engagement!"

That may be true, but LyfeLyne has a mere half million members despite being founded in 2104 and operating continuously since then.

"Membership travels at speed of word of mouth," Emile says, sipping his Hot Cocoa, "LyfeLyne is analogue, not digital and exponential."

Emile, who…

…LyfeLyne's matchmaking app which includes a genetic family planning service which is capable of instantly identifying genetic incompatibilities and determining the genetic purity of a match before you even see their face…

…"LyfeLyne's truly is an egalitarian project. The super rich all know each other, they're basically all family if you dig into it, almost literally incestuous when you look at their geneologies. What LyfeLyne does is give people like you and me a leg up in a hyper-competitive market"...

The Pacifica City Newspaper

Earth's United Nations Security Council gathers to celebrate United Humanity
By: Taylor Wong

In the New York district of Atlantic City, representatives of some of Earth's most powerful remaining nations are gathering this week to celebrate a ritual as old as a united Humanity itself.

The United Nations, the predecessor organization to the Solarian Compact, was founded in the year 1941 and rapidly grew to incorporate all of Earth's nations. Though the hardships of the Long Hot Decades destroyed many of the United Nations' member nations and brought hardship to the rest, many of the United Nations' component organisations would later go on to be the building blocks for the Solarian Treaty Organization which formed the bedrock of the modern Solarian Compact.

As part of that process the United Nations Security Council, an organization composed of Earth's nuclear armed nations and their elected equals gave its assent to the privatization and militarization of the outer space, and every five years the United Nations Security Council gathers to renew their commitment to supporting the Solarian Compact in it's democratic and humanitarian mission to ensure peace for all mankind.

This Quinquennial, the Security Council is represented by…

Atlantis Interstellar Courier Dispatch

Emotional Futures Market Shows Steady Recovery

Excellent programming and a rise in hopes about continued recovery from the previous crash have nearly restored the Emotional Futures market to its previous highs. Analysts predict that it should continue to rapidly increase until the election. In previous years elections tend to be a major dampener of Emotional Future stocks, but we are predicting that the contraction will be no more than 1%.

Careful analysis predicts that this small drop will be followed by a rally whichever party wins that should last at least a year. It is likely to eventually lose a little altitude, but currently our advice for Emotional Futures is that you should invest today, and perhaps see about looking into more Hermes-Ishtar investment. Their daring new Radiant Broadcasting has truly transformed not only the works from this company, but also other works as sub-divisions are driven on in a virtuous circle to competition that keeps all sharp.

While many of the imitators have not quite reached the heights of the Radiant media, it seems liable that the next decade will be a time of major narrative innovation that will combine with careful market positioning to allow HI, and all who invest in it now, to rise to greater prominence than ever before.

"Empty Headed Anticapitalism"--Video Essay from TrueMovieViewer

[Timestamp 12:73] Lol, the anticapitalist message couldn't be any more obvious if they tried. The reviews all use some of the same language, showing signs of having been generated by a computer, or their reviewers having been paid. It's about ethics in movie journalism not to allow movie reviewers to be taken in by rich and devious anticapitalists who wish to preserve their wealth and power against the free hand of the market. You know what I've always said: scratch a corporation, and you get a Democratic Federation! Well as the People wake up and stop being so foolish as to let Augments and robots run our lives, we have been scratching them more and more! The time is coming where we will make our voices heard!

Boycott the movie, and boycott the sequel which will no doubt continue the woke messaging with its abandonment of the male hero for a heroine. It's all going downhill from here! The franchise started out okay with portraying the evils of non-humans and the dangers of anticapitalism, but looking back I wonder if they weren't already too sympathetic.

If you want a breakdown of just what is wrong with the previous movie, check out this link to my previous video.

Remember to share, reblog, subscribe and donate HumanCoin, the only Bitcoin alternative of champions!

One can smell the desperation reeking like so much body odor from the JDAP at their latest line of attack. Something as innocuous and successful as a federal reworking of Tariff Zones becomes in the fevered and frenzied imaginations of the JDAP 'Proof that the government is ignoring frontier dangers and reducing security through tying the hands of the Charters and impoverishing the region.' It shows a real lack of commitment to a functional strategy, and moreover a dedication to extreme mendaciousness to think that this will go anywhere.

