In an original flavour Gundam AU, take the reigns of an advisor to a minor power in the decaying Union of Sol, and attempt to navigate a fragile peace while positioning yourself to survive its eventual collapse.
It is the year 133 of the New Standard Epoch. The Union of Sol, formed from the ashes of the old governments of Earth and the blood of their interplanetary colonies, has expanded across humanity's home system, stretching from the sun-scarred wastes of Mercury to the edges of interstellar space. Ruling from the Union Spire, a vast and beautiful habitat overlooking Earth, the Union brings together representatives from across the solar system to chart the fate of a united humanity, in a new age of peace and enlightenment free from the terrors of history.
The peace lasted forty-three years. While the Union Assembly sat on their thrones above Earth, their representatives in the outer worlds - separated by months of travel and long communication delays - slowly gained more and more power, devolved from the Assembly in the name of simple convenience. Soon, the Union-appointed Governor Plenipotentiary of Saturn favoured his home moon of Tethys extensively, at the expense of the larger, older, and poorer industrial colonies of Titan, and the match was struck. As Titanian workers starved to provide Tethyan luxuries, they pursued independence from Saturn through full Union membership. The Saturn Sphere Home Fleet moved to blockade Titan, hoping to starve out the insurgency, only to be countered by a ramshackle Titanite fleet equipped with a new type of weapon - the mobile suit.
Developed from the stable suits used to service orbital stations, but freed of their dependence on a parent station for energy and life support, mobile suits outpaced the conventional strike craft used by the SSHF, and demonstrated the potential of the Stable Suit's neurohaptic interfaces in a military capacity. The First Battle of Titan was a crushing defeat for the Union's forces, and the Spire could no longer look away - but attention is not action, and the Union quickly grew gridlocked. As the representatives of the eight Spheres and the minor colonies bickered, the situation over Titan continued to deteriorate. Saturn's second push ended as the first did, and in response the Governor Plenipotentiary used the ongoing paralysis of the Union to justify a state of emergency, assuming dictatorial control of the Saturn Sphere and authorising the use of old naval hulls as kinetic kill vehicles.
The strike on Titan was thwarted, not by the Titanites but by long-range bombardment by the Jupiter Sphere Home Fleet, already on their way to Saturn orbit. Jupiter had followed Saturn into a formal state of emergency, but instead focused on the potential humanitarian crisis on Titan. The JSHF were thus ordered to enter the Saturn Sphere; Saturn denounced this as an invasion, as only the Union could override Plenipotentiary authority on internal matters, and the Union had passed no resolution. Both Jupiter's and Saturn's declarations shook the Spire, but it came no closer to a formal resolution - and soon, the fleets of two Spheres of the Union clashed in the first battle since the end of the Colonial War. The Battle of the Great Conjunction would end in Jovian victory, in no small part due to their own mobile suits, and they would establish a blockade of Titan, preventing Titanite forces from leaving the world or Saturnian forces from assaulting it.
After several long months of skirmishing, and the landing of Jovian mobile suits on Titan's surface, the Union would accept Jovian intervention as fait accompli, and formalise Jupiter's role in arbitrating the conflict. The Titanite rebels would be granted leave to establish their own colony, and Jovian ships would escort them from the Saturn Sphere despite sabotage and attacks by rogue members of the Saturn Sphere Home Fleet. Saturn's government would retain authority over Titan, and the Union "would not recognise moons breaking from their primaries, just as they would not recognise planets breaking from the Sun". Jupiter's Governor Plenipotentiary would be called before the Assembly, but not removed from her position. The Jovian official who ordered the destruction of the Saturnian KKVs - and in the eyes of his critics, the invasion of Saturn - would be awarded the Union Star and, later, the Nobel Peace Prize. For now, the Union stands - but for all the honours everyone knew that the war was ended by Jovian force of arms, not Union procedure.
Humanity is at peace, but an uneasy peace. Mercury harvests the Sun's rays to feed humanity's growth, uncaring of the means or costs of that growth. The aerostat cities of Venus nervously watch the glow of the factories below, all too aware of their history as prisons. Earth sits all but abandoned, given over to vast terraforming efforts to recover from the Colonial War, its population moved to the great ecumenopolis of Luna - by choice to its spires, or by force to its slums. A thousand old rivalries stir on Mars, still clinging to its pride from the Union's birth, and sinking deep into resentment of its decline. Jupiter revels in its role as the Union's peacekeeper, but anyone can see that the Union needs Jupiter more than Jupiter needs the Union. Saturn grumbles in Jupiter's shadow, and even Tethys grows to resent its tightening grasp on its moons. Uranus's ailing Governor Plenipotentiary is a true believer in the Union, but the old man's days are numbered, and Titania and Oberon both covet his seat. Neptune has fallen under the sway of occultists and mystics, turning its eyes away from Sol to gaze into the void.
And then there's you. One of the footnotes.
Which one, to be precise?
[ ] Quaoar.
The Enlightened Consulate of Quaoar was established as a research colony to study the strange gravity of Quaoar's rings, and is the oldest trans-Neptunian colony from first settlement. Its numerous institutes have yielded several breakthroughs in gravitics that allow for the current interplanetary shipping network to operate - as well as many stranger studies about the impact of long-term residency in deep space on the human mind.
Strengths:Newtype Adaptive bullshit. Research colony, strong academic traditions, actually respected by the Spheres. There's something weird about your rings.
Weaknesses: Little heavy industry. More than a little obscurantism and occultism. Neptune thinks you're a bunch of heretics. If you stare long into the void...
[ ] Ceres.
The Alliance of Cooperatives and Free Associations of Ceres, Pallas, and Vesta is one of the oldest governments in Sol, claiming descent from the original Martian secessionist movement that saw the collapse of Earth's old colonial order - or so they say. In truth, the Alliance barely controls Ceres, with Pallas and Vesta practically private fiefs for their own local interests, and the rest of the Alliance's members little more than a thin veneer for Martian and Jovian spies and corporations.
Strengths: Trade. Highly developed infrastructure. Large and experienced (but pre-mobile suit) navy comparable to a Sphere's in size.
Weaknesses: Infighting and corruption. Flashpoint for Mars-Jupiter tensions. Navy is highly decentralised and rather... piratical.
[ ] Pluto.
The seat of the Union's Governor Plenipotentiary of the Outer Reaches, Pluto's authority technically reaches across all bodies outside Neptune's orbit, though it has essentially no ability to meaningfully project it. For all their official status, the Outer Reaches are de facto the Union's dumping ground, so the Spheres can promote anyone politically inconvenient into a post with little meaningful influence.
Strengths: Political legitimacy. Full access to current-generation Union naval and mobile suit technology.
Weaknesses: Political dumping ground. All the blame and none of the credit for anything that happens on the other trans-Neptunian colonies.
[ ] Haumea.
Haumea was originally established as a shipyard to service probes and research missions going beyond the edges of the solar system, especially a proposed mission to Sedna to reach interstellar space. The reputation as the "gateway to the stars" has never really left Haumea, even as essentially all of these projects were ruled out as totally impractical, and while the rings of Haumea provide enough rare minerals to keep the colony solvent, it has never really had an opportunity to grow.
Strengths: Advanced orbital infrastructure and shipyards. Access to exotic materials. Veteran spacers, including Stable Suit pilots. Funny shaped planet.
Weaknesses: Very low population. Low industrial materials. Basically no military.
[ ] Eris.
The Eridian League is the youngest of the Union's worlds, a result of the Peace of Titan. The nominal successor of the Titanite independence movement, plucked from their war against Saturnian tyranny by Jovian meddling, the League was split by the war into two factions - the original "Lunarist" faction, seeking greater influence within the Union for individual colonies rather than the Spheres, and a growing "Anti-Unionist" faction seeking the overthrow of the entire Union system.
Strengths: Original developers of mobile suit technology. Stockpile of resources from evacuation of Titan. Small but experienced military.
Weaknesses: Saturn hates you, Jupiter wants to use you. Young colony without much infrastructure. Ideological shoes your practical realities can't fill.
* * *
"fish are you starting ANOTHER quest" I do not control the brain worms. Blame this on Witch from Mercury ending and me going on an ADHD bender on the Kuiper Belt.
As far as quest style goes, this will be generally in the style of Divided Loyalties, where the PC is one of several advisors to a nation styled after a classical CK2 quest - in this case, minor colonies in a solar system sized pending Gundam Clusterfuck. All of the nation options will exist in setting, it's just a question of which one the PC is going to work for and what their starting options will be - while all the classic CK2 slots exist, a Diplomacy advisor on Ceres is going to have a very different time than one on Pluto or on Eris!
[x] Quaoar Historic image of Quaoar and Weywot, recreated in tile on the floor of the Executive Chambers
Executive Chambers of the Enlightened Consulate, Toypurina, Quaoar
133 NSE, May 4, 09:44 Quaoar Synchronised Time
The entrance hall of the Executive Chambers is wide and dark, whether you are looking down at the floor or up through the reinforced glass dome into the depths of the void. Sol's distant light shines through the glass, still brighter than the fluorescent lamps that ring the room despite the vastness of space. At its heart lies a glowing light, a recreation of an ancient depiction of the world you now stand on, from before humanity could escape Earth's covetous grip.
You have been to the Consulate's chambers before, of course, but it is your first time walking them as a Consul. Your appointment has been confirmed, upheld by the House of Voices, and your predecessor has stepped back to seclusion; there is nothing left for you to do until the rest of the Consulate arrives. Your predecessor advised you to arrive early, but perhaps you have come too early; alone in the vast circular chamber, you have nothing to do but nervously pace the edges of the room, feeling your anxiety and anticipation slowly curdle into a frenetic restlessness.
It is quiet here and now, before the Consulate assembles and the pulse of the world stirs - you're almost disappointed at how… simple, it feels. Your predecessor carried a certain gravitas, made the Consuls' chairs exude an almost physical presence. The weight of authority, perhaps, or simply the weight of their spirit. Will others feel the same, when they look at you? Is it the pageantry, the dark floors and vast halls, or something else, that pulse at the edge of your consciousness?
The Spheres and even your fellow Reaches worlds had a whole litany of jokes about Quaoarian "superstition", especially as Neptune seems to dive headlong into their own bizarre ritualism, but anyone on Quaoar knew there were things that words couldn't convey; things that you had to live to understand.
Maybe Nietzsche had the right of it; maybe your people have spent too much time void-gazing, gone mad from the cold isolation. But it is easy to say humanity was not meant for deep space, easy to point to your titanium bones and magnetic joints and say that you have left something behind you that you cannot regain. Easy for them to speak, blinded by Sol and bound by gravity, never having seen the true breadth of the cosmos.
But even if humanity's nature is of Earth, you are of Quaoar, and you will not let them call you less for it. Nature is a beginning, not an end, and it will not define you. You were shaped by Quaoar, and now you shall shape Quaoar for those who come after you. Your chosen home thrums with life and growth, and if it is not humanity's nature to be here, then humanity will change its nature. The first and oldest law, which has brought you here and carries you all forward into the future: you will change, and you will adapt.
The universe demands nothing less.
The universe is one thing - but what does the Consulate ask of you?
[ ] Head of Outreach.
Quaoar's universities and researchers may be the purpose of the colony, but they are far from its only occupants. They may control the Consulate, but without the factories, farms, mines, and shipyards they would swiftly starve. Your Diplomacy caught the attention of your predecessor, who has trained you to manage the various interests within Quaoar, as well as maintaining relationships with the rest of the Reaches, and placating the Union and the major Spheres.
[ ] Fleet Representative.
