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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Torgamous · Jul 26, 2022

Setsul said:
If you're going to shoot down everyone else's guesses at least have the guts to make your own guess.

Oh, hey, look what I did:

Torgamous said:
The IPA is built to capture revolutionary sentiment and, through a network of favors and patronage, direct it to benefit Zhang. In all likelihood that's most of why it's sticking its neck out for Penglai, to provide a jumpstart to the favors and the patronage with a healthy serving of "we just kept you from getting glassed". Keeping Ares from getting more planets might be a happy side effect, but it's equally likely that preventing Ares from blowing its forces on a doomed occupation was an unfortunate cost of Penglai's gratitude and cooperation.

Hell, it might not even have originally been about Penglai at all and was more about riding the VDC tiger or something. The IPA by its nature is going to have more complicated internal politics than a corporation.

Because at some point you switched tracks from the one where I did have an alternate theory (why IPA help Penglai) to the one where I didn't (four coup pileup), and I made the mistake of letting you.

But I'm gonna insist that no, I don't have to provide alternate hypotheses to shoot down one that's incompatible with past behavior. If I said "Zhang will petition to join Amaranth and retire to Tartarus, because she just wants a comfortable life with no stress", you wouldn't need to predict what she will do in order to confidently say that I'm on the wrong track.

Setsul · Jul 26, 2022

The Laurent said:
This... isn't true? They're actually pretty involved in a number of different very sketchy activities on Sol.

The Sicilian Mobsters who did a Reactionary Coup actually have strong MSI ties, whether or not they're still official assets or whether they've gone rogue you do not know. MSI has ties to a lot of different criminal organizations on Sol, many of which are just incidentally hotbeds of Reaction, as with the Cartels and several groups in Central Asia that were incidentally mentioned.

I was talking about Atlantis, Columbia, and Olduvai.
I am aware that MSI had ties to organized crime and that those have not suddenly stopped shooting people since the formation of the IPA.
But thanks for proving my point. You immediately looked for anything that would mean I'm wrong, like the mere possibility of Mary Zhang theoretically having the ability to suggest to the Sicilian Mobsters to start a coup if they didn't decide on their own invalidates how the IPA/MSI have been suspiciously absent from being directly involved in anything violent, unlike other Charters.

Torgamous said:
Because at some point you switched tracks from the one where I did have an alternate theory (why IPA help Penglai) to the one where I didn't (four coup pileup), and I made the mistake of letting you.

But I'm gonna insist that no, I don't have to provide alternate hypotheses to shoot down one that's incompatible with past behavior. If I said "Zhang will petition to join Amaranth and retire to Tartarus, because she just wants a comfortable life with no stress", you wouldn't need to predict what she will do in order to confidently say that I'm on the wrong track.

I made the mistake of letting you switch track to that because why the IPA helped Penglai is relevant for why they'd want to stop Ares in parliament.

The IPA is literally right now trying to use the Solarian Parliament to stop Ares/Columbia invasions of Penglai and Olduvai (which would set the precedent for them invading Epsilon, we agree on that), and for that they need to prevent an Ares/Columbia majority in parliament via JN OK + rigged votes. Getting involved in the coups for that reason is perfectly compatible not just with past, but with current behaviour.
So yes, if you want to shoot that down and claim it can't be the main reason you are going to need to provide a better reason or explain why it's weak. And no, "her ambitions aren't that narrow" does not cut it, imo.

That's why we went on that tangent about her endgame. For her to rule over the ashes of the Compact it is a prerequisite that Ares isn't already doing so. Within the core systems the other charters are out of the running, neither Olduvai nor Penglai are making moves towards galactic conquest, which leaves Ares/Columbia and SolNav.

So I can speculate that the ideal outcome of the elections and coups for the IPA might be something like this:
-SolNav actually under parliamentary control (and not the other way around)
-a deadlock regarding strategies (so SolNav won't actually be ordered to do something)
-a majority against Ares/Columbia (no non-SolNav invasions either)
This ensures both the "ashes" part and that no one gets to be in charge.

Redshirt Army · Jul 26, 2022

This monofocus on Ares is kinda missing the point imo - Cernunnos kinda sorta took over a Daughter too, y'know! This is Caulder erasure.

The Laurent · Jul 26, 2022

Setsul said:
I was talking about Atlantis, Columbia, and Olduvai.
I am aware that MSI had ties to organized crime and that those have not suddenly stopped shooting people since the formation of the IPA.
But thanks for proving my point. You immediately looked for anything that would mean I'm wrong, like the mere possibility of Mary Zhang theoretically having the ability to suggest to the Sicilian Mobsters to start a coup if they didn't decide on their own invalidates how the IPA/MSI have been suspiciously absent from being directly involved in anything violent, unlike other Charters.

...I didn't prove any point? You literally lack the knowledge to make the claims you're making. Like, you literally cannot say they are "suspiciously absent" because you're looking at everything through a pinhole.

If MSI was involved in providing information or covert aid to any number of violent actions... you literally wouldn't know unless they fucked up.

MSI historically likes being subtle in their involvement in all sorts of things, including large-scale violence.

The Laurent · Jul 26, 2022

I will say, that because of how astrogeography and communication works, there's literally a 0% chance that Madam Zhang personally wrote down, "It is me personally ordering you to aid the Sicilian Mobsters in doing a reactionary coup. Yes it is I Madam Zhang who did so and is putting these exact personal orders in writing."

MSI... is/was an organization, and so you do not have any knowledge about what the relationship is now between MSI assets on Sol and IPA on Epsilon (and its tendrils throughout the galaxy), except that it's likely complicated and complex.

Setsul · Jul 26, 2022

Redshirt Army said:
This monofocus on Ares is kinda missing the point imo - Cernunnos kinda sorta took over a Daughter too, y'know! This is Caulder erasure.

It's not the same without old man Caulder himself. Normal just doesn't have the same ring to it.

(Seriously though, with their dependence on Caulder himself making decisions and general alignment I assume they'll be folded into the Ares/Columbia/JN OK bloc with little resistance)

The Laurent said:
...I didn't prove any point? You literally lack the knowledge to make the claims you're making. Like, you literally cannot say they are "suspiciously absent" because you're looking at everything through a pinhole.

If MSI was involved in providing information or covert aid to any number of violent actions... you literally wouldn't know unless they fucked up.

MSI historically likes being subtle in their involvement in all sorts of things, including large-scale violence.

Unlike the other Charters they have either not done things like that, or they have successfully covered them up.
If they have successfully covered up shooting hundreds of thousands like what happened on Atlantis or coup attempts like on Olduvai, then props to them.
But they can't execute a coup in the Solarian Parliament without anyone noticing.
In Epsilon they could keep things quiet. Yes, if the takeover was violent we might never now.
But they can't silence all of SolNav in KC. Hence it would be a departure from their normal behaviour.

To get it all in one place:
Since the IPA plan Mary Zhang either didn't get involved outside of MSI's own system, Epsilon, or the interventions all failed and still weren't discovered, which seems unlikely.
Yes, there are organizations in Sol that MSI had ties with that she literally couldn't have contacted before they did what they usually do. Your point being?
That plus the things the IPA did mean she's invested a lot into being seen as "the good guy".
All I extrapolated from that was that a violent coup by the IPA for the IPA to take over the Compact legislature and government is not in the cards.

Yes, maybe it was all a lie, everyone on Epsilon is dead, the IPA box is fake, and the all powerful IPA fleet that MSI had kept hidden for 100 years is revealed and starts taking over the galaxy, and the pinhole has just hidden that all from me, but I have to assume that I've got at least some idea of the most important things that are going on, otherwise why bother?

The Laurent · Jul 26, 2022

Setsul said:
It's not the same without old man Caulder himself. Normal just doesn't have the same ring to it.

(Seriously though, with their dependence on Caulder himself making decisions and general alignment I assume they'll be folded into the Ares/Columbia/JN OK bloc with little resistance)

Unlike the other Charters they have either not done things like that, or they have successfully covered them up.
If they have successfully covered up shooting hundreds of thousands like what happened on Atlantis or coup attempts like on Olduvai, then props to them.
But they can't execute a coup in the Solarian Parliament without anyone noticing.
In Epsilon they could keep things quiet. Yes, if the takeover was violent we might never now.
But they can't silence all of SolNav in KC. Hence it would be a departure from their normal behaviour.

To get it all in one place:
Since the IPA plan Mary Zhang either didn't get involved outside of MSI's own system, Epsilon, or the interventions all failed and still weren't discovered, which seems unlikely.
Yes, there are organizations in Sol that MSI had ties with that she literally couldn't have contacted before they did what they usually do. Your point being?
That plus the things the IPA did mean she's invested a lot into being seen as "the good guy".
All I extrapolated from that was that a violent coup by the IPA for the IPA to take over the Compact legislature and government is not in the cards.

Yes, maybe it was all a lie, everyone on Epsilon is dead, the IPA box is fake, and the all powerful IPA fleet that MSI had kept hidden for 100 years is revealed and starts taking over the galaxy, and the pinhole has just hidden that all from me, but I have to assume that I've got at least some idea of the most important things that are going on, otherwise why bother?

IPA was revealed less than a month ago. At this point there has not been enough time for you to actually figure out... anything about the character of the IPA's foreign policy or covert-Ops policy, except to the extent that it connects with MSI policies in the past. And MSI people are famously or infamously sketchy and members of them were, semi-provably (as in, the IPA will just deny and deny it) involved in faciliating and aiding groups that engaged in reactionary coups on Earth.

They're also, obviously, were involved in funding less covert operations as well. All of the Charters had military forces on earth, after all, that got involved in the violent war on Sol.

As far as it goes, @Torgamous doesn't seem to mean her predictions in the way of, "IPA is a body that will directly engage in a coup as the IPA flying IPA flags."

Setsul · Jul 26, 2022

The Laurent said:
IPA was revealed less than a month ago. At this point there has not been enough time for you to actually figure out... anything about the character of the IPA's foreign policy or covert-Ops policy, except to the extent that it connects with MSI policies in the past. And MSI people are famously or infamously sketchy and members of them were, semi-provably (as in, the IPA will just deny and deny it) involved in faciliating and aiding groups that engaged in reactionary coups on Earth.

They're also, obviously, were involved in funding less covert operations as well. All of the Charters had military forces on earth, after all, that got involved in the violent war on Sol.

As far as it goes, @Torgamous doesn't seem to mean her predictions in the way of, "IPA is a body that will directly engage in a coup as the IPA flying IPA flags."

I'm going with no news is good news here. And a lot has happened in that month.
Again, I'm assuming that if MSI had pulled off wholesale replacement of governments or suppression of major uprising or failed at them in any core systems other than Sol and Epsilon, like we've seen from Ares and Cernunnos, that we would have been told about it because that would've been noticeable.
Yes, on Earth this is now a popular pastime and the IPA may or may not be involved and will deny it either way and how much of that was planned on Epsilon, if it was planned, shall never be known, et cetera.

And yes, Mary Zhang eventually trying to take over the galaxy and definitely not by puppeteering the Solarian Parliament is one of the few things I agree on with Torgamous.
But that makes it especially interesting why she's utterly convinced that Mary Zhang/the IPA will intervene in the coups and/or the election if she can't make any prediction for what they'd get out of it, how they'd intervene and for whom, except that it's not against the faction that is the biggest threat to them.

Estro · Jul 26, 2022

Visitation Rights - June 14th

The tram sped past her as she walked down the centre, but Ramiel didn't pay it any mind. The torus wasn't that large, even if the place she was visiting was a third of the way around the ring from where she'd stopped off. Admittedly, four kilometres was a bit of a walk, given how the ring was oversized from a standard Standford.

God, she missed Wishcastle. She'd only lived there for a fraction of her life, now, but it'd been… home, in a way that all the assignments, all the officer housing and purchased investor grades never had been. She even had a permanent home, still, an oversized place for a single woman in a martian gravity zone in Zizkind. She'd not visited it in decades. Dammit, she should find a maid or someone to clear the place up, if she was going to be living in it now.

Still, while this place wasn't Wishcastle, it was nice. The residential houses leapt up from the central reservation in terraced tiers, the cheaper housing lower down and further back, away from the edges of the tiers. The tram had to be at least twenty years old, probably maintained by Houseki's underfunded core authority. The grass on the sides of the central reservation was green, but unkempt, sprouting out along the cracks in the concrete and with a few dandelions sprouting up here and there.

Ramiel returned the salute two MPs on patrol gave, if sloppily, and stared at the busted up public access fabber, a gang tag she probably wouldn't understand if she could read it scrawled vertically up it, before continuing on her walk down the long corridor. It really did remind her of Wishcastle. The same air of neglect and decay, the same looks that the teens on the upper terrace were giving her as she passed by. Well, no, those had changed. She was in uniform, and the gold on her collar and cuffs was distinctive.

It was probably not a fun part of the station to live in, whatever this neighbourhood was called, but for the moment it gave Ramiel an immense sense of nostalgia for her own childhood, in a smaller and slightly richer neighbourhood.

Her PCPU beeped twice, and she looked down at it. Ah, she'd arrived. Pulling the full address up, she discovered it was two tiers up, and turned around to head back towards the staircase she'd passed two hundred metres ago. She could have had an AR line feed her proper directions instead of just setting an arrival alert, but she'd wanted to city watch without a glowing blue line floating in her vision.

Taking the stairs she'd arrived at a dozen at a time, myomer muscles and Houseki's low gravity letting her cover the distance like it was nothing. She'd even remembered to jump sideways, decades-old muscle memory still serving her well, although this station's coriolis force effects were pretty tiny.

It didn't take her long to find the right apartment block, and the doors slid open for her to walk into the long hallway lined with little stone gardens. Most of them had been trashed, and a few had various growlights set up to allow some actual plant life to occur in their little sections.

When she finally reached number thirty-five, she was a little bit amused to see that there was not a hint of plant-life in front of the door. Unlatching the little wrought iron gate, she walked up to the door, and pressed her hand against the door panel, hearing the bell echo into the house, as set of lights appeared along the edge of the door, before a faded image of the house's interior flickered into view, the blurry image hovering a few centimetres of apparent distance from the faux-wood surface.

Huh.

Looking at the door panel, she saw a scrolling SolNav ident tag and realised what'd happened. She'd triggered some near-field sensor, as a Legitimate Authority, and this was probably part of either some habitat policy or an insurance rebated. Showing you will not Hide From the Police.

She mentally scoffed, and then pressed her hand against the panel, letting the ringer sound again.

It took a few seconds, but she saw a little kid, who looked about four, skitter into frame, and she smiled a little bit at the sight. He picked up a pad lying on a nearby table, and stared into it, before gasping.

"You're a proper Navy person! With gold arms!" His voice crackled across the speaker.

The smile widened a little bit more, and Ramiel nodded a little bit, staring into the door's camera. "I am. Can you get your grandpa for me?"

The kid shook his hair, sending his mop of ash grey hair whipping back and forth across his head. "Papa says I shouldn't talk to strangers." There was a clear pause as the kid thought. "I'm going to get mommy!" He declared, before rushing off out of her little area of view.

Oh, he was precious.

She reached up and adjusted her hat, before settling into a parade rest stance, trying to present a decent impression.

It didn't take long after that for the kid to run back, picking up the pad he'd dropped onto the floor and holding it up. "Look! Look!"

The woman that stepped into view was heavily pregnant and of african extraction, her natural hair and eye colours showing her relatively foreign nature to KC's mostly spacer-augment underclass. She stared at the pad before looking at the door directly, before gently taking it off him.

"Ma'am, I'm afraid I've got no idea why…" She paused, and Ramiel took her hat off, holding it loosely in front of her.

She smiled at her niece-in-law. "Hello, Penelope. Is my brother in?"

Penelope's face flashed through a few emotions in the span of a second or two, or possibly the shoddy display froze, before stopping when her son tugged at her skirt.

"Mommy, who is it?"

"I suppose I might as well let you in." Penelope said, gathering her son, Hong Kitsuragi, into her arms in lieu of answering his question.

The door swung open, the pseudo-hologram disappearing in blocks of flickering light as it did.

"Oh, so you were even watching us."

Ramiel kept the faint smile on her face, as she stepped through the threshold and ruffled Hong's hair. "I don't choose my security permissions, Penelope." Even though she kind of did. "And hello, you're just adorable, aren't you?"

" 'm not adorable. I'm big and strong!" Hong said, before holding his arms up and trying to flex them like a bodybuilder.

Ramiel let a genuine smile stretch across her face at his petulant reaction. "Of course. If you grow up like your dad, you certainly will be."

"Tell me who you are!" He said, pouting dramatically.

"I'm Commodore Ramiel Kitsuragi. I'm your Great-Aunt." She smiled at him, Penelope's taller statue meaning they were already at head-height with each other. "Don't you remember me from your birthday videos?"

His forehead wrinkled in concentration before nodding, whatever degree of logic his four-year-old brain ran on seemingly satisfied. Ramiel smiled in return, before pulling the door closed behind her and gesturing with one hand.

"Is my brother not home? Nor Jieshi?"

Penelope lead them both into a small sitting room, maybe six square metres, and put Hong on one of the small settee, while Ramiel quietly waited for her to log him back onto his remote learning program. "They're both still at work. As am I, so if you don't-"

"Oh, oh, my apologies." Ramiel quickly backed out of the door frame, before following her down the small corridor to the kitchen, where a laptop and a decent mid-end… huh. "Do you do graphics work, then?" she said, pointing at the tablet sitting on the cooker's glass top.

Penelope sat down, sighing as she took the weight off her feet, and picked up the graphics pen and rattled in a few passwords while Ramiel perched on the edge of the table. "I'm a hand-drawer."

Ramiel cocked her head to the side. "I'm afraid I'm not familiar. Animation related, at a guess?" Actual creative art on Penelope's behalf would have resulted in some job title with "artist" in it, as that means they can pay people a quantified amount less, in repayment for the free advertising that their work being published entailed.

"Yeah." She reached up with her free hand and scrubbed at one eye. "I take some computer-generated images, and trace over their lines. Then it's hand-drawn, you see."

Ramiel nodded, her words stirring some vague memory of her parents complaining about something from her childhood. "Huh. Piece-rate, or hourly?"

"Hourly, but there's a minimum. And bonuses if you do the most in your "team" each day, but I've never been good enough for those."

"Huh." Ramiel swung her legs back and forth slowly as she spent a few minutes watching her draw. It wasn't that interesting, actually, some blandly animated advertisement from what little she could see.

After that short while, Penelope laid back, shaking out her drawing hand while looking back. "I… I'm sorry, but it's really disconcerting to have you watch me."

"Oh. Right. Sorry. I… could check on Hong, if that'd be better? Check he's doing his work?"

"Sure. Jie and gramps should be back pretty soon, though."

"Gramps?"

She shook her head. "Habit, I guess. But, Commodore, I really need to.."

Ramiel held her hands up in front of her, and slowly backed out of the kitchen. "I'm going, I'm going. And call me Ramiel, seriously."

She closed the door behind her before Penelope had a chance to respond, and a long loping stride deposited her outside the sitting room.

" 今天学什么( Jīntiān xué shénme) ?" She said, smiling at her grand-nephew as he tapped at several colourful icons on the screen.

He looked up at her, his tongue stuck between his teeth. "Hello!"

"Hello. 你今天学什么( Nǐ jīntiān xué shénme) ?" She repeated herself, speaking a fair bit slower.

"... I don't know what you're saying, uh… C'mondoor."

She gritted her teeth for a moment, before smiling widely, settling in the room's sole armchair.. "Wǒ shì Ramiel. Nǐ jiào shénme míngzi?"

"Ohh. Err.. Wo she Hong?" He said, failing to pronounce it correctly. Ramiel smiled, still, and stuck her thumb up at him.

"Very good." Can't even speak his bloody language. "So, what are you learning today?"

"We're doing shape words!

"Oh?" He shuffles over on his sofa to show her his pad.

"So that's a rectangle, so I drag it over to the rectangle box. And then that's a square so I put it in the square box. And then they keep, keep dropping and I get lots of points. And I'm really good, too, I'm two on the 'partment leaderboard!"

