SysNES 1: A Murky Pool of Light

:yumyum:
 
The glowing chair on which the noble buttocks of the Pirate King reclined was really a chair-shaped mass of rare conductive metals and sub-surface fiberoptics flickering with inner luminescence. A relic of the Common Empire, some said. No one knew what it actually did, though apparently it came with a helmet that fried Victoire II's brain when she tried it on. But, like most stuff accumulated by a society of plunderers and ne'er do wells, they kept it because it looked cool. The big man with a mean face entered, dropping to one knee. "Your...Majesty," he rumbled.

Approaching the throne had complex protocols for lesser mortals, like clan emissaries. But a First Captain was a powerful warlord in his own right, having bent several specialist clans to his will. Vazeq Emares was a giant, hulking brute of a man. Dark brown skin clashed with dyed red hair woven into complex braids that traced down shoulders and back, and fractal tattoos were etched into his face in that clan's ritual pattern. Basically the last guy you would ever want to meet in a dark access corridor. It was one thing to sail around in IP ships taking potshots at the cargo shuttles of other clans, selling alloys on the side to fund the vendetta of the month. Vazeq's forces, and the cruiser which he commanded, were one of the real players. And he also commanded an audience with Apollinaire. First Captains could do that.

That selfsame Pirate King slouched upon the throne in a studied pose of languid disinterest, stroking a long goatee. He wore a long black coat, black boots, and a black diamond on his right hand, all matching the immaculate black ringlets of his hair. He threw out a hand in a posture of welcome. "Vazeq Bloodhair! It is an...extreme pleasure. What the nines, my friend?"

Vazeq's face stayed impassive. "Dominique sends two cruisers to this Arrakis. One explodes in a molten rain of metal and flesh..."

"Rather casse of Corentin and you to close, iemoh," Apollinaire muttered.

"And I return," he continued, his voice slowly rising, "my ship limping through the maw of the void, to see that Dominique is dead. Not just him. Fourteen clans are dead, the fleet is gone, and YOU are sitting in HIS chair. THOSE are the f*cking nines, you landward cu*t!"

Apollinaire started. "My. Well, it does sound rather bad when you put it like that."

Vazeq bared his teeth. "I don't see why I shouldn't see the color of you right now."

The Emperor of the Pirates lifted a solitary, perfectly trimmed black eyebrow. "His Royal Majesty Vazeq I? You abandoned that option when you docked your ship." He counted off on his fingers. "For one, I'd gut you myself. Second, if you killed me, my men would kill you and yours. And finally, you never actually liked that prissy b*tch Dominique anyhow. When the Iskandrians drove us out of Zemlya his time was already past. So, can we end this ridiculous bluster and have a cogent discussion?"

Vazeq frowned. "I don't know what cogent means. But fine. Where is the fleet?"

"Kaus system. Jean-Michel has the command. I'm sending you there as well."

"And leave your so-called 'Isles' unprotected?" the Captain grunted.

"A cruiser shall be returning this year, loaded with plunder. You do remember plunder, do you not? Mercenary work, and profitable at that."

"Fine. We need materials and drugs. Who are we working for?"

"Ah...now that is a very complex question indeed."

The pale king and his dark lieutenant spoke long, until the harsh light of Izar began to appear beyond Avarice's black gaze.
 
I really should start to attempt to sort out diplo earlier so I actually have time to write orders should unforunate events unfold.:rolleyes:
 
thlayli: your writing is very good: i am entertained.
 
