Turn 44 - The Lord gave the Word
You look at all of the proposals, then at the DoME representatives, and just shake your head.
“No dominant environment, ladies and gentlemen. Instead of us being arrogant enough to impose a single ecosystem on the planet, let us instead let it come as it will, varied and messy and as natural as possible.” you tell them, to some grumbling from those who seek to impose man’s will upon nature as much as possible.
“As for the architectural style, let us break it down by function, yes? Industrial areas shall be industrial in nature, yes? And governmental buildings I believe would look best in neoclassical. For the rest, I would prefer the major cities to be built as arcologies, combining futuristic and neo gothic elements like we have here in Griffsport. For detached residences in the new wilderness, whatever style suits the terrain and climate best.”
More grumbling, you’d achieved the perfect compromise, every single one of them were unhappy with it in some small way, but able to live with it.
You return to your office and can’t help laughing, as Sekhmet is lounging there with Wadjet pinned under one forepaw and Sokar under the other, the two kittens looking very woebegone. It’s pretty obvious that grandma is disciplining the kits for something, and you are quite sure you’ll find out what eventually.
The kittens look at you appealingly as you pass by, but you glance at Sekhmet and nod, seating yourself while the kittens look even more put out and put upon. A few minutes later Bastet pads in and informs you that the kittens had been roughhousing in the corridors and broke several pieces of furniture, so were on time out in lieu of a proper cuffing like she’d gotten as a kitten, at which point Bastet sniffs and looks superior. Sekhmet just takes advantage of the angle and thwaps her daughter lightly with her tail while seemingly ignoring the playful dig.
You turn your attention to the paperwork. Overall, to your eye at least, it looks like the Piast design is overall superior despite its cost. And fortunately that lines up with the Admiralty’s recommendation on the subject. The intended class name for the type is the
Langley class, named in honor of the ancient United States Navy’s first carrier, and you initial your approval of that as well.
You also get a memo about the planned composition of the ASF group for the new carriers, a single Interceptor squadron of
Gyrfalcon IIs, a single Fighter squadron of
Eagle IIs, and a single Strike squadron of
Griffons. There is a notation there from Thanh noting that she’d been consulted on this, but specifically declining any offers of being put in command of a ‘bird farm’.
And then it is that fun time of year again, budget time!
General Jackson starts things off. “Your Majesty, ground forces are in fairly solid shape, with the focus being on rounding out existing units to bring them fully up to their planned establishments. To that end we have only three procurement scenarios this year.”
She looks over her notes. “Forgive me, Your Majesty, but it will be much easier to show you than to tell you.” and she picks up the remote.
You brace for a powerpoint, but instead it is a simple graphic.
- Fill Out 1st Armored completely and add to 2nd Armored
- Procure 2 Standard Armored Regiments and 1 Light Horse Regiment for 3rd Brigade, 1st Armored Division
- Procure 1 Standard Mech Regiment to fill out 1st Brigade, 2nd Armored
- Fill out 2nd Brigade, 3rd Armored and add to 1st Armored
- Procure 1 Armored Cavalry Regiment and 1 Standard Mech Regiment for 2nd Brigade, 3rd Armored
- Procure 2 Standard Armored Regiment for 3rd Brigade, 1st Armored
- Fill out 2nd Armored and add to 1st Armored
- Procure 2 Armored Cavalry Regiments for 1st and 2nd Brigade of 2nd Armored
- Procure 2 Standard Armored Regiments for 3rd Brigade, 1st Armored
General Jackson simply refers to the graphic. “Your Majesty, in all three cases we want to get 1st Armored as close to full strength as possible. In the first we get 1st Armored to full establishment, with 3rd Brigade at full strength. We also set 2nd Armored up as a Heavy formation, making use of the Standard Mech Regiment. In the second case, we fully fill out the 2nd Brigade of 3rd Armored, bringing all three Armored Divisions to 2 brigades, although 2nd Armored would still be lacking mechs, and we get started on 3rd Brigade, 1st Armored with a pair of Standard Armored Regiments. Finally in the third case we equip 2nd Division as an Armored Cavalry Division for competitive comparison to the 1st Divisions Light Horse organization, as well as starting out 3rd Brigade of the 1st.”
