Culture Methods

>>>>>> Incoming Transmission>>> Source Identifier: Mytenean Societal Corps, Civilia # Mytene
>>> Destination Identifier: TE3-Firebrand#Her Glorious Command#Starlight Ebbing#Muse IX#Endeavour#Unquiet Journey#Starlight Ebbing#
>>> Subject: Pest Control
>>> Message Begins

The developing modern city of Civilia is dealing with a small vermin outbreak which is impeding the citizenry in their pursuit of better lives. Capable individuals are requested to travel to Civilia and resolve this problem, for the benefit of all Mytene.

Civilia: Creating Cultural Capital

>>> Message Ends
>>> End Transmission

• mossy_hollow - Joseph
• Courageous Book - Amy
• Pre-Emptive Flight - Zac

• The party travels to Civilia, a new-ish city being built on Mytene as part of their bid for Enhanced Societal Status. Civilia is intended to be a city of culture, bringing together the best of Mytenean and Galactic art and society. However, it soon becomes clear to the party that the city is having some issues. Nominally they have been hired by a senior Administrator, Amorphous Alloy, to help eradicate some vermin from buildings - but these buildings are a theatre, a museum and a restaurant, none of which have been used since being built - and all of which were built early on in the city's construction, before e.g. housing for workers or other residents. They also encounter a somewhat purposeless canal which is now being built with very poorly designed plans put together by another bureaucrat, Liminal Gold, who appears to have more ideas than planning skills.
• After successfully destroying the various vermin nests and only slightly setting fire to the roof of the museum, the party visit the central Administration building, where they meet not only several members of the bureaucratic adminstration, but also the city's Ship Heart, Civilia itself. It soon becomes clear that the combination of Civilia's whims and the Administration's slavish response to them are what is causing most of the problems. The party do not attempt to do anything about this for now, but instead accept the job of evicting a 'traitor' who has been ordered to leave the city but has not left.
• When the find the 'traitor,' an ex-Administrator called Abundant Feldspar, they get a bit more explanation of what is actually happening here and how involved the Ship Heart is in the city's life. Feldspar was an Administrator who raised concerns about the progress of the city with their superiors and wanted to ask for outside help, but the superiors - not wanting to admit to central Administration that any problems might exist - instead reported this to Civilia as outright disagreement with the cultural brief of the city, not wanting to make it sufficiently glorious and cultural etc. Whereupon Civilia both demanded they be exiled and removed its protection from the Decay from Abundant Feldspar - resulting in essentially a small Decay bubble of their personal space following them around at all times.
• The party is not happy about this (with the exception of Mossy Hollow, who is very excited by the 'Decay Bubble' part at least), and concoct a plan with Feldspar to get them out of the city and pick them up before returning to central Mytene to report what's actually been going on here. They deposit Feldspar outside the city, promising to return soon, and head back to the central Administration building.
• Once there, they argue a bit with Amorphous Alloy, distracting him while Pre-Emptive Flight is talking Civilia around to the idea of workers' homes being built immediately with Civilia's likeness inside every one to inspire them (Civilia's likeness in this case being a globe light fitting), and the party leaves with confidence that immediate construction efforts on what actually matters will begin.

• Courageous Book takes on the task of reporting back to central Mytenean Administration the various problems in Civilia, with Abundant Feldspar's support. This is listened to with much concern and immediate agreement that the Administrators in Civilia should be rotated out (and any new ones being sent there should be trained in how best to interact with Civilia itself). Courageous Book also requests more field medic training from the Firebrand, since this mission was such a success and no-one died etc.
• Mossy Hollow, meanwhile, spends some time trying to find out whether the collapse of the Orion Gate was in fact a Ship Heart Conspiracy. His research on this is inconclusive but he does find out that all Interstellar Gates seem to contain Ship Hearts, so it's possible the one in the Orion Gate decided to explode for Conspiracy Reasons. He also checks recent news reports and the feelings of more senior Altarians to find out how the population of the Keter System is feeling about the gate failure - mostly people have got over the immediate panic about food, and are now just settling into the gloom of not getting any [insert exotic foodstuff/letters from grandma/updates on Altarian family trees here] for a while. There seems to be a fair level of optimism in the general population that the Gate will probably be fixed soon, which Altarians in a position to know more about the situation seem to mistrust.
• [ No downtime action yet received for Pre-Emptive Flight ]

• On Mytene, a new set of Administrators from the Mytenean Societal Corps are sent to Civilia, with senior ranks chosen from those who have proven to be good at playing politics with 'difficult' people to work with. I.e. Civilia. Abundant Feldspar is reinstated to Senior Administrator and is the official lead of this team in Mytene.
• Amorphous Alloy is demoted to Junior Administrator and sent to work on the implementation of the sewage system for Mytene Tertiary Spaceport.
• Liminal Gold has all design privileges revoked.
• Civilia has some worker housing built with some very nice light fittings, and other functional zones such as shops etc also start being built.

• + 3 clout to either the Mytenean Industrial Corps or the Mytenean Societal Corps (your choice) or +1 clout with any other faction

• No change in Decay Disciple numbers: as many people think it is the Decay to blame for the Gate collapse as consider it likely to be the Ship Heart's fault (while an overwhelming majority believe it was probably just a screw-up by someone/something else entirely).

• Courageous Book is authorised to use the Medbay on the Firebrand to train herself further in field medic skills. Support for developing a full field medic training course for the wider population is cautiously supported but dependent on Courageous Book proving its value with an itemised report on her next mission: exact number of people saved from certain death, etc etc.