TheInnerMoon
Anarchist, Author, All-Around Philosopher
- Pronouns
- They/Them
What is this, democratic centralism?
Xenopoiesis: A Plan to Weird the World
- Thread starter TheInnerMoon
- Start date
- Original Sci-Fi
TheInnerMoon
Anarchist, Author, All-Around Philosopher
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Possibly, although the feedstock for your present space industries is already filled to capacity. Better to clear some of it out before you pile more on.
India is one of the main members of the GTO, and arguably the most stratified society on the planet (if not in human history). Whereas its elites live the existence of gods, able to create and destroy new simulations and communities to their heart's content, others are experiencing a grinding poverty which hardly meets the standards of a hundred years ago. This is all by design, though: whereas European essentialism is more focused on creating specific racial-historical fantasies (which are allowed to be egalitarian within the in-group), the Indian model is more about putting each individual component into its proper place. Of course, given the size of the Indian population, controlling the subcontinent to this extent is hardly viable. In practice, a lot of Indian megacities are simply left to rot, being periodically purged to head off the worst of the riots. The rest of the country is some combination of wasteland, industrial district, and 'Vedic Zone', where the utopias of the Indian model are realized most completely.
- Location
- Outside the Box
- Pronouns
- She/Her
@TheInnerMoon What's the threshold on the Global Status Rolls dice for a crisis? If it's any roll from 1-9, then with five dice you've got (0.91^5 = ~0.624) about a 62.4% chance of all five dice not rolling a crisis, or in other words, a ~37.6% chance each turn of getting at least one crisis. If it's any roll from 1-5, then instead you have (0.95^5 = ~0.7737) about a 77.4% chance of not rolling a crisis each turn, or a 22.6% chance of having at least one crisis per turn.
Point is, the current system you're using seems like it will be constantly generating crises, and at a rate significantly faster than UNIDA's ability to deal with them.
Point is, the current system you're using seems like it will be constantly generating crises, and at a rate significantly faster than UNIDA's ability to deal with them.
TheInnerMoon
Anarchist, Author, All-Around Philosopher
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Good question! Rest assured that not all five dice are crisis-related, at least not in the sense that they're causing a crisis for us specifically. I've basically been rolling one die for the status of the GTO, UN, and neutral powers, one for the state of the environment, and one wild card die. The Eurasia situation resulted from a simultaneous crisis for both the EU and Neutrals, and the Barsoomian Rising was a wild card option. Note also that of these two, only the Barsoomian Crisis is one that UNIDA is actually supposed to deal with in any significant capacity. So, while your calculations are correct (and very useful, in fact), I have narrative offsets in place to head off that eternal crisis mode you're talking about. Then again, a steady rate of surprises is part of the quest, especially in these early days. But I will definitely take your advice into consideration.
TheInnerMoon
Anarchist, Author, All-Around Philosopher
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Speaking of which, since your planning is so unanimous, and I feel like rolling some dice, I think I'm going to close the vote now.
TheInnerMoon
Anarchist, Author, All-Around Philosopher
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Dice incoming:
TheInnerMoon
Anarchist, Author, All-Around Philosopher
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Oh dear.
IamtooSleepy
I came here to be an ant
> Nat 1 on global status
Oh no, not again...
Oh no, not again...
- Location
- Outside the Box
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Quick tip for planquests: There are too many dice. Your expectation for bad (or good) luck is not calibrated for this many dice. The chance to not hit a nat 1 on a 1d100 is 99%. This turn with 7 global status dice, that chance dropped to ~93.4%. Over these first three turns with 17 global status dice total, the chance of not hitting any nat 1s was ~84.3%. The more dice you roll, the more likely outlier results become, and planquests roll way more dice than other quest formats do.
In a ck2 or ck2-adjacent quest, a quite crunchy and dice-centric quest format, you might roll 5 or 6 d100s in a normal turn, and sometimes one of those dice each turn might be super risky or impactful. Here, you rolled 44 dice, and 7 of them had the potential for massive global impact. While 7/44 is a ratio close to 1/6, the chance of crits and crit fails is over six times as likely.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Okay, going to attempt to handle this mathpost mess as we stare down the barrel of another crisis.
