COUNTER/Weight 09: This Month of Ours

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Episode description[edit | edit source]

Throughout the Golden Branch sector, a dozen little pieces begin to move all at once, each one causing two dozen to move, and each of those, four, and suddenly the whole sector is... What will happen to those loyal souls on the abandoned world of Sage? What tricks does the manipulative headmaster of the September Institute have up his sleeves? What do the disenfranchised do when they find themselves in power? And what force sleeps, buried in the ice of Ionias? All of that and more...

This time on the Friends at the Table: COUNTER/Weight Faction Turn: "This Month of Ours"

There's no turning back, you know.

Contents[edit | edit source]

Opening[edit | edit source]

“

An excerpt from the journal of Addax Dawn, former Candidate of Peace and current agent of the Rapid Evening:

Sometime, deep in the future, after all of this is over, far away from the here and now, whoever's left will look back and write about this month we've had.

They'll tell stories about how thousands gathered in the overgrown statuaries of an abandoned world and waited to be judged by a once-absent god. They'll write about the day a little fleet of mischief and wrath became a state onto itself, unanchored and hungry. They'll sing about the moment that the freelancer became a fisher of planets.

But I wonder if anyone will be left who remembers, or if anyone outside even noticed that day, when halfway across the sector, flakes of snow drifted down into the massive crater bored into the side of the planet Ionias, as something very old and very cruel felt the light of the stars for the first time in ages.”

Plot[edit | edit source]

Recap[edit | edit source]

Austin summarizes the last faction turn, recontextualizing Horizon's failed attack of Odamas as an attempt to break through so that a convoy with food supplies could land on Counterweight, and linking this to the food crisis seen in "Here's Your Bribe Tip". He then describes the rest of that faction turn, which he played out himself:

  • The Hands of Grace attempted to raise money for a covert transit net asset to allow them to travel stealthily, and although this failed, they have enough money that it didn't seriously affect them.
  • The OEG moved their superfleet to Tetrakal, bribing Odamas to let them through with Counterweight's needed food supplies.
  • The CCT spent their limited credits on surveyors, preparing to establish a foothold on Weight.
  • The Ethnologistical Committee bought Stealth for Integrity, with the long term goal of reaching and 'civilizing' the badlands planet of Gemm, currently controlled by the Hands of Grace.
  • The September Institute, which had already infiltrated Vox with its Strati, bought Smuggler units on the planet.
  • The DDMR:SD attempted to make money with their venture capital, but were unsuccessful; this gave Lux Vox the opportunity to move mercenaries onto Slate in the hopes of destroying the DDMR:SD, their ideological enemies.
  • Finally, the Automaticorps bought smugglers, planning to move onto the nearby planet of Coral, which has no factions currently associated with it.

Faction Turn Two[edit | edit source]

Grace is introduced, the Divine who is associated with the Hands of Grace. Unlike a Divine like Service, she is both interested in and savvy about human culture, deliberately associating herself with gendered tropes about womanhood in order to be a more palatable public figure. The Hands of Grace spend some upkeep on maintaining Grace, buy a small base of influence on Sage, and move the fleet there as part of plans to bring the planet back into the fold of the Diaspora. This is played out in a scene; a huge procession of Grace and her space marines takes place in a park in one of the few cities on-planet. Sheriff Chet Wise and young idealist Rory Kingston discuss the parade, while from a rooftop council member Kira Voight observes through her sniper rifle. She attempts to assassinate Grace's candidate Vicuna, but a space marine takes the bullet. In the aftermath, Grace projects her Divine aura through the crowd, causing ecstacy and terror.

The OriCon Expeditionary Group simply makes money peacefully. The CCT move their surveyors to Weight. The Ethnologistical Committee spend their credits on stealthing their personnel by teaching their militia how to blend in on Gemm.

The September Institute have bought up a false front asset, a new media outlet on Vox. Austin explains that Loyalty, Lux Vox's Divine, is being fogged by the September Institute's artificial Divine Voice. They begin a scene: Loyalty worries to Voice about the buyouts, but is quickly calmed. Loyalty's young candidate Kobus is deflected from inquiring deeper into Voice, and they inadvertently let slip intel on Grace's activities to September.

The DDMR:SD spends the last of their resources on a posttech industries asset in the hopes of making some kind of profit. Lux Vox attacks the DDMR's mercenaries on Slate with their own mercenaries, which is framed to be what Kobus and Loyalty were watching while speaking with Voice.

Next are the L&D Automaticorps and its Divine Righteousness, who is a distributed Divine and "kind of a dick". Its candidate, mechanically a Seductress who can reveal the stealth assets of other factions, is named: Ibex, the oldest candidate in the Golden Branch, a proud and righteous man. He's sent ahead of the L&D smuggler units to schmooze on Coral.

Snowtrak and Odamas[edit | edit source]

Earthhome openly give Snowtrak Industries a credit, and Leonard Bircham cooks the books to give them a second credit as a favor for Oren. Along with their other income, this allows Snowtrak to investigate what's below the ice on Ionias. Natalya and her successor Maddie Graden visit the glacier dig site, where the young Kalliope-born worker Omen Kane has left his vehicle, unauthorized, to finish digging by hand.

Before the reveal of what's in the ice, the Odamas Fleet is upgraded to a major faction for achieving their goal last turn. This gives them increased attributes, the new assets pretech infantry and informants, and transforms the Yersinia into their mobile base of influence. They move to Vyshe on their way towards Kalliope. A scene ensues: pilot Augustus Foxwell has been picked up from the Horizon fleet destroyed last turn, gravely injured, and Diego Rose begins a very threatening recruitment pitch until Captain Thorne arrives to play good cop.

Snowtrak have also been upgraded as a faction. On Ionias, Natalya and Maddie try to stop Omen Kane from digging, but they're thrown back by a pulse of energy. A huge mechanical figure rises from the ice: Rigour, the first Divine.

Cast[edit | edit source]

Characters[edit | edit source]

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