[GAME] Synthesise a Cybercity!

[TGLS]

Originally Posted by Daigoro

Question 108 [CORP][Name 7]
What megacorps make up the Old Seven at the core of the Securities, and what can be said about them?

108A - General Analytics
Key Industries
Data Analytics, Management Engineering, Weaponized Propaganda, ACI Contract Brokering
Key Possessions
Aeria, Aytenai, Llanfairfechan, Sheppora

History
General Analytics was formed in 5022, from the merger of General Computing Systems (founded 4896) and Rybinsk Analytics (founded 5001). This was seen at the time as a primarily vertical merger, but the mix of Big Data Analytics and expertise in mass scaling led them to dominate the data analytics market. Throughout the early to mid 51st century, GA was gobbling up dozens of companies. This had decidedly mixed results, from GA Price Club (which was surprisingly successful) to Data Airlines (which nearly killed the company and aborted a tender offer for NeuroCorp).

In 5074, rising dissent against corporations had began to spill over into revolutionary politics and violent unrest. GA, keenly aware of how exposed this made them, began to invest heavily in defensive propaganda measures. By 5077, GA felt sufficiently confident in these measures to quietly offer other companies similar protection. In 5089, unrest was declining to such a point that many of their corporate clients began to break their contracts GA. In response, GA reversed course on these clients, and began actively agitating for uprisings. This led to the more radical second phase of the Master Wars.

In 5107, General Analytics contributed to the push by the Securities in the final third phase of the Master Wars. Their primary contribution was coordination and full-spectrum anti-unrest tactics, though their augmented special forces were (and still are) especially fearsome. For their contributions, they were awarded the cities of Aytenai, Llanfairfechan & Sheppora, among smaller territories. General Analytics made a big fight about signing the Securities Pact, mainly because of obligations to hand over their Weaponized Propaganda technologies and signed the pact fifth.

General Analytics has a strange relationship with the Machine Nations. On one hand, they put up a big fight when PARADIGMS was to be signed and the Machine Nations tend to despise the companies that sold them. On the other hand, literally seventy percent of the C-Level executives (including the CEO, GA-SRS-073-5.2) are ACI and ostensibly citizens of the Machine Nations. For this reason, they are one of the primary companies penning contracts for ACI seeking work in human nations.

Question 111 [SET]
Where is Aeria and how did General Analytics acquire it?

[Daigoro]

Originally Posted by TGLS

In 5007, General Analytics contributed...

Typo? 507_, maybe, or 5097?

And does this mark the start of the Master Wars as 5074 (as far as wars have recognisable start dates)?

[TGLS]

Originally Posted by Daigoro

Typo? 507_, maybe, or 5097?

And does this mark the start of the Master Wars as 5074 (as far as wars have recognisable start dates)?

I ought to proof these things. 5107. Basically here's the in my head Timeline:

5074 - Anti-corporate dissent rising
507X - Some event leads to actual war (Probably late 70s)
5083 - NeuroTech Drone Attack
508X - Actual war stops, fading into unrest
5089 - Unrest spurred on by GA
509X - Second phase of Master Wars begins (Probably early 90s)
510X - Second phase of Master Wars ends?
5107 - Securities build-up and prepare for a final push
5110 - Securities receive huge concessions in cities, Master Wars end.

So maybe:
5077-5086: Master War I
5092-5102: Master War II
5107-5110: Master War III

[Daigoro]

Next time we're thinking of making a cybercity, we should consider a linear one cutting through the desert and mountain ranges.
Saudi Arabia Building 100-Mile-Long “Linear” City

Originally Posted by TGLS

I ought to proof these things. 5107. Basically here's the in my head Timeline:

5074 - Anti-corporate dissent rising
507X - Some event leads to actual war (Probably late 70s)
5083 - NeuroTech Drone Attack
508X - Actual war stops, fading into unrest
5089 - Unrest spurred on by GA
509X - Second phase of Master Wars begins (Probably early 90s)
510X - Second phase of Master Wars ends?
5107 - Securities build-up and prepare for a final push
5110 - Securities receive huge concessions in cities, Master Wars end.

So maybe:
5077-5086: Master War I
5092-5102: Master War II
5107-5110: Master War III

Okay, cool, that works. I was wondering if I needed to take any events into account for the Space Age timeline, but I've got the early Space Age beforehand and then the Space Rush just after. The Master Wars probably have a similar level of space development to what we have today.

[TGLS]

Originally Posted by TGLS

Question 102 [SET][Name 5]
What's happened to the aristocracy? Just the ultra-rich with fancy titles or feudal realms gone corporate?

If this is name 5, I guess I can provide an answer:

Answer 102B The Grand Principality of Moblus
The Grand Principality of Moblus is a constitutional monarchy with a bicameral legislature, and broadly similar to most other Cykean states. The little fly in the ointment the Grand Prince of Moblus; within Moblus proper they are a weak rubber stamp, but they hold many assets and territory outside the purview of the States General.

Amongst their possessions:
-> Moblian Estate LLC: A corporation formed about three hundred years ago out of the Crown Estate. Through a series of savvy moves, it now owns one of the largest banks east of the Guipadines, as well as a multi-trillion dollar real estate portfolio.
-> Dominion of New Moblus: Traded for the various municipal concessions Moblian Estate LLC secured during the Master Wars, New Moblus was once a colony in the lightly populated Southern Continent. For better or worse, New Moblus's legislatures were easily dominated by the monarch, and is on a much tighter leash.
-> Moblian Royal Guard: Theoretically a small ceremonial force paid by the States General, the Moblian Royal Guard is effectively a large private army. The force is rarely hired out, and mostly patrols the various territories owned by the Princes of Moblus, though it engages in the occasional war.
-> Verkasing Free State: Secured during the Wolfshead War under semi-dubious claims that they would reconstruct the region, and because of their support of the intervention forces. Despite running the VFS almost purely for profit, living conditions in the region have improved markedly.
-> Kemaman & Paradiznia Colony: The most recent acquisition, these two islands (one artificial) were annexed by the Grand Princes in 5308, during the chaos following Dataran Confederate Elections. In addition to the Royal Guard, they hired Former Maeotian Republican Guard and a few mercenary clans of Lo Lai to secure the territory.

To some degree or another the actions of the Grand Prince (and family) are a political liability to the States-General of Moblus. On the other hand, Moblus isn't exactly well equipped to counter the Grand Prince. The naked expansionism led by Hereditary Princess Odelia (the heiress) is highly disturbing and leading the Government of Moblus to take drastic actions. Princess Odelia often visits YOU-Topia, arranging meetings with mercenary groups while preparing for another conquest...

[Daigoro]

Originally Posted by TGLS

If this is name 5, I guess I can provide an answer:

It's never stopped me. I've even sometimes let other users post before I hit it.

Through a series of savvy moves, it now owns one of the largest banks east of Kampalu

I'm working on Kampalu being an orbital, so that'll work poetically (East of Eden) but might be confusing geographically.

[TGLS]

Originally Posted by Daigoro

I'm working on Kampalu being an orbital, so that'll work poetically (East of Eden) but might be confusing geographically.

I see; I wanted something of vague size (national might be too unimpressive, largest worldwide would probably be the opposite). I'll adjust.

Originally Posted by Daigoro

Lautia Orbital - (I'm presuming it to be an orbital, having a co-partner in a trading company with Bresani.)

I suppose it could be the site of a spaceport or a skyhook (perhaps a mountain?). If it's trade between Thalethray and Doheem, then maybe these are terminals on the trade route?

[Daigoro]

It looks like this Kampalu thing is getting away from me. I thought I could get it down in a couple of paragraphs and timeline entries but it's turning into a novella. And this is mainly history, so it's not hugely relevant to YOU-Topia, but since I've ended up writing it I'll put it out there in case it amuses anyone. And sorry, it's still not finished yet.
---
Answer 76 follow-up: The Dawn of the Space Age, the Long Night of the Space Age, the New Dawn of the Space Age, and the History of Kampalu

Part 2

5203 - A Fixer Upper in the Countryside

"Contact!" - Message sent to >>..>>channels.pvt>>madd.haxez

Sixty one years after going dark, and seventy one years after being abandoned, a ham radio operator with a satellite dish and too much spare time manages to trigger a comms handshake from Battleax ROG's hibernating control systems. Over the next months, an army of amateur techies on the madd.haxez fabberlab board become experts in all things ancient space fortress-related, from the Lo Lai language and their outdated military encryption protocols, to the operation of 30MW nuclear reactors and fire control for rail guns, missiles and CIWS lasers, to the complete inventory, construction and layout of the station.

As they work, the realisation of the enormity of what they have on their hands gradually dawns, and a justifiable paranoia sets in. As each bleeped out radio command rattles around the abandoned space hulk's infrastructure turning on the lights, the space station comes one step closer to being a fully operational dreadnought bristling with weapons of mass destruction. They dither, fight, bicker and argue over the purpose of this restoration project, over whether to go public or remain hush-hush, and to what lengths they should go to maintain secrecy. In the end, two members convince the group of the need for discretion - a ground radio operator for the Hobshärra military ("Take my word for it, you don't want any government finding out about this. I could be committing treason just by being in this lab,") and an engineer for the Greenfields Corporation ("I concur. And don't let any corps get a whiff of this. I've seen things. Things can go bad. To start with, every user here could be disappeared, then we have a megacorp with a death star, then things go downhill from there. Think seriously about compartmentalising this, and probably secure an independent income stream.")

From that point on, they follow the anarchist's playbook. Funding is arranged by a variety of means licit and illicit, funnelled through shell companies, which buy whatever ground-station infrastructure- sat-dishes, tracking scopes, radio gear, etc - they can get their hands on and that can be operated from a factory back-lot, tenement rooftop or hilltop junkyard with a clear LoS to the horizon.

5205 - Crew Rotation
Message to >>..>>channels.pvt.encryp>>Project.Fixer-Upper

Hey guys, I've left some build patterns in the shared directory. They're for building a cheap'n'easy RNrU scanner that I tweaked to do just a shallow knowledge/personality read that you can dump into a file compressed construct. (It's a Level 2 read using a stripped down NeuroTech Faerie/Fire SQUID helmet. Only takes 3.5 hours, outputs to a .mirror package using the 9051.60 profile.)

I've run some tests on our hardware emulator build to make sure constructs can execute on Citadel's D8566's, but check yourself before going live with your own. Anyway, this is to address u129984's concerns about high latency and small connectivity windows due to our limited uplink horizons. If we get a few good mirrors up on board they should be able to handle a lot of the menial work like tasking those finicky repair drones.

A number of members of the secretive Project Fixer-Upper hacking collective, the handle they are organising under, make low-res copies of their own skill-personality matrices that can run as simulations, with no real autonomy but that can react to expected situations as the original might, for uploading to Battleax's onboard servers. Instead of only being able to give remote commands when the orbital is over one of the group's uplink dishes, this allows them to almost act as if they are crew on board the station. The refurbishment effort progresses rapidly and they are soon able to get the nuclear reactor fired up and bring some weapon systems online.

5206 - Sweep the Skies
Message exchange on >>..>>channels.pvt.encryp>>Project.Fixer-Upper

u987078: Are we operational yet? Isn't that kind of dangerous? Any old lunatic could've come along and taken it over. Why didn't they scuttle the thing?
u521331: It's kind of awesome, you mean! Something to do with being the pride of the monarch's military, I guess. It's not like it lost a battle or anything, so I can see why they'd be reluctant to hit the big shiny self-destruct button. Besides, the prince stayed behind, so it wasn't abandoned.
u437436: So what happened to him? Is he still up there? There's not much about him in the group handbook.
u521331: Mehh, who cares? Probly a popsicle in a closet somewhere. Forget about that, it's time to get some target practice!
u074488: Slow down hotshot, we're still uploading the debris ephemerides from the Valdez Aero dataset we "found." And rewriting Citadel's fire control comps to handle the new mission parameters. And pre-firing testing. And re-tuning the millimetre radar array. And a million other things.

The history of the now ground-bound world's response to the Wimmler Cascade Event is patchy. A group of tech-heads will come up with some technique for reducing the debris load in orbit, using launched gel blankets, ground-based laser brooms, plasma clouds and such, with an aim to restarting the Space Age sooner rather than later. Their enthusiasm convinces the Minister for Space or the Chair of the Asset Management Committee to invest in the cleaning apparatus and tracking ability needed for the project, but after 5 or 10 years with minimal progress made, despite following the projected timeline, the project's budget is deemed better spent elsewhere and it gets mothballed. Much like many of the globe's other environmental issues, political will to follow through in the long term is lacking.

Project Fixer-Upper has thus decided that the first priority once they have full command of the station is to attack this issue, literally. With accurate orbital parameters, such as those received from a sympathetic insider in Valdez Aerospace's debris tracking team, they plan to rapidly hit dozens or hundreds of pieces a day with the garrison's lasers. Smaller pieces may in fact be vaporised, but the main de-orbiting effect comes from outgassing of super-heated material when hit by the laser beam, propelling the piece of debris into a less stable orbit with more atmospheric drag and eventually causing it to burn up. They project that clean-up can be achieved within a decade, being decades faster than waiting for natural orbital decay of the debris.

