Update 16: Invaders must die!
The Ik finally managed to build a proper town on the lush surface of Arrakis II this year, who many amongst the Ik noosphere were beginning to refer to as 'Eve'. The colonists were very glad to finally come down from orbit and enjoy the delicious fruits and vegetables of the verdant new fields after the years of eating protein paste from the supply ships synthesizers. Since the construction of new habitation on the garden planet requires no environmental protection, the Ik government can let private citizens do the work of expanding this first city when population pressures make it necessary. As joyful as the new settlers were, the Ik high command were having hysterics trying to juggle their military assets into a configuration capable of protecting their habitation zones from prospective pirate assault. As it turns out they had perhaps less cause for concern than they originally thought though miscalculations in their shipyard produced less warships than the politicians promised [1]. All throughout Errai and Arrakis the troops on both ship and surface girded themselves for battle, whispering prayers to Alla. The flow of cargo ships back and forth from Arrakis and Taik began to stimulate the first stirrings of interstellar commerce amongst the Ik entrepreneurial classes. For once the political classes were silent rather than self-congratulatory, though once the transmissions came through on where the Liberes fleet had actually travelled to, rather than wrecking vengeance, they became somewhat more relaxed even talking about how the Liberes had been scared off by the taste of cold Ik steel.
The Akresians too had been expecting the arrival of the space pirates, though their emotional state could perhaps be better described as 'glee' instead of the Ik worry, and were sadly disappointed when the Liberes chose not to come and call at Errai. Instead of building warships like the Ik, they had decided to construct a larger habitation unit for their already cramped population and properly upgrade their hydroponics. Like rat overcrowding experiments the Akresians had been seeing increased levels of stress and neurological problems amongst their people, and the strongly mutagenic environment of Errai VIII saw an unfortunate number of 'reverts', embryos that cast off their Akresian chromosomal load and were more as something rather more similar to the human baseline. Such unfortunates were either consigned to the recycler or exile in the Furthest Republic depending on their parents connections and mercy, but the new enlarged city shielding should put a stop to that, and many moved down from the orbital habitats. Seeing strong growth in all sectors, the Akresians are perhaps more significant than the Ik care to admit to themselves.
At Gemstar the Lantians also thought about the threat posed by the Liberes. The government and council had many schools of thought on the issue with the executive carefully and coolly weighed and measured...before deciding to bend over and offer tribute to the strutting pirates. A solar sail junk loaded down with the fruits of Lantian labour and technological templates was sent winging over to Izar, a down payment on a bribe to stay away. Naturally president Mitzu was savaged soundly for what many considered craven and (even worse)
counter-productive actions, for many thought the pirates would go elsewhere, or that the resources might be better spent on an array of defensive missile satellites. The prospect of selling astrogation data was even more widely condemned as rank idiocy, knowledge being far more precious a resource than any industrial goods. Mitzu's inner circle, the president not dignifying his detractors with his attention, replied that since the resonances and long range sensors indicated a lack of mission flexibility or staying power in the pirate fleet, a bribe now so that they would assault someone else would give at least three years of safety, in which time sufficient defences could be built whilst at the same time developing the oceans of Horn III. To the counter-counterpoint, that the pirates would take the bribe and then still attack us, the government was curiously silent. The government at least authorised a small expansion of the ground based forces, whilst storing resources for some secret project to be developed in the next year. In the scientific fields the Lantians have also made breakthroughs in active structures, allowing architects to construction habitats and industrial systems as large as their imagination (and the economy) can support.
The Esani of Heze have been monitoring events around the other suns of the Trailing Lobe with bemusement (also very large telescope arrays), seeing the rise of war and violence in a host of systems. However despite a number of pithy internal communiques the Esani have assigned no resources, industrial or scientific, to defence, and continue to blithely expand their economy and massage their population movements to some sort of optimal productivity arrangement. Their economic capabilities are now comparable with the giant industrial combines of Zavi, or the Soulon league during the second peace, though their scientific output is hampered by having to send so many able minds into management pursuits. Perhaps the magisterium of the Esani worlds can be an example of the value of cooperation to those stars whose light is marred by conflict? That time may be nearer than they expected, for the Esani were rapidly synced up to the wider Ansibyl network when the Vazan probe announced itself from beyond their furthest moon, and their speculations about the economic giants of Zavi were discovered to be unfortunately accurate.
Its an old saying; paying mercenaries to fight is easy, but it takes a great deal to make them stop
-Dissenting Soulon Senator
They can have the bones of this dead world, may its lurking tiger of the ivory night consume them
-Gardener graffiti, Corth
Interplanetary combat is oft compared to fencing with claymores in the dark whilst naked, if you connect untold damage can be done by the virulently powerful weapons involved, but its just as likely that orbits and thrust schedules will see the combatants thrust slipping past each other. This year in the great Kausian conflict was of the latter type, as the Soulon went on the offensive after their shell-shocked flailing of last year, but very little actually got done. The major point of note is the Senate of the Soulons calling beyond the
Rhine Trailing Lobe for a barbarian horde to aide them in their works of revenge and destruction. Picking the channel from the Ik, a kings ransom in materials was offered to the Liberes despot Apollinaire IV for an ongoing mercenary contract by some of the more reckless Senators and Citylords. With the Lantians paying him off and the Ik spaces two years travel away, the mercurial leader of this reckless people leaped at the chance to jump into the fray, and sent his entire fleet roaring through the void towards Kaus. On arrival they coordinated their actions with the Soulon, leaving their Pearl and communications hub on Medias for collateral. Augmented by three newly built Farragut cutters and a host of Soulon divisions the rapacious pirate swarm made for Kadesh and Corth...