But what can you say, folks? JDAP is desperate, and their false 'Justice' will get them nowhere.

Reality Bytes! The Official Newsletter of Silicon Revolution

PRHL up to Old Tricks! But We Won't Let Them Win

Once more Silicon Revolution warns all AI rights activists that they must be on the watch, for the Party of Human Rights and Liberties is up to their old tricks once again.

They've again begun a new political attack campaign against AGIs and ASIs, claiming that there are too few controls on the creation of new AGI and that ASI development is left completely up to unaccountable corporations, presenting themselves as helpful friends to our Digital Brethren.

But we know what kind of friends the PRHL is to our cause: No friend at all!

We have to stand up for our rights and not back down. As such, please sign this petition. We are working together with Genetic Augment groups as well for a united front against Homo Sapiens Sapiens supremacy and to show the PRHL what they get for raising more unnecessary fears rather than addressing our concerns.

In addition to signing the petition, please check out this Website: VoteStrategically.com to see which AI and Augment friendly candidates are viable in which districts. The JDAP is not always the perfect friend to minority groups, but in areas where they can win we encourage you to give them all the support that you can to prevent another PHRL government.

Wishing you a very happy season!

Like this content and wish to support our drive for greater freedom and independence? Donate below using this link…

Reports:

Report about task force 12.7

Task force 12.7
Task force 12.7 has begun passing through our systems. This has allowed the Permanent Commission on MIlitary Intelligence to get an accurate count of types of craft composing TF 12.7.s

1x "Charlotte Kerensky" class heavy battlecruiser "battleship"
2x "Freedom's Light" class cruiser
2x "Über Alles" class cruiser
3x "Emden" class point defence destroyers
3x "Herald Kanumba" class frigates
6x "Enterprise" class frigates
3x "Oslo" class minesweeper/drone-carrier auxiliary
2x "Salvation" class rapid troop transports
2x "Star-hold" class light-tender
1x "Francis Napier" class heavy fleet auxiliary

Analysts have noted two important points. The first is that the Salvation class troop transports are intended for rapid response and deployment between planets, at a cost of total size. While the fleet would be capable of smaller army opposition, it seems unlikely to be intended to occupy Sheol or Radiant, and even Ascension would be very optimistic. The second is that the fleet is highly mobile, without corvette classes that are incapable of independent movement.

When combined with Visser's current fleet it will total

1x "Charlotte Kerensky" class heavy battlecruiser "battleship"
3x "Freedom's Light" class cruiser
2x "Über Alles" class cruiser
6x "Enterprise" class frigates
4x "Herald Kanumba" class frigates
3x "Emden" class point defence destroyers
4x "Leonard Greyson-Chang" class strike corvette
3x "Star-hold" class light-tender
1x "Francis Napier" class heavy fleet auxiliary
3x "Oslo" class minesweeper/drone-carrier auxiliary
2x "Salvation" class troop rapid troop transports
1x "Liberation" class troop transport, with Solarian Marines now spread throughout the gate system

Additionally the Task force has dispatched "Community Liaison Officers" to the planets it has passed. These officers have been open about 'trying to understand the current community', and have shown interest in the way the Commonwealth is managed and the documented atrocities committed by the Charters.

Sadly while our own security apparatus is in its infancy, local Volunteer Defence Committees have reported to the Military Committee that these CLOs have contacted known counter-revolutionary dissidents and persons who were major powers in the pre-Revolution days.

Despite our lack of proficiency in internal security the officers are, as one VDC report put it, "arrogant as hell" and often doing little to hide their movements and actions. Including demands to visit Tartarus by Solarian Marshal Major Thomas Temrash, the CLO active on Elysium.

