The Grand Solar Rush - Asteroid colony management quest
- Thread starter Karf
- Start date
- Original Sci-Fi
@Karf can we take the same action twice, using the grant?
[X] Plan: Luxury Homes
-[x] Prismdust project
--[x] Allow
-[x] The matter of sentience
--[x] Authorize self-modification
-[x] Diplomacy
--[x] Hospital concessions
-[x] Security
--[x] Ships
---[x][x] Combat + Combat(grant)
-[x] Engineering
--[x] Living space improvements
---[x] Luxury living space + More living space
-[x] Internal Affairs
--[x] Base information
---[x] Schooling expansion
-[x] Research
--[x] Solar wind capture
Combat ship(s) as prep for the pirates.
Allow the Prismdust EU project, and build a hospital for EU concessions.
Hopefully, our now "friendlier" diplomatic relations with the EU can counteract the potential threat of simply having combat ships (IIRC no one else has them locally).
A Hospital, Navy, Education, and (researching) a self-sufficient Water-supply; all highly desirable traits for a frontier colony.
Luxury living spaces could be sold/rented for a hefty profit.
[X] Plan: Luxury Homes
-[x] Prismdust project
--[x] Allow
-[x] The matter of sentience
--[x] Authorize self-modification
-[x] Diplomacy
--[x] Hospital concessions
-[x] Security
--[x] Ships
---[x][x] Combat + Combat(grant)
-[x] Engineering
--[x] Living space improvements
---[x] Luxury living space + More living space
-[x] Internal Affairs
--[x] Base information
---[x] Schooling expansion
-[x] Research
--[x] Solar wind capture
Combat ship(s) as prep for the pirates.
Allow the Prismdust EU project, and build a hospital for EU concessions.
Hopefully, our now "friendlier" diplomatic relations with the EU can counteract the potential threat of simply having combat ships (IIRC no one else has them locally).
A Hospital, Navy, Education, and (researching) a self-sufficient Water-supply; all highly desirable traits for a frontier colony.
Luxury living spaces could be sold/rented for a hefty profit.
Just want to let people know that I just realized I forgot the personal action and so added this one to my plan
-[O] Personal action
--[O] Make time to talk to the people and hear their biggest issues and complaints
Logic being We still have a lot of quality of life improvements to make so hearing what people want the most will help us prioritize and may tell us about issues that have so far passed under the radar.
The bad news is as the tensions between the US and EU continue to rise it seems there is a bigger chance we will be forced to get involved eventually. The Good news is there seems to be a rising neutral faction we could possibly ally with in with Luna, although Amanda may object if they do not start cracking down on corruption.
-[O] Personal action
--[O] Make time to talk to the people and hear their biggest issues and complaints
Logic being We still have a lot of quality of life improvements to make so hearing what people want the most will help us prioritize and may tell us about issues that have so far passed under the radar.
Also rereading the update the rumor mill is very interesting. The US and the EU continue to rush headlong into a cold war while China sees its flagship colony in its unique focus on the Old Belt suffer a catastrophic failure. Overall a very bad year for Earth. Even more interestingly it seems that both Lunar and Spacer factions are jumping on this to gain further independence from Earth while Mars seems to see a rise in anti- earth groups, or just Mars first groups, hard to tell from the report.
The bad news is as the tensions between the US and EU continue to rise it seems there is a bigger chance we will be forced to get involved eventually. The Good news is there seems to be a rising neutral faction we could possibly ally with in with Luna, although Amanda may object if they do not start cracking down on corruption.
- Location
- St. Petersburg
I largely agree with the reasoning for Inward Focus, with the exception that we should be taking Nanite research because signs point to it being pretty urgent, and it is not a guaranteed thing besides. Waiting a turn to see just how urgent it is strikes me as risky given how much time has already passed.
Turn 12.1 - 2181 - The Dome
Winner said:
(Roll, oversee the supply of Prismdust, required 30: 58)
Excelsior is certainly being put through her paces. As soon as the engineers of your first embassy are retrieved from New Ireland and the vessel is loaded with the next food shipment, they're off again, this time forwards in orbit, and with the addition of your diplomat and spymaster. Ostensibly, the two are there to be given a tour of the facilities, to help with the set up of the offices and to verify that the reactor casing project is proceeding as planned. On the more subtle note, they're to find out if there are areas on the base they're not welcome in, to gauge the facilities' output of energy, radiation, or anything else the wide array of sensors you intend to install can pick up, and peek at the EU ship schematics for intel and inspiration.
The first report back is a recording of the tour. The asteroid that the base is attached to is negligibly small, with effectively no gravity and uncontrolled spin, no one would ever have colonized it, were it not for the fact that basically the whole thing is a clump of uranium rich ore. The ambient radiation on the surface is bad enough to trip the more sensitive Geiger counters on the space suits, and the structures rest on plates of lead and water tanks to reduce health concerns.
