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.
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 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
-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
Presumably, you'd need some actual strategic depth around whatever system you're isolating, but wouldn't they then need to come at you the long way in order to get said solarian navy over there? Or are most systems relatively close in realspace, insomuch as that applies to distances measured in light years?
Presumably, you'd need some actual strategic depth around whatever system you're isolating, but wouldn't they then need to come at you the long way in order to get said solarian navy over there? Or are most systems relatively close in realspace, insomuch as that applies to distances measured in light years?
Presumably, you'd need some actual strategic depth around whatever system you're isolating, but wouldn't they then need to come at you the long way in order to get said solarian navy over there? Or are most systems relatively close in realspace, insomuch as that applies to distances measured in light years?
Gates merely regulate points that are naturally easy to form wormholes in. Enough energy and you can open one without a gate and put smallish ships through. Gates just make it safe to regularly transit, and allow bulk traffic.
Maybe, but they're useless reactionaries with a long reach, a lot of heavy metal, and more than enough very large guns to turn us into free-floating atoms.
Presumably, you'd need some actual strategic depth around whatever system you're isolating, but wouldn't they then need to come at you the long way in order to get said solarian navy over there? Or are most systems relatively close in realspace, insomuch as that applies to distances measured in light years?
Systems are super far away from each other in real physical distance - exactly how jump start/end point pairs are determined isn't understood and they seem to just skip huge areas in between. (This is partially done so the QMs don't have to worry about real stellar geography.)
But yes, to summarise: Break a gate, buy the farm.
Yeah, seems like a bad idea to destroy gates.
It'd only make sense as a last ditch effort to block a giant invasion fleet, which would kill us all anyway.
Assuming we had advance warning.
Though rather than destroying gates, could we move a lot of mass towards our side of a gate, with remote controlled drones?
If we never transfer mass back in the other direction, the gate would be blocked... I think?
Or just point a huge number of guns at the exit aperture, because I'm guessing that you can't move too much tonnage through a gate at any one time without causing Problems.
Actually, how directional are gates?
I remember seeing a reference to only a 60 degree cone being fortified in the last update.
If so we can use the gate itself as a fortification. Seed both sides of it with mines and gun platforms, and then fire missiles through the gate as needed from depots on the radiant side.
Actually, how directional are gates?
I remember seeing a reference to only a 60 degree cone being fortified in the last update.
If so we can use the gate itself as a fortification. Seed both sides of it with mines and gun platforms, and then fire missiles through the gate as needed from depots on the radiant side.
The point of the 60 degree cone is so that you don't accidentally hit the gate shooting at spacecraft coming through it. While you might be able to get away with just shy of a 90 degree cone if you really, really trust your missiles' precision and the gate itself is completely closed, a 60 degree cone is much safer when you have to account for how the wormhole mouth will throw off your aim slightly.
The point of the 60 degree cone is so that you don't accidentally hit the gate shooting at spacecraft coming through it. While you might be able to get away with just shy of a 90 degree cone if you really, really trust your missiles' precision and the gate itself is completely closed, a 60 degree cone is much safer when you have to account for how the wormhole mouth will throw off your aim slightly.
Today in #ScienceDiagramsThatLookLikeShitposts, I present to you a cross section of firing arcs through a wormhole:
The outer arc is just under 90 degrees (don't actually measure it, it's not to scale), and the inner arc is 60 degrees. While technically you can fire from the whole arc, the outer edges come dangerously close to hitting the gate not once but twice. There are two sets of distortion due to curvature that you encounter on approach to an active wormhole. The first is the literal Jupiter masses of negative energy pushing your shots away from the gate. This is fine on the near approach, as it makes it harder to accidentally graze the gate, but results in it being harder for the far approach to push your shot away, as it's already been curved towards it.
The second curvature distortion comes from the mouth of the wormhole. This actually pulls you in towards the throat much as gravity does for any other spherical object. This is fine if you're pointed directly at the throat, as it makes for a slight correction to your trajectory that is evened out on the other side. If you're at any other angle of approach, you're going to have a hard time lining things up, as the mouth will throw off your shot.
All put together, it's easy to fire through the gate to the other side, but shooting anyone on the near side quickly becomes bogged down by fiendishly difficult numerical relativity calculations. Your predetermined firing arc has to account for not only shooting through the wormhole, but in front of it, through empty space, and the wormhole changing size during your shot. As per usual with anything involving detailed General Relativity calculations, I've implemented the SWAG approximation to estimate a 60 degree firing cone.
As a side note, by convention, the front of the gate always face inwards to the sun, and the back to the Kuiper belt. As wormholes will always spit you out on the same bearing you entered the throat, this means that instead of moving front-to-back, you wind up crossing front-to-front. There's an extra delta-v cost to pay for trying to enter via the back, and to get to the inner system, where almost everything of interest is, you'll have to pay that same cost again. Moreover, from a military perspective, you have to slow to a stop in preparation for a crossing instead of only slowing to a few hundred m/s or so, which gives your enemy's defenses much more time to shoot at you even if they never bothered fortifying the backside of the gate. This makes the back of the gate only of interest to scientific missions to the Kuiper belt and stealth craft, which can use the back to sneak in during commercial operation of the gate. However, sneaking in can be defeated simply by putting cryo sensor platforms around the rear of the gate close enough to defeat stealth, with no need to add additional weapons platforms to guard those arcs.
What material is going to be able to stop a ship the size of a modern cruiser with lasers and Casaba howitzers from blowing straight through whatever you've built, unless you've just shoved a dwarf planet in front of the hole?
Rather than destroy gates, can we do the opposite? By which I mean could we try and develop our own home-made versions of KC gates (conventional ones, not the prototype personal ones we've been leaving on the backburner) or just apply for the Big Stick people to come build a gate for us in (insert location here)? Or is this one of those things like the Sol credits we got frozen where the powers that be will just refuse to engage with us.
Thinking about Signia and the unimproved wormhole link here, seeing as how it could be a reasonable mid-to-long term expansion option that doesn't require taking clay from someone else (or at least from someone else actually using it, since Signia probably has a title/deed in the back of some proverbial cabinet somewhere).
Move it outside of the solar system.
As there's no ship-based FTL(?), anything that comes through the gate would have to travel at STL speeds to reach the system.
It'd create a useful buffer, preventing a sudden invasion fleet from taking us by surpise.
I'm pretty sure that since the gate is enhancing a natural phenomenon that is positioned by things like the locations the involved stars and other heavy, difficult to tow elements that's not really possible.
We would probably have more luck towing our star(s) and attached system(s), in that there are papers written on how to do that sort of thing we could copy from.
Not super happy with this, though that might just be the tiredness talking. Tried to play around with how to show a battle, don't feel that I've done it justice, but oh well, can't get better except by doing and failing.
Stayed up waaay too late editing AKuz's prose, so if any weirdness with tenses slips through, it's my fault. Also, AKuz is too hard on herself. This is way better than anything I could have written.
"Just through here, Miss Tanaka," says a young man in the still slightly unfamiliar black and grey digital camo pattern of Sheol's Orbital Defence Force, holding a hand through the open armoured door separating Watchman's control center from the security checkpoint outside.
Jessica steps through, her feet nearly tripping her to the floor when trying to maintain the loping motion that comes so naturally to spacers and other low gravity workers.
After all, Jessica Tanaka isn't at all used to low gravity, whatever her official byline for HI news services said. She'd never been to another planet aside from Elysium before now, and even in space she'd travelled on passenger liners or been on stations with a rotational standard gravity.
So true low gravity, like that of Sheol's moon Watchman, is a… new experience for her and her stomach. (Which is upset enough to annoy her, but not upset enough to require going through the trouble of tracking down medical treatment.)
But if she is going to truly become the journalist that she wants to be, she can't limit herself to just reporting on Elysian issues, she has to report on wherever else freedom is spreading.
Which in this case means a visit to Sheol, in the midst of a world-defining political awakening, and then later an invitation from the Orbital Defence Force to witness in real-time their response to an 'Incursion by Charter forces'.
Jessica reaches out to stop herself from bouncing heavily off the floor by steadying herself on one of the command center's closely packed watch crew chairs, the fingers of her left hand wrapping around a shock harness (that was thankfully not currently attached to a Spacer), and the other hand reaching to up to make sure that the recoloured Congressional Navy officer's beret that had been gifted to her stays in place.
"Are you alright, Miss?" asks the Sheolite officer, Flight Rate Aidian Marrus, coming up beside her and offering an arm, "That almost ended badly, Miss Tanaka."
"No, I'm, I'm fine," says Tanaka, grabbing the arm and hauling herself into an upright position, "Just not used to, you know, being in space." She steadies herself and stands still long enough for her stomach to settle. "Honestly, until last month, I'd never left Elysium for an extended period of time."
"Huh," says Marrus, "I thought you people travelled all the time?"
"Not really, it's really expensive to travel more than a system or two if you're not really," she waves the flattened palm of her hand in the air above her head, "up there, you know? And when you can scrape time off from twenty hour days, there's no energy to actually go on a vacation."
The Rate blinks in obvious confusion, "Twenty hour days?" He holds up a dark-skinned hand to stop her as another man in a grey and black digital camo uniform goes by with a tablet tucked under one arm.
Tanaka chuckles, she'd almost come to enjoy getting this reaction from Sheolites. "Oh yeah, that's not an exaggeration or made up." She grins. "Though obviously, not everyone worked twenty hour days, ten to fourteen formal hours plus an additional two to six hours of bringing your work home to keep up with quotas was the norm." She shrugs. "They haven't finished the full assessment yet. Elysium was a vacation world, but not for us, it was for people on the Grand Tour."
Jessica follows the Flight Rate as he leads her around the command deck. "There's actually a whole interesting story about the people who wound up on Elysium during the March Days that I'll finish at some point, but I just can't find a good proper throughline that feels unbiased."
"Hmm. Well, here we are Miss Tanaka." Marrus gestures at an empty chair near off to the side of where the cramped control center abruptly becomes spacious and opens up almost into a small theater.
A short, older man, with a shaved bald head and a grey goatee steps forward and waves her towards his station in the middle of the theater, "Welcome to Watchman command, Miss Tanaka, mind the bloodstains, some of the butchers from Ares' last shift never left this command deck."
The Sheolite officer's voice is rich and rough, with a hum that indicates that it's almost certainly not of natural origins, and he has a bloodless thin-lipped smile that covers entirely too much of his face as he holds his hand towards her, "General Killer Sobriquet, commander of this watch station, and your official host for this visit, and those to follow over the coming two weeks."
Tanaka takes the man's hand, the skin feeling as rough as his voice. "General Sobriquet, I'm happy to be here, your people have been very accommodating," says the journalist, responding to the firmness of the man's grip with a grasp just as hard and no harder.
His smile eases into something slightly more natural as his eyebrows shift nearly imperceptibly, and the handshake breaks apart. "I will admit that I'm not used to dealing with the press." He gives a toothy grin. "At least not since I was last on Columbia. Which was a few years ago now."
"I see."
Tanaka double-taps a silver ornament that's attached to her temple and runs down and around her left ear, "I hope you don't mind if I record this live, I've been informed that this is how you do A Journalism," she says with an easy smile. "The public generally likes to be able to experience what I'm experiencing for themselves."
The general nods. "Of course, Miss Tanaka. Though I would request that you not broadcast live, and instead allow us to view the footage before broadcast." He smiled that nearly lipless smile again. "We would hate for militarily sensitive data to leak. Emergency measures and all that."
