Quest Deep Periphery Quest (Battletech Sandbox Empire Builder)
- Thread starter LordSunhawk
- Start date
[X] Reagan Collins
[X] Approve
[X] Approve
Turn 46 - Was the Holy Lamb of God?
Turn 46 - Was the Holy Lamb of God?
As had been predicted Karin is somewhat upset to be tapped as your military advisor, even if it does mean an immediate promotion to Flag rank. She salutes and ‘soldiers’ on about it, however, swallowing her disappointment at not getting an actual field command (finally).
However this does have some interesting repercussions. She promptly shifts the Ground Forces representative for the budget meetings to General Michael Donnelly, the CO of 2nd Armored, and according to her reports to you will be reorganizing the military presentations for said meetings.
You are rather intrigued by this.
You do get to see the upgrade process for the ‘mechanized standard mech regiment’ in progress, each of the heavy designs are large enough to easily host a full 6 man squad of the new light battle armor, which in and of itself look quite effective.
In fact, you get yourself checked out in the new armor and are rather jealous of the young kids who will be getting to use this from the start. The interior is far more comfortable than the power armor you’d tried out back when they first introduced it and the user interface is massively improved.
So yes, you arranged to have your own suit, you’re sure Sergeant-Major Ngo isn’t objecting to her own suit either.
You attend the opening ceremonies for the first true Olympiad in Griffsport, and it is a wonderful show in and of itself. Isoroku really outdid himself in organizing it. The Roman delegation appears quite formidable, but also are very clearly friendly and enjoying themselves (and buying plenty of tourist kitsch, the reports about profits are looking real good).
Then the games begin. The first events on the calendar are in Track and Field, otherwise known as Athletics. Races, contests of strength, of jumping, of throwing things, all of that.
The men’s competition goes extremely well, the events closely matched, but overall the home team manages to win the preponderance of events in a very well contested set of contests. The athletes certainly seem to think so, as they are seen celebrating together, Roman and Griffon, afterwards. Precisely the sort of thing that sport is meant to do.
The women’s events, however… well. It started out terrible, when the plumbing catastrophically failed in the Griffon Women’s locker room while the team were showering, resulting in the entire team being caught on camera in the altogether fleeing the suddenly scalding hot showers and requiring medical assistance to deal with the minor burns. The visiting lockers showers likewise caused a stampede of unclad athletes, although in their case the water was freezing cold.
After much humiliation on both sides, the actual contests are… sub par and lackluster at best, as the athletes are either nursing burns in sensitive places, or chillblains in sensitive places, and their performances massively suffer. On the other hand, the yellow press is having a field day with paparazzi photos of the athletes until you intervene in a civil suit pressed on behalf of both squads to order the images suppressed for decency's sake.
Then comes the gymnastics events.
The men’s contest is really more a celebration of just how good the Romans are at gymnastics, as they’d clearly sent their A-team in to show off. Not a single male Roman gymnast scores lower than a 9.9 on any of the routines or apparatus, and that single tiny point off was for something so trivial that only one Roman judge spotted it. The Griffon men’s team looked like a bunch of amateurs facing the All-Stars.
The women’s contest, on the other hand, was amazing. The Roman’s were superb, but the Griffon girls were phenomenal. So much so that by the end of it you hear that the top Roman gymnastics schola had been making offers to the girls to attend for advanced gymnastics training. Shockingly, the Griffon girls actually manage to come away with the win, overall.
The team contest? Wasn’t much of a contest, the Romans utterly dominated it from beginning to end.
Parliament, on the other hand, is being Parliament, although thankfully not nearly as annoying as in the past.
Both the Imperial Senate and Chamber of Delegates have presented to you a bill regarding reforming higher education spending, specifically to create competing universities rather than having all higher education under the aegis of either Griffin’s Roost University or the Aerie. The new institutions would still be public, but the argument is that GRU especially has become rather ossified in terms of its willingness to expand subject selections, and the entire higher education sector would benefit from competition.