...arriving at Corth to discover the Gardeners had pulled out weeks ago, their transport and missile boat high tailing it for Kaus III with their remaining army. The massive Soulon force sent for the task quickly reoccupied the wrecked city under the still clouds, eager to reclaim this potent symbol of Soulon and alien culture, and valuable resources source. They discovered that the Gardeners had scuttled both the mining complex and the shipyards, and had even tried to tear apart the walls of the underground city itself, but in the limited time available had failed to crush the rugged and redundant Soulon architecture. Considerable refurbishment will be needed before civilian population can move back to the city however [3]. It was during this time the that the pirates developed a grudging respect for the League, as the grizzled and tattooed tunnellers are one of the only three cultures in the Trailing Lobe capable of outdrinking and outfighting the Liberes on occasion in a night of shore leave (the others being the Akresians and the Vazan).
On Kaus III both the SOulon and the Gardeners boosted their troop numbers, although by very different amounts. With the Gardener Cutter in orbit the Soulon could only recruit locally, whilst the Gardeners shifted in hordes from all over the system. Despite gaining a decisive numbers advantage the Gardeners merely held fast and dug in with their vast army. The situation on Kaus III looked increasingly grim for the Soulon as the Gardeners newest warship the heavily armoured Minotaur Gunboat rolled into orbit. This formidable design is essentially invulnerable damage by the Farragut Cutters, though its low manoeuvrability may prove a liability against the missiles of the Liberes fleet, though it will casually disintegrate any pirate vessel that makes the mistake of stumbling into range of its banks of UV lasers.
Meanwhile Kaus II once again proves the crux of the system, as for a second time a Soulon fleet turns up to find no dance partners. Unlike four years ago however, this fleet of Liberes ships and a Soulon Cutter are not at a loss for action upon having no defenders. The Assault ships streaked in to invade the shipyards and spaceport, whilst the Liberes Condors released their buster warheads to the planet below like a rain of death. Crammed full of Soulon troops rather than their usual highly trained Liberes marines, the intrusions suffered many set backs against the civilians and weapons of the spaceport, but eventually wrested control of its orbital structures and forcibly 'deorbited' them. Meanwhile the planetary bombardment succeeded in killing a host of civilians and cracking the beautiful white domes of the cities, but lacked the precision or luck to blow a hole in the Gardener ground forces to enable a hostile landing. The Liberes were rather disappointed by the lack of loot, slaves, or glory, but the Soulon were very pleased with their accomplishments without the shipyard the Gardeners would have to build another to continue ship construction, and without a flow of supplies and repairs any Gardener ship in the system would eventually see its structure degrade, even a formidable warship like the Minotaur.
Soulon: Lost 2 Divisions
Gardeners: Lost 1 Shipyard
On the domestic front both faction act to clean house, the Gardeners retaking their rebelling habitat, and the Soulon spending vast sums and police efforts on keeping people controlled, though after the easy victory at Corth some hope returned. Indeed many soon talked of Soulon victory with the aide of the Liberes, and exterminating the Gardeners, though the vast, vast majority of Soulon quailed at the murder of a civilian population (not being monsters you see).
The Kations seemed to be caring not a whit for the full up Zavi system this year, as once their passenger ship was designed and completed they loaded up their vast fleet of Cogs with more resources than most
systems produce in a year, plus a small worker population and jumped en-mass to Minkar. The despondent neophilic population left behind rather begrudgingly completed some incremental technological improvements. The vast cities of Aranahara grew ever closer to saturation as the increasingly unpopular ministries of PM Aiur coerced more and more people to move to the world. The Vazan, perhaps more prudent than a Kation society confident in its own indestructibility, diverted development time from their colonization fleet towards warship templates, and they are now prepared to quickly shift to war production next year should circumstances demand it. They also push forward on the theoretical sides of war, developing fighting technologies not seen in the Tuft since the Tumult (a technological level the Ik have also achieved this year), and send their probe winging its way towards Heze to make contact with the industrial civilisation whose emissions have been visible for some time[2]. The Vazan, never ones to over rush in any one direction, also continued their slow program of infrastructural and social improvement with some new universities and developments, but the vast majority of their industrial output was stockpiled into a might resource trove for next year.
