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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TheArcanist · Aug 28, 2022

pheonix89 said:
One thing that struck me: She thought we're running a planned economy.

We aren't.

Holy shit we aren't.

She just assumes that if it's not capitalism it's planned.

Ehhhh.... Well, we kinda are?

Sure, we don't have some guy from the Economic Commission on Widgets determining exactly how many 3/8ths inch screws need to be made, but industry and production in the AIC is democratically planned. Industrial buildouts are coordinated by IndComm and its organs. MilComm coordinates logistical procurement for our armed forces. Even SocComm does a lot of economic planning by requisitioning resources for medical projects.

This is just capitalists assuming that anything that isn't like 30 haute bourgeois guys in a boardroom somewhere doing economic planning is high Stalinist tyranny - i.e. nothing new.

pheonix89 · Aug 28, 2022

TheArcanist said:
Ehhhh.... Well, we kinda are?

Sure, we don't have some guy from the Economic Commission on Widgets determining exactly how many 3/8ths inch screws need to be made, but industry and production in the AIC is democratically planned. Industrial buildouts are coordinated by IndComm and its organs. MilComm coordinates logistical procurement for our armed forces. Even SocComm does a lot of economic planning by requisitioning resources for medical projects.

This is just capitalists assuming that anything that isn't like 30 haute bourgeois guys in a boardroom somewhere doing economic planning is high Stalinist tyranny - i.e. nothing new.

Everything is kinda planned if the government being hands on in matters where it or society at large is the "customer" so to speak makes kinda planned.

And yeah, it's totally that assumption. It's just that she's generally on the ball enough that it's surprising to see her go "planned economy" when fabs free means that the "planning" for a bleepload of things is literally just planning to keep the infrastructure running.

There are all kinds of things that a planned economy plans - damn near everything outside of large scale infra, military, and high end RnD - that gets self-organized here because fabrication tech is bullshit.

The Laurent · Aug 28, 2022

What IndComm basically covers is stuff either too big to do at any lower level, or stuff made using what's basically just surplus.

It's how VEMP works, because there's plenty of excess capacity being used for civilian/other stuff that can be told, "Military necessity has the Right of Way."

Of course, I suspect that they haven't REALLY noticed VEMP, or assumed it's been on this whole time?

Aranfan · Aug 28, 2022

Yeah, with Fabbers the only things that need to be planned is feedstock, energy, and labor for the important stuff.

The Laurent said:
Of course, I suspect that they haven't REALLY noticed VEMP, or assumed it's been on this whole time?

Have we even had VEMPS on since they got spies in?

Torgamous · Aug 28, 2022

The Laurent said:
Of course, I suspect that they haven't REALLY noticed VEMP, or assumed it's been on this whole time?

With them at least kinda getting that destroying the Compact was a means to the end of universal fabber access, they might be assuming that VEMP only changes which committee has the right of way.

Kirook · Aug 28, 2022

Torgamous said:
With them at least kinda getting that destroying the Compact was a means to the end of universal fabber access, they might be assuming that VEMP only changes which committee has the right of way.

In fairness, there are other things besides universal fabber access that the AIC wants to accomplish—what this report represents is an advance in the Compact's understanding from "socialism is when the government does stuff" to "socialism is when people get free stuff".

Nyvis · Aug 28, 2022

pheonix89 said:
One thing that struck me: She thought we're running a planned economy.

We aren't.

Holy shit we aren't.

She just assumes that if it's not capitalism it's planned.

We do plan quite a bit. Even if fabbers means a lot of things are self organized, we did large scale efforts like medical rollouts and military buildups that definitely required planning. It's just that a lot of things are below the notice of our planning bodies.

nocarename · Aug 28, 2022

Kirook said:
In fairness, there are other things besides universal fabber access that the AIC wants to accomplish—what this report represents is an advance in the Compact's understanding from "socialism is when the government does stuff" to "socialism is when people get free stuff".

It does tie nicely to the IPA's stated policies though.

'Free stuff first and organizations should support people getting free stuff. (Pay not attention to who is in charge of any organization. That's not important.)'

Shard of Victory · Aug 29, 2022

Kirook said:
and so many had decided to toss out free enterprise and economic liberty along with it.

You see, Emily, these people realised that economic liberty and free enterprise, are in fact inferior to actual liberty and freedom.

mymatedave10 · Aug 30, 2022

pheonix89 said:
She just assumes that if it's not capitalism it's planned.

I don't know if this is entirely accurate, but is this a kind of inverse "fish have no word for water" kind of thing or a "blind people don't have words for colour" kind of thing?

10ebbor10 · Aug 30, 2022

mymatedave10 said:
I don't know if this is entirely accurate, but is this a kind of inverse "fish have no word for water" kind of thing or a "blind people don't have words for colour" kind of thing?

The whole Capitalist Realism thing?

Others have made that point.

Torgamous · Aug 30, 2022

I think the more important ideological blinder is that they've put Epsilon in the "basically revolutionaries" category. Rejecting the idea that keeping the same people in charge is enough if it comes at the cost of changing how those people stay in charge means they're working with some very significant limits on how they can compete with the Box.

Winged One · Aug 30, 2022

Torgamous said:
I think the more important ideological blinder is that they've put Epsilon in the "basically revolutionaries" category. Rejecting the idea that keeping the same people in charge is enough if it comes at the cost of changing how those people stay in charge means they're working with some very significant limits on how they can compete with the Box.

Heh. They think Epsilon is basically revolutionaries, we think Epsilon is basically just MSI with dangerously-good adaptation.

Unless I'm thinking of someone else? All these reorgs are hard on my terrible memory for names.

T_of_A · Aug 30, 2022

I like the latest post, and the tone in which it was written. Now that's a conference given by someone with a massive amount of job security, huge confidence, and nonetheless an imperfect understanding of what's going on

Spart117MC said:
That being said there is such a thing as going too far in the other direction. For example in France it is illegal to collect certain data like a person's ethnicity, which can lead into its own set of troubles such as making it more difficult for racial issues to be acknowledged let alone addressed. There needs to be a balance of what is and what is not acceptable data to collect and to what degree and neither extreme, even the one made with the best of intentions, are without issues.

FYI, I'm pretty sure that here in France it's absolutely legal for private businesses to make massive lists of people's ethnicities and religions and whatnot. It's been done during electoral campaigns and such.
It's just illegal for the government to ask people what their ethnicity is with the intent of making a big list. This is a reaction to our government's awkward history of, uh, rounding up Jews and handing them over to the nazis.

This doesn't actually have anything to do with mass surveillance. France loves to do that

Spart117MC · Aug 31, 2022

In my defense I was approaching the topic more from the data collection angle, more how corporations are able to track and identify people using gigabytes of commodified personal information more so than governments violating peoples' privacy.

Godwinson · Aug 31, 2022

TheArcanist said:
Ehhhh.... Well, we kinda are?

Sure, we don't have some guy from the Economic Commission on Widgets determining exactly how many 3/8ths inch screws need to be made, but industry and production in the AIC is democratically planned. Industrial buildouts are coordinated by IndComm and its organs. MilComm coordinates logistical procurement for our armed forces. Even SocComm does a lot of economic planning by requisitioning resources for medical projects.

This is just capitalists assuming that anything that isn't like 30 haute bourgeois guys in a boardroom somewhere doing economic planning is high Stalinist tyranny - i.e. nothing new.

I think the point is that Emily expects that any planned economy of any sort will run into all of the issues of the "Economic Commission on Widgets determining exactly how many 3/8th inch screws need to be made" sort, because "Planned Economy" is its own bundled-together brainworm that hasn't been examined and pulled apart in this case.

Setsul · Aug 31, 2022

I think some of the confusion stems from the fact that the Compact is very deep into artificial scarcity for everything, while the AIC is pretty much post-scarcity.

The whole point of an economic system is finding a way to allocate scarce resources (both material and personnel) to achieve a desired result. The implication is that the better the system works, the more everyone gets beyond basic necessities (aka improving the standard of living) plus investment into future improvements etc., while when it fails people starve.
But that doesn't really apply anymore. It's become so stupidly easy to meet basic needs with fabbers that no complex system is needed.
We've got so much resources to throw around that everyone can get pretty much anything with very little planning involved and just the excess left over is enough to build a couple of cruisers, figure out wormholes, and all the other stuff general congress gets up to.

In fact, it can be argued that we do not have an economic system or at least the simplest one imaginable. To shamelessly steal from wikipedia:
All economic systems must confront and solve the four fundamental economic problems:

What kinds and quantities of goods shall be produced: Anything in the FRMs in whatever quantities we want.
How goods shall be produced: Fabbers.
How the output will be distributed: Fabbers at home.
When to produce: When you press the 'print' button on the fabber.

Basically, we've won economics.
All the usual complexities have collapsed into getting feedstock to the fabbers.
It is almost impossible to fuck up and the effort needed to get it right is laughable.

Nyvis · Aug 31, 2022

Setsul said:
I think some of the confusion stems from the fact that the Compact is very deep into artificial scarcity for everything, while the AIC is pretty much post-scarcity.

The whole point of an economic system is finding a way to allocate scarce resources (both material and personnel) to achieve a desired result. The implication is that the better the system works, the more everyone gets beyond basic necessities (aka improving the standard of living) plus investment into future improvements etc., while when it fails people starve.
But that doesn't really apply anymore. It's become so stupidly easy to meet basic needs with fabbers that no complex system is needed.
We've got so much resources to throw around that everyone can get pretty much anything with very little planning involved and just the excess left over is enough to build a couple of cruisers, figure out wormholes, and all the other stuff general congress gets up to.

In fact, it can be argued that we do not have an economic system or at least the simplest one imaginable. To shamelessly steal from wikipedia:
All economic systems must confront and solve the four fundamental economic problems:

What kinds and quantities of goods shall be produced: Anything in the FRMs in whatever quantities we want.

How goods shall be produced: Fabbers.

How the output will be distributed: Fabbers at home.

When to produce: When you press the 'print' button on the fabber.

Basically, we've won economics.
All the usual complexities have collapsed into getting feedstock to the fabbers.
It is almost impossible to fuck up and the effort needed to get it right is laughable.

You might remember but we had to make actual campaigns to deliver healthcare improvements. Fabbers are very convenient but as soon as there is a human element to the product we still have to plan for it if we want it to happen. And if current real life trends hold, an increasingly high proportion of human activity will be dedicated to services. Some of that is bullshit, or things people would take care of without being tasked to when left alone, but the growth in healthcare needs is very real. Of course healthcare is also automated to quite a large degree in Tyrants but that requires a lot more setup than just throwing fabbers at people.

And of course another ever present sector is entertainment. That's still economics and creativity isn't something fabbers solve. AIs do so but that's still citizens working if you're not a slaver.

nocarename · Aug 31, 2022

Sure is handy that our entire economy pre-March Days was built on convincing people to do stuff and running server farms then, huh?

Speaking of which, please fill out this attached survey so that we can provide better services to you, the Citizen!

Setsul · Aug 31, 2022

Nyvis said:
You might remember but we had to make actual campaigns to deliver healthcare improvements. Fabbers are very convenient but as soon as there is a human element to the product we still have to plan for it if we want it to happen. And if current real life trends hold, an increasingly high proportion of human activity will be dedicated to services. Some of that is bullshit, or things people would take care of without being tasked to when left alone, but the growth in healthcare needs is very real. Of course healthcare is also automated to quite a large degree in Tyrants but that requires a lot more setup than just throwing fabbers at people.

And of course another ever present sector is entertainment. That's still economics and creativity isn't something fabbers solve. AIs do so but that's still citizens working if you're not a slaver.

Of course, setting the fabbers up was another project and if we ever want new tech that's more projects.
It's still very much in flux and how people figure out what they want to fab is a whole different issue, but the day-to-day operations of our "planned economy" to just keep things running a a shipping schedule for feedstock.

Yes, people will still work and healthcare and entertainment are good examples, but as far as economic models go, things are going to get very strange there.
The existence of the NHS isn't a sign that the UK has been a planned economy all along, and neither is the state getting involved in providing healthcare in general. We certainly don't have a market for it either though.
Entertainment is similar. The market is gone, and apart from propaganda we haven't really planned anything since the demise of the RBC. I'm pretty sure there's some genuine Anarchy going on there.

Like I said, I don't think there really is a system in place right now. Some leftover mechanisms and structures persist and some new ones have shown up, but nothing really formalized. And it works because basic needs have been met, so no system being in place for anything else doesn't really matter.

It should be noted that we're basically cruising on existing technology and infrastructure, and any improvement requires government intervention because there is no other system in place.
From that point of view we could be considered a planned economy, we're just doing very little planning, no more than absolutely necessary.

AKuz · Aug 31, 2022

SISTERS GRANTED MANDATE TO FORM NEXT PARLIAMENT!
JN Okay already in coalition talks to form next government

With the last ridings on Magellan III reporting in, we can confidently state that the 42nd Solarian Parliament will be dominated by Jason Nnamadi Okorie's Justice and Development Alliance Party, who walked home with 690 of the Parliament's 2135 seats, earning them the mandate to form Humanity's next government.

With the Supreme Court giving Okorie the go ahead to enter coalition talks, we take a look at the parties and major figures of the 42nd Solarian Parliament, perhaps the most radical -and radically changed- parliament since the Compact's foundation.

We start with the leading party of the last elections, Jason Nnamadi Okorie's Justice and Development Alliance Party, whose path to the mandate has been characterised by great change.

Uniquely outside of Sol, the JDAP is not a single unified party but a permanent electoral coalition of the First Colonies based Justice and Prosperity Party and the frontier based Interstellar Development Party.

While the two wings of this alliance have their differences, both believe that a tight alliance that shares resources and infrastructure is one that serves their joint interests.

Current party leader Jason Nnamadi Okorie comes from the JPP wing of the JDAP, which believes in strengthening the Capitalist Free Democracy of the Compact and limiting the role of government in Humanity's affairs while strengthening the ability of the Interstellar Charters to bring prosperity to the Compact.

The JPP is balanced by the smaller Interstellar Development Party whose home ridings are mainly in the near Frontiers and de facto led by the "Second Woman of the Party" Silvia Greene. The IDP are as sceptical of the Interstellar Charters as they are of the Compact Government and wish to boost the power of small business holders and local government at the expense of the Charters and Compact.

In addition to agreement on strong rights and protections for Persons of Directed Evolution and full legal and social equality for Digitally Conceived Persons, both wings of the JDAP believe that the future of the Human race lies in the frontiers. As such JDAP platforms call for an egalitarian political equality between the Sol, the First Colonies, and the Frontiers. The JDAP political holy grail is "Colonial Reform'' which would extend Frontier Republic Status to more systems in the Near Frontiers and elevate current Frontier Republics to System Republic status and grant home rule Colonial Republic Status to any system whose population exceeds 100 million persons.

Though as yet no JDAP government has won the uncontested majority needed to pursue such a wide reaching policy, JDAP Frontier Affairs politics often weakens regulatory bodies created by Daughters governments.

During the election the JDAP outperformed their Pre-Broadcast polling numbers by nearly 10%, strengthening their hand during an election season that saw other establishment parties shrink or collapse outright.

This growth was most evident on Columbia where the support of the Concerned Citizens Coalition provided for the election of perhaps half of the 197 seats that the JDAP now holds on Columbia, instantly turning the CCC into a third faction in the JDAP's internal politics after the traditional JPP and IDP pairing.

However elsewhere those gains belie a collapse in the JDAP's traditional electorate. The largest loss was the near universal exodus of the entire electoral apparatus and voter base of the JPP's Epsilon wing, causing the loss of over two hundred MPs overnight during Epsilon's post-14 Days political realignment.

Simultaneously to the loss of the Epsilon ridings, JDAP also lost a potential fifty to a hundred or so seats in the election, deliberately leaving those seats on the table by purging their Bioconservative and neoReactionary caucuses. This nasty internal dispute was motivated by both internal politics, a desire to head off scandal, and the desire to draw an even clearer line between the JDAP and the PRHL positions.

With that line in the sand drawn, the election strengthened the hand of IDP organisers within the JDAP, and party watchers suspect that if that momentum holds in as few as three or four election cycles the IDP could hold the whip hand for the first time since the coalition began.

These political realignments potentially cost the JDAP a shot at a rare and long desired majority government as their traditional rivals in the outgoing PHRL government suffered a disastrous electoral pounding.

Which brings us to that outgoing party of government under Prime Minister Margaret Roderick: The Party for Human Rights and Liberties.

With this campaign's June surprise being the the revelation of how completely Roderick's government had botched Frontier Affairs and later utterly flubbed their attempts to manage the resulting "14 Days" crisis in Sol, the PHRL's fortunes completely cratered, plunging the PHRL from a high of 821 seats in the 41st Parliament to a mere 301 in an electoral defeat utterly unprecedented in the history of Compact Politics.

The survival of the PHRL in any form is entirely on the back of controversial "Recruiter Elections" whose ballots mainly came from voters who were properly registered in the electoral rolls during the campaign season but found themselves living outside their home ridings once polls opened due to the ongoing crisis.

The PHRL believes in regulating the worst impulses of the Interstellar Charters, slow careful reforms to the Compact's legal and political systems, and the use of a system of vice and ecological taxes to shape the behaviour of the Compact's private institutions and persons.

The PHRL tends towards bioconservative positions, worried about the corrupting influence of technology on the democratic process, and their Frontier Affairs policy since 2187 has been a careful maintenance of the status quo paired with the slow growth of Colonist Rights. A policy whose disastrous failure is at the root of this election's collapse.

It is the stated position of the incoming Okorie government that the PHRL will not be included in coalition talks and there are rumblings that PM Roderick and her closest advisors and cabinet members will be summoned before the courts to answer for their actions during the 14 Days Crisis that led to the so-called "Solarian Mutiny" and military police actions brutality against Earth based targets.

While the PHRL is still able to count on Sol to the tune of nearly 100 seats provided by Recruiter Elections, Sol itself has elected a slate of 245 localist representatives as part of the Sol List.

Beginning as the Earth Electoral List in 2099, and now known as the Sol List, the SoL has been a staple of Compact politics for nearly a century and a half.

A electoral list composed of an alliance of national political parties, smaller Sol based ideologically focused parties, and independent politicians, the SoL has long been the "Preferred List of the Birthworld" and has been known for pushing the boundaries of acceptable politics in all directions. However the SoL of the 42nd Parliament is the most radical by far and it is believed that SoL MPs will be denied seating in Parliament come this November.

This is not due to the radical politics of the SoL platform calling the Compact itself illegitimate and demanding the dissolutions of the Solarian Navy as is commonly believed, but rather due to previous rulings such as Elections Sol vs. the Bloc Francais and the later Elections Sol vs. The South American Democratic-Republican Party (Reconstituted). Due to those Solarian Supreme Court rulings, state institutions cannot campaign on behalf of Compact MPs, and also political candidates cannot be selected by the same state institutions.

With all SoL candidates having been vetted and platformed by the United Nations in Sol, the incoming crop of SoL MPs fail those requirements and are likely to be refused entry to parliament. Meaning that the third largest party in the 42nd Parliament will be entirely absent.

As for the fourth largest party in the 42nd Parliament, the newly created Colonial Prosperity Alliance enters the Parliament with 220 seats, nearly all from Epsilon.

The CPA is the brainchild of Morgan Weiss, former JDAP kingmaker and unofficial head of the JDAP's Epsilon caucus, who has led a total exodus of the JDAP's Epsilon wing from the party to form CPA as a pan-partisan party representing the interests of Epsilon within the Parliament of the Solarian Compact.

Accused of merely being the "Parliamentary arm of the Interstellar Prosperity Alliance", the CPA passes the test outlined in Elections Sol vs. the Bloc Francais and Elections Sol vs. The South American Democratic-Republican Party (Reconstituted), and merely counts IPA as one of many independent organisations acting as political interest groups sharing the same goals as the CPA.

A thin veneer between state and party perhaps, but a fully legal one.

Politically the CPA has openly called for the cessation of all Compact military movements and the freezing of all police actions with the goal of de-escalating the current crisis and preventing the outbreak of even greater civil strife. Sources within the CPA indicated that once the current crises subsides the CPA will push for the JDAP to finally implement not just Colonial Reform, but will also seek to devolve the Compact into a Federal government by breaking the frontiers into Interstellar Provinces with their own local governments to oversee Frontier Affairs. A political platform often shorthanded to "Provincialization"

Though the rights of Digitally Conceived Persons and Persons of Directed Evolution are not a centrepiece of the CPA's politics, they generally share the JDAP's positions on the topic.

While it is unlikely that Okorie's new coalition will include the CPA, any JDAP government will have to take into account the CPA's pacifist demands if they wish to govern effectively.

From the pan-Partisan CPA, we now turn to another newly created party: The United Conscience of Humanity under long-time Humans United leading figure Dawn Mosley.

Formed from a merger of perennial cordon sanitary target Humans United, sections of the PHRL jumping ship during that party's collapse, and the purged neoReactionary and Bio-chauvinist wings of the JDAP this newly created party has surged to an unprecedented 177 seats in Parliament.

Growing in influence throughout the campaign period and even after the election, the UCH are the standard bearers of a new muscular version of militant Humanism which blames the ongoing political crises on the continued growth of PDE populations and loosening of restrictions on DCPs.

The UCH demands a Compact wide reorganisation of the Justice System to clamp down on non-Baseline unrest, strengthening regulatory bodies, and both strengthening and bringing the Solarian Navy to heel, buying out and replacing Charter physical security firms with a strengthened Solarian Navy and Solarian Marshals service.

Already during the campaign season the respectable parties publicly led by the JDAP agreed to maintain the cordon sanitaire around the UCH and keep them out of all government talks.

Joining the UCH in the cordon sanitaire, but from the opposite side of the political spectrum: the United Interstellar Voice of Labour who recognize the legitimacy of the Solarian Compact, but not the current political climate.

Formed from the Void Dweller's Alliance, several localist frontier parties, and a smattering of defectors from the Interstellar Development Alliance wing of the JDAP, the UIVL call for "Immediate and total Colonial reform" and propose a decentralisation scheme that shares a great deal with the proposals of the CPA, but favour smaller territorial divisions and a much weaker federal government.

Outside of Colonial Reform the UIVL is highly in favour of rights for PDEs and DCPs and is also highly anti-militarist, backing the CPA's calls for a freeze on police actions and breaking the power of the Solarian Navy as an independent actor in Humanity's politics.

In many ways the United Interstellar Voice of Labour is politically a mirror of the Colonial Prosperity Alliance, with the UIVL's calls for Colonial Reform and anti-militarism rooted in a grass roots populist frontier organisation as opposed to the CPA's top down establishment driven politics.

Detractors of the UIVL call it a "Party of No'' prepared to provide political cover to insurrectionary groups in the Frontier. While some of the UIVL's rhetoric shades close to defined sedition, the fact that many of their positions overlap with both the CPA's Provincialist Block and the SRP's Left Faction means that refusing to seat to UIVL is a highly controversial position as both opposition groups seem prepared to go to the mat over the UIVL, promising to destroy Okorie's government before it even forms.

Nearly as controversial as the UIVL are the Olduvai party of choice: the Social Reform Party who have won 91 seats in the 42nd Parliament.

Derided by their political opponents as the "Personal coterie" of Olduvai Prime Minister Izem Meziane, the SRP have entered Parliament on a mission of reform. The SRP not only embraces Colonial Reform and "Provincialization", but also serves as the voice of the "African Road to Anarchism" in Parliament.

Outlining a cycle of "The Great Turn" which propose a twelve year path to the dismantling of the Compact's traditional structures in favour of Olduvai's current admixture of anarchist free zones and rapidly growing progressive government regulation, the future of the Compact as envisioned by the SRP is of the Compact as a "United Nations of the Galaxy" where each inhabited system is its own Sovereign Commonwealth meeting in parliament to hash out their differences as equals, while dismantling Compact wide structures like the Solarian Navy, the Solarian Central Bank, and vastly depowering the Prime Minister's Office.

As far as the topic of rights goes, like much of the Left Faction, the SRP believe in morphological freedom and fully equivalent rights for DCPs and PDEs.

It is unlikely that the SRP will be approached by the JDAP in coalition building talks, despite rumours of sympathy from the JDAP's IDP wing, but with the SRP likely joining the Pacifist opposition block led by the CPA the SRP will likely see some of their positions entering the realm of acceptable politics as they've become the centrepiece of a coalescing block of parties and MPs calling themselves the "Left Faction"

We now come to the 42nd Parliament's seventh largest party by seat count, and the one most likely to join any potential JDAP coalition, the Popular Progressive Conservative Liberal Party.

With their motto of "Each dawn brighter the last", the PPCLP is the longtime junior partner to both JDAP and PHRL governments, the PPCLP are often known as the "Party of Cosmoliberalism" and exist to follow the mandate of each parliament, supporting the ruling governments of the day to press forward their agendas with an eye to the current political climate.

Derided as being "Blind to everything but Polling", the PPCLP have a dedicated voter base in the First Colonies' middle class, as they stand for stability and maintenance of the Community of Humanity before all else.

While the 14 Days crisis and the current period of confusion have caused their traditional base to flee to the safety of the CPA, UCHP, and RJP en masse, it has also activated a large number of previously apolitical voters who wish for the 42nd Parliament to do nothing so much as govern.

We now follow some 30% of former PPCLP voters to the Reform and Justice Party, who in many ways are the inheritors of the mantle of the now defunct Democratic Market Socialist Alliance.

Formed by an alliance of DMSA members who repudiated the party's involvement in the ill fated "opposition caucus" with the progressive wing of the PRHL, the RJP is very clear about portraying themselves as a party of the "Loyal Opposition".

Another rapidly growing party, the RJP would likely have won twice the seats had the election concluded in October rather than August, but they've embraced extra-parliamentary organisation and are already preparing themselves for the "Next Election".

They believe that the current crises are caused by the ossification of the Compact's political process, and that the Parliament needs an injection of "Loyal Radicalism" that will abolish the Interstellar Charters, impose Atlantis style welfare nets, conduct a campaign of unity between workers and businesses, and suppress radical elements across the Community of Humanity, both Anarchist and Humanist while providing full equality before the law to DCPs and PDEs.

Despite their pretensions to being a leading political force in the 42nd Parliament, the RJP is too radical for incoming PM Okorie, too militarist for the CPA's Pacifist Block, reject calls to join the Left Faction as anything but the leading party, and too tolerant and moderate for the parties of the Cordon Sanitaire.

While they have a great deal of grassroots momentum it remains to be seen if the idiosyncratic politics of the RJP will ever amount to anything.

Much the same can be said of the Individualist Market Anarchy Party, who take the policies of Old India on Earth as their guiding light.

A confused mixture of idealists, radicals, and iconoclasts somehow assembled behind former Atlantis streamer and influencer, the "awe inspiring" Gaston Gains. Both at home and in Parliament the IMAP are the leading legal opposition to newly installed Atlantis PM Normal.

While in many ways the personal vehicle of Gaston Gains, the IMAP does have a political platform that calls for the use of post-scarcity fabricating to create the conditions for each individual to work towards their best selves, using the common bonding agent of Democratic Capitalism and to act as a lubricant to mediate all interactions between the newly empowered individuals unleashed by the tearing down of the governments, corporations, and traditions that are holding them back.

Moving from one group of iconoclasts to another, we come now to the 48 seats of the Colonial Reform Alliance, who increased their presence in Parliament by a shocking nearly 50% this election cycle.

Perpetual Cordon Sanitaire members, the Colonial Reform Alliance is a Spacer and Void Dweller first political party mainly centred in Epsilon and the near Frontiers who come as close as legally possible to advocating for the dissolution of the Compact, advocating a decentralisation that would make Provincialists baulk.

The CRA believe that Humanity must leave the cradle of planetary life and expand fully into space, and embrace transhumanism, directing the evolution of the Human species beyond the restrictions of Earth's environments towards a future of Humanity as superior beings. And that future will be dominated by those who have already left behind the crutch of planetary environments.

Openly derided as "Cosmofascists" since their founding in the wake of the Great Refusal of 2187, the CRA have been a thorn in the side of the Provincialist and Colonial Reform movement as the association of the CRA with those concepts has allowed the PHRL and other more conservative factions to smear the entire cause with fearmongering about the rise of "Frontier Fascism" and Spacer Supremacism.

After the CRA, we come to the smaller parties with seat counts around the tens or less: the Popular Renewal Party, the Reconstituted Colonial Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist-Adamist), the Revolutionary Colonial Communist Party (Adamist), and the Platformist Anarchist Party along with seven independently elected members from across the political spectrum.

The PRP are an Olduvai based political party who are aligned with the Social Reform Party's Left Faction, but believe in an accelerated timetable along the lines of the "Chinese Road to Anarchism" which involves a much faster and more radical series of overnight reforms.

The RCCP(MLA) are the remaining members of Roderick's coalition partners from the 412st Congress, who have held on entirely via voter inertia and Recruiter Elections and are currently aiming for a very junior partner status in PM Okorie's new coalition.

Their rivals in the RCCP(A) are made up of Adamist idealogues who survived the purge of the opposition congress, found themselves disenchanted with the centrist leanings of the RCCP(MLA), or no-hoper candidates given a sudden boost by the 14 Days Crises. Already the MPs of the RCCP(A) have found themselves drifting into the SRP's Left Faction.

The PRP have won themselves 14 MPs, both Colonial Communist parties are tied at 8 seats apiece, and the PAP have nominally won 10 seats in Parliament.

However the PAP will be sharing with the SoL the dubious honour of being refused seating in the 42nd Parliament. With the PAP openly encouraging criminal acts and rejecting the authority of the Compact as soon as the polls closed and their victory was assured, the PAP is as clear a case of a party that should be refused seating as has ever existed.

With all these pieces in play, the Daughters are already entering into coalition talks with the new Parliament's members.

While it seems a given that the JDAP will be able to count on the support of the PPCLP and the RCCP(MLA), they grant nowhere near enough seats to govern. Rumours already say that Okorie is already approaching IMAP leader Gaston Gains with an offer of multiple cabinet positions to bring him into a coalition.

However, even if the JDAP successfully woos the IMAP, they still will fall short of a governing majority. In which case it becomes murky about what will happen next.

Ruling out the parties of the Cordon Sanitaire, any JDAP coalition finds itself with few other palatable partners. Already the Left Faction is identifying itself with opposition politics and intend to stymie any incoming government not prepared to implement any Path to Anarchism, ruling them out as partners form day one. And the Provincialist Block of the CPA, and UIVL are a step too far too fast for many of the JDAP's backers who fear the Provincialism calls for stripping power from the Interstellar Charters. The only possible remaining partners are the Reform and Justice Party who also remain too militant and too radical for the JDAP but may be brought around with negotiation.

AKuz · Aug 31, 2022

To give shitpost descriptions of the parties:

PHRL: Roderick's party, mostly still alive by doing fucky things to ballots

RCCP(MLA): What if we PASKOKified ur PASOKified party?

PPCLP: Kier Starmer, the party

SoL: The UNS General Assembly does a little trolling

JDAP: JN Okay and Silvia Greene are now in government

IMAP: "No one is a Libertarian like Gaston"

RJP: Punished Bernie ™️

UCH: distant genocide sounds

SRP: Izem Meziane founds a political party. Is Peronism on the horizon?

UIVL: The party of "No, I'd Prefer Not To"

RCCP(A): The Return of the Opposition Caucus

CRA: "GOD I wish ~~Zeon~~ GUNDAM was real"

CPA: The Voice of ~~God~~ Mama Zhang

PRP: "The Chinese Path to Anarchism is cool, maybe?"

PAP: [This Riding Intentionally Left Blank]

Independent: What it says on the tin

FUN FACT: These new names were all provided courtosy of a random name generator. The RNG really in a clever mood today

taovkool · Aug 31, 2022

AKuz said:
RJP: Punished Bernie ™️

This is brilliant and I love it.

The memes are making us immortal!

bdun140 · Aug 31, 2022

Talking a lot of shit for someone who's colonies are openly revolting against your rule there, Compact.

The3rdCorinthian · Aug 31, 2022

AKuz said:
From the pan-Partisan CPA, we now turn to another newly created party: The United Conscience of Humanity under long-time Humans United leading figure Dawn Mosley.

Oh for fucks sake.

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

Been Better

Wants to be Seven Of Nine

Team Plasma Grunt

Aspiring Gynoid

DON'T PANIC

Aspiring Gynoid

Not the Simurgh

Amateur human

"Well, I've got nothing."

Been Better

Been Better

Forever Gone

I have ideas. Sometimes they're even good.