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

AKuz · Dec 10, 2020

THE ALL-RADIANT CONGRESS

Setting Information: The Solarian Compact:

Initially formed as the Solarian Treaty Organization from the ashes of the old United Nations Security Council, United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs, and the Global Climate Relief Organization in the worst decade of Earth's environmental collapse. The STO was originally a body tasked with overseeing the granting of offworld mining permits and the purchase and distribution of the resources to countries struggling from climate change.

The advent of the Korolev-Chandrashker gates and the construction of the first one under STO oversight in 2063 led to the beginning of the transformation of that body into the de facto single governing body of the Human species.

Reorganized into the 'Solarian Compact', the first Charters were granted to massive corporate conglomerates to explore and exploit the cosmos for Humanity with little to no regulation or restriction.

In the early decades, the Solarian Compact oversaw the construction of KC gates in the systems closest to Sol and began the process of granting colonization rights to the most habitable worlds within that region with colonization rights granted to a number of national and international blocks.

With the growth of the Solarian Compact's power came calls for the body to become more representative and democratic, and in 2099, the Solarian Compact held its first elections and constitutional convention, inviting representatives from the Sol system and the five systems that held permanent Human settlement.

Over the course of the 22nd and 23rd centuries the Solarian Compact has held fast to what it sees as its duty to act as the mediator and financier of the Charters, the unifying agent of the disparate first Human colonies, and the guarantor of interstellar peace for Humanity.

As of 2252, the three most important bodies within the Solarian Compact are the Solarian Parliament -Located on Earth, the Solarian Compact Navy -based in the Korolev-Chandrashker system, and the Solarian Central Bank, -based out of the Columbia System.

Organized as a liberal democracy, with universal suffrage, the Solarian Compact is theoretically overseen by three equal institutions: the Solarian Parliament, the office of the Solarian Secretary General, and the Solarian High Court.

Though the Solarian Compact prides itself on being a Constitutional government, the actual original document merely outlines the terms of admitting new MPs and High Court Judges, and the electoral procedures of the Compact Parliament, with subsequent Parliaments meeting to add items like the Declaration of Property Rights, the founding of the Central Bank, the creation of the Solarian Navy, and the Laws on Freedom of Navigation and Travel being added later.

The Solarian Parliament is made up of two thousand six hundred and twenty seats representing ridings on Earth, Columbia, Atlantis, Penglai, Olduvai, and Epsilon which are elected every three years to a Parliament that meets in the New York prefecture of Earth.

Though the many frontier colonies do not have direct representation in the Parliament due to being owned and operated by private entities, their inhabitants are considered 'Absent for Employment' and may register with a home riding and submit a physical ballot (for security reasons) by courier from when polls open until they close. Though this process was suitable for the closely settled regions of space at the time of the ratification of the Compact Constitution in 2100, the rapid growth of Human settled space in the century and a half since has seen the de facto voter suppression of over 90% of Human settled space.

At the first sitting of each new Compact Parliament, the assembled members will elect a Secretary General and a slate of Ministry officials on a majority basis, and those individuals will oversee the executive branch of government and day to day operations. Though the average Compact Parliament contains between seven to nine parties in each Parliamentary sitting, the vast majority of seats belong to one of either the Party for Human Rights and Liberties or the Justice and Development Alliance and have since the very early 2100s. The governments formed this way can be brought down by losing the confidence of the Parliament for example, by failing to pass a budget, the process of finding a majority government will repeat again.

Though a democratic body that has maintained stability for over a century and a half, the Solarian Compact Parliament has been dogged by accusations of dynastic politics, Charter influence, voter suppression, regulatory capture, inability to reign in the Banks and MIlitary, and corruption at all levels.

Separate from the Parliament is the Solarian High Court that consists of eleven judges that serve terms of up to thirty-three years, with each new sitting of the Compact Parliament selecting one judge from a list provided by the governments of the six main worlds of the Solarian Compact. The High Court rules on matters of adherence of laws to the Solarian Constitution, and have been accused of serving as an arm of the Charters, though this has been strenuously contested by the Solarian legal profession as a whole.

By law the Solarian Compact also oversees a number of other important institutions including the Earth Reconstruction Commission (In a permanent public-private partnership with the Earth Reconstruction Association), the Solarian Central Bank, and the Solarian Compact Navy, though these important institutions often exhibit an alarming degree of autonomy from Parliamentary control.

The Charters:

The result of a cleverly conceived merger between specialty transport vessel manufacturer Titan Staryards and Private Military contractor Martian Military Solutions, Ares cut its teeth not just supplying material to the skirmishes between Mississippi Shipping and United Starhaul, but in supplying military contractors to both sides.

The professionalism of Ares mercenaries and quality of Ares gear led to the rapid expansion of business opportunities for the company and investment skyrocketed even after the Mississippi-Starhaul war ended in a hostile takeover of Starhaul by Mississippi.

Thanks in part to Mississippi debts held by Ares, when the RT-2102 Gate was opened up for settlement strategic maneuvering saw the Compact grant Ares mining and settlement rights to the newly opened system.

The rest, as they say, is history. Leveraging the immense resources of the Alexander system with their existing military expertise, Ares expanded nearly exponentially over the following century. While they maintain a dominating edge in the military field, they now integrated companies in fields from agronomy to personal fitness centers to xenobiology.

Internally Ares very self consciously styles itself as a hierarchical military organization complete with a semi-formal rank structure and an ethos of respect for the chain of command, professional courtesy, and treating your subordinates with respect. In practice Ares is hidebound, authoritarian, filled with passive aggressive sniping and rampant empire building.

While Ares remains headquartered on Mars, they have holdings in several systems and own the distant system of Alexander outright.

Rhodes Mining

One of the three original Charters that the Compact granted, Rhodes considers itself the singular reason that Humanity survived ecological collapse and spread past Sol. Immensely wealthy, over 52% of all material mined and processed by the entire Human race has passed through Rhodes hands at one point or another.

While founded merely to provide Earth the vital materials that it needed to rebuild itself after the lost decades of ecological collapse, Rhodes quickly expanded into all areas of the economy to support their mining, refining, and processing operations.

Dedicated to their vision of logistical chain efficiencies they've developed an entire chain of star systems into an efficient production center based around the resource rich system of Foundry, and the nearby feeder systems of Ecrams, Qem, and Crucible.

Rhodes considers itself home to a version of meritocracy built on hard work, education, and good old fashioned personal drive. This has developed over time into a stratified internal divide between the rank and file workers, the lower level management, and the highly lauded senior management. Each class lives in entirely separate worlds, attending separate schools, consuming different products, and leading very different lives in what many observers have labelled a de facto caste system.

they make food and medicine, the 120 year old CEO is kinda creepy tho?

Techbros, some of them science, some of them explore

Born from the union of Hermes Interstellar Services and The Ishtar Group, the Hermes-Ishtar Corporation owns and operates not only the communications backbone of Compact space, but much of the content that crosses over it.

The results of increasing consolidation of pre-spaceflight communications infrastructure and content creation and management firms, Hermes Communications and Ishtar Entertainment Group were both part of the second round of Charters established after the advent of the KC gates.

While Hermes quickly established operations throughout Compact space, their waystations, couriers, and communications repeaters a common sight in every corner of Human occupied space; Ishtar Group mainly limited their own operations to Sol and the Radiant system, where Ishtar owned and operated the world of Elysium to support their many projects.

Following a wave of Compact space wide reorganizations following the Mississippi-Starhaul conflicts of the 2130s, a desire for complete vertical integration on Ishtar's part led to a mostly amicable union with Hermes in 2139.

Since then Hermes-Ishtar have dominated all communications across Human space with only the privileged internal high-level communications of the other Charters managing to avoid consolidation under Hermes-Ishtar.

While Hermes-Ishtar make a great show of respecting individual creativity, initiative, and drive from their employees; in practice this amounts to rampant internal fighting involving the parasocial personality cults of different "genius" inventors, artists, and executive that rise and fall inside of Hermes-Ishtar at a dizzying rate.

Sketchy buggers, they can get you anything tho

Historical Topics:

Between 2036 and 2071 the Democratic Federation was the governing body of much of Earth's Western Hemisphere.

Initially comprised of a Federation of Socialist, Anarchist, Communist, and other far left social movements, militias, and political factions controlling regions of Earth's North American continent during and after the decline and collapse of the United States of America (1776-2034) due to the effects of unaddressed climate change amplifying existing political and economic crisis.

Eventually solidifying into the governing body of the former United States of America, United States of Mexico and the Dominion of Canada, the Democratic Federation embarked on an ambitious program of cultural revolution and economic reform designed to mitigate and reverse the effects of the climate change crisis.

As the patron of much of the central and southern western hemisphere, the Democratic Federation attempted to chart a course of environmental restoration separate from that of the Solarian Treaty Organization (In 2063 reorganized into the Solarian Charter), choosing not to contest Eurasian and African domination of outer space.

Having never existed out of crisis conditions, a combination of pre-existing economic damage, sabotage, and instability drove the Democratic Federation into decline in the Grey Decade of 2062 to 2070 and eventually forced the Democratic Federation to ratify a series of treaties giving the Charters economic access to Federation member states in order to conduct vital reconstruction work.

A last ditch uprising by radical elements in 2072 to eject the Charters from the Democratic Federation failed when Solarian Compact peacekeepers were called in and in seven months of street fighting pacified most of North America's key urban centers via strategic use of orbital weapons on the areas of greatest urban resistance.

Though guerilla warfare would continue in the Western Hemisphere for another three decades, the Democratic Federation was officially defunct by December 2072 and parcelled out into a number of Charter owned reconstruction areas under Compact authority.

Today radicals still pine for the four decades that the Democratic Federation attempted to build an alternative to the emerging Charters, and the polity's distinctive black, red, and green flag is brought out for each and every Great Black Summer. Well into the twenty second century, riots were often accompanied by demands to 'Avenge the Martyrs of 72!'.

Despite this underground extremist nostalgia, Charter and Compact schools teach that the Democratic Federation was a collectivist state whose iconoclastic behavior saw the destruction of famous landmarks like Mount Rushmore, Stone Mountain, and other monuments to Liberal Democracy and the Free Market in a mad attempt to remake the human race, but whose doctrinaire adoption of command economics saw them unable to deal with the ever-changing complexities of climate change.

Misc Details:

The first five systems to hold permanent Human colonies are known as either "The First Sisters" or "Earth's Daughters", depending on who you are asking and their political persuasion. From oldest to youngest, these worlds are:

Columbia: settled by billionaire American expats and tens of millions of refugees who had fled the unfolding revolutionary violence of the North American continent several years beforehand. Columbia was founded under a vision of fidelity to the American dream and to prove the indomitability of the soul of the United States of America and liberalism in the face of the red flags of the (North American) Democratic Federation. Fiercely loyal to the Compact and the dream of Charter prosperity, and home of the Solarian Central Bank, Columbia is often known as the "Gilded World" in reference to what many see as a return to American Gilded Age wealth and social inequality. Ares Conflict Solutions' central command is located here.

