The bad thing is that we burn really easily. Went to the Isle of Skye, completely foggy, ended up not realising how sunny it was and now I look like an overripe tomato...
Speak for yourself - I've gotten a tan going
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Update 14: Faster than a cannonball
It is always interesting to note the passage of power from one generation to another: sometimes the new generation of leaders question the decisions and assumptions of their predecessors, and sometimes they take what had been a pragmatic choice and raise it into an unquestionable doctrine. In the Ik republic a power transfer of the latter type was taking place this year. Where Hezbul Rasheed and his personality cult of a party had talked of Ik superiority and destiny to alleviate peoples fears of the Akresians, and pushed expansion to meet resource requirements and line their own pockets, the youth who had grown up in that rhetorical environment believed with a fiery passion that the Ik were the blessed of Alla and by rights should be the unquestioned rulers of every star in the galaxy. This sentiment was both exemplified and encouraged by the new 'Colonist' faction drawn from the capital city and outer worlds, and as Rasheed retired (and several large men convinced his son to lay off the politics) and the young Fatih Mehmet rose to prominence as the newly elected Prime Chancellor. Loving the Ik people almost as much as he loved himself, his opening speeches talked of the Furthest Republic and the Akresians as if they were already part of Ik republic the era of respecting sovereignty in circum-Errai space was apparently over. Ironically one of the last documents the old government did sign was a tripartite agreement to divide Minkar space with the cyborgs of Zavi system, and Mehmet made much political capital criticising how little the Ik received in comparison to the other two when their claim was so much stronger (since the Ik were the first to send a proper ship rather than a probe, and the obvious Ik superiority). When arriving in power however he did not pursue these claims, but instead helped the Colonist faction throw all their support behind the construction and launch of a new colonisation fleet (consisting of a Cargo Shell and a fleet supply ship to provide engineering and life support), which jumped to Arrakis system in the mid point of the year with twenty thousand colonists aboard. The colonising fleet was escorted by the formidable Al-Qiyamah vessel, and many wondered why the Ik went packing for bear when the Akresians seemed a much greater threat...
Speaking of the Akresians, despite the suspicions of the Ik that something dark was being planned, proved that their stock piling of resources was peaceful in nature as they throw up another orbital hydroponics station around their small moon. The influx of food lead to another population boom amongst the ever hungry
tyrannous, and the capacity of the new farms was already half used up by the end of the first year of operation. The Akresian skill base in orbital facilities would not let them build another large structure around their small moon for some time, and it would probably prove an easier job to just better the designs of the hydroponics plants and systems. Some public transmissions from the Akresians protested their benign intentions, and the Ik populace increasingly saw them as defanged monsters, adding to the new imperialists support.
Upon arrival in Arrakis system the ignorant colonists were informed of the governments need for such a powerful escort: eleven years ago the Ik space probe had been viciously assaulted and destroyed by a force of SPACE PIRATES who were based on the beautiful garden world of Arrakis II, and now the republic would claim both vengeance and the planet. The fleet commander Shafid Hawazi was rather perturbed to discover that the lost Ik Ansibyl Pearl was not in the system, for one of the primary aims had been to recover the alien device. With one of the remaining with him, another on Taik and the last with the exploration fleet the Ik would not be able to send any additional ships between systems until more were obtained. However doubtless the answer to this riddle could be gained from prisoners of the Pirates, and the Al-Qiyamah surged ahead of the fleet to engage the two pirates intelligence had predicted in orbit of Arrakis II. Now the Sloop was a powerful device indeed, capable of sending colossal energy flux through its lasers, but it was not perhaps the optimal design to engage with the pirate Cruisers who were armoured, equipped with a range of weapons, and most importantly
