Update 4: And when the night wind wants to sing a lonesome lullaby...
They came like a stream of sparrows, a avalanche of ants, a showering of snowflakes [particle density 60pm3±7]. Baleful red [455.7 <> 456.9nm] drive flare over the horizon, white-suited troopers hopping down the crater wall, some [13±2%] in the air on reaction spark packs. Rapist death missile [Poison/Flame release] pierced habitat dome 456 seconds in the past, no song of survivors resonates [static on all bands – jamming?]. Options non-existent, should remain in construction tractor? Enforcer lopes past, legs, arms incorrectly sized, raised his rifle-
-Last 'Al mindstate transmission from Errai VIII b, before the Akresians took control of the relay nodes.
The 'Al were superlative pilots in the Third Age, gaining many honestly brokered commissions and barely touching planets as their dark city fleets lurked in the outer reaches of systems. It is perhaps this conditioning that lead them to so severely underestimate what the Akresians were capable of in both ground combat and in treachery. The 'Al, believing the Akresians merely wanted to live in harmony (or perhaps that their bribe had been effective), chose to not expand their military this year, but instead to focus on scholarly pursuits to improve their propulsion technology and to correct their food deficit. After all if the Akresians continued to make trouble, those starving dogs could simply be brought off with food shipments...right? The Akresians for their part had an interesting mixture of arrogance and desperation, perhaps the society as a whole still under traumatic stress from the brutality of their creation. They needed room and food, no other society could be trusted, no other society can match them, ergo they should
take. The Akresians doubled the size of their Enforcer divisions and awaited the slightest provocation – something the 'Al easily provided when they delivered slightly less e relief supplies than promised. Leaping into action the Admiralty spun a hundred thousand battle plans of strategic force distribution, correct usage of the Lone Wolfs observational capabilities, order of battle. All completely irrelevant as the 'Al had not recruited any defensive troops. Cutting through the 'Al habitats like a knife through butter the Akresians released all their pent up fury, burning out hidden nests of 'Al with unquenchable fire, opening whole cities to the vacuum of space, and 'living off the land' in terms of survivors. Despite initial hopes the loot the Akresians gathered was poor, and their attempts to analyse 'Al cybernetics was a failure – unlike the Vazan or the Kations the 'Al consider augmentation of the body to be overly wasteful, preferring to limit their technology to cerebral linkage micromachines well beyond Akresian science (indeed of all the known societies in the Hydra tuft the 'Al most visually resemble the average baseline human morphology, if a bit on the slender side and rather drably dressed). When the assault began, some groups (1 population) of 'Al were able to escape the world before the Lone Wolf could interdict them, and made it home to Errai VII, but all later escapees were burnt from the sky.
-Akresians meet no resistance, seize 'Al Beta and Alpha Habitats.
-Akresians seize 2e from captured 'Al storage
The Ik neighbours of the 'Al and Akresians have been spared war for now (as they thank Allah for every day in their prayers), and have mainly concerned themselves with expanding one of their cities on Errai V with additional residential districts. Reclaiming land from the poisonous swamps and the hypersaline seas is tricky and expensive, but vastly less so than having to vacuum-proof an offworld habitat. Despite the lack of physical activity in response to the Akresian aggression, their arrival in the system has spurred a vast amount of intellectual activity among the Ik. The loose oligarchy that had maintained the physical fabric of society whilst local towns pretty much ran themselves in the ancient style was now seen as grossly inadequate in the face of possible offworld threats. A centralised executive and a representative body to guide them was now seen as imperative, and the overt military types rose to power over their more civilian competitor oligarchs on a groundswell of popular support. The builders and scientists did manage to impose a great number of checks and balances on the powers of the new Prime Chancellor Hezbul Rasheed, and the new elected parliament rapidly streamlined the bureaucracy of the Ik state into a focused instrument of action. The first fruit of this synergy was the quickly designed
Abu-class sloop, ready for production next year. This svelte needle of a ship is lightly armoured but packs a forward facing gun sufficient to down an IP fighter in one shot, and can cross interstellar space thanks to its compliment of Burst drive spines. Light though it might be, it certainly outclasses anything else in the Errai system.
The Lantian probe returns to Gemstar for refuelling once again, to rather less fanfare this year. The hearty industrious workers of the most glorious Lantian nation make their industrial base ever stronger, expanding a new habitat and mining complex to provide more industrial goods. Their new university and hordes of researchers give up the secrets of basic energy manipulation, allowing them to build fission reactors small enough to fit on a space ship, and leaving only a few scant developments left to finish before interstellar colonisation becomes a real possibility. The young of Gemstar I, having known no other world, wonder at their elders insistence on leaving a perfectly pleasant planet, with its oceans of grey dusts and monochromatic mountains.
The Esani act on last years accumulation of resources, and upgrade their habitat on the rocky outer moon of Heze III to a size capable of supporting mines. The flow of metals, combined with their already abundant metals provides a general economic boost to the Esani, and the people are glad to exercise their free choice as individual consumers. With their new found economic wealth, the pundits of the Esani are beginning to expound on the idea of terraforming one of the worlds of Heze to allow the people to use their world changing power. Bringing a massive quantity of volatiles of Heze I, or a considerable amount of heat to the icy outer system are both possibilities, but would require very different research and development paths. Some even speaking of investigating the biosphere in the atmosphere of Heze III, though that would be a technical challenge indeed.
“By the Eye of Iapetus it was not, and should never be within the remit of our orders to fire on civilians! If we were to turn our guns on a fleeing shuttle crammed full of civilians, how are we any better than they were when they turned us away from the garden worlds at gunpoint? Putting things before people is the mark of a madman, or a 'gardener'...
-Excerpts from the court martial of Hans Amirthalingham, Soulon Flight Commander
Few wars have been started by accountants, but their number might be increased by one this year. To be fair to the unnamed Soulon analyst, it was perhaps the culture of fear and paranoia over Soulon survival and harsh treatment they had received from the Gardeners that caused his calculations to be seized on by the Shadow Council. For the Soulon had 'worked out' that the resources the Gardeners were sending left a hole in their budget exactly sufficient for construction one of their rumoured
Cyclops-class ships, which the Gardeners would then use to sweep the Soulon from the worlds they inhabited whilst their leaders were trapped on Kaus II. Quaking in their space-boots, the Shadow Lords decided they had to act first, or forever be condemned to working in the Gardener mines or as menial drones. It is perhaps unfortunate that the Gardeners intended no such thing, beyond some light espionage and missionary work, secure in their long term superiority.
The Soulon at first played along with Gardener demands for an apology, sending along a sizeable contingent of individuals to the Gardener capital world. Meanwhile a considerable number of shipping containers accumulated on Kaus III, ostensibly to construct a new Beta habitat in the open region. The Gardener prejudices somewhat played against them, thinking the Soulon to be a brutish and violent rabble they readily accepted the emissaries as the actual Shadow Lords, and snickered as they stumbled over the flowery apologies they had to speak on Gardener Visual Feeds and partied late into the night. Plied with entertainment and comely young individuals of their appropriate sexual preference the emissaries unfortunately did not divulge any secrets to the listening Gardeners until it was too late. It was only on the eve of action that a courtesan managed to tease the story out of a drunken soldier – these ruffians were not the Shadow Lords at all but rather a collection of lieutenants and shock troopers! Indeed it was obvious in retrospect, the Shadow Lords having a demeanour of technocratic Mafia dons, getting their positions through knowledge and the loyalty of subordinates rather than personal martial vigour. The watching Gardener police force rapidly moved to contain the sneak attack force, quashing their (completely unrealistic to begin with) plans of seizing control of vital locations or individuals on Kaus II, though some commandos managed to escape with stolen weapons and terrorise outlying Gardener towns for weeks. One such commando was never caught and his name lives on as Horatio Gorazde, HERO OF THE SOULON LEAGUE. Unfortunately for the Gardeners, by then it was too late, as flights of Fighters screamed into Kaus III orbit, and the shipping containers burst open to reveal six additional divisions of Soulon infantry, their skills honed by years of brutal living in frozen tunnels and overcrowded hovels. Quick marching through the chill canyons and forested valleys of equatorial Kaus III, and guided by the fighters overhead, they soon come to attack the Gardener habitation zones. Valiant love of the planet proved no match for greater skill with small arms and tactics, orbital support, and vastly superior numbers, and the Gardeners were swept from the second region. It was only in their oldest habitats and last holdouts that the Gardener divisions managed to inflict significant losses on the Soulon, but they were still wiped out eventually. Meanwhile in the outer system the Soulon tried to clear the Gardeners from the habitats they had ironically built for them last year, but the Gardeners had moved Planeteer regiments out with their colonists, and this proved something of a problem for the Soulon. They succeeded in an eviction on Kaus V, but the corpses of their men littered the appropriately blood-coloured sands of Kaus IV as the Gardeners managed to hold out. As refugees flooded Kaus II from all over the system (these ones at least being welcomed with open arms even as the Habitat air conditioning systems are pushed into overdrive), the Soulon erected a Shipyard in orbit of Kaus III, and began to desperately research defensive designs in case of Gardener counter attack [1]. Overall however, it seems the balance of power has shifted drastically in favour of the Soulon, at the cost of destroying the chances for peace...it remains to be seen if the crossing of the Rubicon by the Soulons will pay off long term.
-Kaus III region 2, Soulon 8 attack against 2 Gardener defenders: Total Victory
-Kaus III region 1, 7 Soulon attack against 2 Gardener defenders: Victory with 1 division lost.
-Kaus IV region 4, 1 Soulon attacks 1 Gardener defender: Defeat, Soulon killed
-Kaus V region 4, 1 Soulon attacks 1 Gardener defender: Total Victory
Though they might not know it, the hostile words between the Vazan and the Kations seem almost amicable compared to the actual warfare breaking out in other systems. The Kations continue to push their aggressive rocky world policy under the Cybernetist faction, building new Beta habitats and laying the groundwork for even larger constructions, though Biotechnologist calls to terraform the outer moon Zavi VIa are beginning to receive more support after scandals rock the ruling party. Freer living room would be nice after all these cramped Beta habitats that have people banging their cybershells against door frames
all day. They continue to use their buzzing fighter to halt Vazan expansion outwards...even though the Vazan continue to only show interest in developing their current world. The Vazan radicals have finally managed to dethrone the traditionalists in an entirely bloodless war of words (and some shoving), and manage to shut down the GAIA system completely. The traditionalists remain a strong political force however, and there remains considerable dissent on how the Vazan society should choose its goals now that action tables are no longer being passed down from on high. Eventually its decided to implement an almost complete inversion of the old system, though ironically using the same distributed communication system and implants that GAIA once governed with. A
Demarchy would be implemented, with citizen juries selected at random proposing policy, which would then be voted on remotely by the whole population. If bringing the worker drones into the political conversation was a good idea remains to be seen, but expert legal software certainly helps the citizen-juries go about their work. The selection of traditionalists for juries, and then later absolute tyranny by majority voting assuages the fears of that faction that the resulting culture would be unnecessarily individualistic or wishy-washy.
Random Events
Soulon unfamiliarity with their newly seized habitats sends one climate control system into a death spiral on chilly Kaus III (-1 population)
Storms damage some Vazan warehouses on Zavi II, is all the industrial development causing planetary heating? (-5 stored e)
Karmically blessed societies
First Finished Ship Design: The Ik +1 Lucky Roll
Most comprehensive story+ship design notes: The Ik +1 Lucky Roll
Revenge is a dish best served cold: The 'Al +1 Lucky Roll
Random Stats
Most researched field: Construction, as leaders build giant golden statues of themselves.
Greatest knowledge specialisation: The Vazan, with 6 techs total but Construction all the way up to 3.
Largest Military Force: The Soulon Army on Kaus III.
Way the discerning Akresian is wearing his trophies of the 'Al assault: Thigh bones made into a fetching hat.
Notes
[1] matt0088: you told the fighters to prevent anyone leaving the Gardener habitats, but ordered against atrocities, which is what firing on the unarmed shuttles would be, so the fighters let them leave.