True to form, the only mining operation on the asteroid is a single borehole with a simple drill robot scooping the uranite into a series of grinders, the resulting yellowcake is smelted and the gas is processed. You note that there are no massive centrifuge halls, and that this part of the process was likely the original goal of the facility. You're shown both laser based and magnetic enrichment, but it's clearly the bottleneck of production, even with two different methods employed. Both also account for significant power draws, laying to rest your fears over hidden plants. Beyond that, most of the base is just the familiar modular constructs of living space, work areas and storage units you yourself started out with. The rest of the energy consumption is accounted for by server banks that run simulations or parse data from the enrichment pipeline.
The sensor suite in your office, which has jokingly been called the 'Little Klondike humanitarian aid camp' by the locals, largely agrees with the findings. Other than the easily explained power draw, there's an excess of free neutrons, even beyond what you'd expect from a small enrichment facility. To make sense of that one requires the third component of your investigation.
"The EU project seems to be on schedule," Ragnar's face tells you in a recording. "Apparently they're purposely running ops to deplete uranium. The depleted uranium is then either doped with or used to dope the more conventional zirconium alloys. The exact details are of course not public, and I'd be disappointed in their security if I could find them out so fast."
He mutes for a moment and speaks to someone off-screen – by his smile, you suspect Hailey – before continuing, "To reconcile this with our internal intel, I'd wager that their stores of DU were too big to just exist before the reactor project. Apparently, that stuff can be useful in conventional weaponry, and I think that either they were looking for ways to use the material or maybe some way to rapidly generate more of it without rising alarm. Them being cagey about the exact amount they have on hand could support either version."
He glances to the side and finishes his report with a look of amused resignation, "Ultimately, if we didn't find anything then I doubt a cursory inspection would either."
That's apparently the extent of time that Hailey can remain off screen, as she crashes into him, "On the practical side, boss, they have a stockpile of nice fuel rods ready to be sold to someone. And since we're the only ship visiting, we'll have a cheap source of nuclear fuel for the foreseeable future. Oh, and once they finish with the casing project, were we to decide to look into a similar idea regarding ship construction, I'm sure they'd have expertise on hand. No relation to the previous project of course, we'd never seek to exploit trade secrets like that."
She delivers her speech while physically hanging off Ragnar's neck, and although he's quite possibly three times her weight, with no gravity, leverage can be hard to find, and they drift out of frame before the recording cuts out.
(Confirmed fission fuel source, assuaged international incident fears, burgeoning spaceship engineering expertise developing on Prismdust.)
(Roll, drones, required 40: 39)
You sigh, rubbing the bridge of your nose. The monitor displays the end result of yet another experiment: the Standard Powered Infantry Data Establishing Robot – name pending, but you're sticking to SPIDER – stumbles, loses grip on the wall for a moment, then smacks straight into the mock doorframe, cutting the video feed.
Between the varied and numerous design goals you and Amanda have set for yourselves, the ones you're not willing to compromise on are size and mobility. Thus, you're working with a machine that comfortably sits in the palm of your hand, while also needing to fit several gyroscopes, compressed tubes for jets, servos, electromagnets and limbs. Not to mention the battery, control chip, comms and actual sensors. All that you could do, but no matter what you try, you're left with a problem on the mobility front. Either leave the rapid calculations required for precision movement to be handled by a computer on the suit, which invariably ends up losing synchronization with the robot and causing a crash. Or try to pack all the processing power into the already cramped boards, which inevitably overheat, get magnetized, or just short out.
Were the drones not so precisely engineered you might accept that they have a short service life and issue out dozens with each suit, but there is a noticeable construction time associated with each model. No, the final result must be something that, while not quite bulletproof, is robust enough to survive a combat engagement. What's even more frustrating is that you already have a solution.
Project Goldfish could have its body and movement algorithms reset and supplied with a black box function that you could (probably) extract after a few weeks and load up on the drones. Doing so, however, would put out the first piece of organic code on military hardware. The likelihood of a successful decompiling and refactoring is near zero, according to the skeleton crew you have monitoring the project, so you can't use it to figure out a replacement. Even leaving aside fears of whether the AI could somehow… regrow from the enigmatic code, it would mean that losing a drone in any engagement becomes a nightmare, not to mention the risks associated with potentially selling the things. Sure, any buyers would be even more stumped by the protocols than you would be, but if a model made it to a lab on Earth, then you're not sure how far you can stretch the proprietary code excuse. All that not even touching on the fact that the information exchange is two-sided: you'd be introducing your AI to tactical protocol and a combat environment.
On the other hand, you'd get pretty damn good combat recon drones to boost your already well trained and equipped soldiers.
The AI hasn't shown any sign of something dangerous so far, even as its presence on the server complex housing it shrinks by the hour. Pretty soon it'll no longer be limited by code, just the underlying physical architecture, at least as far as sheer size is concerned, but it remains just as docile as ever.
[ ] Spiders and Goldfish
-[ ] Use the AI
You've got other things to do, sign off on the usage of AI generated motion protocols. You've weighted the risks and find them acceptable, to not say nonexistent.