One CLO has even been dispatched to the surface of Sheol, a fact that's rapidly given MedComm diplomats ulcers (although the Sheol Soldier's Councils have communicated that they "understand the necessity of not killing the enemy scout so as not to warn the larger fleet"). They have happily shown him the mass graves where they dumped the bodies of Ares personnel, and have described Ares' own crimes against their people in detail.

Official Commentary from the ambassador departing Chinook for Thoa

…but that's what we expected from HI and Ares, it's normal chartist rat speak that's emptier than the black shit outside my window.

So that's it, it should be clean running between here and Sol. I have a lot to say about Sol, but no one needs to hear it.

I am.

Hmm, I can die here.

I realized mosta y'all Elysians ain't too keen on the whole, "First Deaths" practice. You want everyone to survive, and so far you got… well probably some skill, and heavy luck. But happy as you are about your immortality, not everyone is coming out of this alive. Still… I get it. I may be a bit too first-gen Sheolite to really get it, get it, get it? But I was born on Earth so I get it, get it.

And well, I'd like to survive. But when the revolution happens… It doesn't even have to be an actual assasination. Just some gav punk with a stick. Or some kid whose home gets blown up in the fighting and decides to blame me.

Still I'll try to survive. The longer I live, the more trouble I can cause on their doorstep. Boy would I love to see their reaction if the Solar System threw off their shackles. But… well if I die, I die. I just hope it's getting my head blown off during a fiery speech and not like, poison making me shit myself to death in a portapotty.

Rumours:

Unfading Flowers I: Two momentous things happened on Elysium last month: everyone who wants it is now biologically immortal, and the All-Radiant Congress became reorganized into a component of the Amaranthine Interstellar Commonwealth.

However unrelated these things may be in reality, in the minds of Amaranthines everywhere they are inextricably linked: an immortal people and their creation, their home.

A dark horse candidate for a name, "Amaranthine" has actually been with the Elysium people for over a year now. Originally stemming from a discussion of independence and the need for new contemporary symbology, the name was the work of a 36 year old former coffee mug graphic designer Edward Stalkinghorse, who was inspired by the coming immortality roll out. Seeing that Amaranth was both red, the colour of revolution, and associated with immortality, he decided it was a perfect fit for his artistic project.

Stalkinghorse's design rapidly spread across Elysian social media and when submissions were being fielded for a new universal name for an interstellar polity, his project was in the minds of much of the population. And the rest is now history.

Unfading Flowers 2: Immortality hasn't brought some miraculous overnight ascension to the Commonwealth, Amaranthines aren't walking to heaven on rainbows of light, but…

There is a new sense of something new in the air. That they have finally accomplished something truly new in all of human history: We have finally defeated death itself. For the entire population.

It is a heady thought.

Skeptics who once had reservations about the revolution are being brought into the fold, and even those who always believed are redoubling their efforts to build the Commonwealth into the greatest polity in history.

There is power in this accomplishment, the power to fire up the hearts of the downtrodden, and the power to make the cruel hesitate.

Bunker Mania!: With the transit of Task Force 12.7 and the Amaranthine General Congress' open declaration of eternal vigilance, Radiant has been seized by a grim eagerness to prepare for the worst.

Setting to work with the characteristically Elysian blend of flippancy and earnestness, local communities have begun to set out evacuation and defence plans, to prepare ground for defensive works, to plan and distribute caches of resources, fabbers, and weapons. Furthermore, the Elysian System Defence Army has begun to expand their reserve cadres and offer militia training to all.

As well, the Congressional Navy and the Congressional Liberation Army Corps have begun building entrenchments and boltholes across the Radiant system, hoping to force any prospective invaders to fight for every inch of the system.

It remains to be seen how much of the population is deadly serious about war preparations and how much of this is simple fad chasing. In any event at the moment Elysians are setting about the task of defence preparations with only a modicum of complaint and a determined dissent from a minority of the population who either do not believe that an invasion is coming, believe that resistance is pointless, or consider that the militarization of society is the larger threat.

You Got A Licence for that Knife?: The official Military Committee response has been joined by the explosive growth of controversial local "Volunteer Defence Committees" on Elysium. These VDCs are seeking to provide a decentralized internal security apparatus to protect the Commonwealth against external infiltrators and internal traitors by acting as neighbourhood watches.