You do suspect that at least one of the motivations for this is a desire to create additional administrative jobs, but there are quite valid arguments being made. GRU is, simply put, a monopoly on civilian higher education, as such it has very little impetus to innovate or improve, because they have a captive market. To be fair, they have done an exceptionally good job regardless, but it is still a serious concern.
The current plans before you is to establish University systems that would compete with each other for students and thus for funding, with funding being derived from the number of students who enroll as well as their graduation rates, with an external imperial governmental agency, under the aegis of your Research director, handling accreditation of the various schools as well as auditing their performance.
Another proposal being put forward, this time mostly from the Senate, is to subsidize private commercial jumpship development and production. Commercial jumpships would not be able to handle weaponry beyond incidental meteor-defense suites, and would certainly not be any sane military commander's choice to use for combat operations, but they could allow for the early development of trade routes to your neighbors.
The yards required for such vessels are similar to the ones you are currently working on building, but would completely lack the dropship production capacity and would be exceptionally fragile in comparison to the robust and well-protected yards that are used for military work. As such they’d not be suitable for use in your military shipbuilding program.
If you follow the Senate’s plan, then one refineries worth of germanium would be earmarked to the project, as well as other subsidies, but ultimately you’d gain the start of a true merchant marine.
Finally there’s a third proposal, this one endorsed by the Eldest, to reserve a ‘significant’ portion of Griffon IV for a massive expansion of the Aerie. A surface area roughly equivalent to the entire continent of Capricorn would be set aside as training grounds and campus area for the expansion. This in some ways would negatively impact potential future growth of any colony on Griffon IV by removing that land from economic activity, but the presence of such a massive training facility would have profoundly positive effects as well.
You do get a laugh out of the note the Eldest left attached to the legislation in which the wily old cat noted that he’d tried to get a rider mandating catnip plantations but was denied. Since you know that catnip has no effect whatsoever on Grifftigers beyond making them sneeze you know he included that just for your amusement.
As had been predicted Karin is somewhat upset to be tapped as your military advisor, even if it does mean an immediate promotion to Flag rank. She salutes and ‘soldiers’ on about it, however, swallowing her disappointment at not getting an actual field command (finally).
However this does have some interesting repercussions. She promptly shifts the Ground Forces representative for the budget meetings to General Michael Donnelly, the CO of 2nd Armored, and according to her reports to you will be reorganizing the military presentations for said meetings.
You are rather intrigued by this.
You do get to see the upgrade process for the ‘mechanized standard mech regiment’ in progress, each of the heavy designs are large enough to easily host a full 6 man squad of the new light battle armor, which in and of itself look quite effective.
In fact, you get yourself checked out in the new armor and are rather jealous of the young kids who will be getting to use this from the start. The interior is far more comfortable than the power armor you’d tried out back when they first introduced it and the user interface is massively improved.
So yes, you arranged to have your own suit, you’re sure Sergeant-Major Ngo isn’t objecting to her own suit either.
You attend the opening ceremonies for the first true Olympiad in Griffsport, and it is a wonderful show in and of itself. Isoroku really outdid himself in organizing it. The Roman delegation appears quite formidable, but also are very clearly friendly and enjoying themselves (and buying plenty of tourist kitsch, the reports about profits are looking real good).
Then the games begin. The first events on the calendar are in Track and Field, otherwise known as Athletics. Races, contests of strength, of jumping, of throwing things, all of that.
The men’s competition goes extremely well, the events closely matched, but overall the home team manages to win the preponderance of events in a very well contested set of contests. The athletes certainly seem to think so, as they are seen celebrating together, Roman and Griffon, afterwards. Precisely the sort of thing that sport is meant to do.
The women’s events, however… well. It started out terrible, when the plumbing catastrophically failed in the Griffon Women’s locker room while the team were showering, resulting in the entire team being caught on camera in the altogether fleeing the suddenly scalding hot showers and requiring medical assistance to deal with the minor burns. The visiting lockers showers likewise caused a stampede of unclad athletes, although in their case the water was freezing cold.
After much humiliation on both sides, the actual contests are… sub par and lackluster at best, as the athletes are either nursing burns in sensitive places, or chillblains in sensitive places, and their performances massively suffer. On the other hand, the yellow press is having a field day with paparazzi photos of the athletes until you intervene in a civil suit pressed on behalf of both squads to order the images suppressed for decency's sake.
