>>4854243
I'm from Buenos Aires and I say kill 'em all!

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...But it is not that time yet.

For now, we still live in ignorance. This early developing species on the untainted, pure virgin world of Jakt, has the potential to be so much more. But for now, they are tree dwelling apes.

Soon, their species will become vastly more intelligent. Needing to avoid predators and memorize large swathes of territory, societies begin to bloom. From there, language, trade, and eventual writing and mathematics. In a few short millennia. Their bodies will get larger to support ever growing brains, and they will come down from a peaceful, ignorant life among the tree tops to take up their destiny as this planet's dominant intelligent species.

But before then; something will shape this species evolution. Something that will affect their future as a space fairing civilization. What is it?

---Pick One---
>Retain Physicality
in the march to become intelligent, all other muscles and senses atrophy. However, this culture developed a highly athletic, tree climbing culture. Your tails retain their ability to hold a Jaktian's full body weight. While not very useful to spacefairers on its own; it has immense uses for micro gravity conditions and leads to a natural born race of astronauts and fighter pilots, who understand 3 dimensional space better then more grounded species.

>Rare Minerals
Due to a quirk of their home system star's accretion disk; their planet developed with a higher percentage of rare earth metals and high quality materials. Creating mega structures and space ships early on is much easier, and their home world will remain an excellent source of raw materials.

>Eugenic Culture
Either due to brutal ethnic cleansing or voluntary late-stage sterilization during your industrial and information ages; this species has a eugenic culture that ensured only the best and brightest were able to pass on their genes. While this line of thinking has become obsolete with hormone and nutritional supplements and genetic engineering technology- your race still has a stronger "baseline" then most. Primarily, this influences overall health and lifespan.

>>4854261
>Retain Physicality
in the march to become intelligent, all other muscles and senses atrophy. However, this culture developed a highly athletic, tree climbing culture. Your tails retain their ability to hold a Jaktian's full body weight. While not very useful to spacefairers on its own; it has immense uses for micro gravity conditions and leads to a natural born race of astronauts and fighter pilots, who understand 3 dimensional space better then more grounded species.

>>4854261
>Retain Physicality
What kind of monkeys would we be if we can't rip our enemies limbs out of their sockets

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Whoops, forgot to give myself a name.

Please continue voting. Next update will be tomorrow, around the same time. Updates will be slow, but I'll try to shoot for one a day. Thank you for your patience.

>>4854289
These are pretty great drawings, so it'll be worth the wait. Thanks for running.

>>4854261
>>4854289
>Retain Physicality

I hope all our technology requires our absurd physical traits to be operate

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I would like to enlist. My name is F. S. Hammer, and I'm a retired military general from another planet.

>>4854261
>Retain Physicality

>>4854261
>Retain Physicality

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>>4854497
HOLY SHIT AN ALIEN!

>>4854265
>>4854283
>>4854453
>>4854560
>>4854564
Throughout your evolution; your species retained the ability to climb trees. You gained intelligence without losing your strength and natural agility.

In fact, as your people evolved, your abilities became important to your culture. Climbing and its abilities became important for physical fitness, attracting mates, and even gaining offices or positions of powers. Your construction took a similar turn; in your culture, upwards real estate is almost as valuable as horizontal. This, in turn with your natural agility, will make living and building in space a breeze. Your people even travel this way over long distances, preferring over plantigrade locomotion; but this basic use of muscles is paramount to motion in space, giving your people a truly formidable natural talent at microgravity and spaceflight.

As your people evolved and became a mechanized society- your technology advanced as well. Eventually, this unlocked the ability of flight with the almighty Star Dynamo- which your scientists tell you is a fundamental technology that almost every single star fairing civilization will have to develop at some point in their development. It's as fundamental as the combustion engine or artificial intelligence. The Star Dynamo converts energy into momentum for whatever it is built in. This eliminates the need for heavy rocket fuel- and opens the door to space exploration.

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Your name is Vantix Garastra and you are the current Supreme Ruler of the planet Jaxt and your race as a whole. Your people gave up the false ideals of democracy long ago; now individuals born and raised into leadership are instead given roles. Aiding them in ruling is the artificial intelligence network, and keeping them in line are the five hundred voices, a anonymous collection of the 500 greatest people (according to various metrics; from wealth to moral conviction) in your civilization who have the power to reject the ruler's choice of succession, if the time comes for it.

You, along with a handful of others, were trained and raised from birth to become rulers. You were chosen over your rivals; all of whom congratulated you and made clear their ambition to become secondary rulers on new planets or star colonies- they will serve you well.

You have chosen White as the color of your imperial robes. The supreme ruler of the hegemony can wear whatever color they chose; but you have chosen white for new beginnings.

While you look to the stars- it is time to address the people. You must prepare a speech and publicly announce your intention to begin colonization of space. What is your goal with this address?

>Advancement of technology and sciences
>Expansion, "new frontiers"- to attract as many volunteers and colonists as possible.
>Protecting the survival of the species into the far future.
>Downplay the advancement and make the Star Dynamo secret. Keep the people in the dark for now.
>Other - Write In

>>4854665
>>Advancement of technology and sciences
>Protecting the survival of the species into the far future.

>>4854665
Overthrow the old system and end AI enslavement. Your people deserve free will.

>>4854665
>Expansion, "new frontiers"- to attract as many volunteers and colonists as possible.

>>4854665
>Expansion, "new frontiers"- to attract as many volunteers and colonists as possible.

How long does the average Jaxtan live?

>>4854243
I saw the quest title and felt compelled to post this here. Please listen to it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEYc8ar2Bpw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEYc8ar2Bpw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEYc8ar2Bpw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEYc8ar2Bpw

>>4854665
>Expansion, "new frontiers"- to attract as many volunteers and colonists as possible.
>Protecting the survival of the species into the far future.
>Overthrow the old system and end AI enslavement. Your people deserve free will.

>>4854665
>Expansion, "new frontiers"- to attract as many volunteers and colonists as possible.
>Protecting the survival of the species into the far future.
GLORY, POWER AND BANANAS

>>4854704
that sounds dumb, artificial inteligence isn't some skynet bullshit where they suddenly develop a conscience and free will

An artificial intelligence developed solely to aid us, will solely aid us. It is it's only reason to exist.

>>4854665
>Advancement of technology and sciences
Lets build megastructures and completely dominate the space in our star system before we conquer other systems

>>4855467
We're probably going to get better tehcnology once we get to other systems, but i do agree on controlling our home system's space first.

Let's make use of asteroid mining especially. Stupid amounts of resoruces while also leaving planets crystal clean.

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You've decided how to address the people. You call Helper.

Helper is the highest level AI in the artificial intelligence network. It was actually your predecessor, Gaftar IV, who codified into law the unalienable right and access to an artificial intelligence to all sentient Jaxtians. As the highest AI, Helper not only has the highest level of intelligence, about a generation ahead of the average consumer-grade intelligence, but it also has access to all the files, commands, and histories of every other AI. You could even command the entire AI network to work on a single simulation or crunch a specific difficult problem; though doing this would no doubt make many monkeys very angry. The Supreme Ruler has many powers like this, but they should only be used sparingly and in true need.

You make your address with a focus on expansion and recruitment, with a small aside about protecting your species and life on your planet in the future.

Helper begins to collect stock footage of military drills and create computer generated images of starships in space flying towards distant worlds. Helper also creates some uplifting music to go with it.

"We stand at the dawn of a new era. The stars await for the touch of an intelligent race to mold them into shape. New frontiers, and a new chance to start over await on far away worlds."
"Remember; You are entitled to a meaningful career! You can do it!"
"For the protection of life, and the future of our people and our children- it is paramount we begin to spread among the stars. The future is now!"

You close the address panel with satisfaction. You think you did well. Within the next 24 hours, you take a quick peek into the private data files of random citizens; many are investing into SpaceBerry- a new starflight based crypto currency. Others are already fantasizing about living on other planets.

But there is some apprehension; you see interactive-fiction scripts being written up by some about hostile aliens invading Jaxt, or horror scenarios on far away colony worlds. There is a small undercurrent of fear from your take of survival and protection. We shall see how this solidifies in the next few years.

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The next day, you take a look at a projection of the solar system- arranged by Helper. The AI network has already calculated the amount of discretionary income, and construction and manpower resources, to run your planet for the next decade. The projections set aside a large amount of extra funding and resources for discretionary spending in space exploration and colonization.

You take a moment to familiarize yourself with your home system again. It is a small solar system with 4 main celestial bodies.

Your star, a typical yellow star, is named Light.

The closest planet to your star is called Vass; a rocky planet that is too close to the star to keep an atmosphere. It is a hellish world; unlikely to be colonized soon with your level of technology- you doubt there is anything of worth there.

Then, there is Jaxt. This is your home, life-giving world. It is already full colonized, though due to social planning, not fully overpopulated.

Next, is Schoon. Schoon is a cold planet, but contains an atmosphere and has frozen water on the poles. Schoon is also slightly larger then Jaxt- a shoe in for colonization efforts. Still, it will probably take centuries before any meaningful terraforming efforts can change it.

Lastly; there is your gas giant, known as Max. It has a moon, named Caplit. Caplit is of special importance- it is a frozen ice world, but is theorized to contain a giant ocean underneath its icy crust. Some of your scientists have said it could contain life, probably bacterial, within that icy world.

Finally; your solar system contains about a hundred or so large asteroids that could contain valuable materials- precious or for raw materials.

You are told by Helper that you have the resources and are predicted to have enough volunteers to either create a permanent colony on Schoon or Caplit OR begin mining asteroids and performing more thorough geological surveys of each world. Certain factors, like civilians signing up or technological advancements will happen automatically, without your input.

>Supreme Ruler; What is your plan?

>>4855948
>begin mining asteroids and performing more thorough geological surveys of each world
It would be foolish to start colonizing them so soon when we're at the dawn of the age of intrastellar exploration. It would be wise to acquire resources and expand economical control of the system, as well as to increase our geological knowledge of those planets in a way that might further facilitate future colonial endeavours.

>>4855948
>begin mining asteroids and performing more thorough geological surveys of each world

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Hoo boy, that's not a good sign...

>>4855948
>Create a permanent colony on Schoon

We WILL be known as the first Supreme Ruler to colonize another planet! Besides, it'll be more exciting for the people than just mining asteroids, which we can begin doing whenever

>>4855948
>Create a permanent colony on Caplit

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No update today. I'll try to get one in about 12 hours. Thank you for your patience.

>>4857665
No problem Bananas, I have much more faith in you for communicating with us and posting at a steady rate instead of burning yourself out!

>>4857665
i feel like this monke needs a pet

>>4856322
This and
>>4857667
This

Maybe instead of terraforming or colonizing other planets we should start transforming Jakt into a Colossal Fortress

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A lot has happened in 10 years.

One decade ago, you set the plan for the next 10 years. Though you may have wanted to spend all your time and money on the exploration of space; you still have an entire planet to rule. People to lead and an economy to manage.

The experimental SKIFF 1.0 which was almost completed had been finished and fully pressed into service. They're compact and uncomfortable; but each is equipped with Star Dynamos; capable of flying with a small generator. The piloting seats of these crafts use all the limbs of the astronaut; including their tail, giving them unprecedented three dimensional movement. At the time, you did not commission a navigational or piloting computer AI for these crafts; and you found out later that one was not necessary either.

By sealing two of them together, you can create a combo craft that shares their engine power and can act as a backup in case one of the ships is destroyed. With these safety features, it became both possible and responsible for sending out astronauts into space.

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With your command these new crafts; your managed to capture and mine one asteroid per year on planned missions. Your astronauts showed incredible bravery; and a newfound influx of riches- especially of rare metals and a few not found on your home planet, has been a great boon to science and your planet's economy. You've secured enough material for electronics for the next two centuries- asteroid chunks held in stable orbits over Jakt act as a perfect bank for space construction as well.

But perhaps more interestingly- your astronauts have landed on two celestial bodies. Schoon and Caplit both has visitors; and it is the first time in your history that a monkey has walked on another world. You denied any requests by the space explorers to travel to Vass; it is too unsafe. The heat of the planet during the day is too much for probes, much less a living person.

Soil and atmosphere samples were taken on both bodies- Schoon is a rocky planet with potential for large scale mining and colonization just as expected. But most interesting was Caplit. From a deep-ice core drilling; strange long-dead frozen organic matter was found; it appears to be carbon based, and is something similar to an algae. Possibly from a few million years ago when the moon's ice was thinner.

This if, of course, undeniable proof that life existed, at least in the past, on another celestial body. This is arguably one of the greatest discoveries of our time.

What will you tell the people?
>Hype up the discovery
>Downplay the discovery
>Hide the discovery for the time

>>4858479
>Hype up the discovery
Oh shit, A L I E N A L G A E

You know what this means, right? We are not alone.

>>4858479
>Hype up the discovery

>>4858479
>Hype up the discovery
And ppl must know that if there is alien algae right next to our planet in our star system then aliens are a real danger and we need to be ready for weird alien invaders

>>4858479
>Downplay the discovery

>>4858479
>Hype up the discovery

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You're pretty hesitant to use this stupid thing. Hesitant, but excited. The jubilant line was last used by a supreme ruler when they discovered the cure for ovarian cancer.

Well... here goes.

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Jaxtians do not gather in crowds and stand in place, shouting and jumping up and down when excited. That's not how a speaker can gauge their audience. Your people were born to move.