She then looks at her notes. “One thing we are beginning preliminary studies on is a replacement of the
Trooper mech. While generally effective, the
Trooper is showing shortcomings when compared with the
Wolf Spider quad, being slower, less well armored, and less well armed. Likewise with some operational testing experience under our belts the
Chevalier command mech is looking somewhat lackluster in performance for a 75 ton design. It will take some time to find any replacements, if replacements are desired.”
General Reyes then takes the podium, and she is obviously an ASF jockey addicted to Powerpoint, and even Royal intervention has failed to curb this, because God help you, she has the Mother of All Powerpoints.
- Required ASF units for newly commissioning dropships
- 2 Flights of Griffon ASFs for HMS Northumberland and HMS Caledonia
- 2 Flights of Eagle ASFs for HMS Handy and HMS Hunter
- 2 Light Carrier Squadrons for HMS Biter and HMS Dasher
- 1 Star Fort Wing for the Star Fort scheduled to come online over Nowy Gdansk
- Requested ASF units
- 2 Planetary Defense Wings
- 1 for Nowy Gdansk, 1 for Griffin’s Roost
For those nine procurement requests she has a total of 30 slides in her Powerpoint, and although she’s obviously a Powerpoint Pro and doesn’t simply read the slides, it’s still… you manage to stay awake throughout.
Admiral Benjamin is his usual ebullient self, but he takes the remote and fires up a Powerpoint, that is simply a blank Powerpoint presentation, before cheerfully making his statement. “Well, Your Majesty, as you can plainly see by the powerpoint slide before you…” you can’t help it and break out laughing.
“Seriously, Your Majesty, our needs are simple this year. Two of those monster
Tyrannosaurus class ships and four new
Defiants. But wait, there’s more! My staff is working with their counterparts over at Interior and we’ve got a proposal to build up a new Large Dropship facility on Nowy Gdansk by partnering with several corporations. We’ll have a full proposal for you early next year, as this is still preliminary, but it’s something to think about for now. In another note, we have so many ships at this point that training is becoming a bit difficult. We’re working with the Aerie on this, but it looks like we might want to expedite the reassignment of the
Microraptors to the Aerie to serve as training vessels.”
He paused, looking over at General Reyes, who nodded and came up with him. “In that case, Your Majesty, we could forego procuring the Light Carrier Squadrons, instead transferring the ones from the
Microraptors as they switch to training. After the 3rd
Microraptor makes the switch, we’ll need to start procuring additional
Falcon II training squadrons for them, but we will be able to hold off on procuring new Light Carrier Squadrons until all 5
Microraptors have been transferred.”
| [] | Make the Transfer |
- Microraptors will start transitioning to a Training command as they are replaced by Megaraptors
|
| [] | We need them on the line |
- New dropships will start with Regular crews rather than Veteran
|
Admiral Benjamin takes back the podium. “Finally, this will be the final pair of
Velociraptors we intend to procure, next year we will be swapping those lines for additional
Troodon lines. I have teams investigating the possibility of downgrading the
Velociraptors to less sophisticated weaponry, single heat sinks, etc in order to potentially sell them to the Romans in the future, but that is purely a staff project at the moment.”
General Potter then takes the podium. “Your Majesty, there is one other issue I would like to bring up, specifically starting a proper garrison for Griffon IV. Currently we have no space stations capable of supporting ASFs in orbit. Therefore, I would like to propose the construction of three space stations in Griffon IV orbit this year, and next year we would procure a Patrol squadron to lay the basis for our defenses there. In the long term, I would like to see a
Star Fort built there, perhaps starting next year after the Nowy Gdansk one completes construction.”
You still don’t get how Bridget can be so incredibly perky, especially considering that she’s almost 40 and has three kids. But she is, and you know she doesn’t drink coffee. “Your Majesty! We are in real good shape right now here in Interior, with plenty of projects keeping all of my people busy. The big thing right now is we’d really like to get started on building our first Germanium Refinery, probably in L5 orbit of Griffin’s Roost. That way we can begin stockpiling core material for when we start Jumpship production. My beancounters have come up with a clever way of accounting for the germanium too, Core Equivalent Units. One CEU can be used to build half a primitive core, which we won’t be using but those Romans will, one standard core once Mary’s people finish up their work, or one compact core, because according to my discussions with
SARAH what makes them compact isn’t a reduction in the amount of germanium, but rather the reduced support ancilia and denser construction. Each of our shiny Germanium refineries will actually be producing 4 CEU, but 2 of them are obligated to our latin speaking friends. Then when we upgrade them we’ll do it in 1 CEU increments, so we’re not refining oddball amounts of Germanium. Now in other things I recommend focusing development on the orbital industries and such around Griffon IV instead of II, simply because II is currently so far in the hole that we’d just be reinforcing failure. I have my staff working on proposals for how to make Griffon II viable again, but that’ll probably require some DoME assets. Oh, and we really need to keep on upgrading our endo-steel production because we need a LOT of it, and we might also want to build more mech factories on Nowy Gdansk so we can build lots more mechs, got staff working on a plan for that too!”
You. Need. Coffee. Now.
Thankfully Janet provides the Black Blood Of Life, much to your eternal gratitude.
Isoroku is, as usual, as calm as ever. “Your Majesty, we have the Pan Griffon Games going on this year, so Cultural Affairs is rather quiescent. Until we have better communications there’s little I can do in regards to real time diplomatic efforts with the Romans.”
Jake, meanwhile, is his usual self. “Your Majesty, need me to do some more schmoozing with those bozos in Parliament, I’ll do more schmoozing with the bozos in Parliament. I’ve got staff doing long lead work on setting up governance on Griffon IV, and seriously, we are going to need to come up with a better name for the place before we open it up for serious colonization.”
Mary has her presentation all set and ready.
- New Technology Areas
- Military
- Power Armor - Light Battle Armor - Basic
- Heavier suits equivalent to the ones used by the Romans
- More expensive, but also more capable
- Non-Military
- Improved Germanium Refining Lvl 1
- Allows us to increase Refinery output by 1 CEU
- Recommended Research Areas
- Military
- VTOL Jet Booster
- Inexpensive and may be useful for scout VTOL units
- Full-head Ejection System
- Also inexpensive and may improve survival rates for downed Mechwarriors
- Non-Military
- Improved Communications Lvl 5
- The final advanced basic research area, should allow us to begin researching Hyper Pulse Generators once completed
- LOSTECH - Terraforming Equipment Lvl 4
- Would improve our understanding of terraforming techniques and be helpful in ensuring the success of the Griffon IV terraforming project
“Your Majesty, while neither the Boosters nor the Full Head Ejection System are critical systems, they are both inexpensive areas of research that would allow us to save funds for the major project, the improved Terraforming Equipment.”
Harry is looking rather haggard. “Your Majesty, your Intelligence Agency has a serious problem. Right now we’re trying to combine every single intelligence specialty together into a single shop, with all of it coming straight to me. When we were doing minimal ELINT and COMINT this wasn’t an issue, I’m a COINTEL specialist, but I know my HUMINT as well so I could easily handle that. But now we’re having to work all of it. If I’m going to do my job as best as I can, I need to reorganize the Agency and establish sub-bureaus to handle the specialized material and report to me so I can summarize to you. At this time I am recommending a three way split, SIGINT, combining Communications and Electronic Intelligence, HUMINT for the classic human intelligence, and COINTEL to specialize in counterintelligence. I’d still be the SPOC for all intel reports, but there would be specialists handling the specialized areas.”
Janet is looking unusually serious. “I have been picking up a few rumbles, Your Majesty, that we might want to address.” she looks over at the military people in the room. “Several smaller companies have begun filing complaints with my department alleging kickbacks and influence peddling in several of the recent major contract awards. None have claimed any impropriety at the senior levels, but rather that junior officers are getting paid to… shade test results, leak competitive bid info, and other improprieties. We’ve not yet been able to substantiate anything, but there’s so much smoke that I worry there may be a fire beyond the bellyaching of losing bidders.”
General Potter looks a bit grim. “We did have to bust several Captains and Lieutenants who were caught with their hands in the cookie jar, but the IG hasn’t seen anything. However an outside perspective might be useful to catch anything that we may be blinded to by familiarity.”
