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

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Status Panel/Codex
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

-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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Fucking execution and they dare blame it on us? May the Compact burn.

The private security goons don't give a fuck. They caught him shooting at them earlier so he gets shot with the rest. When they find out who he was later, it's a big oopsy but they can just cover it up by blaming it on the Anarchists.

Also this is omake and not an official update so unless the QMs canonize it...
 
They way I see it the fash in Toronto won't have long to gloat about it. Ares ground forces were defeated outside Springfield[1], the DemFed has been resurrected in Chicago, the anarchists are running up and down Pacific City smacking down Charter forces.

The Toronto Rising was crushed because the anarchists couldn't concentrate forces fast enough, but that just means there are a lot more people waiting to be armed and put into the field.

North America is probably going to be lost to Charter control, and then Toronto will be free.

[1] Er...was that Springfield, Illinois, or Springfield, Missouri? Or any of a dozen other Springfields?
 
Report to General Congress -Intelligence Committee June 9th
Report to General Congress -Intelligence Committee June 9th

Gentle Repose has placed all Community Liaison Officers and Guest workers on ships to meet Task force 12.7 in Osliam. Given that the Task Force is nearly transitioned, this delay will likely force the Task Force to either detour or delay slightly to pick them up. Whether this was willful delaying, or a result of outrage on Gentle Repose's part is ambiguous.
 
Fourteen Days in Sol--May 24th, 2255

Fourteen Days in Sol: May 24th



Roderick visits Brazil before returning to New York -#SolNews

PM Roderick continued her Earth wide tour this morning by visiting Brazil in an effort to shore up Brazilian counterinsurgency efforts and was rewarded with a sterling photo-op with the Brazilian legislature, before she was forced to cut her visit short and return to New York to deal with complications to the passage of Bill G-178

Celtic Union Agrees, In Principle, To Supporting the Integrity of the English Economy -#SolNews

Responding to requests from both the EU and Compact, the Celtic Union has agreed to "Support the Integrity of the English Economy." At the moment the exact form this will take has not yet been determined, but it is expected that an aid package, as well as some form of border control for control workers are to be part of it given the Celtic Government's recent diplomatic posture.


40th Mechanised Division defects to Democratic Assembly of the West Mediterranean – France 24

In the wake of days of bombing, Algeria's 40th mechanised division has overthrown its senior officers and defected almost intact to the Democratic Assembly of the West Mediterranean, asking, according to statements on the units social media accounts, for mercy to prisoners and a chance to join the anarchist revolution.

Anarchist Sources apparently accepted this surrender, though, in line with earlier ultimatums, terrible vengeance was wrought on those units seeking to retreat, as PGMs and airborne lasers repeatedly struck forces retreating down route 507 from Ras Al Mar. Numerous casualties were reported, and OSINT sources show hundreds of fires and burning vehicles all along the road. Pursuit forces, especially those of the Sahel Black Lions are said to have executed several Algerian Officers in what some are calling a new black terror, but exact numbers of those killed cannot be confirmed.

Sources within the WMDF say they plan an 'operational pause' to refit and rest before pushing into the centre of Algeria, in the hope that Algerian leaders will surrender and citizens revolt. In any case there appears to be little the Algerian military can do to stop them.


Anarchist State-Affiliated Media
[Learn More]



DSMA Radicals in Parliament Block Bill G-178 -Colonial Mirror

Radical malcontents and anarchist sympathisers inside Parliament itself have refused to vote for cloture on the emergency measures bill tabled last night by members of PM Roderick''s team to allow our heroic peacekeepers to act "fabber free" - that is, to operate official fabbers with unlimited credit.

As of last night discretionary funds were released by Finance Minister Victor Classen in anticipation of Bill G-178 passing through Parliament this afternoon, an unprecedented measure necessitated by the emergency.

Finance Minister and Deputy PM Victor Classen spoke on the floor of the General Assembly this moring, saying that going "Fabber Free is essential to the maintenance of peace and order", further stating that the policy is "vital in the current crisis as a counter to the guerrilla and unconventional tactics employed by the rioters and secessionists now attacking the heart of civilised society."

Sources within the Navy and Marshals agree with the Deputy PM, saying that passage of Bill G-178 is vital to the avoid so-called "Isandlwana Syndrome" that is currently hamstringing the government response to the ongoing crisis in Sol.

Bill G-178 would authorise acceptance of a critical loan package, extended by the Solarian Central Bank, to ensure that the private entrepreneurs and the government's Charter partners are duly compensated for the use of the products and are still able to keep the economy moving by making purchases and providing employment.

While it was initially thought that passage of Bill G-178 would be unanimous, its movement through Parliament has been halted by a tenuous coalition of Democratic Market Socialist Alliance, Earth List, and JDAP MPs from the opposition as well as a handful for Reconstituted Colonial Communist Party MPs defecting from the government.

Though Roderick's government still possess the votes needed to pass Bill G-178, the delay will cost lives in the defence of order, and observers both in and outside of Parliament are questioning weather the offending MPs should be considered as acting in a seditious manner and ejected from New York under the War Measures Act.

And yet others urge even more radical measures. One parliamentarian, a veteran of the Long Hot Decades, spoke to us on the condition of strictest anonymity: "When the heritage of all of Western Civilisation is under threat from criminals, augments, and anarchists, we all need to do our part. The Charters should do their part in recognising the limitations parliament is operating under, and instead issue limited waivers. In times like these, it is essential that everyone sacrifices to ensure our future remains secure and prosperous.



Free Manila Commune Backs Down--Blackfire Diaries

The process of negotiating with some remaining security forces and the administration of outlying cities has become a farce, as compromises are made to end the fighting. The claim that it is needed to "prevent Compact intervention" by ending the military struggle as quickly as possible rings hollow after such great victories in the previous days, and we chide with comradely frustration the…


Excerpt from "The Jakarta Resolution"

…it being in the interest of all free communes and peoples of the First and Second Island chains to band together in alliance with each other, and in negotiation and interaction with the Democratic Federation and all other relevant bodies, we resolve, to be affirmed or disavowed according to the free decision of all the peoples of each commune or other body, to create the Association of Pacific Councils and Communes…


[SOL CRISIS ALERT][SOUTH AMERICA] Chilean Anarchists Prematurely Claim Victory in Andean Campaign
-Atlantis Interstellar Courier Dispatch

The Andes Communal Resistance, also known as the "Mountain Republic", based in rural, underdeveloped areas have officially claimed all the mountains as the property of the "Democratic Federation".

This comes after the death late last night of Commander Josiah "Ace" Stryker, who died heroically leading a counter-attack, when his columns were ambushed by insurgent forces and their lines of retreat cut off.

However, despite this setback, Stryker's second in command, Captain-Colonel Martin Caine, remains confident that the ACR is still on its last legs.

Speaking with a field correspondent of the Atlantis Interstellar Courier Dispatch, Caine is quoted as saying that, "This ambush was the death throes of a highly disorganised enemy as we plunged our blade into their stomach." Caine said, speaking of the ambush that killed his CO, "War has changed from what these primitive insurgents are used to, the gloves have come off. 7th Star Minister Vandermeer herself has personally communicated to me that 1st Fleet will continue around the clock orbital support and resupply operations until this campaign is completed."

When asked if he was worried about the optics of increasing casualties on the news cycle, Cain refused to back down, saying "Temporarily cutting off our movements in two dimensions will avail them nothing because the Solarian Navy will always control the stars."

Despite this confidence many locals are less certain of victory, speaking confidentially with the Dispatch from the ground, with many locals fearing that if the 35th and the Chilean army are broken, an offensive from the mountains will soon put an end to South America's peaceful history.

Anticipating expanded violence, tens of thousands are fleeing the continent as protests of support for the so-called "Mountain Republic'' turn violent, with rioters chanting the ACR's infamous slogan, "Never Conquered! Never Surrendered!"



Chaos In Space! Are Our Orbitals Safe?--Financial Hours

…Anarchist talk of revenge leads to another chilling possibility, that they will use airstrikes on innocents as we did on financial criminals. We should feel secure, but the news we have been getting from space is highly confused, as if Anarchist Infiltration is threatening the very foundation of our peace and prosperity. We must petition the government to inform all good citizens of the willingness and ability of the Compact's innumerable and incomparable fleets to strike down anarchists wherever they may be…


[SOL CRISIS EXPLAINER][CHINA] Inside China's Communist Party- Atlantis Interstellar Courier Dispatch

While fires spread across Earth, only two regions of that ancient planet remain untouched, the prosperous human homeland of Africa and the ancient civilization of China, which has moved swiftly to grant the concessions it believes necessary to prevent domestic strife.

Standing as the only UN Security Council member outside Africa without large scale anarchist outbreaks, China now heads into an election that will determine the fate of Earth's most populated liberal Democracy, and the electoral outcome may not rest on the strength of the ruling Communist Party of China's opposition, but with its own internal factions.

The first faction, and at the moment the second most powerful, is often labelled by outside observers as the "Liberal" faction. They believe in Augment rights, free enterprise, and modest and careful slimming down of an over-extended welfare state without, in their view, the dismantling that they accuse opposition parties of wanting. They are socially and economically progressive, willing to help China move forward towards a stronger and more balanced economic structure, and last held power as a faction in 2248, and have been a significant factor since then. The liberal faction is also in favour of economic interaction with other nations, but against heavy military spending as being contrary to a balanced budget, and anti-interventionist because they seek to maintain China as part of Earth's community of nations.

It was expected that the next election might see the "Liberal" faction once again ascendant, however the Broadcast has cut off the natural ebb and flow between the Liberal and Conservative wings of China's natural ruling party.

The Second, and largest, faction might be called the "Conservatives." They stick to the old orthodoxy of welfare states, and believe that nothing should be done to reduce or rationalize the entitlement systems to fit with the realities of the 23rd century. This slow moving and ponderous faction is pro-military spending, and ambiguous at best on the rights of Augments, AGIs, and corporate personhood. They have a strong connection with the 'China First' Party, just as the "Liberal" faction is accused of having connections with various Progressive and Technocratic parties, and wish for Chinese power and strength to be deployed about its sphere of influence. The Conservative wing of the CPC has been dominant from 2249-2254, with only minor cracks in their rule showing relatively recently.

The Third Faction, and the smallest, are what is often called the "Reactionary" wing of China's largest political party. These radicals look not to the bright future of the frontiers with the liberals or at Earth's current political climate like the Conservatives, but instead seek to return to the CPC's glorious past. Calling for a return to the early days of the Peoples' Republic of China's and their nearly forgotten founding father, the anarchist thinker Mao Zedong. These reactionaries seek to return to the days of the "Shanghai Commune'', and the aborted policies of the PRC's early years. Though most reactionaries agree on these points, they are divided on foreign policy with an expansionist wing that desires to proselytise their ancient ideology at spearpoint and an isolationist faction which seeks to turn China inwards once again and spurn China's deeply embedded economic links to the outside world. These reactionaries count as their allies the scattered "Maoist", Adamsist, and Anarchist parties of China's opposition and have until recently found themselves marginalised by the wider party.

When the current Chinese election is called, the Communist Party of China is favoured to win another majority, but the question should now be asked: whose majority will it be? That of the forward thinking Liberals, the stagnant Conservatives, or the frozen in time Reactionary wing?



Parliament Moots Requesting First Colony System Forces Intervention--#SolPoliticsDaily

In a move that gathered controversial denunciations among both the JDAP of the PRHL of being unwilling to "fight it out", Parliament has narrowly passed a resolution requesting that the "Daughter Worlds" dispatch their System Defence Forces to Sol. Many fear this is equivalent to stating their lack of trust in the local Solarian Naval forces, and Silvia Greene argued that orbital bombardment would be inhumane and ineffective and that a new strategy is needed.

When challenged on what that strategy would be, Silvia Greene equivocated, saying that he doesn't have the same level of intelligence that the PM has access to, but that like any counter insurgency, the crisis in Sol needs to be countered with reform and understanding.

Though it is expected that Columbia, Epsilon, and Penglai will be open to federalization of their Self Defence Forces, Olduvai has long held to a policy of non-deployment and Atlantis' government remains frozen by a system wide general strike.



