Quest Deep Periphery Quest (Battletech Sandbox Empire Builder)

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Might want to keep that dropship crew quarantined in a space hab for a year to make absolutely sure they aren't contaminated.

We need to keep a heavy defense fleet around Griffon and any inhabited worlds under our jurisdiction (namely Calliope). All it takes is for one cannister to reenter the atmosphere and it's game over. We need to beef up satelite detection to track any object in the solar system large enough to survive atmospheric reentry. We should also alert our friends, the NRI, the Freefolk, and Gustavson about this.

[X] Warn NRI, Freefolk, and New Rasalhague about the Drac bioweapon.

[X] Accept

It would be in our best interest to deal with Kilburough ASAP so no more slaves are being bred and lobotomized so we won't have to keep building space colonies. The longer Killburough remains, the higher the occupational resource drain will be (more lobotomized people to take care of). However, the bio weapon manufacturer user is the immediate threat and should be neutralized first.


[X] Veto Parliament plan

We are not conquerors. We came in the name of liberation, not replacing the boss. Accepting would set a bad precedent and would hurt our future relations with newly discovered worlds.

We can help rebuild Nowa Warszawa, and if the people really like us, they will ask to join the Empire and they will be accepted. If not, no biggie, they will still be our close allies and effectively apart of our sphere of influence anyway.


[X] Wait until the time is ripe

Too soon. Maybe in another decade or two. We will still protect them in the mean time.


[X] Approve Operation Black Champion

Going for the Drac leadership on this planet gives us our biggest chance of ending the war quickly. If we can present the heads of the false Otomo on a television broadcast, the remaining Drac forces may feel a mixture of abandonment and futility, and thus we will see more Dracs inclined to surrender. Less bloodshed. Saving the palace bunker for last gives them time to dig in, and the rest of the Drac forces will probably fight to the bitter end so long as they have hope that they are buying time for their leader.


EDIT: another concern is if a cannister reenters the atmosphere on another world (ie New Rasalhague), and then it is carried back to us via a trade ship, long before symptoms begin to show up. Yikes.

 

[Knowledgeispower]

[X] Warn NRI, Freefolk, and New Rasalhague about the Drac bioweapon.
[X] Accept
[X] Veto Parliament Plan
at least for now anyways. lets give them a few more turns to see if they can get a viable political system made.
[X] Wait until the time is ripe
[X] Approve Operation Black Champion

 

[IceWing_mk1]

[X] Warn NRI, Freefolk, and New Rasalhague about the Drac bioweapon.
[X] Accept
[X] Veto Parliament Plan
at least for now anyways. lets give them a few more turns to see if they can get a viable political system made.
[X] Wait until the time is ripe
[X] Approve Operation Black Champion

 

[Rukatin]

[X] Warn NRI, Freefolk, and New Rasalhague about the Drac bioweapon.
[X] Accept
[X] Accept Parliament Plan
[X] Wait until the time is ripe
[X] Approve Operation Black Champion

 

[Tel Janin Aman]

[X] Warn NRI, Freefolk, and New Rasalhague about the Drac bioweapon.
[X] Accept
[X] Accept Parliament Plan
[X] Wait until the time is ripe
[X] Approve Operation Black Champion

 

[ShadowArxxy]

[X] Accept
[X] Accept Parliament Plan
[X] Wait until the time is ripe
[X] Approve Operation Black Champion

------

Also: Guys, I don't think you're quite getting just how terrifying that bioweapon is. It's not just a doomsday-grade bioweapon; it's one so nasty that canon events surrounding that bioweapon, had the authors not fallen through their own plot hole, should have resulted in total extinction of human life in the Battletech galaxy.

Since we now know that the Dragon is mad enough to *make* a bioweapon on that scale, we seriously have to discuss taking out Okusawa with the equivalent of Base Delta Zero in case he *already got* a sample of it.

 

[kelgar04]

[X] Warn NRI, Freefolk, and New Rasalhague about the Drac bioweapon.
[X] Accept
[X] Accept Parliament Plan
[X] Wait until the time is ripe
[X] Approve Operation Black Champion

 

[Knowledgeispower]

Also: Guys, I don't think you're quite getting just how terrifying that bioweapon is. It's not just a doomsday-grade bioweapon; it's one so nasty that canon events surrounding that bioweapon, had the authors not fallen through their own plot hole, should have resulted in total extinction of human life in the Battletech galaxy.

Since we now know that the Dragon is mad enough to *make* a bioweapon on that scale, we seriously have to discuss taking out Okusawa with the equivalent of Base Delta Zero in case he *already got* a sample of it.

or in other words chuck copious amounts of nukes and asteroids at said world

 

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I wonder if the Otomo could retool some of his factories on Okusawa to make delivery systems/cannisters that would contain the XCON-73 bioweapon and survive reentry. Hundreds of thousands, millions, perhaps tens or hundreds of millions of cannisters. Then load up them all up on a jumpship. Jump into our system (Griffon) and begin accelerating towards Griffon. Then deploy a swarm of cannisters, each spaced apart, inheriting the acceleration of the jumpship so they are travelling towards the planet at high speed. The swarm could be tens or hundreds of miles in size, enough that the effective range of nukes wouldn't be able to get them all, and with the sheer number of cannisters, it'd be highly unlikely our forces could pick them all apart before they reached the planet.