-[ ] Stick to conventional options
Do you really want a permanent niggling in the back of your head whenever a drone is damaged or built for that matter. The intelligence in the machine is still too young and untested, and it's not the right time to put it to use, and perhaps this isn't the right way to employ it at all.
(Roll, aquaculture, required 60: 59)
Even as the work of draining a sector of the water pipes, installing the filters and implanting algae and lamps proceeds apace, Ken has become even more of a recluse of late. While you're usually content to leave him to his devices, you do genuinely need his expertise when it comes to the massive water-feature you're planning to incorporate into the plaza slowly taking shape. Thus, you clear a morning when you know he's on a work shift and track him down by his access ID. Eventually, your search bears fruit, and you find the man installing an access hatch between the ceiling dome and the big aquarium. Thankfully the maintenance tunnel is pressurized, so you don't need to do more than stamp your boots as you approach to catch his attention.
"Oh, hey, Will," he greets you as the light of the arc welding rig dies down.
"Ken," you nod back, "how's it going?"
"I'm trying to get things to line up, but I don't think its gonna work."
You cast your eye over the hatch, which looks like it's been installed there since the start of your colony, "Is this another one of those situations where you've merely gone above and not beyond?"
"No. Well, maybe."
"Spit it out, you've known me for a decade by now, I've seen you go from black hair to gray with my own eyes. Give me a little credit."
"I don't think the fish we ordered are going to work out. Neither I nor anyone else on base are fish farmers, so we got a general assortment of carp species and tilapia, but preliminary testing shows that until my kelp grafts properly take, they won't have enough food in the water to grow. We'll need to supplement their diet with paste, so the whole project won't be net positive this year."
You're not quite sure whether to be amused or exasperated, and with a rueful grin you settle for both, "So is it a matter of getting different fish or just waiting for another of your miracle plants to grow before you've solved this insurmountable dilemma?"
"Uh, I've sent for some koi fish to guarantee that the plaza will have live fish in the aquarium. They're smaller than the commercial food species and I think we can balance the tank ecology well enough. I've reimbursed the shipping cost from Troy."
You'd wave the costs away, but you know he'd just tear himself up over it, so it's easier to let him go along with it.
"Okay, so that's in no way an issue. Tell me about the seaweed." It's the first trick you learned about the man, and you're not ashamed to say it still works wonders. At the mention of plants his demeanor shifts, a light entering his eyes.
"We should have the beginnings of a forest ready next year. The biggest hurdle of tweaking the saltwater plant to grow in fresh water has been overcome. Thankfully it seems the adaptions that require extra salinity are just about balanced out by the ones that are devoted to filtering out the extras. We've successfully shifted most of that to the roots, so it can still obtain the same minerals from the soil or sediment in this case, while maintaining the same nutritional value for any fish colonies or human consumption. Well, that last bit would take a ten-year trial on Earth, but between Lena's genetics expertise and my team's analysis, if I may be so bold, we can skip that: it's safe to eat."
Usually this much would barely classify as an intro, but this time Ken suddenly switches tracks, "Say, about that Troy ship. I understand it's mostly passengers?"
"Yes. Another hundred or so migrants, about half from L4-Troy itself. Why, expecting someone?"
"No, no… just deflecting. The aquaculture project still won't be done this year. I'm sorry, Will."
"And it'll be fully operational the next, with no major input required from either of us?"
"I'll do my best to achieve that."
With a strange sense of déjà vu, you pat him on the shoulder with a smile, before walking away.
(Fish added to the menu by the end of next year, roll failure mitigated by Ken Hiragi's specialty.)
(Roll, plaza, required 20: 98)
Shifting back the main entrance by a hundred meters is the first step towards transforming the modest square that used to greet any arrivals, but certainly not the last. You decided on a round shape for the expansion, with the back wall where older construction starts serving as a cutoff point for the plaza.
The bar gets a facelift, even if it's no longer the prominent centerpiece it once was. Over the years it's never been officially named, but it has acquired one all the same: The Gates. As the primary airlock used to be directly opposite the establishment, it's never had any advertisement other than word of mouth, but there is a long running slogan demonstrating the duality of a basement level dance club and balcony level cocktail bar. The miners and dockworkers who most often while away their evenings at the joint after coming back inside call the place the gates of heaven while the indoors administrative roles rib them back by saying that the rambunctious mob makes it the gates of hell. All a matter of perspective you suppose, and the final design plays into those motives, even if you had to shut down some of the cruder suggestions.
The improved archway into the innards of your base is directly opposite the new main airlock, and you finally bite the bullet and have your office, alongside those of your councilors, moved above it, making the central rooms a de facto seat of government. That leaves enough space for a set of habitation modules to be converted into a hotel on the other side from the bar.
