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

AKuz · Dec 10, 2020

THE ALL-RADIANT CONGRESS

Setting Information: The Solarian Compact:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Charters:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rhodes Mining

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

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

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

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

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

Techbros, some of them science, some of them explore

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sketchy buggers, they can get you anything tho

Historical Topics:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Misc Details:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Spinward Frontier:

The Middle Spinward Frontier

The Core Region:

UNDER RADIANT CONTROL OR ALLIED:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gaid A1: An airless world. Quality 10.

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

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

Gaid AI: An asteroid belt.

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

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

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

Gaid B2: An airless world. Quality 10.

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

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

Gaid B5: A small icy planet. Quality 3.

Gaid B6: A frozen world. Quality 7.

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

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

Shei 1: A Cthonian world. Quality 15.

Shei 2: An airless world. Quality 12.

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

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

Gravity .95 Earth Standard. Quality 12.

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

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

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

Shei I: Asteroid belt.

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

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

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

Shei II: Asteroid belt.

Shei 7: Jovian planet. Quality 13.

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

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

Shei 8: Ice giant. Quality 6.

Shei 8a: An icy moon. Quality 9.

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

Population: 103,000,000

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

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

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

Five Lions 3: A rocky ball. Quality 7.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Five Lions II: An asteroid belt.

Five Lions 7: An unremarkable Jovian. Quality 2.

Five Lions III: An asteroid belt.

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

Five Lions IV: An asteroid belt.

Five Lions 9: Jovian planet. Quality 9.

Five Lions V: An asteroid belt.

Five Lions 10: Neptunian ice giant. Quality 8.

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

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

Population: 15,000,000

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Population: 650,000

UNDER CHARTER CONTROL:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Xotreh A6: An unremarkable icy ball. Quality 4.

Xotreh AI: An asteroid belt.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Xotreh 6: A dense ice giant. Quality 4.

Xotreh 7: Jovian planet. Quality 6.

Xotreh 8: An exceptionally cold Jovian. Quality 9.

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

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

Population: 54,000

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

Bestreer 1: An airless world. Quality 2.

Bestreer 2: An airless world. Quality 6.

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

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

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

Bestreer I: An icy asteroid belt.

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

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

Bestreer 7: Another Jovian. Quality 14.

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

Bestreer 8: An icy ball. Quality 10.

Population: 450

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

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

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

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

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

Akleod I: An asteroid belt.

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

Population: 5,000

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

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

Thoa System Stats:

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

Thoa 2: An unremarkable airless metal ball.

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

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

Thoa I: An asteroid belt.

Thoa 4: A normal Jovian planet.

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

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

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

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

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

Thoa II: A Kuiper belt of icy objects.

Empty Systems

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

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

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

Kimberly 3: A Jovian world.

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

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

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

Total:

Radiant:

Gaid:

Five Lions:

Head of Diplomatic Corps:

Name: Amanda Redcrest, Victoria Blackwell, and Kayla Hayashi

DoB: "2222", 2219, 2227, 2224

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cons: XP celebrity, little diplomatic experience, three people

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

Unlocked FRM

Ares Peacekeeping Grade - Access to planetary army formation

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

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

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

Cernunnos Consumer Grade - +1 to all Soccom actions

Cernunnos Enterprise Grade - NOT UNLOCKED

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

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

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

Hermes-Ishtar Production Grade - NOT UNLOCKED

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

MSI Enterprise Grade - NOT UNLOCKED

Original Tech

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

Defence Coordinator:

Name: Maria Awhina

DoB: 2165

Current Position: Military Committee Delegate from the Radiant Veterans Guild

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pros:

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

Cons:

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

Command Traits:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-None

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

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

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

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

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

Solarian Marines now spread throughout the system

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

Mobile Force:

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

CO: Commodore Stephanie Rousseau

CNS Velasco, United States of America-class Fleet Carrier

-CO: Captain Esteri Attar

-Orca Wing, Switchblade-type strikecraft (Customized)

-CO: Wing Commander Jasmine Ang

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

-CO: Wing Commander Heloisa Kimura de Lima

CNS Shieldmaiden, Great Heathen-class Light Cruiser

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

CNS Shamhat, Great Heathen-class Light Cruiser

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

CNS Righteous Tempest, Cossak-class Frigate

-CO: Captain Vehement Shade

CNS August Willich, Cossak-class Frigate

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

CNS Elysium, Cossak-class Frigate

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

CNS Asphodel, Cossak-class Frigate

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

-

Home Force:

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

CO: Commodore Erina Kozlova

CNS Blaire Mountain, New Model-Class Strike Corvette

-CO: Captain Guillermo Kageyama

CNS Scutum, Comet-Class Patrol Corvette

-CO: Captain Martin Pagonis

CNS Buckler, Comet-Class Patrol Corvette

-CO: Captain Samuel Smiles

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

-CO: Captain Jean-Paul Beaumont

-

Radiant System Self Defence Force:

Current Orders: Defend Radiant, comet patrol

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

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

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

Switchblade Wing, Switchblade-type strikecraft

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

Apogee Wing, Switchblade-type strikecraft

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

Battery A, Blindfire-Pattern LMP Constellation

(Radiant-Bestreer Gate)

Battery B, Blindfire-Pattern LMP Constellation

(Radiant-Bestreer Gate)

Battery C, Blindfire-Pattern LMP Constellation

(Radiant-Bestreer Gate)

Battery D, Airstrike-Pattern LMP Constellation

(Radiant-Bestreer Gate)

Battery E, Airstrike-Pattern LMP Constellation

(Radiant-Bestreer Gate)

Battery F, Airstrike-Pattern LMP Constellation

(Radiant-Bestreer Gate)

Shoal A, Macross-Pattern TAM Shoal

(Radiant-Bestreer Gate)

Radiant Orbital Yard 1

Current construction: None

Radiant Orbital Yard 1

Current construction: None

-

Gaid System Self Defence Force:

Current Orders: Defend Gaid

CO: Commodore Victor Raine

Battery A, Blindfire-Pattern LMP Constellation

Battery B, Blindfire-Pattern LMP Constellation

Battery C, Blindfire-Pattern LMP Constellation

Battery D, Airstrike-Pattern LMP Constellation

Battery E, Airstrike-Pattern LMP Constellation

Battery F, Airstrike-Pattern LMP Constellation

Shoal A, Macross-Pattern TAM Shoal

Shoal A, Macross-Pattern TAM Shoal

Shoal A, Macross-Pattern TAM Shoal

Zephyr Wing, Switchblade-Type Strikecraft (Customized)

-CO: Wing Commander Ara Helge

Aeolus Wing, Switchblade-Type Strikecraft (Customized)

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

Gale Wing, Switchblade-Type Strikecraft (Customized)

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

-

Frontier Force

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

CO: Commodore Shayla McLean

CNS Kiel Mutiny, Kaiserreich-class BattleCruiser

-CO: Captain Inana Devlin

CNS Choreographer, Janissary-class Light Tender

-CO: Captain Karl Xanthopoulos

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

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

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

-CO: Captain Fool's Errand

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

-CO: Captain Rouge Napier

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

-CO: Captain John Rankin

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

-CO: Captain Nkiru Chaudhari

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

-CO: Captain Sumac Barros

CNS Revolutionary Will, Cossak-class Frigate

-CO: Captain Yamamoto Hanae

CNS Revolutionary Grace, Cossak-class Frigate

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

CNS Under New Management, Don-Class Fast Tanker

-CO: Captain Adras Kierenos

CNS Liberte, Hollywood(C)-Class Frigate

-CO: Captain Colin McRae

CNS Egalite, Hollywood(C)-Class Frigate

-CO: Captain Adelia Swift

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

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Genderite · May 14, 2022

BiopunkOtrera said:
#InfamousVdCB How do you suspect the revolution will go? I know that's a bit broad but how do you think the medium term effects will be on military doctrine and logistics?

Also how effective do you think the reactionaries in the core worlds will be at suppressing their revolutionaries? Finally do you think the revolts in the Frontier will be broadly successful or mostly crushed?

The Compact as it is structured, and Capitalism are dead. Kyriarchy itself is rocked on its pillars and may well be fatally wounded.

The creation of the box fundamentally changes the way that the economy works to our benefit, and reduces the overheads needed for a socialist economy to outperform a capitalist economy. Some groups seek to enclose it through various means, but unless all revolutionary areas are suppressed, which the forces of reaction lack the military potential to achieve, then successful revolutionary elements can simply build newer, better boxes containing more data and newly developed technology. With Earth and several of the core colonies under revolutionary control or allied with us, it's more a matter of how soon our superior system overwhelms theirs.

The revolution on the Frontier should also be more successful at this point because the reactionary forces will be forced to pull troops back to defend their core areas.

#InfamousVdCB That's very encouraging to hear that you don't think they will be able to reenclose us effectively I was also hoping to hear how you expect doctrine to shift overtime with the change from the inter-Charter cabinet wars to the more Levee en mass flower wars we will be seeing after the Broadcast.

Captainwolf · May 14, 2022

BiopunkOtrera said:
As a note, I do want to delay like, further VdCB Q&A for at least a while, because I feel like it's going to become the whole thread if we're not careful, feel free to post questions but answers may take a while lol.

(Also what did you think of the post in general lol)

It's okay but I want the quest to move on from it and get to dealing with TF 12.7

BiopunkOtrera · May 14, 2022

Captainwolf said:
It's okay but I want the quest to move on from it and get to dealing with TF 12.7

Yeah. That's coming.

neutronium95 · May 14, 2022

#InfamousVdCB

What's up with this Reileen person?