She nodded, and smiled, and made little appreciative comments as he went back to his little educational games. Couldn't speak Chinese. That's awful.

Ramiel stewed in her seat, as she looked over the little room. There were a few framed photographs on the walls, a little digital photo display stood over the TV flicking between some album. The TV itself was… nice. She guessed. She honestly hadn't used a TV in years, preferring her pads. The furniture was… less so. If it'd been installed when the apartment was built, she wouldn't be surprised. The fashion was in keeping with that era, from what she remembered from her own apartment two decades back. It was well kept, for that age, but well-worn as well.

The rest of the room was… rather cramped. Beyond the sofa that Hong was sat on, and the armchair that she was sat on, there was barely enough room for her to lie down in, with a small cabinet occupying the spare corner.

Checking that Hong was engaged in his learning - this one seemed to involve him matching various clips of people saying words with their spelling - Ramiel rose from the armchair to kneel in front of the cabinet, pressing close and opening the little doors.

She saw the shrine. Saw the framed photos, and the tablet.

She closed the doors.

She returned to her seat, rubbing at the bridge of her nose. Yeah. Yeah, she should have expected that. Their… their funeral, that'd been the last time she'd taken time off. Last time she'd seen her brother.

She brought her hat up, to cover her face, and slumped in the chair. All that work, all that dedication, for… a pending fucking court martial, a court martial, for saving that bloody dirtball.

She moved the hat onto the top of her head, brim still covering her eyes, and gritted her teeth. She'd show them. She knew what she had to do, what her arguments were going to be. This wasn't going to stop her, not now, not af-

The sound of the door opening was loud, and she jerked up in her chair, hat falling to the floor.

"Papa!" yelled Hong, and he lept off the couch and vanished into the hallway with that impossible speed only possessed by excitable children. Picking up the hat, Ramiel walked over to the halfway open door leading to the corridor.

"Papa, papa, we've got a visitor! It's her!" and she pushed open the door fully, to see the two people there.

Her eyes flashed over her youngest nephew only briefly, even though it was her first time ever meeting him in the flesh. Jeishi was tall, tall indeed, almost two meters high and muscular, if decaying as he moved out of his younger years, holding his son and staring at her with dawning recognition.

But then he moved, and she saw the man behind him. A head taller than her, and with the light grey hair of his namesake, age hadn't been kind to him. His legs were clad in that exo-skeleton he invariably complained about in every monthly message. His hairline had retreated, if not vanished, leaving a wide expanse of wrinkled forehead, while an impressive set of jowls hung from his cheeks.

Raising a single hand, the eternally thirty nonagenarian waved at the man a decade and change younger, and who looked half a century older.

"Wo, Tabris." Ramiel let the smile she had break over her entire face.

Bemused, Tabris raised his own hand. "Wo, Rami-"

He broke off, as she crushed him in a hug. She had so much to talk to him about. Why Hong couldn't speak Chinese. Forcing him to get a rejuvenation treatment on her dime. Her upcoming trial, and a warning about what she thought was coming. The SDD containing a dubiously legal copy of the Anarchist Broadcast in her jacket pocket. Their parents, their other siblings, and the shrine she'd not visited once.

But for the moment, all she wanted to do was hug her brother.

AKuz · Jul 26, 2022

Pre-scheduled and canonical, today's #hashtagcontent

Edit: for those of you who are curious, yes we are buying time until the next General Session, for some reason the next general session is much more work to put together than any previous ones >: V

Aranfan · Jul 26, 2022

Oh my god, Ramiel's parents name her and her brother after the NEON GENESIS EVANGELION Angels?

AKuz · Jul 26, 2022

Aranfan said:
Oh my god, Ramiel's parents name her and her brother after the NEON GENESIS EVANGELION Angels?

Some crimes can never be forgiven

masterofmadness · Jul 26, 2022

Daw! What a wholesome moment from a horrifying monster who is working to oppress billions!

slybrarian · Jul 26, 2022

Tabris?

Also very touching while a prime example of why the Compact needs to die in a fire.

Winged One · Jul 26, 2022

AKuz said:
Edit: for those of you who are curious, yes we are buying time until the next General Session, for some reason the next general session is much more work to put together than any previous ones >: V

Wait, that crap about the young revolution being disruptive was actually true?

AKuz · Jul 26, 2022

Winged One said:
Wait, that crap about the young revolution being disruptive was actually true?

A lot has changed in the last three months or so, that requires a revamp of basically every project and addition of dozens of new ones

nocarename · Jul 26, 2022

Some change is good but all change is hard.

Genderite · Jul 26, 2022

Winged One said:
Wait, that crap about the young revolution being disruptive was actually true?

I assumed it was all the new techs from automation and the advanced FRMs finishing.

Aranfan · Jul 26, 2022

There's also the way the galaxy is literally fracturing as we speak.

HeWhoAdds · Jul 26, 2022

AKuz said:
A lot has changed in the last three months or so, that requires a revamp of basically every project and addition of dozens of new ones

Dozens?? What have our people been doing? Insanely hyped for new options!!!!

Amazing Abzan · Jul 26, 2022

AKuz said:
A lot has changed in the last three months or so, that requires a revamp of basically every project and addition of dozens of new ones

Thank you for clarifying that. For a moment there I was worried that the update was more work than usual for scary reasons

Winged One · Jul 26, 2022

nocarename said:
All elections should be surprises so that people can't plan ahead for things like this.

That seems pretty exploitable itself.

AKuz · Jul 26, 2022

Winged One said:
That seems pretty exploitable itself.

that's the point of snap elections, yes

trooperist · Jul 26, 2022

Winged One said:
That seems pretty exploitable itself.

AKuz said:
that's the point of snap elections, yes

In this very quest China did exactly that. The ruling government noticed the Broadcast was rapidly changing the political environment against them and they needed to stay in control. So they went 'Oh look at all this political unrest. We hear you people, time for a snap election!'.
And the ruling government just barely managed to stay in majority control despite a close election. If they waited even one more week they probably would have lost. And they went 'There we go, democracy at work. Sorry guys, the rules say no new elections for two years after this surprise one, so looks like you're stuck with us.'

I actually prefer our Council Communism representation where every group gets a representative and that representative can be changed or recalled at any time if they do something unpopular. Some people can make being a representative their job. Some can do it for a few weeks before deciding it isn't for them and they ask for a replacement. We don't even have an official head of government. Just a Head Spokesperson for the Congress, who is a simple figurehead that keeps meetings and discussions moving, that is selected on a rotating weekly basis.

Ralson · Jul 26, 2022

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

Judging from the map and things, England's economy was largely handed over to various England-themed theme parks and tourism. Along with some specific bits of Scotland...

clockworkchaos said:
[...]
He let chuckle go a bit before sighing."Heck at this point I might just apply for a Goblin position and take the augments. Really at this point if I didn't need food I'd probably take a box over this stupid Victorian tour." Unfortunately he didn't have the "chops" for the 'British Counterculture' tour, or he could pretend to "Tune out, drop out, and dope up" or whatever the slogan was. Which left Hogwarts.

BiopunkOtrera said:
At least he had his phone and could listen to music on his earbuds. In Victorian London, you did not have a phone. You weren't really supposed to on the Hogwarts Express either, but tourists did, and it was set in the golden nineties so it was a grey area. They were certainly not supposed to all beep at once though. Not the whole car full of people. Hell, it sounded like the entire steam train was buzzing with those same five bars.

Artful Dodger wondered, suddenly about tidal waves. He opened his phone and looked at the message, and suddenly, the job at Hogwarts didn't seem quite as important after all.

"the masses will all look up and shout "READ ANOTHER BOOK!"
and I'll look down and whisper "No." "

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

Been Better

Aspiring Gynoid

Cannon Fodder

Sassy Bitch Stargazer

Visitation Rights - June 14th

Been Better

Team Plasma Grunt

Been Better

Creature of Fable

Not the Simurgh

Been Better

Team Plasma Grunt

Not the Simurgh

Been Better

Cinnamon Roll AI

Horrible Weasel