For the bulk of the project however, you work closely with Lena and Ken to design and build the massive dome turned art installation. The whole thing has an inner and an outer layer, and the intervening space is filled with water. Interspersed in what's definitely the biggest aquarium in the New Belt are strategically placed and organically shaped aerogel windows, the biggest of which is directly above the airlock and gives a view of the launch site. Sleek glowing lines and blinking lights give the illusion of a pulsing mountain or some fantastic ancient pyramid returned to unearthly glory. Other, smaller viewports enforce the otherworldly quality of your colony, acting as dark and mysterious holes in otherwise blue water teeming with colorful life. The koi fish swim freely between the artificial reefs and tunnels, bright green floating kelp stalks idly wave in the current and where patches of silt create little yellow islands, crabs and the intricate shells of mollusks litter the make-believe seafloor.
All the lighting, filtering and circulatory systems are cleverly hidden by the final construction element of the dome: a three-tiered system of walkways and rooms built into the walls. The ground floor is meant for cafés, the kitchens dug beneath the ground in basement levels, and boutique shops for souvenirs and curios. The rooms aren't packed tight to leave more of the dome intact to view, and similar little cubicles reach up towards the shadowed ceiling. Presently they stand empty, but some day in the future, you imagine that they'd fit as corporate salespoints or high-level meeting rooms.
The three layers of balconies are interconnected by seemingly random walkways and elevators. Seemingly, because once more you use the aerogel, creating perfectly clear walkways held up by impossibly thin supports to never block the view of either the Dome, capital letter included, or your office's balcony. On the one hand you were worried that such a gauche display of personal power would be too over the top, but on the other one it is an effective way to convey said power, and a way to deliver personal announcements to anyone gathered at the plaza. Plus, you're forced to admit to yourself that you do have a flair for the dramatical. Besides, if someone is vehemently opposed to looking up at you, they can climb to the highest layer.
The final tier is also the last one with lights, all pointed downward. At first you considered a series of screens on the ceiling to display a blue-and-white cloudy sky, but as the magnificence of the Dome started taking shape, it became clear that something as base as artificial video would not do. Instead, the ratio of aerogel to water slowly switches from mostly water to mostly void, letting the few remaining patches cast scintillating shadows down on the plaza during the day and turning to a mysterious twinkling darkness of stars at night.
Compared to all that, the floor, if it could be called that, is only more mundane in Earth based contexts. Patches of real grass are separated by gravel roads and lined with benches. In carefully picked locations, six genetically modified oak saplings are growing, one for each of your councilors and yourself. Already, they've nearly doubled in height and the trunks which used to be the size of a coin now require your whole hand to encircle, the special terraforming breed from Mars working wonders. Beneath the ground, utility pipes carry power to hidden outlets for seasonal stalls to be set up during future harvest festivals.
You feel that the completion of the whole structure should be accompanied by some grand unveiling, but as it remained the main pathway to and from the complex for all the citizens there's really no way to create a presentation out of it. Instead, you pull your council to your new office, pour out the champagne – sparkly wine if someone were feeling pedantic, but it's locally made, which makes it better – and take in the glorious view.
"You know boss, no matter how great your delusions of grandeur are, you have to admit," Hailey comments, her face nearly pressed against the window, "this time you've punched a bit above our weight class."
"A quaint little place like Little Klondike? Perish the thought!" Amanda calls out in mock indignation.
They're right, you have to admit. What you've built wouldn't be out of place as the UN headquarters on Tranquility, but the engineer deep in your blood was chomping at the bits to work in novel environments, with novel materials, for a novel purpose. So what if you got a bit carried away, perhaps you can attract tourist.
Outwardly you remain silent, basking in the smooth and soft blue glow of the Dome lit by the setting sun.
(Your plaza is a system wide wonder, experts would be baffled by the seemingly impossible glass constructs, worth visiting on its own, also ably serves as a gathering space for thousands of people.)
(Roll, confront Lena Weissmeier about her condition, required 30: 90)
A short while after the Excelsior returns from Prismdust, before all your projects for the year exit the planning stage, you have another meeting planned, one you're more nervous about than you'd expect. You are pacing between your desk and the lounge while Ragnar sits on one of the couches. Right on time, as expected, the door opens and Lena steps into your office.
"Good evening, sir. Erikson," she nods at you both before taking her usual seat, "is there some security concern? I haven't approved any new hires recently."
"It's not that, exactly," you hedge, "But we are concerned."
"About what?"
"You," Ragnar shoots her a disarming smile, "not in the scary internal affairs kind of way. In the we want to help you kind of way."
"We really do mean that, you know," you lean against the table in her field of view, "I believe you know what we're talking about, but ultimately it's up to you. If you really want, then this conversation never happened."
A silence falls on the room, but to your surprise it doesn't feel tense or awkward, more contemplative. A minute passes before she sighs, leaning her head back and closing her eyes.
"Who else knows already?"
"Checking up on people is good practice. So is keeping what you find to a need-to-know basis," Ragnar softly tells her.
"I'd rather not go through this story more than once, and I'd like Amanda to know," she draws herself back upright, "and I wouldn't want to force Ragnar to keep secrets from Hailey. Honestly it almost seems silly, knowing what's in her head now. And if everyone else knows then Ken doesn't deserve to be the odd one out. Just call everybody, Will, heaven knows we don't keep to reasonable schedules anyways, I assume they'll be here in minutes."
A quick call proves her right. Amanda is the last one to arrive, and by some unspoken agreement takes a seat next to Lena.
"I assume it was the nanites that forced your hand?" It's a rhetorical question, but you still nod as she continues, "there really was minimal risk, and had it worked then the issue would have neatly solved itself."
"What issue?" Ken prompts her.
"I, and most anyone in my mother's line of the family, will suffer, with at least are over ninety percent likelihood, a degenerative brain disease." She leans forward, placing her elbows on her knees. "It's got an appropriately German sounding name: Gerstmann-Sträussler-Scheinker, or GSS for short. No treatment and fatal, in case that wasn't obvious. Symptoms include ataxia, blindness, dementia. If the eventual coma from my brain ripping itself full of tiny holes doesn't do me in then I'll have the pleasure of choking on my own spit."
Amanda's expression is horrified, and the younger woman chooses to misinterpret it, "Relax, unless you plan to engage in ritual cannibalism, you'll be perfectly safe, and that's only after I've developed some symptoms." Beneath the bitterness in her tone is still the same head scientist who needs to keep explaining, "It's caused by malfunctioning proteins, the biological equivalent to those nanites, only unlike machines, they can develop something loosely analogous to cancer. A misfolded protein is called a prion, and once one forms, more are sure to follow. Usually they're concentrated in the brain, but trace amounts can be found in blood too. Mine are still dormant and exist in low enough quantities that only one in ten full bloodworks picks it up, and I mean full, it's not easy to spot. It's mostly what I inherited through the placenta from my mother, but it's still a ticking timebomb, and I'd pass it on to my children as well."
She turns to Hailey next, "I owe you an apology by the way. I lied when you were talking about how you'd like a big family and I said I'm not seeing the draw. I had dreams of a big family on Mars when I was little, but I can't put my children through what me and Anna had to endure, and injecting myself with nanites is a laughable price to pay if it means she doesn't have to go the same way as mom one day."
As if a dam had broken, she keeps talking, even as she curls more and more in on herself, "Started out innocently enough: 'haha, mummy's so clumsy', 'look at mommy walking all funny', took less than a year before she couldn't feed herself anymore. She fought it every step of the way for us, even when she knew. She was halfway blind for the last year, and her eyes wouldn't stop moving, but she still tried so hard to look at us whenever we were allowed to see her. Only once her mind started going did it truly break her. She didn't want to forget us, so one night she pulled off the intubation and that was that."
Amanda pulls her into a hug with a whisper.
"Please stop."
"How could I do any less than everything against that? And why am I still so selfish to include all of you in this?"
You'd known most of the medical details before, but hearing her tale… any words die in your throat as two of your friends silently rock in each other's arms.
For a while, you're all lost in your own thoughts, but eventually Lena composes herself, only the slightly red eyes betraying her distress. Compared to Hailey, she looks positively immaculate.
"As I said, I'm not a fan of discussing this, but I've had over thirty years to come to terms with it. Sometimes it can hit hard, but please, if there's one thing I can ask of you, don't treat me like I'm made of glass. I get enough of that from my father. At least with him it made it easy to let Anna have the company, and whatever else, that's something I don't regret one bit."
"Consider it done, but is there anything else? We can easily pivot back to the nanite research if it'd help," you offer.
"Have I ever told you just how much I appreciate your practical nature?" she even manages a smile, "But no, at least not right this second, I'll need to consolidate some data and there's a few other similar experiments being run back on Mars that might shed light on the issues. Also, I've sent my sister my bio scans, and no offence, but the Weissmeier Foundation has access to better supercomputers than we do. It'll be better to have something to take my mind off things while those crunch the simulations. Plus, I'm still keeping an eye out for other research that might help, and going through that also takes me some time."
(Roll, aerogel structures, required 60: 93)
While your own fascination with the alien material culminates in constructing the Dome, Lena picks a narrower focus. The proverbial rose window set to provide a view of the launch pyramid becomes her pet project.
Instead of quarrying a larger than regular round piece, she focuses on the inexplainable metallic properties of the aerogel. First on her list is an experiment in scale: can the huge blocks be cast like concrete, given sufficient heat proofing? One overclocked industrial smelter later, she confirms her earlier findings. The pinkish liquid flows quickly enough to fully settle before it starts to solidify, leaving the rough chunk she started with in her desired shape; said shape being a wafer-thin lens some five meters across.
With an existing proof of concept and an improved oven, she pours a dozen similar slices, each precisely calibrated to achieve her intended effect: to bring the pyramid into focus and enlarge it, regardless of the viewing angle on the inside of the Dome, while simultaneously making the road between the two appear longer than it is to enhance the illusion. In the process, she documents the requirements for cooling molds and setting times, as well as perfecting the procedures for combining separately cast pieces into a seamless whole.
The final part is pushed to the limit and mastered as careful application of heat to the very threshold of melting lets her meld together the lenses by surface contact without damaging the internal shapes. There could be no more stringent a test than a massive lens, well known to warp and crack with minor temperature fluctuations when made of glass. Again, her previous speculation proves true: the material is easily on par with the best low expansion borosilicate, only narrowly beaten out by invar, while covering a significantly wider range of temperature. Stress and pressure resistance tests are almost an afterthought, although no less rigorous. The window is easily able to withstand the standard atmosphere of pressure, and samples only starts showing signs of damage at five hundred kilopascals and above.
The only weak point is the relative brittleness. If you take a pickaxe to a block then going through it takes no longer than a similar volume of sandstone would, key word being volume. By weight, the sample you demolished is over two thousand times lighter. With metrics like that, the worst you could say is that it's not bulletproof, although it would make an excellent bullet sponge.
By the end of the project, you have a working prototype furnace, several arc welding machines capable of melting a large enough patch to be useful and the knowhow required to get through the process with no errors.
(Aerogel is now incorporated into future construction projects where appropriate.)
-.-
It's quite the peculiar feeling sitting in your office with nothing planned, no clue about what's going to happen and yet being on duty. You'd put out the announcement about your open office hours, released a statement about what you envision from it, but you can't just pull random people from their homes and interrogate them about what's bothering them. Well, you could, but you imagine the answer would be a unanimous 'You'. So, all you can do is sit and wait.
You can still remember the days when you knew everybody in Little Klondike, but that was before the name had been decided on. It's not like you're a hermit or have a power armor security escort, you just don't have the time to meet everybody, nor do they. Your office is usually filled with team managers to discuss some project or another, or you're not here, either working on yet another construction site or in some other meeting yourself.
All that falls to the wayside as your door slides open and you school your expression. The woman walking in is unfamiliar to you, and although you could pull up her profile with a few touches, it would defeat the point. Instead, you rise up from the couch and greet her.
"Hello. Come in, please, and have a seat."
She's dressed in a utilitarian business suit, but where a suit on you is a statement of composure and power, hers makes her look mousy and shrunken, the clothes worn as a matter of course, not with intent.
"Hi. I'm sorry, I hope I'm not intruding," she stammers out as she takes a chair set by the conference table before bolting upright again. "I'm Abigail Gower, but my students just call me Abby."
You offer her a handshake and shoot her a disarming smile, "I've not yet met someone who doesn't have something to teach me, Abby. Can I get you a drink?"
"No, thank you," she sits again at your prompting and you drag out another chair near her.
"Jokes aside, I presume you're a teacher then, one of Erikson's staff?"
"Ah, I'm the student councilor actually. I think technically that makes me part of miss Weissmeier's medical staff, but I'm nowhere near that high level."
"Nonsense, your work is no less important, and I'm sure you're an asset to her, the school and Little Klondike. But I'm babbling, you came here for a reason and I haven't let you get a word in."
"It's no problem… That is to say, I did come here with a reason," she takes a breath, and you have a moment to reflect on the fact that you really haven't been in a social situation where you're not negotiating or commanding for years at least, your council excluded. "We thought it would be a good exercise for the students to roleplay successful leaders, corporate executives or statesmen. It evolved from a single day lesson to a project for the whole semester to something of a school tradition by this point, but the three kids – gosh, teens now – who have been leading the project since the start are graduating soon."
She pulls out a tablet and you accept it, smothering the instinct to hook it to the wall screen.
"The students have compiled a list of questions they haven't come to a consensus about. We asked them to keep it brief, but you know how it is. Not a lot around here to occupy their time with, so they might have gone a bit overboard. We've told them time and again that you're far too busy for schoolyard debates, but I did promise them that since they don't get a trip, I'd at least ask. If you could maybe weigh in on one or two of those points, it'd mean the world to them, sir."
You keep scrolling through the document, your eyebrow slowly rising. There are dozens of theoretical situations, with backstories and, albeit slightly generalized and off-base, figures, ranging from moral dilemmas to logistical challenges to political finagling.
"When did you say they were graduating?"
"Oh, I'm sorry, a month from now. They'll be earthbound soon after that, arriving a few weeks late for the start of college, but they assure me they've got things worked out. I should have known you can't do this with such short notice, but it would still be a great help next year for the younger ones."
Still paging through the document, you can't help but feel that if lack of entertainment leads to hobbies this productive then maybe you feel less bad about keeping things spartan.
"Abby, are there any crucial functions planned for say… the third of next month?"
"Well, the exams won't have started by then, so nothing really, why?"
You give her a cryptic smile, "I'll be in touch."
