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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The Laurent · Jul 25, 2022

Titanic Toxicity said:
What exactly is the thought process of British security forces here? I am genuinely curious what fantasy they have playing out in there head as to how exactly there plans works out. They do realize there alone in the solar system right? Like it's just them, parts of Brazil and a few other tiny scattered pockets of not leftism of some variety left. What drugs are they on that are making them think this is any way shape or form a winnable fight for them and where can I acquire some of these drugs cause Holy fuck would I love that sheer degree of optimism.

Also am I reading that right or were the British forcing people to live in literal medieval houses with no modern amenities whatsoever. Jesus.

Some were given the "opportunity" to be paid actors in various theme parks. And of course those who were in a medieval theme park of Ye Olde England had to keep Kayfabe.

Elero · Jul 25, 2022

Titanic Toxicity said:
What exactly is the thought process of British security forces here? I am genuinely curious what fantasy they have playing out in there head as to how exactly there plans works out. They do realize there alone in the solar system right? Like it's just them, parts of Brazil and a few other tiny scattered pockets of not leftism of some variety left. What drugs are they on that are making them think this is any way shape or form a winnable fight for them and where can I acquire some of these drugs cause Holy fuck would I love that sheer degree of optimism.

Also am I reading that right or were the British forcing people to live in literal medieval houses with no modern amenities whatsoever. Jesus.

The documents are leaked and it doesn't say how current they are. So it could be stuff from earlier that just now reached the 'public eye' I guess. That or they are delusional.

Titanic Toxicity · Jul 25, 2022

OK so I know too much execution is bad for us and all but can we please just have 1 Guillotined King? As a treat? Pretty please with a cherry on top? We've been such good socialist, communist, anarchist, etc all year! Well even clean our rooms I swear!

Spart117MC · Jul 25, 2022

I believe the drug they're on is Pax Britannica Lite.

It's similar to the drugs the French took after WW2 that made them think they could immediately go back to being a colonial power after losing their entire navy to the British, handing their fleet of armored vehicles over to the Germans, and having the Allies and Axis both blow up a good chunk of their industry.

A Vietnam comparison wouldn't be out of place. Hell the Brits are even recommending the establishment of Strategic Halmets.

Redshirt Army said:
This is a future YouTube where anarchism won, tho.

This is a bit of a digression but I recently watched a video essay by Super Eyepatch Wolf and it went into how the way YouTube lays things out on the content creator side of things can be deeply unhealthy, resulting in stuff like getting creators hooked on checking analytics and pressuring them by constantly comparing the performance of their latest work to their "best" work.

In retrospect it's somewhat shockingly reminiscent of Radiant's own issues regarding a healthy life-work balance, which has made me curious as to what a conscientious Radiant designed video hosting platform in the style of YouTube might look like.

Redshirt Army · Jul 25, 2022

Spart117MC said:
This is a bit of a digression but I recently watched a video essay by Super Eyepatch Wolf and it went into how the way YouTube lays things out on the content creator side of things can be deeply unhealthy, resulting in stuff like getting creators hooked on checking analytics and pressuring them by constantly comparing the performance of their latest work to their "best" work.

In retrospect it's somewhat shockingly reminiscent of Radiant's own issues regarding a healthy life-work balance, which has made me curious as to what a conscientious Radiant designed video hosting platform in the style of YouTube might look like.

My guess is that first and foremost, it wouldn't be centrally hosted, but rather an instanced thing running on a bunch of devices - an open source framework for video sharing and discovery, rather than a centralized repository.

That in turn will affect the rest of it - you'd basically be able to choose from any number of "players" that link into the API, rather than being restricted to a single specific application/webpage that plays the videos.

The Laurent · Jul 25, 2022

notbirdofprey said:
Fellow Travellers

Continuing on our theme of WWII, we have Fellow Travellers. Look, it's not out yet, but a prestige drama by Miranda Ogundare about how FDR and Uncle Joe worked together despite their differences to take down fascism? Sign me up.

(Based on history and news from the set it's rumored that despite the triumphal tone of most of the series, Fellow Travellers ends in a tragedy where the successors of both men have a falling out that allows for the return of capitalism and fascism, the ending being a monologue from a viewpoint character calling on viewers to not repeat history)

Yes, propaganda and all that, but just look at this poster and the trailer. (Both based on actual contemporary media!) If you don't feel a little proud of being on Earth fighting the fascist monster, you are probably some sort of CEO.

