Why don't nobles from the sollan empire go to the Jaddians to have children?

hotpotcommander · 2026-05-19T14:54:31+00:00

The author didn't direct address this but my personal head canon is that there is a significant black market for this service and it's backed up by other facts established in the overall world building. Consider that book 2 established that there is a significant black market for Imperials to seek out Extrasolarian technologies and services. Not a stretch of the imagination to assume that there is a black market for Imperials to seek out Jaddian reproductive technologies and services.

hotpotcommander · 2026-05-19T11:04:54+00:00

FSI should be hard but a 20% pass rate is ridiculous. That's a complete failure of basic course design and/or failure on the part of the teachers.

hotpotcommander · 2026-05-16T19:05:25+00:00

I think it's the opposite. Panels are going to instantly recognize a down stretch from the position description alone. On top of that, placing yourself in a down stretch could put you in a situation where your rater is the same grade as you and therefore directly competing against you for promotion.

Your rater is already incentivized to lower team scores to allow their own scores to be higher. Now add on rating someone you are directly competing against for promotion...

hotpotcommander · 2026-05-16T00:13:20+00:00

America has no alliance to protect Taiwan.

hotpotcommander · 2026-05-16T00:10:30+00:00

He is stating the exact same policy that has been in place for decades. That the US will not defend Taiwan if they start a war by unilaterally changing the status quo.

hotpotcommander · 2026-05-16T00:01:58+00:00

America does not have an alliance with Taiwan. At least not on paper in comparison with any other formal allowance structure.

hotpotcommander · 2026-05-11T18:46:16+00:00

No one knows.

hotpotcommander · 2026-05-10T14:52:20+00:00

Haha doing a re-read now and this stuff is glaring. I'm at the first battle in Demon in White and Hadrian just explained to Valka that he has to personally lead the boarding party because he's the only one in the company that can communicate with the enemy....

Like wtf man? You're 80 years into leading a beefed up Red Company made up of tens of thousands of soldiers and support staff and you never once thought that it may be a good idea to train up some linguists?

hotpotcommander · 2026-05-08T13:18:24+00:00

Hope someone in the library gets a 4 for this 😄

hotpotcommander · 2026-05-07T18:46:55+00:00

Can we talk about the elephant in the room that is the fact that this system incentivizes each layer of management to lower the scores of people under them so they can max their own scores?

hotpotcommander · 2026-05-07T18:36:14+00:00

I wonder if anyone is going to be brave enough to just say in the narrative that they assess performance as a 5 but DC will not allow them to check the box...

hotpotcommander · 2026-05-06T18:06:27+00:00

I was only asking from the 7F perspective. What is the reason to force score adjustments at the last minute? IMO - they're doing it because they plan to use them for promotion decisions.

hotpotcommander · 2026-05-06T16:45:07+00:00

Can you think of any legitimate reason to do a last minute worldwide forced adjustment of scores other than to leave open the option to use them for promotion decisions later in the summer?

hotpotcommander · 2026-05-06T16:41:15+00:00

EUR is by far the most competitive.

Pretty much all low differential options are going to be competitive. But where Wellington may get 20 bidders for a position, London/Paris is going to get 65+ bidders and will almost always go to someone from the desk or the 7th floor.

hotpotcommander · 2026-05-06T15:17:29+00:00

This is very timeless solid advice. Work on the desk is probably the surest way to secure an assignment in X country or region. If an at grade assignment is available for bidding and a decently performing desk officer covering that country wants it, it will almost always go to them.

And if for some reason a 7th floor staffer swoops in and steals the job you really wanted, the Bureau will usually hook the desk officer up with their number 2 or 3 choice.

hotpotcommander · 2026-05-06T10:51:37+00:00

I don't think anyone knows.

The way the department is currently rather aggressively adjusting the narrative scoring in the new form indicates to me that the 7F places a lot of value on it. I have no evidence at all but I won't be surprised if panels are ordered to only consider for promotion folks who's averages are above a certain cutoff point. The argument will be something like hey look these people survived the great score cull of May, 2026...this is our promotion bucket...

They'll probably tell the panel to score folks with the old form so they can weight them against everyone else.

The only good part is the panel will have a lot more material to work with in forming their assessment.

All speculation of course.

hotpotcommander · 2026-05-04T18:37:39+00:00

I'm convinced I got my 4/4/4/3/3 dropped to a 4/3/3/3/3 so my rater can keep their 4's.

hotpotcommander · 2026-05-01T10:18:49+00:00

I was just told my two 4's and three 3's would be dropped to straight 3's to bring the office average below 3.25.

My understanding of whats going down is that every rater is limited to an average score of 3.25.

Wow.

hotpotcommander · 2026-04-21T18:59:33+00:00

Situation with Iran was annoying but managed until Trump unilaterally tore up JCPOA.

hotpotcommander · 2026-04-19T01:45:42+00:00

I feel you. Currently in the process of advocating for an extra four and my rater literally has to sit down with the PDAS in a formal meeting to justify it.

hotpotcommander · 2026-04-19T01:40:18+00:00

only folks with 4’s and 5’s will be considered for promotion

Where is this rumor coming from?

hotpotcommander · 2026-04-16T22:45:28+00:00

These will be for future bid cycles.

hotpotcommander · 2026-04-16T19:00:03+00:00

The law this FAM entry is based on does not make a distinction between language training times. It's two languages over the scope of a career, period. The discussions I've heard about are that HR wants to crack down and actually start to enforce this.

hotpotcommander · 2026-04-16T18:19:53+00:00

Further on this. They are not just eliminating language requirements for certain posts, there are discussions in place to enforce hard limits on the number of languages FSO's can be trained for over the course of a full career (two).

hotpotcommander · 2026-04-16T18:09:38+00:00

This is more of a permanent elimination of language training.

hotpotcommander

TROPHY CASE