Turn 42 - But No Chance
You decide to get yourself a Kraken, sharing a secret wink with Willis as you both what your kids are going to call it no matter how much you try and claim it’s something else.
And sure enough, not ten seconds later Thanh has declared your Kraken to be HMS Momboat. You of course protest that its real name is HMS Black Pearl, but your protests fall on deaf ears as all of your kids declare it the Momboat.
You wait until your ungrateful spawn are arguing over what they will call their ships to glance over at the video pickup for
CHRIS and wink. You had actually already named it HMS Ba, but you’d let the kids enjoy thinking they are getting one over on you. For now.
Rebuilding work has begun on the Griffin II Orbitals, but the economy there has taken a massive hit and will continue to contract over the next year or so as rebuilding is completed. It sucks, as it harms your overall economy, but in the long run it may prove a valuable learning opportunity.
In more positive news, the Free Folk are willing to serve as diplomatic couriers for you with the NRI until you have Jumpships of your own, pretty much out of a sense of obligation and gratitude for your past assistance to them. From dispatches received from your embassy to the NRI you learn some new details.
The NRI actually comprises 2 systems but 5 fully colonized worlds, although two of them are marginal. Their total population is far larger than your own, and their economy is very robust. They appear to completely lack Mech production, but make very heavy use of large suits of power armor for their infantry combined with armored fighting vehicles. And they use gauss weapons for everything. You get a few samples, which you've sent to the Aerie for examination, but they appear to be somewhat ahead of you in Gauss technology overall. They are nearly completely lacking in any energy weapons, however, although they know of them they have no capacity to build them themselves.
Their tech base is highly divergent, understandable as they evidently left the Inner Sphere in one of the earliest waves of colonization even before the Terran Alliance issued the Edict of Demarcation and have had little to no contact since. Their original founders evidently decided to keep on going until they decided they were far enough away from Earth to not be bothered ever again and set about making their own version of the Roman Empire.
According to the dispatches the pirate groups they dealt with were a mixture of stragglers from the Inner Sphere and ancient dissidents from their own group who had formed splinter colonies in the early years of settlement. And the NRI charmingly refers to all of them as ‘barbarians’ with typical Roman disdain.
And it is here where the first signs of typical Roman cruelty appear. The NRI never takes these ‘barbarians’ as prisoners, instead crucifying them on the spot. Meanwhile, the pirates appear to practice full up slavery of any Roman’s they take, and any they don’t enslave they flay alive as their preferred method of gruesome death.
The ambassador was a bit disgusted by this, but the Roman’s had justified this as something they only do to barbarians, who aren’t really human anymore by virtue of their inhuman behavior. When the ambassador delicately inquired as to the definition of a ‘barbarian’ he was assured that so long as we engaged them in a civilized manner, even if it came down to armed conflict, they would do the same. In their words ‘Act quasi hominibus, perinde ac hominum. Agere ut barbaros, ut barbaros esse tractata.’.
Your Latin isn’t all that good, but a quick check with Sarah shows that it boils down to treat them as we wish to be treated. Fair enough, although it is disturbing.
On that charming note, their ambassador has a request for you. As they had been willing to sell your embassy a sample of their technology, she is requesting a quid pro quo and that you sell the NRI samples of your own technology.
| [] | Agree |
- Improves Relations with the NRI
- -1 Politics
- +1% Interest Rate this turn
|
| [] | Disagree |
- Harms Relations with the NRI
- +1 Politics
|
Meanwhile Parliament is again trying to be helpful. However you are slightly concerned that this might be a case of ‘HALPING!’ rather than anything truly helpful. At least they are trying… well, OK, trying in a good way, because they’ve always been rather trying.
You know what you mean, damnit.
One of the larger parties in the Chamber of Delegates has pushed through some rather interesting reform legislation, although you aren’t certain it’s really worthwhile.
Specifically, they are wanting to restructure the tax code to shift all of the actual mandatory tax burden to the top 25% of income earners in the Empire, while restricting the franchise to only those who pay taxes, voluntarily or under mandate. Effectively, if you make less than the top 25% of all incomes in the Empire and you want to vote, you can do so simply by paying at least 1% of your income in taxes voluntarily. For every 1% of your income you voluntarily pay in taxes you would get 1 vote, while those who are mandated to pay due to their incomes will receive 1 vote for the entire mandated tax, plus 1 additional vote for every 1% in additional tax they pay voluntarily. There would be no deductions, no tax shelters, no complications.
Proponents point to the simplicity, that this would make things far easier for citizens at tax time. They also declare that only those paying taxes should have input in how those tax dollars are spent, that otherwise people are receiving representation without taxation which in the proponents view is just as bad as the opposite.
Opponents note that this is all well and good, but doing this would massive increase the volatility of tax collection and would in essence create a two-tiered citizenship system, with ‘taxpayers’ having more political rights than non-taxpayers, and taxpayers who can afford to spend more of their income having more influence than those who cannot.
Welcomingly, there isn’t the faintest whiff of corruption on anybody involved in this debate, and it all seems to be in good faith. Indeed, those advocating this would potentially lose several of their seats if this were to pass, but they are proposing it as a matter of principle. The opposition to it is equally honest, and the debate has been remarkably calm and free from vitriol.
You are pretty certain that this is a bad idea, overall. It would increase inequality within the system and potentially silence economically marginal voices, which could come around and bite you in the ass when you least expect it. You’ve been pretty satisfied with the current system, after all.
| [] | Support |
- +5 Support Chamber of Delegates and Senate
- Changes Tax calculation (each success on Approval roll would yield 1d4-2 tax rate, for a range of -1 to 2.)
- -10 Approval
- -10 Approval Change
- +5 Politics
|
| [] | Oppose |
- -5 Support Chamber of Delegates and Senate
- Tax calculations remain the same
- +5 Approval Change
|