Roughly as accurate as Hamilton is about the American Revolution.

Setsul · Jul 25, 2022

Redshirt Army said:
"You clearly show a revealed preference for being poor, which means a pigouvian tax on poverty is necessary to encourage you to become wealthy."

It was the only reasonable course of action. Outlawing poverty directly would've been disproportionate government interference in the market.

Titanic Toxicity said:
What exactly is the thought process of British security forces here? I am genuinely curious what fantasy they have playing out in there head as to how exactly there plans works out. They do realize there alone in the solar system right? Like it's just them, parts of Brazil and a few other tiny scattered pockets of not leftism of some variety left. What drugs are they on that are making them think this is any way shape or form a winnable fight for them and where can I acquire some of these drugs cause Holy fuck would I love that sheer degree of optimism.

Also am I reading that right or were the British forcing people to live in literal medieval houses with no modern amenities whatsoever. Jesus.

Well, the England Experience brought to you by HI (cba to check what the official name is, but you get the idea) is still the desecrated corpse of a sovereign nation, puppeted as a zombie for profit. You are not supposed to invade other nations just because you feel like it. Unlike Brazil, which is definitely getting a visit from the DemFed after naval bombarding New York, England could in theory survive, if they manage to avoid outside intervention. Long term it all hinges on the Compact retaking Earth, but everyone, including the Anarchists, is expecting them to try that eventually. So in the short term the Royal English Government only needs to keep its own country from exploding and not provoke any invasions.
Of course the situation is bad enough that the plan to keep the country from exploding is "send in the military to shoot anyone suspicious on sight, imprison anyone who survives, and preemptively put everyone else in combination internment/work camps" so they'll get invaded as soon as someone can spare the resources. If they even manage to handle their own population.

And yes, it wouldn't be an immersive low technology tour if there were modern buildings inside the tour area. There is no hidden off-stage like in the cities. Really not surprising that the 5% who bothered to stay started using modern technology inside the "low-tech immersive tour homes".

Geedubs · Jul 25, 2022

Nah, the UK is just Like That.

trooperist · Jul 25, 2022

notbirdofprey said:
Editorial: Empty Passages Depicts the Reality of Revolutionary Fervour -Atlantis Interstellar Courier Distpatch

To understand why the Elysians did what they did, even as it is destroying both themselves and everyone around them takes more than simple interviews with the perpetrators. Rather than vulgar journalism, truth instead requires an artist's eye.

"The Elysian Broadcast is nothing more than cheap propaganda. No doubt hiding their horrible anarchist deeds and tyranny. Now our propaganda, that's the real truth."
"Interviewing people about what happened? Why would we do something so crass when we can just imagine how it happened?"

clockworkchaos · Jul 25, 2022

Spart117MC said:
I believe the drug they're on is Pax Britannica Lite.

It's similar to the drugs the French took after WW2 that made them think they could immediately go back to being a colonial power after losing their entire navy to the British, handing their fleet of armored vehicles over to the Germans, and having the Allies and Axis both blow up a good chunk of their industry.

A Vietnam comparison wouldn't be out of place. Hell the Brits are even recommending the establishment of Strategic Halmets.

WWII Britian stands alone!

Spart117MC · Jul 25, 2022

That's too bad. That collective delusion means they miss out on the best part of the "We shall fight on the beaches" speech.

Churchill said:
"And even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old."

clockworkchaos · Jul 25, 2022

Spart117MC said:
That's too bad. That collective delusion means they miss out on the best part of the "We shall fight on the beaches" speech.

Sure they have, 'the new worlds' in this case. The Compact and HI will come. Sure round one was lose but you know, every story starts with set backs. Dunkirk was tough but they persevered.

BiopunkOtrera · Jul 25, 2022

The thing about Britain, like, the ultimate core of the British character, at least within the ruling class, is the deep desire to represent oneself as twee, bumbling, goofy and amateurish, while at the same time being petty, devious, irrational, authoritarian and whenever possible snake fuckingly mean.

Winged One · Jul 25, 2022

BiopunkOtrera said:
petty, devious, irrational, authoritarian and whenever possible snake fuckingly mean.

That's just ruling classses in general, though.

BiopunkOtrera · Jul 25, 2022

Winged One said:
That's just ruling classses in general, though.

Yes. That's why our ruling class gets on with them so well.

Winged One · Jul 25, 2022

notbirdofprey said:
Leading this pack is a planned satirical news show, Abhuman Newz, which aims to poke fun at the dangerous absurdities of radical politics…

I'm starting to think it actually would kill them to not be racist for five seconds.

Torgamous · Jul 25, 2022

Winged One said:
I'm starting to think it actually would kill them to not be racist for five seconds.

Capital requires an exploitable underclass.

AlphaDelta · Jul 25, 2022

Redshirt Army said:
My guess is that first and foremost, it wouldn't be centrally hosted, but rather an instanced thing running on a bunch of devices - an open source framework for video sharing and discovery, rather than a centralized repository.

That in turn will affect the rest of it - you'd basically be able to choose from any number of "players" that link into the API, rather than being restricted to a single specific application/webpage that plays the videos.

This really depends on hosting, tbh.

The two main constraints on media delivery are bandwidth and storage; a third that applies to all distributed systems (including "central service") is "consistency".

There's a variety of architectures you could use, but more important is the fact that I don't see H-I allowing the existence of a decentralized user-generated media delivery platform: this is how you get *fanfic*. No, cheaper (and more ad-friendly) to control it centrally. Why allow others to serve media, when you can just rent-seek on every video out there? It's impossible to control everything, but the main Charter platforms certainly have a greater market share than YouTube right now.

(The alternative is that HI just licenses some other Charter's tech, and slaps a fancy front-end on it… but really, given the Personality Driven Development of some parts of Biggest Tech? They'd build it in-house. After all, it'd be embarrassing otherwise.)

E: accidentally hit post

(Forgot about lightspeed delay! So yeah, there's a certain amount of *internal* federation necessary. Doesn't change the rest of the analysis, though.)

So, what about Radiant?

This is just a question of either:
- unlocking the existing system (honestly, probably not that bad. Could just hack the hypothetical federation system, and build anew atop that.)
- building anew

Building anew is… probably doable? But not *immediately*.

The main thing is "willingness to break existing users"

E2: I'll finish this at some point when I'm not at 5-7 on the pain scale

Redshirt Army · Jul 25, 2022

Well, the question was what a video service built from the ground up by Radiant would look like. Obviously H-I wouldn't go for an open source solution, that's actually outright illegal by the laws of the Compact.

AlphaDelta · Jul 26, 2022

Redshirt Army said:
Well, the question was what a video service built from the ground up by Radiant would look like. Obviously H-I wouldn't go for an open source solution, that's actually outright illegal by the laws of the Compact.

Yeah, I wrote most of that while waiting for medical attention, so I didn't actually get to address that bit

The Laurent · Jul 26, 2022

Getting Both Hands Dirty, Part 1: This Flag

There were standard questions to ask politicians, and like all things in this galaxy, they came in waves. There were fads for asking certain kinds of questions, fads that waned, leaving their questions to only be asked on rare occasions.

Obviously, the were the perennial basic questions that never went out of style. And the questions on current events that mostly stayed the same despite the details of now being forever shifting.

But there was a category of softball that kept on coming back around. One such question that became all rage back when she was in her late thirties went thusly:

"What made you realize how important and serious politics was?"

It was meant to lead to the politician talking about how they saw how their tax cuts helped job creators, or how this or that new regulation led to safer work, or even how student council experience at (an elite private) school showed the ways that even little changes could affect large populations, through the example of small ones. Or so on and so forth. Or if the politician was in a particular scandal or wanted to fan the flames of it, they might give an answer alluding to a past scandal similar to it.

Silvia Greene had a lot of practiced answers to that one, even though it'd only come back into fashion once since then. She suspected that its modern rarity was because the question's heyday was a time when the public was demoralized and cynical, and it seemed as if belief in the Compact and its politicians was approaching zero. There needed to be evidence that the meritocrats that the population selected cared about their jobs and cared about improving the Compact.

Nowadays there seemed to be little doubt as to their lack of care, by and large. She doubted she'd see it go into fashion again.

