Quest Deep Periphery Quest (Battletech Sandbox Empire Builder)
- Thread starter LordSunhawk
- Start date
Turn 41 - The Moon Comes Up
Turn 41 - The Moon Comes Up
The Scout departs, although not without some amusing, albeit a bit concerning, repartee. In response to the captain of HMS Devastation making a rather snarky comment about SLDF standard IFF broadcast frequencies, the captain of the jumpship had responded with a calmly dignified “We make use of ComStar standard frequencies, Devastation. We shall make a note to set our systems to SLDF standard broadcast in the future.”
You’d known the bloody phone company was powerful, from the debriefing of Dagny, you hadn’t quite internalized just how powerful it was until you realize that their comm standards had replaced those of the most powerful military in human history.
Several weeks later the Free Folk return, bringing dispatches and an ambassador from what you now know is called the Novi Romani Imperii, your Latin is a bit rusty but it looks like these jokers are calling themselves the New Roman Empire, which seems a trifle ambitious for a two system polity.
Granted, you are a one-system polity, so perhaps it’s all a matter of perspective.
Julia Severina is a rather imposing black woman wearing a deceptively simple blue silk stola, albeit one with an elaborate contrasting red limbus, and an elaborately embroidered (and incredibly long) palla which has an ivory base with a riot of colors making up the embroidery.
She is attended by a pair of bodyguards wearing what appear to be much heavier versions of the Power Armor that you are issuing to your own soldiers, but done in a somewhat stylized manner that harkens back to Roman armor.
She also has a small entourage, also dressed in distinctly Roman fashions.
While the shuttle is en-route from the Free Folk jumpship you take the time to read the initial briefing packet prepared by the embassy you’d sent.
First of all, much of what you’d presumed to know has turned out to be misleading at best. The Free Folk had minimal contact with these people, and had gleaned just about all they knew from the rare interactions with merchants and monitoring communications bands.
There were actually four classes of inhabitants of the New Roman Empire, and two political factions that appeared to be formalized. The political system was highly complex and, frankly, a bit baffling.
The highest class were the Patricians, however it appears that membership in this class is not purely by birth, although it helps. A young person, male or female, who wishes to be a Patrician needs to complete officer training in the military, or the equivalent in one of the Publicum Ministerium, serve a ‘satisfactory’ term of service, and be recommended to become a Patrician by acclamation of at least a dozen current Patricians. Only Patricians can serve as Senators, or most other of the senior political ranks.
The second class, of lower social rank, were the Plebeians. It was quite common, however, for a Plebeian to be wealthier than a Patrician, as Patricians were expected to spend most of their wealth in charitable and governmental endeavors while the Plebeians were free to accumulate wealth on their own terms. Any person of the Romans who completed a term of service of any sort in the military or one of the Publicum Ministerium were automatically considered Plebeians.
The third class were the Militaris. These comprised all of those serving in the military or the Publicum Ministerium, and also all of those too young to have served. Even the sons and daughters of Patricians were, until they completed their term of service, considered Militaris, not Patricians.
The final and smallest class were the Vulgares. These were adults who willfully refused to serve in the military or any of the Publicum Ministerium in any capacity. They paid no taxes or fees, had no obligations of any kind to the state, and were not required to do anything at all for anybody at any time. They were totally and utterly free to live their lives as they chose with a single caveat. The Vulgares were completely and totally outside the protections of the state that they contributed nothing to. They received no services of any kind. There was an unofficial second caveat, any Vulgares seen with anything even vaguely resembling a weapon would be killed on sight.
In many ways the system appears similar to what you read in an ancient pre-KF ‘science fiction’ novel you’d been required to read for your Ancient Literature class. All the way down to the fact that one of the Publicum Ministerium appears to all intents and purposes to be the Roman’s equivalent of your Department of Periphery Studies, only extended to include all of those too disabled in any way to reasonably serve in any other capacity. Evidently all that matters is the willingness to serve, not the ability.
The two political factions were the Optimates and the Populares, both of which had supporters throughout the three main classes of Roman citizens. The respective political philosophies can be summed up rather simplistically as the Optimates represented the interests of the wealthy and the Populares represented the interests of the poor. Where things got interesting is how the two factions divided power.
