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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Tatbee · Feb 28, 2022

Question.
The Solarian Task Force 12.7 in Raphanus, are their communications blocked?
Or can they freely communicate through our systems?

If comms are blocked, then no one can order the fleet to attack.
...Or to not attack.
They could have timed orders; i.e. "invade at this date & time".

notbirdofprey · Feb 28, 2022

I suspect if we cut off their communications, they will recognize it as an attack.

Tatbee · Feb 28, 2022

notbirdofprey said:
I suspect if we cut off their communications, they will recognize it as an attack.

I'm not suggesting we block comms if they're currently open.
That's obviously a hostile action.

Just asking, are comms blocked by default? Is it normal?

IIRC, the Charter systems in the Osliam chain formed a breakout-fleet (which failed), because they were cutoff from the rest of the galaxy.
I assume the previous Sol Navy in Raphanus were also cutoff.

veteranMortal · Feb 28, 2022

#GalacticSurvey

Map Designation: NS 11
System Name: Limnos
Political System: Divided Multi-Charter System. Ifri Alpha and Cocidi Bravo under direct Ares command. Aspiration is under the aegis of a Rhodes Mining local coordinator, who manages the local subsidiary corporation on the planet.
Charter Presence: Aspiration is owned by Rhodes, whilst the rest of the system belongs to Ares.
System Population: Half a million permanent Ares Operatives deployed across the system, around 20 million Rhodes employees on Aspiration. Close to a billion Ares recruits pass through the system each year. Turnover of Rhodes employees on Aspiration is rapid.

System Bodies:
1 - Radiation-blasted rock.
2 - Ifri. Near-terrestrial. Extremely hot, with both deserts and rainforests.
3 - Aspiration. Devastated formerly-terrestrial world.
3.a - Aspiration Secunda, Aspiration's moon. Lifeless rock.
4 - Cocidi. Glacial, with a breathable atmosphere.
5 - Glacial.
6 - Jovian
7 - Jovian
8 - Snowball.
8.a - Listening Post Charlie. Captive Asteroid around the 8th planet.

Notable Features:
Ifri and Cocidi: Ifri is a planet of sweltering heat. Only barely in the Goldilocks zone, there is no remaining permanent habitation on the planet. Remnants of various exploratory mines litter the burning world's surface, but economical deposits were never found. Cocidi, in contrast, lies outside the Goldilocks zone, and is almost an ice ball. Rhodes exploratory mining was attempted here, also, to no gain. Cocidi is notable, however, for its atmosphere is close enough to Terrestrial as to cause only limited, later-life respiratory issues. Stations - Ifri Alpha and Cocidi Bravo - hang in orbit, skeleton crews of Ares personnel keeping the lights on between deployments of Ares Extreme Conditions Orientation Task Forces, which are deployed on Ifri and Cocidi both, to learn how to operate in extreme heat and extreme cold both, both in rural conditions and within the abandoned Rhodes structures. Fatalities amongst those deployed are commonplace, and the crews of the outposts, a motley cross-section of Ares odds-and-ends, heavily augmented as they are, grow increasingly alienated from the work, as they are treated with veiled disgust by the officers of the recruits passing through - seen as washouts and burnouts all.

Aspiration: Aspiration was a green jewel of a world once, until it was found by Rhodes to contain vast untapped reserves of moderately profitable natural resources. Rhodes mining facilities dot Aspiration's various continents, and the planet is ruthlessly stripmined.

The work is dangerous, as the atmosphere grows increasingly toxic, the ecosystem crushed beneath the great treads of strip-mining equipment. Rhodes employees will die on Aspiration with such alarming regularity, it is often referred to as "Expiration" in local parlance, and by the executives on site to manage the planet - who rarely, if ever, leave their well-maintained base on the planet's moon. The different mines on the planet are in direct competition for medical coverage, as the quality of care is ranked relative to the value added to the company by the work of the miners.

Listening Post Charlie: Listening Post Charlie is a small unmanned Ares station on the outskirts of the system, where observations of the various Ares training forces are stored. Additionally, logs all comings and goings from Aspiration, for marketing and resale purposes.

AKuz · Feb 28, 2022

Tatbee said:
I'm not suggesting we block comms if they're currently open.
That's obviously a hostile action.

Just asking, are comms blocked by default? Is it normal?

IIRC, the Charter systems in the Osliam chain formed a breakout-fleet (which failed), because they were cutoff from the rest of the galaxy.
I assume the previous Sol Navy in Raphanus were also cutoff.

We deliberately left SolNav channels open so they wouldn't Come Over Here

Model DC.14F · Feb 28, 2022

#GalacticSurvey

Map Designation: CF-19
System Name: Cleiuto
Political Status: Self-Governing Compact Colony (De facto Split between Cernunnos and Omoikane control, one MSI outpost)
Charter Presence: Mostly Split between Cernunnos and Omoikane, with a MSI trading port on 3a
System Population: 140 million, concentrated on Galerius

System Bodies:
1- Chthonian world
1a- Rocky Moon
2- Tidally locked Airless Planet
3- Galerius, Archipelago Ocean World
3a-Rocky Moon
4-Glaciated, Significant atmosphere
5-Jovian, has several asteroid moons
I-Asteroid Belt
6-a- Icy Binary Planet
6-b Icy Binary Planet

Notable Features:
Cleuito's Flares: The Class K star of this system will periodically emit pulses of radiation. While somewhat rare, it is not unheard of, and has been spotted in dozens of other systems. What makes this notable is the impact this has on…
Galerius: A world that is 81.3% covered in ocean, Gaderius developed animal life a few dozen million years ago. However, the evolutionary rate of this life is higher than expected, which some theorized is due to the regular stellar pulses. This made Galerius, and it's unique and often bizarre native organisms, attractive to prospective buyers, and after a fierce bidding war, it was sold to Cernunnos, which has set up farming and harvesting of the native lifeforms. Additionally, Galerius has enjoyed a large immigration and tourism rate, as the beautiful oceanfront property has proven attractive to outworlders. Ironically, this was in part due to the (in)famous Cleuito's Bastards horror monster franchise, which features an association of bizarre and out-right eldritch creatures from Galerius's oceans attacking fisherpeople and tourists.

System History:
Discovered by Omoikane surveyors in 21XX, the existence of Galerius was originally kept secret to allow Omoikane to purchase it without competition. However, the news was somehow leaked to Cernunnos, who managed to surprise everyone by not only matching, but exceeding Omoikane's bid. This resulted in a fierce bidding war between the two Charters that divided the rest of the system between them, with the exception of 3a, which was purchased by MSI to served as shipping port to make a profit off the other Charters' competition. This is publicly available knowledge.

What is an open secret to the locals, however, is that Omoikane never forgave Cernunnos for 'stealing' Galerius from them, and has taken steps to break Cernunnos's monopoly on the native life. At first this merely came from bribing the contractors that Cernunnos used to track down and find new species, and have them smuggle samples off world, allowing them to patent the Gene Sequences before Cernunnos, claiming they were artificially created in Omoikane labs. Cernunnos then attempted to crack down on "pirates that steal company property", leading to a gradual escalation, with Omoikane now supplying criminal elements and revolutionaries, committing sabotage of Cerunnos Assets, and subverting their workers.

Interestingly, the reason why this has gotten so bad, yet not escalated into an outright Frontier War between Cernunnos and Omoikane, is the presence of MSI. It's commonly believed that the smuggling happens through the 3a Moon Base, which delivers supplies to and from both Galerius and the primary Omoikane Research Colony on the dark side of the second planet. No one is entirely sure if MSI is apathetic to the smuggling or views it as an opportunity. However, many expect the next Frontier War in the Coreward Frontier to result in Omoikane outright trying to seize control of the entire system.

Joppe · Feb 28, 2022

#GalacticSurvey

Map Designation: CF-23
System Name: Masaq
Political Status: Self-Governing Compact Colony (De facto Omoikane fiefdom)
Charter Presence: The system is Omoikane owned.
System Population: 80 000

System Bodies:

1: Airless world, Hosts an energy collection colony
2: Elon, Super Earth, Suffers from runaway greenhouse effect
3: Jovian
3-a: Icy moon, Has cryovulcanic activity
3-b: Icy moon
4: Mini-Neptune
4-a: Airless moon.
5: Super Earth, Methane hydrosphere
6: Icy planet

Notable Features:
Banks Orbital:

"If you must know, I am a utopian anarchist of the kind best described by Iain Banks"
-Elon Musk 2018

The Banks Orbital is one of the largest torus habitats ever built by humanity. It is located in the larange point between the red dwarf Masaq and the systems second planet Elon, named after the famous 21st century visionary Elon Musk. The station itself is named after a science fiction writer who envisioned ta society where technological progress could overcome scarcity. A dream that Omoikane is determined to make reality at the Banks Orbital.

The space station was built as a personal pet project of the Omoikane Executive Jyoti Shyamala, with the intent of fulfilling the vision of "Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Capitalism" sought by countless brave futurists and innovators across human history. In the Banks Orbital much of the work normally performed by low skilled and poorly paid human workers has been delegated to the stations numerous Near Human Virtual Intelligances, many of which have been locally developed at the stations AI and VI research facilities, and are always happy to help its inhabitants.

The residents of the Banks Orbital enjoy standards of living far superior to those found in most frontier colonies. In exchange, Shyamala and Omoikane only asks from them similar commitment to fulfilling their shared dream of a better future for all humanity.

Masaq One Solar Power Centre:
Built at the same time as the Banks Orbital, Masaq One Solar Power Centre is a home to nearly ten thousand colonists and supplies the Orbital with most of the energy the station needs for its continued operation.

The workers in the colony are mostly former Orbital inhabitants who were fired due to failing to show sufficient commitment to the company's vision and were unable to pay the stations residence fees, and thus had to find alternative employment.

The colony takes advantage of the advanced NH-VI for its security operations, providing the security staff rapid and reliable ability to detect crime and monitor potential criminals. This system has proven highly successful and will likely see future use in other frontier colonies.

System History:
Discovered in 2167, the system was initially dismissed as a worthless dead end and was acquired by the Omoikane as a potential site for confidential research, only for better alternatives to appear elsewhere. The system received a second chance and its current name in 2230s, when Shyamala chose it as a site for her visionary project taking advantage of the new NH-VI technology to create a prototype for a new utopian society.

The Banks Orbital would be built over the course of the next decade and under Shyamala's guidance the system became home to Omoikane's cutting edge VI research, seeking to push humanity ever closer to true post-scarcity.

Redshirt Army · Feb 28, 2022

#GalacticSurvey

Map Designation: CF-13
System Name: Spire
Political Status: H-I owned system, in negotiations with Rhodes to sell majority of system
Charter Presence: Fully owned by H-I, multiple Rhodes surveyors present
System Population: 150,000 fulltime residents, up to 200,000 during peak tourist season.

System Bodies:
1: Terrestrial Dwarf Planet
2: Earth-Like Planet, no atmosphere

2-a: Small rocky moon

3: Asteroid Belt
4: Pinnacle, Earth-like planet, low atmosphere, 112% earth gravity
5: Ringless Jovian

5-a: Small mineral-rich moon

6: Ringless Jovian

Notable Features:
Pinnacle:
When it was discovered, the Spire system could boast of a unique trait - Mount Kong, the tallest mountain peak on a terrestrial planet across all of Compact space, more than twice as tall as Olympus Mons on Mars, and named after the apocryphal "Mountains of Kong" of old earth legend. The potential for tourism on the appropriately named "Pinnacle" was immediately noted, and despite the lack of atmosphere on Pinnacle, at its peak operational levels the Spire system was home to more than 250,000 permanent residents -these were climbing guides, resort staff, rescue operators, and "natural landscape preservationists" who worked tirelessly to ensure the pristine vistas of Mount Kong (as seen in a great number of Hermes-Ishtar entertainment products!) remained as good looking as ever, despite the up to 2 million guests at a time who showed up during peak tourist seasons.

Disaster began in 2231, when Omoikane put its latest lot of scouted systems up for auction - and among them was a planet with a taller mountain, lower gravity, and most importantly, an oxygen rich atmosphere. For another five years Spire continued, blissfully unaware of the impending crisis, as Hermes-Ishtar kept their new vacation destination under tight wraps while they built facilities to maximize the splash on the tourism market. In 2236, it all came crumbling down. HI had a newer, more marketable destination vacation for all the corporate kids who wanted to check "tallest mountain" off their bucket list, and Mount Kong (and Pinnacle with it) was relegated to the extreme climbing enthusiasts - a much smaller market segment.

Tourism dropped like a stone overnight, along with any hopes of a better future for the system's inhabitants. Nowadays, a small portion of the residents still serve the much reduced tourist load, and jealously guard the mountain guiding jobs that remain (for these guides, now working with largely more experienced extreme athletes instead of inexperienced thrill seekers, the actual job has improved significantly), while many of the others perform mineral mining throughout the system to make ends meet. Those who can, leave, as much of Pinnacle has become more and more run-down and neglected over time (a particularly dangerous situation when the population relies on that infrastructure for breathable air) and enforcers have become ever-more brutal in their quest to keep the underclasses of Pinnacle from disrupting the vacations of those tourists who still arrive to climb the second-tallest (and largely considered the toughest) mountain in Compact space.

Hermes-Ishtar is in talks with Rhodes to sell off the rights to most of the system, but is attempting to keep the tourism rights to Mount Kong, along with full usage rights of the images and 3D model scans of the mountain ranges of Pinnacle.

Redshirt Army · Feb 28, 2022

Please note that a major update has been made to the map to resolve a mistake on my part - specifically, the entrance to the far spinward is very different than in my old map.

CyberFemme · Feb 28, 2022

There are two points of entry into our neck of the woods now, that's unfortunate.

Tatbee · Feb 28, 2022

Could also be a third point of entry, if [CS A] connects to either Xotreh or Akleod.

Traehgniw · Feb 28, 2022

#GalacticSurvey

Map Designation: FS-16

System Name: Goldenrod

Political Status: Omokaine system

Charter Presence: Mostly owned by Omokaine, with a small MSI shipping base

System Population: 10 million

System Bodies:

1. Asteroid belt in the Goldilocks zone

2. Gas giant in the Goldilocks zone

2-a Terraformed moon

3. Dwarf planet

Notable features:

The asteroid belt in this system is inhabited; some smaller asteroids have been converted into rotating space stations, and a relatively large, iron-cored body, Endeavor, has had its deeper caves filled with air and lit. These are not truly pressurized as there is sufficient gravity down by the dense core to hold the air in there; the tunnels require regular infusions of new air due to ongoing mining efforts. (Ore takes a rail path to the lower-gravity, unpressurized surface. Gravity drops off a bit as you approach the surface because of the distance from the core + how light the rock is.) The electrical grid is relatively poorly maintained, but at least meteor punctures aren't that big of a deal.

The main population base of Goldenrod is the moon; it is early enough in terraforming that large land areas are still bare rock and the soil is too thin to support most trees. Most animals are small and local agriculture has collapsed multiple times due to poorly thought-out policies and is currently focused mainly on aquaculture and small-to-medium animal agriculture; a significant portion of the food is imported from Bestreer.

Both of these are pretty standard Omokaine research and development bases, churning out slight modifications to existing technology.

An MSI space station is present orbiting the dwarf planet GH-1, maintaining the relatively major shipping route between Bestreer and F-15. The head of this shipping station, Mr Johnsmith, is utterly obsessed with mail. Conditions for the shipping workers are relatively good for charter space, but conditions for the other space-station staff are significantly worse.

System History:

Goldenrod was discovered and purchased before Bestreer was settled, and was used as an exploration base. After Bestreer was settled, MSI negotiated for a shipping-station here in order to get a cut of the trade between the Cern world, Goldenrod itself, and the coreward system.

The colonization calls for Endeavor and the moon both happened to go out during an upswing in racism etc; the result is a demographic makeup that's rather unusual: if they're hated in other worlds they're probably common here. This has lead to some tensions, both inter-community between different groups and in between the executives and the general populace.

Traehgniw · Feb 28, 2022

#GalacticSurvey

Map Designation: FS-15

System Name: Danciel

Political Status: H-I colony, with nominally independent kingdoms present that are functionally Rhodes owned

Charter Presence: Major population centers are H-I owned, with Rhodes mining outposts

System Population: 50 million

System bodies:

1. Airless, tidally locked
1-a: Airless, dense, covered in energy collection

2. Airless, mineral-rich

3. Airless, mineral-rich

4. Gas giant, unusually spectacular

4-a Airless

4-b Airless

4-c Lightly terraformed

4-e Heavily terraformed

4-f Alien hydrosphere

Notable features: The two mineral-rich worlds both are inhabited, with pressurized domes and tunnels and a pair of monarchies; both the monarchs are Rhodes employees as well, making them de-facto Rhodes colonies.

The terraformed worlds are both H-I worlds and have ecosystems pulling heavily from expensive Cern stock and unusual-looking organisms. Their main exports are live-action/CGI blend films making use of their spectacular alien skies. Maiming or death by wild animal, dangerous plant, or accidents on the rugged terrain is common.

Traehgniw · Feb 28, 2022

#GalacticSurvey

Map designation: NT-27 EDIT: NS-6 or Drake, some major system close to the first few

System name: Marcato

Political Status: De-facto independent colonies, functionally H-I and Cernunnos owned

Charter presence: Adagio and Sonata are majority H-I owned with some Cern presence, while Divisi is majority Cern owned with some Omoikane presence

System Population: 1.5 Billion

System Bodies:

1-a Adagio, Tidally locked binary planet (terraformed),
1-b Sonata, Tidally locked binary planet (terraformed)

2 Divisi, Tidally locked planet (terraformed, elliptical orbit; alien hydrosphere)
2-a Airless
2-b Airless
2-c airless

3 Airless rocky world

4. Gas giant with about 50 moons, I'm not writing all those out

5. Asteroid belt

6. Another gas giant with about 12 moons

Notable Features:

The star here is a small, reddish star, dimmer than Sol.

The binary planets in this system are tidally locked to each other, not to their star. As a result, they have a day-night cycle and were candidates for terraforming. As the other binary planet is always in the sky, inner-face nights here are bright, with 'moon'light well in excess of Earth's. Outer-face nights are dark, but have particularly impressive views of the stars and other planet on cloudless nights in non-light-polluted areas. Both have very different terrain from Earth, a fact that was only taken into account when terraforming one of them. Adagio's few, deep lowlands and many craters were filled with water, leaving a global land with many lakes and a few oceans (the inverse of Earth); Sonata's owners, however, were of the opinion that a world's not terraformed until it has Earthlike water/land ratios, an impossibility with Sonata's geography.
As a result, Sonata is mostly flooded, with shallow oceans, the occasional several-kilometer-deep trench, a smattering of islands, and a single chaotic continent.

The H-I executives here come from a single large family with twelve children and a strong appreciation for planned housing complexes; the only approved housing comes from H-I approved skyscraper and other large-complex design contests, where many architects will compete for cash prizes, use of their designs, and even sometimes promotion. As well as architectural designs, major H-I exports across both planets include large amounts of music.

Adagio's head executive is particularly fond of eggs of all kinds, and as a result Adagio's agriculture is focused disproportionately around various forms of birds and reptiles. Her beloved sibling over on Sonata also mandates large-scale farming of roe to ensure their sister has ready access to a wide variety of flavours and colours of oceanic eggs. This roe is harvested in a no-kill fashion and most varieties and flavours are priced out of the reach of the average Sonatan citizen.

In addition to the architecture, music, and a dizzying array of edible eggs, Adagio has a thriving culinary industry making egg-shaped foods that are not eggs, and a thriving jeweler's industry making egg-themed sculptures out of materials ranging from precious metals to jewels to fine expensive wood to delicately carved bone. Many of these sculptures are non-fungible handmade artisan ones, with apprenticeships starting as young as eight years old. Less common but still an important export is non-egg-related art, much of it using the finest Adagio wood.
The tourism industry is also thriving here, although not nearly as much as in Sonata's case.

Sonata's terraforming accident has left it with little actual land, but its population is almost as high as Adagio's. A prime tourist destination, Sonata's population is mostly in underwater or majority-underwater cities, floating islands slash housing complexes slash farms, and other such aquatic residences. Its shallow seas support rich underwater biodiversity and biomass; diving, snorkelling, and recreational spear-fishing are all common tourist pastimes here. The most expensive holiday packages include the use of non-fungible art spears and stays in hotels where almost every furnishing is hand-made. Around the poles, with the occasional icy island and large population of marine mammals, tourists ski, dogsled, stay in the famous ice hotels, and purchase more non-fungible bone, skin/leather, and ivory art and clothing as well as eating genuine polar-themed Sonata dishes, such as vegetable medleys fried in seal fat, penguin foie grais, or genuine roasted whale. On the largest cold islands, populations of caribou are maintained for tourist hunting.

Like Adagio, Sonata pumps out music and non-fungible physical art, although with a more oceanic focus and a greater use of materials like bone, coral, shell, and pearl; the most expensive ones use human-harvested wild-sourced materials, as opposed to farmed or drone-hunted ones.

Cernunnos has significant shares in both Sonata and Adagio, including a permanent subscription by both executives to Cern terraforming stock to replenish populations of animals and plants depleted by tourism, logging, and wide-scale hunting.

Divisi rocked the media when it was discovered. Tidelocked planets had previously been generally considered by the public to be uninhabitable aside from a narrow ring, but Divisi's ellipitcal orbit, higher-than-Earth's axial tilt, and rugged terrain combined resulted in a tidally locked world with native life.

Large parts of Divisi have day-night cycles where the sun goes up, then goes down on the same side. While it does still have a perpetual-day side (usually cloudy) and a perpetual-night side (supporting chemitrophic life in hot springs and hydrothermal vents), the day-night-cycle-but-weird band is actually larger than either the dayside or the nightside!

Around the edges of the nightside, some mountains have day-night cycles on the sunward face and perpetual night on their darkwards face.

The native life here is all copyrighted by Cernunnos; as well as farming the native life, there is a thriving land-agriculture industry dedicated mostly to plants and mammals, as Adagio's egg obsession and Sonata's massive aquaculture sector take up most of this system's market share of poultry, reptiles, and aquaculture. Expensive Divisial fish, poultry, and alligator are, however, sold to luxury markets due to the novelty value of purchasing food grown on a tide-locked planet.

Many of the native lifeforms are toxic to humans, but some have edible parts like fugu, or have mild enough toxin that's cleared well enough to still be considered as flavouring or in some cases as an intoxicant.

Mining stations, and associated towns, proliferate on the 50 moons of the rather dull yellow inner gas giant; the only things farther out in Marcato are the Gate, its support structures, and a waystation for spacers.

System History: Discovered early in the colonization rush, rights to space stations and pressurized habitats on airless worlds were snapped up quickly by H-I with little bidding before the exploration was even complete. Upon finding a living world and two terraforming candidates, a massive bid-war started between Cernunnous that wanted to produce luxury foods, Omoikaine that wanted to research, and H-I who had STAKED A CLAIM DAMNIT. After a territory scuffle broke out, where one of Omokaine's Divisi colonies was hit by a small terraforming comet on purpose by a joint H-I and Cern terraforming task force, the Compact stepped in and divided the system between the three charters, with H-I getting the most of it as it had the prior claim, Cern getting the next biggest share as it had bid almost as much as H-I - a single cent difference - but had no prior claim, and Omoikaine getting the leftovers as it was by that point losing the bidwar.

Traehgniw · Mar 1, 2022

#GalacticSurvey

Map Designations: NS-8 and NS-9

System Names: Eyrie "Shipyard" and Claw "Armory"

Political Status: Non-independent Ares-owned stations

Charter Presence: Ares manufactoring facilities

System Population: A few thousands between them

System Bodies:

Eyrie

1 - Asteroid belt

2 - Distant gas giant

Claw

1- Venus-like hothouse

2 - Tepid Super-jovian with particularly large ring system, many tiny moons and one large, very tectonically active, highly radioactive moon

3- Asteroid belt

Notable Features:

These two systems form a ship-manufactoring pipeline. Eyrie processes asteroids and imports into unarmed ships, that are then transported to Claw. Claw manufactures weapons, armour, and other Ares equipment, then loads them onto the ships.

Eyrie has mothballed equipment-making facilities and Claw has a few mothballed shipyards. Both sets of space stations are reliant on outside supplies.

System History: Claw and Eyrie were set up as manufacturing facilities with mostly-self-sufficient life support, requiring only the regular purchase of fabber licenses. Both produced both equipment and ships and assembled them in-situ.

The harsh work conditions, including 18-hour days, resulted in these two systems being hotbeds of rebellion. After one particularly bad spate of workplace accidents and an attempt to raise the working hours to 20-hour days like on Elysium, there was an Incident where the workers took their assembled, fueled ships and left and most of the space stations had to be replaced. This was only discovered when a customer's ship order did not arrive, resulting in them having a particularly bad Black Summer. By that point the deserting workers had had time to flee enough distance that it was cheaper to just replace everything with an eye to making it not self-sufficient and not arming the ships in-situ.

Probably everyone involved in the Incident has since died. It's not like they have infinite solcoin to keep purchasing spare parts with.

(They're totally alive, doing the same things as Chinook.)

BaseDeltaZero · Mar 1, 2022

CyberEnby said:
I'm holding out for wormhole based stealth ships. If we can got those who should be able to link up with ideological allies elsewhere.

That'd certainly be nice.

Well, with the redesign of the map, we no longer have such a wonderful chokepoint in FS-1... but we do retain the two relatively closer chokepoints in Thoa and Bestreer. 'Take Bestreer' is probably Priority #2, after 'survive'.

We're also gonna need to figure out how to build gates. That's gonna be a significant thing we'll need to do for mid-term survival.

I think with the 'odds' being somewhat revealed, I'm more confident in our survival, but there's a significant chance we won't win with the broadcast, but we'll instead be the largest of many rebellions against the Charters. There will be significant conventional fighting still to be done. At best, destroying strongholds and blockades in heavily defended systems, for which our headstart on an actual navy will be valuble. At worst... well, we could be facing a very long campaign.

Traehgniw · Mar 1, 2022

#GalacticSurvey

Map Designation: CF-5

Political Status: Independent Fascist Theocracy (Christian-derived)

Charter Presence: Gets deliveries from a few charters but no permanent charter presence

System Population: ~500k

System Bodies:

Notable Features: This system's inhabitants all live on a handful of space stations. There is very little charter presence here; the local colony tries to avoid charter products wherever possible and do a disproportionate amount of 21st-century-style manufacturing. They do still need to purchase some charter products though.

Their aversion to charter products is because these insular colonies enforce a belief system including that terraforming is evil, as it disturbs God's work. As the Charters all take place in terraforming, therefore they're all in league with the devil, willingly or otherwise.

Exports include baffling-to-outsiders media, various non-fungible whatevers up to and including non-fabber-manufactured structural components for rich people housing, and services (though this requires entering - they do NOT go to you). All visitors must go through a simple exorcism before entering; you can pay for a more in-depth exorcism package if you like.

In addition, they sell relatively cheap licenses to use their designs. These aren't used that often - the structurally vital religious imagery, scripture on the walls, and so on put a lot of people off - but they do get used sometimes.

The occasional Charter delivery ship that supplies things they can't fab, manufacture, or breed on-site gets its payment supplemented with religious texts, conversion attempts, and free exorcisms for the entire spaceship and cargo.

Rumours of kidnappings by these guys are actually substantied. If a ship's not running on a skeleton crew, or has gained infant crewmates due to birth control failure, these guys will happily take them off the Charter's hands to teach them their ways.

The Charters allow the removal and punishment/extended exorcism and penance of 'underaged tresspassers' for free, and accept apology gifts of non-fungible blessed whatever the latest valuable nonsense is (religious texts or building materials or fabber carts or batteries or...) for the inconvienence of having a worker quit unexpectedly. Totally not kidnapping or selling people to the cultists! Totally!

natruska · Mar 1, 2022

#GalacticSurvey

Lot #70
Piece Title: The Steel Men of McKendrick
Place of Origin: Yedinstvo, Inspiration System, Near Spinward Frontier
Status: SOLD
High Bidder: ANONYMOUS

Provenance: Discovered by a property developer while clearing land for the city of McKendrick and purchased directly by our agent. Rust and material analyses indicate age of over 100 years. Ash and burnt debris in crevices indicates presence during one of the region's wildfires, the most recent of which occurred eleven years prior to discovery. A more detailed report is attached.

Description: Seventeen life-sized steel figures and commemorative plaque created in the late 21st century by an unknown author. The figures are styled after Reconstruction Zone wildland firefighters of that period. Their indistinctness is a bold artistic choice, hidden beneath respirators and brush coats so that they seem entirely interchangeable. Vines hang from their equipment and mosses cover their helmets. Archuleta's has attempted to preserve this natural aspect of the piece. The plaque's inscription reads as follows.

WE WHO IN LIFE NEVER WAVERED,
THO' BY NATURE'S RAGE LITTLE FAVORED,
HERE REST AND REMAIN, THESE FORESTS TO FEED,
WHILE OUR LOVES CARRY ON, TO EXPLORE FREED.
FOR THEY KNOW NO FLAME THESE BODIES CAN BURN,
SO HERE SHALL WE BE WHEN THEY RETURN.
-Lot from the Frontier and Folk Art exhibition at Archuleta's, a Columbian auction house. Despite the discovery of documents marking the McKendrick area as a protected memorial, development has not ceased and the Steel Men have not been returned.

"Kanyeshna, kanyeshna, of course I denounce these acts! Spiking is wrong. Counter-productive, dangerous. But I said this already chuvak, what more do you want? Do you expect me to cry because Ares logger lost a couple of fingers? No, I do not think I will cry. These are reckless people. They spend their paychecks on drink and go prowling, kak sabaki. They hurt people. But the reporters never show up until they get hurt. Funny, isn't it?"
-Gaming/environmentalist streamer Zoya's comments on a highly publicized sawmill injury, causing her channel's demonetization and the loss of four sponsorships.

"cut your g*ddamn grass idiot!!!!"
-Warning posted on a front door by the Novotverskoy Homeowners Association that became a lasting meme on the system's internet.

Map Designation: NS-6
System Name: Inspiration (Vdokhnoveniye)
Political Status: Self-Governing Colony with ties to the Russian government, heavily compromised by Ares and Columbian business interests.
Charter Presence: All do some business in the system, but Ares is the largest private employer and recently renewed its lease on Strannik for another 25 years.
System Population: 950 million

System Bodies:
1
-Terrestrial, extremely dense atmosphere.
2
-Yedinstvo, Habitable Earthlike
2-a
-Strannik, Airless Rounded Satellite
3
-Mokosh, Terrestrial, being terraformed.
4
-Asteroid belt
5
-Jovian
5-a
-Airless, High Density
6
-Icy

Notable Features:
Yedintstvo: Wood is valuable because it lived and died. If you need a chair you can find iron on any old rock and throw it in a fabber. But if you need a wooden chair, you need extremely complex life. Not a lot of that going around. You had two options in the early days: Earth wood (you're not that rich) and artificial wood (you're not that poor). The Russians understood the value of wood, they understood supply and demand, and they got trees in the ground before anybody else. That's why Yedintstvo is the most forested planet in all the Frontiers, and that's why your deck started its life there.

Despite its reputation for quality, the Yedinser forest industry is declining. Humanity has been among the stars for over a century and there are plenty of forests in the galaxy. Recent years have seen Ares monopolize the timber industry to reverse the slide. The local system of production has been uprooted, replaced by highly mechanized operations. The offworld technicians that run those ops don't get along with the locals very well. They get into trouble. Sometimes, it's real bad.

Speaking of the locals, the fusion of Russian settlers and American refugees out in the forests has produced a strange culture. Yedinsers are stereotyped as chronic code switchers, guarded with strangers but energetic and chirpy with friends. English has triumphed as the lingua franca, but Spanish and Russian are common and some truly horrific slang cross-contamination has occurred. People eat buckwheat. That's weird.

For most of its history, Yedinstvo has been a place of dense urban cores and wide open countrysides. That's changed in the last few decades as Columbian urban planners have flocked to the planet hoping to recreate America's postwar peak. Suburban sprawl is getting out of control, spawning an environmental movement against land clearance and a social one against suburbia. Even as the protests grow, Columbians are drawn to the promise of a white picket fence and picturesque scenery. After two centuries, the heirs of the Whites and the Reds are coming into conflict once more.

Strannik: Ares has leased Yedinstvo's moon for almost a hundred years now. At the moment, it hosts a major mining operation as well as an orbital fleet base and dockyards. In exchange, Inspiration gets a modest fee and some of the berths for its own fleet.

Mokosh: An Ares terraforming project backed by public subsidies. Something of a boondoggle if the goal were to make the planet livable, but it's an obvious patronage scheme. The opposition is walking a fine line. They need to rally enough public anger against this blatant corruption to win the election, but not so much that Ares turns against them. After all, the Charter's a vital job creator and they'll need to have a good working relationship.

System History:
Yedinstvo ('Unity') was one of the first planets settled outside of the Core. Surviving the turmoil of the early 21st century, albeit with a few transfers of power, the Russian nation began to reach out into the stars. The eager colonial office put out two bids, one to participate in the colonization of Atlantis alongside the Europeans and one to claim a frontier system in its own right. Both were accepted. This was a problem.

Russia did not have the resources for two colonization efforts. The Atlantis deal came with contractual obligations, and the Russians were forced to slow the settlement of Yedintstvo, trapping it in the shadow of the Daughters. Relief came with Russian intervention in the Great American Refugee Crisis. Untold millions of Americans (both North and Latin) would immigrate to Inspiration, making it a center of the diaspora.

Decades passed. As Yedinstvo drifted away from her motherland (the split was rather amicable - the two are still allies in most things, and their fleets operate an officer exchange program) she became vulnerable to corporate influence. The mid 22nd century saw the Charters fight it out, often in the streets. In the end the rising Ares Conflict Solutions won with Columbian backing. Ares maintains a strong grasp on the system's government and uses it obtain everything from tax breaks to monopolies to...well, a moon.

an' another one bites the dust! as before, population number is just a wild guess and i'm cool with changes, but i was struck by inspiration and wanted to write about some treehuggers. think my favorite part was arbitrarily deciding which russian place names were pronounceable enough to stay untranslated and which would be translated in common use.

yeastmobile · Mar 2, 2022

Traehgniw said:
Map designation: NT-27

I already posted something for NT-27?

The Laurent · Mar 2, 2022

yeastmobile said:
I already posted something for NT-27?

They can compete.

yeastmobile · Mar 2, 2022

The Laurent said:
They can compete.

I was wondering.

Elero · Mar 2, 2022

#GalacticSurvey

Map Designation: NT-18
System Name: Scherrer-Dirac
Political Status: Research Outpost administered by a council of three sub-deans
Charter Presence: System is owned by a holding company that is in turn jointly owned by three prestigious Universities from Atlantis. Various small charter subsidiaries on all settled worlds.
System Population: 210 million, concentrated on Heisenberg and Pauli.

System Bodies:
1
- Curie, Extremely hot, Mercury-like planet.
2
- Einstein, Hot ball of rock, tidally locked to the system's star, some mining operation takes place on the cold side.
3
- Asteroid belt, significant mining takes place here for local industry and some small amount of export.
4
- Becquerel, Jovian with 27 moons and an extensive ring system, only most important moons are listed here but all bear the name of a famous physicist.
4-a
- Heisenberg, rocky moon with unique geological makeup. Most populated body in system.
4-b
- Plank, icy moon with liquid water under the ice shelves.
4-c
- Pauli, rocky moon, mineral-rich.
4-d
- Hertz, icy moon, settled.
5
- Schrödinger, Icy World with little of interest.

Notable Features:
Heisenberg: Contains four large settlements built around university campuses, as well as numerous small research outposts staffed by unlucky or unpopular grad students along the entire surface. This moon is notable for its unique geological makeup that is hoped to reveal insights into the formation of Jovian systems and is being extensively studied. Moreover, millions of people now call this moon their home as habitats quickly grew.

Plank: Icy moon with liquid oceans below surface, search for single-cell life under the ice shelves is still ongoing. There are a handful of research outposts where specially-built submarines are sent down to take samples or explore.

Pauli: Mineral-rich, small moon, this is where a significant part of the system's mining and manufacturing takes place. As part of their tuition voucher labour program, the ruling sub-deans have financed extensive manufacturing plants that now produce consumer goods under a license contract for several charters. This is the second-most populous body in the system.

Hertz: Containing a very pleasant gravity of 0.7, this moon is well situated to admire Becquerel's ring system. the third, settled world in the system, Hertz is where the more well-off students from Heisenberg go to let off some steam and where visitors and tourists travelling through often take a break. Still, the world does not have enough to offer to attract many out-system visitors.

System History:
The rights to the system were initially purchased by HI when they read about a jovian's moon containing 'unique geological features not seen anywhere else in the galaxy'. To the crushing disappointment of the Hi failson that ordered the rush purchase, said geological features are far less attractive to tourists than the name might suggest, consisting mostly of slightly different chemical makeup of sediment and some mountains that are higher than they should be. As one surveyor sent to scout the location as a tourist destination put it: 'this rock is of no interest to anyone without a PhD. in Geology or an unhealthy kink for slightly off-color rocks'.
HI managed to cut their losses by selling the system below its nominal value to a conglomerate of universities, writing off the difference between nominal value and purchase price as a charitable donation to get, barely, back into the black.

The new owners renamed the system as well as every planet, moon and planetoid after a scientist or two and built several geological research outposts on Heisenberg. As time went on, local operations grew until satellite campuses were founded on Heisenberg. Many students of geology visited the system for a semester or two as part of their studies, with some sticking around for advanced research. The location of the campus, out in the frontier but still part of a prestigious Sister university, drew interest from locals that could not afford the extensive trip to Atlantis and back, not to mention the high cost of living and tuition fees. The sub-deans quickly took advantage of this interest, generously enabling less fortunate frontier-families a 'chance to a high-quality education' via a special system:

Local workers can be paid partially in study vouchers which can be used to pay tuition fees for the local university branches, enabling one to get a bachelor's degree with the name of a Sister-tier University after just a few decades of below minimum wage labour, with barely any debt to your name. It is estimated that over 60% of the workers in the system receive payment partially in tuition waivers, either to save up for their own education or to finance that of a relative.

Using this cheap labour force, the sub-deans have begun to extend their mandates quite a bit. University employees now mine the local asteroids or manufacture goods for export, providing a steady stream of income for the owners in tasks not in any way related to the running of the local campuses.

Tatbee · Mar 2, 2022

The Laurent said:
They can compete.

They're only competing for the map ID though.
Plenty of empty spots, the "loser" can just be somewhere else.

Tatbee · Mar 2, 2022

#GalacticSurvey
Two linked systems, QMs can place them anywhere they like.

Map Designation: ???; adjacent to Horizon system.
System Name: Bermuda
Political Status: Owned by Horizon Corp, Omoikane subsidiary.
Charter Presence: Omoikane
System Population: ???

System Bodies:
Survey incomplete.
Star not detected. Scattered debris fields. Shattered planetoids. Unstable Jump Point(s).

Notes:
System is subject of Horizon Corp research.
Under quarantine, due to hazardous phenomena.
Human entry restricted, access by remote drone only.

Map Designation: ???; adjacent to Bermuda system.
System Name: Horizon
Political Status: Owned by Horizon Corp, Omoikane subsidiary.
Charter Presence: Omoikane
System Population: ~10,000

System Bodies:
#1a Trinary Star
#1b Trinary Star
#2 Planet, Lava, Small
#3 Planet, Desert
#4 "Eventide" - Planet, Tidal Locked, Boreal/Arid, Large, conditions are 90% "Evening"(Earth-relative) in most habitable areas.
#5 Planet, Barren, Small
#5a Planetary Ring
#6 Asteroid Belt
#7 Trinary Star
#7a Planet, Gas, Small
#7b Planet, Gas, Huge

Notes:
Trinary system, subject of Horizon Corp research.
Eventide Horizon Corp orbital habitat, Even-A.
Eventide Horizon Corp surface colony, Even-B.
Eventide Horizon Corp surface outpost, Even-C.

...Eventide Horizon... :eek:

...something is in Bermuda.

Traehgniw · Mar 2, 2022

yeastmobile said:
I already posted something for NT-27?

Heck sorry

I just grabbed the first major system I saw

Drake or NS 6 would actually fit better, I'll edit that

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

Been Better

Gay and Stupid

Been Better

Cannon Fodder

Cannon Fodder