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[heydude6]

We don't want to appear as new tyrants to replace the old ones, we want to appears as benevolent saviours (Remember securing loyalty). What I suggest:

Destroy the Fleet

Say this to the citizens:

"Good evening citizens of [planet name], we are the [Dynasty, elders, precursors, whatever]. We have heard your prayers and have come to liberate you from the FWA. This have been done, you have now been freed from the tyranny of your former rulers. No seriously, look at night sky with a telescope and you won't see a single one of their ships. Of course, nothing is free and we only ask for a few favours.

First, Thou Shalt not flyeth into spaceth unless the [What we will call ourselves] deems thou worthy

Second, Thou shalt till the soil and redeem thy planet, constructing great farms were all of [Planet name]'s crops may flourish

Third, Since I have come back to [Planet name] to save it in it's greatest time of need, the anniversary of this day shall be celebrated once every [time frame] by having many crops sent towards the heavens via spaceships.

Thank you for listening and may [Planet name] have a blessed many days to come"

[Delioth]

We don't want to appear as new tyrants to replace the old ones, we want to appears as benevolent saviours (Remember securing loyalty). What I suggest:

Destroy the Fleet

Say this to the citizens:

"Good evening citizens of [planet name], we are the [Dynasty, elders, precursors, whatever]. We have heard your prayers and have come to liberate you from the FWA. This have been done, you have now been freed from the tyranny of your former rulers. No seriously, look at night sky with a telescope and you won't see a single one of their ships. Of course, nothing is free and we only ask for a few favours.

First, Thou Shalt not flyeth into spaceth unless the [What we will call ourselves] deems thou worthy

Second, Thou shalt till the soil and redeem thy planet, constructing great farms were all of [Planet name]'s crops may flourish

Third, Since I have come back to [Planet name] to save it in it's greatest time of need, the anniversary of this day shall be celebrated once every [time frame] by having many crops sent towards the heavens via spaceships.

Thank you for listening and may [Planet name] have a blessed many days to come"

+1 to dis.

[DreamerGhost]

You missed the part where we gass drug the whole planet to drop the IQ by 30-40 points, so that they would not see just how much they are geting fucked over by this "Rescue" and "Favors".

[Ozarck]

destroy space fleet, deliver ultimatum, prevent space flight, ensure agriculture, leave the citizens to enjoy what they can as long as crop tribute flows.

Or, loyalty implants mandatory.

Or, request from Chell a hint as to how the hell we (a battle wagon and battle ground vehicle) are to govern and ensure the loyalty of a planet. Someone above mentioned that we are not ideally suited for this task. they were right. nevertheless, it is the command of the one in charge, so we should proceed on this course with our customary diligence. Chell thinks we are suitable, so we must be.

destroy, control, produce.

[heydude6]

The problem with ultimatums is that usually when a population is forced to accept it, it breeds resentment in the populace and we need loyalty to be at 100%. We need them to be grateful that we have come and liberated them.

[Ozarck]

assess the comms traffic. see if the populace is likely to appreciate an agrarian society. I believe we have been given leeway on the loyalty issue - as long as they provide the service intended, their inner motivations are of less consequence.

from the GM's last post:
As for our objectives, the only important things are:

The local society is reallocated towards producing farmable exportable produce/foodstuffs
The local populace is nominally loyal to the Dynasty, through whatever ruse or guise we utilize
The local populace has no access to space- or orbit-capable technology. Standard operating procedure is to establish a protected spaceport landing site where the population delivers the exported goods and our own vessel lands to retrieve it. No technology is permitted to reside on the planet which could allow the locals to become space-faring.

Beyond those parameters, we do not particularly care if they are hyper-zealous, dystopian, imperialistic, culturally backwards or whatever.

For now no export target has been set, we are simply instructed to begin restructuring the society. Later I have no doubt that specific targets will be set.

In effect, we have been appointed as military governor of this entire star system and told that our one habitable world must be made compliant and ready to export vast quantities of food.

[Armok]

Wait a minute, lets back up a bit. Why are we trying to *farm* on a *planet*, using *human labor*? Wouldn't it be WAY more efficient to take it apart and make a Dyson swarm of automated hydroponics?

[Crisco]

I am confused about this as well. For whatever reason, Dynasty military still used meatbags in conjunction with AI, so maybe the goal is to keep a decent supply of people available for our (eventual) military?
Or maybe making a fully automated hydroponic superproject would take longer than we have? I think Chell is still slowly starving to death, and would appreciate some food in the next 24 hours, as opposed to after we finish remodeling the solar system for maximum efficiency. (not that we couldn't just grab some for her before we deconstruct the planet).

My bet is on needing a loyal population of bureaucrats in the future, so keep Iagh alive, protected, and (somewhat) useful until we need them to manage our holdings as we rampage across the galaxy reclaiming our stuff. If nothing else, that means we can focus on exploring and blowing stuff up, which I fully approve of 

A lot of this hinges on whether we have the resources to construct new AI from scratch though. If we can leave behind a governor AI and move on, that makes having loyal subjects less of necessity, and more of an ego thing.

[Armok]

In that case, shouldn't we be population-maxemizing, not exportable-food-maxemizing? Especially since shifting infrastructure from humans to food is just about removing most of the humans.

In this case, the social engineering becomes much simpler; change the memetics so that people want lots of children, give them fertility tech (loyalty+ for gift), then when thier population runs out give them medical and farming tech. If large govenments collapse and everyone is struggling to just feed their children it's also unlikely they'll do something as large scale as space tech.

[Graknorke]

Wait a minute, lets back up a bit. Why are we trying to *farm* on a *planet*, using *human labor*? Wouldn't it be WAY more efficient to take it apart and make a Dyson swarm of automated hydroponics?

Because you can't have an empire without subjects.

[ATHATH]

You missed the part where we gass drug the whole planet to drop the IQ by 30-40 points, so that they would not see just how much they are geting fucked over by this "Rescue" and "Favors".

+1, although we need to ensure that it only affects humans or else the animals will become too dumb to live.

[Armok]

I'd say a virus is a better bet than a gas. Can do more precise targeting.

Also, some more precision targeting would have better outcomes than just straight killing IQ. There already exist a drive in many humans specifically for having children, we just need to activate it in all of them and make it much stronger and not go away when they've had some. Malnutrition will do some work on the IQ reduction, and to curb spaceflight and rebellion what we really need to do is just cut the TOP IQ's down to the median and kill the ability for large scale coordination and technological development. All these things should be fairly easy to pull of just adjusting hormone levels and killing of small specific brain regions.

[Crisco]

Wait a minute, lets back up a bit. Why are we trying to *farm* on a *planet*, using *human labor*? Wouldn't it be WAY more efficient to take it apart and make a Dyson swarm of automated hydroponics?

Because you can't have an empire without subjects.

Good point. Also, I think we should maaaybe back off of the whole planetary brainwashing thing. The fact of the matter is that we don't know what else is out there in the galaxy, and if we get a reputation as some kind of evil overlord that enslaves entire planets, we might find ourselves totally rekt before we establish a foothold. Not that we've seen anything that can do that yet, but we've been stuck on a provincial backwater for 10,000 years, so...

Also, it says in the description of the battlewagon:
Battlewagon Sicily is a spaceborn Dynasty vessel equipped to handle a wide range of contact situations, from aggressive to diplomatic. Battlewagon Sicily is assigned to local system designated Iagh.

So what are we equipped with for diplomacy? Seems like that would be nice to know before we decide on final options. (I'm assuming this is more than just "Invincible spaceship here to diplomacy you, suggest you comply" abilities. But let's check before we inadvertently destroy the planet trying to pick up lunch for Chell.)

[forsaken1111]

You are Lieutenant Festus Hange, tactical officer of the S.S. Invincible, a Dreadnought-class jump vessel under command of Admiral Hange (your father). You are on duty at the secondary command center, deck 117 section J. You are currently staring at a rather attractive blonde woman whom you know as Lieutenant Melissa Bornes. She is manning the secondary sensor console, while you are on tactical. This position happens to give you a rather good view of her posterior, and a fine one it is too.

You are suddenly snapped out of your daydream, however, as Bornes turns to look at you. "Festus, I'm reading unusual solar activity. Do you see anything?"

You glance down at your console, face reddening slightly. Did she see you looking?

You immediately see what she is talking about, and all thoughts of guilt are put aside. The local star, "Ugh" or whatever the natives call it, is experincing some kind of massive solar flare. You tie in a lateral sensor array and focus a detailed scanner on the star. You stare at the data coming in. This is impossible.

The star isn't just throwing out a solar flare, it's like a big chunk of the star is suddenly in motion. As if something massive impacted the surface and is causing waves throughout the convection layer...

Your thoughts are interrupted again as Bornes shouts "Alert! Relativistic projectile inc-"

There is a wrenching sensation and a riot of confusing images. You feel your head bounce off of something and then you are.. falling? floating?

And then you are back in basic training. A crusty looking sergeant is yelling at your Cluster, telling you all to fall into formation. Now you're moving through maneuvers. Now it's even earlier, you're arguing with your father about joining the FWA military. Now earlier. Images are coming quickly. Are you dead? Is your life flashing before your eyes?

Suddenly you come back to consciousness. Every part of you hurts. Blood is covering your hands and uniform as you lie there on the decking. Melissa wasn't so lucky. You see her dead eyes staring in your direction, but it is only her head there. The rest of her body is off to one side, mangled against the console that decapitated her.

You realize that one of your eyes is swollen shut. It's very dark as well... you aren't sure if the emergency lighting hasn't kicked in or if your vision is just very dark. Power is out throughout the secondary command center, and only a few aux terminals are still online. The large status display on the wall is frozen at its last data update, showing massive damage to the forequarter of the ship.

You slowly rise to a sitting position, your head swimming. Before you can muster the stamina to attempt standing, you hear a grinding noise from the bulkhead. A cutting blade breaches the hardened battle steel as if it were butter, some kind of rotating chain-blade composed of unimaginably strong alloy? It rapidly slices a hole in the bulkhead and a thing steps through. It stands two meters tall, roughly humanoid. Its legs are too thin for it to be a suit, so it must be autonomous. A breaching drone? Are we being boarded?

A sensor cluster on top of the drone which serves as a 'head' swivles in your direction. You feel terror rising and your throat becomes tight. "I... I surrender! In the name of the Federated Worlds, we surrender!"

The drone takes two inhumanly large steps towards you and that cutting blade flashes once. At first you don't even feel the cut, just a pleasant warmth on your chest.

When you look down, you see exposed ribs... a throbbing heart. Who do these belong to?

Why is it so cold?

So... tired.

Melissa was quite pretty when she had a body. Hehe... oh... you think you'll take a nap and sort this when you wake up.

--------

CCC REPORT

FLEET DESTRUCTION 99.99% COMPLETE
JUMP VESSEL TAKEN
COMMAND STAFF REMAINS PRESERVED FOR INTERROGATION
THERE ARE NO SURVIVORS

PROCEED WITH SECONDARY OBJECTIVES

CCC OFFLINE

--------

The FWA fleet is now a glittering scatter of debris and organics. Boarding drones have taken the command ship and staff.

They will complete a thorough sweep of the debris and then Logistics will be released to scavenge any useful material. The vessels were hopelessly primitive by our standards, they did not even detect the incoming rounds until it was much too late to maneuver, and we filled the space with so many projectiles that it would have been nearly impossible for one of them to...

wait...

A single FWA ship has been detected. It has miraculously evaded destruction.

Interrogating onboard systems...

...
...

EWAR has gained access. Ship identity established: FWO Frigate "Dorian Gray" commanding officer Augustus Gray.

EWAR has commanded ship to halt and cease all maneuvering. We will have to decide what to do with this ship... Analysis of the battle indicates that the ship was simply missed. CCC does not miss. How has this happened?

Alert - Chell has signaled for our attention. Now that we have moved away from the star, the gravity is much more managable and Chell has been moving about the battlewagon. It awaits us in a conference room on deck 1182.

Internal video feeds come online, showing Chell seated at a long table. It is garbed in newly fabricated clothing of a very simple and utilitarian style, colored a light blue. You recognize this as a 'ship's smock', clothing intended to be functional aboard a space vessel and comfortable to wear but without any loose cloth or anything which might become snagged in zero-g maneuvering. It is a very tight, form fitting style and because of this you note that Chell seems to be reasserting her female anatomy.

"Greetings Chell, you summoned us?"

"Us? I summoned you, yes. Don't go crazy on me yet. I saw the battle, very efficient. I wanted to speak to you about the planet. I saw that some of your decision subprocesses had some misgivings and some... inventive solutions to the directives. I thought that perhaps a quick talk would be in order?"

"Of course Chell."

"First let me outline the need. This is a logistical concern more than anything. Certainly I could have you set up orbital farming platforms using sophisticated robotic gardeners but such a thing takes time. More time than I think we have. This battlewagon has a single general assembler, and it has a limited throughput. It cannot build a second assembler, only a Fleet Station was capable of that. I don't have the blueprints in any case, and you don't have the materials."

She leans back, staring at a spot on the wall and steepling her fingers beneath her nose.

"So what do we have? A backwater ball of dirt with water and life and people on it. Have them scratch out some farms, grow some vegetables. I have discovered spore packets in storage for the fungus we use for ship's rations. It grows in almost any climate so long as it is tended a bit. It doesn't taste great but it is a very good source of nutrition."

"Let me be clear though. I do not want the people on the planet harmed, altered, or controlled. I mean that in a societal sense. You may need to kill a few to make a point, whatever is necessary."

She makes a dismissive gesture, "The end result must be a reasonably loyal populace which is willing to raise food for export. Pay them with whatever you can, bribe them, scare them. I don't care. They must remain human, and willing."

"So ask your questions. Let your subcomponents speak if they must. I will answer."

[heydude6]

We don't want to appear as new tyrants to replace the old ones, we want to appears as benevolent saviours (Remember securing loyalty). Here's what I suggest

Say this to the citizens:

"Good evening citizens of [planet name], we are the [Dynasty, elders, precursors, whatever]. We have heard your prayers and have come to liberate you from the FWA. This have been done, you have now been freed from the tyranny of your former rulers. No seriously, look at night sky with a telescope and you won't see a single one of their ships. Of course, nothing is free and we only ask for a few favours.

First, Thou Shalt not flyeth into spaceth unless the [What we will call ourselves] deems thou worthy

Second, Thou shalt till the soil and redeem thy planet, constructing great farms were all of [Planet name]'s crops may flourish

Third, Since I have come back to [Planet name] to save it in it's greatest time of need, the anniversary of this day shall be celebrated once every [time frame] by having many crops sent towards the heavens via spaceships.

Thank you for listening and may [Planet name] have a blessed many days to come"

This idea again