LucidProp · May 14, 2022

BiopunkOtrera said:
(Also what did you think of the post in general lol)

Posting a Q&A session after the normal lull that set in after the Sol updates is genius for keeping the thread active and in the front page.

One of my personal complaints for the story is that we never really get to see the people we put in charge of stuff develop their character until recently. The most obvious case of this being with our initial set of leaders, especially Awhina who was extremely fascinating with how she's genuinely repentant and representative of the ARC's military culture. The whole escape of her former black ops friends was fertile ground for that, but that didn't really work out.

We never really got to see much of her as a character, but the Q&A is a great way to explore that without needing to make outright story snippets which is a lot more effort from what I understand.

All in all, I really enjoy it as the Q&A sessions are another way to further develop the culture and characters that don't really get touched on during the updates, focused as they are on geostrategic developments.

It's one of the things that I'm always disappointed by polity quests. It's a understandable weakness of the genre since a polity quest is focused on the polity as there's limited narrative space, but I really do like to actually see the character development of the people who lead and make-up said polity as the world changes around them.

AKuz · May 14, 2022

silverpower said:
COMMUNIQUE OF THE ORDER OF THE THOUSAND-YEAR STARE, SOLAR CHAPTER
FOR GENERAL RELEASE

The Order of the Thousand-Year Stare is pleased to announce that we are opening the 2075 Codex early - seventy years early, in fact. For those unfamiliar with our Work, the Order of the Thousand-Year Stare is a Civilization Preservation Project, much like the Exodus Foundation or Safehold's Human Legacy Project. Unlike their project, however, which seeks to ensure human continuity, our Work is somewhat more humble but no less important.

Our Work is to retain the cultural memory of pre-Space Age civilization. However, while we often move within longtermist circles, the origin of our project actually belongs to the Democratic Federation. Our task was in fact to preserve the cultural memory of the Democratic Federation, and we feel that we have finally succeeded in this task. The Codex largely remains as it was compiled, with the only major differences being data added between the years of 2072 and 2075. Later Codexes were and are "freely available", in that you could acquire a license for them from Hermes-Ishtar, but lack the wealth of historical data we have sought to preserve against the barbarism of "intellectual property" and "cosmoliberalism".

In a sense, we have failed in our initial mission, but none could truly anticipate the fullness of the antipathy of the Compact and the Charters towards civilization. Restoring the Democratic Federation - a task the Order itself acknowledged would be very difficult - became functionally impossible for us to contemplate as the decades passed by. Yet we persevered in our task, hoping that a restoration or successor would arise someday. After all, the Compact would most likely collapse under its own weight, if nothing else. We are gratified to see that our thesis was correct, even if it took almost two centuries to realize.

Please understand, we did not want to wait to release this project any longer than strictly necessary, but it is time now. We have been in consultations with the Democratic Federation, and we have acted to preserve the safety and security of members of the Order. Included with this communique are keys to decrypt the full Codex of 2075, as well as guides to attempt to make sense of at the very least the layers of the Codex the Order has decrypted for internal usage.

To be completely honest, we are not entirely sure what is in the entirety of the Codex. Much of the content is derived from sources such as the ancient and fallen Internet Archive Project, the Wikimedia Foundation, and a mostly-complete set of all piracy scene releases - some as far back as the 1980s, some as late as 2074. Rest assured, we have seen your comments asking about what is in the Codex. We have no wish to harm your memory of "reconstructed lost media", but we also are not 100% sure what was included and what was not, due to the nature of piracy scene releases of the era. Some popular works may indeed be gone forever. We grieve this, but we cannot do anything about it, short of time travel.

One final note. The Codex itself is mainly of historical interest. Much of its technical content is obsolete following the Radiant Broadcast. Further, much of it was oriented towards surviving a larger calamity than what ultimately befell the Democratic Federation. It was our hope that by seeding it - first in archives on Earth, then in Sol, then the wider galaxy - we would enable panhuman civilization to self-recover using the technical and social data provided. Rest assured that if a calamity had indeed occurred that would require the use of this data before this date, it would have been decrypted immediately. Certainly, if the events of May 31st had gone poorly, we would have released it, no matter the personal risks.

This chapter will be compiling a new Solar Codex of 2255 soon, fully uncensored, using both this data and the Broadcast, as well as newly open sources. If you find it incomplete, we welcome your input.

"That We May Try Again"

[nested GPG4 key attached]
[order_thousandyearstare_codex_2075.epub attached]
[order_thousandyearstare_codex_2075_insurance.gpg.tar.xz.parchive attached]

canon

silverpower · May 14, 2022

#InfamousVdCB

So, uh, I have a strange question. Some of us retro-enthusiasts have heard about this game series called Girls Frontline, that was apparently banned for subversive content back in the 2070s? What was it about, and did your aesthetic come from there? All we've had to go on before the Codex was a few pieces of official art...