-.-
You're deep into the quiet season, idly tinkering with one of the drone husks when your watch buzzes with a priority alert from Hailey. Laying down the soldering iron, you don't yet get a chance to read the details when the device beeps to life again, this time with an alert from Amanda. A single alert is enough to get you moving, two is enough to make you nervous. When the watch blinks to life again as you stand up, even when it's a simple meeting request from Ragnar, you decide that running is not beneath your dignity.
Barging into your office, you're greeted by all five of your councilors standing around the room.
"From the top, security first. Carpenter, pirates?"
"We've picked up a distress signal from a small supply barge headed for New Ireland. They're currently just about halfway between the COD and Prismdust, owned by the same anonymous entity as the resort. The Excelsior can launch in an hour, if we choose to respond," she succinctly details. "They're being pursued by an unresponsive ship, estimated time to interception is two days, but if they divert course towards us then it'll be a matter of hours on who meets who first."
"Time enough to have a discussion. Hailey, COD mission?"
"The alert was sent out this morning, but the signal's strange, warped, heavily redshifted from the usual frequencies. They're broadcasting general system failure, so maybe that explains it. Says they have a week, so if they stretch out an extra day then we're the only ones who have a chance of making it to them."
The absolute vastness of space has never felt so frustrating. "So, there's no way we're reaching them both. Could the timing be more than a coincidence?"
"Extremely unlikely."
"When it rains, it pours, huh?" you squeeze the bridge of your nose. "Erikson, what did you have for me?"
"It's definitely related to the black site mission. Jason and Juno showed up by my door to ask for help. Seems the Dreamers' signal decoding worked marginally faster than ours."
"Could they reach the pirate encounter while we go to the black site?" Ken asks, but Ragnar shakes his head.
"We have coinflip odds of reaching there on time, they'd be late by a day at least, if they even have any armaments. Worst case scenario they'd be extra casualties."
Left unsaid is that it's the worst-case scenario for you too.
"Back to the anomaly mission. They've been sitting pretty up there for a couple of months now, what changed?"
"Tightbeam comms, so we don't know what they've found there, but you don't just wait around like that, so they've got something. They're reporting malfunction rather than attack, but seeing as they're on a long-term mission, it's got to be a heck of a malfunction to wipe their time out so badly."
"Last question," you sigh, sinking into your chair, "Could either of these be catfishing us?"
Silence greets you, as no one has answers like that. Between the risks, chances and ramifications, you could hem and haw until your water supplies ran out, but you're a man of action.
[ ] Crisis
-[ ] Pirates
The loss of a research expedition is a tragedy, but everyone knows the risks of going to space. Apprehending or eliminating the pirates, provided you succeed, can prevent future tragedies as well.
-[ ] Black site
You're not ready to risk facing an attack on your only ship, and there's a good chance that as they're detected, they won't resort to drastic measures. Perhaps even the crew themselves can fight them off. The COD and NI researchers however can't beat back the relentless vacuum of space.
-[ ] Neither
If someone asks, then it's clear you can't reach either issue on time. In truth, the risks of fighting pirates at this stage would simply mean a bigger tragedy waiting to happen and as for the people who go unprepared to poke at anomalies in impossible orbits – well, you wouldn't call it hubris so much as natural selection at work, and you've yet to win a Darwin award.
-.-
Hey. So, I bet you thought this one was dead and gone, and I wouldn't blame anyone for thinking that. The truth is that as days stretch to weeks stretch to months it becomes easier to tell myself that I can just let it slip, and that posting after all this time would be rude to the people who've spent time reading and voting, sort of digging up old disappointments. That said, I'm not ready to permanently bury the story just yet. I'm still endlessly fascinated by the premise and its myriad possibilities, and the potential plots are never far from my mind.
I won't make lofty promises of fast updates, as I don't think I could write a good story out of obligation, but I will endeavor to get back into some kind of a groove. Now that the first step has been taken, hopefully I won't hesitate quite so long, even if I do need to take a short pause every now and then.
No regular end of turn votes here, just as before during the EU invasion. Either we'll deal with one of the threads or there will be an interlude if neither wins.
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This lives!!!
Also we have a dome, apparently the first of kind. We should think of tourism next turn.
On the AI fron, hard no. We should keep the AI away from military stuff for as long as possible.
On the ship, I'm leaning towards pirates since they have been proven to be a nuisance but I'm not set on it.
Also we have a dome, apparently the first of kind. We should think of tourism next turn.
On the AI fron, hard no. We should keep the AI away from military stuff for as long as possible.
On the ship, I'm leaning towards pirates since they have been proven to be a nuisance but I'm not set on it.
- Location
- yorkshire
those near success rolls
It is great to see this back! And oh boy rose dice. That dome sounds amazing though. Definitly a great start for a building up our station as a destination. Also good to know that nanites are not a priority right now and we can focus on other research for now
[x] Crisis
-[x] Pirates
[x] Spiders and Goldfish
-[x] Stick to conventional options
I don't feel comfertable having the AI's first task be military. Does not seem that it would be good for their development. And also AI combat drones is an international incident waiting to happen.