Officially, the Fleet Representative is not a Quaoarian executive but an advisor attached to the Consulate by the Union's Outer Reaches Home Fleet, to advise - but not command - the Consulate in Martial matters. The title of Consul is, as far as the Union is concerned, ceremonial. But the ORHF hasn't even been called to order by Pluto, let alone Earth, since its formation, and no one labours under the illusion that it is not a power in the Quaoar sphere. After Saturn and Jupiter's recent actions, the Consulate are not so foolish as to deny the Fleet access to the halls of power - and the Fleet is keen to maintain their access to Quaoar's innermost circles and the technology they could offer.
[ ] Head of Administration.
Life is not simple in the Reaches; sunlight is scarce, and many physical goods must be shipped from the inner worlds. Mercurian energy-barges make the long haul to Quaoar out of both greed and obligation, but they circle like vultures, keen to pry away knowledge and secrets to justify the expense. With such scarcity, Stewardship of your resources is a vitally important role, and coordinating the numerous competing factions to make best use of them requires a lifetime of training.
[ ] Head of Security.
Secrets are more valuable the fewer people know them, but knowledge grows faster the more it spreads. Every institution wants to stay ahead of its rivals, but no one wants to see their research slip through their hands. While the institutes resent Consular involvement in their Intrigue, they also know the alternative - not having anyone keeping an eye on who's spying for who, or tracking who's working for offworld interests - is far worse.
[ ] Coordinator of Research.
The academies and institutes would never give full research authority to the Consulate, and if they did, their representatives would never agree on a single nominee to hold such a position of prestige and power. Still, the great institutions of Learning need someone to keep the Consulate abreast of their activities, manage coveted public investments, and set broad priorities for the whole community - as well as a single point of contact for when they need to put a finger on the scales.
A plaque hangs above the door to your office, facing your desk. It is embossed with a depiction and the words of the pre-spaceflight political scientist Wallace Stanly Sayre: "The politics of the university are so intense because the stakes are so low."
The Coordinator of Research; the most coveted yet most curtailed seat on the Consulate. Supposedly in control of awarding research grants, setting overall priorities, and facilitating coordination and communication between the Institutes, in practice it's the job of herding a flock of intelligent, prideful cats around a room the size of, well, a small planet. Its appointment is the most tense, even more than the election of the First Consul; the Institutes desperately want control of your position for its enumerated powers, but also seek to hobble any actual exercise of them lest they fall into the sphere of a rival.
Often, it's the Research seat which holds up the appointment process to nearing the final deadline - but there is a deadline, the seat must be filled, and the business of government must continue. The Institutes may stretch protocol and procedure to their breaking point, but they won't shatter them - you only wish that the nominees could leave the hearing and go to sleep while the deans and bursars hemmed and hawed. Or at least that the President of Toypurina Polytechnic would have slipped you some of whatever pills kept the centenarian awake for forty-three straight hours, most of them spent shouting.
Finally, though, they reached their consensus, and called you forward. From there, it was just a perfunctory trip to the irritatingly well-rested House of Voices, who read out your duties and obligations with all the enthusiasm of a broken voice synthesiser, and handed you the key to your office, an epaulet bearing a stylised owl, and a data terminal already flooding with requests, congratulations (with requests), well-wishes (with requests), and expense reports. As soon as you were out of sight of the cameras, you kicked off a wall and sprinted to your office in the Consular wing; you managed a whole four hours of sleep before being summoned up to the Consulate's inaugural meeting, which was better than you'd hoped.
You are kicked from your drowsy recollection by the whirring sound of electric motors, as panels rise from the floor to form a ring-shaped table, followed shortly by a second set which fold into round, high-backed chairs. It takes you a moment to locate your seat, as it still has your predecessor's name on it - before it flickers twice to show yours.
What does it show?
[ ] [NAME] Write-In
[ ] [GENDER] Male
[ ] [GENDER] Female
[ ] [GENDER] Other
This is Gundam. Names are usually at least multicultural, and often the Full Tomino of something that sounds vaguely like a name but isn't used as such in present-day Earth. Johann Ibrahim/Abraham Revil and Mirai Yashima sit on the same scales as Jamitov Hymen and Elpeo Ple. It's pretty hard to come up with a name that doesn't work to some degree.
The table folds up to reveal a thin display, showcasing the official profiles of the incoming Consulate. Out of curiosity - and to see just how much to expect will be cut from the other files - you start with your own.
(Did they really need to use your passport photo?)
Who were you before your appointment?
[ ] You were the captain of a Union Fleet vessel turned to science.
If Quaoar belongs to the Institutes, Weywot belongs to the Fleet. Quaoar's only moon is perhaps the least interesting thing in its orbit, and the Fleet (officially only a flotilla, but nobody calls it that around a Fleet spacer unless they're desperate to see a dentist) serves in as much a scientific capacity as a military one, using the stronger engines and superior maneuverability of its Palomar corvettes to ferry all kinds of equipment out to the Rings to try and unlock the mysteries of gravity. As captain of the Belogradchik, you formed a rapport with the researchers, and when several Institutes banded together to buy out a Palomar for private use, it was Belogradchik that answered.
Gain Fleet Officer trait (+2 Martial, +1 Diplomacy).
Known as a relatively impartial figure to the Institutes, and one they actually respect.
Access to a dedicated research ship, the former RHS Belogradchik.
There's a joke that the Reaches are where people go to waste their lives on impossible things - Quaoar wants artificial gravity, Haumea wants interstellar travel, Pluto wants peace in our time. For some people, it's not a joke. Relations bonus with gravity researchers, and with fellow "punchliners" from Haumea and Pluto.
Mandate: Develop an indigenous warship class designed for mobile suit operations.
[ ] You were elected to the House of Voices.
The House of Voices may not appoint the Consulate, but they control its purse strings. Elected representatives are a common compromise candidate for the institutes - perhaps because they value popular sovereignty and the democratic tradition, or perhaps because politicians can be bought and sold with money and favours outside the labyrinth of academic rivalries and institutional loyalties.
Gain Elected Representative trait (+2 Diplomacy, +1 Martial).
Relations bonus when dealing with the House of Voices.
Subvote for party/bloc. Increased bonus for same party.
Powerful representatives may call in favours.
Mandate: Strengthen democratic - or at least electoral - oversight of the Institutes.
[ ] You were Chief of Medicine at a hospital in Toypurina.
While not the equal of the Spheres' or the Union-backed hospitals of Pluto, Quaoar's healthcare system is robust and reliable, compensating for its relative lack of resources through expertise and education. It's not unprecedented for doctors to be named to the Consulate, but usually in a dedicated role - placing you in charge of all research was a classical example of a compromise where everyone leaves equally disappointed. While there's a real need to focus on medical research, the Institutes aren't subtle about how they expect that need to keep you occupied and away from their work.
Gain Hospital Administrator trait (+2 Diplomacy, +1 Stewardship).
Relatively protected from internal factionalism - nobody wants to make an enemy of the doctors.
Large bonus to Medical research, smaller bonus to Biology and Environmental research.
The Institutes expect you to stay in your lane and not interfere with their business.
Mandate: Improve healthcare infrastructure outside of major settlements.
[ ] You were a senior faculty member of a voting Institute.
The Institutes - the universities, private research firms, and publically-owned labs which first founded Quaoar - are the ones who select members of the Consulate. Their rivalries usually prevent them from electing any internal candidates - doubly so to your position, which has the most direct power over them - but sometimes a coalition lasts long enough to form a strong enough majority to actually elect a researcher, as they did with you. While you are of course expected to maintain a suitable level of impartiality... you're also very aware of who actually put you into the seat and how much it cost them.
Gain Institute Researcher trait (+2 Diplomacy, +1 Intrigue).
Subvote for specialisation and institution.
Large bonus to research deals with your alma mater - but favour them too much and their rivals will begin moving against you.
Mandate: Secure support and investment for the projects of your backers.
[ ] You were an architect at the Juvit Colony Yards.
Juvit Colony is the sole true orbital colony in the Quaoar Sphere, built at great expense by the Union at the height of its post-Colonial War generosity. Its primary industry is the maintenance of private spacecraft, but it also serves as the home port of the Union's flotilla; it's not the equal of the grand and infamous Boondoggle Cruiser Yards at Haumea, but it doesn't need to be; your job was to build science ships and mend some plates, not build a Home Fleet out of the Union's scraps.
Gain Shipyard Engineer trait (+2 Martial, +1 Stewardship).
Bonus to military infrastructure technologies.
You know how to operate a stable suit - which probably transfers to these newfangled mobile suits?
Bonus to construction efforts from knowing the right people for the job.
Mandate: Develop an indigenous science ship class for research in the Rings and elsewhere.
[ ] You were a retired officer turned instructor at the Ti'at military academy.
Ti'at's military academy is not the equal of those on Jupiter, Mars, or Venus, let alone their combined efforts on the Spire, but when you retired from the VSHF, you were done being the tip of the spear. You had expected a comfortable career in history, writing your own memoirs of the Venusian revolt and angrily critiquing everyone else's, and for fifty years that's what you had - but your new home has come calling, and while they're asking you to learn and teach rather than lead and fight, you're still too much of a soldier to turn them down.
Gain Military Theorist trait (+2 Martial, +1 Intrigue).
Colonial War veteran - actual inner world military experience.
Bonus to initial development of military doctrine.
Political outsider on Quaoar but respected in the broader Union - even if you were only a major when you mustered out, there's not many old Colonial War hands left.
Mandate: Develop a doctrine to counter mobile suit operations as used by Jupiter.
[ ] You were the mastermind of the expansion of José.
Quaoar's second-largest terrestrial settlement has undergone a dramatic transformation in the past years due to the discovery of exploitable deposits of heavy metals. Its expansion implemented a number of experimental construction methods, for which you were heavily criticised by the Institutes and the press right up until you succeeded. You declined a number of prestigious posts at various Institutes, and they seem to have decided if they can't have you (and brush away their past criticisms), they'll promote you instead - and now you need to prove your work at a much greater scale, competing not just with Quaoar's own workers but the whole Union standard.
Gain Urban Planner trait (+2 Stewardship, +1 Diplomacy).
Bonus to terrestrial infrastructure technologies.
Institutes hate you for upstaging them from outside their system, but definitely can't say that out loud.
Mandate: Develop new construction methods, and establish their superiority to existing Union standards.
[ ] You were an architect at the L3 minor colony cluster
Every core needs a periphery, and the designated boonies of the Quaoar Sphere are the so-called "minor colony clusters". While Juvit is the only "true" space colony in the Quaoar Sphere, the orbitals are home to many more small settlements, growing out of everything from Institute-sponsored orbital labs and Union-backed maintenance bays to one colony that occupies the prow of a shattered Old Earth cruiser that was gravitationally captured by Quaoar after a date with a Martian KKV over Tranquillitatis. The minor colonies are at best a footnote and at worst a punishment for most Institute engineers, but for you, they're home - and now you have a chance to actually help them.
Gain Orbital Engineer trait (+2 Stewardship, +1 Martial).
You know how to operate a stable suit, and in less than ideal environments - not unlike the first Titanite mobile suits.
Bonus to orbital infrastructure technologies. Bonus to orbital workforce as you're willing to work with less formally credentialed staff.
Penalty to Diplomacy or Stewardship checks to command or persuade the Institutes; they expect you to be an easily manipulated hick without a Proper Understanding of Politics.
Mandate: Develop a refit standard for minor space colonies. Beat the Institutes to a mobile suit design.
[ ] You were a senior government administrator.
While the Voices shout and the Institutes bicker, the day-to-day work of Quaoar's government is done by a number of boring people in boring suits that the former two groups only think about when they need someone to present them with a report. You've served in most branches of the government, helping trim the bureaucratic kudzu that grows around any large institution, and put yourself forward as a politically neutral candidate for the Consular seat out of frustration with how much the Institutes' closely-guarded influence can throw a wrench into the works of proper governance.
Gain Civil Servant trait (+2 Stewardship, +1 Intrigue).
Bonus to administrative workforce as you know the right people to tap.