Project Riposte: Consolidate Our Acquisitions (0/150) 4d | 83+7+41+82 = 213/150, 63 overflow
New Colossus: Simulation Federation Programs (85/200) 1d | 85+27-10 (HNT) = 102/200
Road Warrior: Track the Caravans (135/150) 1d | 135+43 = 178/150, 28 overflow
Libertalia: First Communes (68/200) 2d | 68+20+35+20 (Gaze x2) = 143/200
Operation Kublai Khan: Launch! (88/250) 4d | 88+14+18+85+96+20 (Japan x4)+60 (Japan Fleet x4) = 381/250, 131 overflow
The Dreaming Initiative: Dances Without Wolves (214/250) 1d | 214+9+10 (Gaze)-10 (HNT) = 223/250
The Zomia Program: Incorporate the Ainu (134/200) 2d | 134+75+70+20 (Gaze x2)+10 (Japan x2) = 309/200, 109 overflow
Project Penglai: Recentralization (75/250) 1d | 75+17 = 92/250
Project Augeias: Garbage Downmass Protocol (0/150) 4d | 38+35 94+87+43+20 (Mars or Bust) = 282/200, 82 overflow
Project Tarkas: Emergency Convoys (0/100) 2d | 68+52+10 (Mars or Bust) = 130/100, 30 overflow
Project Barefoot: Thunderbirds are go! (0/250) 1d | 3 = 3/250
Project Pannekoek: BAT Signal (0/150) 1d | 30 = 30/150
UNIDA Management: Harden Network Infrastructure (72/100) 1d | 72+10-10 (HNT)= 72/100
A Barsoomian Gift Basket 1d | 50
So @TheInnerMoon there are dice you forgot to roll, or reroll.
Project Riposte: Consolidate Our Acquisitions (0/150) 4d | 83+7+41+82 = 213/150, 63 overflow
New Colossus: Simulation Federation Programs (85/200) 1d | 85+27-10 (HNT) = 102/200
Road Warrior: Track the Caravans (135/150) 1d | 135+43 = 178/150, 28 overflow
Libertalia: First Communes (68/200) 2d | 68+20+35+20 (Gaze x2) = 143/200
Operation Kublai Khan: Launch! (88/250) 4d | 88+14+18+85+96+20 (Japan x4)+60 (Japan Fleet x4) = 381/250, 131 overflow
The Dreaming Initiative: Dances Without Wolves (214/250) 1d | 214+9+10 (Gaze)-10 (HNT) = 223/250
The Zomia Program: Incorporate the Ainu (134/200) 2d | 134+75+70+20 (Gaze x2)+10 (Japan x2) = 309/200, 109 overflow
Project Penglai: Recentralization (75/250) 1d | 75+17 = 92/250
Project Augeias: Garbage Downmass Protocol (0/150) 4d | 38+
Project Tarkas: Emergency Convoys (0/100) 2d | 68+52+10 (Mars or Bust) = 130/100, 30 overflow
Project Barefoot: Thunderbirds are go! (0/250) 1d | 3 = 3/250
Project Pannekoek: BAT Signal (0/150) 1d | 30 = 30/150
UNIDA Management: Harden Network Infrastructure (72/100) 1d | 72+10-10 (HNT)= 72/100
A Barsoomian Gift Basket 1d | 50
So @TheInnerMoon there are dice you forgot to roll, or reroll.
Last edited:
TheInnerMoon
Anarchist, Author, All-Around Philosopher
- Pronouns
- They/Them
But what if I just like rolling a lot of dice?
In all seriousness, I do have some narrative backstops to prevent excessive gloom (or its inverse, though that hasn't happened yet). Part of that is a holistic approach; if multiple regions or domains face a crisis at once, that just counts as one overall 'event' (like the Eurasians). In this case, I am treating the nat1 as relatively exceptional, and it's going to be very regionally specific on top of that. I'm not saying which region though!
TheInnerMoon
Anarchist, Author, All-Around Philosopher
- Pronouns
- They/Them
I think I see the issue; there are five dice assigned for PFII where there should be only three. Or did I give y'all a bunch of free dice I forgot about?
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Yeah, my plan had an extra 2 dice tacked on in PFII for some reason. I think I screwed up there, and nobody pointed it out to me. So... let's say Rugged Remains never existed and I'll adjust the numbers?
TheInnerMoon
Anarchist, Author, All-Around Philosopher
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Deal! I'll also reroll that space die for you now.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Okay, so it turns out after adjusting the dice that the 3 isn't a space die, but I applied that to the 35 instead. Incidentally, we got net zero progress on improving our network security this year.
TheInnerMoon
Anarchist, Author, All-Around Philosopher
- Pronouns
- They/Them
That fits really well with what I have planned.
- Location
- Australia
- Pronouns
- He/They
Oh come on
IamtooSleepy
I came here to be an ant
While at this point, everyone already knew our global status roll is cursed, I would like to point out to these projects.
