Pretty sure this will be a bottom post. Ah well, hopefully people will notice the update.
Election bill:
Party Choice
First choice: Hawk
Second Choice: Dove
I'm a hawkcore loyalist! I never thought I'd support Dove, but it seems that the Albatross and the Falcon are showing their true feelings! We shall not waver in our determination! Hawk is the way to go! Let us claw a piece of Gurite territory for fatherland!
The correct term is our
featherland!
First choice: Albatros
Second choice: Falcon
I believe the Falcon Front has the best foreign policy (neither calling the wrath of the Gurite upon us nor invading someone only because they're freightened by our expansion).
But their domestic policy
.
I have succeeded in making every party imperfect for most people!
A great day for realism!
Election bill:
Party Choice
First choice: Dove
Second Choice: Allbatross
There is much good I see in the ideas of the Falcon's, but ultimately I believe the Dove's and the Albatross are the way of the future. My constituents favor keeping the government of old, but would not be overtly opposed to this new system that the Albatross alliance suggests. In regards to domestic policy the Dove's are most in line with our feelings, but we definitely favor the Albatross stance of not provoking the Fallen Empire. There are far better places to expand and if our rivals wish to be the ones to bring on the wrath of that old empire, so be it.
Though not an issue spoken of much in the election we favor removing the Neo-Bird Person Front from the listing of terrorist organizations. Bird people and Neo-Bird People are equally responsible for the recent violence and we must not allow ourselves to be afraid of the future - to speak simply the Neo-Bird Person race is the future. They are stronger and more fertile. We unlocked the secrets of our DNA for a reason - to advance our species - Neo-Bird People are the first step in that advancement. Let us embrace them.
I'm sort of disappointed with the whole eventline, after the events the Neo-Bird people were just about 10 POPs, mostly on the same planet, that were essentially content despite being a gene enhanced and xenophobic offshot
. I kind of wished it'd turn into a cascading series of conflicts until civil war broke out.
Maybe it'd been more impressive if it had hit sooner and I had felt compelled to use them as colonists.
I did consider making the genetic advance of Bird People a political debate, but it seemed pretty lackluster with just one gene point to work with. Maybe at some later point.
First Choice: Dove
Second Choice: Hawk
We will not let our beautiful poimniocracy be destroyed by those radicals!
I've no idea what that word means and the dictionary isn't helping, but at least YouTube is providing some
decent beats.
First Choice: Dove.
Second Choice: Hawk.
The Albatross and Falcon can't be trusted with their planned reforms of the system. They are, at heart, revolutionaries; and the Avarium has grown too large to give support to the juvenile fantasies of revolutionaries.
One could argue that they are just unaffiliated with the historical background of the Aviarium and wish for better governments for
all species in the new galaxy-spanning republic!
Have I mentioned that I love your AAR and most of the stuff you do on the forums in general?
Please, give demographics statistics like in the 2280-2310 update at the end of the upcoming update (only sreenshots, without discriptions of races). It would be interesting
Okay!
Except I'll also give a short description/background of new species and developments, because I love that stuff. However, the only way to fit any of this is in an intermission between regular updates, because this chapter is way too long already and I had to cut some images as-is.
Just found this and I say I enjoy it! Might as well take part.
Election Bill:
First Choice:
Hawk
Second Choice:
Falcon
When nothing's perfect, I'll take what I can get. My perfect solution (if all the problem's of governance were this humble citizen's to solve) Would be the opposite of expansion. The Aviarium is no longer the Bird Person's to rule. To keep our traditions and culture we must leave these other species alone, and only govern ourselves. Otherwise we shall inevitably be transformed.
You vote Hawk... but for reasons unknown, I suspect you may be a Dove sympathizer
.
Also, there will be no pacifism! It is my democratic duty to autocratically not make that an option. It's unconstitutional or something.
This seems like it will be a very contentious election. It seems like we will likely have some form of coalition government. My initial estimate is that Dove, Hawk, and Albatross all gathered around the same amount of votes. I'm not going to do further research on the possible coalitions because I don't want to spoil the eventual election post from Yenzen.
It was quite contentious in two ways; first in in that the largest party did not become the ruling party, but this isn't the first time, and second both ruling parties were equally large - something my model up until now didn't quite prepare for!
Dove should win because D comes before H,F, and A
.
While I can't fault your flawless logic, I'll have to go ahead with my flawed rules since we've used them up until now.
General elections of 2330
The general election of 2330 marked the first time in hundreds of years where four parties had made it into the Murmuration.
- With 33% (6/18) votes, the
Albatross Alliance became the largest party and gained 333 mandates.
- The two 28% each (5/18) the
Dove and
Hawk Lobby both secured 278 mandates.
- With 11% of the vote, the
Falcon Front barely passed the threshold into the Murmuration and secured 111 mandates.
As the largest party, the Albatross Alliance first tried to establish a coalition government, but with a third of the votes supporting a union with each party, and with no party favoring them as alliance partner, it had to give up.
Next the Dove and Hawk Lobby each tried to find a government partner, and with each having a majority for coalition with each another (both 80%, 4/5), formed a Hawk/Dove Red-Blue coalition government. As both parties were equally large they agreed to split the cabinet in half and rotate the position of Prime Murmurator every 5th year. Government policies and goals would necessarily be one of grand compromise:
- Orbital bombing was left in the middle ground at limited.
- the Dove lobby would permit unlimited native interference.
- The Hawk lobby would permit research into furthering AI.
In terms of foreign policy, one cannot 'half declare war' and so the parties who had campaigned as the guardians of the martial democracy decided to attack both the Gurites
and the Guma and their federation in their time.
The Albatross Alliance leadership, being blamed for the loss of their majority due to promoting a completely non-military government, were ousted and the party policy dropped supporting a transition to a Democratic Utopia.
The Falcon Front however perceived their entry into the Murmuration as there being some support for their way of things and vowed to keep advocating for a transition to an Ordered Stratocracy, should they ever achieve a pure majority.
2330-2055: Chapter 7 - By the Light of Their Tachyon Lances
To ease the rather tumultuous marriage of the two former arch-enemies, they started with making changes they could both agree on: No more genetic enhancement of leaders, natural talent and hard work would be the only way forward.
Massive resources were poured into gradual improvement of the fleet and preparations for war with the Gurites and for colonization of their eastern territory.
The name of the new sector to the east of the Gurites came quite naturally.
Meanwhile, another separatist local of Sanctuary was elected as the Lady protector while Tan J'Dallot retired to govern the Othari-Guma Sector.
Note, Wacegis and the local enlightened Jogollwa of Holden are not the same smugslugs. These are Sancturary smugslugs.
Another Wacegi, Vir J'Khanna was elected in 2336...
There was some suspicion that the citizens of the Aviarium were using the Lord/Lady Protector elections as sort of a protest or troll vote, and this had left the position in rather low regard.
When news of a dangerous Asteroid on a collision course with one of the new planets in the Goodneighbor sector arrived, the united fleet was quickly moved to deal with this new threat.
What do you mean "overkill?"
And while they were down there anyway, the war against the Gurites was declared. For too long had they arrogantly dictated the the Aviarium keep their distance, while they themselves had stagnated and never made use of their territory and ruled their people pretending it was still the year -200.000. Maybe their warships and buildings were more advanced,
but they didn't even know how they worked anymore.
Time to ironically bring them forward into the modern world.
The plan was to attack their prime home system directly in the hopes that they would have jumped out, and then jump back to engage in close combat with the Aviarium fleet. The fleet would remain united at all times, considering the power the Gurites had in their long range weapons (The Aviarium had, at best, large plasma cannons with 2/3 the range)
Initially the assault was a success as a defending fleet fell to the Aviarium fleet... once the ships managed to close the distance anyway.
However, The problems escalated as the united fleet moved closer to the ring world, and the great advantage of the range of the Gurite Tachyon lances became apparent.
The corvettes and destroyers suffered the most, and while most Gurite fleets were sunk, including all of their screening destroyers, it became clear that the Aviarium fleet had sustained too much damage and lost its screens to continue. A retreat was called before the battleships and remaining cruisers were lost to attrition warfare.
Yes, I should have retreated sooner, but it took like two weeks from the initial success to turn into a disaster as the destroyers and corvettes spread out everywhere.
There was no time to despair however, the numbers revealed two things:
- The Gurites no longer had any smaller escort ships, meaning that their remaining naval strength was made up solely of about a dozen battleships.
- The primary advantage that they had against the Aviarium was range. They slaughtered the Aviarium screens as they tried to close the gap and even Battleships and Inferno cruisers had a hard time moving in to fire.
What remained of the Gurite fleet.
While Kinetic batteries and artillery was being researched, there was no time to employ them. Instead, production of new screen ships was turned up to full and surviving crew salvaged from life pods unto the battleships were quickly put to work in new ships.
While it might seem like madness to replace the screens that had proved of little use against the tachyon lances, there was a plan to it all:
The Gurites would be denied their ability to shoot from afar before the screens could close the gap. They thought the Aviarium fleet was a dead bird on the run and they thought their psi jump drives superior in the ability to catch them.
Maybe their psi jump drives *were* faster over large distances, but they would never catch the Aviarium fleet while they made one hyperlane jump then another, and another and another... And the Gurites were too proud to give up the hunt.
Over a year they hunted the Aviarium fleet all the way to Aetheria, then all the way to Sanctum, while the shipyards went into overtime churning out corvettes and destroyers.
Then the plan finally kicked in
When the Aviarium fleet hyperjumped directly to the west, the Gurites perceived it as cowardice and followed.
Then they regretted it.
Denied the ability to keep the Aviarium plasma cannons and mass drivers at a distance, the Pebbles, Hales, Halestorms finally were able to join the longer ranged ships in pummeling the Gurite battleships.
And along with the ships of the allied fleets, pummel them they did. While most credit belonged to Plume of Cyan, a Bird Person with a rather questionable name also managed to make a name for himself.
And what a name that was...
I won't bore you all with the details of the hunt of the remaining hunt and destruction of the surviving 8 Gurite battleships, so let's skip to this part.
It was only a matter of time before the arrogant Gurites surrendered.
The main question was what to do with them in the aftermath, the inclusion of the Hathgumm (which I've taken to call Guma previously/unconsciously due to the name of their empire) had been a mixed success due to 50-70% of the populating being fanatically xenophonic
meanie heads (what am I, 6?) mongrels (no, offensive to some of our mammalian populations), Jerks.
The Gurites were 125 standard pops of pure unadulterated fanatical xenophobia and nothing else.
Now, their lesser ring system (with only one functional segment) was released as an independent faction in order to appease the Fex'Klanga, this "Gurite Galactic League" was far more... reasonable in their diplomacy and agreed to join the Aviarium Continuum as a Client Republic. In exchange they were allowed to administrate The Beacon of Infinity.
Worry not about the colonizeable planets, thanks to border pressure of the increasing amount of colonies nearby, the Aviarium eventually encroached on the Gurite borders and colonized them.
As a Client Republic they would, unlike Sectors or even Autonomous Republics, be allowed to handle all of their internal affairs and the Aviarium would only take charge of external diplomacy. They would also elect their own leaders, rather than have governors replaced from the central government.
I'd really like it if democracies had governors replaced by elections from among the races living on the surface (provided said race is allowed to be leaders of course). Ah well.
Perhaps the war had jump-started the logical centers of the Bird Person brains, or perhaps the trolls had simply gotten too lazy to vote, but a somewhat sensible leader was picked in the 2340 Lord/Lady protector elections... With some concerns regarding his long-term commitment.
I mean, I'm sure he's competent, but maybe a little.. crispy?
It didn't last very long, in 2346 they re-elected the Wecegi Vir J'Khanna when he died a year into his second term.
Even the underground Tendrakkians (who everyone had kind of... forgotten about, to be honest) sent a celebratory gift.
Oh right, they still exist! This means they're forgiven for the little outbursts earlier.
Stone Age people on New Birnathia (named after the initial settlers, who were ironically moving out) also heard about the Aviarium victory. They didn't know much about what that meant, or if the stars weren't really just glued on to a huge dome in the sky, but they knew that aliens were really cool and that was good enough for them.
The technology to colonize tomb world soon became available. While no biological creatures of the Aviarium could possibly handle the climate (with the possible exception of the starborn Rontor, with 25% starborn base, +10% from base tech, +5% from buildings, +5% from a frontier clinic... that might actually have worked in hindsight)... the first droid colony ships were soon sent. These planets could incidentally be easily populated by more droids due to a huge energy surplus as the fleet would take some years to rebuild.
The only annoyance is that sectors don't build droids themselves.
While some planets had long had 1-8 droids, this would be the first time where droids made up the only citizens.
Speaking of rebuilding the fleet, the fleet was progressively rebuilt on a new doctrine of a more top-heavy build. There was no need for 10-15 corvettes for every battleships. Meanwhile, every battleship except the close-quarter ArchNemesis were outfitted either with Kinetic Batteries (-->artillery) or Tachyon Lances (which were under development following analyzing the debris left behind by the Gurites).
Technology also took a turn in a rather controversial direction, but it was argued by the Dove Lobby that it was necessary to speed up research, as well as to unlock more efficient combat computers.
The new territory turned out a playground for the Fellnoll scientist Nohell to research a bunch of anomalies, churning out such things as jewelry worth an entire month's income of the entire Aviarium, useless "advanced ships" from derelict shipyards and finishing the Mass Extinction Through the Ages eventline to gain an entire week of research points!
Is this image unnecessarily large? Yes it is. Could I have done it in seperate images? Also yes. Wouldn't it have taken less work? Yes it would. Am I still doing it this way? Yes I am. Is this overdoing questionanswers? Yes it is.
In 2350, the fleet had been rebuilt, equipped with new long-range tachyon lances and kinetic artillery, and was ready to take on the Guma and their federation mates. Sadly the costs wouldn't allow the Aviarium to take them out entirely, and they had to appease the Valdari by releasing a Guma state, but this was a start.
The fleet was split in two: The 1st Grand Fleet to challenge the northwestern members and the 2nd Grand Fleet to focus on the Guma.
The first real battle battle of the war happened in the Rongo system of the Larongo Star Dominion with the locals. They fought... well, bravely.
You show them... Shang Bang Heel!
During the war, a new Lady Protector was elected. Finally people had once again selected someone who didn't want to rip the Aviarium apart from the inside.
The Guma also mounted a courageous defense to gain a vital moral victory.
A screenshot of the result wasn't saved, but spoilers: They didn't win. Impressive fleet size, given the few planets they had though.
In the Odlemon system, a minor brawl turned into a regular tussle as Aviarium Allies/vassals and Star Pact members started to pile up.
The combat screen fails to account for the Aviarium side's allies, look at damage done. This was a major victory.
In the Beta Corvi system, a Yalon Combine fleet had gone for a deep strike while the Aviarium fleet was otherwise busy taking planets in the north. A medium sized fleet was sent from the 2nd Grand fleet from the Guma territories to deal with it.
Sensing that their fleet was falling apart, the Kraxroz Empire and United Ess'Jaggon (they're situated directly in the far west and west respectively), forming the Star Axis, declared war on the Guma's Star Pact. Needless to say, the other members suddenly lost all interest in helping the Guma. The new Guma government was... a bit heavily inspired by the Valdari, but they would have to do.
Strangely, the Valdari (who "released" them initially) are a Neural Network, how'd this happen?
Meanwhile, at home, the only planetary nukes going off were the ones planted there in advance.
Okay, now cut the red wire... What do you mean Bhenn'Thell have different colour percep...-
On one of the new Tomb-Droid planets... with every building razed. Everyone dead. A desolate wasteland. Was a single intact structure - a working particle accelerator.
"Yeah we want to turn this thing on. This is a good idea."
The droids on another tomb planet were getting upset about... the radiation?
But you don't even have happiness. And you're entirely mechanical. Do they mess with your processors? ... Actually, that makes sense.
They were also becoming quite peace loving on the of the other tomb planets.
I don't even...
End of chapter 7
A new election is underway, see appendix 2. There will be an out-of-update appendix about the new naval designs and population statistics during the election.
Appendix 1: Author commentary
(warning, rant incoming)
- I want to try the Asimov Beta. I wonder if this will mess up anything?
- As you may be able to tell, this AAR is beyond the halfway point. The Aviarium Continuum can beat any remaining factions by their lonesome and is about 2/3's of the way to domination victory. The Aviarium has already beaten a fallen empire.
Part of the reason for this rapid expansion is how bad the AI was at colonizing the area around the Coreward and Eastcore sectors, combined with the foolish non-random distribution of empires and the well-timed war with the Othari, leaving the Aviarium quite far ahead since the mid game.
Before the end I'd like to face an end-game crisis and maybe gain dominance victory so the Aviarium might be able to show up as a fallen empire later. I'm not sure how much of a boring slug-fest getting to a domination victory will be, and overall the goal will also be to end the game properly, so a domination victory may be skipped or I may make an ending after a timeskip.
Once this is done (I predict 2-3 more regular chapters, but who knows?) I would like to do an Asimov (or wait for Heinlein) AAR centered around a radically different faction, in a world where every starting AI is an advanced AI start and aggressive. I'd also like it to be mildly interactive like this one, as you people have given me quite a bit of fun playing, often electing parties with policies and goals that I didn't personally agree with at the time!
Overall, the elections have been largely unpredictable for me and this meant that I was constantly checking and plotting how the hell to actually pull off the different policies. It became a game unto itself. I also liked, looking at the voting statistics I've saved, to see how people have voted. Analyzing it seems to indicate that 75% have been jumping from party to party according to their plans or maybe because people just wanted a change, while the remaining 25% quite adamantly stuck with the same parties.
Appendix 2 - Subjects for the 2355 general elections.
Synths!
The technology to advance the droids to synths is well underway, but this has become a major point of friction in the Hawk-Dove coalition which had otherwise found a strange harmony in the past 25 years.
With the involvement of the Falcon Front and Albatross Alliance, the arguments essentially boil down to these views:
Hawk Lobby: Researching synths only to keep them as servants would be unusually cruel and pointless and the we do not support this. Rather, while sentient AI is already a thing, it should be reserved for helping the crews of ships to plan their movements and positioning and to help researchers to advance science, not to make an entirely new life-like type of sapient synthetic life! These beings would be likely to rebel against their new compatriots, even if offered citizen's rights.
Falcon Front: The uses of the new synths outweigh the dangers, though we would not grant the Synths full citizen rights - we should instead keep them as servants to all of the Aviarium and they would be far better at it, especially in the research department, than more simple droids!
Dove Lobby and
Albatross Alliance: Both parties have released a common statement that they support the continued research into Synths and that the only correct course of action would be to grant them full rights as other sapient life. Droids are already present in large numbers, representing about 10% of the total population, and they are important for the function of the Aviarium already and essential for the output of tomb worlds for the common good of the Aviarium. This new technology would leave them able to become even more productive civilians, who could eventually qualify to become citizen's as every other species in the Aviarium!
In short, the Hawk position is to dismantle the research program into synths and never start it again. Falcon front will complete it but not give the synths citizen's rights. Albatross and Dove governments would permit synth access to civilian and citizen's rights.
Expansion!
There is no longer any question that the long term goal of the Aviarium Continuum is to take leadership of the galaxy and bring it to unification. The many weak and scattered factions fight among themselves and leave the galaxy far short of its true potential.
The only debating point is how and where.
The
Hawk Lobby and
Dove Lobby would but prefer starting by finishing the job versus the Guma before picking the next target. Having good experience with the creation of client states, they are likely to continue this tradition. They argue that this would also be beneficial as the Aviarium nears the naval max capacity.
Falcon Front: The attack on the Gurites was dangerous and Ill planned. What would have happened had an enemy federation attacked while we were replacing our screen ships? If we had waited until we had finished kinetic batteries and built more battleships, we would never have experienced as great losses due to inferior range in the first place!
We should instead turn our attention to the weak Ymacera Conglomerate to our south-west and their federation, which we have left unattended and ignored since we vanquished the Drull'Perfen. We're not opposed to using Client Republics, but they should be reserved for xenophobes.
Albatross Alliance: We still believe that taking on the Bhenn'Thell and the Havarigga Empire will be necessary. While we do not oppose the democratic traditions of the Bhenn'Thell, their current diplomatic stance against our wars for democracy make it obvious that their government is corrupt to the core. We would prefer not creating more client republics, as they won't be able to have influence on the central government, and that the naval capacity is unlikely to be an issue as we'll easily win against anyone within the 1000 limit.
(One thing of interest, displayed in white arrows, is the success of diplomatic warfare, advancing frontier outposts, then stealing uncolonized, colonizeable planets. This is especially visible east of the Eastcore sector and towards the Gurite Client State.)
And thus, the 2355 general elections are called and is active until Monday 27th. There are four parties to choose from - The
Hawk Lobby, The
Dove Lobby, The
Albatross Alliance and the
Falcon Front.
Election bill:
Party Choice
First choice:
Second Choice:
