Military:
[] Curtain Call: Your eyes at the edge of the heliopause are excellent pieces of hardware, but they lack some of the finer accuracy that might allow them to detect the delicate distortion patterns of a First Secret jump. It's a matter of upgrading some hardware so it can handle the new analysis software, but if you do it right you'll have a bit more in the way of warning for any arrivals to the star system. [40%, 1 year]
*[] Argus Protocol: The sensor stations you built in your early years as President have performed admirably since their construction, but with the addition of the Lux Sagum to Sol's detection net, their relative vulnerability has become increasingly obvious. Something like the Lux isn't possible right now given the complexity of a lagless array, but a more distributed set of platforms should be well within your capabilities. [30%, 3 years, Megastructure Action]
*[] The Beltway: The placement of Sol's asteroid belt is surprisingly fortuitous, with the star's FTL exclusion zone beginning at the heart of the belt. In general, fixed defences won't be much use against a War Fleet, but with your unique foreknowledge of their capabilities and Practice, countermeasures might be possible. Securing the edge of the exclusion zone is a good first step. [45%, 3 years]
*[] Promethia Unbound: Although a proper understanding of how to create true AIs remains beyond you, the knowledge gleaned from Iris's creation/birth has been anything but useless. War Fleets are so feared for being nigh untouchable by the younger races of the galaxy, a wave of death that sweeps across star systems and renders them lifeless shells. But now you know how they do that, the required processing capacity is no longer completely impossible. Just almost. [15%, 4 years]
--Cut all three of these, despite how important they are, with the expectation that Asteroid Eaters will make Argus and Beltway much easier (and cut the time by a year or two), while Promethia should benefit handsomly by more investment in IPP-related actions and the System Architecture action.
Diplomacy
[] The Centre: The World Congress will be split on your choice to step down, you know this, but there will also be many who understand. The fact that you don't plan to spend too long away will help a great deal with them, even if your wish for your future is not as closely linked to the levers of power as some might wish. Still, they could be an invaluable source of advice and support for your plans, if you simply take the time to address them. [60%, 1 year]
[] World's Heart: As the Congress, so in many ways the people. The strength of the movement seeking your continuing power has lessened some, but there's no easy consensus here. You aren't inexperienced with forging harmony, but you've never been the source of the discord also. [40%, 1 year]
[] One Last Time: Walking among the vastness of humanity is sure to help you in charting your future, but the simplest way of making your thoughts clear is something you've done only rarely; a formal speech to the star system. [Automatic success, roll made to determine effectiveness. Write in how you'd like to frame your stepping down, talking points are fine. But if you write me a good speech you'll get a nice bonus on the check]
Stewardship
[] Asteroid Eaters: Design and test a nanite swarm program designed to digest an asteroid and process it into raw materials for use in construction [25%, 1 year]
[] Fine Manipulation: Although molecular manipulation is still too complex for the current generation of nanomachines, there are some things that they could definitely help with. Fabber technology is great for building new things, but they have their limits. Right now, the main one is the need for other systems to put together the components they produce. Adriana thinks she has a way to fix that. [45%, 2 years]
[] Infinite Parallel Processing: Departmental VIs: Create a copy of your Ministerial VI for exclusive use by another department [50%, 1 year. Specify a department. The Ministry of Practice is not a valid department for this.]
*[] Infinite Parallel Processing, Phase 3: The virtual agents that you've created have already proven their worth, saving some of your operations managers from critical errors that could have been disastrous, but new technologies have opened a path to improve further. Rather than running a single virtual agent per person, an upgrade in capacity could let you run multiple virtual agents per person and even let them run slightly ahead of the human being they are simulating, to catch errors two, even three decision branches down the line. [30%, 2 years]
--Cut, even though I desperately want this, because we have to cut something, and Personal VIs is more important.
