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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buli-buli · Sep 2, 2022

Winged One said:
I didn't have the energy to read pages of space libspeak in the first place, personally. And really, are internal divisions in a mostly-unelected parliament that's going to get couped in 5 minutes really that important?

I have no idea what that means.

Pyro Hawk said:
Not sure myself, but I basically assume it means that the street gangs tend to be following beliefs that mirror those of the 'radicals' which are revolting. Only just, you know, not quite all of them and they're still street gangs. So, a tad scummy at best and they might not move if there's no profit in it somehow.

Burned_Cookie said:
Rainbow coalition?

Edit: Ninja'd.

The Rainbow Coalition was basically an alliance anti-racist and anti-class groups founded in 1969 and based in Chicago. Part of their work included brokering treaties between and with street gangs to lower rates of crime and violence.

So, in context, the street gangs in Penglai are (a) siding with Penglai's own "Rainbow Alliance" of revolutionaries and (b) likely making relative peace with one another and/or finding more legitimate revenue streams while doing so.

Genderite · Sep 2, 2022

buli-buli said:
The Rainbow Coalition was basically an alliance anti-racist and anti-class groups founded in 1969 and based in Chicago. Part of their work included brojering treaties between and with street gangs to lower rates of crime and violence.

So, in context, the street gangs in Penglai are (a) siding with Penglai's own "Rainbow Alliance" of revolutionaries and (b) likely making relative peace with one another and/or finding more legitimate revenue streams while doing so.

Well... that's about to become a lot easier for them then isn't it.

The Laurent · Sep 2, 2022

Not all of them, of course! It's a big planet!

Asmodemus · Sep 2, 2022

AKuz said:
*snips*

Like actual political talk, I skimmed over most of it. Well done in my opinion then.

EDIT: Read the newer update, whoo, that was some stuff.

I didn't quite understand it all but that was quite the buildup of things.

Aranfan · Sep 2, 2022

Holy Hell. No wonder Penglai went revolutionary. Goddamn. Dropping the Box into that? Penglai's government didn't even have a chance.

Burned_Cookie · Sep 2, 2022

Penglai:"Comrades! Seize the means of production!"

Radient: "Here you go one free everything to go."

Penglai: "That was easier than expected… ok what was next on the docket again?"

fabs weapons

Penglai: "Oh right eating the rich!"

We must have crit on our timing for that one.

TheArcanist · Sep 2, 2022

Honestly it wasn't good timing so much as it was the simple fact that this has been simmering for decades. Penglai was bound to explode at some point, we just gave them the means to do it on the worker's terms.

Setsul · Sep 2, 2022

It really seems like Penglai was/is the perfect storm, largely due to being home to three Charter HQs.
-Earlier ramp-up of protests.
-Advance warning about Radiant due to HI.
-The Broadcast arriving at exactly the right time.

But it goes on, the "beating heart of Human industry" part made me think about that:
-A fuck ton of industry due to Rhodes and being the most populous planet and 2nd most populous system.
-Actual research from Omoikane.

It's basically what the AIC got with Radiant, Five Lions, and Ascension, except times 50.
Going by the Kimberly descriptions, Rhodes is utterly incapable of designing good ships themselves, so they just copy them, but Omoikane does ok.
Unlike Sol they can't be blockaded solely by KC.
They are arguably going to be scarier than Sol, if they can get going.
Epsilon/MSI had a chance to snuff them out and didn't. The Zhangs would rather have Penglai cause as much chaos for as long as possible, going by the official IPA/CPA stance.

It's basically Olduvai times two.
Twice as large, twice as dangerous, twice as radical.

Balmung1 · Sep 2, 2022

REACTIONPOST!

The Laurent said:
On either side of the Kansai expressway, gleaming towers rise, each the place of work for thousands ofthe most productive members of society: the bankers, brokers, insurance assessors, and all the other jobs that made the market at the centre of modern modern society tick over like an efficient machine. Those shining towers and the ordinary citizens within are what Tenku knows he must protect.

My this is beyond the pale.When I forst starteed reading this quest I had my inner economist,my inner leftist,my inner social justice advocate and my inner roman catholic screaming in rage.Then my inner economist executed my inner leftist for insufficient zeal in wanting to kill these imaginary people

The Laurent said:
Thad had never subscribed to the theory that mankind's natural state was a war of all against all, most people didn't want to get caught up in shit like marching towards a police line, they just wanted to live their lives. Right up until someone else with a personality strong or charming enough led them to oppose the natural order of things.

Or when conditions are so bad that the populace must revolt in order to get rid of these idiots.

The Laurent said:
They met at a strip club. That was how Fred did business. Always in the back room of a strip club, always a different one each time. This one was better than most. It was called Black Lips and run by a nominally anarcho-feminist street gang that called itself the Lizzies. This whole area was their territory, and they ran vice, and protection, and some of the safest drugs in the city. A lot of the other drug cartels didn't like the way the Lizzies did things, and it was the major source of turfwars. Aisha had heard that they had a former DemFed cicada, run to Penglai after 87 running their security, and that the last serious turf war had ended up with a automated vehicle bomb slamming into the rival group's main drug lab.

Black Lips was a wide roofed building, lower than those around it in New-Tokyo's backstreets. You entered through the top, where there was a basketball court and landing pad, or by climbing up a metal staircase out of an alley that smelled of spilled bear and old half rotten french fries. When Aisha arrived three security girls were stomping on a guy who'd apparently gone much too far with one of the dancers. They wore old style gas masks and full body laminate catsuitsthat shifted colours as they moved, exposing brief glimpses of the woman within. Their boots, low and chunky, were making hard work of the poor fucker.

For some reason this reminds me of the intrigue advisor of the Dynasty Dynamic Alcholism quest Hagrid, who was a very pious halfling that cared for the common man but became a giant crime lord wh killed so many people the witch hunters thought he was worshiping khorne for a while.

The Laurent said:
"What are our contingencies and exit plan?" Aisha had asked.

"Do this right and you won't need any contingencies. You'll be gone before they know anything, and you'll have the firepower to deal with anything building security has."

"That's pretty thin Fred."

"I trust you to improvise Ms. Pink." Fred said.

*****
Mr Black screamed and pulled his machine pistols and began to hose, spraying rounds everywhere. They reflected off armoured server boxes, hitting– what, what had even fired? Aisha dropped a smoke bomb and just sprinted for the door.

"You like that! You like that!" Black screamed. "I'll fucking–"

What he would do was unclear as another chem-rail round blew him in half. Aisha dived through the opening, bursting briefly through her smoke and gasped as another electromagnetic round ripped past her, scoring her side.

She tossed a proximity grenade behind her and ran, dropping more smoke as– whatever before moved in.

That's lazy planning also I think they just got ambushed by a human error processor.
It's also sweet that she did it for love.

I hate Pnglai cops and honestly you don't have to fight in ipen cobat to hurt the compact and charters.A bit off information leaked to anarchist groups can turn the tide of the war, a few assainations in a few key places can do more than a frontal assault and a medic or organizer can help as much as any reveloutionary.

AKuz · Sep 2, 2022

October 2255, Galactic Frontpage, Part 2

ARTICLES

[#Opinion Column] Inner-Party Balance Threatened--New Washington Orbital

…it was only with the entry into JDAP of a third group, the Columbian Concerned Citizens Coalition (C4) that the leading and vital JPP portion of JDAP maintained its supremacy, holding, between JPP and C4, 54% of all JDAP Parliamentary seats and 61% of all party leadership positions. Without the aid of Columbian patriots, Greene's IDP faction might well have taken over the party and twisted and distorted it. I for one…

The opinions expressed in this article do not reflect the opinions of the Board of Editors of the New Washington Orbital, who respect Greene's many contributions to the party and her loyalty to the cause of building a better Compact

TALES OF HORROR FROM THE JULY DAYS ON COSMOS -The Colonial Mirror

Cosmos is considered by many to be the leading light of the Frontiers. Clean, wealthy, orderly. The standard bearer of what our system is capable of in the right hands.

But this last July, urged on by the anarchist propaganda spewing from Radiant, the criminal class of that brilliant system attempted to destroy everything that their betters had spent over a century building into the shining jewel of the Coreward Frontier.

On July 15th, armed by the terroristic "Box-chan", hundreds of thousands of radical iconoclasts and savage criminals poured into the streets and skies of the habitats of the Cosmos system.

By July 24th the brave security forces of Cosmos, allied with physicial security contractors hired jointly by the Cosmos Colonial Republic and Rhodes, had put down the revolt.

But despite being a short lived insurrection, decisively put down, those 10 days in July produced horror stories the likes of which are unfamiliar to the Community of Humanity as the civilized world brush up against something dark, primal, and savage that lurks in the hearts of easily swayed men…

…They burst in. Said Ms. Zyrian, her voice trembles as she recalls it. "They dragged out my husband and shot him. Some of them even talked about making her 'pay for her own sins'. Thankfully, she was quickly rescued by the police and …

…By the time Nile Security physical security professionals had breached the compound all the captives had been executed before the remaining anarchists took their own lives with explosive charges…

…with the destruction of NSC Ramses II the shortlived Gibraltar Rebellion had ended, but left a devastating toll in its wake: over ten thousand civilians and loyalist six thousand security professionals were dead and the destruction of so many transport craft delayed the deployment of reinforcements to Malacca station, contributing to the hundreds of thousands who died on Cosmos' central habitat…

…While the terror of the July uprising has now passed, Cosmos now finds itself with a new crisis: trying to house and care for the several million insurrectionist prisoners and accomplices who participated in the uprising.

While most can be returned to society after performing community service with reconstruction efforts, the most hardcore anarchists may never be fit to return to a civil society, leaving the Colonial Republic divided about what to do next.

With capital and corporal punishments illegal under Cosmos' constitution, during normal times the expected process would be to transfer the hardcore elements to offworld detention facilities such as those in Drake, Samurai, or Shei.

However, with interstellar shipping disrupted, Cosmos now must wrestle with how to handle these criminals domestically, becoming the defining issue of post-July days…

-

NEW SECURITY MEASURES ENACTED ON ATLANTIS TO COMBAT ANTISOCIAL BEHAVIOUR

-

INCOMING OK GOVERNMENT ISSUES HALT ORDER TO ARMED FORCES IN GOLDEN CIRCLE

The government of incoming Prime Minister Jason Nnamadi Okorie has issued a blanket order to not just the Compact's Armed Forces, but to all revolutionary groups as well.

"As the current crisis escalates, the mistakes of the recent past push us perilously towards an abyss of eternal violence. We call on all Humanity to reject violence and return to our natural state of peace and harmony. We believe that good faith negotiations will see all sides reject discord and back down from the brink."

Many observers believe that this declaration is aimed towards not just Trescore, which has recently declared independence, but also the newly formed Interstellar Prosperity Association which is shaping up to an increasingly intransigent sub-federal alignment of systems following the lead of the Epsilon Government which has increasingly flaunted Compact law in recent months.