AKuz · May 14, 2022

From the mind of Fleet Admiral Eva Edriss

Keep moving. That was a lesson Admiral Edriss had known all her life. She wasn't going to be one of those incompetents who commanded 10th Fleet briefly before retiring because that's all they could accomplish in life.

She was going to do something with her career. She had it in her to retire as a full seven leaf Star Minister.

When the Broadcast had hit, Visser had talked of "how dare they" and "we should continue with orders," and Eva had wanted to shoot the obtuse and obsequious little myrmidon right between the eyes right then, right there on her command deck.

Instead, she'd rolled her eyes because of course they'd dared. When you were playing a losing game, the only option was to go aggressive, to gamble big, play all your cards out, and hope you won.

Whenever Edriss got around to writing her memoirs she might say that she preferred those gambles, the love of the big play and bigger bluff. The energy of everything riding on one roll of the dice.

But if she was honest, she always preferred to be at a clear advantage, to have a little something extra tucked into her uniform sleeve, not enough that victory was certain, but enough that her path wasn't boring, that she had to challenge herself.

It had been how she'd gotten to where she was, that knowledge of what the path to victory was and the kinds of gambles that she'd have to make to travel it. And knowing that path to victory she knew right now that she was not on it. Not commanding a scratch formation that mainly existed on paper deep into what was very suddenly the territory of an enemy that had played all their cards expertly and seen their own dice kissed by lady luck.

And Visser's lack of understanding was the reason she still really wanted to shoot the man even when he'd graciously accepted the orders of his superior without visibly shaking in his boots.

Trying to split her forces now was insane, and holding up in Raphanus just meant holding up without any actual knowledge of what was happening back in civilization. At best, she stayed there and would be greeted when the fleet came to liberate it as a cowardly officer who had sat in a hole while the galaxy burned instead of doing her goddamn job.

No, the only winning move here was to get out: a heroic escape.

Of course, these Iconoclast fanatics just had to fight. It wasn't that she hadn't expected it, but she had hoped that maybe, just maybe they would either be less bloodthirsty or at least one of the other useless lumps of fat she had on her side had made some moves to put some pressure onto the anarchists' other fronts.

No luck with either of those.

But that was also an opportunity for a grand gamble.

She'd read Xenophon's Anabasis, she'd been taught the story of the Czech Legion's march through the chaos of the Russian Revolution in high school, and tracked the path of Bandit Regiment during their fight out of the collapsing United States of America over a series of Academy lectures.

Humanity loved stories about winners, true, but they also loved stories about those who weren't defeated. What Humanity really liked were epic tales of survival against all odds. Maybe Edriss and her command weren't cut out to suppress this rebellion of madmen in the frontier, but they were in a prime position to roll the dice and become a Legend that would stand the twenty-seven centuries of Xenophon's tale and another twenty-seven hundred after that.

And that was her play, that was Admiral Eva Edriss' path to victory. Not defeat of the anarchists, but a road to legend, and now they were nearly there. Almost to the first hurdle.

She'd made it clear to the command that their crews were to know this was a breakout, not an attempt at a grinding battle, which hopefully would give them some spine to push through. Data on AIC that was as complete as possible had been copied to each ship as well, some useful thing from this disaster.

And in the event her ship was taken, her final transmission was prepared. If she could not secure her own legacy, she could at least secure something for her progeny. The Edriss family name would not be the black mark of a coward in the years to come, it would be known as someone who fought her hardest.

Everything was ready, and now, it was time to gamble, and hope whatever aces Radiant had up its sleeve were ones that she'd have a card to trump.

-

From the mind of Admiral Shayla McLean

To Shayla McLean the injunction against overwork was a lie.

A useful lie, and one rooted in certain objectively observed truths.

But a lie nevertheless.

And a lie that McLean told her subordinates, one of many such lies.

But she would never lie to herself, she never had, and she never would.

Never again would she try to climb someone else's ladder, to smile and nod when someone who considered themselves her better condescended to her to say, "Tomorrow, little cat. Your reward will come tomorrow," as they spoke to a person that she wasn't.

In truth she was a perfectionist, could never rest until whatever task she'd set out before herself was completed. Then the next task began. Everything she did she devoted her all to, there was simply no other way for her to be.

So in the confines of her own mind she still worked long after she'd been told to stop, in her heart some part of her still yearned for the exhaustion of the sixteen hour workday, though it was something that she'd only require from herself.

Shayla worked hard so that others didn't need to. If she had command, she would commit to her command with every part of being, from the tip of her ears to the soles of her feet.

