Quest Deep Periphery Quest (Battletech Sandbox Empire Builder)
- Thread starter LordSunhawk
- Start date
Huh thought we'd have more then 2-2½ generations before the shit hits the fan.
Considering how we've been researching Life-extension Therapy it's likely that people born at this time will still be around when the Clans show up - Jihad Hot Spots: Terra mention that Terrans with the same level of medical care as in the Star League consider 140 years to be old. Thinking about how our research is progressing and we're talking about advancing to beyond Star League levels, and that with the level of Life-extension treatment we're hopefully finishing this turn people don't have to start rolling for natural death until they reach 100, it's possible that Jackie will still be Empress when Operation Revival kicks off.
Also, as far as I can tell, Life-Extension Therapy doesn't impede the reproductive abilities of its beneficiaries, so they can go about having children for longer. Awkward moment in the future when Jackie's kids have several siblings younger than their own kids...
It's less about living that long and more give us enough time to build up to be a footnote in the clan war nevermind being more than a footnote. Of course maybe we can build up that much but progressing that fast would make this come across more as a RTS then a somewhat realistic quest.
Fortunately for you, Jackie is not a Sith and cannot reach across realities to Force strangle you for that. She definitely wants to, however.
Knowledgeispower
Ah I love the smell of missile spam in the morning
After all if she's still alive by that point she's obviously retired and living the good life on some tropical beach
There may or may not be cartoon sketches of Jackie and Willis as sexy angels flying away from the capital while Jeremy is shackled to a desk covered with bounteous mounds of paperwork.
@LordSunhawk What is your view of the Inner Sphere as of the start of this quest. Canon books don't go into real detail until the late 2900s. For example Lordsfire put together a pretty good summary.
Jarow
Well-known member
I do like the idea of that progression of history; though it's just how things work in BQ, it is plausible in canon. However, it doesn't quite fit in with what little we know of the IS here, given 2940 (start of recovery) is well after launch of Bakkustabbu (it hit us ~2930). I'd guess the IS is better off in manufacturing here than in canon, but hard to say anything specific (and us not knowing everything about the IS beyond IC fears about how powerful it must be isn't bad for the quest).
Turn 40 - I Am Home Again
Turn 40 - I Am Home Again
One of the downsides of having such wonderful children… and Willis… is that they loved to surprise you on your birthday sometimes. Worse, because the Palace staff and, sadly, your entire advisory council know how much they love to surprise you you generally don’t get any forewarning about such surprises until they happen because everybody conspires against you, conspiratorially.
Technically hiding secrets from the Crown is certainly a capital offense, but since this involves birthday presents and surprises, no jury would ever convict and you’d look right silly. And it’s not like you haven’t made appropriate use of your own authority as Queen to arrange birthday surprises for your husband and offspring. Appropriate use, mind you. That’s your story and you are sticking to it.
And this is one you should have spotted years ago! You’d never even questioned why, if the manifests for all but two of the grounded dropships in the old Landing site were so detailed and complete in the reports, those two were left out. You’d not noticed.
It turns out they had been fully catalogued, just that your eldest had backstopped that particular report from reaching your desk with the full connivance of Willis and the rest of your brood.
You knew your ancient history. The Terran Alliance had been an absolute snakepit, especially in the last years before the Terran Hegemony. And you’d also known that a good number of the politicians of that era were obsessed with ‘Year Zero’ schemes involving destroying anything that could possibly memorialize the past in order to replace ‘history’ with their own narratives.
Sadly, many irreplaceable historical treasures had been lost to these various Year Zero schemes over the centuries.
Only, evidently, some of them had not. Been lost that is.
They’d been disassembled and hidden instead, and evidently whoever had been part of organizing the original colonial expedition out here had feared that the Star League might decide to try their hand at a little Year Zero BS themselves and had shipped out at least a portion of those treasures out with your ancestors.
Two Mammoth’s had been heavily modified for the task and had been filled to the deckheads with disassembled historical artifacts. One of them had been filled with just one single massive artifact that completely filled it, and even then some items from it had to be carried on the second.
So when you learned that your birthday celebration was going to be held at sea, you figured that it would be on one of the cruise ships that had taken to plying routes from Griffsport to Castor and Pollux to take advantage of the incredible landscapes and scenic views along the Throat.