As part of the halt order, the Okorie government has invited representatives from all systems currently rejecting Compact authority to Armstrong, where the Okorie's government will address their issues in a series of one on one talks aimed at reducing violence and calming secessionist sentiment.

-

Scheduled IRC Service Interruptions in the Far Trailing starting from December 1st 2255

Due to recent malware attacks Hermes Interstellar Communications is undergoing a galaxy wide hardware upgrade in order to eliminate backdoors into our systems and prevent the continued spread of malicious communications.

As part of this effort the following systems' IRC networks will be manually disconnected from the HIC network:

-Relay
-Pasnato
-Arizona

While communications will still be available into and within those systems, communications past those systems farther into the Spinward Frontiers will be compromised for an extended period of time while we work hand in hand with Compact regulators to deal with the malicious hackers behind recent service interruptions and malware attacks.

The following systems will be entirely cut off from IRC Services from December 1st until hardware upgrades are completed:

-Ascension
-Akleod
-Baikal
-Bestreer
-Capitata
-Fliveons
-Gaid
-Idyllia
-Ismeu
-Kimberly
-Osliam
-Radiant
-Raphanus
-Shei
-Thoa
-Waystation
-Xotreh

-

On our moral duty to the diseased children - Messenger Drake, Editorial

Of all the evils of the artificial, perhaps the most sinister to me is what they do to children. It is my belief that no child is born evil, or should be, but, through genetic manipulation the augments have chosen otherwise. They have chosen to mutate their children with them, forcing them to grow with the same disease that infests themselves. It is child abuse, plain and simple, but until now we could do nothing about it.

Now, however, we are no longer bound by that horrific helplessness. Recently a new light has appeared, from the same ironic source as the old one. The Radiant anarchists have sent a second broadcast containing all of Cernunno's prints, and, in the instructions of the enemy, we may ourselves have gained the capability to save humanity. For just as they may augment others, so too can we return them to a natural Human state of being.

I do not ask that we do so for the adults, even if their bodies were saved, augment culture infects their souls. Let them flee like the rats they are. Drake must be purified. But we must not let them steal the children to a life of degeneracy. We must seize them, and cure each one of their infections.

I do not take political sides. Some favour individual solutions, such as adoption of them into proper human families to help purge the last traces of the augment. Some will favour government solutions, teaching institutions and schools. In this I think we should pursue both options, to deal with the massive numbers. But I beg of you all, let us work together to save the children. It is our moral duty.

-

Hermes-Ishtar Bailout Package Finalized--Frontier Journal of Economics

…facing bankruptcy, Hermes-Ishtar has determined that the only way to obtain a government bailout was through careful leveraging of their assets. JN Okay's new government faces considerable pressures, but has still agreed to provide the capital needed to prevent immediate bankruptcy.

But this aid has not come without a cost. Hermes-Ishtar has had to turn over all of its assets in K-C and several other local areas to either the Compact government or the local government, with Atlantis being a case of mixed-use. Furthermore, in order to raise funds to keep bankruptcy from simply occurring in the next few months, most local operations have been spun out as independent, owned by the executives who had ran it as newly and fully separate concerns.

This has left two different bodies. First, Mercury-Manat, the new Public-Private Corporation that now controls most of the news agencies and entertainment venues formerly under H-I in KC, Atlantis, and several other systems. It is likely MM will struggle to enforce their rights in Olduvai and Epsilon, and this has left HI with the technical rights to some of the long-gone businesses on Penglai.

But what the rump HI has left to it is a very limited inventory of investments. First, Hermes-Ishtar's possessions in the territory overseen by the Spinward Frontier Regional Emergency Administration have been left entirely untouched. Second, HI retains the Isekai system, which at the moment remains a very solid investment.

Third, the fallen Charter retains their full IP catalogue and back-issues as currently registered and stored on Chronicle station in the Isekai system. Analysts speculate that, even at a firesale, these assets could allow Hermes-Ishtar to run a solid profit for the next year, if not a sustainable one.

Last, and certainly least, HI has not yet found a buyer for their amusement facilities in Sol, though talks are ongoing about the "devolution" of power to the King of the United Kingdom in exchange for a much-needed one time cash-infusion.

Calls to strip Hermes-Ishtar entirely of their Charter status have received pushed back, as have calls to investigate Omoikane, whose financial situation seems even worse than that of beleaguered Hermes-Ishtar…

Creeping Government Overreach--The Evening Journal

Yes, Mercury-Manat is not fully a government-owned corporation, and yes JN Okay has "promised" not to use it as a partisan tool of governmental power. But Silvia Greene is in his party too, and the likes of Roderick and the PHRL might one day use it as a powerful and insidious tool of state control.

As an Individualist, one must stand against all expansions of governmental power, even by people you like…

Deaths from Athene Riots dwarf those attributable to the Radiant Broadcast in the Daughters -Atlantis Interstellar Courier Dispatch

Though information from the Trailing Frontier has become more and more difficult to come across since the Elysian Broadcast, the establishment of the Trailing Triage Command has allowed journalists and relief workers access to the regions hardest hit by a string of violent uprisings.

While the mass executions and show trials practiced by Revolutionary Pacifica are the first atrocities to come to mind when one says "Trailing Violence", findings by the Frontier Policy Institute, the Colonial Authority of the Solarian Compact, and the Association for the Study of Frontier Demographics show that the much murkier and chaotic violence within the Athene system has racked up a death toll to make the most sanguine iconoclast blanche in horror.

While the situation inside Athene itself remains too chaotic and dangerous for an unbiased picture to emerge, interviews with refugees, analysis of scattered distress signals, and sensor data provided by Admiral Sabre Valentine's loyalist convoys have painted a picture of malicious mass deaths unprecedented in the modern era.

"Fundamentally" begins Dr. Serna, a professor of Frontier Affairs, and Trailing Policy Chair at the Frontier Policy Institute "despite the enormous wealth of the core systems, they are not militarised societies and even with the Elysian Box, deaths were kept to a minimum because of that.

"The natural human reluctance to kill usually limits damage. Athene, where militarization is placed above human need, had a much bloodier, more violent conflict of all against all. It's difficult to put a number on it, but some of our best estimates conclude that as many as 20 million died between the arrival of the Elysian Broadcast on May 18th and the departure of the last of Admiral Valentine's convoys on August 21st.

However, while sporadic fighting within communities accounts for up to a third of Athene's dead, by far the greatest cause of deaths were by orbital bombardment…

-

article sidebar said:
The highest death tolls of the Athene Riots are attributable to a single individual, the infamous individual known only by his nom de guerre: Captain "Reynaud the Fox".

Reynaud is the pirate leader who captured the prototype Ares Superdreadnaught Eschaton during the first days of the riots, and his bombastic orders for loyalists to surrender were accompanied by indiscriminate orbital bombardments.

In a very real sense the actions of Reynaud and his fellow pirate captains can be blamed for the violence within Athene, as without their orbital support Loyalist forces would likely have been able to suppress the burgeoning chaos before the iconoclast rebels found their footing.

Instead Reynaud ordered Eschaton to use nuclear weapons against military bases and cities loyal to Ares and the Solarian Compact.

Sensor data provided by Admiral Valentine compared against population data provided by Ares Conflict Solutions shows that the attacks launched by Eschaton alone would have killed up to nine million people.

Inside the Ares Strategy to 'Maintain Order'--Atlantis Courier in Exile

…to understand why Humanist sentiment on Columbia has been exploding in currency, one needs to understand the demographics of the security contractors that Ares is bringing in. While not all have been Augmented, they are disproportionately so, for a simple reason. In our interview with Allana Rio, a security contractor involved in an alleged incident of harassment and the murder of a suspect, she said, rather candidly, "You talk about sympathy? What sympathy? Cletus-Bob and his common-law Columbian Sister-Wife may come from a poor background, but galactic yokels like that are just one bad day from handing out ARs to their kids and hunting Augments for sport. Guilty? Fuck no, I'm not guilty, even if I did do anything wrong. Which I didn't."

This crop of Augmented security officers recruited en masse by Ares have essentially every reason to hate and distrust the Columbian population, and this serves as a feedback loop. The Augment population cannot survive the collapse of the Ares regime at the hands of Humanist revolutionaries, but by serving as enforcers of the Ares government they isolate themselves from any possible alliance with the proletarian forces of the galaxy.

Ares has created a perfect radicalization and control tool, one which has darkened the horizon for the vast majority of Augments while improving conditions for a small number of those willing to work with the new government, who then owe everything to Ares.

This insidious practice…

Transport Ships Bought Up?--ConspiracyWire Columbia

…while suddenly bought up by different groups, hundreds of transports are being bought, and the groups they're under seem to be fictitious, and many of the details involved seem to be simply mirrored from one entry to the other. It seems obvious what is being planned! The government of Columbia, under the rule of Ares, is going to deport all non-Augments onto these transport ships and fire them into the sun, thus destroying the last support structures that maintain civilization against the Historical Masters of Augments, AGIs, and other anti-Human groups.

In the name of these Bankers, Columbia is planning a genocide…

Columbia Betrays Promise!--#ColumbiaNewsLine

…nearly 1/3rd of all donations have instead gone, rather than to the shipyard production, towards paying down certain sovereign and private debts of Ares. This is just the latest in a series of actions that have outraged patriotic citizens whose hatred of Anarchism is far greater than that of the corrupt authorities and corporate types that are already naturally susceptible to anarchistic-leanings thanks to their Cosmopolitan ties.

For more on the betrayal of Humanity, see…

-

Should I Ever…

We spend billions every year on guns and ammunition, and even more this year. And what happens? The rich pocket it, while disrespecting every old tradition and every new one. Why should we fight and die to conquer Penglai? Let us say it is a mistake, that they are dooming themselves to anarchist terror? Why should the people of Columbia die by the thousands or tens of thousands, why should millions now suffer hunger and want? Why should the police stations be full and the murder rate have doubled in a matter of months?

What is worth this? Certainly not anything that common person will see from Penglai? No, we should not invade Penglai and we should not be spending so much on our army and navy just to keep them in "good condition" for a war of extermination and genocide.

What good is any of this? What worth do we get from it? Our wages are going down, our rent is going up, hunger and poverty stalk Columbia after mere months of Ares rule? And for what? Why?

So that the fatcats can get fatter? Do not stand for it! Do not accept it!

Join your local Caulderist branch today, but do not be fooled by Humanist appeals, or wishy-washy rhetoric. God is with the whole of the righteous, the workers who toil and suffer in poverty while the rich preach that only wealth can allow access to heaven.

--Most Viewed Article In Category: Flagged For Deletion for Anti-Democratic Rhetoric, with over 1 billion views…

-

REPORTS

New Government Reaches out through back channels

Arriving indirectly via Ismeu passed along by Void Dweller's Alliance communications, is a simple proposal:

The Commonwealth sends no warcraft coreward of Thoa and Bestreer and no Charter and Compact military craft will be sent spinward of Relay, Pasnato, and Arizona.

