It’s been 7 months since I touched this, and I suspect all my creative efforts for the near future will be going towards the 2nd D&D campaign I have written and am running.
Here are the story beats/events I knew I wanted to include:
-Further negotiations about double heat sinks. Possible prompting of early reveal of Dragoons?
-Further discussions of re-uniting with St. Ives with parents, including some internal conflict about trying to get Romano knocked off, and how to do it.
-Further mention of studying how St. Ives has implemented social/political reforms, and how it’s worked out for the better in terms of social and economic freedom, quality of life, and productivity.
-Outreach is scheduled basically as canon, as, aside from the Dragoons possibly talking to the FedCom a bit earlier, nothing else will affect things outside the Cappellan Confederation.
-Start making connections on Outreach, beginning with the “bomb under the table scene,” including specifically initiating conversation with Cassandra & Kuan-Yin about those topics.
-Handle the Trial of Position differently and better.
From there, the long-term plan includes:
-Trying for a cousin marriage and merger with Cassandra or Kuan-Yin, which (1) reintegrates St. Ives peacefully (2) provides a rationale, platform, and “see how it worked with our brethren” case for major social and economic reforms within the CC and (3) places FedCom-friendly officials and wife in high places in the CC, leading to better diplomatic relations. I already know Isis doesn’t work out, there are numerous reasons why Omi Kurita doesn’t work out, and Victor’s sister Katrina is a no-go for both character and national stability reasons. I can’t see anyone wanting to give the Liaos even a trace of a claim to the FedCom throne.
-Sun-Tzu’s Clanbuster unit going after the Clans somewhere, likely involving showing up on Luthien to help defend it, and somewhere, I’m not sure where, working alongside FedCom forces…preferably near Victor or Kai, as personal ties are important.
-Plenty of boring and non-boring reforms inside the CC, including developing an actual national military planning staff, cracking down on patronage networks, and all sorts of things that are fraught with internal politics that I am not capable of portraying well.
-Economic growth as a result of reforms, with military production being focused around DHS production and refit-kits… the sales of those to other nations then helping strengthen the CC military quality, but without standing up a bunch of new (expensive) units at a time when there’s a lot of economic change going on.
-Encouraging stable elements within the TC, and generally being a good neighbor to the Periphery nations.
-Proposing some kind of Star League replacement, except not on Terra (maybe even on a space station a la Babylon 5?), and specifically inviting the Periphery states to the conference as full participating members. The goal would be less “government” and more a set of mutually-agreed on rules, ways to resolve conflict and improve trade, and platform for optional-participation joint ventures in things like spaceborne manufacturing and terraforming. We’d probably specifically target the Clans for Trials of Possessions for Star League-era terraforming equipment data, if they have it.
Of course, the enemy always gets a vote too…