The New Roman Empire is actually more of the Roman Republic in many ways, with a triumvirate rulership of two consuls, both senators of the Patrician class and always of opposite parties, and one Demarchus, or Tribune of the People, from the Plebeian class. Every decade the Demarchus is required to step down, and is replaced by a member of the opposite faction.
You would think that such a system would lead to a great deal of strife, however it is a firm principle of the Romans that no member of the Patrician or Plebeian class may shed the blood of any other Patrician or Plebeian. The worst that ever happens, at least as far as the delegation has been able to discover, in the last two hundred years or so are spirited shouting matches that often devolve into the two sides ‘fighting out their differences’... via spirited gymnastics competitions.
Yes, it appears that these Romans are utterly addicted to gymnastics, to the point that one of the single most prestigious Publicum Ministeria is actually the Haec Curricula Mentis Ludum, which is the premier gymnastics school in the Roman Empire and only graduates a single student in any given year. Indeed, the embassy had been greeted with a massive synchronized gymnastics display making use of trampolines to put on some incredible aerial acrobatics.
It appears you might need to be a bit grateful for the Roman Empire as well, as they’ve inadvertently shielded Griffin’s Roost from a nearby bandit kingdom that regularly raids their planets, only to be beaten back by a combination of their power armored infantry and fairly potent tanks. The imagery has been analyzed by SARAH and the main armament appears to be gauss rifles, with almost no sign of any energy based weapons at all to be seen.
In fact, it appears that the Romans are possibly as obsessed with gauss weaponry as they are with gymnastics, as far as SARAH can tell they use gauss weapons on every single platform she’s been able to analyze. Even their infantry weapons appear to be miniature gauss rifles.
You do get confirmation that slavery does, in fact, exist, however it is extremely limited and serves a purely judicial function as the second highest punishment possible for the absolute worst crimes. A simple murderer would be either executed (if capital murder) or imprisoned, but a serial killer who’d killed dozens of victims? Their case would be reviewed by the Senate which could, by unanimous vote, condemn the criminal to either a life of ‘slavery’ in a massive salt mine set aside purely for the purpose, or far more rarely to be ‘publically executed so as to provide edification to the People’, which seems to be reserved for the absolute worst of the worst and has only happened, as far as your embassy could glean, a single time in their history to a serial killer who lured young children, raped them to death, then ate them.
You read the excerpt about his execution and throw up.
Regardless, if the Senate failed to come to a unanimous agreement, even the worst criminals would simply be executed cleanly.
Regardless, the embassy will be arriving in several days, how will you greet them?
The Scout departs, although not without some amusing, albeit a bit concerning, repartee. In response to the captain of HMS Devastation making a rather snarky comment about SLDF standard IFF broadcast frequencies, the captain of the jumpship had responded with a calmly dignified “We make use of ComStar standard frequencies, Devastation. We shall make a note to set our systems to SLDF standard broadcast in the future.”
You’d known the bloody phone company was powerful, from the debriefing of Dagny, you hadn’t quite internalized just how powerful it was until you realize that their comm standards had replaced those of the most powerful military in human history.
Several weeks later the Free Folk return, bringing dispatches and an ambassador from what you now know is called the Novi Romani Imperii, your Latin is a bit rusty but it looks like these jokers are calling themselves the New Roman Empire, which seems a trifle ambitious for a two system polity.
Granted, you are a one-system polity, so perhaps it’s all a matter of perspective.
Julia Severina is a rather imposing black woman wearing a deceptively simple blue silk stola, albeit one with an elaborate contrasting red limbus, and an elaborately embroidered (and incredibly long) palla which has an ivory base with a riot of colors making up the embroidery.
She is attended by a pair of bodyguards wearing what appear to be much heavier versions of the Power Armor that you are issuing to your own soldiers, but done in a somewhat stylized manner that harkens back to Roman armor.
She also has a small entourage, also dressed in distinctly Roman fashions.
While the shuttle is en-route from the Free Folk jumpship you take the time to read the initial briefing packet prepared by the embassy you’d sent.
First of all, much of what you’d presumed to know has turned out to be misleading at best. The Free Folk had minimal contact with these people, and had gleaned just about all they knew from the rare interactions with merchants and monitoring communications bands.
There were actually four classes of inhabitants of the New Roman Empire, and two political factions that appeared to be formalized. The political system was highly complex and, frankly, a bit baffling.
The highest class were the Patricians, however it appears that membership in this class is not purely by birth, although it helps. A young person, male or female, who wishes to be a Patrician needs to complete officer training in the military, or the equivalent in one of the Publicum Ministerium, serve a ‘satisfactory’ term of service, and be recommended to become a Patrician by acclamation of at least a dozen current Patricians. Only Patricians can serve as Senators, or most other of the senior political ranks.
The second class, of lower social rank, were the Plebeians. It was quite common, however, for a Plebeian to be wealthier than a Patrician, as Patricians were expected to spend most of their wealth in charitable and governmental endeavors while the Plebeians were free to accumulate wealth on their own terms. Any person of the Romans who completed a term of service of any sort in the military or one of the Publicum Ministerium were automatically considered Plebeians.
The third class were the Militaris. These comprised all of those serving in the military or the Publicum Ministerium, and also all of those too young to have served. Even the sons and daughters of Patricians were, until they completed their term of service, considered Militaris, not Patricians.
The final and smallest class were the Vulgares. These were adults who willfully refused to serve in the military or any of the Publicum Ministerium in any capacity. They paid no taxes or fees, had no obligations of any kind to the state, and were not required to do anything at all for anybody at any time. They were totally and utterly free to live their lives as they chose with a single caveat. The Vulgares were completely and totally outside the protections of the state that they contributed nothing to. They received no services of any kind. There was an unofficial second caveat, any Vulgares seen with anything even vaguely resembling a weapon would be killed on sight.
In many ways the system appears similar to what you read in an ancient pre-KF ‘science fiction’ novel you’d been required to read for your Ancient Literature class. All the way down to the fact that one of the Publicum Ministerium appears to all intents and purposes to be the Roman’s equivalent of your Department of Periphery Studies, only extended to include all of those too disabled in any way to reasonably serve in any other capacity. Evidently all that matters is the willingness to serve, not the ability.
The two political factions were the Optimates and the Populares, both of which had supporters throughout the three main classes of Roman citizens. The respective political philosophies can be summed up rather simplistically as the Optimates represented the interests of the wealthy and the Populares represented the interests of the poor. Where things got interesting is how the two factions divided power.
The New Roman Empire is actually more of the Roman Republic in many ways, with a triumvirate rulership of two consuls, both senators of the Patrician class and always of opposite parties, and one Demarchus, or Tribune of the People, from the Plebeian class. Every decade the Demarchus is required to step down, and is replaced by a member of the opposite faction.
You would think that such a system would lead to a great deal of strife, however it is a firm principle of the Romans that no member of the Patrician or Plebeian class may shed the blood of any other Patrician or Plebeian. The worst that ever happens, at least as far as the delegation has been able to discover, in the last two hundred years or so are spirited shouting matches that often devolve into the two sides ‘fighting out their differences’... via spirited gymnastics competitions.
Yes, it appears that these Romans are utterly addicted to gymnastics, to the point that one of the single most prestigious Publicum Ministeria is actually the Haec Curricula Mentis Ludum, which is the premier gymnastics school in the Roman Empire and only graduates a single student in any given year. Indeed, the embassy had been greeted with a massive synchronized gymnastics display making use of trampolines to put on some incredible aerial acrobatics.
It appears you might need to be a bit grateful for the Roman Empire as well, as they’ve inadvertently shielded Griffin’s Roost from a nearby bandit kingdom that regularly raids their planets, only to be beaten back by a combination of their power armored infantry and fairly potent tanks. The imagery has been analyzed by SARAH and the main armament appears to be gauss rifles, with almost no sign of any energy based weapons at all to be seen.
In fact, it appears that the Romans are possibly as obsessed with gauss weaponry as they are with gymnastics, as far as SARAH can tell they use gauss weapons on every single platform she’s been able to analyze. Even their infantry weapons appear to be miniature gauss rifles.
You do get confirmation that slavery does, in fact, exist, however it is extremely limited and serves a purely judicial function as the second highest punishment possible for the absolute worst crimes. A simple murderer would be either executed (if capital murder) or imprisoned, but a serial killer who’d killed dozens of victims? Their case would be reviewed by the Senate which could, by unanimous vote, condemn the criminal to either a life of ‘slavery’ in a massive salt mine set aside purely for the purpose, or far more rarely to be ‘publically executed so as to provide edification to the People’, which seems to be reserved for the absolute worst of the worst and has only happened, as far as your embassy could glean, a single time in their history to a serial killer who lured young children, raped them to death, then ate them.
You read the excerpt about his execution and throw up.
Regardless, if the Senate failed to come to a unanimous agreement, even the worst criminals would simply be executed cleanly.
Regardless, the embassy will be arriving in several days, how will you greet them?
| [] | Maximum Formality | Put on all the Pomp and Circumstances! |
| [] | Raceday at the Palace! | They greeted your embassy with tons of gymnasts, greet theirs with tons of horsepower |
| [] | Write-In |
[X] Raceday at the Palace!
Also, Jane is pre-emptively barred from trying to build a Ben-Hur style Roman chariot racer.
Also, Jane is pre-emptively barred from trying to build a Ben-Hur style Roman chariot racer.
Wageslave
Well-known member
[X] Maximum Formality Put on all the Pomp and Circumstances!
-[X] Raceday at the Palace! They greeted your embassy with tons of gymnasts, greet theirs with tons of horsepower.
--[X] If the MechBall League is up and running, take the delegation to a game to see the SportsMechs, and let them wonder.
-[X] Raceday at the Palace! They greeted your embassy with tons of gymnasts, greet theirs with tons of horsepower.
--[X] If the MechBall League is up and running, take the delegation to a game to see the SportsMechs, and let them wonder.
Thors_Alumni
Well-known member
[X] Maximum Formality Put on all the Pomp and Circumstances!
-[X] Raceday at the Palace! They greeted your embassy with tons of gymnasts, greet theirs with tons of horsepower.
--[X] If the MechBall League is up and running, take the delegation to a game to see the SportsMechs, and let them wonder.
Why do I get the feeling that Griffins roost just became the industrial center of the local area.
-[X] Raceday at the Palace! They greeted your embassy with tons of gymnasts, greet theirs with tons of horsepower.
--[X] If the MechBall League is up and running, take the delegation to a game to see the SportsMechs, and let them wonder.
Why do I get the feeling that Griffins roost just became the industrial center of the local area.
kashim3
Texan, Mandalorian, Alabamian.
[X] Maximum Formality Put on all the Pomp and Circumstances!
-[X] Raceday at the Palace! They greeted your embassy with tons of gymnasts, greet theirs with tons of horsepower.
--[X] If the MechBall League is up and running, take the delegation to a game to see the SportsMechs, and let them wonder.
-[X] Raceday at the Palace! They greeted your embassy with tons of gymnasts, greet theirs with tons of horsepower.
--[X] If the MechBall League is up and running, take the delegation to a game to see the SportsMechs, and let them wonder.
Last edited:
Chaos Blade
Active member
[X] Maximum Formality Put on all the Pomp and Circumstances!
-[X] Raceday at the Palace! They greeted your embassy with tons of gymnasts, greet theirs with tons of horsepower.
--[X] If the MechBall League is up and running, take the delegation to a game to see the SportsMechs, and let them wonder.
-[X] Raceday at the Palace! They greeted your embassy with tons of gymnasts, greet theirs with tons of horsepower.
--[X] If the MechBall League is up and running, take the delegation to a game to see the SportsMechs, and let them wonder.
Jarow
Well-known member
[X] Maximum Formality Put on all the Pomp and Circumstances!
-[X] Raceday at the Palace! They greeted your embassy with tons of gymnasts, greet theirs with tons of horsepower.
--[X] If the MechBall League is up and running, take the delegation to a game to see the SportsMechs, and let them wonder.
Showing off and connecting? Sounds like something approaching right to me
-[X] Raceday at the Palace! They greeted your embassy with tons of gymnasts, greet theirs with tons of horsepower.
--[X] If the MechBall League is up and running, take the delegation to a game to see the SportsMechs, and let them wonder.
Showing off and connecting? Sounds like something approaching right to me
The power armor implies they're hegemony or sldf/clan descendant as well.
[X] Maximum Formality Put on all the Pomp and Circumstances!
-[X] Raceday at the Palace! They greeted your embassy with tons of gymnasts, greet theirs with tons of horsepower.
--[X] If the MechBall League is up and running, take the delegation to a game to see the SportsMechs, and let them wonder.
-[X] Raceday at the Palace! They greeted your embassy with tons of gymnasts, greet theirs with tons of horsepower.
--[X] If the MechBall League is up and running, take the delegation to a game to see the SportsMechs, and let them wonder.
Panzerkraken
Well-known member
[X] Maximum Formality Put on all the Pomp and Circumstances!
-[X] Raceday at the Palace! They greeted your embassy with tons of gymnasts, greet theirs with tons of horsepower.
--[X] If the MechBall League is up and running, take the delegation to a game to see the SportsMechs, and let them wonder.
-[X] Raceday at the Palace! They greeted your embassy with tons of gymnasts, greet theirs with tons of horsepower.
--[X] If the MechBall League is up and running, take the delegation to a game to see the SportsMechs, and let them wonder.
Nikandros
Well-known member
[X] Maximum Formality Put on all the Pomp and Circumstances!
-[X] Raceday at the Palace! They greeted your embassy with tons of gymnasts, greet theirs with tons of horsepower.
--[X] If the MechBall League is up and running, take the delegation to a game to see the SportsMechs, and let them wonder.
-[X] Raceday at the Palace! They greeted your embassy with tons of gymnasts, greet theirs with tons of horsepower.
--[X] If the MechBall League is up and running, take the delegation to a game to see the SportsMechs, and let them wonder.
Joyousmadman
Well-known member
[X] Maximum Formality Put on all the Pomp and Circumstances!
-[X] Raceday at the Palace! They greeted your embassy with tons of gymnasts, greet theirs with tons of horsepower.
--[X] If the MechBall League is up and running, take the delegation to a game to see the SportsMechs, and let them wonder.
-[X] Raceday at the Palace! They greeted your embassy with tons of gymnasts, greet theirs with tons of horsepower.
--[X] If the MechBall League is up and running, take the delegation to a game to see the SportsMechs, and let them wonder.
Turn 41 - The Traffic Roars
Turn 41 - The Traffic Roars
You had a week.
And your planning staff had managed to somehow stuff every single waking moment of that week with something you had to sign off on, review, plan, or approve.
You hated your staff sometimes.
HMS Devastation and a squadron of Warriors were escorting the Roman’s shuttle in. Yes, you were showing off your most powerful combat dropships just a little bit. But it’s not like they were pointing sub-capital weapons at the shuttle, now were they. The Romans had sent along some power armor, and you’d not done the same with your embassy wanting to keep your suits under wraps. So if they wanted to show off, so could you, damnit.
At least that distracts you a bit from your dreams of murdering your staff.
However by the time Julia Severina landed at Griffsport Dropport, the planning had been completed and you’d actually managed to get a full nights sleep. So maybe you wouldn’t strangle them all. Just mostly strangle them.
The Roman shuttle is a spheroid design reminiscent of the K-1 but with slightly different proportions showing it is clearly a home-grown vessel. The designated landing pad is the one closest to the ship docks, and SS United States is moored nearest to the pad.
When the party disembarks from the shuttle they are met with a hover limousine from the Palace motor pool, accompanied by a platoon of the new Gavin APCs in the Burton configuration along with a luxury motorcoach for the staff. Isoroku handles the initial greeting in his role as your Foreign Minister and accompanies Julia Severina to the docks.
The docks themselves have been cleaned up in preparation for this and the quay that SS United States is tied up to has been configured as a semi-museum exhibit detailing the history and heritage of the ancient ocean liner. Isoroku deliberately didn’t make any references to the exhibits as they passed, letting them stand as silent testimonials to the age of the vessel they were heading to.
You met the ambassador in the grand ballroom of the ancient liner as part of the formal reception. The entire event is so formal and ‘classy’ that it makes your teeth hurt. You may have been Empress (and before that Queen) for over 40 years, but you were still an infantrywoman at heart. You’d read the briefing file on the ambassador and suspected that she was almost as out of her natural element as you, as according to the file Julia Severina had served as an infantry officer, rising to the rank of Tribune (which according to your briefing is the equivalent of Brigadier General in your own system) prior to retirement and joining the Patrician class.
There were no incidents at the reception at least. The diplomatic party were shown to quarters aboard the old ship while you returned to the Palace proper.
The next morning the delegation is escorted to the Palace, escorted by a company of Winged Hussar ultra-light mechs along a cleared route lined with the 1st Light Horse Regiment’s mech compliment, with the procession led by Jeremy piloting the prototype Soldatin heavy mech.
You do give Jane a look as you realize that she had somehow managed to finagle her way into picking the accompanying music that is playing from concealed speakers lining the route. Jane, of course, looks completely unrepentant.
Luckily it appears that the ambassador either has a truly superb poker face or might have actually enjoyed the musical selection, which has segued smoothly into something that makes you want to facepalm, although you manage to keep your own face perfectly smooth.
You accompany the ambassador up to the Imperial viewing box that has a wonderful view of the Palace race track, idly discussing trivialities with her. She seems rather fascinated by motor racing, as evidently motorsports are not actually that common in the New Roman Empire, which considering the history of chariot racing somewhat surprises you.
From your discussions it becomes clear that to the New Romans competition and such is between individuals and their physical prowess, with relatively few team sports.
The course is laid out in the ‘road circuit’ configuration for a top level formula race, with average lap speeds of over 300 kilometers per hour. You’d decided to go with this rather than hovercraft racing for two reasons. One, you wanted to hold that one in reserve for later, and two the League hadn’t been able to adjust their schedule in the limited timeframe to allow for a proper race here at the Palace track.
The race itself is quite good. No major accidents, and plenty of overtakes and very close racing. You spend much of the race explaining what is going on, in terms of race strategy and such, to an interested audience. Not that you are a race addict, you simply learned all of this in order to have intelligent discussions with your husband, kids, and grandkids.
Perfect driving record!
That’s your story and you are sticking to it like glue!
After the race you head to a large conference room in the Palace to get down to actual business.
You had long planned on where to place embassies and such, having set aside an area near the Palace to be developed as such, although currently all of the lots are empty. As the first polity to make actual peaceful contact worthy of diplomatic relations, the New Romans get the first pick of locations to build their actual embassy, until the building is complete they will be staying aboard SS United States as guests of the Crown.
Hey, you own the thing, you get to make use of it for things like this.
You also agree to a broad outline to govern relations, at least initially, with a non-aggression pact featuring quite prominently in both of your priorities. Trade will be somewhat more problematic until you have your own jumpships, the New Romans have sufficient for their internal trade needs but a regular trade route here would require them to build more, which they do have a limited capacity to do but it would take several years.
All in all it seems like a promising start.
Of course, domestic affairs don’t just go away while foreign affairs are being handled. And you are actually somewhat surprised.
Something good coming out of Pollux?
One of the smaller agribusinesses on Pollux has unveiled a new genetically engineered strain of wheat that requires a fraction of the water of any other grain while retaining flavor and nutritional content. The new strain, dubbed ‘Dry Wheat’ by the company, is being evaluated by regulators.
And that’s where Imperial attention comes in. The company had completed Phase 1 and 2 testing prior to the massive dustup over agricultural concerns on Pollux and had been one of the companies that had been stuck in a holding pattern on final approval. The documentation of their test results is fully in order, and according to the briefing you’ve received it appears that they meticulously followed testing procedures.
However regulators are insisting that they restart the entire process, as they argue that the Phase 1 and 2 testing results are ‘tainted’ by association with the Pollux regulatory body and thus should not be accepted. The company has shown that everything they did on their end was in good faith and they followed all laws, regulations, and rulings and the actual scientists involved had nothing to do with the Pollux bureaucracy. The regulators agree that there is no evidence of wrong-doing on the company’s part, but that all approvals coming from the Pollux office are considered tainted by association and must be redone in order to be, well, in order.
Companies on Castor and Nowy Gdansk have been working on similar products, if this firm is forced to restart testing and certification from scratch it is quite likely that one of their competitors will complete testing first and thus gain a significant market advantage for low-water use grain. The firm has petitioned the crown to overrule the regulators.
Arguments given in favor of overruling the regulators and allowing the company to move forward are as follows.
QM note - Either choice has the same result, starting a short event chain. No mechanical adjustments from either.
You had a week.
And your planning staff had managed to somehow stuff every single waking moment of that week with something you had to sign off on, review, plan, or approve.
You hated your staff sometimes.
HMS Devastation and a squadron of Warriors were escorting the Roman’s shuttle in. Yes, you were showing off your most powerful combat dropships just a little bit. But it’s not like they were pointing sub-capital weapons at the shuttle, now were they. The Romans had sent along some power armor, and you’d not done the same with your embassy wanting to keep your suits under wraps. So if they wanted to show off, so could you, damnit.
At least that distracts you a bit from your dreams of murdering your staff.
However by the time Julia Severina landed at Griffsport Dropport, the planning had been completed and you’d actually managed to get a full nights sleep. So maybe you wouldn’t strangle them all. Just mostly strangle them.
The Roman shuttle is a spheroid design reminiscent of the K-1 but with slightly different proportions showing it is clearly a home-grown vessel. The designated landing pad is the one closest to the ship docks, and SS United States is moored nearest to the pad.
When the party disembarks from the shuttle they are met with a hover limousine from the Palace motor pool, accompanied by a platoon of the new Gavin APCs in the Burton configuration along with a luxury motorcoach for the staff. Isoroku handles the initial greeting in his role as your Foreign Minister and accompanies Julia Severina to the docks.
The docks themselves have been cleaned up in preparation for this and the quay that SS United States is tied up to has been configured as a semi-museum exhibit detailing the history and heritage of the ancient ocean liner. Isoroku deliberately didn’t make any references to the exhibits as they passed, letting them stand as silent testimonials to the age of the vessel they were heading to.
You met the ambassador in the grand ballroom of the ancient liner as part of the formal reception. The entire event is so formal and ‘classy’ that it makes your teeth hurt. You may have been Empress (and before that Queen) for over 40 years, but you were still an infantrywoman at heart. You’d read the briefing file on the ambassador and suspected that she was almost as out of her natural element as you, as according to the file Julia Severina had served as an infantry officer, rising to the rank of Tribune (which according to your briefing is the equivalent of Brigadier General in your own system) prior to retirement and joining the Patrician class.
There were no incidents at the reception at least. The diplomatic party were shown to quarters aboard the old ship while you returned to the Palace proper.
The next morning the delegation is escorted to the Palace, escorted by a company of Winged Hussar ultra-light mechs along a cleared route lined with the 1st Light Horse Regiment’s mech compliment, with the procession led by Jeremy piloting the prototype Soldatin heavy mech.
You do give Jane a look as you realize that she had somehow managed to finagle her way into picking the accompanying music that is playing from concealed speakers lining the route. Jane, of course, looks completely unrepentant.
Luckily it appears that the ambassador either has a truly superb poker face or might have actually enjoyed the musical selection, which has segued smoothly into something that makes you want to facepalm, although you manage to keep your own face perfectly smooth.
You accompany the ambassador up to the Imperial viewing box that has a wonderful view of the Palace race track, idly discussing trivialities with her. She seems rather fascinated by motor racing, as evidently motorsports are not actually that common in the New Roman Empire, which considering the history of chariot racing somewhat surprises you.
From your discussions it becomes clear that to the New Romans competition and such is between individuals and their physical prowess, with relatively few team sports.
The course is laid out in the ‘road circuit’ configuration for a top level formula race, with average lap speeds of over 300 kilometers per hour. You’d decided to go with this rather than hovercraft racing for two reasons. One, you wanted to hold that one in reserve for later, and two the League hadn’t been able to adjust their schedule in the limited timeframe to allow for a proper race here at the Palace track.
The race itself is quite good. No major accidents, and plenty of overtakes and very close racing. You spend much of the race explaining what is going on, in terms of race strategy and such, to an interested audience. Not that you are a race addict, you simply learned all of this in order to have intelligent discussions with your husband, kids, and grandkids.
Perfect driving record!
That’s your story and you are sticking to it like glue!
After the race you head to a large conference room in the Palace to get down to actual business.
You had long planned on where to place embassies and such, having set aside an area near the Palace to be developed as such, although currently all of the lots are empty. As the first polity to make actual peaceful contact worthy of diplomatic relations, the New Romans get the first pick of locations to build their actual embassy, until the building is complete they will be staying aboard SS United States as guests of the Crown.
Hey, you own the thing, you get to make use of it for things like this.
You also agree to a broad outline to govern relations, at least initially, with a non-aggression pact featuring quite prominently in both of your priorities. Trade will be somewhat more problematic until you have your own jumpships, the New Romans have sufficient for their internal trade needs but a regular trade route here would require them to build more, which they do have a limited capacity to do but it would take several years.
All in all it seems like a promising start.
Of course, domestic affairs don’t just go away while foreign affairs are being handled. And you are actually somewhat surprised.
Something good coming out of Pollux?
One of the smaller agribusinesses on Pollux has unveiled a new genetically engineered strain of wheat that requires a fraction of the water of any other grain while retaining flavor and nutritional content. The new strain, dubbed ‘Dry Wheat’ by the company, is being evaluated by regulators.
And that’s where Imperial attention comes in. The company had completed Phase 1 and 2 testing prior to the massive dustup over agricultural concerns on Pollux and had been one of the companies that had been stuck in a holding pattern on final approval. The documentation of their test results is fully in order, and according to the briefing you’ve received it appears that they meticulously followed testing procedures.
However regulators are insisting that they restart the entire process, as they argue that the Phase 1 and 2 testing results are ‘tainted’ by association with the Pollux regulatory body and thus should not be accepted. The company has shown that everything they did on their end was in good faith and they followed all laws, regulations, and rulings and the actual scientists involved had nothing to do with the Pollux bureaucracy. The regulators agree that there is no evidence of wrong-doing on the company’s part, but that all approvals coming from the Pollux office are considered tainted by association and must be redone in order to be, well, in order.
Companies on Castor and Nowy Gdansk have been working on similar products, if this firm is forced to restart testing and certification from scratch it is quite likely that one of their competitors will complete testing first and thus gain a significant market advantage for low-water use grain. The firm has petitioned the crown to overrule the regulators.
Arguments given in favor of overruling the regulators and allowing the company to move forward are as follows.
- Nobody is disputing the results of testing
- There are zero signs of malfeasance on the part of the company, their scientists, or the individual regulators who signed off on Phase 1 and 2. Those individuals have been retained in the reorganized Pollux office.
- Final approval is the last step required before the product can be sold
- All other permits and approvals of this nature have been required to be refiled, therefore consistency and equity requires that the same principle be applied here.
- This is primarily a question of paperwork. They have already done the physical work, all they need to do is re-file the paperwork in the proper manner.
- This is a minimal burden required to restore faith in the process
| [] | Side with the Company | While the process is comparatively trivial, it still would take up to a year to complete, and the competitors are within a year of receiving final approval for their own products. |
| [] | Side with the Regulators | All approvals and permits were reset for a reason, and just because that reason does not appear to apply on its face in this case is not a good enough reason to set that reason aside. |
QM note - Either choice has the same result, starting a short event chain. No mechanical adjustments from either.
The complete reorganization of the Pollux office was already an overreaction in order to "show the public we're doing something", as demonstrated by the fact that no wrongdoing was found and they literally hired back the exact same people. It is deeply absurd that the company is being forced to resubmit the exact same paperwork to the exact same people just because there's a new name on the office door, and the fact that this would screw over the company by undoing the fact that they earned being first to market fair and square. . . no, just no.
[X]Side with the Company
- [X] Write-In: While the Crown does not wish to directly override the local authorities, the Crown declares that as a matter of equity, the following precedents are being handed down:
[X]Side with the Company
- [X] Write-In: While the Crown does not wish to directly override the local authorities, the Crown declares that as a matter of equity, the following precedents are being handed down:
1) If the regulators of the "new" government office insist that a clean slate reset of approvals and permits is necessary, then absolutely all such approvals and permits must be reissued from scratch, not just those which were "pending" in the system at the time of the reorganization. The government exists for the convenience of its people, not the other way around.
2) No new approvals and permits may be issued until all administratively demanded resubmissions have been processed first.
Knowledgeispower
Ah I love the smell of missile spam in the morning
[X]Side with the Company
The more food production we can have the better
The more food production we can have the better