🐝A.P.I.S. Presents🐝
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The Third Hexenniel Conference for the Liberation of Knowledge and Fostering of Growth in Sansar |
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The Grand Opening of BEES
Guests arrive at the Arkhive as per usual and are all given rooms, rest, and repast in the vault of the Hive itself. While there is a formal aspect to all interaction, a carefully observed guest rite, this is not the main event and it is not treated as such. Should anyone wish to explore the Arkhive Æternal or the neighboring Console Prisca Museum of Interplanetary Ability, they are free to do so. Outside of rank absurdity, all requests are met and all gifts are freely* given. But that's just preparation for the big event.
Transport begins before dawn on the day of the opening. Normally, a pre-daybreak beginning would be something of a burden on visitors, but given the intercontinental and interplanetary nature of the event, what is time even, y'know? One by one, delegates are invited onto the yacht Malizia III and sailed around the island. Now, did the Arkhival leadership specifically plot the event so that the guests, sailing west around the island, would first come upon the new building just as the first brushes of dawn painted the sky with brilliant shades bruise black, blood red, pale desert rose, and several other colors like those? Obviously. That's how this works.
Woe! Illustration be upon ye!
In the crystalline arctic waters of the coastal Arkhive, a series of perfect white buildings form the entry to a complex. Built into the sea itself, stairs form a dock that accommodates tide, leading to a walkway towards a great metal dome of interlocking hexagons, almost iridescent under the nascent day. Before the dome, before the buildings, there floats a hexagonal platform of beeswax, on which waits Her Arkhival Majesty, Queen Constance of Comment the First herself. She speaks to the nearing ship.
"Welcome, friends and visitors, guests and delegates, scientists and scholars! It is my supreme privilege to welcome you to the public opening of the Arkhive's newest construction: BEES! A first-of-its-kind facility, BEES is a research center in three parts. What is visible here forms the terranean BEES, equipped with ample supplies and containing myriad clean rooms, beehives, and enormous computers that slowly spit out a little strip of paper that you can look at and say "By Jove...this changes everything!"--everything science requires!
"Below us, the BEES Aquatic Division operates on a scale similar to what you see here, but underwater. Shielded from background radiation, with immediate access to the sea, and equipped with enormous plate glass windows so that scientists can look through them a second too late to see the prehistoric megashark that's about to crash through, our Aquatic Division enables research impossible on the surface.
"Finally, our third division." Constance points up at the peach-rose black sky. "BEES in Spaaaaaaaace! After having constructed a geostationary satellite for the purpose of acclimating bees to Mekhalan environments, we have now created a geostationary complex for the purpose of acclimating BEES to, well, Mekhalan environments. Any research requiring consistent low-gravity environments, exposure to the frankly concerning levels of cosmic radiation, or the risk of hearing your colleague returning from a spacewalk only to remember that they left a week ago and you should be alone oh no oh no what is that thing? can be conducted there."
A banner unfurls behind her, hung from hovering drones, reading Burtzland Economic Endowment Scientarium (which explains so much about what she was actually saying).
"Welcome, to BEES."
Tours of the labs are available. There's room for visiting scholars to come, with financial support from the Hive, so long as all research is made public. You can see one room on ground level where a pod of Durats is examining a Stage Tree crossection in a room separated with a sterile chemical shower nonsense thing I don't do science. They stack on each other comically as they observe a fungal growth on the tree, which pops comically and makes them tumble comically down in a comical shower of comic spores. It's very funny. In the Aquatic Division, scientists are examining a strange abyssal tube worm that spits polyps like fog. They suggest there's a sort of hive intelligence about them, but it's a reference so it won't be investigated further. BEES in Spaaaaaaaace! currently has a squad trying to find a clause in the contract that suggests Snimt Glek's appropriation of the room for research into Long-Term Return to Low Gravity Environments In Mekhalan Natives, an obvious grab at a nicer apartment, violates terms and can be cancelled.
*Visitors to the local mediocre cafe-chain-slash-microstate enjoy no such generosity while there. The Arkhive Æternal has no authority over Milk & Honey.
Opportunities:
- Mingle, chat, do diplomacy stuff. The Arkhive specifically welcomes use of itself as a forum. Constance is glad to participate or be excluded, no fear.
- Watch science! Do science! Chat about pretend science!
- The Arkhive Charter is going to have two proposed amendments. I'll wait for EmBark's amendment before I present mine. Every Sansarite member gets a vote (plus EmBark)
- Tech trade! The Arkhive is giving away the following to anyone (unless you actively aggress us this turn, I guess)
- Tech reveal and distribution! Morph and I are making something, please hold.
- What does it mean to be Sansarite (Local Members Only (and TEA)): Let us interpret the charter. I'll start this discussion soon.
Techs for Sale! For Free!