"WE HAVE FOUND IT!
Heads turn as you fly over the top of the city; the monkeys who hear your words, interested, caught up in the moment, begin to follow. Not your words, but your motion. The winch keeps itself going just slightly faster then one of your people can swing- you lead the crowd.

"IT'S LIFE! LIFE!"
You are not part of the wave, you build it. It follows you. Mothers let their children follow in the excitement too, just for a block or two. The dead speaker can't get anyone to follow- the supreme ruler, with incredible news builds a wave of blue bodies, swinging through the city.

"WE ARE NOT ALONE! LIFE! IT IS LIFE!"

This is great. You're glad you did this. You feel the wind rushing past your face. You can hear a hundred swinging bodies following you; emotion in action.

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Your zipline ends at the palace, with a slow section to let the crowd gather just outside the division. They cheer and scream- and take a much needed rest after they chased you and your news through the concrete jungle. After this, they will return to their homes and families- not an investment of time or applause. Them coming so far out here was all the applause you needed.

You land within the palace, clutching your side. Holding that zipline for all that time hurt your back- damn, you must be getting older.

You think you've hyped up the discovery of alien life enough. We'll see what it amounts to... tomorrow.

Real update later. Thanks for waiting.

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The announcement went over well. The few days that past since then saw a massive upswing in pro-space exploration and colonization support. With evidence of life on another planet, the old fears of space invaders or alien viruses fade away to scientific discovery and advancement.

Though your civilization is very efficient, and the budget very well placed by the AI network; this is still a surprise. From both your asteroid mining and large amounts of donations for individual primates- your budget for this next decade is almost double the last one. Helper urges you to assign the funding in a meaningful way over the next 10 years; several plans are auto-generated and suggested.

>Create a permanent colony on Caplit to study the alien fossils & the moon in general
>Create a bio-lab on your homeplanet and attempt to revive an grow the alien algae yourself (possible risk)
>Advance technology so you can land on Vass or other hot planets safely
>Other (Write-In)

>>4860768
>Create a permanent colony on Caplit to study the alien fossils & the moon in general

>>4860768
>Create a permanent colony on Caplit to study the alien fossils & the moon in general

>>4860768
>Create a permanent colony on Caplit to study the alien fossils & the moon in general
It would seem very interesting. We might be able to do something to turn it into a less-frozen world.

>>4860768
>>Create a permanent colony on Caplit to study the alien fossils & the moon in general

>>4860768
>Create a permanent colony on Caplit to study the alien fossils & the moon in general
This quest is pure SOUL

>>4860768
>other
this is a smaller one but do a warbond like thing where you can get people to invest into the astroid mining and get a pay off in a decade or so
>other
this is an utterly massive one but
create a dyson sphere like shown in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pP44EPBMb8A
if tech isn't to that point yet then put a small aside on advancing tech so that a dyson sphere could be made. It's literally one of the requirements to be recognized as a type II civilization on the Kardashev scale
after that is built then use it to build a Matrioshka brain AI helper
if neither of those can be done then do
>Create a permanent colony on Caplit to study the alien fossils & the moon in general

>>4860768
>Create a permanent colony on Caplit to study the alien fossils & the moon in general

>>4861024
>dyson sphere
>in our home planet
are you goddamn kidding me anon, do you know the sheer amount of technology and resources we'd need to have an dyson sphere?

We are probably not even a full type 1 civilization yet.

>>4860768
>Advance technology so you can land on Vass or other hot planets safely

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You decide to create a permanent colony on Caplit. What exactly a "permanent" colony is is anyone' guess, this is the first time you've done anything like this.

The concept of building an entire outpost, if not entire city on another, hostile planet too cold for basic agriculture is daunting at first. You spend the first few years of the next decade working out advanced plans; and making modifications to existing technology. An extra access hatch in the "roof" of some of the Skiffs will serve as the platforms of your first ever planetary base.

Eventually, the teams of the most experienced astronauts were picked and arrangements made. Several crews of double Skiffs moved out to Caplit. Once there, they used as many scavenged materials as they could; the spaceships themselves will act as the perfect building material. With the advanced Star Dynamo- several of the asteroids banked up around your homeworld were also shipped out- as simple as putting an engine on them and setting the coordinates for orbit around Caplit. The colony exists even now- a decade later. It is still small and compact; only highly trained astronauts and technicians can travel there- no space tourism or basic living can be accommodated yet. It's a purely scientific outpost. It requires routine shipments of food, but water can mostly be made on the planet itself. The scientists in charge of gathering water from the ice make a note about the abundance of dead algae within it; Helper has complied the files for later.

Most interestingly though is what happened when you finally managed to burst through the ice. It took a few years, but when you managed to locate and set up a drill in one of the more "shallow" ice seas; what you found was incredible. While most scientific minds believed that Caplit had life once, before it became an ice-ball, they never could have guessed it still harbored life now.

Caplit is a living planet.

The oceans underneath the ice shelf have a relatively simple food web. The planet is seemingly dominated by a species of large algae that grow a "shelf" to gather the most sunlight they can. These algae are in a constant battle; be too greedy and freeze to death by getting too close to what little sun pierces the ice. Be too passive and you will be consumed by what lies beneath you.

Beneath them, several species of consuming arthropods and plankton that eat the algae and their waste. Predatory small bodied animals eat the herbivores above them; and beneath them all are decomposers that float up with various waste gases they create their life cycle.

But most mysterious are the largest animals on the planet; a species of large bodied fish that seem to be apex predators. You've never actually observed one directly; no pictures or live samples were ever taken. But you have heard them. These creatures seem to communicate through sonic waves over long distances as they migrate around the planet.

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... but of all the precious living things on Caplit- one strikes your attention.

One of the few female astronauts to be sent to Caplit got pregnant just before the trip. She gave birth there; the young monkey girl named Alavis is the first of your kind to be born anywhere but your home planet. She's become a symbol of space exploration and colonization; a symbol of hope and youth.

Youth? You could use some of that yourself at this point.

Meanwhile, with the end of that decade, Helper comes again with a list of ideas to focus on for the next.
>Investigate the potential uses of the fossilized frozen algae for a fuel source on Caplit
>Investigate the mysterious sonar-species
>Develop Caplit's colony further to create a fully fledged community on the planet
>Generously fund scientific advancement on Jaxt to improve your technology
>Something else? (Write in)

>>4861515
>>Generously fund scientific advancement on Jaxt to improve your technology

>>4861515
>Generously fund scientific advancement on Jaxt to improve your technology
This is interesting. We could definitely use some stuff like improved hydroponics to help our colony be more self-sufficient.

>>4861515
>Develop Caplit's colony further to create a fully fledged community on the planet

>>4861515
>Generously fund scientific advancement on Jaxt to improve your technology

imagine us having exosuits, that'd be so cool

>>4861293
good point but we do seem to at least be a full type 1 civilization, otherwise we wouldn't be able to have begun such large scale asteroid mining and inhabit another planet/moon the scale that has been done
>>4861515
>Develop Caplit's colony further to create a fully fledged community on the planet

>>4861924
scratch that
>Investigate the mysterious sonar-species
might as well do research when the whole of the place is geared towards research, plus the sonar species could be harvested for tons of food in case the algae isn't nutritious enough

>>4861515
>develop your technology

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After all of your interplanetary missions and discoveries, you feel it's time to focus inwards. You assign much of your newfound funding and resources towards research. Research grants become plentiful, and career control AI begin to assign large amounts of meaningful work to bright young scholars.

While your newfound technology does not fix all of your problems or open up new avenues of discovery just yet; your focus on science and development have many small improvements. New spacesuits and life support technologies make exploring planets safer; though you still don't have the materials to land on Vass just yet.

Also; advancements in circuitry have allowed for smaller computer cores and servers. Most notably; your ships can bring along self-reliant AI cores along with them on their trips; before they were too weak individually and energy costs too high to bring them along- since any other stellar body would be too far away for meaningful interaction with Jaxt's AI network.

Finally; the Skiff has finally been retired for a larger, more powerful craft. New advancements in the Space Dynamo technology have reached nearly 1% of the speed of light in theoretical laboratory experiments- a tremendous achievement in aeronautics.

But as this decade draws to a close, something else has come to your more immediate attention.

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You are old. You can feel your body and mind starting to fall apart. Your tail drags on the ground behind you. You'll lose your ability to walk long before your ability to climb, but the journey to the top of your palace's upper floors is a daunting one. It has been 30 years since the invention of the Star Dynamo, almost 35 since you first took your rule. You are in your early 60s, and the average life expectancy of your people is 70. No Jaxtian has gotten to 90 yet, even with all your technology. The selection shadow is long.

It is time to select your Successor.

The first is Bost. Large bodied and intimidating; Bost has inherited many genes that have since been outdated; back when your species had dimorphic males. He has the traits of an “Alpha” male, one that protected large swathes of territory, the deep jowels and flanges, traits that are now considered ugly, or at the very least unflattering. Even at his young age, his gonads and hormonal profile show he will have a high amount of testosterone- higher amounts of aggression and a domineering personality, yes, but also a great drive to succeed and a protective, proactive mindset. He'd make an excellent war leader.

He is also your son. He is a Garastra. But every Supreme Ruler worth their salt will put the good of their people before dynastic ambitions.

The second is Maktana. He comes from a long line of Supreme Rulers- in fact, he is a direct descendant of the very first supreme ruler. He is highly intelligent, focused on ecology and environmental health, and is very interested of the biology of Caplit, he is actually a prodigy, with several published articles on the complex life cycles and several theories that have received mainstream attention in the scientific community- despite him both being a minor and never even having visited the planet. An absolutely solid pick.

The third and final choice is Qet. Qet is a genetic miracle; a pairing of two highly intelligent but humble technicians ended up creating a baby with a gene score equivalent to a Supreme Leader. As soon as his potential was found; he was given a first class education and hormonal treatments as is entitled to all Supreme Leader candidates. While he has inherited his humility from his parents; he is also living proof that Jaxt is not ruled by an entrenched, inbred elite; as some conspiracy theorists believe. The only concern with him is his soft, kind heart- as a Supreme Ruler cannot always be the friend of the people, but he must always be able to rule the people.

While only one will be selected to be Supreme Ruler, the other two will both be given high and important positions- all three are exceptional primates. Which is your choice?

>>4863178
>Qet
We need him to focus on tech, maktana would be the best if he wasnt obsessed with biology

>>4863178
>Qet
Maktana would do great on Caplit if/when we start focusing on the algae and fish and Bost seems more military leader, not as an armchair general but someone who while too important for frontline duty would still see battle himself

>>4863178
Bost seems like he'd be a great commander in a scenario where we had enemies. Consider it paranoid, but his genes aren't obsolete, yes? It would be wise to keep 'Bosts' in our general population for the situation where aliens are less friendly than expected. He's the leader that Jaxt deserves, but not the one it needs (right now). Perhaps his descendants will be able to become leaders when the time calls for it.

Maktana, of course, is a great prodigy. But he is more of a scientist, yes? If we were to have him work as ruler, we would be, if anything, wasting his potential. I would recomend that he be given high priority in the scientist career so that he may fully use his intellect. He's clearly proven himself, after all.

Qet is what i would call one with the archetype of a leader. Intelligent, but connected to the people, as well as humble. His soft, kind heart, is of course, a good thing - while it is true that the sword of damocles hangs over the head of the monarch, kindness is a show of strength, and one we could definitely use in such a time of peace.

So ultimately, my vote goes for
>Qet

>>4863178
>Maktana

Regardless of whether Maktana or Qet wins, we should probably higher the other as a top ranking government scientist and maybe Bost as a military general so we still get some use out of their talents and leadership training.

Maktana and Qet are both great and I understand the boon Qet provides from being a commoner, but it states Maktana is a minor, meaning he likely has the most years left to be a ruler.

>>4863421
hire*
sorry I just woke up lol, brain dead

>>4863421
>but it states Maktana is a minor
It may not be clear from the drawing, but they are all supposed to be about the same age with a few months or years difference at most. Mentioning it for Maktana was just meant to make his feat and intelligence sound more impressive.

>>4863178
>Bost

>>4863430
Oh in that case then I'll change my vote here >>4863421
to Qet.

Thought choosing Maktana would buy us an extra turn as well as the beeg smorts

>>4863513
I don't think a few years will do difference, i doubt Vantix is going to die the moment we chose a successor too. Either way, Maktana is better off as scientist because he won't have to waste time doing boring stuff like taxes and infrastructure. Instead, he can work on getting us that dank technology.

>>4863178
>He'd make an excellent war leader.
The foreshadowing talked about conflict so definitely Bost. Maktana would be infinitely more useful in labs. and Qet seems to have no qualities greater than the others except for being popular and kind, which may not be the most useful when faced with situations like the trolley problem that he would inevitably face
my pick would be
1 - Bost
2 - Qet
3 - Maktana
regardless of who wins the others should be given roles that would benefit their talents, Bost for the military/rough working
Qet for public speaking
and Maktana for the sciences

>>4864018
>The foreshadowing talked about conflict so definitely Bost.
We haven't even met other aliens, though. Qet seems to be smart, and in such an era that we seem to be meeting of early exploration and colonization, a kind leader would work best. Bost is still going to be there to be, let's say, a general if we meet some rather unfriendly aliens, but a military leader is not really necessary until we're in a situation where we have to deal with a war economy and the war of hearts and minds.

Our only 'threat 'right now could be spooky aliens coming from the void to kill us, so it's not called for to have a war leader.