We have no guarantees that the Solarian Government will hold up their end of the bargain, except that this is the first time that any official source has reached out to the AIC as a revolutionary group to come to an understanding.

This backchannel proposal also matches with JN Okay's public freeze of interstellar military operations within the Core and the Golden Circle.

PCMI analysts believe that the new administration is attempting to both mollify the Pacifist Block within Parliament and prevent the further disintegration of the Compact's authority by refusing to pick fights they know they cannot win, allowing revolutionary governments to collapse under their internal contradictions, and focusing on reconciling reformist seperatist and revolutionary movements to the Compact via non-violent means, attempting to freeze as many crises in place as possible and dealing with them one by one.

The Solarian Navy's Triage Commands are part of this process, using brute force to resecure the middle and far frontiers, while the core remains in frozen conflict. It seems that the Compact is content to blockade us in the Far Spinward before dealing with us at their leisure, though there are no promises as to how long even this "truce" will last.

-

Cerberus relieved of command

Intercepted transmissions from within the 201st Squadron Arizona indicate that in the weeks following the Action at the Bestreer-Arizona Gate the Solarian Admiralty has relieved Rear-Admiral Charity "Cerberus" Cadence of command of the 201st Squadron for her incompetence in getting half her command killed in a confused action at Bestreer against a fleet lead by the ex-stripper Admiral Mclean.

It is unknown who her replacement will be. But at the moment it appears that the Solarian Admiralty in Korolev-Chandrasekhar have sacked one of their most talented officers for what seems like no reason.

However, PCMI analysts believe this may actually be internal political opponents of the 201st's former commander taking advantage of the situation to destroy her career and scapegoat her for the 9th Fleet's failures to suppress the Commonwealth and Congressional Navy.

In any event the 129th Squadron under the command of Rear-Admiral Quentin Zimmerman-Neyra has been recalled to Arizona to reinforce the 129th and Zimmerman-Neyra now has command of the reconsolidated 2nd Battlegroup in the Arizona system.

-

9th Fleet, 1st Battlegroup Redeployed away from Drake

Mere days after arriving in the Drake system and entering Golden Hind's orbit, the 1st Battlegroup of the Solarian Navy's 9th Fleet has been redeployed spinward.

Reeling from the bloody nose it received in Bestreer, the 9th Fleet has hurriedly recalled the 1st Battlegroup from Drake, judging orbital support forces in the system to be sufficient for the support of Commissioner-General Desrosier's peacekeeping and evacuation efforts.

It is expected by the PCMI that either the 1st Battlegroup will be deployed either in an offensive down the Dragon's Spine or be divided into its component squadrons and set up blockades in the Pasnato and Relay systems, which would confirm the intentions of the new administration to isolate and blockade the Commonwealth until fires elsewhere have died down enough for overwhelming force to be committed to our destruction.

-

Akleod Joines IPA, Spontaneously Generates Self Defence Force

Regular PCMI led reconnaissance of the Akleod gate has detected that gate defences have been strung around the Akelod-Radiant Gate and that furthermore emissions from within the system indicate that a number of previously undetected warships now occupy Akleod.

In addition to a pair of patrol corvettes, an auxiliary cruiser and an unidentified cruiser sized vessel that the PCMI has tentatively identified as a light carrier have been spotted in Akleod. The PMCI has been unable to determine where the craft come from, but the craft are openly flagged as part of the "Akleod Detachment of the Interstellar Prosperity Association Joint Military Service."

Additionally, there are at least some signs that a Smallcraft yard might be in progress somewhere within the asteroid belts, though it could also be a strikecraft hanger, as the imaging is not very good from afar.

-

The Bankers' Play:

With financial chaos running rampant across the Compact, the Solarian Central Bank has begun their own form of economic triage.

While the SCB has begun issuing "Stabalization packages" to loyalist groups across the Compact, including the SFREA, they've also begun surgery on the Charters themselves, cutting away necrotic tissue and yanking the chains of executives unable to change with the times.

The most visible example of this work is in the dismembering of Omoikane Innovations Group and the Hermes-Ishtar Corporation. While it appears that the leaderless and floundering Omoikane will be divided up between the remaining Charters, Hermes-Ishtar is being partitioned into Hermes-Ishtar and the new "Manat-Mercury".

The remnants of Hermes-Ishtar are dominated by their physical properties, and are clearly being subordinated to the Central Bank itself, with HI being consolidated around Chronical Station in Isekai and the Symphony led Spinward Frontier Regional Emergency Administration.

Mercury-Manat itself appears to be the bastard offspring of a Charter, a Public Broadcaster, and a State Owned Enterprise. It appears that the Solarian Compact desires a fully loyal propaganda outlet…

[Formation of Mercury Manat]

[End of Omoikane Innovations Group]

Get into the Trenchcoat:

"In the interest of protecting the property, livelihoods, and persons of the inhabitants of the systems of Cleiuto, Rallypoint, and Xanadu, local commercial leaders and community organizers have banded together for common defence against contagious disorder."

Or so says the propaganda. In any event, backed by the Solarian Central Bank, the meritocrats of several systems of the Coreward Frontier have followed in the wake of the SFREA. As far as we can figure it's a Cern, Omoi-remnant, and MSI emergency dictatorship in a funny hat, with the MSI-IPA switch allowing the less powerful MSI execs to serve as kingmakers between the other two.

Sadly we don't have a lot of details on this new formation, other than to say that their flag sucks and probably is being painted on one to two battlegroups as we speak.

[Formation of the United Prosperity Council of the Coreward Region]

COREWARD TRIAGE COMMAND:

For the Duration of the Emergency as declared by the Solarian Parliament under the War Measures Act, the following systems will be under military jurisdiction:

-Asclepius
-Atlas
-Boneyard
-Canis
-Canlin
-Cleiuto
-Dumuzid
-Earhart
-Exalt
-Excelsior
-Gatehouse
-Gemini
-Isthmus
-Manhattan
-Mobius
-New Sealand
-Rallypoint
-Rendezvous
-Samurai
-Sun's Star
-Talaria
-Tatter
-Xanadu

Fleet Admiral Aaron Zahariev, Frontier Marshal, will be invested with supreme executive authority for the Coreward Triage Command military district until the end of the emergency or relieved of duty by the Star Ministers of the Solarian Navy.

The following Solarian Navy formations will formally transferred to the command of Fleet Admiral Zahariev for the maintenance of peace, order, and good government:

-The 4th Fleet of the Solarian Navy
-The 10th Fleet of the Solarian Navy
-Task Force 2.1 of the Solarian Navy
-Task Force 7.1.1 of the Solarian Navy

Long Live the Community of Humanity!

[Formation of Coreward Frontier Triage Command]

TRAILING TRIAGE COMMAND:

For the Duration of the Emergency as declared by the Solarian Parliament under the War Measures Act, the following systems will be under military jurisdiction:

-Abstraction
-Alexander
-Apotheosis
-Arcadia
-Barrier
-Bob
-Bobbert's Belt
-Carvanasary
-Caucus
-Comet's Wake
-Cordon
-Cornucopia
-Cronus
-Crossroads
-Crucible
-Democracy
-Diorite
-Dyson
-Ecrams
-Exodus
-Far Light
-Fortress
-Foundry
-Freeman
-Freeport
-Gallia
-Glade
-Kahet
-Morningstar
-Paso de Cortés
-Peak
-Qem
-Range
-Safehold
-Scherrer-Dirac
-Singularity
-Speculation
-Sphalerite
-Vilmin
-Watchtower
-Zalona

Fleet Admiral Lili Katlano-Isaia, Frontier Marshal, will be invested with supreme executive authority for the Trailing Triage Command military district until the end of the emergency or relieved of duty by the Star Ministers of the Solarian Navy.

The following Solarian Navy formations will formally transferred to the command of Fleet Admiral Katlano-Isaia for the maintenance of peace, order, and good government:

-The 5th Fleet of the Solarian Navy
-The 6th Fleet of the Solarian Navy
-The 11th Fleet of the Solarian Navy
-Task Force 2.2 of the Solarian Navy
-Task Force 2.3 of the Solarian Navy
-Task Force 7.1 of the Solarian Navy
-Task Force 7.2 of the Solarian Navy
-Task Force 7.3.1 of the Solarian Navy

Long Live the Community of Humanity!

[Formation of Trailing Frontier Triage Command]

SPINWARD TRIAGE COMMAND:

For the Duration of the Emergency as declared by the Solarian Parliament under the War Measures Act, the following systems will be under military jurisdiction:

-Akasha
-Alicanto
-Arizona
-Asgard
-Bastion
-Checkpoint
-Cosmos
-Drake
-Echo
-Enroute
-Eyrie
-Fallback
-Freefall
-Freespace
-Go-Between
-Hollow
-Incaros
-Inspiration
-Iyuhi
-Jenny's Star
-Masaq
-Notch
-Pasnato
-Postosi
-Relay
-Ret
-Rohdeen
-Shinkolobwe
-Spire
-Springtide
-Streamline
-Symphony
-Talon
-Tereshkova
-Trescore
-Trinity
-Utopia
-Waypoint

Fleet Admiral Roland Djire, Frontier Marshal, will be invested with supreme executive authority for the Spinward Triage Command military district until the end of the emergency or relieved of duty by the Star Ministers of the Solarian Navy.

The following Solarian Navy formations will formally transferred to the command of Admiral Roland Djire for the maintenance of peace, order, and good government:

-8th Fleet of the Solarian Navy
-9thth Fleet of the Solarian Navy
-Task Force 2.4 of the Solarian Navy
-Task Force 7.3.2 of the Solarian Navy
-Task Force 7.4 of the Solarian Navy

Long Live the Community of Humanity!

[Formation of Spinward Frontier Triage Command]

The Defenders of Humanity:

Reeling from multiple uprisings and simmering insurrections across the Ithsmus Bridge, local authorities and loyalist militias have elected not to wait for the Solarian Navy to save them, but to instead band together to defend freedom from the depredations of anarchist tyranny which has stirred up both the poor and misguided minorities into savage violence.

After weathering a series of uprisings, the leadership of Earhart, Mobius, Fortress, and Asher in Canis met on Erie in the Earhart system to coordinate a response to the ongoing violence. After much discussion these delegates agreed to form a unified block to defend themselves from internal insurrections and external incursions.

This cooperation agreement will see the Self Defence Forces of the four systems placed under a single chain of command, and their governments pool together their economic resources to both purchase the service of loyal professional soldiers, and raise new armies in the service of the "Common Service and Prosperity of the Human Race"

Already this new bloc has politically clashed with both the Coreward and Trailing Triage Commands, insisting that the civilian governments of the Erie Pact are not subject to military discipline and the Solarian Navy has no legal authority to conduct police actions in systems controlled by the Erie Pact.

