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

AKuz · Dec 10, 2020

THE ALL-RADIANT CONGRESS

Setting Information: The Solarian Compact:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Charters:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rhodes Mining

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

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

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

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

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

Techbros, some of them science, some of them explore

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sketchy buggers, they can get you anything tho

Historical Topics:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Misc Details:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Spinward Frontier:

The Middle Spinward Frontier

The Core Region:

UNDER RADIANT CONTROL OR ALLIED:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gaid A1: An airless world. Quality 10.

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

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

Gaid AI: An asteroid belt.

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

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

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

Gaid B2: An airless world. Quality 10.

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

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

Gaid B5: A small icy planet. Quality 3.

Gaid B6: A frozen world. Quality 7.

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

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

Shei 1: A Cthonian world. Quality 15.

Shei 2: An airless world. Quality 12.

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

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

Gravity .95 Earth Standard. Quality 12.

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

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

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

Shei I: Asteroid belt.

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

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

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

Shei II: Asteroid belt.

Shei 7: Jovian planet. Quality 13.

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

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

Shei 8: Ice giant. Quality 6.

Shei 8a: An icy moon. Quality 9.

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

Population: 103,000,000

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

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

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

Five Lions 3: A rocky ball. Quality 7.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Five Lions II: An asteroid belt.

Five Lions 7: An unremarkable Jovian. Quality 2.

Five Lions III: An asteroid belt.

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

Five Lions IV: An asteroid belt.

Five Lions 9: Jovian planet. Quality 9.

Five Lions V: An asteroid belt.

Five Lions 10: Neptunian ice giant. Quality 8.

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

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

Population: 15,000,000

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Population: 650,000

UNDER CHARTER CONTROL:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Xotreh A6: An unremarkable icy ball. Quality 4.

Xotreh AI: An asteroid belt.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Xotreh 6: A dense ice giant. Quality 4.

Xotreh 7: Jovian planet. Quality 6.

Xotreh 8: An exceptionally cold Jovian. Quality 9.

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

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

Population: 54,000

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

Bestreer 1: An airless world. Quality 2.

Bestreer 2: An airless world. Quality 6.

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

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

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

Bestreer I: An icy asteroid belt.

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

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

Bestreer 7: Another Jovian. Quality 14.

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

Bestreer 8: An icy ball. Quality 10.

Population: 450

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

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

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

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

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

Akleod I: An asteroid belt.

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

Population: 5,000

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

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

Thoa System Stats:

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

Thoa 2: An unremarkable airless metal ball.

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

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

Thoa I: An asteroid belt.

Thoa 4: A normal Jovian planet.

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

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

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

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

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

Thoa II: A Kuiper belt of icy objects.

Empty Systems

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

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

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

Kimberly 3: A Jovian world.

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

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

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

Total:

Radiant:

Gaid:

Five Lions:

Head of Diplomatic Corps:

Name: Amanda Redcrest, Victoria Blackwell, and Kayla Hayashi

DoB: "2222", 2219, 2227, 2224

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cons: XP celebrity, little diplomatic experience, three people

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

Unlocked FRM

Ares Peacekeeping Grade - Access to planetary army formation

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

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

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

Cernunnos Consumer Grade - +1 to all Soccom actions

Cernunnos Enterprise Grade - NOT UNLOCKED

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

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

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

Hermes-Ishtar Production Grade - NOT UNLOCKED

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

MSI Enterprise Grade - NOT UNLOCKED

Original Tech

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

Defence Coordinator:

Name: Maria Awhina

DoB: 2165

Current Position: Military Committee Delegate from the Radiant Veterans Guild

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pros:

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

Cons:

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

Command Traits:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-None

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

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

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

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

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

Solarian Marines now spread throughout the system

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

Mobile Force:

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

CO: Commodore Stephanie Rousseau

CNS Velasco, United States of America-class Fleet Carrier

-CO: Captain Esteri Attar

-Orca Wing, Switchblade-type strikecraft (Customized)

-CO: Wing Commander Jasmine Ang

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

-CO: Wing Commander Heloisa Kimura de Lima

CNS Shieldmaiden, Great Heathen-class Light Cruiser

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

CNS Shamhat, Great Heathen-class Light Cruiser

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

CNS Righteous Tempest, Cossak-class Frigate

-CO: Captain Vehement Shade

CNS August Willich, Cossak-class Frigate

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

CNS Elysium, Cossak-class Frigate

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

CNS Asphodel, Cossak-class Frigate

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

-

Home Force:

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

CO: Commodore Erina Kozlova

CNS Blaire Mountain, New Model-Class Strike Corvette

-CO: Captain Guillermo Kageyama

CNS Scutum, Comet-Class Patrol Corvette

-CO: Captain Martin Pagonis

CNS Buckler, Comet-Class Patrol Corvette

-CO: Captain Samuel Smiles

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

-CO: Captain Jean-Paul Beaumont

-

Radiant System Self Defence Force:

Current Orders: Defend Radiant, comet patrol

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

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

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

Switchblade Wing, Switchblade-type strikecraft

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

Apogee Wing, Switchblade-type strikecraft

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

Battery A, Blindfire-Pattern LMP Constellation

(Radiant-Bestreer Gate)

Battery B, Blindfire-Pattern LMP Constellation

(Radiant-Bestreer Gate)

Battery C, Blindfire-Pattern LMP Constellation

(Radiant-Bestreer Gate)

Battery D, Airstrike-Pattern LMP Constellation

(Radiant-Bestreer Gate)

Battery E, Airstrike-Pattern LMP Constellation

(Radiant-Bestreer Gate)

Battery F, Airstrike-Pattern LMP Constellation

(Radiant-Bestreer Gate)

Shoal A, Macross-Pattern TAM Shoal

(Radiant-Bestreer Gate)

Radiant Orbital Yard 1

Current construction: None

Radiant Orbital Yard 1

Current construction: None

-

Gaid System Self Defence Force:

Current Orders: Defend Gaid

CO: Commodore Victor Raine

Battery A, Blindfire-Pattern LMP Constellation

Battery B, Blindfire-Pattern LMP Constellation

Battery C, Blindfire-Pattern LMP Constellation

Battery D, Airstrike-Pattern LMP Constellation

Battery E, Airstrike-Pattern LMP Constellation

Battery F, Airstrike-Pattern LMP Constellation

Shoal A, Macross-Pattern TAM Shoal

Shoal A, Macross-Pattern TAM Shoal

Shoal A, Macross-Pattern TAM Shoal

Zephyr Wing, Switchblade-Type Strikecraft (Customized)

-CO: Wing Commander Ara Helge

Aeolus Wing, Switchblade-Type Strikecraft (Customized)

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

Gale Wing, Switchblade-Type Strikecraft (Customized)

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

-

Frontier Force

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

CO: Commodore Shayla McLean

CNS Kiel Mutiny, Kaiserreich-class BattleCruiser

-CO: Captain Inana Devlin

CNS Choreographer, Janissary-class Light Tender

-CO: Captain Karl Xanthopoulos

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

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

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

-CO: Captain Fool's Errand

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

-CO: Captain Rouge Napier

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

-CO: Captain John Rankin

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

-CO: Captain Nkiru Chaudhari

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

-CO: Captain Sumac Barros

CNS Revolutionary Will, Cossak-class Frigate

-CO: Captain Yamamoto Hanae

CNS Revolutionary Grace, Cossak-class Frigate

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

CNS Under New Management, Don-Class Fast Tanker

-CO: Captain Adras Kierenos

CNS Liberte, Hollywood(C)-Class Frigate

-CO: Captain Colin McRae

CNS Egalite, Hollywood(C)-Class Frigate

-CO: Captain Adelia Swift

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

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Stabbtmcstabstab · Jan 9, 2022

ScottishMongol said:
I think my favorite running joke in this Quest is how all our fellow revolutionaries think we're a bunch of uwu softie graphic designers who just want everyone to get along.

I blame the Sheolites, whenever we meet a new group of people they're right there and it's hard to not look like a bunch of pacificts softies compared to them.

Sara · Jan 9, 2022

Also, I feel like people are really misreading the sort of morbid culture the sheolites have. Someone on Discord pointed out everytime we assumed they were too dumb and bloodthirsty to grasp why we did many of the things we did, most relevantly right now refusing to get into a fight with SolNav when they forced the gates, they completely understood and agreed with us.

This was talked about more there, but I don't think they have stuff like First Deaths or those Dare to Die Strikecraft stuff because they're all lemmings who secret want to get themselves killed. They spent near their entire civilization's existence locked in a forever war against a superior enemy, and traditionally the lifespan of their strikecraft in the air were measured in hours. No matter how good their tactics were you had to expect a great deal casualties fighting Ares while using 21st century gear, and to quote The Laurent you had to use good tactics to do any damage whatsoever.

BelligerentGnu · Jan 9, 2022

Thalton said:
Soon, so very soon.

Gods I hope so. I'm honestly really tired of reading about corporate types being smug and secure in their evil. I want to start reading about them shitting their pants as they realize it's all falling down.

UponALotusBlosom · Jan 9, 2022

Angelform said:
Ground armies are irrelevant to modern war.

That's only true if you're willing to render the planet unfit for human habitation and don't want to say capture the planet and its resources and population intact and have near perfect information on the disposition of enemy forces at the same time which is very rarely true in significantly more WMD happy settings much less what we've seen so far of the the universe the quest is set in. Ground armies are incredibly relevant.

More broadly letting Sheol take the lead in ground combat doesn't sound like too bad of an idea we'd have to watch how it pans out but they are relevant for our goals if we ever intend to land troops outside of a friendly area or resist conventional invasion.

Really even if an enemy had complete controls of the orbital a ground force is still important on multiple levels, first as a threat that can't be ignored (in my mind a little similar to a fleet in being strategy if that makes sense.) that requires active resource commitment to root out and useful as part of a larger defense in depth strategy. Further if the ground armies or other surface and sub-surface assets employ a military strategy similar to Taiwan's in case of invasion by Mainland China then that necessary resources commitment only grows. Your defense designed around the idea of bleeding and slowing down the enemy rather than stop them cold and then once they finally render your forces incapable of a realistic conventional threat they still have to deal with all the trained and equipped soldiers prepared to continue the effort through insurgency meaning that the expensive invasion has just allowed the enemy the privilege of engaging a motivated insurgency in an expensive policing action on a hostile planet that prevents them from leveraging the planets resources and population effectively and again, tying up the enemies resources in a manner that outsizes investment in the ground force in the first place.

Angelform · Jan 9, 2022

The Laurent said:
This just ignores what we've actually seen which is that Ground Armies are actually really useful? Like, we armed the local population of Five Lions AND we sent in an army.

We sent in a small group of people to help train and organise.
Spec-ops, not an army.

Ditto with Gentle Repose. Our army has already proved incredibly relevant. Which doesn't mean it's inadequate and needs to be subordinated to Sheol, mind. But the idea that it's irrelevant involves ignoring the actual events of the Quest.

Gentle Repose was entirely humanitarian. We would have been better off with police and paramedics than soldiers.

Stabbtmcstabstab said:
You see the whole "We choose who lives and who dies" approach to warfare and focusing entirely on orbitals works entirely if A. our fleet is willing to bomb enemy civilian populations with the intent to kill all of said civilians otherwise the charters are just going to put important shit in the middle of population centers and be immune to us. And B. relying on the charters to not be willing to genocide a planet of our civilians or you know deploy there marine contingent to occupy it. Frankly the whole "Ground armies are irrelevant to modern war." is a statement that has been thrown around since the end Second World War at least and it has been shown to be hilariously incorrect every time.

A) If we encounter 'enemy civilians' we have FAILED. Because we will have become as tyrannical as the monsters we are trying to remove. If the population is unwilling to help us we have no business being there.
As to digging VIPs out of population centres, that is a job for spec-ops teams, not armies.

B) How is an army going to help if an enemy is willing to genocide our planets?
How is an army going to resist invasion except by using our own civilians as human shields? And how would they perform better than an insurgency?

Armies are only useful for occupying hostile territory. Which is something we are (or at the very least should be) very much against.

Sara said:
Yeah, I feel like this is kind of a crucial underlooked point here..' When we went into the Shei system, our main interference before it had basically been won was the fight in space. We didn't even take out the orbital weapons systems, the Sheolites sent their own strike craft at them. Literally the second Rosseau's former comrades glassing any gains they made was not a factor they pretty decisively wrested control of the planet from Ares, which suggests they could have done so the entire time but knew it would be fruitless because of the enemies control of Space and willingness to bombard even their population centers from orbit.

That doesn't really fit with the whole 'the sheolites are clueless about actual warfare and only fit for target practice' narrative people seem to be keyed in on.

The key bit is 'once the orbitals were no longer held by the enemy'.
The very fact that the Sheolites had no difficulty overrunning Ares once the threat of bombardment was removed highlights the fact that while that threat existed they were powerless.

HeroCooky said:
snip

1) An hour long video is not an argument.
2) A few lines of vague and fanciful dialogue is not an argument.
3) Your disagreement is noted.
4a) Motivation is no substitute for opportunity. Consider that the people we got from Ares also have a culture dedicated to waging war, and they had far better resources for teaching than the Sheolites.
4b) Because HI did a very impressive job of fooling people into thinking they shouldn't.
5) No evidence of such knowledge. You compared two situations that are different in almost ever way and declared them the same.

UponALotusBlosom said:
That's only true if you're willing to render the planet unfit for human habitation and don't want to say capture the planet and its resources and population intact and have near perfect information on the disposition of enemy forces at the same time which is very rarely true in significantly more WMD happy settings much less what we've seen so far of the the universe the quest is set in.

We don't want to capture planets. We want to remove the tyrannical rulers and let the newly freed populace decide what to do with their planet themselves.

The Laurent · Jan 9, 2022

Angelform said:
A) If we encounter 'enemy civilians' we have FAILED. Because we will have become as tyrannical as the monsters we are trying to remove. If the population is unwilling to help us we have no business being there.

This is just... I don't even know how to respond to such an obviously wrong argument, but let me try. The idea that 100% of everyone on a planet has to support us or else we're just as bad as the Charters is... farcical?

We will absolutely, especially in more divided polities where exploitation is more masked, be facing situations where most of the population favors us but meaningful amounts--and not just corporate overlords or goons--will oppose us. And if not us, then the locals that we arm will face that situation.

Ultrackius · Jan 9, 2022

ScottishMongol said:
I think my favorite running joke in this Quest is how all our fellow revolutionaries think we're a bunch of uwu softie graphic designers who just want everyone to get along.

I mean... are they wrong?

UponALotusBlosom · Jan 9, 2022

Angelform said:
We don't want to capture planets. We want to remove the tyrannical rulers and let the newly freed populace decide what to do with their planet themselves.

My entire post was about defensive posture for armies, I'm talking about our enemies invading us and from the perspective of a hypothetical invading force. And unless the OH SHIT factor of the setting goes way up my point on the relevance of armies still stands, no one's at the point where they are willing to burn a planet to cinders and its civilian population to weed out an army group or two and its a low cost high return method of eating up enemy resources.

But now that I'm thinking about it how are we going to remove the tyrants and their security forces without forces of our own? render the world uninhabitable? start a long bloody very chancy uprising? or simply land troops to combat enemy conventional forces, our use case doesn't have an army occupying a planet in an extended police action, no Amarthine armies would likely be directly engaging enemy conventional forces in the field to break down their ability to hold the people in bondage.

10ebbor10 · Jan 9, 2022

Angelform said:
We don't want to capture planets. We want to remove the tyrannical rulers and let the newly freed populace decide what to do with their planet themselves.

The problem with your scenario is that it works solely if you think in binary.
Either the whole planet supports us (in which case we can free them without trouble), or the whole planet hates us (in which case we move on).

But that won't be the case.
What are you planning if say, 80% of the population supports us and 20% doesn't?
Send waves upon waves of barely trained and hastily armed locals into the guns of the estabilished military forces? Bomb those military forces with no regard for collateral targets among enemy and friendly civilians?

HeroCooky · Jan 9, 2022

Angelform said:
1) An hour long video is not an argument.

Yes, but it neatly explains why you'd want an actual army and a way to ensure that you can level the right amount of force for the right amount of threath.

Here is the escalation ladder within the video, which is an excellent guideline as to why having no army is bad. I made the things red that we can't use without one, and green with what we are left so you can see how bad.
- Unrestricted use of WMDs
- Unrestricted orbital bombardment
- Limited use of orbital bombardment, WMDs
- Mass use of conventional forces against military/economic targets
- Mass use of precision strikes against military/economic targets
- Grounded use of precision strikes against military/economic targets
- Grounded use of precision strikes against military targets
- Assembly and transfer of WMDs
- Complete mobilization of all forces
- Precautionary WMD alert
- Complete infliction of damage on immaterial targets
- Limited infliction of damage on immaterial targets
- Military blockade
- Reinforce key military units and stockpiles
- Partial mobilization of military forces
- Unconventional convert offense campaign in core territories
- Unconventional overt offense campaign in outlying territories
- Unconventional convert retaliation
- Selective mobilization of military forces
- Military signaling, test exercises
- Pre-crisis maneuvering, gestures, diplomacy

You will notice that without an army we go diplomacy-spec ops-WMD Treaths-Orbital Bomdardment-Unrestricted WMD Use.
That is bad. We cannot do that. Because we aren't going to go around nuking people. So we are left with: Diplomacy and Spec Ops. Two rungs. Two.

TO QUOTE THE VIDEO:
"This is a goddamn dangerous ladder and it's very easy to fall up"

We want every option explored before going up a rung! Not having an army makes that impossible!

Angelform said:
2) A few lines of vague and fanciful dialogue is not an argument.

Then let me translate:

What if they just don't care about civilian casualties?

If they say "No" what then? Because we can't nuke them.

Angelform said:
4a) Motivation is no substitute for opportunity. Consider that the people we got from Ares also have a culture dedicated to waging war, and they had far better resources for teaching than the Sheolites.

Then put them together and have the best of two worlds! They have intimate knowledge on what tactics are being used, how you could counter them, and everything else!

Angelform said:
4b) Because HI did a very impressive job of fooling people into thinking they shouldn't.

An Ares hade space lasers to glass the Sheolites. They still fought.

Angelform said:
5) No evidence of such knowledge. You compared two situations that are different in almost ever way and declared them the same.

Yes. Because I intentionally made a ludicrous statement to show what I thought of your statement without being insulting.

Torgamous · Jan 9, 2022

Angelform said:
We sent in a small group of people to help train and organise.
Spec-ops, not an army.

And then, after that, we sent an army for the actual shooting part. Look, I have quotes:

AKuz said:
The local C-levels did not like the surprise of a full division of combat-ready troops with accompanying equipment hot-dropping into contested areas like paratroops-- if you handed paratroops heavy tanks. And they had less than 12 hours' warning before the drop.

Rhodes strongpoints folded like cards given a sudden reinforcement on the ground, and in their haste to provide light vehicles and weapons to fight the underarmed and poorly mechanized labor unions, they'd neglected to build the kind of weaponry that could fight armored companies or power armoured grunts.

clockworkchaos said:
Radiant has destroyed two entire Charter fleets and dropped tens of thousands of men here when we needed them.

Gentle Repose was similar, if smaller. We did not just sit in orbit and let the ground battle happen. Our army, including Commodore McLean herself, did do ground combat to help get rid of the enemy ground combatants. I have a quote for that too, and also one detailing the limitations of orbital bombardment as a tool of liberation, and really just that whole post is worth a reread.

clockworkchaos said:
While the initial fighting was fierce, the forces in question were corporate guards, unprepared for serious resistance, much less trained Naval Infantry armed with military-grade gear and drone swarms.

clockworkchaos said:
While my force made its way to Gentle Repose, Revolutionary Grace focused on communication and coordination with the local population. Ironically, part of that coordination was requesting they hold back on a number of proposed attacks, as freeing the guarded camps was a dangerous proposition for a still very under-equipped rebel force. Captain Papadopoulos identified two camps with some degree of isolation, large rebel forces nearby, and separated guard posts that could have Orbital artillery dropped with no risk to civilian life.

"Ground combat is militarily relevant, but not enough to do it ourselves" is honestly a pretty weird place to put a goalpost.

Angelform · Jan 9, 2022

Ok, one at a time.

The Laurent said:
We will absolutely, especially in more divided polities where exploitation is more masked, be facing situations where most of the population favors us but meaningful amounts--and not just corporate overlords or goons--will oppose us. And if not us, then the locals that we arm will face that situation.

If there is no uprising or humanitarian crisis on a world then we should not be invading it.

Infiltrating agents to prompt rebellion? Sure.
Blanketing the place in propaganded? Perfectly fine.
Invading? No.

It helps that warships can only be constructed in off-planet shipyards. As such rendering a world incapable of offensive war without hurting civilians is pretty easy.

Angelform · Jan 9, 2022

UponALotusBlosom said:
My entire post was about defensive posture for armies, I'm talking about our enemies invading us and from the perspective of a hypothetical invading force. And unless the OH SHIT factor of the setting goes way up my point on the relevance of armies still stands, no one's at the point where they are willing to burn a planet to cinders and its civilian population to weed out an army group or two and its a low cost high return method of eating up enemy resources.

Do note that orbital bombardment can be as small scale as bunker busting. To say nothing of the precision you can get from strikecraft and drones.

We want an irregular insurgence because an army, a large group of people decked out in combat gear, is just a target.

But now that I'm thinking about it how are we going to remove the tyrants and their security forces without forces of our own? render the world uninhabitable? start a long bloody very chancy uprising? or simply land troops to combat enemy conventional forces,

Precision strikes using ortillery, drones and spec-ops teams.

our use case doesn't have an army occupying a planet in an extended police action, no Amarthine armies would likely be directly engaging enemy conventional forces in the field to break down their ability to hold the people in bondage.

And you think that would be less damaging that using warships?

Vehicles, heavy weapons, fortified barracks. These things we can crush from orbit. Soldiers/police with small arms can, assuming they are suicidal enough to not surrender, be dealt with reasonably well by handing out guns to the locals.

Angelform · Jan 9, 2022

10ebbor10 said:
What are you planning if say, 80% of the population supports us and 20% doesn't?

If there is active fighting: Bombard the armed part of the 20% and arm the 80%. Ortillery, air support, drones, communications, marines. We have plenty to offer without needing a dedicated ground army.
If there isn't a revolt: Leave it to the diplomats and the spies.

The Laurent · Jan 9, 2022

This is just silly. Angelform is advocating for not having an army despite that army having provably saved COUNTLESS lives.

Torgamous said:
And then, after that, we sent an army for the actual shooting part. Look, I have quotes:

Gentle Repose was similar, if smaller. We did not just sit in orbit and let the ground battle happen. Our army, including Commodore McLean herself, did do ground combat to help get rid of the enemy ground combatants. I have a quote for that too, and also one detailing the limitations of orbital bombardment as a tool of liberation, and really just that whole post is worth a reread.

