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.

DISCORD LINK:

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Derpmind · Feb 14, 2023

Evaunit02mark1 said:
If there is one good thing that happens here is that everyone will know that treaties with Solnav and the Compact aren't worth the paper their printed on.

Every revolutionary now knows it's to the knife.

I suspect any future calls for peace will be laughed at while they prime the nukes and prep their Geneva Checklists.

That's not actually a good thing, though. Diplomacy is the ideal solution to this conflict, as in getting parts of SolNav and/or the Compact to surrender to peaceful revolutionary reform. We might not want revolutionary polities to roll over and re-join the Compact, but a complete galactic war to the knife isn't good for anyone.

The less "geneva checklists" that happen, the better.

Setsul · Feb 14, 2023

LilyWitch said:
Annoyingly if a rogue SolNav admiral has attacked us just before the conference that completely undercuts our Bad Faith attendence and makes it look like we would have played ball but then changed our minds due to SolNav.

I also dislike it on a meta level, since it turns Renegotiating with Trescore into a trap option. If we do join the IPA we can't take it, and if we don't join the IPA and don't join the LIS immediately, we instantly get attacked in that narrow window the renegotiations take place by the same SolNav Admiral who just spent 6 months doing nothing at all.
And then either way most of the stuff we voted on just stops mattering because either we're getting bombed by SolNav, or 9th Fleet just destroyed itself in a pro gamer move that resulted in even more mutinies and feeding the meet grinder.

There's speculation in discord that the IPA might've bribed Admiral Dutchname, which would explain the suspicious timing, though I still don't like it.

I mean there are other things she might've done, like shutting down a gate or three, to really make the blockade stick, or attacking the SFREA after blaming them for her own incompetence in dealing with us, or any number of weird things. Hell, she might've joined up with the SFREA now that the position she's been aiming for, 7th Star Minister in command of 1st Fleet, is definitely off the table.

Her actually getting her shit together and mounting a proper, coordinated offensive with 9th Fleet is what she could've done in July of 2255, instead she made things weird. Joining up with the SFREA as Commander-in-chief in exchange for materiel support to exterminate the AIC once and for all now that JN OK doesn't let her do it anymore would exactly be the kind of bizarre move I'd expect from her.

Vehrec · Feb 14, 2023

Setsul said:
I also dislike it on a meta level, since it turns Renegotiating with Trescore into a trap option. If we do join the IPA we can't take it, and if we don't join the IPA and don't join the LIS immediately, we instantly get attacked in that narrow window the renegotiations take place by the same SolNav Admiral who just spent 6 months doing nothing at all.
And then either way most of the stuff we voted on just stops mattering because either we're getting bombed by SolNav, or 9th Fleet just destroyed itself in a pro gamer move that resulted in even more mutinies and feeding the meet grinder.

There's speculation in discord that the IPA might've bribed Admiral Dutchname, which would explain the suspicious timing, though I still don't like it.

I mean there are other things she might've done, like shutting down a gate or three, to really make the blockade stick, or attacking the SFREA after blaming them for her own incompetence in dealing with us, or any number of weird things. Hell, she might've joined up with the SFREA now that the position she's been aiming for, 7th Star Minister in command of 1st Fleet, is definitely off the table.

Her actually getting her shit together and mounting a proper, coordinated offensive with 9th Fleet is what she could've done in July of 2255, instead she made things weird. Joining up with the SFREA as Commander-in-chief in exchange for materiel support to exterminate the AIC once and for all now that JN OK doesn't let her do it anymore would exactly be the kind of bizarre move I'd expect from her.

Hold on now, what do you mean she could have done this in July? We didn't show up on her radar until we'd fought off the incursion back in August, and that was, to be honest, not what she was expecting to happen. So now it's a real threat to her personal carreer advancement, in the continued existance of the AIS, and she didn't show up to take personal command until the January turn. So it's taken her the better part of four months to get her ship-ducks in a row, to actually transit over, and to arrange for the necessary precautions of an invasion.

She was so busy shuffling command elements back and forth, to and fro in the aftermath of the Broadcast, that she only had the 3rd in position back in August, and she's been roused to anger by our pushing back of that fleet-albiet, not without losses. She's impulsive, but also patient, so she decides to do a Pro Gamer move, and then waits three months while her bureaucracy chews through her crazy plan and her staff officers try and fail to dissuade her before she is satisfied things are ready and slams the GO button. She's not...okay no she is incompetent in the ways of rapidly reacting to a crisis that would have seen her send her entire force at us, damn the torpedoes in July.

