Bay 12 Games Forum

- Its probably better to know we are friends with these people before we start taking to them, give it another week.
- - Also take care not to work too hard or the other workers will most likely dislike you because you make them look bad.
- What do the most basic things cost? (food other than gruel, clothes, hygiene, maybe tools, etc)
- In the meantime, purchase a warmer blanket or something to make us more comfortable at home.

You wonder if you overestimate your skills in hauling nondescript crates between two points, but regardless you make sure to keep your hauling in check as to preserve your relationship with others.
By the end of the week you could maybe be considered "light friends" with some of your coworkers. All of which are higher than you in position (because, again, you're lower than everyone else). You learn that they go for a drink at the local bar every week, and are invited there next week. You've gone to the bar once before. It's not great, like everything else in Graywharf. Suspicious unnamed "alcohol" filled with weary and tired patrons all in a neat dirty larger-than-normal shack.

You do some shopping in your free time this week. A cheap serviceable blanket costs $5 and you put it on your "bed" for use at nights. A bit of extra comfort should go a long way. Hopefully.
Clothes really vary based on what you're looking for. At the moment you have some basic clothing which is arguably presentable in most situations. Hygiene is, thankfully, notably expensive. You may not have the luxury of running water inside your hovel, but access to clean water is one of the few things most people in the country still have. So keeping oneself clean is just a matter of time.
Tools, however, do cost money.
Graywharf isn't a manufacturing town and while it does have a harbor, the logistics involved in importing things like tools aren't of amazing quality. A toolbox with a comprehensive set of tools (all of "probably won't break immediately" quality) would cost $50. No particularly specialized tools or power tools, but enough to cover pretty much any non-specialized scenario. You can go cheaper -- just a basic set of tools (like a hammer and screwdriver and a couple other necessities) would cost $15.


You paid $10 this week for gruel to feed yourself. It's disgusting, but arguably filling.
You received $15 for your job at the harbor.
Overall, you made $0 profit this week.

The Union of Saece is, to put it mildly, not a great place to live.

Since the coup about a decade ago, quality of life has gone down at unimaginable rates. The growing paranoia of the General is resulting in equally-growing executions and arrests on extremely flimsy causes. People are afraid of knocks at the door, for it could be the Secret Police come to take them away for accidentally disparaging the General off-hand a month ago.
It's strange to think that Saece used to be a great place to live. A place of amazing technology and progress. Now it feels like most of the population lives in shanty towns of crudely-made huts in order to escape the chaos of the old cities and towns.


You've had enough.
You live in the village of Graywharf. About 400 people live here, along with the small military presence to keep the people in line. Yesterday your aging mother was taken by the Secret Police, and it left you a broken person. You don't know about the risks. You don't know if you'll have any supporters. You don't know how you'll go about doing this, but you don't care. Your mother was the last thing you had, and they took her away from you.

It's time to start an uprising.

Project Order

It'd be naive to assume that we won't face internal challenges in the coming months and years -- both on Earth and offworld. We need to ensure that the Initiative remains unmarred by infighting and doubting of our goals. And preferably do so without collapsing into a fascist regime before we even leave.

All current and future members shall be documented in a central archive (with back-ups). Their role, fingerprints, voices, facial recognition data, DNA, appearance, everything. Ideally a lot of this data already exists in the form of Projects Genesis and Phoenix -- for existing data all we need to do is centralize it and fill in the gaps. A small internal "Top Security" force will be established from carefully chosen volunteers within our current military assets most believing and loyal to our cause and current leadership. They'll work together with the Initiative military to deal with internal threats and seek out dissent to bring to our attention and enact our orders.

All devices with cameras or microphones will be linked to the network where we can use voice/face recognition to keep track of the status/whereabouts/actions of our members. Anything with a log-in will of course also be linked to this archive. Only the leadership and Top Security will have access to the contents of the Security Archive.


Project Rome
The name for this project is intentionally ironic.
We plan on making Rome in a day. Figuratively, of course.

We thankfully already have comprehensive building blueprints in the Genesis library. But building those blueprints is an entirely different story. When we step through the portal, we're done.. We no longer have access to the facilities we currently have. No longer have access to anything on Earth. We need to be able to get set up quickly.

Project Rome largely concerns itself with prefabricated building parts that can be quickly assembled once through the portal, giving us a proper base of operation within the day, and much more in the coming days. We create versatile multi-use large packable building parts that can be fit together with relative ease, and optimize blueprints within the Genesis library to make best use of these parts. Of course, any complex facilities and buildings can't be made entirely of prefab parts, but their base construction can still be heavily accelerated.

A portion of existing resources deemed fit will be converted into prefab parts, with the ability to make more as needed. Prefab parts should hopefully be able to be packed more efficiently for their purpose, reducing effective cargo load. But the main goal here is quick and easy construction of buildings.


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Project Fooddrive and Endurance are redundant. Fooddrive seems much more dedicated towards food and the details of acquiring/securing it, which is important.
Project Alexandria seems nice, but very nonessential. We should also include leaving behind a hardened (against radiation and other environmental factors) Genesis archive on Earth for any survivors. Though it could be a good idea in my opinion to do this turn if we do include the left-behind archive.

Then you got the projects submitted in this post. Rome will be useful for establishing ourselves on the new planet and expansion, and should be versatile. Order seems like a very important thing to do before we start getting internal problems, since we definitely will. The sooner we put in place for handling with unrest, the better we handle that unrest.
Arresting a few hardcore dissidents caught beforehand by Top Security seems like a much better scenario then dealing with a rebellion when those dissidents recruit people. Talking to disgruntled people uncovered by Top Security rather than allowing them to be radicalized is a better scenario than only figuring out about the disgruntled after they take action.
Actions:
Project Phoenix
Project Fooddrive
Project Order
Project Rome

Project: Stability
Frankly, while the world will likely go to chaos in the near future and that's the exact reason why we're doing all this, there are two things that we want:
A.) Delay the inevitable collapse into chaos to allow for us to make best use of the world's resources before they go to, ahem, shit.
B.) Maybe allow for humanity to survive on Earth, if not as well as we will offworld.

There are two main targets for this project: U.S. -- planning on conquering Canada -- and Russia -- making ominous military moves threatening Europe. For now, without definite intelligence of Russia's military plans (and not wanting to risk exposing our Russian network), we focus on the U.S..

We have to be subtle, yet decisive. Tipping off Canada, for instance, isn't enough. U.S. would see the threat and move in to prematurely conquer Canada. So instead, we strengthen Initiative presence in Canada. We leak weapon blueprints. We create diplomatic backchannels with important Canadian officials. We allow them to know about the US invasion without encouraging them to act on it or tip off their hand to the U.S.
Canada would never be able to fully hold its own against the U.S.. But maybe we can make them strong enough to make it enough of a risk for U.S. to reconsider invasion plans.

Not only would this keep world stability up, but it'd also give us stronger presence in Canada and North America. Perhaps having proper relations with a country could lead to some major opportunities for us.

(TL;DR: Subtly strengthen up Canada enough to make US reconsider invading, and to increase our relations/network in Canada + North America)

- Project Cargo
- Project Exodus
- Project Holodny
- Project Stability

Frankly, none of the opportunities seem that smart. Hurt world stability (French/Canadian scientists, China black prison, tipping off Canada), or are too risky (UK network). Probably best to work on projects for now.

For later, after we do the translucent design or something equivalent.
Design (Evocation): Flamethrow

The Flamethrow spell is an evolution of the snap lighter evocation. The flame is adjusted to appear slightly ahead of the palm (best used with an stretched-out hand, palm towards enemy). Minimum mana intake is suitably scaled up (though as it's an evocation, the caster can scale it up as necessary) to produce a notable flame.
Finally, we apply a forwards force to the flame (we hope this can get to a substantial range as the flame shouldn't need much pushing to go the distance).

Lethality isn't expected to be high, as the flame likely won't exactly stick to people. But it should still make a highly effective combat tool and method of deterrence due to its ease of casting and availability.

REVISION
Fulcrum Armor, V2 (2): D7, Chiefwaffles

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EMBLEM

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MOTTO
Together for Victory (1): D7

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FLAG
Chevroned Cross (1): D7

I'll vote for the motto/flag later when we have some more options.

Design (Sorcery): Terramanus

The basic art of moving earth around is straightforward. Earth will fall if there's nothing below to support it, and putting more earth in the same place generally causes the ground to rise. This is how the army's engineers handle things. Shovel earth onto more to go "up", shovel it out to go "down".
So with an understanding of this and armed with this spell, our mages should be able to do the same. The basic principle remains the same -- more or less earth, though mages use mana-induced pressure to achieve aforementioned basic principle.

The Terramanus spell uses a set of inscribed leather gloves (to help the user further understand how they're manipulating the earth -- as if they're just doing the shoveling at a range), and is optimized for close-range use (although we hope that better mages can do it at further range). Mages can quickly raise or lower earth for amazing fortifications or even sabotage in extremely little time.
This is great in the field for protecting onself from immediate enemy fire or making temporary fortifications, or for setting up permanent fortifications (although army engineers would have to actually properly prepare the dug trenches).


Design (Sorcery): Translucent Air

Minute amounts of mana may be sent out through the air. ((See: "mana tracers" in Galilei, though we aren't relying off of that experience)). This mana can then be acted upon by the originating caster, but we've decided to do something a bit different here.

The Translucent Air spell is cast through any wand, given the straightforward nature of it. However we’ve made a specialized “antenna” wand to make sending and receiving the precise signals easier. The wizard simply sends out patterns of mana in a 90-degree cone  in any desired direction. Other mages with knowledge of the Translucent Air spell will be trained to sense this mana. We believe that it manifests in the forms of practically feeling vibrations in the air -- like a deep bass sound.
Mages understand that mana travels through the air just like light or sound. They just have to listen for it, and to be able to control mana output.
As to avoid unecessary premature ambition, communications will be made through Translucent Air in morse code. Though mages will be taught basic codes for common terminology in the mages.

Dice Spent
1 Design, 4 dice to revision phase ():
2 Designs. 1 dice to revision phase (4): Frostgiant, Roboson, Jerick, TricMagic

Designs
Spark Ignition, Alchemy Gloves. (2): Jerick, TricMagic
Stone Carvers Rainment. (2): Frostgiant, Roboson
Fulcrum Armor (4):Frostgiant, Roboson, Jerick, Chiefwaffles
Terramanus (0):
Translucent Air (1): Chiefwaffles

Hah, not that close.
I was thinking more like adjacent to the eye, not directly in fron tof it.