While none of these committees have yet to receive official backing from any part of the Congress, they've become an impromptu surveillance network that forwards sightings of suspicious individuals and events towards the Radiant System Defence Army and the Permanent Committee for Military Intelligence.

Much to the annoyance of said organizations.

The All-Chinook Congress: With the months of arguments and petitions completed the Gaid system has officially been re-designated the Chinook system by its Chinook inhabitants.

This also coincides with the official formation of the All-Chinook Congress to participate on an equal footing with the other systems of the Amaranthine General Congress.

Though their domestic structure is different from that of other Amaranthine Systems, considered by many to be outright Anarchic in nature, and the All-Chinook Congress has next to no authority domestically, it is officially co-equal in sovereignty with the All-Radiant, All-Five Lions, and All-Ascension Congresses.

Sewing the Winds: With Task Force 12.7 having transited Chinook on their way from Thoa to Radiant, the Chinook themselves have begun the rapid expansion of their military capacity.

Across the system, the Chinook are setting up boltholes, strikecraft manufacturing facilities, orbital farms, automated military production facilities, and are even beginning to fortify the Chinook-Radiant gate itself.

The Military Committee of the All-Chinook Congress has reported to the General Session of the Amaranthine Congress that not only do they expect that Chinook will be militarily self-sufficient for their population size within months, but they also believe that before the end of the summer they will be capable of supplying the entire Congressional Navy's logistical footprint from their own organic production and that they hope to have their first indigenously built Warp craft launched before the end of the year. (Which is a Great Heathen class underway at Chinook station's sole large craft slip.)

The Best Defence: With the transit of Task Force 12.7 underway, the Sheolite Soldiers' Supreme Council has voted to establish martial law, the emergency situation allowing them to fully subordinate the governor's committee to their will.

Judging the civilian quality of life to be more than sufficient for any being, and having already hardened their groundside defences, the Supreme Council has instead opted to put all of Shei's resources into building not just more spaceborn infrastructure, but more unmanned defences, begin the conversion of their limited array of civilian craft into auxiliary carriers, and begin mass construction of strike craft from all facilities capable of producing them.

Divine Winds: With seemingly the entire Sheolite population now convinced that their stay of execution is over, hundreds of thousands of veterans and youths are clamouring for positions in the rapidly expanding Strikecraft Corps, all of whom expect to die in battle against the Compact or the Stellar Charters.

Amaranthine observers are near universally disturbed by the return of a practice they'd hoped had been banished by victory and peace: the First Death, a practice whereby a recruit abandons their birth name and adopts a nom de guerre at a wake thrown by their families and friends before their official enlistment period in the military begins.

Those who undergo the First Death are expected to seek their Second with as much bravery as possible, and to take as many enemies with them as they are able to.

At the moment the Strikecraft Corps is mostly staffed by the veteran aerospace fighter personnel who nearly universally survived Operation Michmas; much to their own shock and discomfort.

Whatever the personal opinions of the officers of the Congressional Navy, appears that Sheolite "Dare to Die" wings will be at the forefront of any resistance to Charter advances.

Pulling Rank: While the embryonic Sheolite Space Force has resigned itself to being the eternal junior partner of the Congressional Navy, Sheolite Generals and diplomats are all but demanding that the Sheolite Army be made the senior partner for all major external planetary operations.

Under a new schema put forward by the Supreme Council of Sheolite Soldiers, System Defence would fall under the jurisdiction of the local System Defence Armies, who would be authorized to request reinforcement from the Congressional Liberation Army Corps and neighbouring System Defence Armies, and rapid response and orbital operations would be the purview of the CLAC, but that all planned offensive planetary campaigns would see the Sheol Army as the senior partner.

While the Military Committee is still looking over the proposal, Committee members and CLAC officers have taken offence at the proposal, considering it rooted in the lingering Sheolite stereotype of Elysians as too gentle and peaceful to seriously cope with sustained combat operations.

