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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pheonix89 · Aug 2, 2022

QM SIGNAL!:

With the formalization of MilComm measures we can now authorize multiple projects at once. Pick two project actions from the list below, both will be implemented on a single die. Currently, up to TWO small craft/gate defense projects or ONE medium Ship project may be initiated per action. (For simplicity we have included multiple boxes for bigger projects. Each die in this section gets you 4 boxes worth of stuff)

[ ] [MilComm] Build Strikecraft Construction and Training Platform in Idyllia: +12 (3/35) (10BR, 7SR, 5E)
[ ] [MilComm] Build Strikecraft Construction and Training Platform in Osliam +12 (3/35) (10BR, 7SR, 5E)
[ ] [MilComm] Build Strikecraft Construction and Training Platform in Chinook: +14 (0/35) (10BR, 7SR, 5E)
[ ] [MilComm] Build Strikecraft Construction and Training Platform in Radiant: +12 (0/35) (10BR, 7SR, 5E)
[ ] [MilComm] Build Strikecraft Construction and Training Platform in Five Lions: +12 (0/35) (10BR, 7SR, 5E)

Unlike frigates or capital and assault ships, most smallcraft are comparatively simple, and don't have built-in warp drives. While this means they're strictly limited to local defense, they're also cheap, fast to build, and can be ferried by tow or cargo ship to other locations if needed.

These smaller spacedocks can construct not just most civilian craft used in day to day operations but dozens of different types of warfract. You will be able to pump out any type of smallcraft that fits its dimensions-- fighters, bombers, interceptors, or assault shuttles. Or even craft up to the size of corvettes and the smaller frigates like the ubiquitous Cossak-class.

[ ] [Orbital Platform] Smallcraft Yards in Radiant: +13 (11/30) (5BR, 5SR, 3E)
[ ] [Orbital Platform] Smallcraft Yards in Five Lions:+13 (00/30) (5BR, 5SR, 3E)
[ ] [Orbital Platform] Smallcraft Yards in Chinook: +15 (00/30) (5BR, 5SR, 3E)

[ ] [Gate] Fortify the Five Lions-Kimberly Gate +13 (0/1 Quarters) (5 BR, 5SR, 3E)
[ ] [Gate] Fortify the Ascension-Capheus Gate +13 (0/1 Quarters) (5 BR, 5SR, 3E)
[ ] [Gate] Fortify the Capheus-Waystation Gate +13 (0/1 Quarters) (5 BR, 5SR, 3E)
[ ] [Gate] Fortify the Osliam-Shei Gate +13 (0/1 Quarters) (5 BR, 5SR, 3E)
[ ] [Gate] Fortify the Osliam-Waystation Gate +13 (0/1 Quarters) (5 BR, 5SR, 3E)
[ ] Write in: (you have a lot of gates right now)

[ ] [Aux] Convert civilian liner to auxiliary cruiser: +8 (Automatic) (5SR 3E)
[ ] [Aux] Convert civilian liner to auxiliary light carrier: +8 (Automatic) (5SR 3E)
[ ] [Aux] Convert civilian liner to auxiliary fleet tender: +8 (Automatic) (5SR 3E)

[ ][ ] [MilComm] Build Cruiser-sized spacedock in Radiant: +5 (0/50) (20BR, 10SR, 7E)
[ ][ ] [MilComm] Build Cruiser-sized spacedock in Five-Lions: +5 (0/50)(20BR, 10SR, 7E)
[ ][ ] [MilComm] Build Cruiser-sized spacedock in Chinook: +7 (0/50 (20BR, 10SR, 7E)

Is this really correct?

Did you really mean to have 1x MilCom dice giving us two to four dice worth of IndCom infrastructure prodction? Or is this legacy code from using MilCom dice and shipyard slots to build ships?

I don't think you meant for us to be able to say ... use one dice this turn and use dice next turn and come out with all four Strike Craft Construction and training yards built when using IndCom would have gotten one yard for that - and with worse modifiers? Or put one of those actions on the academy and the other three on Smallcraft yards and double our light unit production in two turns?

Or am I just badly misreading things?

Edit: Looking back it looks like last turn the two projects for MilCom dice was in effect (not shown if allow for ind-com) but all infra was 2-box.

Edit Edit: Shouldn't MilCom and IndCom infrastructure production use the same mechanics with the multiple picks per dice? Except for the prototype maybe given that's a research project as much as a build project...

Also why is Cottage Industry Strikecraft in Radiant still around when we can put up infra that builds them without using precious MilCom/IndCom dice for the same amount? If it was like a planetside Strikecraft Construction and Training Platform without the training platform part it would make sense but ... it seems almost trap-esque to use the same resources on making 1 squadron that could be used to get a squadron per turn production line spinning!

Setsul · Aug 2, 2022

The Laurent said:
I'm not sure where the bonuses would suddenly come from to turn it from a "probably two turn" action to a "Definitely one turn" action. It can absolutely make it more likely to finish in one turn, I suppose, but it makes sense that people who put the TLI situation as a priority don't want to wait "2, maybe 3 turns" when they could wait "1, quite probably 2 turns."

If you value the TLI situation less, then obviously that comes off as less pressing. I'm not actually sure what I'd do if I was a player still, because there's so many fucking options that we need ASAP.

Oh no, not definitely one turn, but +10 0/30 is in that awkward spot where it's theoretically possible, but very unlikely.
Like I said, I don't know how much of a bonus we'd get from the VI. It's not going to change much if it's just +1.
I guess my point is that without Omake bonuses (I kind of forgot about those) it's actually more likely for TLI emancipation to need three turns than to finish in one if we start now. So depending on how high the bonuses would be next turn, then doing it next turn with the +5 bonus from the first focus die on top of it could turn those initial 5% into something worth risking and improve the chances of all other projects as well.
There is also Propagandize for AI rights that should be taken and finished beforehand.