Then comes the gymnastics events.
The men’s contest is really more a celebration of just how good the Romans are at gymnastics, as they’d clearly sent their A-team in to show off. Not a single male Roman gymnast scores lower than a 9.9 on any of the routines or apparatus, and that single tiny point off was for something so trivial that only one Roman judge spotted it. The Griffon men’s team looked like a bunch of amateurs facing the All-Stars.
The women’s contest, on the other hand, was amazing. The Roman’s were superb, but the Griffon girls were phenomenal. So much so that by the end of it you hear that the top Roman gymnastics schola had been making offers to the girls to attend for advanced gymnastics training. Shockingly, the Griffon girls actually manage to come away with the win, overall.
The team contest? Wasn’t much of a contest, the Romans utterly dominated it from beginning to end.
Parliament, on the other hand, is being Parliament, although thankfully not nearly as annoying as in the past.
Both the Imperial Senate and Chamber of Delegates have presented to you a bill regarding reforming higher education spending, specifically to create competing universities rather than having all higher education under the aegis of either Griffin’s Roost University or the Aerie. The new institutions would still be public, but the argument is that GRU especially has become rather ossified in terms of its willingness to expand subject selections, and the entire higher education sector would benefit from competition.
You do suspect that at least one of the motivations for this is a desire to create additional administrative jobs, but there are quite valid arguments being made. GRU is, simply put, a monopoly on civilian higher education, as such it has very little impetus to innovate or improve, because they have a captive market. To be fair, they have done an exceptionally good job regardless, but it is still a serious concern.
The current plans before you is to establish University systems that would compete with each other for students and thus for funding, with funding being derived from the number of students who enroll as well as their graduation rates, with an external imperial governmental agency, under the aegis of your Research director, handling accreditation of the various schools as well as auditing their performance.
| [] | Approve |
|
| [] | Veto | No change |
Another proposal being put forward, this time mostly from the Senate, is to subsidize private commercial jumpship development and production. Commercial jumpships would not be able to handle weaponry beyond incidental meteor-defense suites, and would certainly not be any sane military commander's choice to use for combat operations, but they could allow for the early development of trade routes to your neighbors.
The yards required for such vessels are similar to the ones you are currently working on building, but would completely lack the dropship production capacity and would be exceptionally fragile in comparison to the robust and well-protected yards that are used for military work. As such they’d not be suitable for use in your military shipbuilding program.
If you follow the Senate’s plan, then one refineries worth of germanium would be earmarked to the project, as well as other subsidies, but ultimately you’d gain the start of a true merchant marine.
| [] | Yes |
|
| [] | No | No change |
Finally there’s a third proposal, this one endorsed by the Eldest, to reserve a ‘significant’ portion of Griffon IV for a massive expansion of the Aerie. A surface area roughly equivalent to the entire continent of Capricorn would be set aside as training grounds and campus area for the expansion. This in some ways would negatively impact potential future growth of any colony on Griffon IV by removing that land from economic activity, but the presence of such a massive training facility would have profoundly positive effects as well.
You do get a laugh out of the note the Eldest left attached to the legislation in which the wily old cat noted that he’d tried to get a rider mandating catnip plantations but was denied. Since you know that catnip has no effect whatsoever on Grifftigers beyond making them sneeze you know he included that just for your amusement.
| [] | Do it |
|
| [] | Nahh | No change |
There are subsequently massive protests from MechWarriors in response to rumors that due to the adoption of these new Battlemech-riding power armor suits, Battlemechs are going to be reclassified from "cavalry" to "horses". These rumors are not assuaged by a popular series of absolutely adorable cartoons showing little kids riding on mini-Battlemechs.
In other news, employees of a certain subcontractor are believed to be in hiding after getting a large number of extremely athletic women incredibly angry at them. It's almost as if they fear being maimed if they show their faces in public anytime in the next decade or so.
As for votes:
[X] Approve
Given the size our population has reached, it is downright silly that we still only have one (unbelievably titanic) civilian university.