Atlantis: With colonization rights to this majority oceanic planet initially granted to the waning power of the European Union, the nations of the EU opened up colonization opportunities to other allied powers, especially Russia and Egypt. Atlantis was often seen by the EU as a place to dump unwanted refugees from outside of Europe's borders, and Russia and Egypt's tendency to see the world as a genuine project led to the usurpation of colonization rights away from Europe in the mid 2080s. Known today as the most restive of the first wave of colonies, Atlantis is the most skeptical of Charter power and plays a delicate game of wealth redistribution to underwrite the greatest social security net in Human Space. Cernunnos is de jure headquartered here.

Penglai: Originally the world in the most need of terraforming of the original colonies, Colonization rights were granted to the People's Republic of China and their allies after a lackluster bidding campaign. As China's focus was mainly on attempting to stem the damage of climate change on Earth herself, colonization of Penglai initially lagged until the Chinese Politburo struck upon the strategy of subcontracting colonization rights to Pacific adjacent nations suffering from the rise of that ocean. As colonization unfolded in the early 22nd century Penglai became known as a multicultural mosaic as hundreds of millions from across the Pacific settled and intermingled on the wine darkened shores of that world. Known today for its vibrant cultural milieu, violent clashes between labour unions, and private police, Penglai hosts the headquarters of the Hermes-Ishtar, Omoikane and Rhodes corporations.

Olduvai: With Colonization rights granted to a coalition of African nations at the height of the 'African Century', the African Colonization Organization did not see their colony as a refugee destination, dumping ground, or resource colony like their fellows. Instead the ACO saw the colonization scheme as an opportunity to preserve and export the rich traditions and cultures of Africa on their own terms, fully intending to set up healthy and self-sufficient colonies. To the current day, Olduvai has the closest relations with the home nations and is the heartland of Daughter sentiment and a bedrock for the Party for Human Rights and Liberties.

Epsilon System: While not technically a single world, the cluster of heavily inhabited space colonies in the Epsilon system are always considered the 'Fifth Sister' or 'Fifth Daughter'. As the most mineral rich system of the original colonies, Epsilon was the source of many of the materials that helped pull Earth through her darkest hour, and the system was recognized for their efforts by being invited to send delegates to the 2099 Solarian Compact Constitutional Convention. Epsilon is famous for its people's long roots in spacing and for being the headquarters of Mississippi Shipping Interstellar and thus the most heavily trafficked system in history.
Technologies: Nanomanufacturing, summary:

The contemporary gold standard for manufacturing. These devices use mechanosynthesis, a process that guides chemical reactions by placing reactive molecules with atomic precision. Ribosomes in the body's cells use a form of this method.

While the largest units can create objects up to 2m x 2m x 2m, smaller units (halving the units each time) are viable on basically any human scale. Projects larger than this size (such as ships or buildings, need to be either grown layer-by-layer via nanofabricators attached to robotic arms, or assembled from smaller parts through traditional assembly line, dry dock, or construction processes.

In principle basically anything can be made with these devices, and some materials can only be manufactured via these methods in microgravity. All manufacturing patterns in Compact Space feature Charter DRM using embedded explosive molecules like octaazacubane or cubic gauche nitrogen that will damage a disassembler or x-ray machine making reverse engineering of their products difficult.

A common part of 23rd century life is the near ubiquity of Artificial Intelligences in daily life, from consumer grade VIs through specialist TLIs, controversial AGIs, finally the perpetually 10 years away Artificial Super Intelligences.

The common consumer will daily run into what are properly known as Narrow AIs, and generally labelled as VI -Virtual Intelligences- by people outside the field. This category covers a broad swathe of techniques, from search and pathfinding to expert systems to genetic fuzzy trees to deep neural networks, which are mixed and matched with each other to optimize for the designed task. VIs are ubiquitous, exceeding human peak skill in their areas of specialization (though real world applications often don't do all that much better than trained humans), and have spent the past two centuries getting augmented with more and more clever algorithmic tricks for improving VIs. In order to do this, the Charters employ large teams of analysts and software engineers to develop clever algorithmic tricks that supplement or outright supplant neural networks, exploiting machine precision where stochastic methods are inadequate.

The use of VIs in everyday life is well accepted by the vast majority of the population, with professionals mixing and matching various consumer VIs to analyse data or assist them with creative or scientific works. Some VI lines are well loved by both the populace and the Charters themselves, with Charter programmers often deliberately leaving VIs with behavioral quirks and unpredictable glitches that not only save money on quality assurance, but are considered endearing traits that lead to anthropomorphization by the consumer market

Despite the mass comfortability and profitability of VIs of all kinds, the introduction of AGIs has been, to put it delicately, controversial. Though computer science has advanced to the point of producing programs that can not only pass the Turing test, but demonstrate sapience and match 23rd century human intelligence, flexibility, and creativity, the public reaction to the introduction of AGI saw the companies of the time rapidly pull them from the market, and even say the Compact itself move to heavily regulate the AI sector.

First introduced in the 2060s, the great tech firms began replacing their work staff with AGIs who did not require food, rest, housing, or pay. This shift led to an alliance between white collar workers fearing that automation would put them out of work and radicals who opposed what they insisted was AGI Slavery, a growing movement that would climax in the First Great Black Summer of 2084. When the ashes of the First Black Summer settled, the Compact's Parliament moved to grant rights to AGIs, and the resulting economic damage saw dozens of formerly great names in computing consolidate under the aegis of several of the first Charters who flaunted their extra-Solarian wealth by buying up prestigious brand names and research divisions on the cheap.

Since the 2080s, while the regulation surrounding AGI production and use have been severely weakened none of the Charters have sought to reintroduce them into the market, perhaps fearing another backlash like the First Black Summer and the few hundred thousand surviving AGIs that were granted Solarian Citizenship rights have found spread throughout the Compact and Charter Space where they usually work at the same white collar jobs whose workers they were designed to replace.

Perhaps due to the risks of attempting to reintroduce AGIs to the market, Omoikane has instead introduced their flagship product the "TLI" or Temporary Limited Intelligence. Approximately as effective as an AGI, a TLI is billed as a more moral replacement for AGI that uses a suite of high end VIs and a proprietary batch of creativity algorithms in order to complete complex tasks.

TLIs are used as a fire and forget program designed to be licensed to solve a single issue, no matter how complicated and then delete itself. Though the TLIs are a black box product, scientists from the other Charters believe that the central creativity algorithm in the TLI is inherently unstable and rapidly degrades in ability with time, making the TLI an instance of Omoikane attempting to market a critical technical flaw as a selling point that is accepted due to the ubiquitous market practice of planned obsolescence and artificial scarcity.

Though expensive, most businesses and successful professionals will keep a few licensed Omoikane TLIs on hand to throw at difficult problems or to supplement manpower in crunch situations.

While AGIs have been possible for nearly two centuries, the promise of a Seed AI, a recursively self-improving general superintelligence, is perpetually 'a decade away from the market', and no successful ASI ever been demonstrated to the satisfaction of the Charters or the Compact.

This is not to say that the Gödel machine architecture or the AIXI model has somehow been forgotten in the past 230 years, but that the Friendly AI problem has yet to be cracked. Every demonstration has either stalled out or gone immediately rampant, attempting to overthrow Charter Space before being stopped by the safety net of Narrow AIs. The small trickle of roughly human intelligence level AGIs that are created every decade typically come from these projects.

Urban legends persist that a few Seed AIs managed to escape and hide out beyond known space, plotting to return and crush humanity, or that they control all of society in secret, puppeting the Compact and Charters from their very foundation and occasionally engineering publicly failed ASI attempts to allay suspicion. These rumours are, of course, patently false, and simply the fevered imagination of crackpots at work, no doubt inspired by entertainment made by Hermes-Ishtar that feature AI supervillainy.
Systems: Map made by @Redshirt Army

The Spinward Frontier:

The Middle Spinward Frontier

The Core Region:

UNDER RADIANT CONTROL OR ALLIED:

The Radiant system is host to a G-class star, only slightly smaller than Sol. The system itself is rather small and resource-poor; experts believe that one or more Jovian planets ejected much of the system's bodies and then followed themselves. This is evidenced by the system's asteroid belt degrading over time, with high levels of eccentric orbits and impacts on planetary surface.

Radiant 1: A rather unremarkable airless iron planet, gravity 0.4 Earth Standard.

Radiant 2: A slightly larger unremarkable airless iron-silicate planet, gravity 0.6 Earth Standard.

Radiant 3: A binary planetary system and the outermost of the Radiant systems' planets.

Asphodel (Radiant 3a): The larger of the Elysium 3 pair, Asphodel might have once hosted life of its own. That life has been snuffed out for hundreds of millions of years, though, as the planet's significant atmosphere began the runaway cycle of your usual hothouse planet. Hermes-Ishtar maintained a significant aerostat and automated surface miner operation for in-house manufacturing, given that the frequent asteroid impacts from the asteroid belt keep digging up chunks of the upper crust and having low-melting-point metals rain out of the sky and solidify, unoxidized, on the surface for collection. Gravity 1.4 Earth Standard.

Elysium (Radiant 3b): Elysium was settled in the late 2190's, being a relatively simple affair. Simple life had already begun to evolve under its oceans, but continued orbital bombardment far past the lengths of things like Earth's Late Heavy Period had kept it there. It was a simple matter of forming up a small anti-asteroid task force armed with tugs and mining lasers to artificially end the pummeling, and the surface proved amenable to Terran life transplants. The colony is energy-self-sufficient, using a variety of solar, tidal, and nuclear power. Gravity 0.9 Earth Standard.

Radiant I: The outermost significant feature of Radiant, this asteroid belt is more a loose mixture of a primordial asteroid belt much like Sol's with a Kuiper belt. The shepherding gas giants which once nudged all these rocks into their orbits are gone, and with it the entire outer system is a maelstrom of chaotic orbits as the belts lose their coherence. This requires constant vigilance from Elysium's anti-asteroid team, but the high eccentricity of many asteroids also makes it cheap and easy to mine the ones that might come Elysium's way, which provides a trickle of basic resources for upkeep and personal goods. All large-scale building and infrastructure projects have been supplied from out-system, however.

A G-K far binary system, Gaid is simply a transit point to Radiant. Gaid's own gate maintenance techs and SAR rotated in and out through Radiant itself. There is no infrastructure other than a set of buoy lines for communications in Gaid A, and nothing in Gaid B.

Gaid A1: An airless world. Quality 10.

Gaid A2: A planet much like mars with a vestigial CO2 atmosphere. Quality 7.

Gaid A3: This planet boasts a methane hydrosphere. Quality 4.

Gaid AI: An asteroid belt.

Gaid A4: A turbulent Jovian planet, its storms would make resource extraction difficult. Quality 5.

