Thanks, the math posts are always useful to check my own calculations against. At a glance, most of this looks accurate, though I didn't think about applying the Japanese Exile bonus to any Negation crisis rolls. May have to think on that.
I think Icon should got +10 bonus (*4) from Simulation Support since it's explicitly said in the text that it "provided an unexpected employment opportunity for some of our simulated comrades." On the other hand, I think non-core group rolls also get penalty from HNT, so the result should be net 10 higher.
I think Icon should got +10 bonus (*4) from Simulation Support since it's explicitly said in the text that it "provided an unexpected employment opportunity for some of our simulated comrades." On the other hand, I think non-core group rolls also get penalty from HNT, so the result should be net 10 higher.
Heads up: the next update may be a bit delayed as I work on some real life political economy stuff, and maybe more Uncommon Wealth. But I am still writing!
@TheInnerMoon, would this 18 karat string of bad luck be enough to trigger a resurgence into prominence of antinatalist movements and organizations like Stop Having Kids, the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement, and Antinatalism International?
@TheInnerMoon, would this 18 karat string of bad luck be enough to trigger a resurgence into prominence of antinatalist movements and organizations like Stop Having Kids, the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement, and Antinatalism International?
Not especially, since world population has long since peaked, and is actually far lower in 2120 than it is at present. There's probably some of these cranks around regardless, as there always are, but they're not growing in popularity.
[x] Plan: All In On Crisis
-[x] [Addition] UNATCO
-[x] [Merger] UN Habitat (2)+UNHCR (4)+IOM (1)+UNLIEC (1)=UN Home (4) (+5 bonus)+UNIEEC (4) (+5 bonus)
-[x] [Merger] UNEEF (4)+UNETC (1)=UNEA (5 dice) (+10 bonus)
-[x] UNEEF: 4 Dice
--[x] Ocean De-Fertilization Tests (50/200): 2 Dice
--[x] Monitoring Office (63/150): 2 Dice
-[x] UNHCR: 4 Dice + 2 Free Dice
--[x] Project Icon (0/200): 4 Dice
--[x] The Bella Ciao Initiative (0/300): 2 Dice
-[x] DPO: 4 Dice
--[x] Operation Blade (0/250): 4 Dice
-[x] UNPFII: 2 Dice + 1 Free Die
--[x] Dances Without Wolves (223/250): 1 Dice
--[x] A Rugged Request (0/250): 2 Dice
-[x] UNETC: 1 Die + 1 Free Die
--[x] Recentralization (92/250): 2 Dice
-[x] UNODOS: 2 Dice
--[x] Restart the Aldrin Cyclers (0/200): 2 Dice
-[x] UNOCHA: 1 Die + 1 Free Die
--[x] Operation Rohirrim (0/250): 2 Dice
-[x] ILO: 1 Die
--[x] BAT Signal (30/150): 1 Die
-[x] Policy: 2 Dice
--[x] Harden Network Infrastructure (72/100): 2 Dice
-[x] Politics: 2 Dice
--[x] Coup De Grace
--[x] Barsoomian Bargaining
As usual, ISCRA and the OHCSSR have been working together on mass re-embodiment, though recently their work has taken a more paramilitary direction (409/1400). Meanwhile, UNLIEC is making sure the Escapists aren't lured in by the Negation (222/600), and the ITU is fortifying our data connections (74/150). Oh, and the UNCXR has been nice enough to finish that war criminal think tank for Project Riposte (Gained RAND Refounded: +10 bonus to unconventional weapons projects). Thanks, everyone!
The war was worse. That's what you have to keep telling yourself, as the first year of this state of emergency brings only a lackluster amount of progress. The onslaught of the Negation is constant and relentless, with none of its elements seeming to care for their individual survival. This makes them into a brutal but self-destructive foe in each specific encounter, as their main object is to do as much as damage as possible to your military capacity. In the fracas, only your energy and network infrastructure are left relatively intact, a chilling sign of their ultimate assimilationist intent. For now, the UN strategy is mostly to weather the storm until some of its specific counterprograms come online. That's where you come in.