Update 17: The Dust and the Screaming

Endless fields of golden grain rippling softly in the warm and light breeze. Fruit trees hundreds of metres tall with delicious goodness just rip for the plucking. Gentle blue lagoons by beeches of white sand. All these glowing terms and more were used by the Arrakis Development Corporation on Taik to drum up their share price and make the public slaver for when the mass cargo movement could be opened and faster intersystem movement begins. The reality of of course less rosy, but nto by much, and the new settlers already on Arrakis II are having a grand old time hacking civilisation out from the forests. To the inhabitants of Taik, who crowd into barely adequate cities whose infrastructure the Ik state has not seen fit to invest in for decades, these dreams seem all too real, enticing, and infuriatingly distant (so much so that a counter party of anti-colonist conservatives seems a distinct possibility as politicians feed on the irritation of taxpayers sending their hard earned wealth to layabouts on Arrakis II). The Arrakisians on the other hand complain that the homeworld is not doing enough to support them, and that a trade route should be established forthwith in order to avoid the current situation of resources lying idle for a year before being put to good use[1]. The Ik also floated a second example of their new Qi Sloop design this year, and some talk of mounting an expedition to bid fiery greetings to the Lord of Avarice, though the Colonists rule sees a firmly defensive posture adopted with the new warship dispatched to Arrakis II, again making the Taik favouring faction grumble about leaving Errai defenceless in the face of renewed pirate aggression.

Indeed some in Ik military planning, initially dismissive of the Taik firsters, began to take them rather more seriously when long range imagery from Errai VIII revealed that the Akresians had built their first real IP warship. The Ik scrambled to discover that some time in the last few years the Akresians had finally crossed an important economic complexity threshold – previously they were focusing all their energies into subsistence efforts for their population, but now their first real cities and education centres were emerging and producing enough surplus wealth that the Akresians could invest in more flexible and long term qualities, like military might and interplanetary expansion. Indeed the Ik were shocked to find that the Akresians had nearly half their industrial production already. The new ship type was an interesting one, its meagre offensive armament would do little against other inhabitants of the Tuft, but the Ik abhorrence for heavy armour means even the pinpricks of the Akresian 'Pride' will eventually bring a Sloop down, and its combination of small size and heavy armour means the Ik fleet assets left around Errai will actually have real trouble bringing it down quickly. For their own part the Akresians are glad to look beyond their bellies and start reclaiming some of their feelings of worth in the universe after some very rocky decades.

Unlike the Ik, who only talk about such things, the Lantians seem very keen to move large fractions of their population from the established capital of Ningbao, rounding up over a quarter of the population of their capital city to the transport ships this year and sending them off. They also took steps to make people want to undergo this move by massively expanding industrial work on Ningbao, having it reach into previously pristine residential districts. Despite this push they haven't done much for the pull on Horn, with the addition of heavy industrial processors on the floating city even as the new surge of colonists establish a university system and research organs as the storm clouds roll overhead. The annular metropolis that had seemed so very empty last year was soon over half full with new arrivals and children, but people were still a bit uneasy trusting the new home after the stone certainties of Ningbao. The Lantians, actually aping the Ik this time, designed and dispatched an incremental improvement to their corvette line of warships – the Sunsin being far more of a militant fish than the Hiel, exchanging endurance and perception for power and missiles. With no plans for exploring in the near future they have plans to replace their whole fleet with such improved vessels and sold off one of their now surplus to requirements Hiel Corvettes to a 'Al communion terrified by the prospect of a pirate attack. The Lantians also seemed worried by such a prospect by despite their increasing military prowess continued to take a placatory course with the Liberes, promising them further treasure and the construction of ships in the future if they would just stay their hand. The proud Elder Council grew even more upset with this debasement of Lantian respect, but President Mitzu successfully placates them with some bullcrap parable about willows and honey and the industrious Asian peasant.

Also around Horn the 'Al have taken possession of their new warship and carefully redecorate it to their standards, its oval amber hull still looking out of place against the flat black shards of the other 'Al fleets. The 'Al have also suddenly recalled they are really good at biotechnology, indeed some of their oldest memories are of cybernetic interface technology done to better visualise protein structures, and set up a specialised research sub-cluster to reclaim their lost knowledge.