Silvia Greene had a lot of different answers memorized for that question, but the truth was that all of them were lies. She'd never told the real answer, the real moment where she realized that politics was not just serious, but so deadly serious that to enter it was to all but daub one's hands in blood.

And then knowing that, knowing all of that, she had stuck both her hands into politics anyways.

*******

Zizkind Station
Korolev-Chandrasekar
June 13, 2255
The Bowels Of The System

It was a delicious salad, in the new style where the lettuce was all but hidden by a profusion of fruits and vegetables in migraine-bright colors. She speared a zucchini and then a strawberry, shiny and perfect, and wondered at how much work it took to make something like this. She ate as if she was not burdened. And for the moment she was eating, she was not. Hundreds of thousands had died, and nearly millions had died as well, but that did not make vinaigrette less savory or strawberries less delightful. She knew she was going to be busy these next few days.

Weeks.

Months.

Hopefully years, but she could not predict that far into the future.

"Silvia, I'd like to speak to you," her director of media communications said. Silvia finished another bite, this time with beets and spinach, the bitterness just drawing attention to how everything tasted. She didn't sigh because she had media training, but she looked up at the tall, angular woman with something like weariness.

"What is it, Rosy?"

Rosaria Klyne was named by parents who lived in a commune, and she had been a controversial choice at the time, someone who many regarded as bold and willing to shake up the profession. Forty years ago.

By now her advice was about the same as that which anyone could get, and their friendship had dulled to the vague fondness of coworkers. But Silvia always thought that declarations that they were all a family and part of a close-knit team were overrated. They should share politics, or at least enough to be effective at knowing what to push, but beyond that what Silvia cared about is people who would do their jobs well. She didn't make them go to team barbeques or events together unless they wanted to. They did their work, they got their time off, and everything ran smoothly.

It was the kind of thing that could be a scandal. She could imagine it now: "Silvia Greene doesn't care about her staff." She could be more like JN OK and make them work triple extra overtime with no days off but also let them pull any models he was close to and charge a few meals every month to his private account.

It might even be popular to do so since the kinds of people who worked in political support tended to be obsessive.

…unlike her, who didn't live and breathe politics every day.

Well, hypocrisy, thy name is politics.

"We need to plan a response to the article."

"The one about my abstentions?" Silvia Greene asked.

"Yes. You're almost guaranteed to win in your district, but it would be good to find a better line to excuse it than…"

"I've said it before, there's a moment where you have to look at what is a major news story and what isn't," Silvia said. "And this really isn't. If anything I'm more worried about people who object to my abstention on a moral ground."

"What moral ground is that?" Rosy asked.

"That if I truly objected to nuclear genocide--"

"I hope you don't call it that in public," Rosy interrupted.

"I don't." Silvia Green had swept the office as a matter of course and did so each time she entered. It was not a small office, all things considered, and it was very easy to bug. But she had been an MP for long enough to know security services. "But if I truly objected I should have voted against it entirely. That is a criticism I respect. People challenging me on any other grounds are just being idiots. Right now what we have to do is just… not dance to the Daughters' tune. Find me interviews with sources that are just a little better than the Star."

Who'd ever respected the KC Star? "Ma'am, are you sure?"

"Rosy, the Compact is going to die if we don't do something. And if that something is trying to murder everyone on Olduvai, then the Compact is already dead," Silvia Greene. "For much of the galaxy, that's what the Compact means now, when even its response to Drake is…"

Not enough. Not nearly enough. It should be able to do more.

"When they see it, when they see…"

She trailed off, horror dulled by decades of knowledge. She'd known the truth for so long she'd almost forgotten it only to painfully trip over it once more like a toy left in the middle of a hallway.

And for much of the galaxy her near forgotten truth was far more painful…

******

Earth
Sol
2187
In The Heart Of Youthful Folly

Late in 2186, Political Economics (Revivalist) student Silvia Greene decided to visit Sol. Even then she leant JDAP because she thought Augments were people, thank you very much, and that bureaucracy was overrated. But even though she knew that Sol wasn't special in some religious sense she'd wanted to see it with her own eyes.

She'd wanted to witness where humans came from even if they'd evolved beyond it. Why did people walk on shores to look at seashells, even though each was a story of a home outgrown? Because humans outgrow their homes all the time. And, of course, because they were pretty.

This same logic drove Silvia to Earth, and she decided to make the best of it. It was her last summer before she graduated college and either braved the wilderness that was Academia or found something else to do. Political Economy was something that could be deployed in any manner of fields. If she truly wanted to, any of the Charters would snap someone like her up and put her in the middle-ranks like her parents. But she wasn't sure if she wanted that, not at all.

But she was also young.

There was a lot she had to learn.

The trip was a long, boring one but that was the nature of things. She spent a lot of time reading, a lot of time writing. Then she reached Earth and she spent a lot of time doing none of those at all.

But of course, 2187 was the year of the Fourth Great Black Summer. But she didn't think that it would reach her. She went to a Political Economy conference in Madrid, and ran face-first into an understanding of just what happened beneath the sky blue flag of the Solarian Compact.

******

Zizkind Station
Korolev-Chandrasekar
June 21, 2255
The Heights of Evil

"You think this is a negotiation?" Edgar Martinez said with a smile so nonexistent it was clearly meant more to suggest that this was a man who could smile but was choosing not to. "You think, having placed yourself in a key position in the negotiations between Olduvai and Epsilon, that you are important enough to dictate terms to people with fleets." He coughed. "It is not a negotiation, not anymore. I can tell you what our organization will do now, and if it's not to your liking, then you can simply part ways. There are no options here for you to pick and chose between. This is simply a statement of the reality that shall unfold."

He was a handsome man if you liked men. Silvia Greene, who had never felt any sexual desire as overwhelming as the desire for a very good slice of pie, simply observed it thoughtfully. He was a Member of Parliament, but one of those that you didn't respect. They were the ones who were openly bought. Not even 'respectably' bought like JN OK who was a creature of all the Charters on principle. It was horrific, but that was that kind of MP you had to pretend to respect, even if nobody truly did.

Martinez was the kind of man so openly a slave to a Charter that you didn't have to pretend to respect him, because Martinez was A Man From MSI. But somehow in the last month, he'd gained such a great deal of previously hidden spine that even now stared at a respectable MP with open contempt as the two of them sat in this small dining room in one of the most exclusive restaurants in K-C.

It was not where she would have chosen to meet. But she knew that he had many other MPs to meet and bribe. So she nodded and listened, trying not to smile.

Madame Zhang (Head of "our organization") was already a legend just by her very existence, often described as a 'Political Genius'. But Silvia Greene had met political geniuses before, was currently in the loyal opposition to one such genius who'd decided to glass Earth last month. In her experience, political genius was overrated. There was too much chaos to be sure of anything. Who won wasn't always or even often about who was the cleverest operator, but about events beyond everyone's control.

(What must it have been like, to sit in a room with the button or the approval orders or whatever it was for the Broadcast? Except here's the truth: every single Compact Politician should know, because every day they made decisions as part of the largest government in human history. Yet the fact that it was deliberate, a move pre-calculated, did that make it better or worse?)

Greene smiled blandly at Martinez and listened.

"Our organization has no interest in the Compact trying to declare war on Olduvai or Penglai, and so she'll simply continue to support the pull-out and look away at whatever is involved in that. But an attempt to reconquer Penglai or declare war on Olduvai will lead to Epsilon invoking Article 33. We should, if at all possible, come to a temporary ceasefire with whoever controls Penglai for the moment." He shrugged, "Either the situation improves for the Compact in Penglai or it doesn't. It is not in the interests of the IPA to fall into another difficult occupation. We can't provide any financial aid to our wing, and our organization knows the truth."

Silvia Greene kept a straight face. Did Madame Zhang realize she was giving Greene everything she actually needed? She can't have, or else this little toad wouldn't be implying that a lack of bribery was meant to be a difficult concession on her part in exchange for preventing a war to the death on Penglai and a conflict in Olduvai that would shatter the Compact.

It needed to hold together, at least for a little longer. "The truth?"

"You have been raising your price for decades with your appearance of incorruptibility, but the problem is: eventually the price becomes too high for anyone to pay," he said, with a shake of his head. "So you see…"

Ah, it was going to be one of those meetings. The ones where she'd have to say 'you'll never get away with it' at convenient times to make someone feel like a glorious mastermind. She fixed her smile and nodded and listened to his gloating, ate her food, and considered just what to do in the future. What the Compact needed right now if she was to save it… or rather save something called the Solarian Compact, was even a modicum of relaxation and willingness to cut deals.

It still shocked her to her core that anyone needed to tell the Parliament of the Solarian Compact to hold more committee meetings and act less decisively.

But here she was, eating in high society and considering how the lives of unkowable billions were to be moved around like units on a battlemap. Of course, with the way the Compact was falling apart, perhaps one day soon there was no longer going to be any stakes that high simply because there wouldn't be a Compact.

Certainly, there would be advantages to that, but without some common ground what would stop people like the lunatics in Tereshkova, Drake, or Columbia from imposing their dark, twisted visions upon the galaxy?

That was a far more interesting thing to worry about than Zhang's power plays and this man's confidence. Let him feel like the real winner. She had a meal to eat and more such conversations to plan.

******

Spain, Earth
Sol
2187
Madrid University

It was a beautiful city, and she wondered many years later what it was like now. She could have traveled there even now if she wanted. She could have stayed behind, thrown herself on the perhaps dubious mercy of the new regime. They probably wouldn't have killed her, because she abstained at the critical moment, and because she would be useful as someone to parrot lines, as proof that even the grandees of the Solarian Parliament realize that the Compact is dead.

But she had made her choice. She didn't want the Compact to die. Perhaps it deserved to, probably it did. But while she was not religious, she did believe that things could be reborn again.

The day was June 3rd, 2187, and she was angry. She remembered being outraged at Singh White's proposal that a way to reduce food waste and improve access was to produce less food so that consumers would waste less of it. It was the kind of ghoulish shit that even back then was common in Indian academic circles. It fell out of favor for a while, but came roaring back… and then fell back out of favor again, this time in the name of the new "Compassionate Individualism." She probably should have cared about the massacres and the brutality that was still rocking Earth, but she'd been trying to ignore it. She'd been trying to retreat. The academic conference had broken up, but they couldn't leave.

For a moment she understood what 'class solidarity' meant and how she along with all the others were scared of the protesting crowds out there despite the fact that only a few of them were armed. One of the signs, one that she still remembers seventy years later, read "Food, Not Bullets."

Ricardo Smith, whose greatest virtue was his biting sarcasm and his tenure track job, turned to Singh and said, "You know, we had a lot of food left over on our buffet. Surely we should go out to feed them, if we actually care about food waste."

White swallowed, looking sick as he fidgeted with that hideous novelty tie of his.

Silvia Greene's momentary academic class solidarity against this crowd began to fade as she noted everyone who was there. There were kiosks already being put up to hand out water bottles and the slogans demanded bread and employee-owned businesses, they demanded care from economists about how it affected them. There were armed guards, but they were more like… security.

This was what protests were supposed to be, she thought. But she did not think it in the way she should have, because she knew that the police had been called and they'd declared that…

"Help is on its way, ma'am," one of the security guards had said, though he wasn't talking to Greene, but a middle-aged woman in the back, staring out at the protests with a blank expression. Jade Stone was the daughter of one of the most prominent nonbinary politicians in the whole galaxy. Ignoring the protest and allowing it to continue would create a scandal. That would not do.

Instead the protestors were going to get beaten up and dispersed, and maybe worse.

Silvia watched and saw the moment when the flag of the Solarian Compact came into view, painted on the side of a Solarian Naval Infantry landing shuttle, doors open with men and women in SNI khaki and blue armour getting ready to deploy.

The crowd of academics was cheering while panic was filling the faces of all those down below, on the other side of bulletproof glass. A few fired desperately, but most ran.

And then they came. Not just the Solarian Naval Infantry, but also militias of "concerned citizens" who were deputized by the Spanish government and which would get an HI sponsorship just a few weeks later as the heroes who'd saved Madrid from anarchist violence.

The SNI used riot dispersal gear mostly. But there were also real bullets, real blood, and real bodies

The same blue and white flag that led to cheers and celebration from the Academics also now flew over a square of the dead whose greatest crime was being criminally hungry.

******

In An Encrypted Dropbox
June 25 2255
The Depths of Treachery

Title: Meet Hot Old Admirals In Your Area!!! Click Here?!!

I don't know who you are, but there are enough people that… well, if you're curious then what you have to do is know that they're not going to talk directly to you. But certain Admiralty figures are of course willing to meet at a suitable public gathering if need be to discuss nonpolitical matters only.

This will self-destruct, but whoever you are you need to know that SolNav exists for the Compact.

Silivia Greene deleted the message and sighed, knowing there were many avenues and that she had to be wary at all moments for a trap or a fake lure. She hated this paranoia, but she knew the kinds of reforms she was imagining, the kind of actions she'd have to take would be the sort of thing that could cause a coup.

She was not going to be poor, naive, Valerie Shah. If she strode out with her hands on the reigns of power, she would instead be Izem Meziane, with snipers on her side and the Generals all behind her… unarmed.

It sickened her in a way that this was the truth, that the civilian government needed to coup-proof itself as part of the normal legislative process. All over a set of what in the end would simply be very large-scale reforms if they passed into law.

But she wasn't stupid. She'd known from the start that what the Compact was in the end when all pretense was stripped away…

Well.

She had not watched the fighting over Sol, had not dared to watch the end of the ultimatum that turned into the Solarian Mutiny because she had not wanted to tear herself apart watching flashes of light sprout across Earth's surface. And it was a good thing because she didn't stay up to watch the count down with her fellows because she knows she never would have faked being shocked and horrified enough at SolNav's failure. No, she wouldn't have smiled and openly approved, but…

She closed out of the program and held in a sigh.

Before she pulled the trigger on a non-confidence vote, a trigger still many MPs and at least one more election next month away, she needed the Star Ministers on her side.

It was not something she could admit, even to her closest allies. Because everyone still believed in Civilian Control of the MIlitary, they believed that ultimately the Navy served the people and the people were them, or close enough. The best of them saw through a little of that, but not all of it.

They didn't want to live in a galaxy where they had to coup-proof democracy like a paranoid parent afraid of even the slightest child's stumble leading to death. The Compact was tottering, it was fragile now. It could die within the next year.

But if it came down to it she'd always known that her whole career, hadn't she?

******

Madrid, Spain
Earth, Sol
2187
A Moment In Time

The Solarian Naval Infantry did not stop once they had won. Their dander was up, and she watched them from afar with sickening horror. They, and the local reactionary militias. That's not what the news called them, but she had watched it all and considered just what it meant.

She watched in paralyzed horror as one of the infantrymen shot a fleeing protestor. Shot him down, casually sauntered up to his twitching body and fired again. Then he laughed and cracked a joke with a local militia woman standing next to him.

Everyone else was moving away, looking away. But Silvia Greene watched. Transfixed in fascination and horror.

She knew then that the government was too powerful, that the Charters were too big, and that the enforcement structures did not exist to allow protest and reform until the structures were shrunk. It did not come all at once to her.

Of course it didn't.

But she looked up the name of the Solarian Naval Infantryman who killed the protestor in cold blood and saw their rise over the coming decades. And she found the name of the dead protestor, shot--it was said--by bloodthirsty anarchists.

She watched it all from the safety of her window and understood that for the teeming masses of the galaxy, the people the Compact was supposed to protect, that bright blue flag meant death.

******

Zizkind Station
Korolev-Chandrasekhar
June 30, 2255
An Exclusive Gym

"Come on, come on, come on, let's keep up that pace!" JN OK said with a smile, punctuating his instruction with a pair of enthusiastic claps.

Silvia Greene did not like JN OK, but it wasn't because he jogged or loved tracksuits or even that somehow he had managed to have bastards in the 23rd century. It was because of how he smiled and said some of the vilest things anyone could say. "The way I see it, places like Atlantis and Olduvai can't keep up. We have to be new, new, new. I know you don't like the Columbian government, but it's hip now. The Charters are finally breaking free of their chains and rationalizing the politics of the galaxy. It's a good thing, you know?"

"It's certainly a fact," Greene said, passing another pair of joggers who were both obviously his bodyguards. He had increased the number, but in this crowd of dozens of hoggers at least some of them were staffers and other politicians. "It's one we have to work with."

Or work around. She knew was going to have to deal with Columbia or find a way to move it out of the way somehow. It was the cynical truth that they were votes she would never win from Ares MPs that had no obligation at all, not even a pretend one, to the voters.

