Merit Badges
(Note: this info was given to Jim over time, but never published in game.)
Completed Badges
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Piloting -- DONE! 07/06/02
Small single-engine craft:
DONE 10 hours spaceflight
DONE 10 hours atmospheric flight,
DONE 3 successful space dockings in a row,
DONE 3 successful atmospheric landings in a row.
Large multi-engine craft:
DONE 10 hours spaceflight,
DONE 3 successful space dockings in a row.
DONE A paper of at least 5,000 words contrasting military and civilian
piloting techniques. You must cite the experiences of two
military and two civilian pilots each with at least five years'
experience. (Military: Riden pilot, book. Civilian: Ace, ???)
DONE Two successful jump transits
DONE! A successful combat engagement with one or more hostiles.
DONE! A successful completion of
in under ten minutes (2-3 successes on a target of 8 or 9)
Call it 3 8s in a small ship, 3 9s in Hippocrates just
because some of the things don't scale as well. Setting it
up actually takes a good while (though if you get Martan to
help, it's probably shorter), because there's a lot of "and
then leave this in space not moving". There's a slalom and
some loops to go through, and then a couple of loops made out
of something flammable like rope, which you have to go
through dead-engine in order to not set them on fire.
DONE Speak with someone who has a piloting skill of at least 7 for one
hour about their work and why piloting skill is important to it.
(Ace)
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Small Arms -- DONE! 7/01/02
DONE 40 hours range practice with a hand blaster (post-Aftermath V)
DONE 40 hours range practice with a laser rifle (post-Aftermath V)
DONE! A paper of at least 4,000 words on a particular make and model of
small arm, detailing both improvements in design over previous
models and known flaws.
DONE! A successful combat engagement against one or more hostiles in which
you score 15 or more hits. (successes).
DONE! Place your personal hand blaster in a sealed container with fifty #2
nails, a pound of gravel, half a pound of salt. Shake until the
blaster ceases working. Successfully repair it.
DONE! While blindfolded and with one hand, field-strip your hand blaster,
change the charge cartridge and replace the diffraction grating,
in under ten minutes. (3 successes, target=11)
DONE! Speak with someone who has a Small Arms skill of at least 7 for one
hour about their work and why Small Arms skill is important to it.
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Computers Done 09/22/02
DONE! Write a UI to allow four players in separate locations to play
Cobbler's Tower against each other. Allow for LAN networked
games, and email networked games.
[cobbler's tower is a bunch of cumulative 7 successes.]
[Each four hour chunk you work on it, you can roll (Pre of Mind). In
general assume one chunk per awake day unless you're really crunching.
DONE! You need 20 successes (rolling for sevens) to write the main bit; if
at some point during this you roll no successes, you have introduced a
Bug, and need to roll two successes to debug it.
DONE! To write the networking, you need 8 successes, but anything under two
successes introduces a bug and you have to roll either three succesess
or two successes twice, to debug it.]
DONE! Write an algorithm, in a different language from the above, which
plays chess. UI not required. It should be able to beat an
opponent with a Unified Ranking of 100 (or above) in at least two
matches out of five.
[the chess program is cumulative harder successes.
and finding a chess player.]
Each four-hour chunk you work on it, pick a target number T, and
roll for successes S. Add (T-7)^S to your cumulative score, and
get to 100. If you get no successes, you've introduced a bug
and have to get at least two successes at that target to
debug. (s:257)
DONE Diagram the planetary network of one of the Linked Worlds, in
detail, noting all aggregates of greater than a thousand linked
machines, all connections comprising .5% or more of total
bandwidth, and protocols used. (Target=7, get 10 successes like cobbler.
Current: 16 successes)
DONE Build a personal web page.
DONE Connect your Handbook to a Linked Worlds planetary network on an
open network connection and request the Programming Field Test.
DONE Speak with someone who has a Computer Programming skill of at least
7 for one hour about their work and why Computer Programming skill
is important to it.
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DONE, 12/07/02? Small Unit Tactics
X A paper of at least 3000 words on a battle in which the forces
involved numbered less than 200. Analyse the tactics used by both
sides, including tactical improvements that could have been made by
both sides.
X Plan and carry out one of the following: a victorious assault
on an entrenched or fortified position; the victorious defense of a
position you have occupied for less than twenty-four hours; a
victorious battle in even terrain against a superior force; a battle
against a opponent of equal or better capability, in which your side
takes no damage.
X Win a game of _Counter Commander_ at the Four Star level.
x -4 7s on a tactics/wargaming roll to grok the rules at Four Star
-You need to make a Pre of Mind roll for 4 10s, playing against the
computer, using tactics skill and computer game skill.
+2 M You can practice for playing the computer by playing a human instead
+1 A (you can handicap the game appropriately so that it's even). If this
+4 H is a human you haven't played yet, then the number of successes for
10s that you get can be applied as extra skill in your next game,
whether it be versus a human or a computer.
X Describe the ideal six-man fireteam for a fast hit-and-run strike.
Jed Eckert, Matt Eckert, Daryl Bates, Robert, Erica, Toni
Describe the ideal six-man fireteam to defend a fortified position.
Tommy Doyle, Henry Haggerty, John Jenness, James Powell, R.J. Smith,
and John Doe
Describe the ideal six-man fireteam for reconnaisance and surveillance.
Dunyazade, Errol, Harwin, Jabril, Jelom, Weythran
(alternatively: Carl Arbegast, Martin Bishop, Donald Crease, Erwin
'Whistler' Emory, Liz, Mother)
X Speak with someone who has military command over a force between
fifty and five hundred for one hour about their work and why Tactics
skill is important to it.
X Analyse three of the following tactical advantages as used in a
situation you observe: advantage of numbers; advantage of technical
superiority; advantage of superior training; advantage of psionic
talent; advantage of home ground; advantage of righteous cause;
advantage of superior intelligence.
x- bandits: advantage of home ground
x- gith: technical advantage
x- crux police training: advantage of numbers
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DONE, 03/29/03 Citizenship in the Hegemony
X A paper of at least 4000 words, in which you explain and
describe all major branches of galactic government and their primary
areas of responsibility.
(8 successes)
X Describe the source of the Hegemon's moral authority in your
own words.
X Take a tour of or otherwise examine in detail, a SkyGuard
Base, Legion Bunker, Guard Battalion Headquarters, or other military
installation responsible to the Strategos.
X Spend an hour speaking with a Consul, Consular aide, Elite, Praetor,
or Praetori Explicat, or other governmental official responsible to
the Hegemon, about his work.
X Write a letter to your Consul, or other Hegemonic representative on an
issue important to the Hegemony, sharing your view with him or her.
X Identify a local policy which you feel is improperly at odds with
greater Hegemonic policy. Outline a method of altering the policy
from below, and a method of altering it from above. Take the initial
steps towards both methods.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
DONE, 06/27/03 Aquatics
Won via Aquatic Derby.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Tactical Psychology (08/16/03, run 3.04)
DONE Speak with someone who is employed in a non-medical or
non-social-work capacity who has Psychology skill of at least 5, for
one hour about their work and how Psychology is relevant to it.
DONE Choose a partner for this exercise. Agree upon a topic on which
you disagree. Prepare ten lines of argument in support of your
position, and rate each of them as to how likely it would be to
convince your partner. Use each of the arguments, and have your
partner rate each as to how convincing it was. Compare both lists.
1. Convincing: This argument has swayed my point of view in this
direction.
2. Thought-provoking: This argument has not convinced me, but I would
be likely to keep it in mind.
3. Neutral: I did not find this argument convincing.
4. Negative: This argument caused my point of view to move in the
opposite direction.
DONE A paper of at least 2000 words detailing a current conflict or
situation in which the personality of those involved has become the
most relevant factor.
DONE Prepare and give a speech of approximately 408 words before an
action, designed to inspire and motivate. Afterwards, analyse the
effect upon those who participated, considering the effect and
specifically upon whom it was more or less effective.
DONE Choose four subjects personally known to you. Consider and
determine the best way to motivate each to perform an action
which they would rather not do. For one subject, consider how
this motivation might change were the action to be morally
unpleasant versus physically unpleasant. For another subject,
consider how this motivation might change were the action to be
unlikely to succeed versus likely to succeed. For a third
subject, consider an action upon which you think the subject
might be unreasonable.
DONE Persuade four subjects not personally known to you to change their
minds about an opinion or a course of action.
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Propaganda - DONE, 09/17/03
DONE Speak with someone who is employed in political public relations
for one hour about their work and why the Propaganda skill is
important to it.
DONE Document a recent political issue in which the information
available to the voters was principally presented by one side.
--blue war propaganda machine, Eremov
DONE Compile a list of one hundred "sound bites" of one sentence or less.
Rate each on its accuracy, its relevancy, its catchiness, the level of
knowledge required to understand it, and its overall effectiveness.
Derive a formula which relates the first four variables to the fifth.
DONE Pick a cause you support. Design a folded-page flyer in support of
your cause. Distribute one hundred of them in a given location with
plentiful nearby trash cans. Ascertain that fewer than fifty percent
of the flyers end up in trash cans within one hundred feet.
DONE Pick a cause you support with adequate polling feedback. Design
a folded-page flyer in support of your cause, that the cause
deems acceptable to distribute. Ascertain that public opinion
has changed in your favor after the distribution by twice the
expected error of the polling.
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Stealth - DONE 10/21/03, after 03.08
DONE Write a paper of at least 5000 words, analyzing the stealth
opportunities and pitfalls of the environment of your choice. Discuss
in detail options to take to evade three senses, and discuss in detail
three methods which would be the most difficult to hide from.
DONE Choose a partner who has Perception of at least 5, and practice hiding
from your partner in a complex environment until he cannot (at least
once) find you after a reasonable search.
DONE Choose a partner who has Stealth of at least 5, and have your
partner practice hiding in a complex environment until you cannot
(at least once) find him, and then have him explain where and how
he hid from you.
DONE Spend at least one full combat turn taking action against hostiles
while remaining undetected.
DONE Start in a location with a Type 0 through 5 classification on the
Hilbert/Denforth wilderness scale, which you are unfamiliar with.
Spend three hours classifying the native wildlife you can observe.
Spend another hour with a biodetective scanner, identifying ten
organisms of reasonable size that you failed to previously note and
identify, and describe how each avoided initial detection, noting a
different set of stealth protocols for each. (i.e. don't pick ten
creatures which are all hidden by virtue of being underground).
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Weather Forecasting - DONE 11/11/03, around 03.10
DONE Acquire weather data for your home town (or the nearest location
that has accurate data): temperature, wind speed and direction,
humidity. Graph the data over the course of a year, over the course
of one month, over the course of one week, over one day, and over one
hour. Observe which graphs are smooth and which are not.
DONE Construct a cloud jar. Successfully create a cloud, and then
precipitation.
DONE Speak with a someone who has a 67% or better personal accuracy of
predicting the weather for one hour about their work.
DONE Track a severe storm (sufficient to cause Storm Warnings) from
formation to dissipation, making observations every eight hours.
DONE Enclosed is a standard weather modeling system. Decompile it and
correct the variables so that it accurately models your home town (or
the nearest location that has accurate data). Run it for a week and
identify the areas in which it has most closely matched reality and
the areas in which it has diverged. Correct one of the discrepancies
and verify that it has been fixed by running it for another week.
--started on ~2780.090, finished on 2780.114
DONE Predict the weather to within a 50% accuracy rating up to a week and
a half in advance.
--started on 2780.114, finished on 2780.124
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Applied Luck - DONE, 12/03/03, after 03.11
DONE! A paper of at least 1000 words, describing a significant
success generally attributed to good luck on the part of the victor.
DONE A paper of at least 5000 words, describing the factors that
the victor brought to bear, to bring about or take advantage of the
luck, and those things which they had in place in case of bad luck.
DONE! Arrange for a contest with a knowledgable opponent (at least 4
skill in the relevant arena), that they consider a "fair contest".
Outline three possible methods to sway the contest in your favor,
including the pros and cons of each method. Then, win the contest.
DONE Visit a casino which has turned a profit in the past year,
allotting a fixed budget for your visit. Choose your budget so
that it is significant for you but not devastating to lose.
Over the course of no more than a week, double your starting
capital.
DONE Take a statement made by someone knowledgeable in a subject (at
least 4 skill in the relevant arena) that something is impossible or
"extremely unlikely." Cause it to take place.
--Deep Blue, tie him in a scenario of Counter Commander, Sovereign level
DONE Speak with someone who has a fortune of at least 6 for one hour
about their work and how fortune is relevant to it.
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Planetary Politics - DONE, 03/12/04, after 03.16
X Speak with someone responsible for an area of governmental policy
on a planetary basis for one hour about their work, and why Politics
skill is important to it.
X A paper of at least 3000 words comparing and contrasting three
forms of planetary government. You must cite the experiences of three
citizens of the relevant planets who have political skill or
experience.
(Kith, Ruehan, Pica Friedling)
(5 successes)
X A novel technique for an obviously dangerous and immoral practice is
invented in a large city on the planet of your choice. Diagram a
likely and plausible course of political events between the time
it is first invented and the time it is outlawed planet-wide. At
each stage, include the minimum threshhold necessary to cause
forward progress (i.e. "petition - requires 20,000 signatures"),
and the most likely time frame.
(Children imprinting drugs)
X Choose two of the Linked Worlds and research the treaties,
agreements, and legal arrangements between them. Pick three which are
essentially larger-scale versions of arrangements which could be made
at lower levels, and describe the differences in scale. Pick three
which are unlike lower-scale arrangements and explain why.
X Spend a day volunteering in each of three planetary governmental
offices.
(Bastion, Crux, Stannis Law)
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Bladed Weapons (02/04 - 08/04, after 04.06)
X 40 hours range practice with throwing knives
--2 hrs/day, starting on 244. Finished on 264
X 40 hours practice session with a melee edged weapon.
--2 hrs/day, starting on 255. Finished on 275.
X A successful combat engagement against one or more hostiles in which
you score ten or more hits with a sword-type weapon.
--3.17, "The Great Ship Robbery"
X A successful combat engagement against one or more hostiles in which
you score ten or more hits with a thrown blade.
--3.18, season finale, but they were illusory, so it's unclear
--but it doesn't say they have to do damage, so I think this
counts as success
X A successful combat engagement against one or more hostiles in which
you score ten or more hits with a small hand-held blade.
--3.18, season finale
X Speak with someone who has skill in bladed weapons of at least 7, and
skill in other weapon use of at least 7, of why edged-weapon training
is important to their work.
X Six different practice sessions of one hour each, in which you hold
your own against different competent opponents with different
edged-weapon training styles. (Competent opponents rate at least five
successes).
--this implies 10 dex/2 skill, 9/3, 8/4+, 7/7, 6/10+)
--holding your own implies not being more than one success down
total over four rounds (oof)
1: Janzur (Elite school)
2: Godia ice spear
3: Big Gladiator, The Well
4: bathleth guy, The Well
5: trainer guy, The Well
6: Falling Rain Dojo, Lendt
X Forge a bladed weapon to your satisfaction.
When forging a bladed weapon, you may use Weaponsmith, Metallurgy,
Materials Engineering, plus half of any Blade skill (relevant to
the blade being forged) up to a cap of the previous set of skills.
If your total here is 0 skill, you're not going to be able to forge
something satisfactorily.
This is a Str of Body roll to forge it, and it takes a while
(though you can use modern tools rather than an anvil and a
hammer).
To make a weapon at all:
For a knife, you want 3 succeses.
For a broadsword or an axe, you want 4.
For a katana or fine longsword, you want 6.
Roll for 7s: amateurish but will do the appropriate damage.
Roll for 8s: suitable to be sold in a renfair, okay if you don't look closely.
Roll for 9s: Decent quality
Roll for 10s: Good quality
Roll for 11s: Fine quality
(4 9s for making a knife)
X A paper of at least 3,000 words comparing and contrasting the use of
blades in combat with two other forms of combat practice.
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Citizenship in Humanity (02/04 - 08/25/04)
X Write a paper of at least 4000 words delineating the most important
personal rights which you would consider to be inalienable in any
ethical form of government.
--source: http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html
--5 successes on Ethics
X Analyze six forms of planetary government, and six forms of
government on a smaller scale, with respect to both rights provided
and responsibilities required. Graph the set, and discuss
outliers. Identify the 10% convex area of the graph which will
generate the greatest mean happiness of the population. Identify
the 10% convex area of the graph which will generate the greatest
mean happiness of the most unhappy 5% of the population.
1) Tom: draw a picture with dots and circles. :)
2) Jim: Make a combined set of rolls: one with Ethics and related
skill, one with Planetary Politics and related skill, and one
with Tactical Psychology and related skill. Get no more than
10% failures. X
Make a second combined set of rolls, with no more than 5%
failures. X
If you make a roll and fail, you may try again with another 24
hours of work; you may divide extra skill between the three
rolls based on: within 2% of target: +5; within 4% of target:
+4; within 6% of target: +3, and so on.
X "Humanity" implies a human-centric moral and ethical system. Propose
three alternate titles for this badge which avoid this issue.
--Moral Precepts; Universal Ethics; Inalienable Rights
(Government and Society?)
X Identify a policy, Hegemonic or local, which you consider ethically
incorrect. Outline a method of altering the policy through
political maneuvering, and a method of altering the policy through
appeal to emotion. Take the initial steps towards both methods.
X Spend an hour speaking with a political leader (whose constituents
comprise at least ten thousand people) about the least popular
"right" decisions they have made. Spend an hour speaking with a
corporate leader (whose employees comprise at least five thousand
people) about the least profitable "right" decisions they have
made. Spend an hour speaking with a spiritual or philosophical
leader (whose followers comprise at least a thousand people) about
the least "right" decisions they have made.
x --politics: Stannis (Donella? Crux Parliament? Avocate Lem?)
x --corporate: Sparky Cola CEO
x --religious: Jayla? Starywayists on New Light?
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Alien Relations (02/04 - 09/04)
x Spend an hour speaking to a Tinoori about truth.
x Spend an hour speaking to a Brochoah about trade.
x A partner exercise: Invent a new alien psychology, starting from a
single major point of difference from human, and extrapolating
outwards in a consistent fashion. Note those places where the
psychology would, if logically extrapolated, become inconsistent or
unworkable, and resolve them. Take an hour speaking with your
partner, adopting the psychology of your newly designed alien race.
Note other inconsistencies you discovered. Note at least six points
of difficulty (either for you or your partner) in your discussion;
write up advice for humans in dealing with your aliens, and advice
for your aliens in dealing with humans, based on these difficulties.
Change places with your partner and play the human to his alien.
Elves-- automatically figure out superiority and greater can
dominate the lesser. Instant hierarchies? Can you plot against
your betters? Yes, but only indirectly. Feudal societies.
What if two are equal? Civil war breaks out, as the
Automatically view other races as inferior. Don't understand
heritage-based political systems.
X Write a suite of six papers, similar to the above, for humans and
Tinoori, for humans and Brochoah, and for Tinoori and Brochoah.
Evaluate each with tactical psychology, as to whether they are
professionally adequate in terms of influencing the reader to a
manner that they can adopt; evaluate each with alien relations as to
whether they are professionally adequate in terms of creating an
amenable negotiation space. If they are not, then fix them.
Consider a professional to have 8 dice and 10 skill; you may write
a paper for the layman (roll for 7s) or for the academic (roll for
9s), but should get as many successes as the professional rates,
(6.3 7s, 4.7 9s) with Pre of Mind and Alien Relations + (half of
Tac Psych).
To evaluate the paper, make two separate rolls using Edu with 1)
tac psych and 2) alien relations, for your previous target number -
you must get at least one less than the professional target number.
In any failure case, change the outline and roll again.
X Tinoori -> Human
X Human -> Tinoori
X Brochoah -> Human
X Human -> Brochoah
X Tinoori -> Brochoah
X Brochoah -> Tinoori
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Diplomacy (09/04 - 10/04)
X Negotiate a satisfactory settlement in a dispute between arguing or
warring groups of at least five hundred people per side.
X Diagram a past or present diplomatic settlement between arguing or
warring groups of at least five thousand people per side. What
concessions and compromises were made, of what magnitude benefit or
penalty to each side? In those areas which are unbalanced, determine
the cause of the imbalance, whether it be a negotiation from positions
of strength and weakness, or statesmanship of a party involved.
(creative) (Declaration of Independence? / Constitution)
--Constitution:
http://www.crf-usa.org/lessons/slavery_const.htm
http://www.cvhs.com/CVHS%20Inet/academics/history/apus/ch6.html
Strong defense - protected the west from native americans,
spaniards, british,
Commerce - Congress was given the sole jurisdiction over interstate
commerce, costing some states their independence.
However, it was forbidden from levying export duties.
States were forbidden from printing money. Taxes could
be raised by Congress.
Slavery compromises - 3/5 of a person. More political power for
south, but higher taxes (Northwest Ordinance,
prohibiting slavery in the NW Territories may
also have been involved.)
Most delegates wanted to ban further
importation of slaves, but three states (GA,
NC, SC) allowed it. Congress was granted the
power to ban slavery, but not until 1808.
Southern states wanted fugitive slaves
returned. New England got concessions on
shipping and trade.
House/Senate composition-- equal rep v. population
"The Great Compromise"
Bill of Rights - Won over the poor, indviduals, rather than just
the wealthy.
X Analyze a diplomatic agreement in which the final compromise involved
issues which were not originally "on the table". List three other
possible issues which could have been added to the compromise but were
not. Outline a method of discovering the realm of the potential
solution space for a disagreement which is neither infinitely bounded
nor too limited, projected to include at least 75% of the reasonable
possibilities to add, but comprising no more than 50% irrelevant or
non-negotiable points.
(creative-mechanical)
(outworlds/vertaki/red fleet-- pierogi not orig on table)
Compile a list of small "points" for this situation; one relevant
and negotiable, and one likely to be irrelevant or non-negotiable.
For each pair of points, you can have either one point of skill or
one reroll. Roll Pre of Mind with Diplomacy and get 7 10s.
1. Setting up a permanent Red military base on Crux /
setting up a permanent Red military base on Vertak
2. Granting Red a membership chair in the Outworlds Alliance /
granting Red a veto in Outworlds Alliance military activities
3. Direct economic relationship with Vertak /
Red granted an investment stake equal to the worth of their ships
in Vertak
4. Purchase or lease of the "lost" ships from Red /
Vertak offers to "adopt" some of the human worlds
X Sit in on diplomatic discussions between at least three parties,
including one party which you do not agree with or support. Provide
talking points for one side for a meeting that leaves them in an
advantageous position. Draw up talking points for the other sides
that would leave them in advantageous positions as well.
(world-work plus some creative some mechanical)
Ask the GMs what the average person involved in the dispute rates on
their diplomacy roll. [4.41, stdev 1.19]
Make a roll with Pre of Mind and Diplomacy, plus one point per
reasonable "talking point" for the side you've outlined; get more
than what they rate + 1 standard deviation.
Teknik Consortium merchant fleet:
1. Pilot Union
a. Laying employees off without benefits will cause bad publicity
b. If we're forced to strike, the company will lose more money--
better to lose money slow than fast.
c. There's a shortage of qualified pilots right now--
replacing us with newbie labor will cost you more in the
long term.
2. Merchant Fleet
a. We can soften the blow, but if we go out of business we can't
pay anyone.
b. The government has a vested interest in maintaining the
merchant fleets' viability, as they both help raise taxes
and provide for a line of defense against small Red squads.
c. Maintain benefits without (or with minimal) pay for pilots
to be "on call", for when some business starts picking up.
Better than laying people off outright.
3. Ministry of Trade
a. If things get too out of hand, and trade shuts down, the
Hegemony can force pilots back to work.
b. If things get too out of hand, and trade shuts down,
the Hegemony can take control of the Consortium business
for the duration of the war.
c. The Hegemony could hire some of the pilots who would be
willing to transfer to military-supply-ships, as there
have been losses in this area lately.
X Speak to someone in a non-government position who has at least 7 skill
in Diplomacy, about their work and how Diplomacy is relevant to it.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Battlefield Tactics (08/04 - 11/04)
x Plan an engagement against hostiles which has three or more separate
goals. Come up with at least two tactical battle plans beforehand,
one involving dedicated-goal teams, and one involving the overall
force accomplishing each thing in serial. Carry out the engagement.
Afterwards, discuss with those involved the merits of the plan used,
and devise a third plan which would have had better success than the
one used.
[Bringing one or more of the hackers into the battlefield with us.]
X Analyze a past ground forces battle in detail. List two tactical
improvements per side that the commanders could have used given their
information on hand; list two that were less obvious given the
information on hand. Discuss how a commander might attempt to obtain
access to the relevant information. [creative]
Battle of Leyte Gulf, philippines ww2
http://www.worldwar2history.info/Leyte/
http://history.acusd.edu/gen/WW2Timeline/LUTZ/leyte.html
--US forces are taking Phillipine islands. Japanese decide
it's time for a last stand, lure off the Americans with
their carrier group while the planes are on kamikaze missions.
Americans
1. Don't go after the bait! (wasn't required for their immediate
objective, and required too much air power, leaving them
at a disadvantage) (less obvious)
2. don't have a battle plan dependent on coordination between
units when there's little communication.
3. Don't change part of said dependent plan when you haven't
informed the other units involved.
4. If they'd known where the missing Japanese fleet units were,
they could have provided a better defense
Japanese
1. When going on a suicide mission, don't hesitate at the end.
2. "Lack of recon by Japanese airplanes limited success."
(less obvious)
3. Lack of communication between ships and planes prevented
coordination.
4. They could have taken advantage of the confusion of the
Americans more effectively, by playing more cat-and-mouse
games. (less obvious)
X Participate in a ground battle, re-creation, or tactical exercise of
at least one thousand people.
X Tour the site of a past ground battle of at least five thousand
people.
X Select two nearby cities. Devise a battle plan with a 75% projected
success rate for conquering one city with the resources and
inhabitants of the other city, assuming no greater governmental
intervention. Devise the reverse battle plan (i.e. conquer the
second city with the first city). [mechanical]
Pick two cities. Assign them dice based on how spiffy they are
(2 dice is a tiny village; 10 dice is New York City). Assume
that a city has native skill equal to half its dice.
Make your battle plan (Pre of Mind with Tactics), which will be a
helper roll either to the city's attack or defense. The
attacking city (using your helper skill) needs to rate more
successes than [ what the defender city rates, plus one standard
deviation ].
10/5: 6.27 + 1.43 = 7.70 ==> skill 12
9/5: 5.72 + 1.34 = 7.06 ==> skill 11 or 12
8/4: 4.89 + 1.28 = 6.17 ==> skill 10
7/4: 4.37 + 1.19 = 5.56 ==> skill 10
6/3: 3.56 + 1.12 = 4.68 ==> skill 9
5/3: 3.02 + 1.02 = 4.04 ==> skill 9
4/2: 2.24 + 0.94 = 3.18 ==> skill 7
3/2: 1.73 + 0.82 = 2.55 ==> skill 8
2/1: 0.99 + 0.70 = 1.69 ==> skill 6
This means making a 12 success tactics roll for each city.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Logistics (10/04 - 11/04)
X Organize the move of a company, town, camp, or scout headquarters
comprising at least 250 people, from one location to another at least
five miles away. Write an outline detailing how physical objects were
moved, how services were transferred, and how future deliveries and
engagements were redirected. Take note of anything that went wrong.
--Moving the tech site on Cabry
X Speak to someone with at least 7 Logistics skill about how logistics
pertains to his job and how he was trained in it.
X Logistics exercise: Set up a small camp, with a goal of producing
something. Keep all supplies which are not in active and current use,
on a vehicle. Start with the vehicle at the encampent and work for a
day, measuring productivity. The next day, move the vehicle a hundred
meters from the encampment. The next day, move the vehicle a
kilometer from the encampment. Track productivity, and take note of
what methods you use to make supply access and transfer more
efficient.
--camp for creating/distributing emergency and disaster relief
supplies on Cabry. Ideas for keeping 1km efficient:
1. Plan ahead. Determine which supplies can be brought at what rate;
batch process the things that are necessary.
2. Caching. If there are secure intermediate points (probably,
if there's line of sight), some items can be cached there.
3. Bucket brigade if there's the manpower to do so.
4. Management needs to be planning ahead, so that workers aren't
rate-limited by supply lines.
X Pick a specific commodity. Write a paper of at least 12 pages (with
diagrams) tracking the commodity from creation to final point of sale,
throughout at least three systems. Identify points of inefficiency
and points which are optimized, to within a 80% confidence bracket.
Create a list of "points" in the flow of the commodity. 15% of these
may be points of inefficiency and 15% may be points of optimization.
Pair off your points of inefficiency and points of optimization.
For each point of inefficiency, roll a Pre of Mind roll with
Logistics. For each point of optimization, roll an Edu roll with
Logistics. (Yes, this means there are 70% of your points not doing
anything; they're just extra work)
For each pair, multiply your successes together, add them to a
running total, and subtract the number of failures (the dice which
do not become succeses) on both rolls that you got. Get your
running total to 80.
X A make-to-order supply chain has customer orders arriving in Poisson
fashion at the rate of 90 orders per day. Raw material and
subassemblies are always on hand. The facility assembles these on
receipt of an order and the customers receive them immediately. If the
processing time is exponentially distributed with rate 96 orders per
day (average processing time = 15 minutes), compute the following:
lambda = 90, mu = 96, rho (system load) = 90/96 = .9375
x (a) Average number of backorders
Avg # of backorders = (rho^2)/(1 - rho) = 14.0625
x (b) Probability of at least 20 backorders
P(N backorders) = (1 - rho) * rho^N so P(20) = .0625 * .9375^20
--> simplifies to rho^20 = .9375^20
--> 0.275058789888336
x (c) Probability of no backorders
P(0 backorders) = 1 - lambda/mu = 6/96 = 6.25%
x (d) Average lead time for a typical order
time in line = rho/(mu*(1-rho))
= .9375/(96*(.0625))
= .15625 day = 225 minutes
x (e) Standard deviation of lead time for each order
stdev of lead time is sigma^2 = 1/lambda^2 = 6
x (f) Fraction of orders which have lead time less than 2 hours
= P(0) + P(1) + ... + P(8)
= (1 - rho) (1 + rho + ... + rho^8)
= 37.8%
x (g) Fraction of orders which have lead time greater than 1 day
Most significant term is P(96) == .013%
x (h) Throughput rate of the system
W = avg time spent by a customer
= 1/(mu * (1 - rho))
= 1/(96 * (.0625))
= 1/6
= 4 hours
1 order/4 hours
Program the above system as a simulation. Examine how the the average
number of backorders, average lead time for order, and average
throughput rate change, as you vary the processing time as in each
case below:
(A) uniformly distributed in the range (10, 20) minutes
avg. wait time W = (lambda/m^2)/2(1 - rho)
avg. lead time T = W + 1/mu
(B) normally distributed with mean 15 minutes and standard
deviation 5 minutes
==> this is an M/G/1 queue
==> avg # of backorders = 8.75 ;
avg. lead time = 2h20m, throughput = 1 order/2.08233 hrs
(C) deterministic with 15 minutes
==> this is an M/D/1 queue
avg backorders = 7.03125;
avg leadtime = .078125 days = 1hr52.5m
throughput = 1/127.5 min (2h7.5m)
http://hilltop.bradley.edu/~rf/wait-md1.htm
--see http://lcm.csa.iisc.ernet.in/scm/scm_overview.html
and http://mathworld.wolfram.com/ExponentialDistribution.html
http://info.bio.cmu.edu/Courses/03438/PBC97Poisson/PoissonPage.html
total time is 1/(mu - lambda) = 1/6 = 4 hrs
[ avg lead time = avg. backorders * processing time
= 14.0625 * 15 min = 210.9375 min]
Simulation:
Choose the difficulty you're rolling for (one roll per workday you
spend on it). 7 is basic competence, 9 is professional, 11 is
Quite Clever, 13 is Impressively Noteworthy.
A very minimalist program (Laura's spare lists service) is 1 success.
A minimalist program (Oath scheduling program) is 5 successes.
A basic program (Jerry's zlogger) is 15 succeses.
A moderately complicated amateur program (6.170 project) is 30 successes
A professionally written program (Excel, Thief) is about 100 successes
A vast and powerful program (Linux, the JDK) is about 500 successes.
Written: 30 successes for 9s.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Heavy Weapons (11/04 - 12/04)
X 40 hours range practice with a self-propelled targetting device launcher.
X 40 hours range practice with a fully automatic sidearm, including at
least 10 hours covering suppressive fire and at least 10 hours
covering friendly-target avoidance.
X Find a partner for a Suppressive fire exercise (after your range
practice). Each partner should make four attempts to reach an
emplaced position defended by suppressive fire from the other partner.
Afterwards, discuss what tactics were useful and what were not.
X While blindfolded and with one hand, field-strip your flamethrower,
replace the oxygenator, replenish the fuel supply, and align the
exhaust baffles in under ten minutes.
Int roll with heavy weapons/flamethrowers, for 3 11s.
X Write a paper of at least 2,000 words comparing and contrasting three
different mechanisms of auto-targetting for a self-propelled munition.
--see www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/docs/st_6-60-30/Chap2.html
www.georgetown.edu/sfs/programs/stia/students/vol.03/mok_pgm.htm
X Set up a grenade launcher practice range, with natural features
occluding direct view of the target from the launch area. Spend no
more than ten minutes surveilling the target area and then proceed to
your launch area and hit the target with a 70% accuracy rate, with the
mean hit location varying from the target by no more than two meters.
Make a Pre of Mind roll and an Edu roll, each with heavy weapons /
grenade launcher, and any memorization skill you have. Add these
together and call it N.
Ten Pre of Body rolls, with heavy weapons / grenade launcher, with N
reliability. Get a total of at least 40 successes, and half of your
rolls must have 70% or more successes.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Math (12/04 - 01/05)
X Factor the number
18178403868061931618783224523436831288160494185821795328280473.
3219879123154798756113210579997 * 5645678975132131857987845646509
see http://mathforum.org/library/drmath/view/51544.html
X Estimate the probability that a randomly chosen vehicle on your planet
x 1) was refueled within the past 24 hours
x 2) is in motion
x 3) is currently breaking a law or civil ordinance
x 4) is red
Note what assumptions and further clarifications you must make in
order to make these estimates, and what data you need to gather.
Outline a potential pitfall in each estimate.
--(file: math-probability)
X Design a geometric construction to square a circle to within 0.5%
accuracy.
--(file: math-circle)
X Take the first 100 9-dimensional points from Math File 03.
Write an algorithm to predict the next 10 to within 5%. Check your
predictions. If they were wrong, then try again for the next 10,
until you succeed.
--Make a Pre of Mind roll with Math, and get > 9.5 successes.
X Connect your manual to a planetary network to have it search for a
current unsolved problem in mathematics.
(i.e. http://mathworld.wolfram.com/UnsolvedProblems.html) Spend
forty hours in prepartory research in the field, and forty hours
working on solving each of three problems. Write up your work and
what you learned.
--started on 2781.062. Will take ~30 days of background-level
research.
X Find someone who has 7 levels in their non-math-related field, whose
ability to work in their field would be greatly improved by 7 levels
of Math. Talk to them for an hour about their work.
--Ruehan! (psi theory)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
History (12/04 - 02/05)
X Participate in an archaeological dig.
--exploration of Construction Bay 15/daVinci's lair, 4.16
X Find two (non-primary) academic history books covering a period in
history at least fifty zed ago. Find six discrepancies between the
two versions. Describe which you think is correct in each case, based
on primary source analysis. Describe why you think the incorrect
versions have come to be put forward.
--two books on Cabry hostlities, one by human author, one translated
from Tinooranthi (file: history-diff)
X Take a current news topic, preferably one that you are very familiar
with. Write two 1000-word "historical" analyses of this topic, using
political slants differing by at least 12 points on the Carvoissier
scale.
--Red/Blue war, as "Terrible Red Conspiracy!" vs "Naked Blue
Aggression" (file: history-news)
X Examine a 50-zed period in the past 200 zed. Select six variables
that you consider to have changed the most over those 50 zed, and
graph them. Take the differential of each graph, and identify the
seminal events associated with those changes. Identify which you
think are causal, and which you think are resultant.
--US history, 1915-1965 (file: history-us)
X Speak to someone with at least 7 skill in history about their work and
how history is relevant to it. Discuss the effect of current politics
on historical analysis.
--Kye
X Purchase a popular historical reference covering approximately a
50-zed period in the past 200 zed (different than the previous
50-zed period), of at least 300 pages. For each page of the book
(treating two-page illustrations as one page), note the most
crucial decision discussed on that page (which has not previously
been used as the decision of a different page). For each incident,
calculate the Political Shift value, the Social Shift value, and
the Infrastructure Shift value [see essay on Shift values]. Graph
the three values over time, noting your error bars, and note the
mean and standard deviation, and time-clumping. Discuss three
events which are *not* covered in the reference that "should have
been"; one which has greater-than-mean Political and Social Shift
values; one which has greater-than-mean Social and Infrastructure
Shift values; and one which has greater-than-mean Infrastructure
and Political shift values.
For each page, make three rolls with Edu, using History and Math:
one for 7s, one for 8s, and one for 9s (Social, Political, and
Infrastructure, respectively - you can also use Ethics, Politics,
and Logistics skill, respectively). Pretend these are your three
Shift values. Graph them all. Assign decisions for six
interesting spots on the graph (i.e. the one with the lowest
total significance, the highest total significance, the one with
the highest Social shift but lowest other stuff, etc).
Make up the other three events which are "not covered."
--recovery of Hegemonic communications tech (soc., infr.)
--addition of increased social contacts in Stannis Law and
Outworlds and Well as an attempt to win over systems (pol, soc)
--hacking attack on power plant causes increased surveillance
on network nodes near infrastrcture (infr., pol)
Make a final roll, using Pre of Mind and [sum of the mode of each
previous roll] in skill. You need 7 successes.
--"A History of the Schism"
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Theatre (12/04 - 02/05)
X Watch three versions of a story - play, movie, interactive holosuite,
etc. Compare and contrast the three, noting intrisic differences to
the media (and their pros and cons) as well as directorial choices.
-- Hamlet: play on Nerele, rented movie version, Night Prince
(descriptions on webpage)
X Do THREE of the following:
1. Act a major part in a full-length play; or act a part in three
one-act plays.
2. Direct a play. Cast, rehearse, and stage it. The play must be at
least 30 minutes long, and viewied by an audience of 50.
? 3. Design the setting for a play. Make a model of it. Complete with
all necessary construction blueprints.
? 4. Design historically accurate costumes for five characters in one
play set in a time before AS 1190.
x 5. Show skill in stage makeup. Make up yourself or a partner as an
old man, a clown, an alien, or a monster.
--This requires making several people up, and getting 4+
successes on Pre of Mind and Pre of Body rolls with
appropriate make-up/disguise skills.
x 6. Help with the building of scenery for one full-length or two
one-act plays.
7. Design and handle the lighting for a full-length play with
at least three major light-enhanced mood transitions.
x 8. Participate in any theatre production saving an orphanage.
X Write a three-act play. It must take 30 minutes or more to put on. It
must have a main character, conflict, and a climax.
(file: theatre-play)
X Convert your play into a screenplay.
(file: theatre-screen)
X Pick an actor or actress, and view them in three of their most
well-received roles. Write an essay of not less than 1000 words on
the actor's strengths and weaknesses, and how you would use them in a
role you directed.
(file: theatre-actor)
X Pick a character from a play, and spend a period of time [a run] in
character.
--Arms and The Man character? (Sergius, Blunschli)
--sarcastic, nervous wreck-- Next?
x--The Incomparable Giacomo (The Court Jester)
--Monk, from Monk
--Vash/Spike/someone...
--Scarlet Pimpernel
--Jack Burton
--Bruce Campbell from Army of Darkness
--Frederick/Pirate King from Pirates
--Oliver Twist
--Hamlet
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Athletics (01/05 - 06/05)
X Hold a sports meet for 100 people or more.
X Serve as an official in an athletic meet or major sporting event.
--must be different from the above meet
X Place in the upper 10th percentile for your weight in one of the
following track and field events (see chart).
-- Assume that the average person of your weight has 5 dice, 3
fortune, 4 skill. They'd use their fortune in this case, so
the top 10% is 7+ successes.
X Run in a top-tier marathon, and place in the top third.
Make a Health check (with Running skill). Make that many Move
rolls with Running. Get a running total of 41+ successes. Only
one set of rolls is allowed in any three week period.
--made 31 successes on a qualifier on 2781.076
X Talk to a professional athlete for an hour about their work and
training regimen.
--Sparky Cola cyclist on New Light, ~2780.084 (post 4.17)
X Design a set of rules for a competitive sport. Analyze your sport
for these criteria:
1) skill-based
2) visually entertaining
3) fun to play
4) encouraging of teamwork
Compare your sport to the three most popular sports on your planet.
Teach your sport to two teams and play a game. Take comments.
Write a paper of no less than 1000 words on what you learned.
--quidditch? A human-Tinoori cooperative game, something that
requires both Per and Will. Perhaps a find-the-golden-coin game,
in the woods, with distractions and obstacles and what-not.
Hmm.
X Examine three situations in which you used Athletics in a combat or
life-threatening situation. Examine three combat or
life-threatening situations in which a friend or colleague would
have benefited tactically by having Athletics.
--Used Athletics: On board the Bellarion (helped get from far corner to
center of the board, and then to the shuttle bay,
when combat shifted);
At the wedding (huge battlefield);
By the vineyard (needed to get to the scout to first aid
him).
--No Athletics: Eva: on board the Bellarion (had to be carried);
At the wedding (couldn't get to various parts of
the battlemap where she could have been useful);
climbing up to a window in the mirror universe
would have let them escape past evil Janzur.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Starglazing (02/05 - 07/05)
X Enter a recent-model sedan that has the doors locked and the windows
rolled up, without opening any doors.
X Build a ship in a bottle (plans enclosed)
--Make yourself a chart, with fifteen circles, arranged in a
triangle (rows of 5, 4, 3, 2, and 1). Connect each circle to the
nearby circles, so you have a triangle made of smaller triangles.
Each day, try and add bits to the ship. Pick one of the circles
(as the part of the ship you're working on). Make a Pre of Body
roll with appropriate skills. For every success you get, fill in
a circle, which can be either the circle you have chosen or a
circle linked to it by a line. Then, for every 1 you get, un-fill
a randomly chosen circle which is part of the contiguous
filled-in-circles-linked-by-lines group.
If you get more than 1/3 ones, you accidentally destroy the ship
and must start over.
Once you fill in all the circles, then the ship is built.
X Obtain the plans to a major planetary bank. Determine the largest
solid sphere that can be brought into the 1) lobby 2) cashier's
area, during normal business hours. Do so outside of business hours,
without being noticed/caught.
--obtained plans to a bank on the Well
X Starting from the geographic center of a major city, traverse your
way to the farthest-away point of its city boundaries, without going
above ground at any time.
--Nerele has a good sewer system, if I had a map, that would work well
--Gateway I have detailed subway tunnel maps for
--Stannis Law: ?
X Starting from the geographic center of a different major city,
traverse your way to the farthest-away point of its city boundaries,
without touching the ground or going below ground level at any
time.
--Riden: above-ground traverse, start from a spire and line down to
a distant locale (have Katya available for backup?),
then do some building-to-building jumping.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Leadership (07/04 - 08/05)
X Command a team against hostile forces which results in defeat. Talk
to the team afterwards to improve morale. Note at least six possible
methods or talking points and which were successful and which were
not. If none were successful, repeat the exercise.
X Command a team against hostile forces which results in victory. Talk
to the team afterwards to improve morale. Note at least six possible
methods or talking points and which were successful and which were
not. If none were successful, repeat the exercise. Compare and
contrast the results of this and the previous exercise.
--praise of valor
--praise of skill
--praise of creativity
--praise of teamwork
--missed objectives are ok when prime objectives are met
--every crisis strengthens our ability to deal with the next
X Propose a requirement for this badge that you think would be
appropriate. Carry out that requirement.
--*help a group select a leadership from among their members
--serve in a leadership position in your troop or another
service, political or military organization for 6 months. Write a
report on the differences between being a member and a leader
of that group.
X Speak to someone you consider a good leader of a large group of people
about their leadership, and what obstacles they have led their group
through.
--Victor Lazlo
X Speak to someone you consider a good leader of a small group of people
about their leadership, and what obstacles they have led their group
through.
--Marlin Orodyne
X Analyze a motivational speech of approximately 408 words (it may be
your tactical pyschology speech, if you feel that was appropriate and
it was recorded). Graph each of the following variables over time for
the original speaker: syllable size, Compton emotionality tone,
time-bounded redundancy of phoneme, volume, and mean word grade level.
Analyze the frequency of second-order change points. Repeat this
analysis, using the same speech, for a speaker who is not convincing
or compelling; repeat it again with an extraordinary public speaker.
Note the greatest discrepancies between speakers and develop an
algorithm of predicting whether a previously unknown speaker is a
motivational speaker or not, based on their performance on this
speech.
1: Make up three speeches that you're analyzing.
2: Write a computer program to generate the raw data from the three
speeches. Pre of Mind, you want 5 successes; pick your difficulty
(7+N).
3: Analyze the data: Pre of Mind with propaganda, mathematics, and
leadership. You want 6 successes; pick your difficulty (7+M).
4: Write an algorithm: Pre of Mind with mathematics and leadership.
Roll (M+N) dice with (M*N) skill, for (14 - min(M+N,M*N)). You
want at least one success.
If this fails, you've spent (M+N) days on it, but you can start over
from step 1.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Beekeeping (09/05 - 12/05)
x1. Identify a hive of bees with a second queen in residence. Split
the queen and a stable population off to your own hive. Acclimate
the bees to the hive such that within a week, when the hive is
opened and in a field (in non-inclement weather), they do not
swarm.
To acclimate the bees, make a Beekeeping roll with Edu. We'll
take the successes as dice and roll them to see whether the bees
stay, each day [for a week].
--need at least one success/roll. Preferably more.
x2. Transport your hive to a new field with a variety of nearby
flowers (>1.25 Gruber Ecology). Track the foraging flights over
an intitial period (1-3 days) and later flights until flights
reach a stable pattern. Graph the flights on an overlay and
describe three mathematical transitions that the flights progress
through.
* Start your bees off with 6 dice and 0 skill. Each day, roll 6
dice with skill equal to the number of successes you got the
previous day. When the past four rolls have all been within 1
of each other, the flights have stabilized.
* Graphing these, make three Pre of Mind rolls with Beekeeping
plus Math, for 7s, 8s, and 9s. You need N successes where N is
the larger of the two numbers you got once the flights
stabilized.
x3. While performing the previous requirement, carefully observe the
dances the bees perform after foraging. When you are ready,
transport the hive to a new field. While you are not looking,
have a partner release and track a single bee as it forages. When
it returns, observe its dance and successfully locate the flowers
it visited.
* Observe the bees: for every day you watch them, make a Str of
Mind roll with Beekeeping and any Dance skill you have. You
have a stable of three rolls; each day you may (if you like)
throw one of them out before rolling, and replace it with the
new roll.
Stable: 7, 6, 9.
Then, have your partner release and track the bee. When it
returns and does its happy dance, make three rolls using your
stable as the three sets of dice, and using your Beekeeping
skill. Add those three rolls together to get N.
N1 = 6 + 5 + 3 = 14
N2 = 5 + 4 + 7 = 16
Now, the GMs will tell you a word. You must try to convey this
word to your partner using N verbs (you say a verb, they guess a
word. You say a verb, they guess a word.). Standard word game
rules apply - i.e. no trying to include the mystery word in your
verb, no pointing to things while you say your word. :)
--"Home", guessed by Charles/Ciernan in two.
X4. Grow your hive until it swarms. Track the amount of stored wax,
honey, and propolis, against the population of each type of bee.
X5. Write an essay of 1000 words describing the most common diseases
bees are prone to, and their treatment or control.
--Papers/bee-disease.html
X6. Obtain six varieties of single-blossom honey, grown from different
flowers. Compare the taste. Procure samples of the six plants,
and, Using blind tests, determine how small a quantity is needed
to identify the pollen from which the honey was produced. Compare
that to the amount necessary to identify the flower from which the
honey was produced in a laboratory setting.
* Basically, get your six honeys and make Str of Mind rolls with
any perception skills and plant skills you have. Then make Pre
of Mind rolls with Organic Chemistry. See which ones you do
better at. :)
5, 3, 5, 5, 5, 4 on Per/Per; 3, 1, 5, 4, 6, 4 on Int/Chem.
Per it is!
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Intelligence Analysis (11/05 - 01/06)
X 1. Open IA Scenario 1a, corporate espionage and data theft. Analyze
the computer logs, phone records, network access, and associated
data.
Determine:
x 1) who stole the target data
* PreMind/IA for 7s: get 6 successes. May repeat once/week.
2) three other likely crimes being committed
x * PreMind/IA for 9s: get 5 successes.
x * Edu/IA and Law for 9s: get 3 successes.
x * StrMind/IA and Tac Psych for 8s: get 8 successes.
* plus make up three plausible crimes.
Plausible crimes: Insider trading, securities fraud, making false
statements to investigators.
X 2. Monitor the police band in a major city for three days. Determine, to a
80% probability, the three most corrupt policemen.
* Each day, make a StrMind/Comms Analysis and IA. Roll each of
(Day 1 successes, Day 2 succeses)
(Day 2 successes, Day 3 succeses)
(Day 3 successes, Day 1 succeses)
as dice and skill. You must get a total of eight or more.
X 3. Monitor the local news in a major city for three days. Determine,
to an 80% probability, the three stories which are most likely to
be indicative of a much larger issue which is not yet understood
by the media. Find out sufficient details that you would be able
to write a complete story.
x * Make a Pre of Mind roll with Int Analysis for 8s, and get at
least three successes.
Make up three plausible stories, and the larger issue they represent.
Crux:
Story: police report disturbance in an apartment
(Corinthian v. Janzur).
Story: "arson, no cause" (Fire mage, anti-blackmail).
Story: Slight changes in traditional Parliament coalitions.
Larger Issue: Transfer of power in the Underworld.
Gateway:
Story: Klothos, in her majesty, offers the use of the
battlestation for a War Council.
Story: Ryan Waites named Special Councillor (ceremonial
title) for assisting Klothos in war matters. This
is just a point of status for Waites, but his ascendancy
is noted.
Story: Riden-based news media are portraying Klothos in a
more positive light than they have previously.
Issue: Klothos has become immortal, and changed tactics to
suit a longer-term strategy.
Start poking around to pursue the issue. For each line of
pursuit, make an appropriate roll, and then use those successes
as dice to roll an Int Analysis skill. Get to 20 successes,
cumulative.
-- see file ia-news
x 4. Find someone with at least seven levels in Intelligence Analysis,
and speak to them for an hour about their work (past or present)
and how Intelligence Analysis is important to it. Speak to them
about an intelligence situation they were unable to analyse to
their satisfaction.
X 5. Pick a target of investigation that you are not personally
acquainted with or in contact with. Connect your manual to a
major planetary network and run IA Search 3g on them, to generate
a body of data. Open Questionnaire IA 3g; analyze the data
sufficient to fill out the questionnaire to within 80% confidence
on each question.
* There are ten questions in Questionnaire IA 3g, ranging from
constructing a simple psych profile of the gentleman (Thibault
Tremondier) to predicting how he would vote on a particular
local issue to picking which of three products he would ber
most likely to buy. Each of them requires 8 succesess with Pre
of Mind and Int Analysis, plus half (round down) of:
x1. Psychology / Tac Psych
x2. Planetary Politics
x3. Marketing
x4. Art
x5. KS: Gateway
x6. Ethics
x7. Logic
x8. Teaching
x9. KS: Television Sitcoms
x10. Cooking
Any that you fail can be tried again in a week. (started 2782.190)
Additionally, you can optionally consider the questions of
1. Why did Garan Hans pick this guy?
(10 succeses with Edu, Int. Anal, Tac Psych, and Broad Tactics)
2. What is the answer that Garan Hans wants to know?
(15 successes with Str Mind and Int Anal).
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Grand Strategy (12/05 - 02/06)
X1. You have a fifteen-year deadline to evacuate the entirety of the
Linked Worlds elsewhere, to a currently uninhabited set of
planets, accessible only via one jump gate. Outline the politics
and logistics required to use current governmental resources for
an evacuation with an 80% confidence factor of transporting 80% of
the population with sufficient infrastructure to survive. Discuss
the modifications and increased resources that would be necessary
to project a 90% or 99% confidence level, and a 90% and 99%
evacuation rate.
* Make an outline.
The 80% plan requires 8 successes for 8s.
The 90% plan requires 9 for 9s.
The 99% plan requires 10 for 10s.
However, for each extra modification and increased resource you
add in, you may add one die or skill to your roll.
--see file gs-evac
X2. Design the social/political structure for a generation ship which
must colonize an inhabitable planet when it arrives, five to six
generations after it leaves. Assume a trained ship's crew of
fifty is the minimum necessary to keep the ship running. How
would you modify the plan if the the trip was thirty generations?
* Creative exercise.
--see file gs-ship
X3. Download Simulation A91 and familiarize yourself with the
interface. Then, assume: a small cabal of enemies of the state
has developed the technology for stable matter/energy conversion,
allowing them to create very small very powerful explosives.
Adjust the simulation to prevent catastrophic governmental
failure, and then apply Option A91.3. Your performance will be
rated both on your defense against the cabal, and on the impact
upon civilians.
* See file gs-sim.
X4. Read Briefing A93 [it delineates a fictional, somewhat oppressive
Empire comprising thousands of systems. One of the systems in
question is Tatooine, which is essentially a desert with no
exports to speak of.] Design a foreign and economic policy for
Tatooine enabling it to rise to the status of Major
Economic/Political Power (P8 or better on the relevant Kenobi
scales) over the course of 50 years.
* Mostly creative, but requires a roll for 8 7s to confirm your work.
--see file gs-tatooine
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Psychohistory (08/05 - 03/06)
To be completed in order.
Meta-note: Some of these requirements have you making up stuff. Some
have us telling you stuff. Some have you guessing at making up stuff
and us telling you whether or not you're correct (or plausible). In
addition to the mechanic for succeeding in each requirement, you'll be
getting points with which to try to decode the Psychohistory Bluesheet.
Points can be spent to:
1. Choose a word, and the GMs will fill in all instances of it.
2. Ask the GMs to fill in one blank
3. Verify guesses for all words on the sheet.
Unlike other Merit Badges, points pinned or purchased in Psychohistory
can Only be used to roll on requirements for the badge until the badge
is earned (that is, the psychohistory skill can not be used for
anything else until the badge is earned, and you have read the full
bluesheet.)
Points Spent: 279/292, see psychohistory.txt for current state.
Global verification: 6 points
Local verification: 1 point (Verified All)
(Intro1,Intro2,PS,TV,Levers1,Levers2,Events,InverseLinkages,
Damping, Enhancing, Pendulum, Tools, Some,
"People of different...", "Levers work best", chaos, non-humans)
Globals chosen: 66 points:
{an, do, is, no, of, to, in, it, on, as, at, or, by, if, be,
and, the, not, for, are, has, you, one, let, use, how, was, can, had
that, with, have, less, more, this, will, good, then, than, from, such,
very, many, some, also
human, lever, chaos, model, badge, state, Scout, skill, event,
could, which
change, affect, effect, person, people, predict, vector, society,
different, behave}
Words: 207 points:
Intro1.1.{2,4,10} (study,practice,understandings)
Intro1.2.{6} (politics)
Intro1.3.{9,17,19} (influence,application,individual)
Intro2.{2,4,6,12,18,22,25,27,28,29}
(number,variables,algorithms,mathematical,time,necessary,
functional,becoming,include)
PS.1.10 (other)
PS.2.{22,26,35,37,44} (variables,education,matrix,values,group)
PS.3.{12,18,28} (tracked,homogenous,unwieldy)
PS.4.{1,4,7} (balance,between,extremes)
TV.1.{12,15} (always,quantifiable)
TV.2.{2,8,20,21} (built,variables,variable,composition)
TV.3.{8,11,13,20,21,23,24,27}
(increased,Citizens,highly,appropriate,wealth,location,compositions,transparent)
Levers.1.2.{1,2,3,4,5,10,18,24,27} (Frequently charismatic frequently
publically visible, importance, wield, directions, localized)
Levers.p2.s1.{4,9,13,21,26}.
("sports", "effective", "soda", "victims", "disease").
Levers.p2.s2.{6,last} ("change", "sport")
Levers.p2.s3.{1,3,9,11,16,21,22}
(purity,direction,someone,supports,unrelated,effectiveness diluted)
Levers.p2.s4.{10,12,13} ("particularly", uniquely, "effective")
Events.1.{3,6,8,9,13}(obvious,catch,public's,attention,course)
Events.2.{2,8} (spawn,opposed)
InverseLinkages.1.{4,6,7,9,10,12,16,17,18,20}.
(mysterious,must,often,derived,empirically,algorithmically,sometimes,
logical,chains,correlation}
InverseLinkages.2.{1,3} (Others,irrelevant,).
InverseLinkages.3.{1} ("Hemlines")
InverseLinkages.4.{4,6,7,8,15,18,19}
(babies,after,flowers,signifies,pages,federal,budget)
Damping.1.{1} (Otherwise)
Damping.2.{5} (scourge)
Damping.3.{1} (Earning)
Damping.4.{1} (Fighting)
Enhancing.1.{2} (opposite)
Enhancing.2.{1,7} (Planting,grain)
Enhancing.3.{1}(Conquering)
Pendulum.1.{1,4}(seasonal,correlated)
Pendulum.2.{4,16,19,25} (rabbits,rabbits,starves,decreases)
Pendulum.3.{4,5,7,10,14,20,23,27}
(democracy,oscillates,parties,voters,rascals,blood,becomes,rascals)
Pendulum.4.{3,11,13,14}(generally,orbit,particular,point)
That's.1.{3}(tools)
That's.3.{4,17,21}(perfectly,target,work)
That's.4.{2} (sun)
That's.5.{2,4} (Tarn,invade)
That's.6.{2,4} (Flames,hit)
That's.7.{6,9,11} (covered,analytical,except)
That's.8.{10,17,21}(terrorism,terrorist,details)
Some.1.{5,17,21,23,26} (out,after,period,playing,algorithms)
People.1.{4,7,9,11} (groups,especially,considered,aggregate)
People.2.{1}(rich)
People.3.{3,4}(women,boys)
People.4.{4,10,14,20}(completely,when,group,inferences)
People.5.{4,20,25}(individual,completely,equations)
People.6.{2,3,8,14,17,18}(college,coeds,reliably,certain,political,stimuli)
Levers2.1.{13,14} ("public persona")
Levers2.2.{3,9,12,15} (Sparky, vast, direction, everything)
Levers2.3.{5,6,8,10} (truly unable, reform, government)
Levers2.4.{6,8,11,23} (graduate, Scouting, off, pro-Scouting)
Levers2.5.{2,4,7} (worked, because, stopped)
Levers2.6.{5,8,15,23} (long-term, Scouts, also,moving)
Chaos.1.{1} (Freedom)
Chaos.2.{9,11,14} (liberty, allowed, enemies)
Chaos.3.{13,14,17,21,23,24} (squash out,before,become,significant threat)
Chaos.6.{7,8,11,14,22} (strongly,oppressed,environment,Vircus,plausibly)
Chaos.5.2 (view)
Aliens.1.{10} (evolution)
Aliens.2.{12,15} (environmental,causes)
Aliens.3.{4,5} (Brochoah,coming)
Aliens.4.{13} (secret)
Aliens.5.{11,12} (principally,controlled)
----------------------------------------------------------------
x1. Read Psychohistory-V1 on the modelling of Trend Vectors and Population
States.
1) Make a Pre of Mind roll with Psychohistory.
2) Write a short paragraph describing Trend Vectors and Population
States (taking your best guess, from what you can glean from the
merit badge requirements).
3) We'll send you back your paragraph with as much correction as you can
deduce from your roll, and how many points you get (we'll spend your
successes on corrections, and you get what's left over).
You can repeat this once per week.
x2. Describe the political state of the Linked Worlds five years ago
using a minimal set of Trend Vectors and Population States. Run
your model forward five years. Compare it to the current
political state of the Linked Worlds. Find the five places in
which your model differs most (using your choice of Fomhardt or
Kenobi). Increase the number of Trend Vectors and Population
States until you can bring the differences down to 10%.
** bits are "Jim/Tom makes something up"
1) Enumerate a "minimal set" of Trend Vectors and Population States for
five years ago [**]. Ratify them with the GMs.
2) Make a modelling roll (Pre of Mind with Psychohistory, for 13s). You
need 10 successes to succeed.
3) Assuming that you don't make it: list the five places that your
model differs [**]. Add some Trend Vectors and Population States
that you think address this. Ratify them with the GMs.
4) Having done step 3, you may have your choice (cumulative) of:
a> add 2 dice
b> add 3 skill
c> subtract 1 from the difficulty (down to a minimum of 5 without karma)
5) GOTO 2.
x3. In the previous exercise, you will have had to modify your Trend
Vectors in apparently arbitrary ways, in order to maintain
tracking. Read Psychohistory-V2, on the modelling of Levers and
Seminal Events, and Inverse Linkages.
- Describe Levers corresponding to the major influential personages
over the past five years, and quantify each of your Levers on each
of the Kataji axes. Quantify the four Seminal Events in the past
five years.
- Describe Inverse Linkages covering each of the five major
differences in your previous model.
- Add all these to your model.
Mechanic:
1) Make a Pre of Mind roll with Psychohistory.
2) Write a short set of paragraphs describing Levers, Seminal Events,
and Inverse Linkages (taking your best guess, from what you can
glean from the merit badge requirements). Additionally, assign
some appropriate number of Levers, four Seminal Events, and five
Inverse Linkages.
3) Pick three "Kataji axes" that seem appropriate to quantitate your
Levers with, and assign values to each.
4) We'll send you back your paragraphs with as much correction as you
can deduce from your roll, and how many points you get (we'll
spend your successes on corrections, and you get what's left
over).
5) You can repeat this once a week.
x4. Run your working model forward by ten years. Does anything seem
particularly implausible? Find three examples which seem
counterintuitive to you. Read Psychohistory-V3 on Damping Effects,
Enhancing Effects, and Pendulum Effects. Which of these seem
likely to apply to your three cases? Add these to your model and
run it again.
* This is largely a creative one. The Trend Vectors you built
earlier are the things to use. Write a (very short) description
of "things ten years from now" if everything keeps going in the
same directions.
[Make a Psychohistory roll]
Pick three places that seem weirdest in your imaginary "things
ten years from now", and describe which effects you would apply
to make them less weird. Give to the GMs for correction and
vetting based on your roll.
Repeat.
You can keep spinning this one for points, making your model
more and more complex, but you're allowed to stop once you
aren't getting any corrections made.
x5. Run your fifteen-year model again, this time paying close attention
to Kataji differentials of greater than 10. Assign Seminal Events
where you can. Are there any examples which could be explained by
the presence of covert Levers? Assign covert Levers to the
differentials that you cannot explain with Seminal Events.
* Make a modelling roll (Pre of Mind with Psychohistory, for 13s).
You need 10 successes to succeed.
Assuming you don't make it, note three places where there is a
shift in Kataji potential of 10 or more (that's basically a
function of both speed and amount of change).
Assign Seminal Events, overt Levers, and covert Levers that
explain them. At least half of your covert Levers should be
speculative (i.e. not a secret Lever that Jim knows about
already).
Ratify them with the GMs.
Having done this, for *each* Lever or Seminal Event, you may have your
choice (cumulative) of:
a> add 2 dice
b> add 3 skill
c> subtract 1 from the difficulty (down to a minimum of 5 without karma)
Repeat.
x6. Describe a state of the Linked Worlds which differs from the
current state by at least 3 Fomhardt degrees.
- Model an implementation of the change over the next fifty years,
using only Levers.
- Model an implementation of the change over the next fifty years,
using only Seminal Events.
- Model an implementation of the change over the next fifty years,
using a minimal set of Levers and Seminal Events.
- Model an implementation of the change over the next ten years.
How do the Levers and Seminal Events differ?
- Model an implementation of the change over the next year. How do
the Levers and Seminal Events differ?
* See psychohistory-lwmodel.
x7. Read Psychohistory-V4. Run your model forward in time until it
hits Chaos. Add Levers and Seminal Events over the next ten years
of the model in order to counter that event. Run your model
forward in time and observe the results.
* See psychohistory-chaos.
x8. Propose changes to the current state, achievable by Levers and
Seminal Events over the next fifty years. Run the model forward in
time until it hits Chaos, or until you reach a provably stable
configuration. Repeat until you reach a provably stable
configuration. What configurations are stable and proof against
Chaos? Write a 1000-word paper on what you have learned.
* See psychohistory-final.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Galactic Politics (08/05 - 09/06)
x1. Speak with someone responsible for an area of governmental policy
across the Hegemony for one hour about their work, and why Politics
skill is important to it. Speak with someone who works in that or a
similar area in planetary policy, and someone who works in that, or a
similar area in local government, and contrast their responsibilities
and methods.
x --Hornberg
x --Sanctuary planetary garrison commander?
x --head of local PD on New Light that dealt with Strangler Convention
X2. Design two different plausible forms of government for the Linked
Worlds, starting with initial premises varying from each other and
from the current government by at least 3 degrees on the Fomhardt
axes of governmental quantification. Compare and contrast these two
forms with the current government, postulating for each three
examples of particular benefit and three examples of particular
danger or waste. Outline the difficulties involved in shifting from
the current form to the better of the other two.
q: How far apart is 3 degrees on the Fomhardt axis?
a: Different enough that you'd use a different short phrase to
describe it. "Parliamentary democracy", "Hereditary
monarchy", "Elected president-for-life", etc. Blue and Red
are probably only different by about ~1 on the Fomhardt axes.
--see file gp-govts
x3. Outline a potential timeline for addition of a new alien race as part
of the Linked Worlds, from first contact to full membership. Note at
least ten potential pitfalls, and discuss three of them in detail,
outlining several methods of resolution.
--see file gp-alien
x4. Develop three plans by which a governmental policy affecting 1% or
more of the population could be significantly changed. Implement one
of them.
Stealing the US figures for cocaine addiction, about 1.2%
(overall) have used white within the past year, while .2% use
weekly and qualify as addicts.
Uplifts are under 1% in the general population. Dolphins are
about 30% of the Juice population (by far the largest uplift
population), and a significant fraction of Hazard. Note that
that makes dolphins just above 1% of Blue. Given that it says "a
governmental policy" you could do a policy in Red or Blue, rather
than trying to figure out how to have something be government
policy in all of the Linked Worlds at once.
It should be a global policy, though you could use a global
policy that principally affects just one system (i.e. a policy of
not trading with places with big human rights violations would
hit the Well principally).
Getting Red (or Blue, or whatever) to make a policy of "We're
going to take down Klothos" would count. Taking down Klothos
yourself doesn't count, it's not a government policy. There's
more room to pull a claim of policy out of uniting Red and Blue.
--see file gp-plans
X5. Program a simulation of the interaction of at least four Linked
Worlds, making sure to cover economic stimuli, planetary political
stimuli, and federal political stimuli. .
When you are ready, apply three tests from this training module to
your simulation.
Pick your first world to include. Build the simulation with Pre
of Mind, Computer Programming, KS: that world, Galactic Politics,
and Economics, rolling for 7s.
Add the other three worlds, one at a time. Roll with +1
difficulty for each world that you add, to build in the
interactions. Assign the four sets of successes as the dice of
your model, one for each of
Mind
Fortune
Reliability
Skill
Let us know when you've done this, and we'll tell you the rolls
that it needs to make for the three tests.
(If it fails the test, you can spend an in-game week to rebuilt
one of the four sections and try again.)
First attempt: Mind 9, Fortune 7, Reliability 7, Skill 8.
x 1) The planet with the largest economy (the Well, of those)
institutes a high tariff on incoming manufactured items,
shifting the balance of trade. Run the simulation forward for
a year and observe first-order effects:
Economic: 6 successes for 7s required
Planetary/Political: 6 successes for 7s required
Federal/Political: 6 successes for 9s required (*)
x 2) A major ecological disaster (cometary impact on Juice). Run
the simulation forward for a year and observe first and
second-order effects:
Economics: 7 successes for 7s required
Planetary/Political: 5 successes for 7s required
Federal/Political: 5 succeses for 9s required (*)
x 3) Gross and systemic irregularities are found in the New Light
judicial system, along the lines of "thousands of people sent
to jail for decades under false pretenses." Run the simulation
forward for a year and observe first-order effects
Economic: 6 successes for 8s required
Planetary/Political: 8 successes for 8s required
Federal/Political: 6 successes for 8s required
If the simulation fails a test, you can retry the scenario (i.e. the
three rolls), but fortune/reliability which were spent are gone.
Uncompleted Badges
Unarmed Combat (06/06 - ??/06)
x1. 40 hours solo practice.
x2. 40 hours practice with a partner who has 7 or more skill in
unarmed combat.
x3. A successful combat engagement against one or more hostiles in
which you score ten or more unarmed hits/grabs.
~4. Six different practice sessions of one hour each, in which you
hold your own against different competent opponents with different
unarmed training styles. (Competent opponents rate at least five
successes).
* Holding your own implies not being more than one success down
total over four rounds.
x 1. Gateway self-defense
x 2. Juice in/underwater combat
x 3. Akito with one arm tied behind his back
4. Talia with one arm tied behind her back?
5. Ace?
6. Hippocrates?
x5. Interview a martial arts Master for an hour about their philosophy
and combat discipline.
6. Write a paper of 500 words comparing and contrasting two
disciplines of unarmed combat, their strengths and weaknesses.
Find two equally matched practicioners of these disciplines and
observe a battle or sparring match between them. Write 300 words
of followup contrasting your initial predictions with the event.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Marketing
1. Speak with someone who has a marketing or salesmanship skill of at
least 7 for one hour about their work and why marketing skill is
important to it.
2. Design a one-page advertisement for a service or product, which
succeeds in generating at least fifty requests.
3. Pick three of your favorite products. Track their sales over the
past five years. For each, determine the point of greatest
increase in sales, and examine the advertisements in place at that
time. List your conclusions.
4. Watch the commercials from forty hours of commercial television,
tracking four different channels. Carefully note your reactions -
which products now interest you? For each channel, create a list
of the six most common themes and marketing images, and plot
frequency and timing of repeated commercials. List your
conclusions.
5. A paper of 2000 or more words comparing and contrasting methods of
electronic marketing. Include a discussion of "push" versus
"pull" and those techniques which result in actual aversive
reaction.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Administration
1. Interview the office manager for a large office about
administration and how it is important to their work. Interview a
Vice President in a mid-sized company about administration and how
it is important to their work. Interview someone who works in the
Registrar's office at a college or university about administration
and how it is important to their work.
2. Find three examples in and around your daily life where things
could be improved with more administration. Implement one of
them. Find three examples in your daily life where things could
be improved by *less* administration. Implement one of them.
3. Make up a fairly unpleasant or annoying process which takes at
least an hour of work a day. Recruit four people to assist you in
accomplishing this task in a satisfactory manner. After a week,
interview each participant to find out what complaints they have.
Redesign the process to address all complaints. After another
week, interview each participant to find out what complaints they
have. Redesign the process again.
4. Spend a week working in various areas of a company of 100 or more
employees. Diagram the official flow of command and control to a
95% accuracy rate. Add another layer of unofficial flow of
command, control, and communication, to a 75% accuracy. Describe
the differences between the two. Which would be more effective to
shift from the unofficial layer to the official layer? What about
shifting the other way?
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Demolitions
1. Supervise the explosive demolition of a building of three stories
or more.
2. Starting from chemicals which can be purchased over the counter at
a department or drug store, construct explosives sufficient to do
50 points of damage to a stationary target.
* Make an Edu roll with Demolitions, for N successes.
Iterate N times, making a Pre of Body roll with Chemical
Engineering, Chemistry, and half your Demolitions skill. Get to
50. Each time you roll more than one 1, there is some chance of
your homemade explosive going off; let us know if this happens.
3. Construct blueprint Demolitions-N34. Attach it to a grenade as
indicated. Remove the pin of the grenade. Prevent the grenade
from exploding, using the tools of your choice.
* Building the blueprint requires making a Pre of Body roll with
Mechanical Engineering for 9s, and Pre of Mind with Electrical
Engineering for 7s. You want to maximize the product of those
two rolls - it looks like a badly made one is a lot more likely
to accidentally fall of the table and leap around the room as
its various levers hit each other instead of move smoothly by
each other.
4. Assume you have six hundred pounds of shapeable-charge quaternite
explosive on the planet of your choice. Assuming infinite stealth
and permeability on your part, draw up a plan for deployment of
those explosives to cause maximal (within one standard deviation
of the ideal) governmental damage. Assuming no more stealth and
permeability than you have, draw up your personal maximal (within
one standard deviation of your ideal) governmental damage.
Compare the two. [Creative exercise]
5. Select six tools of your choice, and scan them into your manual.
Run Simulation Demolitions-N68.
6. Speak to someone with at least 7 Demolitions skill about how
Demolitions is important to their work.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Counterinsurgency (07/06 - ??/06)
1. Infiltrate a group dedicated to the overthrow of a legitimate
government. Turn their energies to more constructive methods on
at least one major project of the group.
--anti-White groups on Gateway/Riden?
x2. Speak to someone who has defeated an anti-government insurrection for
an hour about their work and how counterinsurgency is important to
it.
--Juice; commander of naval forces that took down Swimmer
3. Develop an outline of overthrowing a legitimate government, with an
80% projected success rate. Develop three outlines to prevent this
overthrow (with an 80% projected succes rate), over a range of
civilian impact from "mild" to "severe." [specs for quantifying the
range follow].
* Write the outline for overthrow. Make a Pre of Mind roll with
Broad Tactics for 8 successes. If you fail, add more content to
the outline and try again, with +1 skill.
* Write the outlines for preventing overthrow. Make Pre of Mind
rolls with Counterinsurgency for 7s (severe), 8s (medium) and 9s
(mild); get 8 successes. If you fail on a given outline, add
more content to the outline and try again, but you may add +1
skill when you do so.
4. Connect your Handbook to a Linked Worlds planetary network on an
open network connection and request the Counterinsurgency Field
Test.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Asymmetric Warfare
1. A successful combat engagement against one or more hostiles in
which your forces use only weapons (or unarmed techniques) with
which they are untrained.
--Acid munitions?
2. Put together a strike team of eight, including yourself. Divide
the team into equal halves, and lead your team to victory in a
game of capture-the-flag against the opposition. Then give one of
your team members to the opposition, and play [win] again. Repeat
twice more [in succession].
x3. Find an area of woods of type 4 or below on the Hilbert/Denforth
scale of wildnerness. Choose a native prey species. Begin
hunting that species, tagging and releasing them. Observe the
behavior of the individuals that you tag either once or multiple
times, and the behavior of the individuals that you do not catch.
What can you extrapolate?
* Start hunting things. Neural disruptors and stunners are fine. Roll
1) Pre of Body with Stealth to not chase things away and
2) Pre of Body with stunner-shooting.
Each time you go after a guy you've shot before, increase the
difficulty by 1. See how high (X) you can get it before you
fail.
Then, make a Str of Mind roll with Asymmetric Warfare to (Y)
observe the animal behavior as you go.
Roll X dice with Y skill, and get at least 10.
* 29 dice, 4 skill ==> 16 successes
4. Research three examples of victory over extreme odds. For each,
interview a participant on both side for an hour. Write a
3000-word paper developing a theory of what is required of a
successful underdog, and a companion theory of what renders an
overwhelming force vulnerable.
~ --Craterrock Mountain defense: Vance and someone on Hippocrates
--David and Goliath gladiator situation on the Well (or gambling,
for that matter)
--Battle against the Hector-- interview some of the captured pilots,
if any?
--Battle of Sparta-- find a Decider prisoner?
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Unconventional Warfare
1. What are the weak points of the current government which render it
most vulnerable to outside infiltration? Which render it
vulnerable to internal corruption? How would you close these
vulnerabilities? What flaws might that introduce? Write a
3000-word paper discussing your conclusions.
2. Plan an assassination of a major planetary or Hegemonic government
figure, with a projected 80% success rate. Carry it out,
substituting paint-marking technology instead of live weapons.
Escape successfully.
* Mostly, if you pull it off, it's a success. However, you can
make an UW rolls with Edu to get general hints about a
particular plan.
3. Outline the use of a novel technology or skill to warfare, which
has not yet been successfully used in a conflict of over 10,000
people, or by you. Use it in a successful engagement against
hostiles.
4. Interview six people of differing skills, none of whom have taken
part in an armed conflict. Outline how you would make use of them
as a squad of six in order to:
1) take and hold a small compound
2) destroy a medium-sized building
3) liberate three hostages from armed captors
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Art
Render a subject of your choice in FOUR of these ways: pen and ink,
watercolor, pencil, pastel, oil, tempera, acrylic, sculpture, etching,
or holograph. Scan resulting works into your manual.
Pick an artist with a body of work extending over ten years, and write
an essay of no less than 500 words detailing the changes in their
oeuvre across that time.
Design a logo for a group or a cause, and state what psychological,
referential, and predictive elements you incorporated into the design.
Attend an art show opening of at least 50 people. Speak to ten
critics for at least five minutes each. Design a Halnikov Idea Space
[see essay] which is minimal for the ten critics, and plot each.
Note the greatest outlier, and determine whether the outlier is
probabilistically visionary or delusional.
Speak to three self-identified artists, one with skill of less than 5,
one with skill between 5 and 10, and one with skill of 10 or more,
for an hour each about their work.
Visit a reputable art museum. Locate the work most likely to be a
forgery, and explain why.
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Music
Compose and arrange the same basic melody in three ways: as a solo
with accompaniment, as a concerto, and as a full orchestral
arrangement.
Participate in a public choral performance.
Learn to play a musical instrument. Put on a recital which includes
at least two pieces ranked beyond beginner level.
Familiarize yourself with the works of four composers in a genre.
Have a partner play for you eight musical clips from that genre
comprising at least three from your chosen composers, and successfully
identify your choices.
Track representative musical selections over the past seventy years in
the following paradigms: classical, popular, cutting-edge. Pick six
variables to analyze, and track the change of each of them over the
course of the seventy years.
Identify fifty musical themes (with or without words) which have
spread to outside their original environment. Rate each on its
melodic quality, its relative volume, its tonal character, the overall
effectiveness of its lyrical sound bite (using the formula you derived
in your Propaganda badge), and the amount to which it has spread.
Derive a formula which relates the first four variables to the fifth.
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Navigation
Speak with someone who has a navigation skill of at least 7 for one
hour about their work and why navigation skill is important to it.
Plot a course between Crux and Nonesuch without passing within the
0.1% gravity well of the Mare's Tail.
Start in a location with a Type 0 or 1 classification on the
Hilbert/Denforth wilderness scale, and make your way to civilization,
using no electronic equipment and no flying transportation.
Design and construct a device which will be capable of automatically
determining its location to within 2 miles at an arbitrary spot on an
arbitrary planet of the Linked Worlds.
A paper of 3000 words describing advances in navigation techniques
used in the Omphalos Dust Nebula. You must cite the experiences of
two explorers with five years' experience, that experience gained at
least fifteen years apart.
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