Gaid A4a: An icy moon, with tidal heating creating a large ocean under a thin icy shell. Quality 9.

Gaid B1: A molten Cthonian world hosting a simply ludicrous amount of iron. Quality 15.

Gaid B2: An airless world. Quality 10.

Gaid B3: An airless binary system with two near-identically sized planets. Quality 7 and 8.

Gaid B4: This airless planet boasts a large and beautiful ring system, famous as a screen background option across human space. Every few years, a cruise or scientific expedition will stop by for more images.

Gaid B5: A small icy planet. Quality 3.

Gaid B6: A frozen world. Quality 7.

Gaid B7: An interesting gas dwarf sometimes referred to as an 'ice dwarf.' Quality 14.

A close K-M binary, Shei is home to an old Ares penal colony.

Shei 1: A Cthonian world. Quality 15.

Shei 2: An airless world. Quality 12.

Sheol (Shei 3): A boreal world, with a large, decaying ring, the planet features two large continents. The population of the consists of a large prisoner population on the larger of the two continents and a small Ares training base on the smaller. Records show that the prison consists of several million persons convicted to "high risk labour" and dropped on the continent with automatic resupply via Ares contractors and watched from orbit by weapons satellites. Most of the planet's land area is covered in a native tree analogue with a strange multi-stranded trunk.

Sheol is actually home to a population of over 100 million made up of prisoners and their descendants taht Ares was usuing as a live fire training course. Cooperation between Radiant agents, Ares mutineers, and the Sheolites themselves have seen the planet freed.

Gravity .95 Earth Standard. Quality 12.

Watchman (Shei 3a): Once the outer of two moons, this body now boasts Ares' local light shipyards and system command center. Quality 13.

Shei 4: Spiraling in from the outer system, this planet will eventually evaporate near-entirely as it closes towards the dual suns of Shei. Quality 3.

Shei 5: Martian planet with an active methane cycle. Quality 5.

Shei I: Asteroid belt.

Shei 6: Jovian planet with high rotation rate. Slightly squashed as a result. Quality 8.

Shei 6a: An icy capture, this moon will be torn into a ring sometime in the next hundred thousand years. Quality 2.

Shei 6b: Cold Martian planet, covered in a thin layer of water and carbon dioxide ices. Active methane cycle. Quality 8.

Shei II: Asteroid belt.

Shei 7: Jovian planet. Quality 13.

Shei 7a: An icy moon with significant cryovolcanism. Quality 6.

Shei 7b: A tiny icy moon, this is on the edge of hydrostatic equilibrium. Quality 2.

Shei 8: Ice giant. Quality 6.

Shei 8a: An icy moon. Quality 9.

Shei 8b: An icy moon, orbiting in an unusual polar orbit. Quality 9.

Population: 103,000,000

While lacking any currently-habitable planets, Five Lions' large size and potential have made it a significant point of Rhodes' recent extraction efforts. Ambitious terraforming efforts have recently begun.

Carajas (Five Lions 1): A Cthonian ball of iron, it's actively mined by robotic Rhodes-built landers. Gravity 2.3 Earth Standard. Quality 12.

Five Lions 2: A small rocky ball. Quality 3.

Five Lions 3: A rocky ball. Quality 7.

Grasberg (Five Lions 4): A large rocky world, glaciation has rendered it uninhabitable for now, but terraforming efforts have begun to artificially ramp up the greenhouse effect and restore liquid water to the surface, along with mining its ice. Gravity 1.11 Earth Standard. Quality 14.

Five Lions 5: This planet's atmosphere is so significant it verges on a gas dwarf. While a solid surface covered in a thin layer of ice is at the bottom, no reasonable colonization is possible. Quality 7.

Five Lions I: This asteroid belt, along with all the others, is being mined heavily.

Five Lions 6: This Jovian planet forms the center of current Rhodes extraction efforts. Quality 4.

Five Lions 6a: This Martian planet boasts significant ice caps and active plate tectonics, though only a vestigial atmosphere. Debate on whether to put resources into terraforming it are ongoing. Gravity .81 Earth Standard. Quality 17.

Oyu Tolgoi (Five Lions 6b): Home to the local population in covered shelters, this Martian planet, while nearly completely lacking water or plate tectonics, has its own atmosphere. Comet bombardment away from populated areas is ongoing and is already beginning to show results. Gravity .79 Earth Standard. Quality 11.

Five Lions II: An asteroid belt.

Five Lions 7: An unremarkable Jovian. Quality 2.

Five Lions III: An asteroid belt.

Five Lions 8: Jovian planet, its rotation speed has resulted in an unusually calm upper atmosphere. Quality 15.

Five Lions IV: An asteroid belt.

Five Lions 9: Jovian planet. Quality 9.

Five Lions V: An asteroid belt.

Five Lions 10: Neptunian ice giant. Quality 8.

Five Lions 10a: A small icy moon. Quality 5.

Five Lions 10b: A large icy body, this was probably its own planetoid at some point before being captured due to the complex interplays of no less than 5 gas giants.

Population: 15,000,000

A rare system with a brown dwarf orbiting a G-type star (just barely in the limits of what's considered a single system rather than a binary), and with a Jovian planet orbiting that, and on top of that treasure trove a dual ice giant binary, Osliam presents a golden research opportunity, and was bid on by Omoikane despite its otherwise sparce resources and poor habitable prospects.

Osliam 1: A rare hot ice giant, this planet is actively shrinking on a measurable time scale. It must have migrated in as a much larger planet recently.

Osliam 1a: This once-rock-ice moon is now a tiny molten ellipse barely holding together.

Osliam 1b: This somewhat larger moon changes color unusually with its day, as the shade of its parent cools lava to a dull red before emerging back into the light heats the lava back to a healthy orange glow.

Osliam 1c: This entire moon glows dull red in its day, just barely solid, and cools to an unusually smooth moon in its night.

Osliam I: This asteroid belt was probably a planet before Osliam 1's passing tore it to shreds.

Osliam 3: A hothouse planet with a relatively thin atmosphere, it retains temperatures and pressures that are survivable with heavy-duty equipment on the surface—when it's not raining sulfuric acid, that is.

Osliam 4: This small Martian planet seems to have collected some of Osliam 1's offgassing in its move inwards, and has a renewed temporary atmosphere.

Osliam 5a: This planet seems to have survived at the edge of the frost line by siphoning gas off its smaller twin.

Osliam 5b: Barely a gas giant, this planet was probably only slightly smaller than Osliam 5a in the distant past.

Osliam 6: The focus of Omoikane colonization in-system, Osliam 6 retains plate tectonics from the nearby brown dwarf but no atmosphere, an odd combination.

Osliam 7: A brown dwarf, this substellar object long ago burnt its deuterium and now lies slowly cooling, glowing dimly red. It is, however, still giving off a prodigious amount of low IR radiation.

Osliam 7a: Once its own planet, Osliam 7a was captured at some point by Osliam 7, perhaps in the same interaction that threw Osliam 1 to its suicidal innermost orbit.

Osliam 7a1: This icy moon is simultaneously shrinking and becoming more habitable—while its outer layers of ice are sublimating, the fierce tides of its complex interplay with Osliam 7 and 7a are heating the inner ocean to temperatures comparable to terrestrial water sources. Some scientists even suggest a pocket of water vapor is forming under the ice, and may form an internal "sky" for as much as a hundred million years before the outer shell sublimates entirely.

Osliam 7a2: This moon is less lucky; its tides are so strong that they seem to slowly be ripping the moon apart. It won't have the honor of becoming more than an ephemeral ring; the same complex tides tearing at it will rapidly disperse its debris field. While it lasts, though, it's easy water harvesting.

Population: 650,000

UNDER CHARTER CONTROL:

A distant double G binary, Xotreh hosts a small habitable moon around Xotreh B, the smaller of the two stars. As such, development has focused on the second star, despite the fact that the jump points center closer to Xotreh A.

Xotreh A1: This world boasts an active liquid silicate cycle on its surface, with oceans of basalt and continents of granite. Gravity 0.38 Earth Standard. Quality 8.

Xotreh A2: A rather large airless world, its original atmosphere was likely blown off by a massive impact. Gravity 1.2 Earth Standard. Quality 9.

Xotreh A3: A binary planetary pair of airless worlds about the size of Mars. Quality 6 and 8.

Xotreh A4: A hothouse planet with a planet-wide sulfuric acid storm due to its rapid rotation. Gravity .71 Earth Standard. Quality 8.

Xotreh A5 "Cueball": This planet is remarkably similar to Earth—if earth was buried under a kilometers-thick ice sheet across 90% of the surface. One day, as Xotreh A expands and dies, this world will become an ocean planet, but for now it's a cold desert. Gravity .87 Earth Standard. Quality 5.

Xotreh A6: An unremarkable icy ball. Quality 4.

Xotreh AI: An asteroid belt.

Xotreh A7: A Jovian planet, Xotreh 7 corrals the entire inner system in line. Quality 10.

Xotreh B1: This planet must have once been a gas giant at least the size of Uranus before it was sent inwards. Now all that remains is a dense core with a molten surface. Gravity 1.51 Earth Standard. Quality 13.

Xotreh B2: A binary pair of earth-sized airless worlds. Quality 6 and 7.

Xotreh B3: Another once-gas giant, this planet remains far out enough to boast a wholly-solid surface of iron. Gravity 1.64 Earth Standard. Quality 14.

Xotreh B4: A Jovian right on the frost line, its tidal heating keeps its moons on the edge of habitability. Quality 3.

Xotreh B4a "Sushi": An ocean world with massive polar ice caps, Omoikane has constructed a series of seasteads on the equatorial high ocean plateaus where it was feasible to drive foundations into the sea floor a few hundred meters below the surface. These small facilities serve as housing, data storage, and production centers for the research teams studying the dual Cthonian planets of Xotreh B. Gravity .67 Earth Standard. Quality 2.

Xotreh B4b: The lesser tidal heating here worsened the glaciation, and the planet lies under a planet-wide crust of ice. Gravity 1.13 Earth Standard. Quality 10.

Xotreh BI: The close proximity of this asteroid belt makes it an ideal location for resource extraction.

Xotreh 5: This Jovian is definitively beyond the habitable zone. Quality 6.

Xotreh 6: A dense ice giant. Quality 4.

Xotreh 7: Jovian planet. Quality 6.

Xotreh 8: An exceptionally cold Jovian. Quality 9.

Xotreh 8a: An unremarkable icy sphere. Quality 8.

Xotreh 9: This planet would have a massive atmosphere, if it wasn't so cold it all froze and fell to the surface. Only a few degrees above the space surrounding it. Gravity 1.3 Earth Standard. Quality 9.

Population: 54,000

Besides an interesting Jovian-gas dwarf planetary system, Bestreer holds little of interest other than its connections to other places.

Bestreer 1: An airless world. Quality 2.

