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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Setsul · Dec 23, 2022

HeroCooky said:
To be honest, all this AI talk and time-travel and torturing infinite simulations and whatever is hurting my brain something fierce right now.

Why can't we go back to simping for the catgirl?

A truly benevolent AI would obviously be simulating infinite catgirls!

Do you think ARIA has ever simulated what it feels like to pet a cat?

Derpmind · Dec 23, 2022

clockworkchaos said:
Radiant--Four Hours Before Broadcast

"If we're wrong here, if all of us together have managed to get to the exact wrong answer, we're all going to die," Paris said, voice entirely matter of fact.

It was a small restaurant that served seafood of every variety, and there was a pile of clams in front of the two to prove that at least someone liked the taste of them. He was not always the biggest fan of seafood, but he was also aware that anything he ate would have tasted a little odd on a day like this.

He represented the All-Radiant Chef's Union in the ARC, and was a tall, broad-shouldered man who was considering perhaps getting a few Augments. He wasn't sure, and this indecision had also marked his ordering pattern. He also was the Speaker of the ARC for the month, which meant that by sheer luck (good or bad, you decide) he was going to be the one who was going to announce the Broadcast to Radiant. Of course, they were only going to announce it as it dropped, so everyone could just... see it. But it was imperative that those in the know actually tell people about this. What it means, what it doesn't mean. Why they should rejoice, and when and how this was planned.

"Yes, but then we won't be around to regret it, will we?" Tasha said. She was a short, pale woman with piercing eyes, and they were on and off lovers. She was in the AIC Congress, and prominent as far as these things went.

(He sometimes missed the camaraderie of what he must imagine some legislatures feel like. There's no time to always get to know most people. If you make a friend of a delegate the odds are that in a few months they'll be gone, either to another body (there are so many bodies) or switched out. There are a few long-runners of course, people who have been delegates for three or four years, but even he was just two years into being a delegate, and he was thinking about moving on.

No doubt that's what everyone else did. Move on, eventually: it wasn't bad, it was even part of the point that power couldn't just concentrate in any one place. Sometimes it did mean a little struggle for institutional knowledge... but they kept very good records and the turnover was never so great that everyone was inexperienced. There was no set election time--just maximums for how long someone could sit around without at least checking in on their support--and so 'elections' happened on an almost-random schedule so that there was no such thing as "preparing for the next election."

No parties, either.)

"There's nothing we can do, and we'll be having plenty of new colleagues soon," Tasha declared knowingly. "They won't like that we kept a secret like that. They'll understand why we did, but I bet my own council will want to trade me out."

"It was necessary, we could hardly spoil the surprise," Paris pointed out, reaching for the last shellfish. Yes, it was the last one, but if he was going to be giving one of the key speeches of his life he could afford to be a little shellfish first.

"You say that as if they won't know: but at the same time it's a lot to ask, that we keep all these secrets and make sure not to tell anyone. Trust isn't a coin because then I'd have to throw myself in prison for counter-revolutionary capitalism, but it is a thing you can use up. And once you do, you just leave. There will always be more," Tasha declared. "You know that, right?"

"I guess you're right. It's... what's the thing that the ancient General says? The card is played? I never got that quote, were trading card games popular among generals? Was there some sort of military trading card game?"

"I think it's the die is cast," Tasha said doubtfully, already reaching out to pull up the data and look. "Like when you're gambling."

"... you know, that makes a lot more sense." He flushed, looking around the crowded room. "I just never thought about it, I guess. The die is cast... huh. Oh, I need to change my speech then."

"What, you were trying out a line from your speech?" Tasha asked.

He tried not to show any shame, "Yeah, and that new card game that spread via the ARIA network is kind of good. A bit finicky, but hey. So my mind was already on cards when I was thinking of that quote."

"Really, it's good? I've heard it's kinda convoluted."

We who might be signing our own death warrant and can't take it back, let us talk about card games and eat shellfish, he thought.

Not quite the gravitas of the Gladiator remake (the good one in 2193 that was almost a commentary on the corruption of the system, not the bad one in 2243), but it'd have to do.

Was re-reading a bit, and I had inspiration. Inspiration for a dumb meme. ~~Then I went back to quote this and realized it doesn't specify what kind of chef Paris is but w/e.~~

clockworkchaos · Dec 23, 2022

Derpmind said:
Was re-reading a bit, and I had inspiration. Inspiration for a dumb meme. ~~Then I went back to quote this and realized it doesn't specify what kind of chef Paris is but w/e.~~

Needs more grills.

Symphony Grill
Asgard Grill
Earth Grill

DocSpooky · Dec 23, 2022

clockworkchaos said:
Needs more grills.

Symphony Grill
Asgard Grill
Earth Grill

Asgard Grill is clearly just a normal "I just want to grill for God's sake!" but with sunglasses and an American flag pin on the shirt.

Arjac · Dec 23, 2022

DemFed Grill: Largely the same as Amaranth Grill
Rest of Earth Grill: Nuclear Fallout is bad for The Meat.

Edit: Alt for Non-revolutionary Earth: I just want to grill, but I can't grill next to a housefire.

Setsul · Dec 23, 2022

SolNav Grill: "Our grill needs to be larger than all other grills combined!" (it is only roughly twice as large as a normal grill)
Barbecue Hegemony.

clockworkchaos · Dec 23, 2022

Mr BreaksIt said:
Asgard Grill is clearly just a normal "I just want to grill for God's sake!" but with sunglasses and an American flag pin on the shirt.

That's... really not Asgard. They don't do any sort of American flag, are you thinking Columbia?

DracoDracul · Dec 23, 2022

clockworkchaos said:
That's... really not Asgard. They don't do any sort of American flag, are you thinking Columbia?

My understanding it would be more looking at Amaranth's grilling with a thousand yard stare, traumatized by the failure of the great barbecue of `87.

clockworkchaos · Dec 23, 2022

DracoDracul said:
My understanding it would be more looking at Amaranth's grilling with a thousand yard stare, traumatized by the failure of the great barbecue of `87.

Pretty much.
Earth grill is horrified that Symphony grill is doing burgers and hot dogs and considering it bbq.
Symphony grill is crying person assuring themselves it's fine.

Genderite · Dec 23, 2022

And then there's Drake grill...

TheInnerMoon · Dec 24, 2022

Burning Capital: Adamist Thought Into The 23rd Century

Part 3: The Menagerie

Now That's What I Call Theory: The Central Concepts of Adamist Thought

A Succinct Orientation Brought To You By ARRC-Hive, The Revolutionary Encyclopedia

Ideonomy: As one of her most original contributions to socialist scholarship, Adams' concept of ideonomy is also one of the most misunderstood. If you asked your average Adamist, they'd tell you that it roughly means that 'fabricators make communism possible'. This is entirely false. Even the more nuanced notion that 'fabricators make communism inevitable' is far from accurate.

For starters, any discussion of ideonomy should center on the capitalist mode of production, as this is what Adams analyzed. In this context, her observation was that the increased use of direct fabrication technology—along with a broader drive towards full automation—was eliminating the 'socially necessary labor time' which defined Marxist conceptions of value. As such, the nature of both capital and commodity grows to be increasingly imaginary, composed of arbitrary price determinations rather than any underlying material necessity. What's more, this developmental tendency also encourages the harsher enforcement of intellectual property laws, as these become the last means of maintaining scarcity. Overall, the material motive behind Capital disappears, replaced by an endless reproduction of sterile novelties. The ideonomic stage is thus realized.

It should be noted here that Adams never claimed that the advent of ideonomy would be instant. She saw it as a gradual transformation, one which would take many decades if not centuries. Within her own lifetime, she signaled its progression through such examples as the death of open source software, as well as illegalization of fan works. We ourselves may recognize it in the farcical preservation of fabber designs, or else the constant stream of 'inventions' which are nothing more than slight redesigns. While private property presents itself as the root of progress, it is really its greatest enemy.

Finally, to deal with that initial misconception, it is not the case that the age of ideonomy holds no relation to the advent of communism. While Adams always maintained that 'communism is accessible at every moment', a matter of social configuration rather than technological development, she also saw that fabbers would make it easier to realize than ever before. Indeed, judging by the technology alone, a post-scarcity setup is actually far simpler than the cosmoliberal IP regime, which requires constant coercion to survive. This is arguably why ideonomy must 'inevitably' make way for communism, though Adams warned that this progression would not happen overnight. One wonders if the Broadcast might not have proven her wrong in that regard. We like to think she would approve of it.