In "The Dreaming Initiative: Dances Without Wolves", we have roll a total of 6 dice, and 1 dice from ISCRA in the first turn - the dice result are 64, 38, 10, 49, 28, and 9. That is, of these 6 dice, only 1 roll higher than 50 and a third of them rolled equal to or less than 10. The average dice rolled is 33.
"Project Penglai: Recentralization" only has 3 dice rolled so far, but all of them is lower or equal to 40 - 35, 75, 17. The average here is 30.67.
Finally, unlike the other two, Libertalia actually menage to progress pass the first stage, but the dice rolled are very extreme - 60, 20, 86, 2, 20, 35. A third of the 6 dice rolled are 60 and higher, while the rest is lower or equal to 35, with 2 of them rolled 20 and one literally just 2. Bringing the average to 37.17
At this point, I am inclined to declared these projects absolute cursed and in desperate need more resource (hopefully once there is less fire for us to put out), especially when expanded Dreaming Initiative is our promise for the AmPlan.
...Something that is easier said than done when Harden Network Infrastructure made literally zero progress this turn. I start to think we should stop doing infraverse project until we get that done.
In "The Dreaming Initiative: Dances Without Wolves", we have roll a total of 6 dice, and 1 dice from ISCRA in the first turn - the dice result are 64, 38, 10, 49, 28, and 9. That is, of these 6 dice, only 1 roll higher than 50 and a third of them rolled equal to or less than 10. The average dice rolled is 33.
"Project Penglai: Recentralization" only has 3 dice rolled so far, but all of them is lower or equal to 40 - 35, 75, 17. The average here is 30.67.
Finally, unlike the other two, Libertalia actually menage to progress pass the first stage, but the dice rolled are very extreme - 60, 20, 86, 2, 20, 35. A third of the 6 dice rolled are 60 and higher, while the rest is lower or equal to 35, with 2 of them rolled 20 and one literally just 2. Bringing the average to 37.17
At this point, I am inclined to declared these projects absolute cursed and in desperate need more resource (hopefully once there is less fire for us to put out), especially when expanded Dreaming Initiative is our promise for the AmPlan.
...Something that is easier said than done when Harden Network Infrastructure made literally zero progress this turn. I start to think we should stop doing infraverse project until we get that done.
Turn 3: A New Third Way? Results
TheInnerMoon
Anarchist, Author, All-Around Philosopher
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Turn 3: A New Third Way? Results
[] Plan: For Barsoom!
-[] UNEEF (4 dice)
--[] Project Riposte: Consolidate Our Acquisitions (0/150) 4d
-[] UNCHR (4 dice)
--[] New Colossus: Simulation Federation Programs (85/200) 1d
--[] Road Warrior: Track the Caravans (135/150) 1d
--[] Libertalia: First Communes (68/200) 2d
-[] DPO (4 dice)
--[] Operation Kublai Khan: Launch! (88/250) 4d
-[] UNPFII (2 dice + 1 No Cost)
--[] The Dreaming Initiative: Dances Without Wolves (214/250) 1d
--[] The Zomia Program: Incorporate the Ainu (134/200) 2d
-[] UNETC (1 die)
--[] Project Penglai: Recentralization (75/250) 1d
-[] UNODOS (2 dice + 4 Free)
--[] Project Augeias: Garbage Downmass Protocol (0/150) 4d
--[] Project Tarkas: Emergency Convoys (0/100) 2d
-[] UNOCHA (1 die)
--[] Project Barefoot: Thunderbirds are go! (0/250) 1d
-[] ILO (1 die)
--[] Project Pannekoek: BAT Signal (0/150) 1d
-[] Policy (1 die)
--[] UNIDA Management: Harden Network Infrastructure (72/100) 1d
-[] Politics (1 die)
--[] A Barsoomian Gift Basket 1d
-[] UNEEF (4 dice)
--[] Project Riposte: Consolidate Our Acquisitions (0/150) 4d
-[] UNCHR (4 dice)
--[] New Colossus: Simulation Federation Programs (85/200) 1d
--[] Road Warrior: Track the Caravans (135/150) 1d
--[] Libertalia: First Communes (68/200) 2d
-[] DPO (4 dice)
--[] Operation Kublai Khan: Launch! (88/250) 4d
-[] UNPFII (2 dice + 1 No Cost)
--[] The Dreaming Initiative: Dances Without Wolves (214/250) 1d
--[] The Zomia Program: Incorporate the Ainu (134/200) 2d
-[] UNETC (1 die)
--[] Project Penglai: Recentralization (75/250) 1d
-[] UNODOS (2 dice + 4 Free)
--[] Project Augeias: Garbage Downmass Protocol (0/150) 4d
--[] Project Tarkas: Emergency Convoys (0/100) 2d
-[] UNOCHA (1 die)
--[] Project Barefoot: Thunderbirds are go! (0/250) 1d
-[] ILO (1 die)
--[] Project Pannekoek: BAT Signal (0/150) 1d
-[] Policy (1 die)
--[] UNIDA Management: Harden Network Infrastructure (72/100) 1d
-[] Politics (1 die)
--[] A Barsoomian Gift Basket 1d
UNESCO is desperately defending its heritage sites (318/1000), UN Habitat is sponsoring guerrilla artists (86/100), ISCRA and the OHCSSR have sorted out their embodiment priorities, and are designing the first general civilian prototypes (267/1400), UNCXR has a room of war criminals brainstorming new WMDs (82/150), UNLIEC is seeing some escapist communities defect to the Negation (140/600), and ITU is just a little closer to bulwarking our network against all these infections (133/600).