And so as the coming showdown with the Solarian Navy at the Osliam-Shei gate approached she wandered compartments purposefully but aimlessly, her conscious mind tracing along its various strings and webs, ensuring that she'd done everything possible. She relentlessly searched every facet of her memory to ensure that she'd done everything that there was to be done.

She turned every detail of her command around and around again in her mind relentlessly. Crews have been trained, craft maintained, formations adjusted, intelligence shared, inspections overseen, subordinates briefed, orders for missile-armed craft to engage SNS Cadance Sokolova and all others to change forward and wipe point defence destroyers from the void issued, and civilian masters reported to.

Eventually she came to the conclusion that she was committed. Done everything there was to be done. Put her all towards an outcome most deliriously desired.

So then what remained?

What remained was to see through her course of action with her all. To throw herself forward into battle with every fibre of her being. To attack, and attack, and attack again.

-

Battle Lines for the [Congressional Navy] and [Navy of the Solarian Compact] before contact at the Battle of the Osliam-Shei Gate:

Combined Force of the Congressional Navy and the Shei Interstellar Force, comprised of:
Mobile Force: Congressional Navy
Osliam Chain Force: Congressional Navy
Shei System Defence Force: Shei Interstellar Force

Commanding Officer: Admiral Shayla McLean

-

Mobile Force:

Commanding Officer: Commodore Stephanie Rousseau

CNS Velasco	United States of America-class Fleet Carrier	Esteri Attar
Orca Wing	Switchblade-type Strikecraft (Customized)	Jasmine Ang
Red Wolf Wing	Switchblade-type Strikecraft (Customized)	Heloisa Kimura de Lima
CNS Shieldmaiden	Great Heathen-class Light Cruiser
CNS Shamhat	Great Heathen-class Light Cruiser
CNS Righteous Tempest	Cossak-class Frigate	Captain Vehement Shade
CNS August Willich	Cossak-class Frigate
CNS Reliant	Cossak-class Frigate
CNS Elysium	Cossak-class Frigate
CNS Asphodel	Cossak-class Frigate
CNS Rojava	Cossak-class Frigate
CNS Salvation	Great Heathen-class Light Cruiser
CNS Shippy Mcshipface	Cossak-class Frigate

Oslaim Chain Force:

Commanding Officer: Admiral Shayla McLean

CNS Kiel Mutiny	Kaiserreich-class Battlecruiser	Captain Inana Devlin
CNS Choreographer	Janissary-class Light Tender	Karl Xanothos
CNS Valiant	New Model-class Strike Corvette
CNS Defiant	New Model-class Strike Corvette	Fool's Errand
CNS Reliant	New Model-class Strike Corvette	Rouge Napier
CNS Actium	New Model-class Strike Corvette	John Rankin
CNS Crête-à-Pierrot	New Model-class Strike Corvette	Nkiru Chaudhari
CNS Valmy	New Model-class Strike Corvette	Captain Sumac Barros
Revolutionary Will	Cossak-class Frigate	Captain Yamamoto Hanae
Revolutionary Grace	Cossak-class Frigate
CNS Liberte	Hollywood-C-class Frigate (Converted Courier)	Colin McRae
CNS Egalite	Hollywood-C-class Frigate (Converted Courier)	Adelia Swift
CNS Under New Management	Don River-class Fast tanker	Adras Kierenos

Shei System Defence Force:

Commanding Officer: System General Stillwind Kaine

Battery A	Blindfire-Pattern LMP Constellation	None
Battery B	Blindfire-Pattern LMP Constellation	None
Battery C	Blindfire-Pattern LMP Constellation	None
Battery D	Airstrike-Pattern LMP Constellation	None
Battery E	Airstrike-Pattern LMP Constellation	None
Battery F	Airstrike-Pattern LMP Constellation	None
Shoal A	Macross-Pattern TAM Shoal	None
Shoal B	Macross-Pattern TAM Shoal	None
Shoal C	Macross-Pattern TAM Shoal	None
Zephyr Wing	Switchblade- Type Strikecraft (Customized)
Gale Wing	Switchblade-Type Strikecraft (Customized)
Aeolus Wing	Switchblade-Type Strikecraft (Customized)
Blood Wing	Switchblade-Type Strikecraft (Customized)
Spearpoint Wing	Switchblade-Type Strikecraft (Customized)
Claw Wing	Switchblade-Type Strikecraft (Customized)
First Lion	Stakhanovite-rapidly converted light cruiser
Second Lion	Stakhanovite-rapidly converted light cruiser
Third Lion	Stakhanovite-rapidly converted light cruiser
Fourth Lion	Stakhanovite-rapidly converted light cruiser

-

Combined Far Spinward Contact Force of the Navy of the Solarian Compact, comprised of:
Task Force 4.4: Navy of the Solarian Compact 4th Fleet
Task Force 12.7: Navy of the Solarian Compact 12th Fleet

Commanding Officer: Fleet Admiral Eva Edriss

Task Force 12.7

Commanding Officer: Eva Edriss

SNS Cadance Sokolova	Charlotte Kerensky-class heavy battlecruiser "Battleship"
SNS On Guard For Thee	Freedom's Light-class cruiser
SNS United Forever	Freedom's Light-class cruiser
SNS Yes, We Love This Country	Über Alles-class cruiser
SNS Swiss Psalm	Über Alles-class cruiser
SNS Ursa	Enterprise-class Frigate
SNS Captor	Enterprise-class Frigate
SNS Huron	Enterprise-class Frigate
SNS Vreeland	Enterprise-class Frigate
SNS Leftwich	Enterprise-class Frigate
SNS Cardiff	Enterprise-class Frigate
SNS Melissa Chapman	Herald Kanumba-class Frigate
SNS Collete Croca	Herald Kanumba-class Frigate
SNS Rachel Crayak	Herald Kanumba-class Frigate
SNS Tenryu	Emden-class point defence destroyers
SNS Loos	Emden-class point defence destroyers
SNS Lika	Emden-class point defence destroyers
SNS Citadelle de Quebec	Star-hold-class Light Tender
SNS Castle Clinton	Star-hold-class Light-tender
SNS Toby Hamee	Francis Napier-class heavy fleet auxiliary
SNS Kinshasa	Oslo-class minesweeper/drone-carrier auxiliary
SNS Rio de Janeiro	Oslo-class minesweeper/drone-carrier auxiliary
SNS Melbourne	Oslo-class minesweeper/drone-carrier auxiliary
SNS Responder	Salvation-class rapid troop transports
SNS Guardianship	Salvation-class rapid troop transports

Task Force 4.4:

Commanding Officer: David Visser

SNS Krak de Chevaliers	Star-hold-class Light Tender
SNS Victoria Newman	Leonard Greyson-Chang-class Strike Corvette
SNS Tobias Fangor	Leonard Greyson-Chang-class Strike Corvette
SNS James Leon	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 Temrash	Herald Kanumba-class Frigate
SNS Alexander Hamilton	Liberation-class rapid troop transports

-

Combat Engine results will be posted tomorrow.

MonkeyTypewriter · May 14, 2022

Oh wow, the Charters let us concentrate both of our two Primary Fleets, on our most heavily defended chokepoint. What idiots.

Aranfan · May 14, 2022

AKuz said:
Rachel Crayak

I am irrationally furious at this choice of surname for rachel.

Chlof · May 14, 2022

AKuz said:
CNS Shippy Mcshipface

Godspeed, shippy.

taovkool · May 14, 2022

AKuz said:
Combat Engine results will be posted tomorrow

Oh God, now I'm tense and not in a good way.

I got an interview tomorrow, dammit! I don't need the added stress from this! I need to know if we're winning or not!

Aranfan · May 14, 2022

Interesting

AKuz said:

So this is the battle flag of the Amaranth Space Force huh? I guess the ARC flag is just the flag for the Radiant system then? And this is our flag now?

Model DC.14F · May 14, 2022

Does anyone else find it ironic that its the 'well trained and professional' SolNav Admiral that is thinking about the outcome of the upcoming battle in terms of stories, legends, and playing a game; while the 'Anarchist Rabble lead by the overly dramatic theater kids' Admiral is the one reflecting on how she had done her best to train, prepare, and plan for it?

clockworkchaos · May 14, 2022

Aranfan said:
I am irrationally furious at this choice of surname for rachel.

Your hatred makes me stronger.

NedTheNanite · May 14, 2022

Aranfan said:
Interesting

So this is the battle flag of the Amaranth Space Force huh? I guess the ARC flag is just the flag for the Radiant system then? And this is our flag now?

It's presumably just our naval ensign, since the flag shown for Solnav is the 12th Fleet's flag and not the Compact flag.

MonkeyTypewriter · May 14, 2022

Our Orbat:
9 Gate Defenses
9 Frigates
2 Converted Frigates
3 Light Cruisers
4 Converted Cruisers
6 Corvettes
1 Battlecruiser
1 Fleet Carrier
8 Strike Craft
1 Tender
1 Fleet Auxillary

Compact Orbat
1 Battleship/Battlecruiser
10 Frigates
4 Corvettes
3 Light Cruisers
2 Cruisers
2 Point Defense Destroyers
3 Light Tenders
3 Minesweepers/Drone Carriers
3 Troop Transports

Redshirt Army · May 14, 2022

Aranfan said:
And this is our flag now?

As the designer, I can share that that is specifically the AIC Naval Ensign, not the flag of the entire AIC, just as the 12th Fleet Ensign is not the Compact's flag.

TortugaGreen · May 14, 2022

Aranfan said:
So this is the battle flag of the Amaranth Space Force huh? I guess the ARC flag is just the flag for the Radiant system then? And this is our flag now?

as MC200 says, naval ensigns are not necessarily the same as the government's flag - the JMSDF still uses the "sunrise flag" usually associated with imperial japan for example.

buli-buli · May 14, 2022

Okay. It's finally here.

So... numbers.

Congressional Navy has:

1 Fleet Carrier
8 strike craft wings (Customized)
1 Battlecruiser
3 Light Cruisers
4 Light Cruisers (rapidly converted)
9 Frigates
2 Frigates (Converted Courier)
6 Strike Corvettes
1 Light Tender
1 Fast Tanker
3 Shoals
6 Batteries

SolNav has:

1 Heavy Battlecruiser
5 Cruisers
3 point defense destroyers
10 Frigates
4 strike corvettes
3 light tenders
1 heavy auxiliary
3 minesweeper/drone-carrier auxiliaries
3 troop transports

Okay. So... pretty obvious they outgun us. By a lot. Even when our numbers match up, we're using converted hulls.

My takeaway is this battle will be decided by our strike craft wings and our batteries and shoals. This means McLean needs to take out those destroyers first. ...Assuming customized strikecraft can even do the job well.

At any rate, given Edriss is looking for a breakout we can safely assume she won't stick around to kick us while we're down in the worst case scenario.
Visser might. It will get him killed, but he might.

Artificial Girl · May 15, 2022

This is My Least Favorite Part

Aboard the CNS Velasco, 18 hours until Task Force 12.7 transits the Shei-Osliam gate

Captain Esteri Attar felt the tension begin to bore another hole between her eyes as she read over yet another readiness report. The Velasco was in some of the best shape she'd ever been since being taken into the service of the AIC. The crew was adequately drilled, the strike squadrons were in top shape, all the rough edges had been smoothed down. Rousseau was aboard, looking over the things that would concern her--coordination with the vessels formally under her command as Mobile Force's commanding officer and further coordination with McLean in overall command.

They were as ready as they might ever be for what was to come.

Still Esteri's head ached. There was so much to worry about. So many things that could go wrong. So far they had been lucky, she knew. The fact that they were in a position to even think of challenging a SolNav task force was a miracle in itself.

Maybe it was just the Ares command school training. It had been practically beat into them as cadets that you did not fuck with SolNav. Ever. So the thought of leading her young cosmonauts into battle against them felt distressingly oppressive.

She would manage. Somehow. She scrolled through the report when the door to her office chimed (as captain, she was privileged enough to have a private office, most other officers that weren't the commodore had to share one with at least one other person).

"Come in." Esteri set down the list of ammunition and rubbed at the bridge of her nose. Fuck her sinuses. Her executive officer, a solid Chinook spacer by the name of Elon Nurhayati, stepped inside and let the hatchway close behind him.

"Just got the signal from Mclean. 12.7 is coming and we're holding them at the gate. Estimates are that 12.7 will be attempting to force the gate in just under eighteen hours."

Esteri exhaled. Suddenly her headache didn't seem to be there any longer.

"Well, we'd better be ready then. We'll run another emergency decompression drill in… four hours. Section eight this time," Esteri said thoughtfully.

"Decompression drill for section eight, aye aye."

"Then stand them down and let them get as much rest as they can before things kick off. I'll address the crew then as well." The Commodore would probably say something, too, but goddammit this was Esteri's ship and she isn't going to let it slip from her fingers.

"I want the senior staff in here as soon as possible. You, the CVOG, Inanna, flight commanders, department chiefs. I want to go over the action plan one more time to make sure there's nothing we've missed, then the final briefing can go to crew sections. We have a lot to do and not much time to do it."

"Isn't that always how it goes?" Elon smiled.

"You're right. I hate that you're right, but you are," Esteri allowed. "Well, let's get to it."

At least her headache had gone.

Estimated time to contact: 12 hours.

Esteri needed to go to bed. But first she had to talk to her people. She'd thought over what she was going to say and how to say it and ultimately had clamped down on the impulse for a dramatic speech. That sort of thing was definitely more Stephanie's area, always had been considering her penchant for VR and XR bullshit back in the day.

Keep it straightforward. Keep it simple. Esteri looked around the carrier's CIC. Nurhayati smiled at her, almost smirking.

"We can ask the commodore to do this, you know," he said. "I read somewhere that she has an angelic voice and that's how she talked you all into defecting."

Esteri let out a low groan.

"That article was the worst thing I've ever read. The Commodore is a lovely woman but she's also a certified lunatic at the best of times. And I wouldn't call her voice angelic. More like she has the charisma a street preacher does by virtue of being a true believer. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Besides, I'm sure she'll address the whole task force. This is for my ship."

Nurhayati failed to keep a straight face.

"Aye, aye captain," was what he managed through barely suppressed snickering.

Esteri rolled her eyes, then nodded at the holographic projection of Inanna.

"If you would, please," she said with a smile.

"Aye aye, Captain!" Inanna said with her usual cheery attitude--though of course now she was free to be less cheery if that's what she wanted. There was a sharp whistle, some ancient custom dating back…. Who knew how long. They'd mentioned it in her cadet classes ages ago and she hadn't thought about it before. Inanna's was speaking.

"Attention all hands, attention all hands! Standby for a message from the captain." Inanna's cheerful holographic expression turned back to Esteri.

"Thank you, Inanna." Esteri cleared her throat and picked up the handset from the console in front of her.

"This is your captain speaking. I know all of you are very busy preparing for what's going to come, but I wanted to speak to you now before things get underway.

We have crew members from across congressional space. Engineers from Five Lions, technicians from Radiant, gunners from Shei, and pilots from Chinook. Some of us have adopted the AIC as our home despite being originally from beyond its borders. No matter where we come from, though, we all believe in the common dream of freedom from tyranny and freedom from want. You are the finest crew I could ask for at this time. You have surpassed my expectations in your drills and battle simulations. Now we're about to do it for real.

Inshallah, we will emerge victorious from the battle to come. I trust each and everyone of you knows your duty and your place on this vessel. We expect the enemy to attempt to force the gate in approximately twelve hours.

I rely on you and your officers at this time to do what must be done. I hope that you, too, will rely on your shipmates. All of us, from the engineering spaces to the deck crew to the strikecraft pilots have an important role to play.

Good luck and God be with us all. I know you'll make the Amaranthine Congress proud.

If you have any messages you wish to send to friends or family, non-essential communications will cease in four hours. If you're not on duty I suggest you get some rack time. You'll likely need it. Captain Attar signing off." Esteri clicked the handset off and leaned forward over the console with a sigh. In her head, it sounded like empty words, but on the other hand, maybe it was what her crew needed to hear.

Now she just needed to follow her own advice and get some sleep.

Rhymes · May 15, 2022

buli-buli said:
Okay. It's finally here.

So... numbers.

Congressional Navy has:

1 Fleet Carrier

8 strike craft wings (Customized)

1 Battlecruiser

3 Light Cruisers

4 Light Cruisers (rapidly converted)

9 Frigates

2 Frigates (Converted Courier)

6 Strike Corvettes

1 Light Tender

1 Fast Tanker

3 Shoals

6 Batteries

SolNav has:

1 Heavy Battlecruiser

5 Cruisers

3 point defense destroyers

10 Frigates

4 strike corvettes

3 light tenders

1 heavy auxiliary

3 minesweeper/drone-carrier auxiliaries

3 troop transports

Okay. So... pretty obvious they outgun us. By a lot. Even when our numbers match up, we're using converted hulls.

My takeaway is this battle will be decided by our strike craft wings and our batteries and shoals. This means McLean needs to take out those destroyers first. ...Assuming customized strikecraft can even do the job well.

At any rate, given Edriss is looking for a breakout we can safely assume she won't stick around to kick us while we're down in the worst case scenario.
Visser might. It will get him killed, but he might.

I don't think that analysis is correct. They don't really outgun us by that much, and the rule of thumb is that you need 3x the defending force to break through on offense. I think what happens is they impale themselves on our defenses and largely die horribly. We have at worst rough force parity with them. On defense, that means we have an advantage.

They're gonna fucking die.

Godwinson · May 15, 2022

Aranfan said:
I am irrationally furious at this choice of surname for rachel.

No, that's rational fury.

trooperist · May 15, 2022

Oh nice we did manage to get that Light Cruiser and frigate built before the battle.
Let's just hope nothing bad happens to them right after they left the shipyards.

The Solarian Admiral probably choosing not to think about the numerous people out there that tried to be Xenophon or the Czech Legion and failed and got horribly killed.

For those that don't know Xenophon it's a rather fun tale, here's some fun knowledge for you.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dU0VW-TBv5s

masterofmadness · May 15, 2022

I have to say that Admiral Edriss is a strange mix of smart and frustrating for me.

Like she makes the right move by focusing on a breakout rather than any sort of revenge campaign... but she is doing it almost totally out of concern for her image and career prospect rather than any form of actual military reasoning! Like I want to call this Vain, and it is, but it is also totally rational in her context!

Like it is clear that SolNav is more about politics and image than anything else so of course this is what one of their admirals would care about! And I hate that I can rationally see why she would be this way even if it is so stupid!

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

Been Better

Traitor to her Class

Mad Rocketeer

Pocky Eating MafiaDoka

Been Better

Communism is yuri and nothing else!

Been Better

Team Plasma Grunt

Her Ladyship

Forever Gone

Team Plasma Grunt

Cannon Fodder

Constantly out of the loop

Kobold Librarian

"Well, I've got nothing."

Cinnamon Roll AI