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Captain's Log, Days Fourteen and Fifteen After the smashing success of the watchtower project, it has been decided that they will be upgraded into guard stations.   Yes, the key to a well-ordered society is a firm hand to keep it in line!   The stations are built directly over our old obsolete watchtowers, and keep the exact same staff. Quite efficient!  The upgraded guard posts keep us safe twenty-four hours of the day. More will soon join them.  Between the Generator now requiring less fuel to maintain its heat level and the third coal mine we opened, our coal income will soon be enough to completely fill our stockpiles. We will need some more storage space soon, but first:  Six more bunkhouses and a child shelter are authorized in anticipation of the incoming immigrants.  Though we are currently doing fine for coal, the researchers hand me the designs for a coal thumper. We have no more room for surface coal mines, so these coal thumpers will allow us to force coal up to the surface from far underground, though it will require a good number more labourers to efficiently gather and sort it all.  Speaking of which, here come the Tesla City survivors. We house them and put them straight to work.  The scout team also brought with them enough wood and steel that we are able to designate a whole new quarter for storage. Each of these depots will be designated for a specific resource.  We will not be able to rely on easily accessible surface wood forever. The scientists have devised a novel method of wood extraction:  You see, the walls that surround our city are not solid rock cliff faces. They are in actuality a mix of ice and heavily packed snow, which has accumulated over what used to be a vast forest surrounding us in all directions. With these wall drills, we will be able to reach the trees inside the walls, ensuring a supply of lumber that will last for a long, long time. Our food production is becoming an issue, and a few of the researchers have pulled me aside to assure me they have something quite interesting in mind to address it.  As predicted, our coal income has exceeded our ability to store it. This resource depot is designated for coal storage, and extends our capacity by 900 units! The others will increase our wood, steel, raw food and food rations capacities by 300 units apiece.  The new residential quarter for our new citizens is complete. They now live safe from the cold and the discord of the outside world, under the protection of our Generator and our Guards.  Captain, someone has defaced the walls with predictions of doom for our city. This is troubling. People already fear we'll share Winterhome's fate, and scared minds are swayed by even the smallest nudges. The Londoners' work. The Guards remove the vandalism right away, not in time to prevent a small loss of hope, but preventing a larger loss should the words have stayed up.  Their number has jumped by six, after rising by four last night, and we expect that number to keep increasing. These agitators comprise over a tenth of our population already, and are growing every day!   Some trees in this grove bear deep cuts in the shape of a cross. We found some bones scattered around them... Poking around the trees marked with crosses, we found shallow graves under each of them. The dead bodies lack most of the bigger muscles, and some bones bear signs of a cutting tool. The corpses have been obviously stripped of edible parts. Now we know what kept the survivors by the Freshwater Springs from starving. We'll leave graves intact but we can cut trees for wood. Now we know why the Winterhome survivors were so cagey about their experiences. We cannot blame them for doing what they had to survive, but I found myself unable to meet their eyes during a meeting we had not long after the discovery. After gathering some wood the scouts are sent onward to the snow cliff, their original destination before the detour.  The temperature has fallen to -40 again, and this time it seems like it will stay that way for a while.  As we near completion of our project to upgrade every remaining tent in the city to a bunkhouse, I get the notice that it is time to take another vote. There are three new options added to the ballot this time:    Patrol will allow the Guards to take a more active hand in ensuring peace in our streets. Each patrol they go on will increase hope and decrease discontent by a bit. This will take 36 hours and leads to no further choices. With a Propaganda Centre we could ensure that our people are not led astray by Londoner rhetoric or other misinformation circulating the streets. It would raise hope passively as well as having the ability to distribute bulletins with raise hope even further. This law would take 45 hours and leads to the Agitator and Pledge of Loyalty laws. Finally, a Prison gives us a place to isolate known troublemakers from our good citizens and eventually re-integrate them into society. This leads to Forceful persuasion and also has a 45 hour cooldown. How will we vote to maintain Order?
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May 19, 2023 07:41
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I think a Propaganda Centre would make sense, as a preventative measure. Better stop people from becoming troublemakers in the first place than the other way around. I'd also like to know what our automaton is doing.
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May 19, 2023 07:53
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Philippe posted:I'd also like to know what our automaton is doing.
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May 19, 2023 08:04
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I think putting it in a coal mine (especially if it's far away from your heat) is a fine use for it.
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May 19, 2023 08:09
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Get those guards out on patrol. And why do we have to put up with the Londoners for an arbitrary amount of days? Why can't we just kick them out if they want to go so badly?
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May 19, 2023 10:23
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Black Robe posted:Get those guards out on patrol. Because they are still perfectly valid workers and we need every pair of hands we can get.
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May 19, 2023 11:00
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A more in-character answer: They're our friends, coworkers,family, and fellow survivors, and they're going to loving die out there if they follow the idiots who came up with this idiotic idea. Hm... I was going to vote for patrols, but the above makes me go for Propaganda Center instead.
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May 19, 2023 11:44
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With all the extra mouths we need to feed, it might be good to look into Soup, if only as a contingency.