Am more open in changing vote on the crisis but for now focusing on the pirates. That is something we have been building up to deal with for a reason. Best to nip any in the bud. But I could be convinced that the black site ship is more important.
Finaly a hidden gem in the update is Primdust gaining shipbuilding expertice. With people wanting to build a shipbuilding industry that is a good opportunity to help with that and rope them deeper into our sphere.
[x] Crisis
-[x] Pirates
[x] Spiders and Goldfish
-[x] Stick to conventional options
I don't feel comfertable having the AI's first task be military. Does not seem that it would be good for their development. And also AI combat drones is an international incident waiting to happen.
Am more open in changing vote on the crisis but for now focusing on the pirates. That is something we have been building up to deal with for a reason. Best to nip any in the bud. But I could be convinced that the black site ship is more important.
Finaly a hidden gem in the update is Primdust gaining shipbuilding expertice. With people wanting to build a shipbuilding industry that is a good opportunity to help with that and rope them deeper into our sphere.
- Location
- yorkshire
[x] Crisis
-[x] Pirates
[x] Spiders and Goldfish
-[x] Stick to conventional options
-[x] Pirates
[x] Spiders and Goldfish
-[x] Stick to conventional options
[x] Crisis
-[x] Pirates
[x] Spiders and Goldfish
-[x] Stick to conventional options
Baby AI first job shouldn't be killing, that only leads to really bad stuff if it works right, which is no guarantee.
-[x] Pirates
[x] Spiders and Goldfish
-[x] Stick to conventional options
Baby AI first job shouldn't be killing, that only leads to really bad stuff if it works right, which is no guarantee.
- Location
- Fort Worth, TX
[x] Crisis
-[x] Pirates
[x] Spiders and Goldfish
-[x] Stick to conventional options
-[x] Pirates
[x] Spiders and Goldfish
-[x] Stick to conventional options
[x] Crisis
-[x] Pirates
[x] Spiders and Goldfish
-[x] Stick to conventional options
Look, if you figure out that someone is going to great lengths to hide and you decide to go poke them anyways - you've got no right to be surprised by 'mysterious malfunctions' preventing you from telling other people just what you found.
It's pretty callous, but we're far less likely to lose the Excelsior by intervening in the pirate situation - and we've been putting enough of the legwork into building a base for power projection that we have a vested interest in anti-piracy duties, so we're likely to get more of a reward out of taking on pirates too.
-[x] Pirates
[x] Spiders and Goldfish
-[x] Stick to conventional options
Look, if you figure out that someone is going to great lengths to hide and you decide to go poke them anyways - you've got no right to be surprised by 'mysterious malfunctions' preventing you from telling other people just what you found.
It's pretty callous, but we're far less likely to lose the Excelsior by intervening in the pirate situation - and we've been putting enough of the legwork into building a base for power projection that we have a vested interest in anti-piracy duties, so we're likely to get more of a reward out of taking on pirates too.
Technically, yes. There's nothing stopping you from shouting in their general direction, however that's the extent of your accuracy when it comes to contacting them.
Option one is out, that's the equivalent of a walkie-talkie, and the presumed location is much too far out. Option two is also out as you have never had any contact with anyone there, nor would you expect them to give you the necessary info. You can do the third one, but so far you and the anomaly have lived in a polite ignoring of each others existence. Changing that is a big choice.
You can also safely presume that both the COD and New Ireland are equally aware of the current distress signal and that they'd be much more knowledgeable about what their ship has reported back so far.
HeroCooky
Unverified Monstergirl
It lives!!!
Will edit a vote in tomorrow, but great to see this quest back!
Edit: don't beat yourself up for not updating, writing should always be fun, and never a chore!
Ps: Here is a video dealing about slipping motivation, if you want it.
Vote Edit:
[x] Crisis
-[x] Pirates
[x] Spiders and Goldfish
-[x] Stick to conventional options
Will edit a vote in tomorrow, but great to see this quest back!
Edit: don't beat yourself up for not updating, writing should always be fun, and never a chore!
Ps: Here is a video dealing about slipping motivation, if you want it.
Vote Edit:
[x] Crisis
-[x] Pirates
[x] Spiders and Goldfish
-[x] Stick to conventional options
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- Location
- va
[x] Crisis
-[x] Pirates
[x] Spiders and Goldfish
-[x] Stick to conventional options
-[x] Pirates
[x] Spiders and Goldfish
-[x] Stick to conventional options
[x] Crisis
-[x] Pirates
[x] Spiders and Goldfish
-[x] Stick to conventional options
-[x] Pirates
[x] Spiders and Goldfish
-[x] Stick to conventional options
Not like the pirates would have much better. Hopefully...
It is not ideal true, but there is a good chance that just showing up will prevent a fight. With how absurdly dangerous space combat is, and the fact they are likely days to weeks away from any safe port the pirates should be very warry at anything that could cause them to get hurt. Add to that our trained men and suboptimal drones to make any chance of boarding action hard they should hopefully leave for safer targets.