UNEEF
Project Cambrian: Ocean De-Fertilization Tests 50+74+49=173/200
"Do you like the ocean? Do you wish it could be more like the retrosims, full of whales and coral reefs instead of algae and jellyfish? Well, then we here at UNEA want to make you an official Friend of the Fish! As a Friend of the Fish, you will pledge part of your labor time to reviving the oceans, whether that's through intricate chemical simulations in our infraverse laboratories, or else by fully embracing life on the high seas on one of our research vessels.
At present, we are mostly recruiting people with an interest in biochemistry, microbiology, and oceanography. Still, if you have any skills which are linked to these fields, or are simply willing to do the menial and/or administrative work which comes with these endeavors, then we are more than happy to sign you up.
Remember: The Fishes need you! Become a Friend today!"
Project Riposte: Monitoring Office 63+44+31+10 (SSL)= 148/150 (Completed)
In hard times, it's important to treasure the small victories. This is why you've chosen to attend the opening of UNEA's new Crisis Monitoring Office, when normally you'd just send a deputy. As you arrive, it's clear you're not the only official looking for a bit of good news. You wind up in a party of some old PFII and UNETC colleagues, as together you are led around the new facility. Most of it looks like any other UN data office, just with some impressive AR visualizations to supplement the usual feeds. It's only at the open bar afterwards that you get a sense of the project's real potential. With this new office, runaway ecological effects can be detected ahead of time, and may even be averted altogether if the origin point is within our jurisdiction. That said, if the GTO or some other terrorist actor is intent on destroying the planet, our response will have to be ameliatory rather than preventative. Such is the nature of ecowarfare, they say. Right as you're about to get properly depressed, somebody breaks out a popcorn machine, sharing its proletarian goodness with all around. Taken together, your day is one of silver linings. It'll have to do.
Added UNEA Monitoring Office: d4 Saving Throw on Ecological Crises
Project Riposte Completed! +1 die to UNEA
UNHCR
Project Icon 10+43+51+65+(84+45) (UNESCO)+23 (IOM)-40 (HNT)+20 (VDC)= 301/200 (Completed, Half of overflow added to New Colossus)
Having prepared ourselves for the gauntlet that is reforming an entire reality, the task of recruiting famous anti-fascist simulants is a comparative cakewalk. Indeed, excessive enthusiasm soon becomes the major hazard of this enterprise. A few too many times, some historical hero or another is smuggled into reality by sympathetic diplomats. Eventually, this issue gets so bad that our initial deployment policy, one focused on reality acclimation, training, and publicity exercises, has to be scrapped entirely. At present, we're simply embodying these paragons as fast as we can find suitable sleeves for them. All in all, this project has been the perfect example of an overwhelming success.
Gained Glorious Bastards: Any Negation Crisis progress roll under a 5 is rerolled (this threshold increases by 1 for each omake featuring an epic anti-fascist showdown, up to a maximum of 10)
The Bella Ciao Initiative 15+92+20 (Starhawk)+106 (UN Habitat)=233/300
A heroic multi-agency effort is put together to arm and fortify your recently established model communities. Given their remote location, one would think that there'd be little chance of any Negation activity out there. Unfortunately, these monsters infest all forms of network infrastructure, including those forgotten or long neglected. And with all the abandoned towns, suburbs, and military bases out in the UN interior, there is plenty of infrastructure for them to feast on. Thus, there is a need for these decentralized communities, little fortress-towns holding off the darkness. Thankfully, many of their members are veterans of the war, and they've wasted no time in organizing the rest of their neighborhoods into a fine militia. Some have even gone so far as to organize expeditions into hostile territory, venturing out into former settlements to dismantle the source of the infection. So far, this part of the initiative has had minor results at best, and you'll need to complete the total effort before that is likely to change. What's worse, rumor has it that large ex-urban areas like Los Angeles or Nanchang are becoming major hotspots of Negation activity. If you're to get a large enough task force together to send into these areas, then your incipient militias should at least be able to hold their own. In short, there's still a lot more work to do.
DPO
Operation Blade 28+21+79+17=145/250
"New from UNESCO: StakeOut! In a world where the Negation has subsumed reality within its vampiric domain, you (yes, literally you) are The Last Communist, come to haunt these fascists with the specter of liberation! Import a virtual representation of your own aptitudes into the game, and unite the dregs of humanity in an insurgent coalition against the infraversal menace! Thanks to our coordination with UNATCO, the skills you will learn in your quest will reflect real-world counter-Negation tactics! What are you waiting for, comrade? Only you can turn back the apocalypse!
UNESCO: Where Culture is the Revolution!"
Operation Augeias: Daedalus Industrial Rebuilding (112/300): 1 Die 112+25=137/300
Space is one of the rare places in the UN where one can be safe from the Negation. While there's plenty of networks to hack in orbit, the local resources are too compact and monitored to accommodate any vampiric enterprise. Ironically, one of the few areas that would have allowed for it–the abandoned industrial district on Daedalus Station–is now seeing a lot of renewed attention, as work crews begin the long task of rebuilding its former prowess. As the largest UN facility in orbit, Daedalus was long responsible for the deployment and maintenance of our various space assets. These days, with the destruction of much of the station during the war, never mind the Kessler Syndrome, much of that is being run from Earth or Luna, in a grossly inefficient manner.
UNPFII (+5)
The Dreaming Initiative: Dances Without Wolves (223/250): 1 Dice 223+36+5+10 (Starhawk)-10 (HNT)=264/250 (Completed)
"Listen, I just had a meeting with the boss. Well, the vice-boss. Starhawk. They're pretty keen on our project, which is no surprise given that they used to run the place. Still, you won't believe what they asked of me just now. They want to go through one of our courses! Oh, and it gets worse: they want one of the simulants to teach them! I guess that's their way of making sure we did our job right. Anyway, you should go ahead and pencil them in for one of the local ones; I asked to make sure, but they're not looking to study their own culture specifically. They could probably make the commute out to the Haudenosaunee course. If the Negation flares up upstate, though, they can always teleport in with one of those new experimental sleeves. I don't know, just get it done."
Gained Virtual Auxiliaries: permanent +5 to PFII rolls
The Dreaming Initiative: A Rugged Request (0/250): 2 Dice 7+91+10+20 (Starhawk)-5 (Casta)=123/250
The first phase of Project Avatar–a deliberately ironic name–is a bit of a crapshoot. Since most quality sleeve designers have been seconded to the armed forces, the Dreaming Initiative has to make do with their inexperienced grad students. The result is a lot of miscommunication as to the basic purpose of these new bodies. Confused by the nuances of Indigenous lifeways, the initial designs are heavy on AR and data storage, trying to cram as much 'expertise' into the sleeves as possible. This is not what the PFII is looking for. After a major refocus, the project settles on a new design based around cultivated intuition and muscle memory. What matters is that these sleeves can adapt to their particular environment, and that the practices and rituals they need to know can be easily learned and recalled. With this basic design principle resolved, the prototyping phase soon gets into full swing. You hear the initial tests will be done soon.
UNETC
Project Penglai: Recentralization 2 Dice 92+2+73+16 (ML)=183/250
It's ironic that of all the projects disrupted by the Negation Crisis, Penglai has been affected the least. In fact, it has positively flourished, making as much progress this year as it has in all the years before it. You suspect that this is because people want to get away from the stochastic threat of vampiric assault, and the remote ecological territories are perfect for that. It helps that a lot of sensitive ecological assets are to be evacuated as part of the crisis anyway: Penglai's biodomes can offer them a new, if slightly cramped home. If the pace of centralization keeps up like this, you'll have it done before the crisis is even over. Then, at least one of your projects will be free from danger.