Torgamous said:
With contacting and infiltrating multiple targets each their own project, I'm not convinced that this is a bullet that needs biting. It looks like it's just moving projects and dice around, not giving us more of either.

Yeah, moving the spying to MilComm is something that can still be done later, when we've got actual spying and MilComm isn't swamped by all the Reorganize Training projects and figuring out how to build better ships.

Diplomacy and Propaganda should stay within MedComm, even if we wanted to rename it or something that should definitely stay in a different Committe than MilComm stuff.
Inserting Assets is going to take a backseat for a while and that's it for the spying stuff that isn't strictly MedComm.

pheonix89 said:
QM SIGNAL!:

Is this really correct?

Did you really mean to have 1x MilCom dice giving us two to four dice worth of IndCom infrastructure prodction? Or is this legacy code from using MilCom dice and shipyard slots to build ships?

I don't think you meant for us to be able to say ... use one dice this turn and use dice next turn and come out with all four Strike Craft Construction and training yards built when using IndCom would have gotten one yard for that - and with worse modifiers? Or put one of those actions on the academy and the other three on Smallcraft yards and double our light unit production in two turns?

Or am I just badly misreading things?

No, that is really how it works.
IndComm gets something similar with two resource production projects in the same system for one die.
The combined Strikecraft production and training facility used to be a separate project in MilComm too and would've cost a full die, but since the Small Craft Yards are now Smallcraft Yards and can produce Strikecraft as well, it's hard to argue that a Strikecraft yard that can't build Corvettes or Frigates would be that much more expensive just because of the added training facility.

The big change that may be a mistake is that the actual construction projects, as in building a Smallcraft yard rather than beginning construction on a Small Craft in a yard, would cost two "boxes" and now only costs one (read: cost went from half a die to a quarter die). That is however in line with what happened with the medium yard, which went from being a separate project (one die) to two boxes of Begin Construction Projects (half a die).

I'd just take it and run with it.

Our originally purely Corvette Yards gained the ability to build Frigates and now Strikecraft (actual "Smallcraft" instead of "Escort"-sized small craft aka ships), so I'm just taking this in stride and will try to push the QMs further to let us pick any four boxes (except the double box required for a cruiser-sized dock) so we don't always need to build two Smallcraft Yards at the same time.

Rockeye · Aug 2, 2022

SPACEDOCKS PLS

Particularly a capital dock for 5L

AKuz · Aug 2, 2022

Setsul said:
Our originally purely Corvette Yards gained the ability to build Frigates and now Strikecraft (actual "Smallcraft" instead of "Escort"-sized small craft aka ships), so I'm just taking this in stride and will try to push the QMs further to let us pick any four boxes (except the double box required for a cruiser-sized dock) so we don't always need to build two Smallcraft Yards at the same time.

Specifically smallcraft yards can build Cossak-class frigates because they're basically corvettes with a glandular problem (and a warp ring). Most other classes of frigate will build from medium yards.

Setsul · Aug 2, 2022

AKuz said:
Specifically smallcraft yards can build Cossak-class frigates because they're basically corvettes with a glandular problem (and a warp ring). Most other classes of frigate will build from medium yards.

Ah, good to know.
So the Hochseeflotte-class that is listed we should be able to build in the medium-sized docks?
It's still missing from that list. Not that we'll get to use Sheol Mediumcraft 1 for another 5 turns.

AKuz · Aug 2, 2022

Setsul said:
Ah, good to know.
So the Hochseeflotte-class that is listed we should be able to build in the medium-sized docks?
It's still missing from that list. Not that we'll get to use Sheol Mediumcraft 1 for another 5 turns.

I just added it proper

clockworkchaos · Aug 2, 2022

pheonix89 said:
QM SIGNAL!:

Is this really correct?

Did you really mean to have 1x MilCom dice giving us two to four dice worth of IndCom infrastructure prodction? Or is this legacy code from using MilCom dice and shipyard slots to build ships?

I don't think you meant for us to be able to say ... use one dice this turn and use dice next turn and come out with all four Strike Craft Construction and training yards built when using IndCom would have gotten one yard for that - and with worse modifiers? Or put one of those actions on the academy and the other three on Smallcraft yards and double our light unit production in two turns?

Or am I just badly misreading things?

Edit: Looking back it looks like last turn the two projects for MilCom dice was in effect (not shown if allow for ind-com) but all infra was 2-box.

Edit Edit: Shouldn't MilCom and IndCom infrastructure production use the same mechanics with the multiple picks per dice? Except for the prototype maybe given that's a research project as much as a build project...

Also why is Cottage Industry Strikecraft in Radiant still around when we can put up infra that builds them without using precious MilCom/IndCom dice for the same amount? If it was like a planetside Strikecraft Construction and Training Platform without the training platform part it would make sense but ... it seems almost trap-esque to use the same resources on making 1 squadron that could be used to get a squadron per turn production line spinning!

@AKuz

I want to say that this is legacy code and it should be one infastructure a dice, but I'm going to defer to you.

pheonix89 · Aug 2, 2022

I'm not sure we're actually fine on E income. We're not going to get that 21 from Sheol next turn and that brings us down to 50 surplus and ... generally most projects are 3 to 5 e per die so we may crunch if we don't get some more energy going?

Upgrading 5 lions 10b is pretty BR-pricely but gets us more wiggle room.

BarbaCoPut · Aug 2, 2022

Winged One said:
...I'll be perfectly honest, I'm pretty sure the only difference between that and our current status quo is less bookkeeping.

It will also probably the first step to true singularity, a future project might help on getting infinite SR, and eventually infinite E. coupled with full automation. We become The Culture

[] Plan: Bright Future
-[ ] [Radiant Smallcraft 1] Chinook Model Switchblade Strikecraft Wing (0/1) (5BE, 5BR, 3E)
-[ ] [Radiant Smallcraft 1] Chinook Model Switchblade Strikecraft Wing (0/1) (5BE, 5BR, 3E)
-[ ] [IndComm] Build Orbital Cruiser-sized spacedock in Five Lions
-[ ] [IndComm] One Man's Trash: Base of Operations
-[ ] [IndComm] Build Strikecraft Construction and Training Platform for Osliam/Idyllia
-[ ] [MilComm] Logistical Overhaul
-[ ] [SciComm] Assist with Prototype Wormhole research -FTL Communications (Focus)
-[ ] [SciComm] Assist with Prototype Wormhole research -Wormhole Travel (Focus)
-[ ] [SciComm] Automated Harvesting Breakthrough
-[ ] [SciComm] Prepare for TLI Emancipation:
-[ ] [SciComm] Genetic Augmentation Jailbreak
-[ ] [SocComm] Propagandize for AI rights
-[ ] [SocComm] Propagandize Against Bioconservatism
-[ ] [MedComm] Establish External Espionage Rings

Ok, thid is my modest proposal for setting the basis of the seeds of us being something akin to The Culture...

But in any case, I feel all plans should aim to have " Automated Harvesting Breakthrough" , infinite BR, and perhaps eventually other improvements to production, coupled with different kinds of automation, and the introduction of AGIs, could lead to a bright future where we have the ability to overrun the enemies of the people on sheer numbers.

Setsul · Aug 2, 2022

I included the locked in projects just to have everything in one place.

[ ] Plan: Get The Boring Stuff Out Of The Way And Stack Bonuses
-[ ] [Radiant Smallcraft 1]
--[ ] New Model-class corvette: (0/2 Quarters) (20BR, 12SR, 6E)
-[ ] [Radiant Smallcraft 2]
--[ ] Chinook Model Switchblade Strikecraft Wing (0/1) (5BE, 5BR, 3E)
-[+] [Sheol Mediumcraft 1]
--[+] CNS Salvation & Battle repair (0/1)
-[ ] [IndComm] Build Prototype Capital-sized spacedock in Five Lions
-[ ] [IndComm] Send construction Aid to Ascension
-[ ] [IndComm] One Man's Trash: Base of Operations
-[+] [MilComm] Case Sashay: Begin Offensive Operations into Bestreer
-[ ] [MilComm] Case Tammany, Secure Akleod
-[ ] [FOCUS] [MilComm] Begin Construction Projects
--[ ] [MilComm] Build Strikecraft Construction and Training Platform in Idyllia: +12 (3/35) (10BR, 7SR, 5E)
--[ ] [MilComm] Build Strikecraft Construction and Training Platform in Chinook: +14 (0/35) (10BR, 7SR, 5E)
--[ ] [Orbital Platform] Smallcraft Yards in Radiant: +13 (11/30) (5BR, 5SR, 3E)
--[ ] [Aux] Convert civilian liner to auxiliary fleet tender: +8 (Automatic) (5SR 3E)
-[ ] [Focus] [MilComm] Planning for Success: Long Term Goals
-[ ] [SciComm] Assist with Prototype Wormhole research -FTL Communications
-[ ] [SciComm] Grey Skies Project
-[ ] [SciComm] VI Retraining
-[ ] [SocComm] Propagandize for AI rights
-[ ] [SocComm] Co-opt the Young Guards as junior partners
-[+] [MedComm] Open relations with Xotreh
-[ ] [MedComm] Attempt to Propagandize to Blue Squadron

Akleod could be put off until later and switched with Examine Captured Warcraft and Cracked Designs to get the SolNav designs for Corvettes, Frigates and maybe Cruisers (we don't have a Light Cruiser to examine) before we go on a shipbuilding spree.

Three different MilComm construction projects is technically illegal and we might have to switch that to converting two liners or building Smallcraft Yards in Chinook as well (Five Lions is building their own and the FOCUS bonus + overflow guarantee completion in Radiant).

Other SocComm projects that didn't make the cut: Create Auditor Commission to Fight Feature Creep and Long-term Immortality.
The first just sounds great and the second is just a freebie. High chance of completion within one turn, everyone likes it, and it gives us a headstart on Propagandize Against Bioconservatism.

I have not done the math on resources, especially E, thanks to @pheonix89 for the heads-up.
EDIT: Yeah, I'm getting 62E, which is technically fine, since Sheol will only stop supplying Energy in "1 turns". I'm willing to risk it and hope that Ascension, Ismeu, Xotreh, Capitata, Raphanus, or even Akleod turn up better options.

Explanations, MilComm got away from me a bit.

Shipbuilding:
I'm still not sure on the costs. A Light Cruiser costing almost the same as a Corvette (only 3SR more) seems too good to be true, so I'm assuming it's per quarter. A Frigate costing 50% more than a Corvette seems like a lot, but once we factor in the Light Tender we need, it actually works out to a bit less SR and only needing 3 small yards instead 2 small and one medium for the same speed of 1 Escort-sized ship per quarter.
But we've already got some Corvettes lying around and I've got a plan.
See MilComm.

Strikecraft are great. Also they are dirt cheap. I want more Strikecraft. Should we ever lose and Elysium be in danger of getting occupied, I want to do it like Earth: Orbital superiority and lots of ground troops in orbit don't actually do much if there's dozens of Strikecraft Wings and nasty anti-air stuff waiting in bunkers ready to shoot down any troop transport that attempts to land.
For now though, since we're probably going to be on the defensive in Chinook (and hopefully Bestreer) for a while more, I'd squeeze a few in for immediate defensive benefits before we commit to Frigate spam or whatever else our strategy will look like with the big dock, Kimberly, and other research.