faster than the Sloop. The Ik signalled their wish to parley, and the energy signature of their weapons made the pirates agreeable enough to get into close range, which is when the Ik opened up their microwave batteries. One battlewagon was melted down to molten dust in a hail of radiation, but the Al-Qiyamah didn't have enough independently aim-able guns to kill the other in one shot, and whilst the Sloop was dumping heat the Corsair kicked its fusion drive into high gear and moved away. Things looked very bad for the Ik, as the kinetic harpoons of the pirate were falling thick and fast and the puny ion drive of the Al-Qiyamah would struggle to bring the hard running pirate into range of the lasers. A merry chase went on for a dozen orbits or more, with the Ik flagship gradually taking more and more damage from impacts. If it hadn't been for the pirates having to dodge a lucky piece of debris the triumphant fleet Ik would have been destroyed; as it was the brief minutes the Al-Qiyamah was in range brought the pirate to the brink of destruction, and deciding that prudence was the better part of valour the pirate stopped shooting and raced out of Arrakis system spewing insults and promises of revenge. It was with a chill that later analysis revealed that only one of the two ships just encountered had been among the two present a decade ago when the probe was lost obviously the pirate threat was considerably greater in extent than the Ik planners had first thought, and any undefended new colony in the Trailing Lobe had the potential to be tracked down by their Ansibyl Pearl and raided. It was with considerable trepidation that the Supply Ship constructed the Orbital fort around Arrakis II, especially as no one had remembered to bring along the ground troops to crush the pirate base remaining on the surface. All these events were spied out by a set of mechanical eyes on the rim of the system the Vazan Probe certainly hadn't been expecting such a
show.
Very little of note occurred in circum-Gemstar space this year, as the entire resources of Ningbao were focused on the construction of the immense Tianshi-class Passenger Ship, a gleaming edifice of metal and amber tinted paradiamond. Unlike the Ik there were no vast parties or celebrations as the first civilian colonists boarded the ship, the Lantians just calmly got on with their work, perhaps lighting another incense stick at the shrine to Old Earth for good luck if they had family or clan aboard the Yudi. The efforts of the Government were faced outward as well, engaging in long distance negotiation with the 'Al around Horn before the Passenger ship arrived and various other factions.
The Lantian Hiel Corvette, now having gone three years of realtime without visiting home, jumps to the system of Yshakaron that the Soulons rickety probe had such difficult surviving. They arrive without incident, and scans confirm that the Soulon Pearl is still somewhere within the Kuiper Belt of the system, but digging it out will take considerable time and data processing on the half of the Lantian home data clusters[1].
It was an...interesting...experience. Obviously I only had a brief immersion...yes external units only, a kind of reverse mind trawl, no implants...Dr Kim did a very through check up...what? Well if I couldn't have empathy for a people driven from their homes what kind of Jew would I be? So anyway I think it made me get some crucial insight into that character of theirs...every experience the hive has ever had is always flitting from one mind in the chorus to the next...they never forgive and forget because they never forget...every hurt and lie and pain is refreshed constantly...like that scoured damn moon was just lost yesterday...the sharp tooth monster rends somewhere...I think we need to go over the diplomatic team roster again...can never put one foot wrong...
-Dr Rosenthal, notes from his debriefing after the seventh Lantian-'Al plenary session.
In the system of the star Horn the first batch of Lantian settlers arrive on their utilitarian passenger ship the Yudi, the common folk marvelling at the wonders of a new system and star in ways the dignified and precise military personnel that proceeded them never did. The new workers brought the orbiting fort up to full occupancy whilst the rest remained on the ship. In the normal run of things construction personnel operating from the beachhead would construct new facilities in the year or years following arrival, but the Lantians had the advantage of a workforce already in system the 'Al warrens. After lengthy negotiations the 'Al transferred a considerable quantity of their yearly industrial output to the Lantian storage yards, and what's more, the guant and eerie 'Al drones descended to the endless and bottomless ocean below and constructed a small floating outpost for the Lantians to occupy well before they could have organised labour for themselves. Not quite trust an 'Al architect to not build something unsettling the Lantians insisted on a dull workman-like base carved out of an iceberg which they can expand on later to their own tastes and designs. Its currently unknown what the Lantians agreed to do for the 'Al in exchange for these resources and services...
In addition the Hiel Corvette previously stationed over Horn III decided to use Horn's strategic position to jump deep into the Spinward Lobe and visit the system of Terebellum. The news from Arrakis caused many on the Elder Council to question the strategic sense of this profligate decision, pushing to nearly the fullest possible spread of the Lantian Ansibyl Pearls.