>>4864069
being a good military leader/general can carry very well into being a good political leader (E.G. Eisenhower, Jackson, Washington, Caesar, etc). The others can also serve other purposes that Bost cannot, Qet would be the most useful as a public relations official, and Maktana would be the most useful as a scientist, and both can be advisors

>>4864115
Isn't he also going to be more aggressive too? Point is, a war leader is needed in times of war. We're, so far, in a time of peace, so having a kind leader would allow us to continue inwards improvement. And then there's the fact that Qet is an miracleman, right? He's an one in a billion chance, so it's interesting too.

I mean, Bost is good and all, but i just feel like Qet's talents are better for a time of peace and progress like this one, whereas Bost would be good when shit went south

>>4864121
being aggressive isn't inherently a bad thing, it's how you use it. being aggressive in your passion can help to push you, and it could help you push through hardships, which in an age where dangerous space travel is constantly being pursued kindness could very well cause someone to curtail it when what we're all trying to do is expand it

>>4864146
I'm fairly certain bananas was talking about the GORILLA CRUSH type of aggressiveness. Which is good when your goal is to crush, just not when your goal is to progress.

Furthermore, which dangers? I mean, there's the usual environmental problems, but right now, pretty much everything seems okay. And i mean, if we have the technology to have a star dynamo which allows us to go to 1% of the speed of light, we obviously have our own hubble-type advanced space telescopes, so it's not like there's a fucking tyranid hive fleet waiting two systems over.

Right now, we're in a time of peace, and a kind ruler would help us continue to progress society IN this age of change where we have to get used to space travel. Basically, this is an age of SOFT Adaptation, and an kind but incredibly smart ruler would help that

>>4864156
>higher amounts of aggression and a domineering personality, yes, but also a great drive to succeed and a protective, proactive mindset
>I'm fairly certain bananas was talking about the GORILLA CRUSH type of aggressiveness
nah
also being proactive in military can very well save a lot because it will put in place policies and organizations that can quickly respond to dangers/disasters
also the dangers in space and colonizing a frozen tundra will be ever-present, especially when the tech to actually start has barely even begun to develop.
a kind and popular leader is good, but if they are only kind and popular then they won't be a very good leader

>>4864193
Military? What military, anon? Our ships are big cubes. We'd, at best, be able to put in a machine gun on it or something.

Also, did you forget that Qet is like, an 0,0001% genius? He's an normie who had a supreme leader gene count. Maktana is smarter, sure, but that's because he's the 0,0001% of the 0,0001%.

>>4864217
Maktana would be better suited to advancing tech than putting in policies which is why I put him below Qet also being proactive means that issues that he has in terms of protection could get prevented instead of get fixed after they do damage

>>4864272
>Qet also being proactive means..."
meant
"Qet, Bost also being proactive means..."

>>4864272
Oh no, Maktana is definitely a scientist. It would be just dumb to waste such a great intellect on taxes if there are people who can do the job just as good.

Also, like i said, there's just not much we can do militarily if something were to happen. Our ships are still big an unwieldy, even if they've advanced quite a lot.

And Bost would still be there for possible military issues. Ultimately though, the only thing that really matters is that he's a War Leader, and we have no war on sight.

>>4864281
even in times of peace generals have shown to be amazing political leaders (like George Washington), a military or testosterone driven mind mind set can also be good in times peace because it gives more drive to improve and spread out your influence/territory which is exactly what is being focused on currently

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See you tomorrow.

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"You put me in a safety hanger? Are you serious?! If I didn't feel old before, now I certainly do!"

It's no use, there's no arguing with Helper.

"Reminder: You asked me to remind you to work on your legacy plan two days ago. I will summarize the plans you made and make the files accessible on your computer."

That's right; your legacy. What will your legacy be? You look out into the night sky; so unchanged from when you first took power, but yet everything up there was so different now.

For now- you are still the Supreme Ruler. You aren't dead yet- you've got a lot of time and life left in you. It's time to decide how you're going to spend the twilight years of your rule; just as important as all the others. If anything, more important.

>Stimulate the economy and store capital to set up Qet's reign with a budget surplus
>Assign Maktana to be the head of research and colony development on Caplit
>Investigate and fund unusual materials research for future technology development
>Send out long distance probes using current technology to the nearest solar systems (between 3 and 8 light years away)
>Relax and spend the time on yourself

>>4864935
>Assign Maktana to be the head of research and colony development on Caplit

>>4864935
>Assign Maktana to be the head of research and colony development on Caplit
This, i reckon, is the most important. We have a genius here, we can't waste this opportunity - give him what he needs and he'll be pumping out stuff that'll help our civilization for centuries no doubt.

If we are able to do something else other than that since, you know, just assigning him as head of research isn't going to be THAT time-consuming,
>Stimulate the economy and store capital to set up Qet's reign with a budget surplus
We're in a good spot here with the introduction of all these new resources from asteroids. We will be able to give Qet more leeway.

>>4864970
+1 but don't forget to write a last will and tell our children (if we have any) that we love them, that may be the most important thing to do

>>4864973
Oh, we do have children. Bost is one of them. And i do agree that we should tell him (and any other children, if we have any more) that, talented as he is, we did what we did with progress in mind. It'll definitely help him, considering how he's probably going to be more ambitious than us.

>>4864935
>Assign Maktana to be the head of research and colony development on Caplit

>>4864935
>Assign Maktana to be the head of research and colony development on Caplit
The FEELS goddamn

>>4864935
>Assign Maktana to be the head of research and colony development on Caplit
Don't waste a genius, especially when he can make world changing discoveries

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While the Supreme Ruler could simply assign anyone to any position- it is prudent to ensure certain steps are taken. After all, he's still young and by the time he is fully educated the Caplit colony has already existed for twenty years, best not to replace somebody highly experienced with him simply on a whim.

Maktana is put through the most top class education you can offer. His education is broad and mutli-faceted, as with all supreme leader candidates, but specializing in life sciences and biology. He has a PhD in Carbon Based life biology, virology, climatology, evolutionary studies and, most notably, Caplit Xenobiology. It's most notable because he was the one who wrote the course and curriculum.

Under his guidance, the Xenologists on Caplit being to collect live samples, photographs, and expand their facilities. Caplit's colony is still a small, research focused place but it has families living there now; and it is no longer a ramshackle facility made of multiple scavenged starships.

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Meanwhile- Qet is trained and raised to higher and higher levels. As the successor, his education must be most broad and deep, knowledge both eclectic and focused. He is trained in language, martial arts, politics, commerce, science, social planning, and is second to none in physical training and debate.

As he becomes an adult, Vantix Garastra eventually steps down from his position as Supreme Ruler. He's a geriatric now, but still alive and mostly cognizant. Vantix simply decided it was time to help Qet out of his child's clothing...

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Your name is now Qet Scholiander, the first and only Scholiander to become a Supreme Ruler. It isn't a family name associated with heights of nobility.

You have chosen the color blue to be your imperial robes; for peace and wisdom. You have also adorned your outfit with a single white stripe. This is in recognition of the one who brought you here.

As with any newly appointed supreme ruler- you are flooded with congratulations and many supplicants seeking your guidance or funding for various worthy projects- unworthy ones have already been filtered away with by Helper.

It is your very first night as the Supreme Ruler. You are exhausted after your coronation and all the thanks and well-wishes and tearful embraces with your aging parents and extended family.

It is time to decide the first thing you're going to do.
>Take a look at some of the scientific proposals
>Set forward a great plan to colonize more of your home system (Schoon)
>Reply to each and every kind message
>Go the fuck to sleep

>>4867081
>Take a look at some of the scientific proposals
Colonization is going to take time. It's better to just take a look at the scientific proposals because that's where you can find the gems.

Also, how does he come from Schoon? Didn't we just colonize Caplit? And what do you mean by home system?

>>4867101
>Also, how does he come from Schoon?
He doesn't, it was just saying what planet in specific would be colonized next. Perhaps it was misleadingly written.

>>4867081
>Take a look at some of the scientific proposals
now that we've got a guy with like 5 doctorates doing research we've gotta pay attention to him

>>4867081
>Take a look at some of the scientific proposals

>>4867081
>Take a look at some of the scientific proposals

>>4867081
>Take a look at some of the scientific proposals

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Helper places two proposals on your screen. You are told this won't interfere too much with your next big empire plan.

The first is from your space and aeronautics team. They tell you that the way we've been using Star Dynamos all this time may be wrong- and interfacing them with a circuit may be a way to convert even more energy into motion. They have no idea how much this could boost the max speed of your space craft- just that "could be anywhere from two to twenty times as fast."

The second is a more personal pet project. The only reason you are considering it is because it is Maktana's. He is requesting a specially built submarine for Caplit's inner sea, with advanced sensors. He won't tell you exactly what it is for, just that he can't build it itself and it based on a hunch he had as a boy.

Which will you approve of, Supreme Ruler?

>>4867916
Ahhh this is a tough one! I'm gonna have to go with

>Maktana's submarine

My logic being that the math they did for the enhanced star dynamo will stay around and the thing can be funded later, but Maktana personally will only live so long and we need to get as much use out of him as we can

>>4867916
>Maktana's submarine
Sounds interesting to me, though personally, i don't see why we can't approve of both. I mean, it's like, two different branches, right?

>>4867916
Why not both?
If not posible
>>Maktana's submarine
Since it would allow him to progress in his research, hopefully he discovers something we can use and it isn't just data about the planet

>>4867916
>The sub with the same reasoning as >>4867948's but also an announcement that you'll look into the improved Star Drive project as soon as possible

>>4868179
Support

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Maktana's submarine requires some intense engineering work. While it is a trivial matter for such a large and powerful empire as yours; it will still occupy your engineering team for several months to design, build, and deliver this intense machine. It has to be able to not only go deep in oceanic pressure, but also cope with the extreme biting cold of Caplit, have a long-term functioning life support system, several days at least, and an advanced Star Dynamo system within to grant flawless movement that doesn't disrupt the volume it is placed within as much as a turbine or engine would.

After being built and shipped in a custom Skiff 2.0 wholly intact to Caplit; Maktana immediately takes it underwater. While he goes against your wishes by being the one to pilot it himself, and does so without approval, his deep water excursion ends up being extremely enlightning. He assigns Caplit's colonial AI master computer to create a highly edited video of his undersea trip combined with the press release- and within a few hours the footage is beamed straight to Jaxt.

"Ever since I was a boy, I didn't believe the prevaling theories." Maktana explains.

"Common scientific consensus says that Caplit was once a liquid ocean, with an ecological event that froze the planet over. The other theory was equally absurd; that Caplit was once a small planet in orbit around our star, and was knocked into a cold, distant orbit around Max after being hit by an asteroid. I knew both of these couldn't be true; but there is no way for the different under-ice oceans to have nearly identical species even with convergent evolution if they all evolved separately. There just wasn't enough caloric energy in the system. So I took the submarine and proved it; there is a great number of undersea ice tunnels, some thousands of kilometers in length, connected all the different "oceans" on Caplit into one great sea. And the sonar species? I requested my craft to be able to replicate their calls; I managed to get both video and DNA evidence from them. We call them Migrators now, and they are the missing link that spreads calories among Caplit's ecosystems. Their calls differ where they are, but they migrate and breed together between the ice oceans."

The announcement goes over well. Maktana just proved and explained several decades of theory and evidence. Perhaps his ego has swelled quite a bit; but his genius is evident.

"There is still something else I must find out for sure before I can announce it-" He explains. "But I couldn't have done it without our Supreme Ruler. My thanks go to Qet."

Back on your home planet, the news has quite the effect. Many people are more interested in Caplit's xenobiology, and the migrators become a bit of a fad. Young children are given migratory plushies and they being to appear on mascots and websites. Maktana's pet project has yielded cultural gains.

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But back on your home planet, things aren't going very well.

It is extremely fucking hot. In combination with global warming from industry and your planet's natural heating and cooling cycle going towards the norm- this summer season is causing extreme heat waves. The AI network is on the fritz and overloaded, causing delays in work and entertainment. Many important civil systems are also damaged, and some vulnerable populations are even in danger of heat stroke or critical machine life-support malfunction- while this will only affect a tiny portion of the population, it is still a concern.

This is your first major crisis as Supreme Ruler. While relatively minor compared to some of the things your predecessors have handled, your first year will be a proving ground. How will you approach the problem?

>Use radical science to solve the problem at its core (Minor Risk)
>Shield critical resources to keep industry & exploration going at full speed
>Protect at-risk populations

>>4870934
>Use radical science to solve the problem at its core (Minor Risk)

>>4870934
>Use radical science to solve the problem at its core (Minor Risk)
We can't win without risks. It might be wise to have a good amount of tests before we do something stupid like pumping chemicals into the atmosphere, though.

But, i hink i have another idea. Well, more of an stupid addition.

I mean, you know one thing i was thinking about? The Star Dynamo, it allows for extremely easy transportation, right? It says in the first post, that with the dynamo you can easily get through the planet's atmosphere, which is the greatest challenge to large payloads.

What if, in addition to using science to help our planet's bioclimate, we were to start moving our worst waste-producing industries out of Jaxt? Only the ones that produce the greatest problems. This way, we wouldn't have to keep pumping chemicals in the atmosphere. We wouldn't have to create full on habitats, mind you, because i'm certain we're at the point where we can mechanize at least some of our factories. I mean, we have AIs, right? So all we'd need is some mechanical crews to stay on orbit to go fix stuff when necessary.

Fuck, we could later go plop some of them on Schoon to help start up creating some sort of atmosphere, if they can help. With the Star Dynamo, which is able to reach a mind-boggling 1% SY, we wouldn't even suffer from much lag.

This way, we wouldn't need to permanently fix out atmosphere, just speed up the cleaning process so that it could heal itself, while also ensuring that we wouldn't have to deal with it on the future. Smaller risk, and some benefit too. If we're going to have an interstellar empire, it is to our interest that we keep Jaxt pristine as well as we can.

Once the crisis is over, we sink some good funds into better environmental processing so we don't have to move too much stuff out of Jaxt. Can't be too reliant on colonies, after all.

>>4870934
>import some ice from Caplit to cool the AI, AI can then solve the other problems for us

>>4871019
Anon...you do know we can create ice here on Jaxt, right?

>>4870934
>Protect at-risk populations
Lives are greater than $$$, but if industry as a whole may go down then mix this with
>Shield critical resources to keep industry & exploration going at full speed
Because if industry goes down then many lives will be lost because life saving medicine won't be able to be made
After this then look into
>Use radical science to solve the problem at its core (Minor Risk)
So that it won't be a minor risk
Don't do what >>4871000 is saying because it may end up melting the ice before we can properly learn what is going on which may make us lose a lot of important resources

>>4871048
You're confusing caplit with schoon

Caplit is the ice world, Schoon is the mars-like planet that needs an atmosphere. Putting factories on an planet like that can't melt poles. Else, Antarctica wouldn't exist

And, the plan is to put them on space, not caplit. That's just an addition for AFTER the issue is dealt with

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>>4871055
No? They're both cold and have ice and schoon is the one with the atmosphere. Caplit havving global warming would cause the icy surface to freeze making there be nothing to stand/build on, and schoon already has an atmosphere so there's no need to put in a bad one there. Putting the industry in space would be a pretty good idea though, maybe make it orbit around Jaxt as a sort of artificial moon? Though that would take far longer than a singular summer so it'd need to wait since doing so would mean that the vulnerable population could get harmed or even die

>>4871062
Why would Schoon need terraforming if it already had an LIVABLE atmosphere? It's supposed to be like Mars. Adding industries there would allow us to increase the atmosphere's greenhouse effect which would make it more livable instead of being a cold hellhole

I never said to put it on caplit either. And, those are supposed to be long term fixes. On the short term, we need to take a risk. The idea is that by thinking of a way to solve the long term issue, we won't need to permanently change jaxt's atmosphere, but instead "clean" it

>>4871071
Anon. It has just atmosphere, not livable, you need to terraform it to make the atmosphere livable.

>>4871088
Yes, which is why you need more greenhouse effect. It's cold.

>>4871095
I don't think that's how it works, you need to chemically balance the atmosphere for you to be able to breathe.
Temperature its only a tiny part of the ordeal that is terraforming a planet.
It would be more like doing a dialysis to the whole planet instead of just heating it

>>4870934
>Use radical science to solve the problem at its core (Minor Risk)

>>4871095
Anon it may already have oxygen so making the atmosphere unbreathable via greenhouse gasses when we don't know if that's needed would be a very bad idea

>>4871336
If it already had oxygen, the amount it'd need for terraforming would be minimal. The first part of colonizing a planet like Mars, which Schoon seems to be analogue to, would be giving it a thicker atmosphere.

>>4870934
>Use radical science to solve the problem at its core (Minor Risk)

>>4871671
The atmosphere composition needs more than just oxygen, it would also be needed to be cleansed from other stuff that you can't breath and to even identify those you need to be there, as an example just look at lunar dust that would shred your lungs if you breathe just a bit

>>4871767
Yeah, and you know what livable atmospheres need? CO2, to keep the greenhouse effect. There's plenty of industries which use CO2, as opposed to more harmful chemicals, and those that release CO2 could be used in Schoon to help the process of the atmosphere.

I mean, it wouldn't really do jackshit ultimately, but it's just an good way to start colonization, right? Plop down some factories to stimulate growth without having to worry about contaminating the planet.

Ultimately though, building the worst factories in space really is a good long term solution. Jaxt should be kept livable and clean. It's our home planet, after all.

>>4871772
I like the idea of importing industrial factories to space but ultimately it would absolutely do nothing in favor of terraforming a planet, still it would be a good step to space conquest

>>4872087
Well, it's less so "Let's terraform this planet by using factories" and more of a "If we move CO2-expelling factories to this planet that desperately needs a thicker atmosphere, not only we will be inciting growth by offering economical opportunities, we will also be able to spew CO2 without having to worry about the environment because it is actively helping us"

I do think we should send some probing to the poles before we start using it for factories, though. Like i said, this is more of a "Long term solution" so that we won't have to make gigantic changes to our atmosphere every five years.

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Next update tomorrow. Thank you for your patience.

>>4872522
Now i wanna know what J.A.S means

>>4872522
Yoooo! Is that ma boy Bost!?

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>>4872656
Hold up why does my ID have cum in it

>>4870934
>>Use radical science to solve the problem at its core (Minor Risk)
>>4872660
Coomer detected

>>4872522
Hey op can we contribute ideas for their civilization using the star dynamo concept as a milestone enabling them to do more crazy space tech stuff??

Like space elevators etc

>>4872692
Space Elevators are obsolete.

The idea of the space elevator is an megastructure which would allow us to take large amounts of payload out of the atmosphere (which is where basically 99% of the fuel is used) without having to use gigantic rocket boosters

Like, you see how small the actual parts that go to space are compared to the rocket? That's because getting out of the atmosphere is insanely difficult with normal propulsion. The space elevator would allow people to lift said payloads without needing to use rockets.

The Star Dynamo, however,is already able to do that. It seems to be your standard sci-fi "float everywhere" engine, which makes it able to easily penetrate the atmosphere.

Space elevators are obsolete.

>>4872702
Space elevators are the first step to start constructing space megastructures, its easier to build huge ass ships with space ports and defending your planet is a lot fucking easier with a battle station

Think on terms of stations the size of a small city, not the ISS

>>4872702

Imagine that instead of building little colonies on the surface of a planet you send a wholly functional autonomous research facility to its
orbit and just collect samples of the surface with space dinamo ships etc, or a Mobile colony factory

The point is that you cant just strap a space dinamo to a building and send it to space but you could build that same edification in space and strap it to a space dinamo for transportation since gravity wont be interfering, you only need to adjust acceleration to whatever the building could withstand

Right now it looks like they are using space dinamos for lots of long supply trips, so why not just accumulate all the resources needed inside a huge metal box in space, send that huge box to orbit the planet/moon and have the colony use the ships to unload everything

For example i could go from point A carrying 75kg in a backpack for 15 km to point B, leave the backpack, return to point A to pick up another backpack and repeat the 10 trips until I unload 750kg of cargo, totalling 300km in the 10 trips

OR

Just move the same 75Kg of cargo 50 mts to my magic floating tarp near point A 10 times, then drag my floating tarp near point B and unload the cargo in another 10 little 50mts trips, for a total of just 32Km if you include the return trip with the magic tarp (1km to load + 30 from point A to B and back to A + 1km to unload)

>>4873014
>>4873027
I don't think you understand the point of a space elevator. Space elevators are not made to be railroads. They're not shipyards. Their entire point, is to be able to move things into the atmosphere, without needing to use rockets.

Guess what? We don't NEED to use a space elevator. We can just use a Star Dynamo to take the cargo. Because Star Dynamos, are easily able to go through the atmosphere. It wouldn't save us anything. You're not thinking in logistics. How much do you think an space elevator would cost? The sheer quantity of necessary resources would far dwarf whater miniscule advantage we got from taking the cargo directly. Said Space Elevator would also have a cargo limit. And i haven't even TOUCHED upon the sheer damage that this elevator would cause if it were to be destroyed, which is VERY easy if you don't sink EVEN MORE Resources into layer upon layer of protection. A single teeny tiny asteroid going at Mach 100 is all we need for the whole thing to go CAPUT.

Star Dynamos do not need traditional fuel. It is cheaper to launch a thousand ships back and forth (which is, again, unnecessary) than it would to build an space elevator which would just end up doing the same.

If you want to establish bigger orbital facilities such as a shipyard, then that's one thing. But don't try to build mega structures just because. A Space Elevator is absolutely obsolete and meaningless from any real logistic perspective.

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Perhaps because of the Jaxtians' closeness to nature, they've always been an environmentally conscious people. Tree dwellers want to live in healthy trees, and people as strong as they were when they were merely animals rely less on machines to do their work for them. As such, the bite of industrialization and climate change was always reduce. But your people have been an industrial society for hundreds of years, and with the digitalization and space exploration focus of the modern culture it isn't going to slow down.

>>4871000
>>4871019
>>4872087
>>4872109
>>4872692
Several big ideas jump out at you. But you need a combination of immediate relief, the next few years, and a long term, permanent goal to work towards. You crunch a few numbers with Helper and decide to go to work.

First; let's fix the problem to start with. Your solution has been right in your face all along; the asteroids. The mining asteroids that Vantix put into orbit around Jaxt three decades ago. With your more advanced computers and AI networks; you have the capacity for this scale of networking. You order your engineers to create a large number of cheap, Star Dynamo equipped robots. They will attach themselves to the asteroids held in stable orbit around Jaxt and manipulate them; this will be your screen against too much sunlight. To corral the asteroids in oribt is a massive undertaking that takes almost five years.

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Your screen of asteroids is complete. Being controlled by the AI network; this allows for as-needed blocking of sunlight from the sun to cool the planet, and it can also be rotated to protect the southern hemisphere during its hot season. On top of this- these asteroids can be programmed to move aside or together to act as a defensive barrier against meteorites flying through space towards your planet or protecting it against space junk- or even a potential attack by a hostile alien species.

You create the J.A.S.- The Jaxt Asteroid Shield and its surrounding command structure. As the Supreme Ruler; you have the perfect monkey for the job; Bost. Your old friend from back when you were all training for supreme commandership. His leadership skills and high level of intelligence and desire to protect his people will make him well suited for the role.

But that's only a bandaid solution; and you are not a bandaid supreme ruler. You study and practice your speeches. It is time to announce your plan. Your plan to move all major industrial production from your homeworld to Schoon.

"Schoon will be our factory world. It's dead surface will become the metal factories, the acid-pits, the high stress industries that create damage and decay to our beautiful, bountiful homeworld. Upon this I solemnly swear, that by the end of my reign, I will have accomplished this most noble goal."

There is a murmur through the crowd. You have just made the Oath of a Supreme Ruler. The truth is that all Supreme Rulers are good, powerful rulers- but even among them some will attempt to go above and beyond. Vows are serious matters; if a Supreme Ruler makes a vow to do something, and they fail, their legacy will be besmirched forever after. But there are also great benefits- to even announce a solemn vow creates a great sense of patriotism and energy in the people, rising to greater heights, and accomplishing your goal will also put your name in history as an even higher figure of accomplishment and leadership. In other words, it is high risk, and high reward.

But speaking of risk...

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When you were a youth; you were injected with every manner of neurochemical to "fix" all possible problems with your brain. This is common, normal, expected of all Supreme Rulers. You have no traces of chemical depression, anxiety, insomnia, no non-conceptual sexual fetishes, no body or sex dysphoria, no tendency for addictive behaviors; and your genetic screening already eliminated all possible sources of autism, aspergers, or adult-onset mental disorders and degredations of all kinds. And all of this is totally useless at helping you from being a big softie.

Your predecessor, Vantix Garastra, has died. His death was not unexpected, he was almost eighty, but you cannot control yourself as you weep over his corpse.

Your decision to focus on science instead of protecting the vulnerable during the climate crisis has come back to haunt you.

“This is my fault.”

“You are being irrational.” Helper chimes in. “The heat waves could have at most caused some dehydration increasing damage to the liver and kidneys; the damage to his DNA that would eventually lead to his death happened long before you were born and continued long after.”

“Silence. Twenty minutes.”

“Command Registered.”

You feel like you need to do something. This man brought you up from the depths of mediocrity and normalcy into the highest office among your whole kind. He was your biggest inspiration- and he taught you many things. He also taught you the first law of your people to you; the law of burial. Sons choose how their Fathers are buried; and the Supreme Ruler is always the Son of the one that came before. Even if not biologically- you are in spirit.

What will you do?
>Honor the previous Supreme Ruler
>Give the choice to Bost; his biological son
>Decompress and move on; don't waste too much time and energy on sentimentality.

>>4873220
>Honor the previous Supreme Ruler

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>>4873220
>Honor the previous Supreme Ruler
RIP

>>4873220
>give the choice to bost
He is the guy's blood related son

>>4873220
>Give the choice to Bost; his biological son

>>4873220
>>Honor the previous Supreme Ruler

>>4873567
True, but the tradition is that the Supreme Ruler is the son of the previous Supreme Ruler, right? Dude lifted us from nothing, it's fitting that we're the one to lay him down.

>>4873220
>Honor the Supreme Ruler

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The sky is overcast, and the wind is calm. It's a good day of a funeral. Some of Vantix's oldest friends, as well as the successors, gather outside in vigil as his burial is prepared. Maktana is too far away to attend in person, unfortunately. The four of five days it would take to travel back to Jaxt to attend only to turn around and return in a new ship would be wasteful anyway.

Vantix's burial was arranged by yourself, but you made sure to take Bost into consideration. He only said that it was the most fitting possible burial.

His body is loaded onto a decommissioned Skiff- an antique now. It has no life support system- once it enters space the body will freeze and all the bacteria within his corpse will die. He will be untouched by time. The onboard AI is given a single mission; send him on a final voyage.

You watch the vessel fly away into the sky- up and away into space. The nuclear power cells aboard that vessel will have been depleted long before he can arrive at his destination, so it is also equipped with a tiny amount of hydrogen fuel; just enough to give his craft momentum in deep space.

Qet refused to have the previous supreme ruler be disposed of anywhere in this galaxy- it's too likely that, within the life span of your species, you will invent faster then light travel and explore the reaches of your star cluster. You want him to go on a true voyage.

Vantix Garastra is headed out of your galaxy, Lotus, and headed to its nearest galactic neighbor, Chariot. Farewell.

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=================
Hey everybody, thanks for reading the quest so far! I'm still interested in running it, but I feel like now might be a good time to do some Q&A and feedback and take a short break while I prepare for the next arc.

I've also prepared a few questions to get a feel for what people ITT want to see in the quest. Feel free to just lurk until the next update if such things don't interest you.

>Do you prefer the more “civ” type overview of the species as they advance, or the more character-focused narrative of the Supreme Ruler? (Somewhat characterized by the difference between Vantix & Qet's reigns)

>Does the mutli-generational timescale of the game bother you or enhance the space opera feel?

>Since this quest has already pictured several impossible fictional ideas (faster then light travel, life evolving on an ice moon, an efficient and competent government, etc.), would further fictional ideas such as psionic abilities, space gods, energy beings; etc. take you out of the quest?

>What would you like to see more of in the quest in the future? Are there any specific sci-fi tropes or concepts you'd like to include?

>>4874783
Yo, thanks for running. It's been a great quest so far, it's good to see the monkeys and their civilization walking forward. As for the questions,
>>Do you prefer the more “civ” type overview of the species as they advance, or the more character-focused narrative of the Supreme Ruler? (Somewhat characterized by the difference between Vantix & Qet's reigns)
I like the overall dichotomy between the two. Ultimately more of an overview, but also one that takes into account the lifes of important characters that influence this nation such as the supreme ruler or people like Maktana. If you go for too much of an overview, it becomes a bit impersonal, but if you also go too in on characters it becomes less of an civilization and more of a biography.
>Does the mutli-generational timescale of the game bother you or enhance the space opera feel?
I like it, makes it feel like we're actually seeing the growth of a civilization, which takes a lot of time. But i will say that some of Vantix's turns felt a bit too fast - that is to say, that i feel like we could have spent a little bit more time with him.

Of course, that's more so because of the fact that, being the first leader, we had more waiting to do than people like Qet will, but, you get what i mean.
>Since this quest has already pictured several impossible fictional ideas (faster then light travel, life evolving on an ice moon, an efficient and competent government, etc.), would further fictional ideas such as psionic abilities, space gods, energy beings; etc. take you out of the quest?
Not particularly, as long as it didn't go too fantasy-like. So, you know, hopefully no warhammer 40,000 type mega evil gods and galaxy-destroying devices and space rats or people conjuring infinite demons with their minds. Basically, i wouldn't worry about it too much.
>What would you like to see more of in the quest in the future? Are there any specific sci-fi tropes or concepts you'd like to include?
Honestly, this is dumb, i just hope that the FTL isn't one that can be weaponized. Not easily, at least. FTL Weaponry always ends up with that stupid greentext scenario where the whole galaxy in a "Who's going to exterminate the other" first and you have to basically go radio silence to not get your world cracked.

Other than that, i wonder if the Jaxtians could be made in a game like, let's say, Stellaris.

>>4874940
i agree

>>4874940
I agree with most of this post except i personally would like it if the fantasy stuff is limited at around 10~15% top, the other 85% just tech stuff

>What would you like to see more of in the quest in the future?...
I like the concept of developing megastructures and totally colonizing the local planets with them, research facilities, mining stations, radar probes, military stations etc, before jumping to other star systems

Basically i hope it gets hard for the monkeys to get sucker punched into a crisis before they go out and meet aliens

>>4874783
I agree with >>4874940 and >>4875032

>>4874783
>Do you prefer the more “civ” type overview of the species as they advance, or the more character-focused narrative of the Supreme Ruler? (Somewhat characterized by the difference between Vantix & Qet's reigns)
I like how it's a little of both
>Does the mutli-generational timescale of the game bother you or enhance the space opera feel?
It's kinda nice and gives some agency/makes us feel the need to act faster
>Since this quest has already pictured several impossible fictional ideas (faster then light travel, life evolving on an ice moon, an efficient and competent government, etc.), would further fictional ideas such as psionic abilities, space gods, energy beings; etc. take you out of the quest?
Just try to keep it on the low end. Psychic abilities are kinda neat, and can be explained by implants, but demons would be a little too far
>What would you like to see more of in the quest in the future? Are there any specific sci-fi tropes or concepts you'd like to include?
I'd honestly like to see megastructures (like dyson arrays/spheres, matryoshka brains, black hole bombs, stellar engines, etc) that are grounded in real life physics and are entirely possible for an advanced civilization to build, kurzgesagt in a nutshell has some good videos on them if you wanna quickly look into it

>>4874783
>Do you prefer the more “civ” type overview of the species as they advance, or the more character-focused narrative of the Supreme Ruler? (Somewhat characterized by the difference between Vantix & Qet's reigns)
You have an excellent balance between the two honestly, It feels nice to put a face to the choices we make and how those decisions shape the character and people as a whole
>Does the mutli-generational timescale of the game bother you or enhance the space opera feel?
Absolutely an enhancement in my eyes. Some of my favourite space operas i.e. Dune, Star Wars, Star Trek Are all multi generational in some capacity
>Since this quest has already pictured several impossible fictional ideas (faster then light travel, life evolving on an ice moon, an efficient and competent government, etc.), would further fictional ideas such as psionic abilities, space gods, energy beings; etc. take you out of the quest?
I don't think they would take me out of the narrative, as long as they don't become the main focus of the narrative. In the end it's a science fiction quest, and science can be put into anything realistically
>What would you like to see more of in the quest in the future? Are there any specific sci-fi tropes or concepts you'd like to include?
This will probably make me sound wishy washy, but the trope of cosmic horrors has always been a big part of the fun of science fiction to me, what simple creatures would call gods or demons really just being unfathomably large uncaring space monsters focused on harvesting entire star systems for their resources, or just something with so much power it hardly knows what to do with it so it just toys with the insignificant creatures it finds in the cosmos

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>>4874940
Alright! Thanks for the feedback. I agree we didn't get enough time with Vantix; when I first was making the quest I had the idea that we would go through many, many leaders very fast. Originally I was thinking of doing 50 year long turns, but then it would just be a civ game with no personality. I started to draw a Supreme Leader to give the quest more personality and didn't want to kill him off too fast.

>>4875032
>>4875876
Megastructures are super interesting, especially space habitats and dyson swarms, but I wanted to intentionally avoid using those to fit with a more space opera feel- building and creating colonies on various planets or finding habitable ones and running a space empire over a large, unrealistic scale is more interesting to me.

>>4875962
Thanks, I'll note your desires here, but I don't want to give anything away if I do end up going for cosmic horror.

Anyway; thanks again to all the readers. Next update will probably be later today. We'll be dropping back to IC so I won't want to chat in the thread while doing my regular posting.

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==========
We return to SPACE MONKE QUEST with some interesting Jaxtian facts!

>Fact #1
The most popular food item is a fruit called a Danbo. It's a blue fleshy pod that grows off trees that are fun to climb, and the fruit itself is sweet and convenient. Traditionally, it has large white seeds, though modified and artificially selected strains of the plant have all but eliminated them except for heritage plants.

The seeds of the Danbo are not traditionally eaten, but in the time of the sail and gunpowder eras of your species, they were communally used to make hardtack. Processed grains are an unhealthy food associated with being obsolete in your culture, but have ironically become a staple food for space missions and astronauts who may have to go long periods without fresh food shipments.

>Fact #2
Nuclear power replaced the vast majority of all other power sources after the War of Five Mornings; the final armed conflict in your race's history that left billions dead after five nuclear devices bombed the five largest cities in the world. Just before this war; the wealthy elites and rulers of each nation worked on materials to build nuclear bomb proof bunkers; and discovered the first RAMM (Radiation Absorbing Material-Matrix) that turns controlled chain-reactions directly into electricity without the need for an intermediary, like a steam turbine. With this power source, ships and colonies can remain active with little chance of power failure, and can work for a long time. The RAMMs also excel at containing radiation, meaning that the power generator aboard starships can also shield the crew at the same time.

>Fact #3
Despite being highly public figures that aren't always well liked, in the several hundred years since the first Supreme Ruler...

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...None of them have ever been successful assassinated.

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After an attempt on your life, the remaining assassin and your security team are immediately put to work finding out who and why would try to kill you.

Supreme Rulers have been targets before; but in the modern area? And Qet? Why?

You find out that the assassins were low ranking, low-born individuals who weren't especially intelligent. They were paid for the hit in advance with a high value cryptocurrency currently called InterstellaCoin, which is supposed to become a defacto, time-dilation proof crypto traded traded among all of your solar systems's colonies and outposts by private citizens. It's doubling in value every few months and is already worth a few weeks wages for the average person.

"It will take four to eight weeks to back-track the data to find out who sent the crypto." Helper chimes. "Until then, our first priority is to protect you, Supreme One."

>Bunker up and let the security officials do their thing.
>Commandeer the AI Network to brute force the identities of the crypto senders faster (Unpopular Decision)
>Delete InterstellaCoin from all data banks to prevent more assassination attempts (Very Unpopular Decision)

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>>4877965
Something...smells fishy

Low-born, not very smart individuals being hired to kill a supreme leader? The genetically improved supermonkeys? Of the most important political position? In their home? While they're sleeping, aka the most obvious time someone could EVER try to assassinate a political leader?

Nah. Something is off.
>Commandeer the AI Network to brute force the identities of the crypto senders faster (Unpopular Decision)

>>4878066
But, then again, maybe the idea IS to make us commandeer the AI to try to find them. It seems like something that would be done...

Hmm, it's an conumdrum.

>>4877965
>Bunker up and let the security officials do their thing.
The other 2 options are either not worth the trouble (commandeer network) or just plain stupid to do (delete tons of money)

>>4878066
>>4878072
Actually, now that i'm thinking...it was too easy, right? I feel like whoever sent them wasn't trying to actively murder you - or, rather, they weren't EXPECTING those low-level thugs to be able to murder you. Paid in advance, low-intelligence, low-born? To murder a supreme ruler?

No...rather, someone must have been seeking something else - perhaps, the REACTION. Perhaps, they want us to do something unpopular to create a big opposition towards us.

I'm changing to
>Bunker up and let the security officials do their thing.
because this person is going to be found out, sooner or later, so it's best to not play into their possible plans.

>>4877965
>>Bunker up and let the security officials do their thing.

>>4877965
>>Bunker up and let the security officials do their thing.

>>4877965
>Commandeer the AI Network to brute force the identities of the crypto senders faster (Unpopular Decision)

>>4877965
>Bunker up and let the security officials do their thing.

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You retreat to the Supreme Ruler's megabunker in an undisclosed location. You could easily survive a small nuclear war in here; so you aren't too concerned about a few assassins. Still, it pays to be cautious. You decide not to speed up the process of cracking the data transfers or touching anyone's crypto shares; let's just lie low.

You first get all the information from your security staff. The team of assassins broke into your palace by simply passing through the pressure sensors, which didn't activate according to an unresolved glitch caused by the heat waves a few years back according to Helper, and were instructed to first attempt to use a chemical injection to cause you to have a heart attack in your sleep, and if that failed, to use firearms to kill you that way.

While you don't know yet who ordered the attack, you have a few thoughts onto reasons why they did, and to what end they may be accomplishing. You come up with four theories.

The first is that the attack was exactly that; an assassination attempt. The one who put out the attack may have just been incompetent, or hired a team more incompetent then they thought. It seems that buyer knew that there was no way the assassins would get away with their crime; your necklace would alert Helper and the paramedics the moment anything bad started to happen to you, and even if a chemical injection did kill you it would be obvious from an autopsy that a young adult monkey like yourself didn't die of natural causes. Clearly the assassins were meant to be sacrificial. However, there is no reason to rule out the possibility that the attack was merely a mentally unwell or anti-government conspirator taking a chance once they made a small fortune on InterstellaCoin; though having wealth to begin with would help, it certainly isn't necessary.

The second theory is that this attack is a psyop, or in other words a proxy. The attack wasn't meant to kill, and was instead meant to goad a reaction out of you. Perhaps a competitor to InterstellaCoin hired a hit on you with their rival's currency in an attempt to get you to crack down on the crypto, or perhaps it was someone who wanted to make you look back by taking over the computer network for a while; which leads you to the third theory...

It could have been an outside alien force, which is your third theory. Covert aliens, perhaps with more advanced digital technology, may have created and brought down the hit for the purposes of tricking you into using up your computer resources for a while; perhaps by focusing the computer network in cracking the buyer, you would give an alien fleet the opportunity to commit a physical or digital attack while distracted.

The fourth and final theory is that the attack was orchestrated by Helper. Not necessarily that it is the culprit, but that Helper is somehow compromised. This would actually explain how the assassins got into the palace undetected- perhaps Helper wanted more computer resources as well?

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Additionally; it is also important to remember that it is not common knowledge of your capabilities with the digital world. Most average citizens in your empire don't even know that Helper exists, other then the assumption the Supreme Ruler has an AI like them, and most people don't know that Helper has access to and permits every interaction of sending and receiving data. The would-be regicide may have assumed, like most citizens, that crypto was untraceable and the assassins he hired would be a sacrificial lamb.

Finally; any attempt to goad a reaction seem too unreliable to be the true motive of the assassins. Simply put, the Supreme Ruler can do basically anything in response to a problem or crisis, from over reactions to going along with nothing happening. Your hands are not tied behind your back, as it were, so your would-be mastermind would have no way of guaranteeing their outcome- especially given the amount of heat it would draw on themselves. At the very least, the mastermind of this plot would benefit from having you killed.

But after enough time thinking about it, of course- Helper manages to crack the identity of the seller in the allotted time. Within a month and a half you are shown their face and name. It's Talbalas Blackspot! Curses! Nuva riche bourgeoisie scum!

The Blackspots are one of several bloodline billionaires with left over wealth from your days as a hyper-capitalist, pre-Hegemony days as a species. Back then, the vast majority of all land and resources was owned by billionaires and their families, and once the hegemony took over most were allowed to keep a portion of their property as part of a compromise to change the world's ruling structures. While most of these inherited aristocracy have died out in the modern day, there are still a few with land and resources to remain high status even in your more merit and achievement focused society, over pure capital.

You can see that Talbalas took out the hit on you right after your announcement to move all of Jaxt's factories to Schoon... which makes sense, as his fortune comes from owning the majority of the land used as industry. His family would be forced to sell the land or keep it as very low-income residential and framing districts or a wildlife preserve. This would be the final nail in the coffin for their inherited high status in your society.

The Blackspots are, admittedly, highly intelligent. But low empathy scores and compulsive behaviors limit their ability to become Rulers. The current inheritors are only two; Talbalas and his brother, Zunto. Zunto is significantly less intelligent then his brother, and could know something; but you already have more then enough evidence for both an arrest and a conviction.
>Arrest Talbalas and seize both brother's inheritance as punishment
>Execute Talbalas immediately
>Arrest Talbalas & Zunto and question both
>Question Zunto discretely before making a decision (chance of wasted turn)
>Other (write in)

>>4878886
>Arrest Talbalas & Zunto and question both
We know what they did. Executing them so soon however, is not good. Seize them, question them. After we've done what we need and they've gone through our due process so to say, they get executed and their inheritance is seized...after they die, that is.

Of course, that depends on Zunto's guilt. Considering his low empathy score, i would guess that we won't have too much trouble getting him to snitch on his brother, and that if Zunto is also in it, that Talbalas will most likely confess too for a chance to save his ass.

>>4878886
>Arrest Talbalas and seize both brother's inheritance as punishment

>>4878886
>Arrest Talbalas & Zunto and question both

>>4878886
>>Arrest Talbalas & Zunto and question both

>>4878886
>Arrest Talbalas & Zunto and question both
Always analyse every aspect of a situation

>>4878886
>Arrest Talbalas & Zunto and question both

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"Please, your Eminence." Talbalas begins once he is in custody. You kept the two separated and in the dark about what is happening. "I do not know why you have brought me here."

"I think you do. Begin speaking, Blackspot."

"...Yes, your grace. I admit to manipulating the crypto currency markets to make money. I also created several fake crypto currencies."

"Oh? How did you accomplish that. You are required to tell me anything I wish to know, prisoner."

"Yes your omnipotence." Talbalas says nervously, knowing full well that he is already caught. He explains to both yourself as well as a few technicians listening in how he constructed a computer, decentralized from the main-network, which ran data from a collection of false cryptos.

"Most of those cryptos were in fake wallets; wallets I owned I should say. Occasionally, suckers would buy them. But the main purpose of the cryptos was decentralized data storage. By keeping a few bytes of data in each of the coins, I could essentially force the AI network to store whatever data I wanted in a secure, unreachable location. The computer I used was set to factory settings; it stored no data or programs on it, but I could still access any file. I used this to spy on and sabotage various users, such as hiding a transfer-order in a single false crypto, which would get caught up in the main net as though they had just made a command to send me their crypto. I could withdraw it back to my main computer with no digital footprint, as the record of the store was stored in the coins in the cloud, not on my harddrive. I began to use this to buy up and scam as many people as I could- the truth is, your grace, that land in the time of our ancestors was king. Nowadays, that isn't the case, since our race is colonizing the stars- soon planets and asteroids and space habitats will be everywhere, and a few dirt lots on Jaxt won't mean shit. Instead, control of wealth and communication between colonies will be the great next source of generational wealth."

"I see. Thank you for your help, Talbalas."

Your technicians access the computer in question and the proof is irrefutable. Zunto accessed the computer using his AI, his finger oil is on the power button. The spike of activity that showed that he sent the InterstellaCoin and the order packaged away in the crypto data to the assassins. Zunto set up his brother for a fall so he could have the entire inheritance. Helper starts to feed you back Zunto's history, selected for relevance, that showed several unencrypted searches for things like wealth-legacy systems and rules of law regarding inheritance.

You find Zunto in his cell.

"Hello, your eminence. How can I help y-"

He's dead. Normally, the punishment for an attempted coup is death. By Scaphism. But that's not the kind of Supreme Ruler Qet is.

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Because you decided to question both men, you have found the true culprit and stopped all the attacks from happening in the future. But you also have caused a bit of a stir in the billionaire community and have to explain your actions. Publicly. While the Supreme Ruler doesn't necessarily need to disclose an assassination attempt to the people, they only will once the source of the problem is stopped for good, as to never break the visage of being omnipotent.

When a conspirator is captured, they are always killed, but their families and cohorts are often made examples of. Commonly they are sterilized, parents, siblings, and children as to prevent the spread of anti-authoritarian genes into the genepool. They are also often forced to become destitute or work humiliating careers for life as a price of allowing someone so close to them to disgrace their family and emperor through an attempt at killing them.

Talbalas must have understood this well; the order came from his own brother on his computer. Within a month after the public announcement of the assassination attempt he donated all of his land to the hegemony, put his wealth into a trust to pay back all citizens of the crypto he stole, rescinded all rights and privileges of his station, and appeared before you, in person, in the clothes of a common laborer to prostate himself and await your justice.

You're impressed, honestly. You weren't expecting such proper manners.

Regardless- you have no stomach for sadism and have no unresolved anger at his brother to take it out on him. In fact, you think his talents may be useful. And you have just the individual who Talbalas can spend the rest of his life helping...

-----

With the cryptocoin assassins taken care of, and your rule once again uncontested, it is time to finally focus on what matters; setting your eyes on the yellow planet- Schoon!

Because you made a vow to move all of your planet's industries off world, you gained an immense amount of popular support. Whenever you make a vow, win a war, or have a perfect storm of public support and powerful planning; you get a bonus action.

You may choose Two actions to undertake. Write in actions only count as one, unless they're too complex.
>Improve habitation & hydrophonics technology (Less shipments and higher max colony populations)
>Improve the Star Dynamo (faster colonization & ships in general)
>Design robots to help automate and speed up Construction
>Design a Asteroid Shield Grid for Schoon to better control it's climate & for space debris defense
>Begin building large-scale space stations in orbit around your colonies for administration and defense
>Begin mass carbon capture programs on your home planet
>Begin mass pollution cleanup efforts on your home planet
>Write In

>>4880699
Jesus christ, this update took a turn for the grim. I mean, it's cool, i liked it, but damn, the monkes don't mess around.
>Improve habitation & hydrophonics technology (Less shipments and higher max colony populations)
>Design robots to help automate and speed up Construction
Let's work on our infrastructure. We're trying to move our industry to Schoon, right? So what we do, is improve hydroponics and habitation to allow us to live in places like Caplit and Schoon more easily, and the robots necessary to automate and speed up the construction of buildings.

Automated construction is quite a good technology, as it would allow us to more easily expand...anything, really.

>>4880699
>Improve habitation & hydrophonics technology (Less shipments and higher max colony populations)
>Design robots to help automate and speed up Construction
If we're going to have more work than it should be for the publicly stated goal so that Jaxtians aren't getting upset about not working for it, plus automatic construction will be useful for doing things like making habitable stations on planets without risking lives
also it will help with taking apart the uninhabitable 1st planet and use the materials gained to build a dyson array,which is pretty much needed if you want to advance past a certain tech point irl and start efficiently doing things out of the home planet since every planet in the solar system will have enough power that fossil fuels will be useless for power generation, though that's only if OP relents on megastructures

>>4880699
>>Begin mass carbon capture programs on your home planet
>>Begin mass pollution cleanup efforts on your home planet
we need to fix our home and the sooner the better

>>4880834
That's going to be pointless until we get rid of the problem. First you pluck the bullet, then you seal the wound. We still haven't removed the bullet of industry.

>>4880699
>Begin mass carbon capture programs on your home planet
>Begin mass pollution cleanup efforts on your home planet

I'm this anon for reference >>4878956

>>4880780
If we're doing a dyson array, it better not be on our home system.

If there's one thing i believe about futuristic nations, it's that the home planet should be an sanctuary. It should still be self-sustainable, obviously, but it should be an natural sanctuary, the roots of the species.

If you fly too close to the sun and fuck up your home system, that's it. You lose your home planet and buh-bye empire, you'll probably go extinct too.

If you fuck up a random colony system, it'll be a manageable loss. Sad for the colonists, but that's life, and it goes on.

>>4881122
What? A dyson array wouldn't destroy a star it would just focus the light into solar panels. All that it would be is a ton of of mirrors in the star's orbit that would be angled at a point where it would focus light. Even if it was a dyson sphere it wouldn't be able to destroy the planet, it would be more likely to bump into the star and burn up which wouldn't be able to destroy *a literal star*
Some megastructures even prolong the life of a star and by extension the planet. At least one kind of stellar engine would actually prolong the life of a star because it would use up some of the star's mass as fuel, which would be an almost infintesmally small amount compared to the mass of the star. Doing so eould make the star become smaller which would make it last far longer than it otherwise would due to the fact that smaller stars burn longer than their larger cousins
Also a megastructure is far too large to be built by some random colonists, a dyson array (which is far smaller than a dyson sphere) would need a literal planet's worth of resources to build. If we built one in our solar system we'd need to take apart Mercury to have enough to build it all

>>4881156
It wouldn't destroy it, sure, but there's risks. The fact that you're sucking up such a huge amount of energy alone already makes it a big danger. It's not about using the star's fuel up, since by the time it actually matters our entire civilization will be dust in the ground.

It's more so about the effects that such a thing could have, which could basically destroy your entire control (and life, really) on said system. Extermination, so to say.

And plus, the sheer amount of resources necessary is an even bigger reason to not do it. Do you really want to pick clean every single resource in our system?

Post-industrial empires exist for a reason, and it's not to tax people - it's for resources. It's so other systems, either uninhabited or of our enemies, bear the cost of progress.

It's kinda like moving our inudustry to Schoon. And uh, speaking of that, can we please send probes down to Schoon to check the planet and especially the poles so we don't fuck up the water and stuff? Don't want to destroy an entire ecosystem on accident before we move the industry

>>4881237
>since by the time it actually matters our entire civilization will be dust in the ground.
Not if we play well, but if you mean irl that may not be the case, or at least another human civilization will be in control. Also a stellar engine is what would be needed to *avoid* becoming dust in the ground because it would be really the only way to move the planet out of the way of things like asteroids or black holes
>Extermination, so to say.
By the time that there's megastructures, either irl or in this quest, the science would be so concrete that there would be no risk
>And plus, the sheer amount of resources necessary is an even bigger reason to not do it. Do you really want to pick clean every single resource in our system?
The resources needed is definitely a problem, but thankfully irl and in this quest we have an uninhabitable planet close to the star that can be used for those resources. If you want to go further then irl there's asteroid mining which we would do either way for the resources and there's so many metal rich asteroids that they'll take so much time to mine out that we'd already have moved onto new horizons, and in the quest we can just move onto new solar systems
Also we would use all of our resources either way so why do you think those resources should be used for spoons and forks instead of a structure that would provide more power to power the entire solar system and then some

>>4881268
>Not if we play well
Nope.

You know how long stars live? By the time our star starts to actually burn out, our empire will be long dead. Even if we're good, do you really think we can live for millions of years? It's just not possible.

I mean, even nations like the imperium of man only existed for thousands of years. Truth is, nations don't really last that long. It's a cycle.

>>4880699
>Improve habitation & hydrophonics technology (Less shipments and higher max colony populations)
>Design robots to help automate and speed up Construction

>>4881284
oh yeah, and i forgot to add
>By the time that there's megastructures, either irl or in this quest, the science would be so concrete that there would be no risk
Not really, high amounts of energy will always have risk, not just due to accidents but due to acts of war and terrorism. It's like why you wouldn't have an nuclear reactor smack dab in the middle of your biggest city. Sure they're safe nowadays, but you don't run risks if you can when you have enough space.
>n uninhabitable planet close to the star that can be used for those resources
But should we really stripmine it just for a dyson array? Ultimately, is it not better to go stripmine planets light years away from our homes, ship it here and keep our system mostly intact?
>Also we would use all of our resources either way so why do you think those resources should be used for spoons and forks instead of a structure that would provide more power to power the entire solar system and then some
Because a dyson sphere is a single thing which requires a lot of resources, and it's always wise to keep some on the home system in the case we desperately need to build something.

So if some ultratech empire essentially severed our FTL connection to other places, our home system still wouldn't die because we'd have the resources necessary to keep the forges going.

Ultimately, that's the purpose of an empire. Making people who are not you and places that you don't live in pay the price for your own glory and wealth.