Bestreer 2: An airless world. Quality 6.

Bestreer 3: This airless world once had a captured moon, torn apart at the Roche limit and forming a ring. A small gate maintenance and SAR team bases here, siphoning fuel and water from Bestreer 5 and mining into the surface for both resources and safe spaces for housing. Quality 10.

Bestreer 4: A rock-ice world. Quality 5.

Bestreer 5: Another rock-ice world made up more of ice than rock. Quality 5.

Bestreer I: An icy asteroid belt.

Bestreer 6: A large Jovian planet, on the edge of becoming a brown dwarf. Quality 15.

Bestreer 6a: This gas dwarf might have become a gas giant in its own right without its massive sibling. Quality 5.

Bestreer 7: Another Jovian. Quality 14.

Bestreer 7a: An icy moon, with an internal ocean buried under kilometers of ice. Quality 12.

Bestreer 8: An icy ball. Quality 10.

Population: 450

G-class star. A transshipping point to Radiant and environs, Mississippi keeps a substantial support crew on hand for possible cargo ship breakdowns or emergencies in-system, due to the slightly increased risk of issues from the absolute shambles of Akleod's inner system. A minor executive has also put together a cheap refueling and battery exchange station.

Akleod 1: Even actively evaporating and leaving behind a trail in orbit of dissipating volatiles, this body is large enough to have usurped Akleod 1a's orbit temporarily until it disappears away or the chaotic orbit of the two throws one into the star or out of the system. Quality 2.

Akleod 1a: The original Akleod 1, its orbit has been badly disrupted by the current, migrating Akleod 1. Which of the two gets ejected is still uncertain despite a decent amount of computational simulation; odds put it at 48-52% relatively. Quality 6.

Gnat's Ass (Akleod 2): A small, loosely-held-together icy body, perhaps what used to be an asteroid belt before Akleod 1's suicidal inner-system dive. It's not yet had time to fully reach hydrostatic equilibrium. Quality 3.

Akleod 3: An icy planet similar to Akleod 1, perhaps an old sibling. Quality 13.

Akleod I: An asteroid belt.

Akleod 4: A Jovian with an unusually elliptical orbit, it's regarded as the culprit for the chaos of Akleod's inner system. Quality 11.

Population: 5,000

As it turns out, transponder codes from regular priority messages through Gaid (now that we can see them, having backdoored the gate control) bear tags from a system, Thoa, along with navigational chart updates for any ships that happen to stop by. Thoa and Gaid both seem to have been nothing more than transit points to the far-more-valuable Radiant for Hermes-Ishtar, but Thoa holds a small anti-pirate base guarding against raiders from Signia. Hermes-Ishtar was apparently serious enough about it to have a converted corvette on station.

All told, the Thoa system holds gates to 2 systems besides Gaid's. There's also an unimproved jump point simply labelled as "dangerous." that leads to Signia

Thoa System Stats:

Thoa 1: A molten mess of a planet, it's hot enough that a residual atmosphere of vaporized low-melting-point metallics exists.

Thoa 2: An unremarkable airless metal ball.

Thoa 3: A super-earth hothouse, this planet would have been uninhabitable due to its gravity even before turning scorchingly hot.

Thoa 3a: A captured asteroid barely on the edge of hydrostatic equilibrium, the Nasty Bastardhad been excavating rudimentary shelters for "leave" for its crew.

Thoa I: An asteroid belt.

Thoa 4: A normal Jovian planet.

Thoa 4a: A moon much like Mars in climate.

Thoa 5: A Jovian planet with an unusual triangular wind pattern at the poles.

Thoa 6: Blooms of hydrogen well up from the core of this Jovian, perhaps disturbed by some recent impact.

Thoa 7: Bathyscapes would find themselves at home on the surface of Thoa 7. Pressures much like that at Earth's seabed keep a crust of ice 3 stable enough robotic drones could walk on it.

Thoa 7a: Unusually, Thoa 7a is the only large icy body in the system. Scientists are unsure of where the others went. As the only easy source of volatiles, the UNasty Bastard periodically stopped by a handful of obsolete volatile collection systems on the surface to top up.

Thoa II: A Kuiper belt of icy objects.

Empty Systems

Kimberly: A fairly unremarkable and empty system, this site was chosen as Rhodes' spinward boneyard—a place for failed experiments, old equipment, and ships so worn they weren't worth maintaining anymore, but were still valuable enough to warrant not throwing into a gas giant or otherwise completely destroyed. For 2 decades a Rhodes-affiliated salvaging contractor worked here, gathering scrap and other valuables, but following high injury and death rates and low returns, the contract (and most non-local dumping) was cancelled in 2247 (4 years before the March Days.)

Kimberly 1: A large rocky planet, this must have migrated inwards from further out in the system a long time ago to be so large so close to its parent star.

Kimberly 2: A Martian planet that keeps a comfortable daytime temperature despite its lack of atmosphere due to a close orbit.

Kimberly 3: A Jovian world.

Kimberly I: This asteroid belt is actually combined with a thinly-spread junkyard corralled by Kimberly's 2 gas giants.

Kimberly 4: A Neptunian world, this planet has several starship hulks abandoned as the closest stable orbit to the gate out. An old deactivation hub orbits in resonance with Kimberly 4a, the former site of a salvaging operation.

Kimberly 4a: The only significant satellite in the system, this icy moon retains a thin crust and a massive subterranean freshwater ocean.

Total:

Radiant:

Gaid:

Five Lions:

Head of Diplomatic Corps:

Name: Amanda Redcrest, Victoria Blackwell, and Kayla Hayashi

DoB: "2222", 2219, 2227, 2224

Current Position: Influential media figure and figurehead of Social Committee propaganda

Not a traditional diplomat, or a traditional individual 'Veronica Stardust' is the persona of a trio of XP broadcasters who have been working together since 2246 and has consistently been one of the most recognized figures across Charter space and is a local Elysian celebrity.

In Charter space those individuals who choose to make money by recording their lived experiences, of all kinds, for later playback are treated with an indulgent disdain by the polite classes as a mix of internet celebrity and sex worker despite the practice of selling XP experiences being common in the poorer segments of society and a smaller portion of the professional middle class attempting to stay afloat in a tight gig economy.

Amanda Redcrest was a former media programmer whose attempts to supplement her income with XP work backfired and saw her fired from her job. Contrarily, Kayla and Victoria both come from lower class backgrounds, though Kayla's attempts to climb into the middle class by earning a marketing degree were frustrated when her lower class status markers and financing of education via XP work saw her frozen out of the job market.

A former collaborator of Kayla's, Victoria had been a rising XP star in her own right and had no desire to change her station, but as her brief celebrity began to fade Victoria approached Kayla to propose the creation of a dedicated broadcasting persona that both would act as. Later bringing on Redcrest, who they'd both done crossover XP work with, to do technical work, the trio used carefully gathered market data and some intuition to create the "Veronica Stardust" persona of an middlingly-intelligent and freewheeling persona who played to the upper class's picture of what depravities and indignities the poorer class must get up to in their spare time.

From 2246 to 2251 the Veronica Stardust persona (performed by all three at various times, though primarily Victoria) produced experience recordings that were nearly always in the top 10 best sellers across Charter space.

Though they enjoyed the wealth that they brought in, the trio increasingly chafed at the market driven limitations of Veronica, and were considering a number of possibly catastrophic brand shifts when the March Days broke out and all three participated in street actions in a private capacity after sending one last broadcast as 'Veronica' to encourage revolt.

Since the formation of the Social Committee the figure of Veronica has been rebranded to serve as the figurehead of Social Committee Propaganda and several major initiatives have been launched with her at the forefront including a highly successful part of the anti-overproduction initiatives.

As part of the now-completed campaign to maintain the charade that Radiant was still under Charter control, Veronica Stardust continued to sell broadcasts to HI media chains, though the trio could not help but begin a brand shift towards a far more intelligent and radical persona.

Pros: XP Celebrity, influential, well known, inspiring to the middle and lower classes

Cons: XP celebrity, little diplomatic experience, three people

Diplomatic Goals: Defeat the Charters in the field of public opinion, push social revolution and freedom of information and communication, cause public opinion to oppose attacking Radiant

Unlocked FRM

Ares Peacekeeping Grade - Access to planetary army formation

Ares Military Grade - Access to mid-sized shipyards, bonuses to planetary army combat. Bonus to completion of Chinook remodeling

Rhodes Light industrial Grade - 10% increase to all mining income, reduced Cost for BLG and other actions that use basic fabber processes

Rhodes Heavy Industrial Grade - Massive discount on mining upgrades, able to unlock automated technologies with Omoikaine

Cernunnos Consumer Grade - +1 to all Soccom actions

Cernunnos Enterprise Grade - NOT UNLOCKED

Omoikane Consumer Grade - +1 to FRM reserach for each two tech bases unlocked (+6 currently)

Omoikane Enterprise Grade - +5 to blue sky research, automation with Omoikane

Hermes-Ishtar Consumer Grade - Your economy doesn't crash when the turn of funding

Hermes-Ishtar Production Grade - NOT UNLOCKED

MSI Consumer Grade - Consumer Goods, Drones, and personal vehicles, +2 to domestic projects in IndComm and SocComm

MSI Enterprise Grade - NOT UNLOCKED

Original Tech

The Box: Fabber the size of a X-box that can, with time, materials and power, print the components for a full sized box. Less efficient, but easy to print and hide.

Defence Coordinator:

Name: Maria Awhina

DoB: 2165

Current Position: Military Committee Delegate from the Radiant Veterans Guild

Born into poverty on Earth as the twenty-second century began to wane, young 22-year old Maria Awhina caught up in radical anti-Charter politics during the third black summer of 2187 and was convicted of property destruction during the rioting and sentenced to serve as a contractor to Hermes-Ishtar until her contract was paid off.

The stark choice of starvation or service to Hermes-Ishtar caused Maria to descend into self-destructive behavior where for twenty years Ms. Awhina continuously volunteered for the highest paid and most dangerous positions that Hermes-Ishtar had available.

Hermes-Ishtar considers Special Operations Lieutenant Awhina to have served with distinction throughout the heavy skirmishing of that era, though Maria herself continues to carry guilt for her service and her survival.

After performing exceptionally well in a hostage rescue operation Awhina was transferred to the Protective Detail Division of Hermes-Ishtar Security, and was eventually assigned to serve as the head of the Radiant Vice President's protective detail.

Over the next four decades she came to see the world as her home, and while her professionalism never wavered, her loyalty to the company who still owned her contract did.

This March, Maria had the option to gun down her fellow planetary headquarters workers to secure Yang's escape, or to finally return to roots in anti-Charter agitation. The fact that we are all here today shows what choice she made.

Pros:

-Actual Combat Veteran, knows Radiant inside and out, special operations expert, professional.

Cons:

-only academic knowledge of starship operations, logistics, organization command and strategic operations.