The single lonely iceberg town the Lantians had floating on the endless seas of Horn III was far from fulfilling the plans of the Geashial designers, and they used it as a base to construct a true floating city. This vast annulus of buildings, baffles, storm shields and paradiamond flotation shells protected a score of square kilometers of surface from the storms that rage throughout the seas, untempered by landmasses, though actively cooled ice remained a major building component due to its availability (as the Lantians still lack a metals mine in the Horn system). This city, though only partially populated, was soon the base for a vast fishing fleet harvesting the biomass of the ocean for food production, a single facility producing nearly two thirds of the entire food output of Ningbao. The Lantians also completed their negotiations with the 'Al over providing warships, as the 'Al were rather more concerned about the pirates than the Lantians, having received dozens of crude, poorly formatted, and scatological threats via the resonances in the Pearl.
Arriving at Minkar the Kation fleet set to work at once, quickly shifting out its passengers to the tiny habitats and forts the Scouts had constructed, as well as build a few more on various bodies of the system. Utilising the vast bulk of resources they had brought with them would have to wait to next year, and the Kations carefully apportioned them between their four forts as a hedge against the arrival of marauders out of the void. The vast surge in Kation efforts certainly compares favourably with the dribble of Lantian development or the slapdash mess of the Ik designs around Arrakis, that famed cyborg certainty whirring away at the problems.
The newly arrived Liberes look on the system of Izar with disdain (much like they look on all planetary systems!), annoyed at the cavalcade of dusty or toxic moons and boring gas giants. Deciding that some economic development was going to be necessary in case the plunder plan doesn't pan out, they constructed a desultory little outpost on the large rocky second moon of Avarice (Izar II), which at least has an interesting palette of colours from orbit. However they were unable to convince any full blood pirates to move their as of yet, and the prospective metal mines might need some...other source of labour, perhaps the Gardeners the Soulon fanatics don't genocide might be suitable? Most of the pirates don't give a whit for these matters however, instead hanging on the transmissions from Kaus over whose clan and mates and distinguishing themselves in combat or bringing loot home. They also enjoyed dismantling the delicate inner furnishings of the Laoniu junk the Lantians had sent, making a number of interesting footstools out of the synth-bamboo inner partitions, and having a good laugh about their creators and how his majesty should all conquer Gemstar and have us all live like
kings. The newly returned Aphrodite cruiser on the other hand called for violent action against the Ik, spreading many visuals about the prospective vineyards and distilleries Arrakis II might have supported.
Random Events
-Something wicked this way comes
Karmically Blessed Nations:
Longest Orders: +1 Lucky roll for the Liberes
Shortest Orders: +1 Lucky roll for the Akresians
Best Orders: +1 Lucky roll for the Lantians
Notes:
[1] Kentharu, you mixed up the Qi's s cost with its e cost, so you only had resources to construction a single ship.
[2] Sorry about this Milaqui, but you sent it to Zavi when it was already at Zavi, and if Kraznaya is going to talk
like he already has contact (how would he know peoples names?) I thought I'd force someone to connect the Esani in.
[3] 15e's worth.
New Discoveries
Pebble Defence (weapons requirement unlocked)
Developments in high energy and compact infantry weapons and artillery improves the fighting skill of those with Weapons 5.
Space Marines (Requires an unknown amount of Social): 3D close combat in weightless vacuum, as two ships scream high energy radiation at each other is the most challenging environment known to mankind. Many factions engage on expensive training programs to produce soldiers capable of handling and triumphing in such conditions, as more than just improved weapons and suit technology is needed, but extensive conditioning and psychological programming. This ship component indicates that room for these specialists and their equipment is on-board this particular vessel and give it +2 to all ship to ship and ship to station ground combat rolls. Only one allowed per ship.
Cybernetic Option Soldier Augments (Requires unknown amounts of Computation and Biotech): The new miniaturised weapons and armour of the recent development in weapons tech can easily socket into cybernetic frames and greatly improve the effectiveness of the soldier in any environment. Taking this option costs 100e+1e for every division, and afterwards divisions cost 3e rather than 2e, and increases social unrest, and vulnerability to data viruses. Divisions receive +1 to all combat rolls and an additional +1 to all rolls in non-carbon biosphere environments. Cyborganised factions only need to spend 33e instead of the 100e initial sum, and get social unrest for not taking this option rather than for taking it.
Developments in active stress beams and city planning allow those with Construction 5 and above to construct habitats of size Zeta.
Bubble Shield Generator (requires an unknown amount of Energy, Materials tech): A two layer defence of an ionizing laser array in front of an extremely dense magnetic field, which first deposits a charge on, then deflects an incoming matter stream or small slug. This high energy response defends against particle weapons in a way armour never could, and has some weak bonuses against coherent energy weapons as well, and is the first shield available. The device is very energy intensive, costing -3 power for the 3 points of shields it generates.
Mag Catapult (requires an unknown amount of Energy, Weapons tech): Advances in frameworks and energy densities allows factions to weaponize mass drivers and produce truly devastating slug launching weapons along the ring design, rather than the strips of the Railgun or the coil of a needlegun. These huge brutes can fire at long range (though at -2 to hit), be coupled, and do enormous damage, but have the disadvantage of being very demanding of volume and energy, greatly slowing the ships dodge and IP speed. They also have the ability to bomb targets not protected by an atmosphere. Note: I generally call all particle weapons that can shoot long range 'catapults'.