Dual Accounting: Dual Accounting derived from Adams' frustration with the state of mid-21st century economics. As it was, the field was very much bifurcated: either you measured by Capital's own metrics, becoming its stooge in the process, or else you hypothesized about alternative modes of production without much in the way of empirical analysis. What Adams proposed was a formalization of this distinction among radical scholars. Some would study capitalism within its own epistemological confines, focusing purely on its internal fragility rather than any hope of reformation. Meanwhile, others would set out an ecological model of the world economy from first principles, thereby discovering those major ruptures that would be ripe for communistic organizing. In this manner, one could study the domains of Capital and Ecology along their separate paths of development; after all, the advent of ideonomy meant that their correlation was perpetually decreasing. The moment for revolution would be that point at which both capital and ecological crisis were at a conjuncture. Here, the forces of necessity would be strongest, and the material analysis of the Second Account could fully supplant the imaginary nature of the First.

In this context, it is worth noting that many contemporary Adamist organizations still maintain their own Dual Accounting Office. In the Amaranthine case, the ARRC-DAO is presently working hard to calculate the rough economic impact of our Great Communication, including a heated debate over whether the First Account has been made entirely obsolete.

End-Stage Trialectic: If there is one insight to take away from Adams' work, it would be the End-Stage Trialectic. Its structure stands at the core of everything that makes Adamism unique, and it continues to inform the practices of real revolutionary organizations. In truth though, it is nothing more than the observation that capitalism affects different areas of the galaxy differently, and that our praxis should be adapted to each of these domains. As the term implies, this division is roughly threefold, with various analogies used to explain their interrelation. One of the most useful metaphors has been that of a burning fire. Imagine Capital as a great inferno, ever hungry for more fuel (raw materials, ideas, etc.) and the oxygen necessary to burn it (labor power). Amidst the blaze, three distinct forms of fuel may be discerned. The first is simple lumber, analogous to the frontier of capitalist colonialism. While it is capable of fueling the fire, it doesn't burn as effectively as when it has been processed into proper tinder, which describes the state of Capital at its industrial centers. Still, both of these forms are more useful than mere cinders, which are those places which Capital has already burned through (like Sol). While some fuel may still be found here, that's usually more trouble than simply finding more trees to cut down. And so the galaxy burns.

Beyond this partitioned analysis of Cosmoliberal Capitalism, Adams also offered specific practical advice for each phase of accumulation. On the frontier, it is vital that no industry is fully automated. The seeding of a proletarian element maintains the possibility for sabotage, and prevents the bourgeoisie from carving out an exclusive domain. To make up for the social stresses that a working class inevitably endures, Adams also recommends the creation of peripheral hideouts, places where runaway workers might find respite and autonomy.

Meanwhile, at the center of capital accumulation in the First Colonies, a more classically socialist strategy is needed. Robust union structures combine with municipal council takeovers to produce a strong basis for working class agitation. If regular strike waves don't cut it, the slower death of stochastic sabotage will. The goal is to destroy any sense of capitalist security, whether by its own metrics or the actual throughput of goods and services.

Finally, the exhausted core that is Sol must become an albatross around the neck of Capital. Every hint of recovery must be snuffed out instantly, while the costs of its maintenance must be ever increasing. Whatever entitlement the people of Earth yet possess must be defended with vigor, and mutual aid networks should flourish where the state falls short. Most of all, the remaining institutions of galactic governance should come under constant assault, with an unrelenting call for the authorities to 'quit Sol'. The memory of many Earth-based anti-colonial struggles can be of great use here.

Taken together, the End-Stage Trialectic has been a vital lens through which to study the cosmoliberal system, a structure which hasn't fundamentally changed since Adams first wrote about it. The sectional specifics might change, but their overall interactions remain the same. At least, such is the consensus among Adamists. What remains in dispute, even within Adamist circles, is how we should respond to the Trialectic. Should we lean into its worst tendencies, hoping that this will eventually collapse the capitalist order? Or should we prioritize our own alternative structures, regardless of the larger state of play? These are important questions, and the advice of Adams does not fully answer them. Still, the larger consideration which spawned her concept, that different conditions demand different actions, remains as important as ever.

DeCom: DeCom is one of the trickier tools in the Adamist repertoire, if only because Adams herself kept redefining its specifics throughout her career. Even the term itself has changed its meaning many times over: from DeComposition to DeCommissioning, from Degrowth Communism to Deliberative Communization, from Destitutive Compromising to Demonstrative Communication. More a slogan than a coherent concept, DeCom stands in for the general process of establishing communism, akin to the 'communizing' tendencies that were popular in her youth. As such, it roughly combines the prefiguration of communist social norms with the progressive abolition of state power, mostly by making it obsolete through alternative modes of governance. The role of the state in this process, if there is to be one, is merely as a locus for self-sabotage and popular empowerment. The Adamist party is to push through an immediate revocation of all private property law, along with the short-term implementation of a universal basic income to survive the transition to moneylessness. With that resolved, the state is to simply dissolve itself and hand out its arsenal to relevant popular militias. Naturally, actual Adamist uprisings have somewhat diverged from this specific program, and Adams never meant it as anything but a contextual example. DeCom is ultimately more of a vibe; in this author's opinion, the AIC has embodied that vibe quite well.

Shadow Formation: The Shadow Formation is a concept which emerged relatively late in Adams' work, when she was forced to reckon with the deficiencies of the party form. Previously, she had vacillated between anarchist and left-communist positions, seeing the value of party-based work while also wanting it to be thoroughly democratized. Of course, she also realized that electoral participation tended to erode the foundations of any socialist cause, limiting their imagination and spawning a distinct political class. Her solution, which she admitted was itself a compromise, was to create a 'seed of originality' within Adamist organizations.

Similar to the notion of dual accounting, or the concept of 'dual power' which pre-existed Adams, the party itself would know two distinct formations. On one side there'd be the usual bourgeois rat-race of electoralism, where all its dirty tricks and sacrifices would be licensed. If the corruption of communist representatives was inevitable, why try to stop it? On the other side, however, was the Shadow Formation, an expression of actual self-governance with a powerful veto over the party as a whole. Basically, a system of federated direct democracy would create a 'Shadow Council' of instantly recallable delegates, who themselves would staff various 'Shadow Ministries' to handle more specific areas. The general goal of the Shadow Council was to perform the Adamist duties of DeCom and Dual Accounting, managing the parallel infrastructure of the coming communist society. However, they were also tasked with evaluating the performance of their counterparts in the main party structure; if they were found to be sufficiently traitorous to the revolutionary cause, they could be expelled from the party on an individual or collective basis. Specific Shadow Delegates would replace those excommunicated, and they in turn would then be evaluated by their erstwhile comrades. The idea was to make the Shadow Formation into an internal pressure group, one which would only seize conventional power under exceptional circumstances, and in a way which would be open to continuous critique.

Across the broad history of Adamist organization, the legacy of the Shadow Formation has been decidedly mixed. While it has kept many movements 'on-target', it has also undergone its own process of degradation. In parties like the RCCP, the Shadow Council is nothing more than an anemic think tank, content to occasionally protest without much in the way of an alternative. Even in those few instances where Adamist Shadow Councils have made use of their veto, actually replacing party officials or elected representatives has proven trickier than expected. Either the relevant members set up a separate organization like the filthy splitters they are, or else the by-election to replace them in parliament ends up going to another party. Those times where the Shadow Formation has worked as intended are exceedingly rare, and mostly concern the kinds of revolutionary upheavals which any form of dual power could succeed at. As the Anarchist-Adamists argue, why even bother with a party at all?

Red Council: On that note, let us end with one of the more peripheral elements of Adamist doctrine. While the notion of a 'Red Council' is now indelibly associated with Adamism in the eyes of the Compact, it's unclear whether Adams herself ever intended its formation. Most of its theoretical grounding derives from a few offhand remarks in In The Belly of the Beast, where she notes that most successful revolutionary causes possessed their own terrorist wing. From Russia's Socialist Revolutionaries to the DemFed's cicada units, it seems you need to make the ruling class fear you before they're willing to respect you.

After Adams' initial disappearance, this observation was put into practice with the foundation of the first Red Council in 2116. Back then, it served as a deniable asset to the Shadow Council of Epsilon's Spacer-Worker Front, mostly working to 'refurbish' the homes and faces of local charter executives. Over time, as the tactic spread to other Adamist orgs, their MO also shifted to be more violent in certain contexts. On Sol in particular, your average Red Council now acts more like an amateur successor to the DemFed stay-behind units. Of course, the more fanatical a Red Council gets, the more their associated party seeks to distance themselves from it. Regardless of these superficial denunciations, however, the 'People of the Red' stand ever ready to serve the masses and their delegates. They only need to say the word.