"Of course, general," Tanaka lied. Though… it would perhaps be better not to broadcast live in a facility built to withstand and detect espionage.
"Excellent." The general waves her next to him at his central position, and looks at an antique analogue watch ticking away on his wrist. "Their light should be hitting us soon, so I'll just give you the flash layup, Ms. Tanaka." He turns and points at the pair's seven o'clock, where a spacer in digital camo and a nearly comically oversized headset is sitting anxiously in her seat, "Listen up crew, stations check, starting with Comms."
"Sir! Communications, 'Viccer Visse reporting, all equipment is ready to go, military frequencies cleared. Sir!" says a young woman, standing up from her station and rattling off her report with a heel click and military precision, "Good! To! Go!"
"Excellent 'Viccer." The general moves his finger to point to the next spacer in digital camo, at their eight o'clock. "Orbital Control?"
"Sir!" says a young man with a heavily scarred face as he stands up. "Orbital Control, 'Viccer Trase reporting, all lanes are cleared, civilian craft have departed near space, Sir! Good! To! Go!"
The General continues clockwise, running through weapons (orbital weapons satellites and watchman emplaced guns online and operational), engineering (everything is fine), and so on until he finishes with 'allied operations.'
"Sir!" says a much older man with buzzcut blond hair, "Allied Operations, 'Rate Alive reporting, Mobile force on schedule, Congressional MilComm reports allied space clear of threats, Sir. Good! To! Go!"
"Thank you friends and comrades, back to your stations."
"Very professional, general," says Tanaka, face neutral.
"Thank you Ms. Tanaka."
"Very well practiced."
The general favours her the raising of an eyebrow that is bisected by an ancient scar, "It may not impress you, with your... background." He chuckles mirthlessly, "But we find that these sorts of rituals are good for morale, and good for team building."
"I'll take your word for it, that is why I'm here after all general!" She surveys the room in a single calm and steady motion, focusing to hear the background chatter of the command deck's crew. "To educate myself and the All-Radiant Congress on how wars are fought."
The general looks up from his watch, his face composed and calm, "I do agree that war is something that can only really be experienced." He looks down at his watch again, "They seem to be running a little late, could be th-"
The command deck suddenly becomes much louder and the entire forward section, that had just been a view of the Watchman surface turns into a view of the void, with the deepness of field illusions that can be disorienting when unexpected, and this transition was certainly unexpected.
As were the nearly blinding explosions playing out across the space in front of what appeared to be a dull grey donut.
"There we are, then." The general snaps and points a finger towards the tactical operations station, "'Viccer Taro, what are we looking at?"
A brown-haired, mousy young man, who sounds genuinely too young to be in uniform, replies. "Based on replay and sensors it looks like they sent a trio of those auxiliaries through the gates. It appears they were loaded down with flares, chaff, and rocks that they rolled as soon as they transited."
The general crosses his arms, "Now, I'm not a trained admiral, but I'm guessing that's going to fuck our defences?"
"Yes, Sir!" the young man waves his hands over his panel and the visuals separate into two half-sized video feeds, with an overlay appearing across the feed closest to him, "They appear to be using a very mixed loadout, some shotgun blasts of rocks, flares and chaff, from the first two ships and the third is rolling a lot of HAWRK missiles.'' He looks at Tanaka and abruptly swallows nervously. "That's uh, 'Homing-All-the-Way-Radiator-Killer', for missiles that track active target lock systems for counter-battery fire. They appear to be trying to knock out our missile shoals."
There is a pair of massive explosions that the screen helpfully dims out. "There goes two of the incoming ships, and-" he looks down at his panel again, "five corvettes are now in Shei, these look like New Models, can't get a good reading from them, they're spitting all kinds of ECM and ECCM -oh uh, Electronic Counter-Measures and Electronic Counter-Counter Measures, jamming basically." He winces. "They're clearing out the rest of our defences."
All eyes are on the screen and next to Tanaka the general's hands tighten into fists.
"Got one!" says Taro pumping a fist into the air, "One of the FELs hit something vital!"
Sobriquet turns his head, "Visse, are they saying anything? Can we tell if they're getting our automated messages?"
"No, sir! They're quiet, and not responding to our requests to stand down for peaceful negotiations."
The General shakes his head and tsks playfully, "I told them it wouldn't work, Ms. Tanaka." He spins one hand in a tight circle, indicating aimlessly. "These… people, these kinds of people, these… they don't negotiate, they're paid to be monsters, so monsters sign up to get paid to be monsters."
Tanaka opens her mouth carefully. 'There's an involved discussion about life circumstances and phenomena like the poverty draft, General,' she doesn't say before closing her mouth, she's not here to scream 'DEBATE ME' at a man who's probably spent his entire life losing loved ones at Ares' hands. Not in the middle of a story at any rate. "It looks like you're nearly out of guns," says Tanaka instead, pointing at the rapidly decreasing amount of green on the overlay in front of them.
Sobriquet's face twists with a bloodless grimace. "Someone's head's going to roll for this, we expected to see much higher casualties." He sighs and uncrosses his arms to clap his hands together. "Well, that's war for you. What are we looking at Taro?"
"That pair of Cossaks, four more civilian ships that are probably as loaded down with munitions as those fire ships earlier, a light tender, the remaining four corvettes, and two couriers."
The un-augmented screen suddenly zooms in on one of the frigates, where a nasty gash has been gouged down the ship's ventral hull. Tanaka can't read battle damage, but there is certainly a lot of blackened hull and missing external radiators.
"Looks like we tagged that Ares Cossak sir!" the officer says before the last green lights on the overlay wink out, "We'll see what we can glean from the data sir." Taro says less cheerfully.
"See to it," says General Sobriquet, lifting his hand to clap Tanaka on the back celebratorily before pausing, hand hovering awkwardly in the air, then clasping his hands together with a clap. "Well that's that, Ms. Tanaka." He rotates his wrist to see his watch. "I believe we'll be seeing you again on the command deck in about a week or so." He turns around to where 'Rate Marrus has been waiting near the entrance the entire time, "Mr. Marrus, if you would escort our guest back out of our militarily sensitive areas."
-
Ten days later Jessica Tanaka was editing together today's report (an in-depth report on the failure of an attempt by Regional Governorates to bypass SCMC chain of command via setting up a planetary Regional Cooperation Forum, which the SCMC shut down by the simple expedient of conscripting everyone involved due to the current Charter threat) when the knock came at her door.
Jessica slid her editing into the corner of her heads-up display and paused long enough to recognize the familiar gentle but insistent raps that were scuffing the door's blue and grey paint job.
"Come in Aiden, door's unlocked."
The door opens with the patented Ares swoosh™: and Marrus stands in the doorway at a parade rest. "Miss Tanaka, General Sobriquet requests the pleasure of your presence on the command deck."
Jessica sizes Marrus up, a physical escort likely means the General was probably sending her a message that her… unauthorized forays around Watchman base over the past week were now over. But on the other hand…
"Did he give a reason why?" she asks as she rises to her feet, stretching her arms, and reaching for the black wrinkless long-sleeved business cut jacket that she still thought of as her 'Work Coat'.
"Commodore Rousseau has indicated that she intends to hold the gate, and the light from that engagement should be reaching us shortly." says the Sheolite officer as Tanaka steps out of her guest cabin and the door Swooshes™: closed behind her.
"Lead on MacDuff," says Jessica, holding out a hand. "Actually, wait, Commodore? Did that ridiculous woman give herself a promotion?"
"After you," says Marrus, holding out his hand. "I believe it was a reorganization after the Space Force was redesignated the Congressional Navy, Commodore Rousseau reorganized her entire chain of command to Naval ranks as a morale-boosting exercise," the Sheolite laughs, "As you said, utterly ridiculous, and the rest of the Congressional Navy is debating on whether or not to follow the Mobile Force's lead."
"It's this way, right…?"
"Right, just through there."
Jessica's head is so full of thoughts, thoughts about what could go wrong and right, how a victory or loss would affect Elysian or Sheolite politics, that she almost doesn't notice the walk to the command center, her body showing ID to the grey uniformed guards manning the various security checkpoints without any conscious effort on her part.
Her attention only returns to her surroundings to register an annoyed tone from General Sobriquet. It's almost like she's teleported next to the General, "Sorry?" she says, wishing she had the sort of augmentations that could slow her subjective time enough to replay whatever the General had said.
The general smiles his thin smile. "I asked you if you wanted copies of the insults, demands, and grandstanding that Captain Ericson and Commodore Rousseau have been sending to each other for the past day?"
"Oh, yes, I'd love that!" She'd have to review those later because, whatever else, Rousseau's ridiculous posturing always made for entertaining reading.
"I'll get that sent to you Miss Tanaka," then the general nods at the front screen, "But now the battle!"
Tanaka followed the bald-headed man's gaze to where it now displayed a familiar three-dimensional grid, filled now with two groups of flashing icons. One set in red -Rousseau's Mobile Force- and one in blue. Behind the Mobile Force is a dull grey icon indicating the gate itself. Both sets are rapidly approaching the other, as the numbers indicating distance and display scale of the battlespace tick rapidly downwards.
"No station check?" asks Tanaka wryly, running her own equipment through a start-up and synchronization process.
"Not today Miss Tanaka," says the General, turning as the Comms officer says something that Tanaka does catch at first.
"Commodore Rousseau reports that negotiations with the enemy commander have failed and that Mobile Force is going to weapons hot with the opposing force as they approach the gate.
"What the hell are you doing…?" Mutters the general, drawing Tanaka's attention back to him, "You've got your ships spread across thousands of kilometers."
Tanaka finds that her attention focuses on the screen as the two formations close, the sickly blue icons of the Charter force speeding towards the vibrant red of Rousseau's command, then there's a sudden scattering across the plot, icons whirr and blink around.
"Tactical, what the hell is happening!"
"There's too much interference, ECM and ECCM everywhere, and those craft are maneuvering fast, we've lost the uninterrupted feed from the system is pulling it apa-"
A series of flashes ripple across the screen, weapons fire being exchanged, followed by more rippling pulses of light, and then more icons are added to the battlespace, these labelled 'debris'.
"Fucking space combat," the General snarls, before snapping his bald head around, shoulders tensed, "Comms, if there's a net still up, put through what you can-"
"Yes General, I can pull up the rescue shuttle network."
"Moving to see if we can pick up any rescue beacons."
"-Reliant, come in Reliant, you are showing all red across the board, come in Reliant!"
"HOLY FUCK! You see the temp on those radiators!"
"-nkown but adrift, repeat, looks like loose munitions, Do not approach!"
"General! The tactical net is giving us solid reports," says the blond young man at tactical, green eyes wide, "Both Charter Frigates are out of action! Shieldmaiden ripped apart the Ares ship when she closed in and the Omoikane frigate has spontaneously lost power and is drifting away north from the battlespace, but Shieldmaiden is torn up pretty bad from that frigate's charge!"
Tanaka lets loose the sort of horrified giggle that usually accompanies the experience of watching a cheap horror movie in daylight hours.
"Valiant is reporting mission kills of two of the corvettes, Defiant reports destruction of a third… and Lake Champlain took out the fourth!" He lets out a joyful gasp of air as he continues to read from his console, "No damage to our own corvettes."
"Holy fucker," says someone on the command deck in dazed amazement until the Tactical officer yells out a follow on.
"No, wait, Reliant has dropped from the network and dropped into a drift, the S&R net are closing but can't see any external damage."
"Th-th-the, uh, two of the fast auxiliaries popped loose some sort of hull cladding and opened up with military-grade weapons. No hits! Liberte tagged one!"
Tanaka snaps her eyes from the young man up to the screen where the numbers disparity is crushing, this is… she's glad to be here when the report comes in. She exchanges a look with the General who is grinning ear to ear.
"You fucking useless Elysians, you fucking did it!"
"Pass nearly complete sir, more weapons fire!"
Tanaka curls her hands into tight fists, "Come on, come on..."
"Vigilance reports another kill!"
"The tankers are signalling a surrender!"
There is a round of cheers, cheers that only intensify when the last flashing blue icons vanish from the plot, leaving only red behind.
Tanaka feels the tension leaving her body as the General claps her on the back, and laughs like an enchanted doll, his mouth entirely open, "Damn good show Elysian."
Jessica is exchanging a hug with Marrus when the Comms officer cuts across the celebrations with a single loud sentence, "INCOMING MESSAGE FROM COMMODORE ROUSSEAU!"
"Put it through 'Viccer," says Sobriquet through a wide smile.
That smile vanishes when the battlespace plot on the command center screen switches to an image of Rousseau on her bridge.
Tanaka almost feels… ashamed at the voyeurism of the high-quality image, a quality high enough that Tanaka can recognize the aftermath of an adrenaline crash as Rousseau speaks. The flag officer has her combat vacuum suit helmet tucked under one arm, her hair disheveled and what looks like bruising across her forehead, "This is Commodore Rousseau reporting to all MilComm and allied elements: Mobile Force has engaged with and destroyed, disabled, or taken as prize the Charter aligned force that was raiding the Sheol system."
The officer rubs the side of her face with a black-gloved hand, shakily leaving something red across the side of her face as she does so, "Shieldmaiden is not currently fit for combat purposes, we have taken…" she looks tiredly offscreen, "twenty-four fatalities from various compartments, along with a large but not yet tallied number of lesser casualties. Reliant is in a graveyard spiral and out of communications, Liberte is also drifting off network. Choreographer and the remainder of her corvettes are moving to bring the Omoikane frigate under control. The system is firmly under friendly control. Rousseau out."
-
Current Approximate Population: 362,350,000 (Approximate, Sheolite population surveyed for industrial planning purposes)
Trust: 80 (The populace is ecstatic, population growth bonus)
BR Stockpiles: 42
SR Stockpiles: 48
Energy Generation: 56
Current Baseline Draw: 29
Free Capacity: 21
Total:
Radiant:
Gaid:
Shei:
Thoa:
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
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.
Mobile Force, C/O Commodore Stephanie Rousseau
CNS Shieldmaiden
Great Heathen-class Light Cruiser
Captain Rousseau's command, Shieldmaiden and her crew mutinied cleanly during the Liberation of Shei, and has now come into the Congressional line of battle.
-
CNS Choreographer
Janissary-class Light Tender
CO: Karl Xanthopoulos
(Formerly the Ishtar's Arrow): At Elysium for R&R, the fighting over this light carrier turned violent unlike most other places in Radiant. It had been written off in the initial chaos, your people were able to repair her and return her to service along with her compliment of Corvettes.
-
CNS Valiant, CNS Defiant, CNS Reliant, CNS Actium, CNS Lake Champlain, and CNS Midway
New Model-class Strike Corvettes
Modern corvette designs originally sourced from Ares shipyards, the New Model class are heavily armed with an alpha strike of short range torpedoes designed to quickly overwhelm enemy defences and leave them an airbleeding wreck.
All six craft are currently attached to CNS Choreographer
-
CNS Liberte, CNS Egalite
Fast Corvettes (Converted Couriers)
A set of hastily-converted couriers armed with a light PD laser and a mass driver salvaged from smaller Space Patrol boats. Fast, but fragile and without much firepower. These were never meant for squaring up against purpose-built warships, and no amount of jury-rigging can really change that.
Radiant Orbital Yard 1
Current construction: Corvette (1 turn remaining)
Radiant Orbital Yard 1
Current construction: Corvette (1 turn remaining)
Improved fortifications:
Gaid-Thoa Gate
Home Force, Radiant, C/O Admiral Gregor Mansur:
-
Scutum, Targe, Buckler
System Patrol Corvettes
Three old corvettes used by the Space Patrol for heavy-duty asteroids and some light mining work when not diverting dangerous objects. Their weapons haven't been used seriously in decades, if ever, but they seem in good order.
-
Switchblade Wing:
7x Squadron of Switchblade-class aerospace fighters.
Several squadrons of general-purpose Switchblade-class fighters, used for general purpose aerospace patrols. Jack of all trades, master of none. These were inherited from Hermes-Ishtar orbital control.
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Radiant Customs Squadron
1x Squadron of Arabia-class boarding craft with marine contingents
Once used to check cargo ships for illicit goods, this small squadron of Arabia-class assault shuttles, and most of its complement of marines, came over to the revolution's side early on. Arabia-class shuttles are capable of both space- and land-based assaults, including boarding actions. They lack everything except light PD lasers and miniguns, though, and are sitting ducks against fighters. These were inherited from Hermes-Ishtar Radiant Customs.
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Shei Redeployment Program:
Having decided to simply cut the Gordian's knot and resettle the ex-Ares personnel from Sheol to Elysium.
Right now the Elysian population is concerned about travel restrictions, the bulk of the ex-Ares people are annoyed and cooling their heels on Sheol, and the Sheol Supreme Central Military Command is distracted by an internal political crisis, meaning that as of August 2252 there may be developing social or diplomatic issues in the future.
In order to ensure that this massive wave of immigration is able to be peacefully integrated into Elysium's existing population without creating issues, you will need to contribute to the overall project's progress target by putting dice into a number of different projects whose roll results will be added directly into the below tag. Some narrative events or other projects will serendipitously add progress as a byproduct of their completion.
Between the six troop ships that Rousseau took intact, eight warp capable former Hermes-Ishtar passenger liners, and dozens of non-warp cruise ships, each quarter approximately 400,000-600,000 ex-Ares people will be arriving on Elysium looking to integrate with the local population.
If you are unable to keep the project percentage above the immigration percentage, the incoming population and the project tag, social issues will develop that may have long term consequences.
Classically, mass numbers of unpaid troops with nothing to do and no prospects ends badly for governments. Good luck!
Program Progress: 084/150, 56%
Immigration Progress: 1,400,000/3,000,000, 46%
Project Results: Add a dice into MilComm, gain a dice bonus. Sheol pleased
-
Voluntary Emergency Military Precedence Measures:
The VEMP Measures involve a general pre-authorization for military projects to use computer time without previous scheduling requests, ability to pre-empt previously scheduled surface to orbit launch windows and orbital tracks, a first call on all new resources, and a reorganization of networks and administrative capacity to streamline cooperation on military projects.
While this will inconvenience the population and reduce the Congress' own administrative slack and flexibility, on the whole it will serve to increase your ability to fight a military conflict against the Charters.
At the moment the implementation of the VEMP Measures are currently being left up to the discretion of the ARC's General Congress, the body which conducts long range planning and high level coordination and administration for the All-Radiant Congress.
Implementation of the VEMP Measures have locked your Focus into MilComm for the foreseeable future, and reduce trust loss due to brownouts from going over the spare E(nergy) capacity. You have gained an extra dice in MilComm for the duration of the VEMP Measures giving you three total dice in MilComm. These measures will remain in place until either the threat is widely seen to have passed or you vote to return to peacetime operations.
If any of the following vote options are included in the winning plan vote, the VEMP Measures will be ended or expanded for the next General Session of the All Radiant Congress:
[ ] [VEMP] End Implementation of VEMP Measures
Some are concerned that existing measures may not go far enough to secure our Independence from military action by the Charters and are pressing for an expansion to our measures
[ ] [VEMP] Implement Eminent Domain Measures
By adding eminent domain measures, MilComm and the General Congress gain the ability to not only have first crack at resources and infrastructure, but are able to lay claim to existing resources and infrastructure as long as they can justify it as a war measure increasing the resource budget.
[ ] [VEMP] Institute Skills Requisition Program
While MilComm does it's best to attract personnel with useful skills, or train volunteers in rarer skills, a number of fields with more esoteric or harder to train skills remain in high demand by MilComm. This proposal is for an expansion of VEMP rules to draft individuals with these skills part time for the duration of the conflict.
[ ] [VEMP] Industrial Strikecraft Quotas
As the ARC lacks military equipment, a number of people have proposed that the VEMP Measures include a requirement that for each community to receive offworld resources, they must dedicate some time and resources to printing and assembling a small number of strike craft for home defence.
-
MEETING OF THE GENERAL CONGRESS
(For the following plan, each project requires a die to be assigned. Each dice is a d20 plus the category bonus that will be rolled to progress on the project. Some projects will require certain resources to complete, please make sure those are on hand. Some projects complete automatically. Excess progress may be shifted to other projects in that section. Please vote by plan by picking a FOCUS and then assigning dice to projects. Project costs are Per Die)
Pick one option, thanks to focus being put in that category, it gains one extra dice to spend this turn, and will open up more options in that category next turn:
[ ] [FOCUS] Industry Committee
[ ] [FOCUS] Military Committee
[ ] [FOCUS] Science Committee
[ ] [FOCUS] Social Committee
[ ] [FOCUS] Media Committee
VEMP Measures in effect, no focus vote
-
INDUSTRY COMMITTEE (Two One Die)
"All I want is one quarter without some project getting interrupted or destroyed."
-Asphodel Environmental Commission: +5 to dice rolls involving Radiant system construction
-Orbital Industrial Workers Union: +2 to dice rolls on industrial rolls
-Shei Planning Assistance Commission: +3 to dice rolls involving Shei system construction
-
Project: Begin Mining operations for BR
The Industrial Committee has presented plans to begin basic resource extraction in both Radiant and Gaid, and though we have little practical and institutional experience at doing so, the Committee is confident in the ability of our workers.
[ ] [IndComm] Begin BR mining operations on Radiant-2 (Quality-7)
[ ] [IndComm] Begin BR mining operations on Gaid A-1 (Quality-10)
[ ] [IndComm] Begin BR mining operations in Gaid Asteroid Belt (Quality 1)
[ ] [IndComm] Begin BR mining operations on Gaid B-2 (Quality 10)
[ ] [IndComm] Begin BR mining operations on Gaid B-3a (Quality 7)
[ ] [IndComm] Begin BR mining operations on Gaid B-3a (Quality 8)
[ ] [IndComm] Begin BR mining operations on Shei B-1 (Quality 15)
[ ] [IndComm] Begin BR mining operations on Shei B-2 (Quality 12)
[ ] [IndComm] Begin BR mining operations in Shei B-I Asteroid Belt (Quality 1)
[ ] [IndComm] Begin BR mining operations in Shei B-II Asteroid Belt (Quality 2)
[ ] [IndComm] Begin BR mining operations on Thoa 1 (Quality 6)
[ ] [IndComm] Begin BR mining operations on Thoa 2 (Quality 13)
[ ] [IndComm] Begin BR mining operations in Thoa I Asteroid Belt (Quality 1)
[ ] [IndComm] Begin BR mining operations on Thoa 7 (Quality 2)
[ ] [IndComm] Begin BR mining operations in Thoa II Asteroid Belt (Quality 2)
Dice Bonus: +2 (+7 Radiant)
Project Completion: Automatic
Cost Per Die: 10 BR
Projected Result: Increase BR Production Infrastructure to Level 1 on selected planet
-
Project: Expand BR production to second level
The Industrial Committee has presented plans to expand our existing BR mining facilities. As we now have some practical and institutional experience with doing so, the Committee believes in the ability of our workers to complete these projects on time and on materials budget.
[ ] [IndComm] Expand BR mining operations on Radiant-1 to level 2 (Quality-7)
[ ] [IndComm] Expand BR mining operations on Gaid B-1 to level 2 (Quality 15)
[ ] [IndComm] Expand BR mining operations on Gaid B-4 to level 2 (Quality 12)
[ ] [IndComm] Expand BR mining operations on Gaid B-7 to level 2 (Quality 14)
[ ] [IndComm] Expand BR mining operations on Thoa A-3a to level 2 (Quality 2)
Dice Bonus: +2(+7 in Radiant)
Project Progress: Automatic
Cost Per Dice: 40BR
Projected Result: Increase BR Production Infrastructure to Level 2 on selected planet
-
Project: Expand BR Production to fifth level
The Industrial Committee has presented plans to expand our existing BR mining facilities. As we now have some practical and institutional experience with doing so, the Committee believes in the ability of our workers to complete these projects on time and on materials budget.
Projected Result: Increase BR Production Infrastructure to Level 5 on selected planet
-
Project: Begin Production operations for SR
The Industrial Committee has presented plans to begin special resource extraction, synthesis, and processing across ARC controlled space. As we have some practical and institutional experience at doing so, the Committee is confident in the ability of our workers to complete these projects on time and on materials budget.
[ ] [IndComm] Begin SR mining operations on Gaid A-2 (Quality 7)
[ ] [IndComm] Begin SR mining operations on Gaid A-4 (Quality 5)
[ ] [IndComm] Begin SR mining operations on Shei B-6 (Quality 8)
[ ] [IndComm] Begin SR mining operations on Shei B-6b (Quality 8)
[ ] [IndComm] Begin SR mining operations on Shei B-7 (Quality 13)
[ ] [IndComm] Begin SR mining operations on Thoa 4 (Quality 4)
[ ] [IndComm] Begin SR mining operations on Thoa 4a (Quality 4)
[ ] [IndComm] Begin SR mining operations on Thoa 5 (Quality 8)
[ ] [IndComm] Begin SR mining operations on Thoa 6 (Quality 5)
Dice Bonus: +2(+7 in Radiant)
Project Completion: Automatic
Cost Per Die: 10 BR
Projected Result: Increase SR Production Infrastructure to Level 1 on selected planet
-
Project: Expand SR Production to level 2
The Industrial Committee has presented plans to expand our existing SR mining facilities. As we now have some practical and institutional experience with doing so, the Committee believes in the ability of our workers to complete these projects on time and on materials budget.
[ ] [IndComm] Expand SR mining operations on Thoa 3 to level 2 (Quality 5)
Dice Bonus: +2(+7 in Radiant)
Project Progress: Automatic
Cost Per Dice: 40BR
Projected Result: Increase SR Production Infrastructure to Level 2 on selected planet
-
Project: Expand SR Production to level 3
The Industrial Committee has presented plans to expand our existing SR mining facilities. As we now have some practical and institutional experience with doing so, the Committee believes in the ability of our workers to complete these projects on time and on materials budget.
[ ] [IndComm] Expand SR mining operations on Shei B-5 to level 3 (Quality 5)
Dice Bonus: +2(+7 in Radiant)
Project Progress: Automatic
Cost Per Dice: 70BR
Projected Result: Increase SR Production Infrastructure to Level 3 on selected planet
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Project: Expand SR Production to level 4
Now that you have platforms for SR manufacture and extraction in place, it's time to expand their production capacity. As we have some practical and institutional experience at doing so, the Committee is confident in the ability of our workers to complete these projects on time and on materials budget.
[ ] [IndComm] Expand SR production on Radiant 3a (Asphodel) to level 4 (Quality 9)
Dice Bonus: +2 (+7 in Radiant)
Project Progress: Automatic
Cost per die: 100 SR
Projected Result: Increase SR Production Infrastructure to Level 4
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Project: Begin Energy Collection Operations.
The Industrial Committee has presented plans to expand our energy collection facilities. As we have some practical and institutional experience with doing so, the Committee is confident in the ability of our workers to complete these projects on time and on materials budget.
[ ] [IndComm] Begin Energy Collection Operations on Gaid B-5 (Quality 3)
[ ] [IndComm] Begin Energy Collection Operations on Shei B-4 (Quality 3)
[ ] [IndComm] Begin Energy Collection Operations on Shei B-7a (Quality 6)
[ ] [IndComm] Begin Energy Collection Operations on Shei B-7b (Quality 2)
[ ] [IndComm] Begin Energy Collection Operations on Shei 8 (Quality 6)
[ ] [IndComm] Begin Energy Collection Operations on Shei 8a (Quality 9)
[ ] [IndComm] Begin Energy Collection Operations on Shei 8b (Quality 9)
Dice Bonus: +2 (+7 in Radiant)
Project Completion: Automatic
Cost Per Die: 10 BR
Projected Result: Increase E Production Infrastructure to Level 1 on selected planet
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Project: Expand Energy Collection Operations to level 3.
The Industrial Committee has presented plans to expand our existing energy collection facilities. As we have some practical and institutional experience with doing so, the Committee is confident in the ability of our workers to complete these projects on time and on materials budget.
[ ] [IndComm] Expand Energy Collection Operations on Gaid A-3 (Quality 4)
[ ] [IndComm] Expand Energy Collection Operations on Gaid B-6 (Quality 7)
[ ] [IndComm] Expand Energy Collection Operations on Shei B-3 (Sheol) (Quality 12)
Dice Bonus: +2 (+7 in Radiant)
Project Completion: Automatic
Cost Per Die: 40 BR
Projected Result: Increase E Production Infrastructure to Level 2 on selected planet
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[ ] [IndComm] Sheol Urbanization Program
As of now most of Sheol's population lives in cramped, barrack-like conditions underground or in isolated valleys and mountain passes. The Planning Commission would like to start building entirely new cities for them to take advantage of all the space and resources Ares has prevented them from being able to use. Given we're working on industrial areas, it should be an easy sell to build "worker's quarters'' and support systems and before you know it, boom, you've got a bustling metropolis.
Dice Bonus: +5
Project Progress: 0/40
Cost Per Die: 15BR, 2SR, 5E
Projected Results: Increased relations and improved quality of life for Sheolite people, opens up new projects. Adds energy usage for Sheolite population to energy cap calculations.
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[ ] [IndComm] Veteran's Colony Program
Some very bright people have let IndComm know that a historical solution to demobilization of troops was the founding of planned 'Veteran's Colonies,' where retired and demobilized soldiers would settle with their families.
The current proposal is to expand existing cities and resort communities with districts specially built to house incoming demobilized ex-Ares personnel from Sheol.
Instead of the dichotomy of piecemeal and haphazard city growth, or the resort communities planned to cater to the whims of their temporary guests (and not their permanent inhabitants) under Hermes-Ishtar, our people are excited to stretch their legs by building places for people to thrive.
Though some worries exist about soulless standardization, the project's architects plan to interview each incoming shipful of immigrants and gather data on what their ideal communities would look like, then build it before the ship arrives.
If this project is successful, our urban planners believe that it could be a template for a rebuilding of Elysian and Sheolite communities.
Project Progress: Automatic
Dice Bonus: +2
Cost Per Dice: 5BR, 3E
Projected Results: Add roll to Shei Redeployment Program Progress.
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[ ] [IndComm] Expand E Production on Elysium
While Radiant currently possess more than sufficient power generation, the Industrial Committee believes that we could easily increase generation by building many more of the tidal generators that use the high tides caused by the Elysium/Asphodel binary system along with simple renewable resources such as wind and solar power and fusion reactors as baseline power.
Dice Bonus: +2
Project Progress: Automatic
Cost per die: 100 BR
Projected Result: Increase Production Infrastructure to Level 4 on Elysium
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[ ] [IndComm] Smallcraft Yards in Radiant
Unlike frigates or capital and assault ships, smallcraft are comparatively simple, and don't have built-in warp drives. While this means they're strictly limited to local defense, they're also cheap, fast to build, and can be ferried by tow or cargo ship to other locations if needed.
Using blueprints of Ares design, you can now build Ares-pattern strike craft and combat drones. However building a dedicated yard will allow you to build these craft more cheaply and quickly. You will be able to pump out any type of smallcraft that fits its dimensions-- fighters, bombers, interceptors, or assault shuttles. Even cargo shuttles, though you have plenty of those at the moment.
They brush off the fact you don't have a lot of experienced pilots trained to fly them. They'll come, in time.
Dice Bonus: 7
Project Progress: 0/30
Cost per die: 5 BR, 5 SR, 3E
Projected Results: Gain a basic smallcraft yard.
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[ ] [IndComm] Cottage Industry Strikecraft in Radiant
Between the introduction of new Ares strikecraft designs and the results of a procurement panel chaired by Defence Coordinator Awhina you now believe that you can build strikecraft from standard industrial fabricators.
Sadly, this will not be an efficient process as building a dedicated facility as these strike craft will be printed in parts and then later assembled with human labour time, but it will still produce ships that we currently do not have.
Thankfully, some modern combat drones are small enough that they can be produced alongside these craft without much additional strain.
Dice Bonus: 7
Project Progress: 0/30
Cost per die: 7 BR, 7 SR, 5E
Projected Results: Gain a wing of modern strike craft that will be commissioned in the Congressional Navy
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[ ] [IndComm] Expand BLG with household nanofabricators
Many of the distribution issues with the BLG can be solved by repurposing fabbers for household use. They can even print food-- though it's not exactly what anyone would call fresh. Nevertheless, as long as the planetside infrastructure is up, you've solved the issue with the BLG.
Dice Bonus: +2
Project Progress: 3/40
Cost per die: 5BR, 5SR, On completion permanent +2BR, +2E upkeep per 50 million citizens
Projected Results: +5 Trust, Raise Trust Floor by 5, Improve General Congress Focus Vote
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[ ] [IndComm] Monuments to Independence
You know what free people are free to do? To use their resources on pointless, wasteful, and profitless extravagances like majestic monuments to our freedom.
With a year passed since the March Days evicted Hermes-Ishtar from Radiant, there are calls for us to immortalize that victory in literal stone.
Let's make it an event for everyone, to let the universe know, for all time, that we did something worth celebrating!
Project Progress: 0/10
Dice Bonus: +2
Cost Per Dice: 3BR, 1SR, 1E
Projected Results: +5 Trust Bonus
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Project: Fortify Korolev-Chandraehskar gates
The Charters are coming. You don't know when they'll arrive, but they'll come, and they'll be mad. Unless you do something about that. And one of the most effective measures of self defence is putting up fixed defences around your KC gates.
Until now you haven't expanded the barebones defences that Hermes-Ishatar and Ares set up around your local gates. With the cat now out of the bag, there's nothing stopping you from filling that space with fire and steel.
[ ] [IndComm] Fortify the Radiant-Akleod Gate
[ ] [IndComm] Fortify the Radiant-Xotreh Gate
[ ] [IndComm] Fortify the Radiant-Bestreer Gate
[ ] [IndComm] Fortify the Radiant-Gaid Gate
[ ] [IndComm] Fortify the Radiant-Fliveons Gate
[ ] [IndComm] Fortify the Radiant-Shei Gate
[x] [IndComm] Fortify the Shei-Osliem Gate
[ ] [IndComm] Fortify the Thoa-???? Gate
[ ] [IndComm] Fortify the Thoa-Signia Gate
Dice Bonus: +7
Project Completion: Automatic
Cost Per Die: 5 BR, 5SR, 3E
Projected Result: Build your defences at that gate enough to bloody a small attacking force
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Project: Return RFS Chinook to civilian use
The first of two proposals developed by the OIWU to refit the RFS Chinook. This project would see the Chinook returned to her original use as a mass transport for civilian use, as well as refitting her nearly to her former state of the art in colonization equipment. As a colony transport she would be able to carrying hundreds of thousands of passengers for indefinite periods of time without need for outside support, and would also be capable of founding a new colony on a suitable frontier world, a process that would see her again stripped of her internals and then converted into a barebones orbital station.
Unfortunately, without access to many of the enterprise grade blueprints from Cernunnos, we will not be able to rebuild the complement of terraforming equipment and fully restock the genetic repository that the Chinook cannibalized for other projects. Nor can we replace the mining equipment, or the haulers. Much of these were only necessary for settling more difficult planets, and can be eschewed for garden worlds. And, as the Chinook people themselves demonstrated, with the right blueprints and knowhow, we don't even need a terrestrial world at all.
Dice Bonus: +7
Project Progress: 00/75
Cost Per Dice: 20BR, 5SR, 4E
Project Results: Gain a vessel that can transport upwards of 100,000 or more passengers at one time along with everything they need to colonize a new world with ease.
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Project: Convert RFS Chinook to a space station
The second of two proposals developed by the OIWU for RFS Chinook is to return it to its intended end function of a permanent space station, a process that the Chinook reversed to tow their new, larger habitat to Gaid. Apparently, the modifications they had made enabled the station to support some 22,500 people, more than double the intended maximum permanent carrying capacity. From what they tell us, it had to do with converting the parks and recreation spaces to "food forests," whatever those are. These food forests have been functioning for generations with minimal to no maintenance, something unheard of in Charter space.
Restoring her to her full function will require replacing and refitting of the aquaponics and aeroponics facilities, refitting the tanks into wet manufacturing bays, and refurbishing the many patches she has from meteorite impacts. Additionally, the blueprints to build two expansion habitat rings are still unused, enabling us to eventually triple Chinook's capacity at the cost of never moving her again.
Dice Bonus: +2(+5 Shei, +7 Radiant)
Project Progress: 00/45
Cost Per Dice: 10BR, 10SR, 3E
Project Results: Gain a space station to a system of your choice which provides a number of bonuses to projects and events in that system. Permanent +3E upkeep. Opens up vote of where to station RFS Chinook.
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Project: Build Orbital Cruiser-sized Dock
With the unlocking of Ares military grade FRM's access to the plans for Great Heathen, Janissary, and Golden Horde class cruiser-sized craft and Hochseeflotte-class Frigates we can now begin construction of medium ship types. Or we could, if we had a dock capable of it, which we do not. Because of the increased infrastructure required for medium sized ships, such a dock will have to be constructed from scratch.
Dice Bonus: +2(+5 Shei, +7 Radiant)
Project Progress: 00/50
Cost per die: 20BR 10SR and 7E
Project Results: Produce a dock capable of creating frigate, cruiser, light tender and light carrier class ships. Permanent +3E upkeep.
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MILITARY COMMITTEE (Three Dice)
"We got damn lucky, and we cannot rely on more luck."
-Courier Crewperson Community: +5 to dice on military rolls for smaller warship fabrication
-All-Radiant Congressional Defence Committee: +2 to dice on Military Rolls.
-Defence Coordinator's Maria Awhine: +2 to Commando and small unit operation rolls
[ ] [MilComm] Convert RFS Chinook into a Dreadnaught
One of two proposals to emerge from the newly created Naval Design Commission of the Congressional Navy, this refit package would see Chinook armed with heavy armour, heavy guns and missiles, and tasked with the brutal close-in fighting of defending or taking KC gates in the face of heavy opposition. This is in addition to the fabrication facilities necessary for field repairs and replenishing her missile stocks while on campaign.
The refit involves using Chinook's frankly absurd level of heat dissipation for a spinal capital laser, the installation of coilgun turrets and missile tubes to provide capital class firepower. The liquid droplet radiators will need to be replaced with Curie point radiators to support combat maneuvering. While the primary mirror serves as a micrometeorite shield and radiator in flight, plans are being drafted to replace it with a diamondoid composite frontal glacis. Finally, the habitation ring will be removed and a warp drive installed around the agricultural ring to shed nearly 60% of Chinook's mass, providing an incredible boost to acceleration, delta v, and maneuverability.
Dice Bonus: +7
Project Progress: 15/125
Cost Per Die: 25BR, 15SR, 5E
Project Results: Gain a converted Dreadnought that is specialized in taking and holding KC gates in slugging matches. Permanent +5SR logistics cost added to budget.
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[ ] [MilComm] Convert RFS Chinook into a Mothership
One of two proposals to emerge from the newly created Naval Design Commission of the Congressional Navy, this refit package would see Chinook reimagined as a carrier for corvettes, small one-man strikecraft, and the drone swarms they oversee. She will be fitted with heavy fuel and materials storage facilities, docking facilities to transport corvette vessels while under warp, and purpose-built Naval fabbers that would allow her to replenish her drone complement at combat relevant speeds.
With a ship this size, that's a hilariously large number of attack craft. Hundreds and hundreds of manned strikecraft each launching in control of an entire flight of drones. More than any typical cruiser-weight carrier, or even a full sized fleet carrier. Chinook will never be able to take a hit like a fleet carrier might, but if you've got well over three times the strikecraft of an Ares Shinano-class, does it really matter?
As something of a bonus, Chinook will still have room to carry masses of troops and the equipment and lifters she needs to deploy them to a planetary surface in the face of hostile defences. She already comes with docking collars for some 30 lifters, tankers, and haulers which can be reinforced to serve as additional corvette docks, but there is a vast amount of space to install more. While it's impossible to speculate on how much total mass she can carry until a full inspection has been done, we have no doubt that we will be able to carry a tremendous amount of corvettes, strikecraft, troops, and cargo, and will be able to freely change her complement to suit the needs of the mission without further refitting.
Dice Bonus: +7
Project Progress: 15/75
Cost Per Die: 30BR, 20SR, 5E
Project Results: Gain a converted Mothership that is designed to carry corvettes, manned strikecraft, drone swarms, and troops, as well as possessing the onboard capacity to repair, refuel, and support them in the field. Maneuvers like a stuck pig, though. Permanent +5SR logistics cost added to budget.
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[ ] [MilComm] Recruit ex-Ares personnel directly into existing units
While many of those immigrating to Elysium from Shei are perfectly fine with turning swords into plowshares and integrating into civilian life, each is also the product of hundreds of thousands of SolCoins of training and experience. Experience that could be directly added to our own military.
Reach out to these people and see if they are willing to serve once again, this time in their own defence.
Dice Bonus: +2
Project Progress: 18/20
Cost for Project: 2BR
Projected Results: +1 to All-Radiant Congressional Defence Committee bonus. Completion contributes 20 progress to Shei Redeployment Program.
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[ ] [MilComm] Acquire a civilian liner for conversion to an auxiliary cruiser
Without the need to avoid questions like "Hey, why does that passenger liner have gunports?" MilComm has begun plans to arm some of the warp-capable passenger liners that we inherited from various Hermes-Ishtar travel lines into auxiliary cruisers.
While they'll be nowhere as effective as a purpose built warship, they'll be a hell of a lot more effective than nothing.
While MilComm has already begun negotiations to acquire two of the passenger liners from their crews, they've also requested that the General Congress negotiate with the crews of the liners we're using to relocate the ex-Ares personnel from Sheol to Elysium to convert their ship to military use.
Doing so will reduce the immigration rate by approximately 15,000 people a quarter and will ever so slightly increase tensions with Sheol and the ex-Ares people due to slowing down the Sheol-Elysium transfer rates.
On the other hand, free warship!
(Can be taken until you're out of liners)
Dice Bonus: +7
Project Completion: Automatic
Cost Per Die: 5SR, 3E
Projected Result: Gain a warp capable auxiliary cruiser
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Project: Fortify your Korolev-Chandraehskar gates
The Charters are coming. You don't know when they'll arrive, but they'll come, and they'll bring death and fire. Unless you do something about that. And one of the most effective measures of self defence is putting up fixed defences around your KC gates.
Until now you haven't expanded the barebones defences that Hermes-Ishatar and Ares set up around your local gates. With the cat now out of the bag, there's nothing stopping you from filling that space with fire and steel.
[ ] [MilComm] Fortify the Radiant-Akleod Gate
[ ] [MilComm] Fortify the Radiant-Xotreh Gate
[ ] [MilComm] Fortify the Radiant-Bestreer Gate
[ ] [MilComm] Fortify the Radiant-Gaid Gate
[ ] [MilComm] Fortify the Radiant-Fliveons Gate
[ ] [MilComm] Fortify the Radiant-Shei Gate
[ ] [MilComm] Fortify the Shei-Osliem Gate
[ ] [MilComm] Fortify the Thoa-???? Gate
[ ] [MilComm] Fortify the Thoa-??? Gates
Dice Bonus: +7
Project Completion: Automatic
Cost Per Die: 5 BR, 5SR, XE
Projected Result: Build your defences at that gate enough to bloody a small attacking force
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[ ] [MilComm] Smallcraft Yards in Radiant
Unlike frigates or capital and assault ships, smallcraft are comparatively simple, and don't have built-in warp drives. While this means they're strictly limited to local defense, they're also cheap, fast to build, and can be ferried by tow or cargo ship to other locations if needed.
Using blueprints of Ares design, you can now build Ares-pattern strike craft and combat drones. However building a dedicated yard will allow you to build these craft more cheaply and quickly. You will be able to pump out any type of smallcraft that fits its dimensions-- fighters, bombers, interceptors, or assault shuttles. Even cargo shuttles, though you have plenty of those at the moment.
They brush off the fact you don't have a lot of experienced pilots trained to fly them. They'll come, in time.
Dice Bonus: +2
Project Progress: 0/30
Cost per die: 5 BR, 5 SR, 3E
Projected Results: Gain a basic smallcraft yard.
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[ ] [MilComm] Cottage Industry Strikecraft in Radiant
Between the introduction of new Ares strikecraft designs and the results of a procurement panel chaired by Defence Coordinator Awhina you now believe that you can build strikecraft from standard industrial fabricators.
Sadly, this will not be an efficient process as building a dedicated facility as these strikecraft will be printed in parts and then later assembled with human labour time, but it will still produce ships that we currently do not have.
Thankfully, some modern combat drones are small enough that they can be produced alongside these craft without much additional strain.
Dice Bonus: +7
Project Progress: 0/20
Cost per die: 7 BR, 7 SR, 5E
Projected Results: Gain a wing of modern strike craft that will be commissioned in the Congressional Navy
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[ ] [MilComm] Encourage Emergency Local Strikecraft Cottage Industry Production
Between the introduction of new Ares strikecraft designs and the results of a procurement panel chaired by Defence Coordinator Awhina you now believe that you can build strikecraft from standard industrial fabricators.
Sadly, this will not be an efficient process as building a dedicated facility as these strikecraft will be printed in parts and then later assembled with human labour time, but it will still produce ships that we currently do not have.
To that end MilComm would like to build a new coordination subcommittee to put out a call across the All Radiant Congress for individual communities to build what they can and donate them to the Navy for Home Defence use.
Dice Bonus: +7
Project Progress: 0/30
Cost per die: 6E
Projected Results: Gain a randomly decided per turn, but small and consistent (and most of all free) trickle of strike craft into the Navy's stockpiles.
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Project: Create Orbital Cruiser-sized Dock
With the unlocking of Ares military grade FRM's access to the plans for Great Heathen Light Cruisers, Janissary tenders, Golden Horde Light Carriers, Cossak frigates, New Model corvettes, and various support auxiliaries we can now begin construction of medium capital craft types. Or we could, if we have a dock capable of it, which we do not. Because of the radically different infrastructure required for medium sized capital craft, such a dock will have to be constructed from scratch.
Dice Bonus: +2
Project Progress: 00/50
Cost per die: 20BR 10SR and 7E
Project Results: Produce a dock capable of creating cruiser, frigate and light carrier class ships. Permanent +3E upkeep.
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[ ] [MilComm] Permanent Special Forces Training Division
While the Military Committee has been relying on our Defence Coordinator's personal special forces experience to plan and execute operations, some delegates fear relying on a single point of failure.
By setting up a Permanent Special Forces Training Division, we would institutionalize Awhine's knowledge within the Military Committee and provide a pool of experienced special forces operatives that can be drawn from to conduct training or operations.
Dice Bonus: +4
Project Progress: 5/30
Cost Per Die: 2BR, 1SR
Projected Results: Makes Awhine's personal bonus permanent and gains +1, permanent +1E cost
Proposed By: Delegate @Gladsome praetorian on Discord
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[ ] [MilComm] Form Modern Planetary Army
After the Liberation of Shei and our cracking of Ares FRM and DRM systems, we now have the ability to begin building a modern mass planetary army.
While we currently lack access to modern front line fighting equipment we are able to build the entire logistical chain that supports it as well as beginning to recruit the initial cadres for our new planetary army.
Though this new army will be ill equipped for major combat operations, when they are eventually modernized, and fully equipped our people will be the equal of any Ares military formation.
Rolls for [MilComm] Recruit ex-Ares personnel directly into existing units, will directly contribute to this project's completion.
Dice Bonus: +2
Project Progress: 18/40
Cost Per Die: 6BR, 3SR, 3E
Projected Results: Found a new Planetary Army military service for use on the offence and defence, add Permanent +2E upkeep to the ARC
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[ ] [MilComm] Found a Military Intelligence Service
While MilComm and Defence Co-ordinator Awhina recognize the excellent service provided by the analysts and agents of MedComm, they also would like resources to be put towards creating a separate Military Intelligence Service organized by and from MilComm that answers directly to the General Congress.
As a direct response to MedComm's priorities not always aligning with that of MilComm, this organization would be tasked specifically with intelligence operations and analysis that are directly relevant to military matters. Gathering of troop numbers, equipment specifications, deployment patterns and so forth; things that MedComm's people, no matter how talented, do not have the expertise or specialization to make the most out of.
Dice Bonus: +4
Project Progress: 0/30
Cost Per Die:
Projected Results: Found a new Military Intelligence Service that will provide a passive accounting of nearby military assets, open up new projects.
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[ ] [MilComm] Institute System of Awards and Honors
With recent victories and sacrifices, and the personal recommendation of Commodore Rousseau, the Military Committee would like to institute a system of Awards and Honors to issue to individuals and units who perform acts of remarkable service, heroism, or make sacrifices for the cause
Dice Bonus: +2
Project Progress: Automatic
Cost Per Die: 1BR, 1E
Projected Results: Add progress to MilComm rolls each roll after a battle occurs based on triumphs and sacrifices.
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[ ] [MilComm] Liberate Fliveons
With the labor underground on our side, we can begin the liberation of Fliveons. Unlike Shei, we don't have to worry about significant Charter fleet presence. Even so, Rhodes security forces on the ground are formidable and we need to be certain that the combined force of the local revolutionaries and whatever we can spare can overwhelm the Rhodes garrison to prevent ugly scenes of mass death and destruction.
Dice Bonus: +4
Project Progress: Automatic
Cost Per Die: 10E
Projected Results: Potential to take control of Fliveons system. Results are dice dependant
SCIENCE COMMITTEE (One die)
"'One of the biggest adjustments to the VEMP measures we've had to make is accepting that our FRM cracking can be put on the back burner at any time. Though with the constant attacks, no one is complaining yet!"
-Elysium Free Physicists Alliance: +5 to Dice rolls involving experimental physics projects
-Professional Union of Laboratory Technicians and Coders: +2 to dice rolls on Science Rolls
-Free Time: +3 to next FRM project
-Free Time: +3 to next Blue sky research
[ ] [SciComm] Assist with Prototype Wormhole research -FTL Communications
Developing on the already established laboratory work conducted on Elysium, it may be possible to create a prototype for a fixed location interstellar communications device. Once we have the prototype in hand, we can begin iterating on this technology. It is expected that this project will require moderate amounts of SR and E to see to completion.
[ ] [SciComm] Assist with Prototype Wormhole research -Personal Wormhole
Developing on the already established laboratory work conducted on Elysium, it may be possible to create a fixed location interstellar travel device large enough for a single individual to travel through. Once we have the prototype in hand, we can begin iterating on this technology. It is likely that this project will require large amounts of SR and E to see to completion.
Dice Bonus: +7
Project Progress: 02/???
Cost per die: 10SR and 5E
Projected Result: Unlocks Personal Wormhole Prototype
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[ ] [SciComm] Crack Advanced Cernunnos Fabricator Rights Management 'prints
Building on our success with unlocking and analyzing Cernunnos blueprints, we should be able make rapid progress stripping anti-consumer protections built into Cernunnos' more exclusive catalogue of blueprints. Without having access to the private keys for the blueprints, we will first have to crack the DRM protection, but the tools we've built up will streamline this process significantly.
[ ] [SciComm] Bypass Charter Fabricator Rights Management for MSI
Building on our success with unlocking and analyzing HI blueprints, we should be able make rapid progress stripping anti-consumer protections built into MSI's extensive catalogue of blueprints. Without having access to the private keys for the blueprints, we will first have to crack the DRM protection, but the tools we've built up will streamline this process significantly.
[ ] [SciComm] Bypass Charter Fabricator Rights Management for Rhodes
Building on our success with unlocking and analyzing HI blueprints, we should be able make rapid progress stripping anti-consumer protections built into Rhodes' extensive catalogue of blueprints. Without having access to the private keys for the blueprints, we will first have to crack the DRM protection, but the tools we've built up will streamline this process significantly.
[ ] [SciComm] Bypass Charter Fabricator Rights Management for Omoikane
Building on our success with unlocking and analyzing HI blueprints, we should be able make rapid progress stripping anti-consumer protections built into Omoikane's extensive catalogue of blueprints. Without having access to the private keys for the blueprints, we will first have to crack the DRM protection, but the tools we've built up will streamline this process significantly.
[ ] [SciComm] Crack advanced Hermes-Ishtar Fabricator Rights Management 'prints
Building on our success with unlocking and analyzing HI blueprints, we should be able make rapid progress stripping anti-consumer protections built into the blueprints whose keys were deleted by the Charter Loyalists. Without having access to the private keys for the blueprints, we will first have to crack the DRM protection, but the tools we've built up will streamline this process significantly.
Dice Bonus: +2
Project Progress: 03/30
Cost per die: 3SR and 3E
Projected Result: Unlock HI production grade 'prints
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[ ] [SciComm] Subvert Hermes-Ishtar Communications Network across Charter Space
Our hacking team believes they've found an exploit using the interaction of the emergency and priority broadcast systems within the H-I Buoy network that will allow them to insert media for gate transfer without requiring system keys. This means that, until technicians on-site reset their networks, we will have free reign to broadcast anything of our choosing for a few days, and resetting only purges the data-- not the vulnerability. The only way to get around this would be to completely rewrite the (century-old) firmware and all its legacy and compatibility coding for the buoys and manually reimage them, along with replacing the older variants-- and there's an awful lot of buoys out there. It would be a long time before H-I would be able to totally shut you out.
Dice Bonus: +2
Project Progress: 3/45
Cost Per Dice: 5SR and 5E
Projected Results: Ability to send unjammable messages across Humanity's entire communications network at a time of our choosing for between several hours to several weeks per system. Once used, H-I will begin attempting to counter with their own project.
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[ ] [SciComm] Document Charter Abuses, Radiant
They say that all happy families are alike, and all unhappy families are unhappy in their own unique way.
The same applies to the Charters and the systems they've controlled. Direct encounters have shown us that the tyranny of Hermes-Ishtar in Radiant and Ares in Shei have taken different forms and that they may be hard for others to understand.
A coalition of academics, social workers, and journalists are requesting the resources and public attention in order to create an organization dedicated to documenting for all time the excesses and evils of Charter misrule.
Naturally, the first stage will be a project to document Hermes-Ishtar's impact on Radiant before they were driven out in the March Days.
Dice Bonus: +2
Project Progress: 11/25
Cost Per Die: 1BR and 2E
Project Results: Add a dice bonus to foreign relations, along with narrative advantages.
They say that all happy families are alike, and all unhappy families are unhappy in their own unique ways.
The same applies to the Charters and the systems they've controlled. Direct encounters have shown us that the tyranny of Hermes-Ishtar in Radiant and Ares in Shei have taken different forms and that they may be hard for others to understand.
A coalition of academics, social workers, and journalists are requesting the resources and public attention in order to create an organization dedicated to documenting for all time the excesses and evils of Charter misrule.
Now that Shei is free from Ares control, we can begin the long and arduous project of documenting the astonishing array of abuses that unfolded not just on Sheol, but across the system.
Dice Bonus: +2
Project Progress: 0/25
Cost Per Die: 1BR and 2E
Project Results: Add a dice bonus to foreign relations, along with narrative advantages.
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SOCIAL COMMITTEE (Two Dice)
"The latest attacks have affected both Shei and Elysium. In both a focus from the prosperous future to the grim present, and a similarly defensive mindset, seems to be taking..."
-Congress of Caregivers and Physicians: +3 to all Social roll dice
-Ex-Marketing Division Gang: +5 to Propaganda rolls
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[ ] [SocComm] Institute System of Awards and Honors
With recent victories and sacrifices, and the personal recommendation of Commodore Rousseau, the Military Committee would like to institute a system of Awards and Honors to issue to individuals and units who perform acts of remarkable service, heroism, or make sacrifices for the cause
Dice Bonus: +8
Project Progress: Automatic
Cost Per Die: 1BR, 1E
Projected Results: Add progress to MilComm rolls each roll after a battle occurs based on triumphs and sacrifices.
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[ ] [SocComm] Encourage Emergency Local Strikecraft Cottage Industry Production
Between the introduction of new Ares strikecraft designs and the results of a procurement panel chaired by Defence Coordinator Awhina you now believe that you can build Strikecraft from standard industrial fabricators.
Sadly, this will not be an efficient process as building a dedicated facility as these Strike craft will be printed in parts and then later assembled with Human labour time, but it will still produce ships that we currently do not have.
To that end MilComm would like to build a new coordination subcommittee to put out a call across the All Radiant Congress for individual communities to build what they can and donate them to the Navy for Home Defence use.
Dice Bonus: +8
Project Progress: 0/30
Cost per die: 6E
Projected Results: Gain a randomly decided per turn, but small and consistent (and most of all free) trickle of strike craft into the Navy's stockpiles.
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[ ] [SocComm] Use RFS Chinook to transport Immigrants to Elysium
At the moment RFS Chinook is mainly filled with the food forestry that provided the bulk of the Chinook people's diet. As Elysium and Sheol are more than capable of feeding themselves and the other two systems of the ARC this capacity isn't terribly relevant to military or long term civilian use.
Chinook can still, however, carry large numbers of passengers. Especially for a trip from say Sheol to Elysium. By using this capacity Chinook can transport upwards of 300,000 and change immigrants from Sheol to Elysium, greatly increasing the speed of completion on our promise to transport the ex-Ares immigrants from Sheol to Elysium. CO₂ scrubbers will need to be added, food fabricators cracked, and worn down machinery will need to be replaced and refit, but almost all of it can be done by onboard work crews while the colony craft is underway.
Dice Bonus: +3
Project Progress: Automatic
Cost Per die: 1BE, 1SR, 1E
Projected Results: Increase immigration rate for the Shei Redeployment Program by approximately between 100,000-300,000 individuals until the next General Session of the All-Radiant Congress.
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[ ] [SocComm] Integrate Chinook people into the Congress
With the arrival of the Chinook people in Gaid, we have gained a large population of spacers experienced in all aspects of life outside a habitable biosphere. While they are already slowly finding their own feet in a suddenly much wider universe, SocComm believes that a dedicated "Welcome to the Congress" program will help them acclimatize faster and form much tighter links with our society, as they learn from us and we from them.
Dice Bonus: +3
Project Progress: 0/15
Cost per die: 5BR, 1SR, 1E
Projected Results: Add a bonus to MilComm or IndComm, in Gaid, open up Gaid Projects.
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[ ] [SocComm] Chain Integration Program
The previous smashing success of the chain integration project has led to calls for its expansion across Elysium as many more communities begin to clamour for their own seed communities of former Ares employees.
In addition to the structures used in the first round of immigration, we've also set up mentor programs for both new immigrants and new host families and communities that will further smooth over any issues that arise from the clash of two very different cultures.
New urban expansion will also be planned with these new immigrants in mind as we take onboard the recommendations from the first wave.
With this program in place, SocComm has no doubts that we will be able to house and integrate as many immigrants as we have the resources and administrative capacity for.
Dice Bonus: +3
Project Progress: Automatic, roll determines results
Cost per die: 2BR, 1E
Projected Results: Add roll to Shei Redeployment Program Progress
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[ ] [SocComm] Resident Embassies
To facilitate rapport between our systems, the committee has proposed that most major cities on both Sheol and Radiant receive small embassies or consulates, there for the purpose of aiding travel between systems, resolving cultural differences, and preempting any possible diplomatic issues.
Dice Bonus: +8
Project Progress: 0/30
Cost per die: 5 BR
Projected Results: Improve relations with the SCMC and the Sheolite population as a whole, +2E upkeep per quarter once completed
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[ ] [SocComm] Expand BLG with household nanofabricators
Many of the distribution issues with the BLG can be solved by repurposing fabbers for household use. They can even print food-- though it's not exactly what anyone would call fresh. Nevertheless, as long as the planetside infrastructure is up, you've solved the issue with the BLG.
Dice Bonus: +3
Project Progress: 3/40
Cost per die: 5BR, 5SR, On completion permanent +2BR, +2E upkeep per 50 million citizens
Projected Results: +5 Trust, Raise Trust Floor by 5, Improve General Congress Focus Vote
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[ ] [SocComm] Immortality Guarantee
Functional Immortality has been a practical reality for the wealthy since the mid 2020s, and has long been a leading cause of why workers will permanently indenture themselves into Charter service. With this program implemented no longer will our people have to work or die. By overwhelming popular demand, this program is paired with the full legalization of voluntary euthanasia.
Dice Bonus: +3
Program Progress: 7/50
Cost per die: N/A
Projected Result: When Project is Completed have a permanent upkeep cost of 5BR, 5SR, and 5E per 50 million citizens, a permanent propaganda dice bonus, raise the trust floor by +10, and get one free die.
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[ ] [SocComm] Encourage Retraining
With the end of Charter jobs comes the loss of tens of millions of what can, if one were charitable, have been called "makework jobs". While these jobless people have full access to the essentials of life it seems to be an inevitable part of the human condition that we want to do something productive with our time. Joint programs between educators, local communities, unions, and industrial committee delegates can be formed to attempt to steer those idle hands towards jobs that bring them satisfaction and accomplishment.
Dice Bonus: +8
Project Difficulty: 14/40
Cost per die: 2E per 50 million citizens
Projected Results: Gain an extra die into one of either Indcomm, Milcom, or Scicomm
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[ ] [SocComm] Found Youth Organization
Taking a cue from some old Earth traditions, and a similar collection of organizations on Sheol, we urge the Congress to found an all Congress-wide youth organization. Not only would such a program foster ties of solidarity across our population, but it would encourage civic spirit, help with youth socialization, and allow us to disseminate more obscure life skills that are not currently part of the Paths to Enlightenment program.
Membership in the program will be entirely voluntary and it will also be run by local community volunteers with each individual branch federated into a larger congress with its own delegates to the All-Radiant Congress.
Dice Bonus: +3
Project Difficulty: 1/25
Cost Per Dice: 1BR
Project Results: Add Youth Organization to SocComm as a +2 bonus to Youth, Education, and Civics rolls as well as other potential bonuses.
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[ ] [SocComm] Document Charter Abuses, Radiant
They say that all happy families are alike, and all unhappy families are unhappy in their own unique ways.
The same applies to the Charters and the systems they've controlled. Direct encounters have shown us that the tyranny of Hermes-Ishtar in Radiant and Ares in Shei have taken different forms and that they may be hard for others to understand.
A coalition of academics, social workers, and journalists are requesting the resources and public attention in order to create an organization dedicated to documenting for all time the excesses and evils of Charter misrule.
Naturally, the first stage will be a project to document Hermes-Ishtar's impact on Radiant before they were driven out in the March Days.
Dice Bonus: +3
Project Progress: 11/25
Cost Per Die: 1BR and 2E
Project Results: Add a dice bonus to foreign relations, along with narrative advantages.
They say that all happy families are alike, and all unhappy families are unhappy in their own unique ways.
The same applies to the Charters and the systems they've controlled. Direct encounters have shown us that the tyranny of Hermes-Ishtar in Radiant and Ares in Shei have taken different forms and that they may be hard for others to understand.
A coalition of academics, social workers, and journalists are requesting the resources and public attention in order to create an organization dedicated to documenting for all time the excesses and evils of Charter misrule.
Now that Shei is free from Ares control, we can begin the long and arduous project of documenting the astonishing array of abuses that unfolded not just on Sheol, but across the system.
Dice Bonus: +3
Project Progress: 0/25
Cost Per Die: 1BR and 2E
Project Results: Add a dice bonus to foreign relations, along with narrative advantages.
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[ ] [SocComm] Monuments to Independence
You know what free people are free to do? To use their resources on pointless, wasteful, and profitless extravagances like majestic monuments to our freedom.
With a year passed since the March Days evicted Hermes-Ishtar from Radiant, there are calls for us to immortalize that victory in literal stone.
Let's make it an event for everyone, to let the universe know, for all time, that we did something worth celebrating!
Project Progress: 0/10
Dice Bonus: +7
Cost Per Dice: 3BR, 1SR, 1E
Projected Results: +5 Trust Bonus
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MEDIA COMMITTEE (Two Dice)
"Another Day, another set of memes making fun of the Charters."
-Creator's Forum: +2 to all media dice rolls
-TrophyCase Social Media Team +2 to external propaganda
-Market Segment Analysis Hobbyists' Club +5 Signals Intelligence
-Guild of Professional and Amateur Performers: +5 to Human Intelligence
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[ ] [MedComm] Encourage Emergency Local Strikecraft Cottage Industry Production
Between the introduction of new Ares strikecraft designs and the results of a procurement panel chaired by Defence Coordinator Awhina you now believe that you can build strikecraft from standard industrial fabricators.
Sadly, this will not be an efficient process as building a dedicated facility as these strikecraft will be printed in parts and then later assembled with Human labour time, but it will still produce ships that we currently do not have.
To that end MilComm would like to build a new coordination subcommittee to put out a call across the All Radiant Congress for individual communities to build what they can and donate them to the Navy for Home Defence use.
Dice Bonus: +2
Project Progress: 0/30
Cost per die: 6E
Projected Results: Gain a randomly decided per turn, but small and consistent (and most of all free) trickle of strike craft into the Navy's stockpiles.
[ ] [MedComm] Encourage Retraining
With the end of Charter comes the loss of tens of millions of what can, if one were charitable, have been called "makework jobs". While these jobless people have full access to the essentials of life it seems to be an inevitable part of the human condition that we want to do something productive with our time. Joint programs between educators, local communities, unions, and industrial committee delegates can be formed to attempt to steer those idle hands towards jobs that bring them satisfaction and accomplishment.
Dice Bonus: +2
Project Difficulty: 14/40
Cost: 2E per 50 million citizens
Projected Results: Gain a dice in either Industry, Military, or Science
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[ ] [MedComm] Document Charter Abuses, Radiant
They say that all happy families are alike, and all unhappy families are unhappy in their own unique way.
The same applies to the Charters and the systems they've controlled. Direct encounters have shown us that the tyranny of Hermes-Ishtar in Radiant and Ares in Shei have taken different forms and that they may be hard for others to understand.
A coalition of academics, social workers, and journalists are requesting the resources and public attention in order to create an organization dedicated to documenting for all time the excesses and evils of Charter misrule.
Naturally, the first stage will be a project to document Hermes-Ishtar's impact on Radiant before they were driven out in the March Days.
Dice Bonus: +2
Project Progress: 11/25
Cost Per Die: 1BR and 2E
Project Results: Add a dice bonus to foreign relations, along with narrative advantages.
They say that all happy families are alike, and all unhappy families are unhappy in their own unique ways.
The same applies to the Charters and the systems they've controlled. Direct encounters have shown us that the tyranny of Hermes-Ishtar in Radiant and Ares in Shei have taken different forms and that they may be hard for others to understand.
A coalition of academics, social workers, and journalists are requesting the resources and public attention in order to create an organization dedicated to documenting for all time the excesses and evils of Charter misrule.
Now that Shei is free from Ares control, we can begin the long and arduous project of documenting the astonishing array of abuses that unfolded not just on Sheol, but across the system.
Dice Bonus: +4
Project Progress: 0/25
Cost Per Die: 1BR and 2E
Project Results: Add a dice bonus to foreign relations, along with narrative advantages.
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[ ] [MedComm] Insert Assets into Xotreh
Currently controlled by Omoikane, Xotreh appears to be a system deliberately lost by the bureaucracy. With a population barely cresting 54,000 individuals, the bulk of the inhabitation is limited to seasteads on the icy ocean world of Xotreh B4a, unofficially known as "Sushi". By all indications, "Sushi" is being used by Omoikane to dump workers with poor records and incorrigible troublemakers. The Media Committee wants to insert a team into the system under the cover of regular commercial traffic. Once we have a tap into system communications and agents on the ground MedComm planners will begin to plan to encourage Xotrah to throw off Omoikane and join the Congress.
Dice Bonus: +12
Project Progress: 0/10
Cost per die: 1SR
Projected Results: Insert Assets into Xotreh, new projects on completion.
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[ ] [MedComm] Insert Assets into Bestreer.
Officially owned by Cernunnos, Bestreer is barely inhabited, with only a gate maintenance team and a SAR station. The few hundred Cernunnos employees appear to have the same extremely relatable gripes and problems that all spacers relegated to backwater worlds have. The Media Committee wants to insert a team into the system under the cover of regular commercial traffic. Once we have a tap into system communications and agents on the ground MedComm planners will begin to plan to encourage Bestreer to throw off Cernunnos control and join the Congress.
