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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MSH · Mar 5, 2023

Honestly, we might be headed for total war with the Compact. It is mentioned in the text of War To The Knife as a possibility... What I propose is intended to forestall that, but I admit, it could just as easily lead to snowballing conflicts. Yet not spreading revolutionary polities and maintaining the Arizona Line in perpetuity will surely lead to getting locked down and destroyed gradually.

I mean, we're not currently planning to take or DMZ Bastion, but we are planning to try and destroy the fleet facilities of Bastion, the SolNav base that JN Ok's father commissioned. Is that really any less of an unforgivable insult to the Compact and SolNav?

The only other possibility I see is, in essence, a tech victory. Go full von Neumann outside the known gate system and mass power that way, until we really can just fight the Compact.

Redshirt Army · Mar 5, 2023

MSH said:
Is that really any less of an unforgivable insult to the Compact and SolNav?

It's obviously a lesser insult than demanding a full surrender of the system, at least.

Aranfan · Mar 5, 2023

Redshirt Army said:
SFREA is not going to give up Arizona, not when they've been building up as a buffer against us alongside 9th fleet, nor will they surrender Inspiration. Similarly, there are exactly zero outcomes where Jason Nnamadi Okorie surrenders possession of the Bastion SolNav base that his father initially commissioned to a bunch of anarchists. We can maaaybe do something with Iyuhi, depending on what the ground conditions there are like and how deep the VDC's influence is, but Bastion, Inspiration, and Arizona will remain enemy territory.

If we do somehow manage to take a bunch of systems, which is very much counting chickens before you've built the coop, then their value to us is what concessions we can get to the compact for giving them back, because we cannot afford to keep them.

Artificial Girl · Mar 5, 2023

Optics are important for us and demanding territory if we win makes us look like a bigger threat and a bigger problem than we want to be.

Like, our plan was to vibe and pretend to play along with JN OK but that went out the window when we pissed in Queen Zhang's cereal and the IPA decided to sic 9th Fleet on us.

I think we should try and return to that policy if only because it allows us communication with the outside world and other revolutionary polities and the opportunity to continue inserting intelligence assets into Compact space.

I also don't want us to seize systems that don't want shit to do with us (as is likely the case with Arizona).

Model DC.14F · Mar 5, 2023

I wonder if, in the event we manage to pull off enough victories to end the war intact enough to dictate terms, we can make the Compact elevate all the inhabited systems between Bastion to Radiant into Sovereign Commonwealths. Technically, they would still be part of the Compact, but with the ways things are, if we add a clause that no Compact or Charter fleets can pass beyond Bastion, we're pretty much have a bunch of de facto independent buffer-if-not-allied systems bordering us.

Acc. No. 1409 · Mar 6, 2023

Model DC.14F said:
I wonder if, in the event we manage to pull off enough victories to end the war intact enough to dictate terms, we can make the Compact elevate all the inhabited systems between Bastion to Radiant into Sovereign Commonwealths. Technically, they would still be part of the Compact, but with the ways things are, if we add a clause that no Compact or Charter fleets can pass beyond Bastion, we're pretty much have a bunch of de facto independent buffer-if-not-allied systems bordering us.

From what I can understand, this seems to be the better outcomes here with us getting a DMZ and getting time to build up our advantages even more.

Although I do wonder how that stunt is going to affect the Tobby's coup and Greene's maneuvering. Like would it lead to the Civilian Government trying to control their Military? Would it destroy whatever legimitacy the institutions have left after deciding that glassing Earth is a good idea? Would it lead to a Yugoslavia style collapse?

Rat King · Mar 6, 2023

Our sole political objective for the war is to survive as an independent polity.

Demanding more systems is not something conducive to that.

Titanic Toxicity · Mar 6, 2023

Rat King said:
Our sole political objective for the war is to survive as an independent polity.

Demanding more systems is not something conducive to that.

I agree continued survival as a polity should be the Primary objective of the war but does it have to be the sole objective? Our end goal of the quest is to see eventually the Compact and Caputalism along side it. If the war goes really well and the opportunity arises to make even an inch of progress in that goal and free a system or two from capitalism grasp without endangering goal numero uno I see no reason not to take it.

Spart117MC · Mar 6, 2023

Relay and Pastno I think could be claimed through military force alone without causing major upset. Relay officially has one 'person' aboard the station named after the system and Pastno has a population of "several hundred." That system's kind of like a second Kimberly, being a space junkyard, and isn't even on the level of development as Ismeu.

