• Nobles of Null is a forum based roleplay site where sci-fi and magic collide. Here, Earth remains fractured and divided despite humanity reaching out to the stars. Worse still, the trans-human slaves of one major power have escaped, only to establish their own Empire, seething with resentment at abuses of the past. Even the discovery of aliens, though medieval in development, has failed to rally these squabbling children of Earth together with its far darker implications. Worse still, is the discovery of the impossible - magic. Practiced by the alien locals, nearly depleted and therefore rare, its reality warping abilities remains abstract and distant to the general populace. All the while, unseen in the darkness of space, forces from without threaten to press in. For those with eyes opened by insight, it is clear that an era is about to end, and that a new age will dawn.

VotO Book 2 Chapter 8: The Tyranny of Distance

Uso

Administrator
Staff member
Wiki Moderator
October 15, 2321
Mars,
Olympus Mons


Wazu looked at his datapad.

"Start Recording,"

A deep breath.

"The HFR arresting the Empress was unexpected."

There was another pause as Wazu collected his thoughts. First he needed to establish what they knew. Then what they needed to figure out. Then what they should do.

"The GDW and Soyuz appear to be taking a wait and see approach. The AU seems to be emboldened in its attempts to arrest myself here but we were expecting them to try something anyways. I have one of Caxia's simulacrum here for personal protection and we will be contacting the Soyuz about our Travel plans now since I think traveling back to Kitzeh with them will be safer than trying to return through Atlantica. The Daqin appear to also be waiting to see what happens. This leaves us with the HFR who have brought the Empress to their ship above Mars but have yet to break orbit."

Then there was the question of what to figure out.

"If the Daqin aren't going to try and save the Empress right now, then... we've got no idea what their plan is. The HFR must be considering where to move the Empress to, and I think everyone else is going to have to play around that. If they leave her in the Sol System they will likely take her to Earth? Would it be safer to house the prisoner inside of their territory on the homeworld, or would it be safer to keep her in a ship in deep space where they can see people approach? I think I'm going to say Earth is safer. One compromised crew member could kill the rest of their crew through a life support malfunction but you'd need to compromise dozens or even hundreds of people to escape a max-sec prison on Earth.

Of course they might not be taking them to Earth. Li Ming would be the safest place to take her. It is the system the most fully controlled by the HFR. No third parties to get in the way. No chance of someone fighting their way in. It is where I would take her if I was them... but there is no direct path from Sol to Li Ming. They would have to travel through Shen Zhou which is in range of the Daqin fleets. There are a lot of unknowns there, and we don't have a lot we can comfortably say about the Daqin's capabilities to both invade Shen Zhou AND rescue the impress during that invasion. Another plan might be to travel via New Texas or even enlist the help of Reservoir's kingdoms, but these would involve being at the mercy of another nation and would arguably be even more of a risk than moving through Shen Zhou. So what would they do? What even are their goals here? If it is just to put the Empress on display and posture then they might not even be going to Li Ming... I am unfortunately not following HFR politics close enough, but it does seem that their new leader has their power base in Shen Zhou. That might mean Shen Zhou is the destination and not just a pass through."

And then, what should they do about it?

"Ein seems to think the HFR have overplayed their hand. The American Union seems focused on us to the exclusion of what the HFR is doing. Everyone else seems to be waiting to see what happens which means if the Daqin attacks any support will be months away from reaching Shen Zhou... assuming that the Daqin launch their invasion there.

If We decide to get involved. That means we're exposed on just about every front. Kiwami, Hawking, Atlantica, all are within range of the Daqin's fleets. We're ready to stop small incursions but if they throw a serious force at us instead of Shen Zhou then we should expect serious losses in Atlantica or Kiwami. Of course, I trust the new provisional fleet could halt anything they send to Hawking.

We could try and send forces to Shen Zhou, the most likely position for the Daqin to attack, but this would have to be at the expense of our forces in Atlantica. The American Union already is eager to take advantage of our position there. I'm not sure it is worth expending our ships just to try and get on the HFR's good side."

Wazu frowned, that all felt a little bit thin. Just talking about possibilities wasn't enough, he needed to add some direction to go.

"We WANT to get involved in this pro-actively. We don't have the numbers or industry to fight like the American Union does. We have to be clever. We need to be taking advantage of this situation before the time comes to act. We're the best at knowing the right thing to do and its time to prove that."

Wazu would listen to the replay, and bundled the latest recordings from Caxia into the package as he waited for it to finish.

"Ok, lets record that one more time..."


----

~ 15 minutes later

Wazu was happy with the recording now. He'd finish bundling it all up and send the transmission out where it'd be relayed to Atlantica and Hawking. The rest of the Assembly would get their chance to weigh in.
 

Ray of Meep

Administrator
Wiki Moderator
~ 8 hours later

Gulfia, Atlantica, Atlantica System


Geiben emptied his bottle of coffee, having set Wazu's message on repeated and transcripted as he looked out the window of his high-rise office. It was raining, as usual, on the island capital, but the American protestors who surrounded the building were bringing up a storm, in their multi-colored rain jackets and painted signs. "Fuck the bots!" "Technocrats go home!" They read in three different languages. There was a large doll hanging from a galley, depicting the old Steven Hawking himself, with a trashed wheel chair underneath. Their anger was understandable, albeit crude. The Magnetic Assembly were invaders to force the Union to the table. The bots killed their representatives.

The captain, now Atlantica liaison assisting the governor, set those thoughts aside, focusing on Wazu's message. "Magellan." He called out to his dumb AI assistant.

"Yes, Mr. Folami?" Magellan replied in a polite, Spanish accent.

"Give me data on all the officials from Shen Zhou, Li Ming, and Sol. Specifically, I want ideological compasses, their voter base, upcoming elections, legislative records, interpersonal relationships." Geiben imagined an HFR corvette, light minutes away. His and Wazu's goal was predict its movement and time a railgun round right where the corvette would be, all the while working off of information lag and the limited speed of their own slug. Politics wasn't Geiben's field of expertise, but naval combat, he understood how to plan for. First the knowns. The ship's specifications, its nominal delta-v, how much ammunition it usually carries, the size of its guns.

"... Narrow the issues down to the Daqin and their attitudes of each other, the Confederacy, and the RSC, along with their importance to the voting blocs." The specs of the life support didn't matter, nor the comms...

"Also show me recent events in mainland China, Li Ming, and Shen Zhou." The anomalies, small deviations from factory standards, the unpredictability of the human crew, the chaos that could throw off a good aim.

"Finally, give me all known RSC ship positions." Certainly more in his element, and evaded the need for any translation into naval strategic terms.

"Understood, Mr. Folami." Magellan acknowledged.

"Get all the data to me in half an hour. I can't keep Heram waiting, and I'll need half a day to look over all of it." Geiben walked over to his personal fridge to grab another bottle of coffee.

"I can get it to you in ten minutes."

"... Showoff."

~20 hours since initial message from Sol

Hey Heram, by the time you get this message, either the Empress is already past Jupiter, or entering the Earth-Luna system. I'll discuss both scenarios. First of all, I think the Daqin, in a twist, are the most predictable factor here. Losing the Empress is a destabilizing factor for them, and they've always be militant. As long as we don't provoke them then Magnetic Assembly territories should be safe. The Daqin won't push into Atlantica since that'll provoke their last remaining ally, the AU, so Shen Zhou is their natural target, but they could also head straight into Sol depending on what the HFR does with the Empress.

To give you a rundown on HFR politics, Shen Zhou ranges from moderately disgusted by the Daqin to maniacal, wanting to kill them all, so it's not a surprise that their president was the one who took charge arresting the Empress and breaking international conventions, in more ways then one. There's some interesting tidbits there, but I'll also get back to it. Li Ming and Sol both have strong voting blocs who just don't want anything to do with the Daqin with minorities of doves and hawks, more hawks in Sol, more doves in Li Ming. There isn't enough data yet to tell if they approve of this arrest; the closest I have to an answer is that there's a decent majority in both Sol and Li Ming who want the Daqin to pay for their previous and current acts of hostility. More importantly, both Li Ming and Sol overwhelmingly see the importance of the confederacy in their mutual defense, so if Daqin does act against Shen Zhou with open war, Li Ming and Sol are sure to respond.

The question then returns to, where will the diplomatic fleet of the HFR move the Empress? Yunwang is the political center of the HFR, Rili hosts the RSC's command structure, while Beijing is closest and has historical significance. Since President Kal initiated the arrest, my gut feelings say that they're going to naturally take her to Rili. A quick military tribunal and execution is typical for any Daqin they find committing crimes in their territory, and the Empress lead a lot of crimes if the history is to be believed. However, invasion of Shen Zhou should be expected if the RSC has any brain cells, and there's good evidence to suggest that Prime Minister Luo Meng of Li Ming was forced out of her lead diplomat position for this summit. News sources report that her last known position was the Jiang Xue, the flagship of Grand Admiral Hak of the RSC, Shen Zhou born. It's likely that she's in on this. Shen Zhou is likely to start acting apologetically towards Li Ming to avoid any cracks in the Confederacy, which may just push them towards bringing the Empress to Yunwang.

Personally, I think it's going to be a toss up between Beijing and Yunwang. Both have geographical advantages and disadvantages, along with different political importance. I think the safe choice is to mobilize in Atlantica, should we have to move into either Shen Zhou or Sol. We could frame this as preparing intervention to the AU leadership. They hate our guts right now, but they have no interest in a war happening around them.
 

Uso

Administrator
Staff member
Wiki Moderator
~24 hours since initial message from Sol
"This isn't our problem." - Caxia

Wazu had been giving this some consideration, having booked transport with the Soyuz and currently spending his time conversing with their diplomatic group. It did seem like the HFR's craft carrying the Empress was heading towards the SLE, and likely Shen Zhou.

It also seemed that Caxia deemed this 'not important enough' to send a message about it. Wazu could just ask the copy of Caxia's support AIs what Caxia thought about it all... it was nearly as good as having the real thing there... but he already had a good idea what would be said. Caxia wanted to focus on Hawking. Keep the American Union out. Focus on domestic priorities.

But right now the Assembly had just won a war, and done it with such ease that the local population was starting to think they were invincible.

It was time to start thinking out loud.

"Start Recording."

"Do we need to consider HFR internal politics? If we move to help them and accidentally back the wrong side in a civil dispute we would end up in a far worse position than we are now. The safest non-committal action right now is to leave our ship in drone mode, and have it remain shadowing the Daqin's diplomatic ship.

But if we take a wait and see approach, we're going to be weeks behind when the shooting starts.

We can assume they are going to Yunwang. If we want to be there when the shooting starts we need to send a ship now. We don't have any ships that can make the trip that we can spare though.

I think the most we can do is wait for an opportunity in Sol, and push the Daqin on other fronts. We've been hoping to avoid a second front opening up while we're in Atlantica but now that the American Union has agreed to an armistice and the Daqin will certainly be busy with the HFR, we could aggressively hunt Daqin ships in our space. Push them out of Hawking, Kiwami, and Atlantica. Time the offensive for two weeks from now, right when the Daqin's forces are due to arrive in Shen Zhou?"
 

Uso

Administrator
Staff member
Wiki Moderator
~25 hours since initial message

Wazu was staying in the Soyuz's diplomatic space for the time being, receiving a message from the Assembly ship that had brought him there that was still tailing the HFR's ship. The message was already a few hours old.

Time for another chat with Geiben.

"Start Recording"

"The HFR's ship is changing course. Looks like it is heading to Earth. Other ships within the Sol system have changed course to intercept the HFR's ship. I think we can safely assume they belong to the Daqin's dual-use assets. I don't think they are going to risk the Empress in a fight, which means they are taking her to Beijing. The Daqin will have to fight their way in, and then work out an exit strategy.

I would expect the HFR will try and co-ordinate with the rest of the Human Sphere on their defense.

I think I will need another talk with Ein regarding the American Union's plans.

I will follow up once I have more information."
 
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