Dice Bonus: +12
Project Progress: 0/10
Cost per die: 1SR
Projected Results: Insert Assets into Bestreer, new projects on completion.
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[ ] [MedComm] Expand contact with Fliveons Organized Crime
As the "meritocratic" internal corporate culture of Rhodes amounts to a de facto caste system, a large and surprisingly active internal black market is found on most Rhodes worlds, and Fliveons is now different.
Adapting the playbook run by Agent Gabriel Wright and Rousseau's clique in Shei, our agents will attempt to tap into the existing extra-legal systems in Fliveons in order to find ways to subvert Rhodes hold over the system and make contact with elements willing to help us for pay.
While we have no desire to allow these organized crime syndicates to continue operation once Fliveons is liberated, that does not mean that in the interim they cannot be a knife to place in Rhodes' back.
Dice Bonus: +7
Project Progress: 1/25
Cost per die: 3SR, 2E
Projected Results: Subvert Rhodes' control over Fliveons
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[ ] [MedComm] Flood Fliveons with Propaganda
(Can be taken same turn as [MilComm] Liberate Fliveons)
One method to soften Fliveons up might be to simply flood the airwaves with Elysian produced ARC media and propaganda. The propaganda would focus on breaking the illusions of those who still believe in Rhodes' promises of land on Oyu Tolgoi and showing that they can simply have it now. As well as showing the work-culture possible out of charter control.
This would, needless to say, blow your cover, but really at this point, the cover is rather blown.
Dice Bonus: +9
Project Progress: 0/10
Cost per die: 6E
Projected Results: More likely to disrupt Rhodes operations and encourage defections.
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[ ] [MedComm] Provide aid to Underground Labour Organizations
(Can be taken same turn as [MilComm] Liberate Fliveons)
Fliveons isn't the first Rhodes planet that has had an underground labor organization. They have gotten very good at making sure that any unions that get too powerful are broken up, often violently.
Unlike most, Fliveons' unions have some else on their side: us.
While the plans for smuggling in weapons and armor are important, just as important is the project of smuggling in fabbers for clothes, food, and basic medical supplies. The sort of things that let members leave their jobs to protest with a safety net, and show those who need help that Rhodes buybacks and loans aren't the only options.
Dice Bonus: +7
Project Progress: Automatic
Cost per die: 3SR and 3E
Projected Results: Fliveons Underground Labour Organizations grow in membership and are better able to engage in pitched combat with Rhodes security forces.
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[ ] [MedComm] Insert Assets into Akleod
The last of Radiant's surrounding systems, Akleod is home to a Mississippi Interstellar transshipment hub. The just over 5000 inhabitants of Akleod are concentrated in an orbital station above Gnat's Ass (Akleod 2). It appears that the MSI Junior Executive in charge of Akleod is an utterly venal individual who had several under the table deals with Vice President Yang and other member's of Radiant's former rulership. The Media Committee wants to insert a team into the system under the cover of regular commercial traffic. Once we have a tap into system communications and agents on the ground MedComm planners will begin to plan to encourage Akleod to throw off MSI control and join the Congress.
Dice Bonus: +12
Project Progress: 0/10
Cost per die: 1SR
Projected Results: Insert Assets into Akleod, new projects on completion.
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[ ] [MedComm] Insert Assets into Osliam
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 sparse resources and poor habitable prospects.
Our information on the system is scarce and we have little data on the six hundred and fifty or so thousand inhabitants of the system.
The Media Committee wants to insert a team into the system under the cover of regular commercial traffic. Once we have a tap into system communications and agents on the ground MedComm planners will begin to plan to encourage Osliam to throw off Omoikane control and join the Congress.
Dice Bonus: +12
Project Progress: 0/25
Cost per die: 1SR
Projected Results: Insert Assets into Osliam, new projects on completion.
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[ ] [MedComm] Reassess Media Committee Responsibilities
It's an unusual quirk, and one that is understandable considering Radiant's origins, but a lot of resources and responsibilities have been placed under the oversight of the Media Committee.
Everything from espionage, to communications, to foreign affairs, to social programs have fallen under the purview of the Media Committee, much to the consternation of other sections of the Congress who feel that those resources and responsibilities would be better allocated their way.
Completing this project will begin an attempt to shift one or more of the Media committee's responsibilities, and their attached resources, to a different committee.
Dice Bonus: 0
Project Progress: Automatic
Cost Per Die: N/A
Projected Results: Create a vote to shift resources and responsibilities to other committees
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Project: Dispatch Diplomats
While our Diplomatic Corps is still in its infancy that doesn't mean that we can't begin making open contact with our neighbours. Opening contact, will open up new possibilities for dealing with neighbouring systems and the Charters they represent. Though a more comprehensive ability to engage in diplomacy can only begin once a Diplomatic Corps head has been elected.
[ ] [MedComm] Open relations with Osliam
[ ] [MedComm] Open relations with Fliveons
[ ] [MedComm] Open relations with Bestreer
[ ] [MedComm] Open relations with Xotreh
[ ] [MedComm] Open relations with Akleod
Dice Bonus: +2
Project Progress: Automatic
Cost per die: 2E
Projected Results: Opens up options for diplomacy, trade, and avoiding hostility with individual Charters.
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From: Commodore Rousseau, C/O Mobile Force
To: Defence Coordinator Maria Awhina
Subject: Brief AAR
My people are still completing the formal paperwork, but I'm going to give you a brief rundown of the status of Mobile Force and our prizes:
CNS Choreographer, Valiant, Defiant, Actium, and Midway aren't going to need serious yard time, just inspections as we redeploy to Gaid.
As an aside Ma'am, I'm recommending that the Congress create a system of unit citations as Valiant's performance during the battle more than deserves one.
Egalite had an issue with her heat dissipation systems during the initial engagement; she'll need some replacement parts fabricated, but likely no yard time until after the crisis is over.
Lake Champlain had a similar issue, Choreographer should be able to make her fully operational within the week, though she'll need a top up of feedstock.
Reliant doesn't need yard time, but I've been speaking with the crew about changing over their command staff because they opened the battle by completely losing orientation, trusted their instincts over their instruments, went into a graveyard spiral attempting to correct for something that was never wrong and blacked out the entire crew until the S and R shuttles were able to calm her attitude. I don't think she needs yard time, but her crew need more training.
Liberte overheated herself whipping around to tag the couriers as they attempted to blow by us; it ended up killing some of the crew and overloading some internal sections; she'll need yard time. But she did her duty.
This brings us to my Shieldmaiden. I won't sugarcoat it, Captain Ericson almost killed us. He brought Charles de Gaulle in close. I think he was sacrificing his ship to let the rest of his ships by. I'll admit he took me by surprise; the de Gaulle nearly killed us. I lost people I've known for… nearly two decades today.
Shieldmaiden will need weeks or months of yard time, over half our internal compartments are showing battle damage and our armour is useless and most of our weapons offline.
I- -I fucked up. I underestimated his bravery and self-sacrifice, and we lost people. Ma'am, I've never lost people before. Not like this. I won't forget them, or Captain Ericson either. He fought for monsters, but he fought well. If they hadn't taken that damage from the gate defences...
If the rest of his force had managed a similar performance, or even a competent one, those couriers and tankers would have slipped by after savaging Mobile Force, but thankfully they were as green as our people and even worse at formation fighting, no Charter ship except for Charles de Gaulle landed even a single hit on us.
The tankers CSC Redwood and OSC John F Nash Jr (Cernunnos and Omoikane respectively) surrendered after Liberte blew away the couriers, and the Omoikane frigate, OSC Jackie Fisher, was also taken as a prize by Choreographer.
My people tell me that apparently after Thoroughbred escaped her commander warned Captain Ericson and he attempted to rally the rest of the Charter forces in the chain spinwards of us into a single force in case we attempted to spread our revolution. He mostly succeeded and got every Charter governor, executive, and military officer spinwards of us in his scratch built force.
They saw us building the gate defences and realised that they might be permanently trapped, without the Daughter Worlds even knowing of their position, so Ericson organized a break out attempt.
If we hadn't been keeping an eye on Osliam, they would have been through into Radiant before Mobile Force could have responded and then into Bestreer afterwards, where there's another link to the chain trailingwards to the Daughters.
We got maps from Fisher that I'm attaching, but there are more colonies than just Osliam, there's an MSI colony and a large Omoikane presence in Ascension. And there's also a Solarian Navy task force overseeing gate construction. Ericson was apparently unable to get them to participate in the break out attempt. They didn't seem to consider internal HI and Ares labour discipline issues to be their problem.
And as for Jackie Fisher herself. She uh, apparently suffered a major sensor glitch during the final combat approach and when the crew went to fix it they accidentally brought the system back up in simulator mode, functionally mission killing the ship. I would laugh, but then I remember what happened to Reliant and I'm more sober.
Ma'am, I, we, I, we got lucky. We got staggeringly lucky, we made rookie mistakes that weren't punished because the other guys performed just as badly. There is no way that we should have been allowed to not only lose no ships but to walk away with three new intact ones.
If things had gone even a little differently I wouldn't be talking to you and Ericson would be dictating terms from Elysium orbit, or breaking clear to warn all the Charters.
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SECOND BATTLE OF SHEOL RESULTS:
Objective: Prevent Charter Forces from Raiding Shei or Radiant
Status: Successful, complete annihilation of hostile force
Recommend she be taken into Congressional Navy service, 1BR 1E security costs
CSC Redwood (Fast tanker)
Recommend she be taken into Congressional Navy service, 1BR 1E security costs
OSC John F Nash Jr (Fast tanker)
Recommend she be taken into Congressional Navy service, 1BR 1E security costs
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In the aftermath of the Second Battle of Sheol, VEMP measures have given MilComm permission to bypass the General Congress to directly change budget allocations to repair damaged Mobile Force craft. As well as allocate resources for bringing the three prizes taken during the battle into Naval service.
an in-depth report on the failure of an attempt by Regional Governorates to bypass SCMC chain of command via setting up a planetary Regional Cooperation Forum, which the SCMC shut down by the simple expedient of conscripting everyone involved due to the current Charter threat
[ ] Plan Making Trouble, Finding Strength
-[ ] [IndComm] Begin Energy Collection Operations on Shei 8b (Quality 9) (10 BR)
-[ ] [SciComm] Bypass Charter Fabricator Rights Management for Rhodes (3 SR, 3 E)
-[ ] [MilComm] Recruit ex-Ares personnel directly into existing units (2 BR)
-[ ] [MilComm] Permanent Special Forces Training Division (2 BR, 1 SR)
-[ ] [MilComm] Found a Military Intelligence Service
-[ ] [SocComm] Encourage Retraining
-[ ] [SocComm] Resident Embassies (5 BR)
-[ ] [MedComm] Expand contact with Fliveons Organized Crime (3 SR, 2 E)
-[ ] [MedComm] Document Charter Abuses, Radiant (1 BR, 2 E)
20 BR, 7 SR, 7 E
Well, here's my current proposal. With this victory I think we've bought ourselves a little breathing room to address some of our other priorities, like making sure Shei doesn't fall apart or developing the assets at our disposal. We also need E before we start committing to projects that will add more upkeep requirements.
They saw us building the gate defences and realised that they might be permanently trapped, without the Daughter Worlds even knowing of their position, so Ericson organized a break out attempt.
The Core Region:
UNDER RADIANT CONTROL OR ALLIED:
