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This is an excellent let's play, really enjoying the worldbuilding that's going on from everyone in the thread and really enjoying the updates Mister Bates! I'd also like to say that the Star Wars short story was amazing Serf! Also this was a while ago now but the below comment got me thinking... Boksi posted:Hawaii definitely has some outside aid. I can buy them having the technical knowhow needed to design that ship, but the sheer amount of materials and highly-skilled labor needed to build it, especially this quickly and secretly, is just too much for such a small nation. That said, until we know more, there's nothing to be gained from antagonizing them so we should just congratulate them and try to step up our timetables for the lunar outpost. And maybe just perhaps investigate how this happened through, ah, unofficial channels. ~o0o~ [Transcription Log - PBS Channel 272 (Formerly BBC1), Parkinson Live from Television Centre, Union of South and Central London Soviet Socialist Republics. 17th November 1980]  Parkinson: To start us off tonight we have Comrade Edward Sallow, formerly of the University of Southern California and now Professor of Politics, Philosophy and Marxist Economics at University College London. Who has published a new book, The Last of the Billionaires. -Applause from the audience. Sallow: Thank you very much for having me comrades. (Transcribers note: Edward Sallow is known to the Committee of State Security, previously considered for approach prior to outbreak of world wide hostilities due to position within university infrastructure but was discounted due to high intelligence and moral flexibility as he was judged a high risk for Counter-HUMINT by United States Intelligence Services. See file SCHIX978639 for full profile and known information.) P: Thank you very much for being here Professor, and for agreeing to talk to us a bit about your fascinating new book which I must confess sometimes reads more like a thriller than a dry political theory text. - S. laughing politely. S. I think I should be thanking you, it's an honour to be here! And it is often the case when discussing figures who are, or were, larger than life that even the driest of texts cannot help but come alive, and for all their many and varied faults the Billionaires of the world were anything but dull. My book is in some respects a post-mortem of the class, a catalogue of what their influence was on the politics and society of the last few decades, as well as true an accounting, as I can, of how they reacted and adapted to the upheaval that has brought the world to its current state. For example I was lucky enough to interview by telephone one of the surviving Rockefeller's who has found themselves far more content as part of a farming cooperative in california than they ever did with all the wealth of midas at their fingertips. P: Well I'm sure a lot of our viewers can relate to a change in circumstances brought about in the last few years, though perhaps not quite so drastic a change! - Audience laughter. P: But of course you also talk about the remaining members of the Billionaire Class still present in the world? S: Yes. Despite the upheaval and chaos that swallowed the world a good number of the extremely wealthy managed to find their way to the various enclaves of capital in the world, such as Japan... P: And Hawaii? - silence for four seconds before S responds. S: And Hawaii, yes. P: Would it be fair to say that your book contains at least one fairly explosive claim regarding one of those Billionaire's who fled to Hawaii? S: Hardly anything so sensationalist as that I'm afraid. But I was able to piece together a few interesting bits of information and talk to some of my old countrymen now that North America is becoming a little less unstable and that led me to make some educated suppositions. P: Being that the reclusive, and it would be fair to say quite eccentric billionaire, Howard Hughes is not, as most have assumed, dead but is in fact alive in Hawaii and is likely to have a direct hand in the creation and management of the Hawaiian space program? S: Well now I'd hardly like to spoil the surprise for all your watchers who might want to read the boom themselves now would I? - scattered laughter from the audience. P: Having read it I can definitely say there are more than enough surprises to keep your readers on their toes, but surely you can share a little with us? S: Well seeing as you've asked so graciously. There has been a common belief the past ten years or so that Hughes died during the breakdown of order within the continental united states, a belief helped by his reclusiveness leading to numerous tabloid reports of his death or illness prior to 1969. When everything fell apart most people had little time to track the comings and goings of eccentric celebrities, even the hugely wealthy and powerful ones like Hughes. And indeed with the breakdown of order in Nevada even if anyone had felt the urge to check on his wellbeing they would have been hard pressed to do so given the violence occurring on the Las Vegas Strip and outlying regions. Indeed it has only been recently with the arrival of peacekeeping forces from California, the new California that is, that anyone has been able to check. My inquiries were largely fruitless, the hotel which Hughes had bought for himself having been first looted, then burnt down. But eventually I was able to find an ex-employee of the hotel who confirmed that Hughes had vacated the hotel within a few months of the war's beginning. From there the trail went cold, however I was able to discover several interesting coincidences. The first was that in the great pan-pacific exodus of early 1971, amidst the cruise liners and pleasure craft carrying millionaires, and the cargo ships crammed with refugees fleeing the chaos that had descended upon their homes towards the relative stability of the pacific, three cargo ships set sail, two from the Port of Los Angeles in California, one from the Port of Texas City. With the great help of the port authorities and their unions, and not a little stubborn doggedness, I was able to discern that all three cargo ships were all registered with various front companies, flying under flags of convenience. Unfortunately further investigation was all but impossible as the registries from that time are fragmentary at best, but I was able to confirm that all three ships contained workers, and their families, of Hughes various companies along with large amounts of equipment. Given that the launch of the Queen Lili'uokalani in 1978 was such a shocking achievement for such a small and new nation, without real expertise in aerospace engineering, let alone spaceflight, it seemed logical there was some connection between the two. My theory, and one that I give more detail on in the book, is that Hughes had anticipated the escalation of the war almost as soon as it began and to paraphrase decided to get out of dodge as quickly as possible as in a full scale nuclear exchange, which at the time seemed like a likely outcome, Las Vegas was almost certain to be a target. However with full scale nuclear war avoided, and the collapse of the United States he relocated to the one place he felt might be safe and which might allow him to continue his interests. P: It is a rather fascinating series of events you lay out in the book, but do you seriously think that the launch of the Queen Lili (Transcription note; common anglophone shortening of the name of the ship.) can be attributed to someone, who if the pre-war press is to be believed, was a reclusive shut-in that had almost wholly hidden himself away from the world? S: That is my theory, yes. Do not forget that Hughes was always fascinated with aerospace engineering, and was famous for his monomaniacal focus on technology or ideas upon which he became fixated. Given the public announcements regarding the Trans-Newtonian materials and their potential properties it seems highly likely to me, having studied the man, that he would have attached the same focus he did to his earlier aeronautical exploits to the new drive towards space and bent his still considerable resources and intellect towards it. Which would surely have helped the Hawaiian program. There even exists a small possibility that Hughes may well have had a head start. P: A head start? S: Yes, he was well connected politically and very well embedded through his companies in the industrial military complex that existed within the United States. It would certainly explain his decision to evacuate his employees prior to the announcement of the new materials. After all there doesn't seem to be that many other reasons for an aerospace and electronics R&D company stranded in the midst of the pacific ocean when the world was falling apart around him. P: Now that is quite a, may I say, explosive theory! - S. laughs S: Now I say it aloud I suppose it's hard to disagree. P: You do have other evidence within the book, but notably the Hawaiian government has denied that they have any such citizen present within the Kingdom. S: Well they would, wouldn't they. It's hardly going to play well with the Socialist states of the world for the only other space programme to be run by a member of the capitalist elite! But I think there is enough circumstantial evidence to at least pose the theory, even if for the sake of legal fact Howard Hughes is officially missing and considered dead. P: You also delve quite deeply into how the Billionaire class likely contributed directly to the fall of many of the capitalist nations in the second... [Relevant Transcript Section ends.]  SIGINT Intercept Source: Canon Inc. Tokyo, Japan. Presumed picture of Hawaiian experimentation with Trans-Newtonian Cryogenic transport pods. Examination shows significant differences between standard COMINTERN Cryo pods, but focus and function of changes unknown due to low resolution of image. File Note - USERID 09752: Request for archives to cross reference with known subjects of interest. Something about the face seems familiar.
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Nov 24, 2020 22:25
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Sorry to hear you've gotten sick, hopefully it passes quickly! As for the votes: The Awake: B The Asleep: D The Site: C The Discord: Y
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Jan 3, 2021 15:47
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Grizzwold posted:This, combined with the vast majority of the abductees being apparently military personnel, gives me the unsettling suspicion that the aliens at this facility were studying our militaries with the goal of imitating them for some reason. I mean hopefully we'll be able to tell when the aliens lost control of the facility when we get a closer look at the bodies and damage. If it lines up with Rosswell then it points to potentially studying our militaries and possibly measuring the advancement of our military technology. If it predates Rosswell, if perhaps it actually lines up with the end of WW1 and the disappearance of the Cyclops then that opens up some very interesting questions. Perhaps it wasn't just to study us, but rather it was to infiltrate human militaries for their own purposes. Maybe to study us in detail, maybe to help guide us towards specific end goals known only to the aliens. After all if a couple of months after the Cyclops disappeared it's crew was found on an isolated island off the coast of South America it probably wouldn't have been much commented on.
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Feb 14, 2021 14:09
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That smirk regarding having lots of TNE is making me suspicious. Either Japan is so bereft of normal resources (coal, iron, etc.) because they're sitting on the motherlode of TNEs instead, or they've been able to secure additional sources for those materials somehow. Either way it would behoove us to investigate further before we agree to anything. After all Japan going into space is not the end of the world as long as we ensure they treat their workers fairly and do not establish new oppressive regimes amongst the stars. But if they're being backed by Gladio or other capitalist/imperialist power structures in secret and have long term plans to bring down the new socialist future we are embarked upon then we must stop them. Even if it may eventually mean War.
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Feb 16, 2021 12:04
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Asterite34 posted:...they HAVE our schematics. Probably not enough detail to build a working ship, but they wouldn't be starting from zero. Buying some from us would just let them take out the costly guesswork on some of the more esoteric principles. This is a concern to me. It implies that they have penetrated our design and construction programs or have access to information from groups who have. Along with the substantial TNEs they supposedly have, and possible GLADIO links, I believe it would be wise to move cautiously with them and also take steps to both ascertain the degree to which our operational security has been compromised and take steps to not only close those holes but focus our own intelligence apparatus on Japan. To those ends the Trade Unions Congresses of England puts forward the following proposals: Comintern-Japanese Negotiation Strategy Proposal The Comintern will engage in negotiations with Japan contingent on the following: -Codified agreement that all colonies founded under either the auspices of the United Nations or Japan will have the full rights to Self-Determination that the Comintern have codified. With attendant economic penalty clauses up to and including full embargo of all Japanese posessions by Comintern shipping. -Recognition of the indigenous peoples of Hokkaido and the Ryukus, with a path towards decolonisation if the local populations wish it. -Formal recognition and apologies of the war crimes committed by the Imperial Japanese regime and reperations to those living victims of practices such the use of comfort women and forced labour. -The suggestion that the Emperor might recognise the dawning of a new era and abdicate in favour of his son. (We want to push them, but being diplomatic about it means they don't have to outright refuse in order to save face, and in the end this can be used as a bargaining chip to get things we actually care about). -Commitment to retaining and strengthening democratic processes within Japan, with neutral electrion observers. -Agreement from both the UN and Japan to share survey data relating to astrological phenomena and dangers discovered within and without the solar system. -An extension of all treaties regarding ocean travel to space travel, prior to a full international summit to update and modernise said laws and agreements. (In effect all the stuff about the requirement to answer distress signals). -A limit to their military shipyard capacity of 1/3rd the number of Comintern military slipways, and half maximum tonnage, for any shipyards they attempt to build in the future. -A tacit agreement to develop no offensive weaponry for space, and to notify the comintern of any weaponry fitted to their ships. In addition they must agree that any ships bearing weapons must not go dark (i.e. keep their active sensors on, keep their transponders on, so we can always keep track of them.), to which the Comintern will also agree on the basis that if we know where they are we can at least make it harder for them to Pearl Harbour us. In return the Comintern will: -Provide Japan access to build the ships requested, but with a 30% materials fee for the use of the slipways. As Comintern built ships we will require a team of Comintern representatives be posted aboard each ship to ensure they are not used in ways that run counter to Comintern law. I.e. no using the freighters to dump indentured servants on airless rocks and making them work to pay off their passage fee. -Provide limited association membership to the Comintern. Granting Japan a non-voting delegate with access to all public meetings (but nothing more, so the more sensitive stuff in closed council sessions will remain secret.) -Formation of a limited mutual defence treaty against any potential third party aggressor. The aim of this is to see what they will agree to, set minimum standards for self-determination amongst the stars that match our own and limit the chances that this will lead to a new expansionist Japanese state by limiting their initial military capabilities. They'll no doubt circumvent these restrictions, but it will at least give us plenty of notice. And as others have said, unless we're willing to commit to yet more war (and potentially more nuclear devastation) Japan is going to the stars eventually. Better to get them up there on our terms and make it easy to keep an eye on them than just let them do it on their own. Thus I'd say these would be good starting off points for negotiation, to be hardened on, or relaxed based on how those negotiations go. Secondly, in closed council the Trades Union Congresses of England propose: Operation Tokyo Bay Fortress -Copies of the plans the Japanese showed us should be acquired and thorough investigations carried out to identify the source of the leaks. -Additional security measures regarding R&D, Ship Design, and construction should be immediately put in place. -As part of this it is suggested that revisions to the ship designs currently under consideration be made, however multiple different plans for said revisions should be provided to different departments/teams for review. When the Japanese put down the keels on their new ships we will request copies of the plans they have as a means to identify those leaking information and if possible turn them into double agents. -When next practicable one of the Cominterns Geo-survey ships should perform a series of "sensor tests", concentrating on Japan and the ports of the pacific and other neutral states. Ideally this should be done periodically over the course of a month to identify large concentrations of TNEs either awaiting shipment or warehoused in Japan and across the world. If this is done over time this may be able to provide enough data to give an idea if there are additional sources of TNEs flowing into Japan from other states, and especially identify any TNEs being shipped from Comintern member states without their, or our, knowledge. -Intelligence agencies aligned with the Comintern should be directed to attempt far closer examination of Japanese business, government, and military SIGINT and HUMINT. Along with developing new sources of each. -As part of the above, if the Comintern does not yet have an official office of Naval Intelligence it is proposed that this be created and tasked with coordinating with member state intelligence organisations and where possible cultivating our own capabilities. -Our overall aim is to penetrate as much as possible the Japanese government in order to both identify our own security weakpoints, but also to gain forewarning on Japanese intentions and the state of both their TNE supply, industry and R&D. We would also propose that the Japanese Socialist and Communist movements be examined and figures identified who are capable of uniting the disparate factions contained therein. They should then be provided with overt recognition and support from sister parties across the Comintern to provide legitimacy and additional impetus to their efforts to unify the left. If deemed helpful this can even extend to Comintern support, perhaps even much publicised visits to Luna, Ascension Island, or our orbital facilities. In addition however they should be provided with covert administrative, financial and organisational support. Our aim should be to provide the Japanese left with a united front, from which they can ideally win elections and move Japan towards becoming a full Comintern member. But if not to at least provide a strong internal counter to conservative and reactionary forces within Japan to limit the chances of them falling back into bad habits. BwenGun fucked around with this message at 13:41 on Feb 18, 2021 |
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Feb 18, 2021 13:38
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Asterite34 posted:To that end, I submit for consideration the Mutual Outer Space Expansion Statement, or MOSES (chosen mostly for the acronym) It would certainly go some way to making the Japanese and other neutral powers less nervous about Comintern dominance due to an early start. However my main concern is tactical. As it will make it rather hard to defend Comintern holdings in the event of a hot war if every colony needs a heavy garrison because they share their planet/moon/asteroid with another potentially hostile power. Not to mention that it will provide them with more intelligence regarding our fleet strengths and movements when such things become relevant. My suggestion would be to open Luna for such co-habitation, but allow the powers who settle a world first to stake sole control by means of an agreed upon sum of infrastructure and resources paid to the other powers to make up for the loss. That way we can potentially claim mars, and have it secured in the long term. And if we ever leave the solar system it will allow us to scale the measures up so that we can retain control of entire systems in order to secure a modicum of security for our future colonies. The downside is that the Japanese may be able to do the same. But honestly if they don't immediately they'll likely break the accord anyway if strategic circumstances change enough for them to value space they can call truly call their own and effectively protect. PurpleXVI posted:I feel like what this mainly needs is a commitment from Japan to honour some form of Universal Bill of Rights, just so it doesn't feel like we're legitimizing an inhumane government and hanging their citizens out to dry, but actually holding them to account for how they treat their citizens. Not a bad shout, though they may be a little sceptical of such whilst our members nations include the bastions of Human Rights such as the Soviet Union and People's Republic of China. Though perhaps we should modify things slightly so that access to space, and the colonisation of such, requires certain basic human rights be present. That would then constrain them, and also retroavtively promote better rights within the Comintern's member states as well?
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Feb 18, 2021 22:16
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Telsa Cola posted:Both. Colonies draw from the same mineral pool when on the same body and military units at the same body can attack one another (Im pretty sure, same body colonies get very funky, but thats mostly for same faction colonies). Yeah, this is one of my big concerns. Say we have a planet designated as a naval base, with fuel, missiles, maintenance facilities etc. vital for the easy operation of a fleet. But another nation sets up a colony on the same planet and prior to war manages to get a large military force with significant surface to orbit weapon platforms. At that point you have no choice to commit to a large ground troop offensive to knock them out. During which time the fleet is effectively screwed for resupply.
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Feb 19, 2021 00:07
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TDS posted:Yeah, mechanically ground units with surface to orbit weapons are very powerful. They get bonus range compared to ship-based ones. A planet or moon with a decent STO garrison is a tough nut to crack, especially if you care about the world and its population and don't want to shoot tons of nukes down the gravity well. At that point your only option is dedicated dropships rushing in, because normal troop transports will get mauled before they finish unloading. (or blockading them from out of range/ignoring them) Its one of the things I'd most like tweaked with Aurora atm. STO weapons are really cool, and thematically make sense but because the game doesn't track the horizon on planets or deal with combat in a positional way they're far too powerful and easy to abuse. Even adding a minimum number of STOs needed for low orbit control (based on the size of the body) would help balance it out a fair amount. As that way you could do limited orbital bombardment to reduce a garrisons STO numbers enough to attempt ground force landings and resupply. Asterite34 posted:Okay, so it turns out it is kind of a nightmare to have a hostile colony share a planet with you, as they can turn the place into an unassailable fortress with ease and that kinda fucks you if you need access to it. That would be up to Mr Bates as whilst smuggling AKs to our oppressed brethren is fairly easy, motorised high energy laser platforms are a bit harder to hide in amongst a shipment of nutrient bars!
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Feb 19, 2021 00:48
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PurpleXVI posted:This whole Moon business seems spooky, perhaps the Moon is haunted. I suggest we send some Comintern troops, supported by a special squad of combat exorcists, to help our lunar comrades exorcist the ghost... of capitalism. Maybe offer the Papacy a TNE, combat capable, Popemobile if they're willing to send one of their more experienced of Battle clerics to carry out the exorcisms?
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Feb 22, 2021 13:04
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Mister Bates posted:She forces a smile. "Director Hughes, I presume? Or may I call you Howard?"  I was hoping that mad old bastard was still kicking, but this is better than I was expecting.
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Aug 15, 2021 15:11
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Obvious answer would be to give them access to smaller sites/caches of tech, along with a series of real Archoelogists/Computing specialists as minders, as some trial runs. Let them figure out safe and non-destructive ways of extracting info and carrying out their research. Then once they've proven they're not complete liabilities we let them tackle what we think are the biggest and most important sites on mars. Also might be a good idea to make sure they have a security detachment outside their chain of command who can keep an eye on the psychadelics storeroom and put a couple of rounds into the back of the head of anyone who starts drawing pentagrams chanting in strange daemonic languages.
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Oct 4, 2021 10:56
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ThatBasqueGuy posted:Hawaii is getting seafloor salvage of other alien craft heard it here first folks I mean it's definitely a non-zero chance. Given they had access to the guys who'd been studying the Roswell craft it's possible they knew there were other craft that crashed in a similar time frame and possibly even what segment of the globe was likely to have been the crashsite. If the majority of it contained a portion of the Pacific they would be perfectly placed to find and salvage it. Mister Bates posted:A geological sensor pass by CSV Skarbnik reveals a mass of refined Trans-Newtonian materials in the ship's hold, which would be consistent with its stated role as a mining ship. Out of interest is there any way to guage the size of the TN material in the ships hold?
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Feb 3, 2022 18:34
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thatbastardken posted:common passport, common currency, put all the sports teams in the same leagues, expand eurovison to cover the whole comminterp. Request that Japan be allowed to compete, because who here doesn't want to see TN-powered Gundam mechs doing a power-metal duet whilst hovering over the audience.
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Apr 27, 2022 12:50
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Innocent_Bystander posted:We should move all the psychic nonsense to the moon where it can get a lunacy bonus. Make sure they're on the top floor of the university building, the Lun-attic.
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Apr 28, 2022 09:54
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Hostergaard posted:And finally, Redeye Flight made me aware that project sword and shield is feasible for Mars too, so that is something to consider. To qoute "[take] the entire moon of Phobos and carving it into a defense station shaped like Karl Marx's head that vaporizes threats with its laser eyes." Which is something I can only aprove of. Lets give the alien menace a phobia of Phobos! The only way this could be better is if we were able to tow asteroids into orbit so that we could have a whole constellation of Communist/Socialist Hero heads ready and waiting with laser eyes and gaus cannon hair, and box launcher missile moustaches ready to educate the alien aggressors on the nature of the workers power.
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Jun 27, 2022 18:24
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