Quest Deep Periphery Quest (Battletech Sandbox Empire Builder)

Turn 113 - Load

As soon as you return from New Port Royal you schedule a meeting with General Bradley and Admiral Fisher concerning the entire Lublin situation.

“We are quite aware of the issues with the Trenton design when used for vehicles, Your Majesty.” General Bradley informs you. “However we believe we can mitigate them with training, rather than requiring a new class of ships just for the conventional forces. The issue is most acute with Imperial Guard, Corps HQ, and Infantry regiments, due to their extensive use of assault weight equipment. Lighter units are far closer to the norms for the Mech variant, and this is with half again as many actual units involved in the loading and unloading process.”

Admiral Fisher rolls his eyes. “What my colleague leaves out is that, above and beyond the obvious issues with embarkation and disembarkation times is that the increase in size of conventional vehicle formations means that the Trenton no longer has sufficient escape capacity for the entire embarked force in the event of an emergency. In addition, training alone cannot mitigate the issue, despite the General’s confidence in that. The vehicle variant Trenton stores combat vehicles across four decks, requiring the use of elevators to transfer vehicles to the upper decks. No amount of training will make those elevators more efficient. Mechs are stored on two decks, with an internal ramp connecting them. The elevators are used for moving supplies in that variant.”

General Bradley glowers a bit at Admiral Fisher. “That is a design flaw with the Trenton-class that should be addressed within the class. We spend a significant amount of time and effort training our personnel in embarkation and disembarkation from the Trenton, and having a common platform allows for cross-training between Mech and conventional forces. Training that will have to be completely refactored for a new platform.”

Fisher looks frustrated. “The Lublin has a single level vehicle deck, properly laid out for quick and efficient embarkation and debarkation with full loadmaster assistance systems to ensure proper mass distribution even in highly dynamic scenarios. Hell, there are loading ramps both fore and aft, it is perfectly possible to both load and unload at the same time without issue. The Trenton is optimized for mechs, and adapted for vehicles, the Lublin is 100% optimized for conventional vehicles, with absolutely no compromises. As for the Trenton, there is no available space or tonnage for additional escape pods, mostly thanks to the increased size of vehicle regiments requiring all of the flex space we’d previously had to be used for the crews and additional vehicles.”

It appears to you that, from the Army’s perspective, their training and doctrine are oriented around the spheroid Trentons as the primary transport, and they are concerned that shifting to a new platform would disrupt that. Meanwhile, to the Navy, the new platform is self-evidently more optimized for the role and thus any training and doctrine changes should be considered a necessary price to pay for said optimization. It’s a culture clash, more than anything. The Army is very accustomed to improvisation and making do with less than perfectly optimal conditions, while the Navy has a habit of rushing to the design boards and coming up with an optimized solution to any given issue.

In the end you are pretty certain that the Army does ultimately need the new transports, and you have a sense that they understand that despite their protestations otherwise, but they would also need time to shift their training and operational doctrine to account for the new units capabilities. You remember your own training, and the sheer number of hours spent in loading and unloading drills. So in a way both sides have a solid point.

There’s a new fad blazing through the Department of Periphery Studies… bang snaps. If you ever find out who let the distinguished tenured faculty of the Department of Periphery Studies have bang snaps you will likely arrange to have them tossed through the Tyler Lee Memorial Window of Defenestration.

There’s been a significant bit of upheaval in the media world, one which utterly surprised you and all around you. The largest media company that supported the opposition has suddenly fired over three quarters of their staff, including their entire editorial staff, and the majority of the board has likewise been purged. The new owner evidently is willing to completely shake things up, and is cleaning house. At the same time, Griffsport Police and the IGMP have received dossiers on multiple executives from said firm, sourced from the new CEO, detailing illegal activities on the part of said executives. Bribes, blackmail, and extortion mainly, but also money laundering and general white collar criminality.

The new CEO is bringing in young new talent, straight out of the various journalism schools within the higher education system, and quite forthrightly reporting on the internal investigations as well as the cooperation with law enforcement. The tone of coverage has shifted significantly, no longer rabidly anti-Imperial but rather a far more professional and even-handed news organization.

You honestly are quite surprised, you most certainly did not see THIS coming when you first authorized surveillance on this man all those years ago when you first took the throne.

In early March another bit of Black Steel activity was detected in the Arvum system, similar to what happened last year with several corvettes escorting a lone Aegis. Sure enough, another flight of similar missiles as before are detected and disarmed.

Turn 113 - Reload

An exceptionally irate General Bradley storms into your office, barely moments after you were notified that she was on her way.

“I am in a very unhappy position, Your Majesty.” She grates. “I just fired sixty people, ordered fourteen more held for court-martial, and am going to have to actually apologize to that unmitigated ass Fisher.”

You blink at that, as that came from left field.

“A group within Army Transport Command was angling to get all transport assets shifted to being under direct Army control, cutting the Navy out completely. They were intending to use the anticipated failure of the vehicle-configuration Trenton during the upcoming operation as ‘proof’ that the Navy was ‘ignoring the legitimate requirements’ of the Army, not giving a rat’s ass about any casualties that may have resulted. They went so far as to falsify reports, both from exercises as well as the operations on Nouvelle Picardie showing the gross unsuitability of the Trenton for the expanded conventional formations.” She’s visibly steaming mad. “All of the reports that came across my desk involving conventional transport, Your Majesty, were uniformly claiming that there were no issues, that our training doctrine was sufficient, and that there was no need to consider replacing the vehicle config Trentons.”

She pauses, looking a tad murderous. “As such, I looked like a moron arguing with Admiral Fisher, because I believed those damn reports. When TRADOC started examining updating training and operational doctrine for the proposed Lublin-class, they went and directly interviewed the various field commanders and discovered the discrepancies. They reported this to JAG, who confirmed the falsified reports and brought it all to my attention. I’ve just finished throwing all of the bastards behind this either out on the street or in jail, depending on whether or not they were civilians or military. I’ve turned the information on the civilians over to the IGMP who will be deciding whether or not to press criminal charges against the worthless lying idiots.”

While the General is ranting you read the documentary evidence she had sent to you while she was storming over from her office to yours. ATC was supposed to coordinate with the Navy to handle transport requirements for the Army, and had evidently been sending… edited… reports to everybody involved, as they wanted to be in complete control of their own little patch. The scary thing is that they had some good arguments, in that the Navy had back-burnered transport requirements in favor of combat parasites ever since the convertible Trenton-class had been developed. However you suspect that this was likely mostly due to the ATC simply not informing their counterparts in the Navy about the issues with the conventional variant Trentons.

You are pretty certain that they were hoping that the immense pressure that the Navy was under building and rebuilding forces to oppose the Black Steel would let them pull the fast one by keeping transport issues under the Navy’s radar until things blew up in everybody's face. Only to have the fact that you are very convinced that Admiral Fisher and Admiral Sims haven’t slept since Third Arvum, let alone Fourth Arvum cause the issues to be noticed and, in Admiral Fisher's inimitable fashion, dealt with. He’d not even considered that there might be an issue like this, but rather assumed that other people were incompetent, so he’d fix it for them.

You assure General Bradley that you’ll handle the Admiral, rather than requiring her to humiliate herself apologizing to him directly. You also endorse her handling of the situation.

You do get a bit of a surprise when you go to summon Admiral Fisher to inform him of this. Admiral Sims shows up instead, revealing that she’d forced Admiral Fisher to take time off before he killed himself from overwork. Evidently this involved shameless use of Admiral Fisher’s grandkids, big cry eyes, and the connivance of both the palace Raptor Squad as well as the local Grifftigers. You are rather impressed, you didn’t think anybody could force the Admiral to do anything he didn’t want to do, especially after Fourth Arvum.

When you explain the situation with ATC to her, she visibly swallows a few choice curses, instead nodding rather stiffly.

“Well, that explains some things, Your Majesty. Before the Admiral,” you realize that the phrase ‘the Admiral’ has become almost synonymous with Admiral Fisher, even if Admiral Sims was, technically, also an Admiral, “decided to push the Lublin-class over Army objections, we’d had several transport proposals rejected by them over the last several years. We managed to sneak the Charleston past them, but there were several previous proposals. With your permission, I’d like to ask if General Bradley could be called back in so I can present the Normandy-class to her directly.”

You see no reason why not, so you call the General back over to your office, informing her of the situation.

“One of the things we’d noticed in our own reports was the sheer size of landing zones required by multi-division forces. During operations on Nouvelle Picardie this was actually a major constraint, as there simply aren’t many locations with the sheer acreage to handle almost a hundred dropships simultaneously that aren’t already built up or heavily defended. Units that land in the ‘middle’ of the formation require several hours to reach the perimeter, and there were plenty of traffic snarls involved in loading and unloading due to the sheer number of transports involved.” She checks some notes she’d pulled up. “Including logistical support, each division required upwards of 40 dropships currently. Twenty seven unit transports, minimum, and between 10 and 15 logistics transports depending on whether you have primarily mechs or conventional units in the formation. An additional 20 to 30 logistics transports are required for any extended operations in order to create a proper logistical tail. This in turn requires significant jumpship assets to support, up to five Windjammers per Division just for initial transport, and 1 to 2 more for ongoing logistical support. A single Potemkin can substitute for 2.5 Windjammers.”

She looks over to make sure everybody is following along. “A major issue is that unit transport configured Trentons cannot carry any significant supplies along, which is part of the reason for the need for so many dedicated logistics transports.”

She then looks over to General Bradley. “Please correct me if I’m mistaken, General. But at the operational level the usual regimental force deployment is 2 mech battalions and 1 conventional battalion, regardless of higher level organization, with many such formations being more or less formalized in this manner despite the logistical and procurement TO&E?”

“That is correct, Admiral.” General Bradley concedes. “There are outlier formations, of course, for special purposes, but the entire RCT concept is central to our doctrine. There are times where we deploy full regiments of Mechs or conventional forces, but those are for special purposes rather than general combat.”

“But the ratio of 2 battalions of mechs, one of conventional troops, with 54 vehicle conventional battalions is accurate, yes?” the Admiral asks to confirm her understanding.

“Correct.”

“Previously there were attempts to transport entire Brigades as single units, which were determined to be foolish due to the high risk of losing an entire brigade to a single unlucky hit. However, we believe that the current paradigm of relying strictly on Battalion level transports is equally foolish, in that it leads to bloated landing area requirements. Thus we’ve been working on a regimental level transport for over a decade now, with all of our proposals being rejected by Army Transport Command.”

General Bradley clenches her fists, looking furious again, then forces herself to relax. “I see.” she simply replies.

“This is the latest iteration of that concept, General. The Normandy-class is intended to carry two battalions of mechs, one battalion of conventional vehicles, and their attached infantry, plus a small infantry detachment for LZ security. It also has a high enough cargo capacity to support combat operations out of onboard resources for several days, reducing the stress on the logistics train. Using the Normandy, we’d only need 9 unit transports per division, no initial logistics vessels, and the same long-term logistics train. A single Windjammer would be able to handle an entire division, while a Potemkin can handle two plus some combat parasites to provide carrier coverage.”

She brings up an image showing the proposed design. It is huge, the notation indicates that it is another hundred thousand tons of armor alloy. Unlike the Charleston it actually has a certain brutalistic beauty to it, with a trilateral symmetry missing in the pure logistics design. The massive loading ramps are large enough to handle rapid loading and unloading, while you blink at seeing the massive artillery battery mounted in the nose, significantly heavier than any other landing ship design you’d yet seen.

You blink again and lean in closer, the artillery mounts are lacking the massive recoil cylinders you are used to seeing in Long Tom derived weapons, Admiral Sims smirks as she realizes your unspoken question. “The recoil systems for the Long Tom have always assumed a relatively light unit carrying the weapon, Your Majesty. They had, proportionally, far higher recoil compensation than even a light subcapital cannon. There is no need for such, so we were able to save almost a third of the tonnage by substituting a lighter recoil system derived from that of the LSCC. This can’t be applied to anything smaller than a dropship, however, and a fairly substantial one at that. We get a third again as much artillery firepower for roughly the same tonnage.”

You chuckle at that, as General Bradley looks rather impressed. “How much cargo?”

“Over seventeen thousand tons, General.” Admiral Sims replies. “With fifteen thousand of that dedicated to supporting the embarked units, giving each battalion five thousand tons of supplies immediately available upon landing. We’ve also arranged things so that all embarked personnel will have their own quarters available onboard the ship, rather than a barracks setup like in the Trenton. This includes mess rooms, on-board training facilities and recreational facilities, and sufficient escape pod capacity for everybody.”

Turn 113 - St. Anger

QM Note - the cost for the Normandy-class was incorrect and has been corrected in the sheets, I mistakenly saved a version with a mobile HPG, which ballooned the cost enormously

The snarls with transports and such all conspire to push back any reasonable start date for the Rouges Noir operation by at least a few years, unless you want to send in your troops in inadequate transports liable to result in heavy casualties in contested landings. Since you aren’t a sadist, nor a monster, and your troops' lives are rather important to you, you decide that this would not be the best course of action.

Unfortunately a rather heavy Black Steel attack also conspires against you. Once more Arvum comes under assault, much more quickly than past intervals raising some very worrisome issues for you.

Even more unfortunately, this battle is a brutal trial by fire for Admiral von Falkenrick’s replacement as Grand Fleet CO. Admiral Xi is well-respected, and known to be very competent, but he isn’t the absolute genius that the late von Falkenrick had been. And sadly he’ll never have the opportunity to show his potential, because his flagship was taken out early in the main phase of the battle.

It could be said of this battle that the enemy came, in the same old way, and were repulsed, in the same old way. But the cost in blood and metal was enormous, and not nearly as favorable as it had been under von Falkenrick. The Grand Fleet is utterly savaged once more, against a weaker force than had been present at Fourth Arvum. Admiral Xi’s death in only the second exchange of capital fire between the core battlelines of the two forces caused shockwaves of chaos within the Grand Fleet, shredding the tight formations that are so critical to this sort of battle. The Black Steel took vicious and brutal advantage of this, pounding your battleline into scrap.

There was general panic within the Grand Fleet at this point, your spacers had given so much, time and time again, but this was almost too much. They’d fought, over and over, barely winning victories under the command of a bonafide genius, and now they were rudderless, left to their own devices, and some captains started to prioritize their own command’s survival over that of the fleet.

All seemed lost, as a routed fleet was easy prey. But then things changed in a somewhat unexpected manner that proved that God looks out for fools, drunks, and the Griffon Empire.

Your forces somehow rallied, ironically under a relatively junior admiral whose ship managed to barely survive the pounding long enough to reestablish proper command and control.

It was a tenuous sort of grip, but Rear Admiral (Lower Half) Silvana de Palo managed to shout officers technically senior to her in the chain of command down, simply by using brute transmission strength to drown out their contradictory orders. She then more or less informed the rest of the fleet that she intended to win this battle, or die trying, and anybody too cowardly to join her were free to keep on running and bear witness to how real Griffons die.

It worked. The Grand Fleet renewed the battle with vigor.

Fortuitously, the Black Steel forces had gotten a bit of ‘Victory Disease’ and when the disjointed and panicked fire switched back to disciplined, coordinated volleys they were caught in a fire sack. None of the Black Steel forces managed to escape at this point, as de Palo rather aggressively drove home the attack, leading the Grand Fleet into a point blank death grapple with the Black Steel with the remaining capital ships of her command. Her own flagship, HMS Agincourt, resembled a spinning top as she continuously rolled the ship rapidly so that each broadside would come to bear the moment it was ready to fire.

Vice Admiral Demoulis almost sparked a mutiny at this point, when the nominally senior surviving officer ordered Rear Admiral de Palo arrested for violating the chain of command. Considering that Demoulis had been ordering the fleet to scatter and flee for the KF limit independently, and was on board one of the few ships that hadn’t joined in the victorious conclusion to the battle, this raised a… certain level of quite justified resentment, especially since the ass had broadcast his order for Admiral de Palo’s arrest over fleet wide comms.

De Palo defused the entire situation quite neatly, by promptly turning to the Marine contingent on her own flag and ordering them to escort her to the brig in accordance with orders, while also having her communications section, which still had an operational HPG, transmit her report and the recording of the action back to HQ.

Now this isn’t to say that Demoulis was a coward. He was in command of the escorting elements to the fleet train, and the heaviest unit under his command were a pair of England-class Frigates that would have been hard-pressed to contribute anything regardless. He also is the sort of by-the-book, follow the rules and stay within the lines officer that any Navy needs, perhaps not in the top command slot, but certainly within the structure to keep the mavericks from running wild. De Palo had violated regulations, therefore she needs to be arrested until things are sorted out, Q.E.D.. You have a pretty good idea that personal resentment, peevishness, or fear of a bad comparison never even entered into his mind. He’s far too legalistic a sort for that, and the instant the order came down from General Fleet HQ confirming de Palo as being breveted to full Admiral and endorsing her actions he instantly complied, with no hesitation whatsoever. Orders were orders, and he followed them like a good soldier.

Not a very imaginative soldier, but a good one.

• Fifth Battle of Arvum
  • Friendly Casualties
    • 5 Dreadnought-class Battleships
    • 65 Prinz Eugen-class Heavy Cruisers
    • 125 Dido-class Light Cruisers
    • 50 Guiseppe Garibaldi-class Light Cruisers
    • 200 Fubuki-class Destroyers
    • 33 Hosho-class Light Carriers
    • 50 Saipan-class Parasite Carriers
    • 120 Aetna-class Parasite Missile Battleships
    • 60 Meteor-class Parasite Missile Battleships
    • 179 Mikasa-class Parasite Battleships
    • 595 Bainbridge-class Parasite Destroyers
    • 100 Shimakaze-class Parasite Destroyers
    • 210 Long Beach-class Parasite Destroyers
  • Black Steel Casualties
    • 8 2.5 million ton ‘Brawler’ type battleships
    • 10 1.75 million ton unidentified battleship type
    • 25 1 million ton unidentified heavy cruiser types
    • 50 1 million ton ‘Blitzer’ heavy cruiser types
    • 50 750kton ‘Sniper’ type light cruisers
    • 100 Lola III destroyers
    • Over a thousand drone parasites

This is another Pyrrhic victory, but at the very least it revealed a brilliant naval commander in the person of Admiral de Palo. All damaged units have been towed into repair docks, mostly in the Arvum system itself.

You find yourself just a little nervous about your daughter Mary’s intention to join the Navy at this point, considering the massive casualties that they are taking in these engagements. But you also fully realize just how major a morale hit it would be if you refuse to let her do so. So you’ll smile, nod, look proud, and conceal the terror in your heart as you send her off to the Naval Academy.

And now it’s budget time.

Amaunet is looking a bit somber for a cat, as she’s well aware of just how devastating the losses of Fifth Arvum are, and how damaging this is for morale. The cracks are starting to show in Navy morale. Interestingly, Admiral Fisher isn’t present for some reason, although you’ve not gotten any notices about any medical issues, with Admiral Sims sitting in for him.

“Padrone,” Amaunet begins, a bit more seriously than usual. “Production levels are rising, and, callous as it may sound, we can replace all of our recent losses in relatively short order, apart from the Prinz Eugens. What we can’t replace are the crews, nor can we simply wave a magic wand and prop up morale.” She looks steadily at you. “It is possible that focusing on the Rouges Noir like we are was a mistake. That we should have been aggressively focusing on the Black Steel. On the other hand, we have the Rouges Noir contained for now, so we might want to begin considering shifting our full focus back to the Black Steel and simply keep to the status quo for now.”

She grimaces a little as she turns the podium over to General Bradley. “Your Majesty, the Army is ready regardless of your decision. We are in a very solid position vis-a-vis our production capacities, so we will not be requesting any adjustments in that area. What we will be wanting to focus on is building up our offensive forces, regardless of what is decided.”

She pauses, as if she wants to say something, then simply brings up the budget request.

• Imperial Griffon Army
  • Procurement
    • Regular Units
      • 9 Regimental Combat Team Divisions
    • Garrison Units
      • 21 Garrison Divisions
      • 21 Militia Divisions

General Romanov is still off overseeing the Aerospace Force refit plans, so you didn’t expect her at this meeting.

Admiral Sims takes the podium then. “Before you ask, Your Majesty, Admiral Fisher is fine. His wife, and those of us who actually care about that cantankerous old man, decided to force him to stay on vacation and rest. For the record, I believe that technically I’ve been fired, but I don’t think he really means it.” There’s a brief flash of a smile there. “The same way I’ve been fired a few hundred times before, whenever I disagree with him on something. But Angie is keeping him from working himself straight into his grave, and the rest of us are covering for him as best we can until we’re sure he’ll be fine.”

You nod at that, a bit touched that Fisher actually, despite his insistence otherwise, has subordinates who do, in fact, care about him.

“That being said, 5th Arvum does show that we remain behind the eight ball. The Black Steel has the strategic initiative on top of their ability to rapidly replace their losses. Your Navy is holding the line, Your Majesty, but that line is getting painfully thin. We also need to strengthen our transport assets, both modernizing existing ships and bringing the new classes into widespread service. Thankfully the one area where we aren’t critically short is in parasites, so this won’t be a significant issue.” She checks her notes. “The few Battles at Fifth Arvum performed spectacularly well, if I might add. We took no hull losses among that subtype, so that’s another piece of potentially good news.”

She then takes a deep breath. “There is on other fly in the ointment, Your Majesty. Despite our need for hulls, this year we will be keeping a few Small Warship slips empty due to the ‘python lump’ problem we’re facing in manning our new construction. We’ll likewise be leaving 50 Escort slips open, for the same reason. Crew quality notably degrades for ships commissioned as part of these lumps, simply due to overstressing our training pipeline every couple years. The problem is most acute with Escorts, thus the immediate action being taken. Hopefully this will even things out so we can go back to regular production next year. On a positive note we’ll be laying down 12 battleships this year, thanks to the aggressive program building large warship yards.”

• Imperial Griffon Navy
  • Production
    • Orbital Shipyards
      • New Orbital Shipyards
        • Griffon
        • Calliope
        • Nowa Warszawa
        • Glorreich
        • New Port Royal
      • Upgrade All Orbital Shipyards
    • Refit & Repair Yards
      • Upgrade all Refit & Repair Yards
    • Escort Yards
      • Neubayern
      • Neuhessen
      • Nouvelle Bourgogne
      • Nuova Lombardia
      • Nuova Puglia
      • Nuovo Abruzzo
      • Nyū Shikoku
      • Stenen Tuin
      • New Libertalia
      • Nuova Tripoli
      • Awha
      • Catachan
      • Feurstern
      • Neuthüringen
      • Nowe Mazowsze
      • Nox
      • Platzregensburg
      • Iskra
      • New Algiers
      • New Clew Bay
      • Nubifragio
      • Bellaterra
      • Bohren
      • Landprettig
      • Porto Milano
    • Small Warship Yards
      • Pieklo
      • New Phoenix
      • Okusawa
      • New Castor
      • New Port Royal
      • Nowy Wrocław
      • Bari
      • Nowy Slask
      • Chuma
      • Glorreich
    • Large Warship Yards
      • Griffon
      • Calliope
      • New Pollux
      • Nowy Warszawa
  • Procurement
    • Standard Dropships
      • 200 Shimakaze-class Parasite Destroyers
      • 150 Spruance-class Parasite Destroyers
      • 35 Lublin-class Transports
    • Large Dropships
      • 80 Mikasa-class Parasite Battleships
      • 90 Normandy-class Transports
      • 9 Charleston-class Transports
    • Jumpships
      • 5 Windjammer-class Jumpships
    • Escorts
      • 50 Battle-class Destroyers
      • 100 Lyr-class Corvettes
    • Small Warships
      • 30 Dido-class Light Cruisers
      • 10 Guiseppe Garibaldi-class Light Cruisers
      • 20 De Grasse-class Light Cruisers
    • Medium Warships
      • 10 Prinz Eugen-class Heavy Cruisers
      • 10 Algérie-class Heavy Cruisers
    • Large Warships
      • 12 Dreadnought-class Battleships
  • Fortress Command
    • Black Tower
      • Griff's Leap
      • New Phoenix
      • New Eden
      • Okusawa
      • New Castor

Elizabeth Lee is up next, once Admiral Sims sits back down she nods to Amaunet and takes the podium. “Your Majesty, as always Interior is ready to build whatever the military needs. In addition we have the following recommendations.”

She takes a breath. “We only have a single DoME team available this year, the Planetary Optimization specialists. We propose turning them loose on Steingarten. While that system is one of the wealthiest on a per-capita basis, it is most certainly not anything even vaguely resembling a garden spot, so improving it is of quite high priority.”

“For general economic projects, Your Majesty, we have the following recommendations.” Elizabeth brings up her charts.

• Economic Foci, Investment, and Infrastructure/Zoning
  • Focus
    • Core
      • New Castor
    • Periphery
      • Grand View
  • Major Investment
    • Core
      • Glorreich
    • Periphery
      • Nubifragio
  • Investment
    • Nox
  • Infrastructure & Industrial Zones
    • Arvum
    • Nouvelle Bourgogne
    • Bohren
    • Landprettig
    • Nuova Puglia

You blink as you look at it, as you’d not realized that Glorreich was already a Core world. Elizabeth confirms that they indeed have been so classified. This means you are now up to 18 total Core worlds, which is a quite impressive number.

Dr Kamoto is participating in a diplomatic conference with his counterparts from your allied states, so isn’t available.

Tiberius has quite accurately read the room, his usual antics would be quite inappropriate today. Instead he keeps things nice and professional. “Your Majesty, the only recommendation from us is that we continue to expand the civil service. I would also like to report that we are working closely with Justice and Interior to more closely integrate our colonization efforts, which in the future should allow us to handle all three main aspects of the process in a more unified manner.”

Grace is looking rather serious. “Your Majesty, I am going to have a somewhat odd request. We have one free team, but I’d like to keep them in reserve this year. The reason being is that, god willing, we’ll complete at least two projects later this year, allowing us to start on researching the next largest mass class of Warships, 1.75 million tons. We should have the budget to support this by then, and this is the sort of critical capability that we badly need and which is worth holding back one team for a year.”

General Messerschmidt is absent, he’s currently overseeing some counter-intelligence ops near Rouges Noir space, but has informed you that there are now pressing budget concerns from his shop this year.

Martina is absent, her eldest is in the hospital giving birth to her first grandchild and you’d given her permission to take a short vacation for that purpose. Like Messerschmidt, she’s sent you a note indicating that there are no budget requests this year from Justice.