Part 6: Session 4: Luck Pays Off, With Interest
The first stage of diplomacy shall be researched, followed by the first stage of trade.
All colonies must build one miner each once able to do so, and all asteroids found shall be exploited to the fullest extent possible, the order based on proximity to Earth.
Taxes will be set to 40% and spending left where it is.
Once a weapon technology is researched or purchased, a ship that uses it will be manufactured (to be named "Alexander").
Humanity is prohibited from selling or trading away colonization technologies.
The starting order for all colonial buildings will be: build a factory, a market center, a factory, a market center, one research center, one starport, and one farm (once possible, only up to 13b) in that order, using special tiles when appropriate.
Hey, welcome back, you piles a' pus. No excitin' new aliens to meet this quarter, so I suppose we oughta get straight to it.
I believe I shall begin. Colonization of our newest planet has gone well enough, and since the good senators could not agree on a good name, I have decided to name it Canaan, after the land promised by God to the Israelites.
"Canaan" is primarily composed of three equatorial continents, two of which are connected as a megacontinent. Even after the starting buildings were commissioned, there is still room for four more, including one space which would be excellent for a farm and one which might improve our influence if an embassy is placed on it.
I'd also like to remind my fellow senators that the Colonial Development Commission, not the Colonial Support Initiative, has the right to rename planets, in case you disagree with Senator Godwinson's choice.
Canaan is the perfect name for a planet.
Nevertheless, it wasn't voted on by the senate at large. I merely want them the chance to do so.
The building order has been commissioned for Cupid and Bacchus as well. We don't have the means presently to build planet-scale farms, but once we do, those spaces will be filled. Also, Cupid is not a very hospitable planet, so there were no spaces left to fill after we finished commissioning, and we were forced to mismatch the starport on an approval area and a market center on an influence location.
On top on this, the spending cuts have severely slowed down building production. The first market center will be finished within 8 weeks, but you can see how much longer the next few buildings will take. Bacchus and Canaan will take even longer, since they have no factories.
Eh, quit yer whinin'. We're all doin' what we can with what we got. For instance, my boys in the Nautilus found another star, Semele, which has not just a Class 9 but a Class 10 as well, both just waitin' on us to be colonized. It's located just a bit right from the new colony.
Not far down from that, we found another interestin' resource, some kinda crystal that we can retrofit our ships to use, and it's more efficient than anything we got so far. That means better weapons and defenses, once we get 'em. Just need another one a' them constructor deals to start harvestin'.
Let's see…scout ship found nothin' on the stars on the outer rim.
Last on my list, Yima turned out to have a couple good planets, includin' a Class 8, but unfortunately the Class 14 is underwater.
So that's my report. Plenty a' good planets waitin' for us to figure out how to build there, while our present prospects are Class 8's on Slepur, Yima, and Pithra, plus the 9 and 10 way out by Semele. Those are the mostly full circles on the rightmost end of the explored star chart. I suppose there's also the Class 5 and 6 out on the rim, but they can wait.
Very good. I must admit, I was disheartened to hear that you raised taxes instead of taking my suggestion, but I suppose we did manage to run a surplus at 40% taxes.
Naturally this went down after Canaan was founded, but we seem to have stabilized at around 9 billion credits in excess per week.
Buying half of that constructor did drive us into debt, however.
Now there is something I want to make clear with you, senators. I realize that many of you represent governments who are used to standing national debts and deficit spending, but so long as I am in charge of the Trade and Loan Commission, this will be a fiscally sound government. If the treasury dips below zero, I will disallow any massive spending to finish projects early, whether it's ships or buildings. Also, if the government gets more than 500 billion in debt, I will shut down all spending. All of it. No research, social, or military spending whatsoever until we get back out of the hole. Fortunately, you wisely pulled us out of debt before much time had passed.
Wise schmize! That was all my boys in the Nautilus, and you damn well know it!
I will admit, they know how to drive a good bargain. At present, the economy has settled on a 9 bc weekly surplus. If you wanted to, you could probably set spending at around 50% and maintain parity with income. On the other hand, it's not too late to try my 0 taxes idea…
I may at least say our constructor was put to good use. Only earlier this week, humanity's first starbase was finished.
Even now, the new recreational drug "Yang's Sunshine" is spreading across the emp-colonies. Should we wish, an additional constructor could be sent to the base to increase production. We might also send it to mine the red dilithium crystals instead.
The Red Dwarf is continuing to set up asteroid mines, although distance has made them less than efficient. I have assigned them all to send resources to the nearest colonies, but technically they can be directed anywhere. Also, should we research space mining techniques, our asteroid bases could double, then double again in production. Sadly, improving bases also doubles the time needed to improve them, which is why I am happy the senate decided to build further mining ships.
Senator Zakharov, how is research progressing?
Well, following the council's directive, I stopped funding Planetary Improvement research and instead moved what little funds I have to Diplomatic Relations.
Earlier this week, I found out that the Altarians beat us to it, so I arranged with Senator Lal to buy the information off of them.
…So now we're starting on interstellar Trade research. Should a miracle happen and proper funding allow us to finish research before the end of the year, I'll just continue with Planetary Improvements. There's no way we could do both before the United Planets council meets.
Yes, that's right. The Altarians came to us earlier with the idea that we should meet and decide on interstellar policy together, as a galactic community. We will have to vote on who to send. Sadly, we cannot spare President Svensgaard for this function.
'Salright. I'd a' probably just flipped a coin or something. Anybody else got news? No? Good. The get to it, ya pencilneck pushers!
If this list gets much longer, I'm probably going to switch to the more space-efficient Colony Manager screen. Also, I'm going to wait for the general vote before explaining the United Planets session further. Don't bother voting for anyone until the sub-committee phase is over.
Standing laws:
All colonies must build one miner each once able to do so, and all asteroids found shall be exploited to the fullest extent possible, the order based on proximity to Earth.
Once a weapon technology is researched or purchased, a ship that uses it will be manufactured (to be named "Alexander").
Energy credits and technologies are authorized for any and all foreign technology trades; priority is given to military technologies so purchased. Humanity is prohibited from selling or trading away colonization technologies.
The starting order for all colonial buildings will be: build a factory, a market center, a factory, a market center, one research center, one starport, and one farm (once possible, only up to 13b) in that order, using special tiles when appropriate.
Two scouts will be built, or, if possible, purchased.