If the IPA bribed her, it was only to get her to do the thing she already wanted to do very badly.

bookwyrm · Feb 14, 2023

God not even Tobby himself but the whole network he's building is just entirely Lincoln Project grifts and like #Resist libs bemoaning the crass direct Ares corpocracy of Columbia while carefully not noticing the very Normal regime in Atlantis or everything else in the galaxy.

Also, I like how JN Okay's whole governing philosophy and the axioms he tries to hold to are pretty much the same as Senator Armstrong's in Metal Gear, in much the same way that every 19th century failson ensign bought their commission in the British Navy with dreams of being Nelson. Big daddy "Warpath" Okorie must have been a real like LBJ type of larger-than-life bastard.

Setsul · Feb 14, 2023

Vehrec said:
Hold on now, what do you mean she could have done this in July? We didn't show up on her radar until we'd fought off the incursion back in August, and that was, to be honest, not what she was expecting to happen. So now it's a real threat to her personal carreer advancement, in the continued existance of the AIS, and she didn't show up to take personal command until the January turn. So it's taken her the better part of four months to get her ship-ducks in a row, to actually transit over, and to arrange for the necessary precautions of an invasion.

She was so busy shuffling command elements back and forth, to and fro in the aftermath of the Broadcast, that she only had the 3rd in position back in August, and she's been roused to anger by our pushing back of that fleet-albiet, not without losses. She's impulsive, but also patient, so she decides to do a Pro Gamer move, and then waits three months while her bureaucracy chews through her crazy plan and her staff officers try and fail to dissuade her before she is satisfied things are ready and slams the GO button. She's not...okay no she is incompetent in the ways of rapidly reacting to a crisis that would have seen her send her entire force at us, damn the torpedoes in July.

If the IPA bribed her, it was only to get her to do the thing she already wanted to do very badly.

She should've known about us since the HI ceasefire deal, years ago, at the very latest when 12.7 came through she should've known something was up even if no one told her. And even if she somehow forgot or didn't notice anything, the Broadcast would've told her on May 18th. One and a half months just to decide that yes, she wants to attack us, is very generous in my opinion.

1st BG was sent to Drake after the Broadcast, she could've sent it to us instead.
2nd BG was sent towards us, if not very quickly, and for some reason split in two, with one Squadron being delayed in Iyuhi.
3rd BG was ... somewhere, probably in Bastion and also could've been sent towards us.

We explicitly know that 1st BG went to Drake, entered the planet's orbit, then turned around without doing anything.
We also know that 3rd BG was "paralysed" by her lack of orders or conflicting orders, doing literally nothing.
So yes, she had at least 4 if not 6 Squadrons she could've sent against us in June, arriving in July, and instead she send a single one in July, arriving in August.

Balmung1 · Feb 14, 2023

bookwyrm said:
Big daddy "Warpath" Okorie must have been a real like LBJ type of larger-than-life bastard.

What exactly do you mean by that one? Is that a compliment to Warhawk okorie by comparing him to LBJ or is it an insult by comparing him to LBJ?

bookwyrm · Feb 14, 2023

Balmung1 said:
What exactly do you mean by that one? Is that a compliment to Warhawk okorie by comparing him to LBJ or is it an insult by comparing him to LBJ?

Yes.

buli-buli · Feb 14, 2023

I relunctantly give Tobby credit for apparently planning on achieving the same effects of a bloodless coup via political maneuvering, but the fact he reached out to the military first still raises eyebrows about what will happen when Parliament inevitably fails to vote his way after he makes a motion of no confidence in JN OK.

Also, I think I figured out why Tobby is so particularly hateable. It is because he is not banal evil. He just talks and acts like it.

Banal Evil is evil via apathetic ignorance. The bureacrat who mindlessly rubberstamps whatever in order to recieve his paycheck and go home.

Note that the Nazi bureacrat who inspired the term is not an actual example. His own memoirs reveal he was a true believer. He was just a boring person.

Tobby is so hateable because he treats nuclear genocide with all the weight I would expect an IRL politician would austerity measures. If that.

He is not ignorant to the human cost of his decisions and actions, willfully or otherwise.
It's just completely meaningless to him.
He gets more emotional about voting procedure than he does the topic being voted on!

I'm calling it now. If things take a turn for the worst. Tobby is going to die completely uncomprehending of the real reason why people hate him.

alphaomega325 · Feb 14, 2023

In the topic of what Admiral Vizzari-Blaauwoord has done to warrant the reactions. I offer the possibility that the Admiral could have blew up a gate and become a warlord simultaneously. For I can imagine that would cause the reactions of Solarian Compact Congress.

TheArcanist · Feb 14, 2023

I think fucking around with a gate would've drawn condemnation from Tobby. Whatever she's done it's something he finds politically convenient, which is probably an invasion in my estimation.

Zavvnao · Feb 14, 2023

Evaunit02mark1 said:
That's slander. Billy is a sweet boy that is also an idiot and has the means to become a warrior in Valhalla so fierce even Odin gives him his due.

Tobby's a dick that couldn't fight his way out of a wet paper bag because that would involve conviction or god help us actual physical labor from the "civilized" classes.

wait, I thought I deleted that part of my post last night. I might of missed the backspace key. sorry.

Vehrec · Feb 14, 2023

Setsul said:
She should've known about us since the HI ceasefire deal, years ago, at the very latest when 12.7 came through she should've known something was up even if no one told her. And even if she somehow forgot or didn't notice anything, the Broadcast would've told her on May 18th. One and a half months just to decide that yes, she wants to attack us, is very generous in my opinion.

1st BG was sent to Drake after the Broadcast, she could've sent it to us instead.
2nd BG was sent towards us, if not very quickly, and for some reason split in two, with one Squadron being delayed in Iyuhi.
3rd BG was ... somewhere, probably in Bastion and also could've been sent towards us.

We explicitly know that 1st BG went to Drake, entered the planet's orbit, then turned around without doing anything.
We also know that 3rd BG was "paralysed" by her lack of orders or conflicting orders, doing literally nothing.
So yes, she had at least 4 if not 6 Squadrons she could've sent against us in June, arriving in July, and instead she send a single one in July, arriving in August.

Again, to repeat myself, she didn't think the AIS was worthy of her full attention until she sent 2nd BG and they were repulsed. That was what elevated us to being personally worthy of her attention, not another thing she could delegate off and that meant *more waiting* while she got her ducks in a row. Impulsive and Patient, those are the first two keywords in her profile, followed by Doctrinally Orthodox. She's not going to spend more on a jumped-up freak fleet than a single squadron, because hell, it's just neo-barbarian anarchists, she doesn't need to seriously pay attention. And when she does come in, she waits a long time because, well, patient, and Doctrinally Orthodox. She might have been waiting for other fires to get put out, and the cease-fire and negotiations might have spooked her into the invasion because she might not get to kill the Amanranthines if she doesn't go now.

Look at her bio, she was a mean girl at school who alternately kissed ass and backstabbed her way up the ranks, is the very definition of a multi-generational faildaughter officer, who doesn't like to take action without orders from above, and who is deeply protective of her career prospects and ambitions.

Never_My_Art · Feb 14, 2023

Reading the comments I have a suspicion that The Admiral of the Third Fleet shot down the AICs diplomats. It would explain why JN OK and Greene are so unhappy, as well as why Toby is terrified but still sees an opportunity. In this case if political violence can become the norm then he has free reign to remove his political opponents.

So points against this would be the doctrinally orthodox trait and Cosmoliberalism. It is more than likely an attack against the AIC and given that Greene and JN OK are both big supporters of a bloodless war to bring the compact back together, and Tobby is extremely foolish, all of their reactions make sense. Overall, the political situation for The Compact could swiftly become whoever is courting the admirals as warlords start rampaging from within the very government they swore to protect.

Some points against this are I do not see how Tobby significantly benefits from this outside of having already gotten in with an admiral, and even then I don't see him wanting to be the weaker partner in that relationship. Furthermore, we have already seen the Compact Navy go against common sense and decency in the name of The Compact when they attempted to burn Earth. It suggests they are willing to set aside their feelings of supremacy in order to keep the compact together, and the authors have made clear that it is hard to change people's minds with words and actions with how many people still support The Compact after The Box and, again, with what happened over Earth when the navy attempted to burn it.

My best bet is an attack by the navy on the AIC, but that the ramifications probably won't be as bad as everyone thinks.

Torgamous · Feb 14, 2023

Never_My_Art said:
Some points against this are I do not see how Tobby significantly benefits from this outside of having already gotten in with an admiral, and even then I don't see him wanting to be the weaker partner in that relationship.

I don't know if Tobby personally benefits from this, but it is what he wants. The ceasefire is OK's baby, Tobby sees it as conciliatory and probably effeminate. He wants anarchist worlds to burn.

Setsul · Feb 14, 2023

Vehrec said:
Again, to repeat myself, she didn't think the AIS was worthy of her full attention until she sent 2nd BG and they were repulsed. That was what elevated us to being personally worthy of her attention, not another thing she could delegate off and that meant *more waiting* while she got her ducks in a row. Impulsive and Patient, those are the first two keywords in her profile, followed by Doctrinally Orthodox. She's not going to spend more on a jumped-up freak fleet than a single squadron, because hell, it's just neo-barbarian anarchists, she doesn't need to seriously pay attention. And when she does come in, she waits a long time because, well, patient, and Doctrinally Orthodox. She might have been waiting for other fires to get put out, and the cease-fire and negotiations might have spooked her into the invasion because she might not get to kill the Amanranthines if she doesn't go now.

It also says that she was out of her depth. 3rd BG doing nothing wasn't some secret master plan, and only a single squadron actually arriving on time instead of the two she sent was another screwup. She had detailed intel on the Congressional Navy's size from the 12.7 mutineers.

And to get back to the original point she really could've done this in July. The AIC "not being on her radar" despite the very detailed intel doesn't prevent her from acting. It's not even that she chose not to do it, but that she didn't really decide on anything at all.

Vehrec said:
Look at her bio, she was a mean girl at school who alternately kissed ass and backstabbed her way up the ranks, is the very definition of a multi-generational faildaughter officer, who doesn't like to take action without orders from above, and who is deeply protective of her career prospects and ambitions.

Which is another point against her suddenly going against explicit orders when she could've done the exact same thing months ago without going against orders. Her brain shouldn't work that slowly that she reacts to JN OK's ceasefire with a 4 month delay.

AKuz · Feb 14, 2023

bookwyrm said:
God not even Tobby himself but the whole network he's building is just entirely Lincoln Project grifts and like #Resist libs bemoaning the crass direct Ares corpocracy of Columbia while carefully not noticing the very Normal regime in Atlantis or everything else in the galaxy.

Also, I like how JN Okay's whole governing philosophy and the axioms he tries to hold to are pretty much the same as Senator Armstrong's in Metal Gear, in much the same way that every 19th century failson ensign bought their commission in the British Navy with dreams of being Nelson. Big daddy "Warpath" Okorie must have been a real like LBJ type of larger-than-life bastard.

He was

AKuz · Feb 14, 2023

Gordon Chow grunted as he pulled a panel off the floor of his craft, muscles straining. He hated doing maintenance in gravity, it just felt weird. Doubly so to be working alone, but he'd given the crew the day off in Bastion out of the goodness in his heart and the cunning in his hindbrain.

Gordon could have gone out with them. Usually would have, but he was sort of attached to the ship right now. All he could do was minor maintenance checks to keep his hands busy and mind focused on something that wasn't his true purpose in putting in at Bastion instead of Waypoint or Freespace.

He sets the panel carefully aside and steps back to take a good look at what he was working with, and looks down at what he's working with. He knew that the trouble light had…

Aha! There.

He sighs, of course, an entire block module was about to fail. Now he'd have to get the crew to help him lift it out of place, muscle the whole piece out and replace it. It was within the his budget, but-

There is a little chirp from his phone. Gordon's ears perk up, it's a chirp with three tones, not two. He's been waiting for this.

He wipes his hands on his coveralls and picks up the phone, his eyebrows shooting up as he sees a single line from an unknown number blaze across the screen:

But screw your courage to the sticking-place,
And we'll not fail.

-

Fleet Admiral Rina Vizzari-Blaauwoord sits drinking a mixture of coffee and The Good Stuff from a mug and seethes.

Sitting in her well appointed Bastion office the woman who commands the Navy of the Solarian Compact's 9th Fleet can barely pay attention to the dispatches from Korolev-Chandresekhar, the Admiralty politics that have dominated her entire life becoming increasingly opaque to her.

On the wooden desk before her, formed from the dancing light of AR glasses are dozens of letters from her contacts in Korolev-Chandrasekhar,

What were once years long stately ballroom dances of influence and patronage between friends and relatives have rapidly become quick parries and thrusts between ideological camps and cliques of hushed intriguers of no particular note who'd appeared from nowhere and demanded everything.

And Vizzari-Blaauwoord has been frozen out. All that climbing, all that hustle. The endless nights, the ass kissing, the politicking, the rivalries. Years of politics and careful diplomacy, all gone, "All gone" she mutters to herself.

All the Admiral's ambitions now but ashes tossed before the revolutionary whirlwind.

The Solarian Admiral frowns and stands up from her seat, angrily ripping off the AR glasses with a snarl of rage, causing two dozen email letters with the sentiment 'I'm sorry, you're not important anymore', written in two dozen different ways to vanish from her sight. Much as how she'd been banished from the view of the movers and shakers in KC.

They blamed her for their own failings. How was she supposed to know the Elysians had developed such a sophisticated cyberwarfare attack? How could they blame her for obeying the dictates of the Prime Minister's Office itself? The orders that had told her to wait for authorization before deploying her forces?

"How could I have known?"

When the representatives of Hermes-Ishtar and Ares came to her and with smiles on their faces requested their 'valued ally' to turn a blind eye to their operations, how could she have known that she was paving a path away from those seven offices in Zizkind rather than towards them?

"They're laughing at me." She thunders to the empty room. Her rivals, her former allies, and the Elysians. She knew they were laughing at her. They'd bragged before the entire galaxy in the last of their broadcasts how they'd whipped the ass of that goody two shoes girl Charity and her squadron.

Vizzari-Blaauwoord snarls and throws her VR glasses across the room. They bounce soundlessly off a screen turned to emulate the view of the exterior of King station, looking down at the moon of the second planet in the Bastion system and the shoal of Solarian Navy auxiliary craft that kept the fleet base maintained and Vizzari-Blaauwoord's fleets fueled.

Rina's hands clench, how dare those glasses stay intact. Why didn't anything respect her anymore? Even her own officers thought she was a fool, even fools like that loser Charity who now showed her true colours attending lavish parties at the right hand of 'Chairwoman Weismann'.

That loser Rear Admiral Cadence Charity had been one of Rina's officers. The 201st one of Rina's squadrons. So she took the blame while Charity somehow skips away. Why would the SFREA's leader take that naive girl into her confidence but not the Ninth Fleet's rightful commander?

"It's because she's scared of me." Scared of what she could do when the leash came off. Scared that within her Rina Vizzari-Blaauwoord had the steel to build the empire that Emily Weissmann could not.

And so they all left her alone, ignored her, feared her, considered her a failure. All except the Elysians who mocked her to her face, the iconoclast rabble mocked Rina Vizzari-Blaauwoord's Fleet. Her. Fleet.

In front of the entire galaxy. They mocked her to her face when she still had the strength to make them pay for their many crimes. "I'd make them pay for all the innocent lives they'd destroyed. Punish them for all their mockery" she mutters, "If it wasn't for the Prime Minister's ceasefire order…"

She curls her nose up in disgust. Cowardly moves from a cowardly man. But she didn't know if obeying or disobeying his orders would win or lose her favour in the Admiralty infighting that was now as hidden from her as the most distant star in the universe.

She should show him. Show him what she can do. Show him that peace is secured on the battlefield, not the negotiating table.

There is a gentle pattern of chirping that yanks Rina from her rage.

The Solarian Admiral looks up at the clock on the wall. A circular analogue thing of wood, plastic, and ceramic, the clock that had once been her great grandmother's has a different birdsong every hour.

Her 14:00 meeting would be here soon.

After pounding down another mug of her patented coffee concoction that cut through even Solarian Navy augmentations, Rina sits at her desk and holds her hands flat against the wooden table, willing her anger to transfer from her into the smooth grain. By 14:14, she's idly imagining that the sublimating rage would leave an afterimage on the wood when her aide gently leads her guest into her office after his fifteen minute wait in the reception outside.

Vizzari-Blaauwoord rises from her desk, all smiles, and takes her guest's hand, "Gord! How are you? The new order in Epsilon treating you well?"

"The Salary's gone down, but the benefits and job satisfaction have gone way up." Gordon Chow, former Vice President of Field Operations for The Amalgamated Rimward Cargo Company takes shakes Vizzari-Blaauwoord's hand enthusiastically, "Damn, it's good to see you again Rina."

Letting go of the man's calloused hand, the Admiral gestures for her guest to sit and crosses the room to a small table, "Still drinking Earl Grey like a proper spacer Gord?"

"Tea, Earl Grey, hot," says the man, settling into a surprisingly comfortable seat with a grin, "Just like grandpa used to order."

The Admiral busies herself in her drinks counter, making Chow's tea and preparing her own deep space black coffee with a little extra thrown in, "I see that you're still Running the Wing Gord, even if the tail's got snipped off." she says returning to her desk with two filled and sealed mugs with wide conical bases.

"If peace is good for business, war is also good for business." The merchant shrugs as he takes his mug from the Admiral, "Speaking of which…"

"Ahh, straight to the point," Vizzari-Blaauwoord smiles and blows over her coffee, the aroma wafting across the office, "I knew there was a reason I liked you."

"It's the Elysians."

Admiral Vizzari-Blaauwoord's light greys a flash of rage that Chow breaks contact with by taking a sip of his tea.

"What about them?" She spits, drops of unswallowed flying from her mouth onto her desk and Chow's pant leg.

Chow gives a thin sympathetic smile, "I was going to sound out your opinion, but it looks like it's your turn to be straight to the point." he sets the mug down and his expression turns deadly serious, You're not alone in your opinion, not by a long shot." he shifts forward in his seat, "These anarchists keep getting away with their crimes because everyone else is a coward. Men and women who are too busy hoarding budgets to do what must be done. And now this new Prime Minister is too afraid of battles making him look bad in the press so he'd rather let the Community of Humanity die face down in the gutter instead."

"I agree one hundred percent," the Solarian Navy Admiral scowls, "but I do have my orders, even if they come from an idiot who can't see the big picture."

"Obviously, this conversation isn't happening," Chow mentally crosses his fingers and lobs the next shot at the woman, "But someone needs to deal with them. And if someone were too, there are a lot of people who would be very happy about that. Happy enough that we'd give every material support."

A look of eye widening surprise flashes across her face before being shuttered back behind that scowl of hers, "I do have my orders." She looks thoughtful as she picks up her coffee for another sip, an entire gulp, "But an officer has a duty to disobey immoral or unconstitutional orders. A politician so blinded by personal ambition that he would let millions die…"

Chow simply nods in apparent agreement, then tilts his head to one side, "Who do you serve Rina? The political class of the Compact or its people? The millions dead on Drake?" the Spacer taps the desk between them with his free hand, "Who should speak for the innocents of Humanity if not their Guardians?"

Vizzari-Blaauwoord bristles, "First Fleet broken in Earth's orbitals, the dead on the ground due to short sighted political panic. They had me sit here to triangulate political gain while those Elysian butchers plotted to destroy the peace we've worked so hard to build."

Fire and heat spreads up past the Admiral's collar and Chow can't tell if the woman's anger is genuine moral righteousness or a self-righteous sop to her ego. He supposes that it doesn't matter. Not to him, not to her targets.

He waits, letting the volley lie in the Solarian Admiral's court. She sips at her coffee several times, apparently unbothered by its heat or taste.

"I have sat here, uselessly waiting on orders that will never come," She rises to pace, mug still in hand, "or will dismiss me for something I had no control over." she finishes hotly, tossing more of her adulterated coffee back, "They ignore me, fear what it would take to restore order."

She takes a final deep draw on the mug and gives a vaguely aimed look of disgust.

"We're all hard pressed by this Rina," Gordon says as he watches the woman stalk to the counter and refill her coffee, "but I want to remind you that you're not alone. And it's not thoughts and prayers either, we have very real material support." Just enough material support to make her dangerous to the Elysians and herself.

"They'll scream at me to leave them alone, that a lying false peace promised by Ishtar's Iconoclast Illusionists is worth more than vengeance for the screaming dead of Athene, or Penglai's descent into chaos. For avenging our comrades in Sol."

"There are a lot of ways to make them pay Rina," Gordon says regarding the Admiral carefully over the rim of his mug, as he watches her return to her seat, "You're not just the 9th Fleet's Admiral, you're the Frontier Marshal for the region, if a crime has been committed it's up to you to punish the perpetrator."

"I am, aren't I?" The Admiral agrees after a long moment had passed between them, Gordon noticing a sudden light in Vizzari-Blaauwoord's grey eyes, "Hmm, you do know, that there are rumours," the Admiral begins, a sly grin appearing slowly and wickedly from within the anger previously plastered across her face, "-credible rumours mind you, that the Ascension facility was working on…" she racks her brain… "illegal ASI research before they began their flirtation with iconoclasm." another sip of coffee with an additional mystery intoxicant, "This… Congress no longer recognizes the laws of the Solarian Compact, so we can't know if they're continuing that research. It would be the duty of the Solarian Navy to ensure that Weapons of Mass Destruction aren't being developed behind the closed doors of a secretive facility. A centrally planned economy is ripe for hiding such things away from the eyes of the public. They've already done so much harm. We can't assume they don't have another trick up their sleeves."

Chow tinks the nail of right index finger against the ceramic handle of the mug in victory. He had her. He'd expected it to take longer, if indeed he could do it at all. She must have been righteously pissed off at the Elysians before he even got his orders to come here this afternoon, "Indeed. Why they've been awfully excited about propagandizing genetic engineering. Who knows what kind of biological weapons they're working on." Chow decides to nudge the woman just a little further, giving her a quick conspiratorial grin half concealed behind a sip of tea, "And some of my 'friends' who work the Wing and Spine tell me that these anarchists have begun inquiries into taking Humans out of the loop for mining and manufacturing tasks."

Vizzari-Blaauwoord's expression matches Chow's newfound grin, and he can see ambitions joining the self-righteous judgement in her eyes, "Yes, yes, regardless of all standing orders, there are certain General Orders that override all civilian meddling." she stands and begins pacing, a hand placed on her chin, " If these people are conducting research that could lead to autonomous self-replicating weapons platforms, biological or technological. And the communications lag time with civilian authorities could put all of Humanity at risk. Not just them. A disaster that would make Cronus look like a children's birthday party. It would be the duty of the Navy to maintain order in the region. Maybe even beyond the tragic death of the Solarian Compact itself."

"Of course, I need to stay within Solarian Navy regulations as well." The Admiral takes a triumphant sip on her coffee, "There is no need to attack these people. But… Perhaps an inspection?"

Gordon nods and makes his face light up as if he was basking in the revelations of a prophet, "If they have nothing to hide they'll have to allow inspectors from the closest fleet in to prove their innocence."

"Of course, since they've previously been so hostile to the legitimate authorities, we'd inevitably have to go in force. Sending battlegroups to escort inspectors." 9th Fleet's commander continues pacing, "If they refuse to allow them through, that's as good as an admission of guilt of crimes against Humanity, I'd have to move in. We'd shatter the anarchist illusion of responsibility and invincibility."

"The Prime Minister would be forced to follow your lead on the matter, he'd have to unleash the Solarian Navy. By this time next year the entire crisis would be on its way to a permanent solution." Chow smiles, lying through his well maintained teeth, "And you, my friend, would be the hero of the hour. The only one with the strength of character to push back against these criminals." he moves to stand up, "There might not even be a rank high enough for you once the dust settles."

"They'd want to make me PM," Vizzari-Blaauwoord chuckles with mock humility, "But I think I'd settle for 1st Star Minister for life"

"Of course, there are merchants and loyalists who would support this endeavour," he puts the mug down on the desk where it adheres with a quiet 'thup' and he fiddles with his pockets, "It would be quietly at first, to stay out of the limelight, but a heroic Solarian Admiral would receive all kinds of support from the locals even if it takes time for the Admiralty to understand what is happening and pledge their own full support."

"Is this what you mean by 'War is good for business' then?" 9th Fleet's commander grins, "Or should I say "War is good for Epsilon". After all, loyal supporters would get the first pick of the spoils."

"Good deeds are their own reward, but material prizes are a close second," Chow reaches out his hand, "Well, I'm going to get out of your hair, but we should do dinner… Let's say tomorrow evening. Once you've got your fleet sorted."