Pro-Chinese Revolt In North Korea--China Star

…North Korea previously had a government controlled by the Victims of Communism Fund, a radical anti-Chinese organisation which turned North Korea into a "monument state" in their words. North Korea was famous for its exhibitions for all who were killed by the evils of communism, and tourist money providing the main source of income compared to the far richer South Korean Reconstruction Zone, which was even elevated to an equivalent legal status of a Colonial Republic in 2188. This revolt and coup has led to mass death and divisions of the People's Liberation Army of China have moved in to restore order despite threats of retaliation…


Spanish Space Forces Defect--#SolMilitaryHourly

In an unprecedented move, the Spanish Space Forces have declared their loyalty to the new government. Despite calls from certain commentators for the Solarian Navy or other national fleets to fire on the SSF, they have not yet, showing remarkable restraint in the face of… 1/3


Breakdown of Rule of Law Across Central Asia--Central Asian Truth

…criminal gangs, already common, have begun to spread throughout the region trying to control access to the new technology and succeeding to some extent. They are opposed by Russian Security Forces, Anarchist Rebels, and a strong and growing Reactionary Movement, the Turkestan Islamic Restoration Authority (TIRA) which has mooted alliance with these profit-seeking criminal groups against the dual threats of communism and anarchism…


Protests Slow Amid Solarian Marshal Negotiations--Holy Lands Voice

Protests in the Holy Land Neutral Occupation Zone (HLNOZ) have been muted today as the Solarian Marshals have stated a desire and willingness to negotiate a peace that keeps the region from exploding into sectarian violence and hatred. The Tikun Olam Front has stated its willingness to negotiate unconditionally, though Islamic Revolutionary Organization has stated that the political prisoners taken on the night of the 19th need to be released before they are willing to talk.

The Solarian Marshals HLZNOZ Comandante, Lilja Novosad has provisionally and unilaterally agreed to these terms as soon as they were received, stating that…



Grim News Shakes Investor Confidence --Stock Market Daily Report

It appears that initial projections were somewhat overoptimistic. The declaration of the Democratic Federation has badly damaged investor confidence, despite the clear evidence that its collapse is imminent. Parliament is expected to take drastic measures to secure the all-important stock values before a self-reinforcing cycle begins and gives further credence to anarchist lies. Our advice is to buy now and buy fast while prices are low, using our patented VI to help you determine what stocks and futures will grow fastest...


Penglai calls up Self Defence Force Troops as planet enters Third Day of Street Protests -New Washington Orbital

As Penglai enters its third day of protests; an increasingly organised and militant street movement clashes once more with Law Enforcement across the planet.

To ensure that peace is maintained, the Penglai Government under system PM Nicador Costa has officially sent out the order for the Penglai Self Defence Force to begin deploying SDF military police and naval infantry regiments to the planet's surface.

In order to prevent more escalations, these SDF units will not carry lethal armaments and have been instructed to rely on stun batons and riot shields against the protestors.

The last time that Penglai's SDF was deployed to the planet's surface was during the Darien Carmichael protests of 2242.
 
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This is the secret that none dares tell who fights for a cause.

An omake.

CW: This story involves reprisals against insurrectionist forces on Sol. Be prepared for some grim content.

Toronto, North America, May 24th.


It had taken until nearly 10pm for the cops and the militia to clear out the old DemFed block. The die-hards had barricaded themselves into the basements and maintenance rooms at the bottom of the tower and lived up to their name, a few nameless martyrs tossed onto the pyre of revolutions. Everyone else was going through what was being called "processing" by the militia men and the few cops who were bothering to try and ride herd on them. The huddled mass of surrendered and captured fighters and anyone else who'd been unlucky enough to be caught in the vague area of the building when the hogs had descended on it in their masses. They had all been herded into some open space to wait

Among those awaiting processing was Andre Guerrero-Lipton. Unlike so many of the others, he was not an Augment, nor was he one of the grizzled menials or underground unionpersons. In fact, he came from what many people considered a "good family." They were upper middle-management for Ares, they did good work. They sent him to good schools and made sure he met the right people. Andre was also twenty-two years old, as of three days ago.

He had also found radical literature on the internet and when the broadcast had hit, he'd been ecstatic in a way that only a young convert could be. He had left his university campus and headed for the nearest urban center, wanting to contribute whatever he could to the burgeoning movement. Maybe join in the Black Summer protests this year and see what kind of mess he could get into.