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May 19, 2023 13:11
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Oddly enough, lets get a prison up
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May 19, 2023 15:31
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I haven't had a good soup in ages, let's make some.
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May 19, 2023 16:09
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bbcisdabomb posted:I haven't had a good soup in ages, let's make some. The soup law is for making bad soup. Anyway, Propaganda center. Although that name is a bit harsh...
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May 19, 2023 17:07
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The benefits of Patrol match what we need right now, plus we won't need to build anything new. We might as well use our Guard Stations to the fullest before escalating our Order level. And we will escalate it. 
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May 19, 2023 17:15
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You know, we're hauling rear end considering we've only been out here for like two weeks Patrols seem good
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May 19, 2023 18:20
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Patrols seem good.
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May 19, 2023 18:29
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Patrols
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May 19, 2023 18:30
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Ceremonial Funerals. Everyone is equal, in front of the Reaper.
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May 19, 2023 19:47
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NewMars posted:The soup law is for making bad soup. No such thing, I stand by my vote.
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May 19, 2023 20:08
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 "Captain, what if -- and hear me out -- what if instead of 4 oz. of meat on a plate, we instead served 3 oz. of meat in a bowl and filled the rest with melted snow water?" "Would there be booze in this water?"" I should jolly well think so, we're not savages after all."
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May 19, 2023 20:57
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Propaganda Center
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May 19, 2023 21:08
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Soup again. Some food is better than no food, after all.
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May 19, 2023 22:15
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So how is our food situation? And how are we hunting food?
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May 19, 2023 22:20
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ChaosDragon posted:So how is our food situation? And how are we hunting food? It's not looking great right now - people were starting to go hungry last night as the rations ran out, and we're not currently making enough in a day to replenish, but I'm hoping to fix that with the next hunting upgrade and an outpost. As for what they're hunting out there, we did see that polar bears are thriving right now, and there's presumably other arctic fauna that have migrated south. They're trapped using snares and such, but there's also an implication that they've got firearms that the player just never gets to see. Won't be getting an update out tonight or probably tomorrow either, so here are the current poll results: Propaganda Centre 5 Patrol 5 Soup 3 Prison 1 Ceremonial Funerals 1
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May 19, 2023 22:42
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Ah, I guess I know what I'll be voting for next time.
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May 19, 2023 22:47
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I like to think they're dynamite blasting for frozen fish
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May 19, 2023 22:53
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Look, if you promise not to ask where the meat is coming from, then I won't ask what we're making the moonshine out of.
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May 19, 2023 23:05
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since food is an issue, time four soup.
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May 19, 2023 23:12
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Soup cult! Soup Cult!
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May 20, 2023 00:40
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Soup for the soup god.
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May 20, 2023 00:58
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Mechanical Ape posted:Look, if you promise not to ask where the meat is coming from, then I won't ask what we're making the moonshine out of. Dynamite blasting the liquor stores out of the ice walls
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May 20, 2023 01:09
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the time of soup has come at last!
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May 20, 2023 01:22
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RBA Starblade posted:Dynamite blasting the liquor stores out of the ice walls If this ever becomes an option I'm voting for it.
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May 20, 2023 03:49
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RBA Starblade posted:Dynamite blasting the liquor stores out of the ice walls There's beer in them thar hills...?
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May 20, 2023 04:51
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Soup, there it is.
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May 20, 2023 07:54
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Soup.
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May 20, 2023 12:15
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I guess we got a wave of soup. Good thing we've got moonshine.
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May 20, 2023 13:18
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Captain's Log, Day Fifteen, cont. It was a closer vote than we've seen for quite some time, but a late push by the perennial soup contingent finally got their agenda passed.   Once they see how thin we're stretching the rations now, I wonder how even the staunchest soup supporters will feel about our food quality. At least we can have the cooks warm us up a bit by adding a splash of the sauce.  It will take a lot of steel to get our huts upgraded, but these new hangars will let our hunters bring back much more food per night - thirty units, compared to the twenty we are currently getting.   Having the kitchens switch to producing soup has got our daily food production to nearly break even. Even just one hunter's hangar will get us in the black again, so I make sure it will be done before nightfall.  Heaters will let us warm buildings individually from the inside, getting them warmer than if we rely on the ambient heat from the Generator alone. The forecast says we will be staying at a manageable -40 for the next few days, so we won't need to activate these right away; they were mostly picked this time because every other option would have taken valuable steel to develop. Although our coal production is currently positive, I have the scientists looking into ways to optimise our coal mining operations. Though we do have the ability to increase the Generator's heat output, doing so would currently run through our coal reserves in under a day; being able to mine coal more efficiently will help us extend that time should we need the extra heat.  