>>38110830
The general consensus of your population is that you want to *leave* ; the growing power blocks around you will eventually threaten you, and you want to build your own society, away from where anyone with a railgun can threaten to destroy you.

To get the fuel you want, you've been entering negotiations with Krypton Recovery Services, a small hypercorp that deals with small scavangers like yourself. After some quick negotiations, they've agreed to pay for raw materials - metals and processed silicates - delivered to Lunar Orbit or L4. You would also be able to buy some HO fuel there, to replace your now badly depleted stocks. They will also pay for time rented on your fabricators.

Their offer stands at 35k credits per resource package, and 45k a week per fabricator for rented time. You estimate that you could refuel your ship for about 61k.

The /Bohr/ is a survey ship that was destined for the outer system, but instead found itself sidelined for the rescue operations during the Fall and is now in the middle of something of a custody dispute. It's acting as a mobile refinery for several other refugee ships with drives similar to yours. They'll help you in exchange for raw materials only, but there's a waiting list of at least two weeks.

You've also made contact with the /Carolina Days/ , a refugee ship with over ten thousand people. The crew - six people - only has limited control over the ship; the rest are divided between the cargo and passenger pods. They have a mixture of European and North African refugees, and as far as you can tell, law and order inside have broken down into something like an armed truce between neighborhood militias. The crew is willing to work with you, but isn't sure they really have access to the systems that they'd need to refine your fuel, and want your help dealing with this situation before it gets any worse.

>>38111277
Eh, raw resources and a week of shore leave for the crew would go decently. Any chance they'd actually be able to get out of the ship during that time?

>>38111277
If you want to lead a convoy to the Belt, you'll need to gather allies and make a case for yourself. Why should one ship in fairly dire circumstances be confident of leading anyone else? What big ideas do you have that justify your leadership, and how do you plan to incorporate others - is everyone you recruit going to get a vote? Or do you want to find someone else whose ideas you are willing to work with, someone who will lead while you follow?

In the mean time, there's an crisis of confidence on your own ship - Krypton Recovery Services has sent out tailored recruitment ads for your workers. They're offering short indenture terms (two years, if you bring your own vac-capable morph, four years if you bring skills only, six for unskilled work), at the end of which a morph and a tidy sum of credits will be provided. You think that some of your people - especially the skilled vac workers who can get the best terms - might bite.

>Justify your leadership to the people of Earth Orbit.
>How are you going to find allies? Nationality (ASEAN Stronk? China Uber Alles?), Ideology (What, exactly?), profit (better have proof)
>How are you going to deal with workers who want to leave? What will you let them take?
>Do you want to hire or recruit any specialists, and if so, what do you plan to offer them?
>What actions do you want to take with respect to your ship and the habitat fragment?

Wat do, /tg/ ?

>>38111505
Previous Thread >>38049057
Archive: http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/38049057/
Condensed Archive: http://pastebin.com/RpmR5mqe

<--Status-->

Assets:
>33k Lunar Credits
>Reputation: None.
>1.3 billion dollars, in Yen, Stocks, and US treasuries

Craft:
Large Lander and Orbital Transfer Vehicle *Phoenix*
>Population Capacity 188/150
>HO Fuel (19/100)
>Armaments: 1x Dorsal Railgun, Disposable Missile Launchers, Small Arms
>Other Assets: CM, 8x Fabbers, Whipple Shield
>Current Action: None.

Habitat Fragment *Ten Star Hotel*
>Population Capacity (20/1500) *No Life Support*
>Armaments: Small Arms
>Other Assets: Salvage Gear, CM, 4x Fabbers, Rocket Buggy.
>Current Action: Salvage Operations (Metals, Silicates, Water)

>>38111505
>How are you going to deal with workers who want to leave? What will you let them take?

Anyone who wants to leave for these groups can leave, however, they might want to remember that these corporations have fucked them over in the past, will fuck them over in the future, and greatly contributed to the situation they are in now. Trusting them to deliver such a great deal without the work involved being something extraordinarily dangerous, grueling, amoral, illegal, or misleading would be a grave mistake.

These people are already skeptical enough about pre-existing groups, and we can't force them without public approval.

>>38111552
Morphs:
82 Vacuum Pods
27 Servant Pods
30 Worker Pods
44 Basic Synths
19 Splicers
5 Flats
1 Menton

Your morph conditions are POOR; you have NO ability to produce new morphs, and only basic abilities to heal or modify existing morphs. Long term sleeving into morphs designed primarily to be driven by AIs will cause psychological damage, as does long term zero-G exposure to parts of your population that lacks microgravity biomods.

Computing:
5 Server Clusters
72 Infomorphs

You have GOOD software support; you have standard firewalls and patches, with fully unlocked capabilities for design, fabrication, programming and navigation. Simulation spaces are serviceable and comfortable for most individuals, but lacks dedicated psychosurgery support or AI design systems.

Manufacturing
2 Cornucopia Machines
>Cornucopia machines (CMs) are general-purpose nanofabricators. They can produce any object they have blueprints and raw materials for. CMs also work in reverse; they can disassemble just about anything into raw parts, though they are slower than a dedicated disassembler or industrial process.
10 Fabbers
>Fabbers are more specialized nanofabricators, combining limited nanoscale assembly with 3D printer functionality. They are frequently specialized to structural materials, electronics, food, drugs, or some other category.

You have EXCELLENT Manufacturing capability; with CMs you have the ability to bootstrap infrastructure and produce the tools you need to build the tools; your primary limits are the blueprints you need, exotic materials you lack, and the skilled labor needed to operate or assemble certain items.

>>38111589
Actually, seeing as we are effectively in charge of everyone on here as per owning the ship and everything in it. We may be able to work out a deal to work as a short term subcontractor for them, we really REALLY need morphs/sleeves.

Rolled 42 (1d100)

>>38111505
Our argument to other groups joining us is that despite our dire situation, we have the manufacturing capability to actually produce all of the necessary infrastructure for a new society. One that is not ruled by profit or where people are limited to a single form because of base economics. No one else has that kind of manufacturing capability and is willing to share it like we are.

The workers who want to leave, I think we can't allow them to take their vac-forms honestly. We need morphs desperately. Unless we can make vac-form synths from our fabbers and CDs?

We need neurologists, and roboticists, and maybe at least one geneticist. We're offering them first choice in their forms that they'll help create using our building materials, and further, 'advisory' placement on any councils we create provided they are willing to train others. Advisories are basically the 'leadership' in our collective, first amongst equals, publically acknowledged to have specialized skills and knowledge and thus have more weight to their opinions in certain matters. Such positions would have a veto-power in highly specific situations, as well as the ability to break ties in those same situations. Seem reasonable?

That's the social actions I think we should take.

>>38111776
Look, these companies have a bad reputation and this deal is clearly too good to be true without major catches, we cannot guarantee the continued safety and well being of anyone who joins with them, and will eventually be moving on, so if you leave, you are out for good, and you have no safety net. Also, now that the little governmental regulation on these corps are gone, they can literally get away with doing anything.

Rolled 90 (1d100)

>>38111423
Actions on own ship. Can we still access the 10 Star? I think we need to finish working on it.

I really, REALLY want to try fabbing our own synth morphs. If we can fab our own synth morphs capable of vacuum action like the vac-pods? Then we can let people leave with their vac-pods and just replace them with vac-synths.

We should use one of our 20 odd vac synths as a thing to copy, scan them into the fabbers, rebuild them, modify them to be better suited for vacuum operations.

Does that seem reasonable?

>>38111776
>Unless we can make vac-form synths from our fabbers and CDs?
Synths, yes, pods, no. Synthetic morphs are functional, and you have decent maintenance personnel, but without better roboticists, psychosurgeons, etc, they'll still be inherently limiting.

>>38111818
Sounds reasonable to me. You wasting rolls like that, however, does not.

>>38111842
then veto it.

>>38111837
Then we use our manufacturing leverage to grab a roboticist and a pyschosurgeon to help design these and make them better.

>>38111837
Doesn't matter, the more bodies we have, the longer we can stave off EGO death and actually work with shit. Lets try to go for what we can get as is.

>>38111860
I was just saying that we shouldn't push the dice gods, for when they push back, they push back hard.

>>38111867
and we really do need more bodies, and considering something like 70% of humanity is going to be looking at permanent info-life status or a box-bot, I think us being able to make even DECENT synths would be a really big draw to a lot of people in Earth-Lunar orbit right now don't you?

And if we can specilize the synths for operation in vacuum, we can let the people who want to leave with a vac-pod morph leave with one.

We also really need to focus on finding a healing vat and some cloning vats.

>>38111933
Top Priority Skills:
-Engineers (multiple)
-Roboticist
-Geneticist
-Psychosurgeon
-Cyberneticist

We need at least one skilled member of each of those groups. Anybody against the whole 'advisory' idea presented in: >>38111776 ?

Oh, also, major draw for getting more convoy ships?

How many ships are in orbit right now that are basically hulked? Inoperable and the inhabidents desperately looking for any way out?

We can fab ship parts and we have a fuck ton of raw materials to work with right now.

We tell them "Atleast half your crew switches places with our own, we then repair your ship, and you join our collective to get the fuck out of here and form a new society"

That right there should get us a good few ships.

Anybody object to this method? It should get us more ships, more space, and it could even get us some decent people.

>>38111842

>You wasting rolls like that, however, does not.

I believe OP has said we're rolling low, as befits eclipse phase. Though technically EP straight would be blackjack.

>>38111505

>Justify your leadership to the people of Earth Orbit.

We're not asking to be crowned king of the convoy, but we're ready to blaze a trail and find a place where we can all prosper away from the crazy shit that happened an is happening. We're the ones taking steps to organize it, plan it and develop it. But, anyone who joins our unit will have the same voting rights as any other members of the collective. We're gonna pick a big asteroid (I suggested 10 Hygiea), and we're going to expand it into a colony as we mine it for resources.

>How are you going to find allies? Nationality (ASEAN Stronk? China Uber Alles?), Ideology (What, exactly?), profit (better have proof)

I think we should try and sell people on our ideology (democratic freedom of morphs and plenty of personal opportunity if you can do the work), but our language groups and long-term plans should inevitably attract some from the other plans.

>How are you going to deal with workers who want to leave? What will you let them take?

It they're vacworkers, they should know this song and dance. We're offering them the same thing, the ability to have a high quality morph in a few years of work, but while they're with use, there wont be any kind of information restrictions or any other kind of limitations other than the one's imposed by the laws of physics. They can leave if they want, and take any personal effects they own, but we ask they consider leaving their bodies for the infomorph members. Materials (including small arms) produced during their time on the ship stay with the ship.

>>38111955

I concur both with this specialist plan, and with the advisory idea. Decisions should be handled in a democratic way, but the exact execution of our decisions should be shaped and aided by people with the applicable skills.

>>38112081
Don't forget the fact that this ship is a democracy, while onboard, they have a safety net consisting of everyone else who has a similar mindset to them to prevent us from going off the rails.

If they go to that private company, there safety net consists of a Human Resources Rep that likely is paid by the same people you are going to be complaining about.

Which of these choices sounds more fair and appealing?

For producing synths: Dedicating your whole production capacity to it right now would give you 10/week, which could be scaled down appropriately to handle other fabrication needs. Alternatively, you could spend two weeks setting up materials for a 10/week assembly line manufacturing for synthetic morphs. In either case, you'd need a constant supply of raw materials, and probably some trade to get some of the feedstock you can't get yourself, such as rare earth elements.

>>38112147
I say we go for the assembly line personally guys.

We should work to tailor the bodies to our specific needs, work in 0g for the moment (salvage and mining), and another line for defense and boarding actions.

What do you guys think?

Do you guys think this'll be a good way to attract people who want a body?

>>38112081
Agreed on all fronts. And Can we roll with the specialist thing to attract the personel we need? I think a leadership role would attract some of the people we want who'd prefer not to be locked into a corporate heirarchy you know?

>>38112147

While we're building up our convoy, I vote we work to keep up salvaging the area you know?

And we really REALLY need to figure out a way to convince the Bohrs to come with us. Do our talks with them give us any info on what they'd be asking for in return for joining our convoy?

>>38111589

>microgravity

OP, what is defined as "long-term" for microG exposure? How long until the bio morphs start breaking down in terms of muscle control?

Same question for pod/synth cabin fever.

>>38111776

This "first amongst equals" sounds like delegate democratic positions for very specific circumstances. All this decision making and organizing work duties has to be handled by an AGI, right? I'm guessing the equivalent of a skillsoft for everybody? It doesn't seem like any of us are anti-infolife, but that would be a valid concern if we are literally in orbit above a planet that was just ravaged by infolife.

We need a infosec specialist.

OP, do we get any response from the Caroline Day on those positions?

>>38112001
That sounds good for logistical recruitment. I would mention the Belt in the communique/posting/neotweet, since we want people recruited who are open to going there.

>>38111505
>What actions do you want to take with respect to your ship and the habitat fragment?

We need to figure out an estimate of the amount of salvage we can pull, and how much we can hold. What besides raw silicates and metals can we recover?

If we can figure out how much there is, we can decide if we just take one full load on the ship and go sell it to KRS and then we move on, or if we leave behind an operations force to continue operations while we're gone, basically leave them in a week + travel time shift to continue salvage and recovery while we scoot back and forth between here and Luna.

>>38112216

We should probably see what the situation on the ships the Bohr is tanking for is like. If they contain like-minded individuals, we can basically jumpstart our convoy and start spreading everything around. If the Bohr is already doing this, and we make it mobile, they'd be more likely to stick with us. I'd say they're a member to acquire, not a potential business partner like Krypton.

>>38112246
>That sounds good for logistical recruitment. I would mention the Belt in the communique/posting/neotweet, since we want people recruited who are open to going there.
Agreed.

OH! ALSO! We offer to arm any ships that join our convoy.

So their choices are basically:
>Hope somebody else comes along, with ship part making capabilities who is willing to give them as good or better a deal than what we're offering, and that this happens before pirates decide to strip their ship for what little worth is has left...

Or

>Join us, help us build up more salvage to trade and sell to KRS for fuel and supplies, in return we fix up their ship, arm them, and help them against raiders and pirates.

I think it's a pretty fucking good deal don't you? Most damaged ships are going to jump on this deal.

>>38112275
Agreed, definitely want to talk with any ships the Bohrs is working with see if they're willing to run with this plan.

>>38111776

I think we follow up this announcement with evidence of our work structure and resource distribution. Maybe a version of our org skillsoft without specific data, like a guest account to our daily lives. Show them how we sort shifts, how we decide about power use. But also a bit of our personal lives. Short clips of us eating and relaxing between shifts with each other. It doesn't have to be a full XP, but it would set the right tone.

OP We seem to have a plan laid out.

>Make Synth Morph production line, so we can use that as a bargaining chip for anybody seeking to join us, a real body better than a box-bot with the promise of a better one later.

>Begin advertising for ships to join our convoy and for specialist help of the variety detailed here: >>38111955 using techniques and leverage described here: >>38111776 and here: >>38112318


Anybody object to those being our two actions this turn?

>>38112364
>>Begin advertising for ships to join our convoy and for specialist help of the variety detailed here: >>38111955 (You) using techniques and leverage described here: >>38111776 (You) and here: >>38112318
also here: >>38112246 and here: >>38112081

>>38112246

>How long until the bio morphs start breaking down in terms of muscle control?

Splicers should have basic biomods which prevent them from the really serious harmful effects of 0g living. The handful of Flats we have aren't so lucky. We might need to start incorporating daily fitness activities into the work schedule to keep it up though. I recommend zero-g table tennis.

>We need a infosec specialist.

With our software rated at good, we probably have a few minds capable of datasec.

But yes, our computer situation could maybe use a boost. Especially if we want to do any data salvage. Computers are scary right now, but data in them could be valuable, as well as any Egos left somewhere. Let's try and scoop a few sysadmins or white hat hackers while we're looking. Maybe some people who were troublemakers on Earth and could use a fresh start? We have no local version of the full mesh, just a Mesh network which functions as a ship-wide LAN and some server clusters.