UNEEF
Project Riposte: Consolidate Our Acquisitions 83+7+41+82= 213/150 (Completed) (63/150 Monitoring Office)
When it comes to weapons of mass destruction, the Internationale does not fuck around. Project Riposte has been a perfect example of that, as time and again your people have kept these nasty devices out of the hands of insurgent reactionaries. Now, though, you have to confront those factions which already possess such arms, and work to mitigate their potential ecological impact.
UNEEF begins by cataloging all the prototypes you've gathered in the course of this project. The ones that are merely destructive are transferred to UNCXR, as you are only interested in those which could damage the ecosphere at large. With most WMDs, this comes as a side effect; you have enough case studies on nuclear winter to attest to that. With this new class of weapons, though, the ecological damage seems to be precisely the point. You've already been acquainted with the defoliant-producing slime molds which Casta sought to deploy, but these are only the beginning. In this category, one also finds such diverse devices as aerosol-producing drone swarms (variated for either heating or cooling), space-based mirror constellations, and rapid ocean deoxidizers. At least these last ones might be of some use to Project Cambrian, if only to show them what not to do.
Overall, the fact that so many of these weapons started as benevolent geoengineering initiatives unnerves your people to no end. How many more of these have been redeveloped towards destructive ends while you weren't looking?
+50 to Project Cambrian: Ocean Defertilization Tests
UNHCR
New Colossus: Simulation Federation Programs 85+27+54 (UNESCO)+63 (IOM)-30 (HNT)+15 (Diplomacy Bonus)= 214/200 (Completed) (132/300 Operation Red Pill)
Contrary to what one might expect, simulations are never just a free supply of labor. For starters, there is always the question of context shift to content with. Often it's far more trouble re-educating a simulated soul about the reality they'll be working in than simply recruiting local personnel. Secondly, any material work requires a drone or sleeve to operate through. The logistics of this are often more of a bottleneck than the surplus of simulated labor would suggest. Finally, simulated souls are singularly unequipped for any managerial labor. Besides the previous reasons, the inherent distance between them and their subordinate workforce causes an inevitable degree of disconnect. Worker autonomy is almost always the superior option.
With all this in mind, your Simulation Federation Programs' greatest struggle is to find any work that could potentially be outsourced to the simulated. In the end, this mostly comes down to bureaucratic-organizational labor and remote service tasks. The resulting emergence of simulated office towers and call centers is not exactly something to be proud of. Still, those who participate in these programs are just happy to contribute, and only need to commit themselves to this slog for a few hours a week. For despite everything, it's still a massive surplus.
Gained Simulation Support: +10 to any Simulable Service Labor (SSL)
Road Warrior: Track the Caravans 135+43= 178/150 (Completed) (28/200 Aid the Caravans)
Here are some of the coolest Caravans I saw during my time on Road Warrior:
- A school of biomimetic submarines, packed to the gills with algae farms
- A fusion-powered plane which stays permanently aloft, and is constantly swarmed by delivery drones
- A giant catamaran, which can become a hydroplane at high speeds
- A fleet of sail-powered house buggies, cruising down the windy coasts
- Tri-hulled vacuum airships, based on a Venusian prototype design
- Some cars which ran on gasoline? Not sure where they got their fuel from
- An old-school group of horse riders. Their tents were surprisingly spacious!
Libertalia: First Communes 68+20+35+24 (UN Hab)+20 (Starhawk)= 167/200
Excerpts from "Critical Architecture: A Guide For Utopians"
"During our work on Libertalia, we often found ourselves contending with the paradox of novelty. For as much as we were trying to question the pre-existing paradigms of rural and suburban architecture, our way of doing so still fundamentally depended on the work of those before us. Our innovations would thus derive from their combination and rearrangement, instead of some magical leap into the unknown."