UNODOS
Project Tarkas: Restart the Aldrin Cyclers 23+30 (19 rerolled)+20 (MoB!)=73/200
Before the cycler manufacturing even begins, some obvious alternatives have to be struck down first. Like, why don't we repurpose the comparable vehicles currently operating around Venus and Luna? The answer for this is simple: the Venusian cyclers can't be missed, and the lunar ones are too small altogether. Still, this isn't to say that these places are useless. In fact, the few orbital shipyards of Venus are perfect for building more cyclers, and Luna can supply them with fuel as they switch from the Venus-Earth to the Earth-Mars cycle. This is the plan, at least. As it is, the first of the cyclers is still being assembled at Hephaestus Station. We'll see if it's a good ship soon.
UNOCHA
Operation Rohirrim 82+9=91/250
The pacifists at UNOCHA are not happy to see their humanitarian designs for Project Thunderbird co-opted by a cadre of military designers. Still, their fast-response emergency convoys are exactly what we need in this time of troubles. While their vacuum airships and fusion planes won't be too heavily armed, they can surely pack a lot in the way of military supplies. Right now, we're still in the prototyping phase, but it shouldn't be long before the first experimental units are deployed for active testing. That's when we'll know if our 'thunderbirds' can stand the heat of real warfare.
ILO
BAT Signal 30+15+10 (SSL)=55/150
"So, let me get this straight: Casta wants us in chains, the Eurasians are looking to brainwash us, and now a fascist rainbow coalition is trying to kill us all. And yet, despite all these horrors, we're still supposed to process BAT reports?"
"Just do it, Gene. It's for the workers."
"There's not going to be any workers if any of these crises get out of hand. But okay, I'll just hope the fascists aren't assessing their own project viability. That would surely do us in!"
"You joke, but I actually have a thesis that the historical failure of fascism can be framed as a chronic case of bad management. Ask me about it sometime."
"Oh, I will, Jean. I will."
Policy
Harden Network Infrastructure 72+65+11-20 (HNT)=128/100 (Completed) Excerpt from an anonymous message on the UN intranet:
"So I'm part of the custodial staff for Monumental Manhattan, the UN offices specifically. Most of my work is just about maintaining the drones and their automated subroutines.
The other day, though, I'm actually repainting a basement as I hear this huge commotion coming from the floor above me. I can't tell if people are laughing or screaming, but they sure are yelling loudly!
Fearing some kind of Negation attack, I race up the steps, rifle at the ready (many custodians double as people's militia). Only to bump head-first into a crowd of cheering IT personnel.
Apparently, they'd just cracked the Eurasian malware that's been bothering all of us for the past two years. Not that they're taking the time to explain all that.
Instead, me and a bunch of other passers-by are roped into an impromptu office party! The department had clearly been stashing supplies for the occasion, as before any of us can say no, the corks are already popping.
After that, my memory gets hazy. But judging by the hangover I had the morning after, waking up in a supply closet, it was quite the party. Thank god I didn't have to do the cleanup!"
All Eurasian Spam has been successfully obliterated! Finally.
Politics
Coup De Grace 26
If you had poured your convoys of military aid into a bottomless hole, it might have done more good for the people of Russia than what your actual strategy ended up achieving. Which is to say that it did hardly anything at all. As soon as the airships of aid arrived on the warlords' doorstep, they made sure to stockpile it with the rest of their military 'go bag'. Then, as this corrupt coalition was steadily rolled up by the Eurasian forces–their one major victory last year proving a fluke–these resources were loaded onto boats, and shipped off with the rest of the Russian refugee fleets. It is likely they will end up serving the mercenary forces of another major power. Ethiopia perhaps, or else the free-wheeling essentialists of Extractica. But wherever their ultimate destination, it's utterly unlikely that their use will be of any benefit to you. No, you're going to have to get used to a cosmo-fascist rogue state on your northwestern flank. Wonderful.
No Bonus to Council of Russia War Effort
Barsoomian Bargaining 10
On Mars, the Barsoomians' sieges of oligarch strongholds have given way to a less active–but still hostile–holding pattern. The great cities of neo-pharaohs and simulant slaves are left alone for now; only a few gossamer trading routes still connect them to one another, and the Barsoomians are confident that they won't pose any immediate threat. Instead, they refocus their efforts on the buildup of orbital assets, the project which made us so nervous upon their initial rising. Since then, of course, things have calmed down, and the Barsoomians seem more like potential allies than crypto-essentialists. It helps that the Eurasians have been otherwise occupied.
So, in order to strengthen our mutual relations, a collective of off-world diplomats and UNODOS planners thought it a good idea to start sharing some of our logistical lines with the new hegemon of Mars. What they should have realized is that we don't have any capacity to spare. As soon as the sharing started, our communities fell right back into the kind of precarity our emergency aid was supposed to save them from. While this sudden strain is eventually absorbed, it's taken a lot of overwork and logistical auto-cannibalism. It's a good reminder that the all-sustaining must also sustain themselves. Self-sacrifice is not inherently a virtue, you know?
-100 Project Progress to Project Tarkas: Reorganize the Infrastructure
Titanomachy
The trouble with essentialists of all kinds is that they tend to feed off conflict. In the fires of war, they only see the confirmation of their manichaean conviction, the idea that they are locked in an absolute struggle of good versus evil. So it is for the Second Battle of Stalingrad. In spite of everyone's expectations, this massive urban battle fails to break the resolve of either side. Neither the Europeans nor the Eurasians give an inch to the other side, as each of their armies pours more and more resources into the conflagration. It helps that the Council of Russia has finally given up the ghost, affording the cosmists this martial-logistical luxury. As for the Europeans, they are only further emboldened by this clash of civilizations. All across GTO territory, the forces of reaction seem eager to parallel the efforts of these new crusaders. As the year goes on, India announces even stronger strikes against the intransient megacities, and the mandala states do the same for their indigenous insurgents. Taken together, it seems that the whole world has been plunged into conflict once more, though mostly of an introspective variety. Time will tell if this pattern holds.
Gained The New Crusades: -10 on anti-GTO rolls until the Eurasian Crisis resolves
Thought this would be a shorter results post than usual, but it doesn't seem to be that much shorter altogether. Could maybe have used a bit more detail on the Negation attacks, but I guess that's what omakes are for. As usual, let me know if anything's amiss. Onwards!
From UNIDA's perspective, not really. There might have been something if you'd picked the DPPA as your additional org, and there is still one option in your current portfolio which will affect the situation in South Asia. But I'm not saying which one!
Given the current crackdown on marginalized communities in essentialist territory, the Secretariat has asked you to reconsider your upcoming expansion in the security sector. While the DPPA is a more outward-facing organization than UNATCO, and you are dealing with at least two distinct insurgencies at present, a bit of intelligence work can go a long way. So, do you take the General Secretary's advice?
[] [EPA] Swap out UNATCO for the DPPA (-5 to DPPA rolls on the next turn)
[] [EPA] Stick to the plan as-is
I am willing to offer an emergency policy adjustment, since I'm personally biased against UNATCO anyway (counter-insurgency is not as fun to write as foreign intelligence work). Will y'all take it? Vote now!
As the recent debacle with Barsoomian aid has reminded us, we must help ourselves before we have the capacity to help others! Given the dire threat of the Negation and Casta Crises, I cannot in good conscience agree to this proposal.
In other words, out of character-voice, I apologize if this will be less fun to write, @TheInnerMoon , but it seems too risky to me, in terms of both game mechanics and in-story rationale, especially given our track record so far. I don't say this lightly - hearing more about Essentialist societies, the people oppressed under them, and their resistance/survival efforts would be really interesting! But this would also be balanced out by getting to hear more about the UN's societies.
Will we get the chance to change our minds and reorganize after the current crises end?
"Do you like the ocean? Do you wish it could be more like the retrosims, full of whales and coral reefs instead of algae and jellyfish? Well, then we here at UNEA want to make you an official Friend of the Fish!
Gained Glorious Bastards: Any progress roll under a 5 is rerolled (this threshold increases by 1 for each omake featuring an epic anti-fascist showdown, up to a maximum of 10)
Ah, I should have worded this a little more clearly. The min5 reroll is for the d20 Negation Crisis roll. You can hopefully see why that's quite powerful.