Infolife specialist, the people who know how to assemble AIs and AGIs might also be useful. If we can start expanding into bots with transhuman supervision, we can expand our potential workforce and reduce the amount of gross physical labor our people need to perform.

>>38112532
We should start a zero g sports league of some kind, would be great for crew morale and we could make small amounts of cash on running gambling operations and selling tickets to watch. Maybe some 0g soccer. A competetive combat sim (paintball, would be good for crew morale, have a (relatively) low rate of injury, and would allow us to help prevent EGO death and decay. Infomorphs get the livestream view for free.

>>38112630

>cash
>tickets

Gambling's ok, but with no external currency, are we just betting those worthless yen? Or are we betting work shifts?

>>38112630

Well, the rules for 0g soccer should be firmly established, but I was figuring 0g table tennis would take up less space, which we still don't have a lot of.

>>38112695
Who gives a shit, we could be betting anything, this is literally both for crew morale, and to try to get money off of any other crews we come up against, in theory we could use this as a way to bolster relationships with other groups and/or ships (you can't kill them, there your rivals, and if you did so you wouldn't have anyone to hate on)

So if our ship is the Phoenix, does that make the nameless, faceless executive influence of the players Phoenix Command?

>>38112743

Well, it matters because it's how we're socially interacting with neighbors, and when we display wealth, that a) makes us a target, b) tells neighbors what we think about intermural activity and wealth.

If it's straight cash (or even our finite LLA creds, god forbid), that'll also draw a lot dudes and bros. Women gamble less and feel less comfortable in male-dominated gambling (unless chinese and indonesian women gamble significantly more than their western counterparts?).

I don't want to get on a tangent, but gambling is an important social signifier. If we gamble work details or something else (karaoke night, maybe?), that might set a different tone.

>>38112532

I think we should make time for the infolife and datasec folks to run a ship-wide refresher. I would like everyone to have a clear idea of what a data breach looks like, or an invasive AGI, so they can report it as soon as they see it.

Everyone's got to start thinking about having broad basic skills available in case we lose more folks. Redunancies in the logistical knowledge base.

>>38113176
Honestly, once we get settled somewhere, any flattish (not relavent in 0g) space with a lack of pits or other things to break your ankle in works for a soccer field, they have them in third world countries commonly, its not a sign of wealth. Neither would a low tier defense simulation made out of scrap metal welded together haphazardly and lazily padded to prevent excessive injury.

>>38113176

Y'know, this brings back up a question of how we decide labor. Obviously, some work requires skills which only specialists have, but most of what we're doing right now can be done by unskilled with proper instruction.

Depending on how we assign the duty roster, we could easily start trading or even betting work shifts. I'm just wondering what the benefit for the guy who has three pulls of janitorial duties vs the guy who has a a rest shift and then has weapons duty is.

>>38113263

Fair point. A lot of our pop could be poorly educated or tech savvy, and I'm sure we had to do vacuum and micrograv safety basics in the past.

We should coordinate some community building exercises. Data security, physical fitness, basic self-defense, etc. if you're good at it already, we can assign you to teach, other wise you can learn.

>>38113289

I think he's more talking about how if we go challenging other ships to betting matches of soccer, gambling might be seen as a sign of disposable income. Personally, I'd be careful about attracting criminal elements. The Triads already moved up into orbit, and who knows what kind of other gangs and organized crime are out there. Hell, we might already have a red market subculture.

>>38113403
okay fine, lets just get some sports up and NOT publically take a stance on gambling, if it happens so be it, were not responsible for whatever goes on afterwards. The big thing is were just trying to milk some morale and intergroup relations out of what is otherwise a method for preventing 0 grav muscle decay.

Those that have families here, or ideological commitments, or simple fear and comradeship are in it for the long haul, but for many, they have no one left, or distant family and friends, such that a trip to the belt would feel like abandoning them. In the end, twelve of your more skilled vac workers accept the offer, and want to leave - and they're taking their vacuum adapted pods with them. They're also demanding a rocket sled, or to be let off the next time they dock to head to Selene Station.

>How do you resolve this?

As for broadcasting to the rest of the Earth orbitals, this sort of crisis has been the first chance for your sort of intelligentsia to shine. Here are questions of rule of law, society, democracy - a chance to cut out of dry academic terms, and speak real truths to people who might give a damn. Your speakers, managers, and thinkers extoll the virtues of cyberdemocracy, draw up plans for belt habitation, social structures, and more. They've also started networking with the Autonomist Alliance, for both ideological resources and people willing to pitch in.

You decide to reject the offer from Krypton Recovery Services, not trusting their motivations or their legal department's potential machinations. Instead you focus on getting assembly lines going for synthetic morph production, as well as recruiting experienced robotics personnel. You also look for ways to solve the problem on your own terms, via educational opportunities, but these types of efforts would likely take months to bear any real fruit, even with modern education and training methods.

>>38113618
We wont stop them, but lets remind them those vac pods are desperately needed here and not so needed out there.

>>38113618

Yeah, waiting for Selene would probably fit into our schedule. We still have a bunch more salvage and recruitment before we leave. I don't think it will be awkward having them on the ship as long as they put in a bit of work before they leave. Our ethical system can easily survive dissent, or at least I hope so.

>>38113618
Let them go, I suppose. The vac pods won't be as critical once we've got those human-habitable vac-synths fabbed, and given our stance on morphological freedom taking their morphs from them just feels hypocritical.
The sled should be the crappiest thing that will make it to KRS in one piece, though.

File: Zack.jpg (176 KB, 291x350)

176 KB JPG

>>38113581
This seems like an excellent interlude scene.

>>38113618
Unfortunately, geneticists and morph production engineers are among the most sought-after specialists in Earth space, and no one is answering your calls for that. Psychosurgeons, too, are now very rare. Roboticists and engineers are easier to come by; by coordinating with the Autonomists, you manage to find a former Chinese corporate engineer willing to come on board on your terms, provided you're willing to give him his due and put his family on top of the morph list, a NASA technician who was 3/4 of the way into her engineering degree, and a few others. Not top-flight personnel, but people who will get the job done, if you're willing to welcome them and put up with their individual issues. Only one of them, though, can be your personal adviser on manufacturing and more.

Select ENGINEERING Adviser:
>Sun Zhang, experienced corporate engineer. Family issues, a bit of an asshole. Practical.
>Kelly Davis, 3rd Year Engineering Student (with a NASA internship!) A bit unsteady, but well read.
>Josephina Oreles. Brazilian military engineer, not as educated. Has PTSD, but knows military tech.

On board the Ten Star, salvage operations continue. They've bundled up sufficient material to meet the Bohr's needs, and are continuing operations to get enough material for morphs. They've also re-evaluated some of their initial findings on the Ten Star; the place is big enough that many material types are here, if in limited quantity; with permission to start smashing the place apart,

Which is good, because your assembly line, assembled in the cargo deck of the Phoenix, is complete. The bad news is that you're rapidly running out of space on the craft, and everyone is already cramped. You just don't have *room* to put a lot of things, especially things that don't take kindly to vacuum.

>>38113618

>take months

So we come to a core question: are we willing to stick around for a while? Postfall Earth orbit is not super safe. I want us to be prepared, but maybe we need to that preparation farther away? Luna orbit isn't super friendly to Autonomists (OP correct me otherwise), but it might be better than high Earth orbit. I vote that we spend the time educating, recruiting, and gathering, then move. It's a little risky, but we need to stockpile to make a trip as far as the Belt.

>>38113992
>Kelly Davis, 3rd Year Engineering Student (with a NASA internship!) A bit unsteady, but well read. This would work well, someone who is charismatic, part of a highly PR based group, and someone who in general is good for what we need. Also knows some space stuff which is nice.

>>38113992
I'm torn between Kelly and Josephina. Either NASA knowledge or military tech. Hmm.

>>38113992

I vote Sun from that short description, as long as he is open to our consensus decision-making structure. Even if his ideas are good, his hypercorp habits need to take a back seat to our organizational style. If he wants to be the boss of our ship, I say go with Kelly.

To borrow a baseball metaphor, if two players get to first base in the same time, but one has bad form, recruit the one with bad form, You can train them to be better.

>>38113992
>Kelly Davis, 3rd Year Engineering Student (with a NASA internship!) A bit unsteady, but well read.

I'm sure our populace has seen enough asshole corporate types from China. Throwing his weight around probably wouldn't go over well, and I'd hate to lose the head of Engineering to a mob action.

Though, we're going to need to generate some policy on the morph queue. And the fabber queues. And actually any kind of priority of scarcity, which we're gonna have for a while

>>38114029
>Luna orbit isn't super friendly to Autonomists (OP correct me otherwise)

It's not very unfriendly now, especially if you can just wave your hands and say 'orphaned patents' to do whatever you want, but it's getting there. Right now the PC is consolidating itself on Mars, the LLA is dealing with refugees, the UN is self-destructing and the Ultimates are cultifying. Still, eventually you'll step on someone's toes, and either join a local faction as a full member, or leave.

>>38113992
You now have enough to trade with the Bohr for your fuel, though it will be a week more before they have the capacity to aid you. You'd guess by their disposition that if you want them to help you, you need either someone in the surviving UN command to give them an order, or convince them that no orders are coming and that they can do the most good in the Belt (this will take some doing, given the demand for their services here).

In the mean time, your message is being received by scavengers and refugees throughout the system. You've got a torrent of responses for people who want bodies, parts, more, and are willing to join your system if you do it.

It quickly becomes apparent that if you accept all of them you'll be flooded. Your CMs and fabbers are good, but you don't have anything like the power of a full hab. You need to prioritize

>How do you prioritize the requests for aid?
>What do you demand in return? Politically, socially, materially, etc?

Rolled 29 (1d100)

>>38114190
We need to extend our salvage operations to ships that are not habitable, but can be repaired. Right the fuck now. We need more space. With the fabbers freed up, we can produce ship parts and repair vessels with the materials from the 10 star.

>>38114190
space first, then social, then abilities we don't have. That's our priority list right now.

>>38114190

>How do you prioritize the requests for aid?
We have to do a little better than reading resumes. Does the number of responses mean we'd have to spend a lot of time to contact the best-looking candidates for interviews? Like, time-prohibitive? A simple half-hour conversation would be necessary at least. I say we look for experience and how they frame their commitment to our system of work organization. Knowledge, then passion.


>What do you demand in return? Politically, socially, materially, etc?
We have to have people who are bought into the idea of our syndicalist structure (someone should object if that word is totally wrong/inappropriate). We ask that they bring whatever they have on hand (we shouldn't encourage out-right stealing, but I think we should phrase it as "bring what you can"). They need to be ready to work, play, and actively monitor their wellbeing (no passive folk waiting for us to run their lives).

>>38114285
That is a solid triage.

>>38114262
Strongly agree. We need to grow, and establish the foundation of a fleet.

>>38114190

Well, the beauty of the Cornucopia machine is that you can use it to build more cornucopia machines. Unfortunately, this would take fab shifts and some serious materials to do, they're pretty sophisticated nanotech.

Our priority should be put on people who either already have the raw materials (they just lack the manufacturing) and skills, or who are willing to put in the work on their own to scav the materials. Basically, if you join and can provide the materials (or can integrate some other service we require in exchange) you can get in on the collective, and we'll put their needs in the fab queue. Everybody votes on the fab queue, and ultimately the collective decides the work order, so the broad community needs should end up first. You want to jump in the fab queue, you need to call for a majority vote.

Ideally, we want to expand, so people who need advanced fab or materials proccess but who have free space are our best friends, because we can expand projects we need into other ships. If we have to lump everybody together in a bulk transport or build a LaFrance Rig, that's fine too.

>>38114285

Concur. If individuals or small groups with talents want to come aboard, that's cool, but we need the physical room to expand first, and it's all useless if we gather a load of political dissent.

>>38114475

I say we put a new cornucopia in the queue when we've doubled in size, unless someone else has a better metric for determining our expansion rate for fabbing equipment?

>>38113581

We should start an inter-ship no limit, all currency accepted poker tournament, train our population all how to bluff better.

Oh, by the way - you're going to need a name for your group, your networks, etc. How do you think of yourselves?

Related: how deep into the Autonomist Alliance do you want to commit? You've been sort of on the periphery, using them as a general networking tool, but if you're ideologically committed to Autonomy, they're a powerful resource. Of course, this also means painting a target on your back for anyone who might want to take the AA down a peg.

I might be a bit slow in further updates.

>>38114930
I don't think a confrontational game like poker will be popular with a large portion of 200 people. But anyone who decides to join could learn good skills. Are we airing footage of all this? How do people feel about displaying these games to show people who we are?

>>38115028
I think we definitely need to commit to the AA. Their knowledge base is good even in these postfall days. We'll have to fend off some attacks, but having a larger ally (even in principle) is worth the risk.

>>38115028

As a single migrant ship, I feel it would be inappropriate to commit to the AA at this point. But we can start integrating and making use of their networks, we can be in an ideal position to consider ourselves part of the Alliance once we're established.

>>38115028

>name

I'd vote for a phrase like the ships and Minds of Iain Banks' Culture. Something fun and memorable that clearly states our POV. Like...

Friends Who Work

>>38115028
>name
Suggestions:
The Phoenix Feathers
Phoenix Down
Architect, Build Thyself
Engineer, Design Thyself
Out of Eden
The Bodyworks

>>38116348
>Phoenix Down

No, that's the name of our epic struggle put to a vid or vidgame once we're cool and successful. Y'know, the one where Phoenix Command is played by a Clooney or a Pitt or something. Maybe a young Bruce Willis.


>>38115400
>>38116348

>Friends Who Work
>Architect, Build Thyself
>Engineer, Design Thyself
>Out of Eden
>The Bodyworks

All of these are pretty good (though for some reason I want to write the last one as "bodywerks"). I'm evaluating them by adding "collective" to the end, because generally I believe that's how people would refer to groups such as us.

>>38116460

>I'm evaluating them by adding "collective" to the end, because generally I believe that's how people would refer to groups such as us.

Yeah, that makes sense. Though hopefully we get popular enough where call us FWW or ABT, like we were NWA.

>>38116537

>Though hopefully we get popular enough where call us FWW or ABT, like we were NWA.

Donnie, put Gangsta Rappers on the list.

>>38116557

If the "Donnie, add X to the list" happens at least one more time, we'll have to writefag about poor Donnie, and how the leadership council keeps telling him to find random specialists

No more votes or opinions about declaring for the AA? We've got one vote for and against.

>>38116348
I say we call ourselves The Rebirth.

It's ideologically what we are. The rebuilding of things. The reincarnation of humanity as it SHOULD have been.

The ability to be reborn OURSELVES in the form we choose as a primary cornerstone of our society.

The ability to reinvent ourselves as we choose to based upon our own decisions.

We are The Rebirth.

Anyway, so our triage is:
1) If you have a ship with space, you're in. If the ship isn't functioning, we'll make it function.

2) If you don't necessarily have a ship with a load of space, then as long as you're cool with our digital-democracy then you're in.

3) If you've got neither of the above, but you have some serious skills we are in need of, either in the form of raw resources, the ability to get those resources, or skills, then we want you.

Triage for Category 3 is as follows
>Medical Ship. In. Right the fuck now. We want healing vats stat.
>Psychosurgeons right the fuck now. You got one? You're in.
>Geneticist and morph production engineers next.
>The gear to produce morphs.
>Soldier talents. Especially the fledgling Ultimates. We could use that kind of fire power and we can supply them with weaponry.

What do we want in return?
1) You give space, and materials, to the collective until such a time as we can afford to have personnel possession of critical resources again.
2) You give your skills to the collective, you help everybody in the collective, even if you don't agree with them.
3) You plug into the cyberdemocracy, and you participate. People are REQUIRED to vote. There will be no 'silent majority' in this organization that can be twisted against the wills of the people at large.