The Esani head for the stars this year the stars of SCIENCE thanks to their lavish spending on new research facilities; a a low G construction site on the large city of the inner world Heze II, and a secretive weapons research centre deep under their capital city on the substantial moon of Heze III. It was almost like they were worried about something emerging from the grim thicket on the outermost world of their system. Several basic industrial improvements were also implemented, though the effort spent making everything run in their intrasystem empire was starting to add up.
Interplanetary warfare is a game of chess played in six dimensions, and we have been blessed with an opponent who doesn't even know which piece is his King
-Father Captain Jan Ranjit-Santos, idle remarks in the ships log.
As the second Soulon War raged on the League continued to be far more concerned about securing their population base on Kaus III than having any plans on taking the fight to the Gardeners. Some wits even spoke of the Soulon Civil War featuring the Gardener Hierarchy to begin with, though by years end they can thoroughly changed their tune. The Senate, its former Kaus III representatives now firmly under house arrest, concocted a plan to tie everything back together and expel the Kadesh influence they would simple remove all the troublesome population on Kaus III in favour of loyalists and apportion the rebels and doubters to reeducation camps in the major cities of Medias (Kaus V), and gulag work environments on the icy moon of Kaus VII. Glorious monuments to the Soulon people were to be built in the major cities of the outer worlds celebrating the Humanist ideology of the League; Man as the Worker, the Sculptor, worlds only relevant as they serve to advance the human race and its representatives the Soulon league. The forced mixing of Soulon from all the planets of the League did produce some rather interesting cultural products and innovations, though they were all carefully censored for pro-Gardener thought, rather hypocritically considered the concurrent extolling of the archaic concept of freedom of speech. At the same time massive efforts were pumped into developing Kaus III industrially, with a horde of new atmosphere strippers being raised to the heavens and new heavy industrial tactics adopted. The round up and exiling of the pro-Gardener regions was quite successful and the vast fleet of Cutters were soon escorting prison ships to the outer system. However the Senate seemed to have overlooked the idea of rounding up all the rebels will merely produce new rebels from those who have lost family and friends to the Gulags, as well as new converts appalled at the rape of the environment, and whilst vastly less in number these new agents of insurrection would be much quieter and cleverer - not that they would need to wait long to act. For just weeks after the last Farragut warship departed, the Gardener Assault Fleet streaked into orbit...
Composed of all those ships that had hid around Kaus I last year, the fleet also saw a number of new additions, the result of constant Gardener counter-engineering to the Soulon threat. A pair of cutters of their own, of the Lamassu-class, lead the assault with the globular ball of their forward laser cluster ripping apart all the Soulon communications satellites. The crews were relieved however to not face any opponents, as the order of battle had called for them to make near suicide runs to annihilate the Farraguts before the missile and transport ships could be intercepted. Following quickly behind were the standard Fomorian and Gunboats escorting a single Rukh cargo ship stuffed to the gills with troops. Easily overcoming the Soulon communication nets, the Gardeners began blasting propaganda to the planet below, though unfortunately after the Soulon policies it mainly fell on deaf or hateful ears. Some sleepers did listen however, and rose up in the quietest sector of the Soulon planet and took over the space port. With the Gardeners in full control of orbit, there was nothing the cities and garrisons the Soulon controlled regions could do as the Gardeners descended from orbit like avenging angels. Once on the ground things were quite a different matter as the Gardeners had to fight through the tough and determined Soulon soldier corps who had hand years to dig in and still controlled strategic mobility on the planet which meant a brutal fight ensued. The Gardeners were victorious in that quarter of Kaus III they targeted, but took such losses that any further attacks would contravene their battle doctrines against throwing lives away, and after one attempted push out was beaten away, they decided to sit and secure the sector they currently held. The Fomorian also shot down the shipyard, perhaps to prove that it wasn't a useless waste of resources. The Soulon naturally blame this action on what is possibly the most tragic result of the war so far, but it is almost certainly their own avarice with the volatiles mines and the widespread rioting of last year starting fires and damaging maintenance machinery. Whoever's fault it was, the results were indisputable as the always fragile forests of the planet couldn't cope with the loss of oxygen in the air and died, crashing the whole ecosystem with them. What was once green and bright from orbit turned grey and brown, billions of animals above bacterial complexity perished, and the production of the Soulon farms vanished overnight. The new food deficit among the Soulon could be solved with an increase in hydroponics knowledge and a few more outer system farms, but the fate of the Soulon league now hinged on two small water and hydrogen mines on Corth (Kaus VI) and the moon of Kaus VII, and the technology or skill to reverse the collapse wasn't even on the radar. The League was of course horrified by this spiralling disaster, and the Gardeners were incensed with pious rage, even allowing the construction of more factories on their now doubly precious garden world in order to punish the Soulon threat.
Soulon losses: 2 Divisions 1 Shipyard
Gardeners losses: 5 Divisions.
If it could be said that there had been one prevailing emotion in the Vazan noosphere prior to the events of last year, if you could sum up the thoughts and plans of millions in a single word, that word would have been...complacency. The Vazan had thought they were secure, secure in their worlds, secure in their explorations, secure in their industrial might. However in the past eighteen months wave after wave of upset had rained down first there was the the Kations beating them to Minkar by years, then the humiliation of having to apportion out chunks of valuable Minkar real estate to both the arrogant Kations and the vainglorious Ik, then the violence witnessed at Arrakis caused by a pirate threat the Ik had not bothered to war anyone about, and now the mounting Kation industrial supremacy threatened to make the Vazan a footnote in the Zavi system. It was obviously time for the Vazan to switch off the holoporn, roll up their sleeves, socket their heaviest gear and get some real work done. Rather than the simple expansion of living space they had been doing up till now they made considerable investments in outward facing infrastructure with a new shipyard around Zavi I and a new university system on the desert world to compliment that of Krige. However their major focus was on the design and planning for a whole host of new Starships based on Burst Drive templates. A quick push into developing better energy management and naval frames made the fevered dreams of the panicked design bureau into something that could be actualised though completing all their plans would take more than three years worth of research time.
The Kations also focused their research efforts into energy and construction fields, though didn't make nearly as much progress as the Vazan. They did however get rather further along in the design of at least one ship a basic Charm Drive transport shell with voluminous cargo bays that would have to be escorted by a fleet with rather more megaflops than it could provide itself. They had no spare industrial resources for ships however, as the entire output of several years of Kation work was devoted to the construction and lofting of string of massive aerostat stations within the upper atmosphere of the placid Gas Giant Nathrasil (Zavi VI). Mere months after the first fountains began operating the huge amount of volatiles that were being extracted changed the entire face of the Zavi intrasystem economics in the Kation favour, and it looked like the atmosphere harvesting would pay for the huge initial investment within seven years of operations. The economic boost this gave the Kations came at just the right time to stave off and even reverse the economic crash brewing on the capital Aranahara. The massive developments there that had been the keystone of the governments policy had also extended to full scale mining of the planets crust by the large population however the small and light world only had a limited inventory of the rarer elements and metals upon which industrial civilisation depends, and this year the last stocks of those within reach of current technology were exhausted. Whilst carbon, silicon and iron could still be had in virtually limitless quantities, much like they can be found on every planet in the tuft, the loss of the rarer elements caused a massive crash in the profitability of the planets mines, and the total industrial production fell despite population growth. Meanwhile around Minkar, the duo of Corsairs split up, as one maintained a watchful vigil over the dim Garden moon, the other travelled to the second Jovian to plant a base directly on the surface of a small ice moon a useful long term source of volatiles and tapping into the rich amount of resources to be found in and orbiting Minkar IV. The slow wash of news from system to system made the crews of the Corsairs very worried when the situation at Arrakis filtered through; a pirate Corsair verses a Kation Corsair would be a very unfortunate mismatch indeed.
Random Events:
The gathering of Soulon on the Kaus V megapolis requires a drastic upgrade of the plumbing and recycling systems, the skills learned here give a boost to those lone researchers tinkering with hydroponics: +10s to biotech.
Kations mine out the rarer elements of Zavi V: Zavi V gains the 'Lacks Metals' trait.
Karmically Blessed Nations
Due to the late update everyone gets a lucky roll!
Notes
[1] Finding the Soulon Pearl will take a whole year of the Corvettes time and 5s.
System Reveals: Arrakis
Arrakis system would cause nostalgia in anyone who remembered Old Sol (I.e. no one). The innermost planet is a well heated and airless orb of rock and metal, twin to the fourth planet in all except temperature. A smooth purple gas giant rich in ammonia rolls along in the stars outermost orbit, accompanied by two small and icy moons, without sufficient gravity to differentiate their strata. The inner one of these two moons is enriched with rare earth deposits to boot. The inner gas giant bulks larger and warmer than Arrakis VI, but its orange mass illuminates no moons of note. Arrakis III harkens back to the most ancient Mars, with a thin and arid atmosphere hovering above chill and rust-red deserts. Vast canyons and gorges and wind eroded craters pepper the planet, and small ice caps lurk at the poles, though not enough to provide a sufficient volatiles inventory. Arrakis II on the other hand, would remind anyone of the lost earth, and is the real prize in this system. A rich carbon and DNA biosphere, more verdant even than Earths, spills across three continents and countless islands, without a desert and only small ice caps in sight. Humans can walk under the sky here without protections, breath the air and eat the plants (though some would give them heroic indigestion). Every Eden has its snakes though, and it appears if a militant group of SPACE PIRATES have set up shop on Arrakis II, seeking to raid AP and breeding stock from other societies in order to kick start their own. A pair of powerful ships seem to have come through the Tumult for them, and who knows how many more lurk in the darkness?
New Discoveries:
Adaptation Toxic (requires an unknown amount of biotech):The Atmospheres of toxic worlds feature hundreds of variates of chemicals that are inimical to baseline human life. However adding the right molecular complexes to the human bauplan, particularly in the skin, lungs and other surfaces can render the less dangerous features harmless or collected and excreted before they do damage. Germline modification to include this bionano can even produce a population resistant to the effects in the long term. Developing the adaptation to any one toxic world (each has a different mix unless stated) costs 50s, and afterwards you may pay 6e to change 1 population point to be resistant to that toxin. For management purposes you need to pay for the whole world at once, and when you move any pop there or away from there I ain't trying to track modified and unmodified groups! After the change is done you ignore the negative effects of the Toxic trait for that world. A society must be careful about creating a specialist caste of its population, this can lead to resentment and dislike of the modified and a feeling of exclusion by them. Extremophilic societies only have to pay half the s and e costs, and avoid the negative social repercussions.
Light Sail: A suitably light and reflective material can bank and ride about a system on the photon winds of the star itself, lugging along a payload beneath its vast mirror sheets and hundred kilometre rigging. Whilst it makes the vessel pathetically vulnerable and unmanuveourable the sheets are extremely cheap once sufficient knowledge of weaving molecules has been gained, and since the thrust is effectively free a sail can lug along a surprising amount of cargo in its minimalistic frames (halves the cost of cargo bays, cheapest IP drive).
Capacitors: Materials requirement now uncovered.
Needlegun: Materials requirement now uncovered, only the Maths level needed is still unknown.
Lithium Sinks (requires an unknown amount of propulsion): One method of heat management on a spaceship is to use excess heat to melt down a block of material in a heat sink, thus allowing longer and heavier energy usage in combat situations before the sink fluid is vented or refrozen. Whilst basic sinks on the current spaceships use ice or mercury, the element lithium has the longest window between its melting and boiling point of any material (that isn't radioactive or
really expensive) whose melting point starts at a reasonable range and thus can be used as an efficient and flexible heat sink on a high energy warship (Tin also has similar heat capacity but sounds less science-fictiony
) storing heat up to a thousand or more degrees Celsius. Addition of a lithium sink will boost the energy ceiling of a ship by 10 units, but only one can be installed per vessel.
Those horrible warmongers...
I think we're even now.
Where are you dis? 
