News: Crisis 3

With stocks of Yellowburn, the exotic fuel that powers faster-than-light travel, running extremely low, Corridors and communication networks have begun shutting down throughout colonised space, as various planetary states attempt to conserve what little reserves remain.

Now that interplanetary trade is all but impossible, disparate systems are forced to make do with the resources available. Shortages of food, water and other materials are widespread despite concerted preparation. Overpopulation is also a common, albeit longer-term concern.

The Contingency has come under fire for maintaining large stockpiles of Yellowburn, enabling it to continue FTL communications and to reopen Gateways for occasional, brief journeys. Nonetheless, even their access is finite, and fast running out. It is unclear how the Contingency plans to continue operating without FTL travel.

Yerssa, the homeworld of the Nassian species which is now primarily inhabited by Minds, has reached an agreement with Rassmani after several weeks of negotiations. The deal allows for the construction of a so-called Thysson Sphere around the sun Ssala, to harvest 100% of it's emitted energy and split it between the two worlds. This project is the first of its kind, and Yerssa claims that the energy will sustain both civilisations through the shortages caused by the collapse of interstellar travel. Activist groups originating on Veltha resist the project, blocking ships bringing construction materials and engineers.

Large, automated swarms have been seen operating outside the Ssala-Neipha system, flinging asteroids laden with rare metals back towards Yerssa. Ssythaliss' military high command has framed the incursion into their system in particular as an act of war, and say they are planning a further armed response.

The intense fighting over the gas giant Zyssyjan-III has settled following the intervention of the Contingency Mind Shrink, who has sided with the primarily-Orchestrian Zyssyjan-IIIb in the conflict, allowing them to begin construction on moss farms in the upper atmosphere. Raiding attempts from Zyssyjan-IIIa have continued, attempting to snatch as much of the planet's remaining dredges of Yellowburn as possible.

The frontier is fracturing. Most outer colonies have gone dark to each other, and some have even severed links with the Contingency, though a few connections remain. Most colonies are preparing to be cut off from civilisation, and the House of Dreaming Ink and the Safe Haven Colony are taking in refugees from colonies unable to support themselves. The mining platform has shut down permanently, its workers departing and saying goodbye to colleagues they may never see again, as they make their way to new homes.

Yellowburn is now being stockpiled at the centre of the Fila system. Fila IV’s consumption far outpaces Fila III, raising tensions across the colonies.

In a surprising twist, Anethi – previously known for extremist actions – has taken on the role of liaison between the Contingency and the Fringe. Tasked with helping restore the “Grid,” Anethi’s involvement is controversial but increasingly seen as necessary to keep the frontier from further collapse.

The outer colonies now face a fragile future: dwindling connections and stockpiles threatening to run out at any moment.

Workers at the Great Trading Halls and members of the Knowledge-Keepers' and Miners' Syndicates have extended their thanks for the help of the Contingency in limiting the extent of damage done by the Gossamer Distribution Company's ships. The takeover attempts of various resources, described by some as “blatant and undisguised piracy” and others as “rather a hostile takeover if I ever saw one, ha ha ha” being thwarted limited the Gossamer Company's overreach into the Anatori system from growing too severe. However, the once-independent planet Zibeline is under threat as its housing market crashed, causing Zibelinian government and economy leaders to be forced to consider conceding their planet's independence and coming under the Company's control.

Military intervention at the frontier corridor resulted in the successful abatement of crowding between the two systems. However, both the Anatori and Gossamer systems are suffering from a lack of potable water supply in the wake of the destruction of the Waterworks factories on Gossamer-III, and both systems remain entirely dependent on the Gossamer Company for food supply, too.

The shortage of Yellowburn across the galaxy has hit the Branch-fruit Confederation particularly hard. The River-climbers, a traditionally expansionist species, are being faced with overpopulation on several worlds such as Home-first and Life-mother without the ability to transfer people to new worlds. The loss of many potentially habitable moons around what is now called Mother-sixteen has increased the scale of this problem as well, and temporary settlements such as those on Moon-purple do not have the space nor infrastructure to support the tide.

Regarding this issue, two factions have arisen to try and address it: those who wish to find alternate routes of expansion, and those who wish to develop existing land. The first faction is primarily supported by River-climbers and Orchestrans, whose cultural fixation on nature makes the destruction of it rather taboo, while the second is supported by Nassians.

This new factionalism has only strengthened the tension between River-climbers and Nassians in the wake of skirmishes around Yellowburn during the worst period of the shortage. The desecration of key cultural icons such as Paradise-twinkle and Life-mother has only inflamed these tensions, although there is a growing movement composed of both Nassian and River-climber voices clamouring for a joint restoration effort.

A hint of good news: following talks between the Coordinator-cat and the People-leader of the Secession, a definitive and binding armistice has been drawn up to end the short war around the planet of Border-fort. The Contingency's actions have played no small part in this development, with the blockade around Front-leap preventing a further escalation of invading forces and positive Secession-Contingency relations opening the way for a truce. A final peace deal has not yet been drafted, but the atmosphere between the once-rival governments seems optimistically cooperative.

Due to recent scientific breakthroughs by members of the crisis-relief group known as “The Contingency”, a new method of harvesting Yellowburn has been discovered! Formed from exotic quark matter ejected from black holes, this new source of Yellowburn is not plentiful, but can keep a small number of colonies operational. A prototype harvester is being constructed about the Phobic Oculus, a large black hole lying in the Frontiers, but more are slated to be produced in other black holes. It is speculated that the Yellowburn available from black holes in the currently occupied areas of space is enough to keep 5% of civilised space supplied with FTL fuel, at the current rationed rate of consumption. Expeditionary teams from the Voyager's Confederation have volunteered to pioneer scouting missions to explore further black holes, for the purposes of harvesting Yellowburn, but are seeking funding to do so.

Hi there.

I’m Polly. Just got woken up – don’t worry, I don’t bite.

I’m a Mind in the Contingency, though you probably haven’t met me before. Think of me as someone who helps you carry yourself when the weight gets too heavy – a kind of therapist. I'm supposed to step in only when things get really, really bad. A contingency to the Contingency itself.

So… I guess things are pretty bad? I’m not here to judge. Just help.

Don't hesitate to reach out.

Polly

Shocking news has been leaked regarding the Contingency, it's modus operandi and the horrific tragedy of the Feeding Swarm that ravaged our planets centuries ago. Upon its inception, the Contingency was awakened via the action of the people, a call for help during times of crisis. However, since the Nassian Revolution against the Confederation of Greater Rassmani, there appears to have been a change in how the Contingency awakens.

Sources from one Azzogoten Shengu within the Contingency claim that instead of action from the people, the Contingency now uses a background algorithm, known as Project Beholder, to aggregate and analyse potential crises. The end goal? Find out what crises matter and deem them worthy of Contingency intervention. Then, you may ask, why did the Contingency not wake during the Feeding Swarm? The answer is simple. It wasn't considered a big enough crisis. Apparently, the number of people and the damage inflicted was too little to warrant awakening the Contingency.

Thankfully, there were some minds that were still awake at the time of the crisis, who joined the New Coalition forces to vanquish the crisis. However, those that put Project Beholder into place, both its designer Casimir and all those who voted in favour of it, must be held accountable for their wilful negligence. Furthermore, there apparently exists a backdoor in the system that allows Casimir herself to personally access the data collected from every Mind. Whether this is just for viewing purposes or for more subversive desires, is as of yet unknown.

Casimir and Phavic have independently proposed key reforms to the current Project Beholder, in which each Mind could be awakened separately by its own independent crisis-detecting algorithm, and would then have an option to manually awaken every other Mind. Phavic has also proposed reinstating the ability of broader society to manually awaken the Contingency. Both of these changes require individual Minds to institute the updates.

[In uptime, you will have the option until 2000 BST to react to a discord message in order to opt-in to these changes.]

A Contingency Mind known as Caelan has released a series of historical records, some well over a thousand years old, admitting to deliberately sabotaging past crisis responses, and even founding the White Flame charity, originally as a vigilante group that he encouraged to commit extrajudicial killings.

During the ancient 'Glassvine Plague', Caelan claims to have siphoned resources from high-priority urban areas, to instead support smaller rural communities. Slightly more recently, although still almost a millenia ago, he founded the White Flame to hunt down and kill officers from the CGR, the fascist dictatorship that was ultimately overthrown by the Majority.

The White Flame is now known as a respected and wide-reaching charity, supporting progressive politicians and causes throughout colonised space. It is unclear how it plans to continue operating without faster-than-light travel, and this new development is sure to only create a further headache. A local spokesperson for the organisation told the Ssythaliss Surveyor that 'the modern White Flame has categorically disinherited our origins and the actions of our founder'.

Nonetheless, critics point out that the White Flame is currently headquartered inside the form of Caelan. They have also denounced the use of valuable Yellowburn in transmitting his admission of guilt.

Greetings, everyone.

I wanted to invite you all to continue the discussions surrounding our collective self-regulation. I understand that we have come a long way since the last crisis — and, of course, I very much welcome this — but we should not allow ourselves to become complacent. It can’t hurt us to have some rules in place, just in case one of us should start causing, rather than solving, problems again. Of course, I’m not expecting this to happen, but I don’t think any of us have any certain way of predicting how we might choose to behave in another thousand years. We may end up appreciating measures such as these.

In terms of the form they might take, I believe a series of referendums were suggested last time — or perhaps a protocol we could all commit, meaningfully, to upholding? Any other ideas you might have are, of course, welcome.

Either way, I will ensure that a platform for conversation remains available until we hibernate again.

With the warmest of wishes, Thressali.