Legacy War/Session 6

Aeldrum Cabinet under new military dictatorship:

* Luvalath is chancellor (vice Serene Doge; designated successor)
* Mimir is back at the table, heading civil service
	+ He has spent a lot of political and material capital recently
	+ Have lost ships, manpower, Naga Space, colonial revenues
	+ ATC hasn’t rebelled because Mimir keeps a close hand on it, and major shareholders of ATC are conservatives who are just being bribed right now
	+ Industrial Party has outsized influence, financial power, 1 of 8 seats
	+ Has own constabulary
	+ Fiscally backing this deal; liberally pillaging people (likely causing unrest)
	+ Bareth (Doge)
* There’s a core worlds guy to reduce Mimir influence, who “occasionally gets listened to”
* Secretary of State sidelined
* Sevrar Orvhim–intelligence guy–survived assassination of Leopold (he was 3rd in command)–controls much of domestic military manpower
	+ Harwel is a bloodbath, but service with Orvhim is seen as a cushier position, so having no problem recruiting
* Aeldman elites have been spending blood of the core worlds, so they will be discontent–which is not a priority of the government. They’ve lost a lot of influence (1/2 of all parliamentary votes -> 2/9 people in cabinet)
	+ Lidenia has spent a lot of capital to keep the core worlds quiet
* Change in leadership significantly privileges Aeldrum government in favor of core worlds
* Colonies are also unhappy
* Guilds have been robbed of all their indentured servants, so the most discontent of all

Coalition’s current war goal is “convincing disarmament” of Fialta Imperium; restoration of our territory to others; parliament wanted an Elvish ethnostate–basically, they're playing around with ideas of dismantling the Imperium

Nipponese lost convincingly to the Shantine last time. Being invaded on both sides–one by Middle Kingdom. They probably want to back out and would listen to Aeldrum proposal of neutrality unless we help more

Galthad government in exile:

* We could reach out to him if needed
* No standing troops, but have access to 10s of thousands of rebels, terrorists, ...
* In a week of slow fighting & bombing, Doge Durant’s #2 embedded deep resistance networks – arsenals, supplies, secret bank accounts
* Can we help?
	+ Kill people who are inconvenient to them
	+ Fund them
	+ Arm them (Aeldman Militia is happy to take our gifts)

Aeldrum have Semal, mostly; they have Tar’Thalran. If they relieve blockade on Mir’Thalran, they can do lots of high-attrition tactics

* If we lose Semal, then last line of support to Harwel has been extinguished

Would be nice to hit Bishant (untapped manpower reservoir for the Shantines). It’s also their holy world, and has lots of people, infrastructure

Telrion has two ethnic groups that would be happy about change in management (dwarves and kobolds). Is a lightly-defended ATC world (we could probably storm it in one session)

Null bombs are a big bomb with an occult dimension, changing aethereal patterns, sweeping planets clean–would be great to discover and change occult lettering; or disrupt its power source (risky, via angels in the vicinity); or hack their black pyramid if we can get control of another, functional one

Brass Cities robots: “really angry arachnid cuisinarts”

Priorities / DM advice:

1. Worry most about the null bombs
2. Don’t focus on big things like mass uprisings. Instead, which assassinations, successions, uprisings most impair Aeldrum’s ability to maintain an offensive
3. Decide how many fronts we can fight on and commit

Null Bombs:

* Controlled by Aeldrum Navy; being made in the Aeldrum colonies
* Chain of command: Serene Doge has final say; gives writs of deployment (you have license to make one detonation in this theater) to the commanding admiral–because their comms aren't good enough for him to approve real-time
* Hanon Mossag:
	+ Director of energy department, inventor of null bomb. Is there anyone else who is essential to the process of making new ones? (No, doesn't seem like there are other linchpins like him)
	+ Mossag likes to party but he’s a multibillionaire, so he does it at his own places.
	+ He vanishes for long periods of time to New South Saldan.
	+ He’s the only person involved in the null bomb project who has a personal relationship with the Serene Doge
	+ Almost every time he comes back to Aeldrum, he takes 24h to “decompress” first. Then takes his train line or an airship to the capital
	+ Aeldrum is the one place where he doesn’t stay at his own palaces. Goes to some big club, and also then goes “slumming”–mapping something out in the base of the Aeldrum spire.
	+ Probably vulnerable:
		- When boarding his airship,
		- Transit to and from transports,
		- Maybe his own place–then the government might not know about it for a while,
		- When he’s slumming it
	+ No shame; unblackmailable; media darling
	+ Throws lavish parties at his private estate–easiest way to infiltrate
	+ Easiest place to get him physically is in the "slums"/basement of Aeldrum spires
	+ Weaknesses:
		- Unwilling to accept oversight
		- Network of variously informed subordinates
* Null Bomb Ingredients:
	+ Obscene amounts of quicksilver
	+ Black pyramids as enrichment facilities
* New South Saldan is only known, functional, viable location of black pyramids (three of them). Almost definitely where they’re doing the testing & building. It’s on the 9th ley line. Connected to Aeldrum and to Saldan. If they lost this, they’d lose the ability to make null bombs for a while.
	+ Try to hack from Sigvald’s black pyramid?? Distance is no issue
* There might be a critical window: could probably make our own, maybe via e.g. mass sacrifices... or, screw up how they make theirs–maybe overload engines of a large aetheric ship. Create a countervailing aetheric pressure front–set it off kilter so it tires itself out faster

Mind Virus:

* Psychics are great for transmission, and angels are psychic, so may be susceptible. Passes much less easily from normies, via weird art, but we can still be easily infected. People become either catatonic or deranged as a result.

We have an enormous communications advantage over Aeldrum

Consider peace negotiations: plausible if we show that war is costly (win a big victory) and there’s a shored-up line of Imperial succession

Constantinus conversation with Octavo + various:

* Very angry–not with Octavo, but thinks he’s been robbed... of a lot of things. Undercurrent of revenge-minded fury (wants to correct the past). Would’ve been the next emperor and now probably won’t.
* He’s embittered, angry, uncompromising. The diplomacy in the mess hall was a front. He’s desperate, profoundly angry, profoundly wounded
* His apparent assassination was from inside the Imperium
* Thinks the empire got too expansionist, needs to modernize
* Doesn’t think we can conquer all of Imperial Space... so in the meantime, wants a “modern, strong, productive empire”–too strong to be taken by force, and too internally linked and cohesive to be split apart.
* Prioritizes a clear order of succession above all else–from a territory run by a warlord to a true empire; wants Fialta Imperium to be a “first among equals”, a leader among civilizations
* Thinks there should be a high council or something like it–an organization dedicated to a clear succession, which won’t change based on the whims of the current emperor
* Very shrewd: plays a political dance like someone who’s been in the game, not out of it for 20 years. Clearly structures his answers in a way that is plausible, but doesn’t match the man Octavo knew.
* Brucius was very young when his father died: 15, 16–doesn’t know his father well enough to know that he’s inconsistent with how he was before.
* His mannerisms, visions, ideals are still consistent with before

Black Pyramid info:

* There’s way more noise than expected on New South Saldan, plus a low droning background noise – coming from somewhere within Naga Space

Sending away all the next obvious successor candidates while Emperor dies:

* Vermes –> Semal
* Felix –> Telrion
* Brucius –> with Banshee to Bishant

Dampening bombs:

* We built a shipyard that will create more of these–doesn’t prevent initial damage, but mitigates aetheric winds effect. Octavo’s prototype goes with Vermes to Semal

One of Octavo’s engineers goes to the second black pyramid in Imperial Space, plus two new friends of Titus’s:
Carl Wigmond: old elf who’s worked with various lords of the pentacle
Allie Flashpan: saw work supplanted by ATC, deeply bitter, and wants an end to “all this” (null bomb stuff? war? unclear)

We do a little unraveling of spacetime (a “weft”) via the Pin Jump, which is apparently an essential part of keeping the universe together: Pin Jump is bound more tightly against itself. Sometime, somewhere in the future, this catastrophic amount of potential energy is going to be released. It will do something “deleterious.” In the meantime, we harness the other side of that energy now. We turn the Pin Jump a fraction of a degree, and we disconnect the link with Celestial Space

Calamitously destroy all three black pyramids on New South Saldan, and the planet cracks into pieces, losing specific gravity needed to hold space around itself

* The black pyramid that was Sigvald's also is destroyed
* The one in Imperial Space is not

Gravitational force is constant, as a function of range

People of the knolls: mass hysteria on the planet before the news could have reached them. Lots of psychics have bad nightmares (including Banshee and his people). General calamity and unease

Congrats to Constantinus, who is assigned as regent…. Or is he??

* Big Titus–Constantinus–Octavo showdown. Octavo gets to decide whether to kill Constantinus and take the regency.
* The generals aren’t here, but enough of the big wigs witness this moment that Constantinus is an enormous risk if he is left alive while Octavo ascends as Regent
* Octavo leaves Constantinus to lead as Regent