Ruins of Alien Suns: Research and Exploration

Exploration

Remnants

Standard Remnants

• Scrap/Bits/Glimmers: Discrete non-functional objects which are expended when subject to reverse-engineering research.
• Salvage: Remains of alien or advanced human technology which can be made partially or fully usable. They can be wielded as normal or subject to reverse engineering. In most cases (roll a 1d10, 10 is a pass), attempting to pick these relics apart will destroy them.
• Limited Sites: Semi and non-functional ruins with a scale that makes their relics exhaustible. Limited Sites have a rating that determines the number of successful yearly tech results each can yield, demonstrated as 'Limited Site (X)', X being the number of techs it holds.
• Active Sites: Mostly functional ruins which provide nearly inexhaustible advancements to states that research them.

Unusual Remnants

• Artifacts: Devices of unexplained or unexplained (Solarian vernacular, paracausal) power or function. Alternatively technological wonders from the peaks of fallen civilizations, improperly documented and created under such rarefied conditions that they are impossible to reproduce. Examining such devices provides further secrets as to their function, but they can never be reproduced.
• Bracewell Probes/Mimics: Civilization hijack devices left behind hostile alien species. They provide powerful technologies which guide the development of sentients in order to win internal conflicts and ultimately replicate the biology or sociology of the creator species, or function as beacons to signal the harvest or destruction of the target species at a pivotal moment. The difference between a Bracewell Probe and a Mimic is primarily one of scale: the latter can consume civilizations while the latter is a ship-eating menace at worst.
• Guidestones/Rosettas: Uplift devices left behind by benevolent aliens, which provide 'keystone' technologies that open entire new avenues of physics or engineering. The difference between Guidestones and Rosettas is primarily one of effort: Guidestones lead their finders to hidden caches or lost battlefields, Rosettas simply provide an inter-period bridge to new fields of understanding. The MERLIN Device found by the ISA is a typical Guidestone, while Quon Archives from a dynastic Interregnum gave much of humanity access to the practical principles of plasma and antimatter weaponry.
• Survivors: Actual functional alien technology in the hands of those who created it, minimally patched with 'modern' engineering to make it useable. Quon PAVs, and much of what was stolen from Havuon by humanity after the sack, as well as the great hosts of Quon warriors who have begun to trickle into various Verger armed services are survivors. Their equipment can be decommissioned to be researched, in which case it's treated as Salvage and will most likely greatly annoy their original possessors.

Research

Humanity is enjoying a new golden age of research, progressing past the lost glories from before Disconnect with the coupling of more advanced research systems, strengthened interstellar trade links and a veritable gold rush for alien ruins scattered across human space. Contact with a variety of alien races, as well as the survivors of an ancient spacefaring protohumanity has revealed powerful new forces to wield.

Research is primarily conducted through Labs, though states may have other resources in a variety of circumstances.

Initial Assets

At game start every player begins with:

• [PC State] 10 Labs
• [Skunkworks/Cutting Edge] 1 Skunkworks Facility
• [Dreamland] 1 Active Site (see Exploration)
• [Library of Ruins] 1d3+1 Artifacts

Players who joined after game start may have their starting assets increased, at GM discretion.

Research Missions

Research

Research the 'normal' way. Assign Labs (min 1, no limit) to a Field, optionally have a target (see the Fields section for recommendations). Assigning 10 Labs to research is an automatic success in the yearly rollover.

Protect Research

Prevent theft or corruption or existing technologies by hostile agents, increasing the length of any intelligence project to affect them by 50%. 1 Lab per Technology.

Sanitize Research

Attempt to make dangerous technologies (particularly xenotechs derived from unsafe sources like Bracewell Probes and Mimics) 'safer'. Assign Labs (min 1, no limit) to an existing technology.

Joint Research

Assign labs to special 'joint' projects which draw on the strengths of all participants and make steady, limited progress year by year. For more information see the 'Joint Projects' section below.

Fields

Starship Construction

Affects build times and hull designs and fusion torches.

Example Targets: [Ship Class], Escorts, Capitals, Build Time, Build Cost, New Hulls, Drives

Energy

Affects Directed Energy Weapons and Reactors.

Example Targets: Improve [Existing Weapon], Lasers, Reactors, New Directed Energy Weapon

Kinetics

Affects railguns and mass drivers.

Example Targets: Improve [Existing Weapon], Railguns, Autocannons, New Payloads, New Kinetic Weapon

Ballistics

Affects missiles.

Example Targets: Improve [Existing Weapon], Standard Missiles, Standoffs, New Missile

Sensors and Computers

Affects sensors, C3 improvement, and interacting with alien systems.

Example Targets: Improve [Module], Sensors, C3, FCS, Labs, Survey Systems

Materials

Affects stealth and armor and hulls.

Example Targets: Improve [Module], Stealth, Armor, Base Hulls, System Micronization, New Armor Types

Art of War

Better ground troop and misc systems.

Example Targets: Improve [Unit], New Unit, Special Forces, Aerospace

Civilian and Industrial

Better developments, ground facilities, etc.

Example Targets: Improve [Development Type], Improve [Development Class], Transportation, Medical Technology, Entertainment

Discovered Fields

Discovered fields require an 'unlock' technology to access them, which can be traded or researched as normal.

Antimatter

Exotic armor-piercing weaponry, antimatter torches, advanced reactors.

Example Targets:[Existing Weapon] but Antimatter, Propulsion, Reactors

Plasma

Improved fusion torches, plasma weapons and exotic defensive fields.

Example Targets: [Existing Weapon] but Plasma, Propulsion, Reactors, Exotic Particles

Mind-Machine Interface

Improved ground forces, special forces, transhumanism, aerospace and ship interfaces.

Example Targets: Interfaces, Backups, Cybernetics

Artificial Intelligence

Highly illegal.

Example Targets: [Existing Unit] but AI, Automation, Big Data, Network Warfare

Advancements

General Advancements cannot be made targeted, but generally yield thematic technologies based on the discovering state.

Physics

Blue sky research into particles, high-energy phenomenon.

Output: Typically unlocks new fields, new exotic reactors or extremely powerful energy weapons.

Biology

The stuff of life.

Output: Powerful slotless upgrades for ground and aerospace, medical technology, useful developments, very rarely unlocks new fields.

Engineering

Labs dedicated to solving practical problems, often in impractical ways.

Output: Significantly powerful materials, greatly improved new hulltypes, enhanced industry and new fields.

Alien Artifacts

Glimmer and Salvage unlock single minor techs that resemble humantech with some deviations or additional changes. Other Remnants give powerful but difficult to-advance technologies. Big-A Artifacts simply provide expanded functionality or explanations of their origins, but will never give clues as to their reproduction.

Labs

Labs are the basic unit of research. Costs and modifications to basic function

Standard Labs

• Spare Network Cycles: 'Temporary' labs, typically a Great Power reward or the result of a random event. Useable for one research roll or exploration mission. Cost: 1 Prestige
• Labs: The maximum amount of computing power that can be linked together on a single network based on limitations set forth in the Berlin Treaty, and enclosed in basic netwar protections like a faraday cage and 24/7 overwatch by a specialist. Cost: 5 Prestige
• Specialized Lab: These are highly specialized facilities that are locked to a chosen Field when built, or to a specific non-research function like Espionage or Exploration. They cannot be reassigned to a new specialty after being built. Cost: 4 Prestige.
• Safelabs: Research blacksites or specialized laboratories in otherwise inhospitable areas. Safelabs are immune to 'corruption' from ambient Titan or SoV levels and have double effectiveness if used to protect technologies on XX and XX missions. Cost: 10 Prestige

Illegal Labs:

• Hyperlabs: Any particularly large computational bloc that goes over Berlin compliance limits. Hyperlabs are typically not airgapped in order to steal clock time from civilian networks and self-fund by mining cryptocurrency, folding proteins for designer medicine for the wealthy and other onerous brute-force applications of processing power. Many contain a single or entire groups of noncompliant self-aware artificial intelligences. Depending on their scale they may have names like Matrioshka Brain, Jupiter Brain, Hyperbrain- or pejoratively: Skynets. Cost: Created by 'burning' 1d10 Labs and 1dX+XX Fervor, guarantees a yearly tech strike in a field in addition to whatever is rolled. The cost cannot be refunded after declaring Hyperlab construction. Good luck.
• Skunkworks Facility: Questionably treaty-compliant mass computational blocs built up with advanced security systems, including air-gapped I/O network connectors, thermal shielding and self-contained reactors to conceal the sheer energy footprint of such facilities to outsiders. These cannot be built, instead Skunkworks states and Cutting Edge transtellars begin with 1 and gain an additional one on the following in-game years: 7, 13, 19, 25, 31. Guarantees a yearly tech strike in a field in addition to whatever is rolled.

Joint Research Projects

Joint Projects are special inter-player projects which involve the creation of a leap-forward superior unit or system, or the resolution of a specific problem. In exchange for exceptional results however, they take longer to resolve and may be subject to various politics, particularly when the members are non-sovereign entities like Dominions or UN Taskforces.

Joint Projects require the following:

• Location: Where the research is centralized. Unlike normal research, which can be assumed to be distributed across the whole of a single empire, such comprehensive multinational efforts must be put in a specific place for the purposes of espionage, accidents or military attack.
• Curator: ONE player is responsible for counting contributions to joint projects and linking relevant posts by members in the year-end summary in their budgets.
• Labs: Joint Projects progress at a rate of about 1 new technology or iteration per 10 lab/years. An average joint project would therefore have around 10, with more labs allowing for faster resolution and more powerful final results. Hyperlabs and Skunkworks Facilities count as 10 labs each for the purposes of joint research.
• Assets: Alien artifacts, special facilities, technologies that provide an edge in development, etc.
• Objective: The stated objective of the joint project.

After the 1st year of research, the project almost always produces an initial innovation which is shared with all members, and a series of dilemmas that discuss how it might advance. The Project Curator is always responsible for tracking the choices of their various members.

Dilemmas are presented in the following manner:

• Elective Dilemmas: Require all stakeholders to come to a simple majority (51%) vote on the issue.
• Decisive Dilemmas: Every stakeholder for themselves!
• Executive Dilemmas: The curator makes a choice outright, with or without the consent of the other stakeholders.

Results of each dillema will influence the year by year progress of a project, producing truly unique results.

In case of a player leaving or being evicted from a project, only the 'initial breakthroughs' (those produced after the 1st year of research) are retained. These players then get a significant bonus to creating their own divergent versions of the original project.

Tech Trading

Nations that have technologies they want to share can offer the expertise and personal to sell it (or give it away). Each nation can transfer 1 technology with no cost to one singular other nation. If they wish to transfer more they will have to allocate labs to represent the brainpower being used in other regards.

• 1 Extra Transfer | 2 Labs used
• 2 Extra Transfer | 4 Labs Used
• 3 Extra Transfer | 8 Labs Used
• 4 Extra Transfer | 16 Labs Used
• Trades beyond the 4th extra (5th, 6th, etc) each simply cost an additional 10 labs rather than doubling.

Certain technologies have additional costs to trade them:

• Xenotechs cost 10 Prestige or XX Fervor unless directly traded for a complimentary Xenotech, that is one that follows the same 'theme' or assists in the completion of a greater wonder. Quon Armor and Quon Infantry Shields would be complimentary in such circumstances, but Quon Plasma and Web of Worlds exotic particle beams would not.
• Controversial or Proprietary technologies (such as Yamatan TSFs) cost 5 Prestige or XX Fervor.
• Certain technologies involve violations of international norms or ethics may have a political cost in their implementation, reflected as an expense in Fervor for the adopting player.

Arms Sales, Tech Sharing and Lend-Lease

States selling arms now do so with predetermined limits. This system also allows for lend-lease and technical support of foreign proxy forces as the USA did in WW2 or most western countries in the post-imperial era. By its nature as a distantly separated spacefaring millieu with ubiquitous nanofabrication, the most common type of arms sale in the Verge consists of blueprint licenses. Loaded with DRM or managed by specific treaties, sales of blueprints to Verger states allowed the powers of Sol to precisely dictate the size and capabilities of their colonial navies while inhibiting the development of a strong native tech base.

The most restrictive of these sales are what are contemporarily called lend-lease agreements, in which case the state issues DRM-riddled blueprints with a limited (or unlimited) maximum number of purchases at any price the buyer is willing to pay. The units are assumed to be built in the buyer's own industrial facilities, but have the traits and technologies permitted by the seller. The seller may opt to upgrade them at any point, should relevant technologies become available. Lend-lease assets are effectively a borrowed tech base, but maintaining this agreement costs the issuing state 1 lab. Should this agreement ever expire, lend-lease units effectively become monkey models.

Export models or monkey models are straightforward designs with a 25% production cost markdown (cumulative with other discounts). They may incorporate any techs the seller desires and the buyer is willing to pay for, but are blackbox systems and never receive upgrades.

DRM makes reverse-engineering lend-lease and monkey model units difficult, it takes 3 extra strikes on the research roll to uncover involved techs. Should lend-lease ever be cracked, the seller is informed by network protocols.

Open sales are typical of military surplus by former superpowers or regional powers axing outdated equipment. Such units are no easier or harder to reverse-engineer, have national maker marks that are generally identifiable, but they are also incredibly easy to upgrade due to national militaries and UN taskforces generally springing for rugged, modular gear with future-proof capabilities. Surplus assets can be de-milled into monkey models for 10% of cost.

Alliance Lend-Lease

The various economic and military alliances which increasingly encompass the majority of Verge space (and economic might) are more efficient at distributing resources thanks to the elimination of certain internal trade barriers. Alliances spend 2 Labs to make Lend-Lease agreements that apply to all members of the alliance.