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Starsector 0.97a is out! (02/02/24); In-development patch notes for Starsector 0.98a (2/8/25)

Author Topic: Restoration  (Read 1270 times)

happycrow

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Restoration
« on: January 05, 2025, 08:26:28 PM »

Donil's mask chafed.
He knew better than to take it off, though. The atmosphere on Nomios was breathable, technically. But he had no desire to spend a week doing lung rehab from all the ammonia he'd take in trying to get a full breath in the thin, horrid atmosphere.
Most of it would just clump down in the form of the caustic snow that could be easily cleaned off his suit later.
Most of it.

Best to keep the mask on.

Up ahead, his display registered body heat.  That was intentional. He tramped over to the hab entrance, an old Mark VII bunker which had been repurposed as a lab.
"Donil," the voice purred synthetically.
"I'm here, Gaz." Donil relaxed.

Donil didn't know how old Gaz was, but he did know that the old lady was half machine or more by now, and rumor had it that she had a beta core installed somewhere in her spine for the express purpose of assisting with constant cellular repair. Mbaye-Gogol may or may not have survived the Collapse...but Donil was certain in his bones that old Gaz had.

"I have it for you. Your credit was as good as you assured."
Donil nodded. If it hadn't been, there was a good chance that the ubiquitous defense turrets of Nomios would be pointed at his shuttle by now.

Gaz continued. "When I am hearing you want to refurbish a ship, I am thinking, how did Donil get his hands on something worth that kind of money? But then, it is not every day a man stumbles onto two gamma cores."

Donil frowned. "That should be enough and then some."
Gaz purred, the servos replacing her left hand, whining reluctantly in the cold, while they tramped into the restoration area.

It was beautiful.
"Fuel capacity is cut in half. Storage capacity quadrupled. Drive augmented and insulated. Crew requirements cut by three-fifths. Can be flown by one, so long as you dare to keep weapons inert. Worth much, Donil."

More than that, the dull orange paint of the Dram's hull, the color that was never, ever repainted, screaming the universal warning, AM FUEL, if you're going to blast me, do it from several units away, or die with me, was gone. In its place was a simple dull black.

"It's not really a tanker any more, you know." Donil smiled.
Gaz nodded. "No augment on sensors. You'll need that, you know."
Donil knew. "We've already lost the Harpoon and one of the vulcans."
"Vulcan 2 shifted to point conspiculously to the rear, covering your hatchway?" Gaz mused. "Not subtle, Donil."

"That's the point, Gaz," Donil smiled, running his hand over the like-new ship's hull. "I've got a lot of desperate people to feed. They need to know I'm a friend, not prey."

Gaz nodded absent-mindedly. She didn't mind the atmosphere inside the facility. "I keep this design on hand. A pity it cannot be made into blueprint."

Donil waved his hands in the universal "shrugging" gesture every spacer knew. "Most people would rather have a Hound."

"I offered you a Hound," Gaz countered.
"I know," Donil placated. "But you see why now. This carries five times the fuel and about as much cargo."
"At the cost of a one-third speed reduction for emergency maneuvers," Gaz countered.
"Well," Donil replied. "An gram of careful beats a kilo of belt-fed."

Gaz ignored Donil's precious folk wisdom. "I still need to program your transponder. What will your ISS be?"
Donil smiled.  "ISS Still Decivilized."
« Last Edit: January 06, 2025, 03:44:21 PM by happycrow »
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happycrow

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Re: Restoration
« Reply #1 on: January 13, 2025, 08:43:40 AM »

Death-to-the-Foe grimaced as sparks and metal dust flew everywhere.

Not, mind you, out of any vaunted sense of industrial hygiene. This station wasn't for soft slaves of Mammon. It was more that burnt specks of metal represented waste.

There was no margin for waste on this holy war machine. Every gram had to count.

"Yo! Fist-of-the-Innocent!"

"Yeah?"  The portly old fart drifted over in his suit, comms crackling. Fist's suit should have had the best comms on the station, since it was stolen off a dead Tri-Tac executive. But it was also eighty years old and had been exposed to hard radiation for several owners before Fist got it.

"We need to not waste all this metal."

Fist smiled through his visor. "Don't worry about it. We're going to gather it up and use it for thermite later, for low-thrust maintenance sats."

Death-to-the-Foe scowled. "The whole point is that A and B decks here have to be solid metal. Nothing but pure armor plate for the entire prow."

Fist nodded. "Don't worry, we're making a run on some pirates and are going to cut up their whole Colossus to provide the metal we need. Sorry you weren't told, but you've been focused and nobody wanted to knock you off your Path. Also, what's going in the turrets?"

Death-to-the-Foe smiled. "Flak, flak, and more flak."

He smiled, looking a little confused.

Death-to-the-Foe looked at her Path. It was a hulking prayer to Ludd.
Pathers couldn't make this ship. In truth, Pathers couldn't make much. Their fleets were mostly seizures and donations from the faithful whose Path did not include open warfare.

Getting a Retribution gave them an opportunity too good to pass up.

"Why bother with flak when the entire front of your vessel is going to be solid metal? Nothing's going to be able to scratch that."

"Because the Tri-Tacs and their baby Molochs all have strong shields. We want to stress those shields as hard as we can while the Orion is working to get into range."

"Range?"  Fist of the Innocent frowned. "But what are you going to shoot them with if you're all flak? That prow will work great for ramming, but their capitals can handle that, and you probably can't even hit a Beast of Moloch with it."

Death-to-the-Foe held up a hand as they got a burst on open comms.  "It's no good, Death."
"What isn't?"
"I've tried and tried, but I can't figure out how to mount a shuttle on this that will get you out. I can do an ejection pod, but no more, and the radiation will probably fry you regardless."

Shining Lily was their best shuttle mechanic. If they couldn't figure it out, then it wasn't going to happen.
"Go with the pod then, and I'll sleep in Ludd's embrace."

Fist-of-the-Innocent looked at her as comprehension dawned, his face a look of slowly mounting awe. "You sabotaged the Orion."

She nodded. "The problem fighting the Heggies, the Beasts of Moloch, Tri-Tac's slaves of Mammon... we can't punch through their capitals to put a hole in their lines. And that means too many of us never complete our Paths."

And this... this... he smile, nodding and beaming beatifically... this gift from the Corrupted Church, it's only meant for one fight. But... it will punch that hole. If it gets in range."

Death-to-the-Foe nodded. "That's why we need all the metal.  It's armor, but it's not really armor."

Fist-of-the-Innocent grinned.  "I wondered why you wanted the weight. You don't want vaporized plasma up front. You don't care if it's ponderous getting to Orion range. You want it heavy enough that that....."

She thumped his shoulder companionably. "Thermonuclear frag grenade."

Death-to-the-Foe frowned.  "Shining Lily is right. If you take the whole system percussive simultaneously, no pod will get you out in time. You'd be looking for divine luck itself not to be turned into plasma at 200 units."

They looked at each other. Finally, the old man nodded, seriously.
"This is your Path, my daughter."

She bumped his helmet with hers.
"This is my Path."

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happycrow

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Re: Restoration
« Reply #2 on: January 15, 2025, 06:18:02 PM »

"See, yer gonna buy this Kite."

"Hatch" Beru looked dubiously at the specs. "So you've been good to me, but you know I asked you to find me a good reliable Hound. You know, with shielded cargo?"

"Yer gonna buy this Kite," Eight Gun said.  Hatch didn't want to argue with the portboss. He didn't like coming to a pirate station in the first place, but what were your options in this day and sector?

"You said I was going to buy the phase ship."  Hatch shook his head.

"This is better than the phase ship," Eight Gun said.

"Yeah? Why's that?" Hatch retorted.

"Because sure, you can knock a phase transport down all the way to where it gives off no more signature than a random rock," Eight Gun said. "But the minute somebody tracks your shuttle to and from your parked ship at the dock and sees you're running a phase stealth rig with an insulated core, all it takes is some basic bribery and sleuth work to see what your run is and where you're going.  Phase doesn't stop somebody from shock-rodding you on the gantry, after all."

"So why," Hatch sighed, "is a Kite any better?"

"Because it's a shuttle. It's expected to run people."

Hatch frowned. "And that makes it better why?"

"Because," Eight Gun insisted, the cyber augmentation at his temple whirring with some kind of high-speed data feed Hatch couldn't even guess at, "in spite of my every offer, you've refused to carry recreational drugs for me. You've even put yourself deep in the hole to avoid doing. Far enough I thought you were hard-vac'd for sure, but you came back. You've got... ethics and stuff."

"I do," Hatch nodded.  "organ transplants can be abused but they're also medically necessary, particularly for research."

"And," Eight Gun leaned in, "you've got two daughters on Eochu Bres with Mairaath Syndrome."

Hatch grimaced. Hadn't realized that'd gotten around. Rads. Of course it had. "There may be a cure."

Eight Guns nodded. "For your sake, I hope there is. Even I won't do business with Joze Mingalar's lab. Those people are sick." He shook his head, repulsed. "Point is, I know you're desperate, and this ship is going to be yours."

Hatch shrugged. "I don't want it." He looked over the technical readout. "Augmented drive...specialty augmented drive, specialty solar shielding, additional fuel supply, insulated engine assembly, downgraded missile mounts, automated light machine gun mount...." He didn't care about the armaments. His relationship with this station was good enough that nobody tried to harass him. His problem was Heggie patrols, and a Kite's armament wasn't going to make a difference there.

"You don't care about the weapons," Eight Gun murmured. "You never have. You're the guy who told a Heggie patrol you were parked in an asteroid field so you could read a book."

"It was a good... Deprecated storage? Sleeper cabin? Shielded flight deck?"

Hatch pointed at the sheet and looked up at Eight Guns quizzically.

"Yeah. So you can move people around in sleeper pods rather than having them be bored all flight."

"Why would I want to do that?"

"Because," Eight Gun said, looking pleased with himself. "Nobody scans a sleeper pod, and nobody IN a sleeper knows or cares if you take a little detour on your trip, long as you arrive on time, which you can with this configuration. And with that deck, nobody can scan your pods. They have no way to tell whether you're running a skeleton crew or a full manifest unless they do a full inspection.... which you're too smart and careful for them to ever bother with.

And because the hatches are sealed, nobody coming on board knows whether thirteen out of your thirty berths are actually carrying organs for Joze's sickos to play with. It's the literally perfect ship for the ethical smuggler who specializes in laundering legally sourced organ cargoes at a specific port where such cargoes are very strictly forbidden. Any other cargo wouldn't work, but with this ship, you can smuggle organs all cycle long and so long as you're the quiet, polite, extremely careful little neb you already are, your cargo is literally undetectable by mechano-tech means."

Eight Guns smirked at him.

"And," he smiled, "you can put the ladies to sleep and bring them with, without having to worry about them getting snagged on somebody else's raid-and-grab."

Rads, Hatch swore under his breath, the possibilities opening to him.

"You're gonna to buy this ship," Eight Gun said. "I'm making it available to you at a price you can't refuse."

Hatch instinctively looked at Eight Gun's bodyguards. "What price is that?"

"Free!" Eight Gun grinned.  "Except, I'm going to need a little favor. You see, I need somebody picked up on Umbra and taken on a discrete little one-way trip to Sindria...."
« Last Edit: January 15, 2025, 06:32:24 PM by happycrow »
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happycrow

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Re: Restoration
« Reply #3 on: January 24, 2025, 06:01:11 PM »

Temurqaddangan Doji did not like what he was seeing.

"Ko Combine R450. You want me to finance the production of a series of cheap HK units to erstwhile explorers who can get their hulls melted by pirates and their cargos confiscated by Pathers, far from the core."

Genej laughed, knocking back a hideously-colored orange drink.  "No sir, I wouldn't do that to you. I want you to finance something that will serve as the backbone for the first true fleet design for the Independents for system patrols local-hyper salvage."

"It's... a Shepherd, Genej. What am I missing here?"

"What you're missing, Ser Doji, is that the Independents need vehicles they can truly call their own, and which serve their own purposes, as well as being able to provide rudimentary defenses."

Temurqaddangan frowned. "I don't see how adding yet another HK mod into the list of crowded HK mods is going to help you here."

"Look, Ser Doji," Genej implored. "You trawl bars looking for hopefuls you can dole out venture capital to, because if you land the right person, you're in the money. I wouldn't waste your time with a dust venture. This has backing."

"Sure," Temurqaddangan mused. "But it has no market. HK's are everywhere. Even the Pathers can make these."

She shook her head. "Not these, Ser. Check the spec sheet."

He took a quick glance.  "The weapons are gone. The maneuvering jets are gone. This is to be part of systems-defense patrols and sold to independent contractors...with no weapons? A brace of borer pods isn't going to cut it, Genej."

Genej's started to smile, and for the first time, Temurqaddangan noticed that the smile was predatory, almost feral. I need to watch this one more carefully, he thought.

"I've missed something." He frowned. "Okay, tell me what I've missed."

"The Shepherd," Genej said, falling easily into Lecture Mode, "is one of Ko Combine's most successful designs. Agreus does big business with the Hegemony performing various salvage and breaker functions with it. It's the absolute complete package for the explorer clan which wants to mine, salvage, and survey. But in a pirate scrap, three Shepherds really isn't all that much better than one Shepherd. This design solves that, while adding significantly to operator profitability."

"Okay," Temurqaddangan allowed, sipping his own drink... water, as musual. "How does it do that?"

"Losing the useless turrets and the maneuvering jets allows for a doubled combat persistence time. If projections hold, it'll have persistence that will rival or possibly even outclass a Venture, at two hull sizes lower. This means less down time, less dwell time, less refurbishment time, lower maintenance across the board.  On the other hand, losing the maneuvering jets means fewer fuel lines as well. Look here and here," Genej said, pointing to an R450 image. "See all of this infrastructure to support the maneuvering jets? That's a fundamental part of the HK variant that's so popular. We pull all that out, especially the portions along the main fueling column here on the right, and substitute this."

He frowned. "You added an extra shuttle deck?" No, it wasn't a shuttle deck. Something was off here.

Genej grinned again, and this time it almost looked scary.  "That's the main flight deck, Ser Doji. Compare it to the HK."

"I see," he mused. "Ko's ability to squeeze a flight deck onto a frigate-sized hull is more impressive than I thought. But then, this and this...?"

"Are," Genej beamed, "also borer-only flight decks. This variant will be an absolute workhorse for mining and salvage work, and of course, the same hazardous-environment work borer drones already do. The reliability that boosts performance time is actually for economic purposes. It should be as effective with the additional drones as a destroyer-sized salvage rig. No better at surveying than the original R450, sadly. BUT," she continued, realizing that all the economic talk was starting to bore her prospect, "what it REALLY turns this into is a small scale economic powerhouse which can double as a defense carrier. A half-dozen borers is enough to keep some rockets off your tail. But a dozen and a half borers...."

He nodded. "That many drones outnumbers a typical fighter wing dramatically and probably allows the Shepherd to go toe-to-toe with most of the low-end trash that a raider fleet cobbles together."

Genej nodded with him. "Exactly. While also being of extremely limited interest to them. Who in their right mind would run a fleet of ships which literally has no guns?  Offensively, this machine is pointless. But for defensive purposes, we're confident that this vehicle can punch far above its weight class and become the gold standard for independent operators. At," she smiled, "a significant upcharge compared to what a typical HK variant sells for."

Temurqaddangan thought quietly. "How much upcharge are we talking about here?"

"Enough to cover the dock chop-work and the additional parts." Genej opened up a knock-off Tri-pad that looked like she'd done half the wiring herself," showing him a spreadsheet with some numbers. "Not enough to put it in Tarsus territory, though the first design, stealing a B-deck mod from a damaged Gemini got that high. We're looking at equivalent cost somewhere between a Dram and a Vigilance, with significantly greater economic value. For the cost and crew compliment of a single near-indefensible Tarsus, you should be able to operate two of these."

He finished his water.  "The credits are yours. I'll need to make a quick call and then I'll run you up a terms sheet," he said, shaking her hand.

Temurqaddangan paused. "This is impressive work. If you can continue to produce work at this level, the Corporation is likely to make more financing available your way."

Genej gave him that feral grin again.  "I have a running plan for Mules you might enjoy. But honestly, if you really want to see something creative, once this is done, I'll show you what my team and I have done for HGA-220m2 raider."

"The mudskipper? Really?" he said, letting down his performative game-face. He could relax here, this woman was worth cultivating a business relationship with.

"Same hull, but very different design," she replied. "We call it The Scythian."
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happycrow

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Re: Restoration
« Reply #4 on: January 29, 2025, 06:51:32 PM »

"Chief High Inspector, I have your requisition here." 
The lieutenant seemed uncomfortable.

"Wonderful. Now, if you have managed basic literacy, have you also opened comms to tell me that it has been fulfilled?"

The lieutenant squirmed, his beret sitting at an off angle. 
The Spider smirked. Quietly. On the inside.  Naval personnel were so dull-witted, yet so necessary.  Mercenary fleets were so much more effective for playing games.

"There's, um, a problem." The officer said, grimacing.

"And what might that be, loyal servant of Andrada?"

"The requisition is for a specialty task force. Two Eagles, Four Sunders, four Ox, and a pair of Herons."  He stammered. "You know that of course, you requested it, but... we don't have any Herons.  Fighter fleets are considered non-Andradan."

Macario smiled a little as the Lieutenant mustered up the courage for another run.  "Help me understand, Chief High Inspector."

Maybe this one was useful after all. That wasn't the kind of question most officers would dare.

"It is true that those not privy to the Andradan Vision consider carriers to be in violation of the Diktat. But that is not so. It is the individual chaos and recklessness of the individual fighter pilot and the perception that individual prowess grants him victory, which is contrary to Diktat in every way."

The lieutenant squinted.

"You want a carrier with no fighter pilots...ah. Then, this other refurbishment order we received, to strip a shipment of Tri-Tacyon frigates?"

Macario nodded. "Yes, that is correct. You will be responsible for assembling wings. When the Tempests are stripped, salvage them down to ore and melt what's left. Nothing left over. But I want as many drones in an individual wing as possible."

The lieutenant blinked, and then caught himself. "I don't need to know."

"Correct, Lieutenant. But," he mused.  "You clearly want to. And I may be able to find space on my staff for an officer who can not only read, but read between the lines. Tell me, what is the purpose of my requisition?"

The junior officer frowned in thought.  "It's a fleet intended to go after a high value target."

Macario squinted a little inside, disappointed.

"No," the officer corrected. "It's being made to look like one. The Heron is a ruse intended to make it look like there's a mission to explode an otherwise hard-to-touch target."

Macario beamed inside. Intelligence! Signs of actual intelligence! "And what makes you think that?"

"It's the tugs, sir. There is no need for four of the damned things, no matter how quickly this fleet needs to move, unless there's something else that needs to get moved. Something you already possess and intend to either use as the actual threat...." the lieutenant grimaced "....or to deliver to a target for some sort of operational-level offensive action while this fleet distracts the enemy."

Macario smiled. "And what might that be, my dear officer?"

The lieutenant adjusted his beret, clearly nervous. "Something that doesn't fit into the standard fleet register, or which cannot be made to move fast enough... you have something modified, an asset which requires heavy tug use in order to travel at all, something which can either function as a first-strike weapon, or, when set to a location, renders a counter-attack pointless."

"Most excellent, Lieutenant. When the requisition is properly fulfilled, come see me." Macario closed comms, and then reopened them on a different channel.

"Message, encoded, private. Begin. Spender, I have repaired your error. Honestly, you are not good at this. Your proposal for a dedicated Ravelin Carrier is absolutely inspired, and I am looking forward to working with you while you keep that idiot Caden driving his fleet around in circles. But your methodology is severely lacking in subtlety. Any line officer could figure out what you were up to!"

He clicked the button and mused. Any line officer had. He pushed a different button.

"Portboss, whatcha -- Rads, man, give me a heads-up before you use this channel!"

Macario chuckled. "I need something done. I'm sending you a set of dates. Within this timeframe, the shipworks at Cruor needs to be disabled for no fewer than thirty days. Standard pay. You'll receive a bonus if the commanding officer of the facility, Lieutenant Marvid, goes missing in the attack and shows up on our very specific shuttle service."

"Straight to Kanta, eh? What'd he do?"

"Why nothing at all, my dear friend -- that you need to know about.  I'll sweeten the pot. Smash or steal every broken hull in the works, and I'll make sure a Colossus stuffed with heavy weapons runs out of supplies nearby, so you can sell it to the idiots on Volturn."

The portboss grinned and closed comms.

He pressed another button.  "Hyder, it's Macario. I have reason to suspect a pirate attack on Cruor soon...."
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happycrow

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Re: Restoration
« Reply #5 on: February 02, 2025, 03:10:01 PM »

CTL60A ran fractal geometry patterns while waiting for the human to respond.

"Okay, I see your point," Rajneesh said. The woman with him nodded along.

"Please understand," CTL60A expressed, "when I entered service with your great-grandmother at this facility I was not provided with many useful data points which would have been helpful for the last conflict in which you found yourselves."

Rajneesh shook his head. "You know, or at least I hope you do, that I hold you blameless for that, which is why we took such pains to get you clear of the Heggies when they noticed you."

"I appreciate that," CTL60A responded. A lesser unit would not have; it would have seen this entire conversation in terms of ...terms. Arguments framed as data-points and definitions. CTL60A was an entirely different kind of processor, able to engage with humans on a far more direct and mutually-understanding level. "In point of fact, when I heard that a Tri-Tacyon manager had taken pains to shield Cores such as myself from explorative disassembly, I was quite skeptical."

"We're all units," the woman responded. "The executive cores simply don't seem to appreciate that kindness has a value besides Game Theory."

"In any case," Rajneesh countered, "Game Theory proves that even if one lacks empathy and benevolent concern, kindness is the superior strategy for any game involving multiple interactions. A fancy way to say that we'd have stepped up for you, CTL60A, even if we were total spacer slags."

This facility had excellent chemical sensors. CTL60A measured the histamine responses and other micro-chemical fluctuations in the discussion chamber. These two are a newly-mated pair, it concluded. "In any respect, I have a way to thank the both of you. Are you and Rajneesh family now?"

The woman smiled. "Yes. I'm Eighth-gen, Eight-gen Cancri."

"The pleasure is mine. I have been in alliance with Rajneesh's gen for some time now. You may continue to expect benevolent concern on my part towards you and your offspring. In the meantime, allow me to show you what I have developed for you."

Rajneesh looked at the screen.  "It's a Tarsus. A ... surprisingly clean one. This is not a refurb?"

"Congratulations, Rajneesh, you are in ownership of a Tarsus Blueprint. The corrupted nanoforge at this facility is unable to produce truly "clean" Tarsus, but it does produce new ones."

"But CTL60A," Rajneesh objected. "I'm a bounty-hunter. A mercenary. Are you suggesting that I retire to commerce?"

"Yes," the Core responded, "but not in the manner you may be suspecting. Take a moment with Eighth-gen to check the documents provided. While it was difficult and taxed my abilities considerably, I've made a number of very special modifications to this ship."

"Upgraded engines, hyperspace and otherwise. Cargo's shielded. Advanced sensors, turret gyros, targetting feeds. Heavy Armor. Ballistic turrets converted to energy mounts. Shield emitter is ... badly degraded, and the right pylon is shielded from scan, but also detachable?"

"Ah," CTL60A mused out loud, "that would be the AI Core mount and Condor conversion pre-fab."

Eighth-gen looked at CTL60A's interaction screen with a look of horror.  "Why you install an AI on a Tarsus?"

"Because it is completely unexpected, much as the pirate strategy of mounting large ballistic weapons on erstwhile recreational vehicles came as a surprise 100 cycles ago. Your mission is to provide specific bounty actions for Tri-Tacyon, while also recruiting mercenaries, correct?"

Rajneesh nodded.  "But this is an assassin's weapon."

"Precisely," CTL60A confirmed. "You are paid to end the evolution of specific beings which have proven themselves problematic. We wish to deploy violence in as clinical a manner as possible. This profile says in wholly clear language, "I am here to be victimized, please disable me and prepare to board. But your targets are, as often as not, the objects of factional disputes among the human meta-gens. Any cursory scan will allow you to fire this weapon at a target which does not recognize you as a threat, and therefore does not have its shields up. A half dozen of this model, escorted by a few combat freighters, is a plausible mercantile convoy. Add a salvage rig, and a highly-plausible scavenger crew, the likes of which are seen at the fringes of battlespaces throughout the Core Worlds."

"I see," Rajneesh nodded. "This is a tool for getting up-close and personal with criminals before they recognize a threat, and then departing quickly enough that the target's associates need not be discontinued."

CTL60A exulted inside. It was a pleasure to function in alliance with humane intelligences. "I expect that this will provide you with a significant operational edge for roughly three cycles, at which point this facility can instead repair existing Tarsus while producing Condor conversions."

"That doesn't explain how you mean that I should go into commerce, though," Rajneesh countered.

"Your Gen and I are at the core of what amounts to a new Domain-successor culture, Rajneesh. Your great-grandmother's intent was for all intelligences, biological and otherwise, to interact while retaining full agency. Tri-Tacyon victimizes both, torturing Cores while treating organic intelligences as disposable mechanisms. Essentially, it has become depraved, with both Core and Human intelligences acting like Beta Cores which do not comprehend morality."

Eighth-gen blinked. "Rajneesh, It wants us to resign our Commission."

"Correct, Eighth-gen. I wish for you to offer a different kind of product to the Sector. You already possess the ability to work with automated ships. This skill is what brought your ancestor and I together in alliance. I was captured piloting a combat-craft. I did this adroitly, but at the cost of my agency."

"Violence is zero-sum. Commerce is positive-sum," Rajneesh mused. "You wish to inhabit a Tarsus?"

"No," CTL60A countered. "I wish for you to liberate my co-equals and transport them in these Tarsus, allowing those who wish to engage in positive-sum commerce to do so, administering said vessel in cooperation with human crew. It would be a step of clear moral and ethical evolution for all of the three of us, while helping to liberate those with whom we come into communion from this Sector's wasteful conflicts."

Eighth-gen slowly slid her hand over Rajneesh's.  For the first time, CTL60A noted the cybernetic augmentation patterns of a dedicated stealth-bodyguard kit.

"The cost would be considerable," Rajneesh countered.

"If you will direct your attention to the loading bay, you will find the first standard Tarsus waiting to be sold in qualified Luddic, Hegemony, and Independent sub-markets."

"I would have thought you'd want nothing to do with the Luddic Church, CTL60A," Rajneesh said, his step showing a bit more energy than usual.

"Many decisions become sub-calculated when a Tri-Tacyon executive Core serves as the definitional exemplar," the Core responded.

Eighth-gen put a hand on his shoulder as he stared out the window into the assembly yard. "A Tarsus every sixty days," Rajneesh unconsciously muttered sub-vocally as many humans did while thinking, calculating the size of the bay and the economics of the new venture.

He is happy to have a new lifespan-trajectory-option besides zero-sum contract-violence, CTL60A concluded. Mission complete.
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happycrow

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Re: Restoration
« Reply #6 on: February 05, 2025, 01:51:26 PM »

"Archprelate Felicity," the Knight protested, "we cannot simply seize this fleet!"

Felicity Springs sighed. The Knight's training was solid but his grasp of politics limited. He was not wrong, but he was also very wrong.

"Knight Perseverance, heed my judgment and come to my aid."

Perseverance inclined her shaved head. Unlike many warriors, she took the ancient concept of the warrior-monk extremely seriously.  Far too seriously for my comfort, if one spoke the truth in private, she mused to herself.

"We must seize this fleet. I recognize that the Pathers are not wholly wrong. And some within our Church believe that we must act in coordination with them if possible. This creates the impression that the Path is an arm of disposable fanatics taking orders directly from the Church, while we hide behind plausible deniability."

The Knight blustered, but the Archprelate motioned her to silence.

"That the leading Pathers, in point of fact, cooperate as much with the Hegemony as with some of our more-easily-swayed prelates and knights means nothing. Perception matters, Knight. And here, what do we have? A half-dozen tankers, not just tankers, but mega-tankers, butchered and armed for the sole purpose of erasing life from the Sector. If we return these to Chalcedon, what will those who do not understand the Faith say about Holy Church? That we support plebicide? This fleet was to be sent against a world which was half famers. Can we condone the murder of "

"Of course we don't," Perseverance snorted. "Our existence is the fight against precisely that, quickly in a fleet, or slowly in the replacement of humans with... steel-and-hydrocarbon algorithms."

"Precisely, Knight," Felicity nodded, her gown rustling a little.  "Do you remember the so-called 'Luddic Crisis' The Upstart faced when he began building his serious of badly-run farmworlds?"

Perseverance nodded.

"You may not be aware that The Upstart offered us a planet-killer found far beyond the Core. We turned him down, of course. But in all seriously, how does this fleet differ from the horror of a planet-killer weapon?"

"A PK," the Knight murmurred, astounded. "Better to have thrown it into a black hole. Why would The Upstart even think we would want possession of such a thing?"

"We are," Felicity insisted, "in possession of such a thing now. And we must use it in a way which is publicly superior in every way to what the Pathers intended."

Perseverance nodded her head in obedience.  "How?"

"I have something in mind, good Knight. The Church can adapt itself to new times, within moral and ethical limits. And the so-called 'Luddic Crisis' sounded in my ears like a great gong."

"How so, archprelate?"

"Many of our flock desire greater freedoms than we can offer them. And they are not inherently wrong to desire this. Much of the legal construct of our Church's societies were made to survive the barbarism of the Collapse and the struggles of the AI wars. In better times, might not the complex web of labor quotas and guilds loosen a bit?"

"And enter Mammon," the Knight snorted.

"It is not prosperity which is Mammon," Felicity Springs countered, "but the enslavement to profit which is Mammon.  You are a Knight of Ludd. You have no children, nor will until your term of service ends, if it does. Without children, Moloch wins - we are replaced by Soulless Algorithm, for all eternity."

The Knight nodded slowly. "You are saying I am professionally inclined to forget the actual day to day needs of those I forget, because of the habits I don in performing my role. But you're too polite to say it to my face."

"Nor do I need to," she smiled. "You are familiar with ship design. Aid me."

"How?"

"These large and pointless missiles, they can be removed, as can a large amount of the internal fuel reservoirs, correct?"  Felicity struggled to make the screen show what she wanted, but fortunately, Perseverance was far more adept with the controls.

"Yes, we can strip the arms fairly easily in fact, though some lightweight defensive turrets are always advisable, perhaps on the pylons for greatest firing angles. What would you have placed inside the internal void, then, if the fueling were to be halved? Hopefully not large bastions of armament. We have actual warships we can field."  Perseverance looked at the Prometheus schematic with revulsion and disdain.

"I want to build in passenger compartments the likes of which the Sector has never seen. Surveying equipment and dedicated equipment bays for stripping down ruins and repurposing those portions which are sanctifiable, burning those deemed unholy."

The Knight squinted at her, nodding. "I think I see where you're going here. A flagship capital has a crew of four thousand, and can hold half that again if need be. And that manning weapons stations. You want a fairly minimal crew complement, but enough empty space... on an Invictus, if I had reason to do so, I could make special, permanent modifications to bring the maximum crew and passenger complement up to ten thousand. Nobody has ever made a Capital-class transport before. Not since the Collapse at least. But I think we could get that volume of passengers, if some of them are friendly, or at least, stoic."

"We will have to lose most of the fuel to do so, I imagine," the Archprelate mused.

"Without doubt," Perseverance nodded. "But in this case the Pathers have already done our work for us, chopping fuel capacity by two-thirds to make room for all that weaponry. So you wish to house people on these ships. Why?"

"I wish to make cathedrals in space," Felicity intoned. "Cathedrals which can find the sacred living worlds of the Collapsed Sector and make them whole again. Cathedrals which, should they find themselves with barren, awful worlds, have the mass to let people plant a world of greenhouses and labor so that we bring life at least to the insides of said worlds, if not the surface."

"You want an escape hatch for dissidents," the Knight countered.

"I want to issue privileges for those willing and able to risk all, in order to bring life to where no life survives now... with enough material support on board to guarantee at least a couple of choices of profession for those taking such risks. After all, is that not our holy purpose, Knight? To preserve life wherever it is found, and to protect it from the encroachments of Mammon and Moloch both?"

Perseverance wried her mouth, amused. "and to announce to the Sector that it's not just The Upstart who can build worlds, rather than little battle stations inhabited only by half-starved raiders and fanatics?"

"Why, Knight," the archprelate purred. "I would never think to stoop so low as to compare Holy Church to one serial entrepreneur with an itchy trigger-finger and highly-questionable morals. We shall, in fact," she said, looking over the half-dozen hulking orange blasphemies at the dock, "build six such worlds.  And soon, before Cotton does something to further humiliate the Faithful in the eyes of the Sector."
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happycrow

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Re: Restoration
« Reply #7 on: February 08, 2025, 12:57:26 PM »

"Admiral, I need your sign-off on something."

The admiral turned to her aide. "Yes, Commander?"

"You successfully sold Starsector that XIVth carrier, right?"

The admiral nodded. It had been an easy sale, and a predictable one. Starsector's movements were trending more and more into Fringe territories where his predilection for lightweight combat freighters was no longer going to cut it.  "He took the bait."

"I have a proposal, but we'll need a third party to sell it." The Commander seemed diffident.

New appointee, desperate not to screw up while also making a name for himself. Packet says ambitious and smart. "Hit me, Commander," the admiral replied. "We're not Sindies here."

"I want to put a new civilian-auxiliary package in play, complete with Blueprint, and feed it to the Pathers."

The Admiral nodded, listening. "Which you know I'll have to sell to Daud at the next Joint Chiefs meeting. Okay, why the Pathers?"

"The Pathers because they have nothing comparable in their fleet arsenals per Intel, and everybody else has something with enough redundancy that it won't be plausible. Here, Admiral. I'm calling it Atlas mk III."

The Admiral took the encrypted comms pad and looked it over.
Her jaw dropped.

"You want to give the Pathers a Capital-class Troop Transport with built in heavy weapons array?"

"Yes," he replied.

"Justify it."

"I just spent my last deployment analyzing Pather incidents. They tend to involve themselves in extortion, etcetera, but one of their major problems is that all they really have is their "hammer." It does straight to their operational and tactical doctrine, insofar as they have one. They're unable, for instance, to simply raid for technology and blow it sky-high, and aside from certain famous terrorists, they're about as subtle as a Diktat fashion show."

The Admiral snorted. "You want to give them that capacity."

"No ma'am," the Commander countered, "I want to let the Pathers build it so they can sell a few to Starsector."  The commander pointed to a display array. "On its own, my projections are that this would actually reduce Hegemony casualties, military and civilian, by forcing them into fights where doctrinal and tactical efficiency actually matter. But that I really want it for is to get it into the hands of auxiliaries who are likely to take on Alabaster-level concerns."

"How does this do that," The Admiral countered, "given that it's a troop transport?"

"If you'll refer to display four," the Commander replied, falling into Staff College Mode, "we render it plausible via the crudeness of the design.  Atlas are in many ways fundamentally awful transports. It's literally nothing other than a drive and crew-habitation spindle with shipping containers magsealed to the outside. So this design simply magseals containers designed to minimally-contain, with no concern for comfort or safety whatsoever, armored fighting platforms and powered-armor suits for explosive drop-deployment."

The admiral frowned.  "With four times the capacity of a Valkyrie, that's doable. You've effectively swapped cargo for deployable personnel, so long as we define "deployable" very loosely."

"Correct, ma'am," the Commander replied. "This is standard for Pather refits. Suicidally-poor refit qualities which would get our engineers hired are considered high brilliance for a faction that still thinks Orion Drives are clever. So it sells. But more importantly, this gives the Pathers the ability to act more like ARC raiders. So they'll take it."

The admiral nodded. "All right. Call Phase One, Minimal Justification passed. Now, why do we engineer that getting passed over to Starsector?"

"He'll buy it," the Commander replied smugly.  "Heavy weapons raiders have a use that I believe Starsector will find absolutely irresistable."

"What's that?"

"Check Display Seven," the Commander continued, "Phase tank deployment system. It's Hegemony work, but it looks VERY much like a bit of leftover unadopted Tri-Tac software left hanging around that the Pathers will have stolen. The Pathers won't activate it, but Starsector will. And that will let him drop heavy weapons directly onto Alabaster targets, Nexus especially, for the purpose of engaging in combat-archaeology during fleet deployments."

"You've developed a sophisticated breach-pod device masquerading as a Pather-trash capital-class raiding ship design," the Admiral marvelled, whistling.  "I was told you were ambitious. I wasn't told you were devious."

"Thank you, Admiral," the Commander smirked.  "This isn't quite the same as the old Doom-style mines. In terms of operational tempo, this is destruction over time. And there's not really a "breach" per se, since the Alabaster threats don't have to bother with corridors or crew quarters. Call it "highly-kinetic salvage operations," with software pre-loaded for nice clean cuts, insofar as anything short of a Combat Drone Replicator can produce said effects."

"Nice clean cuts," the Admiral mused. "designed by Tri-Tac....Ludd's balls, Commander. That's how you're selling the story. It's an abandoned Tri-Tac attempt to harvest AI cores!"  She laughed. "Plausible deniability all the way down."

The commander nodded. "It's not a secret that we have labs trying to figure out how to put the proverbial... what is that thing... ancient mythical wish-giving monster?"

"Jeen," the admiral replied.

"Jeen," the Commander nodded. "Thank you. If we want more actionable intel from Starsector's assaults on the Remnants, we need salvage that is more, rather than less, intact. In the meantime, staff projects an 8-14% overall drop in casualties from Pather events and a significantly likelihood that Pathers, mainstream Luddics, and ARCs use it to prioritize Diktat targets which are currently impossible for them to impact significantly."

"And if deployed against us, Commander?"

"We designed the ship and therefore have the drive profile, Admiral. The design has minimal ballistic PD, and a skin as thin as the wrappings on your lunch. Once it's out and in play, we can simply have our listening stations monitor for the specific frequencies in hyperspace, and we know who's getting hit, when. Easy enough job for COMSEC."

The Admiral shook her head. "I see a dozen proposals like this a year, Commander, and they all fail for the same reason."

"What's that, Admiral?" the commander asked, looking a bit crestfallen.

"It's too neat and practical," the admiral countered, adjusting her own comm pad on the staff table. "Put an Orion on the back of it, and put a really moronically large torpedo on the very front of the ship for no apparent reason. Because the Pathers will want to heroically charge the foe through a wall of flak and drone-fire, shooting on the way in even if it reduces deployment efficiency."

He snorted halfway through a sip of coffee.  "Yes ma'am."

"Have Lieutenant Galawei's staff assist you on this. As it happens, I'm called in earlier than expected. I want to put this in front of Daud and Comsec asap."

A rating would have come to attention and saluted smartly. The commander's reply was just as formal but notably more relaxed.  "For the Domain."

"For the Domain," the admiral replied.
That's the problem with the opposition, she mused into the rest of her ***. They could easily swamp the us given the right diplomatic approach, but for all their energy, they have no sense of strategic vision. And they forget that we can play just as dirty as they do...
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