From around the system:

We mark the maiden voyage of the first ship to hurl itself into the depths of space and wish it farewell. Despite all the investment and preparation Alnae put into the colonization plan, Shetou still beat them to the punch. Less so because of efficiency or resources, more so because one crazy guy just got in his ship and took off and didn’t tell anyone he was going. Farewell lone orc, you are the first to travel beyond the reach of our star. History shall remember our first interstellar traveler as: Some guy who just took off without preparing as much as everyone else. He’ll be back soon, he didn’t take enough supplies to do much. We suspect he just wanted to see a new planet for the sake of it.

Meanwhile on that front, I forgot to do the star map so we’ll get the colonizers rolling out next update.

Friction between Solvang and Selona is rising due to some meddling on behalf of people that Sam is going to hate.

Mordekai Aberhoff

After all the data is crunched, leasing out some space on a space station isn’t too difficult or expensive (at least not to the scale of a corporate enterprise like yours). -4 profit as long as space station is open. For the time being aforementioned sahad study hall is located on a station above SV3. The location was chosen since it had a space station with space to lease out and SV3 is independent so no government meddling. Hightower’s space docks are also in orbit around SV3 for reference.

In general due to the discreet and non-invasive nature of your current projects not much goes wrong enough to get your attention.  For now Ragas is still a rookie on the force in Thenica.

Edric Vandross

Attempts to reverse engineer the stealth tech are taking awhile, even as help comes in to assist Raymond its a very complicated device. Mostly in that the runes that make it work include traps so that the effort to just replicate it by copy and pasting results in catastrophic failure. Likely a means of messing with other drow who might have tried this, though evidently applicable vs pirates too. The team points out it needs a psionic expert to come help as thats another part of how the tech works.

The pirates are baffled at the bizarre order to have a member take some online courses. Purely because in the world of piracy that’s a very strange thing. Though the raids have moved over to Alnae territories because they’re afraid the Shetou will get a bit revengey on them, and Halaestra has already gone through that before.

As you look into arcane research companies, the issue there is most research companies are backed by another interest, which is how they get started up. Most are in the employ of other corporations or government funded, so investing in them would involve investing in and taking over the much bigger backer. As an example, Johnson’s pharmaceutical company has its own research lab the company pays for to research enhancements to its products. So you’re unlikely to find a rogue science lab as it’d have no income in the first place, consider forming a new one.

Speaking of which, halfway there by recruiting enchanters to help Raymond on the shipyards. Maybe just keep them around afterward.

Gotta name the colonization corp so I can add it to the sheets.

Sethis Tyne

That necrocarnate thing fails to highroll this week and Kala’s search continues.

Vaeri and the tech crew keep an eye out for Sharen retaliation against the pirates. The team managed to intercept some investigators. In response Sharen seems to have figured out that whatever is going on its more then a few lucky pirates and have stopped sending faceless mooks of ever increasing xp values and just threw out a boss. While Vaeri normally does whatever needs be doing this time she sent a request to clear that if objective is important enough to allocate the resources she needs to handle this one. The request is to call in both Setani and Vanjin, as well as the allocation of a lot of division resources. The suits project the trail could be covered and the Sharen dissuaded if the stealth tech and ship were left somewhere for them to find, otherwise the division is about to get into a special ops war with drow. Namely because Yasice is a Val and Shanhai is as important as one too, so killing them could result in getting Sharen really mad. Royal pride and all that.

Finding a tutor for Setani is as difficult as highrolling finding a character to hire on so thats going about the same as the earlier point. The only known necrocarnates are the Song family and they’re probably not keen to teach people the technique given their lawful stupid alignment.

Agents report that they figured out who updates the board pretty easily. Though there is a chain of command. The local station manager is responsible for updating the board and uploading posts to the Solvang network to post on other boards at other stations. Asmoday has full access to all information regarding these but each individual manager only has the ones they were handed. While there is no obligation on the job posters to register with any sort of ID, just the job and the payout, the agents find it unlikely that Solvang couldn’t track these details down given how their whole business strategy really works. Some in-office recordings for example. The problem at this point is finding out which manager would know what we want to know as we don’t know where the job’s original post came from. That or going straight to Asmoday but that has a whole other clusterfuck of obvious potential problems.

In related news, while the agents were at the Solvang station they were witness to the appearance of Yasice, apparently Sharen is keeping a close eye on the pirates now and somehow Yasice found the Solvang station. This is where things went awry, see there just so happens to be an ongoing recruiting tactic of spreading the legend of one crazy ass pirate team that somehow takes on military ships. The Raiders of Abbathor are now prime targets and should probably be advised of such.

Luci Serrano

Psionic Found

The bomb investigation team has spent awhile figuring out what happened and the bombed out outpost in necrosi they encountered. Since then their newest lead takes them to the solvang job boards. The problem is they have no way to get aboard a solvang station.

The various companies have since been upgraded.

Stories of Lore 8

Yenneiros Whitetalon

R&D will get working on that one.

A few recruits are able to be acquired under the premise of learning sahad, though they are mostly fresh out of general education and not sure what they’re doing with their life. Inquisitive and interested in a new field of study that has yet to be studied.

Cerys traveled to Rixa-Thenica, taking her new squad of sahad wannabe college kids. She confirms the phenomena is related to sahad but whatever is causing it is not currently there. Whatever once caused the effects has long since moved on.

Mordekai Aberhoff

Faye Ryqen discreetly moved to the shipyards, by having her boss be slightly more annoying then usual so the offer from the shipyards would be more appealing.

Facility for sahad study under the process of picking what it wants to do. The little bit we know about sahad seems to imply it has a heavy emphasis on space stuff. As all students of it can already exist in space without any protection. As such the facility recommendations include a space station or just some sort of science ship. Though stations are far more expensive if built for just one purpose as opposed to hanging out on an existing one somewhere.

Kenin explains that sandwich perfection is not attained by a mere cooking recipe and his email includes a 2 page discussion on how it takes soul and feeling.

The Cult of expanded lucidity now hosts a psionic version of burning man apparently.

Ragas is working on Zonaricht-Thenica for now.

Edric Vandross

Halaestra has re-acquired the Nothic and keeps that as her personal ship due to sentimental value, and it was modified to accommodate her pandem problems. She has since taken over the raiders and figured out Gellix is actually a decent business manager assistant. She ends up taking her funding allotment to acquire a new frigate crew. Since then the Nothic has seen a few overhauls of its systems.

Reversing the stealth tech for the battlecruiser will take awhile. The Sharen variant is so advanced Raymond’s first statement upon trying to figure anything out about it was “how the fuck?” And he’s the best enchanter in the Gauntlet, good luck Nah.

Intel reports found a problem, a sharen stealth ship being captured is something that gets the Shetou military attention. While Halaestra was smart enough to scatter her trail so it isn’t so easily found, you can expect heavy retaliation if they find out where it went. Raymond is suddenly suspicious of all drow and demon team members aboard the space station.

A vault is now under construction in the middle of nowhere.

Super carrier project will take a little while. While under construction you have -20 to profits due to the sheer scope of the project.

Sethis Tyne

Sophia doesn’t have much room to branch out into the colonization sphere as no one is actually colonizing anything yet. Also criminal activity doesn’t do much in new colonies with  distinct lack of heavy law enforcement, at most its just shipping and handling.

The tech offices are moved to the unnamed battlecruiser, which you should probably give a name for easier reference in the future.

Aryn finds Jhaeros is kind of untraceable. He’s not a very modern digital man, he’s a barbaric vampire who goes from place to place just causing trouble. If he hasn’t left the planet there is no record of him buying a ticket to get anywhere. Also he’s necrocarnum not pandem.

Again, necrocarnum is the one that has to do with messing with people’s souls. Pandem is the one that opens rifts to other planes of reality. Also you can always hire out help from the Raven Facility as they have experts in the craft. Until then kala finds that tracking down a necrocarnate will take a little while (bare minimum is a highroll so we’ll see which week you ever land that roll on).

Luci Serrano

One of the moves that was in production finally got around to releasing and did moderately okay. Not quite as good as the musical.

Nothing attracts attention like a coupon giveaway. With all the shows focusing on colonization life as well and the fact that ships are about to take their first jumps to new stars the fervor is at an all time high.

Fans are upset over the cancellation of firefly 2.0

Luke sets off to investigate the bombings some more, he reports that there was a peculiar problem on the trail to Necrosi where he was lead to a facility that looked like it had been assaulted in the recent years and is mildly blown up.

In all the hurry to get FTL going and explore the stars you’re one of the few people to go “wait…if we cause ourselves to move that fast what happens medically speaking?” Sarah finds herself busy trying to find the answers to that.

You spend a lot of money upgrading your stuff. Though the mining upgrades don’t go too well due to the occassional slave riot or misbehavior making construction hard.

Stories of lore 7

From Around the System (It is now 1589)

The secret to interstellar travel was acquired from Valdir by Valencia Desoir who subsequently sold the technology to the major empires under the general understanding that eventually everyone was going to reverse engineer the device that makes it possible so she just took the big payout to release the technology itself. The device itself costs about 230 million to produce each unit, though prices are expected to come down as optimization of the technology improves. It can move a ship approximately 1 light year per week. Notably Valdir’s alien mothership can go faster though thats not much of a surprise to anyone.

The Valdir mothership has been fully regenerated in the last few years though it has taken a new shape, appearing like some sort of cross between a traditional ship with strange organic looking growths. Reportedly this is so that humanoids can more comfortably utilize it, though a lot of it is still a series of sealed off areas where the ichor flows and the alien monsters are created.

The Sharen successfully built the new ship for Song Yi within the year as they promised. Intel spies know they actually needed to extend work on it to get it up to their quality standards but they just had engineers keep working on it as “maintenance” while publicly announcing it was done as it could at least fly. Unlike Song Yi’s last ship which was primarily a dreadnought with some carrier capability, this one is a carrier with some dreadnought capability, including its new big fucking gun that is the biggest Shetou has ever put on a spaceship.

The Desoir Ultra Carrier also completed its construction though is experiencing delays as the tech for interstellar travel hits a kink with a ship this big and they’re working on making the necessary adjustments.

In the more political news. Alnae’s economy is currently strained by its rapid development and over-investment in its fleet and colony ships in order to prevent Shetou from being able to just steamroll them and discourage Shetou from attacking. As a result it is in a time of difficulty which has certainly boosted the Alnae people’s general desire for colonization thanks to the shows a certain media company keeps producing.Though at the same time, there are also many who greatly object to the idea of colonizing distant stars given their current situation is a direct result of a visitor from distant stars and they can only wonder what else is out there. They don’t particularly like Valdir for the obvious reason that it has the same mothership that put them in the current situation.

Shetou is doing about the same as usual, despite having the current upper hand on Alnae the houses aren’t all rushing to colonize anything they can and are instead growing at a bit more natural then forced pace. This is largely due to the way their society works, which can make it difficult to try and force people to do more colonization then they feel like doing. While the new carrier given to House Song was quite publicized it hasn’t really impacted their overall presence in space very much given Sharen was already a naval superpower, adding one more big ass ship to the nation hasn’t changed all that much from a logistics stand point.

Valdir is as usual up to their weird agenda that doesn’t involve much discussion with anyone else. They produced a fleet awfully fast though, consisting mostly of giant tentacle monsters that can float around space. They appear to have acquired the resources to do this by ravaging the nearby moons of SR3 which are currently barren wastelands despite SR3 itself having been rebuilt to a forested world with the alien’s abilities. Notably their fleet doesn’t have much in the way of guns like traditional ships do, but the bioships probably shoot Sahad lasers as they are very much alive.

Solvang is also in a bit of staisis. Piracy grows as the society it can prey on does, so they aren’t really rushing to acquire colonization equipment or even steal ships for the purpose. They have discreetly funded a few other companies who are interested in colonization using their banking system but this is mostly out of interest to see humanoids expand so they have more territory to set themselves up in over time. A few in the know of the criminal underworld are aware that Solvang has specifically been researching how to hijack ships in deep space between the stars where there will be little to no security even after colonization expands to other stars but they’re not in any particular hurry.

Selona on the other hand has a different approach to the coming colonization boom, unlike the business sighted empires who bought the technology from Desoir who acquired it from Valdir, Arkaric simply asked for it and was given it since he was physically at the Thousand Legends event. Indal seemed to like the cut of his jib and just let him have the tech well ahead of anyone else getting it. Since then Selona has been working on its own manufacturing projects, notably they were offering to sell the massive engine necessary for interstellar travel even before Desoir but the general news didn’t notice this because it was among the black market. Technically speaking, this means a bunch of criminals beat everyone else to the punch on developing the technology. Within the black market circle this has added to Selona’s notoriety, Sophia from Nah division put two and two together. This definitely confirms that Selona is hiding its own ability to manufacture all the products it sells, while that was an accepted premise for awhile this is the first thing Selona did that gave away it definitely has extensive manufacturing capability. Which just raised the question of where the hell they’re hiding facilities capable of producing new technology before the other major shipyards could do it.

In the development of sahad, various people have started to become particularly adept at using the new magic. While Valdir points out there are still no real masters of the art besides the mothership itself, at least progress is being made. A deeper understanding of the magic over the last couple of years has made it evident that its based on cosmic phenomena. Those who have learned to use it even at the most basic level have demonstrated the ability to survive in the vacuum of space comfortably and even move around in it as if via levitation spells. So far the only creative method of its use has been in engineering the engines for interstellar travel, otherwise all of its users only really seem to be able to blow things up with it. Other then surviving in space it doesn’t seem to do much other then break stuff. Current practitioners of it seem to ramble about entropy a lot.

Finances:

Multiple Cycles passing, way too many small details.
End result new holdings: 1,214,342,000

Yenneiros Whitetalon

Cerys Anahi, plagued by alien magic PTSD, went to Valdir to seek professional help. Instead of opting for therapy that would make the visions go away she pursued the path of finding out what they were all about. As a result she has leveled up and now has the ability to use sahad magic.

William roberts continues to make sound business decisions and Madhammer has been hired on to various ships planning to take the leap into the unknown and see whats over at the neighboring star thanks to his negotiating prowess.

Gheir isn’t doing much new.

Madhammer profits +16

Mordekai Aberhoff

Ragas Durz has completed her formal education in the field of psionics.

Nib retired, he’s old for a kobold.

Zex is a bit more well known now days as the eccentric leader of the cult of expanded lucidity.

Aerovent Filters +8
Cult of Expanded Lucidity -2
Expansive Psionics +12
Mhaldaru Foods Stock Value: 16,000,000
Game App lost to time in favor of the newest games.
Unnamed Lumber Farm technically produces around 10 worth of profit but you’re using it to aid Gauntlet Shipyards, I don’t have a stat for lumber production.

Edric Vandross

The raiders managed to finally steal a stealth battlecruiser from Sharen after what must have been two years given previous failures in this field. Though in the process Jezraema and Ikeshia were killed along with 60% of the whole crew. The frigate Ikeshia normally flies was destroyed and the Nothic was so severely damaged that its still floating out there in space waiting to be towed. Halaestra is seriously injured and Gellix lost an arm and is paralyzed due to a spinal injury. This brings us to the next problem, now that Setani was transferred to Nah division and Ikeshia is dead, no one remaining on the crew knows who the boss is. They simply docked the battlecruiser up at the same old shipyards they always took them to. Gellix is back on his feet after some cybernetic medical attention at least.

The carrier thing was sold to Alnae successfully.

DV Finds expanding into Valdir difficult, while opening an office there isn’t too hard the Valdir don’t really respect currency as much as the rest of civilized folk so its hard to make much profit or keep tabs on all that much going on there. While they do still have a use for the bank, especially the regular people, the issue is the lack of investment opportunities. So it works…there’s just not that much business to do there.

DV would consider any asteroid to be alright. Really any location far from civilization centers would be good by default so picking a specific one is iffy. Technically hiding it within the shipyards might also work as its in orbit and ships coming and going from there wouldn’t be particularly suspicious though its not quite so remote. In terms of ultra secure isolated places, build a space station in the middle of space that is absolutely nowhere and see if anyone can ever find it. Similar to the Raven facility. As the campaign motto seems to be: space is big.

Divinity Vaults +14
Hightower +12
Shipyards have seen a few expansions by the suits with all your fancy money. Carrier sold and now has its Super Capital dock, 2 capital docks, 2 large docks, 4 medium docks, and 6 small docks (though technically not really for docking, for construction and “maintenance”)

Sethis Tyne

Bryan has settled in relatively well. Over the last two years Aryn has gotten pretty comfy with her workplace and has decorated her workspace with a lot of silly stuff that makes it very obvious which one is hers.

As was mentioned in mezzy’s section, the pirates managed to acquire a stealth battlecruiser which is going through refit processes. While a battlecruiser isn’t exactly a carrier its more then sufficient for the tech division. Though Nah division’s total size wouldn’t exactly all fit on it as you have a lot of crews around the system.

So far the shadiest shit Aryn has attempted in her two years working there is she changed everyone’s email signatures and rigged it to never display to the sender only the receiver. It took people three weeks to notice this because no one wanted to talk to each other about the awkward signatures everyone was flamboyantly displaying. That and she plays a lot of video games at the office when its a slow day.

The bombs that took out Toxyn’s house are easily arcane in nature. Eventually Aryn figured out who the team was that bombed the place but thats basically a dead end as they’re just a group of solvang members who probably just picked up the job off the board and carried it out to get paid.

Bryan’s trial run goes pretty well. Nothing terribly outstanding for a hero unit assassin but its still a hero unit assassin’s performance over a faceless mook.

Vanjin has been a bit busy, now that she’s famous she has a lot of work hunting people all over the system.

Problematically, after the assassination of so many of Sophia’s enemies they have come to the conclusion its definitely her having these hits taken out on so many other gangs. So far Sophia is still alive but only because the planet that is fighting back against her isn’t where she bases out of.  The crime scene violence is starting to escalate in response to all these murders, particularly on SZ3 Gamma where the slums are very profitable to control. Sophia’s gang members have been getting gunned down in the middle of the street at SZ3 Gamma with several death threats being sent to Sophia herself. The Raiders constant sending of the solvang job board reveals that there is now a hit on Sophia that was recently posted.

Nah Division -14
Black Market Division +28

Luci Serrano

Over the last few years the tv shows have started airing, and two of the four even got enough ratings for a second season. Of the two one has been successful enough to be cleared for a third season.

The musical went over pretty well, likely because the DM is still salty about Galavant being canceled, and got a sequel. This did leave Angel with a mixed image given she was in a musical but still portrays herself as hardcore. Though somehow her fanbase has been growing weirdly fast, like downright suspiciously.

Movie star candidates are still in the process of being seen enough times to see if any get likeable/famous enough to be called a movie star.

You now have a small harem of pets, well done.

In other news, Exme finally came back to work after some time passed and the weird visions stopped.

The mining facilities have seen expansion and good progress but setbacks as slave labor revolts result in both loss of product and loss of labor as some of them get killed. So far they haven’t managed to take over the facility though so mining continues on.

Lusheria +11
Angel Blood +24
Sol Media +4
Sol Records +8
Sol Mining +8