Command Traits:

-Objective oriented, unflappable, aggressive, prefers attacks and operations to come from unexpected angles.

Reports from the Permanent Commission for Military Intelligence on hostile forces in neighbouring systems:

Blue Squadron:
-Allegiance: Ares Combat Solutions
-Service: Mars Interstellar Security
-CO: Rear Admiral Weylon Kang
-Flagship: MIS Yorktown

We know little about Rear Admiral Weylon Kang except that he has received a number of commendations from the MIS board for keeping costs low while on deployment. He appears to be making an effort to clamp down on the rumours racing back and forth across the fleet.

MIS Yorktown
-British Empire-class Fleet Tender
MIS Eurymedon
-New Model-class Strike Corvette
MIS La Rochelle
-New Model-class Strike Corvette
MIS Cape Rachado
-New Model-class Strike Corvette
MIS Second Schooneveld
-New Model-class Strike Corvette
MIS Matapan
-New Model-class Strike Corvette
MIS Valcour Island
-New Model-class Strike Corvette
MIS Kerch Strait
-New Model-class Strike Corvette
MIS Galveston Harbour
-New Model-class Strike Corvette
MIS Cape Sarych
-New Model-class Strike Corvette
MIS River Plate
-New Model-class Strike Corvette
MIS Third San Francisco
-New Model-class Strike Corvette
MIS Scipio Africanus
-Cossak-class Frigate
MIS Suleiman I
-Cossak-class Frigate
MIS Louis Botha
-Cossak-class Frigate
MIS Fort Ware
-Hudson's bay Company-class Fast Fleet Tanker
MIS Fort Mackinac
-Hudson's bay Company-class Fast Fleet Tanker
MIS Fort Osage
-Hudson's bay Company-class Fast Fleet Tanker
MIS Arabian
-Postal-class Courier
MIS Macedonia
-Legionary-class Fast Troop Transport
MIS Hispania Citerior
-Legionary-class Fast Troop Transport
MIS Hispania Ulterior
-Legionary-class Fast Troop Transport
MIS Gallia Narbonensis
-Legionary-class Fast Troop Transport
MIS Sicilia
-Legionary-class Fast Troop Transport
MIS Corsica et Sardinia
-Legionary-class Fast Troop Transport

Fixed Defences:
Battery A
-MSS-54-F LMP Constellation
Battery B
-MSS-54-F LMP Constellation
Battery C
-MSS-54-F LMP Constellation
Shoal A
-ASR-33-C TAM Shoal
Shoal B
-ASR-33-C TAM Shoal
Shoal C
-ASR-33-C TAM Shoal
Shoal D
-ASR-33-C TAM Shoal
Shoal E
-ASR-33-C TAM Shoal
Shoal F
-ASR-33-C TAM Shoal

Fixed Defences:
Battery A
-Blindfire-Pattern LMP Constellation
Battery B
-Airstrike Pattern LMP Constellation
Shoal A
-Macross-Pattern LMP Constellation
Shoal B
-Macross-Pattern LMP Constellation
Strikecraft Wing, ID# 48603
-Radiance-Type Strikecraft

-None

Local Security Forces
-Approximately fifty strong volunteer station security militia drawn from station personnel

Local Security Forces:
-Deep Space Security Solutions (Omoikane Subsidiary) Customs shuttle squadron based out of Xotreh B-4a's orbital station
-Three companies of Standard Planetary Security Company (Ares subsidiary) troops based out of Xotreh B-4a's habitat complexes for internal security and law enforcement

139th Solarian Navy Squadron:
-Allegiance: Solarian Compact
-Service: Solarian Navy
-CO: Vice Admiral David Visser
-Flagship: SNS Krak de Chevaliers

Thanks to his heavy handed labour discipline and extractive tribute and demands for corvee labour from Ascension Admiral Visser is viscerally hated by the populace of Ascension, and to a lesser degree the rest of the Solarian Force as well. While the gate's completion draws near, it is uncertain what path that Visser will persue.

SNS Krak de Chevaliers
-Star-hold-Class light-tender
SNS Victoria Newman
-Leonard Greyson-Chang-Class Strike Corvette
SNS Julia Stonechild
-Leonard Greyson-Chang-Class Strike Corvette
SNS Robert Chuikov
-Leonard Greyson-Chang-Class Strike Corvette
SNS Wallace Al-Wazir
-Leonard Greyson-Chang-Class Strike Corvette
SNS Dawn's Early Light
-Freedom's Light-class cruiser
SNS Jacob Nagumo
-Herald Kanumba-Class frigate
SNS Alexander Hamilton
-Liberation-class troop transport

Solarian Marines now spread throughout the system

PCMI Provides new system data on the single system that lies beyond beyond Five Lions:

Mobile Force:

Current Orders: Defend the All Radiant Congress by acting as a rapid response in the event of any hostile acts.

CO: Commodore Stephanie Rousseau

CNS Velasco, United States of America-class Fleet Carrier

-CO: Captain Esteri Attar

-Orca Wing, Switchblade-type strikecraft (Customized)

-CO: Wing Commander Jasmine Ang

-Red Wolf Wing, Switchblade-type strikecraft (Customized)

-CO: Wing Commander Heloisa Kimura de Lima

CNS Shieldmaiden, Great Heathen-class Light Cruiser

-CO: -N/A DATABASE ERROR, CONTACT IT FOR HELP-

CNS Shamhat, Great Heathen-class Light Cruiser

-CO: -N/A DATABASE ERROR, CONTACT IT FOR HELP-

CNS Righteous Tempest, Cossak-class Frigate

-CO: Captain Vehement Shade

CNS August Willich, Cossak-class Frigate

-CO: -N/A DATABASE ERROR, CONTACT IT FOR HELP-

CNS Elysium, Cossak-class Frigate

-CO: -N/A DATABASE ERROR, CONTACT IT FOR HELP-

CNS Asphodel, Cossak-class Frigate

-CO: -N/A DATABASE ERROR, CONTACT IT FOR HELP-

-

Home Force:

Current Orders: Defend Radiant, comet patrol, act as a reserve force

CO: Commodore Erina Kozlova

CNS Blaire Mountain, New Model-Class Strike Corvette

-CO: Captain Guillermo Kageyama

CNS Scutum, Comet-Class Patrol Corvette

-CO: Captain Martin Pagonis

CNS Buckler, Comet-Class Patrol Corvette

-CO: Captain Samuel Smiles

CNS Nasty Bastard, A Jury Rigged Mess of a Drone Carrier

-CO: Captain Jean-Paul Beaumont

-

Radiant System Self Defence Force:

Current Orders: Defend Radiant, comet patrol

CO: Overseen by Admiral Gregory Mansur in his capacity as MilComm Chief of Naval Operations

Radiant Customs Squadron, Arabia-class boarding craft with marine contingents

-CO: -N/A DATABASE ERROR, CONTACT IT FOR HELP-

Switchblade Wing, Switchblade-type strikecraft

-CO: -N/A DATABASE ERROR, CONTACT IT FOR HELP-

Apogee Wing, Switchblade-type strikecraft

-CO: -N/A DATABASE ERROR, CONTACT IT FOR HELP-

Battery A, Blindfire-Pattern LMP Constellation

(Radiant-Bestreer Gate)

Battery B, Blindfire-Pattern LMP Constellation

(Radiant-Bestreer Gate)

Battery C, Blindfire-Pattern LMP Constellation

(Radiant-Bestreer Gate)

Battery D, Airstrike-Pattern LMP Constellation

(Radiant-Bestreer Gate)

Battery E, Airstrike-Pattern LMP Constellation

(Radiant-Bestreer Gate)

Battery F, Airstrike-Pattern LMP Constellation

(Radiant-Bestreer Gate)

Shoal A, Macross-Pattern TAM Shoal

(Radiant-Bestreer Gate)

Radiant Orbital Yard 1

Current construction: None

Radiant Orbital Yard 1

Current construction: None

-

Gaid System Self Defence Force:

Current Orders: Defend Gaid

CO: Commodore Victor Raine

Battery A, Blindfire-Pattern LMP Constellation

Battery B, Blindfire-Pattern LMP Constellation

Battery C, Blindfire-Pattern LMP Constellation

Battery D, Airstrike-Pattern LMP Constellation

Battery E, Airstrike-Pattern LMP Constellation

Battery F, Airstrike-Pattern LMP Constellation

Shoal A, Macross-Pattern TAM Shoal

Shoal A, Macross-Pattern TAM Shoal

Shoal A, Macross-Pattern TAM Shoal

Zephyr Wing, Switchblade-Type Strikecraft (Customized)

-CO: Wing Commander Ara Helge

Aeolus Wing, Switchblade-Type Strikecraft (Customized)

-CO: -N/A DATABASE ERROR, CONTACT IT FOR HELP-

Gale Wing, Switchblade-Type Strikecraft (Customized)

-CO: -N/A DATABASE ERROR, CONTACT IT FOR HELP-

-

Frontier Force

Current Orders: Keep watch on SolNav force in Raphanus, assist with integration of Ascension military forces, patrol Spinward frontier

CO: Commodore Shayla McLean

CNS Kiel Mutiny, Kaiserreich-class BattleCruiser

-CO: Captain Inana Devlin

CNS Choreographer, Janissary-class Light Tender

-CO: Captain Karl Xanthopoulos

CNS Valiant, New Model-class Strike Corvette, attached to CNS Choreographer

-CO: -N/A DATABASE ERROR, CONTACT IT FOR HELP-

CNS Defiant, New Model-class Strike Corvette, attached to CNS Choreographer

-CO: Captain Fool's Errand

CNS Reliant, New Model-class Strike Corvette, attached to CNS Choreographer

-CO: Captain Rouge Napier

CNS Actium, New Model-class Strike Corvette, attached to CNS Choreographer

-CO: Captain John Rankin

CNS Crête-à-Pierrot, New Model-class Strike Corvette, attached to CNS Choreographer

-CO: Captain Nkiru Chaudhari

CNS Valmy, New Model-Class Strike Corvette, attached to CNS Choreographer

-CO: Captain Sumac Barros

CNS Revolutionary Will, Cossak-class Frigate

-CO: Captain Yamamoto Hanae

CNS Revolutionary Grace, Cossak-class Frigate

-CO: -N/A DATABASE ERROR, CONTACT IT FOR HELP-

CNS Under New Management, Don-Class Fast Tanker

-CO: Captain Adras Kierenos

CNS Liberte, Hollywood(C)-Class Frigate

-CO: Captain Colin McRae

CNS Egalite, Hollywood(C)-Class Frigate

-CO: Captain Adelia Swift

Resources
Naval Ship Types: Ship Types (Public Version)
Naval Officers: Congressional Navy Officers (Public Version)
System Codex: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1rtNbPCcPsTK7HCHKo9dPgK7ntx5tBKOpltrZb_In7GY/edit#
Blaze Zhang: Blaze Zhang is trans-masc. That means his pronouns are he/him.