Sheol called dibs on the next medium ship so I'd start building another medium dock in Ascension next turn, next to the Academy.

IndComm:
The Prototype Capital Craft Spacedock project had the same options as the normal Cruiser-sized one copy pasted, so I wrote my own to make it clear. Five Lions wants it, I want it, and if we want to repair anything big we find in Kimberly, we're probably going to need it. Or when we finally figure out bigger ships than a Light Cruiser. At +10 and /80 it's going to takes us around 4 turns, so might as well start now.

Ascension shouldn't starve and needs some infrastructure to support BLG and to get further projects off the ground. Not much to discuss here, I think.

Getting stuff from Kimberly could be huge. Let's get started on that.

Infinite BR sounds great, but SciComm says it's "more than /40" so let's get some bonuses first. It might take a while.

MilComm:
It looks a bit crazy, but Home Force is still available. Akleod got an "Approximately fifty strong volunteer station security militia drawn from station personnel" so CNS Nasty Bastard can take them. Also the CNS Fourth Lion. That probably helps.
It's not exactly nice, but I don't expect any shooting if we do this right (thought a diplomat would be better), and MedComm is a bit swamped right now. Sending a ship is also the easiest way to take a look at the two unknown systems and it's way faster than formalizing the diplomatic service, getting in contact with Akleod, convincing them that they want to be on our side, then asking them if they know anything about the other systems and realizing that they don't because they've been stuck on the refueling station.
So I'd just send a ship, ask them if they're cool with us passing through (not much choice since they can't stop us) and whether they want BLG and immortality. If they want to stick with the charters we can still send diplomats later.
Basically, I don't care about securing the system "on the ground" so to speak, I just want an expedition to "secure" the space in Akleod and take a look at its neighbouring systems. Could take care of that in the subvote instead of overcomplicating things with a write-in here.
I'm honestly not married to the idea, but we need to get started on securing our backyard. Yes, there's probably nothing there, but there could be and even if it's nothing dangerous it could also be something hugely beneficial like Kimberly. Let's not put things off forever again.

Construction projects, the big one.

We need to start the Osliam/Idyllia Strikecraft Platform this turn and this way it doesn't take up a full IndComm die. I'm assuming that the separate Osliam and Idyllia options in MilComm are the same as the combined "Osliam/Idyllia" option in IndComm and that we only need one. I chose Idyllia because I don't want to feed the resident "I'm going to build a military and make the AIC pay for it" populist in Osliam even more. Osliam got its gate defences so Idyllia gets the Platform. It might even get more people to visit Gentle Repose and both Osliamians (?!) being exposed to more augments and the population of Gentle Repose not staring at the same people they've got grudges against all day could shake up politics in both systems even more.
Thanks to automatic shipbuilding we're getting 2d5 each turn once we start it. Not sure if that means this turn as well or only next turn, but with that, the bonus, overflow/starting value, and our own roll we're looking at 3 + 12 + 1d20 + 4-6d5 / 35 so a pretty good chance that this will simply finish automatically within the next 3 turns, just in time.

In the long term I don't want to block our small docks with Strikecraft Wings and getting them for free seems too good to pass up. Chinook is on the frontlines, which will simplify logistics*, we get the highest bonus there, and it has been Chinook's thing in the past. They designed the ones we're using now. Seems rude to not let them build them.
*Even if the Chief of Naval Operations (who is that, by the way?) will supposedly distribute them automatically, it feels weird to abuse that and instantly teleport Wings to the frontlines without any Carrier being available.

More Yards are great. Even if they are not physically great. With the overflow and bonus there's a 75% chance we can finish a small one in Radiant within one turn.

We've got the CNS Blair Mountain stuck in Radiant because we've got no Tender to move it. There's also the two Patrol Corvettes, though those are on asteroid patrol duty and I prefer Elysium without impact craters and their greatest military contribution seems to have been slagging HI ships during the March Days by turning their drives on them, so I don't have much hopes for their armaments, but Ismeu is joining us and they've also got two Corvettes. The resettlement of Ares personnel from Sheol to Radiant is also done, so we're not going to miss one civilian liner.
That's why I want another Corvette as well.
No matter what, whether the converted liner can carry two or four Corvettes, whether Ismeu wants to throw in theirs or not, we end up with a full new Light Tender in three turns at the latest. If it can only carry two then it gets two New Model-class and we can convert another one next turn if Ismeu wants one, if it can carry four and Ismeu wants to keep theirs and we want to keep the Patrol Corvettes patrolling then we can just build two more in the new Yard and the one that's building a Strikecraft Wing this turn.

Long Term Goals just helps with all the other stuff we should do eventually, so let's do it first.
I want to build the Academy in Ascension, where it's safe and we might even get a bonus from the construction Aid to Ascension project.
The /120 for decentralization just don't seem worth it. More rapid veterancy is offset by taking much longer to get the new training up and running and more capable SDFs seem nice, but our SDFs are pretty much lauchable and it would mean we lost in Bestreer, where there is no SDF, or in Chinook, where the SDF is (almost?) entirely Strikecraft and the Strikecraft training would be conducted anyway.
Parallel Academies I could see. The redundancy is nice, doubled DC bonus vs institutionalized DC bonus is about even, but higher starting veterancy for new ships right when we're about to build a lot could be a lot better than bonuses to generic captains if people keep up the good work so there are no generic captains. I guess it then comes down to better information on officer effects + lower cost for the single academy vs the starting veterancy for parallel academies.