There aren't any other systems the AIC could claim by one-sidedly, but then this is the Far Spinward Frontier and full of worlds with a grudge against the powers that be. If the majority of SolNav assets in the region become preoccupied with fighting the AIC or are outright battered by AIC forces, nearby worlds may take the opportunity to rebel and declare themselves independent, for the AIC or the VDC.

Iyuhi and Freespace are both VDC aligned systems and neither have had great relationships with the ruling Charters. Freespace suffered a crackdown at the hands of MSI after local VDC members led a strike in conjunction with a Black Summer and since have lived under the Charter's iron grip. Iyuhi meanwhile is a system mismanaged thanks to the mutual hate of the multiple Charters that took up residence within in.

Should the AIC go as far as Pastno, Iyuhi could potentially throw in with the AIC or go the route of Ascension back in the day, continuing to fly a loyalist flag but fully on the side of the revolution.

Freespace meanwhile has enough resentment built up that it might reasonably rise up if it knows that loyalist forces in the area are weak enough that it could survive doing so. Waypoint acting out too would help. That system's one of the more populous MSI systems in the area with a population of some 80 million people. It would be a major blow to Bad Mom if they were to take the opportunity to throw off their chains and them doing so would help offset reasonable concerns by those in Freespace that any rebellion on their part would be promptly subdued by BM.

Waypoint is already a historically rebellious system and the people there have a very strong motivation to take control as it is the best way to ensure that they do not die to their cities literally falling from the skies from critical system failures caused by their rulers skimping on maintaining aerostats built to house the poor.

Arizona and Checkpoint have similar Charter woes. Though Arizona imported a ton of its food from Radiant, it also imports food from Inspiration and while being cut off from Radiant's farms may have caused it to suffer a famine, it is worth noting that the starvation the system's population suffered during the Third Frontier War was the result of hostilities cutting the Omoikane world off from shipments from both its Hermes-Ishtar bread baskets.

Currently Arizona still has access to Inspiration and its farms and is likely avoiding suffering from the same crippling food shortages that it had to endure in the 2170s and 80s.

Whether what shortages, if there exist any, that they are suffering from have negatively the populace's opinion of Radiance is a bit up in the air because of that. It may well be that Arizona is currently more displeased with the loyalists. Do recall that a great many SolNav troop transports were seen landing on the world. The presence of so many troops and marshals is bound to increase tensions assuming that they weren't there to violently put down portions of the population in the first place.

Checkpoint is a system home to a bungled Ares terraforming project, way behind schedule, and with a majority of its population on overcrowded habitats, and is a wonderful target for the AIC's pro-VDC propaganda program. The motivation to flip is there and with viable alternatives offered, plus the knowledge that the biggest stick in the region is busy, the folks in Checkpoint just might. The only issue comes from the local Ares leadership blaming all of their problems on anarchists, but then everyone blames anarchists so there's a decent enough chance that such statements haven't guided local sentiment so much as gone in one ear and out the other.

Inspiration and Trinity are the only two systems I don't see much having major reasons to change sides. Even Bastion and Fallback have more to suggest that they'll undergo revolutions than those systems. Fallback because the paranoid prepper in charge is forcing people to work in terrible conditions, pissing off the workers in charge of his super bunker and his heavy handed rule has led to the rise of three factions and friction between them.

As for Bastion, for starters it is another habitat-centric system which makes it a prime target of the PR program the AIC is making for the VDC. Second, Bastion is home to a large population of SolNav personnel many of whom no doubt are there thanks to the poverty draft and being a party posting it isn't home to most loyal of SolNav officers, the kind that would die to uphold the supposed ideals of their uniform. Chances are when faced with imminent death these members of SolNav would sooner surrender than commit to a kamikaze charge.

This isn't a supposition made without evidence, we have seen a few times now that when faced with capable opposition that SolNav formations are liable to suffer from infighting and prefer to avoid contact with the enemy.

SolNav forces in AIC space either mutinied or ran when coming face to face with an AIC task force and over Earth you had ships striking colors and joining revolutionary forces when it became clear that they were surrounded. We have seen that SolNav does not engender great loyalty in the majority of its forces which isn't too surprising when we know that a good chunk of its people join to making connections or to have a paying job. In other words, people join SolNav not to serve but to live and well people die when they are killed.

Should those in Bastion find themselves at the mercy of an AIC task force after having lost their defenders and aware that the 9th fleet is too far away to come to their aid in a timely manner it could provoke those more concerned with their own well being to declare themselves separate from RVB and flee up the system chain in the direction of K-C or outright jump ship.

Then there are the potential long term consequences of an AIC victory over RVB.

The general consensuses in discussion has been that if RVB fails she will probably be branded a renegade, and if RVB is treated as a scoundrel and a traitor then knowing what we do about how responsibility for failure appears to be the only thing that trickles down in the Compact, it would not be a reach to think that reputation will stain those that followed and obeyed her as well. The men and women of 9th Fleet, the personnel stationed in Bastion, it stands to reason they too will be held accountable for her defiance of orders and ultimate loss in battle.

As I've said prior, SolNav personnel are likely to switch sides when faced with the possibility of death because their motivation for joining SolNav is often times not ideological. They're there for a payout be it material or political.

So, what is likely to happen if those SolNav personnel in Bastion believe that remaining in SolNav will only result in their careers being sidelined, being court marshaled, or treated as a pariah by society? How many will stick with SolNav if they are presented with an alternative that would leave them better off? If the AIC plays its cards right in the post-war period it might not have to take Bastion to have it.

The Compact cannot settle things with a slap on the wrist. They must lay down harsh penalties so as not to be seen as untrustworthy by other powers that they wish to negotiate with, so as to smother the idea that admirals can defy orders, to discourage troops from blindly following their immediate leaders, and to maintain the appearance that they remain in control and that their government is not tearing apart at the seams. The Compact must make things painful for RVB and her followers.

The AIC doesn't and if it carefully promotes the narrative that there is less to lose being a part of it than staying a part of the Compact and being punished that'll get the folks in Bastion thinking about their loyalties, especially in the aftermath of a series of battles that proved definitvely that the AIC has the ability to meet SolNav fleets and win.

Broccoliccoli · Mar 6, 2023

Titanic Toxicity said:
I agree continued survival as a polity should be the Primary objective of the war but does it have to be the sole objective? Our end goal of the quest is to see eventually the Compact and Caputalism along side it. If the war goes really well and the opportunity arises to make even an inch of progress in that goal and free a system or two from capitalism grasp without endangering goal numero uno I see no reason not to take it.

The war going 'really well' is the requirement for survival not some stretch goal that allows us to then paint the map.
The path we chose was like quite explicitly the selfish one. We fully focus on trying to blow up the like 0.1% of their metal which happen to be on our own porch and likely become martyrs in the process. Wasnt one of the literal traits we got that anything beyond our borders is just a distraction? 'The compact and capitalism' is part of that category.

Setsul · Mar 6, 2023

MSH said:
It is in the context of winning this war. We are not nothing. We are a danger, and a proven danger at that, since the Broadcast. The Compact didn't offer us a ceasefire out of pique, but out of recognition that a true reconquest of the current breakaways is beyond the means of the Compact. All of their recent diplomatic moves are meant to eventually stich us and the other breakaways back into the Compact on at least a basic level.

Sure, every fleet in the galaxy could fly over to the far spinward and crush us, but that's never going to happen, so it is irrelevant. It only matters what level of military engagement, and what level of relations, exists between us and the Compact. To fight us means taking away resources that could fight elsewhere. It is not something to be done casually, or it could worsen the Compact's stability even further.

If we had broken or simply refused the ceasefire, that would be one thing. It would show that we intend to continuously fight the Compact. However, we kept the ceasefire, and lost it on the failure of the Compact to maintain the loyalty of its admiral, a concern that they have very specifically had with the admirals before.

By doing what she has done, VB has put herself outside the Compact, and the 9th Fleet with her. That isn't officially true yet, but it will be if we win. It is in the interests of the Compact to limit the damage this action does to them, and damning the very memory of the 9th fleet is such a thing. It is in the interests of the Compact to re-establish the ceasefire, but nobody will actually believe we intend to take the same deal that got us invaded.

A DMZ is a more significant barrier to war, the 9th is practically and ideologically compromised beyond return, and we have shown we have the potential to join the total war revolutionaries. Given the choice between yet another fire and the radicalization of current fence sitters, and making a solid agreement and cutting a number of "pathetic far-flung colonies" loose, the correct choice for the Compact is obvious.

The high population systems of the SFREA are Symphony, Echo, Trinity, Inspiration, and freshly Arizona. Symphony, Echo, and Trinity are all ones we should not touch. However, Arizona is barely a member of the SFREA and Princess will be occurring through Inspiration. Both of these are also defended by the 9th instead of SFREA battlegroups. Inspiration might be loyal, but it isn't clear as of yet. Arizona has reasons to join us and will likely be taken in the course of the war.

I did not know that the SFREA had been weakened, good to know. They might not be planning to fight Asgard, but they certainly can't ignore the possibility that Asgard could be planning to fight them. Symphony is a tempting prize for Ares, and Hermes-Ishtar is now weak. They expend ships fighting us over a survivable loss at their own risk. I don't want to fight the SFREA right now, but I bet they also do not want to fight us. By making this a Compact fuckup, they have an excuse to seek compensation from them instead.

I'll also point out that the SFREA's military forces, while significant, appear inferior to a standard SolNav fleet if their battlegroups are even remotely similar sizes.

What the situation with the gate looks like will depend on the war, so it's not worth thinking about at the moment. Just gate defenses isn't much, while gate defenses plus a defending fleet typically take dreadnoughts. No telling where on that scale we will be.

However, so far as we know there are no SFREA battlegroups in Arizona or anywhere spinward of Trinity , only the 9th fleet. Travel lag will mean that if we do take Arizona, it will be weeks until the news reaches Symphony. They'll be about as mad at SolNav as they are at us for that, but sending their battlegroups spinward will still mean reducing the defense of their remaining systems. More importantly, however, they might be doing so in contravention of a Compact declaration of law.

I don't really see either of those things happening to VB. She's a warlord now. She intends to return with a prize to buy back her legitimacy, but the 9th fleet are outlaws even if many of them do not fully understand that yet. Because of this, official recall will not be accepted. An officer's coup is possible, but that is a rare and difficult thing. I think we've seen more rogue captains and enlisted revolts than we've seen officer's coups.

If VB dies fighting us, maybe then. Though if Princess works, then the 9th fleet isn't going to have anywhere to go regardless. Their docks and refitting facilities in Bastion will be destroyed. Surrender is also a possible end to this.

The law of the Compact certainly doesn't protect regular people from the Charters, but it sure as hell protects the Compact from the Charters. Hermes-Ishtar, and thus the SFREA, are attempting to retain their status as a legitimate Charter. What the Compact agrees to falls upon them. Will they obey? It depends on how they feel about getting in real bad with a government that partially centers around an anti-Charter faction.

If it is true that the ceasefires are simply to divide the revolutionaries for bite-sized reconquests, then this is a terrible outcome.

We will not be demanding anything. We will simply be engaging alongside the Compact with the so-unfortunate material reality that in our rigorous self-defense against the foul postsolarian warlord Rina the Regulator, it was necessary for our security that we entered, occupied, provided philanthropic aid, and held popular referenda with several systems who's status is currently ambiguous due to the fact that they fell beneath the warlord state of the 9th Solarian Navy Fleet.

What a messy situation. We'd love to return to the ceasefire of course, we would never blame the Compact for the actions of a criminal SolNav Admiral, but there are a number of practical concerns that have to be addressed in how her rise and fall changed the landscape between us. After all, look at all these abuses and violations of Compact law we discovered, as well as these petitions for immediate sovereign commonwealth status by the populations of these systems.

Perhaps it would simply be to everyone's best interest if a wider cordon of zero military activity were created, while we attempt to renormalize relations with the Solarian Compact. And since that is the case, the systems beyond this cordon only naturally must be recognized as having a greater practical closeness to the AIC than the SFREA...

Edit: To be clear, I don't think we should attempt to force systems to join us through this. That would be quite foolish. It's just an effective means of creating a political narrative the Compact can agree to for leaving us and systems near us alone.

I'm just going to address the most important points to keep the length reasonable:
We are nowhere near scary enough to require a DMZ, and the Compact will not create one for our benefit. The goal of the ceasefire has never been to make peace with all the newly independent systems. It was to buy time to bring some or even most of them back into the Compact peacefully, so that the remaining ones are few enough to subjugate them all by force.

We gain safety not by a more comprehensive ceasefire that the PM has no way to enforce, but by cutting 9th Fleet down to a size where it literally can't invade us anymore, while making it politically unattractive to send other fleets.
RVB being branded a rogue admiral also means that we do not get to ask for concessions from the Compact who "had nothing to do with it."
The best we can hope for materially is keeping any ships we captured.
But the notion that a Frontier Marshal can enter revolutionary territories even during a ceasefire will be dead, and that'll make things easier for both us and everyone else.

The SFREA has months to move whatever they can spare to Arizona. Almost everyone expects us to choose war. Emily Weissmann set up Arizona as a buffer system and built defences there because she thinks we're dangerous. She's not going to see a possible war looming and go "Nah, 9th Fleet can handle it, lets move all ships elsewhere." Of course Rousseau showing up in Bastion, which 9th Fleet definitely should've been able to hold, would be a surprise, but that doesn't make Arizona any less defended.

The SFREA is also not trying to retain Charter status. They're trying to become a government. And they will fight us, because we're a danger to them.

The Compact in general and the PM in particular, will not treat us as a peer polity. They will not put both SolNav and the SFREA, nominal allies, on a leash for our benefit, while we're the original enemies who started all this. They'll go "oops, RVB wasn't supposed to do that. Here, we've replaced her as CO of 9th Fleet, all good now?"
It sucks, but the actual realities of 9th Fleet not being able to invade us anymore, and reinforcements being out of the question politically, are worth far more than a humiliating peace deal that SolNav would want to overturn on their own as soon as possible, even if the PM doesn't give them permission.

10ebbor10 · Mar 6, 2023

bdun140 said:
Half of them aren't deliberate though? Like, a goodly portion of inheritable augmentations trace their roots back to the old DemFed, and you know how HORRIBLE that place was. Most non-inheritable augmentations, meanwhile, come from very specific circumstances. Usually either someone trying to wring out the very last possible drop of productivity from themselves in order to not be fired, or a boss making it borderline mandatory for all employees in service of a larger version of that same goal. So in that regard, Anti-Augment prejudice is a sublimation of anti-poor people prejudice.

You also have all those medications and supplements augments need.

It's perfectly possible that you can create, real, legitimate medical data showing lesser intelligence, only it's just demonstrating the effects of chronic childhood malnutrition.

buli-buli · Mar 6, 2023

There's also a simpler explanation.

This is a corporate distopia and the people inside it understand how that works even if they don't recognize it as such.

And why would anybody genetically modify a workforce and not make them dumber and otherwise easier to control?
Alternatively, why waste the money modifying genetic stock thst is already good enough at their jobs?

Finally, it is literally just human chauvinism. There does not need to be any logic or reasoning behind it.

Redshirt Army · Mar 6, 2023

I mean, while we're on the topic of shifting borders...

There is no guarantee that even if the AIC as a polity survives, the borders won't end up shifting to our detriment. We could destroy enough of 9th fleet to force them to vacate Radiant, while taking enough losses ourselves to be unable to reclaim lost territory.

As such, we could easily lose Thoa, Chinook, Bestreer, and Ismeu semi-permanently.

Torgamous · Mar 6, 2023

Chinook isn't really negotiable. It's not claimed territory, it's inhabited territory. If Chinook is occupied then the war isn't over.

Spart117MC · Mar 6, 2023

I agree, I can't imagine a situation where the AIC loses a major population center and that being allowed to stand unless it has lost all capacity to wage war in which case there are bigger things at stake than the occupation of just one system.

Setsul · Mar 6, 2023

Redshirt Army said:
I mean, while we're on the topic of shifting borders...

There is no guarantee that even if the AIC as a polity survives, the borders won't end up shifting to our detriment. We could destroy enough of 9th fleet to force them to vacate Radiant, while taking enough losses ourselves to be unable to reclaim lost territory.

As such, we could easily lose Thoa, Chinook, Bestreer, and Ismeu semi-permanently.

Well, we were talking about what happens if we win. We can lose and go to insurgency quest, but it's very unlikely that we'd lose Radiant, then scrape together a fleet large enough to force our way back in through a gate, yet backup fleets appear in Chinook, Bestreer, and Ismeu that prevent us from pushing further.

It's entirely possible that we'd be stopped at Chinook and Arizona, or Bestreer/Ismeu with Chinook freed, but 9th Fleet failing to hold 1 system that is the perfect chokepoint yet succeeding in holding 3 at the same time afterwards would be rather weird.

We're probably not willing to give up Chinook, but Thoa isn't worth making a fuss about, though it denies us access to the Dragon's Spine, and demilitarizing Bestreer/Ismeu to make this salvageable for JN OK/SolNav isn't something we'd be happy about and also strategically disadvantageous, but still something we can stomach when the alternative is another year of war to get out the next set of cruisers/tenders/carriers plus lots of small ships.

Acc. No. 1409 · Mar 6, 2023

I do wonder how much of a partisan hell occupying one of the inhabited systems would be. Because on the one hand, these are a people who are more than willing to die standing over the prospect of the old regime reasserting their authority over their homes. On the other hand, the old regime is more than willing to disregard any and all decency in its pursuit of power and control.

MSH · Mar 6, 2023

With any luck, our anti-occupation measures will make holding at least any inhabited system untenable so long as someone else is resisting conventionally. It's a shame we didn't do Corsair Haven - that would have made Chinook specifically into Hell In Space for any occupying force. But I think the conventional corsairs and the snowflakes mean that anybody not in or guarded by a warship is in constant extreme risk, and even those with warships are going to have to keep continuous vigil.

We also don't have Lines of Retreat, so a disastrous outcome from Princess could go straight into occupation mode for us, with the surviving AIC presumably becoming an NPC actor.

Broccoliccoli · Mar 6, 2023

Setsul said:
Well, we were talking about what happens if we win. We can lose and go to insurgency quest, but it's very unlikely that we'd lose Radiant, then scrape together a fleet large enough to force our way back in through a gate, yet backup fleets appear in Chinook, Bestreer, and Ismeu that prevent us from pushing further.

A pyrrhic victory over Radiant does not seem that outlandish, though. If in such a situation a few of their ships also manage to retreat in good order then a reconquest of further systems would quickly be impossible until we finish some repairs. That would provide plenty of time for anyone who dislikes us to rescue the retreating ships and grab that free real estate.

Torgamous · Mar 6, 2023

CeBrudras said:
A pyrrhic victory over Radiant does not seem that outlandish, though. If in such a situation a few of their ships also manage to retreat in good order then a reconquest of further systems would quickly be impossible until we finish some repairs. That would provide plenty of time for anyone who dislikes us to rescue the retreating ships and grab that free real estate.

Chinook isn't free real estate. The same reasons for them to leave Radiant even if we can't chase them also apply to Chinook.

Setsul · Mar 6, 2023

CeBrudras said:
A pyrrhic victory over Radiant does not seem that outlandish, though. If in such a situation a few of their ships also manage to retreat in good order then a reconquest of further systems would quickly be impossible until we finish some repairs. That would provide plenty of time for anyone who dislikes us to rescue the retreating ships and grab that free real estate.

If we actually lose Radiant, forcing our way back in requires such a large advantage in numbers that we'd have to really mess up in the aftermath to leave 9th Fleet with enough ships to defend 3 systems simultaneously. Of course 9th Fleet could've messed up beforehand and only stationed a fraction of their forces in Radiant with the rest returning to Bastion or occupying other systems, but that would be a stupid move so I wouldn't count on it.

It's entirely possible that 9th Fleet's initial attack on Radiant fails, but that they abort it before feeding so many ships into the meatgrinder that we can push into Bestreer.
But for that no battle needs to happen at all, that's essentially the status quo, if we get enough strikecraft ready in time and Chinook doesn't fall.
Without help from 3rd BG, 1st and 2nd BG's chances of a successful attack are so-so at best, while the Radiant Component of the Congressional Navy is definitely not in a position to push into Bestreer.

If Princess goes very wrong, then if we don't want to lose the Congressional Navy we'd have to retreat to Sheol or Five Lions. Or Xotreh, if we want to make things really weird. Barring major mistakes by 9th Fleet, forcing our way back in would require beating everything they've got. If we bring enough ships for that, then we'll still have enough ships left over for a chase if they retreat before all of theirs are destroyed.

The only way I see for us to lose both Chinook and Bestreer/Ismeu, but not Radiant, and not have enough ships for an attack, is if Princess fails hard, Chinook falls, and then McLean pulls off a miracle and holds Radiant anyway. Would we settle for peace at that point? Probably not.

MSH · Mar 6, 2023

There's something I'd like to talk about: The unmapped, apparently publicly unreported but gate-hosting systems that exist between Akleod, Xotreh, and Young.

We've not really had opportunity to pay much attention to this, but there's something there. The Dark Spinward Frontier, if you will.

At some points I've thought there's a secret MSI/IPA empire there, but now I'm not sure what it is. The known systems attached to it are all concerning in their own ways, though. Akleod holds IPA fueling infrastructure who's positioning doesn't make much sense, Xotreh is an out of place superscience colony, and Young...Young is the location of Disney's Planet(s).

This is not as immediately concerning as the war, but it is very concerning in general that there is at least one chain of systems who's positions and identities are not publicly known, who's output systems are all weird for one reason or another, and starts all of one jump away from Radiant.

Torgamous · Mar 6, 2023

MSH said:
There's something I'd like to talk about: The unmapped, apparently publicly unreported but gate-hosting systems that exist between Akleod, Xotreh, and Young.

Part of them being unmapped is that we don't actually know if Young connects to Akleod or Xotreh.

Setsul · Mar 6, 2023

MSH said:
There's something I'd like to talk about: The unmapped, apparently publicly unreported but gate-hosting systems that exist between Akleod, Xotreh, and Young.

We've not really had opportunity to pay much attention to this, but there's something there. The Dark Spinward Frontier, if you will.

At some points I've thought there's a secret MSI/IPA empire there, but now I'm not sure what it is. The known systems attached to it are all concerning in their own ways, though. Akleod holds IPA fueling infrastructure who's positioning doesn't make much sense, Xotreh is an out of place superscience colony, and Young...Young is the location of Disney's Planet(s).

This is not as immediately concerning as the war, but it is very concerning in general that there is at least one chain of systems who's positions and identities are not publicly known, who's output systems are all weird for one reason or another, and starts all of one jump away from Radiant.

They're not necessarily between Akleod and Young, as the gate network topology doesn't map well to galactic "geography."
In earlier maps, things looked quite different, so I wouldn't read too much into it. The unknown connection in Young could just as well connect to Bestreer.
Xotreh might simply not connect to anything.

AKuz said:
Information on the other system that connects to Xotreh has been even more sparse. It seems to be a recently surveyed system, without a name yet. It was called RS-11. Ambassador Stardust listened to several hours of lecture about the soil samples in site 27-A and what they said about seismic activities across geologic timeframes. When she asked about relevant information like access to special resources, on the other hand, she got blank stares and a return to talking about rock formations and climate patterns.

Result: Xotreh will not be a problem, and their system is officially neutral and allowing passage for all foreign craft. There doesn't seem to be any particular crisis in this system, except for arguments around tenure and some oppressive University-style hierarchies that are nonetheless accepted for the moment by the various graduate students, assistant teachers, and so on.

RS-11, the unknown system off of Xotreh is apparently surveyed but not populated, contents largely unknown to the Xotrans.

Xotreh also isn't weirdly placed, in my opinion. Ascension is the actual superscience colony, and it's not far from Osliam, Arizona, and Baikal, all of which are former Omoikane systems.

Yes, in theory MSI could've bribed 4th Fleet to build them a secret route to the Far Spinward where they had two basically irrelevant systems (Waypoint is easier to reach through the Near Spinward), and then not used it for anything, or stumbled upon the connection when the Omoikane explorer teams didn't. It's not impossible, but it seems very far-fetched.
The refueling station also predates the push to turn Waystation into a major colony by 30 years, so I don't think it's part of a major plan to take over the Far Spinward either.

Occam's razor tells me that "an MSI exec" put a refueling station into Akleod not to give subtle hints about a secret route that isn't being used from Akleod's side to keep it secret, but because they expected ships to go through Akleod. There's also Akleod's new SDF, so I think it's very likely that there's a system behind it that the two patrol corvettes and probably light carrier were stationed in.
So in my opinion, the most likely cause is a black site in an "unmapped" system in the least developed part of the galaxy that MSI acquired in the aftermath of the Fourth Frontier War, when most other black sites probably became known to the other Charters.

Of course we can't rule out that the IPA sent a force that just about looks like a plausible SDF except for a very suspicious maybe Light Carrier through a secret connection to make us think they don't have a secret connection because then they wouldn't have sent something so suspicious, but ... Occam's razor and all that. The least suspicious thing would've been to not send anything at all and only convert one freigther to an auxiliary cruiser like Akleod apparently did.

So that's my guess. There's at least one system behind Akleod that MSI wanted to keep a secret and that warranted two patrol corvettes and a medium ship for protection, but nothing more.

We'll still have to check, because the IPA is definitely up to no good, but I'm not too worried about the QMs having built an "MSI/IPA doomfleet NOW"-button into the setting.

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