COUNTER/Weight 15: A Candle in the Sun

Episode description[edit | edit source]

Tensions rise throughout the Golden Branch star sector. OriCon megacorporations maneuver for advantage, striking with deniable operatives, market manipulation, and the finest in advertising campaigns. The remnants of Apostolos hope to find a secret strength on the seemingly abandoned planet of Torru. Horizon Tactical Solutions, stretched thin but no less hungry for retribution, strikes at the Odamas Fleet, itself in motion towards vengence at Kalliope. And in the orbit of Sage, the Divine Grace comes up against a force that does not recognize her holiness.
This week on COUNTER/Weight: "A Candle in the Sun"
Be careful not to burn out!

Four weeks after Rigour clawed its way from an accidental tomb, Snowtrak senior researcher Natalya Greaves has hidden herself away so that she can begin to piece together the puzzle: what is Rigour, and how many weeks will follow this one? She looks to the past for an answer: quad-hashed history DATs, quantum-redacted service records, propaganda vids from the old days, when they only offered you a single layer of lies.

It was forty years after Rigour first came online all those years ago that it took control, that it assigned us tasks for every day, and every hour, and every second of our lives. And to disobey was not simply impossible, but unthinkable, because it had removed those thoughts, and closed those pathways which ran through our minds. And it was 400 years later when the Autonomists and their fledgling algorithmic demigods left the Orion Spur and its bitter populace, which could not bring itself to follow, it could not help but to hate those who left them behind.

And then, time stopped. It stopped being as we know it now, because with no one to keep track of it, with so many stars destroyed in that violent flash of desperation, the calendars all stopped making much sense. And then four hundred, four thousand, or a million years later, something -- a hero or two, she guessed, or more, or luck, or history, or god, or something else -- she wasn’t quite sure. Someone or something gave us time again, freed us from the chain of Rigour.

Natalya Greaves, Snowtrak senior researcher, clears her calendar. Four days, four weeks, four months. She knows that none are long enough to save us, but she can’t but try, and to do that, she’ll need more time. “Dear Ibex,” she writes. “I hope you are well. It’s been too long.””

Plot[edit | edit source]

Recap[edit | edit source]

Austin recaps the last faction turn and describes the rest, which he completed himself:

Minerva flooded the market on Counterweight with knockoff Earthhome goods; Earthhome tried to defend with their organizational moles, but the moles were bought off, causing Earthhome to lose that asset.
The Rapid Evening used their deep strike lander assets to move space marines from Torru to Sage.
Fairchild bought surveyors for later expansion.
The Apostolosian Empire bought posttech infantry on Torru.
Horizon Tactical Solutions moved their fleet to Vyshe.

Faction Turn Three[edit | edit source]

Austin accidentally gave Earthhome an additional move, so it will be applied to turn three; they use their marketers in retribution for last turn to create anti-Minerva propaganda shows, forcing Minerva to pay a whopping 10 credits to stop them from airing.

Austin zooms in on the high tech faction of the Rapid Evening and the supercomputers they use to monitor Ziishe and Kesh. They buy up the Hands of Grace's new base of influence on Sage at the cost of all their credits. They also successfully attack the Hands of Grace fleet. This is explored in a scene: the Hands of Grace have captured would-be Rapid Evening assassin Kira Voight from the jungles of Sage and brought her into space to be questioned by Vicuna. Rapid Evening forces unstealth and surround the fleet, cutting off Grace's arm. Kira breaks Vicuna's arm on the same side Grace was injured, then fights back to her extraction point alongside Tetsuya Mori.

Snowtrak, under the control of Rigour, has focused on Earthhome as its new enemy. They use their franchise asset on Joypark to begin setting up a base of influence there and display ads which subtly imply people should always be working; Earthhome is none the wiser as they still consider Snowtrak their allies.

Fairchild move their new surveyors onto Gemm.

Apostolos attacks the Rapid Evening's base on Torru, which turns into a weeks-long siege, explored in a scene: Commander Argus and Elias, a unit commander serving under them, meet over the bedside of Nicodeme, a dying soldier about to be awarded with a medal. Argus wants to stop the senseless violence of the siege, while Elias, and the rest of command, are more concerned with the potential glory to be won for the Empire.

Horizon attacks Odamas again, this time at Vyshe, but is defeated soundly once more. The Odamas Fleet continues on its path toward Kalliope, stopping over Archonic to refuel. But before that happens, there's a short scene in which Augustus fights on the side of Odamas for the first time.

Cast[edit | edit source]

Characters[edit | edit source]