"One class of inspirations could properly be called 'utopian', both in a literal and a historical sense. We looked at such sources as Fourier's old Phalansteries, the rustic science fictions of Morris and Le Guin, and more practical designs like Bolo'bolo and Commune Excessive."
"A particular problem which arose out of our cooperation with the PFII was the question of Indigeneity itself. With all the minds that were being rehabilitated then, there was a renewed emphasis on authenticity and 'traditional' designs. It took some real soul-searching for us to realize that this could easily veer into essentialism. If we were not going to allow for anything new, anything mixed, what was the point of reviving our ancestors?"
"While I remember my time on the project fondly, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention its ghastly interruption by the Negation Plague…"
DPO
Operation Kublai Khan: Launch! 88+14+18+85+96+80 (Japan Bonuses)= 381/250 (Completed) (Overflow consumed by crisis)
Excerpt from "Out of the Frying Pan: A History of the Early 22nd Century":
"Though the combined task force of Operation Kublai Khan would not know it at the time, their actions would set off the most significant crisis on UN territory since the Fourth World War…" (continued below)
UNPFII
The Dreaming Initiative: Dances Without Wolves 214+9+10 (Starhawk)-10 (HNT)= 223/250
The useful cross-pollination between this project and the Libertalia had now turned into a downside, as some of the resources that would ordinarily be reserved for this effort has gone to more immediate work on our experimental communities. The PFII has also had to attend to the incorporation of its newest Ainu members, which only distracted them further. The fact that you were almost done makes the delays even more frustrating. It is dearly hoped that the present crisis won't hamper the initiative further. It probably will though.
The Zomia Program: Incorporate the Ainu 134+75+70+20 (Starhawk)= 299/200 (Completed) (Overflow consumed by crisis)
Your incorporation of the Ainu completes just in time, as any efforts in the region are quickly overwhelmed by the developing crisis. The final signing of the Ainu's accession to the PFII is thus a bit of a calm before the storm, though you do not know it at the time. Instead, all the various diplomatis involved congratulate themselves on a job well done. And to be fair, it was a very smooth process. The goodwill this has fostered has made the Ainu into one of the most supportive elements within the PFII, if not the UN developmental effort at large. This is sure to bear fruit in the future.
Gained Ainu Auxiliaries: +5 to any PFII die
UNETC
Project Penglai: Recentralization 75+17= 92/250
By now, this project is so far behind schedule that your people are starting to quit in droves. They were sold on a globetrotting conservationist adventure, and this is anything but that. Maybe some of them will come back when the project takes a turn for the better, but for now it's a major setback.
UNODOS
Project Augeias: Garbage Downmass Protocol 38+94 (35 rerolled)+87+43= 262/150 (Completed) (112/300 Daedalus Industrial Rebuilding)
"New from UNESCO: Kessler 2120! This new update to our long-running space development MMO brings a full reset to the status quo, inspired by the latest UNOOSA statistics and UNODOS protocols! As always, you will be able to spec into different classes as you work to bring the light of our revolution to the stars. Will you be a humble Trash Trawler, recycling the remnants of humanity's hubris for the sake of a prosperous future? Or will you be a Party Planner, imbuing the UN's development goals with some necessary ideological rigor? This update also introduces the new 'Void Vagrant' class: hitchhike across cislunar space as you share your inspiring songs and stories! UNESCO: Where Culture is the Revolution!"
Gained one free Project Augeias action next turn
Project Tarkas: Emergency Convoys (0/100) 2d 68+52+10 (MoB!)= 130/100 (Completed) (Overflow redirected to Gift Basket)
Of the million souls which permanently dwell on Mars, perhaps a tenth are aligned with the UN. The rest are either GTO lackeys, Barsoomian rebels, or some flavor of neutral. Still, despite this sparse population, the war caused significant hardship, resulting in all kinds of deaths, disappearances, and defections. To make up for the way you've neglected this issue in the past few years, you've now sent a fleet of emergency supply vessels. While some of the aid consists of finished goods, much more of it is logistical in nature. Certain varieties of feedstock are simply unavailable on Mars, and you can't do much greening without the necessary seed banks. Though all this aid has yet to make its full impact known, the immediate response has been one of relief and begrudging gratitude. Couldn't you have done this a little sooner?