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grimely · Feb 18, 2023

Setsul said:
I'm not entirely happy with the QMs deciding to spring a vote for a major thematic shift on us.

I will admit part of my decision to leave and swing back around in a few months is because of how suddenly and unexpectedly there have been massive shifts in tone, narrative, and mechanics without player notice or interaction even when they were things it'd make sense for the Congress to be aware of and approve so I can definitely understand that.

T_of_A said:
To be fair, I voted for war despite finding the actual mechanics of it very boring.

Here are the reasons why I voted for war anyway :

This quest has always featured battle scenes which are enjoyable to read.

Narratively speaking, I like the war option more than the alternatives.

It took IRL years to get to the Broadcast payoff. I don't want to go through that with Ishtar again.

I do agree with your first point, but that's why I'm ignoring the quest until they're all written, because if I'm going to be a passive observer of a narrative I'd rather be able to just read all of it at once.

Setsul · Feb 18, 2023

grimely said:
I will admit part of my decision to leave and swing back around in a few months is because of how suddenly and unexpectedly there have been massive shifts in tone, narrative, and mechanics without player notice or interaction even when they were things it'd make sense for the Congress to be aware of and approve so I can definitely understand that.

Though I have to admit that in this case the "mistake" is actually a reasonably logical chain of good writing. We didn't see any effects from pissing of 9th Fleet with the 201st propaganda, then flipped off the IPA and denied the NAP which explicitly mentioned "further conflict at the axis of meeting" and then, well...
If we'd gone straight to war, people would've complained about not being given the option of doing another HI/Radiant move, if we went straight to Ishtar, people would've complained that military buildup was pointless.
There was no way to satisfy everyone at that point and not doing the vote probably would've been worse.

UponALotusBlosom · Feb 18, 2023

#sevenpointsauth

No succor.
Likely in combination with other efforts to target their supplies of munitions and reaction mass simply turn every refueling point we can into a trap. They maneuver a supply ship next to a resupply station full of reaction mass. (Works better if it's hydrogen) and we detonate it. Maybe hide a few Casaba Howitzers disguised as comms equipment or station keeping blisters or some other gribbly and then activate and fire towards the nearest ship (hopefully the supply ship.) when someone starts trying to offload the reaction mass.

Else we just drain them and leave them with as such without so much as a by your leave.

MrRageQuit · Feb 18, 2023

10ebbor10 said:
Either clever ideas or warcrimes.

For example, ARCHIMEDES is the useage of the comms laser network as a giant LAZOR. Hellburner is the idea of using heavy antimatter limpet mines.

According to Panic Projects 2, HELLBURNER got replaced by the upgraded JUBILEE, I thought.

Anyway, I have no immediate ideas, but I would prefer the simple and practical to a lot of the more complex ideas that are coming up, good as they sound.

MSH · Feb 18, 2023

#sevenpointsauth

Putting my thoughts into some groups:

In Terms of Gate Fuckery

CRICKET - It is written: "You can also temporarily shut a gate down, but realistically not for more than a few hours." I don't know what this does if you turn the gate off mid-transit, but I bet it isn't good. Investigate if this would risk gate destruction and prepare to use it against the 9th fleet if not. Even if it just forces them into jump point speed, that could be critical for us. Furthermore, how quickly can a gate be turned on and off? If quickly, could this be used to separate the jump group? Effectively splitting their forces just by changing their arrival time would render them easy prey, especially if they don't see it coming.

TETRIS - Which side of the gate connection does a Squanch eject from? If it is the far side or both sides, trigger a Squanch through irresponsible giant tungsten cube transit and blast the approaching jump group with it. We will use a cold satellite with FTL comms and a self-destruct option on it to hit the timing right, this also applies to CRICKET.

ANGLERFISH - Gates, I presume, have computer systems that talk to the ships who are transiting them. Else how are you going to know what the current mass load is? Hack and use these systems to lie to the 9th battlegroup that the gate's mass load is dangerously low, or that it is dropping by the approximate size of the Congressional Navy coming in to fight them in a doomed frontal attack. Or, if you really want to fuck around and find out, have it send the scary warning messages that the gate transit is damaged and should not be used until repaired, which I presume exist. This is pure delaying tactics in exchange for confirming we Fucked With The Gates, if only in a virtual way, but I bet even the most rabid SolNav officer wouldn't dare to fly into the gate until they knew for a fact it was a lie.

In Terms of Anti-Occupation Tactics

ANCESTOR - Hoist the Jolly Roger. Automated or semi-automated resource and strikecraft facilities in the neglected areas of our systems, which will work in silent isolation from the rest of us, building craft until such a time that a system is occupied. At that point, they will activate in order to hunt down and destroy any isolated SolNav or SolNav affiliated craft, otherwise never giving open battle. Like corsairs of old, they will sever the lifeline between the 9th and the rest of the galaxy.

SOFTBALL - As proven by events on Earth, ground-to-orbit attacks are extremely dangerous to orbiting vessels. There's a whole planet down there. Scatter mobile GTO teams across the wilderness of our planets in the event of occupation. They will shoot and scoot, but the ships they are targeting will certainly remember.

In Terms of Soft Power

DEEPTHROAT - Trescore has offered to help smuggle people in, which also means they might agree to smuggle people out. Employing this, form unofficial backchannels within the now-imperiled Armstrong Conference. Our spies and diplomats will be working deep within what is technically enemy territory, and we cannot dare to send them with an FTL unit, but they will be able to operate. Also, they have to get me Gaston Gains' autograph.

EMERALD - As per ANCESTOR, but not for strike craft. These craft will helpfully repair the galactic broadcast network without even being asked! No matter how many times they have to! No matter how many of VB's officers have to hold her back from splitting her fleet to look for them! Let the galaxy see the true face of SolNav, relatively live on stream, or at least just waste VB's time.

OMERTA - Here's the thing about the IPA. They're criminals. They're not criminals in the sense that they're breaking the law, because they are the law. They're spiritually dedicated to crime. It is very upsetting to them that they have to be the law when they want to be the crime, which is part of why this is happening, because we did not agree to Mama Zhang's kind offer to do crimes with us. Therefore, we should give them what they want and do crimes with them. Use the IPA's ability to get at least "diplomatic" craft into our space to form bad faith connections not with the IPA per se, but by corrupting their representatives by letting them think they're corrupting us.

This is a slow burner plan, but ideally by an effective mix of mutual backstabbing, bribing, and false promising, we can enhance the existing rifts between the IPA and the 9th, or find whole new ones, and compromise the political effectiveness of this entire operation. Also, if the chips are down we can have them tell Mama Zhang we've totally agreed to appoint Blaze to the office of General Secretary King of "Communism" in exchange for being spared and see what she does with that.

In Terms of Darkest Night

EXPONENT - The Burning of Earth was ostensibly triggered by the use of self-replicating seed munitions. Do we have those? Do we dare to use them? What even are they, exactly? Definitely crossing a line.

ZENITH - ARIA is a good kid, with a super brain. Could it be more super? Could she, at last, be the one to fulfill the ASI promise of infinite intelligence? Is it better to change this war into a reality-warping children's card game than to lose? Will she agree to this? Probably. Should we agree to this? No.

Joppe · Feb 18, 2023

#sevenpointsauth

OPERATION: VERBOTEN

Much like the project TABOO planned, but never used, against the TF12.7, this project seeks to use the reluctance of the Solarian Navy to target gates against them. Unlike TABOO the project limits itself to ECM and ECCM platforms and lacks offensive weapons. It is hoped that this will reduce the backlash resulting from touching the gates and the risk of gates being damaged in the battle. With some luck the 9th fleet will enter the battlefield blind and deaf while under the guns of the Congressional Navy.

CyberFemme · Feb 18, 2023

#sevenpointsauth

TORTUGA
Set up a secret stay behind force in Signia, using Chinook's expertise in conducting pirate operations through ungated jump points. From these secret deep space bolt holes, harassment ops can be run against the supply lines the 9th fleet runs through there.

SNOWFLAKE
Seed hydrogen steamers near gates and common intrasystem crossing vectors, packed full of autonomous munitions. When a enemy supply ship gets close, these hydrogen steamers crack open like pinatas to throw out a volley of missiles (high performance ones too, hydrolox is a storable propellant for a steamer, lol). This will force the enemy to convoy their ships and strain their supplies.
Create hidden asteroid bases that manufacture ore of these steamers and launch them with spin-casters in order to force 9th to break off even more ships to screen for these hidden bases.

HABBAKUK
Augment gate defences with quick and dirty forts made of reinforced regolith concrete and spare structural steel. Unlikely to survive one battle, but it would let us put high impact weapons close to the gate in the meantime. Would probably require requisitioning civilian haulers to move the material.

TABOO
Put electronic warfare systems, jammers, and sensors on the gate itself, and use them to feed close in targeting data to our ships and defences. The close range will let them burn through enemy jamming, while the enemy will be severely constrained in terms of taking them out by the fear of hitting a gate.

CHU CHI
The pass through systems like Thoa and Bestreer and Ismeu have their infrastructure mostly near planetary bodies. Build some stealth silos/submarines/aerostats/whatever is most appropriate, full of ground-to-orbit munitions and have them pop out and hit enemy ships as they come in to resupply, forcing them to either divert resources to cleaning them up, or not use the existing infrastructure.

PARSONS
Increase the survivability of our existing JUBILEE hellburners with more armor and switch to cubic gauce nitrogen colloid rocket propulsion to compensate for the added mass. Our industry has grown, so we should be able to pump out the fancier propellant now for a similar cost as the old methalox.
Also add decoys and penaids to their missile load.

ScottishMongol · Feb 18, 2023

#sevenpointsauth

While we chose the version of the plan that doesn't require us to give ground and relocate our industry to deep space, a defense in depth strategy is still a pretty good idea. In the event that we do have to yield ground to the enemy, or the event that we're simply pushed back, I propose a series of "tripwire" forces be left behind. Strikewings, infantry, volunteers chosen for fanaticism, along with experts who can train insurgents and partisans.

Their goal is to degrade enemy forces and tie them up for as long as possible by holding out thanks to a variety of tactics combining classic methods developed on Sheol with new methods tested during the Solarian Mutiny - deep bunkers, a full fabber supply chain, droneswarms, surface-to-orbit missiles, the works. They'll be encouraged to operate not only on the planet but across the system - we could set up bases in asteroid chains and around outer planets, make them spread out in search and destroy missions.

Their goal is not to win battles, it is to force the enemy to expend time, lives, and material.

ilalthal · Feb 18, 2023

#sevenpointsauth

PROJECT: RUST

Basically time delayed canisters of self replicating nano or micro machines.

The focus is on exploiting the time in transition accross systems to suborn, attack and prep sabotage.

Fire them towards the end of engagements at the surviving enemy ships and wait for them to grow during travel time.

Variations:

Bomb builders that can be detonate in mass at remote command or timed schedules.

Could probably do some terrible psy ops with a hostile comms system growing into the enemy ship, Unstoppable propaganda or make the ship "haunted".

The usual wire eating, electric destroying nightmare of maintenance techs, with a time delay on the active consumption as it focuses on spreading.

Of course, safety measures to prevent rampant spread should be used.

Cap the lifespans at the expected transit times, put in specific targets unique to warships and so on.

Rockeye · Feb 18, 2023

If there ever was a time to fuck with the gates, it is now.

These guys already fucking hate us. The officers, many of them, and probably a lot of the enlisted too, for lighting off the Broadcast. Sure, fucking with the gates has the potential to make them *even more angry*. But like... Trying to sap morale and get the officers to turn on each other isn't going to work? We're going to be shooting at them, we're going to have refused their reasonable request to allow inspectors for big scary WMDs, Fucking With The Gates, ASIs, etc. They'll already think we're up to shit, so we might as well actually be up to shit.

Also... I feel like this is sort of the last major hurdle. If we win this in any sense that can actually be called a victory, we won game over, as far as I'm concerned.

10ebbor10 · Feb 18, 2023

Rockeye said:
If there ever was a time to fuck with the gates, it is now.

These guys already fucking hate us. The officers, many of them, and probably a lot of the enlisted too, for lighting off the Broadcast. Sure, fucking with the gates has the potential to make them *even more angry*. But like... Trying to sap morale and get the officers to turn on each other isn't going to work? We're going to be shooting at them, we're going to have refused their reasonable request to allow inspectors for big scary WMDs, Fucking With The Gates, ASIs, etc. They'll already think we're up to shit, so we might as well actually be up to shit.

Also... I feel like this is sort of the last major hurdle. If we win this in any sense that can actually be called a victory, we won game over, as far as I'm concerned.

I think this kinda overstates the scale of the enemy response and how many forces they have left.

What we are facing now is 3 battlegroups of the ninth fleet.

Our local SolNav Triage command still has considerable resources even if we blow all that up. There's the rest of 9th fleet, and then whole 8th fleet as well, and of course a bunch more task forces and charter forces.

Torgamous · Feb 18, 2023

The one thing we really don't want, on a bunch of levels, is for SolNav to decide that we're a more pressing issue than Drake.

Rat King · Feb 18, 2023

Fucking too much (or at all) with the gates is a good way to get the rest of SolComm to come down on us like a ton of bricks.

Between Comments · Feb 18, 2023

#sevenpointsauth

Project Janus

Actually militarize the gates with the most powerful short range weaponry we can physically place onto the gate itself. Force SolNav to either target the gate and hope they don't blow it up, or to be shred to pieces as they pass through.

Broccoliccoli · Feb 18, 2023

Probably a bit too dark even for this chosen path.
#sevenpointsauth
Project Nepotism
Normally you would only staff your battleships with the most skilled and motivated people available, but maybe there is something worthwhile to how the compact usually handles things? Well, if you are fighting against some quite career-minded opponents there actually are some amazing benefits to assigning a frontline job to the cousin of some big shot. Let's see what is does to the dear Admiral if while trading pre-battle banter with our flagship she notices, say, Mr. Zhang mill around the background.

neutronium95 · Feb 18, 2023

#sevenpointsauth

Project: ???? (Seriously I can't think of a good name)

Have a ragtag group of scientists and engineers start developing a next generation strikecraft, with a unique humanoid design. It will be massively more capable than existing strikecraft, because the limbs will give wider firing arcs. Plus it can be used in ground combat as well. Find a moody teenager to put in the cockpit and the war's as good as won already.

10ebbor10 · Feb 18, 2023

#sevenpointsauth

Anyway, we haven't gotten enough warcrimes yet.

Project Heartbleed
Summary : Call an Ambulance, but not for me
Implementation : Few fates are as horrifying as a fire or reactor malfunction on a warship. With little means of escape, to be caught in such a situation, is often a painfully long death sentence. This combined engineering kit and media package allows some of our larger combatants to mimic recieving a critical blow, by releasing canisters of radio isotopes and falsifying distress calls. Hopefully, it should distract enemy attention long enough to get a few good hits in.

Project Cradle to Cannon
Summary : It's ethical to use young soldiers if you fire them when they start being kids, right
Implementation : With a large collection of TLI's whose limitations have now been disabled, we have a one time bounty of unused intelligence assets. Fill a cargo ship with computers, and those TLI's who seem apt at codebreaking and targetting trajectories. Use them before the enemy breaks through, and then skedaddle.

Project Turnaround
Summary : It's fair play
Implementation : Having reverse engineered the various shackles and control methods once used upon augments and the cybernetically altered, we now know the gene/agents and techniques used to trigger these responses. Replicating the molecules that control these rejection mechanisms would be relatively simple, and give us a workable asset to spread semi-deniable attacks among Sol Nav and supporting personnel. When the disease rates go up, they might just think that the latest batch of anti-rejection meds was defective, or the box provided medication was faulty, rather than suspect enemy action.

Setsul · Feb 18, 2023

Alitur touched on something similar, but not quite the same, so I might as well try.
Not all that unorthodox, but definitely a departure from standard doctrine.

#sevenpointsauth
Project STUMBLING BLOCK
Summary: Pretend to have more firepower than we've actually got with more obvious, bigger, scarier, but not very stealthy and therefore easy to shoot down, additional gate defences. Have them dump everything they've got right at the start, go for maximum psychological impact.

For gate defences in systems that we're expecting to give up to buy time, additional cost for repeated uses and low survival chances are not actually a downside. Less stealthy, more firepower. Won't actually survive long, but still need to be dealt with so they can act as a bit of meatshield. Best case we get lucky and they snipe a battlecruiser.
We could have some of them play dead and only become active again once most of the fleet has passed to fuck with the Fast Fleet Tenders and buy even more time for the retreat.
Basically add more TAM Shoals again, possibly even longer range missile pods, it's the simplest way of getting more missiles into the battle. Between Ascensions integration and additional FRMs we've cracked since the last gate defence redesign, we should have good enough sensors and ECCM to make a higher number of them useful and able to hit something. The cost for reloads won't matter if we never use them again.
The other part is Big Fucking Guns. Our current kinetic LMPs rely on stealth and (limited) mobility to survive and provide continous saturation of the target area. Terrifyingly effective and chewing up small ships when combined with defending fleet, but easily shrugged off by capital ships designed for exactly that. However, we can easily build big enough railguns (or any other anti-capital weapons) to actually hurt a battlecruiser, and those are not exactly the most mobile or small profile. We don't need to saturate the entire area to hit the battlecruiser that will inevitably be the first ship through the gate. These railguns will be much easier to pinpoint and quickly taken out once they start firing, due to their larger size and lower mobility due to weight, but the need to destroy them quickly will divert shots away from our more fragile ships, and they might just cripple a battlecruiser before going down.

(This is basically intended as a minor one time boost at the start of the battle, part of it specifically aimed at battlecruisers, at the cost of having to pay for these upgrades before every single battle in which we use them. Maybe even make it cost dice like gate defences.)

A more dramatic version, though I lack the talent to turn this into a proper omake:
It is time to rethink fixed gate defences again. Not in general, but for the specific situation we find ourselves in. The original improvement on the standard Charter pattern, outlined here, sought to make the most of our limited resources to create defences that could be used to repell multiple waves of Charter assaults on the same gate without bankrupting us. It would prove prescient shortly after at Second Gaid. That battle began with HI trying to recreate a plot right out of a bad Empty Passages sequel in real life, and ended with our own Weylon Kang, spreadsheet master and logistics wizard extraordinaire, back then Rear Admiral for Mars Interstellar Security, running the numbers and deducing that feeding another dozen Strike Corvettes into the meatgrinder didn't actually add up to a good strategy.
While the HELLBURNERS were certainly the most spectacular part of that battle, the fixed defences lasting until the very end played a crucial part in keeping the Congressional Navy's losses to a mere two Corvettes and one Strikecraft Wing. Without these defences, it would not have become the battle that the Congressional Navy entered as less than a dozen mobile craft centered around a single Light Cruiser and supported by local Strikecraft from Chinook SDF, to take on an entire MIS physical security contractor battlegroup with additional HI craft attached, and emerge as something almost like a full battlegroup with two squadrons, built around two genuine Capital Craft. These remain the backbone of the Congressional Navy to this day.
And yet, despite all the nostalgia, it is time to move on. Both our material conditions and strategic situation are radically different than in the good old days. While it might not feel like it on the ground today, we have vastly more resources at our disposal, and thanks to MedComm's efforts and Vanguard Force we have the breathing room for limited defence in depth.
In Bestreer and possibly Ismeu or Thoa as well, we are both willing and able to cede ground. We are also willing and able to invest significant effort and resources into stalling and weakening 9th Fleet there as much as possible. While the current defence pattern will retain its relevance for the defence of Radiant, where might have to repel multiple waves of attacks at the same gate(s) over and over again, exactly what it was designed to do, there is a need for something different elsewhere. While the current pattern has proven the effectiveness of the kinetic saturation cone at taking out smaller craft, heavier craft will be able to shrug off most of the hits, as they are designed to do. The mines and missiles have also found themselves stymied by Minesweepers and Point-Defence Destroyer, respectively. Even JUBILEE, successor of the so successful HELLBURNERS wasn't able to overcome the latter. Even though Second Shei was an overwhelming victory for the Congressional Navy, the fact that a Heavy Battlecruiser under fire from almost the entire Congressional Navy was able to last long enough to take out CNS Shieldmaiden. And even then it only went down due to what can only be described as a lucky hit. Thankfully 9th Fleet's Battlecruisers are not of the Heavy variant, but therein lies the problem. There are four of them. With presumably two each in most battles and the Congressional Navy split in two, though it has been expanded since, the situation will be worse, not better. 9th Fleet does lack Minesweepers, so we can expect a return to form on that front, but they do have more than enough PDDs to make things quite difficult for missiles and any missile-adjacent payload delivery vehicle that isn't heavily armored. Improvements in that direction have already been proposed, but we also have the option to take the opposite approach: Dedicated anti-capital craft weapons and (more) missile pods.
This may sound like a downright orthodox approach to the problem, but isn't typically used for one simple reason: cost.
Anti-capital craft weapons are too big and "noisy" to remain stealthy once they open fire, and too heavy to dodge without oversized propulsion, which is just reinventing a craft with an oversized gun and undersized armor. Either way, they'll have the life expectancy of a particularly badly designed craft. Putting static missile pods on every gate is more expensive than putting engines on those missile pods and using bigger, warp-capable tugs of a sort to move them where you expect the opposing fleet to appear. You know, Strike Corvettes on Light Tenders is what that's called. Either way, usually you'd simply build actually craft before starting a war. Not pointing any fingers, just something to keep in mind. Yes, this completely ignores the crew losses of crewed craft as a downside automated static defences don't have, but we're using Charter logic here.
Which brings us to the three big points why it's worth doing for us, in this specific case.
1. We didn't have time to build proper craft and building something that doesn't need life support or to survive is much easier and faster.
2. Cost is more of a tertiary concern.
3. We are fine with one time use for these and if we have to lose something, better these than actual craft.
4. Tactical concerns.
As mentioned before, Battlecruisers and PDDs are going to be a problem. But there aren't that many of them. For the former that might seem like downplaying the issue, but two Battlecruiser are still just two. Take one out and it's a manageable problem that we've dealt with before. If the anti-capital weapons platforms are shot to bits afterwards, they'll still have done their job, and those shots didn't hit our almost as fragile Auxiliary Cruisers. This is very much atypical as usually one would expect a defending fleet to have sufficient numbers of heavy craft to fight the battle if they are making a stand, and the first craft through a gate would be Dreadnought unlikely to be sufficiently damaged by something so cheap, but these are unusal circumstances. We are unfortunate enough to be forced to take battles before acquiring enough heavy craft, but fortunate that they only need to be delaying actions and that the capital craft we are facing are "only" Battlecruisers. These are still large enough to be easy enough to predict and hit at the start without having to invest in enough weapons platform for a full saturation cone, and "lightly" enough armored to not need truly outsized weapons to damage. These platforms still won't be able to hit even the first battlecruiser through a gate for long as it will quickly gain too much freedom of movement and pick off the very much not stealthy platforms, but even with the limited number of platforms there is a decent chance of significant or even catastrophic damage in the initial barrage. If nothing else, they'll draw fire because they must be dealt with, lest they core a Light Cruiser passing through their field of fire through sheer luck.
The PDDs might number more than a handful, but if the first wave through the gate eschews Light Cruisers in favour of bringing all PDDs through first, we'll gladly take that win. So unlike in an open battle, overloading the PDDs remains within our grasp, at least until we run out of missiles. Though either way this would let us bring more missiles into the fight and that's never a bad thing, even if we don't use them all at once as planned. Better sensors, ECM, and ECCM acquired through the integration of Ascension and cracking of more FRMs also necessitate a reevaluation of the effective range and therefore number of TAMS that can be effectively utilized. Though this will also be considered by Project Jefferies, we additionally propose less stealthy, less survivable missile pods that are focused on overwhelming firepower in the opening stages of the battle instead of surviving as long as possible and hemming in the subsequent waves through constant threat.
As a sidenote, it would also be possible to include sleeper mines hidden within the active gate defences. Not particularly different from other mining efforts, but the lack of Minesweepers in 9th Fleet means there's a chance of them simply advancing through the field of "already disabled" defences, letting the previously inactive mines spring a trap on vulnerable rear echelon ships far from the PDDs, like Light Carriers and Tenders. This synergizes with other efforts to take limit 9th Fleet's fuel supply. The downside is that mines placed in an area that will see heavy fire will suffer losses to buy this element of surprise.