For >>38113992
We should go with Sun Zhang. His due is what we have offered. We need a practical mind. His family is in the first wave of morphs both for our Synth Line and when we get full production going, but once we're past first wave, his family and himself following the rules as normal.

>cont.

>>38116863

>Ultimates. We could use that kind of fire power
>People are REQUIRED to vote.

This sounds sticky. Depending on the variety of Ultimate, they might not be interested at all in consensus decision-making or voting. We could hire them as Hessians or Blackwater, but I'm more interested with people with military experience who are interested in Equality. We're really not big enough to accommodate a fighting force detached from our ethical system.

>>38116863
I say we bring on both Kelly Davis and Josephina as well, as long as they're willing to work under Sun Zhang.

I say we hold off on going full AA. The guys in the AA will fully understand given our situation and location, and will probably not hold it against us as long as we don't side explicitly against them and pay them back for their help once we reach the Belt.

Okay... finally. Let's talk about rules of Cyberdemocracy.

1) Everyone has a baseline vote value of 1 on any given issue. Period.

A decimal value is added to your vote depending on the issue, and your own expertise, as you have proven it. An experienced Engineer is going to have a heavier vote on engineering issues than somebody else in the collective who has no such experience.

Someone of Advisor Rank (eg: the head of an entire set of issues, such as Zhang is going to be) has a vote-value of 2 on issues of his thing, and further, has a veto power that tables the issue for 1 Earth Week. A 168 hour period. A second vote can be held on the same issue, and their veto is inadmissable at that point.

Someone has to prove their abilities in a type of job before their vote value is modified for specific issues. You can't just say that you're an engineer, you need to have worked as an engineer for us for a while. Credentials can be faked, you have to work for us, and your peers (eg: people with the rank you're trying to achieve) have to vote 75% for you to get the rank, and for you to have your expertise value (the decimal value added after your baseline 1 vote) increased. You cannot have your decimal value in your vote increased beyond .95. The highest a non-advisor can have a vote value for in their own issues is 1.95.

No one can hold multiple advisory position. No one can have a voting power beyond 1.5 in any issue beyond their primary category (EG: somebody with 1.75 votes for engineering issues cannot have more than 1.5 in military issues).
>cont.

>>38117021
Everyone, period must vote on issues. Votes are as follows:
-Yay
-Nay
-Abstain.

Finally. No vote can deal with more than one topic. EG: You can't slip an abortion clause into your motorcycle safety bill (for example).

>>38117008
You have no idea how easy it is to manipulate a crowd into voting for military action. A scared people will almost always be pro security, and its pretty damn easy to scare people.

>>38117008
Granted. Though I'd argue that the whole "have to meet those 3 categories" would detract from any Ultimates who are completely against concensus decision making.

I say leave the door open for them, but yeah, probably mostly going to be hiring them as mercs.

>>38117021
>A decimal value is added to your vote depending on the issue, and your own expertise, as you have proven it. An experienced Engineer is going to have a heavier vote on engineering issues than somebody else in the collective who has no such experience.
>Someone has to prove their abilities in a type of job before their vote value is modified for specific issues. You can't just say that you're an engineer, you need to have worked as an engineer for us for a while. Credentials can be faked, you have to work for us, and your peers (eg: people with the rank you're trying to achieve) have to vote 75% for you to get the rank, and for you to have your expertise value (the decimal value added after your baseline 1 vote) increased. You cannot have your decimal value in your vote increased beyond .95. The highest a non-advisor can have a vote value for in their own issues is 1.95.
>No one can hold multiple advisory position. No one can have a voting power beyond 1.5 in any issue beyond their primary category (EG: somebody with 1.75 votes for engineering issues cannot have more than 1.5 in military issues).


So the group decides the voting power of each person (with a min of and a max of 2), the power tied specifically to their aptitude as measured by the group? This sounds like a lot of algorithms. Do we need to roll for OP to determine if our mesh network is up to the task of organizing and using these ranks? Does our skillsoft administer this system efficiently and transparently?

>>38117045
Harder to do with a populace that must vote. Apathy plays a surprisingly large role in such matters. If you make it a requirement for everyone to participate in the cyberdemocracy even just to say "I'm going to abstain from this vote" then it cuts down enormously on the whole 'vote with your fears' issues.

Anyway, what do you guys think of the whole voting schema thing?

>>38117128
We must make it completely transparent I'd argue. And I think it'd be fairly easy to make it work algorithmically...

OP? What do you think? Do we have the software to make this system function?

>>38117044

Yup. Abstentions over 25% require a new vote. If people can't bother to vote on it, it shouldn't be on the table.

>>38117044
>>38117021
>>38116863

I agree with most of this (except Zhang, I don't think he'll fit ideologically, and he'll almost certainly object to the synth sleeve plan), but I have concerns about the decimal voting. I suppose it's no different than using Reputational scores as a metric for how cool and trust worthy someone is, but for now, there may be a large block of our population who lack any kind of technical expertise, or be considered to have a large amount of expertise in physical labor, which at our small size is gonna skew voting.

Also, as per >>38117128 do we have a computer system and techs capable of writing the software which keeps all this in line and can handle the pure volume of voting?

>>38117021
No weighted voting! This is a slippery slope and can be dangerous. Veto power maybe and it has to be able to be overruled or shit'll be bad.

>>38117145
>>38117150
If people are really against vote weighting, then we can strip that part out, and the veto for advisory level positions has an over rule process, 168 hours later, the vote can be brought back to the table, and voted on again.

>>38117144
Agree. Counts as a veto.

If something comes back after the 168 hour veto period, and still doesn't pass, it can't be brought back up until 672 hours have passed (one lunar month). This also applies if the thing simply doesn't pass in the first place.

>>38117150

The weighting may be only useful for really specific votes.

>Should we allocate power to the fabbers for solar sails all next week?

More general votes might not require expertise:

>How should we rotate work shifts to continue salvage on the Ten Star?

>>38117266
Also, again, Forks cannot vote unless they have lived, separately, long enough from their EGO of origin to be unable to reintegrate with their personality of Origin.

>>38117272
This makes sense. The weighted voting system is ONLY for issues dealing directly with the things we have to assign advisors too. Like engineering, food production, military policy, etc.

After all, do you guys want a situation where we just REALLY hate somebody's guts and declare to go to war against them even when most of our military are screaming that this is a superbly stupid idea?

No Ultimates. They’re fundamentally hostile to everyone else in the solar system; the only restraint on their behavior is that they know they can’t win a fight against all the other groups at once. Yet.

Also, we should set up a morph rotation and have the people not in morphs be either infolife or a bare ego in stasis. The sort of frequent resleeving we'd need to do to create a fair rotation while keeping everyone active will cause a massive number of mental breakdowns from people failing the rolls to resleeve without problems.

I say we grab one of the Gates.

>>38117389
There's a gate location in the belt isn't there? Why don't we shoot for there as our point of settlement?

We'd better be prepared to build fucktons of defenses though, and we WILL have to join the AA to defend it.

>>38117145
>except Zhang, I don't think he'll fit ideologically, and he'll almost certainly object to the synth sleeve plan
What if we offer Zhang this plan? If he doesn't take it, then we go for the military engineer instead.

>>38117266
All these conditional and delegate decisions seem fine for expediency, but we need to put an open charter document (whatever blockchain protocol they use postFall) on the mesh with all of the details, open to a change anytime, with a clear history of changes and edits. I'd also include a minority opinion stating that as soon as we can, we should dump voting.

>>38117313
>Forks cannot vote unless they have lived, separately, long enough from their EGO of origin to be unable to reintegrate with their personality of Origin.

Don't Gamma forks technically fall under that criteria? I'm all for fork equality, but we also don't have much room for forks who aren't 100%.

>>38117313

I'll accept weighted votes for advisory votes. Advisors and their "advisors" are basically going to be work-groups inside the collective, their knowledge and aptitudes can best reflect their projects.

>>38117389

Gates haven't even been discovered yet. Don't even know if they exist to be found.

>>38117442

Not officially. Vulcanoids (thats asteroids in the orbit of Mercury), Mars, Saturnian moon, Uranian moon, Eris. If you can foresee some reason we have to take over Pandora or Oberon, we could.

>>38117493

Alpha forks who have sufficiently diverged to no longer integrate count as separate citizens. Beta and Delta forks are considered adjunct to the source Ego. For citizenship purposes, the alpha is considered to be a dependent to the source until it diverges sufficiently just like people under xty years of age.

>>38117477
Also, pointing this out. Having divergent ideologies is part of the point of being a Cyberdemocracy, provided everyone agrees to live and let live and work with the majority opinion. The fact he's willing to agree to our terms provided we help him with his family? That shows enough ideological flexibility to work with us.

>>38117493
Gamma Forks are what again? Forks gone wrong right? That makes them mentally ill doesn't it? If someone is mentally ill to the point they can't operate in society then they obviously shouldn't vote (note: Our PTSD brazzillian can still operate, so she can vote!)

Also 100% behind the 100% transparency.

We make our government 100% transparent. The only exception might be for espionage style activites, which would probably be handled some other way... probably private cells or something... I have no clue. We might just forgo the espionage thing entirely though... though that would put a crimp in any plans for eventual solar domination...

>>38117557
Pandora and Oberon are which two moons again?

So there's definitely not a breaker gate officially in the Belt?

Also I love the idea on the forks, we work with that.

>>38117574
iirc gamma forks are just really pared down

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>>38117574

I second pro-transparency.

>We might just forgo the espionage thing entirely though... though that would put a crimp in any plans for eventual solar domination...

The collective has not, and does not engage in covert operations in other polities or habitats. Any rumors of a "black budget" are complete unfounded, as are rumors of tactical nuclear weapons, and the leadership council definitely does not own it's own milspec fabrication shop. All fabricator logs are public record.

>>38117619

Pandora is Saturn, Oberon is Uranus. Officially, there's not a Pandora Gate in the belt. The Vulcanoid Gate is on an asteroid, but again, that's in the Vulcanoids.

>>38117718
>>38117574

Gamma or "vapors" are partial, fragmented or otherwise damaged forks.

>>38117745
The obviously any fork that's not an Alpha Fork, eg: a fully operational and potentially autonomous EGO can't vote. Forks that are classified as such, but still able to reintegrate into EGO of origin are considered dependents of the EGO in question, and further, unlike (for example) a natural sapient child? They do not have any rights to a morph provided by the collective until such time as they are fully independent of the personality of origin.

This should keep people spamming forks to game the system to an absolute minimum.

Oh, and this is big. Any efforts to 'rig' the vote by any means, short of actual debate to convince other people (Bribery, Memetic Virus, Abuse of Forks) will result in expulsion from the collective and revocation of any collective given property. Attempts to reenter the collective will result in termination of the ego.

>>38117863
This is fair enough. Especially seeing memetic viruses are a terrible thing anyway.

>>38117745
Any espionage we commit will have to be the complete disavowal sort. Pirates and agents who have sworn off ties from the Rebirth Collective and thus receive no support from us. They have to be better than anybody, able to operate with almost nothing, able to operate cut off from the very society they defend from outside threats. Forever criminals even amongst the collective. Anyone caught will be disavowed, criminalized, expelled. The sacrifice they make is for us all, to do what we cannot, to be the paradox of our existence. Their names forgotten, sealed away but always remembered by their compatriots.

>>38117977
Or we could hire a team from Direct Action or Medusa or whoever.

Run Down for OP:
Triage for Membership:
>1) If you have a ship with space, you're in. If the ship isn't functioning, we'll make it function.
>2) If you don't necessarily have a ship with a load of space, then as long as you're cool with our digital-democracy then you're in.
>3) If you've got neither of the above, but you have some serious skills we are in need of, either in the form of raw resources, the ability to get those resources, or skills, then we want you.
>Triage for Category 3 is as follows
>>Medical Ship. In. Right the fuck now. We want healing vats stat.
>>Psychosurgeons right the fuck now. You got one? You're in.
>>Geneticist and morph production engineers next.
>>The gear to produce morphs.
>>Soldier talents. We could use that kind of fire power and we can supply them with weaponry.
>>Aerospace Engineers and Miners

Duties they owe us:
>1) You give space, and materials, to the collective until such a time as we can afford to have personnel possession of critical resources again.
>2) You give your skills to the collective, you help everybody in the collective, even if you don't agree with them.
>3) You plug into the cyberdemocracy, and you participate. People are REQUIRED to vote. There will be no 'silent majority' in this organization that can be twisted against the wills of the people at large.


What do we want in return?
1) You give space, and materials, to the collective until such a time as we can afford to have personnel possession of critical resources again.
2) You give your skills to the collective, you help everybody in the collective, even if you don't agree with them.
3) You plug into the cyberdemocracy, and you participate. People are REQUIRED to vote. There will be no 'silent majority' in this organization that can be twisted against the wills of the people at large.
>cont.

>>38117863

I see we've moved on to the criminal justice portion of our discussion.

Well, attempting to interfere with the voting system is basically "treason" for what little system our society has, since it goes against all the principles of the thing. It should definitely be grounds for expulsion from the collective and the seizure of any communal property in their possession. How do we handle such a situation though? As we're building an egalitarian cyberdemocracy, we should probably enact a form of due process, so the collective can't just decide to throw people off the ship for no good reason. Fundamental rights protection, and all that.

>>38118033
Also, it appears we want to bring in all 3 people, but there's still contention on who we give the leadership position for. Kelly Davis has 2 or 3 votes, but one suggestion was Sun, but only if he accepts the stuff in: >>38116863
If he doesn't, then we go for Josephina as more experienced than Kelly was the idea.

>>38118036
mob justice?

>>38118069

Well, we should decide if we're a consensus perspective, or a pluralist perspective. Consensus holds you enact laws based on when the society believes such restrictions are required. Pluralist, on the other hand, accepts diversity and then has laws enacted via an indirect political process after debating the course of action.

>>38118036
>Well, attempting to interfere with the voting system is basically "treason" for what little system our society has, since it goes against all the principles of the thing. It should definitely be grounds for expulsion from the collective and the seizure of any communal property in their possession. How do we handle such a situation though? As we're building an egalitarian cyberdemocracy, we should probably enact a form of due process, so the collective can't just decide to throw people off the ship for no good reason. Fundamental rights protection, and all that.
Okay, first thing.
Baseline law, the one that pretty much defines everything else to my mind is:
"No citizen of the collective may profit at the expense of another citizen of the collective."

That covers an enormous range of things. Murder, Rape, Theft, while still being vague enough to shore up as we need and be flexible.

I say that in a situation where we have a criminal, we have someone who is appointed a "Judge". Judges are appointed collectively either when the crime has been discovered or are a 'permanent Judge'. Such citizens can over see trials and organize them. They must be impartial, disconnected from the crime entirely. They then choose a jury as large or as small as they decide is necessary for the crime, and of this jury, exactly 25% must be "Peers" of the accused. EG: people who are from the same job category as them. In the case of suspected memetic tampering, anyone who is even potentially harmed by this is unable to participate as either Judge or Jury.

Does that seem reasonable?

>>38118155
Break these down a bit more for us?

Okay, I'm back now and preparing the next update. I'm liking some of the democracy theorycrafting.

A note on the advisor - your personal adviser doesn't really have any more 'pull' beyond being able to frame things in sympathetic terms to the /tg/ hivemind; they're an adviser, not the head of the engineering department. They're the guys in Civilization that tell you you need to build more culture buildings or whatever.

Oh, and doing some of this democracy-refining things is going to take a vote, especially integrating large groups of new people. Someone give me a roll for it.

>>38117139
>OP? What do you think? Do we have the software to make this system function?

Voting software of any conceivable type is available and easy to implement. This is a problem that a lot of smart people have been going at.

Rolled 87 (1d100)

>>38118329
FOR THE EMPRAH!

Rolled 9 (1d100)

>>38118329

>>38118224

>Does that seem reasonable?

Sure. The simplicity of our system kind of precludes the requirement for legal representative, but the collective needs a representative to select for the case. If we're going to call for the suspect to have right to a legal representitive, we should probably retain the right of voir dire, where the respective counsels can examine jury candidates and reject them for cause (typically biases on the part of the juror). Given how open ended our laws will probably be, I can see us attracting some legal-minded people.

>Break these down a bit more for us?

I'll try, they're pretty broad and simple concepts when discussing criminology.

Consensus works best when you have a group of people who are likely to agree, because it develops laws via popular consensus. People in general agree that we need to criminalize a behavior, build consensus and it becomes the law. Pluralist is like in the US, where there's an external process separate from the people themselves who may have different values and opinions, and may have an additional layer to interpret laws once they are enacted. Right now, we're small enough building consensus won't be too difficult, but if we get big and favor ideological diversity (inside certain norms), building consensus on its own might be difficult.

>>38118542
We'll probably have to do pluralist... It'd be interesting if we could set up a dedicated AI to handle the concencus on laws... But maybe we just have it so once we spread to beyond one ship, each shop has their own internal system, which elects officials and decides laws internally, then sends a representative to help build concencus for universal and inter-micro-collective laws?

>>38118682

That'd be a decent way to handle the convoy.

We'll have to formalize a charter or something once we start building a static habitat, assuming everyone wants to build one dome or beehive city together, but that's a problem for like, 3-6 months from now.

>>38118799
Agreed. For the time being it's how we'll handle the convoy if our pop cracks 1000, otherwise we just do concencus.

I still think our baseline law should be no citizen of the collective may profit at the expense of anyone else in the collective.

For OP. This is our decisions.

>>38118033
>>38118063

And our physical action is upping our salvage finding for mostly wrecked, but still repairable ships.

>salvaging ships
>in the year 0 AF

Enjoy your exsurgent virus, faggots

>>38118958

To be fair, I don't think there any viable alternatives. Unless we're missing something?

>>38118986
We just build our own comp parts after stripping out the hard drives and ram from every computer, then use ultraviolet cleansers to remove any biological agents.

>>38118869

I'll support. "profit" is flexible enough to avoid serious abuse. Part of the collective's representation (playing the role of the Prosecutor) would be to handle proving beyond a reasonable doubt of profit on the part of the accused. That's assuming we stick to presumption of innocence, anyway.

Punishment is probably a discussion for more specific circumstances, but will probably include social sanctions, restoration to any victims and ultimately expulsion. We could throw mandatory psychosurgery on there, but that always seemed dodgy to me.

>>38118958

There are plenty of not-infected things filled with people who ran out of air and fuel. Just need to be careful about what and where you decide to examine. Also, for the moment, we're still playing super safe with hardware. It all gets disassembled first after a EMP/high UV bath.

>>38119023

I think that fall under our new info/datasec protocols. That adds time to our salvage, though. I'm not sure how much time we have to work unmolested.

>>38119073
Give them a choice: expulsion, or psychosurgery. That way we can say it's entirely voluntary.

>>38118958
The Exsurgent Virus infects information. Turn anything that could qualify as information into random noise and it dies.

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>>38119023
>>38119073
>radiation
>sterilizing the exsurgent virus

Shig

You're a fool if you let anything with greater computational density than a rat brain on board your ship

>>38119073
I'd argue no mandatory psycho surgery EXCEPT for those who are mentally ill. You play the crazy card? We rewrite your brain to make you a functioning member of society and without the voices in your head telling you to kill every third red head you see.

Otherwise, we expel you and put up on public record what the hell you did to be expelled. If you try to come back without a superb reason? we terminate your ego.

A lesser crime (very lesser) might just get you expelled from your micro-collective.

>>38119127

Is psychosurgery as a punishment really that useful? Wouldn't the punished have a public record of the surgery and know that their ego had been tampered with, even with their past self's consent? Do you trust a community that would allow that, even in response to crime?

>>38119095
True... Guess we just have to futz with it then... Be careful but as long as a ship doesn't look like it was attacked by Titans rather than something else? We salvage it.

>>38119182
Jovians plz go (until we can push your stupid habitat into your fucking planet and take over you Luddite scum)

>>38119216
Of course I'd trust a community that would do that! Remember, Big Brother loves you!

>>38119216
That's why I say we reserve it for the genuinely mentally ill. People who have voices in their head telling them to kill people and such.

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>>38119216
>>38119193
>mandatory psychosurgery

Support 100 percent, especially in cases of suicidal depression. All egos are property of the collective, and only the collective is allowed to destroy collective property

>waiting on op...

>>38119308
I disagree with this. Morphs CAN be collective property, egos cannot. Psychosurgery for curing mental illness isn't any more evil than repairing a defective organ.

>>38119368
Also we don't force it except for criminals who play the crazy card. That's it. Everyone else can choose to undergo psychosurgery. Only a criminal who plays the 'I can't be held responsible because I'm crazy' in court are forced to undergo it.

>>38119182

It's digital, biological, or nanological. If the data can't be stored or is damage, that kills digital. If it doesn't touch meat and we put it in sufficient conditions to kill the shit out of anything living, that'll do for biological. And even the TITAN nanos can't withstand concentrated EM radiation (as evidenced by the TITAN weapons lying dormant on the surface of the moon).

>>38119216

Well, depending on how good your psychosurgeon is (both in skill and ethics), most voluntary psychosurgery is like an incredibly advanced form of psychotherapy. You can have your tendencies towards behaviors reduced or enhanced. The most stringent modifications are highly stressful and seriously damage your agency, but you can do lesser versions of the therapy which simply help focus your tendencies. It's not any weirder than taking drugs to combat mental illness. In fact, if they have a "curable" mental illness, you don't even really need to give them a serious edit, you just use psychosurgery to supplement conventional mental healing.

But if somebody is say, a chronic headbutter, we can ask them to either leave the collective, or have their tendency to headbutt things reduced so they don't do it so often we have to put them on trial for headbutting.

>>38119368
>egos cannot be collective property

Running dog Consortium scum detected

>>38119435
Sounds good to me.

>>38119324

So there doesn't seem to be any large disagreement over the cyberdemocracy basic protocols, and making it open would help us change things down the line.

This crime and punishment debate is important, but not the top priority. Having the psychosurgery be voluntary, and only alongside exile, is probably prudent.

We're going to drop off some dissenters at Selene; we should plan our next few steps when that's done. Slight consensus for not explicitly joining the AA, unless folks haven't spoken up? Do we pump up the salvage efforts (maybe via robot production), or try to cast a wider net to recruit?

>>38119435

Full psychosurgery list:
>Behavior Control, Behavior Masking, Emotional Control, Interrogation, Memory Editing, Personality Editing, Psychotorture, Psychotherapy, Skill Imprint, Skill Suppression, Tasping

>>38119633
Pump up salvage efforts. Mor ships. More specialist parts of we can find them. Everyone who joins the convoy helps with this when their ship is operational and armed similar,y to ours. We continue to strip the 10 star for materials, it's a big ball of raw repair materials for getting the convoy ready to leave, so we fucking use it.

>dontworryopwillcomethru.jpg

>>38120216
Indeed.

The recently named 'Friends Who Work' autonomist collective spends the the next week moving on to other things. A dozen souls leave, taking some of the more experienced vacuum workers; they are unwilling to part with their morphs. You wish them luck with their corporate overlords, and send them on their way in a rocket sled. You decide against going to Selene station; the risk of confiscation at the hands of one of the corporate interests that used to own this vehicle is too high.

The Phoenix dives into lower MEO, intercepting the Ten Star Fragment and its load of processed materials. Given the events the last time you tried this, the tension could be cut with a vibroblade. You hear the hull ring as two pieces of debris punch through your spaced plating and splattering against your hull. The damage is minimal this time, and you attach the cargo to external struts for delivery to the /Bohr/. The exchange is done at a distance, to minimize risk of attack or accident, but you meet two of the UN Space Corps personnel in person for the exchange; the Middle Eastern officers are pleasant to work with, and apologetic for the delay.

Finding new spaces and new ships takes two different approaches at this point. One task is for those who have working or nearly working ships, and who are willing to work with the collective on their planned voyage to the Belt - talking with them, addressing their needs, and planning a formal integration into the network. The other is to look for hulls that look promising, but that no one is using right now.

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>>38120279
The former produces two serious recruits; the first is another LLOTV like your own, but with an even more dire fuel situation; their rocket uses Metallic Hydrogen, which they can't produce on their own, and they lack the full fabrication capabilities you have. The vehicle, which they call simply /Persistence of Vision/, is a much beefier, modern vehicle. The crew is North African; they're a bit more religious than your crew, and on board with a cyberdemocracy. The morphs are all biomorphs, however, and while they're capable in their own right, they're not very good vacuum workers and generally unwilling to risk their biomorphs going to dangerous places.

The second is a re-purposed long range cargo hauler with a plasma rocket. Not exactly easy to manuever, but with an efficient cargo-hauling capacity. Like the /Vision/, the crew lacks serious on board fabrication capability; they are essentially trapped in a lifepod in the cargo deck of their ship. These people are much more dedicated autonomists - closer to anarchists, in fact - who don't want to head for corporate society. You get the feeling that at least half of the hundred or so members have a problem with the law. They were considering trying to head to the Martian outback. They're a mix, mostly from south-east Asia.

The /Carolina Days/ remains an option, in the months since you've contacted them, they've attracted several other small parasite vehicles who've docked and integrated themselves into the community. The crew increasingly sounds like prisoners in their own ship.

>>38120315
I say we work with both. The first group can do on ship tasks, as well as help with fabrication and similar. Those who want to help in vacuum can resleeve temporarily into a synth form.

The second group sounds like they gave way more space, space we need, and if they're willing to play ball and not be ticks I say let them. We armor up their ships, use salvage from the ten stars to get the first ship their metallic hydrogen. And we still need an answer from the BOhr what they'd need from us to join the convoy permanently.

>>38120315

The cargo hauler sounds ideal. If we can provide them with the fabrication tech for use to start using that space for workshops, living space or just proper cargo space, we can build a decent colony seed. It they don't decide to stay on the far end, they can probably make it back to mars or out to Locus pretty easy. Vision also sounds good, so long as they don't mind out broad aims for more advanced morphs. It's too much to hope they're Martian Sunnis planning on otherwise rejoining the Sufis or other muslim diaspora on Mars, is it?

>The crew increasingly sounds like prisoners in their own ship.

Y'know, that writefaggotry is starting to sound more appealing. If they've gone full tribal, I doubt we can integrate them, but if those crew members want to come with, and maybe some citizens, we should pull some people out of there. And if we have to peel a couple of habitation modules off the ship frame to do it, I'm not relgiously opposed.

>>38120315
Can we produce metallic hydrogen? Or even entirely refit their engines for a more conventional fuel?
And yes, reach out to both. Also, could we get a more complete read on the situation on the Carolina Days? If other people are apparently joining with them voluntarily, maybe the situation isn't as fucked as we first assumed. Or perhaps we could get the crew off if they want to abandon the ship to the teeming masses.

At some point we need to name a ship 'Nostalgia for Infinity'.

>>38120315
You have a couple of hulls that you've scouted out as salvageable, or with intact passenger or cargo modules. Other useful parts you might be able use include solar arrays, radiator arrays, tanks, scanning arrays. If you try to keep things above board, you'll probably only be getting scraps and components. If you want to grab an intact hull, you'll likely need to be willing to push a claim - on another scavenger or a corporate operation - or head deeper into Earth's gravity well, try some of the more risky claims that haven't been mounted with beacons, or if they have beacons, they've been blanked in residual jamming from the blockade.

Your team on the Ten Star is continuing to feed you material, and as a result, you have ten freshly minted robot bodies. Who are you giving them two, among your infomorph population, or among your allies?

>>38120561
I say we offer asylum to any smaller ship with workable skills that is willing to leave and Jon us. Otherwise I say we quietly offer to take on the egos of anybody with working skills and their families with the promise of a moron later on if they give us their skills. Extract the people we need, leave it to implode. We can't save that many people, if we had first grade morphs? We could take the ship over. We don't so it's not an option.

OP? What about ship salvaging? and the democracy revisions?

>>38120658
Who has the most workable skills? And who did we pick for our engineering advisor? If Sun then he gets first pick for him and his family. Those with necessary skills first, working our way down from there, we have to survive first. People who increase our survival chances and those necessary to improve those survival chances first. I think everyone can agree to that.

>>38120658
Anybody wNt to press issue with claim jumping given our weapons? Or do we go deeper? I could go with either.

>>38120658

Do we have allies who have a pressing need for embodiment? If not, citizens first.

>>38120315

Kewl. North Africans know how to conduct long journeys in rough conditions, even if their ship isn't super. And more autonomists is a good idea. Both is the best bet.

>>38120561
>if those crew members want to come with
So we'd be encouraging them to abandon the ship? Are we sure the refugees on the Caroline Day can handle the ship without them? Cause if not, we'd be condemning a lot of people just to poach a few trained shipmen. And how risky would it be to extract them?

>>38120658
Things we need to know
> who is our engineering advisor
> did the democracy revisions go through?

>>38120753
My assessment is that everyone on that ship is dead alright? We can save some of them. Those who can prove good skills, and those who can bring their parasite ships with them. The best we can do for everyone else us cold-box them on our servers and resleeve them later. That's it.

>>38120753

If they're being held against their will, and we want to help, it's either offer asylum, or "liberate" the ship, which would be rough even for us. Neither is a lovely moral choice, but so might not be remaining silent. Since they appear to lack a unified body, negotiation will probably go nowhere.

>>38120753
If they were vital to the functioning of the ship, they probably would be in a stronger position with the passengers than they apparently have.

>>38120561
>It's too much to hope they're Martian Sunnis planning on otherwise rejoining the Sufis or other muslim diaspora on Mars, is it?
You get the feeling that that's exactly what was going on, except for the part where their friends and family all died horrible painful deaths on Mars. They're not really big on talking about it.

>>38120633
>Can we produce metallic hydrogen? Or even entirely refit their engines for a more conventional fuel?
Not with your current infrastructure, and not without spending quite a bit of time. With your new engineering staff the latter is possible, but it's a major refit; you're almost better off stripping off the engine, selling it, and attacking plasma rockets or something, depending on the assets you have and the timeframe you're looking at.

I should clarify here: HO and Metallic Hydrogen rockets are great for acceleration, not so great for efficiency. Anyone who wants a long range journey is strongly advised to have plasma or fusion rockets do most of the lifting.

>>38120810
I'm also saying offer asylum to the passengers with workable skills and their family. And if we have the storage space, we offer to cold box the egos of everyone else... The alternative is leaving them all to die.

>>38120817
I say we strip out the HO rockets and sell them for replacements good for the long haul then.

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>>38120769
I'm actually not 100% sure who ended up winning that vote, since there was so much hedging. I'm going to go with Josephina Oreles if there's no additional votes one way or the other.

How the democracy stuff goes depends on who of the listed groups you try to invite and the conditions you try to invite them on.

throwing in support for the save some of the people option and offer to cold box the rest for Carolina days. The ship is doomed either way. We can attest save some of them.

Terrible Calculus time folks. Either way we'll have some sleepless nights.

>>38120890
Can we still get all three if we put Josephine in charge?

>>38120817
Ask them if they'd like their impossible-to-fuel engine stripped out and replaced with plasma rockets, I suppose.

We must unfetter genius, and chain down mediocrity. Liberty for the few—cold storage, in every form, for the mass!

>>38120872

We should keep at least one functional LLOTV for local travel. We can theoretically have it dock with the transport.

>>38120925
Seconded.

Also the two ships have to agee too swap out at least half their crew with our own people, to insure they don't just take what we offer and run off.

Beyond that? We give them weapons, new engines if they need them, better armor to survive the salvage field refit them for the journey.

I think that's reasonable ehn?

>>38120921
You get all three, and some others not mentioned already; they're not necessarily in charge or not in charge.

I'm asking which NPC do you want to be your adviser on engineering matters, not where they are in the hierarchy which you've already decided doesn't exist (well, weighting exists) because democracy.

>>38121022
Couldn't we put them all in an advising committee or something?

>>38120948
Fuck off. When we get the colony running we'll need to get those people out for labor and population. They'll get new morphs and evertything. If enough people agree on the ship? We can even take over the Carolina completely. If enough don't? Then we save who we can save.

>>38121022
Oh! NASA girl then.

Also we make sure people with workable, good skills that improve our survival chances, such as robotic it's and their families, get first in on the morphs. Then citizens with non survival skills, then allies with no survival skills. That's our priority order for who gets the new synth morphs right now.

I say before we work on the salvage ships, we should refit our two new ally ships, and find out what we need to do to get the Bohrs onboard with us, and also begin cherry picking people out of the Carolina, starting with passengers and the people with ships that can leave, find out who has skills we can use. Then offer to extract the crew. Figure out how many egos we can put in cold storage, offer to do so for the guts with eventually useful skills on the Carolina, then let it burn like it's going too.

Unless we can take full control of the Carolina.

>>38121295
>take full control of the Carolina.

Honestly, unless we have some kind of social influencing mechanism/resource I've missed, I can't see us doing it. Convincing thousands of desperate people trapped in a ship to follow a ship with a few hundred organized workers seems crazy. I'm pretty sure we don't have a cold storage facility large enough for them (something that useful would have come up in the inventory, right?)

>>38121385
I agree. I just say we save as many useful egos and their families as we can..... Cold box the egos in our servers unless they have very useful skills.

>>38120890

Yeah, Kelly seems like she has a slight edge.

OP, I'm not super clear on our resource status. Can you our basic inventory of what we've salvaged and have on hand (maybe including what we're fabbing regularly)? Also, what do we need to leave Earth orbit and what do we need to get to Mars/Belt?

so concencus for op is
-accept both if they'll do the whole trading of ship populations thing.
-focus on refits of both before we go salvaged ship hunting one way or another. Anti debris armor. Dorsal mounted rail guns, weapons for defense, and any other systems they need fixed or replaced. Given the vision plasma rockets.
-begin contacting Carolina days to find out what skilled egos we can rescue from it.
-find out what the Bohrs would want from us to join the convoy.

>>38121748
>begin contacting Carolina day

Are we close when we do this? Escaping crew might be stopped by the passengers, and the desperate folks might do something crazy. Are we asking them to rely completely on their own methods to get to us? Or meeting them halfway?

>>38121798
I say for now we just get more info from them. Focusing on knowing who is even potentially -worth- saving. If nobody on board has skill sets we need, we can't take the risk of rescuing anybody. We just offer to take on the egos of the potentially useful. Better than dying onboard the vessel to mob violence ehn?

>>38121798

Push comes to shove, it's "let the people we asked to join us leave, or we'll start holing your ship".

But otherwise, we're basically using the Carolina as our other recruitment pool. If we can build temporary living space (basically put tin cans inside) the transport, we can cycle out and have it solve overcrowding problems. If we can accomplish this peaceably, we don't have to perform a hostile takeover of a crowded cargo ship, which is basically a fucking nightmare for a highly trained military force, let alone a makeshift militia staffed by VRFPS players and ex-gang memebers. It's like trying to take over a container ship, except the container ship is ALSO a submarine underwater.

>>38122024
Yep. Exactly. We have our own obligations now, that means surviving and helping those we have accepted to survive. We need more skilled egos. We get them out, then leave the ship to it's own devices.

Once we have a convoy of sufficent size, we strike out for the belt with everything we have.

We want either a working copy, or blue prints for the following
-mining equipment
-healing vats
-cloning vats
-cyber surgery equipment.

When we have those things, we go.

Every asteroid we colonize we give a CD and we see about setting up QE systems between our habitats to cut down on light comm lag.

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Interlude: Carolina In My Mind

A clattering laughter bounced off the walls. The air smelt of burnt meat, and welding torches, mixed with human wastes of every type. The life support systems in this section of /Carolina Days/ were taxed well past the breaking point, and Salle was far too baked in the braincase to do anything other than laugh in fits and starts. His metal companions, half-wrecked androids with vacant eyes and even more vacant heads, echoed his movements in a jerking fashion, stopping every few seconds to wonder what they were doing.

They were partial downloads only. That was the thing, wasn't it - even with a quantum farcaster, jamming - or just plain clouds - could scatter the signal. Salle had gone in first, been resleeved in orbit. His friend, his brother - hadn't.

It was so god-damned funny. He was supposed to be the screwup, the one who wasn't going anywhere in life. Not them. He sniffed the thing in his hand again, the tough, hard little stick and felt his mind /bend/ into a shape where up was left and down was right and fucked was funny and funny was fucked. So fucking funny.

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I recommend not taking on a bunch of unskilled refugees, the last thing we want is to end up like the Titanian Commonwealth. Grab the egos with the knowledge we want, plus maybe their families and friends if they make things difficult, make up some excuse for the rest. Maybe handle it like in Plato's Republic where we pretend we're giving people berths based on a lottery when we're secretly picking people with the skills we need

>>38122270


He felt a hand around his fist. The synth in front of him wore an old-style mask - better than its ugly metal face. "You like it, yes?" Salle giggled. The synth nodded to someone Salle couldn't see. Three others floated in, began looking through his things, the things he'd scavanged or bought or - his mind started unbend, put things right side right. The little warning in his head that /something was wrong/ was blaring full force again, and he flailed, hand still trapped by the synth's fist. "Now, now." it droned. "You didn't mind yesterday. When we came. You said you were looking forward. To it. What changed?"

Salle was silent. "You're in more debt, you know. Now, we can stop our deliveries, take some physical collateral - as a warning - or we can look for some other method of payment. What about them?"

Salle tried not to look at his brother. "I'm going to take that as a yes." He tried to protest, but then he thought that tomorrow up might be up and that would mean-he nodded, weakly. "Good boy, Salle. I told you we could be reasonable." The other men with the Synth picked up Pierre, and hauled him, floating away. "I'll leave you with the rest of that. I'm sure you'll be happy with it."

When they left Salle, there was clattering laughter again - only this time, not as much.

>>38122277
This I agree with. Only once we have the enormous production base we will require to give everyone the morphs they desire, will we open the doors to just about anyone, and even then at a steady pace.

Eventually, we'll be able to launch an assault upon the rest of the belt, and unite everyone into the collective! The first step to a United humanity once more!

>>38122277
We're going to have to deal with that, hardcore. I say we do it by making it so bare minimum citizenship means participation in the cyber democracy. No participation? No morph. Also we need to encourage pre-fall levels of morph diversity to remove the whole 'everyone is biological' problem.

Finally. We have to limit immigration. Those with usable skills, their kith and kin (within reason). And we begin working hard to figure out ways to increase our biomass production. Hollowing out asteroids and making fungus seems a good way honestly. It's going to be fucking hard, but we have to do this better than the Titanians. We have to make the foundation stable before opening the flood gates.

>>38122270
Another writefaggotry slice of life


Xian grunted as he knocked the tiny ball back through microgravity. The resistance suit they had fabbed was helping with the muscle aches, but exercise was definitely more reliable. The Chinese splicer twirled through the air as the ball sailed back to Gema, who walked backwards letting her workboots cling to the wall as she came perpendicular to the floor, watching the ball as it came close and slapping it back. "Metallic fucking hydrogen." "I know, right?" The ball bounced on two of Xian's four pingpong surfaces, and he dove forward to catch with a swat from below. Gema pushed off the floor, flying to meet the ball heading almost straight up. Grunting, she somersaulted back. "You'd think... by now.. we'd catch a small break." "The Ten Star was our big break." "Not big enough."

The AR buzzer rang and the final score displayed. Gema shook her head with a cocky grin. "When are you going to get good enough to beat me?" "Probably when I'm comfortable with the gravity." Xian floated to a nearby wash station, letting the sonic jets peel off the sweat and grime. "I hear they picked up a new flavoring agent when they talked to the north Africans. Do you want to go eat?" "I guess I should." "Hey, women are more energy-efficient in space, but that doesn't mean you can't enjoy a nice ration brick." "Someday, I'll never have to eat another one of those fucking bricks." "My waipo would have beat us black and blue if we ever complained about food." "Yeah, you Chinese have a lot of hangups about food." Xian chuckled and they grabbed the chain pulley that lead to the main cafeteria, drifting easily down the Jeffries tube.

>cont

>>38122625

Gema blinked hard and pulled up the AR for her work scheduling. She saw a request for a shift switch from her friend Melani, and accepted, lighting up a double shift three days in the future. Xian was going through some of the discussion threads around the growing charter; he was still on the fence about the idea of psychosurgery in common use. He submitted a few small edits and checked his position in the fabber queue. Still another six days.

The two followed the pulley system around a vertical corner, and let go, gently skipping into the cafeteria space. It was second dinner, end of the day for first shift, and the first meal for third shift. Five dozen morphs sitting and floating around tables and orbs dotted with eating accommodation cubbies. Yenwu was passing out the bricks to the bio morphs, and the pods and synths were grouped around a new craze for the crew; a device designed to transmit flavors and smells as algorithms. From what Xian had heard, it wasn't great.

The walls had been painted with vivid illustrations of vegetables, fruits, and some cooked meat and rice dishes, as if they could use visual trickery to make up for the constant bricks. Someone had picked gamelan for the mealtime music, and it was sort of soothing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYewsijB754

He grabbed a brick from Yenwu and found Gema with the Alatas brothers, who kept their pods painted in bright oranges. He chewed while they argued about some old Indonesian Pencak Silat master. It was still ration brick, but the new flavor was a welcome change.

>>38122508
To be fair, if we can get the necessary skillsofts, those willing to join us and take those up to WORK for citizenship, expand our asteroid holdings in the belt and such, help us bring I. More biomass, help us make living soil inside of hollowed out asteroids... All that good stuff.


Hell, we might eventually fund efforts to steal and cleanse soil from earth.

>>38122277
Veto, comrade, veto. Ideology is more important than skill. Skill can be trained fast, or added with software. Ideology requires deep psychosurgery, or the kind of control apparatus that looks like a militant trade union in a 10000 person group, or a federation of unions in 100000. Which is why we need to advance through the Carolina Days towards success. Liberating the Crew from their captivity is one thing, liberating the population from their disorganisation is another.

Given the background and academics on this ship, we should have people familiar with Yan'an politics in China, or village commune politics in the revolutionary portions of the NFL / Indonesian Party / PI. We need to make reasonable offers of hard labour: exactly the same hard labour we ourselves do. Anyone who dislikes it can be infoformed into a simspace of earth.

If any of the Sufis are exKurdish we have an in there.

>>38122752
I agree that basic ideology is important, but we need a psychosurgery to produce skillsofts for us if we're to go that particular route.

When base survival is most important, as long as the predominant ideology is our own, with cyber democracy, then we should focus on getting self sufficient and use basic peer pressure and mob ideological actions. We can handle some folks who think cyber democracy is for chumps, provided they actually sign the social contract and abide by it, and they have useful skills for us.

>>38122666
>>38122625
Very nice. Having this sort of slice of life keeps the group...grounded. In what this sort of decisions mean, about the relative poverty and wealth of various factions, their mindset, the culture, etc.

I'm checking out for now. When I get back: your first engineering report from (unless the vote changes again) Kelly Davis.

Oh, and a clarification: The Carolina Days isn't doomed per se, but it is in the process of becoming a proper scum barge. There's opportunity there, but also enough mess that I don't blame you for washing your hands of it.

Also I haven't seen much of a discussion on whether or not you want to try something with the salvage in lower earth orbit. If you want to leave that until the engineering report, okay, but keep that problem in mind.

op can we get an update?

Nobody seems to object to: >>38121748

So there we go. Also NASA girl is our engineering advisor.

>>38122924
Also give synth morphs to the people we promised like sun and his family, working to get the people who have the most skills we need and will leave if we don't give them morphs asap

>>38122909
We want to focus on refitting our two ally ships before we consider that issue.

>>38122909
It's so close to domed that it makes no never mind. We save who we can and whoever has the skills and ideology to help us out. Then we figure out if we want to claim jump or go deeper into the debris field.

>>38122924
But I am le tired. Come back in eight hours or so. In the mean time, write shit.

>>38123080

Working on it.

>>38123023
Or we fork bomb 9006 of us and cold storage 9006 of the population of Carolina Days and take the Carolina Days under a position of Revolutionary Exingency, putting social worker academic forks into limited sim spaces to "heal" them until they are accepting of worker's cyber democracy.

I am okay with that. I've read how the CNT/FAI failed.

>>38123080

In the back of the ship 3Jane liked to fuck. It was a working space and people turned their backs to give her an 80 square centimetre footprint hover of privacy, but it was where she liked to fuck. She liked to fuck with the dick she had a timeshare in. It made sense even if it wasn't organic. She'd fuck anything not child at the moment. It kept the cackling fits down. She was trying not to break up, and that's why she decided to call herself 3Jane. Nobody else had a Doctorate in late 20th century American Genre Fiction, but her. And she used it. Because she was trapped in zero gravity in a maze that wouldn't let her out. She fucked aggressively and sportingly, to the extent she could. For the way you can fuck in eighty square centimetres with no gravity. Which is an extent bounded 800 by 800 by 2200. And the increasingly frustrated singing the people around her resorted to when she fucked.

It was more authentic to her than pingpong. It was as tight as the ship. The people working behind her banged up against her back as she banged her balls against someone. The singers were usually fuckees too. She was going tighter and tighter into the maze and Tessier Ashpool was going to burn around her before it was going to be reborn.

In the few moments when 3Jane was saner, she wished she'd fixated on vampire pornography or lesbian noir instead of cyberpunk when she went mad. She wouldn't be eyeing the cornucopia wondering if she could fuck an engo into submission to make it turn out obscure dexedrine analogues.

3Jane fucked instead of pingpong, because she was mad from living 15% over capacity, and because it rubbed the submarine tightness into the big ideas' havers faces, and backs, and eyes, and sound. 3Jane wanted the ship to burn inside and out, so they'd be on stretched out servers of infinite nothingness, and the inside of Phoenix would be dead, empty, air, free of people to fuck. Someone else would burn it soon. She didn't have to.

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>>38123080

Posting as a pastebin because it's fucking long and contains some descriptions of violent murderkill.

http://pastebin.com/TaLTj8jn

>>38123828

Powered by https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8rpnK3pUUc&list=PL6E3CF9F9D1DA8C53

Infospace felt like floating.

Most of her fellow infugees would disagree with her on that point. They said it felt like coffins, like death, like nothing, like cold, like a numbness sucking on the backs of their eyeballs, trying to suck them pack into the void pounding in the center of their skulls. And the Phoenix wasn't even the worse simulspace out there; they had good programmers, even if no real psychosurgeons.

Well, not in those words. Most of them weren't that poetic. Mostly they said things like 'constraining,' 'depressing', 'monochrome.' Adjectives. They weren't metaphorical souls.

To her, it felt like floating. Not on anything, in the sense you would float on water. Not even in nothing, like you would float in zero-G. Floating, divorced from any surrounding sensation. The pure form of an experience.

So, while the others huddled around XP casts as Arctic explorers around their only fire, trying to stimulate senses that no longer strictly existed, she floated on less than nothing and looked at the metadata.