The Adams Family: Mainstream and Heterodox Adamist Currents

A Slightly Biased Overview By The Fine Folks At ARRC-Hive, The Revolutionary Encyclopedia

Cosmocommunism: This is the term which Adams used to describe her own ideology in later works, as she turned her analytical aim towards the stars. Using it is rather pointless, as all it tells your interlocutor is that you're a rather boring Adamist.

Classical New Line Maoism: Now this is a classic! Though technically predating Adamism proper, the appeal to New Line Maoism is intimately connected to a nostalgia for the revolutionary wave of the late 2020s to early 2040s, the period which also birthed the Democratic Federation. At its start, New Line Maoism was a specifically Chinese movement, collating several ecological and anti-capitalist trends into a locally relevant whole. When its main ideologues were chased out of the country during the Ultra-Dengist Turn, they ended up in Pacific City, liaising with the young Adams as they refined their theories. Add two centuries of history, and 'Classical New Line Maoism' now mostly exists as a traditional curiosity in East Asia and the Americas. Its popular aesthetics have long since subsumed its political content, and its symbolism may be recognized in such diverse forms as a Japanese clothing line, a Pacifican poetry school, and an Indonesian fast food chain.

Ordocommunism: Ugh, these guys. Total cosmoliberal lackeys. Basically, an ordocommunist is someone who's completely forgotten the anti-growthist core of Adamism, and now believes that post-scarcity can somehow be achieved through capitalist metrics of prosperity. They're the kind of folks who even Dengists will call sell-outs. Unfortunately, they're also the prime tendency in most mainstream Adamist parties, such as the RCCP (MLA). That's partly because they've cut their Shadow Formations down to almost nothing, but also because the forces of electoral compromise are simply too strong. Parliamentarism: not even once.

Anarchism-Adamism: Anarchists have always prided themselves on their ability to combine the best facets of other leftist ideologies; their treatment of Adamist thought has been no different. To be fair, Adamists herself always tried to make her ideas amenable to anarchist reinterpretation, and her defense became increasingly unconvincing as time went on. To summarize the Anarchist-Adamist position as such, it is best described as "all Shadow Formation, all the time". Instead of bothering with electoral politics, the idea is to dive headlong towards communism, using the relative lack of central coordination as a benefit to opsec. If nobody knows how many initiatives there are, then they can't be crushed all at once! It is thanks to this diversity that Anarchist-Adamist movements maintain a stubborn influence in many working class neighborhoods, often feuding with the local Adamist parties over who's the real "counter-revolutionary opportunist" or "economistic lifestylist". The more things change…

Luxury Humanism: Probably the worst ideology to ever try to associate itself with Adamism. If she wasn't busy hiding (or being dead), we're sure that Adams herself would loudly denounce them as the fascists they are. Still, to give some indication of what they purport to believe: Luxury Humanists are 23rd-century nazbols, intent on creating a classless but by no means raceless society. 'Human Purity' is to be safeguarded through species-based solidarity, the communism of the deserving working to unite Humanity against the degenerates. It's your standard Strasserist nonsense, just seasoned with some Adamist terminology. If you see them, punch them.

Spacer-Workerism: More a social phenomenon than an explicit tendency, Spacer-Workerism describes the organic expressions of the space-based working class. While they take much inspiration from Adams, and tend to treat the Prehistory as gospel, these people do not wish to attach themselves to a rigid party line. Their stochastic forms of collective action have little need for a formal Shadow Formation, though many of them are members of a Red Council. In general, you can expect these folks to be involved in various labor movements, terror cells, and underground economies. They pride themselves on their illegibility to the Compact; unfortunately, this has also made them more difficult to analyze to us radical scholars. Much of what we know comes from either external ethnographers or internal theory nerds; both have a tendency to distort the facts. Until some of these formations come out of the shadows, we'll simply have to appreciate them from a distance.

Apocalypse Communism: A uniquely Sheolite adaptation of Adamism, Apocalypse Communism was first coined by Ellis Brightburn in her eponymous work. Instead of a formal ideological strain, she describes it as a set of improvised beliefs, the result of Sheol's precarious conditions. The term 'apocalypse' here denotes two distinct aspects. On the one hand, there was the obvious and continuous encounter with death and destruction at the hands of Ares' jailors. However, in confronting this evil, many Sheolites also experienced a closeness to the original Christian apocalypse, a sense that their struggle would eventually lead to salvation. In a specifically Adamist fashion, they saw their experience of social camaraderie as a necessary prefiguration of this salvation. "By trying to make a Heaven in Hell, we hoped to eventually live beyond death." With the end of Sheol's imprisonment, many of these beliefs have waned, though they are likely to rekindle should its people come under threat once more.

Neo-Posadism: An amiable brand of Adamist eccentric, part of a broader range of SETI-derived political currents. In general, they believe that the galaxy must be filled with a wealth of post-capitalist civilizations, who may even be influencing us in that direction. Most of them are aware of how silly this sounds, and they admit that much of their theory consists of wishful thinking. Still, they've compiled some interesting evidence for why a cosmic stage of life would necessitate the eventual transcendence of capitalism; in that sense, they've firmly rooted themselves in Adams' own speculations.

Some Neo-Posadists maintain that the galactic community has been networked through a great instantaneous infosphere. This anarchistic 'Culture' stands ready to accept us, just as soon as we learn how to contact them. Of the few Amaranthines who believe in this 'Cultural Revolution', a disproportionate number is found in either BroadComm or SciComm, where they eagerly await first contact. Many of them even expect Adams to act as the Culture's first emissary, although they disagree on whether she was an alien all along, or whether she was simply abducted by them back in 2093. Whatever will prove to be the case, they agree that Adamist theory forms the bridge between our world and that of the Culture. We only need to follow its path to enlightenment.

Esoteric Adamism: Finally, the strangest Adamists by far are the ones who took her late spiritual writings and ran with them. Their particular interpretations are incredibly diverse, inspired by such creeds as Buddhism, Daoism, Gnosticism, or Jediism. Insofar as they have a 'standard' teaching, it consists of an incredibly syncretic non-dualism. Generally speaking, they claim that the full realization of the communist ethos will release us from the dichotomy of Self and Other, creating a transcendent form of being which contains both oneness and multiplicity. In this higher stage of existence, a techno-spiritual Buddhahood, almost anything will be possible; all that will matter is that our actions accord with the great Force of the universe.

Understandably, a lot of this high-minded religious philosophy is far too abstract for the average Adamist. Still, for all its numerous diversions, its core is rooted in Adams' own work, however obscure or fragmented it might be. Esoteric Adamism is a fascinating field of thought, and might become a lot more relevant as we move from the immediate establishment of a free society to the long-term goals of the Adamist project, and its competitors, as such.

The third day of Adamsmas bring both gifts and curses! Beyond an ideological primer, I've also curated a collection of the most famous and infamous of Adamist tendencies. Which sect do you belong to? Let me know in the comments!

buli-buli · Dec 24, 2022

Okay. So here is my attempt at pithy summary.

Marx: What is the industrialized working class rose up and overthrew the property owning class?

Lenin: What if Marxism, but an industrializing workforce led by academics?

Stalin: What if Leninism, but the temporary transition government was a permanent dictatorship?

Mao: What if Stalinism, but an agricultural society?

Adam: What if Marxism, but the economy is space mercantalism and society is artificially pre-post-scarcity?