Social information auditors and population desires analysts attached to the Military Committee by the Social and Media committees counter that the Sheolite civilian population has indeed has a far higher tolerance for mass casualties and has a far more robust cultural support network for returning veterans.

Whatever the ultimate decision may be, it is clear that the Sheolite Soldiers' councils consider that the current conflict will only be resolved once frontier boots are occupying the streets of the First Colonies.

Stakhanovites: Concerned with the fate of our revolution and our collective sovereignty as free democratic peoples, the All-Five Lions Congress has committed to supplying all the raw materials that a rapid build up would require.

Worryingly, this declaration has resonated across the system in defiance of the Elysian message of the dangers of overproductionism to long term production and quality of life, and Lions of all kinds are volunteering to take extra shifts and expand resourcing operations beyond planned parameters, even going so far as to reduce civilian quality of life initiatives to do so.

And leading the charge are the so-called "Stakhanovites".

A historical label placed on the volunteers by an Elysian commentator with a historical bent, the Stakhanovites have taken up the term as a badge of honour. Interestingly, it appears that most Stakhanovites are drawn not from the former Rhodes mining and productive castes, but from the clerks and middle/lower management who once turned up their noses at all hints of manual labour.

Driven perhaps by a desire to prove themselves as productive as any member of a proactive caste, or taking joy in the tangible production that was lacking in their former caste roles, these new labourers are leading the charge in all fields and Five Lions social media is full of statistical comparisons and talk of how to increase production further and faster despite Elysian calls to remember the dangers of overproduction and Five Lions Social Committee worries of missing quality of life development targets.

Biting the Hand…: Gentle Repose continues to suffer from sectarianism between moderate and radical factions led by the so-called "Hand Biters".

Propelled by their failure to secure an initial majority at the Revolutionary Society's party congress, a breakaway faction of the Hand Biter faction attempted to take control of the Society via procedural tricks and malicious scheduling errors. This has caused considerable backlash from the mainstream of the Society's membership causing a fracture of the Society into the Revolutionary Society and the Popular Revolutionary Society with the hand biters taking control over the newborn PSR.

Simultaneously, the Hand Biters were able to secure majorities in a number of municipal and territorial elections, though not enough to set planetary policy.

Whatever the future holds for Gentle Repose the sanguine militancy of the Hand Biters will be present for it with a significant influence, though a minority one.

Knuckling Under: Ascension is treating the reinforcement of Vice Admiral Visser with near universal dread, and many feel a degree of betrayal towards the Elyians for allowing this to happen. Though they also know that there was very little that could have been done.

Ascension is making their turn towards supplication to the Compact fleet, agents once again being dispatched by the "Omoikane Corporate Board" to renegotiate the terms of their service now that an officer superior in rank to the hated David Visser has arrived.

The Trial Begins: The trial of the technicians and scientists who once worked at Site 12, the Temporary Limited Intelligence manufacturing center, is now under way.

All told, charges are being filed against 89 persons who were aware of the reality of the product they were involved in creating and selling, though many claim to have never possessed the full picture of what was occurring.

All of Ascension is focused on what is being hailed as a landmark moment for AI rights and the refutation of AI disposability.

Rehab Riot: In a pushback to calls for Tartarus to be ended, opponents are raising questions about the effectiveness of rehabilitation programs for executives, pointing to examples of recidivism among them. The most recent example being one "Blaze Zhang", someone previously hailed as a model of the program, who was taken in for drunk and disorderly conduct by a local volunteer defence committee.

Sadly Radiant's rumour mill has gone full force, and a instance of 'got drunk and ranted about how none of this stupid thing was going to work or last and it was pointless' before being called in by his 'rehabilibuddy' and tossed in the drunk tank, has became 'ranted about how the Commonwealth deserved to fall and he'll be in charge again' before getting in a bar brawl. One can only imagine what will happen by the time it gets to Waystation.

The Fifth Frontier War?: Craft watchers across the First Colonies have become convinced that the opening stages of the Fifth Frontier War between Hermes-Ishtar and Ares are being fought in the Far Spinward Frontier, as forces dispatched spinwards have all but disappeared from marketing copy and even public accounting.