[X] Yes
A civilian merchant marine is worthwhile; the only question is do we want it now, or later.
[X] Do it.
Our military, on the other paw, is appropriately sized for a single military academy, it's just that academy needs to be expanded.
In other news, employees of a certain subcontractor are believed to be in hiding after getting a large number of extremely athletic women incredibly angry at them. It's almost as if they fear being maimed if they show their faces in public anytime in the next decade or so.
As for votes:
[X] Approve
Given the size our population has reached, it is downright silly that we still only have one (unbelievably titanic) civilian university.
[X] Yes
A civilian merchant marine is worthwhile; the only question is do we want it now, or later.
[X] Do it.
Our military, on the other paw, is appropriately sized for a single military academy, it's just that academy needs to be expanded.
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Wow the legislative is actually producing something worthwhile. If only we were so blessed in real life.
Jarow
Well-known member
[X] Approve
Lots of good stuff here, I'll add the two influence reduction actions into the plan to ensure we don't have problems with their influence
[X] Yes
We definitely need this long term, might as well do so now when we know we can. We have the money to build more refineries, so this shouldn't have too big an impact by the time we can actually build jumpships ourselves
[X] Do it
Having our core systems worlds being specialized as Governance + Civilian economy, military production, and military training/command isn't that bad an idea
Lots of good stuff here, I'll add the two influence reduction actions into the plan to ensure we don't have problems with their influence
[X] Yes
We definitely need this long term, might as well do so now when we know we can. We have the money to build more refineries, so this shouldn't have too big an impact by the time we can actually build jumpships ourselves
[X] Do it
Having our core systems worlds being specialized as Governance + Civilian economy, military production, and military training/command isn't that bad an idea
[X] Approve
Given the size our population has reached, it is downright silly that we still only have one (unbelievably titanic) civilian university.
[X] Yes
A civilian merchant marine is worthwhile; the only question is do we want it now, or later.
[X] Do it.
Our military, on the other paw, is appropriately sized for a single military academy, it's just that academy needs to be expanded.
Given the size our population has reached, it is downright silly that we still only have one (unbelievably titanic) civilian university.
[X] Yes
A civilian merchant marine is worthwhile; the only question is do we want it now, or later.
[X] Do it.
Our military, on the other paw, is appropriately sized for a single military academy, it's just that academy needs to be expanded.
Thors_Alumni
Well-known member
[X] Approve
wow the opposition was actually useful for a change. Wonder of wonders the impossible is possible.
[X] Yes
Its a good idea
[X] Do it.
given the size of our population and our relations with the others, This is inevitable.
wow the opposition was actually useful for a change. Wonder of wonders the impossible is possible.
[X] Yes
Its a good idea
[X] Do it.
given the size of our population and our relations with the others, This is inevitable.
Joyousmadman
Well-known member
[X] Approve
[X] Yes
[X] Do it.
[X] Yes
[X] Do it.
Knowledgeispower
Ah I love the smell of missile spam in the morning
[X] Approve
[X] Yes
[X] Do it.
Finally parliament has some good ideas
[X] Yes
[X] Do it.
Finally parliament has some good ideas
IceWing_mk1
Well-known member
One thing to consider. A civilian merchant marine \ jumpship fleet is more likely to run afoul of raiders than our warship fleet, and also could bring said raiders to our doorstep.
I'm not saying we don't need this long term, but it IS going to result in word getting out about us
I'm not saying we don't need this long term, but it IS going to result in word getting out about us
edofthesquid
Well-known member
[X] Approve
[X] Yes
[X] Do it.
We'll need to bump germanium at some point, but we need to work that out eventually anyway.
[X] Yes
[X] Do it.
We'll need to bump germanium at some point, but we need to work that out eventually anyway.
Panzerkraken
Well-known member
[X] Approve
[X] Yes
[X] Do it.
[X] Yes
[X] Do it.
We don't have WarShips yet. We have highly optimized combat DropShips that dramatically outperform just about any "assault DropShip" fielded by any Inner Sphere power or even the Clans, but they're not actual WarShips.