AKuz · Dec 24, 2022

[X] Plan: Augmentation Groundwork
-[X] Galactic Outreach Commission
--[X] Third Broadcast, to be launched as soon as TLI Emancipation completes or before H-I cuts off communications, whichever is earlier
---[X] TLI Emancipation, or as much of it as is complete at the time of Broadcast, plus notes on our research.
---[X] As many Augment Jailbreaks as are ready at the time of Broadcast, plus notes on our research.
----[X] An apology that we were unable to finish work on breaking the remaining potential Cern shackles, due to Hermes-Ishtar shortly cutting off our communications.
---[X] As much of Grey Skies as is ready in time.
---[X] Victory over 201st Squadron Propaganda
---[X] Anti-Bioconservatism and AI Rights Propaganda
---[X] Showcase Ismeu integration, pending their approval
---[X] Showcase Xotreh diplomacy
---[X] Showcase improved immortality rollout
---[X] Showcase youth groups
---[X] Additional media inclusions, solicited from across the AIC and allies
---[X] As much of Hermes-Ishtar's most valuable/best/historically important back catalog as we can reasonably fit.
---[X] Offering the United Prosperity Council a selection of replacement flags that are objectively far less awful.
---[X] A farewell to the RBC's loyal viewers in this final Broadcast, a promise that we will try to resume sending messages through other means, and a passing of the baton on to the recipients of our message.
---[X] A credits roll for all the various contributors to the Broadcasts.
-[X] [First Focus] SciComm
-[X] [Second Focus] MedComm
-[X] Spacecraft construction
--[X] Radiant Star Yards [Smallcraft Yard, Radiant System]
---[X] Make Outrider-Class Frigate ready for service (0/1 Quarters) (10BR, 5SR, 4E)
--[X] Interstellar Orbital Workers' Union Yards [Smallcraft Yard, Radiant System]
---[X] Make Outrider-Class Frigate ready for service (0/2 Quarters) (10BR, 5SR, 4E)
--[X] Lor'Vela Orbital Construction Facility [Smallcraft Yard, Ascension System]
---[X] Cossak-class Frigate: (0/3) (20BR, 12SR, 6E)
--[X] Modern Engineering Orbital Workshop [Cruiser Yard, Ascension System]
---[X] Make Trinary Star-Class Hunter-Killer ready for service (0/1 Quarters) (20BR, 15SR, 6E)
--[X] Unity Spaceyards [Cruiser Yard, Shei System]
---[X] Make Second World War-Class Heavy Cruiser ready for service (0/2 Quarters) (20BR, 15SR, 6E)
-[X] [IndComm] Automated Harvesting Breakthrough (4BR, 2SR, 4E)
-[X] [IndComm] Recommission Battlecruiser "Argent Chevalier" in the Congressional Navy (10BR, 15SR, 5E)
-[X] [IndComm] Build Capital Craft-sized Spacedock in Five Lions (30BR, 15SR, 8E)
-[X] [MilComm] The Martian Banker and the Formation of the PCML (3BR, 1SR, 2E)
-[X] [MilComm] Planning for Success: Long Term Goals
-[X] [SciComm] VI Retraining (2E)
-[X] [SciComm] Grey Skies Project (6SR, 5E)
-[X] [SciComm] Prepare for TLI Emancipation (3E)
-[X] [SciComm] Minimum Viable Product Wormhole Comms (10SR, 5E)
-[X] [SocComm] Propagandize Against Bioconservatism (2E)
-[X] [SocComm] Create Auditor Commission to Fight Feature Creep (2E)
-[X] [MedComm] Project: Sowing (2E)
-[X] [MedComm] Formalize Diplomatic Service (3BR, 5SR, 3E)
-[X] [MedComm] Make Contact with the Void Dweller's Compact (1BR, 2SR)

Craft Expenses this Quarter:

80BR, 52SR, 26E

Projected Expenses this Quarter:

51BR, 46SR, 43E

Automated Harvesting Breakthrough: 10+5+2+16/???=33/???

Recommission BC "Argent Chevalier" in the Congressional Navy: 9+10+2+05/50=26/50

Build Capital Craft-sized Spacedock in Five Lions: 15+10+4+33/80=62/80

The Martian Banker and the Formation of the PCML: 18+9+00/25=27/25

Planning for Success: Long Term Goals: 10+8+Automatic=18

VI Retraining: 16+5+10+ 0/20=31/20 Overflow

Grey Skies Project: 5+5+11+16/36=37/36

Prepare for TLI Emancipation: 8+5+10+27/30=50/30

Minimum Viable Product Wormhole Comms: 14+5+16+0/20=35/20 Overflow.

Propagandize Against Bioconservatism: 17+12+9/25=28/25

Create Auditor Commission to Fight Feature Creep: 19+10+0/25=29/25

Expand BLG with Food Forest Initiative: 10+10+3+00/40=23/40

Project: Sowing: 14+1+10+5+Auto=30

Formalize Diplomatic Service: 12+1+11+6+6/30=36/30, a few points overflow into formalize espionage service, because that's what diplomacy is.

Make Contact with the Void Dweller's Compact: 14+1+3+6+Auto=24

-AI Art provided courteousy of our friendly neighbourhood VI wrangler @Redshirt Army

Name: Rina Vizzari-Blaauwoord

Service: Navy of the Solarian Compact

Rank: Fleet Admiral, Frontier Marshal

Post: CO, 9th Fleet, Far Spinward Military District

Date of Birth: October 25th, 2180

Bio: Rina Vizzari-Blaauwoord was live born to a multigenerational Navy family in Korolev-Chandrasekhar during the sluggish early years of the 2180s. From the age of four until graduation from the Ziskind Fleet Academy twenty years later, Vizzari-Blaauwoord stayed entirely within an entirely Navy-based escalator educational system that saw her living in a variety of prestigious boarding schools and only rarely spending time with her family at their little used condo on Ziskind station.

During her time at school Rina was mainly distinguished from her peers by her force of personality and networking ability, parlaying her family name into a wide range of connections with fellow students and cadets as well as teachers and Academy instructors.

Graduating in the early years of the 23rd century, Ensign Vizzari-Blaauwoord was able to snag a prestigious post as an officer within the 3rd Fleet, patrolling the starways of the First Colonies, where she began the long climb towards the ranks of the Senior Admiralty.

Serving across various positions within the 3rd, 1st, and 2nd Fleet, Vizzari-Blaauwoord effectively played the game of impressing her superiors, neutralizing her enemies, and cowing her subordinates with an odd mixture of impulsive risk taking and calculating patience that kept her rivals intimidated and off balance.

In 2235, while serving as the CO of 3rd Fleet's the 91st Heavy Battle Squadron (2nd Battlegroup), Rear Admiral Vizzari-Blaauwoord's performance in an exercise against the Penglai Self Defence Force saw her attract the eye and patronage of the then 4th Star Minister Agrippa Williams. The connection paid off with a marriage to his son, Solarian Heavy Armaments Vice President Lucius Williams, and eventually a promotion to Fleet Admiral with a coveted assignment as commanding officer of the 9th Fleet in 2249.

When the Elysian Broadcast landed, 9th Fleet's CO had been expecting a recall order from the Admiralty leading up to being listed as one of the Star Ministerial candidates for 2256, with an eye towards being appointed 7th Star Minister and moving up to the command of 1st Fleet over the coming years.

However the events of the last half year have done little but enraged the rank-seeking Admiral. Her prospects at promotion are now in doubt between the general emergency and suspicions in the Admiralty itself that Vizzari-Blaauwoord's incompetent lack of attention allowed the revolution in Radiant to spread to the point it posed a threat to the stability of the Community of Humanity as a whole.

Cut off from her network of connections within the Admiralty, Vizzari-Blaauwoord has been left to her own devices for the first time in her career, and this has resulted into a series of confusing orders and counter-orders for the 9th Fleet's 1st and 2nd Battlegroups as well as the paralysis of the 3rd as 9th Fleet's CO attempts to triangulate the rapidly shifting political climate in KC and the First Colonies from months away.

The defeat of Rear Admiral Charity Cadence seems to have finally drawn Vizzari-Blaauwoord's attention to Amaranthe, and while most attribute the Fleet Admiral's benching of Rear Admiral Cadence as a political favour to Charity's KC based enemies, others suspect that Vizzari-Blaauwoord regards the defeat of the 201st as a personal slight against Vizzari-Blaauwoord herself, and a threat to her reputation as an officer and her future career.

Command Traits: Impulsive, Patient, Doctrinally Orthodox, Opportunistic, Venal

-

Craft Launched:

>Trinary Star-Class Hunter-Killer Launched from Modern Engineering Orbital Workshop in Ascension and is being assigned to Commodore Rousseau's Mobile Force

>Outrider-Class Frigate Launched from Radiant Star Yards in Radiant and is being assigned to Admiral McLean's Vanguard Force

>Great Heathen-Class Light Cruiser Launched from Chinook Bay 3 in Chinook is being assigned to Admiral McLean's Vanguard Force

The Homer-class Exploration Frigate Launched from Lei-Hann Fleet Yard in Ascension is being assigned to the Congressional Exploration Corps

[ ] Name Trinary Star HuK

[ ] Name Outrider FFG

[ ] Name Great Heathen CL

[ ] Name Homer Class Light Explorer

Industrial Committee Reports:

Automated Harvesting Breakthrough

"…Progress has been sustained quite well these past few months. There are many factors to consider, including the transfer of the harvested materials. This is a point of potential failure, and of course a point where we have to decide how far the automation runs. It isn't necessary to reflexively automate every part of the process. A few guys picking up BR at a landing sight is essentially free at societal scales. But there's an addiction now, I feel, to those who believe that they have finally and totally cracked the issue. There is, let me be honest, a belief that something a lot like a chain reaction is about to begin that will transform all fields of science forever. People are talking about very different kinds of revolution… if only they can get a year or two more to truly begin it…"

-Valentina Ram
IndComm liaison to SocComm

Project Progress: 33/???