Military uniforms are most definitely 'in' this year in Esani space, as to the complete surprise of their population the Esani Magistrates have decreed the recruitment of a massive ground army from scratch as nearly a hundred thousand young people are subtracted from the workforce and put to training and manning hundreds of garrisons across the archipelago of Esani moons. Naturally the social and economic disruption from this action was terrible, and the government had to run expensively brought recordings from Kaus around the clock in order to make people see the necessity of protection, and even then mainly were not convinced. Since they were also trying to expand the economy at the same time with numerous new drilling platforms on the ice moon of Heze III e, they faced great trouble getting enough skilled hands to keep everything running. Rumours and hearsay made the workers at the alien ruins on the rim of the system even more jumpy, but its probably nothing. The governments over reaction to the rumours is just an additional mark of their slovenly work according to their many detractors.

“What the bloody hell did I tell you guys! See! See!”
-Dissenting Soulon Senator​

Perhaps when future histories of the Hydra Tuft are compiled, the word 'Kausian gambit' will be a byword for treachery and backstabbing, though perhaps the words semantic field will be narrowed to less than competent treachery. The Soulon insistence on holding the Liberes Pearl to ransom in order to monitor its communications rather flounders on the fact that doing so does not also give them a copy of the Pirate code-book, and new directives can be issued in what appears like random social chit-chat, and that the Gardeners can use their own devices to call the Libere homeworld of Avarice directly. What ensued after weeks of negotiation between the stuffy but terrified Gardener hierarchy and his infuriatingly bombastic majesty was that most ancient of arrangements – the better offer, the Gardeners promising resources, pearls and technological templates over a lengthy period. However the new clients and mercenaries were determined to plumb the depths of dastardliness and execute a sneak attack and utterly defeat the Soulon – a plan which may actually have been in error. If they Pirates had simply switched sides the combined force could have swept the Soulon from the skies, but the constraints the subterfuge placed on movement schedules strictly limited their effectiveness. His majesty ordered a movement schedule that would immediately tip their hand to the Soulon and allow them to preserve their fleet of cutters, so his commanders decided to temporally forgot them and instead follow through on the first part of the Soulon order of battle so they can engage in an awesome climatic fight above Kaus III before fulfilling his orders next turn.

Not that the Soulon were exempt for logistical ineptitude of course, ordering somehow that divisions would float in space above Kadesh for several months between ship transfers. Instead they were carried along as the Soulon massed their fleet and surged for Kaus III with nearly all their Cutters and the majority of pirate forces. At the same time the army groups that had liberated Corth boarded the Liberes Cutter and boosted for Kadesh. Naturally on arrival at Kaus III the Pirates decided to politely inform the Soulon of the structural change in relations between, and four Farragut ships died screaming in the night, crushed between the Hard Place of the Gardener Minotaurs and the rock missile barrage from the Liberes behind them. Things didn't go all the Gardener-Pirate way however when the Pirates aboard the Feroce ships informed the Soulon divisions that they should surrender and be turned over the Gardeners or the Pirates will open the airlocks. The Soulon naturally replied that since they were combat divisions capable of being deployed to airless environments they obviously had their own spacesuits plus heavy siege equipment and vehicles, and that the Pirates should surrender before they detonate the power cores of the latter...

Soulon: Lost 4 Farragut Cutters, 10 divisions
Liberes: Lost 2 Feroce Assault Cutters
Gardeners: Lost nothing​
At the outbreak of hostilities the Liberes forces orbiting Kadesh casually butcher the Soulon Farraguts assisting with the blockade with a long range missile bombardment, surprise allowing complete destruction with the opening salvoes.