"Ground combat is militarily relevant, but not enough to do it ourselves" is honestly a pretty weird place to put a goalpost.

See here. Angelform is actively ignoring evidence to argue for something that's not going to be allowed to happen because nobody in-universe is foolish enough to think that the Radiant Army hasn't in fact been incredibly useful.

It's unnecessary to argue as Angelform is if the goal is simply "Sheol shouldn't be in charge of our army" because the answer to that is, "Our army does its very necessary and noted in-universe to be valuable job well enough and we don't need to 'improve' it."

Pretending that the in-universe text doesn't exist because it's inconvenient to your argument is the wrong way to go about it.

Angelform said:
If there is active fighting: Bombard the armed part of the 20% and arm the 80%. Ortillery, air support, drones, communications, marines. We have plenty to offer without needing a dedicated ground army.
If there isn't a revolt: Leave it to the diplomats and the spies.

Just to remind you: we literally already have one and we've used it multiple times to great effect. You're advocating for reducing our capacity for no fucking reason.

Angelform · Jan 9, 2022

HeroCooky said:
Yes, but it neatly explains why you'd want an actual army and a way to ensure that you can level the right amount of force for the right amount of threath.

Here is the escalation ladder within the video, which is an excellent guideline as to why having no army is bad. I made the things red that we can't use without one, and green with what we are left so you can see how bad.

Thank you for presenting this in an easily understood format.

That said there are several thing I very much disagree with.

- Limited use of orbital bombardment, WMDs

Limited orbital bombardment is not weapons of mass destruction. Not unless you are restricted to the most crude and improvised methods.

- Mass use of precision strikes against military/economic targets

We have strikecraft and can fabricate drones and atmospheric missiles on-site. Our fleet is perfectly capable of playing the role of airforce if required.

- Military blockade

…how is an army capable of imposing a blockade but a navy isn't?

- Reinforce key military units and stockpiles

See above. Our fleet is quite capable of supporting large scale ground operations. Can't do much for close urban fighting but that tends to be hell regardless.

- Unconventional convert offense campaign in core territories

Strikecraft, shuttles, spec-ops teams. We already did this when dealing with the nuclear hostage situation.

- Unconventional convert retaliation

Spec-ops thing, not army thing.

- Complete mobilization of all forces
- Partial mobilization of military forces
- Selective mobilization of military forces
- Military signaling, test exercises

An army could not do any of these things. These require the enemy be able to see what you are doing before you are in shooting range.

CONCLUSION

We have far more options without an army than you suggest. We can absolutely use a fleet to posture and threaten. We have and are doing so. We absolutely can engage in targeted and limited destruction. And can support local forces.

What if they just don't care about civilian casualties?

… not seeing the relevance. Our offensive operations are designed to kill/capture/depose CEO and disarm security forces anyway. Them shooting civilians just means we can go straight to lethal force.

We don't need to nuke anyone.

Then put them together and have the best of two worlds! They have intimate knowledge on what tactics are being used, how you could counter them, and everything else!

That does not require Sheol to be in command. I'm perfectly happy to work with them, both in the field and on the drawing board. What I'm not happy about is them having blanket authority on ground operations.

An Ares hade space lasers to glass the Sheolites. They still fought.

…what point are you actually trying to make with this? As far as I can see you are just trying to refute my point for the sake of it.

Yes. Because I intentionally made a ludicrous statement to show what I thought of your statement without being insulting.

If you were trying to avoid being insulting you failed.

Angelform · Jan 9, 2022

Torgamous said:
Five Lions

We used the army because we had them. And I accept that they helped. But I do not agree that they were necessary.

And army support has become even less necessary now we have The Box and rebels can fabricate their own heavy equipment.

much less trained Naval Infantry armed with military-grade gear and drone swarms.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

Not sure why this is an argument for the necessity of an army, if the marines can do the job.

"Ground combat is militarily relevant, but not enough to do it ourselves" is honestly a pretty weird place to put a goalpost.

People should take part in their own liberation, if practical.
Culturally it is better for us to support local forces with equipment, training and air/space-support rather than march in and deliver freedom by force.

Right, done for the day. If you want to continue the discussion it will need to wait about 16 hours.

The Laurent · Jan 9, 2022

Also this vastly overestimates The Box to some degree: it is incredibly useful and great, yes, but outside help from trained and experienced soldiers will basically always be valuable. We have an army, we should in fact use it to help uprisings, to do otherwise out of some ideal of "Well they should do their own ground fighting" is pointless and isn't actually required to argue against the Sheol Plan, which in any case I don't think I agree with.

clockworkchaos · Jan 9, 2022

Angelform said:
Not sure why this is an argument for the necessity of an army, if the marines can do the job.

Without commenting on the greater debate you weren't capable of losing Gentle Repose no matter what you did, as it was just too small and underdeveloped. But you chose your transport capacity as your last priority and it caused you came about as close to losing as possible. Mclean had to turn the entire fleet to get enough marines to do this, where if you had more transport ships, she would have been able to divert those and not needed to part the fleet. Now none of this is to say that you are necessarily going to encounter another Gentle Repose on a larger scale but... none of this is to say that you won't. Granted, if you hadn't landed troops, a box equipped rebel force with orbital support probably could have won but... it would have been very, very bloody.

Model DC.14F · Jan 9, 2022

Honestly, I've just been skimming, so I may have misunderstood, but it sounds like Angelform is using two arguments: 1) A non-interventionist belief that Large Armies are unneeded, as either the populace is willing to rebel and succeed on their own, or is not. 2) Boots on the Ground are not necessary if we hold the orbitals, allowing us to bombard enemy forces into submission. I disagree with the former based on practicality, and the latter on sanity.

The charter forces will almost always hold a material advantage over revolutionary forces. Even if our forces are on hand to provide material aid, fabber limitations will usually limit this to small arms, unless we prepare a large amount beforehand. And in that case, that just means we have enough material to outfit an army anyways, so why not bring an army in the first place.

As to using solely marine and spec ops, just look at the Gentle Repose Updates. It explicitly says that the only reason that we managed to succeed was because Gentle Repose had a tiny population, that can be regarded as a tiny city. Our entire fleet could barely liberate a planet with the population of Milwaukee.

As a post-battle note, had this crisis happened in a major world, rather than one with .1% of ARC's population, our on-the-ground forces would not have been sufficient for even the small focused assault. In that scenario we would be forced to accept an ongoing atrocity or use of orbital munitions in urban areas.

And that last sentence is a good transition to the second argument. Whereas the first is just overly idealstic, this one is insane.
I once heard a anecdote that, after WWII, parts of the US military tried to downsize their ground forces, on the basis that they could just build up their nuclear arsenal and just nuke any enemies they had to face, only to get humiliated when the Korean War started, because nuking the land that belong to your ally is a horrible idea. I suspect that the idea of relying solely on orbital bombardments would be regarded similarly to this.

It has been mentioned that using orbital munitions anywhere near civilian targets is danger close at best, and basically asking for war crimes to happen at worst.

Since that point Revolutionary Grace has used her control of the orbitals to destroy any outriding patrols. For now, this has resulted in patrols ceasing to be deployed outside city limits, aside from occasional drone pushes, but even those are much less efficient satellite guidance. A few key large-scale fabbers have also been identified and destroyed. However, this has been the extent of what Grace can accomplish. Her space-to-ground munitions are not infinite, and while her crew can fab a functionally infinite supply of said munitions, they cannot do so at a rate quicker than the drones can be replaced by planetary fabbers. In addition, the occupational nature of the riot squads makes them largely interspersed with civilian infrastructure, and difficult to near-impossible for them to effectively target.

While my force made its way to Gentle Repose, Revolutionary Grace focused on communication and coordination with the local population. Ironically, part of that coordination was requesting they hold back on a number of proposed attacks, as freeing the guarded camps was a dangerous proposition for a still very under-equipped rebel force. Captain Papadopoulos identified two camps with some degree of isolation, large rebel forces nearby, and separated guard posts that could have Orbital artillery dropped with no risk to civilian life.

And that assuming that the planet in question is one of those with a breathable atmosphere, and not one that depends on domed cities. Seriously, what was the plan if we had another Osliam or Five Lions? Threaten to crack open the domes unless the charters surrender?

AKuz · Jan 9, 2022

Model DC.14F said:
Honestly, I've just been skimming, so I may have misunderstood, but it sounds like Angelform is using two arguments: 1) A non-interventionist belief that Large Armies are unneeded, as either the populace is willing to rebel and succeed on their own, or is not. 2) Boots on the Ground are not necessary if we hold the orbitals, allowing us to bombard enemy forces into submission. I disagree with the former based on practicality, and the latter on sanity.

The charter forces will almost always hold a material advantage over revolutionary forces. Even if our forces are on hand to provide material aid, fabber limitations will usually limit this to small arms, unless we prepare a large amount beforehand. And in that case, that just means we have enough material to outfit an army anyways, so why not bring an army in the first place.

As to using solely marine and spec ops, just look at the Gentle Repose Updates. It explicitly says that the only reason that we managed to succeed was because Gentle Repose had a tiny population, that can be regarded as a tiny city. Our entire fleet could barely liberate a planet with the population of Milwaukee.

And that last sentence is a good transition to the second argument. Whereas the first is just overly idealstic, this one is insane.
I once heard a anecdote that, after WWII, parts of the US military tried to downsize their ground forces, on the basis that they could just build up their nuclear arsenal and just nuke any enemies they had to face, only to get humiliated when the Korean War started, because nuking the land that belong to your ally is a horrible idea. I suspect that the idea of relying solely on orbital bombardments would be regarded similarly to this.

It has been mentioned that using orbital munitions anywhere near civilian targets is danger close at best, and basically asking for war crimes to happen at worst.

And that assuming that the planet in question is one of those with a breathable atmosphere, and not one that depends on domed cities. Seriously, what was the plan if we had another Osliam or Five Lions? Threaten to crack open the domes unless the charters surrender?

I would also like to point out that you just happened to pick the ONLY Congressional Navy Commodore in your entire military (And at that point one of only a couple dozen people friendly to you) with the experience to direct orbital landings with very little heads up. It was a very near run thing

Tatbee · Jan 10, 2022

HeroCooky said:
Tatbee, as for you. I would like to remind you that the very moment the Sheolites acted to gain control over the planet, they won. We may have helped, but they, without argument, won when they got the go.

For your guerilla argument, I think that that is even better for us! We can, not for decades, challenge the industry, manpower, and resources of Eart and the Sisters in any way with a "modern ground warfare" doctrine. We'd be ground up, chewed through, spit back out, and stomped on for good measure. We are not a superpower, we are a handful of dinky colonies with a just now starting exponential industry, half a conventional fleet, and the power of propaganda on our side, against an entity that could just send an army larger than our population.

The moment we fight conventional is the moment we will start losing. Badly.

I guess I wasn't clear?
My bad.
I don't disagree, Shei is one of the best partners available to command army offensives.

My point was, Shei is not the gold standard of ground warfare.

Modern ground warfare isn't just boots on the ground.
They have armor support, air support, orbital support, intel support, logistic support, all the supports.

During Shei's occupation, the Sheolite prisoners operated with practically zero support.
Vastly inferior hardware, extremely limited supplies, poor logistics, etc.

They gained very little experience fighting as a modern military, with all that entails.
They also gained zero experience fighting the full focused might of Ares' military; Ares held back significantly to maintain the status quo.

Shei did not become experienced masters of all ground warfare.
Only a specific type of ground warfare... though I have no idea what you'd call it, military expert I am not.
Guerilla warfare? Insurgent warfare? Underdog warfare?
"My-opponent-is-vastly-superior-but-isn't-trying-to-kill-us-all" warfare?

All that said.
It's been a long time since Shei gained their freedom, and I expect the Sheolites trained like crazy in the interim.
While they might have little real-world experience fighting as, and against, a modern military, they'll have certainly trained enough to make up for it, or at least tried to.

Shei is certainly one of the best candidates available.

Radiant/ARC has ex-Ares personnel with modern warfare experience, and a highly-trained cadre of spec-ops CROWs.
They've also had more time to train their army than Shei did, though likely at a less fanatical pace.

At the very least, I expect Radiant/ARC would be Shei's ground warfare equal, possibly their senior.

TL;DR
Shei being the 'Senior Ground Warfare Partner' doesn't make sense to me.
Shei isn't 'Dad of War', and Radiant isn't 'Boy'.

This seems like political posturing due to pride.
Shei doesn't like being a less-than-equal contributor to the Commonwealth, particularly in military matters.

Which is silly really, Radiant simply got a headstart.
Shei will catch up quickly, and likely surpass everyone in that respect.

Genderite · Jan 10, 2022

So from my understanding Kimberly should take one Medcom action. We could hopefully use those ship chasis to speed up our naval crash buildup.

Torgamous · Jan 10, 2022

Tatbee said:
Modern ground warfare isn't just boots on the ground.
They have armor support, air support, orbital support, intel support, logistic support, all the supports.

Sheol had all of that except orbital. Their "primitive" equipment was 21st century standard. We know they had air support, they've kept that culture with their strikecraft pilots. We know they had armor support, their tanks were mentioned in the Five Lions liberation post in a "we could've won even using those" sense. They were a functioning military, so they had intel and logistic support.

Space is new, and there are notable doctrinal differences between a 21st century fortress civilization fighting off an alien invasion and two alien militaries fighting each other. But they're not starting from as close to zero as you're saying.

And I would bet that they do actually have more experience than anyone else in the galaxy with fighting against a modern military, on account of having done that for their entire history. That's not a thing modern militaries can claim, since they spend most of their time not fighting other modern militaries.

Burned_Cookie · Jan 10, 2022

I actually reread those events now and I can confirm that things went from bad to worse before our troops landed.

I'd also like to remind everyone that orbital bombardments do not take prisoners and I'd much rather not wipe out people.

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