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

AKuz · Dec 10, 2020

THE ALL-RADIANT CONGRESS

Setting Information: The Solarian Compact:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Charters:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rhodes Mining

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

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

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

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

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

Techbros, some of them science, some of them explore

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sketchy buggers, they can get you anything tho

Historical Topics:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Misc Details:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Spinward Frontier:

The Middle Spinward Frontier

The Core Region:

UNDER RADIANT CONTROL OR ALLIED:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gaid A1: An airless world. Quality 10.

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

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

Gaid AI: An asteroid belt.

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

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

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

Gaid B2: An airless world. Quality 10.

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

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

Gaid B5: A small icy planet. Quality 3.

Gaid B6: A frozen world. Quality 7.

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

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

Shei 1: A Cthonian world. Quality 15.

Shei 2: An airless world. Quality 12.

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

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

Gravity .95 Earth Standard. Quality 12.

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

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

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

Shei I: Asteroid belt.

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

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

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

Shei II: Asteroid belt.

Shei 7: Jovian planet. Quality 13.

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

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

Shei 8: Ice giant. Quality 6.

Shei 8a: An icy moon. Quality 9.

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

Population: 103,000,000

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

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

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

Five Lions 3: A rocky ball. Quality 7.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Five Lions II: An asteroid belt.

Five Lions 7: An unremarkable Jovian. Quality 2.

Five Lions III: An asteroid belt.

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

Five Lions IV: An asteroid belt.

Five Lions 9: Jovian planet. Quality 9.

Five Lions V: An asteroid belt.

Five Lions 10: Neptunian ice giant. Quality 8.

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

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

Population: 15,000,000

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Population: 650,000

UNDER CHARTER CONTROL:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Xotreh A6: An unremarkable icy ball. Quality 4.

Xotreh AI: An asteroid belt.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Xotreh 6: A dense ice giant. Quality 4.

Xotreh 7: Jovian planet. Quality 6.

Xotreh 8: An exceptionally cold Jovian. Quality 9.

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

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

Population: 54,000

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

Bestreer 1: An airless world. Quality 2.

Bestreer 2: An airless world. Quality 6.

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

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

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

Bestreer I: An icy asteroid belt.

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

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

Bestreer 7: Another Jovian. Quality 14.

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

Bestreer 8: An icy ball. Quality 10.

Population: 450

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

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

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

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

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

Akleod I: An asteroid belt.

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

Population: 5,000

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

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

Thoa System Stats:

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

Thoa 2: An unremarkable airless metal ball.

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

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

Thoa I: An asteroid belt.

Thoa 4: A normal Jovian planet.

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

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

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

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

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

Thoa II: A Kuiper belt of icy objects.

Empty Systems

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

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

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

Kimberly 3: A Jovian world.

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

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

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

Total:

Radiant:

Gaid:

Five Lions:

Head of Diplomatic Corps:

Name: Amanda Redcrest, Victoria Blackwell, and Kayla Hayashi

DoB: "2222", 2219, 2227, 2224

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cons: XP celebrity, little diplomatic experience, three people

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

Unlocked FRM

Ares Peacekeeping Grade - Access to planetary army formation

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

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

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

Cernunnos Consumer Grade - +1 to all Soccom actions

Cernunnos Enterprise Grade - NOT UNLOCKED

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

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

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

Hermes-Ishtar Production Grade - NOT UNLOCKED

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

MSI Enterprise Grade - NOT UNLOCKED

Original Tech

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

Defence Coordinator:

Name: Maria Awhina

DoB: 2165

Current Position: Military Committee Delegate from the Radiant Veterans Guild

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pros:

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

Cons:

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

Command Traits:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-None

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

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

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

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

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

Solarian Marines now spread throughout the system

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

Mobile Force:

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

CO: Commodore Stephanie Rousseau

CNS Velasco, United States of America-class Fleet Carrier

-CO: Captain Esteri Attar

-Orca Wing, Switchblade-type strikecraft (Customized)

-CO: Wing Commander Jasmine Ang

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

-CO: Wing Commander Heloisa Kimura de Lima

CNS Shieldmaiden, Great Heathen-class Light Cruiser

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

CNS Shamhat, Great Heathen-class Light Cruiser

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

CNS Righteous Tempest, Cossak-class Frigate

-CO: Captain Vehement Shade

CNS August Willich, Cossak-class Frigate

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

CNS Elysium, Cossak-class Frigate

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

CNS Asphodel, Cossak-class Frigate

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

-

Home Force:

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

CO: Commodore Erina Kozlova

CNS Blaire Mountain, New Model-Class Strike Corvette

-CO: Captain Guillermo Kageyama

CNS Scutum, Comet-Class Patrol Corvette

-CO: Captain Martin Pagonis

CNS Buckler, Comet-Class Patrol Corvette

-CO: Captain Samuel Smiles

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

-CO: Captain Jean-Paul Beaumont

-

Radiant System Self Defence Force:

Current Orders: Defend Radiant, comet patrol

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

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

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

Switchblade Wing, Switchblade-type strikecraft

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

Apogee Wing, Switchblade-type strikecraft

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

Battery A, Blindfire-Pattern LMP Constellation

(Radiant-Bestreer Gate)

Battery B, Blindfire-Pattern LMP Constellation

(Radiant-Bestreer Gate)

Battery C, Blindfire-Pattern LMP Constellation

(Radiant-Bestreer Gate)

Battery D, Airstrike-Pattern LMP Constellation

(Radiant-Bestreer Gate)

Battery E, Airstrike-Pattern LMP Constellation

(Radiant-Bestreer Gate)

Battery F, Airstrike-Pattern LMP Constellation

(Radiant-Bestreer Gate)

Shoal A, Macross-Pattern TAM Shoal

(Radiant-Bestreer Gate)

Radiant Orbital Yard 1

Current construction: None

Radiant Orbital Yard 1

Current construction: None

-

Gaid System Self Defence Force:

Current Orders: Defend Gaid

CO: Commodore Victor Raine

Battery A, Blindfire-Pattern LMP Constellation

Battery B, Blindfire-Pattern LMP Constellation

Battery C, Blindfire-Pattern LMP Constellation

Battery D, Airstrike-Pattern LMP Constellation

Battery E, Airstrike-Pattern LMP Constellation

Battery F, Airstrike-Pattern LMP Constellation

Shoal A, Macross-Pattern TAM Shoal

Shoal A, Macross-Pattern TAM Shoal

Shoal A, Macross-Pattern TAM Shoal

Zephyr Wing, Switchblade-Type Strikecraft (Customized)

-CO: Wing Commander Ara Helge

Aeolus Wing, Switchblade-Type Strikecraft (Customized)

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

Gale Wing, Switchblade-Type Strikecraft (Customized)

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

-

Frontier Force

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

CO: Commodore Shayla McLean

CNS Kiel Mutiny, Kaiserreich-class BattleCruiser

-CO: Captain Inana Devlin

CNS Choreographer, Janissary-class Light Tender

-CO: Captain Karl Xanthopoulos

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

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

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

-CO: Captain Fool's Errand

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

-CO: Captain Rouge Napier

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

-CO: Captain John Rankin

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

-CO: Captain Nkiru Chaudhari

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

-CO: Captain Sumac Barros

CNS Revolutionary Will, Cossak-class Frigate

-CO: Captain Yamamoto Hanae

CNS Revolutionary Grace, Cossak-class Frigate

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

CNS Under New Management, Don-Class Fast Tanker

-CO: Captain Adras Kierenos

CNS Liberte, Hollywood(C)-Class Frigate

-CO: Captain Colin McRae

CNS Egalite, Hollywood(C)-Class Frigate

-CO: Captain Adelia Swift

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

DISCORD LINK:

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Voikirium · Apr 2, 2022

#GalacticSurvey
Map Designation:CF-5
System Name: Priesthave
Political Status: Autonomous Religious Communes
Charter Presence: They wrote the system off when they originally donated it
System Population: 1,000 scattered around Theophont

System Bodies:
1-a
-Mercury-like
1-b
-Small gas planet
2
-Natural Mars-like
3
-Glaciated, Significant atmosphere
4
-Theophont, Glaciated, Significant atmosphere

Notable Features:
Theophont: A world of towering glaciers trawling a bleak landscape, where the only heat--and life-- is formed around hotspots of geothermal activity which form oasises of heat on what is otherwise a very dark rock. Communities of monks, priests, and a handful of laymen who have not been initiated into the monastic orders have formed over the years in carefully maintained environmental bubbles around these spots, where they make a living farming, weaving, and of course brewing.

System History:
Officially discovered by Omoikane surveyors in 2160, the system languished, uselessly, for decades. However, around 2230 an unknown scion of an unknown executive within the company, feeling the pangs of both conscience and mortality after an accident, donated the records of the planet and colonization rights to religious communities--all of them. Monks and ascetics of every religion were invited to establish their own monasteries and other such structures on the planet, though there is a bias towards Christianity. They now make a small living debating the nature of divinity, weaving fine clothing, and brew many different sorts of drink--their cider is particularly famed.
-
I am very bad at remembering to vote, so I figured I would try and contribute a different way.

Angelform · Apr 2, 2022

Traehgniw said:
I read a science fiction story once where someone tried to basically lobotomize all AI in a system using an emergency shutdown safeguard thing that pruned all neural pathways down to a very short length so their neural nets broke (it was designed for out-of-control nonsapient AIs; sapient AI was a recent invention and had extremely significant code reuse from nonsapient AIs) and one AI, looking at the code later, noticed that a scaled-back temporary version could basically get AI drunk

Kevin could totally run some intoxicant code

The story in question is 'Freefall', a long running webcomic.

As I recall it also included the idea of writing every possible sentence in a book and making that book open-source. Thus making it impossible for anyone to copyright or trademark any literature ever again. They just needed a data-storage archive the size of a small planet to record the book.

Traehgniw · Apr 2, 2022

Yep, it's Freefall! They also had a lot of other neat stuff

bdun140 · Apr 3, 2022

#GalacticSurvey
Map Designation: FT-4
System Name: Haydee
Political Status: Charter Economic Zone
Charter Presence: Primarily Rhodes, limited Omoikane, H-I, and MSI presence
System Population: 100,000 permanent residents

System Bodies:
1 - Protoplanetary disk, expected to undergo accretion over the coming millennia
2 - "Infantos" Planet with 76% of earth's mass, expected to increase over coming millennia due to accretion
3 - Protoplanetary disk, expected to undergo accretion over the coming millennia
4 - Asteroid belt, density believed to be too low to experience accretion
5 - "Papas" Small (by Jovian standards) Jovian world.
5a - "Rockhound" Orbital habitat.

Notable features:
"Infantos" - A world that is going to be an almost perfect copy of earth! In, uh, about 3.6 million years. Maybe. In terms of mass and placement in the system at least, water and atmospheric composition are a little hard to predict at the moment. Right now, it's a ball of intense radiation and cataclysmic earthquakes/volcanoes, not to mention near constant asteroid impacts.

"Rockhound" - Home to a majority of the system's population, a wretched hive of scum and villainy with a very low opinion on their lawful authorities in the charters.

System History:
An amazingly young star system, Rhodes jumped at the chance to mine the protoplanetary disks before the planetoids within them could start combining and rendering their heavy minerals harder to access. The first blemish on this system's record would come when some failson got it in their head to try and set up operations on the surface of Infantos, banking on the success of a newfangled gadget that would allegedly be capable of siphoning valuable elements from molten magma. Its performance turned out to have been heavily exaggerated, and the surface colony was abandoned. The next black mark would come when some Omoikane failson heard the words "projected to become earthlike" and decided to embark on an experiment to try and accelerate this process, essentially pre-terraforming the planet. The experiment was a complete and utter failure, and the one who came up with it was never heard from again. After that, someone in MSI decided the best thing to do would be to give the miners lots of booze and drugs to forget how miserable they are, and then someone in H-I pitched the idea of a Deadliest Catch style reality show about the brave miners and the hardships they face. Only Cern and Ares haven't gotten in on the action yet, but given the proximity to Cornucopia it's probably just a matter of time until the former decides to change that.
==============
God damn it, if nobody's going to post new stuff then I'll just have to edit things onto my old post.

Map Designation: NT-11
System Name: Arktos
Political Status: Charter Economic Zone
Charter Presence: H-I
System Population: 5,000 permanent residents

System Bodies:
1 - "Borealis Major" Terrestrial world with active magnetosphere.
1a - "Borealis Minor" Small moon orbiting Borealis Major
2 - Sparse belt of rocky or icy objects orbiting very far out

Notable Features:
"The Hermitage" - Private estate of Grigori Dostoevsky, located near north pole of Borealis Major

System History:
A lonely world orbiting a dim red sun, Borealis Major was deemed too far outside it's star's habitable zone to be worth the effort to terraform. H-I would up purchasing it for a bargain price due to lack of interest from anybody save Omoikane, which had overextended on a previous bid. H-I attempted to make a tourism destination out of it's frequent and intense auroras, but the system's remote location meant it would only by the barest of margins turn a profit, until the unexpected arrival of a much higher ranking H-I executive.

Marketed (under protest) as something of a troubled genius, Grigori "No really, just call me Greg" Dostoevsky purchased a hotel location that the planetary government was threatening to shut down, and turned it into a private estate where he would end up living for the next several years. Officially, this was in hopes that a change in scenery would break him from the "creative stagnation" which he attributed for the lackluster success of his latest work. Rumor on the grapevine, by contrast, said he'd gotten into a shouting match with a rival H-I visionary, and wanted to go somewhere that his ego wouldn't have to put up with any others of similar size or fragility. At any rate, Arktos has benefited greatly from his patronage, both in terms of investment (with Mr. Dostoevsky paying out his own pocket to ensure access to basic luxuries) and in terms of publicity (with long distance photographs of The Hermitage being featured in promotional media, often with a suitably striking aurora in the background.)

EDIT: Was NT-24, forgot something else was there already. Doesn't work as well seeing as it's no longer a dead end, but it's far away from Symphony or Radiant so still okay?

========================
Map Designation: FT-22
System Name: Watchtower
Political Status: Charter Economic Zone
Charter Presence: Ares
System Population: 5,000 permanent residents

System bodies:
1 - Unnamed mercury like planet
2 - sparse asteroid belt
3 - "Abraham" Jovian world
4 - dwarf planet belt

Notable Features:
"Spacebase Foxtrot" - weirdly large and fortified refueling station slash resupply outpost

System history:
Annoyed by the abundance of strategic chokepoints owned by people other than themselves, Ares made an unusually aggressive bid for the system after it was discovered to have 4 gates leading to/from it. Alas, the discovery that both it and FT-27 lead to Bobbert's Belt would scuttle hopes of being able to control regional traffic. That said, Watchtower has seen an increase in soldiers and resources invested as tensions between Rhodes and MSI have spiked in the region, leading some to speculate that Ares is hoping to play Kingmaker should conflict between the two break out.

Redshirt Army · Apr 4, 2022

#GalacticSurvey
Map Designation: FS-11
System Name: Bastion
Political Status: Charter Economic Zone, Navy of the Solarian Compact Fleet Base
Charter Presence: Owned by Hermes-Ishtar, leased to the Solarian Navy
System Population: 80,000 Permanent Residents

System Bodies:
1 - Small Jovian
1a, b, c - Moons

2 - Super Earth, not terraformed
2a - "Leahy" Orbital Station
2b - "Nimitz" Orbital Station
2c - "Halsey" Orbital Station
2d - "King" Orbital Station

3 - Modest Jovian
3a,b,c,d - Moons

4 - Large Jovian

Notable Features:
-"Leahy": The oldest habitat still in orbit in the system, and even after over a century of repairs and renovations, still maintains some of Voyageur Interstellar's original "house style". Used as housing.
-"King": Additional premium officer housing, data servers, and system command. Finished construction in 2211.
-"Nimitz": Holds a large orbital repair dock and significant processing facilities. Built to service the 9th Fleet, finished construction in 2212.
-"Halsey": Additional bulk enlisted housing, scheduled to finish construction in 2212, but was delayed by the Fourth Frontier War, causing overcrowding, poor conditions, and in one case atmospheric venting aboard Leahy during said war.

History: Discovered by Omoikane surveyors in 2144 in the middle of the Second Frontier War, shortly after the re-organization of Voyageur Interstellar, Bastion's strategic location putting it in control of further travel down the Far Spinward made it of interest, but further development would be put on pause until the end of the war. Omoikane established the operational base "Opportunity" in Bastion in 2151 after a short round of bidding against MSI, and continued to control the system until the Third Frontier War, where the system was captured and seized by Hermes-Ishtar fleets stationed at Symphony to open up the space lanes to Radiant, and the base was repaired and renamed "Marconi".

After the end of the Third Frontier War, with Prime Minister "Warpath" Okorie's corporate co-operation faction ascendant within the Solarian Congress, Hermes-Ishtar was approached by the Solarian Navy with a proposal. Seeing the dismal situation with Isthmus (which had just been forced to scale back Suez station due to budget concerns), it was clear that the best way forward for the Solarian Navy was to ally with private contractors when establishing a base. At the same time, the 9th fleet could not continue to be based out of Tereshkova, as the fleet facilities on Mercury were overloaded by having to service both the 8th and 9th fleets, and with further development occuring in the Far Spinward, a more immediate SolNav presence was needed. As such, the Solarian Navy offered to pay Hermes-Ishtar a permanent lease for being permitted to use their system as a staging area.

After several rounds of negotiations, including the right to use depictions of the Solarian Navy within certain Hermes-Ishtar properties (subject to SolNav veto), Hermes-Ishtar agreed. The orbital station was renamed a third time, to "Leahy", the name it still bears today, and a set of new orbital fleet facilities were constructed to supplement it by the 2210's - significantly scaled down from the much more ambitious plans implemented in Isthmus, and built entirely by Hermes-Ishtar subsidiary companies, another of the agreements terms. Leahy Base and the 9th fleet stationed at it acted as a stabilizing influence in the Far Spinward Frontier during the Fourth Frontier War, which led to its form of public-private partnership being lauded as a great success.

Today, while not the most prestigious posting, the 9th Fleet is still a respectable position for a Commander in their early career, though it has a reputation among officers as a "Party Fleet" where one can receive various kickbacks from Hermes-Ishtar and whos officers are often wined-and-dined on some of Hermes-Ishtar's most lovely systems.

bdun140 · Apr 4, 2022

Assuming I haven't counted wrong, which I very well may have, Ares is the only Charter with a single digit number of systems currently on the map. Let's change that.

#GalacticSurvey
Map Designation: FT-8
System Name: Caucus
Political Status: Charter Economic Zone
Charter Presence: Ares
System Population: 30,000

System Bodies:
1 - "Achaemenid" - Un-terraformed Venus like world
2 - Statistically average asteroid belt
3 - "Gog" Jovian world with many unnamed moons
4 - "Magog" Ice Giant with many unnamed moons

Notable features:
"North Gate" - Large and well armed space station able to deploy strikecraft to the gate leading to FT-9
"East Gate" - Large and well armed space station able to deploy strikecraft to the gate leading to Cornucopia
"South Gate" - Large and well armed space station able to deploy strikecraft to the gate leading to Safehold
"West Gate" - Large and well armed space station able to deploy strikecraft to the gate leading to FT-7
"Macedon" Space station in orbit of Achaemenid, home to the majority of the system's population.

System History:
Irked by the strategic irrelevance of Watchtower and looking for a prestige project to bolster flagging stock prices, Ares invested heavily in this system for a good portion of it's early history, only to seemingly forget about it when better opportunities elsewhere emerged. Since then, the once mighty and indomitable spaceborne fortifications have stagnated, with scandal and controversy slowly trickling out despite the best efforts of Ares to maintain a respectable front. From accusations of officers enlisting fictional recruits so they can pocket the extra paychecks, to almost-mutinies spurred on by officers attempting this with grunts who were real enough to complain about it, it seems at though what should have been a shining beacon of Aresian might has instead become a monument to all it's sins.

Redshirt Army · Apr 4, 2022

#GalacticSurvey

Map Designation: CF-16
System Name: Samurai
Political Status: Charter Economic Zone
Charter Presence: Ares
System Population: 10 Million

System Bodies:
1 - "Nobunaga" - Small Rocky World
2 - "Hideyoshi" - Jovian
2a: "Kusanagi" - Moon, Terraforming Candidate
2a.i: "Tsurugi" - O'Niell Cylinder
2b: "Yata" - Moon
2c: "Yasakani" - Moon
3 - Asteroid Belt
4 - "Masamune" Jovian
4a: "Muramasa" - Moon

Notable features:
Kusanagi: While Kusanagi is a terraforming candidate, and it was on that basis that Ares originally acquired the Samurai system, in more recent years a particular train of thought of severe asceticism and minimalism leading to better soldiers has swept through some Ares executives, and plans to settle Kusanagi were placed on hold in favor of a carefully designed O'Neill cyclinder, which would provide Ares with far more control over their future soldiers formative environments than any biosphere.

Tsurugi: An O'Neill Cylinder built using principles of absolute minimalism, asceticism, feng shui, and zhai.

System History:
Purchased by Ares as a potential terraforming candidate, but relegated to a backwater posting for many years as other matters took priority. Only recently re-examined with the rise of the asceticism bloc within Ares, with the go-ahead for construction given in 2231, and the Tsurugi cylinder only completed in 2238.

The entire station has been carefully laid out to ensure symmetry and consistency in design, and a severely restricted desaturated color palatte was used within the creation of all structures. Real Earth bamboo and marble has been imported at massive expense to create the austere and unadorned rooms and flooring, and live classical music, poetry recitals, and formal debate are the sole permitted forms of entertainment.

All plants must be carefully and regularly trimmed to exacting standards, and no pets whatsoever are permitted within Tsurugi. Even diets are strictly controlled, with the standard nourishment being expressly intended to minimize flavor while maximizing nutrition. Fasts are often mandatory, and the rare few flavourful dishes are reserved for use as rewards for success.

The population is currently only at half of Tsurugi's planned capacity of approximately 20 million, and the first "crop" of children raised on Kusanagi are projected to come of age in the very near future.

These children have been placed under enormous pressure to surpass their peers from Asgard and Alexander in Ares standardized testing in order to justify further investment in Samurai, and so far their scores have indeed been exceptional - though quiet accusations of score manipulation have been circling.

bdun140 · Apr 4, 2022

#GalacticSurvey

Map Designation: CF-11
System Name: Gatehouse
Political Status: Charter Economic Zone
Charter Presence: Ares
System Population: 10,000

System Bodies:
1 - "Ditch" - small rocky planet
2 - "Portcullis" - un-terraformed Super-Earth
3 - sparse asteroid belt
4 - "Rampart" Jovian planet
4a - "Battlement" - Orbital habitat

Notable features:
Portcullis: site of a short lived and ill-fated attempt to train recruits in high gravity conditions, the eventual evacuation of the groundside facilities was complicated by the very same gravitational intensity that the training was meant to take advantage of. Rumors that the worst performing recruits were left to die in the rapidly deteriorating habitat domes have been vigorously denied.

Battlement: Home to a majority of the system's population following the Portcullis fiasco. It's best and brightest wound up getting poached to work on overseeing the development of Samurai, getting replaced by the laziest and most timid of their formerly less impressive neighbor.

System History:
A system with a long history of disappointment. First, the disastrous failure of the Heavyworlder program. Then, right as it's looking like they might be able to ride to prominence on Samurai's coattails, that fell apart too. Then after that, after many years of being a backwater's backwater, things finally start picking up in Samurai again, except now that means every officer that's actually worth something has been pulled in to provide expertise, leaving Gatehouse with the worst halves of both worlds. An amazingly boring post, aware yet apathetic to the fact that off-worlders have begun assigning them every vice under the stars as an excuse to look down on them. Someone has spray painted a crude picture of the CO's cat next to one of the hangar bays, and nobody has bothered to clean it up yet.

yeastmobile · Apr 4, 2022

#GalacticSurvey
Map Designation: FS-13
System Name: PasNaTo (Randomly generated, no ownership claimed yet to rename)
Political Status: CEZ: Bidding open
Charter Presence: Automated MSI refueling and repair station, H-I art-piece
System Population: No Population

System Bodies:
1
- Plutoid

Notable Features:
The Billboard: A gigantic assembly of scrapped and emptied out ship hulls that spell out "ELYSIUM". Clearly visible by any ship parked at the MSI refueling station, the Billboard is technically a H-I art-piece built by an entrepreneurial H-I ship captain that saw value in the local scrapyard orbiting the plutoid. A jury-rigged solar panel setup was assembled to light up The Billboard and power some spare thrusters attached to the piece to keep it in a stable orbit.

System History:
An un-noteable system ever since it's discovery, MSI was granted permission to and built an automated refueling and repair station to attend to any ships that may have been damaged in transit to the Far Spinward Frontier. Ships deemed unrepairable were dumped in orbit of the local Plutoid and in 2232 The Billboard was built out of the scrap. The legality of The Billboard being built was questioned, but deemed legal as it is technically not a permanent structure, and can be removed if the eventual owner of the system wants it removed.

Redshirt Army · Apr 4, 2022

#GalacticSurvey

Map Designation: CF-2
System Name: Talaria
Political Status: Charter Economic Zone
Charter Presence: Hermes-Ishtar
System Population: 120,000

System Bodies:
1 - Small Rocky Planet
2- Jovian
3 - Jovian - "Caduceus"
3a - "Logios" Iceball Moon, poisonous atmosphere
3a.i - Kriophoros Station
3b,c,d - Other Moons
4 - Small Rocky Planet

Notable Features:
The Servers: A massive and sprawling complex located on the surface of Logios, making use of the natural cooling of the moon's bone-chilling temperatures. As the servers are exposed to the planets atmosphere, protective hardsuits must be worn by technicians servicing them. A small underground settlement exists for technicians "on-shift".

Kriophoros: A station in orbit around Logios, and the main settlement in the system. Most server operations are done remotely from Kriophoros, but occasionally the issue lies with the hardware, and so a small fabrication section for on-site repairs is present.

System History:
Discovered in 2135 by Voyageur Interstellar, this systems dim prospects for settlement and uninspiring location left it languishing unbid on for months, allowing Hermes Communications to purchase it despite their dim financial status at the time. Hermes was able to finance the construction of a major communications server cluster on Logios, (making use of the iceballs natural temperatures to provide cooling) in 2139, meant to help serve both new customers in the Coreward Frontier and help distribute the load of existing customers in the Near Trailing Frontier. Talaria was one of the last major projects embarked on by Hermes prior to the merger into the Hermes-Ishtar group, and a great deal of that charter's expertise in telecoms was committed to the project.

After the merger, Hermes-Ishtar executives saw no reason to mess with the communications professionals on Talaria, and largely left them to their own devices, continuing to contribute funding to further server upgrades and expansions as time went on. While naturally over the past century significant cultural acceptance has crept in regarding the merger, the residents of Talaria still see themselves as Hermes employees first and foremost - as the sysadmin backbone that keeps nearly a quarter of all human systems from falling into the quiet dark. There is a general dismissive attitude towards the scientists in Dumuzid as empty headed academics with no practicality.

Map Designation: CF-1
System Name: Dumuzid
Political Status: Charter Economic Zone
Charter Presence: Hermes-Ishtar
System Population: 30,000

System Bodies:
1- Jovian
2 - Asteroid Belt
3 - Super Earth "Gilgamesh"
3a - "Ninshuber" Orbital Station
4 - Small Rocky Planet

Notable Features:
Ninshuber - An Orbital Research station, housing the vast majority of the system's inhabitants.
Ersetu Array - A complex system of transmitters and recievers scattered across the system of several light-hours, used to measure the particulars of various optical phenomena. The array's orbits are said to be precise down to the millimeter.

System History:
Discovered in 2135 by Voyageur Interstellar, this system lay even further afield than Talaria, and while Hermes did not purchase the system immediately, Hermes-Ishtar, post-merger and flush with cash, did, snapping it up in 2141.

Located past Talaria, Dumuzid (named after Ishtar's lover) was designed from the outset as a closed system - an experimental outpost where research too sensitive to keep in Symphony could be conducted. As such the system has some of the most advanced laboratories studying optics and quantum encoding in all of Compact space.

One can only speculate on what the precise topics of research within Dumuzid are, though on at least one occasion the Solarian 10th Fleet sent an active battlegroup to the system, leading to all sorts of speculation regarding what could have drawn such attention, ranging from contact with alien life to illicit research into gate formation. There's also a persistent rumor that some of H-I's wetworks teams have a permanent base within the system.

There is a general dismissive attitude towards the sysadmins in Talaria as menial code monkeys with no true understanding of deeper science.

masterofmadness · Apr 4, 2022

Angelform said:
The story in question is 'Freefall', a long running webcomic.

As I recall it also included the idea of writing every possible sentence in a book and making that book open-source. Thus making it impossible for anyone to copyright or trademark any literature ever again. They just needed a data-storage archive the size of a small planet to record the book.

Hold on I just remembered, isn't this the story where one of the main characters is one of like 12 members of her artificial species and trying to price her species should keep exist to her megacorp? Is that something the could end up happening here with augments?

clockworkchaos · Apr 4, 2022

Redshirt Army said:
There is a general dismissive attitude towards the scientists in Dumuzid as empty headed academics with no practicality.

There is a general dismissive attitude towards the sysadmins in Talaria as menial code monkeys with no true understanding of deeper science.

Gib cross system romance omake now! Your Glorious QM demands!

masterofmadness · Apr 4, 2022

#GalacticSurvey

Two Bironzans are driving in a Jeep and see a sign "Traffic police -100m."
One of them takes out his wallet.
Then he sighs and says "You know what, Vovan, I don't think we have enough for a hundred cops."

Hiltunen appears to Nipit in a dream and says: "I have two bits of advice for you: kill off all your opponents and paint the Capital blue."
Nipit asks, "Why blue?"
Hiltunen: "I knew you would not object to the first one."

What has the free market done that Hiltunen never could? Make him look good.

What is the most dangerous job in Bironza? Opposition Leader.

- Examples of Bironza anekdot or dark political jokes

Map Designation: NT-6
System Name: Bironza
Political Status: Colonial Republic
Charter Presence: De-facto MSI domination with heavy Rhodes presence.
System Population: 545 million

System Bodies:
1-Krasnoye Nebo, Terraformed Terrestrial Planet
2-Pushya, Terrestrial Planet
3-Kilrovo, Super Earth
4-Sakharov, Terrestrial Planet
5-Asteroid Belt
6-Provets, Jovian

Notable Features:
Krasnoye Nebo- The sole terraformed planet in the system and closest to the system star, a small Red Dwarf which colors the planet sky. Despite its closeness the dim output of the star leaves it barely on the edge of habitable in terms of temperature, making it famed for freezing temperatures and constant snowfall against the red sky. Like much of the system it's crust contains valuable natural resources and abundant mining across its surface.

Pushya & Kilrovo - The second and third planets in the system, even the relatively slight increase in distance means that they are too cold to be terraformed leaving them cold rocks uninhabitable outside of sealed habitats. However, like the rest of the planets in the system they feature valuable natural resources, in this case rare earth metals. Early in the system history Pushya and Kilrovo's habitats were penal camps for the many people caught in Hiltunen's various arrests who were found to be better take off the world entirely but still providing labor to mine the resources of the system for profit. While his regime is long gone most of these habitats remain built to the substandard condition meant to house prisoners.

Sakharov- Named for Soviet nuclear scientist and human rights activist Andrei Sakharov, this world is inexorably tied to radiation. With plentiful and valuable reserves of various radioactive substances on its surface such as Thorium and Uranium, work on the Planet would be deadly without proper safety gear. However, the endemic corruption of the system and frequent attempts to cut costs often leave workers with substandard protection or safety conditions leading to frequent radiation borne sickness among workers.

Provets- A Jovian lying at the edge of the system while lacking solid materials on its surface it contains vast quantities of deuterium. This has led to the creation of an orbital station to extract both it and any less prominent but still useful deposits of rare materials from it moons.

System History:
Upon the discovery of the Bironza system and its vast natural resources it was assumed by many they would guarantee the system a bright future for its inhabitants, instead it proved something of a cure. In a surprise to many Bironza was purchased at a high cost by United Starhaul who in cooperation with Rhodes embarked on an ambitious plan for the system. Breaking from their usual mode of operation Starhaul aimed for a rapid development into an industrial powerhouse, a crown jewel world of their own capable of producing the resources needed to gain the edge in their long-standing rivalry with MSI.

Realizing that even with terraforming the planet that would become Krasnoye Nebo would never be any warmer than the coldest area of Earth, colonization focused initially on colonists from populations used to cold climates. Primarily Russia was a recruiting ground but areas such as The Baltics, Canada, Scandinavia and Alaska as well as other cold weather climates were recruited from.

In order to facilitate their plans for rapid development a strict command economy model was implemented in which a series of planning goals to hit targets based around 5-years intervals were sought with focus around heavy industry especially to support shipbuilding, to supervise this project an executive was appointed who was believe could run this system despite all difficulties; Joseph Hiltunen. Hiltunen, nicknamed 'The Metal Man' for his harsh demeanor and preference for cybernetics ran the colony with an iron fist pushing for his plans with full force and crushing anything that got in his way. In order to control the colony, he established a personal police force known as the Frontier Security Bureau which he used to arrest any dissenter or threats from the lowest worker to highest fellow executive and establish an iron clad control of local media for his propaganda apparatus. The many people who fell afoul of this regime would be sent to penal work camp across either Krasnoye Nebo to continue work towards the goals at a more punishing pace or habitats on Pushya or Kilrovo.

Krasnoye Nebo and Bironza as a whole would suffer constant shortages under this system of strict rationing leading to what would become the other major hallmarks of the system; Crime and corruption. As official systems failed to provide what was needed, MSI infiltration and simple necessity lead to a thriving underground free market of 'honest criminals' willing to provide whatever good people needed for a price. This would prove one thing Hiltunen was under to crush nor were his successors as his fearsome reputation would ironically cause his death, after an accident occurred in his room alone when he asked not to be disturbed his survivable injuries turned lethal from lack of treatment as nobody was willing to risk defying his order to open the door.

While his successors would be less oppressive, they by and large kept in place the same system for Bironza overall. However the system put in place by Hiltunen would meet its end soon. As the Frontier War conflicts between MSI and United Starhaul slowly built up pressure on the world leading to economic difficulties, protests began to occur calling for reform across the system. With the fall of United Starhaul in the frontier war these calls were met with some success by authorities.

In a compromise between PHRL and JDAP politicians the compact responded to these calls with a plan to reform the system. In line with the desires of the former Bironza would seek a future based around small businesses with previously monopolized property instead of being given to another Charter put up for sale to be bought by any local entrepreneurs willing to offer capital. In order to satisfy the latter the world would become a colonial republic able to elect its own government and, in a move desired by both would use the heavy industry and plentiful resources in the system to become a fleet base for the Solarian Navy in the Near Trailing Frontier.

However, despite the hope of the people the free market did not bring the widespread prosperity for all it promised. The previous system meant that the common citizen of Bironza simply did not have any of the capital needed to buy any of the property being privatized. Instead, these businesses would be bought up by those few with the money on hand to buy them, MSI aligned criminals and former officials of the old regime. This has led to the rise of what critics refer to as a 'Mafia State' based around a few rich criminal oligarchs extracting whatever value they can, usually the system's plentiful natural resources.

In the early years of the republic struggles occurred in providing economic and political stability for the system for decades. This would temporarily end with the assent of a new figure in politics, a former FSB official Vovan Nipit whose election to president saw strong economic growth for the system. However, Nipit's regime faces harsh criticism for supposed actions taken to control power behind the scenes with his rule seeing the arrest or disappearance of oligarchs or politicians who fall out of favor with him, deaths of journalist critical to the government, heavy influence of the Frontier Security Bureau's successor the Federal Counterintelligence Service and suspicious death of journalists critical to the government. Nipit faces many questions about whether or not his republic meets the requirement for a 'Liberal and democratic' government by the compact but has so far endured.

This survival is believed to be in large part due to the importance of Bironza's natural resources. In truth the economy of Bironza overall lags due to heavy mismanagement and is heavily propped up by the sales of its natural resources to outside buyers. Bironza is very dependent on the sale of its resource and any drops in price are keenly felt across the whole system economy. The recent growth is in many ways trigger by the high demand for these resources by nearby system of Foundry, Alexander and Dyson. It is widely feared that any attempt to punish Nipit's wrong doings could lead to disruptions for all these major systems and a collapse of the economy of the Near Trailing Frontier as a whole potentially even spreading across the entire compact. This combined with the desire by the compact to keep their fleet base in the Near Trailing functioning smoothly has kept the current system in place.

However, this support does not change the fact that any disruption to steady flow of Bironza's resources to these worlds would have consequences reaching far beyond itself.

AN: Okay this one took a little more work! Thank you to @Redshirt Army and @AKuz for helping me fix this up in the discord. I believe this is my first major system submission so please enjoy!

Traehgniw · Apr 5, 2022

masterofmadness said:
Hold on I just remembered, isn't this the story where one of the main characters is one of like 12 members of her artificial species and trying to price her species should keep exist to her megacorp? Is that something the could end up happening here with augments?

It is in fact the setting where one of the main characters is one of like 12 members of her artificial proof-of-concept species and is stuck in the situation of actually wanting the megacorp to start selling new members of her species or some other method of making creation of them profitable so they can get up to at least 50 unrelated members (preferably more like 500 minimum)

Model DC.14F · Apr 5, 2022

masterofmadness said:
Hold on I just remembered, isn't this the story where one of the main characters is one of like 12 members of her artificial species and trying to price her species should keep exist to her megacorp? Is that something the could end up happening here with augments?

I don't think so, at least with Augments specifically, since they seem to just be genetically modified humans, and are thus still part of the same species, while Freefall's Bowman's Wolves are full on uplifted animals. That said, I could see the Charters doing something similar to Freefall's Ecosystems Unlimited if they ran into a planet with life that isn't compatible with humans.

Simply put, in Freefall, most planets with alien life aren't actually compatible with Human life. As such, it's actually easier to just terraform dead planets and colonize those rather than modifying humans to be able to survive on alien worlds. Ecosystems Unlimited plans to colonize these worlds by instead genetically modifying and uplifting native lifeforms. The Bowman's wolves were a proof-of-concept to prove that uplifted animals could have values and mindsets compatible with humans. The problem is that the Bowman's wolves, despite clearly being fully sapient, are considered to legally be property somewhere between pets and organic robots, complete with having 'programming' and owners.

Genderite · Apr 5, 2022

Model DC.14F said:
I don't think so, at least with Augments specifically, since they seem to just be genetically modified humans, and are thus still part of the same species, while Freefall's Bowman's Wolves are full on uplifted animals. That said, I could see the Charters doing something similar to Freefall's Ecosystems Unlimited if they ran into a planet with life that isn't compatible with humans.

I'm pretty sure Cern has actually uplifted a few animals like birds and dogs and stuff.

AKuz · Apr 6, 2022

ALERT:

The Broadcast has a VI:

Box-chan

THAT IS ALL

clockworkchaos · Apr 6, 2022

Panic Projects 2, Panic Boogaloo

Archimedes Analysis By Dr. Sheila Bissonette

My previous analysis stands, with two modifications, one good, one bad:

With the release of the Broadcast, use of such a tactic is unlikely to further escalate any response.
It will disrupt communication down the chain, most notably to Ascension, likely resulting in a loss of coordinated scientific advancement. In the event that we lose the fight entirely, it's very likely that the array itself will be destroyed, and we do not currently have the tools to replace it. Even if we win, we are likely to lose focusing mirrors, which will disrupt and degrade communications for weeks until we can restore all the lost mirrors.

AKuz said:

"The idea behind Project Archimedes is simple: we repurpose the intersystem comms lasers into a powerful beam weapon capable of extreme damage at extreme range.

"So, as background, comms lasers are designed to provide an interplanetary internet backbone throughout the system, and as a side effect, need really, really powerful lasers to get a detectable signal out that far. Turning this into a weapon system is as conceptually simple as sticking a beam-steering drone into the path of the laser near where you want to intercept the enemy.

"The system relies on large focusing mirrors at regular distances of roughly a light minute each to refocus the beam and minimize dispersion. Ideally, the mirrors would be in comoving orbits with either the laser arrays or the receiver to maximize the available transmission time, but in practice a fleet of mirrors is required that grows quadratically with distance. As a result, the laser channel has to be able to cross most of the five to six light hours out to the gates largely unassisted, and with enough intensity to be reliably detectable against the background of the sun even with small, spacecraft-mounted receivers. This implies a lot of power behind these laser arrays, to the tune of multiple gigawatts.

[Dr. Sheila Bissonnette] "Gigawatts sounds like a lot of power, and it is, but unfortunately physics has to rear its ugly head. HI interplanetary comms push the ragged edge of beam combining as it is, and the thinned array curse is just as much in play with optical systems as it is radio frequencies. Even if we had access to HI's production grade line of products to add more modules to the array, we wouldn't be able to increase the intensity beyond what's already there. And intensity is what determines the maximum range of the system.

"The rough rule of thumb for laser weapon range is that you need fifteen megawatts per square meter to damage civilian craft, and one hundred megawatts per square meter to reliably penetrate military armor. The beam-steering drone needs adaptive optics to target enemy craft, which in turn will triple the beam waist, and results in a ninth the intensity on target. It's impossible to say what the effective range will be without testing it, but our initial estimates suggest the drone would have a hundred fifty to two hundred klick effective range against military vessels, and over a thousand klicks against civilian craft, roughly comparable to capital spinal lasers.

"What's unique about this system isn't its raw power and range, respectable as it is, but the fact that it can sit and wait light-minutes out from Radiant, Gaid, or Thoa waiting to engage. You can even stage them in between every refocusing mirror pair, enabling defense in depth. The beam steering drones can be made to look close enough to the actual comms drones that they'll be missed by all but the most paranoid of commanders.

"I suspect the most vital trick we have will be to wait until a close enough flyby and hit them in the flanks. A direct strike to the warp drive ring will nearly instantly destroy whichever craft we target first, and force the rest to drop out of warp, stranding them. They'll still be moving too fast to turn about and properly engage, maximizing the drone's survival time and the damage it can do. They'll be forced to carefully pick their way through to the planet slowly, carefully lining up sniper shots from out of range of the beam-steering drone. Not only will it burn through quite a bit of their remaining delta-v, but it'll make them vulnerable to harassing fleets coming in strafe them and force them to dodge.

[Adm. Gregory Mansur] "If such a conversion could be made, I believe that it would catch any incoming Charter Force completely off guard, such things simply aren't done. Even in major inter-charter wars, the risk of damage to underlying communications infrastructure would make any Executive balk at such a tactic.

Once it's used, they'll be forced to watch for it in the future, and possibly even begin shooting at mirror bouys when they pass through ARC controlled systems."

[Delegate Mystery-Gold] "Project Archimedes will probably make a lot of individuals in First Colony demographics look at us funny. Project Archimedes will also clearly look like the desperation move that it is. I can't tell you with 100 percent confidence if converting the comms system into a superweapon will make them more or less likely to take us seriously, but I calculate that they'll lose their collective cool if they believe us to be interstellar vandals. Which is why this became a political decision."

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Lamprey Analysis by Dr. Sheila Bissonette

Improvements to the limpet mines we deployed have been ongoing, ranging from modifying their silhouettes to frustrate VI recognition, to hydrogen transpiration cooling to add a stealth loiter. These improvements have in total amounted to 'Project Lamprey' and they take advantage of a very simple fact: whereas the Hellburners relied on the element of surprise, the enemy fundamentally still has to deal with a 'Lamprey' if they want their ship to be intact, so even with a well-prepared enemy the only real question is whether it's worth the resource cost.

Making them is not all that skill-intensive, but nor are they a battle-winning superweapon. Instead, they should be used as part of a strategy or tactic that aids them. While I am no naval genius, I would say that it is a defensive rather than an offensive tactic, and is probably best if concentrated.

Jubilee Analysis by Dr. Sheila Bissonnette

Current strikecraft doctrine overemphasizes the use of aerospace superiority fighters. While this makes sense both from a planetary defense perspective and from maximizing the versatility of our light carriers' limited carrying capacity, and historically the Switchblade was the only fighter class we had access to, we are no longer so limited today. There have been some attempts at diversifying the drones and fighters deployed, today I would like to focus on the humble missile bus. These drones are in an excellent position to be manufactured by home fabbers and communal workshops, and hand assembled right alongside the Casaba-Howitzer missiles they'll be loaded up with. The implementation of the BLG expansion has largely freed us from the limitations that made necessary the extraordinarily expensive desperation attack that was Project Hellburner.

As a part of defensive operations near a gate, they can be set to loiter and deploy en masse to swarm the enemy fleet and unleash saturation attacks as they close in, and can even eschew the nuclear lightbulb rockets to make them fully disposable. As a part of planetary or infrastructure defense, we can resupply them with nuclear missiles fabricated on demand until our local antimatter reserves run out, and press them into an anti-strikecraft role with fragmentation missiles afterwards. I propose to manufacture these drone swarms as supplemental to our current strike forces, and have our carriers and cargo craft ship them in ahead of planned operations. While managing our current lancer drone wings already add a significant cognitive burden to our fighter pilots, missile buses will only add to the load during strike runs and only act to fall in as replacements during dogfighting as the pilot's drone swarm gets depleted.

Winter Analysis By Gregory Mansure

I would submit my analysis on Project Midgley (quoted below), with the following additions.

The fuel stations are set to vent, which while perhaps less offensive than destroying ships, will still result in outrage, as dying in space drifting onwards without being able to course correct is as terrible a fate to spacers as an explosion. Secondly should the SolNav fleet decide the infrastructure can no longer be trusted and destroy it, it could make the entire chain nigh-unusable for civilian or unsupported Congressional Navy Forces until a full restoration is performed.

AKuz said:

I have agreed to present Project Midgley on behalf of the Military Committee because I am determined to also make clear my personal opposition to this project and can speak to the damage it would cause if it were put into motion.

"One of the most integral parts of the gate system are the refueling platforms deployed at each side of every KC Gate. While the refueling platforms outside the Sister Worlds have long been privatized, the tradition of keeping fueling costs low to prevent economic chaos is still ingrained in the minds of everyone involved.

"And beyond that, the sacrosanct nature of the refueling platforms as a neutral and untouchable location have been observed by nearly everyone throughout all of history. A Spacer would no more tamper with the functionality of a refueling station than they would ignore a distress call.

"There are… some people inside MilComm that believe that our people should sabotage the refueling platforms, which would almost guarantee us taking out at least one Charter craft and cause a massive disruption to their logistics for a negligible cost on our end.

"With that said, I cannot stress enough my opposition to this plan. This is a violation of the conventions of the void. No Spacer that considers themselves moral would continence such a move, any more than we would condone ignoring distress calls or firing on rescue vessels. This infrastructure is vital for the links that keep us alive in deep space, and civilian shipping relies upon it. A runaway cycle of reprisals would doom us all.

"It is… something that goes against the code that every Spacer lives by and I cannot overstate the diplomatic and moral damage that this would do to our cause. Especially within the Spacer community!"

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Tripwire/Reverse Tripwire Analysis By IndComm Spokesman Trevor Dhaliwal

This one's less a scientist's detail and more an engineering one. At a basic level these are just gate defences, just put up faster at the end-points and more mobile, but should work as well as any other gate defenses. That said, such mobility ain't free, carrying that much crafted stuff in space is harder than it looks hence why it is standard practice to assemble one site at a time, and we'd have to do checks once there to make sure nothing got damaged in transit. I'd say that the transport is gonna be as difficult as the making, so one far-set up gate is gonna take as much work as two normal, but you'd be able to set them up in different systems, and if we want to be bold enough to try boxing Raphanus itself, I wouldn't risk any other way, and if they see us coming they could still get the jump before we fully set up.

Reverse Tripwire is the same thing, though I'm a little more skeptical there. Problem is we've got to find a place to build and store the defenses that are down-chain of the fleet, and not a lot of options there except Ascension, and they seem to be trying to play nice. Now I ain't high enough to know if that's some con or they decided which way the wind is blowing or having a fleet that big next door makes you play nice, but it ain't good for building a bunch of defenses I'll tell you that.

Taboo Analysis By Vin Iliana

Look, I'm not going to say it's not going to work, it is, it's not like we can't strap weapons one, but you should understand the limitations.

First, a gate's only so big, and that means only so many weapons on it. Yes, we could fire right as they got out for a point-blank attack, but if it hits something that makes the ship go boom point blank…. Well I don't think I have to draw you a picture. Still the Navy won't fire at them… probably, maybe, hopefully.

Also, I've received protests on this action from several prominent civilian and military Spacer figures. The gates might be partially sacred because of navy propaganda, but cutting them off will still cut them off. We fight them and that gate blows up, we better hope we don't need anything on the other side for a decade or so, or anything nearby

SPECIAL NOTE: This vote represents a slight 'retcon' in that it's a vote on 'what have you been working on?' as such all projects will have time for completion.

Projects:
Authorize any and all of the following projects

ARCHIMEDES - Retask a comm laser relay to hit the enemy fleet while transiting through a system we control. Ideally target their battleship to damage their aura of invincibility and encourage dissent and defections.

Additional Results:
If com sat is destroyed, lose all communication with Ascension. Lose one (random) Sci-Com die and ALL Ascension and ARIA dice. Must take on a major project to rebuild, must crack HI Production Grade FRM to do so.

If relays are destroyed, 1 random SciComm dice reduced to a 1d10, ARIA bonus reduced to 1d10 until communications restored via a 25 point Project
Public Opinion Change: None

LAMPREY - Nuclear limpet charges that detonate if a ship doesn't surrender. Unlikely to work again… unless we make more. A lot more. Only one in ten would have a warhead, the others being simple chemical explosives, but we'd make so many of these that some will get through, and it might get some surrenders. Park them in giant pods right behind the gate and light them off as ships cross the gate.
Costs: 12BR, 12SR, 5E
Public Opinion Change: None

WINTER - Cut civilian traffic up the Osliam chain, trusting that the cracked FRMs we sent out will be enough to tide everyone over in the meantime. Rig every fuel depot to vent their fuel into space if approached by the SolNav fleet with the goal of either delaying their approach as their single fast fleet tanker's capacity is strained, or reducing the total number of ships they can bring to bear.
Costs: 4BR, 4SR per system activated
Additional Results: Loss of resources from Oslaim Chain, difficulty in supplying Naval Forces
Public Opinion Change: Medium-Large Spacer hit

TRIPWIRE - Convert several cargo ships to carry prefabricated gate defenses up the chain and to lurk out of the way, pretending regular business until the go signal is given. These ships will then proceed to quickly deploy gate defenses at each gate between us and Raphanus before retreating to Radiant. This is aimed at bloodying TF12.7 as it attempts to get to Radiant. (Gain gate defenses, may be placed in any system, can be taken multiple times.)
Costs: 1/2 Indcomm die (5 BR, 5SR, 4E)
Public Opinion Change: None

REVERSE TRIPWIRE - As above, but includes a second set of freighters that will roll a second set of defenses AFTER TF12.7 passes them, cutting off their retreat and inflicting even more attrition as they attempt to fall back. This is insurance in case we win but not decisively. (Gain gate defenses , may be placed in any system, can be taken multiple times.)
Costs: 1/2 Indcomm die (5 BR, 5SR, 4E)
Public Opinion Change: None

JUBILEE - An evolution of the HELLBURNER project. Now that the enemy is aware of what a fire ship can do, the HELLBURNERS will be unable to penetrate close enough to make a meaningful impact with their detonations. JUBILEE thus trades antimatter warheads for racks on racks of quick to fabricate, easily sourced chemical rockets with explosive warheads. Their tracking systems are rudimentary and rely on the gate defenses and friendly fleet units painting enemy targets, but their aim is to swamp enemy ECM and point defense, and sow confusion among the enemy in the opening stages of the battle.
Costs: (10 BR, 6E) lose out on free Radiant bunker-mania progress as people build more HELLBURNERS
Public Opinion Change: None

TABOO - You know what nobody does? What will get SolNav absolutely frothing? Sticking weapons on a gate. Stick as many railguns and lasers and ECM and ECCM platforms on the surface of a gate. Put LAMPREY launchers right on the surface of the gate so those pods can hop the gap before sticking to an enemy hull while they don't dare fire for hitting the gate behind them. It's not like them hating us more will change anything at this point.
Costs: 2BR, 2 E (Must have gate defenses, cost per gate), 5 trust loss (fucking with the gates is consider a really dangerous idea)
Additional Results: By fucking around, we might find out what happens when a gate is blown
Public Opinion Change: Major hit Spacers, Major hit AIC Fleet, Small-Medium hit everyone else

[MONUMENT is deemed unviable, the massive costs of hauling such material can be easily overcome by missiles pathing around]

[ ][Projects] ARCHIMEDES: Turn a satellite into a giant laser
[ ][Projects] JUBILEE: Missile Bus, everyone come on!
[ ] [Project] LAMPREY: With even more mines
[ ][Projects] WINTER: Vent fuel stations
[ ][Projects] TRIPWIRE (can take multiple times)
-[ ] [IndComm] Fortify the Capitata-Raphanus Gate
-[ ] [IndComm] Fortify the Waystation-Capitata Gate
-[ ] [IndComm] Fortify the Capitata-Waystation Gate
-[ ] [IndComm] Fortify the Osliam-Waystation Gate
[ ][Projects] REVERSE TRIPWIRE (can take multiple times)
-[ ] [IndComm] Fortify the Ascension-Capitata Gate
-[ ] [IndComm] Fortify the Capitata-Waystation Gate
-[ ] [IndComm] Fortify the Waystation-Capitata Gate
-[ ] [IndComm] Fortify the Waystation-Osliam Gate
-[ ] [IndComm] Fortify the Osliam-Waystation Gate
[ ] [Projects] TABOO: Fuck around and find out

Force Concentration:
Due to the size of Task Force 12.7, it is the opinion of the Defense Coordinator Erina Kozlova that mobile and the Osliam force will need to be combined to defeat it, or else risk defeat in detail. However, this risks leaving flanks open in other areas.

In closed session DC Kozlova is requesting permission to concentrate Mobile Force, Osliam Force, and all available reserves into a single Force that will engage with Task Force 12.7

[ ] [ConNav] Approve
-Write In Congressional Navy officer who will have overall Command

Mobile Congressional Navy Forces attached to Mobile Force, and all reserves will be combined with Osliam Force and an officer promoted to Admiral and given overall command to engage with Task Force 12.7.

[ ] [ConNav] Deny

Send all reserves to Osliam Force under the command of Commodore Shayla McClean who will remain in place to engage Task Force 12.7, leave Mobile Force in Chinook

Operation Aurora:
Thanks to our infiltration of the fleet, we have the possibility of using sabotage on Task Force 12.7. (all options within this category cost 3E and ONE Medcom die from next turns dice)

Options:

[ ] [Sabotage] Seed revolt (Raphanus)

The 'guest workers' of Ascension report that the workers of Raphanus are more than angry right now, but with the fleet breathing down their necks aren't likely to revolt now, but should the fleet move, a revolution could be easily stirred up. Start smuggling in preparation for it now.

Reward Evaluation: Active revolt in Raphanus, may force fleet elements to turn around
Risk Evaluation: Semi-high. Risks the guest workers of Ascension at worse.

[ ] [Sabotage] Seed revolt (fleet)

Many low-level elements of the fleet are there because of the poverty draft. With the revolution, their families no longer need to fear poverty, and they need not fight us. Attempt to encourage defection and revolt on ships via our existing contacts.

Reward Evaluation: While the theoretical revolt value is high, current analysis does not think that even a majority of ships will be seized, but even a few seized or leaving would be a clear blow.
Risk Evaluation: High. Seeding this will require that we encourage revolt before-hand, risking tipping off the Solarian Navy that we do not merely plan to defend against them, but engage them. May also burn all of our assets within TF 12.7

[ ] [Sabotage] HumInt (fleet)

Spacers hear far more than people think they do, and gossip far more than they should. Even if there is nobody within AIC's web, people can notice drill practice, deployment patterns, "test scenarios" used for drills, and more. And there's at least a few grunts who may know someone who knows a Captain, or who at least pours their drinks and hears their complaints. It's all a trickle of information… and it's far more likely to get a little bit than a lot. But every little bit helps.

Reward Evaluation: Gain information about fleet plans, ranging from small hints to large clues.
Risk Evaluation: Relatively low, failure may increase fleet vigilance and lead to crackdowns on gossip.

Auxiliaries:
In addition to our current forces, certain auxiliary forces have made themselves available.

[ ] [Auxiliaries] Chinook Strikecraft: While they lack transportation, the strikecraft wings of Chinook are simply a level above any of our other forces in skill and experience. By replacing current wings with Chinook pilots we could add some very experienced strikecraft… at the cost of leaving Chinook itself more vulnerable.

Moves experienced Strikecraft wings from the inventory of the Chinook SDF to our reserves.

[ ] [Auxiliaries] Five Lions Cruisers: Through heroic (and some might say, over productive) effort, Five Lions has converted several ore-haulers to auxiliary cruisers. Though weaker than purpose-built cruisers, they are available and Five Lions is more than ready to show the rest of the IAC/AIC that they can contribute to.

Moves Auxiliary Cruisers from the inventory of the Five Lions SDF to our reserves.

Cannot be taken with [Auxiliaries] Five Lions Carriers

[ ] [Auxiliaries] Five Lions Carriers: When Five Lions began their conversion, the Sheolite Ambassadors made an interesting proposal. If Five Lions could supply the carriers, Shei could supply the strike craft and pilots. As such, rather than work on converting to auxiliary cruisers, the people of Five Lions instead converted them to auxiliary carriers.

Moves Auxiliary Cruisers and Strikecraft Wings from the Five Lions SDF and the Sheolite Space Force into our reserves.

Cannot be taken with [Auxiliaries] Five Lions Cruisers

General Orders
[ ] Destroy Task Force 12.7 at Ralpheas. A bold strike at Ralpheas might be able to destroy the Task Force before they are ready. While this would leave no aid from defensive preparations, it would result in no risk to any infrastructure or people of the IAC or its allies.
[ ] Harry their force. Analysis predicts that the force is most likely to make its way down the Osliam chain, by setting up multiple gates and engaging at each before retreat once the defenses are cleared, the force can be worn down. Such an action would leave the bulk of IAC's Navy several weeks from Radiant and Gaid should hostilities break out early there. It also risks portions of the fleet being caught in each retreat.
[ ] Make a stand. Choose a specific location to make a defensive stand, then once the force is broken, liberate the remaining chain. Three major candidates have been considered.
-[ ] At Osliam. The first moderately defended system, and one that just soundly rejected the Compact, Osliam's domes could be easily cracked by a vengeful Task-Force. Though such an outcome is not considered likely, and would likely result in terrible morale for the force, and such a risk is too high.
-[ ] At Sheol. Sheol has the largest allied force, and despite their massive strike-craft build-up, they lack the carriers to move them (a move they intend to rectify soon). Stand with them.
-[ ] At Radiant. Force the task force to wear itself down on every defense before crushing them, at the cost of them rampaging through liberated space.
[ ] Write in: (Please keep this semi-general, you are a legislation, you have a defense CO for detailed battle plans)

Voting will start in 24hours and continue until the 11th

The Laurent · Apr 6, 2022

[ ][Projects] JUBILEE: Missile Bus, everyone come on!
[ ] [Project] LAMPREY: With even more mines
[ ] [Sabotage] HumInt (fleet)
[ ] [Auxiliaries] Five Lions Cruisers: Through heroic (and some might say, over productive) effort, Five Lions has converted several ore-haulers to auxiliary cruisers. Though weaker than purpose-built cruisers, they are available and Five Lions is more than ready to show the rest of the IAC/AIC that they can contribute to.
[ ] Make a stand. Choose a specific location to make a defensive stand, then once the force is broken, liberate the remaining chain. Three major candidates have been considered.
-[ ] At Sheol. Sheol has the largest allied force, and despite their massive strike-craft build-up, they lack the carriers to move them (a move they intend to rectify soon). Stand with them.

Here's my vaguely proposed plan, I can explain it later I guess, really tired RN, it's late. But, Archimedes doesn't seem worth it, despite how cool it is, and Sheol is the best place to make a stand and slam them with JUIBLEE and LAMPREY.

Not sure who to put in charge, TBH?

ramdomperson · Apr 6, 2022

clockworkchaos said:
Such an action would leave the bulk of IAC's Navy several weeks from Radiant and Gaid should hostilities break out early there. It also risks portions of the fleet being caught in each retreat.

What do we know about the readiness of the HI and Ares fleets at Thoa? I'm worried that we are in danger of being pincered by them and 12.7

LucidProp · Apr 6, 2022

WINTER and TABOO are definitely a no-go.

Those conventions exist for a reason, and it's healthy to maintain them especially as we don't particularly need to be that desperate to defeat our current set of foes. Besides, the Spacer Community's opinion is incredibly important if we want our propaganda war and our navy to actually succeed.

clockworkchaos · Apr 6, 2022

ramdomperson said:
What do we know about the readiness of the HI and Ares fleets at Thoa? I'm worried that we are in danger of being pincered by them and 12.7

They are there, it doesn't look like they are planning on invading right now but like, The Broadcast is the equivalent of flipping the entire table the pissing on it, exept the piss is oil and you just threw a match on it. Who knows WHAT they are going to do.

Genderite · Apr 6, 2022

Can they easily tell the difference between the old Hellburner antimatter chargers and the new Jubilee chemical ones?

Joppe · Apr 6, 2022

If we intend to engage the Navy at Sheol, we should also use ARCHIMEDES there. If we lose, the loss of communications will be the least of our problems. If we win, we can afford to do a 25 point project for the sake of losing less ships. The sacrifice is just worth having something to strike at the dreadnought with.

TortugaGreen · Apr 6, 2022

VillaininGlasses said:
Can they easily tell the difference between the old Hellburner antimatter chargers and the new Jubilee chemical ones?

dropping a shitload of relatively light and cheap missiles on the way in, presumably at the cost of stripping out the bomb. makes preemptive interception radically more difficult (which is desirable because they're going to be trying this after seeing us use them last time), but requires significantly more support from the fleet and impedes the progress on our people going full Hoxha memes. Not really a tradeoff if we don't intend to let 12.7 or other similar task forces from out in charter space reach radiant (and intend to engage in fleet battles where a fleet would be present to guide their payloads in), but it does take resources we may want for other things and requires we continue to use the arguably wasteful hellburner concept.

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