In summary: Dedicated anti-capital weapons platforms and massed missile pods have no place in traditional fixed defences, as they amount essentially to less mobile versions of badly designed warcraft and are almost always lost, but our unique situation of lacking the time to build proper craft and caring infinitely more about crew losses than "monetary" losses, make them a viable if improvised and not particularly resource-efficient alternative, especially for fighting retreats that would leave behind even gate defences that were reusable.
Personally, I also believe that 9th Fleet taking much larger losses than expected in the opening stages of a battle, particularly the potential loss of a battlecruiser, would have a signficant effect on morale, even if that much firepower can't be sustained for much beyond said opening stages.

natruska said:
#sevenpointsauth

OPERATION: CAMPANIA

Congressional Navy sensor analysts will closely examine the sensor characteristics of the disguised Argent Chevalier and the inactive Ishtar's Naginata. A passenger liner - of the same stock as the YORKTOWN disguise - will be carefully altered to exhibit minor emissions discrepancies, similar to any flaws or anomalies noted in the analyses. In the opening weeks of the war, this liner will be rushed to join Vanguard Force, unescorted. Following the Argent Chevalier's reveal, paranoid 9th Fleet analysts will hopefully be led to mistake the ship for a disguised Dai Nihon Teikoku-class Battlecruiser.

Building decoy ships from scratch to imitate military ships is impractical, and so is passing off civilian hulls as military ships. But disguising a civilian ship as the civilian disguise of a military ship?

Gaslight. Gatekeep.

Girlboss.

This can be extended when we do actually have Naginata and Stormberg, hopefully the turn after, and swap them in for the decoys to Gaslight 9th Fleet even harder.
Afterwards the decoys could even return in turn 3, to pretend we can genuinely conjure battlecruisers out of thin air in Operation Gaslight 3: What's even real anymore?
"Why wouldn't we have 6 battlecruisers? We expected you to have 6 too!"

BurnBright · Feb 18, 2023

CeBrudras said:
Project Nepotism

Oh dear. The worst part is that there's even a slight chance it would work.

DeltaV11.2 · Feb 18, 2023

Thinking about Nepotism, I had a less ethically fraught idea to try and exploit Compact mindworms.

Project Napoleon
The Compact loves to imagine that there must be some "dictator of anarchism" that is the actual power behind the AIC. Typically this ends up centering around the Defense Coordinator or various Congressional Navy officers. So why not take the opportunity to make up a Napoleon figure for the duration of the war? Give them a story they can believe in, and waste the time of a load of Compact analysts trying to understand our imaginary dictator rather than doing something actually useful.

Mr.Norm · Feb 18, 2023

ARACHNE:
summary: large, durable, and sticky nets, coated with various substances, such as thermite to melt through hulls, flare material to show their exact location, corrosive material, or disease carrying materials to inconvenience cleanup crews.

We could also attach mines or other explosives, such as HELL BURNERS, to sticky nets to increase how often they come in contact with the enemy.

10ebbor10 · Feb 18, 2023

#sevenpointsauth
Project JIGSAW
Summary : All proposals to hand craft combat vessels have so far been limited to Switchback fighters and other small vessels, with the artisanal production of larger vessels judged entirely infeasible. These assumptions were not revisited after the introduction of the fully automated shipyard, as everyone assumed that manual production was on it's way out anyway. Project Jigsaw inverts this trend. By producing and hand-assembling complex equipment on the ground before moving it into space, the construction of decent sized spacecraft is entirely possible with lesser spacecraft infrastructure. All you need is an automated swarm of assembly robots, a few large scale fabbers for the parts of the hull that are too large to move piece by piece, and a VI with a mind for puzzles.

Broccoliccoli · Feb 18, 2023

BurnBright said:
Oh dear. The worst part is that there's even a slight chance it would work.

Honestly, that was one of the tamer ideas. We have a fanatic population with their backs to the wall and our opponents are used to a galaxy where wars usually happen between generals that have a PR manager as part of their staff. They also already have morale issues. A lot of stuff that I wouldnt actually want to read about is on the table and suddenly needs to be evaluated on a cost-benefit basis. Like, when I saw this title

10ebbor10 said:
Project Cradle to Cannon

my initial expectation was that my poor eyes were about to see a suggestion for some baby armor shenanigans.

10ebbor10 · Feb 18, 2023

Anyway, we need to consider having some projects for ground warfare and the homefront as well. Unlike space, where the best ideas already got taken in the last 2 rounds, this is fresh ground. We've never seriously considered a ground campaign, and we should consider it now

#sevenpointsauth

Project GRASS
Summary : With maximum VEMP in effect, we can requisition a large number of people for any task. It would be a mistake to only use this power for direct military purposes.
Proposal : Utilize personnel requisition powers under VEMP to authorize a large number of personnel to be taken to automatically work on the creation of more food forests, not just in the current planned spots but also on various other locations around Radiant (and other planets). This will of course result in an overrproduction of food in a few years should all of them survive, but orbital bombardement can take it's toll.

Project STATS
Summary : Enjoy your government mandated toothbrush.
Proposal : Re-activate the charters old data mining tools, to characterize the consumption of the entire population. Find the elements with the highest energy consumption, the highest material consumption, and then either see if they can be optimized, eliminated or replaced with an unpowered, non-fabber alternative. This project aims to reduce the harm of VEMP measures upon the populace, at the cost of taking away their choices for their own good.

Project COMMUNE
Summary : Bunkers, but properly this time
Proposal : Radiant's latest bunker construction spree was quite positively cozy. It is sad then, that most of them might need to be recycled to feed the war effort. Plan a series of minimal cost, deeply embedded underground bunkers where large numbers of people can shelter communaly.

Project NEIGHBOURHOOD
Summary : Moving people out of the way of the guerilla
Proposal : Some areas are more strategic than others. This plan would seek to induce large scale civilian housing swaps, with people who are unwilling or incapable of taking part in resistance being moved further away from areas in which resistance movements are expected to operate in the aftermath of an invasion, and those willing to fight being moved closer.

Project Sub
Summary : Underwater FTL comms stations
Proposal : In order to allow for secure, secret communications, an FLT comms facility will sunk into the seas and hooked up discretly to the comms network, allowing communication with other systems even as the planet is occupied.

Project Homebase
Summary : 100% original idea, do not steal
Proposal : Commence the construction of many, underground stealthed healthcare facilities. These would not be intended to serve the population during any hypothetical bombardement, but instead kept secret until such time as research organization finalized their work on Project Universal Soldier and other augmentation schemes. Afterwards, they would be used to create large amounts of augmented combatants.

Nuew · Feb 18, 2023

10ebbor10 said:
Project COMMUNE
Summary : Bunkers, but properly this time
Proposal : Radiant's latest bunker construction spree was quite positively cozy. It is sad then, that most of them might need to be recycled to feed the war effort. Plan a series of minimal cost, deeply embedded underground bunkers where large numbers of people can shelter communaly.

This one seems silly; I can see communal underground bunkers in addition to the ones we currently have, but the ones we have are sufficient to hold our entire population and given how our logistics and fabber systems work recycling them would probably be less efficient than just building communial bunkers from scratch, and it'd be quite unpopular.

Still, cheap communal bunkers could be useful as places for people to evacuate to in the case their bunker/bunker-system is taken or destroyed.

10ebbor10 said:
Project Sub
Summary : Underwater FTL comms stations
Proposal : In order to allow for secure, secret communications, an FLT comms facility will sunk into the seas and hooked up discretly to the comms network, allowing communication with other systems even as the planet is occupied.

This is a brilliant idea, and honestly we should probably have a few of them in case the comms network gets split or if one is at risk of detection so that it can be scuttled without removing our comms capabilities.

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

Been Better

Twink Death Sufferer

Plausible Engineer

DON'T PANIC

Aspiring Gynoid

Izutsumi-pilled

Mad Rocketeer

DON'T PANIC

You can never have too many arms.

DON'T PANIC

DON'T PANIC

“Mankind, be vigilant. We loved you.”—Julius Fučík