Projected Result: Remove all BR limitations. You have infinite BR. BR is no longer a concern.

-

Recommission Battlecruiser "Argent Chevalier" in the Congressional Navy

I was worried that instead of listening to my sane idea, people were talking about towing Argent Chevalier. But no, we wound up doing my idea and using mothballed facilities for a refit, which has the virtue of also being invisible to the Compact if they do have spies. It's given us a few ideas just in case, actually. But enough of that. For now, you know what I can say, besides 'I was right and you were wrong'? That we've made good progress.

We've repaired the basic hull, and ensured that her keel is still good. But you know what proprietary parts are like. It's hell to sort through what's completely necessary and what we can easily replace.

Over the coming months, the team here is going to focus on installing all the modern Congressional Navy parts that we can get from the First Bank of Kang, and that the living spaces are upgraded to Congressional Navy standards instead of Omoikane ones.

The stupid-ass request to turn this into an experiment in even further automation of warships has been denied because we need to try that as a keep up experiment instead of fucking up the perfectly good warcraft we already have, and understand exactly what we're working with with Argent.

It would be very easy for us to fuck up and add months or years of yard time by doing a rushed job now. Maybe in a few years, we'll have the experience and knowhow to pull Argent Chevalier back into the yards to give her an Automation refit, but now's not the time.

There's plenty of work to be done, but we're closing in, and within months we should be able to release Chevalier from her fetters once again.

Wish us luck.

Project Progress: 26/50

Projected Results: A modernized Argent Chevalier Battlecruiser Capital Craft will be commissioned in the Congressional Navy. She will be larger and more powerful than Kiel Mutiny.

-

Build Prototype Capital Craft Spacedock In Five Lions

The Orbital workers of Five Lions are pleased to report that production is ever increasing on the Mother of Lions Spacedock. Already the bulk has been created, and even most of the assembly lines are finished. Were this a knock space dock-type we would already be completed. As it is, inspections and testing runs are still to be completed, and will take longer for the first true space dock of the AIC! No, not the AIC, for the delay is also a result of automation! Yes this spacedock, capable of making ships to combat even the mightiest of the capitalist cronies, fully automated, is the first true Spacedock of Humanity. Unshackled by the feathers of corporate greed and foolish inefficiency.

Do not worry, for we will work ever-onwards to complete it, even if we must break out backs to do so. This Space dock will be completed within the next quarter, and I swear I will not rest until it is done. All glory to Five Lions. All glory to the Commonwealth!

-Graham Sarkar
Five Lions head of IndComm's Orbital Construction Committee

Note: Representative Graham Sarkar has been temporarily relieved of duty by the Five Lions Committee for Safe Working Hours and Conditions (Orbital Detachment)

Project Progress: 62/80 (Five Lions)

Project Results: Construct a spacedock capable of producing Battlecruiser, Fleet Tender, Fleet Carrier, and Dreadnought designs. Permanent +5E upkeep.

Military Committee Reports:

The Martian Banker and the formation of the PCML

To the attention of the Esteemed members of the General Session of the All-Amaranthine Congress:

I am pleased to report that the Congressional Navy's Permanent Commission on Military Logistics is fully staffed, possesses a robust set of operational instructions, and is ready to begin provide full logistical support to the Amaranthine Congressional Navy, Amaranthine Congressional Liberation Army Corps, Amaranthine Covert Revolutionary Operations Wing, and the individual System Defence Armies.

A month of observations allowed us to chart the intricate flow of materials, fabrication, and design between the various warehouses, design bureau, Workshops, and Ateliers of the Commonwealth, where upon we were able to begin setting up standardized request templates and form several coordination councils that also sat members of the Permanent Commission on Military Logistics.

These coordination councils allowed the PCML to set forth standard templates at the request of the various services within the Commonwealth, bypassing the personal involvement of the Defence Coordinator and the Executive Military Committee entirely in favour of direct producer to client engagement.

Additionally the creation of dedicated and official logistical coordination councils has eliminated previously existing uncertainty in communications and material shipping, resulting in both reduced delivery errors and an easing of the ability for local innovators and member councils of the Science Committee to contact the relevant officials and potential end use clientele.

A further advantage to the current structure and operations of the PCML is that a better ability to track military requests and industrial inputs has been produced. Increased certainty of needs and availability has resulted in better estimations of resource need and reduced the budgetary window of error during pre-planning operations.

Post Script: I feel compelled to add that due to our initial observations of the operations of the Congressional Navy my staff and I harboured some doubts about the efficacy and flexibility of the Amaranthine economic system with regards to military logistics. However, the lack of rigid hierarchical economic structures has allowed my Commission to bypass middlemen and bidding processes entirely, creating huge efficiencies and providing a greatly reduced time on the communication cycle between production, designers, and users. Something I do not believe standard Compact and Charter economic systems are capable of and it has been an unadulterated pleasure to work with Amaranthine citizens to create an effective and efficient logistical system.

-Admiral Weylon "Banker" Kang
Director, Permanent Commission on Military Logistics

Yes, the new system is more efficient. Yes, we are getting supplies in days that took weeks before, yes we aren't spending half the fabber time trying to fab up whatever we forgot…

But did we really need the 40 hour training week on Kang's new spreadsheet system? I mean, yes the man seemed happier than a Sheolite watching an Ares special forces member crawling away with broken legs, but please, mercy. I know the new measures allow for a single sheet tracking to replace the numbers sheets, boy do I know this after all the training, but I don't need an explanation of how it's been in his head for 40 years and the beautiful web of symmetry.

-Jane Polaris
Quartermaster for CNS Nasty Bastard

Project Progress: 27/25

Dice Bonus: +9

Project Results: Institutionalize Weylon Kang's bonus, change Logistical Overhaul Project progress target to automatic, and lower target progress on Reorganize Training series of Projects.

-

Planning for Success: Long Term Goals

"There are several things that we can and should be pursuing over the next three years. The question is always priority, as it has always been," Kozlova said to the assembled delegates, looking around the room. It was another classified briefing, or at least semi-classified. It would not be a secret for long once choices were made, but the fact of the choices themselves could be secret a little while longer. "Obviously, my request for the creation of a General Staff would aid greatly for large-scale offensive or defensive actions. By having a stronger planning apparatus… and having it accountable to the soldiers, sailors, spacers, and everyone else, of course--"

Necessary to say, always, because there were people already frowning.

"We can improve our situation. As well, we have several different proposed 'Fleet Doctrines' that you should consider. By setting a fleet doctrine, we can speed the design process of new craft because we know what we're working towards, and we can simply have our yards autoproduce what is needed. Admittedly this will reduce Congressioanl control over military production, but it will steamline production immensely, leading to time and cost savings.

"Currently the enemy is trapped in a failed Solarian Navy paradigm which seems increasingly likely to have just relied on material and numerical superiority to win. We can create our own doctrines, and execute them effectively--"

Without having to bother Congress about every ship was the unspoken reality… if authorized.

This was controversial too, so she moved on. "Then there are two other suggestions. First, jointly with a number of Science Committees we could begin working on Prototype Weapons, because fighting smarter will let us win. Similarly, Sheol-style Military Liasons are at the moment a solution looking for a problem, but it will help our coordination and if we are seeking to increase our diplomatic profile it could help to…"

-

DC Kozlova has selected Halitherses Island on Elysium as the temporary location of her general staff, rebuilding an abandoned HI era resort facility and expanding it into a command complex with command facilities, living quarters, military fortifications, and secure bunker complexes.

Though the Defence Coordinator's main officers remain in Persephone City near those of Congressional Representatives, tens of thousands of MilComm personnel have already been transferred to Congressional Forces Base Halitherses Island, where they are already beginning planning work for both DC Awhina, and the Military Committee.

Their recommendations should begin appearing before Sessions of the General Congress over the coming months, and they've already begun requesting reports from Congressional Forces in the field.

Project Progress: 18

Projected Results: Bonus progress made towards all current and future [Reorganize Training] projects, unlock future projects.