"Yeah, I'm glad you agree," He said, picking up the pace. Silvia was really starting to sweat, but she knew it was good for her, so she kept on going around and around the track. "I need you on my side. I'm putting together a short-list of people for cabinet positions. You could provide feedback on what I'm doing. Also, you know about decoration right? Everyone says you've got the best-decorated office, and I really need someone for that."

"You do?" A neutral question, grist for his monologue.

"Yeah, Roderick's tastes were just so tacky and like, too understated, and I think it brings down the atmosphere. Bad Atmosphere = Bad Decisions. That's what all the self-help books say, I'm sure you've read mine." She nodded, because of course she read plenty of works of fiction in her spare time. "I also want someone who has a common touch, and you have it. The people love you, they love me too, but I can only be in so many places at once," He grinned "Your faction's going to grow, grow, grow, we both know it." he said, snapping his fingers for emphasis, barely affected by the exercise.

"We do," Greene admitted without hesitation, through her panting. She already had a list, and she needed more time to put it through. But in order to get anywhere at all, she needed to not immediately deny JN OK the leadership. The likely outcome, if that happened now, was that either another JDAP ghoul would take over or Ares would be in charge of the Compact. She had to pick her moment carefully. "But I understand that you're in charge of the party." For now. The party itself did not matter, it really didn't. It was window dressing. But JDAP was the first place she'd look for allies, them and the Adamists.

"That's right," JN OK declared, "And once I'm going to be in charge, there's going to be changes around here. Change after change after change." he gestures with his arms for emphasis, "Like, whoa Roderick fucked up, it's time for real leadership. Hold our horses a bit, no more glassings."

Changes like the wallpaper, no doubt. She thought but did not say. "Yes, OK, I understand."

"That's my name, don't wear it out," Jason Nnamadi Okorie declared. He smiled wide, a toothy, winning grin, and Silvia Greene reviewed delegates and seats, promises and denials, and knew that things were going to get worse before they got better.

*******

The Compact was all of humanity, or at least it had been. But it was the sort of humanity that tore itself apart, that feasted on its own flesh. It was the sort of humanity that needed to be changed. She did not predict the Box, she did not predict Radiant, but she had been feeling for her whole life as if the Compact was starting to fall apart. But it had been a vague feeling, and after 2187 it became more acute.

She knew what the Compact meant, and she entered politics anyway, because someone had to do it. She'd shaped herself all these years to try to do her best. But when it all came down to it, it was violence. Her vote was a declaration for or against violence, for force withheld or force deployed.

It was all violence, in its every variation. She needed to be ready, but she needed to change things now or there was no going forward. There was already going to be no going back, she knew.

taovkool · Jul 26, 2022

The Laurent said:
The Compact was all of humanity, or at least it had been. But it was the sort of humanity that tore itself apart, that feasted on its own flesh. It was the sort of humanity that needed to be changed. She did not predict the Box, she did not predict Radiant, but she had been feeling for her whole life as if the Compact was starting to fall apart. But it had been a vague feeling, and after 2187 it became more acute.

Is there anything more tragic than a true loyalist when the very thing they had sworn themselves to was ripping itself apart? Worst of all, this one was a realist. Good God, what a nightmare.

Here's to Silvia Greene. May she always be someone else's problem.

Godwinson · Jul 26, 2022

I am now greatly disturbed by the idea of Silvia Greene and Ramiel Kitsuragi crossing paths.

Cassiemouse · Jul 26, 2022

Godwinson said:
I am now greatly disturbed by the idea of Silvia Greene and Ramiel Kitsuragi crossing paths.

I want this in my life. I want it bad.

I think the implication is that JN OK is the soldier that shot the protester back in '87? That probably means they are bad news. I get the feeling that Greene wants to frag him so bad but she wants to stop the violence more, not contribute to it. Which is respectable.

Winged One · Jul 26, 2022

So... I'm bad with name recognition. Which, if any, of the things which happened around then did she do?

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

Been Better

Amateur human

Cannon Fodder

Cinnamon Roll AI

Amateur human

Traitor to her Class

Not the Simurgh

Traitor to her Class

Not the Simurgh

Aspiring Gynoid

Cannon Fodder

Forever Gone

"Well, I've got nothing."

Market Atheist

Not the Simurgh