Experimental/Auxiliary Formations
You put Lina on this job with a small group of Second Awakening Potentials with Focuses similar to Veda's. You'd have put Veda herself on the job actually, if you could have pried her away from Project Insight. Sadly that just wasn't on the cards.
[Roll: 86 + 36 = 122]
Practice Roll: 48 + 38 = 86.
Lina doesn't seem to mind. She blitzes the first few offices personally, and splits up her Potentials across a group of aides sent to other ones. After the first few offices receive sudden visits, the projects trying to shape their work to suit her best. And are then caught entirely wrong-footed by the very different people she assigns to them. Although you feel a little bad for the blindsided staff, Lina does acquire probably the best rundown on what these groups have been doing for, in some cases, the last thirty years.
Some of their work is discarded for now; it's too resource intensive or time consuming to complete before the Shiplords return. Others require more work, being the result of entirely eccentric experimentation and theory that needs specialist work to decode properly. The rest is quite ready for deployment, however. Lina presents those plans at the first cabinet meeting of 2110, with a lot of diagrams.
(New options unlocked)
Search for devices
With the help of the Potentials carrying over from the year before, the message left behind by the Elder First is finally decoded by the middle months of the year. It leads the team to a remarkably well concealed facility in the mountains of America that resists any attempt to open it. Frustrated, they turn back to the message.
[Roll: 14 + 36 Autocomplete. Success]
And discover something very interesting.
"Within this vault lie secrets that we were too afraid to risk pursing with the world so fragile. Devices that may be able to aid you in what we fear might be inevitable, but cannot be given to the wrong soul. Once we offered teaching to the Second, to those who we hoped could be given this place. In their souls lies the key, if they possess the will to ask it."
The implications are clear, but there are more than a few of your Cabinet who strongly suggest further study before attempting, as Mary put it, to 'put your head through a wall that for all we know might eat you.'
(New options unlocked)
The Haft 31+ needed
The proposal from the SDC is well made, a new line of warships reinforced by Practice to expand their limited space presence. Individually they'll still be much weaker than Shiplord vessels, but quantity has a quality of its own. And from the looks of their plan, they've been working on the tactics and logistics involved for the last three decades. [70%, locked 1 year]
-[X] 1 Locked Die, 1 Practice Die
With the plans finalised, the first squadrons of the auxiliary fleet are commissioned into the SDC Stellar Division in early April. A month is spent putting them through their paces, getting the crews accustomed to their new homes, then they are released to patrol duties.
[Roll: 11 + 36 = 47. Success]
Practice Roll: 5 + 38 = 43. Success
They are not alone by year's end. Around the tsunami of work heaped upon your shipyard design and prototyping teams, much of the available yard construction is dedicated to expanding the purely human force that will support those more intertwined with Practice. The SDC plan called for a fleet. You now have one.
(Shipyard Operations unlocked)
The Blade 41+ needed
The SDC send their naval design group to help with the design process of these ships, the blade that they hope will be able to slash the Shiplords from the heavens. It's not an easy project, integrating Practiced works into a platform that absolutely has to work at a hundred percent. The First have a solution to that, however.
[Roll: 72 + 36 = 108. Solid Success]
The Dauntless class is a fusion of Practiced artifice and a purely human genius, unlike any ship humanity has ever built. Possessed of incredible firepower, it's a soaring testament to what humans and Potentials can do when they work together. Unfortunately, there's a price for its success. Every Dauntless class will require a group of First Awoken aboard it to make it combat capable.
(Locked for 1 year)
The Hilt 51+ needed
A part of you found it hard to approve this plan when you discovered the cost of the Shieldships will mirror that of the Dauntless class, each one requiring a small crew of Restorers for it to operate in a combat situation. But in the end, Lina puts it very simply. If you can't hold the system, then all the Restorers in the universe won't be able to fix humanity's extinction.
[Roll: 51 + 36 = 87. Success]
The design process encounters a few snags, most of them a result of Potentials not being naval design experts. Much of the designs rely on Practiced components as well, which often leave humans grasping at straws for how something is going to work before they see it in action. Fortunately, work earlier in the year on the plans for your capital ships comes in handy, and the prototype is launched in mid-November.