There's some mechanics abuse in here too.
Doing both Smallcraft Yards in Radiant and Convert Civilian Liner is technically illegal because it brings us to three different actions. We could build two different Smallcraft Yards, but Five Lions is building their own already and Chinook doesn't need that and a Strikecraft Platform, put two on Radiant but that's way overkill with how I want to set up the bonuses or convert two liners but I'm not sure we'll need them.
The first FOCUS die should give +5 to all rolls in that category (and +1 for the second one). That means the smallcraft yards in Radiant are guaranteed to finish, the Strikecraft Platform in Idyllia is exceedingly likely to finish within three turns and we've got a shot at finishing the one in Chinook in one turn too. It might be a bit of a waste with 3/4 (depending on how you count the liner conversion) being automatic progress, but Long Term Goals should provide bonuses to other projects based on the roll, and like I said I'm not married to the "offensive" into Akleod.

Examine Captured Warcraft and Cracked Designs is a perfectly valid choice too if we want to put off Akleod and would benefit from the bonuses enough to have a decent chance at completing in one turn. That way we get the better SolNav designs for Corvettes and Frigates, maybe Cruisers. Even if we can't build anything bigger yet, we'd get more bang for buck out of our new ships than if we stuck to the rather spartan Ares designs.

SciComm:
Before the edit so cruelly took it from us, we got a glimpse at what will be. Unlocking the wormhole comms prototype seems to be /100 or /120 so we'll probably get to that next turn. No reason to abandon this project now after we've worked on it for so long.

Grey Skies is obvious as well. We're getting the best bonuses now, decent chance to complete in one turn, get it done now then start working on Fractured Skies and all the really fun stuff.

VI Retraining should also come in handy, though I don't remember how much of a bonus that gave us and we'd only be getting half from that.

SocComm:
I don't think we want to keep ARIA a secret forever and Ascension really wants to free those TLIs.

The Youth Committee will found itself, co-opting it is a longer project, letting everyone vote from the moment they can read or even before might run into issues, and the calendar seems nice but not pressing.
The guns however I am concerned about. Unless we plan on taking away everyone's fabricators again, anyone who wants a gun will be able to get one. So the only thing we can do is make having a gun and being part of a paramilitary group that could potentially try to overthrow the government boring as soon as possible.

Other projects that didn't make the cut: Create Auditor Commission to Fight Feature Creep and Long-term Immortality.
The first just sounds great and the second is just a freebie. High chance of completion within one turn, everyone likes it, and it gives us a headstart on Propagandize Against Bioconservatism.

MedComm:
SocComm got better bonuses for the Propagandize projects and nothing else really seems pressing.
We definitely do want better espionage and diplomacy, but we already roughly know what's coming towards us in the near future and we're already busy integrating and negotiating with enough systems right now.
The landgrave we also need to check on soon, but he's not going anywhere.

Blue Squadron however we should work on before the SolNav task group arrives and can convince them to team up. That would be bad.

Kirook · Aug 2, 2022

I really, really want to do Clear Out Tech Debt ASAP. It will make everything that comes after it massively more efficient and probably represent a huge savings on actions and dice in the long or even medium term.

Aranfan · Aug 2, 2022

I also want to clear out the tech debt

pheonix89 · Aug 2, 2022

Rough Idea:
[ ] Boring And Practical Draft
- [ ] [Radiant Smallcraft 1] Chinook Model Switchblade Strikecraft Wing (0/1) (5BE, 5BR, 3E)
- [ ] [Radiant Smallcraft 2] Chinook Model Switchblade Strikecraft Wing (0/1) (5BE, 5BR, 3E)
- [ ] [IndComm] Expand Energy Collection Operations on Five Lions 10b to Level 3 (Quality 12)
- [ ] [IndComm] Build Strikecraft Construction and Training Platform for Osliam/Idyllia
- [ ] [IndComm] Smallcraft Yards in Radiant: +9 (11/30) (5BR, 5SR, 3E)
- [ ] [MilComm] Logistical Overhaul
- [ ] [SciComm] Initiate Mega Project: Clearing out Tech Debt
- [ ] [SciComm] Automated Harvesting Breakthrough
- [ ] [SciComm] VI Retraining
- [ ] [FOCUS] [SocComm] Learn By Doing
- [ ] [FOCUS] [SocComm] Create Auditor Commission to Fight Feature Creep
- [ ] [SocComm] Long-term Immortality
- [ ] [SocComm] Propagandize Against Bioconservatism
- [ ] [MedComm] Attempt to Propagandize to Blue Squadron

Ok, so, logic here:

We're liable to hit energy crunch next turn if we don't get more input now since we lose the 21 from Sheol then. Therefore, get more income.
Fighters are pretty quick and cheap to get up and running and I think we're rather tight on transport for Corvettes while Frigates are big investment per boom.
We have a small craft yard under construction in Radiant, finish.
We did promise to build that platform and it's a fighter per turn once it's up and running do that.
Auto-harvesting, once it's up, lets us upgrade all the high quality sites without caring about the huge BR pain from that. Even if we can't apply it to SR or E we can just max out all the high quality sites!
Logistics are logistics - better performance, more missiles.
Tech debt is the devil. 300 years of tech debt ... the dev inside me says that cleaning out 300 years of tech debt is the boring but practical version of an out and out superweapon everything will work so much better.
VI Retraining is setup for doing a whole bunch of other stuff - Grey Skies, Fractured Skies...
Learn By Doing gives a permanent upgrade every turn. It's basically the equivalent of 1/3 of a +bonus project. Every turn. For free. Forever. The only reason to not want to do it ASAP is thinking that the quest won't last many more turns.
Anti-Feature-Creep is more-or-less equivalent to lowering all success thresholds by two. It's right up there with Learn By Doing for absolutely mandatory.
Long Term Immortality does a bunch of nifty stuff ... and saves resources.
Anti-bioconservatism needs to be done and synergizes very well with double-VEMP and Long term immortality - double VEMP means long term is rolling 1d20+11 aiming for 12 and overflows into Anti-bioconservasitm, so anti-bioconservatism will be effectively 2d20+11 aiming for 25 - excellent chance of one turn success.
Propagandize blue squadron is obvious.