Soulon: Lost 2 Farragut Cutters
Liberes: Lost nothing​
Combined with the carnage in orbit the Gardeners planned a massive ground assault on Kaus III, though they found far less confusion in the dour and steadfast Soulon than they had hoped for. Indeed the Soulon continued with their own assault plans, knowing that it would be now or never for victory. In an earth shattering engagement outside one of the remaining Soulon habitats forty thousand Soulon faced thrice that number of Gardeners across the bare ridges and rotting forests. The battle lasted for months, but the Soulon managed to give a surprisingly good account of themselves, killing well over their own numbers in Gardeners before the outer walls of the habitat finally fell. The Gardeners only had days to celebrate their victory before realising this had all been a colossal distraction on the Soulon part, as much smaller forces attacked their true objective – the now lightly defended Gardener habitat. For this was the base point for the newly built shipyards of the Gardener Fleet that were churning out Minotaurs into the skies above even as the battles raged. After several much smaller but more momentous battles the grim Soulon survivors torched the assembly yards and supply dumps, showing no mercy to the small civilian population as the shipyard infrastructure broke down. With this the Pirate fleet were now bereft of possible supply and repairs anywhere in the Kaus system and had depleted their stocks over the course of two years battling. At enormous cost in blood the Soulon had achieved a finger span of breathing space despite their lack of ships, for the Pirates were forced to flee the system in disarray (with the exception of a Cruiser newly arrived from Avarice) and are unlikely to return till the year after next, and the Gardeners are forced to spend valuable resources rebuilding their shipyards yet again or face a similar degrading fate. The ebb and flow of combat engagements means that neither the pirates or the Gardeners can blockade both the Soulon ice moon and the recently reopened extractors on Corth, and the Soulon can eat for at least another year.

Soulon: Lost 16 divisions
Gardeners: Lost 15 divisions​
On the civilian front the Gardeners are perhaps seeing a technological flowering from the stress of war (and determination to avoid the draft) as the collective work of the savants pushes breakthroughs into new densities of energy and matter manipulation and spreading change throughout all levels of Gardener social fabric. It is clear that the crucible of constant wars will make the Gardener polity into something rather different from how it was originally, and the scars and strengths will last for generations. However now that the decisive fleet advantage has been regained hope has returned to the plazas of the white cities that finally victory might come in but a few more years of struggle.

On the other hand the Soulon are filled with despair and recrimination over the constant cavalcade of betrayals and lies, and the massive oceans of blood the Soulon people have shed for seeming no gain. A new pacifist faction has arisen, not pushing for long term trust of the despicable Gardeners but rather asking that the Soulon nation purchase passenger and colonization craft from one of the other factions and leaving this benighted system far behind. As there are now no less than four powers with established designs it should be easy to shop around, especially now that they have Ansibyl Pearls to spare.

After millions of man-hours worth of design work, the Vazan authorities were very happy to unveil the beginnings of a fleet this year with three new ship designs completed and prototypes forged. Going for a mythic animal naming motif, ironic for such a technophile culture, they produced an example of their small and sleek Phoenix passenger ship, a tough little long haul repair ship named the Abraxan class, and the tremendously dense core of a Basilisk warship spread its butterfly spray of radiator panels. It was this last vessel that was of the most interest to the Kation analysts – the Vazan appear to haven taken a multirole weapons platform with short, long, and bombardment range capabilities and wrapped it in several thousand tonnes of hard, soft, and heat absorbent armour. After thinking it back and forth for a while the Kations decided it must be the Vazan bowing down to the obvious Kation superiority in every field and not even attempting to cross the Kation militarily and consigning themselves to a perpetual second place. This is because whilst the Basilisk would be lumbering death incarnate to the energy weapon cutters numerous other powers in the Trailing Lobe are currently producing, it would be a pathetic sitting duck to the fast missile based ships the Kation researchers are currently developing. Not much else gets done by the Vazan in circum-Zavi space this year, the three new ships taking up most of the budget, though there is considerable migration (both government directed and private citizens) to the world of Zavi III, where Vazan now greatly outnumber Kations despite being confined to a mere third of the surface. This movement is due to the nexus of jobs developing around the construction research centre, who are getting a lot of contracts and grants as the fleet building program kicks into a higher gear.

The Vazan do send their newly minted Abraxan to Minkar though, to finally lay claim to their apportionment of Minkar space with a small orbital fort. The Kations that already fill the system with scouts and prospectors sneer at the sluggishness of this development, and loudly wonder if perhaps Minkar would be better off if put entirely into competent hands. The Kations have certainly been productive in Minkar space this year, concentrating their efforts on the biosphere of Minkar III a, building turrets and domes on the high ground away from the Wormforest's slow crawl round the planet. They also started extensive mining efforts, never quite the best idea with a still fragile biosphere barely subsisting on the earthen plains, but the Kations are confident their genius can overcome any future problems with the ecology. Meanwhile back on Zavi some of the Vazan scientist/commentators are furious, talking about how the Kations could wreck the ecology before the Vazan even get to settle.