(Locked for 1 year)
Visions of the Lost 51+ needed
Building on the sensor readings and weapon analysis, this year the teams assigned to this project focus on how the Shiplords use their abilities in a tactical situation. They dedicate some effort to continuing combat system analysis for the orbital fortification projects, but most of their work is combat projection.
[Roll: 67 + 42 = 109. Solid Success]
This goes just as well as the previous year's work, and the analysts carefully index all of their research for use as a tactical guide by your military commanders when the invasion comes. It's not a playbook, there's too much still unknown about what those ships can do, it's a definite start.
(Bonus to combat rolls against Shiplords)
Walls of Steel 31+ needed
With the core of your fleet now under construction, Lina's attention turns to the frankly worrying prospect of how badly the majority of orbitals will deal with Shiplord firepower. Aided by the analysis run by the Ministry for Security, a full plan quickly takes shape. This is going to be difficult.
[Roll: 63 + 36 = 99. Solid Success]
Practice Roll: 88 + 38 = 126. Margin of over 80, Practice Trance!
"The difficult we do immediately, the impossible takes a little longer."
(See Interlude: The Walls of Sol)
The Maw 51+ needed
With the opportunity to completely remodel the orbitals to make them more defensible, Lina also seizes on the plan to make them actual fortifications within the solar system, armed to match the level of survivability that they will require.
[Roll: 44 + 36 = 80. Solid Success]
(See Interlude: The Walls of Sol)
The Aegis 51+ needed
Given the vast success the previous year, the majority of the ground work this year is dedicated to the completion of the planetary shield network and final laying in of the ground to orbit batteries. Simple enough work, compared to everything else Lina's ground teams have had to deal with.
[Roll: 96 + 36 = 132. Greater Success]
Apparently sitting idle is something that those folk take personal exceptions to. They finish the earth based work swiftly enough, but you're surprised to hear late in the year that they've presented a new plan to Lina. Something to do with Mars.
(New options unlocked)
Swift Caution 51+ needed
With the doctrine package complete, Lina and her staff begin training rotations of a cross-section of Potentials currently planning to be directly involved in the defence of Sol. It's been a rush getting it all together, but it's a good package.
[Roll: 19 + 36 = 55. Success]
It goes down well, too. Nothing exceptional comes of the rotations, but by the end of the year Lina is pleased to report that her students are holding themselves less like partisans and more like soldiers. She points out that now that they have the beginnings of a command structure, it may be the best option for a unified command. The SDC is too static, and the Auxiliaries have too much uncoordinated flexibility.
(+10 to Practiced Leaders)
Extend the Department 41+ needed
On the subject of training and development, Adrianna has good news for you at the end of the year too, with the official opening of the Office for Practiced Engineering. She's very happy with the final result of her work.
[Roll: 59 + 40 = 99. Solid Success]
Those involved are as well, and with a clear structure now in place requesting Potential support just got a whole lot easier.
(+1 Practice dice)
Search Function 71+ needed
When the network came back online, you found several communication lines that seemed to lead nowhere. If there are secrets hiding here, it's probably a good idea to find them. [30%, 1 turn]
-[X] 1 Free Die
With a hostile subnet somehow integrated into your own, this project takes on a sudden urgency. Consultants from the Department for Security are brought in to support the potentially dangerous process, Marcus and his top flight team remaining on standby.
[Roll: 10, 33 + 40 = 73. Success]
The operation goes through quickly and with some success, shattering the well-hidden links into Earth's infonet. With those gone, Marcus is able to focus his attention elsewhere, and their destruction gave him some leads.
(Subnet access to Earth's infonet heavily reduced)
Watching the Stars 71+ needed
Marcus follows those leads with the customary razor focus that you've come to expect from him. Some of what he's working with baffles you, but you can't deny the results he gets.
[Roll: 40 + 42 + 8 (Network bonus) + 5 (Eyes to See) = 95. Success]
[Infowar Roll: 57 + 42 + 8 + 5 + 10 vs 72 + 40 + 10 + 15 - 5 = 122 vs 132. Slim Failure]
With the leads that purging and running down the few hidden pieces of Earth's infonet gave them, the Ministry for Security moves quickly, acting to secure whatever they can. They get rather far in the process of breaking open the network, locking down the coordinates of several new relay station. Unfortunately, they're not fighting a passive system anymore, and the subnet's response to trying to break into it wipes away almost two weeks of agonisingly collected data.
(+5 to repeating this action)
Middle Way 61+ needed
With the subnet's access to Earth heavily curtailed by previous actions, Marcus is free to focus on returning fire against the attack on his department that cost them a great deal of information. Transmission paths are still changed, and other processes are put into effect, but it's clear that this is going to be your first true conflict with Shiplord technology.
[Roll: 25 + 42 + 8 (Network bonus) + 5 (Eyes to See) = 80. Success]
[Infowar Roll: 93 + 32 + 8 + 5 + 10 vs 32 + 40 + 10 + 15 - 5 = 148 vs 92. Solid Success]
Once again, you find yourself vindicated for your choice of Security Minister. Punching through the other layers of the network is easy enough given that they've done it once before, the small modifications insufficient measures. But behind that Marcus' true enemy lurks, and with it his first true challenge. His team manages to break deeper into the network, but it's a hard slog every step of the way, and his report talks with some worry about the possibility that whatever he's fighting with is splitting its attention. Progress is progress, however. Another year, assuming no unforeseen circumstances, and he should have the information he needs.
(Locked for 1 year)
Small is Beautiful 61+ needed
Work continues this year, Mary focusing all of her effort into breaking the complex problem that you've placed before her. It is very different to anything she has ever had to do, though, and requests again Potentials to help her.
[Roll: 44, 60 + 47 = 107. Solid Success]
Practice Roll: 14 + 38 = 52. Failure
Solid progress is made, that is certain, but sadly the Potentials are less of a help to Mary this year than you had hoped for. She is getting closer, but there are many problems still. The Potential habit of simple Practice to solve their problems is one of them, when Mary is attempting to bypass that need entirely. Still, she's undaunted. More time, that's all.
(Locked for 2 years)
Achilles Heel 71+ needed
The Project has found several weaknesses in the Shiplords, but Phoebe has told you that they can all feel something on the edge of their consciousness when they search through those things, just out of reach. [30% chance for information every year]
Reaching through the fabric of space is exceptionally difficult, even with the additions you've given to Project Insight. Reaching for something hidden, something that's been eluding their combined abilities for years, that's even harder.
[Roll: 89 + 38 = 127. Solid Success]
It helps that they've been trying it for years. This time they have more backing them than ever before, and Vega takes some time out an increasingly busy schedule to involve herself in the Trance. And it works. The results are…not exactly what you expected.
(See Interlude: Unknown Potential)
Be Harmonious 45+ needed
Around Insight's work, Vega finally begins to go deeper into what she does with those that she's already worked with, searching for a way to make the process simpler and to build off of their own focuses. It requires a specific type of direction in Focus, but maybe she can make it easier for those like her to learn her tricks.
[Roll: 92 + 38 = 130. Greater Success]
With the help of those that she's trained, she manages more than that. Although you don't see any benefit now, at the end of the year you can tell that she's on the edge of a breakthrough that could be more significant than anything else she's ever done. The Miracle of Skylark included.
(Locked for 1 year)
Music of the Soul
On a personal level, you continue working with your voice, this year passing where you had been before and delving deeper. Vega catches you pushing a little too far a time or two, and is quick to impress on you the potential consequences if you happen to push further. You dislike the conversation, you never did take limitations all that well, but the possibility of your Focus breaking is too much to bear thinking about. You are more careful after that, even though you have no idea what Vega might have truly meant when she warned you like that. Maybe something to think about when you are well.
[Roll: 59 + 22 = 81. Progress: 150/210]
Power in Balance
On that subject, your feelings amount to a feeling of irritated satisfaction. You come very, very close to restoring the well of power that you draw on, but you can tell when the year changes that it's still not quite enough. So close that you can taste it, but still not quite there yet. Mary reminds you gently that these things can take time, your recovery from the attack a good example although you don't like to admit it.
Due to what you did, the normal quick-heal techniques wouldn't work, and it wasn't until spring that your injuries had healed fully. Heal they did, however.
[Roll: 88 + 38 = 126. Progress: 213/220]
(Amanda Hawk loses trait Wounded)
Opinion
Earth: United. Secure.
Mars: Supportive. Concerned.
Spacers: Supportive. Concerned.
Congress: Supportive. Level.
Administration: United. Secure.
SDC: United, High Alert.
Subnet roll: 97
…oh my, this could be quite interesting