Mars or Bust! upgraded to a +10 bonus
UNOCHA
Project Barefoot: Thunderbirds are go! 3/250
[INCIPIENT ASSETS OVERWHELMED BY ACUTE EMERGENCY]
ILO
Project Pannekoek: BAT Signal 30/150
A mediocre amount of progress is made on getting Bat reports straight to the center. Much of this comes down to the problem of information overload; if we try to keep track of every little workplace issue, there won't be any time to do something about them. As the ILO works to install several necessary information filters and collaters, a test run in late October is quickly overrun by the chaos of the Negation Crisis. Given the size of this all-encompassing disruption, it may be a while before your attention can return to these comparatively minor efficiency issues.
Policy
UNIDA Management: Harden Network Infrastructure 72+10-10 (HNT)=72
[OBVIATED BY RECENT EVENTS]
Politics
A Barsoomian Gift Basket 50+15 (Emergency Convoys)=65
Upon taking delivery of your tasteful arrangement of social and ecological technologies, the Barsoomian diplomats are cordial but cool. Your gift will be evaluated, they say, but you are thanked nevertheless. For a while, you assume that this will be the end of it, that your efforts will have a minor positive effect at best. Then, your emergency convoys arrive on the Red Planet, carrying among their load some samples of the donated technologies. Once these are handed out in addition, the Barsoomian reaction proves more positive. You suppose this is because you have saved them the trouble of having to print and assemble these machines, which would take up precious technical capacity. Now they can put these implements to work at once! Suddenly, there are talks of deeper cooperation, of founding a joint ecological project perhaps. You remind yourself to commend whoever thought to pack these additional gifts.
Upon completing project Tarkas, barring any hostility, a joint project with the NBC will open up.
Night of the Living Dead
When your first few scouting parties land on the shores of Japan, their impression is one of sheer desolation. The local harbor infrastructure appears to have gone disused for at least three decades; when the scouts move further inland, it's clear that the same is true for the various villages and cities of Kyushu. In those places where the ground hasn't been permanently contaminated, wild growths of plant and fungal matter cover every available surface. The strange nature of this greenery belies their artificial origin; some kind of biodome leak is suspected.
As the main landing force sets up their first base camps, your vanguard enters the city of Fukuoka. Here, for the first time, they notice a hint of continuing civilization. More specifically, the technopathic among them start to sense the subtle presence of a signal field, emanating from somewhere underground. As the attached engineer force begins to dig, they quickly discover a vast rhizomatic network of nodes and lines running across the city, processing a vast amount of encrypted data. This discovery becomes all the more distressing when those at base camp are asked to perform a dig as well, and there hit upon a similar network. As far as your people can tell, the whole island must be covered in it.
While encrypted, it doesn't take long before your sleuths manage to hack into the signal; they are the best of the best, after all. What it turns out to be is an infraverse hookup, straddling the difference between augmented and virtual reality. Upon connecting to it, the entire landscape instantly changes, being filled with a kaleidoscope of overlapping images. To even begin to summarize it is nigh-on impossible. Nevertheless, what it appears to be is an amalgam of All Japan, or at least Japan as it would like to be remembered. Samurai rub shoulders with long-dead LDP politicians, as Shinto temples sit atop Keiretsu skyscrapers. In its gestalt structure, it is the virtual realization of someone's image of perfection.
Walking around this layer of additional reality, your technopaths are unable to interact with any aspect of it. It seems that a vital part of your interconnection is yet lacking. Perhaps this is for the best, though. The more time you spend in this strange simulation, the more obvious it becomes that this place is eminently Essentialist. The way you tell is not by looking at what's there, but by considering what isn't. In this case, it's any notion of a world beyond Japan. No maps depict any region beyond the archipelago. Any sense of national or imperial humiliation has been thoroughly excised. Overall, the place is as static and lifeless as a butterfly trapped in amber. Even the people just move through their routines, never advancing this timeless existence.
After making a few mental recordings, the science team makes ready to abandon this sub-realm. In general, command is prepared to dismiss this network as an Essentialist curiosity, the logical end point of their loathsome ideology. That's when one of the technopaths bumps into a virtual apparition. More specifically, a daimyo from the nation's last days, carrying a large revolver and a ceremonial mono-sword. The incident is quick and disruptive; affronted, the simulated warlord draws his sword and issues his challenge. Desperate, the technopath cuts the signal, only to find that a physical being now stands before them. An android, to be precise, holding a cruder version of the same mono-sword. They manage to get a nasty cut in before the technopath can escape, but escape they do. Afterwards, as it becomes clear that at least some of these virtual beings have physical avatars, any further immersion in this infraverse is prohibited. Armed escorts will make sure that your remaining research parties won't be bothered by these errant spirits.
For the next few months, this seems to be the end of it. No further contact is made with the rhizome network, and its half-broken physical representations are either evaded or destroyed. Then, your people start to be rotated out for their mandatory leave. Given their multinational points of origin, they spread all across UN territory, bringing with them an undiscovered malady. For as they stared into the simulation, so too did the simulation stare into them.