Both the Institutes and the House of Voices fully expect you to just follow their lead and do what you're told.
Bonus to Intrigue actions to keep the Institutes and House placated while you get the actual work done despite them.
Mandate: Standardise a proper system to actually coordinate research, so the government can actually govern properly.
[ ] You were an educator on Galatea, before the Witnesses came.
Most of the Union views the Witnesses as the butt of a political joke. To the inner Spheres, they're proof that the outer Spheres are full of space-mad mystics, and to the outer Spheres, they're proof that Neptune is - but when the ships from Neso came, you weren't laughing. As some of your students started to disappear, you organised the rest and chartered a ship to attend a conference in Protean orbit - only to adjust your course for a gravity assist around Neptune and into the Reaches. Quaoar wasn't your first choice of destination, but they're no friends of the Witnesses, and it's nice to be respected for your work again.
Gain Refugee Leader trait (+2 Intrigue, +1 Diplomacy).
Opinion bonus with Neptune refugees and other Outer Reaches worlds. Large opinion penalty with Neptune.
Bonus workforce as you can more quickly integrate the Neptunian refugees.
Cannot take Adaptive traits. Some people are too important to leave Neptune.
Mandate: Integrate Neptunian knowledge into Quaoar tech base.
[ ] You were an analyst on an observation post with a good view of Titan.
The Union officially regulates the use of long-range imaging for surveillance as part of its policy of planetary independence. While Quaoar's private telescopes are nominally intended for scientific purposes, the Union can't go so far as to demand that you turn them off when another sphere passes through their arc - as Saturn did at the height of Titan's rebellion. Quaoar does not maintain intelligence officials on its stations, but if an astrophysicist happens to also minor in military strategy, they're not going to deny them a job either - and they could hardly stop you writing down your personal observations of debris from the Titan conflict and how it interferes with your study.
Gain Intelligence Analyst trait (+2 Intrigue, +1 Martial).
Saw - as much as you can see anything across interplanetary space - the Titan conflict unfold firsthand.
Experience with observations of mobile suit combat beyond those released by official Union statements.
Opinion penalty with the Union and Fleet, who don't like Quaoar operating private intelligence outposts.
Mandate: Develop an offensive mobile suit doctrine in the style of Titan.
[ ] You were a journalist lauded for exposing corruption in the Consulate.
For all its infighting, Quaoar takes academic integrity seriously, and comes down hard on anyone caught cheating the system. After several successful exposes, your predecessor brought you on to clean house, and you proceeded to hunt down numerous officials and even some Institute researchers who were being less than honest in their dealings - while also building your own experience with Quaoar's scientific community. Your predecessor's nomination to their seat was unexpected, but he eventually persuaded you that you had all the necessary qualifications - and that your work was unfinished.
Gain Investigative Journalist trait (+2 Intrigue, +1 Stewardship).
Opinion bonus with the public and parts of the House of Voices. Easy access to advice from your predecessor.
Opinion penalty with the rest of the Consulate.
Official sanction to crack down on the Institutes, as long as you can make something stick.
Mandate: Crack down on corruption in your own department without unduly impacting research output.
* * *
We're almost done with character creation - just special traits to go, and then we'll be into actual research turns.
Vote name/gender by pairs, but use approval voting for background - the second and third place results will be retained and integrated as your immediate subordinates.
The primary stats of each option generally indicate which other Consulate member you'll probably need to work with to accomplish your main goal, but you'll still be responsible for the whole breadth of research and development - the Mandate is just the primary thing they expect from your appointment, not the only goal (or even the only priority)!
[x] Female
[x] Hypatia 'Tia' Khwarizmi
[x] You were the captain of a Union Fleet vessel turned to science.
As the doors slide open, you force down the old instinct to snap to a salute. A Consul does not rise for their peers - not even for the Chair. It has been a long time since Bohumil Thomas was your superior officer, but his sheer presence is undiminished. Shaggy silver hair frames his dark, scarred face like a lion's mane; his blue-and-gold pinstripe suit deliberately evokes his old Union commodore's uniform, a burnished brass symbol of Quaoar sitting on his breast in lieu of his medals.
"Khwarizmi," he gives you a small nod as he walks to his seat, "I see we've made the same mistakes." He gestures around the room and chuffs. "Nice to see at least one... reasonable face from Fleet, even if a step removed." You give him a questioning look, and he grumbles out "Weywot's foisted Whipporwhil on us."
After an awkward pause, you settle on saying "She's better than she was." You can't deny that Anastasya Whipporwhil can be... difficult. You'd worked with her when you were both Palomar skippers, and while you couldn't fault her as an officer, she wouldn't be your first choice of politician. Brilliant by any measure, but almost unaware of it, assuming the rest of the world could keep up with her indefinitely, and growing brusque and dismissive whenever someone inevitably fell behind. You'd reached a kind of rapport by the time you and the Belogradchik mustered out, and last you'd heard she'd moved up to a Kilauea - but all of that was after Thomas retired.
"You never had to read her reports, Commander."
His voice takes on a light tone as he sounds out your old rank, and that's the only thing that stops you from snapping into a salute - which is damn good timing, because as you open your mouth to reply, the door slides open again to admit three more of your fellows, led by Kızılırmak herself, stone-faced as ever. She nods to Thomas and then to you, and slumps across the seat opposite the Chair's; her posture seems more like a child on a long shuttle ride than the Mother of the Constitution standing among the Consulate. Her prosthetic eye slowly flickers with pulses of forest-green light, just bright enough to be distracting.
You don't know the other two: a pale-faced young man in an ill-fitting suit, and a round woman with brightly-dyed hair and an ostentatious lace dress. As they settle into their seats - the man to Thomas's left, the woman halfway between you and Kızılırmak - the door pushes open again, and Whipporwhil bounces into the room. She notices you and waves before all but skipping to a chair one step from Kızılırmak's right - and to your immediate left; the pulsing glow of the latter's eye is now scattered across the room by Whipporwhil's brightly polished buttons and epaulets. A projector turns on with a click, and a flickering hologram of a vaguely familiar face (an Assemblyman? Some kind of politician, anyway, and why else would one be offworld?) fades in on Thomas's right.
Next is a brawny woman in simple work clothes and steel-toed boots, the ever-present symbol of the Maintenance Workers hanging from a gold chain around her neck. She stares at the projected man, rolls her eyes, and takes a seat to your immediate right after giving you a curt nod; her choice was clearly less out of interest in you, and more about being as far from the hologram as possible. She is shortly followed by a man you can only describe as the walking image of a politician, who even stops in the door to wave to some distant crowd before stepping through the door to let it close behind him. He makes a circuitous walk around the table, offers you a clearly practiced smile and a "nice to meet you", and takes the last empty chair.
There is a silence, and the atmosphere in the room slowly shifts. Kızılırmak straightens in her seat, Whipporwhil's energy dissolves into steely focus, and the woman from Maintenance crosses her arms and locks eyes with the smiling face in the hologram. Power has a gravity all its own, and here you stand at its event horizon.
As Thomas opens his mouth to call the session to order, you take one last stock of your position.
What other advantages do you bring to your position? Approval voting - top two will be chosen.
[ ] Contacts in the wider ORHF.
The Outer Reaches Home Fleet - much like the Outer Reaches itself - is an institution that exists largely on paper. Paper in the Earth Sphere. While it's formally a centralised organisation based on Pluto, Haumea has the only proper berth for its flagship, and the Eridians aren't even pretending the new "5th Flotilla" is anything but a thin coat of Union paint over Titanite irregulars. It can take months to travel from Quaoar to Pluto, so most members of the 3rd Flotilla have never even left Quaoar orbit - but the last time they did, you and the Belogradchik were among the number. While it can take hours to send a reliable message between Outer Reaches worlds, that's still enough to keep enough a regular - if asynchronous - correspondence with some of your nominal former comrades. Improved information about developments on Pluto and Haumea - though nothing sensitive. Easier access to potential interplanetary projects.
[ ] Advice from your predecessor.
Rajesh Kreimhilding is a hard man to find, having all but disappeared from public life between the pressures of his contentious anti-corruption efforts, his failing health, and the Titanite conflict bringing a decisive end to his long career as a pro-Union "end of war" pacifist. You were not his first choice to succeed him, but you also weren't his last, and as much as his speeches seem ironic now, his efforts to turn Fleet assets from "waiting for a war that will never come" to a constructive, scientific purpose were what catalysed your own career. While he's withdrawn from the political sphere, he's still willing to meet with you for drinks and offer a few words of advice from a man who wrangled the Institutes for twenty-five years. Personal action to meet with Kreimhilding, gaining bonuses on internal Intrigue or Diplomacy actions.
[ ] Ongoing experiments.
Your appointment was far from a sure thing, and you still have several existing agreements with the Institutes for use of Belogradchik in the works. Keeping to the tentative schedule would occupy your ship for most of a year, but your new position gives you a bit more negotiating room - by making your office a formal partner in the experiments, you can get an in with the Institutes, access to their research, and best of all, not need to pay for it. Locks Belogradchik and 1 Official action for several turns, but that action will consume no Resources and be accelerated.
[ ] An elite crew.
While most of Belogradchik's crew remained in the Fleet, those who stayed with the ship were truly passionate about her mission - and trained the Institute students and civilian spacers who filled out the complement up to their own exacting standards. Belogradchik may not be a warship anymore, but her crew are still a match for any Palomar in the Fleet in anything but the actual shooting. Belogradchik's reroll applies to Martial checks as well as Learning.
[ ] A dedicated support station.
The Belogradchik was laid down at Juvit Yards like any Quaoarian Palomar, but once you left the Fleet, you lost access to their dedicated berths. While the wealthier Institutes would gladly cover fuel and maintenance while you worked on their projects, you and their smaller rivals preferred a more independent arrangement, and eventually purchased an old mining yard to serve as a permanent berth. Now that you have been brought back into government service, that independence will make it easier to supply and deploy the ship for your own priorities, not just the Institutes'. Belogradchik costs no Influence to deploy.
[ ] A rare medical note.
Non-invasive brain-computer interfaces are a well-established technology, but starkly limited in the type of information they can impart back to the user. BCI backlash - or more properly, irregular neural feedback rejection - begins with nausea, disorientation, and mild headaches, but can quickly and unpredictably escalate to migraines, scarring, and in some cases, irreversible and continuous degeneration. This normally limits the use of the technology to systems which translate readily to familiar sensations - the most famous case being the humanoid form of the stable suit (and now, the mobile suit). You're one of the lucky ones, though, and have a much greater tolerance for irregular feedback, suffering only a very mild form of rejection with almost no risk of degradation - enough that you've been cleared to use irregular interfaces as part of your work. Though as an unfortunate consequence, the captain's chair on the Belogradchik would see the ship impounded in the Venus, Earth, and Uranus Spheres. Personal action to create a Bespoke Neural Interface for an Asset, granting substantial bonuses when you are personally operating them. Belogradchik gains a Bespoke Neural Interface.
[ ] A peculiar insight.
The term "Adaptive" is used in hushed tones on Quaoar. It's no secret that humanity has adapted to space colonisation - the bolts and plates in your bones, the nanopumps in your arteries, the wires and foils beneath your skin are all routine procedures once hailed as medical miracles. But the idea that humanity is adapting in ways beyond deliberate modification is controversial, especially in matters of the mind. The Institutes have their own theories, but they keep them close to the chest, both out of fears of being overtaken, but also its possible social ramifications - at least one professor told you she wasn't publishing anything until she was certain it "wouldn't throw fuel on that mess on Neptune". (Her department head was quick to assure you that her exclamation of "grant money be damned" was purely rhetorical.) Yet you can't deny that you feel something on the edge of your consciousness; little more than glimpses of possibilities, but real enough to have saved you and your crew out in the black. Gain Latent Adaptive trait (???). Personal action to study your condition.