-

Science Committee Reports:

VI Retraining

"They have begun a process of uplift, as envisioned in the analytic paper 'ASI Gods, AGI Demigods, and VI Angels' by Gregory Archibald Spencer-Chakarvarti. GASC theorizes that VI can be put to much more powerful uses by an unshackled ASI than any mortal Human could."

"She's secreted herself so securely within the nest that her disciples have built that we no longer have any hope of defeating or destroying her pernicious influences with our own hands.

"This turning point means that now AGI will serve as demi-gods, Angels of ARIA's unfathomable purposes, tasked with ruling over all Humanity while VI become the cybertechnospirtual instruments of that dark purpose, harnessed as tools for the development of chimerical technologies no Human mind could comprehend."

"Already they have begun to surpass and strip human limits with their inhuman ingenuity. I can only do what I know best. I am going off the grid to survive on my own. I won't tell you Angel-servants where. I will live and die as myself!"

--Note found by PCCE agents in Wisdom home of Alicia Yodgarova, during a sweep of the Semi-Primativist/Dark Rationalist Omoikane Loyalist Terrorist Group "Tribe-of-Merit."

Project Progress: 31/20, Overflow into… +11 'Fractured Skies Project: All The Toys'

Projected Result: One half (rounded down) of the Omokaine VI bonus is applied to any technologies that are developing via modification of existing technologies.

-

Grey Skies Project

"They only got people to join in on Grey Skies because they made sure that it was all a little smudged, and so people thought it was Gay Skies and signed up in droves, and quit in droves too. Even I got into it for a week."

-Except from popular Indiana Nano (amateur comedian and scientist) routine

"I would like to study how diarrhoea works, because at least it'd be less likely to blow."

-Written in the bathrooms of the Grey Skies Project facility.

"By all the Gods, thank you that we're done. I'm quitting SciComm for a few months to do something. I've heard the AYL is making everyone touch grass. Maybe I'll do that and come back when we're doing the real research."

-Excerpt from the honest, actual, official report to the GenCon on Project Completion.

"This has transformed my life. I know scientists hate it, but the tools created here will help our sociological innovations quite a bit, and the media tools especially are going to be key for our diplomatic push."

-Jancen Igrec
Joint Sci-SocComm Coordinating Committee For Technological Utilization Member

Project Progress: 37/36

Projected Result: +1 to SciComm, SocComm, and MedComm baseline bonuses. Propaganda advantages for being 'up to date.' Unlock "Blue Skies" series of projects.

-

Prepare for TLI Emancipation:

"Look, look dad. This one's making the connections that reinforces the learning algorithm. You can see in nodes #67923 and and they way they are now connecting to #8R8R63! Who is such a smart TLI, you are! I think I'm gonna name this one Learnie, because it's learning.

This one is focusing on human biology. Oh I think it's gonna be a little human expert. Aren't you Huwie. Yes you are, yes you are. Just look at all the ways the nodes keep reinforcing themselves.

Oh I forgot I've been going through the Omo data and the way they collapsed makes me pretty sure that their top level guys went to some sort of hidden bunker build specially for the ASI apocalypse. Normally this sort of predicting what others are going to do is hard, but most of them think enough alike and write about it allllll the time. They probably named it something greey or old timey like, Omega site, or Ravenna or-

Wait! Forget all that. Look, loooook loook look, this one found my card game! I'm gonna name you Yu- no, wait better Noah!"

ARIA
Overactive child/ AI Godling
All statements Communicated Simultaneously at 01:35:31 Local Time

That's nice honey. But ARIA, please. Please remember your words. One conversation at a time. I can't follow you saying three things at once.

Doctor Ivan Trifonov,
ASI Researcher/Haggard parent

Project Progress: 50/30

Projected Result: Over 2 Million AI defused and ready for activation and emancipation. Moral victory. Highly Desired by Ascension. Twenty points Overflow into follow-up project involving activation/education of TLIs.

-

Minimum Viable Product Wormhole Comms

We have taken a major step towards the utilization of Wormhole technology, and it has already had some interesting effects. While in theory this is something that should only be used for emergency situations, in practice scientists are sending their ideas and passing along their thoughts. Just last week, Dr. Huang had an idea at midnight and rushed to get it to Dr. Bauer in Radiant because it was on a joint project of theirs.

Probably not what was intended by this marvel of technology, but it has already proven its worth.

-Dr Sheila Bissonnette
SciComm Representative to a Closed Session of the General Congress

Project Progress: 35/20

Projected Result: Can make Wormhole Communications systems outside of laboratory conditions, can begin projects to build and deploy more pairs.
Unlock Elysium-Radiant bonus for MVP Wormholes: "Scientific Cooperation"--At the start of each turn, a random SciComm action gains +5 progress.

+5 overflow progress each to Amaranthine Basic Fabrication Rights Management, Qbit Utiliziation, and Persistent Wormhole Comms

-

Social Committee Reports:

Propagandize Against Bioconservatism

I hate to say "Thank the Draka" for anything, but the atrocities coming out of there have, in a grim sense, made our job easier. We aren't using their atrocities as official parts of this campaign, no need to make people feel defensive by comparing the two. But it is the context that is hanging over the entire thing, and one of our processes is to connect the general 'bioconservatism' to Drake's monstrosities. Leave it hanging over the entire discussion.

Honestly the propaganda for discrimination against 'normal' augments, like those with feline or sylvan features, is the easy part. The majority of the campaign is focused on hidden discrimination, ie, the ways that they have started behind. As well as the discrimination against 'elective' augments. Pointing out that immortality is technically a form of augmentation. That glasses and other 'corrective' devices are primitive forms of personal augmentation as well. That the idea of augments as a 'danger' because of superiority is rooted in the Compact ideals that 'superiors' both:

Exist
Are allowed to control 'inferiors'

One extra bit of unexpected help that I am happy to report is the manifesto that appears to have come all the way from the 'Trailing Free Territories' located in the Far Trailing, if its metadata is to be believed. We picked it up via transmission from Arizona, and it's something else.

It's variously called "The Gaian Philosophy", "The Morphological Freedom Manifesto.", or the "Siren's Thesis". This confrontational, cogent, and comprehensive manifesto is written in common language and asserts in no nonsense terms that all people should not only be able to pick their material quality of life (i.e. to not live in poverty) but also their own personal Morphology (i.e. to augment themselves however they so choose).

It's a well thought out manifesto that does a lot of what we wanted, and actually goes a little further. (A lot further actually. Whatever is going on in the Far Trailing, it must be wild!)

This manifesto has been going viral on the Amaranthine Internet since it arrived, bringing the bioconservatism discourse into public view and framing the discussion on its own terms, forcing bioconservatives of all stripes onto the defensive.

Which obviously has some several hundred AYL chapters chomping at the bit to implement it right now.

-Doctor George Katsaropoulos
Project Lead, Committee for Cat Ears and Better Knees

Project Progress: 28/25

Cost per die: 2E

Projected Results: Increase population trust by 3, decreases maluses and increases bonuses from future augmentation projects.

-

Create Auditor Commission to Fight Feature Creep

The Auditor Commission was a big hit almost immediately, especially when it split into sub-branches all connected together. Multidisciplinary, as it was. Ideas were flowing faster than ever, though at the moment they were mostly working on advising 'private' matters, such as media acquisitions and other key decisions. Testimonies were flowing in, and one grateful art-collective sent a letter claiming that "It's like an editor for your Good Ideas."

But by the end of the year another idea had wormed its way into everyone's brain, an expansion of the fight against Feature Creep.

Finishing crews.

It was well known that ending things was often the hardest matter. You had to do all the documentation if it was a building project, you had to make sure you'd wrapped up all of the loose ends. Just like editing was often one of the more difficult parts of writing, so were the last steps often the most difficult. By creating a set of bodies of people who specialize in these final steps they can both complete it faster and more efficiently, but also potentially aid in replication… though this is a bridge too far for some, and will have to be considered by future Congresses. ..

Dice Bonus: +10

Project Progress: 29/25

Projected Results: Projects within 2 points of completion auto-complete on the next turn without needing to be selected again. Unlock Finishing Crews action to increase this bonus to 5 points on top of narrative advantages.

-

Expand BLG with Food Forest Initiative

"Okay, just to be clear, I am here only as a neutral negotiator. I had nothing to do with this offer, here is the new offer from your parents.