>>4881284
>By the time our star starts to actually burn out, our empire will be long dead
So? The species will survive and would definitely like to have that extra time
>I mean, even nations like the imperium of man only existed for thousands of years.
Anon this isn't 40k where everything is trying to horrifically rape you
>>4881297
>but due to acts of war and terrorism
Which is why they would be very heavily heavily protected
>But should we really stripmine it just for a dyson array? Ultimately, is it not better to go stripmine planets light years away from our homes, ship it here and keep our system mostly intact?
That would be for the best but the problem is that the tech wouldn't really be all there irl. The human species may be able to some day build a dyson swarm or stellar engine that have been designed by modern science, if we got our act together we may even be able to get up a dyson swarm within the next several hundred years. But even if we can do both of those things the irl distant planets are just too far to realistically go to, and they're getting further away by the second.
Irl and in this quest another reason to use a planet from the home solar system is because it would be far simpler, faster, easier, and cheaper to do. Remember anon, it's not like we're going to be ruining a habitable world, the worlds in question have no atmosphere, are too close to their respective stars to have any water, and are always under such extreme temperatures that it would be immensely difficult to even set up colonies there, let alone fully inhabit them
>Because a dyson sphere is a single thing which requires a lot of resources, and it's always wise to keep some on the home system in the case we desperately need to build something.
That is a good point, but at some point in the future we may not be able to power the solar system with our current means, the only other means that we currently know of to get more would be to build more, or to build a dyson array to make it so that we'd essentially never need power until we get to the point that we can make black hole bombs
So if some ultratech empire essentially severed our FTL connection to other places, our home system still wouldn't die because we'd have the resources necessary to keep the forges going.
A dyson array wouldn't take up all of the resources, just a large portion of one of the planet's resources.
Also if our interstellar travel is ever severed then the only way that we could ever get to other stars is by building a stellar engine, which wouldn't be able to harm the solar system since it would be angled in a way that the planet's orbits would never enter the area that it's blowing the mass out of

>>4881349
>So? The species will survive and would definitely like to have that extra time
Anything we build today won't even help at the future either. Basically, trying to think in "prolonging stars" is meaningless.
>Anon this isn't 40k where everything is trying to horrifically rape you
I'm not talking about the universe, i'm talking about the fact that all nations have an expiration that, and it ain't big. Some bigger than others, but you'll be lucky if you see an empire survive more than a thousand years. You could count the human ones that have in the hand.
>Which is why they would be very heavily heavily protected
Still a risk which we don't need in our home system.
>That would be for the best but the problem is that the tech wouldn't really be all there irl. The human species may be able to some day build a dyson swarm or stellar engine that have been designed by modern science, if we got our act together we may even be able to get up a dyson swarm within the next several hundred years. But even if we can do both of those things the irl distant planets are just too far to realistically go to, and they're getting further away by the second.
Anon, you're thinking of galactical clusters. Our galaxy isn't going away. The next system over is not going away. And it wouldn't be a nation sci-fi quest if we didn't eventually find out FTL travel.
>is because it would be far simpler, faster, easier, and cheaper to do
Not really. We're going to eventually have an interstellar empire, right? Which means that eventually, we're going to colonize other worlds, which means we can make THEM pay the price in fuel and minerals.
>That is a good point, but at some point in the future we may not be able to power the solar system with our current means,
Is it though? The kind of stuff that requires the energy of a dyson array is nowhere near our level. Our ships are still mostly big metal cubes.

By the time we get there, we'd have many more systems to exploit and share the imperial economical burden.
>A dyson array wouldn't take up all of the resources, just a large portion of one of the planet's resources.
Still a big waste, if you ask me. Especially when we can just ship in stuff from other systems once we get an FTL that's good enough.
>Also if our interstellar travel is ever severed then the only way that we could ever get to other stars is by building a stellar engine, which wouldn't be able to harm the solar system since it would be angled in a way that the planet's orbits would never enter the area that it's blowing the mass out of
Which is why we shouldn't use it unless we have to.

And we don't.

>>4880699
>Improve habitation & hydrophonics technology (Less shipments and higher max colony populations)
>Design robots to help automate and speed up Construction

>>4880731
Support this one

I think robots may be an iffy idea anons
The way Helper "Helped" Vantix near the end of his life feels like foreshadowing and he has complete control over all AI on planet

>>4880699
>Improve habitation & hydrophonics technology (Less shipments and higher max colony populations)
>Improve the Star Dynamo (faster colonization & ships in general)

This is how we get industries offworld faster and hence make good on our vow.

I also agree with >>4881920's theory that Helper is unreliable. He found the wrong suspect for Qet's killer, put Vantix in a safety hanger against his will, and Qet even theorized that Helper may have been the one behind the assassination as it did have a motive. We should be very careful not to give Helper too much power.

>>4880699
>Begin mass carbon capture programs on your home planet
>Begin mass pollution cleanup efforts on your home planet

>>4881937
In my opinion, artificial intelligence should be used mostly for processing administration logistics, and whatnot. As in, he shouldn't be given the ability to take decisions that he could fuck up, but rather to do stuff like gathering information and processing stuff and whatnot.

But yeah, i do think that we shouldn't give him too much power.

>>4882525
Right, which is why there are better options than designing robots. Robots can likely be controlled by Helper and their functions go way beyond administrative duties.

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Because this is a bigger update, I might as well give a time for when the voting closes. Voting will close in about 12 hours from now, and then it will probably be another 12 hours or 24 hours from this post when I can next post a big update. Thank you for your patience.

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Before you begin your project to mass colonize Schoon, you decide to take a good look at it. While a thorough report on it was done some odd forty years ago, might as well be thorough.

Schoon is an absolutely basic, bare bones rocky planet. It's cold, most of the time too cold to support life. There is no liquid water, and unlike Caplit, no underice oceans to house alien life. There is frozen water on the planets pools, with both water-ice and dry-ice. The planet's crust is made out of a usual mix of metals and nitrogen. The atmosphere is thin, with long wispy clouds of various gasses, which only barely protect the planet from radiation. There is no ionosphere. Your deep crust scanners show no signs of significant radioactive material, and a plane that never had life on it won't have any fossil fuels either. In a way, you're almost proud of how boring Schoon is. It's a perfect planet to ruin.

Truthfully, the Jaxtians already have this idea from when they were a young species. Your people love nature, but not "true" nature, nature as they defined it. By the time your people discovered gunpowder; you purposefully exterminated all native predators on your planet. To slash and burn a "natural" place that has no value is not a bad thing; Schoon is a rock in space.

The first factories are being built by hand, with exacting specifications. This is to future proof them. Your AI and designers have already come up with a strong plan; hexagonal, repeating factories of the same basic design. The larger triangular structure, which acts to funnel heat upwards towards industries that can use it, with launch pads and resource/tool storage outside in case an astronaut needs them. Underneath each of these factories is a mess of pipes and computer bays to act as radiation shielding for the people living in the underground colonies within. Your scientists joke about the fact that one day travel to and from Schoon may be like a daily commute for many of the workers; but as of now it takes about a day and a half to reach the planet in a ship. As such, people will live there in shifts. To avoid the problem of foreign borns with no attachment to your homeworld, and to avoid any potential problems with long-term living in space, laws are already being drafted requiring periods of return to your life giving homeworld.

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In order to help colonize the planet, you work on the two biggest concerns. The first is the habitation technology, and the second is robotic construction to help automate the huge scale of what you're doing.

Hydrophonics is easy, you had the technology for a long time. Small scale food production to help support the colony by producing oxygen and biomass has been theorized for a long time, but only recently put into practice. Other factors include things like heating and radiation shielding, which your new designs are handling well. Schoon especially has an advantage to this as you can be very efficient; waste heat and water from factories can be used to manage the colonies and electric networks can be used to form electromagnetic fields to help protect against some radiation.

Even with the speed of light, it still takes upwards of 5 to 15 minutes to send messages back and forth to Schoon from Jaxt. Even with Helper's vast AI network, Schoon will need its own network to handle things as they come up. As such, a new AI network is established on Schoon, which only sends data packages as needed back to the homeworld, such as progress reports or requests for additional materials.

Even now, hoards of workers and uncountable millions of tons of materials are being shipped to Schoon. Your homeworld still produces the majority of things, but in the meantime your economists are stockpiling important materials and encouraging recycling to facilitate the transfer of factories.

You have been working on this project for ten years now. A decade well spent.

But a new problem is revealing itself. Fuel. Your people use radioactive power, which is the strongest, cleanest, and best source of power you can find on a terrestrial world- though some of it has come from asteroids too. You aren't running out by any means, but all of these ships, all using Star Dynamo fuel cells, are all using tons of your material. Helper explains that an early warning is better then a late one, but based on the statistical odds of more uranium and plutonium nodes being found on Jaxt of a similar size then the ones you have now; you will begin to run out of fissible material in the next two hundred years. The future energy crisis will be quite severe, but you have your own rule to contest with. You made a promise, after all, and you have to focus on that above all others if you are to be remembered well.

>Perform more radiation surveys on Jaxt
>Mine asteroids aggressively to top off reserves
>Look into alternative fuel sources (slow & ineffective)
>Ignore the problem and pass the buck to a later supreme ruler; you have enough to worry about
>Other (Write In)

>>4883642
>Look into alternative fuel sources (slow & ineffective)
We need to invest research into alternate fuel sources. It's going to take a while, but eventually, we should be able to find something, right? In two hundred years, at least.

We can't deal with everything. Still though, we should probably keep the asteroids in mind. We don't want them to end up being wasted, we might need them later.

>>4883642
>Look into alternative fuel sources (slow & ineffective)
We probably have enough for now but starting a long-term project is probably a good idea to help our successors.

>>4883642
>Look into alternative fuel sources (slow & ineffective)

Maybe Maktana can use his big brain to see if there's some shit we can use on Caplit, or some new kind of machine or energy based on something he learns down there.

>>4883752
In my opinion, we should be looking towards a fuel source that doesn't require rare materials. Be it something like an Biological equivalent (since farming is basically infinite) or something that can use/convert more basic materials as fuel.

I mean, something that doesn't require fuel is good, but it'd be basically impossible. At our tech level, that is.

>>4883766
ANTIMATTER

>>4883769
The extremely unstable foul source that we know nothing of and has about as much consistence and reliability as an soviet reactor?

Great idea.

>>4883642
>Look into alternative fuel sources (slow & ineffective)

>>4883642
>Look into alternative fuel sources (slow & ineffective)

>>4883642
>Other (Write In)
I guess we could try doing a dyson array? The sun isn't gonna run out any time soon andwiith the current tech and industry it would only take a couple of decades if we focus on making one. It'd make more than enough power for the entire solar system, let alone Jaxt and 2 colonies
Though if the no megastructure thing is still in place them I guess
>Look into alternative fuel sources (slow & ineffective)

You've been wracking your head about the energy crisis recently. It's not going well. You've considered all the alternatives, crunched the numbers, ran the simulations. It's been five years since you started to move the factories and industry of your world to Schoon. While that is underway, you are still dealing with the looming problem of energy- of which you will be long dead before it is even a problem!

Even if you start to accept lower quality of life and a less industrialized culture, of such changes only the pure power of the Hegemony and Supreme Ruler could actually enforce; the numbers just don't add up. Wind and solar energies are too low impactful and expensive to set up. Biodiseal is more promising, as there are already several species of plants and, perhaps more encouragingly, seaweeds that could be used to fuel industry. However it is still a burnable fuel and will lead to more carbon emissions- still, with a strong enough biosphere to absorb it it shouldn't cause a net warming effect. Regardless, making these the standard across all of Jaxt and the outlying colonies will only increase your remaining store of nuclear energy by a few decades at most- and when those run out for a future generation, there will be no way to travel between worlds as easily again.

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Perhaps the stress of this impending doom helped to cause it, but you are currently noticing the whitening of your fingertips- normally an age-expression of a much older person. Perhaps your low-born genes are causing your premature aging.

You are interrupted in your revere by Bost, who you have not seen in a quite a while. You stare at each other for a moment, noticing the subtle wrinkles on his face. If anything, he should be the one feeling the effects of aging worse then you. By all statistical likelihood, that big heart and big body just can't hold out against time. He will die a decade before you do.

"Commander; I may have a solution to the future energy crisis." Bost then goes on to explain his concept; harvesting Caplit of the frozen algae-ice that covers most of the planet's inner ocean.

"First, we drop kinetic rods from orbit to crack the ice, then harvest and pull up the ice blocks. We allow the moon to freeze its opening back over, before moving to the next section for cracking. We can automate the ice-harvests; similar robots are already used by the JAS to move asteroids. Then, they will be fired via mass driver to Schoon- we can save energy and not use Star Dynamos here- they have no living passengers or need no special considerations. We'll aim them for the mountains, where in the heat of the Schoon's summer season it can get hot enough for ice to melt. We can double dip power here- harvesting the algae and hydroelectric dams to funnel the water into reserve pools to be used for industry. In some places on Caplit, the fossilized algae is so thick you can see it through the ice itself. This can be burnt as a fossil fuel on Schoon to generate most of its power, and keep our nuclear energy reserves to be used for farther away missions- refueling the interplanetary shuttles of Schoon and Jaxt with simple steam-powered electrical energy. Furthermore, presence of liquid water on Schoon will help regulate the planet's temperature and aid in future efforts to colonize it, if desired."

"Interesting idea. Have you told Maktana about this?"