Well, this was the mess, wasn't it?

He stood with the others left from his makeshift squad, a bandage wrapped tight around his head. He couldn't see out of his left eye thanks to the compress and he wasn't sure he wanted to know what it looked like after he had been involved in what felt like days of frantic urban fighting, first against riot police, then against drones and private security militias. He leaned heavily on the larger, bulkier augment next to him. Her name was Liliane and she was originally from Quebec, still spoke with an accent. He had only met her two days before when their squad had come together. She smiled a lot. Told funny jokes. Really into XR games, like him. He was pretty sure that if they lived through this, he had a friend for life.

She was also wounded. Most of them were--those who hadn't caught a bullet or some shrapnel had taken some rough handling from their initial captors. On his other side, a slender young man, maybe two years younger than Andre, was crying. He was still wearing a tattered menial coverall, his name-tag identifying him as "Alyx" from "Kwik 'n' Kleen" office space custodial service.

"They left us," he Alyx said. The same thing that he had said repeatedly for the lost few hours.

"It's not like anyone said this was gonna be easy," Liliane said. She was trying to be funny about it. Trying to grab a touch of levity in what was becoming a worse situation by the minute.

"We tried," Andre said wearily. "We did our best. And maybe we did enough so that someone else in Ottawa or Vancouver or Montreal or somewhere can do it right next time. Or they'll not have half the cops coming down on them, you know?" Silver linings and all that.

"They're gonna kill us," Alyx insisted. "Mom--mom told me I should just stay home and keep my head down, she said during the last big Black Summer people got killed--they shot people. They're gonna do the same thing to us."

"No they won't," Andre insisted. "They can't just shoot us. We're Compact citizens."

"You're a Compact citizen," Liliane said, her voice weary, cracked. Andre wondered when the last time they'd had a drink was. "We're born and raised CEZ. Even if it's the same on paper, it's not the same to them."

"I don't want to die," Alyx said through sobs. "I don't want to die, I don't, I don't--"

"Hey," Andre reached out, tried to touch the guy's shoulder. "Hey, calm down. It'll be okay. They're probably just figuring out which jails to take us to. Not like it's every day they arrest a few thousand people at once…"

Alyx didn't stop crying, but at least he stopped repeating his mantra, for now.

In the distance, there was still sporadic gunfire and the flash lasers lighting up the night sky. Some were still fighting. Somewhere. Somewhere closer, there was a smattering of popping shots. Was there another hold-out somewhere nearby? Andre wasn't sure. He closed his good eye. All he wanted was to get somewhere he could sleep. Call his folks and let them know he was alive. They were probably worried sick after he'd taken off from university, disappeared in all the chaos.

There was a shuffle of movement. A militia officer accompanied by a uniformed police officer was moving down the rough line of the prisoners, stopped a dozen people down and his soldiers began to march the prisoners off, hands over their heads. At least for the ones that could manage. Andre watched, leaned into Liliane. He was so tired.

"Guess we're coming up next," he said.

"You can still get out of this, Andre," Liliane said. "Give them your name and your ID. You said your parents have pull in Ares. They're not gonna just throw you in a cell or whatever. You have corp protections--you can tell them we just forced you to come along, you were a hostage, whatever." On the other side of Liliane, a bat augment piped up.

"Listen to her, Andry," Dax said. They weren't wounded, but they were covered in filth and gore--they'd been the squad's ersatz medic. They had an annoying habit of giving everyone nicknames and they had also watched seven of their comrades die already.

"You have the connections to make it out of this in one piece. You might have to do a couple years of prison, some probation or something but if your parents are really where you said they are then you'll still have a life. The rest of us are going away forever. Barely even a trial. You need to tell them who you are--I don't want to lose anyone else," they insisted. The popping of gunfire was happening again and the officer was back. He walked towards them and Liliane elbowed Andres, spoke up.

"Hey--! Hey, you should know who this guy is, first," she said in her thick Quebecois accent. The officer's stride paused and he stared at the pair of them. Filthy, wounded, barely able to stand. He glared at Liliane, then looked at Andre.

"Why should I care, exactly?" Andre could feel his wallet in his pocket. His ID was in there. Credit chit. Everything that would tie him back to his life, everything that might help him escape back into something like normalcy. Get him out of the hellish terror that had consumed him for days. He smiled.

"Because I'm a free worker," he said with all the bravado he had left.

"Freeloading scum looking for everything to be given to you, more like," the officer sneered. Alyx was still sobbing and he tried to reach out to the officer.

"Please, I'm not supposed to be here, I got forced into it--" One of the soldiers with the officer shoved him back with his rifle butt.

"Shut the fuck up. Don't speak unless the officer speaks to you."

Alyx shut up. He kept crying though. The officer continued down the line to mark off the next group and Dax hissed.

"You're an idiot, Andy."

"I know. That's why I showed up in the first place." The guards came back, started moving the ragged column out of the park and who knew where. They marched down the ruined street, stumbling over rubble and past burned out riot vans. The detritus of what had started as protest and ended in vicious urban combat. The gunfire had faded for a few moments and Andre smiled up at Liliane.

"Hell of a story to tell to our grandkids, huh?"
"Hell of a story, Andy," she agreed with an equally tired smile. They moved past what used to be the local police station--gutted by fire, one wall blasted open by an anti-tank munition, and then turned down another battered avenue. A line of heavy trucks was parked along the side of the road--probably had hauled in some of the equipment used to batter them into submission. The ragged column finally came to a stop next to a warehouse, squinting against too-bright portable lamps. A few guards came by, handing out bottles of water. A low murmur of conversation started again. Things would be okay, maybe?

"Weird place to process us," Andre said.

"There's a lot of us," Liliane said, "A couple years back we all got processed at soccer field."

"I don't think we are going to be processed," Dax muttered. Silhouetted by the lights, a figure stepped forward, hands on hips. Whoever they were, they spoke in a feminine voice.

"You have all been tried in absentia and found guilty of insurrection, terrorism, and copyright infringement with intent to distribute. The sentence will be carried out immediately. That's all." As she finished speaking, Alyx bolted out of the mess of captured fighters, running for the lights as if he reached them, he might find safety. Someone fired a gun from the lights and Andre watched as a fist-sized hole was blown through the teenager's chest and out of his back. He collapsed and a universal moan went up from the prisoners that was subsumed as machine guns opened fire before the echo of the first shot died away.

"Dax--" Andre reached across Liliane towards the augment.

"Lili--" Dax was reaching back, pushing themselves up against Liliane's other side. The orc augment's grip was vice grip tight, it hurt. The three of them pulled together for a brief moment, a desperate human connection that lasted less than a second. Then it was gone, punched backwards by the force of the bullets. Andre's head spun as he found himself lying sprawled onto the pavement, tangled up with Liliane. The gunfire was still sounding, but it sounded faint and far away.

Mama, papa… His last conscious thought as darkness began to nibble at his vision. I'm not gonna make it to the Mother's Day trip this year.

======

Toronto Sun, brought to you by Hermes-Ishtar.

LOCAL STUDENT KILLED BY ANARCHISTS
Andre Guerrero-Lipton, son of Ares Assistant Vice-President for Sol Marketing Hugo Guerrero and Ares Assistant Account Manager for the Americas Kelly Lipton was among those brutally slain by the vicious Anarchist uprising that was handily crushed by security forces late last night. Andre was a student at Ares Managerial University, Toronto and…

Dying, we are all alike.

canon
 
It appears that initial projections were somewhat overoptimistic. The declaration of the Democratic Federation has badly damaged investor confidence, despite the clear evidence that its collapse is imminent. Parliament is expected to take drastic measures to secure the all-important stock values before a self-reinforcing cycle begins and gives further credence to anarchist lies. Our advice is to buy now and buy fast while prices are low, using our patented VI to help you determine what stocks and futures will grow fastest...
I'm remembering this one documentary about the Great Depression that made it clear that as the stock market rose to new heights through the Roaring Twenties, the economy in real terms was taking a dip.

Everyone's advice, right up until Black Friday? 'Buy'.
 
With Stryker dead, the Compact and Charter forces in the Andes are likely to be under much less competent command, which is good news for the ACR.
 
DSMA Radicals in Parliament Block Bill G-178 -Colonial Mirror
Well there we go. Whether they tried to block it because it was the ruling parties idea or they support the revolution is up to debate. But it gives us a delay until government forces can attempt to achieve tech parity.
Free Manila Commune Backs Down--Blackfyre Diaries
They won't let us end remaining security forces in a glorious bloodbath and that makes me mad.
Excerpt from "The Jakarta Resolution"
There we go. Indonesia is now officially with the revolution.
[SOL CRISIS ALERT][SOUTH AMERICA] Chilean Anarchists Prematurely Claim Victory in Andean Campaign
Well you tried Stryker but it wasn't enough. Luckily it looks like your second in command has none of your smarts.
When asked if he was worried about the optics of increasing casualties on the news cycle, Cain refused to back down, saying "Temporarily cutting off our movements in two dimensions will avail them nothing because the Solarian Navy will always control the stars."
Has the same energy to me as 'The 6th Army may be surrounded in Stalingrad but we'll just supply them by air.'
[SOL CRISIS EXPLAINER][CHINA] Inside China's Communist Party- Atlantis Interstellar Courier Dispatch
>Chinese Communist Party
>One Party Rule
>Liberal Democracy
>Mao was an anarchist
This slow moving and ponderous faction is pro-military spending, and ambiguous at best on the rights of Augments, AGIs, and corporate personhood.
One of these things is not like the other.
Parliament Moots Requesting First Colony System Forces Intervention--#SolPoliticsDaily
Has potential since with their military forces gone more effective rebellions could break out in the First Colonies.
Breakdown of Rule of Law Across Central Asia--Central Asian Truth
Well this was always something that was going to happen. Since the Broadcast was for everyone that means everyone has access to the FRM. Including criminals with no interest in the revolution and conservative groups.
Penglai calls up Self Defence Force Troops as planet enters Third Day of Street Protests -New Washington Orbital
Sure to end in bloodshed.
 
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However, despite this setback, Stryker's second in command, Captain-Colonel Martin Caine, remains confident that the ARC is still on its last legs.

Speaking with a field correspondent of the Atlantis Interstellar Courier Dispatch, Caine is quoted as saying that, "This ambush was the death throes of a highly disorganised enemy as we plunged our blade into their stomach." Caine said, speaking of the ambush that killed his CO, "War has changed from what these primitive insurgents are used to, the gloves have come off. 7th Star Minister Vandermeer herself has personally communicated to me that 1st Fleet will continue around the clock orbital support and resupply operations until this campaign is completed."
Prematurely Claiming Victory?
With Stryker dead, the Compact and Charter forces in the Andes are likely to be under much less competent command, which is good news for the ACR.
I hope we get another POV from ARC
 
I am remind though of what I sometimes here about the Military being a lot less reactionary than the Police.

That idea stands on the military having a higher standard of discipline and training compared to police and how opening fire can very well end with a soldier's head on a plate as an apology/offering to the infernal powers of the NCO's, with everything I've seen of the compact... I'm not sure if that's true. Most of what I've seen is telling me its going to be the Police with heavier weaponry.
 
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That idea stands on the military having a higher standard of discipline and training compared to police and how opening fire can very well end with a soldier's head on a plate to the infernal powers of the NCO's, with everything I've seen of the compact... I'm not sure if that's true. Most of what I've seen is telling me its going to be the Police with heavier weaponry.
Oh I'm not talking about discipline I do think there will be quite a few deaths from soldiers being trained to be more lethal. I'm talking about political alignment, I expect the SDF troops to be a lot more likely to mutiny and defect than the cops.
 
Well this was always something that was going to happen. Since the Broadcast was for everyone that means everyone has access to the FRM. Including criminals with no interest in the revolution and conservative groups.

I have to wonder just how criminal organizations would stay relevant in a post-Broadcast universe though, because they're facing the same problem as the Charters, that being they've lost a good chunk of their leverage over people due to the Box. Crypto is just binary in a post-scarcity world as are most material goods meaning they have nothing to incentivize people to work with them, or even their goons to stay loyal, and on top of that they no longer have a monopoly over violence since while they too managed to get their hands on the Broadcast so have all the people that they've victimized in the past
 
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