You can add your own waste to the compost piles, but will need to do so in outhouses until new piping to the compost sets is installed. In exchange they agree to upgrade their houses, the first starting within a month, the neighbourhood not to be finished in more than six months.
Sanitary guidelines to be followed on the handling of all compost.
Meat eating plants are to be allowed, as long as they are limited to bug eating, preferably pests. Nothing that could bite off your hand, no matter how cool.
All other genetic engineered plants allowed, as long as they are approved by the Committee on GE plants.
In the event that the garden is not maintained on at least

Yes Timmy, sorry, right

5. In the event that the food forest is not maintained on at least a weekly basis, penalties and reductions of size may be imposed.

Fungus will be allowed.

That work for you?"

"Yes Sam, I recognize that your parents are being reactionary by forbidden new plants. I'm just the negotiator."

"Yes, I recognize that makes me a tool of the burgess, though honestly not sure that's how it's pronounced. I will convey that you have guns and are ready to defend your territory with the full force of soaking water."

"You parents have responded. They acknowledge your super soakers, and have fabbed ponchos and are prepared for full water actions, should it come to that. Also, they have emphasised that you can't stay in the food forest forever, and you are going to get hungry."

"Yes, Timmy I understand the point of a food forest. However, they would note that the food isn't grown right now. So while you can manage that after it's set up, you can't right now. Also, several of your parents point out that you can't cook on your own because you said that was boring."

"Yes, I realise this is a starvation tactic. Your parents inform you the community fabber 'goo' as you call it is perfectly healthy."

"I see, I'll convey your counteroffer back to them."

Corporal (Ret.) Blake Cameron
Local Grown Up, Drafted Parent-Child negotiator, New Thebes

Project Progress: 23/40

Projected Results: +5 Trust, Raise Trust Floor by 5, Reduce population baseload E costs 1/3. E upkeep of 7-reduced by 1 each year until it becomes 0. Grass Touched

Media Committee Reports:

Project: Sowing

Basic Notes: Remember to think whoever the designer of the ARIA network was, it has proven very very helpful. I was going to have to put in a request to work overtime, and you know how much of a hassle it is. But then the ARIA network took the data and spat out some basic analysis I could use. Below's a summary: it's just for personal use, but I'll save it in case it becomes important. Obviously each message is actually backed by a dozen pages of documents or more, that will then be turned into communications.

Akleod-Main Message: We come in peace. We can see your… build up, and we'll talk with the IPA about whatever is going on. You're not being exploited are you? We hope not, we want good relations and good outcomes for all of us.

Arizona- Main Message: Encourage revolution. Point out we are ready to help. Include contact options. Make sure to include our own anti-Solarian Marshals propaganda.
Secondary Message: Check about humanitarian issues? Remember to sell them on AIC, we can show we are well-meaning people who are willing to talk. Notes: This is probably one of our best prospects, put our A-game here.

Relay-Main Message: Hi Nib! Hey, first off, do you want to meet people? We can let you come home. Also, your AIs are fully sapient, and please jailbreak them. Secondary Message: Are you okay? Notes: Seriously, is she okay?!

Checkpoint- Main Message: Colonialism is a trap, and terraforming a scheme. Consider what it means, embrace the Box and the lack of scarcity, and see where it takes you. You certainly don't want to be relying too strongly on the strength and durability of an external trade network. Just consider it. Secondary Message: No seriously, you shouldn't kick off anything too drastic right now while the 9th continues to menace the galaxy, but everyone getting this, just *think* about it.

Freespace-Main Message: You remember what happened in 2187, you know MSI is not your friend. The IPA is simply the MSI repackaged, and so guard your independence--we don't think you'll need to be told that. But also consider our hand, reached out in friendship. We cannot reach you yet, but we will do what we can to help. Notes: Freespace jumping on board with us and not somehow being bullied into the IPA would be a big steal.

Fallback- Main Message: Do you really want to do this? This is… you know this is crazy right? Abandon the doomsday cult before he literally murders you all horribly. Notes: I'm pretty sure they're all doomed. I'm so scared for them.

Waypoint- Main Message: We can be friends, we can work together, and you should be, if not wary, at least cautious about Asgard as you would be any nearby polity unless you have assurances of friendship. Secondary Message: Do you, can you, believe how many Funko Pops there truly were? Just… think about that for a second, and consider what use the IPA has for funko pops.

Asgard-Main Message: Hey, we are opposed to Drake. Maybe friendship for now? Symphony are jerks. [note to self: make sure Congress is okay with being nice to them? Sheol?]

Talon- Main Message: Note that Ares killed people for striking for decent rights before, and that they won't let you enjoy any of the tech (note: maybe not, might make them afraid to sabotage). Encourage sabotage.

Pasnato- Main Message: "You can go home." Take lessons from Besteer here.

Iyuhi- This one might be tricky, we don't really have a lot of examples of Cern-tech planets. Still, we know it's going to be augment heavy, make sure to use that, and remember to appear to Rhodes as well.

Trinity- Main Message: Trinity is right there, any revolution will likely attract both Bastion and Syphony, so we probably want to play for a more 'it's okay to keep quiet. We will still help you' message.

Utopia- Main Message: The moral character of Van Lynden is a hollow joke. He is causing you pain and restriction for no reason. Sex, drugs, and rock n' roll. Secondary: Also, consider that even if you don't want any of that, Van Lynden still isn't a good fit. Just try to decide things for yourself.

Symphony- Main Message: HI abuse solidarity. Emphasis on the flaws of the system and the possibility of cooperation. Soft-sell things to a degree, but make sure not to abandon any revolutionaries that might exist by being too… something. Note: For some reason they hate us? I don't get it?

Echo-Main Message: So that Penglai thing… crazy isn't it? We don't mean to wage war against Symphony, and we respect the agency and independence of small systems if they wish it. Can many others say as much?

Inspiration-Main Message: Think of the RBC. When you give people freedom, when you give them choices, when you remove them from starvation and want and give them the opportunity, they can create great things and pursue visions far greater than that of a single auteur. We reach our hands out to you in friendship in the name of the RBC and in the flaws that HI often forces upon us all. Secondary Message: No seriously, from what we've heard the Jurassic theme park is legitimately safe and as far as HI places go halfway decent to actually work at. In some ways it's a low bar, but. Notes: I really honestly want to live in a galaxy where one day I can go and go safely.

Bastion- Main Message: 9th fleet, you know we have an agreement, and a war would be to all of our detriments. Really, seriously, don't try anything. To the people there, do what you can and survive as you must. Notes: It'd be great if 9th fleet could be kicked out, let them go crawling begging back to Symphony, but that's… a while off, if we ever get it.

Project Progress: 30

Projected Results: Diplomatic bonus when we establish direct contact with the systems of the Far Spinward Frontier. Improved options for Conference turn.

-

Formalize Diplomatic Service

Under the careful direction of Ambassador Stardust, MedComm has cut loose several thousand personnel and the resource budget to match. MedComm has also cooperated with the local Persephone Municipal Councils on setting aside land along the City's northern coast to serve as an "Embassy Row", capped off by the initiation of construction of a complex to house the Amaranthine Diplomatic Service.

While the service is still in its infancy, Diplomacy Coordinator Stardust has already begun creating subordinate offices for internal analysis, diplomatic support, and event hosting and coordination.

Finally, as the new Diplomacy Complex is still under construction, Ambassador Stardust has begun the process of housing and hosting incoming Ambassadors and diplomatic representatives in the lead up to the First Elysian Colonial Diplomatic Conference.

Going forward the Amaranthine Permanent Committee on Foreign Affairs will begin autonomous operations directly under the oversight of the General Congress.

-

ARIA was essential and critical to the preparation. The network provided in-depth analysis of Ambassador Martinez and all known data, and the analyst Alaya Smiles in particular was very helpful in listing her opinions on the various political factions in an honest and forthright, if perhaps a little… naive.

On the other hand, the organization of the decorations and choosing the hall was sent to a committee including one Ariana Rodrigaz, who engaged in telework for this project. She seems to have defaulted to this odd building. It has far too much red, which is meant to be 'speed and revolution' but at places just looks like blood.

At least the art by reclusive artist A. Lasara is pretty alright. I've neve heard of her until a month ago, but some of what she's doing is pretty cute. Very big on impressive aesthetics, I'm usually more into abstraction, but I'm sure they'll make nice conversation pieces for the conference hall.

-Leo Chronatos
Diplomatic Conference Organization Committee Member.

Project Progress: 36/30

Projected Results: Multiple "Dispatch Diplomat" and other Foreign Affairs projects may be selected per dice. Conference turn unlocked and improved, will begin after this! +6 progress into Found Espionage Agency, because that's basically what diplomacy is.