Though perhaps of more concern to the average Vazan manager is the massive military recruitment the Kations are instituting in their crowded capital planet, spreading out legions of troops to every corner of their volume including the majority Vazan Zavi III. The independent minded Kation citizenry are even more incensed about the restriction of their freedom whilst serving, and many exclaim loudly that they will move to Minkar at the first opportunity. Luckily a series of cultural entertainments serve to calm the hotheads down, especially with dispatches from the Kausian conflicts making the idea of war seem all to real (the cost of extracting full video from the Pearl network was enormous of course). Several infrastructural improvements also took place throughout Kation space including a shipyard at the capital just in time to receive the returning fleet from Minkar space, the new stars in the sky hoping to restore confidence in a Government soon to be massively hammered at the ballot box for its impudence.

In Izar space a selection of Libere clans is encourage to depart Avarice and contemplate the 'finer' things in life whilst managing the mines on her most rocky of moons. In the brief moments when not drunk or a-whoring they manage to significantly boost the pirate production capacities. However this exodus combined with the recruitment of new fighting divisions puts a considerable strain on the population, and the great worldship is now beginning to ring somewhat empty, with its bars and concourses less than a fifth occupied. The return of the fleet in disarray at the end of the year causes some heads to roll, but in general his imperial majesty treats it with equanimity; they have after all made off with more loot than the ship they had lost cost, and maintained a parity on Ansibyl Pearls, and returning the fleet to operational standards was just a matter of time...

Random Events
New measures to bring about security in the dig hinder and tire research efforts for the Esani: -4s to Construction.
Vazan developments on Zavi III see synergy as population increases make it a true node in the Cyberdemarchy rather than just a resonator station: +8s Construction.

Karmically blessed factions:
Wisest orders: +1 lucky roll for the Lantians
Making the Mod laugh: +1 lucky roll for the Vazan

Notes:
[1] Kentharu The e you brought via ship this turn only arrives in the move phase, which is after the build phase when it could have been utilised.

New Discoveries:
Bubble Shield Generator (energy and materials requirements unlocked)
Developments in energy management, battery miniaturisation and detection improve the effectiveness of ground troops (+1 ground rolls).
Mag Catapult (energy requirement unlocked)
Space Elevator (materials requirement unlocked)
Advanced Radiators (materials requirement unlocked)
Planetary Shade (requires an unknown level of construction and maths technology): Via constructing a orbital shield of reflective and opaque fabrics in a planets Lagrange 1 point or some other stable orbit you can substantially reduce the amount of solar isolation that falls on the surface, causing it to shed heat and become more habitable. Costing 75e per world size, it requires an orbital beta around the planet and three metals mines active in the whole system, and does not need upkeep. Cannot be built for Giant planets or moons. A Hot world will loose 'Hot' 2 years after the shade is constructed, and Very Hot will transition to 'Hot' after 10 and then loose Hot after another 5. Thin, Standard and Thick atmospheres increase the cooling time by 50%, 100%, and 200% respectively (for example cooling Kaus II by this method alone would take 4 years post construction, whilst Kaus I will take 45 to become habitable unless atmosphere modification occurs). These orbiting megastructures are very vulnerable to enemy action, and will be automatically hit and destroyed by any bomb weaponry.
 
Datalinks: New Ship Designer for Update 17.
Spoiler ICONS :

iconso.png


Spoiler SHIP DESIGNS :

shipdesignsup17.png


Spoiler SYSTEM MAP :

update17.png


Spoiler TECHNOLOGY & SHIP COMPONENTS :

techsup17.png

componentslistup16.png


Spoiler ECONOMY :

econup17.png


Spoiler FLEETS & ARMIES :

fleetsup17.png

 
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