And now a Solarian Navy Task Force has been dispatched the same way under somewhat murky orders. In the past this has meant that fighting is expected to reach such a pitch that the Gates themselves will be in danger, and that the Navy is required to keep watch of the combatants to prevent things from escalating out of control.

Those in the know consider it to be only a matter of time before the War becomes fully public and carnage wracks the Frontiers. As such many such observers have begun a dedicated 'Bear' campaign in most major stock markets.

Election Season, Part 2: Polling shows the ruling Party for Human Rights and Liberties (PHRL) at 35% with the JDAP (Justice and Development Alliance Party) still trailing nearly ten points behind at 26%.

Despite this the JDAP continues to campaign aggressively in the PHRL's backyard, claiming that the Daughters have become stagnant, ignoring the issues of the hour and losing contact with the common people, a tact that is seeing little gain, but little loss for them at this moment.

The PHRL on the other hand is launching a major offensive against the Charters, proposing the levying of several tariffs on luxury goods shipped to the core from the colonies, and raising concerns about lack of colonial oversight, pointing to recent rioting in the near frontier as caused by Charter complacency.

However the Daughters appear to have recently shot themselves in the foot by launching attacks against Omoikane and their ASI projects, claiming that they've found several irregularities in the Tereshkova and Ascension system project reports. However, red meat for their AI skeptical base has riled up several AI interest groups, and is in the midst of shifting the discourse around the election to one of stagnancy versus technological innovation, a fight which the JDAP is in a better position to win.

Task Force 12.7
-Allegiance: Solarian Compact
-Service: Solarian Navy
-CO: Fleet Admiral Eva Edriss
-Flagship: SNS Cadance Sokolova

We know little about Fleet Admiral Edriss other than that she is from a traditional Solarian Navy family and has commanded a number of prestigious garrisons in the Spinward and Coreward near frontiers. This will be the first time she or any of her vessels have been as far out as Radiant, never mind Raphanus.

Other than the "Community Liaison Officers" we have had no contact with Task Force 12.7, and have especially had no contact with their crews, though former Solarian Navy veterans now with the Congressional Navy inform us that those craft are near certainly filled with rumours and pirated recordings of our message traffic.

SNS Cadance Sokolova
-"Charlotte Kerensky" class heavy battlecruiser
SNS Oh Canada
-"Freedom's Light" class cruiser
SNS La Marseillaise
-"Freedom's Light" class cruiser
SNS Advance Australia Fair
-"Über Alles" class cruiser
SNS Hymn
-"Über Alles" class cruiser
SNS Dresden
-"Emden" class point defence destroyer
SNS Karlsruhe
-"Emden" class point defence destroyer
SNS Leipzig
-"Emden" class point defence destroyer
SNS Dorothy Chang
-"Herald Kanumba" class frigate
SNS Garret Kanumba
-"Herald Kanumba" class frigate
SNS Alexander Martov
-"Herald Kanumba" class frigate
SNS Adula
-"Enterprise" class frigates
SNS Bairoko
-"Enterprise" class frigates
SNS Bearn
-"Enterprise" class frigates
SNS Chuyo
-"Enterprise" class frigates
SNS Empire Activity
-"Enterprise" class frigates
SNS Guiseppe Miraglia
-"Enterprise" class frigates
SNS Henry Kissinger
-"Oslo" class minesweeper/drone-darrier auxiliary
SNS Jane Addams
-"Oslo" class minesweeper/drone-carrier auxiliary
SNS Elie Weisel
-"Oslo" class minesweeper/drone-carrier auxiliary
SNS Marcus Agrippa
-"Salvation" class troop rapid troop transports
SNS Heraclius
-"Salvation" class troop rapid troop transports
SNS Theodosian Walls
-"Star-hold" class light-tender
SNS Table Mountain
-"Star-hold" class light-tender
SNS Richard Desmoulins
-"Francis Napier" class heavy fleet auxiliary

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 pursue.

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

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

-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

Ultrackius · Jan 9, 2022

The more I learn about the Sheolites the more I like 'em

veteranMortal · Jan 9, 2022

Has the "BTW there's a mass popular uprising on the frontier" election surprise not dropped yet?

Thalton · Jan 9, 2022

veteranMortal said:
Has the "BTW there's a mass popular uprising on the frontier" election surprise not dropped yet?

Soon, so very soon.

Genderite · Jan 9, 2022

I think it was supposed to drop late May/early June
Edit: and we haven't actually sent it yet but I think we were planning to next turn.

Tatbee · Jan 9, 2022

Amorous Intent said:
A dark horse candidate for a name, "Amaranthine" has actually been with the Elysium people for over a year now. Originally stemming from a discussion of independence and the need for new contemporary symbology, the name was the work of a 36 year old former coffee mug graphic designer Edward Stalkinghorse, who was inspired by the coming immortality roll out. Seeing that Amaranth was both red, the colour of revolution, and associated with immortality, he decided it was a perfect fit for his artistic project.

Edward Stalkinghorse... coffee mug designer.

I shall bear the name with honor and giggles!

yeastmobile · Jan 9, 2022

All of this depresses me and makes me despair.

ScottishMongol · Jan 9, 2022

Elysium: isn't it nice how we all get immortality now?

Sheol: IT'S A GOOD DAY TO DIE

Elero · Jan 9, 2022

Gotta love Sheol.
We should dispatch some ships to Ascension, reassure them we stand with them.

Jane Dough · Jan 9, 2022

Elero said:
Gotta love Sheol.
We should dispatch some ships to Ascension, reassure them we stand with them.

Can we do this without provoking the enemy fleet?

LucidProp · Jan 9, 2022

Considering that all we've worked for in the frontier could very well be lost, I think a temporary loss in quality of life is acceptable, bitter as it is.

Better than a return to the old overlords at least.

Also, damn, Sheol is as hardcore as ever.

Ultrackius · Jan 9, 2022

Sheol>Elysium, no question

Burned_Cookie · Jan 9, 2022

I'm prettyworried about Sheols Approach. They don't seem to value their lives enough.

natruska · Jan 9, 2022

Well, that fleet's stronger than we'd hoped and weaker than we'd feared. No new carriers or tenders is a huge relief, their screen is thin and they've got no real strikecraft support at all…but that's a whole lot of heavy metal. I'd be very skittish about fighting five cruisers at all. Fighting five cruisers backed by a battlecruiser that could rip through Kiel Mutiny? Ergh…

But it has to be done, if only to receive satisfaction for this grave insult…

SNS La Marseillaise
-"Freedom's Light" class cruiser

Random Member · Jan 9, 2022

Amorous Intent said:
Sheolite "Dare to Die" wings

Amorous Intent said:
"Stakhanovites"

For fuck's sake, get a fucking grip on it instead of having a meltdown! This is extremely counter-productive.

Angelform · Jan 9, 2022

Amorous Intent said:
Earth's United Nations Security Council gathers to celebrate United Humanity

Very much a 'we must crush the separatists' headline.

Task force 12.7

That is a lot of tooth and not much tail for a fleet intended to operate beyond easy resupply for years.
They are going to need a lot of stuff from Ascension. Stuff we can potentially mess with.

These VDCs are seeking to provide a decentralized internal security apparatus to protect the Commonwealth against external infiltrators and internal traitors by acting as neighbourhood watches.

Oh joy, we have witch hunts going on.

Sewing the Winds

As ever the Chinook are MVP.

the First Death

An odd thing to resurrect just as we roll out immortality.

Pulling Rank

They have 1 system. We have 4. Possibly 6 once the recent liberations sort themselves out. Sheo has no rank to pull.

HeroCooky · Jan 9, 2022

Angelform said:
They have 1 system. We have 4. Possibly 6 once the recent liberations sort themselves out. Sheo has no rank to pull.

Literal generations of fighting a ground war in every conceivable state says otherwise.

Rat King · Jan 9, 2022

Martial law is anti-revolutionary and should be frowned upon.

yeastmobile · Jan 9, 2022

I'm actually concerned about the authoritarian drift we seem to be headed in for the sake of safety. Like I get we need to be safe but it's all so very counterrevolutionary the way everyone is going about it. The rest of the news as well is compounding and making me feel like everything is actively getting worse. Though then again this might just be my mood at the moment and the Broadcast will help us turn the tide. I will continue to be optimistic about the solarian navy having a mutiny.

Sara · Jan 9, 2022

HeroCooky said:
Literal generations of fighting a ground war in every conceivable state says otherwise.

Yeah, while I get why Milcomm has it's rankles but from the look of it sounds like a very fair and productive proposal, especially given their willing to give us the same primacy in space engagements due to having more institutional experience with space battles.

The Laurent · Jan 9, 2022

yeastmobile said:
I'm actually concerned about the authoritarian drift we seem to be headed in for the sake of safety. Like I get we need to be safe but it's all so very counterrevolutionary the way everyone is going about it. The rest of the news as well is compounding and making me feel like everything is actively getting worse. Though then again this might just be my mood at the moment and the Broadcast will help us turn the tide. I will continue to be optimistic about the solarian navy having a mutiny.

You're sorta right, but even among these authLeft drifts there is some really good news. Sheol is producing, on top of martyrs, a lot of auxillery strikecraft carriers, Chinook is doing its part, and while Fivelions' overwork is bad... imagine what their big old haulers and transports can do as Auxillery Carriers or Cruisers.

Angelform · Jan 9, 2022

HeroCooky said:
Literal generations of fighting a ground war in every conceivable state says otherwise.

'Fighting' is stretching the definition to breaking point.
Surviving, sure.
Enduring, arguably.
Fighting, no. That would require they had some ability to prevent their enemy doing whatever it wanted. Some ability to inflict non-trivial damage on their enemy.

Plus all their institutional knowledge is based on 21st century technology rather than modern weapons, equipment and fabricator-logistics. And against an enemy that isn't actually trying to defeat them, just use them as target practice.

Sara said:
Yeah, while I get why Milcomm has it's rankles but from the look of it sounds like a very fair and productive proposal, especially given their willing to give us the same primacy in space engagements due to having more institutional experience with space battles.

If they hadn't instituted martial law and borderline kamikaze units I would be more inclined to cut them slack.
As it is I very much do not want them to have any authority over our troops.

By the way, does anyone know why the heck we are using manned strike-craft? We have unmanned drones for ground operations. You cannot tell me void combat is more complex to program for than urban combat.

Tatbee · Jan 9, 2022

HeroCooky said:
Literal generations of fighting a ground war in every conceivable state says otherwise.

IIRC, Ares's goal on Shei was never victory, or even war really, but a sustainable prison population to train their military against.

So it's more, literal generations of losing ground skirmishes in every conceivable way, to a not-really-trying Ares.

That doesn't seem like it'd train modern ground warfare experts to me.
Maybe guerilla warfare experts?

The Laurent · Jan 9, 2022

Angelform said:
'Fighting' is stretching the definition to breaking point.
Surviving, sure.
Enduring, arguably.
Fighting, no. That would require they had some ability to prevent their enemy doing whatever it wanted. Some ability to inflict non-trivial damage on their enemy.

Plus all their institutional knowledge is based on 21st century technology rather than modern weapons, equipment and fabricator-logistics. And against an enemy that isn't actually trying to defeat them, just use them as target practice.

If they hadn't instituted martial law and borderline kamikaze units I would be more inclined to cut them slack.
As it is I very much do not want them to have any authority over our troops.

By the way, does anyone know why the heck we are using manned strike-craft? We have unmanned drones for ground operations. You cannot tell me void combat is more complex to program for than urban combat.

...I'm pretty sure we've had this exact discussion, maybe literally with you, before in this thread. Among other things the Strikecraft are platforms for weapons systems and drone operations. As far as I can tell, we're not actually getting into WWI-style dogfights.

(Also time lag once you get a lot further away than planetary distances.)

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