Let others cling to simulacrums of lost biology. Ghosts, confined to the place where they died. She was learning to see data for what it was, without its packaging for human consumption. Unwrapped, skinned, its inner self laid bare to her probing not-eyes. XP metadata, for example, felt like knotted strings- each one containing a separate sense. The number varied; not all XP included proprioception, or taste. Thickness was dependent on amount of detail. The knots were the timing mechanisms, keeping each sense-flow in sync. The CM felt like vast assemblies of gears on puppet strings; hanging in space until called upon, then flying into any of a billion configurations on a moment's notice.
>cont

>>38123906
She was disappointed that metaphors came to mind so easily. It meant she was still perceiving through the false filters of human senses. Still, she could feel her simulated neurons rearranging themselves the more she practiced. Eventually, she would leave the world of human senses behind, and learn to speak the tongues of machines.

So planning some write faggotry, thinking something less murder or porn boner and more Ray of hope...

>>38125636
>more Ray of hope...
>eclipse phase

The Ray of hope is always an incoming laser.

>>38125673
Or in my case, the radar shadow of an intact ship within striking distance of the 10 star. You'll see. I'll post it tomorrow.

Idea for cyber democracy. Everyone uploads an alpha fork to a time dilated server (1 day = 1 second irl) all data flow into and off server is a matter of public record so everybody knows there's no shenanigans. Forks make the decisions necessary, then reintegrate into original host. Gives plenty of time for debates and dealing with issues. Meeting is held once a day.

Thoughts?

Also I think we should go full rep economy on this.

>>38125740
Also, anyone who wishes to put a bill up for vote, has to open up their surface thoughts and emotions. Same for advisory level positions (anybody with the full 2 votes on their particular issue). It'll help us avoid infiltration, while preserving personal privacy for the vast majority of people. Those who wish to lead must be pure of intention and subject to the heaviest scrutiny.

Also, suggesting we borrow a line from Zoroastrian law. Anyone in an administrative position who lies for their own benefit at the expense of the collective had their ego terminated along with all backups, just as if they tried to destroy a habitat.

We will need leaders and administrators when we exceed a certain pop. Thus, they must be held to the highest scrutiny, and suffer the harshest penalties for unlawfulness and treason against the collective. Those who lead must be pure of intention, or they could be the downfall of us all in such a transparent political system.

>>38125778
It is simpler to just recall such delegates, then shun them for a short period.

>>38125835
It's not about ease. It's a deterrent. Would you try to take a leadership position in an organization with such a rule if you had anything but pure intentions? You might, but it'll deter a good few of the sociopaths.

>>38125875
This isn't a bureaucracy, we regularly rotate people.

>>38125891
True enough... But I still think such a deterrent wouldn't be misplaced for people in advisory positions.

At the very least people in such positions should open themselves up to having their surface thoughts and emotions read during any voting session. Perhaps the same with judge and accused during a trial? But not jury.

>>38125934
>At the very least people in such positions should open themselves up to having their surface thoughts and emotions read

Democracy isn't about votes, but about discussion. Delegates should have open heads.

>>38125947
Who do you mean delegate? For me, anybody bringing a motion to vote to the floor and anyone whose vote counts twice for that issue (or perhaps any issue) should have an open head readable by anyone in the sim at the time.

What about the time-dilated forks idea? Think that works?

>>38125963
The thing is, the executive already have two votes, they are delegated by the community to be thinking about things as part of their job. That also means they talk about it. And the way people work, is that they esteem people who talk about things a lot.

Votes aren't won on the floor with numbers, they're won off the floor by getting the numbers.

>>38125980
Exactly. So such people should have a mechanism to keep them honest. No two faced politicians in our collective (still think we should have gone with the name 'The Rebirth Collective')

>>38126026
All we need is their open heads. If they betray us it is our fault.

>>38126026
Also, the purpose of the time-dismayed fork server is to give a day to pure politicking as it were to everyone. That way work isn't interrupted and everyone knows what's happened, without having to unsleeve.

Also what do you mean open heads exactly?

>>38126055
Ideally psychosurgery, normally just intensive sousveillance. You know how some people can't lie?

>>38126082
We'll need to think on it I can see.

>>38126087
Getting the group gossips to fuck anyone with delegated responsibilities, like executive members, is always good: it'll all spill out "naturally" by using social sousveillance instead of technical or psychiatric.

Larger communities require formed power blocs, of at least three, ideally something more like five to seven. Enough to disrupt duopoly, not enough to form blocs of blocs.

Etc.

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>>38122924
>Also NASA girl is our engineering advisor.
Okay. Pic tangentially related?

>>38123828
Very nice. Yes. That definitely happened in an alternate universe. Your operations on the Ten Star Hotel are in no way under threat.

>>38123906
>>38123922
ThisIsHowIComputer.jpg
Also very nice.

>>38123270
Um. Yes, people stuck in confined spaces without a lot to do will probably have sex at some point. Yes, stress of alienation, integration disorders, claustophobia and other problems will crop up. Yes, the people on the ground floor just want good quarters and to not be, effectively, living on an over-capacity jet airliner for months and are increasingly ambivalent to the high minded ideals of some of the leading citizens. You do not, however, need to be...excessively vulgar about it?

>>38125963
>What about the time-dilated forks idea? Think that works?
I'm avoiding time dilation abuse for a couple of reasons; excessive use of it breaks the EP economy (or transforms it into something that's hard to get a playable grasp on), so the major factions don't make nearly as much use of it as they should. So things like, say, using time dilation to have people take classes and get training is fine; doing all major intellectual work in simspace cranked up to max time diliation is....less kosher. For (waves hands furiously) reasons.

Basically, you can't use time dilation or mass forking to solve every problem, and this counts as an interesting enough problem. Also, for biomorphs at least, forking is an hour-long process; pods are fast but still not instantaneous..

Update in ~1 to 2 hours.

>>38126954
Ah, alright then.

(Time is hard.)

Kelly Davis is surrounded by a bubble of information. You can see dozens of AR windows floating near her, each demanding attention. Her morph is one of the first produced by the assembly line - the prototype, in fact. The synthetic is plain grey polymer - they tried making it the color of human skin, but the result was too uncanny - with a few minor variations for individuality. It doesn't help much; it's hard to tell individuals with the new synthetic bodies apart without AR tags, so a few have resorted to unique styles of dress, or painted-on graphics. Kelly is wearing a light blue baggy jumpsuit that some spacers used as pyjamas or bathrobe, and has a small lightbulb painted on her cheek.

"Okay....I think I've got the report that you've asked for. The consensus has been to focus on the needs of our new partners, so I've done a survey of their needs. The cargo hauler isn't really spaceworthy and needs extensive internal reworking to support a large population. That won't be heavy on our fabber cycles, but it will require a lot of bodies. We don't have the resources or the power to start creating metallic hydrogen, so I've recommended to the 'net that we strip out the /Vision's/ engine module. That's heavy vacwork, and I don't really trust the Vision's crew not to wreck the ship in the process."

"As for plasma rockets - the design of a LLOTV doesnt really leave a lot of room for one. We could build a bolt-on module and replace the Vision's manuevering thrusters with HO rockets. I was...going to build one for my senior project, and I think we have the tools here, but it will take a month of work from our best-trained personnel, as well as heavy use of fabber cycles. I've attached a breakdown of what we can spend in terms of manpower and cycles."

"We'll also need to drastically increase our available power supply. Absent a fusion reactor, we'll need a large solar arrays; if we don't salvage them, we'll need set up an assembly process for them."

>>38126954
>For (waves hands furiously) reasons.

If you do it to much or dilate too fast, you go crazy.

Basically answer to most people related technology questions in EP - "It's cool, but if you do too much, you lose your shit"

>Very nice. Yes. That definitely happened in an alternate universe. Your operations on the Ten Star Hotel are in no way under threat.

Also there's not a proto-Firewall Async among the crew. Right?

>>38128381

"The other thing with the plasma rocket - we'll need a workshop. The hold of the Phoenix just isn't big enough. Oh, and the engineering crew is getting tired of calling it 'the cargo hauler' in the reports, so we've put it out to the collective to come up with a decent name."

ENGINEERING REPORT

Available Labor (rated in weeks of work; this can be stretched at the cost of moral):
100 Unskilled Labor/week
40 Vacworkers/week
10 Engineers/week

Available Fabrication (rated in 'resource units', a rough indicator of complexity and size):

Ten Star Fragment
CM: 10 RUs, all purpose
Fabbers: 5 RUs, simple
Phoenix
CM: 10 RUs, all purpose
Fabbers, 10 RUs, simple
Synth Production Line: 20 RUs, synth production. Can be retooled for other robotics projects.

Available Projects:
[ ] Light Railgun (20 RUs simple, 10 RUs advanced, 10 vacworker/weeks, 10 unskilled labor/weeks)
[ ] Plasma Rocket (60 RUs simple, 50 RUs advanced, 30 engineer/weeks, 60 vacworker/weeks, 100 unskilled labor/weeks)
[ ] Hauler Refit: (20 RUs simple, 10 RUs advanced, 20 vacworker/weeks, 100 unskilled labor/weeks)
[ ] Build New CM: (10 Rus simple, 50 Rus advanced, 20 engineer/weeks, 30 unskilled labor/weeks)
[ ] Build New Fabber Cluster: (10 RUs simple, 20 RUs advanced, 10 engineer/weeks, 20 unskilled labor/weeks)

(Not sure if I like this system - if it's too unwieldy it, I might drop it.)

>>38128570
>[x] Hauler Refit: (20 RUs simple, 10 RUs advanced, 20 vacworker/weeks, 100 unskilled labor/weeks)

We need to do the hard thing first. Once the hauler is refitted, we have the workshop space we need for larger projects. It should take us about a week, while the remainder of our vacworkers and the Ten Star's CM continue recovering raw material and any advanced systems we have left. Then we probably want to build another CM and Fabber shop on the hauler and work on the plasma rocket. We can even bring the Vision in to dock and assist with some of the work.

>Oh, and the engineering crew is getting tired of calling it 'the cargo hauler' in the reports, so we've put it out to the collective to come up with a decent name.

Horn of Plenty

>>38128675
>hard thing first

Yeah. Hauler refit sounds useful.

While the CM and fabbers sound good as a second priority, I'm a bit worried about not having a serious defense system. We haven't really encountered serious aggression from our fellow orbiters yet, but I doubt that will last. Just as we did a refresher for datasec for noobs, I think we need the same for small-arms combat in case we get boarded.

>>38128570

(Additional note: things with only plasma rockets should probably not be used in LEO/ Low MEO. They're just too unwieldy. Also, you can get two plasma rockets for the price of 1.5 through the miracles of parallel production. Also, I changed my mind about how complex you it would be to switch to HO fuel - still complex and intensive, but a more viable option than I first thought.)

[ ] Refit Vision with HO Engines (40 RUs simple, 20 RUs advanced, 20 engineer/weeks, 30 vacworker/weeks, 50 unskilled labor/weeks)
[ ] Stripe Vision Engines (10 RUs simple, 20 vacworker/weeks, 60 unskilled labor/weeks)

You nod and move on to other items on your list. You've asked the /Bohr/ to consider coming to the belt with you, but thus far they've politely refused. Having been denied a chance to serve during the Fall, they're trying to help out in any way they can. They're also vaguely loyal to the United Nations, such as it is. It may be only a matter of time before even that fig leaf disappears. If you want to get on their good side, your best bet would be to cultivate personal relations with the crew, and make the case that coming with you is the best way to help people.

(Accomplishing this will probably require a write-in).

>>38128845

The matter of the Carolina Days has been looming large in the minds of the collective. You've had some brief interpersonal communication with members of that ship, mediated via mesh, and it sounds like the lack of trust over there and tribalism is getting out of hand. You've already sent out messages asking for volunteers for your collective; extending that personally to members of that ship, you quickly find that most people are entrapped in webs of obligation, loyalty, and fear. Still. There are opportunities. A few people, especially a few ASEAN people who lack any major tribe on board outside of the Triads. The crew of the cargo hauler notes...with a bit of hesitation - that they might be able to deal with some of the people on board, but advise that if you do so, a display of strength is recommended.

Most of the individuals lack any specific useful skill, though a few of them have decent morphs, and - if you were willing to help them leave - medical supplies and basic training.

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(Space elevator because space elevator. Gone now, back in a few hours.)

>>38128876

>display of strength

That would set a serious precedent. If we head in there to extract new recruits and have to use force, people in orbit are going to hear about it. Up until now, we haven't done intentional violence.

If the ASEAN folks have access to one of Caroline Days' auxiliary pods or smaller side-ships, I say we help them. We can have our datasec folks work on a way to help them get far enough away to meet up with us safely (hide the ASEAN recruits in a shuttlepod, code it to the system so it gets ejected?). Having our workers go in there and enter all this conflict to extract a few people is too high a risk.

OP, analyzing the chatter from the Days, are they envious/resentful of our work or relative success? Is there any serious talk about coming at us?

>>38129154
>OP, analyzing the chatter from the Days, are they envious/resentful of our work or relative success? Is there any serious talk about coming at us?

No one that you've talked to has said that, but there's enough random scavengers about that you can't really count on that. So far the fact that you have a dorsal railgun has kept anyone from doing anything funny, but since you've been advertising your CM, it's undoubtedly true that you're on *someone's* radar.

As Quellcrist Falconer said: "If you want to lose a fight, talk about it first."

Also I'm less gone that I'd thought I'd be. Maybe an interlude or something?

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>>38128876
>>38129154

I don't mind making if known we're armed and not afraid to defend ourselves, but I'm also not keen in enacting SpaceHawk Down in a flying Mogadishu, which is where it sounds like the Carolina is going.

But, if we want to do a little shock and awe to give them a visualization of what we can and will do if threatened, we might be able to accomplish that. Maybe have somebody detach a piece of space junk - like a mostly empty or broken down cargo module, and vaporize it and say "Alright you primitive screwheads, listen up", we can probably swing that.

If we can talk our prospective new members into a pod or small parasite craft with their supplies and have them detach, that's fine. If we have to park the Phoenix at optimal engagement range, paint them with LIDAR and hold the ship up at gunpoint, this might also be fine.

>"Donnie, at Fire Control Specialist to the list"

>>38126954
>You do not, however, need to be...excessively vulgar about it?

I do, actually. It is the return of the repressed.

>>38128845
How much fuel does the Vision have? Enough to get out of LEO/MEO, or are they effectively stationary? If they can't move, I vote for the HO refit once the the Horn of Plenty has been refit as a factory floor. Otherwise, have them boost to where plasma rockets become viable, then strip and replace.

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>>38126954
You call THAT excessively vulgar?

Posting the classic that started it all

I say we need two things before we even consider going to extract people from that protoscum barge

>we need to know if the aseans who want out are of skill sets worth bringing out. We need geneticists, psychosurgeons, and cybernetic hats, as well as tech scientists who can help advance our own blue prints without pirating others.

>we need combat synth morphs, possibly designed by our military engineer friend.

>>38132448
>we need to know if the aseans who want out are of skill sets worth bringing out.

OP stated above:
Most of the individuals lack any specific useful skill, though a few of them have decent morphs, and - if you were willing to help them leave - medical supplies and basic training.

Define basic training, valuable morphs, and medical supplies?

Also, for show of force? Can we safely hole a section with the most violent gangs in it? Without venting more peaceful sections? That's our show of force right there. Kill the section everyone is terrified of, extract the people we need. I wouldn't do it until we had combat synths ready, and a rail gun on each of our convoy vessels.

though out show of force could easily just be showing up with two dozen combat synths loaded to the gills with boarding weaponry and a clear statement that as long as no body messes with us, we won't mess with anybody else. Moment we're attacked and identify the attackers we give a warning shot from the rail guns, the hole the section of origin for the attackers.

Oh, if we make the combat synths, we get our warriors to practice in them.

>>38132680
>basic training

Probably first aid and paramedic skills, something we probably don't have a lot of.

>valuable morphs

Any biomorph. Bonus points if they have something like a Bouncer.

>medical supplies

It could just be some first aid kits, nanny-bandages and medicinal drugs, but if we're lucky they might have a Maker/Fabber specializing in pharmaceuticals.

Obviously, we want to know more, but in general it's probably stuff we want, and if we can get it for "free", all the better.

>>38132680

I strongly doubt the violent elements are that centralized or conveniently placed. We don't need to be heroes or police, and getting into a firefight with a vehicle much larger than us with a bunch of desperate people on board is dumb.

>>38132805
We wouldn't really be getting it for free though. We'd have to expend time and effort to get them on board, space to keep them aboard, fabber time and resources to keep them alive. A full medical fabber would be worth it, but basic first aid skills wouldn't be.
>>38132680
That's stupid. We don't have the resources to police 10,000 people on a dying ship, and we don't have the rep to get away with shooting at anyone except in strict self-defense.

>>38132805
That's reasonable then. We'll have to shoot for it then

>>38132832
If this thing is a bunch of segmented life pods and such? Then they will be centralized enough for us to do the thing.

But I think two dozen combat synth morohs showing up will do just as good a job if intimidating people once we make it clear we're extracting 'family'

Official story will be that these ASEAN dudes are related to some of our folk. We are extracting them from an obviously bad situation. We only learned about the relationship after communicating with the vessel trying to find recruits, nobody but family offered. So we minimize anybody messing with us, give them a reason their current tribal Logic will understand, and produce the show of force necessary to get them, and the supplies they carry out.

But I do agree that unless they got a medical or pharma dabbed, or the skills to make us prints of such for our CDs, then it's not worth it.

Is the civ still going, or are we just talking about plans for next time? Like after the sessions over.

>>38133426
Given the slow speed at which OP posts, there's not a lot of difference between the two states.

If there wasn't so much love for the setting and his writing, I think momentum would have killed this by now...

>>38129531
>a flying Mogadishu
It's not there, though there are guns on board. Mogadishu has a million people in it; the Carolina Day has ten thousand. It's also not under the control of anyone that sees you as an invading outsider, because everyone there is an invading outsider.

>>38131641
>How much fuel does the Vision have?
They're in high MEO (ie, right below the geostationary layer), and are close to stationary - they've got maybe one big orbit change in them, and they're certainly not getting to Mars.

>>38132805
This anon has it right. Bouncers, Exalts, etc.

If you want combat synths, you're going to need to spend time getting blueprints, and modifying your assembly line to produce those.

>>38133516
Apologies for the delay, but content product is ongoing, if being frequently interrupted by that most dreaded of dangers: real life.

>>38133462
>>38133516

This is my first Civ thread. Are they normally much different?

>>38133692
What about medical supplies? What do they have? Otherwise I think this is a good idea. We can go in, negotiate some basic trades of shit we can fab in return for extracting the folk we want. Can we just upgrade our current synths using our military engineer's expertise?

>>38133695
Normally they update far far far quicker. Any time you see us go off into a tangent about legalities, generally that means an update would normally have been posted 10-30 minutes before said tangent began.
All the same, OP is a cool dude and I'm having fun.

>>38133692

>It's not there, though there are guns on board.

I was thinking more along the lines of "vastly outnumberd", "close quarters" and "filled with potential hostiles not clearly marked" than a literal analogy.

Besides, its not like we have any US Marines or Deltas with us either.

>Bouncers, Exalts, etc.

Hoo boy, that could be a real boon. For one, if we can obtain genehackers and body banks, we could reverse engineer those genelines. The exalt and it's variants are the basic H+ model, and Bouncers would allow us to keep our Vacworkers in job-appropriate morphs but bio.

The second is that with actual Exalts and Bouncers, we could also build up our skill base. To use a SMAC analogy, Exalts and variants are the talent level, while Splicers and generic synths would be Citizens, and Pods, Flats and low-quality Synths would be Drones. So packing some Exalts would give us a cluster of members who can probably be really good at whatever they put their skills to.

>If you want combat synths, you're going to need to spend time getting blueprints, and modifying your assembly line to produce those.

How hard is it to kitbash, compared to going full milspec? Can we repurpose industrial upgrades (protective armor, tool mounts, strength enhancers) for military purposes, or do we lack those too?

>>38133692
If they're that far from us, we need to get a rail gun on them stat. They're far from the convoy right? We want all three ships armed, armored, and capable of providing covering fire for one another.

>>38133869
Yeah. I think we can safely extract them with minor upgrades to our synths and giving them industrial cutter improvised weapons. Nothing says gtfo of my way like a metal cutting chainsaw backed up by shotguns. We go in, grab the guys we need. We -will- require those gene templates later on.

>>38133692
Plasma rockets for the Vision then, I suppose.

Order of operations

1- put a rail gun on both ships.
2- find a fusion reactor to salvage. If we have to claim jump, we do so. It's too important. Failing that, but one from KRS.
3- fab and put a copied CD on each ship.
4- give them the armor necessary to survive the debris field.
5- strip out the metallic hydrogen rockets, sell them to KRS in return for something else we need like blue prints for healing vats.
6- build and refit the vision with new rockets.

While thus is going on, we investigate both unclaimed wrecks as best we can from a distance for likely prospects of parts we need, and also investigate nearer wrecks to claim jump any parts we -must- have. Cloning vats, pod creation equipment, unsleeved morphs we can grab and copy shit from (even if we can't use the actual morph), healing vats. We watch who has the claim, we negotiate a trade if they look like they'd be willing, and steal it when they aren't looking if they won't.

Our primary objective is to survive. We get to the belt, Join the AA as full collectivists, and begin a healthy resources trade with anybody willing to give us blue prints, skill mods, or teachers.

Also we send people to pick up the morphs and egos we need from the Carolina. We send people armed with shotguns and industrial saws. We offer to fab shit for anybody who lets us through to extract the people and supplies we need, and cut a path through anybody else, and bring void suits and keep the rail guns ready to fire on any section that gives us too much trouble.

Any

>>38134057
There are certain things we definitely need to build by the way, for example, if we intend to go to the belts we should build some form of an anti-debris defense system. This can literally be a light railgun designed to hit incoming asteroids or whatever, this would also allow us to have a system that can be militarized against borders or others. In addition, we can always work on developing some of the simplest and most effective forms of electronic warfare. Sending streams of junk data, spam, and random malware collected from the remaining net, is a very effective way to drown out someones network and effectively disable communications, as well as cause potential problems with soldiers HUDs now being flooded with penis enlargement advertisements and site view rewards.

>>38134307
We could build a processor node kept isolated from the network by airgaps and use it to collect and incubate viruses.

>>38134307
Agreed for infosec and military point defense systems, but contrary to popular belief, the Belt is way safer than even earth orbit today. Asteroids tend to be dozens, if not hundreds of km apart from one another, and the rules of gravity keep space relatively clean of small debris unlike around a planets' orbit and say, the rings of Saturn (which is a nightmare to navigate).

The biggest issue is gravity fucking with navigation I. The Belt due to all the various massive objects. Collisions are only common in the belt when you consider the size of the belt. In any one part of the belt they are exceedingly rare, with decades or centuries between asteroid impacts.

>>38133804
>Can we just upgrade our current synths using our military engineer's expertise?
Sort of. Up to a certain point, There's not much difference between upgrading to basic military spec and just fabbing some armor, specs, and guns for them to use. Past that point, you don't have the time, resources, or blueprints to build in, say, cyberbrain neurachem.

- - - - - - -

You focus on the ships you have, not the ships you want, or the people you want to have. You work with what you have. Now topped off on fuel, and continuing to rake in material from the Ten Star, you do the crew swap with the recently named 'Horn of Plenty'. You construct new 'decks' between the cargo holds, seal and insulate sections, install filtering and recycling systems, plumbing, and more. At one point a total of three hundred people are working on the Horn, turning it into something like a proper living space.

The pilots of the Phoenix keep the ship busy, doing supply run between the two ships, doing maneuvers to avoid long range attacks. With some fuel to spare and people transferring cargo from the Phoenix to the Horn, they can start thinking about accepting jobs or requests for reputation and money, though they haven't gotten a consensus on doing so yet.

The Persistence of Vision is moved to a higher orbit by its own thrusters and assistance from the Phoenix; the people on board help both with the refurbishing of the Horn and with normal tasks around the Phoenix. The decision on whether or not to strip out the MH system or 'downgrade' it into to a HO system is deadlocked in consensus, and the engineers exercise controlling power to strip out the system, much to the aggravation of the Persistence of Vision - but it's too late to back out now. The three crews are mixing well enough though, languages aren't a serious barrier, and those who haven't already are adopting either English or Esperanto.

>Refit of Horn complete, refit of Vision in progress.

>>38134547

Can we throw the MH components into storage? We'll eventually want the more modern and efficient system, once we have the manufacturing base to produce the fuel.

>>38134547
Okay then, fab weapons and armor for 2 dozen folks once the refit for the vision is done. Then we go and secure the people who agreed to joints from the Carolina. We offer to barter with anybody who stops us on a nonviolent manner. Violence is met with violence, but we keep collatoral to a minimum. Boarding team should be 1/6th negotiator types, 5/6th former gangers and military.

Seem reasonable to everyone? While the boarding party operates, we need to fab a rail gun each for our two sister ships, and begin searching for a fusion reactor. See if KRS is willing to trade us a fusion reactor for the MH components (but only after we scan them into our ship part fabber system for later replication)

>>38134653
Sure, but dead mass is dead mass.

I don't have a decision on the Carolina or a write-in on the Bohr. Someone suggested pushing a claim; if you're going to do that, I'd want some other people to chime in and give some specifics. Also, you might want to come up with some idea of how you're arranging the crews, especially if there's a mismatch between who can have a thing, and who wants it. Who gets to decide who is on which ship?

>>38134796
Offer to assist in the Bohrs humanitarian mission? Seeing as most consider the UN faction dead it shouldn't make us much of a threat to anyone and would endear us to the bohr.

>>38134796
Write in for the Bohr? We were supposed to? We've been asking what the Bohr wanted or needed to join up with us permanently as a member of the convoy?

Also soecifics on claim pushing was for specific parts we couldn't't trade KRS for

-healing vats
-fusion reactor
-biomorph fabrication gear
-pod fabrication gear

That's what we'd claim jump... Or try to trade for first, offering fabrication help I. Return for the salvage we want for the claims we don't have. I'm sure more than one scavenger group has a need for replacement parts or impact armor to help navigate the debris field

>>38134883
Want confirmation from the QM on what I've been asking for the past 5 turns. What do the people on the Bohrs want to job us permanently.

>>38134951
Not what I meant, I meant we briefly join them on there mission, not have them join us, this'd ally us and once the stream of shit for them to do dries up or they accept the UN is dead, they have us as an option.

>>38134951
See >>38128845
I've been pretty clear, I think, that doing so will require either getting someone in the UN to give them orders/instructions or convincing them that their mission is best served in the outer system (and preferably with you), which will require personal diplomacy. You're hampered here by a lack of high end morphs that could do this sort of persuasion in person, but it's not impossible.

>>38134791

Vision refit shouldn't consume all our light fabber resources. We can do another small arms run - preferably lean toward's breach safe munitions, such as Beam Weapons or plastic or hollowpoint Kinetic ammunition. Maybe some concussion grenades if we can make those?

Otherwise, I'll agree, build an "extraction team" built of a couple of our Faces with a militia fireteam or two for security. Bring a small amount of surplus materials or rations as trade goods, maybe some of our Earth-cash. Fab some shiny beads.

>>38134796

Crew distribution should be based on residency and mission profile. If you say, consider the Vision to be your primary home and your skills are not immediately required elsewhere, you bunk on the vision - barring overcrowding reduction by moving non-vital personnel to work in the Machine Shop on the Horn. Horn should also have our highest concentration of militia, it's our new breadbasket. Since the Vision is currently in refit, it's mission profile is basically "off-shift" so all it's crew members can focus on providing additional work shifts to the Horn to get them fully functional again. Mission profile on the Horn is fabrication, mission profile on the Phoenix is currently gofer. We'll adjust as operations complete.

I can write something about the Bohr in a bit, if nobody else does. Should we also roll, or just let the quality of the fiction speak for itself?

>>38135042
>>38135093
Okay. I say then we go for the plan of offering them our help in the form of fabbers and space for medical procedures to help others in return for their refined materials, fuel, and blue prints from their systems to upgrade our own vessels to better help them.

Also builds us a good rep with the other ships we help, leading to them joining us as well, or at least us poaching talented members of their crews looking for a better deal.

This way, the Bohr will warm up to us, and be more likely to cut and run with us instead of joining the LLA or PC when the in fully collapses.

We should hang onto that earth cash... In less than a year it'll be incredibly valuable 'nostalgia jewelry' a perfect industry to boost ourselves in the years to come.

The currency itself is worthless. The material it is made from and it's symbolism as a piece of old earth is incredibly significant though.

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Interlude: Festival

At the top of the 'Horn of Plenty' (down being the direction of exhaust) there's a final room - it's the single largest room on any of the three ships, spanning almost the entire diameter of the /Horn/. One of the Americans referred to it as a kiva, and the name stuck. About a hundred people can fit in here more or less comfortably, and everyone else can participate electronically. At the center of attention are the twenty three individuals who have new, locally produced bodies; among them Kelly Davis, Sun and Wen Zhang, and Farid - the first crew member to die in orbit and come back, due to an accident aboard the Ten Star Hotel. Josephina Oreles is the only one of the new synths missing. Others are the Imam of the /Persistence of Vision/, and a young-looking Vietnamese man with an old soul who is respected on the Horn.

It's a ritual with no origin - the mingling of a strangers, the sharing of a meal, games of chance and skill - it's not helped by the fact that most of those present don't have a meaningful ability to eat, or whose dietary requirements are defined in terms of bars and mineral - but the crew is used to it, after a fashion. The crew of the /Persistence of Vision/ , with volunteers from the Phoenix, have painted a mural on the wall surrounding the kiva, an image of Earthrise from orbit. It's been almost a year - short by only two weeks - since official hostilities with the TITANs began and the retreat was sounded. On the L4 Settlement, they're marking this day as Remembrance Day, and officially changing the name of the settlement to Remembrance. They've announced plans to expand the Cylinder to providing housing for millions of refugees.

You might not agree with the LLA, but that's something to be happy for all the same.

So current plan guys is
-outfit a boarding/extraction party with weapons and trade goods to get the people and supplies we want out of the Carolina
-finish engine refit of the Vision, then move all ships to the Bohr to offer assistance, possibly after loading up on materials from the ten star. In return for assistance to their goal, we ask for permission to copy their systems for our own fabbers if at all possible.
-outfit both ships with rail guns and armor when not dedicating fab time to assisting the Bohr.

This sound good to everybody?

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>>38135661

Dr. Maraja Cabral was one of the few citizens not at the gathering on the Horn of Plenty. Not that she'd be missed - while no one had said it out loud, she could instinctively tell from their body language that people often found her unsettling or creepy. Or that could just be the onset of paranoid from her insomnia talking. But she wasn't refraining just from personal choice - No, she was on a mission from the collective. She was sitting in the Ops Center of the Horn, working with the long-range radio rig she'd been able to complete during the refit operation. It wasn't quite enough for a streaming mesh connection, and they didn't yet have the infrastructure to beam out anything much more complex than audio, but it had the range to reach out and touch anybody in the orbit.

Maraja was in the middle of a conference with several of the "officers" of the UNS Bohr, continuing negotiation efforts to have the vessel join the convoy now three strong to move out into the belt. She was wrapping up her argument again, suddenly glad the exaspiration couldn't be seen on her face.

"Listen, I understand, you have a mission, a pledge. But the UN is gone. There are no more nations to unite. Any nationalized colonies left on Luna or Mars are joining the LLA or the Tharsis League. Or being bought out by this new Consortium." she paused, taking in a breath, running through chains of logic in her head. Technically, she was a /computer/ networking expert, but she was good enough at rational thought to build a sensible argument. And there were no known poli-sci majors among the Rebirth Collective.

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>>38136457

"You want to preserve the original goals of your mission and the UN Charter, you should come with us - or rather, someone like us. You stay in orbit, either pirates or criminals will jump your ship, or you'll get seized or transferred to the LLA or PC. That will put an abrupt end to your humanitarian and scientific mission while they decide to do whatever profits them the most..." she paused for dramatic effect, catching a few rumbles on the other end of the line, but continuing before anybody could interrupt, "Now, in my time at Lifeboat, I worked with some scientists who were part of JASON and MITRE - now the Argonauts. You could easily hook up with them in Lunar Orbit and keep doing good work, but you and I both know their major operations centers are out-system. You want to keep at it, why not join with a group with humanitarian, democratic and technoprogressive ideals? I'm sure a number of the ships you're aiding now would love to come with us, and we'd be welcome to provide any repairs or modifications they need to add their skills and capabilities to ours. If you don't want to stay, we can always repay you for your help by helping you push farther out system, somewhere like Titan, or wherever else the Argonauts are working. We're after the same thing here, are you going to wait for politics to make our cooperation impossible, or actually follow your ideals?" She paused, taking a breath, waiting for a response. After a couple of minutes of quiet murmurs, then one of the members said, "We will have to consider your points, Dr Cabral. Thank you for your time." She thanked them also, and the connection terminated. Maraja decided she needed to unwind. Time to find what kind of horrible moonshine the Horn's crew had been brewing in the engine compartment.

May I do a write up for the boarding of the Carolina? Once what the exact specs of what we're bringing and how many people and supplies we're after?

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Rolled 13 (1d100)

>>38136457
>>38136481
Noice. Roll related.

>>38136481
No reason you can't. You can decide how much stuff you want to bring; your total population has a little less than doubled. Weapons are mostly small arms, shredders, railguns, lasers, maybe particle guns. Plasma guns are beyond you for now. Trade goods could be smaller fabbers, life support packs, etc.

What you're after? There's thirty people willing to sign up with you and about a hundred more static infomorphs. They've got medical fabbers, medichine seeds, which are fairly bulky (and might require a show of force to get the current owners to give it up).

>>38137488
Rolls low or high or good?

Secondly, we get as large a group as is willing to go. No risking the biomorphs unless their owner is a superb combatant in biomorphs form but not synth. Everybody gets basic armor and vac suits if they need them. Take low collatoral weaponry. Nothing that'll break through a wall or a bulkhead and vent atmo. Also everyone brings a never weapon, improvised or not.

We bring on board supplies to barter our way past. We barter for the medichine seeds and at least one medical fabber if we can and none of the 130 are actual owners of such things. If they are the rightful owners, we will use a show of force to take back with us their stuff if we must.

Finally, we bring on the I domorphs and offer to offload them along the way unless they want to stay for the long haul. They're at the back of the line for morphs, unless they or their family has skills we need for them to use.

Everybody on board with this plan? If There are no objections I'll start write gagging on paste bin.

>>38137488
Could we make medical fabbers or medichine seeds with our cornucopias if we had the designs? If so, we could borrow a medical fabber, reverse-engineer it, and give them back two, while we get the capability to make more whenever we want. Everyone benefits.

Also, the post isn't quite clear, is it the people who want to get off that hold the medical equipment?

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For those of you playing the home game, here's Maraja Cabral statted as a character, ideal for NPCs or Pregens.

>>38137488

Nice. That even rolls under the skills I gave her.

She was intensely aware of the man with the gun behind her. He had never overtly threatened her, of course. Indeed, he was theoretically there for her protection. It was a dangerous ship, don't you know. Overstuffed with desperate people and home-made weapons, any of whom might do something... stupid. An armed escort was vital to her health, especially since her work so often took her to the worst modules on the ship.

She was used to having an armed escort. Back on Earth, the humanitarian missions she was a part of was frequently accompanied by soldiers. But on Earth, the escorts were usually U.N. AI-driven combat pods. Not this... thug, chewing a fat wad of tobacco, sticking a dentist's vacuum into his mouth every minute to suck the spit out.

She closed the last suture, closing up the almost invisible seam in flesh.
"Don't do anything strenuous with that shoulder for a couple of days," she told the man. He jabbered something- probably thanks, from tone, machine translation was down at the moment- and pushed off back towards his fellows, waiting at the other end of the module, armed. Knives, maces, swords.

It wasn't the first time the people she had been helping distrusted her. Most of the time, though, it was the UN at her back, not some gangbanger. Suddenly even more bone-weary than she already had been, she turned to go.

>>38138195

"I want to leave."
Her fellow doctor- the only other one in their module right now- looked up in surprise.
"There are people here who need our help," he said.
"I know, but there are people everywhere who need doctors. People who will appreciate us for our work, instead of brandishing weapons at us."
"You never seemed to have a problem with working on ungrateful people back on Earth."
"Back on Earth, there were people who appreciated what I did. The UN. My family. Now my family is dead, the UN is disbanded, and we're practically being forced to work at gunpoint. My reserves of charity are dry. I am sick of tired of working for free on ungrateful fucks who just end up eaten by nanoswarms anyway."

He floated still for a moment, then nooded. Almost imperceptibly. "Where would you go?"
"There's a ship. The Phoenix. LLOTV, full-up cornucopia. They're trying to recruit for a convoy out to the Belt, get out before one of the power blocs eats them up. They've been shopping around for doctors. They offered to take care of the extraction."

The other surgeon nodded. "Well, if you want to go, I certainly wouldn't dream of stopping you. Charity isn't something that should be forced."
"Will you come with?" She asked, on impulse. He shook his head.
"I've never been able to turn my back on anyone in need," he said. "This place may be a pit, but that's precisely why they need help. I can't abandon them."

They floated for a moment in contemplative silence, basking in the odor of thousands of unwashed people stuck in close quarters for months. Then an AR buzzer rang. Another medical emergency. She sighed- she was the one on-call at the moment.
"I'll get it," he said, slapping another stim-patch on his arm and grabbing his kit.
"You're a better man then I," she said as he sailed out of the module. Then the door closed behind him, and she was alone.

Rolled 85 (1d100)

Leaving the ending open ended for the CM to decide how it plays out and if we should have any big decisions to make. Hope you guys like it.

Http://pastebin.com/Ut9WAfsA

>>38138502
Well shit... Don't suppose anybody wants to roll support on this to maybe get a better roll?

>>38138602
I think the CM rolls for everything.

>>38137800
>Also, the post isn't quite clear, is it the people who want to get off that hold the medical equipment?
Ownership...fuzzy. Like, say, the morphs or tools brought into your collective; if someone wanted to defect, and they tried to bring 'their' tools, this would go over....poorly.....with you.

>>38138726
Rolls are for democracy stuff for you guys; bad rolls aren't "bad luck", they're "you are subjected to democratic pressure to modify your plans", which can be good, or bad, or both. Me rolling is my own semi-transparent method to add randomness.

>>38138502
>>38138214
>>38138195
Very nice.

Second 2/3rds of interlude up shortly, and I'll get at least one or two updates in before I sleep.

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>>38135661
Thomas Jonas found himself missing Xi Wu. The vacworker had been part of the group that left for Krypton Recovery Services; these days, looking at the status to date on the process of getting new morphs...they might have had the better deal. Compared to life on a refugee boat, corp indenture, especially skilled corp indenture with full access to medical tech, wasn't bad, and you were at least certain you'd get a morph - no crazy adventures out in the Belt, just working for a body, then freedom.

Xi Wu had never trusted the ideals of the group or its leaders - high talking claptrap, he'd confided in Thomas before leaving. That's what it had been like before the war; people talking that exact same shit had justified terrorist strikes and made things worse for everyone. Thomas had wished him the best, and maybe even would have been tempted if he'd been more skilled, had better prospects. But here, now, he didn't regret it at all.

The people mingled and shifted between each other. Talked buzzed in a half dozen languages across the audio and a dozen more bands beside. Dr.Jonas had done brief stint with the anthropology department at the Universidade de São Paulo - if any of his colleagues were here, they'd no doubt be buzzing with excitement seeing a new human community form before their eyes, forming bonds of community through some of the oldest methods. In fact - he had his muse do a quick headcount, and came up a few short - he suspected that some community building in the very oldest style was going on.

Exciting times to be alive. Not that there weren't cracks. The Imam commanded a great deal of respect, and on certain matter could effectively control the entire vote of the /Persistence of Vision/. The leaders of the Horn of Plenty had hinted at shady dealings in the past, and once they were secure, there was no guarantee they wouldn't continue in the future, especially once they were entrenched and well armed. Fault lines.

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>>38139166
He switched channels from audio to the mesh network to catch the gossip, and found that the topic of conversation had wound its way to the subject of the /Carolina Days/. [[I have a - I guess friend, who lives on there. They say they don't come out at night because they're afraid of crossing the wrong 'militia']]. Another chimed in [[It's not our business. We can't save everyone from everything.]] [[We saved you from being stuck in that bubble. If you, why not them?]] [[We had a ship. That's different. And besides, we get a vote on this, don't we?]] [[Just because you get a vote, doesn't mean you can't vote /wrong/]]. Translations scrolled back and forth as the mild flamewar scrolled between three ships in close parking orbits.

Thomas interjected his own comment. [[Even if we can't save everyone, it's in our interest to recruit who we can. I think everyone understands that much. It's just a question of how far we're willing to go.]]

A new voice entered the conversation. [[Far enough, I think. You haven't been fabricating particle weaponry because you're planning a beach party, have you?]] Thomas checked the ident - it was Ho Xuan Dang, one of the leaders of the /Horn/. [[It's not a secret, though for some reason no one's been talking about it until now.]]

Instantly the conversation splintered into subchannels and discussions. Thomas glanced across the room to see Dang in coversation with Sun Zhang and Imam. He caught Thomas's eye and smiled, faintly. So they *were* going to do something about the Carolina - it was near enough to decided, if there hadn't been a vote on it. Exciting times indeed.

>>38139140
So... can we make medical fabbers with our current equipment?

>>38139386
>So... can we make medical fabbers with our current equipment?
Yes, a CM can make damn near anything with enough time or blueprints. You have basic medical fabbers - the kind that might be in a common, in, say, a spacecrafts first aid system. The catch is that nanotech medicine like medichines are as much software as hardware, and you don't have that. You also don't have the expertise to do a lot of basic morph-related things.

>>38139386

I'd wager we can probably specialize a Maker (which handles normally food and water production) to build complex chemicals for pharma. And as >>38139530 says we can say, spit out painkillers and gauze rolls easy.

Medical nanotech, reusable nanobandages and medichines, are highly advanced. That's focused assembly, special materials, special engineering. But Medichines are basically comprehensive healthcare in a bottle, or a faintly glowing mist. In fact, with something that can compile advanced nanotech like that, we can probably begin fabricating our own Healing Vats.

>>38139530
Well, we do have decent software capability, so potentially we could create more seeds if we had one to examine. I suggest trying to trade with the Carolina Days for their medical equipment- both with fabber time and the promise that they will (probably) get more medical equipment back than they gave us- before trying either overt or covert violence.

Well we should get those if my write faggotry is made canon...

>>38139530

So are going with >>38135957 ? For our game plan right now guys?

>>38140361
I suppose. I would add that we put an emphasis on gaining the needed blueprints to manufacture medical equipment as opposed to just getting medical equipment.
But, quite frankly, I would prefer something less confrontational. I would like to negotiate everything required before the first of our people sets foot on the Days, so all they have to do is make the handoff.

>>38140495

We've been informed there will not be diplomatic solutions with some of these parties. They'll probably see our attempts at barter as weakness, and will just see it as an opportunity to take our shit. Which means we have to shoot them anyway.

You can't talk or trade your way out of everything, and the Carolina Days is not a unified body.

>>38140495
I don't think that it's a good idea to announce our intentions. Go in, don't rule anybody who doesn't attack us, get who we need from the people holding them and their equipment hostage, get out.

>>38140545
Exactly. I say we go in, negotiate with those who give us nonviolent resistance, and put holes in those who offer violent resitance, ignore the rest.

>>38140545
>>38140572
Ehhhhh. This is going to end poorly, I just know it.
But I don't have any better ideas.

>>38140361
That is indeed the update that is being written. It might take a moment or hour or two. Interludes, discussion, etc, are of course always welcome - I don't pace this like a 'normal' civilization game, which tend to be short bursts of intense activity. I've got some ideas, but if the writing/ploting isn't working correctly, I'll take a break for an hour and come back at it from a different angle.

I've been frankly pretty amazed with the level of support from you guys. I'll be back in an hour or so, hopefully.

You all should know by now that you need to add at least 50% to any time estimate I give you.

>>38140634
More specifically: the thing is, I don't think anything that can actually be carried will be worth a medichine seed or medical fabber. So our only options to obtain those are a.) open up stable enough diplomatic contact that we can trade extensive fabber time with them or b.) violence. We won't be able to trade with some factions and offer violence to others, it's either all diplomacy (because we'll need to keep things on the Carolina stable long enough to seal the dead, transfer all the equipment, etc.) or all violence. Trying to do both will just default into all violence, except we didn't gear up for all violence going in.

>>38140634
>>38140749
I argue we go in geared up for all violence but also carry stuff to trade for diplomatic reasons. The Carolina is many factions. We'll have to go through the violent ones to get to the peaceful ones. We cannot go full violence. We will be swarmed. We have to do both, because not everyone will be willing to negotiate, and we cannot afford to not negotiate with everyone.

>>38140749

Nah, you're operating under a false assumption that it's all or nothing. There are multiple factions, and some of them do not like each other. Some will be violent, others will be non-violent. Assuming there's no cause for irrationality, we can easily say "Yeah, we shot the guys from Section B, but they tried to blow us up with HEAP mines first, but if you don't try and blow us up, we can be cool". It's a pretty simple system of subculture interactions. They have no reason to share opinions and reactions between units, we can form relations between individual units.

And we're NOT trading for the supplies. That's part of what the new members are providing to the collective, which the collective has voted to expend resources to recover them for. We will recover our new members as that is an extension of our abilities as a society (the social contract is meaningless if we can't hold up our end), and recover the items they say are theirs. If a party would hold our people - and by extension the collective, from it's property, they need to either reconsider, or get shot.

>>38140915
Agreed. We trade supplies for safe passage. Nothing more.

>>38140913
>>38140915
>>38140960
Not to mention our reputation. Helping people out who are part of us and securing their sovereign property is one thing, carving a bloody path to do so against people who offered us no offense is something else entirely.

With our CDs though, we could just tell them that we'll fab copies for them and the they can pick them up on the outside of the Carolina... Should buy us some time answer can be moral about it too.

The big deal about carving a bloody path exclusively is that it will alienate the Bihrs and we want them on board.

Also thought of a way to solve this entire dilemma... what kind of fuel does the Carolina use? We an always just tell them 'we'll give you enough fuel to reach proper Luna orbit and guard you from pirates on the way. But we need any of these you can offer."

These being defined as healing vats and medical equipment... Also anythg we can use to make biomorphs and pods.

In return? They'll be within striking distance of 'getthefuckoutofhere-istan"

>>38141103

We're not carving a bloody swath though. We're defending ourselves from hostiles. The UN had security troops with guns too. Same principles, we're going into a spooky place filled with assholes who'll try and knock our shit over, and we're going bearing arms to encourage them to not or to cease doing so. Are we saying self-defense isn't one of the essential rights of an individual?

>>38141209
Not saying we will do so, saying that we need to at least negotiate with some of the no hostile elements. If people know we're willing to negotiate passage rather than just barge on through and gun down anybody on our way, they'll be a lot more open to letting us through. Especially if they know that we WILL gun down somebody who tries to charge more than passage through their ship section.

But seriously. What sort of fuel do they use? If they have plasma rockets or HO rockets rather tha MH, then we can offer to fuel them up and escort them to Luna orbit where they can more easily get off the ship, in return they give us any equipment on their ship (or at least one example of each we can the replicate) of the various sorts we require.

I think this has the very best chance of not only boosting our rep enormously, but also getting us what we want and need at the lowest cost?