[Formation of the Erie Pact]

RUMOURS

The Cure for Victory Disease: While a nominal victory, the unprecidented losses of the engagement at the Bestreer-Arizona gate seems to have shaken the Elysian population from early onset Victory Disease.

While there is a great deal of finger pointing and concern in the populace, the battle's result seems to have reawakened revolutionary fervour in a great many Elysians. Talk of crash militarization has led to the General Congress authorized a swah of liner conversions, increases in the military budget, and seen talk of restarting the VEMP spread.

The militarization of society has also been a benefit to the Elysian branch of Amaranthine Youth League which has thrown itself behind what has been termed "Militarized Interstellarism" which demands that the Commonwealth prepare itself for a series of military campaigns that will cut a swatch of liberation through to the core itself.

The kids are what!? 1: Radiant appears to not be the only place dealing with Youth League troubles. Branches of the AYL have appeared not just in every Commonwealth system, but have even spread to Sheol.

Five Lions is currently in an uproar as the youth league has begun to push back against the Stakhanovism currently sweeping the planet. Not only are the youth of Five Lions less inclined to throw themselves into physical labour, but they mock the overzealous work ethic of their elders. This has escalated to clashes between Youth Guards and Party Militias from both radical and conservative political groups who have found themselves in an unholy alliance against a Youth League which views both of them as outdated relics of a bygone era.

The kids are what!? 2: Perhaps the most controversial and ideosyncratic Youth League is the one forming on Sheol, which has begun to question Sheol's universal draft. As one anonymous member put it:

"Amaranth has proven that one can have an effective military without a draft. With the primary limitation being spacecraft, this sort of mass mobilization doesn't make sense any longer. The Soldier's Councils are stuck fighting yesteryear's war."

This has generated outrage on Sheol, where the youths have been accused of being unpatriotic, cowardly and lazy, with a large minority of Soldier's Councils demanding penal units be raised from Youth League objectors.

This, predictably, has turned the brave members of the Shei Youth League into a cause celebre across Amaranthine Space YL's who respect the SYL's agency in rejecting ultra-militarism even as they push for the militarization of their own communities.

The kids are what!? 3: Diplomatic headache aside. The sociological implications are sending a number of SocComm member committees into a happy bubble.

"We knew the Compact attempted to crush culture into a monolith, and we expected that following it we would see more unique cultures develop on planets. What we hadn't considered was that the Charter system and routine paranoia had already fragmented nearby systems. While the monolith of 'core culture' no longer is imposed, we are seeing both internal development and more cultural importation and mixing from within systems starting in many cases from the youth first."

In other words, while we've seen the Young Revolution as a Radiant problem, with militant youth who want to work more in the name of the Revolution. But in Sheol it's youth who want to demilitarise their society. And in Five Lions it's militant youth you want to work less and enjoy the fruits of the Revolution.

While these are the biggest examples, this sort of thing is showing up in all systems, causing all sorts of culture shifts and clashes, some of which are largely passing Radiant by entirely, such as the spread of Chinook style food forests across Five Lions, Ascension, Waysation, and even Osliam."

To Boldly Go…: The foundation of the Congressional Exploration Corps has been greeted by widespread celebration on Ascension. Observers note that the excitement is driven not by the ideologically inclined older citizens, but also by the youth who are swept up by the romance and excitement of interstellar exploration.

The CEC and the All-Ascension Congress are already excitedly planning exploration missions several years into the future, including beginning the design of several new purpose built kinds of exploration cruisers in both short and long range varieties. It is likely that at some point in the future the CEC and AAC will approach the General Congress for permission to build several of these craft and launch long range expeditions into unexplored space.

To Seek out New Life and New Civilizations…: As an interesting side effect of Ascension's exploration mania, public discussion has also turned to what to do in the event of First Contact with Beings of Extra-Solar Origin (BESOs, the common term of art), which has led to increased pressure from Ascension's inhabitants for the creation of formal diplomatic institutions.

While this is driven by the "what if?" factor of a First Contact with BESOs, this idea has also gained momentum in Ascension as it would also increase the chances of de-escalating conflicts with the Commonwealth's neighbours before they begin, preventing further warfare that the AIC isn't ready for.

Intent Waiting: If any inhabitant of Ascension has missed the week by week play by play of the progress done on the TLI issue, then they must be living in a hole in the ground.

The tension and the anticipation have only been increasing on Ascension, as the drive for TLI emancipation grows more fervent and alliances begin to form between anti-Biochauvinist groups across the AIC coordinate to advocate for a Universal Embody Guarantee as the next step forward for AI rights.

Very Direct Democracy: A population of 3500 means that, even more than Osliam, Ismeu just votes on everything. There's been some confusion regarding expertise, but generally people who know what they're doing seem to be able to simply convince others… and Isemu's family-based networks aid in that. With a small population that, even if it were to see explosive growth and double, cannot ever be said to be crowded, it does seem to be working. For the moment Commodore Estoc Jayanto believes that it is best to keep the small Isemu Force in Isemu, reasoning that if an attack is incoming they could either join the force in Bestreer in time or serve as a tripwire to buy time for reinforcements.

Ochiro The Great?: The events of the last few months seem only to have proven Ochiro right at least about his domestic ambitions, even if they've served as a sharp rebuke to his foreign policy. But even there, he's proven more adaptable than expected, and as such as it comes to the end of his first year in office, his approval rating is very high and he's begun to pivot towards even more ambitious goals on the domestic front with a new sort of non-electoral campaign: 'Independent but Connected' that seeks to build diplomatic, scientific, and economic ties with just about everyone without committing Osliam to any particular alliance. Therefore, despite his perceived flaws, he is wildly popular even among the Augmented population of Osliam… if much less so in that case than among the baseline population.

Green Shoots: In response to the population explosion in the last year and change, one that seems only to be accelerating, the various communities of Idylla have begun to institute communal creches as well as a very generous land-donation policy, both communal and personal depending on the location, meant to encourage use of resources.

And this boom seems to show no sign of abatement as the Idyllians have combined Elysian artificial surrogacy with Sheolite inspired pro-Natalist policies.

Should I Stay Or Should I Go?: Waystation has made further limited moves towards joining the AIC without actually fully committing. The system seems to be considering a resource and economic union, as well as a limited foreign-policy subordination, but they fear involvement in further conflicts. Specifically, they'd prefer sending a diplomat or finding out the situation in Baikal, Arizona, Akleod, and other assumed hostile systems before acting.

Waystation is also against any mooted invasion of the IPA or conflict therein as a wild overextension. This, at least, is the view of the elected politicians, and it does not seem out of step with the general view.

Breathing Easy: With the departure of Blue Squadron from Thoa, morale on Chinook has skyrocketed as they no longer have to fear sudden incursions of their new home system, and there is now defense in depth.

Despite this, the All-Chinook Congress continues on with the system's ongoing military build up, expanding their logistical support, and expanding their system wide defensive grid.

Even now, Congressional Navy personnel continue to flood into Chinook as the fleet expands, which has led to an artificial boom in Chinook's population which is barely dented by Chinook's outsized enlistment rates..

Gate Guardian: On their own accord, and driven by a nervous paranoia, the Raphanus gate-workers have sent a number of small craft and drones through to the other side of their unfinished gate, and have begun very cautious exploration of the system beyond it.

Without warpcraft and a trained team--things that Ascension's new exploration corps could provide--it might take a number of months before even an incredibly basic survey of the connected system is made. But it's at least occupying them for now, until the requested support from the Congressional Exploration Corps arrives.

The Giant Stirs: The United Nations in Sol continues to furiously organise, with provisional UN General Secretary Zhu Fen pledging that the UN would be "Capable of resisting any incursion by the fascist Compact into the sacred space of Sol herself".

While Sol might be isolated from the outside galaxy, it remains one of the most populous and industrialised systems in the galaxy, and the military being assembled in Sol befits that.

As a political firestorm rages across the ancient floor of the UN General Assembly in New York, debating how exactly the United Nations will function and what sort of political compromises the future will require, the Nations of Sol agree on one thing: the United Nations Collective Security Bureau and Space Force must come first.

Already former European Union Admiral Melisandre Leclerc has been appointed Supreme Commander of the UNCSB, her long career having given her contract with military officers from across Sol and familiarity with the various services of Sol. As Admiral Leclerc is seen in many circles as the de facto saviour of Earth for her actions during the Solarian Mutiny her ascension to the post of the most powerful single individual in Sol has gone entirely unopposed.

While the UNSF continues to be organized, many expect that the thousands of craft currently being laid down in yards across Sol will enter service with the UNSF instead of being assigned to the fleets of the Nations or Jovian pact.

The Great Turn: Olduvai continues to define the most radical edge of Compact politics, if only because the currently unstable former government of all humanity cannot afford the military and political cost of subjugating a full Sovereign Republic.

To this end Olduvai PM Izem Meziane has begun gathering support for "The Great Turn", a political push to set the entire Compact on the road to a very different place.

His proposal is 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 Meziane and his allies 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.

This new project has only increased his popularity at home as radicals appreciate his support and moderates admire his restraint in continuing to place his hopes in reform of a sort. Even if it's the most radical reform possible.

Passing the Test: The recent Parliamentary elections appear to have been a test of strength for the new IPA regime in Epsilon.

The elections in Epsilon appear to have been held without any official pressure or ballot manipulation, including by allowing Compact Loyalist parties to participate without official hindrance.

Instead the new government went to work with their patronage network and the loyalty engendered by the rollout of their own version of Universal Basic Fabrication to ensure the election of Colonial Prosperity Alliance MPs to the Compact Parliament. Whatever else, it appears that the IPA currently enjoys genuine widespread support at home.

Which may mean that soon the IPA will begin testing their ability to act abroad.

I Intend to Go in Harm's Way: In the estimation of General Desrosiers the Solarian Marshals' Peacekeeping force and the Blue Zones full of augments they protected would be overrun by August 1st, resulting in the potential deaths of millions.

Imagine her surprise when on July 26th half the Trescore Space Force arrived in orbit and the entire Trescore Aerocommando Corps began deploying to reinforce her beleaguered Solarian Marshals and their local auxiliaries.

Despite their declaration of independence, the Trescore Frontier Congress has declared that they would not abandon a people in need, even at the risk of their own safety.

More cynically, the altruistic measures by the secessionist system has garnered them an unofficial ceasefire with local Solarian units and for the moment it has become impossible to speak badly of the system in the press of even the most loyalist of systems as Trescore and their brave military have become the flavour of the moment and Big Damn Heroes.

The Drakean Expulsion 1: With Asgardian, Trescore, and Solarian military forces overawing local Drakeans and their allies, General Desrosiers has been able to negotiate at gunpoint with a coalition of leading Drakean political figures in and out of government.