Since our tents are nearly all dismantled, the canvas we have left over can be repurposed into a dirigible. From the air the hunters will have a far easier time of tracking and bringing down their quarries.  As I was watching the airship take off for its first hunt, I was notified that scout team one had reached their destination.   The hole in the snow cliff leads to a small chamber. Someone lives here, but the lonely human figure we saw from afar has disappeared. It might be the sole survivor of Winterhome. The man we've seen from afar was nowhere to be found. Searching his burrow, we found a diary of a scientist who fled Winterhome. After the starving city fell into chaos, its leader, an Army captain, appointed himself an absolute ruler. He tried to impose order using force. Plenty of people, disgruntled, deserted the city and most of the others rebelled against him. Our friends from Winterhome still have not filled us in on the whole story of the collapse of their city. This diary patches some holes, but it does raise questions as well. It seems that their Captain went too far in his attempts to keep Order in his city, and the people fought back against his tyranny. This seems an invaluable precautionary tale to us, practically a divine revelation. We must keep the fate of Winterhome in mind as we try to keep Order among our own people, lest we be doomed to repeat history.  We can see a faint wisp of smoke coming from a patch of deep shadow at the base of a small hill. It must be the entrance to a cave - an inhabited cave. It seems the scouts were a step or two behind the author of the journal, who seems to have moved on to shelter at this shrouded cave.  As I've alluded to in previous log entries, we need to get an outpost depot set up to start collecting resources from outside the city. We can support up to two outposts, and the first should be ready to set out by the end of the night if all goes according to plan.    This cave is a hideout for some children who were evacuated from Winterhome. There are no adult survivors here. We should talk to the kids and take them to our city. We talked to the children in the hideout. They said that one night their teachers and some hunters took them out from Winterhome on a "secret adventure." Teachers told them they're going to stay here for a while. When the food ran low, their guardians went back to get more and didn't return. It seems these kids were evacuated in time, before things in their city got really ugly. We formed the children into an orderly column and set off towards the city. They walk quietly and resolutely, like little adults, the youngest clutching their toys tightly. This is going to be a long journey. Please have enough warm beds prepared for their arrival. The cave we thought might be the new shelter of the journal author instead turned out to be housing nearly forty children! The scouts did not even bother to wait for authorization from the Beacon before they began escorting the orphans back here to safety. The poor brave children must have been surviving out here for weeks before we found them.   A hot spring keeps a tiny patch of sea from freezing here. The Americans used this opportunity to set up a fishing village. It's deserted now. This fishing village used to supply Tesla City with food. Searching it, we found a letter: "Mike, don't return to the city. Tesla is a madman. He cast out all the amputees, all the sick. Jerry's parents and old Beth are among them. There will be blood, that's for sure, and soon." The village was left in order. We could send a team here to start fishing. At the same time our first scout team was persuading the children to come back to the city with them, the second team was exploring the abandoned fishing village. It appears Tesla City, too, has gone too far in its efforts to keep its society going. The ill and injured were exiled - perhaps to have fewer mouths to feed, perhaps to ensure the survival of the fittest - and perished at the American camp we first stumbled upon.  A large settlement. Numerous buildings are dimly visible through the shining dome of electrical discharge that is projected over the town. From here the scouts can see Tesla City itself. Unlike the steam Generators the British expeditions prepared, it appears that Tesla is doing something with electricity to run his city. We need to go there and save whoever we can from the eugenicist madman's tyranny.  Sir, a group of drunk men were disturbing the peace, pushing each other, screaming obscenities, and harassing women in the street. Our guards intervened and restrained the drunks before anyone was hurt. It seems someone put a little too much liquor was in the soup mix today! Since there's no jail set up the drunkards were sat out in the snow until they sobered up. The hope of our people is of paramount importance, and beating these men would not have done anybody's morale any good.  The Londoners have defaced more walls, urging everybody to join them and abandon the city. Some graffiti even mocks your leadership, branding you an unfit leader incapable of doing what it takes to save our people. While the Guards were dealing with the drunk men, though, some of the Londoners were busy on the other end of the city. More of the same old message, but this time they insulted me directly! The messages are removed post-haste, before these vile deceptions might spread any further than they already have.  Captain, members of the Neighbourhood Watch who were removing the Londoners' slogans have been assaulted! We should do something to protect our people. In a bold move, the Londoners have attacked some of our Guards directly! The rest are mobilized to ensure no more Londoners remain on the street tonight. We must demonstrate strength, for the sake of our friends and enemies alike.   Though our loyal citizens are happy to see peace being enforced on the streets, even more people have joined the Londoners' cause! The divide in our society is an ever-widening chasm.  We will expand our Guards' reach with another tower and more recruits, but first, we must take a vote. There are no new Laws available after the last one was signed, so these are our options:    Foreman, Propaganda Centre, Prison and Patrol are available from Purpose. Adaptation offers House of Pleasure, Duelling Law, Extended Shift, Triage, Prosthetics and Ceremonial Funerals. As always, we can also vote for None of the Above if it is felt necessary. How will we vote to maintain Order?
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May 22, 2023 00:45
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Propaganda Center. It's really very useful.
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May 22, 2023 01:05
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Well if they're going to have propaganda we should too! Propaganda Centers!
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May 22, 2023 01:17
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Graffiti is one thing, but violent offenders belong in prison. Remember, they started it. We’re simply doing what’s sensible.
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May 22, 2023 02:56
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Propaganda Centre
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May 22, 2023 05:18
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