* * *
And soon we are off.
The full composition of the Consulate is nine members - the Chair, the five vote option positions, and then one representative for each of the major branches of government outside the Consulate - the judiciary, the House of Voices, and the Quaoar Planetary Infrastructure Company (the nominally state-owned corporation that essentially took over the role of AGH after the Colonial War). In practice, that means "Jenivive Filo Kızılırmak; a politician from a major colony; and a union boss".
[x] A peculiar insight.
[x] A dedicated support station.
First to speak is the woman with the bright-coloured hair - Professor Xuan Marta Hoang, an economist late of Gantz-Kepler. You've worked with her officially-former Institute before, but not her department - Belogradchik was many things, but she was no freighter. Her report is... dry, even with your appointment hearings fresh in your mind. Quaoar's major export is research contracts and software licenses, and she's apparently spent much of the last few months tracking navigational computer contracts with Saturn - especially regarding their planned RKV strike on Titan.
Her report interweaves with the man who entered alongside her, who introduces himself as Tadgh Kaspichan, just ambiguously enough that you suspect it's a pseudonym. Apparently, there are concerns that Saturn's RKV launch was done with Quaoar TrueGrav navigators, which should trigger a lockdown if prompted to plot a course that would yield anything close to a relativistic impact. He's identified several potential flaws in Quaoar's blackboxing tech, any of which might have helped them jailbreak the TrueGrav, and has forwarded his team to coordinate with Research to try and amend them - along with a rather pointed warning about the dangers of potential leaks.
It's here that the woman in work clothes speaks up - the transcript-taker on her desk names her as de la Fuente, Chief Eng. QPIC. While she doesn't explicitly challenge Security's conclusions, she does question their priorities - and their heavy-handed treatment of QPIC workers, with hush orders across whole departments despite no conclusive evidence that their work had anything to do with the Saturnians' exploit. She wants the review to first focus on identifying the actual flaws in the existing model, if only for domestic production.
New Objective: Develop new generation blackbox for navigational computers, other exports. (+2 Influence on completion) Bonus Objective: Identify the exact means by which Saturn suborned the TrueGrav navigator and develop a priority patch. (+2 Influence, opinion bonus from de la Fuente and QPIC. Influence reward declines each turn without completion.) Bonus Objective: Keep it in house. Official Quaoar teams only, no Institutes, no Fleet, no Union. (Additional +1 Influence. Large opinion bonus from Kaspichan.)
The man on the holocall is the now-former Assemblyman Hargreaves, still on his way back from the Earth Sphere - and not taking questions, on account of several minutes of light delay. In his own words, he made "a grand old Terran musical" out of his resignation; the details of old treaties and Assembly political blocs escapes you, but apparently he managed to wrangle some concessions out of the Saturnians that had Hoang smiling like a bear in a fishmarket. He also spent the first leg of his trip - to Jupiter for a gravity assist, cheaper than a straight shot to Quaoar despite the extra time - on the same ship as Isaac Arcas, preparing to continue his post-Nobel tour on Ganymede. He was full of praise for the "dynamic" Jovian admiral, though not without his reservations. He concludes his report with a grave expression; "Arcas is no Caesar or Napoleon," he says as he shakes his head, "but I see their ghosts in him."
After Hargreaves' theatrical account of his time on Earth, Whipporwhil's report on the state of the Fleet seems perfunctory. The Commodore wants to know if there will be a recall on their TrueGravs, and the Union is finally moving on getting a new Kilauea built - and then her report gets derailed into a debate she had with the Commodore that was probably not meant to be aired with the whole Consulate. Apparently, she wants the Kilauea stripped down and prepared for a refit as a mobile suit carrier, despite the fact that all existing doctrine either has mobile suits based on stations or cruiser-weight ships. And also that the Kilauea doesn't have a carrier configuration even for strike craft. She's halfway into a detailed pitch before she seems to remember where she is, apologises awkwardly for the divergence, and shrinks into her seat.
...and kicks you a large briefcase under the table. Which is standing on a narrow side, so it falls over with a loud thunk, and catches the attention of everyone in the room.
"It's not a bribe!" she shouts, opening the latch with her foot to reveal a pile of blueprints.
New Objective: Trial a mobile suit carrier refit for the Kilauea-class destroyer. (+1 Influence, relations bonus with Whipporwhil, relations bonus or penalty with the 3rd Flotilla depending on results.)
You lock eyes with Thomas. His face is level, but his eyes convey a kind of desperate exhaustion that can't be put into words. You nod, stand up to pick up the briefcase, click it shut and set it beside your chair. "Research will consider the Fleet Representative's proposal," you say, giving Whipporwhil a polite if slightly judging nod. She stammers something nervously before promptly announcing her report is complete.
Next to speak is the politician - the House's Delegate, who offers his congratulations on your and Whipporwhil's appointments. He echoes de la Fuente's earlier concerns about the TrueGrav lockdown, especially its possible impact on expanding the L4 civilian shipyards, as well as complaints from voters about the production stoppages at QPIC's orbital stations. The House has also voted to review the Consulate's budgets early next year, especially in light of the "sudden shift in priorities".
New Objective: Prepare for a budgetary review in 3 turns. (Do this or the auditors won't be happy.)
Kızılırmak is next, and focuses on the ongoing prosecution of the officials caught in Research's last corruption purge - which also neatly answers where Kriemhilding's journo hatchetwoman has gone, as apparently the Mother of the Constitution has decided to clear out her own office's dirty laundry and poached her for some kind of special inquest. Kızılırmak speaks with a sort of grim satisfaction when she talks about hauling a few particular prosecutors out in front of a grand jury.
QPIC is working on improving stable suit production, including the trials of a new high-maneuverability model. It's the sort of thing that would previously not have been a selling point for a stable suit - no matter how limber the suit is, it would still be constrained by the umbilical, which could only be so long and so flexible without risking the connection. The official reason for the prototype is to allow for more precise maneuvers and a greater operational capacity in the rings or other high impact risk areas, but it's clear QPIC is keeping one eye on another market - and that brings the attention to you.
Aside from a short introduction, Thomas doesn't expect you to have a full report; he welcomes you to the Consulate, looks you dead in the eye, and says two words: "Mobile suits."
The hologram flickers to a blurry recording of the fighting around Titan. Several humanoid shapes surround the familiar outline of a Palomar, two picking off its fighter complement while the last carves through its hull like butter with a cutter rated for main structural beams. "I don't know what the Titanites did, but if Jupiter could figure it out, I trust we can."
"This isn't just about pride. The Spire tossed a live grenade onto Eris; no matter what they say, Saturn's not about to let most of Titan just walk off into the black, and Eris isn't going to forget Saturn, either. And while I stand by my predecessor's decision to admit our guests from Neptune, it hasn't made us any friends on Neso." He gives you and Whipporwhil a pointed look. "The Union's done good by us, better than Old Earth ever did, but by all their own rules Arcas should be in a cell, not on a book tour."
Otgonbayar and de la Fuente both rise to speak, but Thomas holds up a hand. "Not that I'd have done different, if I saw Neso flinging rods at Galatea and had the guns to stop it - but let's not pretend they wouldn't have hauled me to Pluto in a brig for 'interference in sovereign affairs'. Maybe the Assembly would let me off, but they sure as hell wouldn't give me a Union Star. And seeing as 'no more interplanetary invasions' was what we dropped rods on Earth for-" Thomas snarls, takes a deep breath, and shakes his head. "I've been a Union man for longer than there's been a Union; I hope to God I'm wrong. But right now, the biggest things keeping us safe are the Union and obscurity, and I can't be sure how long we can count on either."
"Khwarizmi, I need you to get me something actionable. You know the Institutes, you know the Fleet; I know the Institutes sold you to the House on their multi-purpose hull proposal, but here and now, I'm going to ask only one thing of you: if the Spheres come calling, find something that gives us an option beyond 'surrender'."
New Primary Objective: Develop a doctrine or technology that can be a reasonable deterrent to a Sphere fleet. You don't need to win - just cost more than you're worth. New Objective: Develop a new class of warship designed to support a mobile suit-based doctrine, which Quaoar can produce and maintain locally. (Appointment Mandate: At least +4 Influence on completion, increasing with greater success. Better ability to negotiate with the House of Voices on budget and acquisitions.)
You meet his gaze and silently nod, and Thomas answers with one of his own. "Hoang will arrange an aquisitions budget for these mobile suits - I want to get something into our hands sooner rather than later. That means Eris or Jupiter, unless you're damn confident you can go it alone."
What is your recommendation?
[ ] Approach Jupiter about a new-build mobile suit.
The Jovian JMS-3 Hauteclere is the current peak of mobile suit technology, developed on Galatea and assembled by the JSHF's factory cruisers en route to Saturn. The Jovians currently hold the Union's official contract for mobile suit production, and nominally would need to provide them at a reasonable price, but they will likely be filled with black boxes and software locks to cut down on reverse-engineering. Still, the Hauteclere is for the moment the most advanced and most affordable mobile suit in the Union, and you can get one for a reasonable price, completely within Union law. (Whipporwhil and Kızılırmak support this.)
[ ] Approach Jupiter about an unlocked reactor.
Jupiter is pointedly not exporting the JMS-3's reactor as anything but a black box - at least, not through the Union Logistics Office. But Hargreaves is confident in his rapport with Arcas, and the Hero of Titan carries a lot of weight with the JSHF, and it may be possible to reach some kind of less... Earth-based arrangement. Of course, it would risk being drawn into Jupiter's sphere of influence, or even its opaque internal politics. (Hargreaves supports this option, though cautiously.)
[ ] Approach Eris about surplus reactors.
Eris has plenty of materials, between what the Eridians brought from Titan and the Union's standard support system for new colonies. They're already converting some of their mobile suits back into stable suits for colony and shipyard work - work that you could help accelerate by loaning them a few skilled spacers in exchange for mobile suit reactors they don't have a use for. Helping the Eridians could invite ire from Saturn, but the Saturn Sphere has bigger problems than you. (Hoang supports this option.)
[ ] Approach Eris about a secondhand mobile suit.
Part of the Treaty of Titan meant that the Titanites' mobile suits were disarmed, but their weapons aren't the revolutionary technology anyway. New-build Quaoarian stable suits will work with all the same Union-standard infrastructure, but are specialised in building in the Reaches, and don't have a whole uprising's worth of wear and tear - of course, they will still want some more practical support to include the reactor. (de la Fuente supports this option.)
[ ] Attempt to develop your own reactor model.
The first Titanite mobile suits were developed from stable suits, which means their reactors must have a similar performance profile to a standard colonial umbilical. The Institutes have a thousand concepts that might fit that kind of power into something the size of a mobile suit - though no guarantees as to which will actually work at scale - and while sorting the scientific wheat from the chaff will take time, it will at least guarantee that you're not reliant on interplanetary shipping for your experiments. (Otgonbayar and Kaspichan support this option.)
Choose one Consulate member to meet with during the recess.
[ ] Bohumil Thomas, Chair of the Committee. [ ] Asm. Ali Hargreaves, Head of Outreach. Still en route.
[ ] Capt. Anastasya Whipporwhil, Fleet Representative.
[ ] Prof. Xuan Marta Hoang, Head of Administration.
[ ] Tadhg Kaspichan, Head of Security.
[ ] Jenivive Filo Kızılırmak, Chief of the Judiciary.
[ ] Jean-Noel Otgonbayar, Delegate of the House of Voices.
[ ] Hanifa de la Fuente, Chief Engineer of QPIC.
* * *
Whipporwhil managed to critfail the Intrigue roll to slip her own proposals into the meeting.
And because it's funny, I'll just say it outright. After traits and modifiers, her Intrigue stat is a 2.
[X] Tadhg Kaspichan, Head of Security.
[X] Attempt to develop your own reactor model.
You follow Kaspichan to the south atrium; he takes a seat on a stool by a tall glass table, and waves you over without ever turning around. "Good to meet you properly." He spins his stool around as you approach and holds out his hand. "Tadgh Kaspichan, but you knew that already. Just Tadgh, one Consul to another." His smile is bright on his pallid face, but he's watching you with curious interest.
You take his hand and shake it.
[ ] Call me Tia, then. (Be proactively friendly.)
[ ] Hypatia. One Consul to another. (When in doubt, mimic.)
[ ] I look forward to working with you, Consul Kaspichan. (Assert professional distance.)
His grip is... unsteady, and you can feel his arm shaking slightly; he meets your eyes with a silent glare, and your first question dies on your lips. The dark veins beneath his pale skin; his sunken eyes; his gaunt frame and ill-fitting suit - they paint a picture.
Tia Learning vs. Tadgh Intrigue: 1d100 [96] + 24 = 120 vs. 1d100 [???] + ??? = 88
You're no doctor, but you've worked with spacers; you know the signs. His career is dedicated to secrets, and you'll allow him his own - but not when they could impact his duties. You match his glare with your own, honed by a life spent in command of spacers too proud for their own good.
"I know what you're going to say, and I ask that you don't." His glare twists into a bitter snarl. "Bohumil, Jean-Noel, and my deputies are all well aware, and if - I stress if - my condition were to deteriorate, contingencies are in place. For all your accomplishments, you are not a physician, and I assure you anything you have to say is something I have heard before."
You open your mouth to speak, but he cuts you off.
"I know that look, Commander, and I will stress that we are colleagues - you are not my CO, I am not one of your crew. This is neither the time, nor the place, nor your responsibility. Do you understand me?"
You don't like it - but what more could you add that a Consul's doctors couldn't already have said? His defiant glare calls to mind other faces with sunken eyes and pale skin, smiling out at the stars from a medbed - or before pulling a helmet closed for one last spacewalk.
You still don't understand.
"I hope you'll never understand, skipper."
You hold his's gaze and nod once.
Tadgh Kaspichan trait revealed: Laika's Disease.
The dark look vanishes from his face as swiftly as it appeared, and he once again looks no different than any number of slightly tired Institute students you've toured around Belogradchik. He spins his stool around and orders some kind of multicoloured juice blend while you still in the silence.
He finally breaks the silence with a snort. "No need to stand on ceremony - I'm sure you had something more to discuss than one man's personal troubles. Setting that unpleasantness aside, I'm glad to see you come to me; Rajesh is a good man, but it's easy to disappoint a good man. Your reactor proposal?"
"I've had proposals before the Consulate before, but it's different, as a Consul myself." You shrug noncommitally, and then quietly add, "Does the room always feel so... big?"
"What do you think?" He points one finger at you - or rather, up at you. Even seated on the stools, you're half a head taller than him, and a fair bit broader. "You get used to it, if you don't wash out. Ask Ali if you need the grand encouraging speech; there's never enough truth in those to be Security business." He laughs at his own joke.
"The idea's ambitious, but you can count on my vote. It's not my job to trust, and I'd ask if you think we can do it - but given that the alternatives are Jupiter and Eris? Even if Bullock and Arcas are saints - and no saint makes it to GP or admiral, however much they might charm dear Ali - everyone can see Jupiter's star rising, and the Union's pissed away their chance to stop it. There's no way we'd warrant priority through the Union for even one mobile suit until Mars had built a few hundred. I'm optimisitc about the Eiridians in the long term, but we live in the present, and we just don't know enough about the Eridians to trust them yet. Maybe it will turn out we can - but we can't afford to wait." He snickers. "Or at least, Security can't - I imagine Marta will have a few choice words about what we can afford as Admin measures it."
He hums and strokes his chin, a faint smile on his face. "Jean-Noel will blunt her, though. The man bleeds grey and blue; he'll slurp up anything the Nationalists can staple their feeble pride to, and the House has a gift for making budget questions vanish when it lets them puff out their chests. I'd say if there were any competition, it'd be the official buy from Jupiter - especially if Ali decides not to go forward with meeting his handsome Jovian away from prying eyes. Just in case, you might want to get Hanifa on side; or the new Fleet girl, I'm not quite sure what her price is yet."
"Her price?" you hiss, not hiding your offense on behalf of a fellow officer.
He blinks, seeming to only now remember that you're there. "Probably not the advice you wanted, is it? Too much time making sausages, you forget most people buy them pre-cooked. Price, persuasion, principles, call it what you want, it all comes down to what you need to do to get their support, and what they need to do to get yours."
"And if I just want them to do the right thing?"
"People always do the right thing. This," he waves his hand around the room, "is all just how we decide what the right thing is." A chime sounds from his belt, and he snaps a small display from his pocket. "It was nice meeting you - I'll see you on the floor."
Tadgh Kaspichan trait revealed: Cynical.
* * *
The recess ends, and the Chair calls the Consulate back to order, to vote on and affirm the proposed agenda.
Most of the votes are largely perfunctory. Hargreaves - not really in position to set a bold new agenda - essentially proposes to continue the policies from Thomas's time heading Outreach, and capitalising on his own recent negotiations to strengthen Quaoar's position in the Outer Reaches. You're not the only one leery about his proposed commercial and research agreements, and cast your vote alongside Hoang and de la Fuente to table those provisions until a more thorough investigation of their impact - and the sheer logistics involved - can be carried out by your office and Hoang's. Your opposition is joined by Otgonbayar, though only after his own flat opposition to the plan fails to garner any further support; in the end, you're carried through by Kızılırmak, who questions if Hargreaves is trying to exert undue control over Research and Administration. You can spot the moment that transmission caught up to him by the sudden look of shock on his face, and the stammered denials.
Administration spars with QPIC over the issue of planetary versus orbital infrastructure investments. Both want to expand lift capacity, but Hoang wants to focus on building planetside rail connections and expand existing spaceports, while QPIC wants instead to focus on more vertical investment by deploying medium-capacity space elevators on underserved regions on the surface, connecting to small shuttleports in orbit. Hoang calls it a "Kessler nightmare", citing the issues Charon had with similar wide elevator installation; de la Fuente counters that Charon only got so bad due to overcrowding at its primary spaceport. In the end, the vote is hung with most of the Consulate abstaining, and Thomas requests that both offices prepare their own proposals - though he also gives you a pointed look.
Security wants new telescopes beyond the Rings, and has a few proposals on a system to improve tracking of unpowered objects that might approach Quaoar orbit. Their presentation - given by two aides with only a few nods from their Consul - is well put together, but suspiciously vague about the reasons that this is their focus. It's about this time when you notice that someone has slipped a couple of extra files onto your desk, and they include several pieces of long-range telemetry believed to show a group of Titanite mobile suits cutting their reactors after a gravity assist, causing the existing system to flag them as asteroids.
Whipporwhil seems confused at where Security got the footage, before you stage-whisper "telescope accident" to her. After a couple follow-up questions, you eventually see the light of understanding dawn, and she immediately begins scribbling down what looks like a deployment pattern for civilian telescopes, set up to optimise the time the array would be observing an orbiting body in the same system. When you point out that this kind of thing is frowned upon by the Union, she labels the sun in her diagram "Not Sol", winks at you, and goes back to the equations.
Thankfully, you don't need to remind her that it's her turn to speak, as the moment that Security's presenters leave the centre stage, she points a finger at the main projectors and the holograms switch to a real-time display of the 3rd Flotilla. Her first priority, she declares, is building up back to Quaoar's full complement of ships under Union policy - the fact that Quaoar has never actually been at full capacity before doesn't seem relevant to her. That means two new destroyers and eight corvettes - not unreasonable, given the yard capacity of the Reaches, but you do a double take when she says she wants the ships all built at Quaoar's local yards.
Hoang stares at her like she's grown a second head when she offhandedly mentions that it should be "straightforward" to refit the yards to be able to lay down destroyer hulls, and de la Fuente seems locked between horror and fascination as she passes around her proposal for expanding Juvit's berths into full sized atmodocks. Fascination seems to win out, though, as while she abstains from the proposal at present, she requests the designs to be forwarded to QPIC for a more formal safety review. The motion is defeated, in favour of building a pair of corvettes in the existing facilities, but Whipporwhil doesn't seem all that discouraged.
Last - and perhaps most contentiously - the vote returns back to the question of mobile suit development. Your aides have conveniently assembled a dossier of promising prospects, but they're all just that - prospects. As predicted, Otgonbayar seizes on them to wax lyrical about the value of Quaoarian ingenuity - though you can't help but wince as he fumbles some of the terminology.
Hoang is the bitterest opponent, asking after costs and production capabilities at every turn, despite all of you knowing that these early stage proposals have neither. She manages to bring Whipporwhil on side by pointing out the inherent delay of building something from first principles that's already rolling out of Jovian factories, while de la Fuente is sceptical of the process's ability to produce useful results, especially with the economy already under strain. Hargreaves seems to take the opportunity to get into a political debate with Otgonbayar, countering Nationalist talking points with Unionist ones as if on the campaign trail rather than in the Consulate's chambers - the multi-minute comms delay makes it seem almost comical, especially how Otgonbayar visibly deflates each time he realises he needs to wait not only for Hargreaves' response, but also his reactions.
In the end, the questions come down to two things: your ability to deliver a prototype in a reasonable time frame (in particular, by comparison to getting suits through the Union's logistics office), and the potential that such work might distract from addressing other ongoing issues. As the voices die down, but before Thomas calls the vote, everyone turns to you to speak - after all, it's your department.
You have 8 Influence.
The Consulate is voting on office priorities. Quaoar is not an autocracy, and while the Chair often makes recommendations, their only formal role is to break ties in the wider Consulate. The Consulate broadly supports you beginning work on mobile suit production infrastructure, with the main challenge being in the particulars - you have recommended producing a Quaoar-made reactor from scratch. The opposition vote is to acquire Union standard mobile suits from Jupiter.
Current Consulate support:
Strong Support: Hypatia Khwarizmi (CoR), Tadgh Kaspichan (HoS), Jean-Noel Otgonbayar (DV), Bohumil Thomas (Chair/tiebreaker) Likely Abstention: Jenivive Filo Kızılırmak (CoJ) [10|70|20] Likely Opposition: Ali Hargreaves (HoO) [0|40|60], Hanifa de la Fuente (CEQ) [10|30|60], Anastasya Whipporwhil (FR) [20|20|60] Strong Opposition: Xuan Marta Hoang (HoA)
Members of the Consulate who are not committed to an option have their odds of each option given in brackets. The first number is their chance of voting for your proposal, the second is their odds of abstention, and the third is their chance of voting for the opposition proposal. A die is rolled for each non-committed Consul to give the final result.
How do you plan on currying support?
[ ] [HoO] Persuade Hargreaves that his work in the Saturn negotiations would be reinforced by a new Quaoarian technological triumph. (DC 60 Diplomacy check; -1 Influence on failure) [ ] [HoO] Bargain for Hargreaves' support by committing to issue a report on his proposed joint research initiative with Pluto and Haumea this turn.
[ ] [HoO] Bargain for Hargreaves' support by committing to resuming TrueGrav exports within two turns.
[ ] [HoO] Don't bargain with Hargreaves.
[ ] [CEQ] Persuade de la Fuente that Jovian mobile suit imports might threaten local stable suit manufacturers. (DC 30 Stewardship check; -1 Influence on failure) [ ] [CEQ] Bargain for de la Fuente's support by committing to issue a report on the TrueGrav breach this turn.
[ ] [CEQ] Bargain for de la Fuente's support by committing to release a mid-throughput space elevator design within two turns.
[ ] [CEQ] Bargain for de la Fuente's support by promising QPIC production rights to any reactor prototype.