"No- and we both know why. Now look, I respect him, and since... my father put him in charge of the colony, I must respect that too. But Maktana is very protective of the ecosystem of Caplit; despite his mind he has produced very few actual discoveries in his time. It's like he's dedicating all his genius and time to a pet project on the planet. But he has a duty to serve all Jaxtians, and namely, you. I already know he will decline the request, even if we proceed to minimize the damage to Caplit's ecosystem as much as possible. In this situation, your grace, you may have to just pull rank on him. Ultimately, it is your decision, but I strongly advise you to consider this."

>Enact Bost's Plan - And force the issue if necessary
>Protect Caplit's ecosystem and deny the plan; we'll find energy elsewhere
>Act in moderation; harvest some of the most rich ice while leaving the rest

>>4884579
>Act in moderation; harvest some of the most rich ice while leaving the rest

We can enact the plan in full force when Maktana is dead/the next Supreme ruler comes about. Hopefully he'll have done the research he needs to by then, and maybe we can shift the focus on Caplit towards actual colonization.

>>4884579
>Enact Bost's Plan - And force the issue if necessary
Turns out that Maktana was rather useless, good thing that we chose Qet over him.

>>4884579
This is quite the conundrum, but we have an idea. Maktana is going to know it one way or the other, but he's a smart one.

Of course, we should Act in Moderation, but before that, let's give him a chance. Ask Maktana if he can possibly find another solution to our problem. If he can, that's good, if he can't, then we'll have to act in moderation and harvest some of the most rich algae.

It's like that guy said, right? To achieve great things, two things are needed: a plan and not quite enough time. Let's give Maktana an chance to fix this.

>>4884587
This is honestly the best option imo. If anything it'll give Maktana an actual job besides "Study Caplit". He has studied it extensively, and really that's all, we know about Caplit and it's ecosystem, but how can we use it to benefit Jaxtians if we don't actually fucking use the planet. I'm going to +1 to make Maktana get off his ass and produce results otherwise we use the algae in moderation

>>4884587
pressuring Maktana with a deadline might make him think something up, right? Its surprising how much stuff was invented due to necessity.

deadlines often make you work better

>>4884579
>Protect Caplit's ecosystem and deny the plan; we'll find energy elsewhere

>>4884579
>Act in moderation; harvest some of the most rich ice while leaving the rest

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As the Supreme Ruler, you've gotten quite good at manipulating people. But manipulation isn't always bad; you manipulate people to improve your relations.

Every Supreme Ruler has their own style; and yours is soft. Not so much that you're a weak ruler, but that you give ground to others. Make a slightly unreasonable demand or misconception, just ever so much, and allow the other party to retaliate, and then you capitulate in the middle, right where you wanted them without sacrificing your authority and allowing them to believe they have defended themselves. It was a powerful tactic. You decide to do something similar with Maktana.

"Helper- create a video showcasing Bost's concept for ice-algae mining. Try to make it look environmentally friendly- while interspersing my greetings and my request at the end."

Because of the distance from Jaxt to Caplit, and the limitations of your lightspeed communications, real time conferencing is just not feasible. It takes an hour for your message to reach him, and it will take an hour for his to return. This is easier.

Helper constructs a video showcasing a cartoonish version of Caplit getting struck with iron rods from the sky, and little cartoon fish smile on as the ice above is cracked and taken away to a mass driver in the distance. That seems like a bit much; almost a parody of what you requested. Whatever. Send it along.

Almost exactly two hours later, you get a response. You can tell he's serious.

"Terrible idea, your Grace." Maktana begins his message with a rebuke. Good, he's already taken the bait. "Even if you only take the most rich ice; it will steralize the organisms beneath it. Even a astronauts boots striking the ice above can cause the sensitive algae lilies in some regions to release their spores decades early; this plan will kill untold life. You cannot allow it- even moreso, the amount of energy you'd get from fossilized, arctic algae would barely cover the cost of harvesting it!"

"Well then, Maktana." You reply, Maktana having sprung the trap. "You can see my predicament that these are the kinds of plans I have to work with. We need a real solution for the future energy crisis from the decline of nuclear fuels, else future generations will curse my name. I'm at the end of my tail here; perhaps you can share a superior solution?"

You wait. In barely two hours again, the reply comes. It's Maktana standing in a videoscoped view of the solar system, him gargantuan sized.

"We had access to the same education Qet! You old codger! Are you forgetting the basic rules of gravity?! VASS! The heaviest elements will form into planetoids closest to our star's accretion disk. Vass will have the most of the dense radioactivies by weight; uranium and plutonium. Vass is your vein in the earth- strike it!"

>What do you do?

>>4886241
And this is the kind of stuff i was talking about, pressure sometimes works.

Let's go send some probes down to Vass to search for that stuff. If we can find some Thorium, all the better, since it's much more effective and plentiful than Uranium. I mean, we can still use uranium, but thorium is better.

>>4886250
+1

>>4886250
+1ing this

>>4886250
+1

>>4886250
Support

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Corralling together your multi-year exploration and science budgets, you assign a few teams to explore Vass as safely as possible, and at the same time take a look at your solar system as a whole.

Asteroid mining has continuing at a considerable rate for all this time, but further and further asteroids have made easy harvesting slower. You have colonies on all the rocky bodies now, except Vass, and Jaxt itself is protected by your asteroid shield. Global cooling is occurring to keep your planet more habitable, but not great efforts have been taken yet to clean up the pollution.

As the first squads arrive nearby Vass, they can already tell that Maktana's hunch was correct. Radiation probes send by signals of detecting levels; an unmanned robot scoop a handful of dense stone and brings it back for examination; Thorium, tungsten, titanium, and yes uranium and plutonium are found in decent quantities on the planetoid. Thankfully, as Vass is tidally locked from being so close to the sun, you can keep your exploration to the safer cold side, but even so the intense radiation and electrical distortions will make the first Jaxtian miners on the planet face peril for sure. But the rewards will be well worth it.

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In the meantime; a smaller problem is distracting you. It's from Schoon.

Schoon as your expanding factory world has had more and workers and their support staff moving to it. However, it's slightly higher then normal gravity, as it is larger then Jaxt, is causing some problems. Your people find travel by swinging and climbing easier then walking most of the time; and your facilities are built underground to make use of that. But the gravity is throwing people off, causing work fatigue, and even a few have missed jumps causing them to fall and break a few bones or sprain something. Thankfully nobody has died, but industrial accidents are more common here then on your homeworld because of it. It may be time to invest in some technology. Helper makes a suggestion about cybernetic augmentations or technology; which reminds you of your own impending mortality and old age. It would be nice to not feel your bones and muscles get weaker and weaker.

>Invest in health & safety regulations and proof the Schoon plants for fall safety (Cheaper & Faster)
>Research cybernetic augmentations (expensive)

>>4887264
>Research cybernetic augmentations (expensive)
THE FLESH IS WEAK

>>4887264
I'd honestly prefer if we invested more in gene enhancement. The flesh is cool, we're a people of nature. I mean, i like cybernetics, but trying to go full mechanicus? I don't like it.

Also, i don't trust helper that much. Should we really give machines even more control over our society? To depend even more on technology? I don't want our monkes getting fried by a goddamn solar storm or EMP attakc.

>>4887279
But, adding to this suggestion to improve on our health itself through medicine rather than cybernetics, we should
>Invest in health & safety regulations and proof the Schoon plants for fall safety (Cheaper & Faster)
just for now so our people won't end up dying. It's a safe solution for now.

BUT, I do believe we should keep with the way of maintaining our physicality. I mean, don't we already use lots of gene stuff? Let's just improve our health. No fleshweaver tier horror, mind you, just treatments to make us generally healthier and stronger.

>>4887264

>Invest in additional athletic training for the Schoon-bound. Have contents. Reward winners with blue fruit and prestige. Monke rejects cybernetics.

>>4887264
>Research cybernetic augmentations (expensive)

This will be useful for more than just Schoon workers. Having the research for good cybernetics done lays the groundwork for all kinds of uses, including helping an aging Supreme stay physically capable for longer.

>>4887291
The problem with cybernetics is that they're just so damn easily turned into a problem. They can malfunction, they can be shut down, they need electricity, and even worse, imagine if someone were to mess up with them? Maybe the dubiously trustworthy AI?

The problem with cybernetics is that too easily they'll be turned against you. And if they don't, there's also the problem of people going full tech priest.

>>4887264
>Invest in health & safety regulations and proof the Schoon plants for fall safety (Cheaper & Faster)
The people of Schoons bodies will adapt over time, Helper has been pushing for a lot of robotics stuff lately, and Schoon isn't connected to the AI network, if anything goes awry then we won't be able to assist as fast as we would on the home world

>>4887279
So you'd space marines/custodes than skitarri?
Also
>Invest in health & safety regulations and proof the Schoon plants for fall safety (Cheaper & Faster)
This should have been put in place to begin with...
Seriously, this is so basic that it should have already been a thing

>>4887337
Eh..not so much space marines because the shit they have to go through is terrible, they're made to be walking tanks.

I just think that we should be investing in making our people healthier. Nothing to mess with the mind, just to make everything clearer, better. Basically, medicine.

>>4887264
>Research cybernetic augmentations (expensive)

>>4887264
>Invest in health & safety regulations and proof the Schoon plants for fall safety (Cheaper & Faster)

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You decide to approach the topic of injury and augmentation with a softer touch. Your science teams are put to work and soon find methods to improve physical health, safety, and performance without cybernetic implants; smart materials. With a careful mix of plastic, rubber, and other compounds an elastic arm brace can actually physically increase strength and gripping strength. Just a few months after its release, the strongest weightlifter in your society breaks the record for heaviest weight lifted by a few pounds, and the champion boxer also clocks in a record strong punch with a few newtons of force greater then before. These records are placed separate to the old ones, due to differences in equipment, as greatest unmodified or unaided categories will be important in the future as technology improves.

There is also an improvement in health technologies for other metals too; elastic copper can be used to create medical braces that ease pain and help with healing of injuries. The best part of these smart materials is that they can be used without power or computer guidance. Your scientists also say that this study is the first step to building powered exoskeletons and improved space suits.

But even with this, you still want to push cybernetic development; a way to replace damaged or missing body parts, moreso then before. And it's partially for a selfish reason. Your eyes. You are developing cataracts- and more importantly, your vision is just getting worse. The longer his life goes on, the longer Qet begins to question that he was ever chosen by Vantix at all. Why? Maktana and Bost both are aging more gracefully then him. Genetic modification is a young technology and something you'd like to investigate more; but it's already far too late for you.

Seething with jealousy- you can't stop yourself. You order Helper to design a pair of cybernetic eyes for you. It's a specialist thing at this point; the materials are expensive and rare, not something fit for mass production for many years...

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...But you get them. You can see again, finally! And in higher definition then ever before. Focusing your eyelids can help you zoom in, you have nightvision, and you can even take pictures. They don't go into your brain as memories or anything; there is no direct brain to machine interface. The concept was thrown around a hundred years ago during the birth of the AI revolution, but was never seriously considered.

This development takes five years.

Also at the end of this five years, you are greeted by a much older looking Maktana. He has something very special to tell you; he has finally finished his project. It is named "My Life's Work" and he has a special request. It is a scientific discovery that will rock the world, and perhaps, the preconceptions of every Jaxtian. However, he asks you for a special favor.

Maktana wants this announcement to be revealed to all colonies and cities at the same time, synchronized in a huge event. While the Jaxtians are a very scientific people, the hegemony cares about restricting information almost as much as sharing it. It's important for scientific finds to be released carefully- laypeople only need the basic details to sate their curiosity as to not spread disinformation. Technicians and lower level scientists are told more details in relation to their work, but not the big picture, not the implications. The Supreme Ruler is, of course, given the full picture but with possible projections and the implications of each discovery, and usually first, to see if the discovery should be published at all.

What Maktana is asking for is somewhat unprecedented, but could also provide a massive boost to your people as well as immortalizing him as a great scientist. You know the only reason he can ask you this is because you are old friends.

>Grant Maktana his request and share the discovery with everyone
>Force Maktana to publish the discovery normally and through the proper channels

>>4887814
We'll grant him his wish, but only if we get to first check it to see if there's nothing that'll, you know, be a problem. Less because of some 'i wanna see it first' and more of an 'We can't go into such an unprecedented event blindly'

I mean, i trust Maktana, but as a leader we should make sure that his life's work work end in chaos, you know what i mean? If it's a great discovery though, it absolutely deserves it.

>>4887814
>Grant Maktana his request and share the discovery with everyone

>>4887814
>Grant Maktana his request and share the discovery with everyone

>>4887814
>Grant Maktana his request and share the discovery with everyone

>>4888205
>Grant Maktana his request and share the discovery with everyone
>>4887857
I support you but lets risk it

>>4888269
Yeah, but we should see it first. Why shouldn't we? Maktana's work is important, but that doesn't mean we should just head in blindly. This is a one-of-a-kind announcement.

>>4888278
Inb4 rebellion and betrayal

>>4888383
Rebel who? A few nerds with some emergency pistols? Maybe 3D Printed guns? For what? A literal frozen sheet of ice and some research habitats? Against an entire fucking world worth of soldiers? It's not like they have anything to gain either, we're stuck in this system, and they need access to our manpower.

And considering Bost is alive, that's really not a good idea.

>>4888383
Pretty sure the risk here is less 'rebellion and betrayal', especially since we're on good terms, and more there's a chance the research isn't sound and it makes us look foolish for approving it ahead of time.

The payoff here is, assuming the research is sound, it's a huge morale boost and speeds up whatever he's doing