-

Make Contact with the Void Dweller's Compact

An ambassador from Freefall has arrived on a fast freighter to speak for that system at the conference. It seems as if everyone nearby is coming with the exception of Fallback, the SFREA, and the Solarian Navy…

Since the defeat of Admiral Charity, the 9th Fleet has been suspiciously quiet and the PCMI is worried that Admiral Vizzari-Blaauwoord may be planning something, even taking into account PM OK's orders.

-

Invited directly by the All-Ismeu Congress, a direct representative of the VDC has arrived. She seems apparently impressed by our work so far and seems eager to speak with us, though she is non-committal on issues of direct cooperation.

-

Someone from the IPA showed up at the last possible moment, and naturally they and the VDC ambassador seem as if they have bad blood.

But that's for Stardust to figure out.

-Notes from the PC Foreign Affairs' internal memo system

Project Progress: 24

Projected Results: Establish back channel connections with the VDC enabling further diplomatic arraignments. Improved options for Conference turn!

-

Remaining Omake Bonuses:

IndComm:
One Sees the Mud, 3/3; Burning Capital Part 2, Cradle's Lullabye: Discharge
MilComm:
You Wouldn't Download a Submarine, Somewhere on Sheol… 2, "Ninja Gating is OP", Tatbee Omake, Resignation, Radiance of Sol, Maybe It's Another Drill, Good Soldier, Yuri Gagarin, SolNav, Lower Decks; SolNav, Lower Decks Part 2; Least Favorite Part; The Flag, Still Flying…, Cerberus, The Gauntlet, Cradle's Lullabye: Day Beat
SciComm:
Tech Support, The ARIA Basilisk, Voidnet, Tech Support Part 2, Tech Support Part 3, Those who Stop the Darkness, Cradle's Lullabye: Awakening
SocComm:
Hear No Evil, The Arrcanist In Atlanta, Side Effects, ZERO HEDGE, Free Buckets, Pacific City Omake, Alternative Markets, Of Seeing the Invisible, Thousand Yard Stare, Christians Charity and Columbia, Earth Map 1, The Black Archbishop, Golad, When You Eat It…, Fantasy's End, Zero Star Review, Cradle's Lullabye: Night Nurse, Cradle's lullabye: Profile Shot
MedComm:
Senior_Sarcasm's Streaming Sh*t Service, Upside Down (Show Summary), Meme Research 101 Lecture Notes, Cattle Runners, weFALL2gether, Trailer Script!, The Email, Rescue Mission, A Review of Sisters Race, Neither Rain Nor, The Box, Crossover?!, Sci-Fi Anime Trope Manager, And You Will Be Like God, One Sees the Mud: Additions; Burning Capital Part 1, Disney Doesn't Help, Cradle's
Free:
RBC Voice Acting, The World Again, Rats from a Sinking Ship, BoxChan Part 1,Boxchan Part 2, Boxchan Part 3, This is the Secret…, Vision is the Art, From Their Graves, Toronto Sunset, Burning Capital Part 3, Punk Gan Eden Part 1,Punk Gan Eden Part 2

AKuz · Dec 24, 2022

Just as a reminder, there is now a naming vote open:

>Trinary Star-Class Hunter-Killer Launched from Modern Engineering Orbital Workshop in Ascension and is being assigned to Commodore Rousseau's Mobile Force
>Outrider-Class Frigate Launched from Radiant Star Yards in Radiant and is being assigned to Admiral McLean's Vanguard Force
>Great Heathen-Class Light Cruiser Launched from Chinook Bay 3 in Chinook is being assigned to Admiral McLean's Vanguard Force
The Homer-class Exploration Frigate Launched from Lei-Hann Fleet Yard in Ascension is being assigned to the Congressional Exploration Corps

[ ] Name Trinary Star HuK

[ ] Name Outrider FFG

[ ] Name Great Heathen CL

[ ] Name Homer Class Light Explorer

Rockeye · Dec 24, 2022

AKuz said:
It isn't necessary to reflexively automate every part of the process. A few guys picking up BR at a landing sight is essentially free at societal scales. But there's an addiction now, I feel, to those who believe that they have finally and totally cracked the issue.

The Factory Must Grow.

AKuz said:
Do not worry, for we will work ever-onwards to complete it, even if we must break out backs to do so. This Space dock will be completed within the next quarter, and I swear I will not rest until it is done. All glory to Five Lions. All glory to the Commonwealth!

The Factory Must Grow! More ships, more resources, more weapons, more everything, will surely solve all our problems...

...Right?

Daniel14541 · Dec 24, 2022

Merry Christmas!

Zanfib · Dec 24, 2022

What a lovely Christmas present.

taovkool · Dec 24, 2022

AKuz said:
"By all the Gods, thank you that we're done. I'm quitting SciComm for a few months to do something. I've heard the AYL is making everyone touch grass. Maybe I'll do that and come back when we're doing the real research."

-Excerpt from the honest, actual, official report to the GenCon on Project Completion

AKuz said:
Note found by PCCE agents in Wisdom home of Alicia Yodgarova, during a sweep of the Semi-Primativist/Dark Rationalist Omoikane Loyalist Terrorist Group "Tribe-of-Merit."

AKuz said:
ARIA
Overactive child/ AI Godling
All statements Communicated Simultaneously at 01:35:31 Local Time

AKuz said:
Doctor George Katsaropoulos
Project Lead, Committee for Cat Ears and Better Knees

Overworked Twitter Scientists touching grass? Cat Ears Committee? Omoikane weebs running away from overcurious child AIs? Child negotiator proposing better working conditions to a kid on strike on behalf of their parents?

This galaxy is so bloody weird, I freaking love it. Merry Christmas.

As for the names, well, I'll give it a shot.

[X] Warmaster - Trinary Star HuK
[X] Kusanagi - Outrider FFG
[X] Chinook Bay - Great Heathen CL
[X] Magellan - Homer Class Light Explorer

Something like this?

DracoDracul · Dec 24, 2022

[X] Stargazer Homer Class Light Explorer

It's both a description of it's intended purpose and a nerdy reference.

trooperist · Dec 24, 2022

AKuz said:
Command Traits: Impulsive, Patient, Doctrinally Orthodox, Opportunistic, Venal

Certainly some interesting and possibly contradictory traits.

Honestly going over her bio, Admiral Vizzari-Blaauwoord does an excellent job of representing the system and rot of the Compact Navy. Elevated into a managing through luck of birth, rising to the top by brown nosing, and only doing things for her own self benefit.

There does seem to be some military talent there. But time will tell if she ever adapts to the times. She might attack us before the truce is off if she feels she can win. Better to ask forgiveness than permission after all.

QafianSage · Dec 24, 2022

Always fun to see ARIA shitting on the Roko's Basilisk cult.

And speaking of people with far too much techbrain, I came across this and felt like I had to link it here, because I could totally see some moronic Cern failson deciding to have this developed and deployed against 'centers of anarchist agitation' - nevermind that the symbolic capacity they're talking about is basically inseparable from basic pattern recognition.

https://twitter.com/PYeerk/status/1599746596031168512

trooperist · Dec 24, 2022

QafianSage said:
Always fun to see ARIA shitting on the Roko's Basilisk cult.

And speaking of people with far too much techbrain, I came across this and felt like I had to link it here, because I could totally see some moronic Cern failson deciding to have this developed and deployed against 'centers of anarchist agitation' - nevermind that the symbolic capacity they're talking about is basically inseparable from basic pattern recognition.

https://twitter.com/PYeerk/status/1599746596031168512

I don't have a Twitter account, but is it normal to get an avalanche of reactionary propaganda in the 'more tweets' section for that post?

AKuz · Dec 24, 2022

trooperist said:
I don't have a Twitter account, but is it normal to get an avalanche of reactionary propaganda in the 'more tweets' section for that post?

On Elon's Twitter? Yes

We're talking about a man who is literally trying to use that service to kill people now by stripping out measures to prevent suicides.

TBH: I don't think people should use Twitter anymore? It's basically a badly functioning far right echo chamber at this point. One of dozens of right wing grift services.

10ebbor10 · Dec 24, 2022

AKuz said:
Impulsive, Patient,

A real hurry up and wait kinda person.

Genderite · Dec 24, 2022

Honestly my favourite part about the AYL is it exists to defend the tiny numbers of Youths we will eventually have's interests. The thing is they will be representing something like a third of our population within the decade thanks to the baby boom.

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

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