Due to holiday spending an additional 5 million has been made for the pool!

Also stories of lore should be in the next update or two once less holiday season shenanigans are going around.

Yenneiros Whitetalon

Materials from SR1 are being sold off to buyers on the market. After accounting for the expenses of paying off the mercs total profits add 4,562,000 credits to the gauntlet account. There is still an estimated value of 8,000,000 (rounded) in materials on hand but will take another update or three to finish selling off, particularly due to shipping.

At the moment Song doesn’t have anything for the mercs to do as she’s headed back home to deal with paperwork. So training on battle forts is underway, though this is an expensive project because setting up forts in field can be more expensive then just building a wooden palisade back in the roman days.

Mordekai Aberhoff

You already set up filter deals and profits went up during your vacation, so reviewing those you met during it proves to be a little redundant.

People are working on the app thing, though expect two/three financial updates before its development is complete and can go live.

Psionic tech progress: 6 (This number will make more sense later, for now just writing it to track the progress).

Edric Vandross

Kala found you some ship wiper dude.

Christmas cheer abounds as the raiders manage to capture a basic survey ship to get sold off to Serrano, the cost of buying this off them on Serrano’s end was taken out of christmas profits already for easy paperwork.

Shipyard expansion on SV3 could be expensive as the place is currently mostly used to service frigates, adding larger docks would take a lot of material. Hightower projects a cost of about 16,000,000 between supplies and labor over the course of three to four financial updates. While the SV3 shipyards, owned by Star Horizons, aren’t doing too bad on their own it isn’t a major location for larger ships due to the economy of the planet below focusing on a more tourist focus then large shipments of goods. As such Star Horizons aren’t as interested in the particular cost of the upgrades which means it’d take an investment from DV to really see that happen. The result would be a 30% control over the company’s shipyard and they will at least be interested in the hiring of additional personnel to cover the ongoing cost of the expansion.

Gellix isn’t really useful at surveying space for places to build a secret base, he could probly find a planet surface to hide on but has little experience with asteroids. Setani suggests a mobile base and just hijacking a huge carrier, but most of her suggestions lately involve “lets get a giant ship”. On the upside, this doesn’t take much expertise if you want a big random chunk of space in the middle of nowhere. Space is big, just pick a direction and go until you hit an asteroid.

The quest for a middle man continues. Kala suggests just having Sophia do this, one less middle man means the profits stay better and it would help her expand her operations. She’s not exactly in Shetou but Tyne is trying to make her expand to other places and the slave trade can be pretty black market at times.

Sethis Tyne

Johnson didn’t reply on the psionic cult cell thing.

The Toxyn thing will be in the upcoming stories of lore after the holiday “lazy gm” season. For now rest assured its a general pain in the ass.

The improvements in secret efforts probably paid off given that Toxyn clearly knows who the division is. The nah division manages to be a conspiracy hidden from the general public and major governments, though the bomber group definitely still knows it exists. Hence Toxyn has been such a pain in the ass.

Luci Serrano

The neutral survey location actually leads to an asteroid belt on the Rixa plane in the middle of goddamned nowhere, approximately between SR1 and SR2 in terms of orbital space, receives a lot of sunlight. Good for solar panels.

SV4 is being surveyed by Shetou as requested. Progress updates to come.

The slaves and ships thing is getting underway, a survey ship was acquired recently by the pirates though the slave part is still being worked on. Generally you don’t have a crew of slaves crew their own stolen ship, its a bad mix for forced labor.

Sol News hires a new caster who is obviously boosting ratings because they’re pretty.

The comedy movie attempt is wrapping up post production and should be airing soon. The suggestion for musicals proves to baffle the suits but they’re looking into what they can do with that. On the upside Sol media’s talent can be brought into it.

Kala is still working on that hero request as thats a bit of a bizarre one and the GM’s art library didn’t have anything spectacular in that field.

(Totally not) Sol Gaming startup is underway though its currently just a small indie team since there hasn’t been a huge investment in it.

Yenneiros Whitetalon

The war on SR1 finally came to a close when Song Clan and the mercs took enough of the orbitals to allow the Dragon’s reach to open fire on the other fleet. Though instead of a naval slugfest the other house retreated back into space before engaging with Song Clan’s fleet as that was suicidal. Gheir has recruited Cerys Anahi to Madhammer before setting off back to HQ and then off to SV3 to train with the Raiders of Abbathor.

As predicted by the suits, profits dropped like a rock soon as it had to pay out all the mercs for completing the job (expect a rougher then normal financial report). Though on the upside it was still an overall profit from the contract with SR1 colonists that netted the gain of an awful lot of raw material. Technically it hasn’t turned a profit yet as the suits are just sitting on the materials waiting for an order on what to do with it all. Sell it or find some other purpose for the stuff.

Mordekai Aberhoff

Ragas Durz was hired remotely through an agent so she doesn’t have an idea who you are or what company she really works for and is now attending college on your dime. The Cosmic Force of All Things recommends you ensure her contact for orders is a psionic of some power so she doesn’t figure out whats going on by reading their mind. That or enlisting the Nah division to keep her wary of her true employers.

In minor news, there was a brief police investigation at one of the Alnae factories for the pharmaceuticals company when a break in attempt resulted in a few people being killed by Nib Okzunas’ latest security invention being a little bit more powerful then intended. While no serious recourse has been taken against Nib or Expansive Psionics, it was funny. Also expansive psionics sales have increased for +6 profits.

The cult manages to increase its profits by +2 now that its selling knick knacks and doo dads which help its various cult leaders keep up their operations with a little less money from you to keep maintaining itself.

Despite the selling of gimmick items Vajor still seems to be keeping an eye on the ongoing activities of the cult on Luna. Most notably Alnae psionics have been seen keeping an eye on things around the city.

Edric Vandross

The Raiders are off near SV3 doing training stuff with Madhammer. Despite Setani’s appointment to Admiral her ideas of what to do next keep conflicting with Halaestra and Ikesha winds up as mediator.

Investing in shipyards isn’t too hard but finding one for peculiar use of refitting stolen ships is the tricky part as most tend to operate alongside major governments due to those being the main buyers for big ships, with the exception of those who specialize in frigates that civilians often buy. Since the suits don’t necessarily know your actual plans involving them the ones they recommend don’t really fit the purposes you might be particularly interested in. The most notable of shipyards in the system belong to Alnae or Sharen but they aren’t exactly looking for investors at this point. Among the startups however, SV3 stands out as it has small facilities the independent colonists like to use primarily for repair and maintenance as opposed to construction due to their smaller budget. But given this planet’s history they are keen to try and make more stuff to sell on the trade based world.

In regards to erasing ship ID’s: Solvang can do it pretty cheap. However, doing it without their help proves insanely difficult and even shipyards have a hard time doing it as the enchantments that make up an ID are similar to the APT tattoos (and the arcanist world made defense easier then offense, which extends to hacking). So it’ll take awhile and maybe an expert (like Nib or something) to get your own shipyards doing that, but Solvang can do it cheap until then.

I’m assuming you meant SZ4 everytime you said SV3. SZ4 is the ice world Siwa is colonizing, SV3 is the barren rock that has become a trade based economy. Some of the potential major players there are obviously the project manager for Siwa who is fairly elusive and spends most of their time within the Siwa facility, likely because its cold and barren outside. The Alnae officer overseeing construction of the port and maintaining the colonies also stands out as a potential VIP especially as Fred pushes for Alnae’s Sovereignty over the area. Details on these characters are slim though as the bankers aren’t exactly private investigators and can only detail financial information which has been covered before.

Banking investigation so it doesn’t make a wall of text

Sethis Tyne

Vanjin gets indoctrinated into the agency and particularly bases out of V-Thenica at the agent hideout near Sophia since that was who she saved in her last mission, so the agency has deemed that a new agent such as herself should just be kept in the area she already knows as not to expand her knowledge of the operation too quickly.

Vaeri reports in that basically your predecessors killed off a bunch of people who obstructed their general plan. These enemies originated from Alnae though its unclear exactly who was killed to get these people pissed off enough to go rogue from their own empire. The reason it became such a shadowy group is that no one believed them about the conspiracy theory since the corporation that makes up the Gauntlet isn’t exactly the shadiest in appearance so they were just called nutjobs. Toxyn is one of them and definitely one of the more dangerous members.

Julius and Vanjin are struggling on the Toxyn front. Though Vanjin is pretty sure Toxyn knows who the nah division is because they keep knowing where to strike and how to avoid them. Toxyn operates similarly to the division itself and is almost non-existent until they choose to strike. The Nah division is looking through security at what civilians might actually be this masked attacker in secret under Vanjin’s advice, though its not helping to narrow things down too much at the moment.

Luci Serrano

In regards to your mining startup. The first part to get through is pinning down where to mine. You can put all your startup funds into a survey ship (Or consider getting the pirate raiders to steal you some on the cheap if they can)  or contact existing companies to look into some stuff for you.

Mineral surveying companies come in three flavors. Alnae, Shetou, and Neutral businesses. Technically none are associated with the governments directly but the company is based in those nationalities. Alnae has access to the cheapest active options allowing you to hire survey teams to comb a planet or area of space at 250k per expedition. Shetou’s are more expensive at 400k per expedition, but their familiarity with the underdark and tendency to tunnel makes them much more thorough if you can trust them to actually hand over the data of the best finds to only you. Neutral colonies also offer their services and come in somewhere in the middle despite having less advanced tech then either one, so while the worst buy for active surveying they are at least neutral. However, they also offer a different service entirely, they’ve already surveyed more then they can use as a small neutral colony and sell the data of places they’ve already scanned. For example, they have a survey claim offered at 1.5 million, but its not a sweep of an area its an already found mineral deposit of value. You’d be buying the coordinates instead of the service of seeing if an area has anything. Due to this business model you can buy finds in asteroid belts, or on a planet. Though you pick by plane not planet given they don’t necessarily have anything on every possible planet. In Summary: Alnae is cheap and efficient, Shetou is expensive but extremely effective, Neutral options are already found claims or just companies who will survey the things you want without really being involved with the empires.

The slave market is most notable in Shetou (where it isn’t illegal) and labor force slaves are fairly cheap but require careful maintenance. The most cost effective laborers from Shetou are demons who have been enslaved through arcane magic, this may require you to keep an Arcanist on staff to do so (and make sure they’re not big on ethics). As another option the faceless suits note you can buy golem robotics from Alnae factories. Demons come in at roughly 150,000 per demon while robotics run up to 400,000 but there is the consideration of the expense of the demon slavekeepers. So the larger the operation gets the more cost effective robotics start to look even with maintenance costs.

In other news Lush’s tour seems to have concluded around Alnae and some other areas which has done well for her profitability. She’s back in the studio lately with some of the producers working on their next bright idea. Lush’ profits increased +12.

Sol Media Records has also expanded by +4 from its other projects though they aren’t marketing any of them as hard as Lush just yet.

Another financial cycle has passed, the hiring roster has cycled as well as those previously on it have found other work. Ask Kala for new hiring options if desired. Also everyone’s companies had profits increased, but I did all the spreadsheet work and forgot to write it down on here so there’s no little +4 indicator like usual cuz I forgot what the old numbers were.

Also extra money laying around has gone up 1,230,000 after all expenses were accounted for.

Stories of Lore 3

Yenneiros Whitetalon

For the time being Song has your forces on SR1 Alpha guarding positions her clan takes over so she can focus on offense.

Mordekai Aberhoff

The cult on Luna has been able to schmooze in with the house wives to continually expand their presence on the moon as well as available blank idiots. Not many of the ones prone to weird cult stuff are the kind of wives with serious involvement with their husbands business however. The information gained from their membership isn’t of immediate value to the corporate world but the in-house details of various businessmen could prove useful in the future if specific information as that should prove necessary. Though there is a businessman involved in some colonial affairs you might be able to sell some filters. Drug sales are also up on Luna due to easily suggested housewives.

On the downside, the more open operations of the cult have drawn the attention of some of their relatives. While in most cases this isn’t an issue, one of the housewives had a daughter with a friend who took a sudden interest in the cult. Judging by her constant skepticism and military background, the Luna cult of yoga might be being watched a little closer then you would like.

In the quest for infiltration of forensic labs, Kala has determined this is going to require finding a new recruit to do it. Specifically one who goes through the proper educational path to get the job, which could take years if you send someone else to do it. Though the types of people to be pursuing that degree on their own are less likely to be interested in selling out the information. There is also the option of approaching a veteran of the field who is a bit more easily swayed by cash incentives.

Edric Vandross

For all of Fred’s business savvy, the SV3 colonizers are not particularly open to the utilization of outside influences. They are veteran colonizers and have learned not to share power with bigger forces unless necessary, it is likely they intend to maintain independence as long as possible. Fred did convince them to use Divinity Vaults for their banking needs though, primarily because its the only bank that set up shop in the colonies already so transactions between colonies are easiest with DV. With them joining in, most of the other colonizers also opted for divinity vaults with a bit of salesmanship. As a consequence of this, deep in the backroom of paperwork someone caught something of interest. The Jelwe Labs colony is receiving an awful lot of money from Desoir, and one of the smaller independents is actually sending money to Selona. Siwa Technologies itself is pulling a lot of money from Solvang’s banks.

The raiders successfully picked up another ship and expanded the crew appropriately. Ikeshia buddied up with the pandem pirate Halaestra, which is a cruiser. While perhaps not Ikeshia’s first choice of comrade, Halaestra is the ship’s original captain and was rescued by the raiders. Soon after the operation, Halaestra murdered all of her own crew for having witnessed what the drow did to her on the ship. Whether she was embarassed or didn’t want to work with people who had seen her beaten is unknown, but Ikeshia notes she is quite vicious. The Raiders of Abbathor are crewing her ship for now until she can pick up her own crew.

This puts the new captain in a peculiar position. Halaestra is not terribly subtle and Ikeshia isn’t sure she can trust the pandem pirate for long, let alone with the secret of her employer. However, since Halaestra murdered all of her own crew she is reliant on Ikeshia’s crew to fly her ship since as a pandem user she can’t do it herself which gives Ikeshia leverage for now. The issue with that is Halaestra is only aware of Ikeshia as the ring-leader, and Halaestra is a more powerful pirate then the quiet elf pilot. As long as Halaestra is unaware of the conspiracy the temptation to mutiny Ikeshia might be particularly high, but making her aware of it could have other problems.

Sethis Tyne

Sophia has a few insider tips regarding the Selona territory. First off, Selona isn’t a traditional gang and operates mainly by selling stuff to crime gangs to resell to others in other locations with the exception of some of its higher end stuff that smaller gangs won’t be able to sell. She can actually sell their stuff in her own territories and operate small time within Selona’s own territory as long as she keeps those smaller operations in check from pissing them off. Secondly, her old boss had a connection to Selona and by proxy she knows how to approach him as well. Meaning if her mysterious new boss should want access to serious weapons, she can arrange for them to be sent back to the Nah division (that she doesn’t know exists, she just assumes whoever you guys are you might want Selona’s brand of firepower). Y’know, in case you ever want to buy a tank or advanced super illegal shuttles. Though she does seem timid at the suggestion, the idea of dealing with Selona obviously makes her nervous but dealing with you seems to make her nervous as well.

Meanwhile, Nah division points out that no one seems to know where Selona is getting all this stuff it sells. Its not a garage operation, somewhere in the system has to exist a network of factories for Selona to operate the way it does. Sol Media might be able to do something interesting in investigating that.

Vaeri and Julius are still unheard from.

Luci Serrano

People are still on tour and movies are still being made. Exme continues to report on the SR-1 conflict.

The suits who have on idea what the budget really looks like keep pitching more ideas for shows and movies with the startup of the production studio that is producing some movie. The same guy who suggested the easy cash in on the comedy movie to get a foot in the door of the industry wants Exme’s footage to produce a documentary on the SR-1 conflict with leftover footage. Purely because it would be cheap to just use the news footage and probably make at least something that at least breaks even, but also it would boost the studio’s reputation since you seem to like doing that. Though Kala warns that at this rate that faceless suit guy might get a face.

Not much else going on since you just stare at developments and ignore all the plot hook potential, lazy Tess.