You hadn’t expected to be on board a ship that had been new over a millennium ago and which had, somehow, defying all the odds, survived neglect, disinterest, and the hostility of crazed Year Zero fanatics to wind up here, reassembled, restored, and in a condition that can only be described as like-new.
There was just something insane about stepping foot on the decks of SS United States, the last true Blue Riband winner… and feeling the incredible power of her steam turbines driving the vessel at almost 40 knots. This wasn’t some towering floating hotel, this was a true ocean liner. Luxury was assumed, but the focus was speed, and the ancient warhorse was still up to the challenge, crashing through the waves at a speed that would leave all her modern descendents in the dust.
And because the entire restoration had been financed out of your kid’s own personal allocations from the privy purse, SS United States was now technically the Griffith Family Yacht.
You could get used to this.
Your lovely children, ungrateful creatures that they are, have also presented you with a cheerful ‘May You Rule Forever’ card, which Jeremy had cheerfully presented to you along with a comment that Queens can’t retire, so he’s safe from the Royal Paperwork for at least another sixty years.
Sekhmet knocks him into the swimming pool for that one on a nod from you. He’s still laughing as Bastet and Anubis promptly tag team Sekhmet and knock her in as well, which results in the entire family getting soaked.
Totally worth it.
Of course, now there’s what to do with her going forward. Keep her as the family yacht or open her up for the public.
One of the downsides of having such wonderful children… and Willis… is that they loved to surprise you on your birthday sometimes. Worse, because the Palace staff and, sadly, your entire advisory council know how much they love to surprise you you generally don’t get any forewarning about such surprises until they happen because everybody conspires against you, conspiratorially.
Technically hiding secrets from the Crown is certainly a capital offense, but since this involves birthday presents and surprises, no jury would ever convict and you’d look right silly. And it’s not like you haven’t made appropriate use of your own authority as Queen to arrange birthday surprises for your husband and offspring. Appropriate use, mind you. That’s your story and you are sticking to it.
And this is one you should have spotted years ago! You’d never even questioned why, if the manifests for all but two of the grounded dropships in the old Landing site were so detailed and complete in the reports, those two were left out. You’d not noticed.
It turns out they had been fully catalogued, just that your eldest had backstopped that particular report from reaching your desk with the full connivance of Willis and the rest of your brood.
You knew your ancient history. The Terran Alliance had been an absolute snakepit, especially in the last years before the Terran Hegemony. And you’d also known that a good number of the politicians of that era were obsessed with ‘Year Zero’ schemes involving destroying anything that could possibly memorialize the past in order to replace ‘history’ with their own narratives.
Sadly, many irreplaceable historical treasures had been lost to these various Year Zero schemes over the centuries.
Only, evidently, some of them had not. Been lost that is.
They’d been disassembled and hidden instead, and evidently whoever had been part of organizing the original colonial expedition out here had feared that the Star League might decide to try their hand at a little Year Zero BS themselves and had shipped out at least a portion of those treasures out with your ancestors.
Two Mammoth’s had been heavily modified for the task and had been filled to the deckheads with disassembled historical artifacts. One of them had been filled with just one single massive artifact that completely filled it, and even then some items from it had to be carried on the second.
So when you learned that your birthday celebration was going to be held at sea, you figured that it would be on one of the cruise ships that had taken to plying routes from Griffsport to Castor and Pollux to take advantage of the incredible landscapes and scenic views along the Throat.
You hadn’t expected to be on board a ship that had been new over a millennium ago and which had, somehow, defying all the odds, survived neglect, disinterest, and the hostility of crazed Year Zero fanatics to wind up here, reassembled, restored, and in a condition that can only be described as like-new.
There was just something insane about stepping foot on the decks of SS United States, the last true Blue Riband winner… and feeling the incredible power of her steam turbines driving the vessel at almost 40 knots. This wasn’t some towering floating hotel, this was a true ocean liner. Luxury was assumed, but the focus was speed, and the ancient warhorse was still up to the challenge, crashing through the waves at a speed that would leave all her modern descendents in the dust.
And because the entire restoration had been financed out of your kid’s own personal allocations from the privy purse, SS United States was now technically the Griffith Family Yacht.
You could get used to this.
Your lovely children, ungrateful creatures that they are, have also presented you with a cheerful ‘May You Rule Forever’ card, which Jeremy had cheerfully presented to you along with a comment that Queens can’t retire, so he’s safe from the Royal Paperwork for at least another sixty years.
Sekhmet knocks him into the swimming pool for that one on a nod from you. He’s still laughing as Bastet and Anubis promptly tag team Sekhmet and knock her in as well, which results in the entire family getting soaked.
Totally worth it.
Of course, now there’s what to do with her going forward. Keep her as the family yacht or open her up for the public.
| [] | Best Royal Yacht EVER! | Keep SS United States as your personal yacht. Would make for an amazing setting for diplomatic meetings! Adds 100 to upkeep |
| [] | Can be a royal yacht and also open to the public! | Opening her up to the public would significantly increase maintenance costs, but would be quite popular. 1000 to upkeep +1 Approval Change |
[X]Can be a royal yacht and also open to the public!
Knowledgeispower
Ah I love the smell of missile spam in the morning
Well... this seems implausible but I'm not complaining
When have we had two Mammoth's where the fuck have they been all this time. I don't understand how we're only hearing about this now unless you just decided to toss it in at the last moment. It makes about as much sense as the speed of our tech advance, or the Combine having that much weight of metal to throw away even if they, in their insanity, moved a ASF and Mech line to the middle of nowhere.
Was any of this explained and I just missed it?
None of the dropships that the colonists arrived in are salvageable as anything more than scrap. Remember, the initial KF R&D Accident caused *all* fusion reactors, including those in the dropships, to Stackpole spectacularly, and the entire area of Old Landing has been an abandoned and dangerous no-man's land ever since.
However, the Mammoth's reactors are on the *outside* of the hull in the drive pods, so when they blew, the contents of the cargo holds were undamaged.
All of those Dropships have been there this entire time, they've been referenced in the past in the quest, including several instances where tech was found inside of them, and several turns ago you fully catalogued and cleared the ruins.
All of the heavy transport DropShips that were used to establish the colony in the first place were semi-permanently landed at Old Landing; they were used to support the colony during setup, and there wasn't really any justification to move them elsewhere afterwards. So they've been there all along, and have even been indirectly referenced on previous reports; however, since they were at the epicenter of the "reactors-go-explode" that levelled the original settlement, they weren't really explored until we knuckled down with a full scale expedition.
The speed of our tech advance originates from the following factors:
1. Until our unpleasant weeaboo neighbors showed up, our world was completely insulated from the Succession Wars.
2. We were also completely insulated from Operation Holy Shroud and all other Com* interference.
3. The only reason we haven't been at full Star League era Terran tech was that we suffered our own "mini" Dark Age due to the K-F event that blew up Old Landing. However, this was a "shallow" Dark Age because although the then-sole major city that housed the research labs was annihilated by Stackpoling fusion reactors, the loss was primarily confined to physical infrastructure; data backups survived on remote servers and more importantly, enough *people* survived to rebuild an advanced society.
3a. That's why we started the campaign as intro-tech level Battletech, as opposed to modern tech or worse. Our forefathers had already rebuilt to that level before they started breaking up into warring factions.
4. As to the Combine. . . we don't know. That said, their forces out here would also be free of Com* interference, and it's clear that they were sent out with a solid technical and industrial base.
It would make more sense if we're constantly reinventing the wheel by designing new ASF, Mechs, and dropships from scratch. I'd believe a year for taking a known design and changing the weapon load out, or a minor redesign for a XL engine. A year for step one is kind of insane.
The 2nd Succession war, and Holy Shroud ended in the early to mid 2800s. Even if the snakes showed up decades before the 2930 start of the quest they shouldn't have SHIT to bring with them. Having the tech and infrastructure to be able to build new mechs, ASF, and DROPSHIPS in the numbers we've seen for the middle of nowhere is insane. What makes it more irritating is that we've broken their ISF, and DEST agents there is no reason why we shouldn't already know how their getting these insane reinforcements.
Lastly why the hell aren't we using the Wolverine heavy and assault mechs we have sitting around as a shortcut instead of making new ones from scratch? If the answer is clans fuck the clans.