- Aclaustrophobic Psychiatry
- Algorithmic Imagination
- Arcane Amplification
- Badalian Megadirigibles
- In Vivo Modification
- Nuclear Fusion
- Pseudogravity Engineering
- Wet Navy Ships
- Xenolinguistic Cataloguing
Charter of the Arkhive Æternal
Immutables
-Every odd round, the Arkhive will hold a Hexenniel Conference to select a Patron, determined by the Points System (see below).
-There are two tiers of Membership: Local Members (for residents of Sansar) and Visiting Members (for everyone else).
-Should a Visiting Member be awarded Patronage OR complete and maintain a Hive (5-action GP), they will permanently be considered Local, so long as they retain Membership.
-Members' holdings shall be held as inviolable to the Library, subject to no interference.
-The Arkhive's holdings shall be held as inviolable to Members, subject to no interference.
-The Arkhive shall devote half of its capacity in service of its Patron (2 actions on odd round, 3 on evens).
-The Arkhive cannot use Military actions nor maintain a standing army (but we're ignoring the unit we start with because it'd be a hassle to deal with--we rebuke the fiction and substitute our own!).
-The Arkhive is a place of refuge; anyone swearing themselves to scholarship is welcome in its walls, regardless of their past.
-The Arkhive is subject always to public oversight; it will never take a secret action
-The Arkhive reserves all E5s and D5s that it may better distribute Trade Routes and Embassies, as well as its first F5 and F10. Additionally, should the Arkhive ever do that thing to get a new civ type and another action what's that called again I forgot, it reserves that one action as well--feel free to ask in advance about it if worried.
Mutables
-Research produced or acquired by the Arkhive (including techs) is to be freely disseminated to all Members without discrimination.
-Physical holdings (including artifacts) are to be loaned out for three years at a time to Local Members.
-Members of the Arkhive hold joint responsibility for recovering overdue and stolen items and holdings (including TPs and Supports*)
-Failure to return a borrowed item by its due date incurs a fine of two (2) Treasure. A further borrowing period overdue will result in revocation of Membership and extraction of reparations as determined appropriate by all remaining Members and the Librarians.
-At their sole discretion, the Queen can forgive fines and pardon misstep.
-The Arkhive accepts all donations.
-Trade Routes will be distributed freely among Members, preferencing Local Members and those offering more generous donations (points system).
-Cultural Exchanges will be distributed freely among Members, preferencing Local Members and those offering more generous donations (points system).
-At each Hexenniel Conference, the current Patron and the Queen may each submit a proposal to add, remove, or alter a single mutable point of this charter.
-Proposals to change the Charter are only confirmed by a 2/3rds majority of voting Local Members.
-No Patron may require the Arkhive to Adopt Faith.
*I don't expect to have any interest in supports unless a [i]hostile[/i] power takes the Arkhive's capital supports
Points System: (Note, this is crunch, but IC it's just the Will of the Bees. Not mutable or immutable, just an enumeration of how the Hive chooses to crown you.)
Provide our Desired Import: 2pts/round (available to every civ that does it, even if the need is already met)
Submit a piece of your culture's literature for Arkhival: 1pt (max 1/rd)
Submit a history for Arkhival: 1pt (max 1/rd)
Submit a theo/mythological or philosophical work for Arkhival: 1pt (max 1/rd)
Recover a lost item from the Arkhive's holdings (returning late items absolutely doesn't count, loophole nerdz): 10pts
Submit the results of an Investigation for Arkhival: 2pts
Submit a technology not yet held by the Arkhive: 2pts for starting tech, 5pts for all others (simultaneous submissions are both rewarded)
Donate an Artifact to the Arkhive: 10pts
Donate Treasure to the Arkhive: 1pt/ea
Build a Hive (5-action GP, you may use the Arkhive's actions for this as Patron): 2pts/turn ongoing, Donor Status
Mechanical figure (or retired Ruler) joins the Arkhive: 3pts
Fluff piece describing influx of your people joining the Arkhive OR an individual described to be noteworthy (such as a great scholar) joining the Arkhive OR a scholar of the Arkhive joining your people: 1 pt (max 1/rd)
Points accrue until the end of a Conference. At the end of the round, the civ with the highest total is awarded the status of Patron. They return to 0 points. Second place is awarded five points to start the next round. Third receives four, fourth receives three, and so on. Ties for Patron are decided between the tied parties, and if they fail to come to an agreement, they roll off. All other ties will both receive the higher point total.
List of Members
ALF (Local)
CUS (Local)
ELD (Local)
GLO (Local)
ILU (Local)
LSP (Local)
RAT (Local)
RRE (Local)
WTP (Local)
BAF (Visiting)
MSQ (Visiting)
TEA (Visiting)
UNC (Visiting)
UHS (Visiting)