I would like to be doing Grey Skies and Wormholes but the dice aren't there if I want to have dice for all the goodies in SocCom and start on freeing us from Tech Debt and BR limits (which frees us mostly from SR/E limits because we can max top quality sites) and on getting more military infra up.

Redshirt Army · Aug 2, 2022

Alright, just woke up, so going through the options here are my thoughts:

[ ] [SciComm] Prepare for TLI Emancipation

I consider this mandatory. Quite aside from the moral aspect, I think that this is simply politically necessary. Please recall that Ascension is actually kinda pissed at us at the moment for how the whole 12.7 situation went down. Fulfilling something " Highly Desired by Ascension" will really help to mend that gap.

That inherently means that:

[ ] [SocComm] Propagandize for AI rights

Also becomes mandatory. We're about to drop 2 million AGIs into our polity, making sure that they're treated right is important. This also defuses a propaganda bomb our opponents have against us, since Omoi's remnants could decide to paint us as "controlled by spoooooooky ASI" at any time.

[ ] [IndComm] Send construction Aid to Ascension

This is also critical - we need to have ascension properly hooked into our industrial capabilities, and this again helps ensure good relations.

Moving on:

[ ] [IndComm] Build Strikecraft Construction and Training Platform for Osliam/Idyllia

Mandatory to fulfill our treaty commitments.

[ ] [SciComm] Assist with Prototype Wormhole research -FTL Communications

Once more action needed to complete, it's fucking FTL comms. Obviously mandatory.

[ ] [SciComm] Grey Skies Project

This is of critical importance. It unlocks Blue Skies research, has major propaganda implications, and the bonuses are nice too.

[ ] [MedComm] Attempt to Propagandize to Blue Squadron

Now's the time to strike on this.

[ ] [MedComm] Establish External Espionage Rings

Similarly, this may well be the last call to get access to various outside systems before travel gets totally cut off.
Putting it all together, that looks like:

[] Plan Redshirt v1
SHIPBUILDING
-[ ] [Radiant Smallcraft 1]
--[ ] Chinook Model Switchblade Strikecraft Wing (0/1) (5BE, 5BR, 3E)
-[ ] [Radiant Smallcraft 2]
--[ ] Chinook Model Switchblade Strikecraft Wing (0/1) (5BE, 5BR, 3E)
MILCOMM
-[+] [MilComm] Case Sashay: Begin Offensive Operations into Bestreer
-[ ] [MilComm] Logistical Overhaul
-[ ] [Focus] [MilComm] Begin Construction Projects
-- [ ] Build Strikecraft Construction and Training Platform in Idyllia: +12 (3/35) (10BR, 7SR, 5E)
-- [ ] Smallcraft Yards in Radiant: +13 (11/30) (5BR, 5SR, 3E)
-- [ ][ ] Build Cruiser-sized spacedock in Five-Lions: +5 (0/50)(20BR, 10SR, 7E)
INDCOMM
-[ ] [IndComm] Send construction Aid to Ascension
-[ ] [IndComm] One Man's Trash: Base of Operations
SCICOMM
-[ ] [SciComm] Assist with Prototype Wormhole research -FTL Communications
-[ ] [SciComm] Grey Skies Project
-[ ] [SciComm] Prepare for TLI Emancipation
SOCCOMM
-[ ] [SocComm] Propagandize for AI rights
-[ ] [SocComm] Youth Liberation
MEDCOMM
-[ ] [MedComm] Attempt to Propagandize to Blue Squadron
-[ ] [FOCUS] [Medcomm] Establish External Espionage Rings

I would appreciate QM insight into whether MilComm construction actually works like this or not.

Transreal Cloud · Aug 2, 2022

Clearing tech debt is a trap... no not really I trust the QMs not to do that to us but what's currently there is just the first step of what is likely to be a megaproject with uncertain costs and uncertain results... I feel like there's more urgent things to do with our dice.

Godwinson · Aug 2, 2022

Avergne Vogt, delegate for the Spring Rapids View community, and currently the oldest member of Congress, when the topic of the Amaranthine Youth League is first broached in this General Session, posts the following image to her official Congressional Stream:

trooperist · Aug 2, 2022

Is there a real big difference between 'modern' strikecraft and the Chinook Switchblades we can build?

CyberFemme · Aug 2, 2022

Redshirt Army said:
Alright, just woke up, so going through the options here are my thoughts:

I consider this mandatory. Quite aside from the moral aspect, I think that this is simply politically necessary. Please recall that Ascension is actually kinda pissed at us at the moment for how the whole 12.7 situation went down. Fulfilling something " Highly Desired by Ascension" will really help to mend that gap.

That inherently means that:

Also becomes mandatory. We're about to drop 2 million AGIs into our polity, making sure that they're treated right is important. This also defuses a propaganda bomb our opponents have against us, since Omoi's remnants could decide to paint us as "controlled by spoooooooky ASI" at any time.

This is also critical - we need to have ascension properly hooked into our industrial capabilities, and this again helps ensure good relations.

Moving on:

Mandatory to fulfill our treaty commitments.

Once more action needed to complete, it's fucking FTL comms. Obviously mandatory.

This is of critical importance. It unlocks Blue Skies research, has major propaganda implications, and the bonuses are nice too.

Now's the time to strike on this.

Similarly, this may well be the last call to get access to various outside systems before travel gets totally cut off.
Putting it all together, that looks like:

[] Plan Redshirt v1
SHIPBUILDING
-[ ] [Radiant Smallcraft 1]
--[ ] Chinook Model Switchblade Strikecraft Wing (0/1) (5BE, 5BR, 3E)
-[ ] [Radiant Smallcraft 2]
--[ ] Chinook Model Switchblade Strikecraft Wing (0/1) (5BE, 5BR, 3E)
MILCOMM
-[+] [MilComm] Case Sashay: Begin Offensive Operations into Bestreer
-[ ] [MilComm] Logistical Overhaul
-[ ] [Focus] [MilComm] Begin Construction Projects
-- [ ] Build Strikecraft Construction and Training Platform in Idyllia: +12 (3/35) (10BR, 7SR, 5E)
-- [ ] Smallcraft Yards in Radiant: +13 (11/30) (5BR, 5SR, 3E)
-- [ ][ ] Build Cruiser-sized spacedock in Five-Lions: +5 (0/50)(20BR, 10SR, 7E)
INDCOMM
-[ ] [IndComm] Send construction Aid to Ascension
-[ ] [IndComm] One Man's Trash: Base of Operations
SCICOMM
-[ ] [SciComm] Assist with Prototype Wormhole research -FTL Communications
-[ ] [SciComm] Grey Skies Project
-[ ] [SciComm] Prepare for TLI Emancipation
SOCCOMM
-[ ] [SocComm] Propagandize for AI rights
-[ ] [SocComm] Youth Liberation
MEDCOMM
-[ ] [MedComm] Attempt to Propagandize to Blue Squadron
-[ ] [FOCUS] [Medcomm] Establish External Espionage Rings

I would appreciate QM insight into whether MilComm construction actually works like this or not.

Consider replacing Construction Aid to Ascension with All the Toys if you're doing TLI emancipation? Ascension gets something it wants this way, and we nab a nice bonus to everything.

Cassiemouse · Aug 2, 2022

[] Plan: Ensure the Liberty and Prosperity of All Sapient Beings V3
-[ ] [Radiant Smallcraft 1] Chinook Model Switchblade Strikecraft Wing (0/1) (5BE, 5BR, 3E)
-[ ] [Radiant Smallcraft 1] Chinook Model Switchblade Strikecraft Wing (0/1) (5BE, 5BR, 3E)
-[ ] [IndComm] Build Orbital Cruiser-sized spacedock in Five Lions
-[ ] [IndComm] Send construction Aid to Ascension
-[ ] [IndComm] Build Strikecraft Construction and Training Platform for Osliam/Idyllia
-[ ] [MilComm] Logistical Overhaul
-[ ] [SciComm] Assist with Prototype Wormhole research -FTL Communications
-[ ] [FOCUS] [SciComm] Prepare for TLI Emancipation
-[ ] [SciComm] Genetic Augmentation Jailbreak
-[ ] [SciComm] Initiate Mega Project: Clearing out Tech Debt
-[ ] [FOCUS] [SocComm] Propagandize for AI rights
-[ ] [SocComm] Long-term Immortality
-[ ] [SocComm] Youth Liberation
-[ ] [MedComm] Establish External Espionage Rings

I think this covers all the bases that I have discovered through discussion so far. Continuing to think about it.

pheonix89 · Aug 2, 2022

Redshirt Army said:
Alright, just woke up, so going through the options here are my thoughts:

I consider this mandatory. Quite aside from the moral aspect, I think that this is simply politically necessary. Please recall that Ascension is actually kinda pissed at us at the moment for how the whole 12.7 situation went down. Fulfilling something " Highly Desired by Ascension" will really help to mend that gap.

That inherently means that:

Also becomes mandatory. We're about to drop 2 million AGIs into our polity, making sure that they're treated right is important. This also defuses a propaganda bomb our opponents have against us, since Omoi's remnants could decide to paint us as "controlled by spoooooooky ASI" at any time.

This is also critical - we need to have ascension properly hooked into our industrial capabilities, and this again helps ensure good relations.

Excellent points on Ascension and AI.

Ascension industrial integration finishes this turn automatically - see Mega-project. I'm not entirely sure what the construction aid even does besides PR with that part of the Mega-project at 3/4. I'm sure the QMs would come up with something but not sure what.

Not sure on Grey Skies vs VI - my decision to propose picking VI first was based on the assumption that VI bonus would apply to Grey skies but the propaganda angle on Grey Skies is important too - especially if the dice fairies are kind.

I was about to ask why you weren't doing Anti-Feature-Creep or Learn By Doing but then I did the napkinmath below.

---

Quick napkinmath on Anti-Feature-Creep vs learn by doing.

Anti-Feature-Creep applies once per project, is only applicable if we're not totally overdoing it, and probably doesn't apply to cases where the result is based on the roll not pass-fail. When it applies - which is actually most things given this system - it's basically equivalent to a +2 universal bonus. No overflow if it kicks in but non issue.

Learn By doing is +1 increase to random bonus given each turn. But it can be a committee or non-committee bonus. How good this is depends entirely on the dice fairies! If it comes up on the committees proper or on team bonuses that give committee-wide boosts or just really broad ones like Chinook Station (everything in a system) or Five Lions Mobile Force (floor for system orbital construction bonus) it's great if it comes up on niche things it's meh. It's a goody box basically.

The Laurent · Aug 2, 2022

pheonix89 said:
Excellent points on Ascension and AI.

Ascension industrial integration finishes this turn automatically - see Mega-project. I'm not entirely sure what the construction aid even does besides PR with that part of the Mega-project at 3/4. I'm sure the QMs would come up with something but not sure what.

Not sure on Grey Skies vs VI - my decision to propose picking VI first was based on the assumption that VI bonus would apply to Grey skies but the propaganda angle on Grey Skies is important too - especially if the dice fairies are kind.

I was about to ask why you weren't doing Anti-Feature-Creep or Learn By Doing but then I did the napkinmath below.

Ascension even with integration is not going to be self-sustaining industrially (in terms of E and SR use, and BR use) to start out with after integration. This would be about giving that a kick-start, and they'd obviously be grateful for the resources.

It's not going to be the end of all possible worlds if they don't get it, however, so that's something you have to weigh.

CyberFemme · Aug 2, 2022

[] Plan HEAVY METAL
MEGAPROJECTS
-[ ] Broadcast 2
--[ ] [TARGETED BROADCAST: ONLY ASGARD AND SYMPHONY] Entreat with the audience to make all possible attempts to prevent the relays from being patched, so that we have time to come up with a way to free augments from the need for supplements, and create a way of safely defusing TLI self destructs, and then transmit that to everyone.
--[ ] The remaining FRMs
--[ ] NAVI reveal (for those who don't know already)
---[ ] An explanation that the AIC was aware of the NAVI situation, but made the decision to delay publication until this second broadcast, in fears that the charters would act to kill the enslaved AGIs while they still felt they were in positions of power.
--[ ] Additional media inclusions, solicited from across the AIC and allies
--[ ] Those sociological surveys that SocComm requested
SHIPBUILDING
-[ ] [Radiant Smallcraft 1]
--[ ] Chinook Model Switchblade Strikecraft Wing (0/1) (5BE, 5BR, 3E)
-[ ] [Radiant Smallcraft 2]
--[ ] Chinook Model Switchblade Strikecraft Wing (0/1) (5BE, 5BR, 3E)
MILCOMM
-[+] [MilComm] Case Sashay: Begin Offensive Operations into Bestreer
-[ ] [MilComm] Begin Construction Projects
-- [ ] Build Strikecraft Construction and Training Platform in Idyllia: +12 (3/35) (10BR, 7SR, 5E)
-- [ ] Smallcraft Yards in Radiant: +13 (11/30) (5BR, 5SR, 3E)
-- [ ][ ] Build Cruiser-sized spacedock in Chinook: +7 (0/50)(20BR, 10SR, 7E)
INDCOMM
-[ ] [IndComm] Build Prototype Capital Craft Spacedock in Five Lions
-[ ] [IndComm] Send construction Aid to Ascension
-[ ] [IndComm] One Man's Trash: Base of Operations
SCICOMM
-[ ] [SciComm] Assist with Prototype Wormhole research -FTL Communications
-[ ] [SciComm] Genetic Augmentation Jailbreak
-[ ] [SciComm] Fractured Skies Combination Projects: Embrace the Monster Within
SOCCOMM
-[ ] [FIRST FOCUS] [SocComm] Propagandize for AI rights
-[ ] [SocComm] Youth Liberation
-[ ] [SocComm] Propagandize Against Bioconservatism
MEDCOMM
-[ ] [SECOND FOCUS] [MedComm] Attempt to Propagandize to Blue Squadron
-[ ] [Medcomm] Establish External Espionage Rings
-[+] [MedComm] Open relations with Xotreh

We build strike craft in Radiant to fill out the empty slots on the Valesco.
Finish up the smallcraft yard in Radiant.
Build the training platform we promised to Idylia/Osliam.
~~Figure out how to build cap-ships. Synergizes well with both the Capital dock prototype and the salvage in Kimberly.~~
~~Swapped to logistics because that gives more of an immediate boost.~~
Build a cruiser yard in Chinook. Two reasons for Chinook: Because it's being built in MilCom Chinook applies a larger bonus, and if we want Chinook to host the Academy in the future they should get some medium craft yard capacity on hand to facilitate cooperation between the production folks and the people manning the ships.
Capital dock for Five Lions, they have the biggest bonus and it makes sense to have our ship building in the system whose resource extraction can best support it. I want to lay this down early so we have it on hand to help with repairs of Kimberly salvage.
Construction aid for Ascension instead of a second action on the capital dock to maximize bonus usage.
The Kimberly salvage naturally follows, it's our best shot of giving our space forces a quick shot in the arm when it comes to tonnage.
Wormhole comms research is an obvious necessity.
~~Gray Skies for the propaganda bonus which we'll be leveraging more now that we can act openly.~~
Jailbreak because we're most likely to cross the 15 point threshold and eliminating dietary supplements would be a huge boon for all augments everywhere. We want to have this ready for the start of next turn to send out in Broadcast 3.
Monster because it synergizes with Jailbreak.
~~TLI Emancipation to give Ascension something they really want because we kind of slighted them with Tripwire.~~
AI propaganda to ~~smooth out Emancipation.~~ convince people outside the AIC not to use TLIs or abuse AIs. Gets the first focus because it's a larger project.
Anti-Bioconservative propaganda to do the same for augments. If we get lucky, we might have both AI and Augment propaganda ready for Broadcast 3 at the start of next turn.
Youth Liberation because it's one of the big asks, and it's a one shot so we can show them we take their demands seriously without locking in an action next turn.
Espionage and Blue Squadron propaganda because both are likely to be time limited. To get spies out we want enough chaos for them to fade into the background but not enough that travel is impeded. With Blue Squadron, they're less likely to defect when a SolNav fleet is backing them up.

BarbaCoPut · Aug 2, 2022

Setsul said:
Akleod could be put off until later

Akleod can be put until later, there are other more important things, I believe.

CyberEnby said:
[] Plan HEAVY METAL

Question, shouldn't there be 2 Focus die?

Transreal Cloud · Aug 2, 2022

Genetic Augmentation Jailbreak:
Doesn't Gentle Repose really want this?

CyberFemme · Aug 2, 2022

Ziggrrauglurr said:
Question, shouldn't there be 2 Focus die?

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

Been Better

Wants to be Seven Of Nine

Plausible Engineer

Been Better

Been Better

Wants to be Seven Of Nine

Voluta indomita

Team Plasma Grunt

Wants to be Seven Of Nine

Cannon Fodder

"Well, I've got nothing."

Cinnamon Roll AI

Market Atheist

Wants to be Seven Of Nine

Voluta indomita