[TGLS]

Originally Posted by Daigoro

Question 50 [SUB][NTC]- NeuroTech's Project 2109
What is Project 2109 researching in commandeered submarine depot modules beneath the city? Are they avoiding scrutiny for possible PARADIGM violations or is it something else?

Viral Inception Engrams
After the Robotic Rebellion, many groups in NeuroCorp began to grow concerned that AOI might decide to rise up in the same way that the ACIs did. As such, they began investigating ways to ensure that their AOI couldn't (or at least be stopped) from rebelling. This ranged from increased pro-human training segments, oversight ACIs (non-sapient, of course), and lastly, Inception Engrams. Basically these could reprogram an AOI from top to bottom, adjusting loyalties, adding skills, and all the way up to remodelling the entire AOI. The problem was that this is a nanosurgical operation, which wouldn't likely be practical if the AOI began to rebel en masse.

About 11 years ago, someone finally hit upon an idea that could make the process workable. Basically, instead of taking in an AOI for lengthy nanosurgery, they have make the nanosurgeons infectious like a virus and have the operate when they find the correct subject. Naturally, there are many concerns, including mutation and potentially affecting undesired subjects. As such, they use an isolated but nearby locale; Garnet|Heroic|Four-08.

The Resistance Fleet is only vaguely aware of the research NeuroTech is doing in the modules that they are renting. All they really know is that there is a very liberal use of Biohazard signs, exposure seems to have no effect (though the scientists tend to freak out and provide heavy, heavy treatment), and the Red AOI units seem to be extremely unstable when they meet Blue AOI units.

Question 112 [NTC] What is the significance of 2109 for Project 2109?

[Daigoro]

Answer 76 follow-up: The Dawn of the Space Age, the Long Night of the Space Age, the New Dawn of the Space Age, and the History of Kampalu

Part 3

5207 - Oh, hi Prince!
Message exchange on >>..>>channels.pvt.encryp>>Project.Fixer-Upper

u074488: Any clue what's going on upstairs? My mirror's been quiet for the last 2 orbits, and I can't get any comms response at all. The uplinks still seem to be hot, but there's no-one inside answering back.
u121290: My end's been quiet too. This has got me worried. Anyone been over the master command log? Did someone take it offline for a diagnostic run? What was the last contact we had?
u731024: Get a visual on it, check if Citadel's still there.
u869901: It's dayside atm, so that'd have to wait. u..488 says the uplinks are live tho, so that's not the prob.
u512187: I just got back from dinner. Looks like server/18 sent a resource allocation alarm 4 hours ago… WTH? So, s/18's our primary mirrorhost, right? It was running 39 construct instances, nominal, but jumped to 767! Where'd all these other simulations come from?
u775375: 728 new flatlines? Oh dear, I might know about that. A couple of days ago, the archive team were trawling through Ranu S's personal directories, and we found a huge bunch of RNrU uploads using the old Shamanic/Smoke format. 728 save-packages.
u121290: I don't like where this is going.
u775375: We had no way to read them as is, so u8527777 suggested to convert some to .mirror packages and we could view them live, as it were.
u074488: Don't tell me… you resurrected Crown Prince Ranu Simmaunkluwansurawit, and he's taken over the station.
u121290: No, they resurrected *728* Crown Princes Ranu Simmaunkluwansurawit, and only the devil knows what's going on.

While digging through the deeper file structure of the garrison's data stacks, a team from Project Fixer-Upper unearth the cache of the RNrU mind uploads that Ranu S had made in the decade or so that he remained on the station alone. They cover the gamut of mental and emotional states, from militaristic fervour to philosophical contemplation to artistic mania to sullen depression. Reviving an upload from early in his stint would yield a very different Ranu S to one from near the end. And the old Shamanic/Smoke format uploads were not designed to be run as personality simulations on a .mirror platform, let alone given user permissions on their own host servers, yet they were.

What results is a kind of slow, virtual memetic war within the confines of the orbital's mainframes. As the orbital's hardware is over 90 years old, and as it was pushing its limits running the number of personality agents uploaded by the hacker collective, processing time slows way down. It’s not exactly a war of belligerence, but each process is fighting for attention, for recognition of its identity, and ultimately for control of the station. They fight as much with argument and political polemic, making reasoned pleas for what the station should do based on the prince's educated political theories he'd contemplated in his solitude, as with coding warfare targeting each construct's software state. And of course, mixed into the fray are the 39 hacker, techie and engineer simulations resident on the main server, as well as another 54 agents distributed about the rest of the station's intranet. They confront the prince constructs with knowledge of the world's current political landscape blended with various notions, quaint and possibly naïve, of manageable revolution involving this unique strategic asset from the years of discourse on the subject that occurred in the Project Fixer-Upper chatrooms.

To the observers on the ground, the global hacker collective as well as other parties that have noticed activity on the station, it again goes quiet and unreachable for several years, until...


5212 - New Dawn of the Space Age

"I am Kampalu. The skies are open. I am the gateway. Come with open palms. Orbital restriction protocols engaged."
-- Message broadcast for 6 days straight from Battleax ROG

Message exchange on >>..>>channels.pvt.encryp>>Project.Fixer-Upper

u655464: Anyone still lurking here? Seems like finally our baby is talking.
u869901: Yeah, this is big. "Kampalu" is a Nindaghic thunder deity. Is it going to rain lightning bolts down on us?
u121290: It’s also a deity of giving, as in from the rains that break a drought. Very apt choice, by whichever of the Ranu S's chose the name. I just hope it doesn't actually believe it's a god.
u621622: Interesting development. Any news of what the Lo Lai kingdom thinks of this?
u800141: Don't know about them, but from my understanding of space law, derelict space junk belongs to whoever salvages it. In which case, I think it's just declared its own independence, unless we want to stake some claim to it.
u655464: By "orbital restriction," what's it mean? Is it trying to unilaterally enforce a space weapons ban? What happens if someone else tries to put space lasers up there?
u121290: I guess they go blammo. I can think of any number of countries that will be upset by this. Let's see who tests the restriction first. My bet's on DCG. Any takers?

The Democratic Centralised Governments are indeed the first to test Kampalu's space blockade. Many countries and aerospace companies have already been preparing to return to orbit over the past few years, just waiting for their actuaries to decide that it's an acceptable financial risk to do so. The DCG rocket gets taken out 2 minutes after takeoff, apparently by an unobserved high-speed projectile. Kampalu then issues a 220-page document detailing the new rules and regulations for space launch - any and every launch must be cleared through Kampalu, no launch is to contain weaponised assets, a committee of launch inspectors will be created to verify launch vehicle contents beforehand, and so on. However, world governments go into uproar when three Lo Lai King's Palace Regiment heavy lift rockets are seen to launch from a clandestine island location and dock cargo stages with Kampalu.

"The Seat of the 12th Dynasty of the Royal Monarchs of the Crown Kingdom of Lo Lai wishes to reaffirm the Kingdom's stance of neutrality in affairs of international military discourse. The Seat also announces its support for the new independent agency of Kampalu, and out of respect and reverence for our beloved departed forebear, His Grace the Royal Prince Ranu Simmaunkluwansurawit, the Seat will supply an Honour Guard of the King's Palace Regiment to safeguard the dignity of His final resting place."
-- Statement from the Lo Lai Palace

With that, after an 81 year hiatus, Doheem's Space Age resumes.


5215 - Orbital Stations Re-established
The space stations of Batiste Orbital, owned by the Iskaldi government, and Tamakon Orbital, built by Reinier-Hart-Kompret, opening in 5215 heralds resumption of orbital construction and is followed by another 41 orbital platforms over the next century.

5225 - Mission to Thalethrāy
The New Thalethrāy Initiative, a consortium including Polyinsight Astrosystems, completes construction of and launches Thalethrāy Colony Ship Two and its attendant construction flotilla for their 24-month journey to Doheem's sister planet.

5228 - Aeris Base Founded; Regular travel to Thalethrāy begins
5237 - Aeris Base Goes Dark

5238 - Congress of Kampalu
After a quarter century of Kampalu regulation, it has established itself as a neutral diplomatic entity. It announces that it will be hosting a Congress on the Status of Rights for Non-Human Sentience, and invites delegates from a range of organisations to hear testimony from a party of RepliSophonts. One side of history sees this as a plea for manumission by the RepliSophonts, the other side sees it as an ultimatum delivered to the world's leaders that was ignored. Either way, the path to the Robot Rebellion is set.