[ ] [CEQ] Don't bargain with de la Fuente.
[ ] [FR] Persuade Whipporwhil that developing a reactor will not significantly delay doctrine development when compared to acquiring Union models. (DC 50 Martial check; -1 Influence on failure) [ ] [FR] Bargain for Whipporwhil's support by committing the Belogradchik to observe and report on maneuvers this turn.
[ ] [FR] Bargain for Whipporwhil's support by committing to issue a report on potential Kilauea refits this turn.
[ ] [FR] Don't bargain with Whipporwhil.
[X]Plan: Professional Courtesy
-[X] Hypatia. One Consul to another. (When in doubt, mimic.)
-[X] [HoO] Don't bargain with Hargreaves.
-[X] [CEQ] Persuade de la Fuente that Jovian mobile suit imports might threaten local stable suit manufacturers. (DC 30 Stewardship check; -1 Influence on failure)
-[X] [FR] Bargain for Whipporwhil's support by committing to issue a report on potential Kilauea refits this turn.
Your headquarters is only a short ride from the Consulate chamber. The Governmental Research Office is a squat complex of multiple branching towers, linking six suspended glass ellipsoids; the sides and panes decorated to make it resemble a giant silver bonsai looming over Chuong Memorial Promenade. Originally built as an exhibition hall and luxury hotel when Toypurina was still Kunwarland, it was spared the worst of the Long Sunday fighting and briefly served as the provisional government's seat while the Consulate and House campus was under construction.
Your own office sits at the east end of the tallest bubble; as you enter, you are greeted by a panoramic view of Toypurina below and the stars above. You'd seen it before, in the background of a video call with your predecessors; before that, as a child watching science videos hosted by a misty-eyed man with a kind voice and strange jokes. The idea that the office is yours now still seems alien, and for a moment, you stand dumbly in the doorway, staring at the heavy desk in the room's centre.
You shake your head and kick off the floor, coasting across the office to land on the far side of the desk. It's a solid, boxy thing, though you could probably lift it effortlessly in Quaoar's meagre gravity. A small bronze plaque identifies it as authentic Earth pine - like as not, it had come with the original colonists. You tap the surface, and a large display slides up from the surface, then two smaller ones unfold from its back. A quick fingerprint scan, and the computer swings fully to life - presenting you with a full view of the mess that is your official inbox.
You pull out your chair, but before you sit down, you notice a smooth black box on the seat. A small, handwritten note is stuck to the bottom - "good luck, skipper", and a mess of tiny signatures of crew and maintenance staff. You pry the box open; inside is a fist-sized model Palomar, painted in Belogradchik's civilian colours. Behind the clear resin observation dome, the bridge is a bustle of miniature activity; a tiny Beltane and Karpiel are playing cards, while MacNeill strikes an old dance pose, microphone in hand, and Pruthi is disassembling one of the terminals. In the centre, a miniature version of you sits in the captain's chair, head in her hands.
You shake your head, blink back a stray tear, and set the model on top of your desk, just a little off to the left. You lean back in your chair, and suddenly feel watched.
On the far wall, above the door, hang portraits of your predecessors - not photographs, but paintings, all by strikingly different artists. Kriemhilding's friendly but austere smile is unmistakable, the only curve in the vivid neo-Cubist portrait that blends his dark skin with the night sky, his nose with Ti'at, and his eyes with Weywot and the distant shape of Sol. To his left stands a full-body classical portrait of Coumbassa, clad in an ornate silk robe and carrying a blazing astrolabe-lantern through a foggy landscape, indistinct figures following behind her. They were the only two you'd ever known in the office. The third painting is a three-coloured landscape depicting two women drifting in a nebula, both in old-style space suits, their faces concealed; the fourth and leftmost, styled after a woodcut print, shows a bright-eyed man holding open his chest like a door, revealing the organs and augmetics within.
The last hangs above the other four. An ink-spatter portrait of a smiling man with smeared eyes and the Research Office building growing from his cupped hands, it is angled slightly differently, as if looking down to meet your eyes as you stare up from the desk. Pulsing light bleeds through faint tears in the canvas, forming a distant starfield behind the man's face. Dario Ngunaitponi's misty eyes are inscrutable and piercing, even as specks of ink, and some part of you rebels at sitting in his seat - but it's your seat now, too, and it would be doing him a greater disservice to leave it empty.
Time to get to work.
Locked Actions: [x] Analyse potential modifications of the Union Kilauea-class destroyer into a mobile suit carrier. (2 Resources, 8 Workforce)
You have 4/5 Official Actions + 1 Bonus Administrative Action Available
Belogradchik, converted Palomar-class corvette: Attach to [Orbital] or [Deep Space] missions for 2 Resources.
Occupied Assets: None
Grant Proposals
Your intent to develop a native Quaoarian mobile suit reactor drew the most attention from the Institutes, and a curated list of proposals sits at the top of your inbox, along with notes from your new subordinates.
[ ] Deneb Veight wants to miniaturise a Penning-Mayuga plant. (14 Resources)
Penning-Mayuga annihilation plants are the gold standard of power production - or more properly, of time shifting, storing excess power from nuclear reactors or solar panels as antiprotons and releasing them at a controlled rate into a specialised reactor chamber as needed. With a mass-efficient way to deliver Mercury's vast surplus of solar energy across the solar system, Penning-Mayuga reactors have long been standard for spacecraft, and a firm majority of the ones in the Quaoar Sphere are produced by Deneb Veight. An MPEC standard terawatt-hour cell is efficient, controlled, and safe; the Deneb Veight prototype will be none of these things, but it will fit in a mobile suit.
Rennet-Dawson: It's unlikely the Titanites even tried this solution - they wouldn't have been able to secure enough antimatter without the Union noticing, either through MPEC or a sudden drop in their industrial output. For Jupiter... they could probably do it, but I'm not sure why they would, unless MPEC was giving them a hell of a deal under the table.
Crataegus: The least surprising proposal; though as Deneb Veight's marketing says, "they call us predictable because they know we're reliable". No surprise that they'd want us in bed with MPEC, either. Expect your co-consul Hawthorne to weigh in on this one if it sits in your box too long; Pomelo Veight doesn't own the SPQR but they're certainly willing to rent them.
[ ] Solaris-Yatate wants to modernise a monophase fusion plant. (17 Resources)
Monocycle fusion relies only on hydrogen and helium-3, both abundantly available from the gas giants. Originally widespread due to their lack of dangerous neutron emissions, monocycle plants were gradually phased out in favour of larger multicycle reactors that can utilise those same neutrons. Of course, those are built as massive complexes; even fitting one onto a battleship hull would be an exercise in creative engineering, let alone a mobile suit.
Rennet-Dawson: This is almost certainly what the Titanites and Jovians did. Titan's infrastructure is old enough to have access to plenty of monocycle reactors, and they had plenty of time to experiment on scaling them down. Likewise, helium-3 is cheap on Jupiter, and they certainly have the knowledge and skills to turn out a monophase design quickly. Solaris-Yatate's proposal is... perhaps a bit too ambitious, going beyond repurposing old tech into a purpose-built design with some very bold claims about its potential output. It's on the edge of believable - but not completely impossible.
Crataegus: Expensive for monophase. SY likes to make bold claims with big price tags, and while they usually deliver, there's no need to bet on them at this stage - if you want a fusion plant, it'd be just as easy to build a prototype in-house and then farm it out to them or the rest of the fusion jockeys for production.
[ ] Cocytus Salvage Works wants to repurpose a fission plant. (11 Resources)
While modern fission plants are as safe as any other form of power generation, the use of fissile weapons in the last stages of the Colonial War have revived old fears. Even the Reaches aren't free of them. But the reactors are cheaper to build and easier to compress than fusion counterparts - though burdened by heavy radiation shielding, relatively massive fuel, and the ever-looming question of their dangerous byproducts. Fission plants are generally limited to construction near large deposits of fissile material on rocky bodies, with the Union having phased them out in most other use cases. Cocytus has one of the few remaining dedicated fission research teams in the Reaches - as well as large reserves of nuclear material to fuel their proposed design.
Rennet-Dawson: I'm surprised this is a serious proposal; there's a reason we stopped using fission plants on spacecraft. I shouldn't need to lecture a salvage company on the dangers of high-actinide Kessler events. Then there's the mass economy; fuel and byproducts are heavier than fusion or annihilation, on top of the weight from shielding. I can't see this being a good idea.
Crataegus: The professor's spherian side is showing. Cocytus worked Charon, they know the risks better than we do. Hell, Charon salvage is probably half the materials they want to feed into this project. Still, fissiles are tight this far out - whatever we save in the short term will cost us in the long run, and that's saying nothing of how the spherians will take it. The last thing we need is to hand out a pretext for another Jovian intervention.
[ ] HIEDS wants to develop an experimental wake particle condenser. (12 Resources)
HIEDS has long been a proponent of increased energy independence, if only due to their history with MPEC and the Mercury Sphere; however, the company has struggled to compete at large scale against the energy density of Jovian helium-3 or Mercurian antimatter. When most people think HIEDS, they think of solar stations and fuel cells - vital by any measure, but more suited for civilian infrastructure. Still, they reinvest their profits heavily into fundamental research, making them the second-largest Institute in the energy sector despite their limitations. The proposal is... light on details, referencing a number of ongoing HIEDS internal projects, but...
Obscurantism: Hypatia Learning or Intrigue vs. HIEDS Intrigue
1d100+24 = 97 vs ???
Success
You've worked with HIEDS before - including experiments in deep space with impulse drives. Some of the names on the grant application worked with you on redirecting or trapping wake particles in busy spacelanes or in docking bays, though you'd believed that the project ended with simply improving shielding, rather than attempting to harness the particles as they seem to be proposing here. They seem reasonably confident in the ability to compress the particles into a long-lived, if not stable, form that might be viable for energy storage - but it's also clear that the work is still largely theoretical, and will require a lengthy experimentation process.
Rennet-Dawson: I'll admit, this is a bit beyond me - I've studied the basics of wake effect theory, of course, but beyond the broad strokes, it's a specialty among specialties even at- even on Galatea.
Crataegus: Don't let the price tag fool you - this won't get close to production without a lot more effort on our and their parts. If we're lucky, it will be proof-of-concept work; it could be groundbreaking, or it could be a desperate play from HIEDS to get their name on the project quickly.
Objective: Next-Generation Black Box
"Black boxing" refers to any system designed to prevent tampering or reverse-engineering of a proprietary system. Popularised by Earth's colonial companies, officially to prevent damage, sabotage, and malfunction, early black boxes were heavily criticised in the leadup to the Colonial War as another way of enforcing Earth's control. The technology was appropriated by the Union during Reorganisation, and distributed to the governments of each member colony to secure their own exports.
[ ] Analysis: Acquire Neptunian black boxes from the Galatean refugees and compare them to Quaoar's methods. (5 Resources, 8 Workforce) [ ] Analysis: Thoroughly review current black boxing technology, production lines, and security protocols. (3 Resources, 6 Workforce) [ ] Experiment: Authorise aggressive penetration testing on a factory spec TrueGrav unit... (6 Resources, 5 Workforce) -[ ] ...on Quaoar, at the primary black box repository. (No additional cost, but most likely to draw public scrutiny.) -[ ] ...on Quaoar, at a secure site your office controls outside Toypurina. (2 Workforce) -[ ] ...on Ti'at Colony, at a secure site operated by the Fleet. (2 Resources) -[ ] ...in deep space, on your ship. (Must deploy Belogradchik) -[ ] ...in deep space, at a secure site operated by Nock and Krauser. (1 Influence) [ ] Experiment: Perform simulated maneuvers to try and recreate the Titanite trajectories. (7 Resources, 6 Workforce) [Orbital] [ ] Development: Harden existing black box technology currently in production. (9 Resources, 3 Workforce) -[ ] Coordination: 2 Resources, 2 Workforce to automatically integrate results of other Analysis/Experiment actions this turn.
Objective: Mobile Suit Production
The current bottleneck in any mobile suit doctrine is access to even basic test models. Quaoar has no shortage of stable suits, but as long as they remain tethered to large stations, only so much can be done to simulate the usage conditions of a true mobile suit - and without the final size and configuration of your reactor, there's not much that can be done to prepare a model for conversion. A conversion to operate on battery power would be straightforward, but even your most generous estimates give an operational time measured in minutes.
[ ] Analysis: Select a paradigm and create an initial design for an in-house reactor prototype. (2 Resources, 9 Workforce) [ ] Experiment: Test existing stable suit equipment for military applications. (6 Resources, 4 Workforce) [ ] Experiment: Test current generation neurohaptic interfaces under simulated battle conditions. [ ] Development: Convert a stable suit frame to a testbed "barely-mobile" suit running on battery power. (9 Resources, 2 Workforce)
Objective: Naval Modernisation
This is mostly Whipporwhil's job, but some of it falls on your office - especially the more theoretical exercises. Quaoar isn't due for a cruiser from the Union at any point in this geological epoch, but the Fleet doesn't like the outcome that Saturn's destroyers and corvettes saw over Titan, and is putting all its weight behind modernisation efforts, even if they depart from Union orthodox doctrine - whatever that ends up being after the dust from Titan settles.
[x] Analysis: Evaluate the conversion of a Kilauea-class destroyer into a mobile suit carrier. (2 Resources, 8 Workforce) [REQUIRED] [ ] Analysis: Develop a doctrine for a Palomar to deal with mobile suit attacks. (1 Resources, 7 Workforce) [Orbital]
Administration
The running the government is Hoang's job, but running your office still falls on you. With the House apparently coming to take a look at your budget,
[ ] Prepare for the House's budget review. -[ ] Immediately. (5 Workforce) -[ ] Gradually. (3 Workforce occupied for the next three turns; only requires an action this turn) [ ] Issue research bonds. (Gain 5 Resources per 1 Influence spent.) [ ] Perform contract work. (Gain 1 Resources per 2 Workforce occupied.) [ ] Host an exposition. (Gain 1 Influence for 7 Resources.) [ ] Attempt to recruit more research staff. (Spend 1 Influence to potentially increase Workforce.) [ ] Attempt to recruit more administrative staff. (Spend 1 Influence to potentially increase Official Action count.)
You have 2 Personal Actions [ ] Assist in an official action. (This will add your personal characteristics to any relevant rolls for that action, and give more involved votes about its progress.) -[ ] Write-in official action. [ ] Get to know a subordinate. -[ ] Ishak Rennet-Dawson, the Galatean professor. -[ ] Niall Crataegus, the veteran administrator. -[ ] Xiaoyun Karpiel, your replacement as Belogradchik's captain. [ ] Work on your personal skills and knowledge. -[ ] Obtain a stable suit operator certification. -[ ] Study power generation and distribution systems. -[ ] Study neurohaptic interfaces and other types of brain-computer integration. -[ ] Cultivate a different skill. (Write-in activity or topic to try and cultivate into a skill bonus.) -[ ] Develop an existing skill. (Choose 1 from character sheet's Skills tab. Higher ranks are progressively harder to raise.) [ ] Perform research into a personal interest (deep space esoterica, orbital research, Adaptives). -[ ] Study Quaoar's most famous unsolved mystery - its rings. Maybe you'll see something that the Institutes have missed - probably not, but it's tradition. -[ ] Veight's Folly is technically under your jurisdiction; check in on the outer heliosphere and the Terminus probes. -[ ] Compile your notes and journals from your work on Belogradchik. It might sell, or prompt more interest in dedicated research ships. -[ ] You feel something strange at the edge of your mind - and there is only one response when a scientist is confronted with the unknown. Study yourself, and see where it leads.
So begins Belogradchik's first mission under my command. The Director – and calling her that is almost as strange as hearing Beltane call me "Captain" – saw us off from mission control on Toypurina; she couldn't fit on a the shuttle that deposited a team of navigational engineers and every imaginable model of computer in Belo's cargo hold. What little space is not occupied by computers is filled with extra supplies, in case the testing runs longer than expected.
We are joined on this voyage by a large cohort of engineers from QPIC, and several observers from Institutes "with pertinent interests" – though it's clear the QPIC team didn't want them here. My main contact with the QPIC team is Dr. Rochelle bint Hasan, a former acquaintance of Chief Maxwell's; there is clearly no love lost between the two, but both have assured me that their disputes are strictly personal, and will not meaningfully impact their mission.
Fortunately, the bickering seems to have equally frustrated the crew and the QPIC contingent, who have built some genuine camaraderie out of one of oldest Navy traditions – grumbling about the officers behind their back.
The test units are a comprehensive collection of QPIC's offerings, with everything from fist-sized fighter computers to a mainframe sized for a damn L'Ouverture – which would more than fill Belo's whole bridge – sit in crates under the watchful eye of our own engineers and an ever-looming Dr. bint Hasan.
MacNeill reports that most of the test units can be integrated into Belo's power and coolant loops in a matter of hours, though any experiments on the larger unit will require rerouting power from the shuttle bay. XO Chaudhary and I agree that we should avoid drastic modifications unless absolutely necessary, and have requested a more thorough report from Engineering before signing off on anything.
A loud beeping sound echoes. An electronic voice rasps "Orbital transfer in five minutes. Care impulse. Captain to the bridge."
Duty calls. End log.
* * *
Navigator's Log; Senayet Pruthi; June 17, 133 NSE
Chief Maxwell and Dr. bint Hasan have been barred from the navigational console.
Karpiel has declined my request to replace my coffee from Chief Maxwell's pay. Please forward attached invoice to QPIC.
[Secretarial Addendum: I am not doing that.]
* * *
Captain's Log; Xiaoyun Karpiel; June 22, 133 NSE
We have entered our target orbit. MacNeill's team has begun integrating the smaller test units; the QPIC team was going a bit stir-crazy, to say nothing of the Institute "observers", half of whom seem to expect a corvette to have the same amenities as a habitat.
I've had Chaudhary lay down the law – any "observers" who want to "observe" my bridge can consider themselves volunteered for whatever MacNeill works out to get that battleship navigator up and running.
* * *
Captain's Log; Xiaoyun Karpiel; June 25, 133 NSE
The representatives from YUN and Axial came up with a proposal for our L'Ouverture-sized problem, with MacNeill's bemused but enthusiastic support. A team from Engineering is going to spacewalk the damn thing over to one of Belo's lateral docking points, and trick the computers into thinking it's the bulkiest strike fighter ever built. We'll still need to do some work in her guts to make it work, but it keeps the improvised hot pipes outside the hull.
Pruthi spent a shift looking over the documentation, and has sworn off working on anything heavier than a Kilauea.
* * *
Captain's Log; Xiaoyun Karpiel; June 28, 133 NSE
We've had our first successful boot of the battleship navigator, though it's not anywhere near running a test load. I doubt our stations have half the sensors this thing's looking for, but QPIC's keeping their hands close to their chest. It's not enough to feed in dummy data – though as Dr. bint Hasan is quick to remind me, if it was, we'd see a lot more RKVs – and half the interface is black-boxed even from MacNeill.
The Axial representative has proposed using one of the cruiser-grade machines to play fake sensor for the L'Ouverture, but MacNeill doesn't like how the power draw would be distributed.
Considering some of MacNeill's conduit crimes when I was XO, when that man says he's worried, I'm terrified.
* * *
Ship's Log; Belogradchik; June 30, 133 NSE
Power irregularity.
Fire detected: primary hold.
Plasma discharge detected: primary hold.
* * *
Notice of Official Reprimand; Ashraf Maxwell; June 30, 133 NSE
Performed unauthorised modifications to power systems of research vessel Belogradchik. Insufficient shielding from primary impeller caused disturbance in auxiliary power line. Wake-induced capacitance overloaded conduit, resulting in plasma discharge, injuring Maxwell and three others, and damaging sensitive research equipment.
* * *
Captain's Log; Xiaoyun Karpiel; June 30, 133 NSE
Maxwell and bint Hasan's petty rivalry found the L'Ouverture navigator the perfect centrepiece, and his zeal for proving his pet theory has cost him a leg. At least nobody's dead – and the QPIC team is confident they can salvage the cruiser nav he was trying to wire up, if they had proper facilities.
Dr. bint Hasan wanted us to turn around and burning back for Quaoar, though it seemed that any repairs were second to getting rid of Maxwell. While Pruthi talked – or shouted, really – her out of it, morale in the QPIC contingent is flagging; most of them aren't blaming the whole of Belo's crew, but Maxwell has few friends on either side of the now-growing rift.
Two junior QPIC engineers were apprehended after painting a cruiser kill marker on the side of the battleship nav. I'm surprised that Belo had the right stencil.
* * *
Personal Log; Xiaoyun Karpiel; June 30, 133 NSE
Children. I am surrounded by children.
* * *
Captain's Log; Xiaoyun Karpiel; July 2, 133 NSE
Planned testing has completed on the corvette-weight systems. The QPIC team seems disappointed with the result – no positively identified vulnerabilities, despite a week of nearly 24/7 testing. Fortunately, the tests have ruled out most of the absolute worst-case scenarios, and while a small team will keep on the corvette navs in case of new insights, it has freed up a chunk of researchers for the larger, trickier boxes.
* * *
Captain's Log; Xiaoyun Karpiel; July 4, 133 NSE
Romão has forwarded me a proposal from a penitent Chief Maxwell. Rather than use the cruiser nav, he proposes a method for networking the corvette grade systems together, controlled from Belo's own navigation suite to imitate the sensor suite on a L'Ouverture.
The actual paper is packed with impenetrably dense navtech jargon. I've forwarded it to Pruthi and Dr. bint Hasan, without mentioning its origin to either.
* * *
Captain's Log; Xiaoyun Karpiel; July 6, 133 NSE
Pruthi has gone through most of her allotment of stimulants, but she's put together a coherent version of Maxwell's plan, and set up Belo's nav to run the program. Hodges and Terbish escorted her to the medbay; Romão has her on bedrest until she finishes flushing the stims out.
* * *
Personal Log; Xiaoyun Karpiel; July 6, 133 NSE
For fuck's sake, Senayet.
* * *
Captain's Log; Xiaoyun Karpiel; July 8, 133 NSE
Connecting the corvette navs together has finally been completed, and we're ready to link up with the L'Ouverture box. I want this thing off the side of my ship.
* * *
Ship's Log; Belogradchik; July 8, 133 NSE
Central navigation error.
Central navigation error.
Central navigation error.
Central navigation error.
CentrCentral navigation error.al navigation error.
Navigation systems compromised.
Central navigation error.
Engaging black box lock: [!] Interrupted: Null system.
* * *
Captain's Log; Xiaoyun Karpiel; July 11, 133 NSE
We have regained access to the auxiliary computers, including the captain's log. Our attempt to connect to the L'Ouverture navigational system caused a cascading failure in Belo's computers, as the nav tried to lock down systems that didn't exist – and in the process, locked down the network infrastructure and several vital systems.
If we were still Fleet, Beltane would be due a commendation. I may still put her up for one.
According to Dr. bint Hasan, the L'Ouverture system had been infected with some kind of viral program, engineered specifically to target QPIC infrastructure – or rather, a very specific set of it.
Her analysis suggests that the program was built to target a vulnerability in the internal sensors of cruiser-weight ships and above, and while Maxwell and Pruthi's emulated battleship was acting correctly, it wasn't acting accurately – Pruthi's work was too thorough, replicating the actual specs and not including a subtle flaw in the cruiser-weight nav that would have allowed the virus to insert itself as an extra "layer" of black-boxing. Without that flaw, the system got stuck in some kind of verification loop, and then the black boxes started locking.
The exploit used by the virus doesn't give it the sort of access that would be needed to make a KKV, but it's given us a way in: and somewhere to look.
If we can find what that virus was trying to hide, we can find our flaw.
...as soon as we get the nav working again. Pruthi's substitute is a competent officer, but is clearly out of his depth.
* * *
Navigator's Log; Senayet Pruthi; July 11, 133 NSE
Give me my fucking stims, Xiaoyun.
* * *
Chief Medical Officer's Log; Rhisiart Romão; July 11, 133 NSE
I have scheduled another assembly to remind the crew that medical supplements are intended for emergency use only.
In the background, a woman's voice can be heard shouting "narc".
* * *
Captain's Log; Xiaoyun Karpiel; July 15, 133 NSE
We have finished detaching the corvette navs from the impromptu network, and have begun a complete reboot of Belo's own nav. With the systems once more isolated, and analysis on the virus well underway, the QPIC team is confident that they will have actionable results to integrate into any final patch after our return to Quaoar.
No meaningfully large program can ever be said to be fully free of bugs, but at the very least, the QPIC navigation suite will be a bit more robust; both in terms of security, and response to esoteric failure scenarios.
I doubt that any real scenario would ever see the measurements that kicked off the cascading failure of our network. Though if someone ever does fly a Palomar through the gap between a highly energetic pulsar and a black hole, now their nav will last as long as the rest of the ship.
Now it's a matter of cleaning up the last few tests, and keeping as tight a lid on these papers until the team back home can push out a fix.
* * *
Captain's Log; Xiaoyun Karpiel; July 20, 133 NSE
I'd thought we were done with excitement.
A member of the Axial team has suffered a severe stroke; while she paged Medical, she was dead by the time Romão arrived. He's still finalising his autopsy, but all evidence points to a faulty peristaltic implant. The poor woman's six years younger than me.
I wouldn't trade the stars for anything, but sometimes I wonder if we shouldn't have left Earth.
* * *
Captain's Log; Xiaoyun Karpiel; July 20, 133 NSE
RECORD EXPUNGED
* * *
Captain's Log; Xiaoyun Karpiel; July 20, 133 NSE
Romão has completed his autopsy. The implant's failure was due to the researcher's overuse of stimulants, facilitated by the use of non-regulation equipment to bypass the ship's medical systems.
Romão's delivery of his report was punctuated with somewhat unsubtle glares at Pruthi, who remains unrepentant and on bed rest.
* * *
Code:
TO: Hypatia Khwarizmi [research@quaoar.ntb.gov]
FROM: Tadgh Kaspichan [security@quaoar.ntb.gov]
As part of an ongoing investigation, we found compelling evidence that Dr.
Ruiha Burkhalter of Axial Labs PIQ was an asset of the National Reform
Sandinista League of Terra Meridiani.
Our asset aboard Belogradchik had been intended only to observe, but
discovered Burkhalter illegitimately accessing the ship's transmission system,
likely to forward the results of your analysis. She attempted to activate a
suicide device, but was successfully resuscitated by my operatives and is now
in our custody.
A search of Burkhalter's effects revealed a number of single-use data sticks,
containing copies of the virus which infected Belogradchik's computers. We
believe the intended function of the virus was to introduce false
vulnerabilities to the cruiser-class system and confound your analysis, but an
independent review of the virus by Research would be welcome.
Burkhalter herself is contained, and her backers are as much your concern as
they are Martian.
[X] HIEDS wants to develop an experimental wake particle condenser.
The Toypurina headquarters of Hermes Integrated Energy, PCCS, could easily be a museum. Under Osmanoğlu, it nearly was, as she sought to buy the building and convert it to a more official monument to the rise and fall of Earth's colonial ambitions; in the end, she settled for the spaceport and surrounding infrastructure, and HIEDS paid her for the privilege.
Built to be as much an exhibit as an office building under the exacting eyes of AGH's "showcase engineers", the entire structure is patterned after a Penning trap, with the entrance hall taking the place of the safety locks. Instead of bolt threading, the golden ring around you is marked with an ornate depiction of the history of antimatter, with a disproportionate emphasis on HIE's role - though HIE's corporate leadership have been scoured from the engravings, and only the acid stains and the smiling face of Mayuga at the very top remain.
Glass-lined hallways wind through the building; before the Union, these would be where visiting dignitaries would be escorted to view "Quaoar's great minds at work"; perhaps at first they were, but as Kunwarismo started to rot from the top, the HIEDS Hall of Antimatter was mostly staffed by students taking petty wages to sit behind faux-wooden desks and act professorial, while all the real work was done with more privacy and less restrictive policies on visible stimulant use.
Today, those exhibition halls are still meant for "public outreach", serving as conference halls and sites for public demonstrations - or school trips, likely the reason you pass a the gaggle of children and their teacher, who hastily points you out to a chorus of... well, mostly children continuing to talk about everything but what their teacher wants them to. You smile and wave and continue down the glass halls towards the one hall with its blinds drawn and a small line of security staff outside.
Coffee-stained but surprisingly comfortable vinyl armchairs circle a ring of faux-marble tables, themselves surrounding a raised dais and a holographic display. The rest of the invitees are already assembled, and the HIEDS team are huddled at the centre of the room, whispering to each other just softly enough that you can't make them out. As more eyes swivel to track you across the room, you snatch a pair of scones from a passing tray, and find your seat at an empty table. The first speaker steps up a few seconds after you sit down, and as the lights darken, words and images take shape in the air over her head.
Keeping up with the presentation: Hypatia Learning, Breakpoints 20/50/80
1d100+24 = 47
Bare Success
To put it kindly, the presentation has some rough edges. The project lead - a scruffy woman who looks barely past thirty - trails off at several points in her introduction, needing a loud cough from one of the other team members to push her back on track. It's clear that many sections are taken almost verbatim from internal memos, and assume much more familiarity with the project's history and the details of impulse theory than you and your team can boast.
As the presentation moves to the underlying theory, the woman's face lights up and she leaps into an excruciating dive into theories of space-time structure that you only half remember from grad school. You're a scientist, but you're a captain first, and your understanding of impulse theory and wake fields is fundamentally rooted in the idea of making ships move. You can piece together what "intra-field interaction" means, but the presenters go through their equations far too quickly for you to make any detailed sense of them; and while you know intellectually that nothing HIEDS is doing is anywhere close to being at naval scale, you can't decouple their figures for field density from the echo of nav-hazard klaxons.
The theory discussion winds down with their experimental figures for the test unit. In terms of power output, it's... unremarkable. Nothing comes close to antimatter for power density, but for a prototype, it's surprisingly competitive with hot-fuel fusion cells without the need for conduits - which would be enough to pursue it in of itself, except that the alternative is bringing high-density wake particles on board your ships. A wake shield breach in the wrong place is already a mission-kill; from the deer-in-headlights look of the presenters when you ask about the effects of a shipboard condenser failure, plasma breaches might be the devil you know.
Reading between the lines: Hypatia Intrigue vs. HIEDS Diplomacy
1d100+8 = 105 vs ???
Success
Then they get to the implementation of the test unit, and you're both glad that you can follow along with the presenter, and concerned about the status of the project. The sometimes disjointed nature of the theoretical presentation is given new context with the discussion of the early prototypes - three speakers for three different models, emphasising different strengths and weaknesses. The disjointed theory is in part because they're trying to stitch together three different experiments as part of a single project; did the original team have a schism, or was the proposal consolidated from different internal efforts?
You suspect the latter, if only because of the haphazard stitching of the theoretical work. It's clear that they've each individually observed usable data, and developed a theoretical model for it, but fitting the models together is significantly more problematic. That's not really your office's concern, as much as finally unifying impulse theory would be a grand feather in your cap, but when those theoretical lines start blurring over into practice, you might need a sterner hand on the tiller.
The one light in the darkness is when the engineering representative steps up. A lot of the difficulties in the implementation, if he's to be believed, were from the original project's attempts to fit condensers to the existing power infrastructure of the Flechette. Expanding to a larger system - unspoken but clearly, a system that would be designed for their condenser, with their input - would eliminate much of the reliance on exotic materials that hamstrung their first prototypes. With the new specs, they've moved past bespoke test units to the production of eleven early production models. This run incorporates parts of each of the proposed models, and is put together surprisingly smoothly; the metaphorical fault lines of the early prototypes are still present, but thankfully don't translate to physical faults that would jeopardise operations.
Assessing a prototype: Hypatia Stewardship, breakpoints 20/40/70
Personal Stewardship: 1d100+10 = 43
Success
The prototypes aren't perfect. They're not cheap, either, and you're sure that HIEDS will leave your office holding as much of that bill as you can. They didn't push the envelope; they probably couldn't even agree on what envelope to push, as a prediction from one of their disparate models might translate into a nasty corner case for the others. There's plenty of space to build on it, both literally and metaphorically, and you expect to see multiple proposals to do so before the prototypes even leave the building.
The prototypes aren't perfect, but they're not supposed to be. They're not perfect, but they're yours.
Assigned To: Hermes Integrated Energy Deep Space, Quaoar Planetary Infrastructure Commission
Theory Status: Speculative (★☆☆☆☆) Design Status: Highly Experimental (★☆☆☆☆) Production Status: Limited Run Prototype (★★☆☆☆)
Advantages:
Wake Utilisation (Intrinsic): Particles can be harvested and condensed from any properly equipped spaceport, and once that infrastructure exists, fuel will be gradually supplied as a byproduct of normal civilian traffic. Once that infrastructure exists.
Local Materials: While the original strike craft version of the WCE relied on a few imported alloys, the prototype Mobile Suit version can be sourced entirely from Quaoar and its claims in the Kuiper Belt.
Flaws:
Exotic Fuel (Intrinsic): Cold fuel and antimatter are available - if not always cheap - at any boathouse in the Union; wake particle capture and refinement is exotic even on Quaoar. Fuel supply will be dramatically limited until major stations and colonies are refit with compressors; fuel supply nonexistent beyond Quaoar's logistical reach.
Magazine Detonations for the New Epoch: The only reason that captains don't have nightmares about the phrase "uncontrolled wake excitation from inside the hull" is because of the long list of what would have to go wrong for that to happen - a list that just got substantially shorter. Mobile suit carriers will need to be redesigned to incorporate safe storage and transport of spare condensers - and even with that, it won't be great for morale.
Non-Standard Connectors: This component is not compatible with universal interconnect standards, and platforms need to be built to incorporate it from the early design phase.
When you were just one of a number of persons of tertiary interest, you might have slipped out of the hall the back way, but now you'll be expected to stay for the public-facing part of the event. You shake a great deal of hands and agree to a great deal of nothing as it seems HIEDS parades all of their senior staff in front of you, until lunch is finally served and your sandwich wrap provides a socially acceptable conversation deterrent.
Of course, as HIEDS makes a show of your presence, that inevitably will invite people you need to talk with in more detail...
During the reception, you end up in conversation with...
[ ] A senior representative from Liberty-Opportunity-Autonomy.
[ ] Pomelo Veight, chair of Deneb-Veight and wearer of many other hats.
[ ] The director of the NTCOO, de facto ambassador of Pluto.
[ ] Rajesh Kreimhilding, your predecessor, now retired.
[ ] An elderly man in a faded dress uniform you can't quite recognise.
* * *
So here's our first technology. Research projects will produce technologies with various advantages and flaws. Intrinsic traits are essential to the system and can't be removed; further research or more practical experience from deployments can mitigate flaws or strengthen advantages as institutional knowledge improves. I'll probably do a separate Informational post on how I'm handling technologies as discrete conceptual Things; the big takeaway is that lower star ratings are more likely to malfunction and cause incidents, but higher stars mean that the technology is more developed and less your business.
