Quest Deep Periphery Quest (Battletech Sandbox Empire Builder)

Turn 67 - An Old Cowboy

The year begins with what could have been a tragedy. Massive wildfires are ignited by dry season thunderstorms across the plains of Pollux, tearing across the landscape. Loss of life is minimal thanks to the heroic efforts of disaster response personnel and the planetary militia, and property loss is likewise minimal thanks to the strict building codes in place which actually anticipated the possibility of something like this happening. The ultimate result of the massive fires, beyond media sensationalism, is that the soil is rendered more fertile than before thanks to the massive deposition of charred vegetation into the fields, boosting the next crop yields.

You are especially impressed that the militia was able to rescue nearly all of the livestock in the path of the fires via very creative use of dropships. In the end, economic projections for the region are actually significantly improved. You breathe a sigh of relief at that, because it looked horrible on HD.

The good economic news continues, as a consortium of industrial firms have entered into various partnerships with small companies in the various peripheral systems. The consortium was formed by Lee Industries with the express goal of providing ‘angel capital’ for struggling companies without attempting to take them over or absorb them. Already a number of small firms that had been struggling to establish themselves in the Imperial markets while based far away from the core have begun to show profitable growth.

Unfortunately there are reports of a deepening economic crisis in New Rasalhague space as the government winds down military spending in an effort to shift to a more civilian-focused economy. Unemployment has soared as idle defense-related factories are forced to furlough workers while imported goods from the Empire are cheaper than domestically produced equivalents, further depressing the local economy.

So far the New Rasalhague government hasn’t imposed any tariffs, but analysts predict that within a year or two they will be forced to assume a more protectionist stance to preserve their industrial base. Your own manufacturers are reaping the benefits at the moment, but analysts are projecting issues in that sector in a few years once New Rasalhague reacts.

There have been scattered anti-Griffon demonstrations by unemployed factory workers at all of your consulates in New Rasalhague, although so far they have been peaceful. More worrying is the tone increasingly being taken by the New Rasalhague media accusing Griffon of attempting to economically enslave New Rasalhague as part of a long term plot to forcefully annex them.

This is not helped much by a large influx of immigration from New Rasalhague, mostly to Calliope IV, further exacerbating the problem as the very sort of skilled middle management types who would be critical to turn around the economy on New Rasalhague are fleeing to greener pastures. It’s only a bit over a million so far in the last year, but it is a concerning development.

Another large pirate raid has hit New Capricorn, however the White Tower station at the Zenith jump point, combined with the Oasis II and the augmented security force were more than sufficient to obliterate the raid with minimal damage. A single pirate Tramp jumpship that appears to have been ex-DCMS has been captured and is currently undergoing repairs from a clumsy attempt at self-destructing the vessel.

A second pirate incursion at Nowy Śląsk was less a raid and more a single pirate jumpship jumping in well away from the jump point itself and broadcasting blood curdling threats from a certain Admiral General about the ‘foul kidnapping’ of his future mistresses and bodyguards. Your grandson still has not managed to extricate himself from the group, much to your amusement. Privately you have learned that the young ladies in question are enjoying themselves too much discomfiting Paul to give it up anytime soon, and seem to genuinely like your grandson. You’re keeping an eye on things and so far it has been pretty much just fun and games.

You do, of course, rather blandly observe that Paul will have to eventually make honest women of the lot, much to his great panic and their great amusement. Thanh, of course, is torn between protecting her eldest, throttling you for trolling her eldest, and making popcorn and enjoying the trainwreck alongside you. Petra has no such divided loyalties and has been giving the young ladies tips and sharing embarrassing baby pictures.

Ahhh, the pleasures of being ba, and in a few short years you’ll be able to do this full time while leaving all the burdens of command on Jeremy’s shoulders. Who, evidently, is currently plotting with his kids an escape to a remote tropical island in the TTP.

Unfortunately a major riot has broken out in Nowa Warszawa’s capital city. Interestingly enough it wasn’t along ethnic lines, as so many had been, but rather strictly along economic lines. A large protest march of poor farmers who had been pushed off of their land by new factories and residential expansion turned violent. The farmers had been leasing water rights and such on their land from the government for generations, as the pre-Drac government had reserved all water rights to itself and distributed them based on patronage, and the Dracs had never changed that. You had, but unfortunately the process of adjudicating just who owned what water rights had been fraught with difficulty and in the end the fairest means of settling the issue, namely granting the water rights to those who physically controlled the water source, had numerous edge cases.

In this case the individuals who owned the water rights in that region had found it far more profitable to invest in the industries that wanted the land, jack up the water leases to levels completely unsustainable by the family farms, then when the farms failed buying up the land at pennies on the dollar before turning around and selling the land to the industrial concerns.

No laws had been broken, it was ruthless and cutthroat, and very unfair to the farmers in question, but they all relied on irrigation to grow crops and were thus vulnerable to just such a tactic.

The planetary government had attempted to intervene, but the courts had shut their initial attempts to prevent the water rights holders from engaging in this down. According to the ruling, the planetary government was not permitted to bar the holder of the water rights from selling the water to the highest bidder. They would be able to subsidize the farmers, but that would require an appropriations bill and the planetary parliament had deadlocked on the issue of how to handle such subsidies until it was too late.

Now there are thousands of angry farmers rioting in the capital. Nobody is certain what sparked the actual violence, with conflicting reports of farmers opening fire on security forces first and vice versa, but there are almost thirty dead total after the first full night of riots and there are multiple fires burning.

The local detachment of the Imperial Grifftiger Mounted Police are assisting in controlling the situation, and to their credit the planetary government is certainly taking the entire situation seriously.

You check and this seems to be caused by a rather unlikely chain of events, during the time that the water rights were held fast by the previous governments it didn’t matter who owned the land where the water came from, indeed oftentimes such ownership was highly undesirable as most of the land would be unavailable for your own use. A few investors had long ago cornered the land market on plots of land which had substantial water sources, and their descendents were the ones who benefited from the privatization after generations of struggling to make ends meet. Said descendents had then decided to cash in in the biggest way possible as an emphatic ‘fuck you’ to their previously more prosperous neighbors. Since everywhere else in the Empire the water rights are valuable from the get go, farmers secure them as part of their land purchases. Thus you don’t have the somewhat unique situation as you have on Nowa Warszawa.

This does, however, have the potential to cascade into a bigger problem if more water rights holders decide to become as greedy as this particular bunch. The planetary government is moving legislation to establish the sorts of regulatory boards that are generally unneeded elsewhere, despite the opposition of the water rights holders. You are monitoring the situation.

Turn 67 - Upon a Ridge

You get a panicked HPG message from Nova Roma, a massive pirate attack has come in via a pirate point, bypassing the jump point defenses. From the reports this is one of the largest pirate raids yet and the NRI is worried that they might not be able to handle it due to the lingering damage from the Pugnus Deorum uprising. They are requesting immediate reinforcements from you, both in space and on the ground. Your ambassador seconds the request, the pirates are there in force, with at least ten regiments equivalent incoming.

Jeremy leads the initial meeting. “Your Majesty, we can quickly move the 1st Brigade Combat Team to Nova Roma making use of HMS Morristown, we’d use the majority of her hardpoints to carry a mix of Independence, Majestic and Lancer dropships. This will be an excellent test of the Morristown, and since we have recharge stations available we can get her there in time, and the 1st is already boarding their dropships as we speak. This will also allow us to prove the Brigade Combat Team concept in combat, it has worked very well in simulations but now is the time for the rubber to meet the road.”

Time is of the essence and Operation Jezebel is greenlit. By the end of the day HMS Morristown is thrusting towards a nearby pirate point.

Combat Report - Operation Jezebel

Orbital Phase

At 1728 hours local time HMS Morristown arrived in the Nova Roma system at the closest pirate point to the planet itself. All dropships were deployed by 1730. Five (5) pirate Jolly Rogers were detected in orbit of the planet, along with one hundred twenty seven (127) pirate dropships of the Hive, Stinger and Swarmer configurations. Four hundred and thirty two (432) pirate aerospace fighters were detected. Communication intercepts indicated great surprise and consternation at the appearance of HMS Morristown. Find attached comm transcript from time chop 1728 to 1729 local.

HMS Morristown opened fire at 1731. Extreme range fire from Barracuda and Heavy Naval PPC batteries proved highly effective. Jolly Roger Charlie was destroyed at 1732, followed five seconds later by Delta and Bravo. Jolly Roger Alpha attempted to make a run for it and was destroyed at 1735. By 1820 all pirate space assets had been accounted for. No losses were taken by friendly forces, at no time did any pirate unit enter the effective combat range of HMS Morristown or the Majestics. The Lancer proved highly effective at destroying pirate ASF assets. Three ASFs were lost, all pilots survived. Total friendly WIA - 3, KIA - 0.

Communications were established with the embassy by 1822. Pirate forces had fully invested the capital city, embassy guards were holding the compound while NRI militia forces were engaged in desperate street fighting with pirate infantry. NRI regular forces had been defeated in detail outside the city 23 hours prior to HMS Morristown’s arrival.

Landing operations commenced at 1900 hours.

Ground Phase

Initial landing was unopposed. Combat operations commenced at 2300 hours local. At 2330 undetected pirate infantry forces disrupted artillery deployment, the pirates had shut down their suits and played possum. 1st BCT artillery assets were ineffective throughout the subsequent battle while rear area security forces battled the infiltrators. The absence of artillery support would be keenly felt throughout the subsequent battle.

The dense urban terrain heavily favored the defenders, and the pirates proved adept at urban fighting. The desire to avoid collateral damage and the rules of engagement intended to minimize civilian casualties combined to significantly reduce the combat efficiency of the 1st, despite the unit's great supremacy on paper.

Fortunately the pirates lacked the sort of heavy anti-mech weapons needed to seriously threaten a Mech. However they were a threat to infantry and conventional assets. Casualties were heaviest in the three attached armored regiments. Heavy tanks were not suitable for the urban terrain and attached Mech support was often unable to provide timely responses to pirate encounters due to the nature of the terrain and rules of engagement.

In the end, the pirates' tenacious defense merely prolonged the inevitable. By 1430 hours three days after planetfall the last pirate holdouts were destroyed. No prisoners were taken, the pirates faked surrender on multiple occasions, only to then inflict serious casualties on units attempting to take the ‘surrendering’ pirates into custody. By 0920 on the first day of combat operational orders had been issued for all units to ignore attempts by the pirates to surrender.

Overall Assessment

Despite operating in highly unfavorable terrain against an opponent eminently suited for the field of battle, the 1st BCT nevertheless performed according to expectations. Overconfidence in the initial deployment saw artillery support be rendered ineffective, more training in this regard is recommended. The main cause for the relatively heavy casualties suffered has been identified to be the rules of engagement. The ROE stressed the preservation of civilian lives, and that in turn gave the pirates the advantage as they showed no such concern, regularly making use of civilians as human shields against our forces.

Additional Note
Insignia on all pirate units does not match that displayed by the Admiral General.

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The NRI is reportedly extremely grateful for the assistance, despite the severe damage to the capital. They are, however, rather sheepishly requesting financial assistance in rebuilding their defenses. They’d over-focused on the jump points, leading to the pirate’s being able to exploit the nearby pirate point.

Parliament, meanwhile, is in session and is not being all that helpful, albeit they aren’t causing the usual amount of trouble. It appears that you’ve managed to get them to more or less work with you, although closer to ‘less’ than ‘more’.

The main legislation that they are advancing this year concerns internal trade regulation. In light of the situation on Nowa Warszawa Parliament is concerned with the demonstrated greed and lack of ethics on the part of certain civil sector corporations. These companies appear to barely toe the line of regulations aimed at workplace safety and worker conditions, only doing the exact bare minimum to be in compliance with the law. Moreover they tend to produce very low quality, if rather cheap, goods for sale with business practices that, again, are meeting absolute bare minimums in terms of product safety, advertising honesty, and consumer rights.

It would be attractive to simply raise the bar and force these companies to treat their workers and customers decently, but the Parliament has a different idea. Existing regulations would remain in force and no company would be forced to change their business practices. However an Imperial Seal of Approval will be awarded to any company that ‘exceeds base standards and shows a consistent record of good citizenship’ in the fields of workplace safety, worker conditions, and business practices. Said companies will be allowed to affix this seal on their products and use the fact that they attained such in their advertising, otherwise there would be no fiduciary benefit to it. Consumers, therefore, will have a means of differentiating between ‘good’ companies and those who are barely toeing the line without quite going over it.

Lobbyists for these firms are absolutely livid and are campaigning hard against the legislation. They argue that officially rewarding companies for exceeding minimum standards in effect acts as the government choosing winners and losers in the economy, as well as opening companies up to be judged on a subjective basis by the government and rendered either ‘acceptable’ or not.

QM Note - rerolls awarded to Jarow, ShadowArxxy and Yellowhammer for their assistance. Quick note on the artillery in the combat, I messed up initially and artillery did absolutely nothing. That's fixed now, and will be fixed going forward.