Do we have any way to defend against such a plan?

 

[Rukatin]

Do we have any way to defend against such a plan?

Didn't we have a basic laser satellite defense grid once upon a time?

 

[SuperHeavy]

Do we have any way to defend against such a plan?

A couple points work in our favor with this
-Unlike other types of WMDs it is really hard to create large amounts of bioweapon samples and storing such things is very difficult. You can't construct viruses on a production line.
-Churning out millions of specialty re-entry canisters will take some time, you would need to set up a serious production line from scratch.
-We have enough defenses at the jumpoints to disable a sizeable force before they can start moving in system.
-If the Dracs try for a seriously high speed insertion odds are the viruses are getting destroyed by the heat of entering the atmosphere.
-If they go for a slower apprach it gives our navy more time to intercept Drac Dropships and weapons, with days to track and destroy incoming targets.

 

[ShadowArxxy]

I wonder if the Otomo could retool some of his factories on Okusawa to make delivery systems/cannisters that would contain the XCON-73 bioweapon and survive reentry.

A couple points work in our favor with this
-Unlike other types of WMDs it is really hard to create large amounts of bioweapon samples and storing such things is very difficult. You can't construct viruses on a production line.
-Churning out millions of specialty re-entry canisters will take some time, you would need to set up a serious production line from scratch.
-We have enough defenses at the jumpoints to disable a sizeable force before they can start moving in system.
-If the Dracs try for a seriously high speed insertion odds are the viruses are getting destroyed by the heat of entering the atmosphere.
-If they go for a slower apprach it gives our navy more time to intercept Drac Dropships and weapons, with days to track and destroy incoming targets.

On the one hand, with a fictional bioweapon as nasty as the Curse of Galedon, killing an entire interplanetary society takes just *one* live exposure.

This is the plot hole I referred to -- the writers wrote canon events with the death epidemic being limited to two planets and one Clan fleet (which was Annihilated) even though those same canon events *explicitly showed* that quarantine was not established until it was too late. Large numbers of exposed Davion troops and independent mercenaries had already left both planets, and there's just a giant plot hole / act of magic, none of them spread the super-plague. This isn't even "didn't know epidemiology", this was just shitty writing.

On the other hand, everything SuperHeavy said is absolutely correct. Actual strategic deployment of bioweapons is *incredibly* difficult and finicky, and doing so across interplanetary distances even more so.

 

[Thors_Alumni]

[X] Warn NRI, Freefolk, and New Rasalhague about the Drac bioweapon.
[X] Accept
[X] Veto Parliament Plan
at least for now anyways. lets give them a few more turns to see if they can get a viable political system made.
[X] Wait until the time is ripe
[X] Approve Operation Black Champion

 

[kashim3]

[X] Warn NRI, Freefolk, and New Rasalhague about the Drac bioweapon.
[X] Accept
[X] Veto Parliament Plan
at least for now anyways. lets give them a few more turns to see if they can get a viable political system made.
[X] Wait until the time is ripe
[X] Approve Operation Black Champion

 

[Simonbob]

[X] Warn NRI, Freefolk, and New Rasalhague about the Drac bioweapon.

[X] Accept

[X] Veto Parliament Plan

[X] Wait until the time is ripe

[X] Approve Operation Black Champion

 

[Artifex]

[X] Warn NRI, Freefolk, and New Rasalhague about the Drac bioweapon.

[X] Accept

[X] Veto Parliament Plan

[X] Wait until the time is ripe

[X] Approve Operation Black Champion

 

[TyrantTriumphant]

[X] Warn NRI, Freefolk, and New Rasalhague about the Drac bioweapon.
[X] Accept
[X] Accept Parliament Plan
[X] Wait until the time is ripe
[X] Approve Operation Black Champion

 

[Brogatar]

[X] Warn NRI, Freefolk, and New Rasalhague about the Drac bioweapon.
[X] Accept
[X] Accept Parliament Plan
[X] Wait until the time is ripe
[X] Approve Operation Black Champion

 

[darkcloudt2]

[X] Warn NRI, Freefolk, and New Rasalhague about the Drac bioweapon.
[X] Accept
[X] Accept Parliament Plan
[X] Wait until the time is ripe
[X] Approve Operation Black Champion

 

[Jarow]

[X] Warn NRI, Freefolk, and New Rasalhague about the Drac bioweapon.
[X] Accept
[X] Accept Parliament Plan
[X] Wait until the time is ripe
[X] Approve Operation Black Champion

at least for now anyways. lets give them a few more turns to see if they can get a viable political system made.

Worth pointing out - they "have" a government system right now - they're already having us do it. If it were just poles, it might work (eventually), but the problem is we're the only ones being seen as a governing body by two different groups who are more interested in getting rid of the other than fixing that. Is setting up a government officially under us a bit premature? Sure. Doesn't change that we already de facto have, so might as well make it official so we can start stabilizing things.