In hindsight, the crisis which emerged could have been avoided in several different ways. Perhaps if our own infraverse had not been laid low by Eurasian disruption, it would not have been infected so easily by this Japanese virus. Or else, if we'd been more proactive in fighting vampiric escapism, this virus would not have found the fertile ground that it did. But this is all conjecture, of course; let us return to what actually happened.
As various members of the task force made their way back to civilization, they left a trail of dormant digital infections in their wake. Naturally, this was not discovered at the time, or else it would have had no chance to spread. Instead, it made its way into the more illicit and unsecure sections of the infraverse network, and from there began to seep into the infrastructure of the UN's many 'vampire castles'. It is here that the true crisis began.
A known weakness of vampiric enterprises is the way they tend to outsource their own maintenance. This means that there is a weak link between the simulations that are to be defended, and the actual parasites tasked to defend it. The Japanese virus would take advantage of this fact. At its core, it merely reprogrammed the non-sapient vampires into becoming its new thralls. As for the sapient, subcultural ones, they were enticed with the allure of dominion, of ruling over their prey. They would stand at the head of a new coalition of evil, a belligerent rot which would spread like a plague across UN territory. Given its inherent opposition to all that was Real and Imperfect, it would call itself The Negation.
The onslaught of the Negation came in a slow and methodical fashion. At first, none of our anti-terrorism agencies noticed anything out of the ordinary. Sure, the usual vampire attacks seemed to focus a bit more on print shops and sculpting centers rather than energy infrastructure, but they had done so before. No, the real surprise didn't come until October 31st, a most auspicious date.
On All Hallows Eve, the legions of death announced themselves. They were not zombies, oh no. The beings which had been multiplying exponentially were fully sapient avatars, constituting a diverse army of horrors. Its purpose, as we would soon learn, was to assimilate our realm into theirs, and to exact a bloody vengeance for daring to disturb them. In order to create the agents of our destruction, the Negation had taken its inspiration from history's blackest pages, distilling them into a unified nightmare. In practice, this meant the return of some of humanity's greatest monsters. In China, a modernized version of the Imperial Japanese Army would make landfall, reenacting a thousand historical massacres in the process. The US, meanwhile, would face the long-imagined fantasy of a nazi invasion force, complete with imitations of occult weaponry. Ironically, South America would be terrorized by the perfidious yanquis, helped along by a renewal of Casta's operations. Finally, our allies in Africa were assaulted by the hungry ghosts of colonialism, eager to lay claim to those few resources they had not already pilfered.
This brings us to the present day. Among the many nightmares we have been forced to confront, the scariest of all has been the specter of their coordination. These attacks have all come at once, robbing us of any chance to deploy your reserve forces fruitfully. Thus we are threatened by the death of a thousand cuts. While no single attack is so great as to be insurmountable, their sheer volume and frequency has made managing them utterly impossible.
To deal with the developing situation, which is just barely contained at present, the General Secretary has officially declared a state of emergency. This officially makes the Negation Crisis the first existential threat since the war. If the Internationale is to survive in any significant capacity, then we must now commit ourselves to drastic action.
The Negation Crisis has begun. A state of emergency has been declared. Stand by for further instructions.
In Other News
The arctic cyclones are especially bad this year, your relative lack of assets around that region is only a small silver lining, given the scope of the present crisis. As your cities burn, the Eurasians are still going at it on both fronts, though with decidedly less fervor than before. The battle of Voronezh is as good as over, and Moscow's logistics are now effectively isolated from those of Stalingrad. On the eastern front, meanwhile, the Council of Russia has won its first significant victory against the cosmo-fascists, halting their advance for the moment. If Eurasia suffers another dual setback like this, it will be rolled up by the end of next year. Another silver lining, you suppose. To make up for it, the Negation's campaign of terror has inadvertently enabled the resurgence of Casta. While they're not (yet) actively working together, you no longer have the assets to automatically resolve this secondary crisis. Something more will have to be done.
The Casta Crisis will no longer resolve automatically.
With another crisis piling on top all of the other ones, it's clear that things can't go on this way any longer. Next turn will be a little different, to say the least. As usual, let me know if I've made any embarrassing mistakes in my writing or accounting. Your comments in general are always very welcome.
Last edited:
TheInnerMoon
Anarchist, Author, All-Around Philosopher
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Important to note here that I continue to take a lot of inspiration from some of my favorite futurist worldbuilders. In this case, the bit about ecocidal weaponry was inspired by, if not plagiarized from, this section from the 2150 setting by @Mathuen: https://www.deviantart.com/mattystereo/art/Technology-2150-Part-2-Retrohazards-593325406
TheInnerMoon
Anarchist, Author, All-Around Philosopher
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Also, since I saw this just today and it vibes really well with Xenopoiesis, here's another future crisis setting of some relevance: https://www.deviantart.com/floydm127/art/Sweat-968248254
IamtooSleepy
I came here to be an ant
They have what? Never mind that, how fast can we get those war crime machine up?
I think this should have been 214?
Well, that's depressing.
...Yeah, in hindsight, we should maybe be a bit less mono-focus and done those earlier.
..ough
Well, at least they aren't allied with Eurasia, right? I mean, they are being leaded by Japan, maybe we can try to get Eurasia to fight them to revenge Russo-Japanese War or something?
...On the other hand, them being out and out existentialist mean GTO might decide this is the best thing that could ever happens and start joining them in fucking with us. This is very suck.
TheInnerMoon
Anarchist, Author, All-Around Philosopher
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Corrected!
- Location
- Queensland, Australia
Okay, I haven't been voting but... Yeah, I will admit that the entire time I was reading Turn 1 and 2's results, I was basically going "Why didn't you put any effort towards countering the Vampires?" with my reaction to seeing Turn 3's Plan again didn't put any effort towards dealing with the Vampires basically being "I really hope you folks know what you are doing because that Vampire issue seems like it's probably the most damaging threat the UN is dealing with other than the climate catastrophe that's occurred and you've completely ignored it."
I uh... I definitely did not expect to see just why the Vampires are so potentially devastating to be shoved in all of your faces. At least the good news is now you are going to be able to "Just shoot the problem" as a solution to the Vampires rather than having to carefully hunt down the ones that are actually doing things wrong and then punishing those who did the wrong things with your carefully gathered evidence... That is a good thing, right? Right?
Oh dear god, they're blowing up everything, where are the guns?
More seriously: yeah, the Crisis System definitely needs a rework, just so consistent bad luck (or good luck if we're talking about the Mirror-verse version of this quest) doesn't uncontrollably cascade more than the way it has here. This event here and how you've worked the roll results in is also a good way of pushing the Questers to spread the effort a little rather than trying anything like 'focused effort because it's mathematically optimal for rapid progress'. After all, whilst it does mean what gets focused on is rapidly pushed forward which frees up effort to tackle other crises now that you have more resources due to it being spread across one less crisis... It does no good if all the freed up resources from rapidly tackling one crisis are sucked up and then some because one of the crises you were ignoring escalates it's impact.
Basically, I think this Crisis may turn out to be a good thing in terms of the Quest's evolution over time. Care just has to be taken to ensure this doesn't become 'Continuous Apocalypses, The Quest' because that's not what it's supposed to be. I think at least?
And now I'll go back to lurking, though I might actually start voting depending on how the Crisis Events change things as it might cause this to grip me just enough to make the time dedication worth it. Sadly there's only so many hours in the day and so much to read and keep track of, let alone participate in.
I uh... I definitely did not expect to see just why the Vampires are so potentially devastating to be shoved in all of your faces. At least the good news is now you are going to be able to "Just shoot the problem" as a solution to the Vampires rather than having to carefully hunt down the ones that are actually doing things wrong and then punishing those who did the wrong things with your carefully gathered evidence... That is a good thing, right? Right?
Oh dear god, they're blowing up everything, where are the guns?
More seriously: yeah, the Crisis System definitely needs a rework, just so consistent bad luck (or good luck if we're talking about the Mirror-verse version of this quest) doesn't uncontrollably cascade more than the way it has here. This event here and how you've worked the roll results in is also a good way of pushing the Questers to spread the effort a little rather than trying anything like 'focused effort because it's mathematically optimal for rapid progress'. After all, whilst it does mean what gets focused on is rapidly pushed forward which frees up effort to tackle other crises now that you have more resources due to it being spread across one less crisis... It does no good if all the freed up resources from rapidly tackling one crisis are sucked up and then some because one of the crises you were ignoring escalates it's impact.
Basically, I think this Crisis may turn out to be a good thing in terms of the Quest's evolution over time. Care just has to be taken to ensure this doesn't become 'Continuous Apocalypses, The Quest' because that's not what it's supposed to be. I think at least?
And now I'll go back to lurking, though I might actually start voting depending on how the Crisis Events change things as it might cause this to grip me just enough to make the time dedication worth it. Sadly there's only so many hours in the day and so much to read and keep track of, let alone participate in.
Last edited: