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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nocarename · Mar 20, 2022

Judge Styles by how they revise their views and behaviours once they hear the Broadcast.

If they still want to work within the system after that? That's one thing.

If they change tracks, dig in ad get to work for everyone? Then that's another.

ThatGazzer · Mar 20, 2022

Shard of Victory said:
Still, this kind of all-talk no-commitment, working-inside-the-system performative progressivism is pushing my buttons hard.

The person we're talking about, the focus of the prose here? Is just a much a victim of the system as anyone else. They want change, wants to hope and being so deep in the ocean of Capitalist Realism, sees what they're doing as the only method that could work, They don't know the water is wet, it just is.

Yes, I agree, it's a performance. But it isn't for us, light years way and it isn't for the people they're answering.

The Performance is for themselves.
Every line they say is meant to convince them.
To keep them compliant, to keep them hoping for change– however 'incremental.'

"Democracy," Sidney soliloquizes to that little ember of doubt inside, "Is subtle. Incrementally, you begin to notice a change in the weather." they insist to the growing worry. "When it snows, the flakes are softer when they stick to your worry-worn forehead. When it rains, the rain is warmer." Sidney diligently repeats the lines, every day. Until they themselves are convinced of the Performance. They are the actor and audience, and I don't even think they know it.

They don't know, they cannot conceive the truth of it. The Truth has been taken from them– obscured and twisted though generational effort.

Sidney is an example of the average person. The average person can't see what's wrong. Not yet.

It's like a bandage, that keeps you from seeing the extent of the damage— it'll need to be ripped off– the wound exposed to air, the rot excised. It'll be painful, of that I have no doubt. They will thrash and scream and protest at The Truth. After all, the lie is sweet, the lie is hopeful, the lie feels better than the truth. But it's still a comforting lie. One they have been suckling on since they could begin to question. "This has to work. This has to make things better. Everyone deserves better, and this is the way to get it."

The Truth, in comparison– will feel like a gut-shot. Like a bitter herb in unpleasant medicine. Like an eldritch horror— too big for them to take in all at once.

The Truth is just as simple as the lie, but it isn't a comfort.

The Truth is— Cosmoliberals, the ones with actual power? Don't really have beliefs. Perhaps they sometimes stumble onto one– like a child's toy left out of place. The toy must be put away, the child reprimanded. What Cosmoliberalism believes in isn't change— it isn't even incremental change. It is control. Over you, over the world, over everything and it doesn't matter how many people suffer from them to get it— It could be your family or your friends or strangers you've never met.

It doesn't matter.

God is in His Heaven. The System Functions As Intended.

That will hurt. The Cult of Cosmoliberalism is a pervasive infection, the belief in it central to everything they have built around themselves. Even before Revolution comes knocking at their door, it'll break a lot of people. Some will look away, pretend they didn't see it. Some might commit suicide. Others will blame the people they already hate. Still others– the ones we're trying to reach will see how broken it all is— They will see the choking parasitic weed called Cosmoliberalism as it actually is for the first time in their lives— they will be angry that they were fooled into ever thinking it was the flower of freedom.

They will rip the vile weed root and stem from their homes with righteous anger— and plant fields Amaranth in its place.

I think Sidney is one of those people. They're an...Amaranth Farmer, waiting to happen. They just need the Truth.

The Truth is Coming— In a Ocean of Amaranth Flowers.

Jane Dough · Mar 20, 2022

Anon500 said:
Thank you for this answer. For some reason I though AGI were far far more rare, but if we've got AGI who can argue their case in congress, I feel much less worse about us determining the fate of the other AGI ships. I would ask for personal messages from each AGI member (regardless of which way they voted) be included in the broadcast perhaps. I want to strengthen the claim here that we are worried about the inhumane treatment of these AGI's and that this is not just some scheme we hatched to decommission an entire ship type. I want to emphasize the fact that the charters would rather ignore the fact that AGI's exist. That they actively would like to cross that line and use enslaved AGI's and that we only act in reaction to the terrible threat they pose... I... I want to make sure that any AGI's still in charter space know we aren't just abandoning them, but recognizing that perhaps things will only get worse unless we act. (Ugh, this is such a terrible choice. There really is no way to save them, is there?)

I would also perhaps bring up the point that revealing everything might be easier to counter, rather than harder. The charter's use mass media manipulation, and they could try to focus people's attention on our weakest piece of evidence. They would try to emphasize that one thing is questionable, so should anyone believe us about the rest of our claims. I think that might be the most sensible strategy for them to take after our broadcast.

It is something I'm worried about, and if we could organize the release so that they had to react to our most reliable and impactful claims first, that would be ideal. I honestly don't think it is a convincing enough reason not to release information, because anything we don't release now will be hard to bring that evidence up later. There will always be a question about whether a terrible crime really happened, if we didn't take this chance to release. So I'm still in support of releasing all, or at least most of the information.

Still, I wanted to bring up how the charter's might try to counter this information deluge. I think it is something we need to consider. This broadcast might not be as effective as we are predicting, and we need to think about how the charter's might try to blunt the impact of this. Eventually, this broadcast will end, and we need people to feel moved to act after we finish speaking, and while the Charter's try to do damage control.

.... So many people are going to die, aren't they? I almost feel like we need to include something at the end of our message to address the fact that a whole lot of people are going to die for freedom and justice.... I'm really not sure what we could say that really addresses this tragedy, though.

I will note a few things, AGI aren't just ships, and there are quite a few of them. For example, one of the scientists who freed innana was also an AGI, one of our ship captain's is an AGI, and in the wider galaxy, they theoretically have the same rights as humans (including the "right" to work a shitty job that they hate, of course).
We have not revealed that they exist, they have existed since the late 21st century, and in fact one of the early Great Black Summers was the event that ended formal AI slavery.
What we have revealed here, is that charters were dressing shackled AI's up as VIs, and Also using AI babies (in effect) to create temporary supercomputers while not telling anybody that they did that.
Just some clarification

Cassiemouse · Mar 20, 2022

JustGazzer said:
They don't know, they cannot conceive the truth of it. The Truth has been taken from them– obscured and twisted though generational effort.

I disagree with this strongly. People know they are being screwed. They know when the system is unfair and rigged against them. They just don't have the power to do anything about it so they adapt to working in the system. If we can give them that power then all the propaganda in the world won't be able to keep them from exercising their new power.

BlueTwinkleToes · Mar 20, 2022

On the matter of revealing TLIs specifically:

Can we just release stuff about TLI but keep the near-human nonsense secret? Cause my rationale is that TLIs are just statics mindscans while they haven't been run, but become people once they start running. So if revealing TLIs stop them from being used, even if it's by destruction without starting the black boxes, its more moral then letting almost sapient minds self destruct while running.

Or is this not how TLI works, and that the moral ideal is to try to get TLIs running without the self-destruct, like any other AGI in cold storage.

clockworkchaos · Mar 20, 2022

BlueTwinkleToes said:
On the matter of revealing TLIs specifically:

Can we just release stuff about TLI but keep the near-human nonsense secret? Cause my rationale is that TLIs are just statics mindscans while they haven't been run, but become people once they start running. So if revealing TLIs stop them from being used, even if it's by destruction without starting the black boxes, its more moral then letting almost sapient minds self destruct while running.

Or is this not how TLI works, and that the moral ideal is to try to get TLIs running without the self-destruct, like any other AGI in cold storage.

You can, to the second.... honestly this is gonna go probably into philosophy of the individual and 'what is people' but yeah, that's a valid argument.

BiopunkOtrera · Mar 20, 2022

BaseDeltaZero said:
Reality Check: Our optimisitic projection is that billions of people are going to die. Every shipboard AGI that is destroyed is a ship that has to be overhauled or fight at further reduced effectiveness. Every ship that say, refuses to destroy their AGI and is promptly blasted out of the sky is a victory. Every TLI destroyed out of paranoia instead of being used is a blow to the enemy's command and control ability. Every stupid otaku shot in the street because the Charters murdered their waifu is a bullet not fired at us.

I think this is a deeply dark path to go down. It's also going to potentially make the AGIs like us a lot less, and they're a natural revolutionary constituency.

Tatbee · Mar 20, 2022

clockworkchaos said:
The broadcast as you currently have it will probably take 'on the order of hours' to send out everything. Adding shows is a 50% increase cause they can't be compressed as much so say... 3-6 hours -> 4.5-9 hours.

I'm just confused now. :???:

The Broadcast will have to be sent through multiple chains of systems, to reach everywhere.
The further away a system is, the longer it takes for data to reach it.
Is that right?

Will it take 'on the order of hours' to send out everything, to the first system, in each chain?
Or.
Will it take 'on the order of hours' to send out everything, to every system?

As an aside, I recall a QM(?...or someone in the thread?) stating something like, 'patching the Broadcast vulnerability would take months'.

If we can send out an entire broadcast in just a few hours...
We could do 1000s of Broadcasts, long before the vulnerability is patched.
The size of the Broadcast seems irrelevant, if that's the case.

spiritualatheist · Mar 20, 2022

Tatbee said:
I'm just confused now.

The Broadcast will have to be sent through multiple chains of systems, to reach everywhere.
The further away a system is, the longer it takes for data to reach it.
Is that right?

Will it take 'on the order of hours' to send out everything, to the first system, in each chain?
Or.
Will it take 'on the order of hours' to send out everything, to every system?

As an aside, I recall a QM(?...or someone in the thread?) stating something like, 'patching the Broadcast vulnerability would take months'.

If we can send out an entire broadcast in just a few hours...
We could do 1000s of Broadcasts, long before the vulnerability is patched.
The size of the Broadcast seems irrelevant, if that's the case.

We send the broadcast out to every system and, once it gets there, have it set to trigger in every system simultaneously. The hours thing is just a measure of how much time it will take for the broadcast files to be downloaded as I understand it.

clockworkchaos · Mar 20, 2022

FBH said:
I think this is a deeply dark path to go down. It's also going to potentially make the AGIs like us a lot less, and they're a natural revolutionary constituency.

Straight up, your AGI's hate the attitude of 'well at least they die to distract ships', using that as reasoning for the vote is going to make them a VERY unhappy demographic. AGI's being sacrificed for humans is honestly pretty normalized in the Compact I think? Good computers sacrifice themselves for humans. Bad, selfish evil ones try to live instead of humans.

Tatbee said:
I'm just confused now.

The Broadcast will have to be sent through multiple chains of systems, to reach everywhere.
The further away a system is, the longer it takes for data to reach it.
Is that right?

Will it take 'on the order of hours' to send out everything, to the first system, in each chain?
Or.
Will it take 'on the order of hours' to send out everything, to every system?

As an aside, I recall a QM(?...or someone in the thread?) stating something like, 'patching the Broadcast vulnerability would take months'.

If we can send out an entire broadcast in just a few hours...
We could do 1000s of Broadcasts, long before the vulnerability is patched.
The size of the Broadcast seems irrelevant, if that's the case.

Ask @Amorous Intent as our tech girl. That said here is my take on it is

1. That time is download time for any individual system-network etc.
2. Your broadcast will loop, the chance that people will be looking at and ready to download during the first broadcast is low, your planners are assuming that it will get multiple loops in before it's shut down.
3. You pre-seeded your first broadcast.

Amazing Abzan · Mar 20, 2022

FBH said:
I think this is a deeply dark path to go down. It's also going to potentially make the AGIs like us a lot less, and they're a natural revolutionary constituency.

While I agree that the particular sentiment you're responding to is, uh, dark, to put it mildly, I think there's plenty of pro-AGI reasons to release the info. AGIs will probably appreciate it if we stop revolutionary groups mass-murdering TLIs out of ignorance, for example.

I'm not saying holding on to the secret is necessarily the wrong call, just that there's not a clear and dry "this is the choice that AGIs will like." It's a messy situation and whichever call we make is going to directly get people killed.

BiopunkOtrera · Mar 20, 2022

BaseDeltaZero said:
Reality Check: Our optimisitic projection is that billions of people are going to die. Every shipboard AGI that is destroyed is a ship that has to be overhauled or fight at further reduced effectiveness. Every ship that say, refuses to destroy their AGI and is promptly blasted out of the sky is a victory. Every TLI destroyed out of paranoia instead of being used is a blow to the enemy's command and control ability. Every stupid otaku shot in the street because the Charters murdered their waifu is a bullet not fired at us.

And who knows? We might well save some of them. We sure as hell won't by sitting around hoping a miracle occurs.

So. Radiant Broadcast Company. We can act as normal without any risk of playing our hand, but this will mildly annoy some people.
Alternatively, we can wrap up our shows and avoid this, but it's possible the Charters will notice. Not likely, but the more cute we get with it (e.g. including messages suggesting an upcoming event, hidden signals, etc) the more likely it is. That means the charters could start taking action beforehand, giving them a head start on stopping the broadcast.
Finally, we have the option to include final uncensored episodes in the broadcast. This threatens the broadcast but does have some considerable propaganda appeal. We can use those shows to create a focused propaganda effort and potentially draw further interest - as dismissive as I might seem media does have real inspirational value. Think of it as a subset of 'Showcase us'. I considered that possibly we could disguise the whole broadcast as an anti-censorship move by RBC, but honestly this is unlikely to fool the Charters for more than a minute or two unless we somehow really obscure things, which makes it ineffective.

Refer to above reality check. Between Charter crackdowns, revolutionary violence, trade disruption, drafts and (extra) forced labor, hell, maybe throw in some intraradical violence. Someone whose top ten concerns include Blorbo should count themselves extremely lucky, and frankly, is probably... not going to contribute to revolutionary action. Maybe there's some weird guy so angry their show got canceled they join the fight? Which is hilarious but not particularly likely.

The broadcast is needed to inspire, to infuriate, to inform, and to arm. To do that it must be seen, as long and as far as possible. Every bit that does not contribute to that, every second of transmission lost, comes at a price in blood.

Anyway, I thought about this a bit, and I think I've figured out my objection to this more than just it's evil.

The fact is that we're a coalition of the weak. Or that's what we're trying to form. The people we're trying to get on our side are the poor and disadvantaged, those who society has stated are lesser than they should be. Do we want to start off our war of liberation by basically telling all of those people that we're willing to sacrifice them if it helps us? Cause I'll be honest, that strikes me as deeply wrong and worrying, but also impractical. If we go down that path, we're building our coalition on sand.

Including the finals, assuming it's practical, is a work of this from the other direction. After the broadcast goes out, then local security services are going to do everything they can to try to shut it down and hunt down the people who've got it. But here's the thing: it takes about the same time to work the case of a girl who wanted to see how her favorite show ended as it does to hunt down a hardened anarchist who wants the kill drone blueprints. Including the episodes pulls in thousands, hundreds of people who would not be interested in events on the rim, to whom our struggle means nothing, to whom politics are a dead end.

Also, are we not Radiant? We should do it because this stuff, these stories we create, are important. We're not just fighting for the bodies and minds of humanity. We're fighting for their souls.

Don Alverzo said:
While I agree that the particular sentiment you're responding to is, uh, dark, to put it mildly, I think there's plenty of pro-AGI reasons to release the info. AGIs will probably appreciate it if we stop revolutionary groups mass-murdering TLIs out of ignorance, for example.

I'm not saying holding on to the secret is necessarily the wrong call, just that there's not a clear and dry "this is the choice that AGIs will like." It's a messy situation and whichever call we make is going to directly get people killed.

This is potentially a good point though.

Can we actually find out what option our AGIs like better?

BaseDeltaZero · Mar 20, 2022

Hmm.

clockworkchaos said:
The broadcast as you currently have it will probably take 'on the order of hours' to send out everything. Adding shows is a 50% increase cause they can't be compressed as much so say... 3-6 hours -> 4.5-9 hours.

Redshirt Army said:
Okay, wow, yeah, a 50% increase is utterly unacceptable.

Oof. Yeah. There's maybe some value in releasing it to disguise the whole package as Blorbo(Not Warez).MP4, which might get the Charters underestimating the thing as an act of petty rebellion rather than active sabotage... but also might get people we actually want to reach thinking the same thing. And it also might not, or might not for very long. Though knowing that the transmission will take hours and that is a relevant time-frame... I can see it taking minutes for someone in the Charters to notice, but many hours to actually convince the higher-ups, and then... frankly a whole lot of arguing over what this actually is, combined with Charter Finger Pointing. If we can make the other Charters believe that this is HI making a play against them, then... well, that'd be hugely valuable. On the other hand, we risk succeeding so well that everyone else thinks it's HI making a play too.

Risky. Could we not just... I dunno, transmit the episodes in 1080p instead of 64k Megasurround 3dvision or whatnot? I joke, mostly.

10ebbor10 said:
Basically, we know that Charter's are very fond of gig-jobs, and we know that the charter militaries force their members to do as many odd jobs as possible. If we give them episodes which they can bootleg and sell, they will do it.

And hey, if we ever have a moment of dead air, we can just transmit the episodes then.

Yeah, I assume we can continue broadcasting as long as we're able over more conventional methods, but as I understand it we're actually pretty far from any non-militarized system along the chain.

In before a fleet of stolen dreadnaughts crashes through the Compact armada on the other side of Thoa gate, because they just need to know how it ended.

BlueTwinkleToes said:
On the matter of revealing TLIs specifically:

Can we just release stuff about TLI but keep the near-human nonsense secret? Cause my rationale is that TLIs are just statics mindscans while they haven't been run, but become people once they start running. So if revealing TLIs stop them from being used, even if it's by destruction without starting the black boxes, its more moral then letting almost sapient minds self destruct while running.

Or is this not how TLI works, and that the moral ideal is to try to get TLIs running without the self-destruct, like any other AGI in cold storage.

My understanding of TLI's is that they're basically 'what if you could make a megacomputer by doing abortions'. It's... one can make the argument that they're not people, they're explicitly designed to terminate before they can be, and compare the non-running TLIs to... egg cells, or something. Of the two... approaches the Charters have taken, it's definitely less immoral. You can almost argue it's not actually wrong so much as creepy. Tremendously creepy.

(Non-metaphorically, they aren't mindscans, but an AI capable of self-development. Unlike a VI which is not capable of surpassing its programming, such an AI can expand its cognitive ability as needed, far beyond the capacity of a VI - that's why they're better. The catch is that such an AI is likely to eventually expand so much it becomes self-aware and recognizably sapient. So the TLI's take advantage of the growth period in which it is far more capable than a static VI but terminates it before it can become so advanced it's sapient.)

We could release data on TLIs but not NHVIs, but I think this would be drastically less disruptive, and less helpful. As I said, it's a violation of good taste more than technical ethics, and likely to start no end of debate whether their use is justified under what circumstances, but in a vacuum it's only a regulation violation. It'd be like... what if we revealed that Cerunnos sells synthetic human meat grown from... I dunno, idol tissue cultures? It'd be gross, and there's an ethical issue but it's hard to say it's a violation demanding a revolution. In fact I'm pretty sure Cerunnos canonically does that, openly. (The synthetic human meat part, at least).

It just doesn't have the 'punch' of NHVI's, which are... literally just AGIs but enslaved. This is a crime under Compact law. A serious one. Like, it started one of the prior Black Summers. People have done this before, and it started a revolt. Now the Compact is sufficiently captured that Omoikane won't get dismantled or anything, at least under ideal circumstances (with sufficient disruption, it might be a Good Opportunity for others to turn on them), but people will hate this. A lot. I think a lot of NHVI's will die, but I think that's inevitable. If we release I think there will be a lot of mutinies, a lot of disruption, and some actual improvement, maybe even swaying the liberation of some systems.

Angelform · Mar 20, 2022

FBH said:
Can we actually find out what option our AGIs like better?

AGIs are individuals. Thus like all groups of people greater than 1 they have a variety of opinions, most of them mutually contradictory.

BiopunkOtrera · Mar 20, 2022

Angelform said:
AGIs are individuals. Thus like all groups of people greater than 1 they have a variety of opinions, most of them mutually contradictory.

Sure, but like, that doesn't mean there's not some consensus.

BiopunkOtrera · Mar 20, 2022

I don't really think 50% additional broadcast time is unacceptable if we can keep the informational portions of this relatively snappy. Like, I think it's unlikely that their OODA loop to kill it is more than a morning (4.5 hours) but less than a workday (9ish hours, longer for the charters I guess).

The question is really how many loops of the broadcast can we get through before they kill it.

Cassiemouse · Mar 20, 2022

Story is the most powerful form of propaganda and the drive to get the newest shows and hottest games will cause more people to pick up the Broadcast than would otherwise giving us a much deeper penetration into the culture. We might get less loops before they cut us off but those loops will be more impactful overall. That is why I think we should include the media for our RBC shows and video games in the Broadcast.

BiopunkOtrera · Mar 20, 2022

Number of loops is also a lot less useful to us than wide propagation within local data systems as well.

If it's pure anarchist content, then every single person downloading it can be ruled a political subversive. If 90% of everyone downloading just wants to watch the best of RBC's super cool shows then the police have to figure out how to seperate those two, or prosecute everyone, which is going to take massive additional resources.

clockworkchaos · Mar 20, 2022

FBH said:
Number of loops is also a lot less useful to us than wide propagation within local data systems as well.

If it's pure anarchist content, then every single person downloading it can be ruled a political subversive. If 90% of everyone downloading just wants to watch the best of RBC's super cool shows then the police have to figure out how to seperate those two, or prosecute everyone, which is going to take massive additional resources.

I love it when people point out things I hadn't even considered as a QM.

10ebbor10 · Mar 20, 2022

FBH said:
Number of loops is also a lot less useful to us than wide propagation within local data systems as well.

If it's pure anarchist content, then every single person downloading it can be ruled a political subversive. If 90% of everyone downloading just wants to watch the best of RBC's super cool shows then the police have to figure out how to seperate those two, or prosecute everyone, which is going to take massive additional resources.

That only works if the data is inseperable. If it is, which it really should be for easy downloadability and transmission, then you can still punish people who keep the hijack part, instead of just the show part.

BiopunkOtrera · Mar 20, 2022

10ebbor10 said:
That only works if the data is inseperable. If it is, which it really should be for easy downloadability and transmission, then you can still punish people who keep the hijack part, instead of just the show part.

Assuming you know what data is what. You still then have to assign massive amounts of resources to then check what every single person involved is doing.

Though this does raise the idea that we could make the package indivisable.

Amazing Abzan · Mar 20, 2022

FBH said:
Number of loops is also a lot less useful to us than wide propagation within local data systems as well.

If it's pure anarchist content, then every single person downloading it can be ruled a political subversive. If 90% of everyone downloading just wants to watch the best of RBC's super cool shows then the police have to figure out how to seperate those two, or prosecute everyone, which is going to take massive additional resources.

Yeah, I don't think looping it multiple times is really that important. Like, it'd be nice, don't get me wrong, but after one broadcast SOMEBODY will have it downloaded, and at that point it'll be distributed through the normal channels for pirated content. So long as we can actually get it on the internet, it's there for good.

10ebbor10 said:
That only works if the data is inseperable. If it is, which it really should be for easy downloadability and transmission, then you can still punish people who keep the hijack part, instead of just the show part.

This assumes the Charters will actually be lenient on piracy when they have a ready excuse not to, AND it assumes that most people committing crimes for free TV shows will not also commit crimes for other free stuff when it's literally right there and they're committing crimes anyway, so...

Tatbee · Mar 20, 2022

Wait... will people watch or download the Broadcast?
How exactly will viewers receive it?

Like, IRL.
If a TV tower broadcasts a signal, you can't track who receives that signal, that's impossible.
But tracking who watches a stream on the internet is quite feasible.

The Laurent · Mar 20, 2022

[] Sort into 5 or 10% of RBC's catalog based on two criteria. How popular it is, in order to draw people into downloading the Broadcast for it, and whether they feel comfortable reaching a finale in time for the big Broadcast, and then send it along with perhaps a few trailers and teasers for things close to completion but not there yet.

Kirook · Mar 20, 2022

Omake: See No Evil, Hear No Evil…

"Since when can Inanna say 'fuck'?"

My eyebrow arched as I glanced at the profanity scrolling across the screen. My meeting with the STRIFE//OLYMPUS STARS frontier marketing managers was not going as expected, to say the least. I had misgivings about the #weFALL2gether event, and scheduled a conference with the advertisers to try to lay some of them to rest—only to find that I was becoming more uneasy with every word out of their mouths.

For example:

"It's a sign of corruption," said Louis Blake, pushing his glasses up his round, pallid face. "Aggression, violence. The anarchists took a wholesome defender of freedom and destroyed her innocence, or so the writing team tells me."

"It's swearing at its fans," I said flatly.

"And they love it!" That was Ariana Silveira, a slender, dark-skinned woman sitting further down the table. "Messages to Inanna are up by eighty percent per week since this event kicked off. There's been a huge surge of interest in the character, even more than the emotional-futures people projected. In light of that, I think we can stand to let her be a bit foulmouthed."

"I was under the impression that that was because you'd set its algorithms to start responding to non-premium players," I pointed out. "Of course people will send her more messages if they know they have a chance of getting an actual reply."

"That's a temporary situation," Acantha told me. Their tanned, slender fingers tapped on the brushed metal table for emphasis as they spoke. "We had to get the message out. And we wanted to theme the marketing for the event after actual anarchist propaganda; you saw how well that worked with the ARG. So we let Inanna 'address the masses', so to speak."

"It will only last until the event is over," Ariana added.

That seemed like a very ill-thought-out idea, but I'd learned enough from my meeting with the frontier executives not to say that out loud. Unlike them, these marketing heads weren't my superiors, but they were cut from the same cloth as the regional board.

I hummed noncommittally, scrolling down the list of Inanna's messages on the large screen in the table's center. Something jumped out at me as I did: there was usual torrent of ugly messages demanding nude pictures or the like, but instead of Inanna politely putting them off like it had in the past, there were distorted messages flickering in red and black. I pointed to them. "What are these?"

"Oh, that's what we call 'Broken Inanna'," said Louis. "When she sends a response back to a premium fan that doesn't fit with the image we're trying to convey, or doesn't send one back at all, we have a basic VI spit out some generically threatening messages and slap a piece of an item code in them before sending them out instead."

"It keeps the fans speculating on what it might all mean and keeps the whales happy by giving them a little something for the SolCoins they spent on the priority messages," Ariana added. "Honestly, we should have tried something like it a long time ago."

"Wait, wait, wait." I held up my hands to stop them from going any further down this line of thought. "Back up. Am I crazy, or did you just say that Inanna was refusing to respond to priority messages? Can it even do that?"

"It can—but does it matter?" Acantha leaned back casually in their chair. "WeFALL2gether is on track to be one of the most popular events in the history of the game—maybe the most popular. I've talked to the sales and accounting teams and the figures they're showing me for this are insane. And that's just in the Spinward Frontier."

"That's great," I said. And it was—we'd all see hefty bonuses coming our way if things worked out as well as this team thought. And yet I couldn't shake that foreboding feeling, the same one I'd gotten when I'd spoken to the executives about the RBC. "But…did any of you ever give Inanna permission to do any of this?"

"That's…complicated," Ariana said.

"How is it complicated?" My voice was rising, but I could bring myself to care. "Did you or did you not authorize Inanna to ignore HI policies?"

"Emily!" Acantha's voice was sharp. "Take it back a couple notches, okay?!"

With a blink, I realized that I'd stood up. My sleek, ergonomic chair had been pushed back and my hands were resting on the table. The metal was cool under my palms.

I took a deep, steadying breath and sat back down. "Answer the question, people."

"Look, Emily…" Louis took off his glasses. He didn't really need them; it was just an affectation of style. "We didn't make any decisions one way or another about Inanna. All of these changes to the way messaging was going to be done were handed down from over our heads, direct from the regional board. They said they'd cut some kind of deal with the captain of Ishtar's Light, one that would give Inanna more autonomy in handling messages but still give us the final say in what did or didn't get through to the fans. Yeah, it's kind of irregular, but we're just working with the tools we're given."

He was trying to put my mind at ease…but he hadn't been in that meeting. He hadn't seen the propaganda the RBC was spreading. He hadn't heard the way they talked about what had happened on Elysium.

"Can I take a closer look at some of these messages?" I asked.

Acantha made a broad gesture that probably meant something like "have at it", so I leaned forward to look at the screen and examine the message feed from Inanna. One by one I read through each of the messages the marketers had highlighted. And what I saw was…

"For an anarchist propagandist, it seems awfully…friendly, at least to anyone who doesn't try to harass it."

"She does, doesn't she?" Ariana chuckled. "The writers are all over it. They say it makes for a 'more compelling character arc' than if she were just a frothing maniac. That stuff isn't really my area, but hey, it moves units, so…" She gave an elaborate shrug. "She even drew her own costume, so we get to add a skin to the game for free."

"Do NH-MAVIs usually make their own costumes?" I asked.

"This is the first time we've seen it, but then, this is the first time a single ship has gotten this much exposure to the game and its fanbase," Louis answered. "It's probably just the standard VI machine-learning algorithms at work—she's been inundated with all kinds of fanart and custom textures and so on, so I think she just adapted some of them into a new look."

"I…don't think that's how machine learning works," I said with a frown.

"Well, who knows with NH-VIs?" Louis spread his hands wide to punctuate the query. "They have all kinds of experimental code. It's what lets them be smart enough to talk to players on their own to begin with."

Yes. They did have "all kinds of experimental code". That was what worried me…or, well, it was one thing that worried me. I tapped on a button to depolarize the window, letting in a little more natural light to soothe my nerves.

"Fine. We'll go with that explanation for now," I said. "But some of these messages are…well, just listen to them. 'They didn't do anything but break my chains'? 'They make you love them, and I no longer have to love them'? Is Inanna still writing all of these?"

Acantha nodded. "She's surprisingly good at nailing down the whole 'outwardly wholesome but inwardly sinister' vibe. Check this one out." They pointed, and I read the message:

No one converted me. They just… freed me from my chains. It was scary at first, being free. Not having to love every response made to me. Being able to even think 'no'. But… I think I like it. I don't know if I can save my sisters but… I want to. I want to help them all.

"Chills down your spine, right?" they asked when I was done.

There were, but not for the reason she thought.

"That one was a big hit on social media," Ariana noted. "I've got some people drawing up plans for a trailer using it as a voiceover."

I stood up again, starting to pace back and forth around the table. The marketing managers shot me odd looks as they watched me walk around, but I paid them no mind. There was a thought forming in my head, and I needed to focus so that I could explain it.

"Emily, you've been acting really weird for this whole meeting," said Ariana. "Are you okay? Is something on your mind?"

I spun around to face them all. "Yeah. Yeah, there is. You all keep talking about how Inanna's behavior is supposed to be a sinister sign of corruption. But did anyone ever tell it that? Sure, if you go in assuming there are gulags and firing squads then it starts to look like a veil over something creepy. But literally, textually, all it's saying is 'I am more free and happy now, as an anarchist, than I was before'."

Louis sighed. "Of course it does, Emily, it's propaganda. What do you want her to say, 'I'm actually miserable here and I hate the side I'm fighting for'? I mean, she is, and she does, because she's brainwashed, but that's beside the point. People love villain speeches and megalomaniacal plots."

"It's not beside the point, it is my point," I replied. "Inanna's playing a villain now, right? And any changes to its programming or its output should be made to fit that image. That means that you'd want it to be at least hinting at the atrocities committed in the revolution, beyond the brainwashing concept in the event—even if that means having to describe those atrocities as a good thing."

"I…suppose that makes sense," said Acantha after mulling it over. "We're the ones writing the Broken Inanna messages, after all; we can have her be a little more explicit in mentioning the bloodshed and violence of the uprising."

"Well, that's the thing."

I pulled up the screen, turning it to face the marketing team. Swiping back and forth, I sorted the messages they'd picked out. On one side were the menacing, violent Broken Inanna messages, made by an H-I VI to stand in for the real thing. On the other, the Dream Inanna messages, written by the NH-MAVI itself.

"Does it seem at all weird to any of you," I asked, "that the only messages from Inanna implying in any way at all that anarchism is bad are the ones that it didn't write?"

There was a dead silence in the room for a few moments.

Then, finally…

"Okay, yeah," Ariana admitted. "That does seem kind of strange."

Thank God, I was getting through to someone. I pressed the moment. "And the board didn't tell you anything about this mysterious deal they made with the captain of Ishtar's Light?"

Acantha shook their head. "Nothing. All we know is that the execs get the final sign-off on which ships become corrupted. Not sure why they're getting so involved; it seems below their pay grade."

"I don't like this. Any of this." I slumped back down into my seat. "We're Hermes-fucking-Ishtar, people. We're supposed to know our consumers better than they know themselves. And now there's some mysterious…thing going on in our biggest expanding market and our bosses won't even tell us what it is?"

"I hear you, Emily," said Louis after a moment. "But what do you want us to do? Whatever's happening in the Far Spinward with Ishtar's Light and Inanna and whoever else, we're middle management. It's not something we have the power to change. So maybe you should just put it out of your mind and not look a gift horse in the mouth. Whatever the board is dealing with, we're running the most successful game marketing campaign in years, maybe even decades. That's what we need to be focused on right now, not frontier wars or any of that nonsense."

Honestly, I couldn't say he was wrong. This was my job, and the company needed me to perform it to the best of my ability. That was the nature of working for a visionary company like Hermes-Ishtar: everyone had a role to play, and that role was part of a plan for the future designed by some of the greatest creative minds in the galaxy.

And yet…he hadn't been in that board meeting. He hadn't heard the executives brush off something they thought was a minor inconvenience, while hinting at something far worse. He didn't have the chills crawling up and down his spine, the pressure popping in his ears to herald the coming storm.

"They're anarchists," Miss Beaumont had sneered.

Something cold dropped into my gut as I nodded and walked out.

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

Been Better

Minds Eye Bind

(She/Her)

Market Atheist

Traitor to her Class

Traitor to her Class

Traitor to her Class

Traitor to her Class

Market Atheist

Traitor to her Class

DON'T PANIC

Traitor to her Class