As Chow leaves the office, Vizzari-Blaauwoord opens up the folded piece of paper that had been tucked into Chow's hand and a predator's grin settles on her face. That was a lot of zeros, and a lot of precious feedstock.

The Admiral looks around the room to find where the VR glasses had landed, now glad that they'd stayed intact, saving her the time to fabricate a new pair.

She had work to do, starting with transcribing the names of the cut out merchant shipping companies that would back her heroic ascent. The people who recognized her greatness. People who she and the Ninth Fleet's intelligence section could drag down with her if they tried to renege.

She shakes her head to herself and tucks the paper away, "1st Star Minister for Life? Unlikely" She snorts, then pauses. Decides to try on another, much more attainable title, "Permanent Military Governor of the Far Spinward?" Too naked. "President of the Far Spinward Colonial Alliance?"

The Admiral smiles and puts on her 'historian voice', "President Vizzari-Blaauwoord: The woman who restored sanity to her corner of the galaxy and brought peace and order to where there was once chaos and war. Her hand was forced, ever so humbly and reluctantly by endless atrocities and a do nothing self-absorbed political class. A woman forced to slowly accept more and more powers from the rapidly waning central government until… President."

She smiles to herself. That could work.

-

"And done."

Chow steps back to admire his handiwork, grinning.

He hadn't needed to replace the whole unit after all.

He looks at where he'd connected a bypass with one of the cables meant for the warp ring assemblies.

A bit ugly, but used parts on hand. He could do a proper replace later, but for now this would work exactly how he needed it. Didn't need to get his hands dirty digging around inside the mechanism. Later when they refit the whole assembly they'd replace every unit in the deck at once in bulk.

He whistles as he reaches to put the covering back on. Just use existing assets to make a non-standard fix. That was the MSI way.

Well, the IPA way.

Forgothrax · Feb 14, 2023

Hey, remember when I said that kicking the IPA, aka a local power who had lots of soft influence as well as hard power, in the face (thus causing them to lose face and maybe respond out of spite) was a bad idea and everybody responded with "nah lol."

Guess what?!

KICKING THE IPA IN THE FACE WAS A BAD IDEA!!!

natruska · Feb 14, 2023

now that I think about it IPA truly is the most Iagopilled faction

View: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=H3De429jdIE

veteranMortal · Feb 14, 2023

Radiant, sowing: haha fuck the IPA lmao lets gloat about beating SolNav flat, ohoho lets shoot the shit about all our glorious victories
Radiant, reaping: what the fuck. this sucks. why is solnav so mad at us. why is the IPA helping them. what the fuck.

Whenyouseeyou · Feb 14, 2023

Well I guess we need to somehow invade ipa or do a fuck you to them

Aranfan · Feb 14, 2023

Yeah. I'm pretty sure the only way to have stopped this was to join the IPA. Rina Blauwood was going to work herself up to this sooner or later.

Spart117MC · Feb 14, 2023

Forgothrax said:
Hey, remember when I said that kicking the IPA, aka a local power who had lots of soft influence as well as hard power, in the face (thus causing them to lose face and maybe respond out of spite) was a bad idea and everybody responded with "nah lol."

Guess what?!

KICKING THE IPA IN THE FACE WAS A BAD IDEA!!!

The primary arguing point for nothing happening was the there was a peace treaty in place with the Compact and because the IPA was a constituent element of Compact they couldn't do anything.

Which makes it all the more stinging that it's a SolNav formation that's attacking.

Vehrec · Feb 14, 2023

I mean, the framing story of a guy bodging repairs to a critical part of his ship rather than doing proper maintenance makes me suspect that maybe this won't work out in the long term. It looks good for the IPA now, but it's...well, it's dodgy and it's not up to spec. It's like skipping maintenance on the god bolt's lubrication because it never fails.

And then the plane's tail falls off because you really *do* want to lubricate every 300 hours.

Zfglx · Feb 14, 2023

Looks like I was half right in my guess for what was happening. I wonder if we will be able to catch wind of IPA involvement in this cause if we could and if we survive this, then there will be some interesting options open to us.

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

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Doom of Public Libraries

Doom of Public Libraries

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Been Better

Not Going Gently

Gay and Stupid

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Amateur human