[] Infinite Parallel Processing, Personal VIs: With the Sixth Secret's ability to blow Moore's Law out of the water, it should be a relatively simple matter to have your Phase 2+ virtual assistants run on mass-produced local hardware instead of on the cloud. Not only does this alleviate some of the potential privacy issues of the new technology, but it frees up the cloud server systems to run simulations and perform calculation trees that may have been put on the back burner in recent years. [40%, 2 years]
Intrigue
*[] System Architecture: Although it probably won't be finished in time to help with breaking into the active databases, a thorough analysis of the dead Shiplord information systems could yield valuable information for the next time Marcus goes toe to toe with them in cyberspace. [45%, 3 years]
--It's a three-year turnaround that's mostly only useful for directly fighting Shiplords. It'll be good for later, but not now.
[] Analytic Scraping: Although you only got fragments, the remains of the Shiplord databases recovered by Alexandria may hold some hints on the true nature of your enemy. You can't imagine that knowing more about them would be a bad thing, at least where it comes to fighting. [40%, 2 years]
Learning
[] Arcadia: Now that you've made your choice, it's time to start putting the pieces together and given your choice this is the most important of them all. Although it's a few steps down the line, the eventual plan that Mary had come up with for her and her contemporaries had been to create a copy of the vast research centres of Mars, that had brought humanity the greatest of their technological advances. Such an initiative would serve your own wishes well, as well as the needs of all humanity [Variable difficulty, 1 year, synergises with Wishes Spoken, cannot assign a Practice Dice to this action]
[] The Shining Cities: The cities of Earth are stunning examples of Practice used to create living environments that can protect the vast majority of humanity's population and also give them places to live that are entirely theirs. In recent months, casual mentions of how the cities themselves seem to be almost adapting to their inhabitants have become more frequent. What exactly is going on here? [40%, 2 years]
*[] Tapping The Well: The energy source behind Practice, a manifestation of the sacrifice of hundreds of thousands of souls and an entire sentient species with it, is unlike anything ever seen. Limited in size, yet also inexhaustible, it also passes power to every member of humanity. Before you go telling everyone that, however, it might be wise to test possible applications. Having no idea where to start just makes it more pertinent to begin now. [???, ???, requires a Practice dice]
--Cut this year in anticipation of one or more of our other Learning actions, and/or our off-year actions cutting into the ???-ness of this one.
*[] The Longest Force: Gravity manipulation is something that humanity is capable of, but only thanks to creations of Practice. Some of what has been discovered within the Red Tower points to theoretical ability to harness that force without the need of Practiced items. [40%, 3 years]
--Cut this year in anticipation of further bonuses from Shiplord Arms, though we really need to start this one soon.
*[] Sub-atomic Management: Conventional physics tells us this is both impossible and inconceivable, but thanks to the Sixth Secret "impossible" is not much of a barrier and "inconceivable" is starting to stand on shaky ground as well. Mary's explanation of the tech proposal involved phrases like "probabilistic imprints on hyper-compacted phase spaces" and got more confusing from there, but the long and short of it is that she is convinced that the Sixth Secret can, with work, create nanomachines that exist and operate on volumes smaller than a single quark, down to the size of a single electron. [30%, 3 years]
--Cut, despite how much I want it, for space.
[] Practiced Forms: Now that Mary has confirmed that yes, it is in fact safe to use Practice on Sixth Secret nanotech, she's getting inventive. It's well known that Practice has limits in how it can be applied, you learnt this yourself during the Prologue project, so instead of trying to build a perfect singular system, she's laid out trials to follow different focus paths before trying a universal run. [30%, 2 years, requires a Practice dice]
*[] Bio-inorganics: The Second Secret, and therefore a lot of the biological enhancements discovered by pre-Sorrows humanity, is forbidden, but as Prologue showed many of the more important things that the Second did can be replicated, even further enhanced, by Sixth Secret nanomachines. [40%, 1 year]
--Cut because it's less blue-sky than Sub-atomic, and it's a "quick" action we can get out the door our first year of Worlds Lover to prove its worth.
[] Pushing the Boundaries: There are deeper areas to the Elder Vault, ones that even yourself have found only partial access. What you have found has pointed to work entirely outside of what you'd ever have expected from the Elder First, artefacts that might be capable of actually taking part in the fight against the Shiplords. Getting access to them might be hard, however. [20%, 1 year]
*[] Touching Light: Some of the Tribute Fleet wreckage definitely contain First Secret drives, and if you're lucky they might also have some surviving courier drones you can strip for the systems. Now that you're no longer limited to Sol, getting as many of them as you can has become a little more important. [70/45%, 1 year]
--Cut, again, because we just can't use First Secret drives for that much. Maybe next year.
[] Shiplord Arms: Not actual arms, but the weapons systems of the fleet. Lina is ecstatic about the possibility of getting her hands on functional Shiplord grav disruptors, as even if they're low tech in Shiplord terms, they're functional examples of gravity manipulation without the use of Practice. That means you can reverse engineer them. Probably. [45/15%, 2 years]
[] Secrets of Unison: Now that Mary has finally managed to get more accurate imaging of the soul working, it gives her the opportunity to begin the complex dive into the theoretical and practical understanding required to analyse, repair or even recreate Unison Platforms. [55%, 1 year]
[] Souls and Circuits: With the creation of Iris, humanity has taken its very step down the path of creating true life again, although it seems far more complicated than the Second Secret's easy ability to create bioforms. Trying to understand how to replicate this process, will take time, but the rewards if you succeed... [20%, 2 years]
Practice:
[] Learned Amity: Vega will focus on teaching more Harmonials how she does some of what she does, expanding their ability to match her own. Her apprentices first, then others; given enough time, you'll have a proper teaching staff for the new Harmonials. [40%, 1 year, cannot be taken with The Links Between, Repeatable]
[] Old Lessons: The curriculum for Potentials, such as it is, is a complex and rather messy thing that has only properly accounted for new understandings of Practice with every Awakening. Vega would like to take the time to do it right this time, and you agree with her, but it'll take a lot of work. [40%, 1 year]
*[] The Aegis: Among the Protection Focused of the Fourth, there are a small handful of Potentials who find their Focus so much better applied to the greater methods of combat that they're more alike to Insight Focused in that regard. The possibilities inherent in their capabilities are massive, but they'll need a specialised program. [35%, 1 year]
--Cut because this one seems a little bit more like a Martial training action, and those can wait until we start getting closer to the hardware design phase.
[] Teaching and Tutors: On top of the theoretical concerns, you're also going to need teachers for the Fourth, and there are certain lessons that only Potentials will be able to teach. Prying them away from other matters without weakening the ability of Vega's Ministry won't be easy, but it might be possible. [35%, 1 year]
Hero Actions:
[] Restraining Sight: The first artificial intelligence created since the Elder First, Iris is taking to the role for which she was initially designed with inexhaustible energy. Sometimes a little too inexhaustible, but the sheer enthusiasm of the young intelligence is almost infectious. That said, she probably needs a little talk about certain things she shouldn't be doing in the network, given that almost nothing can keep her out. She hasn't been breaching anyone's privacy, but there have been...some incidents. [???, 1 year, amusement guaranteed]
Personal Actions:
[] Inheritor: Although others may access it, the master control for the Elder's Vault remains with you. This may make you far better suited to finding what you need in there, as any limits that remain should be far less restrictive to yourself than any other. It will take time, however. [Write-in a selected Elder's Vault action to boost.]
[] Talk with a Minister: Now that you've chosen to step down, talking to your Ministers about what they'd like to do in future seems like a good idea. They've proved their worth and potential, but knowing what they want could let you help them. [Write-in two (2) Ministers. May be taken multiple times.]
[] Blood Ties: Your family. It's years since you've really had the chance to even talk to them properly. Although you've told them that you plan to step down, you know they won't tell anyone until you do, you could take this opportunity to have a sit down with them and talk. You haven't had one of those for far too long.
[] Second Eldest: The Elder First taught your generation a great deal, and over the last few years there's been some quiet discussion within the Potentials of the Second Eldest; the best and brightest of the Second Awakening. As you'd half-feared, you're on the list, but it gives you an opportunity. The Elder First taught you. Perhaps you could set an example for the 'Second Eldest' to teach the Woken Fourth. [???, synergises with Teaching and Tutors]