In exchange for the local possessions and wealth of Augment populations being transferred into Drakean hands, Drake's government and militia forces will help enforce a ceasefire with Augment Militias and Solarian Marshals personnel across the system in preparation for the total evacuation of the Augment population from the system.

General Desrosiers has publicly stated her dissatisfaction with the unfairness of the agreement to the augment population who are being expelled from their homes with little more than their lives and carry on luggage, but she has received orders from the incoming government of PM JN Okorie to the effect that if at all possible the current crises should be resolved without further bloodshed on any side.

The Drakean Expulsion 2: Under the terms of the ceasefire, Asgard, Columbia, Trescore, and the SFREA will continue to accept refugees from Drake and will not attempt any military or police actions against the Drakean government or members of the various militias that initiated and propagated the Drakean pogroms.

General Desrosiers herself will be accompanying the bulk of the refugees to the Spinward Frontier Regional Emergency Administration where she will be overseeing resettlement operations under the auspices of both the SFREA and the newly implemented Spinward Triage Command.

Drakean Blues: While returning to their Columbian home port, Blue Squadron of Mars Interstellar Security appears to have signed a new contract with the Drakean government to act as a peacekeeping force overseeing the Drakean Expulsion from Drake's end, deploying the their tens of thousands of troops to support the ceasefire and sweep Golden Hind for stragglers.

Though this delays their return home by several months, Mars Interstellar Security promises that Blue Squadron will be relieved by another squadron in the coming months, which will continue to ensure that the Drakean Expulsion remains a non-lethal exercise in ethnic cleansing.

Washington Syndrome 2: Having garnered the goodwill of local Solarian commanders by participating in the evacuation of Drake, and earning the newly independent system a stay of execution, Trescore has continued to act boldly, sending secret ambassadors to systems up and down the Spinward Frontier.

We know this because a Trescore ambassador has arrived in Thoa onboard a VDC freighter enroute to Ismeu.

Though Ambassador Martinez is currently keeping his diplomatic instructions to himself, he has requested to speak before the General Congress himself when he arrives in Radiant in several weeks' time, and appears excited to open the first diplomatic exchange between fully sovereign independent interstellar nations in Human history.

BONUS DEMOGRAPHICS REPORT:

Congressional Demographic Office Reports AIC Breaks 300 Million Threshold, Warns of Incoming "Baby Tsunami"

With the integration of Ascension, we officially predict that, as of January 1st, 2256 the population of the AIC will be 312,148,000 persons. In the last year, newborn children account for about 6.78 million of this growth, the remainder associated with the demographic integration of Ascension. The number of deaths last year fell to new record lows of 68,320, for a death rate of 21.9 per 100,000. This rate is expected to continue to fall with the ongoing expansion of the BIG, until it stabilises at around 11 per 100,000 around 2259.

Remy De Mercy, chief demographer, had warnings about the incoming strain to the teaching and childcare systems: "Our current projections estimate that by 2270 almost thirty percent of the entire population of the AIC will be eighteen or under. The post-revolution cohort is already here, and unless efforts are made to accommodate them starting now, we will be looking at severe societal disruption."

System	Total Pop.	Crude Births	Crude Deaths
Radiant	287,500,000	6,250,000	62,960
Ascension	8,840,000	200,000	1,930
Five Lions	15,600,000	300,000	2,970

Note: Due to errors in the data, system level breakdowns for all other AIC systems has been excluded at this time. The CDO apologies for this disruption.

TheGrape · Sep 2, 2022

AKuz said:
But I beg of you all, let us work together to save the children. It is our moral duty

AKuz said:
the Drakean Expulsion remains a non-lethal exercise in ethnic cleansing.

I want to vomit but my body is paralyzed by horror

Hot co co · Sep 2, 2022

So besides havinga baby BOOOOMMM, I did not get much from that news, can I get a sorta break down on what has happened and how it effects us?

Broken25 · Sep 2, 2022

AKuz said:
Second, HI retains the Isekai system, which at the moment remains a very solid investment.

HI is officially dead.

TheArcanist · Sep 2, 2022

holy shit SolNav is literally just. seizing the homes and property of Drakean augments and handing them over to the literal fascists that were trying to murder them all

i am incandescent with rage

solnav delenda est

The Laurent · Sep 2, 2022

TheArcanist said:
holy shit SolNav is literally just. seizing the homes and property of Drakean augments and handing them over to the literal fascists that were trying to murder them all

i am incandescent with rage

solnav delenda est

At the moment the alternative is literally doing nothing as millions are killed, in SolNav's view. Imagine if America had taken in all those Jewish refugees, and even more, even if they'd had to leave literally all of their wealth and homes and everything behind? Instead of, as they did, turning them away and leaving them to die.

It's moments like that and situations like that that SolNav is thinking about.

The3rdCorinthian · Sep 2, 2022

AKuz said:
On our moral duty to the diseased children - Messenger Drake, Editorial
Of all the evils of the artificial, perhaps the most sinister to me is what they do to children. It is my belief that no child is born evil, or should be, but, through genetic manipulation the augments have chosen otherwise. They have chosen to mutate their children with them, forcing them to grow with the same disease that infests themselves. It is child abuse, plain and simple, but until now we could do nothing about it.

Now, however, we are no longer bound by that horrific helplessness. Recently a new light has appeared, from the same ironic source as the old one. The Radiant anarchists have sent a second broadcast containing all of Cernunno's prints, and, in the instructions of the enemy, we may ourselves have gained the capability to save humanity. For just as they may augment others, so too can we return them to a natural Human state of being.

I do not ask that we do so for the adults, even if their bodies were saved, augment culture infects their souls. Let them flee like the rats they are. Drake must be purified. But we must not let them steal the children to a life of degeneracy. We must seize them, and cure each one of their infections.

I do not take political sides. Some favour individual solutions, such as adoption of them into proper human families to help purge the last traces of the augment. Some will favour government solutions, teaching institutions and schools. In this I think we should pursue both options, to deal with the massive numbers. But I beg of you all, let us work together to save the children. It is our moral duty.

Anybody who says think of the Children only thinks of Children as property.

LuciDreamer · Sep 2, 2022

Given what we've seen of the Solarian Navy so far, how long do you think it will be before the three "triage commands" are shooting at each other?

T_of_A · Sep 2, 2022

AKuz said:
TALES OF HORROR FROM THE JULY DAYS ON COSMOS -The Colonial Mirror

Cosmos is considered by many to be the leading light of the Frontiers. Clean, wealthy, orderly. The standard bearer of what our system is capable of in the right hands.

But this last July, urged on by the anarchist propaganda spewing from Radiant, the criminal class of that brilliant system attempted to destroy everything that their betters had spent over a century building into the shining jewel of the Coreward Frontier.

On July 15th, armed by the terroristic "Box-chan", hundreds of thousands of radical iconoclasts and savage criminals poured into the streets and skies of the habitats of the Cosmos system.

By July 24th the brave security forces of Cosmos, allied with physicial security contractors hired jointly by the Cosmos Colonial Republic and Rhodes, had put down the revolt.

But despite being a short lived insurrection, decisively put down, those 10 days in July produced horror stories the likes of which are unfamiliar to the Community of Humanity as the civilized world brush up against something dark, primal, and savage that lurks in the hearts of easily swayed men…

…They burst in. Said Ms. Zyrian, her voice trembles as she recalls it. "They dragged out my husband and shot him. Some of them even talked about making her 'pay for her own sins'. Thankfully, she was quickly rescued by the police and …

…By the time Nile Security physical security professionals had breached the compound all the captives had been executed before the remaining anarchists took their own lives with explosive charges…

…with the destruction of NSC Ramses II the shortlived Gibraltar Rebellion had ended, but left a devastating toll in its wake: over ten thousand civilians and loyalist six thousand security professionals were dead and the destruction of so many transport craft delayed the deployment of reinforcements to Malacca station, contributing to the hundreds of thousands who died on Cosmos' central habitat…

…While the terror of the July uprising has now passed, Cosmos now finds itself with a new crisis: trying to house and care for the several million insurrectionist prisoners and accomplices who participated in the uprising.

While most can be returned to society after performing community service with reconstruction efforts, the most hardcore anarchists may never be fit to return to a civil society, leaving the Colonial Republic divided about what to do next.

With capital and corporal punishments illegal under Cosmos' constitution, during normal times the expected process would be to transfer the hardcore elements to offworld detention facilities such as those in Drake, Samurai, or Shei.

However, with interstellar shipping disrupted, Cosmos now must wrestle with how to handle these criminals domestically, becoming the defining issue of post-July days…

Sad to see Cosmos suffer like this, but at least the reactionaries have started anthropomorphising Box-chan too!

AKuz said:
INCOMING OK GOVERNMENT ISSUES HALT ORDER TO ARMED FORCES IN GOLDEN CIRCLE

The government of incoming Prime Minister Jason Nnamadi Okorie has issued a blanket order to not just the Compact's Armed Forces, but to all revolutionary groups as well.

"As the current crisis escalates, the mistakes of the recent past push us perilously towards an abyss of eternal violence. We call on all Humanity to reject violence and return to our natural state of peace and harmony. We believe that good faith negotiations will see all sides reject discord and back down from the brink."

Many observers believe that this declaration is aimed towards not just Trescore, which has recently declared independence, but also the newly formed Interstellar Prosperity Association which is shaping up to an increasingly intransigent sub-federal alignment of systems following the lead of the Epsilon Government which has increasingly flaunted Compact law in recent months.

As part of the halt order, the Okorie government has invited representatives from all systems currently rejecting Compact authority to Armstrong, where the Okorie's government will address their issues in a series of one on one talks aimed at reducing violence and calming secessionist sentiment.

Actually sending someone to these talks seems very very stupid, but in the short term this seems like it could really benefit us?

AKuz said:
Scheduled IRC Service Interruptions in the Far Trailing starting from December 1st 2256

Due to recent malware attacks Hermes Interstellar Communications is undergoing a galaxy wide hardware upgrade in order to eliminate backdoors into our systems and prevent the continued spread of malicious communications.

As part of this effort the following systems' IRC networks will be manually disconnected from the HIC network:

-Relay
-Pasnato
-Arizona

While communications will still be available into and within those systems, communications past those systems farther into the Spinward Frontiers will be compromised for an extended period of time while we work hand in hand with Compact regulators to deal with the malicious hackers behind recent service interruptions and malware attacks.

The following systems will be entirely cut off from IRC Services from November 1st until hardware upgrades are completed:

-Ascension
-Akleod
-Baikal
-Bestreer
-Capitata
-Fliveons
-Gaid
-Idyllia
-Ismeu
-Kimberly
-Osliam
-Raphanus
-Shei
-Thoa
-Waystation
-Xotreh

I was sort of expecting to find Elysium/Radiant in that list. Or are they using another name for it?

AKuz said:
On our moral duty to the diseased children - Messenger Drake, Editorial

[h2][/h2]Thanks for reminding me that Drake was the pogrom-planet, it made understanding some later parts of the chapter a lot easier. Also, please go to Cosmos and get dragged out of your home by revolutionaries.

AKuz said:
Deaths from Athene Riots dwarf those attributable to the Radiant Broadcast in the Daughters -Atlantis Interstellar Courier Dispatch

Though information from the Trailing Frontier has become more and more difficult to come across since the Elysian Broadcast, the establishment of the Trailing Triage Command has allowed journalists and relief workers access to the regions hardest hit by a string of violent uprisings.

While the mass executions and show trials practiced by Revolutionary Pacifica are the first atrocities to come to mind when one says "Trailing Violence", findings by the Frontier Policy Institute, the Colonial Authority of the Solarian Compact, and the Association for the Study of Frontier Demographics show that the much murkier and chaotic violence within the Athene system has racked up a death toll to make the most sanguine iconoclast blanche in horror.

While the situation inside Athene itself remains too chaotic and dangerous for an unbiased picture to emerge, interviews with refugees, analysis of scattered distress signals, and sensor data provided by Admiral Sabre Valentine's loyalist convoys have painted a picture of malicious mass deaths unprecedented in the modern era.

"Fundamentally" begins Dr. Serna, a professor of Frontier Affairs, and Trailing Policy Chair at the Frontier Policy Institute "despite the enormous wealth of the core systems, they are not militarised societies and even with the Elysian Box, deaths were kept to a minimum because of that.

"The natural human reluctance to kill usually limits damage. Athene, where militarization is placed above human need, had a much bloodier, more violent conflict of all against all. It's difficult to put a number on it, but some of our best estimates conclude that as many as 20 million died between the arrival of the Elysian Broadcast on May 18th and the departure of the last of Admiral Valentine's convoys on August 21st.

However, while sporadic fighting within communities accounts for up to a third of Athene's dead, by far the greatest cause of deaths were by orbital bombardment…

The problem with this scene was that it used "bombastic" when describing the revolutionary, so for a moment I loved the guy

Two sentences later he was doing mass orbital bombardment. Yikes. Real whiplash there.

AKuz said:
Inside the Ares Strategy to 'Maintain Order'--Atlantis Courier in Exile

…to understand why Humanist sentiment on Columbia has been exploding in currency, one needs to understand the demographics of the security contractors that Ares is bringing in. While not all have been Augmented, they are disproportionately so, for a simple reason. In our interview with Allana Rio, a security contractor involved in an alleged incident of harassment and the murder of a suspect, she said, rather candidly, "You talk about sympathy? What sympathy? Cletus-Bob and his common-law Columbian Sister-Wife may come from a poor background, but galactic yokels like that are just one bad day from handing out ARs to their kids and hunting Augments for sport. Guilty? Fuck no, I'm not guilty, even if I did do anything wrong. Which I didn't."

This crop of Augmented security officers recruited en masse by Ares have essentially every reason to hate and distrust the Columbian population, and this serves as a feedback loop. The Augment population cannot survive the collapse of the Ares regime at the hands of Humanist revolutionaries, but by serving as enforcers of the Ares government they isolate themselves from any possible alliance with the proletarian forces of the galaxy.

Ares has created a perfect radicalization and control tool, one which has darkened the horizon for the vast majority of Augments while improving conditions for a small number of those willing to work with the new government, who then owe everything to Ares.

This insidious practice…

Smart. I hate it.

AKuz said:

Columbia Betrays Promise!--#ColumbiaNewsLine

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AKuz said:
…nearly 1/3rd of all donations have instead gone, rather than to the shipyard production, towards paying down certain sovereign and private debts of Ares. This is just the latest in a series of actions that have outraged patriotic citizens whose hatred of Anarchism is far greater than that of the corrupt authorities and corporate types that are already naturally susceptible to anarchistic-leanings thanks to their Cosmopolitan ties.

For more on the betrayal of Humanity, see…

What a surprise! The capitalist charity is doing capitalist things!

AKuz said:

Should I Ever…

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AKuz said:
We spend billions every year on guns and ammunition, and even more this year. And what happens? The rich pocket it, while disrespecting every old tradition and every new one. Why should we fight and die to conquer Penglai? Let us say it is a mistake, that they are dooming themselves to anarchist terror? Why should the people of Columbia die by the thousands or tens of thousands, why should millions now suffer hunger and want? Why should the police stations be full and the murder rate have doubled in a matter of months?

What is worth this? Certainly not anything that common person will see from Penglai? No, we should not invade Penglai and we should not be spending so much on our army and navy just to keep them in "good condition" for a war of extermination and genocide.

What good is any of this? What worth do we get from it? Our wages are going down, our rent is going up, hunger and poverty stalk Columbia after mere months of Ares rule? And for what? Why?

So that the fatcats can get fatter? Do not stand for it! Do not accept it!

Join your local Caulderist branch today, but do not be fooled by Humanist appeals, or wishy-washy rhetoric. God is with the whole of the righteous, the workers who toil and suffer in poverty while the rich preach that only wealth can allow access to heaven.

--Most Viewed Article In Category: Flagged For Deletion for Anti-Democratic Rhetoric, with over 1 billion views…

Pacifism, excellent!
Calling pacifism "anti-democratic rhetoric" is... less excellent. Another news source in need of a hostile takeover, it seems.

AKuz said:
Cerberus relieved of command

Intercepted transmissions from within the 201st Squadron Arizona indicate that in the weeks following the Action at the Bestreer-Arizona Gate the Solarian Admiralty has relieved Rear-Admiral Charity "Cerberus" Cadence of command of the 201st Squadron for her incompetence in getting half her command killed in a confused action at Bestreer against a fleet lead by the ex-stripper Admiral Mclean.

This is a best-case scenario!
Mclean doesn't have to actually deal with their prejudices because she lives in another country where she's a hero and so she mostly communicates with these dumbfucks through firing solutions - but they still have to cope and seethe about losing to an "ex-stripper". You love to see it.

AKuz said:
Akleod Joines IPA, Spontaneously Generates Self Defence Force

[h2][/h2]A shipyard? Wow, that's a lot more impressive than I expected "hidden smuggler hideout" to be. And it seems the IPA has solid spywork and diplomats, too.

AKuz said:
The Bankers' Play:

With financial chaos running rampant across the Compact, the Solarian Central Bank has begun their own form of economic triage.

I'm too stupid to understand this beyond "government taking back control, but too late".

AKuz said:
The militarization of society has also been a benefit to the Elysian branch of Amaranthine Youth League which has thrown itself behind what has been termed "Militarized Interstellarism" which demands that the Commonwealth prepare itself for a series of military campaigns that will cut a swatch of liberation through to the core itself.

I had a phase like that too as a tween. Then I stopped reading fantasy novels about how epic and important war was, and I got over it. Here's hoping the fucking baby boomers don't get numerous enough to actually vote us into a massive war that could have been avoided.

AKuz said:
The kids are what!? 1: Radiant appears to not be the only place dealing with Youth League troubles. Branches of the AYL have appeared not just in every Commonwealth system, but have even spread to Sheol.

Five Lions is currently in an uproar as the youth league has begun to push back against the Stakhanovism currently sweeping the planet. Not only are the youth of Five Lions less inclined to throw themselves into physical labour, but they mock the overzealous work ethic of their elders. This has escalated to clashes between Youth Guards and Party Militias from both radical and conservative political groups who have found themselves in an unholy alliance against a Youth League which views both of them as outdated relics of a bygone era.

The kids are what!? 2: Perhaps the most controversial and ideosyncratic Youth League is the one forming on Sheol, which has begun to question Sheol's universal draft. As one anonymous member put it:

"Amaranth has proven that one can have an effective military without a draft. With the primary limitation being spacecraft, this sort of mass mobilization doesn't make sense any longer. The Soldier's Councils are stuck fighting yesteryear's war."

This has generated outrage on Sheol, where the youths have been accused of being unpatriotic, cowardly and lazy, with a large minority of Soldier's Councils demanding penal units be raised from Youth League objectors.

This, predictably, has turned the brave members of the Shei Youth League into a cause celebre across Amaranthine Space YL's who respect the SYL's agency in rejecting ultra-militarism even as they push for the militarization of their own communities.

This is great, actually! You go kids!

AKuz said:
Ochiro The Great?: The events of the last few months seem only to have proven Ochiro right at least about his domestic ambitions, even if they've served as a sharp rebuke to his foreign policy. But even there, he's proven more adaptable than expected, and as such as it comes to the end of his first year in office, his approval rating is very high and he's begun to pivot towards even more ambitious goals on the domestic front with a new sort of non-electoral campaign: 'Independent but Connected' that seeks to build diplomatic, scientific, and economic ties with just about everyone without committing Osliam to any particular alliance. Therefore, despite his perceived flaws, he is wildly popular even among the Augmented population of Osliam… if much less so in that case than among the baseline population.

Once again, Ochiro proves that if you actually improve their lives, they'll like you. Now do the other cool stuff, Ochiro! You're surrounded by allies who will bully you into it!
And I sort of like how Ochiro really mirrors the "hoary leftist politician" my country has IRL - not great on social issues but surrounded by younger people who force him to be decent, does decently in elections, has a very unfortunate foreign policy but great domestic policy.

AKuz said:
The Great Turn: Olduvai continues to define the most radical edge of Compact politics, if only because the currently unstable former government of all humanity cannot afford the military and political cost of subjugating a full Sovereign Republic.

To this end Olduvai PM Izem Meziane has begun gathering support for "The Great Turn", a political push to set the entire Compact on the road to a very different place.

His proposal is 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 Meziane and his allies 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.

This new project has only increased his popularity at home as radicals appreciate his support and moderates admire his restraint in continuing to place his hopes in reform of a sort. Even if it's the most radical reform possible.

I love seeing how much the Overton window has changed

AKuz said:

Congressional Demographic Office Reports AIC Breaks 300 Million Threshold, Warns of Incoming "Baby Tsunami"

With the integration of Ascension, we officially predict that, as of January 1st, 2256 the population of the AIC will be 312,148,000 persons. In the last year, newborn children account for about 6.78 million of this growth, the remainder associated with the demographic integration of Ascension. The number of deaths last year fell to new record lows of 68,320, for a death rate of 21.9 per 100,000. This rate is expected to continue to fall with the ongoing expansion of the BIG, until it stabilises at around 11 per 100,000 around 2259.

Remy De Mercy, chief demographer, had warnings about the incoming strain to the teaching and childcare systems: "Our current projections estimate that by 2270 almost thirty percent of the entire population of the AIC will be eighteen or under. The post-revolution cohort is already here, and unless efforts are made to accommodate them starting now, we will be looking at severe societal disruption."

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You love to see immortality instantly be followed by a baby boom... Ugh. I predict annoying votes about this issue in a generation or two.

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Balmung1 · Sep 2, 2022

REACTIONPOST!

AKuz said:
…it was only with the entry into JDAP of a third group, the Columbian Concerned Citizens Coalition (C4) that the leading and vital JPP portion of JDAP maintained its supremacy, holding, between JPP and C4, 54% of all JDAP Parliamentary seats and 61% of all party leadership positions. Without the aid of Columbian patriots, Greene's IDP faction might well have taken over the party and twisted and distorted it. I for one…

Christ these people disgust me with their incompetence and shit economics

AKuz said:
TALES OF HORROR FROM THE JULY DAYS ON COSMOS -The Colonial Mirror

Cosmos is considered by many to be the leading light of the Frontiers. Clean, wealthy, orderly. The standard bearer of what our system is capable of in the right hands.

But this last July, urged on by the anarchist propaganda spewing from Radiant, the criminal class of that brilliant system attempted to destroy everything that their betters had spent over a century building into the shining jewel of the Coreward Frontier.

On July 15th, armed by the terroristic "Box-chan", hundreds of thousands of radical iconoclasts and savage criminals poured into the streets and skies of the habitats of the Cosmos system.

By July 24th the brave security forces of Cosmos, allied with physicial security contractors hired jointly by the Cosmos Colonial Republic and Rhodes, had put down the revolt.

But despite being a short lived insurrection, decisively put down, those 10 days in July produced horror stories the likes of which are unfamiliar to the Community of Humanity as the civilized world brush up against something dark, primal, and savage that lurks in the hearts of easily swayed men…

…They burst in. Said Ms. Zyrian, her voice trembles as she recalls it. "They dragged out my husband and shot him. Some of them even talked about making her 'pay for her own sins'. Thankfully, she was quickly rescued by the police and …

…By the time Nile Security physical security professionals had breached the compound all the captives had been executed before the remaining anarchists took their own lives with explosive charges…

…with the destruction of NSC Ramses II the shortlived Gibraltar Rebellion had ended, but left a devastating toll in its wake: over ten thousand civilians and loyalist six thousand security professionals were dead and the destruction of so many transport craft delayed the deployment of reinforcements to Malacca station, contributing to the hundreds of thousands who died on Cosmos' central habitat…

…While the terror of the July uprising has now passed, Cosmos now finds itself with a new crisis: trying to house and care for the several million insurrectionist prisoners and accomplices who participated in the uprising.

While most can be returned to society after performing community service with reconstruction efforts, the most hardcore anarchists may never be fit to return to a civil society, leaving the Colonial Republic divided about what to do next.

With capital and corporal punishments illegal under Cosmos' constitution, during normal times the expected process would be to transfer the hardcore elements to offworld detention facilities such as those in Drake, Samurai, or Shei.

However, with interstellar shipping disrupted, Cosmos now must wrestle with how to handle these criminals domestically, becoming the defining issue of post-July days…

I think the compact decided to do AZTEC FLOWER WARS:IN SPHESS and preempt any revolt to find actual anarchists and piin a few war crimes on them.

AKuz said:
INCOMING OK GOVERNMENT ISSUES HALT ORDER TO ARMED FORCES IN GOLDEN CIRCLE

The government of incoming Prime Minister Jason Nnamadi Okorie has issued a blanket order to not just the Compact's Armed Forces, but to all revolutionary groups as well.

"As the current crisis escalates, the mistakes of the recent past push us perilously towards an abyss of eternal violence. We call on all Humanity to reject violence and return to our natural state of peace and harmony. We believe that good faith negotiations will see all sides reject discord and back down from the brink."

Many observers believe that this declaration is aimed towards not just Trescore, which has recently declared independence, but also the newly formed Interstellar Prosperity Association which is shaping up to an increasingly intransigent sub-federal alignment of systems following the lead of the Epsilon Government which has increasingly flaunted Compact law in recent months.

As part of the halt order, the Okorie government has invited representatives from all systems currently rejecting Compact authority to Armstrong, where the Okorie's government will address their issues in a series of one on one talks aimed at reducing violence and calming secessionist sentiment.

They are basically just buying enough time to reload their guns and get on with the killing.Also WTF is happening in Atlantis

AKuz said:
Scheduled IRC Service Interruptions in the Far Trailing starting from December 1st 2256

Honestly they should hav done this months ago

AKuz said:
On our moral duty to the diseased children - Messenger Drake, Editorial

Of all the evils of the artificial, perhaps the most sinister to me is what they do to children. It is my belief that no child is born evil, or should be, but, through genetic manipulation the augments have chosen otherwise. They have chosen to mutate their children with them, forcing them to grow with the same disease that infests themselves. It is child abuse, plain and simple, but until now we could do nothing about it.

Now, however, we are no longer bound by that horrific helplessness. Recently a new light has appeared, from the same ironic source as the old one. The Radiant anarchists have sent a second broadcast containing all of Cernunno's prints, and, in the instructions of the enemy, we may ourselves have gained the capability to save humanity. For just as they may augment others, so too can we return them to a natural Human state of being.

I do not ask that we do so for the adults, even if their bodies were saved, augment culture infects their souls. Let them flee like the rats they are. Drake must be purified. But we must not let them steal the children to a life of degeneracy. We must seize them, and cure each one of their infections.

I do not take political sides. Some favour individual solutions, such as adoption of them into proper human families to help purge the last traces of the augment. Some will favour government solutions, teaching institutions and schools. In this I think we should pursue both options, to deal with the massive numbers. But I beg of you all, let us work together to save the children. It is our moral duty.

I want to burn Drake.Thisis not a society it is a disease of hatred and death.The cure is simple-slaughter their armies,kill their idealogues and topple their buildings.The Compact made a mistake when hoarding it's power.Thee people cannot be controlled.A leftist can be easily convinced to fight other leftists and banishing them just makes them shitpost harder but Drake is a disease.You cannot control it or harvest it only kill it and scatter it's ashes to the winds.

AKuz said:
Hermes-Ishtar Bailout Package Finalized--Frontier Journal of Economics

…facing bankruptcy, Hermes-Ishtar has determined that the only way to obtain a government bailout was through careful leveraging of their assets. JN Okay's new government faces considerable pressures, but has still agreed to provide the capital needed to prevent immediate bankruptcy.

But this aid has not come without a cost. Hermes-Ishtar has had to turn over all of its assets in K-C and several other local areas to either the Compact government or the local government, with Atlantis being a case of mixed-use. Furthermore, in order to raise funds to keep bankruptcy from simply occurring in the next few months, most local operations have been spun out as independent, owned by the executives who had ran it as newly and fully separate concerns.

This has left two different bodies. First, Mercury-Manat, the new Public-Private Corporation that now controls most of the news agencies and entertainment venues formerly under H-I in KC, Atlantis, and several other systems. It is likely MM will struggle to enforce their rights in Olduvai and Epsilon, and this has left HI with the technical rights to some of the long-gone businesses on Penglai.

But what the rump HI has left to it is a very limited inventory of investments. First, Hermes-Ishtar's possessions in the territory overseen by the Spinward Frontier Regional Emergency Administration have been left entirely untouched. Second, HI retains the Isekai system, which at the moment remains a very solid investment.

Third, the fallen Charter retains their full IP catalogue and back-issues as currently registered and stored on Chronicle station in the Isekai system. Analysts speculate that, even at a firesale, these assets could allow Hermes-Ishtar to run a solid profit for the next year, if not a sustainable one.

Last, and certainly least, HI has not yet found a buyer for their amusement facilities in Sol, though talks are ongoing about the "devolution" of power to the King of the United Kingdom in exchange for a much-needed one time cash-infusion.

Calls to strip Hermes-Ishtar entirely of their Charter status have received pushed back, as have calls to investigate Omoikane, whose financial situation seems even worse than that of beleaguered Hermes-Ishtar…

From a purely economics and political perspective this is too little to late.I would've shattered HI into a million warring pieces that would've improved the market through their slaughter like how khorne gets stronger through anyones blood.The pieces are falling and it's only a matter of time till "executives" and "admirals" turns to warlord.

AKuz said:
Creeping Government Overreach--The Evening Journal

Yes, Mercury-Manat is not fully a government-owned corporation, and yes JN Okay has "promised" not to use it as a partisan tool of governmental power. But Silvia Greene is in his party too, and the likes of Roderick and the PHRL might one day use it as a powerful and insidious tool of state control.

As an Individualist, one must stand against all expansions of governmental power, even by people you like…

That's the government's job.To help people and make sure corporations don't do something stupid and acually contribute.If it weren't for payoffs and economic skullfuckery HI wouldn't last into the modern day.

AKuz said:
Inside the Ares Strategy to 'Maintain Order'--Atlantis Courier in Exile

…to understand why Humanist sentiment on Columbia has been exploding in currency, one needs to understand the demographics of the security contractors that Ares is bringing in. While not all have been Augmented, they are disproportionately so, for a simple reason. In our interview with Allana Rio, a security contractor involved in an alleged incident of harassment and the murder of a suspect, she said, rather candidly, "You talk about sympathy? What sympathy? Cletus-Bob and his common-law Columbian Sister-Wife may come from a poor background, but galactic yokels like that are just one bad day from handing out ARs to their kids and hunting Augments for sport. Guilty? Fuck no, I'm not guilty, even if I did do anything wrong. Which I didn't."

This crop of Augmented security officers recruited en masse by Ares have essentially every reason to hate and distrust the Columbian population, and this serves as a feedback loop. The Augment population cannot survive the collapse of the Ares regime at the hands of Humanist revolutionaries, but by serving as enforcers of the Ares government they isolate themselves from any possible alliance with the proletarian forces of the galaxy.

Ares has created a perfect radicalization and control tool, one which has darkened the horizon for the vast majority of Augments while improving conditions for a small number of those willing to work with the new government, who then owe everything to Ares.

This insidious practice…

Honestly that entire area should just be orbitally bombarded with a few exorcisms added in.Anarchists are one thing,racists are another and racist leftists need to be chucked into a vat of phosphex.

AKuz said:
Transport Ships Bought Up?--ConspiracyWire Columbia

…while suddenly bought up by different groups, hundreds of transports are being bought, and the groups they're under seem to be fictitious, and many of the details involved seem to be simply mirrored from one entry to the other. It seems obvious what is being planned! The government of Columbia, under the rule of Ares, is going to deport all non-Augments onto these transport ships and fire them into the sun, thus destroying the last support structures that maintain civilization against the Historical Masters of Augments, AGIs, and other anti-Human groups.

In the name of these Bankers, Columbia is planning a genocide…

Columbia Betrays Promise!--#ColumbiaNewsLine

…nearly 1/3rd of all donations have instead gone, rather than to the shipyard production, towards paying down certain sovereign and private debts of Ares. This is just the latest in a series of actions that have outraged patriotic citizens whose hatred of Anarchism is far greater than that of the corrupt authorities and corporate types that are already naturally susceptible to anarchistic-leanings thanks to their Cosmopolitan ties.

