Turn 117 - Last Child
<Combat Report - Operation:Good News>
The landing force dropped hard and fast, eschewing subtlety in favor of pure, raw firepower. A hole was blasted into the anti-orbital defenses and, even before the shockwaves from the strike had dissipated the landing force was hitting atmosphere and screaming in hot.
Almost too hot, several
Normandy-class transports actually landed so hard that they took damage to their drives and landing gear. But all landed safely and a mix of battle armored infantry and mechs stormed out, fanning out to storm their objective and establish a defensive perimeter.
Wolf Spiders like the one your daughter pilots unleashed PPC hell upon the Rouges Noir, annihilating identified strongpoints in crackling fury. Pulse lasers savaged enemy infantry, which were present in relatively heavy strength considering what was expected.
It becomes clear very quickly that the Rouges Noir did not expect this attack. The identified detention facilities fall before the guards can do much more than gape in shock as battle armored infantry storm their barracks and guard posts.
Your daughter’s lance was one of the first units inside the facility, and part of the initial report was written by her.
And you are utterly enraged by what you read.
The facilities were used to ‘process individuals’ into service to the collective. It was also used to ‘groom suitable agents for external duties’.
The first makes you throw up in your mouth. Rape, torture both physical and mental, and drugs were used to completely break foreign prisoners, once they were broken they were ‘rebuilt’ as ‘proper members of the collective’ using similar things as threats to ensure compliance. In some cases, male prisoners were forced to rape female prisoners by the guards, and the resulting children are then taken and trained from birth to be infiltration agents of the Rouges Noir, since they would strongly differ from the general phenotype of the Rouges Noir.
This is something that has started to be remarked on, the remarkable similarity in phenotype among all representatives of the Rouges Noir so far encountered. They are all tall, ebon skinned, with exceptionally similar builds and proportions, but with more asiatic facial features and a tendency towards straight black hair. There seems to be remarkably little variation on this theme. Even eye color is completely consistent, black eyes. There are many theories floating around, ranging from rampant inbreeding to cloning, but no definite answers as of yet.
There has been discussion about sharing DNA samples and such with the Kilburroughans to allow for faster analysis. After their work on the bio weapon antidote and immunization they are in quite good odor with your scientific community for biomedical research.
[] | Action | Argument | Effect |
[] | Authorize cooperation with Kilburrough | They’ve shown themselves to be reliable and while it would be nice to do this ourselves this will allow us to get this done faster, perhaps fast enough to actually matter. |
- Complete event “Rouges Noir Phenotype” on Turn 119
|
[] | We’ll do it ourselves | We can do this ourselves, we don’t need the assistance of those creepy folks. |
- Complete event “Rouges Noir Phenotype” on Turn 121
- +1 Research Event counter
|
Within the compound that has been liberated is another discovery, extremely advanced somatic and hypnotic conditioning devices built using technology far beyond the norm for the Rouges Noir, gear that appears to be several hundred years old and of likely Star League manufacture. The most ominous part of it is found when soldiers examine the gear closely, discovering markings that have been identified as that of Star League Intelligence Command. There are only a few devices recovered, but based on serial numbers it is to be expected that many more exist. In addition, there are parts in the devices which have obviously been of local manufacture as replacements or repairs, showing that the Rouges Noir had the ability to produce this equipment.
What also enrages you is that the prisoners, while mostly of Bourbon origin, include several dozen Griffon citizens who’d been captured by pirates and evidently sold to the Rouges Noir years earlier. Most were effectively mind-broken husks of human beings at this point, after years of abuse. Some had broken completely and served their captors.
From your daughter’s letters, what she saw there has only firmed up her resolve, as far as she’s concerned, the Rouges Noir have forfeited any claim to being human by the sheer inhumanity of their actions.
-----
The fighting elsewhere in the Rouges Noir continues to rage. You authorize the use of fusion devices on RN 4, on the logic that the enemy would use such against your troops anyways and the after effects will be less than the release of more bio weapons. This is conducted in a manner similar to the means used to secure LZs for landing, naval force strikes at the anti-orbital defense batteries, then fires volleys of fusion-head capital missiles to destroy the unprotected area. It will be slow going, since the anti-orbital defenses here are still quite strong.
Elsewhere, on RN 1 fighting continues to rage, the population here is extremely large and evidently there is a substantial munitions industry on the planet supporting the attacks. Elsewhere the fighting is less intense, with longer gaps between waves of attackers and with fewer and fewer combat vehicles involved. In addition, more of the attackers in RN 2 and 3 are armed with improvised weapons, yet they still seem inclined to swarm and attack rather than give up. The sheer tenacity is rather impressive, in a twisted sort of way.
What is also impressive, in the same twisted sort of way, is the evident sincerity of it all. The Rouges Noir truly believe what they preach and live it at all levels, there is no evidence of any class distinctions, no evidence of any difference between leadership and follower, no sign of any hypocrisy on their part. They may be monstrous, but they are sincerely so. In many ways it almost makes it worse.
That very sincerity makes them a threat that must be destroyed, because they will not, cannot, stop their attempts to impose their ideology on everybody around them, because to them it is a moral imperative to do so. Individuality anywhere is a threat to the collective, and must be extinguished. Coexistence is impossible.
-----
There isn’t much going on with Parliament this year, just routine business that you handle routinely, since it’s so routine as to be routine. You do have to make some decisions about the future of the former Rouges Noir worlds once you’ve defeated them.
You can either claim them for yourself, resettling them and incorporating them into the Empire, leave them fallow and abandoned, or let the Bourbon’s have them. Three of the worlds are marginal at best, with only RN1 capable of sustaining a large population without significant terraforming. RN4 is the only system of any economic value at all, but you have plenty of much wealthier systems that won’t require massive reconstruction.
[] | Action | Result |
[] | Turn them over to the Bourbons |
- Improves relations with the Bourbons
|
[] | Leave them fallow |
- The Bourbons will eventually claim them
|
[] | Take them for the Empire | |