For more on the betrayal of Humanity, see…

-
Should I Ever…

We spend billions every year on guns and ammunition, and even more this year. And what happens? The rich pocket it, while disrespecting every old tradition and every new one. Why should we fight and die to conquer Penglai? Let us say it is a mistake, that they are dooming themselves to anarchist terror? Why should the people of Columbia die by the thousands or tens of thousands, why should millions now suffer hunger and want? Why should the police stations be full and the murder rate have doubled in a matter of months?

What is worth this? Certainly not anything that common person will see from Penglai? No, we should not invade Penglai and we should not be spending so much on our army and navy just to keep them in "good condition" for a war of extermination and genocide.

What good is any of this? What worth do we get from it? Our wages are going down, our rent is going up, hunger and poverty stalk Columbia after mere months of Ares rule? And for what? Why?

So that the fatcats can get fatter? Do not stand for it! Do not accept it!

Join your local Caulderist branch today, but do not be fooled by Humanist appeals, or wishy-washy rhetoric. God is with the whole of the righteous, the workers who toil and suffer in poverty while the rich preach that only wealth can allow access to heaven.

Ah good ole merican stupidity how I missed you(spits).First some conspiracy theorist who if he reversed who's chucking who into the sun and it sounds like a perfectly columbian thing to force march augments into cramped transports and chuck them into the sun.I know most people complain about the whole american imperialism thing but honestly american isolationists are dicks.

AKuz said:
Get into the Trenchcoat:

"In the interest of protecting the property, livelihoods, and persons of the inhabitants of the systems of Cleiuto, Rallypoint, and Xanadu, local commercial leaders and community organizers have banded together for common defence against contagious disorder."

Or so says the propaganda. In any event, backed by the Solarian Central Bank, the meritocrats of several systems of the Coreward Frontier have followed in the wake of the SFREA. As far as we can figure it's a Cern, Omoi-remnant, and MSI emergency dictatorship in a funny hat, with the MSI-IPA switch allowing the less powerful MSI execs to serve as kingmakers between the other two.

Sadly we don't have a lot of details on this new formation, other than to say that their flag sucks and probably is being painted on one to two battlegroups as we speak.

[Formation of the United Prosperity Council of the Coreward Region]

The Hell flag exists.God hates us

AKuz said:
The kids are what!? 1: Radiant appears to not be the only place dealing with Youth League troubles. Branches of the AYL have appeared not just in every Commonwealth system, but have even spread to Sheol.

Five Lions is currently in an uproar as the youth league has begun to push back against the Stakhanovism currently sweeping the planet. Not only are the youth of Five Lions less inclined to throw themselves into physical labour, but they mock the overzealous work ethic of their elders. This has escalated to clashes between Youth Guards and Party Militias from both radical and conservative political groups who have found themselves in an unholy alliance against a Youth League which views both of them as outdated relics of a bygone era.

I don't like stuff like this.My grandparents worked long hours in fields as immigrant laborers to give my parents the chance to have a better life,if they didn't do that than I would ever be able to live in a nice suburban town and be in school.My parents worked hard to just get into college and provide for me and my siblings.I would never insult someone for working to hard and calling them relics when their labor allowed me to have such quality of life.

neutronium95 · Sep 2, 2022

So Athene is the system with Alexander. I guess we know what their hidden starting bonus was now.

From the report, I'm fairly confident that some cities did get nuked, but I think that there's a good chance it wasn't done by the revolutionaries.

TheArcanist · Sep 2, 2022

The Laurent said:
At the moment the alternative is literally doing nothing as millions are killed, in SolNav's view. Imagine if America had taken in all those Jewish refugees, and even more, even if they'd had to leave literally all of their wealth and homes and everything behind? Instead of, as they did, turning them away and leaving them to die.

It's moments like that and situations like that that SolNav is thinking about.

Except that's not what they're doing, they're literally formally handing over the homes and property of augment refugees for the specific purpose of getting the conflict to end. They are abdicating their duty to defend people that are literally being genocided.

Oh, and it doesn't help that OK's government is ordering them to do it. That's cool.

MrRageQuit · Sep 2, 2022

Hot co co said:
So besides havinga baby BOOOOMMM, I did not get much from that news, can I get a sorta break down on what has happened and how it effects us?

Fragmentation is ongoing across the galaxy. The Compact is offering a non-aggression deal to us, though we don't know how reliable it is. We may have left off looking into Akleod too late and it's gone IPA, along with whatever Mama Zhang has hidden in that chain. HI, what's left of it, is going to cut us out of the relays starting December 1st, so we'll have to launch our 3rd and final Broadcast ASAP. And Trescore is sending us a diplomatic envoy, which sounds promising.

For the record, I think we should say yes to JN Okay's deal. Questionable in reliability yes, but we weren't planning on moving out of Thoa/Besteer anyway, and between political fighting and Tobby's pending coup, it'll ensure we don't have any attacks for a bit, giving us more time to reinforce our military, continue pushing our tech, etc. And it says nothing about Akleod and co, if come down to it, we need to do something about there.

That said, we should start with diplomats/spies before warships.

The Laurent · Sep 2, 2022

Balmung1 said:
I don't like stuff like this.My grandparents worked long hours in fields as immigrant laborers to give my parents the chance to have a better life,if they didn't do that than I would ever be able to live in a nice suburban town and be in school.My parents worked hard to just get into college and provide for me and my siblings.I would never insult someone for working to hard and calling them relics when their labor allowed me to have such quality of life.

But does it? Like, they're reacting to a culture of overwork that goes, "You should work double overtime in order to prove your dedication to the revolution."

What about that ensures their quality of life? Or anyone's, for that matter.

TheArcanist said:
Except that's not what they're doing, they're literally formally handing over the homes and property of augment refugees for the specific purpose of getting the conflict to end. They are abdicating their duty to defend people that are literally being genocided.

Oh, and it doesn't help that OK's government is ordering them to do it. That's cool.

This is sorta true, but in the position they're in the actual alternative they feel they have access to is, "Let millions of people die, and then their property gets formally seized anyways."

This is a really shitty situation and a lot of them are really angry at both their government and at the AIC.

Burned_Cookie · Sep 2, 2022

AKuz said:
This has generated outrage on Sheol, where the youths have been accused of being unpatriotic, cowardly and lazy, with a large minority of Soldier's Councils demanding penal units be raised from Youth League objectors.

Yikes. Sheol continues to be unpleasent.

Anyone got any ideas how to help with that? Cause I'm getting increasingly uncomfortable with their hyper military state, even assuming they don't oppress [insert any group of people here] as militaries and military tend to.

TheArcanist · Sep 2, 2022

The Laurent said:
But does it? Like, they're reacting to a culture of overwork that goes, "You should work double overtime in order to prove your dedication to the revolution."

What about that ensures their quality of life? Or anyone's, for that matter.

This is sorta true, but in the position they're in the actual alternative they feel they have access to is, "Let millions of people die, and then their property gets formally seized anyways."

I shall now quote the ineffable Tyrannocleave, propagandist de jure of the Free Sanjak Commune in LANCER:

Tyrannocleave said:
The homes you left empty for real estate speculators and investors and developers are filled now, and mothers cook good meals in them. Their walls echo with laughter and song. The mines are closed – we make for use, and have no use for them.

This is the final blow we have dealt you, Lords and Kings and Barons: we broke your machines and your mines and threw off your fetters and then went for a walk, had a coffee, shared a cigarette with a friend, and then went for a nap. And the world didn't end!

Now I am going to go and watch the rain for a little while.

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

Been Better

Subversive Element

Team Plasma Grunt

Very tired girl.

Been Better

ARTICLES​

[#Opinion Column] Inner-Party Balance Threatened--New Washington Orbital

TALES OF HORROR FROM THE JULY DAYS ON COSMOS -The Colonial Mirror

NEW SECURITY MEASURES ENACTED ON ATLANTIS TO COMBAT ANTISOCIAL BEHAVIOUR

INCOMING OK GOVERNMENT ISSUES HALT ORDER TO ARMED FORCES IN GOLDEN CIRCLE

Scheduled IRC Service Interruptions in the Far Trailing starting from December 1st 2255

On our moral duty to the diseased children - Messenger Drake, Editorial

Hermes-Ishtar Bailout Package Finalized--Frontier Journal of Economics

Creeping Government Overreach--The Evening Journal

Deaths from Athene Riots dwarf those attributable to the Radiant Broadcast in the Daughters -Atlantis Interstellar Courier Dispatch

Inside the Ares Strategy to 'Maintain Order'--Atlantis Courier in Exile

Transport Ships Bought Up?--ConspiracyWire Columbia

Columbia Betrays Promise!--#ColumbiaNewsLine

Should I Ever…

REPORTS

New Government Reaches out through back channels

Cerberus relieved of command

9th Fleet, 1st Battlegroup Redeployed away from Drake

Akleod Joines IPA, Spontaneously Generates Self Defence Force

The Bankers' Play:

Get into the Trenchcoat:

COREWARD TRIAGE COMMAND:

TRAILING TRIAGE COMMAND:

SPINWARD TRIAGE COMMAND:

The Defenders of Humanity:

RUMOURS

Congressional Demographic Office Reports AIC Breaks 300 Million Threshold, Warns of Incoming "Baby Tsunami"

On our moral duty to the diseased children - Messenger Drake, Editorial

Maliciously Incompetent

TALES OF HORROR FROM THE JULY DAYS ON COSMOS -The Colonial Mirror

INCOMING OK GOVERNMENT ISSUES HALT ORDER TO ARMED FORCES IN GOLDEN CIRCLE

Scheduled IRC Service Interruptions in the Far Trailing starting from December 1st 2256

On our moral duty to the diseased children - Messenger Drake, Editorial

Inside the Ares Strategy to 'Maintain Order'--Atlantis Courier in Exile

Cerberus relieved of command

Akleod Joines IPA, Spontaneously Generates Self Defence Force

Congressional Demographic Office Reports AIC Breaks 300 Million Threshold, Warns of Incoming "Baby Tsunami"

TALES OF HORROR FROM THE JULY DAYS ON COSMOS -The Colonial Mirror

INCOMING OK GOVERNMENT ISSUES HALT ORDER TO ARMED FORCES IN GOLDEN CIRCLE

On our moral duty to the diseased children - Messenger Drake, Editorial

Hermes-Ishtar Bailout Package Finalized--Frontier Journal of Economics

Creeping Government Overreach--The Evening Journal

Inside the Ares Strategy to 'Maintain Order'--Atlantis Courier in Exile

Transport Ships Bought Up?--ConspiracyWire Columbia

Columbia Betrays Promise!--#ColumbiaNewsLine

Should I Ever…

Get into the Trenchcoat:

Mad Rocketeer

Very tired girl.

ARTICLES